Chapter 1: Dusty boxes
Chapter Text
It had been a long time — more than two decades — and yet Celine had kept, with all honor, the belongings of her friend, her sister by the sun that brought them both into the world. Ryu Mi-yeong…What a beautiful name, she would say, but even more so, that silly nickname: Mi-ya.
Rumi, though she knew Celine kept a large part of her mother’s personal belongings, had never found the courage to see them. She felt indignant, impure — as if her mixed-race presence in that mausoleum of love was enough to stain it with her bastard and corrupt origin.
That was, until the Idol Awards and its events.
After finally accepting that she is indeed half-demon, dealing with her own existence became less exhausting. Of course, she couldn’t say she loved herself as much as she loves Mira or Zoey… but still, she accepts herself. It’s a step — small, but a start.
• ★ •
Rumi lay on the penthouse couch where Huntrix lived, her thumb scrolling aimlessly across her phone’s display. She wasn’t thinking about anything — yet simultaneously, her mind felt crowded by unreachable conclusions, fragments adrift without context.
This mental monotony shattered when she heard — her ears still sensitive since Gwi-ma’s defeat — the sound of the door opening. Zoey bustled in, chatting animatedly on her phone. She seemed utterly absorbed until she tapped the virtual "hang up" button, a silly laugh escaping her smiling lips.
"I have GREAT NEWS!! —" She cut herself off, sweeping a quick glance around the room. "— IT’S FOR YOU TOO, MIRAA!"
A grunt, almost a growl, rumbled from the choreographer’s bedroom. The door creaked open, revealing Mira craning her neck into the hallway. Her signature hairstyle was absent, but her expression radiated pure disgust for existence. "What’s up? It’s seven in the morning, damn it!" The taller woman was decidedly not a friend of daylight.
Zoey ignored the complaint and flopped onto the sofa beside Rumi, who flinched as the maknae’s weight jolted the cushions.
“…Hm… so?” Rumi asked, delicate as ever but firm. She couldn’t help feeling her curiosity prickle her translucent demonic marks, which traced paths across her body. As they waited for Zoey’s reply, Mira herself sank onto the opposite end of the sofa — both older members now watching Zoey, who drummed out quick, silent claps.
“I convinced Celine to stop being stubborn and give us a week at the Jeju house!” Ever since Rumi’s fateful request to Celine… the two had drifted apart.
Rebuilding trust had been difficult, and honestly, they still felt distant. It hurt to lose the only near-maternal bond she’d ever known, but at least things were stable now. The others had forgiven Celine too — after Mira nearly sliced her in half with her guan dao. But hey, anger happens!
“Okay, but why did you do this, specifically?” Mira asked, crossing her arms. She looked more confused now than before hearing the news.
“So we can relax surrounded by nature… y’know, where we trained? Where we met! Reconnect, right?” Zoey spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Rumi raised a skeptical eyebrow, while Mira furrowed hers with a you’re-only-not-weird-because-your-cuteness-compensates glare.
“…I dunno, it seems… unnecessary? We’re fine here at home. Why go all the way to—” Rumi’s protest died under the lyricist’s pleading gaze — those huge, shimmering eyes. Damn it. Her heart couldn’t resist. Sighing in surrender, she relented: “—Okay. One week, right? Fine… I guess it’s… possible.”
Zoey shrieked with joy, leaping up and bouncing on her toes. Mira rolled her eyes and melted deeper into the couch in mock fury. But it didn’t last. Soon, all three were inexplicably buzzing with excitement. The maknae’s enthusiasm really was contagious.
• ★ •
The trip to the property was peaceful. Zoey seized the chance to sleep, Mira read about fashion, and Rumi… well… remained in her near-contemplative state. Her gaze stayed fixed on the window, watching urban sprawl give way to green flora, the soft sounds of fauna, and natural light.
She grew up here, didn’t she? How could she forget. Celine always insisted it was better there — away from big cities, on their own land. A half-demon child like Rumi wouldn’t need intense stimuli in her youth during the 2000s, right? Whatever the reason, these were her memories. Not just in her mind now, but embodied in three dimensions, stitched together by time.
Despite the scars she carried, the resentment she’d nursed, her heart whispered a melody that could tremble in her Honmoon strings — this is home.
Bobby drove them. The manager couldn’t have been more kind or attentive. Since the Idol Awards events, he’d become fiercely protective of Huntrix. Nothing else would ever hurt his girls’ morale again! The car parked, and the three stepped out. After a brief, warm goodbye…
"Call me if you need anything! Mrs. Celine isn’t here, so it’s just you three…" Bobby’s eyes held a fraternal gleam before he finally broke contact and drove off, leaving the property behind.
They watched the car vanish, then turned to face the house: moss-crusted stone walls, a small water fountain… a tiny shrine and a storage shed. The nostalgia was overwhelming…
"Now that we’re here… I CALL THE BIGGEST ROOM!" Zoey yelled, sprinting ahead like an overexcited brat. Mira’s face twisted into an almost sadistic smile.
"Think again, pest!" The tallest took off after her.
Rumi merely watched. How could they be so carefree? How could they not feel it — that mute sound when you enter a home you’ve never made peace with?
Her footsteps were slow — deliberately slow. Her gaze lingered more on the damp grass beneath her feet than on the house itself. As she climbed the few wooden steps, suitcase in hand, she inhaled. The moist air, the herbal scent… it soothed her senses just enough to suppress the tears threatening to surface.
She chose a room — her childhood room — and a soft smile touched her lips when she saw it remained almost unchanged since she’d left. The familiarity eased her nerves. Celine cared enough to preserve it. That alone eased the sting of feeling discarded.
Afternoon faded, and night fell swiftly. The three sat outside with ramyeon cups, watching stars pierce the sky as cicadas hummed. Zoey couldn’t ignore how downcast her unnie seemed. Gently, she touched Rumi’s shoulder.
Rumi flinched, blinking rapidly before meeting the black-haired girl’s eyes. "Wh-what is it?"
"You’ve been… distant. Did something happen?" Zoey asked. Words caught in Rumi’s throat. The automatic reply — I’m fine — rose, then died. Seeing the concern in both girls’ eyes… her heart ached to be honest. She’d lied so much already. She couldn’t bear another.
"...Doesn’t it feel…wrong being here?" The purple-haired girl whispered, her voice frail, stripped of its usual strength.
"Wrong? Rumi, how? If you were uncomfortable, you should’ve said before we came!" Zoey protested. Mira chimed in, uncharacteristically trying to lighten the mood:
"Yeah. If we indulged all Zoey’s ideas, we’d have a turtle aquarium in our penthouse by now." The maknae shot her a glare, puffing her cheeks. Rumi managed a faint chuckle, pulling both gazes back to her.
"It’s not that… I do want to be here! I grew up here! But it feels… unjust? Invasive? Ugh! I just — can’t explain it." Emotions warred on her face — anger, fear. She gripped her temples, curling inward as translucent marks glowed soft pink — the distorted hue they knew signaled Rumi’s deepest distress.
Her teammates pulled her into an embrace. Mira pressed a kiss to her crown.
"Hey… don’t overthink it," Zoey murmured, rubbing Rumi’s back. "You belong here. Just breathe." She brightened suddenly. "Let’s finish eating and… watch cat videos! You love cats — it’s perfect!"
Rumi’s lips quirked at the suggestion. Mira rolled her eyes in false disdain—though beneath it flickered gratitude for Zoey’s effort. Fine, Rumi thought. This is okay. Anything was better than drowning in the past alone.
• ★ •
It was their first morning at the house. Mira and Zoey left early to hunt for insects — yes, insects. Zoey harbored an almost plague-like passion for local fauna, and this was peak season to witness swarming hatchlings. Deep down, Mira felt a mix of disgust and fear toward bugs — but she’d never admit it aloud…
Meanwhile, Rumi stayed behind. Though she shared some of Zoey’s curiosity, she needed space for something… heavier.
She wandered the halls with the familiarity only a childhood home grants — ironic, since she now wielded that same intimacy to enter a place where she’d never felt welcome.
There it was: the small room Celine used as a shrine to her mother’s belongings. Celine had raised her, but always more for Mi-yeong’s sake than Rumi’s own. She didn’t blame her; it was the least her guardian could do for someone as precious as Mi-ya.
Rumi had never entered, always hiding behind her demonic heritage. But now, with no more secrets left to shield… shouldn’t her late mother’s truths be unveiled too? Celine might rage later, but that was Future Rumi’s burden.
She opened the door. Dust layered the surfaces, yet no decay or neglect tainted the air — someone had cared meticulously.
Shelves lined two walls, crammed with her mother’s life. Rumi began sifting through memories: photos of the Sunlight Sisters — Celine, Mi-yeong, and their third member — both legendary demon hunters and the greatest K-pop group of their era… a poster dominating the wall, Mi-ya radiant at its center. Rumi smiled, love and sorrow braiding tight as she hugged the faded image, a tear slipping down her cheek.
Her fingers brushed a neglected box tucked beneath the lowest shelf. She knelt, lifting its surprising weight. Inside lay stacks of tapes, CDs, albums, and letters — but her gaze snagged first on a loose photo resting atop them:
Ryu Mi-yeong at Han River Park, pregnant beneath a charming sunhat. But what stole Rumi’s breath wasn’t just her mother—it was the man beside her. Tall, powerfully built yet relaxed, his careful arm circling Mi-yeong’s waist. His features mirrored Rumi’s: calm brown eyes, the same striking purple hair cropped short and rebelliously styled, paired with a tacky goatee and a goofy smile.
…Was this her father?
Chapter 2: Love is what we have left
Notes:
To help you understand, here are some reading guide:
(Text in parentheses) - recording/video/audio
F.B: S - beginning of flashback scene
F.B: E - End of a flashback scene
Chapter Text
Her breath hitched. How… how? Celine always told her there was nothing to say about her father — that he was a monster, a violation against her mother, that everything was unplanned.
Then what did this mean? What was this photo?
She gripped the picture with both hands, trembling. The man looked so much like her…too much. It struck her instantly — she wasn’t as similar to her mother as she’d believed. Was this why Celine’s gaze hardened when she stared at her? Seeing his face was like seeing Rumi’s. But what the hell? They looked so happy. Her mother’s smile was radiant, his protective arm wrapped around her. Anyone would see a normal, joyful couple. No one could guess the tragedy lurking beneath — the brutal truths etched in the Honmoon’s cruel lines.
Hesitantly, she turned to the box. Inside lay stacks of VHS tapes, floppy disks, CDs — relics of an era so distant, yet achingly genuine. A short, hollow laugh escaped her. Nothing here was funny. Only tragic. Beneath the bundled letters, she found envelopes:
Valentines, birthdays, New Year’s Eve cards… Every silly occasion became an excuse for notes and trinkets — a purple pom-pom keychain, red-lensed men’s sunglasses. She lifted one letter. The handwriting felt… ancient. Like museum scrolls she’d seen in Jinu invitations . Her father’s hand?
"Happy 3rd Anniversary, Mi-ya! Who says men can’t remember dates? Every day with you makes fighting my worst self worth it — just to let the best of us bloom.
May we grow, in our own way, through love. It’s all we have left in the end.
Your awkward boyfriend, Yáng Shànghuī”
Her heart skipped. A sob clawed up her throat as her gums prickled near her fangs. So this was how they spoke? This was his name — Chinese? Questions swarmed her mind. A growl built in her throat. It felt unreal…a dissonant chord against everything she’d been taught. But here it was. The truth — raw and undeniable. And the sweeter it felt… the deeper it cut.
She set the box down with ceremonial care — a stark contrast to the emotional chaos reverberating in her core. Her hands clenched into fists almost instantly, and she felt, with a tremor of fear, nails longer than normal biting into her thin-skinned palms. She stared at the box again. Those VHS tapes and CDs… she’d need players for them. She scoured the room but found nothing. Maybe the nearby village would have some? Someone must still own these relics, or adapters for computers.
She left the room in quick strides. Her focus was sharp, propelled not by coherent thought but by explosions of energy surging through her body — so violent they threatened to tear through muscle and skin. But who cared? She felt closer than ever… so close to the people and truths she’d never truly known.
Rain fell now. Her traditional braid — usually so meticulously styled — had loosened, its ends plastered against her back like her soul tangled in her thoughts. She didn’t grab a raincoat or umbrella. She didn’t care about the soaking. Nothing mattered — except the killing curiosity demanding she finally define where she belonged. To find her place… it felt both near and eternally distant in her fractured existence.
She raced down the cushioned path until her feet hit the dirt road connecting the isolated property to Jeju’s nearest village. The sunny day had turned cloud-heavy and wet — maybe Mira and Zoey were heading back now, giving up their insect hunt — but… fuck it. Her strides were unnaturally swift, like a starving stray hunting through trash, desperate for scraps to soothe its sudden hunger.
She descended the hill, the slope doing nothing to disrupt her perfectly steady breath — a dissonant calm against the storm inside her. A golden gleam settled in her left eye as she reached the village sidewalks.
• ★ •
Zoey was beaming, while Mira wore a small, almost shy smile. It had been a perfect morning — even cut short by the sudden downpour.
“Your face when that butterfly landed on your shoulder?!” Zoey burst out, tears of laughter glistening in her eyes. “Priceless! You looked like you’d seen a ghost — and we literally hunt demons! Hahaha!” She doubled over again, pointing at the taller woman. Mira growled softly and swatted Zoey’s hand away.
“Hmph. I was just… keeping my guard up. That’s all,” the redhead retorted, her irritation clearly feigned. The joy outweighed any momentary annoyance.
“Well, we got amazing photos anyway! Can’t wait to show Rumi — and some were soooo pretty, right?! Imagine using them for, like… A CONCERT THEME?! OH MY GOD, I CAN SEE IT NOW!” Zoey bounced with excitement until Mira pulled her close, kissing her cheek. The rapper quieted, giggling softly. “Okay, okay… I get it.”
“They were beautiful,” Mira conceded, and they fell into comfortable silence, the rain’s gentle patter a backdrop to their warmth.
But as they neared the house, they froze: every light was off. The front door hung open like a wound.
Wrong. Rumi hated darkness — even passing clouds made her flick lights on. And leaving the door unsecured? Unthinkable. They exchanged a glance and rushed inside. Empty. Rumi was gone.
Panic seized them. Their leader was responsible, steady — but they knew her volatility. How she’d vanish, wander, suffer alone…
“W-we have to find her! Where would she go?!” Mira’s voice cracked as she turned to Zoey.
“I don’t know! Maybe down the hill? She knows this place better than we—”
“That’s what terrifies me!” Mira’s pupils shrank to small black points in the brown immensity of her gaze. “Why did you push for this?! You know it’s not safe for her here!”
“Don’t blame me! I just wanted us to bond! To have fun!”
Their voices rose, sharp and desperate, blurring the world — until lightning split the sky.
A silhouette filled the doorway.
One eye blazed gold, its pupil a needle-thin slit. They recoiled, the strangeness of the silhouette freezing them for a split second — until recognition dawned. Rumi.
Both sprinted toward her. She stood drenched, clutching something bundled in waterproof tarp. Her expression was utterly blank — no muscle twitched in tension or relief. Not even her eyelids fluttered. Her braid had fully unraveled, the purple strands plastered down her back like a veil of bruised twilight heralding night's approach.
Zoey scrambled for a towel, draping it over Rumi’s shoulders and pulling her close.
“Where were you? Y-you’re soaked through!” The black-haired girl’s voice trembled with worry and dread.
Mira reached for the wrapped object in Rumi’s grip — but the leader reflexively jerked it tighter against herself. The redhead drew a steadying breath. Not the time for sarcasm. Or fury. “Rumi… I won’t take it. Just let go… and breathe.”
Rumi’s brown eye finally focused. Slowly, mechanically, she peeled back the tarp’s edge.
Not food. Nothing you'd expect Rumi to buy.
A vintage VCR, its plastic casing yellowed with age. A stack of CD-ROM drives, cables coiled like vipers. A power strip, crusted with mud.
Zoey frowned. “What… are these?”
“Keys,” Rumi rasped. Her voice sounded scraped raw. “To locks she built.”
Mira’s gaze snapped to Rumi’s face — to the golden eye still burning with borrowed hellfire. She understood instantly: While looking for Rumi, they had seen the room for Mi-yeong open…Celine’s sealed history.
“You went to the village… for tech?” Mira’s disbelief curdled into dread. “Rumi — those tapes could be anything. Censored hunts. Classified deaths. Things that could —”
“Ruin me?” Rumi laughed — a hollow, cracking sound. “What’s left to ruin, Mira?” She hefted the bundle, the cables slithering against the tarp. “I need to see their faces. Hear their voices. Before she… before I…” The sentence died. Her knees gave way.
Zoey caught her, the bundled tech thudding to the floorboards. “Okay. Okay Unnie…We’ll watch them.” She gripped Rumi’s icy hands. “Together.”
Mira stared at the fallen VCR. A decade of dust shook loose from its vents. “Are you...sure this will work?”
“I don't know...but what am I sure of now?" Rumi asked, the words coming dry from her throat. "all that...what's left for me to do is try! It's my only way to find out the truth…”
Zoey and Mira looked at each other, but took a deep breath and gave in. There was no way to compete with a bleeding heart that was seeking its salvation — or damnation.
• ★ •
They cleaned everything carefully — as well as they could manage. They connected all the cables and wiring. Mira, surprisingly skilled with technology and hardware, made it work.
“Phew… all done,” the tallest said, standing up from the organized mess of wires supporting the system that could now supposedly play the old tapes and CDs.
They saw that the tapes and CDs started with September 4, 2002.
Rumi leaned over and placed the first tape into the player. The tape unwound. It took a while to adjust, but she persisted until sound began to emit from the connected TV — it was working!
The three sat in front of the TV, eyes fixed on the large OLED screen — especially Rumi.
(“Is it recording?” A sweet female voice asked between laughter and the sound of barking.)
(“Hold on! I’m no good with these things, damn it!” Now a deeper, animated male voice. A slight foreign accent, reminiscent of how eastern Chinese speakers might speak Korean after much practice — almost perfect. “Oh, I think it’s on! Yes! IT’S ON!!”)
(The image then appeared. It showed a room where Mi-yeong sat, her belly visibly pregnant — though not far along given its size. Beside her, an elderly small dog lay with its head in her lap. She laughed again as footsteps moved away from the camera, until finally the person’s full body came into frame.)
(It was the same man from the photo. He sat beside the woman with long, braided black hair and wrapped his arm around her waist, kissing her cheek playfully. Mi-ya laughed, giving his chest a light swat to push him away — which only made him laugh too. She whispered something to him before their attention returned to the camera.)
(“This is our pregnancy diary… for you,”) the serene-faced woman said, her hand resting gently on her belly.
(“Yeah… your mom loves cameras and attention. By the time you see this, you’ll already know that,”) the man teased, earning a soft elbow nudge from his partner.)
(“Huī! Stop that… don’t put silly ideas in our child’s head!” She rolled her eyes as he stuck out his tongue, scratching the dog between them.)
(“Oh please. Whatever they’re like, I’ll train them to be a great jokester, got it?” He glanced at Mi-ya’s stomach before looking back at the camera.)
(“Mmhm… sure, sure,” Mi-ya breathed deeply. “We made this so… no matter what you feel, whenever… you’ll know you were loved from the start.”)
