Chapter Text
“Come on… follow my voice.”
He might have considered it—if only his mind weren’t so… blurred. That voice was beautiful. Melodic. Yet at the same time husky, with a tone that felt like it had been forged in the echo of some forgotten cavern. It resonated in the air, as if it had a body of its own, bouncing between the edges of that darkness he barely understood.
He could see it. He could literally see the sound: red and gold threads stretching around him, quivering with every syllable spoken. A voice with color. A voice with shape. It was mesmerizing.
Had that guy ever thought about singing?
The thought came out of nowhere.
Wait… that guy?
And what group was it that he thought he belonged to?
His mind flickered like a poorly tuned radio signal. Disoriented. Fragmented. Images leapt behind his eyelids: flashes, visual echoes of something that might have been… the past? The present? A dream? A hallucination?
A girl appeared.
Lavender hair, long and intricately braided with almost magical precision.
Her face was blurred, but he felt.
He felt pain.
And a desperate longing for something he wasn’t even sure was real.
Who was she?
It didn’t matter.
It was fading. Everything was.
And he…
He didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
“Come on, boy… come.”
The voice called to him. But he hesitated.
There was a cruel comfort in that darkness.
Silence. Absence. Fading away felt almost… liberating.
“This isn’t your end, Jinu. Don’t you want to see Rumi?”
Rumi.
The name exploded in his chest like a cursed spark. A jolt tore through his body: pain, longing, shame, need. A swirling storm of emotions—contradictory, raw, unbearable… but real.
And that was it. Real. The first real thing in what felt like forever.
Her name broke him.
Rebuilt him.
Moved him.
With an almost physical effort, as if swimming against gravity itself, Jinu reached out.
His hand trembled.
Slow.
But steady.
He didn’t know what he would find on the other side.
But he knew exactly what he was leaving behind.
He gasped. Coughed.
Air rushed into his lungs like shards of glass—painful, alien, unexpected.
His body felt carved from stone. He was submerged in a shallow mirror of water, yet couldn’t lift himself. An invisible weight held him down, as if he were glued to the bottom. Before he could even try to struggle, a strong hand grabbed his arm and yanked him upward with a sharp pull.
He broke the surface, sputtering, coughing again.
Blinking rapidly, he tried to make sense of where he was.
This was definitely not the dark void he had come from.
Golden threads still floated in the air—delicate as filaments of light, vibrating here and there, as if the world itself had been stitched back together with magic. The sky was painted in hues of gold and orange, and the piercing sound of cicadas filled the space between the rice fields.
In the still water, the reflection of honey-colored clouds rippled apart with each movement.
“You sure took your sweet time, huh?” said the man who had pulled him out.
Jinu turned, still dizzy, and took in the figure before him.
Long silver hair streaked with black at the tips. Amber eyes—deep, gleaming. Black tattoos coiled along his arms, subtle and pulsing, as though they were breathing.
He radiated power. Not just strength—power of the sort that bent the world to his presence. The air around him seemed to vibrate. Underworld. It was as if even the earth respected him.
And yet…
The man’s black T-shirt had a logo of a dancing pizza printed across the chest. That, paired with his loose pants and flip-flops, undercut any attempt at intimidation.
A middle-aged uncle.
Powerful, sure. Attractive, admittedly. But definitely… an uncle.
Not that Jinu was going to say that out loud. Obviously.
“You’re thinking I’m an uncle, aren’t you?” the man asked, one brow arching with lethal precision.
“N-no. Definitely not,” Jinu blurted out too quickly, his voice hoarse like he hadn’t spoken in a decade.
“Hmm. Heard that before.” The man sighed, resigned, as if being underestimated was his eternal fate. “Come on, get up. Let’s get you out of the water before you turn into an aquatic plant.”
He started guiding him, a firm arm wrapped around Jinu’s back, leading him along the edge of the rice field.
Jinu stumbled forward, each step feeling like he was carrying the sheer weight of existence itself. But there was something else throwing him off balance—the golden threads around him. He could still see them, drifting over the fields, dancing on the water’s surface like magical circuits.
The Honmoon.
The barrier that separated the human world from the demonic one.
