One midsummer day, I returned from Tokyo to the countryside because I wanted to see the older man I had loved since childhood. He had always watched over me kindly while I was growing up in a single-parent home. When I heard that his wife had died, I could not stay away. I offered to help around the house so we could spend our days together, surrounded by nostalgia and quiet excitement. But simply being near him was not enough. I wanted to become his special woman—and fulfill my childhood dream of being his wife.