Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zoey would love to be optimistic. It’s what she does best! She’s just having a hard time understanding what on Earth Rumi is talking about when she comes to Zoey and Mira, words tumbling from her lips in desperate succession that seem to be some sort of plan.

She’s sitting at the kitchen counter, her lyric book in front of her and a pen tucked anxiously between her teeth. The pages are full of scribbles and little doodles, but nothing of substance. It’s like she’s hit a block. Zoey glances over at Mira, who’s tapping out a rhythm. It seems like she’s gotten nowhere with the creative process either.

Even on a three-month hiatus from being Huntrix, the Honmoon waits for no one! So they’ve been working on their comeback in between couch time and trips to the bathhouse. Zoey knows they’ll make a Golden Honmoon this time.

They’re just having… a bit of trouble.

And then the elevator dings, and a chaotic rustling comes from the entrance.

“I’ve got it!” Rumi basically shouts, coming in through the elevator door with her hair frazzled and a wild look in her eyes. She bumps into the kitchen counter in her frenzy. Mira jumps to her feet to stabilize Rumi, but their leader just tosses a bag of Hi-Chew candies onto the table. 

Zoey sheepishly picks up a grape-flavoured one and tosses it into her mouth. “You’ve got what?”

“A plan!” She slaps her hands down onto the countertop like a general about to go to war. “I went to talk to Celine today and asked her about bringing people back—”

“Like, from the dead?” Mira interjects.

“—and I finally got an answer. I had to beg, but she told me that souls often just wander around in the human world, unseen, trying to find a tether, or until they move on. I just need to find a way to make a strong enough connection to the souls out there to bring back–” She finally falters. Her spark ebbs, and, more solemnly, she finishes, “I just need to find a way to bring back Jinu.”

The silence that falls over them is heavy. Zoey and Mira glance at each other. A mutual understanding of Rumi’s emotions passes between them. 

Carefully, Mira sets her hand on Rumi’s shoulder. Rumi gives her a sad look. “You went to Celine, even after all that?” Mira asks.

“She’s the only one I could think of to help me,” Rumi says, placing her hand on top of Mira’s and leaning into her shoulder. 

Zoey hops up out of the high seat and comes around to hug Rumi. “I’m sorry about Jinu, again.”

A short time after everything happened, Rumi had told them about Jinu. She’d told them about her meetings with him, why she was working with him in the first place, and how he’d made her feel and the way they’d gotten along, until he finally gave himself up for her. Rumi seemed to believe that his soul was still out there somewhere, trying to find its way back to her. Zoey wasn’t going to tell her no, even if she still doesn’t really understand how deep their bond goes.

Besides, Zoey loves a good love story!

All she knows is that Rumi needs her and Mira to support her through this, and they’re going to be there for her. 

“All souls have their reasons to want to come back,” Rumi says as she detaches herself from her best friends and picks out a watermelon Hi-Chew. She looks at it contemplatively, peels it open, then watches it thoughtfully again. “And I know what we had was real, so… I need time to make something– Something like a song to guide him back to me.”

She pops it into her mouth, but her expression is hidden. Mira shrugs when Zoey gives her a questioning look.

“A song?” Zoey echoes around the candy sticking to her teeth.

“Will you girls help me?” she asks suddenly, turning back around. Her eyes are bright and glimmering with hope, and neither of them can say no to Rumi like this.

Then, like a traitorous passing thought, Zoey thinks about the Honmoon. It came apart recently because they couldn’t keep it together. There’s the ghost of Gwi-Ma’s voice in the back of her head, telling her she’s too much and not enough at once, and she tenses her jaw. Demons don’t die. They just go back to where they came from when the Hunters kill them, then they crawl back when they need or want to. They aren’t safe from the threats of demons yet, even after their recent victory. 

Their role is important in keeping the peace. They can’t forsake it or risk it by meddling with other magic.

But Rumi is also important. Not only to Zoey, but also as part of the trio that keeps the Honmoon together, golden or not. They can’t work without her. They have to put her first, even if a niggling part of Zoey wants to focus on the Honmoon. Above all, Rumi is her friend, she tells that little voice. She means more to Zoey than a part of a trio.

Zoey steps forward, smiling reassuringly. She takes Rumi’s hand into hers and squeezes. “Of course. Always.”

“We’re in this together. Not falling apart again,” Mira swears with a firm nod. 

Rumi’s eyes water and she pouts, sniffling. “Thank you… I love you!”

“Aw, Rumi! We love you, too!”

Volume: ■□□□□□□

Usually, their couch time is a lot more casual. Lounging around in bathrobes with a stack of food and snacks, a compilation of TikToks playing on their big screen, staring up at the ceiling… Now that’s life, Zoey thinks. 

But it’s a little less relaxing this time, because Rumi has her feet tucked under herself, plucking at her guitar strings thoughtfully. It’s more of an idle action than anything, because she’s watching Mira pace back and forth, completely neglecting the couch despite Zoey tapping the cushions invitingly.

On a tray between them, there’s a pile of food, but Zoey finds herself constantly picking at the sweet candies. Sometimes, a shrimp cracker here, a rice cracker there, but she ultimately keeps coming back to the Hi-Chews. She doesn’t know when she’d gotten a taste for them.

“Okay, so… Celine said they need to be guided back,” Mira says as she continues her march back and forth, like some kind of drill sergeant.

It’s funny to think of her friends as about to go to war.

“Right.”

Mira taps her chin. Then, she whirls and points at Rumi. “A song about missing someone! Something like… I miss you / Saying it like this makes me miss you even more.” She hesitates and makes a face. “Eh… A little literal.”

“Just a little,” Rumi laughs and plucks another string. 

Zoey listens to her strum the same note over and over again as she stares off, eyes stormy. Then, she snaps her fingers and Rumi’s attention rises to her. “Oh! Oh! What about, um… Please feel the warmth in my hands / They’re cold, that’s why I need more of you. Mm… Not really either.”

“Those are good lyrics, but that’s not the vibe I’m going for,” Rumi says apologetically. She sets aside her guitar and sighs, scrubbing a hand down her face. Zoey wishes she could rub the creases out of her face for her. “I’ll get it soon. I have to.”

Zoey tosses a strand of hair out of her face. Her phone is warm in her pocket, pressing against her thigh, and she suddenly thinks about all the Soda Pop TikToks she has saved. Especially the Mystery fancams. “You guys think the other Saja Boys could come back, too? You know, if their demon souls didn’t get trapped under the Honmoon.”

Her only response is a grimace from both Rumi and Mira. It’s their dancer who vocalizes her thoughts first. “You can’t seriously be thinking about the guy who barked at a fansigning.”

“Listen! He’s just cute!”

“Cute is someone like Romance,” Mira retorts. 

The girls stare at her in silence, Rumi with a hand slapped over her mouth and Zoey with wide eyes.

“Romance?” Rumi exclaims. “Five of them and you pick Romance?”

“No! Eugh, ew, no! I’m just saying– If I had to choose, gun to my head, I’d say Romance is ‘cute’. Abby is hot, but—”

“Abby is hot?” Zoey all but squeals. “Mira! What happened to demon-hating?!”

“No! You’re misconstruing my words! I don’t—”

Laughing, Rumi waves a hand before Mira blows her hair straight off her head in her desperate attempt to explain herself. “Come on. There’s no point in arguing.” She laces her fingers and smiles pacifyingly. “Because, of course, Jinu is—”

“Stop!” Mira cries out, hands to her ears and shaking her head furiously. “No more!”

Zoey cackles, shaking her head in disbelieving amusement. Humming, she picks up her phone and slides it open to TikTok, where her feed has already curated a perfect edit of the Saja Boys’ Soda Pop performance for her. It had been such a terrible, magic-fueled fad, and she hates that it was super catchy.

If she knows the whole choreography, that’s her business.

The truth is, the Saja Boys didn’t really fade from social media’s reality after they literally faded from actual reality. A lot of fans wondered why they went on a sudden, unannounced hiatus. As per usual with the internet, people started making all sorts of wild theories, too eager to tell themselves any lie to make sense of things. Zoey, unfortunately, follows Saja Boys fan pages on her burner accounts, so she can’t ever forget what actually happened. Also all the chaos that her group is still reeling from that they caused. Maybe she’s no better than a Pride fan.

She literally has no excuse. 

But with this edit on her page…

Make me wanna flip the top
Han mogeume you hit the spot

“You know,” she starts, and both Rumi and Mira turn their attention to her, dropping the brainstorming session. Her eyes can’t leave her screen.  “Now that we’re talking about it… Don’t you guys think Baby’s really cute?”

“That’s his whole concept.” Mira leans over Zoey’s shoulder, groans, and swipes up on her screen to close out of the app. “Stop watching that. You’re feeding their fans’ delusions and making your algorithm worse.”

“Hey! Their music is really good!” Zoey slips her phone back into her pocket anyway, admitting defeat this one time. “But back to Rumi. Do you think it’s like a case of inyeon? You know, the concept that there are karmic ties binding people together? Fate, or something—I read about it on a thread. Maybe you could play off that.”

“No, it’s– It’s not past lives. Well, maybe it is, but it’s not inyeon that will bring him back.” Rumi reaches a hand up to run her fingers through her hair, but she realizes it’s in a braid and massages her temples instead. “It’s about the connection we made in this life.”

Crossing her arms, Mira flops into the cushions next to Rumi, frowning. “Would that even work on him? He’s a demon from god knows how long ago.”

“It has to.”

Again, the tense silence reigns.

Zoey, as always, feeling obligated to be the one to break it, pipes up. “I think you’ll manage! You know, music is what connected you first, right? Maybe it’ll connect you again. I mean, I hope it does, otherwise I’ve got about sixteen other ideas that we could work through!”

There’s a moment of hesitation where Rumi glances at the ground, frowning slightly. Then, so subtly it’s almost impossible to catch—but Zoey is observant, though commonly believed otherwise—Rumi brushes her fingers against her palm. She traces the white patterns winding there and digs her nails into the tapered end of one. 

“That’s a good idea,” is all Rumi says.

Then, the moment of tension is gone, and Mira cheers for her. 

But the hesitation doesn’t escape Zoey. Everyone thinks her airheaded, but the truth is she’s thinking about too much all the time. It all comes out at once or not at all, but she sees things. She notices, makes note of it in her head, and lets it disappear in the maelstrom of other thoughts.

There’s nothing she can say about this though. After everything transpired, it had taken a little bit for Mira and Zoey to fully trust Rumi again—Zoey has to admit that the doubt still runs in her mind sometimes—but they’d ended up promising each other no more secrets. Clearly, there’s something Rumi isn’t telling them, but Zoey knows that some things lie deeper than one is willing to dig out. She would know.

So she doesn’t ask. 

Instead, she crowds closer to Mira and Rumi. “So aside from having a plan, what’s your actual plan?”

“Yeah, how do you even go about bringing it back? Are you going to, like, make a summoning circle and sing, or…?” Mira asks, arms still crossed, but tapping out a rhythm onto her chest.

“I– Kind of?” Rumi tilts her head and winces. “I know that sounds ritualistic, but the whole process kind of is. Like I said, souls sometimes aren’t necessarily in a dimension and just hang around here. They just float around aimlessly until they find something to latch onto. Somewhere to root. ‘Cause sometimes they’re fragmented. Not whole. And they just need to find their way back to their missing piece.”

There it is again: the quiet hesitance in her voice that makes Zoey perk up. It happened back when they were preparing Takedown, too. It’s her giveaway for guilt or regret, and it makes Zoey itch to ask what she’s hiding again this time.

We promised no more secrets, she reminds herself and forces herself to settle in to Mira and Rumi’s laughter and warmth. It’ll come in due time. She just hopes it won’t lead to another confrontation that leaves them broken and reeling from lies. Think positive!  

Rumi will talk about it to them eventually. That, Zoey is sure of.

“Regardless of how Jinu’s soul comes back to you, we’ll try our best to help you out! We’re all here for each other, right? So, whatever happens, we’ll get through it together. The three of us.”

“As always,” Mira affirms.

Rumi purses her lips, eyes softening. “Girls…”

“Even if it means no more couch time! And hopefully no other Saja Boys!” Zoey says with a long sigh, dramatically falling back onto the cushions.

Like that, the top of the Huntrix Tower is set into motion once more. This time, not to seal the Honmoon and keep away what does not belong, but to bring back what was once lost. And Zoey has to admit, this is going to be a nice break from working on their comeback.

If only she knew how her life was about to be turned upside down.

Chapter Text

It takes Rumi a total of three days to decide to make her first attempt. 

She’d locked herself in her room or paced the living room for most of daylight hours, muttering under her breath. Zoey and Mira had tried to help her with the lyrics, but she’d decided that she had to do this on her own at one point. So they just made sure she got water, food, and took a break from time to time.

Then she looked determined one morning, a big smile on her lips, and told the girls that she was going to try.

They weave familiar streets, faces obscured by hats or glasses to avoid being swarmed by overeager fans. 

Zoey pushes her bucket hat lower down on her head, chattering excitedly as they go. “It feels like so long ago that we came down here to get those tonics. And then we ran into the Saja Boys, and then Rumi fell, and that jerk Jinu stole one of her tonics!”

The path is familiar and almost nostalgic. Zoey skips along, remembering how Rumi had been so panicked and then the following talk with the (phony) doctor. He was really good at reading people, though! But, surely, she’s not that eager to please.

“And those ended up just being grape juice,” Rumi adds in amusement. Her gaze is slightly distant, likely thinking back to her first meeting with Jinu. Her hand trails up to touch the white patterns where they trace along her neck. That had been the true reason why her voice was messing up back then. “They really just came out of nowhere that day.”

“Took the whole world by storm out of nowhere, too,” Mira snorts. She nudges Zoey’s arm. “You gotta admit though, they really were some fine specimens. Like, Romance and Abby’s face cards do not decline.”

“ Tell me about it!” Zoey sighs dreamily. “Abs… Muscles… Oh, Mystery’s beautiful face when I killed him in the end…”

“Creep,” her friend jokes, shoving her hat down further.

Zoey huffs as she fixes it. “All of them were jerks. Especially Baby. That guy’s always had an air of… judgement. It’s worse than yours!”

“A judging look worse than Mira’s is earth-shattering,” Rumi joins in. The roofs of the buildings jutting out cast shadows over the three girls. Zoey thinks it’s a little dramatic but also super fitting, especially because Rumi is running her fingers along the brick walls, all pensive. “Jinu’s always been a bit of a teasing guy. But… Do you feel that?”

They all fall silent, ears strained for a sound and senses alert. 

The chatter of Seoul rises from the distance, but Zoey feels nothing. There’s only the apothecary store hidden in the walls beside them. 

Mira rubs her nose and sniffles. “Aside from my nose itching, I don’t feel—”

The speed at which she assumes battle stance is probably the quickest Zoey has ever seen her move. And they have some hard choreographies. The Honmoon ripples blue like Mira is about to summon her gok-do, and Zoey instinctively reaches a hand out for her shin-kal even if she sees or hears nothing.

But Rumi holds a hand out, and they pause.

“Wait, maybe it’s…” She trails off like she can’t bear to say it. Zoey knows something about giving herself false hope, only for it to be crushed. 

Rumi balls her fists and takes a determined step forward. Something in the air shifts like whatever’s causing Mira to freak out is moving aside for her. Zoey is about to say something—a warning or a few encouraging words—but Mira presses closer. It’s enough to quiet her.

And then Rumi starts to sing.

It’s a haunting thing. Her powerful vocals push forward with a song of longing and nostalgia. With no instruments to back her, it feels so personal. There’s nothing but Rumi and her open, bleeding heart, and a hope for a love to return. 

Zoey rubs her arms to try to smooth down the goosebumps that rise. She feels like she’s intruding. The only other time she’s heard Rumi sing like this was when Gwi-Ma was rising. Back then, she’d been singing to reclaim herself and to save her friends. Now, she’s singing to call someone back to her. Zoey supposes it’s something like a piece of herself, too.

