When Arin let herself listen to the resonating words in her head, she understood everything.

"You broke your word, you broke your vow" referred to her mother's marriage vows.

"So you will suffer for it now. You hurt my child, I'll hurt yours too." Her child was Jitae, and she was her mother's child.

"Make her feel what mine's been through" referred to the heartbreak and desolation that her mother had put Jitae through.

"A hardened heart that's limp and stale, doomed for loves that always fail" referred to Jitae's failed past relationships, and how his heart was hardened from loving anyone else because of her mother.

They'll die before her very eyes.
The'll call their names to their demise.
Your girl will never love with ease,
For every lover's heart will cease.
From here on out, this girl is cursed,
And this can never be reversed.

That was her curse. A punishment meant for her mother, but inflicted on her instead.

Her mother still bore the brunt of it in the end. Her mother was dead. Arin was still alive. Healthy. Physically healthy, at least.

Mentally, on the other hand, Arin was drowning. The world was closing in on her. Three people she loved, all gone within hours. Her heart was crushed and her spirit was forever tainted. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Had it not been for this stranger who welcomed Arin into her home and went above and beyond to help Arin cope, Arin would have probably never recovered from this.

-

Considering everything that was happening, Arin was surprised at herself for thinking more about the eighth floor tenant, about Woozi, than she thought about ~ and the sorceress.

She thought about how he quickly he typed. How she called his name and made him finally stop talking. How he didn't die. How he said there was something magical about names...

He must know something. Why else would he put it like that? There was no way that it was a coincidence that he just happened to say that names were "magical" for reasons completely unrelated to her curse.

That suspicion was strangely overshadowed by other thoughts though. Arin kept thinking about the moment of relief when she realized he wasn't going to die.

"Woozi," she said out loud to herself. "Woozi."

She loved saying a name that wasn't Jeonghan or Meemo. She loved the power that a name held, irrespective of her curse. A name, even with no magic involved, is a word that can do more than any other word in the dictionary. It made people alert. It made them lift their heads. It made them listen. In Woozi's case, it made him stop asking questions and finally leave her alone.

He didn't die. That was the most important thing. It gave Arin so much joy.

She didn't love Woozi; that was probably why nothing happened. She also didn't love Joshua though, but he still died. Perhaps the curse only worked on Joshua though because it picked up on the crush she felt for him, a crush she did not feel for Woozi.

Arin had always wondered about the way her curse works. Who dies and who doesn't? Who was safe and who wasn't? When people's lives were at stake, she could never had the luxury of testing it out. Case in point: Joshua. After him, she was afraid that even the slightest affection for a person could lead to their death.

It was at least obvious that the curse didn't differentiate between types of love. It caught on to the love for her idol, the love for her lover, and the love for her mother—all very different, very distinctive kinds of love that led to the same tragic ending.

But now, with Woozi, she was reassessing and rethinking how her curse worked, which meant, she had to ponder how she felt about him.

She didn't hate him. He was annoying and never left well enough alone. He seemed like the kind of person that would go mad if he didn't know everything, and he never took no for an answer. Not to mention how suspicious he acted/

But she also appreciated his talents and his willingness to help her and his compassion for cats. And his appreciation for Chilli's music. He was also quite cute, especially the way his glasses were too big for his face. There was some miniscule form of fondness there for him, but perhaps her irritation with him outweighed that.

She realized that she was not helping herself by thinking about it. There were thousands of variables at play here, and she didn't know which to consider. It was futile to try and figure it all out, so she just relished the fact she was able to say his name.

It felt like she defeated the curse, and it was a good feeling. Had it not been for the circumstances, she might have even been happy at the moment.

But she could not be happy when she was so scared, and for the first time, something else scared her more than the curse did. There was a woman out there whose sole intention seemed to be to hurt her in the worst possible ways—a woman who knew exactly where Arin lived.

That woman couldn't enter the building though; ~ had enchanted it so that mages could not enter. That's probably why the sorceress was so underhanded with her torment; she couldn't confront Arin directly, so instead she forced Arin to learn ~'s name.

