Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumi was so exhausted.

Between rehearsals, interviews, fittings, promos, and the steadily encroaching patterns lacing her throat, she was sure a mental breakdown was imminent.

And that stupid, beautiful demon jerk from the alleyway wasn’t doing much to help it.

Of course they now had a demon boyband to contend with. Of course, on top of all the madness that was Rumi’s life, she’d have to deal with this too.

The moment she saw the veinlike marks ripple up the dark-haired one’s neck during their stupid, preppy song, she felt vindicated. Because how dare some random, WAY too gorgeous man ram straight into her and blame HER for it?!

Now that she knew he was a demon, the hurt stung a little less.

Still. She lamented the fact she’d have to destroy such a stupid, beautiful face.

A migraine pounded behind her eyes as her rear end skidded gracelessly down the slide. She growled as that stupid boy’s (Jinu, was it? She didn’t care) eyes flashed with glee.

She’d make him pay.

Maybe she’d stab him through the face first. Maybe his human facade would fade away and reveal the awful, grotesque monster he really was underneath.

So they played the Saja Boys’ game. They waved, smiled and bowed. And the moment the boys fled, they made chase…

…straight into a Mens’ Bathhouse.

“Oooh wait, lets hold off on our attack for a second,” Zoey said after the initial disappointment faded away.

“Why,” Mira deadpanned, still holding her gokdo aloft.

“Because maybe those boys actually do wanna take a bath, and we can catch a little glimpse before we off them!” She said excitedly, tiptoeing as if the extra inch would allow her a peek.

“Ew, Zoey,” Rumi rolled her eyes, stifling the blush that rose to her face at the thought. They moved deeper between the baths, scanning for any sign of movement.

“Come on, Zoey,” Mira sighed. “They probably have tentacles and a million eyeballs beneath all… that.”

“What, you mean all those abs?” Zoey teased.

“Abs aside, they weren’t even that cute,” Mira argued.

“Oh they so were! You two are the biggest liars!” Zoey whined. “Especially that one with the silver hair… so dreamy…”

Mira quirked a brow. “What was his name again?”

“Mystery…” Zoey sighed, eyes sparkling.

Mira shot Rumi a look. “She’s compromised.”

Zoey gaped at them. “Wha— I’m not compromised!”

“Then kill him,” Mira challenged.

“I will!” Zoey stood her ground, albeit with poorly hidden trepidation.

“We’ll see about that,” Mira mumbled, and promptly kicked down the door, revealing five huddled figures behind the wall of a tub.

Rumi heard one of them let out a snicker.

“Shut up you idiot,” one of the boys whisper-shouted.

Wow. For demons, they sure sucked at hiding.

Rumi motioned for the girls to keep quiet as they crept lowly towards the sound.

Mira peeked over the ledge, meeting five pairs of surprised eyes. “Hello there.”

The boys quickly scrambled up with squeaks and shouts of surprise at they fled for the door.

“Too easy.” Mira shook her head in disappointment. “Even with that headstart, you’re by far the easiest demons we’ve ever hunted before.”

Rumi watched as the dark one, Jinu, startled at Mira’s words as he attempted to get away. “Demons?” He echoed back. He met Rumi’s gaze briefly, before his leg slid out beneath him and he landed roughly on his back.

Rumi smirked as the breath was knocked from him. “Yeah. Demons.” She and the others held their weapons at the ready. “We know what you are.”

A real, tangible fear flooded his face at that, and he whipped his head around to face his bandmates, but they were already gone.

“Go after the others,” Rumi ordered. “I’ll take care of this one.” She walked calmly towards her prey.

Mira and Zoey obliged with an excited whoop, leaving Rumi alone with the demon.

He trembled as she neared. She didn’t want to drag this out any longer than she had to.

She raised her sword high, and struck…

…only for the insufferable jerk to roll out of the way just in the nick of time.

“Ugh!” She shouted, whirling on him when he managed to evade her attack.

He shot out of the door, running down the hallway, breaths labored and terrified. Rumi ran up the wall and flipped over to meet him. He let out an undignified scream before palming open the door behind him and slipping through.

Rumi kept up easily enough, slamming open the door and rounding on him with renewed fervor. She distantly felt her sleeve snag on a metallic hinge.

The demon tried desperately to avoid her blade, but the moment it became clear he wouldn’t be able to keep up, he resorted to words. “Please!” He begged, ducking beneath another one of her swings. “Please, I’m not ready yet!”

“They never are,” she quipped, kicking him hard in the abdomen and sending him careening into the wall.

He grunted in pain and rose to his feet, pressing himself flat against the wall as if he could melt into it somehow.

“Wait! I thought I had more time!” He was shaking all over, his eyes glazed with unshed tears.

Rumi bit back a laugh at the pitiful sight. “What, to steal more souls?”

He furrowed his brows, almost as if he was confused. “N-no, to help my family,” he whispered, inching closer to the exit at his right.

“What family?” She snorted. “Those pathetic excuses for demons you call bandmates? You think they’re your family?”

He sank further into the wall, if that was even possible. “No! No, they’re my friends. I-I’m talking about my mother. My sister.” He eyed the blade narrowed over his throat. “He’s supposed to help them. He hasn’t kept his end of the deal yet!”

“Who’s “he?” What deal?” Rumi asked, growing more and more impatient.

The demon’s eyes darted frantically over the room. “The Voice,” he whispered.

“What voice?”

But before she could get her answer, she heard shouts from somewhere else in the building. She heard Mira, Zoey, and the more masculine shouts of the demon boys. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a demon horde. Screeching and wailing and attacking.

She rounded on the demon before her. “You!” She accused, pressing her blade beneath his chin. “You sent a horde after us?”

His eyes widened, and he looked even more confused than before. “What? No! I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

”Stop lying! I already know what you are. I know. So drop your disguise and come out already, so I can see the light leave your filthy little demon eyes when you die.”

”Disguise?” He spluttered, gesturing wildly to himself. “This isn’t a disguise!”

”Oh please,” she scoffed. “There’s no way a demon is that hot without putting on some super elaborate disguise.”

Disbelief flashed across his face for a moment, before settling into something that looked… flattered.

”Wait… you think I’m hot?” He smirked, pleased with himself.

She saw red. “UGH just SHUT UP!” She yelled, and she swung her sword down, leaving a long gash across the demon’s torso.

He cried out in pain, doubling over himself.

But he didn’t disappear in a plume of pink smoke. Instead, he fell onto the sauna bench and pressed trembling hands to his wound. His bleeding wound. Red blood seeped between his fingers.

Demons shouldn’t bleed.

She stepped back, breathing heavily, waiting for the shoe to drop.

But he didn’t transform. He didn’t retaliate with a roar or a flash of claws. He simply sucked in pained breaths through his lungs, and stared up at her with watery eyes.

“Please,” he begged, the fear on his face increasing every second.

Anger swelled in her chest, and her head pounded. This one was clearly a trickster. And she hated being tricked.

She pulled the demon up by his pink shirt collar, which was quickly soaking with red, and slammed him against the wall. Then she pushed her saingeom directly over his neck, aiming to take his head off.

It must’ve been adrenaline, or desperation, or crazy demon strength, because the moment before the blade met its mark, the demon intercepted her kill attempt and pushed her hands back with his own.

She bore down on him with a snarl, and his arms shook beneath her. It was his last desperate attempt for survival. Too bad it would be all for nothing.

As rage swelled in her ears, she faintly registered his pain-filled eyes roving over to her arm. A strange sort of realization dawned on his face beneath the exertion. When she finally followed his line of sight, she froze.

Her sleeve was torn. Her patterns were exposed.

He saw them.

She knew later, when all was said and done, she could’ve dispatched of the demon then and there. Been rid of him completely. Then the threat of her exposure would’ve been nullified.

But panic overrode all rational thought, and she pulled away from him, sword and all, and covered her arm with her hand.

The demon let out a weary chuckle, returning his hands to his injury. “Looks like I’m not the only demon here,” he leveled a wry gaze her way. “What kinda deal did you make?”

Fury surged in her veins, that he would dare call her a demon.

“I’m nothing like you,” she snarled.

And she drove her sword straight into his chest.

The demon screamed, arching his body against her blade. His eyes screwed shut in agony.

Good, she thought. Let this be his final death knell. He deserved it.

But he still didn’t fade away. He didn’t dissolve into nothingness. He didn’t even burn up in magenta flames.

He just sat there, pinned to the wall by her blade. Bleeding and gasping for air. Looking terrified.

“What?” She breathed. She grabbed onto the pommel tighter, and yanked the sword from the demon’s still too-human flesh with a squelch. He screamed louder as the sword slid out of him, his hands flopping uselessly against his chest.

She stared at the luminous blade in her hand. Thrumming with energy. Dripping with red.

She looked back down at her victim. At the tears streaming down his paling cheeks. Her vision tunneled.

“No…” she gasped, and her sword fell from her grip, clattering to the floor before dissolving back into the Honmoon.

The demon before her… was he even a demon at all? Because that moment, as he stared at her, eyes dark and glistening and hurt, he seemed like just a boy.

A boy she might’ve killed.

“No,” she crashed to her knees before him, hands fluttering uselessly over his bloodied body as she tried to take back the damage she had caused. “No, no, no…” She pressed a hand against his chest wound, just beneath his collarbone, and he keened.

“No, shhh,” she soothed as he tried squirming away from her. “Shhhh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”

A thought entered her mind then, and she lowered her shaking hands down to his abdomen. She peeled the blood-soaked fabric of his button-up and tank top away from his skin.

Patterns.

Spanning out from over his heart were several winding purple patterns. They stopped just before his navel, mapping all the way to his shoulders. She could see traces of them wrapping around to his back.

Just like how hers had begun.

Chapter Text

Rumi’s head spun as she watched the boy with patterns languish before her.

The demon, no the boy— Jinu, sat slouched against the wall, taking in short, breathy pants as he stared at her. His eyes were still trailing tears down his pallid face, glazed with pain.

She knew then as she looked into his eyes, still confused about him and herself and everything else, that there was one thing she was absolutely, verifiably sure of.

He was dying.

She released his clothing and fell back onto her palms. They slapped painfully against the tile, slick with his blood.

“No, no, no,” she repeated over and over, her voice echoing in the mist as her heart pounded out of her chest.

She’d killed a man. Not only that, she might’ve killed a person who was like her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she barely registered the wetness on her face as she crawled back to him on her hands and knees. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I thought—“ she didn’t know what to say, what to do as her hands hovered uselessly over him.

He cowered away from her with a cry. “D-don’t!” He wheezed.

She knew he was terrified. He should be. But she needed to stop the bleeding and keep him alive. “I know, I’m so sorry.” She knew her reassurances were in vain. “J-Jinu, right?”

He blinked at her, almost incredulously, and continued to gasp those horrible little gasps.

“Jinu,” she nodded as if he'd answered her. She felt herself unraveling. But she couldn’t. Not now. She had to help him first. “Jinu. I’m going to help you, okay?” She reached out to him again.

“No!” He recoiled, using his legs to kick against the floor in an attempt to escape. He yelped again when the movement tugged on his wound. Then he began to cry in earnest, tears cascading down his cheeks. “No! Please, p-please, don’t hurt me!” His words came out airy and wrong.

Her heart shattered.

“I know, I know. You’re scared. This is my fault. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she repeated, and the words didn’t even really make sense to her own ears. Her tears escalated as she stood over him.

She felt too large, too monstrous, as her shadow loomed over his trembling figure. And he looked too small. Too vulnerable. He looked like a victim.

He was a victim. Her victim.

She felt bile crawl up her throat. But she used his weakness to her advantage anyway, and pressed hard onto his fatal wound.

The sound that left him didn’t sound human.

“I’m so sorry, I’m not gonna hurt you,” she said, rote and false until the words felt foreign. Until his blood didn’t run so freely anymore. Until he couldn’t even make a sound.

The boy continued to writhe and cry beneath her, and her ears rang.

“Mira! Zoey!” She yelled desperately.

Distantly, she heard footsteps slapping against the tile floor. When the sauna room door shot open, both she and Jinu jumped.

“Oh my gosh!” She heard one of the girls exclaim, voice hitched in pure terror. “Oh my gosh, Rumi?!”

One of them swore colorfully. Probably Mira.

“Rumi! Rumi what happened?” She felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her, rubbing up and down her arm and trying to get her attention.

But she didn’t look up from her victim. And he didn’t look away from her.

“He’s not a demon,” she rambled. “He’s got patterns but he’s not a demon.” Her breathing picked up again. “I stabbed him and he didn’t disappear. He didn’t—I wasn’t— he’s bleeding.”

They were silent for a moment, digesting her words. Then Mira swore again.

“This is so bad, oh my gosh. Mira.”

“I know, I know.”

