“I’m sorry. I really didn’t know things would turn out like this…”
Chinatsu Ayase’s voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of disturbing something fragile.
She slowly rose from her chair, her movements gentle.
The hem of her black skirt swayed lightly as she stood.
From the delicate handbag at her side, she took out a neatly folded white handkerchief, its corner embroidered with a faint silver pattern so pale it was almost invisible.
She held the handkerchief out to the edge of Kaoru Hoshitani’s lowered gaze, her slender fingers pinching one corner as it hovered in midair.
Her face bore just the right amount of sympathy and apology.
In her gray eyes rested sincere sorrow, as though she truly felt his pain.
The expression was flawless, perfect as if rehearsed hundreds of times.
However, Kaoru Hoshitani did not look up.
He still covered his face tightly with his hands. His shoulders shook violently in suppressed sobs.
Tears seeped through his fingers, sliding down the backs of his hands and soaking into the dark tablecloth in small spreading patches.
He curled into the chair like a badly wounded young animal hiding in a corner to lick its wounds, completely shutting himself off.
Chinatsu Ayase’s hand remained suspended in the air for several seconds.
She did not rush to withdraw it, nor did she push it forward. She simply waited patiently.
Then she spoke softly, her tone tinged with careful hesitation.
“I… I truly didn’t expect that my sister would do something like this.”
She paused, as if choosing her words, lowering her voice further with an intimate sincerity.
“If you need it… maybe I can help you.”
The moment those words fell, it was as if a faint but clear light shone into Kaoru Hoshitani’s pitch-black despair.
His fingers slowly moved away from his face, revealing a countenance completely drenched in tears and flushed an unhealthy red.
Those little deer eyes were clouded with moisture.
The rims were red like ripe cherries, and his damp lashes clumped together.
Each blink shook loose a few crystal tears.
The tip of his nose was red, and his lips were slightly swollen from prolonged sobbing, carrying a fragile, pitiful hue.
He lifted those wet, bewildered eyes, disbelief flickering within them, and looked at Chinatsu Ayase standing before him.
His gaze was as fragile as morning dew on a blade of grass, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
With a heavy nasal tone and the faint rasp of someone who had cried too long, he choked out in broken fragments,
“H-help… me…”
The voice was so soft it was nearly inaudible, yet it carried all the hope and fear of a drowning person clutching at the last piece of driftwood.
All this time, he had borne this crushing secret alone, one heavy enough to suffocate the soul.
He had walked on ice that could collapse at any moment, afraid to confide in anyone, afraid to ask for help, not even daring to cry too loudly in the middle of the night.
Aina was the one he most wanted to rely on, yet she was precisely the person he could never tell the truth.
Everyone else were mere bystanders. No one could truly understand his situation, nor would anyone willingly involve themselves in something so complicated and filthy.
So he endured alone. He struggled alone. He was swallowed by fear and despair in every silent night.
And now, after being forced to lay open his bleeding wound before this unfamiliar young woman, she had not mocked him, not despised him, not treated him as a dirty accomplice.
Instead, she said she could help him?
It was like placing a slender straw of hope into the hands of someone sinking into a swamp, the mud already up to his chest.
“Yes.”
Chinatsu Ayase nodded firmly, her expression serious and sincere.
Her gray eyes met Kaoru Hoshitani’s without the slightest hint of evasion or falsehood.
“After all… I don’t want to watch my sister go further and further down a criminal path. While there’s still time, we should find a way to stop her.”
Her tone was so genuine, her gaze so clear, as if she were merely a kind younger sister worried about her sibling losing her way.
“Th-thank… thank you… waaah…”
Kaoru Hoshitani did not even know why he was thanking her.
The instigator of all this was Rika Kawasaki.
The young woman before him was also that woman’s sister.
She had nothing to do with him and absolutely no obligation to help.
Yet at this moment, he was like someone who had walked alone in endless darkness for far too long.
Even the sight of a distant, faint light made him want to approach, to grasp it, to believe that small warmth was real.
He cried even harder.
Not the earlier suppressed, broken sobs, but a near cathartic release, as if he had finally found an outlet.
Tears fell like beads from a broken string, soaking his clothes and dampening the white handkerchief Chinatsu Ayase had not yet managed to place in his hand.
Chinatsu Ayase watched him quietly.
Then, very naturally, as if moved purely by concern and instinctive comfort, she stepped half a pace forward, closing the distance between them.
Her left hand circled around his violently trembling back and gently, tentatively rested on his other shoulder before slowly and steadily drawing him halfway into her embrace.
