Arin’s eyes widened beneath the glasses. She tried so hard to forget the name, to let it drown in her thoughts so she never had to let it sit on her tongue, so she never had to gamble with his life like he wanted her to.

“Say it, Arin. Say my name,” Woozi urged.

What was he doing? It was not worth the risk.

Jihoon. The name rang in her ears like a gong, and she could think of nothing else but that. The name that labeled and defined the person in front of her right now, which she could only see in heavily blurred vision through his glasses.

But it was not magic that was making her think of his name. She glanced at the bracelet on her wrist, but she could hardly make out any color wearing those glasses. Still, she could feel that there was nothing, no dark magic dancing around her threatening to kill him at her call.

“Is that really your name?” Arin asked.

“Yes, it is,” Jihoon said. “Say it.”

“J…Jihoon,” she stammered, then closed her eyes.

Nothing happened. She felt no dark magic in her chest, no devilish whispers in her ear. He did not choke for air or turn purple. He just stood there. She couldn’t see him properly, but she could tell from the blurred colors of his face that he smiled.

“It worked!” he exclaimed, laughing, celebrating. “It actually worked! You don’t need to lose your voice, Arin! All you need is glasses!”

Arin narrowed her eyes, confused. Had she found a loophole? Had she really found a way to defeat her curse without sacrificing her eyes or her voice…

Her trust issues made her wary. No way it was that easy. The blood rushed to her head and paranoia struck her, then drowned her in fear and anxiety. What if he was lying? What if that was not his name?

He had lied to her before; what’s to say he wouldn’t do it again? She couldn’t imagine what possible motivation he had to lie and to dissuade her from getting the operation, but what if there was something he wasn’t telling her. What if this was all part of a carefully orchestrated plan? What if…

Blood dripped from her fingers as her nails dug into and ripped apart her cuticles. Woozi looked at her hands.

“You… you don’t believe me,” he inferred. “That’s why you’re nervous.”

Arin stepped away from him, cautious.

“I don’t blame you,” Woozi replied. “I haven’t given you reason to trust me.”

The doctor came out of the room, her shrill, indignant voice making Arin feel more anxious than she already was. “Five minutes are over! Are we having the operation or not?”

Woozi stared at her, as if waiting for her to answer that question. There was a tense silence in the air between them, a silence that was suffocating Arin with self-doubt and distrust. She had to make her decision right now.

“You can take off the glasses if you want,” Woozi said. “If you do that, you’ll be able to verify that it really is my name, and you can save your voice.”

“If it is your name, you’ll die,” Arin reminded him.

“If that’s what it takes for me to regain your trust again, then I’m okay with that.”

Would he have said that if he were lying? What if he said that because he knew he was lying, and wanted her to think he wasn’t, and knew she would never risk taking the glasses off? What if she takes off her glasses, says his name, and kills him? What if she trusts him and doesn’t take off her glasses, and decides not to get the operation?

As she ran every possible scenario in her head, the doctor was becoming restless and very angry. Arin had to make her decision immediately.

She wanted to believe Woozi. She wanted to save her voice, but everything about him made her paranoid and uncertain. The only thing she was certain of was that she was not taking off the glasses. She would not gamble with his life like that.

That left only two other options: have the operation or avoid it. Having the operation meant the guaranteed immunity from her curse, whether or not Woozi was telling her the truth, but she would lose her voice. Not having it meant keeping her voice, but she might be giving up one of her only chances at immunity, on the chance that the suspiciously easy glasses method, flawed and untested as it was, might give her a much-favored alternative.

Simply put, she either trusted him, or she didn’t.

“Well?! I don’t have all day! Are you coming, girl?” the doctor gnarled.

In a bout of determination, Arin sighed and finally made her decision: “No. I don’t want the operation anymore.”

-

“What do you mean you’re not getting the operation!” Hoshi yelled through the phone so loud that Arin had to take the phone off of her ear.

Arin understood why he was frustrated. It took a lot of work to arrange this, and a lot of money to pay off a rogue doctor to carry it out. Hoshi was the one who had labored for a long time to finally get the operation arranged, and for it to just be cancelled on a whim like that must not have been easy to hear.

It was hard for her to explain it all over the phone like that, especially then with the raging headache she now had from wearing Woozi’s glasses for so long. Both of them were now stranded together in the sun in a strange empty neighborhood, waiting for a taxi or someone to pick them up.

Woozi was struggling to navigate his own phone without his glasses, and it took Arin many misdials before she managed to find Hoshi’s number.

MRS did send them a driver eventually, and they both stumbled into the backseat together. When they finally got to MRS, and Arin’s lips were finally sealed, she returned Woozi’s glasses to him.

The effect was immediate. With the name “Jihoon” on her mind, and Jihoon right there, in the flesh, before her very eyes, the color on her bracelet turned purple. The name got stuck in , and the magic swirled all around her.

He was telling the truth. Jihoon was his name, and his glasses really did block the magic.

It was the first time that Arin had never felt happy with dark magic oozing out of her bones like that. It meant she had figured it out: the loophole that would defeat and silence her curse forever. He had figured it out.

She smiled at Woozi, at Jihoon and put her hands together in utmost thanks.

-

When Hoshi learned about Jihoon’s theory, he immediately went on to test it. He gave Arin sunglasses, the same ones she was given when she first came into MRS to filter out all the purple, and noted how the color on her bracelet immediately turned white.

“Damn! It actually works,” Hoshi said. “I feel so stupid for not trying this earlier…”

He explained that the barrier between her eyes is a condition that operates at “Tier 1.” That barrier blocks all of the magic, so even if someone she loves was in front of her, if they weren’t ‘before her very eyes,’ blocked by lenses or glasses, it wouldn’t work.

