I play the wind instrument in Hokkaido.

Page 132

"I heard that your only friends are me and Huili."

"what?"

“I heard Huili say that you told her that your only real friends are me and her.”

Saito Haruka's breathing quickened, unsure of what to say, and she simply looked at the small, exquisite teacup.

Nagase Tsukiyo placed her hands on her thighs and said calmly:

"Even if you say that, neither Huili nor I will elevate your status in our hearts. You brought this upon yourself."

"Hmm—" Saito Haruka lowered her eyes slightly, as if to alleviate the bitterness in her heart, and picked up the black tea and drank it all in one gulp.

"What can you possibly taste from drinking like this?" Nagase Tsukiyo asked, frowning slightly.

“I am different from you two, Yueye. I wasn’t born rich, and I drank black tea because of you.”

Saito Harutori stood up and pushed the chair behind her forward.

"They're gone?" Nagase Tsukiyo said.

"if not?"

A faint smile appeared on Nagase Tsukiyo's lips:

"I'm in such a hurry, I haven't agreed to go to the Daoxin Fireworks Festival yet."

Saito Haruka gripped the back of the chair tightly, about to whisper, "I can manage on my own," when Nagase Tsukiyo's phone rang.

"Hmm... in Hakodate, not yet, with Harutori, um, the place we were at before, um, okay—"

She put her phone in her bag, sighed helplessly, and said:

"My mother is coming over, you'd better sit down."

Saito Harutori lingered for a while before finally sitting down. If she hadn't said she wanted to be with him, he probably would have just left.

But having already said it, leaving immediately would be disrespectful.

"Are you still a child, constantly being watched by your family?"

Saito Harutori sat down, puzzled, picked up the cup to drink, only to find that she had just finished it all in one go.

"Another cup, please," said Nagase Tsukiyo.

"No, I can't drink anymore,"

Saito Harutori pulled out her phone and scrolled through the screen looking for people who could be with her at the Doshin Fireworks Festival.

There are many female students and classmates, but I feel that being with them would be tiring.

After thinking it over and over again, I still couldn't find a suitable person, so I had no choice but to put my phone in my pocket.

The two waited in the store for at least half an hour before a black luxury sedan finally appeared at the store entrance. Judging from the wheels, the car was obviously expensive.

A voluptuous and beautiful young woman entered the store and observed for a while before noticing Nagase Tsukiyo and the other woman.

As soon as she sat down, she placed her small handbag on her lap. The color of the handbag complemented her slender and long fingers, giving her an overall pure and charming look.

"Nase-nee, you look so beautiful today," Saito Haruka said with a smile.

A faint smile appeared on Nagase's mother's face. Her light peach-colored nails had a healthy sheen, and her soft fingers seemed to move merrily as if playing the piano.

She gently gathered her slender fingers together, tilted her head slightly, and asked with a smile:

"Sunny Bird, what are you two doing here?"

"I'll just rest for a while, then I'll go to Harutori's house to study," Nagase Tsukiyo replied directly.

At that moment, the waiter came over, and Nagase's mother ordered a cup of Earl Grey tea.

"Really? I thought you came here together to watch the wind instrument competition."

A smile that was both heart-wrenching and gentle came over, and Saito Haruka's head remained almost still as she glanced sideways at Nagase Tsukiyo.

She simply looked down at the almost empty cup of black tea, her face showing no sign of suspicion.

"Yes, come out and rest for a bit, then come to my house later." Saito Harutori smiled gently as always, her voice sounding particularly warm.

"is it?"

Nagase's mother turned to Nagase Tsukiyo with a gentle smile, stroking her as if she were handling an extremely fragile object.

"Mom is very happy that you did well on your regular tests."

"Um...:

77

Nagase Tsukiyo's fingers intertwined on her legs, her cherry-pink and delicate nails neatly trimmed.

"But there's one more thing I want to ask you."

Nagase's mother spoke calmly, casting a puzzled look at him.

"Why did more than three million yuan suddenly appear in your account? Who gave it to you? I asked your grandparents, and they didn't say they gave it to you."

"Ugh—!"

Her mother's words were like a beehive being disturbed, causing Nagase Tsukiyo's eyes to widen suddenly, and almost instinctively she raised her chin to say...

"How dare you peek at my money?!"

"I'm doing this for your own good. Explain to me where this money came from. Moonlit Night, Mom is very worried about you."

