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Rumi knew that, despite her (many, many) flaws, she was intelligent. Celine had raised her well, private tutors for everything from English to Martial Arts, paired with a large library and private hunter lessons. Celine had given her every advantage, and Rumi had attacked all of it with a fierce hunger. Paired with her natural demonic strength and her taught grace, Rumi had picked up most skills quickly.
She read at a college level by the time she was ten, in Korean, English, and Spanish. She could take down a man twice her size without issue while answering Celine’s questions about various singing techniques before she turned thirteen, and she could hit high notes most singers could only dream of while killing demons.
Rumi was smart; she knew that.
And it was because she was smart that she knew she should be running right now.
Mira and Zoey knew what she was now; Mira and Zoey the demon hunters knew what she was and had their weapons drawn, and Rumi’s voice had just threatened the Honmoon they were sworn to protect.
She should run- should act like the demon she was and run away from the demon hunters, despite how desperately she wanted to be near them.
She should find Jinu. He was a demon too, a demon who hated what he was and understood Rumi, who had promised to make the Saja Boys lose tonight.
Clearly, he hadn’t.
If he hadn’t been able to stop what happened on stage, the revealing of what she was, then she didn’t have time to waste. She needed to find him, needed to save him from whatever punishment Gwi-Ma or the other Saja Boys were doing to him.
If he hadn’t even tried, if he had known about the Saja Boy’s plan, had planned it himself- She should find him and kill him. Her reputation was already ruined, the Honmoon horrifically weak; she should kill them before they did whatever else they were planning, witnesses be damned.
She cared about Jinu, more than she probably should, considering they’d known each other for maybe a month and had tried to kill each other more than once, but she did. She wanted to be around him, to save him and make him happy and be happy with him-
But she didn’t love him. Not yet.
She could, easily, given time. He was undeniably handsome, was funny and sweet when he wanted to be, and had so quickly broken down Rumi’s walls. Given time, she could see her brief moments of fluster and affection growing to kisses and dates and being in love with him.
She should go find him.
But Mira and Zoey were right there- Mira and Zoey.
(They’d been her first friends when Celine had introduced them, Mira’s hair shorter and frowns deeper, Zoey’s boundless energy near constantly twinged with anxiety and doubt, but both inexplicably kind. The first night, after they’d met and trained and sang together and Rumi had sat on her bed with her book practically vibrating with an odd joy from the mere memory Zoey shoving a handful of American Candy into Rumi’s hoodie pocket when Celine left the room for a quick phone call and her delighted giggles as she scampered off towards Mira to continue sparring. Her upper arm still tingling with a phantom sensation from Mira’s shoulder bumping against her own so casually it could have been an accident when they’d separated for the night to go shower and sleep.
She liked them, liked them a lot. The Honmoon sang around them so brightly it almost burned, connecting all three of them in a way that Celine had attempted to describe to her before but had wildly understated.
She’d liked them even more when, despite Celine’s strict curfew, Zoey had knocked on her window, gleefully climbing in when Rumi had opened it with frantic whispers. Mira followed her in, a slightly bemused but mostly curious expression on her face, as if she wasn’t quite sure why she’d agreed to this. Both of them had been wearing backpacks, full of blankets, pillows, and even more candies and snacks to share. They’d piled onto Rumi’s bed, Zoey in the middle as she queued up a movie on her phone. It was one of the few times Rumi had ever disobeyed Celine, and yet even as she tensed at every creak of the hallway, she never once considered asking them to leave.)
They were different, were more than Jinu, than even Celine; more than anyone. They were the loves of her life in whatever form they wanted that love from her.
How could she run away from the people she wanted nothing more than to spend her life close to?
(She had been so close, so close to finally being able to fully lean into Zoey’s hugs, to taking off her long sleeves during morning treadmill runs with Mira, to going to that damn bathhouse with them.)
(She had been so close to being something good enough to let them see.)
She couldn't run from them. (Rumi was tired, so tired.)
But she also couldn't stay here, not when she was falling apart like this. Even as she stared at her girls, she could see the pulsing light of her patterns, the light growing as she felt the marks grow and burn deeper into her skin. She was shaking, her breathing harsh and her nails digging into her arms as she fought for even a semblance of control, to bite back the despair that was only deepening the cracks in the Honmoon.
Rumi was dangerous right now- more demon than hunter, more demon than human.
