Strategic Lovers

Born the son of the twenty-third mistress of the Higashiyama Group’s chairman, Kouta has spent his high school years as an invisible footnote in a sprawling empire of railways, department stores, and luxury resorts. Despite bearing the family name, he has never known the privileges of inherited wealth or the weight of legacy—only the quiet distance that comes from being an afterthought in a dynastic hierarchy. That fragile obscurity shatters overnight when the board of directors, in a move as calculated as it is bewildering, singles him out as the heir apparent to the entire conglomerate. Yet the inheritance comes shackled to an absurd and demeaning condition: to secure his claim, Kouta must participate in a high-stakes romantic survival game, one where love is merely another currency of power. As if the sudden torrent of corporate intrigue and jealous half-siblings weren't enough, he is forcibly paired with a young woman who is to serve as his designated mistress—a silent, living symbol of the old guard's traditions and a constant reminder that his new status is both a cage and a stage. Suddenly thrust from the periphery into the glaring spotlight of succession, Kouta finds himself navigating a treacherous maze of backroom politics and orchestrated affections, unsure if the girl beside him is a pawn, a predator, or the only genuine soul in a world built entirely on performance.