Good morning.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
Sasaki-san?
Sasaki-san, are you...
Call an ambulance! Quickly!
When organisms die, their meat decays.
But their bones remain.
They loudly declare to the world that the creature existed.
Many people shy away from listening to bones,
but in fact we often come in contact with them.
You all recognise fried chicken fast food, don't you?
This is the keel.
Furcula and coracoid bone.
They form the sternum.
And this is a rib.
Thoracic vertebrae, scapula.
They form the ribcage.
And this is a drumstick.
It's a leg.
Femur, tibia, fibula.
What's so funny?
This is the skull of a wild boar.
The bones are stronger than iron.
- Feel it. - Let me!
- I want to touch! - Me, too!
Is it real?
It's a real wild boar.
- Was it fun. - It was.
Kujō-san.
Thank you for coming today in place of my brother.
Not at all.
Sasaki-sensei helped me a lot when he was alive.
It was so sudden.
A heart attack.
At least he didn't suffer.
I actually wanted to consult you about something.
My brother had said if anything happened to him,
he wanted to entrust the objects from storage to you.
You can donate specimens?
That's great.
Understood, yes.
Yes, tomorrow, then. Yes.
Everyone,
Kujō-san's old high school teacher has passed away,
and she'll give us the specimens he left.
The things will need sorting through at Kujō-san's house tomorrow,
so Isozaki-kun and Tanigami-kun, could you go?
It seems there are quite a few plant and rock specimens.
But my relative will have an accident tomorrow...
You can foresee that?
Wah! A diving knee drop...
You're not a professional wrestler.
Tatewaki-kun, can you go with them?
The more the merrier, right?
Ah! Wait a...
Okay.
Ah... That's done it.
I hate this kind of thing.
Here.
Why me?
I don't know anything about specimens.
A buffer?
A lubricant.
What?
I can't stand being alone with those two for long.
I'm still not convinced that one's human.
Oh~
At last I meet a Thalictrum integrilobum.
Oh~
At last I meet a Chamaeleo calyptratus.
Did Sasaki-sensei teach about living creatures?
He taught for years at a high school in Asahikawa.
He moved here about 10 years ago.
Before that he did lectures and field work,
while working part time at a private school in Tōkyō.
- What? - It should be obvious,
but I just realised you went to high school once.
- What do you mean? - Ah, no, it's just
I wondered what kind of student you were.
I was always studying
skeletal specimen books Sasaki-sensei gave me.
I don't want to meet a high school girl like that.
That's nice.
That's youth, too...
They seem to get on pretty well.
Boy, lend me a hand.
Okay.
- Lift there. - Okay.
Here goes.
Is this a dog?
Specifically a Shiba Inu.
I used to have a Mame Shiba.
So what?
Eh?
Ah, well, he died when I was in middle school.
When you said "Shiba Inu",
I remembered my sadness.
Why?
This isn't your dog, is it?
Ah, that's true.
Oh? Things took an awkward turn.
This is a pig's skull.
Does seeing this make you sad?
No...
Why not?
This pig and that dog are both animals.
The only difference is one's food and one's a pet.
What about the love for the pet?
- That's important. - Food is important, too.
Love won't fill your stomach.
Don't quibble.
I'll burn your specimen collection!
Tatewaki-kun,
You didn't make me come alone into enemy territory.
You've done well.
Huh?
Is this a cat?
"Patella"... Its name?
That's right.
It's a cute name.
It means "kneecap".
Not cute!
Otherwise known as the kneepan.
Could it be...
This was your cat?
She died when I was 17.
Eh? And you made it a specimen?
Sasaki-sensei helped me to.
Back then, I still didn't have the skill.
You dissected and mounted your own pet?
She died suddenly.
I was intrigued as to why.
Intrigued...
Such a casual feeling...
Casual?
You cared for her, didn't you?
You'd been together for years?
Cutting her up out of interest isn't normal!
