Chapter 185: Collapsing Trust (Part 1)

“Hmph hmph hmph~”

Chinatsu Ayase arrived at her mother’s office early, humming a lighthearted tune.

The melody was intermittent, like a pleasant sound slipping unconsciously from her throat.

Today, she wore a cream-colored knit sweater, a tan pleated skirt, and her long hair draped loosely over her shoulders. She looked gentle and clean.

The office was quiet.

Morning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dyeing the room in a warm, golden hue.

In the corner aquarium, several tropical fish swam leisurely, their scales reflecting brilliant colors in the water.

She sat on the living room sofa with a magazine in her hands, but her gaze occasionally drifted toward the door.

It was almost time for Kaoru Hoshitani to come to work.

After those two days spent alone together at the beach, Chinatsu Ayase could clearly feel Kaoru Hoshitani’s hesitation.

The unconscious moments of dependence, the smiles that became more relaxed in her presence, and the gazes that lingered longer — everything told her that he was making room for her in his heart.

She firmly believed that before long, her Brother-in-law would become her Husband.

And this would be the first thing she stole from her Sister.

Thinking of this, a smug curve unconsciously formed at the corners of her mouth.

She set down the magazine, picked up her coffee cup, and took a small sip.

The temperature was just right, the aroma spreading across her palate.

But she waited for nearly another half an hour.

The clock on the wall had already passed the start of work by twenty minutes.

The door remained tightly shut, with no sound of footsteps outside.

Chinatsu Ayase’s brow furrowed slightly.

Something was wrong.

Kaoru Hoshitani always arrived at the company ten minutes early and had never been late.

She set down her coffee cup, took her phone out of her bag, found his familiar icon, and pressed the dial button.

A long “Beep — beep —” sounded through the receiver. One, two, three times…

Then, a mechanical busy signal.

No one answered.

“Strange…”

She hung up and opened a social app to send Kaoru Hoshitani a message:

“Mr. Hoshitani, did something happen? Why aren’t you at work yet?”

She pressed send.

In the next second, a glaring red exclamation mark popped up.

Below it was a line of small gray text:

[The other party has enabled friend verification. You are not their friend. Please send a friend request first. You can chat after the other party has verified it.]

Chinatsu Ayase froze entirely.

She stared at that line of text and the red exclamation mark, her mind going blank.

‘This is…’

Her voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible.

‘He… deleted me???’

This was an outcome she had not anticipated at all.

She thought back, replaying every detail of the last two days, but couldn’t think of where she had gone wrong.

That day at the beach, they had gotten along so well. He had smiled many times, so happy and relaxed.

Why did he suddenly… delete her?

Although she knew the probability of being deleted by mistake was almost zero, she still stubbornly sent another friend request.

Then, she stared at the screen, waiting one minute, two minutes, or five minutes.

No response.

The words “Waiting for verification” sat there quietly, like an impassable chasm.

‘Could it be…’

A name suddenly flashed through Chinatsu Ayase’s mind.

Aina Saiten.

That was the only possibility.

Aina Saiten must have discovered something to make Kaoru Hoshitani delete her contact information.

Otherwise, given Kaoru Hoshitani’s personality, he would never do something so resolute.

‘But how did it leak? Did a neighbor notice?’

She was completely baffled.

Every time she went to pick up Kaoru Hoshitani, she was very careful.

She was fully equipped with a white mask and hat, avoiding crowds when getting in or out of the car.

Even if a neighbor saw them, they would at most think two people wearing hats were coming and going; they couldn’t possibly recognize who it was.

So where exactly did the mistake happen?

What she didn’t know was —

……

Rika Kawasaki had finally returned from Osaka for the weekend with a heart full of fire, only to be tricked by Chinatsu Ayase.

Watching that man be unreachable while she was right there, how could she let it go?

She called a few junior members she used to run with and told them to stake out the area below Kaoru Hoshitani’s apartment building.

Those girls lurked in the alleyways on their motorcycles for an entire day, smoking one cigarette after another, until they finally saw the target appear.