The song speaks of a fear of changing seasons without the other—of a life without that missing piece.

Then, the air around them drops four degrees. It’s a sunny day in Seoul, but Zoey feels like she’s just been shoved into a fridge, like the ones in warehouse grocery stores. She’s always dreaded grabbing vegetables from those.

A shiver of wrongness and anticipation runs down Zoey’s back, and she positions herself back to back with Mira. Mira is warm against her shoulders. It helps ground Zoey’s whirling, panicked mind.

Rumi is still singing, the sound an echoing wail of a deep ache. There’s something on her skin. A glowing, iridescent white and—

“Her patterns,” Zoey gasps quietly.

“I know. Keep an eye on her,” Mira acquiesces.

Something stirs in the air around them that Zoey can’t see. Rumi might’ve been the only one who could, but her eyes are closed in concentration. The wind picks up from seemingly nowhere, and Mira finally pulls out her gok-do from the Honmoon’s threads. 

“Something’s happening, too.”

Zoey hesitantly draws her shin-kal. They must look absurd, dressed in civilian clothing, two of them holding ceremonial weapons and the other singing to herself. “I think it’s the spirits drawn in by Rumi’s voice. Maybe some of them are our fans.”

The look Mira gives her says what she doesn’t: not really the time for jokes.

A few strides ahead, Rumi has opened her eyes. She looks over her shoulder, and there’s a smidge of panic in her expression, but she doesn’t stop singing, even as she begins to sound like she’s winded. 

The cold surges further. Zoey can’t smooth down the goosebumps this time when it feels like ghostly hands trace her arm, almost as if they’re looking to grab on. Her hair whips in the storm that the wind is brewing, and she can’t keep her hat on without lowering her guard. 

Behind her, Mira seems to be going through the same experience, shuddering.  She swings her curved sword in an arc like that’ll ward off the spirits, but her blade catches on what looks to be just air.

At the same time, something grabs onto Zoey’s wrist, right below her sleeve. It’s real and freezing, and she nearly screams but swallows it down.

Rumi’s voice cracks. It’s a discordant note, broken and wrong. It sounds like how her voice kept breaking on the higher notes of Golden. Zoey’s stomach drops to her feet. What if something is happening to Rumi again? 

All of a sudden, the chill dies down and the wind calms. Rumi coughs, hacking and gasping, and falls to her knees, her hand pressed to her throat.

“Rumi!” Mira cries out. She shoves away whatever seems to be holding onto her with a grunt and stumbles forward. She kneels beside Rumi, hands hovering like they don’t know where to land. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“My voice– What happened to my voice? I thought it was okay!” Rumi gasps out between coughs, her breaths coming in short. Zoey sees Mira pull her hands away from her throat and begin breathing in and out. Both she and Zoey have learned to do it ever since they found out Rumi tended to have bouts of panic.

“Not everything is magical,” Mira murmurs, urging her to keep breathing. “You’re just overwhelmed. And you sang for a long while there. It wasn’t the easiest song either. Breathe with me.” She gets a wet laugh in response, but Rumi complies.

“Rumi–” Zoey’s eyes are so locked on her two friends, worry roiling through her mind, that she doesn’t even realize there’s still a grip on her until she takes a step forward. 

Thinking nothing of it, she yanks to free herself. The grip around her wrist tightens. That’s what makes her finally look down, terror sinking deep in her bones as she drops her shin-kal in surprise.

What she doesn’t expect to find is a man in jeans and a pink crewneck, kneeling at her feet with his head bowed low, mint-green hair covering his eyes. Zoey’s first thought is, Where did he come from? Her second thought is, Wait, he’s kind of cute from up there. Her last thought is processed out loud.

“Baby Saja?!”

His head lifts then. Striking grey-blue eyes meet hers, dazed and clouded over. He doesn’t seem to register that he’s holding onto her with nearly bruising strength. But he also just doesn’t seem to register that he’s even conscious at all. Baby just looks up at Zoey with those beautiful eyes and says nothing. 

“Romance?!” comes the shout of surprise from Mira’s end.

Lo and behold, the second Saja Boy is sprawled out on the concrete like someone has just dropped him from the sky. 

That seems to snap Rumi out of her worry. She unsteadily gets to her feet and rushes over to Zoey, who still can’t seem to shake Baby off. At the very least, he looks like he’s coming to, blinking slowly and looking around. Mira is already kneeling by Romance to check if he’s alive by the time Rumi makes it to Baby.

“You!” Rumi says loudly, stopping right before him. “Where’s Jinu?”

Baby blinks owlishly. Then, all at once, like his mind connected with his body, his eyes sharpen and narrow, and he sneers at Rumi. “Back off.”

“Where’s Jinu?” she repeats, her voice rising in desperation. 

“Rumi, stop. And you–” Zoey clears her throat and shakes her hand limply. Baby turns his attention to her, his face flat and apathetic as it always seemed to be when he wasn’t playing a role. “ Let go of me?”

Obediently, Baby releases her. Zoey shakes her hand and rubs the skin of her wrist, speechless for once. Rumi still has her fists clenched and that look of sheer stress etched onto her face. They’re saved from an awkward situation when Mira approaches, her gok-do pressed to Romance’s back. He advances with his hands raised up, but his expression is lax. Almost bored.

“We don’t know where Jinu is, Huntrix,” he says. “We haven’t seen him since Gwi-Ma almost came back.”

It’s impossible not to see the disappointment on Rumi’s face. 

Zoey’s about to hug her as a comforting gesture when she’s yanked backward and almost off balance. The weight pulling her down is strong, but it’s brief. The next second, Baby rises to his feet, dusting off his impeccably clean hands. 

He looks so young, now that she’s seeing him up close without the stress of being seated next to a Saja Boy. Maybe even younger than her. Zoey knows that can’t be true though, because he’s a demon—was a demon?—and he must’ve either been taken into the demon world or died years ago. There’s something about him though, that she can’t quite place… Something about the way his expression and body language seem to flit between youthful and withdrawn.

“How are you demons back here?” Mira growls, nudging Romance with the flat side of her blade. 

He barely stumbles, hands still raised, but he smirks. “I’m not a demon, beautiful. I don’t know about him,” he says with a glance at Baby, who shoves his hands into his pockets, “but you’re pointing that sword at the wrong person.”

“And who should I be pointing it at?”

Romance blinks. He looks around as if a demon is about to suddenly appear from a tear in the Honmoon. Which is weird, Zoey thinks, because isn’t he a demon, even if he just stated otherwise?

“No one, I guess.”

“Reveal your true forms,” Zoey demands. She tries to summon her blades again, but she meets Baby’s eyes and her hands falter.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Baby tells her. His tone isn’t harsh. He sounds more like he’s stating a fact, even if Zoey greatly disagrees. He and the other Saja Boys put her through quite a bit of grief, and she thinks he does owe her this at least.

She can’t seem to find the words to say it when he looks at her with those unimpressed eyes.

Rumi finally steps in. “Okay, enough. I… don’t think they’re harmful. They came back because something here called them back. It might’ve been me, or something else. But I say we keep them within sight.”

“We don’t get a say in this?” Romance asks with a raised brow, even as he blows a kiss at Mira. She curls her lip in disgust, but Zoey notices that she lowers her gok-do anyway. 

“ We don’t get a say in this?” Zoey echoes. “I feel like we should definitely talk about this. We already had a lot of issues with demons, and…” She falters when she spots Rumi’s patterns again. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong.”

“We can always kill them,” Mira offers.

“Or we could keep an eye on them,” Rumi counters. “Peacefully. If Romance is telling the truth and they’re not demons anymore, then I say we bring them back and—”

“When did you get so demon-forgiving?”

Zoey winces. Rumi’s expression shifts to something hurt, and Mira belatedly realizes how that came off and her face drops. She reaches a hand out to Rumi, then hesitates.

Baby clears his throat. “Don’t mind us.”

“Rumi, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that–”

Looking away, Rumi laces her fingers. Zoey catches her rubbing at the white patterns winding on her skin, and a twinge of guilt courses through her, even if it wasn’t her fault. “It’s okay. I get it. We don’t have to if you guys don’t want to, but I just… I wanted to try to– You know.”

With a sigh, Zoey takes a step forward to grab their attention. “I think Rumi’s right.” She catches Mira giving her a wide-eyed look like, What?!, but she needs to stand on her opinion. “Sure, we all tried to kill each other like a month ago, and they killed like at least a hundred people—but being positive is what I do best! I believe that they can be better. After all, they came back!”

“Zoey, I don’t think—”

“And we can always kill them if things go badly.”

Mira sighs. Her gok-do disappears into the threads of the Honmoon, and she shakes her head, smiling. “Okay. Fine. It’s better to keep them in our sights than letting them wander, too.”

“Again, don’t we get a say in this?” Romance protests, but he’s silenced by Mira pointing down the alley with a stony look. 

“Go,” she orders.

Shrugging, Baby follows Romance and Mira back through the winding alleys. That leaves Zoey behind with Rumi, who lags a little. She’s tracing the white lines on her body like she tends to these days when she’s deep in thought. Zoey’s always just assumed it’s because it’s what tied her to Jinu, but she’s beginning to suspect that Rumi still has some struggles with accepting the other side of her. 

She’s been doing a good job so far, but Zoey gets that insecurities and worries can always creep back.

She rests her head on Rumi’s shoulder. “You’ll get there someday,” she says and hopes that’s what Rumi needs to hear.

Rumi just gives her a soft look out of the corner of her eyes, then looks back at the empty alley. “I’ll get there someday,” she repeats like she wants to believe it. “Maybe elsewhere. I just hope he’s trying to find his way back to me like I’m trying to find him.”

Zoey can’t lie to her. She can’t tell her something she’s not sure about, so she just hums and rubs Rumi’s arm comfortingly.

After all, they have to mentally prepare themselves for a more pressing matter: housing two of their (ex?)-nemeses, the Saja Boys.

Volume: ■■□□□□□

Thankfully, there’s no bedroom sharing happening between Huntrix and the Saja Boys. They have two spare rooms that have gotten kind of dusty from disuse, but it’s good enough for their impromptu guests. Baby immediately dibs the one with a balcony, but Romance isn’t picky about getting the one with a walk-in closet.

What’s he going to do with a walk-in closet when he has absolutely no clothes but the ones on his back? Zoey has no clue. She hopes that means that there’s going to be a shopping spree eventually. She needs a closet revamp.

Seeing them wander around her home is unsettling her a little bit, even if there’s absolutely no malicious intent that she can feel from them.

Mira sits at the kitchen counter, back to the midday sunlight,  where there’s still a pile of Hi-Chews. She’s pushing them around idly with an unamused look as Romance begins posing in the reflection of the window. “Are we sure about this?”

“No, not really,” Zoey admits. She wanted to back up Rumi, and she wanted to be positive, but by the way Baby mills about, eyeing the TV suspiciously, she’s beginning to question her decision. “Is this safe? We were trying to kill each other very recently.”

“You’re the one who seconded bringing them here,” Mira reminds her, and Zoey sighs.

Rumi sits on the stool next to them, looking more and more troubled by the second. “Why did they come back instead of Jinu?” she mutters, more to herself than anything.

Zoey answers her anyway. “Hey, it’s okay! You can try again soon! You got this, and we’re here.” Romance trips over the couch in a very undignified manner, and Mira slaps a hand over her face. Zoey raises her shoulders and smiles tentatively. “But we do have to figure out these Saja Boys first.”

Sprawled across the couch, posing very flirtatiously, Romance pipes up. “Is that still what we’re calling us?” he asks, twirling a lock of pink hair in his finger.

“What other name do we have?” Baby asks dryly.

“You’re such a grouch. I thought being back on stage after your disastrous fallout would’ve taken the stick out of your ass, but I guess not everyone is adaptable,” Romance sighs. The look Baby gives him should have made him explode on the spot. Zoey knows she would’ve withered a little if she were the victim.

But aside from risk-of-explosion glares, Zoey notes that Baby looks… entirely harmless. He doesn’t take up a lot of space—looks like he avoids that, actually—and has kept rather quiet instead of snooping around like Romance has been. He’s reserved, she notes, but not shy.

It’s different from his cocky stage persona. It’s also very different from the timid, youthful way he portrays himself during interviews and shows.

“Whatever we’re calling you, we need to set some ground rules,” Rumi says. “No evil business. Stay within our sights—”

“What, you want to watch us shower?” Romance interrupts. He gives Zoey, Rumi, and then Mira long, appraising stares. Then, he flicks a finger and waves vaguely at Mira. “Maybe her. But you two… I’m afraid I’d lose my handsome head if I did.”

“Ew, no,” Mira’s quick to say.

“Stay reasonably within our sights,” Rumi amends with a roll of her eyes. “Be appropriate house guests.”

“You make us sound like animals. I couldn’t eat a soul if I wanted to,” Baby groans. He moves from where he’s standing next to the grand piano up the marble steps to round the countertop where the girls sit. He leans across the table there, blue eyes sharp with the daylight shining in through their windows. “I know we had a rough start—”

“Rough? More like turbulent. Rocky. Catastrophic. Calamitous!” Mira slaps her hands down onto the table and almost leans over before Zoey yanks her back down.

Baby ignores her. “But we were human once, too. I don’t appreciate how you’re acting like demons don’t think or feel.” And then he gives Rumi a once-over, eyes lingering on the white patterns curling near her forehead. Everybody at the table hears the words unsaid.

“Hey!” Zoey jumps in, smacking the table with a flat palm. “Out of pocket!”

Immediately, Baby backs off, hands raised halfway up. It’s not mocking, but Zoey can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t actually care about much. Or maybe she’s falling for his facade. She wants to groan internally. Why can’t she figure him out? It’s so much harder past the stage persona. That was easy. But this is—

This is real.

Mira seems to be coming to that realization, too. She’s usually inscrutable, but Zoey has known her for years. She notices the way Mira’s jaw relaxes and the way she spares a glance at Romance. Zoey can guess what she’s thinking. Probably something along the lines of, Is he also real? Is he more than just a pretty face and a flirt?  

Well, that’s what Zoey would think.

“I still don’t understand,” Rumi suddenly says, looking down at her hands. “Why you guys? Why not Jinu…?”

“Way to make a guy feel appreciated,” Romance drawls. Quick as lightning, Mira reaches across the table to fling an apple from the fruit bowl at his head. He yelps and ducks, but it clocks him right in the center of his forehead. “Is this how you treat guests?!”

Baby sighs heavily. He pulls the yellow beanie off his head. Zoey only just now wonders why he and Romance are in their Soda Pop clothes when they were last wearing their black hanbok and gat in their Your Idol performance. The gesture is almost solemn, if not exhausted, but Baby looks Zoey dead in the eyes.

“If it helps your friend,” he says, not even addressing Rumi, “something familiar drew me here. When Gwi-Ma almost rose and you remade the Honmoon, I didn’t get taken back to the demon world even when Gwi-Ma tried to take me. Instead, my soul got caught in this world, until something called me back.”

“Right!” Zoey snaps her fingers as the memories of that night come back to her. “I didn’t manage to kill you that night.”

The look Baby gives her is somewhere between amused and disappointed. He continues either way. “I didn’t come back without a cost. Gwi-Ma isn’t the only powerful entity out there. I made a deal with another more benevolent one.”

“Not Yeomra-Daewang,” Rumi says incredulously.

Baby raises his brow. “I’m flattered you think I’m important enough for him to notice me.” As Rumi begins to splutter her protests, he turns back to Zoey. “She wanted more hands on deck. I wanted to live again. I made the deal and swore the oath: guide souls instead of reaping them.”

Zoey can’t look away from him. She doesn’t know how she’s only catching it now, but there’s something ancient in his eyes. It wasn’t there when he was a demon. Then his words sink in, and it makes so much more sense.

“You’re a jeoseung-saja,” she breathes out.

He smiles at her conspiratorially. It leaves her feeling faint.

