4 years ago…

Hearing the screams and sobs in the concert hall was just as painful as hearing S.Coups die.

It was chaotic, like the entire hall was suddenly possessed. Some people stared blankly at the stage as staff rushed onto the stage and carried S.Coups’ corpse away. Others just screamed as if they had witnessed a ghost. Others cried. Others sobbed. A few even fainted.

Very few people had it together. Arin was not one of those people, but Minghao was. He reached out and took Arin’s hand and it helped.

She turned to him, and he said something, but it was too loud in the concert hall for her to hear.

He brought his lips closer to her ear and said: “It’ll be okay. He probably just fainted. He’s alright; don’t worry.”

Everyone who saw S.Coups die knew very well that S.Coups didn’t just faint. It was unmistakable that he had been dying. But it helped to believe otherwise for a second. Holding Minghao’s hand made her feel so much more reassured in that.

She loved Minghao. She loved him so much, that her tongue just wanted to say his name, as if saying his name would loosen the knot in her heart.

“Minghao…” she yelled out to him.

And that was how the curse took its second victim.

-

“Your neighbor,
Woozi”

Oh no.

Arin dropped the letter, overcome with panic. Now that she knew his name, there was no shield or buffer zone between him and her curse anymore. He was a potential victim, one that was right there with her in this building, the building that was supposed to be her safe space.

Woozi.

The name lingered in her head for too long. She wished she could forget it, but memory doesn’t work like that.

Woozi.

She felt so wicked as she thought about the name, like she was playing with a forbidden fruit that was tempting only because it was forbidden.

Woozi.

Now that she knew his name, she had to make extra effort never to see him, never to talk to him, never to even look at him. She panicked even more as remembered that this person, this… Woozi, was the meddlesome type who would not leave her alone. She could brush him off, but he had to also do the same or the deadly interaction between them could be inevitable.

“But if you don’t want me to talk to you, just say the word and I won’t,” Woozi had written in his letter. “Just text me on the number [######] and let me know. I promise to respect your wishes.”

Arin didn’t think twice about inputting in that number on her phone and sending him a message. She was desperate for some slight assurance that protective measures against her curse were taken.

Don’t ever talk to me again, she wrote him.

This is Arin speaking? He responded.

Yes, it’s me.

Got it. I promise I won’t talk to you anymore.

That made Arin feel just a little bit safer, and she was glad that he left it at that and didn’t ask why. She shook the thought away. Having any positive feelings was now like treading very dangerous territory.

-

Arin and ~ were watching a movie when someone knocked on Arin’s door later that night. Arin expected that it would be Jeonghan, but it could also have been the Woozi fellow, which made Arin extremely nervous.

“I’ll get it, Ar,” ~ said, sensing Arin’s sudden anxiety.

It was Jeonghan, which was a relief for Arin.

“Why are you always here?” Jeonghan told ~ with a scoff. “I’m going to have to start giving visitation limits!”

“She’s doing her job, Jeonghan. Leave her alone.”

“Don’t tell me what to do; it’s my building! The missy made a huge mess the other day and didn’t clean anything. Even two months of no salary doesn’t seem to be doing the missy any good. Let me talk to the missy and stop pretending your her guardian angel or some , because you’re not. You’re just using her to further your own dumb agenda. Now get out of my building and let me talk to my employee in peace. Missy, come here!” he yelled out to her from over ~’s shoulder.

Arin hated seeing Jeonghan talk to her friend like that, but ~ didn’t seem to mind it at all. Arin wondered how ~ was able to keep her cool like that no matter how rude he became. Why didn’t she stand up for herself? Seeing what happened with Woozi just a few days ago,it was obvious that ~ could stand up for herself if she wanted to.

Arin wished that she herself could stand up to him, but she knew better than to anger him. He only got meaner when he was angry.

When Arin was before him, his eyes were immediately drawn to the bandages around her thumb.

“Next time your fingers bleed, no salary,” he said crossing his arms. “Now, go clean the lobby. Some ing imbecile from outside managed to get in and throw trash everywhere. It better be spotless in the next hour or else I swear I’ll ban visitation and you’ll never get to see your fat friend again!”

That was the cruelest threat that Jeonghan could have possibly made. Crueler than cleaning his bathroom, crueler than salary cuts, even crueler than physical violence. It was like he wanted to take away one of the only things that gave her joy in this life. It made Arin hate him even more, if that was even possible.

Arin gathered what she needed to do the job, and descended down to clean the trash Jeonghan was referring to.

At first, Arin thought Jeonghan had exaggerated the situation, but by the time she was on the second floor, she saw a whole trail of trash. From paper to plastic bottles to candy wrappers to flyers, it was all over the stairs and went all the way down to the lobby. Arin cursed at the person who just randomly decided to throw trash everywhere, and assumed it was some rebellious teenager who wanted to cause chaos in a rich people building.

Arin began collecting the trash in a large plastic bag, but she suddenly stopped when her eyes caught sight of a purple flyer with a familiar face on it. Now that she paid attention, there were a lot of the same purple flyers scattered around. It was even weirder as she noticed that all of these flyers seemed to have been printed recently; none of them were crumpled or folded.

She picked up one of the flyers, wanting to see the picture more clearly. There was no mistaking it: the picture on the flyer was of ~.

Arin then made the mistake of reading the content on the flyer...

WANTED. Choi Hyojung.

Hyojun

~’s name.