And demons needed to be hunted, needed to be killed so that they couldn’t steal souls, couldn’t hurt people.
Rumi was too smart to be properly hunted, and too loyal and destroyed to be challenging prey, but she could be killed. Truthfully, she should have been killed long ago, should have had the mistake of her existence corrected before she ever had the chance to hurt anyone. But here she stood, alive and aching and with the blood of so many on her hands as her actions, her voice, her lies threatened thousands if not millions more.
Rumi may have been too dumb to run, but she was smart enough to know she needed to be killed.
Celine had spent the first half of Rumi’s childhood fighting the urge to kill her, to kill the thing that she’d promised to protect. She’d spent the latter half half regretting that she hadn’t, gaze tightening with every inch of Rumi’s skin that her pattern claimed.
(The first and only time they’d fought, truly fought, Rumi’s voice had gone only a smidge deeper and her eye had flickered yellow for only a moment --standing on the far side of the kitchen as Celine clutched a chipped coffee mug that she refused to get rid of tight in one hand and clenched the other at her side—and it had been enough trigger whatever instincts Celine usually fought down around her goddaughter, and she reached out to pull her Hwandudaedo from the Honmoon, mug set aside and a defensive stance taken before Rumi even had time to process the weapon’s sudden appearance.
Rumi had frozen, throat suddenly tight and warm as she stared at Celine’s grip on the blade.
She’d choked out half a word, her patterns growing across the top of her shoulders.
Celine had sighed, deep and dark, and set down Rumi’s mother’s mug on the counter with deliberate and stiff gentleness, before stalking past Rumi—who still stood shock-still – and out of the room, sword still in hand.
The next morning, Rumi had made Celine’s coffee out of nervous habit, and the woman had accepted it with her usual tired hum of gratitude and an unusual soft kiss to her forehead.
They had never spoken about the incident again.
But from that day forward, whenever Rumi took Celine down a little too hard during training, whenever she ran too fast or got more than slightly annoyed, Rumi could see the twitch of her hands towards the Honmoon surrounding her.
Her rare gentleness and affection were meant for the woman that Rumi had killed with her very existence, the woman that Celine had loved like Rumi loved Mira, like Rumi loved Zoey. Rumi’s eyes, her focus, her voice- they were all gifts from her mother, and so Celine could bring herself to love those parts of her.
But Rumi herself was a curse from her father, a corruption of her mother and a constant threat to the very Honmoon that Celine had dedicated her life to protecting.
(Now, shaking and stumbling and slouching in the poorly lit room, one eye glowing an unnatural yellow, and her voice having just done far more harm than good- Rumi was nothing of her mother, and worse than her father could have ever possibly been.
Celine, for all that she had tried not to, hated Rumi. Rumi could never bring herself to hate her for it. She had hoped that after the Honmoon was sealed, that after Rumi’s hair turned dark like her mother’s and she had finally done the duty that Celine had raised her for, that Celine’s hatred would fade along with Rumi’s patterns.
But Rumi had failed, had worse than failed, had become the very threat that Celine had feared. All that was left for Rumi to do was try desperately to fix what she could.
Celine would probably kill her if Rumi went to her and asked. Would probably do what was necessary and put her down like the demon she was, the demon she had become, despite both of their best efforts. She might even relish the excuse or at least find relief in finally fulfilling her duty.
Or Rumi could do it herself, save Celine the trouble.
She could find a demon, any demon, and let them tear her apart, see if they could find a soul in the sludge of her.
But Rumi was a coward, scared of dying yet even more scared of dying alone.
Rumi, selfish and bleeding to her core, desperately wanted her last moments to be with somebody, anybody who loved her.
(Celine didn’t, couldn’t, when she looked like this. Rumi was far too gone; she doubted that Celine would even be able to look at her, let alone see any hint of the woman she’d loved.
Rumi's walls separating Rumi the hunter from Rumi the demon had collapsed, and Rumi hadn't been able to pretend that Celine loved her since she was a very small child.)
But Zoey and Mira, bright and sharp and kind and wonderful and hers-
They had loved Rumi the hunter, loved her enough to hate Rumi the demon just as Celine had loved Rumi's mother enough to hate her.
If she had to be killed-
(And she did, she knew she did-- She was a demon. They couldn't, shouldn’t trust her not to hurt somebody, let alone fight by their side-- they needed her gone if they had any chance of defeating the Saja boys.)
