Chapter 3 : Love
Despite all his doubts and mental calculations, Takashi chose to bury his feelings no matter how much they gnawed at him. He wanted to be a good husband and a good father — so he tended to his wife's every need, planned everything about the child's future, assembled the crib with his own hands and decorated the room with his wife. He did everything expected of him and more.
The day Ayumi went into labor, Takashi took the day off from work and rushed her to the hospital. For sixteen hours, he held her hand through each contraction, wiped the sweat from her brow, and whispered words of encouragement as she pushed.
When their daughter finally arrived and her soft cries filled the hospital room, Takashi felt a surge of emotion so powerful it momentarily drowned out all his doubts.
"You did it," he whispered to Ayumi, pressing his lips to her damp forehead. "She's here."
The nurse cleaned and swaddled the newborn before placing her in Ayumi's trembling arms. Her face, flushed with exhaustion, transformed with a joy Takashi hadn't seen in a long time.
"She's perfect," Ayumi breathed, tracing a finger along the baby's cheek. She looked up at Takashi, her eyes shining. "Do you want to hold her?"
Takashi nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. As he took the tiny bundle into his arms, he felt a rush of protectiveness wash over him. The baby's weight was so slight, yet somehow it anchored him to the floor.
She had stopped crying the moment she was placed in her mother's arms, and now she slept peacefully. Takashi studied her face — the delicate curve of her eyebrows, the shape of her tiny nose, the bow of her upper lip. She had Ayumi's complexion, Ayumi's mouth...
With a growing coldness in his chest, he realized he could find no trace of himself in her features.
Perhaps it was just his imagination. Babies often changed as they grew. Perhaps his features would emerge later.
But the doubt that had lived inside him for months suddenly crystallized into certainty. A single tear escaped, tracking down his cheek before he could stop it.
"Ayumi," he said, his voice barely audible. "Whose child is she?"
The question seemed to freeze the air in the room. Ayumi's smile faltered, confusion replacing the joy in her eyes.
"What... what do you mean?" she asked, her voice still raspy from labor. "She's yours. Whose else would she be?"
Takashi continued to gaze at the sleeping infant in his arms. His hands were steady even as his world collapsed around him. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet but unwavering.
"She's not mine, is she?"
"Of course she is!" Ayumi's voice rose slightly, causing the baby to stir. "How could you ask such a thing? After everything we've been through..."
"Whose child is she?" he repeated, looking directly into Ayumi's eyes now. "Who have you been sleeping with?"
The color drained from Ayumi's face. All the guilt she had been harbouring inside her finally broke past and before she could stop herself, "It was just once—" she blurted, then immediately covered her mouth with her hand, as if trying to push the words back in.
Takashi felt something inside him break. His worst fear confirmed, he could only stare at the woman he had loved since high school — the woman he thought he knew better than anyone.
"It was an accident," Ayumi continued quickly, tears streaming down her face now. "I never meant for it to happen. I was drunk, and stupid, and—" She reached for his hand, but he stepped back, just beyond her reach. "But she… she's yours. I know she is. Please believe me."
"Who was he?" Takashi asked, his voice hollow.
Ayumi's silence stretched out, her eyes moving as if looking for an answer before she finally whispered, "I don't know."
"You don't know?" he repeated, the words tasting like ash. "You don't even know his name?"
"He was... a host at that club. I don't remember. I was drunk!" Her pleading voice broke on a sob. "It was a terrible mistake. But our baby is yours, Takashi. I know in my heart she is."
Takashi looked down at the infant in his arms. Despite everything, she was still beautiful and innocent. She grabbed his finger with her tiny hands and for a moment, he felt a fierce love for her, this child he had prepared for over months, whose future he had planned and dreamed about.
Then reality crashed back in.
A stranger's child. Conceived in a drunken encounter with a man whose name Ayumi didn't even know.
"I can't..." he began, his voice breaking. He carefully placed the baby back in Ayumi's arms, ensuring her head was properly supported in the transfer. "I can't do this."
"Takashi, please," Ayumi begged, clutching the baby to her chest with one arm while reaching for him with the other. "We can work through this. I made a terrible mistake. Please… don't throw away everything we've built."
He slowly stepped back, creating a distance between them. "I need time to think."
"Takashi, don't leave," she pleaded, tears flowing freely now, an arm raised trying to catch him, "Please, Takashi, please don't go."
Her voice, the baby's face, the smell of the hospital room, it all began suffocating him. He tried stopping the tears but they flew down his cheeks. He wiped his eyes and without another word, he turned and walked out, Ayumi's pleas following him down the corridor.
- x -
Ayumi waited for him to return. Surely once the initial shock wore off, he would come back. They would talk it through. They could heal from this.
The first day after the birth passed in a blur of nurse visits, feeding attempts, and fitful sleep. Each time the door to her room opened, her heart leapt, expecting to see Takashi. But it was always a nurse or doctor.
By the second day, fear had begun to gnaw at her. She tried calling home but it went straight to voicemail. She left messages — tearful at first, then increasingly desperate.
"Takashi, please call me back."
"Our baby needs you. I need you."
"We can fix this. Please just talk to me."
On the third day, a hospital administrator came to discuss her discharge the following morning.
"Your husband has taken care of all the bills," the woman said with a smile. "Everything's squared away."
Relief washed over Ayumi. He was still thinking of her, still taking responsibility. That had to mean something.
Next morning came, but Takashi did not. A nurse helped Ayumi pack her few belongings and carried the baby to the hospital entrance while Ayumi followed slowly, still a little sore from the delivery.
"Is someone picking you up?" the nurse asked cheerfully.
"Yes," Ayumi lied, avoiding eye contact. "My husband should be here any minute."