“ What? You’re a psychopomp now?” Mira shakes her head disbelievingly, then points an accusing finger at Romance. He’s rubbing his head where a small red circle has formed, but he doesn’t actually seem hurt. “What, you’re gonna tell me you’re also a guide for souls?”

“Actually– Yeah.” He shrugs and picks the apple off the floor. The bite he takes out of it is so crunchy that Zoey suddenly starts craving an apple, too. “Baby beat me to it, though.”

Zoey rubs the bridge of her nose, still trying to process. “What in the redemption?”

“So,” Rumi begins, “what? You became demons, then killed hundreds, kind of died, only to come back as jeoseung-saja? I know that not all demons were terrible people—that they make mistakes—but…” The look she gives them can’t be anything but suspicion through and through. “What’s your story, you two?”

“I just think it’s funny that you, demon, are so suspicious of us,” Romance says casually. “We’re not even demons anymore.”

“You were!”

“And you are.”

He… has a point, Zoey hates to admit. She doesn’t want to say that out loud, but it must show on her face because Rumi looks defeated.

She clicks her nails on the counter and offers, “Rumi didn’t kill hundreds. And not being able to stop you guys doesn’t count.”

Romance raises his hand like, What can I say . “Point taken. But we’re not under Gwi-Ma’s control anymore. We work for someone else now, and kind of ourselves. I want to drink actual soda and try whatever candy that is on the table. I want to live, and I think Baby does, too.”

The youngest of the Saja Boys also shrugs noncommittally.

“He doesn’t like to talk about the past,” the vocalist says, picking at the apple peel with a somehow perfectly manicured nail. “But I can. It was a couple of decades ago. We didn’t know each other personally, the four of us, but we ran in similar circles. I fell before he did.”

The ‘he’ in question faces away slightly. Zoey knows that look. It’s the hurt, regretful look of ostracism. He must’ve fallen from a high place. Baby crosses his arms, and the action is entirely casual, but the way his fingers dig into his fluffy pink crewneck is anything but. A small part of her wants to reach out to him and take away the hurt she knows intimately.

“You guys were all idols?” Mira asks, sounding like she doesn’t believe a word from his mouth. Zoey understands why she wouldn’t.

He pulls out a red roll of apple peel from underneath his nail. “No. Not idols at the time. Just musicians, performers—the lot. Your whole thing,” he says with amusement and a quirk of his lips that has Mira nearly falling out of her chair, “didn’t exist at our time. We were the groundwork for your whole K-pop genre.”

As Romance finally gets up from the couch and makes his way over to the empty seat beside Mira, Rumi frowns. “Wait, you guys are so young then.”

For the first time in a long moment, Baby moves. He picks at the brim of his beanie, grimacing. “Compared to Jinu?” He scoffs. “Anyone is young compared to that Joseon fossil.”

Romance leans closer to Mira, who tries her best to look like she wants to run away. He tosses his luscious hair, metal bangles on his wrist clinking, before plucking a strawberry Hi-Chew off the table. “With how everything was at the time, the censorship on music and government pressure, Gwi-Ma was strong. The Hunters at the time—Kim Sisters, was it?—were suppressed a little. They had it harder than you, with your social media and phones, because the government was strict on what music could pass. It made Gwi-Ma have more free rein.”

Zoey furrows her brows. She knows the name ‘Kim Sisters’. Celine had told them about it, but she’d mentioned something disdainful about being tied to the West rather than defending their home country. Zoey had always thought it was unfair of Celine to be so tied to tradition that she’d look down on her ancestors for doing what they could. 

Was she also disgraceful for coming from outside the homeland?

“Wait, you’re old,” Mira says bluntly.

“Purple-Hair seems to think otherwise,” he retorts.

“I have a name!”

He crumples the wrapper by pressing it between his finger and the table, smirking. “Gwi-Ma got me by luring me in with promises of making me stand out among all the other singers looking for money in those poorer days.” There’s a pause. He glances away from Mira’s intense stare. “It’s– I regret it. There were people I ran into poverty for my own success.”

“Shame,” Rumi whispers, like it’s something she knows well. Zoey thinks that it is when she looks at the way she rubs her cheek where her patterns end. “That’s how Gwi-Ma got you.”

Romance grins, all charisma and charm, but Zoey knows it’s only to hide the guilt that creeps deep down.

“And… You?” Zoey starts softly, looking at Baby. “You’re the youngest, right? What did you d—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he sneers curtly. Baby scrunches up his yellow felt beanie into his fist—Zoey just now notices that it’s actually a newsboy cap he wears backward—and scowls. “I would’ve been an idol—famous again—if Jinu didn’t betray us. I could’ve had it all again.”

Rumi winces. “He wanted to be free. I was going to help—”

“Trust me, I know,” Baby snaps. Beside Mira, Romance shifts like he wants to step in, but ultimately ends up even more sprawled out on the counter. “I saw him leaving those nights, coming back looking all happy before Gwi-Ma reined him in. It’s your fault I spent what felt like years floating around aimlessly. You don’t know what it’s like to be detached from reality.”

The only way to describe Rumi’s expression is wounded. “I didn’t—”

“Mean to?” He clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “He left us. Turned us away for ‘hope’. He—”

“Oh, can it!” Mira interrupts, sliding back from her stool. She points at Baby, gritting her teeth. “Your job isn’t even half as bad, and thanks to whatever Rumi did, you’re back alive as a jeoseung-saja. Don’t tell me you still want to be a demon under Gwi-Ma’s control!”

“No, Mira, he’s right, it’s–”

Mira grabs onto her shoulders. “No, Rumi, he’s not!”

“Hm,” Romance butts in, eyes narrowed, “I think Baby is a bit right. Jinu did betray us.”

“So you want to become demons again? Is that what you’re saying?” Mira laughs sardonically, turning on him, too. “That solves things.”

Zoey feels it before she sees it. The Honmoon ripples to life with the pull of Mira going to summon her gok-do, but all the shouting has made her reach her limit. She can’t handle a fight right now. That’s the last thing she needs. She slams her hands down on the table, harder than she would ever dare to, hands balled into fists.

“Stop it!”

A hush falls over the other four. She receives varying looks. Surprise from Mira, guilt from Rumi, amused interest from Romance, and that same inscrutable, reserved stare from Baby.

With that much attention on her, Zoey suddenly feels nervous. Believe. She clears her throat and makes sure her next words are more level. “Arguing over what’s in the past isn’t going to help. It’s not going to change that what happened happened. So let’s all just… calm down? And maybe we can talk about this when Rumi brings Jinu back?”

She offers Rumi a hopeful look and gets a grateful smile in return.

“Fine.” The Honmoon settles when Mira relaxes her shoulders. “I’m going to my room. You better go to yours,” she says snappishly at Romance, who just shrugs, but gets up and leaves anyway in the opposite direction.

Zoey thought he’d be less… casual about things. Maybe she really did fall for his idol persona of flirtiness. 

“I think I should go, too,” Rumi murmurs and disappears up the spiralling glass platform-staircase before Zoey can say anything. The glass door upstairs closes with a quiet click.

That leaves Baby and Zoey together, still standing across the table from each other, bathed in afternoon sunlight. The silence is heavy. She recognizes the fear in him and knows that the way he’d lashed out is to hide something deep within, but that had startled her. She thought he’d be more restrained.

But she’s Rumi’s friend first and foremost, no matter how much she wants Baby to just be honest.

“That wasn’t fair. You all lost a lot,” she says quietly, picking at a loose thread on her white hoodie. 

Baby only considers her for a moment. Then, his expression drops into something so tired. His fist unclenches around his hat, leaving it crumpled on the kitchen counter. He runs a finger delicately over the creases, silent.

“I know.”

That’s all he says before he turns and leaves.

Zoey watches him go. Oddly enough, her heart aches for him. It goes against everything she’s ever been taught about demons—but he’s not a demon anymore, she has to remind herself. He’s a psychopomp now, and he works for another lord. 

With a long sigh, Zoey gets up, too. Maybe she needs to just work on songs to get her mind off things.

But when she gets up, her gaze is drawn back to the yellow hat Baby left behind. For whatever reason, she finds herself picking it up, turning it in her hands, and pursing her lips. She tucks it into the back of her pants, then heads downstairs to the recording room.

What a day.

Volume: ■■□□□□□

Zoey’s surprised to find that night has fallen when she goes back upstairs to drop off her lyric notebooks. 

Hours spent cooped up in the recording room have killed her back; she needs to go for a jog. No shade to the very comfortable pink swivel chairs! But there’s only so much tapping of a keyboard and scribbling of notes she can do before even she feels like she’s doing too much. Huntrix would always tell her it’s a good thing that she’s got so many ideas, but Zoey knows she has to wind down a bit sometimes.

The spacious living room and kitchen area are entirely dark when she steps out of the elevator, pushing her headphones down to her neck. She can hear Rumi trying out her lyrics upstairs—maybe to Derpy, the weird but kind of cute blue tiger that follows her around sometimes—and everything is dead on Mira’s end.

In the dark, she can see that a chunk of the Hi-Chews has been eaten. She sets down her headphones on the countertop. Whoever powered through them left the wrappers on the counter, and, now that she’s looking closer, only picked out the strawberry and watermelon ones. 

Romance picked a strawberry one earlier, she remembers. It’s probably him.

“How long do you plan to stand in the dark?”

Zoey absolutely doesn’t scream, because she’s a strong Hunter who has faced literal demons. But she does slap her hands over her mouth and squeal when her heart jumps out of her chest. Squinting in the dark, she notices a shadowy figure lounging on the couch, head hanging off one end. It takes her a second, but—

“Romance?” 

“Pleasure to run into you at this hour.”

“How long do you plan to… lie there?”

Against Seoul’s glittering cityscape, Zoey sees him lift a hand and raise three fingers. She can almost see his teasing smirk. She sees it very clearly in her head, at least. “I’ve been here for three. I could lie here longer. Do you want to pass me one of those candies?”

“They’re called Hi-Chew. Also, you ate all the strawberry and melon ones.”

“Banana will do then.”

She has to pick her jaw up from the floor. Where did he get so much audacity? Probably from being a one-hit wonder and having thousands of screaming fans, she answers herself immediately. Regardless of that, and ignoring his strange demands, Zoey peeks around the corner where the guest rooms are. There’s no light peeking under the doors.

“Um– Where’s Baby?”

“I don’t know. Where’s Mira?”

“That’s not–” She drags a hand down her face. Think on the bright side! He’s not antagonizing Rumi! “Is he here?”

Romance lifts his hand up to the sky, fingers wiggling like he’s playing some instrument. Zoey, somehow, can tell he’s being entirely serious. He lolls his head over, and Zoey can actually see the smirk this time. “He’s here. Somewhere. In Seoul.”

“Okay… And how long has he been ‘somewhere’?”

“Since you left.”

“And he’s not here.”

“He’s in Seoul.”

“Not in the tower,” Zoey says, just for confirmation. You know, just to know before absolutely freaking out. 

“The flow of souls tells me he’s around.”

That’s a no.

Okay. She can freak out. 

Should she tell Rumi and Mira? No. Rumi’s busy, and Mira has to stay here to watch Romance (though she’s not doing a whole lot of watching right now). Zoey also doesn’t want to bother them. She can handle one demon– No. She can handle one person on her own, grim reaper or not. 

Zoey doesn’t stop to question how Romance did that. She just lobs a banana Hi-Chew at him as a silent thanks for his slight cooperation—if it can even be called that—and turns on her heels to march right back out of the elevator.

She guesses she’ll have to take a more intentional jog. 

The second the elevator doors open on the ground floor of the Huntrix Tower, Zoey breaks out into a sprint. Her buns bounce with every step, and one of them starts coming loose, but she can’t pay that much mind right now. She can’t even use the Honmoon to detect demonic activity because Baby isn’t a demon anymore.

Her running shoes thud against the concrete as she courses through Seoul. In a city that never sleeps, it’s hard to avoid people, but that also makes it hard to find someone.

She bumps into a few people. Some others recognize her. That’s her fault; she forgot to put on a hat or a hood. She ends up tugging her hoodie over her head as she runs. Her twin buns bulge out funny, but that’s the least of her concerns.

Zoey has half a mind to just start shrieking his name at the top of her lungs. That very thought makes her want to smack some sense into herself. He wouldn’t even answer, so it’s really just down to hunting down someone wearing a very bright pink sweater and sporting a very recognizable hair colour.

Unless he changed his clothes. And his hair colour! What if he’s wearing a mask?

Be reasonable, Zoey. Having a million ideas only works for brainstorming. Focus! She slaps herself lightly on the cheeks and shakes her head before continuing to run. 

She’s glad for the stamina being an idol gives her, but there’s still a point where she begins to run out of breath. She’s weaved through every alley in the two blocks around and even gone to the gardens four blocks down, and nothing.

“Surely he’s not hurting anyone!”

That’s what she tells herself at first. But when her search begins to reach the thirty-minute mark, the thought turns to, What if he’s being hurt?

He’s just… whatever he is now. He’s not a demon with teleportation or levitation powers now. He doesn’t have his superspeed or his devilish charm—but that’s still debatable—or his battle-ready reflexes anymore. At least, she’s pretty sure he doesn’t. He didn’t exactly react in any particular way when Mira threatened both him and Romance with her sword. 

Zoey isn’t even sure what to think anymore. 

She slows to a light jog, panting for breath. The streetlights are just a soft glow above her, and it’s quiet in this neighbourhood. To her left, there’s the road that leads back to the Huntrix Tower. To her right, the path to Namsan Tower. Straight ahead, Inwangsan Mountain. 

Groaning, Zoey shakes off the ache. It’s worth a shot.

The car drops her off in front of the 7-Eleven. The driver inside was very nice, refusing to take any pay but rather an autograph instead. Zoey feels bad for using her fame like this, but she unfortunately has more pressing matters, so she bows several times and watches the car drive off.

Once it’s out of sight and Zoey is sure that there won’t be trending photos of her standing alone at the Inwangsan entrance tomorrow morning, she shakes herself off and pats her cheeks.

“Okay. You’re not wasting your time!” she tells herself as she begins the hike up the trail.

At the very least, the view here is nice. Seoul stretches out behind the flowery bushes like a sea of starlight. A city that never sleeps—it’s fitting for Zoey, she thinks. She grew up in Burbank, a city much quieter than Seoul at night but lively nonetheless, but there’s something about being in South Korea that feels homely.

A rabbit hops out onto the trail in front of her suddenly. 

She stops in her tracks, afraid to startle it. In that moment of repose, the reality of her situation hits her. What is she doing, climbing the Inwangsan trail at nearly midnight? Looking for someone who says he’s a jeoseung-saja, when he could very well still be a demon? And what is a rabbit doing here? She rarely sees them in Seoul.

This is ridiculous.

The rabbit bounds twice and disappears into shrubbery, and Zoey kicks a rock, pouting. The view isn’t worth the grey hairs she’s going to get from this. Grumpily, she shoves her hands into her back pockets and—

What?

Zoey feels along her back pocket and finds something hanging out. It’s soft and of good quality. She pulls it out, warm from clinging to her body heat, and finds that it’s… Baby’s hat. 

“Oh,” she says breathily and runs her thumb along the brim like she saw him do earlier in the day. She didn’t realize she still had it. 

The sight of the yellow hat renews her energy. Now she has to find him to give it back to him. If she finds him. If he’s not still evil. If he’s alive! If—

I was the queen I’m meant to be
I lived two lives, tried to play both sides
But I couldn’t find my own place
Called a—

—lived two lives, tried to play both sides
But I couldn’t find my own place
C—

Zoey freezes. That’s Golden. It’s distant and barely audible, but she knows it. It’s unmistakably a Huntrix song. Who on Earth is out here looping specifically Zoey’s parts?

Okay, like, I know I ramble
But when shootin’ my words I go Rambo
Took blood, sweat, and tears to look natural
That’s how it’s done, do—

This is intentional, Zoey realizes. That’s How It’s Done.  

