Chapter 45: The ‘Perfect Couple’
I’ve done it…
I let my temper get the better of me and ended up laying my hands on my wife…
Even now, my hands tremble uncontrollably from the sin I’ve committed…
Regret gnaws at me for what I did, but it’s too late.
I can’t even face my wife right now.
Today is Monday.
I’ll rush off to work—after all, she’s still asleep, so I can get to work before she notices.
The rest will sort itself out later.
But…
“Good morning, darling.”
“Eh? Oh… good morning…”
She was already awake.
In fact, she’d even prepared breakfast.
And it looked unusually extravagant.
Toasted bread, warmed milk coffee, ham, and sunny-side-up eggs.
It was just a simple breakfast, but she had never prepared anything this properly before…
Honestly, not since we were newlyweds.
My wife, who is always still sleeping when it’s time for me to leave for work, did this?
What is this… some new form of harassment?
Revenge for yesterday’s outburst?
Poisoned food… or maybe it’s just extremely spicy?
“What are you doing? Eat quickly!”
“Eh? Ah…”
The taste was normal… surprisingly good.
Could there be laxatives in it then?
I felt a bit guilty and ashamed that I couldn’t genuinely enjoy the breakfast my wife made.
“”Ah, um…””
“Eh?”
“Ahh…”
Our voices overlapped… what did she want to say?
“You go first.”
“Ah… um… about yesterday—I’m sorry. I let my temper get the better of me and… I acted violently. I know it’s not something an apology can fix, but…”
“That’s not true! The fault is mine… you’re right, as you said. I was out of control… I treated our child terribly… the worst kind of parent. When I was a child… my parents’ commands were absolute. If I answered back, I’d get scolded… and they’d raise their hands at me all the time… so I thought that was proper discipline…”
The Fuyunagi family is bound by old traditions.
A household where the husband rules absolutely, and it’s normal for fathers to shout at wives and children.
Of course, she grew up being taught that this was simply how things were.
She once told me that, precisely because she grew up suffering, she didn’t want our child to experience the same, and she wanted to raise her properly, to raise her happily…
But if what I saw yesterday was her true nature, then were those words a lie?
They probably were… in that case, then what am I supposed to make of the woman in front of me right now?
“Yesterday, when you scolded me… I thought about it… If I do to my children what my parents did to me… Nothing would change… I’d just become like them… The very people I despised are becoming myself… I wanted to stop that… But memories come back… My parents’ faces, their voices… Their hands raising toward me…”
Could she have been conditioned by some kind of suggestion from her parents?
If so, maybe it’s fading now, and she’s returning to normal… no, why would that be happening now?
“I… yesterday… you scolded me… you grabbed my head…”
“Ah—s-sorry… I didn’t mean to do something like that… It sounds like an excuse, but… I really am sorry…”
“N-No, that’s not it!! I… um…”
What…?
Something’s off about my wife—about Reiko…
Her breathing is ragged, letting out these faint gasps of haa… haa…
Her cheeks are flushed, and her hips and legs twist in a way that looks… incredibly sensual.
“When you got angry at me… really angry… and grabbed my head… ever since then, I’ve been weird… My body gets all worked up… and when I think about you… I can’t help it… I can’t sit still, I can’t calm down… What is this…? This…haa… haa…”
She looks up at me with flushed cheeks and ragged breath.
This is bad… This is the first time I’ve seen Reiko like this…
She’s strangely beautiful.
I’ll repeat it again—my wife is stunningly beautiful.
Her long, lustrous black hair reaches her waist, and just having that hair wrap around her body makes her look erotic.
Her hips are so slim you’d think she hasn’t had a child yet in her mid-thirties, but her chest and butt are large, making them appear even more alluring against her narrow waistline.
Her skin is pale and unblemished by sun damage.
She retains the fresh vitality of a girl.
Back in school, many boys confessed to her or hit on her. Even now, when she walks through town, men’s eyes are drawn to her.
Honestly, she’s always had so many men hovering around her that it wouldn’t be surprising at all if she had been cheating or having an affair.
But with her, there’s no need for such worries.
Because she has absolutely no interest in men.
She sees them as inferior creatures.
They don’t even qualify to stand on the stage of romance in her eyes.
I’m certain that if it weren’t for my family name—Takano—there’s no way I ever would have been able to marry her.
The only man she’s ever been conscious of is her father.
To Reiko, her father is an object of fear and a symbol of terror.
Thus, he exists outside the concept of being just a “man.”
“Hey… darling… If I ever do something wrong again, I want you to get angry at me like that… really… truly angry…”
“O-Okay, okay…”
“I mean it… I want you to get really angry… okay?”
Suddenly… I remembered my daughter’s words.
[Anyway! You can’t stay weak like this, Dad! If you keep acting timid, that woman will never see you as a man!! You have to attack! Take the offensive!! Dad, you need to bring out more of your S nature and show the kind of force that can overpower Mother!!]
