Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumi sat across from her date and smiled. He was perfect: middle-aged, a little overweight, with a receding hairline that he was trying—and failing—to cover up by combing his hair across it. He was dressed like he couldn’t imagine any event that called for something other than the same shirt and tie he wore to the office, and he kept stealing glances at her chest through his thick glasses, his eyes snapping back up to hers like he was worried she’d caught him at it.

She didn’t blame him; Rumi looked fantastic today. She wore a body she’d copied from a model on a billboard, tweaked just enough to avoid being a doppelgänger.

“So what do you do at InTech?” she asked. He flushed slightly, flattered that she remembered the name of his company.

“I— um, supervise,” he said. “The line. We make, uh—”

“Semiconductor chips, I know,” said Rumi smoothly. “It sounds like it’s a lot of responsibility.”

“It is!” he agreed, visibly pleased at her attention. He was really making this too easy.

They sat across from each other at a small table, surrounded by bamboo panels, next to a window that looked out over downtown Seoul from the top of a skyscraper next to the river. Rumi had hinted, on the app she’d used to set this date up, that she’d always wondered what the view would be like from up here. It was a great view, she could admit—the lights of the city were coming alive as the evening went on, and from this distance the massive steel and concrete bridges looked almost delicate, bits of lace arcing across the Han. More importantly, the restaurant was expensive, forcing—what was his name again? Shit. She'd forgotten his name. Forcing—what’s-his-name to spend more than he’d planned, which meant more hiding, more deceit, more—

“Your wife is a lucky woman.”

More shame. The guilt just wafted off of him, it was so fucking hot, Rumi was getting wet just sitting there, basking in his aura as she picked up a piece of overpriced sushi to nibble delicately on.

Dial it back, girl, Rumi told herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Too much shame and what’s-his-face might break and run, which would ruin weeks of effort to get to this point.

“I just meant,” she went on, “it’s so hard to find someone I can really talk to. The boys my age… it’s all gaming, or complaints about Pohang fans, or… neglecting basic hygiene.” Rumi wrinkled her nose delicately and laughed, and her date laughed along with her. It was true that boys her age generally neglected their own hygiene, though that was mostly because any human boy as old as Rumi was likely to be found in a nursing home. “You can just tell they don’t know what real responsibility is, by the way they carry themselves.” Her date sat up a little straighter, picking up her implication that he did know real responsibility, and smiled shyly as his eyes lingered on Rumi’s boobs again.

Rumi let the moment be, picking at her sushi and giving her date an opening to talk about himself some more. Men liked doing that, in her experience, which was considerable.

A flash of pain ran through her head, which Rumi ignored from long practice. Blood on a mattress, a scream. Your fault.

“I’ve been reading Bill Gates’s memoir,” her date said at last. He’d already told her this, when they’d started messaging last week, but she let him talk. “It’s really very interesting, learning what shaped him. So very different from how kids today are being raised…”

Rumi let the talk wash over her, and focused on meeting his eyes, smiling appropriately, nodding along, and—

Wait. Something was wrong. Rumi let her eyes wander around the restaurant, nonchalantly, as if she wasn’t looking for— There he was, at another table, eating alone and far too focused on her. That alone wasn’t suspicious; they’d gotten looks from any number of people on the way in, mostly of the “how the hell did this loser pull that gorgeous piece of ass?” variety. But this one had focus, a focus that didn’t match the complete lack of feeling Rumi picked up from him. A lack of feeling that hunters were trained in, to hide themselves from creatures who might sense emotions.

“Let’s get out of here,” Rumi said suddenly. Her date spluttered about a dinner unfinished and a bill unpaid. “Come on,” Rumi said, standing up and looking at him with eyes that promised. “Let’s be… spontaneous.”

Rumi started to walk away from the table, glancing back over her shoulder. She knew from this angle he could see her lower back exposed beneath the cropped leather jacket she wore. “You coming?” she added with a smile.

Her date fussed with his pockets, looking at her and then down to his meal and then back to her. Rumi turned and kept walking, smiling more broadly when she heard fumbling footsteps follow behind her.

“Hey, you, stop!” shouted the maître d’.

“Quick,” said Rumi, and darted into the nearest elevator, pulling her date in behind her.

The doors slid shut and the elevator began to move as her date started to panic. “I can’t believe— we just—”

Rumi wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He froze, and then started to pull back, presumably to ask what was happening. Rumi pressed forward, parting her lips and darting her tongue out. That finally convinced him not to question a good thing, and he relaxed into the kiss. He looked slightly dizzy by the time Rumi pulled back, and she looked up—actually, across—well, actually down at him with shining eyes.

“I just couldn’t wait to get you alone,” she whispered.

“Yeah… alone,” he said.

Security was waiting for them in the lobby.

“Sir,” said a serious-looking man even older than Rumi’s date, “could you please—”

“RUN!” Rumi shouted, pulling on her date’s hand. As she hoped, he was too caught up in the excitement to question it, and simply ran with her as they darted out of the glass door and towards the street. Rumi jumped into the traffic ramp, forcing the cab she’d spotted to stop hard, tires squealing on the asphalt. She yanked the door open and dove in, hauling her date in with her, and shouted, “Just drive!” to the cabbie. “Head south, Noryangjin-dong,” she added. The cabbie shrugged, and Rumi felt the car smoothly pull away.

She’d pulled her date into the car with enough force that he landed on top of her, and now the two of them sprawled across the backseat, Rumi’s legs wrapped around his waist. He looked up at her, flushed and panting from the exertion.

“Now, where were we?” said Rumi. She brought her mouth down to his and nibbled gently on his lower lip.

“I’ve never done anything like that,” he gasped between kisses.

“Neither have I,” said Rumi, which was a lie. “Something about you just makes me want to be… adventurous.”

He shuddered at that, and Rumi hoped he hadn’t just creamed his pants. She needed to draw this out just a little longer, and men became inconveniently concerned with their morals right after they’d emptied their nutsacks.

He started to paw at her, awkwardly gripping her hips to pull her more tightly against him, which Rumi took as a sign that he was holding on for now.

“Right here,” she said sharply to the cabbie. They’d left the expressway and entered a warren of one-way streets and pedestrian alleys.

“Here?” confirmed the cabbie. The street here was narrow and dark; blank brick walls rose on either side and a tangle of overhead wires gave the impression they were in a tunnel. The only light came from a couple of small storefronts a block or so farther down.

“Here,” Rumi said. She hopped out, tossing some money to the cabbie. Restaurant staff could be stiffed, but Rumi didn’t mess with Seoul cabbies.

Her date looked scared as the cab drove off, leaving them alone in a dark alley. Rumi could work with that, though: as feelings went, “scared” and “aroused” were kissing cousins.

She pressed him against the brick wall, pushing her body against his. “Sorry,” she whispered into his ear, gently biting his earlobe. “There’s things I want to do to you that I didn’t want an audience for.” Also, if the hunters were already on to her she needed to move a lot faster than she’d planned.

Rumi slid a hand between their bodies, inside the front of his pants, until she could wrap her fingers around his balls. “You deserve this,” she said breathily. His only response was a series of grunting noises, as she continued to fondle him while she used her other hand to undo his pants for better access.

She slid down his body onto her knees, pulling down his pants and underwear as she did so. “You deserve this,” she repeated, wide-eyed and puffy lipped as she looked up at him. She licked his cock, running her tongue from the base to the tip, never stopping her fingers working at his balls. Rumi forced herself to take it slow, despite the hurry she was in. She just needed a hook, something to tie him to her, and then she could get out of here before they tracked her down, and come back to finish ensnaring his soul later.

She cooed at him between planting kisses on the tip of his dick. “You do— so much— for your family.” She pulled back a moment to look at him, ignoring his whine at the loss of contact. “And they don’t appreciate you.” She took him into her mouth, swirling her tongue around his cockhead. “Your wife doesn’t treat you like she should, she doesn’t realize that her cancer has been really hard on you too.”

“How did you—“ he started.

“Shh,” she said, pumping his dick in one hand while she rubbed his balls into her face. “All those times she complained you weren’t home, even after you arranged babysitters for the kids so she could go to the clinic?”

Rumi spat into her hand and rubbed the spit up and down one finger.

“That vacation to Busan you cancelled because she insisted you pick her up yourself from chemo, even after you arranged a driver for her?”

Rumi looked up at him. “She doesn’t appreciate you like I do.” Then she slid her wet finger up his ass.

He gasped, and cried out, and his knees buckled. He sank down until Rumi’s shoulders were practically holding him up.

Rumi took his whole length in her mouth, letting it hit the back of her throat and swallowing to take it in further, pulling more cries out of him.

“I do deserve this,” he yelled to the night.

Rumi smiled around his dick as she pushed her nose into his pubic hair. Just a little bit more…

“Stop right there, demon!” A loud voice echoed in the alleyway.

Rumi vomited the dick out of her throat and whirled to her feet, moving her stumbling date in front of her. The alley was rather full, now; five men stood in a loose formation around her, boxing her in.

“Saja Boys,” she hissed.

“Who?” said her date.

“Saja Boys?” Rumi repeated, incredulous. “Like the band?” He shook his head. “Do you not pay attention to anything? There’s giant billboards for them literally everywhere.”

He started to speak but one of the Saja Boys cut him off. “Let him go, demon!”

“So you can kill me easier? No thanks.”

“You die this night one way or another,” said the tallest of the group. She recognized the others—it was hard not to, given how constantly their stupid hair and stupid nicknames were brought up on every stupid channel—but this one looked new.

She let her eyes go wide, and pushed some tears out as she looked at the new one. “You— you’re a hunter, right? Could you help me? Please, I’m desperate, Gwi-Ma, he’s forcing me to—”

She cut off as she jerked backwards to avoid a blinding white dagger that flew past her face.

“Don’t fall for that, Jinu,” said Mystery. In the space of a breath his hands filled with more daggers to throw.

“Fine, be that way!” spat Rumi. She pushed her date into Mystery and threw herself to the side, her fingers lengthening to claws as she swiped at Abby’s face. He brought his poleaxe up to block, like she knew he would, and she used the opening to dive past him and into a roll. Popping up to her feet, Rumi realized in a flash of panic that she’d jumped the wrong way; now she was further into the alley, facing a dead end, with all five hunters between her and the exit. She felt for a gap in the honmoon, a place she could slip through. There was nothing, though: the resolve of the hunters facing her was strengthening the honmoon it until its threads were like bars of iron.

“Shit,” she said under her breath, as she looked back at her pursuers. They all had weapons out now; Romance held a glowing staff while Baby fired an arrow at her that she barely dodged.

Behind them she could see her erstwhile date. Clearly they’d tried to send him on his way, but he’d paused to turn back and watch.

Waste not, want not, thought Rumi, and she took a breath, looked up to the roof behind her, and vanished in a streak of red smoke a moment before Baby’s second arrow would have pierced her chest.

It was a desperation trick; by jumping back as she vanished, Rumi hoped the Saja Boys’ eyes would track up to the roof she’d been moving towards.

Instead she reappeared behind her date, crouched in the dark, praying that the time it took them to turn around would give her the moment she needed.

She breathed out, and opened her mouth wide, wider than should have been possible for the body she wore. Then she pulled. The Saja Boys were still staring up, discussing search patterns, as Rumi’s date gasped and Rumi devoured his soul. Tae, she suddenly remembered. That was his name.

It wasn’t ideal; she was supposed to be cultivating him, growing his shame like a poisonous flower until Gwi-Ma could trap him for eternity. But clearly that plan was irrevocably fucked, and returning with a soul was better than nothing. Enough at least to keep Gwi-Ma from disintegrating her on her return. Probably.

Plus it felt so good. Orgasmic, really. Eating a soul—really feeling the shame it marinated in—was one of the few bits of pleasure a demon could wring from this suck-ass world.

“There she is!” shouted the new one—Jinu, Mystery had called him. Rumi made to run, hoping to tempt the rookie into throwing the sword in his hand out to stop her. He obliged, and as the starlit blade arced through the air Rumi turned back and heaved Tae’s newly limp body into its path.

The blade sliced through his stomach and up into his ribcage, spraying the alleyway with blood and bits of intestine.

“Woah,” Rumi said, in the shocked silence that followed, “you just murdered that guy.”

Jinu froze in horror, his face covered in viscera, looking down at his blade where it had stuck through Tae and into the sidewalk. Rumi could feel his doubt, could feel it ripple through the honmoon, softening it. Just a little more…

“And he was such a good guy, too,” Rumi added. “You didn’t see it before but I tried to tempt him and he was like, ‘I can’t do that, my wife means everything to me.’ He was going home to take care of his wife, who has cancer. And then you chopped him in half with your sword.” Rumi let tears fall from her eyes. “His kids… both their parents… and you killed him…”

Jinu shook his head, sending bits of Tae’s liver falling out of his hair, trying to deny the horrible truth. Well, not truth, exactly. Or even approximately. But Jinu didn’t know that. The honmoon quivered, threads fraying at its chosen hunter’s loss of resolve.

“She’s glowing,” said Abby, coming up behind Jinu. “She already ate his soul, man. You gotta learn not to trust anything they say.”

“Rude,” said Rumi. Jinu’s face flashed with anger, but his moment of doubt had done just enough. Rumi slipped through the gap in the honmoon like a knife through a ribcage, and left only her laugh behind as she disappeared from the human world.

Chapter Text

Rumi landed hard, bruising her hip. She always landed in a heap coming home, as did every other demon she knew. It seemed physically impossible to land on her feet in hell. She suspected it was a small part of the magic of the place: every little thing was a pain. The ground was all hard slate with the occasional sharp edge, except when it was broken up by jumbles of fist-sized stones designed perfectly for destroying ankles. The drinks were always lukewarm and gross, but the countless pools spread out under the ashy sky were all too cold to bathe in comfortably.

Although… Rumi looked around thoughtfully. She was alone for the moment; Gwi-Ma must be holding court at his altar. He did that often, mostly to relieve his boredom by torturing some poor soul or another in front of an audience. But it meant that if Rumi wasn’t expected there—like right now, because nobody knew she was back—she had huge swathes of the demon realm to herself. And she hadn’t yet delivered the soul she’d taken from Tae. She could feel it still inside her, pulsing, warming her in a way nothing else could make a demon feel warm. As long as Gwi-Ma didn’t realize she was she was back for a little while…

Mind made up, Rumi shucked off her black robes and carefully laid the wide-brimmed hat on top. She slid into the water of the nearest pool, leaned back, and relaxed.

It wasn’t, objectively, like being in a bathhouse back on earth. Rumi had loved the bathhouse when she was human, the way she could simply exist, apart from the world, and forget all about—

It wasn’t exactly like a bathhouse, was the point. The pool was larger, for one, and deeper, and the stone walls rougher than a bath on earth would ever be, leaving Rumi to find a ledge of broken rock to sit on instead of a seat carved for that purpose. And yet, if Rumi closed her eyes, and focused on the warmth of the soul inside her, she could almost pretend, for just a moment…

“Hey Rumi.”

Rumi’s eyes snapped open. Another demon, in the same black robe and hat that Rumi had just taken off, stood at the edge of her pool.

“Mira,” Rumi hissed. “What do you want?”

“Chill,” said Mira. “I come in—peace, or whatever.”

Rumi simply raised her eyebrow at that.

“Look I came to apologize, okay?”

That surprised Rumi. Apologizing? What was this, therapy hour?

“It’s been years, Mira.”

“I know, it’s just… been bothering me.”

Rumi added a cocked head to her raised eyebrow.

“Look, can we just… talk, maybe?” said Mira. Rumi gestured to the space next to her in the pool. Rumi didn’t want to talk while looking up at the other demon, and if Mira got into the water too she’d be freezing, which was an added bonus.

Mira shrugged and took off her clothes. She’s so fucking ugly, thought Rumi. Even for a demon. All long legs, and narrow waist, and smooth arms, and toned abs, and—just ugh.

Mira slipped into the water beside her.

“I shouldn’t have sold you out to Gwi-Ma, back then,” Mira said, after an awkwardly long silence. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you said,” replied Rumi.

They sat in another awkward silence.

“How about I make it up to you?”

“Make it up to me? How would you even—”

“I’ll give you a massage,” Mira offered.

“A massage?!” Rumi exploded. “How is that anything close to— how can you think that—”

“Look I’m trying here!” Mira shot back. “And I can’t get you a new— you know— so I’m trying to do, just, something.”

Rumi glared at her through narrowed eyes. “Fine,” she said at last, “but only because your apology is so pathetic. It’s a pity massage. I’m letting you touch me out of pity.”

Mira rolled her eyes and scootched over. “I’m actually pretty awesome at this,” she said as she dug her fingers into Rumi’s shoulders.

“Saying you’re awesome doesn’t make you— ohhhhhh.” Dammit, thought Rumi, she is awesome at this. Mira knew the exact spots in Rumi’s muscles to press those long fingers into to make them melt into little puddles of muscle pudding. Even the bruise on her hip, somehow Mira pressed her thumb into it in a way that made it feel better. Could thumbs even heal bruises? Apparently.

Rumi let her eyes close as she floated in the pool, Mira’s hands moving over her collarbones, pressing between her ribs, teasing the skin under her breasts, stroking her nipples—

Well that was— interesting. She certainly hadn’t expected it, but she wasn’t going to tell her to stop now, not when those magic fingers were pulling feelings out of her she hadn’t felt since The Kim Sisters were still performing. Maybe Mira really was trying to apologize.

She let a moan escape her as Mira gently pulled her legs apart. Mira ran her hands up Rumi’s legs, massaging the inside of her thighs, before diving in.

Mira ate pussy the way Mira did everything: by attacking it and not letting up until it begged for mercy. No tentative licks or gentle kisses here: Mira devoured Rumi, sucking and slobbering around her clit and thrusting her tongue into Rumi’s cunt again and again like she was starving and Rumi was her food, and Rumi’s back arched, her mouth opened in a silent scream as the cold water lapped against her hot skin—

Wait. Why did the water feel cold?

“You utter cunt!” Rumi screamed as she kicked Mira away from her. “That was my fucking soul, what the fuck?”

“It would still be your soul if you weren’t such a slut,” taunted Mira. “How did you even fall for that? I’ve fucked frat boys who put up more resistance.” She smirked at Rumi from across the pool, skin faintly glowing from the new soul she’d taken. Tae’s soul, the one meager result Rumi had to show from weeks in the human world.

“I needed that soul,” said Rumi.

“I needed it too,” insisted Mira. “I haven’t been able to even find a gap in the honmoon for months now, Gwi-Ma is going to burn me to ashes if I don’t give him something.”

“He’s going to burn me to ashes if I come back weeks late with not even a soul to show for it!” protested Rumi.

“But you can— I mean you can offer—” Mira thought for a second. “Actually, I guess you’re just screwed. Sucks to be you.”

“Fuck you,” said Rumi, and folded her arms as if she were pouting. Mira laughed, and climbed out of the pool. Rumi waited until she stood up fully, and then lashed out with her arm, striking Mira’s ankles and sweeping her feet out from under her on the slippery rock edge.

Mira fell, hard, her head bouncing off the ground as Rumi pulled her back into the water. The blow dazed her for just a moment, which was all Rumi needed. She twisted Mira’s arm behind her back and pushed her face down into the water, leaning most of her weight between Mira’s shoulder blades and using the leverage on her arm to keep her from rolling over or getting a grip.

“I was ready to hear your apology!” fumed Rumi. She planted her feet on the pool edge so she could keep Mira away from anything the taller girl could grab on to for leverage, while she kept her own head above water and Mira’s about two feet under it. “All you had to do was not be a cunt for once in your goddam life. And you couldn’t even do that, Mira. You couldn’t just not be a cunt.”

Mira probably couldn’t hear any of this, between her flailing limbs and her struggle for air. Rumi thought maybe she could hear a string of obscenities coming from under the water but it could just as easily have been inarticulate screaming. There was a rock ledge jutting out from the side of the pool that Rumi had been using a seat, and Rumi wondered if the flailing would stop quicker if she got a good grip on Mira’s hair and bashed her face into it a few times. It didn’t, but it made Rumi feel better anyways.

Mira had mostly stopped moving—just a twitch here and there—when Rumi spotted the messenger bird flying low over the barren flats of the demon realm. She quickly arranged Mira a little lower in the water, and planted her feet on top of her like a Mira-sized footrest. Hopefully the water would be just murky enough that the bird wouldn’t see what was beneath it.

Rumi hated the birds. They were creepy, with their extra eyes and weird tongues. But worse was that they spoke with Gwi-Ma’s voice, and Rumi had never learned for sure if it went the other way—if Gwi-Ma could hear through his messengers. Gwi-Ma liked it that way, of course: the uncertainty kept everyone on their toes. She hated this bird in particular because it flew straight to her and landed on the edge of the pool, which meant Gwi-Ma knew she was here, which meant her time to herself was over.

“Rumi,” Gwi-Ma’s voice said from the bird, “I’m so glad you’re back. Come meet me. Now.”

The bird turned to fly away. “Oh, and if you see Mira, tell her to come too. I have a job for her.”

Rumi sighed. She could keep kicking Mira under the water until she washed up drowned somewhere like the whore she was, but that wouldn’t get her that soul back. And now Gwi-Ma wanted to see her. That could mean nothing, but it could mean something he wanted from Mira specifically, and in that case he’d be annoyed if he learned Rumi had snuffed her out.

“Fine,” Rumi snarled, to no one in particular.

She grunted as she hauled the naked, waterlogged demon out of the pool and dumped her body onto dry ground. “Gwi-Ma wants to see you,” she told Mira. Mira stared at the sky with glassy eyes, her chest still.

Rumi punched her, hard, right below her sternum. A shower of bathwater spewed out of Mira’s mouth, followed by mucus and more bathwater as Mira coughed, great heaving sobs wrenched from her lungs, followed by a stream of vomit. Rumi had dried off and gotten dressed by the time Mira could form words.

“You…” Mira gasped between heaves, “bitch.”

“Gwi-Ma wants to see you,” Mira said again, and then turned and floated away toward the Demon King’s altar.

From what Rumi could tell as she approached, Gwi-Ma was in a surprisingly good mood. Every new demon learned quickly to read the signs of Gwi-Ma’s temper—well, most new demons learned quickly to read the signs of Gwi-Ma’s temper, and the rest soon ceased existing. The crowd of demons surrounding the altar today were genuinely laughing, not the forced laugh they used when the alternative was fleeing in terror. There weren’t even any ash piles on the altar, the typical leftovers of Gwi-Ma’s fiery executions. It was… strange, and it put Rumi on edge, not knowing what was behind this new conviviality.

“Rumi,” the deep voice boomed out. “How good of you to join us.” Rumi took the direct address as permission to approach the altar, and she landed at the top in front of Gwi-Ma’s flames. She dropped to her knees, head bowed.

“How fares the human world?” Gwi-Ma asked.

“It fares… well, my king,” said Rumi.

“It fares… well,” repeated Gwi-Ma, with an edge of mockery. “Of course it fares well. The hunters keep the humans so safe that one of my demons can walk among them for weeks without harvesting a single soul.”

Rumi flinched as Gwi-Ma’s flames grew. His voice was still light, but Rumi knew that could change in an instant.

“My… King,” she said, bowing her head more deeply. She shrank down, and tried to look appropriately obsequious, “I bring… intelligence.”

“Intelligence? You?” asked Gwi-Ma, and the crowd rang with sycophantic laughter.

“The Saja Boys… they have a new hunter,” Rumi said.

“So I’ve heard,” said Gwi-Ma. That was bad. If her news wasn’t news… Rumi’s eyes were drawn to a tongue of flame as it inched towards her from the mass of fire that was Gwi-Ma.

“And he can track demons!” Rumi called out. “He found me, twice, weeks after I tore the honmoon.”

Gwi-Ma seemed to ponder this for a moment. “It could be a new ability,” he said thoughtfully, “or it could be that you are even more incompetent than I thought.”

“It’s true, my King,” said Rumi, “they found me even though I hid my tracks, just as you taught me.”

“Hmm.” The moment stretched on, and Rumi stayed on her knees, not daring to say any more. Finally, the tendrils of flame that had been reaching towards here pulled back.

“The rest of you—leave me,” said Gwi-Ma, and his voice boomed so loud that Rumi’s ears rang. “I have business with Rumi.”

The crowd below the altar dispersed, except for two figures: one who trudged up the stairway and another who practically skipped up it, bouncing with each step. The skipper reached the top, and Rumi saw it was another jeoseungsaja, like herself, except that this one smiled at Rumi with a bubbly expression completely out of place at the dread altar of the Demon King.

“This is Zoey,” said Gwi-Ma, “and you are going to assist her.”

“Hi!” she said, except she stretched out the vowel into “Hiiieeeeeee!” Rumi hated her immediately.

“I’m Zoey,” she went on. “Except Gwi-Ma already said that! And I’m so excited we get to work together! Wait, are you going to tell them the plan?” She turned to Gwi-Ma’s flames. “Or can I tell them the plan? I can? Okay.” She turned back to Rumi and Mira. “You. And me. We’re going to form… a band!”

And then Zoey squealed. She actually fucking squealed.

“A… band?” repeated Rumi.

“Well, like… a girl group!”

“A… demon girl group?” said Rumi, and looked to Gwi-Ma, waiting for him to tell her this was some sort of lame prank.

“My servants have failed to match the hunters’ strength,” said Gwi-Ma. “So you will take away that strength. Take away their fans, and the honmoon weakens. Take away their fans, and the hunters weaken.”

It made sense. It actually made so much sense as to be obvious, which was why “we’ve tried this before, though, right?” asked Rumi. “Our own entertainment, to undermine the hunters?”

“The hunters play on every radio in Korea,” said Gwi-Ma (“not really radios anymore!” Zoey chimed in). “We need a way to match their reach.”

“Which is why,” Zoey added, “this time we have Bobby! Say hi, Bobby!”

The figure that had been trudging up the stairs had finally made it. He was short, and male, and a little bit… pudgy, that’s the word, Rumi thought. He was pudgy. He also seemed to be in shock.

“Hi,” he said in a monotone. “I’m Bobby.”

“You’ll have to forgive him, he just got here,” said Zoey. “I actually ensnared him myself, it was my very first time doing that and I’m so happy it worked out!”

“How did you—” Rumi started.

“Not important!” said Zoey. “And honestly it was pretty boring, lots of holding him through all the blubbering, all ‘what have I done, you’re only thirteen.’ But the point is, Bobby’s brand new, and, get this: he’s a big-shot talent manager in the idol industry! So this is perfect!”

“Wait, brand brand new?” scoffed Rumi. “What good will he be then?”

“Well, he is still adjusting,” admitted Zoey. “But the thing is, Bobby—human Bobby, that is—was known for going on these month-long benders, he’d just disappear for a while and then show up with some new talent he’d found in Thailand or wherever. Which means, if we move fast, we can get demon Bobby to introduce us as his new talent to his old human contacts before they realize he’s dead—or, are we technically dead? I never worked that one out. But the point is, we’ll have distribution!”

“Okay,” said Rumi. “And what are we going to distribute?”

“Our songs!” said Zoey happily. “Rumi, Gwi-Ma said that you have a voice like an angel.”

Rumi could still hear the voice in her head. You sound like an angel, he’d told her. Then the blood. Your fault, all your fault.

Gwi-Ma is such a dick, Rumi thought.

“Zoey will manage Bobby,” Gwi-Ma said. “And you will do what he tells you to do.”

“Oh, except,” said Zoey, and leaned in to whisper something to Gwi-Ma.

If a sentient bonfire could be said to sigh, Gwi-Ma sighed. “You will do what he tells you to do, unless it’s ‘weird sex stuff’.”

“I just think that’s an important caveat with talent managers,” Zoey said to Rumi.

“This is so exciting!” she went on. “Now we just need our visual lead.”

“What’s a ‘visual lead’?” asked Rumi. “That sounds made up.”

“I’m here!” called out Mira, as she landed next to the group. “I would have been here sooner, obviously, but nobody delivered the message that you wanted to see me, Gwi-Ma. Also here’s a soul or whatever.”

Zoey squealed again and wrapped up Mira in a hug, while Mira stood, rigid, with an expression somewhere between confused and murderous.

“The three of us, together! We’re going to take on the world, girls,” gushed Zoey.

Rumi stared, horrified, as her brain processed what Zoey was saying.

“NOOOoooo no no no no, absolutely not. I am not working with her.”

“Yeah put us in a group together and she’ll definitely fail to kill me again,” added Mira.

“Oh no, do you two not get along?” asked Zoey. The tiny demon looked like she was on the verge of tears at the thought.

“Get along?” said Rumi. “I get along just fine, but your girl group? It won’t work if one of the members is a traitorous, backstabbing—”

“Oh that’s rich, you were going to do the same thing, I just beat you to—”

“I was— we had a plan, and you fucking—”

“You mean you had a plan and you just assumed—”

“Assumed you could stop yourself from being a selfish prick for two seconds? Yeah I—”

“Selfish? You were the one who—”

“ENOUGH.” Gwi-Ma’s voice thundered from his altar, and a tendril of flame shot out and wrapped around Rumi, pulling her closer to his fire. The flames burnt her skin, but Rumi bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“Did you just say ‘no’ to me?” said Gwi-Ma, softly, dangerously.

“I didn’t— I didn’t mean—” The ropes of flame around Rumi drew tighter.

“You said ‘no’ to me, and now you’re lying about it?” said Gwi-Ma.

The flames around Rumi’s arms and legs recalled a memory Rumi had of her human life. Her father had gotten a motorcycle, brand new. Rumi had tried to help him park it and she’d grabbed hold of… she couldn’t remember exactly what it was. Some part of the engine, metal, hot from use. She’d pulled her hand back before she’d even processed the pain, but it had still left blisters, deep ones that formed scars Rumi carried until they dissolved in her patterns.

Gwi-Ma’s flames felt like that, except instead of a moment she could flinch from, they pressed into her, on and on, unrelenting.

“I give you so much,” said Gwi-Ma, “and the only thing I ask from you is your obedience. Is that so hard for you, Rumi?” The flames kept moving, wrapping around her torso and tightening around her ribs.

“I… obey… my King,” Rumi gasped. The pain was threatening to overwhelm her, the sickening sharp burn of it, and her brain was screaming to get away from, to be anywhere but here, but she tried to keep her voice steady even as tears came to her eyes. She wouldn’t beg this time, she promised herself she wouldn’t beg.

Gwi-Ma seemed to ponder this for a moment. The tendrils hardened, still flame but firm like a steel cable, lines of agony sliding across Rumi’s skin. “You will obey,” Gwi-Ma agreed. “But I’m more concerned about your attitude. I want my demons not just to obey, but to… cultivate an attitude of obedience.”

“I do, I will!” Rumi cried. Snot ran down her face now, mixing with tears and saliva as she took painful breaths.

“So you say,” said Gwi-Ma, his voice amused, “but I wonder if you are not still harboring rebellion, in your heart. That the ‘no’ from your lips came from your true self?” The flames reached new places, tendrils reaching up to stab into Rumi’s armpits, another prying her jaw open and coating the inside of her mouth with that same sharp burning. It sank into her teeth and spread into her nose and behind her eyes. Rumi tried to breathe, instinct telling her the air would cool her mouth, but the bands around her ribs squeezed tighter.

“I’m not, I swear I’m not,” sobbed Rumi, barely able to form words around the burning in her mouth. “Please Gwi-Ma, please!” She couldn’t see, blinded by flame and tears, and pain, and pain. “I’ll do better, I promise I’ll do better, I’ll be good, just make it stop, please.”

“I know you will, Rumi,” said Gwi-Ma, almost tenderly. “You just need… a reminder.”

