⚠️ The following contains major spoilers for Episode 4, including the ending. I recommend reading after watching.

What truly changes the situation in Episode 4 of Confession: The Secret After 25 Years is not Asai’s disappearance, but the fact that Sota becomes the one being investigated for the first time. For the first three episodes, he was almost always the one investigating the people around Mariko — investigating Sakura, Ginjiro, and Sayuri. In this episode, Sayuri uses exactly the same method against him, digging through Sota’s history from middle school and high school to university and his eventual entry into Nose Cosmetics. The man who has spent 25 years staying outside everyone else’s field of vision finally encounters someone who is willing to stare back.

Episode 4 is titled “僕にはやらないといけないことがある” (“There’s Something I Have to Do”) and aired on August 1, 2026, recording an average household rating of 4.2% and an individual rating of 2.5%. The episode also clarifies what happened to Asai while opening several new threads involving Tateiwa’s affair apartment, the private investigation agency’s files, and new clues surrounding Sayuri. More interesting than immediately guessing the culprit is the fact that Sota himself is beginning to change: in earlier episodes, he was still only secretly gathering information, but now he is willing to actively delete surveillance footage that captured him.

Confession: The Secret After 25 Years Episode 4 Recap: Asai’s Disappearance, Deleted Surveillance Footage, and Mariko’s Romantic Feelings

At the end of Episode 3, Mariko主动ly hugged Sota, and it looked as though the distance between them had finally begun to close. In Episode 4, however, she clearly starts avoiding him at work. It is not that she no longer cares. If anything, it feels as though becoming aware of Sota’s presence has suddenly made her unsure how to act around him. Sota, meanwhile, does not interpret it that way at all. He only worries that he may have done something wrong and even convinces himself that Mariko might already dislike him. They are both paying attention to each other, yet what each of them understands is a completely different version of the situation.

The main suspense storyline in this episode centers on the sudden disappearance of Gota Asai. Asai, who had served as Ginjiro’s secretary, is unexpectedly replaced and no longer appears at the company. Mariko senses that something is wrong. Ginjiro simply says that Asai is temporarily on leave, but that explanation clearly does not convince Sota. That night, Sota waits until the company is empty, sneaks into the secretary’s office, and searches Asai’s desk. Inside, he finds a magazine article from 25 years ago. He then goes even further and enters the president’s office, hoping to uncover more clues around Ginjiro.

What really pushes Sota’s character in another direction is the sequence that follows in the security room. While temporarily covering for someone there, he directly deletes the surveillance footage that captured him. In the earlier episodes, Sota had already stalked, investigated, and entered places he should not have been, but most of those actions still remained within the realm of gathering information. Episode 4 is the first time he actively erases a record that could preserve evidence of his presence. The act does not directly turn him into a suspect in the murder case, but it pushes an already blurred boundary a little further.

Asai’s whereabouts are revealed midway through the episode. He has not been killed like Tateiwa. Instead, he has been kidnapped and confined by Satoru Hatano, who was released from prison. Hatano used to be Ginjiro’s classmate and carries deep resentment toward the life Ginjiro has been able to live. Kidnapping Asai, someone who stays close to Ginjiro, is clearly not about Asai himself. It is a way for Hatano to get closer to Ginjiro. More troublingly, Hatano also begins appearing within Mariko’s daily orbit. Sota quickly notices his presence, giving his investigation into Asai another justification: protecting Mariko.

The romantic storyline moves forward slowly alongside these suspense elements. When Mariko and her secretary Izumi Takeda visit the café they often go to, café manager Tomoya casually reveals that Sota has been in love with someone for many years. The information clearly bothers Mariko, but she does not ask directly. Instead, she becomes even more distant from Sota after returning to the office. Sota remains convinced that she must dislike him, completely unaware that the problem is moving in the opposite direction.

The Tateiwa murder case also gains several new clues at the same time. Sayuri obtains the files from the private investigation agency Tateiwa had hired before his death and begins receiving internal company information from the new secretary who replaced Asai. Meanwhile, police discover that Tateiwa had rented another apartment outside his home specifically to meet an affair partner. Almost nothing inside the apartment identifies who that person was, so the investigation begins shifting toward the still-unrevealed lover. Once the Tateiwa murder becomes public news, online sentiment also turns against Mariko, with her name becoming tied to the case and social media filling with defamation and attacks directed at her.

