20 | Exclusive from Jinjiang · 20
A world where only light bulbs get hurt.
The second hand kept ticking, and the short, thick hour hand pointed to "12" with a click. At that moment, there was a loud knocking on the door.
The flowers on the windowsill were wilted by the cold north wind. In the warm single room with the air conditioning on, Lai Chuan Huang Quan was sleeping sprawled out, covered only by half a blanket. Her fair, toned belly was exposed, and one leg was dangling off the bed.
The wooden door was suddenly knocked on, and Lai Chuan Huang Quan shuddered. She rubbed her eyes and slowly sat up in bed. Her black hair was sticking up in a mess, and her sleep-deprived blue eyes were veiled.
The knocking on the door kept going on, like someone demanding payment. Lai Chuan Huang Quan stretched on the bed, hastily threw on a long knitted dress, and then got up to open the door.
"Coming, coming," Lai Chuan Huang Quan yawned: "Second-year graduate student officer, you're so noisy, you keep knocking."
Muttering a complaint, Lai Chuan Huang Quan pulled open the latch. As soon as he pushed the door open a crack, he was met with the fierce face of a certain ace of the mobile unit outside.
Yomi Laichuan: ...?
Startled, she instinctively reached to close the door. Fortunately, the curly-haired police officer outside, who had previously proven his gorilla strength, reacted quickly and blocked the doorframe, preventing Lai Chuan Huang Quan from locking him out.
Matsuda Jinpei wasn't wearing a suit; he was dressed casually and carrying a white plastic bag. He gripped the edge of the door with one hand, his face sour as he stared at Raikawa Yomi: "Why are you taking so long? I've been knocking for ages."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan muttered softly, "I need to get dressed..." And if I had known it was you outside, I definitely wouldn't have opened the door.
Matsuda Jinpei raised an eyebrow, pushed open the door, and went inside. He took off his shoes and straddled the main seat in the center of the sofa, acting as if he were the owner of the house.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan sat sideways on the armrest of the sofa, her downturned lips clearly conveying her disdain for Matsuda Jinpei, as if she wanted to stay as far away from him as possible.
She pouted, "Officer Matsuda, what are you doing here?"
The handsome police officer casually draped one arm over the back of the sofa. Perhaps it was his looks and aura that made the action, which should have appeared thuggish and rude, look surprisingly arrogant and nonchalant.
He glanced sideways at Lai Chuan Huang Quan and snorted coldly, "Of course I'm here to monitor you."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: "Huh?"
Matsuda Jinpei looked annoyed: "Honestly... all you do is cause trouble. Hagi will be here soon, so you better behave yourself. I bought you some food, find it in the bag yourself."
Upon hearing this, Raikawa Yomi's previously listless eyes lit up. She stood up and squatted in front of the bag, rummaging through it while whispering flattery, "Officer Matsuda is quite meticulous. Thank you for your hard work, Officer Matsuda~"
"Tch," Matsuda Jinpei clearly wasn't buying it, and he teased, "What? You're not calling me Officer Gorilla anymore?"
The rummaging stopped, and Raikawa Yomi stared at the sandwich in her hand in silence for a long time before slowly looking up at Matsuda Jinpei. She had a smile on her face, but the beads of sweat on her forehead and her small eyes revealed her anxiety.
"How did you know? I've never shouted that in front of you before."
Matsuda Jinpei smirked mischievously. "Guess."
Yomi Laichuan: ...
Is there even a need to guess? It's definitely that bastard officer! He actually betrayed her!
You stupid second-year graduate student, I should have known better than to send him that text last night! You idiot, you're such a huge idiot!
Yomi Laichuan puffed up in a huff, her hand still fuming, and even the sandwich in her hand had a fingerprint on it through the packaging. Like an angry hamster, Yomi Laichuan stuffed her cheeks full of food. She wolfed down a sandwich, and as she looked down to rummage through the bag for more food, her left cheek was stretched into a ball by the last bite of bread that hadn't been chewed yet.
"Why is there only ham sandwich? Officer Matsuda, didn't you buy anything else?" It was all the same flavor of sandwiches and plain yogurt, filling a whole bag.
Matsuda Jinpei used the remote to switch the LCD TV on the wall to a news channel. He frowned and said fiercely, "It's so noisy. This is your punishment. Do you know how late Hagi and I looked for you last night?"
Yomi Laichuan paused as she inserted the straw into the yogurt, her shoulders hunching in guilt. She glanced timidly at Jinpei Matsuda, but quickly lowered her head again after he caught her gaze.
Matsuda Jinpei: "Hmph!"
“I’m sorry,” Raikawa Yomi said, not daring to look up. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”
With her fingers constantly rubbing together, Yomi Laichuan spoke in a soft voice, as if something was stuck in her throat, but Jinpei Matsuda still heard her clearly.
“I’ve already caused you trouble,” Matsuda Jinpei patted the seat next to him. “Come sit down, I have something to ask you.”
