Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumi was a very inquisitive child and, more often than not, Celine found it endearing. It was only natural for a child to want to learn about the world- in fact, all children do is learn, grow, and ask questions about learning and growing- and most of Rumi’s questions were relatively easy for Celine to answer so long as she had an encyclopedia or Google at her disposal. But, when Rumi was twelve years old, she asked a question that Celine feared she would never be able to answer. 

They had finished with Rumi’s training exercises for the day, and Celine and Rumi were just beginning their walk across the compound from the massive tree and open fields where Rumi sparred and ran laps to the little house that Celine had called home since the day the Honmoon chose her. Rumi had been oddly quiet that day, but Celine didn’t think much of it. Rumi was curious, but that hadn't always meant talkative, and would often spend hours without speaking a word but would launch into a philosophical or theoretical rant the moment Celine asked what was on her mind. Celine could rarely understand her tangents, but appreciated them, regardless. Rumi was just a deep thinker, and her silence was rarely cause for concern.

Celine was just about to ask Rumi what she wanted for supper that evening when Rumi broke through the silence that had settled over them, a silence that Celine had thought was peaceful. Rumi’s voice was soft and polite, but her tone was fragile and hesitant, as if the question had forced its way up from her chest against her will.

“Celine, what if I disappear with my patterns?” She asked. 

Celine quite literally stopped in her tracks, shock rushing over her like a bucket of ice water.

“What?” She whispered, turning to look at Rumi.

Rumi stopped as well, but her eyes didn’t meet Celine’s. She kept her gaze firmly on the grass at her feet and held her arms frozen at her sides, hands balled up into fists so tight that her nails must have pressed little halfmoon indentations into her palms. 

“When we turn the Honmoon golden…” Rumi said, wrapping her arms over her chest as if it might prevent her little heart from bursting through her ribcage. “You said my patterns would disappear, and that all demons will be stuck with Gwi-Ma forever. That they won’t be able to hurt humans ever again.” Rumi paused and took a deep, shaky breath. “Does that include me? Do I have to be trapped with Gwi-Ma forever, too?” Rumi’s gaze flicked upwards and, for just a second, Celine could see tears welling in Rumi’s soft brown eyes.

Mi-Yeong’s eyes.

“I…” Celine started, but she had no idea what to say. “I don’t know, Rumi. I’m sorry.” Rumi finally raised her head, and looked Celine in the eye. A soft, sad smile worked its way across her lips.

“That’s okay, I was just wondering.” Rumi started walking towards the house again, but paused after her third step, and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, though her gaze never left the ground.  “I’ll still do it, though. Even if I have to … you know, disappear.” And, as if she hadn’t just distorted Celine’s entire worldview with a few simple words, Rumi kept on walking. 

Rumi didn’t broach the subject again for the rest of the night, and tried instead to recreate any of the normal dinner conversations that she and Celine held on any other ordinary night. She asked about the book Celine was reading, asked about her schoolwork for the rest of the week, and asked about Celine’s most recent hunt. Celine answered each question as she usually would, and asked a few in turn, but her mind remained in the field outside. 

Celine didn’t sleep well that night and, more than once, she found herself wandering down the hall to Rumi’s bedroom, and cracking the door open just enough to make sure Rumi was still there, still sound asleep, and still safe. She hadn’t felt the need to check on Rumi like that in years- Rumi was a pre-teen after all, and had exhibited all of the normal independence and maturity that came with her age (according to Celine’s many parenting books)- but Celine just couldn’t shake the fear that Rumi might vaporize into nothingness if Celine looked away for so much as a moment. 

Celine had never even considered the possibility that Rumi might disappear alongside her patterns once she turned the Honmoon golden, and Rumi’s theory was unfortunately plausible. What was Celine supposed to tell her beyond the fact that she just didn’t know? Did they both have to just accept the possibility that both of their lives’ work might end with Rumi trapped in another realm to suffer for the rest of time? And, most importantly to Celine, why was Rumi so okay with that? She had said she would “still do it,” as if resigning herself to an eternity of misery and pain was just Rumi’s way of taking one for the team. 

A part of Celine knew that she should just accept the possibility and move forward as if it didn’t exist, and that same part of her rationalized that Rumi was just one person and, while this sacrifice would be great, what was one little girl when weighed against all of humanity?

But why did it have to be her little girl? Why did mankind’s slaughtered sacrificial lamb have to be the sweet, intelligent, funny, and curious child that Celine had raised from infancy? And, again, why was Rumi okay with being that slaughtered lamb? 

Celine found herself alternating between pacing the hallways and sobbing in her bed until she passed out in the early hours of the morning. When she eventually fell asleep, she dreamed of an alternate reality, one where she still woke up to Mi-Yeong every morning, and where Rumi wasn’t just Mi-Yeong’s daughter for Celine to raise in her stead. In this reality, Rumi was their daughter, and Celine and Mi-Yeong could raise and love and cherish her together, and Rumi could grow up and learn and become the hunter she was meant to be with the mother she deserved at her side. Most importantly, this alternate reality let Rumi live her life as a normal human girl, without any of the half-demon confusion that Celine couldn’t fix, and Celine never had to watch her little girl sacrifice herself to solve a problem that she never started. 

When Celine woke the next morning, she promised herself that she would be able to answer this question when the time was right and that, while she could not answer Rumi now, she would be able to the next time Rumi broached the topic.

She thanked the heavens daily that Rumi had never asked her that again.

Chapter Text

Mira had only been at the compound for about a month, but she was really starting to like this whole demon-hunting thing. Sure, it was a shock to find out that demons actually exist, that there’s a demon king who wants to consume all human souls, and that a pop group made up of Mira and two other teenage girls was the only thing standing between humanity and an eternity in literal hell, but it wasn’t anymore of a shock than the realization that she liked girls. Besides, the compound in the countryside was rather peaceful, and it was nice to finally be away from the big city, and to be free of her shitty parents and their even shittier rules.

She was especially beginning to like Zoey, who was so magnetic and lovable that Mira couldn’t help but smile if Zoey so much as looked in her direction. They’d been staying in the same room at the compound, and Zoey had kept Mira up the whole night after she’d first arrived, laughing and telling ridiculous stories about her childhood back in the United States. Mira had never been so drawn to anyone before, and it was something of a relief to know that, whatever the world would put her through, Mira would have Zoey by her side through it all. 

Mira was even starting to like Celine. She was such a calm and grounded person, and she didn’t treat Mira like she was nothing more than an inconvenience or a problem to be solved. Sure, she was pretty strict, and she obviously took her mission to train Mira and the others very seriously, but Celine didn’t belittle or demean Mira like her parents had. Her criticism was purely constructive, and her teaching style clearly worked. In just a few short weeks, Mira had learned how to summon a weapon from the Honmoon, how to identify and locate any incoming rips and weak spots, and the basics of music theory and vocal performance.

Saving humanity was a lofty task but, if Mira’s progress was anything to go off of, then everything would be perfectly fine. Mira was flexible, and she was adapting to everything about this new life remarkably well. Everything except for Rumi, that is. 

Mira would’ve thought that the concept of fighting demons with music would be the most confusing thing about this whole ordeal, but she was dead wrong. Rumi was the most confusing, strangest, and most annoying thing that Mira had encountered in her sixteen years on Earth. How the actual fuck did magical nepo babies exist, and why did Mira have to deal with one as her team leader?

Rumi wasn’t outright mean- in fact, she had been startlingly polite and friendly to both Mira and Zoey from the moment that they arrived- but Mira wasn’t fooled. Rumi didn’t have to act like a stereotypical mean girl for Mira to see her for the snobby, stuck-up, bitchy little miss perfect that she was. And yet, it seemed that she was the only one who could see it. 

Zoey practically adored Rumi, which made at least a little sense. Rumi was the daughter of Zoey’s childhood idols, it only made sense for her to idolize Rumi as well, but it had been a whole month. Soon enough, Zoey would see that Rumi was just a stupid little princess, right? 

One night, Zoey insisted that she, Mira, and Rumi all camp out under the stars together. Rumi had never gone camping- Celine had never been interested in it- and Mira had grown up with five star hotels suites and private jets, so it was a bit of a new experience for both of them, but Zoey wasn’t deterred.

“My dad and I went camping all the time back home,” she explained as the three of them sat together in lawn chairs around a fire, roasting marshmallows over the golden flames. “There’s just something so special about sleeping under the stars together, and bonding with friends out in nature.”

“Are we really in nature, though?” asked Rumi. “The house isn’t even a kilometer away, and we’re out here, like, everyday.” 

Rumi’s words had been light and sweet, but Mira saw straight through all of that. Sure, they were barely a stone’s throw away from their usual bedrooms and indoor plumbing, but Zoey was having fun. Why did Rumi have to shit on her like that?

Zoey, however, didn’t seem to notice, and just laughed and shook her head as if Rumi wasn’t so clearly trying to ruin Zoey and Mira’s otherwise perfect evening. 

“Well this is probably as close to nature as you’re going to get, right Rumi? God, you’re such a princess, sometimes.” Zoey joked with a grin. Mira was expecting Rumi to turn up her nose, even though she’d never done anything like that before in the month that Mira had known her, but, instead, Rumi just started laughing. 