The sunlight outside the window gradually climbed up Nagase Tsukiyo's calves, and her breathing became erratic.

Kitahara Hakuba didn't use a bank transfer to send money to Nagase Tsukiyo; instead, he used another platform to transfer the money, and Nagase Tsukiyo then withdrew the balance into her bank card.

“More than three million yen, isn’t that a bit too much for a female high school student? In May, your bank account balance was only a little over seven hundred thousand yen. How did it suddenly increase by so much?” Nagase’s mother asked with a worried expression.

Nagase Tsukiyo gripped her skirt tightly with her fingers, her brows furrowed, and she didn't say a word.

"Haru, do you know what happened?" Nagase's mother's gaze fell on the girl sitting opposite her.

Saito Haruka felt a sense of relief. She hadn't known about this beforehand, but suddenly it all made sense.

Nagase Tsukiyo had already left the club, yet she was still involved with Kitahara Hakuba, which seemed strange no matter how you looked at it.

Combining this with the music books I peeked into the library last time, and this million-dollar remittance...

An idea suddenly popped into Saito Haruka's mind: Nagase Tsukiyo wanted to apply to a music school, but she definitely couldn't afford the tuition and living expenses without asking her family for help.

Kitahara Hakuba learned of this fact through some opportunity and chose to help with the remittance.

However, because of the mistake, she cannot draw such a conclusion so easily.

But one thing is certain: Nagase Tsukiyo definitely doesn't want her mother to find out about this.

If we could take this opportunity to clarify everything about the moonlit night...

But... it still didn't work.

“Actually, this money was given to Tsukiyo by me,” Saito Harutori said calmly.

Nagase Tsukiyo bit her lip hard, glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.

"You gave it to me?"

Nagase's mother frowned slightly, almost subconsciously observing her daughter's reaction, then picked up the black tea the waiter had brought, took a sip, and said...

"Okay, you gave us over three million doors? What's the purpose?"

"this....

?

Saito Harutori could sense the increasingly tense atmosphere. She raised her hand and rubbed the brown strands of hair on her chest, saying...

"I don't know, I just gave it to Yueye if she wanted it."

She passed the ball to Nagase Tsukiyo, and the girl visibly flinched for a moment before saying somewhat timidly:

"Um... I asked Qingniao for it to buy cosmetics. You should know that those things are very expensive."

"What cosmetics do you need at home? I've never seen you use them much before, so why do you suddenly want to buy cosmetics?" Nagase's mother asked directly.

Seeing Tsukiyo's increasingly flustered expression, Saito Harutori sighed helplessly.

She appears imposing, but in reality, she's more timid than anyone else and can't hide anything.

Seeing that her daughter hesitated to answer, Nagase's mother had already made up her mind and said:

"Moonlit night, do you still miss music college?"

Nagase Tsukiyo remained silent, timid as she was.

However, her behavior and actions seemed very childish to Nagase's mother, who gave her an icy smile and said:

"I know you were working as a private piano teacher a while ago. What were you thinking? That you could earn enough money to go to the school you like? That you could survive even if your family didn't give you money?"

Having her thoughts directly exposed, Nagase Tsukiyo seemed unwilling to face it, turning her head to one side and letting her long hair cover her cheeks.

"It sounds like you're very self-reliant, but it's actually still the young lady's idea, because you think that even if you can't pay back the money Qingniao gave you, you can ask your family for it in the future and pay it back slowly."

Nagase's mother spoke with an air of superiority and absolute confidence, as if mocking how naive her daughter's beliefs were.

"Stop talking..."

"You went to see the Shin-hsu Brass Band's concert today, right? You actually still want to be on stage?"

"Moonlit night, answer me." Nagase's mother stroked her thigh and said softly, "Is what I've said true?"

Nagase Tsukiyo lowered her head as if she were ashamed. She had kept it a secret for so long, but she never expected to be discovered.

“I don’t want to go to the University of Tokyo…” she said through gritted teeth. “I want to keep playing the trumpet… Is that really impossible?”

"Okay."

"why not?"

Nagase Tsukiyo tried her best to suppress the heat in the corners of her eyes, but then she heard something she didn't expect.

“Alright, you can continue playing the trumpet. The school told me that you have no problem getting into the University of Tokyo based on your recent test scores,” Nagase’s mother said.

"Really...really? Let me keep bragging?"

Nagase Tsukiyo suddenly became flustered, her expression blank.