Chapter Text
Eventually, all three girls went off to bed.
For once, Rumi was the first to turn in that night. Mira figured it was the stress. Sure the Idols and their fight with Gwi-ma had tired them all out, but Rumi was no stranger to exhaustion. She had always been the one who could fight until her body gave out and then still get on stage smiling. But tonight was different; tonight Rumi had been honest in a way she had never been before.
Based on what Rumi had told them, Rumi had been carrying the weight of her secrets alone her entire life. So with the weight of her secrets and lies off of her shoulders, it only made sense that all of the sleepless nights from the weeks—and probably years—before were finally catching up with her.
Zoey lingered, quiet, after Rumi slipped into her room. She sat down beside Mira without a word, their shoulders close but not quite touching. At first, Mira thought that Zoey was just stunned, trying to process everything that Rumi had just confessed. But when she finally risked meeting Zoey’s eyes, she realized she was wrong.
Zoey wasn’t overwhelmed. She wasn’t even angry. Her expression was soft, heavy with sorrow—not for herself, but for Rumi. She understood. She pitied how much Rumi had been forced to endure in silence.
And then Zoey looked at Mira, and Mira felt her stomach knot. Zoey wasn’t kept awake by Rumi’s confessions. She was staying awake to be there for Mira. Zoey knew her too well. All the hours they’d spent together in practice rooms and late-night debriefs had carved a private language between them. Zoey could read her like sheet music. She knew that Mira—the tough one—was the one who didn’t know how to sit with everything.
Her voice was so careful it reminded Mira of someone trying not to spook a cornered animal. “I know it still hurts, Mir. I know you wish she had just told us sooner. But we have to forgive her. We have to accept it.”
Zoey’s hand settled lightly on Mira’s shoulder, a steadying weight. She meant to urge understanding, to guide Mira toward compassion.
But compassion wasn’t the problem.
For all of Zoey’s caution and gentleness, Mira felt own voice scrape out jagged and too loud. “It’s not Rumi that I won’t be able to forgive.”
The words hung in the air like smoke, sharp and bitter. Zoey didn’t answer right away. She blinked once, slowly, as if testing whether she’d heard correctly, and her hand slipped back into her lap. Mira could see the gears turning in Zoey’s head—weighing what to say, how to reach her without pressing too hard. For a moment, it looked like Zoey might let the confession stand unchallenged.
Then she leaned forward, her brow furrowing with a mix of pity and guilt. “Mir, you were scared. We weren’t even sure if that was the real Rumi at first, and then she caused a ripple in the honmoon. Of course you were startled, defensive… Besides, I raised my weapon at her too.”
Mira knew that Zoey meant well. She knew that Zoey was just trying to comfort her. But even Zoey couldn’t stop the storm fighting in Mira.
“Is that supposed to make it okay?” Mira snapped, too sharply. The sound of her own voice made her flinch; she worried Rumi would come out to check on them. Or worse, that she would think that Mira’s anger was aimed at her and use it as proof she should keep her distance.
So Mira took in a ragged breath as she got up to quietly pace their living room. Words spilled out before she could stop them.
“We have spent years following her into battle. She has taken numerous hits over the years to protect each of us. Sure, I knew she was hiding something and she was starting to doubt things. So yeah, Zoey, it makes sense to not have trusted her. But to raise our weapons on her?”
Zoey didn’t stop her. She knew Mira well enough to let the current pull itself out, to let her pour the storm into the open before it pulled her under.
“...Even if Rumi started to question the honmoon at the end, no one has cared about the honmoon as fiercely as Rumi. Rumi has spent her entire life being taught to value the honmoon over herself! And when I pointed my gok-do at her, I basically told her that I too thought the honmoon was more important than her—” Mira’s voice cracked and for a brief second she was worried that she was going to tell Zoey things that she would never be able to take back. “So yeah, I keep thinking that even if I didn’t know the full picture, I should’ve trusted her at least because she’s Rumi.”
The room filled with an uncomfortable silence before Zoey spoke up. “And me?”
