“This…”
Aina Saiten heard Chinatsu Ayase offer to drive Akane home.
Something felt stuck in her throat, and for a moment, she didn’t know how to respond.
Her first reaction was instinctive resistance—setting aside the fact that it was unnecessary to trouble someone else over such a small matter, it was incredibly easy for Akane to just take a taxi. It would be fast and simple.
However, a deeper layer of unease, like an undercurrent beneath the surface, stirred within her—an unease she was reluctant to even admit to herself.
Ever since seeing the meticulously dressed Chinatsu Ayase tonight, a subtle sense of wariness, one she had never felt toward this junior before, had quietly taken root in her heart.
The girl was too beautiful—excessively so.
She was so beautiful that even a woman like Aina, who didn’t consider herself narrow-minded, couldn’t help but feel a sense of self-deprecation and insecurity.
If she let Akane get into that car, it meant the two of them would be alone in that narrow, enclosed space for at least ten or twenty minutes.
The light would be dim, the distance between them mere inches, and the air thick with tension…
Aina didn’t actually believe Chinatsu Ayase was “that kind of person.”
Rationally, she knew her junior was just being kind.
But emotionally, if a situation could be avoided, why go out of one’s way to create it?
Yet at this moment, Chinatsu had already made the offer.
Her tone was so natural and her expression so sincere that a blunt refusal would make Aina look petty.
It might even spark unnecessary suspicion.
She bit her lower lip, her fingers unconsciously tightening on the hem of her clothes.
Finally, she turned her gaze toward Kaoru Hoshitani, who had remained silent by her side, her eyes filled with a trace of earnest questioning.
“Akane, what do you think? Or should we just…”
She hoped Kaoru would say, “I’ll just take a taxi,” which would allow her to smoothly decline Chinatsu’s kindness.
Kaoru Hoshitani, of course, didn’t want to get into another woman’s car at all.
Furthermore, this “other woman” was the half-sister of that yellow-haired woman.
Just being in the same room as her made him feel like he was sitting on needles, let alone being locked inside a speeding, inescapable metal box. He had no idea what she would ask or do.
He opened his mouth, prepared to follow Aina’s lead and say he would take a taxi—
However, the very instant he was about to make a sound, he caught a sharp look from the corner of his eye.
He snapped his head around and met Chinatsu Ayase’s gray eyes.
That gaze was no longer the polite, gentle one from when they first met, nor was it the detached elegance from their earlier small talk.
It was like a blade suddenly unsheathed—cold, sharp, and carrying a bone-chilling pressure that pierced straight into his pupils.
In that look, there was a clear, unmistakable threat.
It was as if she were saying silently:
‘If you dare refuse, if you don’t obediently get into my car, I will tell her everything you’re hiding. Right now. Immediately.’
Kaoru Hoshitani’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an icy hand.
The words “I’ll take a taxi” were forced back down, stuck in his throat, turning into a faint, trembling breath.
His fingertips turned cold, and his face grew even paler. Under Aina’s expectant gaze and Chinatsu’s blade-like stare, he had no choice.
“…I… I’m fine with whatever.”
He lowered his eyes, his voice as light as a feather about to be scattered by the wind, carrying a faint, nearly imperceptible tremble of resignation.
“Riding in Miss Chinatsu’s car… is fine too.”
Hearing her boyfriend’s answer, the light of expectation in Aina Saiten’s eyes dimmed instantly, replaced by a complex mix of disappointment and compromise.
But she didn’t say anything more.
Chinatsu Ayase spoke up first, her tone cheerful as if everything had already been settled.
“Then it’s decided. Senior Aina, set your mind 100 percent at ease. I’ll take good care of Mr. Hoshitani on the way.”
She paused, adding considerately, “As soon as Mr. Hoshitani gets home safely, I’ll have him call you immediately to let you know. I won’t let you worry.”
With things having come to this, Aina had no room left to refuse.
She gave a forced nod, trying her best to suppress the strange, heavy sense of unease in her heart as she managed a smile.
“Alright then… thank you for the trouble, Junior Chinatsu.”
She turned to Kaoru Hoshitani, giving him a worried reminder.
“Akane, remember to call me the moment you get home, no matter how late it is. Once I’m done with the company business, I’ll message you right away.”
“…Okay.”
Kaoru Hoshitani gave an obedient response, his head down so his expression couldn’t be seen.
He seemed to think of something, or perhaps he was desperate to grasp some sense of certainty before parting.
He suddenly looked up, stood on his tiptoes, and before Aina Saiten could react, pressed a soft kiss against her lips.
The action was so sudden and so clinging, carrying a sense of nearly tragic devotion.
Aina was momentarily stunned.
Her mood, which had been dampened by the night’s events, was suddenly brightened by the kiss, like a ray of sunlight piercing through dark clouds.
The corners of her lips couldn’t help but curl upward. The bitterness in her heart was mostly washed away by sweetness.
She smiled and returned a kiss to the corner of his mouth, her voice tender.
“Be good. I’ll head home as soon as I’m done.”
