Oh, so he wanted to switch back to Japanese? Well, that was fine with him, and Katsura-han might be interested, too. “TV an’ radio, pretty much. Mostly news. There’re a lotta fun American movies an’ programs out there, an’ I jus’ kept studyin’ ‘til I not only could understand ‘em, but recite ‘em an’ know what I was sayin’. Readin’s a different story.“ He chuckled fondly at the memory. “Picked up an Ellery Queen book at th’ library an’ fell in love. Got th’ English versions an’ didn’t stop ‘til I could understand those, too.” He dropped his chin on his hand, thinking. “Was also when I decided ta be a detective, instead’v a cop, come ta think’v it.“ Yes, that was definitely one of his, if not the most, defining moments in his childhood. He owed a lot to Ellery Queen, another reason why he defended the author duo above Conan Doyle.
"S’a tough language ta learn,” he admitted. “A lotta th’ letters don’t have a set pronunciation, so s’almost like ya have ta speak a word ‘fore ya can read it.“ Well, he learned how to speak the language before reading, so it was easy for him to match up written words with what he knew. It might work differently for other people. And it wasn’t like he had to know the pronunciation of a word, but he was a bit of a perfectionist and needed to know both definition and pronunciation. He’d had to extensively study the dictionary and memorize the International Phonetic Alphabet in order to do that, but at least his knowledge of the IPA helped with other languages.
Th-that… That was adorable. Even Hakuba couldn’t deny it. It made the smile on the foreign detective’s face decidedly fond.
"I’m impressed,” Hakuba said, continuing on in Japanese. “That’s quite the story. You’re rather good at it, Hattori-san. You could easily be an interpreter.” He chuckled after that, because he knew very well that that was not Heiji’s chosen career path, and amended his statement. “I’m certain that it helps on cases. Being fluent in both has certainly helped me, at any rate."
He picked up his own tea and drank from it, deciding to stop while he was ahead and let the locals converse while he listened. Bulldozing Katsura-san would undo all of the repair they’d started.
