Tokyo: Who would still fall in love after being spoiled?

Chapter 101: A discussion about purity and abstinence before Takeda became a voice actor.

Until he left, Amano didn't say what the matter was that he expected "must be discussed in person".

They were just walking and chatting in the quiet old residential area, circling a few residential streets in a fairly large circle, returning along the slope where the cherry trees stretched out their branches from above the wall, back to the haunted house, which was also the door of the rental house where he currently lived.

It was late at night and the sky was quiet. There was only a missing moon and a few sparse stars in the sky.

The moonlight wasn't bright enough to clearly illuminate an unlit street at night. Furthermore, Tokyo is full of high-rise buildings, leaving many dark corners where even moonlight couldn't penetrate.

"Nothing special to offer. There's no hot water in the kettle, but there's pear juice in the fridge." He invited Amano to sit inside for a while out of common courtesy. "For dessert, we're still waiting for your salty cheese cookies."

"No." Amano stood outside the entrance. As he opened the door and walked in, he glanced at the dining and living room behind him with the indoor lights on, and shook his head to refuse.

"You are indeed afraid of ghosts." He concluded.

"Does the roommate mind?" Amano looked away and asked him.

I wasn't asking whether the roommate was afraid of ghosts, I was asking about her visiting.

This was how he understood it at first, and he even understood that Amano didn't want to come into the house as a guest, but just wanted to make it clear that not staying had nothing to do with being afraid of ghosts.

"Not back yet, probably around half past ten," he replied, not surprised that Amano mentioned sharing the house.

Several pairs of Takeda shoes were placed on the shoe cabinet by the entrance. Two pairs of indoor slippers: a pair of rubber slippers, plain white without any decoration; a pair of cotton slippers with a pair of rabbit ears on the top; a pair of canvas shoes, also white; and a pair of round-toed black leather shoes.

You can even tell from it what pair of shoes Takeda wore when he went out today and whether he came back halfway.

His shoes were pretty much the same: white canvas shoes, sneakers, cotton slippers, black rubber slippers, and Martin boots. Just a glance at the shoe rack told you what he'd been up to that day.

"Then you mind." Amano came to the conclusion somehow and nodded to him, expressing his desire to leave.

"Do you know the way to the tram station?" He asked without trying to persuade you to stay.

Amano took out his cell phone from his pocket and raised it in the air to show him.

The screen lights up, showing a landscape photo filled with pigeons, which serves as the lock screen page.

The place where the pigeon landed is a Gothic spire building, which is the type of building he finds most troublesome to paint. The lines are complicated and cumbersome, and many times they do not reflect any beauty.

He rarely had a favorite building, or rather, he preferred natural scenery to humanistic things, painting mountains and water, painting wind, flowers, snow, moon, painting the shade of trees and deer in the forest...

This is also reflected in his photography - unless he has to include someone or something in the shot and put it in the most conspicuous position; otherwise, he will only aim at the natural scenery and press the shutter, not allowing any person or man-made object to appear.

Therefore, when he visited artificially developed scenic spots, he hated two things the most - one was the electric poles erected high in the woods, and the other was the iron chains and guardrail nets that sometimes had to be squeezed into the camera lens.

If he were asked to photograph pigeons, he would probably only focus on those flying in the air.

There is only the blue sky as the background, and the only other things are the pigeons.

Only by doing this can he have the most basic desire to collect photos, drive away a certain sense of irritability deep in his heart, and feel a moment of tranquility in the photos.

After looking at the photo, which he didn't know whether it was taken by Amano himself, he let the pigeon go and looked at the status bar at the top to see the remaining battery life of the phone.

Amano wanted to tell him that her phone still had 40% battery, which was enough for her to use the electronic navigation to find the tram station.

He had no reason, but he firmly believed it, as if he had established some kind of tacit connection with the girl standing in front of his door at some point in time. He had this intuition.

"It saves me time." He looked away and said with a smile.

"No need to bother you." Amano put away his phone and chuckled, "I was just worried that you'd get lost too and lead me somewhere unknown."

"Am I that bad?" He was stunned.

