Chapter 23
Ring, ring, ring!
The ringing alarm clock disturbed the dust motes dancing in the air. Sunlight streamed through the wind-blown curtains, printing a dazzling patch of light on the bedding.
The girl nestled in the blankets grumbled and turned over, burying her face in the pillow. “Hiro, let me sleep a little longer…”
The room was quiet, except for the tirelessly ringing alarm, reminding its master that it was time to wake up.
Fan An turned off her phone’s alarm. She sat up in bed and rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“I almost forgot,” the girl said to herself. “Hiro’s gone.”
Her respected Crime Mentor, her considerate morning alarm clock, had left her forever.
“Is that a bit inauspicious to say?” Fan An pondered.
Strictly speaking, Hiromitsu Morofushi hadn’t left her. He would live on forever in An’an’s heart.
If the heart is there, the person is there.
Less strictly speaking, Hiromitsu was just out grinding in the wild.
A stunning new mobile game—“Traveling Scotch”—is now in open beta!
No grinding, no microtransactions, just a relaxing, casual experience! Simply pack your Scotch’s luggage, wait a little while, and he, while grinding in the wild, will bring you back a series of distillery-exclusive souvenirs.
Including, but not limited to: whisky with an alcohol content of approximately zero; Vodka that, when consumed, dramatically increases your driving skill and also dramatically increases your chances of being stopped by the traffic police; and Gin, the perfect instant noodle companion for a working person’s overtime hours.
“Traveling Scotch” will also periodically send you postcards, a symbol of his friendship with his friends.
Scotch is very sociable. You will see the following unfortunate souls in his photos: Silver-Haired Model Bro, Sunglasses Bodyguard Bro, Twisted Deep-Closet Bro, and various others who may one day join the “Bro” category or may forever remain a “little brother.”
“Traveling Scotch,” an idle game more suited to the constitution of a Beika Town baby.
An’an recalled Hiromitsu’s reaction last night when she had shared her game design proposal for “Traveling Scotch” with him.
Silence, with a hint of being moved. Being moved, with a large amount of speechlessness. Speechlessness, with a trace of reassurance.
So complicated. Hiromitsu was a man of delicate emotions.
Before he left, the handsome man had reminded An’an of many, many things, from remembering to set an alarm in the morning, to not being a picky eater at lunch, to going to bed on time at night, covering all aspects of her life. An’an was deeply moved.
The value of the wish she had made when she drew from the mentor pool for a “yasashii mentor who can handle a sniper rifle and also cook a meal, someone as gentle and loving as a mother” was still rising.
Dear Mentor, may you be happy even as you return to your former company to be a beast of burden! An’an offered her sincere blessings.
“Hiro’s gone back to work at the distillery, and I’m off to work on set,” the girl said, setting off with great enthusiasm.
The crew had originally planned to film in Nagano for only a week. The blond’s stroke of genius had disrupted Director Kawamura’s plan, but had unexpectedly sparked his inspiration. He had grabbed the screenwriter and rewritten the script overnight, his dark circles prominent with excitement as he cackled.
“We have to use the shooting scene!” Director Kawamura’s spittle was practically flying onto the screenwriter’s face. “Real guns, real bullets, real authenticity! I will bring the audience an unparalleled shock!”
The screenwriter wiped his face in agony. Why go to such lengths? The headlines the crew made during filming were already enough to shock the entertainment industry.
Other productions created buzz with their male and female leads shipping, celebrities fighting for billing, back and forth drama. The usual entertainment industry routine. Everyone watched with excitement and a sense of security.
And then there was their crew, a permanent resident of the crime section. Filming was like a game of werewolf. The actor was sacrificed to the heavens, the prop master was sacrificed to the earth. Fans gathered under the official social media account every day, not to control the comments, but to blindly guess: “Who’s next?”
The editor, on the verge of death from pulling all-nighters, was suddenly horrified. It’s not going to be me next, is it?
Fan An had mysteriously received a snack gift basket from the editor, who had piously held up two freeze pops and bowed to her three times.
A very mysterious ritual. She didn’t understand it, but she like freeze pops.
The dark-haired girl sucked on a freeze pop while listening to Director Kawamura explain the scene. Her screen time had increased, and so had her pay.
Not only that, but the new scenes were very easy to shoot. The third male lead, who was supposed to have wrapped up in the last scene, was now the mastermind’s dog. An’an’s scenes with him could be simply summarized as—Beauty and the Beast.
Third Male Lead: “I’m begging you! Even if you don’t have eyes that are soulful enough to make a dog fall in love, at least rein in your ‘everyone I see is a dog’ gaze!”
He looked so haggard. An’an humbly corrected herself.
Third Male Lead: “…”
Third Male Lead: “I was being presumptuous. I just realized how friendly your ‘looking at a dog’ gaze is—please! Don’t look at me with your ‘pig-butchering’ eyes! I’m your dog!”
