Chapter 240 Thirty-four Gachapon
It is now 7:30 in the morning. Toru Amuro has already arrived at the store and started busying himself, preparing ingredients, wiping tables and chairs, and putting up the opening sign. These are all the work of a waiter. Coincidentally, the clerk who is usually in the store is on vacation today, so he is the only one here for the time being.
In fact, in many senses, today can be regarded as a "holiday" in the eyes of Toru Amuro. It is a rare occasion that he does not have any tasks to do. Even the documents that were piled up by the public security department due to his undercover work were all completed last night. The only priority today is to work part-time in the cafe and maintain the character of "Toru Amuro".
For an undercover agent who needs to maintain three faces every day, being a waiter is like a holiday.
——This is what Toru Amuro thought before bowing again to see off a group of guests and welcoming a new group of guests.
"Welcome to the light——"
The sunny smile on the handsome blond waiter's face remained unchanged, and only those who were familiar with him could see the gnashing of teeth underneath his smile.
He exchanged glances with Jinpei Matsuda who pushed the door open.
"——Lin." Amuro Toru kept smiling and finished the sentence as if it was effortless.
What's going on? He only called the kid over to get information about Aka from Conan, who was easier to talk to. Although he expected Aka to follow him, no one told him that he would also pull out carrots and bring out mud, and then be attracted to follow one, two, three, four...
Amuro Toru took a deep breath, his waiter mask impeccable: "Please take your seats, guests."
Aka, forget about that. Why are you here, Hagiwara and Matsuda? Is that how you work as a police officer? And the squad leader is here, so why did you, Hiro, get involved?
After catching a glimpse of a group of handsome men with different styles but very familiar to him following behind Matsuda Jinpei, Amuro Toru had a feeling that his schedule would definitely not be leisurely in the future.
The corners of his mouth twitched secretly, and he decisively chose to ignore Matsuda Jinpei, who was lying on his shoulder and shaking with laughter, Date Kou, who was stunned by his new look, Hagiwara Kenji, whose face was full of "how interesting" and who was obviously here to watch the show, and Akae Nazuki, who was surprisingly skilled in holding her brother and sitting in the window booth even though it was her first time.
Toru Amuro's gaze fell quietly on Morobushi Kagemitsu, earning a guilty smile from the latter.
He couldn't help but think of something else.
Because of the mission requirements, Scotland, a sniper, and Bourbon, an intelligence officer, became a bound partner two years ago after a year of running-in.
In fact, a more reliable solution for the undercover agents would be to pretend that their relationship was very bad, but they were too familiar with each other, and there was no way to perfectly cover up the relationship of more than 20 years. After all, even undercover elites like them would have moments of slacking off.
Of course, even if Toru Amuro really wanted to partner up only with his childhood friends, that would be a very dangerous behavior. Just in case, their team actually consists of three people.
The third person, Ley, just defected not long ago. If it weren't for the fact that Toru Amuro had always been incompatible with Ley when he was working as Bourbon in the past two years, and had such strong opinions about Ley that he repeatedly asked Rum to change partners - even though everyone in the organization knew that Bourbon and Ley had a bad relationship and might fight to the death one day, he and Morobushi Kagemitsu still went through a period of interrogation.
It can be said that a big part of the reason why they came to Beihua was that after Lei's defection, they were excluded from the core area as undercover partners.
The reason why Toru Amuro can still calmly mention Lei's name in his heart is because it is not a bad thing for either of them.
Perhaps it's because their previous image was so deeply portrayed, and it seems that there is someone (Vermouth) helping them behind the scenes, so the organization's suspicion of them is actually more inclined to "not having good eyesight to realize that Lei is an FBI agent" rather than suspecting that they are "also FBI undercover agents."
Thank God, if it was the latter, Amuro Toru felt that he would really lose control and kill Americans.
But for Morobushi Jingguang, he thought that the organization could trust them so much that they were not Lei's accomplices. It should be because Lei's identity was exposed at that time. He and Zero, as partners, killed their own relatives and hunted Lei for a whole day...
This incident may have had some influence on this.
In short, since they have been partners in public for a long time, the two of them are also one in the safe house in Beika Town. Before leaving this morning, Amuro Toru chatted with Morobushi Keimitsu for a while because he thought today would be an easy day without any special work. He also invited the young child who was also free to come to the corner of the cafe and play with the children with him.
[“I won’t go, although I’m very interested…” Zhu Fu Jingguang scratched his face, smiling rather awkwardly, “I have something else to take care of here, you go by yourself, be careful on the road?”]
…
Then we met in the cafe.
After handing out the menus to the group of friends who finally sat down at the table, Amuro Toru still smiled, but leaned over to Morobushi Keimitsu in a low voice and said, "Is this what you mean by 'need to be dealt with', Midorikawa?"
Morofushi Kagemitsu: “Haha…”
He has known Zero for more than 20 years and has his own unique secrets on how to judge this person's emotions, so Morofushi Kagemitsu also realized that Amuro Toru was just caught off guard and was not really resistant to meeting them here.
...Oh, Matsuda doesn't count. He's been shooting Zero's waiter uniform limited skin for a long time, right? Zero's eyes are about to burst into flames.
Morofushi Kagemitsu couldn't help but be distracted: I'll ask Matsuda to send me a copy of the photo before I leave.
When he first met Matsuda and his team while undercover a few years ago, Morobushi Kagemitsu was actually asked, "Is this kind of contact okay for you?"
The answer is... Of course, we can't say that there is no problem at all, but concealing one's identity and communicating with others is the most basic quality of an undercover agent. Otherwise, they will encounter trouble when communicating with informants.
