Chapter 132 Twenty-six Cats

There was a stalemate between Fōguri and the black cat on the shelf for a while, as if they were playing a game where whoever blinked first would lose. It was only when Fōguri's eyes became sore and he blinked reflexively that the strange atmosphere dissipated between them.

The cat on the shelf squinted at him for a long while, uttered a fourth meaningless but cute meow, stood up, stretched in the shadows, and then nimbly pounced towards Jyoutani, who subconsciously reached out to catch the cat and held it in his arms.

The cat then curled up in the police officer's arm and yawned, looking very righteous. It raised its paw and stepped on Kouya's arm, sweeping its tail happily. Kouya had to use one hand to cover his itchy chin and rub the cat's head helplessly.

The cat's dominance was so strong that it seemed that Fōtani, who was holding him, was the weak, pitiful and innocent one. However, Fōtani knew that it was just the opposite and that the cat was soothing his emotions.

Although he might have been skeptical at first, now Furuya is 100% sure that this familiar black cat is indeed the store manager.

He took the opportunity to pat the store manager's head again in dissatisfaction, and when he lowered his head to look into those round cat eyes, he almost laughed out loud.

"…As expected of you." Jōgō murmured, and with an expression of disappointment, he pretended to hit the cat's head hard. Then, under the cat's innocent and adorable gaze, he slowed down his movements, and the lecturing flick of his fingers finally turned into a light poke.

The cat seemed to smile secretly with its mouth and eyes curved.

Whether it's the store manager or the cat, their bullying attitude, relying on the knowledge that he can't bring himself to do anything or scold him, really hasn't changed at all, Fūya thought.

never mind.

Life is not easy, and I sigh.

Why would he argue with a cat? The store manager's bad habits of neglecting his own health when he was having fun were not something he could correct by just scolding him.

What else could he do? He could only raise his hands in surrender and respectfully hand over the throne on his shoulders to the cat.

Then the cat kicked him and insisted on lying in the crook of his arms, turning into a pool of cat biscuits.

Fūya has a headache and a stomachache: the store manager who turns into a cat is even more willful than the store manager in normal form.

But it is understandable. In their original form, they are indeed easily affected by their bodies. Cats are creatures with such personalities. There is no sense of incongruity when putting them on the store manager.

Let me repeat, this is a humanoid who can snatch snacks from a cat, wrestle with a cat on the ground, and even be raised by the cat he raised.

After the bomb was dismantled, the two people only needed to worry about how to leave the room. At first, Kouya didn't think it was a big deal, but after the manager did this, he felt a slight sense of shame when he thought about turning back into a cat and crawling into the cat hole with the manager.

I don’t know if the store manager took his feelings into consideration, and he also knew that now was not the time to talk, so the store manager didn’t say a word in cat form from beginning to end, but just lazily teased him with pure meowing.

Fūya turned around and took one last look at the bomb that had been dismantled and confirmed to be safe, and turned back into a beautiful, slender chocolate-colored Siamese cat.

Considering the dangerous environment here, Jyoutani felt empty and insecure in his heart, not to mention that his animal instincts after turning into a cat made him not want to stay here for long. He did not forget to bring the store manager with him, and he pushed open the hinged door and jumped out of the hole to the corridor, then shook off the dust on his head.

The black cat in his mouth was silent for a while, swaying in the air obediently and stiffly as he shook his head, and then looked at Fūya behind him with difficulty through the glass window across the corridor.

Only then did Jōtani realize that he had just subconsciously carried the store manager out like a kitten... He hadn't expected that he and the store manager's prototype looked almost the same size, but in fact the store manager was a lot smaller than him, and when he ran with the manager by the scruff of the neck, he didn't even drag on the ground.

Fūya quickly loosened his mouth, turned back into human form, and picked up the cat with an "apology" written all over its face again. He said "I'm sorry" in a conciliatory manner while stroking the manager's fur.

The cat hummed twice as if it had heard something.

The man and the cat just ran out like this. The store manager showed no intention of coming back, and Fūya showed no intention of reminding them. They all pretended that nothing had happened and prepared to blend in with the evacuating hostages and leave.

Just as he was about to turn the corner of the corridor, the cat's tail touched his chin again. For the first time, the store manager used the cat's body to say something meaningful: "Someone is coming."

Cats have excellent hearing and discovered this faster than humans.

He actually heard who the person was, but he didn't tell Furiya at all. Instead, he excitedly placed his claw pads on Furiya's shoulders to prop up his upper body. When Furiya turned around and hid behind the wall, he stuck his head out and leaned over the wall to look out.

Before Jōtani could put the cat's head back on his shoulder, he heard the voice of someone coming.

"Why is there a cat here?"

It's Conan.

He breathed a sigh of relief and walked out from behind the wall holding the cat. Since he had learned from the store manager that Conan and the thief Kid were going to catch a criminal together, Furuya skipped the step of greeting and asked this question right away: "Conan-kun, where is the criminal?"

However, this was the first time Conan met Furuya in this form. When facing Furuya, he was confused for a moment, and then suddenly remembered the blond man who was with the store manager mentioned by Kaito before.

