237

Sakayanagi Yusu stared at the other person's chest, or in other words, the position of the heart.

"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."

The boy in front of her smiled at her, and the terms he spoke were words that Sakayanagi Arisu had never heard before. This was beyond the scope of the seven-year-old Sakayanagi Arisu's knowledge.

Kitagawa Ryo stretched out his right hand, and he bent his middle finger into his palm. The movement was very slow, but what was even more surprising was that the surrounding index finger and ring finger seemed to have no reaction at all, and still stood there straight, as if Two organs that do not belong to this hand.

Sakayanagi Yusu tried this action, but no matter how hard he tried, his ring finger still stubbornly bent downward.

"They're frozen."

Kitagawa Ryo put away his right hand, showed off his flexible left hand in front of Sakayanagi Yusu, and smiled proudly:

"So now I've learned to eat with my left hand."

"And you?"

Facing Kitagawa Ryo's question, Sakayanagi Yusu pointed to her chest, and she had no intention of covering it up:

"Congenital heart disease."

After finishing speaking, Sakayanagi Yusu said crisply:

"Can I listen to it?"

"What's the meaning?"

"The sound of a heartbeat."

After getting Kitagawa Ryo's permission, Sakayanagi Yusu put his ear to Kitagawa Ryo's chest expectantly. The summer hospital gown was very thin and he could feel the temperature of his skin.

So the two children held their breath together. Now it is estimated that if a pin dropped to the ground, it would make a loud noise.

In this quiet atmosphere, Sakayanagi Yusu heard a little movement.

Books often use the onomatopoeia of "dong dong dong" to describe a strong heartbeat, and the part about the heart in my medical record has the word "murmur", but for Sakayanagi Arisu now, Neither of these statements seems quite right.

"oh..."

Sakayanagi Arisu sighed softly. As expected, she still couldn't find the most suitable one from the vocabulary library in her mind that was not too poor. This kind of sound could not be turned into language, nor could it be turned into words.

Like a hazy warmth and loneliness.

The noise from the outside world interrupted Yusu Sakayanagi's thoughts, and she realized that she had pressed Kitagawa Ryo against the wall.

"Thank you so much."

As if he had accomplished something he had always wanted to do, Kitagawa Ryo inexplicably received a thank you from Sakayanagi Arisu.

Then Sakayanagi Arisu bluntly asked the second question, that is, why the other party moved here.

Neither of them is a patient who is accustomed to standing all the time, so they sat down on the sofa in the ward in a tacit understanding. Visitors usually sit here, and they usually don't stay too long. They probably sit with the teacup in front of them. The tea leaves in the cup sink slightly to one third of the bottom of the cup.

Perhaps it was because he had not spoken to children of the same age for a long time. Kitagawa Ryo quickly became familiar with Sakayanagi Arisu. His personality was much more out-of-the-box than Sakayanagi Arisu. He was talking about his past and his move. Reason for coming.

Just as Sakayanagi Yusu guessed at the beginning, Kitagawa Ryo, who moved to the ward here for treatment, also had a very luxurious family background, but Kitagawa Ryo only experienced this family background for less than a month.

Before Kitagawa Ryo's biological father and mother found him, he had been staying in a rather ordinary, even embarrassing, family.

After borrowing the private bathroom in Sakayanagi Arisu's ward, Kitagawa Ryo returned to his seat:

"When I felt that I couldn't move my fingers, I lived in a small hospital where six people lived together for a while. There was no independent bathroom like this."

"The toilet is at the end of the corridor, opposite the doctor's office on duty, and the trash can is over there."

Kitagawa Ryo sniffed. There was no pungent smell of disinfectant in the entire ward here. Instead, there was a faint fragrance of vegetation. It was more like a hotel suite than a ward.

"Actually, the entire corridor smells bad, and it's a mixed smell. But neither the patients nor the doctors care much about it. I even saw a doctor on duty sitting at the door of the office in the middle of the night, making instant noodles and eating them. I didn't hear of any illness before I left there. I just slept on the desk in the office and occasionally got a stiff neck."

Sakayanagi Yusu felt that such smelly words were inappropriate, but it was undeniable that she found it interesting.