Mira threw herself down onto the couch, the cushions swallowing her for a beat. She tilted her head back and found Zoey’s face above her—hurt and worried etched all over it.
“I don’t know, Zoey…” Mira’s voice came out thin, as if the confession cost her something. “It’s just that without Rumi, things were hopeless—”
But finally, Zoey gently but firmly cut off Mira’s desperate monologue. “No—I don’t mean why you listened to Gwi-ma and pushed me away. I get that, Mira. I heard him. It was just as easy for him to convince me.” She swallowed, and when her eyes locked with Mira’s this time, Mira realized it wasn’t hurt or betrayal in Zoey’s eyes, but rather pain and guilt. “What about me? I raised my shin-kals on Rumi too. I pushed her away just as much as you.”
The words landed with a small, horrible echo. Mira blinked, and the heat in her chest shifted—a thready, unexpected ache. “I’m not mad at you, Zoey,” she began reflexively, the sentence already forming into the defense she didn’t want to need. “You were just following m—”
Zoey cut Mira off before she could finish. Her hand snaked out and gripped Mira’s forearm, not with force but with an insistence that stopped Mira from shutting down. “Mira, you have known me too long to think I’ll just follow you without question.” Her voice was steady, low. “If you can forgive me for doubting Rumi—for being mad at her, for pointing my shin-kals at her—then you need to forgive yourself.”
Zoey let out a long, tired breath. When she spoke again it was like something heavy shifting between them. “It happened. We all made some pretty terrible mistakes today. Learn and let it go. Rumi doesn’t blame you and neither do I. And we both sure as hell don’t want you to blame yourself.”
Mira went quiet. The couch hummed under her as she let the words roll around in her skull. She pictured Rumi curled up in the next room, the faint rise and fall of her breath, and she knew that even if Zoey was right, she wouldn’t be able to get over it that quickly. But there was no point in arguing that with Zoey.
So instead, in a paper-thin voice she said, “Can I at least blame Jinu? Oh—and Celine?”
Zoey let out a short, incredulous laugh that quickly turned to something softer. “I don’t think I could change your mind about either of them,” she admitted.
Mira barked a small laugh of her own, sharper than she’d meant. It broke up the tension like a dropped glass.
“I don’t really know what to think about Jinu,” Zoey said, voice lowering. She looked toward the closed door as if she could see Rumi through it. “But I do know Rumi. She’s going to have a hard time with Jinu’s sacrifice. So… just try to keep the Jinu hate to a minimum around her for now.” Her tone was gentle, guarded—protective in the way someone wraps a blanket around a burned surface.
And Mira understood that. As much as she blamed Jinu for hurting and betraying Rumi, she was still well aware that without him, Rumi might not have made it through tonight. And Mira was certain she would not have been able to survive a life without Rumi, especially if the last thing she’d done to her was lift a weapon at her.
Then Zoey’s voice sharpened, the edge Mira heard only when they were about to fight. “But Celine? God—she better never show her face again. If she wasn’t the only family—besides us, of course—that Rumi has… I would skin her for telling Rumi she needed to hide. I don’t care how sad and lonely her life is—” Zoey’s hands trembled with the fury building underneath her words. Mira could see the flush spread across her friend’s cheeks, the way her fingers curled as if they might actually summon shin-kals.
“She probably made up all that ‘faults and fears’ bullshit just to control Rumi,” Zoey finished, voice raw enough that the room seemed to reel with it.
The thought of Celine spending Rumi’s entire life controlling her broke something inside of Mira. Her chest felt tight, her breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls. Words spilled from her like she couldn’t hold them back, her hands twitching in frustration as she raked them through her hair. “Fuck—can you even imagine what else Celine must have said and done to Rumi over the years? Like how much do we actually know about Rumi’s childhood? About Celine?”
Mira’s voice cracked then, rising louder than she meant, anger bleeding into desperation. She half-sat up, leaning forward as though the force of the question itself demanded it, her eyes burning with something she couldn’t name. “Like Rumi is twenty-four! How can Celine still refuse to tell her anything about her father?”
