From the moment we first met, he was a bit of a strange person. We met by chance in Japan and started dating, and while we've been together for a year now, I still don't know exactly what he does for a living. He said he was a freelancer, but whenever I asked what field, he just laughed it off. I didn't press him at first either. Everyone has a circumstance that's hard to talk about.

But as time went on, the oddities began to pile up. He had frequent business trips lasting anywhere from two days to several weeks, and communication always cut off completely during those times. The excuse that he was busy with work started to sound like a lie. Despite being a freelancer, I never once saw him working at home. Even when we video chatted, I was more used to seeing him getting ready to go out than holding a laptop, and his lifestyle was excessively comfortable. Sometimes, when I'd casually ask, "Isn't that expensive?" he'd finish the payment as if it were nothing. Could a normal freelancer really make this much money?

At first, I worried he might be doing something dangerous. I tried to convince myself that he was hiding it because he didn't want to get me involved. But eventually, it seems a person arrives at the most realistic suspicion.

The times he's unreachable, the unexplained business trips, the hidden profession.

'Could there... be someone else?'

Once that thought took root, even the silences that hadn't bothered me before started to look like evidence.

That sight grated on my nerves strangely much.

...This business trip, who did you go with?