“You’re so right,” Rumi giggled. “This is basically roughing it to me.” She crossed her legs, sat up straighter, and tossed her stupidly massive purple braid over her shoulder with an exaggerated flick of her hand. Then, with a posh accent that Mira noted sounded surprisingly similar to her own mother’s, Rumi announced, “I should just call the butler out here, why am I making my own food!?” She burst into giggles and leaned back in her chair again. Then, to Mira’s disgusted surprise, Rumi turned her way and grinned, as if she honestly expected Mira to join in on whatever the fuck she thought she was doing.

Mira offered a half-hearted chuckle, but returned her attention to her now golden-brown marshmallow. Rumi and Zoey didn’t seem to notice, and continued on with their light-hearted jokes and childhood stories as crickets droned on behind them and Mira’s marshmallow was slowly consumed by the crackling flames in front of her.

When Mira woke in the middle of the night, she wasn’t surprised to see Rumi’s sleeping bag lying empty on the other side of the tent, illuminated by the dim glow-in-the-dark stars that Zoey had pasted all over the tent's walls and roof. Zoey was still fast asleep, of course, and was curled up into a little ball, her sleeping bag tucked safely between Rumi’s and Mira’s, blissfully unaware of Rumi’s absence.

Where the hell did she go? Mira thought, but she knew the answer. Rumi probably went back to the house, to sleep inside in her cozy bed instead of on the floor of a tent. Mira couldn’t exactly blame her, the sleeping bags weren’t super comfortable, but Zoey wanted them to camp out for a night. Was Rumi really so pampered and proper that she couldn’t honor Zoey’s little request for one night? 

Mira decided she would go find Rumi, and give her a piece of her mind. They were supposed to be a team, and Rumi needed to at least participate if she was going to be an effective leader.

After she found her glasses, Mira undid the flap of the tent, ready to grab her shoes and walk back to the house, but she was surprised to find that she didn’t need to.

Rumi was barely two meters from the tent, and was laying on the ground in her pajamas, completely ignoring the fact that her braid was now covered in dirt and dried grass. She half-sat up and turned her head towards the tent at the sound of the zipper, clearly a little surprised to see someone else awake at such a ridiculous hour. 

“Hi,” she whispered before she laid back down again, and returned her gaze to the sky above them.

“What are you doing?” asked Mira, bluntly. Sure, Rumi may not have abandoned their outdoor expedition like Mira had expected, but why the hell was she out here? 

That’s what Mira hated most about Rumi- she was always so cryptic, and spoke like every word had something hidden behind it. What was she hiding from them? How was she supposed to lead them if she didn’t even trust them enough to tell the truth?

“I couldn’t sleep,” Rumi said simply. “I didn’t want to leave you guys but I thought I’d wake you up if I didn’t go somewhere else. So, I’m stargazing.” 

This puzzled Mira- Rumi hadn’t ditched them in favor of sleeping indoors. Rather, she’d opted to lie in the dirt outside, close to her teammates but just far enough away so as not to disturb them. Mira didn’t know what to say and, for the first time, she began to wonder if her impression of Rumi had been incorrect. She’d always been an expert at reading people- she had to be to survive her parents’ insane standards and those of the other stupid rich people she’d been forced to associate herself with as a child. 

Could Rumi actually be nice? 

There was only one way for Mira to be sure.

“Can I join you?” she asked, stepping gingerly towards Rumi and away from the tent. Rumi looked mildly surprised, but she nodded. 

“There’s plenty of sky for the two of us.”

Mira sat down in the grass beside Rumi, but left about an arm’s length between them. She pulled her knees to her chest, and leaned her head back.

When she lived in the city, Mira had never seen stars with her naked eye before. She’d gone on an overnight school trip to an observatory once, but telescopes were no substitute for the real thing. The navy sky was filled with tiny white dots that twinkled around a pale crescent moon, and it was the most gorgeous thing Mira had ever seen. 

“I know you don’t like me.”

Mira’s head whipped towards Rumi, and she could’ve sworn that her heart stopped for just a fraction of a moment. She wanted to say something intelligent and interrogative, to ask Rumi how the actual fuck she had figured that out, but nothing more than a pathetic little creak was able to push its way past her lips. 

“What?”

Rumi sat up fully, but she didn’t lift her face. The stars above them were beautiful, but still too dim for Mira to make out the expression on Rumi’s face. I can’t read her.

“It’s okay,” Rumi murmured, playing absentmindedly with a dandelion that peaked out from the grass beside her. “You don’t need to.”

Mira couldn’t even force her mouth to move this time, and simply stared at Rumi as if the moon above them would suddenly explode with brilliant light, and reveal all of Rumi’s secrets for Mira to understand. That obviously didn’t happen, but Rumi began to elaborate after a few moments of silent confusion, much to Mira’s relief.

“You’re here to hunt demons- not to be my friend- and you’re doing great at it. I mean, you’ve been here- what, like a month?- and you’re already so good at everything. I honestly think you’ll be better than me in a few months or so- and I’ve been training for years. And besides, we seem to make a good team, whether you like me or not.” Rumi paused, and gently plucked the dandelion from the earth, pulling it closer to her still-hidden face. “So, yeah… you can hate me if you want to. It’s okay.”

“I don’t hate you,” Mira whispered, surprising even herself with the hesitation and shame that laced her voice. She wasn’t sure why she’d said it, and she was even less sure if it was true or not. Rumi finally lifted her head, and Mira could just barely make out the confusion in Rumi’s eyes.

“You don’t?” 

“I just…” Mira sighed. The jig was up- she might as well come right out and say it. “I feel like you don’t trust us… like there’s something that you don’t want Zoey and I to know about.”

Rumi was staring at Mira like deer in headlights, but Mira continued, “I don’t know what it is, or why, but it’s really pissing me off. What are you hiding from us, Rumi?”

Rumi looked away again, and Mira watched as Rumi’s grip on the dandelion tightened, pulling harshly on the stem that weaved between her fingers. 

“I’m sorry. You’re right, I am keeping things from you,” Rumi whispered. “It’s not because I don’t trust you- I’ve only known you guys for a few weeks but I would honestly trust you with my life. We’re hunters- I have to trust you with my life- and I really do, I promise.” 

Rumi met Mira’s gaze again, and Mira could read it clearly this time- Rumi was telling the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth, and Mira wasn’t sure what to make of that part quite yet, but it was enough for now. 

“Thank you, Rumi. That means a lot.” Slowly, Mira reached one hand towards Rumi, feeling the yellow dandelion head brush against her fingers as she took Rumi’s hand into her own. “Will you tell us one day?” she asked. Rumi nodded. 

“If I can, I will. I mean it.” Rumi looked down at their joined hands, at the soft yellow flower still caught between them. “I’m sorry that I pissed you off,” she said, and Mira almost fell backwards with laughter.

“I’ve never heard you swear before!” she giggled. “I didn’t think you knew how!”

Rumi rolled her eyes. 

“Of course I know how, don’t be stupid. I just try not to.”

“Why?” Mira quipped. “Get your mouth washed out with soap too much as a kid?” 

Rumi stared at Mira like she had three heads.

“What? Is that a thing!?”

Mira laughed again. “Duh! It's supposed to make you stop swearing or something- my parents did it to me, like, all the time!”

“Why!? How does that help?” Rumi asked with obvious sincerity, but Mira could hear the edge of a giggle creeping its way into Rumi’s voice. 

“Well it clearly doesn’t- just look at me!” Mira exclaimed through her own laughter, feeling something blossom in her chest as Rumi finally joined in, and allowed her cheerful, child-like giggles to overtake her. 

Maybe she would like Rumi after all. 

Chapter Text

After her parents’s divorce, Zoey spent every summer with her mother in Korea, but she’d never had the chance to visit in the wintertime; she had never even seen snow in-person before she moved there full-time. Now, after fifteen years of foggy California winters, she held her first snowball in her hands. It was cold and soft, but hardened into a perfect ball as she shaped it with her mitten-less fingers. It was incredible.

She hurled it at the back of Mira’s head. 

Zoey grinned in delight as Mira shrieked and whipped around to glare at her. 

“What the hell was that for?” she demanded, but mirth lay clear beneath the false anger in her voice.

“I don’t know,” Zoey shrugged. “You just looked so snowball-able.”

“What does that even mean?” Mira scoffed, but her ire fell toward a different target as she heard Rumi burst into giggles behind her. “Oh you little shit!”

Rumi, unfortunately, didn’t have time to dodge Mira’s attack, and screamed as Mira bolted towards her and tackled her to the snow-covered ground beneath them. Zoey quickly joined in, cheering, “Yay! Tackle Rumi!” as she flung herself on top of them, relishing in the laughter that arose from her victims.

Zoey loved being a demon hunter, and she had loved putting Hunter/x together. The girls were just one short month away from the official release of their debut album- and Zoey couldn’t believe how much had come directly from her. For the first time in her life, her natural weirdness and her odd creativity were good things. Mira and Rumi never shot down her ideas, and even encouraged her to keep coming up with more of her ridiculous schemes. They’d even kept her idea for their band’s name, and Zoey could’ve wept with joy the first time she saw “Huntr/x” and “Lyrics by Zoey Song” on an official document. 