She heard Zoey panicking. Mira trying to stabilize. Then they were on the floor with her, looking at Jinu, pulling at his clothes, frowning at his patterns, checking her for injuries. She heard them talking, arguing about something she couldn’t hear over the roar in her ears.

“What if it’s a trick?” Mira whispered.

“I don’t think a demon could pull a trick off like this,” Zoey replied, crinkling her nose. “This… is bad. The blood and everything looks and smells real.”

“I don’t think it’s a trick,” Rumi tried not to sound too enthusiastic about her theory. “He’s reacting like a human would. I think… I think something else is going on. He’s… he’s… human.” Her voice choked on that last word.

Mira and Zoey looked at each other, seeming to reach the same conclusion simultaneously.

Zoey gently pried Rumi’s hands away from Jinu, replacing them with her own. When Mira tried pulling Rumi away again, she let her. She collapsed into Mira’s arms.

“I killed him,” she cried as her whole body shook. “I killed him.”

“No, shhh,” Mira patted her head. “No. You didn’t—“ She took a shuttered breath. “We all were wrong. The other boys weren’t demons either.”

Jinu’s eyes widened at the mention of his friends. “No,” he moaned. “Don’t hurt them. They don’t know. Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them…” his pleas petered out into sobs.

His pleas went ignored as Zoey applied more pressure to his chest, and he choked on his words.

“Where are they?” Rumi hiccuped.

“Scared them off,” Mira mumbled.

“The horde?”

“Gone.”

Rumi swallowed. At least there weren’t any other innocent casualties.

“This is really bad,” Zoey commented, poorly hidden panic bubbling to the surface. She was trying and failing to keep constant pressure on the squirming body beneath her. “He needs a hospital, like, right now.”

Rumi was about to agree, before Mira cut her off with a firm “No.”

They stared at her, bewildered. She stared back at them, just as perplexed.

“Are you guys for real?" Mira whisper-shouted. "No hospitals. Do you want to guarantee a life in prison for Rumi?” Zoey’s eyes flashed with fear as Mira moved to study the boy in question. “No… We figure out something else. We… we can take him home. With us. We have the resources to help him there.”

Zoey’s mouth thinned, but she nodded in silent agreement.

Frustration and injustice welled up in Rumi’s heart.

“But he’s dying! It won’t be enough, he needs a hospital!” Rumi argued. She didn’t care if she went to prison for life. She deserved it. She deserved it because if Jinu died it was because she killed him.

She was a murderer. A murderer and a half-demon.

Maybe she should’ve been locked up a long time ago.

“No… hospitals…” Jinu mumbled, voice growing more and more faint. They looked at him, shocked he was aware enough to follow the conversation. “Can’t. Too… ‘spensive. Can’t.”

His words settled uncomfortably in Rumi’s gut.

“But Jinu—“ she began.

“No, Rumi,” Mira stood resolute. “If we lose you, the entire Honmoon falls apart. We need you. Here. With us. Not behind bars. Plus, this guy is clearly some kind of weird hybrid thing. We gotta get Celine’s input, and we can only do that if we have total control over the situation.”

“But this is wrong,” the tears returned full force. “This is— he’s dying and I—“

“Rumi, Mira is right,” Zoey said, half turning to face her, though she kept her attention on the so-called “hybrid” in her care. “Yes, this is insane. But we don’t know what this is, and Celine might have the answers we need.” Rumi’s stomach dropped at the idea of talking to her guardian. Zoey continued. “If we can keep him from bleeding out, he might just make it. Then we can figure things out from there.”

Zoey liked watching hospital dramas and learning about gross human anatomy facts. So maybe there was some stock behind her words.

“Rumi,” Mira laid her hands on Rumi’s shoulders. The patterns hidden beneath her clothes burned. “It’s okay. We got this. We’re with you.”

She looked between them, and then back to the boy with the patterns. He was growing more and more still. More and more pale.

His weary gaze had never left hers. Not once.

“Okay,” she breathed.

They moved quickly after that, removing Jinu’s top layers and tearing them into makeshift bandages that soaked far too quickly with red. Zoey made an upset face when she discovered the exit wound on his back. She quickly packed it with a wad of his shirt, before winding a thready strip around his torso.

Jinu protested the entire time, begging them not to hurt him, begging them not to hurt his friends, begging them not to take him to the hospital. They ignored him in favor of working on him as quickly and efficiently as they could.

Field injuries weren’t rare for the girls. On more than one occasion, they’d have to take a breather to patch each other up or sew some stitches before blood loss became too much. But this was unlike anything they’d ever dealt with before.

Once Jinu’s shirt was totally destroyed and in tatters, the full consequence of Rumi’s attack was laid bare. He had a long, clean gash that started from his right pec and trailed down to the left side of his bellybutton. It wasn’t deep, but it looked painful and agitated.

Then there was the stab wound. In just beneath his left collarbone, clean out the back. Their only boon seemed to be that the blade didn’t sever his subclavian artery. If it had, he would’ve been long dead.

Rumi couldn’t help but stare at the purple patterns that wove across his torso, stark against his pale skin. Just like hers.

She watched as Mira and Zoey frowned angrily at the sight of them.

Neither Mira or Zoey had addressed Jinu. Not even once. It was almost like they couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. But Rumi looked at him. And she saw every wince of pain, every tear that escaped, every ounce of fear.

She wondered for a moment if any portion of his fear and pain was a result of shame like hers was.

“This is CRAZY!” Zoey exclaimed abruptly, voice teetering on the edge of manic. She tied off one of the fabric strips behind Jinu’s back. “Since when were there half-demons?! Do you think Celine knows anything about this?”

“I don’t know,” Mira huffed. “She sure has a lot of explaining to do.”

Rumi’s stomach twisted even more painfully, because she knew that Celine definitely knew something about this. But what would she say? What would she do? Would she tell the girls about her parental heritage? Would she just kill the half-demon boy and call it a day?

The thought made her sick. She knew before the day was over, she’d expel everything she’d eaten in the past 24 hours.

“Let’s lay him down while I go get the car,” Mira said, moving to help position Jinu to lay flat against the wooden bench.

The moment he was supine, his eyes flew open. His mouth gaped, but nothing came out except a thin, broken sound.

Rumi came to his side, laying a hand on the little space on his chest that was left untouched. “What is it?? What’s wrong?”

He clawed at her sleeve, fingers scraping against the leather in panic. But he couldn’t speak. He tried curling in on himself, but that only seemed to exacerbate whatever was wrong. His lips started to turn blue.

“He can’t breathe,” Rumi stated with alarm, yanking him up by the shoulders and leaning him back against the wall.

He jerked with an involuntary gasp, panic lining his face. His breathing turned fast and shallow, each inhale shorter than the last. Like he was chasing for air that kept slipping away.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” She boldly took his face in her hands, trying to anchor him. His skin was clammy and cold. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

His breathing slowed a fraction and his eyes fluttered.

“That’s not good,” she heard Zoey whisper to Mira.

“What? What does that mean? Why can’t he lay down?” Rumi demanded.

“I think you might’ve knicked his lung.”

Her blood froze. “Does that mean—?”

“It doesn’t mean he’ll die necessarily, but we gotta move fast.” Zoey said gravely.

“I’ll get the car,” Mira said, and she dashed out of the room.

Rumi and Zoey wrangled Jinu up and onto his feet with varied curses and groans. Mira would be a few minutes, as the car was back at the variety show parking garage, so they waited by the entrance.

“Please,” Jinu tried, abused lungs struggling to work as he hung limply between them. “Please, just… take me home.”

Zoey seemed to soften at that. “We can’t. We’re so sorry,” she said. It seemed sincere. And Zoey was anything but insincere. “We’re gonna take care of you, okay? Just hang in there.”

Mira finally pulled up in their little silver Kia Soul. It was the best, nondescript car they could get for traveling the city without drawing attention to themselves.

They wrangled Jinu into the back seat, where Rumi strapped him in next to her. Upright, so he could breathe properly. Zoey hopped into the passenger seat, and Mira floored it.

Every single bump in the road and every gentle turn of the wheel had Jinu crying out in pain. Rumi tried to steady him, but he was slippery with blood and it began to soak into the upholstery. She felt it begin to seep beneath the leather of her clothes to her skin.

“Eomma,” he moaned, his head lolling from side to side. “‘Ma please. Help me.”

Another tear came unbidden and Rumi swiped it angrily away.

“Hurry Mira,” she said, holding onto the headrest before her.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she responded. “We can’t be pulled over like this.”

She glanced over at Jinu as he began to shiver uncontrollably. He was left in only his light pink jeans and sneakers, and a smattering of half destroyed bandages from his shirts. But despite the state of his undress, she knew he was likely going into shock from the blood loss.

She peered over into the trunk area, relieved to see a large blanket bundled in the back. She snatched it and tucked it carefully around his body. He didn’t seem to comprehend much of it as his eyes roved aimlessly around the car.

“Does he have a phone on him? Any ID?” Mira asked.

Rumi fumbled around under the blanket to find any of his personal belongings, blushing when she realized they were stuffed in his rear pocket. She quickly pulled out a thin wallet and an older model touch-phone.

“Phone?” Mira asked again.

“Yeah.”

“Hand it to Zoey. We gotta try to stop things from getting out of hand with his friends.”

Rumi practically threw the phone at Zoey, her hands having left bloodied fingerprints all over the screen.

“Aww crap. How am I supposed to jailbreak something this ancient?” Zoey lamented, fiddling with the lock screen.

Rumi ignored her, zeroing in on the weathered wallet in her hands. She opened it.

Inside was a driver’s license with a picture of Jinu. He was smiling, bright and carefree. The photo was clearly taken a couple years ago, when the baby fat of his teenage years hadn’t quite left the hollows of his cheeks.

She scanned the details of the license. Ahn Jinu. A full name. A real name.

His address showed he lived somewhere further on the outskirts of Seoul. She frowned when she recognized it as one of the more rundown areas of town.

And then she saw his birthdate. April 17th, 2002. He’d just turned 23. He was in her graduating class, just a few months younger than her.

She held the card in trembling hands, as if she was afraid to ruin it somehow. She blinked up at the ceiling, hoping the air-conditioning coming through the vents would do the work of drying her never-ending tears.

Chapter Text

By the time they rolled up to their tower, Jinu was practically catatonic. Though he stubbornly held onto a thread of consciousness, which was made evident by his occasional mumbling and whimpering.

Rumi almost wished he would pass out. Then he wouldn’t have to suffer so much. But maybe it was a good thing that he stayed awake. Because maybe if he fell asleep, he’d never wake up again.

She pulled the blanket back to check his wound, and grimaced at the sight of red staining almost the entirety of his chest.

They were lucky to have had a secret garage built at the bottom of the tower, complete with an elevator and quick entry into their penthouse (thanks to Bobby). He, Celine and the girls were the only ones who knew about it, besides the contractors who’d been paid a handsome wage to keep quiet about it. It was perfect for their post-mission returns, where they were too bloodstained and haggard to greet the lobby staff.

Mira flung her seatbelt off once she parked, and almost ripped the door hinges off in her haste to get to the backseat.

“Any luck with the phone?” She asked, helping Rumi manhandle Jinu out of his seat.

“Not yet,” Zoey replied, still tapping away at the device. “He’s got all this weird coding on this thing. Someone super smart must’ve wired it for him.”

Mira frowned, and shook the man hanging between them a little too firm for Rumi’s liking. “Hey you, Demon Boy.” He looked at her blearily. “What’s the password to your phone?”

“Mira,” Rumi chided. “Let’s get him upstairs first before we interrogate him.”

“The cops will be on our doorstep any minute if we don’t do some sort of disaster intervention,” she countered.

“You guys take care of him, I’ll figure it out.” Zoey continued to fiddle with the phone as they made their way to the elevator.

The elevator took them up all 90 stories in less than fifteen seconds. Zoey threw open the door and ran into the kitchen, tearing through cabinets to find their first aid supplies.

Rumi held Jinu up while Mira found blankets and towels to pile on the couch. They didn’t want his blood destroying the upholstery, and he still needed to be sitting to ease the strain on his lung.

Once there was sufficient padding, they sat him down. He slumped to the side almost immediately, and Rumi scrambled to pick him up. She noticed a strange hissing noise coming from his chest. Almost like a whistle.

He groaned as she readjusted him, his dark eyes rolling in his head and never settling.

Zoey quickly returned with the first aid kit, a bowl of water, and some towels before plopping down on the couch to crack the phone code.

Rumi disinfected her hands and put some gloves on before taking the scissors out from the kit. She tried to cut the ruined bandages, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Mira tutted and swiped them from her, slicing through them with ease and throwing them to the floor.

“While you’re still figuring that out, ring Celine. We’ll need some cleanup help, and she needs to know about the situation,” Mira said to Zoey, pressing a towel to Jinu’s stab wound as it began to well up with blood.