Slowly, Zoey makes her way up the trail, higher up the mountain. There’s a clump of trees that blocks the curve, and she hesitates. What if she scares a fan? What if it’s dangerous? You’re a Hunter, she has to tell herself firmly. You’ve dealt with worse than maybe an overexcited fan.

It’s not a fan that she finds when she turns past the trees. She should’ve known that the rabbit was suspicious. Everything happens for a reason. She’s just not too focused on finding the poetic symbolism behind its appearance.

Because Baby is sitting on the Seoul City Wall, his knees tucked up to his chest and a phone held tightly in his two hands.

His mint hair looks ruffled by the wind, and Zoey can imagine that it is if he’s been out for as long as Romance said he’s been. If he’s noticed Zoey’s presence—and she assumes he must have by now even with his back facing her—he doesn’t make it obvious. 

She can’t make out his screen from where she stands, but How It’s Done transitions to Soda Pop. The opening notes barely get to play before a familiar rap flows over the wind to her. 

Uh, make me wanna flip the top
Han mogeume you hit the spot

“ Uh, make me wanna flip the top / Han mogeume you hit the stop– spot.”  

How deep his voice is for someone with such a baby face never ceases to surprise her.

He continues to mutter the same lyrics over and over, switching to her lines in Huntrix songs occasionally. But there’s something wrong, because he keeps stopping and restarting, like he can’t get any of it right. She sees Baby’s shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh and decides she should maybe finally say something. 

Carefully, Zoey steps forward and clears her throat, pulling her hood down. Baby doesn’t jump, expectedly. He just lifts his head and looks at her over his shoulder. 

She laces her fingers together behind her back, squeezing his hat tightly, and steps forward, swaying from side to side. “Lovely night out, huh? I saw a rabbit on my way here.”

Baby’s eye colour is harder to see in the dark, but she knows the shade they are and knows that they’re intense no matter the lighting. After a moment of awkward silence, he seems to give in. Unfurling from his curled-up position, he dangles his legs over the wall, facing Zoey and the rest of the trail.

“What are you doing here?”

It looks like an invitation. Zoey takes it. 

She steps up closer, pushing past the grass and flowers. When Baby still doesn’t flinch away or stop her, she hops up onto the wall, sitting a respectable distance away from him. She lifts her legs up to cross them. His—or whoever’s—phone is still open on a paused play of Soda Pop, and the album cover casts a pink light against his face. Zoey fidgets, suddenly self-conscious.

“I was—” Paranoid. Anxious. Scared. Stressed. “—worried.”

It’s the truth.

“Okay.” His eyes drift down to the bright yellow cap in Zoey’s hands, but he says nothing.

She stares at him, confused, then bites her lip and exclaims, “Oh! Um, well, this is– I just, you know– You left it! I thought you’d want it back, or that you forgot it, and Romance told me that you left, like, hours ago, and I was just, like, Oh, he probably wants his hat eventually, and—” She clamps her mouth shut. The tip of her ears burns. “Just– Here.”

Baby takes the hat with no grandeur. He turns it in his hands, like she had a few hours ago, and gives her a smile. A genuine smile. No cockiness or the overly soft one he puts on for fans. Just… a small stretch of his lips and a crinkling of his eyes.

She’s not sure how to describe the effect it has on her poor, overworked heart.

“I don’t really care about the hat,” he says.

“Oh.”

“But thank you.” 

Then, wordlessly, he tucks it over her head. It fits somehow comfortably over her loosened buns. Just right. Unlike how Baby usually wears it, he’s put it the right way on her head so that if she looks up, she can see the yellow rim peeking out over her forehead. 

Like the gesture meant nothing, he looks back to the phone in his hand.

Zoey decides to ask. “Where did you get that?”

“Someone gave it to me.”

“I completely forgot your face is still well-known.” She holds her hand out. “Give the phone to me. It’s probably some crazy fan who gave it to you, but they’ll need it back. I bet they’re regretting it right now!”

“I like it. We didn’t have this when I was alive.”

“But you clearly know how it works!”

Baby glances back at the phone, then shrugs and hands it over to Zoey. She pockets it as he says, “Jinu gave us a rundown of how this world works now. He taught us slang, and how you speak these days. I know what wifi is, and how to use the internet.”

“No wonder you were so easily clicking through Spotify,” she says. Then frowns. “Wait, isn’t Jinu from the Joseon period? How did he figure out how to use phones?”

“He had more trips to the mortal world than us. Ran more errands for Gwi-Ma, even before the Saja Boys were formed.” He picks at the hole in his left jean leg. Zoey would’ve normally classified that as a nervous tic, but she guesses it’s more discomfort with the new fashion. “Before I got a taste of this world again.”

“And you’re not overwhelmed by it?” Zoey tilts her head up to look at the sky. The light pollution is about the same; it’s hard to see the stars. “Even I was overwhelmed when I moved here from the States. It was so much… busier. Especially the nightlife.”

“Being a demon is so much more overwhelming than any external sensation.”

She’s not sure if that’s bitterness she hears in his voice or not, but she expects that there’s a level of emotion. She heard it from Rumi, how Gwi-Ma controls demons with shame and haunts their waking hours. She wouldn’t like a little voice in her ear telling her she’s horrible.

It’s not like she needs another one.

Zoey peeks over at Baby who’s still very fixated on the hole in his jeans. “So, um… What were you doing out here alone? You disappeared when I came back.”

Baby pauses, his blue-painted nail stopping before he rips another thread. He glances at Zoey. “I needed to take my mind off my anger.”

“With Jinu?”

“With myself.”

“I didn’t know you—” Could acknowledge that. “—were mad at yourself. It really seemed like you were blaming Rumi for how things turned out.”

He smiles sarkily. “Don’t act like that. I know you’re more observant than that.”

Caught red-handed. Zoey can’t help the pleased smile she returns. “Okay, okay, fine! I won’t dig. I’m… I’m sorry about how things turned out for you, by the way.” It’s weird to say that, especially because there is still such a thin line of trust between them, but she means it. Surprisingly, a lot. “You weren’t really nice to Rumi, but I– I get why you reacted like that. Sorry that happened.”

This time, his look is more appraising than it is judging. Baby’s smile doesn’t leave his face, but it turns into something more somber. “I may be the youngest of the Saja Boys and I may have acted childish for the crowd, but I’m not a child. I’m not dumb. I know you’re here because you suspected me.”

With every word, it feels like Baby is tearing down her very flimsy walls of cheer to reveal the more anxious part of her.

She swallows thickly. She doesn’t want to lie.

“Yeah, okay. You’re right. But that was only at first! I wanted to tell myself that, but, the more I looked and the less I found you, I started getting worried. I wasn’t lying when I said that.”

“Did you ever consider maybe I was just doing my job?”

“Your job?”

“As a jeoseung-saja. That’s the whole reason I’m back.” He waits expectantly. “There was a lost soul I had to guide while I was out.”

Oh. Oh, shoot, right!

“Nope. Not at all. Absolutely did not even cross my mind,” Zoey admits.

And then Baby laughs.

She’s heard him laugh before, but it was either mocking or practiced. With Seoul at their back and flowers at their feet, this feels too real. The more time she spends around him, the more it sinks in that he’s a real person. 

He’s no longer a demon. He’s not entirely human, either. But he’s so real that it keeps flipping Zoey’s world upside down.

“Maybe you are a little airheaded.”

“Hey! I was stressed!”

This time, she laughs, and the sound mixes in with Baby’s soft chuckling. All of a sudden, it feels so comfortable being around someone she’d been trying to kill just about a month ago. She should be more worried, but with him, she feels like she can just let go of the overthinking.

When their laughter dies down and they’re left with small smiles, Zoey finally finds the courage to ask:

“What were you doing looping my– looping verses?”

Baby looks away. It’s either embarrassment or guilt, but he’s still smiling, and Zoey finds that that’s all that matters. “I wanted to learn how you did it.”

“It?”

“Lyrics.” He puffs up his cheeks until they’re all round, and then blows it out in a sharp breath. “I never learned to write lyrics. Back when I was– During the time I’m from, I had Gwi-Ma to guide my hand. Then, during the Saja Boys, Jinu wrote our lyrics. He led the operation. But, now that I’m no longer working for Gwi-Ma, I… lost my ability to write lyrics. Nothing seems to work.”

Zoey’s heart aches. She remembers when she’d sit on the staircase in high school, scribbling lines into her notebooks and repeating them out loud until they sounded right. It took so long for her to get to the point she’s at.

“I hear myself rap these lines, and it frustrates me because those are my words, but not.”

She gets it. Carefully, Zoey scoots closer, just barely enough that she doesn’t think Baby notices. “I can help you. You’re going to be stuck with me for a while, so… Why not make something of it?” 

“... Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“What do you gain from this?” Baby asks, eyes flicking across her face, searching and searching, and finding nothing.

Because that’s exactly what it is.

“Nothing.” Zoey leans back a little, startled. Then she realizes that he’s spent decades working for Gwi-Ma, and that, before that, his life was probably so transactional with Gwi-Ma’s grip on him. He makes so much more sense when she remembers that he’s been through a lot (mostly as a consequence of his actions, but still). She tilts her head, wishy-washy. “Okay, maybe a personal satisfaction of helping someone out, but I think that’s good!”

The scrutiny lasts a moment longer. Just enough to make Zoey feel uncomfortable. She’s about to rescind her offer, but Baby relaxes.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“‘Okay’? I mean– Okay! Great!” Zoey sits up straighter and beams at him, unable to hold back her excitement. “I can’t wait to get started on this! Do you have a concept you want to work with? Or, like, an idea? Some words you want to work around? Or maybe even a beat! If you want, I have a lot of beats lying around that I can’t use. Maybe you’ll find a use for them! Do you know what style you have? I know some rappers who are more alternative, but some lean toward hip-hop, and I’m not too sure what you really do since Jinu’s the one who wrote your lyrics. We can find out!”

There’s something about Baby, she notices. When she talks, he just tilts his head and listens. He doesn’t open his mouth in the way some people do to interrupt her or talk over her. He doesn’t cut in even when she starts rambling. He just listens.

And, yeah, she’s realized he’s usually quiet, but even the quiet people have cut in to get their words in before when she’s gone off. But Baby doesn’t. He doesn’t even look like he intends to.

Why?

“Let’s start with a concept. I have nothing.”

“I’m so excited! Let’s go back and see what we can cook up!” She’s about to hop off the wall when she realizes something. Zoey turns her head back and gives Baby a perplexed look. “Actually, what were you thinking coming out here alone? How did you expect to get back into the building?”

“I wasn’t.” The answer is so flat and blunt that Zoey can’t help but make a face. “I… didn’t think about that. I just left.”

“Not used to security in buildings?”

“I’m not that old. And palaces had guards before, it’s the same thing.”

Really not at all, Zoey wants to say, but it’s such an amusing statement that she can’t manage to. 

“Good thing you’re with me! I’ll call us a taxi.”

They hop off the wall easily, landing among the pink flowers, and Zoey makes sure Baby’s hat doesn’t slip off her head with the bounce. Baby isn’t that much taller than her, she realizes now that they’re walking side by side. Obviously, he’s a bit taller—her height isn’t exactly difficult to beat—but it’s not a significant amount.

The train of thought leads from one wagon to another, and Zoey’s thoughts end up stopping at the ‘Mystery’ station. He’s definitely taller than her. She wonders what it would be like to stand next to him.

“Hey, Baby?”

“Hm?”

“Did you know Mystery? You know, back then?” She coughs awkwardly at the look Baby gives her. “Did you see him in the crowd of souls when Rumi called you guys back?”

Zoey can tell immediately that that was the wrong thing to bring up.

Baby’s expression closes off instantly. He turns back into the Baby Zoey saw when they were all sitting around the kitchen counter: distant, quiet, and prickly. She’s not sure what she said wrong, but she wants to reflexively apologize. 

Then she kicks herself mentally. She told herself she’d stop over-apologizing way back.

“No. I don’t know where Mystery is.” Baby crosses his arms—it’s such a familiar defensive move, and seeing him do it makes Zoey’s heart break—and takes one stride farther, just enough to no longer be walking beside Zoey but ahead of her. “And I wasn’t called back by Rumi,” he adds curtly.

Whatever connection they’d built frays right then. 

Zoey feels it slipping through her fingers as the hike back down to the 7-Eleven is quiet, and the car ride back to the Huntrix Tower is deafeningly so.

She fidgets with the hem of her hoodie the whole ride back, guiltily glancing at Baby every so often. His arms are still crossed, and he’s looking out the window at the buildings flying by, but she catches him meeting her eyes once or twice. The knowledge that he’s looking back at her despite clearly being ruffled soothes her nerves just the slightest amount. 

When she gets out of the car and thanks the driver, Baby closes the door behind her. He holds the doors open for her as they make their way back upstairs, but still stays silent. 

That is, until they’re leaning against opposite walls in the elevator. 

Zoey hears him sigh sharply through his nose. Then, “Sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh,” she says. The guilty feeling doesn’t leave, but the knot in her stomach slowly untwists itself until she can breathe a little better. “Thank you.”

Baby tries for what she assumes is a reassuring smile, but it comes off a little wry. “I swear to you. I’m not mad at you. I just got caught in my own thoughts.” Realizing that’s not working when she just weakly smiles back at him, he pushes off the wall to stand in front of her, then knocks the rim of his hat down over her eyes, teasing. “You can stop worrying.”

The playful gesture is so familiar—Mira does it to her all the time—and something about that melts the tension out of Zoey. Blinded by yellow, she can only giggle lightly, relieved. 

“Okay, okay! Thanks,” she repeats again, meaning it more this time.

By the time she fixes the hat, the elevator dings and the doors open to the girls’ common space. The lights are all on this time, and Mira, Romance, and Rumi are all gathered near the couch, seemingly in the middle of a heated discussion. Jinu’s silly tiger, Derpy, is being used as a cushion for Rumi, who leans against him, and Sussie, the magpie with a hat, is giving Romance one nasty side eye.

All three of them freeze as Baby and Zoey walk in.

“Uh,” she coughs, “are we interrupting something?”

“I told you she’d be back safe and sound.” Romance grins winningly, then blows a raspberry at the bird when he thinks it isn’t looking.

Rumi jumps to her feet first. “Zoey! You’re okay!”

Mira follows suit, and suddenly, Zoey is being enveloped in her two best friends’ arms in a suffocating hug. She squeaks in surprise but wraps her arms around Rumi and Mira, too. Patting their backs comfortingly, she laughs.

“Yeah. I’m okay! Just went for a little jog, and then got caught up in some things!” She squeezes them one more time before they release her.

“I was so worried when Romance told me you ran out of here in a hurry!”

Nodding, Mira spares Baby a glare, who shakes his head at her. “We were about to go looking for you, but Romance told us to let you handle things. We trust you but… Zoey, we were so worried.”

She waves her hands, shaking her head, too. “No, nooo! I’m so okay! Remember, I’m a Hunter. We’re strong!”

Rumi presses a hand to her chest, sighing in relief. She looks over her shoulder to find Derpy blinking owlishly at Romance, and Romance flicking wrappers at Sussie, then seemingly decides it’s not worth mediating. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

“But why are you wearing his hat?” Mira asks with a disdainful, accusatory once-over of Baby.

“Why am I being treated like a bad guy here?”

Zoey snickers, brushing a finger along the felt. “Long story. Let’s just order food now. I’m starved!”

And she ushers her friends and Baby back toward the living room, pulling out her phone to scroll through Baemin. She makes a mental note to send the stranger’s phone to one of the staff members before settling comfortably into the couch. She almost matches Romance’s sprawl.

It doesn’t take long for them to start bickering over what to order, and Zoey realizes that maybe this is the beginning of something fun.

Chapter Text

To say that living with those two Saja Boys is not an adjustment would be a lie. 

It takes maybe a week and a half for things to settle to a level of comfort and predictability, but the process of getting there is shaky.

