“Mister Kindaichi, may I know why are we doing here?” Aoyama Sho allowed her gaze to roam around the forested ground while asking in a lazy tone, “Has it anything to do with that big backpack you have asked your mother to prepare for us in advance?”

Kindaichi Hajime smiled at her question; it’s true that nobody could ever accuse Aoyama Sho of being slow on the intake. It never fails to amaze him how quick she is to notice his plan. It would be a tough job organising a surprise for the young profiler. But even though if it’s near impossible to, he would still want to try to do something nice for her, because he has a strong feeling that she did not have someone who does that for her.

Kindaichi supposed it was because her ability to recognise and analyse fact is widely recognised as only second to Akagi Samon, the number one genius in the whole of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. That would really put anyone off from planning something for her. But not him.

Aoyama Sho frowned at Kindaichi’s strange ‘I’m not telling’ smile, as the uneasiness grew inside her. It’s unexplainable, but she just has a bad feeling about coming to such places. Being a criminal profiler, she understood perfectly well that the forested ground is one location can never good for anyone but a potential murderer wanna-be.

Aoyama Sho could not really put a finger on, but something bad is due to happen here, that's what her internal profiling self is telling her. The fact that it is not easily accessible by public transportation made it even more ideal to hide a secret. Something of this situation belongs to the setting like Albert Fish, the child eater of 1930s would have chosen, the perfect far-out forested land with nobody in sight.

The young profiler paled at the image her mind constructed with the help of all those past strange and horrifying cases she had read about. Among all, Albert Fish was one of those who could easily give her a nightmare anytime. The way the old gentleman preyed on young children and dragged them to the forest to murder them, lastly to eat them was the worst form of inhumanity when her professor first brought it up as an example in one of the lectures. It didn’t help that she was the youngest at the age of 19 among a group of mid-thirties students.

If it was not about the gruesome facts of the Fish’s crime, it was the sick manner those people would mercilessly for having a weak stomach and not good enough to be in one of the few rare Criminal Psychology lectures of the famous professor, David Wilson.

Aoyama Sho pondered for a moment whether to let her ill feelings be known to Kindaichi Hajime, but looking at that silly grin and excitement on his face, she did not want to disappoint the young detective with her thoughts.

The Kindaichi Hajime she knew is anything but a potential murderer wanna-be, the thoughts which go inside the mind of this young man is probably something as simple as ‘camping’ in his mind when he planned this late night trip.

Perhaps she was overthinking and over-reacting to the scene, but the idea of camping too is something totally foreign to her. The sense of uneasiness coupled with unfamiliar ground made her eyed Kindaichi Hajime warily as she took each step down the trail. But she could not deny the excitement building inside her, for it was the first time she was given the opportunity to explore places she could only see in documentaries.

‘So this is how a forest comes alive at night?’ Aoyama Sho thought to herself, trying to imprint this first memory of walking a natural trail into her mind.

Grinning like an excited schoolboy on his field trip, Kindaichi Hajime offered her a strawberry doughnut as they walked down a river stream, “Sho-chan has never been on a nature trip, have you?”

Taken apart by his words, Aoyama Sho stopped in her track to look back at him silently and frowned. It was almost as if Kindaichi has read her mind.

“Despite wearing the shirt which said ‘boy scout of America’, you seem quite uneasy about coming here,” Kindaichi Hajime questioned softly, wondering if the idea was a good one since Aoyama Sho did look quite uncomfortable with the venue, ”You are not afraid of bugs, are you? Because I want to show you something very beautiful. It’s my secret garden.”

“Have you learned Profiling?” Aoyama Sho could not help asking, because she has a strange realization that she might have just been profiled by Kindaichi Hajime in that one brief moment.

It was an unpleasant feeling of having your inner thoughts being revealed without knowledge, but Aoyama Sho could understand now, why the other S.T. members were firm in made it a rule for her not to profile them unless they requested for it.

But for Aoyama, it’s a first because she has never experienced it previously, as no one was brave enough to overstep the boundary to profile her. Nor did they ever understand her well enough to get it right if anyone has the guts to challenge her professional.

But to her surprise, Kindaichi Hajime, got it right on both counts on his first attempt and did it in such a natural manner which surprised her, it was almost as though… they were friends.

“Never,” Kindaichi Hajime offered her a little smile, “it is just that I have seen you wore shirts on scouts, so I was thinking that you may like nature, unlike other girls who find it dirty and creepy. But it seems like you have never been outdoor much, have you? Also, the hesitation in your usually quick pace seems to suggest your uncertainty and unfamiliar, quite unlike the usual you. ”

“Not that I was ever allowed to….” Aoyama Sho answered softly; still in amazed that Kindaichi Hajime could pick up her interest in nature based on her choice of clothing and her hesitation from her pace, It was perhaps the first time ever in her memories that someone outside S.T. took the effort to understand her instead of deciding for her.

With a cheeky smile, Kindaichi Hajime reached over to grasp her hand without asking, “Well, there’s no one to stop you now is there?”

Staring at their joint hands, Aoyama Sho thought of shaking it off immediately but she did not. There was something about the way his fingers slipped over hers protectively made her paused to look at their joined hands. Facing palm to palm, his hand was transmitting some kind of warmth and provoking a strange sense of security in her which she could barely understand why.

Relying on her past memories to decode this strange feeling, Aoyama Sho tried to recall all her memories of the past to find the one which will allow her to understand the emotions caused by Kindaichi’s action. But as her mind started to re-evaluate her memories with people, her internal data was telling her, a cruel conclusion which she rather not realised.

‘When was the last time somebody held my hand to guide me instead of telling me what to do?’ a small voice whispered in her mind, causing her to gasp quietly at the sudden realisation, ‘Never.”

Blinking hard, Aoyama Sho could feel water gathering slowly around her stinging eyes, something unknown to her was closing up as her breathing hitched in . Logically, she knew it was her body’s way of expressing the urge to cry, but she could not understand why she had that unexplained desire to cry because of what Kindaichi Hajime has said or done.

She could not trust herself to reply to his question, for the fear of giving in to the urge to cry if she tried to open .

Strangely though, the silence between them was no way as awkward as she initially thought it would be. That was one of few rare occasions when she read the situation wrongly and it is slowly becoming common around Kindaichi Hajime, the man who constantly surprised her with his intelligence and quirky ways.

What they have was unspoken, unarranged, but strangely falls in place perfectly. When she was quiet in those rare moments like now, Kindaichi Hajime was happy to fill in the moment of silence