"But..."
Vodka looked over the rows of Lockers in the Storage Room when a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Something feels off."
With that in mind, he shone his flashlight around, intending to check for any hidden dangers.
And sure enough, the beam revealed something unusual.
"!" Vodka's gaze snapped over. A sizable check was wedged in the door crack of Locker 0032.
He walked over and cautiously examined the scene—Locker 0032 was the precise location he and Itakura Suguru had arranged for the transaction. Could this check have been left here by Itakura Suguru?
"There isn't a fishing line attached to this thing, is there? The kind that explodes if you pull it."
After scrutinizing the check from every angle, Vodka Reached Out and carefully removed it with the caution of a bomb technician.
Fortunately, he felt no suspicious tugging along the way—it really was just an ordinary check tucked into the door crack.
"Hopefully it isn't coated with poison. I need to remember to change gloves when I get back."
As he thought that, Vodka held the check at arm's length and turned it over several times.
"It's real. And it looks kind of familiar?" Vodka quickly realized what it was and muttered to himself, "Judging by the amount, this should be the deposit the organization paid Itakura Suguru before. Why did he return it? Did Tequila and Vermouth scare him so badly that he doesn't dare take the money?"
Given Itakura Suguru's personality, it was perfectly plausible for him to do something like that.
Saving the organization some money was a good thing. In a better mood, Vodka pocketed the check and looked at the Locker again.
—If he could wedge the check here, that meant Itakura Suguru really had come. Then the software they had agreed