4 years ago…

Arin traded her front-row ticket to see Chilli for two adjacent middle-tier tickets. As much as she dreamed of seeing a Chilli concert at the front row, being with Minghao that night was more important. It was their first official date after all.

Because she sat farther from the stage, Arin bought a pair of binoculars to take to the concert. She didn't like watching the stage and seeing little far-off people. She wanted to see her idols up close, see their lips move when they sing, and the sweat form on their brows. Minghao just thought bringing binoculars was ridiculous.

"The binoculars are a barrier between your eyes and the actual people!" he told her.

"But without binoculars, I can't see them properly."

"Then watch the screens!”

“What’s the point of a concert if you’re just going to watch the screens?”

Minghao just laughed. “Suit yourself, Ar! But just know that I’ll be making fun of you the entire concert!”

Arin was looking forward to the concert, but she found, to her surprise, she was looking forward to spending time with Minghao even more. The day of the concert was the day they would take their relationship to the next level, and for her, that was so much more momentous.

It was all just so perfect. A Chilli concert. Minghao. A kitten waiting for her at home. A father.

She loved life. She was happy. She had everything she wanted and more.

Little did she know that her happiness was going to end very, very soon.

-

~ had to stay with Arin. She couldn’t go home or even leave the building because she was afraid of running into MRS.

By letting ~ stay, Arin was breaking another one of Jeonghan’s rules: no overnight guests. Arin was happy to break his rules though. It felt like an act of rebellion against him.

She even planned to ignore his orders. If he asked her to do something, she wouldn’t do it, just because she wanted to make him angry. And he had already banned her salary for two months; it’s not like he had anything else against her.

But she did not get to go through with her plan, because he didn’t reach out to her at all. He didn’t ask her to clean any stairs or dust any chandeliers or do any laundry or fix any plumbing problems. Arin found that strange; never did a day go by without him ordering her to do something.

Arin figured maybe it was because he felt bad for banning her salary and gave her the day off to compensate.

Yeah right, like Jeonghan could possibly do anything even remotely kind. Like he could even feel guilt.

Maybe God had punished him and he’d become sick? Or maybe he was out for the day?

That was unusual though, because for the past three years, Jeonghan never went out for more than a few hours. He didn’t seem to have family or friends to visit, or any that ever visited him. Arin didn’t find that surprising. Jeonghan was so rude and untolerable, she wouldn’t be surprised if his own family cut ties with him. He was a lonely, grumpy, and rich jerk.

Nothing she did could distract her from thinking about how much she hated him and how he humiliated her in front of a stranger. Even indulging in Chilli content couldn’t make her forget him. He occupied her every thought and made her feel worse and worse the more she thought about him.

Chilli even announced a comeback. She felt happy for only a minute, but she was quickly reminded of the fact she didn’t have any money and wouldn’t have money for two months because of that .

She looked into her miserly savings and realized that she barely had enough for food for her and Meemo. She was not going to be able to buy albums and merchandise for a very long time.

She wanted to cry. She hated living like this. She hated only having enough money to eat ramen, and skipping dinner just so she could save a little money for chocolate. She hated how Meemo always went hungry, because Arin couldn’t consistently buy her food.

She remembered her life from four years ago, when she lived in an actual house, and ate three full meals a day, meals that had actual vegetables and meat in them. She remembered being able to buy so many albums and concert tickets. She remembered coming home to a well-fed and happy Meemo.

As she was reveling in the past, she heard a knock on the door. Expecting Jeonghan with a list of tasks for her, she was dumbstruck when she opened the door to the eighth floor tenant instead.

“Arin, right?” the guy told her. His oversized glasses were slipping from his nose. He used his palms to push them back into place. He then looked into her room, eyes drawn to the Chilli posters on her wall.

When Arin got over the initial shock, she closed the door quickly, panicked and unprepared.

“Gosh, why do you keep avoiding me?” the guys said out loud from behind the door. “I’m not a murderer or anything, you know.”

But I am, Arin wanted to say.

“Look, I just wanted to talk to you, okay? Plus, I have um…” he lowered his voice, probably so that no one would overhear, “I have cat food I wanted to give you.”

~, who was watching this unfold, mouthed ‘who is he’ to Arin, and Arin held out eight fingers. ~ understood, and walked over to the door, lightly pushing Arin to the side.

“I’ll handle this, Ar,” ~ said. She opened the door and faced him. Arin couldn’t see him from where she was standing, but she could hear him.

“Who are you?” he asked ~.

“How did you find Arin?” ~ asked, completely disregarding his question. She sounded like she suspected something bad, which scared Arin a little.

“Well, Arin told me yesterday that her elevator doesn’t work,” the guy answered. “And I saw that the elevator only doesn’t work on the roof, so I reasoned she’d live here.”

“Don’t come up here anymore,” ~ told him firmly. “Arin doesn’t like when people show up at her door like this. Please leave her alone.”

“What’s your name?” he suddenly asked ~.

What was up with him and names?

Arin was obviously not the only one who found his fixation with names suspicious, because ~ also suddenly looked tense and afraid. She suddenly grabbed his collar and pulled him inside, slamming the door behind her. Arin gasped.