(“Yeah… whether you’re big or small… chubby or skinny… sharp or slow… sporty or book-smart… down-to-earth or a dreamer…” Huī’s voice softened, turning compassionate. “Even if you’re… different. Just know you matter, okay? We’ll always be with you. Always.”)
The tape ended abruptly. Just a short introduction — yet enough to shatter the three watching it.
Mira and Zoey sat stunned. It was so sudden, so…loving. They’d never imagined Mi-ya — a demon hunter — looking so content with a man who might be a demon.
The purple-haired girl, however, sat paralyzed. Only her translucent marks glowed soft blue, her other demonic features vanished. But anguish — hell-worthy sorrow — clawed at her heart.
Her bandmates noticed. They pulled Rumi into a hug — a cocoon of warmth, like blankets wrapped around a sick child. The medium-height girl collapsed. Silently, as if the world had muted her. Yet her tears roared louder than crashing waves.
“...Rumi…you— ” Mira began, her low tone rougher than usual yet threaded with unexpected tenderness — until Rumi cut her off.
“...Celine never showed me…this.” Her voice was a frayed rope. She sat with hands locked over her thighs in a violent grip, eyes bleached by tears but still fixed on the TV’s empty screen.
“Maybe she just… she…” Zoey fumbled for an excuse, but no justification fit. Not when the truth made Rumi’s entire life feel crueler than it already was.
“Maybe. What?” The words slashed colder than she’d ever spoken. Neither Zoey nor Mira dared argue further. Against the conclusions crystallizing in the half-demon’s mind — whatever those thoughts might be — they had no defense.
• ★ •
The following days unfolded similarly. Rumi spent most hours watching and rewatching recordings of her mother with her father, sometimes just her mother with the other Sunlight Sisters.
(“Y’know, I think your mom’s the best dancer in the group — really lives up to her position!” The purple-haired man spoke from the recording, lounging on a sofa. He radiated calm, relaxed energy — a himbo’s vibe? He had his charm.)
(“Oh, darling, don’t exaggerate,” the woman beside him replied, her hand tracing the now-significant curve of her belly, expression peaceful.)
(“Just telling the truth!” Huī exclaimed with theatrical flair, flashing a grin — golden glints in his eyes, pointed fangs glinting. “—and she sings better than Celine, hmm?” His whisper made Mi-ya gasp, then burst into laughter.)
Rumi chuckled softly too. She’d learned so much: Her mother was calm, centered, quick-witted, and optimistic. Her father was playful, loved sports, and always cracked dumb jokes. They’d met after a Sunlight Sisters concert where Shànghuī worked security.
About him being a demon? None of the tapes mentioned it outright — but it was obvious. From his occasional visible marks beneath his shirt to those sharp fangs.
The Huntrix vocalist was pulled from her thoughts by approaching footsteps. Mira stood there holding a bowl of dak kalguksu. She set it on the coffee table and handed Rumi chopsticks and a spoon.
“You haven’t eaten today… You can’t neglect yourself,” Mira said firmly — not scolding, but anxious concern.
Rumi eyed the soup. It smelled good, but hunger felt distant. Still, she lifted a noodle to her lips. “Thanks… I’m just… not really hungry.”
The redhead sighed and sat beside her, watching Rumi eat slowly. She glanced at the paused recording on screen. “They seem… really nice, huh?” Her tone aimed for lightness but carried a pang of envy.
“Yeah… they were…” Rumi stirred the broth absently. “...If they were so happy… why did she tell me that?”
“Rumi… I know seeing this means a lot to you — and I’m not judging! But… you can’t define their whole relationship from clips— ” Mira gently touched Rumi’s shoulder. The purple-haired girl flinched, brows furrowing.
“Then what should I do, huh?? Believe Celine?? Believe I’m just a mistake?? That I’m—I’m—” Words died in her throat. Anger and grief warred equally, paralyzing her voice. She craved silence — yet foolishly drowned herself in noise. Mira touched her again. This time, Rumi didn’t pull away. She allowed the comfort — a small refuge from her own stubborn pride.
“I know this matters… and it’s good you’re seeing you’re not what Celine claimed… but don’t lose yourself in expectations.” The choreographer’s voice held the exact wisdom Rumi needed. “And even if you are…anyway… Zoey and I will always love you. Always…” She leaned in, kissing Rumi softly. The leader accepted it, their lips meeting tenderly.
Their relationship was still new, undefined. Zoey and Mira had been lovers for years…but with Rumi opening up, she was being drawn into their orbit. And maybe her father was right:
Love is all we have left in the end.
Chapter 3: The best
Summary:
A flashback to the girls early days.
Notes:
Even though I know what Rumi's father's design was supposed to look like, I can't help but imagine my own, with him looking much more like Rumi physically. :3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
(The setting was a recording studio, decked in quintessential 2000s decor. Mi-ya toyed with a nearby microphone, perched on a chair. Huī sat opposite her, his hair slightly longer than in earlier tapes. They laughed easily, relaxed and playful — until the camera’s audio clicked on, and they shifted into frame with practiced comfort.)
(" —How we met? Well… you could say it was almost… ordinary. Especially for us." The woman grinned at her partner, eyes sparkling.)
("Yeah… I’ve always liked odd jobs. Too old to care what my ‘grumpy, powerful big boss’ wants, y’know? That night, I was working security… easy chance to attack? Maybe. But I was too tired to bother." He adjusted restlessly in his chair, as if reliving the moment.)
("I was heading backstage when I saw this tall and strong guy with weird posture. Thought, ‘No way he’d strike here, surrounded by people?’ I approached, already planning how to" — she mimed thrusting a blade — "take him down." Huī just laughed.)
("See? Your mom’s insane! But what hunter isn’t? You’re all weirdos — and you call us monsters!")
("Excuse me?? It’s our job. Not my fault you chose to be the goofiest around! You're irresponsible even trying to stay alive!")
("Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Look where I am now!" Mi-ya rolled her eyes.)
("Anyway… your dad dodged me. Guess he likes taunting death? He kept showing up at my gigs — weirder jobs each time. I’d strike… he’d vanish.")
("Truth is… I made excuses to see her." Shànghuī’s voice softened. "Can’t blame me. Mi-yeong’s too beautiful." He said it like simple fact. “One meet-up led to another… We had our first date at a hanok village shrine in Seoul. No weapons, no anger, just to talk”)
("And now… here we are. With you." Mi-ya rested a hand on her belly — roughly seven months along.)
("Yeah…" Huī leaned close, his palm covering hers. "Having you… and our little Rumi—" His gaze flickered to the camera, then back to Mi-ya. "—is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.")
• FB: S •
The damp grass blades tangled between her fingers, cool and grounding. Her gaze remained stubbornly fixed downward — on the soil, the earth, the only elements that felt truly solid beneath her. Even as a child, when the suffocating weight of her legacy — her sin, not of deeds committed but of blood inherited — threatened to buckle her small shoulders, it was the earth that held her upright.
“—Do you understand me clearly, Rumi?” Celine’s voice sliced through the girl’s thoughts, wrenching the teenager from her momentary refuge.
“Y-yes, Celine,” she stammered. The hesitation in her voice drew a slow, deliberate blink from the older woman, her expression sharpening into something between scrutiny and icy satisfaction.
“Do not stutter. It reflects poorly. Conceal the marks. Conceal any… unnatural manifestations. You must set the standard. This is the purpose for which I raised you. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Celine stepped smoothly beside her — then deliberately positioned herself one pace ahead. Not as a guide leading forward, but as a barrier, a containment.
The door opened. Two girls entered:
The first stood noticeably taller than Rumi, slender to the point of sharpness. Her features held a vulpine precision — high cheekbones, a keen gaze. Her salmon-pink hair was gathered into two neat high pigtails, the rest cascading loose except for two artfully arranged front strands framing her sculpted face.
The second girl was petite, her build delicate yet softly curved like an oil-pastel drawing. Her large, luminous eyes held a warm olive-brown hue, perfectly complementing the scatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Jet-black hair was tied into two low buns, her blunt-cut fringe uneven — as if she’d chopped it herself.
Celine’s impassive mask dissolved instantly into a polished smile — a weapon honed over relentless years. Rumi mirrored it reflexively. Do not falter. Do not let the bitterness surface. Not here. Not before these girls who would become her teammates. Not before those she was destined to lead.
The older woman stepped forward, placing herself squarely between the two newcomers and the half-demon she privately…Well, that doesn't matter, right? She extended her hands in a shallow, formal bow. The girls returned it precisely.
“Zoey…” Celine’s voice softened artificially as she addressed the shorter girl with the dark buns and freckles.
“…and Mira.” Her focus shifted to the fierce-featured redhead. “You have passed the final selection trials. From today, you will train alongside her—” a slight gesture toward Rumi, “—your sunbae, Rumi.”
She stepped aside.
The three teenagers stood facing each other. Nervous energy thickened the air. A heavy silence descended, each girl mute for reasons hidden deep within herself — reasons the others could not yet begin to grasp.
• ★ •
The training sessions during those first weeks were catastrophic. Flimsy strikes, directionless falls. All three girls were over fourteen, yet Celine seemed to prefer training children over them.
Zoey possessed not a shred of confidence. She’d apologize after every remotely aggressive strike, perpetually terrified of making mistakes. She sought Celine’s approval for every pivot, every step.
Mira was the opposite. She refused to acknowledge any error — even when her attack forms or dance moves threatened to dislocate joints or snap tendons.
Rumi? She was technically the strongest, but it felt hollow. The girl moved with hesitation, haunted by the fear of her own existence. She operated like a detached limb — present but disconnected. Their souls couldn’t synchronize. The former hunter knew this was partly her fault; she’d raised Rumi in isolation, with apathy as her teacher. But it was the price paid for being born half-demon.
Celine dragged a heavy hand down her face, a frustrated groan escaping her lips. She raised her palm. Rumi and Zoey froze mid-strike. Mira kept pummeling the training dummy until, eventually, she too stilled.
“...Something wrong?” Rumi asked. She knew Celine’s expressions too well; the question was rhetorical.
“Yes.” The woman strode toward them, resting a hand on Mira’s shoulder — the redhead still heaving from brutalizing the dummy. “You three… are too disconnected to train effectively. You must… learn to coexist. The failure is mine — I assumed it would work organically. So, we change the regimen.”
“H-how?” Zoey whispered, bracing for punishment.
“We start simply: you’ll keep your private rooms for now… but from today, you sleep together. Eat together. Spend all non-training hours together.”
To Zoey, it sounded ordinary.
To Rumi, it felt like a sentence.
To Mira, it was absurd.
“Huh?! Hold on! I’m not sacrificing my peace in this fucking hanok hellhole to bunk with Miss Bouncy-Happy and Purple-Hair Weirdo! Bullshit!” Mira shoved the dummy aside, surging to her feet.
“Language, Mira.” Celine stepped closer, her stare impaling the girl’s fury. “This isn’t optional. You’re a trio now. The Honmoon demands it. You’ve been intertwined since birth — and you’ll stay that way until death. No arguments.” She pointed toward the house, tone glacial. “Move your belongings. Now.”
Zoey went first — a genuine smile touching her lips for the first time in weeks. Mira rolled her eyes, lingered in defiance, then trudged after her. Rumi trailed last. Celine seized her shoulder from behind — not gently, but with grim urgency.
“This too is training, girl. Hide. Don’t let them see you. Don’t fail.”
Rumi’s throat tightened. She nodded.
Celine released her, wiping her palm on her shirt — as if scrubbing off filth.
• ★ •
“Well, guess we’re officially roommates!!” Zoey’s voice bubbled like spring water, her eyes refracting the low lamplight as they darted between Mira’s stony profile and Rumi’s rigid posture near the hanok’s paper door. Mira didn’t glance up from sharpening her practice knives. Her expression was carved granite — boredom etched into the set of her jaw, disgust in the downward tug of her lips.
Rumi stood statue-still near the window, moonlight catching the violet strands of her braid. She looked like a child left clutching a grocery cart in a fluorescent-lit aisle — small, exposed, braced for a scolding that never came. The imminence of disaster hung on her like damp silk.
“Ugh, whatever.” Mira’s whetstone scraped steel, a grating counterpoint. “Why’re you shrieking? It’s four walls and three beds. Not a theme park.”
“Because it’s special!” Zoey pressed, undeterred, twisting the hem of her oversized sleep shirt. “Roommates share secrets! Do each other’s hair! When I was at the international program in—”
“—Burbank. Yeah, yeah.” Mira slammed the knife down. “We know. Little Miss California rolls deep. Spare us the brochure.” Her eye-roll was so violent Rumi half-expected a tendon to snap.
“...Burbank wasn’t boarding, but…” Zoey’s voice shriveled, the light in her eyes dimming like a guttered candle. Mira’s disdain was a physical weight. “...it’s just… it could be nice? Rumi?”
The name hooked into Rumi’s consciousness, yanking her from the suffocating echo of Celine’s command: Hide. Don’t let them see. Don’t fail. The damp grass of the training yard, the phantom pressure of Celine’s grip on her shoulder — it all crowded her vision, leaving Zoey’s hopeful face blurred.
“S-sure.” The word scraped her throat raw. “Of course.” Flat. Weightless. A leaf tossed onto the pavement.
Mira shoved herself upright, the futon creaking protest. “Done. Daydream with Lavender Lunatic over there. I’m getting transferred.” She snatched noise-canceling headphones, drowning the room in distorted bass before slumping into her corner, a fortress of coiled tension and angry synth beats.
Zoey flinched as if struck. The air thickened, pressing down. Her lower lip trembled, a traitorous wobble. Tears welled, hot and insistent.
Don’t. Not here. Not night one.
Weak.
Pathetic.
They’ll send you back—
Warmth. Roughness. Pressure.
A hand closed gently around her forearm. Larger than hers. Calloused palms whispering of relentless training, taut bowstrings, the grip of a sword hilt. Yet the touch was deliberate. Careful.
Rumi had crossed the room. She knelt before Zoey, the moonlight catching the unexpected softness in eyes usually shuttered like fortress gates. A fracture in the ice.
“Hey.” Rumi’s voice was low, a vibration felt more than heard beneath Mira’s sonic barrage. “Look at me.” Her gaze was an anchor in the sudden, silent storm of Zoey’s panic.
“...b-but she hates —” Zoey choked, a tear escaping, tracing a hot path down her freckled cheek.
“She doesn’t have to like the room.” Rumi’s thumb brushed Zoey’s wrist, a fleeting, grounding stroke. “You can like it. It’s okay to want… nice things.” A pause, fragile as rice paper. “And we will have fun. Learn secrets. Become…” She searched for the word, unfamiliar on her tongue, “…best friends. Yeah?”
Zoey stared. False comfort she knew — plastic smiles, brittle reassurances that crumbled under pressure. This… this touch, this quiet intensity in Rumi’s usually guarded eyes… it felt durable. Real. A fragile bud of trust unfurled beneath the rough hand. Another tear fell, but this time, it birthed a smile — wide, toothless, utterly vulnerable, lighting her face like dawn.
A soft puff of air escaped Rumi — almost a laugh. Surprised. Warm. “Good. Sleep now. Tomorrow…” A ghost of her own smile touched her lips. “…we plan…friend things.” Strategy. Something she understood.
“Yes! Absolutely!” Zoey bounced up, the despair sloughed off like an old coat. She executed a quick, flustered bow. “Goodnight, Rumi!~” She scrambled into her futon, burrowing under the quilt, her breathing deepening into sleep’s rhythm within minutes.
Rumi remained kneeling. Only when Zoey’s breaths were steady, only when Mira’s headphones emitted a faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump, did she finally exhale. A long, silent release, expelling the specter of Celine’s expectations, the phantom sting of rejection, the gnawing fear of exposure.
No tremors. No missteps. No weakness.
The hunter’s creed solidified within her, cold and hard. She would be this pillar. This unwavering strength. For Zoey’s fragile hope. For the unit’s survival. For the Honmoon binding them.
She would build towering columns of resilience. Even if the ground beneath was nothing but the crumbling bedrock of her own fractured self.
• ★ •
The three stood rigid before Celine, awaiting orders in the cavernous training hall. The silence hummed with tension. Mira spun a throwing knife across her knuckles — shink, shink, shink — the blade catching slivers of fluorescent light. Zoey leaned forward slightly, eyes darting between the whirling steel and Mira’s impassive face.
“You could… maybe put those away?” Zoey whispered, voice feather-light.
Mira’s hand snapped shut, catching the blade mid-air. Her smile was a predator’s flash of teeth. “Want me to test its balance? On you?” Zoey flinched backward, colliding with Rumi’s shoulder. Mira chuckled, low and grating, resuming her lethal fidgeting.
Celine observed them, a leaden weight settling in her chest. Dissonant. Fractured. No hunter cadre she’d known — not even the volatile Sunlight Sisters — felt this fundamentally misaligned. They were three shattered notes refusing a chord.
“—Are we just decorative? Or do you actually have—” Mira’s complaint sliced the air, sharp as her blades.
“Idol training begins today.” Celine’s voice, cool and precise, cut her off. “I’ve secured instructors. Vocal coaches. Choreographers. Trusted professionals.” She paused, watching Mira’s fingers still around the knife hilt. “Your regimen splits now: mornings for the fight and hunts, afternoons for the stage. Salon Three. Now.”
A swift, synchronized bow. Mira moved first — a rare, almost imperceptible lightness in her step.
“...Rumi?” Zoey murmured as they navigated the polished corridors, her gaze fixed on Mira’s retreating back. “She seems… different. Excited?”
“Hm?” Rumi pulled her focus from Celine’s retreating silhouette. “Oh. Dance, maybe? Do you enjoy it?”
“Love it!” Zoey’s hands fluttered like nervous sparrows. “Though I’m more ‘enthusiastic stumble’ than ‘graceful swan’...”
“Then let’s not be late!” Rumi nudged her forward, a tentative smile touching her lips.
The studio was a temple of mirrors and sprung floors. Warm-up stretches became tremors in overworked muscles. Breathing exercises scraped raw throats. And the dance drills — merciless, intricate, exhausting.
All three held their ground, but Mira… Mira transcended.
Her body wasn’t moving to the music — it was the music. Every extension was a lightning strike. Every pivot, a tectonic shift. Precision fused with ferocity. Murmurs rippled through the instructors — “Prodigy,” “Unnatural control,” “Watch the torque on that fouetté—” — but Mira existed in a vacuum of pure motion. Sweat darkened her rose-gold hairline, plastering strands to her temples. Her breaths came in sharp, controlled bursts. She wasn’t dancing. She was waging war on the empty air.
Zoey and Rumi stood transfixed. It wasn’t skill alone — it was witnessing a supernova contained in human form. A comet tearing through atmosphere.
When the final note faded, Mira doubled over, chest heaving. She grabbed her water bottle, gulping desperately. Footsteps approached. She straightened, eyes narrowing.
“What? Come to gloat while I’m winded?”
Zoey retreated half a step. Rumi’s hand closed around her wrist — an anchor.
“You…” Zoey swallowed, finding steel beneath the awe. “You dance like… like fire given bones. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Mira’s laugh was brittle. “Save the sarcasm. We aren’t friends.”
“It’s not sarcasm.” Zoey stepped forward, voice dropping, stripping away all uncertainty. “It’s awe. You’re…fantastic!”
Silence. Mira lowered the bottle. Her gaze — usually dismissive, predatory — flickered with something raw. Disbelief?
“She’s right,” Rumi added softly. “You pulled every eye. Even the instructors forgot to critique.”
