Mi Xia [Net King]

There are many photo albums in Hirano Bixiang's study.

There are also several photo frames on the wall on the desk, all of which are landscapes. They are beautifully photographed, but they are more like paintings than photos.And those photo albums that take pictures of people and events are scattered on the bookshelves, and their appearance is similar to books. If you don't look carefully, it is easy to ignore.

When he was looking around the shelf of fairy tale books, he found that one looked different from the others, so he took it out, opened it at will, and saw a picture of a girl standing in a gentle courtyard, a low room The white walls and black tiles are clear and distinct, the stone well is built with a bamboo frame for water, the stone steps are covered with grass and moss, a few thin bamboos and weak maple swaying in the wind are full of interest.

At the age of four or five, with silver bells in her hair, cinnabar on her eyebrows, and a soft baby face like a spring flower, she was holding a half-opened cherry blossom branch in her hand, and she turned her head to look at it in a daze, as if she didn't understand the beauty in front of her eyes. What the person wants to do, there is a woman in a formal kimono beside her, half kneeling down and lowering her head to roll up her sleeves, the camera only takes half of it.

In the blank space under the photo, a few vines were painted with colored pens, and a line of words "1994. Spring. With parents in the old house in Osaka" was half circled.

Presumably, this woman is her mother, and the one holding the camera is her father.

I flipped through a lot of pages, and the photo album was organized very carefully. It can be seen that many photos are very old, as if they were pressed somewhere for a long time, and then they were sorted out and neatly pasted with new oil paper for storage. Even if it is repaired, there will be some slight creases that cannot be erased.There is a line of annotations written under all the photos, so-and-so was with such-and-such person at such-and-such place, and occasionally such-and-such things will be added.The handwriting is a little immature compared to today, maybe it was the album made in the early years.

She is the one with the most pictures, when she was still very young.Then there is the lady with slightly curly hair and a warm smile, with a kind of gentleness that can be remembered by time. She is holding her daughter's hand, or stroking her daughter's head, or wrapping her arms around her daughter, implying tenderness and beauty, soaked in love even after a long distance. The deep love that is still indelible through the years of taking pictures.

There are only two or three photos of the father in the photo album. Most of them are family portraits of three people. A man with a handsome face and deep eyes is sitting under the eaves. He opened the door and looked over with a smile.

After flipping through the photo album, he dared not look directly at Bixiang Hirano for a long time, as if spying on some kind of secret information, he hid a certain kind of innocent excitement and thought in his heart, but he was ashamed to show the slightest bit.

She was really beautiful when she was young.That kind of natural, pure, undisguised vitality that will be infected by anyone who sees it, is like a flower branch in spring hair, the kind of beauty that cannot be covered up even if it is about to bloom.

Of course she is beautiful now, but her beauty is reserved and restrained.

When the flowers bloom at their best, the mind is silent, the smile loses its true meaning, and there is a trace of melancholy between the brows. No matter how warm the sun is, the beauty and joy cannot be illuminated, and the beauty is already far away.

A child's heart is the most sensitive, and he can feel it. Many times, when he hugs her, he feels that she is so far away from him.

Something is hiding in my heart.

Children's curiosity can linger in memory for a long, long time. Even if they forget it for a while, they can return after a short period of loss, and the tossing becomes more and more rampant.

No matter how stable a child is, he can't be perfect.Looking up at her, looking down at her, something stuck in my heart will always come out involuntarily.So after he was distracted during practice and was beaten to death with tennis balls by the teacher, Hirano Bixiang rubbed medicinal wine on him, put OK bandage on him, with a calm expression, noticing that the child was stubbornly pursing his mouth, so he Xiaoxiao didn't ask anything.

He sat in the dining room, watching the busy people inside through the glass partition.

So gentle, how can you be so gentle?He's obviously not very old, why can he have such calm and gentle eyes that seem to see through the world?

The next day, taking advantage of Hirano Bixiang's afternoon nap, he secretly flipped through all the photo albums in the study.

The photographs came to an abrupt end in 2000.That year, she was nine years old.

She once said that she met Keigo Atobe of this world in Ice Emperor seven years ago, seven years ago, in 2002, when she was 11 years old.

Confused, she will think about what made her look like she is now, she will guess what the shape of her heart is, and then feel sad.The heart will be sad. This kind of sadness caused by worrying about others is very novel, but it is so real that he feels that he is a real person.He can also show his emotions so straightforwardly and purely.

Can't sleep at night.

I couldn't fall asleep after tossing and turning, and then I didn't dare to turn over again, so stiff that I lay motionless on the bed, afraid of disturbing the people around me.

There is a faint scent of green grass from the pillow that touches the tip of the nose. The sun and the smell of roses still permeate the room in the dead of night. The feeling of being wrapped tightly for warmth and serenity can even be felt in the depths of the chest. Out of satisfaction in attachment.

The small body was huddled under the quilt, and the image of the figure that appeared in front of him when he raised his head that evening was still echoing in his mind.

He didn't know how long he had been like this, he turned his head quietly, and when he saw the person sleeping soundly in the night, depression slowly filled his heart.

Just as he was in a daze, a hand reached out and poked his forehead.

The child suddenly opened his eyes wide, and immediately blushed again.

He was awake, Hirano Bixiang couldn't help but stretch out her hand to embrace him, so she moved her body to approach him, opened her arms to hug him, and said in a soft, sleepy voice, "Can't sleep?"

His face was buried in the hollow of his shoulder, and he smelled a soft fragrance, his face was so hot that he couldn't cool down, and it took him a long time before he mumbled, "Did I wake you up?"

