Yokohama Cuisine Event Book

——If there is a chance to meet again in the future... I will wait for you at the rescue side, Dazai.

The person who once said these words with the expression of going to die is now standing in the bright summer.

The red-haired man looked back at his long-lost friend, his gray-blue eyes were like the sky at this moment.

"—Ah, long time no see, Dazai."

he replied.

In the evening, the clouds surged like a tide.Time went back under the scattered stars for two years.

The story of that year is known only by the transparent wind that blows so far.

That day, outside the western restaurant he frequented, Oda Sakunosuke saw a strange girl.

He was about thirteen or fourteen years old, with short smoky purple hair scattered around his neck in small pieces, rubbing against his fair skin softly in the wind.There is childish baby fat on the cheeks, and the big vine purple eyes are particularly lively.Standing at the door, she glanced around with puzzled and thoughtful eyes, looking at people like the elves in the forest drawn in Sakule's fairy tales.

This had nothing to do with him, but the elf's eyes were fixed on him for some reason.Even though he was full of thoughts, Oda Sakunosuke clearly felt that she stared at him for at least ten seconds with eyes that seemed to pierce through.

He walked over slowly, puzzled.

He should have never seen her.This kind of little girl who looks weird is not interested in him, an ordinary man in his twenties. Usually, the people who stop him on the road are chattering old men and women.Dazai should be the one who gets blocked by girls.

But when he was about to walk over, he was stopped by the girl.

She frowned, looked at him from head to toe again as if confirming something, and then said: "...There is another one. Uncle, have you gotten into some trouble?"

For a moment, she wanted to correct that she was not an uncle, he was only 23 years old.But at present, he does have troublesome things at hand, and his heart is particularly heavy, so he doesn't have that kind of idle time.

It has not been half a day since the leader received the task of finding Ango, and was attacked while searching Ango's room.The iconic gray pistol of the European crime organization Mimic found there means that Ango may betray.The unwillingness to admit the reality and the inability to see the development of the situation are like fists with iron gauntlets, hitting the temples violently from the left and right sides, making it impossible to pretend to be deaf and dumb.The only thing clearly present in the tangled brain was a premonition.

Anything can happen at a time like this.If the soldier in the gray cloak I met before suddenly jumped out from a street corner to attack, or after this incident, the leader finally found out his incompetence and called him to go to the waste treatment plant to wait for punishment, such a development More or less expected.But being stopped in the street by a little girl who seemed to have nothing to do with the darkness, and accusing him in a friendly tone of "how come there are fools who can't take care of themselves everywhere", was not within the expected range.

"You mean...?" he asked cautiously.

"I shouldn't say such things to the people I just met. But since I saw it, there's nothing I can do about it." The little girl said a little unhappy, "In short, you and the boss inside and the children are related. A very close person, right?"

Hearing this sentence, he tensed his nerves and did not answer.

He is a person who has always been considered dull because of his lack of expression.Even when he heard the news of Ango's disappearance from the leader, and the doubts in his heart were like a volcanic eruption, he just bent his knuckles a little, so he was evaluated by the leader as calm and composed.But the girl somehow read the correct answer from his almost non-existent responses.

As if confirming that he was someone who knew the situation and could communicate, she blinked twice quickly, and took another step towards him.

"The situation is very bad. Why? In less than two days, they will all...and you, you are only half a day ahead of them."

The expression is very solemn, and there is an inexplicable convincing meaning in the words.She omitted words that made people feel uncomfortable.But that meaning, no matter who can understand.

——That was not a joke.She is stating a fact that only she can see.

Oda Sakunosuke's expression changed.

"……what?"

With a dry voice, he uttered two completely meaningless words.

"You must take my word for it. Be, be careful about your current situation. Are you doing a dangerous mission?"

When admonishing him like this, the girl's eyes showed a kind of depth that didn't match her age, as if she could see into the deepest part of a person's soul at a glance: "If possible, it's better to stop and take them away. "

"Yeah, have you seen her?"

