【Steel Refining Flame Steel】How to make the person I like also like me

The relationship between people is very easy to break if there is no clear definition and strict compliance with it.The more people cherish things, the more hesitant and hesitant to move forward, but the relationship they cherish cannot withstand too much hesitation, it is fleeting, and there is no regret... Edward has always understood that he really lost There were too many irreversible things, so that at this moment, he just wanted to keep running forward as hard as he could, as long as he was given a little light to exit—it didn't matter if he ran until his chest hurt.

At this moment, Ed was standing in front of the corridor window and looking into the distance.Behind it is a bright light, dazzling and cold, reflecting the pale walls; outside the window is bathed in darkness, only a few lights and occasional flashes of light.It would be nice if he could see farther away, he swallowed in pain, like swallowing a needle.It would be nice to be able to see farther, Ed thought.

"From this angle, it is reasonable to see the mountain on a clear day."

The boy paused, but did not answer right away.Ed smiled bitterly.

"But I can't see it now."

"At night," Mass said, "everything will be fine when it's daylight."

Ed felt his heart beating violently for a moment, and his eye sockets were also crazily hot.

When the sun rises, everything will be fine.

The young man immediately closed his eyes tightly, as if he had pressed a certain gate that suppressed the scourge.After a long time, he slowly opened his eyes, and stretched out his hand stupidly to trace along the mist that he breathed out on the glass, his fingertips were red with cold.The people behind said nothing, as if they were also looking at the darkness outside the window.Ed lowered his eyes, the fog had cleared, and the glass reflected his own face, tired dark circles and anxious brows.

A blurred name remains vaguely on the glass.

Roy.

It was the day after that afternoon that Ed learned that Mustangu was seriously injured and hospitalized.Not long ago, he just fought for more than 20 hours to start a new research project based on the past. When he returned home, it was already early morning.Ed hurriedly took a shower, didn't even bother to eat, then stretched out under the blanket and slept in the dark, and when he woke up, it was already dark.So he didn't think much about it, got up and scratched the back of his head and looked at the alarm clock, hurriedly put on his coat and went downstairs without gloves on, bought a bag at the hand-rolled pizza shop he frequented familiarly, and ate it Breakfast, lunch and dinner together, while rushing to Mustangu's house.

According to the schedule, today the other party should rest in the morning and work in the evening.Based on this calculation, what he was expecting on the winter night journey was an empty bachelor apartment, where the floor was as usual strewn with consumables, and the air there was as always full of darkness and silence.But before he got to the door, he realized something was wrong.To be precise, when Edward stood at the end of the aisle, staring dumbfounded at the bright yellow lights and human voices revealed from the gap in the half-covered gatehouse not far away, he was almost ready to run back.However, at that moment, amazement and curiosity nailed him in place, leaving him dumbfounded in the corner looking at the destination that was close at hand, with his fingertips tucked into the sleeve of his coat, and the bag of rolled pizza in his hand. In his arms, a warm and seductive breath exudes out of season.

At this moment, the voice at the door suddenly rang.Ed watched as the door of Mustangu's house was pulled open from the inside out. At the same time, the alarm in his mind was pulled open. The countless excuses he made up before collapsed, and the sound of the siren rang through his head.He turned around and grabbed the handrail and jumped down the stairwell, spreading his legs and preparing to run down.

"Love, Edward?"

Ed froze.

He stopped and turned around.

I only heard intermittent questions from the corridor, and more footsteps came from here, circling in the dark and empty corridor.

"Is it... Dr. Edward?"

The young man slowly stepped back sideways, after a long consideration, he finally poked his head out towards the corridor again.

In the long and dark corridor, only one door was opened, and a whole fan-shaped light yellow light fell out.Ed held the paper bag in his hand and walked slowly towards the light hesitantly, his eyes widened silently out of curiosity, but his brows furrowed nervously because of the faint omen.

"Hoke love? Hubble?" he said softly.

