She's cheating. It's so plainly obvious. He should have known.
Yes, and it's quite simple. He really can't eat, can't sleep, can't do anything. He's taken up smoking, twists a blunt cigarette in his fingers, relishes in it's destruction.
He's taken up another unpleasant hobby, following closely behind the two, waiting to catch them in the act. And it's because he knows, oh, he knows.
"You've had better days," someone tells him. A lady, the cashier at the grocery market. Friends with Mother, yes, he vaguely recognizes her. Usually he'd entertain, converse, drag out the conversation.
He's silent today, doesn't pay her any mind. It's what he's always wanted to do, ignore people, force them to sit with the thoughts that come with his denial of conversation. Let them mull over it. Why should everyone be deserving of small talk?
It's a nuisance. Kotoko hated it, hated that side of him, but really, she should have felt honored, it's his true self, his authentic self.
Irie does not mind that it's an awful character trait. Mother tried to hide it, tried to wash his haughty, arrogant, callous nature clean off him, but she never could. Papa ignored it, and Yuuki tried to replicate it.
What did Kotoko do?
She…loved him despite it. Saw through him. Loved him regardless of what an awful person he was towards her.
It's painful, like a stab in the back, and that's exactly what she's doing now, backstabbing him, after all these years of devotion, flirting and drooling over another man. Were all those letters and tears for nothing? Entirely in vain?
Irie'll catch them today, he will. Kotoko's bag was lying on the room floor yesterday, so he knows she isn't in lab today. Her lunch bag was empty, unpacked, he knows, he unzipped it himself, dug around the fridge in search of prepared food.
None. She'll be going out to eat today, Irie knows.
He'd even seen the text on her phone, read the notification many, many times.
It didn't take more than a single glance for him to memorize the location.
He'd even seen the chats. The ones between her and that man.
Truthfully, there wasn't much. There were more calls, many calls, so many calls.
Angered him.
Saturday is a day where Irie isn't terribly busy himself. He's still needed, still has people counting on him, relying on him, but they can function on their own. Dependency is something that repulses Irie. He'd be doing them a favor, pulling the training wheels off their bicycle.
He's sat, pulling his shoes on, meticulously tying the laces, when he spots Kotoko's shoes, a dull pink, mauve even, on the floor.
Irie pauses.
Why, this indirect, cat and mouse chase? Why not solve the problem at the source? Why not intercept now, when the opportunity presents itself?
Irie slips off his shoes, walks upstairs. The bathroom light is on.
He'll wait, slips back into the room, their room, entertains himself by digging through her bag, rummaging through her phone. She's still got that cutesy chain dangling from the phone.
The charms, cheery, cold on his fingers, do not cheer him up.
It's the one he bought her, hearts, a sun, a smiling cloud, a cat…a random assortment that caught his eye one moody, boring night. He'd thought of her immediately, and the urge was so strong that he placed the ridiculous thing in the grocery cart and purchased it without a second thought.
Placed it into her palm that night and waited for her silly, over-the-top reaction.
The memory of her surprised smile doesn't cheer him up either.
Kotoko's reaction now, as she stands at the door, wrapped in a towel, is quite similar. She's got that shock on her face, eyes wide, staring at him.
"That's my phone," she says, and her voice wavers a bit, Irie can tell.
"Don't look so surprised," Irie replies, "I was waiting for you."
The words feel calm coming out of his mouth, though the interaction does not feel as nearly as natural. It has been weeks since he has spoken to Kotoko.
"Why are you going through my phone? My bag?" Her eyebrows furrow, but she still doesn't take a step.
Irie stands, slips her phone into his back pocket. "You'll get it when you're ready," he says, frowning at her towel-clad state, her hair dripping down her shoulders. "I'll be downstairs."
"T—That's my phone," Kotoko starts, her eyes darting around. "What do you mean? Why are you talking to me now?"
"I don't want to repeat myself," Irie says, and he can feel his temper rising. Has it always been this bothersome talking to her? "Get ready, come downstairs, then we'll continue this."
He waits for her to enter the room, so he can leave. "Well?"
"I'm not moving until you give me back my phone," Kotoko says, her grip on her towel tightening. "Put it back in my bag, you can't go through my things!"
"Oh," Irie replies, squinting. "But you can?"
He relishes in her reaction, a complete freeze, like she's a deer fawn caught in the headlights of a car.
"You've gone through my phone countless times, you inspect my clothes, you constantly berate me with intrusive questions," Irie continues, voice rising with each passing second, "yet it's a problem when I do it? I'm afraid it doesn't work like that."
"You never told me to stop," Kotoko says, voice quiet, sounding almost sad.
"Everyday must be a struggle for you if that is your thought process," he tells her. "I'm giving you nothing more than a taste of your own medicine. Annoying, right? Think of how much I've put up with for all these years, and then think of how you've repaid me."
"I've done everything to be good for you, I'm — I'm a good wife — "
"Good wives don't sleep with other men," Irie spits, fishing her phone out of his pocket. "We wouldn't be in this predicament right now if you were a good wife."
He doesn't care that she's crying, doesn't care that he may have broken her phone, with how hard he threw it, and it isn't like he meant to break it, no, he was aiming for the bed, but it bounced off, hit the floor hard.
Irie doesn't care that when he stormed out of the room, he brushed her shoulder a bit too hard, harder than he intended too.
None of it matters. Perhaps he's the stupid one, thinking he could show up to her lunch date, her stupid lunch outing with that man, the one who is so cocky and struts into his life like it's nothing. The one who he is certain that Kotoko prefers.
He reenters the bathroom, feels suffocated by the smell of her shampoo, a delicate, slightly fruity scent.
Inspects himself in the mirror. Hair is a mess. Eyebags below his eyes, telling the entire world his sleeping nights. Lips are dry and cracked.
He looks like a madman. Mother's friend was right. It is difficult, looking into the mirror like this and seeing nothing of yourself.
It won't be Naoki Irie spying on his wife's — or would the term ex-wife be more fitting? — lunch date, no, but rather another man.
He doesn't mind. He will catch them doing something, it doesn't matter what, no, he only needs to see it with his two eyes, and then it's happened.
What happens after it's happened, though, Irie does not know.