Waking up and going down to the kitchen to scrounge up snacks, only to find Baby slurping ramyeon at the kitchen counter, is always a surprise to Zoey. It’s always early in the morning when she finds him there, right when she’s about to head out for her morning jog. By the end of the week, he’s powered through basically all of her reserve boxes.

The first time it happens, the sky is yellow and lilac over Seoul. Baby is in his grey collared shirt, the one he wears under the fluffy pink sweater. He’s sitting with a slouch on the stool, a steaming hot container of ramyeon in front of him. 

By the sight of his red menace of a dish, he’s added an extra packet of spice into it—which is crazy because Zoey already thinks that brand is insanely spicy.

She hesitates again like she had the night Baby let her see past his walls. Should she say hi first? She doesn’t want to bother him. He seems peaceful in the silence. That makes her wonder where Mira and Rumi are. Mira’s gotta be down in the dance studio, and Zoey’s willing to bet that Romance is with her. Rumi might still be asleep, but—

“Morning.”

Zoey snaps to attention. 

Baby’s staring right at her, big blue eyes fixed on her. His raspy voice caught her off guard. There’s a beat of awkward silence where she runs through every possibility that could come from this interaction in her mind. It takes her a moment to remember that Baby doesn’t really care about things like that, so she smiles at him, sleep still hanging off her.

“Hi,” she says, and there’s not as much pep in her voice as she’d like. Baby doesn’t seem to mind. He dips his chopsticks into the noodles, and what he lifts out looks entirely red. “This much spice at…” She glances at the clock on the stove. “Seven in the morning?”

He smirks at her, the same cockiness he’d displayed on that variety show. “I know you’ve seen me down a bottle of hot sauce. You’re going to ask me that?”

“That’s for a variety show,” she protests, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t believe that you regularly eat this much spice. This must be so bad for your stomach.”

Baby shrugs and slurps the ramyeon, staining his lips red. “I’m not human anymore. I can stand this.”

Right. She keeps forgetting that. He’s not a demon, but he’s not human either. With an amused shake of her head, Zoey slides up in front of him at the counter and begins rummaging through the cabinets for her water bottle. Then she realizes she left it in the fridge overnight with cut fruit to infuse.

“Do you have plans for today?” she asks Baby, the words slipping out before she stops herself. It’s like she has this weird compulsion to keep talking to him.

He traces his chopsticks around the rim of the container idly. “Maybe take a walk. Learn the smells and sounds of this modern world.” Baby cards a finger through his hair, and Zoey begins to wonder if that’s his ‘natural’ hair colour. “Then work at night. I’m open to change.”

“Do you sleep?”

Baby’s lips twist like the question amuses him. “I don’t need to, but I like to.” Slurp. “So, yes.”

Her glass bottle is cold when she pulls it out of the fridge. Zoey eagerly pops it open and takes a gluttonous swig of the watermelon and blueberry-flavoured water. “Did you want to go for a jog with me? You can see Seoul without getting lost like that.”

“The souls are a point of reference. I’d never get lost,” he replies immediately. 

“Oh! Okay…”

Baby gives her a wide-eyed look, his head tilting slightly as if he realized something went wrong. She can almost see the gears turning in his head while he stares her down. And then—

“Wait. I mean– Yes. Yes, I’ll come with you for your jog to… see Seoul.” He clears his throat and flicks up one last noodle, licking his lips. “But in these clothes?”

He gestures down at his button-up and ripped jeans. Ooh, he’s got a point… Those aren’t the most comfortable exercise clothes. Zoey twists the lid back onto her bottle and looks Baby up and down, ooh-ing and aah-ing playfully. The immediate face he pulls is hard not to laugh at. 

It took her a bit, but she’s realizing Baby’s a pretty expressive guy, past the initial wall of detachment.

“You know, you’re not that much bigger than me.”

His look of concern shifts to something akin to horror and offense. Zoey lets it sit for a second until he pinches his brows together and pouts. “I can get bigger.”

She can’t stop the bark of laughter this time. Zoey waves her hands fervently ‘no’, snickering at the look of sheer affront on Baby’s face. “No, no! It’s okay!” She taps the side of her water bottle and grins. “I was just thinking you probably fit in my clothes. That way, you can just borrow some of my oversized stuff and we’ll go on a run like that.”

“Do you just… share with anyone?” There’s an edge to his tone that she can’t quite decipher.

It’s not that serious, Zoey tells herself. “Nope! Aside from the girls, you’re the first!”

The tension melts out of Baby’s shoulders, and the half-smile he shoots her is relaxed. “Sure. I’ll run on a full stomach.”

And Zoey winces at that, but the thought of doing her morning run with Baby is so thrilling that she quickly forgets how much of a stomach ache she’d get if that were her.

It takes about twenty more minutes to find good exercise clothes for Baby, but they end up standing out at the entrance of the Huntrix Tower. Zoey’s hands are on her hips as she bounces up and down in a warmup. Baby gives her an odd look, then tries to mimic her, but it’s so obvious he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

On top of that, he looks silly. Okay, not silly, but seeing him in shorts is so jarring when Zoey has only ever seen the Saja Boys in jeans or long robes. Even short sleeves look bizarre on him. Surprisingly enough, he’s not as scrawny as Zoey expected. She really thought he’d be all noodle arms and thin legs, but he’s toned. Slim, but fit. 

It takes everything in Zoey not to start drooling. She’s not going to deny an attractive man when she sees one!

(How she never really saw it before, she’s not sure. Maybe it was his unfriendliness that had her dodging him when they met.)

Zoey has a white tank top herself and grey joggers. Her hair is up in its usual buns, and she twists left and right to stretch. Baby’s eyes linger on her, and she guesses that he’s still trying to figure out what exactly she’s doing. So she just tells him.

“Dynamic stretching gets the blood flowing and preps your muscles to start moving!” She rotates her hips, grinning at Baby, who imitates her. “Yeah, like that! Did you not warm up before your choreographies?”

“We were demons. We didn’t need to.”

“I keep forgetting it’s that simple sometimes.” Then, before she can embarrass herself any further, Zoey chirps, “Okay, let’s go!”

And off they go.

Their jog is refreshing for Zoey. Breaking out a small sweat while taking in Seoul’s early light always makes her heart soar. The city is usually difficult to run in, especially at the heart of it, where cars and people cause heavy traffic, but she’s found her own little routes around. Sure, there’s a perfectly good gym for her to get her cardio in; she prefers to take in the sights.

Baby, keeping up with her without even losing his breath, keeps looking up at the towering buildings. Rather than the little things that they pass by, like the pair of teenagers arguing over who’s paying for the next meal, or the grassy parks they run past, or even the Han River winding far to their right, he focuses on how the country has advanced since he walked among mortals.

“It’s amazing,” he says in awe when they stop at an intersection.

Zoey wipes her forehead of sweat and pants. “What is?”

He gestures up at the skyscrapers reaching up to the heavens in multitudes around them. “How different the world is.”

She looks up at the buildings he vaguely sweeps his arm at. She understands the sentiment a little. Burbank is a low-rise city, nothing like Seoul’s landscape, packed with skyscrapers. It feels like a different world out here, and it might as well be.

The difference is that Baby must’ve grown up in this same city. Coming back to see how much it’s changed must be jarring to him.

She tells him as much, a bubble of bitterness gathering in her throat. It takes a lot not to clench her fists to stop her hands from shaking when she tells him that they’re in the same boat: Korean but disconnected from what it’s like here. Uprooted, in two different ways.

But Baby gives her a contemplative look. Zoey wishes she knew what’s going through his head.

Finally, he looks away at the Han River glittering beyond the buildings. “Zoey, you have your place here.”

It floors her. She doesn’t have an answer to that. No quick, silly comeback. No joke to play off of, or light to make of it. It’s not something she’s never heard before. Coming from him, though, it feels less like a comforting, placating statement and more like a reminder. 

The statement just sinks in like a stone, rippling the still surface of the water she felt like she’d been drowning in forever. 

Zoey doesn’t know what to say to that. She swallows the lump in her throat and looks away from Baby.

“Do you like Seoul?” Zoey asks to fill the silence, fixing the way her tank top clings to her skin.

“It’s new.”

It’s enough of an answer for her. 

The sky is an even light blue when they get back to the tower. Baby looks completely unaffected while Zoey makes a beeline for the fridge, where the other half of her infused water is chilling. She’d love to know how he’s not nauseous from a stomach full of spicy food and a long jog, but she chalks it up to not being human. Sometimes, that makes everything much simpler.

Baby lingers by her side, quietly watching, until she hands him the water bottle. 

“Want some?”

Almost like he’d been waiting for her to offer, he takes it from her hand and greedily gulps down the rest. “Thanks.” He sets it down on the counter, and Zoey immediately begins washing it by hand in the sink. “By the way, do you use a car and your feet to get everywhere?”

She almost drops the bottle in surprise. She can’t tell if he’s pulling her leg. “I– Yes? How else am I supposed to get around?”

“The Honmoon,” Baby says like it’s obvious. “The same way I can travel along the Hwangcheon Road.” 

Zoey is about to laugh at him, but the snicker gets caught in her throat when it dawns on her that that isn’t the most obvious question. Especially not if it works like that for him and his role as a jeoseung-saja. She’s suddenly a little jealous that he can travel around quicker using the road to the Underworld.

She ends up rinsing the bottle of soap suds as she says, “It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“I can only really use it when—” She pauses. 

Is it the best idea to tell Baby how the Honmoon works? Their trust is so surface-level. She trusts him not to kill her. She trusts him to dig through her food drawers and not eat all of it. She trusts him to be honest with her, and that’s an important one. But does she trust him enough to tell him that she can only really travel using the Honmoon when there’s a warning of a demon? Or when it finally, stubbornly answers her call?

“When?”

“When…”

She’s saved by the elevator dinging open and three voices arguing animatedly.

“I still think you should throw your arm up when you step out. Like—” Somebody stomps against the marble floor, and there’s the sound of clothes whooshing.

“No, that’s the exact same move your stupid leader used when you hypnotized the entirety of Seoul!” That’s Mira’s voice snapping. “Rumi, tell him the spin is fine.”

“Mira, you’re the dancer of our group. I think whatever you decide is going to turn out fine,” Rumi says as the three of them round the corner into the kitchen. “Romance used to be a vocalist, but I still think you should hear him out without thinking of the time the Saja Boys almost killed all of Seoul.”

Mira tosses her plastic water bottle into the sink where Zoey has just finished washing hers. “How do you just ignore that? The spin is perfectly fine if we move fast enough—hi Zoey—but the step-snap has to be done so clearly, otherwise it’s use—” She pauses and finally actually looks at Zoey. “Oh, hi Zoey. And… Baby.”

Romance sweeps his hair back, unsticking pink strands from his forehead. He shoots them a charming smile. “Good morning to both of you. Zoey, you look ravishing. Baby, you look…” He makes a face that does not equate to anything close to ‘ravishing’. “You look not like an idol.”

“I’m not an idol,” he deadpans. 

“Dance practice?” Zoey asks, picking up Mira’s bottle and washing it, too, since the dishwasher is still drying.

 “I went down for exercise and found these two arguing over how one of Mira’s choreographies should be.” To her right, Rumi digs through the fridge and pulls out a peach kombucha. She looks at it with a certain misery. “When do you think they’ll restock the lemon flavour?”

“It’s your fault for mentioning you loved it on a stream,” Mira says lightheartedly and hands Romance one of her coconut water juice boxes. She unscrews her own and leans on the counter as she gulps it down in three glugs. 

Zoey gapes. She doesn’t even share that with them. What did Romance do to deserve one of Mira’s coconut juices?

“I love our fans, but they need to calm down sometimes.”

Mira tosses her hair over her shoulder. For once, she’s not wearing a hat, and her hair is down loose. It cascades down her back in a waterfall of pink. “Agreed, Rumi. But anyway,” she says, giving Baby a nasty side glance, “why is he wearing your clothes?”

Nudging Baby out of the way, Zoey digs out a bowl and her box of Froot Loops—Froot Rings, as they’re called here—and watches as the other four pick their way around each other in the kitchen. “He came with me for my jog today, but he had no comfortable clothes, and I wasn’t going to make him run in jeans and a button-up.”

She puts everything away and sits down at the counter with her dry bowl of Froot Rings. There’s always so much discussion of milk before cereal, or cereal before milk, but Zoey has a solution: no milk! The cereal with milk always got soggy because she got busy scrolling her phone or talking and forgot to eat it, so the solution was simply to not add milk. Now she can pick at it at her leisure.

Baby reaches over the counter and plucks a Froot Ring from her bowl, much to her dismay and protests.

Bottle of kombucha in hand, Rumi exits the kitchen, too. She makes her way down the steps to the couch, where she vaults over and sinks into the plush cushioning with a long, satisfied groan.

As much as she’s been caught in her grief over Jinu’s loss and finding a way to bring him back, Rumi has actually settled a bit. She’s not pushing to work on their comeback like she had when she pushed up the Golden release. From what Zoey can see, she’s actually enjoying their break. It makes Zoey happy to see her friend manage to unwind despite everything that has to be going through her mind.

When Mira joins her on the couch and Romance sinks into the green, velvety armchair across from them, Rumi tilts her head back to look at Zoey and Baby. “We could fix that.”

“‘Fix that’?” Zoey swats Baby’s hand away from her bowl of cereal.

“Yeah! We could go shopping tomorrow since none of us has anything to do—right?” Rumi kicks off her pink slippers and curls up. She snuggles her face into the collar of her hoodie. “And you, Saja Boys… You’re still rich from your time here. That money’s gotta be lying around somewhere.”

“Just tell Bobby to deal with it,” Mira says.

With a guilty shrug, Rumi grins sheepishly. “That was the plan. I’ll get Bobby to figure out a way for the Saja Boys to get their money back, and we can do some clothes shopping while we wait. If it gets serious, I’ll make a personal appearance.”

Suddenly, Zoey’s bowl is snatched away in front of her. She yelps in protest and lunges forward, but it’s too late. Baby has already cradled it to his chest, shooting her a devilish, smug smirk, and is making his way down to the opposite end of the couch from Rumi. 

“Oh, come on!”

Grumbling, Zoey pushes out of her seat and stalks over to Baby. She plops herself into the cushions beside him (just far enough that it’s comfortable!) and holds an open palm out. Still smug, Baby drops a mere two Froot Rings into her palm.

Whatever, good enough!

Baby, crunching on a mouthful of Froot Rings, asks, “And a phone? I want a phone.”

“We can get you guys phones,” Rumi agrees. “Easier communication, too.”

“I am not putting their numbers on my phone!” Mira says loudly, making a perfectly disgusted face.

“Even mine?” Romance coos.

Zoey wishes she could describe how much more disgusted Mira’s face gets. It’s almost impossible how well she expresses that emotion. 

“Nobody said anything about putting numbers on your phone,” Baby tells Mira with a curl of his lip. 

“I think a phone is a good idea,” Zoey pipes in. She stretches languidly, reaching her arms out, and then, quick as a flash, yanks her bowl back from Baby’s unsuspecting, loose grip. “Haha!” she crows and jumps to her feet before Baby can take it back.

Zoey triumphantly retreats to her safe zone—in between Rumi and Mira—and crunches on the rest of the Froot Rings with a gloating raspberry she blows at Baby.

“Very lovely of you to pull strings all for us,” Romance says sweetly. Rumi makes a face at him, but Zoey catches the way her lip quirks up in satisfaction. “We’re grateful. Aren’t we, Baby?”

“Put a sock in it, Romance,” he sighs. 

Stretching out on the armchair like a glitterbombed pink cat, Romance yawns deliberately and waves his hand dismissively at Baby. “That’s about as much ‘yes’ as you’ll get from him. Unless you’re Zoey.”

The way Mira and Rumi’s heads snap to Zoey makes her want to jump out of her seat. Even Baby is gaping at Romance, who appears far too unbothered by the perplexed looks being shot at everyone all across the room.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about!” Zoey says, throwing her hands up in surrender and flinging Froot Rings all over the couch.

