Chapter Text
Rumi was due back tonight and with their Studio Ghibli marathon finished, Mira and Zoey had retreated back to the gym at the penthouse to brush up on their skills, even though the number of breaches they had to deal with these days was nowhere near the volume they used to have to deal with. But complacency can be lethal, Celine had drilled into them during their original training days, so they kept up their practice.
Her hair tied back and clad in black shorts and t-shirt, Mira clutched her gok-do as she ran through one of her usual drill forms. Slash, slash, thrust, pivot, sweep, and repeat. It was one she had religiously used since their early days when she had first summoned the polearm from the Honmoon, and one that helped to warm up all the usual muscles she would use. She finished from the latest sweep, standing with the weapon pointed straight ahead, held in both hands, at her reflection against the mirrored wall opposite. A sudden caw rang through the space and she flinched on the spot, then cast a glare to her left, towards the magpie perched upon the nearby weights rack.
The six-eyed magpie wearing a tiny hat.
“Yeah?” she says to the offending bird. “Anymore comments to make on my technique?” The bird just cawed again, then too flight and perched upon her head, cleaning it’s feathers for a minute while she patiently let it.
“Thought so,” she said finally, and shook her hair, and the bird took startled flight, perching upon the same weights rack, giving her an almost offended look.
That was another thing to come to terms with. The fact that Jinu’s…pets? Companions? Familiars? Had joined their strange little found family, and while she was extremely hesitant in having anything related to that particular demon still hanging around, ultimately she had come around. Particularly when the second pet/companion/familiar was of the far fluffier variety. And they had proved to have no ulterior motives from what she could tell. Yet.
“Guys, they have nowhere else to go,” Rumi had explained that morning she had introduced them both to Mira and Zoey. “So can we let them stay…just for a little while?” A little while was now a permanent thing. Especially since Zoey’s initial reaction had been such a high-pitched squeal of joy it was a miracle the windows hadn’t blown out.
Across the space, Zoey was doing her own…unique exercises, that looked more like a run and backflip off the wall, dropping into a complicated-looking breakdance performance, which then segued into push-ups. “Can you not train like a normal person, Zoey?” Mira called out, fondly.
“Nope,” was the simple response, as Zoey continued into some regular stretches, and then just as quickly got back to her feet and fell back on her target practice, hurling shin-kal into the specialised, reinforced steel plates she used as targets. Mira gave her head a little shake and went straight into her next work out exercise. They proceeded that way for half an hour, with not much conversation between them. They were usually like this in practice, unless they wished to go for a full spar session with one another, but today wasn’t one of those days. Especially since last year, Mira had been particularly hesitant about sparring with either of her fellow hunters.
Because anytime she had even vaguely pointed her gok-do towards one of them, she was back to that dark basement in the stadium, after the Idol Awards, pointing the weapon at one of her best friends. Because instead of taking a minute to try and wrap her head around everything that had happened within the space of five minutes, she had done what she used to do and lashed out, driven people away. Drove Rumi away, making the most awful mistake of her life. And they had all nearly lost each other as a result.
Something nudged her side and nearly pushed her over, and she whirled around, alarmed, to see a pair of huge orange eyes looking up at her, set within a huge blue head. Jinu’s other pet/companion/familiar was – for some reason – a huge blue tiger, one with gigantic orange eyes, a multitude of fangs, dark stripes, and a face that looked as though it was struggling with a single brain cell bouncing around inside that skull.
“I know, I shouldn’t go there,” she says kindly to the tiger, who just came closer and nudged her again, and then sits down on it’s haunches. She realises what’s coming before it opens it’s fanged maw with a wet blah, and there’s an envelope stuck to it’s huge, pink tongue. An annoyingly familiar design showing the cartoony seagull with the dopey smile and the Hello friend text. The envelope slaps onto the floor and leaves a small puddle.
“Gross,” Mira comments, stooping to collect it and open it up, revealing a quick message. Despite the fact they were all firmly in the 21st Century, Rumi seemed to have fallen for the novelty of having hand-written messages delivered via…giant blue tiger courier. Because why the hell not? But according to her it helped the tiger feel useful rather than just being the largest cuddle buddy in the Korean peninsula.
Zoey notices how Mira’s face falls and comes closer. “What is it?” she asks, and Mira just hands the soggy message to Zoey, who reads it a couple of times, and then her expression falls somewhat. “We’re having another guest for dinner?”
“Little short notice, right?” Mira says, crossing her arms.
“Bobby?” Zoey suggests. “He hasn’t been by the penthouse for a few weeks.”
“Bobby’s usually good with takeout and it’s usually on the run up to shows or a tour,” Mira replied, shaking her head. “I can only think of one other person who would come here to join us for dinner.”
Realisation settled on Zoey’s face. “Oh. Yeah. Well…I guess that means Rumi’s serious about making it work.”
“Hm,” Mira hummed, turning away to find her water bottle, only to find it on the floor on it’s side, while their blue friend tried in vain to stand it back up with clumsy strokes and slaps of its big furry paw. She watched it for a few more seconds and then retrieved her bottle while the tiger just watched her as though to say ‘I was having fun there!’. “Guess we’ll need to make some more banchan to cover an extra guest.”
“Hey, it’ll be okay, we’ll get through it,” insisted Zoey, “just…give me a signal if you’re tempted to take a swing at her.”
Mira snorted as though she was seriously considering it. “Hopefully it won’t come to that…no promises though,” she adds, as the tiger has now moved onto Zoey’s sea green bottle, and has resumed its somewhat doomed efforts to stand it back up with swipes of a it’s huge paw. The bird watched from afar, seeming to roll its eyes in frustration.
“Do you think she’ll react well to our new…guests?” Zoey ventured, indicating aforementioned guests as the bird moved closer now and the tiger gave up with the bottle and seemed content to roll onto its back to offer a furry stomach. “Or give belly rubs to a giant blue tiger?”
“Somehow I doubt it,” Mira answers. “Maybe she’ll be more likely to swing her blades at them.”
“Okay, I’ll be on standby with blankets and soft cushions if I need to intercept any sudden attacks from her.”
“You just want an excuse to tackle her, don’t you?”
“No. Maybe? Yes. I mean…it could be the least she deserves?”
“Not if Rumi is serious about wanting to try and mend bridges between them.”
“You’re right,” Zoey sighed. “Sorry. Um, yeah, I know I’m not meant to apologise for everything and work on the people pleasing”-
“It’s fine,” Mira interrupted, watching the tiger’s tail swishing back and forth as it remained in place, waiting for more belly rubs that wouldn’t be coming anytime soon. Then it let out a low rumble of a purr as it got to it’s feet and slinked away, sinking from view into the Honmoon’s threads, followed by the bird. “Come on, let’s get changed and make a start on dinner.”
Several delicious aromas wafted into the elevator space as the doors pinged open: garlic, sesame oil, peppers, and much more besides. There was the clatter of pots and woks from the kitchen, and Rumi headed for the kitchen, pulling her case behind her. The dining table had been set for four. “Hey, I’m back!” she called as she spied Mira and Zoey moving around their kitchen, setting out dishes and bowls of various banchan and plates of cooked meat and rice and noodles.
“Welcome home!” Zoey called, disengaging from the whirlwind of activity – despite Mira’s protests – to come and throw her arms around her friend, who returned the gesture without a second thought. “Missed you!”
“It was two nights, Zoey,” Rumi chuckled, rubbing one hand in circles on Zoey’s back. “But I missed you guys too.”
“Well we can get plenty of time in to catch up over…oh.” Zoey stopped and started, realisation setting in as she saw Celine standing there, still closer to the elevator than the kitchen, holding a bottle in her hands. Dressed in her usual business-style attire: silk blouse, black dress pants, black blazer and shoes. “Celine,” Zoey says, and then acting on an old impulse, sketches a quick bow. The noises from the kitchen stopped as Mira noticed as well, and silently came around to stand beside the others in solidarity, and then offered a quick bow of her own. Some habits die hard.
“Celine,” she says, clearly struggling to find the right words and keep a lid on her feelings towards her mentor at the same time. “Welcome.”
“I…um,” Celine began, glancing down at the bottle she held in her hands. It was extremely rare for Celine to be so unsure of herself and lost for words: a far cry from the cool and even detached and pragmatic mentor they had all trained under for years. “I brought some soju. The good stuff.” Mira stepped forward to take it gently, checking the label.
“We haven’t had this kind since…”
“Since after your debut,” Celine finished. “And…considering Comeback’s success, I thought it was only fair for another celebration of the same magnitude.” There’s another bout of silence, and Celine takes a breath and continues. “You’ve all done so, so well since…well, since ever. The Sunlight Sisters couldn’t even come closer, even with everything we achieved in our careers, and you’ve done all this in six years. So…I am so proud of you all.”
