It was like magic.

No, it was magic.

The place was huge, much bigger than the little villa it appeared to be from the outside. She stood on what appeared to be a balcony, looking down on this huge underground world bustling with well-dressed, attractive people. There were people in lab coats going through vials and potions on one side, and what seemed to be a children’s nursery on the other. Most magical of all, there were also sudden bursts of purple air that appeared and disappeared like ghosts all around her.

On the wall in front of her were the letters “MRS” in an enormous plaque.

Of course, almost everything was purple: the plaque, the letters, the walls, the railings.

As much as there was to take in, Arin had to close her eyes. The purple was too triggering; it reminded her too much of death. It made her so anxious, she began to pick the skin around her fingers again.

“Arin!” she heard a familiar voice in the distance.

She turned to the direction of the voice, but didn’t open her eyes.

“It’s me, Jun!” he said. “You’re under spell, right?”

Arin wanted to open to say yes, but no words came out. She just nodded.

“Great!” he said. “So we’re safe… but… what’s with the eyes? Why are you closing them?”

She couldn’t explain.

“Is it like… a side effect of the spell?” he asked.

She shook her head, and opened her eyes a little to make her point.

He handed her his phone. “Here, type it.”

She took it, happy to have something to focus on that wasn’t purple.

“The purple is nauseating. It reminds me of what happens to people’s faces when they die,” she typed.

He read it, and nodded in understanding. “Purple is… well… it’s the color of magic. It’s actually not purple, though. It’s a color called ‘octarine,’ but we humans mostly see it as purple. Our eyes are so limited; they only see things that make sense to them. Octarine doesn’t make sense, so human eyes register it as purple. I thought that was fascinating.”

That explained why she hated purple so much. It was not only the color of choked up dying faces; it was also the color of her curse.

“Don’t worry, maybe we’ll get you some sunglasses to filter it out.”

She nodded.

“Hope the couple at reception didn’t freak you out too much!” Jun added. “I know they’re a bit uncomfortable, but they’re actually fated. They have the red string and everything; I set them up myself.”

The fact they were ‘fated’ did not make her feel better about the couple at all. Fated or not, the man was still terrible and made her feel sick to the stomach when she thought of him.

“You can close your eyes if you want,” Jun said. “I’ll take your hand and guide you.”

She just closed her eyes again, and felt his hands take hers immediately. She felt self-conscious of her battered and skin-worn rough fingers all of the sudden.

“Come on, I’ll take you to the leader,” he said, pulling her as she walked.

He led her to places she could not see. She heard people discussing things about potions, about babies, about spells. She then felt something swish through her head, making her feel dizzy and stop walking.

He also stopped to see what happened. “Oh, sorry. I think I accidentally ran you into a spirit. They’re these magical clusters from the spirit world who like to hang out here due to an experiment gone wrong. Don’t worry about them, they’re harmless. They just make you feel funny for a few second,” Jun explained.

Arin had to massage her head to get the feeling to subside.

“This used to be a temple, by the way,” Jun continued to explain as they walked. “The ancient shamans used to come here to be connected to the spirits, which made it a perfect location for our headquarters. Spiritual energy is concentrated in particular places, including temples. Mages perform their magic much better in those places.”

He continued to pull her through what felt like a big hollow space of a lot of people, including children and babies. She heard conversations about magic, about potions, about spells.

She felt strange; for so long she had been trapped in a building trying to run away from magic and its effects, but there she was, right in the center of it. She didn’t even know that there were so many people involved with magic. She didn’t know a place of magic could be so lively. She had always assumed it would be a dark, damp place of torture and misery. Now, she realized that her home on the roof had been the miserable place all along.

Eventually Jun took her into a room, then finally let go of her hand.

“Here she is!” Jun said to someone inside the room.

A woman gasped. “Oh, my! She’s actually here. Arin, you’re here!” the woman said with enthusiasm.

Arin opened her eyes curiously to meet the stranger. Before her was a beautiful woman wearing expensive jewelry and a purple robe.. She looked young, but Arin could tell from the look on her eyes that she was actually much older than her appearance. Much, much older. It reminded her of the witch that cursed her.

But unlike that witch that cursed her, this woman had a happy face and bright, smiling eyes which reminded her of ~.

She looked at Arin with a strange kind of wonder.

“Arin, this is Dasinai, the leader of MRS,” Jun introduced. “Dasinai, this is Arin, Hyojung’s girl.”

A name. Arin had learned another name, and for once she did not feel welling dread in the pit of her stomach. She felt safe. It was liberating.

