"Sato."
Before Miwako Sato could completely lose control, Juzo Megure cleared his throat and interrupted the name that had nearly slipped from her mouth.
Since the Public Security Police were already involved in this crisis, they truly should not casually call out such a crucial name.
Miwako Sato came back to herself with a start and stopped the involuntary step she had taken forward.
She knew she should not have been so shaken.
No matter whether those vague suspicions were true, no matter what exactly what she had seen earlier meant, the person walking out of that room could not possibly be the real Matsuda Jinpei.
Yet as she looked at the face before her, Miwako Sato suddenly realized that Matsuda Jinpei's features in her memories had already grown somewhat blurry. So blurry that she tried hard to find even the slightest difference between the man before her and Matsuda Jinpei, only to come up empty.
Rather than believing the makeup artist was simply that skilled, Miwako Sato preferred to believe that time had had a far greater effect than she had imagined.
Even a face she had thought she would never forget, one etched deeply into her memory, had been given an indelible yellowish tint by the filter of time after several years had passed.
Her throat moved. The first thing that rose in her heart was not excitement or melancholy, but a brief sense of relief.
"Sorry. It's just... he looks too much like him." Miwako Sato tugged at the corner of her mouth. "So much that it feels like Matsuda himself is really standing in front of me."
Matsuda Jinpei, who truly was standing before her, looked back with equally complicated feelings.
His throat moved as well. Before speaking, he pulled the sunglasses from his pocket and