“Who are you?!” ~ interrogated, pinning him against the door. She then pulled out a knife out of nowhere and held it against his neck. She had a fire in her eyes that Arin had never seen before.

“W… what are you… d... doing?” the guy stammered, eyes wide and fearful as he eyed the blade against his neck.

His glasses slipped down his nose again, and ~ shook him so they fell on the floor. The sound of the glasses hitting the floor seemed to have piqued Meemo’s interest. She emerged from hiding among the storage furniture and meowed when she saw ~’s threatening position over him. Meemo dashed toward them, walking in between their legs as if she wanted to seperate them.

“Who do you work for? What do you want with us? Tell me the truth, or I’ll maim you!” ~ threatened.

“What? I don’t work for anyone!” he croaked. “I swear! And I just came up here to give Arin cat food!”

“So you don’t have anything to do with MRS?” she asked.

“What?” he whimpered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! I swear!”

The flare in ~’s eyes died out. She seemed to believe him. She released him and stepped back, nearly stumbling on Meemo in the process. Meemo then proceeded to nestle against the guy’s legs and meow.

~ put her knife away and glared at him, as if telling him to scram with her eyes.

The guy quickly picked up his glasses from the floor scurried out of there without turning back, even when ~ meowed pleadingly toward him.

“He doesn’t seem to have magic,” ~ told her. “And he was telling the truth; he doesn’t know MRS.”

~ could perceive when someone was telling the truth, just like Jitae’s mother could. It was a magical ability that only the strongest mages had. But Arin was less fascinated by that ability than she was by this violent and scary side of ~ that had just come out.

“Sorry you had to see that, Arrie,” ~ told her, scratching the back of her neck. “I just have to extra careful these days, you know? When he asked for my name, I just felt like he knew something…”

Arin understood that, but still, when you see a different side of someone come out, your perception of them will change. Arin was shaken, struggling with the realization that her perception of ~ was not wholly accurate: she was much more than the bubbly, sweet, happy-go-lucky person that Arin thought she was.

“I’m so afraid, Ar,” ~ said, and her body began to tremble. “I’m afraid they’ll find me and take me. I’m afraid they’ll take you too and everyone else I’ve been protecting.”

“We’re safe here though. We have the enchantment to protect us,” Arin tried to be helpful.

“The enchantment protects us from the mages, but not the muggles. If they get a muggle to work for them, then…” she trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m just paranoid.”

That paranoia was getting to Arin too. The impending threat of MRS was now looming over her, and for the first time ever, something scared her more than her curse did.

Meemo’s loud meows and clawing against the door shook Arin out of her thoughts.

“What do you want, Meemo?” Arin asked.

Meemo stared up at Arin and meowed, standing at the door, as if beckoning her to open it. When Arin didn’t open it, Meemo began clawing at the door again.

Afraid that Jeonghan will hear, Arin picked Meemo up and placed her farther from the door, but Meemo returned to the door and continued to claw.

Arin only figured out why Meemo was acting like that when she opened the door and saw a large bag of cat food on the floor. It was the bag that the tenant had brought up for Arin, the bag he bought specifically for Meemo when she ended up in his apartment. He probably dropped it outside her door when ~ pulled him inside and threatened him with a knife.

Arin picked up the bag of cat food and put some in Meemo’s bowl, which Meemo happily devoured.

This was the expensive brand of cat food, the brand that Arin could not afford to buy. The brand that all cats seemed to love, unlike the cheap, dry, smelly food that Arin fed Meemo.

Arin felt bad for the guy. He seemed like a genuine person who came with good intentions, but instead he was met with nothing but hostility. She sighed, wishing she could reciprocate that goodness, but she couldn’t. She wished she could at least apologize to him, but she couldn’t do that without jeopardizing his life.

The hardest part about her curse was the inability to communicate with people. This was just one instance of that difficulty, but in the early weeks after she was cursed, it was the hardest thing ever. To cut ties with everyone she knew by name, her extended family, her friends, her teachers, her neighbors, even her fellow fandom friends… not communicating with them was like letting go of her past self and moving on to a new identity: one where she had no friends or family.

Life became a drag, a routine, a prison inside this luxury of a building that she couldn’t even enjoy. Being stuck somewhere for so long, so rarely seeing and experiencing new things, was kind of like dying. Life had no light, no happiness, no fun. Arin wondered how she survived all these years without throwing herself off the building.

Her eyes trailed toward the posters of Chilli plastered on her wall.

Yes, Chilli. That was how she survived. Chilli gave her happiness, gave her fun, gave her something to look forward to. They gave her something outside of this prison of a building.

Being a fan is like being in a very intense, very intimate, one-sided friendship. You love a person or a group of people with all of your heart. You’d sacrifice time and money and effort for them, and you enjoy doing it because it’s for them. The people you love, however, will probably never even learn your name. They don’t know you, but somehow, you still feel fulfilled loving them. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know you, on the contrary, it’s kind of liberating that they don’t. Because it’s a friendship where you can be yourself without fear of judgment. It’s a friendship where you don’t owe anything, no commitment, no constant communication, no expectations. Just love, and nothing else. A love that you can indulge in on your own terms.

Arin was very glad she had Chilli. They were the perfect remedy to an otherwise meaningless existence.