The place where the spare keys are placed in the gap on the left side of the door frame is empty. There are two pairs of shoes for a man and a woman and several empty bags that are ready to be used, while Lisa Hawke and Jane Habuck are rummaging through boxes and cabinets to collect clothes and towels , was very busy back and forth.Ed took off his shoes embarrassingly, and stood in the middle of the living room at a loss for a while. Before he could figure out what he wanted to do, Lisa dragged him over to help find Mustangu's underwear.While folding his underwear, he carefully took out the skeleton socks he secretly brought from the drawer and stuffed them in together. He turned his head and watched the blonde woman quickly pull out a stack of towels from the cabinet, feeling like a A useless person who came to help with malicious intentions.

"We are..."

"Lisa, where do you think he'd put the blindfold?" Hubock poked his head out and asked.

"...He still wears a blindfold when he sleeps?"

"Under the coffee table," Ed said, "don't forget to bring an ice water bag, he likes to put the eye mask in ice water before putting it on."

Jane turned and ran.

A cry of joy came from Jane from the living room.

Lisa cast an incredulous look at Ed.

Ed immediately laughed, "Why are you packing up his things? Has Mustangu gone to the detention center?"

Lisa's hand to get Roy's toothpowder stopped, and Ed felt his own breath catch.He realized the seriousness of the problem in an instant, and saw that the blond woman's face was still maintaining her usual calm and seriousness, bitterness and sentimentality flew through her beautiful and sharp eyes, so fast that Ed almost failed to catch it. .Hubble, who was busy in the living room, seemed to have stopped, and the room was eerily silent for a moment.Ed's eyes widened.

Hawke lowered his head and stuffed the toothbrush and tooth powder into the bag.

"He was injured yesterday afternoon." She said in a low voice. "The left waist was wounded by a bullet. He was just out of danger at noon today. He should still be in a coma under anesthesia."

At that moment, Ed remembered how he felt when he was pushed off the diving platform into the pool as a child.

Falling irreversibly from top to bottom.The track of time is shattered into powder, the picture in front of me seems to be infinitely stretched in an instant, but the fragments of the past fly to an unreachable place in an instant.The cold wind whistled in my ears, my hands and feet became decorations, and my mind went blank with a large piece of flying flash.There was only a loud splash of water, and the numb pain exploded in the back of his head like fireworks. After the world sank from the speeding white light to the light blue medium, it was distorted and muddy on the scarred water surface, and his heart was overwhelmed. Ed felt that he could not breathe.At that moment, he didn't know where the end of the fear was.

At this moment, he didn't know where the end of his fear was.

In the next 40 minutes, Edward felt that he had become a wooden man at the mercy of others. He talked to the other two people and packed boxes as always, but his vocal organs and actions were not his own. He didn't remember himself at all. What was said and what was taken.He followed them into the car and listened to their low-pitched and intermittent conversations, but the sound of their conversations was floating on the mottled water, and he couldn't breathe underwater.But he didn't know where he was going next, nor did he understand what they were talking about.Ed huddled in the back seat and kept telling himself that he was fine, that he was out of danger, that he had nothing to worry about, but his hands and feet were cold and his eyes were hot, and he didn't know he had enough The evidence is still tense.He didn't even know how he got to the hospital, took the elevator, and walked into his room.

This was already the second time he had seen him in the hospital.

The way he leaned against the door frame and lowered his head to smile at himself the day before yesterday can still clearly come to his mind. The tenderness he showed at that time was so real and soft that Ed almost thought he could Always secretly monopolizing Roy's smile like this, obscure and long - it's not what it used to be.

Edward looked down at Roy, illogically flashing through his mind every time he met him for the first time.Every time he had planned it for a long time or was caught off guard, he knew that some things in him were consistent and never really changed-but Roy Mustangu was not like that.He doesn't understand him, he seems to have countless faces that can be presented to himself: when he is in a state of despair, his face is like porcelain that will fall apart at any time, and the corners of his pursed mouth reveal helplessness and bewilderment without saying anything; When he is in high spirits, his eyebrows are full of brilliance, and his gestures are magnificent and breathtaking; when he is heartbroken, he will look at the rain curtain and cry helplessly; when he is lonely and sad, he will shrink into the blanket like a wounded bird. The cat... All of these are far from the whole truth, but each one is a winding path leading to him, making Ed hesitate, stumble again and again, and be unable to control himself again and again.From a certain moment, he knew that he had vaguely grasped the real outline of the other party, and Ed was no longer obsessed with what kind of fancy disguise he would wear.