"Kid took the criminal away." Conan immediately became anxious, "Big Brother, aren't you with the store manager brother?"

While speaking, Conan couldn't help but take another look at the black cat that had crawled down from his shoulder and back into Furuya's arms.

The cat that peeked out from behind the wall just now looked so familiar.

The store manager was like this before in the store...

…

Conan looked at it once, and then looked again.

The cat meowed and smiled at the two children with a crooked look in its eyes, as if confirming Conan's guess.

Conan looked blankly and blurted out, "Manager?"

This time, he didn't even add the word "brother" that he said when he was pretending to be a child. It is conceivable that Conan's brain is completely blank at this moment.

Unlike the public security elites who had anticipated this and were able to accept it, Conan was still shocked to the point of losing his voice.

Even though he had watched the surveillance video before, he was more inclined to agree with Shirley's idea that the store manager was also present at the time, but the camera only captured the black cat.

But, it turns out that the store manager is the black cat, and he is the same kind as them!

"What?" Shirley next to her finally digested the truth that Conan told her while running on the road. As soon as she came out of her thoughts, she heard Conan's words. She raised her head reflexively and met the eyes of the cat in Furuya's arms.

Shirley, who had previously pretended to be an ordinary puppy and now appeared as a human, and the store manager, who had previously pretended to be an ordinary human and now appeared as a cat, looked at each other in surprise.

The store manager pondered for a moment.

"Hi, Shirley?"

"Hi, manager...wait, manager?" Shirley greeted him subconsciously, then looked at the cat and took a breath of cool air.

Were you too excited today?!

—

Before Jōtani and his companions went down a few floors through the escape passage, they ran into the rescue personnel who had just cleaned up the ground floor. They were quickly sent down and successfully left the hotel.

The area outside the hotel was full of people, not only the guests who had escaped, but also other patrons and staff in the hotel. In the outermost circle there were many people sneaking in to watch the excitement. The noisy crowd mixed with the sounds of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks was so noisy that it made Jiangu feel dizzy.

He pressed his forehead and decided not to look for his partner, Vermouth, in the crowded crowd. Instead, he would blend into the crowd and take the opportunity to disappear from their sight, and then naturally reunite with his friends.

As for how to explain to Sonoko and the others where the previous store manager had gone, just leave it to the two children he secretly left behind!

Matsuda and Hagiwara's mission ended when the criminal was tied up and thrown in front of a police car by the thief Kid not long ago. They are still staying here to wait for Furuya to bring back good news. Morobuchi also sat in the back seat of the car with them. This is the police parking space and he can hide more safely here.

Therefore, their position was very easy to find, and Fūya quickly sneaked over.

To be honest, seeing that Fūya's hands and feet were still intact and he could stand and talk to them, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief. God knows how nervous they were when they heard that the prisoner woke up and said that he had locked up the bomb disposal person and left him to die.

Hagiwara was the first to notice something was wrong: "Furiya-chan, isn't the manager with you?"

Wait a minute, the person locked up isn’t Furuya, could it be the store manager…!

Matsuda and Morofushi also looked at Furuya, who was stunned and remained silent with a sad expression.

"I'm sorry, I..." Fūya closed his eyes and put on the hood of his coat, saying sadly, "The manager...didn't come out with me."

Before the three pale-faced people could recover from the bad news, a black furry head popped out from the gap between the hood and the blond hair, with its chin resting on the top of Fūya's head, and its meow was soft and happy.

"Everyone~" the cat greeted, "I'm here~!"

The air in this area became silent.

A few seconds later, Fūya was surrounded by three people, but the cat escaped effortlessly and sat on the roof of the car to watch the show.

Akae Nazuki decided to leave Fūya behind to resolve the situation while he went to do other, more important things.

It's definitely not that he doesn't want to be beaten by Hagi-kun, Hiro-kun and Jinpei-kun... He is a cat now! But what did the little kitten do wrong?

He nimbly slipped into the crowd without being stepped on by anyone, and successfully found a quiet little corner where no one was, finally having time to transform back into human form.

Then, Akae Nazuki took out her cell phone from her pocket and started writing a message, the recipient of which was Karasuma Renya.

He wants to tell his kind grandfather, Karasuma Renya, that he wants to visit the company headquarters of the Karasuma Group/Organization, which he will inherit in the future, alone this weekend.

Of course, a person is a person, and if he carries cats and dogs with him, there is no need to report them specifically, right?

On the other side, having just received a new message and thus successfully escaping from the siege of his friends, Fūya looked at the screen of his mobile phone and fell into a brief confusion.

[from: Belmode

How is Carlo? Is he not injured?]

[from: Bourbon

...I remember you didn't seem to tell me who Kaluya was?]

Vermode on the opposite side was also confused for a few seconds.

[from: Belmode

Haven't you been with him all this time, protecting him? Bourbon, there's no need to play dumb with me about this.]

Close protection, always together.

At this moment, Fūya finally remembered the sign of the cat cafe owned by the store manager, which he had only seen once on the first day, and had missed since then because he was carried by the store manager or entered the store in a cat box or bag.

And connected it to the content of this message.

【Kahlua】

Kalua Coffee Shop.