Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The sound of her heartbeat is loud in her ears.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Images and sounds flash through her mind, too quick to pinpoint. Mira's pitched anger. Zoey's accusing eyes. Takedown blaring in the background. A panicked fan wondering what's happening. Stage lights flickering; shattering. Shards of glass raining down from the ceiling. Static pressing down on her ears.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"We see what you are."

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"You're a demon."

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"A mistake."

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"You have been since the day you were born."

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Breathe.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

She has to breathe. A gush of air rips its way through her lungs and out her mouth. Three more desperate gasps follow in quick succession, but it's not enough. She still feels like she's still drowning on open land.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi runs.

The back of the stage isn't any better. Every step she takes is slow and shambling and barely registering under her feet. Every breath is heavy and weighted, as if the air itself doesn’t want to come out. Every moment is agonizingly slow, but also too fast, like time itself was playing tricks on her mind.

Rumi gets to the bottom of the staircase and has to grab the railing to steady herself.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

And then she sees Mira and Zoey, standing there, looking like they haven't just torn everything about her apart.

"What? How are you here? You were just on stage." Rumi asks, desperation rattling in her brain.

She takes them in. Mira's fists are clenching and unclenching, grasping for a weapon that's not there. Zoey's face is torn, her usual smile pressed open in shock. But the hate is gone. The hate that filled their eyes on stage, the hate that whispers in her ears (you're a demon), the hate that Celine has warned her about, isn't there.

And Rumi, seeing that, realizes that she must have been tricked. A bud of hope, desperately nurtured, comes rising to the top.

"Oh, that wasn't you? Oh, thank goodness."

Rumi reaches forward, and that's the first sign that something is wrong. Mira and Zoey step back.

Why did they step back?

She looks down, and sees why: her patterns are visible. All across her fingers, her forearms, her shoulders. They're jagged edges of a broken mirror, pressed into her hands and arms and cut with a visible pink that no one was supposed to see. That Mira and Zoey can now stare at.

"Cover those up", a voice that sounds like Celine whispers.

"No. No!" She scrambles to hide them, to stop Mira and Zoey from seeing, but her jacket was ripped off on stage and her hands aren't big enough to cover them all. "NO!"

"How do you have patterns?" a voice—Zoey—asks.

"T-These were supposed to be gone. Y-You were never supposed to see!" Rumi cries out, hoping for a chance to explain. To explain that everything they've been working for is so that she has a chance at being fully human. At being normal.

"You were hiding this from us this whole time?" Mira cuts in.

"No!" Rumi scrambles. "I have a plan to erase them. Jinu was supposed to—"

And she's reaching for words to describe what was supposed to go down. What was she thinking, going to a demon for help (you should have never trusted him). "I—He was—" She never gets the chance to come up with an excuse, because Zoey rips the words away from her.

"Jinu!? You're working with him?"

“Demons are never to be trusted,” a voice whispers.

Rumi flinches. She feels the way this conversation is turning, going down a hellish road she's dreamt about before. She knows where that road leads to, where that road ends. Zoey's hurt and pain and betrayal are all too real.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"No. No! No! I was using him to fix all this! To fix me!" Rumi tries to rally back, to bring this back to familiar ground. To bring this back to the lessons that Celine has taught her. "So we could all do our duty! We could all be strong. Be together."

Whole life spreading lies, but you can't hide, baby, nice try.

"How could we be together if we can't tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?" Zoey's voice is cutting and sharp. Different from how it's always been.

It's time to kick you straight back into the night.

"I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true." Mira sounds defeated and disappointed, like this was always inevitable.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"Mira, no!" Rumi is begging, pleading now. Her heart is tight with tension, and her eyes are pooling with tears. Her desperation is crawling up the walls of her throat, a trapped spider trying to leave its well. "No!"

You already know how this is going to end.

She steps forward, and sees Mira and Zoey take another step back. There's fear in their eyes now.

You're a demon. A mistake. You have been since the day you were born.

"Don't leave!" Desperation warps into terror. Mira and Zoey will never love her now. Not when she's like this, begging and pleading and crawling like a starving dog hoping for scraps. "Don't leave me!"

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"I CAN STILL FIX IT!"

Rumi feels the way the Honmoon warps and shudders with her words. The way it ripples with the pink horror of her anger, her despair, and her terrible ancestry. She doesn't even need to look to know that there are tears in it now, tears in the very fabric that they were supposed to protect.

A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live, it's so obvious

Oh.

Mira’s answer is a gok-do, raised up in front of her. The divine blade glows softly in the dark night, ready to pierce forwards, ready to stab the demon in front of her. Ready to kill Rumi.

Oh. So that’s what it’s like.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart is a porcelain vase, knocked loose by Mira’s actions, and teeter-tottering on the edge of a table. It is one slip away from being tipped over, and Rumi doesn’t know what will happen if it does.

“Zoey, please,” Rumi begs. One last chance.

Zoey silently raises her shin-kals, and that’s the last push her heart needed.

It falls, dropping down and crashing into a million pieces.

Why did she ever think that they could love her back like this?

Rumi quietly disconnects.

The pain is easier to manage that way. Like it’s happening to someone else, and not her.

She’s a corpse still standing on two legs. There’s no life to her anymore, not when her heart is in pieces on the ground, and Mira and Zoey are looking at her with hate in their eyes. It doesn’t matter what happens next, because she’s already dead.

Rumi’s memories after are a foggy mess.

She thinks she might have run away, and maybe Jinu was there, talking about his lies. Talking about the terrible decisions he's made, about how they're both demons now, and about how they only deserve to live with the pain.

Rumi doesn't trust anything he has to say, not after what he's done, not after he's ruined the best thing that she's ever had. But the thing that sticks out is this: she's a demon now.

And she doesn't want to live as one.

So Rumi puppets her corpse to the only person she knows who can fix it for her. She goes to the sacred shrine where it all began, where hundreds of hunters have started their journeys, training to become the idols of their era. Where Rumi, Mira, and Zoey once bonded over becoming the hunters of their generation, to create the Golden Honmoon together. Where Rumi's mother is buried, under the roots of the great shrine tree, her grave a tiny name carved into a rock that lines the road leading up to the tree.

Where Celine is bound to be.

She kneels before Celine, patterns in full display, and holds out her saingeom and asks her to do what must be done. To fix her.

In another world, Celine betrays her. She covers up her patterns, like they haven't already been broadcast to the entire world, and tries to pretend that she'll be able to trick Mira and Zoey. In that world, Celine denies her the relief that her puppeteered corpse is seeking, and pushes away Rumi's saingeom like it’s a dirty secret. In that world, Celine refuses to look at Rumi when she asks for death and refuses still when Rumi asks for love.

This is not that world.

In this world, Celine does what she asks. Her eyes stare into Rumi's, glimmering with tears, full of regret, full of sadness, and full of relief. It's the last emotion that really settles it for Rumi, because Rumi has always been Celine's burden to bear. Rumi is a thorny barb that's been festering in Celine's side for too long, and now Celine can finally heal.

"Ack," a sound chokes its way through Rumi's voice, the last sound she'll ever make.

The saingeom slides into Rumi's heart smoothly, like that's where it's always belonged. The blade cuts deep, piercing all the way through her chest, parting skin, heart, lung all at once. Its handle comes to a stop before her ribcage, the farthest that Celine was able to put it.

It hurts.

Pain blooms along the wound, burning and festering and bringing Rumi back to this moment. To this moment where her heart has a gaping hole in it and she has only moments left to live. She has only moments left to suffer. She has only moments left to remember.

They're tucked away at their favorite late-night ramyeon spot. One of those 24/7 spots that somehow manages to have a grill, serve the best food ever, yet still remain hidden from the wandering public. A miracle find, Zoey had called it once, except Mira had taken one look at it and called it 'more like a dumpster find'.

Because the place was dingy, worn down in all the right places, and looked like it had treated Seoul's rigorous food and health regulations like a cleaning rag. All contributing factors to its lack of popularity.

Which also made it the perfect place for Rumi, Mira, and Zoey to come back to frequently for late-night food runs.

Because the food was absolutely divine.

Mira, who grew up eating haute cuisine, had taken one bite of the ramyeon here and declared, "I take back everything I ever said about your decision-making skills, Zo. This place is good." Zoey had beamed for the rest of the day.

So they're back here. After the whirlwind of their world tour, it seemed only fitting that they would come here to celebrate. The Golden Honmoon is so close now, Rumi can feel it.

"Rumi, can you pass me some more pork belly? I don't think I have enough yet."

"Yeah, I got you." And Rumi proceeds to dump more of the pork belly into Mira's plate. She doesn't mention the fact that her plate is already two-thirds pork belly. Or the fact that Mira is looking at her with deadpan eyes that say 'really?'. Or the fact that Zoey is desperately trying not to snicker.

"Ugh... this is why we can't have nice things. Zo, can you take some? If I take two more bites of this, I think I'm going to puke."

"I'll take it!" Zoey is quick to offload several pieces from Mira's plate. But there's still so much left, and Rumi knows that if she doesn't put a stop to it, Zoey will try to eat too much, suffer from heartburn, and then complain about it for the rest of the evening.

Rumi grabs Zoey's wrist mid pick-up. "It's fine, we can take the extras back."

"Yeah, okay," Zoey nods gratefully, and then continues to eat more slowly. More appropriately, Mira catches Rumi's gaze after and rolls her eyes fondly, as if communicating 'this girl, I swear.' Rumi quietly agrees with a soft smile.

There's a feeling that gathers in Rumi's chest as she sits back down to watch the two of them. Zoey's back to rambling about turtle facts again, the pile-up of pork belly on her plate being slowly munched on in between moments. Mira is listening intently, as if she hasn't heard all this a million times before. Her eyes always occasionally drift to Rumi's, as if checking up on her, and Rumi always makes sure to nod back.

It's a wondrous feeling. She feels full, deep down inside of her heart, filled to the brim with a mix of warmth, joy, and excitement all at once. It's like having the best meal of her life, except the meal never ends, and Rumi can keep eating and eating past the point of fullness.

It's the feeling of love, one that has filled Rumi's chest until it's almost bursting from the seams.

Soon, she reminds herself. Soon, she'll be able to tell them about these feelings.

The Golden Honmoon is so close now. She can still remember the shimmer of gold during the last night of their world tour. With the release of Golden, the Honmoon might finally turn gold, and she’ll be able to get rid of these patterns on her skin.

And once she gets rid of this curse inside of her that's been ruining her life since childhood, she'll be able to confess.

Confess to them that she loves them.

And maybe, if Rumi is lucky, they'll love her back.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Blood is pooling around her, dripping down her lips, seeping out of the gaping hole in her chest, sliding down the length of the blade.

She's dying.

Rumi feels it keenly now, with her vision blinking in and out and her thoughts slipping away. She has the urge to close her eyes and take a nap.

And so she does.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heartbeat has slowed. It's fervently pumping crimson out of her body, the blood not able to reach the places where it's needed. The fact that it's still pumping is a miracle, with the saingeom still buried into her chest. But even that is fading too, and Rumi feels herself slipping away, almost like drifting off to sleep.

Rumi thinks of Mira-and-Zoey and Zoey-and-Mira and wishes she could have at least told them she loved them.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump—

Rumi dies.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on?" Mira's voice is sudden, cutting into the silence. "Why are we stopping?"

At her voice, Rumi snaps into place. Her eyes flutter open and she's met with the most confusing scene of her life: the stadium used for the Idol Awards is before her, except the seats that should have been filled are empty. Instead of night time, the setting sun swatches purple and pink hues across the cloudy skyline. And instead of silence, there’s a speaker playing in the background, musical beats for Takedown blasting out of it.

Something's wrong.

She turns around, and sees Mira and Zoey. They're wearing white sweatshirts and black sweatpants: their standard practice outfits. And when Rumi looks down, she sees she's wearing the same thing. There's no gaping hole in her chest, no visible patterns on her hands, no blood soaking her clothes.

Rumi looks back up to see that they’re both looking at her full of confusion, with just a tinge of frustration in Mira's eyes.

She says the first thing that comes to mind.

"What the fuck?"

Chapter Text

She is dead. Rumi is sure of it.

She remembers walking up to Celine, asking for death; she remembers the pain and agony blooming around the saingeom in her chest; she remembers the crimson choking out of her lips as she closed her eyes and slipped into a painful and agonizing death. She remembers dying. It's all captured in perfect clarity in her brain, recorded only in the way that someone experiencing it should have felt, so she should be dead, right?

So why is she still here?

There are voices in the background ("Oh my god, Rumi has finally snapped!" "Wow, is this what it takes for you to finally start swearing? Lame.") but Rumi is barely paying attention.

She is supposed to be dead.

Rumi brings a hand to her chest—her fingers without their patterns are both familiar and strange to see—and presses it against her heart (where there should be a gaping hole).

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart is still beating. Its loud, rhythmic sounds remind her of the truth: she's alive. She should be dead, but her heart is still beating, so she can't be.

A part of Rumi wonders if she is actually dead, and if this is just where dead people go, to be confronted by their past ghosts. But with Mira and Zoey here, looking at her like she's just told a bad joke, and the ghost of her mother nowhere in sight, she feels the truth in her gut. She's still alive.

She tries to confirm anyway. "So, you guys don't hate me or anything?"

"Hate you?" Zoey looks hurt at the thought, as if Rumi's words have personally offended her. "How could we hate you? We love you, Rumi; you're our best friend!" A dozen different emotions flash through her eyes, too quick for Rumi to parse, before it finally settles on something familiar: concern. "Rumi, are you okay? Do you need some water? Are you dehydrated? I heard dehydration can cause hallucinations. Mira! Quick, we have to get Rumi some water!"

Mira steps forward, her eyes darting back and forth, scanning Rumi like she's looking for signs of weakness or strangeness. After a moment or two, it feels like she's satisfied with what she's looking for, and she sighs. “Do you want me to hate you? I could. We had to get up at like 6 in the morning for all this practice for tomorrow—god, I miss my bed.”

"Tomorrow?"

"Umm, hello? The Idol Awards tomorrow? You know, that thing that we've been working towards all year?" Mira looks like she's genuinely concerned now. "Rumi, are you okay?"

Oh. The Idol Awards is tomorrow.

Somewhere in between the shock of her brutally painful death and the gasping realization that she’s still alive, Rumi hasn’t really processed the fact that she’s gone back in time.

The Idol Awards is tomorrow.

She ruminates on that statement a few times, flipping it back and forth like a sheet of paper, trying to discern if there’s any falsehoods in it. It feels like an opportunity. A chance to change the things that went wrong the first time around. She hasn’t been tricked by Jinu yet in this timeline. Her patterns haven’t been revealed yet in this timeline. Mira and Zoey are still by her side in this timeline.

Today is in the past, and Rumi has the chance to change everything.

She can still fix it.

Rumi looks up to see that Mira and Zoey are still staring at her, worry and fear and concern ratcheting up by the second. She rips the offered water bottle out of Zoey's hands and takes three giant swigs.

"Wooo! Yeah, dehydration really is no joke, huh?" She offers weakly, forcing her lips into a small smile. "What were we talking about?"

There is a moment of intense scrutiny, as both Mira and Zoey know her too well to buy into her little deception. But Rumi has always been good at hiding secrets, and she knows that they won't push if she won't budge. It's always been how it goes: she puts her walls up, and the two of them respect it enough not to break it down.

It doesn't matter anyways: a flash of pink streaks behind them, and then suddenly they're chasing and fighting demons atop a train line.

It goes a lot better than last time.

It isn't until later, when they're settling in for the night—fresh out of the shower, comfortable pajamas already slipped on, and ambient music playing from the background speaker—that Rumi really gets the chance to pause and think about what she's gone through.

It's been less than a couple of hours since she remembers choking on her own blood and dying, but it all feels so distant now. It feels like a lifetime ago. It technically was a lifetime ago.

She feels so, so stupid for trusting Jinu, for believing that he would ever listen to her (you were just using him). There was a moment there, when Jinu’s words had seemed to be so genuine, so true, that she couldn’t help but offer her own truth.

She should have listened to Celine, that demons were never to be trusted.

Instead, she paid the ultimate price:

Mira and Zoey looking at her with hate, hate, hate; patterns on display, taking over and consuming her from within; blood seeping from her heart, blooming with pain.

“The Golden Honmoon will get rid of the demon inside of you,” a voice whispers.

Celine was right. She needs to fix it first. Rumi has to seal the Honmoon, get rid of these cursed patterns on her arms and body. Otherwise, Mira and Zoey will turn against her.

They’ll hate her.

She's watching them now, settling into their respective spots on the couch the way they always do. Zoey is halfway curled into a ball, her legs scrunched up, phone resting between them, probably playing some nature documentary. Her fingers are drumming the beats to some sounds that only she can hear. And Mira is not much better, her body slouched across the couch, draping off the edge like a soft blanket in an unmade bed. She's doom-scrolling on her phone, browsing and judging memes and shorts with equal disdain.

They look happy like this, in their own little worlds, the fate of the Honmoon not anywhere on their minds.

Rumi is glad that she gets to see them like this again.

She’s still not sure why she’s getting this second chance, but she’ll make sure to make it count. She’s already pointedly ignoring the demon tiger waiting on her bedroom balcony, because she’s already trusted Jinu once, and she won’t ever again.

This time, she’ll make things right.

"What are you thinking about, Rumi?" Zoey asks suddenly, and Rumi notices that she's stopped watching her documentary on turtles. She's sitting up, as is Mira, and they're both looking at her in unbridled curiosity. "You're smiling."

"Huh?" Rumi presses her fingers to her lips and finds that they're telling the truth. She is smiling. And the reason for that is already looking at her.

Here in this shared space, she still feels like she still belongs. The wound of Mira raising her gok-do and Zoey raising her shin-kals seems impossible to imagine here, because they’re looking at her with so much fondness in their eyes. Zoey is already drifting closer, as if to pull her into a hug, and Mira’s eyes are lingering on her face.

Rumi shoves the feelings down. Not yet. Not until she’s fixed.

Instead of saying what’s really on her mind, she defaults to the rehearsed speech from her last life, “I just wanted to say that I'm really happy you guys are here. These last few weeks have been rough, I know, and we've been working on this song for so long. But now that the Idol Awards is finally here, we can finally take those demons down.”

“Tomorrow, we can win this war. Tomorrow, we can seal the Honmoon for good, and we'll be free of these demons, free to do whatever we want.”

Tomorrow, she’ll be free of these patterns that’s cursed her for her entire life.

Mira and Zoey look halfway-zoned out, so Rumi says the first thing she remembers. “After, we can take a hiatus. Maybe even go to the bathhouse together.”

Mira and Zoey react exactly as they did before ("What!? You mean the women's bathhouse, not the men's?" "I'll fight for a spa day with you.") and Rumi can't help but hope that this is enough. She hopes that they'll be able to win tomorrow, put these demons to rest, and finally let her be free.

Everything that has happened before doesn't matter now, because she got a second chance, and she has to make the most of it.

"Rumi, will your voice be fine?" Mira asks, unprompted. "We'll be singing Takedown, right? Are you ready for that?"

A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live, it's so obvious

"Yeah." Rumi says. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

She was fine earlier during the train fight. Besides, the song is fitting. She hates demons. She hates Jinu. She wants to take down the Saja Boys, and get rid of all the demons, including the one inside of her.

You're a demon. A mistake. You have been, since the day you were born.

Yeah, she'll be fine.

She has to be.

She is not fine.

Takedown is too fresh, too raw of a wound.

She can't help but flinch when the music flicks on (you're a demon) and it takes all of her effort not to run away immediately. They're dressed to kill—sleek black leather outfits that are reminiscent of those that they fought the Saja Boys in—and the excitement of the fans over their new brand new song is palatable.

But Rumi does not remember singing.

She remembers walking out onto the stage, the lights flickering on and the music blasting into her ears. She remembers the lyrics that they've put together over the course of countless hours at the recording studio. She remembers hearing the opening beats and dancing alongside them with practiced ease.

But then Mira and Zoey open their mouths—

"'Cause I see your real face and it's ugly as sin"

"Time to put you in your place 'cause you're rotten within"

—and she just shuts down. She disappears into the shell of her mind, watching things unfold.

It's a fever dream.

She's dancing along with the music, her muscle memory kicking in with a fluidity that comes from dozens upon dozens of hours of practice. But with each movement, her disconnect grows and grows and grows, until that muscle memory is the only thing keeping her moving. Her singing and dancing become piloted by the machine that is her body, and instead of trying to take back control, she's watching it all happen.

It feels right, this way. Easier, she thinks.

And if she happens to notice that some of the fans aren't fully happy with the song? If she happens to notice that Mira and Zoey can't help but glance at her every few moments, wondering what's up with her? If she happens to notice that there's a ringing sound in her ear, and it sounds awfully like Celine repeating words she already knows?

Well, Rumi is going to pretend that she doesn't notice.

And then the song comes to an end.

"Rumi, what the heck was that!?" Mira is the first to say something, once they're backstage. Her hands are clenched around her hips, facial expression boiling with fury. "Why are you sabotaging us on stage?"

Dully, Rumi thinks that she should respond to that. She should say something equally damning, to match Mira's energy right now, and then Zoey will chime in to break them apart. It's something that's happened dozens of times before, and is part of what made their team dynamic work. So she should say something.

So why aren't her lips moving?

Rumi forces her mouth open to say something, but nothing slips out. Instead, the whispers inside her head grow louder and louder—

You're a mistake.

A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live, it's so obvious

Demons are monsters

—and she mutters out a pathetic, "I'm sorry."

She fucked up. Takedown was the wrong song, and now the Honmoon will never be sealed. The announcer is already announcing that the Saja Boys will be singing a new song, "Your Idol" live on stage. She feels discombobulated, her ears still ringing with the lyrics of Takedown even though they're no longer on stage.

She should be feeling panicked. With her fuck-up, the Honmoon is weaker than ever, and the Saja Boys are clearly up to no good. She should be thinking about what to do next, how to recover from this failure, or how to disrupt what the Saja Boys are planning. She should be directing Mira and Zoey on a plan to take them down, to kill the demons before it gets worse.

Instead, she just feels disconnected.

She had one chance to fix it—one more desperate miraculous chance—and she blew it. Blew it harder than anything she'd ever done before.

So why should anything else matter?

The universe answers for her: the pink tears in the Honmoon that had been widening ever since their performance burst open, demons spilling out of them by the horde. Pink fractures the size of chasms splinter the Honmoon into pieces so small, she doesn't know how they'll ever be able to repair them.

"Rumi! We have to stop them!" Zoey yells out, horror mounting in her voice.

And fighting? Fighting is something that Rumi can do. It comes second nature to her, so she pulls out her saingeom and leads the charge. There's endless demons swarming them, and every time she cuts one down, it’s like there's three more that show up in its place.

But deep down, in her still beating heart, there's a terrible feeling that something else is in play. And when she hears the chorus sounding from the stadium, she knows why.

“Yeah, you gave me your heart, now I'm hеre for your soul”

"We have to make it to the stage," she yells, slicing another demon in half. "They're doing something up there that's causing all this!"

"Yeah, on it!" Mira says, plunging her gok-do into the chest of a water demon. "I'll clear a path for us!"

"Zoey! Guard her with me!" Rumi commands as she jumps deeper into the fray. She doesn't listen for Zoey's follow-up ‘got it’, trusting that she has her back. And the three of them carve a bloody path through the demon horde, butchering all the way to the front of the stadium.

And there, Rumi sees the consequences of her fuck-up.

The Honmoon is ruptured apart, its silver threads fraying so thin that it's barely holding together. And the gaping holes left behind have widened enough for larger demons to slip through. They're already wreaking havoc on the audience, consuming souls left and right. But the biggest problem is on the center stage: Gwi-Ma, the Demon King, the biggest demon of them all, has also forced his way through.

He’s an enormous plume of fire, voracious fangs hovering and dripping with volcanic hunger, and he nearly takes up the entire center stage all by himself.

His mere presence spells doom for everyone in the stadium.

She fucked up. She fucked up. She fucked up.