Because she already laughed.

Kitagawa Ryo was already lying carelessly on the sofa, which was wide enough for a child. He kicked off his slippers:

"In fact, the process of getting sick is the process of learning to be satisfied step by step."

Before Sakayanagi Arisu had time to think about Kitagawa Ryo's words, the other party immediately shifted his attention. He looked at something on the bookshelf in surprise, and then reached out to take it down.

There were three boxes containing chess, international Go, and Chinese chess. It seemed that because he didn't know what Sakayanagi Yusu liked, his father simply stuffed them all in.

My father is a person who will respect Sakayanagi Arisu's choice, even if she is just a child now.

After dividing them three times, Kitagawa Ryo transported them to the table next to the sofa, or the coffee table.

"Let's play chess."

"Which one do you know?"

Sakayanagi Yusu had never been exposed to any kind of board game before, so she shook her head.

"Then let's play backgammon!"

Kitagawa Ryo took out the black and white chess pieces with great interest:

"You should know the rules of backgammon. If five pieces of the same color are connected horizontally, vertically and diagonally to form an uninterrupted line, you win."

Sakayanagi Arisu nodded in confusion, and then unknowingly, he played several games of backgammon with his opponent.

But even in this game with simple rules, she never defeated Kitagawa Ryo once.

"The time is up, I have to go back."

After noticing the time displayed by the clock hanging on the wall, Kitagawa Ryo jumped off the sofa and put on his slippers again. His dexterous movements did not look like a patient at all. Su noticed that he always used his left hand to hold the chess pieces.

"I'm going to call my cat."

Noticing Sakayanagi Yusu's confused look, Kitagawa Ryo raised his eyebrows proudly.

"cat?"

Sakayanagi Yusu repeated the word in Kitagawa Ryo's sentence, and what came to her mind was the furry little animal.

"If it weren't for the fact that the hospital doesn't allow pets."

Kitagawa Ryo put her hands on her hips and sighed helplessly like a little adult:

"I think Arisu will also like Hotaru. Hotaru is a cat that can laugh."

"Just like the Cheshire Cat in fairy tales."

Sakayanagi Arisu shook her head and indicated that she had not read the fairy tales told by Kitagawa Ryo. Kitagawa Ryo briefly explained. He suddenly clapped his hands as if he had remembered something and said:

"The protagonist of that fairy tale has the same pronunciation as Arisu's name."

"Alice."

Yusu Sakayanagi thought it was the name of a Western girl, so she searched it on her phone. The top image was of an animated character with blond hair and a blue skirt.

So Sakayanagi Yusu seriously pulled the hair around her ears toward her eyes. The silver-white hair shone with a fragile light. She lowered her head and looked at the hospital gown on her body, shaking her head in the affirmative. He shook his head and said:

"Nothing like me."

Rather, she felt that she and Alice were two completely opposite entities.

The other party has beautiful long golden hair, while her hair is the corresponding silver-white color, and the length only hangs down to her neck.

Just as Sakayanagi Arisu was comparing the similarities and differences between this little girl named Alice and himself, Kitagawa Ryo seemed to have dialed the phone at home, and after a few words with the father-like figure, , the face of a furry creature filling the camera lens appeared on the screen of the mobile phone connected to the video call.

"firefly!"

Kitagawa Ryo cheered happily, and he communicated with a cat in a warm manner in front of Sakayanagi Arisu.

Although Sakayanagi Arisu thinks that the word communication is used reluctantly.

After all, one side was just saying weird things with no meaning, while the other side was just meowing.

"I can go back right away!"

Before the video ended, Sakayanagi Yusu heard Kitagawa Ryo make such a confident speech.

She stared at the search results for "amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" on her phone and began to think seriously.

Sakayanagi Arisu considers herself a child who is good at thinking because she has a lot of idle time to think about nothing.

But she still couldn't figure out the logic behind Kitagawa Ryo's words.

