Chapter 40: The Day After ①

When Jyouya woke up in shock, the bedroom was still dark. He blinked with difficulty and checked the time on the mobile phone on the bedside table.

Three-thirty in the morning.

Jōgu exhaled slowly, raised his head and put it back on the pillow. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before he slowly got out of bed, pushed the door open and walked to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water to moisten his throat.

"Are you having a nightmare?" A slow and gentle voice suddenly sounded behind me. The person leaned against the door frame of the kitchen and yawned after speaking.

"Yeah." Fūya put down the cup, turned around and said frankly, "I dreamed of something not so good."

The young man in front of him, who was very familiar to him, raised his eyebrows when he heard this. He was considerate and did not ask any further questions. Instead, he nodded gently: "If you want to say something, I can always be the listener, zero."

Jyoutani looked at the young man with mixed feelings.

Hiro, his childhood friend who should have died in the line of duty more than a year ago, is now standing behind him and talking to him.

So, he couldn't tell the other person, 'I dreamt about your martyrdom', right?

To this day, Fūya still remembers how devastated he was when he first escaped from the Linorea and turned around to find that the ghost that had bound him for more than a month had disappeared without a trace, and then saw three familiar young men lying on the ground in a coma.

He didn't even have the time to think about why Akae Nayue suddenly disappeared, because Date Kou later noticed the situation here and walked over, looking at the three people on the ground with surprise.

Very good, we have ruled out the possibility that they are the spirits behind this.

Furuya tried to think calmly.

Then, Ida Hang asked him in a very normal tone how these three people could be unconscious here.

At that moment, Furuya even suspected that Ida Kou had been disguised by Vermouth. Otherwise, shouldn't his first reaction be shock like his?

But nothing happened. Neither Ida Kou nor the three people who woke up later were surprised by the inexplicable appearance of three dead people.

Afterwards, after secretly testing several people and looking through past data, Fūya finally confirmed a few days later that the three people, Morobushi Kagemitsu, who were supposed to be dead, were not only alive, but Fūya was the only one who remembered that they had died.

Without hesitation, Furuya immediately understood that this incident was definitely related to Akae Nazuki's sudden disappearance. But he didn't know what the connection was, and even now, he couldn't find any connection between the two events other than the time connection.

In the memories of others: Hagiwara Kenji dismantled the bomb in time, and Matsuda Jinpei below quickly found the accomplice of the criminal hidden in the crowd, and both of them survived the disaster safely; Morofushi Kagemitsu did not commit suicide after his identity was exposed, but with the help of Akai Shuichi and the FBI, he faked his death in advance, left the organization and returned to the Public Security Bureau to recuperate.

Just like what had happened in every dream of Furuya in the past.

Although Furuya knew that Akae Nazuki was behind this, he still couldn't tell anyone because there were more important things for him at the time. He needed to deal with the organization and couldn't spare the extra energy to explore the resurrection of his friends.

Even if the latter is really, really, really... unbelievable.

So when faced with Morobushi Kagemitsu's questioning, Furutani still chose not to confess everything.

So be it, he thought, if you delve too deeply into some things, what you end up seeing may not necessarily be what you want to see.

"Nothing, just thinking about the past." Kouya shrugged, looking helpless and relaxed, "I'm still a little uncomfortable... But now that the organization has been eliminated, you can also restore your identity and come back?"

"I'll probably have to go back this week to report on my work." Zhu Fujingguang knew he was trying to change the subject, but he didn't point it out. He continued, "After all, everything just ended, and we are really short of manpower."

Four months have passed since Furuya left the Linorea, Akae Nazuki disappeared, and Morobushi Kagemitsu and others "resurrected".

A lot has happened in these four months.

Originally, Furuya was worried that he would be targeted by Vermode and Gin for not dying on the cruise ship as they wished. But for some reason, a few days later, when Furuya reappeared as Bourbon near a certain base of the organization to test the waters, he was not attacked as a traitor and learned that something serious had happened while he was away.

For example, Gin left the organization and his whereabouts are unknown, and Vermouth and Rum fell out, blew up Rum's office, and then defected with most of the assets in the latter's intelligence library... There are all kinds of confusing news like this.

Therefore, not only was he not targeted, but he was also promoted to a more important position by Rum, who was unaware of what had happened between him, Bermode and the other two during this period, to fill the vacancy left by the two.

In short, Furutani was not "fired" as Akae joked that month, but was promoted.

The surprise came so quickly that it caught us off guard.

It was only after he truly came into contact with the core of the organization that he discovered that this huge organization that had lost its boss eight years ago only maintained its former glory on the outside, but its interior was already riddled with holes. Even though Rum had tried hard to save it over the past eight years, he was unable to reverse the organization's decline.

It has to be said that this is extremely good news for the public security, because it means that they can take advantage of the situation and most likely eradicate the shadow that hangs over everyone's heart!

The police held several discussions with other agencies that were also keeping an eye on the organization, and finally finalized the time for the final phase of the crackdown on the organization. They successfully implemented the plan two days ago, capturing nearly three-quarters of the organization's core members in one fell swoop.

