“Considering Kudo lived in Hawaii for a while, it’s surprising to me, too. I’ve never been outside of Japan.” He picked up his chopsticks again to eat. It seemed as if Hakuba was indeed more comfortable speaking English. He supposed he could indulge him. It was good practice, too. Not having anyone to talk to would make his skills rusty. And hearing that Hakuba didn’t think him stupid mollified him. Good. He think he might have hated the Brit then, and that wouldn’t have been a good thing, not at all.
“Anyway, what I meant, since I’m not sure you really understood, is that you should stop focusing on what other people want, and do what you want.” He jabbed his chopsticks in Hakuba’s direction. “Look at yourself. You already look happier by speaking the truth, even if that did involve snapping at me.“
Hakuba raised a brow at the chopsticks in his directions, but managed to smirk in response instead of getting annoyed. "I guess it was… nice to be able to speak my mind for once,” he admitted, glancing down at his own food. He picked up the chopsticks again. “I’m sorry for snapping, but that was really quite rude of you. Shocking, really. I understand what you mean about focusing on your own wants, but I’ve never been able to live that way, do that sort of thing.”
He tried the food, starting with a piece of tentacle, and shook his head while he chewed. “This is good.” The foreign detective looked back at Heiji, tilting his head. “Very good, in fact. But that way of living… I’ve got my father’s reputation to think about. I can’t just go around yelling at people for the way they want to treat me just because I’m different. It’d reflect poorly on him and I won’t have that. I just won’t."
He decided not to comment further on Kudou-senpai’s English. Most of the Japanese people that he associated with could technically speak English, but only in the way that cats could type on keyboards.