Chapter 258 256. Go home and pick up Miyakawa Lu.

After coming out of the courtyard where the singer was temporarily staying, Matsumoto Hitomi, who was returning to her apartment and passing by Tokyo Dome City, recalled many things about her past along the way.

She had no mood to cook. After returning home, Hitomi Matsumoto just wanted to lie on the bed and sleep. She didn't even want to take a shower.

No matter how depressed you are, you still have to eat dinner.

The sky was gloomy, and it got dark earlier than usual due to interference. It looked like it would rain at any time, a sample of the typhoon rain three days later.

Thinking of this, Matsumoto Hitomi felt even more embarrassed. She finally got the chance to go on a date with Watanabe Tetsuya, but it happened to be the first typhoon of the year.

Although the typhoon is not too exaggerated according to weather forecast reports, many dating plans cannot be carried out. Do we really have to stay in an apartment or a couple hotel for the whole day?
To be honest, it's not impossible. Matsumoto Hitomi is looking forward to such a day...

After parking the car, Hitomi Matsumoto sat down at the ramen shop she often went to near her rental apartment. She hadn't been there for almost a week and missed it very much. So she ordered two bowls of tonkotsu ramen and an extra serving of char siu.

Nowadays, Hitomi Matsumoto doesn’t even eat two bowls of ramen.

Some people pay for the misfortunes of their childhood throughout their entire lives, and Matsumoto Hitomi is one of them. Other foods are fine, but when it comes to ramen, Matsumoto Hitomi can’t resist her appetite and eats one bowl after another.

Fortunately, the woman's will was strong enough. After a few times, she discovered that she had an unusual special feeling for ramen. She began to strictly control the number of times she ate ramen. She would not allow her classmates and colleagues around her to discover her abnormality, and she would never eat ramen when she went out for dinner.

Pay after eating. Only when eating ramen will Matsumoto Hitomi choose to pay after finishing eating.

There is a reason why Hitomi Matsumoto often visits this ramen restaurant. The old lady working at the cashier is somewhat similar to the old lady who ran the ramen restaurant in the town back then.

When she paid for the first time, Matsumoto Hitomi was in a daze for a while when she saw the old lady’s kind smile.

But the difference is that the gentleness and kindness of the old lady in the small town is somewhat sincere and somewhat false, and it can be seen clearly after the disguise is removed. For Hitomi Matsumoto, the old lady in this store is indeed the eternal sun over Tokyo.

"You can't judge a book by its cover. Miss looks tall, but I didn't expect her to have such a big appetite. Is it because the ramen in our restaurant is delicious?" The old lady always smiles at customers who come to pay and always chats with customers on the way, and she never gets tired of it despite being busy.

At first, Hitomi Matsumoto didn't want to pay attention to the stranger who approached her for no reason, so she just pretended to be indifferent, paid the money and left.

But the old lady did not get discouraged. Her unquenchable enthusiasm finally stirred up some emotions in Matsumoto Hitomi's heart.

"My name is Matsumoto Hitomi, you can just call me Matsumoto."

"I understand! Okay, Ms. Matsumoto~!"

"Ms. Matsumoto is getting prettier and prettier, and her complexion is getting better, and she smiles more often... That's great, girls, it's best to smile more! I was a beauty back then~~"

"Did Ms. Matsumoto Hitomi change her hairstyle today? I feel like the ends of her hair have been dyed or permed... I have to say it suits Ms. Matsumoto very well~!"

"Ms. Matsumoto, do you have a boy you like?
"Huh? How did I know that?

"Because it's too obvious! As expected, once someone has a crush on someone, no matter if it's a boy or a girl or Ms. Matsumoto, it's easy to read... It's almost like writing "I've met someone I like" on my face and telling the whole world.

"Come on, Miss Matsumoto. Now that you have finally met a boy you like, you must take the initiative and not give other women a chance, and don't give men a chance to catch their breath!
"Hold your own happiness firmly in your own hands!

"As someone who has been through this, I understand this very well~!

"Eh...? What!? He already has a lover? A lover for three years? And a fiancée who is about to be engaged!?
"Hmm...um, Ms. Matsumoto, how about having three bowls of tonkotsu ramen today?"

"Ms. Matsumoto, it suddenly started raining just now. You didn't bring an umbrella? Here, just remember to return it to me next time you come! Do you want to buy it directly? No need! Give it to Miss Matsumoto! My husband sells umbrellas, and we have plenty of umbrellas at home..."