Men are so hard to please, An’an thought, shaking her head. She didn’t understand. Couldn’t the third male lead just choose to be a person?
An’an: I don’t understand, but I respect it.jpg
In any case, Director Kawamura was very satisfied, his face beaming like a morning glory.
The days of running around with the crew, filming on location, were both long and short.
On the last day, amidst the tearful farewells of the crew, An’an finished her wrap party dinner, her pocket stuffed with a big red envelope from Director Kawamura, and returned to Beika Town with a bountiful harvest.
She had come as two, and returned as one. An’an stood at her door, dragging her suitcase, feeling a little lonely.
“Don’t move!” a passing resident shouted. “Who are you? What are you doing picking someone’s lock?”
The first thing Amuro Tooru saw when he opened his door was this scene: caught red-handed! A righteous passerby coldly thwarts a thief, and Suspect An confesses to her crime.
The Undercover Public Security Officer: “…”
Why is it that every time I see her, she’s in the middle of committing a crime…
“Did you forget your key?” Amuro asked.
The girl, fiddling with the lock with a metal wire, said perseveringly, “It’s not a big problem. It’ll be open soon.”
Amuro glanced at the lock, which was groaning under her violent assault. It will be open soon. The door is also about to collapse.
“If you don’t mind, let me,” he said, unable to watch any longer. He went back to his apartment and got his toolbox.
An’an still wanted to try, but the blond Public Security officer coaxed her to the side with a small cake from his fridge.
“Mr. Amuro knows how to do everything,” the girl said in amazement. “If I had this skill, I would plaster the apartment door with small ads: An’s Locksmithing, Your Peace of Mind is My Conscience! Thirty years ahead of the competition! The lock master that even Kaitou Kid uses and approves of! Contact number XXXXXX…”
Amuro Tooru: “This is probably not the time to be giving out my phone number.”
An’s Locksmithing. ‘An’ as in Fan An, ‘An’ as in Amuro, and ‘An’ as in Public Security. Giving out his number was perfectly reasonable.
“Speaking of which, An’an has been on a business trip for a long time,” Amuro said. “Didn’t you say you were only going to Nagano for a week?”
The disappearance rate of Beika Town residents was unimaginably high. Once an apartment was empty for too long, the apartment manager would assume the owner was in one of three states: deceased, near-death, or barely surviving, and would repossess the apartment to rent to the next tenant.
Fan An was an exception. Although she wasn’t in her apartment, her name continuously appeared in the crime section. Every day, the manager would open the newspaper and smile with relief. The new tenant has successfully survived another day!
“There were some accidents, and I was made a criminal suspect again,” Fan An said, as if it were a common occurrence. “Director Kawamura was inspired by it and added a lot of scenes for me.”
Amuro Tooru, a man who had honed his high EQ in the service and undercover industries, suffered his umpteenth Waterloo at the hands of Fan An. Using all his facial control skills, he smiled and congratulated her. “…Congratulations.”
“It is worthy of congratulations,” Fan An said cheerfully. “The drama is about to be released. Mr. Amuro must watch it when he has time!”
Amuro agreed.
He had agreed as a pleasantry. As a “Working Emperor” juggling multiple jobs, Amuro only had ninety minutes of sleep a day. He really couldn’t squeeze out any free time to watch a drama.
Unless the drama was so popular that everyone around him was watching it, and he felt like an outcast for not watching it, only then would Amuro consider adding “watching a drama” to his schedule.
Then again, Café Poirot only had two employees, Amuro and Azusa Enomoto. How could he possibly encounter workplace bullying?
…
“Bourbon, have you seen the new episode? It’s so exciting! The third male lead is amazing, whether he’s a person or a dog.”
“Nonsense, he’s much more amazing as a dog. Don’t you think so, Bourbon?”
“Bourbon, say something, Bourbon. Don’t tell me you don’t know what we’re talking about.”
“No way? You haven’t seen that drama? How boring. I’m not talking to you anymore.”
Bourbon: “…”
Workplace bullying. It was late, but it had arrived.
“It’s important to allocate some of your work time to entertainment,” Vermouth said with a smile, her red lips dripping with malice. “See? You can’t keep up with the conversation.”
The blond, dark-skinned man didn’t speak. After a long time, he finally said, with a hint of hesitation, “…Is it really that good?”
It’s one thing for ordinary people to be obsessed with a drama, but are distillery employees also this engrossed?
Bourbon: Have you all forgotten you’re criminals?
Why are you so engrossed in a police procedural? Aren’t you the ones who are supposed to be eliminated?
As a veteran of the entertainment industry, Vermouth could responsibly say, “It’s good.”
“The beginning is a little boring,” Vermouth enthusiastically recommended. “But it gets really exciting after the mastermind appears. Vodka is so hooked, he sits in front of the TV every day, waiting for the new episode.”
Vodka: Heavens, that ‘looking at a dog’ gaze is exactly the same as Aniki’s! I can’t believe I’ve found a substitute for Aniki! I’ll eat it up!