A faint, impossible flush crept up Mira’s neck. She jammed her hands into her pockets, shoulders rigid. “...Thanks?” The word sounded alien on her tongue. She wrestled with herself, the silence stretching taut.
Finally, gruffness masking vulnerability: “You… eh…Zoey? Yeah, you’re messy. Wild. Like a puppy chasing leaves.” A beat. “But… you feel it. The music. Right here.” A calloused knuckle tapped her own sternum. “That… matters more than clean lines.”
Zoey’s eyes widened — not at the backhanded compliment, but at the effort. Mira had met sincerity with… something not cruel.
Rumi drifted back, a quiet warmth blooming beneath her ribs. Progress. Fragile, unexpected. Like finding a single, perfect bloom pushing through cracked concrete. Even a broken clock, she thought, is right twice a day.
• ★ •
Panic lived in her bones.
Panic at being.
Panic at existing.
Panic at feeling.
Celine had sworn demons felt nothing — so why did Rumi’s mind blaze with murderous sparks, like embers catching dry tinder?
Mira and Zoey slept nearby. This shared room wasn’t sanctuary—it was a cage. Alone, she could crumble in silence. Now? Even that was stolen. Her throat itched to scream. Gums throbbed. Hands trembled. Hunger — real hunger — gnawed at her ribs.
Demons feast on human souls. Demons gorge on fragile, soft, succulent flesh. Was Celine naive to think Rumi wouldn’t crave the same? Or did she know fighting it was futile? This hunger wasn’t for blood — it was for peace. For tenderness. For love. It devoured the purple-haired girl from within.
Her nails dug into her arms — deeper than human strength allowed. Deeper than any guardian of the Honmoon, any shaman-born warrior, should fathom. Nothing justified the abomination she was.
Her breath hitched. Think happy thoughts. Light. Joy. Anything—
“You’re the worst thing to happen to our kind. You know that, don’t you?” Celine’s voice hissed in her memory. The day her cursed origin was laid bare.
Rumi, the half-demon.
Rumi, the hunter who is also prey.
Rumi, the girl whose birth killed her mother.
Rumi, unwanted by light or darkness.
Rumi, disposable.
Rumi, proof even gods make mistakes.
Tears broke free. Why did hope make the void wider? Why couldn’t she be normal? Like her mother? Like anyone?
The Golden Honmoon was her only beacon — a dream of standing bare-armed before the world, her true voice unleashed. But until then? She was a walking error. A thinking, regretting ghost. Acting. Repenting.
Lost in anguish, she didn’t hear the click of the light switch.
Didn’t feel the dip in the mattress.
Zoey and Mira sat on her bed, haloed in sudden light. No words. No judgment. Not even from Mira. Only silence — thick as a blanket. The eyes held compassion, so unknown to the hybrid, hidden and suffering in front of them.
It drowned her deeper.
Couldn’t they see?
Couldn’t they smell the rot in her?
Heaven, spare them. Spare them from this wretched thing festering beside them.
Why?
Rumi was the worst thing that had ever happened.
• FB: E •
Notes:
You know, I confess that I'm very surprised by the fact that I got so many hits and kudos. Like, I never imagined that a stupid idea of mine could be appreciated by so many people. So thank you very much :)
I'm writing scripts and creating my own perspectives for the mythology. I want to respect Korea's own roots, of course, but I'm having a lot of fun thinking about how to adapt it to the KpDH universe.
I'm also trying my best to make the way the girls and characters speak sound fluid in general. Dialogue is a weak point of mine, so it's been a constant struggle.
By the way, I have twitter, @/lzite_ough (same id as here) and I have a strawpage https:/ /lzite.straw.page
I would genuinely love to hear if you have any suggestions or debatable ideas.
Comments are also welcome, by the way!
Chapter Text
Her head was heavy, but it felt safe. There was something steadying in being the anchor — a place where ships made of sorrow could finally come to shore.
Rumi breathed slowly, letting that heaviness settle into Mira’s shoulder like a tired tide. The redhead ran her fingers through Rumi’s hair in slow, absent strokes, her eyes lazily following some video playing on her phone, barely paying attention. Her attention was with Rumi — it always was.
Zoey padded over to them without a word, kissed Mira softly, then sank down beside Rumi, naturally falling into place on her other side. Rumi smiled to herself. Being in the middle like this — warm, enclosed, theirs — was something she loved more than she usually let on.
“Finally settled down, huh?” Zoey said with a small grin. “You always give me crap for being obsessive, but it’s honestly so cute how you fall headfirst into something once it gets under your skin.”
A soft, scratchy laugh escaped Rumi’s throat. Her eyelids lifted, just enough to find Zoey’s face.
“Shut up… I just… wanted to know more about them. It’s… I don’t know. It’s always been there, in the back of my mind.”
“That’s fair,” Mira replied after a moment. “But, honestly? If I had the chance to not know my parents, I think I’d take it.”
Mira shifted slightly, and Zoey reached across to tap her thigh with a knowing hand.
“What?” Mira asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Mira, don’t turn this into your tragic lone wolf monologue,” Zoey said, dramatically rolling her eyes — but she leaned closer to Rumi all the same, like instinct. “Still… yeah. I think I’d do the same.”
Silence followed. Not the soft kind, but something a little jagged around the edges. Rumi felt it — that space, that discomfort. Probably her fault. Mira and Zoey were always the ones watching her closely, holding her through the darker moments, even when she didn’t ask. She should return that. She wanted to return that — offer something gentle, lift them out of it, like they always tried to do for her.
“Well… this got real bleak, huh?” she muttered, straightening a little. She reached for their hands — Mira’s on one side, Zoey’s on the other — and held them like mooring ropes. “How about we think of something to do?”
“Like what? We’re stuck in the middle of Jeju’s countryside,” Mira grumbled. “There’s nothing but trees and those nosy old ladies down in the village.”
“We could go look at the local biota!”
“Again? Seriously?” Rumi snorted. “Sometimes I swear, if we weren’t K-pop idols, you’d be off studying bugs or something.”
“Marine biology,” Zoey corrected, holding her chin up with playful pride. She went quiet for a second, thoughtful. Then her voice softened. “But… it’s true. If we weren’t idols. Or caught up in all this demon-hunting nonsense… what do you think we’d be doing right now?”
Mira and Rumi looked at each other, briefly. It wasn’t a question they asked often. Being idols — being demon hunters — had become muscle memory, like breathing or blinking. It was the shape their lives had always taken. But time would move on. They would grow older. Fade, maybe. Be worn down by an industry that prized youth like it was currency.
“Well… I guess I’d be a fashion designer, maybe a model… or something tech-related. I like that kind of stuff,” Mira said with her usual layer of disinterest, though the honesty underneath gave her away.
“Oooh, Mira as a nerd? That actually sounds kind of cool,” the maknae teased — only to be rewarded with a magnificent middle finger from Mira. Worth it. Zoey grinned like she’d won a prize. Rumi watched their exchange with something warm and peaceful sitting in her chest, even if she herself still had no clear answer.
“...I didn’t learn much as a kid beyond what I was forced to learn,” Rumi admitted quietly, her voice softer. “So I never really pictured myself doing anything else. But… I think I’d be a cook. Or something that works with your hands.”
“Wait, really? Huh. Never pictured you doing that,” Zoey blinked, clearly surprised. “I don’t know — I figured model, maybe actress?” Mira nodded along in agreement.
“Actress, maybe. Model? Not so sure. But yeah, I like working with my hands. I used to do a lot of stuff when I was bored. These days… I guess I only draw when I’ve got nothing else to do.”
“Hold on — you draw?!” Zoey and Mira said at the same time, eyes wide.
“Yeah? Why— what about it?”
“I’ve never seen you hold a pencil, like, ever,” Mira added, her voice laced with mock betrayal.
Rumi shot her a dry, almost offended look. “I just don’t draw in front of you, okay? I do it when I can’t sleep. Or something. Geez, do I really come across as that personality-less?”
“That’s not it! It’s just— come on! You should show us!” Zoey insisted, the expression on her face veering toward mock-serious. “What happened to ‘no more secrets’? Huh?”
She poked at Rumi’s ribs to tickle her, grinning wickedly.
“Hey!! Okay! Stop! I said stop—!” Rumi squirmed under the attack, laughing in protest. Zoey only let up after a few seconds. “It’s just something kinda ordinary, alright? Everyone’s got things they keep to themselves. Not everything needs a dramatic reveal!”
“Well… yeah. Rumi’s got a point,” Mira said, even as Zoey stared at her like she'd just committed high treason. "...What?” Mira asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Don’t you dare, Mira!” Zoey pointed at her, scandalized. “You didn’t say that when you told me that in high school you used to—”
The moment Zoey started that sentence, Mira's eyes widened with horror. She shot up from the couch in a panic — accidentally knocking Rumi over in the process, since she’d been leaning on Mira’s shoulder.
“OKAY, OKAY! You know what?? I would love to play a round of Yut Nori until I’ve got permanent frown lines on my forehead—”
She stormed toward the entryway, throwing on her shoes in a flurry and heading out the door. Zoey and Rumi looked at each other for a beat, then burst into laughter — falling into each other’s arms like kids trying not to fall off a seesaw.
But when they noticed that Mira was actually serious, they scramb
led to their feet and hurried after her, still giggling as they went.
• ★ •
The walk along the worn-down sidewalk, bathed in the golden hush of late afternoon, was strangely soothing. None of the three dared to break the quiet — the kind that didn’t ask to be preserved, but simply was. Their eyes drifted across the neighborhood houses, an odd but comforting blend of old-world tradition and clean-lined modernity. It grounded them in a way.
“I think I kinda get Celine now,” Zoey said, arms gesturing wide as her voice broke the silence, gently. “Like, I need modern tech to live, obviously, but look at this place. Isn’t it way prettier than those clinic-looking houses in Seoul?”
“Ugh, totally. I hate minimalism,” Mira muttered — and somehow, she was now carrying three bottles of soju in a plastic bag?
“...Mira,” Rumi blinked. “Where did those bottles come from?”
“I bought them. You seriously didn’t notice?”
“No…?” Zoey and Rumi said in unison.
“You two are hopeless. No wonder you’re the ones who always get hurt when we’re out demon hunting,” she snorted, casually swinging the bag like it didn’t contain glass and alcohol. Zoey opened her mouth to fire back — but then all three of them felt it.
It had been a long time since they’d felt that vibration — the unmistakable hum of the honmoon. But this time, it didn’t ring in that soft, holographic shimmer it had gained after Gwi-ma’s defeat. No. It glowed sickly.
A yellow-green light. Unnatural. Wrong.
“...What the hell?” Mira breathed.
Rumi was already moving, already summoning her sword without thinking — gods, it had been a while since she’d done that.
“...The honmoon was breached. But how—? Didn’t we defeat the demons?” Zoey asked aloud, voicing the question that was already forming in all their minds.
But this wasn’t the time for questions.
Rumi raised her hand in a gesture for silence. Her gaze sharpened, every nerve alert. Her senses flared — too much. Ever since she stopped suppressing the demon part of herself, things like this were changing constantly. Shifting beneath her skin. Every instinct rang louder than before, like the world itself was speaking to her.
They moved quietly, weapons drawn, feet soft on the pavement. The street was, thankfully, empty. A sound rustled from a nearby bush.
Without hesitation, Zoey threw a shin-kal — the blade zipped through the air, landing with a sharp whistle. Something yelped. The three of them stepped closer, parting the brush carefully — and froze.
She’d hit a hydropot.
“What!?” Rumi said, stunned. Mira immediately reached over and flicked Zoey on the forehead.
“See? That’s what you get! You just killed some poor creature!” Mira scolded, and Zoey pouted.
“Oh, screw off… You would've done the same thing if you used shin-kal instead of that giant woldo.”
As always, the two of them fell into their usual, pointless argument — no real malice, just noise. Familiar.
Rumi barely heard them. Something in her mind was still calculating, still stuck on the honmoon, on the feel of her blade.
“...Wait,” she said slowly, “our weapons can’t hurt things from our world…"
She didn’t finish the thought. A loud crack echoed in the air — sharp, like a bone snapping — and then it happened. The marks on her body lit up. That same sickly, yellow-green glow. Poison-colored.
Something was very, very wrong.
• ★ •
The sound of bones cracking filled the air — sharp, unnatural, too close. The three hunters froze, their spines chilled, their eyes locking onto the body of the small mammal.
Its flesh twitched — no, it quivered, like something inside was boiling. The soft brown fur of the deer began to split open along unnatural seams. A rotting stench poured out from those ruptures, the kind that clung to your throat and made your lungs recoil. Greenish pus oozed from the wounds, thick and glistening.
Mira and Zoey staggered back a step, genuine nausea rising in their throats. Zoey even gagged, pressing her wrist against her mouth.
But Rumi… Rumi smelled something else beneath the rot. Something deeper.
Not just decay. Information.
A warning carried through chemical trace, like a code written in rot.
“—GET BACK. NOW!” she shouted, her voice low but commanding. Instinct tore through her chest like lightning.
They didn’t argue. All three stepped away fast, just as the creature’s body began to thrash violently.
It was transforming.
Grotesque sounds — stretching, ripping, splintering. Muscle fibers burst apart only to stitch themselves back together in warped patterns. The ribs cracked through the skin and curved outward, forming a jagged exoskeleton. The jaw dislocated with a sickening pop to make room for a second row of teeth, along with a thick, heavy tongue that rolled out like meat.
Its horns extended, twisted into cruel spirals. Fangs grew where no fangs had been.
“What the actual fuck—?!” Mira shouted, already slipping into a combat stance. Her knuckles were white around her weapon.
The thing before them was no longer a hydropot. It was standing. A bipedal beast, stitched together like a bastard child of demon and animal, its presence so wrong it made the air hum with static. And beneath its corrupted fur — marks.
Familiar. Poison-colored. Twisting like tattooed gas across its skin.
Rumi’s own patterns burned in response. That same sickly yellow-green in the creature sparked a reaction in her — but this time, her markings flared royal blue, piercing and cold, as if needles of ice were driving straight into her muscles.
She gasped but didn’t hesitate.
She knew. Her body knew. This was no ordinary corruption.
Whatever this was… it had crossed over. And they had a world to protect. No time for hesitation.
It was time to fight.
The beast lunged.
A blur of bone, claw, and rotted sinew crashed forward like a tidal wave of instinct and malice. Its tongue snapped like a whip, aiming straight for Zoey’s head.
But the youngest hunter was faster.
Zoey ducked low, pivoted on her heel, and flung two shin-kal from her fingers in a sharp arc. They glittered midair, catching the faintest shimmer of moonlight — like throwing stars carved from constellations. One embedded into the beast’s shoulder; the other grazed its neck, hissing as it burned through corrupted fur.
The creature shrieked, a sound like both horn and scream, and spun toward her—
Only for Mira to slam into its side, woldo swinging with brutal grace.
The pastel, starlit blade carved into the monster’s flank with a silken rip, splitting muscle and ichor in a clean stroke. She twisted the weapon, forcing a spray of blackened blood across the clearing, and leapt back before its claws could retaliate.
“You good?” Mira barked to Zoey without looking.
“Pss, Yeah,” Zoey panted, already summoning another pair of shin-kal with a flick of her fingers. Her sternum glowed faintly lavender, her energy syncing with the blades as if they were extensions of breath.
Rumi moved in silence.
While the others engaged directly, she flanked the creature, feet barely whispering against the grass. Her blade — tiger-faced, wide, the tip curved like a crescent moon — glowed with a soft, dangerous light. The patterns on the metal shifted ever so subtly, as if the constellations embedded in the steel were watching.
The moment the beast tried to pivot toward Mira again, Rumi struck.
She leapt, blade overhead, and brought it down across the monster’s back in a diagonal arc. The steel sang — not with music, but with pressure, like the sigh of a thousand stars exhaling. Her sword didn’t slice; it severed. Reality itself seemed to ripple along the edge as it passed through corrupted flesh.
A demon’s roar echoed behind her as she landed.
The creature buckled, half-collapsing with a guttering scream, black ichor boiling from the wound. Its legs spasmed, twitching violently — but it wasn’t done.
It should have fallen. Instead, it morphed. Again.
The ichor around its wounds began to congeal and harden, forming crystal-like armor over its back and arms. Not divine — no, this was bastardized mimicry. A grotesque parody of the Huntrix’ own weapons, its crystal surface glittering sickly under starlight, pulsing not with magic but hunger. Rumi’s breath caught.
“…It’s copying us.”
Zoey’s shin-kal shattered against the new armor. Mira’s next strike only scraped a glowing groove across it, barely drawing blood.
“Shit—! We need to break that defense before it learns more!” Mira shouted.
Rumi’s eyes narrowed. She gripped her blade with both hands. The markings along her arms were searing now, her heartbeat pulsing in sync with the royal-blue glow. Her connection to the realms — her heritage — surged forward, demanding action.
“Push it to the center,” she said. Her voice was calm, but something ancient stirred behind it.
Mira didn’t argue. She charged again, swinging wide to herd the monster into the open.
Zoey followed from the opposite side, her shin-kal forming a glowing cage with each throw, keeping the beast penned in.
And Rumi — Rumi stepped into the starlight. Her blade lifted. The air grew colder.
The constellations on the sword brightened, aligning. The tiger faces etched beneath them opened spectral eyes.
And then— Rumi ran.
A blur of midnight blue and silver, she dashed forward and vanished, reappearing behind the creature in a single blink. Her blade flashed in a wide crescent, carving a sigil midair — one that shimmered with an ancient roar of something celestial and wild. She spoke no spell song. Her blade was the invocation.
The sigil detonated.
A burst of cold, silent force — as if a glacier had exhaled through the void of space — slammed into the creature’s exposed side. The armor cracked. Spiderweb fractures danced across its body.
Then Mira vaulted, driving her woldo into the center of that fracture with all the weight of her momentum.
The beast howled, its form spasming, cracking, unraveling.
And Zoey — brilliant, precise, furious — flicked one final shin-kal toward the center of its skull. The blade sunk deep, flaring a soft, pinkish-white light that pulsed once… and then burst inward.
The creature collapsed. Its body twitched, shuddered… and went still.
Silence fell — broken only by the ragged breaths of the three hunters, the faint glitter of their weapons dimming now that the fight was over.
But the wrongness in the air still lingered. Something had crossed the veil. And it remembered them.
• ★ •
The weapons vanished, flickering into the ether as if they'd never existed. And all three of them dropped to their knees, not from exertion — but from something deeper.
Panic had rooted itself into their minds. Not the sudden kind. The creeping, knowing kind.
“...How did you… how did you know exactly what to do?” Mira’s voice wandered, unfocused. “That mark on the sword… how—?”
“I don’t know,” Rumi cut in, raw and honest. “I just… I just knew.”
She looked down at her hands. The royal blue glow had already faded, dissolving back into the usual translucent multicolor shimmer of her marks.
“Something’s happening,” she whispered. “Something serious. And we—”
“...don’t know anything,” Zoey finished for her, dragging her fingers through her short bangs in frustration, like it might calm the storm inside. It didn’t.
Mira let out a sudden, guttural scream and collapsed backwards into the grass, fists clenched, breath ragged. The plastic bag of soju was thrown away, the bottles inside shattering uselessly a few feet away.
“Fuck! Fucking hell! Why now!? We beat Gwi-ma! We finished the honmoon! How—how is this even happening?!” Her hands gripped her face. She was trying — really trying — to keep the fury caged inside, but it was clawing to escape. “How many things don’t we know? How many times does some shit like this just happen — and no one tells us anything?!”
