Chapter Text
Rumi sat cross-legged on her bed, a small lyric notebook balancing on her knee. Huntrx needed a new song; “What it Sounds Like” had been out for a few weeks and the fans wanted more after the disappearance of the Saja Boys. Fans kept demanding a collabs between the two groups, not knowing what had truly happened during that last show. The most common theory was that it was a publicity stunt, which didn’t make Huntrx look good, and Bobby wanted to fix that.
After a few minutes of chewing on her pen and not getting any work done, Zoey and Mira walked in. “Rumi! We had an idea for what our next move should be,” Zoey said while jumping onto Rumi’s bed, waking Derpy from his nap on her floor.
“Well,” Mira interrupted, “Zoey has 28 ideas, but we settled on one. We just have to talk to Bobby about it.”
“What is it?” Rumi asked. Huntrx needed something good, and quick.
“Okay so… we hold a turtle adoption. Fans will love it, trust,” Zoey’s face lit up the more she spoke. “Oh! And we can also do other like.. merch stuff too.”
“Zoey, that is not the idea we agreed on,” Mira said while taking a seat in Rumi’s plush desk chair. “We were thinking that we could release a song about milkshakes or some other type of drink. It would be kinda stupid, but we think that fans would like it.”
“Guys.. I’m sorry but that sounds.. umm… dumb,” Rumi said with a sigh. “We need something really good, and I… I don’t know if that’s it.”
Zoey let out a deep exhale. “I knowwww, but what are we even supposed to do. Only if the Saja Boys were here. Mystery would know what to do.” Zoey smiled as she said this, everyone knew that she still wasn’t over him. Even after he tried to attack her.
“Zoeyyyy,” both girls said with an annoyed sigh. Zoey had been talking about how terrible she felt for “killing him” a lot recently. Rumi still felt terrible about Jinu, but she never really talked about it. She was good at keeping secrets, Zoey was not.
“What? You guys totally feel bad. Rumi, you were literally crying.” Rumi’s eyes shot up towards Zoey.
“What?! I was not!”
“Uhh.. yeah you were. You totally had a crush on him,” Mira rolled her eyes as she spoke.
“I did not have a crush on him! He was literally a demon!” Rumi countered.
Zoey pointed at her. “Yes you did! Stop hiding it.”
“Okay, maybe a I had a small crush on him. But it wasn’t anything like Zoey and Mystery.”
“My crush wasn’t that bad,” Zoey said. “I’m just very open. You can be too Rumi. No one cares that they were demons because they were cute. And they’re umm.. gone now, so it won’t hurt anyone.”
“I know that, but it still feels weird. We’ve spent forever hunting demons, and now we find out they can be good? Everything just changed so quickly-”
“Guys. We need to get back to the promo stuff. We need ideas,” Mira interrupted their demon crush talk.
“Alright, let’s get back to it. What are we thinking?” Zoey said.
All three girls went silent. Promotion and brand stuff was usually handled by Bobby, but the girls wanted to help out more after everything he did during the last tour. But, the girls quickly realized that there was a reason why Bobby did it all.
After a few more seconds, Mira stood up from her chair. “You know what, let’s go eat dinner and call Bobby. He’ll have better ideas. And we can maybe tell him ours, even if they suck.”
The other two agreed and they walked to the kitchen. They all went to the kitchen cupboards and grabbed their respective ramen flavors. It was Bobby’s night off, and he would typically do all the cooking for them. They had considered hiring a personal chef, but Bobby loved to do it for them and his food was always delicious.
After the three of them finished preparing their ramen, they all sat down on their couch. They got situated and Zoey dialed Bobby’s number.
“Hi Bobby!” All three of them said into the phone immediately after the ringing stopped.
“Hi girls! What’s up,” Bobby said, sounding worried. The girls never really called him, he always called them.
“Nothing,” Rumi quickly responded. “We just wanted to talk about some promo ideas.”
“Oh? You have ideas?” Bobby sounded surprised.
“Well, yeah. They’re not super good though,” Mira responded.
“We can still talk about them! I was also looking at some ideas, but we have to be quick about whatever we do.”
Bobby started talking about his ideas, which were good, but none of them seemed to solve the issue of fans missing the Saja Boys. Once Bobby was finished, they all sat girls started talking about their ideas. After a few minutes, Bobby interrupted them. “Girls, I am loving these ideas. But I’m not one-hundred percent sure that they’ll really bring people back. I mean… the turtles might, but I’m not sure about the others.”
Zoey smiled and clapped her hands together. “I told you guys that people would love the turtles. Bobby knows good ideas.”
”What should we do Bobby. Our ideas sucked and we need people back soon,” Mira said.
“You girls should get some rest. Nothing good will happen if you’re stressed and tired. I’ll look at some things in the morning, or maybe one of you will come up with something tonight,” Bobby responded.
”Alright, thanks Bobby. You’re actually amazing,” Rumi said while standing up. “Let’s get to bed.”
The others nodded and also stood up. Zoey grabbed her phone and held it up, “Bye Bobby!” they all said before Zoey hung up.
They said their good nights and headed off to their rooms. Rumi got ready for bed and then fed Derpy. He ate out in the living room but slept in Rumi’s room, so she brought his bowl in for him. But after she poured the food, Derpy just sat there.
“What’s wrong? You usually eat right away.” As she bent down to pet his head, he spit something up.
