Chapter 22
"Vodka? Vodka, say something!"
Vodka snapped back to attention: "Uh, the signal's not great. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up first."
He quickly hung up the phone. Vodka was panicking now—when the light turned green, he was slow to react by several seconds. The cars behind him honked before he came to his senses.
Couldn't help it—his current level of panic was like that time when Gin wasn't wearing his seatbelt, a cat darted into the road, and his sudden braking nearly made Gin's lighter burn his eyebrows while lighting a cigarette.
Lying wasn't the key point—he could lie to others without changing expression. The key point was that this time he was lying to Usuha Izuki.
Just thinking about how Usuha Izuki would react when he discovered the lie made Vodka feel this was an unbearable weight of existence.
When he hadn't offended him, Usuha Izuki was already very troublesome. Now, once caught with evidence of being fooled around... The Boss was currently backing Usuha Izuki on the surface, wanting to maintain connections with the Middle East. He might actually make him swallow his pride...
Thinking this, Vodka felt very depressed—as depressed as a wife whose husband favored a mistress. When he turned and saw Gin looking at him, he felt even worse.
"Boss..."
Gin had heard some of it and pieced together a guess, but still wanted the person involved to explain: "What's going on?"
"It's that Usuha kid." Vodka coughed and tried to explain. "He contacted me..."
If he said Usuha Izuki had contacted him for the music box, and he didn't want to deal with Usuha Izuki so he said they were out of town and told him to ask Amuro Toru, but now it was about to be exposed... this reason obviously wouldn't work—it would seem like he was being penny-wise but pound-foolish.
Vodka had a sudden inspiration and quickly changed his story.
"—Every time he contacts me, nothing good comes of it. Our mission is at a critical juncture right now. I was worried he'd come to disturb our mission, so I lied and said we were out of town. But just now he called saying he was going to karaoke and saw our car on the road. He might be heading to the same place as us... Boss, what do we do?"
Gin: "............"
Gin indeed didn't care that Vodka lied to Usuha Izuki, but he very much cared about the lie being exposed—this was a decision-making error and competency issue.
But thinking about it, he felt this incident couldn't be entirely blamed on Vodka.
After all, while Tokyo wasn't huge, it wasn't small either. The probability of such a coincidental encounter really wasn't high. Vodka couldn't have anticipated such drama—it could only be called bad luck. Or perhaps, Usuha Izuki had actually been tracking their movements all along.
If it was the latter, Gin felt this couldn't just be left alone. He had to get to the bottom of it.
Investigating Organization members' movements without reason—for anyone else, Gin could directly pin suspicion of being an undercover agent on them. But when it came to Usuha Izuki...
Gin thought coldly—first get clarification, then report to the Boss and see the Boss's attitude.
In this instant, Gin's thinking overlapped with Vodka's—the Boss was currently too biased toward Usuha Izuki. This kid better not let him catch any evidence, or he'd definitely take personal action to make his life worse than death.
Because Gin wasn't speaking, Vodka felt anxious and asked cautiously: "Boss? What should we do? Should we change locations? If Usuha Izuki discovers us and latches on, it might affect the mission..."
At this point, Vodka was already mentally rehearsing how to contact the new recruit Amuro Toru still waiting at the karaoke place, where to change to, since there was only one intersection ahead—if they didn't decide soon, they might run into Usuha Izuki...
But Gin's answer was completely opposite to his expectations.
"No need to change. Keep driving." Gin sneered. "If we don't figure this out now, should we let him pull this stunt again next time?"
Vodka's heart immediately tensed.
Indeed, whether this was really a coincidence was very important to confirm. Otherwise, if intelligence leaked in the future, they wouldn't even know how.
Vodka even felt a secret anticipation—hopefully Usuha Izuki really had used some method to track them, even the kind of offense the Boss couldn't cover for. Then maybe he could finally see Usuha Izuki get taught a lesson!
With fantasies came motivation. Earlier, with only one intersection left, Vodka had been driving slowly as if he had a flat tire. Now he suddenly seemed to have gotten a new car—people behind could sense his enthusiasm even from his exhaust.
Soon, Vodka drove to the designated karaoke place.
When parking, he didn't see Usuha Izuki and felt a bit disappointed: "Is that kid planning to wait until we start our meeting, then suddenly burst in and accuse me of lying to him?"
Gin's eagle-like sharp gaze swept around. He didn't sense any suspicious presence but still said cautiously: "Let's go in first."
Vodka obediently walked in and went straight to the room he'd reserved, planning to enter the safe space before calling someone over to ask questions.
But as soon as the door opened, he was completely unprepared to see Usuha Izuki inside chatting cheerfully with the Organization's new recruit.
Vodka: "...???"
He was first stunned, then immediately perked up, feeling he'd found some evidence. He instantly straightened up and, with the posture of a wicked mother-in-law, pointed accusingly at the new recruit.
"Amuro Toru, did you tell him we were meeting here?" Vodka said righteously. "If you can't even maintain confidentiality, what kind of intelligence agent are you!"