“On it,” the maknae replied. She fled to the hall to make the call.

“Rumi,” Mira said, voice serious but calm. “You with me?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. She felt the comedown of her adrenaline, and shivers had overtaken her body.

“Good. Because I’m gonna need your help. We gotta stitch him back together, okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded. She didn’t feel attached to her body.

They started with his fatal wound by clearing up the blood and trying to get it to clot. Rumi held pressure to it while Mira prepped the suture kit.

“Eomma?” Jinu asked as Mira knelt over him.

She frowned, a flash of sympathy flitting across her face. “No. My name is Mira. I’m here to help you,” she said curtly. But Rumi didn’t miss the way her own gloved hand trembled slightly at his hopeful expression.

“Oh,” he breathed. He was too awake for this. Why wouldn’t he just fall asleep?

The moment the needle pierced his flesh, he cried out.

“No no no, it’s okay,” Mira tried soothing. But she was never one for offering comfort. “It'll be fast.”

“It hurts!” He cried. “Please! It—“ he choked, and fresh tears ran down his cheeks.

Rumi stood by, holding another bloody towel to his sliced up torso, wishing she could be of more help.

Zoey suddenly ran into the room, weirdly out of breath. “I cracked it!” She announced, holding up the phone. “And Celine is on it! She’s sending a cleaning team out to the bathhouse and our car! She’ll be here in two hours—” She paused when she took in the scene before her. “Oh, don’t do that!” She exclaimed.

“Don’t do what??” Mira said, halfway through the stitches.

“Don’t stitch him all the way! Not on the stab wound!” Zoey moved to the couch and grabbed her own pair of gloves. She snapped them on and moved to take the kit from Mira.

“Why not?” Mira pulled away from her.

“Because he has a lung wound!” Zoey retorted, swiping the kit from her. “We gotta leave a little bit of it open or else his lung could collapse.” She started on the opposite side of where Mira began, sewing until just a little bit of the wound was open. “If we seal it off completely, the air from his lung will have nowhere to go and the pressure will compound until it collapses. And we definitely don’t have the supplies to treat something like that.”

“Another one of your dramas teach you that?” Mira asked dryly.

“Mmmhmm,” Zoey replied with a chirp. "Lung tissue is very elastic. If we're careful, and the wound is small enough, his lung could reseal itself." Her fingers were deft as she stitched, and her words were sweet as she tried calming the writhing boy beneath her hand. “It’s alright. Just look at me, okay?” She cooed, offering a kind smile when Jinu’s tear-filled eyes finally found hers. “That’s it. Just look at me.”

“I jus’… wanna go… home…” He coughed, hands clenching the blankets beneath him. His legs pushed weakly against the floor.

“You will, I promise,” Zoey replied. Mira shot a glare her way, wondering why she’d give him a promise they didn’t even know they could keep. Zoey motioned for Jinu's phone on the couch. “It’s open. And from what I can tell, his friends are freaking out trying to get in contact with him.”

Mira snapped off her gloves and strode to the couch. She picked up the phone and her eyes darted across the screen. She let out a sigh of relief as she read it.

“Thank goodness,” she breathed. “They haven’t called the cops yet.”

Rumi moved behind the couch to read over her shoulder.

It must’ve been a group text between the boys, because there were dozens of messages sprawled across the screen.

Mira scrolled to the very top so Rumi could read.

Abby: HOLY 💩 WHAT JUST HAPPENED

Romance: Dude where are you? Mys and I ran to the 7-11

Romance: So glad you’re okay

Abby: 👶 and I are at some parking garage down the street

Abby: you all good?

Baby: hiding out bcuz those girls be wildin

Mystery: Is everyone okay?

Abby: all good here BUT I NEARLY 💩 MY PANTS WHAT WERE THOSE THINGS

Romance: idk but they looked like the freaking grudge

Mystery: Should we call the police?

Baby: nah fam they’d never believe us

Mystery: Not about those things, but Huntrix. They attacked us unprovoked.

Abby: I wouldn’t say that was unprovoked…

Romance: I can’t believe Huntrix attacked us. What is my life.

Abby: dude Mira was totally drooling over me did you see that

Romance: You two would be a horrible match.

Abby: you just want her for yourself

Romance: It’s HUNTRIX. You honestly think any of us could land one of them?

Abby: 🙄

Abby: ur just jealous

Romance: You’re an idiot.

Mystery: Wait.

Mystery: Jinu? You there?

Romance: Oh my gosh we forgot about Jinu

Abby: OMG JINU

Mystery: He’s not with you guys?

Abby: no

Abby: omg Jinu got eaten

Abby: JINU NO OMG WHAT DO WE DO

Romance: You literally gave him less than 10 seconds to respond chill out

Abby: okay that was 30 secs

Abby: HES DEAD

Baby: rip jinu it was a good run

Romance: Baby I stg can you take things seriously for once in your life

Romance: It’s weird that Jinu isn’t responding

Abby: yeah he usually sends a 3 page paragraph by this point

Mystery: I think something’s wrong.

Romance: Okay just everybody calm down, we’ll figure this out. Maybe he just doesn’t have service.

Baby: or he was yoinked by blackpink

Romance: Huntrix

Baby: whatever

Mystery: If Jinu doesn’t respond in the next 45 minutes, I say we call the police. For now, let’s meet up and regroup.

Abby: okay 🥺

Abby: can we meet at daiso

Baby: seconded i need washi tape

Romance: Why?

Baby: reasons

Romance: Fine

Mystery: Let’s try to hurry. See you soon.

“That was almost 40 minutes ago,” Mira said, not taking her eyes off the phone.

“So what do we do?” Rumi asked, holding her bloodstained hands away from her body. She tried hard not to look at them.

She watched as Zoey finished the entry wound and moved to the long gash across Jinu’s torso. The sutures looked dark and awful against the pallor of his skin. His breathing was short and gasping, like he couldn’t fill his lungs enough without it hurting.

“I don’t know. We could always threaten them,” Mira said, still staring at the screen in her hand.

“THREATEN them?” Zoey called from her spot. Jinu winced at the volume.

“Uh, yeah,” Mira replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Tell them that if they don’t keep quiet, we’ll tank their careers for all time.”

“I doubt that their careers are more important to them than their friend’s life,” Rumi muttered. While Mira had her eyes on the phone, she had hers on the boy with the patterns.

Zoey beckoned Rumi over for help. She needed help with the exit wound before she finished the superficial gash on his front. Rumi pulled Jinu into her arms so he was resting against her, his cheek pressed against her shoulder. She felt his breaths puff hot and quick against her neck.

“Wh’re ‘m I?” He rasped after awhile. She rubbed the uninjured side of his back gently. He began to squirm as Zoey sealed off the gaping wound at his back. “Nnnh, pl—pl—stop. ‘M sorry. I didn’t mean to. Sorry…”

“Shhh. Everything will be okay,” Rumi whispered, holding him closer. He felt far too cold. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

Zoey pouted sadly at Jinu’s words before returning her attention to Mira. “Rumi’s right. Their friend has gotta matter more to them than that. And threatening their careers is like, super mean, Mira.”

Mira folded her arms. “Well, you got any other bright ideas? We’re running out of time.” She gestured at the invisible watch at her wrist.

“Well, we have money and connections. Maybe we send over some NDA’s and promise them a bunch of money for their cooperation?”

Rumi was impressed. It was one of Zoey’s best ideas yet.

“We don’t have time for that,” Mira argued. “The moment we offer money, those jerks have all the power. They could ask for more than we can spare, and we’d have to give it to them to keep them quiet.”

“So?” Rumi countered. She carefully lowered Jinu back against the cushions when Zoey was finished. “I literally stabbed their friend. I could’ve killed him. It’s the least we can do—“

“I have an idea,” Mira said, a sadistic smirk playing across her face. “So we don’t ruin their careers, even though I think they deserve it, and they don’t get to take advantage of ours.” She held out the old phone up in her hands. “Rumi, stand up straight over by Zoey.”

“Okay…” Rumi said, brows furrowing.

“Don’t block the Demon Boy.”

Rumi frowned, and stood to his left, while Zoey continued stitching at his right.

“Both of you hold up your hands.”

Zoey and Rumi shared a look, but they humored her. Zoey held up the bloodied tools in her hands, while Rumi stood with her back straight, hands level in front of her chest.

They both blinked when the camera flashed.

“Mira,” Zoey said slowly. “Why’d you take a picture.”

“You’ll see.” She smiled as she tapped away on the phone.

“Wait,” Rumi said, moving to stand behind the couch again. When she saw what Mira was up to her heart skipped her stomach and dropped straight into her ass.

She scanned the text Mira had typed out on the Saja Boys group chat.

WE HAVE YOUR FRIEND. IF YOU GO TO THE COPS, WE WILL END HIM. IF YOU TELL ANYONE ELSE WHAT HAPPENED TONIGHT, WE WILL END HIM. DELETE THIS WHEN YOU GET IT. WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. WE KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU ALL. RESPOND WITH THE AFFIRMATIVE IF YOU WANT HIM TO LIVE. [PHOTO]

Attached to it was the photo she had just taken, with Zoey holding up a needle and Rumi holding up her bloodied hands while Jinu sat between them. The girls both had red eyes from the aged phone camera, and Jinu looked practically dead if it weren't for the utterly wrecked expression of pain eternally etched on his face. Blood was literally everywhere.

“What the HELL, Mira?!” Rumi shouted, aghast. “This is INSANE!”

“What?? It’d definitely get the message across,” Mira said, smiling proudly at her work.

“You CANNOT send that message, can you imagine how terrible it would be for them to see their friend like that?!” Rumi watched as Mira deflated a little.

“Well, yeah. But they were such assholes to us! Can’t we just play with them a little bit? Then when Demon Boy gets better we can wrap him up in a pretty bow and drop him off at their doorstep. No harm no foul. They get to keep their careers, we don’t have to submit to those jerkfaces, and our little tonic thief over here gets a super cool story about meeting Huntrix that he’ll never be able to tell anyone.”

Rumi’s mind was spinning as she ripped off her gloves and threw them to the floor. “Oh my gosh NO! It doesn’t matter how much we hate these guys, they’re still people! Imagine if you got a text like that and it was about me or Zoey!”

Mira’s eyes widened at that. “I—I didn’t think of it that way.” She flushed, and Rumi could see the cogs turning in her head. Her eyes widened even further as her initial rage and injustice faded away. “Oh my god, you’re right. That’s so messed up, what was I thinking—?”

“Wait, wait. What is it?” Zoey said anxiously. She snapped off one of her gloves and reached for the phone. “I wanna see!”

“Careful, I haven’t deleted it—“

Swoosh.

The undeniable sound of a text sending filled the air.

“ZOEY YOU SENT IT!” Mira screeched.

“NO!” Rumi yelled, clenching her hair in her hands. She didn’t care if she got blood all over it. They sent the text. The awful, horrid text that looked like something out of a horror movie. This was a disaster.

“Wait, WHAT?” Zoey scrambled to take it back, but the damage was done. “But this was YOUR IDEA!!!”

“YEAH BUT I WAS BEING A DUMBASS! YOU WERE THE ONE THAT SENT IT!”

“ONLY BECAUSE YOU HAD THE DUMBASS IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

“YEAH BUT I WAS GONNA DELETE IT!”

“OH MY GOSH WE’RE FOR SURE GOING TO JAIL NOW!”

The sound of text alerts brought them back down to earth. “Oh god,” Mira murmured as she brought the phone close to her face. Rumi and Zoey squeezed their faces in next to hers.

First there were three dots indicating that someone was typing. Then the dots disappeared. Then they reappeared again. This happened several times before a text finally came through.

Mystery: Please don’t hurt him. We’ll do anything you ask.

Romance: We won’t go to the cops. We swear.

Mystery: Will he live?

Abby: JINU HANG ON BUDDY

Romance: Ignore him. Please just tell us if he’s going to be okay.

Baby stayed remarkably silent. But Rumi ventured to guess that what he wanted to say couldn’t be properly expressed over text.

Mira looked at the girls before settling her gaze on Jinu for a long moment. Then her hands flew over the phone keyboard.

Rumi swallowed as she read what Mira wrote. She nodded when Mira sought her approval. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing about the situation was, and they were in too deep now to do much else. Zoey read the text aloud.

We won’t hurt him. He’s alive and talking. He’s being treated as we speak. We will keep you updated.

Then:

We cannot stress to you how important it is that you uphold your end of the bargain.

They stared at the phone for what felt like a long time. Rumi could only imagine the panic the boys were facing on the other side.

Another text tone chimed.

Baby: If he dies I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life.

Romance: We promise we’ll uphold our end of the deal. Please take care of him. He’s like a brother to us. And he’s got a family to take care of.

