Chapter 39: Yomikawa Tsuko's Analysis

The truth… The question echoed in the quiet, desolate landscape of Kishida Masayoshi’s mind. Does it really, truly, matter?

As Yomikawa Tsuko had so cruelly, and with such unnerving accuracy, pointed out, in the wake of Kagehara Tetsuya’s disappearance, the consensus among his colleagues at the precinct had been swift, uniform, and absolute.

First: Kagehara Tetsuya, the troubled, delinquent son, was guilty, and had fled to escape justice.

Second: Kagehara Tetsuya was, without a shadow of a doubt, the one who had brutally murdered the young Tanaka Erika.

He didn’t even need the diary, didn’t need to hunt for manufactured clues as Yomikawa had so venomously suggested. The people around him, his own fellow officers, were already offering him a convenient, pre-packaged absolution, a way out of the personal hell his mistake had created. Though a year had passed since Kagehara Kenta’s suicide, in recent weeks, the words of comfort, the quiet reassurances that it hadn’t been his fault, had become more frequent, more insistent.

Kishida Masayoshi remained silent for a long, agonizing moment, his expression a mask of raw, internal conflict. Finally, the words came, slow and strained, as if he were pulling them, one by one, from some deep, painful, and closely guarded place within himself.

“Perhaps,” he began, his voice barely a whisper, “perhaps shifting all the blame onto Kagehara Tetsuya would change how other people see me. How they judge me.”

“But… I cannot accept that. I cannot… I will not… accept that version of myself.”

“It’s true,” he admitted, his gaze falling to his tightly clasped hands on the table. “Every single day since Kagehara Kenta took his own life… has been a living torment.”

“But that torment… it does not come from the whispers of my colleagues, or the judgment of others. It comes from within. From my own conscience.”

“And even if I were to successfully frame Kagehara Tetsuya, even if the entire world were to absolve me of my sin, this pain… this crushing weight… it would not lessen. Not by one single gram.”

“To face the mistakes I have made, head-on,” he said, his voice gaining a strange, quiet strength, “that is the only correct path forward. The only one that leads anywhere worth going.”

“Running away… is useless.”

The more he spoke, the more fluid his words became, as if he had finally, after a long and brutal struggle, broken through some internal barrier. The raw anguish in his expression began to recede, replaced by a quiet, almost… serene, resolve.

Yomikawa Tsuko’s eyes narrowed to dangerous, analytical slits. She scrutinized this foolish, sentimental detective, her mind a cold, sharp instrument, searching for any flicker of deception, any tell-tale sign of a lie in his tormented, earnest features.

Have my powers of observation dulled so much? I can’t find a single crack in his performance. Damn it!

“Running away is useless”? What arrogant, self-serving nonsense. You’re nothing but a bumbling, incompetent fool of a cop!

“Face the mistakes I have made”? If you’re so committed to that, then why haven’t you taken your own life to atone for your sins? An eye for an eye, is it not?

An inexplicable, suffocating tightness constricted Yomikawa Tsuko’s chest. That cold, empty void she had felt before, it threatened to open up again, to swallow her whole. She bit down, hard, on her lip, a small, sharp point of pain, a desperate anchor against the violent, chaotic wave of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Inside this,” she said, her voice tight, brittle, meticulously controlled, “is a portion of Kagehara-kun’s diary. I photographed the relevant pages and transferred the image files to this USB drive.”

She wanted, with a sudden, savage intensity, for Kishida Masayoshi to get up and leave. To get as far away from her as possible, right now.

But if she were to say that, if she were to betray even a hint of her own internal turmoil, it would undoubtedly arouse his suspicion. And so, for the sake of her own carefully laid, long-term plans, she had to endure. To maintain the performance. To play her part.

She’s not mocking me? Not this time?

Kishida Masayoshi was genuinely surprised. He had been fully, completely, prepared for another one of Yomikawa’s signature cutting remarks, something along the lines of “If only your detective skills were half as sharp as your tongue.” He had, after all, become quite accustomed to her particular brand of condescending, psychological warfare.

He accepted the small, silver USB drive, his fingers brushing against hers for a fleeting, almost electric instant. He looked up at her. The young woman’s beautiful face was taut, her jaw clenched, as if she were holding something back, containing some immense pressure, through sheer, formidable force of will. Her tone, her gaze… they were entirely different from usual. Her trademark sharp tongue was absent, but Kishida felt, with a strange, unnerving certainty, that the girl before him was colder, more distant, more… dangerous… than he had ever seen her before.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a flicker of genuine concern in his voice. “Are you not feeling well?”

Yomikawa Tsuko took a deep, steadying breath. Years and years of practiced, meticulous self-control, a skill honed over a lifetime of deception and observation, came to her aid in that crucial moment. A small, brittle, and entirely unconvincing smile touched her lips. She switched topics, her voice once again light, almost teasing. “Not at all. You have simply… passed the test, Officer Kishida. And so, I feel I can now, in good conscience, entrust a portion of the diary to you.”

Damn it, damn it! I actually had to praise him! The words tasted like poison in my mouth.

“A test…” Kishida Masayoshi managed a wry, tired smile. This must be that ‘sense of ceremony’ she’s so fond of, he thought, trying to rationalize her bizarre, unpredictable behavior. No matter how intelligent, how unusual she is, she’s still, at her core, a teenage girl. Prone to such… games. “In any case, thank you for your help. If there’s nothing else, I should be going. I have a lot of work to do.”

Yomikawa Tsuko gave a slight, almost imperceptible, and entirely dismissive, nod, indicating that he should leave, that she required nothing further from him.

