Act 1 Scene 3 – 帰りたい家 [Kaeritai Ie] 'Home to Return to'
"Okay, I won't tell anyone. But don't the people around here already know you?"
Areku let go of Conan's shoulders and slumped against the root. "You're a really nosey kid. You're not going to drop this, are you?"
Grinning, Conan shook his head.
"Fine." The teen wasn't meeting his eyes. He probably was going to try to lie again. "I'm an orphan, got adopted by some nasty, very powerful people who hurt me, and I ran away. If they find me I'll have to go back, and I don't want to. That's all you need to know. Happy?"
The story was vague enough that it was probably true, but it was too vague to be of any use. Conan pouted. "I figured that part out already. What's your original nationality?"
"Don't you need to get your scrape looked at?" Areku snapped. Evading the question.
"You're English is really hard to place. At first I thought you're an American, but then it sounded more British. Where did you learn English?"
Areku grabbed Conan's hand. "I'm either taking you back to the resort for some first aid, or to the doctor. The people at the resort have caught me sorting through their trash a few too many times, so they really don't like me. The doctor is a nice person though, and she helps me out a lot. I'd rather take you there, if you don't mind."
"Okay," Conan said, letting himself be walked into the forest. "Where did-"
"India, okay? I was born in a small village along the border between Pakistan and Tibet that doesn't exist anymore, and I learned English in India. Happy?" He glanced sideways at Conan, observed him for a moment, then sighed. "You're never going to be satisfied, are you?"
"Nope!" Cheeky-kid impression again. "Did you spend a lot of time in the US? My parents are there right now, and I go back and forth a lot. That's why, when I speak English, it sounds American. England-English is a little difficult to understand sometimes."
His eyebrows raised. "Your parents aren't here?"
"Nope! I've been living with friends of the family for the past two years, actually. I'm with them here."
"You should be careful," Areku said suddenly. "Kids on their own are often seen as disposable, especially by people who aren't directly related to them."
"Ran and Uncle Kogorou would never dispose of me," Conan retorted. "I'm Ran's little brother now; and she'd never let Uncle Kogorou throw me away."
"Okay, okay, sorry I said anything." He'd effectively evaded the topic of himself, Conan realized. This one was easy to read, but slippery.
They stopped at a picket fence that hadn't been treated by any stains or paint, and therefore had become quite broken down and clearly rotted through in places.
Areku crouched by a hole and twisted aside one of the panels to make enough room to squeeze through. He beckoned to Conan.
"There's some things you should know, just to make sure everything goes smoothly. My name in town is Areku Kusanagi." A common surname, coupled with a weird first name. Researching him would be difficult, especially if they didn't know the Kanji, or Chinese characters, for his first name.
"Okay. I won't say anything to get you in trouble."
"Thanks."
They crawled through the opening, into a small Japanese garden that was slightly overgrown. Dead leaves floated in the artificial pool.
"Areku," Conan whispered. Areku was peeking through a window into the house. "Are you sure you're allowed to do this?"
Areku smiled, and tapped on the glass. "Just checking to make sure she's not busy."
The window slid open with little noise, as though it had been opened often. A woman in her forties stuck her head out. "Alec dear? I thought I gave you enough medication for a whole month. Ah," she noticed Conan. "Who's this? Why don't you introduce me?"
"Dr. Fumika Nishiyama, this is Conan Edogawa. He fell and hurt his arm at the beach."
"Oh dear," she said, sighing. "Come on in, and I'll fix that up for you." Her head vanished from Conan's sight, and the window closed. Areku led the way to the back door.
"Alec dear?" Conan asked. "So Areku is Alec in English?"
Areku blushed. "Yeah, she knows my English name. She treats me like a son."
This doctor was probably responsible for Areku's good health and relative cleanliness. She may have been letting him wash his clothes and take bathes at the clinic, and slipping him the inhaler he needed.
The door slid open, and she waved them in. There was a staircase going up that was corded off, likely leading to her living quarters. She led them to a small room on the ground floor with a cot in it, and gathered some bandaids and disinfectant from a cupboard.
"So, Mr. Edogawa, have you met Alec before?" she asked smiling as she gently cleaned the scrape.
"He was amazing," Areku interrupted. "He was able to figure out all about me just by seeing me for a few minutes! He's a tantei."
"Oh really?" her eyebrows arched. "Boy, you know how to keep secrets, right?" Her tone was suddenly sharp.
Conan nodded. "Areku told me I shouldn't tell anyone about him, so I won't. I'm really good at keeping secrets."
"Be careful about being too nosey. That can get you into trouble."
He wasn't certain if that was a threat or not, but Alec said, "Don't worry about me Dr. Fumika. He's just a little kid, and I'm letting him hang out in my tree in exchange for his silence."
"I already know about being careful where I stick my nose," Conan interjected. "Whatever it is really scares Areku, so I know it should scare me too."