But now, Roy can no longer wear any familiar masks.He was lying flat on the bed in the ward, like a piece of paper for anyone to read, the scar on his forehead that had been carefully covered by bangs and concealer was exposed, and the horizontal and vertical room still made people feel cold even when the heater was turned on .The white sheets, white walls, white cabinets, black hair and eyelashes all set off his frighteningly pale face.Mustangu is no longer the eye-catching existence everywhere he goes, he has become weak and weak, and his calm face is not so much calm as he is forbearing.When Ed didn't arrive, he wholeheartedly wanted to come to him quickly, but when he saw the other's face, he almost regretted coming to see him for a moment.

The bullet that shot through Roy's body seemed to fly through time and space, piercing Ed's heart.

The young man stood beside him blankly, unable to find the strength to move.He raised his head and looked around in a daze. He didn't know when Hawke'ai and Hubock were already busy in the ward, placing Mustangu's changed clothes, towels, water cups, ice packs and eye masks where they were needed.But I just stood there stupidly, putting down the bag of cold pizza rolls, not knowing what I should do, nor what I could do.Ed thought of the pain of accidentally cutting himself when he was doing the experiment, and the pain of his mother being tortured by a high fever on the sick bed that kept her awake at night. He thought it must be very painful when the bullet shot into his body. If he could share it for him A little pain would be nice.

It would be great if I could relieve him a little bit of his psychological depression and physical pain.What Edward Eric lacked the most was the courage to run wildly towards hope in the face of pain.

The door of the ward behind him was swung open.

While reminding the visitor to move softly, the nurse dragged the cart over to change the IV bottle for Mustangu.The medicine bottles collided, and the guests behind him were panting, as if they had come from a long way away, and Lisa and Jane turned sideways towards him after hearing the sound.

"You come here, we can be relieved." Lisa lowered her voice.

"This guy...is really disturbing."

Ed recognized the voice.That voice was soft and steady, always making Ed unconsciously like him, so fond of him that he couldn't be jealous, even though it sounded completely faded from the usual lightheartedness at this moment, with undisguised tiredness and anxiety.Ed closed his eyes and turned around.

"Mr Hughes," he said softly.

"We were out on location at the time, and the recording supporters, anchors and guests were all there. For the sake of the show, we only hired security to maintain order. In the past, we used to do this when we went out on location. Although sneak shots and the like were repeatedly prohibited, there were also cases where interviewees suddenly lost control. situation, but most of them can be controlled on the spot, and such a serious situation has never happened...

"This kind of attack on the camera team is either those bastards who were sanctioned because they were exposed by the program, or Luthor who was wronged and wanted to find a public team to retaliate against society. Most of his actions have no logic and purpose-this is Our security team usually targets attacks, so it can be said that this time it was completely unexpected. As soon as you see an attacker with a gun, you immediately protect women and younger workers. The personnel are organized and ready to retreat, who knows that he will rush up and shoot Mustangu...

"I have tried to contact Mustangu's adoptive mother, but so far there is no news. To be honest, there is nothing we can do. I don't know who is around him who can make some decisions for him...

"No, I don't know about it. The police are still investigating. But... But as far as I saw at the scene, the gangster was very emotional from the beginning, and he came here for Mustang. The specifics are yet to be investigated...

"No, I doubt whether the investigation will yield any results, because the gangster has been shot dead on the spot."

"Security personnel?" Mass asked.

Lisa shook her head.

"It's me." She lowered her head and crossed her arms. "I know this will affect the investigation, but I don't regret it at all." The blond woman raised her head, her sharp eyes could not be questioned.She said clearly, "Not at all."

Ed lost his voice, and Lisa's firm eyes slid to him, as if conveying her fearlessness to Edward.Just listening to Matthew Hughes being silent for a moment, he replied in a low voice:

"I understand that if I were there, I would do the same thing as you. Thank you."

