Wednesday night, 14:30

Taiyo stood outside the restaurant, nervously awaiting his date. Suddenly, a woman with short-cut hair dressed in a designer blazer and suit pants walked up to him.

“Are you Taiyo?”

“Ye….” But before he could even finish the syllable, she elbowed him hard in the stomach.

“That’s for standing me up last week.”

“…understood…*cough*”

Subaru, strong-willed and confident, looked at Taiyo from above. Switching her expression from scorn to a bright smile.

“Tomo is paying me a decent amount to do this favor, so I’m going to play the part the best I can. Ok Tai?”

“Ok…just don’t hit me again please?”

“Oh I’d never hit you my sweet gummy bear.” Subaru says with a baby voice as she grabs Taiyo’s cheeks in a playful but sinisterly firm kind of way. In the middle of this cheek-grabbing, The Boss arrives with his wife.

“See honey, look at how cute they are.”

“Yes, it makes me reminisce about our first dates all those years ago.”

Taiyo immediately stiffens up once he sees The Boss, then proceeds to bow slightly.

“Sir, it’s a pleasure…this is my girlfriend..”

“Subaru, nice to meet my hubby-wubby’s boss.” She says while also bowing. 

“Hubby-wubby? Aren’t you laying it on a bit thick?” Taiyo says to Subaru under his breath.

“Just go along with me and this will be as painless as possible.” Subaru retorts, also under her breath.

“Ha-hahaha!, aw you two are already at it with the pet names I see.” says The Boss,

Nervously laughing Taiyo replies, “Yep, and she’s my cutsie…wootsie…”

Subaru’s eyes cringe at the lack of creativity on Taiyo’s part, but reluctantly she says, “And I love being his cutsie-wootsie.” Then she wraps her arms around Taiyo lovingly to really sell the charade.

“We should head inside.” said The Boss’ wife.

“Yes we should.” Taiyo says, as he exchanges a look with Subaru that says ‘it’s gonna be a long night’.