Chapter Thirty-One: This Is How Onion People Are

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By the time they returned to Poirot Café, it was after two in the afternoon.

They had left home at seven that morning and returned at two. In barely seven or eight hours, they had managed to get caught up in two cases. What a fulfilling day—just like you, Conan.

Tang Ze watched the little detective wobble his way upstairs after refusing Tang Ze’s offer to help carry him up, then stood outside the café and drew a deep breath.

Every time he went out, he came back with some kind of injury. Tang Ze felt that if he did not provide an explanation, Toru Amuro would soon be cursing the surveillance team as a bunch of useless scumbags while taking a gun to challenge Shuichi Akai to a duel.

To be honest, Tang Ze felt deeply aggrieved. What he had suffered could hardly be called an injury—at most, it was a scrape. If Toru Amuro had any objections, then after that punch, all Tang Ze had done was break the skin. What justice was there for shattered glass with not a trace of a body left behind?

Under the inexplicable pressure of feeling as though he were about to be reprimanded by the head teacher, Tang Ze lowered his eyes and meekly entered the café.

“Well, well, look who’s back—the little hero.” Only one table by the window had customers. When Toru Amuro, his face full of displeasure, looked up and saw Tang Ze come in, his tone turned positively sarcastic.

“Mr. Amuro…” Tang Ze gave an awkward, foolish grin.

Amuro tossed the cloth in his hand onto the counter, planted his hands on his hips, and came around from behind the bar. With considerable menace, he pointed upstairs.

“Come with me.”

“Amuro, don’t be so fierce.” Azusa Enomoto gave a helpless laugh. Seeing Tang Ze shrink into himself, she explained, “Someone posted a video of you climbing onto that truck to stop it on social media. It’s gotten really popular. You were too far away for anyone to make out your face, but we recognized you at once. You’ve got some nerve, you know…”

Amuro snorted, not the least bit mollified.

“You don’t even have a driver’s license, yet you climbed onto a box truck. Who was it who swore up and down that he would behave himself?”

“I only did it to save someone. It was an emergency…” Tang Ze muttered sheepishly.

“Upstairs.” Amuro pointed toward the loft again, uttering only that terse command.

With his head hanging, Tang Ze walked over and followed Amuro upstairs. Amuro was carrying a small first-aid kit, his heavy footsteps making his mood plain.

Toru Amuro’s feelings were complicated.

As for the public-relations trouble surrounding Tang Ze, fortunately, he had already sent Kazami Yūya a message the day before. The sudden surge of attention on social media had been discovered and dealt with quickly. No close-up images had leaked, and the news had once again been suppressed.

He truly had not expected this high school student to be such an active and warmhearted type. The degree to which he managed to stir up trouble could not help reminding Rei Furuya of his own school days.

Heaven knew how much of a headache the Metropolitan Police Department had suffered back then, dealing with the records related to his undercover work…

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Now that he was the one doing the same kind of work, it felt almost as though the wheel of fate had come full circle.

“Sit down. Hold out your hand.” Amuro dragged the only chair in the loft over to the bed and gestured for him to sit.

Tang Ze obediently sat down in front of him. There was something strangely unsettling about the command, as though Amuro were speaking to a dog.

The gauze wound several haphazard times around Tang Ze’s wrist made Amuro’s brow twitch. As he undid the amateurish dressing, he began to scold him.

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital after you got cut? You wrapped it up without even cleaning the wound. What were you going to do if it became infected?”

Once the bandages had been completely removed, a ring of cuts was revealed across Tang Ze’s wrist and the back of his hand. The longest ran from the middle of his hand all the way up to his forearm, a shallow groove carved by the sharp edge of a piece of glass.

Amuro looked furious. After taking a deep breath, he opened the medical kit, poured antiseptic over the back of Tang Ze’s hand, and asked, “Where did you learn to drive?”

“I was supposed to take my driver’s test this year,” Tang Ze answered in a small voice.

