Laid-Back Life in Tokyo: I Really Didn't Want to Work Hard-Chapter 800 - 476: Light Novels, Visiting Family

The next day, upon waking up, Uesugi Sakura picked up the silver watch on the nearby tea table and glanced at the time.

8:52:59

In that instant, Uesugi Sakura felt a bit anxious because he still had classes to attend, but then he remembered that there weren’t any important classes today, so he decided to sleep and maybe sketch those headache-inducing drawings tomorrow.

He rolled over, hugging his daily companion, the Sharkshark, between his legs and snuggled its head as if he were nuzzling his wife’s cheek.

He began to imagine the softness of his wife’s cheeks in his head.

Morning jogs, hot breakfasts, washing up seemed unrelated to him now.

Just as he was about to close his eyes again, he suddenly remembered something—can he really be this lazy?

No, he hadn’t improved his wife’s favorability yet.

Besides... he had promised to take her back to see...

Uesugi Sakura sat up from the sofa, elbows resting on his knees, and stared at his hands.

In the next life, how should he tell her?

...

Time slowly ticked by.

He propped himself up from the sofa, went over to Hanamaru Hanabi’s room, and knocked on the door: 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"Hanabi, are you awake?"

Knock knock... knock knock...

He knocked twice more, and after confirming there was no response from Hanamaru Hanabi, he pushed the door open.

What he saw was the girl’s back as she sat in front of her computer.

The reason she didn’t hear the knock was because she was wearing headphones, likely listening to music.

Only when Uesugi Sakura got closer did he realize she was drawing, working on that Akizuki Katsuyama character design they discussed yesterday, with an expression and demeanor full of focus.

Moving closer, he noticed there were many photos on her desk.

Photos with her boyfriend, a back view he took of her at the fireworks festival, travel and excursion photos, date photos, and... the most striking one, a wedding photo...

Every photo seemed to surround that wedding photo, facing the girl sitting at the computer.

Uesugi Sakura looked at himself in the wedding photo, with tears barely held back in the corners of his eyes, yet the happiness was clearly written all over Hanamaru Hanabi’s face.

He thought to himself, that must have been the happiest moment, right?

Uesugi Sakura stood silently beside her, sneaking glances at her profile, watching her paintbrush move continuously.

It wasn’t until Hanamaru Hanabi was tired of drawing and took off her headphones to go to the bathroom that she realized Uesugi Sakura was standing behind her.

"Sakura?" She was obviously startled, "When did you get here?"

"Just now," Uesugi Sakura said with a smile on his face, "Actually, I just realized something."

"What is it?"

"It’s that just seeing you so happy from a distance already brings me a sense of joy."

"Sakura... seems like you’ve been saying a lot of strange things lately."

Uesugi Sakura gave a light smile, "You find it strange because we didn’t hug today."

Though her reaction was subtle, if you looked closely, you could see a faint pink blush emerging on Hanamaru Hanabi’s face: "No hugs... Sakura doesn’t get a second exception."

"Sakura! Instead of trying to improve your favorability, you’re just hoping Hanabi will make exceptions for you!"

Uesugi Sakura suddenly sensed she was a bit angry, and immediately put away his joking tone: "What’s wrong?"

"I’m deducting Sakura’s favorability points..."

"No, no, don’t!"

...

In life, sometimes you suddenly understand the saying, "A fall in the pit, a gain in your wit."

Uesugi Sakura realized that in this self-made love game, simply asking his girlfriend for a hug was pointless, because without caution, he might end up losing even more favorability points.

Speaking of, what were the rules of the dating game again?

"Sigh..."

As Uesugi Sakura stepped out the door with his briefcase, he felt an unusual heaviness in his head because now a big negative number was floating over it:

-10

Blast it, back to square one again.

Singing, playing the piano, making coffee, massaging shoulders, giving gifts... all these seemed done before, no longer working on Hanabi.

Falling in love a second time seemed harder, back in the day love was just about taking little Hanabi somewhere and going all out with the pampering.

As he pampered, she would get shy, blush, her voice softer...

He got off the bus, stopped by a vending machine, and fished a few coins out of his pocket.

Uesugi Sakura selected a bottle of ramune soda, bent down, picked it up, and drank while walking.

It took him quite a while after finishing to spot a trash can.

That’s Japan for you, trash cans so scarce, practically nonexistent.

Can this really be environmentally friendly, when trash still piles up on the streets?

Especially over in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, cans are scattered everywhere.

Onward with the journey.

Kadokawa Light Novel Department, conference room.

To be honest, when he arrived, Uesugi Sakura hadn’t felt the atmosphere of a company like this in a long time.

The office area, a workspace less than two meters wide, was filled above with computers, keyboards, various documents, all sorts of flowers and snacks.

At least the boss allows snacks here, this wasn’t the case in Uesugi Sakura’s past life, not work but a jail, being a moneymaking cog for the boss, with prolonged bathroom breaks counting as absenteeism.

"Mr. Uesugi."

Editor Morisaki’s voice snapped Uesugi Sakura out of his memories.

"Yes."

Editor Morisaki was flipping through the manuscript Uesugi Sakura had revised twice: "Mr. Uesugi writes extremely well, among the highest literary quality of submissions I’ve received, after all, you’re a Tokyo University student... What do you think the highlights of this book are?"

"Growth and resonance, what I hope for is that readers can empathize with the protagonist’s emotions, feel that sense of being abruptly abandoned by the metropolis, and as they step toward despair, they find hope and love."