CHAPTER 517: CHAPTER 351: THE TEMPERATURE THAT FILLS

The sunset heads west.

Every time I stand in the train car, listening to the slow sound of the electric train, watching the golden clouds of sunset in the distance, there is always a sense of solitude in my heart.

This is probably due to being influenced by various films and TV works since childhood—seeing the dusk, it’s as if you’re feeling the emotions of dusk.

The shadow behind him also seemed to see through his heart and kept changing in solitude.

Uesugi Sakura wanted to understand where this emotion stemmed from. His mind began to ponder, the light inside the car started to change, the train wailed, and it wasn’t until the train stopped and Uesugi Sakura saw the crowd standing together waiting outside the window, that he realized what this loneliness deep in his heart truly longed for.

The broadcast sounded on time.

The train stopped and opened its doors at that moment, with sunlight slanting through the window beside him.

He held the handrail and turned his head to look at the warm light beside him.

In a trance, the serene and quiet figure of Hanamaru Hanabi appeared in front of him.

She was wearing a high school uniform, holding a shoulder bag in front with her right hand, sharing the same handrail with him.

And Uesugi Sakura was beside her, usually she would initiate the conversation.

In the morning, she forgot her favorite hairpin, laughed at a character in a language class, found the money she dropped at noon while sweeping, today’s bento made by her mother was chili flavored... All trivial matters, yet she kept mentioning these daily routines to me, intentionally or unintentionally.

Her voice was very small, very weak, like a timid girl who anyone could bully.

Every time she initiated a conversation with him, she would always be a bit shy and embarrassed.

Sakura-kun...

Her voice floated in his ear.

Uesugi Sakura looked at the empty light beside him and suddenly smiled, raising his head again to look out the window.

The sunset traveling westward over Tokyo at that moment seemed warmer than before.

Someone on the train saw his smile and wondered why he was smiling at the ground.

Uesugi Sakura could only tell them, it was memories.

——————

"Five croquettes, that will be 800 yen."

"Welcome next time."

...

Uesugi Sakura walked along the street, crossed the overpass, and returned home.

"I’m back."

...

The air was quiet for a few seconds, with no response.

"No one home?"

Usually, in such a situation, Aei would be the first to run out, asking if her brother brought cake today.

There’s no sound at the moment, she probably hasn’t come home yet.

After putting down the plastic bag, Uesugi Sakura returned to his bedroom and lay on the bed.

The softness of the big bed and the lingering gentle scent of little Hanabi made his brows relax and his mind clear.

He looked around, and saw that there were art supplies on the work table, a landscape painting hanging on a nearby easel, with paints neatly arranged in a box below.

Every time she painted, she had to back and forth to deal with wastewater, and it seemed quite tiring.

This house still doesn’t have a separate studio for Hanabi.

Illustrations can be completed on the computer.

For oil paintings, watercolors, and the like, she could only go to the balcony.

In the summer, with the girl’s delicate skin, she often attracted mosquitoes.

Uesugi Sakura saw a pile of messy white A4 papers on Hanabi’s work desk.

He knew these were for her usual sketches, and he got up to tidy them up a bit for her.

"What’s this drawing?" Uesugi Sakura reached out and flipped through the sketches before him.

Some were simple lines, it was unclear what they were drawing.

Some were many scattered lines intertwining, but you could understand this was the outline of an elbow.

Then there were sketches of faces, hands, noses, and eyes, which were clear, some even nearly complete, yet still abandoned in this pile of papers.

Uesugi Sakura actually thought these parts were drawn quite well.

To others, reaching this level would be a stroke of luck, yet she just discarded them in the waste paper pile.

Perhaps this is the realm of a master.

Flipping through them one by one, Uesugi Sakura lingered a few dozen more seconds on some sketches of a girl’s foot lines.

He had to admit, it was quite captivating.

Just seeing these pencil sketches gave a sense of holding delicate intricacy in his palm.

No, the more I look, the more it gets to me.

Uesugi Sakura hurriedly moved those things out of his line of sight.

But as he moved them, he saw a diary at the bottom.

Usually, Hanamaru Hanabi would keep her diary locked, unseen.

This one was new, not yet started.

It seemed to have a few sketch papers tucked inside.

Tucked into the diary?

Uesugi Sakura, somewhat curious, took out the sketch papers.

"This is...?"

At first glance at the content of the sketch paper, he laughed.

The drawing was of himself.

At night, moving stealthily, eyes gleaming, reaching claws towards the girl sleeping beside him.

The actions and expressions of both sides were vivid.

Uesugi Sakura admitted, he had done this, more than once.

He thought Hanamaru Hanabi slept soundly, but now it seemed she knew, and knew very clearly.

Was she pretending to be asleep, deliberately baiting?

Further flipping through, every sketch was something wrong he had done to her.

...Of course, these are things that can only be grasped in sense, not easily spoken.

By the time he reached the last one.

Uesugi Sakura was somewhat dumbfounded.

The content was still pure love, the other was still Hanamaru Hanabi, with her face pressed against his chest... and himself...

With a broad smile...

Sorry, that’s the only way to describe it.

Uesugi Sakura looked again and again, little Hanabi was quite adorable, but himself—

Himself—

...actually... drew himself looking so bashful...

Ahem... it just leaned more towards a girlish style.

Back in high school, if classmates found this, it would absolutely spread like wildfire among the girls.