Amuro took out fresh bandages, laid them over the wound, and asked, “And the bandages? Why were you carrying them around?”

“Well… there was that accident a couple of days ago, you know?” Tang Ze answered evasively. Watching Amuro expertly finish the layered dressing, he turned the question back on him. “Mr. Amuro, did you study nursing? You’re awfully quick at bandaging.”

“Don’t change the subject. You simply can’t control your urge to play the hero.” Amuro glared at Tang Ze. In the end, he did not say the truly cutting words: Last time you tried to help someone, you got yourself branded a juvenile delinquent.

Tang Ze really was a brave and kindhearted child. He might be reckless, but he was a good kid.

The two deeply guarded souls silently looked at each other.

Tang Ze had secrets. Amuro was certain of it.

An ordinary automatic or manual passenger car was entirely different from a box truck. A license for the former did not qualify someone to drive the latter on public roads. And when confronted with an unmanned vehicle rolling down a slope, Tang Ze had made his decisions and executed his actions far too quickly and efficiently. Amuro found it difficult to imagine that he had received no training.

But no matter which identity he adopted, there was no way he could ask about it.

He had watched the footage of Tang Ze captured at the scene on social media four or five times. After thinking it over until now, Amuro had arrived at the same conclusion as Shuichi Akai.

It had to be connected to Tang Ze’s parents.

The Tang Ze couple had ties to the Organization. The research institution where they had worked was backed by a foundation controlled by one of the Organization’s offshore companies.

After days of investigation, this was the point at which Tang Ze and the Organization were most likely to have come into conflict over their interests. Since the research of Tang Ze’s parents had effectively been funded by the Organization, the Organization must have known their results inside and out.

At first, Amuro had suspected that Akira Tang Ze might possess the core materials left behind by the couple. Now he had begun to entertain another possibility.

Could it be that Tang Ze’s parents had already applied part of their research to their own child?

Psychological treatment and cognitive modification could, if taken in a more dangerous direction, become sinister techniques such as brainwashing and conditioning. Perhaps Tang Ze was a child who had undergone professional training at their direction.

Amuro considered the possibility carefully, but he had reported it to neither the Public Security Bureau nor the Organization. Without further evidence, reporting such a possibility would bring disaster down upon Akira Tang Ze.

Because according to the information he had obtained under his Bourbon identity, Ichikawa Tang Ze and Leona Tang Ze had both been confirmed dead. Whatever research they had conducted, no one would let Akira Tang Ze off the hook.

What a headache. A gigantic, scalding-hot potato.

With that thought, Amuro released Tang Ze’s bandaged arm and began vigorously rubbing his hair.

“Stop!” Tang Ze covered his head and ducked backward. “You promised you wouldn’t pat my head anymore!”

“If you can’t keep the promises you make, then the things I say are void as well.” Amuro seized Tang Ze’s head in both hands and shook it hard several times. “Have you forgotten that I’m your supervisor? I’m going to give you a proper write-up in this report. You’d better be careful during your probationary observation period.”

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Tang Ze was instantly defeated. Grimacing, he let Amuro ruffle his hair until it flew in every direction.

Once he had vented his anger, Amuro packed away the medical kit and stood. Before turning to go downstairs, he hesitated, then asked tentatively, “Tang Ze, if you run into trouble, you can tell me. Any kind of trouble.” His violet-gray eyes fixed firmly on Tang Ze. “I can help you.”

Tang Ze understood what he was asking, but he could not say anything.

Besides, who was asking him this question—Bourbon, Toru Amuro, or Rei Furuya?

Talking to an onion man was exhausting.

Tang Ze suspected that Amuro knew a great deal of the truth, but he could not ask, and Amuro would not tell him. Until they could speak openly and peel away at least the layers of Bourbon and Rei Furuya from this onion, Tang Ze had no standing from which to question him.

“I understand,” Tang Ze finally replied ambiguously.

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