Rain tapped against the windows, and the house was unusually quiet.
She made coffee, opened the curtains, and waited for the familiar sounds of Kenji moving around upstairs.
They did not come.
Instead, she heard the front door close.
She looked at the clock.
It was earlier than usual.
Through the window, she saw Kenji walking toward the street with a dark folder tucked beneath his arm. He paused near the gate, looked back at the
house, and then continued down the road.
Yuki stood still.
She had no intention of following him. At least, that was what she told herself for the first few minutes.
Then she noticed the folder.
It was the same one she had seen him carrying on two previous mornings.
A memory returned to her: a phone call she had overheard the night before.
“No, I haven’t told her yet,” Kenji had said quietly. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
At the time, she had assumed he was speaking about something related to work.
Now the words sounded different.
She put on her coat, took her keys, and left the house.
Kenji was walking toward a small community building several streets away. Yuki followed at a distance, telling herself that she only wanted to understand what was happening.
When he entered the building, she stopped outside.
Through the glass, she
saw him speak with a woman behind a desk. The woman handed him a set of keys. He thanked her, then walked down a corridor and disappeared through a door.
Yuki waited.
A few minutes later, she heard voices.
One belonged to Kenji.
The other belonged to a woman who sounded as though she had been crying.
“I can’t keep putting this off,” the woman said.
“I know,” Kenji replied. “But I need to make sure everything is right.”
“What if she finds out from someone else?”
There was a long silence.
Then Kenji answered, “That is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”
Yuki felt her stomach tighten.
She stepped away from the window.
She could have gone inside. She could have demanded an explanation. Instead, she returned home with her mind racing through possibilities.
By the time Kenji came back, she had prepared herself for a confrontation.
He entered
carrying the folder.
When he saw her standing in the living room, he stopped.
“You followed me,” he said.
It was not a question.
Yuki felt her face grow hot.
“Yes.”
Kenji set the folder on the table.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Yuki asked the question that had been tormenting her.
“Who were you talking to, and what are you hiding from me?”
Kenji looked at her, and something in his expression changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
It was the first time Yuki had seen him look genuinely afraid.
“Yuki,” he began, “there is something about my past that I should have told you before we got married.”
Her heart began to pound.
“Then tell me now.”
He looked toward the staircase.
“I can’t do it in the hallway.”
“Why? Because of the locked room?”
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he nodded.
“Yes.”
Yuki felt as though the floor had shifted beneath her.
“Then open it.”
Kenji did not move.
