"I've been here for more than two months." Nan Youxi stroked the girl's hair. "Even at home, I haven't stayed here for such a long time. If I tell your beloved aunt, she will be jealous to death."
"I don't care." Moyu pressed her face against Nan Youxi's chest and abdomen, her fair forehead and small nose tip pressing against Nan Youxi's skin through her clothes.
She tightened her grip around Nan Youxi's waist.
"My brother still owes me a painting." Her voice was dull.
"I don't owe you any paintings."
"Eight years ago, that portrait of me in a dress, as tall as me, was meant for me, right?"
"No."
"lie!"
"I'll give you the painting of Yuyuan."
"I'm not in there!"
"You can be added."
"I want a full body painting!"
“… I should go back.”
Nan Youxi lowered his head and looked at the long hair of the girl lying on his chest. He prepared many farewell words and many witty remarks that might ease the atmosphere, but when he opened his mouth, he could no longer say those words.
He thought about the painting the girl mentioned. The painting was still hanging in his studio in Misaki. Every time he returned to Misaki, he would go over to take a look at it.
He kept the painting as a souvenir. It was the only painting that fully depicted the girl's face.
He thought that maybe he should continue what he hadn't completed eight years ago and give the painting to Moyu.
Now that she has made the promise, will Moyou be happy? No, she doesn't want the painting, she just wants to stay here.
"Wait another month, until after my birthday." Mayu raised her head, her black hair fell, revealing her tearful cheeks.
[You later thought that Moyou might not be angry. She wasn't mad that you spent more time talking to others than to her. Rather, she saw from the timing and your expression that you were about to leave. The girl didn't know how to face you, so she pretended to be angry and didn't get close to you to give herself some time to buffer.]
[You can see that from the moment you landed on the island, Mayu has been trying to prolong the time you spend together.]
[After you said goodbye, the girl dropped all her plans, hugged your waist, and begged you to wait for another month until her birthday was over.]
[You agree to it.]
[You make up your mind that after one month, no matter what happens, you will leave this island.]
[At night, Moyou hugged the pillow again and opened your door. ]
[You were speechless, and sighed that the girl never missed any opportunity. She thought that you would agree to her request because of the guilt you felt for parting.]
You rejected her.
[There is a calendar hanging in your bedroom. It was printed by Shagui and Hongyi's company. There are pictures of the company's honors under the date.]
[You circled thirty-one days later on the calendar. That was Mayu's birthday. You crossed out today's date, representing the passage of time.]
[This painting is for the girl to see. You use this countdown-like method to tell Mayu that you are very determined this time.]
[The next morning, the girl came to your room and wanted to wake you up. She found you already sitting on the bed, and she felt a little uneasy. This uneasiness became clear after she saw the calendar, and reached its peak after you didn't ask her to help you wash up.]
[She uses the same old tricks again, telling some ambiguous lies, trying to irritate you and make you hit her head and pinch her cheeks.]
[You just lightly denied it, not to mention your behavior, even your words were very formal. Formalism is alienation.]
[You think that it is because you are too close to the girl that Mayu sticks to you so much and won't let you leave.]
[When you board the Utajima Island, you will regard this reunion as a remembrance, a time to stand outside the display glass, limited to sight, without touching or inner appreciation. ]
[It was Mayu who removed the display glass with her youthful emotions and vitality, and you couldn't resist the temptation. ]
[Now, you are prepared.]
[You want your relationship to return to your original state. You remember the girl through viewing, and the girl remembers her childhood plans through viewing. Viewing contains the meaning of short time and the prophecy of separation. No exhibition can last forever.]
[This way, your separation after a month can be a true farewell.]
[Is this really the thought that made you distance yourself from the girl?]
[Moyou tried for two days, but found that she couldn't make your relationship closer again, so she gave up. ]
[You treat each other with respect, she is like the proprietress of a hotel, and you are a guest who comes to visit. ]
[The girl introduces you to her friend, Rinka Ryuuguu. ]
[She is a somewhat lazy girl, shorter than Moyu, and has an outgoing personality.]
[Moyu introduced Ryuuguu Rinka to you, which has a deeper meaning. She gave up working on herself and chose to rely on external forces.]
