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

He was woken up by the vibrating alarm of his mobile phone, as if everything he experienced before was just an unbearable dream.

Roy Mustang frowned and blinked vigorously, his sight flickering in and out of the chaotic darkness, making him almost unable to distinguish the difference between dreams and reality for a while.The light in the room is dim, and the soft bedding exudes a cozy and warm fragrance, which is quiet and peaceful, and urges people to fall asleep - if it weren't for the mobile phone vibrating and spinning on the table, making people distracted and unable to ignore, he was planning to Go back to sleep and wait until dawn before waking up.

His intuition returned to his limbs like flowing water, he raised his head and looked at the ceiling sunk in shadow, Xi Wei outside the window drew a light blue line in the dark gray shape.There is a dull pain in the waist amidst the numbness, and his mind is more like containing a bee exiled to the end by the vibration of the mobile phone, buzzing and wandering in his head, the reality he can see is still separated by a layer of indistinct smoke, he I feel that my sanity is gradually returning to myself.

The phone was still buzzing on the bedside table. He looked around slowly. The room he was in was narrow but unexpectedly not cramped. His clothes and underwear were piled on the shelf, and a pair of socks with skulls on them were placed on the shelf. It was a little uncomfortable to be on top; my own blanket was neatly folded on the low stool on the left, toothbrush and tooth powder were in a ceramic cup, eye masks and ice packs were wrapped in a towel; two cobalt glass jugs squeezed Next to the low stool, there is a bottle filled with transparent water, and the other bottle is orange in color, probably grapefruit juice from home.There was a pot of strangely shaped green plants on the table. He frowned and stared at it for a long time before he remembered that it was a flytrap on his balcony.The stems and leaves are curled, and the grinning flower buds show a warm and soft pink in dim light.When did you buy this ghost thing?

Only then did he realize that his right hand was surprisingly warm.

His first reaction was that he was grabbed by a little orange cat, with its paws clasping its wrists and its tail curling its arms.Under the hazy blue-gray morning light, a group of furry teenagers are lying on the undulating quilt with their backs facing the window. The golden hairs are in a mess standing upright and horizontally. The antenna shrouded in the dim light is shining brightly. The long hair lay on his snow-white quilt, like a golden stream in the valley.Edward Eric was crouching on the edge of his bed in a posture that even a wounded patient who had just been shot in Mustangu not long ago looked very uncomfortable. His face could not be seen, but You can see his thin shoulders rising and falling evenly with breathing, and you can feel the warm breath brushing against your wrist.He clutches his hand, the one without the salt water.Roy glanced at the empty hanging bottle above his left hand and a small piece of blood flowing back from the catheter, then turned his head to look at Edward.The boy let his mobile phone ring loudly on the bedside table, but he was still sleeping soundly there.

He clenched his own tightly, fingers intertwined.

It was a moment that wasn't long or short—similar to the time from pressing a piano keyboard with his fingertips to the time when the ding from the piano completely dissipated—Roy suddenly felt a warm liquid rising from his body up.He blinked his eyes at a loss, the warm current was so new to him, and it seemed to be an old acquaintance who could bring back countless memories in him.He thought of the sweet and hot blood bubbling into his aching body through the transfusion vessels, and thought of when he was playing on Bismo Beach when he was a child, and the warm tide under the sunset washed his cold feet; he thought of Edward Holding my hand, I imagined the slender and clear palm lines on his white palm, writing the boy's tenacious character and ill-fated fate, where they merged into an invisible spring, and invisible power flowed from his palm. It flowed out and poured into my blood vessels, even submerged the numbness and dull pain all over my body for a while, shuttled warmly and firmly through my body, and poured into my beating atrium.

He suddenly wanted to hug him so badly, and lowered his head to kiss the hand that was holding him tightly—if it wasn't because he was entangled in the IV tube.

"Ed, Ed, wake up," he said softly.

It was the early morning of the fourth day Roy was shot. Edward called the nurses, threw the whole Mustangu to a group of doctors and nurses and let them handle it. He disappeared at the door without saying anything.When he reappeared, the string of infusion tubes on Roy's arms had been temporarily taken off, and a glass jar filled with water was placed on the protruding table for simple cleaning.But the person involved lacked interest. He was lying crookedly on the bed, listlessly swiping his phone, and the sky was already faintly white.

Then Ed walked in without knocking, and Roy looked up.

