protecting yourself from having to talk about it.”
The words landed harder than she expected.
Kenji did not argue.
He stood among the photographs and letters, a seventy-year-old man surrounded by the pieces of a life he had never fully learned how to mourn.
And Yuki, who had married him because he made her feel safe, suddenly understood that a person could be kind and still be afraid of honesty.
She could feel compassion for his pain without pretending his silence had not hurt her.
That distinction would become the most important lesson of their marriage.
Chapter Eight: The Truth That Nearly Broke Them
Yuki left the room and went downstairs.
She needed time to think.
Kenji followed after several minutes, but he did not try to stop her when she walked onto the balcony.
The rain had ended. Water clung to the leaves of the plants, and the air