“She’s a bit sensitive to the octarine because of her curse,” Jun continued explaining to Dasinai.

“Oh I see,” Dasinai said. “Well, we can’t have that.” She turned to someone who Arin had not even noticed was behind her. “Boo, go to the Extraction Unit and tell everyone to tone down the octarine in the extraction room. Make it…” Dasinai turned to Arin again. “Arin, what’s your favorite color?”

Arin couldn’t answer.

“She can’t speak,” Jun pointed out.

“Oh, right… no worries. What about white?” Dasinai asked Arin.

Arin just nodded.

“Boo, tell them white!”

“Alrighty, madam!” the boy said before scurrying off.

“I want to thank you for trusting us, Arin,” Dasinai said when he was gone. “I know that Hyojung told you awful things about us, but I need you to know that we aren’t awful. I hope you’ll see that today and decide to join us for good.”

Arin wanted to ask about Hyojung. She wanted to understand what Hyojung was doing and why these people were so against her. She would have reached into her pocket for her phone to ask these questions, but Dasinai talked too much.

“Take a seat, dear, I’ll tell you a bit about MRS. Jun, would you be a dear and get Arin something to eat and drink? She’s famished.”

Arin had not eaten since that morning, so she was indeed famished. She wondered how Dasinai knew that. Magic, probably.

Arin took a seat in what appeared to be an office space. She focused on the papers on her desk, in order to drown out the purple that was now causing her severe headaches and compulsive skin-picking.

When Jun was out of the room, Dasinai continued to speak, “I know you have a lot of questions, my dear, and I will answer them all for you. I’ll start by…”

Dasinai was interrupted by the sound of loud cheering from the outside. A young woman stuck her head through the door. “Dasinai! The baby came, and he’s magical!”

Dasinai gasped happily. “That’s marvelous! Oh, please send my regards to the couple. They worked so hard.”

“Will do!” the woman piped before leaving.

Dasinai was still smiling at the news when she turned to Arin. “We try to restore magic here, and part of that is procreation. Whenever we get a new baby, it’s always such a happy occasion! Lately, most babies have been coming out muggles, sadly, because of the lack of magic in the air.”

Arin knew that MRS was involved with this side of things as well; Hyojung had told her about it. But the way that Hyojung had framed it was so different. Hyojung had made it seem like it was coerced procreation, like they were trying to catch her so they could force another male mage on her then steal her baby. But, it didn’t seem like the case at all. Did Hyojung lie?

Dasinai went on to talk about MRS. She told her that MRS served three functions: Retention, Restoration, and Reparation. Retention is about keeping the magic that’s already on Earth, Restoration is bringing back the lost magic, and Reparation is using that magic to make positive changes in the human community.

“Everyone here in this building is either a mage, has a mage’s blood, or is related to magic in some way, which includes cursed and blessed people like you and Jun. We’re all working together to try to bring magic back to our dull world, but we have enemies, including Hyojung.”

Arin really wanted to know more about Hyojung. She raised her hand to signal that she had something to ask, and Dasinai immediately understood, handing her a notepad and a pen from beyond her desk.

When Arn finally had the pen in her hand, she struggled to find the words to put on the paper. She didn’t even know what she wanted to know. All she could think was to write: “what does Hyojung want?”

Dasinai sighed and nodded, as if she had expected a question like that. “She made you love her, didn’t she?”

Arin nodded without thinking. Even after everything, she still loved Hyojung and could never think of working against her with her enemies.

“We’re very sorry, Arin, for teaching you her name. We just needed her to leave you alone, and that’s the only way we thought we could do that. You see, dear, curses are like infinite supplies of magic. When you’re cursed, especially with a curse as powerful as yours, magic just drips out of you, wherever you are. By trapping you in that building, Hyojung is actually trapping the magic in there as well, and then collecting it as soon as she visits.”

Arin felt her heart sink at the implication.

“That’s why she kept you and Jeonghan in that enchanted building all these years,” Dasinai continued. “She tricked you into believing that it was for your own protection, but really, it was all a ruse so she could be the one to collect your magical residue.”

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up. Arin listened with a blank expression on her face, trying to process what Dasinai was telling her, but it simply didn’t register.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Arin?” Dasinai asked softly, aware of how much this information troubled Arin, how it made her feel like screaming and crying. “She was using you, my dear. She was using you so she could get more power...”

A/N: Seeee, I told you I would commit to weekly updates! Sorry if there was an info dump in this chapter! Hope i explained things clearly though~