Chapter 42: First Diary Analysis (Part 1)

“To provide only a portion of the diary… isn’t that just common sense?” Yomikawa Tsuko’s voice on the other end of the line was a maddening, silken calm.

Kishida Masayoshi, however, was in no mood for her games. “The ‘portion’ I was expecting,” he retorted, his voice tight with a frustration that bordered on pleading, “was everything pertaining to the case! This… this is just the goddamn prelude! It only covers Kagehara Tetsuya’s preparations for the crime! The truly important parts, the confession, the details of the act itself… they’re completely missing!”

“The remaining entries,” her voice came back, cool and unhurried, “will be provided in due course. After I have had sufficient time to… review and prepare them for you.”

“Wh-… I see. And how long, precisely, might that take?”

“Tell me, Officer,” Yomikawa Tsuko’s tone shifted, taking on a cool, almost mocking amusement that made the hairs on Kishida’s arms stand on end, “do you not feel it is first necessary to authenticate the portion of the diary you currently possess? After all, it was I who provided it. What if I have… fabricated… certain entries? Or deliberately… redacted… certain crucial words? What then?”

“That…” Kishida Masayoshi was momentarily speechless. He did, of course, harbor those very same, deeply unsettling suspicions. But to have them voiced so baldly, so tauntingly, by the subject herself… it was profoundly disorienting. “In any case,” he finally managed, his voice strained, “the remaining entries… please. I’ll be waiting for them.”

After hanging up, Kishida Masayoshi forced himself to review the eight damning images one more time, his frustration mounting with each passing second. Then, pulling the USB drive from his laptop, he grabbed his keys and drove to the small, private clinic where his old friend, Suzuki Koji, worked as a clinical psychologist.

It was nearing the end of the workday. The waiting room was empty, and Suzuki was alone in his office, the quiet tap of his keyboard the only sound as he organized patient notes.

He looked up, a hint of genuine surprise in his eyes, as Kishida strode in unannounced. “Masayoshi? It’s been a while. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Kishida Masayoshi didn’t bother with pleasantries. He tossed the small silver USB drive onto his friend’s cluttered desk. “I need you to look at something for me. Analyze it. Tell me if you think it’s a fake.”

“A fake?” Suzuki Koji picked up the drive, turning it over in his fingers, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Your own forensics lab at the precinct can perform all sorts of document analysis, can’t they? Why come to me?”

Kishida pulled up a chair, slumping into it with a weary sigh. “It’s Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary,” he explained, his voice low. “I obtained it through… an external, and rather sensitive channel. Unfortunately, it’s not the original document, just photographs of the pages. What I need to know from you is, is it psychologically plausible? Could these entries have been fabricated? And more importantly, do the thoughts, the descriptions, the entire mindset… does it align with what we know about the subject?”

Suzuki Koji’s eyes narrowed, a keen gleam in them. He gave a slow, deliberate nod. “I see. So, what you’re really asking me to do is to determine if these diary entries are consistent with the known psychological profile of a clinical psychopath. If they represent a plausible internal monologue for such an individual.”

“Exactly,” Kishida Masayoshi said, a wave of profound relief washing over him. To have a friend who could so quickly grasp the strange, dark complexities of his work… it was an invaluable asset. “For now, I don’t want to submit this to my superiors, not until I’m sure of what I have. So, you’re the only one I could think of. If you can confirm that, as a psychological record of a psychopath, this diary is… internally consistent, with no major, glaring flaws… then I think I can dispense with the other, more technical, forms of analysis for the time being.”

Suzuki Koji nodded again, a faint, imperceptible smile playing on his lips. He inserted the USB drive into his computer, his movements precise and economical. He opened the folder, and the first chilling page of Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary filled the screen.

“Look at this first part here,” Kishida said, pointing a finger at the monitor. “As Kagehara Tetsuya is actively planning the murder of Tanaka Erika, he suddenly feels this… urge… to share his plans with someone. For a normal person, I could understand that impulse. But you’ve always said that psychopaths are emotionally shallow, that they lack the capacity for genuine human connection. So, would Kagehara really think this way? Would he feel that need?”

Suzuki Koji leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, and considered the passage for a long, silent moment, his eyes scanning the text.

“To analyze one’s own criminal actions, to desire to share the details of one’s work with others… from a psychological standpoint, this is actually quite plausible,” he said finally, his voice calm and clinical. “Even for a clinical psychopath. The capacity for emotion and the desire to share – or, more accurately in this case, to boast – are two entirely different psychological functions. They are not necessarily linked.”

“What truly catches my professional attention,” Suzuki continued, his voice taking on a more focused, intense tone, “is this part here. After examining the kitten’s internal organs, Kagehara Tetsuya asks his grandfather, Kagehara Munemasa, at what point the cat will die. And then he writes this: ‘I was merely curious if he had ever done such things in his own youth.’”

