Chapter Text
“Oh…okay,” Romance murmurs, heart swelling up in his chest as he absently squeezes Baby’s hand. “That’s…okay, that’s not good.” He sighs shakily as he blinks away the sheen of tears in his eye and refocuses his gaze on Mira. “And you’re…you’re sure?”
She nods solemnly. “It…it looked the same as Jinu, but it was like he…like what was left of him got pulled back into Gwi-ma.”
“Fuck,” he whispers. That was really, really not good. There was almost no way that Abby could have been on this side of the Honmoon when it reformed. And if he was on the other side, trapped in the underworld... “Fuck!” he hisses again.
Losing Jinu hurt, but the pain of his loss was dampened by his betrayal, by the notion that he’d chosen to abandon them. He could focus on being angry at Jinu instead of letting himself linger on the hurt.
But losing Abby…it churns in his chest, unpleasant and physically painful. Knowing that he was trapped, likely alone, with all of Gwi-ma’s ire at their failure turned on only him…he shudders.
Gwi-ma always punished the reapers who failed him in the most brutal ways, and now Abby, their amiable, somehow always optimistic, stupid Abby would have to bear the brunt of that punishment alone? Because of him? Because Romance had hesitated to go?
Beside him, Baby exhales a soft, choked sob.
“Oh no,” he exhales, turning to him. The boy’s face has gone completely pale, his eyes glassy and unfocused, his breath coming in shaky little gasps. “Sweetheart. Oh, B.” He wants to reassure him, wants to tell him that everything is going to be fine, but he won’t lie to him. This was…this was the worst case scenario. Baby’s worst fear.
He slips off the couch, kneels in front of Baby and takes his face into his hands the way he’s seen Mystery and Abby calm him down dozens of times before. But right now, Baby doesn’t seem like he’s panicking; he isn’t hyperventilating, isn’t clutching at his head with his hands, isn’t trembling. He’s still. Blank. He simply blinks vacant eyes slowly as he takes those shaky little breaths, though as a few tears slip loose Romance doesn’t hesitate to wipe them away.
“Maybe we should give you two a minute?” Zoey murmurs hesitantly, but he ignores her.
“Ro,” Baby whispers, eyes blinking again before they focus on his face. “He’s…”
“I know,” he murmurs, pressing their foreheads together. “I know. It’s bad. It’s…this is bad news. I…”
His words trail off into a rough sob, surprising himself to realize that he’s the one that starts crying in earnest. He wants to be strong for Baby but…but it fucking hurts and he can’t tell himself that it doesn’t. He can’t force himself to put his pain aside, not even for Baby’s sake.
It’s not just bad news; it’s the worst news.
Because Abby had been important to him, too. He was his friend, his brother.
“Are they always like that?” he asks, tipping his head in Mystery and Jinu’s direction. They’re both perched in armchairs on the opposite side of the dwelling, Mystery silently reading and Jinu scowling as if the very air around him has offended him.
Abby glances over from his work mending his hanbok. “Them?” Romance nods. “Yea, pretty much.”
Jinu’s frown somehow deepens, his glare sharpening on the pair of them. “Like what?” he snaps.
“Silent,” Abby says, returning his focus to the fabric in his lap. “Broody,” he adds, drawing out the o’s, smirking softly to himself.
Jinu scoffs. “Forgive me for wanting to make sure we’re taken care of.”
Abby simply rolls his eyes, mouthing along when Mystery automatically says, “It will be fine, Jinu.”
Romance smirks, snorts on a small laugh that he does a horrible job of hiding.
Jinu stands up with a huff, leveling a withering glare at an otherwise unbothered Abby, before disappearing with a pop and a whirl of pinkish smoke.
“You hurt his feelings,” Mystery comments after a moment, without looking up. “You know he’s worried about the hunters. They’re winning, getting close to sealing the Honmoon”
“Yea, yea,” Abby replies, humor effectively tempered. “I know, Myst. I’ll apologize to him later.” He holds the garment up in front of his face, frowning before pulling out his last set of stitches.
