Okay, so this is the continuation of the 'Hats' thing. Personally I hate my writing style so I'm not even going to comment about how I felt reading both of these over. But I will say that both the thing about hats and the subject of Conan and Ai's skills regarding English are things I find quite interesting… So I wrote about them. I'm so sad.

Just to clarify: Italics means they're speaking in English. Though if you couldn't pick that up on your own I'll just have to assume that the human race is, indeed, doomed.

-File 5-
Eigo ("英語")
In which we learn about foreign languages.

"… You want us to tell you about our old schools?" Conan said, looking vaguely surprised. It was lunchtime and the five members of the Shonen Tantei had gathered themselves around Conan and Ai's desk to eat.

"Yeah! We heard Ai-chan saying that the new traffic hats made her feel 'nostalgic', and Mitsuhiko-kun said that he knew that meant remembering things from a long time ago, so we knew that Ai-chan must have gone to a school that had hats just like ours!" Ayumi beamed proudly, her two friends grinning equally widely on either side of her. Since talking about it in the hallway the thought had occurred to them that figuring out exactly what Ai had been talking about was (in a way) detective work, and the realisation had boosted their egos to a point of near-bursting.

"As expected from the Shonen Tantei…" Conan muttered, laughing nervously. A league of future super-detectives… What the hell had he created?

"I'm surprised you knew that, Tsuburaya-kun. Good job." Ai said, looking up from her rice. Mitsuhiko turned bright red and hid his face, stammering about it being 'nothing, nothing at all!' Ai carefully placed her chopsticks in their carrier and steepled her fingers in thought. "Hmm… My school. Well, we had about the same teachers, but a few less students. And we wore uniforms, though a bit different from the ones here."

"How were they different?" Ayumi asked. She seemed positively glowing to be getting some history out of Ai-chan after all this time.

"Well… They were more formal, I suppose. And warmer, since it was cold there." (1) Ai shrugged and picked up her chopsticks. "But, aside from that, they weren't much different from Japanese ones. All schools are fundamentally the same, anyway."

The kids muttered a collective "Oh." as she went back to eating her rice. Since she didn't seem to be offering much more on the subject, Ayumi turned to Conan.

"And Conan-kun?"

"Ah! Oh.. Uh… I… Guess mine was pretty much the same as here…" He stammered. The complete irony of being asked to describe attending a school he was currently sitting in was a bit too much at the moment. He wisely avoided further conversation by stuffing his mouth full of tuna. Ai smirked from behind a bite of rice.

"American schools are like Japanese ones. It's not really very interesting to talk about." Ai said, uncharacteristically coming to the rescue. Conan looked relieved, making a mental note to repay her later. Son of the great actor Yukiko he may have been, but Shinichi had never really been one for making up stories. Apparently he had failed to inherit those genes from his novelist father.

"Well that's boring!" Genta exclaimed. "Geez, and here I thought we were on to something cool…"

"We got to hear about Ai-chan's uniform, that's good right?" Ayumi smiled. Though from her expression it was plain that she was a bit disappointed as well.

"Hey… There's something I've always been wondering." Mitsuhiko spoke up, saving the Shonen Tantei from becoming mired in their own unsatisfied curiosity. "You two know English, right? Why don't you guys ever speak it to each other?"

Conan blinked. It was true, both he and Ai spoke English fluently. But he'd never really thought about speaking to her in the language before. Though now that he considered it, a lot of their conversations could go far more smoothly and with a lot less staring under the guise of two foreign students conversing…

"I guess we've just never had to." He shrugged, and turned a sidelong glance at Ai. She looked up momentarily to the curious faces of their little group, then turned to Conan with a sigh.

"Hello Conan, how has your day been?" She said in a monotone. Her English was accented, probably from her upbringing in England. Mitsuhiko and the others gaped openly at the simple sentence.

"Uh… Just great, I guess." Conan replied. The long-unused language felt odd in his mouth… He was probably getting rusty.

"Excellent." Ai replied, and turned back to her meal. The Shonen Tantei were positively gawking at them now. Conan deadpanned. Honestly, why were they always so amazed by these things?

"Woooow! It's true! You really can speak English!" Ayumi squealed.

"Did you think we couldn't?" Conan asked exasperatedly. For goodness sake, they'd been on cases where they'd had to translate and understand English before! Hadn't that been proof enough?

