My fingers tingled as my body began to awaken. There was a low breeze in the room that kept me cool and I felt cushion beneath me. My eyes tensed while I tried to remember what happened.

Then it came to me. Oh yeah, I passed out during field hockey practice. “Do you think she’s waking up?” Dongwoon’s voice entered my ears.

“How am I supposed to know?” I could make out Hyunseung’s irritated voice and it made me will my eyelids to open. “Hey, there’s no need to argue.” Kikwang’s charming voice made my ears perk.

Now I really wanted to wake up already.

I forced and forced my eyes to open until finally my vision began to change from darkness to my room in the mansion. I saw some of the brothers in my room. It was only the voices I had heard. Dongwoon sat in a chair by my bed, Hyunseung stood behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, and Kikwang leaned against the bed post at the foot of the bed.

Dongwoon’s face broke into a smile and his gloved hands grabbed onto my limp hand still on the bed sheets. “You’re alive! I thought you may have died from exhaustion or something. It was seriously scary and the whole time Hyunseung kept telling me all these facts about death by exertion. So then I got mad at him and forced him to stay with me while I looked after you. Then Kikwang decided to tag along and so we’ve been sitting here just watching you, in fear that you may have died or something like that, but then you woke up and here we are.”

He spoke so rapidly that he practically was rambling. Hyunseung pulled Dongwoon away from me. “If you keep talking without breathing I’m pretty sure you’ll be the one that’s dead.”

I coughed to conceal my smile. If I was going to be their so-called “prisoner” then I definitely would try not to smile in front of them. Crap, I’ve already smiled in front of Kikwang. Well that was Kikwang though. I hardly felt like a prisoner around him.

I sat up slowly, but I could feel the weak numbness in my arms. “Where are the others?” I could have sworn I saw everyone come running up to me. A flash of Yoseob’s face made me cringe. That guy probably was just following his brothers.

Kikwang circled the bed to come up to my side. “Well, Doojoon is cooking dinner for you. Junhyung is trying to help him and Yoseob is in his room reading.” I nodded, that punk would be reading while I’m suffering from starvation.

“Oh ok.” I threw off the bed sheets and moved to jump out of bed. I ignored the brothers’ interjections, but once my feet met the ground my legs became noodles and I nearly collapsed to the ground.

An arm wrapped around my side though and I found myself pressed against Kikwang. He smiled so simply it made me want to just go jump out a window to evade his charm. “I told you not to act hastily. Just stay in bed, we’ll bring your food up here.”

I managed to grab onto a cabinet for support so then I wouldn’t have to be against his body anymore. Any longer of that and surely my heart would have died. “There is no way I’m going to stay in this room like some caged lab rat.” It would probably drive me nuts.

Hyunseung scoffed. “That’s said by the person who practically locked themselves in their room yesterday.” I threw a glare his way. “I wasn’t hungry and besides what else am I supposed to do? I’d probably get lost in this house.”

He raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. “You could ask one of us to show you around and on top of that if you weren’t hungry then why are we in this situation right now?” He stumped me, which seemed to satisfy him.

Dongwoon stood from the chair he sat in. “How about this? I’ll show Mi Kyung around while we wait for dinner. Simple enough?” He looked at me.

Correction, they all looked at me with questioning eyes. The last thing I expected was to be guilt tripped into a house tour while staying as their “prisoner”. “Fine.”

Dongwoon smiled and laced his arm through mine so he could be my support. I still wasn’t quite ready to walk on my own. “Well then, Mi Kyug and I will be off. I’ll bring her later for dinner.”

He then dragged me out of the room a bit faster than I could physically manage to keep up. “Sorry Dongwoon I’m still a bit weak.” He snorted as we walked down the hallway. “Don’t worry about it.”

We passed by Yoseob’s room, his door was open. I couldn’t help, but glance into the room as we walked by it.

He was in the room laying on his bed with a book in his hands like he had been the day before when he kicked me out, but this time his focus was on me. His eyes peered over his book and watched my eyes as they bulged in surprise.

Immediately I looked away, my heart was beating double time. Dongwoon continued to drag me down the hall though.

Apparently most of the rooms upstairs were spare rooms for guests, although I could hardly imagine them having guests. There were a few rooms like the rec room with pool tables, arcade machines, and other games. There was also a room full of artifacts and heirlooms collected over time by the brothers’ relatives.

