You really didn’t think that the members of the Magic Shop were serious about helping you find true love until you found yourself having to skip class just to have a blind date with Lim Jaebum. Who was this Lim Jaebum? Well, for one, he was known as one of the campus’ most eligible bachelors. Two, he was notorious for being a womanizer and according to people, it wasn’t his fault because women just liked flinging themselves to him. Three, he was a bit like Namjoon in that he took on many leadership positions, but unlike Namjoon, Jaebum was more coercive, cold and authoritative in his leadership style. Fourth and the final point, he was someone who you were sure hated you more than Namjoon, Jimin and Taehyung combined. 

You kind of knew why he hated you in this case. Jaebum was the president of your major’s student association and you happened to be the secretary. You applied there because it seemed like a good idea to have something important on your resume. You didn’t think that the student association did much anyway and felt like everything was for show. Jaebum, on the other hand, shared a far different view than you. He really took his job as president seriously and he wanted there to be change. Since he didn’t see that burning passion in you and often caught you yawning at meetings, you were sure that he despised you. After all, he always passive aggressively wrote some warnings through emails to the executives of the student association and there was no doubt that those warnings were directed specifically at you. 

Here you were, dreading having to face Jaebum who hadn’t said a word besides ordering his Americano and everything bagel. He was sitting directly across from you and sitting beside Taehyung, which you were sure was the worst combination ever. Taehyung was in his hyper mode, asking him to explain what an everything bagel was and when Jaebum ignored him, Taehyung kept whining and nudging him in the ribs.

“Oh come on,” Taehyung urged in a whiny voice. “Is it that hard to tell me what an everything bagel is all about?”

“Just Google it, Tae,” Namjoon muttered under his breath. He had been his eyebrows furrowing, creating a deep line on his nose bridge.

Taehyung looked to Namjoon, pouting his lips to the side. “No,” Taehyung refuted in a kiddish tone. “I’m trying to save on data here. I’m just like 5 mb away from going over my limit and it costs a to have to pay for extra data.”

“It’s your fault that you only got the 500 mb package per month,” Namjoon reminded, “when you keep reading webtoons with your phone.”

“Well I thought that more places would offer free Wifi, but who knew that things--”

Jimin poured some water into Taehyung’s nearly full cup and interrupted, “So Jaebum . . . you and Y/N . . . you two know each other?”

Jaebum set his cup of Americano onto the table, saying, “Yes. We work with each other.”

“Oh wow,” Jimin tried to lighten the mood by raising the pitch of his voice. “What a coincidence! What a small world!”

Scoffing while rolling his eyes, Jaebum set his palm under his chin and grunted, “I’d prefer it not to be that way.”

Me neither, you thought. You didn’t want to see Jaebum here, giving you that side eye. You had already seen enough of that when you worked with him. You were just happy that this position would only last a year at most. Next year, you were definitely not going to be part of this student council. 

Just when you were cursing Jaebum in your head, Namjoon had the audacity to suggest, “Why don’t we leave these two alone for them to get to know each other better?” 

You really wanted to yell at Namjoon at this point. What was he even thinking, leaving you and Jaebum alone? 

“That’s a good idea,” Jimin agreed and clapped his paw-like hands. You were pretty sure he had been a kitten once as a past life. “We’re probably just making things more awkward, being here,” he added.

Taehyung was now gawking at Jaebum’s everything bagel which arrived in front of him. Taehyung’s eagle eyes made Jaebum feel bad for him and as a result, Taehyung was able to try a bite of Jaebum’s meal. With some cream cheese by the corner of his mouth, Taehyung commented innocently and bluntly, “You know, I think the appeal comes from the smoked salmon. Is that why it’s called an everything bagel?”

You really wanted to hit your head on the counter, but you were far too lazy to correct Taehyung. You doubted that he’d even understand even if you were to fully explain to him what an everything bagel was. Even an image probably wouldn’t have helped this donut brain.

