Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 308: Tokyo Love Story (4)

Dragon Raja 3

Lu Mingfei sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, letting out a satisfied burp, while Erii lay on the coffee table, playing with her little dolls.

The rain pattered against the window, and the soft sound enveloped the world. Late-night stragglers ran past with umbrellas, the street gradually emptying, as the traffic lights changed monotonously.

The room was too quiet, making Lu Mingfei feel a bit uneasy. He wanted to talk to this strange girl to help pass the time after their meal, but he had no experience chatting with girls.

Back in high school, there was a delinquent from another school named Liang Wendao, known in the underworld as Dao Ge. He used to cause trouble at Lu Mingfei’s school. Dao Ge appreciated Lu Mingfei’s skills and creativity in StarCraft and had once taught him how to approach girls. Dao Ge said that all flirting could be divided into two categories: soft and hard. Soft flirting began with casual, light topics like, “You look a lot like someone I know,” or, “Nice weather today, right?” Gradually, you’d go deeper, taking it step by step. When the enemy advances, you retreat; when the enemy stays, you harass; when the enemy tires, you attack; and when the enemy retreats, you pursue. Hard flirting, according to Liang Wendao, was for real men—like when you follow a pretty girl down a long alley, suddenly pick up a brick, block her way, and, with a domineering look, say, “Hey, I found something you dropped. Is this yours?”

Lu Mingfei knew he didn’t have Dao Ge’s boldness, so he had to start soft.

“Sure is raining hard,” Lu Mingfei wrote in his little notebook and showed it to Erii.

“I’m going to take a bath,” Erii wrote back.

Lu Mingfei thought to himself, Hey, hey, hey! How do you, a Japanese girl, know the classic dialogue between a goddess and a loser? Could you cut me some slack?

Then Erii untied her belt… Lu Mingfei quickly turned around and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, a pile of red and white shrine maiden clothes lay on the floor, like a beautiful fairy had shed her chrysalis. The sound of running water came from the bathroom. This girl really loves taking baths, Lu Mingfei thought.

Only then did he realize that his loser mentality had created some very specific mental circuits. He recalled the days when he’d wait for hours for Chen Wenwen on QQ, then start chatting with her about the literature club, only to run out of things to talk about and resort to joking and sending random emojis. Chen Wenwen would respond with a standard smiley face and then say, “I’m going to help my mom with dinner,” or, “I’m going to warm up some milk,” or, “I’m going to take a bath.” Lu Mingfei would wait on QQ, but nine times out of ten, Chen Wenwen’s avatar would never light up again. He used to think she went to bed early—after her bath, she must have gone to sleep… Until years later, he saw the meme, “Haha, I’m going to take a bath.”

But Erii wasn’t Chen Wenwen. When she said she was going to take a bath, she really meant it. A straightforward girl like her was that direct. The moment she mentioned taking a bath, she had already started undressing.

Bored, Lu Mingfei turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels. Unfortunately for him, TBS was rerunning Tokyo Love Story, and Suzuki Honami was delivering her classic line:

“It’s impossible to love someone for your entire life. Love is just a momentary feeling. But I will cherish the love I had for you and the love you had for me. I will revisit these feelings in my heart often. Thinking about how this love might turn out tomorrow, I can’t love anyone else. Because the me from that time exists, the me now exists. And that makes me content.”

This was a really old Japanese drama, first aired in 1991, starring Suzuki Honami and Yuji Oda. The now-famous heartthrob Eguchi Yosuke had just started his career back then, playing the second male lead. In this drama, Suzuki played Akana Rika, a bright and always-smiling office worker who deeply loved her colleague, the perpetually cowardly Nagao Kanji. But Kanji’s true feelings were for his high school classmate, Sekiguchi Satomi. The entire series revolved around this love triangle, full of twists and turns. At one moment, Kanji and Rika were madly in love, and the next moment, Kanji would be tearfully gazing at Satomi. And Eguchi’s character, Mikami, would occasionally jump in and stir things up, flirting with both Rika and Satomi, indulging in all the little emotional dramas of capitalism.

But despite all that, the series had deeply moved Lu Mingfei back in the day. Even now, he could still recall the tune of the theme song, titled A Sudden Love Story.

It was because of Suzuki Honami’s portrayal of Akana Rika—the girl who always smiled like the sunshine of early summer. She was always cheerfully telling herself that Kanji would eventually fall in love with her. She loved Kanji, Kanji would love her, and her large backpack was filled with love and hope!

But in the end, Rika grew tired, gave up, and left. When she left, she was sitting on a train, and outside the window, the sun was setting. She absentmindedly found an old photo in her bag, and memories of the past played before her eyes. The sounds of the past echoed again. The girl who had always been smiling leaned wearily against the window, tears streaming down her face. This was the first time Lu Mingfei realized that not all love stories in the world had happy endings. He thought to himself, What was the point? After everything, all those moving moments were for nothing? Rika even brought a little snowman from Hokkaido as a gift for Kanji! They hugged and kissed in the snow! They both said ‘I love you’ so many times! Didn’t they promise that if one called from the top of the Himalayas, the other would immediately appear? Didn’t they say they’d bring hot oden for each other?

So, those words were just empty promises?

Lu Mingfei had listened to the ending theme over and over, while outside the internet café, a light rain was falling… He suddenly realized that this was reality—most love stories didn’t have a proper ending.

Some words were just said for the sake of saying them… like “I love you”… or “I’ll wait for you.”

As the long night stretched on, Lu Mingfei’s thoughts wandered.

He remembered one evening when he was having a late-night snack with Finger. Finger had been boasting, saying, “Back when I was an undergrad, I had deep, meaningful relationships with many junior girls. Each relationship made me want to break free from the shackles of feudal morality… but alas, there were no feudal shackles holding me back.”

Lu Mingfei replied, “Even if I believe you had lots of relationships with juniors, all you’ve done is prove yourself to be a scumbag. A true lover’s virtue lies in being devoted to one woman, even if she has a crooked neck! When you’re out with your new flame, don’t you ever think about the moonlight you shared that night when you swore eternal love with your old flame?”

Finger shook his head, “No, no. The philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice.’ This deeply illustrates the constantly changing nature of things. The me of yesterday is dead, the me of today is alive, and the me of tomorrow is being born. The me of yesterday fell in love with girl A, the me of today is in love with girl B, and the me of tomorrow has noticed that Russian girl named Zero in your year—quite attractive, both in figure and looks! Every version of me is new, and when I love a girl, I love her with all my heart. But I can’t stop myself from constantly dying.”

Lu Mingfei replied, “I think all you’ve proven is that you’re a scumbag.” Finger retorted, “No, it’s you who refuses to accept that the you of the future will be different from the you of today. How many girls have you liked?”

Lu Mingfei’s heart stirred as he thought of Chen Wenwen. He was too embarrassed to admit he had only liked one girl, so he said, “Two. Just two.”

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