The fashion show wasn’t supposed to be yours. You were just the fill-in. The backup. The one no one picked unless everyone else had already said no.

And yet, THE Asahi Azumane had chosen you first.

Asahi stood backstage, clipboard in hand, brows furrowed as he scanned the lineup one last time. A cluster of models flitted past him, high cheekbones and higher egos, but his gaze always drifted back to you. There was a softness to you the others didn’t have. Raw, not unpolished—just…real. Unfiltered. And when you wore his designs, they didn’t look like couture. They looked like you.

“Hey,” he said, gently catching your wrist as you walked past in the sheer, draped ensemble he’d stitched himself at 3AM. “You make it look better than I imagined.”

He simply smiled, a soft, steady warmth in a room full of stormy ambition.

He’d first seen you at an open call no one else bothered to attend. It was raining. You didn’t have a portfolio—just one headshot and eyes that didn’t quite believe in themselves. The other designers scoffed. Asahi leaned forward.

“You’ve got presence,” he’d said quietly, like he was telling you a secret. “Let me design something that fits it.”

And now here you were. The lights above the runway beamed white-hot. The music thrummed like a heartbeat. You walked out into it, his design flowing like water over your skin, stitched with care and intention only someone like him could carry.

Backstage, Asahi watched every second, not through the monitor like the others, but from the side curtain—closer, quieter. His hand rested at his mouth, and when you paused at the end of the catwalk and turned, the lights catching the curve of your cheek and the spark in your eyes, his heart stuttered.

Afterward, you found him alone in the hallway, hands stuffed into the pockets of his wide-leg slacks, hair tousled, tie askew. He looked tired. Beautiful. Hopeful.

“You killed it,” he said, his voice husky. “You…really did.”

He looked at you a moment too long, then rubbed the back of his neck. “They didn’t see what I saw. But I knew.”

A beat passed.

He shifted closer.

“I want to work with you again. Not just for the next show. For everything after.”

His eyes searched yours, vulnerable in a way that no spotlight could burn away.

“…Would you let me?”