Head resting comfortably on his hand, sitting outside, he’d watch quietly — apparently not at all concerned about how staring, let alone eaves-dropping, is usually considered rude.
Some young man was asking around about the area, surely another newcomer.
Both the questions and their corresponding answers were all pretty much useless, if you’d ask him, but who was he to judge? Well.
Their ostensible enthusiasm for getting to know the city was, while perhaps charming for some, revolting for him. He’s worn the exhausting entrepreneur smile countless times before, but that didn’t make it any less awful to see. Always gave a cold, rather than likeable impression.
— then again, Clive wasn’t sure what scenario would be more abhorrent. If it’d be genuine eagerness, a genuine interest, looking forward to the “opportunity” of being hurled, kidnapped into a new strange area —- that’s just as horrible, if not worse. A facade at least made logical sense. Hell, he daresay even hope that to be the case; it’d be pitiful otherwise.
Unlike the friendly stranger, Clive’s expression remained indifferent; he saw no point in copying after, and even if he did, it was too late to act as if he cared anyway.
You’d expect they’d take an actual break to think a bit to themselves whilst getting some coffee, not ask someone (especially a random stranger,) to accompany them.
“Hm,” he’d fill the silence with, keeping the same disinterested tone. “If you got a place in mind, I suppose.”
There wasn’t much else to do, so he might as well.
Besides, should he regret it later on, he could easily excuse himself out anytime.
“Oh, wonderful. It turns out that I’ve stumbled upon quite a few options.”
He keeps up the friendly smile even as his response is a bit of a flat joke given how many coffee shops he’d been told about in the past few hours.
This man seems interesting.
Just by how dully he’d been watching Goro’s actions, the detective can guess that either he is quite perceptive and observant--only someone with attention to nuances would kill boredom by witnessing that much of the same thing--or just completely out of it. His reaction to the invitation for coffee ruled out the second possibility quite quickly.
It means he might know something interesting. Or at least have some interesting thoughts.
“How about a place called Little Owl Cafe? It should be close to here.”
