Soldier Boy Standing in the corridor, I felt that all the strength in my body had been drained.
Like a deflated rubber ball, he slowly walked back down the stairs to the first floor.
He knew that he had failed completely and no one in this family was willing to accept him.
He dragged his heavy steps to the kitchen.
Lynn was standing in front of the sink, slowly wiping a clean glass.
Hearing the footsteps behind him, Lynn didn't look back, he just put the cleaned cup into the cupboard.
"Reggie and Tommy thought you were blocking the TV. Annie and Kevin got together and scolded you. Buddy didn't even like the way you walked. As for John, he didn't even want to look at you."
Lynn's voice was very calm, "It's frustrating, right?"
Soldier Boy was stunned on the spot, he didn't say anything, but Lynn seemed to have witnessed everything that just happened.
"I..."
He opened his mouth, wanting to defend himself, but found that he had nothing to say.
Lynn turned around and put the soft cloth for wiping the cup aside.
Those dark eyes looked at Soldier Boy, and there was an insight in them that was impossible to hide.
"Do you think you can stay here and eat and drink by saying a few nice words to the children, or relying on that ridiculous blood relationship to please John?"
Lynn shook his head and his tone became serious.
"This is a home, not a shelter. The people who live here are all my family members. No one wants an emotionally unstable time bomb that may go berserk at any time to stay at home. What's more, your bomb is trying to kill the people in this family."
Soldier Boy clenched his fists suddenly.
"I promise to control my emotions!"
He tried to grasp the last straw.
Lynn was not affected by his voice and looked at him calmly,
"It's useless to promise me, and it's useless to please the children."
Lynn looked over Soldier Boy's shoulder and towards the closed studio door at the other end of the living room, "It's not me who has the final say, and it's not John who has the final say as to what kind of existence you are in this family."
Soldier Boy followed Lynn's gaze and looked over.
That's Black Noir's room.
"If you don't even know what you did wrong and who you should ask for forgiveness, then you can get out of the back door now."
Lynn looked away, picked up his tea cup, turned and walked towards the stairs.
The room was still warm, but Soldier Boy stood there, looking at the closed wooden door of the studio, as if there was a lot of hay stuffed in his throat, and he couldn't swallow it.
The light in the corridor is a warm yellow that makes people feel drowsy.
Soldier Boy was like a wooden stake in front of the closed wooden door of the studio. His legs seemed to be stuck to the floor with strong glue, and he couldn't take the last half step.
The door wasn't even locked and he could open it with just a push.
But in his eyes, this ordinary wooden board was simply more difficult to cross than the defense line on the battlefield.
Go and apologize to a Mute Dog that you once stepped on?
To beg his forgiveness?
Soldier Boy felt like his face was being rubbed crazily.
He is a tough guy who experienced World War II and is the spiritual idol of All-America country.
Back then in Nicaragua's camp, if Black Noir dared to gasp louder in front of him, he would slap him until he couldn't get up for a long time.
But what about now?
A gust of cold wind came in through the gap in the window at the end of the corridor and blew on his loose flannel shirt.
He shivered uncontrollably, and his mind flashed back to the disgusting fermented sour smell in the sewer last night, and the half piece of cold and hard leftover pizza.
He smelled again the faint scent of vanilla and the dry smell brought by the heating floating in the house.
Pride or belly, which one is more important?
This issue, which he did not need to consider at all in the past few decades, is now like a knife to his neck.
"Wow, a good dog doesn't block the road."
A lazy barking came from near his feet.
Buddy wandered over at some point, holding a red rubber Frisbee in his mouth, looking at Soldier Boy who was standing in front of the door in a daze with an idiot look.
Big Golden Retriever unceremoniously squeezed his thick calves away with her butt, and even stepped on him on purpose. Then she staggered down the corridor to the living room, making an infuriating snoring sound in her throat as she walked.
Being despised by a dog to such an extent, Soldier Boy gritted his teeth, and the evil fire in his heart was forced into desperate courage.
"Fuck the tough guy baggage."
He took a deep breath, raised his right hand that could overturn an armored vehicle, bent his fingers, and knocked twice on the wooden door.
Boom, boom.
The knocking on the door was particularly clear in the quiet corridor.
Soldier Boy felt that his heart was beating wildly following these sounds.
No one was yelling inside, and there was no sound of anything banging on the door.
After about ten seconds, the door handle made a soft sound and the wooden door was opened from the inside.
Black Noir is standing behind the door.
He was not wearing the suffocating black tactical armor, and was only wearing an old apron stained with various paint marks.
The mask was also half taken off, revealing his chin and lower half of his face that were covered in burn scars.