Rumi watched Mira swipe away a tear, before typing out one last thing.

We won’t hurt him. We promise.

The phone swooshed again, and the girls stared at the floor.

Rumi ran out of the room and crashed to her knees in front of the toilet. Then she vomited until her throat was raw.

Chapter Text

After Rumi was done purging herself of her ramyeon from earlier, she stood up and looked in the mirror.

She looked awful.

Her dark battle makeup was in black watery streaks down her face. Her hair was halfway out of its braid, snarled and framing her face like a nest of thorns. There was blood on her hair, her cheeks, her clothes. Her hands.

She remembered the look on Jinu’s face as she threatened and overpowered him at the bathhouse. As she sliced him open and ran him through with her blade. As he looked at her in the car with half-aware eyes, and then again from the couch as they threaded him back together. Begging for his mother.

No wonder he was so terrified of her. She looked every bit the half-demon she really was. She looked like a monster.

Fresh tears cut a clean line down her ruined makeup.

She turned on the sink faucet as hot as possible and splashed her face. It scalded, but it did its job clearing away the black and the blood. She did it again until her skin was red and the tears were gone. Yet the sin lingered. She clasped the sides of the sink, trying and failing to steady her breathing.

Then she looked more closely at her leather clothes, and her heart dropped.

The tear. The tear at her arm from earlier that revealed her patterns. It was still there.

She raised a shaky hand to it, surprised and disgusted to see that the purple patterns were completely hidden by a tacky layer of blood. In fact, both of her arms were drenched with it, all the way up to her shoulders. Jinu’s blood. From hurting him, trying to treat him, carrying him. Mira and Zoey must’ve never even noticed.

It was a fluke. A godsend that both condemned and saved, caused by her violence to another. Keeping her from utter ruination.

Jinu had unknowingly saved her with his very blood.

She dry-heaved another glob of bile into the sink. Then she stumbled to the shower and turned on the faucet to practically boiling. She stripped off her clothes with difficulty, the blood and leather acting as an adhesive to her skin. She hissed as she pulled it away. She welcomed the sting.

When she stepped into the shower she fell to the ground on her hands and knees. She watched the black makeup and blood swirl down the drain through the haze of steam. There were traces of red underneath her fingernails that she knew wouldn’t come out for a few days.

It was red, just like hers.

Just like hers.

Like her.

Then she looked down at the patterns that wove around her torso and up her arms.

They’d spread.

Now instead of only winding down her biceps and her chest, they’d reached beneath her ribcage, nearly to her naval. She saw one of the purple branches scraping past her side and to her back. Her biceps were covered like sleeves, almost to her elbows. The wretched purple line at her throat crawled ever closer to her jaw.

When she was a little child, the patterns started growing out from over her heart. Little patterns of purple. Celine hated them. Always looked at them in contempt. But it was easy enough to hide under a shirt. Easy enough to forget about. Until the patterns jumped over to her arm. Jeju was hot and humid, and little Rumi hated not being able to wear tanktops during the summer. But Celine was relentless. She never wanted to see her patterns. She claimed they made her feel sick.

As Rumi's understanding and sense of self grew, so did her shame. While other childrens’ mothers measured inches grown over the years on weathered doorframes, Celine measured the inches of Rumi's patterns in the hopes they hadn't budged. But they always did. They always grew. What should've been sounds of praise and excitement from a supportive parent were replaced with sounds of discouragement and shame.

Year after year, that feeling festered. Now she felt it more than ever. The shame. It was suffocating.

Rumi hugged her arms around herself and cried. She didn’t care that the sobs echoed through the room, she didn’t care if the girls heard, or if all of Seoul heard. And maybe they would hear, because to her ears the cries were loud, too loud, too wrong and inhuman and deserved. They almost sounded like that cursed voice that erupted from her that night on the rooftops. The voice that sent wicked striations of crimson across the Honmoon. The voice that had hurt it.

Every day she was getting closer and closer to becoming what she feared the most.

So she knelt and cried. She didn’t know how long she stayed there, letting her tears mix with the red. Soon there was no more red to wash away, and all that was left was clean water and her sensitive pink skin and tears that no longer came.

The water began to hurt. But she let it.

After a long while, she stepped out of the shower. She wrapped a towel around herself and padded to her room on shaky legs. She sat heavily on her bed and stared at the photo of her mother on the wall.

Rumi missed her. She never knew her, but she missed her. She wondered, as her mind took her everywhere and nowhere, if she would have had the answers at such a time as this.

She stood with a sigh and toweled off. She’d left the girls to their own devices, and that wasn’t fair of her. She shouldn’t have run out on them when she’d been the one to cause the problem in the first place.

She threw on some gray sweatpants and a purple hoodie over a plain white turtleneck. Then she put some old tennis shoes on as an afterthought. Their living room floor probably wasn’t the cleanest surface, what with all the medical supplies and bodily fluids everywhere.

She started combing through her long hair with her fingers, starting at the bottom and working her way up to the roots. The familiar motion calmed her.

But the moment didn’t last.

“Rumi!!! Rumi come here, quick!!”

She bolted off her bed, nearly crashing into the wall as she bounded into the living room.

“What’s wrong?” She shouted, whipping her head back and forth, searching for any sign of danger.

Mira and Zoey were in battle positions, their weapons already in hand. Pointed right at Jinu. She froze in place when she saw him.

His patterns were glowing. A throbbing, awful magenta that pulsed almost like they had their own heartbeat.

“What happened?!” She demanded.

“We don’t know! We finished stitching him up, and as we began cleaning him up it looked like he was going to fall asleep. But as soon as we thought he was totally out of it he lit up like the freaking Empire State Building!” Zoey exclaimed, eyes wide. “Do you think he’s gonna, ya know... change into something?!”

Rumi stepped closer, wary and concerned. What was this? She’d never seen anything like it. Not with her own patterns, and not with any of the demons they’d encountered in the past.

Whatever it was didn’t seem to be very pleasant for Jinu. His eyes were screwed shut, his fists clamped around the blankets at his sides as he tried and failed to hold back his noises of pain. His bloodied sneakers pushed against the wood floors, slipping and failing to find purchase.

“No… no…” he moaned. “Leave me alone…”

“Jinu,” Rumi moved closer, laying a hand on his uninjured arm. “Jinu, what’s wrong?”

His eyes opened into slits, but it didn’t look like he could actually see her. It almost seemed like he was somewhere else entirely. His eyes stared in the middle distance just beyond her shoulder.

His breathing picked up, his bare chest heaving against the strain. She worried his stitches would pop. “Get… out!” He grunted, almost angrily. “Get out!”

“Who?” Rumi tried, squeezing his arm softly to try to get his attention. “Get out of where?”

“He’s in… my head…” Jinu responded with great effort, finally locking eyes with her. The moment he did, his face flooded with recognition and he recoiled in fear. “No! Please!” He tried scrambling back into the cushions to no avail. "Please, don't kill me! Please, I need — I need —"

Rumi knelt down beside him, rubbing up and down his arm. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise," she chanced a smile, hoping he'd accept one from his almost-murderer.

"I just... I just..." His breathing was erratic. "I wanted... more time—" He cried out as his back arched against the cushions.

"Jinu?!" Rumi said in alarm. She looked back at Mira and Zoey. "Guys, something's —"

"Leave me alone!" He wailed. "Please!" And then his patterns glowed so brightly it illuminated the room in vibrant pink light. The girls shielded their eyes against it. When they looked down at him again, the patterns had ceased their pulsing and stayed bright.

Jinu slowly opened his eyes and looked lazily around the room until he found Rumi. Then they narrowed at her, shifting from terrified to intrigued. Rumi could've sworn the irises almost looked… golden.

Rumi furrowed her brows. “Jinu? What’s going on?”

Then he snatched her wrist in his hand, his grip surprisingly tight.

“Ow!” She exclaimed, and tried pulling away. But he wouldn’t let her. His grip became bruising.

Mira and Zoey stepped forward with rage on their faces, weapons poised.

“No no no, wait a second!” Rumi placated. “He’s probably delirious. I don’t think he’s trying—ah— to hurt me.” She grunted as she let her arm go limp, hoping he’d release her. She felt the bones in her wrist grind together as he squeezed.

He cocked his head. There was no sign of the quivering boy from before. His breathing and trembling had calmed. He had a strength that nobody who was as injured as he was should have. He seemed… wrong.

Abruptly he pulled her close until their faces were only inches apart. She could smell the blood on his breath.

“You should kill me,” he whispered, almost seductively. His thumb traced over her pulse point, and she shivered.

“What?” She breathed. She saw Mira and Zoey go rigid in her periphery.

“Kill me,” he purred. A wicked smile curved his mouth. His canines looked sharper than she remembered.

"Jinu, let go," she demanded, trying and failing to pull away from his iron-grip. Panic began to set in as she realized she couldn't get free, no matter how hard she tried. "Jinu!"

He pulled her even closer. So close their noses touched. She couldn't help the blush that rose to her face at their proximity. At the way he was looking at her. "Kill me." His breath sent goosebumps across her flesh. “I’m a demon, remember? Filthy, evil, murderous. Just like y—“

Rumi punched him square beneath the chin, and he slumped against the couch out cold. His hand slid from hers limply.

The room fell into silence. Rumi could hear her heart pounding in her head.

“THAT’S IT!” Mira roared, bringing her gokdo up to deliver a killing blow.

“WAIT!” Rumi cried, standing between her and the boy. “Wait! Don’t kill him!”

“Are you nuts? He hurt you!” Mira motioned to the bruises already forming around Rumi’s wrist. “He literally TOLD us he’s a demon! And you wanna keep him alive after that?!”

"He's... it's not..." Rumi couldn't find the words to say. She just stared down at him. At the bruise beginning to form on his jaw. At the older bruise that spanned over his abdomen from kicking him into the wall earlier. At the cut and the stab wounds and the stitches and the blood. All from her. "Something's the matter. That wasn't him."

"Then what was it?" Mira demanded. "Because it sure as hell sounded like it was him.”

“He started talking all creepy Rumi,” Zoey added, looking just as shaken. “Something’s not right. That wasn’t… human.”

“We don’t know what that was,” Rumi argued shakily. She rubbed absently at her wrist. She wondered if anything had fractured. It sure felt like it. “He said someone was in his head. I don’t know if he was acting on his own. I think— I think there’s way more to this than any of us understand.”

“She’s right,” a new voice said. The girls whirled to the sound.

Standing at the door like a goddess of judgement, cold and poised, was Celine.

Chapter Text

“Celine,” the girls said simultaneously, popping into a small bow as their mentor closed the door shut.

Her sharp eyes narrowed at the scene before her. She stepped forward slowly, heels clacking crisply against the hardwood floors. She first surveyed the girls, calculating their expressions, their presence. She frowned when she saw Rumi’s battered wrist. Then she zeroed in on the unconscious demon boy.

His patterns had returned to their normal dim purple. No more glowing. His head was turned up to the ceiling, his unkempt hair covering his closed eyes. His breathing had returned to that shallow gasping from before.

Celine came around the couch as she studied him. She took in the bloodied towels and blankets first, then the wounds littering his body, then finally his patterns. Her eyes seemed to trail along every purple line, almost as if she were memorizing a map. Her lips thinned.

Rumi felt strange watching Celine turn her silent judgement to someone other than herself.

Then she rounded on them. “I can see you girls have been busy.”

No one answered her.

She stared at each of them. Rumi tried not to shrink back.

“The Honmoon has weakened. Didn’t any of you notice?” She didn’t snap. But Rumi knew when Celine was displeased. There was a certain breathiness to her voice, a sound of exasperation that couldn’t quite be restrained.

The girls looked at each other before returning their gaze to the floor beneath their feet.

“No Celine,” Rumi answered. “We were… this was—“

“You don’t need to worry about covering anything up,” Celine interrupted, not giving her a chance to respond. “I had my people come in. They paid off all witnesses. Cleaned up at all locations. Wiped the security feeds.” She walked forward until she loomed tall above Jinu’s body. “Will the friends be an issue?”

The girls shifted uncomfortably. “We kinda already handled that,” Zoey mumbled, mouth twisted.

Celine glanced at them once. “Good.” Still, she didn’t look pleased. Then she returned to studying the boy with the patterns.

After a moment, she reached over to swipe the hair from his eyes. She pulled his eyelid up, only to find brown irises. Her jaw clenched.

“Why did the Honmoon weaken, Rumi?” Celine still didn’t look her way as she continued her assessment on Jinu. She pulled up one side of his lips to look at his teeth. She carefully thumbed his canines.

“I—I—“ Rumi stuttered. She didn’t know what her guardian wanted her to say. She never knew what to say.

“Celine,” Mira said impatiently. “We don’t know anything. All we know is what Zoey already told you. This is nothing like we’ve ever dealt with before. This falls under your realm of expertise. Do you know anything?” She demanded, meeting the older woman head on.