Kishida frowned, not quite following the implication. “So, you’re suggesting Kagehara Munemasa also tortured small animals when he was a child?”

“No, that’s not the point,” Suzuki said, shaking his head. “The point is, in this passage, Kagehara Tetsuya is not merely asking a question. He is comparing himself to Kagehara Munemasa. He is seeking a kindred spirit.”

“As we’ve discussed, at this point in his life, he would have been quite young. But as a functioning psychopath, he would have already been keenly, almost instinctively, aware of his own profound… difference… from other people. And so, he would possess a deep, subconscious desire to know if there was anyone else in his immediate environment who was… like him. But his own predatory instincts, his innate understanding of the need for camouflage, would have prevented him from asking such a question directly.”

Kishida Masayoshi’s eyes widened in a moment of sudden, chilling understanding. “So, he was… he was testing him. Probing him.”

“Precisely,” Suzuki said, his voice slow and deliberate. “But let me rephrase it, to make the psychological dynamic even clearer. In Kagehara Tetsuya’s mind, although Kagehara Munemasa was his grandfather, he felt no trust towards him. Nor did he feel the kind of affection, the reverence, the emotional bond, a normal child would have for an elder relative.”

“This is classic, textbook psychopathic thinking. Even direct blood relatives, their own parents, their own children, hold no special significance for them. They are merely objects, tools, or obstacles. If they deem it necessary, they are perfectly capable of harming, or even killing, their own kin without a flicker of remorse or hesitation.”

Kishida understood now. Viewed through that cold, terrifying lens, the details in this diary entry felt chillingly, horrifyingly authentic.

“Now, let’s move on to this next section,” Suzuki continued, his eyes scanning the screen with a dispassionate, analytical focus. “After the kitten dies, Kagehara Tetsuya immediately loses all interest in it. And when confronted with Kagehara Munemasa’s attempts at what he likely perceived as sentimental consolation, he chooses to conceal his true thoughts. At the same time, he is already, with a cold, clear, and methodical logic, formulating a plan to manipulate his own father, Kagehara Kenta, into providing him with more… specimens… for his ongoing experiments.”

“A normal person, in that situation, would be terrified of their actions being discovered by their father. They would feel… guilt.”

“Because they would know, on a fundamental, instinctual level, that what they had done was wrong, was monstrous. And so, even if they harbored a secret, dark desire to continue, they would never, ever, consider using their own father as an unwitting accomplice. And they certainly wouldn’t be so cold, so utterly detached, as to immediately begin analyzing the structural fragility of their previous specimen and planning to procure a more durable one.”

Kishida Masayoshi nodded grimly. “A complete and utter lack of remorse. It aligns perfectly with the four key psychopathic traits you described to me before. And the animal he desires here, the more durable one… that would be the pit bulls he later tortured and killed.”

Next, he pointed to the final section of the April 8th entry, the part that had been troubling him the most.

“This part here… it still seems a little inconsistent to me, doesn’t it? Tanaka Erika perceived that Kagehara Tetsuya disliked his own family. But if he was truly emotionally shallow, as you’ve said, wouldn’t his feelings towards his family be… a complete indifference? Like they were strangers? And why would you ‘dislike’ a stranger?”

“And more importantly, to hate Tanaka Erika so intensely simply for her perceptiveness… that also doesn’t seem to fit the profile of a classic psychopath, does it? The motivation seems too… emotional.”

Kishida felt that this particular part of the diary seemed to contradict the four key traits Suzuki had previously outlined for him.

“First, let’s address the matter of Tanaka Erika perceiving Kagehara Tetsuya’s feelings towards his parents. That part is not necessarily a contradiction.”

Suzuki thought for a moment, his brow furrowed. “Let’s use a simple mathematical analogy to explain it. For a normal person, let’s say the baseline emotional value they feel for their parents is a positive 20. For a stranger, it’s a 0. And for someone they actively dislike, it’s a negative number.”

“For Kagehara Tetsuya, the baseline emotional value he feels for his parents is, like for a stranger, a 0. So, compared to the societal average, his feelings for his parents are significantly, abnormally, low. To an outside observer, particularly a very perceptive one, wouldn’t that profound lack of normal, positive emotion appear to be, for all intents and purposes… dislike?”

“Additionally, while ‘dislike’ is indeed an emotion, subjective cognitive states like ‘contempt’ or ‘disdain,’ while not technically emotions in the same way, can manifest in very similar outward behaviors. Tanaka Erika, while highly perceptive, was still just a child. It’s unlikely she would have been capable of making such a subtle, nuanced psychological distinction.”

As he spoke, a thoughtful, deeply serious frown began to crease Suzuki Koji’s brow. “As for hating Tanaka Erika so intensely, so murderously, simply because she was so perceptive… that… that is a far more complex, and far more revealing issue.”