This was the first time in a long time that Mustangu looked at the young man in front of him carefully, and Ed seemed to deliberately give him time to look at him. He leaned against the closed door and replied without saying a word. looking at myself.Roy thought that he was thinner than expected, and his eye sockets were gray and purple and slightly sunken after a few nights without a good rest.But the young man has straight and strong shoulders and firm and bright eyes. The golden irises under the thick eyelashes are fluttering, and they emit a mellow luster like fine wine in the morning light.He was carrying a bag in his hand, and it was another journey.

He is better looking than expected.

"You look better."

The boy said suddenly.It was only now that Roy realized that the other party was observing his expression just now.

"The nurse told me today is the fourth day," he said hoarsely, "did I wake up before?"

"Twice." Edward looked down at the bag and walked towards the bed. "One time was at noon yesterday. Not long after waking up, the doctor gave you an injection and fell asleep. The second time was last night at 7. At 8, that would wake up a little longer, almost 40 minutes, and then go back to sleep. Until now."

Roy couldn't help curling his lips.

"Just take it as a holiday."

He thought the boy would laugh, but unexpectedly he didn't.Edward dragged the chair across his bed and sat down without a word, threw the paper bag in his hand on the ground, and sat back to the place where Roy woke up before.

"Hawk likes to say that the TV station approved you for a long vacation." Ed's tone remained calm, "I don't know how you did it to be able to take a full three-month vacation with pay."

Roy smiled.

"Let's do what people want."

"fart."

Ed's face was expressionless when he answered, and Roy's heart tightened.

For a moment, the air in the ward seemed to be tightly held by an invisible hand.The young man's face was as cold as a rock, but his eyes were aggressive; and Mustangu's expression gradually changed from the initial astonishment to a clear vigilance, and they didn't say anything to each other for a while.Roy silently looked at the plain and complicated expression of the other party. It seemed that a gun with roses protruded from the beautiful eyebrows, which was unpredictable in an instant, and silently resolved in the next second.

The air relaxes.

"Actually, I'm talking nonsense, Mustangu." The boy lowered his eyes and said discouragedly, "I actually don't understand what you are doing at all, I just feel unnatural - not supernatural, 'sixth sense' That kind of 'feeling unnatural' is science, like doing experiments, sometimes you feel that such results are unnatural. Anyway, although I don't know what it is, I know that there is such a thing as 'what are you doing' , and I also know that Mas... Mr. Hughes is right."

Roy's subconscious movements of turning his face to the side to escape did not escape Ed's discerning eyes.

"What did he say?" he asked simply.

Edward stared at him for a while, then closed his eyes, "He said 'fortunately he didn't die'."

Roy bit his lower lip and remained silent.

And at this time, Ed didn't continue to stare at him.The boy's eyes softened, revealing a resolute expression in frustration.He tilted his head and looked at each other for a long time before Roy spoke slowly.

"Has that guy been here?"

Hearing this, Edward shrugged his shoulders as if what the other party had been saying for a long time was just nonsense.

"He is very worried about you." The young man leaned down, reached for the paper bag on the ground, and his voice seemed to come from the paper bag, dull and gentle, "As soon as he received the call, he flew over. The night before yesterday When I arrived, I stayed with you until yesterday afternoon, and I really couldn't get away. When you woke up for the first time and complained of pain, he was the doctor who found you. "

He seemed to be stabbed severely by something, which caught him off guard and made him close his eyes tightly.The area around his waist that was tightly wrapped in gauze seemed to have been deliberately planted with unknown seeds, and vines with soft thorns extended in his body.

Roy said softly, "I don't know at all."

Ed raised his head and clenched his fists on his knees.

"Yes, you don't know." Roy looked over in surprise, and saw the boy sitting there glaring at himself, and the voice of grinding his teeth was squeezed out from between his teeth, "You don't know how anxious Lisa is?" While contacting the police, you call your family and friends emergency contacts. You don’t know how Jane pressed your wounds before the ambulance arrived, and her hands are stained with blood. You don’t know how everyone put you in the hospital all at once. The things rescued in the hospital are waiting for you to be out of danger, and they rushed to your house to pack the clothes for you in the hospital. You don’t know that Masi has been busy for several days and flew over immediately when he heard your accident. I don’t know the gun they shot for you, the way they panicked about you, the remorse and fear on their faces when they said you were hurt—I just sat here for a day and two nights to know all of this, and it was someone else Tell me, of course you don't even know the shit!"

Roy looked at Edward with wide eyes, unable to say anything.And Ed just sneered, holding his arms and talking more and more vigorously.