Amuro Toru, who was actually Public Security of Japan with real name Furuya Rei: "...It wasn't me. I saw him in the hallway, and he insisted on coming in, saying you told him to find me..."
Gin's cold gaze swept over.
Vodka was furious—this Usuha kid was even giving false information?!
Then he remembered that he had indeed told Usuha Izuki to find Amuro Toru... but that was to get his music box from Amuro Toru! Not to involve him in their mission!
Remembering this, Vodka became somewhat defensive: "I told him to find you, but not for this, and not now..."
Gin knew Vodka too well—one look at his behavior and he knew he was feeling guilty. He frowned impatiently: "What exactly happened?"
Usuha Izuki enthusiastically helped explain: "I was asking Vodka for my music box. Vodka said he wasn't in Tokyo and told me to find Mr. Amuro. I happened to see Mr. Amuro here—what a coincidence!"
Gin wouldn't be led around by Usuha Izuki like Vodka. He directly asked the most important core question.
"Why did you come here?"
Usuha Izuki innocently widened his eyes: "If you don't come to karaoke to sing, are you here to eat? Oh, you probably really aren't here to sing."
Japan's karaoke culture was very developed. It was common for someone to come sing karaoke alone to release daily stress, so Usuha Izuki was perfectly justified.
Faced with this kind of deflection, Gin was already getting the urge to use some methods—many people really only became efficient when threatened.
But facing Usuha Izuki, for the Organization's greater good, he could only endure for now.
Although Usuha Izuki didn't work at all and occasionally offered suggestions like "invest more money in Middle East construction," since the Boss needed Usuha Izuki, Gin was willing to lower his standards specifically for him.
What they called "I set my heart on the bright moon, but the bright moon shines on the ditch"!
"Don't give such perfunctory answers. You know no one will believe them." Gin began extracting information.
Although Gin couldn't use force, the pressure from his gaze was enough to make many people with insufficient psychological fortitude have their mental defenses collapse.
Unfortunately, Usuha Izuki had been seeing Samukawa Shinryu with the 'Black Screen Aura' active in the mirror every day recently. While he wouldn't go full conspiracy theory, the full sinister filter effect was somewhat unsettling even for the person himself to look at.
Having seen too much of the system-version sinister-filter Samukawa Shinryu, when facing Gin who relied purely on his own abilities to create a folk-version sinister filter, Usuha Izuki had become immune.
He even pondered for a moment, feeling that having Samukawa Shinryu attend the Police Academy really was win-win—he gained suspicion values, while his classmates, as long as they could peacefully stay until graduation, would definitely have no psychological issues. They'd all be able to face Gin without changing expressions.
Moreover, when they encountered people with similar auras to Samukawa Shinryu on the streets in the future, they'd arrest and question them—one arrest, one success. Maybe their rate of achievements would be higher than other graduating classes.
Thinking this, Usuha Izuki couldn't help sharing his thoughts with the system: [I've really helped everyone at the Police Academy so much. The academy should pay me a salary.]
System: [Have some shame. Answer quickly—Gin's looking at you with murderous intent.]
[You only see that Gin wants to kill someone. How come you don't see the suspicion values Gin is contributing?] Usuha Izuki glanced at the notification bar. [He's probably suspecting I investigated them... Heh, naive.]
Usuha Izuki sat on the sofa with his back straight, the words "Boss's Confidant" on his sweater seeming to gleam.
"What, are you suspecting me, this boss's confidant, of conspiratorially investigating you all, targeting you?"
Gin: "............"
Vodka: "............" So shameless...
Amuro Toru: As expected, a boss's confidant... Wait, why do the other two look off?
Although Amuro Toru had met Usuha Izuki early, right upon meeting, he'd been pushed and shoved into the room by Usuha Izuki like a hostage, told there was something important to discuss, with no chance to see Usuha Izuki's back. So he still misunderstood exactly how many words were on that outfit.
But Vodka and Gin were different—they knew more about Usuha Izuki's true nature. After seeing the words on the outfit at first glance, they felt on one hand that Usuha Izuki was being boastful, and on the other that he was deliberately disgusting them.
Now hearing Usuha Izuki call himself "boss's confidant," Gin really felt somewhat nauseous and was even more convinced that Usuha Izuki wore this outfit with ill intent.
But Gin's steel-like strong will wouldn't be shaken by such petty tricks. He didn't forget his original purpose and only focused on the core question.
"Don't change the subject. Tokyo has so many karaoke places. You randomly pick one and just happen to pick this one, at exactly this time, exactly when we're meeting here?"
Gin's gaze was cold, his mouth curving into a mocking arc.
"If you don't give a reasonable answer, heh... the Organization's patience is also limited."
The system panicked: [It's over. Only Vodka gets led around by you—Gin doesn't buy your act. He probably just couldn't be bothered with you before... Now he wants to bother. What do we do? Have you thought of a reason?]