[The homeroom teacher Imagawa Mana who came to my house last time is a relative of Rinka. ]
[Moyu wants to use Rinka's relationship to bring you and your homeroom teacher together. ]
[They arranged a study session, called Imagawa Mana, and then both of them broke the appointment, leaving you and Imagawa Mana alone at home.]
[At this time, you understood Mayu's intention. The girl believed that as long as you found someone you liked in Sakura Hill, you would never leave.]
[Her idea is not wrong, but she underestimated your single mentality. ]
[During the conversation with Imagawa Mana, you suddenly realized that something was wrong with your emotions, so you violated your plan of cooling off and caused trouble.]
Memory scenes emerge.
Most of the trees on Utajima are evergreen, with only a few trees that were specially transplanted and will grow yellow leaves in late autumn.
The one outside Asagiri's house is one of them.
The yellow leaves with some red in them were blown by the bleak autumn wind, and they left the branches and fluttered down. They were swept by the wind and flew towards the deep blue sea, as if they were going to plunge into the dense waves. But the wind was not strong enough, and the yellow leaves only floated three steps to the edge of the cliff and fell on the brown land.
"Moyu and Rinka said that they met acquaintances in the city and couldn't refuse, so they will be back a while later." Imagawa Mana put down her phone and looked at the man opposite her.
The man stared at the scenery outside with a wandering look. One of his legs was curled up and the other was supported on the floor with his knee bent. His expression was the same as his eyes, like a leaf floating in the air.
Imagawa Mana followed the man's gaze and glanced at the yellow leaves outside. She thought, the man was the falling leaf, who just happened to fall in front of her. As soon as the wind blew, the man would follow the wind to an unknown place.
Moreover, Imagawa Mana's cheeks are slightly red, which makes her look very handsome.
If she picked up such a leaf, she would definitely handle it carefully and make it into the best fallen leaf specimen and place it on her desk.
The man's answering voice came, and this voice was just as ethereal.
"Rinka asked us to wait a moment." Imagawa Mana lowered her head. She vaguely guessed the two girls' plan.
If the object is the man in front of her, she would be willing, but she is not the one who holds the decision.
The clothes and accessories she carefully selected when she came over did not attract any attention from the other party.
She tightly grasped the pendants on the handbag next to her. There were two pendants, one was a sword and the other was a sachet. One of the two pendants was a prop from a very famous game, and the other was the icon of a very famous game company.
Rinka told her that the other party could play games, and she specially prepared these two pendants to use them to start a conversation.
She failed.
The fantasy in her heart also died out, or rather, it was extinguished by herself.
The difference between adults and teenagers is that adults will take the initiative to extinguish the flames of impossibility, leaving not even a trace of fantasy, and in the extinguishing of desire, they will create a trace of false happiness.
Imagawa Mana was happy. She felt that the man in front of her was just like that. Things that had nothing to do with her were always just like that. With a false sense of carefreeness and a revengeful mentality that was hard to tell whether it was true or not, she asked about the news she had found out.
"I heard from others that Mr. Nan is Moyu's fiancé?" She looked into Nan Youxi's eyes, hoping to see surprise in them.
The man's gaze quickly withdrew from outside the house, from a wandering state to a focused state, looking at her.
Those eyes were filled with a sense of vicissitudes and purity, which reminded Imagawa Mana of a pool of fallen leaves floating in the deep mountains.
"That's what Moyu said." Nan Youxi saw the hostility in the woman in front of her.
He was used to this sudden and slight hostility. No matter if it was a man or a woman, once they had a yearning for someone and then cruelly extinguished this yearning, they would have hostility in their hearts. Only hostility could dilute the longing.
The solution to this hostility is very simple. As long as he is more enthusiastic and makes the other party think "maybe I can do it", the hostility will quickly turn back to admiration, and there will be an extra sense of guilt. By making good use of the guilt generated during this transformation, you can get the other party to help you do something.
However, Minami Yuxi did not ask Imagawa Mana for help, he yawned.
"When we first met, Mr. Nan pretended to have the last name Asagiri and said he was Mayu's brother."
"Um."
"Mr. Nan is almost thirty years old, and Moyou is only seventeen! This kind of marriage contract made by the previous generation is not appropriate in this era!"
