[Not enough! This is nowhere near enough!]
Kaoru Hoshitani’s heart screamed in silence, like a moth trapped beneath a glass dome, on the verge of suffocating as it madly battered the walls of his rationality.
That flame—raw impulse and desperate yearning—that he’d forced down for nearly four days had not been extinguished by the past hour of intensity.
Instead, it was as if scalding oil had been poured over it, burning even fiercer and hotter, almost to the point of reducing his soul and reason to ashes.
He felt as if he were on the brink of going completely insane. Every inch of skin cried out, every cell in his body craved more complete release and fulfillment.
Yet the lingering love and tenderness he held for his girlfriend remained, a final, fragile dam barely holding back the flood of desire.
He could clearly see, and even more clearly feel, that Aina, coming home from work, had barely managed a sip of water or a bite to eat before he half-forced her into this long, intense entanglement.
Now, she lay limp on the messy bed, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths, her gaze filled with exhaustion and lingering traces of passion.
She was clearly spent, unable to endure any more.
Kaoru Hoshitani understood Aina’s hardship.
He knew well how tough her days at work were, and it pained him to see her so drained—even as his own chest felt as though a frantic, invisible claw scratched endlessly at his heart.
That unsatisfied emptiness and heat made him want to cry on the spot, tears glimmering dangerously at the corners of his eyes.
But with all his strength, he pushed that wild urge back down, choosing to force himself to endure.
He couldn’t, and didn’t have the heart to, ask any more from her.
“Sorry… Aina.”
He propped himself up on limbs turned weak, his voice hoarse with the afterglow of passion and trembling just slightly.
He dropped his gaze, avoiding the look that might be puzzled in his girlfriend’s eyes.
Moving a bit stiffly, he bent to pick up the pale bathrobe, carelessly kicked aside earlier, from the chilly floor.
Silently, he put it on, tied the belt, wrapping himself up again as if this could hide the torrent of turmoil inside.
He took a deep breath—one so heavy and suppressed it seemed to swallow down all his churning emotions.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you… After all that… I-I’ll go make dinner for you…”
With those words, he all but fled, not daring to glance again at the person on the bed.
His steps were a bit unsteady, but he hurried out of the bedroom, still thick with the haze of intimacy, and made his way to the kitchen, where the warm light always glowed.
Meanwhile, lying limp on the soft mattress, Aina Saiten clearly had no idea of the hellish torment raging inside her boyfriend at this moment.
Her body certainly felt sore and weak, especially in her waist and legs, which ached with that mild, lingering soreness of overuse.
But overall, her mood was one of complete satisfaction and happiness.
To be able to be so close and entwined with her beloved Kaoru, to feel his passion and devotion, more intense than usual— no matter what, it only made her feel needed, loved, and blissfully content.
As for not having had dinner yet…
Waiting another hour or two for food really wasn’t anything worth worrying about, at least in her view.
Bathed in the afterglow of love, she found even lazing on the bed in this state quite pleasant.
She lounged on the bed for another twenty minutes or so, absentmindedly scrolling through her phone, replying to a few work messages, until she heard Kaoru’s gentle, familiar call from the kitchen:
“Aina, dinner’s ready. You can come eat now.”
Only then did she sit up at a leisurely pace, gathered up her scattered clothes from the floor and put them on one by one, tidied her slightly mussed long hair, and then, shuffling in her slippers, headed toward the dining room where the aroma of food beckoned.
“Wow, that smells amazing!”
The moment she stepped into the dining room, Aina Saiten couldn’t help but inhale deeply, praising from the heart.
Several steaming dishes were already set out on the table, obviously freshly made by Kaoru using ingredients from the fridge.
However, as her gaze swept over the spread, she paused in mild surprise.
“Huh? Seafood again?”
She noticed that tonight’s dishes, once again, revolved around seafood—garlic vermicelli steamed scallops, stir-fried shrimp, and even a small plate of raw oysters, which she didn’t often request.
Thinking back, she realized that in recent days, Kaoru’s dinners all seemed to favor these ingredients.
“Aina… you don’t like it?”
Kaoru Hoshitani emerged from the kitchen with two bowls of rice. Hearing her question, his footsteps faltered almost imperceptibly.
He lifted his eyes, those lovely, doe-like eyes flickering with a trace of nervousness and unease, as if afraid his “careful preparation” would be rejected. Even his voice was a bit taut.
“No, no! Not at all!”
Aina Saiten immediately shook her head, giving a reassuring smile as she pulled out her chair and sat down.
“As long as you made it, Kaoru, I love eating anything! I was just curious—it feels like you’ve become some kind of seafood expert these past few days?”
She picked up her chopsticks, grabbed a plump shrimp, and popped it into her mouth. The sweet, bouncy texture made her eyes narrow in contentment.
“Mmm! Delicious!”