Rumi laid down in the grass beside her without a word. Zoey followed. There, in the false calm that always comes after chaos, they breathed.
“...His marks weren’t like Gwi-ma’s,” Rumi muttered after a moment. “But he felt like a demon.”
“I’ve never seen a demon become an animal before,” Zoey added, voice rough, laced with disbelief. “What if… there are other kinds? Or worse— other realms?”
Mira sat up a little, frowning. “Other realms?”
“I mean… the spirit world’s probably huge, right?” Zoey said. “What are the odds Gwi-ma and his demons were the only ones out there?”
“That sounds… yeah. That’s possible,” Mira agreed, her voice quieter now, lost in thought. Then: "...But if that’s true, then why didn’t we know? Why didn’t Celine say anything?”
Celine. That name alone made a low growl rise in Rumi’s throat — involuntary, instinctive. Her partners turned toward her, startled.
The frustration in her chest had been building for weeks. It boiled now, thick and bitter in her mouth. How dare she? How could Celine lie and lie and still sleep at night like nothing happened?
“...Fuck her,” Rumi said, her tone like stone. Her hand clenched into the dirt — the same ground that had always held her up. “We’ve got real problems now.” She rose to her feet slowly, shoulders squared. The leader again. “We need to train. We need to prepare. Demons, new realms — I don’t care. The mission hasn’t changed.”
Her voice burned. Righteous. Almost mythic. The others looked up at her and nodded. She was right. Whatever came next, they’d see it through — together.
For a moment, they just sat there. Until Zoey’s wide brown eyes scanned the street and caught sight of something absurdly normal: a small group of old women across the road, carrying a Yut Nori board under one arm and chatting quietly.
It was ridiculous. And somehow, that made it perfect. A smile tugged at her lips. She nudged her two girlfriends, motioning with her chin.
“Hey… Mira. Didn’t you say you were down to play Yut Nori ‘til you turned into an old lady?”
Mira gave her a look, confused at first — but then followed Zoey’s gaze to the aunties across the street. She snorted, and a small laugh escaped.
“You’re impossible.”
Still smiling, she was the first to get up. Zoey followed. Rumi took a second longer. She looked once more to the spot where the creature had fallen. There was nothing left of it now — only a faint trace of smoke curling upward, swallowed by the dusk. She stood.
And followed.
Notes:
I honestly don't know when I'll be able to update. My college exam period is starting, and that's going to take up a lot of time.
I'm really enjoying writing this story. And I'm even happier to see that you guys like it! Like, wow, over 80 bookmarks and 450 kudos!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
I always thought my ideas and writing sucked, especially because of my anxiety. So thank you for this, genuinely. :)
Comments are welcome! Ideas, criticisms, suggestions. I'll love to read them.
Chapter 5: Be the dragon I wasn't
Notes:
I genuinely hope this chapter is understandable lmao
Chapter Text
• FB: S •
he scent of freshly paved asphalt lingered in the air, mingling with the distant sound of children playing across the street. That was all Celine could register right now — the world muted except for these simple sensory notes. Her hand was tightly gripped in Mi-ya’s, the younger woman pulling her forward with her usual confident stride. She was probably saying something — her lips were definitely moving — but Celine couldn’t focus.
Her mind had been a storm for months.
Celine had always been devout — not in the religious sense, but in her loyalty to fate, to duty. She needed certainty. Needed something to believe in, something to hold onto, so she wouldn't collapse beneath the weight of her own questions.
She and Miyeong? They’d been friends since forever — since the moment they first learned each other’s names, maybe even before that. They had grown together, dreamed together, succeeded together. And when Celine discovered that the honmoon had chosen both of them to become hunters?
It was a celebration. A sign. His work. Fate’s work.
Fate had wanted them together. Fate had wanted them safe. Just the three of them: her, Miyeong, and Seori.
Of course — that was before he appeared.
Ever since she’d learned that her sister-in-arms, her closest friend — was dating a demon — there had been no peace in her bones. The kind of peace you fight for with blood and tears, only to lose it to something so much more painful than war.
Where had she failed?
Where had Fate failed?
Shànghuī. The stone in her shoe that made every step toward perfection hurt.
Every time she saw him — that unnatural-colored hair, that smug, infuriating smile, those golden, too-bright eyes…
And the marks. Demon marks. Their enemy. The thing they were meant to destroy — and now the lover of one of the two people who mattered most to her.
If this was a test, one of those cruel trials the honmoon was infamous for, then fine. She would endure it. She would pass.
Because more than she was devoted to fate, Celine was loyal to those who gave her life meaning.
“—Celine? Celi? Are you even listening to me?”
The soft, high voice tugged her gently back to reality. Mi-ya was still holding her hand — steady and warm. It was enough to pull her out of the storm, if only slightly.
“Uh— what? Ah… yes, of course. I’m listening.” Her voice betrayed her, thin and unsure. But instead of irritation, Mi-ya only laughed — light and breezy.
She was always like this.
Utterly incapable of looking at anyone with indifference. No judgment. No sharp edges. Her heart had always been a temple — always open, always forgiving.
And how could she, with hands so stained — so compromised — possibly deserve someone like that?
“I know your head’s all over the place,” Mi-ya teased, laughing again, her thumb brushing along Celine’s knuckles. “But come on — you know how packed this place gets at lunch.”
They entered the restaurant quietly, choosing a more secluded table near the back. Of course they were in disguise — sunglasses, caps, hair down — idols weren’t given much peace in public. But Mi-ya trusted this place. She said the owners were discreet.
They placed their orders, and for a moment, Celine let herself look — really look — at her best friend’s face. It made her chest ache. But she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“...So?” she asked, her voice direct but not unkind. “What did you want to tell me?”
Mi-ya hesitated. “I… I need you to close your eyes.”
Reluctantly, Celine obeyed. She felt the light pressure of a sheet of paper placed in her hands — thin, slick, familiar. When she opened her eyes, her heart stuttered.
It was an ultrasound. Clear. Undeniable.
Mi-yeong was pregnant.
Silence stretched between them — thick, suffocating. Maybe it was seconds. Maybe minutes. Who could tell? Who even cared?
When Celine finally found the strength to push air through her chest, to force her voice up from where it had been buried beneath dread, the words that emerged weren’t what she wanted to say. But they were true.
“...His? You're… y-you’re pregnant with his child?”
Her voice trembled. So did her hands, knuckles ghost-white as she clutched the paper like it was evidence of some cruel betrayal carved in ink. She already knew the answer. Deep down, she knew. This wasn’t a shock. It was confirmation of a storm she’d been pretending wasn’t real.
But even so — she begged, quietly, inwardly, like a starving dog at the foot of a table — please, let it not be true.
Fucking Fate.
She had given so much.
She had devoted everything.
And this was what it returned?
How could you do this to me?
But Fate didn’t answer. It never did. Only Mi-yeong did.
“...Yeah. Huī’s the father. He’s the only man I’ve… you know… been with. Did you really think I’d cheat on him?”
“...No. And maybe it would’ve been better if you had.”
The words were acid on her tongue. Her voice cracked and dropped, guttural.
“Better that than being pregnant with a— with a—”
She couldn’t finish the word. Demon. It refused to leave her mouth. It didn’t need to. The thing she couldn’t say was already growing inside her friend. The mistake had a heartbeat.
“Celine, please. You need to calm down! We don’t even know yet! The child could—”
“Could what?! Could be human?! Could be safe?!”
Her voice was rising now, sharp and brittle, each word striking the table like shattered glass.
“What do you think this is, Mi-yeong?! You think this is a fairy tale?! That love makes it okay?! That this is just another goddamn test from the honmoon?! It’s not! This— this is madness!”
Mi-ya shrank back slightly, but she didn’t let go. Her fingers stayed around Celine’s wrist, warm, gentle, pleading.
“Celine… it’s still me. I’m still the same person. You don’t have to treat this like I’ve— like I’ve become something unholy.”
But that was just it. Celine didn’t know anymore. The girl in front of her looked the same. It sounded the same. But there was something between them now — something huge and living and terrifying.
A life. A child. A halfling.
A child whose bloodline was cursed in every book they'd ever studied, every battle they'd ever fought.
She pushed the ultrasound away like it had burned her.
“You don’t get it,” Celine whispered. “You don’t get what you’ve done.”
She stood. Her breath was uneven. Her thoughts were breaking into fragments.
“I need air,” she muttered, stepping back from the table, from Mi-yeong, from the paper that made it all real.
She didn’t run — not quite. But she wasn’t walking, either. The moment she hit the door, the cold air outside bit into her skin, and for a second, she welcomed it.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to pray.
She wanted to ask Fate why — but knew she wouldn’t get an answer.
All she had now were questions, a fractured belief, and a best friend carrying the child of a demon.
Her hands fumbled toward her left pocket — cigarettes and a lighter. Was she proud of it? Not even a little. The lead vocalist of Sunlight Sisters, lighting up like some common burnout? She didn’t care. Sin for sin — hers wasn’t the worst one on the table.
She wandered off, far enough that the noise of the street dulled, and only her thoughts remained. Somewhere isolated. Quiet. Empty. She remembered the hunts.
The hybrids.
They were worse than demons. At least demons knew what they were. Hybrids pretended. Lied to themselves. Clung to some fantasy that they were useful. That they were human. She knew better. Belief could rot the mind of even the greatest king. And hers had been rotting for a long time now.
Her hand shook as she lit the cigarette. One drag in, and her stomach churned with guilt, but the pain grounded her. It was sharp. It was real. Her thoughts darkened.
If she had her way…
Gods, if she had her wa…
She’d drive her scythe through his throat. Drag it slow, all the way through his sternum. She’d silence that smile, that voice, that cursed existence.
She didn't want Shànghuī to just die. She wanted him gone. From history, from memory — from everything.
He wasn't the source of her unraveling. Her failure. Her helplessness made flesh. And now the honmoon itself was faltering —
The strings that once hummed like a divine lyre were now fraying into threads, barely holding their pattern. A tapestry forgetting how to weave itself. The golden glow that once bound them, protected them — it was flickering. Dimming.
They had weakened it. Barely a year into its full manifestation, and already the cracks were showing. How could they ever hope to kill Gwi-ma like this?
The Demon King wouldn’t yield to a team already so willing to surrender to their softness. The golden honmoon wasn’t eternal. And yet they had chipped away at it as if it were disposable. Their teachers would be disgusted.
Lost in this bitter monologue, she barely noticed her own body — didn’t feel her thumb swipe open the phone, didn’t realize she was searching for Seori until the name appeared on the screen.
The third member of their unit.
Seori had taken it better. The news. Mi-yeong’s impossible, terrifying joy. Maybe because she and Celine had always been polar opposites when it came to the youngest. Or maybe Seori just didn’t expect as much. Didn't cling as tightly.
But Celine knew the truth. The ones who love carry the burden. The ones who laugh through it tend to lose it all.
“Seori… Seori, for fuck’s sake, pick up!”
Celine’s voice was a hiss through clenched teeth as she pressed the phone tighter to her ear, flicked the cigarette to the ground, and crushed it under her boot. Her free hand shot to her waist, gripping her own hip in that anxious way she always did when the spiral started.
“Ugh… what, Celi? It’s Wednesday. You know I’ve got—”
“Mi-ya’s pregnant.”
Silence. Not confusion — silence, the kind that closes a room.
When Seori finally spoke, her voice was rough with disbelief. “Wait… seriously? Like, seriously seriously? Damn, I— I thought she’d want to tell me herself, don’t you think—?”
“Does it matter?!” Celine snapped. “She’s pregnant, Seori. Pregnant with a demon’s child. Do you understand that? That thing inside her — it’s a hybrid. It’s an abomination!”
“Celi, look, I get it, but—”
“No. You don’t get it. No one does!” Her voice broke, hot and raw. “Don’t you remember what we’ve seen? The hybrids we’ve killed? You remember the emotions, the memories that leaked when they woke up? When they snapped? They were worse than demons. Do you remember that family?”
Busan.
After a concert. After the applause had died and the lights had faded.
The honmoon had twisted — not gently like a whisper, but like a scream. A sharp tear in the world, a cry only the marked could hear. Celine remembered that night more vividly than any other.
They found it in the slums — a hybrid, malformed and starving, with horns warped through its skull. A half-child, half-creature, crouched over a lifeless little body it had once called a sibling. Its hands were stained, its mouth still moving — muttering prayers that only made it worse.
I just wanted to love them. That’s what it had said.
I just wanted to give them love. And maybe it had.
But not the kind the world could survive. She’d never forgotten that night. She never would.
Not the smell, not the sobbing, not the moment it looked up at her like it didn’t understand what it had done. Because Gwi-ma’s curse would never allow light to reach those bound in his shadow.
“...I don’t want her to go through that,” Celine whispered. “I don’t want Mi-ya to be the one who— who carries that.”
Her voice cracked again. Tears welled, hot and infuriating.
She didn’t want this to be coming from rage. She wanted it to be about love. But Seori’s voice came quiet, clear. Painful in how gentle it remained.
“I know it hurts… but it’s not something we control.” A pause. Then the words Celine hated most: “All we can do is be there for her. And if things do go wrong… then we’ll act.” A sharp, bitter laugh escaped her.
Control? She dared say the word like it meant something anymore?
Celine grit her teeth. “Control…?” she spat. “Tsk. This shit’s been out of control ever since I didn’t kill him the moment I laid eyes on him.” And then she hung up.
No goodbye. No breath between. She wouldn’t wait to hear Seori’s protests — not this time.
She wouldn’t wait at all.
Waiting had become her curse. Waiting and hoping and trusting — and where had it left her?
Alone. Furious. With her team collapsing around her, and her faith burnt to ash.
Her body moved on its own — honed by years of training, infused with strength not meant for ordinary humans. She ran like a shadow — fast, efficient, unstoppable — toward the place she knew he’d be.
She no longer owed trust to anyone. What she owed now was certainty. No more promises. Only action. She was going to confront him. And if words failed — then let it be the blade.
• ★ •
One of the honmoon’s most common weak spots. It was ironic, really — nestled right in a district full of old folks too traditional to ever warm up to new music. Their songs were good — that wasn't the issue. But no song could reach everyone.
She weaved between homes, narrow streets giving way to narrower shadows, until she reached the alley. Damp. Chilled.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was the absence of sunlight. She didn’t want light for this conversation.
“...I know you’re listening,” she murmured, eyes scanning. “Come out.” A tremor passed through the veil. He was close. “I’m talking to you, Yáng Shànghuī. Show yourself.”
A sound rolled through the space — like smoke folding in on itself, the breath of nebulae condensing. She turned, honed senses already braced. He appeared. Not disguised. Not pretending. Not wearing his false skin.
Huī was in full demon form — black hanbok, black gat, the formal garb of Gwi-ma’s jeoseung saja. His skin was a pale, bruised lavender — like dusk over bone. The demon marks that marbled his body looked like glass splintering under pressure, jagged and dark. His eyes, those infamous golden slits — feline, knowing — were downcast.
His fangs were bared, but not in threat. Just… present. He wasn’t going to fight. He never could.
“...You don’t have to summon me like I’m some ghost in your throat,” he said softly, voice low and deep, almost too still. “You know I’d come.”
But Celine’s scowl deepened. One of her sickle-blades rose sharply, the point grazing beneath his jaw.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like we’re anything but enemies,” she spat. “You filthy thing.” Her voice cracked — then surged.
“you.....you— YOU GOT HER PREGNANT! MY MI-YA. YOU put a MONSTER inside HER!” She pressed harder — not enough to break skin, but close.
Huī tensed. A low growl curled in his throat, but he didn’t retaliate. He inhaled. Held it. Then pushed her weapon away — calmly, slowly, eyes finally meeting hers.
“...You think I wanted this?” His voice was strained now. “You think I asked for this? You think I didn’t warn her?” He stepped closer, breathing sharp. His claws, though unclenched, shimmered faintly with power he wasn’t using. Not yet. “I’m a demon, Celine. Do you really believe I would ever ask for a child? I didn’t even know I could— it was a possibility. Nothing more. And even then, I told her. I told her everything.”
“Then why did she go through with it?!” she screamed. “Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you convince her to abort!?”
The word dropped like a curse. For a second, something cracked. Not in the air — but inside him.
Huī froze. “...What?” His voice wasn’t angry. It was quiet. Shaken. It sounded like someone who’d just watched a dream slip into rot. Not because it was new. But because hearing it out loud made it real.
“Why didn’t you convince her?”bCeline’s voice echoed in the alley, sharp as flint, echoing off the damp walls. “Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you make her see sense?”
Huī didn’t answer immediately. His golden eyes shimmered dimly, as if trying to dim themselves into shadow.
“You love her, don’t you?” Celine pressed, stepping closer now, her blade dropping but her tone tightening. “Then why didn’t you protect her?”
“I tried,” he said — too quiet, too late.
“You didn’t try hard enough,” she snapped. “You tried like someone who wanted to be forgiven later. You didn’t try like someone who’d fight her if you had to.”
He stiffened, fingers curling around the edge of his black sleeve. His body — all refined control and stillness — trembled just barely. The demon’s breath hitched like something inside him was fraying. “She told me she wanted it,” he whispered. “Said she felt it was something pure. That it wasn’t mine or hers, just… ours.”
“And that’s why she’s wrong.” Her voice didn’t rise this time. It dropped — hard, cold, final.
“There is no ours in this equation. Not when one half of the equation is rot. You think this is a child?” She took another step, eyes blazing. “It’s a fracture. A thing that doesn’t belong in either world, Huī. It won’t be like you. It won’t be like her. It will be a curse that doesn’t know what it is — only that it hurts.” He swallowed. “You know what happens to hybrids. Not the fantasy versions — not the children in fairy tales or the noble outcasts in poems. I’m talking about the real ones. Born wrong. Built unstable. The worst of both worlds, stitched together by cosmic cruelty. They’re born with hunger and kindness in equal measure — and those two things do not coexist.”
Huī was silent, eyes lowered. But she saw it — the twitch in his jaw, the way his foot shifted slightly backward. That was fear. Not of her. Of what she was saying.
“Do you know what hybrid souls look like?” she continued, quieter now. “I’ve seen them. In the veil. In the spaces between things. They shimmer and rot at the same time — they bleed memory, but devour love. Their auras flicker like they’re trying to burn themselves out, like their very existence is a contradiction.”
He didn’t look at her, but she knew he was listening. She softened — only slightly.
“I know you didn’t ask for this. I know this isn’t what you planned. But it’s happening. And you have to be the one to stop it.”
Huī finally spoke, his voice flat but fragile, “She said she wants to keep it. She believes… it’s something beautiful. That maybe… through this… she can redeem me.”
Celine stared. “Then that’s not a child she’s carrying. That’s a prayer. And prayers don’t live long.”
He recoiled like she’d struck him.
“She believes in you too much,” she continued, eyes narrowing. “And belief like that? It turns into tragedy. You want her to survive this? Then you have to be the one to cut the cord. You have to say the words. She won’t hear them from me. She won’t believe it if it comes from anyone else.”
Huī turned his head to the wall. She saw him blink hard — once, then again. His hands had stopped trembling, but his voice shook.
“I thought I could hold this together. That if I just stayed quiet long enough, if I stayed still, maybe the future would shift around us. Maybe I wouldn’t have to make this choice.”