He held a palette in one hand and a paintbrush dipped in ultramarine paint in the other.
Black Noir just looked at the old acquaintance outside the door quietly.
There was no fear, no hatred, or even much surprise in the eyes behind those goggles.
It's like looking at a stranger who accidentally walked into the wrong room.
Soldier Boy had prepared a lot of rhetoric, prepared tough guy lines for himself, but when he came into contact with Black Noir's calm gaze, everything suddenly stuck in his throat.
He saw the scars on Black Noir's face.
Those were the marks he made bit by bit with his own hands using a high-temperature shield and his fists.
At this moment, a very unfamiliar emotion suddenly surged into the old gangster's heart, which made his chest feel sore.
"Lynn said..."
Soldier Boy spoke dryly, his voice hoarse as if he was swallowing glass shards, "Lynn said, no one in this family wants to leave a time bomb. If I don't know where I went wrong, just let me roll back into the snow outside."
Black Noir did not interrupt him, but tilted his head slightly, waiting for his next words.
Soldier Boy Closed his eyes, clenched his fists tightly, and with a heartbeat, those words that he had never said to anyone in his life were finally squeezed out from between his teeth.
"That day on the bridge, it was because of my feverish mind and the things that happened before... in the camp."
Soldier Boy paused, his chest heaving violently, "It's my fault. I used to be a bastard and treated you as a punching bag. Now I have nothing. I don't want to go back to Vought International to be a cash cow, nor do I want to go back to the sewers to fight with rats for food, so..."
He opened his eyes suddenly and looked at Black Noir:
"I can't help you, but if you insist on beating me to relieve your anger, I will never fight back today, but after the beating, you have to tell Lynn to let me stay, I will work, and I can chop all the firewood in the yard."
After saying these words in one breath, Soldier Boy felt as if he was exhausted, and his shoulders slumped uncontrollably.
He stared at Black Noir, waiting for the other party's reaction.
He expected that Black Noir would take out a dagger and stab him, he expected that Black Noir would rush up and punch him hard in revenge, and he even expected that Black Noir would slam the door directly on his face.
No matter which one, he recognized it.
But Black Noir did nothing.
He just listened quietly to the stuttering apology from this former nightmare.
Then, Black Noir looked down at the palette in his hand, turned around and walked back to the studio.
Soldier Boy was stunned, he didn't know what this meant.
Tell him to go away?
Still didn't hear it?
Before he could react, Black Noir walked out again.
This time, Black Noir had a dirty plastic bucket in his hand.
It was filled with turbid sewage used to wash paint brushes, and exuded a strong smell of turpentine and acrylic paint.
Black Noir walked up to Soldier Boy without saying a word and directly stuffed the dirty bucket into his broad palm.
Soldier Boy subconsciously caught the bucket and looked at Black Noir with a blank face.
Black Noir stretched out the paintbrush stained with paint, pointed at the bucket in Soldier Boy's hand, then turned around and pointed the paintbrush at the cleaning sink at the end of the corridor.
After completing this action, Black Noir raised his hand and patted Soldier Boy's broad shoulders twice very casually.
There is no grandiose revenge, nor tearful forgiveness.
The force of those two slaps was very light, as natural as telling a clumsy new roommate who had just moved in to take out the trash in the house.
After taking the photo, Black Noir turned around and walked back to the studio, leaving the people outside the door with his back figure focused on painting.
The door of the studio was not closed, but opened generously, revealing the warm and bright light inside.
Soldier Boy stood at the door, looking down at the dirty bucket in his hand that smelled of turpentine.
He originally thought that apologizing would be a humiliation that would completely crush his dignity.
But now, he found that the pain of losing dignity that he had imagined did not appear at all.
Instead, there was a sense of relief.
Black Noir doesn't care about his ridiculous tough guy self-esteem at all, Black Noir just needs someone to help him wash himself.
And he happened to have some strength.
The old gangster's face, which had been tense all day, finally relaxed.
"Damn, it's just a broken pen holder, it's worth gesticulating like this for a long time..."
Soldier Boy muttered a complaint in his mouth, but his rough fingers clenched the handle of the plastic bucket tightly.
He turned around, stepped on the solid floor, and strode towards the sink at the end of the corridor. Even though the dirty water in the bucket almost splashed onto his old pants, he did not slow down.
In the kitchen on the first floor, Lynn is standing in front of the refrigerator, putting the whole wheat bread for tomorrow morning into the fresh-keeping layer.
Listening to the sound of water running from the corridor on the second floor, and the rough noises made by someone washing the bucket, Lynn closed the refrigerator door, pulled out a piece of kitchen paper and wiped his hands.
It's dark outside, and tomorrow will probably be a rare sunny day.