The Devotion of Suspect X: Who Can Understand Whose Deep Love
From the very beginning, this book is a grand deception. The only one truly in the know is the Galileo master: Yukawa’s old classmate, Ishigami Tetsuya. He not only deceived the police and Hanaka Yasuko but also every reader.
The middle-aged bachelor Ishigami Tetsuya works as a math teacher, a profession I dislike the most. His daily routine is walking from home to the place where Hanaka Yasuko works, using buying breakfast as an excuse to catch a glimpse of the woman he secretly loves, then heading to the middle school to teach. In the evenings, he does some math research on his own. Until one day, Ishigami discovers that Hanaka Yasuko and her daughter Misako have killed her ex-husband Togashi, who, though divorced, had been constantly harassing her. The story begins from there. Ishigami uses his genius intellect to dispose of the body and leads the police down the path he set, leaving them completely clueless. But in the end, Ishigami’s university classmate, the equally brilliant physics researcher Yukawa Manabu, guesses the truth of the case from one of Ishigami’s inadvertent details. So Ishigami turns himself in to the police. But why didn’t Hanaka Yasuko turn herself in? Because Ishigami’s surrender was also part of his plan from the very beginning. From the start, Ishigami designed everything with the premise that the police would identify him as the criminal, all to clear the mother and daughter’s names.
That day, Ishigami was about to hang himself when suddenly someone knocked on the door. He had to open it to deal with it. A mother and daughter stood at the doorway—their eyes were so beautiful. Before that, Ishigami had never been moved by any kind of beauty. The thought of suicide vanished, and he regained the joy of life. Just imagining the life of the mother and daughter made him happy. He firmly believed that this pair was the most sublime beauty in the world. “For something sublime, being able to touch even the edge is enough happiness.” So helping them was only natural. He didn’t seek any reward; this was his repayment. He was willing to spend the rest of his life in prison for the mother and daughter.
To what extent can one love another person? What kind of encounter can make one willing to sacrifice their life without regret? Ishigami gave the best answer. This is the most selfless love—willing to dedicate one’s entire life for another’s good. But Yasuko was always selfish. She never loved Ishigami from beginning to end. Just before Ishigami was about to achieve all his set goals—clearing Yasuko of all charges—she ignored all of Ishigami’s instructions and turned herself in to the police to ease her own conscience. But what else could she gain? Besides Ishigami’s breakdown, both of them would spend the rest of their lives in prison. Would Yasuko’s conscience then be at peace? One person only needs to live well to save another. If only Yasuko could understand that. Of course, as readers, we are also selfish. We hope Yasuko can live the rest of her life according to our wishes. But between people, there are always many unclear and inexplicable relationships. Who can understand whose deep love? Who can understand whose departure?