Zoey’s cheeks flush pink and she glances away, as does Rumi, trying to hide one of her little shy, genuine smiles. Mira says nothing, but her mouth moves, like she’s thinking of what to say and how to say it. In the end, she settles for putting the bottle down on the kitchen island and heads for one of the cabinets to get some glasses ready for after food.
“Well, dinner is almost served, so grab a seat and we’ll get right to you!” Zoey exclaimed, and she busied back into the kitchen to start plating up some bulgogi while Mira sets out for glasses for Zoey to fill when the time comes. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Celine bringing the fancy soju won’t make up for everything she’s done to Rumi, to us,” Mira says, staring into a glass before her. “It won’t”-
“Hey, I know that,” Zoey replies, putting a hand on her friend’s arm. “But little steps, right? Let’s see what she has to say during the dinner and we go from there, okay?” Mira nods, but looks unconvinced.
The dinner is a fairly lively affair, surprisingly, despite the fact the very metaphorical elephant sitting at their table, enjoying rice and soju and kimchi and noodles and much more besides. Zoey and Mira went all out for this one, sensing just how important this was meant to be for Rumi, who seemed in genuinely good spirits. Though Mira did catch how sometimes Celine seemed unwilling to start conversations, lapsing into existing ones instead. She still listened intently though, especially as Zoey went on about the song writing workshop she lead the other day, on the potential of several of the girls there. The next generation still had to be considered, after all. Demons were still getting through the new Honmoon, after all.
Mira says little, just listening, and watching. As she does. She’s always been good at reading people, though Celine seemed an impossible one to observe initially. She played her cards extremely close to her chest and adhered to the whole our faults and fears must never be seen to an absurd degree. Being the last Hunter left of your generation must have been a gruelling and lonely prospect, but Celine never seemed to outwardly show any of it. Not around any of them, at least. Now she looked like someone who was desperate to make amends, but had little idea how to go about doing so. Mira understood the feeling, somewhat. Even a year from Namsan and the dramatic events leading up to it and beyond, she was still terrified at the fact she would fumble the new geography of her relationship with Rumi and Zoey and drop the ball and shatter things again.
But that wasn’t fair on herself. It hadn’t all been her fault. A yelled quote delivered by Rumi atop a speeding train last year comes back to her suddenly.
“-ra?” someone says.
“What?” Mira asks, bluntly, blinking.
“I was just asking if you were okay,” Celine says, watching her. “You looked like your mind was somewhere else.”
“It was,” she says, “sorry about that. I’m back here now.” She chased some rice and meat around her bowl with her chopsticks.
“Anything on your mind in particular?” Celine continued.
“Nothing in particular.”
A pregnant, loaded pause. “I know you’re not exactly thrilled to be happy with me being here,” Celine continues, and Mira’s chopsticks abruptly stop against her bowl, a discordant scratch getting everyone else’s attention. The hubbub of conversation and eating dies away.
“That obvious, huh?” Mira says eventually, the corner of her jaw tight.
“Mira”- Rumi says, almost like a gentle warning. An attempt to head trouble off at the pass.
“Sharing dinner with us and bringing us the good soju won’t magically make up for all the damage you’ve caused, Celine,” Mira continues, steamrolling over any attempt to stop herself before she falls back into the old habit of being abrasive, though she tells herself it’s entirely justified this time. “The whole time during our training, you drove it into our skulls, over and over: anything with patterns is a demon that deserves to be destroyed. Even if they look entirely human. It’s an act, a play to get you to drop your guard, right?”
Rumi looked ready to reprimand Mira again as her patterns began to flicker every do slightly at the darker end of the spectrum, but Celine holds her hand up. Just an inch or two, but the intent is obvious. Let her say her piece.
“…you taught us that while Rumi was standing right there in between us, and she had those same patterns on her arms. She had those markings and you taught us to hate them. When she was standing right there. You put that in her head, you told her to hide her faults and fears…and she did! She did what you told her to do, and look what happened! We did what you taught us to do! We still nearly lost everything! We nearly lost each other!”
The silence comes back after that tirade, save for a short, harsh breath from Mira as she sets her chopsticks down and sighs, running her hand through her hair. Celine just stares at her, Rumi’s doing her best to avoid direct eye contact as her patterns continue to flicker through the spectrum, and Zoey has gone into that quiet, withdrawn states she does whenever the tension gets too much.
