Chapter 1

"Babe, will you marry me?"

"Oh my! Darling!"

"A world without you is like diving 7,000 meters under the sea without an oxygen tank, or being abandoned at a space station without an air tank. You are my oxygen, my air!"

"Oh, how romantic!"

"And the two share a kiss."

PD Jang, who had been reading the script while alternating between the male and female roles, barely suppressed his rising anger and wiped his face with his dry hands.

Watching him, Bo Bae hung her head low and let out a soft sigh, looking like a criminal.

It seemed this script was a failure too. Haa... I’ve been preparing this for almost a year...

"Writer Na, if you were a woman hearing this kind of confession from a man, would you want to marry him?"

"I think it’s not a bad proposal. It expresses the male protagonist's desperate feeling that he absolutely cannot live without the female protagonist by comparing her to air. Air is the most important thing to a human, so it shows how desperate his love is..."

"Haa. Writer Na!"

At PD Jang's ominous call, Bo Bae looked up at him with a face devoid of confidence.

"Have you never dated before?"

"Pardon...?"

"Why do you have no sense for this, like someone who’s never been in a relationship!"

"..."

"Is love logic? Is love some kind of mathematical formula!"

Finally, PD Jang’s voice, laced with irritation, thundered through the meeting room.

"You know I like you, right, Writer Na?"

She knew. How could she not?

Five years ago, Bo Bae debuted as a drama writer after winning the Grand Prize in the HBS Drama One-Act Play Contest.

She was the envy of all the friends she studied with, and in her hometown, they even hung banners in every neighborhood.

She had heard it takes a long time for a contest-winning script to be produced into a drama, but that wasn't the case for Bo Bae. Thanks to PD Jang sitting in front of her, Bo Bae's script was quickly made into a drama, and for a one-act play, it received quite high viewership ratings along with being praised as a "well-made" production.

However, that was where the brilliant glory ended.

Since then, Bo Bae had been relegated to a writer with only the title, without a follow-up project.

It wasn't that she didn't try. She sat at her desk and pounded the keyboard until she felt miserable, and she ran around doing research until she developed heel pain.

But all that returned to her were PD Jang's deep sighs and rejection comments.

"Everything else is fine. Your writing is still good and the subject matter is unique. It’s all great, but when I look at your script, my heart doesn't race. My heart!"

Again! Again! Is that guy's heart made of Adamantium? Why doesn't his heart ever race!

"This is a romance. The heart should flutter, and receiving a proposal should make it skip a beat, but this... what is this, an engineering student's thesis? 7,000 meters under the sea? A space station? Is your dream undersea exploration? Are you a budding astronaut? Ugh, how frustrating!"

PD Jang thumped his chest as if he were suffocating. In fact, the most frustrated person right now is Bo Bae.

"In a script by a writer who supposedly wrote a romance, why is there no excitement? No fluttering!"

That's what I am saying. Romance is the hardest thing in the world.

"And what’s with this kiss scene? No matter how professional they are, would the actors feel anything looking at this? Anything! Other writers are becoming masters of kissing with cappuccino kisses, candy kisses, and even underwater kisses! But you just write, 'And the two shared a kiss?' If people saw this, they’d say this writer must have written this script without ever having kissed anyone."

Quite the psychic. You might as well open a fortunetelling shop.

"But that’s not it, right? You’ve kissed before, haven't you?"

"O-Of course. I have. I’ve done it a lot. I’m a master of kissing. Haha."

As Bo Bae laughed awkwardly, PD Jang let out a deep sigh and called her in a serious voice.

"Writer Na."

"Yes."

"Haven't you been on a break from dating for too long?"

A break? I haven't even been able to start.

"Don't just sit at home writing, go out and meet some men. Date a little, kiss a little, okay? You need to have a lot of experience to produce good writing."

"Yes..."

"Hang in there, and bring me the revised script. You know, the Director still has high expectations for you."

"Thank you, as always. For putting up with my boring scripts."

"It's fun. It's just that the romance is a little...no, a lot...lacking. Try to spice up the romance more. Write a really steamy kiss scene, too. If you do that, one day you'll hit the jack...ow, that stings!"

PD Jang, who had been patting Bo Bae’s shoulder to encourage her, pulled his hand back and grimaced as if he’d been hit by static electricity.

"Geez, that really stung. I've felt this before, but it's like electricity is flowing through your body. Why does it sting every time I touch you?"

"Haha. That’s impossible."

"No, really. Every time I touch you, I get hit by static particularly often. And it’s incredibly sharp, too."

Bo Bae gave an awkward smile at PD Jang’s remark.

"Anyway. Keep my words in mind. If you're a romance writer, you should be able to write a kiss scene that’ll blow everyone's minds, right?"

"Yes."

Once PD Jang left, Bobae let out a heavy sigh.

