Heyyy, I'm doing a bit more on the episode summary than a full length recap this time round; feel free to ask me elaborate on any points!

We have a bit of recall here: Shuji and Katsumata out on a case, where Shuji caught the criminal and Katsumata had to stop him from firing the trigger. Shuji had expressed his conviction that a life should be paid with a life. 

Imaizume with hairrr. 

Back to the present, Tamotsu's daughter ran away from home after getting into a dispute with her father. She wanted to be a policeman just like Tamotsu, but he disagreed. Kohei asked why, since this was a good sign that his daughter respected his work, and that Reiko's parents allowed her to work in the police force despite the danger. Tamotsu protested that Reiko was different from his daughter, and Kikuta suddenly paid attention to the conversation. 

Hehehe, I love this look that Kikuta gives~

Please develop the Kikuta-Reiko line, thanks. 

Reiko felt really down about the case and stormed out for a drink. Kikuta sat behind her and talked to her. 

Reiko told him that Katsumata said she and Shuji had the same look in their eyes but she insisted that she's different from Shuji. 

She popped by home at night, and her mother was still up. As she took a drink from the fridge, she wondered out loud if her father ever wanted to kill her before. Her mother denied it, but Reiko was sure that her father was very disappointed in her after 'that incident'. She left the house, leaving her mother mid-sentence that she cared about her. 

Reiko overheard Kikuta telling the rest of the team not to tell her something, and oops, now Kikuta had to tell her — that the release date for Shuji's son had been moved forward. She went to find Shuji immediately, and during the conversation, Shuji revealed his conviction that the murderous intent in a person remained even after one act of murder. 

He believed that by taking a life, you can only repay it with another life. 

Reiko looked at him with determination, and said that she would definitely protect Hideki (Shuji's son). She went back to the station and managed to convince Imaizume into letting her investigate the case. 

That's Kikuta listening from a side. 

Imaizume gave the go-ahead, and Noriyuki finally decided to chip in his help, even though he still didn't agree that Shuji could be the murderer. 

Yayyy. Kikuta was really happy to know that Noriyuki approved of Reiko in his own way now. After a whole day of investigation, they didn't come up with anything useful. Imaizume went for a drink with Reiko and from him, Reiko learnt that even when Hideki was caught, his mother believed that he wouldn't murder someone just because his girlfriend wanted to break up with him. She tried to get Hideki to confide in her during their meeting, but Hideki just kept mum and returned to his cell. 

Then, Reiko visited Ayaka's mother, who recently cleaned Ayaka's belongings. Turns out that Ayaka had a stalker — the son of the president of the company that her father worked at. This hunch was confirmed by Ayaka's best friend. Reiko recalled unwillingly her own feelings of getting stalked. (I really want to know what happened to her:O and if Kikuta knows it!) She went back to the station, to hear the news that Hideki would be released that very day. She rushed to the prison, while telling her team to research on the stalker. 

She managed to get to Hideki right outside the prison, but when Shuji came to get him, Hideki refused Reiko's help and said that he would go home with his father. Reiko asked if she could trust Shuji but got no reply. Then she got the news from Kikuta that the stalker had been caught and that he confessed to sexually assaulting Ayake. Hideki returned home, and told Shuji he knew that he wanted him dead. 

Reiko quickly rushed to Shuji's home but found him sitting quietly in the living room. She ran up to the room upstairs, and was shocked to find….Hideki dead. He had hung himself. She made Shuji go into Hideki's room and there, she told him about her hunch (which was most likely correct) that Hideki probably killed Ayake because she believed that her life was over after she got sexually assaulted. It's no wonder that he felt that way too, for he was brought up by a father who he himself believed that a mistake would mean that everything's gone. 

Shuji finally broke down, and Reiko told him that he couldn't go die on her, since she wanted him to, "suffer and suffer and suffer."

Back in the station, Reiko murmured that she believed that, "No matter what kind of mistake you make, you can start over. I believe people have the strength to do so."

-the end-

I'm sorry for the lousy screen caps this time round. I hope there will be better ones next episode!(: Argh it seems like I have so many things to apologise about –> lateness of the recap, but there's no way I can get this up in time…and since I've decided a long time ago that I shall write when I'm happy, I've decided that I will keep recapping this series, but only after I recapped my favourite ones first…which is the reason why Pretty Little Liars and The Moon That Embraces The Sun probably only take two to three days for me to write, while I take close to a week to churn out Strawberry Night. Hope you guys don't mind!

I cannot empathise with this Shuji. Fine, I understand the inclination towards 'A life for a life', but to kill others just to give yourself the resolve to kill your own son when he's out of jail…is just not understandable. Never mind that you didn't kill him with your own hands in the end, the fact remains that you know he's going to hang himself and you let him do it. 

Imaizume with a head full of hair looks really funny by the way. He looks much cooler with a shaved head:D 

And I know I mention this before, but really, develop that Kikuta — Reiko line:D They will make such a cute couple! 

<3thoughtsramble