Shin Yuna (2)
Shin Yuna's hand was in Kim Hyunsoo's. Granted, she'd held an elderly man's hand before during services or volunteer work, but this was the first time in her life she'd ever held a young man's.
It's so soft...
His hand was softer than anything she could compare it to. And incredibly warm. Sure, someone might say it was summer, so of course it was warm — but even accounting for that, Kim Hyunsoo's hand was warm like a personal hand warmer. It wasn't the unpleasant, sticky kind of heat. Like a hot pack slipped into a pocket on a freezing winter day, it warmed Shin Yuna's hand right through.
"Noona, where would you like to go?"
Kim Hyunsoo gave her a quick scan from head to toe. According to the Boss, this was a client who'd specifically asked for a rookie. Which meant, in other words, a client with little to no dating experience. Of course, no woman who hired a rental boyfriend was likely to have much experience with men to begin with, but this one looked like she had absolutely zero.
Kim Hyunsoo let out a small, deep sigh. Today was going to be a pretty demanding shift. It was now his second week since arriving in this world and working as a rental boyfriend, and up until now, the job had been pure honey. In this world, dates were usually led by the women — the only exception being when the man was the older one.
Which made sense, really. With the genders reversed, this was a world where women naturally took the lead on dates. But today was different. Judging by the state of this client, he would have to take the reins himself.
And on top of that, why was she wearing a mask and oversized sunglasses in the middle of a blazing summer? Was she trying to hide her face? Maybe it was his inexperience, but the strange clients kept coming out of the woodwork. Still, they'd all been pretty and kind enough that the work had never felt like a burden — but today felt like it might be a little different.
"It's awfully hot out. Shall we stop by a café nearby, Noona?"
"Uh... uhm, yeah, let's do that."
Shin Yuna figured she'd need to down something cold at a café if she ever wanted to calm her pounding heart. This was nothing like the men she'd been taught about. Men were supposed to be selfish, ugly, and universally spoiled brats — but looking at Kim Hyunsoo, all of it seemed like nothing but lies.
Kim Hyunsoo was handsome, exceptionally kind, and not the least bit spoiled.
Liars, all of them...
Then again, trusting posts on those kinds of internet sites had never sat right with her in the first place. Shin Yuna walked into the café without letting go of his hand. Entering a café hand-in-hand with a man drew every eye in the room. It was the kind of café where women clustered together in little groups — and it was exactly those stares that gave her strength. The feminine nature sleeping inside her was awakening.
Until now, she'd simply been too flustered to let it show — but it was time to demonstrate the majesty of a Noona. Shin Yuna spoke to Kim Hyunsoo with a completely different air than before, a transformation so abrupt it left Hyunsoo blindsided.
"Hyunsoo-yah, what do you want to drink?"
"Sorry?"
"Go grab a seat upstairs first, I'll bring it up."
"Then I'll have an americano, please."
"Okay, okay."
Receiving the envious stares of her fellow women, Shin Yuna felt strength welling up inside her all on its own. So this is why women date men. Kim Hyunsoo went up to the second floor.
-------------------------------------------------------
One look from the other women and she's a totally different person...
Kim Hyunsoo sipped at his americano through the straw as he watched Shin Yuna. Maybe, like a guy parading his girlfriend around back in the real world, this was just her style — the type whose confidence skyrockets the moment their partner is by their side.
He understood wanting to look good for your date, but he couldn't view an attitude shift like that through kind eyes. People like that tended to cause a lot of problems. Perhaps because they'd snagged a corner table, Shin Yuna pulled off her mask and thick sunglasses — and at the sight of her face, Kim Hyunsoo nearly spat out his americano.
She's gorgeous...?
Sharp, sculpted features that made him wonder why she'd ever bothered hiding them, big expressive eyes, and flowing golden hair — hers was a celebrity-tier face. Beautiful enough to fluster even Kim Hyunsoo, who'd seen more than his share of stunning women over his two weeks on the job.
"Noona, you're seriously pretty. Why do you go around covering your face?"
Flustered by his blunt question, Shin Yuna ran a hand through her long hair before answering.
"Ah, well, I have a job where my face is, um, kind of well known... People recognize me everywhere."
Her face is 'well known' — so she's a celebrity? From where Kim Hyunsoo stood, it was a perfectly convincing reason. With looks like hers, even in this gender-reversed world, she'd rank at the very top of the dating market — the kind of face that could have men eating out of her hand. After all, in his original world, it was the handsome men who got to date as many women as they pleased.
