After returning from abroad and officially stepping into this house, it didn’t take long for Chinatsu Ayase to initiate a thorough investigation into her half-sister, Rika Kawasaki.
She quietly wove her own network of information, making use of her allowance and the sharp sense for human darkness she’d absorbed from her father.
By now, with the help of a highly-paid Private Investigator and some skillful probing, she had assembled a fairly clear outline of Rika Kawasaki’s life from birth to age twenty.
Those reports were printed out and neatly filed away in the encrypted drawer of her bedroom desk.
By any normal standard and the common sense of social compassion, upon hearing of Rika Kawasaki’s childhood and adolescence—hardly happy, and even filled with alienation and rebellion—an ordinary person would feel at least a twinge of pity.
A child who grew up in a family of extreme material abundance but emotional poverty, neglected by her parents, torn between the Kawasaki Family Izakaya environment of her grandparents and the upper-class life, became marked by a wildness and loneliness that set her apart.
When Chinatsu Ayase read those reports under the dim desk lamp, learning the real history of her sister, she fell silent for a long time.
The only sounds in the room were the low hum of the air conditioner and the soft tapping of her fingers on the desktop.
She walked to the window and looked out at the meticulously pruned, yet lifeless, garden in the yard.
For the first time, she realized that her sister hadn’t lived that “perfect” life—enveloped in love and attention—which she herself had so desperately imagined from far away.
In fact, in some twisted way, their childhoods were eerily similar: one endured a cold Luxurious Wasteland, the other a calculating and restless Exile.
Yet this realization didn’t dissolve the strange, deep-seated resentment Chinatsu Ayase felt toward Rika Kawasaki.
Instead, it was like tossing wet wood onto a fire, causing the flames to smoke and burn more fiercely.
Because, in Chinatsu Ayase’s strict and utilitarian worldview, Rika Kawasaki’s “unhappiness” was her own fault, a sign of weakness and foolishness.
Rika Kawasaki clearly possessed all that Chinatsu Ayase could only dream of and never attain—prestige, easy access to high-quality education…
She had countless chances to change her circumstances, to walk a “Correct” and dazzling path, leaving Chinatsu Ayase far behind.
But every time, it was Rika Kawasaki who chose to give it up, chose to stray, chose to mix with those Delinquent Girls, chose to “wallow in self-indulgence” amid roaring motorcycles and the smoky warmth of the izakaya.
What Rika Kawasaki so easily cast aside was exactly what Chinatsu Ayase had spent more than a decade striving, pleasing, and scheming for—yet never truly touched or owned.
A “Correct Identity” recognized and accepted by society, and the “Legitimacy” that comes with it, needing no proof.
This realization threw Chinatsu Ayase’s heart further out of balance, as if a heavy weight had smashed the scales, overturning everything.
She felt that, whether intentional or not, Rika Kawasaki’s nonchalant, squander-it-all attitude was itself a silent, persistent negation—a negation of all the effort, patience, and carefully laid plans Chinatsu Ayase had made to be recognized.
What Rika Kawasaki discarded so lightly, Chinatsu Ayase had chased after with her very life.
Of course, the taste of this was bitter—like swallowing honey laced with shards of glass.
Therefore, Chinatsu Ayase wanted Rika Kawasaki to experience this bitterness herself, to make her “feel it too.”
She didn’t believe anyone could truly live “without desire,” unmoved by the world.
Arrogance.
She stubbornly believed that this was just another form of Rika Kawasaki’s disguise—and as the most patient of hunters, Chinatsu Ayase would find what her sister secretly yearned for or cared about, deep inside.
Whether it was a person, an object, or a state of being.
Then, she would get there first—no matter the means—seize it for herself, or utterly destroy it.
Already, the Private Investigator’s findings had basically mapped out Rika Kawasaki’s daily routine:
By day, she’d either roar through suburban streets on her modified, thunderously loud motorcycle, or hole up in that run-down villa with her group of Delinquent Girls, doing who-knows-what.
At night, she usually showed up at Kawasaki-ya, the izakaya run by her grandparents, helping out or simply hanging around.
These details left Chinatsu Ayase momentarily at a loss.
From these actions, what could be gleaned about what Rika Kawasaki cared for?
Motorcycles? Perhaps just a means of release.
The Delinquent Girls? More like a haven for kindred spirits than anything she truly treasured.
The izakaya? It seemed a fragile tie to her grandparents, but Rika Kawasaki’s attitude there was often careless as well.
[And there’s no sign of any steady boyfriend around her, or interest in any particular man…]
Chinatsu Ayase’s fingertip skimmed the related passage in the report, frowning in thought.
But then, a turning point came yesterday.
The detective she’d hired to keep tailing Rika Kawasaki reported something unusual:
For the past few days, Rika Kawasaki had broken her usual habits— instead of roaring around on her bike or holing up in the villa, she’d been driving out early each morning to an ordinary apartment building in a Tokyo residential area, where she stayed for most of the day before leaving at dusk.
