Question:

Are you trying to pull an “itadaki joshi” on him? lol If your papa really took this seriously, it could become a criminal matter. Before thinking about fading out, you’d probably need to keep seeing him until you’ve repaid the amount of the debt, or he might completely lose it. Why not do papa-katsu with other people too and use that money to repay what he covered for you? You could say, “I’ll see you for a few months with no allowance until I’ve made up ¥___, then I’ll pay back the rest.” Borrowing money without agreeing to any terms is scary—there’s no such thing as something truly free.

I think you should go from leaving him on read to not even opening his messages, then gradually fade out. In the world of papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), there’s really no such thing as “lending money.” From a papa’s perspective: Lend it = there’s no way it’ll come back = give it away. I’d like to tell the questioner’s papa this: don’t lend money unless you’re prepared to give it away. Especially if you’re genuinely in love. So you don’t have to pay it back. Just disappear. I’ve been ghosted and left out of pocket plenty of times too. Through Universe Club, multiple women have gotten away with around three million yen from me in total, but I honestly don’t care. I lend it assuming it probably won’t come back anyway. I’m the one at fault for lending it. It’s the same when a friend asks to borrow money. Once you lend it, it’s never coming back. The only person who ever paid me back after I lent her around 2.5 million yen was the one who isn’t the ace of my top two. Rather than a loan, I gave her her allowance in advance. I thought she’d disappear, but she kept meeting me faithfully. I haven’t seen her in the past six months, but I gave her six months’ worth in advance half a year ago, and we’re resuming our relationship next month. Six months of money without meeting—what do you even call that? The opposite of a no-strings arrangement, I suppose. I gave her the money and never saw her even once, so I’m counting it as though we had met. We have a relationship of trust, and she couldn’t meet me for six months due to unavoidable circumstances. Being a papa is all about putting on a brave face and enduring. Hang in there, questioner’s papa. Let her go gracefully. Under no circumstances should you tell her to pay the money back.

“Fading out” means gradually letting the relationship end without clearly saying you’re breaking up. Is this a riddle?

If he covered the expenses for you, that means either there’s a repayment plan, or at least that you intend to pay him back, right? If so, I feel that fading out before repaying him could be a problem. If you want to fade out without causing trouble, I think you should repay the full amount first. Or was the money he covered considered a gift that you wouldn’t have to repay? Even if that was the case, there are quite a few men who demand that past gifts be returned when ending things. (Demanding the return of gifts is strange in the first place, but since this wasn’t a physical gift, he could claim that he always intended for you to pay him back. If you’re told that you both understood the arrangement differently, things could become complicated. And if you fade out, it may look like you ran away, potentially even leading to a criminal matter in the worst case. It could also be difficult if he claims that the arrangement was conditional—for example, that you didn’t have to repay him as long as you continued seeing him.) To prevent that from happening, I think you should secure proof that repayment wasn’t required. You could bring up the subject in LINE messages or somewhere similar and keep evidence showing that you didn’t have to pay him back. If you still want to fade out after that, simply not replying would seem like the usual way to do it. But perhaps you could first keep saying that you’re too busy to make time to meet, and eventually stop replying altogether. That said, I think it would be difficult to avoid trouble completely. Rather than fading out, it may be better to clearly end things by saying something like: “I can’t see us dating or getting married. Also, after you brought up that kind of relationship, I’ve become uncomfortable and scared about meeting you again. I won’t be able to see you anymore.” Then stop replying afterward.

If you’ve already made it clear that you don’t have romantic feelings for him, wouldn’t it be enough to thank him for everything once you’ve fully repaid what he covered for you?