In that moment, Mira was terrified that Rumi’s childhood was actually not all that different from her own. The thought hollowed her out. Had Celine made Rumi hate herself just as much as Mira’s own family had?
But the sight of Zoey pulled her right out of her spiral. Zoey’s face looked stricken, like Mira’s words had forced her to stare straight at the ache that Rumi might have been carrying for years. There was sadness there, yes, but also guilt, as if Zoey had just realized she was the only one of them who had a family to go home to outside of Huntr/x. And yet, in true Zoey fashion, she didn’t sink into that pain. She did what Zoey always did: she steadied herself, then Mira, with a list.
“Well… we know that Celine knew about Rumi being part demon from her dad.” Zoey’s voice was thin at first, then gained traction as she fell into the rhythm of cataloguing. “So Celine knew about Rumi’s patterns. She convinced—or maybe even forced—Rumi to cover her patterns. She told Rumi that she couldn’t tell anyone, not even us. She refused to acknowledge who Rumi’s dad was. She told her the golden honmoon would fix her, erase her patterns. And when that time came, she was probably breathing down Rumi’s neck about sealing the honmoon—like even more than ours.”
“That would explain Rumi releasing Golden without telling us at least,” Mira mumbled, the words tasting bitter on her tongue.
But then something in her hardened, and she sat up straighter, her hands curling into fists on her knees. “What about all the ‘all demons deserve to die’ crap? Or ‘we kill everything with patterns’?” Her voice shook, raw and breaking. “Do you think she told Rumi that even when we weren’t around?”
Mira had half-expected Zoey to cry, to shed the kind of tears they all had been trying to hold back. But instead, Zoey just seemed to crumple, like Mira’s words had stolen the air right out of her.
“I think…” Zoey’s voice wavered before she pressed it steady. “I think we’re just going to have to take it slow. Get Rumi to open up bit by bit. Make her feel safe. Ease her into talking. And maybe…” She hesitated, her tone dipping into something close to defeat. “Maybe slowly hint that we think Celine was wrong about a lot of things, and that we want to talk about it when Rumi’s ready. But… we probably won’t know much for weeks. Months, even.”
Mira let out a small, shaky laugh that wasn’t really laughter at all. “Yeah. It’s not like Rumi’s suddenly going to be an expert at opening up.”
That finally cracked something lighter between them. Zoey yawned, so wide she had to cover her face with her hand, then shot Mira a guilty glance. “Mir, let’s go to bed. I can barely keep my eyes open anymore.”
Mira couldn’t blame Zoey; it was almost 3am and it had been the longest day of their lives. So she agreed and returned to her own room.
She glanced over at her bed, the familiar folds of her comforter and the neat stack of pillows, but it felt almost absurdly normal. Too soft, too clean, too far away from everything that had happened that day. The chaos, the guilt, the weight of Rumi’s secrets—they weren’t going to dissolve just because she lay down between crisp sheets. Her room, with its dark walls and careful order, felt less like a place someone lived in and more like a stage set she maintained. Everything was neat, deliberate, as if mess itself might betray her. A few framed Huntr/x tour posters hung, the bright colors at odds with the otherwise quiet space. Her bookshelf stood in perfect rows—novels she’d abandoned halfway through, journals she’d never dared to write in fully, each one a silent witness to the parts of herself she kept hidden. A pair of scuffed dance sneakers sat tucked neatly beneath her desk, their wear the only thing messy about them. A leather jacket hung carefully on the back of her chair. Even the stack of fashion magazines and sketchbook of half-formed costume designs on her dresser felt too orderly, frozen in place instead of lived in. The only thing that broke the stillness sat on her desk: a small potted plant Rumi had given her after Zoey teased that her room looked like a hotel room. It should have been a touch of warmth, but in the low light it looked delicate, almost out of place, surviving only because Mira refused to let it die.
Mira decided that she needed to shower off all of her stage makeup, the sweat, and the exhaustion from their fight before she could even think about sleep. But really, she knew she was far from it. Showering might calm her, might feel refreshing, but no amount of exfoliation could scrub away the pain and guilt that clung to her like a second skin.
