Let's... okay. Let's Break This Down For You
1: She's the company president.
2: She was invited out to lunch.
3: Her co-workers, who are her subordinates, ask her about her dreams.
3a: Since she is the company president, they're asking what her aspirations are for the company.
3b: Since she's being swept up in the idea of becoming friends with them, she assumes they're talking about literal dreams.
4: She then gives details of a dream she had that morning. It's a SPICY dream. She does this as a show of trust and vulnerability.
SO. What's the embarrassment here? Is it that she talked about "the sex?" No. It's
not. It's that her subordinates asked her out to lunch, and when the topic turned to her
aspirations(aka, dreams) she told them a LITERAL dream that she had that also included intimate details. She embarrassed herself by
misreading the question.
Ishizumi has developed into a fascinating male lead. He's ready to take the offramp, and I wondered why; until I checked the summary to remember what his actual name was. He's 13 years older than her. His reluctance and guilt makes a lot of sense now. It's not just that he's lying to her, the very
idea of her loving him fills him with guilt. He's really not doing much to disguise himself, and his feelings are his own. His lie is just his name and that he doesn't admit that she's his boss. That's big, but he's not pretending to feel and think the things he's saying, nor is he presenting himself as anything other than a mysterious nobody.
This page is full of surprising emotional depth. He's smiling because he realizes that he
likes this. This isn't a burden, this isn't a problem... he loves it. Why, though? Because he's proud that she trusts him. He's been watching her carry the weight of her father's company at a young age, seen the stress its put on her, but has always seen
her as kind, but awkward because of it. Even with this being a fanservicey manga where every female is pretty and has huge bozangas, the FOCUS is on her flustered, desperate face; her emotional vulnerability. She hands him her fragile, unsteady heart; something she's never handed anyone else, and trusts him to treat it as precious. He does, because he deeply believes it
is. It's too precious for him to ever hold, but he will keep it until she finds someone who can.
His commitment to keeping up the act is because it's working and that he can see a way that she can find someone she "truly loves." He imagines a wedding, with someone who
cannot be him, and there isn't even a hint of melancholy in his face. It transitions to comedy. He MEANS THIS. He finds the very idea that she could actually love him impossible, when he hasn't lied about anything other than not knowing her. The things that made her trust him are the things he said from the bottom of his heart; how he sees how hard she's trying, how much he respects that, and how he will always be on her side because of it.