"We have to stop that!" Mira says, raising her gok-do at the billowing flame on stage that is growing larger and larger by the minute.

"Can we even stop that?" Zoey asks.

Rumi answers with the only way she knows how, "I don't know, but I'm going to try anyway."

And she jumps into the fray, her saingeom singing a song of death. The three of them are a perfectly balanced saw blade, blitzing through the demon horde towards the stadium center. Zoey is throwing shin-kals as fast as she can replenish them, and Mira is whipping her gok-do in wide sweeping arcs faster and faster, chaining kills one after another. Rumi feels like she's cut through hundreds of demons already, and still there's no end to the tide.

But they're getting closer.

"STOP THEM!" Gwi-Ma roars.

And then suddenly the Saja Boys are in front of them, claws whipped out like knives. Mira and Zoey are pushed back—they're being separated, the logician in her mind acknowledges—and Jinu has stepped in front of her, his smug face blocking the rest.

"I heard your song. Is that what you really think?"

And it's irritating that he's chatting to her like this. Like he knows anything about her at all. Like he wouldn't have betrayed her without a second thought.

"Yeah, demons don't deserve to live. Of course we'll sing a song about that."

"Even you?"

"I’m not a demon. I’m a hunter, and we kill demons like you."

There's no time for words after that. Rumi is swinging her saingeom with a newborn fury. She chases after Jinu, ready to put her blade through his heart, because he deserves to know how it feels. He's a slippery snake, bobbing and weaving between her swings with uncanny timing.

Each of her swings brings her closer and closer, until suddenly—

"Got you."

—his legs sweep under hers and she's knocked airborne.

She goes flying.

There’s a brief moment of sheer weightlessness. A moment where all her anger and frustration and bitterness flees her, because she’s just made an amateur mistake. She let her emotions influence her fighting, and now it’s going to cost her.

The floor rises up to meet her.

Rumi braces herself.

Thump!

Her body slams painfully against the ground with the force of a body press. Her bones rattle, and every part of her aches. Her saingeom goes flying too, knocked out of her reach.

She’s weaponless.

Defenceless.

And she’s just landed in the worst possible spot: right in front of Gwi-Ma’s wide gaping jaws, spewing volcano-hot flames that singes the very air around her.

"GOOD JOB, JINU." Gwi-Ma roars.

Oh, fuck.

Distantly, she hears people shouting her name ("RUMI NO!" "NO WAIT!" "RUMI!") but it's already too late.

A ray of fire comes rushing at her.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

Have you ever been burned alive? It starts with your skin boiling and blistering, scorching pain that's simultaneously everywhere at once. The smell of burnt hair and charred flesh hits you next, and you're all too aware of the fact that you're on fire. But then your nerves die out, your skin starts to peel, and the fire moves onto your organs. Your eyes, mouth and nose burn the fastest, because they're mostly soft flesh, not meat and bones, so by the time you die, all your senses have been taken away from you. You can't see anything, you can't hear anything, you can't feel anything. And then, when you finally pass out from the smoke, your death leaves behind nothing but a charred skeleton with ashen remains.

—Rumi burns alive.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

Rumi throws up.

Chapter Text

Rumi vomits, puke and bile spilling out in a filthy pile in front of her.

It's not enough.

She chokes and spits and coughs, wet messy drippings forcing their way up and out of her stomach through her throat and mouth. It is a rancid concoction of her lunch, her stomach juices, and even the snack she ate this morning.

It's still not enough.

Everything is now spilling out: her feelings, her soul, herself, and it still doesn't feel like she's reached the bottom. There's wet spittle coating her lips, acid burning in her throat, and sound drumming in her ears.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart is pounding and pounding and pounding, an engine that's firing on all pistons. It's loud—too loud—and she can't even hear her own retching over the accelerated beats in her chest.

She's choking and spitting and coughing.

It's still not enough.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A painful feeling in her chest makes itself known.

Breathe.

She needs to breathe.

Rumi gulps, but the air is thick and heavy like lead. It barely makes it past her lips, much less down to her burning lungs. She breathes and breathes and breathes, but there's just not enough air. Every tiny pocket of air that does make it down her throat tastes of puke and vomit and desperation.

Almost like the air itself was tainted.

Three more painful gasps rip their way out of her mouth.

They all carry the same taste: gross and foul with something miserable.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

There's a ringing sound in her ears.

It's Takedown.

There's Takedown still playing in the background.

"Turn it off," someone mumbles, and Rumi takes a second to realize it's her. "Turn it off. TURN IT OFF! PLEASE, TURN IT OFF—"

Silence. Sweet blessed silence.

Except her heart is still pounding and pounding and pounding.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A hand is pressed into her back and Rumi flinches. She curls away from it, because who's touching her right now?

The wetness soaking her eyes makes it difficult to see who it is. And she can’t move to check because it’s taking everything she has to stay present, to focus on breathing.

The hand comes back, this time with a voice. Zoey's. "Rumi, it's me."

Oh, it’s Zoey. Rumi relaxes into it. Just a bit.

But then reality sets in, quick and dirty, and it still feels like dying.

Because she can still remember the scorching pain of a million blisters bursting open on her skin, still smell the charred smoke of her hair on fire, still feel the unbearable agony burning all the way down to her soul—

Rumi throws up again.

It doesn't matter that her stomach was already emptied. She's dry-heaving, spit and acid and bile clinging to the walls of her throat with a burning sensation. Her lungs are giving out, her heart is still pounding, and she is still puking.

She can't stop—won't stop—throwing up.

Zoey's hand comes forward and starts pulling stray hairs out of her face.

But it's not enough.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi sobs, a desperate gasp of air, pain and saliva pulling its way down her throat. Her stomach finally decided it had enough, and she has just a moment to breathe.

A moment to settle.

She uses the moment to bring a hand up. It comes up to her chest and brushes against the roaring engine of her heart. It starts at a hundred. Then eighty. Then sixty. Each moment that goes by is a moment that she feels herself settle just a bit more.

Her heart is still beating.

She's still alive.

Still alive, after all that.

Except she can't even relax, because there's a flash of pink: demons.

"Shit," someone curses from behind her, and it's Mira. "Zo, can you get her to the breakroom? I'll handle it."

"Yeah, I got it! I'll be right there."

"I can come," Rumi mumbles, but then Zoey's already shushing her. "It's okay, Rumi, take it easy."

Rumi feels herself being carried—dragged more like—and there's soft murmurs passing into her ears ("Rumi, hang in there, okay? We'll be right back.") and then she's in the breakroom.

Rumi pulls herself up to the mirror.

Her hair is a tangled mess, little wisps of purple hair pulled out of its tight braid. Her make-up is a lost cause: tear streaks dragging down her mascara in angry horror-movie streaks, vomit stains kissing her lips, and redness rimming her eyes. Her nose is spilling snot down, a sewage pipe leaking into her mouth.

She looks like shit.

But she's alive.

Rumi brings her fingers up. They pull at her cheeks, and she relishes in the sensation. It's a soft, gummy texture, delicate and bouncy and definitely not burned. There’s wetness there. Coolness too.

It’s grounding, to feel unburnt skin after the horrors of her last life. She's been burned by Gwi-Ma, but she's fine now.

Alive again.

And then her thoughts drift to something more unpleasant.

Rumi had wondered in her last life why she was given a second chance.

Now she has her answer: to stop Gwi-Ma. Because with the fate of the world at stake, she needs to seal the Honmoon more than ever. If she doesn’t manage to create the Golden Honmoon in time, then Gwi-Ma will be summoned and burn the entire stadium alive.

She’s been given another chance. Another chance to seal the Honmoon, to put Gwi-Ma to rest. Another chance to fix the patterns on her skin.

It should have felt like an opportunity.

Instead, with the way the flames had touched her skin, lit every nerve on fire, and killed all her senses, it doesn’t feel like one any more. It’s more like an obligation.

A duty to make things right.

“Our faults and fears must never be seen,” a voice whispers.

Rumi stares at the girl in the mirror, wondering where everything went so wrong.

Fuck Gwi-Ma.

Fuck the Saja Boys.

Fuck Jinu.

"Fuck," Rumi says out loud, her voice hoarse. Tears start pooling in her eyes again, adding to the mess that she already is. She can't fuck up anymore. She doesn't want to get burned again. She has to make this chance count.

She has to win.

Practice is ended early—as early as early evening can be—and they're sitting in a car ride back to Huntrix tower.

The car is uncannily quiet, whereas it would normally have been filled with the idle sounds of their chattering. Mira and Zoey, who would normally be bickering about some inane thing or another, are sitting quietly, and Rumi doesn’t want to say anything. Part of Rumi wants the silence to end, for Zoey to go back to chatting about her latest favorite Youtube series or for Mira to go back to grumbling about some weird fan interaction. Another part of her is glad for the silence, for the time to think about what she’ll say to the questions she knows are coming.

Questions that Rumi doesn't have answers for.

She doesn't know what she'll tell them. It seems almost unbelievable—she can hardly believe it, and she's the one experiencing it!

What would she even tell them?

That she's been dying? (Copper filling her throat; fire blistering her skin open until it starts to peel)

That she's been reliving the same day, over and over? (Mira's voice cutting in with exasperated affection. "What's going on? Why are we stopping?")

That they've been losing? That the Honmoon has been breaking apart every time they get on stage and don't manage to create the Golden Honmoon in time? That Gwi-Ma has been manifesting in the human realm?

Mira and Zoey would understand, because they’re her friends.

Except the memory of her first life flashes before her eyes—a gok-do pointed at her heart, and a pair of shin-kals quietly raised—and Rumi can’t help but flinch. She can’t tell them now. They’ll ask why, or how, or when, and that road leads to nowhere but pain.

She’s been lying to them about her patterns, about the truth of her heritage, about her feelings—her lies stretch on for miles. And now she can add time-travel to the thread, another lie that can get tied into the others, a gordian knot of her own making.

She’ll tell them after, she rationalizes. After she’s fixed everything.

But she still has to tell them something in the meantime.

“I know our faults and fears must never be seen, but, look, I'm kind of a difficult person. Overly blunt, short-fused, highly aggressive. My whole life, those things were a liability. But somehow, with you guys, they're okay.”

“I feel the same way. Before I joined Huntrix, I felt like my thoughts and my lyrics and all my notebooks were just useless and weird. But with the two of you, they mean something. I mean something.”

A memory from the last time they talked, the last time she's felt sane and whole, comes drifting by. A fierce coil of disgust lashes out at her for even considering it, but it might just be enough to get them to stop asking questions.

The rest of the car ride is in uncomfortable silence.

When they finally get out of the car, and take the elevator ride up into their suite, the silence continues to stretch and stretch. And when the elevator doors finally close behind them, and they're all walking to their shared couch—Mira is tense, Zoey is hovering, and Rumi is rehearsing what to say—the silence has stretched so long it’s a rope fraying along the middle, ready to snap. They all sit down at their couch, and Rumi is all too aware of the positions that Mira and Zoey have taken up. They're sitting close by, boxing her in.

Mira breaks the silence, "I told Bobby to cancel our appearance tomorrow."

"No, Mira, we can't!" Rumi says immediately, sitting up straight. “We have to seal the Honmoon!"

"Rumi, you just threw up today! How are we supposed to seal the Honmoon when you won't be able to stand up straight?"

"Yeah Rumi," Zoey nods. "You should be taking it easy there. It's fine! We can always schedule another show. And the Idol Awards will still be there next year."

There won't be a next year, Rumi wants to say, because when the Saja Boys get on stage, they manage to shatter the Honmoon for good. They manage to summon Gwi-Ma, and the entire stadium of fans, of people, will be gone.

But she has no way of proving that, no way of confirming that for the two of them. "But the Saja Boys—"

"We can beat the Saja Boys next time," Mira drolls, "And yeah, it'll be our loss—ugh, they'll be such a pain the next time we see them—but we can always get them another time."

"Yeah!" Zoey hums easily, "And who knows, maybe they'll skip it too and the Idol Awards just gets rescheduled."

"No." They don't get it. They don't get what's at stake. "No, no, no. You guys don't get it. We can't skip it!"

Rumi feels the conversation slipping away from her, like grains of sand rolling down her fingers. Mira and Zoey are looking at her with concern, confusion and worry (they're looking at her with hate, hate, hate). "We have to perform at the Idol Awards! It's the only way to stop them, to stop him!"

There is silence for just a moment, a moment that Rumi uses to seize control.

"Sorry, I just... have a really, really bad feeling about what happens if we don't show up tomorrow. And I think, no, I know that we have what it takes to stop what's coming."

Rumi pauses. “Look, I know that I haven’t been operating at my best these past few weeks, especially not today. But I know that we have what it takes.”

They're still hesitant—Rumi can see it in their eyes, their posture—so she tries pleading with them directly. “Mira, I know that sometimes you fear that you might be too much, that your aggression or bluntness is off-putting.”

Mira flinches, her mouth opening slightly in shock. Rumi keeps going.

“And Zoey, I know that you sometimes think that your thoughts and words don't feel like they belong.”

Zoey’s fingers curl, as if hurt. Rumi doesn’t stop.

“But don't you guys see? This is our chance to show the world, to show everyone who we really are. We have to go to the Idol Awards and show them the best version of ourselves. That way, we can seal the Honmoon for good."

She really is a monster.

Their words from a different life, a series of insecurities confessed in confidence, are now being used to push her own argument through. It’s a disgusting, filthy thing, and Rumi hates that she even resorted to this.

She’ll apologize for it later; she’ll apologize to them as many times as necessary. As long as they win (as long as she doesn’t burn again). As long as the Honmoon is sealed and Gwi-Ma never gets a chance to manifest.

And her pushing their boundaries is working. Rumi can see it in the way Zoey is biting her lips, trying to keep her genuine thoughts from spilling out. And Mira is still, stone still, looking at her like she doesn’t know her.

You're a demon. A mistake. You have been since the day you were born.

Rumi doesn't stop staring at Mira, because she knows that if there's someone she needs to convince, it's her—Zoey always folds when the two of them agree on something, a fact that Rumi has taken advantage of more than once. Mira stares right back, her gaze unreadable.

Finally, she scoffs, "Fine, whatever. Do what you want."

Silence reigns in the wake of her statement, but Rumi still can't breathe in relief. She has won, but she doesn't feel like a winner. She feels shitty, like mud and dirt scraped off the bottom of a shoe, and it's clear from the silence that Mira and Zoey are thinking the same way.

How could we be together if we can't tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?

"What song are we singing?" Zoey asks, her voice a quiet murmur. It feels so wrong to hear her like this, like she's a light that's gone out. Rumi doesn't have the chance to correct that, because Mira answers for her. "Whatever Rumi decides, because she's clearly in charge here."

Rumi flinches. She tries to brush it off, because Mira's hurt and she doesn't mean it (she does). She focuses on the facts:

Fact one: Takedown doesn't work. Her memories of Mira and Zoey singing it the first time still haunt her, even if she was being tricked. And even after singing the song on stage, the Honmoon had shattered, bringing Gwi-Ma with it.

Fact two: How It's Done probably won’t be enough. It’s still one of their most popular songs after their world tour, but with the release of Golden, it’s been steadily dropping on the music leaderboards. Fans will probably still appreciate it regardless, but Rumi can’t risk losing on it.

Fact three: Golden is still their best chance. Rumi still remembers the way a golden shimmer had settled over the crowd while she was soaring through the air, and even though the song was ruined by Takedown in the latter half, she still has fond memories of it.

"Can we sing 'Golden'?" Rumi asks softly, trying not to let her hurt show in her voice. "I think it's a song that represents the best of us."

"Sure, whatever."

"Zoey?" Rumi asks, pointedly ignoring the way her heart tightens up at Mira's tone. She knows she's being shitty, and she knows that this isn't the way to go about things, but she's still trying (why can't they see that?).

"Yeah... okay..."

And it's settled. But the silence is still deafening, and Rumi can't handle it, can't handle the way Mira and Zoey are looking at her with hurt, hurt, hurt in their eyes, so she stands up. She stands up to leave, to run away, with a tail tucked away between her legs.

"I'm going to get some rest."

She’s a coward.

Golden is going well, until it suddenly isn't.

“We dreamin' hard, we came so far, now I believe”

Rumi is singing the song perfectly, belting out all the high notes with an ease that feels natural. There's a golden hue settling over the crowd, and she can feel success building with each verse that comes out of her mouth.

She's already past the point where Takedown had started playing the first time—without her intervention, Jinu never decides to mess with her—and each beat brings the Golden Honmoon closer to completion.

Mira and Zoey are by her side, and she feels like the world is at her fingertips.

They're so close now, she can feel it.

“Oh, our time, no fears, no lies, that's who we're born to be”

And of course, that's when her voice decides to start giving out. When her patterns start taking over her throat, closing in like a vice, trapping her under its curse. Her voice is sputtering along, a gas engine too many maintenance operations behind schedule, and she can feel it start to break down. Her last high note doesn't hit just quite as high as she wants it to be.

No. No. No. Not now, when she's so close. NO!

“No more hiding, I'll be shining like I'm born to be—”

Her voice cracks.

A murmur rises up, an audience member wondering what's wrong. Rumi tries to power through, to move onto the next verse like nothing has happened.

“'Cause we are hunters, voices strong, and I know I believe—”

It happens again. And by now it's not just one audience member. More than one fan is questioning her now, she can sense it. And the Golden Honmoon, so close to being completed, has started to disappear again. The magic of the moment has vanished, and Rumi is left holding onto threads in the wind.

No. No. No! NO!

Rumi doesn’t stop singing, but it’s not enough. Her voice starts breaking line by line, until it disappears entirely, consumed by the patterns in her soul.

Rumi stops. There's still movement behind her—Mira and Zoey are doing their best to make up for her failure—but it's already too late. She has failed.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart starts racing, because she knows what comes next.

A panicked scream from a fan; a shattered stage light raining glass from the ceiling; static pressing down on her ears. And then, patterns showing visibly to the world, to Mira and Zoey; a dozen questions she can't answer; "I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true"; a blade to her chest, paying for all her terrible, terrible sins.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi runs.

One moment she's on stage, singing the best (worst) song of her life, and the next, she's in the breakroom, desperately trying to hide. She can't meet them like this, like this mistake, because she's been on that hellish road before, and she knows where it ends.

"How do you have patterns?"

"I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true."

Rumi looks up at the mirror in the breakroom. The patterns are spreading, angry purple and magenta claws rising up her throat. Even her high-collar won’t be able to hide it now, and she knows she’s fucked. She tries slapping some concealer over it anyways. Her hands are patterned too, so she grabs some gloves from nearby and disappears them behind some black leather and thick textile.

“Our faults and fears must never be seen,” a voice whispers.

She fucked up. She fucked up. She fucked up.

"Argh," Rumi grabs her hair, pulling at it like she can fix her fuck-ups by unleashing a bit more pain. "Think, Rumi, think. Come on, think!"

"Rumi, are you in there?" Zoey's voice echoes from the entrance, and for a moment, Rumi stays silent, like that'll stop them from coming in. Mira knows her too well. "We know that you're in there, Rumi. Open the door before I break it down."

And well, Rumi has never known what to say to that.

Slowly, she opens the door.

Rumi doesn’t meet them in the eyes, even as they step into the room. She knows what she must look like—a hot mess that’s like roadkill spattered all over the side of the road.

"Hey." Mira whispers quietly for once, and Zoey is the same. "Hey Rumi."

"I'm sorry I fucked up," Rumi says instead. She hurt them, lied to them, and still couldn’t create the Golden Honmoon in time. It’s all her fault. Her voice—the voice that every one of their songs was built on top of—has been taken from her. And now they won’t be able to seal the Honmoon.

To stop Gwi-Ma in time.

"I-It's okay! It's okay, Rumi." Zoey is quick to adapt, her arms already widening into a hug—one that Rumi is all too ready to accept, because even though she's a fuck-up, a terrible friend, and a cursed human, she still craves their acceptance. Mira joins in too. "We can always try again next year."

Except next year will never happen.

Rumi tries to bask in their hug for as long as possible, letting their warmth settle the racing heart in her chest. It feels good. Too good for someone like her. She eventually pulls away, still not meeting their eyes.

For a brief moment, silence gathers in the room.

Mira breaks it. “Rumi, why are you wearing my gloves?”

Rumi freezes in place. Terror seizes her heart, a thump-thump, thump-thump that’s rapidly rising in pace from the moment Mira spoke her words. Rumi looks up to see that Mira’s eyes are already narrowing, scanning across her outfit like a ray of fire.

“I-I—” Rumi sputters and stutters, scrambling to come up with a reasonable lie in time.

She’s too late.

“Alright, it’s time for an intervention. What are you hiding from us, Rumi?”

“You were hiding this from us this whole time?”

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi already knows what comes next. A pointed gok-do. A pair of raised shin-kals. She’s out of time. She opens her mouth to speak (to beg), when a flash of pink ripples around them.

The Honmoon is in trouble: demons are already pouring out the cracks in the hallway, Your Idol’s beats are vibrating through the stadium flooring, and the room is blistering with a radiating heat that signifies Gwi-Ma’s presence.

Rumi seizes the moment. “We have to stop them,” she demands.

Mira is frustrated at the interruption, her brows pinched with anger and suspicion. Her gaze is still stone cold, searching Rumi for her truths and lies.

"Okay, but once we're done with this," Mira pulls out her gok-do, just in time to stab a demon coming up from behind her. "We're going to have a talk, all three of us. And you better not run."

Rumi just nods. She already knows how this story ends.

"Are you two done? They're doing something to the Honmoon!" Zoey yells from in front of them, her shin-kals already flashing. "We have to get to the stage!"

They never get the chance to talk.

Rumi burns alive again.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

Rumi throws up again.

Chapter Text

Burning alive sucks.

Every bit of vomit that makes its way through Rumi's mouth is a reminder of this fact. A reminder of the memories that she wants to bury. A reminder of the feelings she wants to discard. A reminder of the agony that she wants to forget. Puke and bile form a messy concoction of memories, feelings and pain on the ground in front of her, like if she just throws up enough, she won't be carrying any of this inside of her anymore.

It sucks. It really sucks. It really fucking sucks.

The wetness on her face is drowning her, a terrible mix of snot, tears and misery. It all soaks into her skin as she forces her eyes closed and lets the tears roll down. She sets her mind to focus on breathing, on puffing gasps of air in between projectiles of vomit.

One breath in. One breath out. One breath in. One breath out.

Each gasp brings her closer to feeling alive again.

A sob rips its way through her, and Rumi relishes in the way her chest tightens and folds. Her hand automatically comes up to rest against it, feeling for the steady drumbeat that’s there. It goes thump-thump, thump-thump, the way it’s supposed to.

The way she knows she’s not dead.

The way she knows she’s alive again.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The simple harmony washes over her as she lets her hand sit there. The beats slow down, smoothing out to something more calm and peaceful. It’s grounding in a way, that such a simple song of her own life could be so soothing.

She’s alive.

She's been given another chance to fix her wrongs. Another chance to seal the Honmoon. Another chance to stop Gwi-Ma. Another chance to fix her patterns.

How many more chances will she have?

Rumi doesn't know, but the feeling of burning alive is a mighty toll to pay each time. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks she might prefer the way she died the first time—blood rolling down her clothes, hurt, hurt, hurt radiating from her chest, and numbness taking over her limbs. That was at least better than the agony of burning alive.

Finally, she brings her fingers up to her face. She presses them into the dampness of her cheeks, curling her digits around her features like they’re the only thing that’ll protect them from being burned again.

Burning alive fucking sucks.

At least she was getting better at managing it.

She sighs. 

Rumi opens her eyes to see that Mira and Zoey have migrated to her side, worry all over their expressions. Zoey's hands are already drifting to her hair and Rumi lets her, her thin fingers slowly combing stray purple strands out of the way. Mira silently offers her a towel, one that Rumi uses to wipe vomit, spit, and tears off. 

Rumi still feels like a hot mess.

But she's a bit better now, now that she's had the chance to clean up a bit, to let her heartbeat settle a bit.

"I'm okay now," she says, voice a bit hoarse.

