Sorry, I Think I Messed Up My Life

We all once thought we'd be the exception, that we could make it through life without a hitch.

Sato Kazuo was no different.

He was once certain he'd grasped a steady happiness: a respectable job, a gentle wife, and a new life on the way. Like every proper member of society, he worked hard to play every role expected of him, until the exhaustion and emptiness inside grew too great to ignore.

A business engagement he couldn't refuse. A suggestive light named Aya. In the gentle mire of understanding and temptation, he sank deeper step by step, weaving lies into a precarious balance. He thought he'd found a crack through which to escape reality, unaware that at its end lay an abyss that would consume everything.

When the truth came crashing down like a winter cold front, the warm lights of home went out, and his illusory comfort vanished into the morning mist. As the balance he'd struggled to maintain collapsed completely, he lost his family, his love, and every last thing that had made him Sato Kazuo. At last, sitting alone in an empty room, the glowing cigarette between his fingers became the only definite glimmer in his life.

I'm sorry, Yumiko.

I'm sorry, Aya.

I'm sorry, child I never got to meet.

I think I've completely ruined this life I worked so hard to have.