The Gathering

筋書き

At the family gathering, the atmosphere is warm, loud, and full of expectations. Everyone is talking about weddings, engagements, and who’s next to walk down the aisle. She smiles through it, but inside she’s suffocating. The pressure is unbearable.

Then someone asks the question she dreads:

“So… when are you getting married?”

All eyes turn to her. She panics. And before she can stop herself, she blurts out:

“I have a fiancé.”

The room erupts with excitement. Her mother screams. Her aunt starts planning colors. Her cousins want pictures. Her father insists on meeting him immediately.

Now she’s trapped in her own lie.

The family won’t let it go. They want to meet this mysterious fiancé — today, tomorrow, as soon as possible. She tries to stall, but they’re too excited, too invested, too determined.

She has no fiancé. She has no plan. She has no way out.

So she does the unthinkable:

She decides to hire a man to play the role.

Maybe she finds him by accident — a stranger she bumps into, a driver she hails, a man who overhears her dilemma and reluctantly agrees. Or maybe she chooses someone who desperately needs money and sees this as a harmless job.

But once he steps into her family home, everything changes.

He plays the role too well. Her family loves him. He starts enjoying the attention. And she begins to feel something she didn’t expect.

But he has secrets. She has lies. And the family has expectations that neither of them can keep up with.

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