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

Chapter 29: Mental Patients Officially Invade the Piano Club
In the morning park, Takeda ran with him for the second time.

This time he slowed down his pace and guided Takeda to jog at the same pace as him from the first lap.

After running four laps, Takeda was in much better condition than yesterday when he collapsed on the ground.

He just supported himself on his knees and gasped for a while, then slowly recovered his breath.

When the two arrived at the school, the flow of people going to school was still sparse.

"If everything can be like today in the future... I can practice my breathing for ten more minutes before running..." Takeda made arrangements to himself, regardless of his feelings.

"Impossible," he stated the fact.

"How is it impossible!"

"If you're ten minutes late, I won't accompany you."

"Then I'll run away by myself!" Takeda said without sounding angry.

"And then you collapsed on the ground exhausted?" He didn't mean to laugh.

Takeda was silent for a long time, until everyone changed into indoor shoes in the shoe changing area. He waited for him for a few seconds before going upstairs, and then gave the order—

"I'll buy you some bread and train with me."

After saying that, he turned and left without leaving any room for others.

"..."

[Inoue: Tomorrow I'll have fried noodles and bread.]
He didn't go to the cafeteria at noon. He munched on a few pieces of snowflake crisps to fill his stomach, and went to the club building to help the lawyer open the door of the piano club's interest department.

The tuner brought an extra, heavier suitcase with him than last time. He spread it out on the floor after entering the room and opened it. Inside were various delicate piano-related parts.

He was not interested in the specific process of tuning the piano. He greeted the man and turned back to the school building.

Before going upstairs, I grabbed a sandwich from a mobile van and bought a bottle of soda for lunch.

It’s not so much that I was able to grab the sandwiches, but rather that all the other bread was snatched up by the students who rushed out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang.

All that was left for him was a sandwich - bread, lettuce, salad dressing, ham slices, and a fried egg.

It's healthy, but it doesn't taste good.

Cucumber-flavored soda isn't tasty either, so the combination of the two makes for a perfect match.

"Inoue-san," the girl at the next table couldn't help but admire him when she saw his sandwich and cucumber-flavored soda, "You've been working really hard lately..."

"Like I said, I'm starting to take it seriously." Under his pen was a math test paper.

After finishing a fill-in-the-blank question, he turned his pen twice and responded to the girl at the next table without even looking up.

Throughout his life, his grades in all subjects were always just average, and he only put in some effort in the entrance examination to a key middle school in Tokyo.

The data is completely distorted. I can only refer to my grades in various subjects in my previous life for comparison.

There is no problem with English, and languages are my strong points.

History and humanities rely on accumulated experience, so getting high scores on high school exams is not a problem.

The only thing that is weakest in is mathematics, which is required for both liberal arts and science students.

So after catching up with the second-grade note-taking progress, he spent most of his free time at school on math.

"Hmm..." The girl at the next table couldn't accept it. "Could it be... Inoue-san got some favors from his parents or someone else?"

"What's the benefit?"

"For example, your parents said they'd buy you a new phone if you could get an A. Some girls said they'd date you if you could get a higher score than hers..." The girl at the next table gave an example, "Otherwise, how can you explain your sudden hard work..."

"Could it be that I just had an epiphany?"

"I even believe that you are the Kamen Rider hiding in Kitayuka High..." the girl at the next table complained.

He didn't argue anymore and continued drafting the calculation process for the next problem.

You can't prove anything when you first start doing something.

But as long as he keeps persisting, time will always prove everything to him.

After the school bell rang in the afternoon, he got up and went to the club building. Passing by the classroom of the piano club's interest department, he saw that the tuning and arrangement were still proceeding in an orderly manner.

Next to the suitcase spread out on the floor were a number of piano parts, some of which were rusted and discolored. It looked like it was in need of some serious maintenance.

He reported to the art club to sign, and searched in his mind for a watercolor painting that could be completed in about two hours, and drafted a practice draft.

When I finally put pen to paper, it was already past half past five.

When he walked into the piano club's interest group, he saw a girl standing next to the tuner. She was neither doing her own thing nor offering a hand to help. She was just watching from the side.

I noticed him walking into the classroom and looked up.

It's Kimura.

"Hello……!"

She was full of vigor at the beginning, but then she became weaker.

"Your hobby club," Kimura said unkindly, "hasn't this semester been spent practicing outside? Why did you suddenly think of tuning the piano?"

"Because it was out of tune," he stated.

"You can always find a piano outside, right?" Kimura said, "Why don't you just practice outside from now on?"

"That won't work." He looked at the tuner who was installing parts on the piano and could tell he was finishing up his work. "I'm not in the hobby department."

"Then why...?" Kimura asked, referring to why he was tuning the piano.

"Practice the piano!" He responded with a look that said "idiot".

In his expectation, he would wait until the piano in the hobby club was repaired, and then play Xiao Shi to attract Kimura over.

I never thought that before I took any action, the other party would come to me on his own initiative.

"Practicing the piano..." Upon hearing his answer, Kimura was not angry. Instead, he lowered his head slightly, and a gloomy look seemed to cover his face.

After a moment of silence, he clenched his fists and raised his head again.

"How much does the tuning cost?" she asked in a deep voice.

"Why are you asking this?" He was a little surprised.

"We'll share the expenses. I also want to practice piano here, and we'll each spend half the time." Kimura said in a stiff but extremely serious tone.

It seemed like a decision that was made with great courage.

But what was the reason behind this? He looked into Kimura's eyes, recalled the fragments of words he had heard when he passed by the piano club, and for a moment he could not find a clue.

"It's a comprehensive reorganization, and the cost is not low." He added a new chip on the other side of the scale.

Then let's see how firm her determination is...

"Just tell me how much." Kimura frowned and said in a hard voice.

"Why don't you just ask him?" He shrugged and raised his chin slightly to indicate.

"I haven't calculated the exact amount yet." The mediator paused his work and gave a rough estimate. "I estimate it will be at least 55,000 yen."

"Fifty-five thousand..."

"And." He walked up to the podium and tapped the desk with the back of his fingers. "After all, I was the one who hired the tuner, right? And..."

"I'll pay a little more!" Kimura interrupted him, his voice trembling and becoming sharp and loud.

"Well..." He sighed, then forced a smile. "Since I took the initiative to hire a lawyer, I'm of course prepared to pay for it... How could I possibly give you half of my practice time just for a few tens of thousands of yen?"

"I'll pay for everything. That's enough, right?!"

"Congratulations on passing the test, Kimura-kun."

He suddenly became curious about the reason behind her persistence.

"How about this." He snapped his fingers, "Let's compete on a song that you and I can both play. If you win, I'll let you practice."

"..." Kimura raised his head again, was silent for a moment, and nodded in agreement, "Which song do you want to compare?"

"Xiao Shi."

(End of this chapter)