Then she stood up, took one last look at her boyfriend, nodded politely to Chinatsu Ayase, and pushed open the door to leave the private room.
The sound of high heels clicking against the corridor floor grew distant, eventually vanishing with the soft chime of the elevator doors closing.
And so, once again, only Kaoru Hoshitani and Chinatsu Ayase remained in the private room.
The air seemed to solidify.
The warm yellow light still softly enveloped everything, and the still-life paintings on the wall watched them in silence.
On the dining table sat the remains of a pot of barley tea, its surface perfectly still.
The heavy wooden door blocked out all external sound, leaving only a suffocating, vacuum-like silence.
Chinatsu Ayase didn’t speak immediately.
She slowly sat back down in her chair, her movements elegant and composed, as if she were performing a ritual.
She lowered her eyes, her gaze falling on her long fingers interlaced over her lap. Her eyelashes cast two shallow, arched shadows on her cheeks.
Then, she let out a very soft, almost inaudible sigh.
It was a sigh that sounded like the embodiment of the word itself, or perhaps a sigh of relief that a long wait had finally met its end.
Though the sound was faint, in the silence of the private room, it was as clear as a stone dropping into a deep pool.
It struck Kaoru’s nerves, which were already stretched to the limit.
He shuddered violently, standing frozen in place. He didn’t know whether to sit or stay standing, as helpless as a prisoner awaiting sentencing.
“Mr. Hoshitani.”
Chinatsu Ayase finally spoke. She looked up, her gray eyes quietly meeting Kaoru’s.
They held none of the earlier sharpness, nor the previous warmth; there was only a near-transparent calmness that made one feel as if they had nowhere to hide.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word entered Kaoru’s ears with absolute clarity.
“Are you my brother-in-law… or Senior Aina’s boyfriend?”
‘Sure enough… she asked anyway…’
The moment he heard those words, the massive, wobbling boulder that had been hanging over Kaoru’s head for the entire dinner finally crashed to the ground.
At this moment, the immense terror actually felt like a relief, like a string that had been pulled too tight finally snapping.
His legs gave out, and unable to support himself any longer, he collapsed into the chair behind him with a dull thud.
He kept his head down, his shoulders heaving violently. Silence followed—another long, suffocating silence.
After a long time, he finally spoke.
His voice sounded as if it were being torn from the depths of his throat—hoarse, broken, and mixed with a grief and anger he could no longer suppress.
Every word was soaked in thick bitterness.
“It was Rika Kawasaki…”
He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently as if he were swallowing crushed glass.
“She… she raped me… sob…”
This was the first time he had ever spoken this humiliating truth to anyone other than himself and the perpetrator.
For any man who valued his virginity and viewed physical loyalty as his life, this was no different from personally tearing open his most festering, shameful wound to show the bloody interior to a dangerous stranger.
Shame, anger, resentment, fear—
All the emotions that had accumulated over the past several days burst forth like a dam breaking, impossible to restrain any longer.
He pressed his palms tightly against his face, but he couldn’t stop the tears from gushing through his fingers, large drops hitting the dark tablecloth and soaking into it in deep, wet patches.
His crying was repressed, sounds like the whimpering of a wounded animal escaping his throat.
His shoulders jerked violently as he curled into a ball, as fragile as a fallen leaf about to be scattered by the wind.
‘This…’
Chinatsu Ayase didn’t move, nor did she speak.
She simply watched the man across from her break down in tears, a complex light flickering in her gray eyes.
Actually, she hadn’t been entirely unprepared for this answer.
Between the clues collected by the private investigator over the last few days, the details she had observed in the restaurant herself, and every micro-expression, every moment of stiffness, and every look of longing mixed with despair Kaoru had directed at Aina during dinner tonight…
All the breadcrumbs pointed to a hazy outline.
She just needed confirmation.
And now, he had said it himself.
‘I see…’
In her heart, Chinatsu Ayase slowly began to piece together the entire picture, word by word.
This man named Kaoru Hoshitani wasn’t the shallow man she had first assumed him to be, the type who would easily betray his girlfriend.
Quite the opposite. He was forced. He was a victim who had been violently and forcibly taken by her sister, Rika Kawasaki.
The visible deep affection between him and Aina Saiten wasn’t an act; it was a real and profound binding.
And because that binding was so precious, he was terrified of losing it.
That was why he was so paralyzed by the violence, held firmly in place by that fatal leverage—not daring to resist, not daring to speak out.
Everything made sense now.
Her sister, Rika Kawasaki—that woman who had demanded absolute control over everything since childhood and would stop at nothing to get what she wanted—this time… it seemed she had truly fallen for a man who already belonged to someone else and whose heart wasn’t with her.
And she—Chinatsu’s high-and-mighty, arrogant sister—would actually toss and turn over a man, becoming so obsessed that she wouldn’t hesitate to use the most despicable methods to keep him by her side.
A cold, excited undercurrent surged from the depths of Chinatsu Ayase’s heart.
She lowered her lashes, hiding that fleeting, deep, and unfathomable smile beneath a calm face.
‘I see… Sister, you finally have your day.’