nakamori-aoko reblogged your post and added:

A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, however, in the end it all came to one conclusion: She was nervous. Pretty damn nervous. But why?
Maybe the nasty ring of Kaito’s mean voice still rang in her ears when she told her best friend about the ‘date’. Aoko of course knew very well that Hakuba-kun just askd her due to the fact that they were close friends and nothing more. Actually. But somehow she was puzzled as to why the detective hadn’t asked out Akako-chan. At all events, Kaito made fun of both of them again and didn’t seem to care much that Aoko went out with his arch enemy. Even if she didn’t want to admit it: It bothered the brown haired girl a lot. Why wasn’t this idiot ever jealous? Didn’t he really care at all…?

Nonetheless, now the heart of the teenage girl wouldn’t stop to pound like hell. Of course among other things it was due to the fact that some killer maybe attended this party. Even though Aoko felt quite safe besides the blonde detective, this fact creeped her out a bit.
Saguru and her had a long conversation about his plan, how he would act, what she could do, how they should appear on the scene and so on. It was a pretty detailed schedule. But still – there was another thing which still bothered her:
Did it have some special meaning to him that he had asked her out? Or what could have been his motives? Maybe Ao would find out later. Hopefully.

First of all she had to be concentrated. It wasn’t like the casual parties she had attended before. It was kind of a fancy event and so Aoko had to dress up properly which means: A noble evening gown, uncomfortable high heels and a stupid, senseless but also cute bag, which of course matched with the colour of the gown.

When Hakuba squeezed her, Aoko faintly sighed. “Yeah…”, she answered brusquely and nodded. With his hand on her back, it felt quite bearable for her to deal properly with this unknown situation. Some people immediately glanced over to them, observed the new arrivals and – wasn’t that her father over there, at the bar … already drunk?
“Oh, Hakuba-kun! Why not go over there, huh?”, Aoko promptly said with a flustered, laughing voice, took the detective’s hand and tugged him to the buffet. “Wow, look at that selection of… food I guess I’ve never seen before… Uh…” Mentally the young woman felt extremly embarrassed, once because of her father, once because of her own ungraceful behaviour.

Hakuba could only smile, hoping that his winning charm and natural finesse at this sort of thing would compensate for any of his companion’s awkwardness. To the food, he merely glanced over the spread before turning his attention back to the room as a whole, dark eyes scanning the occupants with curious, and hopefully subtle, criticism.

“Yes, these sorts of events have a large budget for catering… they’re able to get quite a lot of good quality food with an insanely good price due to bulk cuts and favors among networks…”  He explained the ins and outs out of habit, mostly, attempting to keep some sort of conversation going while he profiled everyone around them, recognizing some faces, but not others.

“…in the end, the caterer makes a good deal of money, and the host – especially when it’s an auction – makes a considerable amount more because fine food and an open bar tends to make people feel like they can spend more money…”

He gave a nod in Nakamori-keibu’s direction, noting the drunkeness. Well, that would make things a little easier, at least. Unfortunate that he would be embarrassing himself so early into the night, and his daughter, but it would let the young detective get his work done. 

Finally, he looked back to Aoko with a simply little smile. “They call it the Mickey Mouse Effect, or temporary Hyperinflation… you see it all the time at tourist traps, where bottles of water are absurdly expensive, which makes the overpriced garbage you can purchase seem much more reasonable in comparison. After all, you must have water, and if water at its base is x, then x is the minimal expense you should expect.”

Hakuba paused, then, looking back to the food with a tilt of his head. “Oh, they do have crab cakes, though… and it looks like it’s legitimate crab, too, not imitation. That’s rather nice, isn’t it?”