The Gods Are Fighting Over Me - Chapter 23

The daylight in the police dorm was a little hot on his skin.

Kenji Hagiwara lay sprawled on the couch. He raised an arm and covered his eyes. Light leaked through the gap in his forearm, cutting a line of light and shadow across the bridge of his nose.

He took out his phone. His thumb unconsciously swiped across the blank space where an app icon should have been.

He casually tossed his phone into the couch cushion. It landed with a soft thump.

Memories, however, followed the sound, sliding back to a certain sticky night a few years ago.

Back then, his dreams were always soaked in the dampness of the rainy season. Outside, it was a long, gloomy night. The bedroom was filled with the floral scent she used. Lin Jianyue was curled up in his arms. Her fingertips hooked onto his shirt buttons, and she looked up and kissed him.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and deepened the candy-sweet kiss inch by inch.

It was then that the strange app suddenly appeared, like a stubborn stain, stubbornly occupying the corner of Kenji Hagiwara’s phone.

It was the first time the app had appeared. Kenji Hagiwara thought it was a system glitch. He swiped at it a few times, but the icon didn’t move at all.

The next morning, he woke up from his sleep. He felt for his phone by his pillow and found that the icon had climbed out of his dream with him.

When he opened the app, the first thing he saw was something that looked like a progress bar. The far left was marked with a 0, and the far right was a 100.

At the 10 and 50 marks, there was a striking red line. It was as if it was announcing that once the progress hit these two values, something would completely fall apart.

At that time, the progress was barely touching the edge of 10.

Kenji Hagiwara stared at the line for three seconds, frowned slightly, and put his phone back in his pocket.

After his recent promotion, he had been working tirelessly. He didn’t have time to study the strange app that had suddenly appeared on his phone, so he had to put it aside for the time being.

Not until he dragged his exhausted body home late at night and the steam from the instant noodles wafted up to his face did he have time to take out his phone.

But the app had quietly disappeared from his phone without a trace, as if everything had been his imagination.

Kenji Hagiwara was full of confusion, but he could only frown and let it go.

He saw the icon again in a dream in mid-April.

He was kissing Lin Jianyue against the bathroom tiles. Hot water was dripping down her hair, falling onto their bare feet. She was clutching the hem of his shirt, her knuckles turning white. A faint, lovable whimper escaped from her throat.

It was then that his phone vibrated on the counter outside the bathroom.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed. When he walked out, wrapped in a towel, to look, the progress bar had quietly jumped to 15.

March 27th: Deep Kiss achieved.

World Fusion: +1

April 13th: 

World Fusion: +5

Kenji Hagiwara stared at the line and swallowed. He knew what the omitted content was.

This app was like a cold, heartless judge standing in the shadows, using icy words to record their transgressions, stroke by stroke, without any warmth. But it clearly etched every moment of their fall.

The person in his arms was the best delicacy in the world, tempting him to sink deeper and deeper. So they had more intimate caresses that couldn’t be spoken of.

Lin Jianyue was like a domesticated cat, melting into a puddle of spring water in his arms, occasionally letting out lovely whimpers and turning red-eyed.

She buried her face in his warm chest, her voice as light as a sigh, wrapped in shame and self-loathing. “Kenji, I actually had a s3x dream about you. I feel so terrible.”

“How could you?” he said, softening his voice. His fingertips stroked her face, which was lightly beaded with sweat and slightly flushed. “Humans have desires, and I’m partly responsible for this.”

Lin Jianyue’s eyes curved as she smiled. She gently rubbed her nose against his chest. “You’re a person from my dream. Of course, you’d take my side.”

Kenji Hagiwara didn’t answer. But the arms holding Lin Jianyue slowly and forcefully tightened.

That’s not it.

He screamed silently in his heart. The sound slammed against his chest, hurting him.

This isn’t a dream. I am truly by your side. I’m holding you, kissing you, doing everything lovers do.

But Lin Jianyue wouldn’t believe it.

Every time, she would curve her eyebrows and smile at him, then say things like, “Is that so? Then I’m so happy,” in a light tone, as if she was humoring a kindergarten child who was making a lot of noise and talking big.

A sour feeling spread from his heart, carrying a slightly bitter, cold chill.

Kenji Hagiwara held the person in his arms and lowered his head to kiss the top of her head.

He listened to her call him a fleeting dream over and over again. Her light declarations were like poisonous waste, nurturing the obsession buried deep in his heart into a monster with fangs and claws.

A kind of obsessive, cold, and damp emotion was growing wildly and wrapping itself around him, gripping his organs so tightly he couldn’t breathe.

The motive for kissing was no longer simple. He would lower his head and hold her lips, but he would quietly open his eyes a little, his gaze heavy on her face.

She was always shy when he kissed her. Even though she knew it was a dream, and even though this wasn’t the first time he had kissed her, her eyelashes would always flutter like a startled butterfly’s wings when he held her lips.

He looked at her, and in the depths of his purple eyes, unspeakable, almost sinful thoughts were churning, like a dark current at the bottom of a river, so turbulent it was about to burst through the dam.

However, when the progress bar quietly climbed past 40, Kenji Hagiwara suddenly wavered.

The slowly climbing world fusion was like a string being pulled taut. One end was tied to his obsession and love, and the other was tied to his restraint and concerns.

Was he really going to force Lin Jianyue into his world just for his own selfish desires?