"Ms. Matsumoto, the temperature will drop tomorrow. The cold front is coming. Remember to wear more clothes! I often see Ms. Matsumoto wearing a thin school uniform. If I weren't familiar with you, I would easily mistake you for a high school girl... But Ms. Matsumoto does look very young and beautiful, not much different from a high school girl..."

"Tomorrow is 2025, Happy New Year, Ms. Matsumoto!"

"Ms. Matsumoto~"

"Ms. Matsumoto..."

The words of Miss Matsumoto are still ringing in her ears. They have brought extra warmth to Hitomi Matsumoto in the past year and a half. In a sense, they have become one of her pillars on the isolated island of Tokyo.

However, when Matsumoto Hitomi went to pay tonight, the person at the cashier was not the same old lady who always stayed there, but another middle-aged woman she had never seen before.

"Seikei 2250 yen."

"Yes...Excuse me, is Grandma Hasegawa on vacation today?"

"Grandma Hasegawa? She's too old. She must have been fired two or three days ago, right? She should have returned to her hometown by now... Oh, how pitiful. She lives alone in Tokyo, but she's still so optimistic. I don't know how she does it..."

Hearing the woman's words, Matsumoto Hitomi nodded in a daze with her eyes open. After paying the bill and preparing to leave, the middle-aged female cashier called her again.

"Wait a minute, sir! It's raining outside. I see you don't have an umbrella. Would you like to buy one? It's only 1200 yen each!"

"No, I have an umbrella in my car."

After the rejection, Hitomi Matsumoto got into the car and sat in the driver's seat for a long time in silence. What Hitomi Matsumoto cares about now is not the fact that Grandma Hasegawa lied to her, but the fact that she might never see her again in the future.

These friends, regardless of age difference, only communicate in and through the ramen restaurant and have no other means of contact.

It's no use regretting now...

Hitomi Matsumoto looked out the window at the bustling and flashing neon lights of Tokyo. The dullness of the rainy day was extremely prominent in the drizzle, and she almost couldn't breathe even sitting in the car.

The rain was getting heavier. The woman watched the pedestrians outside the car hurrying around in the rain, holding transparent plastic umbrellas. There might be several high schools nearby, and from time to time there would be a pair of young boys and girls in student uniforms, holding umbrellas and walking in the rain, joking and playing as they passed by.

The flying skirt and soaked hair were reflected in the puddles, and were stepped on and exploded. The surrounding high-rise neon lights also became the girl's servants. The warm, ambiguous, and inexplicable atmosphere burst out from the eyes of the boy and girl looking at each other under the umbrella. As expected, a group of high school students will come to the love hotel tonight...

Hitomi Matsumoto took everything in. If she never smoked, the thing she would most want to do right now was to open the car window a little and vent all the pent-up dissatisfaction in her heart out of the car.

"Youth is so wonderful... it's disgusting and repulsive."

Hitomi Matsumoto neither had a complete and carefree childhood, nor did she meet a boy she liked when she was a young girl. She also did not have the time or the qualifications to meet him.

In the private girls' high school where she attends, not only are all the students female, but also the teachers, internal security, cleaning staff, and all the school staff are all female. It is a rare all-female high school.

Because of this, and the oppressive and closed environment, from time to time, some students who were tired of studying would drop out, and suddenly there would be no sound...

Also, because there are no opposite sex around them, some female students are influenced by the environment and their orientations begin to become strange.

Matsumoto Hitomi is not among them. And because she deliberately makes herself look ugly and becomes the shadow character in the marginal corner of the class, she is not noticed and has no friends. Even less will any female classmates with lesbian tendencies approach her.

But... she still envied being able to go shopping and date with the boy she liked, sit close to each other on the train after school, listen to the same song with the same headphones, drink coffee and do homework in a coffee shop, or go to a comic book store to read the latest comics, and then in a depressing atmosphere and space, lower their voices and feel each other's heartbeat...

Hitomi Matsumoto envied these things very much and had fantasized about them more than once, longing to turn her dreams into reality.

But she had never experienced any of it...

Having made up her mind, Matsumoto Hitomi has already made up her mind about her date with Watanabe Tetsuya on June 6th.

If the typhoon is not severe and there is no storm, Hitomi Matsumoto wants Watanabe to accompany her to the comic book store to read comics, and then go to the couple hotel after lunch.

If the typhoon is exaggerated, then just reading comics in a love hotel is the same, and there will be more time to do it...

After all, her mood improved a little, and Matsumoto Hitomi started to drive home.

Holding a transparent plastic umbrella as she climbed the stairs, Hitomi Matsumoto was glad that she had the foresight to not wear high heels.

