Mingfei stood on the noisy street and curled his lips into a faint smile.
Inside the black sedan, Nono watched his face from a distance and felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest.
That was not a smile an eighteen-year-old boy should have worn. There was nothing bright or carefree about it, nor any hint of longing for anything.
She had seen too many people. Every one of them was like a playing card laid out on a table: turn it over, and everything was exposed. There was nothing much to hide.
But she had watched this loser walking into the supermarket for ages, and she still couldn't turn over a single card.
Nono accessed the supermarket's internal surveillance system. On the screen, Lu Mingfei stood in the dry goods aisle, picked up several packs of high-calorie compressed biscuits, then tossed two large bottles of purified water, a few rolls of medical bandages, and a box of anti-inflammatory medicine into his cart.
As he shopped, Lu Mingfei habitually swept his gaze across the ceiling every few minutes.
"What is he looking at?" Ye Sheng's puzzled voice came through her earpiece.
"Load-bearing columns and fire sprinklers." Nono took a sip of iced coffee. "He's assessing which part of this supermarket would collapse first under a severe physical impact, and where the safe triangular pockets would be."
On the surveillance feed, Lu Mingfei finished paying, packed the supplies into his backpack, and put it on. The weight sat low, but his stride still looked casual.
He casually fastened the backpack's chest strap.
He had done this many times.
The corridors in the underground shelter were narrow. When the Angel invasion alarm sounded, everyone had to reach their designated shelter point within fifteen minutes. He wasn't a fast runner, but he had never fallen behind.
That was because Misato Katsuragi had taught him in his first week to keep his backpack's center of gravity low and fasten the straps tightly, so it wouldn't bounce around when he ran.
As Misato explained it, she had reached over to buckle his strap for him, then patted his shoulder and said, "See? It's that simple."
Lu Mingfei lowered his head and glanced at the fastened strap.
It's that simple.
But Miss Misato, why did so many people still end up trapped underground forever when the alarm sounded?
"He isn't in this world."
Seeing Lu Mingfei come out, Nono tossed aside her earpiece, pushed the car door open, and swung her long legs out.
"Professor Guderian told me to keep an eye on you, in case a high-risk individual like you suddenly decides to turn against society." Nono fell into step beside him with easy familiarity, swaggering along.
"Oh, thanks for your hard work." Lu Mingfei nodded. "Say hello to the professor for me."
He couldn't even be bothered to brush her off properly. Nono felt as though she had punched cotton, and it pissed her off.
An office building with a glass curtain wall towered beside the intersection, casting an enormous shadow across the paving stones. Nono walked into the shade.
Lu Mingfei abruptly stopped, then instinctively took two quick strides outward. He would rather stand fully exposed to the thirty-eight-degree heat than set so much as half a foot inside that enormous shadow.
Startled, Nono looked up. The sky was blue, with nothing in it.
The two entered a Community Library, one after the other.
The air-conditioning dispelled the oppressive heat. Lu Mingfei claimed a computer and fetched several books on geology from the shelves. Nono picked up a fashion magazine, sat opposite him, and propped her chin on one hand, staring at him without bothering to hide it.
The screen was filled with contour maps of Hakone, Japan.
Nono sat across from him for ten minutes and failed to piece together anything.
Normally, she only needed to observe a target for five minutes. The way they walked, how they held a cup, where their gaze lingered-all of it let her sketch out their family background, personality flaws, and even the broad course of their life over the past ten years.
But today, this ability she took such pride in had completely crashed when faced with Lu Mingfei.
The information he gave off was utterly fractured.
On the surface, he was a loser you could find anywhere. His T-shirt's neckline had been washed loose, his back was slightly hunched, and he even haggled with the vendor for an extra crisp when buying a jianbing. One shout from his aunt would probably make him duck his head at once.
But the moment her profiling touched anything deeper, it was like slamming headfirst into an iron plate. Even her nose hurt.
It was a strange feeling, as though she had casually opened a battered pencil case printed with Mickey Mouse, only to find no erasers or pencils inside-just a fragmentation grenade lying quietly there, its safety pin already pulled.
"What are you looking all this up for?" Nono simply closed her magazine, pulled out the chair diagonally beside him, and sat down, pointing at the screen. "You haven't even graduated high school, and you're already itching to go sightseeing in Japan?"
"A pilgrimage to Hakone." Lu Mingfei moved the mouse, his dismissive tone making it sound as though he were fobbing off a child.
"What's the rush? Isn't your literature club having a get-together tomorrow?" Nono leaned against the back of her chair and moved closer with a teasing half-smile. "Chen Wenwen, right? You've liked her for three years. Aren't you afraid she'll become someone else's girlfriend the moment you leave?"
"Chen Wenwen..." Lu Mingfei chuckled softly. "She's nice. A girl in a white dress, quietly reading by the window-that really was the kind of thing that could make my heart skip a beat back then."
"You back then?" Nono seized on the wording.
"People change."
Lu Mingfei closed one webpage and opened another. Suddenly, as though something had occurred to him, he turned to look at Nono.
"Your hair," Lu Mingfei said. "It's beautiful."
A breeze passed, rustling the camphor leaves.
Nono hadn't heard such a clumsy compliment in a long time. Yet when Lu Mingfei said it, there was no trace of flirtation in his eyes. There was even a hint of sadness.
"...Thanks?" she replied uncertainly.
"Mm." Lu Mingfei had already turned back to the screen.
Nono kept feeling that something was wrong.
Was this guy complimenting me, or thinking about something else?
A socially anxious loser who had secretly loved the class beauty for three years without daring to confess couldn't possibly talk about hair color in that tone with a girl he had only met twice.
"Sit a little closer," Lu Mingfei said again.
"What?"
"Pull your chair closer. Is it comfortable keeping your neck twisted like that?" Lu Mingfei pushed the mouse toward her. "This is a geological cross section of Lake Ashi's southern shore. If you're bored, you can help me match it against the buildings on Google Maps."
"...Are you treating me like your assistant?" Nono raised her eyebrows.
Only then did Lu Mingfei realize what he had done. His fingers paused on the keyboard.
"Sorry," he said. "Force of habit."
Habit of what? Having a redheaded girl beside him? Being so casually familiar with her?
They sat in the library a little longer. Once Lu Mingfei had found everything he wanted, he shut down the computer and returned the books to the shelves.
When they left the library, the setting sun was slanting down, staining the street orange-red.
Lu Mingfei walked ahead. Nono's shadow stretched across the ground, and the sunset traced a soft red halo around the outline of her hair.
He stopped and turned around.
Nono nearly walked into him. "Keep moving. What are you spacing out for?"
"Sorry." Lu Mingfei started walking again. "What are you having for dinner?"
"Huh?"
"Dinner," Lu Mingfei said, looking at her as though it were obvious. "You've been following me since this afternoon. Surveillance, tailing me, keeping me company in the library-you've put in at least five hours of work. You have to eat sometime."
"What's it to you what I eat?"
"Aren't you joining me for dinner?"
"You..." Nono laughed in exasperation. "You little brat. You've got quite a way with flirting, don't you?"
"Fine." Nono slapped Lu Mingfei on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.
"Let's hit the food stalls!"