Arin had to force herself to pull away. “No, no, no, no,” she said as she crouched on the ground and covered her face with her hands. “We can’t do this. We can’t.”

“Say my name,” Jeonghan demanded. “Say it.”

Arin just shook her head. “Go away.”

“Please, say it,” he nearly begged, crouching down on the floor beside her. She could feel him commanding her attention, imploring her to look at him. The truth was that she was tempted to look at him, just to appease that harrowing desperation in his voice. However, she was afraid that her heart would skip a beat at the sight of him now, so she stood her ground and refused to look at him.

“What is going on!?” Woozi had finally had enough of not understanding. He stood over them completely and utterly frustrated, demanding answers.

Jeonghan’s phone suddenly rang before either of them could even acknowledge Woozi. Jeonghan grunted as he took it out of his pocket. He glanced at the screen, then stepped away to answer it.

While Jeonghan was talking, Woozi was inundating her with questions, insisting that she tell him what was going on. Arin didn’t have the composure to fill him in. Her heart was still beating so fast, and the magic was spiralling around her, as if mocking her for thinking she could be intimate with someone without consequence.

She was so overwhelmed, she wanted to cry.

She soon heard Jeonghan’s footsteps approach her, so she quickly buried her head in her knees again, afraid that one look at him would tip the scales.

It turned out he was going for the front door. She heard Jeonghan unlock and open it. Afraid that he was going to leave and hurt himself, she lifted her head in panic to see where he was going.

He wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t open the door to leave; he opened it to let someone in.

Arin’s eyes widened when she saw Hyojung walk through the door. It had been so long since the two had been in the same space, and Arin felt like she didn’t even recognize her old friend anymore. Even though Hyojung had the same jet black long hair, the same stubby legs, and the same kindly smile, Arin was now seeing her in a completely new and unflattering light.

Hyojung focused intently on Woozi as she entered, not even sparing Arin a glance.

Before Arin could say or do anything, Jeonghan came up from behind her and covered with his hands rather aggressively, holding her in place.

Arin had no idea what was going on. She just watched powerlessly as Hyojung concentrated her gaze on Woozi and muttered some kind of spell under her breath.

With horror, Arin watched as the awareness faded from Woozi’s eyes. He collapsed onto the floor. His glasses flew off his face and skidded close to Arin’s feet.

Arin wanted to yell, but she couldn’t get any sound out through Jeonghan’s smothering hand over .

She just stared at Hyojung in dread.

“Don’t worry, Ar,” Hyojung said with a soft smile that gave Arin the shivers. “He’ll be awake soon. I just wiped out his memory of the last hour and knocked him out...”

Before she knew it, Arin was knocked out too.

-

When Arin regained consciousness, she found herself tied to a chair in front of her old bed. There was a gag around so she could not speak or scream.

It hurt. The ropes around her wrists and ankles were bristly and tied too tight. When she tried to move, the rope scratched and bruised her skin like an abrasive.

Jeonghan emerged from behind her. He spat in her face. “ you, !” he yelled. He then took the rope that was tied around her wrist and somehow tightened it even more, making Arin wince in pain as it dug even further into her skin. She felt liquid trickle down her hands.

“You could have helped me, but you chose to condemn me to even more time in this hell hole!” he spat. He then tightened the rope around her ankle too.

It felt like her skin was on fire, and the more she struggled, the stronger it burned. Arin tried to hold still to keep the rope from digging further into her skin, but her body could not help but tremble, in part from the pain, and in part from the cold.

As the pain became unbearable, Arin began to cry.

Jeonghan just scoffed in reaction to the tears. He probably chose to tie her with this rope in particular; he wanted it to be rough and harsh against the skin. He wanted to make her suffer. He wanted to hurt her.

How was this the same Jeonghan that kissed her and told her he loved her? That Jeonghan had fooled her, taken advantage of her. This was the real Jeonghan: a cruel and unfeeling masochist who did not give a damn about her.

Just like that, there was no magic between them anymore. Just like that, she hated him again. She condemned her temporary lapse in judgement; she was a fool to ever care about him, even for a minute.

Arin was in so much pain, she was barely conscious of what was happening around her. She did not notice that Hyojung and her girlfriend had walked in.

“Is she awake?” Hyojung asked Jeonghan.

Jeonghan spat at Arin one last time before leaving through the door and slamming it shut.