“I’ll be good! Please, I’ll be good!” Rumi screamed, but Gwi-Ma just laughed and laughed as he played with her in his flames.

By the time Rumi came back to herself, she was no longer on Gwi-Ma’s altar, but lying on one of the large plinths that stood at the edge of Gwi-Ma’s court, a makeshift pillow under her head. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there; if Gwi-Ma had thrown her she would have been a lot more bruised, but Zoey hardly looked strong enough to carry her.

“Woweee,” said Zoey. “That was intense. Are you okay Rumi? That was like, a really long torture session, I’m surprised because you know they normally don’t go that long.”

Rumi sat up slowly, checking herself over. Gwi-Ma’s flames always caused pain, but he could control what damage they left behind. He liked to leave permanent marks, as reminders. Rumi looked down and saw a blistering, weeping line on her skin from her bicep across the inside of her elbow and down her forearm, and she could already tell it was going to leave a thick scar, silvery mottled skin cutting across her purple patterns. Right now it throbbed, the pain sharp and deep when she tried to bend her arm.

Mira stood over her and held out a hand to help her up, with an expression that looked dangerously like pity.

“Fuck you,” Rumi hissed up at her.

“You sound a little raspy, lead singer,” said Mira. “You should really try to scream less, I hear it’s not good for your voice.”

“You sound a little— drowned,” Rumi shot back. “You should— try to suck less. Because you suck.”

“We should start practicing as soon as possible,” said Zoey. "I’ve already written a bunch of songs.” She pulled a stack of notebooks from inside of her robes, all of which looked well-used. “We can play around with these to see which ones fit best with our voices, oh and Mira, we have a whole stack of magazines from Bobby with styles to pick from, and the best part is we’re demons so we can look however we want!

“Oh and I already came up with our name: Huntrix, because we’re tricking the hunters, get it? Except it’s going to be spelled H-U-N-T-R, and then a slash, and then X. I spent a lot of time thinking up names and I’m really happy with this one.”

“That’s the—” the words dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard were on Rumi’s lips, but so was the memory of Gwi-Ma’s fire. “That’s a great name, Zoey, and I’m totally on board with it.” Attitude of obedience, thought Rumi, wincing.

“Okay,” said Mira, “so we’re a demon girl group now?”

“We are, and it is going to be so much fun,” said Rumi, drawing the corners of her mouth up as high as she could.

“Is that supposed to be a smile?” asked Mira. “Because it’s the grossest thing I’ve ever seen on your face, and that includes the time that guy—”

“And that’s why we’re going to practice!” said Zoey. “I’ve blocked off our afternoons for general idol training—Bobby’s going to make sure we can act the part—but for today I think we should start with these three songs,” Zoey held up one of her notebooks, opened to a mess of scrawled writing, “so let’s start learning the lyrics, and then in the morning, we’ll work through the choreography, and overnight we should really…”

Rumi closed her eyes and took a breath. Attitude of obedience, Rumi. Attitude of obedience.

Chapter Text

Idol training was… fine, thought Rumi. She hadn’t sung for anyone but herself in decades, but the voice Gwi-Ma gifted her with was supple and powerful, and the techniques came back to her more quickly than she’d expected. It helped that Zoey’s songs were genuinely catchy. She’d mentioned that off-hand to Zoey, and for a moment the tiny demon actually vibrated with excitement over the compliment until Rumi worried she was about to explode.

Working with Mira was a challenge, but with Zoey acting as a demilitarized zone between them they managed to pass whole days without fighting through the simple expedient of never speaking to each other.

So it was fine. Great, even, compared to the alternative. There were far more demons than there were openings into the human world, so Gwi-Ma handed out opportunities judiciously, as a reward to his current favorites. Everyone else simply waited around, sitting on hard stone, sometimes playing violent games to pass the time, but always with an ear out for the next summons. Gwi-Ma would hold court, entertaining himself with his subjects’ pain, and those who wished to avoid that pain attended him, standing around for hours, laughing and clapping on cue and listening to Gwi-Ma talk about whatever he decided was important that day. Compared to that, ignoring Mira while they practiced choreography together was practically a vacation.

And Zoey… Zoey was fine, too. She seemed to have an endless supply of energy, constantly flitting from task to task in an effort to make their debut perfect. She helped Rumi with vocals, Mira with choreo, and then she’d drop everything and pull out one of her endless notebooks to jot down lyrics and melodies for the ever-increasing body of songs she’d written. On top of that, she spent hours working with Bobby, getting him ready for his early return to the human world.

“It’s a difficult transition to become a demon. It normally takes years before everything in their minds get sorted out!”

“Yeah, Zoey, we know,” said Mira, “obviously.”

“Oh right! Only we don’t have years to spare, so I’m trying to get Bobby ready—well, ready enough—to go back in a matter of weeks.”

Zoey hadn’t even gotten that much time; a tear in the honmoon had appeared just a few days later, and Gwi-Ma decided that they couldn’t risk missing it.

Without Zoey, things were… less fine. Rumi actually had to talk to Mira.

”Okay so I step forward into a lunge,” Rumi said, as she parsed the notes Zoey had left them days ago, before she’d taken Bobby to the human world, “with my arm sweeping out like this, and then you’re behind me with both arms out like that.”

“I can read,” said Mira, looking over her shoulder at the same notebook.

“Okay,” said Rumi, rolling her eyes. “Then let’s just do it.”

They danced together in silence for the next hour.

“Hey Rumi,” Mira said, when they paused to stretch out sore muscles. Her face was even stonier than normal. “I wanted to tell you, the other day? I didn’t actually mean to take that soul from you.”

Rumi stared at her, nonplussed. “You’re serious?”

Mira held her face for a moment. Then she snorted.

“You are,” said Rumi, “so full OF SHIT, MIRA. Fucking hell, what is wrong with you?”

Mira laughed. “The look on your face, god you’re so gullible. And such a slut, you should have seen yourself in that pool, ‘oh Mira, I know you hate me but I’m so desperate, please lick me right there.’ You’re pathetic.”

“And you’re just… you’re evil. I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner, you actually like being Gwi-Ma’s little whore,” fumed Rumi. “That’s why you doublecrossed me, if we’d gotten out you wouldn’t be a demon any more and you love it here.”

“Well,” said Mira, “the torture sucks, except when it’s happening to you, but I get to live forever, so what’s not to like?”

“You are just so— you’re so—”

A loud thump interrupted Rumi as Bobby landed next to them in a heap, moaning slightly as he lay on the ground. Zoey appeared in a shimmer next to him, sliding across the stone on her toes like a figure skater on ice before coming to a stop.

“Rumi! Mira! We’re back!” Zoey gushed. “And I have news. Actually, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Bad news, right? I always think it’s better to end on the good news.”

Rumi and Mira stared at Zoey, mouths open.

“So, bad news: the Saja Boys have a new single out, with their new singer, this ‘Jinu’ guy. It’s called Golden and it’s all about making the golden honmoon, honestly it’s not subtle at all. But it is super popular, and it actually seems to be working, so we probably need to hurry up our plan to get our own songs out if we’re going to stop them.

“The good news is: we have an audition! Bobby talked us up to an old friend named Celine, who happens to be the creative director at SM Entertainment, and she’s agreed to give us a private audition to see if we’re as good as Bobby says we are. So now we just have to finalize our song, finish the choreography, find a new tear in the honmoon, and get all four of us to the human world, by… Tuesday. And then we’re in! Future. Kpop. Idol. Mwah!” Zoey fanned herself, as if basking in adoration, and blew a kiss to her imagined fans. She stood there for a moment, and sighed dreamily, looking off into the distance. Then she seemed to remember where she was.

“I don’t see how that gives us an anchor, though,” said Mira.

“Oh, right,” said Zoey. “I forgot the important part: Bobby knows Celine pretty well, and he’s like 99% sure that she’s going to sexually assault us after the audition, and then again on, like, an ongoing basis once we’re signed.”

“Huh,” shrugged Mira. “That’s… perfect.”

“Now, we’ll need to play her molesting us just right if we want her to sign us,” said Zoey. “But after that? Kpop. Idol. Mwah!”

* * *

Mira lay on the ground, face down, where Rumi had thrown her.

“You like that, bitch?” said Rumi, as she kicked Mira’s legs apart and kneeled between them. “You like this?” Rumi grabbed Mira’s hips and pulled them back as she thrust forward, sliding the heavy strap-on she wore into Mira’s cunt.

“Take— that— you— fucking— whore—” Rumi snarled, snapping her hips forward with each word to pound the thick dildo into Mira from behind.

“Oh no, not my precious virginity, anywhere but there, please don’t rape me any more miss,” said Mira, completely deadpan.

“Cut,” called Zoey. She’d set up a small chair to direct the other girls and take notes as they ran through their scenarios in a small clearing Zoey had identified roughly the shape of a sound stage. “Mira. Why are we even doing this if you’re not going to take it seriously?”

“I don’t know, why are we doing this at all? This is retarded,” said Mira, propping herself up on her elbows.

“We went over this!” said Zoey. “If we reject Celine’s advances forcefully she’ll back off but she won’t sign us. But if we’re too willing then she won’t like that either. We need to strike a balance! That’s why we’re practicing all the likely scenarios!” Zoey fretted with her notebook, jotting down a few additional words on a page already crisscrossed with notes and diagrams.

“But why do I have to practice? If we’re worried about ‘too willing,’ Rumi’s the one who’ll spread her legs for a pat on the shoulder.”

“Rumi’s going to practice as well, we’re all taking turns,” said Zoey. Rumi scowled down at Mira, adjusted the strap on up a few inches, and snapped her hips forward again.

“Bitch,” Mira hissed in pain.

“Don’t complain, I’m sure that was one of the scenarios anyways,” Rumi said, smirking down at her.

“Two of them, actually!” said Zoey. “Scenario fourteen, with lube, scenario fifteen, without. Plus, obviously, part of scenarios twenty-eight through forty-seven.”

“Ugh,” groaned Mira. “How many of these things are we supposed to go through?”

Mira squeezed the dildo out of herself, and Rumi got to her feet “I hate to say this,” she said, as she unbuckled the strap-on, “and I do mean I really hate to say this,” she added, tapping the dildo on a stone ledge a few times to knock the shit off of it, “but— I actually agree with Mira.”

Zoey’s face fell, her eyes wide and watery. “You think my scenarios are a waste of time?”

“I think your scenarios are a great idea, Zoey.” Please don’t cry, Rumi thought. “We’re just spending too much time workshopping the ones that aren’t very likely and it’s leaving us with less time to practice the most likely ones.”

Mira rolled over on the ground, and threw her arm over her face with an exaggerated sigh. “I’d just like to note that Rumi waited until after the lubeless ass-raping scenario to bring this point up.”

Rumi ignored her. “Look, Celine thinks that we’re a group of sheltered eighteen-year-olds, right?”

“Sixteen, actually,” said Bobby. “SM Entertainment won’t even consider a debut if you look over twenty, so we moved it down a little to be on the safe side.”

“Sixteen then,” said Rumi. “And Celine wants to get off on humiliating us, sure, but she also wants to keep us around so she can market and control us, right? So she’s not going to jump straight to stap-ons and,” Rumi looked over at Zoey’s notes, “coprophilia.” Rumi wrinkled her nose. “Is that what I think it is? Point is, she’ll start small.”

Mira spoke up, still laying on the ground with her arm over her face. “Why don’t we ask Bobby, he’s a sex predator. How do you see a first meeting going?”

“What?” Bobby spluttered. “I never—”

“You’re in hell, dude,” said Mira.

“I— I guess, I’d— I mean, she would, probably, just start with taking your clothes off. See if she can get you to do that,” Bobby admitted.

“So let’s start there,” Rumi said to Zoey. “She makes us take our clothes off, says some shit to humiliate us, maybe a bit of fondling. Let’s practice our reactions to that scenario, and once we’re happy with that we can move on to a bit more. I’m talking fingering, not,” Rumi looked down at Zoey’s notes again, “erotic asphyxiation."

“You’re right, you’re right,” said Zoey. Then she perked up. “Ooh, I’m going to write out a script of all the humiliating sex things Celine might say to us!”

“That’s perfect,” said Rumi. “You’re great at this scenario planning, Zoey, we just need to make the best use of our time here.”

“Aww, thank you,” said Zoey, and she wrapped her arms around Rumi for a hug. “I’m so glad we’re a team.” Zoey turned her head to call out to the edge of the clearing. “Oh and I guess we won’t need you guys after all.” The German Shepherds waiting there shrugged and transformed back into demons before walking away.

“Okay,” said Zoey, disentangling herself from Rumi. “Back to scenario one. I’ll start writing dialogue, Rumi you stand here, and Mira will strip your clothes off. Make sure to act extra humiliated. And… roll!”

* * *

Celine’s home was the 32nd through 35th floors of the SM Entertainment tower. She even had her own elevator, away from the more traveled hallways, which a stern looking butler escorted the girls to on a bright Tuesday morning.

Rumi rolled her neck back and forth, still getting used to the extra weight hanging down. Zoey had thought something dramatic might make them stand out, so Rumi sported an enormous purple braid from the top of her head to an inch or two above the ground. Mira’s hair was long and bright pink, with only Zoey keeping a natural color in her space buns. Beyond that they hadn’t made too many changes; the human bodies they wore were easier to manage and lasted much longer the closer they were to the demon’s usual physique. They’d made a few adjustments to sell the ages they were claiming: some lingering baby fat in their faces, and some subtle changes under Bobby’s advice on pubescent breast development. It had been a while since Rumi had gone for the teen angle, but she thought the end result came together well, fresh-faced and smooth-skinned and ripe-peach-bosomed enough for the most discerning of critics.

They met in Celine’s studio office. Celine looked to be in her forties, and clearly took care of her appearance. Her hair fell in shiny waves, not one out of place, just like not a single wrinkle marred the lines of her tailored shirt or high-waisted slacks.

“Bobby,” she greeted warmly, “it’s so good to see you again.” She clasped his arm and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “And these must be your girls! Huntrix, right?”

“Yes, Celine,” they said together, heads bowed slightly in respect.

“Wonderful, wonderful. Now, Bobby tells me that you have a gift for performing. So let’s find out, shall we?”

Celine’s studio office had a low stage across from her desk, with audio gear already set up and hooked into a small mixer board Celine plugged a large set of headphones into. The girls climbed the stage and started their audition.

They sang “Your Idol,” the song they’d agreed was in the best shape. And it was… easy, Rumi realized. Her vocals flowed, and they danced around each other like they’d been working together for years and not a scant few weeks. Zoey spat her raps with a force Rumi hadn’t realized she possessed, and even Mira effortlessly owned the stage, not that Rumi would ever admit that out loud. It just… worked.

When they were done, Celine applauded. “Well done, Huntrix, well done! Bobby, I think your eye for talent is better than ever.” She looked down at a slim notebook in front of her. “Now, why don’t you go start the arrangements with the trainee manager, while I get to know your girls a little better, hmm?”

Bobby left the room, and for a while they did just get to know each other, as Celine asked each of them about their lives, and the girls recited the stories they’d worked out for themselves. For the most part they even stuck to the truth, pulled from their human pasts, other than the dates, of course. It was easier to keep straight that way.

Finally, though, Celine decided enough time had been spent on small talk.

“I’ll be honest with you girls,” she said. “I think you have the talent to go far in this industry.” Celine stood and walked out from behind her desk, until she was standing in front of the girls. “But to realize that potential, you’ll need more than talent. You’ll also need the right attitude. Why don’t you stand up for me.” The girls obliged. “Lovely, lovely. Now, the three of you can take off your clothes.”

Mira shrugged and started pulling off the short jacket she wore. Rumi kicked her swiftly before Celine could see.

“The fuck,” Mira mouthed at her.

“Reluctance,” Rumi mouthed back. Mira’s eyes went wide.

“You meant just our jackets, right?” Mira said, trying to cover her slip.

“Did I say just your jackets?” said Celine. “Take your clothes off.”

“But… Miss Celine…” Zoey said. “I don’t know…”

“It’s very simple, girls,” said Celine. “Talented as you are, you will not succeed without my blessing. So you have to ask yourself, right now, whether you are willing to do what it takes—whatever it takes—to succeed. And if you have it in you, if you can see yourself on a stage, tens of thousands of fans screaming your name, you will take. Your clothes. Off. Now.”

Scenario 1, roll, thought Rumi. She started with her jacket, then took off her shoes and socks. She paused, as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. Then she pulled her top off, then undid her skirt, making sure to fumble a bit with the clasp.

She looked over and realized Zoey had worn a training bra and Hello Kitty panties for the occasion. Nice touch, Rumi thought.

“Underwear too,” Celine commanded.

They haltingly obliged. Mira had finally remembered their practices, the moron, and was twitching her arms, like she wanted to cover herself with them but was worried she’d get in trouble.

Celine walked around them, looking them up and down. She ran a single finger down Rumi’s back, then leaned in and sniffed the area under Rumi’s arm. “Simply… lovely,” she breathed to herself.

“Have you had any boyfriends?” she asked, from behind Rumi.

“Yes, Celine,” said Rumi. “Just one.”

“And are you still a virgin?”

“Yes,” Rumi said, too quickly.

Mira made a face of deep disbelief behind Celine’s back.

“Are you really?” asked Celine. She slowly walked around Rumi, trailing her finger along Rumi’s jaw, until she was standing in front of her. “Look at me,” Celine ordered, forcing Rumi’s head up to meet her eyes. “Are you really a virgin?”

“I’m…” Rumi swallowed. “I’m not.”

Celine seemed satisfied with this answer. “You’ve had sex with this boyfriend, then?”

“Yes, Celine,” Rumi said. “He— he really wanted to.”

“I’m sure he did,” said Celine, looking down Rumi’s body. “Now, did he take any pictures?

“No!” Rumi said at once. “No, he— I told him I wouldn’t do that. Not for him. Not for anyone.”

“Good,” said Celine. “We can’t have anything like that floating around. And this boyfriend, is he still in the picture?”

“No, Celine,” said Rumi. “I— broke up with him, so I could come to Seoul.” That was sort of true, Rumi thought, though in Rumi’s actual human life she’d broken up with her first real boyfriend by way of pumping enough opium into him to kill an elephant.

Celine turned to Zoey next. “And you. Aren’t you a cutie?”

Zoey trembled, eyes straight ahead.

“Do you masturbate, Zoey?” asked Celine.

Zoey simply nodded, as if speaking was too much for her.

“Show me,” said Celine.

“Show— show you?” squeaked Zoey.

“Show me how you masturbate,” said Celine.

“I— I put my fingers—“

“I said to show me,” said Celine.

Zoey brought her hand down to her crotch and started to gently rub at her slit.

“Like that,” she said to Celine.

“And do you just stop there?” asked Celine.

“No… not there.” said Zoey.

“When do you stop?” asked Celine.

“When— when I finish.”

“When you finish? Finish what?”

“When I,” Zoey said the last word in a very small voice, “orgasm.”

“Then show me,” ordered Celine.

Rumi had thought, before, when they had been practicing, that Zoey was quite good at acting. Rumi had been wrong; this girl was fucking amazing. If they gave out Oscars for pretending to be sexually abused by your soon-to-be employer, Zoey would be holding a golden statue right now.

She closed her eyes, as if to shut out where she was. She gasped delicately. She started reaching her other hand up, like she was about to grab her own boob, and then stopped herself. She shuddered and moaned like she was trying to hold it in but just couldn’t.

Celine clearly bought it; the woman looked so aroused Rumi was surprised there wasn’t a puddle on the floor.

When Zoey was done (and she was blushing, Rumi noticed. She was actually blushing, for real, on command. She’s the Ingrid Bergman of rape victims, Rumi thought) Celine took a moment to collect herself and then addressed the girls again.

“I can see I was right about you. We have a bright future ahead of us.” She smiled broadly at them. Rumi could feel a tingle spread across her body, as the deal Celine was offering them snapped into place. “I’ll give you a moment to get dressed, and then Horatio will show you to your rooms. You’ll be in the trainee quarters for now, but only until your first hit, and then you’ll have your own apartments. And unless I’m very much mistaken, that will not take very long.”

Celine stepped out of the room.

“Oh my god you guys, we killed that!” exclaimed Zoey as soon as the door was closed. “Rumi, that was amazing! And Mira!” She was literally jumping up and down for joy.

“You killed it,” Rumi said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Yeah, how did you get so good at acting?” asked Mira.

“Just lots of practice,” said Zoey. “I convinced Bobby early on that I had an erotic fixation with seeing myself on film, and then every night I’d go through his phone and take notes on how I did. You can’t improve as an actor without feedback and repetition,” she said seriously.

“Right,” said Mira. “Of course. Well whatever you did, it worked.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” said Zoey.

“We’re really doing this,” said Rumi, thoughtfully.

“We are!” squealed Zoey. She skipped back over to the small stage they’d performed on, too excited to remember to put her clothes back on. She grabbed one of the microphone stands and struck a pose. “And I would like to thank all of my fans, I couldn’t have made it here without you.” Zoey waved to her imagined audience, blowing more kisses.

Rumi threw her pile of clothes at her and laughed. “We’re really doing this, but only if you put these on before Celine gets back.”

“Spoilsport,” said Zoey, but she dressed herself. She’d just finished adjusting her top when Celine swept back into the room, followed by a tall, dour staff member.

“Horatio here will show you to your rooms,” she said. “Try to get some rest. You’ve got the afternoon to adjust, but we’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Oh and Zoey, could I have a word? You two can go ahead, she’ll catch up.”

Rumi and Mira shrugged and followed Horatio. He led them to a modest but clean dorm room, with a bunk bed on each wall, several dressers, and two simple desks. A door at the back led to a small bathroom. Rumi set her bag down on one of the beds and started to unpack her “things,” which they’d prepped ahead of time to not look suspicious by showing up with nothing.

Bobby joined them shortly after. “So you’re in?” he asked.

“We’re in,” Mira confirmed.

“Great, great.” Then Bobby looked confused. “But how does it work with us, you know, us being in hell?”

“Right, you don’t know this stuff,” said Rumi. “When a human makes a deal with a demon, even if the human doesn’t realize it’s a demon, it allows us passage back and forth. I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but you can feel it when it does.”

“As long as it’s a deal to do something shitty,” added Mira. “If Celine wanted us to help her feed orphans or whatever that wouldn’t work. But agreeing to let us stay here so she can make money off of us while occasionally raping our sweet teenage bodies? That’s perfect.”

“We can go back and forth at will, is the point,” said Rumi, “because Celine’s deal is anchoring us here.”

Zoey burst into the room.

“That bitch,” she yelled. “That utter— that—“ her face was contorted with rage, and her words disintegrated into formless growling syllables.

“I am going to rip her spine out, I’m going to claw her eyeballs out and make her eat them, I’ll—“

Rumi had never seen Zoey look like this. Her anger had transformed her face into a bug-eyed, scrunched mass of lines and teeth. Her hands had become claws again, and she was clenching them in front of her like she could imagine choking—

“Who?” asked Mira.

“Celine!” shouted Zoey. “She can’t do this to me, I’m going to hammer nails into her hands and then pull on her arms until they rip out, I’ll slit open her throat and shit down her windpipe, I’ll—”

“Zoey!” shouted Rumi. “Tell us what happened?”

“She— she—” Zoey’s face crumpled as the anger left her like a storm passing, and she burst into sobs and threw herself into Mira’s arms.

“She told me my songwriting was ‘promising work for an amateur,’” Zoey sobbed. “But for a first single it’s better to ‘let our professionals do what they do best.’”

She grabbed one of the notebooks out of her bag and started ripping it to pieces. “All that work, and we’re going to be singing some garbage that ‘tested well with our focus groups’!”

Zoey threw the paper onto the floor and cried more tears into Mira’s shirt. “My songs!” she wailed.

Mira sat, rigid, while Zoey clutched her.

Rumi reached out a hand to pat Zoey’s back.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she said, in what she hoped was a soothing voice.

“How?” cried Zoey.

“Well,” said Rumi, “for one thing, we only need to keep this ruse up long enough to break the Saja Boys’ grip on their fans and destroy the honmoon. After that we won’t need Celine, so you can murder her as slowly as you want.”

“Do you really mean that?” said Zoey.

Rumi smiled at her. “I’ll hold her eyes open for you while you scoop them out.”

“You’d do that for me?” said Zoey, eyes still brimming with tears.

“Of course,” said Rumi.

Zoey leapt from Mira, to her audible relief, and tackled Rumi. “Best. Unnie. Ever,” she murmured into Rumi’s shoulder.

“And even with garbage focus tested songs, we’re still going to be kpop idols. Mwah,” Rumi said, planting a kiss on Zoey’s head.

“I’m so looking forward to it,” sighed Zoey.

“Being pop stars or destroying the honmoon?” asked Mira.

“Those too,” said Zoey.

Chapter Text

To be a trainee in the K-pop idol industry was, by any normal standards, to endure a grueling, brutal winnowing. For Rumi, these was the best months of her existence.

In part this was because Rumi’s existence sucked ass. So the simple pleasure of having a sky to look at that wasn’t clogged with ash, hills that were green and full of life and not just mountains of ash, food to eat that was food, and not, well, more ash, a boss whose abilities did not extend to magical flame torture—it was all a major step up for Rumi. And hot water. Glorious, marvelous, hot water. The bathroom attached to their dorm room had a tub, which was small and a bit uncomfortable to sit in, but hot water came out of the tap. Rumi could have drowned in it and died happy, and more than once Mira had to bodily pull her from the tiny tub to keep them from being late to some training session or another.

The other reason the trainee house was great was that being a demon simply made Rumi immune to the worst parts of the experience.

These included “diet and fitness” class—“dnf,” as the other trainees called it. This involved mandatory check-ins with an enormous woman named Auntie Sun, who Zoey said “could definitely throw the hammer for England,” whatever that meant.

Auntie Sun checked their weight and measured their waists and busts and thighs each day. Then she made recommendations (“recommendations,” in the sense that “we recommend you do these things, or else we’ll recommend a good bus route for you to take back to whatever shithole apartment complex in Iksan you crawled out of”) on what food the trainee should eat and what workouts to focus on, and handed out the day’s worth of “pills,” small white tablets most assumed were a combination of diuretic and appetite suppressant.

Every day at Rumi’s check-in, Auntie Sun would tut over the numbers she wrote down, accuse Rumi of stealing treats, and tell ominous stories of promising girls who lost their careers over an inability to resist a hamburger.

Except, Rumi knew her measurements actually hadn’t changed because they were fixed with demon magic, and she also knew nobody could accuse her of stealing treats. Why would she, when she could just wait until everyone else was asleep and then teleport to the market for late-night bindaetteok? Rumi and Mira took to palming the diet pills Auntie Sun gave them, and handing them over to Zoey so she could trade them to other, more desperate girls in exchange for the gossip they needed to navigate the social hierarchy of the trainee floor. Zoey took to this role a little too well, and soon she was supplying the younger trainees with more than diet pills.

“I just have to stop before we go home and pick up some meth,” Zoey told them during a middle-of-the-night barbecue run.

“Why do you need meth?” asked Mira.

Zoey sighed. “Jenni thinks it’ll help her lose the rest of the weight she needs. I’m not sure if that’s how that really works, but if it makes her feel better it’s the least I can do. She’s feeling so badly about her body lately.”

Mira snorted. “She’s feeling badly because you keep prancing around the changing room with a waist you’ve glamoured to look smaller than it’s physically possible for a waist to be.”

The girls all shared one room to change in between each of the many types of exercises, dance rehearsals, singing lessons, and strength and flexibility sessions. One very open room, which Rumi assumed was on purpose; one more way to ensure the girls were all constantly comparing their bodies to each other.

Zoey looked crestfallen. “But I didn’t want Jenni to feel bad! I’m trying to make that skank Yuqi anorexic so she’ll starve her tiny little brain until it shrivels up and dies while she chokes around her feeding tube.” Yuqi shared a songwriting class with Zoey, and their teacher, a tall, bald American, had held up several of Yuqi’s melodies as things Zoey could learn from. “But Jenni is a sweetheart!”

“And where are you planning on getting meth?” asked Rumi.

“I figured we could wander around and look for a sketchy drug dealer. The internet says they’re everywhere in Seoul!”

“Did you even bring any cash?”

Zoey gave Rumi a look that was almost pitying. “Don’t be silly Rumi, I wasn’t going to buy the meth. When we find a dealer we’ll just murder him and take the drugs.”

It turned out it was very easy to find a sketchy-looking drug dealer, and even easier to convince him that following a teenage girl into a dark alley at 2am would be worth his time. Mira greeted him, making a peace sign with her hand, and then flicked two long claws forward through his eyeballs and into his brain.

“And he doesn’t even have any meth!” cried Zoey, as she rooted through the beat-up backpack the dealer had carried.

“He’s got like a kilogram of cocaine in here though,” pointed out Mira.

“But I wanted to get Jenni her meth,” whined Zoey.

“Jenni’s like fourteen, she’s been living in the trainee dorms since she was eight, there’s no way she knows what meth actually looks like. Or cocaine. Just tell her this is meth. It’s all about making her feel better, right?” suggested Mira.

Jenni swung by their room the next evening to thank Zoey. “I feel great! So great! I have so much energy today you have no idea. We were doing rap at vocal lessons and I just knocked it out of the park, I was going so fast, like you wouldn’t even believe it fast, like you better watch it fast, and then at dinner it was like I didn’t even want to eat anything, this is amazing I’m going to be so skinny Zoey you’re just the absolute best hey do you have any more?”

Jenni sung Zoey’s praises to her friends, and soon Zoey had a gaggle of younger girls following her around like ducklings. Zoey made sure they were supplied with coke, and in solidarity with their new bestie they went out of their way to call Yuqi fat every chance they got.

“She was sobbing in front of the mirror today,” sighed Zoey, happy and dewy-eyed. “I love my girls.”

The bullying and power plays amongst the other trainees were another thing that might have affected Rumi more had she actually been a teenager. But she was an immortal demon, so being told by a girl whose grandma had been in diapers when Rumi had been eating souls that “you did such a good job with your wig! I bet from the seats in the stadium it’ll look totally real,” simply didn’t have the same sting.

Rumi did have to take action on one occasion. A girl named Miyeong was at the top of the trainee hierarchy, through the power of rumor: rumors that she was next in line for a debut, and rumors about any other trainee who she thought might threaten her.

Miyeong had swiftly identified the HUNTR/X girls as a threat, and watched Rumi closely.

“Oh Rumi,” Miyeong called out as she approached Rumi in the changing room, one day after a particularly grueling strength and flexibility session.

Rumi was sitting on a small bench. She hid a smile at Miyeong’s sophomoric power plays; the other girl had sped through her own changing, and then waited until Rumi was in the middle of pulling her underwear down to address her.

Miyeong leaned in close so the other girls wouldn’t overhear. “I could have sworn I saw a tattoo on your skin just a moment ago!” Rumi had to admit the girl did have an instinct for this sort of thing. The amateur move would have been to embarrass Rumi in front of her peers. By keeping their conversation private, Miyeong held out the hope that nobody else would need to know. Much better leverage that way.

“Oh yeah?”said Rumi. “I’m not sure how you could have, since I don’t have any tattoos.”

“Was it a scar then? If this is all too overwhelming and you’re cutting yourself, you can always come talk to me, you know.”

“Not a scar,” said Rumi.

“Okay…” said Miyeong in a disbelieving tone.

Rumi sighed as the other girl went back to her little group of followers. She’d obviously spotted a flicker of patterns on Rumi’s skin; they generally weren’t visible to humans but every so often Rumi had run into one born with the sight. She suspected that if Miyeong had been male she’d already be training with the Saja Boys.

