【Ruijin】Eye of the Storm

Dengalu, the westernmost city in the country, is different from most places in that it exists as the dumping ground for most of the country.It is like another world that has been set back for more than 50 years, and is shut out by modern civilization with walls and iron gates.

Gray often stays up at night in the dark, maybe because of previous nightmares, maybe because of other reasons.He lay on his side on the left side of the bed, watching the starlight leaking in from the window, and silently listening to the steady and long breathing rhythm of another child behind him.Gray's life rhythm of catching up on sleep during the day and waking up at night is exactly the opposite of Jin's, which directly caused the two of them to lie on the same bed, but the words they exchanged over the past few days can be counted with one hand.

On this day, Gray was woken up by the loud noise of something hitting the ground.He sat up from the bed, and the sunlight outside the window was abundant and bright.Just yesterday, Qiu temporarily left home because of some unavoidable matters, so today, apart from him and Jin, there should be no outsiders at home.The silver-haired boy got off the bed with bare feet, walked slowly towards the direction of the sound, and saw Jin sitting on the ground by the closet at a glance.

The boy was reaching out to rub the top of his head, making a low hiss as he rubbed.A small box that Gray had never seen before fell at his feet, and its contents were scattered all over the floor. It had obviously fallen from a high place and hit Jin right on the head.

Gray walked over gently, and when Jin heard his footsteps, he turned his head immediately, and showed a surprised look on his face when he saw the person coming.

"You, are you up?" Jin Yigulu got up from the ground, stretched out a finger and scratched his cheek, looking a little embarrassed, "That..."

The silver-haired boy squatted down, reached out to pick up a white pill that rolled to his feet, looked at it, then raised his head again, staring at Jin with a pair of purple eyes, and said slowly: "Is this medicine?"

Jin took a deep breath, as if realizing the fact that he could no longer hide it, sat down again as if giving up, and said dejectedly: "...Yes, it's medicine."

To Jin's surprise, Gray didn't ask any more questions.The two stood and sat, looking at each other silently.Jin vaguely felt that the other party's vampire-like routine in the past few weeks seemed to make his already withdrawn character even more depressed.The matter of secretly taking the medicine has been discovered. Jin has no other choice but to take the initiative to tug at the corner of Gray's pajamas, and the voice of the plea is terribly soft: "...can you help me with the medicine? I... Not enough."

Gray knelt by the bed behind Jin, and slowly lifted off his old and dirty T-shirt, exposing the boy's back.The ungrown bones were only covered with a thin layer of muscle, and because of the opponent's arched posture, the spine clearly emerged under the skin.But the most eye-catching thing is the criss-crossing wounds that ooze blood on the large white back.

Gray's movements obviously paused, and the person sitting with his knees tucked in front of him also noticed this, knowing that he couldn't avoid it, so he didn't make any fuss anymore, and began to explain in a muttering voice: "Actually, there is no such thing as this at all. If it’s serious, don’t take medicine, it will get better on its own.”

"Don't get me wrong," Jin turned his head and tried to emphasize to him, "I'm good at fighting! If it wasn't because I was unlucky when I was picking things up today and I was discovered, the other party is an uncle, and he still uses a belt -"

"Did you steal something?" Gray interrupted him coldly, and put a cotton ball stained with white powder on the wound.

Jin shrank from the pain at first, and after hearing his words, he retorted impatiently and loudly: "Steal what, I didn't steal it! That necklace was originally my sister's necklace, I just took back what belonged to my sister!— —Hey Gray, take it easy!"

Gray ignored him and spread the powder as evenly as possible.Jin poured out only a few pills, far from enough for the number of wounds on his back—of course, some is better than nothing.The silver-haired boy was a little older than Jin, and he knew that medicine was more valuable than gold in Dengalu.

Jin took off his shirt simply because his back, which had just received the medicine, could not touch the clothes.Gray watched as he carefully took out a golden arrow pendant from his trouser pocket, bounced into Qiu's bedroom, and quietly put the things in the drawer at the bottom of the cabinet.In the end, he solemnly warned the "accomplice" Ge Rui not to tell Qiu about this matter.