Taehyung was now looking at Jaebum’s Americano, seemingly wanting to try a sip of it. Namjoon had to drag Taehyung away to leave us to alone, which was what you really dreaded. Although Taehyung kept insisting that it’d be so weird if you and Jaebum were the only ones at the table, to which you fully agreed, Jimin and Namjoon still was set on making sure that you and Jaebum had your alone time.

When those three brats left, you found yourself trying to waste time by drinking as much water as possible. You were sure that you’d be able to get in your eight glasses of water per day recommendation by the end of this meeting. It wasn’t until your fifth glass of water did Jaebum break the silence and professed, “Jimin said he had an interesting girl to introduce me to.”

“I was told I’d meet an interesting guy too.”

“So I guess the feelings are mutual here.”

“Yes, very much so.”

“I’d like to erase this from my mind.”

“Excuse me?”

“What? Don’t I get to complain for having to sit--”

“I should be the one complaining!” you snapped, banging your fist on the table and nearly knocking over your glass of water. “Having to look at your face when you clearly hate me!”

“Well, well, there’s clearly a lot to hate about you,” Jaebum scowled before rolling his eyes. “I can list them if you’d like.”

“I don’t need someone to do a personality assessment when I know very well what I need to work on.”

“Well it seems you haven’t changed at all, Y/N. You’re still the same prick you were from back in the day,” Jaebum noted.

Back in the day . . . okay, you didn’t care to mention that you and Jaebum actually had history from elementary school up till the middle of high school. To be more accurate, he had been your step brother then when your mother married Jaebum’s father. You thought that he would have been that older brother you never had and would protect you from any bullies. Instead, he was a bystander when you were targeted at school. People disliked you for anything that you did; if you came first for a track-and-field event, they said you had no brains and only brawns. If a guy was interested in you, the girls called you a or a and made up rumours that you were ually promiscuous and had several STDs. At first, you tried to ignore them, yet when you disregarded their pranks, the haters became unruly. That was when you took things to your control and fought with them, whether it be verbally, physically, or mentally. If they placed a white vase with white flowers on your desk, you put one for every single of them in the class. 

You’d think that the principal or teachers would have stepped in, but they just didn’t want to admit that there was a bullying problem at school. You’d think that your mom or your step dad would have come to your rescue. No. They said you had to learn how to defend yourself in the real world or that you must have done something to trigger them. Somehow, you were always at fault and that enraged you. You were only lucky that you were on multiple sports teams to let out this anger; if not, you probably would have resorted to drugs, alcohol, or . You were also lucky that you were so headstrong. The more people looked down on you, the more you were eager to prove them all wrong. 

One of those people you wanted to prove wrong happened to be Jaebum. Although he never directly hurt you, he always stared at you in that judgemental manner where his head would a bit backwards and you’d see part of his nostrils along with his thin slit eyes. Whenever you came home in soiled clothes, he would either disregard you or make a snide comment like “Yet another fight. How typical.” 

Unlike you, Jaebum seemed to be the perfect child that everyone adored and looked up to thanks to his good grades, athleticism and good looks. His only weaknesses were his never-ending pursuits for love and his moodiness. His moodiness was something that only those that were closest to him could sense because he was good at acting as if he cared about each person. His love life . . . well . . . even at young age, he would chase after women as if they were prey and they received his advances well. You always saw different women hanging around him and at one point, you were sure that he had at least five different girlfriends at the same time. 

You really didn’t understand why everyone was able to accept that he was a player. He was so perfect, in people’s eyes, that it seemed to be justified for him to be unfaithful. His reputation for being a Casa Nova was so well-known around campus that whoever dated him already knew that they would probably be the Nth girlfriend. 

Oddly, he always had one full-time, permanent girlfriend called Jennie Kim who was his seventh girlfriend. He met her during his senior year of high school and you remembered their love story well because he had gone to great lengths to get her to date him. She had rejected him before, so to win over her affection, Jaebum pretended that he had been injured by her. You forgot how he had actually faked his injury, but you clearly remembered him doing the full cosplay with a crutch and a cast. She felt so guilty that she spent a lot of time looking after Jaebum and as time went by, it seemed like she did fall in love with him. For a while, Jaebum had been faithful to her, yet he was back to his old habits. She really was so beautiful that you had no idea why Jaebum would even cheat on her in the first place. You also didn’t understand why she would even stay with this cheater. 