Mira and Zoey look at her like she's crazy, but Rumi just shrugs, the way only someone who's died thrice can. "Trust me, I'm okay now."

"Rumi, you just threw up! That's like, the very definition of not okay," Zoey says, her hands already darting forward to rest against her forehead for a quick temperature check. "You don't always have to push yourself so hard. Take it easier on yourself."

"Yeah, rest up for today. We'll need your voice for tomorrow's show."

And as much as Rumi wants to do exactly that, she can't. 

She doesn't have the time to take it easy. She doesn't know if she still has it in her to take it easy, with the world looming over her shoulder. She doesn't deserve to take it easy, after fucking up so much. 

So she pushes Zoey's hand away, steps back a bit to get out of Mira's long reach, and starts walking toward the train station.

“Where are you going?”

“To kill some demons,” Rumi calls out. 

“Demons?”

And after a brief moment, a flash of pink washes over them.

Rumi is already moving, slipping into the Korean metro network with familiarity. There’s only one spot where the demons will come from, and she could really do with some demon-killing right now. 

"Better come right, better luck tryin', gettin' to our level"

"'Cause you might die, never the time, tryna start a battle"

Rumi’s chosen song is familiar. Comfortable. She belts out the lyrics to How It’s Done while darting forwards into the demons swarming around the Line 5 train. Her saingeom swiftly leads the charge, charting a course for Mira and Zoey to follow. And even though Rumi’s main part in this song is all high-notes, the opening portion is easy enough for her for now.

"Bleeding isn't in my blood, 뼈속부터 달라서"

"Beating you is what I do, do, do, yeah"

Mira and Zoey are quick to meet her where she’s at, and their training kicks in. A shin-kal flashes overhead just in time for Rumi to duck under. Mira’s gok-do slams into the demon next to her. Rumi pushes on.

"Body on body, I'm naughty, not even sorry"

The three of them glide across the top of the train line like a well-oiled killing machine, never stopping for even a moment. Rumi's saingeom feels easy to wield like this, with a familiar song on her lips and her best friends by her side. It reminds her of simpler times, when the pressures of creating the Golden Honmoon was an abstract goal, and when her patterns hadn't started taking over her voice.

"'Cause I'm gonna show you how it's done, done, done"

Rumi runs forward with her saingeom in hand. She leaps. Crashes down. A pulse of song wipes the rest of the demons out, clearing them from the path ahead.

Her breaths follow soon after, heavy and slow with exhaustion. Sweat is pouring down her brow and her voice feels like it's one beat away from giving out.

How is she supposed to create the Golden Honmoon like this?

“Woo! Yeah! I’ll never get tired of this song!” Zoey declares, walking up to her. “It’s like one of my favorites.”

“You say that about every song,” Mira chimes in. “We’ve been singing this for like months during the World Tour. I’m sick of it.”

“That’s because it’s impossible to pick one favorite. They’re all my precious children—how could I?”

Rumi doesn’t say anything, choosing to drop down into the train so that they can get off at the next stop. She doesn’t know what to do now, with her voice already giving out on the simple notes to How It’s Done. She definitely won’t be able to hit the high-notes at this rate.

They peel away from the train line the next time it makes a stop, effortlessly slipping onto the opposite train the moment doors open. Mira and Zoey follow after her, also silent—demon-hunting is not meant to be discussed in public, after all. It isn't until they're back on the way to the stadium that Mira says something.

"So why did you sing How It's Done, Rumi? I thought we were going with Takedown for the Idol Awards."

Because I hate Takedown, Rumi almost says. Because I want to disappear when Takedown plays. She doesn't say what's on her mind, and settles for a simpler truth, "I just don’t think Takedown will win us the Idol Awards.”

"But we've been working on it for weeks!?" Mira is quick to counter, "And How It's Done is like months old at this point."

"I know, I know," Rumi says, pinching an arm around herself, "but my gut feeling says that Takedown just isn't... what we need right now."

But Mira’s brows are already rising in slight frustration, so she adds, “and I just need you guys to trust me. Please.”

Her begging is nothing new, just another tool at her disposal. She catches Mira and Zoey looking at each other, curiosity pinging off each other.

"Don't leave me!" a memory echoes.

"Then what do you want to sing instead?"

"I don't know," Rumi confesses, wishing she had a better answer. Her singing isn't enough now, not when she's cursed like this, demonic patterns climbing her throat. Not for the first time, Rumi wishes she hadn't been born like this, like this mistake. "My voice—it's still in trouble."

"Then what do we do, Rumi? The Idol Awards are tomorrow." Zoey says, her tone serious for once to highlight the magnitude of that statement. "We have to sing something."

Silence just follows.

"Ugh, this would be so much easier if we could just kill the Saja Boys."

Rumi ponders that statement, rolls it around in her head until it lands on something she's forgotten until now. She thinks of the demon tiger lying outside her bedroom balcony, a six-eyed crow with a top hat perched on its head.

"I have an idea."

Rumi grips the roofing tile tightly, peering over it with careful precision.

Overcast tree leaves and creeping vines shroud her vision, making it difficult to make out details from here. A hushed silence lingers, the sound of her own breathing the only noise that she can hear. Long shadows, stretching in from neighboring corridors, claw this street in darkness, but there's just enough fading sunlight to make out shapes. Or people.

She spots him.

Jinu is leaning against a sturdy clay wall, fiddling with something between his fingers—exactly where she told him to meet.

There's no one else around him.

Rumi pulls back and nods to Mira and Zoey next to her.

Plan A is a go.

Their weapons are quietly pulled out of the Honmoon. A saingeom. A gok-do. A set of shin-kal. It should have been enough for a single demon.

But then Jinu starts speaking, "Next time, when you decide to ambush someone—"

The Honmoon is screeching, crying, shrieking that something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong.

"—make sure no one is around to listen—"

Fuck.

Rumi jumps forward, saingeom already plunging, but Jinu's just a bit faster than she is. He pops away, a plume of pink smoke swirling around him. He dodges Mira's gok-do and Zoey's thrown shin-kals with just as much ease.

"Caw-caw," the crow—the damned six-eyed crow—calls out triumphantly above her, and with a flap of its wings, it lands on Jinu's shoulder. Rumi can see the smug grin even from here, its six eyes glaring down at her in disdain. Jinu finishes his statement casually, as if announcing a funeral. "—or else you might pay for it instead."

Rumi barely has a second to process that statement, because the Honmoon chooses that moment to rip open.

Pink gaping holes the size of sewer grates are poked into the ground around them, splitting apart with terrible, terrible ease. Demons start pouring out, more and more and more, until everywhere around them is filled to the brim with the monsters. They fill the alleyways, the rooftops, and even the walls around them.

"It's a trap!" Zoey calls out, saying what's all on their minds.

But the demons don't stop coming out, and when Rumi looks, she can even spot a few greater demons amongst them. It's more demons than they've ever fought before, and even with Mira and Zoey here, Rumi is not sure they'll make it out of here unscathed. They're outnumbered and outgunned.

"Oh shit."

"This is bad. Like really really really bad."

But Jinu doesn't stop talking, his voice a disappointed timbre, and he says something that sets on fire every little lie that Rumi has told to get Mira and Zoey to come here, "I almost believed you, Rumi, the last time we met. I guess I should have known better."

"Rumi, what does he mean by that?"

"You were meeting with him?" 

"I thought you said that he just frequents this area a lot?" 

"Don't listen to him. He's trying to trick you," the lie slips out of Rumi's lips with all too much ease. She refuses to look at Mira and Zoey, refuses to acknowledge the hurt that must be on their faces, refuses to let them know the truth. She needs to kill Jinu, get them out of this mess, and it’ll have been worth it. She’ll bury her burning pile of lies under a mountain of apologies, as long as they win. “We just have to kill him.”

"Trick you? Huh, she still hasn't told you?" Jinu smiles, a devilish glint to his teeth, "She's a—"

Rumi lunges at him.

"I don't think you're ready for the takedown"

Her saingeom barely brushes the fringes of Jinu's hair. Her anger plunges her weapon forward, and he dodges to the left, the smug grin never leaving his face. Rumi chases him, her frustration mounting by the second as he expertly weaves between her attacks.

"A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live, it's so obvious"

Rumi feels herself slipping, the rhythm of the song driving needles into her brain—a pulse of static; a set of flashing lights; a feeling of unease. She pushes them down, pressing and pressing and pressing, until it's packed neatly into a box in the corner of her mind. She hates this song. But Mira and Zoey had insisted, and she couldn’t find a way to say no.

"You know, for someone who keeps insisting that she's not a demon" —Rumi swipes her saingeom upwards, trying to get him to stop talking— "you sure act like one."

"Shut up," Rumi rips out, her weapon darting forward to stab him through the chest, "I'm not a demon. I'm nothing like you."

"Yeah?" He suddenly moves, claws slashing downwards, "Try telling that to your friends."

And Rumi doesn't need to look to know what he's done. She looks anyway. He's torn the shoulder of her outfit open, forcing her patterns on display. Their magenta edges stand out against the black leather like blood against pale white skin.

“Cover those up”, a voice whispers.

Rumi lets out a roar of anger, but Jinu has already teleported away onto another rooftop. He looms over her, demonic amber eyes staring her down with a contempt that says, "Try me."

"Rumi!" Zoey calls out, her voice shaking with something like panic. "We need your help!"

"It's a takedown, I'ma take you out and I ain't gonna stop"

"정신을 놓고 널 짓밟고 칼을 새겨놔"

Static rushes into her ears; her eyes are peeled open, waiting to see stage lights crashing and popping; her heartbeat is soaring, going thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump—

"Rumi, get over here!"

—and Rumi turns around to see Mira and Zoey in trouble. A part of her registers the angry demons hovering over her friends—red, blue and green claws darting forward to crush them—and another part of her just wants to run away, to disconnect from this mess of her own creation. It's all blending together, a haze of heartbeats and chaotic colors swirling in her mind.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

("Rumi!" "What are you doing, where are you!?" "Rumi, help us!" "Rumi!" "Rumi!")

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump—

And then Rumi sees it happen. She sees a greater demon, blue-skinned and giant-horned, slip past Zoey's guard. She sees the demon plunge forward, its claws sharpened and gleaming. She sees blood—Zoey's blood—come rushing out of a blow to the stomach.

—and Rumi's there in an instant, red smoke curling around her like a comforting hug. 

She plunges her saingeom straight into the demon’s brain, and rips it out like she's excising a tumor, slicing him with surgical precision. Rumi ignores the sudden shock from her friends ("Rumi?" "Rumi, what?") and focuses on killing everything else around her. 

On protecting Zoey.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart is still racing, her brain is still fogged up with colorful noises, and her voice still refuses to work (why won't it work, say something, why, why, why, say something please) but Rumi fights to defend Zoey like her life depends on it. Her saingeom kills and kills and kills, demons scattering across the edge of its blade with shimmering blood. There’s no method to her madness, just pure unfiltered instinct pulling her through this fight.

She’s slipping into a haze of blood, death, and fury.

Of course, that's when Mira takes a blow to the stomach as well.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"FUCK—” the Honmoon swells and swells, like a balloon ready to burst, “—OFF!”

A wave of pink rushes out, killing all the nearby demons instantly. Jinu's at the edge of the blast, so she sees that he's made it out, but Rumi doesn't care about him anymore. She's too focused on the body beneath her—Zoey looks so pale (why is she so pale)—and she drops her saingeom to wrap her hands around her. 

Zoey flinches at her touch, curling back as if she’s afraid. Afraid of her.

Fuck.

Rumi bites down her hurt and grabs Mira’s shoulder as well.

They disappear in a puff of red smoke.

Rumi reappears in the messiness of their penthouse apartment, still swamped with empty takeout containers and half-eaten chip bags from their planning session. She brushes some of them away from their white couch as she gently sets Zoey down on it. Rumi's fingers are shaking, stuttering to the drumbeat of her racing heart, but she pushes it down for just another moment. She can save her breakdown for later.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi turns around to get Mira as well but Mira just shoves her hand away like she's disgusted. She walks over to the couch herself, a hand pressed into the bleeding wound with contempt.

Silence follows in her wake.

She hates you. They both do, another thought that Rumi shoves into the pressure cooker of her heart.

Later. Save it for later.

Rumi grabs the emergency supplies from the medical cabinet next to the kitchen where they always keep them and hurries back, pulling out bandages and gauze like they'll be enough to patch up the lies she told or clean up the hurt on their faces. She brings them first to Zoey, who's sniffling quietly, a bloodied hand covering her eyes. Rumi has to wrap the wounds herself, wincing each time Zoey flinches and bites her lips to prevent a stray comment from slipping out.

Zoey has always been the dramatic one, acting out even the smallest paper cuts like they were wounds taken from a great battle from a historical drama. Hearing her like this, shying away from Rumi’s touch, hurts on a deeper level than Rumi is prepared for.

Mira is even worse. She doesn't even look at Rumi, pointedly closing her eyes and refusing to acknowledge the whispered "Please, Mira, I have to treat this," when Rumi tries to patch up the wound clenched behind Mira's fist. Rumi is eventually forced to leave the medical supplies behind, trusting that Mira, even if she doesn't trust Rumi, can take care of herself.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rumi stops before the bathroom door and turns around to look at them one last time.

She watches the way Mira slowly unfurls the bandages that Rumi left behind, quiet pain lingering in each movement. She watches the way Zoey curls inward on herself, struggling to fall asleep from the pain of her wounds. She watches as the two of them slowly pull closer together, taking care of each other after Rumi fucked up so spectacularly. 

It’s her fault. It’s her fault. It’s her fault.

Rumi adds her guilt to the top of the swirling mess in her heart. Not yet. Not right now. Not when she’s not sure that they’re okay. 

She watches them until their movements start to slow with sleep, until the Honmoon settles over them like a warm blanket, until their wounds start magically healing themselves underneath their bandages. 

Finally, finally, finally, with her heart whistling with steam and anticipation, Rumi steps into the bathroom. She stares at the girl in the mirror: frayed purple hair tangled with dried specks of blood, magenta and purple patterns clear-cut and exposed against the shoulder of her skin, and wet mascara sagging down her face.

What is she supposed to do now?

They're seventeen when they get hurt during a hunt for the first time.

It was bound to happen—demon-hunting was always going to be a precarious job. They'd been lucky so far: the Honmoon breaks near the shrine tree were mostly small-fry, with occasionally a greater demon sneaking through.

This time, their luck had run out.

"Ow-ow-ow," Zoey says, wincing for every drop of antiseptic that Rumi is pouring over her scratches. They're relatively minor wounds all things considered, but Zoey always had a flair for making things dramatic. "Watch it, Rumi! Don't you know? You gotta be gentle—GENTLE—with these things. My skin is too delicate to take much of that. Slow and steady wins the race!"

"I thought you said your skin was as tough as a turtle's shell," Rumi mutters, slowly applying bandages over each small cut.

"That was before! And I take it back! My skin is soft and brittle and needs a lot of love and attention—OW!—is it over yet? I don't think I can take any more of this! This is suffering, suffering I tell you."

"Done." Rumi pulls back to take a look at her. Zoey is smiling shyly, acting like she wasn't just rambling about all her pain. Rumi smiles back. The younger girl had a way of making things lighter, even in the face of seriousness.

"That's it?" Zoey pouts, "Where's my kiss to make it better? I thought we decided that was going to be a thing."

Rumi snorts. "Says who?"

"Says me! I think we should make it a team thing—kick demon butt, get kisses in return! It'll be like in all of those dramas—don't you know, kissing magically makes everything better!"

“If you say so.”

Rumi starts packing the bandages into the medical box. Mira still needs to be treated, although judging by the disdain on her face, it's going to be a bit of a struggle.

"God, are you two done?" Mira pipes in from across the room. She's lounging on another couch, a hand pressed down onto a blood-soaked cloth around her shoulder. Rumi had offered to help earlier—Mira's wound was more serious—but the other girl had turned her down. "Some of us need to focus, you know?"

"I don't know," Rumi pipes up, staring at Mira. "Are you done pretending you know what you're doing yet?"

Mira hisses. "I don't need your help."

She grabs some of the antiseptic from the medical kit in her lap, and rips off the cap with a stubborn fury, sending it flying across the room and landing somewhere beside Rumi’s feet. Then she hurriedly sloshes some of it over her wound—a mistake, Rumi knows from experience. Mira instantly realizes what she's done wrong by the way pain lights up on her face. The bottle of antiseptic drops down, crashing into her lap and taking the tray of medical supplies with it. Everything inside scatters, pinballing across the floor and rolling to a stop.

Mira has one last frustrated grunt to give. "Fuck this shit."

Rumi slowly walks over to her, her own medical supplies in hand. Mira is not looking at her, but she spits out a tart, "Go on then. Tell me what I did wrong, Dr. Ryu," the moment Rumi gets close.

And Rumi could match that energy. She could rise up to the occasion and dive into a lecture. Celine certainly would have. But Mira's words don't always communicate what she means, and Rumi can tell that from the way Mira is biting her lips that she's thinking too hard about being let down again.

So Rumi slides down next to Mira and starts pulling out the supplies she'll need. Some clean cloths, antiseptic, bandages, suture tape, gauze—it's all clinical and slow, each one laid out before the two of them in a series like a bunch of ducks in a row. 

Then, Rumi grabs Mira's wrist, and asks quietly, "Can I help you?"

And when Mira looks at her and nods, Rumi starts by pulling the bloodied cloth off from Mira’s arm. She also starts speaking.

"You have to start by cleaning the wound first. Warm water works best, but you can use antiseptic in a pinch..." 

Rumi doesn't stop talking as she treats Mira's wound. Slowly, she walks through each of the items in the medical supply kit as she uses them. She'll have to ask Celine to sign them up for some first aid training—there's a lot more that she's missing, and even Celine's lessons can only carry her so far. But it’s better than nothing, and for someone like Mira, that’s everything. Slowly but surely, Rumi manages to wrap Mira's arm in enough bandages to keep the bleeding at bay.

"...the Honmoon will be able to heal things from there, as long as you take it easy for the rest of the day."

Rumi finally stops, bringing her hands back to herself. Mira is looking at her—not with anger or frustration in her eyes for once, but wonder.

She smiles weakly. "I'm sure there's more to my explanation that I've missed, but it should be enough for now. At least until we get proper first aid training."

"What about you?" Mira speaks, her voice oddly soft. "You took a hit too, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Rumi confesses, "but it's just a bruise. I'll take a look at it later."

Mira's eyes turn stormy. "Show me." And when Rumi lifts her shirt to show, it's exactly as she said. A darkening bruise that looks like it'll ache for the next day or so. Mira looks a bit put out by that. Rumi is not quite sure why, so she says, "I'll be fine. We hunters heal quickly."

Mira looks away. "I'll pay you back some day."

"You don't have to," Rumi says simply. "We're a team. We work together for a reason."

Rumi doesn't go back to the penthouse apartment. She is not sure she can stand the weight of their gazes, the questions they will have, the words they will say. Rumi can already guess some of them:

"How do you have patterns?"

"You were hiding this from us this whole time?"

And she doesn't want to see it play out again. She's not sure she can survive experiencing it again. She didn't even survive it the first time.

Instead, Rumi takes a page out of Jinu's book. She's hidden away in the Saja Boys' breakroom, camped out above some cracked ceiling tiles, and leaning against some dusty ventilation pipes and grimy wooden support beams. 

Her outfit is still the tattered mess from earlier and her mind is still fraying around the edges from her breakdown in the penthouse bathroom. Her exhaustion is pulling at her in waves, threatening to take her down after sixteen hours with no sleep, but when she tried to rest earlier, her nightmares had pulled her out of it. She hasn’t tried sleeping since. 

It’ll take her everything she has to fight like this, but it’s the only plan that she could come up with to stop Gwi-Ma alone. Without Mira and Zoey.

She can’t allow them to get hurt again.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the breakroom door creaks open. She can hear the murmur of conversation drift into the room from beneath her.

“... hunters are already gone, should be a piece of cake ...”

“... so many souls gathered already, it’ll be a great feast ... ”

“... Gwi-Ma will be pleased ... “

Rumi pulls out her saingeom, its divine edge glowing weakly. The fraying Honmoon croons in pain, like it's taking everything it can to sustain its connection to her weapon. Sorry, just this one last time, she apologizes, and it’ll all be over.

“...are you planning on doing with your ...”

“...not sure yet, I’m still thinking ...”

The voices are getting closer now, and Rumi peers down through a crack in the ceiling to watch for them. She has a limited view of the room from up here, and the colors are barely recognizable as shapes. The first demon to make it into view is the teal-haired one—Baby, if she recalls correctly—except he's still too far away. 

“... just glad I don’t have to put up this stupid act ...”

Rumi waits patiently, a seal hunter hovering over an icing hole, watching as Baby wanders closer and closer, until he finally steps directly underneath her—

She drops down, crashing through the ceiling and plunging her saingeom directly into his head with spear-like precision. He doesn't even have a chance to react before he vanishes into the ether.

One down. Four to go.

Rumi takes in the room: blobs of color slowly forming into shapes in her weary mind. The pale-gray-haired one—Mystery, her mind finally provides—is the closest, having been standing next to Baby before she killed him. Abby and Romance are leaning up against a few lockers just a few feet away, and they've clearly been taken by surprise, judging by how they're mid-transformation, half their faces covered in demonic markings. Jinu is the furthest, looking as if he's just entered the room, his amber gaze unreadable.

She focuses on Mystery first.

Rumi darts forwards, slamming her saingeom down. He barely parries in time, claws reaching out and blocking her attack.

Faster. She needs to be faster.

Rumi twists and goes for another swipe.

Blocked too.

She changes tracks and goes for a flurry of blows instead. Mystery is scrambling, claws moving erratically as he desperately tries to parry her attacks. He stumbles—a mistake for her to capitalize on. She plunges forward—

Romance is suddenly there, blocking her attack.

Fuck.

And then Abby is close behind, his claws knifing downwards. 

Rumi dodges, and then kicks him back. She uses the momentum to flip, taking her saingeom with her. Distance is what she needs right now. Her weapon comes to rest in front of her, a sentinel on guard for any counter-attacks.

Her surprise is lost. And now she's outnumbered three to one.

She's faced worse odds.

"Just you?" Jinu's voice is taunting from where he’s standing, leaned against the wall like an observer. Rumi's not sure whether to be glad or upset that he's choosing not to join the fight.

Yet, her mind reminds her.

"I'm all that's needed," Rumi spits out, her eyes darting from Romance to Mystery to Abby and back to Romance again. They've boxed her in, and their close-range claws gives them the advantage in this fight. She needs to force an opening if she has any chance in this fight.

"Huh, where are your friends?" A question that Rumi chooses to ignore. She dashes forward at Romance and feints—

He raises his claws to block.

—Rumi tilts her body just so and kicks him backwards instead. He's knocked down. It's an opening. She lunges forward—

And Abby is already there, covering for him.

Clang!

Her saingeom rings out as it clashes against demonic claws.

And then three of them decide to flip the script: three sets of claws close in suddenly, and it takes all of Rumi’s focus just to stay alive.

Her limbs are sluggish and slow, held down by leaden weights of exhaustion and soreness. Her blocks are imperfect, leaving little gaps for an extra attack to sneak through. Her dodges are rushed, barely moving out of the way in time. Small cuts start to appear on her skin, little blooms of pain across her shoulders and arms. 

"Are they hurt?"—Rumi ducks under Abby’s overhand swipe, her saingeom already moving to parry a different attack from Mystery—"Dying somewhere in a bed right now?"

Anger bursts under her skin, a pot of boiling fury, and she relishes it in it. Anger is good. Anger will keep her alive a little while longer, just enough to kill them all.

Her anger pulls her forwards as she ducks under Abby’s attacks.

Her anger prompts her to dodge when Mystery tries to strike back.

Her anger empowers her when Romance barely parries one of her blows.

And then her anger costs her.

She barely avoids a swipe from Mystery—

And steps into the path of Romance’s claws. They slice into her shoulder like hot knives, and instantly her back explodes into pain.

It hurts.

