In June of 2018, 35-year-old Shoji Morimoto posted on Twitter offering one simple service: he will do nothing, for a fee. Any and all requests are fair game—seeing you off when moving, sharing a soda with you, being present alongside you when submitting divorce papers, joining you at a baseball game—so long as it conforms to his one and only requirement that he “do nothing.” Since then, Morimoto has been hired by over 4,000 patrons across Japan, officially rebranding himself as Rental Person.

Rental Person's clients are often desperate, their requests funny, poignant, mysterious and baffling—but never short of fascinating. For a person who follows a path that seems to run contrary to conventional success, why do so many find him so necessary?