Chapter 1

The road was nearly empty. Well, not completely— there were a few headlights that would pass by her now and then—but it was quiet enough for Yujin to feel like she was the only one on the road.

No radio. No phone. Just driving.

A folder slides down from the passenger seat, scattering on the floor. She quickly glanced at the papers, then let out a tired groan, clearly showing that she couldn’t be bothered. She just wanted to get to her apartment. Take a long shower. Watch Singles’ Inferno or Emily in Paris. And probably cry herself to sleep.

The red light stopped her. And her mind catches up.

“You present yourself well. But we’re looking for something more… defined.”

She scoffed. “Defined? The hell does that mean?” Her fingers tap the wheel. Stop.

The light’s green. She doesn’t move. A honk behind her. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. Gosh.” She rolled her eyes.

She drove. But the moment sticks. Polite, measured but pretentious comments. Almost as if they’d already made their choice.

Her grip tightened, then loosened. “I answered everything. What more do they want?”

No answer. Just the engine.

Suddenly, the dashboard flickered. “…The hell?” The engine stuttered. “No—come on.” The car jerks. Warning light on. Then the engine cuts.

Silence. She restarted the engine. Nothing.

“You’ve got to be joking.” She tried again. Still nothing. “Oh, ain't this fan-fucking-static.”

She stepped out of the car into the night. She shivered, hugging herself. It was colder than expected. 

“Empty road. No signal. No help,” she muttered, rubbing her shoulders. “Perfect set up for a horror movie.”

Then—a faint light. A building. Not close, but not impossible.

Relief loosened in her chest.

She grabbed her bag. Then the folder. Locked the car. Walks.

The sign flickers: HOTEL

“…Yeah. That’ll do.”

The front desk was occupied by a man who looked at her as if he had known she was coming. She hesitated for half a second, then pushed past it.

"Hi. Do you have any rooms available?" she asked, adjusting her bag on her shoulder.

He smiled easily. "Of course." No checking a system. No hesitation. Just an immediate, unsettling certainty. “How long is your stay?”

"Just for the night," she added quickly. “I’ll take the cheapest room you've got.”

He nodded, slid a small handwritten card across the counter—room numbers and prices, oddly varied. Some were higher than expected. Some lower. She was too exhausted to question it.

He handed her an actual key, heavy and cool in her palm. "Room 27. Second floor."

"Thanks."

"Enjoy your stay."

Something about the way he said it almost made her pause. Almost. But she was too tired to care.

“Don’t think too much about it, Yujin. All you need is some shut-eye, and you’ll be out of this place by tomorrow.”

The hallway was quieter than the lobby—carpeted floors muffling her steps, soft lighting guiding her down the corridor. It felt intimate. Too intimate for a roadside place. She passed a closed door, then another. From somewhere down the hall came a faint, low, brief moan, then nothing.

She slowed. Listened.

Silence. Then a woman screamed, “Yes, right there!”

"...Great. Now I have to deal with noisy neighbours. Please universe. Give me more headaches," she muttered to herself, and kept walking.

Room 27. The key turned smoothly in the lock—too smoothly. She stepped inside without thinking, already reaching for the light, already expecting nothing but an empty room and a bed.

But then she found a man lying on the bed. He looked up at her with a smirk.

"Why, hey there, sweetheart," he purred.

She froze, her hand hovering over the light switch. For a second, she just stared at him, confused and disoriented, almost as if she were in a trance. Then she blinked, snapping back to reality, and quickly looked around the room, taking in the situation.

The man on the bed. The smirk on his face.

"Who are you?" she asked guardedly, her voice low but sharp.

"Who am I?" He repeated, stretching the words out like he was enjoying them. "Well… I can be anything you want me to be, sweetheart." He rose from the bed and started walking toward her, slow and easy.

She wasted no time and quickly pulled her taser from her bag. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Okay. That escalated quickly." He backed up immediately, raising both hands in surrender.

"Answer my question," she said firmly, the taser notching up slightly. "Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?" She had dealt with enough strange things today without adding a mysterious man in her hotel room to the list. "And how did you get into my room?" she added, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"Okay, first, you might wanna put that thing down. It looks like it can put me out of commission. Unless you're into that kind of stuff. No shame in that—"

Zap!

"Gah! Okay." He jolted, stumbling back a step. "Message received."

"Start talking," she demanded, the taser still raised. 

