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The next day, Monday, I took a day off and headed to a certain location. I looked up at a not-so-large apartment building. It was apparently a monthly apartment. I didn't even know if anyone was inside. But nothing would move forward unless I got there.
I had asked the detective accompanying me to bring sufficient evidence. Of course, I didn't mention the DVD. I headed to room 205 with the detective. It appeared to be a corner room. I stood in front of the door. Maybe my wife was here. It couldn't be that big. Judging from the size of the exterior, it looked like a one-room apartment.
I put my hand on the doorknob to open the door. I intended to open it quietly and barge in quickly. I had no intention of ringing the intercom. The detective had advised me to press the intercom and explain the situation or to pretend to be a delivery person and see what was going on inside. But I didn't think about anything; I was just thinking about rushing inside.
As I moved the doorknob and tried to pull it toward me, I heard a faint voice coming from inside. It was a woman's voice. Could it be my wife? I strained my ears and listened intently to the sound. It was clearly the sound of a woman making lustful noises. It was true that I was feeling unsettled. It was possible that my wife was doing something like what was shown on the DVD inside. But hadn't I come here to ruin it? I knew that the more I thought about it, the more unsettled I became.
I opened the door before it got any more intense. I pulled it toward me carefully, trying not to make any noise. I could feel sweat pouring from my hands as I gripped the doorknob. The door opened, and little by little, I could see what was inside. It wasn't locked. From what I could see, there wasn't even a chain. I could clearly hear a woman's voice echoing from inside.
I opened the door about 10 cm and looked inside. It was a one-room apartment, with what appeared to be a bathroom, a kitchen, and a door at the back. There were five pairs of shoes in the entranceway—three men's and two women's. There should be several pairs of shoes belonging to the tenants of this house. I didn't know how many people were inside, but there was definitely at least one man and one woman.
I could hear my own heartbeat. My whole body was pulsating, and I had no choice but to move forward. I looked at the face of the detective behind me. The detective looked at me with a serious expression. I had asked him to wait outside while I went inside. The detective suggested that I ring the intercom and talk, but I refused. What was he saying, someone who didn't understand the situation up to that point? Generally speaking, if the detective had suddenly opened the door and barged in just because he had marked someone as his target, it would be a crime no matter how you looked at it. But that didn't matter to me. I blocked out any thoughts that might distract me from my current feelings.
Looking at the detective's face, I nodded to signal that I was on my way. The detective nodded back, as if prepared. I returned my gaze to the room. I could still hear the woman's voice from inside. The men who had done that to my wife. Maybe I was partly to blame. But I didn't want to think about that right now. It was all those men's plan, bringing my family to near collapse. The home I had built should have been filled with ordinary happiness. An enemy was toying with it and destroying it. My daughter, son, and wife, whom I had to protect. I was fighting for my family of three now. No matter what happened inside, no matter what happened to me, I acted for what I must protect.
I pulled the doorknob in one swift motion and stepped inside. I stepped on the shoes at the entrance and entered with my shoes on. I walked toward the door at the back of the dimly lit, windowless space, about three meters away, with the lights off. The front door wasn't closing yet, and I couldn't hear it closing. It was the type of door that closed slowly so as not to make a sound. The people inside probably hadn't noticed my presence yet. It must have taken less than two seconds. I put my hand on the doorknob at the back. At that moment, I finally heard the sound of the front door closing. The people inside must have realized that someone had come inside. At the same time, I opened the door.
I didn't know what kind of scene awaited me when I opened it. At least, I could imagine, judging by the lewd voices I could hear. Of course, I hadn't thought about what I'd say inside. I just rushed inside. The door opening felt like slow motion. It seemed that light was filtering in from outside, illuminating the dimly lit entranceway. It was as if it was illuminating me. I was prepared.
With the door wide open, I felt as if all the light from inside was being drawn toward me. It all happened in less than a second. Still, I remembered it vividly, as if it were a stop-motion video. In that light, a large window at the back of the room caught my eye. I sensed the presence of people on both sides of my field of vision. On the right, the color of human skin looked large. They were probably on the bed. I shifted my gaze to the lower right. What if it was my wife… What if it was my wife? There was one person on the left, two on the bed. There were at least three. No, there seemed to be one sitting in the corner of the room, next to the bed. Four people.
I looked at the top of the bed, praying that it wasn't my wife. A man's back looked large. There seemed to be a woman underneath him. I could see the woman's legs from around his waist. I shifted my gaze toward his head. His neck, chin, lips, nose… eyes… and then his entire face were reflected clearly in my eyes. My heart felt like it was going to burst. I could not see anything else. More than the other three, I wondered if this woman was my wife or not. I looked at her face, just to be sure. Over and over in my mind, I superimposed this woman onto the wife I knew. I didn't want to see my wife with another man. I knew some men liked that sort of thing. But with my life in danger of being destroyed, I was simply terrified to confirm that it wasn't my wife, and I felt like I was going to faint.
The woman underneath him… she wasn't my wife. A woman I'd never seen before. Since I'd been concentrating on whether she was my wife or not, rather than the relief of not being my wife, I felt like I was losing track of what I was doing. Not my wife. So this woman… the other woman in the DVD? The woman finally noticed my presence and was looking my way. I looked up and saw a man looking at me with a surprised expression. The man standing to the left of the window was also looking my way. He was wearing a dark suit. A naked man and woman entangled in bed. Then, as if remembering something, I spotted someone sitting in the corner of the room next to the bed. I couldn't help but cry out, "Ah… Akasaka-san…"
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It was only yesterday that the detective had reported that he'd located what seemed to be my wife. "Apparently, an apartment rented under the name of your wife's company president is being considered as a possible location," he said.
I met with the detective this morning and was shown the evidence in person. From photographs, I could see that the mail delivered to the apartment was in the same name as my wife's company president. I also saw photos of people coming and going there. The woman in the photo was Akasaka.
In the message my wife left me on the DVD, she said, "I know you've been telling the detective, but please stop."
When I first heard this, I was so shocked by the video that I couldn't think straight. My wife was straddling a man, leaving me a message of farewell on the DVD. I was overcome with a shock so intense I felt like I was going crazy, jealousy, and emotions so intense I couldn't put them into words. Everything seemed to go dark. My wife's message kept running through my head. Then one question came to mind: Why did my wife know I was hiring a detective? If the men were making my wife tell them, why did they know about the detective? As I pondered the answer to that question, a thread began to emerge.
I hadn't told anyone about the detective. Of course, there was no one I could talk to about this. Then I remembered the detective's story. "We investigated for a week and spoke to two of her colleagues, but they said your wife hadn't even come to work, so we didn't know where she was," the detective had said.
This meant that at least two of them had been questioned about my wife. When I spoke to the detective in more detail, he told me that he hadn't introduced himself as a detective, so they hadn't realized he was there, and that those two were the only people he'd interviewed who had direct ties to Noriko. It was unclear whether the two colleagues realized he was a detective, but that was the only way the men knew about the detective. And if they had told someone at work about what they'd been asked, then the company knew.
So I consulted the detective. From now on, I wanted them to keep an eye on someone at my wife's company. That was the only option I had at the time. And it was the best I could do at that point. To ease the men's guard, I told Akasaka that the detectives would be stopping their presence at the end of the week. I didn't know if she let her guard down or if she hadn't been worried about being found out by the detective in the first place, but the connection was soon discovered. A woman who had come out of the office went to the apartment. A resident of the same apartment building said he had seen a woman who looked like my wife coming out of the apartment. I didn't know how reliable the story was from a resident who didn't know anything about it, but I knew something was there, and it was reported last night.
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