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Once, Rumi thought her patterns were beautiful.
The patterns appeared like lightning crossing the untamed darkness of the sky. On other days, they resembled the slender arms of a bonsai tree waiting for spring’s bloom.
But her favorite story of all, they were ley lines that connected her to her family. The patterns on her arms held her in lieu of her parents’ embrace.
Now, they blemish her body like stray ink marks blotting parchment. They are striking, they are grotesque. Rumi cannot decide what they are—a source of her shame, a source of her parents’ love.
At the tender age of six, she is vaguely aware that her existence is the proof of the union between a demon and a human—a story about how love triumphs over all else.
But the longer she stays in Celine’s care, fairy tales like that do not translate well into reality.
Rumi only knows that she must cover up her patterns. She doesn’t fully know why, but Rumi notices Celine’s darting eyes and how quickly her hands move to give her a jacket.
“Why do I have to keep covering them up? If I explain it to everyone, maybe they will understand.” Rumi says one day, while Celine sits and braids her hair from behind.
Rumi winces when Celine tightens the braid. “Ah! I’m sorry Rumi. Did that hurt? Here, let me do it again. I just…”
“It’s OK. It doesn’t hurt that much,” Rumi says hastily. She senses that Celine wants to change the topic. “Even if I’m different, I think talking it through will—”
“To protect yourself and everyone else around you, you need to hide your patterns,” her guardian says quietly, gravely. Her hands fall from the child’s hair and Rumi turns back to face her.
Celine’s expression smooths over like marble. Her eyes glint with something beyond Rumi’s understanding—it is somber, it is strange. When she smiles, Rumi knows it does not reach her eyes.
“The world…isn’t so forgiving that you can explain things like that. You’ll understand when you’re older,” Celine’s voice quiets, and the rustling of leaves nearly makes her voice inaudible. “When the heart knows fear, we lose all reason.”
The children around Rumi’s age are still curious and they understand with a simple explanation. However, as Rumi grows up, peers around her age change.
Now, curiosity morphs into judgement.
Rumi finally lets go of the illusion that hunters and demons can coexist in harmony.
Her rise to stardom is gradual. It starts with trainings, auditions, and performances. Then, Celine introduces her to Zoey and Mira. In no time, the girls become friends—of course, navigating new friendships is not always easy. It comes with the territory of misunderstandings, squabbles, and awkward silences. But happiness comes in threes, and the girls shine the brightest when they work together to form Huntrix.
Music, melodies, and memories fill their apartment. Not only do their voices sing, but so do their hearts. As one, they are Huntrix. Together, they are larger than life. And as a trio, they are the next generation of voices to maintain the Honmoon.
“We are the three stars of the city and night sky!” Zoey says triumphantly, popping open a can of soda.
“Totally. Let’s drink to that,” Mira agrees flatly, lifting her can to a toast of their new album.
Rumi raises her drink with her signature grin. “On three now. One, two, three—”
“To Huntrix!”
With the appearance of the Saja Boys, the Honmoon’s barrier begins to corrode. Cracks form, and the Honmoon’s pulse weakens. While some areas remain strong enough to ward off demons, Huntrix knows they must defeat them.
The Saja Boys.
Tonight, Rumi chases after the shadow behind Jinu’s smile. When they meet face to face on a rooftop, all it takes is the curve of his lips to give rise to an anxious hum inside her chest.
The patterns across her skin pulsate, as if reacting to his words—to his call. To Gwi-Ma.
Rumi grits her teeth. She will not succumb to the influences of the dark. The demonic whispers are faint, but her voice and will are stronger. Just then, her resolve returns. Jinu is only riling her up, even if it means reaching the low hanging fruit.
“How can you begin to understand me?” Rumi screams, brandishing her sword. It burns in equal measure to her fury. “I’m not like you. I’m not evil. I’m a hunter.”
The sharp echo of her outburst silences the night. The cicadas and crickets shush while the nightbirds flutter and take audience on the utility pole wires. From a safe distance away, the eyes of the world watch the hunter and demon’s exchange.
“Oh, but you are. You’re like me.”
The streetlight above them flickers once, twice, and continues to hum with dim acknowledgement of the two people standing below. The light throws their silhouettes onto the concrete wall, two ordinary people’s shadows now twist into gangly shapes, taking forms more monstrous than the last as the lamp erratically flickers.
