"You seem quite bored lately."
Inside a sleek, art-piece-like black Porsche speeding down the highway, Gin was uncharacteristically not smoking.
Hearing this, Bai Yexiu immediately felt a sinking sense of dread. The Boss had said those exact words to him before, right before handing him a freshly minted assassination list from the Organization.
"What do you mean, bored? Where did you even hear that?" Bai Yexiu pulled the lollipop out of his mouth.
"If you aren't bored, why did you hitch a ride in my car just to go to a ramen shop?" Gin called his bluff with a completely expressionless face.
"I was just hungry," Bai Yexiu said defensively, his eyes darting away. Though, come to think of it, he had probably decided to go get ramen precisely because he had too much free time.
Gin thought back for a moment. He hadn't really given Bai Yexiu any assignments lately—not since yesterday, when he had Cointreau interrogate that middleman who tried to swallow the Organization's arms shipment.
With that in mind, Gin flipped open today's task list and spotted an assignment he had given to another-code-named member to carry out at a video game company today:
A list of top-tier software engineers.
Since Cointreau was already idle enough to go out for ramen, handing this task to him and having him act as a supervisor seemed like a decent option, especially since that list was quite important.
He could have Cointreau keep a stealthy eye on Tequila and the others to prevent any hitches in the transaction.
"Time to work, Cointreau."
"What?!"
Bai Yexiu was so startled he dropped his lollipop. Gin was actually making him work out of the blue!
Out of the corner of his eye, Gin glanced at the lollipop rolling onto the floorboards, a flicker of heartbreak crossing his gaze.
*My car...*
Recovering quickly, Gin briefed Bai Yexiu on the mission.
Put simply, he was to supervise Tequila to ensure they secured the list in the end. Furthermore, due to the sensitive nature of Bai Yexiu's status, Gin specifically instructed him not to expose his codename.
If he had known the price of a free ride was a job...
*...I never would have hitched it.*
With a look of utter reluctance, Bai Yexiu was unceremoniously dumped outside the video game company, forced into labor.
Camilla, coiled around Bai Yexiu's wrist, stirred restlessly, likely because she hadn't eaten enough for lunch.
"Be a good girl, I'll take you out for ramen tonight," Bai Yexiu murmured softly, and the slightly agitated Camilla instantly quieted down.
Walking into the video game company, Bai Yexiu had a strange sense of déjà vu. Checking his watch, he saw there was still half an hour before the trade, so he immediately felt at ease and settled in to slack off.
This kind of supervisory duty was the ultimate excuse to goof off. To Gin, it was supervision; to Bai Yexiu, it was a paid vacation. Besides, the one trading with that Nakajima guy was Tequila, so what did it have to do with him, Cointreau?
Seeing the crowd lined up in the lobby, Bai Yexiu joined the queue as well. Just as he was getting out of the car, Gin had tossed him an empty box. He had a vague premonition that this numbered ticket might come in very handy later.
A moment later, Bai Yexiu stared down at the number 72 ticket in his hand, his eyes narrowing. Somewhere on his body, he had a tattoo that had been carved onto him ages ago, and the number was precisely 72.
Ever since he could remember, that "72" had been branded onto his chest, but he could never recall where it came from.
Lifting his gaze, Bai Yexiu spotted the fake kid.
This time, the fake kid had tagged along with a middle-aged man and a high school girl. Looking over the slightly hungover-looking uncle, Bai Yexiu recognized him as the famous detective Kogoro Mouri from the newspapers he'd seen recently.
For some reason, every time he saw that newspaper, an image flashed in his mind: Conan aiming a watch-type stun dart at the back of Kogoro Mouri's neck, firing a needle, and then using the red bow tie on his collar to imitate Kogoro's voice for his deductions after he collapsed.
Bai Yexiu had been rather keen to verify whether this bizarre mental image was real or not—though even if it were true, he wouldn't be all that surprised. And speak of the devil, here came the chance.
"Eh? Brother Ryuzawa, why are you here too?" Conan noticed Bai Yexiu leaning against a pillar and called out, drawing the curious gaze of the high school girl beside him.
"Oh, it's Conan. What a coincidence."
Putting on a delighted expression, Bai Yexiu patted Conan on the head while slipping the numbered ticket into his pocket with his other hand.
"Conan, who is..." the high school girl next to Conan asked in a low voice.
Bai Yexiu turned his head toward her, and all the information about this high school girl instantly popped into his head.
"His name is Ryuzawa Ryuya, an older brother I know!" Conan explained with an innocent expression.
"Nice to meet you, big sis," Bai Yexiu said in a gentle tone, wearing a clean, innocent smile that made him look every bit like a thoroughly wholesome junior high schooler.
