Chapter Text
Gwi-Ma was always watching. He saw everything, heard everything. Still, Jinu tried to warn Rumi. He did the one thing he could think of that Gwi-Ma wouldn’t notice. He didn’t wear the bracelet. But Rumi didn’t notice either. She trusted him too much, just like his mother and sister. She hadn’t been looking for secret signs of betrayal because she was so certain he would do the right thing. Of course she was, because he had lied to her. He’d had a chance to stop lying, the night he agreed to her crazy plan. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he’d clawed them back, too much of a coward, too scared that once she knew everything, she wouldn’t look at him the same way. And he liked the way she looked at him, all soft and warm. She looked at him like he was someone worth saving, and he was stupid enough to believe it, even if for only a moment.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. So when she confronted him, eyes hard and cold with fury, even more than when she’d tried to kill him, he told her what he should have from the beginning. The truth. He expected her to call him a monster. Instead, strangely, her eyes softened. It made him angry. She should hate him. Why didn’t she hate him? He needed her to hate him. It was the only way she would be safe from him. So he said words he didn’t mean, words he knew would hurt her, and the shame dragged him back to Gwi-Ma’s feet.
At the final concert, the one that would seal Jinu’s fate, he recognized her voice immediately. He wasn’t surprised. He’d expected her to come. She’s here to kill me, he thought. Good. He hoped she succeeded.
But he was wrong. She hadn’t come to kill him. So we were cowards, so we were liars. So we’re not heroes, we’re still survivors. Those words were for him. Even after everything, she hadn’t given up on him. She still thought he was worth saving.
Jinu was weak. He knew this. Not once had Gwi-Ma let him forget it in the past four hundred years. He was too weak to defeat Gwi-Ma, but Rumi … she was strong in all the ways that mattered most. With her, maybe Jinu could be strong too, not enough to kill Gwi-Ma, but enough to do something more important. He could save Rumi.
So he gave her his soul. He thought that would be the end, but it turned out to be only the beginning. He had been worthless as a human and worse as a demon, but as a sword, he redeemed himself. And so, the Honmoon decided that he was indeed worth saving.