He turned to her now. “But I knew what I was. I knew what she’d become if she carried this.” His voice faltered again. “I just… didn’t want to be the one to break her.”
Celine stepped back. “No,” she said. “You’ll save her.” And then, quieter — for just a moment, “She deserves to be whole. Even if it costs her this dream.”
Huī closed his eyes. He stood there for a moment — demon, boyfriend, father-to-be, executioner of a life not yet born — in utter silence. And when he opened them again, his golden irises were dull.
“…I’ll speak to her.”
It didn’t feel triumphant. It didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like surrender. And maybe that’s what love was, in the end. Not sacrifice. Just… surrender. He turned away, melting into mist, into veil. He didn’t look back.
Celine stood alone in the alley, the last echo of his presence dissolving into the wet air. Her hands unclenched. Slowly. Mechanically. The blade at her side vanished back into nothing. And though no one saw, not even the stars — She wept.
• ★ •
She looked at herself in the mirror, a wide smile stretched across her fine, precious lips.
Even with Celine’s reaction. Even against the disbelief of the world. This — this was the greatest happiness she'd ever known: to be a mother.
She remembered how it had always been one of her childhood dreams. She’d taken care of her younger siblings with such gentle affection, loved tending to them, loved giving part of herself to someone else — teaching, protecting, loving. That was what had driven her when she became an idol. That was what lit the fire in her when she became a demon hunter.
Sure, maybe she was one of those people who believed almost blindly in goodness — but what else was she supposed to cling to? If that was her gift, she'd use it. Her voice could overcome bitterness, and her footsteps were the rhythm of victory.
She hummed softly as she admired her reflection, pinning small plastic flowers into her long braid. While doing so, she felt it — a gentle ripple through the honmoon. Her smile deepened. She recognized that tremor instantly. It was her Huī.
She turned around — and there he was, standing in his truest form. Not that she ever minded. She found him beautiful, always. Strange, haunting, lovely in the way night skies are. But it wasn’t his form that made her pause.
It was his eyes. Downcast. Heavy. Dimmed. So different from the bright, starlit gleam they normally held. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” she asked, her voice light but laced with concern.
They stepped toward each other at the same time. Huī took her hands — slender, soft, warm — and cradled them between his own, running the pads of his dark fingers over the delicate knuckles. His claws grazed lightly, carefully. He always handled her as if she were a sacred thing.
“...We need to talk, Ryu.” He rarely called her by her surname. The formality alone made her uneasy.
“What happened?” Mi-ya asked again, more urgently now. A dull pressure was beginning to build behind her ribs — not pain, not yet. But something was stirring. “Huī, please, you know I hate when you get like this—”
“It’s about the child… the fetus,” he said, quietly — almost shamefully. His grip on her hands tightened, almost too much, but never crossing the line.He couldn’t hurt her. Not her. Not ever.
She didn’t understand the way his voice trembled. She didn’t understand the weight in his shoulders, the darkness settled behind his golden eyes. All she knew was that the man she loved — the one who had whispered galaxies into her ear and touched her like she was something ancient and sacred — was pulling away.
“...we can’t go through with this, love.”
It came like a blade she hadn’t seen coming. Mi-ya stared at him, blinked — once, slowly. Like her heart had been thrown underwater, like the world had lost air.
“What?” she asked.
He couldn’t even look at her. That hurt more than the words. “I’m saying,” Huī forced out, “that it’s not safe. This child… this thing inside you, it could—”
“No,” she interrupted, gentle but firm, a single syllable that landed like a vow. She stepped closer, ignoring the way his body tensed, ignoring the panic beginning to tremble at the edges of her own hands.
“Don’t call it that,” she whispered.
He flinched.
“You think I don’t know what’s at stake?” she continued, still calm. Still soft. “You think I didn’t think about it? About what could happen to me, to the child? About how the world would look at them — at us?”
Her hands reached for his chest, and this time, he didn’t pull away.
“But I love them. I love you. You think this was an accident? That I didn’t choose this, deep down?”
His jaw clenched. “Mi-ya—”
“No, listen to me,” she said. Her hands moved higher, to his cheeks, thumbs brushing the edges of his cheekbones where the faintest lines of his demonic marks flickered beneath the skin.
“You are not a mistake. This baby is not a curse. Do you think love like this doesn’t come with fire? That I didn’t know it would burn?” She swallowed the ache in her throat. “I would rather burn than live my life fearing what love gave me.”
His eyes were shimmering now. Her Huī, her impossible boy with the eyes of a cat and the heart of a star, stood there like he’d been unmade by her words.
She pressed her forehead to his. Their breaths mingled. His claws trembled at her waist but didn’t grip.
“I’m not asking you to be brave,” she whispered. “I’m just asking you not to run.”
Silence.
Then, his voice — barely a rasp, “You should hate me for even thinking of it.”
“But I don’t,” she murmured. “Because I know why. And I forgive you.”
He closed his eyes. She didn’t beg. She didn’t plead. She just held him — arms around his ribs, cheek against his shoulder, eyes closed in total, open-hearted trust.
And in that silence, he knew. There was no argument to be made. Her love didn’t shout. It didn’t demand. It simply was. Unmovable. Unyielding. Undeniable. And so, with a hollow breath, Huī collapsed to his knees and let her hold him like she was the last anchor in a world that no longer obeyed rules. Because she was. And maybe — just maybe — that would be enough.
• ★ •
He knew pain. And he knew loss. Intimately.
More than thirteen hundred years ago, he was just a young soldier under the command of General Duke Gong of Xu, fighting in the Goguryeo–Sui War. His family hadn’t cared for him — the bastard son of his mother’s betrayal. But he was strong. Physically gifted. That was all it took for the army to see him not as a disgrace, but a tool. A dirty creature from the moment of birth. Pathetic.
And yet… Shànghuī hated war.
He was artistic. Delicate, like a porcelain vase too long cradled in the hands of its potter, a blade of damask twisted improperly in the forge. He never wanted glory. And if he had wants, they were shameful. That’s what they told him. What they beat into him.
Seven days. They had been wandering in circles for seven days in that cursed region. Only thirty soldiers left. The bones of the army.
Death wasn’t coming — it was already there, seated beside them. The snow had grown deeper, heavier. It fell in thick blankets, and the cold would devour them before hunger ever got the chance. They had no idea where they were. Somewhere near Pyongyang, maybe. But no clear path forward.
Night fell as it always did: fast and merciless. Most of the men slept. Or maybe they had simply given up. Maybe sleep and surrender were the same thing, once the soul stopped fighting. Huī remained awake, back pressed against a dead tree. He didn’t trust the dark. He didn’t trust the silence.
In his chest: injustice. Neglect. That brutal, grating ache that something good should have come from all this suffering. Something earned. He had given everything. Had protected those who scorned him. Had clung to discipline, to hope. And all he had in return was a nameless death on nameless soil. The fire crackled weakly beside him. That was the only sound — until the voice came. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
It was deep, ancient. Smoky. The sound of a wildfire that licked through dreams. But what made it worse…
...was that it sounded exactly like him.
“Look at you. So strong, so noble. And yet even a stray dog is more loved than you. But if you let me in…I can give you that love.”
“Let me in, and all of them will leave you.”
That was the first time he heard Gwi-ma. After that, he was never the same.
At the price of abandoning his comrades — who were devoured shortly after by Gwi-ma himself — Huī made it out alone. He wandered, starving, frostbitten, to the capital of Goguryeo. There, empowered by something no longer human, he slaughtered dozens of their high-ranking warriors in a single night.
He turned the tide of a war already lost. Even if General Eulji Mundeok's brilliant strategy ultimately won the war for Goguryeo, back in the Sui Dynasty… Shànghuī was celebrated as a hero. A man who had bled until the last breath.
They gave him titles. Gold. Adoration. He was renamed Shāng Lóng — the Wounded Dragon, a living symbol of the Sui Empire’s relentless spirit.
But the wound… ah, the wound.It festered. A wound ignored, bandaged in honor and hollow praise, begins to rot. And rot, it did.
The demonic markings appeared slowly — thin lines across his back, then his chest, then his face. Like cracks in old porcelain. Like fractures in the soul. He hid them beneath silks and medals. He told himself it was just stress. A sickness. But he was sick with power. Sick with the voice that had never left him.
Each day he grew less human. And then, one night — it happened. One moment, he was in his glorious estate, its thin paper walls no match for the weight of all he carried. The next, he was standing at the edge of a great, yawning mouth — not made of flesh, but of fire. Violet. Magenta. Endless.
He looked down, and something welcomed him. Pulled him in. The abyss wasn’t empty. It had eyes. And it had always been waiting.
But the irony, of course…The irony that still haunts him…Shànghuī finally became what he already was:
A demon.
The shadow of his thoughts lingered. He had lived — or nearly so. A demon who once knew what it meant to be soft, tender flesh.
When a human offers their soul willingly to Gwi-ma, they are reborn as a jeoseung saja — not just any demon, but a reaper of the highest tier. The most refined, the most lethal. Because the sound of sorrow always echoes louder in a hollow vessel.
He wandered. Fulfilled his purpose. Reaped countless souls — human, and spirit alike. From the latter, he collected trophies: medallions, totems, tokens of his superiority. No demon ever stood for him. He stood for no one.
If Gwi-ma would not own his soul anymore, so be it — he would claim stronger ones for himself. No more crowns unless they rested upon his brow.
He would walk among humans again, wearing mischief like a mask. He would live. Enjoy. Too proud for shame. Too empty to mourn.
Until he met Miyeong. It shouldn’t have changed him. But it did. He swore that the first time he heard her voice… it vibrated at the exact same frequency as his own. And that reminded him of something the Demon King could never strip from him: That sacred, irrevocable thread that ties the human soul to love. Now, here he was — beside her. She slept peacefully. So peacefully.
Even in sleep, she was a performer — radiant, graceful, as if the stage itself were blessed by her breath. How was it possible? That after so many lifetimes of disgrace and ruin, he would come to love someone like her?
He rested a clawed hand gently upon her stomach. She stirred, just faintly. Huī pulled back, momentarily hesitant — but returned, calmer now. He caressed her softly, her warmth seeping into the cold of his palm. She had made her decision. She would keep the child.
And if he could not change her mind…then he would protect her.
Even if it meant breaking every vow he had once made. Even if it meant becoming what he swore he’d never be again. He reached into the folds of his dark hanbok. From within, he withdrew them:
talismans — forged from the souls of monsters and lesser demons he had long ago conquered and absorbed.
It was dangerous. But it was the safest danger he could offer them. He laid the string of talismans across her abdomen. And then, quietly, he began to sing.
Hymns. Not of death, but of glory. Of protection. Of hope. Of love.
One by one, the talismans vanished. Not into the air — but into the baby. A ritual, subtle but potent. It would alter the child’s essence, render it diverse, plural — complex beyond ordinary bloodlines. No longer susceptible to Gwi-ma’s compulsion.
He whispered, the final line catching like breath against flame, "Just as the dragon bears the best that nature gave each beast…so too shall you carry the best of every soul.”
• FB: E •
Chapter Text
The week had come to an end, and with it, their trip to Jeju. They were finally back in the Huntrix penthouse — home at last. Zoey let her bags drop from her shoulders the moment they walked in.
“Ahhhh, finally! I missed this place so much! Ugh, Ms. Lee cleans this place so well, it smells like...baby cheeks in here...” the maknae groaned as she collapsed to her knees, randomly hugging one of their houseplants like she'd just returned from a years-long exile.
Mira cast a long, flat stare at her shorter girlfriend, judgment brimming in her narrow eyes. “You talk like we’ve been in captivity — we were in Jeju, because you wanted to go.”
The only answer she got was a muffled groan from the raven-haired girl, face still buried in the potted leaves.
Rumi entered after them, carrying more items now than she had left with. Boxes, bags — she had taken the most important things from her mother’s “sanctuary” — the one Celine had built.
The tension she carried had been visible for days, and her girls had noticed. As she lugged the boxes toward her room, she felt a heavier hand on her shoulder — she flinched slightly. Mira.
“What is it?” Rumi asked, her voice flatter than she meant for it to be. Mira caught it, her eyes narrowing just slightly in concern.
“Okay, you’re like a squirrel hoarding acorns for the apocalypse. Just—stop, alright? You need to rest.” Her deeper voice was gentler than usual. Rumi looked down. She had no excuse this time.
“I can’t,” she answered plainly. “I just can’t relax with all of this happening.” She glanced at the heavy box in her arms. “It’s all real now.”
Mira’s expression softened. She exhaled through her nose and reached forward, gently taking the box from her.
And just then, Rumi felt Zoey’s arms wrap around her from behind — warm, grounding. She couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Hm. Sucks for you that we’re too stubborn to listen when you tell us to back off, huh Miirr?” Zoey teased, her usual grin stretching across her face as Mira chuckled and set the box aside.
She turned back around and pulled both of them into a hug. “Yep. Learned that from our unnie, didn’t we?” Mira added, reaching up to pinch Rumi’s cheek.
Rumi groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, seriously. I feel ancient every time you call me that. I’m not even six months older than you.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got the soul of an old lady. At least eighty. Easy,” Zoey said, blinking innocently up at her with those wide, mischievous eyes. Adorable — but not enough to stop Rumi from frowning in disbelief.
“Excuse me??” Rumi snapped, her arms crossed, lips already pursed like she was about to launch into a full-on scolding.
But Mira just grinned, nudging her playfully with a hip. “Come on, grandma. You’ve been pacing around like a ghost who forgot how to rest. Let’s go soak those bones before you start mumbling.”
Zoey's eyes lit up. “Ooooh! Yes! Bathhouse time!” She spun on her heel dramatically. “We’ll steam the stress out of our pores and scrub your trauma right off your back.”
Rumi blinked. “A bathhouse? Now?”
“Yes, now,” Mira said, already dragging her toward the hallway. “You haven’t let your shoulders drop since Jeju, and we’re not letting you pull an all-nighter again just to alphabetize those tapes.”
“But I was going to—”
“Nope,” Zoey said, popping the "p" as she grabbed towels and a pack of fruit jelly drinks from the fridge. “Today we cleanse, hydrate, and gossip. That’s an order from your very adorable girlfriend.”
“Both of us,” Mira added, grabbing Rumi’s wrist before she could escape.
“You two are goofy” Rumi muttered, though there was no real fight in her voice. Maybe just a sigh too deep for someone her age. She let herself be led, not because she wanted to — but because they were right. Again.
• ★ •
The steam curled lazily through the tiled bathhouse, misting over the glass and diffusing the soft, yellow lights. It was quiet, apart from the distant sounds of splashing water and the occasional hum of an electric boiler.
Rumi sat with her arms resting on the edge of the hot pool, chin tilted up slightly, eyes half-lidded. Her lavender hair was tied into a bun, though a few strands clung to her damp neck. The warmth was making her thoughts move slower — and that was a relief.
Zoey floated toward her like a lazy seal, the ends of her bangs wet and stuck to her forehead. “So... be honest. On a scale from one to ten, how emotionally violated are you right now?”
“...seven,” Rumi replied without missing a beat.
“Nice. That’s down from a nine.”
Mira appeared beside them with a bowl of fresh fruit and three cold barley teas, her red hair wrapped in a towel like some sort of spa heiress. “You know this is good for you,” she said, plopping down beside Rumi and handing her a drink.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Rumi murmured, fingers curling around the cold can. “It’s just... my head won’t stop.”
Zoey leaned her chin on Rumi’s shoulder from behind. “We know.”
There was a silence, heavier than the steam.
“I keep thinking about her. About everything. My mom. The tapes. The monsters. The new ones. The yellow marks. That... thing in Jeju,” Rumi said, the words finally slipping out. “It’s like... no matter what we do, there’s always another war behind the door.”
Mira didn’t speak right away. She just reached over and tucked a strand of damp hair behind Rumi’s ear. “Maybe. But that’s not your war tonight.”
Zoey added, softly, “Tonight, your job is letting us take care of you.” Rumi’s throat tightened. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and closed her eyes.
The warmth of the bath should have been perfect. It had all the ingredients — steam fogging the air, the buzz of barley tea settling into their veins, skin pink from the heat. Mira leaned back with her eyes closed, humming something low and melodic under her breath. Zoey floated lazily in the water again, head tipped back, her black bangs plastered across her forehead.
And Rumi — Rumi should have felt light. But something was… off. The scent hit her first. A hint of it beneath the green herbs of the soap, the artificial sweetness of shampoo, the slight metallic edge of hot pipe water. Rumi's brow furrowed slightly. She leaned forward, as if chasing the smell. Her nostrils flared. Her eyes squinted. It was faint — not rot, not sweat, not sickness. More like… imbalance. Hormonal. Bitter at the edge. And too specific.
She inhaled again, slowly this time, her gaze drifting toward Zoey. There.
Something in Zoey’s body chemistry had shifted — something sharp, acidic, like the way old plastic warps in heat. Not recent. Not sudden. Chronic.
Polycystic ovary syndrome. Rumi didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew. The scent was unmistakable — like her body had mapped out the markers, drawn conclusions in smell. Her stomach tightened.
“Zoey…” Rumi said, her voice soft and sharp all at once. “When was the last time you took your meds?”
Zoey blinked. “Huh?”
“For your PCOS. Your meds. Your— blood sugar, your hormone balance.”
“What—?” Zoey laughed, confused. “Why are you asking that now?”
“I… I can smell it,” Rumi murmured. Her eyes narrowed further, confused by her own words. “You’re not regulating well. Something’s out of sync. Your cortisol’s spiking, and your testosterone’s off. You haven’t been sleeping.”
Mira sat up fully now, dripping water, a towel falling off her shoulder. “Rumi, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Rumi admitted, her voice suddenly more strained. “I just… I know. I can smell it.”
Zoey frowned, now slightly defensive. “I’ve been taking care of myself. I just skipped, like, two doses. You always say I worry too much, and now you’re sniffing my ovaries?”
“I’m not—!” Rumi rubbed her temples, the smell now clinging like smoke. “It’s not just that. I smelled it before you even said anything. It’s like… my nose is tuned into your blood. And your hormones. It’s not normal.”
“No, it’s not,” Mira said carefully. “Rumi, you’ve never done anything like this.”
“I know! I know I haven’t!” Rumi snapped, standing up halfway in the bath. Water splashed, waves sloshing against the edges of the tile. Her breath was shaky, rattling against the walls of her chest. “But something is happening to me, Mira. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the tapes, or the honmoon, or the half of me I keep trying to ignore. But I can smell it, I can feel it—” She turned to Zoey. “You’re in pain and pretending it’s fine. Your cycles are getting irregular, and you’ve been getting those headaches again, haven’t you?”
Zoey froze. Just for a second. And in that second, Rumi knew she was right.
“…Zo,” Mira said gently, brows knitting together. “Is she right?”
Zoey shifted her gaze, suddenly not looking at either of them. She lifted a shoulder, awkward, flippant, fragile. “I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to ruin the trip.”
The silence that followed wasn’t disappointment — it was fear. Not of illness. But of what Rumi could do. What she could sense. What else she might be able to track if she let this grow.
Rumi sank slowly back into the bath, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was shivering now, despite the steam. Zoey reached for her hand under the water. Mira did too, clasping her shoulder.
And for a moment, their connection was steady again.
But Rumi could still smell the imbalance. Not just Zoey’s. The world itself — something in it — was beginning to reek.
Silence lingered in the steam until Zoey broke it with a half-hearted shrug.
“Well, I mean… at least now we’ll never buy spoiled food again?”