When Oda Sakunosuke suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart, and asked the shopkeeper with the same expression and voice as usual if a girl with purple hair came just now, the uncle of the shopkeeper asked strangely while putting curry on the plate: "Say something Zhiyou looks so serious. What happened to that kid Gancha?"

"It's nothing. I had a chat outside just now." She didn't tell the shopkeeper anything—it seems that the girl chose him to talk.Oda Sakunosuke noticed the shopkeeper's kind words, "Uncle knows her?"

This question is like flipping a switch.The owner of the shop with a beer belly put the packaged curry rice in front of Oda, and began to talk happily.

The girl's name is Hai Lao Ze Gancha, and she is a second year student.I just met two or three weeks ago, and today is only my second visit to the store.

There is a reason why the shopkeeper looks very familiar——

"Hey, she surprised me when she came back." The uncle owner laughed hahaha, "When I asked her how the curry was, she even told her the recipe of the sauce. The last person in this kind of thing can It was her mother who did it."

According to the shop owner, about ten years ago, a couple came to the shop for dinner.The same goes for the chestnut-haired young woman who knows everything after one sip and suggests that he might add a little more turmeric and coriander seeds.

After trying it, he continues to use it until now.Only later did he know that she was the food consultant Ebizawa Riko who had just risen to fame—graduated as the second among the top ten of Totsuki Academy, and after settling in Yokohama with her husband, she did not open her own restaurant as a chef, but established He set up a consulting company to provide consulting services on dishes for major high-end restaurants.Her exclusive recipes have even revived several restaurants that had been struggling for years.

It turns out that the recipe of the uncle of the shop owner has been instructed by such a person.Sakunosuke Oda enjoyed the delicious curry on the plate, and praised: "That consultant really lives up to his reputation."

"Really? So when I heard the child say that his surname is Hai Laoze, I just asked a few words. I didn't expect that she happened to be Miss Lizi's daughter—" the uncle said with a sigh, "Although she doesn't look like her mother , but the cooking talent is completely inherited from her. She said that it was because of this that she took her mother's last name. I heard that I was very happy to know about her mother, and I talked with me for a long time. It was only then that I knew—— It turns out that Miss Riko and her husband passed away six years ago."

If this is the plot of a novel, it will probably be a good story full of inheritance.But this is reality—that elf-like little girl, like the children he adopted, is an orphan who has lost her parents.

Who took care of her after that.Maybe he should call him senior—I don't know what Sakule will become when he grows up—he felt even more depressed as he thought about it.Because all he had heard was of no help in resolving the immediate doubts.

"Speaking of which, Xiaozhi, how did you meet her? Didn't she have something to do today, and she ran away in a hurry after not staying for long." The shopkeeper finished the whole story contentedly, and looked at him after taking a sip of water.There was a little doubt on the face with smile lines, "I thought she had gone back a long time ago."

Ah, this question is a bit tricky. "Because she sent me a death notice"? "It's not just me, everyone in the room is included"——

Oda Sakunosuke was silent for two seconds with his usual expression, as if he was thinking or thinking about nothing, and then replied, maybe she just came to him for something.

The red-haired man, who is not good at making up lies, just told the part that he could tell the shopkeeper in a very ordinary way, but the uncle obviously thought he was joking, looked at him strangely, then patted him on the shoulder and said with relief: " Xiaozhi, I didn't expect you to tell such a joke."

He silently accepted the unrealistic appreciation and asked, "Is she leaving in a hurry?"

"Uh, yes." The owner was at a loss.I probably also felt the weirdness of the two big men discussing the little girl behind their backs—but I answered him first, "She was still happily eating curry at first. Then I received an email——Saku Le When I was talking to her in the past, her expression suddenly changed. Then she hurried away."

"There is something urgent in the mail." Oda Sakunosuke said.