The doctor began applying the antiseptic. "Good. Then maybe you could convince this fine young man to let me make him my son?"
Areku looked down, and didn't say anything.
"I agree," Conan said. "He should live with you. He'd be safer that way. Whoever is looking for him won't think to look in families; they'll probably look for people living alone. Also, he could help out with the things that make your back hurt."
Areku bolted and vanished through the hole in the picket fence.
Dr. Nishiyama sighed. "He'll come around eventually. As soon as he figures out they aren't after him anymore."
"Do you know who they are?" Conan asked.
"No," she said. "He never told me. I think though," she paused. "I think I shouldn't tell you anything else. If he gets too frightened, he'll pull a vanishing act for me too." She laid the bandaid over the scrape, and patted it. "All done. Do you know your way home?"
Conan nodded. "If I go through the back fence, I can follow the trail to the tree-house, and from there I'll follow the shore back to the resort."
"I'll lead him back," Areku said from the doorway. His eyes were a little red, and he kept them fixed on the ground.
"Good. Don't let him get lost!"
"Yes ma'am," he said quietly, and held out his hand for Conan to grab.
As they ambled through the woods, taking a different shortcut to the restaurant, Conan tried to break the silence. "Sorry, if I pushed too much."
"It's okay. I know you just want to help."
"I just don't know why you won't move in with that nice lady. She likes you a lot."
"Truth is," Areku said, "I'd really like to stay here, and live with her as her son. But I can't stay anywhere for too long. If I did, I'd be putting her in danger. Also there's all of that paperwork, and I'd have to explain where I came from. That alone might alert them to where I am."
"You think they're in the government?" Conan asked.
"I don't know that, but being in the government's structure makes it easier for them to find me. If I'm homeless, and not part of the system, I don't have a paper trail for them to find me."
Conan looked down, studying the ground, wishing he had a soccer ball to help him muddle through his emotions. He could have done something like that too. Perhaps Ran and everyone else he loved and cared for could be a lot safer. But, he couldn't passively hide. He had to take the offensive. If they weren't stopped, they'd keep tearing apart people's lives, and there was no way he could live with that. "Isn't that the same as letting them win?" Conan turned his face up, looking right at the teen's brown face. "What if they hurt other people, because you don't do anything?"
Areku shook his head, eyes also downcast. "I don't have that kind of power. Besides, governments and crime syndicates, there isn't much difference between them. It'd be just as dangerous for me to fall into their hands. It's better for everyone if I live quietly, out of sight."
"That makes no sense." Conan kept staring up at the teen's face, but Areku kept his eyes averted. Conan was getting angry. "How could it be better for everyone if they're still hurting people?"
"It's not your decision. You know nothing about my situation."
"Then explain it!"
"No." Areku refused to speak the rest of the way back.
Author's Note
I love naming things. I have this huge website devoted to it: realelvish dot net. There's a story behind every name I come up with.
アレク - Areku. If you've heard a lot of Japanese names, you may have noticed that this one sounds a little off… a little weird. That's because it's not a Japanese name, as we discovered in this scene. Areku started out as Alex, which is really difficult for Japanese speakers to wrap their tongues around. It'd end up sounding something like this: Arekkusu. So, Alex cut the S off the name, making it Alec. But, there was another force at play – Alec's own lack of competency in Japanese. Being new to it, he couldn't hear the double consonant (something that English lacks), and he said his name "Areku" instead of "Arekku". After a while, it stuck.
草薙 - Kusanagi. Generic. Bland. Common. Not as bad as Nakamura, but pretty boring. Kinda like "Anderson". He chose this name after being much more fluent in Japanese, probably off of someone he met while bumming rides from island to island. Ironically, it means something like "mowing down the enemy like grass". Not a fitting name for this cowering child, but definitely something appealing to a teenage boy's desire to be badass.
西山 – Nishiyama. It means "western mountain". Her family is from the mountains that form the spine of mainland Japan. She moved down south to the islands after going to school.
文香 - Fumika. Because she was the second child, her name has "fu" in it, a play on the Japanese number "futatsu". It's common for Japanese names to have puns based on their birth order or their date of birth. You'll notice this in the name "Shinichi" too. He's his parents' first child, and his name has the number 1 – "ichi" in it.
A number rarely found in Japanese names is the number 4, because it's considered unlucky. This is because one of the pronunciations of the number is "shi" which sounds like the word for "death" – 死. I don't know if this is intentional or not, by Shinichi's name can be a pun for "death-day" (or "fourth day", seeing as his birthday is May 4th), if you divide the words "shi-nichi" instead of "shin-ichi." One pun I know is intentional is having Shinichi be read as "one truth", which matches the character nicely.
You also won't see the number 9 (ku) referenced in names often, because it sounds like the word for "suffering" - 苦.
Next time you're reading/watching a piece of Japanese literature, have a little fun and research the names. You'll never know what crazy layers of puns you'll find!
また来週！(See you next week!)
dreamingfifi