Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"I've only been away for about a month, and you've already messed up the office like this?"

Yuuji walked into the chief's office carrying two boxes, looked at the kitchen counter and chopping board next to the tatami, and was speechless at Minami Masamune who was wrapped in a housewife's robe.

It was a nice chief's office, but what was placed in the center was not a map or a book of unsolved cases, but a refrigerator, and there was a temporary kitchen next to it.

"I got up early in the morning to make breakfast for you!"

The old man was very unhappy with Yuuji's complaints, but he raised an eyebrow when he saw the box the boy handed over.

"Well, I guessed it, so I brought a gift for grandpa."

When he opened the box, he found that it was an expensive painting, which was just what Nan Zhengzong liked. He wiped it on his kitchen clothes, walked to the desk with the box in his arms, and began to appreciate it carefully.

"Really? Don't come here in the middle of cooking."

Yuji put the other box on the coffee table, walked to the pot and lifted the lid. He looked at the stewed fish in it, and found the pickles in a small dish on the table and the miso soup in another pot.

It is really a very Japanese style cuisine. The Japanese don’t have buns or something like that for breakfast like the Chinese do. There is actually not much difference between breakfast and lunch. At most, lunch is a little more sumptuous.

If you don't eat Western-style food, stew, white rice and miso soup are common breakfasts in many families, but of course the Kudo family never eats that way.

"This stew...is very similar to what we had in Kyoto."

"Of course, this is what Yoshimoto had brought here after he made it."

That sharp auntie, she should be managing the Minami House in Kyoto with the housekeeper now. Yuji scooped up a piece of Chikuzen-ni with a spoon and carefully observed the ingredients inside.

"You can eat it without worry. Yoshimoto guessed that you would like to eat it, so he replaced the original chicken with beef."

Satisfied with putting away the calligraphy and paintings, Minami Masamune put the box into the cabinet behind him and asked Yuuji to serve the food into the utensils.

"Seven servings in total? Are there so many people who want to eat?"

The boy calculated in his mind: "Kaori and uncle are coming?"

"It's rare for the whole family to have a meal together. Although the place where we eat isn't that great, I don't want to go home recently, so I can only ask them to come over to eat."

Minami Masamune's temporary residence in Tokyo is bigger than the Kudo family's, but certainly not as good as the old house in Kyoto. Now that his son and daughter-in-law live there, he is reluctant to go there, for fear of encountering something bad in the reception room again.

"So I asked Dequan to convert the office next door into a room, and now I sleep directly there."

"Oh!" Yuji stopped serving the food and turned his head to blink: "Then you changed my office too?"

Ever since the office incident, the boy almost never went to the top floor of the Police Department building. Apart from anything else, he always felt a little heartbroken when he saw the big office that originally belonged to him.

"Your office? Oh! You mean the original toilet!" Nan Zhengzong suddenly realized.

“I changed it back to the toilet.”

The corners of Mr. Kudo's mouth that were raised were pressed down again. He continued to serve the dishes silently, not wanting to pay any more attention to the old man.

The grandfather and grandson didn't have to wait long before the family of three arrived at the office door. When they noticed the old man dressed as a cook, the three of them tacitly shut their mouths and looked at the table.

[As expected...it's a pre-made stew. 】

Minami Kazuma was wearing a blue plaid kimono. He could tell from the smell in the air that it was Aunt Yoshimoto's Chikuzen-niboshi. She must have eaten too much. Yuuji rarely saw a look of disgust on Kaori's father's face, but he quickly hid it.

"There are two more people. The family is all here. Please take a seat first."

Minami Masamune pulled off the chef's coat covering his kimono, took the initiative to sit at the main seat at the low long table on the tatami, and waited for others to sit down on both sides.

The side closest to the door was considered the lower seat. Yuji glanced at the old man and sat cross-legged at the front of the lower seat, while Kaori knelt beside him. The two juniors could not sit in the upper seat. Even if the old man loved them, the rules could not be broken. It was unlikely that the young men would be able to sit in the upper seat in the Nan family except for the first time they visited.

Opposite them, Minami Hezhen gave up the seat next to his father and chose to sit in the second seat, and Minami Yuriko sat in the third seat. As long as Tokuquan would dine with them, Minami Hezhen would let him sit in her seat.

"If there are two seats left, it should be that child."

Looking at the old man who was stirring natto, Nan Hezhen put his hands on his knees and said, "Father, you didn't really call us here just for dinner, did you?"

"Well, of course not."

Putting the natto on the new rice, Minami Masamune stirred it with chopsticks: "Just checking your recent schedule."

After exchanging a glance with his wife, Nan Hezhen said softly, "We are going to Changzhou, China. There will be an art exhibition soon."

"how long?"

"About twenty days."

"Remember to fly directly to Tokyo when you come back, don't run around."

Nodding, Minami Masamune ignored his son and daughter-in-law and looked at Yuuji and Kaori. He hadn't asked them before, but now this kid definitely couldn't fool him.

"There is a national kendo tournament in Hokkaido." Yuuji turned around and faced Minami Masamune: "Hattori-senpai is going to participate, so Ran-san, Conan, me, Yuzuki and Kaori are going to cheer him on."

"Oh, the National Kendo Tournament..." Minami Masamune lowered his head and thought for a while, then raised his hand and pointed at Yuuji and asked, "It's the one in Hakodate, right?"

"Well, no one else is going, just the five of us, plus Uncle Maori."

Nan Zhengzong looked interested and said, "If I were a few decades younger, I would also go and participate once."

"You should try to participate in a Japanese painting competition, kendo or something. It would be bad if you hurt your painting hands."

Minami Masamune snorted and flicked Yuuji's forehead hard, "If you go, just enjoy the game. There have been a lot of messy people in Hakodate recently."

Knowing that Osaka's Kaikata Academy was going to participate in the National Kendo Tournament, Minami Masamune had long guessed that this kid would probably go and secretly prepared bodyguards in advance.

"It's better for the three of you to go. The two girls shouldn't go. As for Ms. Maori, there shouldn't be anything to worry about..."

[So there must be something wrong with Hakodate, right…]

While the two were talking, Tokuizumi, who had brought Rize and Miyanoshita upstairs, had already entered the office after knocking on the door.

"Ok?"

Everyone at the table saw the two children following Rize, and Minami Masamune's eyes narrowed again as he saw Tokuzumi sweating.

"Oh~"

[How did you bring these two people here? ]

After receiving the test report, they checked with the doctor who conducted the test. Nan Zhengzong and Dequan naturally knew that these two people were not real children.

"Well, since we have guests, let's sit down and have breakfast."

When Rize saw Kaori calling her, she obediently sat down next to her mother, while Tokuizumi nervously walked to the old man. For the sake of the guests, the seated people moved back a seat, so that the Miyanoshitas sat next to Minami Masamune.

"So you can go back now."

The moment the office door closed, the Nan couple, who had been kicked out, began to feel their stomachs growl. (End of this chapter)