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"Why are you here…" Akasaka asked me, as if she didn't know what to do. She was naked, with only a bath towel wrapped around her, holding her hands over her chest to keep the towel from falling. Was she panicking and trying to cover up?
"It's not 'why.' What's going on, Akasaka?" I demanded.
Akasaka fell silent. A man's voice interrupted. "Who are you? I don't know if you know Akasaka, but what are you doing in someone's house without permission? I'll call the police, so wait a moment."
The man took his cell phone out of his pocket. Then Akasaka said, "This is Noriko's husband."
The man stopped searching for his phone in his pocket for a moment and looked at me. "Noriko's husband… why is he here!?"
It seemed like he was in charge here. Just as the man was about to say something, I interrupted him loudly. "What do you mean!"
The man started, hesitantly. "What do you mean… what do you mean…"
Irritated by the man's trembling voice, I said, "What are you talking about? Where's Noriko? Bring her here right now!"
The man froze, staring at my face. The man and woman on the bed, and Akasaka, didn't say anything, and time just passed.
"Noriko isn't here. Today, she's with the president…" the man said.
"The president? What is the president of your company doing snatching someone else's wife?! What kind of company is this?!" I shouted.
"I don't know her very well either. I haven't seen Noriko much lately. The president personally…" He was clearly at a loss for words.
"What do you mean personally?" I pressed.
The man began, thinking. "I work with the president a lot, so I haven't seen her in a while."
"Then you need to call the president here! Right now," I demanded.
"I don't know where he is right now. The president is busy…" he started.
"That's why I told you to contact him right now," I said, kicking a box of tissues at my feet. The box hit the man's foot and rolled to the ground.
"Okay, I understand. I'll call him right away… just wait a moment," the man said, picking up his cell phone and beginning to make a call.
The men looked clearly frightened, unsure of what to do. Of course. It'd be scary to cheat with someone else's wife and then have her husband suddenly barge in. I didn't know if it was just their taste or something, but I felt like I was the only sane person in this strange space. Akasaka was naked, wrapped in a bath towel. I had no idea what she was doing there. Just knowing she was naked told me what she was trying to do. But that didn't matter. My only destination was my wife.
The man's phone call seemed to connect. "Ah, President, um, your husband—Noriko's husband—is in the room…" he said.
He was clearly a weakling. The fact that such a man called my wife by her first name infuriated me. I waited for the call to be answered, suppressing the rising anger inside me.
"So, your husband said to bring Noriko here right now…" the man continued.
Bring Noriko here. The man had no manners or common sense enough to say such things in front of me. Considering what had happened up until then, it was obvious that common sense didn't apply to these people. Still, the thought of my wife being taken advantage of by such a lowly man made me burst with emotion.
"Well, well, that's… in this situation… Yes, I'm sorry. Okay, I'll go now…" the man said, hanging up the phone.
"Um, the president… it seems he and your wife aren't together right now, so he'd like to tell you where Noriko is, and that you should come directly there…" he said.
He was with someone else's wife, so he wanted me, her husband, to come directly? Who the hell did he think I was?
"Huh? Do you even understand your position?" I said.
As I spoke, my body moved on its own, grabbing the man by the collar with my left hand and pulling him toward me with all my might. I clenched my right fist so hard I felt like I was about to hit him.
Suddenly, the man on top of the woman on the bed came toward me, completely naked. "W-wait a second, let's stop. Let's listen to what he has to say properly…"
Before I could finish listening to the ridiculous man's words, completely naked in this atmosphere, I hit him in the face with the back of my right fist. I hit him with all my might. I had reached the limit of what I could endure with just my reason. I wanted to destroy this whole room. I couldn't suppress that urge. The man who had been punched hard in the middle of his face was crouching beside the bed.
The man I was still grabbing by the collar spoke. "Please calm down. Of course, we're in no position to say such arrogant things to you. But we can't go against the president either. Please understand."
Please understand? Please understand while ignoring what they themselves had been doing? What were these bastards saying? They'd used other people's wives so many times and even made fun of me, her husband.