She didn’t know if she could bear it to die without them, if only to pretend she could still feel that love, even if she knew it was meant for a Rumi that had never truly existed.
She wavered where she stood, decision made, and her self-preservation screaming in agony. She took a half step forward, watching as they stepped back to match her movements. She pulled one of her hands away from her arm, knees shaking with effort just not to give out, and nails bloody as she clawed at Honmoon for her weapon, the Honmoon surrendering it with a whimper.
She summoned her blade to her hand-- magic a shaky mix of stark blue and bleeding red. Zoey's arms went down slightly in shock, eyes wide-- Mira's eyes did the same for only a moment before narrowing as she stepped further in front of Zoey and crouched slightly.
It was another sharp pain, a knife through her chest-- realizing that they thought there was a likelihood, when there wasn't even a possibility-- that she would ever intentionally hurt them. She let herself collapse to the ground, not an ounce of grace left in her body, and her blade nearly scraped the floor as her knees hit the ground harshly. The floor was cold and predictably hard, a small puff of air catching on the sharp edges of her lungs as it fought to escape her. The ringing in her ears that had receded when she first saw her girls returned with a pleasant numbness, settling her with the knowledge that she was finally doing the right thing.
Neither of the hunters moved to take her weapon.
Rumi corrected her form, brought her shoulders back to bear her neck as she straightened her back. She’d kneeled before, falling under the weight of her shame and failure, and Mira and Zoey deserved her best, even as her shame rested heavily in her hands; the hands that held her divine hunter’s weapon. She stole only a glance at her girls, quickly correcting herself and lowering her eyes when she saw their faces.
The Honmoon sobbed, but Rumi’s cheeks were dry.
(She never got to tell them she loved them.)
"What the fuck?" Mira's voice was low and raspy, and still so obviously hurt that Rumi ached just hearing it.
I’m sorry.” Even her apology was wrong, an unnatural reverberation in it that made the Honmoon shudder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Rumi?” Zoey’s voice was small and unsure, like she was waiting for something.
They wanted her to say it? To ask them to do their duty and drive her own weapon through her chest, to fix her and Celine’s mistake? The ringing in her ears turned cold again, panic seeping in at the thought that they might deny her this.
Maybe the weapon was the problem? They didn’t want to disgrace her weapon any more than it already had been, didn’t want to dirty it with her blood? Did they want her to beg? She would, would do it for them in a heartbeat, would kiss their shoes for even a chance that they might say one more kind thing to her, might kill her now instead of making her suffer through her own methods. She would beg with anything and everything left in her that they show her this last mercy, that they don’t give her the task of finding her own death.
(Her breathing is still unsteady, eyes still stinging, and panic still pounding against the edges of her veins and lungs. There is red seeping over the purple of her patterns where she’d managed to draw blood with her claws on her exposed arms, a desperate bid to ground herself that had yet to help her surface from the desperate confines of her own mind enough to stop and think, only to be struck once again.)
“We are hunters,” She recited, looking towards them again with an unsteady voice, not letting herself sing the words “voices strong.” She looked between Zoey and Mira, Zoey’s Shin-kal still halfway lowered, Mira’s mouth set and eyes unreadable in the dark. “Slaying demons with our song.”
“Rumi.”
“We are hunters,” Rumi pleaded, begging them to understand. “Our voices strong.” Her voice, once again troubled, once again useless, cracked on the word. “Our faults and weaknesses must not be seen.”
(Rumi had long suspected that Celine’s mantra was meant specifically for her, and that couldn’t have been clearer now. Rumi’s fault was on full display, literally glowing in the dark. She was the weakness of the trio, of Huntrix, of the Honmoon itself. She was the weakness of her mother's spirit and the fault of her father's lineage.
Zoey and Mira would understand, they would do their duty and not allow her to be seen for what she was any more than she already had been. They wouldn’t make her crawl to Celine, begging for her to finish the job that Mira and Zoey had all but done with their rejection of her alone.)
Neither Zoey nor Mira moved.
"Please."
She bowed forward and set her sword on the ground, finger tracing one of the patterns in an inadequate farewell, sliding across the floor towards Zoey and Mira's feet.
"I'm so tired." She could have said, “I don't want to hurt anybody else." would have been both accurate and honorable.