"It's hard to say." As usual, the corners of Amano's mouth curled up slightly, hinting at something, and he turned and walked deep into the dimly lit alley.

He watched Amano leave, chewing on the meaning behind the few words he'd left behind. He stood for a long time, staring at the deserted streets, but found nothing.

He came to his senses, patted his head, stopped thinking about it, closed the door, turned around and walked into the room.

He has been like this lately, thinking and analyzing too many things, and easily falling deeply into the whirlpool of life philosophy.

The closer you get to the essence of thought and the more you return to the origin, the more you will feel that you are being separated from the real society and isolated from words with a certain warmth, such as "What do you want to eat tonight?" and "I should be able to chat with her tomorrow?"

I couldn't help but feel myself getting smaller and lonelier...

However, when he falls into this loneliness, he tries to feel the humanity and touch the warm flames, but he will soon feel irritated and restless, and long to retreat into the cold forest.

He thought of Gin in the "Firefly Forest" who would disappear if he touched a human, and finally embraced Hotaru at all costs for love...

No, to be precise, he first touched the human by mistake, and only when he knew he was about to disappear did he dare to take the initiative to hug the girl.

Fortunately, he does not have such a curse, but only has some psychological problems.

He also recalled a sandbox game he had played before, called "Minecraft". He always played it alone, and he was always the only one in the generated sandbox world. He also tried to play online with multiple people, but in the online world, he only retained the curiosity of seeing other people's development results for the first time. After visiting, he immediately ran to the uninhabited and undeveloped areas to develop on his own.

When playing this game, he also has a habit similar to that of taking photos - the traces he created must be eliminated on the spot, leaving only the buildings that he believes "serve some necessary functions."

When chopping down a tree, you must chop down every last section of wood. The only blocks you use as stepping stones in the wild are always dirt and stone. After exploring a mine, you must retrieve all the torches stuck in the side walls...

In this way, the "nature" in the game seems to have never been destroyed by oneself.

He picked up the cactus doll on the coffee table and turned on the switch.

After thinking about it——

"Inoue is an idiot," he said.

"Inoue is an idiot!" said the cactus in a sarcastic tone carefully chosen by its designer.

What on earth is he doing... He just couldn't help but curl up the corners of his mouth, but then he quickly remembered that this kind of doll was designed by humans after all, and the timbre, pitch, tone and other parameters were selected by the designer after debugging.

He had just been cursing himself in front of such a man-made object and taking pleasure in it - thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel puzzled, let go of the cactus doll, and looked for the trash can in the dining room.

He didn't get up from the sofa because there were too many blind spots. So, he couldn't find a trash can and couldn't help but lift the cactus doll again.

"It's a shame you can't find a trash can to keep you alive for now."

"...What a pity!...Alive!" The cactus cheered.

This time he laughed again, but he did not delve into the source of his current happiness or its meaning.

These questions themselves are meaningless.

He spoke a few more words to the cactus and listened to it repeat them with great joy.

Then he turned off the cactus, went to the bedroom, took out a book, and sat on the sofa to read to pass the time.

This time he didn't read "Les Miserables" or "The Red and the Black", but a light novel that he was responsible for illustrating and was forced upon him by the author.

The novel is now complete, and when he took over the illustrations, it had already entered the final stage, with only the last three volumes left.

Therefore, I have not read the contents of the first ten volumes.

The first volume in his hand had been moved around with his luggage for several months, but it was the first time he opened it to read it.

It tells the story of a otaku who has a digital girlfriend development game on his phone one day. He spends money to buy various props for his digital girlfriend to save her.

On the surface, it is a money-making rubbish game in the same vein as other mobile games, but unexpectedly it is very well-made. You can feel quite rich feedback from your girlfriend, as if it is presented using means far more complex than existing AI technology.

In fact, the game world his girlfriend lives in is actually a real world, and the mobile game in his hand has become a bridge connecting the real world and the game world...

As long as one does not delve into its inner meaning, the novel is quite interesting, with many plot developments that he could not imagine.

Unfortunately, I heard that it was not animated until the twelfth volume was completed, and the manga was cut short when it reached the second volume of the novel. Only the novel survived smoothly to the end.

