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“Rumi, wait. I...”
Rumi turns to face Jinu, expectant. Several expressions cross his face, gone too soon for her to parse.
“I...” Jinu gives a small smile. The moonlight refracts off his pretty earrings. “I can’t wait to see you on that stage tomorrow.”
Rumi smiles, relieved, and heads off again; so glad that he’s on board with her plan. But as she walks away, she replays that last moment again in her head, and falters.
That was...
Something about that seemed off. Something about that rapid progression of unreadable expressions on Jinu’s face. Something about the way he hesitated before he spoke.
She thinks maybe he wanted to say something else, and she wonders what it was. Is he having second thoughts after all? Does he still doubt the Honmoon can work for him, because of his mistakes?
Rumi stops walking, struck with indesicion. She needs to be well-rested if she’s going to be sealing the Honmoon tomorrow for good, but—
Turning around and backtracking, she’s just in time to see a wide-eyed Jinu be pulled down to the ground. He disappears before her eyes, his patterns glowing brighter than she has ever seen them.
Rumi stares at the space where Jinu just was.
“What just happened?” she says, to no one in particular. Still, she’s reminded that she’s not entirely alone when the tiger and the bird respond to her—though, not in words, of course. If they know what’s going on, they can’t tell her.
Then again... Maybe she knows exactly what’s going on. Didn’t Jinu tell her? Gwi-Ma controls us.
Control.
All demons can disappear in a puff of pink smoke, but this was something else entirely. The startled look on Jinu’s face—and yet the knowing look in his eyes regardless of surprise, the fear of what was about to come—tells Rumi that this happened against his will.
Rumi’s hand balls into a fist. Gwi-Ma. When she gets him....
There’s a bump against her fist. The tiger, grinning at her.
Rumi unclenches; sighs and gives the tiger a small smile, as she pets the blue fur. The tiger looks from her to the sleepless lights of downtown Seoul in the distance, glittering brighter than the stars in the sky.
“No, I’m not going home,” Rumi says softly. “I’m worried about him. And you guys are, too, right?”
The question is rhetorical.
The tiger gets comfortable when it realizes it won’t have to ferry her home. Sighing, Rumi decides to follow its example, settling down and lying against the blue fur.
So relaxing...
Rumi feels a burst of excitement as she imagines telling Zoey and Mira how she may have found a rival to couch, only to deflate when she remembers that she can’t tell Zoey and Mira about any of this.
It’s a nice night. Strong breeze, clear sky. Things are quiet here, near the city walls. Rumi thinks about the fight from earlier today, on the moving train. It wasn’t just demons that she was fighting. If you’re with us, prove it, Mira said, and then Rumi went and faltered while they were singing, getting overpowered by a demon as a result.
It’s just those lyrics. Those horrible, hateful lyrics. Hard to believe that it wasn’t that long ago that the diss track was Rumi’s own idea. But the line that made Rumi falter on that train... That line had been created by Mira and Zoey.
A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live — it’s so obvious —
Rumi rolls up her sleeve. Stares at the purple patterns on her skin, until her eyes blur. She blinks, furiously. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’ll fix it. Tomorrow, these will be gone, and—finally, she won’t have to keep secrets anymore. She won’t be fighting with her best friends anymore. They’ll never even know that Rumi had patterns all along.
Something about that thought hurts, even though this is what Rumi has wanted all along. Her friends never knowing all of her. A comforting notion when she saw her patterns as nothing more than poison written into her very DNA, seeping into her skin and bones, corrupting her.... But now that she has gotten a new perspective on demons, the part of her that wants to tell Mira and Zoey everything has grown stronger.
Maybe, after the Honmoon is sealed...
Rumi only realizes that she dozed off when she finds herself startling awake.
“What are you doing here?”
It’s Jinu.
Full demon form, no illusions. Half the jagged patterns carved on his skin like suspended lightning are glowing. His pupils are so small that the yellow of his irises look absolute.
He looks positively unhinged.
He hugs himself tightly, rocking slightly. His hands are demon claws, and they’re dripping with blood; staining his clothes. The blood is his own, from the looks of it—his ears are bleeding. He looks at Rumi as if seeing through her.