Dongwoon an old medicinal book. “Have you heard about the curse yet?” I cringed at the memory of that terrible story. “Yes I have.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

He sighed stretching out his limbs as if he had just gotten out of bed. “Ah, huh? Well hey at least I don’t have to worry about being murdered by some masked killer or something. One touch and he would be done for.”

He smiled at me and I admired his positivity. It was very different compared to the bitterness that Yoseob had whenever he recalled their curse. It made me curious how all the other brothers felt about their curse.

Stop being ridiculous Mi Kyung. Obviously they would resent it somewhat.

Dongwoon took me downstairs too and showed me where the dining room was, which was huge. I could hardly imagine six guys eating at a table that could seat twenty people. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling and the walls had an old fashioned wallpaper that made me really feel like I was in a mansion.

Down the hall from the dining room was another door that led into the kitchen and beyond that door was the way to the back patio.

When we stepped out, there was a short staircase that led down into a garden that was incomparable to anything I had ever seemed before, even in movies.

Large garlands led into an open patch of flowers uprooting from the ground and beyond that was a maze-like set up that led to who knows where.

Dongwoon walked up to me from behind. “Supposedly there’s a pond similar to a lake in the center of the maze, but no one has been able to find it yet.”

I pursed my lips. “Really? You’ve lived here for so long yet you haven’t found it once?” He laughed. “Weird huh? Apparently only our parents know where it is.”

I frowned, suddenly curious. “Not to be rude or over-stepping boundaries, but how could your parents have children if one of them had the curse set on them?”

It made me squirm to allude to what I was thinking about. He laughed at my embarrassment. “You look so funny! Well, if you mean how do they have and have children. They don’t. They usually would adopt orphaned babies. Apparently we don’t have to have the same genes to have the same curse. So long as we are considered our father’s sons then we have this curse.”

I nodded my head. That explained why none of the brothers looked related to each other. They all were orphans at one point. “So they just take you in as babies?” He nodded. “Yeah our parents wanted to raise us themselves. It would be troublesome to raise a kid that had memories of their real parents.”

I sighed, my head hurt from the complexity of it all. “Why would they want to bestow such a curse on someone else though?” I hit my forehead. Damn it Mi Kyung why did you say that? You probably just offended him.

“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. It’s a stupid question.” Dongwoon smiled though and shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. My brothers and I always wonder the same thing, but we can’t really ask our parents ourselves. They sort of have a tendency to be gone for long portions of time so we never really get the chance to talk to them. We were lucky this time around that we actually knew where they were so we could send them a letter to tell them about you.”

He paused, but continued to talk. “No one has ever known about our family’s secret. All our relatives are dead so virtually it’s just us like this.”

I honestly understood how he felt about his parents. Hell, my parents didn’t even know that I was staying at a house full of guys that could kill anything just by touching it with their bare skin. But, I could never understand the feeling of having a curse like his. Nonetheless to have barely anyone to talk to about it with. 

“My parents are the same. They’re always off on business trips. That’s why I was supposed to be staying at a friend of theirs house. Parents can sometimes.” He exhaled slowly a heavy breath, but turned to smile at me.

For once I felt like I had done something right. “Yeah, they can .” I smiled in return. A friendship was growing between us and it made me feel more at ease to know that not everyone in the house wanted me to just get out of their hair already.

Doojoon leaned out the door we had left open. “Hey dinner’s ready so come eat!” We both turned to see him ushering us to come in.

Maybe I should try to be more gracious to them. They are taking care of me instead of just handling me.

When we entered the dining room again my assumption was confirmed. All of the brothers sat at the table and it looked extremely odd for only six out of twenty seats to be filled.

Dongwoon pushed me into the seat next to his, which happened to be right across from Yoseob. Wonderful.

Doojoon sat at the head. “Mi Kyung I tried to make a variety of food because I wasn’t sure what you would like and not like.” It was quite considerate of him because just as he said there was a wide range of foods foreign and native to me.

Yoseob scoffed. “You’re just wasting energy by babying her. She should be grateful we’re going out of our way like this just to appease her tastes.”

Junhyung rolled his eyes as he picked up his fork. “That’s said by the pickiest punk here.” Yoseob seemed ready to fire back at him, but Doojoon raised his spoon in their direction. “Stop fighting at the table. We’re trying to put up a good impression.”

Yoseob snorted. “Good impression? For who, her?” He pointed at me, but acted as if I wasn’t even in the room. “She is the most ungrateful person I have ever met. Refusing to eat until she faints from starvation, forcing us to go through all of this just so she could eat the food we made for her.”

