日本語 101
Japanese 101

Baka 馬鹿 means Stupid / Idiot 
Uso 嘘 means Lie
Chan ちゃん means little one, an honorific usually reserved for children or people who are close friends or family members
San さん means Mr, Mrs, A universally to address people out of respect 
Kun 君 means an honorific for senior to address junior (When addressing female)
Kareshi 彼氏 means Boyfriend
Mou もう means an expression of lament/complaint
Onii-chan お兄ちゃん means Older Brother
Itai 痛い means Pain
Boku wa anata no kareshi desu 僕はあなたの彼氏です  means I am your boyfriend
Kanojo 彼女 means Girlfriend

 “Aoyama Sho! Where are you?” Kindaichi Hajime called out in exasperation as he tried to peek inside the room to locate the young profiler, but all that he could see was a sea of papers scattered all over the place. If he did not know the young profiler, he could have sworn that Typhoon Vongfong had entered this room without his notice and left behind a messy trail of papers as its calling card instead of sweeping past Okinawa and Kyushu as reported in the news.

But it was not was the work of Typhoon Vongfong. It was simply the usual after-effects of having Typhoon Aoyama Sho kept inside the room for some time. 

“You called Kindai-Baka?” The voice of Aoyama Sho came from behind a large pile of documents but she was still out of his sight.

Attempting to balance the huge parcel he had just received on behalf of Aoyama Sho and following the source of her voice at the same time, Kindaichi Hajime also faced the challenge of having to make his way through the improvised makeshift obstacle course inside her room.

'It's incredible how she could stay in a room with all these messes,' Kindaichi Hajime shook his head in disbelief.

But as messy as it looked, the state of messy could also be considered an art of Science to others. Kindaichi had experienced it because before Aoyama came along, he had no idea how messiness too has a system. No matter how he tried to clean up for her, the objects would return to their original spot the next time he sees them again.

So it did seem that what appeared to be a mess to people, was actually a carefully planned arrangement made by Aoyama Sho. This was how no matter what was changed, the young profiler was still able to return them to their place. This was the only logical answer Kindaichi Hajime would accept and not the Ghost theory which Aoyama Sho suggested with a smirk to him.

If he had to describe the state of her room, it would be best said that it was as though he was visiting the Science Museum, walking through some unknown pathway leading to an unspecified theme exhibition. As a visitor entering the strange room, he was greeted with endless paper with the long formula written on them; mechanical toys-like devices and strange looking models which she had managed to assemble with Lego bricks.

There was only one theme in this exhibition and that chosen theme would be order in the eyes of the beholder. Because only Aoyama Sho could make sense of everything in the mess, and gather whatever she needed from the room in a flash when she requires them. It was difficult for anyone else to retrieve an item from the room without Aoyama's guidance.

According to the young profiler, the room was where she could live and breathe freely inside. Anywhere else out of this theme, was a torture for the young profiler, as she claimed that it would limit her freedom and affect her ability to even breathe.

Kindaichi Hajime felt that her claims might have been largely exaggerated but since it has been documented that all geniuses were bound to have some strange quirks, hence he would simply take it as another characteristic which is uniquely Aoyama.  

Taking a second glance carefully around the room, he tried to guess where the young profiler could be hiding this time. And it would have been easy to miss Aoyama Sho among all the mess in the room if she had not been bouncing on her legs as she remained half hidden under her bed.

“What are you doing?” Kindaichi Hajime almost laughed at the sight of spotting how the upper half of the body of Aoyama Sho was hidden under the bed like a child who is hiding from punishment while she continued to bounce her legs up and down laying down on the pieces of papers. It was one of the strangest sights Kindaichi Hajime has ever seen and he could not figure out whether the young profiler was trying to hide under her bed or attempting to swim in her room of papers or releasing excess nervous energy?  

"Nothing! I am doing nothing." The young profiler replied with a tone of defensiveness in it while still refusing to face Kindaichi as she denied it.

"You are doing nothing under your bed? Somehow I doubt that…" With a tone of full of doubtfulness, as Kindaichi Hajime bent down to greet the young profiler teasingly, he saw the reason she was trying to hide under the bed. With only the light from the screen of her trusty laptop to illuminate her guilty as charged look, Kindaichi Hajime tried to resist his urge to laugh at her hand caught in a cookie’s jar expression and joked, “Why do you look so guilty? Are you doing something illegal which you feel that you need to hide from people?”

“Not really…” Aoyama Sho tried to drawl confidently but her occasional not so subtle glances back to the screen of her laptop told a different story instead, “I was just doing some testing on a website.”

“Testing on a website?” Eyeing her laptop suspiciously, Kindaichi Hajime did not hesitate to grab the evidence from the scene of the crime without warning and studied it briefly before staring hard at the girl.

