Outlaw in Conan's World: Tokisaki Kurumi

"It's fine. We have plenty of time. If we don't succeed in a year, we'll try again next year. I can get you the funding, equipment, materials, and everything else through other channels that avoid the organization."

Kurumi said, "Besides, Sister Narumi only needs to cooperate with my friend. After all, her family developed this medicine. How did that saying go again?"

"The one who tied the bell must untie it, right~"

Kurumi drove to the foot of Mouri Kogoro's building. After parking, she brought Narumi up to the second floor of the Mouri Detective Agency and knocked on the door.

"Coming, coming!"

Along with the footsteps from inside, Kurumi heard Mouri Ran's voice.

"Hello, this is the Mouri Detective Agency... Huh? Kurumi? And Doctor Asai?" When the door opened, Mouri Ran had been about to greet a client seeking her father's help, only to find Kurumi and Doctor Narumi standing outside—the two she had met at the mall just yesterday.

"Miss Mouri Ran, just call me Narumi," Narumi said, afraid of accidentally giving herself away.

"Ah! Okay!" Mouri Ran paused, then asked, "By the way, Kurumi, Doctor Narumi, are you here to ask my father for help?"

As she spoke, Mouri Ran glanced back at Mouri Kogoro, who was snoring soundly behind his desk after getting drunk on beer.

"Well... that's not exactly wrong. But we aren't here to hire him. We came to discuss something with Mr. Mouri," Kurumi explained.

Hearing that, Mouri Ran nodded and invited Kurumi and Narumi inside.

Walking up to the snoring Mouri Kogoro, Mouri Ran angrily nudged him. "Dad! Wake up! Someone's here to see you!"

"Kurumi!" Standing by the door, Narumi looked at Mouri Kogoro sleeping with his mouth wide open. She found it hard to connect this unreliable drunk uncle with the outstanding detective constantly praised on television.

"This uncle looks completely unreliable no matter how I look at him," Narumi whispered to Kurumi.

"Don't say that~" Kurumi had always believed that Mouri Kogoro was definitely not just the frivolous uncle he appeared to be.

"Detective Mouri is hiding his true abilities," Kurumi whispered back. "Sister Narumi, don't let appearances deceive you."

Narumi took Kurumi's words to heart.

At that moment, Mouri Kogoro, who had been snoring away, was finally awakened by Mouri Ran.

"Ran, what happened?" Mouri Kogoro asked indistinctly, his eyes hazy and clearly not fully awake.

"Someone came to see you!" Mouri Ran reminded her father irritably, her tone full of exasperation.

Turning back, Mouri Ran apologized to Kurumi and Narumi. "Sorry, my dad, he... um..."

After thinking for a long time, Mouri Ran still could not come up with a reasonable explanation and could only stammer awkwardly.

As for Mouri Kogoro, upon hearing Mouri Ran say that visitors had arrived, he clumsily turned his head toward Kurumi and Narumi at the door.

Unable to remember who they were right away, he could only vaguely make out two lovely figures.

In an instant, Mouri Kogoro perked up.

"Ah! Two beautiful ladies! I am the renowned Great Detective—Mouri Kogoro!" Mouri Kogoro quickly stood up, pretending nothing had happened, and introduced himself in a deliberately dashing manner.

"Mr. Mouri, I'm Tokisaki Kurumi. Didn't we get involved in that murder case together at the art museum before?" Kurumi folded her hands over her lower abdomen, gave a polite little bow, and smiled as she reminded him.

Mouri Kogoro, still muddled by alcohol, thought for a moment. Then he stared carefully at Kurumi's face, which blended youthful innocence with charm, before suddenly remembering. "Ah! I remember now. Miss Tokisaki is Ran's classmate, right?"

"Er, you could say that." Noticing that Mouri Ran wanted to correct her father, Kurumi gently shook her head at her, signaling her not to mention that matter.

"And this... this young lady looks familiar too."

"She's Doctor Narumi from Moon Shadow Island, Dad!" Mouri Ran was utterly embarrassed by the shameful way her father perked up whenever he saw a beautiful woman.

Narumi also politely introduced herself. "Mr. Mouri, my name is Asai Narumi. I was the doctor who performed the autopsies for you on Moon Shadow Island."

"Oh, oh! I remember now!" Mouri Kogoro widened his eyes. "But you two...?"

Seeing Kurumi and Narumi come together, Mouri Kogoro wanted to ask whether they were friends, but he did not know how to phrase it.

