After those few words, Yerin had fallen silent. She looked at Lutter with unseeing eyes as if various images of the past were being played inside her retina.

"So, how did it happen?" Lutter found himself asking.

In his memory, she was the cherished daughter of a rich family. How could no one come looking for her after she ran away from home?

"It was after that party. As you know my father had organized this party to celebrate my birthday at the Ferris Hotel. When we met, I was in a muddled state, I felt as if I was on drugs. I briefly remember entering a room at random to rest and stumbling upon you.

After our tryst, just when the party ended, My father and brother found us naked and incoherent in the room. I was still awake and you were sleeping, deeply. I was then dragged out of the room and brought back home.

Let's just say that the night became unpleasant the more it went on. At the end of our familial discussion, I had been deemed a drug user and an immoral girl. I was expected to go to a rehabilitation center. I vehemently opposed it. Tempers rose and I finally decided to leave the house."

She spoke detached of it all. It was like it had happened to another person.

Lutter fell silent as he drank his beer. He remembered waking up that morning alone in the hotel room. He hadn't thought much about it. For him, she had simply left.

"That's it. I am disowned. But a girl got to make a living. Right?" She smiled but her eyes were empty.

"I see. Though, I am curious. Why this particular line of business?"

"Ah? I met someone two days after I left home. I had no money and this person helped. He ran a very special internet cafe." She looked away in a daze.

"He taught me how to survive as a street kid. How to fight. In time, I started to help him with his deliveries. The rest as they say is history."

"From what I could hear in that alley, you were set up," Lutter remarked after she stopped talking.

"I know. The man who helped me already died. It is his son who took over. By elimination, he is the only one who could have done it." Yerin answered simply. She wasn't angry.

"Does he have a grudge against you ?" Lutter asked.

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"No, not really. It must be a money thing." Yerin mused.

"What are you going to do?" Lutter was curious about how she would settle this blood debt. After all, it wasn't a simple betrayal. She almost died.

"What do you mean ?" Yerin tilted her head.

"Aren't you going to avenge yourself?"

"hmm..." Something flashed inside her eyes but she didn't answer.

They stayed in companionable silence after that, only breaking it to order more beer. Like this, 3 hours went by. Somehow, Yerin wasn't getting drunk tonight.

Maybe it was the earlier brush with death, or the general craziness of this night but the alcohol didn't do anything to numb her senses. If anything they were sharper. The various scent in the air, the stars that should have been impossible to see with the city's pollution.

"Is this normal? I had 5 bottles by myself and I am not getting drunk." She finally said. Something was weird. She had a strong alcoholic resistance but this was something else.

At one point, Lutter had ordered a bottle of hard liquor and was currently going through it, a glass after another. He too seemed perfectly sober.

"The curse." He said as if it was all the explication that was needed. Maybe it was.

She supported her chin with her palm and looked at him. He was indeed handsome. His looks were comparable to what celebrities hoped to achieve with various surgical procedures.

"Did someone afflict you with the curse too? Or were you born like that?" Yerin asked as the question made rounds in her mind.

"I was afflicted with it. All of us 'Cursed One' were afflicted with it. No one is born with it, simply because we lose our ability to have children once cursed." Lutter answered and drank the whole content of his glass.

"So, it's like that..." Yerin was taken aback but wasn't devastated by her new infertility. She just accepted it, after all, she was someone who was headed for the netherworld. She didn't expect to come back to life without paying the price. Moreover, even before that, she had never been interested in starting a family.

"I was an orphan..." Lutter continued, " living in an orphanage. I was dying of a lung disease when a fancily dressed man offered me a deal. 'I will adopt you but there will be a price to pay.' Or so he said. I said yes and became what I am now. It was 16 years ago."

"The curse only manifested, when I turned eighteen. The day we met was the day it manifested for the first time."

Although, she was most likely drugged before entering that room. Yerin always possessed incredible self-control, she wouldn't have just slept with the first handsome guy she saw. The interrogation she had for 6 years was finally resolved tonight.

Yerin understood suddenly the events that happened in that room. Her sudden attraction to him. Her incontrolable desire. The irrational love-making during a party that she was supposed to host.

"Was I affected by you?" She asked softly.

"Yes, most likely. At that time, I was straining at the edge of control. If you hadn't come at that moment. Many people would have died."

Lutter expected her to get mad. After all, in a certain light, he was responsible for her current situation and the tense relationship with her family.

"I understand." She said after a thoughtful silence.

Lutter looked at her in surprise. He wouldn't have apologized, after all, he never cared whether his actions hurt someone or not. But the fact that he didn't sense any anger in her left him perplexed.

"You are not mad." He stated.

"Why would I be. Although, you are somewhat responsible for how that night turned out. You aren't the main perpetrator. And I am glad it was at least with someone like you." Yerin answered.

Lutter was stumped. He had never met someone like her before.

"Though, I have a request since you are feeling contrite." She suddenly said.

*I don't remember expressing, guilt, repentance, or any kind of those emotions.

Lutter's lips twitched.

"As expected, no matter how cool I am with the whole cursed thing, I can't just go find random strangers to scratch the itch. So to speak. As such, will you allow me to use you until I get used to it?" She asked candidly.

Her eyes were clear. She wasn't proposing this because she lusted after him, it was merely the most rational course of action. Who better to ease her into this new life than a man she already knew on an intimate level.

Lutter almost spat his drink in her face from surprise. Of everything he had expected her to say, this truly took him aback.

He looked at her before sighing and agreeing. He started wondering whether it was a good decision to impulsively turn her into a being like him. Even if it was to save her life.

Somehow, he felt as if he had come across a turning point.