Finally, you really didn’t understand why those three rascals, Namjoon, Taehyung, and Jimin, would even consider setting you up with a player like Jaebum! Did you really seem like the type that just wanted a night of ing? Honestly, you wouldn’t have even wanted to have with Jaebum. You’d probably punch his head off instead.

“I’m not the prick here,” you at last told Jaebum. “You’re the that always looked down on me. Some stepbrother you were . . .”

As you took a gulp from your water, Jaebum informed you, “Not like you were the best stepsister either. You always told on me for sneaking out.”

“Because you were only out there to get girls . . . or to party,” you huffed and folded your arms. “Also why are you even here on a date when you’re still dating Jennie Kim?”

“It’s complicated,” Jaebum muttered, “but I fully regret coming here.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“I’m sure that even if Jennie saw our meeting together, she wouldn’t really care either,” he told you.

You were thankful that Jennie didn’t see you two. Jennie, though very pretty, had a reputation for being the jealous, vengeful girlfriend and she had the means to play that role. She came from one of the richest families in the country and was said to have connections everywhere, including the mafia. Somehow, the ladies that Jaebum would be involved with would all be cursed or suffer from some downfall in the end. For example, you remembered this girl with a long ponytail and a model-like figure had her nudes exposed on Facebook and there was that other girl Jaebum dated who ended up transferring to another school in a different country. You really didn’t need that sort of drama in your life when you already had new problems to face.

Your meeting with Jaebum ended like that and when you walked out of the coffee shop, there was Namjoon waiting for you by the front door. You were honestly a bit surprised to catch him there. In fact, you almost tripped on your own feet and he had to catch you by your forearm to make sure you didn’t fall on your face. Normally, you would have thanked someone for doing that, yet with Namjoon, your feisty mouth just went: “You’re holding on too tightly. Let go.”

Turning his annoyed face to the side, he grumbled, “So I figure the date went badly?”

“Yeah, of course it went badly,” you eyed Namjoon before walking ahead. You were pretty hungry now that it was around lunch time and you hadn’t eaten much for breakfast. You were heading towards a cafeteria when you blurted, “Seriously, did you guys really have to bring forward Jaebum? He’s like the world’s biggest player.”

“That was Jimin’s idea,” Namjoon stated as he walked beside you. “I also thought he wouldn’t work for you, especially given how he has felt about you from the past.”

“The past . . .” you repeated those last two words. “You knew that he had been my stepbrother at one point?”

“Well no,” he answered.

“Then what past?”

“That past . . .”

“Don’t tell me that Jaebum is also . . .”

“Yes,” Namjoon confirmed your suspicions. “You’re right. He is a God too and a high ranking one.”

“Great. That’s just damned wonderful and let me guess . . . he hated me too?”

“That’s correct.”

You started to shake your head, thinking about your bad luck. “So let me guess some more,” you decided to say. “Everyone hated me.”

“More or less, I guess you could put it that way.”

“That’s wonderful,” you sarcastically chimed. “I feel just so great, knowing that I was probably the world’s biggest at one point.”

“You’re still an ,” he murmured.

“I didn’t need that . . . and . . . why are you following me around?” you pondered aloud. 

“Because one of us has to look after you to make sure you don’t wreak havoc,” he clarified, “and I happen to have time today.”

“Wreak havoc? You make me seem like the Hulk.”

Namjoon gave you that stare, indicating that you were worse than the Hulk. You felt a bit uneasy in the stomach. The Hulk was pretty uncontrollable when mad. Were you that . . . out of control? You felt your mind wanting to plummet into a negative, dark spiral. Luckily, Namjoon tugged your arm to remind you to check where you were going before crossing the street. 

