The Cousin
"Hey, what are you staring at? And more importantly, how are you planning to confess to your angel?"
With suspicion finally cleared from his name, Takano's friend had relaxed enough to be in the mood for teasing again. He came up behind Takano Hideki and gave him a hearty slap on the back, trying to reel in thoughts that had clearly wandered off to who-knows-where.
"I'm not going to confess. No — what I mean is, I'm not going to confess to the angel," Takano replied blankly.
"Huh? Why not? Weren't you just saying she was your one true love?" His friend was completely baffled by this sudden change of heart.
"Because the angel is too far out of reach. I don't think she could ever belong to me. Compared to her, that lady knight makes my heart flutter far more." Yes — the lady knight who saved me, who showed me such kindness.
The corner of his friend's mouth twitched. Where on earth had this "lady knight" come from all of a sudden?
So this guy hadn't changed one bit — still falling head over heels with every pretty face he saw, just like always.
Sora had noticed the dim-witted young master shifting targets some time ago. Aside from thinking the man had terrible taste — and taking it as further proof that there wasn't a single decent man in the world — she was honestly just relieved he was no longer fixated on her sister. Anyone like that didn't deserve Lumine anyway.
All things considered, despite the endless surprises today, the results had been quite satisfying. Sora decided it was time to go; if she lingered any longer, certain people were going to start worrying.
Just then, Conan — who had been quietly keeping an eye on Cointreau this whole time — noticed him exchanging a quick farewell with Xia Yu and the others before preparing to leave.
He was about to follow when Akai Shuichi suddenly pressed a hand to his shoulder, signaling that the FBI already had a plan in motion and that they would take it from here. Then Akai went after Cointreau himself.
Conan watched the two figures vanish one after the other into the crowd, then glanced around and spotted Kaeya still there with Klee and Xia Yu's group, showing no sign of leaving. Only then did he relax a little.
Akai trailed the figure ahead of him without bothering to conceal himself. His cover had already been blown; there was no point in hiding now.
What surprised him, though, was that he'd expected Cointreau to try shaking him off. Instead, Cointreau strolled toward the elevator as if completely unaware that anyone was following him.
In truth, Akai wasn't particularly worried about losing him. The FBI had stationed plenty of people nearby, and they wouldn't let Cointreau out of their sight. Snipers were positioned around the hotel entrance as well. Ideally, today would end the way Kir's capture had — with the man in their custody. And if not, at the very least they could probe further and learn more about what he was capable of.
He watched Cointreau step into the elevator, stood there deliberating for a moment, then caught the doors at the very last second and held the open button.
Inside, he swept his eyes over the button panel. Only one was lit: the top floor.
Shouldn't Cointreau be trying to get out of the hotel right now?
Back on the second floor, slipping out any random window would have posed no real danger to someone of his abilities. So why was he heading straight for the top? Was someone waiting up there to extract him?
"Rye — no, I should call you Akai Shuichi, shouldn't I? We meet again." Cointreau greeted him first.
"Hello." Akai returned the greeting with a courteous nod, his manner so composed that nothing in it suggested the two of them had recently been trying to kill each other. "And should I call you Cointreau, or...?"
"Morikawa Shiro. That's the name I go by now." Cointreau didn't so much as question how Akai knew his codename; he simply gave the name he was currently using.
Hearing Cointreau so casually confirm that "Morikawa Shiro" was an alias left Akai momentarily at a loss for words.
He turned to study the man, brows drawn in genuine puzzlement. "I would have thought that upon seeing me — a traitor — you'd either attack on the spot or at least report me to the Organization. But it seems you have no intention of doing either?"
Even as he talked, probing for information, Akai slipped his phone into the blind spot of Cointreau's vision and typed blindly, alerting his colleagues to adjust the plan. They had positioned most of their people at the hotel's lower-floor windows and exits, never imagining that Cointreau had no intention of leaving right away. Now the whole deployment had to be reshuffled.
"You betrayed the Organization, not me. Hunting down traitors so eagerly gets me nothing," Cointreau said lazily, taking a few steps back to lean against the elevator wall.
"Oh, right — your girlfriend is dead. I imagine you've heard by now?" Giving Akai no chance to ask anything of his own, Cointreau lifted his gaze, watching as Akai turned his eyes toward him with an expression of open curiosity.
"I know." Akai paused, and something sharp flickered at the edge of his gaze as he looked at Cointreau. "I also know that Gin was the one who killed Akemi. And I will make him return that bullet."
"Oh. Well then, good luck with that." Cointreau waved the words off with breezy indifference, then immediately asked another question that had been nagging at him. "But did you know she was your cousin?"
"What did you just say!?" Akai's eyes went wide. Of all the things Cointreau might have asked, this was the last he could have imagined.
But if Cointreau was raising it, then it had to be true.
Akemi was his cousin? It felt unreal.
Wait — if Akemi was his cousin, then her sister, Sherry... Sherry would be his cousin too!
And how on earth did Cointreau know information that even he hadn't known? Was the Organization's intelligence network really that formidable — had they already uncovered everything about him? Or had Cointreau dug this up on his own?
Frankly, Akai couldn't make sense of the man's logic. He seemed to hold considerable standing in the Organization, yet he concealed a great deal of information that would harm it. If he meant to betray them, why had he stopped them from taking Calvados alive and sabotaged the wiretap?
Now he was even casually exposing his own whereabouts. Did he really not worry about his own safety at all?
"Oh, so you didn't know." Cointreau put on an expression of dawning realization, then clicked his tongue. "Tch. Exploiting your own cousin — what a piece of scum."
He denounced Akai's shameless behavior right to his face.
Akai's face stiffened at the accusation, and he couldn't stop himself from objecting. "I didn't know at the time..."
"Heh. Excuses." Cointreau gave him a sidelong glance. "If you had known back then — would you have used her anyway?"
"...Yes."
He couldn't deny it. Guilt aside, if he could do it all over again, he would still choose to use Akemi — though knowing they were family, he would have gone about it differently. In essence, though, nothing would have changed.
With some time still left before they reached the top floor, Akai changed the subject. "Why did you suddenly show yourself these past two days? What's your objective?"
"Sigh. No objective at all, honestly. Pure coincidence — I ran into someone I know and thought it'd be fun to tag along." Cointreau's expression was the very picture of sincerity. "Don't go getting all paranoid like Gin."
Ding!
The top floor had arrived.