Lisa has hardly closed her eyes since yesterday, and finally agreed to go back to rest for a while before coming back under the persuasion of the people around her.They followed out of the ward, Jane rubbed her messy hair wearily, waved her hand and followed Lisa downstairs, saying that she wanted to go outside to smoke a cigarette, suddenly only Ed and Lisa were left in the empty hospital corridor late at night. Mas two people.Ed stared out the window silently, the night was starless and moonless, the brilliance was fleeting, leaving only his face reflected on the glass and his bitter heart.

"Ed."

The boy turned his head, but the other party didn't look at him.Matthew Huss frowned slightly and looked out of the window, his green eyes revealing unbearable anxiety.He said hoarsely, "Why don't you go back first? It's useless to stay here."

Ed paused, then immediately shook his head.

"You are all very tired, but I was still sound asleep in bed a few hours ago." The young man tried his best to hold back a humorous tone, and as soon as he fell into the air, Ed realized that his voice was inexplicably hoarse at the moment. A little bit of wit is out of place.

But Mars still smiled cooperatively.His furrowed brows and worried eyes remained unchanged, but a little smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, showing unbelievable reliability and gentleness under the cold light.Ed felt like a small iceberg in his stomach had melted in vain, melting into the acid.

He said, "Is it really okay for you to fly around like this?"

"Not good, not good," the man with glasses shook his head with a wry smile, "I'm going to take a vacation to accompany my wife to give birth. Recently, I have to finish the work in hand immediately, and I'm very busy. This is good, this The guy messed up all my plans."

Ed couldn't help laughing when he heard the words, "Then you still ran over in the middle of the night? You really are both a father and a mother."

"That's right," Mas said decisively, "I've been his father for nearly 20 years. If I left him alone, he would have died by now."

Now Edward really couldn't hold back anymore, and laughed wildly like he couldn't control it.Hearing the crazy shrill laughter, Mars hurriedly looked down at him in amazement. Seeing Ed hugging his stomach and laughing wildly, he couldn't help smiling until the nurse ran out of the ward on the side, bowing his head. until he reprimanded them loudly.

Ma Si said, "When he was in high school, he had the audacity to go to the senior's dormitory to hook up with the girlfriend brought back by others. He tried to persuade him and was finally caught and raped in bed. As a result, he was almost caught in the quilt and thrown down from the fifth floor on the spot. Didn't I plead with him with a shy face? He is like this every time, relying on his good-looking skin and sharp tongue to go around to death, and he doesn't know where to draw a lot of hatred, so it's really a little bit like this No surprise. I even feel lucky that I didn’t lose any arms or legs or go blind, and I survived.”

Ed's voice of trying to hold back his laughter suddenly stopped, as if some overflowing tide suddenly submerged an isolated island.He raised his golden eyes to look at each other, and Mars realized something, and waited quietly for Edward to speak.

The teenager said, "He really depends on you."

Marth's green eyes darkened.The atmosphere that had been relieved just now became serious again, he frowned and looked out the window into the dark distance again, and it took a long time before he let out a helpless sigh.

"Maybe it's a little too dependent." He said bitterly.

Ed felt hit hard for a split second.His heart was beating wildly, his temples were tensely tense.He grabbed the man's wrist, leaned over and stared at his different expressions with wide eyes. He tried his best to suppress his voice, but he still couldn't hide the tremor in his voice.The boy said in a low voice:

"You... do you know everything?"

Mars looked at him in surprise, pursed his lips for a while, and said nothing.But Kaede didn't let it go, the boy's golden eyes were as bright as a lion's cub, he stared straight at it fearlessly, questioned it forcefully, and vowed not to give up until he got an answer.

Seeing the boy's eyes like this, Matthew Hughes calmed down instead.The look of astonishment on his face slowly faded away, he closed his eyes slightly, looked down at Ed's phalanx on his wrist, and then loosened his hand little by little.

"I can't say that what I think now is the whole truth." He smiled bitterly, "Because I once had the same guess as you and Roy."

Ed was speechless for a moment.

