Ch36 starts of with ML and FL at an amusement park date where the ML plans to confess his feelings. Before he has the chance to the FL announces she is getting engaged to someone. She accepts the engagement without even trying to negotiate it with her parents knowing full well that she loves the ML and vice-versa. Her reasoning behind her firm decision is that as an adopted child she feels very indebted to her adoptive parents. Due to this she makes a promise as child to her father to marry a good man. Then she goes on to explain that she only used the MC to get used to men so she be prepared for engagement but accidentally ended up falling in love with him.

For reference the novel so far has portrayed her parents as very loving and understanding parents. So the absurdity of this forced situation is unreal. In order to create some drama the author changes the character of the FL removing any positive feelings for the FL from a readers perspective. Then the author proceeds to mend the relationship in the following chs where the MC talks to her parents and they agree to dissolve the engagement and even apologise. Complete collapse of the plot only for it get resolved in 4 chs? Just plain bad writing.

As of chapter 36, this has now become a drama about a said cold girl ending up in arranged marriage to a grown man. Notice how I didn't say anything about it being forced? That's because it wasn't. She willingly accepted it. Not pressured to, but voluntarily. Another point to make, why did this author, or any author who writes stories set in modern times, write in an arranged marriage. Do those still happen in Japan? As far as I know, aside from the heavily regressive middle-east, nowhere still has those. Arranged marriage has no place in the 21st century, fiction or otherwise.

Nagi's family is a quite rich and prominent in the business world, and thus (because authors like this trope for some reason) the topic of arranged marriage does crop up... but not quite in the typical sense. She wasn't the least bit forced or coerced into it... but was still willing to go through with it. Granted, she and Souta weren't quite going out yet at the time even though they were already very close (but the confession from Souta was about to come up on their next date in a few days, and both she and Souta knew it was coming), but it was still disappointing she wasn't willing to say no - and it would have made everyone miserable, herself, Souta, her parents - everyone, because ultimately it was a result of poor communication all around.

You see, Nagi is adopted from an orphanage (her parent's couldn't naturally conceive any children) - and she has had a good life and been treated well, so she has it in her head that she must repay somehow the family who took her in. And to be fair, that's the initial reason her parents adopted her - they wanted an heir to their business, and Nagi was very quick to internalize all sorts of lessons she soaked up from watching her parents, especially her father, conduct themselves at work (how to put on a mask, how to appear as a perfect lady, etc).

Well, here's the catch - her parents have long since stopped caring about any of that and love Nagi from the bottom of their hearts no less than if she was their own beloved flesh and blood, and only want her to be free and happy. But as her dad is a pretty awkward communicator (and rarely at home as he's swamped with work) and as Nagi had learned well how to keep her mask up (and is adamant about repaying them for taking her in), none of this was ever properly conveyed in either direction.

Then why did her dad bring up the arranged marriage? Because his own marriage to his wife is the happiest thing that ever happened to him, and the party who approached him about a potential match is (as we later get to see) a genuinely pretty great guy. And as Nagi is pretty aloof and lacks friends in her day to day life, her dad thought it would be great if she had someone in her life who would genuinely support her and make her happy, like what happened between him and his own wife. It would have also been a fantastic match for the family business, true, but as before - that honestly doesn't matter to her dad and hasn't in a very long time.

And again, he wasn't going to force anything in the slightest - the conversation even began with him simply asking Nagi if she has someone she likes. If it turned out she did, he wouldn't have even brought anything further up. All Nagi had to do was say yes... and none of the drama would have unfolded. But Nagi figured out that likely the only reason her dad asked is because he had a match in mind, and as she is still obsessed with repaying her adoptive family, she answered that she doesn't (a lie!) - and agreed to the marriage interview (again, she is told that she can back out at any time if she doesn't like anything about the other party after meeting them) and since she is good at keeping up her 'perfect lady' mask, she made it truly look like she doesn't mind.

So during the following date with Souta, just as he is about to confess, Nagi instead says they can't see each other any more, and tearfully says some mean things (like how she only used him to get over her anxiety around men) in an effort to get him to dislike her - because she obviously realizes that Souta loves her and that this whole ordeal will obviously hurt him, and thus she figures if she can get him to hate her then it will be less painful on him to let her go. Obviously doesn't work out very well, because Souta can see very clearly that she is hurting and tearing up and all that, but that's how they part for the day.

Souta is depressed the following day, but after a kick in the rear and encouragement from his friends, decides to confront Nagi's family because he just can't give up on her like that so he tracks down Nagi's home and one of the maids (who is well aware of Nagi's and Soutas feelings for each other) lets him in, and that's how he gets to meet Nagi's father. Dad is very confused at first (Nagi never told him she had any close male friends) but after a speech from Souta and a realization that the 'friend' at whose home Nagi has been spending all her weekends recently is Souta (and obviously what this implies about their feelings) and that Nagi has only been hiding how she feels, he immediately shuffles Nagi over to talk with Souta (she was on the verge of breaking down anyways) and the whole arranged marriage thing is immediately called off.

So you have the whole tearful reconciliation between Nagi and Souta, with Nagi bawling her eyes out about how s*upid she has been acting and for hurting him and all that, for which she will be feeling very guilty for a long time, but at least the whole ordeal is over and the two can be happily together. And at least, this whole incident also explains why Nagi's family is so accepting of their relationship - because both Dad and Mom realize their family would fallen apart when it inevitably came out they had set up Nagi for a marriage where she would have felt miserable, just because they failed to communicate properly with their daughter and she somehow felt she had to hide her feelings around them when that's never what they wanted. So instead all 3 resolve to be closer and to actually talk to each other more openly, and dad will be making more time for his family at home. So Souta essentially managed to save their family from complete misery because he was brave enough to show up and speak his mind, despite being a highschool kid, so they welcome him and his relationship with Nagi with open arms.