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

Chapter 117 I just want you to say you want to see me.

"Chu, Aji said he wanted to wait for you, so he sat in the living room watching TV and is now asleep."

After getting off the plane at Tottori Airport and taking a night bus to his hometown, he received a call from his mother.

"It's too late. There's no need to wait."

"He insisted on waiting! He specially prepared a video of a drama so he could watch it while waiting." The mother must have been standing in the living room, most likely making the call in her father's ear.

He swayed as the bus bumped along the mountain road. He closed his eyes and could even clearly imagine the scene of the phone call.

"Drama is boring," he said.

But my father always loved to watch it. Just like Takeda's father was passionate about horse racing and football matches, drama was his father's favorite program to pass the time.

But since he started junior high school, his father rarely stayed up all night, due to his age and health, and his work was also quite energy-consuming.

"Don't wake him up then," the mother said again, this time in a softer voice.

"You should go to bed early too." He thought his mother was making sure that his father would not wake up, so she reminded him.

"I'm not sleepy yet!" Mother retorted confidently, "Unlike Aji - I can wait until you come back."

"That's almost twelve o'clock." He looked at the time. It was already past eleven o'clock in the evening. There was often no light outside the bus window. Only the headlights in front of the bus illuminated the road ahead, and it was moving slowly along the rugged path in the mountains.

There were not many passengers on the bus, and most of them were drowsy and leaning back in their seats.

Apart from his conversation with his mother on the other end of the phone, the only sound was the rustling of wheels rolling over the road and the constant hum of the engine.

"I can wait until twelve o'clock!" His mother ignored his advice and continued, "I cut the watermelon. Half is in the refrigerator, and the other half is already cut into pieces with a fork... Do I need a bamboo stick? How do people in Tokyo eat watermelon?"

"Mom." He listened to his mother's chatter and then remembered something, interrupting her, "Takeda-san won't be here until tomorrow afternoon."

The bus turned a sharp bend and blew its horn twice. The blasts echoed through the vast mountain night, but there was no response.

As he passed the bend, he swayed left and right with the bus, and the phone fell silent after he finished speaking.

"Hello? Is my signal bad?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm going to sleep. I left the light on for you. Open the door yourself."

"morning--"

Before he could finish his words, his mother hung up the phone with a beep.

The gap in attitude is too big...

It was almost twelve o'clock. After practicing the trumpet all day and having a bumpy ride, I could feel the fatigue spreading throughout my limbs.

But when he closed his eyes, he still didn't feel sleepy at all.

After going around a mountain and passing a small town by the sea, the bus stopped at a bus stop. The driver woke up all the passengers, and two men with travel bags got off the bus.

The bus will stop at the station for five minutes, and some passengers will stretch and choose to get off the bus to get some fresh air.

He had nothing else to do, so he got off the car.

As soon as he got off the bus, the cold wind blowing from the north coast blew into his sleeves, bringing a chill.

There are mountains on the southeast side that block the warm wind from moving north, and there is a steady stream of cold wind coming from the coast.

Although the latitude is not much different from Tokyo, the temperature is much lower.

Especially at night, the driver had already put on his coat and was smoking next to the bus stop.

Once you finish smoking, the bus will start again and head to the next stop.

He shivered in the cold wind, and the sleepiness that had accumulated from closing his eyes to rest was instantly gone.

He wanted to do something, but there was nothing around the bus stop - the shops had already closed, and there wasn't even a vending machine in this small town.

"Young man, go home?"

"Go home." He squinted his eyes and saw that the light on the street in the distance was just a billboard that had forgotten to be powered off. He looked away and found that the driver was staring at him carefully.

"He doesn't look like he's from around here," the driver commented.

"Not like? Where?"

"It's a feeling in every sense," the driver said ambiguously. "It's too quiet."

"Quiet?"

"People who are too quiet can't get out." The driver pointed to the mountain in the southeast.

"It sounds like I'm the odd one out." He shrugged indifferently, just thinking of it as a way to pass the time.

"Coming back from Tokyo?" the driver asked again.

"Ah."

"High school student?"

"second grade."

"Good study?"

"My junior high school entrance exam was ranked among the top 100 nationwide."

"Awesome..." The driver clicked his tongue twice, threw the cigarette butt casually at his feet and crushed it.

"It's just good luck. Everyone has their own strengths."

"Okay—get in the car, I'll take you home. How many stops are there?"

"The next stop is here." The other people who had been exposed to the wind also got on the bus and sat back on it. Their seats had also changed slightly - everyone moved from the inside to the front rows of seats.

Everyone perked up, looking at their phones, listening to music, and chatting with the driver.

He received a message on Line from Takeda.

[Takeda: I just played games and wandered around for half an hour, but it felt like I didn't accomplish anything.]
[Takeda: Boring.]
[Inoue: If you get bored, there are other games in there.]
[Takeda: I'm not talking about games.]
[Takeda: I'm just bored.]
He casually typed out a message to persuade her to go to bed early, but when he saw the new message, he deleted it and rewrote it.