Kurumi immediately saw through Mouri Kogoro's concern with her sharp eyes, so she took the initiative to explain. "Actually, Sister Narumi is my friend. She has moved back to Tokyo and is living with me now."

"So that's how it is! Well, considering what happened on Moon Shadow Island..."

Mouri Kogoro's muttering reached Mouri Ran's ears, and she hurriedly interrupted him. "Dad!"

"Ah, sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Mouri Kogoro realized that what he had just said had been terribly inappropriate.

Trying to change the subject, Mouri Kogoro coughed awkwardly. "Still, I'm really surprised that you two are friends."

"By the way, what did you two ladies come to see me about? Did something bad happen around you, and you want me to help solve it?"

No one knew exactly how Mouri Kogoro's brain worked. Seeing two beautiful women come to find him, his first thought was that they had encountered something frightening for girls, like a stalker.

Kurumi explained, "No. We came to ask Mr. Mouri whether the shop downstairs is still available for rent."

"The shop?"

"For rent?"

Mouri Ran and Mouri Kogoro froze for a moment.

"Yes, it's still available. Does Doctor Asai have something in mind? Though opening a clinic beneath our home probably wouldn't be very suitable." Hearing the question, Mouri Kogoro looked toward the adult, Aso Narumi.

When Mouri Kogoro suddenly looked at her, Narumi hurriedly waved her hands. "No, it's Kurumi..." She glanced at Kurumi. After Kurumi nodded to her, Narumi continued, "Kurumi wants to rent the shop downstairs and open a Cat Cafe."

"Cats?"

"A cafe?"

The moment she heard about cats, Mouri Ran, who also liked small animals, excitedly looked at Kurumi before her father could speak. "Um... what kind of place is a Cat Cafe? Is it like a coffee shop that keeps cats inside?"

Having never heard of a Cat Cafe before, Mouri Ran immediately understood the idea.

"Yes. In my vision, the Cat Cafe would give young people and office workers a place where they could rest with cats by their side and completely unwind from their stress."

"That's a great idea!" Mouri Kogoro suddenly chimed in as well. "I'm not interested in small animals myself, but Miss Tokisaki, your idea really does sound novel!"

"If it works out, it should have real potential." Mouri Kogoro rubbed his chin and said with some concern, "Personally, I support your idea, Miss Tokisaki, but..." He hesitated, unsure how to bring it up.

As the landlord here, he knew that although the rent was not as expensive as downtown, it was still not something an ordinary family could afford.

Thinking of that, Mouri Kogoro asked, "Miss Tokisaki, will the rent be a problem for you?"

Since Kurumi and Narumi both knew him and his daughter, Mouri Kogoro also wanted to offer them a regular-customer price.

"Of course not."

Kurumi might have been concerned about other matters, but when it came to money, she was not worried at all.

"Although Sister Narumi and I aren't from wealthy families, I think rent won't be a problem."

Seeing Kurumi's confident expression, Mouri Kogoro nodded.

"Then how about this? I'll show you the place downstairs first, and then we can discuss the rent."

Having received Mouri Kogoro's approval, the two naturally had no objections.

"Then we'll trouble you, Mr. Mouri."

Following Mouri Kogoro and Mouri Ran, Kurumi and Narumi arrived at the ground-floor shop belonging to Mouri Kogoro.

It had to be said that owning a three-story building in a place as expensive as Tokyo meant Mouri Kogoro himself was quite wealthy.

Since the first-floor shop currently had no tenant, it was only simply renovated, with no furniture or decorations at all.

The shop was very spacious. According to Kurumi's plans, if she turned it into a cat cafe, she could easily set aside an area specifically as the cats' "bedroom."

"This is great. It's definitely big enough!" Kurumi was extremely happy at the thought of fulfilling her dream.

"Kurumi, if you really turn this place into a Cat Cafe, does that mean I can come play with the kittens anytime when I'm free?" After hearing Kurumi's idea, Mouri Ran also felt that the place would surely become very cozy once it was decorated.

"Of course! Ran, you can come play anytime!" Kurumi replied excitedly. "But if we're renovating, it will probably take at least three months before the cats can move in. Formaldehyde from renovations is harmful to both people and animals."

"That's true."

Hearing his daughter chatting so happily with Kurumi, Mouri Kogoro became even more determined to offer Kurumi a friendly price.

It was not as though he lacked that little bit of money anyway.

