Morofushi Hiromitsu: "..."
Realizing that he was used to it, and without even pausing in his steps, he walked over to the child and smoothly knelt down in front of him, "What's wrong, little friend?"
The child obviously didn't react, and tears were streaming down her face.
Her body was dusty and a bit disheveled, her long hair hung loose behind her, down to her waist, and she wore a shiny pink winged hairband that looked to be from some amusement park.
Morofushi Hiromitsu didn't immediately reach up to pat her shoulder or wipe away tears, and started out in a half-squatting position that wasn't too far away, moving in slowly as he spoke, "Where are your parents?"
He reached out in slow motion, in the small child's teary-eyed gaze, reached out to help her brush away the tears on her cheeks, "Dad? Mom?"
The child didn't resist, she was still huffing and puffing a bit, but she expertly poked her face forward a bit for Morofushi Hiromitsu to wipe her face, a habit that was instinctive and unthinking from crying a lot and being wiped by adults a lot.
After wiping her face, she retracted, took a few steps back away from Morofushi Hiromitsu, got behind Ichijō Mirai, clutched the hem of his shirt again, and once again choked and sobbed without making a sound.
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He moved his hand in the air a few times, but withdrew it.
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "..."
Pretending not to see Ichijō Mirai's unsuccessful attempt to break the child's grip on the hem of his shirt and slip away, he looks up with a serious expression, "Ahem, she... seems to like you."
"What happened?"
"I was passing by," Ichijō Mirai raised his hand to clarify, "I didn't scare her into crying, she was already crying,"
"I was passing by and I looked, and she came and arrested me."
It was just a quick look!
There's no such thing as 'someone's crying, look at her, scare her' or any of that Matsuda nonsense.
"I didn't even walk over there," Ichijō Mirai stated again, gesturing to the blood on his own body, and on his own hands, "for fear of scaring her."
He also half squatted down, casually resting his chin, lazily said: "Oh, right, sorry, just forgot to say, she seems to be unable to speak, can not answer you, you ask nonsense."
Not forget to say it?
"I see something," Morofushi Hiromitsu sighed helplessly, "I'll give it a try."
He didn't speak again, but made several gestures with his hands.
The gestures were regular, and looked something like hand-shadowing or battle jargon, and Ichijō Mirai watched them absently for a few seconds, turning his head to watch the child's reaction.
The child poked her head out a little, stopped crying, and showed obvious hesitation on her face. She hesitated until Morofushi Hiromitsu made a few more gentle gestures, then she looked at Ichijō Mirai a few more times as if she was unsure of herself, and slightly loosened the hem of the shirt in her hand, and returned a few gestures with her hand.
She was in a hurry, her hands were fast, and when she finished, she quickly clutched the hem of Ichijō Mirai's shirt again, as if she was afraid that someone would run away.
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
If he really wanted to run away, this guy wouldn't be able to hold him at all.
He asks, "What are you talking about?"
"I asked her where her family was, and she didn't answer, and then I asked her why she grabbed you," Morofushi Hiromitsu replied, "and she said that you're a member of the police force, and that they say on TV that the police force is very powerful."
The child's answer wasn't really clear, he guessed: "The only big news related to the police these days is 'Disguised Criminal', isn't it? She's got the right guy."
As he said this, he made a few hand gestures while talking to explain the meaning of his current sign language, "I was just explaining it to my brother, and look, he's looking over here, trying to help you,"
"Do you remember where your home is, or your parents' contact numbers, names?"
Because the child was frightened, Morofushi Hiromitsu slowed down the sign language speed. It took more than half a minute to finish the simple gestures. Ichijō Mirai remembered a few very obvious signs, not the signs of 'you' and 'I' that can be understood at a glance, but the signs of "home", 'contact number", "remember", "help" and so on.
It seemed easy to learn, very simple.
Ichijō Mirai thought about it: should I click the [Sign Language] skill?
It's true that it can be used as combat terminology.
Most of the police and FBI can understand basic combat terminology, but unlike sign language, most of the people who can speak have never been exposed to it, and even if they have been exposed to it, there are very few people who can read it fluently.
Moreover, the sign language of many countries is different, and is as localized as English and Japanese.
Morofushi Hiromitsu caught the eye and looked more at Ichijō Mirai, then at his own hands, he hesitated, "Are you interested?"
"I can teach you."
He said, and repeated the sign language, only this time it was more difficult, and with each gesture, the meaning of the gesture was briefly explained.
"Sign language is in fact very simple, simple in order to let many people who can not speak to learn, most of the sign language is a single take out, let the people who can speak to guess, can guess a few similar meanings, just connected, gestures more will be very difficult to understand."
He said, "If you're interested, I'll teach you sometime? If it's just some common communication, it only takes a few days to get a good grip."
Ichijō Mirai translates as: you can get through it quickly.