Rumi didn’t care about a rumor of a tattoo—she’d already confirmed that nobody who mattered could see her patterns—but if Miyeong had the sight she might accidentally see other things, things Rumi couldn’t explain away so easily. So that meant she needed to deal with the problem.

“But the good thing is,” said Zoey, later in their dorm room, while Rumi tightened her shoelace, “that trainees just drop out without saying anything all the time! So as long as there’s no body they’ll just assume she did a runner.”

“Hopefully,” said Rumi, leaning back on her bunk. Miyeong clawed at her neck, but Rumi’s shoelace had dug so far into her skin that there was nowhere for her fingers to gain purchase. “Miyeong was at the top of the trainee pyramid though.”

“That’s the most stressful spot,” said Mira. “It makes sense that she’d snap. And even if they do investigate, they won’t find anything here.”

“Are you just going to dump her body in hell?” asked Zoey. Miyeong managed to get her feet under her and push herself up, but Rumi kicked out hard into the back of her ankle and she folded down again. Rumi let her slide onto the floor and knelt on Miyeong’s back, pulling the shoelace even tighter.

“Not dump, no,” said Rumi, as Miyeong flailed her arms weakly. “Crocell buys them in exchange for favors.”

“Crocell?” said Zoey.

“You know, big guy, curly horns, left fang broken?”

“Ohh, him!” said Zoey. “Of course I know him, he’s the one who hooked me up with the German Shepherds for our scenario planning. I didn’t get his name though so I’ve been calling him ‘horny bro’”

“You call the Duke of Hell ‘horny bro’?” said Mira.

“For your information, he laughed and said I was ‘a treat’!”

“Anyway,” broke in Rumi, “he’ll buy just about anything, and human corpses go for quite a bit, actually. So it’s a win-win.”

“Why do they— oh,” said Zoey.

“They go for more when the face isn’t all bloated and purple,” said Mira.

“Shit!” said Rumi. She flipped Miyeong over, and sure enough the girl’s face was now the color of a ripe plum, and her skin looked like someone had inflated it from the inside. Rumi yanked at the shoelace to pull it out of the deep crevice it had made in Miyeong’s neck.

“If you just used a plastic bag you wouldn’t have to worry about it,” said Mira. “Amateur mistake.”

“Oh fuck off,” said Rumi. She pinched at Miyeong’s face. Maybe if she massaged it a bit the swelling would go down.

The only actual downside to trainee life was Celine. And even that—if she had to choose, Rumi would take Celine over Gwi-Ma any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Celine would call on the girls every few days. They’d talk business for a while—Celine would ask about their training, comment on notes she’d gotten from their teachers, have them perform small sections and offer feedback. She was, Rumi had to admit, actually a pretty good mentor when she was trying to be. At the end of the evening she’d ask one of the girls to stay, and then put her through some humiliating debauchery before releasing her back to the dorm.

“And still not a strap-on in sight,” Mira said one night after she’d gotten off, glaring at Rumi. The taller girl stretched muscles sore from laying on the floor beneath Celine’s desk. “Though I’m sure how her toes are so dexterous. Do you think she practices?”

“Ooh, let’s see the video,” said Zoey. She’d acquired, from somewhere, a camera that hooked up to a fiber-optic cable that she’d sewn into a jacket each of them could wear. As long as they took it off and hung it on one of the hooks by the door of Celine’s studio office, it offered a wide angle view of everything that went on inside.

“Right,” said Mira, “I sort of forgot to turn it on.”

“Mira! How can we give you acting notes if we can’t see the footage?” Mira actually looked chagrined at the tiny demon’s scolding. “I guess you’ll just have to tell us what happened and we can roleplay it to get your expressions. So: was it just her big toe or did she push her foot in too?”

But while Mira and Zoey still had their days, as the weeks went on, Rumi became Celine’s preferred plaything. None of them were quite sure why; Zoey was still the best actor of the three—Rumi was certain that even with years of practice she could never hope to match her tremulous performances. And Mira had that whole, tough-girl-waiting-to-be-broken vibe going on. But for whatever reason, Celine seemed to have chosen a clear favorite, and it meant that Zoey was accumulating a significant library of videos of Rumi, naked, and in some humiliating position or another.

Rumi often wondered what the other staff at SM entertainment knew. She couldn’t imagine that the American vocal coach was involved; something about him just didn’t seem the type. Rumi did learn that Auntie Sun was an accomplice, at least to the extent that Celine could use her for prep work.

“Your skin is too slack,” said Auntie Sun at one of their dnf check-ins. “And too dry. What you need is,” Auntie Sun jotted down her notes on the memo pad that would be sent to the other trainers later that morning, “water. Keep this with you,” she handed Rumi a large water bottle with measurements down the side of it, up to one liter, “and make sure you drink and refill at least four more times today.”

The other trainers dutifully implemented Sun’s instructions, and Rumi found herself reminded at every turn to take another sip.

“And we have Celine tonight,” remarked Mira the third time their dancing instructor gave Rumi an extra water break. “You know what that means.”

“Ugh,” said Rumi. “At least I can wear those red shorts, it’ll be an excuse to toss them after.”

“And that gray tube top,” Mira added. Rumi looked at her. Mira shrugged. “Just looks weird on you.”

“But who will it be on?” asked Zoey. “I can’t imagine Celine putting herself in that position—she likes to remain clothed and in control—but she’s never brought anyone else in before.”

“Maybe she’ll ask Mira to stay too?” said Rumi hopefully.

Celine did not ask Mira to stay. In fact, she dismissed the other two girls early.

“Rumi,” she said, “tonight I have several meetings with our department heads. I’d like you to shadow me. You can sit here,” she gestured to a hard plastic chair to the side of Celine’s desk. “And Rumi? This is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn the business, but these are very important people in SM Entertainment, so we won’t misuse their time with interruptions. Understood?”

Rumi nodded, and sat.

“Oh and one more thing,” Celine added. “Sun tells me you’re dehydrated. Make sure you keep up your fluid intake.” She set down another large water bottle in front of Rumi.

The department head meetings went on for the next two and a half hours, while Rumi dutifully drank her water and became more and more uncomfortable.

“Miss Celine?” she tried.

“Rumi,” said Celine, “I thought I was clear that there were to be no interruptions. Unless this is an opportunity you’re no longer interested in?”

Rumi did not interrupt again, and another hour passed. Finally, the last meeting ended, and Celine turned to Rumi.

“I hope you paid close attention,” Celine said, “and I would recommend you write down your observations now, while they’re still fresh.” She gestured to a blank notebook on the desk with a pen next to it.

Rumi started to write, but it wasn’t long before Celine noticed her struggling. “Rumi, you look uncomfortable. Is something the matter?”

“I—“ said Rumi, careful to act embarrassed, “I need— to go to the bathroom.”

“I see,” said Celine. She closed the tablet in front of her and stood up. “Come with me, Rumi.” Celine led her to the edge of the small stage. “Now sit.”

Rumi obeyed, and Celine gently pushed her backwards so she was laying on the stage, feet hanging off the edge, while Celine climbed up to stand over her.

“Do you think idols can simply call a break during a show because they ‘need to go to the bathroom’?” asked Celine. She placed her foot on Rumi’s stomach as she talked.

“No, Celine,” said Rumi in a small voice.

“Are you a schoolgirl, who needs potty breaks?” asked Celine. She shifted her foot down, and dug the ball of her foot into Rumi’s bladder.

“No, Celine,” said Rumi, gasping.

“You keep the show going, even if that means you don’t get a break,” said Celine. “If squatting in a corner is what it takes to get back out there, you squat in a corner. Do you understand?” She pressed harder with her foot.

“Please, Miss Celine,” begged Rumi. “I have to pee.”

Celine leaned forward, all her weight now on Rumi. “Then pee,” she said.

Rumi obeyed. Warm piss soaked her shorts and pooled on the stage, dripping on the floor below.

“Rumi,” admonished Celine when she was finished, “you disgusting girl. Stand up, and take those things off.”

Rumi stood and peeled her shorts and underwear off. She knew better than to ask if she could get changed into something clean.

“Rumi,” said Celine, “do you know how dogs are trained?” As she asked, Celine turned Rumi around, and started looping some audio cable around her arms.

“I don’t,” admitted Rumi.

“There’s a standard approach,” said Celine. She cinched the cables tight, bringing Rumi’s elbows together behind her back. “When a dog makes a mess, you have to teach the dog that she was wrong. Dogs are simple creatures, though. Much like trainees, in that way. So the only way the dog realizes what she’s done is if you rub her nose in it.” Celine shoved Rumi sharply, causing her to stumble backwards into the stage. With her arms tied, Rumi toppled over, into the puddle she’d just made. Celine stepped to her, avoiding the piss on the floor, and picked up Rumi’s wet shorts.

“Miss?” said Rumi.

Celine didn’t respond, but she draped the shorts over Rumi’s face, making sure the soaked fabric was pressed against Rumi’s nose and mouth. Rumi couldn’t see what was happening, and could barely breathe through the wet fabric, but she could feel it when Celine wrapped Rumi’s discarded panties around her head, using them to tie the shorts in place.

“Now,” came Celine’s voice from somewhere above Rumi, “I have a bit more work to do, so you are going to stay here while I work, and let the lesson sink in.”

“Miss Celine,” Rumi gasped.

“Yes?”

“I can’t— it’s hard to breathe.”

Rumi heard Celine sit down on the edge of the stage next to her. “In that case,” she said, I suppose you had better keep your breathing even.” Celine reached over, her fingers parting Rumi’s folds as she began absentmindedly playing with Rumi’s cunt while she worked.

“How long did she keep you there?” asked Zoey, as they reviewed the video.

“I don’t know, how much is left on the video?” said Rumi. Between the lack of air and the constant stimulation, Rumi had a poor sense of how much time had passed.

“About an hour and— no, two hours,” said Zoey. “You know I have to admit this is my first time with a woman predator and it’s much more interesting. She’s very creative.”

“I thought you hated her,” said Rumi.

“I do,” said Zoey, “and I’m really going to enjoy bending her knees backwards until they snap and then dragging her by the hair so she has to walk on the stumps. But I can still appreciate the creativity. Bobby had one preferred position and that was it, pump, pump, ejaculate, then maybe a minute of cuddling before the blubbering started. There’s so much more variety here.” Zoey frowned. “Where is Bobby, anyways?”

“With Gwi-Ma, I assume,” said Rumi. “He didn’t make a deal with Celine, so he can’t come back and forth as easily. Plus we don’t really need him, we can just bring him back occasionally to sign stuff for us, since we’re ‘underage’ and all.”

“That’s all fascinating but I’m not watching another two hours of this,” said Mira. “It’s already one in the morning and I want to check out that new ramyeon place.”

“The one last night’s dealer was at, before we convinced him to come for a walk with us!” said Zoey. “That one did look good. I guess,” she admitted, “since Rumi’s face is covered up by her piss shorts anyways, we can just skip over this part.”

Zoey scrolled through the video, but paused and went back when she noticed Celine shift position.

By this point in the evening, Celine had pulled Rumi’s top up so she could tease her nipples. Rumi’s cunt was flushed, and open, and glistening from an hour’s worth of constant edging. Rumi was openly moaning now, her voice muffled by the shorts still tied around her face.

Celine set her tablet aside, and leaned down to get a closer view of Rumi’s cunt. She pulled back her labia with one hand, and held them open while she rubbed Rumi’s clit in sharp, precise motions with a single finger. Celine’s gaze was intense, like a scientist working to understand the phenomenon under her microscope.

Rumi shuddered, and bucked, and cried out in the video, while Celine worked her clit at a steady pace, never hurrying, never slowing down.

“You slut,” said Mira.

“It’s a role, Mira,” said Rumi, rolling her eyes.

“No, go back,” said Mira. Zoey obliged. “Look, right there.” Rumi’s back arced again as the scene repeated. “The way that tendon under her knee vibrates, she only does that when she’s actually coming. Slut.”

“Mira,” said Zoey, with disapproval in her voice. “It’s called method acting. Rumi, don’t listen to Mira, you’re doing great.”

“Did you just have an orgasm?” asked Celine in the video.

“No,” said Rumi’s muffled voice.

“No?” said Celine. She pressed her thumb hard into Rumi’s overstimulated clit and rubbed furiously.

Rumi curled around the hand. “I did, I did!” she admitted.

“You came,” said Celine, “with the stench of your own piss in your nose. What a disgusting creature you are.”

Rumi said something the camera hadn’t picked up.

“It was an accident?” said Celine. “You accidentally came?”

Rumi nodded her head.

“So if it was an accident, you won’t come again if we keep going, right?”

Celine didn’t wait for an answer, instead slipping two fingers inside Rumi while she kept stroking Rumi’s clit. Rumi could only moan.

“I’ve changed my mind about dinner, I think we should all watch this to learn what we can from Rumi’s ‘technique,’” said Mira. “Your technique of coming all over Celine’s fingers like a slut,” she whispered in Rumi’s ear.

Even in video replay, Rumi lost count of how many orgasms Celine pulled out of her before the woman decided she was done for the night. Eventually, though, Celine untied the cables around Rumi’s elbows and pulled the shorts off Rumi’s head. Rumi lay there, dazed and barely conscious. Celine slapped her hard across the face, jolting Rumi upright.

“You’re free to go,” she told her.

Celine tossed Rumi’s shorts in the garbage, leaving Rumi to sneak back to her dorm in just her tube top, arms numb from being tied and legs unsteady from the older woman’s ministrations.

“Oh and Rumi,” called Celine, in the last ten seconds of the video, as Rumi had just reached the door. “You can tell Mira and Zoey that the HUNTR/X debut will be a week from Saturday. We’ll flood social media with announcements that Friday, and you’ll have a pop-up concert in the square the next day. Make sure ‘Soda Pop’ is perfect between now and then.”

Zoey dropped her phone, and she and Mira both turned to look at Rumi. “Was there perhaps something you forgot to tell us, unnie?” asked Zoey.

“Um… surprise?” said Rumi.

Chapter Text

It was their first public performance, and Rumi was nervous—which was ridiculous. She was a demon, not an actual teenage would-be pop star. Also she didn’t care if she disappointed Celine or Bobby or anyone else. And this wasn’t even her plan in the first place! But she was still nervous.

“It’s weird, right?” Rumi said.

“I can’t read your thoughts, Rumi, but it’s you, so yeah I assume it’s weird,” said Mira.

Rumi flipped her off. They stood in a cool, concrete basin—a sewer, really, except cleaned and filled with AV equipment and the lift mechanism that was about to make them appear in the square above.

“It’s all very last minute, but this is good,” said Zoey, her words coming a touch faster than usual. “Last minute means that nobody is looking into where we’re from, right? I mean we have our backstories and everything but if the Saja Boys get suspicious— this is good, this is good, we’ll fly under the radar for a bit while we build our audience, with any luck the honmoon will be falling apart before they even realize it’s us doing it. But wait, what if we’re wrong about how the honmoon works, and getting their fans actually doesn’t matter, and we’ll have done all this—”

“Breathe, Zoey. It’s going to be fine,” said Rumi

“Fine? FINE!? How will be okay if we can’t actually weaken—”

“Maybe it will be fine, and maybe it won’t,” said Mira, “but right now we have a performance.”

“Right, performance. I can do this. Just sing the words, Zoey,” said Zoey.

“And no more cocaine before shows,” added Rumi.

“You’re right, you’re right. Jenni just makes it sound so amazing, I was curious, you know?”

“Quiet on stage,” Horatio reminded them. Rumi had gotten used to thinking of the tall, dour man as simply Celine’s all-purpose lackey, but his actual job was managing live performances and appearances for a portfolio of SM’s artists.

The fog machine above them started pumping out pink smoke, obscuring the square as the makeshift cover was pulled back.

“We’re on in five,” Horatio said, and then mimed four, three, two, before pointing a finger at the tech controlling the lift. A lever was pulled, and Rumi, Mira, Zoey, and an obscene amount of audio equipment (which the tech assured them was the absolute minimum amount of audio equipment) shot up to street level.

The sound swelled, and Rumi stepped forward to sing. And just like that, the hours of practice took hold. Much like their audition for Celine, once the song started it just… worked. Zoey was a bundle of energy, and Rumi and Mira were in sync in a way she hadn’t felt since— it worked, was the point.

They were most of the way through “Soda Pop” when Rumi noticed it. A feeling, a little bit like the feeling she got when a human made a deal with her, unknowingly entrapping themselves. It wasn’t exactly the same—the feeling she was getting now was weaker, but more diffuse, as if the entire crowd was starting to believe they were, individually, each a personal friend of Rumi’s.

Zoey stepped forward to rap, and Rumi scanned the crowd. She was surprised at who was most enthusiastic, crowding forward to get a better look. Rumi had assumed, based on their preparations, that they were primarily aiming to appeal to men; horny teenagers who didn’t yet know what to do with the cocktail of new hormones they felt; dads who couldn’t admit that they lusted after teenage girls but who could watch Rumi’s body dancing in a music video without feeling guilty; grandfathers who could easily admit that they lusted after teenage girls because they’d gotten too old to care what other people thought of them.

But the most eager fans watching HUNTR/X in that square—were girls? Girls the same age Rumi was pretending to be, who drank in the sight of Rumi, her wardrobe calculated to show off long legs and a toned stomach, dancing moves that were barely disguised sex motions, all thrusting hips and heads tilted back and implied moans. Every last bit of it designed by the adult professionals running SM Entertainment, with the purpose, Rumi had assumed, of driving men (and lesbians, she supposed) wild.

But these girls crowding forward—they looked at Rumi and they wanted to be her friend. They wanted to be her.

It shook her in a way she couldn’t articulate. You have your whole lives in front of you, why the fuck would you want mine? Rumi wanted to scream at them.

It wasn’t until the song had finished, and Zoey announced to the crowd that they would appear on Play Games with Us! that evening (“HUNTR/X loves you, mwah!” she’d called out, and the girls in the front row blew kisses back to her and giggled) that Rumi noticed the other eyes in the crowd. Five sets of them, in five tall men, looking at her with a naked hatred she’d last seen in an alleyway in Noryangjin-dong.

“So,” said Rumi to Zoey and Mira, the first chance she got after the congratulations from the crew, the robes and water from their new attendants, the reminders from Horatio on when they were due to wardrobe and makeup for tonight’s TV appearance, “remember how we were hoping to fly under the radar, and build up our audience before the Saja Boys realized who we were?”

“Yes?” said Zoey, while Mira simply sighed in a resigned way.

“We might… have a bit of a problem.”

* * *

Rumi landed hard, again. She’d heard that absence made the heart grow fonder, but her months in the human world certainly hadn’t improved her opinion of hell. She couldn’t avoid a visit, though. They couldn’t call off the whole effort without Gwi-Ma’s approval—well, they could, but Rumi didn’t like her chances of emerging from the torture Gwi-Ma would inflict over that with her sanity intact—but if they were going to keep their appointment on the variety show they needed backup.

And, as much as Rumi hated to admit it, currently she had the easiest time slipping back and forth between realms, as the focus of Celine’s attention strengthened the deal she’d unknowingly struck.

“Ah,” said Gwi-Ma, “my wayward child returns.”

“Gwi-Ma,” said Rumi, standing at the top of his altar, “we have launched our idol career, as you instructed.”

“Yes,” said Gwi-Ma, “I can already feel the honmoon weakening, even with just one performance. It may be that this scheme will work after all, though it took you long enough to get to this point.”

Rumi bit her tongue; their debut had come extraordinarily fast, with HUNTR/X leapfrogging over many trainees who had been working for years to get to the same point.

“We’ve encountered a difficulty, my King,” said Rumi. “The hunters attended our first concert. They know who we really are.”

“Did they attack you?” said Gwi-Ma.

“No, but from the way they looked at me… they know.”

“And has your time in the human world made you so weak, that dodging these hunters presents you with a challenge?” said Gwi-Ma. The audience in the courtyard dutifully laughed along.

“I can dodge them just fine,” said Rumi. “But our schedules are known now. They have to be, in order to maintain our image and continue to seduce away their fans. We’re scheduled to be at a television studio tonight, and the Saja Boys know it.”

“Hmm,” said Gwi-Ma. Rumi stood as he thought it over. She wanted to say that perhaps they should take the momentary weakening of the honmoon as a win and call off the rest of it, but she knew better than to suggest anything that sounded like disobedience.

“You are in luck, that your first show has already weakened the honmoon,” Gwi-Ma said at last. “Attend this ‘television studio.’ The hunters will not attack you in front of a crowd. Make them think you are alone there, and lead them to where you feel the honmoon tearing.

“Crocell?” Gwi-Ma called out.

“Yes, my King?” said the burly giant.

“Prepare a welcome for these hunters.”

“With pleasure, my King,” said Crocell.

“Now Rumi,” said Gwi-Ma, “You had best return to the human world. I believe you have a busy evening to prepare for.”

* * *

“And now we have—drumroll please—the hot-sauce challenge! Who among our contestants can consume an entire bottle of Spicy Han’s Ghost Pepper Sauce?”

“Oh, I can!” said Zoey, as she started gulping the sauce in front of her eagerly.

“Amateur,” scoffed Mira. She twisted off the bottle cap and threw the whole bottle back, downing it in a handful of smooth gulps before slamming the bottle back down on the high-chair table in front of her. “So what do I win?”

The studio crowd roared with laughter. A section of fans in the front stood up, proudly displaying their t-shirts with Mira’s face on the front of them. Rumi smiled, until she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. The Saja Boys had positioned themselves just above the set, presumably to be able to leap down on them as soon as the curtain fell.

Rumi could feel the tear in the Honmoon that Gwi-Ma had promised, but it wasn’t here; it felt distant, perhaps a block or two away. Which would be fine if they had space to run that far, but would do them no good if a fight broke out in the studio.

“That’s—” sputtered the host. The cohost, who had just avoided having to gulp Spicy Han’s Ghost Pepper Sauce, shrugged. “That’s all the time we have! I know it’s hard to say goodbye, when we’re having so much fun!”

Rumi saw the opportunity, and grabbed the mic from the host. “Then why say goodbye, when we have extra special guests coming up? Please welcome… The Saja Boys!”

The lights and cameras swung up to the top of the stage, catching the hunters frantically stowing their weapons.

“Hello,” said Abby from his perch above the set, “we— are—”

“We just came by,” said Jinu, “to congratulate our hoobaes on their debut, and—”

“And of course,” said Rumi, “Play Games with Us!”

The HUNTR/X girls sidled off stage as the hosts rolled out a series of slides.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Rumi chanted under her breath as the techs unclipped mics and stowed gear. She could feel the tear growing stronger, but it was still too faint, too far away.

“Your car is waiting—” said Horatio.

“Yep, car waiting, got it,” said Rumi, as she pushed past to the back door of the studio.

The street outside was quiet, other than the limo, whose driver was busy checking his phone.

“This way,” said Rumi. She could feel the tear ahead of them.

“I thought the ambush was arranged,” said Mira.

“Take it up with Gwi-Ma,” hissed Rumi.

“The fans were so excited to see us, and we left early!” said Zoey.

“Take it up with Gwi-Ma,” said Rumi again. “Right now we have to—”

She pulled up in front of a large building. Marble steps led up to an ornate entrance, and above that a sign that read, “Korea Church for All Nations.”

“It’s here,” breathed Rumi. She could feel the tear, just ahead of them.

Behind them they heard a door slam open. The girls looked around to see the Saja Boys pour out of the studio. Without a word they spotted the girls and began sprinting down the street.

“In we go,” said Rumi, and they ran up the steps and into the church.

They burst into an auditorium filled with people—students, Rumi realized, high school or maybe a bit younger. There was some sort of giant bathtub at the front, filled with water, and a gangly, pimple-faced boy standing in it with an older man. Beside the tub was a band, drums and an acoustic guitar and a keyboard, all played by what looked to be college students.

“Lord, I lift your name,” sang a young man with a microphone, faltering as two hundred heads swivelled to look back at the HUNTR/X girls, “on… high…”

An older woman hurried up to them. “Are you here to be baptized?” she asked, excitement suffusing her whole face.

“We— yes, yes we are,” said Rumi.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, wonderful!” said the woman. “Come with me, here, get in line, we have extra gowns ready when you come out.”

They followed the woman to join the line of teenagers at the front of the auditorium, evidently waiting their turn to be baptized.

“What the actual fuck?” whispered Mira.

“Buying time,” whispered Rumi.

The doors at the back burst open again, and again two hundred students turned to look.

“Sing your… praises!” crooned the singer.

“Are you here to be baptized?” the older woman asked the Saja Boys.

“I’ve got this,” said Romance to the other Saja Boys. He stepped forward and called out with a loud voice, “We are here because there are demons who walk among you.”

The youth in the auditorium frantically whispered to each other. Rumi was surprised that they both immediately believed Romance, and seemed oddly excited at the prospect.

“Demons!” exclaimed the older woman.

“Demons,” confirmed Romance, with a sad shake of his head. “Demons, who would willingly put you all in danger!”

“Oh come off it,” said Mira. “We’re not putting them in danger.” That was more or less a lie, but Rumi appreciated the value of sowing doubt. “You’re the ones who followed us in here.”

“You chose this holy ground to fight us on, and then blame us?” said Romance. He sounded like he was auditioning for a community theatre performance of Ivanhoe.

“Oh we’re not going to fight you,” said Mira. “They are.”

Nothing happened.

“They are,” said Mira, more forcefully.

Still nothing.

“Rumi,” Zoey whispered out of the side of her mouth, “didn’t you say Gwi-Ma arranged an ambush?”

“The honmoon,” whispered Rumi back, “it’s close but it’s not torn yet.

“Mira!” she called sharply, “we still need some more time!”

“Oh fuck it,” said Mira. The Saja Boys seemed to have realized that whatever Mira had hoped would happen, wasn’t happening, and they advanced through the crowd of wide-eyed teens, glowing weapons emerging from nowhere into their hands.

Mira pulled on the giant wooden cross that stood behind the baptismal tank, breaking if off at the base and whirling it around like an axe. “Come at me,” she said, twirling the cross to deflect one of Baby’s arrows.

“Zoey,” Rumi said quickly, “grab the pastor, we need just a little more shame.”

“I’m on it,” said Zoey.

Rumi bounded to the front row of pews. The students there had already formed a circle, and were praying, heads bowed and hands collapsed.

“Lord,” said one boy, “if it be your will, we ask that you cleanse this place of demonic taint. We ask that you help us find peace in this darkness, and—”

Rumi grabbed him and held him up next to her, a long claw emerging from her finger to rest on his throat.

“STOP!” she called to the Saja Boys. “Stop or he dies.”

The group pressing Mira paused and turned to her.

“It’s a bluff,” said Romance. “Even you wouldn’t harm a child in a—”

Rumi slid her claw across the boy’s neck, opening his arteries. Blood sprayed across the auditorium, covering the screaming group of teens at prayer and painting the far walls. Rumi pushed the spasming body towards the Saja Boys and grabbed the next closest student, a girl the same age as Rumi was pretending to be.

“Tell me I’m bluffing again,” she taunted Romance.

The Saja Boys froze, and Romance whispered new instructions. Baby and Abby cornered Mira, forcing her on the defensive, while the other three moved slowly to surround Rumi.

“You can’t win,” said Jinu, “no matter how many you kill. We won’t let you get away this time.”

“Zoey?” Rumi called out.

“So you see,” Zoey was saying in a low voice to the shocked youth pastor, “if you look statistically at the donation amounts to Evangelical Churches in Korea, compared to similar charities they’re remarkably inefficient at promoting social—“

“Zoey!” Rumi called out. “Need that shame a little faster!”

“Right. Fine,” said Zoey. She grabbed the pastor’s head and turned it towards her, then lifted the hem of her top up to her neck. She wiggled her shoulders back and forth, making her tits bounce. “Jiggle jiggle!” she said in a high falsetto. The pastor stared, eyes wide.

Almost… thought Rumi. She could feel the honmoon fraying, so close to ripping open.

“Daddy?” said the girl Rumi was holding in a small voice. She was staring, horrified, at the youth pastor who seemed entranced by Zoey’s boobs. He suddenly looked up and blushed, and with an almost audible snap the honmoon tore open.

The teen still standing in the baptismal tank suddenly dropped as a mass of claws and teeth consumed him. Water demons poured out of the tank, swarming towards the closest students as the Saja Boys shouted and turned to meet the new threat. Mira tossed a piece of the broken cross to Rumi and then disappeared in a puff of red smoke. Rumi darted out the door and then jammed the cross through the handles to lock it behind her.

“Demon!” came a shout behind her. Somehow Jinu had made it out into the hallway.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” said Rumi, as she turned and ran.

Jinu leapt after her, forcing her to dodge his starlit sword.

“Watch the face!” she said as she teleported behind him. “I need it to steal your fans.”

Jinu swung again, but he was sloppy, anger getting the better of him. Rumi darted around him, swiping at his arm with a clawed hand and coming away with a fistful of leather as she tore through his jacket sleeve.

Jinu turned to attack again when Rumi caught a look at the exposed skin on his upper arm.

“You have patterns,” she noticed.

Jinu grabbed his arm to hide them, and looked around, panicked.

The door Rumi had barred flew open, a water demon crashing through it. Beyond it the scene was chaos: the hunters were struggling with the horde of water demons pressing in on them, while the surviving youth group members screamed, and cried, and fell out of the door as they rushed to escape. At some point the baptismal tank had been split open, and water poured across the auditorium floor, mixing with blood and body parts and offering even more surface for Crocell’s water demons to come through.

“Jinu!” screamed Abby, “we need you!”

Jinu froze, hand still gripping his ripped jacket. Rumi acted on instinct. She grabbed a piece of fabric from the closest curtain and tied it quickly around an uncomprehending Jinu’s arm.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she said as she pushed him back into the fray. Jinu seemed to come back to himself, and threw his sword into the mass of water demons in the auditorium before charging after it.

Rumi sprinted the other way, back out into the street where the HUNTR/X limo still waited for them.

She jumped through the door, and found Mira and Zoey already waiting for her.

She forced a calm breath. “Horatio?” she asked politely, “I think we’d like to go now.”

“Oh my god you guys,” gushed Zoey as they started moving. “Did you see how shocked they were? And those water demons, what a perfect entrance! I kind of want to do something for Crocell, just as a thank you, you know? Should we send him another body? I’d say we do Yuqi, but she was committed yesterday and I’m not sure where they sent her.”

“Um, Zoey?” interrupted Rumi. “One, maybe we should ixnay the emonday talk until we’re sure how soundproof the barrier to the front cabin is—”

“Right!” said Zoey, and mined zipping her lips shut.

“And two— you can probably pull your top back down now.”

“Spoilpsort,” said Mira.

“Ha! Right.” said Zoey, her words coming out in a rapid-fire pattern. “Anyway, before that, how do you think we did on TV? I thought the host was a little bit disappointed in the hot sauce thing but the audience seemed to like it and—”

“Wait,” said Rumi. “Did you have more—”

“You only said no more cocaine before concerts,” insisted Zoey. “This was before a television appearance.”

“Zoey,” moaned Rumi.

“Anyways,” continued Zoey, and launched into a moment-by-moment review of their evening.

Rumi let her talk, as her own thoughts drifted. Jinu had patterns. Was he one of those humans who had made a deal with Gwi-Ma, and was on the road to damnation? Or was he already a demon, perhaps one Rumi knew, disguised as a human? Neither option made sense…

The limo pulled into the SM Entertainment tower, and Rumi was no closer to an answer.