But after all, he was not the type of person who liked to read light novels. He just used it to kill time and could not immerse himself in the story no matter what.

When he was distracted from the plot, he began to think about Takeda, wondering what she was doing in the grocery store, whether she used the microwave to heat up her expiring bento, and how many customers she had.

Imagine how she will greet you when she comes back from the grocery store, whether she will ring the doorbell politely or knock on the door.

Or maybe she already had the key and pushed the door open without saying hello... If she wanted to sneak in quietly, should he pretend to be engrossed in reading and observe what she would do?
Would she come and cover his eyes, and teach him to guess who he is with a nasal voice?
Would I snatch the light novel from his hand and then pretend to scold him...

The process of imagination is as interesting as the novel in his hand, or it can help him pass the time better.

Before I knew it, I hadn't turned the page of the light novel in my hand for a long time...

Not long after, the real Takeda came back.

Without knocking or ringing the doorbell, he didn't try to hide his footsteps either. He opened the door with his key, changed into indoor shoes in the entrance hall, and walked into the dining and living room.

"Are you researching how to execute the cactus doll?" The first thing Takeda did after returning home was to stuff the extra expiring lunch boxes into the refrigerator. After glancing at him, he asked with a hint of teasing curiosity.

"How is this possible?" He felt a surge of emotion for no reason, and he didn't know how to name it for the time being - it was neither loss, nor anger, nor sadness, but more like it was caught in between these emotions - Takeda didn't even confirm what book he was holding in his hand.

"I was just saying it's rare..." Takeda touched the side of the kettle to check the water temperature, poured himself a cup of tea, drank it all in one gulp, and couldn't help but say something slanderous, "It seems like you're reading those boring novels of yours again."

"It's quite interesting." He raised the paperback in his hand, deliberately showing the light novel cover, which is usually slightly erotic in the industry. "Have you read 'My Electronic Girlfriend is Really a Witch?!'?"

The unknown emotion that had just risen in my heart also disappeared.

It seemed that in Takeda's eyes, even reading some reference books had become a "rare" thing for him.

"A light novel?" Takeda was surprised for a moment, but then quickly became self-satisfied. "Is it a new author you're collaborating with?"

"It's already over." He didn't know whether he should be angry.

“…” Takeda fell silent, moved closer, sat down on the other end of the sofa where he was sitting, and looked at him carefully.

"I just suddenly wanted to read it," he emphasized again, "so I bought the whole set, volumes one to twelve. They're on the bookshelf in my room."

"How strange...why haven't I seen it before..." Takeda sighed, his voice so low that it sounded like he was talking to himself.

"Have you been to my room?"

"When I was using the dryer." Takeda came back to his senses and was quite calm. He smiled and joked, "Come to think of it, your room is really clean. There's nothing dangerous that girls shouldn't see. You're really pure and unselfish!"

"It's just hidden deep, so you didn't find it," he said.

In fact, there is none.

But he didn't want to be described as pure and unselfish, so he started to lie.

"Then go get one now?" Takeda was not a fool who was easy to fool, so he raised his chin slightly with confidence.

"Did you search very thoroughly?" He really couldn't produce any evidence, but he didn't surrender immediately. He was looking for an angle to counterattack Takeda.

"I understand you!" Takeda widened his eyes and raised his voice slightly, showing a bit of anxiety, but his tone was still firm.

"Really..." He inexplicably felt a desire to win, as if he had to prove to Takeda that he was a carnivore tonight.

He thought of his cell phone and the Internet. It would not be difficult for him to search for some dangerous objects on the Internet on the spot.

But firstly, there was no need for that, and secondly, Takeda was a girl after all, and there was a hint of indifference in her tone when she argued with him.

It wasn't that they had to argue, but just to make him aware of her grievance.

This thought came to his mind subconsciously, and he thought about it so deeply and logically, with a certainty that even he was surprised.

"You still can't find it?" Takeda said to him as if declaring victory.

He stopped quibbling and raised his hand, suddenly reaching out to Takeda's fair and tender face and pinching it lightly.

(End of this chapter)