Chapter 256 A Villain

The corridor of the apartment building was empty after the people were evacuated. No matter how he looked, he was the only one around. He could hear the repetitive and disorderly breathing in his ears, and his heart was beating violently against his sternum from the inside, causing Kenji Hagiwara's chest to hurt badly, but he had no time to care about his own situation at this time.

Kenji Hagiwara turned his head and saw his own frightened appearance in the glass. His forehead was covered with cold sweat and his vision fluctuated with his breathing... Then he looked down at his trembling hands and felt his weak legs, and suddenly had this thought.

He seemed to be dreaming.

The sudden feeling of vomiting attacked Kenji Hagiwara's stomach again and again. He had the urge to vomit, but he just held on to the wall for a long time, but still couldn't vomit anything. In his mind, only the scene not long ago was replaying over and over again.

The warmth of the skin still lingered in his palms. When Hagiwara Kenji opened his eyes in his dream, he found that he was pressing down on the body of a strange boy, with his knees on his chest, leaning forward, and his hands on the stranger's neck.

He couldn't control his body and passively felt the fingertips slowly exerting force. The throat in his palm suddenly made a sad sound. The creaking sound of bones rubbing against each other gently floated into his ears. He could feel the great strength just by listening to it.

The strange boy looked at him with a strange and indulgent gaze, as if anything Kenji Hagiwara did was forgivable.

Just by meeting the other person's gaze for a second, Hagiwara Kenji could feel his mood instantly becoming extremely high.

The slender throat felt tight and soft when held in his hand. The strange boy looked up at Hagiwara Kenji with a helpless expression. He struggled to raise his hand to touch his cheek and gasped unconsciously. However, even though he looked extremely painful, he did not struggle at all.

The strange boy could no longer speak at this time and could only lip-sync, but Kenji Hagiwara was still conscious of witnessing everything and helped him understand what the strange boy wanted to say.

Don’t cry… ?

Even as Hagiwara Kenji was having a hard time discerning his lip movements, his body didn't stop moving. It seemed that his airway was becoming more blocked as the force increased. The movement of the stranger stroking his cheek gradually became slow and dull, and finally even the slightest convulsive reaction disappeared.

The chest pressed against the knees gradually stopped rising and falling. The strange boy closed his water-red eyes, and his face turned as pale as paper.

A drop of water hit the already closed eyelids, then slid down from the corner of the eye and sank into the corner of the black hair.

Before he could recover from the shock of the reality that he had killed someone, Kenji Hagiwara simply moved his fingers and suddenly found that he could control his body.

After realizing this, he loosened his hands on the stranger's neck as if he was burned, but before the stranger fell limply to the ground, he reached out again and held the stranger's face reflexively.

The cold, lifeless head of the boy he had killed was resting obediently in the palm of his hand.

Hagiwara Kenji's breathing actually stopped for a moment. He blinked in a trance, and his palms felt lighter. The body of the strange boy disappeared before his eyes.

Everything then returned to the beginning.

After finally suppressing the urge to vomit, Kenji Hagiwara pursed his lips, stumbled towards the glass window that had just reflected his face, and reached out to push it open.

His heart beat even more violently, and the pain seemed to be transmitted to his whole body along with the pumping blood. His eyes were fixed without blinking on the black smoke rising from a certain floor of a high-rise building in the distance.

Did something explode there? It was so strange, why did he have this kind of... painful feeling as if he had lost something forever?

So strange, that is...

Something in his pocket suddenly began to vibrate, interrupting Kenji Hagiwara's confused thoughts. He took a deep breath, lowered his head and picked up the phone with trembling hands. The suddenly awakened screen seemed to be flashing in the bright corridor.

【Missed call: Small level】

[November 7, 10:48]

In Hagiwara Kenji's hazy vision, this text was particularly clear.

——The alarm bell rang.

The light coming in from the window penetrated the black-haired young man's eyelids. He woke up from his nightmare and sat up abruptly on the bed. He supported himself on the sheets with both hands and gasped for breath. Cold sweat kept dripping down his forehead. His pupils trembled violently and his grape-purple eyes were dazed and confused.

Hagiwara Kenji knew that he was dreaming. Those were things he had never experienced, but all the feelings in the dream were so real that it was scary.

The person sitting on the bed and gasping for breath suddenly froze.

So strange.

What did he dream about?

—

Because he was always thinking about something, Kenji Hagihara's reactions were not right the whole day, and the people around him saw it, especially his childhood sweetheart, who was the closest to him. Jinpei Matsuda simply couldn't bear to see Kenji Hagihara's distraught look.

Fortunately, Kenji Hagiwara knew how to regulate himself, and they had an off-campus social event that night, so before that, he returned to his previous relaxed self - at least it seemed that way.

