Mouri Kogoro woke up.
He felt a headache and weakness in his limbs; these were typical symptoms of a hangover.
He was already used to this sort of thing.
However, besides that, he also felt a slight difficulty in breathing.
So... have I finally ruined my body?
Huh?
Mouri Kogoro wanted to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn't obey; no matter what, he couldn't pry them open.
Suddenly, Mouri Kogoro felt as if someone's breathing was lingering near his ear.
My breathing?
No... my breathing... it's impossible for my breath to be blowing into my own ear...
Upon realizing this, Mouri Kogoro's brain gradually began to clear from its hazy state.
His heart skipped a beat, realizing that something bad had happened.
After struggling to pry his eyelids open, unsurprisingly, he saw Horie Yumi's face.
"..."
After a moment of silence, Mouri Kogoro slowly closed his eyes and murmured: "This dream is so realistic..."
Ten minutes later.
Mouri Kogoro opened the door stealthily, carefully closed it, and like a thief, tiptoed back to his own room.
After clicking the door shut, Mouri Kogoro patted his head and muttered: "Something went wrong..."
——————
"Beep... beep... beep..."
Lin Yi pressed his phone, looking at the picture Horie Yumi had sent late last night.
The photo wasn't very well taken; Horie Yumi occupied most of the frame, but one could still tell that the person was Mouri Kogoro, and that was enough.
Saving the photo to his email, Lin Yi wasn't in a rush to send it to Eri Kisaki.
If an unknown third party sent the photo to Eri Kisaki, given her rational working style, she would easily guess that someone had done it intentionally.
Eri Kisaki is a top-tier lawyer in Japan; by analyzing the implications of this, she would very likely suspect him.
Women's intuition is always so accurate and unreasonable.
One could see a glimpse of that from Ran.
Therefore, it would be best to let Horie Yumi take the initiative to send these photos to Eri Kisaki and confront her directly; the harder the confrontation, the better the effect.
As for him, he would just quietly watch the show from the sidelines and, when necessary, provide Horie Yumi with some financial assistance.
As for Mouri Kogoro, as long as the photos were obtained and the conflict was triggered, his thoughts were no longer important.
"Yi! What are you daydreaming about!"
Ran came out of the bathroom and urged, "Hurry up and wash up! We still have to go eat breakfast with Kazuha later."
"Alright." Lin Yi put his phone away and walked towards the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later.
Lin Yi and Ran successfully met up with Kazuha.
The three of them entered a breakfast shop to taste the local delicacies.
"Did you come by yourself?" Ran asked, "I thought you would bring him along."
"You mean Heiji! Don't mention him." Kazuha's anger hadn't subsided yet, and she said, "From last night until this morning, he didn't come back all night! I don't even know what he went off to do."
"Don't you plan to give him a call?" Ran covered her mouth and laughed.
"No!" Kazuha huffed, "Why should I be the one to call?"
The two of them chatted while eating, while Lin Yi ate the local delicacies slowly and meticulously.
As for it being a "delicacy," Lin Yi really couldn't feel what was so special about it.
The preparation methods for the food were all much the same; it was nothing more than different proportions of ingredients leading to different textures, yet they dared to call it a "local delicacy."
They even came up with the slogan, "It feels different every time you eat it."
Lin Yi glanced at the breakfast chefs who were busy as bees, and he estimated that their movements were too fast, so they couldn't get the ingredient ratios right, which led to it "feeling different every time."
Just as Lin Yi was planning to slowly kill time, a fourth person suddenly walked over.
"Kazuha?"
It was a male voice. Lin Yi curiously looked up and saw a boy with yellow hair and slightly dark skin.
Lin Yi frowned; he had no impression of him, so he was probably just a background character.
"Teruaki? Why are you here too?"
After seeing the boy, Kazuha was also a bit surprised.
"I wanted to come here to relax during the holidays..." Teruaki said.
"Can I sit here?" He asked Lin Yi.
"Of course." Lin Yi nodded and said.
After he introduced himself, Lin Yi learned that his full name was Kuniue Teruaki, he was a sophomore at Teitan University in Tokyo, and he lived next door to Kazuha's family.
"When we were kids, Kazuha loved sticking to me." Kuniue Teruaki brought up things from the past, sounding quite nostalgic.
"That was all in the past... it's all over." Being reminded of her childhood, Kazuha said somewhat embarrassedly.
Kuniue Teruaki smiled and, as Kazuha wished, did not continue with that topic.
After chatting briefly, Kazuha and Ran started talking again.
Kuniue Teruaki watched them chat, his mouth opening and closing, but then he shut it again.
Clearly, he wanted to try to insert himself into their conversation, but it was obvious he didn't know how to do so.
He could only bury his head in his breakfast.
This made Lin Yi's eyes flash; he began to form a judgment about this person.
Although he had dyed his hair yellow, his personality was actually the honest type.
If he wanted to show off, he would have ignored everything and inserted himself into the topic long ago; even if he didn't understand, he would say a few words to assert his presence.
Besides that, he came over to strike up a conversation, not really just to eat breakfast with Kazuha; he clearly had thoughts of deeper interaction, preferably setting up a date or something.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have sat next to him, but would have just said hello and left.
He would rather bury his head in his breakfast than talk to him...
Based on his honest nature, the other party was likely the type who wasn't good at dealing with strangers.
After having a rough understanding of Kuniue Teruaki.
Lin Yi had a concrete idea in his mind.
He took a sip of water to hide his sinister smile.
After putting down the water cup, he took the initiative to talk to Kuniue Teruaki: "Did you study at Teitan High School before?"
"Ah... no, I studied at Osaka Kaifuku Gakuen High School; it's the same high school as Kazuha."
Kuniue Teruaki couldn't go two sentences without mentioning Kazuha, which made Lin Yi even more certain that he was interested in Kazuha.
"How about you?" Kuniue Teruaki didn't know how to communicate with strangers, but he knew the basics of asking a question back.
"Me? I've already graduated from university."
Lin Yi said with a straight face.
Ran, who was chatting with Kazuha, couldn't help but roll her eyes at Lin Yi upon hearing that.
Graduated from university, really? With your attendance record, whether you can even graduate is a question.
"Is that so?" Kuniue Teruaki was a bit surprised. Seeing how young the other man looked, he had thought he was still in high school.
"Yeah," Lin Yi nodded and said, "I have a bit of a baby face, so I'm often treated like a high school student... By the way, I graduated from Teitan University, specifically from the Medical Department."
"Is... is that so?" Kuniue Teruaki was completely stunned by Lin Yi's bluff. He was still a bit skeptical, but he couldn't exactly ask the man to show his ID to prove his age. Then he thought, since it was their first time meeting, there was no reason for the other party to lie to him.
So, Kuniue Teruaki chose to believe him. "Then I should call you... Senior."
Lin Yi nodded, calmly accepting the title.
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