Although high heels look good and Watanabe is a foot fetishist, she guessed that there was no room for her to show her talents. So, isn't wearing high heels just pure torture for herself?
After experiencing the afternoon, Matsumoto Hitomi was indeed impressed by her own intelligence.

Because she was wearing flat shoes, the sound she made when she went upstairs was very light and small, and the rain stopped, and the "patter" sound of dripping eaves interfered, so the huddled figure sitting with legs bent at the corner of the stairs did not notice that the person she was waiting for had passed by her.

It didn't matter that the person sitting on the ground with legs crossed didn't notice. Matsumoto Hitomi, who was passing by, returned along the way. She put away her umbrella and asked softly to the woman leaning against the wall, hidden in the shadows:
"Lu-chan? Is that you...?"

The woman who had buried her head lowered her head and looked up, and it happened to be Miyagawa Lu's tearful face.

There was no time to think about why Miyagawa Lu was leaning in the corner with tears on her face. Matsumoto Hitomi could see that she was obviously waiting for her to come back.

The table lamp in the corridor of the apartment shone down, and the back of Matsumoto Hitomi was bright white, and the stars in the sky that were emitting cold starlight were dimmed.

She looked at the disheveled woman in the shadow of the corner, her wet hair and clothes stuck to her body, tears and rain intertwined on her face, blurring her originally delicate face, which was still pretty with the help of makeup. She was like a kitten that had lost its warm nest and didn't know where to go.

It also made Matsumoto Hitomi see herself from ten or twenty years ago.

The woman held an umbrella in one hand and a chain bag slung across her body in the other. She raised her arm and pursed her lips.

Even in summer, the moisture brought by the sudden rain predicted by a typhoon cooled the whole of Tokyo, chilling Hitomi Matsumoto's hands and body, and also chilling her slightly beating hot heart.

Hitomi Matsumoto has no friends.

She never went to kindergarten or received preschool education, so she started from elementary school, then went to a private girls' school for junior high and high school in Tokyo, and finally to Waseda University.

She has never had any female friends and has hardly ever interacted with the opposite sex.

Hitomi Matsumoto has lost the ability to interact normally with others. Her heart has become extremely cold, and ordinary, warm emotions can no longer move her hard and cold heart.

Then at work, Matsumoto Hitomi, who returned to school, met the only female teacher left in the same office, Matsumoto Hitomi, in the workplace.

Because of the unique advantage of being close to the water, and the fact that Miyagawa Lu is more passionate, fierce and swift than Hasegawa Grandma, but her breasts are full, her brain is empty, and her nerves are so thick that she can't even understand the hidden meaning in the words. She almost opens her heart and is in a defenseless state, which surprises Matsumoto Hitomi and... finds it hard to resist.

She couldn't resist the temptation and tried to respond to Miyakawa Lu's enthusiasm and expectations, and got her first and currently only good friend.

Since they were friends, Matsumoto Hitomi chose to believe Miyagawa Lu and stood in front of her with her back to her defenseless body, blocking all the bad intentions directed at her and giving her a worry-free environment without intrigue.

What puzzled Matsumoto Hitomi at the time was how such an innocent and simple girl as Miyagawa Roshi could survive in Tokyo and the island country where monsters and demons were rampant without being devoured?

Not long after they became friends, Matsumoto Hitomi learned the specific reason from Miyagawa Lu.

It turns out that before she was a senior, Miyakawa Lu had always had three female friends. They had known each other since her freshman year in high school and had been protecting Miyakawa Lu well for six years, also shielding her from all the bad intentions from the outside world.

Miyagawa Lu met them shortly after high school started. Due to their interests, they came together by chance and formed the "Four-Person Bandage" band. She is the bassist of the band. After two years of development and underground performances, the band has become well-known in the high school and the surrounding area.

It's just that later on, because we each had new friends in different universities, and also because we had big disagreements in many aspects such as music and bands, we parted ways, and we haven't been in touch since the breakup...

Miyagawa Lu did not say much in detail about that failed past. She soon changed the subject and took the initiative to introduce to Matsumoto Hitomi her idol, the talented musical girl, the only female singer of the new era in the island country, Shiina Kanade.

It’s just that Matsumoto Hitomi is not interested in the entertainment industry, she just listened to her praises...

And now, standing in the corridor of her rented apartment, looking at Miyagawa Lu, who was cowering like a homeless kitten, and thinking of her deception to herself the day before yesterday, Matsumoto Hitomi just stood under the lamp, looking coldly at her once self-righteous, best friend...

(End of this chapter)