You sighed deeply, relieved to finally be back at home after another painfully long day at work as a senior accountant at a mid-level company in the city.  Groaning, you fell face first on the couch. Your legs flopping over the side at an awkward angle but, too tired to care, you just lay there until your lungs burned from lack of oxygen, before turning your head to the side.

Your 30 pound Siberian cat, ironically named Inna (graceful and delicate), stared haughtily down at you from her grand height of 14 inches.  “Ah, yes, mama,” you ground out as you wearily pushed yourself up from the couch.  “The contract must be observed.”

A heavy thump behind you indicated that your local monarch had graciously deigned to descend from her royal perch to follow you.  In the kitchen, you opened the cabinet to look over the treasury. “Alright, baby, how do you feel today? Chicken?”

She remained silent, looking up at you, her tail steadily swishing back and forth as she sat, contemplating the option.

“No?  Roast beast?”

The joke didn’t go over well, as Inna merely her chops and looked away.

“Seafood?”

Turning back to you, Inna stood on her hind legs, stretching her paws up your thigh, and mewing, the high pitch adorably incongruous with her war-like size.  

“Alright.  Seafood it is,” you said, grabbing three cans.  The vet had told you that Inna needed to be put on a diet, as she was about four pounds overweight, but even though you calmly explained that to her, she silently, but effectively protested by sleeping on your face every night until you conceded.  Maneuver warfare.

Meowing vociferously, Inna wove between your ankles as you filled her bowl, pausing to give you one last possessive headbunt before turning to her dinner.

Bending down, you her back as she ate, relaxing at the soft feeling of the warm fur under your hand.  “Is it good?”

Abandoning her food for a moment, she leaned back to your hand before continuing to eat.  

The comforting nyam nyam nyam of her gustation followed you as you made your way to your bedroom to shower and change for the night.  

Plopping into bed, you grabbed an apple from the bowl you kept on your nightstand for when you were too tired to actually drag yourself out of bed to get food, and opened your laptop, navigating to your favourite strange news website.  Relaxing, you began to read tongue-in-cheek articles about CGI fashion models, cat cafes, and ridiculous kit-kat flavours.  

A sudden ring interrupted your peace, and you grabbed the phone to see that it was your mother.  Thumb hovering over the screen, you briefly debated, before swiping left. Your mother meant well, but you had had a long week, and if you weren’t up to eating, then you definitely weren’t up to being held hostage for the next three hours to your mother’s complaints regarding everything from relatives, to neighbours, to your workaholic father, to your lack of a boyfriend, to why you never call anymore…

Your mother loved you.  You knew that better than you knew your own name.  She would die for you. She would probably kill for you without blinking an eye.  But you had been acting as her de facto personal therapist since you were six, and you were tired.  

Besides, though you could muster up a bit of concern regarding her continuous upsets with anyone and everyone, you had no idea how you were just supposed to manifest a guy.  Fortunately for you, your mother wasn’t like other mothers; she had never pressured you for grandchildren. She just...wanted to know that there was someone else out there in the world, who would watch over you, keep you safe.  

But you didn’t need that.  It’s true that you sometimes craved the company of a man, but you did quite well taking care of yourself.  And your obese cat. You had a nice little apartment in the city, close to your job, which paid quite well.  Though, if you were being entirely truthful, most of that pay did go to that nice little--very little--apartment, as city real estate prices were astronomical.  And you also had to admit that the cost of living in the city was obscene. So much so that your tender little nest egg that you had been nurturing for the last two years had only almost just reached ten million won.

But you were fine.  You were doing fine.  The sudden depression of the bed told you that Inna had finished eating, and had come to keep you company.  You sighed happily, relaxing deeper into the bed as you felt her curl against you, her loud purring sending comforting vibrations up the base of your spine.  

You sighed.  If you were being completely honest...you were lonely.  But, what could you do? Your office was full of nothing but women, and old married men, and you worked so much overtime that the few spare hours that you did have to yourself were spent in studiously doing your best to channel a vegetable.  Laying your head back, you stared at the ceiling, suddenly unnerved by the deep quiet pressing in on you. Maybe you should buy a weighted blanket?

Mood lightening at the thought of the comfort that would bring, you lifted your head, ready to search for a good one.  Before you could open a new tab, however, an ad caught your eye. “Need a boyfriend? Click here.”  

Okay, these ads are getting way too personalized, you thought.  Ignoring it, you opened a new tab and, idly wondering if there were such things as specialty weighted blankets, began your search.  

***

A week later, your heated, weighted blanket had come in, and you were feeling no pain.  Curled up with the blanket tucked behind you, one errant trail around your waist--that you were totally not pretending was an arm--you watched My Name is Kim Sam Soon for the umpteenth time. As Hyun Bin ordered Lee Gyu Han not to touch his woman’s stuff, grabbing Kim Sunah by the arm and pulling her away, a tear involuntarily slipped out of your eye.  

Oh, in your head, you knew that it was problematic, and in real life, there would be a hundred red flags, but in your heart...it was just too romantic.  The unbearable weight of loneliness welled in your chest, and you blinked, the computer screen blurring. Inna gently sniffed at your face before curling up on your pillow, just over your head, her chin resting on your forehead.  