“Sorry,” Mira says finally, “I keep saying I’m not going to be like this anymore, I don’t want to be angry and lashing out anymore, but”-
“I understand, Mira,” Celine interrupts, getting the visual’s attention. “And I don’t blame you. You’re right, I did instil that into all of you, especially when I was aware of Rumi’s heritage. I did all of that damage. And I have to share the blame for what happened last year, too. You’ve every right to be angry at me. I didn’t miss any of the scathing looks you gave me this year.”
It gets awfully quiet again as Celine takes a breath and continues, choosing her words carefully, or like she’s been bouncing this conversation around inside her head for a long time. Maybe she has been, maybe for longer than just a year.
“…same as I told Rumi when she came to see me the other day, I was wrong about a lot of things. So, so much, because I was clinging to what I was taught in my time as a hunter…but the fact Rumi existed proved that so much of what I was taught was wrong,” and she flashes a look towards the half-demon, who averts her gaze, her cheeks and her patterns flushing a tinge of pink. “If it was possible for a half-demon hunter to exist…then what else were our teachings wrong about?”
Another silence falls, but they’re all watching Celine carefully now. She takes another breath. “But I do know I wasn’t wrong about. I wasn’t wrong about giving the two of you a chance.”
Zoey and Mira share a quizzical glance, then look back at their mentor. “…what do you mean?” asked Zoey.
“The try-out stages for HUNTR/X,” Celine explained. “After you passed the initial auditions, and it was down to the last hundred in Seoul to get a place in the group. You two stood out amongst all the others, for different reasons. The half-American who came halfway around the world to become an idol and the angry, pink-haired girl who didn’t want to become friends with anyone else. Who threw punches when she was being mocked about her background.”
Zoey and Rumi both looked right at Mira, who just absolutely lost for words, which rarely happened. “…I can’t believe you still remember that.”
“Wait, what’s she talking about?” Zoey asked, looking back and forth between everyone else on the table. “She was having issues with other trainees?”
“I…” Mira said haltingly, shifting in her seat before continuing. “There were a few other girls in the training camp. They knew who I was, or…who my family were, rather. Loved to make a point of it every time we crossed paths. I was a spoiled heiress who could have lived the easy life for the next several decades, so why was I wasting my time singing and dancing? Stuff like that. Except it got pretty nasty one day. So I hit one of them instead of walking away and counting to ten.”
Rumi blinks and stares. “You…hit one of them?” Zoey’s reaction is to badly stop a snigger erupting from her throat and quickly covers her mouth before a proper laugh is given form.
“Yeah, sounds like our Mira, alright,” she says finally, after composing herself.
“Label staff had to pull three of them off her,” Celine explains. “They gave her a black eye and a cut lip…but she got all three of them with similar injuries.” Rumi smiles and gives a little shake of her head at that.
“Wow. You really were wild back then, huh?” she asks with one of her signature goofy smiles, and Mira flushes pink a little.
"I had longer reach than them," she explains, head bowed, and then she swallows and picks up the story again, voice quieter.
“When I got called into your office afterwards, I thought that would be it. Cut loose and sent back home. If that happened I’ve got no idea where I would have ended up…but you gave me another chance. Said you could tell I had potential, that I could channel that anger and that…passion, as you put it, into something worthwhile. I just had to ride it out, give things a chance.”
“It paid off, didn’t it?” Celine answered, and Mira looked around the table, the penthouse, at her bandmates and her closest friends. Her family.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “It did.” She takes another breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for how you treated Rumi…but you helped me find a better life, a new family. I’ll always be grateful to you for that. It’s better than just being an eternal disappointment for people who are impossible to please.”
“And same for me, too,” Zoey cuts in, her eyes bright as usual, like the stars are shining there. “First week I was ready to just go back home and start over…but you took me aside one day and said that I had potential. My notebooks could be used for something more than just clearing my thoughts away, they could be put out into the world to help us seal the Honmoon. And you were right.”
They all exchange looks now, the acceptance of despite all the harm Celine had inadvertently – and sometimes advertently though with the utmost best intentions – caused, each of them still had much to be grateful to her for. People were incredibly complex, and while Mira was right in that joining them for dinner and bringing good soju wouldn’t magically fix all the damage caused, it was a start. A small start, but one none the less.
“Maybe…we could try and make this a semi-regular thing again?” Celine suggests, carefully. “I know you don’t need my guidance and input anymore – especially not now – but I think it would be nice to still…for me to try and mend things, no matter how long it t- what is that?!”