They shuffled into the elevator and rode to the trainee dorm floor, Zoey not yet done her detailed review of the night.

The explosion of noise that greeted them as the elevator door slid open startled Rumi into high alert, but she managed to spot the giant “Congratulations” banner on the far wall before her claws were fully visible. Celine stood at the front of a crowd of trainees and full-fledged idols, beaming at them.

The other trainees, with faux ceremony, carried Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, and all their belongings, from their dorm room on the trainee floor up a set of stairs to the individual apartments reserved for idols. It was a significant upgrade; Zoey squealed when she saw the giant jacuzzi tub in her private bathroom, and the beds had gone from bunks with a thin foam mattress to glorious king-sized beds so thick that Rumi worried Zoey would need a stepladder to climb up to hers. The suites came with large living rooms, as well, complete with couches, floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the city, and a giant TV. No kitchens, though: even idols weren’t exempt from Auntie Sun’s strictures and the shared meal space.

The other trainees oohed and ahhed as they first toured Zoey’s new pad and then Mira’s. Then Celine clapped her hands softly to grab everyone’s attention and sent the group to bed, reminding them all that they still had training in the morning.

“Miss Celine,” said Rumi softly. “Should I go back to the dorm room, then?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Celine. “Why don’t you say goodnight to your friends and then come with me.”

“Slut,” whispered Mira.

“Don’t forget to tape it!” whispered Zoey.

Celine led Rumi up to her own rooms, and Rumi pretended to be surprised and confused.

“Miss?” she said, hesitating.

“You’re going to stay with me for the time being,” said Celine. “I’ve already had your things moved here.”

They moved through Celine’s private apartments, which were similar to the ones Zoey and Mira now had, except even larger. Celine had her own kitchen, of course, as well as an office space and even a gym.

Celine led her to the bedroom. It was large enough that even the enormous bed failed to dominate the space, with armchairs, a couch, a TV alcove, and another desk, along with a window alcove filled with pillows and a throw blanket. “I know this is a new space for you,” Celine said, “but let’s climb into bed first, and if you have any questions I’ll try to answer them.”

Celine went through her nighttime routine as if Rumi wasn’t there; she brushed her teeth, washed her face and applied some sort of cream, all while Rumi stood awkwardly.

Then she took off her clothes. This was new territory; always, before, Celine would stay in her immaculate work outfit while Rumi, clothes disheveled if she still had them at all, writhed under her touch.

Celine’s body was toned, plucked and smoothed; she clearly kept to the same diet and fitness routine she insisted upon for her trainees. She showed not the slightest modesty as she turned to face Rumi, squirting some sort of exfoliant into her hands and rubbing it all over her skin.

“Rumi, is anything wrong?” she asked.

“I— I don’t know where my pajamas got to,” Rumi admitted.

Celine simply smiled at her. “I think you’ll sleep better without them,” she said.

Rumi stood for another moment, until Celine said, “Well? It’s been a long day for you, and you need your rest.”

Rumi sighed, and started removing her clothing. Once she was naked, Celine stepped over and gently wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m so proud of you,” said Celine, kissing Rumi gently on top of her head. “Now, let’s get to bed.”

Rumi climbed into bed, as Celine got in on the other side.

“I know it’s a big bed, but you don’t need to sleep all the way over there,” chided Celine. She opened her arms and gestured for Rumi to come closer.

Celine arranged Rumi, spooning her from behind and wrapping her arms around her.

“Now, you just go to sleep,” said Celine.

“Miss?” asked Rumi, genuinely confused. It wasn’t like Celine to get Rumi naked and then just do nothing.

Celine laughed fondly. “I know what you want, needy girl. But for tonight you need your sleep most of all. Lights out!” She called to the room, and the lights obliged, pluming them into darkness.

“Sleep well, Rumi.”

“Yes, Celine.”

“Oh Rumi,” Celine said, “when it’s just the two of us, you can call me Mom.”

Chapter Text

Rumi had a problem.

Actually, Rumi had two problems. The first was Celine. Moving into Celine’s apartment significantly curtailed Rumi’s free time. In the trainee dorms, nobody had performed bed checks, on the assumption that the only way the girls could leave the floor was on the elevator, so as long as that was shut off every night at curfew and someone occasionally patrolled the hallways they had nothing to worry about.

Now that Rumi was sharing Celine’s bed, she couldn’t simply disappear in the middle of the night; she had no way of knowing when Celine might wake up and no way to explain herself if Celine realized she’d left the building.

Even her free time during the day had shrunk. Her training schedule had lessened, but that was only to make time for press interviews, studio time on their next single, and a smattering of additional pop-up concerts.

And what free time she did have, Celine “encouraged” her to spend in their apartment. She even had a whole new wardrobe for Rumi, of what she called “house clothes,” which, Rumi quickly realized, was a euphemism for “lingerie”. Modest lingerie, as such things went, but definitely lingerie. Rumi dutifully wore it around their apartment, and Celine would look up from her work every so often and smile fondly at her.

The first time Celine had a visitor Rumi made to hide, but Celine stopped her. “Rumi, don’t be silly,” she’d said. “This is your space too. You don’t need to hide just because I have company.”

“I… I just remembered I was going to… work out,” said Rumi weakly.

“I’d much prefer if you stayed,” said Celine, with a hint of sternness in her voice.

So Rumi stayed, and tried to focus on the book on music theory she was reading, and ignore the looks that Celine’s guest, a division president from another branch of SM, kept shooting her.

“It’s like she wants people to know,” Rumi told Mira and Zoey in one of the few moments they could grab alone, walking from a fitness session to their next rehearsal. Several more meetings with various executives had followed the first, and for each Celine had insisted that Rumi stay in the room, as if she was on display.

“Of course she does,” said Mira. “It’s like status signalling or whatever for record execs. Anyone with money can get a pretty young thing in their bed. Only Celine has the girl from the cover of Substream moaning her name.” Rumi grimaced at the reminder; the magazine shoot had felt too public. But, as Zoey had pointed out, “public” was the name of the game now, their way to undermine the Saja Boys. And the Saja Boys knew who they were anyway, so there was no benefit to hiding.

“I’m just worried someone will report it,” said Rumi, clipping a microphone around her ear. “Our whole project here is fucked if Celine gets hauled off to jail and the police start looking too closely at our ‘childhoods.’”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” said Zoey. “The police aren’t going to raid SM Entertainment over a report that one of their stars is wearing suggestive clothing in the Creative Director’s room. And even if they did, Celine probably figures you’d never put your own career in jeopardy by telling the police the truth. Test, test,” she called into her mic, and then switched it back off once the tech gave her a thumbs up.

“Anyways, we have bigger issues than Rumi’s love life,” said Mira in a low voice. “Like why haven’t we heard a peep from the Saja Boys since our debut?”

That was Rumi’s other problem: what to do about Jinu, and the patterns on his arm.

She hadn’t said anything to Zoey or Mira about it. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them—actually, it was totally that she didn’t trust them. Not where Gwi-Ma might be involved. Zoey—as hard as it was for Rumi to admit about anyone, she was actually starting to think of Zoey as a friend. But Zoey had clearly been brought into this by Gwi-Ma first, and Rumi had no idea what threats or offers Gwi-Ma had made. She’d be a fool to assume that Zoey’s apparent fondness for her, even if it was genuine, would weigh more than the pressure the Demon King could bring to bear. And as for Mira— Rumi had already gone down that road and she knew where it ended.

Rumi had turned the problem over in her mind incessantly since that night, with no new insight to show for it. It just didn’t make sense for Jinu to be a demon in disguise. Sure, Gwi-Ma loved to fuck with her, but presumably he’d love to destroy the honmoon even more, and if he had someone in the Saja Boys that should be easy. The only other alternative was that the hunter had heard Gwi-Ma’s voice and accepted a deal with him. But this hunter was new, and the patterns Rumi had glimpsed had looked old. She had a hard time believing that the hunters had no way of checking for people who might be in Gwi-Ma’s thrall.

It didn’t make sense, and increasingly Rumi felt there was only one person she might be able to get an explanation from. But that meant actually having a night off.

“It could simply be that they’re too busy with all the other inclusions,” said Zoey, as she stretched her arms out and hopped up and down, loosening up for their run-through. “Gwi-Ma’s been practically purring with how many rips there are in the honmoon now.”

“Wait, when did you talk to Gwi-Ma?” asked Rumi.

Mira snorted. “Some of us aren’t spending every night with our tongue up Celine’s ass.”

“That was once,” said Rumi.

“Once that you taped, you mean,” said Mira.

“And I still think we’re lucky she didn’t realize that human tongues can’t do that,” said Zoey.

“We’re getting off topic here,” said Rumi. “Even if there are more incursions, they must at least suspect that we’re the reason, right? So why haven’t they tried— anything? We’ve done a dozen scheduled appearances since then.”

“Yes Rumi, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Mira.

“Right,” said Rumi.

“I’m just getting really nervous, you know?” said Zoey. “And I think I’ve come up with a plan. Well, actually I’ve come up with forty-seven plans, but this one’s my best plan: what if we did some intelligence gathering? Like maybe we could target Jinu, he’s the newest one, do you think he has any secrets we could—”

“No!” said Rumi, startling the tech on the other side of the room. She gave him a thumbs up and he scowled at her. Rumi forced her voice to be calm. “What I mean is, our plan was to avoid the Saja Boys as long as possible. The Saja Boys are avoiding us. If we go seek them out… we’d be putting ourselves in danger.”

“Well I could just go—”

“Zoey,” said Rumi gently, “you’re the brains behind this whole thing. If you get yourself disintegrated, or even badly injured— there is no HUNTR/X without you.” She pulled Zoey into a hug and kissed the top of her head.

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” said Zoey.

“Look, the big picture stuff? That’s Gwi-Ma’s concern. Let’s just do our part here, keep focused on HUNTR/X, and stay away from the Saja Boys.”

“You’re right,” said Zoey. “We need to stay focused.”

Mira glared at Rumi, clearly suspicious, but she didn’t say anything. The sound turned on, and the girls started working through their next single.

Less than a week later, Celine announced that she was leaving early the next morning for a series of meetings in Hong Kong.

“And I’ll be back on Friday, but late, so you don’t need to wait up for me,” she told Rumi.

“Yes, Celine,” Rumi said.

“And you can let Horatio know if the apartment needs anything.”

“Yes, Celine.”

“And I want to see the final choreo for ‘All You Want’ when I get back, it should be ready to work into your live shows.”

“Yes, Celine.”

Celine smiled at her. They were standing in the kitchen, where Celine had been putting together a small snack of yogurt and some berries before bed. The sky outside was already dark, and the lights in the apartment had transitioned to a level that, according to Celine, “promoted a healthy bedtime routine.” Rumi, as usual, was wearing one of the bits of lingerie Celine had picked out for her.

“Come here,” Celine said, and held her arms out. Rumi let herself be pulled in. “I’m going to miss you,” said Celine. She titled Rumi’s head back and kissed her neck, lightly nibbling at the sensitive skin.

“Since I’m going away, let’s do something special,” said Celine. She reached a hand up and parted Rumi’s lips with her fingers. Her fingers probed inside Rumi’s mouth and left a small pill on Rumi’s tongue. Rumi couldn’t tell what it was, but suspected it wasn’t a vitamin supplement.

“First, you swallow that for me,” Celine ordered, and Rumi obeyed. “Now, come with me,” she said, and took Rumi’s hand to lead her back to their bedroom.

There was a gift-wrapped present in the center of the bed.

“Go ahead,” said Celine. Rumi had to climb into the enormous bed to reach it. She pulled off the wrapping paper to find a black box, lined with velvet. Laying on the velvet was a thick collar, made of supple black leather, with a diamond hung from the front of it.

“This… is…” said Rumi.

“Perfect for you,” said Celine. She took the collar from Rumi’s hands and gently placed it around her neck.

“I had it made, just for you,” Celine whispered as she fastened the collar. Now that it was on, Rumi could feel two bulges on the inside of it, which settled directly over her pulse points as Celine adjusted the fitting.

“Thank you,” said Rumi, unsure of what else she was supposed to say.

“I know you,” whispered Celine. She was sitting behind Rumi now, adjusting a dial at the back of her collar. It tightened further, squeezing into the arteries in her neck. Celine placed a line of kisses on Rumi’s shoulders as she pulled the silk top down. “I know what you want.” The dial on the collar made another click as it tightened the next notch.

Rumi could feel her pulse, her heart beating loud in her head as the blood flow in her neck was slowly shut off, her vision tunneling as the edges went dark. “Some girls swoon for hot guys, some get off to vibrators. But you? A little oxygen deprivation and your needy little pussy just gushes.”

“That’s… not true,” Rumi gasped, barely able to form words through the collar pressing on her windpipe.

Celine simply chuckled and reached her hand down. Rumi shuddered as she pressed her fingers into the front of her silk thong. “Then why are you so wet already?” Celine asked.

Before Rumi could form an answer Celine turned the dial on the back of the collar another notch. She gasped for air, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. Celine was still rubbing the front of her thong, digging her fingers into her core.

“You don’t need to hide from me, Rumi,” said Celine. She slipped her fingers under Rumi’s thong. Rumi wasn’t sure if it was the pill Celine had given her or the collar, but the touch of Celine’s fingers on her skin felt more intense tonight than ever before, an electric tingle as she brushed Rumi’s folds.

Celine slipped two fingers inside Rumi and she could only moan. Celine curled her fingers up, and Rumi’s whole body jerked with the sensation.

Celine kept her fingers inside Rumi, curling and stretching out, and reached up with her other hand to tighten the dial on the collar one more notch. The whole room sparkled in Rumi’s eyes, and then the darkness that had been growing at the edge of her vision took over and she passed out.

Rumi came back to consciousness slowly, in a haze of arousal. She was lying on a bed, and her whole body felt feverish. She wasn’t sure where she was, but she was dripping wet, and so close to release. Her arm drifted down, but a strong hand caught her wrist.

“None of that, now,” said Celine. Rumi’s memories came back, scattered, like a rocky shoreline emerging after a large wave had crashed over it. She couldn’t have been out for very long, but it had been long enough for Celine to slide what remained of her clothes off of her. She’d loosened the collar, at least, so Rumi could breathe again.

“You just be patient, greedy girl,” said Celine. She was stroking Rumi’s clit in that steady, maddening pace she seemed to have perfected over the months they’d spent together, the one that kept Rumi aroused but wasn’t fast enough for her to come. She moaned and arched into Celine’s touch. Whatever was in the pill was hitting hard now; her skin tingled and buzzed, the whole room seemed sharper somehow. Rumi felt restless, like she needed to move, and she stretched out like a cat waking up from a nap.

“Rumi,” said Celine, “I want to do something extra special for you.”

“Mmm,” said Rumi, languorous, while Celine continued to stroke her clit.

“It’s going to hurt,” said Celine. “It’s going to hurt a bit the whole time I’m gone, and every time it does, you’ll remember who gave it to you, and you’ll think about us.”

That… Rumi’s brain was a fog, the drugs and collar and Celine’s incessant stroking working against her, but that didn’t sound particularly like something that would be a net positive for Rumi. She tried to look nervous, which wasn’t hard. “I’m not sure—”

“Shh,” said Celine, placing a finger to Rumi’s lips. “Here, this will help.” She placed another pill in Rumi’s mouth. Rumi thought about hiding this one under her tongue, perhaps to spit it out somewhere when Celine wasn’t looking, but she simply didn’t have the coordination left to pull it off, and when Celine tipped a bit of water from a glass by her bed into Rumi’s mouth after the pill, Rumi spluttered and swallowed it.

“You just relax,” said Celine. She reached behind Rumi’s head and retightened the collar—not as tight as before, not enough to make Rumi pass out again, but enough to feel constricting.

“We’ll just give that some time to work,” said Celine. She propped herself up on her shoulder next to Rumi, watching her intently. She left Rumi’s clit for the moment, instead focusing on her nipples, pinching one, then the other, pulling on them and squeezing them.

Rumi wasn’t normally a nipples kind of girl, but whatever Celine had pumped her full of made every touch send sparks across her skin. She felt the heat coiling inside her, pooling as Celine teased and stroked.

“Oh my,” said Celine, and Rumi realized she’d been moaning nonsense words out loud. “You seem to like that.” She pulled on Rumi’s nipple, and tickled it with the end of a manicured nail. Rumi giggled, delirious.

“Best… mom… ever,” moaned Rumi, barely aware of her surroundings. “A-plus parenting, for reals.”

Celine kept stroking her nipples, tugging at first one, then the other, and the heat coiling inside grew taut, stretching like a guitar string vibrating beneath Rumi’s skin, until with a sharp tug it snapped, and Rumi cried as her vision went white.

Celine didn’t stop, and if Rumi thought that the first pill made her dizzy, the second had set the whole room spinning, the dim lights sparking rainbows across the windows, and Celine just kept touching her, and everything was overwhelming, and Rumi’s eyes rolled back in her head as she decided that maintaining awareness of her situation was simply too much work and gave up.

Celine was saying something, but Rumi couldn’t put the words together. She could see Celine smiling at her, and arranging something on the bed next to them.

“It’s cold,” Rumi muttered, complaining about the clamp on her nipple. Celine said something else Rumi didn’t catch. There was a searing pain right where the clamp was. Rumi would have flinched but her body wasn’t obeying her commands anymore. A short time later—or a long time? Rumi wasn’t sure—she felt the same pain on the other side. Celine held her, and cool clothes pressed on her boobs and someone was shushing her like a baby, and Rumi drifted away. “Bye-bye, body,” she giggled, as her mind left it and went somewhere else for a while.

Rumi woke up to an empty bed and a blaring alarm. Her head pounded, every bit of light in the room seemed to be on a personal mission to cause her pain, and her mouth felt like someone had skinned a rat and dressed her tongue with its fur.

She rolled out of bed to try to find some water. She felt a tugging pain, like a barely healed wound, and looked down. Pierced through each of her nipples was a tiny golden barbell.

“Fucking hell, Celine,” she murmered.

* * *

Despite her headache and a strong wish to simply not leave her bed that day, Rumi forced herself to keep moving. For one thing, the SM Entertainment staff would hardly accept “your boss got me high off my ass last night so I’m hungover today” as a reason to miss any of her training or rehearsals. For another, Rumi had things to do, and an indeterminate amount of time to do them in—Celine had said until Friday, but giving Rumi the wrong date to catch her off guard by showing up unexpected totally seemed like a Celine thing to do.

“You look like shit,” said Mira as they met in the change room before their modern dance class.

“Fuck you,” said Rumi, and winced, her own voice too loud for her head.

“You do look a bit sick,” said Zoey.

Rumi waved her off. “Just Celine’s latest attentions. She’s got me doing drugs now.”

“Wait, what kind of drugs?” asked Zoey.

“Ones she puts in me, I don’t know,” said Rumi.

Zoey looked furious. “Do you know what that means?” she asked.

“Rumi’s even more fucked than we thought?” said Mira, who looked pleased at the prospect.

“It means,” said Zoey, “that someone else is dealing in my territory! Do you think it’s Jeongyeon? She’s been giving me shifty looks, and I know she’s been talking to Jenni. She’s probably trying to steal her away from me!”

Zoey bit her lip. “Do you think it’s been long enough since Miyeong disappeared? For them to believe Jeongyeon just ran off too, I mean.”

“I don’t think Celine needs to get her supply from trainees,” said Rumi.

Mira shrugged. “But if you want to kill this bitch anyways, I’m down for whatever,” she said. “It’s getting almost boring around here.” Then she frowned as Rumi slipped out of her shirt to put an exercise top on. Mira reached forward and flicked Rumi’s new piercing.

Rumi hissed in pain. “Fuck, Mira.”

“Rocking some new jewelry I see.”

“Fucking Celine,” Rumi said. “She kept popping pills into my mouth until I couldn’t see straight and then put these in. Something about forcing me to think about her while she’s— I mean, during the day.” Rumi suddenly had a thought: Mira and Zoey didn’t know Celine was out of town. The Creative Director didn’t, after all, share her schedule with every employee. But that meant that Rumi could say goodbye to the other girls like usual at the end of the day, and then have an entire night to investigate Jinu on her own. As fun as midnight ramyeon runs with Zoey were, the chance to get some answers was too good to pass up.

Mira noticed the slip; her eyes narrowed and locked onto Rumi’s.

“I guess I can see how she might… no, actually, I can’t really see how that makes any sense,” said Zoey. She looked at Rumi with eyes wide with concern. “You know I’ve been dreaming of this, but Rumi…” Zoey sighed and bit her lip. “If you want to be the one to jam rebar up Celine’s ass and blend her insides around with it like a Celine smoothie, I understand. You deserve that.”

Rumi smiled at their little maknae. “If I never think of Celine’s ass again, it will be too soon. She’s all yours.”

Rumi laughed with Zoey and they headed off to dance. She tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore Mira’s suspicious glare burning into the back of her head.

* * *

“I need some sort of… messenger animal. Preferably something… cutsie? Something a—let’s say a violent human—won’t immediately try to kill.”

Rumi had gone back to Celine’s apartment that night as usual, and then slipped through the honmoon back to the demon world. She’d managed to avoid Gwi-Ma and make her way to her true target: the warren of large stone cisterns and cellars where, for a price, Crocell could provide her with just about anything.

The burly giant shrugged, his lips curling around his mismatched fangs. “Animal, I can do.” He disappeared into one of the cisterns for a moment, and eventually emerged with the ugliest animal Rumi had ever seen. It looked like a marine iguana, perhaps, but about the size of a large dog, and bloated, as if it were grossly overweight.

“This is Muffin,” said Crocell.

“I— he’s very—”

“You want animal? This is animal.”

“I’m not trading in my favor for this,” hissed Rumi.

Crocell covered the lizard’s ears. “Shh, Muffin hears you,” he said. “Is very sensitive animal.” He gestured for Rumi to walk with him a few steps away from Muffin, who was now looking at Rumi with distrust.

“Muffin is… on the house, as they say. Because you have no favor to trade.”

“What? I sent you that body ages ago!” protested Rumi.

“Favor is for body that looks nice, not all purple like overripe plum. Ask Mira, she knows. Nobody wants purple-face body.”

Rumi sighed. “I guess… I’ll take Muffin, then.”

“You hear that, Muffin? Have new owner now,” Crocell called out. Muffin frowned—or, it was possible his face just looked like that—and waddled over to Rumi. She petted him awkwardly and he made a wet gurgling noise.

“See? He likes you,” said Crocell.

Rumi thought of something before she left. “Crocell, if nobody wanted the body with the purple face, do you still have it?”

Crocell shrugged. “Yes, is in back.”

“And it’s still— you know, not falling apart?”

“Is in great shape, other than purple face.” The burly demon shrugged. “Is hell. We know how to keep bodies fresh.”

“Great,” said Rumi, “I could use an extra body.”

She just needed one other thing. “I don’t suppose you have a wig with a giant purple braid?” she asked Crocell.

“Of course,” he said. He walked over to one of the cellars and opened the stone door. Inside were a set of large shelves, and on several were bodies of a similar size to Rumi’s, each with a purple hair and a single dutch braid. Crocell rummaged around a large pot and came up with a wig. “Is most requested look, these days.”

Rumi tried hard not to think about that.

* * *

Three hours later, Rumi waited on a rooftop. She’d sent Muffin with her note, and now all she could do was hope it worked. Muffin had a weird pouch in his throat, and Rumi had practiced with him several times, until she was confident he could store a note and regurgitate it when needed. Then, she’d given him directions to deliver her note to the Saja Boys complex. He’d stared at her, frowning, and then disappeared, so she supposed he understood.

Now she waited, across the courtyard from the purple-braided decoy she’d set up in case this Jinu was inclined to attack first and talk later.

She heard him before she saw him. Not loud; just a whisper of soft-soled shoes against a paving stone, but it carried in the still night air.

She spotted him as he leapt from a lower roof, flipping in the air, and landed smoothly in a crouch. Whatever physical training the Saja Boys gave their hunters, it was clearly working. They could use some work on their observational skills, though; Jinu was dead focused on her decoy body, and didn’t pause to consider that Rumi might not be alone, or even wonder why “Rumi” was standing in the open and not moving.

Jinu leapt forward and sliced through the decoy body, a perfect cut from the shoulder down through the ribs and out near the opposite hip.

Rumi learned something, then: whatever magic Crocell used to preserve Miyeong’s corpse was skin-deep only, and did not preserve the internal organs.

The chest cavity opened like a sack of raw chicken thighs. The connective tissues that usually held everything in place had rotted away, leaving blackened bits of decayed organs Rumi couldn't even identify to simply spill out over the rooftop. They formed a stew of congealed, rotted blood, with pieces of what must have been liver and pancreas and lung mixed in, and shards of white bone poking out.

Jinu dropped to his knees and threw up. Rumi gave him a moment.

“I thought hunters would have stronger stomachs,” said Rumi, when she felt he’d recovered enough to hear her. She stepped out from the shadows and looked down at Jinu and the decoy carcass.

“What—” Jinu said, more vomit spewing from his mouth as he crawled away from the offal, “what is wrong with you?”

“I’m a demon,” said Rumi, “I thought we’d covered that already. But what’s wrong with you? Spilling your guts over a single corpse?”

Jinu heaved again, but his stomach seemed to be empty. “That’s not— hunters don’t—”

“Kill people? That’s literally your job. Honestly I thought you’d be used to this.”

“We don’t kill people,” snarled Jinu, as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He’d regained enough presence of mind to swing his sword at Rumi, who jumped back from it easily.

“Is that what you tell yourself, to make yourself feel better?”

“You’re not people; you’re demons.”

“Ah, but what makes a person,” said Rumi. “We think and feel; we’re capable of friendship, maybe even love.”

“You don’t feel,” said Jinu. He slipped on a piece of Miyeong, and though he quickly regained his balance he looked greener than ever.

And the way he was talking—the realization hit Rumi.

“You’re really not one of us, are you?” she mused. “How’d you get those patterns then?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Sure. Is it your bandmates’ business, though? Because I get the feeling you haven’t told them.”

Jinu froze, then launched himself at Rumi with a flurry of sword swings.

“Ahh, I was right!” said Rumi, jumping backwards to the rooftop opposite the square. Jinu ran after her, but still seemed unsteady on his feet. “And for your information,” Rumi added, “demons do feel. That’s… all we do. Feel pain, feel shame. That’s how Gwi-Ma controls us. Do you really not hear his voice?” she asked.

Jinu paused, and looked confused. Rumi needed to keep him listening. She needed… a story.

“I remember the first time I heard it,” said Rumi. “It was four hundred years ago. My family was poor. My brother had just died, and it was just me, my mother, and my little sister. We had nobody to look after us; nobody would offer work to a single woman, and no man wanted a wife with no family. We were starving.

“That’s when I heard Gwi-Ma. Just a voice in my head, reminding me I wasn’t enough to save my family… but offering to fix that, if I listened to him. So I listened. The next day a royal scribe noticed me, and overnight I was whisked away to the palace as the King’s new concubine. My family was taken care of, we had more food than we could eat. For a while, at least. But Gwi-Ma’s marks grew, until they covered me and I was dragged into the Demon Realm, to be Gwi-Ma’s prisoner forever.

“Without me, my family was even worse off than before. I watched, from hell, as they starved to death on the streets.”

She looked up to catch Jinu staring at her. “That’s my shame,” said Rumi. “You have a shame of your own.”

“I’m nothing like you,” spat Jinu.

“Denial. I’ve been there too. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen. I might be the only one who understands.”

Jinu swung at her again, and Rumi teleported away. From the top of a tree in a nearby park she watched as he stomped in frustration and marched off.

This… this could be an opportunity.

Chapter Text

“Bobby!” Zoey squealed.

“Hey, sweetheart,” said Bobby. He strode onto their practice stage, looking significantly more put together than the last time Rumi had seen him. His clothes hadn’t changed—he sported the same black jacket with golden trim, with a fitted pair of jeans—but something in the way he carried himself had shifted. He moved confidently, like he was sure he was supposed to be here and he knew where he was going next.

“The fuck are you doing here?” said Mira.

“Woah, can’t an agent just say hi to the talent he discovered and raised to stardom?”

Mira simply raised an eyebrow and glared at him. Bobby held his smile for a moment, then deflated like a balloon.

“Okay, okay. Gwi-Ma wants to push the Saja Boys harder. He’s worried they’re simply going to ride out your popularity and take up where they left off once you’ve faded.”

“Once we’ve faded?” said Zoey. “We’re not fading. Oh my god, are we fading?”

“No, sweetheart, but everyone has their peak. Girl groups in your demographic can only expect to spend two years—if they’re lucky—at the top before the market moves on,” Bobby explained.

“Gwi-Ma seems awfully informed about the market statistics for pop groups,” said Mira.

“He’s a smart man! Or—person? Demon-king-entity? He’s smart. He knows the chart history of other… similar…” Bobby shrank back a bit as Mira and Rumi loomed over him, their teeth starting to show. “He’s perfectly capable of researching…

“Okay fine, I told him it was a risk. But it’s so boring in hell, I needed something to get me out of there.”

Mira snorted. “You’ve been a demon for like, six months.”

Bobby shuddered. “I know.”

“So what does Gwi-Ma want us to do?” asked Zoey.

“Well, since the Saja Boys have been avoiding you, we figured we’d force the issue. But in a public way!” Bobby tacked on the last sentence, seeing Rumi about to interrupt him.

“How does that even—“ began Mira.

“By crashing one of their signings!” exclaimed Bobby.

“That’s— wait, that's actually a pretty good idea,” said Zoey. “They can’t attack us in front of a giant crowd, and we’ll be directly targeting their most dedicated fans. You came up with this, Bobby?”

“Absolutely! One hundred percent.” Bobby gave her a wide smile. Then he leaned towards Zoey. “And while I’m up here, maybe you and me could recapture some of the old magic, what do you say?”

“I’m… actually busy tonigh—forever.”

“Aww, sweetheart, don’t be like that. You know how I can make you feel,” said Bobby, as Zoey kept backing up towards the door.

“He does realize that was all a ruse to steal his soul, right?” asked Mira in a stage whisper.

“You’d think?” said Rumi. “On account of the fact that he’s trapped in hell?” Rumi and Mira shrugged at each other.

Zoey dodged Bobby, and darted out of the room on her way to wardrobe for the event they now had to prepare for. Mira followed, while Rumi lagged behind to grab a private word with Bobby.

“So how’d I do?” he asked her, as soon as the other girls were out of earshot.

“Perfect,” said Rumi. “We’ll get through the signing, and when you get back to hell just tell Crocell that you’re there to claim Rumi’s favor. I’ve already sent him a message letting him know that’s okay.”

“Great!” said Bobby. “I wonder if he has a space-bun wig,” he mused to himself.

Rumi felt a little bad manipulating the band like this. But it had been weeks since her nighttime rendezvous with Jinu, and he’d been steadfastly ignoring her notes since then. She’d basically ordered Muffin to camp out in his room until he changed his mind, but that didn’t seem to be working either. She needed some way to force them into contact again, and it needed to be a way that wasn’t obviously her idea. Hence, bribing Bobby.

Rumi didn’t feel bad at all about paying Bobby with a favor she didn’t actually have. If anything she was helping him out; this was about the lowest-stakes way possible for him to learn how hell worked.

Plus, seeing the look on Jinu’s face, when the three fans in sleeping bags at the front of the line shucked them off to reveal HUNTR/X in all their glory? Totally worth it.

Rumi sat down at the new table and watched pandemonium unfold in the large warehouse space they’d taken over. The Saja Boys fans, many of whom had slept on the street to keep their spot in line, were now faced with a dilemma. Groups of them started splitting off to line up in front of the HUNTR/X table, and Rumi was thrilled to see the chaos in front of her reflected in the panicked faces of the Saja Boys.