“If I remember correctly, didn’t Vodka almost kill her before?” Bourbon asked, astonished.
What was this? A large-scale case of forgetting one’s roots?
“That incident,” Vermouth said with a mysterious smile, “was a misunderstanding.”
Bourbon’s expression didn’t change, but he was tense.
A misunderstanding? The “Ghost of Scotch” incident at the abandoned distillery. Gin had been investigating it like a madman, refusing to let go. And now she was saying it was a misunderstanding?
Could it be…
“They found the person?” Bourbon asked in a low voice.
Talking to a smart person was so easy. Vermouth nodded. “Pinga found him.”
“Gin was played by Pinga. He’s not happy.”
The blond woman laughed softly, without a trace of camaraderie, only the pleasure of watching a show. “How pitiful. After investigating for so long, thinking he had caught a big fish, who would have thought…”
“Thought what?”
A strange voice inserted itself into Vermouth and Bourbon’s conversation. “Let me in on it too.”
A strange young man with a bass case on his back. The man with cornrows stood beside him, looking around. “Vermouth, is Gin not here?”
“Casually interrupting the conversation of high-ranking members. Is this the newcomer you brought, Pinga?” Vermouth asked, displeased.
Pinga didn’t see Gin and looked bored.
“I was going to show off to Gin. After all that useless work and wasting so much of the organization’s resources, is this how he repays the trust of that person?”
Pinga never missed an opportunity to pull Gin down and step on him to climb up. He couldn’t go three sentences without mentioning Gin.
Vermouth knew Pinga’s character well. She skipped over him and her gaze fell on the strange young man with the bass.
“So this is the mysterious sniper who shot Gin, the ghost of Scotch?” The blond woman’s gaze lingered on him.
No trace of a disguise. Vermouth retracted her gaze.
“I didn’t expect you to join the organization,” she said. “Has Pinga told you the rules of the organization?”
For example, not to casually interrupt when two high-ranking members with codenames are talking.
“He has,” the young man with the bass said, sitting down on a bar stool. Whether intentionally or not, he happened to sit next to Bourbon.
“I just got my codename and couldn’t wait to greet my colleagues.” He tapped his finger on the bar, summoning the bartender.
So fast? Bourbon’s eyes darkened slightly.
It wasn’t easy to get a codename in the Black Organization. If you didn’t rely on seniority, you had to have exceptional talent in a certain area.
Every member who received a codename was a key target for the Public Security Bureau, especially a sniper, a rare and crucial frontline operative who could turn the tide of battle at a critical moment.
According to Gin’s personal experience, the other party’s marksmanship was extremely excellent, and abnormally similar to Scotch’s.
Hiro… Bourbon clenched his glass. The rippling liquor in the glass reflected his purple-gray eyes, and for a moment, it seemed to reflect his friend’s face as well.
His friend’s face quickly dissipated in the ripples, replaced by the new member sitting beside him.
A new variable.
“I’m a little curious,” Bourbon took the initiative to ask. “What’s your codename? It’s not easy to get Gin to change his tune. He’ll probably keep calling you ‘the ghost of Scotch’.”
The blond young man glanced at the bass case out of the corner of his eye. Despicable fellow. Not only did he imitate Hiro’s marksmanship, but he even imitated Hiro’s habit of hiding his sniper rifle in a bass case. Doesn’t he have his own style?
Copycat!
“It’s fine. Gin will change his tune soon enough.”
The summoned bartender walked to the bar, waiting for his order.
Vermouth paid partial attention. According to the organization’s rules, the drink a newcomer ordered would signify their codename.
Another bottle of whisky? Or some kind of liquor from Scotland?
Whichever it was, Vermouth had guessed wrong.
“A glass of Scotch whisky.”
Clink. The ice cubes, in a violent jolt, hit the side of the glass, making a jarring sound.
Vermouth didn’t notice Bourbon’s momentary loss of composure, because she was also shocked.
“You inherited Scotch’s codename?” the blond woman asked, astonished. “Are you insane?”
That was a confirmed red-side undercover agent!
Wouldn’t that be too unlucky for a real liquor member?!
A terrifying newcomer. He had even shot Gin before. He was so bold.
“It’s like he has a person growing on his guts,” Vermouth murmured. “What were you thinking?”
“I joined the organization to take everything from him,” the new Scotch Whisky said calmly.
Hiromitsu Morofushi seemed calm, but in reality, he had been gone for a while.
Especially when Zero had first looked at him with the eyes of someone looking at a copycat, and then, after hearing the line “I will take everything from Scotch,” had not been able to hide his hostility, Hiromitsu was already in a state of near-death.
When this is all over, I won’t be socially dead on the red side… right?
In any case, true liquors and fake liquors, it was now time for the great Director An’s masterpiece—pure-hate black-moonlight body-double literature. Showtime!