She sat on a bench outside the hospital entrance for nearly an hour, the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms, before finally hailing a taxi.
The apartment was silent when she pushed the door open. Something felt off immediately — a stillness that went beyond mere emptiness.
"Takashi?" she called out, her voice echoing slightly against the walls.
No answer.
She carried her baby to the bedroom and carefully placed her sleeping daughter in the beautiful lavender crib that Takashi had assembled with such care. The stuffed rabbit they had chosen together watched over the infant with its floppy-eared silhouette.
Only then did Ayumi notice the changes. Takashi's bedside drawer stood slightly open, emptied of his watch and cufflinks. When she slid open his side of the closet, half of it was bare — his work suits, casual clothes, even his favorite faded university sweatshirt, all gone.
Panic rose in her throat and she checked the bathroom. His toothbrush, razor, cologne — all gone. In the kitchen, his coffee mug was missing from its place on the shelf.
She reached for the phone and with trembling hands, she called his colleagues.
"Have you heard from Takashi?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
"No," Yamada replied. "I thought he was still in the hospital with you. Is everything okay?"
Ayumi couldn't bring herself to explain. "Yes, everything's fine."
She tried asking more colleagues and mutual friends, No one had seen him. Finally, she called his supervisor at work.
"Hoshino submitted his resignation two days ago," the man told her, surprise evident in his voice. "He didn't tell you? He cited personal reasons and said he needed to leave immediately."
Resignation? Where would he go? What would he do?
With increasing desperation, she dialed his parents' number. The phone rang four times before going to voicemail. She left a message asking them to call her back urgently.
Then she tried her own parents. Her mother answered on the second ring. "Ayumi." Her voice was cold, formal.
"Mom," Ayumi said, relief washing over her. "I've been trying to reach Takashi. Is he—"
"Takashi came to see us yesterday," her mother interrupted. "He told us everything."
Ayumi's blood ran cold.
"That the child isn't his." Each word was precisely enunciated, like individual stones dropping into still water. "How could you?... You slept with a stranger while married to him?"
"Mom, it's not— it's more complicated than that." Ayumi sank to the floor, her legs no longer able to support her.
"Is it true?" her mother asked.
Ayumi hesitated. "It was one mistake. One terrible mistake."
The silence on the other end stretched until Ayumi wondered if the call had dropped.
"Mom?"
"Your father and I raised you with values, Ayumi. With respect for yourself and for the sanctity of marriage." Her mother's voice shook slightly. "What you've done... we cannot support."
"Please," Ayumi whispered. "I need help. The baby—"
"You should have thought of that before," her mother said, and then added with finality, "Don't call here again until you've made this right."
The line went dead.
Ayumi stared at the phone in her hand, then at the walls of the apartment she had kept so meticulously clean, at the photographs of her and Takashi that still hung there, mocking her with images of happier times.
The magnitude of what she had lost crashed over her in a wave of grief so intense she could barely breathe. Her husband. Her parents. Her perfect life. All gone because of one night, one moment of weakness.
A thin, reedy cry from the bedroom pulled her back to reality. The baby, her daughter, needed her. Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Ayumi pushed herself up from the floor and made her way to the crib.
The tiny face was scrunched up in distress, little arms flailing against the confines of the swaddle. Ayumi lifted her daughter, cradling her against her chest.
"Shhh," she whispered, rocking gently. "I'm here. Mommy's here."
As she paced the length of the apartment, bouncing and soothing the infant, Ayumi's tears fell onto the baby's blanket. She placed her daughter back in the crib once she stopped crying.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Then her legs gave in and she fell on the bed beside the crib, "I'm sorry" she whispered, over and over falling to her side, "Takashi, please, come back. I'm so sorry."
The apartment remained silent except for her whispered pleas. She curled up on Takashi's side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow. It still carried his scent — that familiar mixture of his cologne and something uniquely him. She clutched it to her chest and allowed herself to truly break down, muffling her sobs in the fabric so as not to disturb the baby.
- x -
Days turned into weeks. Ayumi tried everything to find and contact Takashi but to no avail. His parent's never called back. She even tried to get any information from his company, only to be told he had left no forwarding address or contact information.
It was as if he had vanished completely.
The money in their joint account and their savings remained untouched — he had left it all for her and the baby. Even in his pain and anger, he had ensured they would not be destitute. The thought only made Ayumi miss him more desperately.
A month after giving birth, Ayumi finally accepted that Takashi was not coming back — at least not anytime soon.
The birth certificate paperwork could no longer be delayed. With the baby sleeping in her carrier, Ayumi sat in the registration office, pen hovering over the form.
Father's name: she left it blank after staring at the space for nearly five minutes.
Child's name: here she hesitated longest of all.
They had discussed so many names during those happy evenings, when they planned for a future together.
Miyu, Sakura, Haru...
Now, none of them felt right, with only Ayumi there to bestow the name.
She looked down at her sleeping daughter, studying her delicate features. Even at just a month old, she was beautiful — with Ayumi's mouth and perhaps... yes, something of Takashi in the shape of her eyes, whether by blood or by Ayumi's desperate wish to see him there.
Even though he was gone, Ayumi still loved him. She had loved him since they were teenagers, and she would love him still if she lived to be a hundred. This child, regardless of blood, had been a part of their journey together — the culmination of their love story, even if that story had ended in heartbreak.
With sudden clarity, Ayumi knew what name to give her daughter.
Ai.
Because love was what remained when everything else was stripped away. Love was what she would give this child, enough to make up for the father she had lost. And love was what she still felt for Takashi, despite everything — a love that would wait for him, whether he ever returned or not.
She wrote the name carefully in the blank space, each stroke of the pen deliberate and final.
Ai Hoshino.
- x -