[NTR Countdown: 69 Days]
***
It was another Friday morning.
The sky was a hazy shade of grey-blue, the kind seen just before dawn.
The city had not yet fully awakened; the streets held only a few early-rising vehicles and the rhythmic shush-shush of sanitation workers sweeping the pavement.
Kaoru Hoshitani had tossed and turned all night, only falling into a heavy sleep near dawn.
Now, faint dark circles shadowed his eyes.
He forced himself out of bed, moving like a precision doll with a preset program.
In the silent kitchen, he prepared breakfast for his girlfriend — a perfectly fried egg, lightly toasted bread, freshly cut fruit, and warm milk in a thermos.
Aina Saiten finished washing up and sat at the dining table, her eyes still a bit bleary with sleep.
Watching her boyfriend’s busy back, her heart swelled with warmth.
She quickly finished her breakfast, pressed a kiss that smelled of toasted bread against his cheek, grabbed her bag, and hurried out the door for work.
The front door closed with a soft click, isolating the warmth of the room from the morning chill outside.
Kaoru stood in the foyer, which had suddenly become exceptionally quiet.
He listened to his girlfriend’s footsteps vanish at the end of the hallway before finally exhaling a long breath.
His shoulders slumped slightly, revealing his true exhaustion.
He returned to the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and began slowly washing the used dishes.
The cool stream of water rushing over his fingertips brought a hint of clarity.
He planned to finish cleaning the kitchen and then immediately crawl back into the bed that still held some lingering body heat.
He needed to sleep off this annoying fatigue and the persistent gloom lingering in his heart.
However, just as he picked up the last porcelain bowl and was halfway through wiping it with a cloth —
Thump, thump, thump.
A clear, restrained knocking abruptly shattered the silence of the apartment.
Kaoru’s movements froze, his fingers stiffening.
He strained his ears, wondering if he was hallucinating or if it was just noise from a neighbor’s place.
Aina had just left; she had her keys and would never knock.
But only a few seconds later —
*Thump! Thump! Thump!*
The knocking rang out again, heavier and more urgent than before.
It carried an undeniable persistence, as if the person outside was asserting their presence.
The sound pierced through the thick door panel, striking directly against his eardrums and his heart.
Clatter!
A sharp shattering sound echoed through the kitchen.
The white porcelain bowl Kaoru had been holding, decorated with small light-blue flowers, slipped from his suddenly weak fingers.
It fell into the sink filled with soapy water, colliding with the other dishes at the bottom.
It emitted a piercing cry as the rim struck another plate, leaving a prominent crack.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
Almost the instant he heard the second set of knocks, a bone-chilling coldness surged up his spine like a venomous snake.
It spread through his limbs in a flash, freezing his very blood.
The hair on his body stood on end.
Without needing to think, one name and one figure occupied his consciousness with the weight of a massive, terrifying shadow.
Rika Kawasaki.
The fragile dream he had tried to rebuild — of returning to a peaceful, daily life — shattered at those muffled thumps, just like the falling porcelain bowl.
The “death knell” at the door did not stop. Instead, the intervals grew shorter and the force grew heavier, as if the person outside had lost all patience.
Kaoru stood frozen in place, feeling as though his limbs were filled with cold, heavy lead. He couldn’t move.
Even coherent thought became difficult. His mind went blank, leaving only a massive, buzzing roar of fear.
However, deep within his consciousness, a sharp, instinctive alarm wailed frantically.
It manifested as a silent yet ear-piercing scream, repeatedly battering his defensive lines of reason:
‘Don’t open the door! I absolutely cannot open it! Once I open this door, everything is over! My current life, Aina’s peace, everything will—’
But from the very beginning, whether or not to open this door had never been a choice he could make for himself.
Ding—
The mobile phone screen on the kitchen counter suddenly lit up, emitting a short, sharp message notification sound.
That sound was particularly startling in the deathly silent kitchen.
Like a rusted mechanical doll, Kaoru turned his stiff neck incredibly slowly, one notch at a time, casting his gaze toward the shimmering screen.
The preview bar showed only a single, short sentence:
“Should I ask your neighbor if you’re home?”
It was a blatant, unadorned threat.
The reason Kaoru had never deleted or blocked Rika Kawasaki’s contact information was precisely because of this bone-deep fear.