Because of the negative publicity, Mariko has to personally visit clients to apologize, and Sota accompanies her. On the way, Mariko casually asks what the person Sota has loved for so long is like. Sota answers, “She’s kind to things and to people. Above all, she’s incredibly cool. She’s my hero.” From the audience’s perspective, he is almost directly describing Mariko herself. Mariko, however, does not consider that possibility at all. Sota finally says something genuinely heartfelt, but because he phrases it too indirectly, the two once again understand the same conversation in completely different ways.

By the end of Episode 4, Mariko finally begins connecting Sota to her past through a series of very small details. Sota knows that her shoes rub against her feet and prepares a bandage in advance. The character he has always liked also begins overlapping with Mariko’s memory of the boy who helped her at a summer festival when they were in middle school. None of these details is decisive evidence on its own, but together they make her seriously wonder for the first time whether the unnamed boy from back then might have been Sota all along.

Sota vs. Sayuri: In Episode 4, “Investigation” Becomes Two-Way for the First Time

The confrontation between Sota and Sayuri at the end of Episode 4 is probably the most oppressive face-off in the drama so far. Sayuri deliberately calls Sota out to meet her, and Sota no longer pretends to be an ordinary employee who knows nothing. He directly points out that she has been secretly preventing Mariko from gaining control of the company and says, “You really are impressive. Just like what I found out.” Sayuri is not intimidated in the slightest. Instead, she tells him that she has also had him investigated, that she finds his background extremely interesting, and then finally asks, “What exactly are you to Mariko?” Neither of them reveals everything they truly know, but both already understand that the other is not someone who can be handled casually.

After the episode aired, many viewers began asking, “Which one of these two is going to win?” Others simply thought both of them were terrifying. But what is more interesting is that Sota has finally encountered someone willing to investigate him in return. Across the first three episodes, he was able to uncover almost anything he wanted, slowly digging up secrets that other people had hidden for years. That was not entirely because he was smarter than everyone else. It was also because he was so easy to overlook. No one at the company paid much attention to a quiet, ordinary employee with little presence, so no one ever thought they needed to find out who he really was. Sayuri does, and she uses exactly the method Sota knows best. From this moment on, “investigation” is no longer an advantage that belongs only to him. He has become someone else’s subject.

That is why Sayuri’s final question — “What exactly are you to Mariko?” — is so frightening. Sota could say that he and Mariko are coworkers. He could say they have known of each other for many years. He could even admit that he has always loved her. But none of those descriptions really explains his position over the past 25 years. “Friend” does not quite fit. He has never truly presented himself as a suitor either. Calling himself an ordinary coworker is obviously impossible. And the stalking, recording, and investigating have long since gone beyond ordinary affection. Sota has spent 25 years seeing Mariko clearly, but when someone asks where he stands in relation to her, he suddenly has no simple answer. Sayuri’s first question goes directly to that weak point.

Confession: The Secret After 25 Years Episode 4 Foreshadowing: Tateiwa’s Affair Apartment, Surveillance Footage, and Murder Clues

Episode 4 contains one progression that connects beautifully with the previous episode, although the more you think about it, the more disturbing it becomes. In Episode 3, when Taisuke questioned him, Sota defended himself by saying, “The cameras didn’t capture me. If they didn’t capture me, that means I didn’t do it.” By Episode 4, he is personally deleting footage from the surveillance system. In both cases, “this person does not appear in the footage” is the result. The first time, he uses an existing blank space to argue for his innocence. This time, he creates that blank space himself. That does not mean he committed murder, and there is still no evidence directly connecting him to Tateiwa’s death. But the act changes his position. He no longer only investigates in secret or enters restricted places. He has begun deliberately removing records that could show he was there. Episode 4 is the first time the question “How far will Sota go for Mariko?” feels more unsettling than “Is he the killer?”

Is Sayuri Tateiwa’s Affair Partner? What Can Episode 4 Actually Confirm?

Tateiwa’s affair apartment is a new thread introduced in Episode 4, but it does not yet have an answer. Police discover that he rented another apartment where he met his affair partner, but almost nothing there reveals who that person was. At the same time, Sayuri remains closely connected to the information Tateiwa left behind. In Episode 2, she entered Tateiwa’s home and reset his computer. In Episode 3, she discovered that Tateiwa had dealings with a private investigation agency. By Episode 4, she has obtained the actual documents he commissioned. None of these details individually proves that the two were having an affair, but after several episodes repeatedly placing Sayuri beside Tateiwa’s private life and those investigation files, it becomes difficult to treat the connections as entirely unrelated.