"oh……"
Lai Chuan Huang Quan, clutching the yogurt bottle without the straw in both hands, shuffled towards the sofa, her slow steps resembling those of an ancient tortoise crawling. Matsuda Jinpei gave her a cold glance, his fierce, almost murderous expression making Lai Chuan Huang Quan move even slower.
With a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Matsuda Jinpei quickly ran out of patience, grabbed Raikawa Yomi's arm, and pulled him to sit down next to him.
“I heard,” he tore open a sandwich and started eating, “that you told Hagi I would die?”
Lai Chuan Huang Quan lowered her head, clutching the yogurt bottle, too afraid to speak. She had indeed unilaterally decided to collaborate with Hagiwara Kenji last night, but she hadn't considered involving Matsuda Jinpei at all. That curly-haired police officer was always so fierce, and he kept calling her "Miss Rogue"—she had no intention of hanging out with him.
With her mind racing, Raikawa Yomi decided to play dumb. The next second, Matsuda Jinpei grabbed her face.
The man had long, slender fingers with calluses on the pads. He pinched Lai Chuan Huang Quan's cheeks, making her face look like a chubby goldfish mouth.
Yomi Lai was forced to look up and meet Matsuda Jinpei's gaze. She widened her eyes and slowly squeezed out a question mark from the depths of her eyes.
—Don't pretend you didn't hear me. Just answer whatever I ask you.
Matsuda Jinpei had originally intended to say that. But as he looked down at the woman in front of him, whose lips he had pinched into a pout, he remained silent for a long time before slowly uttering only two words: "So stupid."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: ?
Is that even human language you're speaking?!
Don't think I'm afraid of you just because I can't beat you! Damn it, tonight I'll be lying in the alley waiting to knock you out with a club!
Lai Chuan Huang Quan was so angry that she began to plot how to take revenge on Matsuda Jinpei. She glared at him with her eyes wide open, her face full of displeasure.
Matsuda Jinpei, however, raised one corner of his mouth and smiled smugly.
The knocking sounded again. "Soft bread, are you awake yet?" This time it was Kenji Hagiwara.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan's eyes lit up as if she had seen a savior. She grabbed Matsuda Jinpei's wrist, bit his wicked finger hard, and ran to open the door.
"Hi, soft bread."
The long-haired man at the door was also carrying a bag of food, and he waved to Raikawa Yomi with a smile.
He returned to his dorm close to 5 a.m. last night. His body was so exhausted he felt like it was falling apart. He threw his suit jacket on the sofa, collapsed onto his single bed, and fell asleep instantly.
His alarm rang several times this morning before he finally managed to wake up around lunchtime. Luckily, he had the day off today, otherwise he would have slept soundly at his desk.
Scratching his head, Kenji Hagiwara sat up in bed. Without even changing his clothes, he just put on a coat and went out to find Yomi Rikawa.
He still had faint dark circles under his eyes, and he reached out and ruffled Lai Chuan Huang Quan's hair: "Good morning, I brought you something delicious."
Kenji Hagiwara squeezed into the room through the crack in the door, and Yomi Raikawa immediately grabbed the side of his shirt and hid behind him.
Hagiwara Kenji:...?
Kenji Hagiwara glanced suspiciously at the soft bread baring its teeth at Jinpei Matsuda behind him, then looked at Jinpei Matsuda, who was sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed like a lord, and laughed, "Jinpei, did you bully the soft bread while I was away?"
"Huh?" Matsuda Jinpei glanced at the woman hiding behind Hagiwara: "Does she even need to be bullied? Her courage is only a fingernail's width bigger than a Pomeranian's."
Yomi Laichuan: ...?
That's outrageous!
She tugged at Kenji Hagiwara's shirt twice, and when he looked down at her, she pouted and met his gaze with a pitiful look.
The next second, Kenji Hagiwara burst out laughing. His eyebrows curved, his bright purple eyes, resembling a soft bread roll, sparkled in the sunlight: "Soft Bread, you look just like a Pomeranian that's been bullied by other big dogs outside, so it howls and runs to its owner for help. Clumsy and silly, but kind of cute."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: ? ? ?
It feels like I was praised, but it also feels like I wasn't.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan tightened her grip on Hagiwara Kenji's clothes, baring her teeth and raising the yogurt bottle high to hit Hagiwara Kenji on the head.
Kenji Hagiwara wasn't annoyed. He grasped Yomi Raikawa's raised hand and took the yogurt bottle with the foil wrapper still on from her: "Go sit on the sofa, I bought your favorite oden~"
After saying that, he casually picked up the straw on the table, inserted it into the yogurt bottle, and handed it back to Lai Chuan Huang Quan.
Steam rose from the steaming soup inside the cardboard box. Lai Chuan Huang Quan took the chopsticks from Hagiwara Kenji but didn't eat. She stiffened her neck, her eyes darting left and right, filled with guilt.
"What's wrong?" Ken Hagiwara rested his elbows on the table and smiled, propping his chin on his hand. "Why aren't you eating?"
