Chapter Text
Zoey hummed to herself quietly as she wandered the streets of Seoul. Bucket hat and sunglasses firmly in place in her go-to ‘incognito’ fit. She moved from stall to stall in the open-air market. Her eyes scanned the items for sale, pausing only once for a particularly tasty smelling food stall. She shook her head, reminding herself of her mission: the coveted newly released limited edition leatherback sea turtle plushie. It was released by a conservation organization and all proceeds went to saving the critically endangered sea turtles- a cause after her own heart!
The only problem: the plushie release happened right before the Idol Awards and they sold out online before Zoey could order her own. They had been a smidge busy after all, defeating the notorious demon king Gwi-Ma and saving the world with a new Honmoon. And then of course a much needed trip to the bath house to celebrate. Plus many long conversations with Rumi about her patterns now that her secret was out in the open. So now her only means to obtain this plushie was by finding which stores and markets could still have any stock left. She scanned each stall that contained stuffed animals, keychains, figurines, anything that could be hiding one of those prized plushies.
Zoey passed a magazine and newspaper stand, briefly reading the headlines but pausing on one of them.
“HUNTRIX BACK AT THE TOP OF THE CHARTS”
“SAJA BOYS FALL OFF TOP 10”
It didn’t take long for the demon influence of the Saja boys to fade now that Huntrix secured the new Honmoon into place. There were no more missing person reports. She hadn’t even heard Soda Pop on the radio the last few days, even though it was ridiculously catchy. Everything was returning to normal, but Zoey still frowned at the headline.
She knew something didn’t feel right with how things ended for the Saja boys. One minute they were all fighting against Huntrix, then Jinu surprised them all by going against Gwi-Ma, but all the other Saja boys disappeared without a trace. Mira was convinced they ended up back in the demon realm when the Honmoon settled into place. But Jinu didn’t disappear.
After the Honmoon sealed, they found Jinu unconscious at the edge of the performing stage. Zoey remembered how scared Rumi looked the moment their feet touched the ground and they all saw him. She couldn’t hear over the roaring of their fans, but she saw Rumi shout his name. Rumi ran to his side immediately. They thought for sure he was gone, but as Rumi rolled him over, they saw his chest rise and fall in shallow breaths. Rumi broke down sobbing in relief; he was alive. Zoey had never seen Rumi so relieved.
If Jinu didn’t get sealed beneath the Honmoon, who knows how many other demons didn’t either. A flash of golden eyes framed by silvery hair came to the forefront of her mind.
Zoey shook the memory away and continued her shopping, though an uneasy feeling started nagging at her.
At first Zoey thought it was just her reaction from seeing headlines about the Saja boys. It had been a stressful time lately and Huntrix finally had some time to recover from everything that happened. It felt weird that the world just kept moving, unaware how close disaster had come to them all.
She weaved through shops and streets, not having any luck finding her prize. Though after a while, she stopped looking particularly closely. Zoey peered over her shoulder a couple times, but nothing was there. Her fingers danced at her sides, feeling for the comforting hum of the iridescent Honmoon below.
She must still be tired. She must be imagining things. Zoey decided maybe it was time to head home and try another day. Or maybe she’s just hungry, Zoey thought to herself, as a woman passed her holding a bowl of noodles that smelled too good to be legal. On cue, Zoey felt her stomach rumble in response. She checked the time on her phone, and sure enough she had spent the whole afternoon in the city with no plushie to show for it. The least she could do was bring home some dinner for everyone.
Zoey caught the woman with the noodles in passing, asking where she could get some of her own. She got the name of the noodle shop and typed it into her phone. It was only a couple blocks away, so Zoey started walking.
Looking at the map of directions to the noodle shop, Zoey spotted a shortcut along the way that could save her time as her stomach was growling more intently, demanding savory noodles. Maybe she would get a fried dumpling to munch on for the walk home too.
Zoey wandered between buildings, the setting sun now blocked behind rooftops.
