Min-hyun’s finger hovered before the unremarkable doorbell, a fixture almost easy to miss. He pressed it. The sound was a clean, irreversible chime, as if the house had now registered him and was deciding what to do with his presence.

What was he doing here?  What had possessed him to come?

The offer had come from a stranger in a bar—a woman acting as a broker for a client who had, inexplicably, requested him by name.

Too late now. From within, the squeaking sound of rubber-soled shoes on hardwood floor began its approach.

A woman in her fifties opened the door, her expressionless face betraying nothing. Without a word, she gestured Min-hyun inside and led him through a narrow foyer into a study—or what passed for one. 

The furnishings were spare but unmistakably expensive, chosen with the restraint of someone who had once lived in opulence—but had recently been released from it. 

The room, like the house, was shrouded in a thick darkness, broken only by a single weak light. The room was minimalist: a low coffee table and two chairs facing each other, nothing more. The walls were bare, stripped of paintings or memory. On the table sat a single glass of red wine, its deep hue the only color in the shadows. A half empty bottle sat next to it.

The Ajumma nodded toward it. "Drink. You will need it. For her, and for yourself."

Min-hyun heeded the advice. He lifted the glass and drained it in one swift gulp. To his surprise, the wine was not harsh but rich—a harmonious blend of acidity and ripe fruit, smooth and without a single rough edge. Compelled, he uncorked the bottle and poured another generous measure, nearly emptying it. This, too, he dispatched without hesitation.

He was wiping his lips when a movement caught his eye. The Ajumma had slipped back into the room. Her approach had been utterly silent. With a faint smile, she gestured toward a second door at the far wall, so inconspicuous it had vanished into the patterned wallpaper.

She held the door open and nodded for him to enter. The soft click of it closing behind him echoed in the quiet. His heart began to beat wildly, palms slick with sweat as he willed himself forward in timid, baby steps up a private staircase to an enclosed attic suite. His hand trembled on the banister, every step feeling like a deliberate twist of a knife.

The room was dim, so dark he could barely make out the profile of a woman standing by the large bay window. She was dressed in a robe that glowed under the silver light, with a sash tied neatly around her waist. She stared out into the night, a similar wine glass held loosely in her right hand, her left resting across her stomach—not protectively, but with the absent stillness of someone long accustomed to guarding an old wound. She finished the last of her wine and slowly turned to face him.

He could not make out her face; she was a silhouette, backlit by the stark light of the full moon streaming through the window—the room's only illumination. As his eyes adjusted, he discerned her slender build and above-average height. Her shoulder-length hair fell freely, splayed across her shoulders and back.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, her voice firm yet tender.

“You are free to back out now.” She regarded him for a moment longer than necessary.

“I won’t ask again,” she said quietly. “This is not something I intend to repeat.”

Min-hyun’s chest tightened. He couldn't back out—not now. An image flashed in his mind: his mother, frail against the sterile white of her hospital bed. Where else would he find the money for her surgery? Doctor Kim’s words rang like a verdict: Immediate operation. Her life is at risk. Every last of his savings had vanished, spent in a desperate bid to save his business after his partner disappeared, leaving him to face the lawsuit alone.

“I—I’m good to go through with this,” he stammered, the words sounding hollow. “I just need a moment.”

“Take your time,” she said, her voice a calm, unreadable pool.

“No, no… I’m ready,” he replied, the words tumbling out in haste. Better to engage now, before his courage abandoned him entirely. “I would prefer to get this over with as soon as possible.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat and walked toward her with deliberate steps. She placed her empty glass on the nightstand and, as he drew near, she circled her arms around his neck.

Her face was now faintly visible in the gloom, but he avoided looking directly. This is a transaction, he reminded himself. One encounter. No reason to know her. Yet her scent surprised him—a delicate, lavender fragrance that tingled in his senses, at odds with the clinical nature of their arrangement.

He began with a slow kiss, from her lips to the line of her jaw before lingering in the sensitive hollow beneath her ear. A sharp thrill of tension surged through him—a new, electric ache that felt both foreign and deeply right.

She answered in kind, her hands going to his suit jacket, easing it slowly from his broad shoulders. Then, fingers trembling slightly, she began to undo the buttons of his white office shirt. He’d come straight from work, unprepared for any of this. 

When he'd worked himself into a rhythm, he untied her sash and let her robe fall open. She was naked underneath, a fact that caught him off guard—until logic settled in. Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?

She shed the robe with the grace of a seasoned ballerina, and it pooled at her feet, falling so effortlessly it seemed to dissolve at her command. Min-hyun caught his breath. It'd been a while since he'd been with a woman. Her silhouette was a classic hourglass, a gentle curve from shoulder to waist to hip that reminded him of a Joseon dynasty vase—elegant, timeless, and precious.

He reached for her breasts, small but firm, tracing their contours with a touch meant to mimic tenderness. And then, unbidden, memory flooded him: the soft, full weight of A-ra’s breasts in his hands, the warmth of her skin, the three years they'd shared before his life unraveled. Before she decided she couldn’t weather the collapse and left for a man whose world was still standing.

For a moment, his hands stilled. Unshed tears burned behind his eyes. He swallowed them back, hard.

Focus. He was here for a purpose. He had an assignment to fulfill: Love me like my lover and best friend. A performance, for a fee. A fee that would save his mother.

He dismissed the ghost of A-ra and leaned back into the role, resolved to see it through. He scooped her up, laid her gently upon the king-size bed, and began the act as gentlemanly as he could muster.

***

Fresh bills in a strained white envelope sat waiting on the coffee table. Inside, packed to the brim, was fifteen thousand U.S. dollars. The Ajumma gestured to Min-hyun, her tone devoid of judgment. “Yours. As agreed.”

Conflicted and conscience-stricken, he grasped for a justification. I had no choice. His hands shook, not with fear, but with the sudden, crushing weight of what he had done as he shoved the envelope deep into his jacket. The Ajumma saw him out with a polite nod, the heavy door thudding shut behind him. His legs felt like lead, heavy and rebellious. He glanced back once, catching the silhouette of shadows watching him from the upstairs window.

A black sedan sat idling outside the front gate; the arrangement had included a discreet pickup and drop-off, ferrying him from his office to this remote location on the outskirts of Seoul.

He moved in a daze. What just happened? He'd not been with anyone since A-ra. He'd expected the act to be awkward, transactional, a service to be rendered. Instead, he'd found himself lost in it—the tenderness, the passion, a part of himself he thought had gone dormant reawakening in the arms of a stranger. She'd been surprisingly accommodating, yielding to his lead, yet her own emotions had felt raw and unveiled, as if this were both the first and last time she would ever make love. 

He thought he heard muffled weeping—felt a few stray, salty tears on her cheek—but she turned away before he could be sure. With the moment broken, she quietly declared his job fulfilled and dismissed him. Much to his surprise, he found himself wishing she would beg him to stay. 

He was consumed by her. A sharp, unexpected curiosity pierced his detachment. He'd formed a prejudiced opinion of her when he agreed to this arrangement, but that judgment now felt hasty, unfairly tainted. Who was she?

But she had no name. And in the dim light, he'd never truly seen her face. Yet as the sedan pulled away, a terrifying, irrevocable certainty took root: he needed to see it again.

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