“Please,” she repeats instead, “However you want, I don’t care, just- please.” She squeezes her eyes shut; she can’t look at them. “I don’t want anybody but you to kill me.”
Outside, somebody drops something, metal obnoxiously clanging, then rattling as the item settled.
“Rumi...” Zoey said again, obviously fighting tears.
(Not even Zoey, kind and bright Zoey, optimistic and forgiving to a fault, could find it in her to love Rumi, to pity the kicked dog of a demon, snarling and whimpering at her feet)
Mira's boots crunched against grit on the floor as she walked forward, pace steady as always and weapon swinging slightly through the air. Despite herself, Rumi couldn't help but shrink further down even as her shoulders dropped.
(Mira is showing her mercy, is doing what Rumi cannot. Mira is fixing what Rumi broke, and soon Rumi will be able to rest. In this small way, Rumi will have done her duty.)
(Arms still bleeding from her own claws, she is still selfish despite herself. She is scared to die.)
"Get up." Her own blade is kicked to her, Rumi catching it with instinct rather than thought, a single arm raised with her head to catch the precisely pitched weapon.
Rumi looked between it and Mira blankly.
“Get. Up.” Mira gritted, eyes flashing dangerously.
Realization bloomed in Rumi’s chest like a mushroom decaying. Mira was fierce and stubborn and always ready for a fight. But she was honorable, was fair when it mattered.
She wanted Rumi to fight her.
Rumi didn’t react fast enough, if she was ever going to move at all, and then Mira’s fist was closing around her shoulder, fingers digging into her patterns as she hauled Rumi to her feet. She stumbled when Mira released her, the taller girl turning her body slightly away from Rumi, holding her Gok-Do tightly in one hand (too tightly).
No.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Rumi said, her voice near petulant if not for the tears finally beading in her throat and eyes. She says ‘hurt’ and not fight because she knows what Mira wants, knows that there’s a difference between a sparring fight and a fight fight, knows which Mira wants.
It’s the wrong thing to say, and Mira lets her know that with a quick pivot, Gok-Do swinging at her with a clean arc that Rumi reflexively blocks, her feet her back moving into a defensive position smoothly even as her head pounds and legs shake. Mira stalked toward her with a predatory energy that Rumi would normally find hot if not for the anguished fury emerging from her wild eyes and clenched jaw, as well as the situation overall.
“Why not?” Mira stated more than asked, the ‘you’ve done it already’ in her words clear, if not explicit.
Zoey steps into Rumi’s vision as Mira begins to circle her, stepping in next to Mira, lip drawn between her teeth as hurt and concern battle on her face.
“Guys-”
“Why not?” Mira interrupted. She’s angry, and Rumi knows she has every right to be.
“I’m sorry.” Rumi said again, knowing there’s not enough time for all the apologies her girls deserve. She looks to both of them. “I can’t. Not you, never you.”
And you think it’s different for us?” Zoey finally explodes, her anger finally emerging to join Mira’s; her blades held stiffly at her sides, and her own anger evident.
Oh no.
Oh no.
It’s worse than she thought. They don’t hate her enough to want her to suffer, to want to hurt her as badly as killing.
No no no they don’t understand-
If Rumi was panicked before, she was frantic now, her free hand beginning to rise defensively towards her chest.
“Please, please kill me. Please don’t leave me. I’ll just have to go to Celine if you don’t, and I don’t want to see her see me like this, please.” She heaves a breath that feels far too thin in her chest. “Please, I know I don’t deserve it, but I can’t do it myself and I’m scared and I can’t-”
“Wait, does Celine know?” Zoey asked. Rumi nods as tears stream down her face. If she lives long enough, the stress and dehydration will give her a miserable headache.
“Celine knows? You told her before us?” Mira hissed, taking clear offense.
“I didn’t tell her.” Rumi protested weakly, voice wet. “She knew from the start, before I did, really.” Mira tilts her head, mind clearly racing.
“Before you did?” Zoey questioned, “How do you sell your soul without knowing it?”
Now it was Rumi’s turn to be offended.
“I didn’t-”
“She didn’t-”
Mira speaks with her, words mirroring hers, and Zoey blinks at it.
“Rumi wouldn’t.” Mira is tiredly glaring down at her. “She wouldn’t sell her soul. She’s not stupid or cruel enough for that.” She sighed, “Besides, Celine would have killed her for it by now, would have never allowed her to sing with us.”