And yet he talks as if everything is normal. As if he just stumbled in on Rumi under normal circumstances instead of... whatever this is.
Rumi lets out an incredulous laugh. “What am I doing here? What, you just get—yanked to the demon world in front of my eyes and you expected me to leave?” Jinu still stares at her in bleak incomprehension. Her voice softens. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Abruptly, Jinu turns around so Rumi can no longer see his face. Running his hand through his dark hair, jostling the hood of his gray hoodie as he does so.
“I’m fine. You should go home. Big day tomorrow.”
He speaks in a monotone, but his voice is wavering. A streetlight flickers somewhere up the street.
“You’re not fine, Jinu,” she says stubbornly. The very idea is laughable; he is the furthest thing from fine. But she doesn’t feel like laughing at all; she feels her jaw tightening. “Let me guess: Gwi-Ma heard you agree to help me and he tortured you with memories because of it? The voices, right?”
He doesn’t answer. His shoulders are trembling. She walks forward, approaching his back, which is silhouetted against the street lights.
“Listen to my voice,” she says, and it’s soft and rough, her eyes urgent and searching. “You were a good person, and you still are. You made a mistake, yes, but tomorrow—”
Jinu whirls around. ”I left them!” he cries, eyes still glowing yellow. Tears stream down his face.
Rumi stares at him, mind scrambling to make connections.
Them.
He means his family.
“I left them,” Jinu chokes out the words, his face contorted in pain. “I left them. I left them.”
He keeps repeating it, over and over, as this is what Gwi-Ma must have just tormented him with, over and over. For all the time that Jinu was down there, while Rumi was dozing off. These are the real voices in his head.
This is his true shame.
And right now, it’s incredibly raw thanks to Gwi-Ma. If not for that... Would he have told her?
She recalls the moment where he stumbled over his words, earlier. She thinks maybe he wanted to tell her then. But he changed his mind. Too afraid of her reaction?
What is her reaction, exactly? Knowing he lied to her hurts. Seeing him like this hurts worse.
She watches him come apart before her eyes and wonders how many times it’s happened before. Four hundred years with Gwi-Ma. Rumi can’t really fathom it. Do you not hear him in your ear?
You’re lucky.
Jinu’s ears are still bleeding. Jinu still looks unhinged and demonic and Rumi steps forward. Rumi wraps her arms around him where she would have struck to kill before. He stiffens in her hold.
“Stop it,” he whispers.
He tries to push her away, but she holds firm. She thinks of another moment between them, when he was simply another demon that she wanted to kill—albeit one who had annoyed her personally. You’re strong, he said in the steam of the bathhouse, when she tried to push her sword to his throat.
“Stop it!” His voice tears. “You—I lied to you!” She keeps holding on. “I—I only made a deal with Gwi-Ma to get myself out of the miserable life! While my mother and my sister starved, I slept on silk sheets in the palace with my belly full every night!”
He shivers, as if the memory runs throughout his entire body.
“Why aren’t you letting go?”
He makes a soft, wrecked, indescribable sound when she still refuses to move away. As his knees waver, she supports half his weight, bracing him. He’s shaking, his head fallen on her shoulder as his arms finally move to wrap around her in turn—and then he’s holding her so tight she can hardly believe his arms were simply hanging at his sides before.
He hangs onto her like a lifeline, like a rock in a storm, as he gulps in harsh, choked breaths against her neck. He holds onto her like she’s the last solid thing left in the world, face buried in her shoulder, as she gently cradles his head.
“I’ve ruined everything,” he rasps against the fabric of her hoodie.
She pulls back so that she can look him in the eye, her hands moving to the sides of his face. Yellow eyes, pale skin, purple patterns that seem pink in their illumination. His ears, his nose, the bow of his lips. Earrings and necklace glinting in the light.
“You haven’t ruined anything,” Rumi says, resolute. “My plan will work.”
Jinu chokes out a humorless laugh. “It will never work, not for someone like me; you should understand that now,” he pleads.
“Jinu—”
He looks away from her gaze. “And it’s so many hours until the Idol Awards. Gwi-Ma can pull me back whenever he wants, he can do whatever he wants, and I deserve it,” he rambles, breaths quickening again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
“Stop being sorry,” she cuts in, not unkindly. “Be something else. Don’t you still have the bracelet? That was meant to stand for hope. Do you trust me?”
