4 years ago…

“It was so creepy, Minghao. It was like she could read my mind or something. I know she knows about mom and her boyfriend,” Arin said as she was reorganizing her Chilli shelf with Minghao to make room for the latest album.

“Did she say anything?” Minghao asked as he helped her bring down albums from the top shelf.

“No, but she had that kind of look in her eyes, you know? Like she figured it all out.” Arin sat on the floor and began to stack the albums in order at the bottom-most shelf. Minghao brought down more albums from the top shelf and placed them next to her.

“Maybe she is actually psychic or something,” Minghao suggested in way that made Arin laugh. He sounded… serious.

“You don’t actually believe in that bull, do you?” she asked, focused on arranging the bottom albums.

“Why, you don’t think someone can have supernatural abilities at all?” Minghao stopped reaching for albums and looked at her curiously. He kneeled down to level with her.

“Of course not! Do you?” she asked, turning her head to face him.

“Absolutely,” was his answer.

He had that familiar glimmer in his eyes that Arin loved so much, and when Arin locked her eyes with his, she could not help but smile.

“Why are you smiling? You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“No, I just think you’re cute.” She told him, still smiling as she unabashedly stared at him.

Minghao also smiled, reaching out to put a few stray strands of hair behind her ear.

Arin wished he would lean closer.

But of course, Minghao would not let the moment last. He dropped his hand, broke eye contact and went back to focusing on the albums at the top shelf.

Arin sighed audibly.

“I promise I’ll kiss you,” Minghao said. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“It was the right moment,” she replied with a pout.

“No, the right moment would be after our first date at the Chili concert,” he recited. “We’ll take a stroll through the park and talk about the performances and how much we loved them. I’ll taunt you about your concert binoculars, and how loudly you screamed for S.Coups and pretend to be jealous of him. You’ll reassure me and tell me that I’m the only one for you. Then we’ll sit at a bench beside the lake, waving our lightsticks and watching the moon with your binoculars. I’ll compare the moon to your eyes, and you’ll blush.THEN I’ll kiss you.”

Apparently Minghao had been planning to kiss Arin after the concert since before she confessed. When Arin confessed that she loved him, he told her of his plans, and insisted that they remain “friends” until then. He just wanted the moment they embrace their relationship to be perfect and memorable, not just some random day at school.

Although Arin found it difficult to wait, she went along with it, because did not want to spoil his carefully constructed plan. He had obviously put a lot of thought into it, and he was eager for it to go exactly how he planned. His eyes glimmered whenever he talked about it, and Arin could never deny him whatever it was that made his eyes do that.

-

~ where are you??? Arin texted her friend in frenzy. Please answer me; it’s an emergency...

Arin knew that whenever ~ did not respond immediately, it meant she was either asleep or dealing with magic things. When a few minutes passed with no response from ~, Arin realized had to deal with this situation all by herself.

This was the situation: Arin had met the new tenant, and already a loud alarm was ringing in Arin’s head. DANGER. DANGER. DO NOT INTERACT.

But she had to clean Meemo’s pee.

Ignoring him was definitely not an option.The new tenant would probably report the issue to Jeonghan. If Jeonghan found out she owned a cat that peed in his rich tenant’s apartment, Arin could not imagine what he would do to her.

Once she established that ignoring was definitely out of the question, she realized she needed to have an action plan. She just wouldn’t learn his name. And just in case she did, she would just have to make sure she hated him.

But that is all easier said than done. You can’t just hate someone out of nowhere, and you also can’t tell a person “please don’t tell me your name because I’m cursed, and if I know your name, chances are you’ll choke to death right in front of me.” First of all, no one would believe it, and second of all, reverse psychology is a . Telling someone not to do something makes them all the more likely to do it. Especially something as easy as telling a name.

“Meemo, why couldn’t you just hold it in,” Arin mumbled when she got to the roof and put her cat down onto the floor. Meemo just stretched her back nonchalantly.

Arin took a deep breath and paced back and forth, trying to calm her wildly beating heart. She ignored Meemo’s meows for food.

“What do I do, what do I do?” Arin asked Meemo, who just meowed in response. “I have to go back down there before he rats me out to Jeonghan. I have to… I have to tell him not to tell Jeonghan… or should I not? Oh gosh, what should I do???”

Meemo meowed.

Arin shook her head and rushed through the door, down six flights of stairs and to the eighth floor. She still didn’t know what she was going to do, but whatever it was, it had to be more productive than pacing and picking the skin around her nails at home.

