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

Chapter 37: A young couple came to rent a house on the street in the old residential area

"Houses for rent? Yes, there are..."

An old bookstore still stood in the old residential area, its signboard somewhat peeling and faded. The woman tending the shop raised her hand and pointed in the general direction, responding to Takeda's inquiry.

"The owner of the house is my friend. He moved out last fall and hasn't rented it out yet... No one has taken care of it. I'm afraid the furniture, partitions, and tatami mats that haven't been moved have all gotten moldy."

"It doesn't matter. We can clean up after we rent it."

"I guess there's still a lot of spider webs and rats and stuff... The yard is also a mess of green, and there's no telling how many bugs there are..."

"Well...then, rent?" Takeda held his phone in his hand, opened the note-taking app, and typed notes while asking seriously.

"It's probably this number..." The woman moved closer to Takeda and wrote on her palm with her wrinkled fingers.

He went into the bookstore to see what books were on sale.

There are almost no works that can be called literature, all of which are crowded on the most inconspicuous bookcase in the corner.

On the most conspicuous bookshelf are ViVi, Popeye, Movie Junpo and Weekly Shonen, and on the bookshelf next to it are Weekly Bunshun and Eiga Art.

There were also many magazines that he was not familiar with. He picked one up at random, opened it and took a look, then closed it immediately.

How daring to have this kind of magazine on the most conspicuous bookshelf...

If you go deeper, you will find light novels and comics.

He also saw novels by Kuroki and Asakura, but judging from the stock available, neither was very popular in the old residential areas.

Asakura's is slightly better.

The situation of other light novels that he was not responsible for illustrating is similar, so it is not his problem.

"In that case - we might have to think about it again... It would take quite a while to clean up like that..." Takeda was bargaining with the woman.

He thought about the fact that he had to help Kuroki attend the final selection of supporting roles for the animation next weekend, so he picked up the latest volume and casually flipped through a few pages to pass the time.

I remember that it was about the protagonist who had just finished conquering the fourth maze and came to the Water Kingdom. The princess was a mermaid with a great figure - almost all the illustrations in this volume were of her.

"Inoue... Inoue? Hi hi——?" Takeda had walked to his side without him noticing, and raised his hand and shook it up and down in front of his sight.

"I'm here." He happened to turn to the page with the illustration and closed the book.

"Like light novels?" Takeda took the latest work of Kuroki with a mermaid on the cover from him and stared at the title for a long time.

"To kill time." He didn't want to be misunderstood as liking boring isekai novels where the heroines were all plump and sexy girls.

"Is it……"

"How is it?" he asked about renting a house.

"Not bad for killing time..." Takeda flipped through a light novel.

"Is spring cleaning considered a way to pass the time?"

“Ah——!” Takeda closed the novel with a snap.

Without buying anything, he said goodbye to the woman and left.

Takeda and he each held an umbrella and braved the rain to see the two-story house with a yard that the woman pointed to.

"Eighty thousand yen per month, no deposit, no management fee." Takeda reported the price.

It is a house that has not been registered on any rental website.

The wall facing the yard has been completely covered with ivy, and the windows can only be vaguely seen through the gaps between the grass leaves.

The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the shrubs had completely taken on the appearance of wild shrubs.

As they stood outside the fence and looked into the yard, they happened to see a small snake about a foot long running across the weeds.

"Haven't they been managing it all along..." he couldn't help but remind.

“Hmm…” Even Takeda, who always had a way to deal with the rainy season, seemed to be having some thoughts of backing out.

"Let's look at the others." He thought of the haunted house where the owner committed suicide, and wondered if there were any houses with similar situations nearby.

"Looking at it this way, 80,000 yen is too expensive." Takeda estimated the price, "If it were 60,000 yen..." ...I was overthinking it.

The area around Kita-Sakura High School is maintained regularly every month, and as long as you pay the deposit and rent and sign a contract, you can move directly into the apartments or single-family houses. The monthly rent is about 200,000 to 300,000 yen.

There are also more luxurious apartments, where the rent can even be as high as 600,000 or 700,000 yen a month.

In comparison, 80,000 yen is a pretty cheap amount for a two-story house with a yard.

Most single-bedroom apartments, with rooms only about 60 to 70 square meters in size, cost over 80,000 yen including management fees.

As for the weeds in the yard, snakes, rats, spiders, and even the moldy furniture in the room... if it's really too much trouble, just spend some money to have it handled by a housekeeping company.

They wandered the rainy streets, searching for houses currently available for rent.

Takeda was responsible for asking shop owners on the street who had not yet closed their shops; he used his mobile phone to search for targets on various rental websites.

"..."

"Thanks for telling us this, we will seriously consider it..."

"One hundred and twenty thousand is already a very cheap price. Granny Sagawa has been keeping it clean and maintained, and the furniture hasn't been moved out. The bed in the bedroom is wide and sturdy enough - I guarantee you'll be satisfied."

"Hi……"

Among the more than ten houses he inquired about, this one interested him the most, as it was perfect in every aspect.

It had been cleaned before it was rented out. It had appliances and furniture, a bathtub and water heater, and a yard for sunbathing... but there was only one bedroom.

"Even if you consider having children in the future, it will take at least five years before you can separate the rooms...you can move after five years." The owner of the clothing store was still trying hard to persuade Takeda, and even gave him a look that suggested she help persuade him.

"Ah..." Takeda was speechless for a moment.

"Come on—do you want a boy or a girl…"

"That's it! We're leaving now! I'll contact you later when I've thought it over!"

Takeda pulled him out of the clothing store.

As it approached noon, the rain gradually subsided.

"Hey, how's it going there? Online." Takeda wrote down more than ten pages of notes, and each response was ambiguous.

"There are three buildings with rents under 120,000 yen." He quickened his pace slightly, led the way, and turned onto a slope...

"This house rents for 90,000 yen a month, and at night there are at least ten stray cats gathering in the yard."

"Should we prepare some cat beds for them?"

Under the eaves that sheltered them from the wind and rain, a stray cat was curled up and looking at them.

"Meow——" said the stray cat.

"It says yes," he translated.

"I've got it..." Takeda pretended to type.

……

"This house rents for 50,000 yen a month. Both the owner and the previous tenant committed suicide inside... Currently, the owner's relatives are taking care of it."

"Haunted house?" Takeda put away his phone for the first time.

"A haunted house," he said.

"Do we need to say 'Be careful on the road!' to ghosts when they go out, and then say 'Welcome home!' at night?" Takeda looked left and right outside the yard, confirming again and again.

“…Aren’t you afraid?”

"Only fifty thousand! Once we move in, I'll cook red bean rice for them every holiday."

　Thanks to Ward Tianwowei for the 2 monthly tickets, and thanks to pretend passerby, book friend 20240214022902291, and Wuyuzinengbu for the monthly tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)