“It’s about time you stopped walking in circles.” A gruff voice called behind Zoey. The hairs on her neck stood on end.
She turned, spotting two large men blocking the path she had just come from.
“Your wallet and phone, toss em over.” Another voice sent Zoey spinning; the way out of the alley was now blocked by a third hooded individual.
“Psh..” Zoey scoffed at the men surrounding her. “I knew I wasn’t going crazy! You weirdos had me all worried for nothing!” Her shoulders visibly relaxed.
“What?!” One of the men stepped forward. “Don’t play games, little girl. Hand your stuff over and you won’t get hurt”. She heard the click of a pocket knife springing open and saw a gleam from the man’s hand. Zoey smirked, rolling her shoulders.
“Man, you guys are in for a bad day. No one gets in between me and my dinner!” Zoey summoned a blade from the Honmoon and tossed it in the direction of the man standing alone. The blade notched firmly into the wall inches from his face- a warning shot.
“-The hell?!” The man sputtered, backing up a step as Zoey summoned another blade to her hand. But then the man’s focus switched away from her, flicking to just above her shoulder.
All of Zoey’s alarm bells went off at once as a familiar feeling assaulted her senses. Demon. And close, too. She whirled just as another figure landed near silently between her and the other two hooded men, now each brandishing pocket knives. The figure stood taller than her in a light blue hoodie pulled up to cover the top of his head. He faced away from her, obscuring his front. Something about him felt familiar. A low rumble echoed in the alleyway as the men took in their surprise challenger.
“Oh look, a pretty boy came to the girl’s rescue!” One of the men laughed. “Step aside kid, you’re a little scrawny to do much, don’t you think?”
The rumbling growl got louder as Zoey noted the person’s hands shifted from soft human skin into faded purple claws and he took a step towards her assailants. Definitely a demon. But what is he doing?
“Oooh he’s got his nails done! He might scratch us!” The pair of men guffawed and elbowed each other.
An animalistic snarl ripped from the demon’s throat and the pair of men facing him suddenly balked. Zoey watched as all of the color drained from their faces, quickly switching from amused to downright terrified. Their eyes bulged from their sockets, mouths agape.
“Whoa, what the FUCK-” The men scrambled back, tripping over their own feet and landing hard on the pavement. Knives clattered to the ground, discarded as the demon slowly stalked towards the retreating men.
The demon didn’t make any move though as the men caught their footing and hightailed it out of the alley. Zoey glanced behind her and the lone man she threw her blade at was also gone. Just as quickly as the altercation started, it was over and all was quiet. Zoey stared at the demon’s back before her, confused as ever.
“Um… thank you?” She started quietly, tilting her head to see if she could get a glance of her demon savior’s face, but he angled his head away in turn.
Zoey took a step forward, but a voice from the rooftops above came shouting down.
“What the hell are you doing?! Get back here!!”
Zoey had heard that voice before.
“Baby Saja?!” Zoey whirled to look towards the voice above and sure enough, there was one of the Saja boys. Baby Saja stood at the edge of the rooftop, dressed in casual clothing. He scowled down towards the demon below him.
Zoey turned her head to the blue hooded demon and caught a glance of the silvery hair that had been burned into her memories since she first laid eyes on the demon. Mystery?! Just as Zoey reached an arm in his direction, Mystery disappeared into a puff of dark smoke. Zoey looked back to the sky and Baby was gone too.
—
They made it out.
Those four words repeated in Zoey’s head as she made it to the noodle shop, absently placed her orders, and returned back to Huntrix HQ. Her head was swimming with all she learned, piecing together information from that short interaction as the elevator brought her to the Huntrix penthouse.
The Saja boys didn’t get sent back to the demon realm either, just like Jinu. They made it out of the fight. They must have been tailing her around the market. She wasn’t feeling weird from the muggers following her, she felt their demon presence after all. Where have they been? Are all of them out there, or just Baby and Mystery? Mystery. He jumped down and, what, protected her? Why? Why did they run away too?
The elevator dinged as it reached its destination.