Hirano Bixiang smiled and said nothing.She is not asleep.

She has been taking naps habitually, the sun and the outdoor air, a noisy environment, and even the chirping of birds and insects can make her sleep more peacefully. On the contrary, it is a quiet night, and sleep is considered less.

Rubbing the child's soft and smooth hair, the warm body has the unique milky fragrance of a child, soft and soft, which can make people's hearts soften: "What's the matter?" She said softly, pressing her face against his on the head.

He shook his head.

"Can't sleep?" she asked, only thinking of one possibility, "Are you homesick?"

He lay there bewildered.In fact, before she mentioned the word "home", it didn't exist in his consciousness.

He knew that he always had to leave, he would leave here eventually, he had to go back to that cold, dark and silent mansion, and he also decided in his heart-but now he was suddenly surprised that for so long, he hadn't Think of all that.

He was full of thoughts about how to deal with the tennis teacher who made him gnash his teeth tomorrow, what kind of dishes he would eat for three meals, what surprises he could find in Hirano Bixiang's study, and how to clean himself up after an exhausting day. Lying down in the warm blanket contentedly...

His whole world was filled with this yard and this house, it was such a simple thing, but he couldn't squeeze even a little gap, he almost forgot who he was, even the faces of his mother and father Never came to mind.

"What's the matter?" Sensing that his mood seemed a little wrong, she lowered her head and leaned over to look at his face.

Under the faint light of the wall lamp, the child's eyes were wide open, but his expression was blank, and the whole person seemed to have suddenly returned to the quiet and silent appearance when they first met.

Hirano Bixiang's heart ached all of a sudden, she pressed her forehead against his, and her voice couldn't be more gentle: "What's the matter?"

He raised his head to look at her, then reached out and hugged her arm, relying on the fact that he was a child, he shrunk himself into her arms again, and after a long time said: "I don't want...I don't want to."

That kind of tolerant and gentle gaze.She seemed to always understand what he was thinking, and with just a few words and slight movements, she could explore the deepest part of his chest that even she didn't want to dig out.Happily, it's not offensive at all.

This kind of gaze is like the vast and vast starry sky. Looking up, even if there is no sound, he can feel it responding to him. One point, let her see it more thoroughly.

"I don't want at all..." He said in a low voice, "I don't want them...I'm fine now..."

"Come talk?" After a long time, she hugged him and kissed his forehead, seeming to be smiling slightly, "Speak, us?"

His nose was sore, he couldn't help it, and nodded indiscriminately.

"Guess, I go to the street every day, and when I come back, why don't I take the road to the east instead of going west?"

He shook his head, and the child's confused voice was quickly diverted: "Why?"

"The house on the farthest side of the east, the house full of hydrangeas in the yard, has an old lady, her wife died of illness two years ago, and her children are working in Tokyo. It is rare for her to come to see her, and she is unwilling to move in with her. I just live alone in the old house." Hirano Bixiang said softly, with a smile as always, "I passed by many times and saw her sitting on a rocking chair in the yard basking in the sun, with a spotted old man lying on her lap. Cat, the sunset glowed on her face, clothes, and eyes, and her white hair was dyed with a nice warm color. I looked at her, and I always felt that her people would be melted away in the warm sunset, and my heart was full of tears. There's a panic that I'm going to go away like this one day, and no one knows."

He opened his eyes blankly, wanting to say something, but he didn't know what to say.

Hirano Bixiang touched his head and said: "No matter how warm it is, the loneliness is clearly visible...so you have to stay away from it. If you can't see it, you will feel that you are different."

"It's different!" He said, grabbing her hand tightly.

"What's the difference?" She asked with a smile.

"……I have no idea."

Slender fingers fiddled with his hair one by one: "It's very difficult to stay behind, but I'm stuck here. Like that old lady, I can't go far."

"Why...what?" He asked in a daze.

"Because, home, is a very important thing. No matter where you go, because the things you care about stay here, you will always come back, so you can't go far."

"The thing you want to miss... what is it?"

Hirano Bixiang thought for a while: "Probably, it's the roses in that yard."

"Ah," the child stared blankly, unable to understand anything.

So she smiled softly and touched his forehead with an intimate and sly smile.

Feel like cheated.But, but, I felt that she was answering very seriously.

"You, have you always been...alone?" After a long time, the child's pure and clean voice asked cautiously.

"Of course not." Her voice was soft and soft, "I also have a family."

"But, but where are they...?" He couldn't hold back, and then he began to regret after asking, "I'm sorry!"

Hirano Bixiang thought about it and understood: "Have you seen the photo album?"

The child in his arms trembled and buried his head deeper: "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay." Hirano Bixiang chuckled, "I wonder where they went?"

He was silent.So after a long time, she said: "That year when we went back to Osaka, the mountain road, the oncoming car was drunk driving, and the guardrail was in disrepair for a long time... Both cars fell off the cliff."

The child burst into tears after a long daze.Silently, hot tears seeped into the pajamas, she felt it.

But she is smiling, just like the smile when looking at those flowers, admiring and attached, warm and grateful: "How lucky, I survived."

How could this be... He couldn't help trembling.

Tell yourself desperately, there may be other reasons.Maybe it was because of some reason that they temporarily left this place, but the photo album stopped abruptly when they were 11 years old, but there are not many traces of their existence in the house.Maybe it's divorce or something, but in the photo album, they love each other so warmly and trustingly, what can separate them... I found myself a lot of guessing answers, but in the end it was the most tragic one.