But, what she loved most of all about being a demon hunter/popstar wasn’t the badass fighting or creative freedom. Mira and Rumi were her friends, and they actually wanted to be around her, even when they didn’t have to be. Zoey thought she was being pranked the first time Mira asked to join her for a round of Mari Kart, or when Rumi first asked Zoey about her favorite books and then actually listened to Zoey’s answers. Zoey had never felt so wanted before, or so loved, and it was intoxicating. She supposed all of those kids shows were right, friendship really was magic.

That night, Zoey sat on her bed, chewing on the end of a pen with one of her many notebooks in her lap, lit only by the clip-on reading light that she used to hide under her covers so she could stay up reading comic books for hours after her bedtime. She was working on some new lyrics, and she wasn’t quite sure where to go next. It was one of her weirder ideas and, even though she already had a solid chorus and a decent structural outline, she was having trouble figuring out how to start the first verse. Sure, she could start the song off through the chorus but, while she really liked what she’d come up with, she felt like she needed a running start for the chorus to really hit.

She needed Mira or Rumi for this, but Mira was already fast asleep in her bed across the room, and Zoey had learned by now that waking Mira was about as dangerous as poking a hungry polar bear with a stick. So, she hauled herself up and tiptoed down the hall to Rumi’s bedroom.

She was about to knock, but stopped short when she noticed the faint sounds of music that flowed from behind Rumi’s door. It was barely audible, but Zoey would’ve recognized that song anywhere, even through noise cancelling headphones and the sound of her dad’s insanely old lawnmower that he refused to replace even though Zoey was pretty sure the thing was going to shatter his eardrums if he didn’t just throw the damn thing away. 

It was an old song, and not one by the Sunlight Sisters, but one of the few pieces that Ryu Mi-yeong, Rumi’s mother, had released as a part of her first and only solo project. It was only released on cassette tapes, most of which had either degraded past the point of no return or had been perfectly preserved and sold for insane prices at Sunlight Sister-related online auctions. Zoey, however, had found one at a thrift shop when she was in middle school, and had managed to burn it into a CD. Whatever copy Rumi had, the sound quality was startlingly good, but that didn’t catch Zoey’s attention nearly as much as the soft voice, perfectly capturing lyrics that Zoey had never heard anybody else sing. 

There are things that I can never say

Treasures I will hide away

You’re the best thing that I have

You make me cry, you make me laugh

Oh, I wish that I could tell you

Just how much I need you

Just how much it hurts me

To have to live without you

Zoey should’ve walked away, should’ve left Rumi alone to enjoy what was clearly a private moment, but something inside her demanded that she intrude. Rumi’s voice was so soft, so gentle, and so frail in a way that Zoey had never heard before. Rumi was hurting, and Zoey had to know why. So, she knocked.

“Come in!” Rumi called from the other side of the door. When Zoey opened it, she found Rumi sitting crisscrossed on the floor of her bedroom, holding a dark green cassette deck that might be considered a historical artifact in her lap. She looked up at Zoey, smiling like she hadn’t just been singing in the most fragile, most melancholy tone ever to be heard by human ears. “What’s up?”

Somehow, Zoey forgot all about the beat up old notebook in her hands. 

“I heard you singing,” she said. “It’s one of your mom’s old songs, right?” She regretted her words the moment she heard them, but Rumi's eyes had already widened to the size of dinner plates. 

Too late to take it back now.

“Yes,” Rumi said hesitantly, pulling the cassette player closer to her chest. She slowly ran her thumb back and forth over the prehistoric green plastic, almost affectionately. “I didn’t think anyone else knew it.”

“I think you and I might be the only ones,” Zoey joked, but Rumi didn’t laugh. The two of them stared awkwardly at one another for a moment, and it almost made Zoey feel sick to her stomach. Her friendship with Rumi had blossomed so quickly- they’d never had awkward or uncomfortable moments like this- even though awkward and uncomfortable had practically been Zoey’s default state before joining Huntr/x. She knew that she was crossing a line, but Zoey couldn’t unhear the pain she’d felt in Rumi’s beautiful, delicate voice. “May I sit?” 

Rumi nodded, and Zoey gently lowered herself to the floor, folding her legs in to mirror Rumi’s posture and setting her now-forgotten notebook on the floor beside them. 

“Do you listen to your mom’s songs a lot?” she asked. 

Rumi set the cassette deck to the side, and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Sometimes,” she whispered. “It depends on the day.” Rumi had turned her head to the side, effectively refusing to meet Zoey’s eyes. She did this a lot, Zoey had noticed, but it was never in a rude way. Rumi had several quirks about her- like her aversion to certain textures of fabric, her clear disdain for eye contact, and her open dislike of “big lights” (Zoey understood this one- why have one stupid big light that makes uncomfortable shadows and burns your retinas when you can have a bunch of soft smaller ones that create an even balance of light around the room?).

“What’s so special about today?” Zoey asked. “Are you okay?”

Rumi shook her head. 

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just in my own head.”

Zoey nodded. 

“I get it, I’m really good at making up a problem in my own head and then myself all worked up over it. My dad calls it “perseverating.””

“You do it too?” asked Rumi. “I thought it was just a “me thing.”” 

Zoey smiled. “I think it’s just a “human thing,”” she said. To her surprise, Rumi seemed to tense up at her statement, one Zoey had thought would bring comfort. Hesitantly, she reached out, carefully taking one of Rumi’s hands into her own. “What’s on your mind, Rumi?” 

“I just…” Rumi paused, fishing around in the back of her mind, trying to find the words to explain feelings she barely understood. “Do you ever wonder if your life really matters? Like, on a cosmic scale? I mean, I know the Honmoon chose me- chose us- to do this, and I know it had a reason, but part of me feels like it got it wrong, like I’m not good enough to do this.”

Rumi’s words hit Zoey like a ton of bricks, but she did her best to catch them. She didn’t exactly think of herself as a philosopher, but she also understood where Rumi was coming from. She understood it more than she wanted to, in a way that only someone who’d been “the weird girl” at their school since kindergarten could do. 

“I do, actually,” she said, and her heart swelled when Rumi finally lifted her head, letting Zoey meet her soft, hopeful eyes. 

“Really?”asked Rumi.

“Really. I mean- I was just a random kid from California before all this happened,” Zoey shrugged. “I was kind of a loser, if we’re being honest.”

Gently, Rumi squeezed Zoey’s hand. “I don’t think you’re a loser,” she said, softly. 

“And I don't think that you’re not good enough.” Zoey squeezed Rumi’s hand in return. "You're good, Rumi and, for what it’s worth, I’m glad the Honmoon chose you.”

“You are?” Rumi asked. Briefly, some kind of emotion that Zoey didn’t recognize flashed across Rumi’s face, vanishing far too quickly for Zoey to decipher. 

“Yeah! It means that I get to know you.” Rumi’s breath hitched but, before Zoey could say anything, Rumi practically tackled her in a hug. Zoey loved hugs- she always had- but she had also been the only one to initiate any contact between Rumi and herself since they’d known one another. Rumi had never rejected her affection, but she’d never hugged Zoey unprompted before. Of course, Zoey reciprocated as quickly as she could, wrapping her arms around Rumi like she’d be raptured away into the sky if she didn’t. 

“Thank you, Zoey,” Rumi whispered, tears seeping in through the cracks in her voice. “I’m glad I get to know you, too.”

Chapter Text

Rumi watched as Jinu faded away in front of her, his body transforming into streams of light that flowed towards her. It felt like something had entered her bloodstream, flowing from her heart to her fingertips. She managed to grab hold of it, harnessing it and pulling her sword from the Honmoon just as she’d done time and time again. But something about it felt new, different, and she realized what Jinu had done. 

Jinu, who understood her in a way no one else could, who broke through her walls and earned her trust, who betrayed her in the cruelest way imaginable and turned the people she loved most against her, had given up his soul to the Honmoon, so that Rumi could create something new, something stronger in place of what he had broken. She still didn’t know if she would live to see the outcome, but Jinu had given up his life, and his sacrifice would not be in vain.

She raced towards Gwi-Ma, sword in hand, and swung with all her might. She felt something give, and looked up to see the flaming beast split in half, vulnerable. Colorful light enveloped her, pulling her towards the sky in a rush of music and shattered stained glass, and bringing Mira and Zoey back into view. She grabbed their hands, holding them close as the Honmoon reformed around them.

She braced herself for her death, waiting for rainbow light to rip her and her patterns from the earthly vessel she’d lived in for twenty-four years, but it never came. Instead, she floated safely to the ground, standing beneath a clear blue sky with Zoey and Mira at her side. 

She looked at her hands, at the patterns that still wrapped around her body. They had faded to a soft opalescent silver, but they were still there.

Her patterns had remained.

And so had she.

Rumi had figured out her life’s purpose when she was twelve years old: that the Honmoon had chosen her- a girl who was never supposed to exist and whose very being challenged the definition of humanity- to fight for and protect all of mankind. She’d devoted her entire life to that very goal, even when her selfish heart demanded to know whether she’d live or die, and kept filling itself with useless dreams, desires, and memories that Rumi had tried so hard to convince herself were inconsequential. Now, her mission had been fulfilled, and she was left with a single question.

What do I do now?

Rumi went to visit Celine a week after the Idol Awards. She hadn’t been surprised to find 187 missed calls from Celine when she finally checked her phone after the most insane and traumatizing night of her life, but she didn’t exactly know what to say. So, she chose not to say anything at all. 

Mira and Zoey had been glued to her side ever since Nansam tower, and had each sent a quick text message assuring Celine of Rumi’s safety and their own, but Rumi still hadn’t told them about everything that happened that night. She was so tired of keeping secrets from them, but how was she supposed to explain that she’d run to Celine and begged her to end her life after Zoey and Mira had turned their weapons on her? The past seven days had been wonderful, and it made her realize just how much she’d missed her girls when she’d pushed them away. She wasn’t ready to risk losing them again.

Rumi pulled into the driveway at the compound, gravel crunching beneath her as she put the car in park. She rarely drove herself places (she would be the first to admit that her driving skills were abysmal on a good day), but she needed to be alone today. Mira and Zoey had been hesitant to see her go, especially when she refused to bring one of them along or even ask Bobby to call a driver, but she’d promised them she’d be okay, and shared her location with them from her phone. It felt a little ridiculous- they could all sense each other's locations through the Honmoon- but if it put her girls’ worries to rest, she was happy to oblige. 

Rumi stepped out of the car and stretched her arms above her head, enjoying the feeling of the warm spring breeze and the sun on her skin. She’d made the deliberate decision not to cover up today, and while she wasn’t sure if her ripped jeans and short-sleeved tee shirt qualified as an act of rebellion, it sure felt like one as she approached the front steps of her childhood home. She hadn’t even reached the door when a familiar, fearful voice came from behind her. 

“Rumi?” Rumi turned around to see Celine, standing in the front yard and looking like she’d just seen a ghost. “Is that really you?”

Rumi had spent the entire drive trying to script out and prepare herself for this moment, but when she saw the woman who’d raised her, the woman who’d loved her, and the woman who’d made her hide away since she was a little girl, all words escaped her. Weakly, she nodded.

Celine rushed forward, nearly knocking both of them to the ground as she wrapped her arms around Rumi. 

“Oh, my little girl,” Celine whispered, her breath as shaky and unsteady as Rumi felt. “I’m so sorry.” Rumi crumbled instantly, falling into Celine as sobs began to rack her body.

She felt like she had many years ago, when she’d stayed up all night waiting for Celine to come back from a hunt and had run into her arms the moment she walked through the door. She’d been terrified that Celine had gotten hurt, that she wouldn’t come back, and that Rumi would be left alone. Celine had held her close, and had promised Rumi that she would always come back for her and that, no matter what, she would always be there for Rumi when she needed her. 

They both knew Celine hadn’t kept her promise entirely, that Rumi had felt scared and alone and hopeless for so many years, but that didn’t matter right now. They were safe, they were together, and they loved one another and, for now, it was enough. 

Chapter Text

Rumi woke up on the couch, squished in between Mira and Zoey beneath a mountain of blankets as early morning sunlight spilled over their living room. They’d all been so tired after last night, and Rumi didn’t even remember the drive home, or falling asleep on the couch, just a lot of crying and whispering “I’m so sorry,” and “please don’t go,” over and over again.

She was still in her costume, still covered in dirt, sweat, and glitter from the Idol Awards and its disastrous aftermath- and her whole body hurt like hell. Mira and Zoey were, too, but she was definitely in worse shape than the two of them. They looked so peaceful, Mira leaning against her shoulder and Zoey sprawled across her lap like a cat. It had been so long since she let them get so close to her, since she’d been this soft and vulnerable with them. 

It was easy when they were younger, when her patterns had been easier to hide. Before them, Rumi had never experienced much physical affection from anyone other than Celine. When Mira and Zoey were introduced into her life, their constant presence and reassurance made her crave their company more than anything. She enjoyed every second of it for the first few years but, as her patterns spread, a nauseating guilt began to settle into her stomach. Rumi was both demon and demon hunter, an anomaly whose sole purpose was protecting humanity from creatures that were so terrifyingly similar to her; to seek anything outside of that purpose- affection, friendship, or otherwise- was irredeemably selfish. 

Her heart ached each time she rejected their touch, their kindness, and their love, but she had to. It was for their own good- she felt it cruel to allow them to get so close to her, knowing that she could be ripped away from them the second the Honmoon was sealed. And yet, as she watched Zoey’s peaceful sleeping face and felt Mira’s warm, comforting weight against her side, the familiar hurt that kept her away from them for so long was nowhere to be found.

It dawned on her that, because they had rebuilt and sealed the Honmoon, all of humanity was safe now, and were no longer in need of her constant vigilance and protection. Her work was done, and she was free. She no longer had to worry that each and every mistake could mean the loss of a human life, or fear that she might be sucked away into another realm the moment she sealed the Honmoon. Friendship, affection, love, and all of the things that she’d deprived herself of could finally be hers, and no harm would come to anyone as a result. 

So, tired, sore, and still covered in dirt, sweat, and glitter, Rumi sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back into Mira while Zoey functioned as her own personal weighted blanket. Humanity was safe from demons, and she was safe to love again- surely a little more sleep would be safe as well. 

The three of them eventually woke up sometime in the early afternoon and, after showers and clean clothes and ordering an ungodly amount of food to be delivered from all of their favorite places, they settled in for a day of doing absolutely nothing together. Zoey put on her compilation of delightfully boring turtle videos, Mira brought out one of the few board games that didn’t cause an all out war to break out between them (UNO had been permanently banned from both their penthouse and the compound), and Rumi collected every blanket she could find to build a magnificent pillow fort. It was so joyfully mundane and, for a moment, Rumi allowed herself to feel normal again, to think that she might actually be able to live a normal life after everything she’d been through, everything she’d done.

That night, after several hours of unproductive delight and enjoying one another’s company, Mira and Zoey bid Rumi good night, and all three of them headed off to their separate bedrooms. Even though she’d slept half the day, Rumi’s body was still exhausted, and she fell asleep pretty quickly. 

She dreamed that she was in her childhood bedroom, sitting on her bed with her cassette deck. Her mother’s songs floated in the air around her, and Rumi leaned back against her pillows, enjoying the soft, familiar sound. But, as she listened, the music began to distort, and it sounded like screams were coming from her cassette deck. She panicked and opened it, but shrieked and fell off of her bed in surprise when a massive beam of magenta light exploded from the little plastic door. The light twisted and warped before her, transforming into strange holograms of Mira and Zoey, looking at her with hatred in their eyes, weapons aimed right at her heart. 

“No!” Rumi cried, scrambling backwards, away from them. “Please don’t hurt me! I wanted to tell you, I promise!” The holograms didn’t seem to hear her, and moved closer to Rumi as she sobbed and begged them to get away from her. She wailed as the light shifted again, and a hologram of Celine appeared in front of her, holding Rumi’s saingeom in her hands. She raised it above her head, ready to strike- until two voices broke through the cacophony of screams. 

“Rumi, wake up!”

“You’re dreaming, it’s okay!”

Rumi sat up in bed with a scream. She breathed rapidly and her heart throbbed in her chest as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and her bedroom came into view; Mira and Zoey were there with her, one on each side of her bed. They looked scared, but not like they had in Rumi’s dream. They looked fearful for her, not of her, like she was a wet kitten they’d found on the street and not the half-demon abomination that they’d been unknowingly living with for almost a decade.

“What happened?” Rumi wrapped her arms around herself, still gasping for air and shaking like a leaf as tears streamed down her face

“You had a nightmare, and it was a pretty bad one, from the looks of it,” Mira said. She leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on Rumi’s shoulder, but quickly retreated when Rumi flinched at her touch. No, come back, Rumi wanted to say. She’d craved their affection for so long, so why did she flinch away?

“We heard you screaming,” added Zoey. “And when we came in we saw you crying and thrashing around.”

Rumi sighed.“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Hey, none of that, now,” Mira soothed. She sat down on the bed, and Rumi didn’t miss the intentional distance that Mira placed between them. “You’ve been through a lot, and we’re here for you.”

“Agreed,” said Zoey, gently placing herself on the bed next to Rumi. “And I’m calling for a mandatory sleepover- there’s no way I’m leaving you alone after all of that.” 

Mira nodded in agreement. “I second that.” Then, slowly, tentatively, she reached out again, gently taking Rumi’s hand. Rumi greedily let her, though the flame of guilt she thought she had extinguished flared back to life at the contact.“Can we stay?” Mira asked. Her voice was so soft, so gentle, and Rumi would’ve given Mira her soul if she’d asked for it. 

The logical side of Rumi’s mind screamed at her to refuse, that, whether the Honmoon was safe or not, Rumi was still a liability to Mira and Zoey, but her heart drowned it out. She’d been through hell and back- surely even something as wicked as her had earned a little comfort, right? Rumi didn’t trust her voice to comply with her, so she simply nodded, and allowed Mira and Zoey to wrap themselves around her, pulling her into a sweet, dreamless sleep. 

Days passed by, and Rumi waited for the shoe to drop, but it never came. Zoey and Mira kept waking up next to her, and kept inviting her to play video games with them, or go on midnight snack runs together, or simply exist in the same space with them. She knew she should decline their invitations, that it was selfish of her to expect them to treat her normally now that her secret had come out, but she just couldn’t help herself.

They never made her leave, never left her behind, and never even asked her to cover her patterns in their presence. They looked at her like they always had, with adoration and kind affection, and it made Rumi feel safe enough to stop wearing turtlenecks and sweaters all the time, like she didn’t have to hide anymore. It felt too good to be true, but they kept on loving her, and she kept falling asleep in their arms every night. 