"I'm not in the mood to tell you any truths. As an adult, I know all the truths I need to know." Ed gritted his teeth, "But what did you say, after Hughes belongs to someone else, you don't know where the time will come from in the future." Start'? Are you kidding me, you idiot? You said that, people came all the way to be an old mother for some mentally handicapped person? If I had Marth Hughes know what you said, I'd be screaming in pain yesterday I shouldn't have patted you on the shoulder and called the nurse, I should have strangled you to death, lest you, a wolf-hearted fool, make trouble for Dad and me everywhere!"

"Forehead……?"

"Lisa Hawke has cleaned up for you for several years, right? Without her, no matter how tough your virtuous backstage is, you will be fired, okay? Is she really invisible?? Jane Hubbard, I yesterday Only then did I realize that he changed the light bulbs in your house, and I rely on him to be invisible??"

"I'll change the light bulb, but it just doesn't turn on," Roy protested.

"Fuck you, it's called a light bulb if it's not on? After Al taught me a few times, even I can install it!" Edward pointed at him, his face turned red with anger, "You are mentally retarded. What? Broken or not? It’s just mentally handicapped! Others can’t see how good you are!”

"Ed, Ed," Roy tried his best to appease the other party's emotions, "speak softly, it's still daylight, you are going to call the auntie for rounds."

"Leave me alone!"

Ed said, covering his face with his arms.The boy who was still yelling just now shrank into a small ball in front of Roy. The man was surprised to see him squatting on the chair with his face covered, still like a little orange cat.

"Roy Mustangu," the boy's hoarse voice came from between his fingers covering his face. Roy frantically reached out to comfort him and almost knocked over the water tank on the bed table, but he was not caught push away.Finger bones pressed against the boy's shoulders, as if trying to calm his trembling.Ed gritted his teeth and said:

"You are self-willed, you are mentally retarded, you are hypocritical, you are mentally retarded, you are ruthless, you are mentally retarded, you are mean, you are mentally retarded, you are mentally retarded, you are mentally retarded." The young man's voice was squeezed out from between his teeth, turning back and forth into the air As limp as a cat's upper body paw, Ed said, "You try to kill yourself to create hatred, but in the end you don't care about the people who treat you well, and you keep saying that you are just a person. How can you get to where you are today?" It really deserves it!"

"I deserve it." Roy patted the boy on the shoulder helplessly.

"But even so..."

The second half of the voice died away, and Ed lifted his face from his balled body, hair sticking to his face in a mess.At that moment, Roy was surprised to find that the boy's trembling was not because of anger, but because of the tears in his eyes.

"Even so...I still think it's great that you survived."

The world is gradually waking up, and the dazzling morning light has not yet bloomed on the sleepy brows and eyes, but the small chirping of the early birds has begun to be faintly heard, coming from the distant sky outside the window.The light and shadow on the white wall changed color unknowingly, gradually changing from a bright light blue to a soft pink, and the sweetness of the winter air filled the room through the cracks in the curtains.The silence lasted for a long time, as if they were all paying attention to the ever-changing things in front of them, waiting for them to wake up from the nightmare of the night.

Roy lowered his eyes and saw Edward slowly let go of the fist he had just clenched.The first thing he saw was his snow-white wrist, the cyan blood veins criss-crossing the thin hand bones, which looked strong and fragile.The boy's fingers are slender, and the protruding joints are covered with thin calluses due to years of manipulation of instruments, paper and pens, but the palm he opened is soft and calm, and a crumpled white cigarette case falls in the center, There are more than a dozen cigarettes stuffed in the middle.

"Suck it or throw it away, you decide for yourself." Ed's red eyelids trembled slightly, and his Adam's apple slid gently on his neck.The boy said hoarsely, "But don't keep hiding...for yourself."

Roy closed his eyes wordlessly.

Wan Lai is silent, only the singing of birds appears and disappears in the distance.And Ed didn't say anything, he stared at the other party without saying a word, watching the morning light shine through the curtain behind him, and cast fine pale pink spots on Roy's slightly haggard face.Edward knew that he had never waited so patiently for someone as he was waiting for Roy at this moment, nor had he waited as long for someone as he had waited for the answer Roy gave him.

Then, he silently opened his eyes.Roy looked sideways and took the pack of cigarettes from Ed's hand.He didn't hold it in the palm of his hand, didn't cry, or paused for too long again. Roy raised the cigarette case and stared at it for a moment, then took out a cigarette and put it under the spot of light, slowly spinning it to look at it.Ed watched his left hand with the drip strip on the back of his hand slowly stroking every angle of the cigarette, as if trying to review his long and tortuous past due to loneliness and pain through this small paper roll. Come to seek your own longer future because of the unknown and strange.