The young profiler, who was back to dressing in her usual Aoyama Sho oversized shirts and faded old jeans, had crawled out of the bed and stared back at him nonchalantly with the air of a cool criminal.

To his amusement, the young profiler even had the arrogance to raise her eyebrows at him with a challenging “So what will you do” look despite being caught in the act.

'Someday you will be the death of me,' Kindaichi Hajime sighed aloud at the sight of her tilted chin stubborn look and knew instantly that she would not listen to him no matter what he said, “Sho-chan, please tell me you did not just hack into the school system and website.”

“Ok, Kindai-Baka, I did not just hack into the school system and website,” Aoyama Sho smirked playfully while intentionally replying as per Kindaichi requested.

When faced with Kindaichi's silent raising eyebrows  'Oh Really?' look, the young profiler shrugged her shoulders and explained herself, “I did tell you I was just doing some testing and decided to run a test on the school system security to verify. As far as I am concerned, this is NOT HACKING but a very important test for the school.”

Rolling his eyes, Kindaichi Hajime sighed again loudly, "Tell me Sho-chan, what I should do with you?"

“Just pretend that you never saw this?” Aoyama Sho suggested with an easy grin, “Akagi-san never questioned how I get the data, only wanted to know what the result I have gotten is.”

Staring speechlessly at the young profiler, Kindaichi Hajime supposed he had just received the one confession which could confirm that the myth of S.T. members’ disregards for rules was true as he had gotten it straight from the horse's mouth.

Words have it that they were named the Monster Unit for a reason. Not simply because of the two monsters-like geniuses in the team, but the simple reason that they were impossible to control and had no regards for any rules and regulations at all! It did not help that their leader, Akagi Samon was also infamous for disregarding authority and investigating protocols and gave them the free rein to do whatever the members like as long as they were able to produce results.

As its assistant team leader, Aoyama Sho was not any much different from her nonconforming team leader, often coming out with the strangest methods to obtain data or commanding others to get them for her.

The unconventional and undocumented investigation methods of S.T. have been discussed largely by many divisions, but it was decided by the top management all their inputs were to be respected regardless of what methods they have used. This is because all members of S.T. are all known to be top respected professionals of their respective fields and no one else could really argue with them with it comes to their expertise. This was especially true for Akagi Samon and Aoyama Sho who were both acknowledged as the number one expert in the whole Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (T.M.P.D.) when it comes to forensic science and criminology profiling. 

Rumours have it that aside from being an F.B.I. certified Professional Criminology Profiler; Aoyama Sho also had many other talents which were not clearly stated in their S.T. members’ individual files. In fact, Akagi Samon had merely stated her areas of talents as Professional Handwriting Analysis, Polygraph, Profiling Expert and others, unlike the detailed descriptions he had written for the rest of the members. And to make the young profiler even more mysterious, it was said that no one aside from Leader Akagi Samon, knew for sure what the other talents which Aoyama Sho has were.

Now it looked as though Kindaichi Hajime had just uncovered for himself one of the unmentioned abilities of Aoyama Sho in her classified file, 'website hacking.'  

“Sho-chan, we can’t just hack into the system! We could have asked the school for accessing rights instead,” Kindaichi tried to reason with the young profiler but knew immediately that it was a losing battle by looking at her smirking look.

“By asking we are giving them time to prepare, to destroy all possible shreds of evidence of bullying on the student message board, or any amendment of student marks by a teacher because these are things that the school would not want people to know. Besides, I am not accessing their system to do anything harmful to it, I am merely looking. And that act is by no means a malicious act, quite unlike our perp,” Aoyama Sho rebuked his suggestion ruthlessly, “I agree that rules are made to guide us, but they were never meant to be followed blindly like what all the Bakas in the police department are doing. Sometimes by being merciful to some; we are only being cruel to others, there is no way to please both sides. And as police officers, if we chose to be polite and respectful to the criminals, then we are only punishing the victims further by letting those criminals go easy instead. That's how people lose confidence in the police! Because many of us are still confined by the so-called rules of conduct!”

Just as Kindaichi was about to bring up the argument that a society without rules could have been full of disorders, Aoyama Sho put her hand up to stop him from commenting.

"Just think about it, if there is someone drowning in a pond which stated 'No Swimming', would you really not jump in to save the person simply because you have been warned that swimming in the pond is not allowed? No, because when it has to be done, people will break rules and laws, that is why we will always have crimes around. Not whether if it is right or wrong, but whether what is needed to be done. To many, killing a man is a crime, but to the murderer, it would make sense to kill the victim because he is protecting himself or something someone precious to him." Noticing Kindaichi's troubled look, Aoyama Sho decided to use an argument which would make him understand her points better.