And Romance really isn’t sure what all of that means. He’s still getting sorted, figuring out the deal about the hunters and the honmoon. That, and keeping himself out of trouble, doing his best to keep himself off the bad side of the giant flaming demon king.
“You know you can just use magic to fix that?” Romance says, gesturing vaguely to the fabric in Abby’s hands. Not that he had learned how to do so yet; he hadn’t been here long enough to really harness the magic. But he’d seen Mystery do it, so at the very least he knew it was possible. Abby’d probably been here long enough to have learned how to do so.
“Maybe I just like using my hands,” Abby says idly. “Maybe I like feeling human instead of…whatever this is.” It’s subtle, the bitterness that creeps into his tone, but Romance notices it anyway.
“Well you’re doing it wrong,” he says, flashing him a dazzling grin when Abby’s glare snaps up at him. “I was a tailor, you know. Before…this,” he elaborates, waving his hands around to gesture vaguely at everything around them with a sigh.
“Alright then,” Abby replies, mouth curving into a smirk as he tosses the garment at him. “Teach me.”
Abby would have wanted him to take care of Baby. He knows that. But the grief that wells up in him is so sudden, so sharp that he can’t stop his sobs. His hands drop numbly from Baby’s cheeks, flopping down to his shoulders. He feels useless. Feels like he’s failing him.
But then Baby’s hands wrap around him, one tangling into Romance’s hair and guiding his head down on his shoulder, the other clenching in the fabric at his back. “It’s okay,” the younger man whispers as he tucks him in close, his voice slipping back into that strange tone that was both so like and unlike Baby’s normal candor. “It’s okay; I’ve got you.”
At his words, something in Romance breaks, something that he’s been trying very hard to hold together since he woke up after the concert. His tenuous grip on his self control, everything that he’s kept locked up inside, bursts out of him. He’s tried, so very hard, to stay optimistic, to believe that the others were within their grasp. To know that Abby and Jinu were not, to know that Mystery might not be…it’s crushing. He doesn’t want to bear it. He can’t. He isn’t strong enough to.
“I’ve got you,” Baby repeats, his arms tightening around him as Romance feels him press his face into his hair. “You…” he says, voice catching slightly. “You and me, right?”
Romance chokes on another sob, nods against his shoulder. And because Baby’s got him, he lets himself break.
He’s not totally sure how long it takes for him to cry himself out. But at some point, Baby maneuvers him back onto the couch, where he now sits with a pillow clutched against his stomach as he leans heavily against Baby’s side.
“Here,” Zoey says, slipping into view with a mug of tea in her hand. Tentatively, Romance removes one hand from its death grip on the pillow to accept it, at which she flashes him a kind smile. She reaches behind herself to the coffee table to grab a second mug that she passes to Baby. He glances up at the other man, who is still completely rigid, jaw locked tight and face blank, save for the dampness of tear tracks on his cheek. He takes the offered mug robotically, curls his fingers around it and lets it sit in his lap, murmuring a stiff thank you. His face softens the tiniest bit, eyes flicking between the mug in his hands and Zoey as she settles herself into one of the armchairs.
“He hasn’t moved,” Romance observes, still watching their newest little reaper intently. The one Gwi-ma had called ‘the baby.” And based on how young he looked, the name seemed to fit. Romance was one of the physically youngest demons in the underworld, according to Jinu, and this kid definitely looked younger than him, by at least five years. And he looked especially young from where he was hugging his knees into his chest in one of their sleeping alcoves, impossibly wide eyes watching the four of them like a hawk.
“He’s scared,” Mystery says, idly stirring something in the pot over their wood stove. “You were scared like him once, too. We all were.”
It was hard for him to imagine stoic old Mystery ever being as terrified as the kid, but he could give him the benefit of the doubt. He couldn’t argue against it, because it was certainly traumatic to be branded by Gwi-ma and turned into a monster. A demon.
And Mystery was right, he had been scared shitless.
He knows something must have gone wrong. Jinu and Abby had been sent to the surface to collect the souls after Gwi-ma had possessed a poor unfortunate one. When he and Mystery had been summoned to the altar, he’d assumed the worst. Assumed they’d failed in some way, that the pair of them needed to bear witness to their punishment.
