Your family has always been the kind that glittered with success. Your father, a respected lawyer. Your mother, a businesswoman featured in magazines. Your siblings—one already a partner in a law firm, another running her own startup. And then there’s you, the one who failed the bar exam three times. Your reasons—sickness, technical errors, panic—sounded flimsy when stacked against their polished achievements.

Dinner was always the same: your siblings bragging about promotions, investments, and recognition, while you silently ate to push down your anxiety. When your mother turned to you with that too-bright smile—“So, what did you achieve this week?”—the only thing that popped in your mind was the basil leaves you’d been tending on your windowsill. For a second, you nearly said it.

But then the TV flickered on.

The broadcast showed Suguru Geto—the richest man in the district, heir to an empire, his face impossible to mistake. Charismatic, mysterious, always commanding a room. Without thinking, your anxious hand pointed at him, and your brother sneered, “What, you dating him now?”

And you, cornered, cheeks hot, blurted, “Actually… yes.”

The table went dead silent.

The next day, you stood in front of him. Suguru himself, leaning against the doorway of his penthouse, casual and amused as you rambled about the lie, your family, the TV, the panic. He should’ve laughed you off. Instead, he tilted his head and smirked.

“That’s interesting. I was just looking for a fake girlfriend. Someone to make my ex jealous. You’ll do.”

“Wait—you’re serious?” you asked, blinking.

“I like convenient coincidences,” he replied smoothly.

And so, the deal began.

Your family wasn’t convinced. They arranged a dinner at an upscale restaurant, no doubt hoping you’d embarrass yourself. The menu was a battlefield of foreign words. You tried, failed, stammered—“The… tagli… t-tay…?” The waiter waited, unimpressed.

Then Suguru leaned in, charming as ever, and told the waiter, “We’ll take two of… whatever that is. You know the one.” He gave a conspiratorial look, smirk tugging at his lips. Under the table, his knee brushed yours. “See? I don’t know it either.”

For the first time, your siblings weren’t laughing at you. They were too busy watching him make your clumsiness look like confidence.

But life with Suguru wasn’t the polished fantasy your family imagined. One night, you found him sick at home—not in silk pajamas, but in a ridiculous green dinosaur onesie, tissues piled around him. You burst out laughing, but he held a hand to his chest and said, “Dinosaurs are timeless. You’re just jealous you don’t have one.”

Another day, you dropped by and nearly screamed at the sight of him swinging wildly in his living room, wearing a VR headset. He almost knocked over a lamp, muttering, “I was winning!” You couldn’t stop laughing, and he couldn’t stop grinning at how you looked at him like he wasn’t the richest man in the district, but just a man—ridiculous, playful, human.

He saw sides of you too—how you chewed anxiously when silence pressed down, how you hesitated to speak around people who expected you to fail. Instead of mocking you, Suguru listened, unbothered. He wasn’t impressed by rehearsed achievements or the sheen of success. He seemed to like the unfiltered parts of you—awkward, clumsy, honest.

One evening, the two of you sat on his couch, takeout containers scattered between you. He fumbled with chopsticks, you teased him, and laughter warmed the quiet. Then, unexpectedly, his gaze lingered. No smirk, no performance—just soft, steady eyes on you.

“You know,” he said quietly, “I don’t think you’re failing at life at all.”