An Innocent Puppy Meets a Two-Faced Cat

Naohito has spent years perfecting the art of being unremarkably flawless. To his colleagues, he is the picture of quiet competence—mild-mannered, reliable, and effortlessly put together. But the polish is a carefully maintained facade, a mask he has worn for so long that it has fused with his very skin. When his childhood friend all but drags him to a singles mixer for professionals in their twenties and thirties, Naohito resigns himself to an evening of tedious small talk and superficial smiles. He plants himself at a secluded corner of the venue, determined to endure the night in solitude. His plans are shattered, however, by the arrival of Tohru Akasaka, a much younger man whose bright, untamed energy is as disarming as it is exhausting. Tohru attaches himself to Naohito with the guileless persistence of a stray puppy, his youthful enthusiasm a stark contrast to Naohito's practiced composure. The encounter is brief and overwhelming, leaving Naohito rattled and eager to put the strange night behind him. But fate has a different design. In an unexpected twist of circumstance, their paths cross once again, and this time, the collision is unavoidable. As Tohru worms his way into Naohito's carefully ordered life, the cracks in his perfect veneer begin to show. The quiet, reliable gentleman finds his defenses crumbling under the relentless, genuine warmth of a young man who refuses to take him at face value. Now, Naohito is faced with a terrifying prospect: to let the mask fall completely and reveal the man beneath, or to risk losing the one person who might actually want to see him for who he truly is.