"I really am sorry," Naoya said, bowing his head low. "But please, just this once, I need you to pretend to be my partner."

He was mortified, asking this of his group's manager of all people. But his family kept trying to set up an omiai—a face-to-face meeting to arrange a marriage—and he was running out of options. His grandfather was old fashioned, but not entirely close minded; if Naoya managed to convince the patriarch that he was taken and happy, that would be the end of that. His grandfather wanted him to start a family, yes, but Naoya's happiness had always been more important to the elderly businessman.

It had been that way when he'd announced to his grandfather that he was going to take up dancing as a career, instead of carry on the family business. He'd been terrified; his family came from a branch of an old and illustrious zaibatsu, a very traditional business conglomerate, and his parents had been heavily against it. But the family patriarch had simply asked if that would make Naoya happy and, at the affirmative answer, his grandfather had permitted it. Even then Naoya chose to hide his face from the public, not wanting to be the source of gossip and shame for his family—especially his parents, who had only begrudgingly acquiesced to the patriarch's will.

Naoya's family had largely stayed out of his chosen career in turn, and so they didn't know that his manager was, in fact, his manager. They'd seen a photo of the two talking in the press and asked whether this was a partner and the reason he kept refusing the omiai; Naoya, in the heat of the moment, had said yes. Now his family wanted to meet his "partner," and Naoya was completely cornered.

"I swear it's just for this one dinner, and then you won't ever have to speak to my family again," he said with a hint of guilt in his tone, still bowed low. "And I'll never ask for anything ever again, I promise."

His every instinct was screaming that this was inappropriate, that asking this of his manager was a mistake, but he was desperate.