A/N (Oct 2017): Revised it a little, cuz you guys deserve something better than a fanfic written half asleep.

Chapter 1

Why. Why did she let Akari talk her into this?

Okuda Manami, a 27-year-old single workaholic, is currently sitting alone and fiddling with her third cup of Americano in a local busy café. She can't stop looking at her watch and around trying to find that person she is supposed to meet: the one that Akari had very helpfully described as "a tall, cute guy". On top of that, she is provided with no pictures at all, not even a description because Akari wants to keep it a surprise.

Why ever would she do that?

Considering that approximately 150 or so people have come and gone in the past hour she spent waiting, there are more than a dozen tall, cute (in Akari's standard she would guess) guys. Simply said, she doesn't know how to spot this guy at all.

Besides, all the coffee is making her more and more jittery.

She gives her watch a final glance and sighs. Maybe she is being stood up. Oh well. It's better since this is less awkward than having to actually explain her situation to a complete stranger.

Now all she has to do is to face the music on her own, which she probably should have done from the beginning.

She heaves another sigh and finishes her now lukewarm coffee in her plastic cup. She is just about to leave when someone walks over to her table and stops right in front of her.

A little surprised, she looks up and sees a tall red-haired male in a dark grey suit across from her.

His hair is swept to the side, but it interestingly still looks slightly messy with the effort he seems to have put. Although, it still looks good on him, she has to admit. She can see the 'cute' that Akari mentioned.

The man starts, "Okuda Manami-san?"

With that she stops gaping and jumps back to reality before quickly standing up to meet him. He is really tall, the top of her head barely reaches his shoulder. "Y-Yes! You must be Akari's friend."

"Yeah. I guess you could say that." He flashes a smile, "I'm Akabane Karma."

He offers his hand to her and she shakes it, noticing how professional the handshake was. She could see why.

"Sorry I was a little late. I got caught up in an emergency meeting last minute."

One hour. Charming.

"Oh… don't worry about that. Please have a seat!"

Manami places her bag back down and sits back to her seat.

"Let's cut to the chase. After all, I've been extremely late with our appointment to begin with." Karma says.

Manami nods in agreement, mentally listing down everything she could be doing instead of wasting her time for this.

"I've been briefed a little about your situation," there's a mysterious glint in his champagne coloured eyes. He laces his fingers and places it on the table, slightly leaning forward in interest before continuing, "However, I'd like to hear the details from you yourself. If you don't mind."

She knew it'll come to this. She almost bolts right out of the café. This is still a bit too embarrassing for her to explain. But she remembers how Akari had gone far enough to ask her friend to help her out, and so she might as well give it a shot.

Taking a deep breath while trying her best to calm the burning heat she felt on both her cheeks, ears, and many places else, she says, "W-Well… M-My parents… they are worried about me…"

The man in front of her just nods along, encouraging her to continue.

"All simply because I don't have a-a… a," she fiddles with the end of her braids, eyes completely avoiding Karma, "b-boyf-boyfriend." She finishes. "Never even once." She adds almost inaudibly, repeating her mother's words like she overheard in a conversation with her friends, commenting about Manami's love life.

Why is "married to my job" not a valid status of relationship?

She sneaks a peek at the man across her to find an incomprehensible gaze, as if he's mentally measuring her and calculating about something. Noticing her looking, he smiles, there's an almost boyish charm in the smile. "I see. What do you need me for?"

"I-I…," she gulps and starts to regret not getting her fourth coffee before this stressful encounter. "I want you to…" she closes her eyes and continues quietly and quickly, "bemypretendboyfriend."

Karma almost grins, but keeps his cool. He's not letting her get away painlessly. "I'm sorry I didn't quite catch the last part. What do you want me to be?"

Manami takes another deep breath, with cheeks as red as a boiled crab, she squeezes her eyes tighter and says in a slow and clear but shaky voice. "Please be my boyfriend, Akabane-san."

At this point Karma is already biting his lips to prevent bursting out in a fit of laughter. Ah this is going to be fun.

"Hmm… I don't know about that, Okuda-san. Shouldn't we get to know each other better first?"

