Glenlivet's Advice
To everyone around them, the three of them might as well have been statues in a museum — the crowd seemed to flow around them like extras, and one look was enough to tell there were a great many stories between the three of them.
"Tsk tsk tsk — this shot could totally be a movie poster," Xiayu said, nodding in genuine admiration. "Leave it to Charlotte. She really is good at this."
"Oh, stop it, you're making me blush." Charlotte scratched her head bashfully, then asked, puzzled, "But Xia Yu, what do you even want a photo like this for?"
"Nothing much. I'm just curious," Xiayu said, an intrigued smile playing across his face, "about what kind of reaction Amuro Tooru will have when he finds out that Akai Shuichi is Okiya Subaru — and sees a photo like this. And then what his reaction will be when he learns the Teyvat Syndicate was the one who took it."
"Traveler, that smile of yours is straight out of a villain's storybook," Paimon couldn't help but quip.
Xiayu was offended. How was this a villain's smile? "This is clearly the innocent, kindhearted smile of a beautiful heroine."
Paimon gave a couple of pointed "heh heh"s and wisely said nothing more.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the scene, Chianti — rifle trained on the mall's entrance — spotted Akai Shuichi walking out through her scope and immediately reported it to Gin.
"I've found the ghost, Gin — he's right next to your car!" Even through the radio, her impatience was palpable as she kept urging him to confirm that she could fire, her voice practically vibrating with the itch to pull the trigger.
"Huh, so that's Akai Shuichi's ghost?" Glenlivet (the Wanderer), seated in the front passenger seat, turned toward the window at the sound of Chianti's voice. He shaded his eyes with one hand and peered carefully out at the street, and it didn't take him long to find the target.
"He does look a lot like Akai Shuichi, sure. But I don't think it's him. Could just be someone with a similar face."
Kir and Vodka whipped their heads around and stared at him in open shock. Never in a million years had they expected to hear Glenlivet say something favorable about Kir — and hadn't he just been speaking up in her defense?
Even Gin found his attention sliding, just slightly, off of Kir and onto Glenlivet, casting him a strange sidelong glance.
"What are you all looking at me like that for?!" Glenlivet dropped back into the passenger seat, and catching Vodka's odd stare, he frowned and rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you actually think I'm covering for Kir."
Vodka: "Um... aren't you?"
"Of course not! Use that thing between your ears for once and think — the odds that man is actually Akai Shuichi were low to begin with." There was real irritation in Glenlivet's voice, as though he genuinely couldn't fathom how Vodka had managed to ask such a stupid question.
"If he really were Akai Shuichi, what the hell would he be doing strolling around in broad daylight in a crowd this dense?"
Reading that Vodka was about to open his mouth again, Glenlivet cut him off without mercy. "Don't tell me you were going to say he lost his memory in a car crash. Please. This isn't a TV drama. In an explosion that big, with no missing limbs and no broken bones, how infinitesimally small is the chance that the only injury is amnesia?"
"If you ask me, there was no need to come out here at all today. You know what they say — better to kill the wrong one than let the right one go. Kir's a suspect, so why not just finish her off while we're at it? Then round up a few people and take out that possible-Akai too, and be done with the whole mess in one stroke. We're a criminal organization, aren't we? I don't think we're required to worry about evidence."
At those words, a dark line practically sprouted over Kir's head as she turned to Glenlivet, her expression utterly beyond words.
She had known all along that this man would never kindly speak up for her — but she hadn't imagined he'd be vicious enough to egg Gin straight into killing her. Is this man even human?!
Besides, if she remembered correctly, the two of them had signed a cooperation agreement not long ago...
Thankfully, Gin was calm enough not to be swayed. He turned his gaze on Glenlivet and said sharply, "Shut up!"
"Gin, you're just too indecisive," Glenlivet complained, arms crossed as he leaned back against the seat, visibly dissatisfied.
Kir had never imagined she would live to hear someone call Gin indecisive.
Just then, Vermouth pulled up alongside Gin's window on her motorcycle and informed everyone in the car that the "Akai Shuichi" at the mall entrance was actually Bourbon in disguise — and that this operation had already been approved by the Boss himself.
"Well, you know the Boss — cautious to the bone. He's the type who firmly believes that being careful never capsizes the boat," Vermouth remarked with a sigh.
"That's a little *too* careful, don't you think? One Akai Shuichi, and the Boss is this wary of him — like he's terrified the man will rise from the dead." Glenlivet's voice was hollow and listless as he propped one hand on the edge of the window, watching "Scarred Akai" step out of the mall and turn to look their way the moment he noticed the stares. He spoke with utter boredom.
The truth was, he genuinely couldn't wrap his head around it. The head of a transnational — of an international underground syndicate, afraid of a single man to this degree? It was just so undignified.
In the end, today's operation wound down in a classic case of a storm that fizzled before the rain.
Gin ignored Chianti's indignant, confused objections on the other end of the line and simply ordered her to withdraw.
And Kir, for the time being, had slipped free of the shadow of betrayal hanging over her.