So for now, including Sayuri among the candidates for Tateiwa’s affair partner is reasonable, but the evidence is still far from enough to conclude anything. What is clearer is that she cares deeply about the investigative materials Tateiwa left behind, knows where to find them, and knows which things cannot be allowed to remain. The more important question may actually be who Tateiwa originally hired the private investigator to investigate. If the target was connected to Mariko, Sota, or someone inside the Nose family, then those files may be what Tateiwa’s murder truly touched. Why Sayuri is so desperate to obtain them also remains unexplained.

Episode 4 Murder Suspect Analysis: Ranking Hatano, Sayuri, Taisuke, and Sota

After Episode 4, Satoru Hatano’s level of suspicion rises considerably. The biggest reason is not that a new piece of evidence directly links him to Tateiwa’s murder, but that the character has now demonstrably harmed someone. He kidnaps and imprisons Asai, proving that he is no longer only someone who resents Ginjiro or talks about revenge. Hatano already carries deep resentment toward Ginjiro and has reason to move around Nose Cosmetics. None of this proves that he also killed Tateiwa, but after Episode 4, he can no longer be treated as a character responsible only for the Asai subplot.

Using only the information available through Episode 4, my current ranking would be Satoru Hatano first, Sayuri second, Taisuke Sakura third, and Sota still last. Hatano has crossed the line into physically harming someone. Sayuri holds too much information connected to Tateiwa without yet explaining how she obtained it or what she wants. Taisuke remains positioned inside the investigation itself, making it difficult to judge how much he actually knows. Sota stays last not because I completely trust that he has nothing to do with the case, but because since Episode 1 the drama has consistently pushed the most suspicious-looking images of him directly in front of the audience. It almost feels too easy. In Episode 1, I could still rule him out quite confidently. By Episode 4, I can no longer say that as strongly. Deleting the surveillance footage does not make Sota the murderer, but it does weaken the assumption that “he would absolutely never cross that line.”

Confession: The Secret After 25 Years Episode 4 Review: Sota Is Talking About Mariko, but She Doesn’t Understand at All

By the end of Episode 4, what interests me most is no longer who looks most like the murderer, but the fact that the method Sota has always been best at is beginning to fail him. For 25 years, he has stayed in places Mariko could not see, remembering details about her life while also using his identity as an ordinary employee to investigate other people. Almost no one ever thought to turn around and ask who this man really was. In this episode, Sayuri does exactly that and directly asks, “What exactly are you to Mariko?” Sota can uncover everyone else’s relationships, secrets, and motives, but when the question turns toward his own position, there is no easy identity he can give. For 25 years, only he has known how long he has been following Mariko. Mariko herself has no idea that he has extended their “relationship” across so many years.

Meanwhile, Mariko is beginning to move in the complete opposite direction. Through the bandage and the character Sota likes, she starts wondering whether he might have been the boy who helped her at the summer festival in middle school. That means some of the memories that previously existed only on Sota’s side are finally beginning to reconnect on Mariko’s side too. But at the same time, she has just learned from Tomoya that Sota has loved someone for many years, so naturally she excludes herself from the possibility. The funniest and most frustrating moment is their conversation on the way to meet the client. Mariko directly asks what that person is like, and Sota actually tells her: “She’s kind to things and to people. Above all, she’s incredibly cool. She’s my hero.” Every word describes Mariko, yet after hearing it, she becomes even more convinced that he must be talking about someone else. Sota has hidden for 25 years. Now, on one of the rare occasions when he almost tells her the answer directly, he is so accustomed to not being noticed that even the truth sounds like another secret.

That is also why, after Episode 4, Sota becomes impossible to read only through either “pure love” or “stalker.” Buying a bandage can be thoughtful, but knowing exactly which shoes rub against Mariko’s feet comes from years of observing her. Accompanying her while she deals with public attacks can be protective, but breaking into offices and deleting surveillance footage so he can continue investigating Ginjiro has already moved beyond simply standing beside her. In the earlier episodes, it was still natural to keep asking whether Sota was responsible for Tateiwa’s murder. By Episode 4, another question feels more important: once Sota decides that something is “for Mariko,” how far will he allow himself to go?

The subtitle has moved from the earlier kind of “I want to do something for her” sentiment to “僕にはやらないといけないことがある” — “There’s something I have to do.” The difference seems small, but with Sota it is dangerous. Once an action moves from “something I want to do” to “something I have to do,” the room he leaves himself to stop becomes smaller too.

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