Then she began noticing other things.
Every morning, shortly after breakfast, Kenji left the house at almost exactly the same time. He never explained where he was going beyond saying that he had a few things to take care of.
When his telephone rang, he sometimes stepped outside to answer it. If Yuki entered the room while he was speaking, he would lower his voice or end the call.
He had never behaved aggressively. He was not controlling, and he did not tell her where she could go or whom she could see.
Yet the pattern unsettled her.
One evening, she asked him directly.
“Kenji, is there something you're not telling me?”
He looked up from the book he was reading.
“What makes you ask?”
“The locked room. The phone calls. You leave every morning and never really explain where you're going.”
He closed the book.
For a moment, Yuki thought he would answer.
Instead, he rubbed his forehead and said, “It's something personal. I need a little more time before I can talk about it.”
The response was gentle, but it did not reassure her.
“How much more time?”
“I don't know.”
Yuki sat quietly.
She wanted to respect his privacy. She also knew that privacy and secrecy were not the same thing, particularly in a marriage that had begun so quickly.
“I'm not asking you to tell me every thought in your head,” she said. “But I need to know whether there's something that could affect our life together.”
Kenji looked at her with an expression she could not interpret.
“It isn't what you think.”
That sentence, she would later realize, was one of the least helpful things he could have said.
“What do you think I think?” she asked.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Finally, he said, “Please trust me.”
Yuki felt a small, cold sensation settle in her chest.
Trust, she thought, could not simply be requested like a favor. It had to be built, especially when circumstances gave a person reasons to feel uncertain.
She went to bed that night without another argument.
Kenji kissed her forehead before turning off the light.
She lay awake long after he had fallen asleep.
By morning, the questions had multiplied.
Perhaps her friends had been right. Perhaps she had mistaken his quiet manner for complete honesty. Perhaps there was a former partner, a hidden financial problem, or a family situation he had deliberately concealed.
She hated that her mind had begun searching for betrayal.
But the marriage was only ten days old, and she knew very little about the years of his life that had come before her.
For the first time since the beach, she wondered whether the calm she had found with Kenji had been real—or simply the calm of a story she had not yet learned to question.
Chapter Six: The Morning Everything Changed
Two mornings later, Yuki woke before Kenji.
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.