Express, delivery?
Ichijō Mirai's smile paused for a moment, then resumed, "Yes."
"I'd like to ask you to take care of this for a while, Ms. Suzuki."
"No trouble, no trouble," Suzuki Sonoko quickly waved her hand, "After all, you helped us find the stalker before, not only did you not receive a commission but also gave us a gift, it's only right to help each other out."
She cheerfully said, "The delivery is in my suitcase, I'll go up and get it later."
Ichijō Mirai nodded slowly, the smile on her face unabated, and looked to the others at the table, "Sorry, I was on the phone, so I came down a bit late."
The chubby man spoke up, "No, there are still a few minutes before the appointed time,"
He made a friendly gesture, and inquired with some curiosity, "A commission?"
"Is this gentleman a detective?"
Another characteristic of abnormal people is that they pay more attention to words like police, detective, murderer, and so on.
Ichijō Mirai smiled without changing his face, "Uh-huh."
"Hello, gentlemen, first time meeting you," he kicks off the introductory process by briefly introducing himself, "My last name is Ichijō, Ichijō Mirai."
He looked at the chubby man again.
The chubby man paused for a moment, then introduced himself, "My name is Takahashi Ryouichi."
"We're in a club," He gestured to himself and the others, "the movie club,"
"I'm usually in charge of the big props."
"Sumiya Hiroki," the stronger man spoke up, "I'm usually in charge of photography."
He had been holding up a black camera a few inches larger than his hand, and had been pointing it at Ichijō Mirai, when he complimented in passing, "Mr. Ichijō is really a detective, isn't he an idol?"
"I feel like my filming skills improved a lot when I was filming you!"
The long-haired male said nonchalantly, "Oota Masaru."
He was twirling the lighter in his hand, "Starring."
"Oota just looks unapproachable," A gentle female with a red bow tie on top of her head smiled and looked to Ichijō Mirai, "Hello, my name is Suzuki Ayako, I'm usually in charge of the actors' make-up and costumes."
Suzuki Ayako glanced at Suzuki Sonoko again, still with a gentle smile on her face, "Sonoko's older sister."
"And at the same time," Suzuki Sonoko immediately added, winking narrowly and pretending not to have picked up on her sister's snarky signals, "still searching for a suitable person to marry."
Suzuki Ayako and the short-haired woman to her side both laughed a little, and the short-haired woman spoke up, "My name is Ikeda Chikako, I'm a director, and I usually take care of scripts on the side, and I'm the president of the movie club."
"Hello, my name is Mouri Ran," Mouri Ran followed suit and looked over at Ikeda Chikako, "Wow, I've heard that name before, the screenwriter for the movie 'Blue Kingdom'!"
Ikeda Chikako smiled, and Suzuki Ayako smiled and said, "Yes, it's Chikako's work, and it's also her work from her student days."
"And now it's finally on the air? That's great."
Mouri Ran's eyes lit up a bit, and she looked like she had met her favorite author, but Ikeda Chikako's face only had a light smile, "It's all from her student days, it's in the past, so don't mention it today."
"Do you mean to mention the present?" The long-haired Oota Masaru was still spinning the lighter, "I heard you're going to start writing your next movie soon?"
Sumiya Hiroki, who was filming everyone one by one as they introduced themselves, shifted her station to film Ikeda Chikako's face, "Wow, that sounds exciting, Master Ikeda, is there anything you can tell us?"
Ikeda Chikako raises an eyebrow, "Please, don't be sarcastic, Sumiya."
Sumiya Hiroki regretfully shifted the camera, first to Ichijō Mirai, then to Takahashi Ryouichi, "Huh. You seem to have gained a bit of weight again, don't you, Takahashi?"
Everyone but him was sitting at the table, but close enough to the table that their elbows could easily be propped up on it, except for Takahashi Ryouichi, who was sitting three steps away from the table.
No matter, his stomach was so big, like a balloon that was about to fill up with water, that it hung so heavily on his stomach that if he took another step forward, his stomach would hit the edge of the table.
Takahashi Ryouichi rubbed his head in embarrassment, "It's just a little bit, it's just that it's almost 100 kilograms..."
One hundred kilograms is two hundred pounds.
Not to mention a young woman, it's almost as much as a young man of half normal weight.
Everyone in the room was in awe.
"My name is Suzuki Sonoko," Suzuki Sonoko spoke with a bit of awe as she glanced at Takahashi Ryouichi's stomach, "I'm Ayako's younger sister, and I heard about a gathering of very close friends, so I wanted to attend, so I'm sorry to bother you today."
Conan's attention wasn't really on the introductions.
His attention was almost entirely on Ichijō Mirai, and he was still thinking about the keyword 'express' and why it was related to Suzuki Sonoko, and was reminded of it by Mouri Ran's pinching of his finger sockets before he casually opened his mouth, "My name is..."
"Ahem, ahem," He said, "My name is Conan!"
"Edogawa Conan!"
Children are always the cutest when they're not being mischievous, and adults tend to take pity on them.
Conan wasn't misbehaving now, so everyone smiled kindly at him.
Suzuki Ayako couldn't help but smile as well. After a few laughs, she realized that everyone had already introduced themselves, and that no one else was going to introduce themselves, so she was a little disappointed, "Have you already introduced yourself?"
"Atsuko..."
"Well, if that hadn't happened, Atsuko would be here today."
The name seemed to be a subtle signal, and the expressions of the movie club changed to varying degrees.
The one who reacted the most violently was Ikeda Chikako, who stood up straight away and slammed her hand on the table, "Don't mention that name again, okay!"
She clenched her teeth, her chest rising and falling violently, and after a few seconds, she reacted by sitting down and ruffling her short hair, "I've taken time out of my busy schedule to come here, so why don't we talk about something happy? Why don't we talk about happy things? We have to talk about a dead person who died two years ago!"
Takahashi Ryouichi looked at her quietly.
The long-haired Oota Masaru glanced at Ikeda Chikako and snorted, "The
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
With the 'courier' present, he wasn't really interested in the love/hate relationship of the people present, and even less interested in Takahashi Ryouichi's abnormality of whether he was a police officer, a detective, a reporter or a murderer.
Seeing that the atmosphere was getting more and more delicate, and was about to bring up an incident from two years ago, he pressed the back of his neck, and asked Suzuki Sonoko in a low voice, "What are we going to do next, is there any activity?"
Suzuki Sonoko, who was looking blankly at the scene that was about to get loud, caught the sound of Ichijō Mirai's whispered voice and rubbed her earlobe, a little unsure, "Dinner, I guess?"
"Doesn't Mr. Mirai like to argue?"
She put up a hand to the side of her face and said quietly, "There won't be a fight, Sis will stop it."
As expected, Suzuki Ayako soon interrupted the heavy atmosphere that was about to get into a fight, "Alright, alright, it's almost evening now, let's go and prepare dinner."
"Sonoko," she added with a smile, looking over at Suzuki Sonoko, "Why don't you and Mr. Mirai go upstairs and pick up the delivery?"