Hyojung.

The name still gave her shivers. She refused to think about, and refused to connect ~'s face with it. Maybe she would forget it.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when someone pounded on the door, and Jeonghan's voice resounded from outside. "MISSY, OPEN UP RIGHT THIS INSTANT."

Meemo knew to to hide before Arin made her way to the door, preparing to face Jeonghan's wrath. She figured he was angry because she "missed a spot" or something.

Jeonghan body was trembling with anger, and not the standard kind of anger that Arin was used to. It was the kind of anger that chilled her to the bone, anger she didn't think she ever saw from him before. His face had always been obnoxious, but now, it seemed almost satanic.

It felt like he wanted to hurt her.

"Do you not take anything I say seriously!?" he yelled so loud, the other tenants surely heard.

"I..."

Before she could even say anything, he grabbed her wrist and violently pulled her through the door and down the stairs. She nearly tripped and fell, and he didn't seem to care, continuing to pull her down with force. When he got through to his front door, he hurled her inside his home, and he she fell on her knees against the marble floors. The impact sent a jolt through her body and made her limbs sore.

"Get up," he yelled, closing the door.

Arin lifted her body up, body trembling, afraid of what he was going to do.

He strode to where his office was, where he had security footage up.

"What's this?" he asked, playing the footage.

The video showed Arin knocking on Woozi's door and then going inside.

Arin lowered her head, admitting her guilt.

"And that's not even the worst of it!" he yelled.

After a few clicks on the computer, he opened another video with security footage. This footage showed Woozi picking up the trash from the lobby.

"You let a tenant do your job?!" he yelled so loud that Arin flinched. "Not just any tenant, but the wealthiest tenant of all? Do you know how much money I'll lose if he decides he doesn't want to rent here anymore?!"

"I'm sorry," she managed to say, bowing her head. She knew that this would not be enough though. He was going to fire her, she thought.

"You know what, I don't care anymore. Let him do what he wants with you!" Jeonghan scoffed. He took out his phone from his pocket, dialled a number, and held it to his ear.

"Good afternoon," he said. "I would like to apologize on behalf of themaid for making you clean the lobby... No, no, she's going to make it up to you... Remember how you requested to have her as your personal maid? Well, she's all yours... Yes, every day, starting 6pm until the morning... Yeah. You can make her do whatever you want... Great. She starts tomorrow... Bye"

He hung up and then looked at her.

"You work for me from 7am to 5pm," he said. "You can have one hour of break, and then you go and report to the eighth floor tenant. Do whatever he wants you to do, do you understand? If I hear from him that you resisted his advances in any way, I will fire you," he threatened.

What was he implying?

What did Woozi want to do with her?

"A... advances?" she stammered.

"He wants you to sleep with him obviously," Jeonghan explained. "And you're going to do it. As punishment for disobeying me."

Arin froze.

"Don't act all sad about it," Jeonghan scoffed. "He's probably going to give you a lot of money..." he trailed off when his eyes met hers. The anger that was in his eyes faded. He knew what he was saying was ridiculous.

Her heart beating fast, Arin found it difficult to breathe. She just looked at him pleadingly. Please don't make me do this, she pled with her eyes. She tried to get herself together and speak, but no words came out.

She was shocked. Although Jeonghan had always been a jerk, but he had never been this cruel. He would hurt her by overworking her and belittling her and insulting her, but he had never done anything to directly compromise her body.

"Just get out of my face," he shooed her, turning his head away from her.

"Jeonghan..." she called his name. She wished that the magic of calling a name would take effect now, would alert him to the cruelty of his demand and make him feel just a little bit of sympathy.

"Get out!" he roared, the anger exploding out of him.

With trembling lips, she nodded. She made her way to the door and slowed her steps, hoping, praying, that he would stop her and tell her that she didn't have to do it.

He didn't.

-

A/N: Happy new year everyone!