When the adults are not at home, the food for the two children is completely self-reliant.Gray stood below to help Kim hold the chair, and the blond boy stood on the chair with his feet up to reach the top cabinet in the kitchen.Jin took out two vacuum-compressed tinfoil bags from the hidden corner there and threw them down. Gray caught them with both hands, and saw a small circular logo printed on the back corner of the package, with a capital letter in the center of the circle. English letter "T".Jin was much more careless than him, and it seemed that this was not the first time he had done such a thing. He tore off a corner and began to chew the compressed biscuits inside.After eating for a while, he looked up and saw Gray standing motionless. Jin was quite surprised, so he grabbed him and signaled him to eat quickly.

"It's okay." Jin thought he was afraid of being discovered by Qiu, and comforted him. "Actually, my sister should know that I will find these to eat, because I really don't know how to cook. Even if something happens in the end, I will accompany you anyway." Being scolded, what are you afraid of?"

Gray didn't want to explain, so he just shook his head and didn't speak, but followed his example and tore open the package and ate a piece.

The biscuits were roasty, but dry and hard, not really tasty.The bright logo on the packaging bag is very familiar to Grey, who was born in a sentinel family in the tower - it is clearly the military rations distributed by the tower to his subordinate combat sentries and guides.

After hastily filling their stomachs, the two of them started to do nothing at home.The summer afternoon sun is too harsh, especially in Dengalu.Jin, who had been out for a long time in the morning, didn't want to go out at the moment, so he lay on the side of the bed and chatted with Ge Rui.

After breaking through the first layer of barriers, Jin slowly discovered that Gray was not really as reclusive as he appeared on the surface.Although he didn't talk much, as long as he asked a question, the other party would reply with two or three words.Maybe it was because I was held by my sister that night and folded the other's hand, maybe it was because of the softness and kindness in the nature of children, which gave Jin an extra layer of protection in addition to his resistance and curiosity towards Gray want.Gray is one of the people who needs to be protected by himself, and this idea lingers in Jin's heart for a long time.

Jin asked Gray if he wanted to visit his treasure house. The silver-haired boy was a little puzzled, but he nodded.After getting an affirmative answer from the other party, Jin happily pulled the man to the bottom of the bed, and took out a wooden box from it.

Jin opened the box in front of Gray, and Gray leaned over to look, and found that it was full of all kinds of weird gadgets, such as fairy tale books with missing pages, sunglasses with a broken leg, old A miniature toy car, a chipped diamond, even a poster of a female star — most of these items were picked up by Kim while wandering outside. "This is the 'junk dump,'" King said. "Everything that people out there throws away gets shipped here, so you can still find something good once in a while if you're careful."

Jin fiddled with it for a while with both hands, picked out a transparent marble and showed it to Gray: "Look, I picked it up."

Gray stared at the marble for a while, and before expressing any opinion, Jin couldn't wait to stuff the thing to Gray, and said excitedly: "Look at the sun, hurry up!"

The silver-haired boy didn't know why, but he still held the bead with his index finger and thumb and held it in front of his eyes in the direction of the window.

The sunlight refracts from different angles through the small glass balls, and magically disperses colorful rays of light, like a rainbow after the rain, which bends and reflects in Gray's purple eyes.He froze for a moment, forgetting to blink for a moment.

"Is it good-looking? Is it good-looking?" Jin asked him one after another, as if seeing the startled expression on his face, he smiled more proudly.

"Give it to you," Jin said generously, "This is a testimony that we have become friends."

Gray's heart skipped a beat, but the finger holding the glass ball didn't move.

"...Isn't it okay?" Jin thought he was going to refuse, and his tone suddenly became depressed, "Then let me tell you a secret again, so it's always okay?"

Gray looked up at him, and the boy quickly glanced left and right, leaned over to his ear, covered his mouth with half of his palms, and said in a low voice: "I can hear others saying in their hearts if."

Gray frowned slightly, his purple pupils showed a trace of surprise.

Jin still opened his beautiful blue eyes: "Do you think I'm lying? But it's true, I'm not lying to you." He paused, then added: "Although it's not really anything I hear, but if you're thinking about it like hell, I'm sure I'll know. If you don't believe me, you can try it. Think about it now, just think about what we're going to have for dinner later."

Gray pursed his lips with a hesitant expression.Kim sincerely doesn't look like he's joking, he thought, whatever it is for dinner, as long as it's not the biscuits at noon.

Jin, who was sitting across from him, showed a bit of embarrassment: "Don't you like to eat?"

Before Gray could react, he subconsciously asked "what".

"Because I think it's still delicious, those cookies. I thought you would like it too," Kim scratched his head a little sheepishly, "You were just thinking 'the cookies are terrible, don't eat them for dinner' kind of thing Bar?"

