The Sato estate in Osaka was no longer a home; it had become a sanctuary of grief. The air, heavy with the scent of white chrysanthemums and the rhythmic chanting of prayers, felt suffocating. Through the sea of mourners, Kenji and his father moved with a practiced, somber grace. They were there to fulfill their duty at the funeral of the Sato patriarch, but beneath their tailored black suits, their faces wore the masks of "responsible men" rather than grieving kin.
As they entered, a swarm of relatives and business associates descended upon them. Eyes darted around, searching for the one person everyone expected to see. Where was the devoted daughter? Where was the girl who had placed her father's honor and respect above her own heartbeat?
Kenji cleared his throat, his expression shifting into a portrait of controlled devastation. When he spoke, his voice was laced with a calculated, trembling gravity.
"It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you Naea could not be here. The news of her father's passing... it was a shock her spirit simply could not bear. Her devotion to him was so absolute that her body gave way the moment she heard the news. She is currently admitted to Tokyo General Hospital."
He paused, letting a heavy sigh escape as he looked toward Naea's mother, who was draped in white and trembling. "The doctors have been very clear—any further emotional trauma right now could be fatal. She is stable, and we expect her to regain consciousness today, but for her own safety, she must remain under the care of my Grandmother and Yumi in Tokyo. As soon as she is strong enough, I will bring her home to pay her respects."
Kenji's father nodded solemnly, confirming the lie. Among the whispers of the crowd, some felt pity, while others felt a strange unease. None of them knew that the "hospitalization" was a strategic cage. Kenji was terrified that if Naea stood before her family, the bruises on her face and the hollow terror in her eyes would shatter the "perfect husband" image he had meticulously crafted. He couldn't risk her being surrounded by people who actually loved her—people who might give her the strength to never return to him.
In a corner of the hall, Hikari stood clutching her mother's hand, her small frame shaking with sobs. She looked toward the door every time it opened, desperately wishing for her big sister to walk through. She needed Naea's strength, her touch, her voice. She had no idea that at that very moment, Naea was a prisoner of her own grief, waking up in a room where she wasn't even allowed the dignity of saying a final goodbye to the man she loved most in the world.
The scene at the Sato family was enough to melt the coldest of hearts. The five sisters, once the pride and joy of their father's life, were now drifting apart like shattered glass. They had all been present since the wedding festivities began, yet none had imagined that the celebration of Naea's union would be followed so swiftly by the final farewell to their father.
Iyuzi, the eldest, remained absent from the main hall. Tucked away in a quiet corner of the house, she was consumed by the dual burden of grief and motherhood. Her two-year-old daughter was crying incessantly, the toddler seemingly sensing the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the home. Though Iyuzi's heart was outside with her father, her duty as a mother kept her bound. She sat in the dim light, rocking her child and sobbing silently, her tears a quiet accompaniment to the toddler's wails.
Out in the main hall, the sight of Natsuki and Saeko was heart-wrenching. Usually the most vibrant of the bunch, the two sisters—who had traveled back from their college in Kyoto for the wedding—were now ghosts of their former selves. Their faces were deathly pale, their lively laughter replaced by a haunting silence. They sat side-by-side, clutching each other's hands as if letting go would mean falling into an abyss, their eyes fixed on nothingness.
Then there was Hikari, the youngest, who had somehow found the strength to become the family's pillar. She moved between her mother and her elder sisters, offering a hollow courage she didn't truly feel. Despite her bravery, her gaze constantly drifted toward the grand entrance. She was waiting, hoping, desperately needing her "Naea " .
When Kenji stood before them and delivered his polished explanation—that Naea had been hospitalized due to the sheer shock of the news—the sisters believed him without question. They assumed that their strongest sister, the one who had always carried the weight of the family, had finally been crushed by the magnitude of this loss. They had no way of knowing that Naea wasn't just fighting the grief of a daughter; she was fighting the lingering shadow of Kenji's cruelty.
While the mourning continued in Osaka, a different kind of tension was brewing within the sterile, white-tiled corridors of Tokyo General Hospital.