Solid. Present. Vibrating.
But if it was still intact… how was he even here? The barrier should have made this impossible.
“I know what you’re thinking—how you’re back here again and all that…” the man said with the calmness of someone delivering the weather forecast.
They were climbing a small slope of packed earth. Jinu stumbled with nearly every step, still drenched, exhausted, and with a mind in tatters. Every muscle ached. Every thought felt like it was made of ground glass.
Still, he had to ask:
“You… are you reading my mind? Because that… that was something only Gwi-Ma could do.”
The name caught in his throat, almost like a familiar poison.
Gwi-Ma.
The demon king. The executioner of voices.
The one who invaded thoughts with twisted memories, memories that bled—forcing Jinu to relive, over and over, why he had been reborn as a demon. Why his soul belonged to him.
Belonged?
But… he had given his soul to—
“To Rumi. I know,” the man replied with a slight nod.
And that’s when Jinu started freaking out. Quietly, but intensely.
Intrusive. This was extremely intrusive. He could barely think without being interrupted.
And who the hell was this guy, anyway?
The memories came crashing back like a punch to the gut:
The show. The plan.
The stage flooded with the energy of the fans.
The betrayal. The end.
Jinu dropped to his knees on the dirt road. The gravel dug into his skin, but he felt no physical pain—only an unbearable cold, radiating from deep within.
The sky burned with shades of orange, slowly surrendering to the deep blue of night. Beside him, an old pickup truck sat parked, looking like it had driven straight out of a rural Korean drama. The air smelled of damp fields and unfulfilled promises.
And Jinu—soaked, barefoot, and disoriented—felt nothing but cold.
“You already died once as a human. You were reborn as a demon,” the man said, draping a thick, dry blanket over him. “But death… doesn’t work the same way for us. It’s not an end. It’s an exchange.”
The blanket wrapped him in a warmth that was almost comforting, and a knot tightened in Jinu’s throat.
“Not even Rumi, and apparently not you either, really knows what happened. And honestly? I blame Gwi-Ma for that. Teaching has never been his strong suit. Ignorance was always his preferred method of rule.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jinu’s voice rose, sharper than he intended, but he was trying not to sound desperate.
Sure, he was grateful not to be in the Eternal Limbo or rotting in some demonic abyss. Yes, technically, being alive again was a bonus. But something inside him screamed that something important—very important—was being kept from him.
“And what do you know about Rumi?” His voice dropped low, guttural.
He felt his fangs extend, claws tearing through the skin of his fingers. His demonic form reacting—not just to rage, but to pain.
A second later, he pitched forward, coughing, nearly blacking out again.
“Whoa! Easy there, kid. Easy.” The man crouched quickly, gripping his shoulders firmly but without force. “I would never hurt Rumi. Never. Not even in a dream.”
The words hit something deep inside him. It was strange—a demon this powerful being… gentle?
“Who are you? How did you bring me back? Do you even know what this means? With the barrier restructured, that kind of crossing requires an absurd level of energy. No one can get through the Honmoon with… with…” His voice trailed off.
Each word seemed to drain what little strength he had left.
“Okay. Quick recap, then. Before we dive into the whole tragic backstory, epic journey, emotional collapse, improbable redemption, and years of rural boredom… let’s save some breath.”
The man pulled a dramatic face and pointed at Jinu.
“Especially since I’m talking to a naked kid in the middle of a Korean country road, and honestly… this is starting to get awkward.”
Jinu blinked. Froze. Looked down at himself.
Yep.
Naked.
No demonic hanbok. Nothing.
“That explains why I’m so cold…” he muttered, trying to figure out why he couldn’t summon clothes. It used to be so easy!
“Because your bond with Hell has been partially severed. And you’re still unstable. But relax, we’ll fix that.”
Jinu just let out a long, defeated sigh.
“All right.” The man stood up as if about to unveil a master strategy. “Name’s Baek Ryujin. I’m a demon. Been exiled in the human world for over thirty years. And…”
He paused.
Cleared his throat.
“…I’m Rumi’s father.”
Jinu’s mind went blank. Complete blue screen.
For a moment, he even forgot about the cold.
“Sorry… what?”