"Well you just never seemed like you really could." Mitsuhiko said.

"Yeah we thought maybe you'd forgot!" Genta chimed in. Conan glared. Forgotten English! He'd grown up with the language!

"I didn't forget it." He said indignantly.

"Well you've been speaking Japanese ever since we met you. Except for English class it's like you don't know anything!" Genta taunted.

Conan glared at him and turned to Ai. "Hey, Haibara. Maybe we should just speak in English for the rest of the day, to piss them off." He said, grinning at Genta's irritated expression.

"I really don't see how that's worth the trouble." She muttered back. Her accent really was odd. Something like British slapped through a Japanese blender. Though, he supposed his must be weird, too. Much as he'd hate to admit it, Genta was right. He'd been speaking solely Japanese for several years now, and the random phone calls from his parents' friends here and there didn't really constitute much practice. He just hoped he hadn't forgotten too many pronunciations…

"Hey! Don't start talking in English now! We believe you can do it, really!" Ayumi squeaked.

"They wouldn't be able to overhear our conversations and ask us about annoying things anymore." Conan pointed out. The kids were getting a bit indignant now. It was rather amusing to watch.

"Point taken."

"You guys!" Mitsuhiko whined, "I didn't mean I wanted you to prove yourselves! Just speak Japanese already!"

"They really do get worked up about things quickly, don't they? " Ai muttered. She quirked an eyebrow in interest as the children rapidly built upon their anxiety. Did it really bother them this much to be left out of things?

"They're probably saying mean things right in front of us!" Genta yelled. Conan, of course, took that as a direct invitation.

"Genta is a big, loud kid who doesn't know when to keep his nose out of other people's business." He grinned mischievously. Genta bristled.

"See? See? I heard my name, he's talking about me! Conan you better not be saying I'm fat 'cause I'll beat your brains in! I will!"

"Genta, jeez! You are fat!" Mitsuhiko said. Genta blinked down at him.

"You think I'm fat?" He muttered, crestfallen.

"Ahh… I mean.." The smaller boy stammered. Fortunately he was quickly saved by Ayumi.

"- but that's what makes you Genta! If you weren't eating all the time how would you be big and strong to protect us?" She gave him her cutest, prettiest look and was instantly forgiven by the furiously blushing boy. Mitsuhiko gave her a look like she had just saved his life.

Ai laughed quietly. "Good save." She indicated to the nervously giggling Ayumi. Conan grinned too, though mostly for the fact that Ai was actually playing along with his 'let's-speak-english' game. He didn't think she'd stand for such annoyances.

"She's got the gift."

"A woman's touch."

"A bit like a few other girls I know. Eh, miss crybaby?"

"I only did that to throw off Megure's suspicions."

"Riiight…"

"Man, won't you guys stop doing that?" Mitsuhiko frowned at his 'foreign' friends, both of whom paused in conversation and looked at him innocently. Who knew taunting small children could be so fun? "We didn't mean to say you forgot, really! You can go back now!"

"Conan-kun, use Japanese!" Ayumi whined, turning her cutest, most appealing face upon Conan now instead of Genta. Conan, however, had been around Sonoko far too long to let that work on him. He just grinned.

"How long, do you think, until they try to beat us up?" He asked. Ai smiled into her drink.

"I think they can stand a few more minutes. Besides, studies show that exposing children to foreign languages at an early age can greatly improve their chances of success in later life."

"Awesome. We'll tell them we're doing them a favour once they can understand what the hell we're saying."

"Agreed."

---

Don't you find it a bit awkward to be talking about characters speaking foreign languages while writing in that language? It's always seemed a little ironic to me. Ah, well. No way to get around it I suppose.

Two things to clarify:
(1) In the manga Ai mentions a few times that her father was Japanese, and her mother was British. She also mentions in the 'Class 1-Bs Big Adventure' case that she remembers her papers being graded by the Japanese point system. Thus I have concluded that she spent some of her childhood in English schools, and some of it in Japanese ones. And we're going to go with that. So, here she's explaining about British uniforms while trying to pass it off as American, and Conan is just being an idiot.

(2) In chapter 18-8 Megure yells at Ai for shooting a gun at a suspect and she starts crying. That's what they're referencing when Conan calls her a crybaby.

Next file: Pi-ta-go-ra Sui-cchi! (Yaaay!)