With his bloodied claws, Jinu pulls up his sleeve. Revealing the blue bracelet in the moonlight.
“I want to,” he rasps. Raw.
“Then trust me,” she says gently. “We’ll be okay.”
But Jinu is shaking his head, even as he stares at the bracelet. “I’m too weak to withstand him—to withstand my own sins. If I give in to him, if I help him, he takes the memories. I’ll still be his favorite songbird. Obedient little pet,” he sneers, lip curling with disgust at himself, “but at least he will no longer be able to subject me to this particular torment.”
Jinu laughs wetly.
“You should strike me down where I stand.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Rumi says, quietly horrified at... everything.
His face contorts as he finally meets her eyes again. “I just said I want to betray you!”
“You want to be free!” she yells back, shaking him from where she’s still holding his face. She swallows, holds his gaze. “Jinu. Listen to me. My plan... The memories will still be there. But without Gwi-Ma to do what he just did, you can finally move on.”
She speaks softly and gently. “It’s been four hundred years, Jinu. You deserve to.”
“You really think so?” The streetlights have Jinu’s eyelashes casting shadows. He looks trusting and bitter at the same time; hopeful and terrified all at once. “Even knowing what I did? What I am? You still want me in your plan?”
“Yes,” she says. No hesitation. “So, please. Have hope with me.”
Jinu’s looking at Rumi like he can’t quite believe she’s real. Like he needs to memorize her, here in this quiet part of the city, before she vanishes; which is ironic. Still cupping his face, her thumb brushes one of the patterns crawling across his skin. A constant reminder of my shame, he called them.
“You’re something else, Rumi,” he says. His mouth is slightly open; revealing his fanged teeth. The air is humid.
“Yeah, I know,” she says flippantly, ignoring the way her heart has knocked into her throat. “Half-demon.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Her lips curve softly upwards, looking at Jinu, whose face is so close to hers...
It’s like a lightning bolt hits them both at the same time. Making them realize their exact position.
She doesn’t know who pulls away first, whose throat is clearing now, as they avoid each other’s gaze.
“Okay,” Jinu says finally.
Rumi clears her throat one more time, for good measure. And then she asks, “Okay?”
“Well. I’m already wearing the bracelet. So I might as well,” he says stiffly.
He tenses up completely, as if he expects Gwi-Ma to yank him down this instant to punish him for the betrayal. In turn, Rumi’s body clenches as well, but nothing happens. Jinu’s eyes are very wide.
“Come on,” Rumi says.
“Come on?” Jinu repeats, still dazed.
“You’re staying with me for now,” she says firmly. “If Gwi-Ma pulls you away again, I’ll be there when you get back. And...” More vulnerable and hesitant, she adds, “You said... For a moment, when we were together, you didn’t hear his voice. Right?”
The messy black hair and the wide eyes make Jinu look younger. “But... Your friends. If they see me with you, it will jeapordize the Idol Awards tomorrow and your plan.”
Rumi feels a spike of anxiety at the very idea, but she pushes it down. “So they won’t see you. No one’s gonna come into my room without knocking,” she dismisses.
Rumi has always been the most private out of the trio, with strict boundaries that have always been respected. Soon, she won’t need these boundaries anymore—the thought is a strange one—but now they’re useful.
Jinu is staring at her.
“You—your room?”
Rumi’s eyes go wide.
”Whoa, hey, don’t be getting any ideas, Mr. Old Fashioned, it’s just the most logical option, it’s where I can keep an eye on you and.... Not that I want—like you said, my friends can’t see you, and that’s the best place to make sure.... Ugh, just come with me.”
She grabs his hand and starts hauling him with her, furiously willing the blush on her face to go away. The tiger follows, and Rumi pets it with her free hand as the bird flies close by.
Jinu eyes his tiger. “What, you’re not going to save me from being manhandled?”
The tiger just gives him that perpetual grin. Making no move to help, still letting Rumi pet it.
