Hiromi Asai obtains Kaga’s private address

Hiromi Asai obtains Kyoichiro Kaga’s private address by using a kendo magazine and Machiko Yoneoka, then creates an opportunity to approach him at a kendo workshop. Kaga later establishes that their meeting was not simply chance: Hiromi had brought child actors to the workshop in order to get close to him. Yet when he confronts her, she offers a practical explanation for seeking the address and maintains that their eventual encounter was coincidental. The action exposes a concealed route into Kaga’s personal life without settling why Hiromi wanted to reach him.

The Address and the Magazine

The address first becomes significant when Kaga mentions receiving an unusual request for an interview directly at his home. He wonders whether anyone has asked for his address, a question that points toward information circulating beyond ordinary professional contact. The later revelation identifies Hiromi as the person who obtained it, making the letter and Kaga’s concern an early trace of her investigation into how to reach him.

Kaga’s evidence is a kendo magazine containing an article about him. He takes it from his briefcase, opens it to a page marked with a sticky note, and shows it to Shuhei Matsumiya, who is startled by the photograph of his cousin in a kendo pose. Kaga says he has learned something important from the article: he can prove that Hiromi used it to find out his private address. The marked page turns a public account of Kaga’s skill into a means of locating him privately.

A Meeting Made Possible

Matsumiya immediately recognizes the consequence of Kaga’s discovery. Hiromi had always insisted that she happened upon Kaga by chance at the kendo school; if she already had his address, the supposed coincidence looks different. Kaga goes further: he says she brought the child actors to the workshop in order to get close to him. The workshop was therefore not merely a place where their paths crossed, but the setting of an approach arranged through Hiromi’s work with the children.

Kaga does not claim to know her ultimate reason. He tells Matsumiya that, if Hiromi is somehow connected to Shunichi Watabe, the evidence may solve a riddle that has puzzled him for years. The address acquisition thus matters beyond the mechanics of the meeting: it becomes a possible link in Kaga’s longer inquiry, though the connection he suspects remains conditional rather than established in this exchange.

Hiromi’s Explanation

When Kaga asks Hiromi why she wanted his address, he refers to Machiko Yoneoka, who has already told him about the police visit. Hiromi says she was researching kendo for a play and wanted to speak with the best fighter she could find. She recalls that this was what she told Yoneoka at the time. Her account presents the request as work-related: Kaga was a source for a theatrical project, not necessarily the object of a personal pursuit.

Kaga points out the gap between obtaining the address and using it. Despite getting Yoneoka to find out where he lived, Hiromi never contacted him directly. Hiromi answers that she ultimately chose a different theme for her play, so the interview was no longer necessary. Her explanation supplies a straightforward reason both for the address search and for its abandonment, while leaving unanswered why she instead brought the child actors to the workshop.

Coincidence and Unresolved Purpose

Hiromi says she was surprised to meet Kaga at the police kendo workshop and calls the encounter an amazing coincidence. Kaga challenges that description, and she repeats it while holding his gaze. The exchange preserves a tension between what Kaga can substantiate about her prior preparations and what Hiromi chooses to say about the meeting itself: she acknowledges the address search, but does not concede that the workshop encounter was planned.

The episode’s force comes from that separation between a proven method and an undisclosed motive. The magazine and Yoneoka explain how Hiromi could locate Kaga; the child actors explain how she came within reach of him at the workshop; her changed theatrical theme explains why she did not follow up at his home. None of those details resolves the larger question Kaga raises about her possible connection to Shunichi Watabe. The encounter shifts from apparent accident to an episode with deliberate preparation, but its personal and investigative significance remains open.