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.
“Please,” she said, her voice breaking. “I have defended our marriage to people who think I must be foolish or desperate. I've told them I trust you. I've told myself that what matters is the way we treat each other. But I cannot keep defending something when you won't let me see the truth.”
For several seconds, Kenji stared at the floor.
Then he reached into his pocket, removed a small key, and held it in his palm.
“I should have told you,” he whispered.
He walked upstairs.
Yuki followed.
At the end of the corridor, he stopped in front of the locked door.
His hand trembled slightly as he inserted the key.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
And Yuki saw a room filled with photographs, handwritten letters, old drawings, and boxes carefully labeled with dates.
On the largest wall hung a photograph of Kenji standing beside a woman with bright eyes and a teenage girl whose smile seemed to fill the entire picture.
Yuki recognized the expression on Kenji's face immediately.
It was the same gentle expression he wore when he thought nobody was looking.
But the photograph had been taken years earlier.
And the woman and girl standing beside him were not part of the life Yuki had imagined.
Chapter Seven: The Family He Had Lost
Kenji remained in the doorway.
For a moment, he looked like a man who had walked into a room and forgotten why he had come.
Then he stepped inside and moved toward the photograph.
“This is my wife, Aiko,” he said. “And this is our daughter, Hana.”
Yuki said nothing.
Kenji took a breath.
“Aiko died eleven years ago. Hana was seventeen.”
The words seemed to drain the air from the room.
He explained that Aiko had become seriously ill after a period of declining health. The illness had progressed faster than the family expected, leaving them struggling to adjust to a future they had never imagined.
Hana had tried to remain strong for her father. She attended school, helped with household responsibilities, and spent long evenings beside her mother's bed.
After Aiko died, their small family changed in ways Kenji had not known how to repair.
He threw himself into work. Hana tried to continue her life, but grief followed her everywhere.
They loved each other deeply, yet they often failed to communicate what they needed. Kenji believed that providing stability was the best way to help his daughter. Hana needed him to talk about what had happened.
Neither understood the other well enough.
Then, several years later, Hana died in an accident.
Kenji did not describe the accident in detail. He only said that it happened suddenly and that, for a long time, he could not understand how the world could continue moving when his own had stopped.
After losing both his wife and daughter, he withdrew from much of his social life.
He retired, sold some belongings, and began living quietly. He read, tended his garden, and visited places where nobody knew his history.
He did not stop loving the people he had lost.
He simply stopped knowing how to speak about them.
Yuki looked around the room.
The letters were arranged in neat bundles. Some were written in Aiko's handwriting, while others appeared to be notes from Hana. On a desk sat a collection of sketches showing a modest building with large windows, a garden, and a sign above the entrance.