Chapter 77
An ordinary day.
An ordinary, overtime-working Scotch Whisky returned to his ordinary distillery employee dorm.
Life as a body double in the distillery was much better than when he was an undercover agent. For example, he no longer had to share a room with other whiskies and could have a single room to himself. Cleaning was also much more convenient. He no longer had to worry about the long-haired man, Rye, clogging the drain with his hair, to the point of having to call a plumber in the middle of the night, which had alerted Gin, who was also a long-haired man.
Scotch had always believed that half of the reason Gin had appreciated Rye so much was because of his appreciation for his hairstyle—an affirmation from the distillery’s number one fashion icon.jpg
After Akai Shuichi’s defection, Gin had gone crazy, also because he had felt he had been backstabbed by a fellow enthusiast. The days when the two of them had friendly exchanged shampoo links had ultimately been for naught. The FBI! Hateful!
Scotch sighed. He took out his key and opened the door.
The room was dark. Hiromitsu didn’t turn on the light right away. He first turned around to lock the door.
A hard object was pressed against Hiromitsu’s lower back.
A gun. He instantly made a judgment.
An inexperienced person might have been deceived by a hard object disguised as a gun and the darkness, but Hiromitsu was an expert with guns. He wouldn’t be mistaken.
An ambush? Hiromitsu brainstormed. Have I been exposed?
No reason. This shouldn’t be.
His body-double image was deeply ingrained in everyone’s minds. Even Gin, under Vodka’s persuasion of “Aniki, he’s already a body double, just let him be,” had chosen to turn a blind eye and no longer looked at Scotch Whisky with the suspicious gaze of someone who would suspect a passing dog of being a police dog.
The number of people who knew Hiromitsu’s current address was very small. The only person who would ambush him in his room was…
“Time for the suspect’s statement,” Fan An said coldly, poking Hiromitsu’s lower back with the barrel of the gun. “Speak! Tell me everything!”
Hiromitsu: “Hiss, An’an, be gentle. It hurts.”
Fan An: “There’s more pain to come.”
She clicked off the safety and loaded the gun.
Hiromitsu: “Wait a minute! Before you shoot me, please allow me to ask a question—An’an, where did you get the gun?”
Didn’t she claim to be an ordinary Beika Town resident?
Someone coughed twice in the darkness.
The other person’s darker skin tone blended perfectly into the darkness, but his overly dazzling blond hair exposed his presence.
Hiromitsu: Case solved.
Zero, you big-eyed fellow! You actually lent your sidearm to your girlfriend to intimidate your friend of many years! Bros before hoes!
The barrel of the gun pressed against Mentor Scotch’s lower back was pushed forward again. He was like a rice cake being constantly beaten.
“I surrender,” Hiromitsu said, knowing he was no match. He raised his hands in defeat. “Please be lenient on account of my confession.”
Fan An didn’t speak, only continued to pound the rice cake.
Hiromitsu: “There are fresh chocolate lava cakes, mango mousse, and lemon tarts in the fridge.”
The bribe was effective. The great judge Miss An reluctantly let go of this whisky-filled rice cake that she could flatten and knead at will.
Hiromitsu let the dark-haired girl raid his fridge. He walked over to Furuya and exchanged information with his friend.
Hiromitsu (inquiring): “Does An’an know everything?”
Furuya (nodding): “Kazami just came to report to me. I took the opportunity to confess my identity.”
It had been a very chaotic night. The girl’s brain had been overloaded, as if she had been hit by Unlimited Void. She was in a cat-in-space state.
No matter what Furuya said to her, she had a “don’t bother me, I’m grilling” look, stuck in a crashed mode.
The undercover Public Security officer had waited patiently for a long time, accompanying the girl in the cold night wind. Unfortunately, even the coldest wind couldn’t cool down an overloaded brain. An’an had stood by the vending machine as if she would stand there until the end of time.
“It’s time to go back,” Furuya had said, touching the girl’s cold fingertips and, without another word, had taken her back to the hotel.
An’an had resisted a little. “My cousin told me not to go with a con artist.”