In a way he supposed they had; they weren’t supposed to come back with a human, much less one so young.
He doesn’t understand why Gwi-ma decided to turn him into a reaper, but, to be fair, he understood about one percent of what the demon king decided to do. The boy didn’t look especially strong, and didn't fit the mold for the typical reaper. Maybe Gwi-ma thought his sweet little face could lure in more souls. Romance’s own pretty face had been part of the reason Gwi-ma had turned him, after all.
He does, however, understand why Mystery claimed him for their clan. Most of the other clans would have laid claim to him just to defile him or rip him to pieces for sport. But Mystery…he had a soft spot for reapers that he thought were inherently good, despite their deals with Gwi-ma. He had some sort of morality system established in his head, and had taken to protecting those who fell favorably in his rankings. It was how he had come to link up with Jinu, and later Abby. And others, names he heard mentioned offhandedly, ones that didn’t stick.
And ultimately, Mystery’s morality scale was why he’d been claimed, too, though he still thought Mystery’s judgment was perhaps a little off about him. The others showed regret for their actions, for making their deals, and while Romance regrets that he’s become…this, he doesn’t regret the rest of what he’d gotten out of his deal. He’d probably do it again, if offered.
While he knows the human world has changed significantly since he was turned, he can’t imagine what a kid could have done to get himself condemned to the underworld. To have even been targeted by Gwi-ma in the first place. To be turned into…a monster. To his knowledge, they never really honed in on children as they didn’t have enough shame built up for their souls to sustain Gwi-ma’s power. Not that he’d been to the surface for harvesting himself, but he heard enough from the others.
He wonders if that’s why Jinu sits, arms folded over his chest, broodier than normal as he glowers at the boy.
He watches as Abby approaches the alcove, a piece of stove-warmed bread in his hands. Despite his size and often blustery personality, the burly demon could be surprisingly gentle, and while Romance can’t quite hear what Abby says, he sees the boy hesitantly take his offering. He catches the way Abby’s mouth curves into that little half-smile of his, watches how the tense lines of the boy’s face soften, though his brows stay furrowed in something like confusion as he looks between the bread in his hands and Abby’s retreating back.
“So…” Rumi says from where she’s hovering behind Zoey, nervously rocking back on her heels. A quick glance around the room reveals that Mira is nowhere to be seen. The daylight from the windows is much brighter, the Sun having burnt off the fog.
“I talked to Bobby,” she says, finally settling a little and leaning against the back of Zoey’s chair. “He’s checking with hospitals, looking for anyone who might fit Mystery or Abby’s descriptions. Just…just in case.”
“I…thank you,” he replies, wrinkling his nose when he hears how rough his voice sounds. He takes a long sip of the tea, lets it warm and soothe his throat.
From beside him, he sees Baby’s chin dip toward his chest, his hair falling into his eyes as he whispers another mechanical ‘thanks’. For a moment, Romance doesn’t understand how he isn’t falling apart. How he’s staying so stoic, so…calm. But then he remembers that Baby hides. Behind a blank face, behind indifference. He suddenly realizes that it’s not that he’s not falling apart, it’s just that he’s hiding it. Hiding it because they’re not alone. Hiding it because Romance broke first, because Romance needed him first. And if he’s not careful, Baby’ll shatter when he’s alone, and he won’t let Romance see.
As if summoned, Derpy’s head pokes through the floor, blinking lazily before his expression turns into what can only be described as a frown. He seems to study Baby for a moment before rising fully through the floor and padding to sit directly in front of the younger man. He turns his head expectantly at Romance, who correctly guesses to take the mug from Baby’s hands so that the tiger can drop his head straight into the boy’s lap.
Baby freezes for a moment, hands raised in surprise, before he sighs, wraps his arms around the tiger’s massive head and buries his face into his fur while Derpy begins to purr. Romance quickly sets the tea mugs onto the coffee table in front of him, then uses one hand to rub Baby’s back gently. He can tell by the way he’s shaking that the younger man is crying, silent tears falling into the tiger’s fur.
