"I"m glad to see you."

Midori opened the door, and showed the visitors in.

The ones who were planned to come were three people, the young boss and his investigators, the girl and the young man. A grey wagon that was driven from the gate and into the garden, was parked.

Reiko, who was standing beside a smiling Midori, bowed her head while absent-mindely thinking, this is useless.

She had heard it in advance, but they were truly young. What could these two children and one young man possibly do?

-- Leave, Reiko complained within her thoughts.

Don"t get into the entranceway. Turn around right there and leave this house. Don"t ever come again.

Even though she strongly thought in a manner like that, it was extremely troublesome to get it to leave her mouth.

-- Ah, they weren"t going to pa.s.s over a house like this.

Reiko absent-mindedly gazed at the three who entered her house. Their girl sweetly smiled and bowed her head, but she could not bring herself to smile back.

--- Please leave and don"t come back.

The girl looked puzzled, then she was called by Midori who faced towards the inside of the corridor and slipped past Reiko"s side in small steps.

Midori guided the trio to a four and a half tatami mat sized j.a.panese-style room at the center of the first floor.

"I wonder if this is pa.s.sable."

The young boss nodded without an expression at Midori who asked that.

Size, he simply said to the short young female investigator and left the room. The girl took out the measuring tape. While she roughly measured the size of the room, she could hear her mutter, "I wonder if this is okay."

"Is this place too narrow?" Midori asked.

Mai smiled and turned her head.

"It"s fine. We"ll work it out somehow."

"With that much equipment?"

"Well, I"m already fed up with that."

After laughing, Mai lowered her voice a little.

"... ...Your mother looks quite worn out."

She wondered if it could be called a worn out facial expression. What Mai had seen was the kind of facial expression that was completely exhausted and had become fully lethargic.

"Is that so," Midori bitterly smiled. "I"m sorry, for her lack of courtesy."

"Please don"t worry about that."

"Recently, she"s always like that. She"s absent-minded and hardly speaks anymore."

"She must be really tired," Mai"s voice seemed to be compa.s.sionate from the bottom of her heart.

"It"s the age, right. -- Is there something I can help with?"

"No way. Please rest because you have a day off from work. Midori-san must be tired too, right? How terrible."

"I"m not like that though."

"You have to be tired, don"t rely on something like a normal medium or a suspicious company," Mai looked blankly, then laughed. "Don"t we particularly seem like a suspicious group?"

"I didn"t see you like that though?"

"You"re so big-hearted, Midori-san. Normally, don"t that kind of boss and that kind of investigator want to make you run away?"

Midori softly smiled.

"Certainly, the average age seems low though. --- I"m sorry for the impoliteness of the person I took with me recently."

"Oh no," Mai waved her hand. "The impolite one was on our side. Our boss doesn"t differentiate between between courtesy and superficial courtesy. Your cousin Hirota-san, right? Didn"t he seem pretty angry?"

"Well, " Midori bitterly smiled. "But, the one who requested was me."

"If you had come to request earlier, Hirota-san wouldn"t have been angered to shreds."

"Really?"

"Until he returned, there had been a representative of the boss due to his absence. If it had been her, the manners would have been good and things like quarrelling wouldn"t have happened."

Midori inclined her head.

"Is that person Davis-san? -- No, I"m wrong. Oliver is a men"s name."

"That," Mai pointed a finger. "Where did you hear that name?"

"Uh," Midori looked back at Mai.

Mai lowered her voice even more.

"Well, that is certainly our boss" name. Ah, despite his looks he"s not a j.a.panese person."

"Is he half-j.a.panese?"

"I don"t know that much. Because the boss doesn"t tell us such private things."

"Huh?"

"Actually the fact that his real name is written in Latin letters was something I didn"t know for a long time. Officially and personally he never introduces himself with his real name. He goes by Shibuya Kazuya."

"His j.a.panese name?"

Mai shrugged.

"Something like that. For the time being this is a secret."

"I"ll keep it confidential."

"I"m sorry. -- My colleague Yasuhara-san thought it was strange for that name to have leaked, as a matter of fact."

Midori inclined her head.

"That was something Hirota-san told me. I wonder why he knew something like that. ... ...I"ll ask him next time."

"No, it"s not like I want you to investigate it in particular."

"Really? -- Speaking of which, how should I call the other investigator by their name?"

The other day at the office at the end she hadn"t asked for his name. The person himself didn"t give his own name, and in any case he seemed like the unsociable type who only said the essential details.

"Ah, Lin-san? His name is Lin Koujo. -- Lin-san is also a foreign person, by the way," After she said that, Mai smiled a little. "-- Hey, isn"t he suspicious looking?"

Midori laughed.

"He"s okay."

"Midori-san, you really are generous, huh. Usually, by only looking at that interaction with Naru, one would be ready to run away though."

"-- Naru? The boss?"

"Ah," Mai said and stuck out a small tongue. "Eh, I guess."

"A nickname?"

"Yes. ... ...but this is something between us."

"Yes?"

"It means Naru-chan, the Narcissist."

Midori laughed.

"Certainly he does look beautiful. The first time I saw him I was so surprised."

"Then after that, everyone gets surprised by his badness of his personality."

"Is that so?"

"Well, his pride is high, he dislikes losing and his ego is strong. He thinks of himself as having the best looking face, being the smartest and the greatest in the world. He also doesn"t think of people as people and he"s fussy."

"Huh?"

Just when Midori said that, a strict voice jumped out from behind her. It was the voice of the gossiped person.

"-- Mai! Why are you slacking off!"

After grimacing, Mai smiled.

"See? Isn"t he fussy?"
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