Chapter 12
Morofushi Hiromitsu and Furuya Rei worked hard to restore the Organization's monitoring devices to their original state, then went to turn the power back on.
Looking at the living room restored to light, both felt a fatigue deeper than when they'd met Gin and Vodka today.
Even if they racked their brains, they could never have imagined that the first difficulty they'd encounter after joining the Organization would be being assigned a little troublemaker extraordinaire.
Hopefully the Organization would be smart enough to figure out who did what and not impose collective punishment.
—Ultimately, this problem arose because the Organization didn't treat people as human, forcing Usuha Izuki into hypersensitivity. They shouldn't have to bear all the responsibility!
After an oppressive silence, Furuya Rei wanted to discuss something lighter. He glanced at his watch: "It's about time for dinner."
Morofushi Hiromitsu sighed at this: "I checked the refrigerator earlier—there's nothing in it. We'll have to go out to eat."
"..." Furuya Rei was silent for a while. "Together? Should I call him?"
Originally, going to a place without monitoring to eat would be a good opportunity for private communication.
On one hand, if only the two of them went to eat together, it would either seem like they were excluding Usuha Izuki or like they were getting familiar too quickly, which was somewhat suspicious.
On the other hand...
They weren't comfortable leaving Usuha Izuki alone at home either.
What if they came back from dinner to find Usuha Izuki had gotten desperate ideas and went to dismantle monitoring devices again! Or did something else...
Despite being young with no children and no pets, Furuya Rei and Morofushi Hiromitsu were already experiencing the anxiety of not daring to go out casually, fearing their home would be destroyed.
Furuya Rei was even considering installing his own surveillance cameras beyond the Organization's monitoring devices!
After feeling dejected for a few seconds, Furuya Rei collected himself and knocked on Usuha Izuki's room door: "Usuha-kun, Midorikawa and I want to go out for dinner. Do you want to come along?"
A response came from the room, and soon the door opened.
For a moment, Furuya Rei thought Usuha Izuki had turned on floodlights in his room, dazzling him briefly.
Looking carefully, he realized the room's lighting was fine—the problem was Usuha Izuki's outfit.
The person who had just been wearing quite plain gray knitwear and black sweatpants was now dressed in a golden haori with a black cashmere sweater with red characters underneath, paired with red pants.
His previously clean face now sported tea-colored lens, gold-framed sunglasses. X-shaped hair clips fixed hair on one side behind his ear, and water-drop shaped red earrings swayed gently in the light, refracting beautiful rays.
The hand resting on the door frame revealed a bracelet with yin-yang fish patterns as the sleeve slipped down.
If he wasn't mistaken, this seemed like a Taoist prayer bead from the neighboring great nation... believing in Taoism?
But the problem was, wasn't this person also wearing a cross necklace? No wait, he had Buddhist prayer beads on his other hand! Looking closely, the cross even had a skull—it was a punk cross!
What was going on! What was wrong with young people these days! He was young too—why did he suddenly feel like he couldn't understand young people's aesthetics!
Furuya Rei slowly raised his hand to cover his eyes. The words that had reached his lips got stuck due to this shock.
Had he worked in darkness too long fixing monitoring devices and become unaccustomed to light? Why did his eyes seem to hurt...
Morofushi Hiromitsu sensed something was wrong. When he approached and looked, his gaze also froze.
He was so speechless that he didn't even want to ask why someone would wear sunglasses at night. He just wanted to know what was up with the words on the sweater.
[Boss's Confidant]...
Why was Usuha Izuki wearing this sweater? Didn't he dislike the Organization?
Or had they misunderstood something?
After several moments, Furuya Rei finally accepted the reality that a fresh, clean youth had entered his room but emerged as a flashy butterfly.
Maybe he'd dressed so plainly earlier because wearing a bunch of trinkets would be inconvenient when moving luggage...
Furuya Rei struggled to speak: "Usuha-kun..."
Usuha Izuki seemed to find nothing wrong and asked matter-of-factly: "What is it? Is there something?"
There was, but Furuya Rei suddenly didn't really want to invite him out to dinner.
Morofushi Hiromitsu's eyes were still on the sweater's [Boss's Confidant]: "We wanted to ask if you'd like to go out for dinner together?"
Usuha Izuki naturally agreed.
But Morofushi Hiromitsu and Furuya Rei didn't relax from achieving their goal—they looked even heavier.
"Usuha-kun, isn't dressing like this a bit conspicuous?" Morofushi Hiromitsu tactfully tried to get him to abandon this outfit.
Having someone dressed like this beside them was not only unfriendly to their eyes but would easily attract passerby attention. They really didn't want to be remembered!
If they went on a mission and police asked nearby people if they'd seen suspicious individuals, the passersby would definitely remember their trio most vividly!
"I think I look pretty good like this."
How could Usuha Izuki not know what these two were thinking? But he had to firmly defend his attributes!
Being so fragile, how could he dare place hope in others? Expecting undercover agents to save him if something happened was too naive—he was the most trustworthy!
He could only pretend his aesthetic sense was questionable.