He’s grateful for it. After coming to the human realm they’d joked that Derpy was Jinu’s emotional support animal, but right now, he was exactly what Baby needed.
“Is he…?” Rumi starts, then stops with a wince and a shake of her head.
“Is he okay?” Romance guesses, and she flushes with embarrassment. What a stupid question, he thinks, but manages to keep himself from blurting out. “He just found out his favorite person in the world is either dead or being tortured within an inch of his life for sport, so all things considered I’d say he’s doing pretty well.”
Rumi’s mouth snaps shut with an audible clack, both her and Zoey paling at his words and straightforward tone, while Baby stifles a sob into the tiger’s fur.
“I didn’t realize you were all so…close,” Zoey murmurs, chewing her lip. “I guess I just thought…”
“We were taught,” Rumi interjects quietly. “That reapers sold their souls to Gwi-ma for their own benefit. That they were…husks of who they were. Puppets. And I guess…I mean, I realized that Jinu was different than that, but I still just assumed that you all were still…”
“Surprise,” he mutters bitterly.
He wishes they were husks. Wishes he didn’t feel as much as he did. Wishes he didn’t have the ache in his soul from missing three people who’d once been bound to it. He keeps his eyes on Baby, keeps stroking gentle patterns across his back.
“Look,” Rumi says, glancing quickly between the three of them, eyes lingering where Baby’s hands are clenched tight in Derpy’s fur. “We want to help you.”
Romance involuntarily scoffs, the sound slipping out of himself before he can stop it. He’s still very sure that Mira will kill them if both of them happen to let the guard down at the same time.
“We do,” Mira emphasizes, practically materializing from the front hallway, a stack of books held in her hands. “I’m not stupid,” she continues. “I know grief when I see it. I…” she frowns slightly and looks away. “And I’m not afraid to admit that I was…that maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you’re not what I was taught you were.”
His eyes stay narrowed in suspicion, Beside him, Baby takes a deep, heaving breath before turning his face up from Derpy’s fur to look at her. He looks awful, his eyes swollen, every line of his face screaming in exhaustion. “Help us how?” he asks, his voice an absolute wreck, just…broken. So far away from the hopeful boy he’d seen before they’d left their apartment this morning.
Mira drops her stack of books onto the coffee table, splashing some tea and releasing a very literal cloud of dust from one of them. “With research.”
He wrinkles his nose as he eyes the stack of books, some of which look positively ancient. “Ugh, what I wouldn’t give to have Myst here right now.”
“He would love this,” Baby agrees in a quiet murmur, swiping at his nose with the sleeve of his sweater. “What are these?” he asks, looking at the girls from where he’s still leaned against Derpy’s head.
“The hunter archives,” Mira supplies.
Behind her, Zoey gasps. “Does Celine know you have these?”
Mira very nearly rolls her eyes. “I really don’t care if she does. I took them to try and learn about Rumi.”
“You…you did?” Rumi asks, her eyes softening on her.
The taller woman just shrugs. “I thought…there might be some stuff about your father in here, or about other half-demons. I know we’re officially in uncharted territory now, but…I thought it might help.” She looks back over at the pair of them on the couch. “So here’s the deal. If we’re going to help you find Mystery and Abby, you’re going to help us. What do you know about half-demons?”
Romance shrugs, picking up on the game, understanding that she wants to trade information for information. “Not much,” he answers honestly.
“Myst said that humans can’t survive long in the underworld,” Baby says, straightening up a little more and wiping at his face with the sleeve of his sweater again. Upon hearing the ragged sound of his voice, Romance leans forward to grab his forgotten mug of tea and presses it into his hands, smiling softly when Baby actually takes a small sip. Derpy, seemingly realizing that his emotional support services were not needed for the moment, curls up to lay at their feet with a soft, contented growl. “But I don’t ever remember hearing anything about half-demons.”
“There was a reaper that escaped once,” Romance remembers suddenly, looking at Baby. “Not long after you came, when they strengthened the Honmoon the last time.”
“The last time?” Rumi asks, perching herself on the arm of the chair Zoey was occupying. “Like, the last group of hunters?”