[Inoue: We have to get up early tomorrow to catch the train, right?]
[Takeda: I won’t sit down anymore.]
[Inoue: Angry?]
[Takeda: Angry.]
He looked at the message and remembered his mother cutting the watermelon into small pieces and asking people in Tokyo what tools they used to eat it.

[Takeda: But it’s not because of you.]
[Inoue: Not me?]
[Takeda: My father called and said he would be back early tomorrow.]
The bus ran over a puddle and shook from side to side. He came to his senses and looked at the sudden message. He felt confused for no reason. He didn't know what to say or where his thoughts should go.

After being stunned for a while, he could only give orders to his thumb, mechanically gave a response, and put the phone back into his pocket.

[Inoue: I understand.]
He cast his gaze out the window. Before he could see anything in the pitch-black night, Takeda called him.

"What do you mean by understanding? How can you understand?" Takeda got angry on the phone.

“…” He was silent for a while.

Understanding that she suddenly had something to do and couldn't come to him - this was all he could think of, but it was definitely not what Takeda wanted to hear.

"I told you I was bored, and you told me to get some rest. I told you I couldn't go, and you just said 'I understand,'" Takeda said. "Then why did I even bother telling you all this? I should have made you wait at the station until tomorrow night!"

He didn't know what to say, he just listened to Takeda's voice on the phone and looked for the direction of Tokyo outside the dark window.

"Why can't you even spend a few minutes chatting with me? After you sent me 'I understand', you must have put your phone away, right? It's like you've finally dealt with a thorny matter."

"My mother just called me," he thought for a moment and said, "She said she cut up a watermelon and asked me how people in Tokyo usually eat it, whether they use a fork or a bamboo stick."

There was no sound from the other end of the phone for a moment, and Takeda knew that he had not finished speaking.

"I forgot to tell Mother that you wouldn't be arriving until tomorrow, so she wanted to wait until you and I arrived together to see her."

"...waiting for me?"

"When she called and told me that you would arrive tomorrow, my mother hung up the phone and said she was going to sleep. She told me to open the door myself and told me not to eat the watermelon because it was going to be left for me." He finished speaking and still lied a little in the end.

"..."

"I just typed a lot of words, and suddenly I saw that you couldn't come. The only thing in my mind was that I couldn't let you eat the watermelon." He saw a faint star in the dark night, blinked as the bus bumped, and then disappeared again.

"Then, bring me a watermelon when you come back." Takeda suddenly ordered.

"sure."

"Hey, Inoue. I really don't know if you did it on purpose or you are really an idiot!" Takeda suddenly became extremely dissatisfied again and complained to him.

"Two?"

"One hundred!" Takeda said angrily, "If you had just said you wanted to see me, told me to eat by myself, I would have packed my bags, gone to bed early, and taken the train to see you tomorrow! I haven't even refunded my ticket yet, all it takes is one word from you."

"..."

"But you just said you'd bring me watermelon! You can just enjoy your watermelon and spend the holidays with your family! You don't have to give me anything, so why would you even think about what I'm doing?"

Takeda finished speaking in one breath and hung up the phone.

He wanted to call again, but all he got was a busy tone.

I sent a message on Line, but it didn’t become “read” until I got off the bus.

He got out of the car, pulled out the suitcase, and stared at the screen of his mobile phone in a daze.

The driver was standing at the bus stop smoking.

"Do you want to smoke, young man?" the driver asked when he saw that he didn't leave.

"Don't smoke."

"I don't want to smoke, but I'm used to it. I have to smoke every time I pass a stop while driving. Otherwise, I'll get sleepy and might fall into the mountains if I'm not careful."

"You can have coffee." He looked at the bus that was taking him home. The exterior was dusty, the interior was lit with warm yellow light, and the driver's seat was padded with high-quality fur.

This is completely different from the sightseeing buses in Tokyo.

"That stuff is too bitter, I can't drink it." The driver curled his lips and shook his head, then took another deep puff of his cigarette and puffed out clouds of smoke.

He looked at the bus and thought about Takeda's words. His throat felt dry and sore, and he wanted to cough as if he had smoked a cigarette.

What was Takeda's relationship with her father? Her mother was in the hospital. She hadn't returned her train ticket yet...

His thoughts kept wandering among all these things.

If he just said a word, would Takeda really take the train to see him?

Did he really hope that Takeda would put aside all these trivial matters and come to Tottori to celebrate the Obon Festival with him?

He stood by the bus stop for a long time until the driver finished his cigarette, crushed the butt, and drove the bus to the next stop. Only then did he finally take a step and walk towards home.

Turning into the street in front of his home, he saw a beam of light swaying from side to side.

When he got closer, he saw that it was his mother who had clearly said on the phone that she was going to sleep.

"We really have to wait until tomorrow..." Mother came closer with a flashlight, her tone regretful.

"..."

"There's hot water, take a bath and then rest."

"……it is good."

(End of this chapter)