Lai Chuan Huang Quan glanced at the dark circles under Hagiwara Kenji's eyes and rubbed his fingers together: "Kenji, I'm sorry."
"Huh?" Kenji Hagiwara was somewhat surprised.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan raised her hand to smooth her messy hair. She swallowed and hesitated for a moment before slowly saying, "I shouldn't have gone to the bar without permission."
Kenji Hagiwara raised an eyebrow, drawing out a single syllable: "Eh~?"
“I promised you something but didn’t keep it, that’s my fault. But,” Yomi blinked, pursed her lips and looked at Kenji Hagiwara, “I didn’t expect you to drag Officer Matsuda all over Tokyo looking for me. I did text you to tell you what I was doing…”
Kenji Hagiwara was truly bewildered. He exclaimed "Huh?" and asked uncertainly, "Besides the message I sent you last night when I took you home, did you send me any other messages?"
"Yes! I sent it!"
Nodding vigorously, Lai Chuan Huang Quan puffed out his chest and suddenly became righteous. He took out his phone and was about to show Hagiwara the evidence: "What? After all this fuss, it turns out that the idiot Kenji didn't read the message I sent you?"
While muttering to himself as he opened his email, Lai Chuan Huang Quan belatedly noticed that the message ended with a red exclamation mark indicating that the message had failed to be sent.
"..."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan held his phone, completely frozen in place.
Hagihara Kenji:?
The woman, who had been so confident just moments before, suddenly became guilty. She pouted, lowered her head, and handed the cracked phone to Kenji Hagiwara without saying another word.
"Hmm?" Kenji Hagiwara took Yomi Rikawa's phone and glanced at it: "Sent failed? No wonder I didn't receive it."
He rested his chin on his hand, examining Lai Chuan Huang Quan's phone case from side to side: "But the second text message was successfully sent, so there must be some hardware damage inside. It's okay, I'll go back to the dorm and get my toolbox, and I'll fix it in ten minutes."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan tilted his head in surprise: "You're a second-year graduate student and you actually know how to fix cell phones? That's amazing!"
With an uncontrollable upward smirk, Kenji Hagiwara snorted and laughed, "Don't think I'll let you off the hook just because you praised me a few times. Does your foot still hurt?" He looked down and fiddled with his phone, trying to send himself a message using Yomi Laichuan's phone.
"Heave-ho!" Lai Chuan Huang Quan smugly put her hands on her hips, draped her sprained ankle over Matsuda Jinpei's body, and raised her chin proudly: "Look! It's completely healed! The skin is smooth and slippery, and you can't see any trace of the injury from last night!"
Hagiwara laughed and said, "That's pretty impressive, no wonder it's called 'Soft Bread'."
Yomi Laichuan: "Of course~"
At this moment, the man who had been lazily lounging on the sofa, silently munching on a sandwich to replenish his carbohydrates, finally couldn't hold back any longer. He threw the sandwich with only a few bites left on the table, grabbed Raikawa Yomi and Hagiwara Kenji sitting on either side of him with both hands, and said through gritted teeth, "You two, stop this already. Can't you consider how I feel sitting in the middle?"
The skin on the bridge of his nose wrinkled, and his eyebrows furrowed. Matsuda Jinpei was so angry he was about to lose it.
Knowing his true nature well, Kenji Hagiwara calmly raised his index finger, squinted, and smiled, "It's because you wanted to sit in the middle, Jinpei. I just borrowed your ability to read the room."
Veins bulged on Matsuda Jinpei's forehead: "Huh? Who are you saying can't read the air?"
Kenji Hagiwara: "Oh dear, Jinpei, you're going to scare the softie like that, even though you know she's a coward."
"You bastard!"
Matsuda Jinpei clenched his molars so hard they were practically grinding together, wishing he could just pin his childhood friend to the ground and beat him up.
But before he could make a move, a faint voice broke into the argument between the two men.
“Um…” Lai Chuan Huang Quan raised a hand and said timidly with a trembling voice, “Officer Matsuda, could you please put my leg down first? You suddenly bent over and grabbed my collar, which pressed on my ligaments, and they’re a little sore.”
Matsuda Jinpei: ...
He shoved Kenji Hagiwara back into the sofa and then pushed Yomi Raikawa's calf off his thigh.
"You rascal, you're always trying to take advantage of me."
Yomi Laichuan: ...?
How could someone be so unreasonable? It was clearly you who forgot to put my legs down!
Although she was furious, Yomi Raikawa dared not say a word! Matsuda Jinpei was incredibly fierce, and his bared teeth were terrifying! The worst part was that she couldn't beat him!
But Kenji Hagiwara was different. He casually straightened his disheveled collar and said, "Jinpei, are you just embarrassed and angry? You clearly forgot."
Matsuda Jinpei became even more enraged: "Hagi, shut up! I was just sleep-deprived and it affected my judgment!"
Being dragged all over Tokyo searching for someone until dawn, and only getting a few hours of sleep before having to get up, anyone would be slow to react in that situation.
[Author's Note]
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