She couldn’t stop replaying the night over in her head: raising her gok-do at Rumi when the girl’s eyes were full of pain and fear; watching Rumi struggle alone under the weight of Gwi-ma’s attack. Mira had been certain she’d lost her. Then there was the helplessness, sharp and biting, as Jinu—not her—had been the one to save Rumi. But most recently, her mind kept circling back to Rumi’s words about Celine telling her she couldn’t share herself with anyone.
Mira knew that feeling all too well. She was all too familiar with ‘family’ that forced you to only be the person that they wanted, not actually yourself. Of what it was like to be despised for simply who you were. Mira was terrified of how Celine had probably raised Rumi.
Because it all suddenly made sense why Rumi acted more like a soldier and a performer instead of a person. Sure, as part of Huntr/x Mira, herself, was still kind of a soldier and a performer. But Mira had escaped the clutches of her family. Mira got to be a person and exist—mostly.
And worst of all, Mira was drowning in guilt. She had pushed Rumi, prodded her about secrets that had been drilled into her to hide. She had forced the girl to reveal things that Celine had insisted must remain buried. Meanwhile, she had let Zoey believe that Celine’s obsession with secrets and “faults and fears” applied only to Rumi.
She should have told Rumi then. Should have said, You’re not alone. Celine told me to hide myself too. That she knew what it was like to be forced into a mold, to be despised simply for existing. But she hadn’t. Because as much as she believed Celine was wrong about Rumi, Mira knew that Celine had been right sometimes. Sometimes faults and fears were better left hidden. Sometimes people just wouldn’t understand. Sometimes, being an idol—being Huntr/x—trumped being yourself.
Deep down, Mira knew that Zoey and Rumi wouldn’t really care. Plenty of their fans were queer, after all. But there were too many other factors to consider.
Even in 2025, being gay in South Korea wasn’t simple or safe. If she were ever found out, the backlash against her and Huntr/x would be severe. Fans would desert them. Sponsors would withdraw. Partnerships would collapse. It could be the end of Huntr/x. She could be blacklisted. The thought tightened her chest, made her stomach twist.
Mira loved her life. She loved Huntr/x. And she loved being free.
Then there were her parents. She had been something of a wild child, yes, but most of their anger stemmed from her refusal—or inability—to be the daughter they wanted. They had realized early that Mira could not and did not like men, and they had hated her for it. They had been relieved when Celine offered her a way out: leave to join Huntr/x. Their only condition was that she never gave anyone a reason to believe she was anything but straight.
Celine had agreed to their conditions easily—it suited Huntr/x best. And Mira, fifteen at the time, had accepted that she would give up love entirely if it meant escaping her family and the life they tried to bind her to. Now, at twenty-four, her parents couldn’t exactly reach her, not without extreme measures—but she knew enough to be certain that, given the chance, they would use lawyers, connections, and any leverage to make her life unbearable.
So Zoey and Rumi didn’t need to know that Mira liked girls. She could never risk it.
And she certainly didn’t want Zoey to use that knowledge as a springboard to start asking questions about girls—or soulmates. Mira knew Zoey too well. Once the maknae discovered Mira wasn’t straight, Zoey would immediately piece together her crush on Rumi.
Rumi had always been gorgeous. It was basically a requirement to be an idol and Mira wasn’t ignorant to that fact. Most people in their line of work were drop dead gorgeous. Mira knew going into Huntr/x that she would be surrounded by stunning and attractive women who she would never be allowed to look at like that. Mira had accepted going into Huntr/x that she would simply never allow herself that space to hope or desire for anything beyond platonic friendship.
Still, when she first met Rumi, she couldn’t help noticing something different. Most idols were objectively gorgeous—conventionally attractive. They gained attention by being the prettiest thing in the room. While Rumi was conventionally attractive, she had an air to her that was unforgettable. Rumi was timeless and unique. She was beautiful in a way that Mira was certain she had never seen before.