Jinu stood up. “HUNTR/X will sit with us. Let’s have one joint table!” He tried to sound chipper about it, but the smile he wore was off, like he’d eaten something foul at his grandma’s dinner table but had to pretend to enjoy it. The other Saja Boys hissed protests through their own fake smiles, but their promoter loved the idea and was already making arrangements.

The girls stood up and moved over, as attendants shuffled chairs around. Rumi sat next to Jinu.

“I thought you didn’t like sharing,” she said to him in a low voice.

“I love sharing,” he said back, while smiling at the fan in front of him as he handed her a signed Saja Boys poster.

“Oh?” said Rumi. “So you’ve shared your patterns with your friends?” Jinu’s jaw clenched. “Should I tell them?” Rumi went on.

Jinu stomped on her foot. “I’m going to tell them,” he said, “eventually.”

Further down the table, Mira was openly flirting with Romance and Abby. From their faces, either they found this extremely painful or they both happened to come to the signing with impacted dental nerves. Zoey, on the other hand, was chatting happily with Baby Saja, who seemed completely bemused at the demon’s cheerful patter.

“I’m not going to talk about this with someone who’s helping Gwi-Ma,” Jinu spat.

Rumi snorted. “Helping Gwi-Ma. Yeah. It’s help him, or be tortured by him. That’s the choice. That’s the only choice I’ve had since I listened to that voice.”

“I would endure torture before I hurt an innocent,” said Jinu confidently.

“Lots of people start out thinking that way,” said Rumi. “But Gwi-Ma’s flames…” Rumi shuddered, not acting in the slightest. “You can’t imagine the pain,” she said, almost in a whisper. “He likes to pay special attention to my… sensitive areas.”

Jinu snapped his head around to look at her, disgust and fascination warring on his face. Rumi ducked her head, doing her best to look embarrassed. I really should have gotten Zoey to show me how to blush on command.

“I don’t… is that true?”

“Why else would I risk my life coming up here? I don’t benefit from stealing souls—they go to Gwi-Ma.”

Jinu looked thoughtful as he signed more posters. “It’s… barbaric. What Gwi-Ma does,” he said at last. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Rumi signed a few more posters in silence. Let him stew on that for a bit.

“Mira!” one of the fans called. “Romance or Abby?” The crowd laughed, as the hunters on either side of Mira rolled their eyes.

Mira simply shrugged and looked the two men up and down. “Why choose? I’ve got more than one hole to fill.”

Somehow in the space of a moment the entire warehouse space went silent.

“… in my heart, I mean. I have lots of space in my heart. For, um, friendship.”

“Annnnnd that’s a wrap!” shouted Bobby.

* * *

Celine was livid.

“What on earth possessed you to say such a thing?” she yelled at Mira. The three of them, and Bobby as well, had been lined up in Celine’s business office in the aftermath of what the staffers were already calling “the holes debacle.”

“Well?” Celine asked.

“I dunno,” said Mira. “Just slipped out.”

“Just slipped out,” repeated Celine. “Three days after I put your names forward for the Idol Awards—an honor that’s never gone to a group as young as you before—and it just slips out that you wouldn’t mind a fucking threesome with the Saja Boys! I know we put you through deportment lessons, did not a single piece of them make it through your thick skull?”

Celine turned and stared out her window. “You’re on lockdown. All three of you. You practice for Idols, you work out, and if you’re not doing that you’re in your rooms.”

Bobby spoke up. “Celine, maybe that’s—“

“You’re fired,” Celine said to Bobby. “Did I even hire you? What the fuck are you even doing here? If I hired you, you're fired. Get the fuck out of my office, and if security sees you on SM property again they take you straight to the police as a trespasser.”

“Celine,” Bobby said.

“Did I stutter? Out!”

Bobby left as Celine turned to Mira and Zoey. “You two are in your apartments until tomorrow morning. I’ll have staff at the doors so do not try me.”

Celine started moving papers around her desk, and then looked up, as if she were surprised to see Zoey and Mira still standing there. “Well? Go!”

The two girls gave Rumi looks—they were different looks but she couldn’t read either of them—and then left.

“A complete media blackout will look even worse,” warned Horatio, who had been hovering unobtrusively at the back of the room.

Celine closed her eyes. “We’ll do press interviews, but here. Questions provided in advance, they don’t leave the building until we approve the footage. No phones in the room. Mira keeps her fucking mouth shut.”

Horatio nodded and stepped out of the room as well, leaving Rumi alone with Celine.

“Celine, I—“ Rumi started to say.

Celine slapped her hard across the face.

“I trusted you,” she said. “I made you a leader, so you could keep those two retards in line.”

“I’m not—“ said Rumi.

Celine slapped her again. “I have a whole company to run and all I ask is that you make sure your little fucking friends don’t embarass me, and you can’t even do that.”

Rumi wanted to laugh at the thought of anyone, particularly her, keeping Mira from doing whatever Mira wanted to do, but she suspected laughing in Celine’s face wouldn’t help her cause.

“You—“ Celine seemed so angry she was at a loss for words. “Stand here.”

Celine marched off to the other side of her office, where a wall panel pushed in to reveal a walk-in closet Celine had in her office for… midday changes, presumably? She rooted through it, muttering about cleaning, and came back with a gown still in a plastic bag from the drycleaners.

Rumi was nonplussed, until Celine tore the bag off, tossed the gown onto the floor, and ripped the plastic liner off the wire hanger.

She shoved Rumi into her desk, and almost tore Rumi’s skirt as she yanked it down. Rumi had a brief instant to brace before the wire hanger whistled through the air and onto her bare ass.

Fucking hell, that hurt. If Rumi had to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten, with one being no pain and ten being the worst pain she’d ever experienced, it was a solid four. It was possible that Rumi's pain scale was a little outside the norm, but the point was, for a small woman with, Rumi assumed, no particular experience in the torture business, Celine was doing a good job at bringing the pain.

She pushed Rumi’s head down onto the desk, and kept whipping Rumi with the hanger, again and again.

Rumi hated blubbering, but she suspected that a normal sixteen-year-old would be doing some snotty crying if their boss beat them with a coat hanger, so she did her best to oblige.

“Please, Celine, please!” she cried, making sure it was nice and watery.

“All I— want is for— people to use— their fucking brains!” Celine snarled, punctuating her words with more blows to Rumi’s ass.

Finally Celine seemed to run out of steam. She sat down in her chair, leaving Rumi uncertain what she was expected to do next. Then Celine seemed to think better of it, and stood, and grabbed Rumi by her braid.

“I am too fucking angry to look at you right now,” she muttered, and pushed Rumi into the closet she’d retrieved the hanger from. “Just— stay in there.”

“How long?” Rumi asked.

“Until tomorrow fucking morning!” Celine shouted, and slammed the door. It seemed the door controlled the light in the closet, and Rumi was left in pitch darkness. She listened as Celine stomped around her office for a while, and then eventually heard another door slam as she left.

Rumi took stock of her situation. On the one hand, Celine had lost her everloving mind, and Rumi’s ass hurt. She also suspected she’d need to select her shorts carefully for the next little while to make sure none of the welts showed. On the other hand, Celine had left her in here, supposedly overnight. That left Rumi free to do… anything she wanted. Rumi wondered if she should try making Celine furious more often; compared to the all-night sex and cuddling marathons Celine usually demanded, this was a pretty good deal.

Rumi teleported away to Zoey’s room to see if she was up for grabbing something to eat.

They ended up going for bibimbap, in a little rundown shack with three tables, an open counter to the kitchen, and a ramshackle screen door that opened to the street. Framed pictures of beach resorts filled one of the walls.

“How did you even find this place?” asked Mira between bites. She’d shrugged and joined them when, at Zoey’s insistence, Rumi had teleported by her room as well on their way out.

“The internet!” said Zoey proudly.

“It’s amazing,” said Rumi, and then winced as she shifted in her seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Mira.

“Welts on my ass from mommy dearest and her coat hanger,” said Rumi.

Zoey looked sympathetic, but Mira just laughed.

“Yeah, laugh it up. This is your fucking fault,” insisted Rumi.

“It’s my fault?” said Mira. “I’m not the one who bent over for her.”

“Bent— bent over?” Rumi spluttered. “You think this is my fault?”

“You’re a demon, Rumi.”

“Wow, very insightful Mira, never would have figured that out—“

“You’re a fucking demon, and you’re acting like you’re actually a trapped teenager.”

“I’m not—“

“Oh please. It’s always ‘oh no, Celine raped me again, oh no, my poor nipples.’ Fuck, Rumi, why don’t you just deal with it instead of whining all the time?”

“Because we have a job here, in case you haven’t—“

“A job to disrupt the honmoon, not lick Celine’s cunt. We don’t need her.”

“She’s the—“

“The Director, yeah, and you’re going to sit there and tell me you can’t think of a single way to get rid of her but keep us with SM Entertainment? You have so many fucking schemes, you don’t think I see you sneaking behind our backs and making your own deal with Jinu?”

“Rumi?” said Zoey, and the tiny demon looked genuinely hurt.

“And you know what?” Mira went on, “I don’t even care about that, it’s what we do. But if you haven’t even tried getting out from under Celine yet it must be because that’s where you want to be.”

“Maybe I’m trying to see this through like Gwi-Ma ordered!”

“Or maybe you're so desperate to play human that you’ll slobber all over Celine’s pussy and hope she’ll pat you on the head while you do.”

“You’re such a bitch, Mira.”

“At least I know what I am. How many times does it have to blow up in your face before you learn we don’t belong here?”

Rumi’s claws were out before she realized what she was doing, a lightning quick stab at Mira’s face. Mira was just as quick, though, and raised her plate to block them. Rumi’s claws sank through the thin tin, and Mira used the leverage to twist Rumi’s hand away, pulling her forward as Mira slammed her forehead into Rumi’s nose.

Rumi stumbled backwards, but used her momentum to pick up the bar stool she’d been sitting on and swing it at Mira. It connected with her ribs in a meaty thunk and an explosion of snapping spars, knocking Mira into the table they’d been sharing. Leftover plates and food flew across the small restaurant.

Mira rolled off the table and dove into Rumi, tackling her into the other wall. The siding crunched and the pictures toppled to the ground, glass shattering.

Mira swiped at Rumi but Rumi caught her claw, then kneed Mira in the stomach. Mira doubled over, gasping, and Rumi used the opportunity to line up a kick and drive the toe of her boot into Mira’s crotch.

Mira dropped to the floor, but snagged Rumi’s braid in her claws on the way down. Rumi’s head snapped back and she toppled over backwards, landing next to Mira.

The owner had emerged by this point and was standing over them, yelling about the mess and threatening to call the police.

Rumi pushed herself to her feet, as Mira used the last upright table to climb to hers.

“On no, what’ll Celine say about this?” asked Mira, in a sing-song voice.

Rumi groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fuck, Celine, she’s going to—“

“See? This is what I’m talking about.” said Mira. “You’re pathetic.” She picked up one of the pieces of the stool that had snapped off, leaving a jagged wooden end, and turned to the owner. With one smooth motion she jammed the spar up under his chin and into his brain. Mira let his body drop as she walked into the back of the restaurant.

“Rumi?” said Zoey. She’d shrunk into the wall while Rumi and Mira had swung at each other. “What did Mira mean, about… scheming with Jinu?”

“I don’t have any schemes,” said Rumi automatically.

Zoey looked doubtful. “It’s just— I really need this to go well,” she said. “We’re getting so close.”

Rumi took her hand. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said.

“But to Mira?”

“Bitch can die screaming for all I care.” Rumi took a deep breath. “Look, Mira and I will fuck each other over any chance we get, but I’m not going to screw up HUNTR/X. I’m not insane enough to mess with Gwi-Ma.”

“Oh. That’s… that’s good, I guess,” said Zoey.

Mira emerged from the kitchen. “Alright, nobody else is here, and I started a grease fire in the back.”

Mira paused at the rickety door. “You losers coming?”

Zoey followed, while Rumi stood in the remains of the restaurant.

Mira shrugged. “We can find another singer if you burn to death.”

Rumi left the building, but didn’t follow the other girls as they teleported away. Instead she sat on the curb, watching the flames slowly eat the tiny shop, and wondered if there were any bathhouses open at 2am.

Suddenly the honmoon shifted beside her. Before Rumi had a chance to react, Muffin’s head poked out of the asphalt.

“Hey you,” Rumi said, and rubbed the skin at the back of his neck. Muffin made the gurgling sound that Rumi had come to believe was the mutant iguana version of purring. He made some wet noises in his throat, and then spat up a card.

“Save the Date,” it read, with a time and place that was… soon, she realized.

Rumi stood up and walked down the street. She caught a glimpse of herself in a shop window. Her clothes were torn, and the makeup she’d never had a chance to take off after the joint signing was a mess. She looked like she’d been in a fight, which was… actually, she thought as she dug through her bag, this could work.

* * *

Rumi waited, leaning against the low stone wall in the park Jinu had indicated. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the sky had started to lighten as it approached and, and the occasional early riser was already puttering about on their morning walk.

Rumi took a drag on the joint Zoey had given her. She leaned against the wall, a stylish mess, too cool to care about the cold or—

“Hi,” said a voice next to her.

“BWAHAERGH,” choked out Rumi as she jumped away from Jinu, who had crouched less than a foot away from her. “Where— don’t do that.”

Jinu smiled. “I owed you for that dummy you packed with fake guts.”

“The… dummy! Yeah I guess that’s fair enough,” Rumi laughed. “Payback for that definitely fake dummy.”

“I was thinking about what you said,” said Jinu. “About how you’re trapped. And I might have a way to get you out.”

“Oh?”

“The golden honmoon. We can finish it at the Idol Awards this year. When it goes up, all the demons will be trapped with Gwi-Ma in the demon realm. But if you were on this side of it when that happened…”

Rumi cocked her head. “You want me to help you win at Idols,” she said. Then she shook her head. “If Gwi-Ma finds out I’ve been helping you…”

“He’ll be on the wrong side of the honmoon,” said Jinu.

“And what makes you think the honmoon won’t just rip me back to hell?

“You made a mistake,” Jinu said. “But I—“ he gripped his own arms, where Rumi knew the patterns lived on his skin under the long sleeves. “I am a mistake. Have been, since the moment I was born. If there’s no hope for you, then…” He shook himself. “I have to believe there’s a future for us on this side.”

Jinu stood for a moment, as if pondering how much to say.

“I don’t know how I got the patterns,” he said at last. “Only that they were there already when I was very young. Before I could even walk. That generation of hunters—you’d know them as H.O.N.—they saw me in a crowded market. They thought the demons had planned something terrible, because why else disguise a baby in a crowd? They stepped in to save all those people and… by the time they realized I really was a baby, my parents were dead.”

Rumi had a lot of thoughts about this story, starting with what the fuck and ending with doubt about how truly necessary his parents’ deaths had been, but she kept them to herself.

“Daniel—he was the leader of H.O.N. He took me in, raised me. And somehow… the honmoon chooses four, normally, four hunters in each generation. The Saja Boys were already complete, but Daniel realized I could touch the honmoon as well. He thinks… that I might be the missing piece, the thing we need to seal the honmoon for good.”

“Then why hide your patterns?” Rumi asked.

“It’s… complicated. We’re trained to hunt demons. Anything with patterns has to die.”

“Oh no,” said Rumi. “Should I be scared?”

“No! You’re not— well you are but—“ Jinu took a breath. “I don’t want you to be scared. Of me, I mean.”

“Ahem.” Rumi looked over and realized they had an audience. One of the aunties on her morning exercises had stopped by.

“Young man,” she said, “have you promised this girl anything?”

“What? No, no… promises,” said Jinu.

The auntie sighed with relief. “Good, then you can still get away. Come with me, you look like a fine young man, I could introduce you to—“

“Oh no, there’s been a— I invited her here, I couldn’t just leave,” Jinu spluttered.

“Mmmhmm,” said the Auntie, with a suspicious eye on Rumi.

Rumi, who stood in torn clothes and runny mascara, holding the butt of her joint, just shrugged, by way of conceding the point.

“If she says it’s yours make sure you get it tested,” whispered the Auntie to Jinu, before continuing her walk.

Jinu looked sheepish. “Sorry about… that.”

Rumi shrugged. “She wasn’t exactly wrong.”

“And I’m sorry about… earlier. I do think you’re a person, even if…”

“I’m a terrible one?” Rumi laughed.

“I didn’t mean—“

Rumi stood on her tiptoes and placed a gentle kiss on Jinu’s cheek. “I think you’re a person too,” she said. She looked him in the eye. “And I’m not scared.”

* * *

Celine was frantic when Rumi got back to SM Entertainment. She’d gotten up early, and tried to let Rumi out of the closet she’d locked her in, only to find her missing. Rumi suspected some of her panic came from a worry that she’d gone too far and would have to explain to her board why the lead singer of the most successful group they’d debuted in years had run off.

In any case, Celine’s anger had cooled, replaced by worry, and she wrapped up Rumi in a hug and peppered kisses on her head.

“I— I couldn’t sleep in there, and I figured out how to unlock the door from the inside. I thought you’d still be mad at me so I found an empty bed on the trainee floor.”

“Oh darling, I can’t stay mad at you when you’re so cute,” said Celine.

Mira’s words were running through Rumi’s head. She’s wrong, though. Celine is still better than an unknown replacement.

“I’m sorry, Celine,” said Rumi. “I should have kept Mira in line.”

“Shhh,” said Celine.

“I’ll be the leader you want me to be,” said Rumi.

“I know you will,” said Celine. “Now, you’ve got me all worked up!” Celine leaned in and whispered into Rumi’s ear, “Why don’t we go back to our room and you can show me how sorry you are.”

Later, as the sun rose in earnest and she pushed her tongue past the ring of muscle of Celine’s anus, flicking it forward into the spot she knew the older woman loved, Rumi reflected that it had been an oddly productive night.

Chapter Text

The practice frequency increased as the Idol Awards approached, until running through their 20 minute set over, and over, and over again was essentially the only thing the HUNTR/X girls did. Rumi woke up, kissed Celine goodbye, grabbed breakfast on the way to rehearsal, and then rehearsed, with short breaks for water, until the day was over. Other than some time carved out for diet & fitness class, of course: no amount of fame got an idol out from Auntie Sun’s regime of liquid dinners and diet pills.

Rumi understood the need to practice—their whole scheme here might rest on how well they did at Idol Awards—but even she had to admit that some of the tweaks were a bit much. At the moment, five different choreographers were looking at a monitor above the soundbooth attached to the practice stage, reviewing footage of two different versions of a scene from the bridge of “Soda Pop”: one in which Mira, standing behind Rumi, held her right arm higher than her left arm, and one in which she held her right arm lower than her left arm.

“I like this one,” one of the choreographers said. “The angle makes her posture more open.”

“But is it too open?” said another, and everyone murmured thoughtfully like he’d just proposed a way to cure cancer.

“How about you just fucking pick one?” yelled Mira. She was standing on the other side of the stage but projected her voice to make sure the choreo people could hear her.

“How about we just calm down,” one of them—Nigel, maybe? Rumi thought he looked like a Nigel—said.

“How about you pick a fucking move here and stick with it or I might just forget what I’m supposed to do and flash the crowd in my panic,” said Mira.

“She’s joking,” said Rumi quickly. “Ha ha!”

“The fuck I am,” said Mira, but at least she said it quietly.

Somehow, as this was being discussed, a fan slipped the crew door and let himself up onto the stage. Rumi was shocked; there must have been five different layers of security between their practice stage and the closest public space. The man was hugely fat, and he waved at the girls as if they were old friends.

“Security?” Horatio called out. “Security!”

Rumi began to back up, but noticed something flash across the man’s neck. “Horatio—wait. It’s fine, really. We can say hi,” she said. And find out why a demon is approaching us here in front of a dozen humans.

The man waddled over to them, grinning broadly.

“Ah,” he said, looking at the cables and audio equipment that filled the space. “Has been too long since I last saw human world. Very impressive inventions they have now.”

“Yes… they’re very… Crocell?” said Rumi.

“Is difficult to fit such impressiveness inside puny human,” Crocell said, patting his belly, “but I manage.”

“But what are you doing here?” asked Mira.

“The seal between worlds, it weakens. Enough, soon, for swarm of eaters to come through. But, eaters are not so smart, you know this. So we need lieutenants to go with them.”

“And that’s why you’re here?” said Rumi.

“That’s why he’s here here,” said Mira.

“Wait—”

Crocell shrugged. “Too many eaters for just one lieutenant. Need backup.”

“You can’t— No!” said Rumi.

“Is orders,” said Crocell.

“I’m down,” said Mira. “This blows anyways.” She tossed her mic over her shoulder and started walking off stage.

“Mira!” Rumi hissed.

“Mira honey, you can’t just leave,” said Horatio. Mira flipped him off and kept walking. Horatio gestured for security to help him, but somehow Crocell was standing in front of them, even though he’d been on the other side of the space a moment before.

“Now now, let’s not be hasty,” he said. Mira kept walking, disappearing into the space backstage.

“I’ll get her,” Rumi called to Horatio as she ran after her. She caught up to Mira in the narrow, high-ceilinged room that ran the length of the stage just behind the back wall.

“Mira, what the fuck?” called Rumi, as she dodged around a stack of props from a long-forgotten staging.

“Idol Awards are less than a week away, what are they going to do at this point? They can’t pull us,” Mira said.

“But— they’ll—”

“Everyone in that room is going to be a soulless corpse by this time on Sunday, Rumi. Why are you worried about what they think?”

“Unless it doesn’t work like we think it will, and we need a backup plan,” countered Rumi.

“There’s no ‘backup plan’! If they seal their fucking golden honmoon we’re screwed. If we finish destroying it and Gwi-Ma comes through in force he’s not going to leave us playing at being pop stars. These people?” Mira waved her arm back towards the practice stage. “They. Don’t. Matter.”

“Rumi…” said Zoey softly. “Mira’s… right. We don’t need to keep Celine, or anyone at SM Entertainment happy. We do still need to keep Gwi-Ma happy.”

“Right…” said Rumi. “Right.”

“So where’s this breach happening?” Mira asked Crocell. Rumi turned and started—she hadn’t even seen Crocell come after them, and now he filled up the room like an extra wall. He moved very quietly for such an enormous man.

“Is on subway bridge. Come, I show you.”

Zoey and Mira took a breath and vanished. Rumi closed her eyes. Everything was happening too fast. She hadn’t had time to get Jinu to the right place yet—a place she could actually use to get out from under Gwi-Ma, or at the very least earn a nice reward from him—and it was all going to come to a head at Idol Awards, which were coming up too fast.

“One thing at a time,” Rumi told herself, and skipped through nothingness after the others.

The breach was huge. Bigger, Crocell told them, than anything they’d managed in centuries. It spread across a subway bridge, and the eaters poured out of it onto the tracks.

In the hierarchy of demons, eaters were at the very bottom. Grey humanoid shapes, with no eyes or mouths, they crawled around, grabbing and pulling apart anything they could get their hands on. They were mindless, and weak, and easy to destroy, but Gwi-Ma could create thousands of them with a thought. They responded more or less directly to his will when they were in hell, but in the human world the connection was muted. Hence, the need for demons with brains to provide guidance.

The train approached in the distance as more and more eaters came through, along with a smattering of other demons.

“Is lots of souls on train,” said Crocell, with a wide, toothy smile, and the horde surged forward to feast.

The Saja Boys met them.

The five of them had spread out on the roof of the speeding train. Baby Saja began cutting into the demon horde from a distance, arrow after arrow slicing through the eaters, who disappeared in puffs of red smoke. As they closed Mystery began throwing daggers into the fray as well.

Rumi dodged behind one of the bridge’s large support pillars.

“Rumi, what are you doing?” said Zoey. She directed dozens of eaters towards the rooftop where the Saja Boys stood, snapping at the ones who hesitated with sharp teeth.

“I’d prefer not to risk the hunters’ arrows when we’re so close to tearing down the honmoon!” said Rumi. The truth, of course, was a bit more complicated: Rumi worried that if Jinu saw her ripping some innocent’s throat out it might undo the work she’d put into convincing him she was a victim in all this.

“Right,” said Zoey. “We can do this from cover. Can you make the train car while it’s moving this fast?”

Rumi just smiled, and grabbed Zoey’s arm. They vanished and reappeared, bracing themselves against the sudden motion as their feet adjusted to the speed of the train car. Several passengers noticed them, and looked shocked at their appearance out of thin air.

Nobody had long to look, though; the windows of the train car went dark as the swarm of eaters moved around it. Rumi could feel, faintly, the buzz of the hunters weapons above them—a tingle across the skin, that made her want to rub her arms to get rid of it—but the mass of demons they were cutting through was keeping them busy.

“Alright, let’s grab these souls and move on,” said Mira. A few other demons—not eaters, the more run-of-the-mill ones who had enough thought to be given small independent tasks—popped into the car as well.

Rumi opened her mouth wide—wider than the body she wore should have allowed—and started to pull.

“Alright, next car,” said Rumi, once the first car was cleaned. She waited for Mira and Zoey to vanish, but instead of following them, she teleported to the space between cars and poked her head up. She still didn’t want to be seen, but she needed to know what was going on.

The shift felt like a bomb going off, as the quiet of the empty train cabin was replaced by the wind roaring around her, the sound bouncing off the close walls of the subway bridge. It drowned out the shout and growls from the mass of demons swarming over the cars, and the clash of teeth and claws against starlit steel. Rumi looked back, and could see the Saja Boys fighting. They were hard-pressed—how could they not be, with the numbers stacked so heavily against them—but they had cleared out a space on top of the train car. Abby whirled his poleaxe around, driving back the horde and destroying multiple demons with each flash of the bright blade. As they fought, they sang. It was a new song, one Rumi hadn’t heard before. The words Rumi caught were angry—lyrics about being deceived by demons, about exposing them and taking them down. The anger in the song seemed to infect the honmoon: rather than the smooth, solid barrier she’d felt before near the Saja Boys, today it was a spiky, shifting thing. She wasn’t sure if the song was the issue—perhaps it was unfinished?—or if the honmoon was simply too weak, this close to a tear.

Jinu wasn’t with them, though. Rumi flashed down several cars to get a better look, and spotted him, guarding the rear alone. He was also singing, but in a different mode from the others. It was clearly the same song, but softer, sadder. It was as if Jinu was trying to pull the song in one direction, and the rest of the group was trying to pull it back.

The movement of the train had taken them past the spot where the breach in the honmoon occurred, but that had left a scattering of demons who had dropped onto the train cars behind them. These were now gathering together to try to push past Jinu, who held them at bay with swipes of his starlit sword.

He was hesitating, though. Rumi could see it from where she crouched between two cars. The other Saja Boys were relentless, attacking into the demon horde, using every opening to drive their weapons forward. Jinu was holding back; waiting for each demon to actually attack him before he moved his sword to defend himself.

Rumi had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if Jinu’s song and his hesitation were any indication, her efforts at planting doubt in his mind were bearing fruit. She still wasn’t sure what the smarter play was—taking Jinu up on his offer, or using his doubts against him to take him down—but both routes held promise, and best of all, Rumi didn’t have to commit until the last moment.

On the other hand, those efforts would do her no good at all if Jinu went and got himself fucking killed. Especially if he got himself killed now, in an attack that Rumi had almost nothing to do with.

“Come on, Jinu, fight,” Rumi whispered from her perch between the train cars.

Then she saw it. Crocell had joined the fray in earnest, and was bearing down on Jinu, surrounded by a seething mass of eaters. He’d abandoned his human body and stood, twice Jinu’s height, red skin over rippling muscles, like a giant demonic bull charging.

And Jinu—Jinu fucking hesitated. “Not what I meant, Jinu!” Rumi tried to scream, but she doubted he could hear anything over the roar of the train.

Crocell was on him in an instant, and Jinu’s sword was out in a defensive stance, manifestly inadequate when Crocell swung a club the size of a telephone poll at his head.

Rumi grimaced, and held her breath, and in an instant the space between her and Crocell collapsed into nothingness. She stood on his shoulder, appearing there too suddenly for him to react, wrapped both hands around his massive wrist, and pulled as hard as she could. The club’s trajectory rose, just a bit, just enough to crash into Jinu’s sword at a glancing angle and not dead on, pushing him down while it passed over his head.

Crocell looked up at her, surprised. Rumi thought that there might have been a hint of betrayal in his gaze, or perhaps understanding, but there wasn’t time to tell. The blow seemed to have rebooted Jinu’s training, and he whirled and thrust, his blade stabbing deep into Crocell’s chest. The old demon exploded in a shower of ash and flame, confused brows lingering in Rumi’s vision like an afterimage.

Jinu looked at her, his eyes wide. Rumi was saved from coming up with something to say by a wave of power blasting over them from the car ahead. The other Saja Boys had finished their song, and with the energy it gave them Romance slammed his staff into the roof of the train, releasing a burst of energy that demolished the remaining demons and re-sealed the honmoon. Rumi teleported out of the way to avoid the blast, leaving Jinu standing alone on the top of the train car.

Rumi landed inside one of the other cars.

“There you are! Where the fuck have you been?” shouted Mira.

“Fighting? That thing we’re here to do?” said Rumi, offended by the question.

“I’m doing all the soul-harvesting here because you fucked off to do whatever and Zoey’s decided it’s care time for the elderly.”

Zoey was sitting down, next to a woman in a wheelchair who was looking around the train, confused.

“And my Jwa-Min was right here, I know he was,” the old woman was saying.

“I know, mum. I’m sure he’ll be right back. Is he a good son to you?”

“Oh yes,” said the woman. “He’s a famous researcher, you know. Works at the university, very busy. But he still comes every Sunday to take me to lunch…”

“Um, Zoey?” said Rumi. “We don’t really have time for this.”

Zoey simply held the old woman’s hand, her eyes wide. “I’m sure he takes great care of you,” she whispered.

Rumi looked back at Mira, who shrugged. It was an unwritten but violently enforced rule among the servants Gwi-Ma culled from the human world that you never asked about their shame. But spend time with a demon and sooner or later they’d stumble across something, and the facade would crack, and everyone would pretend it hadn’t.

Except, they were currently on a speeding train and Rumi didn’t much like the idea of fighting the Saja Boys in close quarters with Zoey out of commission.

“Zoey honey?” Rumi tried again. “We have to go.”

They were close to the end of the bridge, Rumi knew. On the other side would be a stop, and in all likelihood the Saja Boys would use it to get down and check through the train.

“Zoey?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Mira.

With a clawed hand she prised open the latch on the nearest door and forced the panels apart. The compartment filled with wind as the door opened to the rush of air beyond. Bridge supports zoomed past, stretching down to the river far below them.

“Excuse me,” said Mira, and grabbed the handles on the back of the woman’s wheelchair. She pushed it up to the edge of the open door, and then tipped the chair forward, dropping the old woman out of the train.

“There,” said Mira. “Now can we get the fuck out of here? I don’t know if you felt the shift before, but I’m pretty sure the hunters killed Crocell already so this whole attack is fucked.”

Rumi was still watching Zoey, who had frozen, her hand still stretched out as if to pat the old woman on the shoulder.

“You head back,” said Rumi. “Or, I guess, head wherever you want to go. Do whatever you want, Mira.”

Mira looked down at her, expression unreadable, and then disappeared.

The train car started to slow as it reached the far side of the bridge. “Come on, Zoey,” said Rumi. She took the smaller demon’s hand and teleported them both away.