“Hello Ar, I missed you,” Hyojung said, taking a seat on Arin’s old bed in front of her.

Arin began to make as much noise as she could through the cloth around , trying to tell Hyojung how much pain she was in so that Hyojung could offer her some form of relieve.

“I’m sorry about the thing around your mouth, but I’m afraid of what could happen if you say my name,” she said, smiling sadly. “I’ll untie you soon, Ar. I just want to tell you a few things before I do.”

Hyojung didn’t get it. Arin wasn’t complaining about the thing around , she was complaining about the ropes around her ankles and wrists.

“This is not how I wanted to do this,” Hyojung continued. “For the past four years, I’ve tried to cover up your curse, to seal it away so it no longer can hurt anyone, but now it’s just out of control. I’m trying to protect you, Ar…”

Suddenly, much to Arin’s relief, the girlfriend spoke up. “Hyo, look! Her hands!”

Hyojung looked behind Arin’s chair where her hands were tied. She gasped. “Oh, Ar, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think Jeonghan would go this far.”

This far? Arin thought. Why was he allowed to “go” at all?

While Hyojung’s girlfriend knelt down to loosen the knot around Arin’s ankles, Hyojung worked on the one around her wrists. It continued to burn, even when the knots loosened slightly around her skin.

“I’ll go get a first aid kit,” Hyojung’s girlfriend said after assessing the damage. She left through the front door, leaving Arin and Hyojung alone in the room.

“Does it hurt?” Hyojung asked.

Arin nodded, tears still streaming down her face.

“I’m so sorry,” Hyojung said.

The girlfriend returned with the first aid kit, then sat on another chair behind Arin and began tending to the bruises.

It was then that Hyojung finally introduced her: “This is… well, I won’t tell you her name, but she’s someone very special to me. My girlfriend, as in my lover... It makes MRS very mad, you know, that I insist on women. They think I go for women because I don’t want to have magical babies that will repopulate the world with mages. You know how they are with their whole procreation thing.”

Arin winced when she felt the rubbing alcohol against her injured wrists. She tried to pull her hands away, but that only made herskin rub against the rough rope again. “Stay still,” the girl said, gently holding her arm in place.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about MRS,” Hyojung said to Arin, trying to distract her from the burn in her wrist, “and about me too. They didn’t tell you the full truth, Arin, and admittedly, I didn’t either. That’s on me. Your distrust for me now is totally my fault, because I kept you in the dark about a lot of things. I’m going to make it right, though. I’ll tell you the full story right now, and after that, I’ll let you go.”

At this point, the girlfriend was wrapping gauze around Arin’s wrists. To do that, she needed to loosen the ropes a little, for which Arin was very thankful.

Just as Hyojung was about to say more, Hyojung’s phone rang. She answered it immediately. “Hello? … What?!” Hyojung’s eyes grew wide, and she stood up and began to pace. “No, it’s too dangerous… you need to come here, dad. The structure is too big, they won’t be able to break this enchantment… Are you close by? … Yes, but she won’t see you… When you arrive, ring me, and I’ll come get you.”

Hyojung put the phone in her pocket and then rubbed her head.

“What happened?” the girlfriend asked.

“They broke the enchantment…” Hyojung answered.

“Here?”

“No, at my house,” Hyojung replied.

“Is your father okay?”

“Yeah. He’s… he’s fine. On his way here.”

“I can go get him if you want.”

“No, he’ll be okay on his own.”

“Well… what’s the plan?” the girlfriend asked after a pensive pause.

“They’re closing in on us,” Hyojung replied with a troubled look in her eyes. “I need to hurry up and close the portal and end magic once and for all. Before they do any more damage.”

Arin’s eyes widened with panic when she heard Hyojung say that. MRS had made this plan to “end magic” seem like a distant, far-off prospect, like Hyojung still needed a lot of time before she was able to pull it off. But Hyojung was talking about it with such immediacy, like it was coming too soon for anyone to try and stop her.

Hyojung then suddenly came close to Arin and began to untie the gag around .

“Wait, what are you doing?” yelled the girlfriend. “She could say your name…”

Hyojung shook her head. “Even if she did, I won’t die. I feel no magic here. Arin doesn’t love or trust me anymore.”

It was true. Even though Arin couldn’t see the magic stone on her wrist, she could feel the lack of magic in the air. There was no love there at all, only fear.

When the cloth fell off and around Arin’s shoulders, it was a relief to finally be able to salvate again.

