The Arcade Date
Kim Jiyeon had dressed up to the nines for the first time in ages. The reason was simple — these were expensive clothes she would never, ever wear in front of her friends. They were pricey brand-name pieces she'd bought ages ago, telling herself she'd wear them someday when she finally got a boyfriend. Of course, since landing a boyfriend wasn't exactly easy, the clothes had done nothing but rot away in her closet, and at the rate things were going, they were headed for the donation bin before she ever got the chance to wear them.
But today, the day had finally come. Fighting to calm her pounding heart, Kim Jiyeon was waiting at the meeting spot — a full thirty minutes ahead of schedule. She'd rushed out early because she wanted to know, just once, what it felt like to be a girlfriend waiting for her boyfriend.
So this is what all those women with boyfriends feel like? It seemed so unfair that only a lucky few got to monopolize something this wonderful. Well, it wasn't as if this world had a completely shattered gender ratio of one man to nine women — the population hovered somewhere around six to four, occasionally swinging to six-and-a-half to three-and-a-half. Even so, with numbers like these, dating was brutally difficult for ordinary women.
It was no wonder rental boyfriends and sponsors were all the rage. Wealthy older women took young men on as sponsors, and with everything else piling on top of that, the pool of young men actually available for dating had shrunk to almost nothing. In any case, Kim Jiyeon pulled out a compact mirror and checked her face one more time, giving a final inspection of the pretty version of herself she'd be showing her rental boyfriend today. She'd even considered going to a salon for full professional makeup, but the moment she heard the price, she gave up on the spot. Instead, she'd spent an hour at home doing the very best makeup she was capable of.
The result was a fresh, youthful face — the very picture of a college girl. The makeup was a little lacking, maybe, but it suited her age perfectly.
"Kim Hyunsoo, right...?"
Since she'd already met him once at the convenience store, Kim Jiyeon's expectations were even higher. Would he even remember the face of someone who was nothing more than a convenience store girl? A normal person wouldn't. He wasn't someone she saw regularly, and few people bothered to remember the face of a store clerk they bumped into once in a blue moon.
And so Kim Jiyeon waited for Kim Hyunsoo, bouncing on her heels, running every possible scenario for their date through her head. She was running simulations at full throttle — a web of branching possibilities so intricate it would have put a supercomputer to shame spread out across her mind like a spider's silk.
"Hello there."
A man's voice came from behind her. The moment Kim Jiyeon heard that deep, masculine tone, she nearly melted right there on the spot. When chatting with her friends, she'd heard the joke that a good enough male voice alone could send a woman straight to Hong Kong, and she'd snorted at it — but the saying, it turned out, was true.
Straining to keep her legs from trembling, Kim Jiyeon turned around. There stood Kim Hyunsoo, dressed up neatly for the date. It was exactly the kind of boyfriend look she always saw online — and the fact that she saw it often only meant it was a universally proven style.
"H-hello! I'm looking forward to spending today with you!"
Just as she'd predicted, Kim Hyunsoo didn't remember her face. But it didn't matter. She would simply carve herself into his memory over the course of today's date. She'd booked the six-hour course, and she was confident that was plenty of time to make an impression.
"Feel free to speak comfortably with me. I'll do the same."
"R-really? Okay."
"Just call me Hyunsoo. I'll call you Jiyeon-noona."
"Hehe..."
Beaming, Kim Jiyeon stepped closer to him. Since this was her very first rental boyfriend experience, she just stood there awkwardly, and Kim Hyunsoo, reading the moment, immediately took her hand. Little gestures of consideration like this were exactly what brought clients back to him again and again.
"Ah...!"
The exclamation escaped her the instant their hands touched. His hand was so warm. So this is what a man's hand feels like? Kim Jiyeon couldn't gather her thoughts — it was the first man's hand she'd ever held in her life, and the unfamiliar sensation overwhelmed her. She'd never felt anything so soft and warm.
"It's all soft and squishy..." she murmured under her breath.