* * *

“This is a nice view,” said Zoey.

“It is,” agreed Rumi.

They sat on the top of a skyscraper, looking over the city. Beneath the roof where they sat, Rumi knew, couples were nibbling on overpriced sushi.

“You’re really good at that. Teleporting, I mean. I always feel clumsy when I do it, but you move like you’re dancing.”

“I can show you a trick or two, if you want,” offered Rumi.

They sat in silence for another moment. Rumi watched a hawk wheel around the tower, looking for a pigeon.

“I’m sorry about… back there,” Zoey said.

“You don’t need to be,” said Rumi. “It happens.”

They sat, and felt the air swirl around them, and listened to the muted sounds of the city below.

“My grandmother raised me,” said Zoey. “My mom died when I was little. My grandmother raised me, but she was quite old, and when I was a teenager she started to forget things, and by the time I was finishing high school it was like I was taking care of her.

“And— I kind of hated her for it? Like I knew at some level that it wasn’t her fault but I hated her, hated her for being weak when I wanted someone to take care of me, hated that she’d been my rock my whole childhood and now I had to change her diapers.

“We’d have these fights—except they weren’t fights, because you need two people to fight, these were just me screaming at my grandma and her crying and apologizing, except she didn’t even know what she was apologizing for because she couldn’t remember.

“And Gwi-Ma’s voice—I mean, obviously I didn’t know that’s what it was—was telling me I deserved to go out, I deserved to have fun, it really was grandma’s fault I was stuck in that miserable house. So I left her alone, more and more, and she got worse and worse, and I felt worse and worse because maybe if I’d taken better care of her she’d be doing better, so I’d leave the house even more. Then this group of girls I knew from school asked if I wanted to come with them for a weekend in Jeju, one of their parents had a place there, so I said why not?

“My grandma— she died, that weekend. She tried getting into a dress by herself and got it stuck around her head and fell over. And she was probably confused and couldn’t remember what she’d been doing and she smothered herself by accident.

“And I got home, and I found her like that, and then I walked to the kitchen, picked up the chef’s knife, and opened both my arms.” As she spoke, long scars flickered among her patterns along the inside of her forearms.

“But Gwi-Ma had me, he pulled me to the demon realm before I could die. And ever since then, every day he makes me remember— not finding her dead, he doesn’t bring that memory back. He makes me remember a day when I was twelve or thirteen, and Grandma took me to Lotte World, and I was sad at the end of the day because I’d had so much fun and now it was over. Grandma held me, and told me not to be sad because we had so many more fun days ahead to look forward to. And then the next weekend, she didn’t remember taking me to Lotte World, and that was the first time I realized that something was really wrong. Gwi-Ma brings that memory back into my head, Grandma telling me about the good times we’d have, and I can hear him laughing about it.

“That’s what he promised. Gwi-Ma said, if I do this, he’ll take those memories away, that feeling. I won’t have it anymore.”

“The bad memories?” asked Rumi, though she already suspected what Zoey would say.

“All of them,” Zoey confirmed. “I want the bad days gone, and— and I don’t deserve to remember all the times she took care of me.”

Zoey cried into Rumi’s shoulder. “I was such a terrible daughter.”

Rumi laughed, wetly. “Yeah, me too.”

“You abandoned your grandma to die too?”

“No, I just ran with the gangs and told myself it made me badass. The war hadn’t been that long ago, half the country was still in shambles, it was a rough time. I slept with whoever I thought was toughest, and I’d blow whoever could get me my next hit. I brought all that into my father’s house. I just wanted him— I don’t even know what I wanted. I brought home these criminals who treated me like shit right in front of my parents, and I let them, and my father would pretend not to see anything, and I’d bring home someone even worse the next time.

“Then I pissed off the wrong drug lord, and he shot my whole family to teach me a lesson.”

Zoey frowned. “I can’t tell if that’s better or worse.”

“We’re demons, Zoey. There is no ‘better.’”

They stared out over the city. “I used to sing for him. My father. He told me I had a voice like an angel.”

“He wasn’t wrong,” said Zoey.

The two girls held each other, on the lip of the skyscraper roof, their feet dangling out over a thousand feet of air to the asphalt below. Rumi had a lot she wanted to say to Zoey. That she was sorry; that Gwi-Ma was a liar and she shouldn’t believe him, that once the plan was finished there was no reason for Gwi-Ma to hold up his end of the bargain.

“Zoey,” was all she said, “do you trust me?”

* * *

Horatio met her in the hallway. “Rumi,” he said in a soft voice, “I realized today that you and Mira and Zoey have all been working so hard, and you needed an afternoon off, so I canceled practice for the afternoon and told the three of you to grab some alone time.”

Rumi met his eyes. “Thank you,” she said, in complete sincerity.

Rumi stumbled through the door of the apartment she shared with Celine. She started a shower, and scrubbed herself clean. She stared at her dresser for a long time before picking out a lace bra and thong, and nothing else. Then she went to her nightstand, and opened it.

When Celine got back, Rumi was waiting for her. Patient, kneeling, with her head bowed. Rumi wore her collar and the diamond at her throat sparkled in the low light.

Celine smiled, the kind of smile she might wear when a dog she’d been training finally heeled. She reached down to adjust the dial at the back of Rumi’s collar.

The next morning, Rumi scrolled through the video she’d made. There were some good clips in there. Celine with half her arm up Rumi’s cunt, jamming her fist in and out as Rumi begged her to go harder. Rumi using an open bottle of champaign to fuck Celine’s asshole, and then slurping up the liquid that ran out of off of Celine’s skin. Rumi, smiling and sticking her tongue out while Celine stabbed a needle into it and shot Rumi up with ketamine. Rumi, her wrists tied to the bedposts, coming again and again, while Celine held a large vibrator to her cunt that she turned up every time Rumi sobbed that it was too much. Rumi barely conscious, Celine holding her and playing with the piercings in her nipples and whispering how pretty she was.

Rumi edited the video down to the highlight clips, renamed the file “Rumis_best_orgasms_EVER,” and airdropped it into Mira’s phone. Then she stretched, and got dressed, because she had more rehearsals to get through.

Chapter Text

They made it barely twenty-four hours before another demon interrupted their rehearsals. This one, at least, had the decency to ask for them “at their earliest convenience,” and not “right the fuck now.” Better still, Horatio had convinced Celine that the girls should get time off every day. “They need to be excited up there,” he’d told her. “If they’re sick of their own songs it will show.” Celine was in a strangely good mood that morning, so she agreed.

So HUNTR/X finished their rehearsal, and while everyone else assumed the girls were heading out for dinner, they actually slipped through the honmoon to visit hell. It wasn’t quite the bathhouse Rumi had been planning on, but she couldn’t reasonably complain about it, since she suspected that the summons were more or less her fault.

“This is such bullshit, I should be soaking at the bathhouse right now,” said Rumi.

Mira shrugged. “Crocell’s dead, Gwi-Ma needs a new lieutenant or whatever.”

Rumi gave her a look. Mira had been bitchier than usual today, though Rumi couldn’t say why. “You just want to steal his stash before the others get to it.”

Mira looked at her with an almost pitying gaze, like Rumi was an idiot. “I did that yesterday, Rumi, as soon as we were done with the train. There’s nothing left now.”

Rumi was spared from responding by Gwi-Ma welcoming them back.

“Welcome, welcome, my children, as we celebrate our fallen hero.”

He had more platitudes, which Rumi knew were just that. Gwi-Ma cared not at all for any of his demons. He did find some of them useful, though; he needed servants to pursue his benefit in the human world, while he stayed safe from any attack in his own realm. And, of course, finding a replacement for Crocell meant watching his demons fight each other for scraps of his approval, which was one of Gwi-Ma’s favorite activities.

“I still can’t believe Jinu killed horny bro. I didn’t think he had it in him,” said Zoey as she floated beside them.

“With those weapons they carry, it only takes one slip,” said Rumi. Or one traitorous demon hauling on your arm at the wrong moment. Tomato tomato, really.

The next few hours were as boring as Rumi anticipated they would be. Gwi-Ma never framed anything as a contest—he would simply say something like “a truly impressive demon would be able to fetch me a solid gold chair,” or something equally ridiculous, and a horde of wannabes would set off to the human world to track it down. The honmoon was so thin the more powerful demons—the ones who could realistically look to take Crocell’s place—could almost slip through at will.

The girls, who were already on a quest of sorts of their own, were mostly exempt, and drifted to the back of the crowd before slipping away unnoticed. They’d need to make an appearance again before they returned to the human world for rehearsal tomorrow morning, but for now they could keep their distance and spare themselves Gwi-Ma’s incessant little games.

Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones with this idea; others roamed the empty wastes of hell as well, looking for a fight to prove their strength.

“You!” shouted a tall water demon. “Stuck up cunts, shaking your asses while the rest of us risk our lives! Or— deaths, I guess! Existences! You know what I mean!”

Mira looked at Rumi, head tilted, silently confirming the plan. Rumi shrugged, and vanished.

She reappeared in mid-air, behind the water demon’s head, and lashed out with a vicious kick to the back of his skull. He stumbled forward, and Mira caught his face in her hands. It looked almost tender, until she pressed each thumb into the sides of his eyeballs.

The water demon screamed and tried to pull back, but Rumi was there to kick his knees in and deny him any leverage. Mira pressed harder, and with a wet pop the eyeballs burst. Blood and clear fluid ran down his cheeks as he screamed, and Mira let him fall to the ground.

“Um,” said Zoey, “doesn’t Gwi-Ma usually frown on maiming each other?”

Mira shrugged. “I didn’t see what happened to him, did you see anything, Rumi?”

“Nope,” said Rumi.

Mira looked down at the demon, who was still screaming. “Anything could have happened to him. It’s pandemonium down here.”

“Which means,” Rumi said quietly to Zoey, as Mira started walking deeper into the wastes, “that we either stay near Gwi-Ma’s altar, or we stick together. Do not get caught alone out here.”

Right then Muffin poked his head out of the ground, and spat out a note for Rumi.

“Shit. Right. Uh, Zoey? I have to leave you alone.”

“But you just said—”

“Mira’s right there, go catch up with her. She’ll keep you safe.”

“And what do I tell you you’re doing?”

“Just tell her… tell her I’ve developed an addiction to Celine’s pussy juice and I haven’t had my daily dose yet so I need to run back and slurp some up. She’ll buy that.”

“If you say so.” Zoey looked doubtful.

“Just… cover for me, please? I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Zoey gasped. “Ohhhh, this is about— you know— the plan, right?”

“Shhh,” hushed Rumi. “And yes. I have to meet Jinu.”

“Right. I will absolutely cover for you, you can count on me!” said Zoey. Rumi wasn’t sure why, but something about Zoey’s enthusiasm made her nervous.

* * *

They met in the same park, and walked along the stone paths that crisscrossed the hill, and looked out over the city lights.

“So, about Saturday, have you thought about my proposal?” asked Jinu.

“Yeah,” said Rumi. She was walking a fine line, here: she needed to be bashful, but still encouraging. “Look, I want to believe in your crazy plan… but I’m not sure I’m the one to help you.”

“The thing is,” said Jinu, “you already have.” He leaned on the low stone wall that lined the path and looked out over the city. “I spent my whole life training to join the Saja Boys, even as I kept this secret, this shame of what I am. And just as I reached the goal—just as we started to see the honmoon turn golden—the shame, the patterns, they grew, until they threatened to destroy the one thing that gave me a purpose: my voice.”

Jinu adjusted his shirt, tugging at his throat. Rumi had noticed that he preferred long sleeves, keeping his arms and chest covered—very unlike the way Romance and Abby preferred to dress. Lately, he’d started layering turtlenecks under his shirts as well.

“But since I’ve met you, and the more I talk to you—I don’t understand it, but somehow, my voice has healed.” Jinu continued. “I know you think you’re no good,” he said. He turned back towards her and reached out, bringing his hand up to Rumi’s cheek. “But you’re good for me.”

He leaned in, closing his eyes and pursing his lips. Rumi jerked back on instinct.

“Oh. Oh no. I’m sorry— I didn’t mean— I’ll just go,” said Jinu. He started to back away, embarrassment written on his features.

Shit, thought Rumi. If he walks away now we won’t meet again before Idols. There’s no time.

“Wait!” she called. “Jinu?” She ducked her head, and looked at him with wide eyes. He looked anywhere but back at her. “I just…” Rumi started, until she realized from his rigid posture that she was going to have to make the next move here.

Rumi surged across the space between them, and Jinu caught her in his arms. She pulled his head down towards her, and he mashed his mouth to hers, making wet smacking noises as he kissed her face.

“I’ve wanted to do this,” he gasped, as he peppered Rumi’s jaw with kisses, “since the first time I saw you.” Rumi tilted her head back, exposing the soft flesh of her throat to his mouth.

Strictly speaking, the first time Jinu had seen Rumi, she’d had her human victim’s dick down her throat, and then shortly thereafter she’d killed said human victim and tossed his corpse into Jinu’s sword. But she was fairly sure Jinu hadn’t realized she was the same demon—she’d been wearing a different body, then. Rumi didn’t feel it would be productive to correct that misunderstanding now.

Come to think of it, even the first time he’d seen her in her current form, in HUNTR/X—hadn’t she murdered a high-schooler in front of him in a church that night? Boys were so strange.

Rumi slowly backed up, bringing Jinu with her, until she was up against a nearby wall, which gave Jinu the opportunity to press his body into hers. She made appropriate gasps and mews, and Jinu continued to mash his lips into her face. She opened her mouth for him, and he hesitantly slipped his tongue into it.

They made out for a while longer, as Rumi considered her current situation. She couldn’t spend too much time in the human world—Zoey would cover for her, but if Gwi-Ma decided he wanted to see her… she couldn’t risk his wrath this close to the climax of their plan. If she really pissed him off, it was within his power to shape another demon into a body identical to hers and cut Rumi out entirely.

So she needed to wrap this up. But she also still needed to have a conversation with Jinu about how Idol Awards would go, which wouldn’t happen if she cut him off in a way that embarrassed or frustrated him. So wrap this up, but still leave Jinu happy and confident. Rumi sighed inwardly. Her best bet was probably to just let him nut inside her.

She pushed him back a bit, but giggled while she did so he’d know it wasn’t rejection. She took his hand and led him deeper into the gardens. They just needed… there, a shrine with some low benches. That would work.

She pushed him gently to sit on the bench, and then climbed into his lap, straddling him. They made out some more, but at this angle Rumi could grind her core into the bulge she could feel in his pants.

“Rumi…” he gasped. She leaned back, pulling his head to her chest.

“Rumi,” he said again, “is this… is this okay?”

She looked at him, dewy eyed. “My body—I’ve had to give it away. To the King, when I was human. To… whoever Gwi-Ma ordered, since then. But my heart…” She pushed him down until he was laying on his back, looking up at her. “For once, I want this to be with someone who cares about me.”

She grabbed the hem of her top and pulled it over her head in one smooth motion, and then she reached behind herself and unclipped her bra. Jinu’s eyes bugged out at her naked breasts, which might have been gratifying, except Rumi knew from long experience that guys Jinu’s age (who was she kidding—guys any age) would bug out at a roughly boob-shaped bulge in a tree if they were horny enough.

“I—” he started, and then seemed to lose the power of speech.

Rumi smiled at him. “You can touch them, you know,” she said, and she grabbed his hands and put them on her boobs. He held them like holding up two bags of rice, and then he just… left them there. He held up her boobs and kept his hands still.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Ohhh yes, just like that,” said Rumi. “But it’s not fair, I’m exposed up here and you’re still in all your clothes.” As she spoke, she unbuttoned the front of his shirt.

Jinu smiled at that, and once the buttons were done he peeled off the shirt and pulled the turtleneck underneath over his head. As he did that, Rumi looked up, and saw Muffin, sitting on a stone statue of a tiger and staring at her. “Shoo, shoo!” she tried to mouth, gesturing him away.

“What?” said Jinu, confused, and he started to turn his head around. Rumi grabbed his head and pulled it up to her chest, guiding his mouth to one of her nipples.

“You can lick them, you know,” she whispered in his ear as she cradled his head. Jinu shuddered, like this was beyond anything he’d ever dreamed of. He stuck out his tongue and tentatively poked Rumi’s nipple with it.

With Jinu occupied, Rumi looked up again. Muffin was still there. “Shoo!” she tried to whisper, and waved her free hand at him. Muffin frowned at her, maybe. It was so hard to tell with a lizard face. Rumi closed her eyes. She’d just have to hope Jinu didn’t notice the bloated spirit animal watching them.

Rumi turned her attention back to Jinu and repeated the same process she’d used with their shirts—her taking the lead in undressing, Jinu happily following—with their pants and then underwear, until they were finally naked. She gave Jinu a moment to acclimitate, and he wrapped his arms around her as she lay on top of him, squeezing her to his chest, and then haltingly ran his hands up and down her back, like he was still not quite sure this was really happening.

Rumi closed her eyes. She needed what would happen next to go smoothly. Jinu might not have any experience, but she assumed that he’d at least heard that girls got wet when they got excited. If he pushed himself into a bone-dry pussy he might have… questions. So Rumi breathed in, leaned into Jinu’s touch, and imagined…

“Have you been bad?” asked the Mira in Rumi’s mind. Her hand gripped Rumi’s throat, long fingers wrapping around it, just tight enough to be uncomfortable.

“Yes,” whispered Rumi. Not, of course, because she was still into Mira. That ship had sailed, then burnt at sea, then sank to the bottom of the ocean. It was just a convenient fantasy, that was all.

“You know what happens to bad girls,” said imaginary Mira. She ran her claws down Rumi’s stomach, sharp but feather-light, and the sensation tickled, and Rumi giggled helplessly. Mira lay on a large bed, and Rumi lay on top of her, her back to Mira, her hands tied above her head, giving Mira access to her whole body as she writhed and squirmed from the taller girl’s ministrations. Mira ghosted her claws up and down Rumi’s flanks, and then up to Rumi’s armpits, and Rumi couldn’t help it, she laughed uncontrollably, and Mira kept going, sharp claws tracing delicate patterns across Rumi’s arms and stomach and underneath her breasts.

Then Mira’s claws reached farther down, with that same feather-light tickling on the inside of Rumi’s thighs, and then just the lightest of touches across the top of Rumi’s clit, and now Rumi was torn between moaning and laughing, and Mira kept tickling her, and Rumi couldn’t breathe, and if Mira kept this up Rumi would—

“You’re so wet,” said Jinu, as Rumi rubbed her pussy up and down his dick.

Rumi smiled at him through lidded eyes. “Because you feel so fucking good,” she whispered. “I want you. I need you inside of me.” She reached between his legs and took his dick in her hand, and slowly lowered herself onto him.

Jinu moaned, and spasmed like his brain was short-circuiting. “Oh my— oh my— oh— fuck!” he cried.

Rumi moved up and down, slowly at first to let him adjust, and then picked up the pace, riding him while he gripped her hips and stared at her boobs as they bounced along with her movements.

She paused for a moment—Rumi figured for his first time he probably had about two minutes of active thrusting, tops—and let him just enjoy being inside her. Then she gave him a wicked smile and reached around to cup his balls.

“Fuck!” yelled Jinu again.

“You like that?” asked Rumi playfully.

Jinu tried to answer but seemed unable to form words, as Rumi gently massaged his nutsack and ran a finger along his taint. His hips started bucking, and Rumi gave him a pleased moan.

“Right there,” she said. She leaned forward and pressed her body to his to give him more leverage to pound into her. “Just like that, Jinu. Oh god fuck me, harder, harder!”

Jinu obliged, and Rumi carefully ramped up her moans so she screamed and shuddered right as Jinu shouted and emptied his load into her twat.

After that she held him, tenderly, careful of the post-orgasm swirl of emotions.

“That was… that was…” Jinu breathed, as they lay there, his softening dick still inside Rumi.

“You feel incredible,” said Rumi.

“Yeah?” said Jinu. “So you, um— did you… you know.”

Rumi kissed the side of his neck. “Did I come? I came like a fucking dump truck, Jinu. Your dick is magic.”

That made him happy. “I’m glad,” he said, a shit-eating grin on his face. “I… I love you.”

Rumi didn’t even hesitate. “I love you, Jinu.”

He smiled at her. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Rumi said, “or your magic dick.”

He laughed. “If we work together, at Idol Awards…”

Jinu couldn’t see Rumi’s face, buried as it was in his neck, so he missed her first real smile of the night. It was quite a bit sharper than the dovish ones she’d favored Jinu with, with a hint of pointed demonic teeth. “Tell me more…” she said.

Chapter Text

The plan was coming together, but they still needed a few bits of information. Things like equipment details and background tracks, logins to computers and locations of music files. Small things, but crucial to making the night go the way Rumi wanted. Things that only a tech working for the Saja Boys would know.

“And I’ll never tell you!” said the tech working for the Saja Boys. He’d been surprisingly easy to grab; the hunters didn’t seem to have even considered that any of the people working for them could be in danger, and hadn’t put any measures in place to protect them.

“Sure, buddy,” said Rumi. They’d taken their captive to a warehouse—the same one they’d done the joint signing in, as a matter of fact—stripped him naked, and tied him to a wooden chair. They’d grabbed a portable floodlight from a construction site somewhere, and it was the only light in the building, casting stark shadows and keeping the tech from getting a good look at anything Rumi and Zoey were doing.

“We have places to be tonight,” said Rumi, “so I’ll just jump straight to the point here. We need to know a few things, and you’re going to tell us. Otherwise, we torture you. How about it?”

The tech shook his head, glaring at Rumi.

“Look,” sighed Rumi, “we’ve got a loooonnng night before anyone notices you’re missing, and I promise you I can cause enough pain to make you spill. So just be a dear and fill us in, yeah?”

The tech spat at Rumi.

“Got it. Okay, Zoey?”

“On it!” said Zoey. She’d insisted she be in charge of the torture machine, which to Rumi’s eye looked like a sound board tried to eat a car battery but got sick halfway through and barfed it back up. She fiddled with several dials and stepped to the tech with two thick wires in her hands.

“Okay so we attach this clip here,” Zoey said, clipping the alligator clip onto the end of the man’s penis, “and this other clip here,” she added as she put the other clip on the base of his scrotum. “And now we flip— wait, are you sure you don’t want to just tell us?”

The man shook his head. “I will never betray the Boys.”

“It’s kind of touching, in a way, you know? He’s so loyal without even knowing the larger stakes,” said Zoey.

“Very touching,” said Rumi, “but we also do need him to talk, so…”

“Right,” said Zoey, and she flipped the switch on the machine.

The man gasped and twitched as a low hum of current went through him, and—

“Um, Zoey?” said Rumi.

“Yes?” Zoey didn’t look up from fiddling with some sort of electrical meter.

“He doesn’t seem to be in pain,” said Rumi.

Zoey turned to look. “I see,” she said, taking in his large, now fully erect, penis.

“I won’t,” the tech moaned, “tell you anything!”

“I don’t understand!” cried Zoey. “I followed the directions exactly!” She fiddled with another set of dials, which made the tech’s dick twitch more and pulled another long moan from him. “There, that should be as high as it goes, but it’s not working!”

“Directions from where?” asked Rumi.

“The internet!” said Zoey, distraught.

“You googled ‘torture machine’ and thought you’d get real directions?” said Rumi.

“No, it was on the ‘dark net’. I’m not entirely sure what that is, but Dizzo gave me the link and he swore it was legit.”

“Dizzo?”

“You know, my new supplier.”

“You let him live? I thought we got rid of all of them.”

“Dizzo was nice though, he promised to tell me where the best spots were to pick up other dealers if I let him live, it’s been so much quicker tracking them down since then.”

“Those were his competitors, Zoey. He’s been having you take out his competitors.”

“That little…” Zoey paused. “Maybe we can try the machine out on him next?”

“Bit of a tight timeline here, babe.”

“Right. Can you make sure the clips have a firm connection? I’m going to try a couple things here. What if I turn the gain up even more? It said not to go past eight but…”

Rumi bent down to examine the alligator clips, which were still firmly attached to the tech’s skin. Zoey flipped the switch off, and on, back and forth a few more times, trying to diagnose the problem.

“Try that again,” said Rumi. “Whatever you just did, it looks like something’s happen—”

The tech’s spunk shot into Rumi’s eye. “Zoey,” Rumi groaned, as the tech sighed with his release.

“Sorry, sorry!” said Zoey. “That wasn’t supposed to—wait! The transformer, it needs to be…”

“Zoey wait, the settings or— dials— you turned up—” Zoey connected a wire, and there was an enormous bang as sparks flew out of her machine and the tech jerked so hard his chair fell over.

“That was…” said Zoey.

“At least we know it— shit, he’s dead!” exclaimed Rumi. The tech had slumped in his bonds, body sagging, eyes staring ahead unseeing. Rumi jumped to her feet to check his pulse, which to her surprise wasn’t totally absent, just erratic and weak. “Not dead, just… his heart is doing something weird.”

“The shock, it must have sent him into defib,” said Zoey.

“I have no idea what that means,” said Rumi, hauling the chair back upright. “Can we fix it?”

“I think so?” Zoey started flipping switches again, resetting a breaker of some kind and reconnecting a wire. “If we shock him again, it might work? Here, move the leads to his chest.”

Rumi removed the clips from the man’s junk and held them on either side of his chest.

“This is what doctors do, right?” said Zoey.

“I never paid too much attention to human medicine,” admitted Rumi. “But we need him alive. So just try… whatever you did earlier.”

“Here goes,” said Zoey. She flipped a switch, another bang echoed in the small room, and every muscle between Rumi’s left hand and her right hand tried to jump out of her skin at the same time as Rumi’s world went white.

* * *

“Rumi? Rumi! Oh my god you’re still breathing, that’s good. Can you hear me?”

“Uhhhgggh,” said Rumi. “Yeah, I can hear you.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I probably should have warned you that you couldn’t actually be holding the clips. But good news! Our guy is breathing again!”

“Right. That’s good.” Rumi slowly got to her feet. She took an unsteady step to where the tech was still tied to the chair. He was still gasping from his momentarily stopped heart.

“We, um… stopped your heart… on purpose,” said Rumi. “For like, torture reasons. Now tell us what we need to know, or we’ll stop it for a bit longer next time.”

Amazingly this worked. The man’s eyes widened, and he haltingly started talking, taking them through everything the girls wanted to know.

“He’s lying,” she whispered to Zoey.

“What? No, he wouldn’t do that to us,” she whispered back.

“Zoey, we’re torturing him and we’re going to kill him when we’re done—I mean he doesn’t know that, but I imagine the possibility has crossed his mind—why wouldn’t he lie?”

“You’re right, you’re right. What are you going to do?”

“Just watch.”

Rumi walked back over to where the tech was tied. “You’ve been very helpful,” she told him. “But I’m sure you understand that our project is simply too important to just take your word for it. So you just sit tight, and I’m going to pop over to the arena to check out these passwords and file locations, okay?”

Rumi wished she could have somehow seen the look on his face when she teleported away.

She did see his face when she teleported back, and it was decidedly scared.

“So,” Rumi said, “it turned out that the door codes didn’t work, and neither did the login for the computer. I didn’t get a chance to check the files, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that that was all bullshit as well.”

“I’m sorry, Rumi,” said Zoey, looking crestfallen. “I wanted to do the whole torture thing right and I just made it more complicated.”

“Don’t be sorry, this is how we learn,” said Rumi. “I wasn’t any good at torturing the first time I did it.”

“Really?”

Rumi smiled at her. “Really. And honestly, I think you have good instincts. The genitals are a great target. This whole setup is just more complicated than you need. It’s not that hard to cause pain.” Rumi held up a pair of pliers that Zoey had been using to adjust some of the wires.

She approached the tech. “Wait, wait!” he said. “I remembered, I did give you the wrong codes, but I have the right ones, I can tell you!”

“I know you do,” purred Rumi. “And I know you will. It’s just that, you did lie to me, and we can’t really let you get away with that, now can we?”

Rumi adjusted the tech’s scrotum, so that one of his balls was held in the grip of the pliers.

“But the good news is, you have two of these, so as long as we don’t have any more lies, you’ll still have a spare when we’re done here.”

Rumi squeezed hard on the pliers, until she felt a soft pop, like a grape between her teeth.

* * *

“So everything’s all set!” squealed Zoey when they landed back in hell. After several days of infighting and petty contests, Gwi-Ma had still not chosen a new lieutenant to replace Crocell, so Rumi, Zoey, and Mira continued to hop back and forth between rehearsals for tomorrow’s Idol Awards and attending on Gwi-Ma.

Rumi dropped the body of the tech she’d been carrying. “Still a lot of moving parts, and places where this could go wrong, but… this could actually work.”

“It’s so exciting!” said Zoey. “The three of us, out from—“

“The three of us?” said Rumi. Her body went cold.

“Yes! And I know you didn’t want to include Mira, but Rumi, we’ve all been through so much together, it didn’t feel right to cut her out. And I think it will go smoother if Mira is—”

“What did you tell her?” interrupted Rumi. “Zoey, what did you say to her?”

“I just… caught her up to speed. On the plan.”

Rumi closed her eyes. She knew it. She knew it had been a mistake to confide in Zoey. She never fucking learned.

“Rumi, come on. If we can get out from Gwi-Ma, if there’s even a chance, shouldn’t we bring her with us?”

“Zoey, if you told Mira about this, there is no fucking plan anymore.”

“But… why would you…”

“I’m not the one who’ll scuttle it. Right now Mira is telling Gwi-Ma all about us.”

“No, she wouldn’t—”

“She already has, I promise. Mira is Gwi-Ma’s, through and through. That’s why he put her with us in the first place.”

“But… why would she… we could all get out, and there was no risk.” Zoey wore an expression on her face like a dog whose owner just hit it, and she didn’t understand why.

“Because she gets rewarded, and she gets to fuck me over, which is it’s own reward for her. Fuck, Zoey, how do live in hell and you’re still so fucking naive.”

“I’m not…” Zoey had tears in her eyes, which made Rumi unreasonably angry.

“This is who we are, Zoey. We’re demons, we fuck each other over every chance we get. If you don’t think that way now, Gwi-Ma will break your brain apart until you do.”

“But you’re not like that!” insisted Zoey.

“Yeah. And look where it’s got me.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Zoey.

“I’m saying, I’m out, Zoey. I’m done trying to— I’m just—”

Rumi couldn’t stand here anymore, looking at Zoey’s hurt face, crushed under the weight of her own mistakes and hopes and disappointment. She disappeared in a cloud of red smoke.

* * *

It was past midnight but the club seemed to be just warming up. There was a long line to get in, at least. Rumi didn’t have the patience to wait in it, and now that she thought about it she also didn’t have any ID. So she guessed at the layout of the interior and teleported inside from across the street.

It wasn’t a great guess; Rumi landed in the middle of a crowd, whose eyes popped at her sudden appearance. Then each person shook their head, and laughed, and several of them asked Rumi how she did that. Rumi ignored them and moved deeper into the club.

There was a low stage at one end, with a DJ operating a large board, pumping bass-heavy electronic music at a volume that Rumi could feel in her chest. Several small platforms dotted the space, and girls almost as young as Rumi was pretending to be danced on them in various stages of undress. The girls were lit but the rest of the space was not, and the crush of bodies beneath the low ceiling made it difficult to tell how big the room was. The air was hazy with smoke, and smelled of weed, and body odor, and sex.

Some of the small platforms were empty. Rumi could spot one nearby, and she assumed that the girl who’d been dancing on it was the same one who was now entertaining a small cluster of guests more directly. She was on her knees, surrounded by a circle of men who had their dicks out, and she was stroking one of them in each hand. One of the men reached down every so often to slap her tits, while another had knelt beside her to furiously rub at her cunt.