“ I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Baby repeats. He still looks like he’s been gutted. Zoey doesn’t blame him. She wouldn’t appreciate her friends putting her on blast for something that probably isn’t even true.  

Both of them are saved by Mira’s ringtone blaring from the coffee table.

“It’s Bobby,” she says after she checks the caller ID.  She raises a brow at Rumi and Zoey. “Do we pick up? It might be important.”

When her only answer is a shrug, she answers the video call from Bobby. He’s sitting in a restaurant, it seems. Crowded around Mira’s phone, Zoey sees waitresses running back and forth in the background. It looks like a fun, cozy place, but Bobby’s face is anything but. 

“Girls!” he practically shouts.

“Hi, Bobby!” they all cheer, waving. 

“I thought we were going for low-key while you took your hiatus!” He looks over his shoulder in the most stressed way Zoey imagines someone can. When he looks back at the camera, he leans in with wide eyes. “Why is Twitter screaming about a collab with the Saja Boys? Netizens are saying they saw Zoey and Baby Saja out together this morning. What’s that about? I thought they faded out a while ago!”

The guilty look that the three of them exchange goes unnoticed. Zoey’s might be a little stronger.

Rumi rubs the bridge of her nose in a mental preparation way and tells Bobby, “I’ll call you on my phone and explain.” Mira is quick to hang up. Rumi calls Bobby, and she continues, getting off the couch. Her phone is pressed to her ear, and Rumi shuffles into her pink slippers. “No. There’s no collab– Oh. I’m sure Zoey knows to be more careful,” she says with a pointed look, “but everything is fine. No, they’re not coming back– What? No. Absolutely not. But since we’re on the topic of the Saja Boys, I do have a favour to ask of you…”

And she rounds the staircase and disappears up to the bedrooms.

As if right on cue, the ground in front of the couch ripples blue. 

Zoey would normally jump and scream, but she knows what this is by now. It’s only a matter of waiting for the little gat to poke out, then the magpie with a terrible side-eye, and finally the unblinking, grinning blue tiger that follows Rumi everywhere to rise out of the ground. Derpy sits politely with Sussie on his head, growling softly at Mira.

She jabs a thumb over her shoulder. “You just missed her.”

“What are they doing here?” Baby points at the tiger and magpie the same way Mira would point at a water demon. “Why does a house of demon hunters let a tiger demon prowl around? Not to mention that… bird. Is that supposed to be a spirit animal?” He squints at the magpie, and it squints right back.

“Derpy’s harmless!” Zoey defends. She holds out a hand, and the tiger purrs lowly, brushing his nose against her knuckles. Baby does not seem impressed. “He’s mostly here to watch over Rumi, I think. Actually, I’m not too sure what he’s doing here… But it’s nothing bad, so we don’t really question it!”

“You named it?” Romance asks, turning over on his stomach and positioning himself in a way that has Zoey wondering how he hasn’t already fallen off.

“Rumi did.”

As if that’s enough of an answer, Romance raises his shoulders in a weirdly contorted shrug. 

With a low purr, the ground begins to shimmer again, and Derpy phases into the blue pool. Zoey watches him go with a cooing ‘aw’. Then, she gets up, stretches for real this time, and groans.

To no one in particular, she announces, “Alright! Clean up of the couch, and then seven hours of couch and turtle videos.”  

Zoey can already imagine the perfect life of nothingness she’s about to lead for today. She dusts her hands off above her bowl and gets to cleaning up the Froot Rings. One of them tumbles into a crack between cushions when Mira rises and the weight shifts.

“I have to run an errand.”

Romance somehow sinks even further into the armchair. “We’re going right now?”

Zoey frowns. “‘We’?”

There’s a deadly moment of silence. Mira slowly turns as pink as her hair, and Romance takes a sudden interest in the texture of the armchair. When Zoey looks to Baby for help, he just gives her an equally helpless look, but there’s something about it that seems knowing. 

“Since when are you guys a thing?” she asks, blinking.

Surely, one of her best friends would’ve told her if she suddenly started developing something with a Saja Boy. But Zoey realizes that Rumi didn’t exactly tell them about Jinu when everything happened, so she should let Mira’s secrecy slide.

“We are not a thing!” she yelps at the same time as Romance complains, “You’re giving us away!”

It’s an effort not to flinch at the way Mira leaps across the living room and tackles Romance to the ground. He goes with a scream, flailing immediately to get Mira off him. It’s too difficult to pry her off when she’s rattling him back and forth by the collar, spluttering that he’s an “overly pink bubblegum idiot” with “more flirts than actual thoughts”. 

“Hey, watch the glasses!”

“You’re on top of me!”

Trying her best to ignore Mira straddling Romance with a fist pulled back threateningly, Zoey smiles at Baby as she tidies up. “What are you planning on doing? Still going out to see the sights and smells of Seoul? Working tonight?”

“Probably.” 

“How do you plan on getting back in?”

Baby loses the ‘don’t-look-at-Mira-and-Romance’ game when she flips Romance over and pins his arm behind his back, eliciting a yowl of pain. Looking like he’s fighting against commenting on it, Baby says flippantly, “I’ll figure it out.”

“Buzz the penthouse when you’re back, and I’ll let you in. Just… don’t come back too late! I do want to sleep.”

“You don’t have to stay awake.”

Zoey narrows her eyes at him like a challenge. 

Behind her, Romance has plaintively tapped out of Mira’s hold, and they’re getting up at the same time. Mira dusts herself off and huffs at Romance, as if saying, Yeah, that’s right. He withers a little, but still obediently follows her out and waves at Zoey when Mira cheerfully bids her goodbye, insisting that they are not a thing. Baby, again, is entirely ignored.

He sprawls out on the couch with a groan. “I’m napping. Wake me up in thirty.”

And the penthouse falls silent as Baby curls up right where he sits, tossing the green blanket over himself, and Zoey settles in with her phone in one hand and a portable charger in the other. She’s got the compilation of turtle videos that she’s yet to watch from before the Golden release, a bowl of Froot Rings, and so much time on her hands.

This is life.

Volume: ■■■□□□□

The following morning, their shopping trip takes them from an electronics store to Cheongdam-dong to Apgujeong-dong, north-west.

Zoey feels great because Baby actually got back at midnight—on the dot!—yesterday, with a meek, “Am I late?” when she’d let him in. Of course, he couldn’t just let everything pass without complaining at least once, so he’d told her that he had to “clock out early just for her”. She’d only retorted that he was acting like he worked a nine-to-five and not a graveyard shift that doesn’t even have a schedule.

That little argument went nowhere, so Zoey had (playfully) given up and gone to sleep.

Which means she’s so refreshed for today! 

The clerks are professional about the purchase—no asking for autographs or whispering about how Huntrix and some Saja Boys are in the store—and, with Baby and Romance customizing the settings on their phones, they begin their day-long shopping spree.

Rumi takes them into a Louis Vuitton first. The employees greet them with a low bow and offer assistance, but Huntrix’s leader holds up a hand and nods her head politely. 

“We’re just browsing, thank you.” 

The store here is a lot more colourful compared to the one in the States, Zoey always notices. Where the ones in the States tend to lean toward the neutral beiges, browns, whites and blacks, the stores in Seoul burst with colours. She immediately bounds up to a yellow jacket with white clouds on it, Baby on her heels.

Two steps behind her, Rumi leans in closer to Mira, gesturing with a knowing smirk around the corner. Zoey doesn’t hear what she says or what Mira responds, but she can make an educated guess when Mira grabs onto Romance’s arm and all but drags him away, sputtering in surprise. Like a mother who’s just let her kids loose in a mall—and she basically has—Rumi begins to stroll around the store.

But Rumi shops through the men’s section, perusing clothes that wouldn’t fit her. Zoey’s heart twinges for her.

“Bright colours look good on you,” Baby tells her, interrupting her train of thought. He pulls the jacket off the rack and holds it up to her, gauging her with those uniquely coloured eyes of his. “But I like the blue and pink jacket you had when we first met best.”

Zoey lightly pushes aside the yellow jacket with a side glance at Baby as she sweeps aside a monogrammed white crewneck. “How do you even remember that?” She pauses and goes back to pick up the crewneck. It’s soft to the touch. 

“You made a scene.”

“Wha– I made a scene? We made a scene?” Zoey coughs disbelievingly and turns on Baby, a playful, accusing finger pointed at him. “You’re the bunch of jerks who bumped into Rumi and made her drop all her tonics!”

“That was Jinu,” he reminds her and picks another colourful, flower-embroidered denim jacket directly off the mannequin. “I just walked past you and said absolutely nothing.”

Zoey grabs the jacket absentmindedly and switches the two back and forth, turning to Baby. “Which one looks best?”

He pouts a little and points at the white shirt. Zoey puts it back anyway. She keeps the one he’d picked out and hands it to a nearby attendant, who hurries to place it in a dressing room for her. Baby, looking a little more pleased, splits from Zoey. A tacky silk shirt patterned with necklaces begins to whisper her name from the back of the store so strongly, she just lets Baby disappear.

Rumi runs into her at one point, her arms full of three jeans and shirts. Zoey glances down at her haul, then up at Rumi, who stretches her lips into the most awkward smile Zoey has seen all year. Well! There’s no question that those clothes are all for Jinu. 

“There are other stores in this ward,” she reminds Rumi before handing her chosen skirt to an attendant and following him to the dressing rooms.

Her choice of outfit is the white crop top she came in with the jacket Baby gave her, and a high-waisted, pleated lilac skirt. Zoey gives a twirl in the mirror, humming in contemplation. She likes the jacket, but the skirt is a bit… bright. It’d probably look best on Rumi, whose hair colour would match it anyway.

A little glumly, Zoey switches back to her cargo pants and steps out of the fitting room.

“What do you think?”

It takes her a moment to process who she’s looking at.

In front of her, Baby wears a black turtleneck under a souvenir jacket and slacks of the same colour. An embroidered blue tiger curls across the left breast of his jacket, three shades darker than his hair. Printed raisin-purple flowers twine down the sleeves like grapevines. The turtleneck is thin enough to be breathable and clings to his skin enough to show his shape. Still in the pink-tipped chunky white boots he got here in, he shifts on his feet when Zoey gawps for a moment too long.

“You’re drooling,” Rumi says disapprovingly. 

She’s draped across the seating in the middle of the room with a Louis Vuitton bag in her left hand.

Slapping a hand to her face and furiously wiping the (very dry) corners of her mouth, Zoey stammers, “No! No, I wasn’t! Haha– That’s crazy! Me? Drooling over this guy?” She waves her hand and giggles, maybe a little too high-pitched for it to even be considered natural. “Psh, noooo… Never!”

“Oh, okay,” Baby says with a shrug and turns away.

That was not what she’d meant to say. Zoey wants to correct herself, but she can’t get a word in before she’s already being teased again.

“You were crawling up to a poster of Mystery and drooling, like, a month ago.” Mira comes out of nowhere—really just another fitting room in a white loose-fitting sleeveless mini dress—and crosses her arms, jutting a hip out. She pushes her golden glasses back up her nose. “I wouldn’t put it past you to drool now.”

Rumi whistles lowly. “Legs make that look good.”

“Not going to buy it. I like Dior better.”

Zoey turns her attention back to Baby, who’s tucked his hands into his pockets and fiddles unhappily with his yellow hat. He places it on his head and takes it off again, grumbling about a sudden splash of colour not fitting well. She strides across the room closer to him while Rumi and Mira discuss their preferred brands.

“I think,” she starts quietly, to him only, and almost forgets what she wants to say when Baby catches her eyes in the fitting room’s mirror, “that you look great. Even with the hat.”

“Really?” he asks. 

It’s so terribly earnest, like he’s been craving praise, that Zoey feels all the worse for dismissing him just a second ago.

“Maybe combat boots or loafers instead of these, but you– This is great! Sorry, I just wasn’t used to seeing you in anything but bubblegum pink concepts. I mean, of course, except for the Idol Awards where you wore basically the same outfit in an edgier purple tone, and then when you hypnotized all of Seoul and wore traditional clothes, but—” She coughs once; smiles at Baby, who just watches her with an unruffled expression. “You look good. You look better than good.”

He does that unnerving thing again, the one where his eyes dart across her face, searching. He doesn’t say anything for a very long second. Zoey’s about to swallow thickly and crack a joke to maybe save herself when Baby’s lips curl into a soft smile.

“I’m glad you think so.”

“And me?” comes Romance’s purring voice. 

He flings the door open and strikes an obnoxious pose in the room. Romance is decked out in pink—so much pink that Zoey, honest to god, wonders how he pulls it off. Even his jeans are pink. How is Zoey only now realizing that he was wearing the Soda Pop promotion clothes from the variety show? Aside from that, he wears a pink dress shirt so light that it’s almost white with a checkered, rosy cardigan over it. 

“I hate to say it,” Mira speaks up first once she’s over her initial shock—definitely not at how pink he is, because Zoey has the creeping suspicion it’s her fault—and crosses her arms, “but he actually looks good.”

“You hate to say it?” he repeats with a frown. “Excuse me, I’m handsome as all hell. I can pull off a trash bag if I want to.”

“Then pull off a trash bag! Do it at the Met Gala! Then I will, too, and we’ll see who gets more movement on Twitter!” Mira throws up her hands in exasperation and disappears back into her fitting room to change out of the dress.

But Zoey makes eye contact with Rumi, leaning on the seats in the middle of the room, and they both giggle, agreeing: Mira is absolutely smitten with how Romance looks. 

“Hey, Baby,” Romance calls, and the way Baby’s face immediately drops is almost amusing to Zoey. “I always did think you rocked the edgier look. Little Baby’s all grown up now.”

“Don’t mock me when you look like a cotton candy machine threw up.”

At Baby’s dry response, something flashes in his eyes. Zoey only catches it because she’s seen it so many times when she was made fun of in the States for being “weird”. It makes her throat close up, a learned reflex. The look is that of someone who’s about to be purposefully cruel. She never expected to see it on Romance.

“You know,” Romance says lightly, walking over to Baby and slinging an arm over his shoulder. Baby looks instantly put off, but doesn’t move to push him off. “Looking at models nowadays, I keep thinking to myself, Wow, they’d love Baby. Back in the day, that’d be unimaginable. Now? I think they’d eat you and those special blue eyes right up.”

It’s strange. Zoey can’t find anything wrong with what Romance said. Sure, it sounded like he was making fun of Baby, but she can’t wrap her head around how.  

It doesn’t matter that she can’t understand it, because Baby grits his teeth and flexes his fingers like he’s fighting off a reflexive swipe at Romance. It looks like it takes a lot of effort.

“Do you get off on making fun of me?” he growls, scowling at Romance.

Satisfied with getting a reaction out of his former bandmate, Romance backs off. He swerves around on his heel and laughs. “Maybe a little. Have to humble you somehow!”

The door to his fitting room clacks shut. The silence that follows has Zoey taking a hesitant step toward Baby. His eyes are cast to the ground, but he lifts his head when he hears Zoey. Something wounded stares back at her. She doesn’t have time to say anything. Shaking his head, he retreats to the room behind him to change out of his clothes. The tension he leaves behind nearly suffocates Zoey.

“I guess you’ve both found your styles,” she says sullenly and shrugs off the denim jacket. “And Rumi… Hang in there. He’ll find his style with you soon, too.”

She offers Zoey a sad smile. Zoey doesn’t miss the way her hand tightens around the handles of her bag.

On their way out, Romance grabs onto Zoey’s arm. The hold is gentle and careful, but intentful. She stops in surprise, then scowls at him. Ahead, the other three are walking and talking, Rumi gesturing. Neither of them has noticed that they’ve fallen behind yet.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong impression,” he says seriously. It’s entirely different from his usual lax attitude. It throws her off for a second.

Composing herself, Zoey yanks her arm from his grip. “For why you’re acting like that?”