"If that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised." The shopkeeper said, "But I also saw a little bit of that email, which is just a picture of ordinary vegetables, fruits, and coffee beans. Those things shouldn't be an urgent matter. Could it be The person who sent the email bought green peppers that she didn't want to eat, so she ran home and secretly threw them away?"

The girl didn't look like someone who was forced to eat green peppers and was about to issue death notices to innocent people.So Oda Sakunosuke said: "As a cook, I shouldn't particularly hate certain ingredients."

"...Well, ah, it's hard to say..." the shopkeeper said, "...But Xiaozhi, the point shouldn't be this, huh?"

Well, so what should be the point.When he asked this question, the shopkeeper's expression seemed a little distressed.

In short, there will be no progress in the chat, and Oda Sakunosuke turned to ask about the situation of the children.When he came downstairs after fighting with the children, he saw Dazai who suddenly appeared here, breathing in while wiping his sweat.

The young man in a black coat looked at him and smiled: "Ah, it was really an arduous battle——Odasaku, what is that in your pocket?"

He looked down and saw a corner of a hard card protruding from the pocket of the sand-colored coat.It probably slipped out while fighting the kids.

It was something the girl had slipped into him before she left - a business card that said "Armed Detective Agency".

"... Dazai, I want to ask you to do me a favor."

"I am back--"

A girl's clear voice came from the entrance.

The president went to the military and police headquarters to participate in the anti-terrorism countermeasure meeting.In the study, lying on the side of the chessboard, Luanbu, who was so bored that he was playing Go with himself, his eyes lit up, jumped up and accused: "It's too late to come back! Why did you stay outside for so long?"

A petite girl with short hair appeared at the door.She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Luanbu: "Can't Luanbu see it?"

Luanbu curled his lips.

"I know, you went to eat curry at the shop of the Mafia—" Seeing that Gan Cha had something to say, he didn't intend to continue playing chess with him. Luan, "And then? Why are you unhappy?"

"Because I saw something irritating!" The little girl puffed her face, sat on a chair, and leaned against Luanbu with the back of the chair.

"Oh--"

A strand of smoky purple soft hair floated to his face, he stretched out his hand to hold it, curled it around his fingertips, and said lazily: "Let's listen to it." Quan regarded it as a substitute for Go and sent it to a detective time.

"...It's probably equivalent to the massacre." The girl said sullenly, "The owner of the western restaurant, the five children in the shop, and the mafia uncle who adopted those children—oh, he's actually only 23 years old but has a shaggy beard. It’s too old! Luanbu, don’t stare at me—I accidentally saw it when I was picking ingredients for the whirlpool. They will die in two days, no more than two and a half days. Five children, the youngest is only four years old .”

"The western restaurant itself is not damaged, and the gas is good, so it's not an accident like a fire. It's a murder. And the purpose of a murder is usually only two—"

Luanbu, who raised his spirit a little bit, continued: "Money and resentment*. So, it's okay for you to see the cash register. Besides, it's an inconspicuous restaurant owned by the mafia. The risk is not low, but the return is very little, which is not worth it. .The problem is with the mafia."

"Yes. Don't pull my hair! I know—that mafia is not simple. Although it looks like a low-level person, it's not the kind of gangster who shows off his power with a gun. I saw He had a very turbulent and dangerous life before he was 15 years old. But now as a mafia, his life is much calmer than ordinary people. He is a man with a story."

The words started to stray slightly.From this, it can be seen that the girl's mood is gradually recovering.Telling the case to Ranpo, to her, is almost like a priest confessing to a priest.

"In short, I originally thought that maybe the previous enemy came to take revenge. But his life has taken a big turning point today. And he looked preoccupied, with traces of fighting on his body, and his attitude was very serious. Be on guard. If you ask him directly, he will definitely not say it, so I tested it a little when I reminded him. He didn't deny it either—so, their danger should indeed come from the task that was assigned today." She concluded in this way .

"Isn't this a good job?" Ranbu praised her with a smile.

"But that's it - just finding the source. What the real crisis is, I'm still at a loss."