Rumi can't even focus on the agony bleeding out her back, because Abby is there next, his claws out and ready to strike.

"I heard hunters heal quickly"—Rumi kicks him away, using the momentum to flip backwards—"so if you're here, alone,"

Rumi plunges down, her saingeom's sharp blade angled directly at Mystery's head. He rolls away, dodging her attack entirely, and Rumi’s forced to go back on defense. Adrenaline pulses through her veins and her fury is a pot close to boiling over. Jinu doesn't stop.

"That must mean they hate you, right?"

Rumi freezes—

Mira and Zoey, curled into each other, darkened blood staining their clothes. Zoey, muffling her cries when Rumi patched her up. Mira, refusing to look at Rumi, or even at the bandages offered in peace. 

—Fuck.

It's a distraction, one that clearly works, because both Abby and Mystery are coming at her, claws pinching inwards from all directions: she has nowhere to go. She refuses to die like this, listening to Jinu tell her what she already knows, so she uses all her fury and anger and rage to do something new:

"Do you ever"—she blinks out in a flash, red smoke blazing behind her like a comet trail—"SHUT UP!?"

Her saingeom jabs into Romance's back after she reappears behind him. Rumi doesn't even bother looking at him as he fades; her eyes are solely focused on Jinu's, glaring at him as he stares right back.

Two down. Three to go.

Jinu looks surprised. And then he smiles, a smug mockery of a grin, like he's been waiting for her to snap this whole time.

He steps forward, claws out. He's going to be joining this next fight then.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Agony is lanced through her shoulder blades, a blistering pain that's radiating outwards from her injury. Her breath is growing weaker and weaker, like a fire that is about to burn out. Adrenaline pumps through her veins, a throbbing sensation that's probably the only reason she's still standing.

There’s also movement behind her—Abby and Mystery getting into position—but her eyes are only on Jinu.

Rumi readies her saingeom.

Jinu brings his claws up.

A deep breath, one that's probably her last one.

And then he's moving and she's moving and their battlefield of a breakroom explodes into a series of smoke trails.

Rumi teleports and teleports and teleports, red smoke billowing out from behind her like rocket flares as she skirmishes against the three demons in the room. Her saingeom slams down on teeth and claws with the force of artillery shells raining down, each barrage of blows leaving her more and more empty. Each time, her reserves deplete a little more, like gas seeping out of a fuel tank, and Rumi knows she can't keep this up for much longer.

But she doesn't stop, choosing to commit to this fight with everything that she's got left.

Because even though she's a candle burning out from both ends, she's winning. Her saingeom lands again and again, blasting into demon claws with more power than she's ever had. There's three greater demons in the room, but somehow she's the one coming out on top.

She takes countless wounds in the process, little fires that she won’t ever be able to put out, but Rumi already knew she wasn’t going to survive this encounter. Her lifeblood is her fuel, her frustration is her ammunition, and her body is just another casualty in this war.

Three down. Two to go.

She feels herself lagging. She’s already one foot in the grave. It doesn’t matter.

Four down. One to go.

"Not so talkative, now, are you?" Rumi gasps out finally, when Jinu is the only one left. They're both exhausted, panting heavily in the destroyed mess of a breakroom, but Rumi still has enough in her for one last fight, her hand digging into the hilt of  her saingeom to hold herself up.

Idly, she thinks she should be happy. After this, the Honmoon will be safe. Gwi-Ma will never be summoned. Mira and Zoey won’t wake up to a world on fire. 

But she doesn’t feel happy, like this, halfway to death’s door. Jinu doesn’t look happy either.

“Now,” he says, pointing up behind him, “you look just like the rest of us.”

And Rumi can’t help but look—

Magenta and purple streaks, cutting across her body and face with jagged edges. Blood pouring out of a million wounds, dripping across her arms and legs like war paint. Feral amber eyes and pointed teeth and sharpened claws. 

It’s a demon.

It’s her.

Rumi stares and stares and stares, like staring at it will change how she feels about those two facts. 

"Demons are monsters," a voice whispers.

—and Jinu immediately capitalizes on her moment of weakness, his claws slicing straight into her chest. Into her heart. Her hold on this world was already in tatters, and he’s just severed the last thread. Her vision starts to fade as her dying body crumples and folds like linen. 

And she was so close to winning too.

"Goodbye, Rumi."

Rumi falls.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

“THAT MOTHERFUCKER—”

Chapter Text

Another death, another chance.

Rumi wonders if she'll ever get used to it, to dying and then waking up moments later, Mira's voice cutting in like a toll booth opening its gates. Death is such a heavy price to pay, one that Rumi is slowly getting tired of paying. She doesn't know how much longer she can do this for.

She's perched at the top of HUNTR/X tower, sitting on the edge of the building, her legs floating freely in the air. Below her, the hustle and bustle of Seoul nightlife is just starting—cars swimming into traffic-packed lanes, tiny specks of people huddling into bars, and office buildings starting to dim. There’s a tranquility here, hundreds of meters above the ground, with the nighttime breeze brushing into her hair and the darkening sky offering stars as peace offerings. 

Rumi comes up here every so and often to think, because it's the only place where she knows no one else will come to bother her. The penthouse apartment is theirs—hers, Mira's and Zoey's—and the shrine is Celine's, but this rooftop is just for her. She suspects Bobby knows she comes up here: she got the key from him after all, but he never said anything about it.

Her thoughts are heavy tonight.

She's died four times already. Four chances at life, four deaths in return.

It feels like a lifetime ago, that first night, when everything went horribly horribly wrong. When her patterns had taken over, and she didn’t want to live with Mira’s and Zoey’s hate and fear staring her down. And when the universe had awarded her with a second chance, she grabbed it with both hands—

Takedown blaring in the background; static rushing into her ears; Mira and Zoey looking at her with so many questions in their eyes.

—and she fucked up. She tried to change too many things. Tried to undo everything she thought was a mistake. And she paid for it dearly.

(A ray of fire. A burst of agony across her entire body. A charred corpse.)

But then the universe offered her another chance.

So she tried again.

She tried to make it happen with Golden. She tried to make it happen the way the universe seemed to be telling her to. She pinned her hopes and dreams on Golden, on creating the Golden Honmoon with her voice.

And the universe spat on it.

Her voice? Taken. Taken by the very patterns she was trying to fix. Her beautiful singing voice, the voice that every one of their songs were built on top of, the voice that Celine said came from her mother, the voice that Rumi has spent years perfecting?

Gone, ripped away by the patterns closing in on her throat.

She couldn't seal the Honmoon in time. She couldn't stop Gwi-Ma in time. She couldn't stop herself from being burned alive in time.

Rumi lost.

And then, as if laughing at her, the universe offered her another chance.

So, she tried fighting instead.

Rumi has always been good at fighting. It was an inborn instinct, something that came as naturally to her as breathing. Singing came naturally too, but it was a different kind, the kind that was more cultured talent than natural instinct. She'd been training to sing ever since she learned to speak, and Celine had always smiled at her a bit more when she sang, so she never stopped singing.

Fighting was instinctual in the way that Rumi could lose track of hours spent in the dojang if she didn't set timers for herself. She would sneak away at odd hours to practice her sword movements or train against imaginary opponents, pushing herself again and again and again. Celine never explicitly disapproved, because Rumi was supposed to be a Hunter, but she also never smiled at her the way she did with her singing.

Rumi had always suspected it was because those instincts came from her father. The demon father that Celine never talked about, except to tell her to forget about him or that her mother made a mistake in trusting the wrong person.

And now, Rumi has proof:

She teleports in place for a moment, red smoke barely kissing her hair, and without even looking, she knows she's teleported exactly one foot to the left. She knows it with the same confidence that someone moving their arms or legs feels. It's instinctual, a piece of her ability to fight that she doesn't know how she's been missing until now.

It feels like becoming whole.

It feels like giving up.

Even her fighting is something that belongs to the demon inside of her now. What else is there to take? She’s a flower plucked from the ground, petals ripped off one by one until there’s nothing left except the stem—the ugly stem—and then discarded after.

Her fighting is her greatest triumph: four Saja Boys dead and Jinu on his last legs. 

Her fighting is her greatest loss: Mira and Zoey curled into each other, wounds bleeding from all her lies, all her guilt, all her mistakes. 

Her fighting is her worst memory: feral amber eyes and pointed teeth and sharpened claws staring right back at her in a mirror.

Another death, another chance.

Rumi doesn’t know where to go from here. She can’t get Mira and Zoey hurt again—blood seeping from their wounds, their pangs of pain going silent—she just can’t. But, she cannot sing without her voice, and she cannot fight without Mira and Zoey by her side. She cannot sing without her patterns taking it away, and she cannot fight without her demon showing its edge.

She cannot win without either losing herself, or losing Mira and Zoey. 

Oh.

It feels like destiny laughing at her.

It feels like an undeniable truth that she’s known all along. 

Rumi stands up.

Her hand comes to rest against her chest, feeling for the steady thump-thump, thump-thump that's there, the way it's supposed to be. A heavy sigh drags its way out of her lungs, and she lets it rest there for a moment, her stomach relaxing slowly. She stares across the city skyline for a long time, watching the fragile Honmoon shudder and weep in pink tears of pain.

If she can't make a happy ending with her in it, then she'll just have to make one without her instead.

Her decision made, Rumi steps away from the ledge, walking back toward the rooftop steps. Puzzle pieces snap together inside of her mind, plans taking shape for how she wants to accomplish this goal she’s set for herself.

The sunlight rays of dawn are every so slightly cool as they shine down on the field ahead.

It's a remote place, far away enough from any nearby population centers that any sounds of battle will have long faded before they reach any ears. Spindly trees, thick with springtime leaves surround the clearing, each of them standing distantly apart enough to create the illusion of openness. The scent of late springtime is thick in the air—slightly damp with morning dew and fresh greenery.

Jinu is there, waiting. He's fiddling with something in his fingers again.

Rumi walks up to him, casual and open, non-threatening in as many ways as possible. A nervous coil is wrapped around her stomach, but she chooses to ignore it, because Jinu's only the first demon she has to kill today. He's a slippery snake, difficult for her to pin down, and it'll take all her energy to get him now.

"Hey Rumi," he says cautiously, something like suspicion in his tone. "Why did you have us come all the way out here to meet?"

And then something more flirty. "Don't tell me you wanted to have a date after all?"

Rumi smiles softly, knowing that it's just disarming enough for her to get closer. "Hey Jinu, I wanted a chance to talk. Have you considered my proposal?"

“Look, I want to believe in your crazy plan, but… I don’t think I’m the one to help you.”

Rumi is getting closer now, and she can see his facial expressions. She still has a ways to go, so she continues the conversation, still walking slowly and casually. “Why not? Wouldn’t it be worth the chance? To get away from Gwi-Ma once and for all?”

“Because...” Jinu hesitates, his guard lowering as he stares down at his hands. “Because you can’t run away from Gwi-Ma forever. Eventually, he will catch up to you.”

Rumi is close enough to see his eyes now. They’re brown, with just the faintest hint of amber peaking through. He’s close enough for her to be right next to him. Within her saingeom’s reach. 

Good enough for her.

Jinu looks up just in time to see the glint of her blade. He immediately backs away.

But she’s just a bit faster.

Her saingeom nicks him across the shoulder, a deep cut that leaves him bleeding, but not dead. Not faded into the ether, the way demons die. His hand is pinched over the wound, and he’s looking at her with hurt and shock in his eyes. 

“Y-you tricked me?” 

And then he’s really fast on the uptake, a small roguish grin settling over his lips. It’s a mockery of a smile, one that speaks to the realization that they were really both just using each other. 

“I have to kill you,” Rumi says, not an apology in her voice, but truth instead. Funny, how even at her worst, he’s still the only one she’s not lying to. “I can’t let Gwi-Ma win.”

“Oh?" He’s looking around for escape angles—there are none, she’s the one to set this trap. Even if he manages to teleport away, Rumi will be able to chase him down. And if he gets away fully? Then she'll resort to attacking him in the breakroom again.

He continues, "What makes you think you can?"

Rumi readies her saingeom, its gleaming edge glowing softly in the light. She’s confident. “I suppose we’ll have to find out.”

And then she lunges.

He dodges in the nick of time, trickery already spilling from his lips. “I didn’t think you would have it in you.”

Rumi twists her blade around, going for the throat. He leans back, letting the blade barely slide underneath his chin. “Do your friends know? Is that why you’re here?”

She doesn’t deign to give him a response. He’s a dead man walking, and his words have no power over her. She steps forward and pulls her weapon closer, ready to unleash another flurry of blows.

“So they don’t know”—and that’s all the words she lets him have, because she swipes her saingeom upwards and down in rapid-quick succession, swings that he barely dodges—"what will happen if I tell them?”

Rumi still doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to: her saingeom plunging forwards, aimed at his heart, does the job for her.

Jinu, perhaps sensing that his words are having no effect on her, changes tracks. He tries escaping, disappearing into a puff of pink smoke.

Rumi is ready for that too. 

Without moving a muscle, she disappears as well, red trailing after her like bloodstains. She catches him off-guard, mid-teleport a few feet away, and gets him again on the other shoulder. It’s another shallow cut, but he’s looking at her now, properly respecting her as an opponent after his life.

Jinu looks at her with wide amber eyes. His voice is a bit shaky when he asks, "What happened to you?"

“I died,” Rumi says simply, before pressing her advantage. She teleports forward, her saingeom singing its usual song, and Jinu is trapped. 

He turns around and fights instead, claws coming out with impunity and blocking her saingeom with overwhelming strength. He matches her blow for blow, sharpened claws and teeth against the edge of her divine blade. His amber eyes fade into dark pits of malice, and Rumi sees it for what it is: Jinu’s fighting for survival now, a cornered animal with nowhere to run. 

And that makes him dangerous, a lesson that Rumi learns first hand.

A gaping wound is plunged into the side of her stomach—a blow that Rumi wasn’t able to teleport away from in time—and blood rushes in from her extremities to fill the hole. The pain is even worse, a terrible ache that seems to resonate with every minute movement that she makes. Dizziness is ringing bells inside of her mind, and her breaths are heavy, weighed down by phantom weights.

But Jinu is dead. 

Her saingeom is upright, a quiet grave marker for where she stabbed him through the heart. He’s already faded into the ether, taking his uncomfortable questions and grief-stricken looks on his face with him. He looked like he was at peace before he vanished, and Rumi can’t help the envy bubbling in her gut.

One down. Four to go. 

It feels like victory.

It feels like grief.

Rumi pushes those thoughts down and focuses on the wound on her side. She’ll have to get it treated. The Honmoon is already unravelling some of its threads and weaving them around it, but bleeding out is still something she needs to worry about.

Supplies, she'll need supplies.

She pops away, leaving their battlefield of death like she was never there.

Rumi sneaks into the penthouse apartment, her footsteps soft and unassuming on the wooden flooring. She has one hand clenched around the gaping stomach wound, pressing down as hard as she can. Every step is slow and shambling, agony nipping at her heels. Her destination is the kitchen cabinet where all of their emergency medical supplies are kept.

It's still early morning so neither of the girls should be up yet. Mira has always been a deep sleeper, and Zoey tended to like laying in for a bit before getting up.

Of course, things are never so simple: Rumi's about halfway to her destination when Mira's voice cuts in from behind, "Rumi, where are you going?”

She turns around, half on instinct, half in terror.

Mira is there, still wearing her bear-print pullover pajamas and looking like she just woke up. Mira, whose eyes are taking in the stomach wound that Rumi is hunched over, noting the blood slowly pooling around her fingers and dripping onto the floor with a quiet plip, plip, plip. Mira, whose brows are pinching in anger. Mira, whose long strides are already coming over, quick and hurried with panic. Mira, whose voice drolls out matter-of-factly in shock.

"You're hurt."

Rumi takes a second to respond. "I—Yeah."

Mira doesn't say anything, already grabbing Rumi's arm and shoulders with a gentle softness that belies her shock, anger, and panic. She moves Rumi to the couch, and pushes her down. "Sit," she says, and Rumi obeys. Mira says nothing else, but she quickly moves away, walking straight into the kitchen to grab the medical supplies.

When she returns, bandages and antiseptic already in hand, Rumi is surprised when Mira doesn't hand them to her, the way she usually does.

Instead, Mira starts sliding her shirt up—

Rumi pushes her hand away immediately.

"Rumi!" Mira's voice is tart, holding back anger and frustration that's only barely repressed, "We have to treat this!"

Rumi is already slipping halfway into a daze. Her patterns—she can't show Mira her patterns. Rumi hasn't had the chance to see them in the mirror yet, see how far down the patterns have stretched, see if Mira would be able to catch a glimpse of them while patching her up.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

She can't let her see.

"Rumi, you're bleeding all over my favorite couch," Mira pleads, her voice rising, "we have to patch this up, like right now."

"I—" Rumi is fumbling, scrambling, looking for a way out.

"Cover those up", a voice that sounds like Celine whispers.

"Rumi, please, let me help you," Mira says, looking at her with so much concern, so much worry, so much care, that Rumi finds it difficult to say no, to put up her walls as she always does.

Just this once, Rumi thinks to herself, before I’m gone.

Rumi finally nods and inches her hand away. She keeps her eyes trained on Mira, ready to bolt at the slightest bit of realization.

Mira does as she says. Slowly, she lifts Rumi’s shirt up just enough to reveal the bleeding stomach wound. A soft sigh of relief slips out of Rumi’s mouth when she sees that the patterns haven’t grown that far down yet. 

Her secrets are safe, for now.

Mira starts by wiping the blood away with a clean towel—textbook and methodical, with just the slightest bit of personal touch. The antiseptic stings with pain that has Rumi hissing inadvertently, but Mira doesn’t apologize, just patient and waiting. Her touch is gentle but firm, and the sutures and bandages go on with smooth elegant movements. Practiced, almost.

It’s intimate, soft in a way that Rumi doesn’t know how to deal with.

Before long, the stomach wound is tied up neatly and firmly. It’s somehow different, done by Mira’s hands. Rumi typically did this part alone: she never quite got hurt as often as Mira or Zoey, much to their consternation, and then later, her patterns made it necessary to hide more frequently from their care. 

Under Mira’s touch, this feels right—not too tight and not too loose. 

Just perfect.

Mira examines her work with a critical eye before huffing quietly in satisfaction. Then she leans back and is right back to staring at Rumi, brows pinched in anger and mild disappointment.

"Who hurt you?" Mira's tone is aggravated, and she's quick to follow up on her question, "What happened?"

“I…” Rumi pauses for a moment to figure out what to say. The truth couldn’t hurt in this case, right? “I killed Jinu.”

Jinu is dead.

The statement rolls around in her head, like a ball that refuses to stand still. 

Jinu is dead. Rumi killed him. 

He betrayed her in one life, hurt her in another life, and killed her in her last life, but she still feels something for him. Not quite grief, because she never knew him all too well, but still mourning nonetheless. They were both using each other for their own goals, but Rumi thinks that if given the chance, they probably could have been friends. Rumi misses their shared moments of honesty—their moments of truth and guilt.

She misses not lying, Rumi realizes, halfway through processing her grief of killing her killer.

Mira must see something on her face, because she steps back, just to give her a moment. Instead, she's yelling loudly into their penthouse apartment, “Zoey! Are you up yet? We have a situation!”

There's a bang and a shuffle, and then Zoey's door swings open from down the hall.

"Mira? What's up?" Zoey yawns. She walks into the room still wearing her favorite turtle-patterned pajamas, her hair slightly messy, and her eyes crusted with sleep. "Did something happen?"

And then Zoey's eyes land on Rumi, on the blood pooled over the couch, and on the bandages peeking out from her torn shirt. "Rumi! You're bleeding! And you're hurt! What happened to you? Is there someone we need to fight?"

Rumi opens her mouth to say something, but Zoey has already zoomed over, her arms circling around for a hug that Rumi wants to sink into. Even though there's an interrogation coming, she wants this—this feeling of belonging, just for a while longer. Zoey, perhaps sensing her hesitation, keeps the hug going for longer than she normally would have.

It’s a good feeling.

Then she jostles around in just the wrong way.

Rumi hisses in pain, and Zoey's already pulling back, words of apologies on her lips, "I'm sorry! That must hurt like a lot. Like a lot lot. I didn't mess up anything, right?"

"Don't worry, I already patched her up," Mira says, but her tone is anything but calm, "This is what I wanted to talk about." The two of them look at each other for a moment, silent communication going on before Rumi's eyes, and she already knows what's coming.

"Intervention time?"

"Intervention time," Mira confirms, sitting down on the ottoman in front of the couch, "Rumi was just telling me that she got that—" she waves in her stomach's general direction, "—by fighting Jinu. On her own. Without us."

It feels directed at her. It probably is directed at her. Rumi shrinks into herself a bit, an uneasy feeling crawling down her spine. The comfortable feeling from earlier starts drifting away, like sand being washed away from a beach, Mira's aggression picking at her in waves.

"Oh," Zoey murmurs, "That sounds bad. I mean, that is bad. Did you win?"

"She says she killed him," Mira interrupts, her eyes stormy. "What happened? How did you find Jinu?"

Rumi scrambles to come up with a compelling story. Her thoughts are foggy, clouded in a mix of emotions, blood-loss and what-could-have-beens. There's a wobbliness to her thinking right now, so she says the first thing that comes to mind, "I-I was outside, going for a bit of a walk to clear my head..."

Mira and Zoey are still looking at her so expectantly, but Rumi just mumbles the next part, "And I found him. I thought you guys would still be sleeping, so I took care of him."

There are a million plot-holes in the story she's just told—and both Mira and Zoey know it—but Rumi just wants to move on. There's four other demons for her to kill today; Jinu was simply the easiest to track down. "I thought I could make it easier on us tonight."

"But Rumi," Zoey drops in, her eyes sparkling with worry, "we don't want to see you get hurt. Not like this. What happened to the three of us, taking them all together?"

There is no together, Rumi wants to say, her mind recalling the last time they fought together—a muffled cry, an ignored plea for help, a curled pair in pain—because she'll just get them hurt. She'll fuck it up, and Mira and Zoey will pay the price.

But she can't say that, not here, not ever, so she says something else instead. "I got him in the end, didn't I?"

It's not a good answer, judging by how both Mira and Zoey are unhappy now. Mira starts by poking holes in her story, "Where did you even find him? How did you kill him?"

"At the park where we used to watch the stars together at night," Rumi says truthfully for once, off-handedly adding, "You know, the one next to that tteokbokki cart that Zoey always loved. And I killed him with my saingeom, the way we normally do."

Her mind is already drifting to her plans for the other four Saja Boys. She probably won't be able to isolate them, so she'll probably have to kill them the same way as last time, by ambushing them from above. She'll also have to sleep, however much she can. She can't afford to die to exhaustion, like last time.

"That's a couple of hours away, and that's by car." Mira intercepts, and Rumi freezes. "How far did you walk? Did you even sleep last night?"

Oops.

“I-I couldn’t sleep last night,” Rumi confesses, squeezing her arms together in tension. “There was a lot on my mind.”

Mira doesn’t buy it, but Zoey does, and that’s what she needs right now: a diversion. "Rumi, you have to take better care of yourself! You can't keep pushing yourself like this."

Rumi nods dully, not trusting herself to say the correct words right now. She’s vulnerable like this, walls lowered and slightly woozy from the blood loss. She sees Mira and Zoey look at each other again, and she knows there’s more questions coming.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

They're closing her in. Zoey's hands are still wrapped around her back—a shin-kal quietly raised. Mira's eyes are staring down at her, scrutiny in them—a gok-do pointed at her heart. 

She needs to get out. Rumi fights the urge to teleport away.

Rumi stands up abruptly.

The agony in her stomach instantly makes itself known, like a thousand needles stabbing outwards all at once. Rumi hisses in pain, and she has to push Zoey away when she tries to offer her support.

"Bathroom," Rumi spits out, trying to avoid Mira's gaze and Zoey's touch. "Please, I just need a moment."

And they acquiesce. They always do.