It's a matter of reading a few files.
"Now," He decided, "the best time to learn something new is always 'now'."
Morofushi Hiromitsu was stunned, "Now?"
"Someone must have called the police since the gunshots were so intense, we'll just wait for them to arrive, we just need to be careful to avoid the media," Ichijō Mirai added, "Go to a phone booth and call the police again,"
"Teach me that while you're waiting for the police to come."
He shook the hem of his shirt, which the child had grabbed, "Come with me."
And without looking down, he asked, "Do you have any coins?"
They didn't have any coins, and the instructor still had their cell phones.
Coins and cell phones are nothing, any passerby carries them and can grab them.
But it's near a convenience store, and the gunshots were so intense that even the residents of the neighborhood gave full use to their excellent human skills, shutting their doors and windows and playing dead, and the stores were closed, and there were no pedestrians, so it wasn't a good idea to rob them.
Luckily, the children did.
As she stumbled along, clutching the hem of Ichijō Mirai's coat, she fumbled around in what looked like a decorative flower on her skirt, pulled out a few coins, and dutifully handed them over, "Aaah, aaah!"
There was a phone booth just down the street.
Ichijō Mirai took it, "Thanks."
He didn't feel embarrassed about calling a child and asking for money, but he just put in the coin and called the police without moving his eyebrows, reporting his current location and the general description of the lost child.
After hanging up the phone, he looked at Morofushi Hiromitsu, "What's wrong? Why do you look so hesitant to speak?"
"Do you have money?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "...No."
"Okay," He surrenders, "then I'll talk to her while I teach you?"
Then he warned, "It might be hard to memorize too much at once."
With that, he half-squatted down and gestured again, explaining the meaning of the gestures and their concatenation as he did so, "Can you tell us how you got lost?"
The child looked at Morofushi Hiromitsu's gesture, then at the hem of his coat, which he was clutching in his hand, and hesitated.
Morofushi Hiromitsu gestured again, vouching for Ichijō Mirai, "Brother won't run away."
Ichijō Mirai stood and leaned against the phone booth, nodding his head casually in agreement.
With that assurance, the child hesitantly released his hand and returned a dozen gestures.
Compared to Morofushi Hiromitsu's clear, complete, and seemingly easy to understand gestures, hers were a bit more erratic, and she seemed to be speaking very quickly, returning a very long paragraph in just over ten seconds.
"Brother keeps trying to run," Morofushi Hiromitsu repeats the gestures, once again breaking them down and translating them one by one, "five or six times."
That's Ichijō Mirai.
"Mom said she was going to buy cotton candy and told me to wait for her where she was, so I waited for her, but the car drove off..." He interrupted his translation for a moment to exchange a glance with Ichijō Mirai and gesture slowly, "Mom told you to wait for her here? She drove off? How long did you wait?"
The child gestured obediently.
Morofushi Hiromitsu translates again: "Mommy told me to wait for her at the shiny pony, and I wanted to ride the pony, but they wouldn't let me, so I got in the car, and the car drove off."
"After I got off the bus, I didn't know the way, I wanted to take a bus back, and I took a few more, and they wouldn't let me..."
He: "..."
And he runs through, "The shiny pony is a merry-go-round, isn't it?"
and struggled to translate the facts, "Her mother went to buy cotton candy, and she accidentally took a ride, and tried to go back, and took a couple more rides,"
Then I guess the farther you go, the more you transfer to one more car, the more complicated it gets to find your way back, and even if you lock on to the playground, you're not sure if it's a nearby playground, or a farther away playground.
Ichijō Mirai translates: "Troublemaker."
The child understands, and she puffs up her red, weeping face and gives a few sharp sign language strokes.
The meaning was so obvious that it didn't need to be translated: 'I'm not a troublemaker'.
"Uh-huh, uh-huh," Ichijō Mirai nodded perfunctorily, "that's how you say 'troublemaker' in sign language," he mimicked.
He mimics a few gestures and signs, "Troublemaker."
Child: "!"
"Mirai-san," Morofushi Hiromitsu reluctantly reaches out, stopping it for a moment, euphemistically, "she's about to cry,"
The child puffed out her cheeks and started signing again.
Morofushi Hiromitsu repeats a more standardized sign to show Ichijō Mirai and translates, "I'm not angry, I'm shy, and because this brother is so handsome, he's not scolding me, he's worried about me," he stops and looks up and says, "She's going to cry."
He stopped translating and looked up to meet Ichijō Mirai's eyes, "..."
"Okay."
"This brother wants to learn sign language and communicate with you, so why don't we teach him together? We can wait for mom and dad to find him."
He began to teach Ichijō Mirai common phrases such as the weather, transportation, names, and expressions of friendship.
Each gesture was simple, but many simple gestures together became so difficult to recognize that an ordinary person would have forgotten the first minute of sign language after ten minutes of learning it.