"Please. There's nothing more we can do," the man said with tears in his eyes.
Had my wife been taken advantage of by such a weak man? Whether he had some kind of hold over her or it was my wife's will, everything was so frustrating that I couldn't bear it. No matter what I said to this man, it wouldn't work.
"Where should we go?" I asked, unable to contain my irritation.
"Well, I know this is a bit of an unreasonable request, and I hope you won't get angry and listen, but your wife…" he started.
"I don't care about that, just tell me where she is," I shouted loudly in the man's face, as if to force my feelings upon him.
"What's going on?" the man said, averting his eyes.
"She's at your… your house, with one of our employees," he said.
I received an unexpected answer. My mind was about to go blank. My wife, who had been gone for ages, had come home? What was going on? Huh? He said he wasn't with the president. Was she back home with his employees? It took me a while to process what I was thinking.
After I didn't move for a few seconds, the man spoke, perhaps trying to appease me. "But it seems the kids are out right now."
Did he think I'd feel better just hearing that? My wife, two kids, and I were living in the same house, with two employees? I didn't even know if the employees were male or female. Just the situation was enough to make me crazy. I couldn't process what was going on. It was clear I was going crazy. Was he trying to reassure me that the kids weren't there?
"You think those words should reassure me?!" I shouted, grabbing the man by the collar and trying to shove him toward the window with all my might.
I thought I could break the window and throw him over the balcony and down. Unconsciously, I put all my strength into slamming the man into the window. I could hear the sound of the window shattering and see glass begin to scatter. I was close to losing my mind. I couldn't keep my composure. The man collapsed atop the scattered glass. But his eyes seemed to be frightened at the sight of me. The man in the suit seemed uninjured and was trying to get up. However, even though he had no external injuries, his body was surely in pain. Should he try to run away? However, the man stood up and moved to the corner of the balcony, looking in my direction.
Tears began to flow as I thought about how I had been mocked by such a despicable man. I had no use for this place anymore. And the place I had to go was my own home. My own home, where my family lived. It felt as though all the tears that had accumulated in my body were about to spill out. I wiped them away with the sleeve of my shirt.
Then I turned around to leave the room and started walking. A woman appeared in the lower left corner of my vision—Akasaka. I couldn't just leave without doing anything. I wondered if this woman understood the meaning of what she had done. I stood in front of Akasaka, who was covering her body with a bath towel, holding it down with her hand to keep it from falling. I forcefully snatched the towel away and threw it to the ground. Akasaka tried to resist with all her might, but the bath towel was stripped off before she could stop it. Akasaka was completely naked.
Was she using this appealing style to play around with the men here? Akasaka bent over, desperately using her hands and arms to hide her naked body from me. What was she hiding? My wife had everything exposed to the men on DVD. Why was she the only one trying to maintain appearances as a woman? I grabbed Akasaka's arm, pulled her to her feet, grabbed both her wrists, and pushed her against the wall. The force of being pushed made her breasts shake. Unable to hide, her naked body was exposed in front of me. She probably never expected me to see her naked.
Wasn't this woman the very reason she'd made a fool of me? I trusted her to be so kind to me, and now I couldn't even begin to accept that she'd betrayed me. Even though the men told me to, I didn't think anything ever happened. I slapped Akasaka across the cheek with my right hand. Akasaka said nothing, not even feeling any pain from the slap, but simply looked down to the right. The strength in my hand relaxed. I loosened my grip on her arm, which had been pressing her against the wall. Akasaka sat down helplessly.
I picked up the bath towel and threw it at her. Then I started walking toward the front door. I wondered if the neighbors had called the police because of the sound of the glass breaking, after all the yelling I'd done. But it wasn't surprising. I wondered what the detective waiting outside was doing. The time, less than five minutes, felt long. It would never be the same again. The recent days of worrying about my wife would never come again, those frustrating days that I could never move on from or return to. Because I had moved forward. Since I had made the first move to confront the men, I was going to put an end to it.
So, together with the detective, I headed to the home of my precious family, where my wife and someone else were.
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