Rumi is smug. “If you didn’t want me to win over your tiger, you shouldn’t have used the tiger to deliver all your handwritten notes. Not that I’m complaining...” She says, giving the tiger another pet and a warm smile, ”...but it can’t be that hard for you to figure out how to text. I mean, you figured out how to make a successful kpop band.”
“And learning the intricasies of kpop bands through fan platforms was almost more hellish than anything Gwi-Ma put me through,” Jinu deadpans.
Rumi chokes on a laugh. Then she gives him a look. It’s not like she, herself, is a stranger to deflection; to make light of something that bothers her. But still. His breakdown happened literally five minutes ago.
“Also,” Jinu says, “I refuse to get a cellphone.”
He’s so old. “Then who manages your socials?” Rumi asks, smiling. “You don’t have a Bobby.”
“We have a Baby,” Jinu counters.
“Pfft.”
Silence settles between them as they walk. Her smile fades, a little, thinking of Jinu’s boy band. Funny as it is to imagine the four-hundred-year-old demon coming up with the colorful choreography to Soda Pop, it’s Jinu’s bandmates that have Rumi feeling... uneasy.
She doesn’t know them. She’s never even had a single conversation with them.
She never felt the need to, clinging to her prejudices that all demons are inherently evil and unfeeling. But now that Jinu has proven her wrong, she wonders.
About more than just the Saja Boys. There is one demon she keeps thinking about in particular. One whose name she doesn’t even know.
Her father.
But it’s the Saja Boys that Rumi can ask about now. And actually receive answers about, instead of Celine’s stony silence and curt dismissals to change the subject.
”So...” Rumi draws out the word, trying to be casual. “I’m curious... Your bandmates. Are they... Like you?”
“What, demons?” Jinu deadpans.
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously they’re demons. But...”
She trails off. For a moment the only sound is a car radio, a bass beat passing by. They breathe in polluted air.
“What’s on your mind, Rumi?”
Jinu asks it both so earnestly and so casually at the same time. As if it’s no big deal. As if he genuinely wants to know. After a life full of your faults and fears must never be seen, it’s...
It feels really good.
“My whole life,” Rumi begins, “I’ve been raised with all these beliefs about demons. And you’ve proven a lot of it wrong. Now I’m wondering... If there are others like you. I’m wondering... If we should try to include the Saja Boys in the plan. Would they be open to it? Or would they try to kill me for suggesting it,” she mutters the last part.
Jinu stares at her. “I’m honestly not sure,” he says finally.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” she says, a little incredulous. “You seem so close?”
“An act,” he dismisses. “In the demon world, attachments can be used against you. Best not to form new ones when you can help it.”
That’s a horrible way to live. Rumi’s heart aches in empathy.
She also thinks that he’s wrong.
“They look at you like you hung the moon, Jinu,” she points out. “On and off stage. You gave them this amazing opportunity—to come to the human world, be away from Gwi-Ma and his torture. To be treated well—treated human. And to be famous popstars. Did it never occur to you that they, at the very least, admire you for that?”
Evidently, it didn’t, if the stupified look on Jinu’s face is any metric. “I...” He shakes his head. “I’m sure it’s an act.” But he doesn’t sound sure at all, not anymore. She hums.
When Rumi and Jinu walk in silence, she can almost pretend that this is any other night; that they’re normal. No need to worry about demonic patterns or demonic kings. Just two friends—because that’s what they are, at this point—on their way home on a humid summer evening. Maybe they stopped by a noodle shop, and their lips are stinging from the spice, and they don’t have to stress about anything to do with the Honmoon, walking under the warm lanterns waving in the wind.
Maybe that could be the future.
One way or another, tomorrow everything will change.
It’s quite a long walk; Rumi lives in the downtown area, and Rumi met up with Jinu near the old city walls at the edge of the traditional heart of Seoul. It feels like so long ago that they sang together; but it was only earlier today.
It felt so good to sing with him.
The downtown area used to be the old Joseon dynasty city. It’s so weird to think about how Jinu is originally from that time period. That the tourist attractions that the royal palaces nowadays are—such as Changdeokgung—were genuinely occupied by royalty in his day; and then by Jinu himself after he sold his soul.