It was early morning when Dr. Takshi arrived for his shift. As he walked toward the main wing, his heart sank. There, sitting on the cold plastic benches outside the VIP ward, were the Grandmother and Yumi. They looked exhausted, their figures silhouetted against the pale morning light.
He rushed toward them, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Grandma? Yumi? What are you doing here at this hour? Is everything alright?"
The Grandmother looked up, her eyes weary. "It's Naea, Takshi. Her health took a turn... she's been admitted."
Takshi stood frozen. "Admitted? But how? Everything was fine yesterday. The wedding ceremony went perfectly. What could have happened in just a few hours?"
Yumi, noticing Takshi's doctor's badge and his professional demeanor, stepped in. She spoke with a calculated softness, adhering to the story Kenji had crafted. "Dr. Takshi... she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. When the news reached her—that her father had passed away—she simply couldn't handle the weight of it. She collapsed from the shock."
Takshi's face fell. "I'm so sorry to hear that... I had no idea about her father."
Driven by a mix of professional duty and personal concern, Takshi stepped into the ward. The room was silent, save for the steady hum of the heart monitor. Naea lay there, pale and motionless, looking smaller than he had ever seen her. As he stepped closer to check her vitals, the harsh morning light hit her face at an angle.
Takshi's breath hitched. There, blooming against her fair skin, was a dark, purplish bruise. It wasn't just a mark; he could clearly see the faint, jagged outline of fingerprints. As a doctor, he knew the difference between a fall and a strike. He realized in that instant that the "shock" Naea was suffering from wasn't just emotional—it was physical.
He didn't say a word to the family. He walked straight to the attending physician's desk. "When will Dr. Naea regain consciousness?"
"By this afternoon," the doctor replied. "The sedatives are wearing off."
Takshi nodded grimly and retreated to his private cabin to change into his surgical scrubs. His mind was racing. Just then, his phone vibrated. It was Macau.
"Good morning, Takshi!" Macau's voice was bright, a sharp contrast to the gloom of the hospital.
"It's not a good morning, Macau," Takshi replied, his voice heavy.
Macau's tone shifted instantly to one of concern. "Why? What happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Takshi sighed, "But Naea..." He stopped himself, trying to pull back, but Macau was already alert.
"What about Dr. Naea? Is she alright?"
Takshi couldn't keep it in anymore. The sight of those fingerprints was haunting him. "No, Macau. From what I've seen... nothing is alright. She's been admitted to the hospital. She collapsed after hearing about her father's death, but that's not what's bothering me."
Macau's voice dropped to a whisper. "What do you mean?"
"I went to check on her," Takshi continued, his voice trembling with suppressed anger. "There was a bruise on her cheek, Macau. A clear blue mark with the shape of fingerprints. It looked like someone had delivered a violent, forceful blow to her face. I don't know what's happening, but I have a very bad feeling about her safety."
Before Macau could respond, a nurse knocked on the door. "Dr. Takshi, they're waiting for you in OR 2."
"I have to go, Macau. We'll talk later," Takshi said, ending the call abruptly.
On the other end of the line, Macau sat in total silence. The bright morning had turned cold. He looked out the window, his heart heavy with a newfound sadness.
An hour later, the oppressive stillness of the VIP ward was finally broken. Naea's eyelids flickered, opening with a sluggish, disoriented heaviness. Her mind was trapped in a dense, medicinal fog. Her blurred vision slowly took in the sterile surroundings—the stark white curtains, a lonely wooden bench, and a flower vase standing guard in the corner. Bit by bit, the cold realization settled in: she was in a hospital.
A surge of panic hit her, and she instinctively tried to bolt upright, but her body felt like lead. A nurse, entering for a routine check-up, rushed to her side to gently push her back down. "Dr. Naea, please, you must lie down. You are far too weak. Do not force yourself."
Naea looked at the nurse, her gaze hollow and her voice trembling with a fragile, barely audible whisper, as if the very act of speaking took more energy than she possessed. "How... how did I get here?"
"You collapsed from exhaustion and shock," the nurse replied softly, helping Naea into a sitting position. But as soon as she sat up, a stabbing pain thundered through Naea's skull. She clutched her head with both hands, squeezing her eyes shut.
