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I understood it only in hindsight, but at that point, I had fallen.

When I was supposed to be dropping him, it was honestly pitiful and all that jazz, but my life from then on was like a gemstone to me.

I still didn’t understand love. But I still did treasure him.

From there, another year and a half passed, and it was three years for our marriage.

I was still playing the ‘game to make him fall’, and I had mastered his tastes in makeup and dress.

Having come this far, I was already nothing but a woman in love, but my small bit of pride didn’t allow me to accept that.

He was going at it bit by bit, but there still was a change. Of all things, he got around to help around with the chores. At the start, any and everything was left to me. I had kept quiet to that point, but recently I protested that while I stayed home, for argument’s sake, I still had a job, so wasn’t that unfair? He accepted division of housework all-too-easily, and now, the laundry and trash every day was his charge.

“If it was that hard on you, you should’ve said something earlier. I don’t want to have you dying form overwork. I want to kill you without being found out.”

It was a recent occurrence that he began to smile whenever he said something like that.

We were becoming a family. Slowly, but surely.

I was unbearably happy at that fact, and my heart danced at the prospect of having a warm household for the first time in my life.

And his birthday came.

Moving by the plan I had devised long beforehand, the preparations of morning to dinner, I did my best on my makeup and dressing up.

I thought to go on a date with him. Embarrassing as it was, it was the first date in my life. I was a sheltered daughter by the definition of the term, and in truth, my acquaintances numbered zero.

Just how long had I waited for this day.

I argued down his agitation, and took him to his beloved aquarium.

I had learned he liked the aquarium quite recently. When we were coincidentally watching TV together, an aquarium commercial came on. I could determine it by the sparkling eyes of a young boy with which he eyed the penguins. I was certain he loved the aquarium.

The result was superb. It seems he loved it, and I enjoyed it as well. I was happy.

When I let too loose, and bought enough paraphernalia to carry in both hands, that he quietly took all of them from me and carried them all home was actually the part I enjoyed most, but that’s my life’s secret from him.

“Thank you for being born.”

“You’re welcome.”

His flushed face was lovely.

After that, we got around to going out together around once per month. Starting with the nearby park, we got as far as small trips out of the prefecture.

When I made lunch, he’d make a sour face as he quietly ate them, but I didn’t let slip by the rising of the corners of his lips whenever I packed fried chicken or eggs.

The next time, I tried loading the lunch with those foods, only for him to look at me with a bit of a surprised face, and say this:

“Can you read hearts?”

It was so strange, so interesting… he still didn’t smile very much, but even so I thought it had become quite an enjoyable married life.

And from there, a year went by, and my desires began to come out.

Around four years since we had been married.

At that point, I knew it was about time I admitted that I liked him, and it was because I accepted it, that these desires began to be born. I wanted him to come to love me. I wanted us to become a normal couple, and family.

And honestly, I’d devoted myself so much, so I thought he should at least have taken to me a bit. But with his usual poker face, there were times I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

I wanted to know his feelings, so I decided to test a certain means.

The means he used every morning.

I started up the old-type notebook PC I had stowed away in the back of the closet, and started up a future prediction.

On the empty input that came up after a while, I hesitated a moment on what to enter. And with a nervous face, I typed it.

‘The probability a husband loves his wife.’

In the husband and wife slots that came up, I entered our names, and birthdates, the serial numbers that identified us as individuals, and various other things. I pushed down the enter key.

‘0.000%’

That was the answer.

That answer that fell with a thump made me finally realize it.

That every bit of it had been me rushing at windmills.

Wanting him to love me, the cooking and makeup I had put all my effort into studying, the flowers I changed every day with a smile, the words I exchanged to understand him just a little bit more, if I thought back to it all, I was always alone. I had made merry by myself and done it all myself. To him, I’m sure it was all a bother.

From the start, to him I was a human to be hated, and in these five years, I’m sure that had never changed once.

(Come to think of it, I’ve never heard a, ‘see you soon,’ or ‘I’m home,’ from him.)

I let tears spill onto the keyboard, as I thought along that vein.

And even after that, I continued my ‘game to make him fall’. The point was, I simply wanted him to like me, but if I thought about it like that, I felt too ashamed, so there was no helping it.

Frankly, it was irrelevant whether he found it a bother. Because all of this was something I only did because I wanted to.

Believing he would turn back to me one day, I spoke to him again with a smile.

And that day came without any forewarning.

The usual morning, the usual time to leave for work. I saw him off as I always did.

“See you soon.”

I thought I had misheard for a moment. But there wasn’t anyone but him there, and by how he averted his eyes with a red face, I could understand I had heard them right.

Come back safely. Those words I returned got caught up in my nose for some reason.

“See you soon.”

Once more, he said it this time with a little clearer a voice, and fled from the house like a fired shell.

My face was wet. The drops moistening my face were flowing from my own eyes; It was something I realized ten-odd seconds later.

I returned to the living room, and took care of the tableware he’d eaten with. My footsteps were light, enough I could burst into a skip at any moment. And I noticed his forgotten item on top of the desk.

A leather glasses case.

I had never seen him use a glasses case before, but he was the only one who wore glasses in this house, so there was no doubt it belonged to him.

I took it in hand. I thought it was something I had seen before. From living together so long, perhaps I had just caught a glance of it somewhere, but my heart was screaming that wasn’t the case.

I turned it over, looked at the bottom, and froze.

His initials were carved in, and I recognized them.

It was the souvenir. When our marriage was still young, the present from the trip I took alone. The case he tossed into the trash a few seconds after I gave it to him.

I gripped what looked worn out, but well looked after.

And I moved it to embrace in my arms, and cried again.

Honestly, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to make him fall, but before I realized it, I had fallen myself, and I was fed up with myself. Having fallen so easily, I wondered why it had been that man. There were as many men with better appearance and personality than him, then there were stars in the sky, and I’m sure even I could have met such a man in my life.

With a repeated stream of whys, I was no closer to the answer, but there was one thing that was certain.

Among all the men I’d met in my life, he was the only one who taught me ‘family’.

That entire day felt pleasant. I wasn’t troubled at all with shopping for dinner, I mean, nothing but his favorites were floating in my mind, so there was no helping it.

While I was doing prep work for the meal, I suddenly turned to the calendar, and unintentionally burst out laughing.

Today was my birthday.

The happenings of the morning must have been some birthday present from god or something. If that were the case, then wouldn’t it be fine if I celebrated my own birthday a bit?

No one had celebrated it for many years, so I was on the verge of forgetting it, but one day was fine. I mean, what a wonderful day it was.

I was lonely. Lonely. Truly lonely.

If I was happy, I’d say ‘I’m happy’.

If I was glad, I’d say ‘I’m glad’.

If I was sad, I’d say, ‘I’m sad’.

I always wanted a ‘family’ where I could quarrel over those trivial things.

Right, I’ll buy a cake.

It just has to be big enough for two to eat, a round one, with a candle on top.

I always wanted to do it once. I could count the times I’d been invited to a friend’s birthday party on my hands, so I’d recreate the scenes I’d seen in my dreams here and now.

I’m sure he wouldn’t tell me, ‘congratulations’ or anything of the sort. That was fine. Just sitting around a cake together was plenty.

“If I recall correctly, you’re supposed to blow all the candles out at once.”

My restless lips let such a thing out.

With light steps, I took my purse, and left through the parlor. The inside of my head was filled with thoughts of tonight, so perhaps I was careless.

I got into an accident.

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