Kenji Hagiwara had asked for Lin Jianyue’s opinion. But for a woman who had always seen him as a dream, no matter what promises he made or what warnings he gave, she would treat it as a dream she didn’t have to be responsible for. She kept promising to marry him and to be with him forever.

When the progress climbed to 45, Kenji Hagiwara started to deliberately distance himself from Lin Jianyue, rejecting her requests for intimacy.

When Lin Jianyue came over to kiss him, he would turn his head away, using the excuse that his mouth smelled like smoke. When she pushed him onto the couch and curled up in his arms like a clingy cat, he would stiffen his back, his arm suspended in mid-air for a long time before he would dare to gently rest it on her waist.

During those days, the app appeared less frequently. The progress bar stagnated in the 40s, like his self-questioning was stuck in his throat:

Do I really want to pull her in?

Pull her into this world of explosions, danger, and countless unknowns. Pull her into his life that could end at any moment with a bang.

But occasionally, he couldn’t resist Lin Jianyue’s coaxing.

Seeing her downturned eyebrows and slightly pouted lips, he couldn’t resist the idea of giving in. So he would embrace a bit of indulgence, lower his head, and kiss her with a gentle yet passionate fervor.

There was still a buffer of 5. A kiss or two wouldn’t hurt, right?

With this self-deceiving thought, Kenji Hagiwara gave in to Lin Jianyue’s persistent efforts again and again until the edge of the progress bar vaguely touched a thin red line, stopping just shy of 50.

It was like a warning. It was also like a threshold.

I absolutely cannot go on.

Even a shallow kiss now could lead to a point of no return.

Kenji Hagiwara began to think. He lay on his arm day after day, staring at the empty ceiling, falling into a cycle of contemplation.

He told himself over and over again:

Lin Jianyue was the one who pulled him into her dream without his permission. So why couldn’t he pull her into his world without her permission?

But when night fell, and Kenji Hagiwara opened his eyes from the dream and saw Lin Jianyue’s unsuspecting eyes, he backed down again.

In the dream, moonlight streamed in through the window, washing over Lin Jianyue’s confused face. She looked at him. “Kenji, are you starting to hate me?”

He lowered his eyelids and forced a tired smile. But in his mind, the bl00d-red progress bar on the app uncontrollably appeared. It was a blinding red.

“How could that be?” he said, raising his hand to stroke her hair. “I love you the most, Jianyue-chan.”

But Lin Jianyue wasn’t stupid.

She could read rejection from his tense jawline and hesitation from his averted gaze. Those small moments of avoidance were more unsettling than a blunt rejection.

Kenji Hagiwara also knew that she could see it, but he had no other way. He could only pull her into his arms again and again, repeating the heated but cracked words of love, as if he was trying to comfort himself and futilely mend something.

The turning point happened on a night when it was pouring rain.

The rain in the dream was hitting the window with a loud pitter-patter. Lin Jianyue was curled up in the corner of the couch, her knees against her chin. When she saw him come in, she didn’t rush over like she usually did. She just looked up.

She looked at him coldly, as if she were looking at an ex who had broken her heart.

His heart suddenly clenched. Kenji Hagiwara pretended that everything was normal and tried to sit down next to Lin Jianyue, but he saw her move deeper into the couch, deliberately avoiding him.

His hand froze in mid-air. His voice trembled at the end of his sentence. “Jianyue-chan?”

The next second, her tears came down.

He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but before the words could leave his mouth, her even fiercer crying blocked them.

She covered her face. Tears gushed out from between her fingers. She cursed and cried intermittently, as if she was pouring out all the grievances she had saved up over the years.

“He tore up the manga I was secretly hiding again…”

“He even slapped me today. My teeth hurt from it…”

“He also wants to introduce me to his German colleague’s son…”

“Even you are avoiding me… Even my dream is bullying me…”

She sobbed, her voice broken into pieces.

Kenji Hagiwara was silent.

He watched her complete emotional breakdown, but he was helpless.

Lin Jianyue had always been very resilient and surprisingly adaptable. But a taut string will always break. Even the strongest people have the right to cry. This was the first time she had fallen apart in front of him.

Her tears came down fast and heavy, like a series of heavy hammers hitting Kenji Hagiwara’s heart.

Lin Jianyue cried until she was sobbing. She buried her face in her knees, trembling all over like a leaf in a storm. Kenji Hagiwara’s eyes darkened. He turned her face and kissed her tear-filled eyes.

From her reddened eyes, to her tear-streaked face, to her trembling lips. Lin Jianyue’s crying gradually subsided, turning into faint whimpers. She was like a young animal that had finally found its harbor, obediently letting him hold and kiss her.

His phone in his pocket vibrated slightly. This time, Kenji Hagiwara didn’t look.

He just held the person in his arms, felt her warm breath, and said to her, word for word, in her ear, “Jianyue, come to Japan.”

Come to my side.

Come to a place I can touch.

Come to a place I can protect you.

No matter if the progress bar would break the red line, and no matter what kind of storm would be created after the two worlds merged.

He wanted her to escape, to escape to a place he could touch.

He knew that even without him, she would wipe away her tears and grit her teeth and move forward when the sun rose. But he didn’t want to helplessly watch her cry alone anymore.

The phone screen lit up for a moment in the darkness. The number after the progress bar quietly jumped, crossing that thin red line.

And in a distant city, the sun rose. Lin Jianyue wiped away her tears and tightly held on to the passport she had secretly hidden.

The rain was still falling outside, but it felt like she could already smell the wind of Tokyo.

A slightly damp, slightly free wind that could pull a person out of the mud.