“Well, what do you know, the math guy outdid the magic guy,” Hoshi told Arin with a scoff. “He figured out a loophole I completely overlooked. I almost made you destroy your throat!”

Hoshi said it as a joke, but he truly did look guilty about not having figured it out himself.

“I just wonder why you don’t hate me,” Hoshi pointed at her bracelet, which still beamed purple for Hoshi.

Arin could never hate Hoshi after everything that he had done, and all that he had helped her with. She could never fault him for a mistake or an oversight. She shook her head, trying to tell him that she could never blame him for arranging the operation. On the contrary, she was grateful.

“Small wonder you love that Woozi fellow,” Hoshi added with a smile. “I’m rooting for both of you.”

Arin blushed at that, feeling awkward and exposed. She should have been used to having her intimate feelings on blast for anyone to pick at and comment on, but it still made her feel uncomfortable, especially in this case with Woozi.

Everyone seemed so sure she was in love with him, but the truth was, she wasn’t sure what she felt. Ever since she found out he had lied about his identity, he was a completely different person from the person she had fallen for.

She had certainly forgiven Woozi, and she did love and care about him, but it was not yet the kind of love Hoshi seemed to think it was. She was not in love with him. Woozi – Jihoon, rather – was still a stranger, a new friend she was only just getting to know. She had only just learned his name, and she needed more time before she could ever confidently say that she loved him.

He was her soulmate, so she expected that her heart for him would soon grow fonder, but for now she didn’t want that expectation to cloud her judgement of her feelings for him now.

For now, Jihoon was a friend who had just given her a precious gift. She loved him like she would a friend. At least, for now.

She didn’t know how she could relay that to Hoshi, who seemed very enthusiastic about the upcoming Extraction Sessions.

“So now that we figured out the whole Woozi thing, we can get back to our regularly scheduled extraction! Larali’s doing much better now, but I think we should uncurse her sooner rather than later. Do you think… what was his name again? Jiyoon? Jiwoon? Ji… Jihoon? Do you think he would he be up for it?”

She had to tell Hoshi. It felt strange to be open about these intimate feelings with a work colleague that had no business knowing about them. She had long accepted that her job with MRS would seep into her personal life and put her in uncomfortable positions, but it never became easier.

“It’s totally fine,” Hoshi said when she texted him about her doubts. “Don’t worry about it. We have the love potion. You can just use it on Jihoon, and boom, you’ll be in love again. Since you aren’t in love anymore, it should work this time.”

-

Jihoon stood in front of Arin in the Extraction Room. The more she looked at him, the more sure she was of her feelings. Jihoon was still a stranger to her, and that was okay. She looked forward to getting to know him.

These Extraction Sessions were her opportunity to do that. She wanted to ask him about himself, learn more about him and his family and his job. She wanted to understand why he tracked people down and stalked them, and whether or not he had any moral dilemmas invading their privacy like that.

She wanted to understand him, and then let her feelings for him as her soulmate grow organically from there.

She put the toothpick with the potion in and waited for it to take effect.

When the shakes subsided, she looked at Jihoon again. She waited for her eyes to see him beautifully. Waited to be in love with him.

The feeling never came, and Arin couldn’t explain why. Perhaps it would come late, she conjectured. She expected it to come. He was her soulmate after all.

“How do you feel?” Jihoon asked her.

“I think the potion is a little late,” she texted. “I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary.”

When he read that, Jihoon appeared fidgety, like he was nervous. Like he knew something she didn’t. Like he understood what was happening.

“It didn’t work,” Yoonsa called out from the corner of the room. “It’s the same amount of magic as before. The potion isn’t doing anything.”

“I don’t think it’s gonna work, Arin,” Woozi said softly, regretfully. “I think my time as the person in your heart has passed.”

Lines formed between Arin’s eyebrows as she studied him. There was something about the certainty with which he said it that told Arin he was hiding something from her.

“It’s over,” Jihoon said. “Whatever you and I had, I’m going to shut it down right now.”

Ouch. It felt like he was breaking up a relationship that never even had the chance to bud, and in a way, it hurt. Arin felt like he was rejecting her, and she just couldn’t understand why. He claimed to love her, so how could he say such a thing?

“You’re my soulmate,” Arin texted him, fingers shaking. “How can our time be over?”

Jihoon saw the message. Sighed. Then shook his head. “We’re not soulmates,” he said with surety.

Arin dismissed the message as ignorance on his part. Maybe he didn’t know yet, she thought. She had assumed he figured it out the day she was abducted, when Jun followed Jihoon’s thread to find her. Perhaps he was confused. Maybe he thought Jun was following his own thread or something, she reasoned.

Jihoon shook his head again. “I think there’s something you should know, Arin…”

Jun suddenly opened the glass door and shuffled inside, taking a stand beside Jihoon. Arin was now even more confused. What did Jun have to do with all of this?

Jihoon turned to Jun. “You have to tell her.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” he said. Jun turned to Arin, face flushed with guilt. It looked like he was about to break some very bad news to her. “I think… if you look deep in your heart, you’ll know why the potion isn’t working anymore.”

Arin tilted her head, lines forming on her forehead. She was utterly confused at this point.

“I think you’re in love with someone else,” Jun explained.

Arin frowned. What were they saying? How did they know how she felt? What other person could she possibly be in love with? She trailed off with that thought.

A face came to her mind almost immediately. A face that always frowned and called her ‘Missy.’

“Jihoon isn’t your soulmate,” Jun finally revealed. “He never was.”

A/N: hehehe now there’s a plot twist for you to dwell on :)