Kim Hyunsoo generally never pried into his clients' identities, but today his curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to dig a little. It wasn't as if they had anything else to do. Normally they'd be watching a movie or running through some other date itinerary, but given the state Shin Yuna was in, neither of them seemed likely to go anywhere.
"Would it be okay to ask what you do for work, Noona? If it's a touchy subject, you don't have to answer — I'm just curious."
"It's— it's not anything illegal!"
"Hmm..."
At the look of suspicion on Kim Hyunsoo's face, Shin Yuna hastily scrambled to explain. Did he seriously think she worked somewhere shady? That gaze was absolutely unacceptable.
"I— I work as a Holy Maiden Candidate, Noona does!"
"A Holy Maiden Candidate?"
"Yeah? You don't know it? I thought you'd have figured it out from the moment we met, but you really didn't, Hyunsoo."
Judging by how she said it, Shin Yuna was apparently quite the famous figure. The problem was that her audience was Kim Hyunsoo himself, who'd been in this world for all of two weeks. He knew less about Korea's affairs here than a foreigner fresh off a plane.
He'd gone to sleep and woken up in a different world — there was no way he'd know its celebrities. The famous people of his original world hadn't been copy-pasted over into this one. The popular figures here were all completely different.
"You really don't know, do you, Hyunsoo?"
Shin Yuna's pride took a hit. This was the famous Holy Maiden Candidate of Seoul's Cheonshin Church he was talking about, and he had no idea who she was... Though in fairness, as a religious figure, the general public could hardly be blamed for not knowing. Most ordinary people didn't even know the name of the Pope, the most famous figure in Christianity. The moment you crossed into a different field, the number of people who recognized you plummeted.
That had only grown worse since the advent of smartphones, in a world where you could see nothing but the information you wanted to see. An easy example: on NewTube, the video-sharing site, there were countless people who'd never heard of a creator with ten million subscribers. Shin Yuna pulled out her phone and showed him a news article.
From the look in his eyes, he seemed to think she worked for a gang or some vaguely illegal outfit — and that crooked assumption needed correcting, right now.
"See? That's my face right there."
Kim Hyunsoo stared at the article she was showing him. Sure enough, there was Shin Yuna's photo, splashed across the news. And this was no obscure mid-tier media outlet, either — it was one of the most prominent news companies in this world.
"So you really are a Holy Maiden Candidate, Noona."
Kim Hyunsoo took her at her word, and at the sight of it, Shin Yuna's face beamed with pride.
"Even though Noona looks like a fresh twenty-year-old, I've got some real pull, you know."
"Haha."
Twenty? At twenty, she was still a baby chick among baby chicks, barely out of the nest — she hadn't even started her working life yet. Twenty in Korea was the age you entered university. Then again, with Kim Hyunsoo himself being nineteen, he was hardly in a position to laugh.
It turned out to be a thoroughly unremarkable date — and from Kim Hyunsoo's perspective, a thoroughly good one. All he had to do was sit in a café and chat with a beautiful woman. Easiest work imaginable.
No toiling away under the blazing sun like day labor. And the pay was far better, too. A part-time job paying fifty thousand won an hour simply didn't exist in this world. Compared to his day labor days, when he'd break his back from dawn to dusk for a hundred thousand won, it almost made him wonder why he'd never done this before.
Granted, back then the world hadn't been gender-reversed, so it hadn't exactly been an option.
"And so, whenever I hold services, these middle-aged ladies—"
"—and you wouldn't BELIEVE how many difficult people there are..."
Shin Yuna clearly had a lot pent up. Gone was the stammering girl from earlier — once the conversation started flowing, the words poured out of her like water from a broken dam, and Kim Hyunsoo found himself with fewer and fewer chances to get a word in.
She was a completely different person from the one he'd first met. Now Shin Yuna was the one driving the conversation, and Kim Hyunsoo diligently played along, chiming in at all the right beats. She seemed to appreciate that, because she emptied out everything she'd been keeping inside.
Kim Hyunsoo found himself thinking that being a Holy Maiden Candidate must be exhausting. It was essentially a religious vocation fused with a customer service job.
And so they sat together in the café, talking the afternoon away until the date clock ran out.