The Kimura Couple Confronts the Prince Aboard the Hayate

The Kimura Couple Confronts the Prince Aboard the Hayate is a family rescue that becomes an armed contest over who controls the truth. Shigeru Kimura and Akiko Kimura arrive seeking their son, Yuichi Kimura, but find the Prince aboard the train. The Prince tries to turn their fear for Wataru into leverage; later, confirmation that Wataru is safe strips that tactic of force. The encounter moves from a tense first meeting to a direct threat, then breaks off amid a gunshot whose source is not identified.

Arrival and Recognition

Shigeru Kimura explains that he and Akiko Kimura rushed to catch the train at Mizusawa-Esashi Station because a phone conversation with Yuichi Kimura had worried them. Their haste establishes the family stakes before they have even located their son: they have come because they believe he is in trouble, and Shigeru asks where he is. The Prince, who has been speaking with them as a schoolkid, recognizes them as Yuichi’s parents. Though they are meeting in person for the first time, Shigeru says that the Prince already knows him from their recent phone call.

The Prince’s manner does not reassure the newcomers. Nanao describes him as a boy who chooses his words carefully and remarks on his smell; the Prince responds with a sulky expression, objecting to the insult while saying he had not meant offense by calling Shigeru grandpa. The exchange gives their meeting an uneasy, almost ordinary social surface, but the family relationship underneath it is immediately consequential. Nanao intervenes on the Prince’s behalf, describing him as an ordinary schoolkid caught in danger and asking Shigeru not to be too hard on him. Shigeru rejects that description: he does not regard the Prince as merely an ordinary boy.

The First Armed Standoff

As he makes that judgment, Shigeru reaches into his jacket. Nanao reacts instinctively, drawing the gun from behind his belt at the same moment Shigeru draws his own and aims at the Prince. The three are seated close together, with guns inches from the faces of the Prince and Shigeru. Nanao registers the arrangement as surreal: the seats face one another as if meant for conversation or cards, yet the encounter has become an armed standoff. Shigeru warns the Prince that telling the truth may be his chance to survive.

The moment puts Nanao between a family seeking answers and a boy he has just defended. Shigeru’s arrival was driven by concern for Yuichi, but his attention now fixes on the Prince; Nanao’s quick draw prevents the older man from having unopposed control of the confrontation. The train’s close seating makes the threat immediate, while the Prince’s composure and careful speech make it difficult to read him as a helpless child. The scene’s central conflict is therefore not only over what happened, but over whose account of danger the others will believe.

The Prince Turns Concern into Leverage

The Prince later uses the Kimuras’ concern for their grandson to influence the encounter. Shigeru and Akiko speak of their age and experience, a confidence the Prince finds irritating. He takes a deep breath, controls his anger, and apologizes before telling them that it may already be too late for their grandson. Their stillness marks the force of the revelation. When Shigeru asks what he means, the Prince explains that he had been told to answer an earlier call or the boy in the hospital would die. He adds that he had to answer before the phone rang ten times, and blames Shigeru for not letting him take the call.

This account is presented as the Prince’s explanation, not as confirmed fact. He makes himself sound docile, lets his shoulders tremble, and privately treats the Kimuras’ alarm as a step toward securing dominance. Akiko, shaken by what she has heard, proposes that they try calling. The Prince agrees and offers his phone, while pointedly reminding Shigeru that he is supposedly not allowed to move. The offer changes the pressure in the scene: a phone that the couple had been wary of letting the Prince touch now becomes something they urgently want to use. His claim has made their protective impulse serve his immediate purpose.

Confirmation at Morioka

At Morioka, Shigeru hands the phone back to the Prince after learning that the ticker message was right: Wataru is safe. Akiko leans toward her husband, jubilant and asking whether the news is true. Shigeru also says that Wataru is awake. The discovery overturns the Prince’s attempt to make the unanswered call seem decisive. The outcome he had described as imminent is not what the couple now knows to be true, although the evidence does not establish who sent the earlier warning or exactly how the danger was resolved.

When the Prince starts to speak, Shigeru cuts him off and refuses to answer his questions. Instead, he names the things the Prince does not know: who Shigeru had just spoken to, and that Wataru is safe and awake. He accuses the boy of assuming that adults are fools and of believing that he already understands everything. The Prince denies this, continuing to present himself as helpless, but the reversal is unmistakable. He had tried to dictate what the Kimuras believed by controlling the meaning of the phone call; now the family possesses information he lacks.

Shigeru then raises his gun to the Prince’s forehead and speaks about the uncertainty of surviving another fifty years. He contrasts the Prince’s confidence in his own luck with the years of life the older couple have already endured, insisting that they have a future the boy cannot presume to outlast. His threat is to disable the Prince and carry him away, not to kill him immediately; he says he wants the boy to have time to reflect on his actions. Akiko backs her husband, saying she will not try to make him go easier on the Prince this time. When Shigeru continues describing what he intends to do, however, she taps his shoulder and tells him they are not doing that again.

An Unresolved Departure

Shigeru’s anger does not erase his anxiety about Yuichi. Akiko steadies him by saying she is sure their son is alive and would not give in while worrying about Wataru. Shigeru agrees, describing Yuichi as exceptionally hard to kill. The exchange grounds the threat against the Prince in the Kimuras’ immediate fear for their son: even after receiving reassuring news about Wataru, they have not yet seen Yuichi, and their confidence in him remains a source of resolve. The Hayate pulls into Morioka Station as they speak.

The passage then shifts to Nanao, who hears a sudden bang as passengers step onto the platform. The other passengers appear to accept it as an ordinary train sound, but Nanao recognizes it as a gunshot and thinks it probably came from car eight, where the facing seats are located. This places a sharp sound immediately after the confrontation without identifying who fired, at whom, or with what result. The scene therefore closes on a reversal in knowledge but not a settled resolution: Wataru is confirmed safe and awake, while the fate of the armed encounter remains uncertain.