Celine stared at her for a moment, dark eyes betraying no emotion. “I can’t be sure.”

“What do you mean you can’t be sure?” Mira folded her arms across her chest. “Have you seen anything like this before?”

Celine was difficult to read, even on a bad day. But Rumi could tell when she was trying to hide something by the fine lines that marked her otherwise flawless skin.

“I have,” she nodded, then she looked down and studied Jinu’s hands. They were still drenched in drying blood, so she didn’t try to touch them.

“Celine, what do you know?” Mira asked again. “He’s a demon, but… he’s acting like a human. He seems normal one moment and the next he goes off the rails and attacks Rumi. He bleeds and feels pain—"

“Demons don’t feel pain,” Celine corrected.

“Okay, well this one does,” Mira said. Rumi was grateful that her friend could at least acknowledge that. “We thought that maybe he could be, I don’t know,” she waved her hands haphazardly, “a hybrid of some sort.”

Celine frowned.

“Can demons and humans have children together?” Zoey asked abruptly. Rumi’s heart dropped. “Maybe that could be why he has the traits of both. He could be a half-demon!”

Celine’s face darkened considerably, and Rumi could tell she was doing everything in her power not to make eye contact with her. She kept staring down at Jinu, almost like she could will him away. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” Her voice was level. Calm.

Rumi’s heart pounded against her ribcage.

“Could that be a possibility though?” Mira asked, voice raising anxiously at the end.

Celine was quiet for a long moment. But it wasn’t enough to raise suspicion. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Then what could this be?”

Celine looked out the window for a moment, before an idea seemed to dawn on her. She turned back to the girls. “There’s only one way to know for certain.” She held out her hand to Zoey. “Give me one of your shinkal.”

Zoey frowned, but obliged, handing the glowing weapon to Celine with hesitant hands.

Celine measured its weight in her hands, before moving closer to Jinu’s side. She tiptoed around the drying blood on the floor, and grazed his arm softly.

Then she slid the blade over the skin of his bicep.

The moment she did, he groaned. As he tried to pull away, she held firm, pinning his arm to the couch. Blood spilled from the new wound.

“What are you doing?!” Rumi cried.

She and the others moved to stop Celine, but the woman shook her head firmly. “Wait.”

She continued dragging the blade downward, and Jinu trembled, his eyes fluttering open at the source of his new torture.

“Celine, stop! You’re hurting him!”

“Hush,” she snapped. She dug the blade in deeper, and he let out a wail. The moment he did, the lines of the Honmoon flickered, bright pink and dangerous. Like a warning.

Celine immediately stopped. She pulled the weapon back, examining it. Then she methodically wiped the blade against the already soiled towels and handed it back to Zoey, who took it with an expression of barely concealed disgust and anger.

Rumi rushed to put pressure on the new wound, holding the edge of a towel against it. Jinu was breathing heavily, but he still looked pretty out of it.

“What the hell was that?!” Rumi demanded.

“A test,” Celine said, a strange heaviness settling over her like a blanket.

“A test for what?” Mira demanded, looking shaken. “To see if he bleeds? Feels pain? We already told you, we know he does.”

“No,” Celine said, still staring at the boy. “It was a test to see if he’s still human. And based on the way the Honmoon reacted just now, he is.”

“Wait…” Zoey said, horrorstricken.

“He’s a human?” Mira blanched. “But he has patterns! He—he told us himself that he’s a demon! How—?”

“This boy has sold his soul to Gwi-Ma. My guess is that he did so weeks, maybe even months ago.” There was a strange sort of emotion in Celine’s voice that Rumi couldn’t place.

“Sold his soul?” Rumi breathed. She felt dizzy. He was a human.

“Yes. Humans have been making deals with Gwi-Ma for centuries. For wealth and power and fame. Horrible, unspeakable things.” She sat on the couch, keeping her eyes on Jinu as if he’d leap up and attack any moment. “Gwi-Ma comes to these people with an offer to fulfill their wishes in exchange for their souls. They gladly trade away their humanity for their selfish desires, many times at the expense of others. Over time, he twists them into monsters, incapable of feeling, incapable of redemption.” Her voice hardened with every word. “They are the Jeoseung Saja. The Soul Reapers.”

“Soul Reapers?”

“You’ve likely never encountered them before. There aren’t many of them, not anymore. They stay in the shadows, opening fissures in the Honmoon to let hell-born demons out. They lead them to innocent humans to feed upon. Then they carry the souls of their victims to Gwi-Ma. They are ruthless and cunning. A pure evil that must be eradicated.”

Rumi felt like she couldn’t breathe. “So… you’re saying that Jinu—”

“He will become a Soul Reaper, yes. It looks like he’s nearly there. Give him a few more months and Gwi-Ma’s hold on him will be complete.” Beneath the undercurrent of disgust on Celine’s face, she seemed a little… sad.

“You’re saying that there’ve been demon turned humans ALL this time and you never told us?!” Mira threw her hands in the air, rage building the fragile tension in the room. “How on earth did that manage to slip your mind in all our years of training?!”

“Would it truly make a difference?” Celine disputed. “They’re demons, Mira. They’re soulless, wicked creatures who deserve to die and suffer for all eternity.”

“I thought you said that demons couldn’t feel pain?” Rumi challenged.

Celine’s eyes narrowed. “Not like us.”

Rumi felt her blood boil. She wanted to be mad. She wanted to rage and yell at the injustice and secrecy of it all. This was yet another thing to add to the list of things Celine failed to be fully transparent about. And now there were human turned demons? But she couldn’t dwell on it long, because something in her was breaking at the realization that Jinu wasn’t actually like her at all.

She was still a demon. Maybe even more demon than he was. Jinu wasn’t the one who’d had ugly patterns since he was a toddler. Jinu wasn’t the one born with demon blood. Jinu hadn’t had to hide all his life.

He was a human. He was a human, and even though he was turning into a demon, he wasn't one yet and that meant she’d nearly killed a human being. Mira and Zoey seemed to come to that same realization as she did, because they both slumped to the couch in dismay.

Mira buried her face into her hands. “Oh god,” she moaned. “I was gonna kill him. I almost killed him and I screwed with his friends and he’s been a human all along.”

“You were only doing your duty,” Celine said, resting her hand gently on Mira’s knee. Rumi knew that it was a cold comfort. “And when the time comes, I know that you’ll do what needs to be done.”

Mira looked up through fallen threads of silky pink hair. “What?” She breathed.

Celine returned her gaze to Jinu, who was slowly waking up. “When he turns, you can finish the job.”

Mira’s eyes widened.

“We’re still… supposed to kill Jeoseung Saja? Even though they’re humans?” Zoey’s voice was barely above a whisper. Her eyes were glassy.

“Were humans,” Celine corrected.

“But—but—“ Zoey spluttered.

“Girls,” Celine sighed, frustration mounting. “You must do your duty. You can’t let your feelings of guilt or self-righteousness get in the way of strengthening the Honmoon.”

“Self-righteousness?” Rumi was reeling. “You think that our being hesitant about killing human beings is self-righteousness?"

“They aren’t humans. Not once Gwi-Ma takes over.”

“Then what about him?” Rumi gestured to Jinu. His half-lidded eyes met hers briefly before returning to their tired roving around the room. “He’s still human! Are you telling us that we should just kill him now? As he's laying bleeding out on our couch???”

“We can’t kill him. Not yet.” She let out a long sigh. “The Honmoon becomes… upset if we harm humans with our weapons. Even humans that have given up their humanity.” Celine stood up and moved to the large window, clasping her hands in front of herself and staring at the sparkling city scape. Rumi caught her glaring at the pink bruises that littered the surface of the Honmoon.

“Is that why the Honmoon has weakened? Because we hurt him with our weapons?” Zoey asked, wringing her hands in her lap.

Celine nodded. “There are many things we don’t know about demons or the Honmoon. The only way we can be sure is through trial and error.”

A test. That’s what Celine had said before she dug Zoey’s weapon into Jinu’s skin. Realization rushes upon Rumi like a tidal wave.

“You’ve done this before,” she breathed. “You’ve killed a human before. One in transition, like Jinu, haven’t you?”

Celine was quiet for a long moment. “Yes.” She turned back to them with weary eyes. “The damage it did to the Honmoon was catastrophic. It took months to build it back up to what it was.”

Rumi’s blood boiled. “Is that the only reason why you’re not killing Jinu right now?”

“I’m not a monster, Rumi.”

“IS IT?” She felt her patterns burn beneath her clothes.

“Rumi,” the woman stepped closer. “You must understand. The moment that boy turns, you have to do your duty. You can’t let your feelings get in the way of your purpose!”

“But he’s a person!”

”He’s a demon.”

“Not. Yet.”

“He negotiated away his humanity the moment he made a deal with Gwi-Ma. He sold his soul, Rumi. Before long he won’t even have one.”

Rumi couldn’t believe how much Celine was doubling down on this.

”He has a family Celine! Friends! A life!” Furious tears ran down her face. “I don’t care why he made the deal! I don’t care! Right now, he still has a soul, and he still has a heart! He told me he needed to help his mother and sister. What if he sold his soul for that? To help them? Does that mean he’s some horrible, irredeemable monster?!”

”I highly doubt he bargained for anyone but himself. All demons are selfish and self-serving, you know that.” Celine stood directly in front of her, a storm brewing behind her eyes. She only had a few inches on her, but Rumi had never felt so small.

“All demons?” Rumi whispered, hurt. “Do you really mean that?”

Regret flashed across Celine’s face, but it was only for a moment. “Even demons can have families. It doesn’t change what they are.” The wall was up again. “They’re monsters, Rumi. They can’t be saved.”

Rumi held back a sob and stumbled away. “I’m not going to do it. None of us are.” She shook her head. “We’re not gonna fix the pain we caused him and throw him back out on the streets just to satisfy the Honmoon. We’re not gonna sit here and wait for Gwi-Ma to take him only to cut him down in cold blood when we see him next. We won’t.”

Rumi felt Mira and Zoey stand at either side of her. She watched as they nodded their agreement, gazes stern.

Celine stared down at them, her anger finally making a clear appearance. “You will,” she said coldly. “Or you spit upon everything we’ve ever stood for.” Her voice plunged into the depths as she whispered, “You spit upon your own mother’s grave.”

Rumi sucked in a sharp breath.

She saw Zoey hold Mira back in her periphery. “How dare you say that?!” Mira shouted, straining against Zoey’s grasp.

Celine’s face looked remorseful for a moment, but it was quickly absconded by resolution. She didn’t back down. She didn’t apologize. She never did, and Rumi didn’t expect that to change today.

Rumi closed her mouth slowly let her tears fall freely. They cooled the heat of rage left on her skin. “Okay,” she nodded numbly. “Okay. I guess I’m a disgrace, then.”

Celine raised a hand up in an aborted gesture, almost like she wanted to take back her words. But she never fully extended it.

Rumi felt Mira and Zoey’s hands at her back, trying to offer consolation. She wanted to lean into it, but she didn’t. Because as much as she craved it, a part of her felt like she didn't deserve it. She stepped away.

As she did she eyed something shiny and silver on the coffee table. She snatched it and held it up to Celine.

”If it’s so easy, then why don’t you do it?” Rumi whispered, grasping her guardian’s hands in hers and pushing the object into them. She forced Celine’s fingers to close around it. “If he’s destined to be what you claim he is, do it.”

Celine stared down at her hands. In it lay a scalpel. The blade was long and sharp.

”You said that Honmoon weapons can’t be used to harm a human, but what about normal weapons?” Rumi continued, voice raising into something almost manic. “That won’t upset the Honmoon, will it?”

Celine looked at her in shock. Mira and Zoey’s eyes were wide, their mouths agape.

“Finish him,” Rumi stood back, motioning to Jinu. He looked at them tiredly, still struggling to take in a deep breath. His hands twitched at his sides like he wanted to soothe his hurts, but he couldn’t. His exhaustion had nearly sapped all his strength. Rumi knew he didn’t understand a single thing that was being said. “Wouldn’t it be merciful? To free him from his deal? To free him from an eternity of servitude and torment under Gwi-Ma? Or do creatures like him even deserve mercy?”

”Rumi—“ Celine began.

“Do the right thing, Celine. Show us what a true Hunter is. Show us what it actually means to never let our faults and fears be seen.”

Celine’s hands trembled around the small blade in her hands. She swallowed as she looked at the boy on the couch. She stared at him for a long time, and for a second, it seemed like he was looking at her. His breathing picked up, and he shifted slightly.

For the first time in all her 24 years, Rumi saw something in her mentor that she thought she’d never see. Uncertainty.

Jinu’s gaze seemed to clear a little as he stared up at the woman before him. He blinked. Then he smiled, a small, tender thing that seemed to be reserved for only the most special of people. “Hi Eomma.”