“Zoey! There you are! What took you so long?” Rumi’s voice snapped Zoey from her thoughts. Rumi was sitting on the couch in the center of the open concept living space.
“I brought dinner!” Zoey raised up the bags of noodles and fried dumplings, forcing a gleeful smile to her face.
“Oh my god you’re the beeeeeeeest” Rumi groaned and rose as the scent of dinner wafted towards her.
Zoey made her way into the kitchen and placed the bags down on the edge of the large marble countertop.
“How’s Jinu doing? I made sure to get noodles for him too in case he’s hungry.” Zoey asked carefully, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Rumi paused, head turning to one of the bedrooms down the hall from the living space.
“Still sleeping. He was up for about an hour earlier, but he’s still pretty weak.” Rumi’s voice turned solemn with worry.
“Hey, an hour is good! He’s making improvements every day!” Zoey gave her friend a small smile and reached to squeeze her hand.
“Yeah…Did you find the turtle plushie you were looking for?” Rumi asked, changing the subject.
“Oh, uh, no. No luck today! No luck for me!” Zoey laughed awkwardly, fidgeting with the takeout bags. The plastic handles were tied in a knot so the food containers wouldn’t spill out walking home, but it seems they were tied too tight. Zoey huffed and summoned a Honmoon blade to slice the bags open.
“Oh…Are you okay?” One of Rumi’s eyebrows perked up at her friend’s behavior.
“Yup! Just fine! Just dandy!”
“You’re such a bad liar, you know that right?” Rumi gave a half smile. She reached out and placed a hand on Zoey’s shoulder. “No more secrets, remember? We agreed to always be honest after, well, everything.”
Zoey sighed, shoulders falling. She took in a deep breath and let it all out.
“Okay, well something kind of happened while I was out. I didn’t find my plushie but I started getting this weird feeling but then I got really really hungry and I saw those noodles and they just smelled so good! But then I wasn’t paying attention and these three really mean thugs tried to jump me but everything was fine, they didn’t stand a chance and I didn’t even have to fight them because well you see the thing is I kinda ran into the S-” The elevator dinged and opened again.
“THE SAJA BOYS ARE BACK” Mira came stomping into the penthouse, booted feet slamming into the floorboards with every step.
“What?!”
“You saw them too?!”
“Too? What do you mean too?!”
“Well after those thugs tried to jump me-”
“Wait wait back up, what do you mean you got jumped by thugs?!”
“Are we going to just skim over the part about the Saja boys?”
“What’s going on?!”
The Huntrix girls shouted over each other all at once until a fourth, markedly masculine voice carried in from the open elevator doors.
“Awh, did you forget about me already?”
“SHUT UP” Mira shouted at the elevator and stomped back, reaching in and pulling forward a very disheveled looking Romance in his human form.
The Saja boy stumbled into the room the best he could with a long coil of rope wound tightly around him from his shoulders to his knees. He shuffled his feet the best he could, still managing to lean his shoulder on the wall and offer a dramatic hair flick and sheepish smile.
“If I knew it was this easy to get you to take me home, I should have tailed you earlier.” Romance purred in a sultry tone, winking at the fuming pink haired hunter.
“I said to shut up” Mira ground out between clenched teeth. She gave another rough yank on Romance’s rope to pull him in the middle of the group, now flanked on all sides by Huntrix.
“Eugh, fine, point taken.” Romance shrugged and looked towards Rumi with a curious eye. “So it’s true, those are demon patterns you’ve got.” His eyes roved over her patterns on display. Rumi rolled her eyes and looked at Mira.
“How did you find him? And why did you bring him here?”
“I didn’t find him, he and Abby found me.” Mira scoffed. “Not that they did a good job of being inconspicuous. Every cafe I walked by they were sitting at a table in hoodies watching me. They didn't even bother hiding their faces when I saw them. It didn’t take much for me to lure them away. I wasn’t going to let them cause a scene in public around innocent people.”
“You think so lowly of us.” Romance sighed dramatically.