Watching his car pull away from the curb, gradually disappearing into the late afternoon traffic, she slowly, deliberately, clenched her right hand into a fist so tight her knuckles went white.

“That pathetic, stinking cop… his acting skills are surprisingly… proficient. Even I, with my superior observational abilities, could not find a single, definitive flaw in his performance.”

“All that noble, self-aggrandizing nonsense about ‘facing his own mistakes’… he was probably just afraid I was recording him, that I was setting some kind of elaborate trap. He didn’t want to leave any compromising evidence of his true, self-serving feelings.”

“As a detective who has already caused one catastrophic, career-defining incident, it’s only natural that he would be so cautious, so… guarded.”

“And another thing… our relationship has not yet reached a point of sufficient intimacy where he would feel comfortable discussing the possibility of framing someone else. Damn it. Was I too hasty? Did I push too hard, too soon?”

“The last person I encountered who could act with such convincing, almost flawless, skill… was Nakamori Manatsu.”

“But there’s a difference. A crucial one. Kishida Masayoshi was, without a shadow of a doubt, acting. A performance, meticulously crafted and designed to deceive. But Manatsu… her timid, unassuming persona… it’s possible, just possible, that it’s a genuine, unadorned expression of her true self.”

For a fleeting, terrifying moment, a moment of profound, disorienting weakness, Yomikawa Tsuko had almost… believed him. Almost believed that Kishida Masayoshi was speaking the unvarnished truth.

But… if he truly felt such genuine guilt, if he was truly determined to face his mistakes without flinching, to walk a path of lonely, thankless atonement… then what did that make her?

They were both, in their own unique, monstrous ways, responsible for Kagehara Kenta’s death. They should, by all rights, be trapped in the same swirling, black vortex of guilt and self-loathing. Their emotional states should be, at least in part, identical.

So how was it that this bumbling, incompetent fool of a cop was able to face his inner demons with such… composure? To speak with such… quiet, unshakeable, conviction?

Did that mean… was it possible… that she was even more pathetic, even more of a fool, than this man she so thoroughly, so completely, despised?

Impossible. Absolutely, utterly impossible.

Therefore, there could be only one truth, one logical conclusion that would allow her own sense of self to remain intact. Kishida Masayoshi was lying.

In the past year, he must have faced countless similar situations, countless painful reminders of his catastrophic failure. He had likely honed his response, his performance, his mask of stoic remorse, to a fine, sharp art.

Because what he claimed, his noble, principled acceptance of his own guilt… it was a flagrant violation of human nature itself. To flee from responsibility, to run from pain… that was the fundamental, driving instinct of the human animal. An instinct to which no one, except, perhaps, her former, superior self, was immune.

Having reached this cold, clear, and deeply reassuring logical conclusion, and with Kishida Masayoshi no longer in her immediate, provoking vicinity, Yomikawa Tsuko felt her own emotional turmoil finally begin to subside. A faint, residual anger still simmered deep beneath the surface, a pilot light of pure hatred, but the raging storm had, for now, passed.

She let out a soft, contemptuous snort. Let’s see how long you can keep up the act, you sanctimonious, self-righteous fool. It won’t be long now. I will peel back that flimsy, pathetic mask of justice, layer by painful, humiliating layer, and expose the pathetic, whimpering, and utterly contemptible creature beneath.

“Still,” she acknowledged, “my own performance was far from perfect. It lacked… finesse.”

“Even with advance preparation, even with a clear, strategic objective, I almost lost control of my emotions during that conversation. That was, I believe, the absolute, outer limit of my current capacity for restraint. If not for the tantalizing distraction of the USB drive, that shiny, dangling prize that so completely held his attention, I might very well have… exposed myself.”

Yomikawa Tsuko began a cold, methodical, and ruthless self-assessment.

“And the primary condition I had originally intended to propose – my direct, ongoing participation in future homicide investigations – I failed to even mention it, so consumed was I by the sudden, overwhelming desire to make him leave my presence. A significant tactical error.”

“However, it is not a catastrophic one. I never intended to give him the entire, unedited diary all at once. There will be other opportunities. Other… negotiations.”

......

Kishida Masayoshi gripped the small, cold, silver USB drive in his hand, an almost manic, triumphant excitement surging through him. He drove fast, his mind racing, weaving through the congested city streets with a reckless abandon.

He had it. After all this time, after all the frustrating dead ends and the soul-crushing failures, he finally, finally, had it. Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary. It felt like a monumental, unbelievable achievement.

“Did Kagehara Tetsuya really kill Tanaka Erika?”

“What truly happened on the day of the murder? What were the missing pieces?”

“All of it… all the answers… they have to be right here, contained within this tiny, insignificant piece of plastic and metal.”

“But…” a colder, more professional part of his brain took over, “first things first. I have to attempt to verify the authenticity of these… entries.”

“And second, even if they are not a complete fabrication, I cannot, I must not, afford to trust their contents completely.”

“Yomikawa Tsuko could have deliberately curated the entries, showing me only what she wants me to see. A breadcrumb trail, leading me exactly where she wants me to go.”

“Or worse. If she has studied the case as thoroughly as I suspect she has, she could have forged, or even subtly altered, certain passages. It’s entirely possible.”

“Sometimes, all it takes is the removal, or the addition, of a single word to change the entire meaning of a sentence, to twist an innocent observation into a damning confession.”

“The very fact that she chose to give me a digital copy, transferred from photos taken on her phone, rather than providing the original document itself… that, in itself, is a significant red flag. I must be vigilant. I cannot, under any circumstances, allow my own hopes, my own desperate, subjective desire for a resolution, to guide my interpretation of the potential evidence.”