Weren't you remembering her?
"That paw did a cat punch", and so on.
- She did cat punches, right? - What are you talking about?
Even a pet cat is just a research subject.
She doesn't have human emotions.
I was right, she's not normal.
A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako-san's Feet
Bone 3
Subtitles by Candylemon
Everyone, this way.
Next, here's the forest ecosystem corner.
You're gorgeous.
- Even better in person. - That's right, so pretty.
Thank you very much.
That's right, that's a great pose.
There's someone strange out there.
They've been watching me.
The "beautiful curator" effect?
It's tough being a celebrity.
- Excuse me. - I'm sorry.
If you've already taken a photo, I can't...
No, I've brought your bentō.
We didn't order those.
They were ordered by Kujō-san.
You don't think she ordered them for the fish bones, right?
No...
- Hello. - You've got some nerve.
Pardon?
- Complaint call? - That's right.
Someone has written online
"Kujō Sakurako takes animals from public health centres
"to kill and turn into specimens."
And ask her what we should do with the 30 bentō.
Bentō?
I don't know anything about them!
The health centre bit is nonsense, too.
Observing living animals
and visualising their bones' movement is fun.
Why would I purposely take away that pleasure?
Not everyone considers that fun...
Yes, sorry for disturbing you.
Kujō-san says she doesn't know anything
about either the accusations or the bentō.
Is it just a prank?
But if they're targeting Kujō-san...
It's harassment, isn't it?
What?
Someone with a grudge against Kujō-san...
Who?
Not a clue.
Everyone...
how about a break for some soup?
Vichyssoise made with Hokkaidō's
speciality Kita Akari potatoes.
Wow, thank you!
- Sorry for the trouble. - Thank you.
Mmm, delicious!
I'm glad.
Shouldn't you taste it properly?
Definitely Kita Akari.
Delicious!
She did taste it.
Hm?
What's this?
What animal is it?
And why is it in this box?
Quite a find.
These are human bones.
Eh?!
Eh?
Real ones?
Fascinating.
How do you know they're human?
The chin.
Only humans have this.
Study a little anatomy and you'd know immediately.
Ah... No, thanks.
These have been cremated.
The fact they've shattered like this
is evidence they've been burned.
It's possible the person was elderly or had a disease.
So, whose bones are they?
"As I stand in the candle flame,
"though my viscera are burned in the hellfire
"the mountain cherry blooms in the dragon's mouth."
"Mountain cherry"...
Eh? You're interested in that?
"Viscera" and "hellfire" are nasty.
Could the bones belong to this "Reiko"?
Reiko
- His wife? - No, Sensei never married.
Excuse me...
What are you...
Still...
You folks just keep on finding corpses!
I'm sorry.
"You folks"?
So, what do you know, Sensei?
- I don't know anything. - Don't be silly.
Those bones have been cremated.
After they've been subjected to 1,000°C, I can't even tell the sex.
DNA can't be recovered.
That's the biggest possible nuisance.
- No idea who it is? - None.
He was your high school teacher, right?
We didn't discuss his private life.
She's only interested in bones.
Since they've been properly cremated,
the legal procedures must have been completed
so I doubt there's a case here.
For now, we'll check whether they've been lost or stolen.
Can you ask Sensei's family if they know anything?
Thank you
I'm counting on you...
...regarding what we discussed.
Kondō.
Yes, sir.
Excuse us.
- Hello. - This isn't fair!
Eh? What?
I found a suspicious person,
but he just said, "Get rid of Kujō Sakurako",
and made my face all black!
Graffiti isn't good.
Why did you do it?
Kujō Sakurako is unqualified as an osteologist.
"Unqualified"...
- We're back. - Ah, welcome back.
Oh? Isozaki-san and Tanigami-san?
Our work was interrupted.
Some things happened.
Ah... Who's this?
I won't recognise you.
Who are you?
Sasaki-sensei said you were the best osteologist in Japan,
but that's crap!