What made Matsuda Jinpei the most angry was that no matter how they asked, Hagiwara Kenji would not tell them what happened. He would look at him for a while with an expression as if he wanted to say something but couldn't, and then muttered, "I don't know why I suddenly want to fight with Jinpei Ko."

Matsuda Jinpei rolled up his sleeves on the spot, mercifully preparing to fulfill his childhood dream, but was finally stopped by his other three friends who shouted at him not to beat Hagiwara to death.

Under normal circumstances, Kenji Hagiwara would probably choose to make a joke to avoid the topic, or play along for a while to relax, but he really didn't have such an idea now, and he didn't know why, he found himself staring at his hands and daydreaming all day long.

The social that night ended in a mess. Hagiwara Kenji, who usually takes the responsibility of livening up the atmosphere, looked absent-minded this time. His face was a little pale, and he was always distracted for unknown reasons.

Matsuda Jinpei, who had chosen to sit opposite to Yujinran, narrowed his eyes and spent the entire meeting observing before coming to a conclusion.

"I found that Hagi would be in a daze for a while when he saw red things." He touched his chin and told his conclusion to other friends in confusion, "Why? It's so strange..."

The four of them had separated from the girls and were on their way to a convenience store to buy some things. However, Kenji Hagiwara, who had been absent-minded the whole day, was walking ahead alone, and the remaining three were looking at his back and whispering to each other.

Kenji Hagiwara in front of him raised his hand and pressed his forehead: he could actually hear what Jinpei and the others said, but...how to explain it? He didn't know what was going on with him, it seemed to be because of the nightmare he had last night, but the problem was that Kenji Hagiwara himself couldn't remember what happened in the dream at all.

The semi-long-haired reserve police officer sighed worriedly again, and occasionally glanced up at the street, his gaze fixed in that direction.

"I'll ask again when we get back - Hagiwara?!" Furuya Rei changed direction halfway through his words and looked at the position in front of them in surprise. Hagiwara Kenji was no longer there at this moment. He was chasing in the direction he had just looked at.

The remaining three people looked at each other and ran forward at the same time.

It was not until the man in front stopped that Matsuda Jinpei and others stopped and looked in the direction of Hagiwara Kenji's dazed gaze.

In the corner over there, there was a black-haired boy who looked a little younger than them. When they looked over, he was squatting in front of a black cat, holding a piece of toast in his hand, breaking it into small pieces and placing them in his palm, as if he was going to feed the cat with it.

The next second, the cat came over affectionately to eat, and the boy suddenly retracted his hand and poured all the small pile of toast crumbs into his mouth, and took the half of the toast that was not broken off, looking at the cat with a provocative expression.

The man and the cat stared at each other, and the latter almost attacked with his claws, or rather, the cat had actually lowered its body and waved its tail, making a prelude to an attack, but the boy was not in a hurry. Without changing his expression, he took out a cloth bag from his pocket, tilted it for a while, and poured out a small pile of dried fish.

The cat's tail suddenly wagged slowly and softly, and after barking a few times, it went back to concentrate on eating. This time, the boy stared at the cat's head patiently for a while, with the extra toast still in his mouth.

"You're actually competing with a cat for food... Is that someone you know?" Matsuda Jinpei rushed over and patted Hagiwara Kenji on the shoulder. The other party tilted his head and asked him with difficulty.

Hagiwara Kenji hesitated for a while and said cautiously, "Maybe, we met in a dream."

Although he still couldn't remember what he dreamed about, Kenji Hagiwara was absolutely sure that he had dreamed of this boy because he always felt that he looked very familiar!

Furugaya Rei showed a puzzled expression beside him: "This way of chatting up is a bit unfashionable."

"...I'm not trying to flirt with her!" Hagiwara Kenji shuddered for no apparent reason and stressed helplessly, "I really only saw her in my dream. I can't remember what I dreamed about now, but I definitely dreamed about her..."

Morofushi Kagemitsu stopped them from talking any further and said, "Whether you know me or not, please look over there, Hagiwara."

The four of them looked again, and they found that the boy and the cat had turned their heads to look at them at the same time, with their movements surprisingly consistent, as if there were actually two cats squatting there.

Unlike the rich facial expressions when facing cats, the boy has no expression when facing humans. The combination of black hair, red eyes and tightly pursed lips makes him look very indifferent.

The boy seemed to be disturbed by their loud voices, but he didn't care that they were talking about him. He looked at them quietly for a few seconds with his red eyes, and then turned his eyes back to the cat as if nothing had happened.

Ignoring them perfectly.

Matsuda Jinpei poked You Xunran's waist jokingly: "Ha, you said it was someone you knew?"

Hagiwara Kenji sighed: "So you said we met in a dream..."