—He couldn't see it anyway, so only others' eyes were hurt.
Furuya Rei had recovered and spoke with sarcasm fitting his character: "For people like us, being able to blend into crowds at any time and not be remembered is common sense, right? If you want to die, don't drag us down with you."
"You speak incorrectly."
Usuha Izuki argued vigorously for his freedom to wear equipment.
"If you were passersby and police asked about your impression of me, what would your first reaction be? Wouldn't it be 'weird clothes'? Passersby only remember the most conspicuous features. I find a place to take off and remove these things, and I could stand right in front of them and they wouldn't recognize me! I'm better than you!"
"???"
If you insist on defending your weird outfit, fine, but why step on them too?!
Usuha Izuki's expression grew heavy: "You're so handsome without any disguise—even without me, passersby would definitely look at you more. Don't blame everything on me."
"............"
The frustration that had filled their hearts inexplicably disappeared by more than half, leaving only helplessness and headaches.
This brat...
Although he was spouting nonsense, thinking carefully, it seemed somewhat reasonable. But thinking even more carefully, it felt completely unnecessary to make things so complicated...
Realizing Usuha Izuki was determined not to change this outfit, Furuya Rei and Morofushi Hiromitsu silently returned to their rooms. When they emerged, one had added a hat and the other a mask.
If you can't change others, change yourself first. Figure out this Usuha Izuki person before dealing with anything else, or future days would definitely have more problems.
But with the three of them walking out like this, they were really more conspicuous.
"Don't worry, this is Fukuoka." Usuha Izuki guessed what they were thinking and comforted them. "No matter how you dress, no one will care! You could even wear a mask straight out and it'd be fine!"
Furuya Rei perked up, focusing his attention on intelligence gathering: "Sounds like you're quite familiar with Fukuoka?"
"Sort of. I was in Fukuoka for a while before Gin and Vodka came looking for me."
Usuha Izuki began vigorously badmouthing the Organization: "They immediately brought up my dad's inheritance, then coerced me into joining the Organization... I already said I just wanted to be an ordinary person, but they wouldn't agree!"
Furuya Rei: "..."
This person really gave the Organization no face at all. For the Organization to trust him to join, were they careless or planning to eliminate him soon?
Most likely the latter. For a secret developing organization, such unstable factors should be eliminated after extracting their value as quickly as possible for safety.
He'd find an opportunity to remind Usuha Izuki to be careful with his words. As for now... he was busy gathering intelligence and wouldn't create trouble for himself by meddling.
Morofushi Hiromitsu also joined the information extraction: "Why did the Organization insist you join?"
"Because..." Just as he was about to answer, Usuha Izuki's attention seemed to suddenly wander. "Wait, let's not go that way. Let's go this way."
Furuya Rei and Morofushi Hiromitsu instantly became more alert.
"What's wrong over there?"
As they spoke, their gazes also discretely observed the direction Usuha Izuki was avoiding.
It looked like an ordinary shopping street with restaurants and shops. Perhaps due to the crowds, with the two undercover agents' observational skills, a quick scan revealed no problems.
But Usuha Izuki's attitude was very firm: "Something's going to happen there. We shouldn't get involved."
Furuya Rei and Morofushi Hiromitsu were full of questions.
"What's going to happen? What did you see?"
Just as Morofushi Hiromitsu finished speaking, a piercing shout suddenly erupted from that direction: "That's him! Catch that host in black clothes! I'm offering five million!"
Instantly, the previously orderly street became chaotic. Some people looked around, some tried to escape, some tried to catch someone. Heads bobbed everywhere, nearly causing a stampede.
Furuya Rei: "...???"
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "...Let's leave first..."
Although they were half a block away, they were also affected as the atmosphere became agitated—definitely not suitable for finding restaurants to eat.
What kind of local customs did Hakata have? Such a commotion just to catch someone—what had that host done?
After walking to the next street, Furuya Rei raised his question.
Usuha Izuki answered readily: "Probably deceived that person's daughter emotionally."
"...To casually offer five million as a reward, that gentleman isn't ordinary either."
"Probably some gang executive."
Although these answers seemed somewhat insincere, Furuya Rei and Morofushi Hiromitsu's guesses were close, so they didn't find anything problematic with what Usuha Izuki said.
The only problem was that this couldn't explain their biggest confusion.
"So you saw this kind of thing would happen, which is why you said we couldn't go there?"
Usuha Izuki nodded.
That area was marked as a yellow risk zone! Although no lives would be lost, he was hungry and didn't want to waste time on this.
Morofushi Hiromitsu couldn't help asking: "How did you see it?"
"Just saw it like that."
The silver-haired youth answered in a tone as casual as saying the sun rises in the east.
"You can tell at a glance, right? I'm quite accurate at reading people. Even Gin said he wants me to work as HR for the Organization, to identify who are undercover agents."
Both undercover agents: "...!!!"
They'd misjudged! This guy was the character requiring the most vigilance!
Didn't he say he was good at leading the way?
—Wait... it couldn't be that he was good at leading undercover agents to hell, could it?!