RM 01

Chapter 1

“Why don’t you stop playing hard to get and just date me?”

“What?”

At Bobae’s provocative words, Horang’s eyebrows twitched.

“If Mr. Baek Horang just says okay, I’ll let you live. So let’s do it—let’s date.”

He had never met a woman so aggressive in his entire life. It wasn’t that women hadn’t approached him before; they had, but usually with shy confessions or subtle, sexy provocations. He had never encountered a woman who pushed forward with such wild, untamed momentum.

Watching Bobae charge ahead without looking left or right, Horang thought to himself: This woman is serious. If that was the case, he needed to meet her sincerity head-on.

Horang stood up from the sofa and slowly walked toward her.

Step by step. Very slowly.

“Can you handle it?”

“H-handle what?”

The playful mood instantly turned thick and heavy, causing a nervous Bobae to stutter.

“Because once I start something, I’m the type to see it through to the very end.”

“The, the end?”

There was no such thing as “moderation” in Baek Horang’s life. Come hell or high water, whatever he started, he had to finish. He had never dated past the age of thirty, so he didn’t know where the end of a relationship led, but Horang was certain of one thing.

“Once I start, I’m not going to just hold hands and call it a day, you know.”

Because Horang had stepped in so close, his thigh brushed against Bobae’s knee. Startled, Bobae scrambled up onto the bed to get away from him, but Horang didn’t stop; he kept advancing toward her, growling low like a tiger with delicious prey right in front of it.

“Still think you’ll be okay?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Just moments ago, Bobae had been the one provoking him to the fullest, but the situation had flipped 180 degrees. Bobae was running away, and Horang was hunting her down.

“You’re the one who said let’s date.”

“W-well, yeah?”

Panicked as Horang closed the distance, Bobae lost her balance and fell backward. But before she could even feel the soft texture of the mattress, Horang prowled up over her body.

“We’re not kids anymore.”

Against Bobae’s wide, trembling eyes—shaking as if an earthquake had struck—the face of a hungry predator was reflected. Yet Horang didn’t care; he leaned in even closer to her.

Horang’s body overlapped on top of Bobae’s. Pushing in right between her two legs, he felt incredibly large and solid.

Having never had such an intimate, suggestive contact with a man before, Bobae’s heart hammered beyond what she could handle. Her entire body flushed hot as if a ball of fire had ignited inside her, and she couldn’t even breathe.

Just as she was barely managing to shake off the tremors by clutching the blanket with fragile hands, his hot breath settled against the shell of her ear.

“No matter if it’s a contract relationship, though……”

When Bobae looked up at him with trembling eyes, he smiled and continued.

“If we’re adults, shouldn’t we act like adults and have an adult relationship?”

The words flowing from Horang’s mouth sent an electric thrill rushing through her entire body. And it made her wonder: Just what kind of man is he, to make me thrill like this?

Baek Horang. The only man in the world she could touch.

The moment she first met him, Bobae had made up her mind.

I’m going to make this man mine.

A few days ago.

“Darling, will you marry me?”

“Oh my! Darling!”

“A world without you is like plunging 7,000 meters under the sea without an oxygen tank, like being abandoned on a space station without an air supply. You are my oxygen, my air!”

“Oh, how romantic.”

“And the two characters kiss.”

Alternating between the male and female roles, Director Jang barely suppressed his boiling rage as he rubbed his face roughly with his dry hands.

Watching him, Bobae lowered her head deep and let out a low sigh, looking like a criminal awaiting sentencing.

Looks like this script was ruined, too. Sigh. And she had prepared for it for almost a year…

“Na-jakka. If you were a man and heard a confession like this, would you want to get married?”

“I think it’s not a bad proposal. It expresses the male lead’s desperate heart—that he absolutely cannot live without the female lead—by comparing her to air. Air is the most important thing to a person, so it conveys a love that is just that desperate—”

“Hoo. Na-jakka!”

At Director Jang’s ominous call, Bobae looked up at him with a losing-her-confidence face.

“Have you ever dated?”

“Wh-what?”

“Why are you so out of touch, like someone who has never been in a single relationship in their life!”

“……”

“Is love logic? Is love a mathematical formula?!”

In the end, Director Jang’s annoyed voice reverberated loudly through the meeting room.

“You know I like your writing, right?”

She knew. How could she not know?

Five years ago, Bobae debuted as a drama writer after winning the grand prize in the HBS drama one-act contest.