Mira groaned. “I mean, yeah, that’s useful, but it’s still creepy as hell.” Her voice sat somewhere between neutral, curious, and mildly alarmed. “You were fine last month. It’s been over a month since we took down Gwi-ma, and nothing like this came up before.”
“I know,” Rumi said, quieter now. “That’s what’s freaking me out. I’ve been feeling… off. Sensitive. Worse since that weird hydropot thing. It’s like… my body’s reacting to stuff that doesn’t make sense anymore.” She drifted off, the confusion curdling slowly into exhaustion.
“…Do you think you’re evolving?” Zoey’s voice cut through, uncertain but honest — like she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“What, are we Pokémon now?” Mira raised an eyebrow.
“I’m serious!” Zoey said, sitting up a little. “I mean… maybe that’s what this is? If even the— the honmoon—” She froze, her mouth still half-open.
Rumi and Mira both stared at her. “…What?” Rumi asked.
“N-nothing. Just… just thinking out loud.” Zoey deflated again, her fingers making idle circles in the bathwater. “Still, I guess there’s nothing we can really do about it. I mean, who would we even ask?”
“Yeah. Our mentor—” Mira practically spat the word, more bitterness in it than she’d meant to let slip. She didn’t regret it, though. “—is a non-option. And we can’t exactly go knocking on random demons’ doors. All we knew were Gwi-ma’s servants. We don’t know how these… new kinds might react.”
“We’re doomed, betas,” Zoey sighed, slipping deeper into the water like she was trying to drown in it. Her eyes barely peeked above the surface. “It’s over for us.”
The other two shot her twin looks of half-irritated judgment.
“What?” she said. “It’s not my fault loser memes are funny.”
“You do deserve your American passport,” Mira muttered.
It was almost funny — the fact that Mira was the daughter of a tech mogul, practically born in a bathtub of money, and still managed to mock capitalism like she hadn’t come out of its glossy womb.
“Oh, please,” Zoey shot back. “You have more problematic opinions than anyone here.”
“That’s exactly why I think the Democratic People’s Republic should take over everything,” Mira said, deadpan.
That, of course, was enough to trigger one of their regular debates — if one could call half-baked political jokes yelled over bathwater a debate.
Rumi just watched them, her arms draped along the rim of the bath, the smallest of smiles curling on her lips.
Even with everything starting to unravel — the strange senses, the creeping dread, the cracks she could almost hear in the air around her — this was her peace.
Her girls. Her beautiful, ridiculous, stubborn girls. Maybe the world was breaking open again, but if she had them beside her, she could survive anything. Even herself.
• ★ •
“Oh lord, you’re seriously the softest, squishiest thing on this planet,” Zoey cooed as she snuggled deeper into the giant, slightly chubby tiger. Its fur shimmered a soft blue, its fangs were oversized, and its face looked — well — completely stupid. She sighed contentedly, still half-focused on the Nintendo Switch in her hands. “If I’d met you back when I was a trainee, my spine wouldn’t be in pieces today.”
Mira lounged on the big couch, nose buried in a book. Of the three, she was hands-down the most dedicated reader — though her taste was… eclectic. One moment she’d be reading academic essays about hyper-specific aesthetics from South America, and the next, some trashy romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover. Did she have critical standards? Questionable. Predictable? Never. The magpie wearing a tiny gat sat peacefully on her stomach, like a period at the end of her literary sentence.
Rumi sat beside Mira, the redhead’s head resting gently in her lap. She was scribbling idly in a notebook, one earbud in, listening to a random podcast. She hadn't forgotten the conversation from Jeju. If anything, she was still deeply offended. But she had no intention of starting a fight about it. Sometimes, a lazy afternoon doing nothing was a rare treasure — especially when your “everything” was saving the world.
Zoey, still half-playing, half-talking to the tiger, kept muttering little quips. “You know, I’ve been trying to find a name for you, but every single one I give you, you just ignore.” She glanced away from the screen to stare at the tiger’s goofy face.
Then, out of nowhere, Rumi spoke. “His name is Derpy.” Both girls turned to look at her in unison.
“...Okay....? Uh, but— why didn’t you say that earlier? He’s been with us for, like, two months,” Zoey asked, already forming the answer in her head. She knew what was coming.
Rumi blinked at her. Once. Twice. A few more times.
She then looked away and returned to her sketchbook. Mira, of course, wasn’t letting that go so easily.
“Don’t you dare say ‘uh, I just know,’” the redhead warned, lowering her book and mimicking Rumi’s soft, airy tone in mocking exaggeration.
Rumi rolled her eyes, of course. “Then I’d be lying. Not my fault if that’s just… how things work now.”
“Alright, lightning round! What’s the bird’s name!?” Zoey pointed dramatically at the magpie on Mira’s stomach like she was challenging her on a game show.
“Uhh— Sussie!” Rumi answered, a little too quickly.
The other two glanced down at the bird, who blinked once, puffed up slightly… and let out a soft trill. A perfect little ding! of confirmation.
“Holy shit,” Mira muttered. “Okay, so we officially have a psychic pet oracle.”
“You’re both ridiculous. Maybe Jinu told me at some point and I just… forgot.” Rumi shrugged, but there was something tight in her voice.
The mention of his name still hurt. Jinu. Even though his soul was in his sword — an almost brotherly bond, established by the same veil that had once bound him — Rumi still felt the fateful guilt of having made him sacrifice, instead of being free — flesh and soul.
She swallowed and focused on her notebook again, her lines a little shakier now. But she didn’t say anything. Because some silences were better left untouched.
Zoey glanced over from the tiger, noting the subtle shift in Rumi’s posture. She exchanged a quick look with Mira. No words were needed. They were still here. Still watching over her.
Still her girls.
• ★ •
Days had passed. The Honmoon kept screaming — new spirits, new demons, echoing louder than before. And with each one, Rumi seemed stranger. Sharper, rawer. Like her skin had been peeled off and every word, every sound, every breath of the world was hitting muscle and bone.
She might have been on hiatus from her idol life, but never from her life as a hunter. Or as a daughter. Or as a hybrid. Or as a reviled creature that didn’t quite fit anywhere. Most nights she didn’t sleep. She’d sit hunched in the dark, poring over old tapes, CDs, handwritten letters. They were her lifeline, her only stability in a time when everything felt unreal — truths cloaked in lies, and lies whispering like half-remembered dreams.
Every new attack from the spirits got worse. More chaotic. The types were strange, varied — feral and compulsive in terrifying ways. Some craved souls, sure, but others were driven by lust, or food, or violence, or a hunger for raw chaos. They weren’t organized. They weren’t loyal. They weren’t even predictable. And each hunt left the three girls more frayed, more confused.
“Urgh! Shit!” Mira groaned the moment they stepped into the penthouse, slamming herself face-down onto the couch and shouting into a pillow. Seconds later, Zoey dropped onto her back like a fallen tree, crushing her with a wheeze. “That little rat bastard.” Mira’s voice was muffled but furious.
“Yeah, chasing mouse-sized demons through a grocery store? Absolute bullshit,” Zoey muttered, sprawling like a dead starfish. The three of them had spent the day posing as pest control, hunting a spirit that had been haunting Seoul’s local corner markets. Ridiculous didn’t even begin to cover it. “The things we do to protect people… I mean, we had to lie and say we were exterminators. Imagine the footage online? ‘K-pop idols go full pest control in rat-infested mart’? Bobby’s gonna have a coronary.” Zoey sighed and flopped her head toward the hallway. “I think we deserve fried chicken and trash movies after that. What do you say, Rumi—”
But there was no answer.
Instead, Rumi just walked straight past them, holding the sleeve of her hoodie tightly in one hand. She didn’t even glance in their direction. No words. Just disappeared into her room, the door clicking shut behind her.
Mira sat up immediately. The movement jolted Zoey, who gave a half-annoyed grunt as she was pushed aside.
“...She’s shutting us out again,” Mira muttered, voice low and tense.
“Yeah,” Zoey agreed after a pause. “Although, she’s never really let us in. Not completely.”
Even in those early days after the battle at Namsan Tower — when they’d cried, confessed, held one another like they’d never let go — there had always been something buried in Rumi’s silence. Something that clung behind her words. Behind the way she’d smile a second too late or answer a question with another question.
Something hidden. And it was getting harder to ignore.
“...It’s pissing me off,” Mira said, her fists tightening until the leather couch creaked beneath her. “Who’s even telling the truth anymore? Who can we trust!? She’s just as fucked up as we are, and yet she — she thinks she can just… handle it alone?”
Zoey exhaled slowly. Her voice came out quieter, more thoughtful than usual. “Yeah, maybe… But what if she just doesn’t know how to express it?”
Mira blinked. Zoey looked down at her hands. “I mean… think about it. What if it’s not about trust? Or hiding something. What if she literally doesn’t know how to let us in?”
And that… that struck Mira in a way she didn’t expect. Because maybe, just maybe, Rumi didn’t want to hurt them. Maybe she was just so scared of what was inside her — of what it might mean, what it might become — that silence felt safer than saying it out loud. Even if that silence was tearing them apart.
Mira’s gaze faltered.
One hand drifted up to her chest, unconsciously — seeking grounding, like trying to press back a rising tide of emotion threatening to unstring the most seasoned lute. Her heart weighed heavy with every pulse from the sinus node, the atria slow to open — like her body, too, hungered for a resolution that never came.
“I just… I can’t take the lies anymore,” she whispered. “Omissions… how is that any different? No one’s so worthless they don’t deserve to be seen.”
Her voice wasn’t anger — it was prayer. A quiet mantra she had recited a thousand times in her loneliest moments, when it felt like the world might split her open.
Zoey’s gaze softened, gentle like clouds brushing the edge of a mountain before melting into mist. She moved closer, took Mira’s trembling hand in both of hers, and leaned in to kiss her — a kiss full of need, full of exhaustion, full of a love desperate to be felt after long, bruising days.
Mira, the aloof one. Mira, always in control. Mira, who didn’t yield. But in Zoey’s arms, she was like garnet — tough, yes, but when polished, gleaming with the red fire of vulnerability.
How Zoey loved her. Loved the way Mira never pretended to be anything she wasn’t. Every facet, every angle — honest, unapologetic. To witness that was a gift Zoey never took for granted.
“She’ll open up,” Zoey said softly, letting one hand drift to Mira’s cheekbone — sharp, proud, sculpted like it had been carved by conviction itself. “One day. Don’t rush her, okay? No one’s going to betray you again. No one’s going to leave you behind. Not anymore.” And then she moved into her lap, nestling there like she belonged. A quiet moan slipped out as they settled into one another, skin brushing skin in warmth, not lust. Comfort. Devotion. “I’m not going anywhere,” Zoey breathed into her neck.
Mira exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, burying her face in Zoey’s dark hair. It smelled like sea salt, like blooming summer flowers, like the faint trace of caramel — the exact scent Mira had memorized, like the lyrics of an old love song.
“…Alright,” she whispered, placing a slow kiss on the crown of Zoey’s head. “But if I have to accept that she’s gonna keep pissing me off… then I think it’s only fair I piss her off right back.”
Zoey pulled back slightly to meet her gaze, curiosity lighting up her wide eyes. “…And what exactly are you planning?” she asked, cautious but smiling.
Mira didn’t answer with words. Her grin — half mischief, half rebellion — said more than enough.
Zoey felt the thrill down her spine. Maybe it was a terrible idea. Maybe two wrongs really didn’t make a right. But if they were going to be wrong — let it be together. Let it be worth it.
• ★ •
The door clicked shut behind her.
A sharp, splitting pain bloomed in her ribs, crushing her lungs like a fist from the inside. A choked scream died in her throat, and drool slipped down the corners of her mouth like the froth of a rabid beast. She stumbled blindly across the room, legs buckling under her weight, until she collapsed into the edge of the bed — too weak to sit, barely strong enough to crawl.
She curled inward, clutching herself, desperate for some illusion of comfort. But it never came. Only heat. And breathlessness. The sensation of being flayed from within.
She started to cry. Quietly.
It was not the kind of crying that begged for attention — no. It was the kind that made the world disappear. Her fingers clawed at the hem of her sweatshirt, yanking the fabric hard enough to tear it open across the chest. The thick cotton shredded easily under her strength. And beneath it, the faint iridescent glow.
Her marks burned like stars. Beautiful, blinding, cruel. They danced across her skin as if she carried a galaxy — but she wasn't divine. She wasn’t chosen. She was just a cursed, broken hybrid. Not a constellation. A mistake.
Her muscles pulsed violently beneath her skin. Her fine body hair stood on end like static warning of incoming disaster. Every cell, every strand of sinew, was changing — and the honmoon, the world, her very being, refused to let her breathe.
The worst part? It never stopped. Not anymore.
Every moment was this — waves of pain, evolution, mutilation. Her own body rebuilding itself without her consent. She could feel her skeletal system grinding. Ligaments reknitting. Veins writhing and shortening, mapping themselves in secret patterns. Cartilage vascularizing as if preparing for war. It was too much. Too grotesque. Too real.
Her stomach lurched. Her throat burned. Sourness flooded her mouth as she rolled over the edge of the bed and vomited, gasping as stomach acid and bright streaks of blood painted the floor beneath her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, only to recoil.
Her fingers — clawed. The tips darkened, graying to a pale violet, her knuckles too sharp, too tense. Skin like stretched parchment over bones meant for something not-quite-human.
She groaned and let herself fall backward onto the mattress again.
Everything burned. Everything pulsed. She wanted to scream — but worse than that, she wanted silence. She wanted Zoey and Mira to stay away. If they saw her like this…
No. She couldn’t survive it. They’d never look at her the same way again. She wouldn't look at herself the same way.
The others — the recordings of demons, the hunting, the fragments left by Jinu and her past — none of them looked like this. None of them felt like this. Even the demons she’d slain in Gwi-ma’s ranks — they were victims of the great will. Trapped. But her? She wasn't a puppet, never had been. Gwi-ma had never touched her conscience, so her filth was native.
Something about that thought sickened her — and thrilled her. The shame curled around her chest like a lover. Comforting. Disgusting. Intoxicating.
She growled — deep, guttural. It tore out of her like a threat, dragged up her throat and against her trembling tongue. Then, a soft sound. Purring. Her eyes cracked open. Blurred with tears, pain, and nausea — but she saw them. Derpy and Sussie.
The great, pudgy, blue-furred tiger crawled up onto the bed, looking equal parts stupid and celestial. He rumbled with warmth as he climbed over her chest, gentle despite his weight. And beside him, the magpie flitted down, perching near her ear. Its beak rubbed lightly against her temple, cooing, preening.
Rumi let out a strangled laugh. Even now — like this — they stayed. Even in her filth, in her shame, in the transformation she could barely comprehend… she wasn’t alone.
Her arms opened instinctively, slow and trembling, and Derpy nestled into them, his bulk pressing her down in a way that, oddly, soothed her. Grounded her. His warmth dulling the burn. His breath syncing with hers. Sussie continued to hum, like a lullaby only birds and children could sing.
And Rumi, though still shaking, allowed herself to smile. Just a little. It wasn't peace. But it was something.
“...you’re getting worse, Rumi.”
The calm, steady voice cut through the heaviness in the room. Jinu. Of course. Ever since he sacrificed himself to protect her from Gwi-ma’s final strike — and offered his soul to her in the process — Rumi had been able to speak with him. Occasionally. He wasn’t exactly in her, not like a possession, but anchored in her sword — bound to the part of her most attuned to the honmoon.
“Urgh... shut up. I don’t need a ghost reminding me of what I already know,” she croaked. Her voice was hoarse, dry, half-broken. Jinu just shrugged casually, leaning beside her.
“Relax. You know you can’t avoid me,” he said, teasing, as he reached over to stroke Sussie’s small feathered head. “...You’re getting better at hiding it, I’ll give you that. But honestly? That just makes it worse.”
He wasn’t wrong. Mira and Zoey thought she was doing fine — thought the worst was just the glowing marks, the occasional claws, the rare flicker of golden eyes.
But the truth? The truth was crawling under her skin like rot. And maybe it was better this way. If they knew what she really looked like in those moments, what she felt like inside… they'd be afraid. She was afraid.
“...Did you find anything useful?” she asked, a little calmer now but still coiled like a wounded thing. She tugged at the torn fabric of her hoodie, scratching at a glowing mark just beneath her collarbone, where the skin felt thicker. The area had grown subtly — her chest slightly more developed, her muscles denser, like her body was compensating for a war she didn’t understand. It made her feel wrong. Wrong and grotesque.
“...Ugh. No. Still in Korea. For now.” Jinu sighed, his form flickering faintly with each word. “At the rate you’re going, though? I’m not sure you’ll be able to stop it in time.”
Jinu didn’t belong to the spiritual plane anymore — he was a part of the realm of the dead. His connection to the physical world came only through the sword. Through her. The blade tethered him like a lifeline.
“Damn it. You really never saw anything like this before? Are you sure?” It was a question she’d asked him so many times before that even her hope sounded like fatigue now.
He shook his head slowly. “I’ve told you already. When I was under Gwi-ma’s control, I only had access to what he gave me. I saw some spirits, sure. But nothing like this. Nothing this… excessive. This hungry…They all want human souls,” Jinu added quietly.
That made Rumi growl. Her hand clenched into a tight fist and slammed into the mattress, making Derpy and Sussie flinch. She immediately pulled back, muttering a shaky apology. Her voice trembled.
“...You're so damn stubborn, Rumi,” Jinu said, watching her with something halfway between concern and exasperation. “For someone so selfless, you’re also the most prideful person I’ve ever met.”
“Oh, fuck off! I just—!” She curled further into herself, arms wrapping tightly around her sides. “I just don’t want to lose what I have left, okay? Not again… It’s already enough — she is already enough.” She thought of Celine. Of how she’d vanished, left a silence behind that still pressed against her ribs like phantom pain. “Already enough... they were already enough,” she whispered, thinking of her parents, of their voices still alive on tapes and videos, lingering in frequencies she replayed like prayer. “I only have you because you haunt me,” she added dryly. “Maybe I should’ve lost you too.”
Jinu chuckled, soft and lopsided, and moved closer to her on the bed — not to press, but to offer. His arms slipped around her in a weightless embrace.
“Yeah, well, I would’ve found a way to come back anyway. I’d haunt you right after you had sex with them. Just to be annoying.”
That earned a groan of disgust from Rumi, followed by a glare sharp enough to slice through iron. “You’re the worst.”
She reached up, lazily adjusting a loose strand from her half-undone braid, her clawed fingers trembling as they moved. Her eyes drifted from Derpy to the wide window in her bedroom, where the city buzzed with distant neon lights and the hum of life she could barely connect to anymore.
Jinu sighed. The air around her honmoon shimmered as he stood — his ghostly presence weightless, yet somehow still felt.
“Just try to rest,” he said, his voice thinner now, already beginning to fade. “Yeah, things are terrifying. And yeah, the world feels like it’s turning inside out. But not everything new is a threat. You know how to find me… just call.”
And just like that, he vanished again — his silhouette dissolving into the threads of the veil, disappearing between one beat of her heart and the next.
She inhaled. Her gaze flicked between the two spirit animals and then back to herself — her body like a shell on the verge of splitting. The ripped hoodie hanging from her shoulders, the acrid taste of blood and bile still clinging to her tongue, the dark stain of vomit beside the bed. Another growl escaped her chest — unnatural, rough, primal. It startled her, and yet…It was satisfying. Powerful. Expressive. A sound not of language, but of truth.