“We are more alike than you think. It’s because I understand you,” he says slowly, gently. He lifts his hands and shows his palms to her in truce.
He takes a step towards her, and she doesn’t move away. Only when they are an arm’s length apart does his voice reach through the discordant rumblings resembling her thoughts.
“Only I can understand you, Rumi.”
The lights cut off when he smiles. His cool gaze gives rise to a sharp wind.
Goose feathers rise on her arm, and her patterns glow faint in response to him. Rumi shivers. Not out of fear, but with a terrible, cold-cut clarity that truth flows from the fountain of his words.
“Your friends don’t know who you are. What you are. When are you going to tell them?”
“They will never know. They can’t know because…”
She falters and her shoulders droop.
If she can’t tell Zoey or Mira her true identity, then is their friendship no more than just for appearances and stardom? No, her friendship with them is real. Their sisterhood is stronger than the silk threads of fate. But there are lies you must tell to protect the people you care about. There are some burdens that she needs to carry alone, and there are some truths you do not need to say aloud.
Shame burns hot across her face, her skin, and her patterns. She’s not angry at Jinu, she’s angry at herself. To be with her friends, to be a human, she rejects a part of her identity—the mark of a demon.
But could my friends understand? If I properly explain it to them….can they…accept me as I am?
Or…is Celine right that I can never belong unless I destroy the part of myself that makes me inhuman?
Finally, she lifts her head. Jinu looks at her.
His eyes are so, so dark that they swallow all light from the stars.
“After all, we are the children of the dark. The demons that dwell inside a citadel of shame, anger, and fear.” Jinu takes another step toward her, his thumb on her chin as he tilts her head higher. “But if you allow yourself to fall, I will be the one to catch you.”
“You’re evil,” she murmurs weakly, but there is no heat behind her words. Only defeat. Resignation.
“You think I’m evil.” Jinu replies quietly. “That I’m not capable of feeling. But that’s what all demons do. We have the capacity to feel. And most of all, we have the capacity to regret.”
The lamp above flickers and the light returns. She winces and shuts her eyes from the brightness.
“And like you—I was once human.”
When she opens her eyes, Jinu vanishes. Only the ghost of his touch and the word regret lingers with her.
If he can understand her, then she wants to understand him.
Under many moonlight encounters, there’s an unspoken pull that draws Rumi to Jinu. She cannot deny the spark that rages on like wildfire between them, one that transcends the clashing of swords and songs. The world that lives on through sunless spaces, their patterns speak for themselves as demons rise from the shadows.
Jinu is surprisingly kind despite his idiosyncrasies—and for someone in service to Gwi-Ma.
This time, they bump shoulders as they lean against the railing. Jinu’s pinky finger lightly brushes against Rumi’s, and she smiles. With the view of the skyline, the vermillion sunset bathes the city in a vivid glow.
“When we first met,” Jinu starts casually, “I should’ve apologized instead. I’m sorry that I bumped into you.”
When she glances at Jinu, gold shines across his face. He doesn’t look like a demon. Just an ordinary person who dreams and makes mistakes—someone who is human.
“What’s gotten into you?” Rumi says, with a light laugh. She doesn’t understand why he wants to revisit that memory. “I appreciate and accept your apology now. Thanks.”
He grins at her with a face that can rival Adonis’. But it’s also a smile that reveals one truth yet conceals another.
“You reacted like I thought you would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. It just means you’re honest. I like that about you.”
“…seriously, what’s gotten into you?!”
They dissolve into a chirrup of laughter as if they’re not idols competing for the number one spot on the charts. They’re not hunters and demons like their predecessors. Today, just for today, they only play one role. That is, being Rumi and Jinu, a young woman and man speaking to each other without reserve, without pretense. Unabashedly, they are themselves.
“I’m also sorry for saying you were evil. You aren’t—you’re only human.”
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
Their pinky fingers link, and whether the heat of the sun or their proximity makes her face warm, she understands that even demons search for a light.
Where does your humanity begin when that demon part of you ends?
“Where is the line between being your child ends and being myself begins?” Confusion cracks Rumi’s voice while shame mires her thoughts.
When she approaches Celine, her clothes are in tatters, and her hair is no longer in its perfect braid.
Celine materializes her sword on instinct.
The hand that once taught her how to wield a sword now points itself at her. But her hands tremble and Celine averts her gaze. If shame is a disease, it spreads without a cure.