“What the…” Why would there be a card? Only Jinu knew that Derpy could do that, but Jinu had died. Hadn’t he? Rumi picked the wet envelope and carefully opened it.
Rumi,
I need your help. Well, we do. Gwi-ma has us held prisoner. Derpy found me. You and the others need to come down here soon. Gwi-ma is not dead and he’s planning something bad. I have no clue where the others are, but I think that Derpy does. I understand if you do not want to help, but you’re the only person I could think of. Please, come quickly. Gwi-ma is getting more powerful everyday.
- Jinu
Tears poured down Rumi’s cheeks as she read. Jinu was alive. But he needed help, and she was going to make sure he and the others got it. How would they even get into Gai-ma’s realm? All Rumi knew was that she had to, and there had to be a way, right? She couldn’t think straight, all the tears that she cried meant nothing now that he was alive. Rumi whipped her tears and crawled into bed. She just needed to convince the others… or maybe she didn’t have to convince them at all.
——————————
Rumi hardly slept, so when morning came she jumped out of bed. She would finally get to see him again. If every part of her plan went correctly, the three of them should be in Gwi-ma’s realm soon.
She walked into the kitchen to find something to eat. It was still pretty early, so no one was there yet. Bobby usually got there around eight, so she had about an hour to finalize things. Mira would be back from her run soon, so that left Zoey. Rumi scanned the kitchen for something that could wake her up, and she found it, watermelon. It was Zoey’s favorite fruit, so she was surprised it hadn’t been cut yet. Rumi grabbed the cutting board and sliced into it.
After a few minutes, Zoey was awake. “Are you cutting watermelon? Because I swear I could smell it.” She rubbed her eyes.
“Yeah, I wanted to surprise you. I have an idea for the promo and I wanted you to wake up.” Rumi felt bad about lying, but Zoey would understand soon enough.
“Alright! Let me go get ready, then we can talk when Mira gets back.”
Rumi nodded and finished up just as Mira got home. She put the freshly cut watermelon in the fridge and told Mira about the promo idea. They both went to go get ready so the three of them could discuss it.
After ten minutes or so, everyone was at the table. “Okay,” Rumi said after setting the bowl of watermelon down. “I have an idea for the promo, but it’s kinda a lot.”
Zoey grabbed some watermelon and nodded, “well it can’t be any worse than some of the other stuff.” She popped a piece of the fruit in her mouth and ate it before finishing. “Tell us!”
”Alright.” Rumi took a breath in for dramatic effect. “What if we do a promo road-trip? Like we get a car, drive around, and do pop-ups and stuff. We could sell merch and meet fans. I feel like it could work.”
”Wait,” Mira said after a pause, “that might actually work. It would also be fun.”
”Yeah!” Rumi agreed, “we just would need to start like today. So we can really see if it works.”
”Today?” Mira and Zoey said with a groan. Rumi always liked to start things way too early and they had just woken up.
”Well… we want to get fans back soon. Remember the “Golden” release? I posted it early and fans loved it.”
Everyone nodded. “I suppose so, we just have to wait for Bobby,” Zoey said, warming up to the idea.
“I was thinking that Bobby could meet us at the different locations. I talk to him last night, and he said he was fine with that. Mira and I can drive. It’ll be like a girls trip!”
“Rumi..” Mira said suspiciously, “this is all seeming kinda weird. Like, I don’t know, why wouldn’t’ Bobby come with us? How will fans even know where we’ll be if we tell them right before?”
”I agree with Mira. Maybe we should wait a few days,” Zoey said.
Rumi felt bad about forcing her bandmates to go so soon, but they couldn’t waste any time. The Saja Boys needed help now. “But if we start now we won’t lose any more fans. A few more days could be really bad.”
The others thought about it for a few seconds. “Alright,” Mira said. “Let’s do it.”
Zoey nodded her head and the three of them stood up. “Let’s go get ready,” Rumi said. “But be quick because we should get out there. I’ll call Bobby and tell him you agreed. Happy fans…”
“Happy Hon..moon!” all three cheered in unison before going off to their rooms.
Rumi walked to her vanity and started getting ready. She had to be quick if they didn’t want Bobby to know. She sent him a quick text about the new plan, not including anything about saving the Saja Boys of corse. She just told him that they were going on a promo road-trip and figured that she would explain the rest later. Rumi shoved a few clothes into a small backpack and headed out. She also grabbed some water and food, mostly ramen but some healthy stuff too.
———————
The girls loaded their stuff into the trunk of the SUV and headed out. Rumi said she would drive first, so she got into the drivers seat and turned the keys. She just had to hope that a tear would appear while they drove so she could execute her plan.
The drive started pretty normally, which worried Rumi. If they didn’t see a tear soon, how would they get to Jinu? They drove through the city while Twice played quietly on the radio and Zoey talked about turtles. “Did you guys know that turtles can stay underwater for hours? They can hold their breath for five-“
“Wait,” Mira interrupted, “there’s a tear in that alley.” Mira pointed to a small, dark alley, where the Honmoon had turned red.
Rumi pulled the car to the side of the road a parked it. They just had to deal with these demons and then her plan would hopefully work. There was only three demons, so each girl took one. The small grayish-purple demons looked around the dark alley before running towards the girls. They weren’t very strong and the fight only lasted a few minutes.
Mira and Zoey started back towards the car, but before they could get back in, Rumi grabbed both of them and jumped into the tear right as it closed.