Of course, there are still many remnants left in the organization, and the people who are missing fingers as mentioned by Fu Jingguang are also the ones who are responsible for dealing with this.

The only regret is that Gin's whereabouts are still unknown. Vermouth has contacted them through the FBI, and for some reason, she also asked the public security personnel to convey a message to Fūya.

【There is a price to pay for coveting other people's treasures, Bourbon.】

At first, Fūya didn't know what this sentence meant, until he suddenly remembered that the reason why Vermode targeted him was because she thought that he, a member of the organization, wanted to take advantage of the dead Akae Nazuki.

Now that Bermode knows that he is a member of the Public Security Bureau, she should overturn her original guess... Could it be that she meant that he was targeted because he was the one who found out about the little devil?

...Has Vermode ever attracted so much hatred before?

"Haa ...

"Xiao Zhenping, you don't seem to be qualified to say that after dragging me to this point." Another voice complained helplessly, "And Xiao Furi and Xiao Morobushi, didn't you say you had to go back to the police academy today? Why haven't you slept yet?"

Fūya and Morobushi Kagemitsu looked at each other and laughed at the same time.

The former's expression softened a little. He hadn't experienced this kind of noisy and relaxing feeling for many years. The sense of security and the relief of regaining what he had lost that his friends could bring to him were irreplaceable.

Even if Matsuda Jinpei laughed at him and showed him a "very disgusting smile" the next second, Furuya said he would not be angry. Why would he be angry with a person who really came back from the gates of hell?

Shinobu Fūya. "Come to think of it, I haven't asked before."

Hagiwara Kenji said thoughtfully, "During the period of undercover work, Kofuku lived alone, but there are two secondary bedrooms here?"

For someone living alone, this safe house is a little too big. What Hagiwara Kenji didn't mention is that he found that the second bedroom where he and Koujinran lived, although there was no sign of anyone living there, was obviously cleaned frequently. Morobushi Kagemitsu's room seemed to have been cleaned up in a hurry to accommodate their friends who were temporarily staying there.

Has anyone lived here before?

Fūya could hear the implication of his friend's words, and he was not surprised that Hagiwara Kenji would think of this.

Each of his friends is more observant than the other, not to mention Kenji Hagiwara, who is meticulous and good at understanding other people's minds.

He was silent for a moment, but he didn't choose to make up a lie that would be easily exposed. Instead, he nodded as calmly as possible and said, "Yes, I lived with a friend of mine for a while."

A friend who suddenly came into his life and disappeared just as suddenly.

—

It was already dusk when Furuya and his friends came out of the police academy. They visited the instructor who taught them many years ago, and walked around this school that held many memories. Now they were ready to leave.

Date Kou and Natalie were walking in the front, Matsuda and the other two, who claimed that they would not walk with people who betrayed the single class, were chatting in the middle, and Furuya had unknowingly fallen to the back.

He looked at the backs of the people playing and laughing in front of him and couldn't help laughing.

His friends who died in the line of duty are now alive, the organization has been destroyed, and all the things he was upset about have come to a happy and beautiful ending.

"That's great, isn't it?" Fūya subconsciously looked over his shoulder and said with a low laugh through his collar.

As soon as he finished speaking, he was stunned.

This is a habit that Jianggu developed when he communicated with the spirit behind him that cannot be seen or heard by humans.

He forgot that not all his grievances were soothed, and that a boy who had long since died had disappeared from his world. Now no one needed him to have such a secretive and whispered conversation.

The streets of Tokyo in the evening are at the peak of people's rush hour. The streets are busy with cars and people, creating a lively and peaceful scene, which was a scene he liked very much in the past.

Now, standing in the middle of it, Fūya felt cold all over, and an indescribable feeling of loneliness surged in his heart.

The crowd was surging, and there was no one behind him. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure passing by him, and then the hooded man was almost drowned in the crowd and disappeared from his sight again.

Although he didn't see the man's face, when Jōtani reacted, he chased after him reflexively, running through the crowded crowd in the direction the man left.

Jōtani's mind was blank, and he didn't know what he wanted to do until he actually caught up with the figure he had seen briefly.

The hand he stretched out stopped in mid-air and finally landed on the shoulder of the man in front of him with his back to him.

"I'm sorry, you..."

The man turned around, looking innocent as if he had just realized who was taking the photo of him.

"Oh, it's you." The boy in the red hoodie said in surprise.

"Although you probably still remember me, this is my first time meeting you."

The boy had a face that Furuya would never forget even in his dreams. He stood there with a smile that showed he had pulled off a successful prank, and said cheerfully, "Well... nice to meet you?"

Jyoutani was speechless for a moment, his dry and hoarse throat unable to utter a single word.

The familiar face of the young man in front of him gave him a subtle feeling of strangeness, and some details unexpectedly matched his memory, which made Jiang Gu inexplicably unable to tell whether this was reality or a dream.

Seeing that he didn't say anything, the young man blinked his eyes, smiled and asked with ease:

"Strange, Mr. Amuro, you are not crying, are you?"