Jeonghan was in bad shape. He looked weak and pale, and he reeked of beer and sweat. His hair was oily and disheveled, strands going in all directions. It was so different from the tidy, groomed man that Arin had come to know, a man whose perfume could be smelled from miles away, whose hair was gelled to extreme precision.

The only things that seemed clean about him were his bandages. He had changed them since the last time Arin saw him, through the security camera.

“It’s you, Missy,” Jeonghan murmured as he peered at her. Arin noticed that he was out of breath, as if he had rushed out to meet her.

It was also strange, Arin thought, that Jeonghan was on the stairs to begin with. He would have taken the elevator if he wanted to go down this far.

“Go clean the stairs,” he demanded all of the sudden. “You’ve had your time off, now back to work!”

Arin felt like laughing. Did he really expect that things would go back to normal after everything? Was he even in on whatever Hyojung was planning? Is meeting Arin on the stairs all part of the plan?

“You look like you’re in bad shape,” Arin said.

“Shut up, Missy. Look who’s talking. You and your ugly hands.” Arin glanced down at her bandaged fingers.

“I’m worried about you,” Arin admitted, ignoring his jabs. “Are you eating?”

“What are you, my mom? off.”

“You need to go eat,” she insisted.

“I’m not going to ing eat! Stop asking me to do things I don’t want to ing do!” he yelled, silencing Arin for an awkward few seconds.

She cleared and changed the subject. “I… I met MRS.” Arin caught onto the intrigue in his expression, even if his words didn’t express it.

He scoffed at her. “How did they torture you?”

“They were very kind, actually,” Arin said. “They’re collecting magic to uncurse someone who is dying from his curse. I was helping them. They need me, so I want to get back to them and help them save this person’s life.”

“They tricked you into believing them, then. ing idiot.”

Arin was now accustomed to not taking his words to heart. Knowing that it was a curse that made him so unpleasant and snobbish, she found she could actually speak to him, looking past the vulgarity of his speech and the unapproachable way he held himself.

“I don’t think it’s a trick. They’re actually going to uncurse him. They’re collecting the magic from my curse and…” she trailed off, realizing that Jeonghan was cursed too. Jeonghan could also take part in the sessions, and MRS would get even more magic, which would mean Sangbin could be cured sooner. “Come with me.”

“Quit your blabbing, and get to work, idiot!”

“No, seriously, come with me! They can undo your curse. Your curse is not irreversible, so it is a possibility for you. Escape with me. Maybe you’ll be happier.”

“So you trust those cult members over your own friend? You really are a traitorous !” he spat.

That insult hit her more than any other had, because there was some truth in it this time. How could she trust people she just recently met over ~, her friend of four years? It didn’t make any logical sense.

“I didn’t even know Hyojung’s name until a few days ago!” Arin murmured, trying to defend herself. “And she’s trapping me in here against my will. I have the right to doubt her.”

“I don’t care. I don’t give a damn about either of you. Your little spew has nothing to do with me, so stop wasting my time and clean the ing stairs.”

“That’s not true. You’re involved whether you like it or not. You know she was using you too, right?”

He scoffed. “Yeah, right. I was the one using her.”

“Do you know why she enchanted the building? She kept telling me it was to keep enemies out, but the reality of it was she wanted to keep the both of us in. To trap us so she can collect all the magic that came out of us. She pretended to care about us, but all along she was just holding us for our magic.”

The words seemed to linger with Jeonghan for a while, because the skeptical expression on his face faded into a frown, “Is that what they told you?”

“Yes. And I saw how the magic collection worked. A mage just has to be present, and they will absorb everything and become more powerful. Hyojung was using us for power.”

“ her. this magic !” he murmured.

“Come with me,” Arin tried again. “Let’s escape this place together. You hate your life here so much, what do you have to lose if you try something else? It’s not kindness to come with me; think of it like revenge. Revenge against Hyojung.”

He frowned and glared at her for a long moment. Arin was afraid he was going to yell at her again, but he didn’t. Instead, he raised his chin up high in the air and said, “I’ll come with you if you clean the ing stairs.”

Arin took that as a yes.

-

Arin didn’t clean the stairs, but she did go up to Jeonghan’s apartment, because it was too cold to stand in the staircase where there was no heating.

At one point, Jeonghan was so weak and lightheaded that he nearly tripped on the stairs. He then sputtered insults at her when she tried to help him.

When they were finally inside, Jeonghan immediately went to his sofa to sit down. He was dizzy.

His apartment was a mess, as she was not around to clean it the past week. Even the dirty, rotten bandages from the previous day were sitting on the coffee table continuing to rot.

Arin did also notice that the kitchen was still fairly clean and organized. The only exception was empty beer bottles scattered on the counters. She inferred from this that Jeonghan was not eating.

She went to his kitchen herself, making herself at home. She marvelled at how much had changed since just a few days ago; before, she would have never walked around so freely in Jeonghan’s apartment, but now she walked as if it were her own place.

She found a banana and brought it to him, placing it on his lap as he was dealing with his dizziness.

“What’s this?” he said, looking down on his lap.

“A banana,” she answered sheepishly.

“No .”

“You should… umm...” Arin hesitated, “you should not eat it.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“It would give me so much pain to watch you eat that banana,” Arin said carefully. “So please, do not eat it.”

He seemed to understand what she was doing at that point, and Arin could have sworn that she saw a hint of an amused smile on his tired lips.

You’re not the boss of me, Missy!” he replied. “I will eat the banana if I want the ing banana.”

“Oh no!” she continued. “Please, please don’t eat it. It will be so cruel of you.”

He took the banana, peeled it, and began to eat it. He didn’t meet her eyes as he devoured it in a few bites.

“That was very unkind of you,” Arin said.

He threw the peel at her and demanded she throw it in the trash.

-

Soon, Arin understood the right way to communicate with Jeonghan. Because of his curse, unkindness was the default, so she had to let him be unkind, and pretend to be hurt or angered or dissatisfied with everything he was doing, even if he was doing exactly what she wanted.

It was like she had learned a new language, and it opened up a whole new kind of dialogue between them. For once, she didn’t feel so beneath him; she didn’t feel like he was her boss or her landlord. She was not intimidated by him.

Soon, she realized that she no longer hated him.

The realization was met with slight panic, and she glanced at the bracelet on her hand to see how close this lack of hatred was to love.

There was color there. A subtle, negligible light shade of purple that signified a development from hatred and even indifference. However, it was so far from love, that Arin deemed it safe to be around him, at least for now.

Even though she no longer hated him, it was hard to erase those past four years from her memory. Jeonghan shattered her self-esteem and propelled her into this state of perpetual angst. She did not think she could ever come close to loving him. Ever.