“We don’t hate each other.” Romance glances up at the group ahead—his eyes land on Baby, and his expression darkens—and leans down to look Zoey in the eyes as he says, “He’s not who you think he is. Let him get too confident and comfortable, and you’ve got a mess on your hands. He—”

“What’s the holdup?” Mira calls out.

Straightening up, Romance gives Zoey a hard look. He says nothing else. He just strides ahead to catch up, and she dumbfoundedly follows behind.

The mood lightens by the third store. 

Upon Mira’s insistence, they drop by the House of Dior. Not as interested in this brand as Mira, Rumi and Zoey head up to the top floor where the café is. Though there’s a visible wait for a table, the employees usher them in, and Zoey does her best to ignore the flashing cameras as they pass by and are guided to a more secluded table.

Sighing more heavily than she should, Rumi practically collapses into the chair. She sends the groupchat a quick text:

keep the boys out of sight of fans
or keep them busy just away

“Tiramisu?” Zoey asks.

“If you want,” Rumi tells her absently. She presses her cheek into a palm, looking like she’s melting on the spot. “There are better luxury tiramisus around here.”

“Oh, yeah! Café Madang in Maison Hermès.” She flags over a waiter anyway and orders an extremely overpriced tiramisu that she definitely could have gotten from a proper bakery for half the price and twice the flavour.

“You okay?”

Rumi melts impossibly further into the seat. It’s not even hot out, but she looks like she’s absolutely dying. ”I just keep wondering if it’s a good idea to have the–” She pauses, glancing around as if someone is going to jump her for her next words. “The Saja Boys,” she whispers loudly, then continues at a normal tone, “with us.”

“I don’t see why it would be bad. You seem to be getting along with them, and I feel like if they wanted to do something bad, they would’ve done it by now.”

“But that’s it. What if they’re playing the long con?”

Romance’s hand around her arm flashes in her head. The digs at Baby, Baby’s avoidance of his past. Zoey feels like she’s missing something, but it’s not whatever Rumi is suggesting.

“Only the two of them?” She leans away from the table and thanks the waiter when a plate of tiramisu is placed in front of her. “They had to work as five, with Jinu as the head of the operation, when they almost beat us. It’s hard to imagine they can hurt anyone like this.”

“Everybody heard how they fought each other in Louis Vuitton,” Mira adds, sliding into the other chair out of nowhere. She picks up Zoey’s spoon and takes the first bite of cake.

Rumi sits up a little straighter. “Where did you come from?”

“The stairs. Don’t worry about Baby and Romance. I sicced them on some attendant and told them to shop for Mira and Romance. They’ll be at it for a while.” She inclines back into her chair, slouching. “It’s good we’re talking about this again. I don’t hate them anymore, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also have my suspicions.”

The three of them only have to exchange one look for all of them to understand: they all agree, but each has a slightly differing opinion.

Rumi goes first. “I’ll be the first to say that I sympathize with some demons.” Zoey fights the urge to correct that they’re not demons anymore. The eagerness must show on her face because Rumi tilts her head at her in amusement. “ Ex- demons, I know,” she says. “But… I don’t know, there’s something about them that I don’t trust.”

Man, is Zoey glad for the hubbub to cover up their conversation!

“I don’t fully trust them either,” Mira agrees. “We’re supposed to just believe that they’re meant to disappear off at night to guide souls, wearing a full hanbok? Yeah, right. That’s myth, not reality.”

The way Mira says it, Zoey begins to wonder if she should’ve maybe questioned the things Baby told her. She believed everything he told her about the Hwangcheon road and about being a jeoseung-saja. After all, he’s given her no reason to doubt him. He came back at a reasonable hour last night—or today—when she’d told him to, and the first night he’d disappeared, he was being harmless when she found him.

“Mira, we are demon hunters,” their leader counters, enunciating every syllable of ‘demon hunters’.

With a mouthful of tiramisu, Zoey adds, “She has a point! Also, I think they’d just wear normal clothes since the world’s changed, you know? Also, also, Rumi’s weird summoning thing was pretty fantastical, but that definitely happened. We saw it with our own eyes.”

Mira rubs the bridge of her nose. “Too much is happening. But, I guess, following that logic, I won’t believe that they’re jeoseung-saja until I see them.”

“We can’t see souls.”

“I’ll find a way!”

Rumi looks like she turns into liquid by how much more she sprawls out onto the table. Zoey wishes she could put her in a cooler or something, just to make sure she doesn’t entirely fall apart.

“I’ve been trying to see demons less radically,” their dancer starts slowly with a side glance at Rumi, “but it’s so weird with them. They’re not demons anymore—if they’re telling the truth—but they’ve still hurt so many people. And, now, there’s something about them that seems so—”

“Real?” Zoey finishes.

Mira sits upright. She points at Zoey and looks at Rumi with wide eyes. “Exactly! Real. They’re like real people, and it keeps throwing me off. I can’t think of them as Gwi-Ma’s servants when they act like the Kim next door.”

“They are real people, Mira,” Rumi mumbles. “Even as demons and as idols, they were real people.”

Zoey interrupts before Mira realizes she’s said something off again. “And they’re not Gwi-Ma’s servants anymore. We can only find out if they’re actually going to redeem themselves by waiting. We just have to give it time.”

“And if the other two Saja Boys come back? Your argument that there are only two falls apart then,” Mira says, taking another piece of Zoey’s tiramisu.

“But your point that they don’t get along stands!” Zoey snatches the spoon out of Mira’s hand and eats it before she can nab it back. “Jinu kept them together and civil. Without him, I’m pretty sure they fall apart and can’t act in coordination even if, say, two of them got along.”

“Either way, it’s too late. We’ve already spent millions of won on them, and they’re settled. I’d feel bad making them homeless after that.” Rumi miserably pokes the chocolate dusting on the plate and licks it off her finger. “I wish Jinu didn’t open my eyes. Then I could continue peacefully hating demons and not questioning everything I’ve been taught.”

What an oxymoron. Peacefully hating. Zoey recognizes that Rumi is one hundred percent joking, but is such a thing possible? Wasn’t that what the three of them used to do, because they were taught to indiscriminately hate demons?

“There’s something that throws me off.” Zoey licks the chocolate off the spoon and passes it to Mira.

“Romance’s aggravating mug?”

“No. Well… No! It’s something that Romance said.” She frowns, jogging her mind back. “We know his past. Vaguely, but enough to know that he just wanted to shine brighter. We don’t know Baby’s. When I tried to ask, he shut down and blew up.”

Rumi and Mira stare at her, waiting.

Zoey blinks at them, “What? That’s it.”

“I don’t know, Zoey,” Rumi says, and there’s already that teasing lilt in her voice that has Zoey’s ears heating up. “I feel like you, of all of us, should know best about all matters ‘Baby’.”

“H-hey! What about Mira and Romance, huh?”

“ What? What about me and Romance? There’s nothing going on there, unlike you and Baby, sneaking off and coming back so late.” Mira rolls her eyes and scoffs, but nearly chokes on tiramisu as she does that. The second she composes herself, she says, “And then you took him with you on your morning jog.”

“Oh, but your coconut juice?” Rumi pries with a knowing, pleasant smile. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The way she pulls a too-stoic face tells Zoey that she has every idea what Rumi is talking about.

Zoey clears her throat and shovels the rest of the cake into her mouth. “And! There’s nothing with me and Baby! I’m just helping him adjust. Besides, Mystery is so much more my type.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Rumi teases as she beckons over a waiter for the bill.

The second she pays, all of Huntrix rises from the table and heads back toward the stairs. Mira grumbles something or the other about Romance getting her clothes right, while Rumi tells her to cut him some slack since it’s been over half a century since he’s interacted so closely with trends. 

On the ground floor, waiting for them to continue their ridiculous shopping spree, are Baby and Romance. They’re both holding one bag, but the moment Romance spots the girls coming down the stairs, he urgently gestures at Baby. Sporting an expression so bored that Zoey knows Baby must be exaggerating, he hands over his bag. Romance, now holding all the bags, beams up innocently at Mira.

Zoey is about to laugh at him when she sees Baby’s expression the moment he realizes she’s there. Her breath catches in her throat.

His scowl dissipates immediately, softening into something much kinder. Baby tilts his head up to watch her make her way down the stairs, and his gaze never leaves her until she’s standing right in front of him. He’s not much taller than her, she remembers, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. 

Why did Romance make fun of them? They’re uniquely beautiful. 

Baby suddenly turns his head away, breaking eye contact.

“Think a little louder. I think your face is almost screaming at me,” he says coltishly and flicks a finger through her bangs.

Snapping out of it, Zoey waves her hand at him, trying to swat him away. “Okay, okay! Don’t ruin my bangs!” She frantically shakes her head to resettle her bangs and pokes at them to fix them.

“Come on, relax. Your bangs are okay, and that jacket looks good on you. You look fine,” Baby assures her with a murmur. He carefully replaces a strand on her forehead and grins cheekily. “You look better than fine.”

“Ahem! If you guys are quite finished,” Romance says very deliberately, “we’re heading out to the next stores now. Then we’re getting food because I really want to try one of those American-style pizzas I keep seeing.”

“Pepperoni for the win.” Mira’s the first to head out the door, fist pumping.

One by one, they follow her out. As they go, Rumi explains to Romance all the different types of flavours, telling him that he can quite literally top it however he likes. As someone who grew up in ‘American pizza’ central, Zoey wants to contribute to the conversation, but her mind keeps wandering back to Baby, who lags just a step behind Rumi but one ahead of Zoey.

She keeps insisting Mystery is her type. It’s true, too. She’d seen his face before slicing it apart, and he’d been absolutely dazzling. There’s something that still isn’t clicking, tickling at the back of her brain, and it takes Baby turning back to check that she’s still close behind to realize what the issue is.

Is it accurate anymore for her to say that Mystery is her type when those words bring to mind clear eyes and a wry half-smile?

Volume: ■■■□□□□

It’s weird at first, but as weeks pass by, Zoey begins to get used to her new life. 

She wakes up early for a small conversation with Baby in the kitchen, then heads out for her morning jog. Sometimes Baby joins her, sometimes he decides to laze about the penthouse. Then, she returns and works on either new songs, choreographies with her girls, or takes her beloved couch time. Dinner is usually had with all five of them. Sometimes, Romance and Baby go for dinner alone, but they’re more often than not all gathered on the couch with containers of takeout.

(One of the days he gets sick of takeout, Romance takes to the kitchen and whips them up some japchae. Mira hasn’t stopped asking him to cook more dishes since. He’s yet to pull out the pots and pans again, but Zoey begins to notice more fresh ingredients in their fridge. Suspicious!

There has also been a sudden appearance of lollipop wrappers. Zoey doesn’t think Romance is to blame.)

With their money back in hand, portioned out per member, the two Saja Boys have cash to spend. Romance uses it to slowly pay Mira back for most of the things she’d bought him, while Baby is more restrained with his. He insists on repaying Zoey as well, but he doesn’t fight her when she insists that a lot of it is a gift. 

His most interesting purchase is a ukulele. 

It’s left lying around on his bed or the couch. Zoey has yet to see him use it.

The two of them disappear into the city at night sometimes. Zoey’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so it leaves her anxiously sitting on the couch with Mira late into the night. Both scroll their phones, trying their best not to appear stressed out of their minds. It never works, because Mira often ends up putting her phone down first and turning to Zoey to ask if she thinks they’re coming back.

But Mira never actually asks if “they’re” coming back. She always asks about Romance.

The answer is always the same: “I guess we’ll find out.” The result hasn’t changed: their buzzer rings, always past midnight.

Eventually, Mira gets sick of staying up late, worrying, and tells the concierge to buzz the boys up without question. It’s such a shift in her behaviour that Zoey briefly wonders if she hit her head while dancing.

It’s hard to forget what she was raised on—what the three of them were raised on. Zoey knows that Rumi’s very existence is a challenge to this, but it’s still hard to redirect the immediate reflex of suspicion and reproach when it comes to anything demon-related. Just like it’s an adjustment with Rumi’s demon half—but it’s a little easier since she’s Zoey and Mira’s best friend—it’s an adjustment to tell themselves that Romance and Baby aren’t malicious demons anymore.

Zoey thinks she’s getting the hang of it by now!

These days, she can get herself to go to sleep without losing years off her life, worrying if Baby and Romance are out there causing harm. When she wakes up, they’re both right there in the living room with the rest of Huntrix anyway.

(She asks Baby one night why he doesn’t just use the Hwangcheon road to reappear inside the penthouse. For that question, she gets a flat look and a simple, “It’s a road. Your building is not on the road.”)

As for her music production sessions with Baby, they stagger from week to week. At first, they find themselves in the recording studio downstairs. She shows Baby the software and equipment, running him through their uses and how to use them. He quickly gets the hang of it, and she can’t help but tease him for his age.

“Didn’t think you could understand today’s tech so quickly!”

To which he responds with a light tug of her ear, careful to avoid her piercings. “I’m not that old.”

When they have less technical sessions, Zoey lounges on one of the pink swivel chairs and plays her beats for Baby. He curls up with his knees to his chest, listening with closed eyes and his face tucked into his black jeans. A finger taps out the rhythm against his knees, but there’s no distinguishable shift in his demeanour. The worry of being annoying and only being entertained and indulged, rather than truly listened to, gnaws at her for a few days.

It takes a little bit of time, but eventually, Zoey realizes that he’s listening intently, even when it doesn’t show on his face. Coming to terms with this, she shyly reveals some lyrics she thinks of using, and he sings them just the way she imagines.

That’s when she remembers that Baby’s issue has never been singing or rapping, but rather making the songs themselves.

The recording studio ends up being just one of their meeting places. 

In time, a level of comfort settles between them where Baby doesn’t dodge her eyes anymore when he catches her staring a second too long, and Zoey begins to worry less about whether she’s too much for him. That level of comfort stretches to a habit of stopping by his room when the door is left cracked open—a wordless invitation—to discuss lyricism.

Bedazzled notebooks sitting between them, they go over Zoey’s lyrics. She encourages him to write his own in a kitty-themed notebook she gifts him, but Baby has only written three lines that he scoffs at every time she suggests he rework them. He’s a quick learner, but he’s also quick to give up when frustration eats at him. It’s entirely understandable.

It doesn’t stop her from scolding him with a waggling finger that he merely rolls his eyes at.

(Zoey loses her pen in his blankets one day when she sprawls out on his bed in exhaustion. She finds it later in the week, tucked in the spiral spine of his notebook. The next time they work on lyrics, neither of them speaks a word of it.)

Today, the ukulele is on Baby’s bed, the blankets strewn everywhere around it.

When Zoey knocks and the door slightly swings open, but no one answers, she takes a peek in. Baby’s grey blanket is hanging half off the bed, and the pillow has somehow found its way under the night table. It’s quiet—it generally is in this hallway of the penthouse, though she can hear Rumi and Romance chatting indistinctly in his room—but the lamp is on. His phone is face down next to it.

Nervously, she swings the door a little wider.

“Baby?”

No answer.

Frowning, Zoey steps into the room. His curtains are half-drawn. The after rays of sunset peek in, casting his otherwise dark room in an orange glow. Weird… He usually leaves them open all the way. The dressers against the wall are so full of new clothes that they don’t close properly. Black and white clothes pile out of the laundry hamper. It seems Baby has been procrastinating on washing all of that.

The newsboy cap that he can’t seem to part ways with sits atop the dresser.

It’s strange to see this room look so lived-in. Zoey used to use this room as storage for a lot of her mementos from the States, so it was dusty and devoid of activity until the Saja Boys moved in. Baby had told her not to bother clearing it all out, but she also just felt awkward surrounding him with pictures of herself. 

The balcony door suddenly slides open while she’s admiring the collection of silver jewelry he’s been building up on a corkboard above a desk.

“How long have you been here?”

