General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Be My Boyfriend (오늘부터 계약연애)

Be My Boyfriend (오늘부터 계약연애, "Contract Dating Starting Today") is a 2021 South Korean high-teen (Korean genre centered on high-school teens) romance web drama in which an idol trainee, Oh Ji-na, proposes a fake contract relationship to her younger schoolmate Lee Seung-min, a boy with, in the show's own description, zero presence, and the pretense gradually turns into real feelings.¹ It is a spin-off sharing the world of the web drama series 일진에게 찍혔을 때 (whose original work is credited as Day Seven), which had surpassed 150 million cumulative YouTube views by the time the spin-off was announced.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Original title	오늘부터 계약연애 (Be My Boyfriend)
Format	Korean web drama, 15 episodes of roughly 10–12 minutes; some listings count 16¹^•⁴
Broadcast	Naver TV pre-releases from February 25, 2021; YouTube (콬TV) from March 2, 2021, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 p.m.⁴^•³
Production	WHYNOT Media; CP Kim Hyun-ki and Kwon Jun-seok, producer Lee Min-seok, director Lee Si-young, writer Han Song-yi⁴
Lead cast	Lee Si-woo (Oh Ji-na), Shin Hyun-seung (Lee Seung-min), Choi Yu-ju of Cherry Bullet (Seong Han-na), Im Sung-kyun (Gu Hyeong-tak), Kim Byeongkwan of A.C.E (Oh Ba-ul), Jung Bo-min (Joo Min-ji)⁵
Genre	High-teen romance, idol drama, romantic comedy⁶
Reception	9.3/10 on Viki from over 118,000 users; 7.1/10 on IMDb⁶^•⁵

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set at Hwayang High School, the school attended by the characters of the parent series.⁷ Oh Ji-na, played by Lee Si-woo, is the school's most popular third-year student: talented, fashionable, and under contract with a talent agency as a trainee preparing to debut in a "girl crush" (K-pop concept: confident, independent female image)-themed K-pop group.⁷ Lee Seung-min, played by Shin Hyun-seung, is an ordinary junior student who secretly has a crush on her.²

The turning point comes when Ji-na, in order to break up with her ex-boyfriend, asks Seung-min to pretend to be her boyfriend under a contract relationship, with no plan to develop real feelings.⁶^•¹⁴ The arrangement draws scrutiny from those around them, including Ji-na's ex-boyfriend Gu Hyeong-tak, a baseball prodigy, and her friend Seong Han-na, who begin to view Seung-min with disapproval.⁸ As the fake relationship continues, Ji-na's heart softens and the two must decide whether to make the relationship real.⁷

Cast and characters

The script reading, publicized in January 2021 before the COVID-19 distancing level was raised, gathered the main cast: Lee Si-woo as the cold-seeming but outgoing, girl-crush idol trainee Oh Ji-na; Shin Hyun-seung as the cautious, unremarkable Lee Seung-min; Cherry Bullet's Yuju as Seong Han-na, Ji-na's fellow trainee and prickly close friend; Im Sung-kyun as Gu Hyeong-tak; Jung Bo-min as Joo Min-ji; and A.C.E's Kim Byeongkwan as Oh Ba-ul, Seung-min's friend who dreams of becoming a famous influencer.²

Kim Byeongkwan's character became a fan favorite in episodes 5 and 6, where Oh Ba-ul gives blunt romance advice to Ji-na, points out that Seung-min values sincerity, and accidentally reveals that Seung-min's feelings were real from the start, effectively casting himself as Cupid.³

Production and release

The drama was produced by WHYNOT Media, a Seoul web drama studio that lists Be My Boyfriend among its representative works alongside 일진에게 찍혔을 때 and 가두리횟집.⁹ The company operates its own vertical channels, including 콬TV (KolTV), where the series was broadcast.⁹ FNC Entertainment announced Cherry Bullet member Yuju's appearance in the web drama on February 23, 2021.¹⁰

Episodes ran on Naver TV with one episode pre-released ahead of the YouTube schedule, and the series was also distributed through V Live, Facebook, and Instagram.⁴^•³ A music video for CLC's "Another Level", sung by members Seunghee, Seungyeon, and Yeeun, was released as part of the series' soundtrack promotion.¹¹

Reception and distribution

The series found an international audience. In July 2021, WHYNOT Media reported that Be My Boyfriend ranked first among Korean dramas on Japan's AbemaTV streaming service.¹² On Rakuten Viki, where it is cataloged with subtitles in English and more than 33 other languages, it holds a 9.3 rating from over 118,000 users.⁶ IMDb lists a 7.1/10 rating from 665 votes.⁵

The series remains widely available: it streams on Amazon Prime Video, Rakuten Viki, Tubi, OnDemandKorea, and Amasian TV, among other services, and can be purchased on Amazon Video.¹³ A director's cut was later made available on the Korean platform Watcha.⁸

Place in Korean web drama

Be My Boyfriend belongs to the short-form vertical web drama wave built around YouTube channels rather than television networks, with episodes of about 10 to 12 minutes designed for mobile viewing.¹ Its contract-relationship premise, high school setting, and idol-trainee heroine place it in the same trope family as later contract-dating titles, and its spin-off structure, reusing the school and audience of a hit parent series, reflects the franchise-driven production model that WHYNOT Media applied across its catalog.³^•⁹ The final episode, "It was a contract, but real love", aired on April 15, 2021, closing the fake-to-real arc that gives the series its title.¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Korean contemporary drama › Romance and melodrama series › Romance melodrama miniseries › Romantic comedy series › Youth and campus romance series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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