What? Manami opens her eyes to look at the man in front of her, not believing what she just heard. Was she… rejected for her first ever confession in her life? And by this complete stranger she didn't even know, let alone have feelings for? Was this a joke?

Her vision started to blur as pools of tears started to form on the corner of her eyes. She blinks hard in order to stop the tears of embarrassment to spill out.

Karma, realizing that he might have gone a bit too far, quickly adds, "Relax, Okuda-san. I was merely joking. Sure. I'll be your boyfriend."

When the petite girl visibly relaxes, Karma lets out an inner sigh of relief. He is mischievous, not mean. He will never make an innocent girl like her cry for no reason at all.

"T-Thank you, Akabane-san. It means the world to me."

"Don't worry about it, and call me Karma."

The girl smiles at him. He does notice that even though she didn't cry, her eyes still looked puffy with those thick eye bags behind her old-fashioned silver-rimmed oval glasses.

"I'm still very thankful about this, Karma-san," she starts shuffling through her messenger bag and produces a paper and a pen from it. Karma looks at her items curiously, wondering what those are for. Looking back at him, she says, "Alright. Let's talk about payment."

Now that caught him off-guard. He chuckles, "What?"

The girl in front of him just stares back at him with an owlish look, as confused as he is.

"Are you under the impression that I make a living out of this, Okuda-san?"

"You…don't?"

"What makes you think that?"

"U-Um…well, Akari told me that you're a pro at this…so…"

That sneaky little-

Karma sighs. You know what? Screw it. If he's going to be entertained and getting paid for it, why not? But let's make it even more amusing, shall we?

"Alright."

Manami mentally goes through her budget for this and is pretty prepared to negotiate in case he quotes prices that she can't afford.

"But I won't accept money as payment."

Okay, she wasn't prepared for that.

"Th-Then what is your proposed payment form?"

"Hmm… favours."

…what?

"Yes. I want you to pay me in 'favours'."

Sounds…novel and risky. She is so torn about this. On one hand, she is glad she could save money but on the other, she is afraid of getting pulled into something strange. What if he asked her to assist him to kill someone? Akari wouldn't introduce her to someone evil, would she?

Would she?

Seeing the girl in front of him facing her own inner battles, he adds, "One favour per month. Nothing (too) illegal. Plus, you have a veto say every month."

She mulls over it a little and finally decides, "Alright. I accept."

She looks at him with such determination that he couldn't help but tease her, "Including sexual favours?"

W-W-Wait! How could she not think of that? Overwhelmed with the sudden attack, she quickly stammers out, "V-V-VETO!"

Karma lets out a hearty laughter, she really does give the most interesting responses, "I'm only joking, Okuda-san. I'm not going to (always) make you do things you don't want to."

All she could do now is to stare at the mischievous devil in front of her. Could her poor heart endure this torment? Is it too late to back out of their agreement?

Karma, still grinning at her, decides to divert her attention to calm her down, "Oh, before I forgot. We're not signing anything for this, are we?"

That does the work, she looks less distressed now. After short pause, Manami replies, "No. not if you don't want to."

"Good. I don't want to sign anything."

"Understood." Manami rakes through her mind for other important things she needs to mention before wrapping the meeting up. "Now let's talk about the length of our proposition." She says as she adjusts her crooked glasses back to her nose bridge. "I propose for at least half a year and at most a year. That would be enough to convince my parents for a while."

Karma shrugs, "Sounds good to me."

Manami looks at her watch again and panics as she realises that her lunch break had been over by 15 minutes. "Sorry to cut this short, Karma-kun. I really have somewhere I need to be now. Can we discuss the details later?"

"Sure. Let's exchange numbers and set up another meeting."

She shuffles through her messenger bag once more and takes out a business card. "Pleasure doing business with you, Karma-kun. I hope to see you soon."

The petite girl hurriedly scuttles off without waiting for his answer.

"Likewise, Okuda-san." Karma replies meaningfully to himself while he reads her business card.

Okuda Manami
Senior Chemistry Engineer, Asano Chems

This would be interesting indeed.

A/N: I can't sleep yesterday so I spent my time writing this down until I accidentally fell asleep while ignoring a phone call. I don't know where this is going though since I haven't really thought this through. Might continue this.