At first, Mira had chalked it up to Rumi’s lavender hair—which she did not at all buy as natural, though she figured as the daughter of Ryu Mi-yeong the industry let her get away with anything. The lavender hair was bold and interesting but still understated compared to Mira’s bright pink. And the braid—iconic, impossible, as if it had been woven by gods, not human hands. At first, those little things made Rumi seem unreal. A goddess walking among mortals.
But it was more than that. Rumi had a presence, an orbit that pulled everyone near without demanding it. Rumi was like the sun. It was as if everything naturally revolved around her. But in a subtle way, as if it was only natural for Mira to instinctually drift towards Rumi. Rumi was always the most interesting person in the room without ever making it about herself. She had a sincerity and gravity about her that was undeniable.
Mira should have known from the first moment Rumi flashed that bright smile at her that she was going to break Mira’s impeccable resolve. Mira might be stubborn and dedicated to her own self control, but she should have known that her heart was no match when it came to Rumi.
Mira could list the truths of Rumi the way other people recited prayers.
Rumi was beautiful, yes—but not in the glossy, camera-ready way idols were expected to be. She was unforgettable. That was simply the truth. Fans, critics, everyone was captivated by Ryu Rumi—not just Mira. Even though Mira was officially the visual of the group, Rumi still dominated much of their marketing and promotional content. In Mira’s eye, Rumi was the face of Huntr/x. Mira had the look and build for modeling, but Rumi had the look and presence that was unforgettable.
Rumi was strong, physically and mentally. She trained harder than her or Zoey, never once letting the long hours of rehearsal show in her posture. Her stamina seemed endless; Mira could remember nights when everyone else was bent over, dripping sweat onto the floor, and Rumi was still upright, pushing through another run as if her body had been built for it. And it wasn’t just in the studio. Even in the field, when the fighting got brutal and Mira’s lungs burned, Rumi never faltered. She could take the worst of hits, cuts, and bruises without flinching, without staggering. More than once, Mira had watched her walk away from a battle bloodied but steady—and still have enough strength left to hoist Zoey onto her back and carry their maknae home when she couldn’t stand.
Rumi was steady. She didn’t crack under pressure, no matter the cameras, the interviews, or the endless expectations. When Mira or Zoey faltered, Rumi held the group together with a calmness Mira envied. Her voice in meetings was measured, sure of itself, and people listened without question. And when chaos loomed—whether it was an unexpected schedule change, a stage malfunction, or a sudden threat during a hunt—Rumi was always there, calmly prepping Mira and Zoey for whatever came next. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t second-guess. She simply anchored them, and they moved forward because she was unshakable.
Rumi was kind. Not in a soft, empty way, but in a way that mattered. She went out of her way to learn American recipes, just so she could surprise Zoey with the taste of home whenever their maknae was struggling. She was the one quietly reassuring Bobby when the weight of managing the group threatened to crush him, always trying to shoulder as much as she could to keep him from burning out. With fans, she listened—really listened. Every autograph line, every handshake, she made people feel like their words were worth hearing. And somehow, she always caught the little things Mira thought she hid so well. The nights Mira shut down after another call from her family, Rumi never pressed, never asked. She would just casually suggest something spontaneous—karaoke, late-night bingsu, a rooftop walk—and pull Zoey in too, as if it had been her idea all along. She made people feel seen, even when she didn’t realize she was doing it.
Rumi was radiant. Onstage, she lit up under the spotlights, but even offstage, she had that same quiet glow. Mira sometimes thought the cameras could never really capture it—the way Rumi’s presence shifted the entire atmosphere of a room.
These were just truths about Rumi, Mira told herself. Nothing more. Anyone could see them, anyone could list them. She wasn’t confessing anything by noticing. She was only acknowledging what had always been undeniable.
But the problem with truths was that they didn’t stop being personal just because everyone else could see them too. Mira told herself she was only noticing what anyone would notice. And yet, the longer she spent by Rumi’s side, the harder it became to ignore the little things—the ones the cameras skimmed past, the ones fans didn’t know to look for.