Seeing his girlfriend dig in—especially gobbling down those ingredients he’d carefully selected after reading online about their “nourishing” properties—Kaoru Hoshitani finally let out the breath he’d been holding.
He didn’t touch his own food immediately. Instead, he sat across from her, eyes burning with an unwavering intensity, watching every bite that Aina Saiten took.
His gaze was complex, focused, and faintly carried an odd sense of anticipation, like a diligent farmer who, after sowing carefully chosen seeds in spring, gazed hopefully at his fields, awaiting the inevitable, bountiful harvest.
The secret longing in his heart, that wish for a “child,” somehow connected in a subtle way to the scene of Aina eating before him.
Yet, being stared at so openly and ardently by her boyfriend, Aina Saiten couldn’t help but feel oddly guilty and her cheeks grew warm.
She had no idea what exactly was behind the intensity in his eyes, so she instinctively bowed her head lower, focusing on her food, as if hiding from that gaze that made her heart race.
———
Meanwhile, under the same night sky, in a quiet, affluent district of Tokyo, a modern, sleekly designed villa shone brightly with lights.
In the spacious open-plan dining room, at a long marble table that could seat ten, the four members of the Kawasakiya were each seated in their own spots, enjoying a meticulously prepared dinner cooked by a professional chef. Among them were Rika Kawasaki and Chinatsu Ayase.
The crystal chandelier cast a soft, bright glow, reflecting off the polished tableware and the beautifully colored dishes.
The atmosphere was quietly strained, broken only by the soft clinking of utensils and the occasional chewing.
Chinatsu Ayase sat at her mother Megumi Kawasaki’s right, back straight, dressed impeccably in a beige knit top, her face adorned with an unassailable, sweet and well-behaved smile.
While elegantly slicing her steak, she spoke in a clear, pleasant voice, recounting to her powerful mother at the head of the table her experiences and reflections from her internship these past few days at Quansheng’s Human Resources Department.
“Mom, today I learned from Senior Nakamura how to process and file the onboarding records for new employees, and realized there are so many details to watch out for…”
Her tone was light, infused with just the right freshness and thirst for knowledge, clearly seeking her mother’s attention and approval.
Since securing her coveted internship at Quansheng’s Human Resources Department, Chinatsu Ayase had wound herself tight like a precision machine, brimming with determination.
She was always among the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave, shadowing the department’s senior members like an untiring sponge—constantly asking questions, actively offering help, and diligently learning the complex business processes, striving to prove her value and ability as quickly as possible.
This contrasted sharply with Rika Kawasaki, who, despite also wearing the “intern” badge, showed up at the company for the briefest appearances, vanishing within an hour and never to be found.
All of this, of course, was seen clearly by their sharp-eyed mother, Megumi Kawasaki.
Though she didn’t say much, her occasional glances at Chinatsu Ayase carried a subtle trace of approval; when she looked at her headstrong eldest daughter, her brow would tighten, almost imperceptibly.
Yet, sitting at her mother’s left, diagonally across from Chinatsu Ayase, Rika Kawasaki seemed entirely indifferent to the mother-daughter conversation playing out at the table.
She was, if anything, completely tuning it out.
Dressed in a loose black sweatshirt, her slightly disheveled blonde hair falling freely, she propped her cheek on one hand, absentmindedly stabbing at her food with a fork, her gaze unfocused, staring at some point in the void, clearly distracted.
In her mind, she was replaying scenes from earlier that day in that small apartment—the slender, fragile young man beneath her, sometimes restrained, sometimes lost in surrender, the red at the corners of his eyes, trembling lashes, and the helpless little whimpers he made in the end…
These images brought a glint of satisfied yet unfulfilled darkness to the depths of her grey eyes.
Chinatsu Ayase, though outwardly focused on her conversation with their mother, was secretly watching her half-sister Rika Kawasaki from the corner of her eye, as intently as the finest radar.
She was hoping, longing, to see the slightest trace of anger, irritation, or even just provoked jealousy on Rika Kawasaki’s face as their mother openly favored her.
That would be a tiny, satisfying victory in her otherwise tedious revenge plan.
Yet, much to her disappointment and simmering annoyance, Rika Kawasaki hadn’t given her a single glance, let alone displayed any of the negative emotions she’d been hoping for.
That woman seemed lost in her own world, wholly unconcerned by the undercurrents at the table and by the presence of her “little sister.”
Chinatsu Ayase’s grip on her knife and fork tightened, her knuckles whitening. She lowered her gaze, masking the flicker of coldness and deeper curiosity in her eyes.
[Rika Kawasaki… you arrogant woman…]
She murmured inwardly,
[There must be something you care about, right? What is it? What would it take to crack that face that pretends not to care about anything?]
This question, like a poisonous vine, quietly took root in her heart and began to grow in silence.