So this… was what she meant?
My daughter understands Reiko’s personality—no, her sexual preferences—more accurately than I do as her husband?
What a strange situation. So Reiko is… masochistic?
Then…
“Don’t get too carried away.”
“Hngh!?”
I grab her neck and squeeze lightly.
“Aaah… guh… ugh…”
“Do you look like you’re truly repenting? Are you really reflecting on your actions? You need to sincerely apologize not just to me, but to our daughter as well. Don’t you understand that?”
“Hngh… ahh… I’m… sorry…”
“Haa…”
“I’m heading to work now, so we’ll continue this conversation after I get home… Until then, make sure you cool your head. Understood?”
“Cough… cough… y-yes… I understand, darling…♡”
No good… this woman…
She’s completely hooked on it now…
For now, things are settled with my daughter… but in every other regard, I may have ended up creating a very… very… big problem…
Maybe…
When it comes to me and her… from here on…
I really hope… we can find some happiness…
Character Summary (non-official)
- Majima Takuma / Taku (真島 拓真 / タク) — Taku is an utterly average high school boy in both appearance and ability. His hair and uniform are always neat but unremarkable, giving him the classic “background character” characteristic.
- Fuyunagi Shizuku (冬柳 雫) — Fuyunagi Shizuku is a stunning black-haired high school beauty with a mature, graceful aura. Her long, silky hair, elegant posture, pure and innocent atmosphere, and impressive figure—including her large chest—give her an appearance so gentle and comforting that a tired working adult might instinctively want to cling to her and call her “Mama.” Her looks alone make her feel like a UR-rarity heroine. At school, she’s admired as a pure, wholesome, and almost ideal girl—popular among girls, constantly confessed to by boys, and always at the center of her class. In private, however, Shizuku reveals a selfish, bratty, and emotionally unstable side. She’s clingy, easily upset, mentally fragile, and relies heavily on her boyfriend for emotional support while demanding secrecy and setting controlling conditions in their relationship.
- Sakurada Nagisa (桜田 凪咲) — Sakurada Nagisa is a gyaru and one of the central members of Fuyunagi-san’s friend group. With light-brown hair, piercings, and perfectly applied bold eye makeup, she has a flashy style but is undeniably beautiful—cute enough to stand out even among the popular girls. Sado Kengo’s current girlfriend.
- Natsume Kano (夏芽 華乃) — The class president. A dignified, serious beauty whose pure appearance gives her a charm distinct from Fuyunagi-san. She prioritizes efficiency, logic, and rationality above all else, resulting in a rigid, no-nonsense personality that makes her unpopular with most classmates.
Sado Kengo (佐渡 健吾) — A high-spec soccer club member who once acted as Shizuku’s fake public boyfriend. He is now Sakurada Nagisa’s actual boyfriend.
- Katou Susumu (加藤 進) — The textbook “protagonist’s best friend” character. He’s a founding member of the self-proclaimed “Unpopular Men’s Club”. Although he’s extremely jealous of Takuma for landing a girlfriend like Fuyunagi—thus “betraying” the Unpopular Men’s Club (a group Takuma never actually agreed to join)—Kato remains loyal to him despite both his jealousy and the negative public opinion surrounding Takuma.
- Fuyunagi Reiko (冬柳 澪子) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s mother. She is, in every sense, the woman Shizuku was shaped from—from their breathtaking beauty to the way they view men and even their underlying desires all mirror one another. Beneath that elegant, doll-like exterior lies a strict and controlling parent fixated on restoring the Fuyunagi family’s former prestige. Unlike Shizuku—who directs her warped affection toward someone she genuinely chose—Reiko tries to force her ambitions onto her daughter, believing that arranging Shizuku’s marriage is the key to reclaiming the family’s lost glory.
- Fuyunagi Kanemasa (冬柳 兼政) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s father. A highly capable and successful man who even took the Fuyunagi family name in order to marry Reiko. Despite the family’s rigid traditions, Kanemasa is the one person who genuinely supports Shizuku, encouraging her to live freely and choose her own path—including whom she loves. The only reason Shizuku’s mother and grandfather don’t openly oppose his stance is because his success and value to the family make him too important to antagonize.
- Kuzuryuu Shiori (久豆流 詩織) — Souma’s younger sister—a beautiful, sharp-tongued genius with strikingly foreign features. Despite her Japanese-sounding name, she is a natural blonde with radiant golden hair, inherited from their great-grandmother, and possesses elegant looks that stand out strongly against Souma’s more traditionally Japanese appearance. Cold, dismissive, and brutally honest toward her brother, she seems to harbor open disdain for him, even though she once adored him as a child. Academically, she is a prodigy who skipped grades at fifteen, now attending university with multiple acclaimed research papers to her name. Her intelligence creates a stark contrast to Souma, fueling his inferiority complex and twisted sister-obsessed longing.
- Kuzuryuu Souma (久豆流 創真) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s arranged marriage partner.