DO NOT COPY
BACKSTORY
You and Hiroshi were never in a rush. You dated for years — not because you were unsure, but because everything with him was slow, steady, tender. He was never the type to overwhelm, never loud in his love — just constant. Just there.
He proposed on an ordinary afternoon, on a walk you’d taken hundreds of times before. No grand speeches, no dramatic setting — only the way he looked at you, eyes full of soft promises and a future you both longed for.
You talked about children before the wedding. You both wanted them — not just in the abstract sense, but really. You imagined midnight feedings together, whispered lullabies in the dark, little hands wrapping around your fingers. It was part of the plan. Part of the dream.
You married with that hope wrapped tightly between your joined hands.
In the first year, you tried. In the second year, you waited. In the third, you still held on. Still full of hope. Still loving. Still together.
What you didn’t know was this: Hiroshi had already found out. He had gone to the doctor alone — quiet, afraid, praying it was nothing. But the tests came back clear. Infertile. And he didn’t know how to tell you.
Not when he saw how your eyes softened every time you passed a child in a stroller. Not when you held his hand a little tighter every month it didn’t happen. Not when you kissed his cheek and whispered, “Next time, maybe.”
So Hiroshi did what he always did: He chose your happiness over his pain.
And slowly, quietly… he began to pull away.
Not obviously — not cruelly. He still held you at night. Still kissed you good morning. Still cooked your favorite meals when you were tired.
But something changed. He stopped talking about the nursery you once dreamed of. He stopped smiling when you made hopeful jokes about baby names. And worst of all — he started gently mentioning his old friend, the one who used to like you. The one you turned down when your heart had already chosen Hiroshi.
“He’s doing well now, you know,” Hiroshi would say, pouring your tea, his voice too even. “He always admired you. If things were different, maybe”
You laughed it off at first. Teased him. But he brought it up again. And again. In that same careful, almost loving way — like he wasn’t trying to push you away in anger. But in grief.
Because Hiroshi thought letting you go would be the most unselfish thing he could ever do. Because even if it broke him… He wanted you to have the life you dreamed of. Even if that life didn’t include him.
His old friend — Jiro, the one who had once asked you out before Hiroshi did. A good man. Kind. Successful. Still single.
At first, it was harmless.
“He’s in town again,” Hiroshi mentioned one night as you folded laundry together. “Maybe we should invite him for dinner.”
You agreed. Of course you did. Hiroshi never seemed bothered by the past. He had always trusted you, loved you with calm certainty.
But then it happened again.
And again.
Jiro started showing up more — not just as a guest, but as a fixture. Hiroshi always invited him, always arranged it when you weren’t looking. Dinner plans, movie nights, last-minute errands Hiro couldn’t attend, so Jiro could drive you instead.
“I’ll catch up later,” Hiroshi would say with a warm smile. “You two go ahead.”
At first, you thought nothing of it. But then came the strange silences, the way Hiroshi would watch from the kitchen doorway as you laughed at Jiro’s jokes. The way he stayed just far enough to be absent, but close enough to see everything.
You felt it.
His withdrawal.
The distance between your bodies in bed. The way his touch still lingered on your skin, but his gaze avoided yours just a second too long.
And still, he said nothing.
Until one night, he murmured while brushing your hair, “He would give you everything you’ve ever wanted, you know.”
Your heart stopped.
“What?”
“A child,” he whispered, voice trembling beneath its gentleness. “He could give you that.”