In the evening, Chinatsu Ayase’s black Cadillac slowly drove up.

Two figures wearing masks and low-pressed hats got out of the car and walked quickly into the apartment building.

Then, a photograph of the two of them was taken and sent to Rika Kawasaki’s phone.

Rika Kawasaki looked at the two figures walking side by side on her screen, seeing the way her cheap younger sister followed closely behind Kaoru Hoshitani. A raging fire ignited in her gray eyes.

It really was her.

It really was this little brat ruining her plans.

She took several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down.

Anger wouldn’t solve the problem. She wanted to win; she wanted to snatch that man back.

A plan gradually took shape in her mind.

Since Chinatsu Ayase wanted to play mind games with her, she might as well go all the way — she would send these photographs directly to that man’s useless girlfriend.

This way, she could kill two birds with one stone.

Once Aina Saiten knew about this, she would definitely stop Kaoru Hoshitani from further contact with Chinatsu Ayase.

The development of their relationship would be hindered right then and there.

As for Kaoru Hoshitani, this incident would create a rift between him and his girlfriend.

What would a woman do if she found out her boyfriend was being ambiguous with another woman?

She would interrogate, argue, and push him at every step.

And what would a man who felt wronged do?

He would feel aggrieved, resist, and want to escape.

In Rika Kawasaki’s ideal scenario, the man would eventually break up with his girlfriend, and she could seize the opportunity to capture both his body and his heart once and for all.

……

At that moment, on the other side.

Kaoru Hoshitani was sitting on the living room sofa.

He clutched his phone, the screen having been dark for a long time, yet he still stared at it blankly, as if he could find an answer within that pitch-black glass.

The way Aina looked when she came out of the restroom last night was still clearly etched in his mind — that pale face, those bloodshot eyes, and that near-manic light he couldn’t understand.

He hadn’t slept well.

This morning, after Aina left, he sat on the sofa in a daze.

Then, as if possessed, he opened his phone and clicked on his communication software.

In his contact list, Chinatsu Ayase’s icon was gone. Rika Kawasaki’s icon was also gone.

He scrolled again and again, searched and searched — nothing, they were both gone.

Their contact information had been completely deleted.

This wasn’t his doing.

He had never thought about deleting Chinatsu Ayase, at least not now.

That girl had helped him so much, reaching out her hand when he was most in despair, taking him away and giving him hope.

Even if he couldn’t return her feelings, he should not have treated her this way.

‘It was Aina… She looked at my phone…’

This realization felt like a cold needle piercing his heart.

He knew that his habit of deleting chat logs every day would surely make Aina suspicious.

But he had no choice.

Once those records were seen, everything would be over.

He could only delete, only hide, and use one lie to cover another.

And now, without having spoken to him, Aina had directly deleted the contacts of other women from his phone — this was clearly a subtle hint.

She already knew.

She chose to act as if she hadn’t seen it.

But he was not to stay in contact with them anymore.

Kaoru Hoshitani clearly sensed that his girlfriend’s attitude toward him had changed.

It wasn’t anger or interrogation, but a more terrifying, silent verdict — I can no longer trust you.

Though he could understand.

For a normal woman, after discovering her boyfriend’s unclear relationship with another woman, the trust they had built would become precarious and essentially impossible to rebuild.

Trust was like a piece of white paper; once it was crumpled, the creases wouldn’t disappear even if it was smoothed out again.

The realization that Aina might never trust him again — that from now on she would always look at him with eyes that scrutinized whether he was lying — made him feel a sense of suffocation.

That suffocation spread from his chest to his throat, making it hard to breathe.

He curled up on the sofa, burying his face in his knees, shrinking into a tiny ball.

Sunlight spilled over him through the curtains, warm and pleasant, but he couldn’t feel a hint of warmth.

Just then —

Ding.

The phone screen lit up.

A new friend request lay quietly in the notification bar.

Kaoru Hoshitani looked up at the message.

In the note section, there was only a short line of text with a pitiful-looking emoji:

“Mr. Hoshitani, it’s me. Why did you delete me? 😟”