Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend)           

Daehyun is a failure in love and dating, always has been and he believes he always will be. So when Youngjae tells him his company is researching on a new model of robot, a love robot, Daehyun squints one eye in doubt but later agrees to be the subject of their trial.

The robot arrives one evening at his apartment, a gigantic box which Daehyun drags and pushes into his living room before picking up a call from Youngjae who guessed the timing of delivery correctly. Daehyun hangs up the phone from Youngjae’s incessant nagging and starts to open the box.

Inside lies the robot, an unclothed man curled up in a foetal position inside the large bulky box labeled with Youngjae’s company logo. Daehyun is amazed by how human-like the robot is. It’s so real, Daehyun fears it might be really be a living man lying before him. He extends a hand and pokes it in the cheek. Surprised by the texture, Daehyun retracts his hand and swallows. Now, that’s a real science project.

“Oi, Jung Daehyun.” Daehyun picks up the phone when it rings once more, mouth agape as Youngjae calls him name from the other end.

“Youngjae-ah, it’s so real!”

“I know, what do you expect from the company I’m working in? Anyway, I tried to tell you, it’s made based on your preferences and the trial ends in 10 days.”

“Based on my preferences? How do you know my preferences?”

“You couldn’t make it for the survey so I did it for you.”

“WHAT?!”

“Anyway, hurry up and activate it so we can start collecting the data, okay bye.”

Daehyun turns back to the man-robot lying in the gigantic box that is as quiet as a corpse. He searches for the instruction manual and finds the large printed words after flipping open the first page.

“Place kiss on lips… lips? My lips?” Daehyun touches his own lips and jerks his head in confusion. “Oh wait… Kiss the robot? God…”

Daehyun bends down and inspects the robot’s face. It’s a manly face alright, unlike his own childish one. How does Youngjae know his likings? Daehyun shakes his head to resist a shudder. The robot lies quietly awaiting the activating kiss and Daehyun doesn’t delays it longer. He throws a hand back and groans, embarrassed at himself before pecking the robot’s lips quickly.

He sits on his legs and waits for something to happen. 10 seconds pass and he’s starting to think that Youngjae pulled a prank on him. “… Don’t tell me, this is a—UWAA—“

“Hello, my sweet boyfriend, you look cute today.” The robot sits up in the box as quickly as Daehyun could fall over and gasp in fright, smiling brightly at Daehyun as it speaks with a voice Daehyun thought sounded like a tunnel.

“Y-you…”

“What’s your name, my boyfriend?”

“J-jung Daehyun.”

The robot stares at Daehyun’s face for a while before breaking into a smile again. “Hello, Daehyun.”

“H-hi…”

Apparently purchase of the robot does not include any clothing but luckily, Daehyun’s clothes could fit the lean body of his new robot boyfriend, although the pants are a little too short…

Daehyun gives up looking for longer pants after digging through his closet for a long while and turns around to see his robot, the T-shirt a little tight around his broad shoulders. Daehyun could see the shadows of the contours on that body clearly and he doesn’t stare for long because he blushes and the robot boyfriend looks down to smile that wide grin at him again.

“It’s ok, Daehyun, I can wear this.”

“Haha…” Daehyun laughs awkwardly. No you’re not going to wear this, he thinks as he scrutinizes the clothes too short for his robot. Daehyun feels somewhat sorry for the well-built robot.

“W-what’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name yet. Why don’t you name me, Daehyun?”

“Ah… I don’t know…” Daehyun steps back shyly when the robot extends its arms and comes closer. “Umm… Y-yongguk?”

“Yongguk? That’s a nice name, Daehyun. From today onwards, I’ll be called Yongguk.” The robot seems pleased with his new name and Daehyun thinks he’ll just smile that gummy smile even if someone named him puppy because that’s just the default function right?

Yongguk has really long arms and long legs and a long body so Daehyun’s clothes doesn’t work. But Daehyun takes pleasure from seeing the amusing sight as Yongguk cleans the house in the clothes that don’t fit him at all. He suppresses a laugh until he catches a glimpse of a toned abdomen when Yongguk reaches for the top shelves. Daehyun coughs and averts his eyes.

That evening, Yongguk makes him dinner and Daehyun’s eyes brighten at the sight of a dinner with the standards of a classy restaurant. Cooks me 5 dishes daily. Yep, Youngjae got that right. Daehyun digs in and almost cries at the sheer rainbows bursting in his mouth. He grabs Yongguk and blabbers in joy, forgetting that the man is actually a robot after all.

“I’m glad you like my cooking, Daehyun. Would you give me a kiss for it?”

Daehyun chokes and Yongguk runs for a glass of water.

Apparently, the love robot is a mature boyfriend and Daehyun cringes when Yongguk says something he thinks really isn’t inside his mode of preference.

“Daehyun, want to have ?” Yongguk stands in front of the bed, shirtless when Daehyun was just about to pull the blankets over himself but ends up almost falling out of bed.

“Youngjae! What did you teach the robot to say?!”

“What? I don’t teach the robot, I programme it. What’s wrong?”

“It… it asked me to… It said, “Daehyun, do you want to have ?” What’s this?!!”

“Don’t be such a little girl, Daehyun. He’s your boyfriend, of course he’ll ask!”

“That’s so un-subtle and so not romantic at all!!”

“Fine, that go ahead and make some candlelight stuff thingy , bye.”

“Wait! Did you do something weird with the preference thing, or not?”

“Question number 7. Rate the drive of your boyfriend. Super high. High. Moderate. Low. Zero. I chose High for you, you’re welcome.”

“ you—“

Beep—

“Daehyun, let’s sleep together.”

Even though new robot boyfriend is really toned and kind of hot—ok really hot for Daehyun’s pathetic little girl’s mentality—Daehyun just can’t.

“Yongguk… You need to sleep on the floor, or the couch…”

“Okay, Daehyun. I’ll sleep on the floor, beside you.”

Robot boyfriend smiles a gummy smile and lies down on the hard wooden floor with a blanket Daehyun gave him. Daehyun sighs and turns off the lights.

The alarm doesn’t ring but instead, Daehyun hears a baritone voice calling him awake in the morning. Actually, it’s more like cooing.

“No… Five more minutes…”

“Daehyunnie, don’t be such a lazy bum.”

“Ugh…”

Daehyun kicks the blankets and sits up, hair a birdnest-mess and face grumpy. Yongguk the robot with an apron around his torso, sits down on Daehyun’s bed, gauges his boyfriend’s expression and reaches out a long slender hand to comb it through the head of messy hair.

Daehyun’s eyes snap open but h