At the same time, with her right hand holding the handkerchief now damp at one corner, she wiped his tear-streaked face with utmost gentleness, from the corners of his eyes to his cheeks, from the bridge of his nose to his jaw.
Her movements were light, steady, focused, as though she were polishing a priceless and fragile work of art.
Meanwhile, Kaoru Hoshitani, his emotions completely collapsed, was immersed in long-suppressed anguish. His mind was muddled, his senses dulled.
He did not notice that he had been gently drawn into the arms of a woman he had officially known for less than two hours.
Nor did he realize that his girlfriend Aina had left the private room less than ten minutes ago.
That worked greatly in Chinatsu Ayase’s favor.
‘He smells so good…’
She subtly and discreetly took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the light fragrance from his hair.
‘And his body is so soft… Even though he’s an adult man, he feels almost boneless. It’s so comfortable holding him…’
Her hand rested against his slender back.
Through the thin sweater, she could clearly feel the delicate warmth of his body and the subtle trembling from his sobs.
The sensation was almost addictive.
Chinatsu Ayase had left Neon City at a very young age because of her parents’ complicated marriage and grown up in a foreign country with a vastly different culture.
Her father was strict to the point of harshness and placed extremely high expectations on her.
Her childhood and adolescence were filled with heavy coursework and etiquette training.
She had no time to make friends, much less interact with boys her age beyond what was strictly necessary.
Most of her understanding of “intimacy” came from books, films, and distant observation.
She had never truly experienced what it felt like to hold a warm, soft body that carried a pleasant scent.
Now she knew.
With him in her arms, she could not help recalling what had happened about an hour earlier in the crowded subway car.
Her fingers, through thin fabric, had touched the soft curve of his body.
That exquisite sensation that made her fingertips tingle was still vividly etched in her memory.
She remembered clearly how fast her heart had raced and how hot her ears had burned.
And now, deep in her lower abdomen, she experienced for the first time a strange and burning sensation, like molten lava rolling beneath the surface.
It was an unfamiliar, almost hungry emptiness that left her slightly parched, even tempting her to tighten her hold around the soft body in her arms.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
On the subway, her actions had been deliberate and intentional violation.
At the time, she had been driven more by a malicious urge for revenge, a twisted desire to secretly touch and toy with what her sister had “cherished,” without her sister’s knowledge.
It had been a silent provocation toward Rika Kawasaki, a wordless declaration of war against the older sister who had never truly looked at her.
But now… now it felt somewhat different.
She lowered her head, looking at Kaoru Hoshitani’s soft hair resting against her shoulder, at the small stretch of pale, delicate skin exposed at the back of his neck, slightly flushed from crying.
A strange, almost gentle possessiveness, mixed with that unfamiliar burning desire, quietly took root in her heart.
She was beginning to sink into it.
After an unknown amount of time—perhaps two or three minutes, perhaps longer—Kaoru Hoshitani’s surging tears gradually subsided, leaving only occasional involuntary sniffles.
His rationality surfaced bit by bit from the murky waters of emotion, like rocks revealed after the tide recedes.
He finally realized that he was being held in the arms of a young and beautiful woman.
Her warmth seeped through the fabric, entirely different from Aina’s, a foreign heat.
His body stiffened suddenly like a startled rabbit.
However, before he could react, Chinatsu Ayase had already, with perfect naturalness and without a trace, withdrawn the arm around him.
Her movement was smooth and composed, as if the earlier embrace had merely been a genderless act of kindness born of sympathy and comfort.
She even stepped back half a pace, restoring a proper distance between them.
Lowering her gaze, her lashes fluttering lightly, a faint, shy apology appeared on her face.
“I’m sorry, Mister Hoshitani.”
Her voice was soft, cautiously tentative.
“I… saw how heartbroken you were and acted without thinking. If I offended you, I truly apologize.”
Her expression was so sincere, her eyes so innocent, as though she were simply a kindhearted young woman who could not resist comforting someone in pain, only afterward realizing she might have crossed a boundary.
Kaoru Hoshitani stared at her blankly, his throat bobbing.
He should have felt offended. He should have instinctively felt wary, resistant, even afraid, the way he did toward Rika Kawasaki.
But Chinatsu Ayase apologized too quickly. She stepped back too naturally. Her expression was too composed.
So quick that he had no time to form any negative emotion. So natural that he almost wondered if he was being overly sensitive.
“It’s… it’s fine…”
He lowered his head, his hoarse voice faint as a withered leaf falling onto water.
He blinked hard, forcing back the remaining tears, desperately persuading himself not to doubt.
After all, not every woman in this world was as bad as Rika Kawasaki, that yellow-haired woman… was she?