It was six o’clock in the evening, and the sky had already darkened.
Early winter nights arrived early, and the streetlights on both sides of the road lit up with a dim yellow glow, blooming into hazy halos in the chilly air.
Chinatsu Ayase rushed to drop Kaoru Hoshitani back off at the bottom of his apartment building before Aina Saiten finished work.
The black Cadillac slowly came to a stop at the familiar street corner, a short distance away from the entrance to the apartment building — this was the spot they had agreed upon earlier, as it wasn’t too conspicuous yet was convenient enough.
Kaoru Hoshitani unbuckled his seatbelt and prepared to get out. His hand was already on the door handle when he heard Chinatsu Ayase’s voice from beside him.
“Wait a moment.”
He turned his head and saw the girl unbuckling her seatbelt as well.
“I’ll walk you up.”
As Chinatsu spoke, she took two masks out of her bag and handed one to him. “What if Big Sister is still lurking nearby?”
Kaoru took the mask, a wave of gratitude welling up in his heart.
He was indeed worried about that — although that yellow-haired woman hadn’t cornered him this morning, with her personality, she might be waiting around to catch him.
‘If she sees me coming back alone…’
He didn’t dare think further.
The two of them put on their masks and pulled up the hoods of their coats to cover their heads.
Once fully armed, they pushed open the car door and walked quickly toward the apartment building.
The sound-controlled lights in the stairwell lit up with the sound of their footsteps and then flickered out one by one behind them.
Kaoru walked ahead, with Chinatsu following closely behind. Neither of them spoke, and only the sound of soft footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell.
It wasn’t until they reached the door of his home that he stopped.
Pulling out his keys and opening the door, he turned around to look at the girl behind him.
“Thank you… thank you for walking me up.”
His voice came through the mask, sounding a bit muffled, but his little deer eyes were filled with sincere gratitude.
Chinatsu Ayase shook her head, her gray eyes curving slightly as if she were smiling.
“It’s nothing. Go inside quickly, and remember to lock the door.”
Kaoru nodded, pushed the door open, and went inside. The door closed gently behind him with a soft click.
Chinatsu stood at the door for a few seconds to confirm it was locked before turning to head downstairs.
The sound of her footsteps gradually faded away, disappearing into the stairwell.
What she didn’t know was —
At the entrance of a nearby alley, a motorcycle was parked quietly.
A woman sat on the bike, her striking red hair exceptionally prominent in the dim light.
Her tight leather outfit outlined her slightly exaggerated curves, and her face was covered in heavy makeup, giving her the “delinquent” look of someone who hung around the streets.
She held her phone up, the lens aimed exactly at the entrance where Kaoru and Chinatsu had just entered the apartment building.
The figures of the two people, masked and in a hurry, were clearly recorded.
She looked down at the photo on her phone screen, a triumphant smile curling the corners of her mouth.
Then, she opened a certain messaging app and sent the photo out.
The recipient was labeled: Big Sister.
……
[NTR Countdown: 50 Days Remaining]
……
Although she was very reluctant to believe it, Aina Saiten really was starting to suspect that her boyfriend’s heart had changed.
Once this thought took root, it grew like a wild weed in her heart, impossible to suppress.
The direct cause was some oddities she had noticed over the weekend.
That Saturday, she was working overtime at the company. During her free time, she would send messages to Akane, asking what he was doing, if he had eaten, and if he missed her.
In the past, Akane would generally reply very promptly. He would also send a bunch of voice messages, chatting with her in that soft, coquettish voice for ten or twenty minutes at a time.
But this weekend, when she messaged Akane, it would often take twenty or thirty minutes before she received a simple reply — “Mhm,” “Got it,” “You too” — and then nothing more.
Feeling strange, she had messaged him to ask what he was doing.
The answers she got were, “I was just buying things at the supermarket,” “I was just washing the dishes,” or “I was just cleaning.” That was why he hadn’t replied promptly.
These reasons sounded reasonable, and she couldn’t really find any fault with them.
