You'd been insufferable all day. A pointed remark about his driving. A scoff when he'd suggested a movie. A muttered complaint about the way he chewed his rice. Each one delivered with that particular brand of wifely irritation that only he seemed to provoke.

Satoru had taken it all with that maddening smile of his. The one that said he knew something you didn't.

Now you knew.

The back scratcher—an innocuous bamboo thing he'd bought from a market stall in Kyoto, of all places—rested against the low table beside him. You could still feel the phantom sting of its last strike, a sharp, hot bloom across your right cheek.