Celine’s eyes widened.

He shifted a little, like he was trying to sit up more fully. He grunted as the movement tugged on his wounds. “I’m sorry I didn’t… pick up the groceries.” he rasped through battered lungs. “I forgot.” His bloodied arm dripped freely, but he reached out for her anyway. He was too weak to raise it more than a few inches, but still he tried. “I can… go now, if you want?” When Celine didn’t take his hand, he dropped it back onto his lap.

Celine paled as her breathing quickened. She took a step away.

Jinu coughed weakly. “I’m sorry, ‘ma.” He looked at her apologetically for another long moment before his head lolled to the side and unconsciousness took him again.

Celine gasped and stumbled away, dropping the scalpel on the ground. “I can’t,” she whispered. Then she fled out of the room.

Rumi let her.

Chapter Text

Something was wrong with Jinu.

Granted, Jinu had been going through a really difficult time in general with just about everything in his life, but the past couple of months had him acting particularly off.

Before, he would show up late to rehearsals due to having to take extra shifts at the gas station. He’d show up exhausted, barely able to make it through their dance routines. There were a few times they feared he’d actually pass out from overtaxing himself.

One time he actually did.

Despite having nearly given himself a concussion with how hard he dropped, he still wanted to rehearse. He refused to go to the hospital, even as he trembled with weakness and nausea. They asked him if he’d eaten anything that day, and he told them he’d forgotten.

They tried to convince him to take it easy with his workload, not to strain himself too much. But he argued that he couldn’t. His mother’s hospital bills wouldn’t pay for themselves, and since she couldn’t work, he was the only one who could provide for both her and his nine year old sister. Sun-Hi deserved a good life. She shouldn’t have to eat cheap ramyeon for every meal.

Sometimes they wondered if he ever really “forgot” to eat.

“It’ll all get better when we debut,” he told them, forcing a smile as he hid his messages from them. They noticed the rejection letters anyways.

So Jinu constantly overburdened himself, scheduling interviews with entertainment companies, networking with potential managers, writing songs, dancing, singing, and keeping up with the individual needs of each of his bandmates as any leader should. And when the boys voiced their frustrations that they were getting nowhere in the industry, he was the one who encouraged them. He told them it was only a matter of time before someone saw their potential. Only a matter of time before they got signed by a big company, one that was the perfect fit for them all.

Apart from managing their hopeful idol lives, they knew that Jinu was also doing all of the working and cleaning to maintain his home. He was the one taking his mother to her doctors appointments, deep in the city. He was the one taking Sun-Hi to school and back again.

All the while he whittled himself down until nearly nothing. He looked thinner, worn, always tired. The dark circles under his eyes couldn’t be covered up with any amount of makeup.

All of them could see Jinu’s quiet path to destruction. And every attempt to offer help or even money was met with pushback. Nothing was harder on a man’s pride than not being able to provide for or protect their family. They knew that. But it still hurt to see their friend suffering so silently.

Then something changed, quite literally overnight.

Jinu arrived at their evening rehearsals that day with what seemed like a new zest for life. He was excited, really, truly excited. He looked healthier. Happier. He looked like he actually believed in all that hope he’d tried to inspire in them over the past few years.

He filled out again, his skin was brighter, his muscles fuller. That pep in his step he used to have back in highschool, before his father died, had returned. He would offer to buy the boys post-rehearsal boba and samgak-gimbap, something he used to be unable to do even for himself. He started to take less shifts at the gas station. He told them that his mother’s prognosis was looking up. He enrolled Sun-Hi in piano lessons.

A few weeks passed, and he finally told them of their good fortune. After several years of trying, they finally had a biter, an entertainment group who saw their potential and wanted to help them make it big. They were to debut in only two months. They were thrilled.

Then they were told by their new mysterious management that they were to go by the epithet “Saja Boys.”

They liked the name. It fit them. But it was Jinu’s ready eagerness to let the company take over the day to day minutiae that rattled them. Jinu loved being involved with the creative process. To have him arrive one day, band name already chosen with no input on their part, and with no sort of counter was uncharacteristic of him.

Still. They were debuting soon. They couldn’t complain.

Then Jinu started getting headaches.

He would be sitting with the boys, relaxing after a long day, and he would suddenly go stock-still. His eyes would go distant, his mouth agape. It looked like he was barely breathing. They tried snapping him out of it, but it was like he became catatonic. It was as if he couldn’t hear them at all.

Those episodes never lasted more than a few minutes, and when he finally came to, he always let out a deep breath of relief and told them it was just another migraine. Still, they urged him to go to the hospital. Still he assured them he was fine.

None of them believed him.

Despite his good attitude and renewed nature, Jinu came to be more closed off than ever before. After rehearsals when they wandered into the locker rooms to wash off, he began to shower in a private stall. He would never go shirtless around them. He would always wear two layers, even in the spring heat.

He joked that it was just an iron deficiency, that his mom had it too and they just ran cold. But when they sat close to him, trying to enjoy a lazy movie night, his body felt like a living furnace. They asked him if he was feeling well, and he told them he never felt better.

The migraine episodes increased. Sometimes even as they walked around in public. Once he stopped in the middle of a busy road, and nothing they could say or do would snap him out of it. After they finally managed to usher his catatonic body to the sidewalk, they scolded him harshly, scared and uncertain of what it was they were witnessing with their friend. But he smiled and told them not to worry. He was fine. Better than fine.

Jinu always went to talk to management alone (the same management that the other four boys still hadn’t met, not even after several weeks of working with them). He came around for hangouts less and less. And when he did, he was constantly looking over his shoulder.

And then he wrote Your Idol.

The boys liked it. It was very ATEEZ coded according to Abby. Lots of boy bands shifted gears from fun and preppy to dark and sexy as they went on. But it was usually years into their careers. Not two weeks before they even debuted.

“Should we really be jumping from boy-next-door to something that… provocative? So quickly?” Romance had asked. “This is just so different from the Soda Pop persona we’re trying to start with.”

“The higher-ups think it’s a brilliant idea,” Jinu said with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’ll be revolutionary. They say if we go this route, we’re guaranteed to make it to the Idol Awards.”

“To perform a song you’ve only just written? What about choreo? Sound design, lighting… can management really figure all that out in just a month?”

“Trust me,” Jinu said, something strange flashing in his eyes. “They know what they’re doing, Ro.”

Romance frowned. “If you say so.”

Jinu’s headaches only seemed to increase by the day. He became more shut off. More secretive.

They continued to worry.

And then one day, they ran into Huntrix.

Literally, THE Huntrix just happened to be heading down the same quaint alleyway that they were. And Jinu quite literally knocked poor Rumi over like a bowling pin.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was when he snubbed her.

Jinu, the man who would’ve given an arm and leg just to breathe the same air as Kang Rumi from Huntrix (who he was particularly biased towards), knocked her flat onto her ass and SNUBBED her like she was a nobody.

As the boys turned away from the three furious women, feeling awful about the treatment they’d seen from their leader, they knew for certain something was wrong with him.

But they had a performance to do. So perform they did. It went incredibly well. Afterwards people were fawning over them, asking them for autographs, demanding to know when their next show was. It was all the fledgling fame and attention that they’d prayed for for so long. All the hard years of blood, sweat, and tears was finally paying off.

Then they had the variety show that Jinu had somehow booked without telling them. Something they’d only ever dreamed of. The games were fun (if not a little ridiculous and somewhat painful) and the audience was wholly invested. The hosts knew how to make the boys look endearing, and they’d been media trained by Romance into perfection.

So why was Jinu the only one who didn’t look surprised when Huntrix showed up at the top of the set looking like Marvel characters?

Inviting them on stage with them was the last thing Romance expected from Jinu. And the girls didn’t seem very happy about it either. But Jinu seemed to know what he was doing. He’d gotten them this far. Plus, being associated with Huntrix could only be a good thing for their fresh reputation.

After it became clear they pissed off the girl band one too many times, they fled into the mens bathhouse across the street. They didn’t expect to be followed.

And they definitely didn’t expect to be attacked.

“What the heck?!” Abby exclaimed, ducking under the way too sharp looking staff in Mira’s hands. He laughed uneasily as he ran away, Romance following closely behind him. “Is this some kinda role-play thing idols do to their hoobaes? Are we getting initiated?” His words died in his throat at Mira’s glare. But he didn’t stop there. “A little kinky, don’t you think?” He smirked.

Mira shot him a look of complete and utter loathing and impaled the wall directly beneath his crotch. He let out a yelp and scrambled for safety. Romance yanked him after Baby and Mystery, who were currently being apprehended by Zoey with what looked like… glowing knives?

“I think they’re actually trying to kill us,” Romance wheezed as Mira’s staff came a hairsbreadth from taking off his nose. “Yeah, this is the real deal.” He pulled Abby with him, fighting for air as he tried to find an escape route.

It was hard to keep from slipping on the water-slick floor. Romance nearly face-planted at least half a dozen times. Hot mist was being released from the open doors into the hallways making it difficult to see. Yet the girls continued their chase, vaulting off walls and doing the craziest parkour he’d ever seen.

He let out a cry of warning when he saw Baby slip, smacking hard against the tiles. Zoey sent her blades his way, only for him to somersault to safety in the nick of time. He let out the most colorful swear Romance had ever heard.

“Are you crazy?!?” He yelled, face red. “You could’ve killed me!”

“That’s the point, silly!” Zoey said in a sing-song voice, rolling her eyes playfully. Her blade sang dangerously close to the maknae’s abdomen, and Mystery leapt in front of him with a snarl.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?!” He demanded. And Mystery never demanded.

Surprisingly, the girl seemed hesitant. She took a step back, a blush rising to her cheeks. “I—I—“

“Oh COME ON, Zoey, FINISH it!” Mira yelled, leaping off the off the wall towards the boys with a growl.

Mystery pushed Baby forward, prepared to use his body as a shield, and the pink-haired idols followed in hot pursuit. Romance could taste the blood in his lungs from the exertion and panic.

Then he spotted it. The green exit sign, shining like a beacon of freedom and safety. He called for the others to follow…

…only to be stopped by something straight out of a horror movie.

There were dozens upon dozens of… creatures. Horrifying, evil monsters pouring out of a pink looking portal. Their skin was pale, their dark hair limp down their (naked?) bodies. They looked like walking corpses. They bore their sharp teeth at them with awful, wailing cries.

“OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?!” Abby screamed, and suddenly the girls didn’t seem like so much of a threat anymore. They skidded to a stop in the middle of the hallway, chests heaving for air.

But now they were trapped between two groups that were clearly set on killing them. And they didn't feel too optimistic about getting a painless death at either party’s hand.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE we let them get away long enough to summon a horde!” Mira seethed, seeming surprisingly unfazed by the monsters. “ZOEY! Get it together!!!”

“On it!” Zoey exclaimed, and she dove into action, slinging her daggers into one of the gangly creatures that started to climb on the wall…

“We gotta get out of here…” Romance shouted, tugging Abby by his shirt. He felt the threads pop at his exertion.

Luckily the girls seemed newly preoccupied by the creatures, who had turned their full attention on them. The creatures scrambled on top of each other, long limbs flailing desperately to get to the raging women.

“Go around!” Mystery yelled, swerving away from a set of claws that came inches from his throat.

The boys managed to evade the monsters by the skin of their teeth, and before they knew it, they burst out the back doors into the cool spring air.

“Run! Keep running!” Romance shouted, feet slapping hard against the pavement. He heard only one set follow after him. He whipped his head around to find Mystery at his heels, eyes wide beneath his bangs. “Where are the others?!”

“I don’t know,” Mystery replied, lungs straining. Romance’s heart dropped, but they had no other choice but to keep running.

They ran until they reached a 7-11 a couple minutes down the street. They tried ignoring the puzzled look on the cashier’s face as they rested their palms against their knees, panting for breath.

Romance whipped out his phone, hands shaking as he pulled up the group chat. When he saw Abby had already sent out a text, his heart swelled with relief. Unfortunately, that meant that the two most irrational and immature members of the group were left alone together. Mystery frowned as he came to the same conclusion.

They quickly typed on their phones, set on ensuring that everyone was okay before moving onto anything else. They briefly considered calling the police on the Huntrix girls before Abby fell into a soliloquy about his forever love, Mira. Romance doubted even being nearly killed by her would suppress Abby’s affection for her.

He couldn’t believe they made it out. He caught a glance with Mystery, who let out a long-suffering sigh.

Then Mystery’s eyes widened.

“Jinu,” he breathed.

Romance nearly choked as he brought his hands up to his head. “Oh my god, Mys. What if those girls got Jinu? Or-or those things?” He could barely stand to voice it.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions. He could be totally fine. Let’s just… let’s just wait a moment.”