“Yea, I think so,” he replies. “The Sunlight Sisters?” Baby nods in agreement.
“Wait,” Zoey interjects, pointing at Baby. “Are you saying he became a demon right before the Sunlight sisters fortified the Honmoon?”
Romance frowns softly. “I suppose?”
“But that was only…like thirty years ago,” Zoey murmurs.
“And?” Baby asks, confusion evident.
“Aren’t you guys supposed to be like…centuries old?” Rumi asks.
Romance gasps in mock indignation. “Excuse me, I am barely over one hundred, thank you very much.”
“What?” Mira deadpans, looking between the two of them, trying to tell if they’re being serious. He’s secretly delighted at his ability to disarm her, to catch her off guard.
“But Jinu said he was over 400,” Rumi says.
“And he was, the old man,” he grumbles, trying not to think too much about Jinu. “And Abby was three hundred something and Myst was…what?” He looks at Baby.
“At least 700,” he confirms.
“WHAT?!” Mira and Zoey shriek in disbelief.
“Okay but go back,” Rumi says, waving her hands in a calming gesture. “You said a reaper escaped, thirty years ago?”
“Yea,” Romance confirms. “Gwi-ma had to use a huge amount of energy to open a portal and he sent Jinu and Mystery to find him, but they couldn’t. He just…disappeared.” When the pair of them had returned it had actually been a nice time for them, to be honest. As far as ‘nice times’ went in hell, at least. Gwi-ma had been too weak to really do anything to torment them, too vexed by the escape of one of his reapers to direct his wrath anywhere else. His voice had been much quieter in their ears, then. And from the ashes of that betrayal, Jinu became the favorite. They became his favored reapers, and they set out on the path that led them…here.
“I mean, that had to have been your father,” Mira says, pulling him out of his thoughts, as she glances back at Rumi. “The timing is right.”
The lead hunter looks imploringly at them. “Did you know anything about him?”
Romance shakes his head. “I…I remember he was a loner. He didn’t have a clan for protection, so he must have been tough to have survived on his own. But otherwise…” he shrugs. “Sorry.” And he genuinely is; he finds himself wishing he could give her more answers. “Mystery would probably know,” he offers, partly in consolation and partly to incentivize them to make good on their offer to help them in return.
“What, is he some kind of magical savant?” Mira says with a grumble.
“Kind of, yea,” Baby says flatly.
“I’m sorry,” Zoey interjects, eyes still locked on Baby. “I’m still stuck on…I just…you…you only became a demon thirty years ago?”
“That sounds right,” Romance murmurs. “I mean, time feels different down there, but…”
“You became a demon in the 90’s,” she says flatly, disbelieving.
“Yea?” Baby says, squirming slightly under her intense stare. Romance knows that he has vague memories of the time frame. When they’d been researching kpop groups, rappers in particular, there were songs from the 90’s that he somehow knew all of the words to. Songs that were familiar, but he couldn’t remember why.
“And you were, what, 17? 18?”
“I guess?” he replies. “I don’t really remember. I think it was my last year of school.”
“Oh my god,” Rumi mutters, her hand over her mouth. “You’d only be like…in your forties. You’d still be…alive.”
He glances over at Baby, tries to imagine him older, as a man in a suit and tie with a whole-ass job, and he laughs out loud. “I’m sorry!” he says as he feels 4 pairs of eyes land on him. “I’m sorry; I tried to imagine you as a grown man and I just…” he laughs again, feeling better when Baby softly laughs too. “He’s my baby,” he tries to explain, when the girls keep staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has. “He’s not supposed to grow up.”
It hits him, then, that he could have grown up. That maybe he should have, if whatever happened with Abby and Jinu hadn’t happened. If Gwi-ma hadn’t intervened. That, if they were right, and they were really human, really free, he was going to get to. It sobers him immediately.
His laughter dies off as he looks at Baby. “You get to grow up,” he says softly.
An emotion he can’t really identify sweeps across Baby’s features. Then he smiles, reaches over to squeeze Romance’s arm gently. “So do you.”
His brow furrows. “Oh, that’s weird,” he says, before it strikes him as to why.
He doesn’t want to grow old without them. They were a clan, a pack, a family. They belonged together. All of them. And so it feels…wrong. Wrong to imagine a life, a future without them in it.
“We have to get them back,” he says softly, glancing up at Baby.
He can tell from the boy’s expression that he’s thinking the same things as him. “We’re going to,” Baby promises, squeezing his arm again. “But you might have to read a book.”
He sighs dramatically as he flops against the cushion at his back. “If I must.”
The girls are keen to immediately get started on their research, but he can see how exhausted Baby is and manages to convince them to let the pair of them take a nap first. He’d much rather take them home, but can tell from Mira’s still suspicious gaze that they probably wouldn’t allow it, so he settles for half dragging Baby to one of the bedrooms of the guest apartment, to get him away from their prying eyes.
“How are you?” he asks as the door clicks closed, watching him with anxious eyes. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said Abby was Baby’s favorite person, and he knew Mystery was a close second. Finding out about Abby, the uncertainty around Mystery…he knows that his mind must be a complete maelstrom right now.
“I don’t know,” he admits, biting at his thumbnail. “I…only Gwi-ma can open portals between the underworld and the human realm.”
“Maybe the hunters can,” he replies, stepping closer to pull Baby’s thumb out of his mouth and gently nudging him toward the bed. “That’s what we’re going to figure out, right?”
“Do you…” Baby starts as he allows himself to be led. “Do you think he’ll have killed him?” He looks up at Romance, his eyes wide and vulnerable. “That even if we could…”
“No,” he answers honestly. “I don’t. He’s…Gwi-ma is too practical, and Abby’s too useful. Especially if he’s weak.”
Baby nods as he sinks onto the bed. “So there’s…we can still find him?”
There’s hope, is what he means, but Baby has never been one for optimism. “I think so.”
“And…and Myst?” he says, acquiescing when Romance nudges him to lie down before he crawls onto the bed beside him. “Do you think…do you think we’re going to find him in the hospitals?"
“I think,” he says quietly, opening his arm for Baby to tuck into his side, which he does after a split second of hesitation, his head tucking in against Romance’s shoulder. “I think that if Mystery was injured, he would have tried to go back,” he says quietly. “He’s smart, and patient. He’d know that he’d have a better chance at healing in the underworld, and that he would risk Gwi-ma’s punishment for it.” When Baby lets out a shuddering sigh, he reaches up to stroke his hand through his hair. “I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to understand why he would have left you. And…I don’t think he would have, unless he thought there wasn’t another option.”
“They’re survivors,” Baby whispers, curling in closer to his side.
“They are,” he agrees.
“But we can’t…we can’t leave them there.”
“And we won’t,” he promises.
“How are we supposed to get through the Honmoon?” Baby murmurs, words slurring slightly with fatigue.
He laughs softly. “Isn’t that what all the dusty old books are for?”
“Yea,” Baby whispers, cut off slightly by a yawn.
“Sleep, B,” he says. “I’ll be right here.”
It’s not long before Baby’s breaths even out. He knows how exhausted he must be, how much it takes out of him to hold everything in. It was why he’d wanted to get him away from the hunters, to give him a little reprieve, to give him a chance to reset.
They stumble back in to their living room, all in various stages of exhaustion. Days like this, where they had a variety show followed by a performance followed by a fansign, took a lot out of them, with all the effort that went into keeping up appearances for the fans. But it was working; with each fan that became more obsessed with the Saja Boys, the strength of the souls Huntrix had woven into the Honmoon were weakening. Gwi-ma was opening new portals, new tears in the barrier nearly every day. They were close, Jinu thought, and with every day that passed, as they got closer to the Idol Awards, he grew more anxious and restless. Pushed them harder.
Baby has already beaten him to the couch and flopped across it with a heavy sigh. Unbothered, Romance lifts his head up, giving himself space to sit before dropping his head back down into his lap.
“Hey!” Baby grumbles, only half offended.
“Oh, hush,” Romance says, settling in and beginning to stroke his hand through Baby’s hair as a placating gesture, using the other to find the remote so he can numb his mind with another K-drama until it’s time for them to argue over what to order for dinner.
“Aw, how cute,” Abby teases, coming around to sit on the couch as well, this time lifting Baby’s legs to clear a spot for himself.
“Hey!” Baby protests again, sharper this time, glaring at Abby before flicking him off.
“Oh, you love it,” Abby teases back. And really, Baby did love their little displays of affection, as much as he tried to pretend he didn’t. They knew enough about his past to know that he was practically touch starved, a problem that Abby had single-handedly decided to solve, and that Romance had been more than willing to assist in.
Baby huffs, but relaxes his head back against Romance's legs, letting out a little sigh of contentment when he starts to card his fingers through his hair again, idly twisting braids into it as he sets up the show.
“You said Business Proposal was next,” Abby says as he takes one of Baby’s feet into his hands to massage it gently.
“Well, I haven’t finished Crash Landing yet,” he retorts as he selects it from the list, scrolling to the next episode. By the time he’s got the show started, Baby has already fallen asleep. He doesn’t actually notice when he gets fully sucked into the show as well, not until Jinu appears in his periphery, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“That’ll be a nice one for Instagram,” he says, laughing lightly as Romance realizes that he’s taken some pictures with his phone.
He chucks a throw pillow at his head, not looking away from the television. “Baby’ll kill you,” he says, in a sing-song voice, though the boy in question doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Yea, yea,” Jinu says. “We’ve been playing the ‘aegi’ card pretty hard with him lately, we should give him a break.” He leans over the back of the couch, affectionately ruffles his hair. “I’m going out for a bit,” he says. “Want to scout some locations for another pop up performance.”
“Myst going with you?” Abby asks, not looking back at him.
“No,” Mystery says from somewhere behind him, probably in the kitchen. He only speaks one word, but there’s something…off in his tone, something Romance can’t quite put his finger on.
“Don’t wait up for me,” Jinu says, as Romance glances toward the foyer to see him pulling on his coat and frowns. After the day they’ve had, he’s planning to stay out late? “I’ll see you in the morning. Dance studio, eight a.m.!” Abby groans.
And then he’s gone, teleported away. It seems…odd that he’s going to spend so much time scouting locations. Odd that he’d left before having dinner with them. Just…odd. But…Jinu did handle all of their logistics, secured everything they needed for them. It must just be more complicated than he realized, more work. He tries to tamp it down, the little flicker of doubt that starts to grow in his mind, the little wavering of his trust in Jinu, but it persists.
And when he glances back at Mystery, sees his one visible eye narrowed as he stares at the space Jinu has just vacated, it grows.
“So, how is this going to work?”
They’re back in the living area, seated around the coffee table. The number of books has multiplied significantly during their short rest, sorted into neat little stacks.
“I’m not…we’re not sure what you want from us,” Baby adds.
“We want…” Rumi starts, glancing at the other girls. “We want information. The truth, about what happens in the demon realm.”
“If it’s our job to protect this world, we need to understand it better,” Zoey continues. “Because if…if some of the demons can be saved, if they’re actually prisoners, then we want to be able to protect them, too.”
“And we want future generations of hunters to know the truth, too,” Mira finishes.
He nods to show his understanding, glancing quickly over at Baby. “And what if you have questions we can’t answer?”
Rumi shrugs. “Then you can’t answer them.”
He chews his lip, deep in thought. His instincts are waffling between telling him that this is a horrible idea and that it is a wonderful idea. “And in return?”
“We help you find the rest of the Saja Boys,” Zoey says confidently.
“And…and if we don’t help you?” he asks, needing to test the waters.
Mira’s nostrils flare, but it’s Rumi who answers. “Then you can leave, and we won’t follow you.”
“But if this is a trick,” the pink haired hunter warns, eyes sharp as her blade. “I will hunt you down and kill you myself.”
Romance laughs softly, nervously. “Wouldn’t doubt that for a second, darling.” He looks back at Baby, sees him looking over the books splayed out on the table, before dark blue eyes meet his again. He nods, ever so slightly. “Then we have a deal.”