Shame and guilt trail behind her like lingering gazes, and Rumi doesn't need to look to know that her friends are still worried. She steps into the bathroom anyways and closes the door, pretending that she can't hear the quiet murmurs coming from down the hallway.

"... was pretty weird yesterday. Not a bad weird, but just different ..."

"... need to help her. I don’t know what she’s hiding, but ..."

Rumi stumbles up to the mirror and sees a human girl: windswept purple hair, dark brown eyes, and clear pale skin. She lifts her shirt to see the clean bandages Mira has wrapped around her stomach wound, the Honmoon already working its magic to repair the damage underneath.

It looks clean.

She presses a hand against it, savoring in the memory of Mira’s hands wrapping the bandages against it. For just a moment, she considers stepping back out, and basking in their care and affection one last time.

But then, as if responding to her thoughts, her patterns shift and move, creeping and crawling across her skin, down her stomach, up her neck, across her hands.

She's out of time.

"The Golden Honmoon will get rid of the demon inside of you," a voice whispers.

Rumi stares at the bathroom door, contemplating opening it, and seeing if Mira and Zoey would still react with their love and concern if they could see her like this. 

But then she remembers—You're a demon. A mistake—and teleports away instead.

Funnily enough, Rumi does stumble into Romance while outside walking.

He's a head of pink hair that she barely catches out of the corner of her eye while she's stepping into a convenience store to grab some energy drinks in between power naps. For a moment, fear had coursed through her, because he looked like Mira.

But then reality set in, and he was a simple kill. Far simpler than Jinu was.

There are thirty-six missed calls, over a hundred unread messages, and at least a dozen new entries in her voicemail when Rumi finally opens her phone. 8:58, the white digits at the top of the screen reads, and Rumi barely glances at the "Hey Rumi..." message on the bottom of the screen. She closes it, and rests her back against the same dusty ventilation pipe from her last life.

She fucked up again.

The remaining Saja Boys have been on guard the entire day, cancelling their pre-show press conference after she killed Romance. Rumi was a bit worried that they would go underground entirely, because with two members dead, their plan to tear a hole in the Honmoon was looking less and less feasible. Gwi-Ma must have scared them more, because the schedule for the Idol Awards remained unchanged.

The breakroom door quietly creaks open, and voices start filling the room, much more subdued than in her last life.

"... Romance is gone ... "

"... happens if we don't ..."

"... Gwi-Ma promises he will reward ..."

Except something's different. Rumi glances down through the crack in the ceiling, and notices that there's more demons—greater demons included—that are flooding into the room. She bites down a groan. The Saja Boys must have asked for extra support, and the greater demons will make the margin in this fight much tighter than it was last time.

It doesn't matter. She just needs to kill the Saja Boys.

Her saingeom quietly weaves itself into reality, and Rumi grips it tightly, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Her stomach wound is not fully healed, still tingling around the edges in a manner that lets her know that the Honmoon is hard at work at repairing it, but she’ll have to manage in spite of it.

She starts as she did in her last life, crashing through the ceiling and stabbing into Baby's head.

Three down. Two to go.

Rumi knows that with this many demons cramped into one small breakroom, it's only a matter of time before one of them gets her. Her only option is to amp up her aggression: she needs to kill as many of them as quickly as she can, so that she has a fighting chance.

She gets to work immediately, zipping over to the first demon in range.

His head is cratered in, her saingeom bolting into his head like a lightning strike, and then she's already moving, teleporting over to her next target in between the blink of an eye. She strikes again and again and again, her blade smiting the demons down with tempestuous impunity. Her saingeom is lightning flashes in a storm—blink and you'll miss it—and each swing booms with thunderous impact. Each strike zaps away another demon, another threat, and the room starts clearing out before her.

She’s a natural disaster trapped in this tiny breakroom and the demons are powerless to avoid her.

Four down. One to go.

Rumi is forced to stop.

Her reserves are gone—she definitely overdid it. Her saingeom is a bit unsteady in her grip, there's a slight haziness to her thinking, and her stomach wound has been ripped open again. Tears of blood and pain weep down her body, a gruesome reminder of her mistake from this morning.

But there's still a few greater demons left, Abby included, so she'll need to fight the rest of them the old-fashioned way.

She pushes on.

It hurts.

Her limbs are losing feeling, numbness seeping into her arms and legs. There's dozens of cuts and gashes across her body, crimson gushing out from every pore.

She's almost done. Just a few more kills, and she'll be free.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Rumi collapses against the breakroom wall.

The world seems distant—dark and a little bit clouded. Rumi wipes at it, and her hand comes away sticky and wet. Ah. It's just more blood. She ignores it then, dropping her arm down to lay flat across her legs.

She feels strangely numb.

Rumi takes in the room, the broken breakroom full of destroyed furniture and shattered mirrors, her lifeblood splattered across it like tiny red specks of paint.

There's not a demon in sight.

Oh. 

She won.

She should be feeling joy, right?

She won.

So why is her chest empty, her mind foggy, and her body tired?

She won.

Gwi-Ma will never be summoned now. The Honmoon will be protected. Mira and Zoey will be safe. And Rumi...

Rumi stares at the shattered mirror in front of her. Her thoughts are hazy, slow to come and even slower to comprehend. She sees herself: purple hair, pale skin, and human lips. She sees a demon: magenta patterns, amber eyes, and pointed fangs.

And Rumi will be free.

Free to die, like the demon she was always destined to be.

Slowly and steadily, Rumi raises a hand to her chest. Feels the way it goes thump-thump, thump-thump, the way it's supposed to. She closes her eyes and listens to it. It’s the song of her life. It’s the lullaby of her death. It gets slower and slower and slower…

She's so tired now.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump—

Rumi fades.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

Rumi won, right?

So why is she still here?

Chapter Text

The universe is still laughing at her.

She can't win without dying, but her dying is what causes the world to reset, to travel back in time, to go back to this cursed moment.

To this moment with Mira's voice cutting in like dry sandpaper rubbing against a deepening wound;

To this moment with her heartbeat pounding and pounding and pounding, like drumbeats against shattered glass;

To this moment where Rumi is fucked—she's so fucked—beyond belief because the universe wants her to live as a demon and Rumi can't—she can't—she can't—

SHE CAN'T

Rumi disconnects.

Her body is moving, talking, and following a script that Rumi already knows. Mira and Zoey are speaking, and Rumi is responding, and then there's a fight on the train—there's always a fight on the train; it's like clockwork—and then there's a talk about songs and is Rumi okay, she's been out of it the whole day, and Rumi is fine, she doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and can they leave her alone.

"Our faults and fears must never be seen" see even Celine agrees, she's fine.

she's fine.

she's fine.

SHE'S FINE! LEAVE HER ALONE!

Rumi already knows how this story ends: she knows its beginning, middle and end, because she's seen it all before. It's like watching a movie, or reading lines in a script, or driving a car down a hellish road that only goes one way: down.

Destiny has taken the wheel; Rumi is just a passenger; and this ride is going straight off a cliff.

Takedown plays, because of course it does, and it doesn't matter that Rumi is barely singing, or that the crowd is looking anxious, or that Mira and Zoey are looking at her with worry, worry, worry (hate, hate, hate). 

It doesn't matter that the song is driving needles into her brain, that Rumi hates the lyrics because she hates herself, that Rumi wants to die, die, die (be free, free, free). 

It doesn’t matter that the Saja Boys are going on stage to sing Your Idol, that the Honmoon is ripping apart with a horrible horrible pink, that the stage is a summoning grounds for Gwi-Ma and his fire that burns, burns, burns (hurts, hurts, hurts).

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Rumi already knows how this story ends.

It ends as it always does.

She burns alive (again).

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

Rumi throws up (again).

Chapter Text

Rumi goes to Celine.

Celine would know what to do, right? She knows how to fix this, fix this nightmare of a reality, where Rumi can't live because she becomes a demon, and she can't die because the world keeps bringing her back again and again and again—

Celine has to know how to fix it.

She has to.

Rumi stumbles in front of the hanok that Celine lives in, an unassuming wooden building in the countryside located miles away from the closest city. Red smoke is curled around her hair, and Rumi is wearing her pale-green hoodie—the one that Celine always said brought out her eyes, like her mother's—and a pair of black sweatpants that she casually threw on. She knows what she must look like, showing up like this, halfway dressed for sleep, but Rumi needs help.

She can't do this alone.

Hesitantly, Rumi knocks on the front door to her childhood home. She waits nervously, listening to the soft hum of bugs in the dark, the quiet buzz of nightlights surrounding the neighborhood, and the dull aching silence that stretches on too uncomfortably.

Each moment that goes by is a moment where doubt starts creeping into her mind.

What if Celine's still sleeping? What if Celine can't help her? What if she's going to be trapped like this forever, living the same day over and over and over—

A light flicks on, and the door curtains are drawn open, just long enough for Celine's dark brown eyes to peak through. She opens the door.

"Rumi?"

Rumi sees Celine for the first time in days, but it feels more like weeks or months, and her adopted mother is looking at her with so much confusion, so much concern, so much worry—

Rumi shatters.

Big fat ugly tears pool out, wetness rolling down her cheeks. Something inside of her heart finally gives way, her chest collapsing in on itself, breaking down after being sloppily held together with fumbling and shaky hands.

"O-Om-ma I-I—" Rumi starts, but her words are catching on her throat. "—I f-fucked up. I can't fix it."

She tries to keep it together. But she can't.

"I-I tried," Rumi repeats, all her feelings—her raw and bruised and hurt feelings—shredding her words and syllables with sharp jagged porcelain edges. "I— I tried so hard to fix it, but I c-can't. I couldn't do it."

She stumbles forward, and Celine catches her just in time.

It's the only thing keeping her up. Her chest heaves, cracking with too many fractures, and there's more tears rolling down her face. The wetness is blurry and sticky and messy, but Rumi doesn't stop crying. Her words don't come out right, a stuttering mess of syllables and sounds pulled from the back of her throat. "I-I t-tried so h-hard. I tried again and again and a-again—"

Rumi doesn't know how to explain it. How to explain the gaping hole in her heart, ripped out by the two people she loved the most. How to explain the agonizing sensations of being burnt alive again and again, all her failures bearing down on her. How to explain being the universe's plaything, piece and piece of her being taken one at a time until it feels like there's nothing left of her.

Instead, she collapses, tears spilling out of her eyes and jumbled words babbling uselessly out of her mouth.

Celine is there for her.

"Oh, Rumi, come here." Warm, gentle arms circle around her, comforting and tight all at once.

The scent of fresh herbs, damp soil, and something so distinctly Celine breezes past her nose.

A gentle hand pressing into her back, tapping thud-thud-thud against her in a way that lets her know she's here, right here, right now.

Soft voices in her ear, "It's okay, Rumi. It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Rumi wails.

She disappears into her Omma's arms, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. She sobs and sobs and sobs—harsh gaping sobs, soft and quiet sobs, loud and ugly sobs—and she’s probably staining her Omma’s shirt and she’s too old to be doing this, and she’s such a mess, but she’s here and—

Rumi doesn’t want to let go.

"It’s going to be okay. Shhh… It’s going to be okay, Rumi."

Rumi slips into this comforting warmth and listens to those soft whispers and rests in her Omma's embrace. She doesn't want to do anything else because:

Here, she's safe.

Here, she's protected.

Here, she's home.

They eventually make it inside of the house. 

Rumi is nestled in her favorite spot on the worn leather couch, a steaming mug of warm tea in her hands—honey and lemon, the way she always liked it when she needed a pick-me-up—and a thin fuzzy blanket is wrapped around her shoulders.

She feels rubbed-raw, her eyes sore from all the crying, her chest tight with lingering heartache, and her throat slightly hoarse.

She feels like shit.

But then she looks up and sees Celine waiting silently in her wooden armchair, another steaming mug in her hands and long robes draped over those close-fitting sleepwear that Rumi never liked but Celine always swore by. There’s no judgement in her eyes, just peace and calm, and Rumi feels just a bit better. Steadied, by her adopted mother's presence.

Eventually, when the silence drags on for too long, Rumi decides to speak.

But how to start? 

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

And then the words come tumbling out, like a piece of loose balled-up string, unfolding all at once.

"I’ve been travelling back in time," Rumi finally says, staring at an empty spot on the dark-oak rounded coffee table. She’s fixated on it, because she doesn’t know what she will think if she looks up at Celine now, and it’s easier to tell her story this way. "I keep returning to the same moment in time, in the middle of our practice session earlier this evening—because we’ve been practicing our routine for the Idol Awards and we were planning on performing Takedown..."

"And I hate Takedown— I hate it, I hate it; I hate it so, so, so much, and I wish we never wrote this song, I wish we never came up with the lyrics—" 

Rumi stops for just a moment, trying to control her spiraling. Celine doesn’t need to know that. Focus. She needs to focus. "I keep returning to the same moment because... because we lose."

She loses. 

She always loses. 

"We lose the Idol Awards, because when the Saja Boys get on stage they manage to destroy the Honmoon, and Gwi-Ma is summoned in a stadium full of fans. And then we lose."

Rumi wonders how did she manage to fuck up so spectacularly, going from almost a Golden Honmoon to this. 

"And I’ve been trying, trying so hard to stop that from happening. At first, I just tried to make the Golden Honmoon, like you said but... my voice, it’s not enough anymore..."

Rumi takes a sip of the tea. It’s done just the way she liked it, and the heat goes all the way down to her stomach. It’s a healing kind of tea—one that Rumi is used to from all the times her voice was blown out—but no healing will ever take away her cursed patterns.

"M-My patterns take it away," Rumi confesses, not daring to look at Celine. She wonders what she must think, coming to her with this after all this time. She should have told her sooner, even if Mira and Zoey disagreed. Celine might have been able to help her. Too late now.

"So I tried fighting it, fighting them," Rumi moves on swiftly, not wanting to linger, since she knows what Celine thinks about her patterns, "I tried killing the demons directly, hunting down the Saja Boys, to stop them from being able to tear open the Honmoon." 

"And it worked," Rumi says quietly, because she dreads what she has to say next, "I killed all the Saja Boys, stopped them from ever summoning Gwi-Ma. But it’s not enough, because my patterns—"

She grips her mug tightly, fingers clenched around the brown ceramic, and finishes the rest of her statement. "My patterns take over. I never got farther than that; I didn’t want to."

A soft sigh escapes her: "And now I’m back, and I just don’t know what to do."

Rumi doesn’t talk about her deaths. It’s not something important to talk about, she rationalizes, because Celine doesn’t need to be worried about something like that. She doesn’t need to burden her with this, burden her with this cursed knowledge that she’s been returning in time by dying over and over and over again.

But Celine probably suspects anyways, because when Rumi finally lifts her head, to look at her—

Celine’s already standing, moving around the coffee table, and taking the tea cup out of her hands and putting it on the table. She pulls Rumi into her arms, wrapping her so tight that she can feel it in her bones. 

It’s warm and loving and comforting.

Rumi finds herself crying again, wet drops rolling down her cheeks.

She shouldn’t, she knows, because her faults and fears should never be seen.

But she’s not as strong as the way Celine is, and for now, she just wants this rest. This softness. This aching relief in her chest.

"Oh Rumi," Celine whispers softly. "It must have been so hard on you..."

"It was," Rumi agrees quietly.

"I’m sorry you had to go through all of that."

"Yeah… me too."

"How are you doing, Rumi?"

"... Tired. I’m tired."

Celine hums, and then pulls back, to look at her, really look at her. Rumi feels seen—her struggles, her chances at life, her deaths—they are all observed under her adopted mother’s careful scrutiny. 

Celine carefully brings a thumb up to wipe away the tears on Rumi’s face. It’s coarse and slightly calloused—Celine’s always been more into gardening than she was—but it’s familiar. 

And then more quietly, Celine mutters, "I’m proud of you, Rumi."

And Rumi finds herself looking up at her, tears pooling out again, "Yeah?"

"I’m more proud of you than anything else," Celine repeats, bringing a hand up to rest against her hair. Slowly, she starts brushing stray strands out of Rumi’s face, and Rumi lets her. "And I think your mother would have been proud too."

"Oh," Rumi says, closing her eyes and settling into her adopted mother’s arms. She rests her head there, against the thin and bonyness of Celine’s shoulder. She doesn’t want to move.

Rumi should be asking about what to do next. It’s what she came here for, because the problems in her head are too big for her to handle on her own. But she doesn’t want to think about it, to think about the time-travel or the act of becoming a demon or the dying. 

Celine must sense it, because she doesn’t move away either.

Instead, she lets out a soft sigh, one that only Rumi is familiar with, because Mira and Zoey have only ever seen Celine the mentor, not Celine the mother.

With only a slight hesitation in her voice, Celine starts speaking.

"You know, Miyeong and I, we used to have arguments all the time about..."

It’s a familiar story. One that Rumi has heard a million times while growing up, but it never ceases to grow old. She treasures these moments, when Celine was willing to share parts of her time on the Sunlight Sisters. They’ve gotten fewer as she’s gotten older, partly because Rumi doesn’t spend all her time with Celine anymore, but also because Celine only brings these stories out when Rumi is feeling down.

It’s therapeutic, sitting like this, listening to a story that she knows and loves. She doesn’t giggle at the funny moments anymore, having grown out of that in her teenage years, but her lips still always manage to quirk up at the right times. 

She feels lighter, better already.

"... I never quite knew what to make of that. Miyeong had a charm to her, a charisma that made every bad idea seem like a good one ..."

Rumi would have liked to meet her mother, because from the way Celine talks about her, fondness so clear in her voice, her mother must have been a pretty awesome person. Such a shame what happened to her. Celine never talks about her father like this—she doesn’t talk about him at all—and Rumi was always curious.

She shouldn’t.

"... and Miyeong started walking away like it was the most natural thing ever ..."

But she does so anyway.

"Celine?" Rumi says stiffly, dreading her next words, "Did you ever meet my father?"

And Celine freezes mid-sentence.

For a moment, Rumi considers taking the words back. To apologize for bringing him up again, for asking about the demon that corrupted her mother and cursed her with these patterns. To say sorry and move on like she always does.

But then Celine sighs, long and stretched out, the way that Rumi knows she’s thinking about answering, and Rumi sits quietly, waiting for something she’s wanted to hear for so long. Celine pulls back, stands and grabs her cup of tea from the coffee table, and then walks back into her wooden chair. Her eyes are distant, recalling some ancient memory that’s two-and-a-half decades old now.

"I did," Celine says finally. She brings her tea up to take a small sip. "I did. I met him a couple of times when Miyeong was still going on dates with him."

Her mother was dating a demon.

Rumi tucks that fact away in the corner of her mind, because it’s new. It’s new knowledge that she’s never heard before.

"What was his name?"

"... Do-Won was his name; Han Do-Won. At least, that’s who he said he was, when he was still pretending to be human."

Celine pauses, her eyes lingering on Rumi for just a brief moment. Something about it feels strange, and Rumi wonders what she's looking for. "I didn't like him all that much. He was quiet, almost too quiet. I always thought he was hiding something or that he was bad news."

"But Miyeong liked him. Said he had character. Or something like that," Celine speaks with just a hint of bitterness. And then more softly, "And well, I've never been able to say no to your mother. So I didn't stop her."

"So what happened?" Rumi asks. She knows her mother was tricked, taken away by a demon. She doesn't know where all the pieces go, although she can guess.

"She disappeared," Celine says slowly. She takes another sip of the tea, taking a long pause before speaking again. "One day she was there, the next she was gone. Neither of us knew where. And our only clue, Do-Won, was nowhere to be found."

"And then I found out Do-Won was a demon. That he was lying to us. That he tricked us. That he tricked Miyeong. He took Miyeong away from me; away from us."

There's a rising anger in her voice now. "For six months, there was no stone we didn't leave unturned. We went looking for her everywhere—we didn't even know if she was still alive. We were scrambling to find her body, living or dead. To find something—anything."

"And then, right as we were going to give up, I found her," Celine says, finally slowing down, "I found her in the demon realm—pregnant with you."

Rumi is a mistake, and she never feels it more keenly than now, hearing Celine tell this story for the first time. The story of her birth. Her mother’s greatest mistake.

"We took her back, nursed her back to health. But humans and demons were never meant to be together, and—" Celine’s voice is trembling, wavering in a way she hasn’t seen before "—a-and she died giving birth. Her last wish was for us; for me to take care of you, Rumi."

Rumi feels... she doesn’t know how to feel about this quite yet. She’s always known her mother died when she was young, but she didn’t realize it was quite literally during birth.

"I killed my mother?" the words slip out too easily. 

Celine shakes her head. "You didn’t, Rumi. You never did anything wrong. The demons did. The demons killed her, not you."

"Is that why you hate demons so much?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Do you also hate me?" Rumi asks quietly, because she has to know. 

Celine stares at her in bewilderment. "I don’t hate you, Rumi. I love you. Why would you think that?"

"I..." Rumi falters. 

She’s not sure why she asked, because Celine has always given her everything she’s asked for. Even her death, her mind reminds her, because she still remembers that first life, when she asked for Celine to kill her, and Celine delivered. Maybe that’s why she’s asking now, because she knows Celine has always hated demons—has probably hated them for longer than Rumi has been alive—and Rumi has always felt that she’s been one bad moment away from becoming a demon herself. She is one bad moment from becoming a demon herself. 

"I... just sometimes worry that I’ll become a demon."

"You won’t be." Celine says fiercely, fire entering her eyes. "That’s just the demon inside of you talking. You’re not a demon, Rumi."

Rumi sighs, not saying anything. 

"I love you, Rumi," Celine repeats, her eyes rising up to meet her face. She looks like she’s about to cross over the room again to give her a hug if need be. Rumi is glad for it, because Celine’s love for her is an immovable boulder.

"Yeah, I love you too," Rumi murmurs, letting her darker thoughts disappear back the way they came.

Rumi has always been certain of Celine’s love.

It’s always in the little things: bottles of fresh cold water stacked up near the doorway after a training session; her favorite meals—bibimbap and seolleongtang—prepared whenever she was feelinge even the least bit down; lemon and honeyed tea always ready on the countertop when Rumi has blown out her voice from too much practice.

It’s in the bigger things too: when Rumi started learning the ropes for the management side of Sunlight Entertainment in preparation for her debut, it became clear just how much weight Celine was shouldering on her own, without ever showing weakness. 

When HUNTR/X started taking off, and the worldwide pressure of trying to do it all became too much, Celine would handle everything, from cancelling fan-events to firing back at reporters for being too intrusive while Rumi was crashed out in her childhood bedroom. 

When Celine clearly hates demons with every dying breath—

"Demons are never to be trusted"

"Demons are evil, don’t ever listen to them" 

"Demons are monsters"

—but will then turn around to Rumi and immediately hug her and let her know that Rumi is not a demon, just cursed to be born with one inside of her, festering and controlling like a disease that doesn’t stop taking her life away. When the patterns grow and surge, Celine effortlessly swaps out her entire wardrobe over the course of an afternoon—long-sleeve shirts and comfortable hoodies tucked away in cabinets and closets.

Rumi has never been able to understand the dichotomy of it, how could someone hate something so much yet offer so much love to something like her—part-human, part-demon, forever a reminder of her mother’s mistake.

But as Rumi has grown older, she comes to realize it’s a sacrificial kind of love. The kind that involves pushing thoughts and feelings and yourself down, to say the right things or do the right things for the people you love.

And slowly—like mother, like daughter—Rumi learns to emulate that too.

Rumi grabs her tea and leans back, sinking into the darkened leather sofa and taking small sips of the cooling tea. For the longest time, they both sit there in silence—Rumi thinking about what comes next, about what comes after, and Celine lost in her own myriad of thoughts.

Finally, Rumi breaks the silence, to ask what she came here to do, "What do I do now? I can’t sing; I can’t fight; I don’t know how I’m supposed to stop Gwi-Ma like this."

The mug is clenched tight around her hands, and Rumi forces herself to loosen her grip before it shatters between her fingers. 

"What goes wrong with the Golden Honmoon?" Celine asks, as if that’s a question that Rumi hasn’t been asking herself, "You girls were close, weren’t you?" 

