[3-Minute Novel] The Night View I Looked Down Upon While Holding Betrayal | Rewind That Day - Nogizaka46

I shoved my Birkin 35 into the closet. This bag was a treat I bought for myself on my birthday last year, a piece worth over two million yen. The fact that my hand didn't shake when I signed for it was my pride.

And yet, my hands are shaking now.

He got a college girl pregnant.

In the city hotel lounge, I didn't end up eating a single bite of the afternoon tea scone. The moment the face of the man sitting across from me looked pathetic, something inside me ended without a sound.

I didn't cry.
It wasn't that I couldn't cry; I just didn't.

Seven years since I started my business at 25.
Bowing my head to banks, reading the expressions of investors, and the nights I stopped counting sleepless hours. I finally made it this far. The night view I look down on from the 41st floor of this tower mansion is something I grasped entirely with my own strength. That pride alone was what kept me sitting on that sofa in the lounge.

I don't want to be thought of as a 'heavy' woman.
The community of business owners is small. Rumors travel faster than light. Especially if word got out that 'an older woman was dumped and crying'—just imagining it made my stomach go cold.

So I just said 'I see,' smiled, called the waiter, and headed to pay the bill.

Even to myself, the sequence of events was surprisingly graceful.

Inside the taxi on the way home, I bit my back teeth while staring out the window.

When I arrived at the apartment, I sat on the sofa without even taking off my coat. There were no messages from him on the smartphone placed on the table. There was no way there would be. He is already in a different future.

—But why?
Why did I believe I would marry him?

I believed we were the best partners, fellow business owners who could share our loneliness and elevate each other.

I suddenly hug the Birkin placed next to me.
I take a deep breath, stand up, and put the bag away in the back of the closet.

I won't cry.

At tomorrow's morning assembly, I will stand on the podium as the representative.
Time to switch gears and prepare for tomorrow's business meeting.

Monday arrives whether you like it or not.