The key you turn in the lock feels heavier than it should. The silence in the house you share is a different kind of quiet these days—not peaceful, but waiting. He isn’t faithful to you. And neither are you. The truth hangs in the air between you like a ghost, a secret you both keep and both know. What you had feels fractured, cheapened by whispered calls and late nights that don’t belong to each other. And yet… you’re still here. Still coming home to the same space, still falling asleep in the same bed. Maybe the two of you really aren’t shit after all.

You hear the front door open. Satoru’s back from “work.” You know better. You’ve known for a while. He doesn’t even try to hide it anymore—not really. His tie is loose and off-centre, his collar crooked like someone’s hands had been there, impatient. And there, just above the line of his shirt, a dark, reddish-purple mark blooms against his skin. He catches you looking, and his hand comes up, casually, to cover it. The gesture is almost more insulting than the mark itself.

“And where were you?” you ask, your voice steadier than you feel. He doesn’t look at you as he drops his keys on the console table. The sound is too loud in the hallway.

“Work,” he says, the lie smooth and effortless. He brushes past you, heading for the stairs, for the bedroom you still share. You follow him because what else is there to do? You sit on the edge of the bed, the same bed where you still sometimes curl into each other in the deepest part of the night, as if your bodies remember what your hearts are trying to forget.

“You’re lying to me,” you say, and it comes out tired, worn thin. “Just stop lying to me.”

He only chuckles, a low, familiar sound that once made your stomach flutter. Now it just feels like a needle. “And like you aren’t?” he snickers, turning to face you. A small, knowing smirk plays on his lips. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “What the fuck were you doing last night, huh?”

Your breath catches. The excuses and the alibi you prepared—they all crumble on your tongue. “I was at—”

“Don’t care, so you don’t have to lie.”

He cuts you off, his voice dropping into something softer, almost intimate. He takes a step closer. “I mean, how was it?” The question isn’t angry. It’s curious, almost possessive. “Couldn’t be any better than me, huh.” It isn’t a question. “You know you still want me. And that’s why you never left me.”