Zoey jumps as if she’d been caught doing something scandalous. How scandalous, looking at his necklaces. “Just a minute or two,” she says hurriedly. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer, but the door was cracked open as usual, so I just came in– Oh, were we ever going to talk about that unspoken rule, or did I bring that up too soon?” She tucks her hands behind her back and reminds herself to breathe. It’s just Baby. “You know what– Yeah! Just a minute or two.”

Behind her, his bedroom door slams shut from the wind. Rumi complains, muffled, down the hallway. Zoey will have to explain later… They’d promised each other no slammed doors, but that was the wind!

Unbothered, Baby closes the balcony door behind him and pulls the hood off his head. He’s wearing a black zip-up hoodie, the zipper low enough to show that he’s not wearing anything underneath it, and a pair of white sweatpants. His hair is ruffled—the way it tends to be when it gets windblown and he hasn’t bothered even running his fingers through it.

“I haven’t written anything new,” he says.

“Oh! I’m not here for that.” Something clacks between his teeth as he raises a brow. Zoey only just now notices that he has a lollipop hanging between his lips. “So you’re the one who’s been leaving wrappers around! Pick up after yourself.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Heavily, Baby flumps down onto his bed, narrowly avoiding the ukulele. They still haven’t brought it up, though Zoey itches to. She’s come to realize now, having lived with Rumi for so long and now Baby, that some things just need time to be talked about. They’re not like Mira, who charges right into a discussion the moment she knows what she wants to say.

Zoey takes her seat in the desk chair and rolls closer to the bed. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“You’ve been out all day,” he replies simply. 

To Zoey, it sounds like a retort. 

“It’s been a long day. I was doing my duty as a Hunter with the girls! Gwi-Ma isn’t dead, just weakened. We’re trying to make sure his attempts to regain strength stay underneath the Honmoon.” She sighs sharply. She’s still scratched up from a bad tussle with a demon, and she can feel her pants sticking to a bloody patch on her knee. It’s nothing she’s not used to, though! “There was something weird today. We got all the demons that came through the Honmoon, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more. Like we missed something. Am I crazy?”

Baby just rolls his head over to give her a long, unimpressed look. Okay. Fine. Opinion taken.

She frowns at his silence and his reaction, but forgets what she’s going to say when he lifts an arm and smirks at a small Polaroid in his hand. And then her heart drops to her ass when Baby slyly says, “You were cute as a teen.”

“What?!”

Before she realizes it, Zoey is vaulting herself out of the chair and onto Baby’s bed, almost knocking the ukulele off. Her hands nab desperately for the picture. Baby is unfortunately quicker than her. He sits up in his bed and presses himself against the headboard to avoid falling over the second Zoey launches herself at him. 

“Hey– Ow!” he grunts when she knees him in the side, scrambling practically on top of him to try to reach the photo. Her knee stings where it’s raw. She’s too stressed about the Polaroid to care.

“Give that to me!”

“What’s wrong with it?” Baby asks, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Hey, hey, watch it!”  

He winces again when Zoey slaps a hand against his chest, nails digging into the bare skin beneath his hoodie as she uses it as leverage to hoist herself up higher, and pins his hand against the headboard. She’s leaning over him with a knee wedged between his legs in her desperation to retrieve her picture. She grins victoriously down at him, eyes starry with triumph.

“Gotcha!”

Baby deflates, letting his hand drop limp. The picture flutters down to the bed. Zoey pounces onto it like a cat does a ball of yarn, and she could practically purr in relief of cradling the picture to her chest.

“Are you going to get off of me?” comes Baby’s low, amused voice.

As quickly as she scrambled onto him, Zoey all but leaps off him. Bowing her head, she sputters out, “Sorry! I was so focused on getting back the picture, I got carried away!”

A hand resting atop her head silences her. It’s everything like reassurance and a gesture she’s learning to associate with calmness. “I didn’t know you had the same hair colour as me.”

Zoey finally looks down at which picture it is. She’s not even that much younger in it. Maybe just a few years, she can’t remember. Her usually long black hair is dyed a minty blue—just a bit lighter than Baby’s—and her face is so much rounder. She’s hitting a ridiculous pose in front of a bowling lane, her hand tossed casually over her shoulder and a bowling ball hanging from her fingers. Looking at this now, she wonders how she even managed that pose without straining her wrist. 

Oh, in hindsight, she probably did…

“It looked good on you,” Baby says, peeking over. “Why didn’t you keep it?”

There’s a sudden lump in her throat.

How can she explain to him the years of feeling torn between being American and being Korean? Dyeing her hair because she wanted to, only to begin feeling like she was ‘whitewashed’ and even more detached from her roots? Not to mention, it kept garnering her weird looks from her schoolmates. She stood out too much. That wasn’t needed when people already saw her as a novelty—something to whisper and giggle about.

“I couldn’t,” she chokes out, shifting to lean against Baby’s headboard beside him.

“Wouldn’t?” he asks, tone softening. A hand creeps from beside her to pull the picture out of her fingers. 

She hadn’t noticed that she’d been gripping it so tightly until the pink began to return to her fingertips. 

“I wouldn’t,” she concedes. Her hands come to rest limply in her lap. “Koreans have dark hair, I told myself. I had to be Korean enough.”

“Mira and Rumi have interesting hair colours,” Baby points out. She notices that he doesn’t mention himself. 

“That’s different. They’re born and raised. I grew up in the West, but I was trained to be a Hunter and an idol. I never really fit in anywhere. Too Korean to be American, too American to be Korean. I thought if I had black hair, I’d be at least Korean enough for everyone here.” Zoey looks down at her hands. “But I speak with a bit of an accent, and I’m still known as the Huntrix girl who grew up in America.”

“You looked like a Korean idol,” he argues back lightly, glancing down at the picture. He traces a finger along her face, brows furrowed, then sets it on one of the night tables.

“That doesn’t mean anything! You wouldn’t get it; you’re too old.”

Baby stays quiet for a bit. Zoey doesn’t press for words, but it’s still a long two minutes of dead silence before he speaks, voice wavering. “Not fitting into the place you grew up in, but knowing you’ll never be enough for the other place you should belong, huh?”

“Exactly,” she says miserably. She pinches her fingers together, feeling the lump rise in her throat and turn into a pressure in the back of her eyes.

“If there’s anyone who understands you, it’s me.”

Zoey blinks. A tear drips out of her eye and falls onto her hand. She quickly wipes it against her pants and looks up to find Baby staring intently at the wall. “What?”

“I don’t want to get all disgusting like Jinu and Rumi, or whatever, with all their apparent ‘I see your shame’ talk,” he says with such derision that Zoey wonders how she ever forgot he resents Jinu, “but… I do understand you. I know how you feel.”

His eyes glisten like hers, but she knows that he won’t shed a tear. This might be the most emotion, anger aside, that she’s seen Baby show. He breathes shallowly, like he’s afraid any more and something inside him—or between them—will shatter like glass. Then, he blinks, the sheen of wetness disappears, and he slowly turns his head to face Zoey with a small smile.

They’re so close she’s sure he can see the freckles on her bare face.

“This is really stupid, but I always thought your eyes were contacts,” she lets slip thoughtlessly. 

Baby does the thing again—the same thing he’d done the day they’d gone shopping all together. He blinks and breaks eye contact, looking anywhere but Zoey’s eyes. This time, Zoey can’t let him slip away again. She won’t let him grow distant when she’s just caught him.

Zoey doesn’t know what possesses her, but she turns to him and raises a hand to his face. Gently, she presses two fingers against his jaw and turns his head back to her. Blue meets brown. Blue.

It clicks.

“Baby,” she says in a hushed tone, like a secret realization, “you’re half American, aren’t you?”

He flinches. Almost pulls away from her. She doesn’t understand why it’s such a horrible thing for him—why he’s hidden it like this—until she remembers Romance’s comment earlier in the month; the way Baby reacted like he’d been slapped; when exactly Baby had first lived.

“I was raised here, by a Korean family,” he tells her, voice no louder than a murmur. It sounds defensive. She holds him gently, and he looks at her like she’s holding him together. “But I’m a foreigner.”

The word he uses comes off harsh. Oegug-in. Foreigner. Someone from outside the country. Someone who doesn’t belong. Zoey’s been called that many times on some forums, where some of her fans immediately dogpiled the poster, but it doesn’t hurt any less. Knowing the period when Baby first lived, she can’t imagine what it was like for him.  

Her first instinct is to tell him, No, you’re Korean. But he knows that. He knows he’s Korean.

So Zoey drops her hand from his face and pretends not to notice the way he chases her warmth. She presses her hands into the bed, fingers sinking into the bedsheets, almost brushing against his, and leans a little closer. Boisterous and energetic as she is, there are moments so fragile she doesn’t want to raise her voice past a shared secret.

This is one of them.

“You know you’re not.”

“Romance sure likes to remind me of it.”

He’s not who you think he is.

The words echo in her mind. He couldn’t have possibly just been talking about Baby’s identity. That’s ridiculous.

“That was a real dick move of Romance. You’re not supposed to listen to the haters! That’s, like, idol rule number one.”

“I’m not an idol anymore.”

Zoey makes a face. “Okay, but still! You’re not a foreigner, and Romance can eat it if he really thinks you are.”

Baby gives a small shake of his head. “My parents were good. My mother loved me. She protected me from the world, but when I started putting myself out there, the people found me exotic.” She feels the coolness of his fingertips brushing against her thumb. It retracts immediately. “My blue eyes singled me out as an outsider. I could speak their language, look like them, have the same values, but I would’ve never been Korean to them. I was just another foreign entertainer.”

“Like me,” Zoey laughs airily, though it’s less funny than it is terribly ironic. “Huntrix’s Zoey from the USA. Saja Boys’ Baby from South Korea—but watch out, he has American blue eyes!”

At least that gets a puff of laughter from him.

“I try not to think about how things might have been different if I’d grown up American,” he confesses. Their fingers brush again. He stays, and she doesn’t leave. “But I see you, the way you fiercely push against the world, and I wonder if I might have turned out better– If I would’ve been saved.”

From Gwi-Ma. From his shame. Zoey knows there are so many what-ifs, and, seeing him here—all boyish looks and hopeful reminiscence—she remembers just how young he was when he fell to Gwi-Ma’s control.

“Maybe. But you wouldn’t be you. Your past shaped you.”

There’s a flicker of a shadow in his eyes, like he intends to draw away—like he has something to hide. It passes, and Zoey does her best to forget it. “Okay.”

“In that possibility,” she continues, murmuring, “you’re not Baby. Maybe you’re Mark. Or Nicholas. You go to an American high school, and you speak English.”

“Those are terrible names.” She wants to tell him that ‘Baby’ is also a terrible name, but he smiles, and it feels like enough. “And I can speak English.” 

“I didn’t know that!”

“Now you do.” Pursing his lips together, Baby chuckles, and the ice melts. He pulls away. No longer with a threat of shattering, he says, in a normal tone still tinged with hurt, “I learned in the stupid chance that I met my father—the soldier who didn’t know I ever existed. It’s too late now.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, because what else is there to say?

After a beat of silence, Baby tilts his head down. “You belong,” he tells her, catching her eyes. “‘ I lived two lives, tried to play both sides / But I couldn’t find my own place’? But you did, didn’t you? Your place is with Mira and Rumi. It’s where you choose.”

Zoey stares at him then. She takes him in as he is: youthful, placid, and sly, all at once. The hint of something ancient in his eyes, and another hint of a dark shadow he tries to conceal. She takes in the searching gaze he fixes on her—the one where he checks every microexpression—and the way he still hasn’t moved his head away despite his hands being clutched to his lap now.

How hadn’t she noticed it earlier?

He’s trying to make her feel better, but his concerns are getting buried beneath his efforts.

“Baby, you have your place here,” she blurts out. The words come easily after that, firm and confident. “You chose where you’d be. Even after being given a second chance, you chose to stay here and guide souls. You were given the Saja Boy money. You could’ve totally hopped on a plane and left here for the States—or anywhere else—and settled down there with some lovely wife!” 

“Wife—”

“You didn’t! You stayed. You stayed in an entirely different Seoul to get to know it again. Besides, you grew up here and have been around for generations longer than most people now! They don’t get to tell you you’re a foreigner.” Zoey crosses her arms and harrumphs indignantly. It almost surprises her how much she means what she says.

Startled, Baby only manages to blink in response. 

They sit side by side, slightly angled toward each other, breathing the same air and not saying a word. Silence lapses as they stare at each other. Zoey’s brain is still catching up with everything that just happened, processing every word, action, and look at maximum speed. It’s still not enough to go over everything. Baby seems to just be caught off guard and unsure of what to do.

So Zoey breaks the stalemate.

“This is really weird to say, but– I’m glad that out of all the possibilities that could’ve been possible, this is the one we’re in.” 

And Baby gives her that half-smile—the one that makes her heart soar like it’s all she’s ever wanted to achieve. Then, in English:

“Your friendship is nice.”

Zoey can’t help herself.

Squealing, she throws herself into Baby’s arms. His head thunks against his headboard, but he only hisses a small Ow! before he becomes preoccupied with an armful of Zoey. She tucks her face into his collarbone and bawls. Whether they’re tears of joy or sadness, she can’t tell. She’s just felt so many emotions today. All she knows is that hesitant arms are coming to rest around her back, and Baby’s clothes smell of fresh laundry. 

As she cries and cries, Baby rests his chin on her shoulder and squeezes her in his arms. It’s awkward, and their position is uncomfortable, but he admitted that her friendship is nice! Yes, there is something about that that makes her feel weird. Fortunately, her ecstasy wins out, so she can’t be bothered to think about that! Zoey clutches the front of Baby’s hoodie, trying not to get snot all over it.

She’s not sure how long she stays there crying, but it’s long enough that Baby repositions them to sit more comfortably. The day seems to have caught up to her. 

“I’m so glad,” Zoey whispers hoarsely. “I’m happy.” 

What for, she’s not too sure.

His hand rubs circles into her back, uncertain. “Rest.”

And somehow, that works.

Somewhere between the bizarre comfort Baby brings her and the post-emotional talks’ wave of exhaustion, Zoey’s eyelids begin to get heavy. She’s still sniffling, but the sun has set and dusk stretches dim outside. Baby’s room is dark, Zoey is comfortable, and sleep seems to be calling her name louder with every passing second. 

When someone undoes her buns and braids while she drifts in and out of sleep, a hand begins carding through her long, wavy hair. Nails scratch gently at her scalp. What was she supposed to do again? What was she thinking?

Oh, right. That sleep is sounding very nice right about now…

If only she could say… goodnight…

Zoey wakes up in her bed early the next morning. She’s not tucked under her comforter—probably because she’s still in yesterday’s clothes, she notices—but there’s the living room’s green throw blanket draped over her.

Her first order of business is a shower. Dry blood seeps into the shower drain, and she applies bandages where necessary.

Her second is changing into comfortable clothes and padding downstairs for breakfast. Rumi and Mira are engaged in deep conversation on the couch, Rumi gesturing at the entirety of the panoramic view of Seoul. Whatever they’re talking about, Mira doesn’t seem convinced. 

And at the counter, as always, is Baby, dressed in all black. 

“Good morning,” he says in English and turns his attention back to his bowl of Froot Rings.

Zoey freezes. Right. Yesterday happened. She opens the fridge numbly. Was Baby the one to carry her up to her room? Did she fall asleep in his arms? Oh my god, what if he thinks I’m a creep now? Would he tell her? Stop talking to her? She has to stop overthinking, but it’s going to drive her crazy! But he said her friendship was– is nice. Surely he meant that.

The fridge beeps at her. She closes the door, nothing in her hands, and risks a glance back at Baby.

He’s staring directly at her. 

“Nice breakfast.” 

That’s all he says. No hint of disdain. No secret, tense looks. Just his usual dry humour, and a peek of a crooked smirk. So Zoey relaxes. She reaches over the counter, snatches some Froot Rings from Baby, and Romance enters the kitchen, yawning widely. He immediately starts complaining about the hustle and bustle of the city.

Their routine falls back into place like it had never been threatened in the first place.