Worst of all, despite Rumi’s attempts at normalcy, a new feeling had begun to accompany the ever-present guilt in her stomach- one that scared her more than anything she’d ever encountered. Every time Zoey or Mira hugged her, held her hand, nudged her playfully, or leaned their heads on her shoulder, blood rushed to her face, and her heart began to pound like a sledgehammer against her ribs. It was vaguely familiar and, though she couldn’t identify it or where it came from, it was comparable to two things.

Rumi was reminded of the strange, anxious want that she had felt when she first met Mira and Zoey, before their friendship had solidified completely. It left her hanging on to their every word, trying as hard as she could to make them happy, and fearing what might become of her should she fail to win them over. She hadn’t felt it in ages, but it had come back tenfold. She felt foolish and embarrassed, but she just needed them in a way she couldn’t explain. 

This new feeling also felt very similar to the little spark that bloomed in Rumi’s chest when she first met Jinu, and allowed another person into her personal world for the first time. It was a sweet, delicate, comforting kind of vulnerability- the kind that made her feel like she could fall asleep in his arms and that everything would be okay so long as he was near. Their connection had been built on lies, but it was still real, and she knew that there was nothing artificial about the way he looked at her, the way she felt when his fingers brushed up against her own. She’d never felt it before him, and she thought she’d never feel it again now that he had given up his soul for her. 

This strange mix of need and vulnerability swirled inside of her, and she couldn’t figure out what to do about it for the life of her, but Celine might be able to. Rumi hadn’t asked Celine for advice in years, and she wasn’t sure if Celine would even want to see her again. She’d asked Celine to kill her, had fallen to her knees in the dirt and begged the woman who raised her to put her out of her misery before she hurt anyone else. When Celine had refused, Rumi let two decades of repressed anxiety and anger come spilling out of her. The thought of lying to Mira and Zoey again terrified her far more than death, and had led her to be more honest than she ever had been, begging to be loved for who she was and angry over all the years she’d suffered through. 

The wound was still raw and exposed, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell Mira and Zoey about it. She knew that they had questions, and she wanted to answer them, but she wasn’t sure how. They’d been gracious enough to leave well enough alone for the past few days, but ignorance could only be blissful for so long. 

She needed to see Celine, regardless of whether she wanted to or not. So, she made a plan, had Bobby get her rarely-used car out of storage, and tried to prepare herself for the worst, too afraid to even hope for the best. 

After a long while of hugging and crying, Celine had ushered Rumi inside.

“I know the drive isn’t too long,” Celine said as she flipped on the kitchen lights and opened up the refrigerator. “But you probably haven’t eaten since breakfast and I have some leftovers we can heat up.” 

“That would be great, thank you.” Rumi replied as she took a seat at their kitchen table, looking around at the kitchen she hadn’t seen in so long. It hadn’t changed at all, but Rumi couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been here. It had to have been at least three years, and even then, it was probably for demon-hunting related reasons. 

And yet, Rumi’s old house shoes were right by the door when she walked in, and the air smelled faintly of… no, it couldn’t be. Rumi refocused her attention to Celine, to the small pot she was stirring on the stove and the empty glass container next to it. Sure enough, it was hobak-juk, Rumi’s favorite- but Celine hated hobak-juk. She couldn’t stand the dish’s texture or mildly sweet taste, and hardly ever made it unless Rumi was sick or she really needed to get rid of a pumpkin- there was no way in hell that she was just reheating leftovers.

Rumi hadn’t told Celine that she was coming, and Celine couldn’t sense her through the Honmoon like Mira or Zoey could, having set down her own weapons many years ago. Had Celine spent the past few days praying for Rumi to call or come home? Had she made this in hopes that Rumi might sit down at their old kitchen table, and share a meal with her again?

The thought brought tears to Rumi’s eyes, but she wiped them away before Celine could notice as she set a steaming bowl in front of her. Rumi thanked her, and watched in absolute surprise as Celine grabbed her own bowl, took a seat across from Rumi, and began to eat. 

Maybe Celine was capable of change after all

Maybe she and Rumi would be okay.

Chapter Text

The first time that they kissed was an accident. 

Huntr/x had just finished the first concert of their debut tour as a main act, and it felt incredible. The crowd had been electric and everything had gone off without a hitch, and Zoey had never felt such an intense rush of adrenaline. She was still riding the high when she and Mira went back to their dressing room to change and head home.

Rumi had expected them to want their own dressing rooms, but Zoey had grown so used to sharing her life with Mira that it felt wrong not to. It also helped her to calm her nerves while getting ready for the show, knowing that, whatever happened on stage, Mira would be there with her. 

“You fucking killed it out there, Zo!” Mira exclaimed as she closed the dressing room door behind her, leaning against it to unzip one of her boots. 

Zoey grinned. “You really think so?” 

“Of course I do! I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” 

“You know you did great, too,” said Zoey, kicking off her own shoes and pulling her hoodie out of her duffle bag. “Your choreo is SO hot, like- I was losing my mind out there!”

Mira laughed. “Says you,” she said, tossing off her first boot and moving onto the second. “Your solo verse in the finale had me blushing! You get so into it and it just does something to me, I swear.” She laughed lightly. “You’re so passionate about this, and it really shows out there. You’re amazing, Zoey.”

Zoey set her hoodie down, walking over to Mira to wrap her in a hug, which Mira eagerly reciprocated, pulling Zoey into her arms and leaning back against the door.  

“Thanks, Mir,” Zoey said. “That means a lot coming from you.”

Mira smiled down at her. “Don’t mention it.”

Zoey looked up at Mira and, for a moment, allowed herself to get lost in admiring her massive brown eyes, high, sculpted cheekbones, her soft, patient smile, and her soft pink lips. Even if she’d seen Mira’s perfect smile every single day for the past two and a half years, she still felt like she could spend hours staring at her, at the person who made Zoey feel like she could do anything when they were together. 

She didn’t know what exactly gave Zoey the desire to kiss her, nor the confidence. But the thought popped into her head and, as she was still high off of a successful show and Mira’s words of soft affirmation, none of Zoey’s inhibitions, her anxiety, and her sense of caution held her back. 

Her nerves and overthinking mind were completely gone, leaving her and Mira alone to exist as they were with one another. So, before her senses could return to her, Zoey leaned upwards and pressed her lips against Mira’s. 

Mira’s eyes went wide with surprise at the feeling of Zoey’s warm, soft lips against her own, and she let out a tiny squeak in shock. It felt embarrassingly out of character for her- she was usually so confident, or at least good enough at faking it that no one would dare think otherwise.

The sound brought Zoey back to her senses, gasping as she immediately pulled away from Mira. 

“Mira, I am so sorry, I shou-” Mira didn’t give Zoey the chance to finish, pulling her back into her arms and kissing her fully. 

She tightened her grip around Zoey’s waist with one arm, and lifted the other to cup Zoey’s face in her hand. She kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, sighing at the feeling of Zoey’s arms wrapping around her neck, one hand lacing its way into her long, pink hair to pull her in closer. 

Neither of them knew how long they stayed like that, but stopped immediately when a knock sounded at the door directly behind them, causing Mira to jump off of it, almost knocking over Zoey, who had only been saved by her death grip on Mira’s hair and the back of her neck. 

“Girls, are you ready to go?” Rumi called from the other side of the door. “Celine wants to take us to get food to celebrate.” 

“Yeah!” said Zoey, quickly untagnling limbs from Mira’s and stumbling back over to her duffle bag. “We’re almost done- just give us, like- three minutes to finish up.”

“Sounds good!” Rumi called back. “You guys take as long as you need- I’ll be by the stagedoor when you’re ready.”

Mira reached for her own duffle, ripping off her costume and throwing on the oversized sweater and cozy leggings she’d brought for the ride home. “Thanks, Rumi!” she said. 

A few hours later, Zoey lay in her hotel bed, gazing up at the ceiling in absolute frustration. Mira hadn’t said a single word about the kiss, even after they’d been left alone for the night. But, to be fair, Zoey hadn’t either.

What was she thinking kissing Mira out of nowhere like that? She’d never kissed anyone before- especially not a girl. She’d only just figured out that she liked girls like a few months ago, it was still quite new and scary to her- and Mira wasn’t even saying anything about it!

She turned to lay on her side and glare in Mira’s direction, only to be startled by Mira staring directly at her, lit only by the dim moonlight that streamed through the window.

Mira looked mildly surprised at first, but her expression shifted in less than a second. She sighed and pushed herself to sit up. 

“I can’t take this anymore,” she groaned, flipping on the light beside her and looking Zoey in the eye. “Zoey, I love you. I think I have for months now.” Mira’s face remained firm and neutral, but Zoey could see the delicate fear that hid beneath her stern eyes, fear that Zoey might not feel the same way. It was entirely unfounded. 

“I love you too,” Zoey gushed, tossing her blankets aside and rushing over to Mira to capture her lips again.

It wasn’t an accident this time.

The third time they kissed hadn’t been an accident either, nor had the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh, and Zoey stopped counting after that. 

Her relationship with Mira grew quickly, blossoming out of the strong friendship they’d already built from months of training together to save the world. In some ways, it felt like a logical next step in their friendship, and loving Mira came to Zoey as if it was second nature to her.

They complimented each other so well- Mira was grounded and calming where Zoey was overzealous and naive, and Zoey was compassionate and cheerful where Mira was insecure and harsh. They decided to keep it to themselves for a while, only kissing or referring to one another as “girlfriends” behind closed doors. Idols weren’t supposed to date, and neither wanted to deal with the possibility of Celine finding out or the PR disaster that might ensue if the media were to catch wind of it, and Zoey was really uncomfortable with the idea of telling Rumi. She wasn’t even sure why- Mira had come out as bisexual less than a month after they met, and Rumi had been completely supportive. Hell, Rumi had joked in passing that Mira and Zoey bickered like an old married couple- clearly, she would have had no problem with their relationship. 

It should have been easy to explain, and it should have felt whole and complete, and it did, most of the time, but Zoey always felt like something was missing, even though she couldn’t quite place her finger on it.

Still, she and Mira were head over heels for one another, and their feelings only grew stronger as the years passed by. It wasn’t until Nansam Tower, when Rumi broke both of them from Gwi-Ma’s spell and brought them back together that Zoey finally found the missing piece. It was Rumi- and it had been all along. That’s why she’d been so uneasy about telling Rumi; because she wanted Rumi to be a genuine part of their relationship- not a third wheel.

Zoey wasn’t sure when she had fallen for Rumi, but she knew exactly why. Rumi gave Zoey the strength she needed to become the best version of herself, pulled Zoey from her thoughts when she got stuck in her own head, and always found a way to adore and admire all of the things that Zoey tended to hate about herself. She was also ethereally beautiful and, although that wasn’t the main cause of Zoey’s feelings, it certainly didn’t hurt.

Part of Zoey felt like she had betrayed Mira, that it was wrong to love two people at once and that there was no way she could love them both equally and completely, but the rest of her knew that simply wasn’t the case. Zoey loved Mira just as deeply as she ever had- they’d been together for years, but Zoey still felt like her legs turned to jelly whenever Mira looked at her, and still felt butterflies in her stomach whenever they kissed. Her affections hadn’t been divided or diminished, but had grown to fully encompass both of the people who filled Zoey’s life with brilliant color and joyous song. 

She knew she had to tell Mira eventually, but she wasn’t sure how, especially after the absolute shit-storm they’d survived. Things were so good, and Zoey didn’t want to ruin that just because her stupid heart couldn’t focus on one person at a time. It was too risky, and Zoey determined that she wouldn’t either Mira or Rumi unless she could guarantee a positive, or at least neutral, response.

Three days into their newfound peace, Zoey found herself curled up in Rumi’s bed again, Mira across from her and Rumi asleep between them. Rumi was out like a light from the moment her head hit the pillow, and had unknowingly wrapped herself around Mira like a koala. She was dead to the world, and probably would sleep through a hurricane if one ripped through her room at that moment, but Mira didn’t seem to mind. Rather, she looked perfectly content as she stroked Rumi’s hair with her hand, gazing at her with a soft, peaceful joy in her eyes. 

It was the exact same way Mira looked at Zoey, and Zoey prayed that it meant the same thing. Everything she wanted was right in front of her and, if she was right, then it could really be hers. They could be hers. Maybe the risk would be worth it.

“Mira?” she whispered, heart racing as her girlfriend looked up to meet her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I love her,” Zoey confessed. “I don’t love you any less, but I love her, too.” 

Mira simply hummed in response. “I know,” she murmured, looking back down at Rumi and continuing to stroke her hair as if Zoey hadn’t just confessed the most earth-shattering revelation she’d ever come to. Well, maybe not the most earth-shattering revelation- last week had this one beat by a wide margin- but it was at least in her top ten. 

“You what?!” she whisper-yelled. Rumi might be a super heavy sleeper, but Zoey would be damned if she woke her up after the mess she’d been through.

“I know, Zoey. I have eyes.” Mira looked back up at Zoey, smirking like she had two months ago when she told Zoey that it said “gullible” on the ceiling and Zoey totally fell for it.

Zoey couldn’t believe it.

“And you didn’t say anything?!”

“Was I supposed to?” Mira laughed softly, playfully cocking her head to the side.

“Yes! I’m your girlfriend and I’m in love with another person- you've got to at least feel something about it!” 

“And I do.”

“Well, what is it then?!”

“I’m thrilled,” Mira mused, her smirk growing into a full shit-eating grin.

“You are?”

“Of course I am, because I love her, too.” Zoey’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. 

“Since when?!” she demanded, but clasped both her hands over her mouth when Rumi stirred between them, shifting around in Mira’s arms. Thankfully, she quickly stilled, sighing and resting her head on Mira’s bicep. Mira sighed, looking back at Rumi’s sleeping face, apparently indifferent to the inevitable loss of circulation in her arm.

“Honestly?” she whispered. “I’m not sure. It kind of feels like it's been years, and I just didn’t notice at first.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I've been freaking out about trying to tell you this for the past- like- three days,” Zoey groaned. “You should’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry,” Mira sighed. “You’re right, I should have told you. But, I just figured this out, too.” She looked up at Zoey, a soft frown on her face. “We literally just saved the world a few days ago, and I’m still kind of taking it all in. We’re safe now, but we’re still fragile.” Mira lifted her free hand from Rumi’s hair, moving to cup Zoey’s cheek. “I don’t want to lose this, and I really don’t want to lose you.” 

Zoey leaned into Mira’s touch, turning her face to press a soft kiss against Mira’s palm. 

“I don’t want to lose you either,” she whispered. “I love you so much, Mira.” 

Mira stroked her thumb across Zoey’s cheek. 

“I love you, too,” she said. “And I’m actually so happy that you love Rumi, too.”

Zoey leaned in close, careful not to disturb Rumi’s sleeping form, and pressed a delicate kiss to Mira’s forehead.

“Can we tell her about it soon?” Zoey asked, taking Mira’s hand from her face and intertwining their fingers. She looked down at Rumi’s peaceful, sleeping face. “She promised to stop keeping secrets from us; we should do the same.”

Chapter Text

Even though she’d never liked it herself, Celine made a fantastic hobak-juk. The rice balls were perfectly chewy, and the porridge itself was nutty and sweet. It tasted like Rumi’s childhood, like cold winter evenings spent reading on the couch with Celine, and it made it easier for Rumi to be genuine and vulnerable with her guardian for the first time in years. They ate in silence, and Rumi wasn’t entirely convinced that Celine was enjoying her own bowl, but her message was clear. 

I know that you’re hurting, I know that I’ve caused it, and I want to help if you’ll let me. 

After they finished washing up, Celine made them both a cup of tea, and asked Rumi to join her in the living room. Rumi wasn’t sure where she was going with this- if Celine was just going to keep offering her food or if they were actually going to talk it out- but she accepted. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Rumi asked once they’d sat down.

“Of course,” said Celine, eyes wide with hope and eager to help. “Anything.”

“What am I supposed to do now?” 

“What do you mean?” Celine asked.

Rumi sighed, looking down at the cup in her hands. It was her favorite blend- a lavender and citrus oolong that she’d only ever found at a tiny local market in the town closest to the compound, one that she’d had delivered specially to Seoul since she’d moved into the penthouse. She was surprised that Celine had remembered it. 

“We rebuilt the Honmoon. As far as I can tell, it’s been sealed and is completely secure, so Gwi-Ma and his demons are no longer a threat to this world. My job is done, but I’m still here.” Rumi paused, looking up and trying her hardest to meet Celine’s eyes. “I didn’t think I’d make it this far, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with myself.” Rumi felt her breath begin to shake, tears welling in her eyes. “All I’ve ever been is a hunter- that was my purpose, my reason for everything, and now I don’t have it anymore and I just… I feel so empty. Dreaming of anything beyond that just felt selfish- like it could distract me and ruin everything that you and mother worked so hard for .” She lost the strength to maintain eye contact any longer, and looked back down at her cup. Tears began to slip down her cheeks, and Rumi couldn’t stop them from slipping into her voice as well. “How am I supposed to live when the only thing that gave my life meaning is gone? Does my life even matter anymore?” A sob lurched out of her before she could stop it. Her hands were shaking now, and her knuckles had gone white around her teacup. 

“Oh, Rumi,” Celine murmured, slowly taking Rumi’s teacup from her hands and setting it on the coffee table. Then, gently, she took Rumi’s hands in her own. “Of course your life matters, why wouldn’t it?”

“Because I’m not supposed to exist!” Rumi sobbed. “I’m a mistake and I thought it’d be fixed when I fixed all of this but I’m not! My mother died bringing me into this world and I have nothing to show for it- she sacrificed her life for a mistake. How am I supposed to live with that, now that my only way of making up for it is gone?”

“Rumi, no.” said Celine, lifting one of her hands to cup Rumi’s face. Rumi noticed that she didn’t hesitate this time, not like she had beneath the tree, and simply wiped away Rumi’s tears with her thumb. “Rumi, you are not a mistake, you have never been a mistake. I know you feel that way- and I know that I made you feel that way- but it isn’t true. It never was.” Celine’s breath hitched, and Rumi sensed that she might not be too far from crying, either. 

“Rumi, you are a wonderful, talented, brave, and compassionate young woman. You’ve done what so many generations of hunters devoted their lives to achieving, and you’ve saved so many lives. You’re…” Celine paused, and tears began to fall from her eyes.

“The Honmoon did not choose you so that you could pay for your mother’s life- it chose you because you were the only one who could be strong enough to achieve all of this- to rebuild what I failed to strengthen. You’re not just a hunter, you’re not just Mi-Yeong’s daughter, and you’re not just your patterns- you are so much more than all of that and I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like you were anything less than incredible.” Celine pulled Rumi into her arms for the second time that day, and Rumi melted into her embrace, burying her face in Celine’s shoulder as she wept. 

“I know you’re still hurting, and you’re probably still mad at me and you have every right to be, but I’m going to be here for you this time. You don’t have to forgive me but, if you’ll let me, I want to help you heal.”

Rumi cried for a while, and Celine just held her, stroking Rumi’s hair and whispering, “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here.” She wasn’t sure how long she stayed wrapped up in Celine’s arms, but her tears subsided eventually. Her head hurt and, once Celine had released her, she quickly reached for her forgotten teacup on the coffee table. It had cooled considerably, but felt good on her dry throat. She set her now empty cup down and sighed, leaning against the back of the couch in exhaustion. 

“I still don’t know what to do with myself, though,” she said, looking down at her hands in her lap- the purple flowers on her nails that Zoey had painted the day before, the calluses on her fingertips from her guitar strings, and the winding silvery patterns that criss-crossed her skin. 

“I do,” Celine said, and Rumi looked up to meet her eyes.   

“What?” 

A watery smile broke across Celine’s lips. “You live- for yourself, this time.”

“I don’t know how to live for myself.” 

“You’ll learn. You spend time with people you love, you do things that make you happy, and you put yourself first. You’re allowed to be selfish after everything you’ve been through, Rumi- in fact I want you to be a little selfish, and I’m sure that Mira and Zoey would say the same.”

Rumi’s heart fluttered at the mention of her friends, and it reminded her of the whole reason she’d come to Celine in the first place. 

“I love them so much,” she whispered “I thought I lost them forever- but they came back to me. They know what I am, and I still have so much to tell them, but they came back to me, Celine.”

“Well, until you learn how to live for yourself, what if you tried living for them?” Celine suggested. Rumi’s heart swelled at the thought, but her fear remained.

“But what if I lose them again? What if I get too close and ruin everything?”

“You won’t, Rumi.”

“But what if-,” 

“You won’t,” Celine insisted. “Not after everything you’ve been through together.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but I know what it’s like to spend your whole life wondering what could’ve been if you’d just been brave enough to take that chance when you had it. I don’t know what will happen, and neither do you, but aren’t they worth the risk?”

Celine’s words washed over Rumi, full of truths that she didn’t quite comprehend and one startlingly bright and beautiful voice that told her to get up and do something. She didn’t know how they’d respond, she still didn’t even know what her feelings meant, but she knew more than anything in the world that Zoey and Mira were worth the risk.

She shot up off the couch like a lightning bolt, so quickly that Celine jumped back in surprise. 

“I need to go to them,” she said, scrambling towards the kitchen to retrieve her phone and car keys.

“Rumi, slow down!” Celine called. “Hang on for a second!” She dashed into the kitchen behind Rumi, and threw open the fridge, grabbing a large plastic container of hobak-juk and shoving it into Rumi’s arms.

“What the- how much of this did you make!?” she asked, bewildered.

Celine shook her head. 

“Enough that I’ve been forcing myself to tolerate it for days now- now go,” she urged.

Rumi didn’t need to be told twice, rushing to kick off her house shoes and tie her sneakers. She threw open the front door and sprinted down the driveway, almost dropping her leftovers in the process. She’d just reached the driver’s side door when-

“Rumi!” 

Rumi turned back to see Celine standing on the front steps, wringing her hands together with a soft, anxious look in her eyes. 

“Just… text me when you get home, okay? I…” Celine paused, and Rumi knew that Celine, herself, was taking a risk, too. “I love you, Rumi. Drive safely.”

Celine wasn’t good with words of affection- she never had been- and Rumi understood how much it meant for Celine to say those three little words, and the unspoken promise that lay beneath them. 

I want to see you again. Please don’t let this be goodbye. 

“I will,” Rumi said, allowing a soft, hopeful, smile to find its way across her lips. “I love you too, Celine.”

Chapter Text

The hours before Rumi returned from her visit to the compound were torture for Mira, and she was quickly running out of ways to keep herself busy. She’d always made fun of Rumi for her workaholic behavior, and had compared her to a border collie on more than one occasion. Rumi always needed to have a job to do and, if no one gave her one, then she would make one, and Mira was beginning to understand why. 

Her thoughts raced at a million miles per hour and there was nothing she could do about it, but that didn’t stop her brain from trying. So far, she’d cleaned the entire penthouse, rearranged all the furniture in her bedroom twice, run three miles on the treadmill, and baked four loaves of banana bread. She’d also started on making homemade bibimbap for dinner, even though it was only three in the afternoon. 

Zoey and Mira had been surprised at Rumi’s decision to visit Celine. At first, Mira had even been hesitant to let her go, but she knew that Rumi had a lot of healing to do and that Celine needed to be involved in most of it. It also delayed her and Zoey’s plan to tell Rumi about their relationship and their feelings for her, which didn’t exactly calm her racing mind. 

Zoey was worried about it too, but she seemed to be doing a better job of handling it. She’d also been distracting herself, and had spent the whole day playing a video game that she was currently hyper-fixated on. She called it “weaponizing her ADHD,” and said her ability to stay so focused on one specific thing could often come in handy when she needed a healthy distraction. Hell, she’d been the one to suggest that Mira distract herself, too.

But, as Zoey watched Mira move at the speed of light from the other side of the kitchen, Mira began to realize that this was not what she’d meant.

“Hey, Mira,” Zoey began, as cautiously as if she were approaching a stray dog. “What are you doing, babe?”

“Making bibimbap, what does it look like?” Mira said, not looking up from her cutting board. “I’m just chopping vegetables for it.”

“Yeah, but do they owe you money? You’re moving really fast- you should slow down a bit.”

“I’m doing just fine- FUCK, OW!” Mira yelped. 

She looked down at her hand, which had been caught in the crossfire between knife and mushroom. It wasn’t too bad, just a small cut, but it was bleeding quite a bit. 

“Oh, shit!” Zoey gasped. “Are you okay?” She ran over to Mira, grabbing her injured hand for inspection. 

“I’m fine,” Mira groaned. “It’s just a cut.”

“Yeah, you’re done in the kitchen for now.” Zoey began to guide her away from the kitchen, pulling her towards the bathroom. “We’re ordering takeout for dinner; I don’t want any more casualties tonight,” she declared, and Mira knew there was no arguing with her.

“Okay,” she grumbled, begrudgingly sitting down on the toilet lid while Zoey rummaged around for the first aid kit and washed her hands. 

“You know,” Zoey started.“When I said to find a ‘healthy distraction,’ I didn’t mean to make yourself so busy that you get hurt.” She turned to Mira, holding a wet washcloth, a tube of antibiotic cream, and a decently sized bandaid. 

Mira grumbled but extended her hand, allowing Zoey to dote on her, even if she didn’t really need it. The cut was barely two centimeters long, Mira could easily have taken care of it herself, but she also knew that wasn’t why Zoey was so insistent on patching her up. Mira had done something very similar for Zoey many times, and never hesitated to pull Zoey away from something if she worried Zoey was going to get herself hurt. 

“I know,” she murmured. “I’m just so… nervous, I guess.” It almost felt embarrassing to say, and Mira wasn’t entirely sure why. Zoey knew her inside and out, and Mira loved having the ability to be vulnerable with someone like that. Her childhood had required her to build steel walls around her heart and to see anyone who sought to get in as a threat, but Zoey had convinced Mira to let those walls down. Mira knew she was completely safe with Zoey, so why the actual fuck was she embarassed? 

“And that’s okay,” Zoey continued. “But talking it out would be a much better way to deal with it than chopping your finger off, right?” She knelt in front of Mira, gently wiping the blood off of her hand with the cloth, careful not to further aggravate the, once again, very minor cut. “So, tell me, why are you nervous?”

Mira sighed.

“I guess I’m just worried about how Rumi will react, is all. And I know it’s stupid- she’s been so close to us for so long and has stood by us through far worse- but we just got her back, you know?” Tears pricked at the back of Mira’s eyes, surprising her. She knew she was nervous, but she’d been so focused on repressing it that she hadn't realized how goddamn terrified she was. 

“I know, baby,” Zoey soothed. “I’m scared, too, but it’s going to be okay.” She spread a tiny dab of antibiotic cream onto the cut and carefully wrapped the bandage over it. Then, for good measure, she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss over the bandage. 

Zoey stood, washed her hands again, and started putting away the first aid supplies. 

“Maybe it would make you a little less nervous if we planned out what we’re gonna say instead of- like- raw-dogging the conversation.”

“Zoey!” Mira scolded before bursting into laughter despite herself. “Why’d you gotta say it like that?!”

“‘Cause it makes you laugh!” Zoey beamed. “Besides, you don’t seem to mind that word when-”

“Okay, okay, I get it, now stop!” Mira laughed. Zoey held out her hand to Mira, and she took it, following Zoey to her bedroom and flopping down on the bed beside her.

“So, what do you think we should say?” Zoey asked. “Let’s plan.”

“Maybe we start by asking her how things went with Celine. I don’t want to confess this kind of thing to her if she’s not in the right headspace.”

“That’s a good idea, anything else?”

“Something about how we won’t be mad at her if she says no,” Mira murmured. “I really don’t want her to feel like she has to just say yes so that we don’t…” she trailed off, her heart sinking at the memory of the idol awards. So that we don’t threaten to kill her again. “I don’t want to scare her away again.”

The tears came back, welling in her eyes so quickly that Mira knew there was no getting out of it. One fell, and a second quickly followed. Zoey reached out, cupping Mira’s face gently and leaning in to kiss the tears away. 

“It’s going to be okay, baby,” she assured.

“But what if it’s not?” Mira protested, fear in her eyes despite Zoey’s soft, patient smile. 

“It’s going to be.”

“How do you kno-”

“I don’t.” 

Zoey began to run her fingers through Mira’s hair, which she knew always made Mira melt, and Mira didn’t resist. She looked into Zoey’s warm brown eyes, at the vulnerability she knew lay beneath the surface. Vulnerability that Zoey gave with so little hesitation, and that reminded Mira that she was allowed to be vulnerable, too. 

“I don’t know how Rumi will react, but Mira?"

“Yeah?”

Zoey smiled softly. 

“I know that she’s worth the risk. Whatever comes, whatever she says- she’s worth it a million times over.”

More tears spilled from Mira’s eyes, but she smiled back, leaning into Zoey’s touch and letting her worries fade away at her fingertips. 

“Yeah,” Mira sighed. “She is.”

The best gift that Rumi had ever received was a digital version of her mother’s solo EP that Zoey and Mira had made for her eighteenth birthday. They’d spent weeks working on it, and had ended up with both a digital copy and a USB drive that Rumi could replicate and save as much as she wanted to “take her mom with her wherever she went.”

Rumi blasted it on repeat as she drove through back to Seoul, letting the lyrics that had guided her though the roughest moments of her life carry her home once again. She knew every song like the back of her hand, but they seemed to grow with her, and always found new ways to surprise her. The last song in the collection, called “Leap of Faith,” floated through her car stereo. 

We are written in pencil 

Impermanent and fragile

A life as brief as this

One should truly dare to live

Rumi never really understood this song, and had always assumed the meaning would show itself to her as she grew up, but it never did, even as the years passed by. 

I don’t know if it’s fate 

That has guided me to you

Whatever the case

Know I speak the truth

Should I take a leap of faith?

Make a choice or leave it up to fate?

Either way I take a risk

Of losing you to my recklessness

Rumi had always wondered who her mother was talking about in this song. Part of her wanted it to be her father, but timing would’ve made that impossible. The EP had been released five years before she was born, and one of the only things that Rumi knew about her father was that Mi-Yeong hadn’t even met him until at least two years after that. Rumi decided years ago that it would always remain a mystery, but today, as her conversation with Celine replayed at the forefront of her mind, a new possibility began to take shape. 

But you told me once before

That I was worth the risk

And if there’s a possibility of being yours 

I’d bet my life on it

Celine had said that she knew what it was like to spend a lifetime wondering what could’ve been if she’d only been brave enough to risk something, and she’d said that Mira and Zoey were worth the risk. 

Worth the risk.

Rumi’s heart lurched in her chest as the realization struck- “Leap of Faith” was about Celine, Mi-Yeong had been in love with Celine and Celine had felt the same way, but hadn’t been brave enough to tell her.

Rumi’s mind began to race, thoughts running through her head faster than the cars on the road beside her. Were all of the songs on Mi-Yeong’s EP about Celine? Why had Celine never told Rumi about this before? And, most importantly, why had Celine told Rumi to go and confess her feelings to Mira and Zoey the way Celine wished she’d confessed to Mi-Yeong?

Did Celine think she was in love with Mira and Zoey? Why did she- oh my God. The answer hit Rumi like a bolt of lightning as she finally understood what she’d been feeling for the past few days, why it reminded her so much of Jinu, and why she felt like someone had wrapped a rope around her heart, pulling her back to Zoey and Mira.

Rumi was in love with them- she was in love with them and she wanted to tell them so badly that it felt like she would throw up if she didn’t. Her heart beat faster than a hummingbird’s, and her knuckles had begun to turn white from her grip on the steering wheel. She had no idea how Zoey and Mira would react, and she was flying into the situation completely blind. She was terrified, preparing herself to risk everything for a chance at happiness, and it felt so good.

Celine had been right that Mira and Zoey were worth the risk, but so was Rumi. She’d spent her entire life risking her own fate for the sake of humanity, but this gamble was hers and hers alone- a chance at happiness that she couldn’t predict but wanted more than anything she ever had.

Because Rumi’s happiness was worth the risk.

Rumi was worth the risk.

Chapter Text

Rumi leaned against the wall of the elevator, breathing as deeply as she could in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart. She pulled out her phone, and sent a quick message to Celine.

Made it back safely.

Half of her wanted to ask about Mi-Yeong and the love affair that she’d somehow been oblivious to for decades, but she could save that for a later date. Besides, she had more pressing matters to focus on, like that she was only a few floors away from the penthouse, and from telling the two most important people in her world that she loved them. It was a shot in the dark, it was terrifying and reckless and selfish, but it was Rumi’s choice to make and she wanted it more than anything.

The elevator slowed to a stop, and a familiar chime announced Rumi’s arrival. Adrenaline flowed through her as the doors opened, and she stepped into the penthouse. She’d barely crossed the threshold before a figure crashed into hers, almost causing Rumi to drop her leftover hobak-juk as Zoey practically folded herself around her and began rambling like Rumi had been gone seven years rather than seven hours.

“Rumiyourehome! OhmygodImissedyousomuch?”

“Hi, Zo-”

 “How’s Celine? Did it go okay? Did you-”

“Zoey, let her breathe a little,” Mira chuckled, appearing behind Zoey and gently prying her off of Rumi before wrapping Rumi into her own gentle embrace. “Hey, Ru, glad you’re back,” she said, smiling warmly.

Mira and Zoey pulled her into the penthouse, talking and laughing as they usually did, but Rumi couldn’t find it within herself to focus on anything they were saying as Zoey rambled about the newest episode of a terrible American soap opera that had aired that day and Mira put the leftover hobak-juk in the fridge. 

It had been about seventy-three minutes since Rumi realized that she was in love with them, and every second had tested her resolve. She had to tell them- now- before her courage waned.

“Guys?” she began, interrupting Zoey’s rant about how her favorite character’s love interest actually wasn’t dead and that she was convinced he’d come back to life in the next episode. Mira and Zoey turned to her immediately with worry written all over their faces, and Rumi could feel her heart climbing its way into her throat. She couldn’t force her eyes to meet theirs, and her hands had started to shake, but she kept pushing through.

They are worth the risk. I am worth the risk.

“I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Mira asked. “Are you okay?” She walked over to Rumi and gently rested her hand on Rumi’s shoulder, Zoey following close behind and taking one of Rumi’s hands in hers. Their touch was steadying, holding Rumi up as she took a deep breath and steeled herself for whatever may come.

“I’m in-”

“RUMI, WE’RE IN LOVE WITH YOU!” Zoey blurted before clapping both hands over her mouth as if to stop the words that had already escaped. Mira gaped at her in horror, her eyes as wide as planets. 

“Zoey, what the fuck!?” she exclaimed. “What about our plan?!”

Rumi froze as their words sank into her. Mira and Zoey wanted her too- they wanted her and they’d been planning to tell her. She’d come to a lot of life-altering revelations today, but this one blew the others out of the water. The absurdity of it all hit her like a train, causing her to abandon all reason and laugh. Tears of joy filled her eyes, but she didn’t care, launching herself at Zoey and Mira. 

“I love you, too,” she sobbed as four arms wrapped around her, pulling her into the warmth, love, and light she’d yearned for for so long. “Oh my god, I love you too.” Suddenly, Zoey’s lips were on hers, and Mira’s warm laughter filled the air around them. Rumi’s whole body felt like it was on fire in the best way, like she was buzzing with an electricity that she’d never felt before. Zoey let her go after a few seconds, but Rumi barely even had the chance to catch her breath before Mira pulled her in, kissing her like her life depended on it while Zoey wrapped her arms around Rumi’s waist. 

She was warm, she was safe, she was home, and she was so, so loved. 

They congregated in Rumi’s bed again that night- though Zoey made a pretty decent argument for rotating between rooms if they were gonna sleep like this every night. Rumi lay with her head on Mira’s chest, listening to her heart beat while Zoey held her from behind, clinging onto Rumi like a backpack with her arms wrapped around her waist.

She couldn’t believe it was real, like it was a dream that she’d wake up from any moment, but Mira’s heart kept beating beneath her, and Zoey’s fingertips remained warm and soft against her skin. 

Rumi knew she still had a long way to go, that she’d need more time until she could truly be as vulnerable with Mira and Zoey as she wanted, but each touch, kiss, and loving word reminded Rumi that Zoey and Mira would give her as long as she needed and would love her through every step of the way because they thought she was worth it. 

And, for the first time in her life, Rumi believed it, too.