Yoshinaga

**Yoshinaga** (吉永, *Yoshinaga*) is the manager of spiritual artist Nick Hallelujah.

## Background

Yoshinaga works as Nick Hallelujah's manager, and they have established a routine where Yoshinaga confirms Nick's schedule for the following days during his shows. Nick's lover, Julia Kaneko, is alleged to be having an affair with him prior to her death.

On 9 January 2016, Yoshinaga accompanied Nick to Hotel Cadenza in Kyoto for a show entitled *Spiritual Art Show* and stayed at a room across Nick's. At around 11 p.m., after the show, he snuck to Nick's room while he was away and stabbed Julia to death using a knife from the show, after which he tied Nick's signature wire to her belt and hid her behind the curtain. At some point, he managed to place Nick's fingerprints on to the murder weapon. He returns to his room across the murder scene and waited for Nick to fall asleep, a trait he had been experiencing after getting intoxicated. As he fell asleep on the couch, Yoshinaga, from the room across, pulled Julia's corpse using the wire near Nick's couch from where he could see her later on. He then went to the hotel bar on the top floor and made his routine call to Nick at around 11:07 p.m. At the other end of the line, he hears Nick's screams upon finding Julia's corpse.

## Appearance

Yoshinaga has black hair and is of average height. He wears a semi-formal attire consisting of a lilac dress shirt and grey vest which he tops with a light taupe blazer alongside matching trousers. When he murdered Julia, he rolled his shirt into a ¾ length and wore black gloves, most possibly to avoid detection of his fingerprints. He also did not wear his blazer on this occasion.

Notably, he wears a silver cuff-like bracelet on his left hand with an intricate design and gold accents. This bracelet is presumed to have been bought from the same store, which looks similar to Julia's earrings.

## Personality

Yoshinaga appears to be routinary and prefers order in managing Nick's shows, following a certain routine during shows to confirm Nick's schedule for the following days. Outside his professional career, he seems to have an affection for Julia, whom he apparently bought dangling earrings that match his own bracelet. Despite him possibly knowing of her relationship with Nick, he did not mind being engaged in a clandestine affair with her.

He is rather cunning when he uses his and Nick's routine as well as the latter's typical behaviour after an alcohol intake to his advantage to frame Nick for a murder that the latter did not commit. In this regard, he can also come up with such elaborate plans and would be able to successfully perform it, almost as if without flaw. Until the eventual revelation of his crime, he was not suspected given his foresight of having set up an alibi that would evade capture from the police. This, however, did not last long, given also his apparent short-sightedness when he fails to at least hide or not wear his bracelet, an item that would later prove his guilt.

It was not mentioned why he specifically performed his crime, but it may point to his desire to set up Nick as a criminal. Given this attitude, he has the capacity to turn into a ruthless criminal and put meticulous plans into action, even to the point of murdering his own alleged lover.

## Plot

### Hotel Cadenza Homicide

On 9 January 2016, Yoshinaga is sent by the Kyoto Prefectural Police to Nick's hotel room that had turned into a crime scene for the murder of Julia Kaneko. Given his alibi, the police does not place their suspicion on Yoshinaga, claiming to have been at the rooftop hotel bar during the incident. As criminologist Hideo Himura and Alice Arisugawa arrive to aid the police, Yoshinaga and Nick are interrogated. Initially asking seemingly irrelevant questions, Himura then reveals the unseen schemes behind the murder, later identifying Yoshinaga as the culprit in the murder. Visibly aghast and speechless, Yoshinaga is presumed to be further questioned, if not arrested.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Screaming Castle Murder Case*