Getting inside Rumi’s apartment building inside the sleek high-rise tower and then into Rumi’s room without being noticed ends up becoming a competition between Rumi and Jinu: to see who can sneak the best. Rumi, obviously, has her hunter training to back her up; she can be deathly silent and still do parkour for the hell of it. But Jinu can teleport.
“Not fair,” Rumi grumbles.
“Completely fair,” Jinu counters. “You can teleport, too.”
“Uh.”
“Never occurred to you, did it,” he says, far too smug for her liking.
“Excuse me,” she says sarcastically. “It’s not like I’ve spent my entire life trying to pretend I have no patterns at all.”
Jinu grows quiet. The thought of being able to teleport away in a puff of pink smoke—it really didn’t occur to Rumi. She’s spent so long pushing away this part of herself. Telling herself that she’s not like them. She saw the patterns as a toxin; wounds that never bled and never healed.
“That must have been hard,” Jinu says.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a mistake.
Rumi swallows the sudden lump in her throat. “Yeah,” she whispers.
In Rumi’s room, there is a full view of the Seoul skyline. She moves to stand in front of the balcony, peering at the towers and the lights. Jinu’s bird is settled on the railing; keeping watch, she thinks, amused. The tiger is inside, curled up near Rumi’s bed. Past the skyline are the mountains in the distance.
Jinu returns from the bathroom, where he washed his hands and cleaned his ears of the blood; moves to stand next to her. His lightly bloodstained jacket has been dumped into a corner on the floor.
She turns her head. He’s been back in his human visage since they started walking; brown eyes, unblemished skin.
“We should get some rest,” she whispers. Then, her voice becomes pitched in gentle teasing, “After all: big day tomorrow.”
He winces at hearing his own words from her. “You’re right,” he says, a little awkwardly. It makes her smile widen a little.
“Help me out of my braid?” Her voice comes out shyly when she asks. Of course, Jinu couldn’t possibly know the reason for it.
“Oh! Yes, of course,” he says, shaking himself out of whatever reverie he was just in. From outside they can hear muffled engine noises, a taxi horn complaining on the Seoul streets.
Rumi takes out the hair elastic. Jinu works his way through the long braid, until her purple hair falls free against her hoodie. His fingers withdraw too soon.
She stands in front of him, more self-conscious than she’s ever felt under his gaze. We are hunters, voices strong — slaying demons with our song —
“Are you alright?”
Fix the world and make it right —
“I, um. Guess I have a weird relationship with my hair—ugh, that sounds—it’s just. Celine.”
Rumi blows out a breath, feeling the ghost of Celine’s fingers in her hair.
“She raised me, after my mom died. My mom wore her hair like—like I always do, but Celine is the reason I started wearing it that way in the first place. I guess... As a way to distance me from my patterns? My dad was the demon who gave those to me, you see,” she adds awkwardly. “And the color of my hair.”
“She knows about your patterns,” Jinu says slowly. It’s not a question. He realizes, “She’s the one who made you feel your shame.”
Rumi flinches.
We are hunters, voices strong —
“Yes,” she makes herself say, feeling a relief she’s never felt before when she does so. “Yes,” she says again, just to say it. “She did. She did.”
Mortifyingly, her eyes are watering. She’s seen Jinu cry but when she herself is on the verge, all the compassion she had for him is suddenly inaccessible for her. Part of her still wants to defend Celine. At the same time, she’s so glad to finally talk about this, to admit to this thing that she’s been bottling up her whole life.
Jinu reaches out, brushing the locks that frame Rumi’s face. She draws in a breath.
“You should let down your hair more often,” Jinu says, voice soft. “You’re just as beautiful with the cracks showing.”
“Oh,” Rumi breathes—rather stupidly, she thinks a couple seconds later, when her brain catches up with her mouth.
“Um, sleep,” she says quickly. “I mean, we should sleep. Wait, do you need sleep?”
Jinu’s eyes widen, and he withdraws his hand; clearing his throat.
“I can go without longer than humans,” he says. “But I prefer not to.”
She nods vigorously. “That makes sense. Um... Give me a minute.”
She leaves to get changed in the bathroom. When she returns, Jinu’s face is pinched. Her stomach clenches, wondering if Gwi-Ma’s talking to him, when Jinu’s entire expression changed into a teasing grin.
“What, no choo-choo trains?”
And she takes it all back, Jinu is a menace to society.
Rumi glares at him, ignoring the flush that has risen to her cheeks. “I do still have a sword that I can materialize at will and pin you down with again,” she says, as she walks over to her bed and angrily slides under the covers. “Keep talking, see what happens.”
“Sounds great, go right ahead. Or do I need to say please first?”
It is unfair how Jinu can go from awkward and flustered to... that. She glares at him again, still blushing, steadfastly ignoring the thrill that shoots through her at the idea.
For a moment, she doesn’t understand why Jinu’s still standing there, didn’t they agree they were going to sleep?
And then it hits her.
Oh, she’s such an idiot. She.... forgot. She forgot that Jinu sleeping here would mean Jinu sleeping here. As in... Together with her.
Her face only grows redder as her mind is already picturing it. His hip slotted against hers, his thigh flung across her thigh, as she nestles into the warmth of his chest. She blinks furiously, willing the image away, and then she sees Jinu settling against his tiger.
Ah.
Yes. Well. That’s exactly what she wanted. Not making those pictures in her head a reality. So, good.
Jinu sees her staring, says nonchalantly, “Far better than that rickety matress.” And how dare he. Rumi gasps dramatically in offense.
“Excuse you!” she whisper-yells. “This is one of the best, most wonderful matresses that money can buy! It’s delightful! Like lying on a fluffy cloud!”
Jinu simply shrugs. “I don’t believe you.”
“Come over here and I’ll prove it!”
Her eyes widen belatedly after the words are already out of her mouth. Then she squints, thinking that this was his plan all along, to get her to invite him, but that’s soon proven wrong when Jinu’s entire face flushes bright pink.
“Um. No thanks. I’m good on the tiger. It’s like a cloud...also.”
And she remembers that it’s Mr. Old Fashioned that she’s dealing with here. Suddenly no longer feeling flustered, she grins at him.
“Come on, Jinu,” she sings. “I promise I won’t bite. Not even if you say please first.”
Jinu glares at her, face still flushed. This is what Rumi calls payback. Though she herself has to fight to keep a straight face at the mental image.
“Fine,” Jinu says, getting up, and uh. Okay. Maybe she didn’t think this through.
Apparently spite is enough to override Jinu’s old-fashioned habits, because he does actually slide under Rumi’s covers and get in next to her. That delightful matress of hers is suddenly feeling a bit... small.
“Well?” she demands after a pause, her eyes trained firmly on the ceiling.
“Not bad,” is Jinu’s verdict.
”Not bad,” Rumi mocks, rolling her eyes. Just like that, her body unclenches, and as it does, a wave of sleepiness hits her; she yawns.
It’s been a really long day.
Everything with Jinu, but also before that, the fight with Mira and Zoey. Hopefully, tomorrow Rumi can work things out with them—convince them to sing a song other than Takedown.
But for now...
Jinu moves to leave back to the tiger; Rumi pushes his chest back down and is too tired to feel flustered about it. “Oh no,” she says. “You’re staying right here until you sing the praises this matress deserves.”
”...I see,” Jinu says, not moving. Rumi stifles a smile.
Her mind reflects on the phrasing she just used, sing the praises. Rumi’s voice has always been what she values most about herself. With Jinu, she knows it’s the same. But... She’s not an idiot; she can fill in the blanks from when Jinu called himself Gwi-Ma’s favorite songbird.
She pictures Jinu being made to sing before Gwi-Ma until his vocal chords are bleeding just to appease the cruel king and her heart aches. Hopefully, forming the Saja Boys, and then singing with Rumi, has given singing more positive associations for him.
“You don’t have to sing,” she says softly. “But I do want you to stay.”
There. She said it.
No more pretending.
Rumi slides closer and drapes an arm around him, pulling him close.
After a moment, Jinu tucks his head under Rumi’s chin. Her long hair spills down his back now.
“I want to stay, too,” he admits, and she thinks they’re talking about more than just her matress now.
“Good,” she says, voice rough.
The tiger’s purring lulls them both to sleep.