“I guess I should clean this up, huh?” she muttered toward the animals. They didn’t speak, not exactly, but she could feel them. Their presence rippled inside her skin like emotion — gentle, warm. They agreed. But she could also sense the nudge, the insistence, that she take care of herself too. “—Yeah, well. Can’t argue with that. A bath sounds… decent.”
Her limbs protested, but she rose. Still aching, but less fractured than before. She cleaned the floor slowly, deliberately, then pulled the sheets straight on the bed, her motions instinctive and intimate. As she did, she found herself holding onto her stuffed bear — the one Mira and Zoey had given her when they first debuted. A joke at the time. But now? Now, it was a piece of her lifeline. Her anchor on nights like this.
Later, she entered the bathroom. The soft amber lighting felt kind — neither the suffocating dark she irrationally feared, nor the clinical sting of full fluorescence. Just enough. She placed her altered hands on the marble countertop — skin grayed with lilac undertones, claws faintly retracting — and forced herself to look in the mirror, her reflection was foreign. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once.
Those iridescent markings, shifting like mother-of-pearl beneath her skin, pulsed dimly in lavender and opal. Deep, bruised circles clung beneath her eyes — one golden, pupil slit and dilated, sclera dark as coal. The other still wet from crying, its human color faded into exhaustion. Her skin, once warm beige, was now pale to the edge of translucence. A quiet purple shimmer threaded through her veins, a phantom bloom of something no longer human.
She opened her mouth slowly. Her fangs were longer now, subtly curved forward, almost like a predator whose bite could anchor deep. Between her upper premolar and canine, there was a gap — subtle, but unnatural. She frowned at it, but her thoughts were too fogged for disgust.
Her gaze dropped lower. To her frame. To what the patterns had made of her. She looked like a vessel — repaired, stitched together, and scarred by light. The muscles that once curved in soft elegance were taut, overworked, shaped by imbalance and involuntary strength. Her waist still tapered in that perfect line — an echo of the idol she'd been — but her back now pulled tight, defensive, like something that had learned to brace for pain.
Even in her disguise, she'd always been the one with the more defined body. Mira had the power, the endurance. Zoey had speed. But Rumi? Rumi carried form. It had once been part of her brand. Now, her biceps tensed without command, her abdomen carved too sharply, like something starved but unyielding. The kind of strength that doesn’t choose itself — only survives.
Who had she been? She didn’t know anymore. She only knew this: she was tired.
Dragging herself toward the shower, she stepped in. The water came on scalding — her preferred temperature now, matching the flickering heat of her marks and the burn in her bloodstream. Steam rose in great rolling waves, the droplets hitting her skin like little sparks.
She didn’t think. She didn’t speak. She simply stood there, head bowed beneath the stream.
Somewhere in the heat, her tears joined the water running down her face. And none of it mattered — because it would all go down the drain in the end.
...She didn’t hear the door open. But she heard Zoey’s voice. “—Rumi? Are you okay?”
The words came from inside the bedroom — inside. Her heart clenched violently, a sudden, acidic panic rising in her throat. Why was Zoey in her room? Why now?
Rumi’s entire body tightened as if bracing for collapse. The idea of being seen in this state — monstrous, broken, raw — made her feel like her soul had been pinned down and peeled open. She silently begged whatever god might be listening that neither of her girlfriends would dare open the goddamn bathroom door.
Stupid. She’s stupid.
She hated lies — and that’s why she hated herself. How could she still be hiding so much? Why was she still pretending?
And yet… a pathetic part of her wanted to be found. Wanted to be held. To hear Zoey’s bubbly, persistent voice trying to make her laugh, to feel Mira’s grounding presence, like the frame of a house built to keep her from falling apart. But she couldn’t let them see this. Couldn’t let them witness the grotesque mess that she had become.
She understood Derpy and Sussie more than she understood her own girlfriends. That was the truth. And maybe that was the problem.
She wasn't human anymore. Not really. In truth, she never had been — just foolish to believe she could be. Fuck you, Honmoon.
Then came the soft sound of approaching footsteps. They stopped just in front of the bathroom door.
It stayed shut. Thank the gods.
“...We know you don’t like when we come in without warning,” came Mira’s voice — steady, but unmistakably fragile. “But you’ve been in here all day. We could’ve sworn we heard you crying…” A pause. “Are you okay, Ru?”
Gods. That voice. Mira never cracked. Never let her softness bleed like this. And that made it worse. Made Rumi want to disintegrate right there beneath the steam and tile.
“...I-I’m just tired… it’s been a long week. I didn’t mean to worry you, I’m sorry,” Rumi said, forcing her voice into some imitation of calm. But it cracked. Not in sound — but in truth. Her words rang hollow, empty of rhythm. Her markings glowed like hazard lights, deep rose curling into violet, burning like shame.
She was barely holding it together. At least the door separated them. At least they couldn’t see her fall.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re okay,” Mira replied. Not cold — never that — but worn, laced with an anger too tender to sting. Frustration wrapped in concern. Like a general watching their last soldier bleed out on the battlefield.
“Do you— need help? Maybe we could just—” Zoey’s voice was closer, softer. But she didn’t finish, Rumi cut her off.
“NO!”
It came out too fast. Too loud. And wrong. Distorted, double-toned. Echoing in the honmoon like a scream through broken glass. The walls trembled. The lights flickered slightly. Her markings pulsed red like ruptured ruby, shivering into shades of flesh and bone.
She fucked it up. Again. Whatever mask she wore cracked under the force of her own voice.
She tried to fix it, her tone trembling, small, pathetic. “I just… please. I just need some time alone. After the shower I’ll… I’ll talk to you, okay? Just… please go.”
There was silence on the other side. She could feel them, both frozen, uncertain — grappling with the truth they couldn’t see but knew. Her panic. Her decay. But they didn’t push.
They wouldn’t. Because they loved her.
“Okay…” Zoey finally whispered. “Just… know we’re here. We’re waiting. Always. We love you.” She heard them step away, Zoey’s voice retreating with Mira’s quiet hand in hers — cool, trembling, disappointed.
Rumi exhaled. And in that breath was both relief and agony. She had driven them away — again. And there it was: the cycle. Her shame curled back around her ribs like vines. And somewhere deep inside, it thrilled her worst self to win.
Because that self believed, beyond all reason, that she didn’t deserve them.
• ★ •
After finally managing to stabilize herself — physically, at least, if not in spirit — Rumi stepped out of the bathroom. Her markings were still overly sensitive, so she wore long, loose clothing to cover the fragile glow still pulsing beneath her skin. She moved through the room quietly. Derpy was waiting for her, faithfully. Sussie was probably off with the other girls.
She walked side by side with the tiger, leaning gently against his large body. It was a safe comfort — and gods, she needed it. When she opened the door to the living room, she found the other two girls on the couch. They stood the moment they saw her, quickly crossing the room to meet her. Rumi kept her gaze on the floor, unable to meet their eyes.
“...I—I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice nearly lost in the space between them. She braced herself for some kind of reaction, something even mildly reproachful.
But all she received was their hands on her shoulders — gentle, grounding. The touch burned with tenderness. Her skin ached for more of it, as though starving for something she had denied herself.
“...It’s okay,” Zoey murmured, just as softly. She glanced at Mira before turning back to Rumi. “Mira made hobakjuk. You know… I figured it might be better for you than anything else right now.”
A small smile tugged at Rumi’s lips. She couldn’t deny it — after vomiting up the little that had been in her stomach, after unraveling under the weight of her own unstable body — food sounded almost insanely appealing.
“Yeah… sounds perfect,” she murmured in return.
They moved to the kitchen island. Mira served her with practiced care, setting the bowl in front of her like it was something sacred. The girls sat close on either side, not too far, not too close — just enough to remind Rumi that she was not alone.
The sweet scent — just sweet enough, Mira knew exactly how she liked it, a touch of gentleness rather than a sugar overload — drifted up from the steam. It filled her nose, wrapped around her lungs. Her chest rumbled lightly. A purr? Maybe. Whatever. She didn’t care to question it.
It was perfect. It was warm. It was delicious. And it was worth every bit of her concentration and hunger.
The other two watched her, relief softening the exhaustion on their faces. Behind all the fragility, the scars, the walls — Rumi was still there. Still fighting. Still theirs.
And that was exactly why they had to go through with the idea — whatever the cost might be later. Scars only hurt when they’re still wounds. But no wound stays open forever.
They become memories.
Notes:
I'm planning to tweak some tags and add titles to the chapters.
This chapter on its own feels very transitional — a kind of ecotone between different plot elements. And honestly, I'm a little surprised myself by how the plot has grown! It’s turning out to be quite long, so I hope you'll stick with me through this hyperfocus-fueled madness lol.
Also? I'm OVERJOYED by your comments. I truly can't describe how much it means to me when I get that notification. So please, keep them coming — share your thoughts, additions, and reflections. Your words matter deeply to me—share them with me.
Chapter Text
Her hatred for mornings had begun early in life. Her hatred for the world had come even earlier.
Early. How she despised that sensation — being prematurely cast into an unhappy state before the sun had even had the full displeasure of arriving. Was it her fault? She simply couldn’t sleep.
She felt the weight of Zoey’s head, those medium-length locks in that charming black-blue hue, resting against her chest. It was a kind of comfort. If waking up early had any merit, it was for witnessing how peacefully Zoey slept — that’s how Mira thought.
She turned her arrogant face toward the ceiling. Of the three, her room was by far the most aesthetic. Legacy or reinvention—she didn’t care. She loved making the view matter more than the words. That was what motivated her to dance, to exist, to rebel. The unpredictability of movement, the anti-grammar of action. Commas were the pauses; periods, the applause — that’s how Mira thought.
Her hand gently caressed the soft swell of her corvine girlfriend’s back. But she didn’t lower her gaze. Flaws weren’t hers; she refused them. People always expected her to falter, but denial was her verb. She would never make the same pathetic mistake of believing again — that’s how Mira thought.
The sun rose with greater comfort, and soon, the other two girls in the penthouse awoke as well. A relaxed breakfast followed, everyone pushing past the strangeness of the previous day. Conversations came and went. Mira wasn’t particularly cheerful — then again, she rarely was — but her girlfriends had grown used to reading that as just part of her expression. A luxury, really, since it spared her from explaining herself if the reason behind it happened to be something else. They couldn’t tell the difference anyway.
A pleasure, that distance. Mira was a specialist at reading others, but terrible at being read. She saw herself as a dictionary of obscure words and complete entries, a bearer of meanings that seasoned the spaces between sentences and twisted interpretation. But to understand a dictionary on its own? That took time. It took desire. Linguistics is always there — but you will never unravel it completely. That was so Mira.
As she drank her coffee — just how she liked it, strong but not bitter — she listened to Rumi and Zoey’s exchange.
“You’re going to the doctor. You seem feverish all the time,” Zoey said, her voice serious — uncharacteristically so.
“...I’m not going. I already told you, I’m fine,” the purple-haired woman replied, biting into her toast with a clipped motion.
“...I’m not suggesting, Ru,” Zoey snapped, sharper now. She rarely lost her temper, but whatever this was, Rumi was testing her limits. “I’m calling Bobby. Don’t even think about making up an excuse.” She turned her eyes to Mira, who was simply observing, not interfering. “You coming with us?”
“No,” Mira replied bluntly, looking at Rumi, who shrank a little in her seat. “I’m going to take advantage of you two being out to do some… personal things. If that’s not a problem.”
Zoey thought for a moment. She always liked having structure in the day — even if she found it hard to follow. To the public, she might seem carefree, but those who lived with her knew the truth: Zoey considered everything and then some to make things work for everyone.
“Yeah. That sounds fair. Just… be careful, please,” her voice softened there, slipping back into its usual, sweet and gentle register — momentarily eclipsed by her frustration with the oldest’s stubbornness, so often childishly shy.
Mira simply nodded. Rumi might be harder than ever to live with, but she’d been right about one thing for days now: these times were becoming unbearable to endure.
• ★ •
The girls left, now she was alone at home. She breathed in deeply and turned her head slightly, just enough to find Sussie staring at her. Yes — of the two spiritual animals that had adopted them (because let’s face it, they had no choice but to love those creatures), Sussie was the one who most resembled her. That quiet, irritable disposition suited them both. Mira just turned away, and a moment later, felt the magpie perch on her shoulder. A small laugh escaped her, involuntarily. Fine — if it’s cute, it gets a pass.
She took the elevator down to the Huntrix training floors. Three whole stories, dedicated solely to that. Her goal? To dance. Honestly, even if they were on hiatus, she’d been spending more and more time imagining choreography for “What It Sounds Like.” It had already been a stroke of luck that Bobby pulled off such a miraculous PR stunt to explain away the Idol Awards disaster. She needed to make it worth it.
Her body moved with precision and determination. But there was no cohesion. The steps hit their counts, but not their meaning. Her arms moved in time, but not in truth. It was like wearing a costume that didn’t belong to her — too tight at the shoulders, too loose at the chest. She tried again. A lateral impulse, a spin on her heel, torso tilting forward, arms mirroring the tear in the melody — but the force that used to live in her gestures was diluted now. And when the bridge of the song began, her mind began to crumble too.
“—I broke into a million pieces and I can't go back...”
Mira stopped. Turned her back to the mirror, her chest heaving as she tried to force air into lungs that only echoed noise. Yes. Yes, she knew this part. A million pieces. That’s what she was made of now. Not open wounds anymore, but crooked scars, poorly stitched — on the inside. She braced her hands against the wall, resting her forehead on the cold concrete.
She thought of Rumi. Of the way she smiled and said everything was fine — when it never was. She thought of her fingers brushing Mira’s hair aside and whispering “you see me, truly” like it was a prize Mira had won. But what truth was that?
Rumi had closed off. Again. Since Jeju. Since the new demons. Since…since—
The memory was sharp: the creature bursting from the soaked ground, fetid, twisted, a child’s carcass dissolved in moss and wounds. Rumi hesitated that day. Just for a second. But Mira had seen it. A flicker of paralysis. Of fear. Then came the fight. Their strength. Their instinct. But also — the silence. The silence that began there, and stretched on for days. Spreading like mold across the walls of their relationship.
Zoey was exhausted. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. Celine gone. Bobby pretending he still had control, that he knew how to deal with the double life of his idols. And Rumi — the damn Rumi — silent. Silent like keeping secrets was the only way to protect what little was left.
And her? Mira? She wasn’t allowed to falter. She was the strong one. She had always been. The fighter. The impulsive one. The foul mouth. The energy that both frightened and protected. The one who didn’t cry. The one who danced with the world on fire.
But now — now there was only quiet inside her. Only emptiness.
She turned, one last attempt to keep going. She wanted to try another sequence, something more fluid, more emotional. She took her position. The beat returned.
“—Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?”
She slid, let her arm follow the anguish in the lyrics — but suddenly, her leg felt like lead. She missed the turn. Stumbled. Fell hard, landing seated. Silence. The music kept playing, but she couldn’t hear it anymore. Only her own ragged breathing. Only the absence of fire.
“Why…” she murmured to the ceiling, “Why now, when I need myself the most, am I not here?”
A flutter of wings. Soft, almost imperceptible. Sussie. The magpie perched beside her, walking with her elegant little steps until she climbed onto Mira’s bent knee. Settled there, like she always did when she sensed a storm — not in the sky, but in the eyes of the human she had chosen.
Mira looked at her for a moment. The bird’s small, intelligent eyes reflected the studio light like liquid glass.
“I know what people think of me, Suss. I’ve always known.” She wasn’t expecting a response, but she felt the magpie’s silence like attentive listening. Her voice trembled. “But no one knows how much I had to become this. How much I made myself into this just so I wouldn’t disappear. So I wouldn’t get erased.” Sussie tilted her head. Mira closed her eyes tight. “And now…ugh…fuck! Now that I feel like I need it, I just… can’t...” The music kept playing.
“—Show me what’s underneath, I’ll find your harmony...”
She shut her eyes. What if there was no harmony? What if there was only chaos? What if what lay beneath — beneath her skin, her muscles, her rage — was just exhaustion?
She stayed there. Breathing slower. The bird warming her knee. The studio bathed in half-light.
And then, maybe out of pride, maybe out of stubbornness — or maybe from pure survival instinct — she reached out and restarted the track. Pressed the record button on the panel.
She stood up. Still shaking. But standing.
The choreography would start with the fall. With the stumble. With the moment of losing ground. She would use that. Not to pretend she was whole.
But to show, in every movement, that even broken — she still danced. And that…that was the sound of her truth.
Mira turned off the sound panel and grabbed the towel from the floor. She wiped her forehead, squinting slightly at her reflection: hair clinging to the back of her neck, skin still hot from the exertion — but her gaze… her gaze was already somewhere else. Some other time.
Sussie, perched on the clothes rack by the door, pecked lightly at the side of the black hoodie Mira threw over her head as she left. The two of them descended in silence, cutting through the empty corridors of the Huntrix headquarters, the subtle neon of the night-shift hallways reflected in the magpie’s eyes. She hadn’t told anyone on the team. She just left. Slipped on her glasses — she actually preferred them, though contacts were more practical — and began to unload her thoughts through her footsteps.
The streets of Seoul were alive — pure, mundane, real. Couples arguing at the doors of coffee shops, teenagers laughing too loudly, rideshare drivers honking into the void. And her... she was just another figure crossing into the morning with slow steps. The Han flowed in the distance, mirroring the city like a fractured, perfect ruin. Mira leaned against the rail of a pedestrian bridge and breathed. Felt the cold wind cut through her mask, sting her nose. It was good. Painful, but good.
Thinking about the mundane lives of ordinary people was both comforting and revolting — routine had once been her curse. She remembered, yes, what it was like to sit at the table with her family, all dressed in formality. Dinners at the top of the tower, cutlery lined up like soldiers. Her brother speaking enthusiastically about investments, contracts, partnerships with AI companies. And her? She’d say she was writing a story where a girl used her anger as magic — and they’d laugh. Or worse: ignore her.
“You should focus on something real, Mira.”
“Your brother’s already on the XGen project, did you know? And you… dancing?”
“You’re smart, but… you lack maturity.”
Her fists clenched inside her pockets. The truth was, she had stopped trying to be heard. She started answering with sarcasm, with disdain. Started pulling away before the contempt could reach her first. And in the end, she had proven them right: isolated, abrasive, difficult. And deep down… they were right.
She didn’t know how to express things.
Didn’t know how to say, “I’m sorry.”
Didn’t know how to say, “I just wanted to be seen."
And that — that flaw — slipped even into the relationships she cherished. With Rumi. With Zoey.
“I’m tired, Sussie,” she murmured, the bird now lightly settled on the railing, invisible to the rest of the world.
The magpie’s silence was always more eloquent than any advice. Mira leaned forward, resting her chin on her crossed arms. In the distance, she saw a couple sharing a fish cake at the corner. A delivery driver dozing on his bike. Three old women crossing the street with colorful umbrellas, even though it wasn’t raining.
No one out there knew who she was. Not the idol. Not the hunter. Not the ungrateful daughter. And that… that was a strange relief. A pause in identity.
She walked a little more, crossed two blocks, turned into an alley where neon signs flickered in blue and pink. Entered a 24-hour convenience store, grabbed a bottle of strawberry milk and a gimbap, paid without a word. Sat on the steps outside and ate in silence. As she bit into the rice and seaweed, she felt something so basic, so childish...
