Opening
These chapters plunge into the implosion of an “average” household and the making of a murderer. Through a mother’s self-deluding diary and a son’s fractured memories, the story exposes how denial, manipulation, and revenge spiral into a second, unexpected killing.
What Happens
Chapter 3: The Benevolent One
Kiyomi, the older sister of Naoki Shitamura, narrates the collapse of her family after their mother’s death—at Naoki’s hands. Police reveal that Naoki has been a hikikomori for four months, a secret even their father doesn’t know. The official family narrative blames trauma: Naoki “witnesses” the drowning of Manami Moriguchi and becomes the scapegoat of their teacher, Yūko Moriguchi. Searching for clarity, Kiyomi finds her mother, Naoki's Mother, has left a diary—most of the chapter unfolds through these entries.
The diary reveals a woman in absolute denial. She loathes Moriguchi as a negligent single mother and, when Naoki admits he was involved with Shūya Watanabe, she immediately rewrites the story: Shūya is a monstrous genius, and Naoki is a gentle boy trapped by circumstance. This is the chapter’s first and clearest case of Perception vs. Reality. As Naoki’s behavior deteriorates—he scrubs objects obsessively but refuses to bathe—his mother reads his compulsions as noble Guilt and Atonement, not warning signs.
Her “benevolence” accelerates the family’s downfall. She legitimizes Naoki’s retreat with a medical excuse, refuses to face the stigma of a shut-in son, and then stages a disastrous intervention: she drugs him and cuts his hair to strip away his “armor of filth,” triggering a violent break. Naoki confesses that Moriguchi said she injected his milk with HIV-positive blood as Revenge—and then confesses something worse: when Manami regained consciousness at the pool, he threw her in. The mother’s idealized image shatters. Her final entry becomes a suicide note: she will kill her son and then herself, the last act of a parent warped by the pressures and lies of Motherhood and Family Dysfunction.
Chapter 4: The Seeker
From a white room—likely a psychiatric ward—Naoki watches his life play across spotless walls. Middle school is loneliness and pressure, with a mother who demands that he be “nice” and exceptional. Into this need steps Shūya, who flatters Naoki’s “potential.” Desperate for status and belonging, Naoki volunteers Manami as the target for Shūya’s “Shocking Purse” test and convinces himself they are equal partners.
At the pool, everything curdles. After Manami collapses, Shūya drops the mask, calling Naoki “worthless” and a “failure” before vanishing. When Manami opens her eyes, Naoki rejects that verdict. He decides to succeed where the “genius” walked away: he throws the girl, alive, into the water. The act is deliberate, born of rage and pride, and for a fleeting moment he feels triumphant.
Moriguchi’s final lecture detonates whatever is left of his stability. Terrified that his milk was tainted with HIV, he sinks into a mental “swamp”—his hikikomori state driven by fear of infecting his family rather than remorse. He treats his mother’s efforts and visits from his teacher and Mizuki Kitahara as Moriguchi’s attacks. After confessing to his mother, he overhears that Shūya still attends school, which reignites his obsession with not being the “loser.” When his mother enters his room with a knife and says, “I’m sorry I failed you,” the word detonates. He kills her. The chapter closes with Naoki back in the white room, detached from the “idiot kid” on his walls and unsure if that boy is him.
Character Development
These chapters peel back performance and pretense to reveal the engines of violence: a mother’s fragile fantasy of goodness and a son’s frantic terror of failure. Kiyomi stands outside the delusions, translating chaos into a sequence the reader can bear.
- Naoki’s Mother: Self-deception hardens into control. She reframes evidence to preserve her “sweet boy,” sanctions isolation to avoid stigma, and, when truth punctures her fiction, turns to murder-suicide as a final assertion of maternal duty.
- Naoki Shitamura: His need for validation makes him pliable to flattery and cruelty alike. He shifts from accomplice to murderer out of pride, then retreats not from guilt but from fear of contagion—and explodes when the word “failure” returns.
- Kiyomi: An investigator and witness, she frames the diary’s madness with clarity and grief, anchoring the reader in a shared reality.
- Shūya Watanabe: A strategist who weaponizes praise and contempt. One word—“failure”—echoes through Naoki’s psyche and becomes the catalyst for two killings.
Themes & Symbols
The chapters stage a clash between private stories and public facts. Perception vs. reality drives every choice: the mother rewrites evidence to defend a son she cannot afford to lose; Naoki reinterprets murder as victory. Within this fog, revenge functions as psychological warfare rather than physical harm—Moriguchi’s threat infects Naoki’s mind, and his isolation flows from fear, not conscience. The family becomes a pressure cooker: love reframed as control, duty reframed as erasure.
Symbols sharpen the portrait of collapse:
- The Diary: A tool for narrative control—she records “bad things” to forget them, erasing whatever doesn’t fit the perfect-family script.
- The Swamp: Naoki’s metaphor for contamination and dread, a mental terrain where movement only drags him deeper.
- Filth and Cleanliness: He sterilizes objects while encasing himself in grime—an “armor” that both hides and punishes, externalizing inner self-loathing.
Key Quotes
“I disliked the woman the first time I met her. I even wrote to the principal to say I disapproved of having a single mother in charge of a class of impressionable adolescents...”
- The diary opens with prejudice masquerading as moral concern. This bias primes the mother to reject evidence and scapegoat Moriguchi, clearing space for her fantasy of a blameless son.
“You’re worthless. A failure.”
- Shūya’s verdict slices through Naoki’s need for recognition. The insult reframes their “experiment” as a contest Naoki must win, transforming him from follower to killer the moment Manami stirs.
“I’m sorry I failed you.”
- Intended as maternal remorse, the word “failed” ignites Naoki’s stored humiliation. Her pity completes the circuit Shūya began, turning apology into provocation and ending in matricide.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters form the psychological core of Confessions. After the cool architecture of Moriguchi’s account in Chapter 1-2 Summary, the narrative shifts into unreliable interiors: a mother who can’t bear the truth and a son who refuses to be a “failure.” The result reframes Manami’s death—not a prank gone wrong, but the convergence of manipulation, pride, and parental delusion—and traces the shockwave of Moriguchi’s revenge into a second killing.
The novel’s prismatic structure forces constant recalibration of blame and sympathy. Truth here is unstable and weaponized, and the cost of protecting a beautiful fiction is paid in blood.