I don't have time for this.
You seduced him, didn't you?!
What?
That's why he was always praising you!
Are you Sasaki-sensei's student?
No matter how well I assembled a skeleton,
he'd just go on about "When Kujō-kun was at school..."!
Jealous of Kujō-san?
Was it you who ordered the bentō?
And complained about Kujō-san online?
Pointless.
What would that achieve?
Shut up!
I wanted to strip away your disguise.
You fake osteologist!
Why?
Why you and not me?
It must hurt.
You're upset about Sasaki-sensei's death...
I'm not upset!
I just want to prove it!
That I'm his best student!
What would that achieve?
Who is his best student?
Pointless.
Sasaki-sensei is dead.
Wait, isn't that insensitive?
You're the lowest of students.
You don't understand anything.
Why do I have to hear that from you?
What do you know?!
If you have the time to come here,
use it to study as many books as you can!
Shut up!
Oh, a dolphin's otolith?
- You didn't have to say that. - Tatewaki-kun.
Do you know how he feels?
If you think about it, you should know.
Don't you have any emotions?
Are you a robot?
I'm not a robot.
I know that!
No, I was right.
I don't understand you at all.
Wait.
What do you want?
Don't worry about what she said.
He was your beloved teacher, wasn't he?
I don't need sympathy.
What?
It doesn't matter now.
She's right, Sasaki-sensei is dead.
So...
It doesn't matter anymore.
Of course it matters!
It's precisely because he won't come back,
precisely because you've lost someone important,
that it matters a lot!
Why do you care so much?
I know.
To Sasaki-sensei,
I was just another student.
How can you say that?
Because he never said anything to me.
About 2 days before he died, we argued.
They don't care about my dreams.
They just want me to do things their way.
Don't say things like that.
They're not my real parents, anyway.
Iriyama!
None of them care about me.
Not my parents now, or the ones who abandoned me.
Stop that.
Even you like Kujō Sakurako more than me.
I'm sick of you comparing me to her!
What are you talking about?
You're very important to me.
Liar!
Even though I told you everything.
Even though I thought we understood each other.
I want us to understand each other.
I've told you a lot, haven't I?
Then what about these bones?
There are human bones inside, aren't there?
There's a chin. I know that much.
They're nothing to do with you.
Whose bones are they?
Why do you have them?
I said it's none of your concern!
I knew it.
You don't trust me at all.
It's sick, keeping someone's bones!
Sensei asked Kujō-san
to organise the belongings he left behind, right?
He wouldn't tell me anything about those bones,
but he left them to Kujō-san.
That's why it doesn't matter now.
Good work.
Are you okay?
Yeah...
That boy is pretty complex...
Mm.
So? What about you?
What?
It doesn't matter now.
Miss Sakurako.
Miss Sakurako, you have a visitor.
About those bones...
There are no reports of them being lost or stolen.
Did you ask the family?
Yes, but they didn't know.
I see...
So...
- What? - About the other day.
You still haven't answered my question.
Will you help me? Or not?
What do you want?
Jus...tice?
- Let the police do it. - Whoa whoa whoa...
There are things I don't want my bosses to know.
- I'm not interested. - Oh...
So if you're interested, you'll help?
You said it.
I heard you.
What an optimist.
It doesn't matter now.
Of course it matters.
I'm Tatewaki from the Shizen no Mori Museum.
Sorry for the sudden call.
It's about Sasaki-sensei, who passed away recently.
I want to ask something.
I've finished organising the geological specimens.
Good work.
You mean Kujō-san and Isozaki-san
are alone in her house right now?
That's an intense level of obsessiveness.
How unusual.
Teshio Primroses.
Still, this is amazing.
He wasn't just an osteology expert,
he also knew about plants.
And his students adored him.
He seems like the perfect nerd.
As a former biology teacher myself, I envy him.
Why?
You and Sasaki-sensei are different people.