“I just wanted…” she began, but the sentence died on her lips.
She didn’t know what. Maybe just to exist without needing to be useful. Without needing to prove she wasn’t a mistake. The lights of Seoul trembled in her eyes.
Sussie perched on the handrail beside her, watching it all with mirror-glass eyes. And Mira... stayed there. Just breathing. For a moment, simply… being.
• FB: S •
A sudden rain fell over Seoul. The forecast said it wouldn’t last long, but even so, it made time feel like it was stretching further and further. Zoey was still curled up in her lap, the warmth of the raven-haired girl filling Mira’s cooled shell — one that stubbornly tried to sync itself with the rhythm of her heart.
“Mira — not that I have any right to say this, but this is a terrible idea right now,” Zoey said, toying with one of the two small strands of Mira’s hair that framed her face.
“You can’t keep avoiding the inevitable, you know? But… yeah, maybe you can avoid charging headfirst into it.”
“Look, I know you’re mad at Celine. I’m mad at Celine — everyone is, okay? But still… we have to give Rumi time to calm down. Doing this right away isn’t going to help.”
“Ugh… you know, sometimes seeing you like this is weird,” Mira muttered, a bit less serious now, trying to pull some humor into the discomfort. “You’re usually the most proactive one!”
“That’s because there are at least thirty ways Rumi could react to this arranged meeting. And about twenty-eight of them are bad. I’m just as impatient, but… I don’t want to be selfish.”
“She didn’t only lie to Rumi, Zoey.”
“But still, she’s the one who spent the most time with her, Mir,” Zoey said, curtly. It was a tone Mira wasn’t used to hearing from her — this sharp edge, almost scolding. It made her neurons itch like a dog with mange. Zoey must have sensed the discomfort she caused because she took a breath, softened slightly.
“...we’ll talk to Celine. We’ll bring her into a serious conversation, okay? Just... let things cool off first.”
“...Fine. I don’t exactly agree with this whole ‘do nothing and pretend it’s a strategy’ thing. But whatever.” Mira grumbled, and Zoey rolled her eyes — but with a small smile tugging at her lips.
“Do nothing? Who said anything about doing nothing?” her smile widened. “I actually have some ideas for what we can do.”
“Oh? Just one idea?” Mira raised an eyebrow, the rhythm of normality settling back between them. It felt good. Grounding. Peaceful.
Zoey laughed, tugging her girlfriend’s hand and standing from the couch. She led Mira toward the bedroom. “Actually, I’ve written four notebooks full of ideas and their respective methods of implementation.” She raised one hand to gesture while the other still held Mira’s, saying it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it wasn’t. But Mira didn’t care.
She didn’t care if it was normal by the world’s standards. Just the fact that it was so her — so utterly, wonderfully Zoey — was enough to mend the cracks in her heart.
And under all her bravado, she hoped — truly hoped — that it could mend Rumi’s heart too.
• FB: E •
She didn’t go back to the building. No, she definitely couldn’t go back. Her steps were hurried, determined — a sharp contrast to her thoughts, which seemed to pray for time to accelerate and for the future never to arrive.
Future. How she used to love that word — even now, when it had become a source of dread. She remembered it clearly: seventeen years old, on a break from Celine’s training to spend the end-of-year holidays with her parents — a luxury for hunters and trainees, granted by her, honestly. A brutal fight, born of disbelief. The announcement of her disinheritance. A failure doesn’t deserve a family.
We have more important things to prioritize.
She had looked at herself, deeply, in the mirror. How she had grown. No longer the quiet little girl, but the kind of girl who would bark without end. If you extend your wrist to an irritated dog — be ready to be bitten.
Kim Mi-kyeong? It felt so out of order now. Just the past — and honors didn’t have to be golden or beautiful. Oh no, they wouldn’t be. She would never honor a legacy built on the backs of the weak, money printed and molded with the blood of humbler lives. She refused. Would that be heroic, or foolish? For her? It would be both.
Maybe that’s what she felt when Celine reached out to her during that trial, freshly released from juvenile detention for the second time that year. Maybe Mira had seen in Celine something almost as fantastical as her own political visions — a version of the world where she could be a hero. A world where her actions would have meaning, where they wouldn’t be swept under the rug, like her parents always did. That’s why her future would be brilliant, radiant, golden like the bitterness she had shattered.
And she would go on shattering it. Maybe she didn’t have the ability, like her two girlfriends, to shape something from scratch — but she, carving away flakes and revealing contours, would surpass Michelangelo. Yes, exactly. She would chip away every imperfection that had made her life so jagged, the kind of sharp edges that hurt her, and the people she truly loved.
One of those sharp edges? Celine, obviously.
Back when she was still young, still under the mantle of the former Sunlight Sister, she had been Celine’s closest student. The one who admired her the most — the speeches of strength, the epic declarations, the blazing inspiration. She couldn’t deny the thrill she felt when she realized that Celine was a figure of power she couldn’t breach — and that only made her want to try harder.
And the whole discourse about demons? A relief.
Power through failure — a reason for being different, for being special because of something external? She would live for that. Knowing that maybe the fault wasn’t hers, not entirely, not this time, was deeply comforting.
The aggression? That was the temptation of demons.
The arrogance? The temptation of demons.
The rejection? The temptation of demons.
She could have been a religious fanatic — but she wasn’t kneeling, begging for forgiveness. No. She would raise her woldo and sing hymns of hope and war.
She needed to defeat her greatest thorn, the one that had grown from her untouched flesh and pointed toward everyone who stood beside her. No more lies — she wouldn’t tolerate them.
“And if words failed — then let it be the blade.” — (ch.5)
She boarded the train, hoodie well in place, Sussie comfortably tucked under the fabric at her shoulder. She had strong tracking skills, and that’s what had brought her so precisely to the location where her former mentor would be. The honmoon had been more sensitive lately than it had ever been — and how could she deny it? It had helped her feel souls, pinpoint them in the nearly infinite spectrum of colors that threaded through the energy lines of the veil.
It was one of the company’s scattered offices across Korea. She was in Daegu now, staring at the Sunlight Entertainment building. She could feel Celine’s dormant connection to the honmoon — bitter, like a one-sided marriage.
One in the afternoon. How had so much time passed already?
Lunchtime — she could very well just walk in through the front door, say a casual “hi” to the security guard and go on her way. She was fucking Mira, after all. If that company had become what it was in recent years, part of the credit was hers too — far beyond just being an idol. Maybe being a disinherited daughter did have a few perks when it came to mindset, huh?
Still. Walking through the front door felt weak. Too simple. Too dramatic in a submissive way. She was already throwing herself into the fire — so why not do it with style? She walked discreetly to the building’s left side, which opened into a completely ignorable alley, especially thanks to the signage of the adjacent shops. She studied the windows carefully. One of them led directly into a restroom cluster, which was also accessible from the main office floor: it would be enough.
With skills forged from sheer will and dedication, she began climbing the building, using parkour. She couldn’t help but remember how silly it had once been, when she and the girls would roam the rooftops at night — dancing across buildings and trampling over foolish expectations. When Rumi or Zoey stumbled, she’d be there — laughing and teasing, of course, but always offering a hand, always doing a quick check to see if they were okay. The best part? When she fell, they’d do the same.
They were equals, each utterly their own — and they would never waste time contemplating ego when love was what held them together. That’s why she was so determined to shout, to speak — to fight.
To win, for them. Too competitive — she could only see her own future as something to be conquered. She climbed with precision, slipping in through the window that opened into the corridor of the restroom complex. The white tiled environment helped her keep her focus. She walked past the mirrors, her reflection witnessing the materialization of the massive woldo, its blade iridescent like a faceted prism.
Her steps slowed, until she chose one of the stalls and slipped inside, hiding.
She leaned softly against the wall, her ear pressed to the cold, smooth surface. She took a deep breath and began to hum — barely audible — her free hand moving with gentle gestures, a kind of dance as subtle as the volume of her voice. The honmoon shivered, and she could feel her former mentor’s presence perfectly, just on the other side of the wall. All she had to do was wait for the perfect moment — and it wasn’t far off.
When she heard the telltale vibration of the older woman approaching the restroom, she adjusted her posture bit by bit, aligning herself with the target of her “ambush.”
Not that she really intended to hurt Celine — but she loved the drama, and she wouldn’t pretend otherwise. Things had to be done memorably, after all.
A little more time passed, and then the door to the complex opened. Footsteps echoed in the almost-empty restroom — light, clipped steps. One of the faucets was turned on, water running over the marble before spiraling down the drain.
It wasn’t on purpose — definitely not — but Mira could almost swear she could hear Celine’s thoughts. They were so loud, relentless. So different from how she remembered the merciless woman who once trained her. But still — the future had to be brilliant!
And she would rip those thoughts out of her head, one by one.
• ★ •
Her hand was still on the mouse as she stared at the computer screen. Twenty years. Twenty years, and she had the nerve to message her now — feigning concern? It was a complete lack of commitment and respect.
Celine absolutely despised that.
She simply massaged her own temple before closing the tab in her browser. Inevitably, it was a conversation she would have to have — but surprise! What conversation wasn’t she postponing?
“Coward,” she whispered to herself. She liked being the model of precision, of direction. And now she was avoiding her battles like them, like the demons loved to do. A sudden ache cut through her skull at the thought. No — what a stupid thought. She was doing it for everyone’s sake.
Like everything she had always done.
She stood up from her chair and looked around her office. Photos from her golden era, from the era of her friends, the days of her glory. Her most cherished memories — she always placed them in every office she had, and they brought her comfort. Her eyes continued to scan her private hall, stopping on a shelf fixed to the wall — just like those moments were fixed in her memory. Each one of them had a sound, composing a beautiful melody. Even through the pain, being chosen by the Honmoon had been one of the most beautiful things that could’ve happened to her. Just imagine: not hearing the voice of the world — not knowing how beautifully a soul can sing?
Her gaze kept moving. From right to left, until it settled on a particular photo: Mira, Zoey, and Rumi — receiving their first AOTY. A smile tugged at her high, time-worn cheeks. They looked so radiant.
The way Mira’s smile was always sharp, piercing, stunning. Thinner, but showing off her perfect teeth, set against fuller lips. The directness that ran across her face didn’t stop it from saying: affection, happiness, pride. The hardness was there, but not like muddy stones or blades waiting to cut — it was a diamond. And what’s more beautiful than that?
Zoey’s smile, on the other hand, was so wide it could be compared to the horizon — where suns, moons, and stars are born. A guide in the darkness of bitterness. Celine could remember the day she met the girl — a rushed flight from California to Seoul, a gap between her front teeth. She was adorable. It still pained her, a little, that the ever-critical industry had encouraged her to “fix” that aesthetic divergence.
And then, her eyes shifted to Rumi. Restrained, gentle, but playful and good-humored in silhouette. The smile of someone doing good work — diligent, dedicated. Someone who knew the value of what she was building. The softness of Mi-ya…but his humor. Even terrible things could bear good fruit, if one knew how to care for them.
And she hadn’t known — Celine was fully aware of that now. She turned her face away, the movement rippling through her muscles, driven by the shame firing through her synapses. If regret could kill — well, she wouldn’t have made it to fifty, that’s for sure.
She turned as if turning at a funeral — knowing she was leaving something behind, but that whatever it was, it would never return to her. Not again. Not the same.
She was heading to the restroom, to wash her face and return to work — her great distraction. It was a good plan. It would have to be enough. Her steps weren’t rushed — she had all the time in the world. Or maybe no time left at all, which is why rushing wouldn’t help.
She simply entered and walked toward the sink. She turned on the tap, watching the water flow for a moment before finally washing her hands and face. She was distracted enough not to care about the slight tremor in the Honmoon. She didn’t recognize it — not with those colors, not with those vibrations so unlike the ones she had once idealized. In a golden future.
But one thing she did recognize clearly: the warmth of an approaching aurora at the back of her neck. What a fool — to think she could avoid this. "How long have you been here?"
The question came impassive, direct, just as the tip of the blade pulled away from her neck — not that Honmoon weapons could truly harm humans, but they could still burn, hot enough to blister.
"About twenty minutes, maybe," Mira replied, spinning the woldo gracefully before planting its iridescent blade on the ground. Her reflection now stood clearly behind Celine’s in the mirror. "Why the hell have you been ignoring all our messages!? You've been pretending we don't exist since the Idol Awards! It’s been months, for god’s sake!"
“Mira... the situation isn’t so simplistic that it can be reduced to... that.” Celine countered, still not turning fully, her eyes meeting Mira’s only through the mirror. Nothing else.
“Oh, it’s not!?” Mira’s voice cracked with incredulity. “How dare you say that!? You should be on your knees! We managed to defeat Gwi-ma, we managed to bring back hope— and more than that, to bring hope to Rumi, something you—” She pointed her long, sharp finger at the older woman before her, “you never could!”
"...And yet, demons are still appearing." The former Sunlight Sister's words hit like cold iron. Enough to contort Mira’s expression into a grimace.
"Those aren’t Gwi-ma’s." The old demon king’s name slipped from her lips like molten glass. "You know what they are... don’t you?"
Her voice had quieted, but her words cut like glass shards — small, cold, and impossible to ignore. Celine didn’t answer immediately.
The mirror no longer reflected just two women — it reflected the time they had lost, the promises broken, the abyss between what had been mission... and what had been love.
“Rumi’s sick… did you know that?” Mira’s voice cracked again. “She tries to act like we don’t notice, but we do— I do! I hear her crying, I hear her screams, her vomiting. And where are you, huh? Where’s the person who was supposed to be our anchor in the storm, our refuge in the confusion, huh??”
Silence.
“The hunts are getting harder… these…these new demons! We don’t know anything about them! And why don’t we know anything!?” Her voice was faltering, but she forced it back into steadiness.
“And you— you just disappear. You always disappear the moment the truth gets too close to you.” Celine lowered her gaze. Her reflection in the mirror, still fractured, looked older. Not from time — but from weight. "You lied to us." That made Celine raise her eyes again. A flicker of pride tried to form there — and died before it could even begin.
"You lied about what we were. What it means to be a Hunter. What does it mean, huh?"
“I...” The word came out dry. Cracked. Mira stepped forward. Not with threat — but with the anguish of someone demanding answers, even knowing they might destroy her.
“The oath? ‘We’re Hunters, voice strong. Slaying demons with our song’? It was always about killing demons and pretending it was for justice— when it was just fear dressed up as faith!?”
“Mira—”
“You told us to protect humans. But you never said from what, exactly. You never said why there were so many seals, so many songs, why so much control...why we could never ask where the demons came from. Where Gwi-ma came from.”
Mira was breathing hard now. She was trembling—not from anger, but from something older. Betrayal.
“And now he’s gone, and abomination-demons are crawling out like roaches from the gutter. Why!? I thought he was the only problem!”
Celine finally stepped forward. Her voice, at last, had lost its institutional tone. “Because demons were never the only thing that threatened us. And the existence of Gwi-ma... protected us.”
Mira stared at her. "...What?"
Celine stared back. Her eyes were dark, like a sky locked before the storm.“The golden Honmoon was never meant to destroy Gwi-ma or his kingdom… only temporary expulsions. His existence was a cork — sealing the passageway of the Honmoon from... the true danger.”
“…And why. Didn’t. We. Know that?” Mira’s hands clutched the shaft of her weapon tightly, the lines of her veil fluttering like thin branches before a storm. Her teeth clenched so hard they might have shattered.
Celine didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
Mira couldn’t hold back. She lunged toward her former mentor, grabbing her by the collar of her dress shirt and forcing her to finally face her. The shock was brief — but soon Celine’s gaze returned to its usual stillness. Methodical...Regretful?
“Don’t think I’m going to let this go, Celine! I-I hate being lied to! I hate it when people aren’t strong enough to deal with the consequences!
“I WON’T FORGIVE YOU!” Damn, how much that sounded like him.
All Celine could do was nod. Let the heavens have mercy on her punishment — because she would not run from it. “...I know. But it’s better this way.” In a swift motion, Celine tore one of the rings from her finger and threw it to the ground.
A cloud of smoke — red like wildfire — filled the young Hunter’s vision. Mira staggered backward, her hands gripping the woldo again. Cracks bloomed inside her consciousness — then came a deep, oppressive laughter. The future wasn’t golden, after all. It was red.
But, look closely — Even blood carries gold.
Notes:
Okay, maybe I had high expectations for this chapter... but even with so many, I still feel like I didn't quite live up to them? That's pretty normal, I guess — what you write never fully matches the 100% vision in your head. Still, this chapter resonates deep within me in a very personal way.
This chapter and the next happen simultaneously, but from different perspectives ;)
Now, though, I have a slightly more serious question for you, lovely readers: As I’ve mentioned in other author’s notes, this story has grown far beyond what I originally envisioned in my outline, you know? And I feel like neither the title nor the summary really capture the massive lore I’ve built for it.
I’ve been considering wrapping up this story and continuing it within a series here on AO3 — but I worry this might disrupt the reading flow for those who’ve subscribed, bookmark, or leave new readers lacking context if they jump straight into part two. What do you think? I’d genuinely love to hear your perspective.
Pages Navigation
mx_ig on Chapter 1 Mon 30 Jun 2025 12:08AM UTC
Comment Actions
thecanklebandit on Chapter 1 Wed 09 Jul 2025 07:24AM UTC
Comment Actions
ChicaFenix88 on Chapter 1 Fri 11 Jul 2025 01:55AM UTC
Comment Actions
wolfangs55 on Chapter 1 Sun 13 Jul 2025 02:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
wolfangs55 on Chapter 1 Sun 13 Jul 2025 09:09PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 1 Mon 14 Jul 2025 10:21AM UTC
Comment Actions
NiceReader on Chapter 1 Sat 19 Jul 2025 02:20AM UTC
Comment Actions
The_Literary_Lord on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Jul 2025 03:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Jul 2025 04:14PM UTC
Comment Actions
AoifeForrester on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Jul 2025 05:23PM UTC
Comment Actions
compa16 on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Jul 2025 07:31PM UTC
Comment Actions
MonkeyKing24 on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Jul 2025 04:05AM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Jul 2025 08:29AM UTC
Comment Actions
MonkeyKing24 on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Jul 2025 11:28AM UTC
Comment Actions
ValkyrieElysia on Chapter 2 Fri 04 Jul 2025 03:47PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 2 Fri 04 Jul 2025 05:33PM UTC
Comment Actions
fitiavana_lalisa8 on Chapter 2 Sat 05 Jul 2025 01:26PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 2 Sun 06 Jul 2025 01:25PM UTC
Comment Actions
Undyne on Chapter 2 Sun 06 Jul 2025 03:30PM UTC
Comment Actions
thecanklebandit on Chapter 2 Mon 14 Jul 2025 04:01AM UTC
Comment Actions
The_Literary_Lord on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Jul 2025 06:24PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Jul 2025 07:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
Certifiedbreadboy on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Jul 2025 06:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Jul 2025 07:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
KornAndBeans on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Jul 2025 07:36PM UTC
Comment Actions
Noire1911 on Chapter 3 Sat 05 Jul 2025 03:43AM UTC
Comment Actions
Boudica96 on Chapter 3 Sat 05 Jul 2025 09:29PM UTC
Comment Actions
Chris (Guest) on Chapter 3 Sat 19 Jul 2025 10:48AM UTC
Comment Actions
Lzite_ough on Chapter 3 Sat 19 Jul 2025 09:03PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation