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

Chapter 80 If possible, everyone wants to do what they like

Near noon, Takeda went out to buy the udon noodles his mother wanted to eat, put them in an iron lunch box, brought them back to the hospital, and took care of his mother while she ate.

The hospital actually provides set meals for patients, and the prices are not expensive.

"But my mother doesn't like it. She always feels that if she eats hospital food, it's like telling her, 'There must be something wrong with your internal organs!'" Takeda told him.

Then go to the hospital cafeteria with him.

The cafeteria, like the main hall, was filled with an oppressive din. It was less crowded than the main hall, and everywhere echoed the voices of patients discussing their conditions. Every now and then, even more deafening than the din, the announcement would blare, calling for doctors and nurses. Even in the smoking area, patients were still puffing away, fearing that someone who had been discharged one day would soon return with a lung ailment.

Takeda recommended something light, a bowl of ramen with clear bone broth, which was perfect for him. He ordered a large portion of curry rice with a side of fried pork cutlet, and even a vegetable salad slathered with sauce.

"If you don't come here often, it's hard to eat heavy food in this place." Takeda said to him while mixing curry and rice with a spoon.

"What about you?" He picked up a piece of ramen with his chopsticks.

"The first time I came here, I also had ramen, but before I could even get my expiring bento, I was starving."

"Really..." He had a dinner party in the evening, and there was always endless bread to eat, so he didn't have to worry about being hungry.

"Then I understood," Takeda pursed his lips slightly, wrinkled his nose, and picked up his chopsticks. "In my situation, even if I have no appetite, I have to eat my fill. Only when I'm full can I have the energy to run around."

"What are the next plans? This afternoon," he asked.

"How else can I arrange it... I'll take the tram to the training center, then take another tram back in the evening, help my mother with dinner, wash her hands and feet, chat for a while, and then go back to the grocery store."

"Is this all that's left at the hospital?" If that's all, he could do it.

"I just helped my mother clean herself last night. She'll need a scan tomorrow..." Takeda paused, then quickly continued, "And then I need to take some spare clothes back."

"Have you noticed any adverse reactions in the past two days?" He caught the pause and asked, "If everything goes well, I can be discharged tomorrow, right?"

"My mother occasionally feels dizzy and has no strength...it's probably just because she's not used to living in the hospital. After all, a four-person ward is very noisy."

"After you are discharged from the hospital, if it is inconvenient for you to live with your mother at home, you can take you to the rental house and I can help you with some things," he said.

"Don't you find it troublesome?"

"What's the trouble... It's just a two-story hut, empty." He took a sip of ramen, looking more casual.

"Thank you..." Takeda said thank you readily, but after saying it, he felt awkward and instructed him, "Remember not to mention that the rental house is a haunted house."

"How much is the rent for this old house that no one takes care of?" He made up the story so that he could agree on the same thing with Takeda in advance.

"Seventy thousand! No less!" Takeda couldn't help but suddenly smile, his brows relaxed a little. "From the very first moment I met you, I felt that you were really good at lying."

"I will tell you everything I know when I need to be honest." At least what he said was true.

"Hey, Inoue." Takeda took a few mouthfuls of rice that was completely mixed with curry soup and asked him vaguely, "Do you know what I want to do now?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Think of a heavy rain," she said. "I'll do nothing, not go to the hospital, the training center, or the grocery store; and you'll have nothing to do either, just stay with me in the rented house."

"Not bad, what next?"

“Buy the freshest ingredients, pay someone to deliver them, and cook the hot pot in the house.”

"Can we cook without a stove?" There was no stove in their rental house.

"If I say yes, then yes!" Taketa was angry that he interrupted him.

"Anything you need, just have someone deliver it to you," he said smoothly.

"Not bad!" Takeda nodded with satisfaction. "Also send a 30-40 inch TV, with speakers and a microphone."

"microphone?"

"You'll sing with me."

"What if I can't?"

"drink wine!"

"Okay, I'll drink with you." He said, and took a sip of the ramen soup. It tasted very ordinary, not particularly delicious.

After all, it’s just a hospital cafeteria, so we can’t be too demanding in terms of taste.

Fortunately, it is clean enough and the ingredients are fresh.

The topic of eating hot pot on rainy days ended and a period of silence fell.

Takeda took advantage of the silence to eat his meal.

Rather than "eating," it's more like stuffing energy-producing food into your mouth, chewing it, and swallowing it all once it's slurpable. This reminded him of the way gas pumps pump oil into a car's tank at a gas station—presumably the same thing.