Is there something you regret?
No.
Did you find the cause of death
of the cat you dissected?
She had a brain tumour.
Did Sensei suggest making a specimen?
That's right.
When a pet dies,
many people are simply overwhelmed with grief.
But you wanted to know.
You confronted death.
I believe that's another way of respecting those you love.
See? She looks almost alive.
It's a form of respect
to want to know, and to face death.
Mm, that's a good perspective.
I hear that student yesterday
lost Sensei while they were at odds.
By chance, he discovered those bones.
But Sensei refused to tell him about them.
He wanted to know,
but he couldn't know.
That must have been difficult.
Sasaki-sensei was the adviser to the Department of Biology
and I was his deputy.
Iriyama-kun seems to have been very fond of him.
Yes.
When that boy was in middle school,
he often studied in the city hall library.
Sasaki-sensei met him there by chance.
That's a beautiful otolith.
A dolphin's ear stone.
That's rare.
Iriyama-kun struggled to get on with his classmates,
so he was always in the science lab with Sasaki-sensei.
Oh, nice work.
Well done.
He was truly happy to be praised by Sensei.
I see.
When Sensei died,
I think it was a severe shock to him.
About Sasaki-sensei...
Did he... how should I put it...
have a woman he was close to?
Did you ever hear about anything like that?
I think he'd have met her 4 or 5 years ago.
4 or 5 years ago...
Ah...
Do you remember something?
It's probably irrelevant,
but it was autumn 5 years ago.
I went to the coast with Sensei to collect bones,
but he slipped and broke his ankle.
What?
I went with him to hospital,
and he was hospitalised immediately.
That's irrelevant, isn't it?
No, can you tell me the details?
Done.
I've finished clearing these.
Custom made shoes
The woman named Reiko had Celtic feet.
Celtic?
The shape of the foot skeleton.
80% of Japanese people
have Egyptian feet,
where the toes taper down in length.
Rarely, the second toe is the longest
and the feet are the wide Celtic type.
Does this give some sort of clue?
I don't know.
But it's an unusual skeletal form.
Fascinating.
To be honest, I've been thinking myself since yesterday.
About that poem.
It mentions "mountain cherry".
That's the flower of Kamakura city.
Kamakura?
And "dragon".
There's a legend about dragons in Kamakura,
so I wonder if there's a link.
Eh? Eh?
What's going on?
They found this place, too?
What are you doing here?
I was curious about the bones...
It's possible the person was ill, right?
I heard Sasaki-sensei was hospitalised here 5 years ago,
so I wondered...
We're here for the same reason.
I thought you weren't interested?
Now now, we have the same goal
so let's get along.
We can't disclose patients' personal details.
I'm sorry.
Should have known...
Um...
Excuse me.
I couldn't help overhearing.
You mentioned Reiko-san and Sasaki-san?
Do you know about them?
I was hospitalised here in the past.
I was in the same room as a Togawa Reiko-san.
Reiko-san was good friends with Sasaki-san,
who was hospitalised with a broken bone.
As we thought.
Even after he was discharged,
Sasaki-san often came to visit Reiko-san.
I wonder if he feels sorry for me,
since I have no relatives.
He's a kind man.
I still wonder if at this rate
I'm going to die all alone.
It must have been in early spring.
There was somewhere Reiko-san wanted to go,
and Sasaki-san took her there for an overnight stay.
They were like family.
Had Togawa Reiko lived in Kamakura?
Yes, in Koshigoe.
I'll tell Iriyama-kun the bones are Togawa Reiko's.
He wanted to know.
We'll cover things here.
Thank you very much.
Not yet.
Hm?
The bones don't yet connect.
Why didn't Sasaki-sensei
tell anyone about Togawa Reiko?
Mm, that's a point.
Candle...
Dragon's mouth...
Koshigoe, and that poem...
Is there a link?
Kujō-san...
Kujō-san.
Found it.