When they meet with Matsuda and his team, Morobushi Kagemitsu and Amuro Toru usually handle the organization's spy issues themselves. If they are exposed after doing so, their undercover work will be in vain.
Not to mention that because of the meeting in Kyoto some time ago, now that their acquaintance with these police officers has come to light, the two of them can temporarily not care about anything that requires distance.
Back to this, Morobushi Kagemitsu actually had something to do.
That is to go talk to the detective.
Who knew that they would meet Date Ko on the road. He seemed to be looking for someone as well, so they just happened to be walking together. As a result, as soon as they arrived at Kudo's house, they bumped into a few people who had just come out.
When he heard that they were coming to the cafe to look for Toru Amuro, Morofushi Keimitsu had a premonition that the scene ahead could not be missed, so he decisively chose to go with them.
So...sorry, zero.
After thinking about it, the handsome young man with black hair and blue eyes looked at the clerk apologetically, and then said perfunctorily in a sincere tone: "I didn't expect it to be such a coincidence that I met Detective and others. What's more coincidental is that the store you all want to visit happens to be here."
Hagiwara, who was lumped into the category of others, said: "That's too much. Didn't Midorikawa come here specifically to find us, Detective-chan?"
The exposed Morofushi Kagemitsu was not panicked at all. He picked up the menu and smiled gently at Hagiwara: "No, it was just a coincidence."
"but--"
"It was a coincidence."
"Well, it was a coincidence." Hagiwara shrugged and shrank back into his seat with a smile on his face.
He stopped teasing his classmate who had become more sinister than seven years ago after not seeing him for a long time, and turned to look at the detective holding the little boy: "Detective-chan and Conan probably haven't had lunch yet, right? What do you want to eat?"
"As for me, I want to eat curry chicken rice! And iced Americano--"
"Drink milk."
Conan's resistance was ruthlessly suppressed by the detective, and the scene was exactly the same as the conversation between Hagiwara and Morobu a few seconds ago.
Toru Amuro looked over there. In an environment where even the squad leader was trying to hold back his laughter while admiring Matsuda's camera skills, the black-haired detective, who looked so young that it wouldn't look out of place among high school students, was the only one present who didn't comment on his apron shirt and waiter's business smile. Because of this, Toru Amuro's gaze softened a lot.
However, Toru Amuro didn't know that the reason he felt a chill since this group of people came in was not only because Jinpei Matsuda was taking pictures, but also because Nazuki Akae was recording videos using the many gadgets hidden on her body.
After selecting the dishes from the menu, the seemingly innocent detective calmly nodded to Amuro Toru. It was hard to tell that he was actually thinking about which collection folder to put this dark history in.
Hmm... whether to put it in [Furiya Rei] or [Amuro Toru], that is a question.
Akae Nazuki had no reaction to Amuro Toru's dress, mainly because he was already used to it. Not to mention the years when the main world's Furuya Rei acted as Amuro Toru, in the previous vigilante world alone, he had been with [Butler Amuro Toru] for a long time!
Not knowing what this person was thinking, Toru Amuro finally returned to the counter to prepare the meal with the thought of "Let's just blow it up here", while the few people who stayed in the booth started chatting idly.
"Come to think of it, Midorikawa-chan, I can understand why you, squad leader, also came to see Detective-chan." Hagiwara asked curiously.
Normally this booth seats four people, but at this moment the seats are arranged with Hagiwara Kenji and Matsuda Jinpei sitting side by side, and Akae Nazuki and Morobushi Kagemitsu sitting opposite them. Conan sits in his brother's arms, swinging his short legs, and Date Kou pulls up a chair and sits on the side without much concern.
While they were talking, Hagiwara, who was sitting opposite Akae Nazuki, had to look over Matsuda's shoulder to see Date Kou's face.
Then he saw Ida Hang's slightly confused expression: "Looking for a detective? No, I'm looking for you two."
"……ah?"
The four people except the detective were all surprised by this unexpected answer. "When I went on a trip with Xiaona before, I won tickets to the amusement park in a lottery, and it was a family package, but unfortunately it can only be used for a certain period of time." Date Kou leaned back in his chair and sighed, "But Xiaona and I made an appointment to go to Hokkaido to have dinner with her parents during that time... so I thought of giving the tickets to you."
"I remember you guys were talking about looking for Na Yue, ahem, looking for Furuya yesterday, so come and try your luck."
Matsuda Jinpei looked at him with a hollow look: "Captain, if you want to tell us about this matter, just tell us on the line, and we can give it to you when we return to the Metropolitan Police Department tomorrow."
Date Kou remained silent, then smiled brightly: "Because the time for that package is actually today!"
"You forgot to tell us yesterday, didn't you? Absolutely." Hagiwara pointed out sharply, and then suddenly had an idea, "But the amusement park sounds quite interesting, and Detective-chan should be free this afternoon - is this a date?"
Conan looked to the right and found that Mr. Midorikawa seemed to be listening to the other people's jokes with relish. Looking up, he saw that Nayue, who was protecting him with one hand on his waist, had picked up the fork at some point and started eating the cake on the plate happily. Even little flowers of joy seemed to be popping up all around him.
...Wait a minute, where did the cake come from! ?
Conan poked his head out from his brother's arms with difficulty and met the eyes of Toru Amuro who had come from behind the sofa at some point in time.
Toru Amuro, who was still holding the tray in his hands, winked at the child, raised his fingers to his lips, smiled, and made a mouth shape.
[Don't disturb him.]
Conan shrank back expressionlessly, then tugged at the detective's sleeve, put on a cute expression and said sweetly, "Ni-chan, I want to eat this cake too~"
As expected, Brother Yue and him have the best relationship among those present.
A few seconds later, Conan thought so with great pride while biting a small piece of cake on the fork.