Outside the window, the midsummer cicadas had long since become an obnoxious chorus.
Even at this early hour, the air was already thick with suffocating humidity, and the weather bureau forecast that Tokyo’s high today would approach ninety-five degrees.
Yet, in this weather where even breathing felt scorching, a boy stood before the bathroom vanity, dressed in something completely inappropriate for the season.
The camera slowly panned up along his pale, slender fingertips—
It was a thick, pure white long-sleeved shirt.
Kaoru Hoshitani was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom.
His fingers trembled uncontrollably as he buttoned the shirt, one button at a time, from his chest upward.
Only when the final button pressed tightly against his Adam’s apple, nearly choking off his breath, did he force himself to stop.
Why was he dressing like this?
As his Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallowing motion, the taut collar inevitably opened just a tiny slit.
Beneath that gap, the pale skin reflected in the mirror was covered in dark purple love bites and rough fingerprints.
Those marks of humiliation and violation spread downward from his clavicle, like some kind of toxic vine, clinging tightly to him.
Kaoru Hoshitani squeezed his eyes shut in pain.
In his mind, those uncontrollable images flashed back like a tidal wave—
The cold, massive redwood desk in the Osaka branch office.
The aggressive, high-end perfume mingling leather and rose that Rika Kawasaki wore.
And the way his chin had been forcibly gripped, forced to accept that burning breath pouring down his throat.
Disgusting…
He felt nauseous, wishing he could scrub that layer of skin raw with a brush.
But what truly filled him with despair was the reaction rising from deep within his body—
Even as his mind fiercely rejected it, somewhere in his body, a faint yet undeniable tremor sparked from those shameful memories.
That body, already so thoroughly developed, had actually remembered the pleasure of being violated.
Kaoru Hoshitani’s eyes flew open in terror. He frantically grabbed his collar, sealing even that last sliver of gap.
As if buttoning that collar tightly enough could hide all the evidence of yesterday, hide his already filthy, defiled soul.
By the time he walked out of the kitchen carrying the finished tamago-yaki and miso soup, a fine layer of sweat had already beaded on Kaoru Hoshitani’s forehead.
Even having spent only twenty minutes in the kitchen, that heavy long-sleeved shirt had turned him into a man trapped in a steamer.
Just then, with a click, the bedroom door opened.
Aina walked out in light loungewear, yawning.
The air fell dead silent in that instant.
Aina’s gaze, without the slightest deviation, landed directly on the long-sleeved shirt Kaoru Hoshitani had bundled himself into, and she clearly saw the sweat dripping down his temples along his cheeks.
Kaoru Hoshitani froze in place, the tray in his hands trembling slightly.
Did she… notice?
In this blazing summer, wearing a long-sleeved shirt at home… would she ask why? What should I say? That I have a cold? Or that…
Countless clumsy lies swirled in his throat. Just as Kaoru Hoshitani braced himself for the verdict to fall, the reversal came.
Aina didn’t ask. Her gaze didn’t even linger on her confusion for more than a second.
She smiled as she walked over, gently wrapping her arms around Kaoru Hoshitani’s waist from behind.
With the laziness and affection of someone just waking up, she pressed a gentle morning kiss onto the side of his neck, hidden beneath his collar.
“Good morning, Kaoru Hoshitani.”
She let go, turned, and walked over to the coffee table, picking up the air conditioner remote.
“Beep—”
With a crisp tone, Aina pressed the living room air conditioner temperature, dropping it directly from seventy-eight degrees to a frigid sixty-four.
A powerful blast of cold air roared out of the vent, striking Kaoru Hoshitani’s sweat-soaked back and sending a bone-deep chill through him.
“The forecast said it would be really humid today.” Aina turned to him, her eyes curving into a smile. “Cooler air is more comfortable, right?”
Kaoru Hoshitani stared blankly at the air conditioner blasting cold air, and suddenly his eyes burned with a wave of heat.
How could she not know?
Aina suffered from severe cold sensitivity. Normally, if the air conditioner was set to seventy-five, her hands and feet would turn ice cold.
If she stayed in a room at sixty-four degrees for an hour, her lips would go pale from the cold.
But now, she was smiling and saying “this is more comfortable.”
This wasn’t thoughtfulness at all…
After breakfast, Aina went back to the bedroom to change into her work clothes, leaving only Kaoru Hoshitani washing dishes at the kitchen island in the living room.
In the quiet filled only by the sound of running water, the old mobile phone resting on the marble counter suddenly let out a dull vibration.
“Buzz—”
Like a death knell striking his soul.
Kaoru Hoshitani flinched. With the guilt of a thief, he immediately glanced at the tightly shut bedroom door.
Then he turned off the faucet, dried his hands haphazardly on his apron, and, barely daring to breathe, tremblingly tapped the lit screen.
It was a message.
No text.
Just an image and a ten-second voice clip.
Kaoru Hoshitani’s fingers trembled so badly he could barely tap the screen.
The moment the image loaded, his pupils violently contracted.
It was a close-up shot.
The background was the disheveled king-sized bed of that five-star hotel in Osaka, and in the center of the wrinkled, pure white sheets lay a snapped black leather collar, casually discarded.
—That was the thing Rika Kawasaki had forcibly locked around his neck yesterday afternoon because his resistance was too annoying.
A tidal wave of shame coiled around his ankles like a venomous snake.
As if possessed, he turned the phone volume to the lowest setting, pressed it to his ear, and opened the voice clip.
After the static crackle faded, Rika Kawasaki’s slightly hoarse, lazy voice—brimming with an oppressive, dominant air—drilled directly into his eardrums like poison:
[Good morning, my little dog.]
[How many layers are you wearing today? The spot on your inner thigh where I bit you raw… does it still hurt?]
Boom—!
That sentence was like a charged hook, instantly tearing through the facade Kaoru Hoshitani had desperately maintained!
The betrayal of his body came faster than the collapse of his rationality.
That body memory, thoroughly and completely developed by Rika Kawasaki from the inside out, was mercilessly awakened the instant it heard that voice.
Kaoru Hoshitani realized with despair that his breathing had become rapid and scorching in an instant. That thick, dominating female hormone aura seemed to pierce through the screen and envelop him once more.
His legs suddenly went weak. If he hadn’t been gripping the edge of the sink with all his might, he would have collapsed to the floor.
His inner thigh…
That spot where Rika Kawasaki had deliberately left a deep bite mark was now throbbing with a maddening, tingling ache as the memories resurfaced.
“Mmph…”
Kaoru Hoshitani bit down hard on his pale lips until he tasted blood, barely suppressing that shameful, sweet moan that nearly escaped his throat.
He stared at the bedroom door in terror, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it might explode.
If… if Aina pushed that door open and walked out right now.
If she saw him like this—unable to even stand steadily, lascivious and wanton, all because another woman had sent him a message full of humiliation…
Would everything just… end?