Prince

The Prince is a fourteen-year-old schoolboy who turns other people’s fear and uncertainty into instruments of control. His authority is not presented as physical dominance: instead, classmates follow his instructions, he withholds information when it suits him, and he recognizes how a threat to Kimura’s son can constrain Kimura more effectively than restraints can. His defining contradiction is already visible in childhood, when he asked why killing was wrong, and later in the deliberate danger he is prepared to impose on Tomoyasu.

Identity and Early Questions

The Prince is identified as fourteen during the events aboard the train. A remembered summer break, when he was eleven, supplies an earlier point in his development: home alone with his grandmother, he asked why it was wrong to kill people. He had put the question to other adults, too, but had received no answer he considered genuine, whether because they would not or could not provide one. He did not expect his grandmother to do better. The memory establishes the persistence of the question, but the later events do not show him arriving at a moral resolution.

That early inquiry gains its force from the contrast with his conduct as an older child. The Prince can articulate a question about the basis of moral rules, yet he also treats other people as pieces in a test or as means of securing an advantage. The evidence does not make the question an excuse for his actions: it places his curiosity beside them, leaving the distance between asking what is right and acting responsibly unresolved.

Authority Among His Classmates

The Prince’s influence at school is visible in the way others explain their actions. A round-faced classmate mutters that he and the others did only what the Prince told them to do, and says the same applied to a girl. He connects their conduct to the fact that Takuya’s father was trying to find out information about the Prince. The account presents the children’s obedience and the investigation into the Prince in the same breath, suggesting that his authority has consequences beyond ordinary school discipline. It does not specify every action the classmates took, so the force of the testimony lies in their stated willingness to follow his directions and the connection they draw to the father’s inquiries.

That power is not grounded in an imposing appearance. The narration observes that the Prince does not look particularly strong and considers that even unusual martial-arts ability would not protect him from a group acting together. This contrast clarifies the nature of his control: the prospect of numbers could make him physically vulnerable, but the classmates’ admission shows that he has instead been able to set their behavior. The account does not establish that they confront him as a group; it shows the possibility of collective resistance against the authority they have accepted.

The Medical Device and Calculated Risk

In a small wooded dip in a park, the Prince leads classmates preparing to test a medical device. He directs them to use it on Tomoyasu, whom he regards contemptuously, but the apparent proposal is effectively an order. The device is a defibrillator, and the Prince knows that using it on a person whose heart is still functioning could conceivably be fatal. He does not tell the others this crucial fact, giving them only the minimum information he considers necessary.

The withheld knowledge serves a further plan. If Tomoyasu dies, the Prince expects the others to panic and, in their confusion, turn to him for answers. The proposed test is therefore not simply a reckless use of equipment: he anticipates both the danger to Tomoyasu and the effect a crisis might have on the group. His method joins calculated risk to the manufacture of dependence. By concealing the possibility of death, he limits the others’ ability to make an informed choice; by imagining himself as the person they will look to afterward, he treats their fear as an opportunity to strengthen his position.

Kimura, Wataru, and Control Through Fear

The Prince recognizes that Kimura’s concern for Wataru restricts what Kimura will do. After removing the tape that binds Kimura’s wrists and ankles, he is not especially worried that Kimura will turn violent. He reasons that Kimura now understands that violence could endanger his son and does not believe the Prince is bluffing about that danger. The request for Kimura’s help gives Kimura a possible reason to cooperate: if he does the job well, his son might escape harm. The Prince’s calculation depends on leaving that possibility open. In his view, a person who still believes matters could work out is less likely to attempt something desperate.

This is a particular form of coercion: the Prince can release Kimura physically while retaining leverage over him through Wataru. Kimura has possible ways to improve his immediate position, but the Prince judges that he is unlikely to choose any course that knowingly puts his son at risk. The release is therefore not a surrender of control. It shows the Prince using Kimura’s attachment as a restraint more powerful, for his purposes, than keeping him bound.

The Prince’s private response to Kimura’s distress makes the imbalance more disturbing. Looking back on the moment when he told Kimura that Wataru was going to die, he remembers Kimura turning pale and becoming more desperate at the mention of his son. The Prince recalls that brief reaction with intense satisfaction. Wataru’s danger is not only a threat used to obtain cooperation; Kimura’s anguish itself becomes a source of gratification for him. This detail distinguishes strategic manipulation from a merely instrumental calculation: the Prince values the emotional effect he produces as well as the leverage it gives him.

Investigation, Performance, and Narrative Role

The Prince also treats uncertainty about other powerful figures as something to investigate through action. Asked what he plans to do, he decides to send someone after Minegishi as a test of Minegishi’s luck. Whatever the result, the Prince expects to learn something; at a minimum, the attempt would let him approach Minegishi’s compound, inspect its security, and observe how Minegishi operates. He describes the action as preliminary investigation. The plan shows his habit of making a risky encounter serve several purposes at once: it tests a theory about Minegishi while offering access to practical intelligence.

His handling of Tangerine reveals another method: controlling how he appears while watching how another person responds. Looking into the bathroom from behind Tangerine, the Prince retreats a couple of steps and makes sure to seem frightened. At the same time, he studies Tangerine’s face and notices the man’s sudden rigidity. The Prince nearly comments aloud on how fragile Tangerine seems, but the thought remains unspoken. Here, apparent helplessness is a performance rather than a reliable measure of his position; attention to Tangerine’s reaction gives the Prince information even while he adopts a posture of fear.

Taken together, these episodes define the Prince through a recurring gap between appearance and design. He may not look physically formidable, and he can present himself as frightened, polite, or inquisitive; meanwhile, he gives orders, withholds information, anticipates others’ choices, and turns emotional reactions into usable knowledge. The early question about why killing is wrong remains a striking counterpoint to that conduct. Rather than resolving the question, the narrative places it against the Prince’s deliberate endangerment of Tomoyasu and his exploitation of Kimura’s fear for Wataru, making the unresolved distance between moral inquiry and practical power central to his characterization.