“Fine, but could you at least just give me a heads up whenever you do something illegal? At least I won’t get a shock if anyone from the police department come knocking on my door for something you have done behind my back?” Kindaichi Hajime shook his head exasperatedly noticing how he could never win her in an argument, the young profiler seems to have all the logic in the world against him whenever they got into a discussion, “You are quite a trouble-maker aren’t you?”

Smirking playfully, Aoyama Sho raised an eyebrow at him, “And I supposed the little fact that you have two T.M.P.D. officers with investigating rights for this case living under your roof has not occurred to you yet, Kindai-Baka?”

“Sho-chan,” Kindaichi Hajime could not help but to smile at her words, “For your information, having investigating rights does not mean that you have an all-access free pass to do whatever you wish.”

“Uso!” Aoyama Sho stared wide-eyed; as though it was the first time she had heard of it, “Nobody told us about it before.”

“Yes, it is the truth and this brings us to the next question. Can I know why is the American F.B.I. sending you a parcel? I don’t remember working on any cases which require international support,” Kindaichi Hajime picked up the bulky parcel which he had brought into her room to show her.

“Yay! Richie is fast!” Aoyama grinned happily at the sight of the parcel as though Christmas has come early for her, “My limited edition brick toys are here!”

“Richie? I don’t know if I should be more amused by which, an F.B.I. agent name Richie or toys are being sent to you using an F.B.I. express urgent delivery courier?” Kindaichi Hajime smacked his forehead and groaned out loud.

He was torn between wanting to ask who that Richie was or to frown at her misuse of government services when an important fact surfaced in his mind, “Wait… Doesn’t F.B.I. only get in touch with the INTERPOL? How did you get involved with the F.B.I.?”

“Hmmm~” Aoyama Sho nodded disinterestedly as she focused her attention on unboxing her parcel, “I am on the F.B.I. list and I do help out whenever I am interested in their cases as a hobby. I supposed that was why I was accepted instantly into Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department the same day I graduated with a PhD at the age of barely 21 years old. Not that it did me any good since they have no idea what to do with a kid like me in the T.M.P.D.”

Blinking his eyes at the amazing facts provided by Aoyama so nonchalantly and the way she tried to gloss over of her unhappiness at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Kindaichi Hajime had to agree that the young profiler was really a bundle of surprises for him.

In fact, the last time he heard about anyone with an F.B.I. background in profiling like Aoyama Sho was the 47 years old Special Crime Investigation Division Leader Osawa Eriko who had spent 5 years aboard in America with the F.B.I. in order to gain their acknowledgement.

However, as impressive as that might have been, Kindaichi Hajime would admit that the one thing which caught his attention most was the brief look of sadness in her eyes when she tried to gloss over how she had been overlooked by others in the early days in Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

And he did not like that look of sadness in her eyes when she hinted about being suppressed in the T.M.P.D.

When talking about suppression at the workplace, no one knew it better than Kindaichi Hajime, who had to live through the whole experience of having his seniors teasing him about being the only high school graduate detective in the whole T.M.P.D despite all that he had achieved in his career so far.

He knew too well how people would tend to ignore the odd ones like him because they could not understand how he could have been selected as a detective when he failed in his studies. It was as though no matter how hard he tried, no one could see past the label of being a mere high school graduate or the awesomeness of being known to everyone as the top detective.

To them, Kindaichi Hajime was either a too lucky to be believed High School graduate-turned-detective, or the great detective who could do no wrong.

Apparently, what he did not realise was that the same goes for Aoyama Sho as well, who was probably deemed too smart for any of them to be able to relate to. For someone as young as her, he could imagine how she would be purposely ignored and overlooked by those prideful seniors if she was in any division other than the infamous S.T..

After all, S.T. was the specialist unit which only accepts the top minds of each field and was also infamously known for being everyone’s number one disliked the elite team in the whole Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. People dislike them for their arrogance and the fact that they could easily make even the most experienced detectives looks like fools with their out of the world intelligence. If it was not bad enough, the blunt painful throat-cutting and pride bashing insults from public enemy number one Akagi Samon and public enemy number two Aoyama Sho belittling them, had successfully made S.T. the most hated unit in the whole T.M.P.D..

It amused Kindaichi that for someone so young, Aoyama Sho had quite a reputation in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Nothing like his, but equally famous or rather infamous in her own rights.

'Poor Sho-chan,' Kindaichi Hajime thought as he patted the young profiler's head much to her irritation and protest, "I'm not a pet, Kindai-Baka!"

Putting a wide grin on his face, Kindaichi Hajime decided that it was time to do what he does best whenever Aoyama Sho was feeling down. By cracking silly jokes to get her out of the moodiness, he would be