“My father was a demon.” Rumi swallowed to keep from choking on her own spit, the words harsh on her tongue. “Celine took me in, helped me hide it. Sealing the Honmoon was supposed to fix this.” She let herself lean against the wall next to her, sagging into it as she tried to stay standing as her adrenaline crashed again. She raised her clawed hand, a clear example, “It was supposed to fix me.”
Zoey made an offended scoffing noise that didn’t seem entirely deliberate.
“And you didn’t tell us this, why?” Mira asked, “We’re supposed to be a team.”
“I wanted to.” Rumi said, needing them to understand even as she slid further down the wall. “Every day I wanted to. I hated lying to you, to everyone. But Celine said you would hate me. You’d have every right to! I’m a demon, you’re hunters. It already wasn’t fair to you that you had to work with a demon, Celine didn’t want to risk conflict, and I didn’t-” Her voice broke again, and when she continued, her voice was small.
“I didn’t want you to hate me.”
Zoey’s Shin-Kal disappeared back into the Honmoon, and Rumi had the horrific feeling that somehow, she might be forgiven.
“You know what, it makes sense that this is some of Celine’s repression bullshit,” Mira said, suddenly most back to her usual sardonic tone. “I really should have known.” Zoey nodded.
“It does make sense.”
“W-” Rumi’s voice cracking under the pressure of her confusion, of the wild emotional turmoil and volatility of the past maybe twenty minutes. “What?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still like, incredibly pissed at you for lying, but-” Mira shrugged, “I sorta get it. I did shitty stuff because of the pressure my parents put on me, and you’ve always been a rule-follower.”
“Yeah,” Zoey agreed, wiping at her eyes as the tension began to fade from her body. She clearly saw the fight as largely over. Rumi didn’t understand. “You’re going to be on dish duty for a long time.”
“And that includes all of Zoey’s fancy hand-wash-only wooden stuff she uses for baking.” Mira stipulated, a small smile inexplicably on her face. She waved a hand at Rumi. “Now come on, we can finish talking later. Right now, I have a lot of feelings, and we have a demon boyband to beat the fuck out of.”
“But you...” Rumi struggles, “But I’m a demon. You still have to kill me.”
“Do you steal people’s souls?” Zoey asked evenly.
“No-”
“Are you going to betray us if we fight the Saja boys?” Mira asked.
“No!”
“Do you love us?” Rumi nearly growled in frustration,
“Yes, but I-”
“Then we’re good for now.” Zoey said cheerfully, “At least until we get home and have some major couch time and like a thousand naps so that we can have an actual conversation about all this when we’re not all strung out and the Honmoon isn’t in active danger.”
“But I-” Rumi felt slightly dizzy. “I hurt the Honmoon.”
“Yeah.” Mira said, “So let’s go fix it.” She stepped forward, weapon safely as her side as she held a hand out to Rumi, smile a little strained and eyes tired, but genuine.
Rumi took it with her mostly human hand, pushing herself off the wall and ending up half collapsed into Mira’s chest, who puts away her Gok-Do without a second thought to hold her. Suddenly, Rumi could smell Mira’s perfume, and sweat, and hairspray, and just broke. She sobbed into Mira’s chest as Zoey came forward to quickly wedge herself against Rumi’s back. They lowered to the ground as a group, Mira and Zoey supporting most of Rumi’s weight as she cried.
Rumi still didn’t fully understand why or how they’re forgiving her, didn’t really believe that they won’t end up having to kill her.
But they’re giving her a chance, a chance to fix what she broke, a chance to fight alongside them again.
So, when she catches her breath, when Zoey presses a kiss to her cheek and Mira does the same to her temple, all three of them breathing in hard as they steel themselves to go into battle as “Join the Pride” begins to echo through the abandoned backstage-
Rumi will take their hands and fight with them and for them. Will believe in them if not herself, will use every part of her to protect them, will reweave the Honmoon with her own two hands if that’s what it takes to stay with them, to keep their love and to keep loving them.
(And when they find their way back to their apartment early the next morning, they will pull her towards Mira’s bedroom, where her King-size Mattress will be waiting, and when they pull her in-between them with aching and exhausted bodies, she will let them, will fall asleep with Mira’s arm around her and Zoey, the youngest tucked into her chest.
And she will rest.
She will rest and apologize and talk and heal and love-
Until she isn’t tired anymore.)