At the other end of town, Nishihara Miwa (25), the only daughter of a corporation boss, is preparing for her birthday party on a cruise ship. At her party, she meets Ryou, who mesmerizes her with his voice and his eyes. A fight on the cruise ship breaks out between Kashiwagi Naoya, Miwa's suitor, and Ryou's friend. In the tussle, Miwa's bead bracelet was broken and beads scattered onto the floor. Later, as Miwa picks up the precious beads that formed the bracelet given to her by Kanzo, someone whom she treats as a dear brother, Ryou appears on the scene and threads the bracelet back for her. And she becomes hopelessly attracted to Ryou and Ryou seemed to return her feelings.
Back at home, Miwa looks lovingly at the bracelet and out of curiosity, she flips open one of her old photo albums, which showed her wearing the same bracelet before it was broken. Ryou has pieced back the bracelet in the exact same order the beads were in.
Ryou is an orphan who never had money nor status. But one thing he had was the magnetic charm he had over women. They fell all over him and were ready to do anything for him, including giving up their status and money. Miwa was one of such girls. She had decided to leave her family to be with Ryou, because they objected to him and wanted her to marry Kashiwagi instead. Miwa had a good friend, Yuko (28) who is Kanzo's sister. Yuko also met Ryou on the cruise and found him unnerving. Later, she found out that her good friend Miwa, has fallen for Ryou and that they were an item. Yuko met Ryou on a few other occasions as well and found out that he had a similar burn scar on his back, like what she had on her arm.
Towards the middle of the dorama, one would be quite sure that the murderer of the university girl must be Ryou. Who would have such a photographic memory like Ryou? However, Ryou had another girl in his life. A very pretty girl of 19 years, Miyashita Yuki, she did not have any confidence in life and was alone in this world like Ryou. Yuki loved Ryou with all her life and all she wanted was for Ryou to return just a little feelings for her. Real feelings ... Something that she felt Ryou did not possess. Until she saw Ryou eating at a small eatery with Yuko. The expression he had, the way he looked at Yuko. It was something she had never seen in Ryou before. She became jealous and tried to stab Yuko one night. She failed and stabbed Kanzo instead. This incident caused Kanzo to befriend the lonely Yuki.
Soon Kanzo begins to believe in his instinct that Ryou had to be the killer. When Miwa shoots Kashiwagi, Ryou asked Miwa to leave the scene and let himself be apprehended. But the evidence at the crime scene could never have fooled the police. Who would clean off all fingerprints on the rifle but stay at the crime scene to give himself up? However, Miwa thought that Ryou had really done all that for her and out of guilt, she wrote a letter saying she was the one who shot Kashiwagi and she then killed herself. After this incident, Kanzo was even more sure of what he had believed in the first place. That Ryou's beautiful face hid the heart of a devil. And that he was more than just a murderer.
On the other hand, this was something that Yuko did not believe in. No matter how much her brother warned her, she chose to believe what her heart told her since the first time she saw Ryou. Ryou slowly changed after he met Yuko. He smiled from his heart when he was with her. She was the only person he invited into his house. When he fell for Yuko, he did not involve himself with other women like he used to do since all the other women meant nothing to him. At this time, Kashiwagi Sayuri (Naoya's elder sister) was very interested in Ryou. Ryou decided not to have anything more to do with her, because he had found hope and happiness with Yuko. But when his lost memories since 5 years old was slowing coming back to him and he realized that his childhood was not like what the Sister at the orphanage told him. He kept seeing images of someone killing his Dad. What really happened? Did someone kill his Dad? He wanted to seek the truth. Will this truth prevent him from seeking the happiness he could share with Yuko?
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Usually, I don't like to write a story's ending in my synopsis but I think I will make an exception for this story. Those who have not watched the dorama and do not want to know what happened in the end, please stop reading here. This is actually the first time I have seen a script by Kitagawa Eriko that ends like that. And I wonder if she is trying to vie with Shakespeare to see who can come up with a more tragic story. *sigh* Anyway, Kimura-kun has revealed long before the dorama that this story was to be a tragedy, so here goes...
As Ryou was trying to investigate his background, Kanzo, on the other hand, was trying to find out about the boy in the incident that happened 25 years ago, when he was a rookie detective. He was on the hunt for an alleged murder and shot the murderer dead in his own home and his son was left orphaned. This incident never left Kanzo's memory and had haunted him till this day.
As Ryou tracked back to an old abandoned house, his memories came back to him more clearly than ever and he finally saw the face of the person who shot dead his father. And the man was none other than Kanzo. At that very moment, Ryou was bent on revenge on the man who took away his childhood. A beautiful childhood that was left with nothing but hurt and pain. Because of this need for revenge, the old Ryou who would stoop at nothing to achieve his goals re-surfaced. He went back to Sayuri, resumed their relationship and got her to check Kanzo's past. Maybe it was a past that should have been left behind.
Kanzo was indeed the killer of Ryou's dad who was an alleged murderer and that Ryou was at the scene of the killing of his own Dad. What was more shocking was that Ryou was not the only one who witnessed that. Ryou's kid sister was at the scene as well. And the burnt mark that Ryou had was the result of him protecting his sister as she toppled a burning kettle over whilst rushing towards her dad. And his little sister was adopted by none other than Kanzo himself and that makes Yuko his own sister. The only love of his life. At that moment, he knew that he could never be with Yuko anymore. He decided the only way to make Yuko leave him was to see his callousness towards women.
Now, Ryou's mind was nothing but confusion. The only ray of light and hope he had ever seen is now suddenly taken away from him, the happiness he had thought he would find with Yuko was nothing but impossible. In that confusion and with the life of the woman he loved at stake, Ryou shot dead Sayuri who was taunting him about his relationship with his kid sister. It was the first time he killed with his hands. And now, his only way out was death itself. He wrote a letter and left a message to Kanzo to meet him at the abandoned house. He had wanted to leave the letter for Kanzo and kill himself before Kanzo got there. But Yuko got the message instead and from what she had heard about her brother and Ryou's dad, she thought that Ryou wanted to exact revenge on her brother. So, off she went to meet Ryou before he could do anything to hurt Kanzo. At the house, Yuko found Ryou and took the gun to him and confronted him. Yuko had thought that Ryou got near her because he wanted to exact revenge on Kanzo. Ryou just let Yuko rant at him. At the end, Yuko fired a shot as Ryou moved towards her. And Ryou fell down limped. Yuko was shocked as she probably did not mean to fire the gun. As she moved towards Ryou, she found a letter in Ryou's pocket and read it. It was the letter meant for Kanzo. As she read it, tears streamed down her face. She was wrong and Ryou's feelings for her were true. And then she got to the part where Ryou tells Kanzo in his letter about finding out that Yuko was his own sister. At this moment, her composure broke and she peered at the room where Ryou laid motionlessly. Her memories flooded back and what she saw was the room she and Ryou shared as brother and sister. At this time, Kanzo was rushing towards the abandoned house, knowing that Yuko had gone there to meet Ryou. When Kanzo reached the abandoned house, all he found were some fresh blood stains on the floor and he rushed out of the house towards the river. When Kanzo got to the river, he saw Yuko rowing a boat out and he shouted with all his might for her. Yuko seemed oblivious to Kanzo's shouts but finally she turned around and looked at her brother in a dazed look. At that moment, she took out the gun, whispered "Sorry, brother" and shot herself to die in the arms of Ryou.