"Yeah, until the Saja Boys came by and ruined everything," Rumi is unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice, "And I don’t think I can make it gold now."

"Why not? I believe in you," Celine says determinedly, as if belief is everything that Rumi needs, "With the Golden Honmoon, the patterns will be gone, and you will be—"

"Fully human again, I know," Rumi repeats—it’s a conversation they’ve had multiple times before—"but how will I be able to create that, if I can’t sing?"

"Do the patterns stop you from singing?"

"No, but my voice isn’t enough to make it gold anymore. The last time I tried, I couldn’t finish..."

"And fighting?"

"I’ve tried, and it always goes badly—I always end up becoming a demon by the end of it."

"What about trying both?" Celine offers quietly, like it’s such a simple thing.

"Both?"

"Fight to make the singing easier, or sing to make the fighting easier. Do what you can in the moment, just enough to stop Gwi-Ma. The Honmoon will be enough to hold him for a while longer. And then after, you can worry about healing your voice."

"But what if my patterns take over—"

"The Golden Honmoon will be able to take away the patterns, take away the demon inside of you," Celine says firmly, "And if you ever feel like it’s too late, you can come to me."

"I’ll always be here for you."

And Rumi, hearing that, feels the faintest spark of hope burst to life in her chest.

She still has her reservations about this plan, ranging from big questions of how she’s going to balance killing the Saja Boys while also singing with HUNTR/X to smaller questions of which songs they’ll use, but at least Rumi has an idea of what to do now. And she’ll have as many chances as needed to figure it out.

Rumi has a plan now, and it makes all the difference.

"Thank you," Rumi croaks weakly. She wants to say more, to emphasize the gratitude that she feels, but Celine just nods.

Somehow, she always understands.

Rumi slips away in the morning after sleeping in her childhood bedroom. Mira and Zoey are bound to be worried, especially after disappearing on them like that overnight. Celine’s probably messaged them by now, considering her phone hasn’t completely blown up with notifications, but she’s not ready to see them yet.

She still needs to come up with something for this life.

Although the Idol Awards technically didn’t have a time restriction for picking what song they were planning on performing, they did prefer knowing at least twenty-four hours beforehand so that the stagehands had time to get the stage ready for them. Takedown had been the tentative choice last night, before Rumi left, and now, with twelve hours until showtime, it’ll be annoyingly difficult to change the song choice.

And Rumi still needs to convince Mira and Zoey.

Rumi doesn’t know if she has it in her to do that again, to twist their words from a past life into pushing them to switch to a different song. She hates Takedown, and will probably never sing it again if she didn’t have to, but she also doesn’t like hurting them like that.

She’s already hurt them enough with all her lies. 

For a brief moment, Rumi considers ending herself.

It’s a natural conclusion to draw to: her time-travel origin has always been her death, and with this life headed for Takedown and a terrible ending, she could simply speed up the process. Reset it early. 

She discards the thought almost as soon as it comes up.

For one, it feels too much like giving up. After the surge of hope Celine has given her, Rumi doesn’t want to resort to that until it’s too late.

For two, Rumi does still want to see Mira and Zoey before she goes. A little reminder of what she’s doing all of this for.

Instead, Rumi settles for something familiar.

She’ll attack the Saja Boys in the breakroom again. She’ll have to sneak away from Mira and Zoey to get it done, but she trusts that she’ll be able to manage it ahead of showtime. She won’t be able to get Jinu beforehand, but she’ll at least have the element of surprise on her side.

It’s not the greatest plan.

But it’s something, and she’ll have time to refine it if it doesn’t work.

Rumi takes one last look at her childhood home, where Celine is still sleeping, despite the sun’s golden rays creeping through the window, and teleports away in a plume of red smoke.

The plan doesn’t work.

Jinu has to be dealt with first, otherwise the fight just ends poorly once he starts fighting for real.

Rumi loses.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

Rumi is ready to try again.

Chapter Text

Rumi tries again.

She gets Jinu again, this time without taking a stomach wound.

She manages to convince Mira and Zoey to switch to Golden by hating on Takedown instead. Mira and Zoey hate her for it, so she doesn’t do that again.

It’s not enough. Her voice cracks again during Golden, and the Honmoon is never repaired. Even without Jinu, the Saja Boys still manage to tear a hole in the fabric of the Honmoon: the Honmoon is too fragile, too thread-bare to hold together. Gwi-Ma forces his way through, and the stage is set on fire.

Rumi burns.

Rumi tries again.

She gets Jinu.

She convinces Mira and Zoey to switch to Golden again, this time by telling them that she thinks Takedown won’t be enough for them to win. It works.

She gets the Saja Boys in their breakroom, before the show begins, and kills them all. 

It’s not enough, her patterns take over. 

Rumi goes to Celine.

Rumi tries again. 

She gets Jinu, switches to Golden, and brings Mira and Zoey with her to kill the Saja Boys. 

It’s not enough. Her patterns emerge halfway through the fight, and Mira is the one to get hurt first this time.

Rumi goes to Celine.

Rumi tries again. 

She gets Jinu. 

She decides to try a different song, How It’s Done, and that was a nightmare to convince Mira and Zoey to switch to. But she gets it done. 

It’s not enough. Her voice still cracks, and the Saja Boys still manage to tear a hole in the fabric of the Honmoon, and Gwi-Ma is still there. 

Rumi burns.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi’s gone through their entire catalogue of songs at this point.

It’s not enough—it’s never enough—because her patterns always take over. Either when she’s singing, and her voice breaks halfway through a song, or during a fight, when the urge to teleport becomes too much and Mira or Zoey catches sight of her patterns.

Rumi never sticks around to hear their words.

Celine always does what she asks.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi goes back to Celine for more advice, more plans, more hope.

Celine offers the same suggestions, same ideas, same recommendations.

Rumi is starting to lose hope.

Rumi tries again.

Why is she cursed like this?

Why can’t she win?

Why? Why? Why?

Rumi tries again.

Rumi is drowning, treading water in the world’s deepest ocean, and there’s no land in sight. She doesn’t know which way is up, which way is down, or where she ends and where the water begins.

She is caught in a torrent, a whirlpool of misery and sadness and despair, and she is being pulled apart at the seams. The waves are too strong, and Rumi doesn’t know how much longer she can hold on.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi tries again.

Rumi already knows how this story ends.

It ends as it always does.

She burns alive (again).

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

Rumi is tired.

A part of her considers giving up, to disappear into Celine’s home and run away from all her problems, all her mistakes, and all her deaths. She considers not singing, not fighting, or not doing anything at all for a life for a change. Her life is confined to a twenty-eight hour window of the same scenes playing out on repeat, and she’s tired of watching it happen.

She doesn’t know why she’s still trying.

But when she turns around, and sees Mira looking at her with curiosity and Zoey bringing her hands forward to hug or touch, she knows why.

Gwi-Ma would kill them first.

And Rumi can never allow that to happen.

So Rumi shuffles forward, apologizes to Mira and Zoey, and musters the energy for another attempt.

Chapter Text

Rumi starts slipping.

Sometimes she’ll wake up in one life, and then drift off, reopening her eyes again when Mira’s voice comes knocking on her door like a wake-up call.

Sometimes she’ll set up the life for her favorite song—it’s always been How It’s Done, although even that has started to lose its charm—and then wake up to Takedown blasting out of the speakers on stage.

Sometimes she’ll sleep so deep, she doesn’t even realize she’s dying until she’s on fire, halfway to a charred corpse and the pain is the only thing keeping her awake for moments longer.

Rumi’s a piece of wreckage drifting in the ocean, drifting from memory to memory, scene to scene, life to life, without direction or purpose. She’s been pulled under the tides, flooded from floor to ceiling, and should have sank a long time ago.

Instead, she floats.

She floats and drifts, moving along the currents, through storm and calm, hoping to one day land on shore.

Because sometimes when Mira stops by her room asking what’s wrong, and won’t take no for an answer, or when Zoey smiles at her too brightly, the way she does when she’s trying to cheer Rumi up, Rumi snaps back into place and remembers why she’s doing this.

And Rumi always musters the energy for another attempt.

But that pool of energy is not infinite.

And Rumi is getting tired.

Tired of lying.

Tired of fighting.

Tired of singing.

Tired of trying.

Tired of losing.

But her story is carved in stone: she’s bound to this twenty-eight hour timeframe with ropes of love and hate, and the fire has already reached her knees.

Rumi already knows how this story ends.

It ends as it always does.

Rumi burns alive (again).

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

And Rumi is so, so tired.

Chapter Text

Rumi is so, so tired.

She turns around to look at them.

At Mira, whose mouth is already opening to say something more, some more questions that Rumi will have to answer—questions that Rumi has learned the correct lies to deflect Mira from asking any more through countless lives of trial and error. Mira is already staring, observing, picking out details from Rumi’s expression, and ready to step in a second.

At Zoey, who already has her lyrics notebook out, ready to switch tunes or words on the flip of a dime. Zoey is already inching forwards, fingers twitching with the temptation of another hug or just bare touch. 

At Mira and Zoey, who Rumi loves more than life itself, who she has given her life for over and over and over again.

She wanted a chance to be human.

A chance for Mira and Zoey to love her back.

A chance to be whole.

But the universe has told her no.

Okay.

Fine.

She’ll give up.

She’ll give up her chance at ever being human for them.

She’ll give up her love for them.

She’ll give up on them, is that what the universe wants?

She’ll let them go, to disappear into a world without her, because Rumi doesn’t want to let go, but the universe is telling her no.

No, she can’t get rid of the demon inside of her.

No, she can’t love Mira and Zoey, because they will never love her back, not when she’s cursed like this.

No, she can’t live, because she’s never going to be whole again, missing two pieces of her still-beating heart, and because the patterns have taken everything away from her.

The universe has told her no.

And Rumi is finally too tired to try again.

She already knows how this story ends.

It ends in fire, it always does.

But Rumi wants to write the ending to her own story for once.

Her saingeom appears in a flash, its divine blade glowing with pink and blue, a cosmic fusion of song and soul. She flips it, turns it inwards so that the blade’s point is directed straight at her heart.

Zoey has frozen, shock rippling across her face.

Mira is already moving, her arms darting forward like she’ll get to her in time.

Rumi is just a bit faster.

The saingeom slams into her heart, sliding in with an ease that’s both familiar and comforting. Pain blooms along the wound, petals of blood and injury growing and spreading outwards from her chest, a garden of red roses sprouting over her off-white sweatshirt.

It hurts. 

It burns.

It feels like coming home.

Rumi collapses under her own weight, crimson pouring and pouring out of her wound. Someone catches her just in the nick of time.

Mira is there, anger and frustration and tears blotched across her words and eyes. She’s shouting and shouting and shouting—

“Rumi! What the fuck—”

“Why—why would you—”

“I—fuck—Rumi, please—”

—and her beautiful pink hair drifts over Rumi’s face, tickling it gently like a soft caress. Wisps of a rose fragrance spreads over her—Mira’s favorite shampoo—and she’s dimly aware that Mira is propping her up, her arms crushingly tight.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Zoey is there too, her maknae’s cute face ruined by the deluge of tears rolling down it. She’s sobbing, heavy drops pitter-pattering onto Rumi’s face, and her hands are cupping against her cheek, a warm gentle touch that belies the cold wetness sliding down. She’s shouting too—

“H-Hold on, Rumi, hold on—Just hold on—”

“Rumi—y-you can’t die, R-Rumi—we need you—”

“RUMI! RUMI PLEASE—”

—and Rumi is dying.

I’m sorry.

She tries to choke out, but blood has filled her lungs, collapsed her throat and drowned her words. Mira and Zoey are reaching out, trying to get her to stop, to let her rest, to let the words sit in her mind forever.

I’m sorry for giving up.

I’m sorry for hurting you guys again.

I’m sorry for not trying hard enough.

She wants to reach up, wipe away the tears on Zoey’s face or pull Mira into a hug to let her know that she’s going to be fine. She’s dying here and now, but the universe will always bring her back. 

It’s okay.

I’ll be back in the next life.

I’ll let you guys go in the next life.

Her limbs are growing numb, the pain fading away like a distant noise, and her eyes are slowly drifting shut. She keeps them open for a few moments longer, to watch Mira and Zoey still hovering over her, lips moving with words and sounds that Rumi can no longer hear. 

I love you guys.

So please.

Just let me have this one moment.

She stares at them for an eternity, memorizing every last detail of their beautiful faces—they’re still so beautiful, even crying like this—and Rumi doesn’t want to forget any of it.

Finally, she closes her eyes.

And lets go.

Rumi sinks.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

“You’re new.”

Something’s wrong.

“A demon and a hunter?”

Rumi's eyes flash open, fear coiling in her gut. 

It’s not Mira’s voice cutting in this time.

“Would you look at that?”

It’s Gwi-Ma’s.

Chapter Text

"What’s going on?" Mira asks from behind, her voice tart with frustration and confusion, "Why are we stopping?"

"She doesn’t know, does she? That you’re a demon?"

Rumi flinches at his voice, a jarring and deep timbre that creeps and crawls along her veins. She doesn’t know why she’s hearing him now, after spending her whole life without his voice corrupting her life. 

Does this mean she is more demon than human now?

Is this something she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life?

God, is this what Jinu meant, when he said that Gwi-Ma is constantly whispering in his ear?

"You already know the answer to that."

Rumi shivers. She is used to hearing whispers in her ears, a ringing echo of all the lessons that Celine has instilled in her, but she doesn’t think she’ll get used to this. His voice is a pure malice distilled from a stock of guilt, shame and hate. 

She doesn’t like it.

"What’s wrong, Rumi?" Zoey asks, and Rumi finally remembers that she has to stop paying attention to the voices in her head, and start listening to the voices of her friends.

She turns around to look at them.

They’re both looking at her oddly, like her silence and behavior is something to be observed and concerned about, which Rumi supposes is right. Mira is quietly staring, and Zoey is already angling forwards, trying to gauge what she needs right now. 

A memory flashes in her mind—pink hair tickling her face, tears raining down—but Rumi ruthlessly crushes it. She doesn’t have time to ponder what-could-have-beens anymore. 

She’s a demon now. Or will be, soon enough.

And it’s time for her to start moving on with that reality.

"Is that what you think? Do you think I’ll let you forget?"

Rumi suppresses the chill that’s settling over her spine, and finally speaks to Mira and Zoey, "Sorry, do you guys mind if we take a quick break?"

"Of course! Whatever you need!" Zoey agrees eagerly. 

Mira tilts her head. "So soon? Whatever. My legs have been killing me since this morning—I’m down for another break."

Rumi stands still for a few moments, watching the two of them. Mira goes to sit down at the bench, already twisting her neck and shoulders to stretch them out slightly. Zoey’s still looking at her, expectation visible on her facial expression. She’s waiting for Rumi to join them.

Rumi doesn’t move.

She wants to—she wants to so badly it hurts—but she shouldn’t do that anymore.

Distance.

She needs distance.

"Rumi, are you coming?" Zoey finally asks, walking forwards as if to drag her there.

Thankfully, Rumi doesn’t need to answer. 

A wave of pink flashes over them, and Rumi seizes the moment, just as she has done so for so many lifetimes already. This wave of demons almost always shows up at the same time, and Rumi’s grown quite good at expecting them.

"Come on, we have some demons to kill," she throws out behind her as she glides towards the train station.

Killing demons will at least be a good distraction.

"Why kill demons? Wouldn't it be so much easier to just give in? Join me and you won't have to hurt anymore."

If Gwi-Ma thinks for a second that she would be willing to work for him, he doesn’t know her at all.

Rumi jumps up to the train line rafters. They’re grimy, soaked in decades of dust and incomplete cleaning jobs, but they’re also the fastest path to the Line 5 train. There’s footsteps behind her that let her know that Mira and Zoey have also chosen to follow, although judging by their vocal disgust ("Don’t think about the bugs. Don’t think about the bugs. Mira, I need help!" "I think I’m going to puke."), they’re not nearly as happy with her choice of pathing.

Not that it matters.

Rumi slams into the first demon that emerges with surety in her step. Her saingeom forms halfway into its body, killing it instantly. The demon barely has a second to fade before she’s already moving onto the next target. She keeps going, following the trail of loose demons and killing them one by one.

Before long, she reaches the Honmoon tear.

It’s a gaping wound the size of a small car. A torrent of demons comes flooding out—all teeth and claws and demonic patterns. 

Mira’s and Zoey’s voices echo out from behind her ("There are so many demons! Look at that tear!" "It’s huge!").

But Rumi is already pushing on, her feet stepping to a beat that only she can hear. Mira may have been their choreographer, the one to turn their music into smooth coordinated movements, but that was always for the stage setting, for the viewership of fans, not for combat.

And combat has always been Rumi’s domain, her stage.

Rumi dances. 

Her saingeom is her partner, the one to her two, and she waltzes across the train line, each movement sliding into each other with an elegance and grace that belies the fact that she’s killing demons. Her saingeom is an extension of herself, two dancers joined together in one body, and death is the song they’re dancing to. She glides and jumps and dips, movements smoothly flowing into each other with a steady one-two, one-two, one-two, and demons disappear in droves.

Rumi doesn’t sing. 

All of her songs have lost their original charm now anyways, so why bother?

Instead, her dance pulls her forwards, each step a lunge, each twist a pirouette and each swipe of her blade an elegant bow. There’s no wasted movement here, just pure efficient demon-killing—about the only thing Rumi can do right nowadays. The flood of demons doesn’t stand a chance, not with her saingeom in hand.

There’s some close-calls, some unexpected trips and stumbles, but Zoey’s shin-kals or Mira’s gok-do are always there to catch her fall. And Rumi barely says thanks before she’s moving again, gliding forwards like a lone ballerina trying to do it all.

Finally, with one smooth motion, she spins forwards and crashes down. A pulse of her saingeom completes the dance, wiping out the remaining demons with a curtain call of blue.

Rumi stops, breath rushing out of her in slow measured beats. She’s panting, but not heavily—better, but not enough—and she supposes she’ll have to be happy with that.

Silence awaits her.

"What?" Rumi says, looking at both Mira and Zoey, who both still have their weapons raised off to the side, and are staring at her with heavy emotions in their eyes. 

Shit, she probably overdid it. Did her patterns show early?

Demons are monsters, a voice whispers.

"You don’t seem human to them anymore. Did you really think they could love a demon like you?"

Rumi doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing.

"Rumi! That was amazing! Have you always been able to do that!?" Zoey is the first to speak, her hands pumped into fists with excitement.

"Yeah, you definitely need to show me that last move you did." Mira is next, long strides pulling her forwards, "I already have so many ideas, and those are usually not my thing."

Rumi opens her mouth instinctively to say something witty back but then a memory flashes before her eyes—a pair of shin-kals quietly raised and a gok-do pointed at her heart.

She can’t accept their compliments for what they are anymore, because she already knows what she has to become: a demon.

And as long as that’s the case, they will never love her back.

So instead, she forces her mouth shut. A quiet "Thanks" slips out.

Mira notices—of course she notices—and frowns. "Rumi, are you okay?"

"Yeah," she says, when the silence stretches on for moments too long and she sees Zoey closing in for a hug. Rumi side-steps to avoid it. "Yeah, I’m fine."

She’ll have to be.

She’s going to have to live as a demon after all. 

"Do you think I’ll make that easy?"

"Something came up?" Rumi mutters, staring at the paper in front of her, written in Jinu’s formally-archaic handwriting. Her body is sinking into the pillowy softness of her bed, and there's a tiny speaker playing ambient noises from the corner of her room, but she’s not able to relax here.

Not with this disruption to her plans.

The letter in front of her carries the proof. This is new. Jinu was always willing to meet, no matter how late Rumi sent her message. It was like clockwork: ask Jinu to meet, show up at the meeting spot, and then kill him.

Most of the time, Rumi didn’t even get hurt, the surprise ambush typically enough of a winning edge.

This time, Jinu has told her no.

Something’s changed, and Rumi suspects she already knows why.

"Did you think I was going to let you stop me?"

Rumi fights the urge to groan and rolls across her bedding. She grabs a fluff pillow and cradles it between her arms, pressing her chin onto the soft plush edges. 

What is she going to do now?

Her plan to kill Jinu, kill the Saja Boys, and then disappear has already been derailed on its first step. Pointedly, she tries to ignore the gaping hole in her heart about why she’s planning on disappearing.

A curious gaze. A soft smile.

She’s not entirely successful, and Rumi already knows she needs to get out of here. Her thoughts are drifting, settling on the two things that’s kept her going after so long, but Rumi needs to learn to move on. She doesn’t want to dwell on what-could-have-beens anymore, since her patterns have finally taken the one thing she wished it couldn’t take away:

Her chance for Mira’s and Zoey’s love.

Fuck.

Rumi sits up immediately. She grabs a hoodie and swaps her pajamas for sweatpants—not the most ideal fighting outfit, but it’ll have to do. Even if this will fuck up her power-nap schedule, even if it will put her at risk for the fight with Jinu and then the fight with the Saja Boys, she needs to get out here. 

The longer she stays here, the longer her thoughts will linger, and the harder it will be for her it will be for her to leave when the time comes.

And then, as if being summoned, there’s a knock on her door. Rumi freezes.

"Rumi? Are you there?"

It’s Mira. Of course it’s Mira. 

Rumi contemplates not answering: distance is what she needs right now. Distance will do her some good, even if every part of Rumi wants nothing more than to open the door, talk to see what Mira wants, and then bask in the other’s company.

"I know you’re in there," Mira says, her voice surprisingly soft for once. "Can I come in?"

Rumi is trapped. Mira was many things, but soft was rarely an adjective that Rumi would have used to describe her. Soft was for those tough moments, those moments when Mira suspected something was up with her, and needed to talk to her about it. Not even Rumi was good at running away from those.

With a resigned grief, Rumi opens the door.

Mira is already dressed in her favorite bear-print pajamas, and she’s looking at Rumi with contemplative eyes, slowly scanning Rumi’s own non-sleepwear outfit. 

"Going somewhere?"

"She already suspects you. She's thinking about killing you next."

Rumi ignores him, and then quietly opens the door wider to let Mira in. She murmurs, "Yeah, I was thinking of going on a run, get some thoughts out. Is there something you wanted?"

Mira is quick to step into her space, filling the room at once. "At this time of night? What are you thinking—nevermind, Zoey wanted me to ask if you would be up for a movie night. Some silly romcom that she found while browsing—you know how she is. It would be a good distraction before tomorrow?"

It’s soft and disarming—pushing all the right buttons that would normally have Rumi accepting the offer. Rumi was always good at putting up walls, but Mira was just as good at taking them down, seeing through all her excuses with uncanny precision.

Except these aren’t normal times.

Rumi slowly shakes her head. "Sorry, not tonight."

"Are you sure? It could be fun?"

"No, I’m not feeling it tonight," Rumi says, pinching her shoulder slightly.

Mira frowns, "Okay, now I know something’s up with you. Spill it, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird all these past few weeks, and now this." A pause. "Does it have to do with the Saja Boys?"

Distance. She needs distance.

Rumi shakes her head again and tells the truth for once, "No, I’m not too worried about the Saja Boys. I can handle it. I just wanted some alone time."

"Alone time is so overrated," Mira says, trying again, "Please don’t subject me to Zoey’s movie on my own—I don’t think I can afford to lose any more braincells."

And Zoey, as if being summoned herself, is also there, poking her head into the room. "Mira, did she say yes? Please tell me she said yes. I’ve already watched thirteen different TikTok clips of the movie, and I can’t afford any more spoilers."

She steps in, saying, "Rumi, please? Can we watch this movie? Just once, before our show tomorrow?’

Having one of them here was difficult enough.

Having both of them here is a disaster in the making. 

Distance. Distance. Distance. 

"No," Rumi says firmly, even though every part of her wants to say yes. She’s committed to this path, and that’ll have to be enough. She sees the way both Mira and Zoey shift uncomfortably, as if Rumi has closed a gate that has always been open, albeit difficult to find. The two of them silently stare at each other: an intervention forming before Rumi’s eyes.

Rumi doesn’t let them.