“You’re DEMONS” Mira deadpanned at the captured Saja boy. Romance simply shrugged. “Abby ran off but I was able to wrangle this one for questioning. Not that he put up much of a fight.”
“So you brought a demon home?” Rumi asked, pinching her brow.
“I mean so did you, technically” Zoey muttered under her breath, but Romance perked up.
“He is here then? Is he okay?” Romance looked to Rumi, all jest cast aside. “Jinu. Just tell me if Jinu is okay.”
Rumi looked at the demon before her, surprise running across her features. Sure, Romance is a demon, but she saw with her own eyes that demons can change. The demon before her appeared genuine, his eyes swirled with worry and also determination. If the Saja boys wanted to hurt people, they would have by now. Rumi didn’t detect any malicious intent behind Romance’s words. He truly was here trying to find his friend.
“He’s alive.” Rumi offered a curt response.
Romance dipped his head, a relieved smile returning to his face as Rumi saw the tension ebb out of his shoulders.
“But he’s not okay.” Rumi continued slowly. “He sleeps all day and all night and he can barely walk or eat.” Rumi caught Romance’s eyes as the demon lifted his head, tilting in confusion. “What’s wrong with him?”
Romance closed his eyes and felt for his friend, confirming a weak presence nearby. Jinu’s aura was truly weak. Normally, Jinu was one of the strongest of the Saja boys, but his energy was barely more than a flickering candle. Even after resting for a week, his energy levels should be coming back by now.
“His power feels almost fully depleted, the same as he was right after the Honmoon sealed. Maybe it has to do with being cut off from Gwi-Ma, or the sheer will it took just to survive Gwi-Ma’s attack alone.”
“Cut off from Gwi-Ma?” Rumi’s eyes widened. “He’s not speaking to you anymore? You can’t hear him either?”
Romance blinked. How much demon information did Jinu give away to this girl?
“Not since the Honmoon was restored.”
Rumi broke into a wide smile.
“It worked! He’s free!”
“But Jinu isn’t getting better?” Romance mused. “Maybe I could help. Maybe all of us could help together.”
“All of us?” Mira yanked on Romance’s rope again, making the demon stumble. “So you admit the rest of you Saja boys are still out there terrorizing the souls of the world, huh?”
“Such a lack of faith.” The Saja boy sighed. “No one is terrorizing anyone except maybe you terrorizing me by yanking me around with this rope. Stealing souls was Gwi-Ma’s thing. We didn’t have a choice before. We do now.”
“You expect us to trust you?” Mira seethed at the demon, narrowing her eyes to make her own judgements. “Off of what? Good faith?” She threw his words back at him.
“I did come with you willingly after all, is that not a notion of good faith?” Romance piqued an eyebrow at Mira.
“I captured you and tied you up!” She protested.
All Romance had to do was smirk as his eyes flashed golden and he easily teleported on the spot. The coiled rope fell to the ground in a pile, now containing nothing except a lingering cloud of shimmering pink dust. Mira stared at the empty space before her, jaw hanging.
“Like I said,” Romance mused from his new position, lounged across the long white couch a few feet away, inspecting his nails. “I came willingly.”
“You tricked me!” Mira screeched, hands balling into fists.
“To be fair this wasn’t the plan. Not my fault Abby ran away so fast, the coward. Guess he thought you really were going to run him through with your Gok-Do. We weren’t supposed to get caught, just follow you to find out where Jinu was. I was smart enough to figure if you didn’t kill me on the spot you might bring me right to him anyways. Oh how I love being right.” Romance sat up to hang his arms and head off the back of the couch, eyes sparkling with amusement.
Mira summoned her Honmoon weapon and began stepping towards the cocky demon smirking at her from her own living room, but Rumi stopped her with a hand.
“You think you can help fix Jinu? Truly?” Rumi challenged, face stern as she addressed Romance. Romance’s expression turned solemn once more as he nodded once to the hunters before him.
“We owe it to him for all he did for us. Let us help him. Please.”
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