He stood from the table and made his chair squeak across the floor. “Well, I refuse to go out of my way to appease someone like her.” He trudged out of the room.

Only a few minutes had passed since I sat down and already I made someone leave the table. I grimaced. He’s such a jerk.

We all continued to eat in silence and ignored the missing presence of one person, but after a while just as I was going to take my leave too Junhyung spoke up.

I had heard from him the least so it was odd for him to suddenly talk to me. “Don’t worry about that jackass. He won’t admit it, but he’s actually a kind hearted bastard that doesn’t know how to properly express his worry.”

Doojoon jumped in. “Yeah, honestly he is probably more annoyed that you drove yourself to fainting than anything else. The whole time on the way home from your practice all he could do was cuss you out about how stupid you were to harm yourself.”

Well, that made me feel a lot better.

I stood and nodded in their direction. “I’m fine don’t worry about it. I don’t take what he says personally.” Dongwoon and Kikwang watched me with earnest eyes, but I avoided it. It seriously annoyed me that I came off as so fragile and baseless enough that I could not manage without helpful words or watchful eyes on me.

I could only imagine my parents. They would be telling me to get myself together and stop leaning on these guys. Of course, they weren’t there to tell me that though.

I made my way upstairs and went into my room. I didn’t spare a glance towards Yoseob’s closed door. Based off what I had learned from him these past couple days he was probably just lounging on his bed reading or something.

I walked across the room to the bed. I picked up my phone and turned it on to see my phone was full of messages. A lot of them came from Na Kyung asking what happened to me after school and why the brothers all took me away. What my relationship was with them and that I had a lot of explaining to do. I told her not to message me because I couldn’t reply, but of course she completely disregarded that.

I tossed the phone onto my bed and groaned rubbing my face with the palms of my hands. “Damn it. What am I going to tell her?”

My door clicked shut behind me. “Tell who what?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin and flipped around to see Yoseob leaning against my door. “Do you have a tendency to sneak into people’s rooms without their permission?”

He grinned and slipped off his gloves. I stepped away from him, the back of my legs hit the frame of my bed. “Woah, I thought you said you didn’t have any plans to kill me. Did I really annoy you that much today?”

He chuckled stretching his fingers out. “I don’t plan on killing you, these gloves are just a bit suffocating to wear all the time.” He paused to raise his eyebrows at me. “You did annoy me today though.”

I scoffed. “Well that’s the least of my worries. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to go out of my way to try and not annoy you.”

For a moment his earlier irritation flared. He stepped forward and leaned in my direction, his eyes were fiercely glaring at me. “Listen, if we’re going to be housing you until we hear of what to do with you then I think we should lay some ground rules. If you disagree then you’re just a freeloader.” He slid his gloves back on then so he could cross his arms across his chest.

I received his glare and shot it back at him. “Fine then. What are your so-called ground rules?”

He raised his index finger. “First of all, you make sure I don’t see your face unless if we’re leaving for school or eating. Second, if we tell you to do something like come and eat then you come and eat.”

I rolled my eyes. This guy was something else. “I’m not your slave. Why should I work so hard not to see your face? You know I don’t want to see yours either.”

He smiled and folded his arms behind his back. “Well then there should be no objections.” This was really getting irritating. “And why do I have to do what you guys tell me? What if you tell me to do something weird? That definitely is too much!”

His nose scrunched in annoyance. “Fine then, I don’t know what weird things you had in mind because I think on a different level than you, but at least eat meals with us.” I nodded my head, but I just wanted to smack him upside the head for acting so haughty. “I can do that. Is that it?”

I sat on the bed, exhausted yet again. Yoseob grabbed the handle of the door and seemed ready to open it, but he paused. “Oh yeah one more thing.”

I waited for his final rule. He did not turn to face me and his voice came out in a rush of syllables. “Don’t make us worry like that again or else I really will kill you.”

He then quickly left my room to myself. I heard the door click shut just as it had earlier, but now I was by myself. Yet, my eyes were glued to the place where Yoseob once stood. I really tried to decipher what happened, but it just gave me headaches.

I grunted and let my back crash onto the bed. He really makes no sense to me.

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Hey guys! So here's the new chapter I hopeyou enjoyed it:) Thank you for reading and as always please comment, subscribe, and or upvote!

By the way I finally got a poster Whoo! 

~Happyfeet