"Hello, Ryuzawa-kun, I'm Ran Mouri," Ran Mouri politely replied right away.
"You guys should hurry up and get in line," Bai Yexiu glanced at the queue and kindly reminded them.
"Mr. Mouri," a man tapped Kogoro Mouri on the shoulder and gestured to himself, "I'm Hideaki Nakajima from Mantendo. I'm the one who planned the Famous Detective Kogoro Mouri's Deduction Mansion game."
Watching from the sidelines, Bai Yexiu felt another long chunk of plot suddenly flash through his mind.
It seemed that mysterious superpower had triggered again, though this ability apparently required a specific activation point.
Bai Yexiu fell into thought, but he quickly gleaned a piece of information: Tequila was going to get inexplicably dragged into a murder case and blown to bits.
Sorting through the plot in his head, Bai Yexiu couldn't help offering a silent moment of mourning for Tequila. To be honest, he had no idea how to save him. The key to saving Tequila was that numbered ticket, but his memory of the ticket's role in the plot was terribly hazy.
After some mental sorting, Bai Yexiu confirmed how he would go about getting that list. As for Tequila—well, if it was within his power, he'd save him; otherwise, the Organization was going to lose a genuine member in good standing.
Coming back to his senses, Bai Yexiu spotted the familiar trio of line-cutters introducing the Mantendo logo and their president's creative vision to Kogoro Mouri.
Good grief, now everyone in the vicinity knew it was people from their company cutting the line.
Bai Yexiu made a mental, low-key snarky remark, then looked over at Tequila's trading partner: Hideaki Nakajima. If Tequila ended up dying anyway, this guy would have to be silenced; if they didn't eliminate him, Gin would probably come looking for trouble with him again.
And then there was the primary culprit, the guy surnamed Takeshita. The mere fact that he "negligently killed an Organization member" was enough for Gin to personally execute him once.
Shortly after, Bai Yexiu followed Conan and his group into the company's arcade area, where events unfolded precisely as they had in his memories.
Before long, Bai Yexiu waited for the exact moment when the ticket exchange was supposed to happen. Pulling a small syringe from his trench coat pocket just as Nakajima was about to hand his jacket over to Takeshita, Bai Yexiu slipped up behind Takeshita and stealthily jabbed him in the thigh with the needle.
"Ow!" Takeshita let out a sudden yelp of pain and stumbled back a few steps, leaving Nakajima standing there holding his own jacket in confusion, having intended to hand it to Takeshita to hold.
Noticing the startled expressions of the people around him, Takeshita forced an awkward laugh and said, "My thigh suddenly hurt for some reason, must have been a cramp. Sorry about that."
The surrounding people chuckled, brushing it off as nothing.
Seeing that nobody was paying attention to him anymore, Takeshita glanced around, confirming there was nobody close by.
*Could it really have been a cramp just now?*
Takeshita rubbed the spot that had hurt, lingering unease in his heart.
Meanwhile, having slipped off to the side, Bai Yexiu breathed a sigh of relief. He had no idea if this trick would work, but since Takeshita hadn't taken Nakajima's jacket, the ticket swap wouldn't happen.
Well then, he had done all he could to help; now he could go back to slacking off in peace.
Happily, Bai Yexiu reached out and ruffled Conan's fluffy hair. He seemed to have developed a habit: whenever Conan was around, he would instinctively reach out and give the boy's head a rough, thorough mess-up.
"Conan is still as cute as ever today—makes a guy just want to brutally murder him~"
Bai Yexiu muttered under his breath, taking the opportunity to mentally disgust Conan.
*What is this guy talking about?!*
Conan dodged Bai Yexiu's hand, glaring at him with fierce vigilance, terrified he might pull something terrifying. Though the older boy hadn't done anything genuinely terrifying so far, Conan still remembered every word Bai Yexiu had said that night.
Only Conan had heard Bai Yexiu's remark, resulting in a tableau of a smiling teenager and a deeply guarded little boy staring each other down.
"Conan, you shouldn't look at Ryuzawa-kun like that, you know. Say, Conan, would you like to give it a try?"
Conan snapped out of his trance and broke out in a cold sweat as he stared at the giant "400" displayed on the punching machine's screen.
"No thanks, I'll let Brother Ryuzawa do it. I need to use the restroom," Conan decisively passed the buck to Bai Yexiu.
*Good grief.*
Bai Yexiu glanced sideways at the departing Conan. He didn't want to expose his combat prowess in front of so many acquaintances anyway.
After politely declining Ran Mouri's offer, Bai Yexiu quietly trailed behind Conan and Nakajima, who had headed off in the same direction.