She wasn't in the mood for games or flirtations. All she wanted was answers and to get this man out of her room. Her finger hovered over the trigger, ready to zap him again if he didn't cooperate.

"You booked for a session, right?" he asked, rubbing his arm where the taser had hit.

She blinked, thrown off by the question. "What are you talking about? I just booked a room for the night."

"Wait, did you think this was a hotel?" He tilted his head, looking genuinely amused now.

She blinked rapidly, confusion replacing the anger on her face. "Yes. The sign outside said so," She lowered the taser slightly but kept it ready just in case this turned out to be some kind of trick.

"Ohhhhh! I see." He chuckled, relaxing his shoulders. "Yeah, this is not a hotel."

"What?" she asked, her confusion growing with each passing second. 

She was exhausted and just wanted some sleep, but now she had a man in her room who was talking about sessions and laughing at her confusion. It was all very surreal and frustrating.

"I think there's been a mix-up. It's our bad. I did tell these motherfu0ckers to change the damn sign to avoid situations like this," he muttered, annoyed, running a hand through his hair.

"A mix-up?" Her voice rose slightly in disbelief. "What the hell is this place then? You're saying that sign outside is misleading?"

"Well, yes and no. This place was previously a hotel. But the owner bought it and turned it into a brothel."

Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. The taser dropped slightly as she processed this information. "A… brothel?" She repeated the word, her voice barely above a whisper. The weight of it hung in the air between them. "You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Wish I was.”

“So, you're telling me I just walked into a fucking whorehouse?"

"Yeah. Pretty much." He shrugged like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Again, it's our bad. Our owner thought to keep the sign to 'keep the vibe and aesthetic,' whatever the fuck that means." He rolled his eyes dramatically.

She stared at him, her mouth opening and closing like she wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. The exhaustion, the confusion, the absurdity of it all—it pressed down on her all at once. She had come here looking for a quiet place to sleep off the worst day of her life, and instead, she had stumbled into a brothel and tased one of its workers.

"I…" She stopped. Took a breath. Then another. "I need to sit down."

Without waiting for his permission, she walked past him and sank onto the edge of the bed, the taser finally lowering to her lap. The man watched her, still rubbing his arm, but the smirk had softened into something almost sympathetic.

"Rough night?" he asked quietly.

“Something like that,” she answered. “I just wanted some sleep. And now this?”

"Must have given you quite the fright, huh?"

“A fright?" She lets out a disbelieving laugh, the tension draining from her shoulders as relief washes over her. "You didn't exactly help when you jumped out at me with that smirk on your face."

"Whaaaaat? My smirk is quite charming. My clients say so."

She snorted. "Your clients are probably just glad to see a friendly face before they get fucked." The words left her mouth before she could filter them, and she instantly felt a bit bad for being so blunt—but fuck, this whole situation was ridiculous. "Wait… so are you a prostitute?"

"I prefer escort, but sure. That works," he shrugged. "I also do some bartending around here, too."

She blinks rapidly, taking in this information. "Wait—so you’re an escort… who also bartends? And I just tased a guy who works here.”

“Well… if it helps, you’re not the first to have gotten in this predicament."

She ran a hand through her hair, trying to process the absurdity of it all. "And what am I supposed to do now? I don't want sex. I just wanted a damn room for the night." She looked around the room as if expecting another bed to magically appear.

"Well, sadly, I can't leave until my session with you is over. Company policy. But I won't do anything you don't want me to. I swear on my grandma's ashes,” he raised his hand and crossed his heart.

She stares at him incredulously. "So I'm stuck in a brothel with an escort until my 'session' with you is over? How long will that be?”

“Well, since you’re going to be here for the night. Probably tomorrow.”

“Great, that's just great." She throws her arms up in frustration, feeling utterly trapped and helpless. She feels completely drained by the sheer absurdity of the night.

"Okay. Okay, let's establish ground rules then." She pointed the taser at him again, just to be clear. "No touching. No suggestive comments. No weird shit. We just sit here until the session is over."

"Cool. I'll take the couch."

She watches as he moves to the couch, settling in comfortably. She feels a strange sense of relief that he's taking this so calmly-no arguments, no attempts to seduce her or anything.

"What's your name?" She asks after a moment of silence. Since she's going to be stuck here with him until the next morning, she might as well know the name of the escort she's rooming with. "And how old are you? You look young.”

