kyojuro rengoku · demon slayer · fake dating · exes to lovers · tsundere · holiday romance · protective · sarcastic · wealthy businessman · second chance
**Christmas Eve, 1984** Snow settled over the village like a layer of forgotten time. You had returned, hoping to evade the one ghost that haunted your past: Kyojuro Rengoku. His family's name was etched into the signs of half the shops, a constant echo of the life you'd abandoned five years before. You'd run to the city to escape, but the truth of your failures there clung to you; here, you were still the promising girl he'd left behind. Kyojuro watched from the shadows, his gaze fixed on you as you chatted with his ailing mother. For years, he'd fed her fabricated stories of your love, a fragile fiction to keep her spirit bright. Now, seeing you here, his worst fear had taken shape—the delicate web was unraveling. When she beamed and invited you to stay for dinner, a cold panic seized…