Celine’s startled exclamation was paired with her suddenly leaving her seat, and the others immediately turned to follow their mentor’s gaze to where the Honmoon shimmered as a huge pair of eyes and a blue furry head emerged from the floor beside the corner of the refrigerator. Along with a tiny, hat-wearing six-eyed bird perched atop said head, looking like it wanted to be anywhere but here.
“It’s okay,” Zoey insisted, moving around towards the offending head and bird while Celine looked seconds away from drawing her ssang-geum from the Honmoon. “Uh…guess we maybe should have started with this. We have decided to take the next big step as grown adults…and got a couple of pets?”
Rumi stared at her bandmate for a long second, then shook her head and rose to her feet, looking at Celine. “Um…they’re…guardian spirits, I think? They lost their previous owner and so we…acquired them, perhaps? Or they chose us?”
“Or maybe the Cat Distribution System also applies to huge blue tigers?” Zoey added with a chuckle as the tiger emerged from the Honmoon fully and padded towards them with its huge paws, and the magpie took flight and perched itself atop one of the kitchen taps. Celine just stares for a while longer, until the tiger comes right up to her, huge orange eyes boring straight into her.
“A guardian spirit?” the older woman says finally, and reaches a hesitant hand out to run her fingers through the soft fur. Immediately that draws a rumbling purr from the tiger and it pushes its huge head towards her, threatening to knock her over. There was the lightest of laughs, and then a genuine smile formed on Celine’s face, as she added a second hand to the petting. “I’d heard and read tales about such things, but I’ve never seen one myself…until now of course. Oh, I didn’t expect guardian spirits to be so soft and furry…”
“Derpy is certainly that,” Zoey chuckles, then pauses when she realises what she has let slip, realising how the others are looking at her now. Mira stares at her the longest, eyebrows raised slightly.
“…you named him Derpy?” she says finally, slowly. “Really?”
“Well…have you looked at his face? He doesn’t look like he has much going on…up there.”
They peer at the tiger’s face, who just stares back vacantly. And then finally blinks unevenly, one eyelid about half a second after the first.
“Maybe you have a point,” Rumi concedes. Celine is looking at the bird now, watching carefully with it’s six eyes.
“And why is the bird wearing a hat?”
“It was made for the tiger, but the bird keeps stealing it,” Rumi responded automatically, then blinks and closes her mouth as if realising, looking somewhat haunted. Celine gives her this look of understanding, and the slightest of nods. They had talked about plenty over the past couple of days before they’d flown out here.
“A tiger and a magpie,” Celine finally announces. “A real-life minhwa, come to life. No better protection for you all,” she finished, smiling fondly now, as the tiger suddenly rolls over onto its back to present itself for belly rubs, the floor creaking beneath its weight while the bird just seemed to roll its eyes and flew over to take a new perch. "And I am serious," she adds, "about mending things. If you'll allow me...of course."
The three others shared a fond look between all them, glad that this dinner hadn’t been an unmitigated disaster like they had initially expected it to become.
They returned to the table in due time to finish off the remainder of the feast, and to open the soju, offering a toast to good fortunes and a healthy future, all the while their guardian spirit companions kept a careful watch over proceedings, and then they retired to the couch for a couple more hours. It was a surprise to see Celine so open and unguarded perhaps the only time that Mira and Zoey had known her, and for Rumi it had been most of her life since seeing this from her guardian. But there she was, petting a huge blue tiger and watching the numerous turtle videos Zoey had on her phone. Or the ones she had gathered in the last week, at least.
“Well, I’m glad it went okay,” Rumi says, as she and Mira perch beside one another on the couch, half-full soju glasses in their hands.
“Me too,” Mira sighed, her shoulders relaxed. “I’m…sorry I got a bit carried away earlier. And that was before we opened the soju.”
Rumi chuckled at that. “It’s okay, it all worked out. She…she has done a lot of damage to us all, but she is serious about making up for it whatever it takes. We talked…a lot, at Jeju. I’m sorry this was sprung on you a little suddenly, too.”
“It’s okay,” insisted Mira, waving it off. “It worked out, right? No harm done. And…honestly, it’s kinda hilarious seeing Celine being this loose. Maybe it’s just the soju?”
“She’s only had the one glass,” Rumi chuckled. “Maybe she just…needed a push?”
“Like an almost demon apocalypse?” Mira suggested.
“Maybe,” Rumi shrugged, looking back at the opposite end of the couch as Zoey comes to an end of her current cache of turtle pics, a huge blue tiger laid out at their feet, content and comfortable. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the skyline of Seoul is draped in the shimmering curtain of the Honmoon, pleased at the bonds being reforged anew.