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

Chapter 32 Under the dim streetlight, the girl made a promise with him

"Didn't you mark this place? How come you played it wrong?"

"Wrong again, play it again!"

despair--!
Kimura pressed the piano keys with all his fingers at the same time, and looked coldly at Inoue who was sitting at the desk next to him and giving instructions without restraint.

"I'm the one practicing the piano now, right?" She tried her best to control her emotions and said coldly.

"Am I wrong?" he said.

“…” Kimura lowered his head in silence and started playing the section from the practice part again.

"almost."

"..."

"slow."

"..."

"It's fast again. Do you really have a sense of rhythm? I'm afraid you can't even practice the beat to be very proficient, right?"

In order to be a good teacher, he even took the initiative to learn some piano knowledge that he would probably never use in his life.

From this perspective, 100,000 points is too few. At least he should be given 100,000 more points.

"Is there really a difference?! You are simply disturbing my practice!" Kimura couldn't stand it anymore and stopped playing, questioning with a slightly trembling voice.

"Then use the audio recording software to time it." He took out his phone, pressed the record button, and put it aside. "I won't look at the phone. Play it three more times."

"..."

First time.

“It’s faster than the original song.”

Second time.

“It’s faster than the first time.”

The third time.

"Faster than the first time, slower than the second time. The rhythm is different every time..."

He stopped recording and showed her the audio comparison automatically generated by the software.

What is important is not the duration, but the fact that Kimura's rhythm will deviate every time he plays, which, when accumulated, results in different durations.

"This gap... can be ignored, right?"

"Even I can easily hear it, do you think the judges of the competition can't hear it?"

Pianists who can serve as judges in piano competitions in Tokyo should be at the level of Lv.5.

"You..." Kimura had no words to refute, but he still couldn't swallow his breath. He stood up and said, "You come! You come and play this part three times!"

"Me? That would take up your practice time."

"Haven't you been taking up my practice time since the beginning?"

"Good intentions are not always rewarded..." He sighed, jumped off the desk, reset the audio recording, and played the melody that Kimura had just played.

Once, twice, three times.

The three playings ended quickly.

Without stretching the sound spectrum, you can hardly see the difference by observing it on a mobile phone screen.

"Still not convinced?"

“…” Kimura turned his face away.

"You're wasting your own time, it has nothing to do with me." He gave up his seat and sat back on the desk.

"……I know."

She sat back at the piano, took a deep breath, and played the melody again.

"almost."

"..."

"What's the point of speeding up to catch up after you're slow at the front? Wouldn't that make it even more unpleasant?"

"..."

"You can't possibly not even be able to practice this one segment today, right?"

"...It's so noisy!" Kimura clapped his hands for the third time. "Okay, I'll stop talking." He looked down at his phone, opened Line, and thought for a moment.

[Inoue: Cream bread.]
moment.

[Takeda: What cream?! Tomorrow is Saturday!]
[Inoue: No morning exercises on weekends?]
[Takeda: Do you still run on weekends?]
[Inoue: I run every day.]
After a while.

[Takeda: If you can’t get up in the morning, I won’t wait for you.]
This way, tomorrow's breakfast will be taken care of.

I wonder if Takeda has enough money to treat him to barbecue.

Inoue was thinking this and that, and even subconsciously helped Takeda calculate the salary for his part-time job at the grocery store, when he noticed that the piano music next to him had stopped.

"...Listening?" Kimura asked in a low voice as if talking to himself.

"What?" He put away his phone.

"Too fast, too slow..." She turned her face to the other side and looked at the lush beech tree outside the window.

"Play it again."

"……it is good."

That night, he walked out of the school gate with Kimura, Amano and Kato just before the school curfew.

He walked side by side with Kimura in the corridor from the club building to the school building, with Amano and Kato walking in front of them.

After changing his shoes and walking out of the school building, he and Amano became a group, and Kimura ran to Kato's side.

After leaving the school gate, he and Amano went on one side, while Kimura and Kato went on the other side, and they parted ways.

"Are you teaching her?" Amano asked suddenly as he walked side by side with him.

"Jealous?" He avoided the question.

"Jealous? She and I don't have a good relationship, how could I be jealous..." Amano frowned in confusion and responded softly, but reacted halfway through.

"Inoue-san..." She sighed, like a bad doctor who advises a patient to give up treatment. "What on earth did I say that gave you the illusion that I liked you?"

It's no longer an "illusion", but an "illusion"...

"Really? Maybe the mushrooms in the cream stew in the cafeteria at lunch weren't cooked enough."

"You had beef bowl for lunch today, Inoue-san."

"You even remember exactly what I had for lunch. Don't you think you like it?"

"...I'm sorry." Amano was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled faintly at him and apologized, "I didn't expect that Inoue-san was so eager to be noticed. If Inoue-san really has no friends...

"I recommend that you get a small pet dog, Inoue-san. It might help alleviate your extreme delusional symptoms."

“Pets are not allowed in the boarding house.”

"Alas...that's unfortunate."

"What does this have to do with paranoia? Aren't all high school boys like this? A single glance or a word of concern can lead to misunderstandings."

"What you mean is... Inoue-san likes me? So you misinterpret my many actions as concern for yourself?" Amano gave me a sympathetic look.

"Amano-san," he confirmed, smiling back, "To be honest, the probability of me falling in love with you is lower than the probability of me becoming Prime Minister at the age of thirty-five."

Very good, just keep it up like this.

Maintain a low favorability while forcing the system to issue tasks to gain points.

No matter what, the initiative to decide what to do should be in his own hands, rather than some illusory fate.

"So, by teaching Kimura to play Xiao Shi, Inoue-san has already given up in advance for tomorrow's competition?" Amano ignored him and brought the topic back to the piano.

"It's to prevent you from having to win two out of three games, so we prepared for 2-0 in advance." He followed Amano's words.

In fact, no matter tomorrow or the result of the competition between Kimura and Kato, it means nothing to him.

All he wanted was the 100,000 points rewarded by the system task.

The playing skills he possessed and used in competitions were also obtained through points, and ultimately did not belong to him.

"Is that so..." Amano pondered for a moment meaningfully and said goodbye at the fork in the road.

The street lights were dim, and the girl's pretty face turned by indistinctly under the light, with the corners of her mouth slightly raised, a curve different from that of a polite smile.

"I'm looking forward to what kind of performance you can bring tomorrow, Inoue-san." She raised her hand and gently touched her hair, saying with a smile.

　Thanks to 2% Pickled Fish for the 20230113211351279 monthly tickets, and thanks to book friends 20220913150505783, Such a Boring World, Yu Nian Wuwang, and book friend for the monthly tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)