"I’m heading out," she says, moving past their stiff bodies. She dodges Zoey’s outstretched hand, even knowing that Mira is staring at her back from behind. She doesn’t need to look to know that they’re both hurt.

Rumi is hurting too. 

"The suffering is only beginning. I will make sure of it." 

But she has a demon king to stop, a world to save, and two loves to forget.

Jinu is dead.

Rumi stares as his corpse quietly fades, pink particles floating through the air like a breeze of cherry blossom petals. There’s a peaceful expression on his face as he goes, and she envies it, because she’ll never get the chance to have that. 

The dawning sun is bright on her face, and Rumi raises her right hand to cover her eyes as she lets the sunlight soak in. This open field is a quiet remembrance of all the things that came before her: quiet nights under the starlight with Mira and Zoey; Zoey’s "is’so gooood" around a mouthful of steaming hot tteok-bokki; the spot under the tree where Mira manifested her gok-do for the first time. 

And now it’s the spot where Rumi comes to terms of what becoming a demon means.

Rumi finally takes a look at her left hand.

It’s grotesque: darkened skin, fingers sharpened into claws, and magenta patterns scratched around her wrist. 

"Demons are monsters," a voice whispers.

Rumi is inclined to agree. Even under the sunlight, her demon hand looks like it was ripped straight out of a horror movie. It doesn’t look like it belongs on her body—so horribly unmatched with her other arm—and there’s a part of Rumi that just wants to cut it off.

If she wasn’t sure that she would almost certainly die from the blood-loss, she might have.

But it saved her life.

Jinu, with all of Gwi-Ma’s warnings whispering into his ears, was a far more formidable opponent this time around. Rumi might have even lost without her claws emerging at the last minute, catching him by surprise and giving her just enough time to deliver the finishing blow.

Her demonic hand saved her life.

Rumi stares at it for the longest time, curling each finger individually like one of them will eventually come to life and attack her suddenly. The claws are sharp where they dig into her skin, but there are never any marks, and the darkened skin is tougher than it looks.

She should hate it.

And she kind of does.

But she doesn't have time to chase after dreams of fixing it—fixing herself—anymore. Those dreams have been crushed under the universe's foot, and Rumi has to live with the pieces left behind.

Her demonic hand is just a reminder of another thing taken from her by the patterns on her skin.

She grabs her saingeom with it, lifting the sword from the grass and dirt where Rumi stabbed Jinu through. The handle is a bit cool to the touch, but there’s no immediate burning sensation like she would have expected—for a moment, Rumi was a bit worried that the Honmoon would reject her like this, but it didn’t. It croons in her ears, a soothing melody that reminds her of happier times.

The divine blade quietly fades into the ether.

One down. Four to go.

Scared yet, Rumi asks the voice in her head. There’s no response, but Rumi knows he’s listening. She felt his anger moments ago, right after she killed Jinu, a volcanic fury that spat into her ears with hate and anger.

Killing the Saja Boys is next.

Things never go according to plan.

"I'll be your idol"

Rumi startles at the sound, nearly stumbling from the dusty rafters she was waiting against. 

Your Idol? Ahead of schedule? 

It must be Gwi-Ma’s interference again.

Rumi jumps down through the ceiling, her saingeom manifesting in her hands as she does. The breakroom, as expected, is completely empty. The lockers are pristine, untouched, and there’s no sign of anyone having passed through here. Certainly not the Saja Boys she was hoping to kill. She catches a glimpse of herself on one of the mirrors in the breakroom—purple and magenta patterns, amber eyes—and quickly averts her gaze.

"I can be your sanctuary"

Fuck, she needs to make it that stage.

"You should give up while you still can."

That's all the warning Rumi gets before the room bursts into activity.

Pink ripples are punched through the walls of the breakroom—tears in the Honmoon's fraying threads that is only growing weaker—and demons emerge from them, filling the breakroom with their colored presence. They swarm into the room by the dozens, until the entire room is a kaleidoscope of horns, fangs and teeth.

It would have been impressive if it weren't for the fact that Rumi still needs to get through them.

"All of this, just for me?" Rumi shoots to the demon king inside of her head.

He doesn't respond, and that's worrying enough.

Rumi readies her saingeom.

The demons collectively surge, and that's all the breathing room that Rumi gets before she is neck deep in combat. Rumi tries to conserve her teleporting—she doesn't have the greatest reserves with it and she wants to save it for the Saja Boys themselves—but with how many demons are closing in on her, she doesn't really have a choice.

Each swing of her saingeom brings her closer to the exit.

Each demon that's cut down seems to give way to three more—even now, the pink ruptures around her are making room for more of them.

Each mistake she makes drains more of her teleporting reserves. She's not even sure she'll be able to kill the Saja Boys at this rate.

"Yeah, I'm all you need, I'ma be your idol"

Shit, he's delaying her. Rumi pushes harder against the endless horde. Tiny cuts and scrapes start blistering across her skin—worthy trades in her mind if she's able to make it out of here.

She needs to make it onto the stage.

The hallway is even worse. Demons cover every inch of the space, like a swarm of multi-colored bees that are just waiting to tear her apart. Rumi has to fight three demons at once for every inch of space that she gains, and she can't even teleport directly out because she barely has a moment to think, much less focus on where she wants to go.

Even so, she eventually makes it to the stage.

"Watch me set your world on fire."

But she's just moments too late.

The Honmoon, pink and shuddering, is torn apart before her very eyes, the divine threads fraying, tearing, and snapping with a horrible ripppp that sends vibrations down her spine. 

Rumi is forced to watch as Gwi-Ma—the demon king, the voice in her head, the fiery devourer of souls—bursts his way through the tattered fabric like a rat bursting out of a man’s stomach. He swells and swells and swells, taking up the entire stage with purple and magenta flames that spit with the heat of a thousand suns.

"I WIN," he roars.

"Not if we stop you first," a voice calls out, and it takes Rumi a moment to realize that it’s Mira’s. 

Fuck.

Mira, who is standing right before the fire, gok-do raised against the demon king like her polearm will do anything against an immortal being of fire. Mira, who is bleeding from a shoulder, red dripping down and blending in with her hair.

"Yeah, and we’ll send you back to hell, where you belong!" Zoey’s voice is next, and Rumi sees her crouched next to Mira.

Zoey, who has only one shin-kal out in each hand—for when she was getting exhausted and couldn’t keep manifesting them out of the Honmoon. Zoey, who is also hurt, blood seeping from a cut on the forehead, and blotting her vision in a way that means Zoey would be limited to melee only.

Mira and Zoey, who are surrounded by demons closing in, all sharpened teeth and deadly claws ready to tear them down.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Rumi teleports.

She slams into the demons surrounding Mira and Zoey like a meteor. Rumi immediately bursts into action. Her saingeom bleeds rocket trails as she kills and kills and kills, her blade blitzing into the demons with an explosive fury. Her teleporting reserves empty out faster than ever, drained until there's almost nothing left—maybe one teleport or two.

She won't be able to kill the Saja Boys on her own like this, but it doesn't matter, because Gwi-Ma has already been summoned. This life was doomed anyways.

Mira and Zoey eventually notice (how could they not?). "Rumi? Is that you?"

Rumi bites down her instinct to say something back—she doesn't want to hear what they must think, seeing her like this. Like this demon. Like this disfigured monster that barely has a passing resemblance to the Rumi they once knew. Like someone who has lied to them over and over and over again. 

Instead, she lets her blade do the talking for her.

Her saingeom carves into the remaining demons like a rocket cuts through space. There’s barely any resistance, except for Rumi’s exhaustion and her bleeding burning her out from both ends. She’s not going to last much longer like this. 

Rumi pushes on in spite of it, relentless in this path she’s made for herself.

And then there's no demons left.

Rumi is forced to stop, adrenaline the only thing keeping her upright. Gwi-Ma is still there.

"Rumi?"

Fuck.

Rumi turns to see that Mira and Zoey are looking at her. She doesn't meet them in the eyes. "Hey guys."

"How do you have patterns?" Zoey asks.

(A piece of cold metal in her hands. A desperate plea lingering in the air. An empty feeling flooding her limbs.)

Rumi shoves it all down. "You guys need to get out of here."

"What do you mean get out of here," Mira interjects. "We have to stop Gwi-Ma."

"Do you still think you can stop me?"

Rumi looks up to see that Gwi-Ma hasn't moved. An immortal mountain of fire, ready to feast on all the souls below. The Honmoon is gone: all that's left are stray threads dangling in the wind, just waiting to be set alight. There really is no stopping him now.

"Not like this," Rumi says finally, turning back around. "You guys are too hurt to continue."

"And you aren't?" Mira spits back. "You're bleeding too."

It doesn't matter if Rumi dies. She'll come back—the universe will always bring her back. It's her curse.

"And you haven't answered Zoey's question. Why do you have patterns!?"

The feeling of unease comes crawling back and Rumi has to shove it down even more. There's really no winning for her. Rumi opens her mouth to speak (to beg? to cry? what does it matter?) but nothing comes out.

Her silence speaks for itself.

"Fine. Keep it to yourself. But we'll need to talk after."

After? After what?

"Guys! Incoming!" Zoey chimes in, and that prompts Rumi to look. More and more demons have emerged from the underworld—without the Honmoon, there really is nothing holding them back. And even though it took everything Rumi had to kill the first horde, this one is even larger than the last one.

"Fuck," Mira curses, coming to the same conclusion that Rumi has. "We can't fight this one. We'll need to come back to this."

"I can get you guys out of here," Rumi repeats, finally meeting Mira's eyes. Her brown eyes are oddly calm, in spite of her earlier judgement. "I can teleport both of you."

"And what about you?"

"I'm coming with," Rumi lies as easily as she breathes. There's really only one ending for her today.

"Demons are never to be trusted," a voice whispers.

A look passes between Mira and Zoey's faces. And then they both nod in agreement. Zoey speaks, "Alright. How does it work? Oooh, is it like how it is in Star Wars? Are you using the dark side of the Force?"

"No, just grab onto my hands."

And with barely the slightest hint of hesitation, they both do. One hand for each of them, and then they're all gone, vanished into a puff of red smoke.

The HUNTR/X apartment is a familiar sight. The lights take just a second to switch on before they’re blasting into Rumi’s retinas with a brilliant radiance. Rumi steps forward just enough for her shoes to register the hardwood flooring underneath. Both Mira and Zoey let go as well, staggering out of the red smoke like zombies.

"Woahh, that's so trippy. Is it always so... smokey?"

"I think I never want to experience that again."

Rumi gives them just a moment to settle before stepping back. Her reserves are almost entirely gone, but she still has enough in her for one last teleport.

"Rumi?" Mira is the first to notice, her eyes widening with realization. "Rumi, don't—"

"Sorry guys," Rumi apologizes. "I lied."

And then she's gone.

You already know how this story ends.

Rumi burns alive (again).

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?"

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Gwi-Ma is in her head.

Gwi-Ma is following her, across her lives, across timelines, and that means Rumi's fucked.

Gwi-Ma is a problem that she now has to plan around, because all her previous plans just went up in smoke, because he will always be one step ahead.

"Your plans will always end in failure. You will fail again and again, until there is nothing of you left."

Shut up already, Rumi shoots back. His voice is ever persistent, like a bug that refuses to die. At first she was worried he would be like Celine, all cryptic warnings and reminders of her mistakes. But now that she's spent some time with him in her head, he's gotten less threatening and more annoying. Something about the way that Gwi-Ma speaks—all hateful whispers and twisted anger—makes him easy to disregard. 

"You're a demon. A mistake. You have been since the day you were born."

Rumi snorts. He’s really reaching for the bottom of the barrel.

Besides, it’s the truth now. Rumi already knows that she’ll have to become a demon; she doesn’t need any more reminders. What Rumi is trying to do is win again: to create a world where Gwi-Ma is never summoned, Mira and Zoey lives, and she survives.

Somehow, that’s what the universe decided for her. 

She hates it.

Rumi leans back, resting her hands against the hard metal of the HUNTR/X tower roof. The sky is just starting to dim—twilight making room for dusk—and there's a gentle breeze cradling her hair. STAFF-ONLY access signs and metal railings guard her from the world below. 

It’s remote. Away from Mira and Zoey. Still close, because there's a part of her that still refuses to let go. But distant nonetheless, because staying cooped up in her room last time had been a mistake: Rumi sees that now. It was an open invitation for them to step in, and she shouldn't allow them to do that anymore.

Distance. Distance. Distance.

The mantra repeats in her head, a form of mental armor, as she tries to figure out what to do next. 

Killing Jinu and the Saja Boys was out. With the omniscient villain in her head ("How many time have you lost already? How much longer can you do this for?"), she won’t be able to rely on that plan anymore. Singing was out too, for obvious reasons. And any other plan that sat between the two would take multiple attempts to figure out—attempts where Gwi-Ma would be able to interfere.

She should go to Celine.

"She will kill you on the spot. She hates demons even more than you do."

Death wasn't the problem. Living was.

For a moment, Jinu’s dying face flashes in her mind.

Was he finally at peace, allowed to rest after suffering Gwi-Ma's voice for over 400 years? Was death his release from the shackles that life had given him? Rumi tries to imagine it, living for such a long time and hearing nothing but whispers and regret for the rest of her life. She's been with Gwi-Ma for only one life so far—a little more than a day, and she's already getting tired of him. Stretch that over 400 years? Every day, every month, every decade?

No wonder Jinu always looked so peaceful when he died.

Rumi stares at her hands—both human hands for now—and wonders if she'll be able to find her own peace like that one day. She can't die, she knows that now, after countless lives spent trying to earn a fully human life, but she doesn't know how to live as a demon either.

Does she even remember how to live?

A raised brow, asking if she's okay. A tilted smile, nervously put together but still bright and shining, hoping she is.

She thought she did. But the universe has told her no, and it's finally sinking into her stubborn head that this is something she'll have to live with.

But to do so, she needs answers.

And Rumi thinks she knows where she can finally get some.

"Yo."

"Ahhhh!" Jinu yells, leaping back from where he's standing and holding a hand against his chest, "Is this just going to be how it is from now on? Is jump-scaring me like that fun for you?"

It's part of his manufactured charm, Rumi knows, from countless lives of trying to kill him through the same means. His way of disarming her before the conversation even begins. But he's also genuinely surprised, because they're also not meant to be meeting like this.

"I need your help," Rumi says, dropping down from the roofing tile where she was perched. 

They’re both barely visible like this, shrouded in the overbearing darkness that covers the entire street. The closest street lamp is around the corner and there’s an eerie calmness to the silence around them. It's no-man's hour, when even the latest-night partiers have stumbled their way home, and the only people still around are no-life stragglers or insomniacs.

Or people with secrets.

"You need my help?" Jinu is incredulous, his amber eyes staring at her. "What do you want from me?"

He pauses. "Is this still about your crazy plan? I... I don't think I'm the right person to help with that."

Crazy plan? Right, Rumi once tried to convince him to switch sides. She interrupts, cutting into his chain of thought, "No, no, it's not about that."

"It's about Gwi-Ma."

Jinu flinches at the name, and Rumi silently wonders if he's whispering into his ears right now, trying to twist her words against her ("Why should he trust you? You're just as bad as he is. Would you trust yourself?"). She continues, "Do you remember when you asked me about hearing him in my head? And I said no?"

"Yes?" Jinu says slowly, hesitantly. "Why are you..."

There's a moment of realization, a darkening of his amber eyes, a frown forming on his face. Rumi finishes his thought for him: "I hear him now."

"I was hoping you can tell me what's up with that."

Jinu is silent, staring at her for the longest time. It feels scouring, like he's searching through all of her secrets all at once, and it makes her uncomfortable, feeling so seen by someone who's been her enemy for so many timelines. She looks away.

Finally, he says, "Okay, I'll tell you, but do you mind if we grab a bite to eat first?"

Is this guy serious? Rumi glares at him, wondering if she came to the wrong person after all. It's still not too late for her to go to Celine for advice instead.

"What, a demon's gotta eat," he says infuriatingly with a smug grin settling on his face, "Besides, you dragged me out at like 4 AM."

"Demons are never to be trusted," a voice whispers.

Rumi stares at him for a moment, trying to discern deceit in his words—not that she'll be able to know for certain. Jinu has tricked her more than once.

"Fine. Where?"

"Uhh... Do you know any good food places around here? I don't exactly frequent these streets at 4 AM."

Rumi groans. She really came to the wrong person.

"I know a spot, follow me."

She brings him to one of her favorite late-night ramyeon spots, tucked away in one of those street corridors that no one except the locals know about. With a neon yellow poster with bold black and red lettering, grimy metal stairs that creak with every step and a dimly lit lamp outside, it's hard to tell that this is supposed to be a restaurant at all. Inside, Rumi slides past thick plastic privacy screens into one of the private booths. Darkened leather seat cushions, chipped wooden tables, and a rag-torn menu complete the set.

Jinu slides in from across from her. "Uh... are you sure about this place...? It doesn't exactly scream high-class."

"Yeah, it's good. Zoey stumbled on it once when we were hunting, and now it's like a monthly tradition to come back here—sometimes more." Rumi frowns at his hesitance at that. "Trust me. The food here is the best you'll ever have."

"Okay…?"

A server stops by, dropping a jug of water on their table, some metal utensils, a few banchan dishes—napa kimchi, salted pickled cucumbers, fried anchovies—and he’s gone just as quickly. One of the many reasons why HUNTR/X frequented this place: the servers knew better than to bother them.

Jinu is slowly picking through the menu at a sedate pace, and Rumi lets him. She'll save her questions for after.

"So... what's good?"

"Everything."

"Okay... but I’m not sure what to get."

Rumi stares at him for a moment, trying to gauge what his angle was. He raises his brows as he looks at her, an oddly helpless expression on his face. He’s genuinely lost.

Rumi barely resists the urge to sigh. Why did she bring him here? "I can order for us." She barely raises her hand past the curtain when the server is already there, notepad out for her order. She barks it out quickly, "Can I get two of the ramen special—regular spice please—and a seafood pancake, the kalbi ribs, and some tteok-bokki with that?"

She glances at Jinu for a second—surprise on his face—and looks back at the waiter. "Make that two seafood pancakes."

"Wait," Jinu says, but the waiter is already gone, so he turns to Rumi and asks, "How are we supposed to finish all of that?"

"What do you mean?" Rumi is already pouring water into their glasses and picking at the banchan. The kimchi hits all the right spots. "I always order at least twice this; Zoey and Mira can eat a lot."

Jinu is still staring at her, and now Rumi is feeling self-conscious. Was it something she said? But then he shakes his head and smiles at her, like recalling a fond memory. "Fine, but if we don't finish, you're paying the bill."

"I was already planning to." Rumi nibbles on the fried anchovies—they're a bit stale, but she supposes she'll have to forgive the restaurant: it is 4 AM, after all. "I figured you didn't have any money." She frowns. "Do you?"

"No," he says, spreading his arms out a bit. "But I would be a pretty bad date to not offer at the very least."

Rumi gives him a disappointed look and says dryly, "Do you want me to stab you?"

"No, no, no, I’m good!" Jinu quirks up, waving his hands around in false desperation. They both know that he’ll be out of here before she can properly stab him. He continues, "Jeez, I was just kidding. Tough crowd tonight, huh."

Rumi rolls her eyes but says nothing else. She's not really here for anything more than information, and he'll have to do for now.

Jinu apparently can't take the hint. "So... you come here often?"

Rumi lowers her chopsticks. "Is that really the question you want to be asking me right now?"

"Yes? No..." Jinu blinks at her. "I figured it would be easier to start with that, instead of... you know." 

"He’s trying to trick you. He's already done so before, what makes you think you can trust him again?"

Well, that makes her decision easy.

"Yeah," Rumi says finally, grabbing another piece of cucumber and slipping it into her mouth. "We—Zoey, Mira and I—come here a lot. It’s become tradition for us to come here after every big show. I think the last time we came here was right after the World Tour. The first time that we came here, Zoey was trying to order everything on the menu..."

Jinu blinks at her, probably surprised at how much she’s saying. But he’s listening, and for her, that’s just enough. It’s not like she’ll be able to talk to Mira and Zoey after all of this.

Eventually the food arrives. The ramen is piping hot, thick red sauce slathered over it—just the way Rumi likes it—and the other dishes sizzle, crack and pop on their hot plates. "It's good," Jinu says in surprise after taking one bite, which Rumi can't believe he ever doubted her, and then the rest of the meal is voraciously consumed after that.

There’s moments of small talk in between bites—Rumi sharing small stories, and Jinu offering a listening ear. He’s not the greatest conversationalist—lacking Mira’s deadpan wit or Zoey’s cute expressions—but he’s good at picking her truths from her lies.

She was right: he could have been a good friend in another life.

The meal goes by surprisingly quick. There was something off about the kalbi ribs: it tasted of smoke, ash and charred meat, all hallmarks of good ribs, but Rumi’s stomach protested it almost vehemently. The rest of the meal was fine, the ramen, pancake and tteok-bokki were just as she remembered it, but the ribs tasted foul.

She hopes it doesn’t become a trend.

"Okay, so?" Rumi asks, after they’ve finished eating. The contentment in her belly is palatable, and judging by the expression on Jinu’s face, he’s feeling it too.

"So?"

"So what's up with Gwi-Ma's voice inside of my head? And how do you get rid of it?"

Jinu's amber eyes darken almost instantly, the satisfaction vanishing into thin air. "You can't get rid of it." He frowns and asks her a question, "How much do you know about demons?"

Rumi tries to recall Celine's teachings: "Demons are evil monsters that will suck the souls out of humans. Demons are never to be trusted, because they will try to trick you—"

"Save your hunter-speech for someone else," Jinu interrupts, "How much do you know about how demons are created?"

"Aren't all demons created the same way?" Rumi says, "By giving up your soul in a deal to Gwi-Ma?" 

"I can make you a deal."

Fuck off, Rumi bites back. She’s not interested in listening to him.

"That’s one way. How much do you know about the others?"

"Others?" Rumi murmurs. She wasn’t aware that there were other ways. Celine has always told her there was only one: by giving up your soul. It’s how she was convinced that Rumi couldn't be a demon.

"Yeah, there are others," Jinu sighs. "I’m not surprised you know only about that one. Almost all of Gwi-Ma’s soldiers are of that kind. He offers you something for your soul, and then once he has it, he gets to control you for the rest of your miserable existence."

A flash of pink grips him tightly for a second and he hisses in pain.

"Is that what happened to you?" Rumi asks quietly. 

"Yeah. Yeah it is," Jinu says, almost bitterly. There’s pain grimacing across his face, and then he starts speaking again. "He likes to send reminders—memories of your deal or the people you left behind. It’s how he controls you."

"Oh." It sounds miserable.

Jinu tries to move on. "So, the other kinds of demons. There’s two others. The first... I assumed would be your kind."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s a type of demon that are born," Jinu says slowly, as if he's not sure of the information himself. "They’re extremely rare—I don’t think I’ve ever met one, and almost no one knows anything about them. Rumors are that Gwi-Ma has no control over them, but no one knows for certain. There’s just not enough of them to go around."

Born demons? Rumi doesn’t know what to think of that. What would it even take for a demon to be born? Was that what she fell under? But her mother was human.

"What do you know?" Rumi asks, but Jinu only shrugs. "Not much. I went asking after we talked the first time and that's about all I gathered."

Fine then.

"And the second kind?"

Jinu pauses. He looks at her deeply, with eyes that almost resemble pity. And then when he speaks, it’s slow and shambling, like he’s choosing his words carefully. "And the second kind are humans—former humans."

Rumi blinks. Isn't that the same as what he is? "What do you mean?"

"How much do you know about the soul?" Jinu says, changing topics abruptly. It feels odd, but she'll humor him for a while longer.

"The soul is where we draw our power from," Rumi says, recalling more of Celine’s lessons now. "It’s what the Honmoon is built on top of, because it's a fabric made from the harmonized souls of the fans. We Hunters are able to see this fabric and reinforce it through our song."

"That’s... good to know, but not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about your own soul. All humans have one."