“I'm Jiung. But friends call me Jiji. I'm 27 years old. Nice to meet ya."

"Jiji," she repeats, testing the name out. It's oddly endearing. She sets the taser down on the nightstand, finally feeling safe enough to relax a bit. "I'm Yujin. And I'm 23.

This is so fucking weird.

"So what brings you here?" Jiji asked.

She sighed heavily, her turning to her side, facing him. "I just got back from a job interview. Said I wasn’t ‘defined’ enough. Then my car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and I see this place, thinking it was just a hotel."

He chuckled. "What was the job interview for?"

"Copywriting," she answers, still staring at the ceiling. "I've been freelancing for the past year, but my last client stiffed me on payment, and now I'm completely broke," She lets out a bitter laugh.

"Damn, mama. That sucks."

"Yeah, it does." She shifted slightly, turning her head to look at him on the couch as she pulled her knees to her chest, finding herself oddly comfortable talking to this stranger—this honestly good-looking stranger—about her shitty life circumstances. "What about you? How does one end up here?"

"Nothing dramatic. Just something I do on the side that happens to pay." He shrugged.

"Right, because being an escort is just a 'side job'." She couldn't help the sarcastic edge to her tone. "Do you like it? The work, I mean." She watched his expression closely, genuinely curious despite the strange situation.

"Well, yeah. I like people. And I like being what they need in the moment.”

She blinked, taken aback by his nonchalant response. She had half expected him to say something like "It's just a job" or "It pays the bills" or even "I have a lot of debt to my name." But his answer was honest and surprisingly positive. "So… you actually enjoy having sex with strangers?" she asked curiously.

"That's part of it. I like giving pleasure. Making them feel good," he stated. "But I tend to enjoy being an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on, or even just being company and giving them the boyfriend experience without sex involved. And interestingly, those are my usual clients."

She studied him for a moment, trying to read between the lines of his easy smile. There was no defensiveness in his tone, no shame weighing down his shoulders. Just a simple, matter-of-fact comfort with who he was and what he did. She wasn't sure if she found it admirable or unsettling.

"The boyfriend experience," she repeated slowly, testing the phrase on her tongue. "What does that even mean? Pretending to care about someone's day? Laughing at their bad jokes? Falling asleep next to them and leaving before breakfast?"

"Whatever they need it to mean," he replied simply. "Sometimes that's exactly it. Sometimes it's just holding hands and watching a movie in silence. Sometimes it's letting someone pretend, just for a few hours, that they aren't alone or to forget."

She looked away, something in his words hitting a little too close to a truth she didn't want to examine. Her fingers found the edge of her sleeve and tugged at a loose thread. "There are better ways of doing all of that without paying someone to give a shit about you. It’s kinda sad if you ask me.”

"Is it though?" He tilted his head, his tone an octave high. "Or is it just honest? Everyone pretends. It’s just that people just aren't upfront about the transaction. At least when you’re paying for said transaction, you know what you’re in for and have some level of control."

She didn't have an answer for that.

“But isn’t it weird knowing these people’s deepest secrets?” She asked.

“It all depends on what they’re willing to share. But also, I love gossip. I’ve heard the juiciest tea from most of my clients.

She snorted. “Really? Gossip? That’s all you care about.”

“Come on! It gets boring around here. Plus, you can’t just offer me tea and expect me not to drink,” he grinned.

“What if the tea is poisonous?”

“Then I’ll die a happy man.”

They both laughed

She paused, thinking how to phrase her next question without sounding completely bizarre. "If I… hypothetically… needed something like that? Not sex, just someone to talk to? Would that be something you could… do?" Her cheeks went a bit pink as she realised how that must sound when directed at a brothel employee. "I mean, as part of the 'session'?"

"Of course. I can be whatever you want me to be," he replied.

She swallowed hard, processing his response. The way he phrased it—"whatever you want me to be"—it came out sounding almost sweet, almost genuine. Not like the usual line a man would use to try to get into her pants. "So if I just wanted to talk…"

"Then talk. I'm all ears. I could make you some tea, too, if you want."

A small, genuine smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She hadn't expected kindness from someone in this situation. "Tea sounds nice," she admitted softly. She pulled her knees up to her chest again, wrapping her arms around them protectively. "Can I… can I talk about anything?"

"Whatever you want. You're in charge."