“Hiro didn’t say that,” Furuya had said, lying without batting an eye. “I haven’t even settled the score with him for impersonating An’an’s cousin. Don’t listen to him.”
An’an: “I was talking about Cousin Hanzawa. Mentor Scotch is a distant cousin in the family tree.”
Furuya (missing the point): “Hiro is on An’an’s family tree?”
So it was true that Hiromitsu was going to sit at the elders’ table.
As expected of Mentor Scotch, who had played everyone in the distillery with the word “body double.” His means of raising his own status were so impressive.
“If you don’t want to go with me, then don’t,” Furuya had said, half-squatting down, his voice laced with a smile. “Then how about a piggyback ride?”
He hadn’t heard an answer. A rustling sound had come from behind him. A soft body and a sweet fragrance had covered the blond young man’s back.
“I’m not going with a con artist. I’m enslaving a con artist,” An’an had said, her arms wrapped around Furuya’s neck, a villainous statement. “Adding weight to the despicable con artist.”
“So scary,” Furuya had said, carrying her and walking slowly towards the hotel. The moonlight shone on the road, and pink cherry blossom petals danced in the wind.
A few petals had landed in his blond hair. An’an, of course, would not be kind enough to brush them away for the con artist.
She had picked up a petal and, with her pinky, had hooked open Furuya’s collar.
The petal had fallen into the open collar, sliding over his skin. Furuya had noticed it immediately.
One petal, he had let it be. Two petals, he had acquiesced. Three petals, he had been silent. Four, five, six, seven petals…
The first thing the blond Public Security officer had done after entering the hotel room was to throw the bad person on his back onto the bed and pin her down.
“Did you have fun?” Furuya had asked with a half-smile.
Of course it was fun to do bad things. That’s what An’an’s eyes said.
She had pushed against Furuya’s shoulders with both hands. “Go back to your room. A con artist doesn’t have permission to use the connecting door.”
Furuya hadn’t moved. “Since I’m a criminal now, why should I follow the law?”
How could this be? Wasn’t this person a Public Security police officer?
He still had his police badge on him!
“It won’t be for long,” Furuya had said.
He had taken off his shirt with one hand. The cherry blossom petals that had accumulated in his clothes had fallen out, scattering all over the snow-white bed.
A pink petal had stuck to the corner of the girl’s lips and had been taken away by the man who had leaned down.
Did you have fun just now?
Now it was his turn.
“Confess and you will be treated with leniency. Resist and you will be treated with severity. I’ve confessed so much today. Isn’t there any reward?”
“Isn’t this what you should have done? You even made me have to learn to say a new name. I might accidentally say it wrong.”
“That’s true. I have to get An’an used to calling my name… hmm, now is a good time. Come, try calling my name.”
“Wait- wait a minute! Don’t take advantage of me…”
Changing the way she called him was harder than she had thought.
But thanks to a lot of practice, An’an had learned.
The first thing she had done after learning was to show off her practice results to Mentor Scotch.
“Are you going to show me with a gun?” Hiromitsu’s expression was subtle. “By the way, why isn’t the safety on yet?”
An’an: “Because I haven’t executed the traitor yet.”
Did he think she would forget about this after a chaotic night? Don’t even think about it!
“Confess,” she said, scooping up a spoonful of chocolate lava cake and biting down hard on the spoon. “Hiro, when did you betray me and go to his side?”
“Was it when you were eating dumplings without vinegar? Or when you were cosplaying Gin and dancing a girl group dance on the cruise ship?”
“It couldn’t have been when you were a body double in the distillery, and unfortunately encountered workplace bullying, and Bourbon stood up for you, and the light of justice shone on the earth, and moved your chocolate-lava-like heart, right?!”
Hiromitsu: “…”
He quietly nudged Furuya with his elbow. “Zero, didn’t you say you had already confessed?”
“That’s right,” Furuya said calmly. “I confessed my part.”
Hiromitsu: What about me? Who’s going to care about whether I live or die?
Everyone has their own cross to bear. Furuya was helpless.
He: I’m sorry, but my favorability with my girlfriend really can’t go any lower.
