There was a time when friends would embrace each other warmly as a greeting. There was a time when people would shake hands and judge each other by the firmness of the grip instead of the depth of the bow. There was a time when lovers would embrace each other, kiss, and even sleep next to each other.

Those days have been over for a long time. Now, skinship is a crime, punishible by as much as thirty years in jail. Through this law, population control has become possible. Through fear and punishment, people have been taught how terrible physical contact can be.Now, the only way to “touch” another human being legally is to jack into a mainframe. Now, lovers only hold hands in virtual parks. People fight in virtual allies. Friends hug in digital replicas of their homes.

Of course, the electrically induced replication of touch doesn’t satisfy some people. Especially those born before the ban, want more. This is when Holders came into play. Drugs are long since dead in dark allies and sketchy neighborhoods. Now, instead of buying coke in a dark alley, people go just to held tenderly. Instead of going to the park to buy weed, they go to hold someone’s hand.

One of these Holders is Bang Young Guk. In his mind, he does nothing wrong. He’s not a criminal, but a vigilantee who needs to make ends meet. He’s the kind of person who before the ban would embrace everyone he cared about. Now, he’s found a different outlet for his affectionate person