She was still picking the skin around her nails when she came face to face with his door. She took a deep breath and rung the doorbell. He opened almost immediately.

“Come in,” he told her, beckoning her into his new home. “I’ll take you to where the pee is.”

It was then that she realized that she had forgotten to bring the cleaning supplies.

“Uh… I… uh… forgot to bring the… uh, cleaning stuff,” she murmured awkwardly. “I’ll just go back up and…”

“Why don’t you just take the elevator?” he said.

“It uh… doesn’t work,” she stuttered, before swiftly turning her head and rushing up the stairs to the roof, again. She gathered all the supplies she could possibly need, and trudged back down to the eighth floor again.

She rung the doorbell again, and he opened it, looking at her with this bemused look on his face.

“You’re a bit of a clutz, aren’t you?” he said, opening the door and beckoning her inside. She entered and saw that the apartment was almost exactly as she left it last night, with the exception of some luggage and unpacked boxes sprawled across the floors. There was a brand new cat bowl and freshly opened bag of the expensive brand of cat food lying in the corner though. She reasoned he had bought it all just for Meemo.

She quickly realized that she was already making judgements about the guy. He was nice to cats, which probably meant he was a cool person, so she already liked him.

That scared her.

She decided the best way to make sure he doesn’t ask for her name again is to never look him in the eye. Once you avoid the eyes, people tend to feel shut out and never try to get to know you.

The guy led her into the bedroom and showed her the corner that Meemo had desecrated. Arin immediately went to work cleaning it. She hoped that he would leave her alone at that point, but instead he just watched her. He was probably afraid she would steal or something.

She tried her best to ignore him, and she was soon able to block him out and focus on the task at hand.

The pee was not so difficult to clean from the wall and the floor: it was the stained curtain that needed the most attention and took the most time, but she managed to clean and disinfect it until it was good as new.

It was only when she finished the task that she became aware of him. Since she began, he had taken a seat backwards on a chair, leaning against the backrest, watching her as if she were some kind of show.

“I’ll be going now,” she told him, bowing.

“You still don’t want to tell me your name?” he asked.

“I have to go,” she said again. She didn’t even want to acknowledge his question. She didn’t even look up to make eye contact with him.

“Is it because you’re afraid I’ll tell the landlord you’re keeping a forbidden pet in the perimeters? I know pets aren’t allowed in this building.”

Arin stayed quiet.

“Look, if you’re too shy to tell me, I’ll just ask Jeonghan. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

Crap. She wasn’t sure if he meant that as a threat or not, but she wasn’t going to take any chances either. She finally made eye contact with him. “Arin. That’s my name,” she said. She quickly averted her eyes. “Now I have to go,” she said, collecting all the cleaning supplies in frenzy.

“Wait, Arin,” he called to her. “I didn’t mean to scare you or anything.” Hearing her name was a little jolting for her; it’s been four years since someone besides ~ called out to her using her name. She never spoke to anyone else that knew her name, and Jeonghan only ever called her “Missy.”

Arin was so startled that it took a few seconds before she could respond to him: “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” she said for the fifth time. She wished he would stop talking to her and just leave her be, but he was so strangely interested in her, prying her with his eyes as if she was the most interesting thing in his very cool, very expensive new apartment.

Why was he looking at her when there’s a really cool lighting system he could be checking out? Why was he looking at her when he could marvel at the view of the city around him? Why was he looking at her when he had loads of boxes to unpack?

This was the first time a tenant ever gave her so much attention. The other residents only ever viewed her as the help and didn’t even look at her twice. Some even pretended she didn’t even exist. Perhaps in any other context, people would have found that condescending, but for Arin, it was perfect. She liked that she worked for snotty, condescending rich people who didn’t care about her.

She was genuinely confused. It’s not like she was pretty or anything, and so she could not even assume he was attracted. She had frizzy hair that she never cared to keep in check and belly fat she never cared to lose. She never put on make-up, and wore an unappealing T-shirt and one of two pairs of flimsy jeans that she had, the only ones that fit her since she gained weight over the past few years.

Being cursed had made Arin not care about her appearance at all. It’s not like she could use that appearance to charm people, to make people like her, to attract people. On the contrary, looking good only worked against her. She didn’t want people to want to know her. She would rather they all stayed away from her.

But this guy didn’t seem to want to do that. No matter how many times she told him she wanted to leave, he didn’t take the rejection.

He was infuriating.

When Arin finally finished collecting the supplies, she stood and dashed toward the door, but as soon as she left and prepared to take first step up the stairs, Jeonghan appeared.