Ichijō Mirai did not.
He stared for a moment in the surging stream of blue prompts, silently memorizing each sign in his mind, and asked the simplest words in a language, "What about swearing?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu was stunned, "What?"
"Profanity," Ichijō Mirai said patiently, "does sign language have any curse words? For example, the troublemaker just now was a little more serious, like..."
"Bastard?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "..."
"No?" Ichijō Mirai thought for a moment, "What about fools?"
"There's always an idiot, right? Or a lighter provocation?"
He added, "Preferably with a wide range of movements, so that you can provoke from afar when your voice can't convey it."
Like waving at Mr. FBI from a distance.
Ichijō Mirai again draws the line, "Japanese sign language,"
"It needs to be something distinctive, preferably easy to understand, so that even someone who doesn't know sign language can guess the general meaning, and can pinpoint the neon after consulting the data,"
Useful.
On the [FBI Newcomer] side, it's time to spread some bait.
For the FBI, who enjoys studying criminals, the best bait is to get excited when a criminal reveals a habitual behavior, and to study what that behavior means.
"Yes," Morofushi Hiromitsu replied with difficulty, "but it doesn't seem to fall into the category of sign language, like giving the middle finger,"
"Like waving a fist, or hooking a hand, or slapping a hand in the air, or some organ that can be imitated with the hand.
But these gestures...
Only the 'hooking of the fingers' barely matches the image of Ichijō Mirai.
Morofushi Hiromitsu couldn't quite visualize Ichijō Mirai's bad taste in swearing like a gangster, and after a pause, he reluctantly said, "It means something like 'idiot' in sign language, but it's not just a curse, it's sometimes more intimate, it's more of a jest."
He stretched out his left hand, which was slightly clenched in a fist, and pointed his forehead with a curled up index finger, and then dropped his left hand, and together with his right hand, made a circular gesture outside his right waist, "Idiot."
At first glance, it looked a bit like a heart.
Ichijō Mirai understood a little why Morofushi Hiromitsu said 'idiot' in a more intimate way.
He thinks for a few seconds, and accepts, "OK, the gesture is obvious and provocative."
Then he thought for a moment and changed his tone, "But you're a guy with a history, so let's see if you've got a serious sense of humor first."
He waved his hand, "See you later."
...What?
Morofushi Hiromitsu was stunned for a moment.
Morofushi Hiromitsu paused in his stride for a moment, and a subtle feeling came to his mind, but before he could catch it, he saw Ichijō Mirai's silhouette.
He was standing by the side of the road, dressed in his blood-stained uniform, the corner of which was clutched by a child.
The child was crying.
Ichijō Mirai didn't look over, he half crouched down and snapped his fingers, catching the child's attention and causing him to stop crying for a moment and look at him with tearful eyes.
His hands moved, and he made a few very standard gestures with ease, looking light and familiar: "It's a beautiful day,"
"You've lost your mommy."
Child: "..."
Ichijō Mirai holds his chin up, gently clenches his right hand, opens and closes it like a flower bud, opens and closes it again, and dubs, "Wahaha."
It's a beautiful day, but you lost your mommy, wahaha.
The smile wasn't part of the sign language, but it was easy to understand, at least Morofushi Hiromitsu understood it from afar, and received 100% provocation in seconds, so: "..."
Child: "..."
She cried out with a loud wail, and cried even harder than before.
Ichijō Mirai turned around as if nothing had happened, shrugging his shoulders innocently as if he'd just spotted Morofushi Hiromitsu, gesturing in sign language: "She cried for too long, I couldn't hold it back, I teased her a bit, sorry."
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "..."
He vaguely thought that this little child looked familiar, as if he saw Matsuda Jinpei facing Ichijō Mirai, and looked at him a little more uncertainly, realizing that the sense of synchronicity was indeed very strong, and then, after a difficult silence and a half a day of speech, he spoke with difficulty, "I didn't realize that you knew sign language."
"You taught me," Ichijō Mirai blurted out, "You didn't fool me with your everyday language, I thought you were going to be serious and add a few nasty mistakes,"
That's a small minded man's way of looking at things.
"Then try provocation."
Ichijō Mirai pointed at Morofushi Hiromitsu, clasped his left hand, pressed his index finger against his forehead, and circled his right hand around his right waist.
The combination was: You're an idiot.
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "..."
He's been speechless so many times today that he's actually gotten used to it, and smiles helplessly as he raises his hands in surrender, "Okay, I'm sorry, I'm an idiot,"
Was it because he hadn't realized that Ichijō Mirai knew sign language before, or because he had chased after him so quickly that the other students would notice something was wrong and deduce Ichijō Mirai's life from Morofushi Hiromitsu's life, or because he had looked at the archives and was noticed?
"What did you find out?"