Chapter 7

As the words fell, Heizhong Wushi heard the person in front of him sigh.

The warmth on her head came unexpectedly, and the weight of the metacarpal bone pressed gently on her forehead, holding her head up.

"Don't always bow your head. What will happen if the person you are apologizing to doesn't react?"

Where his eyes fell, Hoshina Soshiro noticed that the girl's body was tense and stiff like a stone sculpture. His fingertips moved and pulled away.

However, Kurozuka Kirishi couldn't withdraw from her emotions so quickly. The warmth brought by the other person's touch was like a brand, which made her scalp numb, and an indescribable feeling of fatigue weighed down on her.

"If you were wondering what to choose, I personally recommend you try their Mont Blanc." He said, and ordered three.

While Kurozuka Kirishi's mind was still stuck in the lag caused by the touch just now, the other party had already swiped the card to pay.

"I have something else to do, so I'll leave first. You guys take your time eating."

Watching that overly carefree figure disappear into the crowd outside the door, she still felt empty in her chest.

But the instinct etched in her mind made her want to chase after him and give him the money, even though it was as futile as the struggle of a drowning man, she could not help it.

So she turned around and gave a few words of advice to Kurozuka Aoi behind her, then hurriedly chased after him.

The crowd surged past like a tide, and the neon lights dragged out blurred spots on the retina.

Kurozuka Kirishi stumbled forward, and countless faceless faces passed by her side, like faded film frames.

The temperature that had just touched his forehead was unusually vivid, out of tune with the surrounding noise, like a hot foreign object stuck to his skin, and the purple-black figure was being swallowed by the pixelated torrent.

In a trance, Kurozuka Kirishi thought she had returned to the past. The scenes similar to her memories made her panic for no reason.

A familiar spasm churned in her stomach, and a sticky feeling blocked her throat. She pressed the tip of her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to relieve the urge to retch.

Suddenly, her wrist was grabbed.

"Follow me."

It wasn't a grip, it wasn't a grasp—it was like a piece of silk being caught by the wind. The other person's fingers just lightly gathered around her, and her whole body became a buoy being pulled.

The sudden feeling of restraint made her suffocate instantly, and her blood seemed to freeze for a moment.

Heizhong Wushi lowered his head and saw the beautiful, slender knuckles pressing against his pulse, like five loose shackles.

The temperature of his palm was very low, but the skin around it felt a burning pain for no reason.

It was as if the fragile nerve endings under the skin were forcibly awakened, and a fine tingling sensation spread upward along the veins, making it almost impossible for her to breathe.

The touch wasn't a comfort, it was more of an invasion, pulling her out of her numb shell and exposing her to the loud light, making her dizzy.

Before she could react to the sharp sensory stimulation, he was already leading her forward.

The crowd parted like a tide, and the blurred faces melted into blocks of color in the peripheral vision. She was forced to follow, and the only thing left in her sight was the back of the figure in front of her.

The purple-black hair was as soft as a night mist, floating and curling in the neon lights. Occasionally, when illuminated by street lights, the edges of the color blocks would emit fine golden brilliance.

The wind was so strong that she could hardly open her eyes.

But the touch on her wrist was extremely clear. His thumb occasionally brushed against her joints, and each unintentional touch was like a weak electric current.

It wasn't a throbbing sensation, but a subtle, almost self-destructive shudder and a deeper weariness.

Too close... so close that she wanted to break free, to curl up in her own shadow. This unfamiliar pulling feeling drained away her last bit of strength to cope.

Kurozuka Kirishi's steps became chaotic, and he almost bumped into the other person's back. The person in front turned around at this moment -

At this moment, the wind teasingly lifted the girl's hair, exposing the secret she wanted to hide under the neon lights.

The beautiful eyes filled with unshed tears, the long eyelashes are blurred with broken rainbows, like glass washed by rain.

Her pupils reflected his shadow, as well as the floating, blurry street scenes.

At the same time, a hideous scar was clearly engraved on the forehead, winding down from the hairline, destroying the purity of the skin.

Heizhong Wushi opened his mouth, but his voice got stuck in his throat.

"Baoke..."

This weak sound seemed to have used up all her oxygen, and she felt a dull pain in her chest.

But Hoshina Soshiro paused because of the itch, and his fingertips unconsciously rubbed her wrist bone.

The rubbing made the old scar on the inside of her wrist itch slightly, and a mixture of shame and panic seized her.

The halo of the light sign floated between them. Kurozuka Kirishi's pupils shrank slightly, and he finally whispered the name:

"…Soushiro."

As the girl spoke, the syllables rolled across her tongue, as rough as tearing a scab, but bringing out a strange, sweet and fishy taste that made her panic.

Almost at the moment the word fell, Hoshina Soshiro's eyelashes trembled slightly.

He placed his thumb on her pulse and could feel the subtle beat there, a beat faster than usual.

Kurozuka Kirishi naturally noticed something was wrong with her. The rapid beating hit her chest, bringing a dull pain, like the powerless struggle of a dying person.

The out-of-control rhythm frightened her.

The warm light cut across his profile, illuminating the sudden curve at the corner of his lips.

"I am here."

These two words were like warm needles, piercing her numb nerve endings unexpectedly.

The wind blew past again, and he used the force of adjusting his pace to bring her half a step forward.

A crisp breath forcefully invaded her nostrils, and the magnified, blurry face spun and distorted in the neon halo, just like the hallucination she had after swallowing the pills in her memory.

The pulse on his wrist where his thumb pressed beat even more frantically, and each beat seemed to tear at the tender flesh beneath an old scar, bringing a sharp pain that was almost self-destructive and filled with pleasure.

The pain strangely brought her back from her dizziness for a short while. It was too close... There seemed to be a voice crying in her heart.

As the distance shortened, Hoshina Soshiro noticed once again the other party's tenseness and stiffness. It was a state of using all his strength to fight against some invisible object, fragile yet stubborn.

But he said nothing, nor did he choose to let go.

Is the romance of summer in the sunshine?

Kurozuka Kirishi closed her eyes, letting the sultry air envelop her. The sun burned her skin, and the slight stinging sensation was like countless needles pricking her gently.

She greedily absorbed this familiar, controllable pain, trying to use it to suppress the heart-pounding, uncontrollable "movement" in her wrist and the unfamiliar burning sensation in her chest.

Gradually, a crimson flush appeared on the tips of her ears, hidden under her long hair. The heat was so hot that it burned her mind, like a dangerous precursor to delirium during a low fever.

*

Kurozuka Aoi's suspicious eyes fell on Kurozuka Kirishi's wrist: "Sister, is your hand okay?"

She noticed that her sister's fingers were nervously picking at a pale, almost invisible mark on her wrist.

From the moment he entered the room, he was distracted, his eyes sometimes empty and sometimes flashing with a terrifying, fiery heat that frightened her...

The tangled threads in his brain snapped, and Kurozuka Kirishi shook his head, his movements slow, as if he wasn't sure if his limbs existed.

She scooped a spoonful of ice cream from the dessert and brought it to Kurozuka Aoi's mouth: "It's melting."

The girl's voice was as soft as a sigh, with a barely perceptible tremor.

"I'm done eating, let's go home together!"

When the sound of the word "home" drifted in the sweet smell of ice cream, Kurozuka Kirishi's stomach started to churn.

She stopped torturing the skin on her wrist with her fingertips and nodded imperceptibly.