Chapter 3.

The moment she opened her eyes, a skull-splitting hangover crashed over her.

Yiseo half-rolled out of bed and made her way to the living room. She needed to drink something, anything, to deal with the hangover. The sun was already high in the sky, and the afternoon light filled the apartment with brightness.

The old apartment was small but cozy. It was a jeonse with a loan attached, the soundproofing was poor, the floor plan was cramped, and the place was a mess from weekday commutes that left no time to clean up, but the landlord was a good person, the sunlight came in well, and the bus stop was close, so it was decent enough.

She had a vague sense of having had a strange dream last night, but the memory came in scattered fragments, like a film with missing reels. One large bedroom that was full with just a bed and a vanity, one room of piled clothes too embarrassing to call a dressing room, a living room just big enough for one person to lie spread-eagle. At a glance, everything looked the same as yesterday.

“I feel like I saw Senior Taegyeom……”

Yiseo laughed weakly. There was no way Taegyeom would be in her apartment.

She took an electrolyte drink from the refrigerator and poured a full cup. She downed it in one go and set the cup down, and a chill ran down her spine.

“Did I buy electrolyte drinks?”

Come to think of it, the kitchen sink and the table were spotless. Under normal circumstances, both should have been buried in unwashed dishes, snack wrappers, and carelessly torn-open delivery boxes.

Her gaze moved a little further.

The living room was off too. The Bluetooth microphone that had been rolling around on the floor was sitting neatly on a shelf along one wall, and the floor and rug were unreasonably clean. Most notably, there was a tall man sitting on the sofa who she had not seen when she crawled out of the bedroom. More precisely, he appeared to be leaning against the sofa, asleep. Even through the brutal hangover, her mind snapped to attention.

“Senior Taegyeom?”

Yiseo quickly straightened her clothes. Come to think of it, she had woken briefly in the early hours and changed into pajamas half-asleep. She remembered stripping off everything, underwear included, and throwing it on the bedroom floor, but the clothes that should have been shed like a skin were nowhere to be seen.

She hurried to the bathroom and checked the mirror. Her hair was a disaster, and her face was cleaner than expected, but her eye makeup had smeared without being removed and was a mess.

“What is happening right now?”

She put the toilet lid down, sat on it, and dug through her memory with her hands in her hair. Why was Jeong Taegyeom in her apartment. And sitting quietly asleep on the sofa, no less. An android that looked like Jeong Taegyeom was one thing, but him actually being here made no sense.

Wait. The android.

A hazy memory surfaced of using the Jeong Taegyeom CEO android rental voucher while drunk in the early hours of the previous day. Of course. There was no way the real Jeong Taegyeom would show up at her home, so that had to be the android.

“Haaaaaa……”

Yiseo let out a sigh of relief and decided to shower to clear her head. The hangover headache was still there, but that wasn’t the main problem right now.

“……Right, that’s what happened.”

Only after washing up and getting her hair half-dried did she piece together everything that had happened the night before. She had drunk, used the robot rental voucher, and brought the android home. The robot that looked exactly like Jeong Taegyeom had been realistic down to its genitals, like a real person’s, and Yiseo had grabbed it and……

“I’ve lost my mind.”

She grabbed her half-dried hair with both hands.

Did this count as workplace s*xual harassment or misconduct? Assaulting the CEO would obviously mean getting fired on the spot, right? She had already handed in her resignation, so was this actually fine? Fine, nothing. If word got around in the industry, it would be career-ending. Renting an android that looked exactly like the CEO, pulling down its trousers, touching its c*ck, kissing it…… what kind of depraved behavior was that.

“So could I actually do something even worse?”

Was the alcohol still not out of her system. Or had she finally lost her mind. The thought crossed her anyway.

It made a certain kind of sense. The android was designed so that a renter’s personal information couldn’t be leaked to the outside. That included what the renter had done with the robot. When a robot was used in a way that deviated from its intended purpose, such as damaging it or, more commonly than one might expect, ordering a cleaning robot and using it as a s*x toy, a warning message would appear. Nothing like that had happened last night. If anything, the robot had been the proactive one.

The android had said itself that it had every function Atlas Robotics offered, which naturally meant it could be used as a s*x robot. What on earth had Jeong Taegyeom been thinking, lending out a robot like this to employees.

Then again, no matter how capable a robot it was, and no matter how well-built and good-looking Jeong Taegyeom happened to be, there weren’t many people unhinged enough to think of a robot that looked exactly like the CEO as a s*xual object. At most, people would probably enjoy a bit of casual fun and put it to work cleaning, cooking, or running errands.

Yiseo finished drying her hair, put on her pajamas, and came out of the bathroom. Normally she would have wandered around undressed, but the robot outside made that feel awkward. Even if it wasn’t actually Jeong Taegyeom, the robot looked exactly like him.

The laundry basket on top of the washing machine had yesterday’s clothes piled in it. Summer meant thin clothes, but it also meant washing more often. It was some consolation that she had done laundry a few days ago and had something clean to wear. She didn’t want to show any more of her rock bottom to a robot that looked like Jeong Taegyeom.

Yiseo walked over to the sofa. She stood across from the robot and took a moment to look at his face. The dark eyebrows, the deep-set eyes. Below them, the straight bridge of the nose, the firmly closed lips. The sharp jawline her gaze kept drifting back to. His face was even more handsome in the full light of day, with a clear head. Broad shoulders and a tall frame made the suit fit impeccably. Back in the day, people in the robotics department had called him a walking sculpture. There had even been a running joke that a dating robot modeled after him would sell out instantly.

Yiseo tapped his shoulder lightly.

“Hey, robot.”

Oh, that wasn’t right. What had she decided to call him……

“Senior Taegyeom?”

At her call, the robot’s lashes trembled and his eyes opened. A sleep-heavy gaze turned toward her slowly. He blinked a couple of times with a drowsy expression, then curved the corner of his mouth. The pale lips parted.

“……Oh, right.”

The detail was extraordinary. His voice was thick and hoarse, exactly like someone who had just woken up. Yiseo stared for a moment, briefly stupefied.

“This isn’t a robot, it’s a work of art……”

She marveled, genuinely. The robot gave a low laugh at her reaction. Then he stretched lightly, as though his shoulder had stiffened from sleeping against the sofa.

“Anything else you need?”