She received the full envy of her studying peers, and back in her hometown, every neighborhood even hung celebratory banners.

She had heard that even after winning a contest, getting a drama produced took a long time, but not for Bobae. Thanks to Director Jang sitting right in front of her, her script was quickly turned into a drama, earning fairly high viewership ratings for a one-act show along with praise as a well-made piece.

But that brilliant glory stopped right there.

Ever since then, Bobae had degenerated into a writer with only the title of a drama writer and no follow-up works.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She had sat at her desk typing away until she got hemorrhoids, and pounded the pavement doing research until she developed plantar fasciitis.

Yet all that ever came back to her were Director Jang’s deep sighs and words of rejection.

“Everything is fine. You still write well and your subjects are unique. It’s all good, but whenever I look at Na-jakka’s scripts, my heart doesn’t race—my heart!”

Here it goes again. Again! Was that guy’s heart made of adamantium? Why did his heart never race?

“This is a romance. The heart should flutter, and getting a proposal should make your heart skip a beat, but what is this? It’s not a romance; it’s an engineering student’s thesis! 7,000 meters under the sea? A space station? Is your dream deep-sea exploration? Are you an astronaut-in-training?! Ugh, frustrating!”

Director Jang thumped his chest as if he were suffocating. In reality, the person most suffocated right now was Bobae.

“Why is there no fluttering excitement in the script of a writer who wants to write romance? No flutter!”

You tell me. Romance was the hardest thing in the world.

“And what is this kiss scene? No matter if it’s just a stage direction, do you think actors are going to feel the vibe from reading this? The vibe! Other writers are becoming masters of kissing with cappuccino kisses, candy kisses, and underwater kisses! And all you wrote is ‘And the two kissed’? Oh boy. Na-jakka, if other people saw this, they’d say, ‘This writer must have written a script without ever having a single kiss in her life.’”

You’re quite the clairvoyant. You should go set up a fortune-teller’s mat.

“That’s not true. You’ve kissed before, right?”

“Y-yes, of course. I have. A lot. I’m a master of kissing. Haha.”

As Bobae gave an awkward laugh, Director Jang let out a deep sigh and called her name in a serious tone.

“Na-jakka.”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t you been taking too long of a break from dating?”

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

“Instead of sitting at home just writing, go outside and meet some men. Go on some dates, have some kisses, huh? You need plenty of experiences for good writing to come out.”

“Yeees……”

“Cheer up. Bring it back when you’ve revised the script. Still, the bureau director has high expectations for you.”

“Always thank you for looking over a boring script.”

“It’s interesting. It’s just that the romance is a little—no, a lot—lacking. Figure out a way to bring out the romance more. Write the kiss scene a bit more intensely. Then someday, Na-jakka will hit it big— Ah, it stings!”

Tapping Bobae on the shoulder to encourage her, Director Jang winced and pulled his hand back, as if static electricity had sparked.

“Ah, that really stings. I’ve felt this for a while now, but it’s like electricity flows through Na-jakka’s body. Why does it sting every time we touch?”

“Haha. No way.”

“No, seriously. Whenever I touch Na-jakka, static electricity happens unusually often. And it stings like crazy.”

At Director Jang’s words, Bobae managed an awkward smile.

“Anyway. Keep what I said in mind. If you’re a romance writer, you need to know how to write a mind-blowing kiss scene, okay?”

“Yes.”

Once Director Jang left, Bobae let out a deep sigh.

My foot. Do I kiss by myself or something?

Leaving the meeting room, Bobae headed straight for the restroom. Why had her lower abdomen been cramping since yesterday? It was definitely because of stress.

Sitting on the toilet, Bobae habitually pulled out her phone and began browsing entertainment news. As her fingers tapped across the rapidly passing article headlines, the face of an actor she usually liked popped up.

“Oh? Actor Oh Re-o is doing a new drama.”

It was a news piece stating that Oh Re-o—an actor she desperately wanted to work with before she died—was joining a new drama. Bobae quickly moved her fingers to search for the drama he was joining.

“Ah…… It’s Joo-hee’s work.”

It was a drama written by Joo-hee, with whom she used to study in a writers’ circle. Seeing Joo-hee’s face proudly displayed with a photo on the portal site, Bobae suddenly felt a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Sigh. When will I ever get to work with actor Oh?”

As she let out a long, heavy sigh, her phone powered down with a weak notification sound.