After saying all this in one breath, Imagawa Mana suddenly felt regretful. She had not intended to say it so bluntly. She wanted the man to let go of Mayu and try with her. It was because she had just exposed the lies that Minami Yuki had told her, but the man did not show any apology, which annoyed her.
"Not only that." Nan Youxi replied.
"Huh?" Imagawa Shin was stunned.
"I'm older than Mayu's father." Minami Yuki continued, "When Mayu was young, Saki and Koichi were very busy, so I took care of her for a long time."
He didn't know why he said such a thing. He should just do as Mayu said and let time dilute other people's memories after he left.
Imagawa Mana was shocked by this shocking fact. She carefully looked at the man opposite her. From his face, he was only in his twenties. She said he was almost thirty because the man's temperament did not seem like a young man who had just entered society.
"Then you and Mayu..."
"Just came to see her."
"Sorry." Imagawa Mana's shoulders trembled and her face flushed.
If what the man said was true, then what did she just say!
"I'm so sorry!" She put her hands on the floor and rested her forehead on it.
"It's okay, Mr. Imagawa is not unaware of the situation..."
"Aha!" Moyu ran in from the backyard, and her sudden shout interrupted Nan Youxi's words.
The girl jumped onto the floor, and her feet in light blue socks made a series of dull sounds as they stepped on the floor.
"The teacher really believed it." She put her hands behind her back, walked to the low table, bent down to look at Imagawa Mana, and smiled smugly: "My brother lied to you."
"Huh?" Imagawa was really confused.
"It's my fiancé, but I need my brother's approval." Mayu pushed down her skirt and sat down at the low table. "I don't necessarily want my brother to marry me. If Imagawa-sensei can please my brother, I can give him to the teacher."
"Ah?" Imagawa Mana looked at Mayu, then at Minami Yuki. Her thoughts seemed to be mixed in a cotton candy machine, tangled into a messy and soft ball.
"Aunt, my mother called us, let's go." Rinka Ryuguya also came in from the backyard. She took Imagawa Mana's hand and went out the door.
Imagawa Mana looked at Mayu, who was sitting opposite Minami Yuki with her head down. Minami Yuki was still sitting casually, and he looked at the girl. She couldn't figure out the truth of the matter, but she understood that the feelings between the two were a little complicated.
The footsteps of Rinka Ryuguya and Mana Imagawa faded away. Minami Yuki and Mayu sat down separately, and the living room was very quiet.
"You fooled the teacher!" Moyu raised her face, stuck out her scarlet tongue, and pretended to laugh.
"I don't think there's any need to lie." Nan Youxi looked into her eyes and had no intention of trying to fool the girl.
“…” The smile on the girl’s face slowly disappeared.
She lowered her head again, staring at her hands resting on the hem of her skirt. These deft hands had received numerous compliments for her painting, handicrafts, and cooking, but such a pair of hands still could not resolve her worries or create the future she wanted.
"I think my brother might like this feeling." Moyu said in a low voice.
She said Yuki was her fiancé, not just to make Yuki feel at ease living in her house, not just to stop the rumors.
After leaving Misaki, the girl often fantasized about her reunion with the man because of her longing for him. Based on that fantasy, she tried hard to think about how to please the man as soon as possible after the reunion.
She got her current tactics from TV dramas, comics, and novels, including her teasing of Yuuki about her lust, which was also learned from the girls in the stories. In those stories, the male protagonists were all happy, and the endings of all the stories were that the male protagonist lived with his fake fiancée forever.
Nan Youxi reached out his hand, patted her head and comforted her. He didn't mean to blame the girl. It was normal for a girl of this age to make some ridiculous mistakes.
The girl raised her head and glanced at his face secretly.
"A pretty JK suddenly claims to be his fiancée or something, which is indeed in line with men's fantasies. As long as a girl does this, she should be able to quickly capture the other person's heart."
“What about brother…?” Moyu smiled faintly.
"That's JK, not Mayu." Minami Yuki said, "There's no need to fantasize about my relationship with Mayu."
"You're lying! If I hadn't told you that lie, my brother would have left Uta Island long ago!"
"A few days ago, Mayu asked me not to leave, so I stayed, didn't I?"
(End of this chapter)