If it did, he would never pass the probation period in his life.
Hiromitsu: When I retire, I’m going to write a memoir. The title will be “Me and My Unfortunate Friend.”
“…My betrayal was a tiny bit earlier than when I was cosplaying Gin and dancing a girl group dance,” Hiromitsu said cautiously.
The dark-haired girl stared at him with a ghostly expression.
“It was probably around the time you met Silver-Haired Model Bro and Sunglasses Bodyguard Bro,” Mentor Scotch continued.
An’an: “But I hadn’t resurrected you yet when I first met them.”
Hiromitsu looked up, down, left, and right, but didn’t dare to look at her. “That’s right.”
“I betrayed you before I died,” he said heavily.
…
It was Mentor Scotch’s story time.
He told a long story about “You’re a Public Security police officer, and I’m a Public Security police officer. What a coincidence! We were even classmates at the police academy and childhood friends.”
As everyone knows, for a long time in the past, Silver-Haired Model Bro was An’an’s enemy.
Gin had been persecuted by An’an and had left a series of blackmail photos in her phone album, including but not limited to meowing like a cat, a pouting face, a cross-eyed face, and a Nakahara Chuuya-style young lady pose—all passionately performed by the coser Mentor Scotch, with impeccable makeup and styling.
But today, An’an had developed a different feeling for Silver-Haired Model Bro.
She pitied him.
She pitied him so much!
A mole is like a certain household companion small animal with two antennae that makes a rustling sound and can fly with a shell. When you find one, it means there are already countless rustling ones in the dark.
Putting herself in Gin’s shoes, An’an would have run out the door that very night and left the house to “them.”
And Silver-Haired Model Bro was still holding on!
“How hard it must be,” An’an murmured to herself. “He must not have thought that not only can moles not be killed, but they can also come back to life after they die, and continue to be a mole after they are resurrected.”
It was as if he were trapped in a loop. Was this a pure black nightmare?
An’an: I’m sorry, Silver-Haired Model Bro. If I had known, I would have followed Mentor Uchiha Madara when I was summoning a mentor. You would have found happiness in the light of the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Otsutsuki Kaguya, please create a world without moles for Gin!
The mole Scotch took a bite of the lemon tart An’an hadn’t eaten. “A world without moles is a world without the Black Organization. Sounds good. I agree.”
The mole Bourbon took An’an’s hand and used her spoon to scoop up some chocolate. “Agreed—but with Gin’s character, even without the distillery, he would be quickly arrested for causing trouble.”
Just like the Yoshijima Echiri case. Even if there were no conditions, he would create them to fight. This was Gin, the distillery’s true full-time workhorse.
“Speaking of which, that little spy escaped,” Furuya said, remembering the report he had received this morning.
The fake Yoshijima Echiri had been rescued by the cosplaying Gin. With the signal blocked and her body searched, she had no way to pass on information and could only pretend to be a victim who had been captured by the Black Organization, knowing nothing.
Because she was young, she had to be sent to an orphanage or a foster home after being at the police station for a while. The police handling the case had relaxed their guard as instructed by Public Security.
On a dark and windy night, the little spy, who had been trained since she was a child, climbed over the orphanage’s wall and ran back to the Black Organization that had raised her without looking back.
To be chosen as the actress for the fake Yoshijima Echiri, the little spy had the loyalty brainwashed into her by the distillery’s education and would never be turned by the police.
Besides, she knew a shocking secret that she had to report to her superior!
Although she had grown up listening to the great achievements of the Top Killer, she was technically an intelligence operative. The little spy’s superior was not Gin, but the Black Organization’s second-in-command, Rum.
“Rum-sama! I have something of great importance to report!”
“I’ve already been put on a lie detector. Every word I say is absolutely true! You have to believe me! I don’t care if you send me to the interrogation room! This information is too important! It’s about a mole who has been lurking in the organization for many years, someone no one would have ever thought of!”
“That’s right,” the fake Yoshijima Echiri said, her voice a mixture of shock and anger. “The man who rescued me from the police. I will never forget his face for the rest of my life.”
Silver hair, a male model, a big brother.