Romance nodded, but he couldn’t get rid of the yawning pit of anxiety that began forming in his stomach. They spent the next several minutes tapping away rapidly on their phones, the store becoming a cacophony of swooshes and text tones.

Romance shoved his phone back into his pocket when they finalized their plan. “He better be okay,” he muttered, shoving the front door open with a little more force than necessary.

“We’ll figure things out, okay?” Mystery reassured as they jogged down the street to Daiso. “Let’s just try to stay calm.”

They practically ran through the automatic doors of the super store, and quickly found Abby and Baby. The latter looked far too relaxed for what had just happened. They were both chatting with a gaggle of teen girls who were all over them. Abby flexed his arms with a laugh, and the girls swooned.

Romance yanked him violently by his already torn shirt, and tossed him into the next aisle over. Baby followed lazily, popping a lollipop into his mouth.

“Got your washi tape?” Romance snapped, patience growing thin.

Baby nodded, eyes flashing briefly at the vitriol. “What are you angry with me for?”

“Because we were just attacked by the most famous girl band on planet earth!” He whisper shouted. “ And THEN we were attacked by those… naked monster things!! And Jinu is missing! And you’re sitting here talking to fans?!”

Abby had the wherewithal to look ashamed, but Baby only became more defensive.

“What else were we supposed to do until you got here?”

“I don’t know! Not be indifferent for once in your life—“

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Mystery said, hands held up in a placating gesture. “We have about five more minutes until we said we’d call the cops. Let’s just… settle down, okay?” He leaned against the Pepero stand, arms folded. Romance could still see the minute tremors of his frame. Still felt them on himself.

So they stood there in a frazzled semi-circle, trying hard not to look at each other. Trying hard not to spiral.

When Baby brought his cell back up to his face, Romance was prepared to tear him a new one. He was probably about to hop onto one of his stupid mobile games again. But then all the blood drained from Baby’s face.

“Oh my god,” he breathed. His blue eyes were wide as saucers.

“What? What is it?” Romance demanded, heart stuttering.

Baby held up the phone to them with trembling hands, and their world stopped.

It was a text. One that spelled Jinu’s fate in full color.

The photo was horrific. Two of the Huntrix girls stood with blood-stained hands aloft, holding medical instruments also covered in blood. Their eyes were red, makeup streaking an inky black down their faces. And sitting on the couch inbetween them atop layers of towels and blankets was Jinu.

He was half-naked, and it looked like his skin had been sliced open in several spots. There wasn’t an inch on his chest that wasn’t covered in red. Half of him had been stitched back together, and the other half still oozed thick blood. He appeared to be awake, his dark eyes locked on the ceiling, half-lidded and glazed over with pain. His mouth was drawn into a grimace, his jaw clenched tight. He held a fistful of blanket in each of his hands.

He was so pale.

And barely concealed beneath all the blood were… strange markings. They twisted around his torso like deep violet brandings.

What the…

Romance brought his phone up to his face, hoping it wasn’t real, hoping that he’d find something different on his own device. But he only found the same, awful photo. And attached to it was a incredibly threatening message.

His heart sank with every word he read.

“Oh, god,” he said shakily. He almost dropped the phone to the floor as he stumbled into the cereal display behind him. “Jinu…”

The four men looked at each other in abject horror for a long moment. Nobody knew what to say, their blood frozen like ice in their veins.

Abby fisted his hair in his hands and began to pace. “Holy crap, what do we do?! They’re gonna kill him. Guys. They’re gonna kill him.”

“Abby—“ Mystery began.

But Abby wasn’t finished. “No, really guys. This is SO bad.” Then his eyes snapped open with horror. “What if… what if this is why Jinu’s been acting so weird lately? What if he got caught up in some crazy idol underground network?”

“Abby—“

“And now they’re punishing him because he didn’t fulfill his end of the deal?! I’ve heard of things like that happening in Hollywood. What if it’s reached Korea?!”

“Abby!” Romance said loudly, trying not to shout in such a public place. He shook his head. “This isn’t one of your conspiracy theories come to life. This is real. Jinu is in real trouble, okay? He could be dying. We gotta think rationally right now.” But as the words left his mouth, his heart sank. Because for once, there was some stock to Abby’s theory. It would make sense that Huntrix, with all their fame and power, could be involved in something like that. Even as ridiculous as it sounded.

After their encounter with those otherworldly beings tonight, nothing was off the table.

Romance watched as Baby began typing furiously on his phone. He snatched it away with alarm. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m gonna kill them,” he seethed, swiping at the phone Romance held far out of reach. “Figured I’d let them know so they have a decent heads-up.”

“Don’t—“ Mystery closed his eyes, pushing his hands firmly into the sockets. He took a deep breath through his nose. “Don’t send anything yet. We have to be so careful about this, or they could hurt Jinu even more.”

He pulled out his own phone and began typing. His words were compliant. Eager to obey. Hopefully it was enough to sate the violent appetite of the Huntrix girls and their ilk. Romance added his own two cents, hoping that shining a light on Jinu’s humanity would soften their hearts a little. If the girls even had any to begin with.

They were surprised at the abrupt change of tone when the women responded. It almost seemed like they were backtracking. They promised Jinu was being treated. They promised they wouldn’t hurt him any further. But that meant nothing when the evidence of their crime was Jinu’s body, riddled with wounds.

All the while a storm-cloud of hatred swirled in Baby’s eyes.

“Are we really not going to go to the police?” Abby asked. A half sob erupted from his throat that he tried desperately to keep down.

“No,” Mystery said shakily. “They… they might have ties with the police, and they certainly have enough money for bribery. Abby has a point. This is probably bigger than anything we can imagine. Those creatures, and the fact that Huntrix is somehow super adept at fighting them…”

“They called us demons,” Abby intoned, swiping away a rogue tear.

Mystery nodded. “We can’t risk Jinu’s life by getting the government involved. We have to go along with their demands for now.”

“Go along with it? Are you crazy?!” Baby yelled, throwing up his hands. They tried shushing him, but he didn’t care. “They hurt Jinu! They’re threatening to kill him if we don’t comply. And you think we should just sit idly by and let that happen?!”

“They promised they wouldn’t hurt him any more if we keep it on the down low. We can’t risk his safety—“

“I DON’T CARE!” Baby shouted, shoulders heaving. They started getting angry stares, so Romance ushered them out of the store.

Baby stomped as he seethed, whirling on them once they were out in the parking lot. He pushed an accusatory finger into Romance’s chest. “You think I don’t care about anything? Well I sure as hell care about this. Clearly more than any of you do.”

“Baby—“

“No! I’m not just gonna sit here twiddling my thumbs when Jinu’s out there somewhere, bleeding out and being held captive by lunatics! I’m not!” He turned on his heel and walked away.

Their faces dropped as despair settled over them.

“What are we gonna tell Mrs. Ahn?” Abby asked lowly, finally letting his tears fall.

Romance closed his eyes and ran a hand down his mouth. “I don’t know,” he whispered, looking up at the starless sky. He watched as Baby’s silhouette begin to disappear into the horizon.

“He's right,” Mystery muttered suddenly under his breath.

Romance turned to him in surprise. “Wait, what?”

“Baby’s right,” Mystery repeated. “Jinu needs us. We’re not gonna let him spend one more second alone in that hell-hole.” He began jogging to where Baby disappeared to. “Baby! Wait up!”

Romance and Abby followed, echoing his calls with their own. Before long, they’d caught up to their maknae.

“What,” he snapped, furiously swiping away tears. “Change your mind?”

“Yes,” Mystery breathed.

Baby’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You’re right. Jinu needs us now,” he said, nearly breathless. “Can you get a hold on their location?”

A slow smirk crept onto Baby’s face. “Already have it.”

“Where are they?”

“Huntrix Tower. Cocky bitches think they can hide in plain sight.”

Mystery nodded once, pleased. Romance’s blood began to sing with vengeance.

“Wait, what are we gonna do?” Abby asked, trying to follow along.

Mystery looked at him, fists clenched. There was something charged in his expression. “We’re gonna go break Jinu out of Huntrix Tower.”

Chapter Text

The silence that fell upon the room at Celine’s departure was deafening.

For awhile, all that could be heard were Jinu’s unconscious moans. Over and over again, low sounds that came with nearly every breath out of his mouth.

The girls stared at each other, shell-shocked.

But they didn’t even have time to decompress, because now they knew there was a human boy dying on their couch.

“Holy crap,” Mira breathed. She ripped one of the towels out from under Jinu’s hand, and pushed it into the deep wound in his bicep muscle. “He’s a human. Holy crap.”

Zoey nodded in agreement, preparing the suture kit for yet another wound to stitch up. Then she studied his face. His lips were white, his blue veins prominent beneath his skin. He was shivering again. “He needs better care than what we can give him, you guys. I… I don’t know if he’ll last the night without it.”

“He needs a hospital,” Rumi said numbly. Her wrist hurt from Jinu’s earlier attack. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care for the pain. She didn’t care if she went to jail. If Jinu was destined to be dragged into Hell in a few months time, then maybe she too was destined for a life of imprisonment.

Both she and Jinu would carry out their sentences together. Both in chains of a different kind.

“No hospitals Rumi. Without you, even more people die,” Mira said firmly. She moved out of the way so that Zoey could begin her work. “I can get supplies. What does he need?”

Zoey sighed, rubbing her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. “Oxygen, antibiotics, strong pain meds, IV fluids would be ideal… but for now, we could use whatever we can get our hands on.”

“I can get oxygen and antibiotics,” Mira said, snapping off her gloves once more. “What kind of pain medication is best?”

“Tylenol, since he’s still bleeding,” she nodded towards the open wound on his chest, still whistling air.

“Really? Tylenol? That’s gonna do hardly anything,” Mira frowned.

“It’s the best we can do for now. Opioids aren’t just something we can find on the street,” Zoey narrowed her eyes at Mira’s expression. “Correction, opioids aren’t something we should go looking for out on the street.”

Mira stared at Jinu a moment too long, something stirring in her eyes.

“Mira,” Zoey said firmly. “Let’s not add drug dealing to the massive list of crimes we’ve accumulated tonight.”

Mira pursed her lips. “Oh fine. I won’t. It’s just…” she winced when Jinu let out a particularly pained sound. “He’s feeling a lot right now. And I handled things in a really shitty way. So I guess… I just want to try to make him as comfortable as possible.”

Zoey nodded slowly, finishing up the last of the stitches. “Then get some good blankets and heating packs. He’s still in shock from the blood loss so we got to keep his temperature up. And maybe some electrolytes?”

Mira nodded once, eyes narrowed with resolve. “On it,” she said before moving to change out of her bloodied leather battle suit. She was back in a minute’s time, grabbing the keys and rushing out the door. “I’ll be back.”

Zoey turned to Rumi as the door clicked shut. She was still sitting dazed on the couch, eyes glued to Jinu. She couldn’t get Celine’s words out of her head. The venom. The hatred. But most of all, she couldn’t shake the look on Celine’s face in that dire moment of hesitation.

She wouldn’t kill him.

“Rumi?” Zoey asked. “Rumi?”

Her gaze finally snapped to the maknae. Her eyes felt too dry. “Yes?”

“I know that this is a lot to process. I know it’s hard. But right now I need your help with him. Do you think you can help me?” Zoey said with a smile, holding up one of the towels.

Rumi nodded slowly, trying to get her eyes to lock onto something with purpose instead of just fixating on nothingness.

“What can I do,” she said monotonously.

“Do we have anymore clean towels?”

A nod.

“Grab those, and get some warm water in a bowl. Let’s try cleaning him up a bit.”

Rumi nodded again, rising to feet that felt disconnected from the rest of her. She moved on autopilot, grabbing cloths and their large kitchen bowl that they always used for popcorn.

When she returned, Zoey was removing Jinu’s socks and shoes. She studied his feet, rubbing them slightly before wrapping them in a thick towel.

“He’s really cold. We should probably get him out of those clothes and into some clean ones.” She motioned to the pink pants turned red and slick with wet blood.

Rumi felt her face heat up at that. “We-we have to do that?” Her voice cracked.

Zoey snickered at her expression. “Oh please, Rumi. This can’t be the first time you’re seeing a naked man in person.”

Rumi blushed even more furiously. “Uh, I… actually… yes?” Zoey and Mira didn’t know the Rumi had never “been” with someone before. She couldn’t, because she’d run the risk of her patterns being exposed. Not that she hadn’t daydreamed before…

Patterns aside, she wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. Especially not when it came to the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on. She would much prefer to limit her… innocent stares to a man’s chest area and nothing below that.

Zoey’s eyes widened and her laugh petered out into an awkward cough. “Oh. Haha. Well. This isn’t like that. This is purely… professional? What would we call this… uh…” she began to ramble as she always did when she was uncomfortable.