Behind her closed lids, the fragments of the previous night began to stitch themselves together like a horrific film. The torrential rain... the suffocating weight of her wedding dress... Kenji's predatory face... and then, the words that struck her heart like a physical blow. Kenji's voice, cold and final: "Naea, your father is gone."
Her eyes snapped open. Her entire frame began to shudder, and a silent river of tears began to track down her pale cheeks. Driven by a desperate, frantic need, she tried to swing her legs off the bed, ignoring the IV drip taped to the back of her hand.
The nurse moved to restrain her, her voice rising in alarm. "Dr. Naea! Please, stop! You'll hurt yourself!"
But Naea was beyond listening. She was drowning in a sea of agony, yet her voice remained hauntingly soft, a broken murmur that was more painful than a scream. "Let me go... please, just let me go..." she sobbed, her breath hitching. "I have to see my Dad... he isn't well. My Dad, my Mom, my sisters... they are all waiting for me. I have to be there."
With a sudden, clumsy motion, Naea reached down and yanked the IV line from her hand. A small bead of blood bloomed on her skin, but she didn't even flinch; the physical pain was nothing compared to the void in her chest. The nurse stood frozen for a second, shaken to her core. She had known Dr. Naea as a pillar of composure, a woman who healed others. To see her this broken, this unmoored, was terrifying.
"Dr. Naea, please understand! You aren't in any condition to walk!" the nurse pleaded, reaching out to steady her. In the brief, desperate struggle, her arm brushed against the bedside table, sending the glass flower vase crashing to the floor.
SHATTER!
The sound of breaking glass exploded in the quiet corridor like a gunshot. Outside on the bench, Yumi and the Grandmother bolted upright, their hearts racing, and rushed into the ward.
The scene that greeted the Grandmother and Yumi as they rushed into the ward was enough to paralyze them with grief. Naea was no longer the composed, brilliant doctor they knew; she was a shattered soul, collapsed on the cold linoleum floor like a fallen bird. Her hands were clamped over her head, her body trembling with a rhythmic, agonizing frailty.
In a hauntingly low, broken voice, she repeated a singular, desperate plea:
"Please... just let me go... let me go to my family. My Dad, my sisters... they're waiting for me. My Mom... please..."
The IV line she had ripped out lay discarded beside her, and a small, crimson trail of blood was beginning to smear against the white floor. Naea seemed utterly oblivious to the physical sting. The nurse, who had been trying in vain to restrain her, was now herself in tears. Having spent years watching Dr. Naea move through these very halls with grace and authority, seeing her reduced to this state of raw, primal suffering was more than she could bear.
Yumi stood frozen at the threshold, her breath hitching in her throat. She had witnessed Kenji's cold fury and his calculated cruelty, but she had never seen a human being look so utterly extinguished. It was Grandmother who finally found the strength to move. Her voice, though heavy with her own sorrow, was infused with a sudden, maternal iron.
"My sweet Naea..." she whispered, her voice cracking. She knelt on the floor, ignoring the ache in her own aged joints, and gathered the trembling girl into her arms. Lifting her with a strength born of pure desperation, she murmured, "Hush now, my child... be still. Just breathe."
Naea didn't fight her. She collapsed against the Grandmother's chest, her head burying into her shoulder as the tears continued to flow silently, soaking into the older woman's clothes. Even in the safety of the embrace, her lips continued to move in that same, faint murmur—a ghost of a wish to be back in Osaka, back in a world where her father still lived.
The sight was the final blow for Yumi. The girl who had always tried to be the "strong one" felt her own resolve snap. Seeing Naea—who was supposed to be the strongest of them all—this broken, Yumi couldn't stay a second longer. She turned and fled the room, collapsing into a corner of the hallway where she finally gave in to the sob she had been holding back since the wedding.
Inside the ward, the nurse saw that the Grandmother had managed to stabilize the immediate emotional outburst. Wiping her eyes, she hurried out to find the attending physician to dress Naea's hand and decide if a sedative was the only way to save her from her own grief