Armed SWAT

"This is the fitness room. In fact, no one is working out in it. When you were young, you often played hide-and-seek with me here. You fell asleep after hiding."

"..."

"This is the rooftop. You can climb over the flower basket to go to the audio-visual room. We once repaired a TV screen that covers the entire wall."

"This flower basket..."

Epro turned his head: "What?"

The sun in the winter afternoon was lively and bright, Deng Kaiwen tilted his face slightly, his black hair was lit with a light amber color by the sun.His clear eyes stared at the flower basket motionlessly, and after a while he smiled hesitantly: "I was thinking, the weight of this flower basket must be limited. How old was I at that time?"

"Oh, you were really young at the time." Eppro paused, "—you were seven or eight years old."

A row of suspended bamboo flower baskets connect the roof and the large glass windows of the audio-visual room, and the breeze brings the refreshing fragrance of orchids.Deng Kaiwen stared at them for a long time, trying to recall something, but sighed in vain.

Because he was unconscious for five months, his body has not yet fully recovered the ability to move.Epro took him to visit his own mansion, a three-story villa, and he hadn't finished walking for two hours.

He was indeed a lot thinner, wearing a soft white shirt, and the ends of his black hair were gently brushed on the back of his snow-white neck.Epro looked at him, and sometimes suddenly remembered when the child was very young, fifteen or sixteen years old, and Cassandra had just passed away. He returned to New York from Los Angeles, and he was as timid as now, curious about everything he saw, Curiosity and soft ignorance and timidity.

The figure of the boy in his memory seemed to gradually overlap with everything in front of him.

Just as naive and ignorant, he had just suffered a fatal injury, and was full of curiosity and vigilance about the world. He wanted to get in touch with the outside world but curled up cautiously in a corner, fearing that he would expose the bleeding wound on his body.

"Let's go in and sit down," Epro opened the door of the audio-visual room, turned around and helped Deng Kaiwen.

The central air conditioner in the villa is always at a constant temperature, but Deng Kaiwen's hands are not warm at all.

"Ah, thank you..."

Their hands touched briefly, and then Deng Kaiwen subconsciously withdrew his hand.

He didn't know why he felt very uneasy, and he didn't dare to feel at ease and boldly contact the man in front of him who was said to be his lover.

"..." Epro didn't speak, but smiled at him, and withdrew his hand in a very gentlemanly manner.

The audio-visual room in the villa is definitely a professional level.Entering the door is a circular space of 480 square meters, with a projection wall on the opposite side, four DVD cabinets on both sides, and a starlight ceiling on the top.Such a space is completely suitable for holding small concerts. Deng Kaiwen was a little surprised, walked into the room unknowingly, and looked up at the huge video cabinet.

"A lot of them are what you asked for by name." Epro said lightly.

"--I?"

"There are [-] discs here, at least [-] were bought by you, but you rarely watch them—we don't have that much time."

Deng Kaiwen frowned, looking away from the disc.

Most of these discs are once popular Hollywood blockbusters, classic action films over the years, as well as detective, suspense, romance and comedy films.Others are relatively unpopular and have strange names. Deng Kaiwen randomly picked out a few photos, all of which are related to religion, belief, history and humanities, as well as wildlife documentaries, scenic travel notes and so on.

I don't know why Deng Kaiwen felt that this should be Epro's favorite type.

He didn't know why he felt this way. In fact, since he woke up, all his memories were lost, and he was very strange to the man who called himself Neil, as if he didn't know anything when he met for the first time.

But he subconsciously thought that Epro would like this kind of thing, and he should be that kind of man.

This subconscious effect made him very wary of Epro.Although the man said they were lovers and behaved like lovers everywhere, Deng Kaiwen still couldn't relax and get along with Epro like lovers.

Something must have happened between them.

Deng Kaiwen had this kind of vague idea in his heart.

Epro took out a disc and shook it in his hand: "The Vienna New Year Concert in 2000, do you want to listen to it?"

"Oh... oh. OK."

Facing the TV wall and surround sound equipment was a large sofa. Deng Kaiwen walked to the side of the sofa, looked at the leather pattern with black background and red border on the cushion, and suddenly froze for a moment.

An indescribable sense of familiarity suddenly passed through his mind.

This sofa is custom-made by Epro from the design master. The pattern and texture cannot be mass-produced, nor can it be seen from other places. It is not an exaggeration to use the word unique to describe it.

"What's the matter?" Epro came over and asked, "You like this sofa?"

"Hmm... that's it."

Deng Kaiwen made a perfunctory sentence, turned around and sat down.

Epro sat down next to him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders naturally.

At that moment, Deng Kaiwen suddenly seemed to be hit slightly by an electric current, and the valve of memory suddenly burst into sparks, illuminating his dusty memories in an instant of one ten-thousandth of a second.

——This scene has appeared before.

He used to sit on this couch, with Epro.

Deng Kaiwen turned his head sharply, and Apuro immediately stared at him with obvious inquiry in his eyes, but Deng Kaiwen didn't seem to notice it.

He looked at the door of the audio-visual room, as if he saw himself more than ten years ago, slowly walking through the door from a cold winter night.

Deng Kaiwen was still a child at that time.Or should be smaller.

When he came in that day, he was holding a hot mug in his hand. It should contain something, it should be the sweet liquid he likes - because there is no unpleasant feeling left in his memory, only intimacy and satisfaction.

That should be a pleasant memory.

He walked in and saw Epro sitting upright on the first row of sofas. The light in the audio-visual room was dim, and the black and white pantomime scenes were constantly changing, casting a hazy shadow on the man's hard side face.