He was afraid of provoking this woman.
He was terrified that she would truly release those potentially unsightly photographs or videos to the public, spreading them across the internet for Aina and everyone else to see, completely destroying everything he so carefully maintained.
This fatal leverage was the source of his despair.
Unless he resolved to let everything burn, he seemed destined to never truly escape the control of this Yellow-haired Woman.
*lDing—
The phone screen lit up again with another new message from Rika Kawasaki.
This time, there was only a single number: “10”.
Before Kaoru’s chaotic brain could even process the meaning of that number, the next message followed immediately.
“9”
The Countdown.
The cold numbers were like a countdown to a sentence, hammering one by one against his nerves, which were on the verge of collapse.He had no choice and no way out.
His cold, trembling legs, which felt as if they didn’t belong to him, were driven by an invisible, desperate force.
Step by step, he moved heavily and incredibly slowly toward the foyer.
Every step felt like treading on cotton, yet as if he were dragging thousand-pound shackles.
He didn’t know if he could open the door before that cruel countdown reached zero, but he knew one thing very, very clearly:
The moment he personally turned the lock and opened the barrier of this warm little home he shared with Aina to that woman… there would be no going back.
Click…
The dull, clear sound of a metal latch clicking open echoed in the silent foyer. It was faint, yet it felt like a clap of thunder.
In the end, Kaoru Hoshitani had once again opened the door of the world he fought to protect to a woman other than Aina.
He didn’t even have time to see the person outside clearly.
He only caught a glimpse of light-golden hair and a patch of wheat-colored skin before a familiar, aggressive heat swept in like a storm.
In the next second, he was violently yanked out by an irresistible force, falling instantly into a hot, solid, and oppressive embrace.
The embrace was so tight it felt as though his slender bones might snap.
The body heat and scent of another person overbearingly wrapped around him, swallowing him whole…
——
Yesterday, after Rika Kawasaki obtained a seemingly logical “excuse” from her bratty younger sister, Chinatsu Ayase, the irritation and inexplicable restlessness she felt from not seeing him for days were quickly replaced by a sense of urgent anticipation.
Early this morning, while the sky was still hazy, she drove to the ordinary apartment building she hadn’t stepped foot in for several days.
The bright blue supercar lay in wait in the thin morning light, like a predator waiting for its prey.
Initially, she had been “distraught” and even harbored a hint of self-doubt due to the slap Kaoru Hoshitani had given her and the intense hatred in his eyes.
But as she approached this place again, those complex emotions were temporarily suppressed, leaving only a sharpening, burning desire — she would see that little man soon.
She sat patiently in the driver’s seat, her gaze locked onto the apartment exit like a hawk targeting its prey.
Only when she saw the little man’s girlfriend walk out and head toward her commute as usual did Rika Kawasaki leisurely step out of the car, go upstairs, and arrive at the familiar door.
She raised her hand and knocked.
She waited.
However, there was only dead silence inside; there was no response.
Rika Kawasaki’s brow furrowed slightly.
During the period she had been “closely” watching Kaoru Hoshitani, she had already mastered his daily routine.
At this time, he was certainly home, and he should have been awake already — perhaps having just seen his girlfriend off.
The only explanation was that Kaoru Hoshitani heard the knocking but didn’t want to open the door.
He was resisting; he was hiding.
She was well aware of why Kaoru was unwilling to open the door.
The sensation of that slap and his resentful gaze were things she wasn’t entirely indifferent to.
But that wasn’t the result she hoped for today.
Her patience vanished quickly in the silent wait, replaced by a mixture of displeasure and the irritation of having her authority challenged.
So, she took out her phone and sent that short threat, the one she knew would seize his weakness.
She knew what he feared, and she didn’t mind using it at all.
As she expected, the sound of the lock turning soon came from the tightly closed door.
The moment the gap in the door opened, before she could even see the panicked, pale face of the person behind it, Rika Kawasaki could no longer control the desire and the impulse of regaining something lost that had been churning in her chest for days.
She lunged forward, grabbing the little man who had kept her soul restless for days and pulling him fiercely and completely into her arms.
The force was incredible, as if she wanted to crush him into her own body, utterly erasing the distance of the past few days and that resistance that shouldn’t have existed in the first place…