Broken sunlight cast dots of light in the ward, and the sudden wind ruffled the dense branches and leaves, making the rustling ground sound like countless small dumb bells ringing one after another.

ps: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

ps2: Sakayanagi Arisu simulated it twice. What is shown now is the first BE that is doomed to fail. It mainly describes Sakayanagi Arisu's own state of mind. It will be unfolded in a fairy tale style, so he will not use too much swords (probably) _(:з　∠)_

Main plot: Kitagawa Ryo's strength supremacy classroom: Chapter 69: I wish you a nightmare

Sakayanagi Arisu's father came to the ward today. He recently took over the position of chairman of Tokyo Advanced Education Middle School. Due to his busy schedule, the frequency of visiting Sakayanagi Arisu has also decreased, but in disguise, this also makes everyone A visit is more exciting and more important.

After all, for Sakayanagi Yusu, she has almost never seen her mother. The only person who has been with her since she can remember is her father. She outlines the illusion of her mother from her father's few words. Whenever she hears from her father, When I heard the compliment that "Arisu is very similar to her and has the same personality", it was like enjoying three loves at the same time.

There weren't many new topics in the past ward, like a dry well whose bottom could be seen at a glance. Kitagawa Ryo's arrival gave Sakayanagi Yusu some extra ideas. She started talking to her father about the man next door with great interest. ...patient?

"It's rare to see Arisu look so interested."

"Maybe it's because Ryo is a very interesting person?"

"...You still don't speak like a child."

Saying this, my father, who was sitting in front of the hospital bed, seemed to be confused and smiled.

"But having a peer with whom you can talk is not a bad thing for Arisu."

Chairman Sakayanagi rubbed his daughter's head and said:

"Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I suddenly realize that I am alone at home, and then I think about Arisu being alone in the hospital."

"But there is really nothing we can do about it, but when Arisu's health gets better, I will let Arisu go to school like normal children."

Sakayanagi Arisu nodded, although she was not very interested in things like school.

The father seemed to read his daughter's thoughts. He stretched out his broad palm to hold Sakayanagi Arisu's hand, wrapped the two hands together, and then placed them in front of his forehead:

"Human beings can learn what warmth is through contact with each other. This is very important."

Sakayanagi Yusu felt the warmth in his father's palm, as if warm blood was flowing from there.

"The warmth of your skin is by no means a bad thing. Your mother gave it to me."

----------------------------------------

"Mother?"

Kitagawa Ryo moved the chess pieces with his left hand. He muttered "God's Hand" while straightforwardly blocking the four white pieces that Sakayanagi Yusu had already connected in a line.

"I haven't seen her. It was my grandfather who adopted me. If I specifically refer to the mother who is related to me by blood, I probably haven't spoken as much to her as I have to you."

Sakayanagi Arisu was stunned by Kitagawa Ryo's answer. She felt that she should apologize, but then she thought it was completely unnecessary. She frowned and struggled for a long time, but when she saw Kitagawa Ryo didn't even raise her head, she was still there. After looking at the chessboard intently, I breathed a sigh of relief again.

"But I've met other moms."

Yusu Sakayanagi, who almost dreamed up a whole story about the feud between wealthy families due to Kitagawa Ryo's casual words, choked for a long time before hearing Kitagawa Ryo say slowly again:

"When I was hospitalized in other hospitals, I met many mothers of other patients."

"There are thirty-year-olds, forty-year-olds, sixty-year-olds, and eighty-year-olds."

Beichuan Liang said in a tone like telling a story:

"Because there are no beds for accompanying family members in the ward, some mothers make beds on the floor in the corner. But when more people live in the ward, there is not enough room on the floor, so they put two chairs together to sleep. Later, people move on A little more, and two chairs become one chair."

He crossed his legs and leaned back on the sofa:

"Sleep against the wall."

Sakayanagi Arisu nodded thoughtfully, but she felt that her mother would not sleep on a chair against the wall, but this did not prevent her from saying with emotion:

"It's awesome."

But soon she became frustrated again, because no matter what kind of story she heard, it was still the story of someone else's mother.

Kitagawa Ryo noticed Sakayanagi Yusu's mood, he opened his mouth in surprise and said:

"You won't think it's because of you..."

"Is there any problem in extrapolating from the results forward?"

Sakayanagi Yusu pursed her somewhat pale lips, and Kitagawa Ryo connected the five chess pieces in a line. She threw back the white pieces in her hand angrily.