Act 1 Scene 2 – 探偵 [Tantei] 'Detective'
After too little sleep and a groggy flight, Conan found himself staring miserably at the ocean. It was barely warm enough to play in yet. With all of the bustle and commotion the Suzuki family and their servants brought, his grand plans for reading his dad's latest novel, which hadn't been published yet, had to go by the wayside. At least it was the off-season, and there weren't crowds of tourists yet. He observed Sonoko playing with the bracelets on her arms. She was on edge, and her grandparents hadn't shown up yet. He shuffled down the beach, following the edge of the water.
The resort was a small, homey one, meant for five or six families at most, with a restaurant by the beach. The forested cove separated the resort from the small tourist-town nearby. The other side of the cove was wilderness, and the kind receptionist girl had cheerfully warned Conan to not wander in it without his "daddy". Mr. Mouri was still sleeping off the booze he'd needed to survive the flight.
There was a tree with low-hanging branches that dipped into the sea in his way. He'd either have to get wet going around it or go through it, and he wasn't wearing swim trunks. He slipped between the leaves, and found himself in a quiet, isolated natural room. He'd have to remember to get the novel out of his pack and go there when he wanted to read. He climbed over a big root, and his foot landed on something that was warm, soft, and definitely not sand. He lost his balance and fell back with a yelp on the sand. His voice wasn't the only one either. A drowsy, dark-skinned head with sun-bleached, tangled hair popped over the wood and loomed over Conan.
"This is my spot. Go find your own!" He was a teen, roughly the age that Conan should be, but perhaps a little younger. He also had a touch of a foreign accent, though he didn't look particularly foreign. Mixed descent, perhaps? His T-shirt was sunbleached, starting to form holes along its seams, and several sizes too large. It once had been green with a logo across the front, but that was long gone now. Oddly, other than the smell of seawater, there wasn't much of a smell coming from him, and his worn out clothing wasn't terribly dirty. He was wearing clothes 'til they fell apart, but still keeping himself groomed somehow.
"I didn't know anyone was here!" Conan snapped back, pulling himself up. His elbow stung, and he flinched.
The boy grabbed Conan's arm, lifting it up to look at the injury. His own arms had tanlines where his shirt-sleeves ended. His hand was skinny, but not all skin and bone, indicating a small but adequate diet. "You're a tourist, right?"
Conan nodded.
"You should get this looked at. Just remember that this tree is my bedroom, and don't tell anyone that I'm sleeping here, okay?"
So he was sleeping here. Living on the beach, a homeless teen, that meant… "Why? Are you a runaway?"
The teen nodded. "Our secret, right?"
Couple that with the foreign accent and… "Are you an illegal?"
He froze and looked down, letting his hair fall over his eyes. Common body language of discomfort, distancing and hiding from one's conversation partner. That could mean the next words out of his mouth would be lies. "Something like that." These could also be a response to perceived aggression, coupled with his age, which meant probably running from abuse. "Why are you-"
"Are you hiding from someone?"
The boy let go of his arm, and vanished behind the branch. Bingo, this one was easy to read.
"I won't tell anyone if you let me come here and read," he said, putting on his sugariest child-impression.
There was no response for a while, and Conan could hear the boy gathering things and putting them in a plastic bag. Finally he clambered over the root, a plastic trash bag with all of his belongings slung over his shoulder, stuffing an inhaler into his pocket with his right hand. "How did you know all that? I don't recognize you. Have we met?"
Conan grinned confidently. "We haven't met before. Your clothes and hair and the fact that you're sleeping here tells me that you're homeless. Your age tells me probably a runaway, and your accent tells me you've been learning Japanese informally through immersion for a few years. I'm Conan Edogawa, a 探偵!"
"A tantei?" the boy asked. "I don't know that word."
"In English, it's 'detective'," Conan said in his best English. As he'd thought, not a formal education in Japanese, and probably not someone who was listening to the news.
"A bit young, aren't you?" the boy replied in English. The accent for the first part sounded American, for the shortened I and cropped T in 'bit', raised A, and heavy shwa in 'young', but the dropped R and distinct T and Y made it sound British.
Conan beamed his cheekiest kid-grin.
The teen stretched out his right hand – scars and callouses from handling rope – probably fishing nets, considering the setting. "I'm Areku. Pleased to meet you," he said, switching back to Japanese. "Do you want me to leave, or will you let me stay here?"
"I'll let you stay here. I just want a quiet place to read."
"And you won't tell anyone about me?"
"About that…" Conan smiled up at the teen. "Maybe if you told me about your problem I could help? I may know people who could help you, perhaps remove the danger or at least help you hide better."
The boy shook his head. "You won't tell anyone about me, right?" His voice was louder, more agitated.
"But-" Conan started in his whiny-kid impression.
"They'd kill you!" he said in English, grabbing Conan's shoulders to make him look directly at into his dark eyes. Then he switched back to Japanese, his voice low. This was fear, genuine fear and anger, perhaps even terror. Though it was possible this was an attempt to scare him away from needling for more information. Or both. "They'd take me back and kill you and anyone that they think knows about me so please! Don't tell anyone."
So, not simple abuse. Had he been kidnapped? A kid escaped from a child-trafficking ring? If the yakuza was involved, he probably had good reason to be scared. Bringing down a child-trafficking ring would be a fun project during vacation.
Author's Note
Have you ever spoken with someone who's speaking English (or your language) as a second language? If you have, you'll notice that the times that they switch back to their own language (called code-switching) aren't when doing the easy phrases, like "hello" or "What?" Code-switching usually happens when the speaker doesn't know how to say something, or isn't confident that they know how to say something. So, when I was writing this scene, I had Areku be competent on normal conversational speech, but confused when it came to specialized vocabulary that he wouldn't be familiar with, like "private eye". Private eyes aren't usually hired to chase off homeless kids, after all.
Another time that code-switching is common is when under stress. When Areku starts panicking that Shinichi will blow his cover, he switches back to English. Luckily, Shinichi is close to bilingual in Japanese and English (as evidenced by him being able to identify James Black's English accent) and is still able to understand him.
You can compare this to Jodie Starling and her attempt to fake difficulty speaking Japanese. She uses a lot of English gap fillers (um, oh yes, okay), but she's able to get across complex concepts and use specialized difficult vocabulary with ease, which is why Shinichi figures out she's faking. Point to Goushou Aoyama for getting this right!
また来週!(See you next week!)
dreamingfifi
