Late at night, Okino Mina walked into a high-end apartment building.
She got on the elevator with ease, stopped at a higher floor, and finally walked to an apartment door in the corridor and opened the door with the key on her body.
"Shirakawa, I brought you what you asked for~"
She opened the door and said with a smile, holding a brown paper file bag in her hand.
Yes, this is Shirakawa Qing's apartment.
After the death of the young lady from the Hatoyama family several years ago, Bai Heqing no longer lived in the Hatoyama family. Instead, he moved out and rented an apartment alone.
Of course, the old man Hatoyama didn't stop him.
As for Okino Mina, as a friend, she often helps Shirakawa Kiyo do some things that are not... well, legal, so she needs to come in and out of here frequently, so she was given a key to him by the way.
Tonight was the same. She had just put her daughter to sleep and went to investigate several targets that Bai Heqing had asked her to investigate before. After succeeding, she hurried here...
Really, she has obviously stopped being a Phantom Thief for many years, so why does she always feel like she is still repeating a life similar to that of a Phantom Thief every day?
It’s just that the place of infiltration has changed from major museums to the headquarters building of the Japanese Public Security Bureau and various private residences...
"Shirakawa?"
As soon as she opened the door, Okino Mina noticed something strange.
No one responded to her call just now, but the lights were on in the living room. She glanced carefully and found no one in the room.
【Did you just go out? 】
As soon as this speculation came up, Okino Mina shook her head and rejected it.
impossible.
Although this sentence may be a little inappropriate for her, in the past few years of getting along with him, she believed that she knew Bai Heqing's personality and living habits quite well.
He is definitely not a person who likes to waste. No matter how anxious he is, Bai Heqing would never leave the room without turning off the lights.
[Did something happen? 】
With this thought in mind, Okino Mina was about to search the rooms in this apartment when she suddenly noticed that the thick curtains in front of the living room seemed to be blown by the night wind, and the lower part close to the floor was slightly fluttering. twice.
Okino Mina, who had been to this apartment countless times, naturally couldn't help but know that behind this layer of curtains was the balcony of this apartment.
For a moment, some uneasiness in her heart surged rapidly. Okino Mina quickly stepped forward and opened the curtains with force.
As she expected, behind the curtains was the beautiful night view of Tokyo that could only be appreciated from a high floor, and Shirakawa Qing, who was holding the guardrail of the balcony with both hands, staring blankly at the neon night view.
He just stood by the guardrail, his mouth slightly open, his eyes unfocused, just looking at the busy traffic in the distance below. His whole person gave people a very special feeling. He was clearly standing here, but he was completely There was no corresponding sense of reality, as if his consciousness had drifted far away.
Finally, it seemed that he heard the sound of Okino Mina hurriedly opening the curtains, and Shirakawa Kiyoshi's eyes gradually returned to reality.
At the same time, the unknown illusion that enveloped him quickly faded, and his sense of reality as a person began to gradually condense.
This process seemed to last for about ten seconds?
Shirakawa Kiyo finally came to his senses completely, turned his head and looked at Okino Mina standing behind him, with a slight surprise on his face.
"Mina? When did you come?"
He didn't seem to notice the movement of Okino Mina entering the house before.
This kind of negligence was simply unbelievable to the man in front of him.
"White River."
Facing Shirakawa Kiyo's habitually smiling face, Okino Mina looked at him deeply, frowning.
"How long have you been standing here?" she asked.
In fact, Okino Mina knows the answer.
Bai Heqing was not left to work overtime today, and he was still wearing his police uniform at this time, which showed that he had probably been standing here since he came back from get off work...
Is this two hours? Is it still three hours?
"It does seem like it's been a while..."
Bai Heqing smiled again, turned back and looked at the night scene outside, and said:
"Suddenly I discovered that the colors of those neon lights are quite beautiful at night, so I couldn't help but stand here for a while longer..."
At the same time as he said these words, Okino Mina once again noticed the unreal feeling in him that made her uneasy, as if she couldn't touch it.
Yes, she described this feeling as uneasy.
As Bai Heqing's only "real friend" in the past few years, she is too aware of the true heart of the man in front of her.
The gentleness, sunshine, and those smiles that make people feel warm just by looking at him... are actually all fake.
All of them are disguises that Bai Heqing deliberately made to cater to those around him in order to show the signal that "I am fine, I am fine."
The only difference is that other people's disguises are just to deceive outsiders, but Bai Heqing is trying to deceive himself.
Not only did he want to deceive the people around him, he also tried to make himself think that he was really living a good and satisfied life.
However, it is always easy to deceive others in this world, but it is most difficult to deceive yourself.
Because it is difficult for others to see your true heart, but you can see it all the time.
No matter how subtle the lie is, you know in your heart that it is a lie, and it is a lie you made up yourself.
No matter how much Bai Heqing deceives and hides himself, there will always be such a voice in his heart, which is indelible. This will not disappear if he deliberately ignores it.
Without even thinking about it, Okino Mina knew exactly what Shirakawa Kiyo wanted to do standing here.
Watching the night view?
What night scene would make you stand here looking at it for hours?
What night scene is so beautiful that you don’t even notice that I opened the door and came in?
What's more, what your eyes are really looking at is not it at all...
Bai He, do you want to jump?
This is why Okino Mina rushed up so anxiously when she realized Shirakawa Kiyo was on the balcony.
She had already noticed it.
In the past few years, especially after a certain coward left without saying goodbye, Bai Heqing had hidden his increasingly serious self-destructive tendencies under his sunny face.
"Okay, stop looking. I brought you what you asked for."
Looking at Bai Heqing, Okino Mina smiled and gestured to the document bag in her hand.
As a friend, she would naturally not leave Bai Heqing alone like this, but... Bai Heqing's problems were not something she could solve.
All Okino Mina could do was to keep an eye on him as much as possible to prevent him from doing anything stupid.
So, how long do you want to hide, a coward...
(˙ー˙)
(End of chapter)