The problem was that over these two days, every time she sent a message, Akane “coincidentally” happened to be busy with something.
Once or twice might be a coincidence, but what about three or four times?
Aina Saiten didn’t want to think too much about it, but those thoughts just kept popping up uncontrollably.
Moreover, when she returned home in the evening, for some reason, she felt that Akane looked a bit tired, as if he had been outside all day.
His clothes carried a faint, lingering scent that didn’t belong to the house, and he seemed a bit travel-worn.
When she asked about it, Akane just smiled and said he had been bored staying at home during the day, so he went out for a stroll.
She didn’t push further.
But in the end, all of this was just her own feeling.
Without actual evidence, she was unwilling to suspect the boyfriend she had deeply loved for over ten years based on these baseless conjectures.
Until this morning —
A strange text message appeared on her phone.
The sender was a number she didn’t recognize, with no contact name or profile picture, just a string of cold digits.
The content of the text consisted of several photographs.
The moment Aina Saiten opened them, she froze in place as if struck by lightning.
The background of those photos was almost identical, and it was a scene all too familiar to her.
Because that background was the bottom of her apartment building.
The glass door she entered and exited every day, the street corner where she waited for Akane to come home every day, the dim yellow streetlight that lit up in the night… everything was so familiar, so familiar that it sent a bone-chilling cold through her.
And the two protagonists in the photos, although both were wearing masks that covered most of their faces, Aina Saiten recognized them at a single glance.
The man was her beloved boyfriend, Kaoru Hoshitani.
That slender figure, that way of walking, that down jacket she had personally bought for him — how could she possibly be mistaken?
And the woman…
Aina’s gaze fell on the slender figure wearing a beige coat and a mask.
In that instant, her heart felt as if it were being squeezed hard by someone, making even breathing difficult.
It was Chinatsu Ayase.
The junior who had a good relationship with her and had helped her in many ways.
The girl she had always been grateful to and regarded as a friend.
Judging by the sky in the photos, they had been taken in both the morning and the evening.
The two of them were in a state of either preparing to go out or the girl dropping the man back home.
They were standing very close, their steps in sync, their posture natural… there was an indescribable intimacy to it.
Aina Saiten’s hand holding the phone began to tremble uncontrollably.
Actually, her first reaction upon seeing those photos was total confusion.
She subconsciously came up with countless excuses for Akane — maybe they had met by chance, maybe Chinatsu was just dropping him off on her way, maybe Akane was also working at Quansheng now and had some business to coordinate with Chinatsu, so they were working overtime together.
She desperately wanted to convince herself that there was a logical explanation for everything.
However, no matter how she tried to justify it, the moment she realized one fact, her heart began to ache intensely.
The pain was so real and sharp, as if someone were taking a blunt knife and carving into her heart, stroke by stroke.
She even felt an uncontrollable urge to gag, a wave of nausea churning in her stomach.
The fact was —
If the relationship between the two of them was normal, why would Akane hide it from her?
Why would he make up so many excuses?
“Buying things at the supermarket,” “washing the dishes,” “cleaning”…
He was clearly, clearly with Chinatsu, yet he lied to her and said he was doing other things.
He lied to her.
The man she had deeply loved for over ten years, the man she thought would never deceive her, was lying to her.
Aina Saiten stared at the photos on her phone screen, her eyes gradually turning red.
She bit her lower lip hard to keep herself from making a sound, but the tears fell uncontrollably, drop by drop, hitting the phone screen and blurring those piercing images.
She didn’t know how long she sat in her bedroom.
It wasn’t until the sky outside was bright and the phone screen turned off automatically that she slowly came back to her senses.
She took a deep breath and, with trembling fingers, saved those photos.
Then, she deleted that strange text message.
She needed answers.
But she couldn’t just go and question Akane like this.
Maybe… maybe there really was a logical explanation? Maybe she was overthinking?
But a voice in her heart said coldly:
‘If there really was a logical explanation, then why did he lie to you?’