They divvy up tasks, each of them taking their own stack of books. Thus far, Romance’s pile is about all of the different demons, with an emphasis on the dokkaebi, though there are a few passing mentions of reapers. Most of what he’s reading seems correct, that they’re soulless, fully controlled by Gwi-ma to do his bidding, essentially the foot soldiers of the underworld.
Giving his eyes a break, he looks over at Baby, who’s wholly focused on a page about the Honmoon, scribbling notes into a notebook Zoey had given him.
It’s both unsettling and familiar to see Baby, with an ancient tome open on his lap, in a more modern setting.
Out of all of them, Baby was the one most willing to listen to Mystery’s ramblings, to sit and look through his books with him. To learn from him. So to see him now, pouring over old texts, without Mystery beside him, feels wrong.
He sighs, picks up the next book, which seems to be more about reapers specifically. He skims over section after section that writes of how despicable reapers were, how shameful it was that humans would make a deal with the devil, that they would sell their soul at the expense of others and blah blah blah.
And while he knew what he’d done was wrong, both legally and morally speaking, he didn’t think it made him a bad person, per se. He’d done it out of love, hadn’t he? That was how he’d earned his new name from Gwi-ma - the romantic.
He’d loved her, and they’d killed her. Was it really so wrong of him to return the favor?
He shakes his head, resolutely tries to redirect his wandering thoughts to the pages in front of him.
Rumi returns, flopping heavily into the vacant armchair. “Well, Bobby hasn’t found anything promising, unfortunately. None of the hospitals in Seoul had any unidentified patients that matched.”
He frowns, chews on his lip as his eyes flick up to Baby, but the other man doesn’t look away from his book. “That’s…disappointing,” he says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He knew it was a long shot, but still, he’d hoped…he’d hoped his gut instinct was wrong.
“I think you’re probably right,” Baby says after a moment. “If he was injured, he probably tried to go back.”
“So you think he and Abby are both…” Rumi says, trailing off.
Romance nods. It’s a tiny, small comfort to think they could have each other, just like he and Baby were still together. But it doesn’t lessen the ache in his chest, doesn’t lessen his need to get to them, to bring them both home safe.
“We’ll keep looking, though,” Rumi promises. “On this side. Bobby has his feelers out. If anything strange happens with the Honmoon…we’ll look into everything, okay?”
Baby sniffs as he nods, swipes at his eyes, but still doesn’t look away from his book.
“Thank you,” Romance manages to say, despite how heavy it feels. He watches as the others continue their research, landing on Baby, with his tense jaw and watery eyes. Again he wishes he could do more, could help him better. But perhaps Baby having this job, having this purpose of scouring books for answers, could sustain him a little longer.
He’s only just returned his focus to his book when he feels the air shift. He looks up to spot the tiger, strolling lackadaisically through the wall. Derpy growls contentedly as he pads over to the coffee table, then opens his mouth, revealing a card that flops wetly onto the table, covered in saliva.
Rumi leaps up with a gasp, grabs the card and shakes it off.
“Okay, that was fucking weird,” Mira says flatly, and Romance has to agree. And he’s seen Derpy do some weird shit over the last century, including attempting to eat Baby’s gat while it was still on his head.
“Jinu…” Rumi starts, then stops, flushing slightly as she opens the card. “Jinu sent me letters like this. Through Derpy.”
“What?” Romance says, his curiosity thoroughly piqued. Because Jinu had to be dead; they’d watched as his body disintegrated, watched his soul be woven into the new Honmoon. Could Derpy communicate with his soul in the Honmoon? Could Jinu still speak to them? And if he could, did he even want to hear what their dear leader had to say? He leans forward, expectantly, and sees Baby also watching them intently in his periphery.
But Rumi’s brow just furrows as she opens the card. Zoey slips in beside her, nose scrunching in confusion. “What does that even mean?” she asks, looking between Rumi and the card. "Is it like a fortune cookie?"
Then Mira leans in beside them, finally reading the words out loud.
“You have the strength to get through this, little bird.”