"Dammit. It’s not like I can kiss all by myself."

~~~~

After leaving the meeting room, Bo Bae headed straight for the restroom. Her stomach had been cramping since yesterday..likely due to stress.

Sitting on the toilet, she habitually turned on her phone and began skimming through entertainment news. As her fingers tapped through the rapidly passing headlines, the face of an actor she liked popped up.

"Oh? Actor Oh Leo is starting a new drama."

There was an article stating that Oh Leo, an actor she desperately wanted to work with before she died, was joining a new project. Bo Bae quickly moved her fingers to search for the drama he was starring in.

"Ah... it's Joo Hee's work."

It was a drama written by Joo Hee, someone she used to study with. Seeing Joo Hee's face proudly displayed on the portal site with a profile picture made her mouth feel bitter for some reason.

"Haa, when will I ever get to work with Actor Oh?"

Just as she let out a long, deep sigh, her phone shut down with a weak notification sound.

"What? Is the battery dead?"

She had rushed out without charging her low battery, but she didn't expect it to give up like this. Bo Bae placed her phone on top of the toilet paper holder and strained her lower abdomen.

"Ugh, why does it hurt so much when nothing's even coming out?"

While she was grunting and giving it one last push, the light went out with a click, plunging the restroom into pitch darkness.

"What? Who turned off the light? Hey! There's someone in here! Please turn the light back on! Is anyone there?"

She called out loudly, but no one answered. It was a predicament. The windowless restroom was so dark she couldn't see an inch in front of her, and she still had unfinished business to take care of.

"Why did the battery have to die at a time like this?"

Bo Bae fumbled over the paper holder and grabbed her phone. She pressed the power button just in case, but the phone showed no sign of turning on. It seemed the battery was completely drained, with not even 1% remaining.

"Haa, I guess I have no choice."

Bo Bae gripped the phone tightly in both hands and closed her eyes. As she focused her mind as hard as she could, a flash appeared around her heart. The flickering light gradually grew larger, traveling down her hands and into the phone.

When Bo Bae opened her eyes and pressed the power button, the dead phone actually turned on. Not only did it turn on, but the battery was now charged to 21%!

Seeing this, Bo Bae let out a short sigh.

"Haa, this is exactly why I can't date."

In truth, Bo Bae possessed a special ability she couldn't tell anyone about. An unknown current of electricity is flowing through her body. If others heard about it, they might ask if it wasn't a great ability to have, but they didn't understand the reality.

The problem was that she couldn't control this power at her will. Since she could charge devices to some extent, it was certainly a useful skill then. However, the problem arose whenever she came into contact with a person.

Relying on her phone's flashlight, Bo Bae finished up and left the restroom. After returning her visitor's pass and collecting her ID, she stepped into the hallway and saw a crowd of people moving back and forth in the lobby.

But.

"Why is it nothing but men?"

She had heard a famous girl group was having their comeback stage today. It seemed the fan club had arrived. Seeing over a hundred men, Bo Bae sighed deeply, took out leather gloves and a thick muffler from her bag, and wrapped herself up. It was a look that didn't suit the summer at all, but it was Bo Bae’s final consideration to protect those men.

"Phew. Shall we head out?"

Bo Bae clenched her fists and took her steps carefully.

When Bo Bae’s body touches a machine, there's no major issue, but when she touches a person, it’s a different story. The funny thing is, women are fine. No matter how much she holds hands, puts her arm around their shoulders, hugs, or kisses them on the cheek, there's no problem at all.

The problem is men.

"Ow, that stings!"

"I'm sorry!"

Unlike women, a man creates static electricity with even the slightest contact.

"Excuse me. Passing through."

"Ah, that hurts! Why is there so much static when it's not even winter?"

"Ouch!"

"Aaaaaagh! It stings!"

"Ow! That hurts!"

"I told you to move! You'll get hurt if you touch me! Way! Way! Get back!"

The more frequent the contact and the larger the surface area touched, the more severe the shock the man receives. In extreme cases, it could even be life-threatening. Of course, nothing happens to Bo Bae’s body. It’s just that the man feels a very, very, extremely intense amount of pain.

"Phew. I barely made it out."

After passing the crowd of fans, Bo Bae let out a sigh of relief and took off her gloves and muffler.

Since when has she been like this? She doesn't really know. Seeing a photo of her holding hands with a boy when she was little, she must have been fine back then, but she has no idea why things turned out this way.

Perhaps because she went to an all-girls middle and high school, it wasn't that inconvenient when she was younger. The only discomfort was not being able to hold her father's hand.

The trouble started in university. Once she found a guy she liked and started dating seriously, Bo Bae began to resent her own body. If she was going to get an ability, it should have been something helpful for her love life.

"What's the point of an electrical ability that helps 0% with dating!"

Thanks to this ridiculous ability, Bo Bae had never been in a proper relationship with a man. In a relationship, you're supposed to hold hands, kiss, and do deeper things, but she couldn't do any of it. She could only stare at men like they were paintings behind an exhibition barrier.

What? Try Platonic love? You do that. Go right ahead. Do it for the rest of your life. I like Eros!

"Haa. I can't even brush against a man, let alone kissing, so how am I supposed to write a kiss scene?"