He didn’t expect to complete the task『White Moonlight Falling into Darkness』so smoothly; Amaya Yuu’s steps on the way home were much lighter.
As soon as the single attribute point from the task reward arrived, he added it to his Stamina, but other than a warm current flowing through his body, he didn’t feel anything special.
Although a Stamina value of 3 was still weak, compared to the previous 2, it was already comparable to evolving from a university senior to a newly enrolled freshman.
Without any other unexpected distractions, Amaya Yuu returned to the apartment much earlier than usual, and he couldn’t wait to start his guitar practice.
Moving a tall bar stool to the centre of the living room, he sat upright on it with the guitar in his arms, his posture somewhat resembling a resident singer in a bar.
Following the diagrams in the phone tutorial, he clumsily adjusted his posture for holding the instrument, his fingers cautiously pressing down on the cold strings.
“Hiss—” It wasn’t as smooth as he had imagined; just trying to hold down a G chord took a huge amount of effort.
For the next few hours, the room was intermittently filled with various discordant sounds.
Fortunately, Misumi Uika wasn’t home, and he had no neighbours above, below, or to the sides; otherwise, someone probably would have come to his door to complain by now.
His fingers were like disobedient crabs, moving with difficulty on the fretboard; his left hand desperately tried to press the correct frets, while his right hand kept hitting strings it shouldn’t have when plucking.
“If only the task reward had been ‘Guitar Playing Technique’…” Amaya Yuu thought to himself, shaking his aching wrist as he looked at the simple score in the tutorial.
After failing an unknown number of times, finally, as he tried that damn F major barre chord once again,
“Ding-dong…”
A string of notes that weren’t very loud but were very harmonious jumped out.
“I did it!” Amaya Yuu almost jumped off his chair, a sense of accomplishment surging in his heart.
Even though his progress was fast by beginner standards, the difficulty of the guitar far exceeded his expectations.
Clearly, it was impossible to practise to the point of being able to play and sing in a short period of time.
Not to mention performing on the street; that would simply be asking for humiliation.
Moreover, after only practicing for over an hour, his wrist felt numb and sore, and his fingertips stung with a burning pain.
With a body that had only 3 points of Stamina, it was difficult to support high-intensity practice for a long time.
“As expected, I can’t rush it…” He gently put down the guitar, looking at his slightly reddened fingertips.
“I’ll just have to take it slow.”
Amaya Yuu glanced at the time and realised it was time to prepare dinner.
He set the guitar aside, and on a sudden whim, he picked up his phone to send Uika a message.
[Uika-san, would you like to come over for dinner tonight?]
This sentence flickered in the input box for a moment, but then he felt it was too direct and seemed a bit abrupt.
After hesitating, he deleted the line and re-evaluated his input:
[The weather is really clear tonight, it makes one’s desire to taste delicious food increase greatly.]
After clicking send, he added another sentence afterward:
[Uika-san, I plan to make a sumptuous dinner.
Would you like to come over and try it together?]
[Amaya Yuu: The weather is really clear tonight, it makes one’s desire to taste delicious food increase greatly.]
[Amaya Yuu: Uika-san, I plan to make a sumptuous dinner.
Would you like to come over and try it together?]
When Misumi Uika received these two messages, she was alone in the waiting room at the program recording site.
The faint light of the phone screen reflected on her slightly tired face; only when she was alone would she allow herself to show such an expression.
Weekends were rest days for ordinary people, but for an idol like her, there was no such thing as a holiday.
sumimi was an idol group on the rise, and their weekend schedules were always even more packed than their weekdays.
She looked at the dinner invitation from Amaya Yuu, her fingertips pausing over the screen for a moment.
She had a momentary daze, even imagining the other party busy in the kitchen wearing an apron, and a smile couldn’t help but appear on the corners of her mouth.
“I’m really exhausted…” Misumi Uika sighed softly and touched her flat belly through her performance costume.
Just then, the door to the waiting room was pushed open.
“Uika-chan, I’m back!” Sumita Mana, another member of the sumimi group, walked in cheerfully, carrying a paper bag containing two donuts.
Hearing the sound, Misumi Uika immediately put down her phone, straightened her back, and swept away her tired state without leaving a trace.
“Thanks, Mana-chan!” She took the donut.
Misumi Uika hadn’t originally felt hungry, but Amaya Yuu’s message seemed to remind her body, and the feeling of an empty stomach suddenly surged up clearly.
She carefully broke the donut into small pieces, taking care not to ruin her makeup while tasting it slowly.
The sweetness dissolved on the tip of her tongue, giving her tired heart a bit of solace.
“Is it good?
I just cast some ‘Deliciousness Magic’ on the donuts!” Sumita Mana looked at Uika expectantly.
“Yeah!” Misumi Uika smiled at Sumita Mana.
“The donuts are really delicious!”
“Uika-chan, Mana-chan, get ready for the next scene!”
Before she could take more than two bites, the manager’s knock on the door interrupted Misumi Uika’s eating.
Misumi Uika took a deep breath, rubbed her face, and put on a smile again like a warrior donning armor.
But before turning to leave, she did one last thing before going on stage: she opened the chat box with Amaya Yuu and quickly typed:
[Misumi Uika: Sorry, Amaya-kun, I’ve been working non-stop these past few days, and even my breaks are spent at the agency.
Once this busy period is over, I’ll properly taste your cooking.]
[Amaya Yuu: I see…
then I’ll wait for your good news!]
After sending the message, Amaya Yuu put down his phone with some disappointment, but he knew there was really no way around it; as a popular idol, she couldn’t possibly revolve around him.
After a busy life suddenly quieted down, facing the night alone always made one feel especially lonely.
Especially in this city he wasn’t yet familiar with; outside the window, Tokyo’s lights were prosperous, but they were separated from him by a thick layer of glass.
The excitement belonged to them and had nothing to do with him.
Some people might enjoy the freedom of being alone, but Amaya Yuu wasn’t that type.
Or rather, what he yearned for in his heart was a life with more ‘human presence’: having someone to share a delicious meal with, someone to respond when he joked around, and the sense of interaction brought by the traces left by another person in life, and so on.
Recalling those videos he had seen like ‘Challenge: Living Alone on a Deserted Island for 30 Days’,
“I’d probably go crazy before three days were up…” Amaya Yuu laughed at himself self-deprecatingly.
Thus, with no one to taste it, he couldn’t be bothered to make a very exquisite dinner and just threw together a simple rice bowl to finish the eating process.
That night, Amaya Yuu’s life returned to an almost monotonous routine, or rather, he tried his best to keep himself busy.
Aside from showering, he cycled between reviewing, practising the guitar, and doing practice problems.
When his fingertips got hot from rubbing against the strings, he would close the sheet music and lie on the bed to flip through a few pages of a book; when he grew tired of notes and formulas, he would get up and go to the desk to write a few sets of problems; when he became frustrated with the problems, he would pick up the guitar again and continue to stumble through chords.
“The process of becoming a ‘superhuman’ might just be such a boring thing.”