After taking them around the place, Mouri Kogoro got down to business. "Miss Tokisaki, based on the current market price, the rent here would probably be three hundred thousand yen. Of course, since you're Ran's friend, we can waive some of the miscellaneous extra costs." As he mentioned the price, Mouri Kogoro glanced at Kurumi.

Mouri Kogoro had assumed that when the girl heard such a fairly expensive rent of three hundred thousand yen, her face would show some difficulty. He had already prepared to lower the friendly price even further.

But what he never expected was that Kurumi's expression remained a gentle smile after hearing the price, as if she did not find the "expensive" rent troubling in the slightest.

"Three hundred thousand yen? No problem, Uncle Mouri." Since she had already become friends with Mouri Ran, Kurumi now changed how she addressed Mouri Kogoro from the formal "Mr. Mouri" to "Uncle Mouri."

Mouri Kogoro was startled by Kurumi's immediate agreement. Good grief, girls these days are really rich...

"Then should we still go through the usual procedure for the contract?" Kurumi asked, already having prepared her bankbook.

"Ah, we should still follow the procedure. As for the security deposit..."

"Let's do that according to the rules too, Uncle Mouri." Kurumi asked, "Would this week work for the contract?"

A few more days passed. Mouri Kogoro, who had nothing much to do at home, brought it up during a meal.

"Ran, I'm going to sign the contract with Tokisaki this afternoon, so I'll leave the house to you," Mouri Kogoro said while eating.

"No problem, Dad." Mouri Ran nodded, then sighed admiringly, "But Kurumi really is rich. Sometimes I wonder whether she might be the young lady of some big family."

Beside them, Conan was drinking soup when he heard the father and daughter suddenly mention Kurumi and some contract. His heart skipped a beat as he wondered what had happened.

"Ran, what happened to Sister Tokisaki? What's this about signing a contract with Uncle?" Conan asked, thinking Kurumi had entrusted Mouri Kogoro with something extremely important.

Mouri Ran explained, "It's like this. A few days ago, Kurumi and Doctor Narumi came to Dad and said they wanted to rent the shop downstairs and turn it into a Cat Cafe."

"A cat cafe?" Conan immediately became alert.

As someone who knew the truth—that Kurumi was a member of the Black Organization—Conan had always been wary of the girl who looked frail but acted with complete lawlessness.

And that Narumi, the doctor whose real name was Aso Narumi, had also been the mastermind behind the Moon Shadow Island incident.

However, Conan had never told Mouri Kogoro or Mouri Ran about it. Instead, he had told his parents, who were far away in America.

They were Kudo Yusaku, Japan's most famous novelist, and actress Kudo Yukiko.

Based on the information they had given him, all Conan currently knew was Kurumi's public identity and her reputation in the underworld as a pioneer in anti-drug efforts.

As for everything else, he still could not figure it out.

But one thing was certain: Kurumi was definitely not the young lady of some powerful family, as Mouri Ran had guessed.

"Is a cat cafe the kind of cafe centered around having cats keep customers company?" Although he had never seen one, Conan roughly guessed what a cat cafe was just from the name.

"But the shop under Uncle's place isn't cheap, right? Are Sister Tokisaki and the others really that rich?"

"Yeah, when I told Tokisaki the rent, she didn't hesitate at all." Thinking back to Kurumi's extravagant manner at the time, Mouri Kogoro also found it unreal.

"Then how much rent did you quote, Uncle?" Conan asked "innocently."

"Three hundred thousand."

"Three hundred thousand!?" Conan could not stay seated when he heard such an expensive sum.

Although his family was wealthy too, for an ordinary household, coming up with three hundred thousand yen at once—along with the security deposit, nearly a million yen in total—was very difficult.

But remembering that Kurumi, as an organization member, would surely have plenty of illicit income, Conan was not surprised.

But why would Tokisaki and Aso Narumi open a shop beneath Uncle Mouri's place? Could they be trying to monitor me? Thinking that, Conan felt a chill run down his spine.

Even the meal in front of him no longer tasted good.

To find out why those two were opening a shop downstairs, Conan came up with an idea.

"Uncle, can I go with you this afternoon? I want to see Sister Tokisaki too!"

Seeing Conan stare at him with an "innocent" expression, Mouri Kogoro said irritably, "You little brat, I didn't expect you to be such a lecherous kid at your age! What, Tokisaki is so pretty that you want to tag along with me to see her?"

Mouri Kogoro's words made even Mouri Ran look at Conan with an unfriendly gaze.