Chapter 64 The End 4

[Respectfully received by Officer Matsuda,

By the time you receive this letter, I may have already left Japan. Although I know you probably won't miss me anymore, I still want to say that I'm fine.

I plan to travel around, visit more places, and see more scenery.

If there is a view you like, I will share it with you.

You can do whatever you want with everything about me, I won’t blame you even if you throw it into the trash.]

[Officer Matsuda, this is the first postcard from Africa I sent to you. I went to many places to find this one. The people here are very warm and welcoming. Do you recognize the river on the postcard?]

[The reverse side features the Mouth of Truth from Roman Holiday.]

[Yesterday, I met an old man who looked like Mr. Maori. He was holding a black cat. The cat's eyes looked a bit like yours.]

[Are you okay?]

[This is the Great Wall of Rabbit Country.]

[Carnival in Brazil. I made a postcard with a photo I took.]

[Attached to the postcard is a book about the protagonist's spiritual journey in a foreign country. You may like it. Please say hello to my colleagues in the Investigation Section 1 for me.]

…

[A postcard sent from a village in a remote country. It's beautiful here. One day, when I was lying by the window watching the sunset, I suddenly thought it would be nice to spend the rest of my life here.]

[Even now, life and the world still have no meaning to me. But I have begun to get used to loneliness and loneliness. I am enclosing a jar of honey with this letter. The local honey is very sweet.]

[Maybe I won't send you postcards anymore, Officer Matsuda. I hope you won't hate me anymore.]

[This is the last time I will write to you. I am not sensitive to emotions, nor can I express them in words, so I ask you to forgive my incoherent words in advance.]

[I am probably very different from that person named Hagi.

Are you surprised? I actually mentioned this name. I was actually standing in the alley when you and Amoruso met on Valentine's Day three years ago. So I heard you call this name.

Because I was very concerned about this, I made a special effort to find out who this person named Hagi was.

Frankly speaking, I'm very jealous.

I am jealous that he grew up with you, jealous that he had seen thousands of different versions of you, jealous that he would be deeply remembered by you even after his death, jealous that he was full of light and did not fall into darkness.

From a certain moment, I have been waiting for this day. I am waiting for you to reveal my true face, to see my truth and filthiness. I thought that when that day comes, I will definitely cut off all your unnecessary branches like I did when I loved you the most, and from then on you will belong to me alone.

Do you think there was ever a moment when I really wanted to do this?

…

Officer Matsuda, I want to say sorry to you anyway.

I have told you so many lies, and in the end, the lies were half true and half false, and even I couldn't tell them apart. Thinking about it this way, maybe I don't love you that much.

I just kind of like it.

So you don't have to worry about anything.

Another sentence, I want to say thank you.

I wasn't completely unconscious that night when I was seriously injured, so I was able to hear bits and pieces of your conversation with the god.

You would be willing to sacrifice your soul to save me, which is something I never dared to imagine from the beginning to the end.

Did I, for a brief moment, ever occupy the most important place in your heart, surpassing that man named Hagi?

Since I can't hear your answer, I'll just assume that it does exist.

At least for a few seconds, all of you belonged to me. At least for a few seconds, the world was far away from your heart, and your eyes were filled with only me.

Officer Matsuda, if there is ever a time in my life that is meaningful... I will definitely take these few seconds alone.

My life is like a dark cave deep underground, where there is no sunlight. No matter the sun rises or sets, or the seasons change, there is always silence here.

When you come over, even if you just lean your head in and whisper a few words, this place will be different from now on.

It became a cave where someone had once stepped into it and briefly had a name in someone's heart.

For me, that's enough.

We are now even with each other.

I will start a new life soon, and I hope everything is fine for you there. I hope you can meet someone one day who is as clean as Hagi and loves you as much as I do.]

…

"When you see the red blossoms on the white ground, open the suitcase I asked you to keep. You will know what to do."