It started small. Mira would catch herself staring when Rumi laughed, realizing too late that she was holding onto the sound a little longer than she should have. Rumi’s laughter wasn’t loud or flashy; it was low and bright, the kind that lingered in Mira’s chest long after the moment passed. Then there was the way Rumi absentmindedly toyed with the end of her braid whenever she was deep in thought. It wasn’t remarkable, not really. But Mira noticed. She always noticed.
From there, it snowballed. Mira picked up on how Rumi’s voice dipped half a pitch when she was tired, softer, gentler, like a lullaby whispered by accident. She noticed how Rumi pressed her lips together before answering a difficult question, as if she was weighing not just her words but the effect they would have on everyone around her. She noticed the way Rumi’s light stayed on long after everyone else had gone to bed—as if sleep was optional for her, as if work alone could sustain her.
Mira told herself it was just admiration for the leader. But the truth was that she was watching too closely. She couldn’t stop.
By the time she realized it, Mira knew Rumi’s habits better than she knew her own. She could tell when Rumi was anxious by the subtle rigidity in her shoulders, when she was forcing it by the polite smile that sat awkwardly on her face, when she was happy by the soft light that flickered in her eyes even if the rest of her expression stayed calm. None of these things were secrets, but no one else seemed to catalogue them with the same intensity.
Mira sometimes wondered if it had started the first day of training or if it had been waiting inside her long before, just waiting for Rumi to walk into the room and set it off.
Mira remembered the first day like it was carved into her bones. She had been fifteen—awkward, stubborn, all sharp edges she tried to file down to fit into the mold of an idol. Rumi had been sixteen, but somehow felt years older, untouchable in the way only someone who carried herself like she belonged to the world could. Mira had walked into training certain she’d be chewed up by the machine of the industry. Then Rumi smiled at her—just a simple, bright smile across the room—and Mira’s chest ached with something she didn’t have a word for. She’d called it admiration, told herself it was nothing. But some nights in bed, earbuds in, she’d replay the smile over and over until it hurt.
There were other moments, too, scattered through those first years of training like crumbs on a path she couldn’t stop following. Long nights in the practice room when Mira was doubled over, sweat stinging her eyes, and Rumi was still upright—offering her a grin and a water bottle as if exhaustion were optional. Quiet dorm nights when Mira lay awake, staring at the strip of light under Rumi’s door, certain she could hear her humming some half-melody to herself. Mira told herself it was nothing, just a leader keeping herself calm. Still, she found herself waiting for it every night.
She remembered their first fan event, the one where Mira’s hands shook as she signed albums. Rumi leaned in with that same easy smile she’d given Mira the first day, the one that made Mira feel like she wasn’t drowning. And when Rumi turned that smile on the crowd, Mira caught herself imagining—just for a dizzy second—that it had been meant only for her.
There were small things, too. The way Rumi always noticed when Mira skipped breakfast, quietly slipping her a protein bar between rehearsals. The way she steadied Zoey when nerves got too loud. The way she never faltered, even when her shoulders carried more weight than any of them realized. Mira told herself it was admiration. Just admiration. Nothing more.
And she remembered the moment she got her soulmark, too. The jagged pale mark that slowly set in across her chest. She had noticed it one evening after an intense choreo practice, a sign that her soulmate was out there somewhere. But there was no sudden appearance that told her when she might’ve met her. Still, Zoey squealed and demanded to see, while Mira only felt cold dread. Because instead of joy, all she could think about was Rumi. About how much she wanted someone who could never be hers. She felt guilty, like she’d already betrayed whoever her soulmate was—doomed them to second place in a race they hadn’t even run.
Sometimes, she’d let herself imagine, for a heartbeat, that it was Rumi. That the mark might burn at the sound of Rumi’s laugh, that fate had aligned in the one impossible way Mira secretly prayed for. But it never did. And when Rumi never developed a mark of her own, Mira’s heart cracked in a different way. Not because it meant they weren’t destined—she’d never really believed they could be—but because Rumi deserved love more than anyone Mira had ever known. And the universe had denied her even that.