Work Text:
“Furuya-san, here’s the paperwork you requested…”
Rei grabs the papers and starts reading through them. Kazami almost leaves the small office before he hears the sigh from his boss. He looks back curiously and sees Furuya burying his head in his hands. Curiosity satisfied for now, he leaves the man with whatever it was that the report showed him.
“Why are they giving me a hard time this time…?” Rei grumbles to himself at the letter included in the paperwork. “What do you mean this is the last time they’ll replace my FD?” he clicks his tongue in annoyance and stands up, intent to leave for the superintendent’s office.
It takes a while before he’s cleared to go in, but he’s eventually led into the private office of Superintendent Kuroda. There, they both stare at each other for a minute before Kuroda’s eyebrow raises at him in question.
“So, what is so important that you have to talk to me face to face?”
“Why are you not allowing me to get my car back?” Rei glares at him.
“Are you not aware this is the third time you have asked us to replace your car this year alone?” Kuroda asks with a hint of incredulity in his tone.
“I used those cars for the benefit of Japan!” he argues back. “I can’t lose my car, or else they’ll get suspicious of me!”
“This comes out of your departmental budget. You know that.”
“Of course I do,” Rei huffs, not liking that he’s being told something as basic as that. “I have it under my special budgeting for various materials we may need for our investigations.”
“Furuya…” Kuroda sighs, rubbing the junction between his brows. “The FD RX-7 is no longer in production… This might be the last time we can get you one.”
That brings Rei to a stop for a minute. “It’s no longer in production?”
“Yes,” Kuroda heaves a long suffering sigh. “If you trash this one again, we will not replace it.”
“This better be tuned to my liking then.” Rei turns to leave, knowing he can’t really fault the superintendent’s logic with that being pointed out to him.
The car that greets Rei when he enters the warehouse is a newly produced RX-7. In other words, it’s still in stock parts and not tuned at all. Rei nearly hisses at the random officer that was tasked to bring him to the new car, but he pulls back his aggression under his usual mask. This guy doesn’t need to know his thoughts.
Once everyone is gone from the warehouse and he’s alone with the car, Rei starts inspecting everything wrong with the car and what needs fixing.
First, the paint was in the wrong shade of white. He lists that down immediately. It’s also missing all the dents and scratches that he now would need to add himself later. The headlights were also the wrong type. He needs to add a different kind of spoiler too…
The list continues to grow the more time he spends with the car. Rei can’t help but be irritated at the amount of work he’ll need to do, but he wants his car back, and he will get it to his standards sooner or later.
Rei enlists Kazami to get him the parts he wants, decidedly disregarding any other work his subordinate has to do. He can spare the time—Kazami’s not a triple agent compared to Rei.
Kazami looks at the list in confusion, but as usual, he doesn’t ask anything. Now that Rei thinks about it, Kazami only ever saw his cars already tuned up. The guy probably doesn’t know what upgrades he’s done to his old FDs.
Thankfully, he only needs Kazami to find him the parts. Rei knows his car like the back of his hand. He doesn’t need help tuning his own car.
Rei dons his Bourbon mask when Vermouth calls him out of the blue. This has always been how their relationship goes, considering he's been relegated into being her gopher (as if she can't just ride that bike of hers around) and subordinate due to his 'success' during the mystery train mission. So now they all think Bourbon is better at working if he's with Vermouth.
As much as he wants to go after anyone who’s spouting such nonsense, he needs to lay low for now after what happened during the IOT terrorism. Rei silently broods while Vermouth sits beside him in his beloved car.
"Say, why does your car feel different today?"
Rei grips the steering wheel a bit tighter, but doesn't react further than that. He's still sure the actress saw it though.
"I just changed the oil, that's why," Rei replies casually.
"Hmm... if you say so."
Vermouth looks out the window with an amused expression. Rei tries to stamp out his frustration at giving something away to the actress. He smiles at her instead.
"I didn't realize you liked my car that much to notice."
"I have been using your car for a while now~ Of course I'd know. Fufu."
The next day, it's someone else who takes notice.
"This is a different car, isn't it?"
Rei groans inside his head. Of course the little detective would know that immediately, considering the old car literally exploded on them mid-air.
"Yes."
"Heh," Conan chuckles with a shrug as he walks around the white RX-7 with fascination. "I guess this is where our taxpayers money goes."
Rei gapes at him in surprise at the comment, but can't deny it because Kuroda also told him that same thing.
“Did you tune it already?” the little detective asks curiously.
“No. I got busy with the cleanup and got called over by that woman. I’ll fix it after my shift at the cafe.”
“You’re working hard, Amuro-no-niichan.” Conan grins at him. “I think you should cherish your car more though…. I heard this type of car’s been discontinued.”
Rei really does groan out at the same news being thrown at him. “You don’t need to tell me that, brat.”
Later that day, Rei hunches over his car’s hood and vows to tune it to his specifics. If one more person reminds him he doesn’t have his car, Rei’s going to lose it.