"Takeda, I'll be in charge of the hospital tonight." He said in a slightly firm tone, "Is it okay to wash up later? Around seven or eight o'clock."

"You come?"

"The commuting expenses for this trip to the hospital and back must be quite high, enough to buy you breakfast," he said. "I don't have anything urgent to do."

Takeda fell silent again, and it was unclear whether he disagreed or was dissatisfied with his attitude and behavior.

"This is what I need from you." He added, "The animation team is under time pressure regarding the main role, and I don't want to see my illustrations fail, so I'm asking you to help out.

"If I help you, you will have the energy to help me, right?" He spoke reasonably and showed a friendly and gentle smile.

"Inoue..." Takeda put down his chopsticks before he finished his salad. He looked serious and said in a serious tone, "I really don't like the way you talk..."

"In what way?"

"You say you're helping me out, but you're doing it for your own benefit, as if I don't owe you anything for the benefit I've received."

"Isn't that good?"

"Not good!" Takeda probably had no appetite for his salad anymore. "Helping is helping, and good intentions are good intentions. But you always act like you're not involved, which makes me uncomfortable."

She stood up, piled the remaining salad bowl on the aluminum plate commonly used for rice in the hospital cafeteria, and turned to leave.

He sat in his seat, silent for a long time, neither asking her to stay nor giving any response on the spot; nor did he take out his cell phone to send a message to Takeda to confirm whether she accepted his proposal.

It wasn't until Amano and Sakurai and their group flashed out from the cafeteria entrance that he heard Sakurai calling his name from afar, which caused a series of echoes like the other noises, that he came to his senses.

"Inoue——!" The whole cafeteria could hear this voice.

Sakurai was the one leading the way. Instead of ordering food first, he walked towards him first.

"Why did you finish eating without waiting for us?" she asked him.

"Come to the cafeteria to eat?" He glanced past Sakurai and looked at Amano.

"Sakurai said he wanted to try the food in the hospital cafeteria." Amano explained with a slightly helpless tone - at least that's how it sounded to him.

"We will all be sick and hospitalized in the future! Let's try it first. If it doesn't taste good, we won't come to this hospital," said Sakurai.

"When you're hospitalized, you usually eat set meals, not the cafeteria." He gave all his remaining patience to Sakurai, "Secondly, it's you who will always have it, not us."

"Inoue-san, can you guarantee that you will never get sick?"

"People won't go to the hospital for minor illnesses, but for major illnesses, we just need to take precautions." He seemed to be talking about a trivial matter that was not worth mentioning.

"It's not that easy... there are always unexpected things."

"That's because you always have accidents." His remaining patience had been exhausted, and he said harshly, "I will never have an accident in my life." At least in terms of physical health, it was like this in his previous life. Minor illnesses were common, but he had lived a stable life for decades without a serious illness that required hospitalization.

When I go to the hospital, I usually visit relatives or friends who are hospitalized, or have a regular physical check-up.

Thinking about it now, it was quite rare. I passed away peacefully in my sleep.

"Really?" Amano suddenly became inexplicably interested. "There won't be any accidents in my life?"

"Of course." He vowed.

After high school there is only college. Even if they go to the same college, they will inevitably go their separate ways after graduation - can this person observe and monitor him for the rest of his life, just waiting to laugh at him when something happens?

"Boasting..." Sakurai complained.

After the competition between Kimura and Kato ended, Sakurai asked him to go to the welfare home with him, revealing his true purpose of winning him over, and he had not yet realized how unpleasant this person's words were.

It seems that this is her nature.

Or maybe, it was just because he was still resentful of being cheated and deceived.

"Let's not talk about that!" Sakurai interrupted the discussion and asked him, "How does the ramen taste?"

“It’s okay,” he said. “I recommend the curry rice. Remember to only buy half a portion so as not to waste food.”

"Okay, now that we have the research results for ramen and curry, I'll try a third type." Sakurai said this, pulling Amano, leading Kimura and Kato to serve the rice.

Amano brought over a bowl of ramen that looked exactly like his.

Sakurai bought a fried meat cake set meal and a bowl of salad like Takeda's, but with only half the amount of sauce squeezed on top.

Kimura's meal was a set meal consisting of only vegetables and a fried egg, with rice as the main dish and some pickled vegetables on the side.

Kato ordered some udon noodles.

In the end, everyone except Sakurai finished their portion of food, but she couldn't finish half of it, feeling it was too salty and greasy to swallow. But adhering to the principle of not wasting food, she forced herself to stuff the remaining rice with gravy into her mouth one mouthful at a time.