Rumi kept moving. She was sure someone in a place like this must have something—

There. She caught a glimpse of a woman, there with her friends, handing some cash to a man and getting a small plastic bag in return. Rumi pushed through the crowd after him.

“Hey,” she called out. “Hey!” The man turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised.

“What have you got?” she asked him.

The man looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her legs and exposed midriff. He smiled as if he liked what he saw. “I’ve got lots of things,” said the man.

Rumi just realized something. “Shit. I don’t have any money,” she admitted.

“That won’t be a problem,” the man said. He looked at her and smiled again, like he wanted nothing more than to be her new best friend. “Here,” he said, and handed her a small square of something that felt like paper, “put this under your tongue, and I’m sure we can work something out.”

This was, just objectively speaking, a terrible idea, and Rumi knew it. “Can I have two?” she said, just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the room.

The man shrugged, gave her a second hit, and put his arm around Rumi’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come say hi to some of my friends?” he said.

Rumi smiled at him. “We can do that,” she said.

He slid his hand down and groped her boob, and she kissed his neck as they moved through the club, towards a small alcove with an even lower ceiling. Several plush chairs were arranged haphazardly, and a half a dozen men sat in them in the dim light, two of them with girls curled up on their laps, one with another girl, naked from the waist down, who was straddling him, simply resting there with his dick inside her while he chatted with his friends.

“Hey hey hey!” the dealer leading Rumi said to the group. “This here is—“ He looked at her to fill in her name.

“Rumi,” she said simply.

“Like the singer,” said one of the girls.

“Just,” said Rumi.

“Well, Rumi here wants to party with us, don’t you, honey?”

“Sure,” said Rumi, feeling the drugs start to kick in.

They passed her around for a bit, moving her from one man to another, bodily lifting her up and setting her on the next man’s lap. She kissed each, and let each feel her up and pull off a bit more of her clothes. The music kept pulsing, the beat thumping inside Rumi, and the bodies dancing in front of the few light sources made flickering patterns across the dark alcove.

“Shit, those are some wicked tattoos,” one of them said. She had to almost yell to be heard.

“I know,” Rumi giggled. The drugs were hitting in earnest now, and she could feel herself losing control of her body. Her skin flickered purple, the patterns shot across it. Her fingers were getting longer, sharper, and she suspected that if she could see her face right now her eyes would be amber and cat-slitted.

“Do they go all the way across?” another one asked.

“See for yourself,” said Rumi, and pulled her shirt the rest of the way off. She crawled across the floor to the man who had asked, and climbed up on top of him.

“That’s… how do they move like that? Across your skin? That’s not possible.”

“Hmm,” said Rumi, pressing her nose to the man’s neck and breathing in. “You smell yummy.”

The man had one of her hands in his own. “What the fuck,” he whispered, looking down at her claws. “What the fuck!”

Rumi jabbed a sharp demon canine into the skin of his neck and pulled it down, shredding his carotid artery. Blood spurted out, into Rumi’s mouth, across the chairs, over the other partygoers.

“I bet you’d taste good, too,” Rumi said to another man, who still sat, frozen in shock. Rumi jumped on him and started eating his face, tearing chunks of nose and cheek and lips away with her teeth while he screamed.

She turned and saw someone trying to run away from her, stumbling as he did. Rumi leapt and landed on his back, stabbing him with her claws rapidly, poking holes in his lungs and kidneys and intestines until he stopped moving and blood ran freely down his back to join the growing pool on the floor.

“Just fucking stop,” said Mira. Rumi saw her standing over her, holding a chair up like she was about to swing it at Rumi.

“Why?” Rumi asked. “Why couldn’t you just let me go?”

“What the fuck is that thing,” she heard a voice say.

Mira swung the chair at Rumi, but she was slow, so much slower than Mira, and Rumi dodged it easily. She punched her claws into Mira’s side, each one piercing a different space between her ribs, and curled her hand to drag the sharp blades through Mira’s lung tissue. Mira fell and lay still.

Another Mira approached her, and this one had pulled a gun from somewhere. Rumi teleported behind her as it went off, and pulled her soul out.

“Fuck that feels good,” she said to nobody in particular. “Soul plus an acid trip, ten out of ten, would do again.”

She spotted another Mira, trying to run away. Lots of people were trying to run away, and screaming, and pissing themselves, but the doors to get out of the club were only so large and there were so many people trying to use them.

Rumi grabbed Mira by the shoulders and threw her to the ground. “Why?” Rumi asked her again, shouting at her. “Why couldn’t you love me?”

“I don’t know!” sobbed Mira.

“Not fucking good enough,” snarled Rumi. She wrapped her hands around Mira’s neck and squeezed, banging her head against the concrete floor until her skull got all mushy and Mira stopped sobbing that she didn’t know.

There were more Miras, after that. Rumi grabbed their souls or slit their throats or jammed her fingers into their unfeeling hearts. Eventually, though, they were all either dead or run off. Rumi lay down on the floor, exhausted. Her clothes were soaked with blood, and her braid would need some serious care before she could appear in public.

Her demon form had burned away whatever she’d been tripping on, and now all the Miras she’d taken her anger out on were just corpses, nameless people staring at her with dead, accusing eyes.

“This was a bad idea,” Rumi said to herself. The music had shut off at some point, and emergency lights had come on. The harsh lighting and quiet stillness made the scene look uncanny, like Rumi had pulled apart a department store worth of mannequins and strewn them about the room. She could hear, faintly, distant sirens.

The floor was covered in viscous blood. Rumi dragged a finger through it and and then licked it off.

“Not as yummy as I remember,” Rumi said out loud.

She lay there in the blood for a while longer, but eventually the sirens pulled up outside the building, and Rumi decided it was time to leave.

* * *

She found Zoey sitting by herself, feet dangling in a pool, far from Gwi-Ma’s court.

“I thought I told you not to be caught alone?” said Rumi. She’d cleaned the blood and viscera off of her by the simple expedient of shifting to a new body and then back, though her braid was still caked in it.

Zoey just stared at the water.

“Look,” said Rumi, “I’m sorry. I just… I wanted things to be different, this time. But it’s not your fault that they’re not.”

She sat next to Zoey. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“What happened, between you and Mira?” Zoey asked.

“I guess I owe you that,” Rumi sighed. “What do you know about the loophole?”

“That song about anal?”

“No, like, the legend. Maybe you haven’t been here long enough. It’s… demons trade stories, and one of those stories is about someone who got away, who left for the human world and simply stayed there, free from Gwi-Ma’s voice or summons.”

“How would that even…”

“Break the hold Gwi-Ma has on us? It wouldn’t. But the story is about finding a way to make a deal with a human, a strong deal, but without the human becoming Gwi-Ma’s next victim. So then the deal could last for a lifetime. A loophole.”

Zoey frowned. “I still don’t see how—”

“It’s not—” began Rumi. “It’s not real. They’re just stories. But everyone hopes, you know? If you’re here long enough, sooner or later Gwi-Ma decides to make a special project of you, decides to play with your mind, see how much pain it takes to break you, decides he’s bored and wants to see someone suffer and it’s your turn. So we dream of what it would be like to be free, and whisper about the perfect deal that could keep us away from here.

“And Mira and I— it was bad, Gwi-Ma was playing with her every day, hour after hour, at least I thought— so we hatched this crazy plan and hoped it would work.”

Rumi stared at the water for a long moment, until Zoey spoke. “What was—”

“We were going to have a kid,” said Rumi simply.

“How… how is that even possible?”

“Not like— Mira wasn’t going to be the father, obviously. I wore a human body and found some rando one-night stand to be the dad. But yeah, I was going to have a kid and Mira and I were going to raise it, and we’d be doing it for selfish reasons, so that would be good, and kids—they’re always selfish, right?—so it would form a deal, to keep us here, and the deal would last a whole lifetime because we’d be—” Rumi choked off.

“A family,” said Zoey.

“Yeah,” said Rumi. “It was stupid. We were just— I was just desperate.”

Zoey frowned. “But it didn’t work?”

“It seemed like it might, at first. The human blood in me, just from the fetus, it was already enough, we could stay in the human world, Gwi-Ma’s voice was getting less. But then Mira— I thought we were— but she was never— she was working for Gwi-Ma the whole time. When the baby finally came she murdered it and laughed in my face before dragging me back to hell, so Gwi-Ma could show me his displeasure, at length.”

“That’s… that’s terrible.”

Rumi shrugged. “Not like I cared about the thing. I’d just thought Mira and me… but like I said, it was stupid. We’re demons, this is what we do.”

“I guess…” said Zoey. “I’m sorry Rumi. I’m sorry I told Mira anything. I didn’t know.”

“And I didn’t tell you.” Rumi sighed. She could see a messenger bird, low on the horizon, winging its way towards them.

“Look,” she said to Zoey, before the bird could get too close. “Mira’s probably put the whole thing on me. So hang back, don’t say anything, let me talk to Gwi-Ma. I’ll claim it was your idea—no, listen, Gwi-Ma won’t believe me if I tell him it was all me to start. But if I say it was you, and then he tortures me, and I change my mind and admit you had nothing to do with any of this, he’ll believe me then. So just— act like you knew Mira was going to go to him, like you were deliberately turning me in.”

“Rumi,” said Zoey, “why—”

“You’re still—I don’t know—good? For a murderous demon, I mean. I just— you’ll be like me eventually, but maybe if you can be like you a little longer, that’s worth… something, I don’t know. It’s possible I’m still slightly high on acid. Just do this for me, okay?”

Zoey nodded, as the bird landed next to them.

“Ah, Rumi,” it said with Gwi-Ma’s voice. “Please attend to me. I believe we have some business to discuss.”

Chapter Text

Mira lay in front of Gwi-Ma, at the top of the steps that led up the front of his altar. She stretched out on her side, propped up on one elbow, and watched Rumi approach. She wore what appeared to be a metal bikini, with a thin collar attached to a chain that disappeared into the depths of Gwi-Ma’s flames. Rumi, of course, wore her traditional black demon robes, complete with wide-brimmed hat.

“Rumi, how good of you to join us,” said Gwi-Ma, as Rumi landed in front of him. “Mira here was just telling me about your efforts on my behalf.” Mira tried to smirk up at Rumi, but something in her expression felt off.

Rumi considered her words carefully. She wanted to come across as reasonable; mature; a leader among demons. “Yeah, well, Mira’s retarded and whatever she told you is a big fat lie,” she said.

“It’s funny you should say that,” said Gwi-Ma, “because Mira has told me such interesting things.”

Rumi swallowed. “I think—”

“She told me,” said Gwi-Ma, bulling over Rumi, “that you planned on letting the hunters seal the honmoon, and using your manipulations of their newest member to ensure that you were on the human side of it when they did.”

“That’s a lie!” said Rumi, on principle.

Gwi-Ma merely laughed. “Oh Rumi, you have so little faith in me. Such a plan could never work, not with a boy who is hiding away who he is. You would realize the honmoon could not be sealed by one at war with himself, I was sure of it.”

“Um… yes, I definitely realized that,” said Rumi, who was just now realizing this. “Because I am very smart. Much smarter than Mira.”

“So it would seem. Mira needed a little… encouragement to tell the truth,” said Gwi-Ma, and he laughed as his flames flared and Mira’s metal bikini made a sizzling noise. Mira flinched. “But once properly motivated,” Gwi-Ma went on, “Mira admitted that she made up the story to stop you from using this Jinu to bring down the Saja Boys and harvest thousands of souls for me like you planned all along.”

“Well she’s a fucking— she said what?” Rumi spluttered, nonplussed.

“If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is when a shortsighted demon threatens my pleasure with her own petty schemes,” Gwi-Ma said, a mockery of concerned sadness in his voice. “I am most displeased that Mira tried to do so.” The flames flared again and Mira gritted her teeth as if trying to keep from crying out. After a long moment Gwi-Ma relented.

“But she told me the truth eventually,” he went on. “And I am impressed that you went beyond your duty to ensnare this boy for my service. I have taught you well.”

Rumi bowed, acknowledging the point, while her mind raced. What was Mira trying to accomplish here?

“I am, of course,” said Gwi-Ma, “concerned that you did not brief me on your plan before now.”

“I— was hoping, my king, to— impress you, with the final result. I did not want to promise you something and then fail to deliver.”

“A sensible precaution,” said Gwi-Ma. “Under-promise and over-deliver, as they say at those wonderful human institutions called ‘business schools.’ And yet, more sensible would have been to ensure you have the appropriate resources to succeed.”

“You’re right, wise King,” said Rumi.

“Still, using the boy is a good plan,” he said. “I will give you some of my demons. Enough to ensure these ‘Idol Awards’ fail for the hunters. Lead them, use them well, bring me my feast of souls, and you will be appointed my right hand, in place of the warrior Crocell, who so recently fell in my service.

“Oh, and as a token, take Mira,” Gwi-Ma added. The end of the chain leash attached to Mira’s collar spat out of the flames, and landed at Rumi’s feet. “She’s yours to do with as you wish.”

“I— thank you, my king. I will see it done,” said Rumi, because what else was there to say. She picked up the leash and gave it a tug to bring Mira to her feet, then led her away from the altar.

They walked under the ashy sky, towards the warren of cisterns that had been Crocell’s up until a few days ago. Once they were out of earshot and Rumi was sure they were alone, she turned on Mira. “What the fuck is your game?” she asked.

Mira just rolled her eyes.

“Um, Rumi?” said Zoey, who had joined them as they left the altar. “I don’t think—”

“It doesn’t make sense!” insisted Rumi. “Why would she sell us out, and then say something different when he tortured her?”

“Well, maybe—”

“And then put herself in my power?” Rumi lifted up the end of the chain leash in her hand. “How does that hurt us?”

“Maybe she’s actually trying to help you?” suggested Zoey.

“Be realistic,” snapped Rumi.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” said Mira. “She believe in me more than you do?”

“Well she wasn’t betrayed by you, until now. Except I guess not now. Argh, what are you playing at?”

“Rumi,” said Zoey, “maybe we should let her explain?”

“And maybe we should kill her now and get rid of the risk—”

“I never betrayed you!” Mira shouted. For a moment they stood in silence, Mira’s voice faintly echoing off of distant stone walls.

“Seriously Mira, what the fuck—”

“I didn’t remember who you were, okay?”

Rumi stared at her, completely wrong-footed. “Mira,” said Zoey, “do you mean that Gwi-Ma took your memories?”

“Yes, obviously,” said Mira. “He tortured me and tore out every memory I had of you and then tortured me some more. I didn’t ‘betray’ you because I didn’t remember who the fuck you were.”

“But you said— you told me things—”

“Those were lines Gwi-Ma gave me to say. I didn’t know what they meant, he just said ‘and make sure you tell her how you’ve been working for me this whole time’ or whatever. I couldn’t remember any of it.

“And then when it was done he jammed all the memories back in my head just so he could laugh at watching me realize what I’d done.”

“But that doesn’t… and how did you— why did you go back to hell in the first place?”

Mira glared at her. “He pulled me back.”

“But the deal, it was working!”

“It broke, for me.”

“How did it—“

“It just did, okay!”

Rumi stared at Mira.

“Look, I—” Mira closed her eyes. “I started to think about… how maybe… you and I… could be happy. Together. In the future, at some point. I wanted you to be happy. And that wasn’t selfish, so the deal broke. Gwi-Ma pulled me back to hell before I could even call out.”

Zoey started to move to Mira, arms open as if to hug her.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Mira growled.

“But why…” said Rumi, “it’s been years, why didn’t you say something, anything?”

“Because it doesn’t matter!” snarled Mira, and her anger blazed up again on her face, “anything we ever have he’ll twist into one more weapon to crush you with. I can’t hurt—anyone—if I don’t care.”

“Mira,” Rumi said softly.

“And because,” Mira went on, the fury back in her voice, “ you were so fucking quick to believe I’d do that to you. You knew what Gwi-Ma is, you knew what he’s capable of, and you still believed it was me.”

“Well what was I supposed to think, you standing there gloating with the baby’s blood still on your hands?”

“You were supposed to fucking believe in me! And every time since then I’ve tried to say anything you’ve been claws out, ready to rip my throat out rather than listen to a thing I said!”

“I did believe in you!”

“Not enough! When it mattered, not fucking enough!”

“So you wanted me to what, just roll over and take whatever you gave on the off-chance it was all one of Gwi-Ma’s cruel ploys?”

“How was that an off-chance, all Gwi-Ma does is cruel ploys! Besides, you love rolling over and taking it.”

Rumi smiled. She wanted to laugh, or cry, but she settled on smiling. “Careful, Mira, I’m starting to think you’re jealous.”

“Fuck you.”

“No? Fine, then I can admit that you were right, the other week. I do like being under Celine.”

“Do not even start that again, you’re so full of shit—”

Rumi was crowding Mira, a feral grin on her face as she kept going. “She squeezes my head between her thighs and she thinks she’s forcing me to lick her asshole but she’s not, because I’d do anything to keep her fingers moving in my cunt like she does, she’s so good with them.”

“Do not test me, Rumi,” growled Mira.

“She squirts when she comes, you know,” said Rumi, testing her, “and it soaks her bush and then she rubs her pussy in my face like she’s trying to moisturize it and I just hold my tongue out and slobber all over her just like you said, because I’m Celine’s slut—”

Mira lashed out with a quick jab to Rumi’s stomach, and Rumi doubled over, gasping. Mira took the opportunity to rip the end of the leash out of Rumi’s hand, and then swung the chain around like a whip, snapping it across Rumi’s ass.

“I said do not fucking test me!” she snarled. She swung the chain again but this time Rumi caught it on her arm and yanked, dragging Mira forward. Rumi dove her forehead into Mira’s face, splitting her lip.

“You didn’t used to lose to me so often,” said Rumi as Mira stumbled back. Rumi grabbed for the end of the leash and yanked on it, clotheslining Mira as she stumbled and pulling her off her feat. Rumi stepped into a kick driving her foot toe first into Mira’s crotch. It collided with the metal bikini bottom and Rumi’s toe broke with a crunch.

“Forgot about that, didn’t you?” said Mira, as she climbed to her feet.

“Maybe your cunt is just made of stone,” said Rumi. It wasn’t her best rejoinder, but her toe hurt a lot.

Mira dove at her, wrapping her arms around Rumi’s legs and tackling her, driving her into the ground. Rumi’s head hit the stone floor hard, and then she and Mira were rolling and wrestling as each tried to get the upper hand.

Somehow Mira came up on top. Her bikini top had gotten completely dislodged, leaving her tits to bounce as she slapped Rumi’s arms away. Her hands snaked up and wrapped around Rumi’s throat.

“I don’t need a fucking collar,” she snarled as she squeezed tighter. Rumi scrabbled at Mira’s hands, but there was so much strength in her long fingers she couldn’t get any purchase. “Now are you going to behave?”

“Make me,” mouthed Rumi, without air to form the words.

“Oh I fucking will,” said Mira. “I’m going to squeeze bruises into you and every single one is going to spell ‘Mira.’”

Rumi tried to claw at Mira’s face, but Mira’s arms were longer, she held her out of reach and bashed the back of Rumi’s head against the stone ground a few times, until Rumi was dizzy and disoriented.

Mira let go of Rumi’s neck to rip her robes off with one long slice of her claws. Rumi gasped, greedily gulping air, and then grabbed for Mira’s leash again. Mira caught Rumi’s arm.

“None of that, now,” she said. Rumi twisted again, trying to wrench herself out of Mira’s grip.

“I think you need something to calm you down, you little monster,” said Mira. She twisted Rumi’s arm around and brought it up to her mouth. With a sharp bite she opened a vein on the inside of Rumi’s elbow and let the blood flow down her arm.

“Meanie!” screeched Rumi. She thrashed, and tried to swipe her claws at Mira’s exposed stomach, and then tried to hold her hand to the cut on her arm, but Mira held her down, letting Rumi’s blood drain out of her as she slowly weakened.

“That’s better,” said Mira as Rumi slumped back, exhausted. She tore a strip from Rumi’s shredded robes and tied it quickly around her arm. Rumi used the opportunity to sit up, but the blood loss had made her slow and Mira simply tapped her in her solar plexus and then pushed her back down as she gasped for breath.

Mira slapped Rumi’s thigh, hard and stinging, to make her open her legs, and then slid her thumb into Rumi’s completely soaked cunt. She pushed one finger and then a second into Rumi’s asshole, and gripped Rumi’s taint like it was a bowling ball. Mira used her leverage to hold Rumi’s hips where she wanted them, and pinched Rumi’s insides with a bit of claw anytime she tried to wriggle free.

“Be patient,” Mira admonished, and out of her mouth slithered a long demon tongue to wrap around Rumi’s clit.

Rumi came almost immediately. “Fuck, Mira, fuck!” she moaned, as Mira refused to let up, her dexterous tongue rubbing at Rumi’s clit, wrapping around it and suckling it as Rumi’s orgasm went on and on.

“Mira,” gasped Rumi, “I can’t— it’s too much.” Mira grinned at her and kept going. Rumi tried to pull away but Mira’s claws were inside her, holding her down as Mira’s tongue kept laving her clit, on and on, sucking and licking and rubbing it back and forth. Rumi’s whole body clenched as the ongoing orgasm broke over her again, back and forth across her body like waves in a pool, and still Mira held her there, drawing more and more from her.

After a while Rumi’s moans turned to sobs. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears running down her face. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” said Mira, and she was above Rumi now, her breath hot on Rumi’s neck. “I’m so fucking sorry, Rumi, I should have—” Mira was crying too, Rumi realized, tears dripping down onto Rumi’s cheeks to mix with her own.

Rumi flung her arms up around Mira, and they rolled over on the hard stone, and held each other, and cried.

”I missed you so much,” whispered Rumi. She was laying on top of Mira, her head on Mira’s chest.

“Shh,” whispered Mira, stroking Rumi’s hair as she held her. “I’m here now.”

They laid together for a while, losing track of time, before a voice broke them out of their reverie.

“Um, guys?” said Zoey. “I think it’s just about sunup back in Seoul.”

Mira groaned, and tried not to move. “Can we just skip today? I’m tired.”

“Skip today?” Zoey sounded panicked. “We can’t skip today, it’s Idol Awards today, this is everything we’ve worked for, you guys we have to—“

“She’s fucking with you, Zoey, we’re getting up,” said Rumi.

“That’s good, that’s good,” said Zoey, still with an edge of panic in her voice.

Rumi stood and stretched, still a bit lightheaded from the blood loss. Fucking Mira, she thought with a smile.

“Wait how do you keep coming here, I thought you had that whole, ‘Celine would notice’ excuse so you could ditch us,” asked Mira.

“First of all,” said Rumi, “it’s not an excuse, she really would have noticed if I disappeared, and second of all, once I found her stash I started giving her her own sedatives every night. Turns out they’re good for more than just raping your teenage protege.”

“I thought you said she was paranoid about making her own food and drinks,” said Zoey.

“I experimented a bit, one of them works great as a suppository,” said Rumi. Mira frowned but Zoey looked thoughtful.

“So big day today?” said Rumi, not at all to change the subject.

“Yes!” said Zoey, “and I think we should start by making sure that—”

“It’s going to be okay, Zoey,” said Mira. “We got this.” They linked arms and the three of them slipped through the honmoon, back to their beds in the SM tower to start their last rehearsals for the Idol Awards that evening.

Chapter Text

The day sped by, and soon Rumi was traveling to the Idol Awards. The limo glided smoothly under the lights of Seoul, which flickered into life as the sun set and twilight deepened, until it pulled up in front of a walkway covered in red carpet. Temporary fences held back what must have been several thousand people, all of whom were clambering to get a look at HUNTR/X as they arrived. Shouted questions flew from every direction, from teens holding out scraps of paper to sign to established press holding out microphones and backed up by camera crews. The girls did not answer any of them. Clearly nobody in management had forgotten the “holes incident”, so they were carefully walked past the assembled masses, smiling and waving and saying nothing.

Once they were safely backstage and past the publicly accessible areas of the stadium, a wave of attendants descended on them to take their red carpet outfits, drape robes over them, and usher them into a dressing room for final preparations.

Mira closed the door behind them and looked around. The room had been fitted out just like their rooms back at the tower, with their own things already laid out for them and HUNTR/X posters adorning the walls. “This will work,” she said. In truth, just about anywhere would work—the honmoon was so tattered after months of fans singing the demons’ songs that Rumi could feel the demon world like a cold breeze on her back, just a blink away on the other side of a non-existent barrier.

Horatio came to check on them, and Rumi tried her best, in full knowledge that it was a doomed effort.

“You have to go,” she said. “Things are going to happen here and— you just have to go.”

“Rumi,” said Horatio, “I know you’re nervous, but you don’t need to be. You’re ready, you’ve practised—”

“You don’t understand,” Rumi tried again, “you have to leave, get out of the stadium, get out of Seoul if you can.”

Horatio looked puzzled. “Get out of Seoul? Rumi, surely…” Horatio paused, looking pained, then made a gurgling sound as blood began pouring out of his mouth.

“Mira!” Rumi called, as the other girl pulled her claws out of Horatio’s back with a wet sucking sound. Horatio fell to the floor, weakly convulsing. “I was trying to get him out of the way!”

“You were wasting time,” said Mira. “Besides, he doesn’t deserve it.” She stomped, hard, on Horatio’s face, driving a sharp heel into one eye before wrenching it out, leaving a bloody ruin behind.

“He was kind to us,” argued Rumi.

“Yeah,” said Mira, “and how many girls before us stayed in that hellhole because he was ‘kind’ to them? Don’t kid yourself, Rumi, he was just as much a part of that as Celine and Auntie Sun.”

Rumi glared at Mira. Mira reached out a long, clawed finger, still wet with blood and bits of Horatio’s lung tissue, and lightly tapped Rumi on the nose. “Boop,” she said.

“Did you just—” said Rumi.

“You’re cute when you’re angry,” said Mira, unrepentant.

“Well you suck, when you—suck. Which is always,” said Rumi.

Mira stepped to Rumi and cupped Rumi’s face in her hands, running a single claw lightly along Rumi’s jaw.

“You think you’ve recovered enough to take me, little demon?” asked Mira. Her breath was hot on Rumi’s cheek.

“The question is, do you want to find out?” said Rumi, baring her fangs.

“Um, guys?” said Zoey.

Mira ignored her, and held Rumi’s face in her hands. She leaned in and kissed Rumi, gently at first, pulling Rumi’s lower lip between her teeth. Then with a sharp jab she slid one fang through the skin on the inside of Rumi’s lip.

“You maniac,” said Rumi, pulling back as blood started seeping into her mouth. “I have to sing tonight! And you already drained half my blood last night, at this rate I’m likely to pass out on stage.”

“Maybe I want you to pass out,” said Mira in a harsh whisper as she ran a claw along Rumi’s neck. “Maybe I want you laid out on that stage so I can do whatever I want with you while all the cameras roll and the whole world watches—”

“Okay, that’s enough!” said Zoey. “I love that you two have made up and everything, but we HAVE A JOB TO DO! Come on!”

“Fine,” Rumi said, reluctantly. She pulled away from Mira, and without fully letting go of her, dipped across the barrier between realms. On the other side, waiting for her under the ashen sky at Gwi-Ma’s command, an army of demons stood.

“Alright,” Rumi called to them. “We’re good to go. But just the mimics, the rest of you hang tight.”

Rumi snapped back to the human world, as all around her demons crawled through and materialized in the dressing room.

“Bobby,” Mira barked out. “Take his form.” She pointed to Horatio’s corpse on the ground.

“That’s going to hurt,” said Bobby. Horatio had a very different body than Bobby, tall and angular, which made it harder for the demon to copy it. And, Bobby wasn’t yet adept at the glamors the demons used to take their chosen forms, which would make it worse. But he was one of the few in the horde who could actually hold a conversation with the humans in the stadium without giving himself away.

“And I care because?” said Mira.

“I thought Rumi was in charge,” said Bobby petulantly.

Before Rumi could say anything to direct him to listen to Mira, she had her own claws out. Mira slid one through the front of Bobby’s pants, and Rumi assumed from the look on his face that she’d wrapped it around his balls. “You want to argue about where your orders come from?” she hissed at him.

“Taking dead dude’s form, gotcha, no concerns here!” squealed Bobby.

“Zoey,” said Rumi, “take as many as you need and get into the sound booth. Everyone there, replace them, take the souls if you want them.”

“This is all so exciting!” said Zoey to her team as she led them out of the room to go murder a bunch of techs. “Our first Idol Awards!”

Bobby had adopted Horatio’s form, however grudgingly.

“Bobby, I need you to go to the Saja Boys’ manager. Make sure you look panicked, and tell him HUNTR/X got into a fight amongst ourselves and can’t go on first.”

“I’m not sure they’re going to buy that—” began Bobby.

“They will,” said Rumi.

“But how do you—” Bobby started to argue, but Mira held up two claws and made a snipping motion with them, which made him pause.

“Trust me, they will,” Rumi repeated. She knew they would because Jinu was waiting for a signal that the HUNTR/X girls were throwing the awards, but she wasn’t going to tell Bobby that.

The demons spread out through the arena, and by the time the Saja Boys left their own dressing room every technician, director, and sound engineer had been replaced by a mimic. The illusion wasn’t perfect; most of the demons weren’t particularly intelligent and if one of the Saja Boys spent any time at all speaking with one they’d realize something was wrong. But why would they? As long as the demon replicas could smile and nod at the Boys as they went past, they weren’t going to stop and chat with so much on the line.

Rumi, Mira, and Zoey walked together down the backstage hallway, passing Jinu and his bandmates. Rumi gave him a tiny nod and the slightest of smiles. He gave her a much bigger one in return.

Then all that was left to do was to find a place to watch the show.

* * *

Rumi had to admit that “Golden” was actually a pretty good song. It made full use of Jinu’s vocals, and the backups from the rest of the group were on point. And as much as she hated him, Baby Saja could spit a verse. It was just too bad they were about to ruin it.

Once the rest of the group moved off stage to allow Jinu his solo, the team directly under Rumi swung into motion.

“Romance! Abby!” shouted the tall demon who’d taken the form of Daniel. Jinu had told Rumi enough about the group’s mentor to capture his mannerisms, and Daniel Kim was famous enough that pictures of him were easy to find.

“Demons have infiltrated the arena!” This was actually true, of course, and what some of those demons didn’t know was that Rumi was about to sacrifice them to the goal of selling the illusion. “We have to go.”

“But, the song—” Mystery started to protest.

“Now! The end of the song could be too late! Innocent lives are on the line.”

This was the most critical moment of the whole operation. From what Jinu had told her, Rumi was fairly certain that Daniel ran the kind of team that didn’t question the orders they received. How else could he have put Jinu among them without a good explanation and without any of them openly revolting? So Rumi was fairly certain that a strong order from Daniel would get the Saja Boys moving. But she hadn’t exactly had the opportunity to test it.

Mystery looked at the other Boys, for just a fraction of a second. Romance was staring hard at Daniel, while Abby seemed to be glancing around as if he thought he might spot one of the demons from where they stood.

Then Romance gave a short, sharp nod. “Let’s go,” he said, and the Saja Boys were off. Daniel directed them towards the video mixing station—they could clear out the demons there, but it wouldn’t affect the plans Rumi was even now swinging into motion.

“Go,” was all she texted Mira.

Ten seconds later, as Jinu reached the peak of “Golden,” the lights went out all over the arena. A new song came on the sound system: the opening beats of “Takedown,” the song Rumi had heard the Saja Boys singing on the top of the train that day on the bridge.