Kim Hyunsoo smiled down at her. "Jiyeon-noona, looking forward to our date today."
"Mmhm...!"
Still glowing, she let go of his hand — only to loop her arm through his instead. She'd held his hand, so naturally she got greedy for the next step. Thankfully, Kim Hyunsoo didn't seem to mind at all, and he accepted her arm-in-arm without complaint.
The women passing by were watching her with envious eyes. Kim Jiyeon walked alongside him soaking in those looks, so happy she felt like she might float away. Something she'd only ever imagined was actually happening to her.
"The arcade?"
The first place Kim Jiyeon took him was the arcade. Kim Hyunsoo was surprised by the unexpected choice. While women in this world did love arcades, bringing a boyfriend along carried a certain... awkwardness. It wasn't unheard of for women to come with men, of course — in the original world too, plenty of guys had taken their girlfriends to arcades.
Frankly, it worked out great for Kim Hyunsoo. The arcade games in this world had lost nothing to the rest of the globe, and spending time playing games like this was exactly his kind of fun. Kim Jiyeon, meanwhile, was watching him carefully as she spoke.
"Do you... like the arcade?"
She was clearly testing the waters, having brought him here. If he hated it, she was fully prepared to cut the visit short and leave. Kim Hyunsoo gave her a reassuring smile.
"I love it. And for what it's worth, I'm every bit as good at arcade games as any girl."
"Really?"
"Really."
Kim Jiyeon went to the bill exchanger and traded in a ten-thousand-won note. Five-hundred-won coins came clattering down. Sure enough, even at the arcade, it was the woman who paid. Kim Hyunsoo followed quietly behind her as she scanned the rows of cabinets, apparently looking for games two people could play side by side.
"Let's do this one, Hyunsoo!"
What caught her eye was Tetris — the classic game of fitting standard blocks into complete lines to clear them. A two-player head-to-head setup. Kim Hyunsoo readily agreed; when working as a rental boyfriend, you gave the female client what she wanted. He could always refuse if something crossed a line, of course.
"Yap!"
Kim Jiyeon fed the coins into the machine with a cute little sound effect of her own, and upbeat game music soon rang out. Kim Hyunsoo settled naturally into the seat beside her. She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye — just standing next to him, his scent was so good her mind started to go hazy.
"You know how to play this, right?"
"Of course. I've been to plenty of arcades."
"Yeah? Let's see what you've got, then."
The game began — a competitive match, a battle to see who would fail to clear their blocks first and end up buried to the top. Kim Jiyeon had planned to take it easy at first. In this kind of arcade game, the most important thing was for the woman to lose discreetly, without making it obvious, so the man could enjoy himself. Win too overwhelmingly, and the man tended to lose interest. It was only natural — from a man's perspective, playing a game you barely knew, only to lose at every single turn? Nothing killed the fun faster.
Zip! Zip!
But Kim Jiyeon was quickly forced to abandon that plan. Kim Hyunsoo was stacking Tetris blocks at a terrifying pace. In competitive Tetris, clearing lines sent penalty rows over to your opponent's board, and Kim Jiyeon's screen was filling up with garbage blocks fast.
"Uh, um...?"
Before she could even get a word out, she'd lost. And it wasn't because he'd gone easy on her — Kim Hyunsoo's Tetris skills were anything but ordinary. She realized that what he'd said when they first met was true: his arcade game was genuinely top-tier.
"One more round!"
"It'll be the same result, you know?"
"No holding back this time!"
So she declared boldly — and decided to actually use her real skills. But five minutes later...
"Argh!"
"You're pretty weak, noona."
She'd lost again. At least this time it had been a narrow defeat. With a little more luck — or a little more skill — she might have won, and it stung badly. Kim Jiyeon resolved to play just one more match, completely unaware that Kim Hyunsoo was now letting her win just a little, utterly absorbed in Tetris.
Any thought of deliberately losing had long since vanished. The Kim Jiyeon of this moment was a monster consumed by nothing but the desire to win.