Mars raised his head and looked out the window again.There is still nothing outside the window, the night is endless, and the darkness is overturned like a flood, making people doubt whether the morning light will really come to this dark and lonely world like every day in the past.At some point, Ed found himself unconsciously looking at the distance outside the window, aimlessly, and could only hear the soft and deep voice of the other party gradually flowing.

"When I met Roy Mustangu, he was just a nerd sitting in a corner and buried in a book. The door is always closed tightly, shutting others out, and over time, others will not bother to talk to him anymore. But I am different, not only because I was smart enough to talk to him at the time, but more because I was I only went to make friends with my friend after losing a bet. No matter how many rejections I had, I still had to bite the bullet and talk to him. After a long time, I became his only friend. Thinking about it this way, building a friendship is actually nothing special. I just happened to be the one who insisted on getting close to him when he was loneliest.

"When you see him now, you probably find it hard to imagine. He is so well-rounded and sophisticated. There are countless casual acquaintances rushing to shake his hand, and there are countless men and women who want to have something to do with him. But when When he was so seriously injured and unable to wake up in the hospital, the only people who could help him at night were a few colleagues who had known him for many years and a middle school classmate of mine? Has he really changed over the years? The kid who is buried in a book with thick-rimmed glasses in the corner, and the news anchor who is loved by everyone everywhere he goes today, has he really changed?

"Yes, I have known him for many years. We have different personalities and different life aspirations, but we have always appreciated and recognized each other. Roy Mustang is my most important and most unforgettable friend. I hope he Being able to be there all the time, whether it’s killing me, causing me trouble, or making me fly over to see his dead body when I’m getting ready to accompany my wife... always be there, just like my dearest family The same. And what he thinks is actually no different from mine. The difference is that he is not as lucky as me. For a long time, there is no one around him who can complain about going out in the rain except me. Man, I was almost the only person he could rely on. After I got married, he moved to Seattle, a place he didn’t know well. I knew he wanted to be independent, and I knew he was afraid of losing me. But Ed, that’s Like it?"

The question was suddenly thrown at the young man, he was startled, and looked away unexpectedly.It wasn't until this moment that Ed realized that his eyes were filled with hot liquid at some point, no matter how hard he tried to blink his eyes, he couldn't wipe the stinging pain from his eyes and heart.

The weight of a thousand catties pressed against the outlet of his emotions, and the torrent of depression swirled into a whirlpool at the bottom of the well.But the young man already knew the answer, so much that Masi said was just to compose a series of processes for the answer, making the doubts confirmed one by one, and the thorns that once stabbed him withered and softened, becoming Things that could break at the touch of a touch blocked him, forcing him to cry and couldn't stop.

"Roy knows it himself." Ma Si said softly.

Ed couldn't hold back his tears anymore.

He raised his hand and covered his eyes.In the past time, during the nights when his father left home, his mother died early, and Al left him again, Ed has long understood that loneliness is never a so-called ornament for people to taste and decorate literature and art in novels, it is itself The invisible beast will chase him, bite him, and torture him by stepping on every footprint and shadow.He Xiao thought that he could overcome loneliness alone, but he couldn't help yearning for someone to fight by his side—and that was what he felt when he met Roy Mustang for the first time.At that moment, the originally calm and forbearing ice surface cracked a slender and deep gap, and the gears of life got stuck in a new one, so the time from then on is destined to be completely different from the past and irreversible.There are so many lonely hearts in the world, only one soul is so close to oneself, stubborn, withdrawn, genius, innocent.From that moment on, whether Ed is willing or not, every step he takes is trying to chase the opponent's track, and every step he takes is to get close to him.To this day, he doesn't want to endure it anymore, and he doesn't want Roy to endure it anymore.

"Regardless of the past, now he is no longer alone."

Masi lowered his head, his eyes were mixed with surprise and a little thick tenderness for a while.Ed's voice was soft and hoarse. He didn't seem to be speaking to Mars, or even to himself, let alone swearing his wish to anyone—he was speaking to the one who couldn't hear everything now. people say.That person has his eyes tightly closed up to now, perhaps still enduring unimaginable pain, and his consciousness may still be far away, unable to hear or see, but Edward is indeed telling him.

"Not anymore." Mars reached out his hand and pressed it on Edward's shoulder.

TBC