"You mean this?" Rumi funnels a bit of the Honmoon’s power around her to tap at her chest. It glows a dim blue for just a second and then quickly fades. Rumi frowns—wasn’t it always supposed to be a bright blue color? She does it again, and gets the same dim blue glow. 

She looks up in horror. 

"Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about." The pity in Jinu’s eyes is clear and visible now. "You humans have souls, which shield you from Gwi-Ma’s influence. But lose enough of it, or have it taken from you, and you end up as a demon. There’s others too, some that have given up their soul willingly, either out of choice or desperation."

"But they all end up in the same place. They end up in the demon realm. Most of them stay down there for the rest of eternity."

Rumi stares at him.

Jinu stares back.

The silence between them is heavy, weighed down by the anvil that Jinu’s just chained around Rumi’s neck. Rumi already knew that this victory would cost her everything, but hearing it spelled out like this is somehow more tangible. More fatalistic. More inevitable.

Because even now, Rumi is putting her own soul on the scales and weighing it against Mira’s and Zoey’s lives.

She’ll have to live with that.

"What deal did you make?" Rumi asks, wanting to move the conversation past this. It was something family-related, she recalls, but the exact details have been washed away. She remembers pitying him once over it—funny how that works.

Jinu leans back and sighs. "I made a mistake. And I’ve been paying for it ever since."

Huh. She supposes she can relate to that. 

Rumi stumbles back into the HUNTR/X penthouse, her thoughts and feelings dragged down by the weight of Jinu’s words. A tired haziness coats her mind, and she knows she’ll have to sleep, at least for a little while. Hopefully there won’t be a nightmare in the process, but knowing her luck, that probably won’t happen.

The apartment is silent when she walks in, an almost tense silence that reminds her of holding her own breath. Rays of sunlight creep in through the glass windows, stretching across the room like gangly limbs. There’s a stillness to the air, as if even the dust motes floating in the sunlight don’t want to move.

Rumi yawns softly. She’s too tired for this.

She slips off her shoes at the entryway and starts walking towards her bedroom, already mentally mapping out all the things she’ll need to get done later today. She’ll probably have to come up with something new to deal with Gwi-Ma’s plans. Something different.

"Done sleeping with the enemy?" Mira’s voice stops her in her tracks.

Rumi turns.

Mira’s a stone statue staring down at her across from the kitchen table. Her back is rigidly straight, and her eyes are fire and brimstone with anger and judgement. Zoey’s there too, shoulders hunched over like a turtle curling in on itself. Her eyes are red-rimmed, with dampness blotted over her cheeks and a small frown pressed into her face.

They're both sitting there, the table serving as a divider.

"What?" Rumi asks, because her brain is still trying to catch up. "What do you mean?"

Zoey raises her phone.

It's a screenshot, taken from Twitter, with hundreds of likes, retweets, and comments, each ratcheting up by the second. It's a picture of her, her and Jinu, eating their late night ramyeon, tucked away behind a privacy screen that was clearly too transparent. "I called it guys! They're dating! #rumijinu" the caption reads.

"Where did you get that?"

"So you don't deny it?" Mira's voice is harsh, grating in all the wrong ways. "That you were together with Jinu last night? That you were dating the enemy?"

The bite in Mira's tone lets Rumi know that there's something more here. A cold dread starts settling over her spine, and the thump-thump, thump-thump that's building in her heart is too familiar. "I wasn't—"

"Don't lie to us," Mira cuts in. "Is this why you were trying to change the Takedown lyrics? Because you love him or something?"

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"No, no, no, I don't love him—he's not even my type—how could you even think that?" Rumi says, desperation crawling up her throat.

It's like Takedown all over again.

"I went to him to get some answers. To figure out what to do next!"

"Yeah right. Does this look like getting answers to you?" Mira grabs Zoey's phone from where she was lowering it. She points at the image, nails clacking against the screen, "Look! You brought him to our ramyeon spot—OUR ramyeon spot. At like 4 in the morning! How could you do that to us!?"

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Zoey doesn't say anything, except curl harder inside of herself. She's fighting back words and tears, hiding her thoughts and feelings behind silence. They're united against her on this, and Rumi doesn't know why.

"Is that what you guys think? That I was on a date with Jinu?"

"Rumi, we just want to know what's going on," Zoey says, her voice a soft murmur.

A guttural wound in her chest is being torn open again. 

"Do you really think that low of me?" Rumi says, finally coming to terms with what this intervention really is: an interrogation. "That I would give you guys up for some demon that I barely know? That after eight years together—working together, fighting together, being together—that I would give up everything that we’ve been working towards for some demon?"

She loves them.

She loves them more than life itself, more than the universe has ever given her, more than they can ever know, because Rumi would rather give up her own soul rather than give them up to Gwi-Ma.

She loves them so fucking much, it hurts that they would doubt her love for them.

"You're a demon. A mistake," a memory echoes.

Rumi tries to reason with them again (to beg again). "You guys know me. I wouldn’t do things for no reason."

"Well we clearly didn't know you well enough," Mira shoots back.

Her heart ruptures, blood and injury spilling out from a wound that’s still gaping. It’s the sound of Rumi coming apart, because even with all that’s happened to her, the memories of her first life still haunt her every time she closes her eyes.

(It’s a gok-do pointed at her heart. A pair of shin-kals raised.)

Tears start streaming down her face, wetness that barely registers underneath all the agony bursting through her chest. Rumi loves them, and they don’t even trust her back. She knew that was going to happen, but it hurts more learning about it like this, because her patterns haven’t even shown yet. 

This is human Rumi talking, and if they can't even love that, what hope did demon Rumi ever have?

"Fine!" Rumi chokes, clinging onto the only emotion that’s still keeping her upright in spite of the pain: anger. "Do you want to know why I really went to Jinu? Why I went through all that trouble to set up a meeting with our enemy?"

"Because we’ll fucking lose."

"Do you want to know what will happen at the Idol Awards? What their plan is? The Saja Boys will get on stage, sing a song, and they will tear the Honmoon apart. They want to summon fucking Gwi-Ma on that stage, and then he burns the entire fucking stadium ALIVE!"

"Rumi—"

"Rumi, wait—"

Mira and Zoey speak up, their eyes looking at her in horror (in hate), but Rumi doesn’t stop. Now that she’s started, she can’t stop.

"And we can't stop that."

"We can't stop that because my voice—my fucking voice—isn't enough anymore." Rumi clenches her hands. This is her fault—all her fault. "And I've been trying—trying so hard to come up with a plan so that we all make it through."

"I went to Jinu because I was desperate! I was hoping he could tell me something—anything at all—to help us win."

Rumi loses.

She always loses.

She’s so tired of losing.

"And I still don't have any answers. I still don't know how to save you guys, I still don't know how to stop Gwi-Ma, and I still don't—"

I still don't know how to live without you two.

Rumi cuts herself off at the last moment. Mira and Zoey don’t need to know about that. It’s fine. She’ll be fine. She’ll have to be. They don’t love her back (they never will), and she has to live with that.

For a moment, Rumi is still standing.

Her throat is burning with a hoarseness that comes from shouting too loudly. Her heart is throbbing and aching from the schism torn through it. And her face is blurred with too many tears for her to even see anything, much less determine how Mira and Zoey are reacting.

And then she collapses, energy all spent.

Her legs fold underneath her, everything that she’s been dragging with her finally bringing her down. Her mind slips inwards, retreating into the corner where all her feelings and hurt seem all that much more distant. Her body is floaty and cloudy in a way that almost feels like falling asleep.

There’s warm hands pressing into her. She doesn’t know whose—Mira’s or Zoey’s—but she curls into them. They’re soft and comforting, the way it should be, the way it could be if Rumi wasn’t cursed with these patterns ruining everything. 

She’s so tired.

She wants this rest, just for a while longer. She’ll have to give them up, she knows, but just for now, please.

Rumi slips.

There’s a hand gently brushing her hair out of her face. It’s soft, reassuring and familiar—Zoey’s hand.

"I really fucked that one up, didn’t I?" 

"Yeah, we both kinda did."

A wisp of hair drifting over her cheeks, rose fragrance lingering in her nose. Her head is comfortable, propped up against a musculature that could only be Mira’s legs.

"I saw that picture and a part of me just snapped."

"Me too."

Rumi feels herself sinking, disappearing under waves of comfort, softness, and kindness. Her exhaustion is pulling at her, dragging her under the tides of sleep.

"I'm going to tell her."

"Yeah, okay. But after she wakes up. We’ll tell her after."

Tell me what? Rumi wants to ask, but then she’s already drifting away, slipping into a deep slumber that is thankfully dreamless this time.

"What’s it like, being a demon?" Rumi asks, while she still has him here.

Jinu doesn’t say anything for a while, his amber eyes lost in thought. Rumi takes a sip of the water as she waits. It’s a question that’s been on her mind for a while, ever since she came to the conclusion that she would have to be one.

"Demons are monsters," a voice whispers.

She ignores it. She already knows what Celine has taught her—she still can’t help the hate that crawls up her veins when she thinks about her patterned skin or sharpened claws—but she’s here to learn something new.

It’s what she’ll become, after all.

"It’s like this aching hunger that never gets filled," Jinu finally says, staring at his hands. "You know something’s missing, but no matter what you do, what you try, you can’t fill it. You can’t forget it either, because the hunger is a constant reminder of what you lost."

That doesn’t sound good. Not at all.

"A lot of demons go over to Gwi-Ma’s army, because he offers a way to fill that hunger with something—a chance to fight, a chance to consume, a chance to fill the aching emptiness inside of you."

Jinu slowly gestures at her, "You’ve probably felt it, haven’t you?" 

"Felt it? Felt what?"

"The desire to do something, because you can’t sit still. You always feel the need to keep pushing, because there’s a part of you that’s hunting or searching for something." 

Oh. That’s been her entire life. How long has the demon been driving that? Was this always a part of her, and she’s just now realizing it?

Jinu nods at her mortification. "Yeah, demons are always chasing after something. It’s less optimistic than it sounds, because without a soul, that hollowness will never be filled. The reason there are so many demons drifting in the demon realm is because no matter what they try, all their pursuits are meaningless. There’s no winning for them."

"How does losing your soul result in that?"

Jinu answers slowly, almost reflective, "Without your soul, you become something lesser. Like a shell that’s just being controlled by your body’s own instincts. Sometimes pain is the only thing that makes sense, because it’s a reminder of your own control."

It sounds familiar. Too familiar.

"And this is true for all demons?" Rumi mutters. She’s looking at him, because she doesn’t want to think about her own circumstances right now. It’s too eerily reminiscent of what she’s been through, and she can’t reconcile that with what Celine’s taught her. 

"Demons should never be trusted," a voice whispers.

"Yeah, it’s true for all demons." Jinu frowns. "Except maybe for maybe the born-ones. Maybe it’s different for them, I don’t know."

Something heavy gathers in the wake of that. Because Rumi can remember a time when things were different. When she didn’t feel like disappearing in the shell of her own self.

(A curious gaze. A soft smile. A feeling in her chest.)

Rumi shoves it down. She’ll process that later. Instead, she asks another question. "What’s the demon realm like?"

"Only demons can enter the demon realm," Jinu says, while grabbing the last of the kalbi ribs. Around a mouthful of charred meat, he continues, "I would show you, but it’s not really a pretty place. Most of the demons there are trying to forget their pasts."

Rumi would probably fit right in.

So how is she supposed to live like that? That doesn’t sound much of a life at all. 

The waiter finally arrives to pick up their empty platters, and leaves a tray with the receipt on the table. Rumi drops her credit card in it, pays for the food, and then they’re leaving the restaurant, silence nipping at their heels.

The outside world is dim brightness—the skyline capturing the moment between darkness and light. Dawn’s golden rays are just starting to peek through the clouds, and Rumi is suddenly very aware of the fact that she’s been up all night. 

Not that it makes a difference: she’s gotten quite used to it.

A yawn slips out without her meaning to, and that chases away the silence. 

"Sorry, that was rude of me," Rumi says after, embarrassment burning her cheeks. "Thanks for telling me what you know."

Jinu shrugs, trying to act casual, like he probably wasn’t wrestling with Gwi-Ma inside of his head the entire time, "Sorry I can’t tell you more. It’s something I only found out the hard way. I’m sorry I can’t help you with your plan."

"You could try skipping the Idol Awards," Rumi offers half in jest, even though it’s probably unlikely. He’s bound by duty just as she is, and they were always destined to meet on the battlefield as enemies. "Get out of the way while I kill the other Saja Boys."

He snorts. "The plans have already been set in motion. Even if you kill all of us, Gwi-Ma has already started the summoning ritual."

"Summoning ritual?" 

But Jinu doesn’t answer, ripped away in a puff of pink smoke that lets her know that he probably shouldn’t have said that. 

"You will pay for this."

Rumi cringes at Gwi-Ma’s voice finally slipping through the wall she’s shoved him behind. It doesn’t look like Jinu’s going to have a good time down there. She would feel sorry for him, if it weren’t for the fact that she would be joining him after this was all done.

A summoning ritual, huh?

Rumi slowly wakes. She's trapped under heavy blankets anchoring her down and it takes her more effort than it should have to lift herself up. Grogginess saps at her limbs, and it takes her a moment to register her surroundings. She's in her room, sleeping in her bed, with no idea how she got there.

It's dark outside.

Oh shoot, how long did she sleep? Why didn't Mira or Zoey wake her up?

Rumi bolts up, looking for her phone. She normally keeps it by her nightstand, and that's where she finds it, buried under a scrap of notebook paper. Mira or Zoey must have put her phone there after this morning.

The paper is familiar, and it takes her a second to realize that it's from one of Zoey's notebooks.

Rumi unfolds it and squints at the letters in the dark.

Hey Rumi

Sorry about this morning. I'm really really sorry. We should have trusted you enough to explain, and it's not fair of us to come after you like that.

We didn't know how much you were pushing yourself, and I feel like I should have seen it sooner. Mira and I are going to the Idol Awards to try to stop whatever the Saja Boys have planned. Don't tell Mira, but it feels like she's trying too hard to punish herself for this morning, because she told me not to wake you.

If you feel like you're up for it, please help. We need you.

If not, we still love you.

Z

Fuck, what time is it?

9:34, the time on her phone reads.

Shit, shit, shit—she needs to go. That was just a few minutes after Your Idol's scheduled start time, and without her, HUNTR/X obviously couldn't be performing. She needs to get over to the stadium as soon as possible.

Rumi doesn’t even bother getting dressed, still wearing nothing but her usual hoodie and some sweatpants, and teleports directly over.

The stadium is quiet. Too quiet.

It's a hollowed shell of what it should have been, emptines echoing through its halls. There's no cheering, no screaming, no excited yelling. No HUNTR/X fans yelling at Saja Pride fans, no stadium staff guiding people along, no random passerby walking through trying to catch a glimpse of the idols inside. No music blasting out of speakers, no lyrics being sung on stage, no vibrations through the stadium flooring.

Nothing but silence.

Rumi is unsettled by it.

"You're too late."

Gwi-Ma's voice jerks her out of it and she immediately walks toward the building entrance. Even if everyone inside is already dead, she still has a duty to this world. To see what her mistakes have cost her. To remind her of what she's fighting for.

Rumi pulls out her saingeom and steps in.

The inside is worse. Scattered phones, spilled drinks, and broken fan mics decorate the linoleum flooring like the miserable aftermath of a concert hall. The hallways are devoid of people, bright luminiscent lights casting white light on vacant walkways, dropped popcorn buckets, and leftover belongings. Every little thing is a monument to a crowd that's gone missing.

There's no one left.

A sense of dread builds and builds inside of her stomach. It's sickening, seeing this. Her gaze lingers on the lanyards still hanging off empty seats—those used to be people, people that are now gone.

And when she finally reaches the stage grounds, she's met with the horrifying reality of a world in which Gwi-Ma wins.

The stadium, designed to pack nearly fifty thousand fans, is a mausoleum of empty seats. Instead, filling in the gaps and lining the road to the center of the stage are hundreds, if not thousands of demons. They're all standing there, menacing fanged sentinels staring her down like a series of colored gargoyles. A sea of amber eyes, purple patterns and colorful skin look her way, observing her movements with a careful scrutiny.

Fuck.

"You're too late," Gwi-Ma's voice repeats, echoing across the stadium flooring, instead of directly in her head.

He's a giant bonfire, gaping jaws of purple and magenta flame speaking in the middle of the stadium. He's even larger than the last time she saw him, a verifiable mountain of fire that takes up almost the entirety of the center stage all by himself. His mouth continues to move with contempt. "Fifty thousand souls. That is what you have given me. That is how much I have consumed."

Rumi feels sick.

She steps forward, saingeom at the ready, but surprisingly, all the demons nearby let her walk by. They form marching lines, a funeral procession toward her death. Rumi searches through them and sees that the Saja Boys aren't here. Neither is Jinu. Nor Mira or Zoey.

"The fans are gone. The Honmoon is gone. The world you wished to save is gone," Gwi-Ma speaks, his volcanic mouth booming. "There's no hope for you now."

"You're right," Rumi says, echoing his words back at him. There's only one ending here for her today. "There's no hope for me now. But that doesn't mean I can't try."

"Hahahahaha!" Gwi-Ma laughs, magenta and purple flames forming into jagged teeth. "You lost, Hunter. But that doesn't mean you should die today. Join me, and I will have a place in my army for you. A demon and a hunter? You could do so much more than die another pathetic death."

Rumi snorts. "I would never."

"Are you sure about that?" Gwi-Ma smiles, and that's the first sign that something's wrong. "Bring them in."

And then, from the corner of her vision, she sees them. Mira and Zoey, bound and gagged, are thrust onto a walkway. Thick black chains rattle fiercely with every step they're forced to make towards the center, elongated claws from two demons pressing into their backs. A dozen greater demons trail closely behind—enough that even if Rumi were to teleport over, she would still have a tough fight.

It's as if her heart was just dropped out of the bottom of her chest.

Panic and fear grip her like nothing else, phantom claws freezing her in place. "Let them go," Rumi pleads. "Please."

"No," Gwi-Ma says, his voice dark and sinister. "Not until I've gotten an answer from you."

They've reached the center of the room, where Rumi can see them more clearly now. Blood seeping from a cut on Mira's forehead. Blackened bruises are running down the sides of Zoey's arms. They look so defeated like this, sagging against the metal chains like rag dolls.

"What do you want?" Rumi asks finally, still not able to take her eyes away.

Gwi-Ma answers with ease, "Your soul."

Oh.

Isn't that what she was planning on doing anyways?

So what makes this different?

She looks up. "You'll let them go? Never to be harmed again?"

Gwi-Ma smiles, wide as a valley of fire. "Of course. All I want is you."

It's a good deal. It's everything she could ever want. Her soul for their lives.

But something feels wrong. A curdling feeling in her gut, an instinct screaming at her, her senses telling her that Gwi-Ma is up to something.

"Demons are never to be trusted," a voice whispers.

Rumi takes another look at them.

And then she sees what she didn't see before: Mira and Zoey aren't looking at her. Rumi has spent eight years fighting, working, and being with Mira and Zoey. No matter how difficult things got, they would always check up on each other, a silent communication built on trust, raised brows and pointed eyes. But this Mira and Zoey aren't even looking at each other, nevermind at her.

And that's wrong.

They're not real, Rumi realizes. She's being tricked again.

Rumi quietly raises her saingeom, and points it back at Gwi-Ma. "Where are the real Mira and Zoey? Those two are fake."

Gwi-Ma roars, catching onto her words, "KILL HER!"

The swarm of demons surges.

Rumi runs forward, saingeom already cutting into the first demon she sees. More and more and more of them close in immediately, and she is forced to start teleporting early into the fight to avoid dying so quickly. Her demon arm is quick to emerge, and it becomes another tool in her arsenal to kill them as fast as she can.

She's a whirlwind of death, demons blistering across the edge of her blade or pierced through with her demonic hand.

And then, slowly, like it was always there, but just making itself known now, Rumi feels it.

The demonic feeling Jinu told her about.

An extra swipe there. An inefficient but brutal lunge there. A ferocious counter there.

Moments of fury, of danger, of bloodlust weave themselves into her fighting style like they were naturally there—a beast finally unchained and relentless in its hunger. A feral grin settles over her lips, her claws grow sharper, and her movements become more unpredictable. She's a wild animal, acting on nothing more than instincts, and her finely-tuned combat tactics devolve into base aggression.

It's a boiling sensation, like her blood itself is coming alive and surging through her veins.

It starts costing her.

A scratch across her shoulder that sends her into a frenzy. A punch that lands across her ribs doesn't crack, but pumps her full of adrenaline. A claw that digs into her forearm is the price she pays to kill three demons in one go.

It hurts.

And the pain makes it worse. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rumi recognizes the bleeding across her arms and shoulders, but it all seems so distant, when she could be making these demons pay for it instead.

And Rumi doesn't know how to reign it in. Not when it feels so natural and it just seems like a normal day of fighting for her. How long has this been going on?

It's an unbalanced fighting style—all aggression with no regards for defense—and the longer this continues, the sooner she'll bleed out and die. Her wounds heal supernaturally quick, probably because of the same demonic instincts, but it's not enough. Soon, her body is shredded with bleeding wounds, red lines carved into the patterns of her skin, like a hatchwork of red, pink, and purple.

She's not going to make it much longer at this rate.

Bang!

The metal doors at the back of the stage crash open, slamming into the floor with a loud noise. The fighting stops for just a moment, and Rumi gets the chance to breathe just a little. She looks.

It's Zoey—the real Zoey.

"Don't mind me! Just passing through!" She's carrying Mira over her back, the tall dancer's limbs dangling loosely over her shoulders like a toy doll. It's an impossible image, but somehow Zoey makes it look natural.

Three demons pounce on her, closing in with their claws—

Rumi is there in an instant, severing the three of them from reality. 

"Get out of here, Zoey!" Rumi yells as half a dozen more demons swarm them. Her saingeom clangs loudly against a series of claws slashing down on it.

"Rumi?" Zoey stops. "Is that you?"

Rumi doesn't get the chance to answer, forced to fight off another five demons. She teleports, red smoke curling around her, and smashes into the first demon she sees. Her saingeom swipes across three others, and her hand punches through the last one.

Then she turns to look at Zoey.

"Get out of here," Rumi repeats. She doesn't want to see Zoey or Mira die. Her death is already a given, she doesn't want to see them die too.

"But Rumi, you…" Zoey trails off, her eyes clearly tracing the patterns on her skin.

"Demons are monsters," a voice whispers.

Rumi looks away. Something like unease crawls into the corner of her mind, but she ignores it for now. Instead, she focuses on the threats around her. There's even more demons surrounding them, cutting any possible path of escape. Rumi's teleporting reserves are almost completely gone too and taking others with her was especially draining. She'll have to fight her way through this.

"Hold on to Mira, I'll clear a path," Rumi commands.

And then, without listening for Zoey's follow-up response, she dives in. Her saingeom carves a literal path through the demon horde like a knife through butter. The heavy thud-thud-thud of footsteps behind her lets her know that Zoey's following her, so she pushes on.

Rumi blitzes all the way to the front of the stadium without stopping for even a moment.

Blood pours out a million wounds by the time she's done, numbness already setting in. She's not going to last much longer. Her thoughts are especially clouded and hazy, blurring with drowsiness around the edge of her vision.

But they've made it.

The entrance to the stadium, cleared of demons or people, arches before her, white paper signs still tapped to the doors. There's seats nearby—seats that would have been for the stadium staff to rest a bit before directing crowds of fans again.

Rumi collapses into one, weariness sagging into her bones with an exhaustion that's probably visible. She's so tired now.

"Thanks for the save!" Zoey finally pipes up, setting Mira down next to her. "We wouldn't have made it without you—"

Zoey stops. She's looking at Rumi now, fear and panic ratcheting in her eyes. "R-Rumi, you're bleeding like everywhere."

"Yeah," Rumi murmurs. "Take care of Mira?"

"N-no you—"

Rumi bleeds out.

.

.

.

But her story is not over yet.

.

.

.

"You should have taken the deal."

Fuck off.