“Don’t think too much,” Namjoon uttered with his hands in his olive hoodie pocket. “Just try not to let that monster inside get to you.”

“Monster?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. I’m sure you’ve seen him before,” Namjoon answered. As the two of you waited for the light to change to green, he continued to say, “Technically, I should say past, rather than monster. Sometimes it’s hard not to be influenced by that voice in your head or by what has happened before.”

“And how did you remember what happened to you?” you questioned.

“It started off with a recurring dream,” Namjoon told you, “and then I was able to slowly find the people in my dream who all shared bits and pieces of the past. We got together and figured everything out besides . . .”

The light started to flash to green and you heard the beeping noises, telling you that it was safe to walk forward. You waited till both of you finished crossing the road before asking, “Besides what?” 

“Besides . . . how to break our curses,” replied Namjoon.

“I thought you said that I would be--”

“It’s honestly still a working theory,” he interrupted, “that I put forward. You’re the only one, out of the eight of us, that still hasn’t fully awakened yet.”

“I’m not quite following to be honest . . .”

“As expected of your small brain,” Namjoon stated. “To make things simpler for you, I’m just going to say that after thinking about what has happened so far for a few hours last night, I’ve realized that we need to have a change of plans.”

“A change of plans?”

“Yes. We need to make you remember the past first before we can fix anything,” he responded. “That’s why Jimin made you and Jaebum meet up, even though I was against it. He was hoping that this meeting would . . . jog your memory somehow, but it seems to have failed, which was what I anticipated to happen in the first place.”

“And why is that?”

“Because Jaebum still doesn’t know who he is.”

“So . . . now what is supposed to happen?” you bellowed. “Am I supposed to just let you guys dictate how I’m going to live life? I already feel pretty damn unlucky that I’m caught up with your own shenanigans! I’m not doing pro bono work, you know?”

“Calm down, okay? There’s no need to--”

“Don’t tell me to calm the down, okay? You’re the one that should take a seat!” you shouted.

Namjoon’s expression grew fiercer and you noticed him clenching his fists. You didn’t know why you had gotten so fiery too, but it really felt like whenever you spoke to Namjoon for too long, you would just cause trouble like a tsunami or a volcano. Namjoon just loved to step on your landmine and then explode in it.

“I don’t know,” you confessed after exhaling a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down. “I don’t know why I just . . . go off like that. I usually don’t . . .”

“That’s why I said,” Namjoon reminded you, “to try to control that past within you. Don’t let it get to you and . . . since we know more than you, I think it’s safer if you listen to our suggestions instead.”

“And . . . what do you propose?”

What Namjoon proposed was what you dreaded. You really wanted to knock him down with a flying kick. Instead, you howled a loud, “No.” Namjoon then asked you if you had any better ideas, to which you had none. How could you when you barely understood what was happening with you and going around you? You hated how powerless you were. You thought, maybe if you played by Namjoon’s rules for a bit and gained more information, you’d be able to come up with something of your own. then you wouldn’t have to listen to him. For now, you would have to take the bullet, it up and endure what you hated to do and that was to let go of your pride. Great. Just great, you repeated in your head. That damned Kim Namjoon . . . 

“I know you’re cursing me in your head,” Namjoon said in a sing-song voice, reminding you of a flat lullaby. He really . . . shouldn’t sing, you thought. “I can’t sing, but I can rap,” he informed you.

“You must not be very popular with the ladies huh?” you pointed out.

To burn you, Namjoon fired back: “And it’s a given that you’re not popular among anyone.” As he walked ahead of you, you gave him two middle fingers, leading him to comment, “I know what you’re doing . . . You seriously need a healthy outlet.”

“Oh I do have healthy outlets,” you challenged him, “like kick boxing, hapkido, been thinking of taking up some Muay Thai or--”

“Good,” he interjected. “Good for you. Hope you will never have to use them in real life.”

“Me neither,” you muttered.

But who knew though . . . that later that night, you’d be forced to put your skills to practice? Who knew . . . when it really should have just been a fun night out at a club?