“What? Did the battery die?”

She had rushed out in such a hurry that she hadn’t managed to charge her already-low battery, but for it to die right now…

Bobae placed her phone on the toilet paper holder and strained her lower abdomen.

“Ugh, why does my stomach hurt so much when nothing’s even coming out?”

As she groaned and pushed with all her might, with a click, the lights went out and the restroom plunged into pitch darkness.

“What? Did someone turn off the lights? Hello! There’s someone inside. Please turn the lights back on. Is anyone out there?”

She called out loudly, but no one answered.

This was a disaster. 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 right now of all times?”

Bobae groped the top of the toilet paper holder, found her phone, and picked it up. Just in case, she pressed the power button, but the phone showed no signs of turning on. It seemed to be completely dead, with not even 1% battery left.

“Sigh. No choice, then.”

Bobae held the phone tightly in both hands and closed her eyes.

Concentrating as hard as she could, a faint glow flickered around Bobae’s heart. The glowing light gradually grew larger, traveling down her hands and transferring into the phone.

When Bobae opened her eyes and pressed the phone’s power button, the dead phone flickered to life. The phone battery, which hadn’t even been able to turn on, was even charged to 21%!

Seeing that, Bobae let out a short sigh.

“Ha. And people wonder how I’m supposed to date.”

Bobae actually had a special ability she couldn’t tell anyone about.

Namely, that a mysterious electricity flowed through her body.

People might hear that and ask if it wasn’t a great power, but they didn’t know a thing.

The problem was that this ability didn’t work the way she wanted it to. She could charge machinery to some extent, so at times like that, it was undoubtedly a useful power. But touching people was the real issue.

Lighting her way with the phone’s flashlight, Bobae finished wiping up and left the restroom. After returning her visitor pass, collecting her ID, and stepping outside, she saw a huge crowd of people moving back and forth in the lobby.

And—

“Why are they all guys?”

She had heard there was a comeback stage for a famous girl group today, so it looked like fans had turned out in droves.

Seeing over a hundred men, Bobae sighed deeply, reached into her bag, and pulled out leather gloves and a thick scarf, wrapping them around herself. It was an outfit completely unsuited for summer, but it was Bobae’s final act of consideration to protect the men.

“Whew. Shall we depart?”

Clenching both fists, Bobae carefully took a step forward.

Bobae’s body had no issues when touching machines, but when touching people, it was a whole different story.

The funny thing was, women were fine. No matter how much she held hands with a woman, linked arms, hugged, or kissed cheeks, there was zero problem.

The problem was men.

“Ow, that stung!”

“Sorry!”

Unlike women, men generated static electricity from even the slightest contact.

“Excuse me. Let me through, please.”

“Yikes, ouch! What kind of static electricity is this when it’s not even winter?”

“Ouch!”

“Gyaaaah! It stings!”

“Ah! It hurts!”

“Will you move? If you touch me, you’re gonna get hurt! Shoo! Shoo! Go away!”

The more frequent the contact and the larger the surface area of skin touching her, the more severe the shock the man received. In severe cases, it could even put their life in danger. Of course, there was nothing wrong with Bobae’s own body. It was just that the men suffered immensely, horribly, and intensely.

“Whew. Barely made it out.”

Having slipped past the fan club mob, Bobae let out a sigh of relief and took off her gloves and scarf.

When had she been like this? She didn’t really know. Looking at an old photo of herself holding hands with a little boy when she was very young, she seemed fine back then, but she had no clue why or how she had ended up like this.

Having attended an all-girls middle school and all-girls high school, it hadn’t been all that inconvenient when she was younger. If there was any inconvenience, it was perhaps that she couldn’t hold hands comfortably with her dad.

The real trouble started in college. When she liked a guy and tried to date for real, Bobae started resenting her own body.

If she was going to get a superpower, why couldn’t it be one that actually helped with dating?

“What good is an electrical power that is 100% useless for dating?!”

Thanks to this absurd ability, Bobae had never had a proper relationship with a man. When you date, you’re supposed to hold hands, kiss, and do even deeper things, but she couldn’t do any of that. She could only gaze at men like paintings hanging in an art gallery.

What’s that? Try platonic love, then? You can have it. Go nuts with it. Do it for the rest of your life. Because I prefer Eros!

“Sigh. I can’t even graze past a man, let alone kiss one—how am I supposed to write a kiss scene?”