“I’m so sorry for everything, Arin.” Hyojung said as she brought a bottle of water to Arin’s lips. Arin drank eagerly. “I hate how this is turning out, but you know I would never do anything to hurt you.”

When Arin was done drinking, she looked up at Hyojung and tried to hide the stutter in voice. “You’re not really going to kill the mages, are you?”

“I have to,” Hyojung said.

“They’re not all bad,” Arin tried to reason with her.

“I know they’re not all bad, Ar, but they have to die if the world is to be natural again, free of curses and supernatural ailments. If I wipe out the magic, you’ll be free of your curse. Sure all the mages will be gone, but the curses will die with them. Curses can’t work in a world without magic...”

Arin did not know that, but no matter how tempting it sounded for her curse to just disappear, her conscience could not accept the upshot. No matter what Hyojung believed was the greater good, she was on a mission to kill actual good people who did nothing wrong.

If Arin had never met MRS, and Hyojung had told her of her plans to close the portal, kill the mages, and eliminate curses, Arin would have probably been overjoyed. She realized then just how brainwashed she had been, how her context informed and misinformed everything she thought she knew.

Arin did know MRS for long, but what she saw among them was good. They were a community of happy people working to make the best of life. They did not deserve to just die.

Hyojung’s phone rang again. Without even looking at the screen, Hyojung said, “I have to take this,” and stepped outside.

In her absence, Arin felt the enchantment lift.

Hyojung came back minutes later, breathless from the many stairs. She also had this sense of urgency about her, like she was in a hurry.

“I still need more magic before getting to the portal,” she said. “I’m sorry about this, Ar, but for once, I will do what MRS does, and extract some magic from your curse.”

Soon, the cloth was tied around again, restricting her from speaking. The two women then left the room, and came back minutes later, carrying Woozi’s unconscious body toward her.

The whole thing made her feel sick in the stomach.

How could they not see how wrong this all was? Even the act of carrying an unconscious person by the arms and legs seemed like an unforgivable violation. This whole disillusioned strife against the so-called evil of magic had blinded Hyojung, making her the very thing she was criticizing.

They held Woozi’s body up in front of Arin and made her stare at him. Woozi’s eyes were closed, his mouth was hanging open, and his body flopped. She felt so guilty seeing him like that. She felt like it was her fault he was in this situation.

Arin knew what they were trying to do; they wanted to activate her curse, to make it work, to let her release magic so they could collect it, and Hyojung could use it in her ultimate mission to obliterate magic.

However, the setup was not yielding the results they wanted. There was no magic.

“Why isn’t this working?” Hyojung yelled in frustration. “I could have sworn I felt the magic in that room before!” She then narrowed her eyes, and the realization hit her. Her neck snapped toward Arin and she peered at her curiously. “Do you love Jeonghan?”

The magic that Hyojung had felt on the eighth floor was most definitely aimed at Jeonghan. But Hyojung was out of luck, because Arin hated Jeonghan again. Those feelings were a mistake bred in the heat of the moment, an embarrassing lapse of judgement on Arin’s part. Hyojung would not be able to replicate those feelings if she tried.

Right on time, Jeonghan swung the door open and barged in with a frown on his face. “I am not at your service!” he thundered at Hyojung. “I will not pick up any strays in this building! Get that old man out of here immediately!!”

“Stop acting like we don’t pay rent in this place!” Hyojung suddenly snapped at him. “Just leave him alone!”

“You paid to keep that in here for three years, not to have a family reunion!”

Hyojung rolled her eyes. “We’ll give you double this month,” she promised.

“No! I am through with this arrangement! This is my building, and I’m sick of all the magic games in here. You paid for this month, so after that, I want all of you out forever! Do you understand!?” Jeonghan was yelling so loud, Arin had to try and cover one ear with her shoulders. By the end of it, Jeonghan’s face was red and his voice was cracked.

“Fine,” she answered. “We won’t need that long anyway.”

“Now get that old man off of my stairs!” Jeonghan yelled

“Okay, okay,” Hyojung said through gritted teeth. She laid Woozi’s body on the bed and followed Jeonghan out of the room.

In the time that Hyojung was gone, her girlfriend made sure the cloth around Arin’s mouth was nice and tight, as if to take extra precaution. It was only later that Arin understood why.

A few minutes later, an old man emerged through the door, someone Arin immediately recognized.

It was Jitae, her stepfather.