The lights came back on, and Jinu was surrounded by demons who looked exactly like his bandmates. His confusion held for just a moment, and then his stage training took over and he moved into the choreography he’d rehearsed. Rumi hadn’t actually seen it before, of course, but given that they’d planned on performing this song right up until a couple of days ago, she assumed Jinu would have the choreography down pat.

As Jinu moved from one position to another, the fake Romance gave him a sharp shove.

“It’s a takedown,” sang Abby, “a demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live, it’s so obvious.” He spat the last line into Jinu’s face, giving him another shove as he did.

“We see what you are,” said Mystery.

“You’re a demon,” said Baby.

“A mistake,” said Romance.

“You have been since the moment you were born,” they all said together.

That did it. Jinu clutched at his head with his hands, screaming “Noooo,” with a demonic timbre that blew out the lights around him. His patterns were going wild, streaking across his face and hands, which looked more like claws.

Did they see it? Rumi texted Zoey.

Yes, Zoey texted back. Screens were still up in here as they fought, they caught the whole thing.

Perfect. Now all they had to do was wait for the fallout.

Rumi rushed back to the spot backstage where they agreed to meet.

“It worked, it worked!” cried Zoey.

“It did actually go according to plan, which is pretty surprising for you,” said Mira, though she had a small smile on her face as she said it.

“We’ll make sure the announcement video drops for our ‘surprise’ concert, but then we’ve still got a couple of hours,” said Rumi, “so you can take care of the thing.”

“The thing?” asked Zoey.

“You know, Celine? Ripping her spine out, bending her knees backwards, the thing?”

“You remembered!” squealed Zoey, and threw her arms around Rumi. “I’ve been looking forward to this for so long.”

“Let’s get out of—” Rumi was cut off by a shout from backstage.

“Rumi! Rumi!” She could faintly hear footsteps pounding the concrete floor, as Jinu sprinted by, screaming for her.

“Okay new plan,” she said quietly. “You two go ahead and get started, and I’ll deal with him and catch up.”

Mira looked doubtful, but took Zoey’s hand as they both disappeared in a puff of red smoke.

Jinu turned the corner into the room Rumi stood in just as the smoke cleared away.

“Rumi!” he snarled. He was a mess, Rumi saw. His hair, normally coiffed into a perfect swoop, was disheveled, with bits sticking out here and there. His clothes were tattered, his hands had transformed fully into claws, and even one of his eyes looked amber and cat-slitted.

“Tell me you didn’t know about this,” he said. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this!”

Rumi looked up at him with cool distance on her face.

“I just needed you to trust me,” she said.

“No,” said Jinu. “What we had was real, I know it was.”

“I lied,” said Rumi. “It was all to serve Gwi-Ma. This is who I am, Jinu. A demon.”

“No,” said Jinu again. “You’re a person, and you made a mistake, but it was to feed your family, that doesn’t make you evil.”

“I lied!” Rumi yelled back at him. “There was no great tragedy, Jinu. My life didn’t flow from one bad choice. The whole thing was made up—a story. I was just a shitty person who did shitty things and got people hurt. That’s all I was, that’s all I’ve ever been. That’s all I am.”

“That’s the demon talking,” said Jinu. “You have to fight it.”

“That’s not how it works!” said Rumi.

“Yes it is!” yelled Jinu, and as the frustration came through his voice it infected it with a demonic timbre, echoing around the room and shredding the honmoon even further.

“Is it working?” said Rumi. “We’re demons, Jinu. All we get to do is live with our pain. Our misery.”

“I can’t believe that. I can’t believe you’re such a— such a whore,” Jinu spat.

“And I can’t believe you’re such a fool. Did you really think that the golden honmoon could be sealed by someone at war with himself? There was never a plan, Jinu, because you can’t seal the honmoon with a lie.”

Jinu deflated, sinking in on himself as his righteous anger left him. “Until you can be honest with yourself,” said Rumi, stabbing her words into him, “there is no honmoon. There is no plan. There is no us.”

Jinu looked broken, and Rumi figured this was as good a time as any to make her exit.

* * *

She appeared in Celine’s penthouse, and was surprised how quiet it was. She’d rather expected the screaming to have started by now.

“In here!” Zoey called from Celine’s bedroom.

Rumi walked in, and realized why it was so muffled. Zoey and Mira had found Celine’s strap-on, and jammed it as far as they could down her throat. Celine was struggling to breathe around the leather straps that fell out of her mouth like some sort of demented parasitic octopus while Zoey held her arms behind her back.

“Found them!” Mira called from the kitchen. She came back into the bedroom with a set of steak knives Rumi knew Celine had never used. “Oh good, Rumi, you’re here. Can you help Zoey hold her arms?”

Zoey took one arm, and Rumi the other, and pinned them up against the wall. Celine seemed to be in shock, and barely struggled. It was as if she couldn’t accept what was happening to her.

Mira started on Zoey’s side. “Do you think we need to put these into the studs to hold her?” asked Zoey.

“Do you have a stud finder?” asked Mira. Zoey shook her head. “Then this’ll have to do.”

With one quick motion Mira snapped her arm forward, twisting her hips and shoulders to drive all her strength into the point of the knife. It punched through Celine’s wrist and deep into the wall behind her.

That got Celine struggling. She started shouting, crying into the straps that filled her mouth, and trying to move her other arm out of the way. She wasn’t nearly as strong as the demons, though, and Mira quickly repeated the process on the other side. Then she bent both knife handles upwards, to keep Celine’s wrists from sliding off the ends.

She stood back and admired her handiwork. Celine was nailed to the wall, her arms stretched out in cruciform pose, breathing heavily.

“You know, I thought the dildo in her throat would be satisfying, but I think I’d like to hear her scream some,” said Zoey. She reached forward and yanked, pulling the plastic dick free of Celine’s throat, and, from the flecks of blood that came with it, doing some damage along the way.

“You can’t— you can’t get away with this,” said Celine in a hoarse voice.

“Oh, but I already have,” said Zoey.

Rumi stared at her. “That doesn’t really make sense here, Zoey.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I’ve just always wanted to say that.”

Mira was looking at Celine thoughtfully. “I have an idea,” she said at last. “Be right back.” Then she vanished in a puff of red smoke.

Celine’s eyes bugged out. “What— what are you?”

“We’re your worst nightmare!” said Zoey. Then she turned to Rumi. “That one made sense, right?”

“Totally!” said Rumi. “And the way you made your voice all gravely, that was really good.”

“Aww, thanks unnie,” said Zoey. “What do you want to do to her while we wait for Mira.”

“I had a thought,” said Rumi. She rummaged through the wine cooler Celine kept in her room. “Celine really liked it when I shoved a bottle like this up her ass.” Rumi held up a bottle of incredibly valuable champagne. Then she slammed the bottle against the bedside table, smashing it into pieces. Champagne flew everywhere as the bottle exploded, and Rumi was left holding the splintered ends of the broken glass bottle. “So let’s do it again.”

Rumi stepped over to Celine, and with one claw ripped off her slacks and the underwear underneath them.

“Rumi,” Celine begged. “You don’t have to do this.”

Rumi simply reached down. Celine tried to keep her legs closed, but Zoey was there to help force them open. Rumi used one hand to spread Celine’s ass wide so she could get at her anus, then took the splintered bottleneck and slid it into Celine. There was some resistance, of course, but Rumi simply kept pushing until it went in.

“The cork’s still in it,” remarked Zoey.

“That’s good,” said Rumi. She looked at her handiwork, the corked bottle end sticking just a little ways out of Celine’s asshole like a bloody butt plug. “I don’t want her to bleed out before Mira has a chance to do whatever she was planning.”

As if summoned, Mira appeared in the middle of the bedroom, holding a bag from a local hardware store. From the bag she pulled a cordless drill, and a small box of screws. They were thick screws with large ridges, meant for mounting frames to drywall.

Mira smiled at them. “I want to do something special,” she said to Celine, “so that you’ll think about us when we’re gone.” The three of them pulled Celine’s top off and ripped off her bra, leaving her naked and pinned to the wall.

She could still struggle, though, so Rumi and Zoey both helped hold her down. Mira moved with precision, unhurried, as she fit the screwdriver bit into the drill and then lined up the drywall screw. She slowly pulled on Celine’s nipple, getting a good bit of flesh between her fingers, before setting the tip of the screw against Celine’s skin and squeezing the trigger on the drill.

It was messy. Celine screamed, and thrashed, and even though Rumi and Zoey were holding her with demon strength, the fact was that drywall hanging screws were simply not meant to be used as nipple piercings. Still, Mira persevered, and after a false start that was too close to the end of the nipple and tore out, and then another minute or so of drilling through a thicker section of flesh to get it in deeper, she was done.

“It looks great on you!” gushed Zoey. “I mean, it probably will, once the bleeding slows down.”

The second one went even smoother, now that Mira knew what to expect.

The girls stood back to admire their handiwork. “Just like I imagined,” whispered Zoey happily, while blood slowly dripped from Celine onto her expensive carpet.

“We should probably get going though,” said Mira, as she checked the time. “Any last hurrahs?”

“Yeah,” said Rumi, “could you move her to the ground for me?”

Rumi walked to the bathroom and fetched a thick hand towel while Mira and Zoey pulled the knives out of the wall and let Celine fall to the ground. Rumi took off her pants and underwear and knelt next to Celine. Celine looked up at Rumi. “I love you,” she said.

Rumi said nothing. She laid out the hand towel over Celine’s face, then knelt over it, squeezing her head between her thighs. Then Rumi peed into the towel, soaking it through completely until it blocked Celine’s ability to breath. Celine thrashed, fighting for air, but Zoey and Mira held her arms and Rumi simply squeezed her thighs tighter. She leaned forward and punched Celine hard in the stomach, then did it a few more times, driving her fist into Celine’s gut over and over until she was sure Celine’s vomit had joined the piss blocking her airway.

Celine’s struggles grew weaker, and then stilled. Rumi squatted on her face for a while longer, just for good measure. Then she jammed a claw through Celine’s ribcage into her heart, because you can never be too sure.

“We good?” asked Mira.

“Yeah,” Rumi said at last, “just— give me a minute. You two go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

Mira and Zoey looked at each other and shrugged. They set a fire in the room and teleported away.

Rumi fetched a fresh cloth from the bathroom, wetted it with clean water, and wiped off Celine’s face. Once it was clean she held Celine’s body, gently, cradling her head as the flames grew around them and alarms started to sound. “I love you too,” she whispered, and then teleported away.

* * *

Rumi walked around a bit outside, letting the fresh air clear her head. Despite everything that had happened, it wasn’t actually that late, and the streets were still busy.

It took her a while, ducking through the crowds with her hair hidden, but eventually she found what she was looking for. She pulled the hood down, careful to keep in enough shadow that only a few people could see her.

“You’re… you’re Rumi!” a kid said. She was probably ten or eleven; young enough that she really shouldn’t have been wandering around by herself.

Rumi smiled down at her. “I’m Rumi.”

“I… just a second,” the kid said, all excited. She was rummaging through a dingy backpack she’d been carrying. Finally she pulled out a sheet of paper from among a number of others, all slightly crumpled. A marker fell out and she dove to pick it up off the ground. “I drew this for you!” she said at last.

Rumi looked down at a picture of what must have been her, and she assumed Jinu. Apparently their brief appearance together at the fan signing had had more of an effect than she’d realized.

“You have a beautiful soul,” the girl whispered.

Rumi laughed, even as tears ran down her cheeks. “I don’t,” she said. “I really don’t. But you do. You have a beautiful, perfect soul.” She sighed. “Look, this probably doesn’t mean much, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, kid.” Then she opened her mouth wide, wider than should have been possible for the body she wore, and pulled.

* * *

She met back up with the rest of HUNTR/X at Namsan Tower. Zoey took one look at her and wrapped her up in a hug. Mira narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say anything. They nodded to each other and slipped back to the demon realm.

Somehow, the stage at Namsan was lined up, in a metaphysical sense, with Gwi-Ma’s altar. Rumi appeared right in front of his flames. They were bigger, and brighter, and darker than Rumi had ever seen them.

“I’m ready to feast,” Gwi-Ma told them. “Are you ready to forget?” he asked Zoey. She simply nodded.

He pushed his power into the world, and the honmoon disintegrated completely, until Rumi could see both worlds laid over each other, the stage she stood on in Seoul and the altar in hell. Soon they’d be the same place.

“HUNTR/X! HUNTR/X! HUNTR/X!” the crowd chanted. As more and more people filed in, they all looked to the stage, a strange combination of hope and resignation in their eerily similar eyes. Rumi could even spot the Saja Boys among them, standing out in their bright costumes. Romance, Abby, Mystery, Baby—they were all there, and seemed to be as entranced as the rest of the crowd, who didn’t even notice that the idols they’d adored earlier that very day now walked among them.

And then it was time for their song.

“I’m a little sad,” Zoey sighed.

“Because…” Rumi lowered her voice to the barest whisper, “because of all the people we’re about to murder?”

“Because she wanted Celine to hear her song and admit it’s better than what the SM Entertainment writers came up with, but she can’t because you already smothered her with your pee,” said Mira.

“Right,” said Rumi, as Zoey nodded sadly. “Well. Water under the bridge, right? Let’s do this.”

They stepped forward, and began to sing.

The other times they had sung, Rumi had marveled at how easily it had come to them—how the music had simply flowed out, entrancing their fans and stealing their hearts away from the Saja Boys.

Those times were nothing compared to this. The energy that flowed through Rumi—Gwi-Ma’s power out in the world—it captured the entire stadium, and Rumi could almost feel the souls flowing through her as the fans screamed her name over and over.

Rumi soared into the air, her voice filling the stadium in a way that went beyond the microphones and the amplifiers and the speakers, and she watched the crowds below her move like a herd. She could see the Saja Boys, still sparkling bright amongst the dull masses, but entranced just like they were, walking towards the flaming gates of hell that Gwi-Ma had brought into the world.

Soon they’d all be consumed, and then it would be too late. The power of the hunters would be broken for at least a generation, and Gwi-Ma would turn Korea into hell on earth.

At least, though Rumi, even as she hit the chorus with even more intensity, if I have to be in hell, I get to be in charge. It wouldn’t be the same, she knew; the human world filled with ash and decay. But there wasn’t anything she could do about that now.

Then, just as Rumi and Mira and Zoey reached the climax of their song, she heard it. Faint, but strong, like a loud sound muffled by distance and time. A clear note from the edge of the stadium. The crowd parted, and Rumi made out a figure, tiny in the distance, walking towards her.

She smiled. He came, she thought. After everything, he came.

Chapter Text

Jinu walked into the stadium beneath Namsan Tower to confront his worst nightmare. The stage in the center was filled with dark fire that reached high into the arena, and the crowds marched, blank-eyed, towards it as if they were about to cast themselves into the demonic flames. High above it all three figures floated in the air, their arms outstretched as if to welcome the masses about to sacrifice themselves.

Jinu walked into the stadium, and spoke the only words he could.

We are hunters, voices strong
Slaying demons with our song
Fix the world and make it right
When darkness finally meets the light.

And then the flames spoke to him.

“You come here,” said a deep voice with an edge of mockery, “like this? You think you can fix the world? You can’t even fix yourself.”

“I can’t,” admitted Jinu. It was something he’d realized, in the moments between leaving his mentor beneath the shrine tree and arriving here. He’d spent so long working so hard to fix his patterns, but maybe there simply wasn’t anything to fix. Maybe this was simply who he was.

“And now everyone finally sees you for what you really are,” said the voice. Gwi-Ma, Jinu realized. This must be Gwi-Ma. For some reason he’d always pictured the demon king as a demon; more or less the same shape as the other demons he killed, perhaps larger and more intimidating. This, though…

“They do,” said Jinu in response to Gwi-Ma’s taunt. Ironically, it had been Rumi’s betrayal that had opened his eyes. Without realizing it she had let him know what he needed to do.

“And the honmoon is gone.”

“It is,” said Jinu. He took a breath and stared down that tower of flame. “So we can make a new one.” Then Jinu started to sing.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. He’d come here half expecting to die, resigned to the possibility—probability even—that Gwi-Ma would gladly do what Daniel had been unwilling to and destroy him.

As he sang, though, he realized that Rumi had been right, even if she hadn’t realized the full impact of her words. The connection he felt, finally admitting who he was and displaying the patterns that had haunted him all his life, went beyond any concert he’d ever done. There was so much he still didn’t understand—why he had these patterns in the first place, for one thing—but he could accept who he was without getting the answers he so desperately wanted.

“Stop that song!” Gwi-Ma roared.

Masses of demons poured onto the stage from the depths of hell itself. Jinu’s sword flashed into his hand and he swept it in a fast arc. There were so many of them he wasn’t even fighting individuals, simply hacking away at an undifferentiated mass that flowed across the stage like a landslide.

The numbers didn’t matter, though. Jinu could feel the honmoon flowing through him like he’d never felt it before, guiding every stroke as he finally, finally realized what had been missing.

He reached the other Saja Boys and they threw their arms around each other. He wasn’t naive enough to think that everything was resolved—there were still hurts to discuss, lies to peel away and wounds that would only heal with time—but for right now they were together, facing down the demon king himself.

They turned and moved towards the mass of flame as their song filled the stadium. Two of the HUNTR/X demons flew down to lead masses of underlings, and the Saja Boys split up to deal with them. Abby and Romance took on the taller one, while Mystery and Baby tackled the tiny one that seemed to move around faster than the eye could track.

Jinu kept moving toward Gwi-Ma.

But Gwi-Ma was doing something—Jinu couldn’t tell what. It was as if the mass of flame were taking a deep breath, growing larger sucking in the souls around it. Jinu glanced to the side and saw that the smaller demons—the faceless ones that overwhelmed with sheer numbers—were disintegrating. They turned to dust and flew back to Gwi-Ma, spawning new flames as Gwi-Ma grew even taller, and then, horrifyingly, giant flaming eyes emerged from the top of the mass of flames. They looked down at Jinu, as if he were a bug Gwi-Ma was trying to crush.

“Your voice,” Gwi-Ma roared, “will not… defeat… ME!”

A lance of fire shot out from Gwi-Ma. Jinu barely got his sword up in time, blocking the flames with bright starlit steel.

The flames kept coming, though. They battered him, forcing him to one knee as he held up his sword against them. He could feel them around the shining barrier the honmoon gifted him, seeking a way in. The heat licked at Jinu, and sweat began dripping off of him. The flames pushed harder, and Jinu screamed his defiance at them, at Gwi-Ma.

He didn’t know how much longer he could hold his arms up against the heat and pressure. Jinu wondered, through the effort, if this was how he would die.

And then, as sudden as it hit, the pressure was gone. Jinu stood up, amazed, to see Rumi standing in front of him, her back taking the brunt of Gwi-Ma’s flames.

“Rumi!” Jinu cried. “No!”

“I’m sorry,” gasped Rumi, “for— everything.” She worked to hide a grimace of pain as the flames ate into her back.

“I wanted to set you free,” said Jinu.

“You did,” said Rumi. She was crying now, Jinu could see. “You gave me my soul back. And now, I give it to you.”

A stream of silver light left Rumi and wrapped itself around Jinu. He could feel the power there, invigorating him.

“You were right,” whispered Rumi, “it was real.” And then she was gone in a puff of red smoke.

Jinu stood tall, and flashed his sword forward. He wasn’t surprised to see that it had changed; longer and heavier now, with a curved edge. Rumi’s soul—her beautiful, perfect soul—would always be a part of it, now.

Jinu screamed and flung the blade forward, sending a beam of pure light into Gwi-Ma that sliced through the center of the flames.

He looked to either side of him, and saw his bandmates fighting the other HUNTR/X demons. Abby and Romance pressed the taller one, until Abby yelled “no… more… boobs!” and swept his poleaxe across the demon’s chest, disintegrating her completely. Jinu wasn’t sure what that was about, but he didn’t have time to ask questions. On the other side of the stadium, Mystery and Baby closed in on the tiny demon, who flitted back and forth just out of reach of their blades. Finally Baby pinned an arrow into her long robe, keeping her still long enough for Mystery to jab a dagger through her head as it exploded in red smoke.

They came together, the five of them, as they always should have been, and rose into the air. The crowd filling the stadium chanted along with them, their souls filling with song and energizing the hunters in turn. Higher and higher they rose, until they floated above the dying flames of the demon king.

Somehow they knew what to do. In a burst of light they flared their power out over the stadium, over Seoul, over the whole country. Gwi-Ma died beneath them in a guttering roar, while around them the honmoon rippled and shifted, now silver, now gold, until finally it settled.

“It’s golden,” said Romance. His face held an awe that Jinu had never seen there. The group came down, slowly, the sky somehow bright with the morning sun. The fans filling the stadium cheered, or cried, or held each other.

Jinu laughed with relieved joy even as a tear slid down his cheek.

“I’ll never forget you,” he whispered to the girl he loved, the girl who had betrayed him, the girl who had sacrificed herself, in the end, to do the right thing.

Then the Boys were striding towards the crowds, shaking hands, taking hugs from fans, talking with the souls who made today’s triumph possible. Jinu walked to join them. “I’ll never forget you,” he promised himself.

Chapter Text

She woke in a large bed, and looked around the room to remind herself where she was. The room was bathed in deep blue light; they’d left the windows open and the sky outside glowed with early morning twilight.

She did a double-take when she saw the woman sleeping in bed next to her; then her breathing slowed as it came back to her. It had been two weeks and she still wasn’t used to Mira’s new face: rounder than her last one, especially with sleep softening the sharp lines of her mouth, and framed with hair that Mira had shorn down to a spiky pixie cut and dyed blonde.

She looked around and realized that Zoey was gone. That must have been what had woken her up. The three of them had checked into a suite with separate bedrooms when they’d arrived at the resort, but by the middle of the first night they’d been cuddled together in one of the giant beds and they hadn’t gone back. The nightmares weren’t quite as bad, with someone else there.

She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Mira, and padded to the back door. One side of their suite opened to the rest of the resort, but the sliding glass door she opened led out onto a deck overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. She walked across the deck and down the wooden steps to the beach. It wasn’t completely private; on either side were other suites much like theirs with their own access, but this early in the morning it was deserted.

Except for a small figure, holding her knees to her chest on a long beach chair and staring out over the water. Rumi walked across the sand, cool and damp from the morning dew and sticky under her feet. She sat down next to Zoey and put her arms around the smaller girl. Zoey looked different, too. She was even smaller than she’d been as a member of HUNTR/X, and one eyebrow was cut through with a scar, a last reminder of Mystery Saja’s dagger.

“I keep seeing their faces,” said Zoey, still looking out over the water. “Everyone we killed. We killed so many people Rumi, how did we do that?” Rumi held her tighter, and Zoey bent her head forward, as more tears fell down her face. “I just… I can’t stop seeing them.”

Rumi said nothing as the familiar helplessness washed over her. The three of them hadn’t realized how much Gwi-Ma controlled their guilt, their regret, until he was gone. Even after decades as a demon, she had to admit she’d never imagined how pervasive his control was, how he kept their shame from them so that he could be the one to dole it out. Now that he was destroyed, and any tendrils connecting them to the demon world were severed by the newly-forged golden honmoon, all the feelings Gwi-Ma had been distorting were rushing back, like a river dammed until one day a small crack led to a flood.

“Yeah,” she said, “it’s… um…”

For lack of any other ideas, she handed Zoey the bottle of soju she’d brought with her from the suite. Zoey took a long drink straight from it and then leaned her head back down on Rumi’s shoulder.

The edge of the sun had just crested the horizon, spilling bright light across the sea in front of them, when Rumi realized that Zoey had fallen asleep. She laid her back gently in the beach chair, and arranged one of the thick towels the resort provided around her like a blanket. She hoped that the noise of the rolling waves on the beach would keep Zoey asleep for a while. She thought about going back to sleep herself.

“Hey,” said Mira, standing over them, “she okay?” She gestured to Zoey, who had started to snore.

Rumi simply shrugged.

Mira sat next to them. She’d wrapped herself in a robe, with a high-necked pajama shirt underneath. Even without anybody else to see her, she was still self-conscious about the deep scar across her breasts.

“Anything left in that bottle?” she asked.

It was literally first thing in the morning—the sun hadn’t finished clearing the horizon yet—and Rumi knew they had to be more careful now. The physical healing that came with the ability to change their forms was likely no longer accessible to them. They didn’t know what the future would hold. Would the honmoon, now golden, stay that way forever? Did it need to be renewed somehow? Would a new demon king pick up the remains of Gwi-Ma’s realm and enslave them again? Nobody could say, but for the moment at least it seemed like these bodies were all they were going to have for a long time. Best to take care of them, then. And yet…

“Yeah,” said Rumi, and handed over the bottle. They’d take care of themselves, she told herself… but they needed to get through today first.

Mira took a swig and stared out over the water herself. They sat together and watched a flight of gulls wing their way over the shore and out across the sea, a wheeling mass of chaos that flapped and dove and screamed at each other.

Rumi stretched herself out, feeling the skin on her back tug. Mira and Zoey had taken blades to effect their escape, but Rumi hadn’t come out unscathed either; the damage Gwi-Ma’s flames had done had deep burns across her back, down her arms and onto her butt, and in the rush they hadn’t been able to get someone to look at them for a few days. The resort doctor had tutted about “party girls” and “pranks gone wrong,” but at least she’d been able to help somewhat.

Mira noticed her stretching. “This might not have been our best plan,” she commented.

“It was the only way,” insisted Rumi. “If the Saja Boys knew we were still alive we’d have to explain the giant pile of bodies we left sooner or later. Plus you know they’d want to keep an eye on us—”

“And then we wouldn’t be able to blow our massive new fortune on luxury resorts, and booze, and hookers,” said Mira. “I know, it beats the alternative. Of course, you don’t have a massive divot across your tits.”

Rumi grimaced. “I am sorry,” she said.

Mira gave her a hard look. “You don’t have to be sorry,” she said.

It had been tight, in the end. The girls had teleported away from the Saja Boys at Namsan Tower, stretching out their disappearance the way Rumi had coached them and leaving just as the hunters’ blades descended, to fool the hunters into thinking they were dead. They’d gone to the demon realm instead, but had only moments to change to new bodies, both to distance themselves from the one-time kpop idols and to inhabit a form that would hopefully last for decades, even cut off from hell living in the human world. They’d emerged just in time for the honmoon to seal itself golden behind them.

“I keep meaning to tell you something,” said Mira. She didn’t look at Rumi, but stared down the beach instead.

“Yeah?” said Rumi.

“The kid — your—our kid, you know.” Yes, Rumi knew. “I didn’t actually kill him.”

Rumi rolled the words over in her mind. There was too much there to make sense of all at once, so she picked at the edges.

“Why not?” Rumi asked. That was as good a place as any to start.

Mira thought about this for a minute. “I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “I didn’t remember you, I didn’t remember why I shouldn’t just obey Gwi-Ma and hurt you, but the baby… I guess I just didn’t see why he needed to die.”

“You had blood on your hands,” said Rumi.

Mira turned her head and gave Rumi a pitying look. “Blood is pretty easy to come by.”

“Okay…” said Rumi. “So…” Her brain was refusing to process what came after that.

“So, he’s still out there, I assume. Like if you wanted to look him up or anything.”

“What did you do with the baby then? If you didn’t kill it?”

“Found a rich neighborhood and left him on a doorstep,” said Mira.

A horrible picture was emerging from the fog in Rumi’s mind. “So the baby—”

“Your son,” interjected Mira.

“The baby,” insisted Rumi, “a half-demon baby, was raised by a random family in Seoul who didn’t know he was half-demon and probably couldn’t even see his patterns. Which I assume he had, because he was a half-demon.”

“Oh he had patterns,” said Mira, “I could already see tiny ones on his arms. And yeah, it was a risk, but I figured humans with the sight are rare enough, and it’s not like I had time to stick around and see if they noticed anything strange.”

Rumi swallowed. “I don’t think we should look him up, Mira. He’s living his own life, he’s probably like twenty by now—”

Mira snorted. “He’d be barely seventeen.”

“—probably like twenty by now,” Rumi repeated more forcefully, “and has a great life, and doesn’t need any of—” she gestured to the three of them “—this in his life.”

Mira looked down, considered that they were drinking hard liquor at six thirty in the morning, and shrugged to concede the point.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Like, in general?” said Rumi. Mira nodded. “I don’t know. I kind of like it here. It’s relaxing, and the Thai officials don’t ask stupid questions.”

Mira smiled. “Questions like, ‘How did Celine authorize fifty million dollars in royalty payments to HUNTR/X an hour after she was brutally murdered?’”

Rumi smiled back. “Questions like that.” Then her smile faded. “Wait, I thought you said we had sixty million?”

Mira shrugged. “Fifty million in royalty payments, and another ten auctioning off the videos.”

“Our music videos? But we didn’t have the copyright—” Rumi paused at Mira’s expression. “The other videos? You sold those?”

“HUNTR/X was famous, perverts go nuts for that stuff, I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Rumis_best_orgasms_EVER went for one and a half million, but the biggest payout was for the one of you pissing yourself, some buyer in Dubai paid three million for that. Then lesser amounts for the other ones.”

“You sold all of them?”

“It’s not like it’s your actual body, what do you care that some Russian oil baron is jerking off to Celine raping you?”

“You’re such a cunt, Mira.”

“You know you love me. Plus, it’s like you said, think of all the hookers we could get for that extra money.”

“You’re not getting any hookers,” said Rumi.

“No?” said Mira, smiling at her.

“No,” said Rumi. She slid over and climbed into Mira’s lap.

“Are you really just going to stay here?” said Mira.

“For a while, I think,” said Rumi. “They’ve got this ‘world-famous’ mental health treatment, whatever. I kind of feel like Zoey could use some of that.” They looked down at their unconscious maknae.

“And,” Rumi went on, “ I could probably use some too. Therapy, or whatever. There’s things…” Rumi didn’t have the words for what she wanted. “I just need things to be different.”

“You need things to be different,” said Mira flatly. Rumi could feel her tense underneath her. “Fine,” she said after a moment. “That’s fine. You just stay here, and I’ll do, I don’t know, whatever. Travel the world. Fuck the hookers you’re not getting. The whole works.”

“Mira—”

“No, don’t worry about me, I’ll be living it up—”

“IDIOT!” Rumi shouted. “MORON! FUCKNUTS! Will you fucking listen to me?” Finally Mira paused.

“I was hoping,” said Rumi, “that you would stay here too. With me. In my bed. Cuddling every night, face between my thighs, pinning me down and licking my asshole, the whole shebang.”

Mira looked stunned. “That’s… you want…”

“W never really got a chance before,” said Rumi, “but I thought now, maybe, with Gwi-Ma gone, we could try this properly.”

Mira sat for a moment. “I’d like that,” she said. She pulled Rumi’s face up to hers and kissed her, gently, nibbling on her lip before clamping down on it hard.

“Ow,” said Rumi. “You don’t have fangs any more, dumbass.”

Mira smirked at her. “You still like it.”

Rumi smiled back. “I still like it.”

They kissed for a while longer, while Zoey snored on the beach chair next to them.

“So,” Mira said when they finally came up for air, “therapy?”

“I dunno, it’ll probably be lame,” said Rumi. “But I just want— I just want to be able to live with myself, you know?”

“Yeah,” said Mira, “I know.” She held up the bottle of soju as if she were making a toast. “To living with ourselves,” she said, and took a swig.

“To living with ourselves,” repeated Rumi, as she took the bottle from Mira.

They swallowed the burning liquor as they watched the sun climb into the sky, while the gulls flew over the sea.