Later, as you returned from a bathroom break, once again ignoring the rumbling of your stomach, your eyes drifted to the side of the screen.  There it was again. “Need a boyfriend? Click here.”

Rolling your eyes, you clicked “Play”.  It was probably a scam. Or some sort of online game.  Either way, it wasn’t important enough to take you from Hyun Bin’s dimpling smiles, and swoon-worthy glares.   

For tonight, you would pretend, as he looked at Kim Sunah and declared his love...

You would pretend that he was talking to you.

***

Saturday afternoon found you on the couch--you had finally mustered the energy to actually make something to eat, even if it was just rice, and dubu kimchi without the pork.  You rarely ate meat, choosing to save the money that you’d spend on it. Besides, when you used to buy it, it mostly just went bad as, except for weekends, you just never had the energy to cook.  

You liked your job.  You did. It was just...taxing.  Pun intended. Four people had quit six months ago, and it seemed as if they would never be replaced.  You grinned humourlessly. In the tacit opinion of the shareholders, if the remaining employees were able to cover the job of four, why not keep them at it, instead of providing relief?  After all, as salaried employees, no one qualified for overtime, so why not, right?  

As you scrolled through a list of dramas, looking for something to entertain you while you finished brunch, and did your laundry, your mind idly wandered to how nice it would be to spend a quiet Saturday with a companion...other than an overweight cat who thought entirely too highly of herself.  Inna mewed somewhere behind you, seemingly reading your thoughts. “I said, what I said,” you muttered, grinning at her offended meow.  

You didn’t really need a man for anything in particular, but the thought of cuddling, of sharing opinions and ideas, of having someone who would listen to your problems for once, of watching movies together, and eating meals, and just...enjoying each other’s company, filled you with a soft warmth that almost immediately cooled to melancholia as you realized that the likelihood of finding someone was next to none.  

Choosing an old sageuk that you had been meaning to watch forever, it had just started to play when you heard the unmistakable melody of Inna delicately coughing up a hairball.  The gut-wrenching hacks twisted your stomach in sympathy as you jumped up to find her, patting her back as she violently horked her way through a hairball roughly the size of her own head.  “Poor baby,” you murmured, at her distress. “I know! I know! Mommy’s sorry…” When she had finished, you cleaned it up, gave her some extra scratches behind her ears, and returned to the couch.

An ad flashed across the video viewer, almost hiding the play symbol.  “Need a boyfriend? Click here.” This time, it gave you pause. The previous night, while perusing the bizarre news site, you had come across an article for rental boyfriends.  You wondered if this was one of the businesses that provided such a service. At first, you had found it ridiculous, but as you read the comments...

You made decent money.  Yes, you were being responsible and trying to save, but...surely it wouldn’t hurt to indulge just a little.  After all, aside from Inna, and the occasional celebratory meal on someone else’s dime, you rarely indulged in any sort of treat.  Your best friends back home would nag at you every time you talked on the phone, telling you that life wasn’t just about saving money, but about living.  You thought about what they--Mirae and Raim would say. You grinned. You had always been the quiet one. The studious one. The careful one. They would be ecstatic to think that you had finally done something a little spontaneous.  Something just for pure happiness sake.  

You thought about it.  You thought about how much money you had in your savings account.  How you could be hit by a bus tomorrow. About how, in a few short years, you’d be hitting thirty, without ever having the opportunity to enjoy the company of a man in anything other than a friendly capacity.  About how pleasant it would be to just sit with a handsome guy, who smelled nice, and talk for hours about nothing in particular, at all.

You clicked the link.

The website was...surprisingly elegant.  Nothing garish, nothing distasteful. Realizing that budget was your primary concern, you navigated to the price list.  Nothing too far out of your league. 300000 won per 8 hour interval, with incidental expenses paid by the client. Monetary concerns assuaged, you moved on to the gallery.  

Whoa.  

Whoa.

Just...whoa.  

They didn’t have a huge selection--only 15 guys, but what they had was...eminently easy on the eyes. Not to mention, there was something for everyone.  Tall guys, blond guys, muscular guys, alternative guys, professorial types, flower boys… You were spoiled for choice. Starting at the beginning, you began perusing their blurbs to find out a bit more about their personalities.  

Sageuk forgotten, you dove into the bios of each boy, taking your time to consider each one carefully.  For 300000 won, you definitely wanted a good fit. Then you paused. Choosing a guy was relatively straightforward, but then what would you two do?  Though you were sure that the company was reputable, you’d be far more comfortable planning the date, just in case.  You were slight, both in height, and build, and you didn’t want to take your chances. That also ruled out three of the guys off the bat.  Pouting, you waved an imaginary goodbye to dimples, cat eyes, and too cool to function. Goodbye, pretties, you thought.  Maybe next time.

Though all of the men were really, really, ridiculously good looking, one of them kept catching your eye.  There was something about his smile...the way his eyes crinkled and twinkled at the camera. You looked for his name.  Byun Baekhyun. Well, Baekhyun, you thought, I choose you, I guess…

***

You waited nervously in the hotel room, caught in an endless anxiety loop of fiddling with the remote, then your phone, then looking out of the window.  In the process of studious