"So, if you get sick in the future, will you come to this hospital?" he asked in a stern tone.

"..." Sakurai ignored him.

Amano was watching the show from the side, with the corners of his mouth curled up, perhaps he didn't even realize it.

If only the camera on the phone could be muted, he could take a secret photo and send it to her - he couldn't help but think so.

Igarashi was going home to have lunch with his family at noon, which was a reunion after many days, so he had already left the hospital.

They no longer had any reason to stay in the hospital, so after finishing their meal in the cafeteria, they walked out of the hospital building together and left.

He followed them, confirmed the location and time of the dinner party in the evening, sent them to the hospital entrance, and then turned back to the inpatient department.

"Do you need help?" Amano briefly left the crowd and asked him while standing in front of the hospital door.

"unnecessary."

"Also," she nodded and smiled, "Hao Shigao wrote back."

"agreed?"

"agreed."

Amano pursed his lips slightly, his expression showing a slight glow that only comes from relaxation.

Only the two of them knew about this.

After informing him of this, Amano said goodbye to him and walked quickly towards Sakurai and others who were waiting for her, returning to "the garden that belonged to her."

He watched the colorful butterfly ribbon tied behind Amano disappear at the end of his sight, then he withdrew his gaze and turned to walk towards the inpatient department.

Even though Xiang Takeda said he had "nothing to do", he couldn't spend the entire afternoon chatting with Takeda's mother.

I always have to find something to do in the hospital so I can make the most of my time...

He kept thinking about this on the way back to the inpatient department and to Takeda's mother's ward.

The most convenient thing is of course to read books, but apart from textbooks, he currently has no other books that he must read.

The light novels that the co-illustrators had either just been submitted recently or they didn't even have a definite submission date for the next volume.

If I have to say, I might want to take a closer look at Asakura's "The Wrong Kind of Love".

But that kind of novel... can I really read it in front of Takeda's mother?
Even though it's possible that one of the heroines in the future might be her daughter—if Takeda's mother were to find out about this, who knows how things would develop...

After much deliberation, he decided to just let Takeda's mother know, take a walk outside in the afternoon, find something else to do, agree on a time, and come back in the evening. After delivering dinner, he would go to the gathering, and then help Takeda's mother wash up when he came back.

This arrangement is appropriate.

As he was thinking this, he passed the nurse who was always in a hurry in the corridor. When he reached the door of the ward where Takeda's mother was, he heard a burst of uncontrollable coughing in the ward.

The timbre of the voice mixed in it sounds a little familiar.

The four-person ward has two doors like a school classroom. Takeda's mother's bed has windows on two sides, and the corresponding door is the one at the end of the corridor.

He didn't walk to the end of the corridor. He pushed the door open when he saw it and walked in. Naturally, the first people he saw were the other patients on the side near the door.

When he turned his gaze to Takeda's mother, she was kicking the trash can beside the bed under the bed.

She looked him in the eye and greeted him, her expression remaining calm and her smile gentle.

"Is it Inoue-kun who comes to take care of mom today?" There was even some joy in his tone, and there was no sign of anything unusual.

"If you don't mind."

"No, no!" Takeda's mother waved her hands repeatedly.

"And I can't stay with you all afternoon. I have to leave for a while occasionally." He walked past several other beds and came to Takeda's mother.

The iron lunch box that Takeda brought was still on the bedside, with some washed grapes in it.

"Auntie's physical condition..." He paused for a moment, searching for the right words and weaving together the words, "I'll let Takeda know after the examination."

"We've been discovered..." Takeda's mother smiled helplessly.

"Why hide it..." He found a plastic chair nearby and sat down, then pulled out the trash can that he had kicked under the bed.

There was paper wrapped in spit, which was slightly red.

"If Xiaoqi finds out, won't it cause more trouble? At least for the next few days..." Takeda's mother said in a slightly lighter tone, "The medical insurance review hasn't been approved yet, and the police station hasn't made any progress. Whether she knows or not, I'll have to be hospitalized for the next few days..."

"If it's serious and it's too late, won't it be more trouble than gain?" He didn't quite understand.

"It's been checked once, and they're undergoing treatment."

"Just Takeda doesn't know?" He thought, maybe they will quarrel again tomorrow.

"It's just that Xiaoqi doesn't know." Takeda's mother winked at him, asking him to keep it a secret, with some pleading in her voice.

He probably understood, he thought.

He nodded, and Takeda's mother became happy again, like a child.

(End of this chapter)