The young Kevin, in his pajamas, walked over and sat gently beside him: "Neil."

Epro didn't look back: "You didn't sleep?"

"No. What are you looking at?"

"Well, let's talk about World War II movies."

Kevin turned his head and stared at the black and white screen curiously.His eyelashes are very long, and his pupils are especially dark, and because of the sleepiness in the middle of the night, they look a little watery.Epro suddenly turned his head and glanced at him, only to see the fluorescence of the screen flashing past his eyes, making the child's eyes bright and pure like crystals, even reflecting a faint brilliance.

"Why don't you play the sound?" Kevin looked at it for a while, frowning in confusion and asked.

"It's pantomime."

"mime?"

"Ah."

"Then what's the story about?"

Epro glanced at Kevin, then turned to look at the screen.

"It means that at the end of World War II, a German officer returned to his hometown, but found that his wife and children had died in the flames of war. On the ruins of his home, he found a Jewish woman who was about to die and her child who was waiting to be fed. In grief, the officer decided to raise the child instead of the mother."

Kevin held the cup and took a sip, then raised his head and stared at Epro curiously.

"The child was a pure-blooded Jew, and in the tense political atmosphere at the time, the German military officers took great pains to adopt this child in a reasonable manner.

"Trouble ensued. As the child grew older, the officer had to explain to him his parentage, his blood and ethnicity, the animosity between the Nazi and Jewish races, and the fact that from [-] to [-] In the past five years, there have been bloody massacres.

"There were quarrels, indifference, hostility and understanding between them, and eventually the kid grew up and the officer grew old.

"Later, the German economy began to recover, and the Jews evacuated in large numbers. The friend of the child's mother came to the officer's house and wanted to take the child to Israel. According to them, Israel would be a new paradise for the Jews. 540 million Jews formed the This new country, where they will have liberty, equality, wealth and glory."

Epro looked down at Kevin:

"If you were that kid, would you walk with your fellow countrymen?"

Kevin was ignorant, nodded vigorously for a long time, and said, "If that German goes with us..."

"He can't go," Epro interrupted gently, "the hatred between the races is too deep."

Kevin was obviously caught in a conflict, with a very distressed expression.

"The end of the story is that the child didn't go, and although they had quarreled, the child stayed and returned to the place where he grew up. The end result is that the German officer is getting old, and nothing can stop death. A In [-], in the corner of a hospital, under the watchful eyes of the children he had raised with his own hands, a German military officer stricken with a pandemic finally stopped breathing."

Epro stopped his narration, was silent for a while, and said, "And then the play ends."

Silent black-and-white frame against a gray sky in the background, the Jewish boy is running through the run-down streets of Berlin, the wind blowing his light-colored hair and the collar of his school uniform.

Kevin, who was immersed in the storyline, was still a little dazed, sitting there holding a cup.

"Can you understand what the story means?" Epro asked.

"Well...they must be very much in love...the officer and the little boy."

"Falling in love." Epro smiled shortly and turned his head away.

"On the surface, this story says that after the war, the love and trust between people gradually recovered, and the hatred slowly resolved. The German officer spent his whole life raising the children of the hostile race and spent the cold winter side by side. , the first ray of sunshine in early spring finally ushered in the streets of Berlin. But I feel that this story is actually a metaphor for the obscure love between a man and a boy that violates human relations."

Kevin opened his eyes slightly, as if surprised.

"If it weren't for love, the German officer wouldn't have told him the fact that the boy was Jewish, and the boy wouldn't have given up the chance to go to Israel and stayed in Germany. A man wouldn't cherish a descendant who doesn't have blood with him. Any nurturing instincts, the only explanation is that he loved the boy, the unrelated kind, with sexual fantasies and sexual urges."

Kevin frowned a little bit, his thinking was clearly confused.

"The ending of this story is that the German officer died, and outside the window of the hospital, the early spring sunshine broke through the clouds and reflected on the old and gray streets of Berlin. It was actually a hint that they were freed from the dark and hopeless love, because One of them died in the end, and the other didn't have to bear the heavy and taboo shackles of disobedience. From then on, they were both free."

Eppro paused, stroked Kevin's soft black hair, his eyes were very tender: "Death is sometimes a relief from sin."

Kevin put down the glass, leaned obediently on the sofa cushions, and let Epro gently smooth the hair around his ears.

"Neil," he yawned after a while, struggling to sleep, "this is actually a tragic story, isn't it?"

Epro thought for a moment: "Not necessarily, it might be a comedy in my opinion."

Kevin was silent for a long time, so long that Epro thought he was asleep, and then he heard him murmur: "Really?..."

For Deng Kaiwen, that long and strange night was like a long-lasting dream, which was quickly buried deep in his memory.

He seldom remembered later that night that he woke up on the sofa in the audio-visual room, feeling very dazed, and Epro was lying beside him, with one hand embracing his body, while gently kissing his side face.

That kind of kiss was different from the good night kiss or good morning kiss he got from Epro when he was a child, but a sticky, hot, strong, and painful kiss.

The movie ended at some point, and through the fluorescence reflected from the screen, he saw the patterns on the sofa cushion he was leaning on, the black background and red border that looked a little weird in the dark.

The memory of that moment is like a fixed picture in a silent pantomime.The story after World War II, Epro's late-night kiss, and the scenes were bizarre. Before he could distinguish whether it was real or a dream, the young Kevin fell into a deep sleep again.

He never thought of what happened that night again.