“Rumi? Your clothes. Your patterns. Hurry, take my jacket and cover up. It’s not too late to return and explain—”
“Look at me” —Rumi begs, near tears— “why won’t you look at me?”
“Rumi, I…”
“Look at me!”
Her voice disrupts the Honmoon barrier around them and Celine’s eyes widen. Fear and uncertainty cross her features, and Celine looks and looks and looks and sees Rumi for what she is.
Rumi trembles, and she blinks. Once. Twice. Celine does not look away and says nothing. And when the silence reaches its zenith, a coil of anxiety tightens her chest, and her heart blackens over. Only then does something whisper in her ears.
…how shameful. Groveling to someone who fears you? You’re a demon. They will never accept you…
Unless you make them.
She ignores the voice, but the call grows stronger and she fights with every fiber of her being to stay in control.
“Please. You have to kill me.” Rumi’s knees hit the earth. She bows her head before her guardian. “I shouldn’t exist. If you have any mercy, please. Complete your duty as a hunter.”
The fate of humanity’s souls lay on the stage of the idol awards. She cannot bear to show herself there, not after fighting with Zoey and Mira. One debacle after the other, how can she face her fans and friends with such shame in her heart?
“I will,” Celine replies calmly, without hesitation. “We are hunters before we are someone else’s child.”
Duty makes Celine lift her sword with one hand. Under the moonlight, her blade glimmers and Rumi catches her reflection.
One eye glows gold like the mark of a demon. The part of her she can’t erase—the part of her she wishes she could make a clean cut from. This is as it should be, she thinks. Rumi resigns herself to her judgement. Hunters and demons can never truly coexist.
However, she only hears the sharp clang of the sword striking the ground.
Love makes Celine toss her sword aside. Instead, she throws herself at Rumi and embraces her—this time, all of her. Rumi feels Celine’s heart weeping—like a thousand sorrows flowing from her heart and into hers. There is not one tear she sheds in hate or fear of Rumi’s true heritage. Only a maternal love that overflows and overwhelms her into reticence.
“These tears are the only way I know how to apologize, Rumi.” Celine sobs, clutching onto her. “For what I put you through. Even if it was to protect you, I know what I did was wrong. But reason, reason is something you lose to fear. But your heart is so full of light—light I was too blind to see. You are no demon, Rumi.
“The only demon I see is the one inside my heart. You are no demon—you are my daughter and my world.”
Rumi slowly lifts her arms and returns her embrace. She now understands her role. As Huntrix, as a hunter, but now as someone who knows what it is like to walk the line between human and demon.
To erect a new Honmoon—one free from fear and the shackles of the past—Rumi will create a barrier that soothes and resonates in the souls and hearts of humanity and spirits alike.
If we can all feel fear, then we all deserve to experience what peace is like.
It’s all that she can think of when she faces Gwi-Ma head-on. Even if Zoey and Mira finally know the truth of her identity, they continue to stand beside her.
They stand with her because the steel of friendship is forged through dragon’s breath, hellfire, and hope—and they burn much brighter together than alone.
Even as the Saja Boys fall one by one, Rumi sears their faces into her memory for a final time. She only wishes she could learn their stories, hopes, and fears like Jinu. But that’s neither here nor there to grieve for them.
“You!” Gwi-Ma bellows. He roars furiously and directs a column of fire at her.
Her sword stands strong against the scorching flames. But she can only withstand its intensity for so long until suddenly—the fire no longer sears her skin.
“Jinu? What are you…”
His body bears the brunt of the fire, and his expression looks impossibly serene. Instead of hurting him, it only baptizes him in a wreath of white. The light blinds her, and his smile grows tender, warmer, and melancholic. There is too much and yet not enough said in that expression of his.
“Even after crossing the Rubicon, there is no return.” Jinu’s robes flutter like black rose petals, and gradually, his body begins to dissolve like ashes taking flight. “But I now find myself looking back. At you. You’re like a mirror reflecting my humanity, Rumi.”
“Jinu. Jinu, no. Don’t go. Not when we just—”
“This is my penitence. But” —as his body dissipates into fragments of light, he transfers a light from his body to her— “you won’t have to walk alone anymore because my soul is yours.”
His existence scatters like a phantom rain across the sky and into her heart.
And in the span of a falling petal, Rumi fells the demon devastating the earth for more than a millennium.
Of hope and love, of light and life—the new Honmoon ripples across the world with a prismatic sheen.