Naoto Sakumichi opened the suitcase and on the first layer was a folded piece of paper with the words "Naoto Sakumichi" written on it.

Open it, and it says -

First, please help me collect the body. Just throw it into Tokyo Bay, so that the fish and shrimp can eat it up. Do as I say. If you are a Taoist priest and don't fulfill the wishes of the dead, you will be cursed by them in hell.

Is this his revenge for what he said when he treated me like a ghost? Blue Curacao really holds a grudge.

Naoto Sakumichi shuddered, immediately pushed through the crowd, and prepared to take the body away as a relative of the deceased - he would have done so even without Blue Orange Wine's order.

Because this will minimize the possibility of causing unrest among ordinary people, and the police will not let the organization take away Blue Orange Wine's body again.

A dark red blood flower bloomed on the white snow, and on top of the blood flower, a man in a white kimono lay on his side as if he was asleep. His long black hair was tangled in a knot and meandered in the blood and snow, like a long black river flowing silently.

He gave death a kind of beauty.

Naoto Sakumichi stared at him for a long time. The beautiful face that always amazed him no matter how many times he saw it was half-buried in the long hair. Or rather, the long, smooth, black hair was embracing him like a quilt.

The upper half of the face could not be seen clearly, only a vague glimpse of blood red could be seen, and the curve of the corner of the lip above the exposed lower jaw was smooth and peaceful.

Anyone who saw him would have thought he was just asleep.

But no matter how long I wait, I will never hear those long eyelashes tremble again.

Naoto Sakumichi realized that he was really dead. No matter how many times Blue Curacao saved him from danger, he finally fell on the red sailboat.

The grand fireworks in the sky became more and more beautiful. People's attention was drawn to the sky.

"The fireworks are beautiful tonight, aren't they?"

After the transaction on the other side was concluded and the two parties were about to part ways, the man in black suddenly spoke.

The police officer was stunned for a moment, then looked up at the gorgeous fireworks show in the night sky.

It is indeed beautiful.

"What beautiful fireworks!" Yumi Miyamoto also folded her arms and exclaimed, "Who on earth is the rich person who set them off? Such big fireworks that last for such a long time are so romantic!"

"Valentine's Day, fireworks..." The colleague from the Explosives Squad quickly found the key words, patted the curly-haired officer on the shoulder, and said seriously: "Matsuda, let's go play the lottery. I calculated that you will be particularly lucky today."

Jinpei Matsuda has been looking a little depressed recently. Although he is a cool guy, he has become too dull recently.

His colleagues wanted to cheer him up, so they dragged him out of the office on Valentine's Day without saying a word.

It was still the same group of people. Three years passed, and only one lucky guy succeeded in having a lovely and sweet girlfriend.

"I'm not going to spend Valentine's Day with you guys for the rest of my life, am I?" One of them looked even more depressed than Jinpei Matsuda.

"It's hard for others to say. Matsuda is so handsome, he can't be single like us, right? Come to think of it, why doesn't Matsuda have a girlfriend?"

The curly-haired police officer stood there, looking up at the fireworks in the dark sky. His colleagues called him several times, but he didn't respond.

"So Matsuda likes fireworks so much?"

The figure that had been frozen for a long time, like a plaster statue, suddenly moved.

"Matsuda, where are you going? The place we booked is here—" A colleague grabbed Matsuda Jinpei who was moving in another direction and laughed, "What's wrong with you? You look so absent-minded."

Another said, "You can't run away today. If you disappear halfway every Valentine's Day, I will suspect that you have a girlfriend behind our backs."

"Come to think of it," Yumi Miyamoto whispered mysteriously, "I heard from a colleague at the Ministry of Transportation that he saw Officer Matsuda buying a hair band some time ago. What's going on?"

She said it in a "tell the truth" tone.

Matsuda Jinpei: “…”

Those were bought for that person. His hair was long and it was inconvenient for him to work or eat, so he went to buy a few hair ties.