The dragon's mouth.
Togawa Reiko-san left this with us.
I wasn't aware she had died.
Where is she buried?
Kujō-san.
The bones are all connected.
Bones?
Wait...
What did you want to say?
Come in and sit down to hear it.
Tatewaki-kun, too.
Sorry.
Regarding what you wanted to know,
those bones belong to a woman named Togawa Reiko.
I've already heard that from this person.
We never knew.
Why didn't Sasaki-sensei tell anyone about Togawa Reiko?
If they had a romantic relationship,
Sasaki-sensei wasn't married.
There was no reason to hide it.
Yet he did.
Why?
When Togawa Reiko was close to death,
Sasaki-sensei took her out for a day.
At that time,
he gave her a present of shoes.
I suppose it was from kindness,
since she'd been hospitalised for a long time.
However, she didn't have any well-fitting shoes.
What?
So Sensei had shoes custom made.
This is Togawa Reiko's foot shape.
She had the Celtic foot type.
I'm the same.
By the way, the dolphin otolith you have...
Otoliths are the hardest of bones, equal to teeth.
Even in the roughest seas
they reach the shore without breaking.
So in coastal areas
they're used as talismans for safety.
From 16 years ago,
this is the last photo Togawa Reiko had taken with her son.
This is...
She gave him a dolphin otolith as a prayer for his safety.
That child is you.
Sasaki-sensei and Togawa Reiko met by chance.
That's...an otolith, isn't it?
You're very knowledgeable.
At first, he may have felt kinship with her,
since neither of them had any family.
However, for Sasaki-sensei,
something like love seems to have grown.
That was when she told him.
Her last regret...
The son she had abandoned.
She asked Sasaki-sensei
to take her to the Dragon's Mouth Temple before she died.
She left the photo there.
To part with her son forever.
Then the two of them visited a certain place.
Enoshima's Sea Candle,
from her poem "In the Candle Flame".
It says,
"Though my viscera are burned in the hellfire
"the mountain cherry blooms in the dragon's mouth".
Despite her heartbreak at being parted from from her son,
she wished him a prosperous life
like the blooming flowers.
I hope...
...he grows up happy and healthy.
Sasaki-sensei kept her bones after her death.
And he began to search for her son.
It wasn't chance?
Sensei watched you grow from by your side.
He thought the day would come
when he'd tell you about your mother.
But he died before he could say it.
It's my fault.
Eh?
It's my fault he couldn't say it.
Do you think about your biological parents?
Not at all.
I don't want to know about them.
Because they abandoned me.
I see.
I acted tough...
But really I wanted to know.
Still, why did he keep her bones?
One reason was probably because he loved her.
Even as bones, he wanted to keep her near him.
The other reason
was so that he could give you her bones someday.
Your mother's bones.
I didn't understand anything.
I selfishly fought with him...
Sasaki-sensei fully accepted your feelings
and considered what he could do for you.
Sensei is gone.
But so what?
His teaching, and his kindness,
are still there within you.
With the feelings of Togawa Reiko.
You have been loved.
Kujō...
you may wonder if you're different from others
and feel lost.
But there's no need to worry about such things.
I'm thoroughly unusual.
You're never alone.
Please remember that.
You're not alone!
You shouldn't feel lost.
Follow the path you believe in.
Thank you very much.
Wanting them beside you, if only as bones...
That's how you felt about your cat, right?
So "intrigued"
isn't quite the right word for it.
It's your fault I remembered Patella.
Was that a cat punch?
You're looking at her again?
I loved both Shōtarō and Patella.
And I couldn't save either.
Miss...
Young Master Shōtarō had an accident.
There was nothing you could do.
Do you two still keep in touch?
Of course not.
We don't want to remember what happened.
Hello?
Is that Hitoe?
Is something...
You have reached the answering machine.
You again?
If you're interested,
you'll help me, right?
This is a case concerning your uncle, Professor Shitara.