Rumi let her gaze drift over to Jinu again. Her eyes roved to his chest. Beneath all the blood, it was plain to see he was in incredibly good shape. Everywhere in fact.

Oh yeah. Rumi had to get herself out of this situation.

“I uh. I don’t think we should be the ones to do it,” she said awkwardly. “What if he wakes up? I feel like that would be especially terrifying. To be, uh… stripped down by your kidnappers. He’s already so vulnerable as it is. IfyouknowwhatImean,” she said all in one breath, blinking rapidly.

Zoey blinked back at her. “Well we can’t just leave him like that. All the blood is probably freezing him. We gotta get him clean and warm if he’s gonna stand a good chance.” Then she softly added. “All he has is us right now.”

Rumi nodded, heart fluttering in understanding. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, she supposed. But she was certain it wouldn’t ease tensions if he ever realized what they’d done. If he ever became lucid again, that is.

Zoey held a finger up as an idea came to her. “What if we did a bath? A BUBBLE bath?” She exclaimed with renewed energy.

“A bubble bath?”

“Yeah! It’s nice and warm, and the bubbles will cover… you know…” she wiggled her eyebrows. Rumi’s face was a furnace. “As long as we keep the wounds dry, we can kill two birds with one stone! Get him warm AND clean all at once!”

Rumi felt her heart rate steady a bit. “Okay,” she said finally.

“YAY!” Zoey whooped, jumping into the air. “You hear that—what was his name again?— oh right, Jinu! You hear that Jinu? We don’t have to see your bum after all! Good news for everyone!” Then Zoey muttered under her breath, “Even though I would’ve been totally fine catching a glimpse of your bum…”

“Zooooeeeey,” Rumi groaned.

“I think Rumi would’ve been fine with it too,” she whispered scandalously.

“ZOEY.”

Zoey cackled again. “Let’s try to get this done before Mira gets back. As soon as she does we gotta get the oxygen on him.”

Rumi nodded, and they moved to take either side of Jinu’s arms. Rumi was especially careful of the new wound on his left one.

They were nearly to the bathroom when Jinu conveniently decided it was time to wake up. He let out an awful sound, a mix of a keen and a cough.

“Where… are you takin’ me?” He mumbled as his feet dragged against the hardwood floors.

“Oh dear,” Zoey whispered, before adding in a cheery voice. “Morning Jinu! We’re just gonna go take a bath, that’s all!”

Rumi watched as he furrowed his brows in confusion. “A bath?”

“Yep! A BUBBLE bath, won’t that be so fun?” Rumi was sure Zoey would be skipping if she could.

“…No,” he replied, sounding very put out.

“Well, you’re gonna love it!” She chirped.

“No,” he repeated, more firmly this time. Was it just Rumi, or was he becoming more lucid? “Please don’ hurt me…”

“We’re not gonna hurt you,” Rumi said finally. She rubbed his wrist where she held him, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her own.

“Please… I don’… want this…” he said weakly. It didn’t seem like he was hallucinating anymore. Which could be both a good and bad thing.

Finally they rounded the corner into their spacious guest bathroom. The tub was large and claw footed. Perfect for what they needed.

They struggled to get Jinu’s gangly legs over the edge, the three of them nearly careening to the basin multiple times, but eventually they situated the injured idol so that his feet rested comfortably against the end near the faucet. His head rolled against the porcelain as he panted for breath.

When Zoey turned on the faucet, he recoiled from the cold water on his feet.

“Ahh!” he wheezed, eyes wide open as he tried pushing away from the water. He fell into a coughing fit as the movement aggravated his lungs.

“Sorry!” Zoey winced. She quickly adjusted the faucet to a nice, warm temperature, watching Jinu’s face for any other sign of discomfort. When she was satisfied, and Jinu was no longer coughing up a lung, she stopped up the plug. “There. Perfect!” She snatched up the bottle of bubble bath on the counter, and squirted a reasonable amount into the stream.

The bubbles frothed up quickly, sending a light smell of lavender into the room. “To help him sleep,” Zoey remarked.

It was crazy how much things had shifted now that they knew Jinu was a human and not just some unfeeling monster.

They let the water fill to his waistline, just before the row of stitches at his bellybutton. Zoey pressed a waterproof bandage to the lower part of the wound just in case any water went rogue.

He stared up at them through pain filled eyes. Rumi could see the thinly veiled fear beneath them.

“Here comes the fun part,” Zoey said, holding up a sharp pair of scissors. She snapped them open and closed a couple of times, and Jinu’s tired eyes bulged.

“Wha’s that for?” He breathed, trying to scoot up against the porcelain.

“Your pants, silly! Can’t be taking a bath with your pants on!”

Jinu looked down at his legs, at the bloodied jeans that were already turning the water pink. If he had enough blood left in his body, Rumi was sure he would’ve been blushing. Instead he just let out a whimper.

“Don’t worry, we won’t look. That’s what the bubbles are for,” she winked, and then she slotted the scissors in between the skin at his waist and his boxers. They cut cleanly through the fabric, all the way down to his ankles. He flinched when Zoey leaned over him to do the other side. He kept his eyes screwed shut the entire time.

Zoey stuck out her tongue as she wormed the pants out from under his legs. She pulled the sodden fabric out of the tub and it fell with a sharp slap against the tile floor.

At least Zoey’s bubble theory was holding up. Still, Jinu stared firmly at the wall away from them, teeth clenched, breaths labored.

He flinched when they moved to start washing him off. They froze, sharing a knowing look.

“Jinu,” Zoey began, sweetly. “We’re just going to clean you off, okay?” She held up a washcloth in front of his face. He didn’t respond. He just kept burning holes into the wall, his short gasping breaths sending echoes into the room.

Rumi frowned. “Zoey, I don’t—“

“It’s okay,” Zoey replied, before lowering her voice into a whisper. “I think he’s just embarrassed.”

Rumi looked back at the boy, now devoid of all dignity and strength. Being bathed by the very people who brought him to such a pitiful state.

He was shaking.

Shouldn’t the warm water have helped bring up his temperature by now?

“Zoey, no,” she pushed her friend’s hand back down. “Wait a second.”

Rumi sat up a bit to look better into Jinu’s face. His lip was trembling.

“Jinu?”

His eyes darted to her for a split second before returning to the wall.

“Jinu,” she mustered all of the kindness of her soul into her voice. “Are you still worried that we’re going to hurt you?”

He kept staring at the wall. Then he nodded a single, stilted nod. A tear raced down his cheek and dropped into the bloodied water below.

Of course he was terrified. They hadn’t done a single thing to indicate to him that they were trustworthy. They’d done nothing but kidnap, hurt and accuse him. And now he was in incredible pain, stripped bare and halfway delirious.

Of course he thought they’d hurt him.

So Rumi did something she never dreamed she’d do. She cupped his cheek in her hand, and gently guided his face to look at hers. His eyes flitted across hers, a myriad of emotions swirling.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I—I know that I did. And I’m so so sorry.” She tried holding back tears of her own, to no avail. She hoped he was lucid enough to understand her. “I made a mistake. And now I just want to make it right. I’m never gonna hurt you again. I promise.”

He stared at her for a long time.

“Will you let us take care of you now? So we can get you back home to your Eomma?” She gave him a watery smile.

Then Jinu nodded, once, his head leaning fully into her hand as his eyes closed. She felt her palm fill with his tears, and she thumbed them away gently.

Not even a full minute passed, and he was asleep again.

Rumi gently set his head back against the porcelain. She didn’t believe that moment was enough to get Jinu to trust them. He probably wouldn’t trust them for a long time, if ever. But it was enough to get him to relax enough to relinquish his already limited control over to them.

That would have to be enough for now.

Rumi and Zoey worked quickly after that, running their washcloths down his skin, wringing them out and swiping them over his body again and again. The water turned completely red, the bubbles tinged with pink.

Rumi tried working the blood out from his fingernails and the creases in his hands. After about five minutes, she gave up. At least they’d be matching, she thought bitterly.

Thirty minutes passed, and Mira returned. She stepped up to the tub, peering down at Jinu. “What do we have going on here?” She smirked, eyebrow raised.

“We figured we’d give him a bubble bath, so we could cut his pants off under the water and avoid seeing, ya know, the goods,” Zoey said airily. “But we didn’t really think beyond that and now we don’t know how to get him out and dressed without getting a full view. And Rumi over here has never seen a naked man in real life. So… you wanna do it Mira?”

Mira flushed. So did Rumi.

“I uh, well, as much as I’d love to—“ Mira stuttered.

“I can help,” another voice said.

Rumi’s blood chilled when Celine rounded the corner. But the moment she saw her mentor's face, she stilled. Celine looked… cowed. And almost apologetic.

“Oh yeah,” Mira said, waving offhandedly. “Brought a friend. We had a good talking to, didn’t we Celine?”

Celine nodded, lips thin.

Rumi’s heart pounded. “Why did you come back?” She asked lowly, trying desperately not to let the anger and hurt from before resurface.

“I… I was wrong. And I came to make amends,” Celine said simply. Rumi didn’t expect her to say much more. But the little that she did say was more than Rumi could’ve dreamed for. “I called for a doctor. Someone who knows about these things. He’ll be here shortly. I also have some new clothes and supplies I think you could use,” she held up a linen bag that was completely full to the brim. In her other hand was an oxygen tank, complete with tubing.

She motioned to Jinu. “Can I?”

Rumi nodded, though a part of her surged with protectiveness over him. After all, Celine was the last one to hurt him.

But I was the first. Rumi thought.

The older women slowly sat down next to the tub, leaving the supplies on the floor next to her. She knelt over the tub, studying the sleeping boy.

“I can dress him,” she said, softly.

“Are you sure?” Mira asked.

Celine nodded, before leveling her gaze on each of them. Her eyes landed on Rumi. “I’m a mother. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Rumi blinked, taking a step back.

Mira nodded. “We’ll go fix up a proper place for him.” She pulled Zoey with her, taking the tank and supplies with them, and then it was just Celine and Rumi.

Rumi stood there awkwardly. “Do you need any help getting him out?”

“Not yet,” Celine said. Then she pushed the bangs back from Jinu’s forehead. But this time, it wasn’t to pry his eyes open. This time, it wasn’t to examine or judge.

This time felt different. And Rumi didn’t know what It was.

Then Celine stood up and turned on the shower head. She let the stream run into the water for a moment, before tilting Jinu’s head back and carefully pouring it down his sweat slicked hair. Then she took a dollop of shampoo and gently kneaded it into his dark locks.

And Rumi watched as Celine, the Hunter, her mentor, her mom, washed a demon’s hair.

It was quick and meticulous. But there was a certain special care that Celine took that Rumi was unaccustomed to seeing from the older woman.

Rumi wondered if she’d ever had to do something like this before.

“Will you help me stand him up?” Celine said suddenly, after she’d rinsed him off. She was careful to keep his injuries dry.

She tried to hold back her blush, which Celine immediately noticed.

“Just hold him up and close your eyes, okay?”

Rumi internally reprimanded herself at the easy solution. Why had she worked it up so much in her head?

She helped Celine hoist Jinu up and out of the bath, all while keeping her eyes squeezed shut. Celine handed him off to her to keep upright, and his head lolled against her shoulder. Rumi’s heart pounded at their proximity, and stuffed her face into Jinu’s neck so there was no chance she’d slip up and accidentally catch a glimpse of something she really didn't want to see. She could feel the pulse in Jinu's throat beat against her cheek.

She listened as Celine toweled Jinu off, before shimmying sweatpants up his legs.

It was all over in a matter of minutes.

“There,” Celine said, before taking Jinu’s weight off of Rumi. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Rumi startled at the kindness and sincerity in Celine’s voice. It was so… maternal.

They carried him back down the hall into the living room, where Mira and Zoey had arranged the couch cushions and new blankets into what they dubbed a “Comfort Palace.” It did look very comfortable. It was perfect for what Jinu needed.

They adjusted him to sit semi-upright on the cushions, bringing the new, soft blankets up to his still bare waist. Then they cleaned up any traces of blood that had escaped from the stitches and wrapped him up in fresh gauze.

Finally, Celine rolled the oxygen tank next to him. She untangled the leads and brought the cannula to his nose, wrapping it behind his ears. The moment she adjusted the oxygen volume, Jinu let out a sigh. It must’ve felt like heaven on his weakened lungs. Then she brought the blankets over his abdomen, leaving his chest exposed so the lung could continue releasing air. She looked at him a moment longer before finally stepping away. Rumi didn’t miss the way her gaze lingered on his arm wound.

Then they all sat on the couch and stared at him.

“Thank you,” Rumi said after a long while.

“You don’t need to thank me, Rumi,” Celine said quietly. She fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

Rumi nodded, but she didn't say anything. Because it wasn’t all alright. Not yet.

But maybe, one day, it could be.