The man also taught him how to gather his long hair together and tie it up.

With his hair tied up, his face was exposed without any cover, showing a brighter and more beautiful look.

The fireworks ended, and Jinpei Matsuda's sudden urge to go to the overpass where he had seen spring also disappeared.

His life returned to normal again.

It was as if this brief encounter three years later had never happened.

Sometimes he even suspected that the so-called god he met that night was just a dream. He did not sacrifice his soul to save anyone, and Chun did not survive that snowy night. Everything was his own delusion.

Because he really couldn't find any difference between his current life and his past life.

I don't even feel like I've lost a part of my soul.

He almost believed that the extra time was just a fantasy of his own.

Until this day, he received a letter.

The letter was delivered by a courier named Zuodao Zhiren himself, and an umbrella was also enclosed with the letter.

"He said he took it from you and now it's back to its original owner."

Matsuda Jinpei invited Naoto Sakumichi into the room and asked him to sit on the sofa. Then he opened the letter and read it. The letter was not long and could be read in two minutes.

It is difficult for a straight-minded person to sit or stand still.

He actually wanted to deliver the things and then leave quickly.

The task assigned to him by Blue Orange Wine was too difficult, and Naoto Sakumichi had no idea how to deceive people. Fortunately, all he had to do was to hand over the things prepared by Blue Orange Wine in advance to Jinpei Matsuda.

This is the request in the Blue and Orange Wine letter.

Officer Matsuda already knows the identity of Blue Curacao.

When he realized this through the letter, Sakumichi Naoto suddenly thought - at that time on the overpass, did Blue Orange Wine really not know that he was being sniped by the organization's killer?

If he didn't know, why would he deliberately arrange the transaction somewhere else?

He wanted to die.

Because I have no desire to live anymore.

Even so, he still reserved his last bit of tenderness for his lover and carefully fabricated a set of lies to make her believe that Jiu Sheng Chun Shu was still alive and well somewhere in the world.

It would be safer to let the postman do this.

However, Naoto Sakumichi chose to send him off in person.

As for the postman, didn't he realize how much friendship was hidden in this letter?

What if it gets dirty or lost accidentally?

The curly-haired police officer sat on another sofa. After reading the letter, he threw it on the table.

"You are the police officer who monitored me before, right?"

Naoto Sakumichi was shocked, "...Ah, that..."

"Is he dead?"

Naoto Sakumichi couldn't control his expression.

"He's dead." Jinpei Matsuda confirmed, his tone very calm.

The black figure did not move for a long time. Naoto Sakumichi felt the heaviness and stagnation in the air, and even tried to breathe as lightly as possible.

When he spoke again, the curly-haired police officer's voice became hoarse and low.

"You're still playing such childish tricks. Do you think I can't see through it? Just give me everything he has prepared."

Sakumichi Naoto said subconsciously, "I'm sorry, I didn't bring them. I put them in the safe."

Help, isn't this a direct admission?

Although Officer Matsuda seems to have seen through the truth a long time ago...

I'm sorry, Mr. Jiusheng, I'm so useless.

"Then please bring it tomorrow."

Matsuda Jinpei made a gesture to see him off, and Sakumichi Naoto very considerately said his last goodbye.

Before going out, he paused and turned to look at the handsome policeman in the backlight.

"Officer Matsuda, Mr. Jiu Sheng may not be a good person, but as someone who has witnessed everything by his side, I know how much he loves you... He won't let me tell you what he has done for you, but I at least hope you know that he was born in darkness but is willing to turn his heart to the light for you."

"So... please don't dislike him."

The room returned to silence. Long after the words fell, the door closed again, and the person inside remained motionless for a long time.

The curly-haired police officer's eyes fell on the letter on the table, and then quickly looked away as if he had been electrocuted.

How could he possibly dislike him?

The snow outside the window melted.

He also disappeared like the last snow of winter.

Spring will be here soon.

The first spring without spring is coming.