The silver-haired boy was shocked and stared at him closely: "...Did you hear that?"

Jin nodded: "I heard it. Do you believe me now?"

Gray's mind was a little confused, a not-so-good guess gradually emerged in his mind, and suddenly remembered the other party's special ability, he quickly shook his head, warning himself not to think deeply, but saw the opposite person showing a displeasure look.

"I won't listen casually," Jin turned his face away, "you don't have to be so afraid of me, I'm not interested."

Children's emotions come and go freely, not to mention a child like Jin who is inherently lively and cheerful, expressing his emotions clearly-he expresses his grievance and sadness with almost every cell in his body.Even Gray, at this time, realized that his unintentional actions just now hurt the person in front of him.The two argued for a long time, but in the end Gray took the lead and took a step back.

Under Jin's gaze, he put the glass ball into his jacket pocket properly, and then asked in a muffled voice, "Who else knows?"

Jin understood that he was referring to his own ability, and turned back to answer frankly: "Only you and my sister. My sister said that I can't tell others about this, so I haven't said it. From now on, this will be a secret between the two of us."

Gray didn't comment, but Jin didn't care, and continued to talk to him excitedly: "Actually, you like this too?" He pointed to Gray's pocket, "I still know many places where you can pick up this kind of thing. So , do you want to go with me?"

Gray's face was expressionless, and his purple eyes were too calm, as if such a fun thing that Jinkou said could not arouse his curiosity.Just when Jin almost thought that the other party would reject him, Gray suddenly said, "Wait until you recover from your injury."

"...What did you say?" The blond boy froze for a moment.

Gray sighed, slowed down and said again: "We'll go out after your wound heals."

Because of the lack of medicine, the wound healing is very slow.Maybe it was a physical problem, maybe it was luck, but fortunately it didn't lead to more serious complications of infection.I don't know if it's a blessing in disguise, but many things that Jin can do alone, such as bathing, now need the assistance of another person, which inadvertently improves their relationship a lot.During the short period of time when Qiu left home, they stayed at home and shared toys and food together. After night fell, they lied on the bed with an oil lamp on and read the same picture book side by side.

Gray knew many more characters than Jin, which made Jin gradually develop a subtle sense of admiration for him in his heart.He pulled the quilt over their heads and retracted, staring sideways at Gray's slowly opening and closing mouth.When Gray told the story, he was not as emotional as Qiu, and his tone of voice, which was almost straightforward, even seemed a bit too rigid, but it unexpectedly made Jin find it very interesting.As for Gray, he abided by the agreement between the two and kept silent about Jin's special ability.Jin is indeed as he said, he will not read the voices of the people around him abruptly, which makes Gray change a lot about this companion.Jin told him that this was one of the important things that Qiu had ordered, and Jin had always cared very much about her sister's request.Overall, this is a good thing for both of them.

Fortunately, before Qiu went home, the injury on Jin's back finally healed completely.The woman with long blond hair smiled and pushed away the two younger brothers who ran to the door to greet her, turned around and took out a gift from the accompanying package.

She put a hat of just the right size on Jin's head, and took out a model of a wooden knife and handed it to Gray.

"Starting today, I will teach you how to practice." Qiu announced, "Is there any problem?"

Jin raised his hands high: "About what practice, sister?"

Qiu waved his arms in an attacking motion, and raised his chin at his younger brother: "Understood?"

Kim let out a drawn-out exclamation, eyes sparkling.Cho laughed and pushed Jin by the shoulder to ask him to go to the kitchen and get himself a glass of water.

Seeing Jin Huan happily running away, Gray turned his gaze back.Looking up at Qiu's face, he asked softly, "What happened?"

Qiu sighed, knelt down and rubbed the top of his hair: "No. Nothing happened. I just think that you are almost at the age to learn some skills."

Gray lowered his head and said nothing, Qiu watched him make an adult-like expression with that child's face again, and couldn't help laughing, so he could only straighten his shoulders so that the silver-haired boy was facing her. "Gerry," she said with a smile, "I know what you're thinking, and I told you, don't try to forget those things."

"There are many reasons for people to live," she said softly. "It can be because of wealth, food, love, and of course hatred. Even if they lead to different futures, it doesn't matter whether they are good or not. Yes—but obsession itself is not right or wrong."

"But you are my younger brother, so, you, and Jin, I hope... I hope you can have the best future."

"—And until you have enough ability to choose the future you want to pursue, I will always protect you."

TBC