"For myself." He threw the cigarette into the water tank in front of him.

Ed's eyes widened suddenly.

He turned his eyes in astonishment, and watched the white cigarette floating and spinning on the transparent water surface, then slowly soaked by the water, showing a light yellow color, and then the cigarette slowly sank to the bottom of the water, like a ship covered by a transparent glacier. Downed boat.And Roy silently stared at where Ed was looking, raised his head, his and Ed's eyes collided for a moment, the young man unconsciously pursed his lips, and he watched Roy's fingers twitch again A cigarette came out.

"For Lisa."

Another one.

"For Jane."

Another one.

"For..." Roy closed his eyes, with an imperceptible tremor in his voice, "For the people who are always by my side, but whom I ignore and hurt again and again."

He poured out a handful and threw them into the water tank one by one.

Then, he picked up another one.Ed watched Roy's silent eyes glued to the sky for a long time, and countless words he had never poured out to himself were clearly revealed at this moment.Then the cigarette was thrown into the water, and the clear water slowly submerged and swallowed it.Roy said, "For Mars."

There was a hole in the thick fog that had been there for a long time, and a huge torrent rushed from that hole.Ed felt that his heart was suddenly clenched by something. He didn't know why, but he was eager to say something to Roy.However, before he could speak, Roy looked at him again. This time, his eyes were filled with a soft smile, and there was no more fatigue in the pain.

Ed was speechless for a moment.

I saw Roy smoke another cigarette, lowered his eyes to take a look, and threw it into the water.

"For his smart and beautiful wife, my dear friend in private, Gracia."

There were still two cigarettes left in the cigarette case. Roy thought about it and pulled out another one.

"For my unborn goddaughter." Roy said softly, throwing the cigarette into the pool, "If it's a boy, what about that idiot Mas?"

Ed burst out laughing.

"The last one."

The empty cigarette case fell to the ground with a muffled sound.Roy picked up the cigarette, and a small white line was cut in the soft light and shadow.Ed blinked, and saw Roy looking at him jokingly, with smiles on his brows and eyes.Ed thought for no reason of that night a few months ago, when Roy carried him out of the bar in his arms, they sat in front of the balcony drinking golden liquor, he remembered that he was crazy at that time, that time the windowsill The crow, which has always been stupid and cute, was parked on the ground. At that time, there was a hint of pine fragrance on Roy's clothes that made people nostalgic.At this moment, Roy smiled and only looked at himself.Roy said, "The last one, for whom?"

The tone was yin and yang, but Ed squeezed the corners of his mouth tightly to hold back the laughter.He puffed up his cheeks on purpose, and said loudly, "Nonsense, of course it's for me! Without my great kindness to take care of you, no one will know when you die!"

"Nursing?" Roy raised an eyebrow with a smile, "When did you take care of me?"

Ed's seven orifices smoked for a moment.

"Damn it, I've seen your dog's life for a day and two nights!" Ed pointed out the window, "The night before yesterday, when it was so dark outside that the mountains could not be seen, I rushed over to visit you, and you actually asked me when?? "

"Sorry," Roy pursed his lips with a smile, "From what I saw when I woke up, the alarm clock you set to remind yourself of my infusion time didn't wake you up at all. When I was woken up, most of the blood flowed backwards." Now, you still call it 'careful care'?"

"You'd better go die." Ed made a serious face on purpose, and Roy laughed even more.

"Can you see the mountains here?"

The teenager pouted.

"Mass said, I don't know if he lied to me."

Roy said, twirling the last cigarette with his fingers, "Open the curtains and have a look."

"I rely on you not to send me!"

Having said that, Ed still turned around with a face of reluctance, and pulled the curtains open.

The soft morning light poured into the room in an instant, like a flood flooding the surroundings, spreading the light lemon-colored brilliance to the originally gloomy corners of the room.The morning breeze was blowing, but Edward couldn't care less about it.He widened his eyes, let out an involuntary exclamation, and pulled open the window.

"Really!" Ed pointed to the undulating outline of the mountains in the distance, and shouted in a fuss, "He didn't lie to me? He can really see the mountains!"

"There are still injured people in the room, please close the window." Roy smiled and cast his eyes into the distance.At the end of the blue sky, white snow-capped mountains emerge from the morning mist, drawing a long curve.Roy said, "What you can see here should be the Cascade Mountains."

"Ok?"

Ed turned his head and saw Roy raised his hand and briskly threw the last cigarette into the water tank.The white cigarette made a very small splash, making a thumping sound, and ripples appeared on the surface of the water.

"For Edward." Roy said softly.

TBC