Kimura and Shigeru (go-between)'s friendship and professional collaboration

Kimura and Shigeru Kimura’s friendship grew out of years of working together and endures beyond Kimura’s retirement. Their partnership joins personal trust to practical resourcefulness: when Kimura fears that Wataru may be in danger aboard the Shinkansen, he turns to Shigeru, who finds a way to protect the boy and communicate with Kimura despite the failure of their original plan. The rescue also recalls the many jobs they once shared, making their present-day cooperation an extension of a long professional history.

A friendship formed through work

Thirty years before the events aboard the train, Shigeru Kimura accompanied the Kimuras on jobs. At that time he had not yet become a go-between, and his repeated habit of sorting news into good and bad was already familiar to Kimura. The phrase was more than a conversational tic: it became a recognizable feature of their shared working life, one Kimura remembers with fondness decades later.

Shigeru’s later career drew on the same practical strength that had made him useful as a colleague: connecting people. He had previously taken on contract killings and other dangerous work, but, as he grew older and tired of the field, he moved into brokering jobs. He persisted, maintained relationships, and established a place for himself in that newer line of work. His own account of the change emphasizes his talent for making connections. The shift from operator to intermediary did not erase his earlier professional ties; it gave him another way to use them.

The account of Shigeru’s work also places him in the same criminal labor network that includes Nanao, Maria, Tangerine, and Lemon. He offers Nanao a lucrative job, while warning that the assignment would mean facing Tangerine and Lemon, whom he regards as exceptionally dangerous and reliable operators. Nanao declines. This episode shows Shigeru continuing to broker work through his contacts, but it is not evidence that Kimura is involved in that particular commission. Its relevance to their relationship is the broader professional world they once inhabited and the value Shigeru’s connections hold within it.

Shigeru’s network and methods

By the time he is established as a go-between, Shigeru’s work depends on maintaining channels between people who may never deal directly with one another. The job he brings to Nanao is itself described as subcontracted: the immediate client is taking orders from another client, whose principal is Minegishi in Morioka. Such chains make the intermediary’s role consequential. Information and instructions travel through several hands, and a job’s original source may be distant from the person expected to carry it out.

Shigeru’s method is not limited to passing along assignments. His longstanding interest in trying different forms of communication becomes useful during the train crisis. Before Kimura leaves for Mizusawa-Esashi Station to catch the Shinkansen, he asks Shigeru to check on Wataru and protect him. Kimura gives few details, but makes the urgency clear: Shigeru is to be alert to anyone suspicious and to contact him if something happens. The request relies on personal knowledge accumulated over their working years; Kimura does not need to explain at length why the matter is serious.

Their initial communication plan depends on a Shinkansen payphone. Shigeru points out that the phones no longer accept incoming calls, then proposes an alternative: he can use the train’s digital displays to send Kimura a message. He can arrange this because, as a go-between, he knows many people and has a good relationship with someone at the Shinkansen information broadcasting office. The solution turns professional connections into an improvised safety channel. Rather than treating the obsolete payphone as the end of their plan, Shigeru adapts it to the communications available on the train.

The rescue aboard the Shinkansen

The display messages reach Kimura during a rapidly changing confrontation. When the final message disappears, he takes the boy’s phone while the boy is dazed. Kimura identifies the source as the person in charge of the Shinkansen broadcast system, confirming that Shigeru’s proposed route has worked. The messages are not merely a demonstration of Shigeru’s ingenuity: they help Kimura act while Wataru’s safety remains uncertain and events aboard the train continue around him.

Shigeru’s help culminates in news that Wataru has woken up. As the train nears its final stop, passengers begin leaving, but Kimura’s attention is on the message confirming that his grandson is awake. He tells Shigeru he is glad he asked for help and recognizes that Shigeru truly saved the day. The outcome gives the friendship a concrete measure: a request made before Kimura knew for certain whether Wataru was in danger has brought timely protection and reassurance.

Their exchange also restores the familiar rhythm of their former work. Shigeru introduces the next communication as good news and bad news, the same framing he used when he went on jobs with the Kimuras decades earlier. Kimura responds with fond recognition. The repeated formula links the emergency to their past without making the moment seem routine: the old habit survives, but now it accompanies a crisis involving Kimura’s grandson.

Reciprocity and an unfinished inheritance

Kimura’s gratitude is paired with a reminder that their help has never run in only one direction. Shigeru tells him that Kimura has helped him many times; Kimura answers that it has been a long while, since he retired. Their exchange presents the present rescue not as a favor detached from history but as another turn in a relationship shaped by reciprocal assistance. Kimura may have left the work, but Shigeru’s willingness to respond shows that retirement has not dissolved their friendship or the obligation they feel toward one another.

The conversation reaches beyond their own partnership when Shigeru mentions that Kimura’s son, Yuichi Kimura, also entered the same line of work. Shigeru had been surprised to learn this, and Kimura is surprised that he knew. For Kimura, the fact prompts a rueful recognition of a pattern extending across generations. He hopes that Wataru will not follow it. Shigeru’s role in this closing exchange is both that of old colleague and trusted friend: he knows enough of Kimura’s past to understand the family resemblance, while the rescue has just helped Kimura face the immediate danger to the youngest generation.

Their partnership thus carries two connected forms of continuity. Shigeru’s career continues through the relationships he has cultivated, while Kimura’s past as a working partner persists in the trust he places in him. The train’s digital displays, arranged through Shigeru’s contact, make that continuity visible in practical form. A friendship begun in shared jobs becomes, years after Kimura’s retirement, the means by which he can reach help when Wataru’s safety is at stake.