Which specific apartment, and what she did inside, the investigator had yet to determine— the building’s security was relatively strict— it was certain that she always entered the same unit.
This information dropped into Chinatsu Ayase’s heart like a stone, sending ripples through the dark lake of her mind.
How could one not suspect—was it a secret lover, a hidden affair?
Otherwise, what business could Rika Kawasaki possibly have, spending so much time in a plain apartment building every day?
Surely she wasn’t there for charity, or to study?
This possibility made Chinatsu Ayase’s spirit spark to life, a sharp, excited glint flashing through her Kawasaki-gray eyes.
Immediately, she picked up the phone and issued a new, more urgent order to her investigator—her voice cool and precise:
Add more personnel. Raise the budget. By any means necessary, and as quickly as possible, find out exactly which unit Rika Kawasaki enters, who she’s meeting, and… every possible detail.
At this very moment, while Rika Kawasaki sat at the dining table with her head filled by thoughts of that little man’s many captivating looks, she remained completely unaware that an even more covert and dangerous crisis was silently closing in on her.
Another “Predator’s Gaze,” equally skilled at lurking and scheming, had already caught the scent of her secret and was now turning its eyes toward the place where her hidden “Victim” might exist…
———
Seventy-six days left until your boyfriend Kaoru Hoshitani is stolen.
———
Tomorrow would be the final day of “The Bet” made between Kaoru Hoshitani and that demon-like woman, Rika Kawasaki.
The gray of dawn was brightening to morning blue outside the window; slivers of sunlight cut through the curtains and fell in thin bands across the bedroom floor.
Kaoru Hoshitani had woken early but didn’t get up right away—he simply lay there beside his still-sleeping girlfriend, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
The air still carried a faint trace of last night’s post-shower fragrance, and the subtle warmth of their intimacy lingered between them.
Punishment.
The past six days had felt like walking a knife’s edge every single day.
Yesterday, at the peak of his torment and physical resistance, he had even broken down and shed silent tears.
But no matter how close his will came to breaking, no matter how much his body was wracked by longing and exhaustion, he clung to his final line of defense.
Not a word. He didn’t beg, didn’t plead, didn’t utter a single phrase of surrender to that blond-haired woman.
He fought back with bitten lips, arms bruised from gripping too tight, and endurance that bordered on blacking out.
And after these six hellish days, Kaoru Hoshitani’s battered senses and nerves seemed to have “evolved” under the pressure of despair.
He realized, vaguely, that all the means Rika Kawasaki had used to tease, provoke, and torment him—whether verbal humiliation or all manner of inventive physical “punishments” and temptations—had been played out; there wasn’t likely to be anything “new” in the short term.
At the same time, his own body was beginning to show a pitiful “tolerance” to some of the repeated stimuli.
He was no longer pushed to the brink of total collapse quite so easily.
This faint adaptation gave him a false sense of “control,” a glimmer of hope in the midst of his ordeal.
In a hidden corner of his heart, a tiny flame called “Hope” flickered, growing a little brighter as the end of the bet drew near.
He was starting to believe he might actually win this terribly unfair Demon’s Bet.
Just one more day—if he could hold out until tomorrow’s sunset, that dreadful woman would disappear from his life, never to trouble him again.
He could almost see the light at the end of the nightmare.
After these seven hellish days, perhaps his life, now upended and chaotic, could return to the peaceful, warm path it once followed.
He could lock away everything that happened in these seven days—those touches, those sounds, those unbearable images and overwhelming sensations—in the darkest corner of his memory, treating them as nothing but a long, terrifying nightmare, never to be mentioned again.
Then, maybe he could go on planning a future with his beloved Aina.
Maybe, they really could get married. He would devote a lifetime’s gentleness, loyalty, and love to repaying and making up for the invisible betrayal and loss of these seven days.
This thought was the only thing keeping him going through the final torment.
But…could everything really go as Kaoru Hoshitani so wishfully imagined?
Would a Demon’s Bet really let its “Victim” go so easily?
After making breakfast for his girlfriend and seeing her off to work, Kaoru Hoshitani lost himself in fantasies of “after tomorrow.”
His fingers unconsciously brushed the base of his ring finger, and a faint, weary, hopeful smile tugged at his lips—
“Ding dong!”
The sudden sound of the doorbell startled Kaoru Hoshitani out of his thoughts.
When he opened the door, the tall figure he’d expected wouldn’t arrive until later in the morning was already there, casting an oppressive silhouette in the doorway.
Rika Kawasaki leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, her gray eyes deep and inscrutable in the dim light.
Her gaze landed on the visibly stiffened Kaoru Hoshitani, sweeping over the fragile hope on his face that he hadn’t quite hidden away.
Her lips curled in a hard-to-read, almost cruel arc.
She spoke, her voice quiet but clear, shattering the morning calm and Kaoru Hoshitani’s fragile fantasy in an instant:
“Go get changed.”
She paused, her tone calm but brooking no argument.
“Hurry up, we’re going out soon.”