Chapter Text
Wounds didn’t heal overnight.
The blood and sinew, flesh and bone kind didn’t either, but the deep pain in one’s chest, the panicked breaths, the ruminating over what should or shouldn’t have happened — that kind was slow to fade.
Not to even speak of the permanent ones running along her body, glowing radiantly as if to say I dare you to hide me now.
Rumi groaned, body stiff and sore and half awake. Half dead.
Still half demon.
She’d fallen asleep with her back against a corner in her room, body huddled inwards protectively. In sweatpants, the baggy kind that didn't cling to her skin, in a loose sleeveless top, the kind she'd wear under her outfits. Gingerly, she made to stand up using the wall as support - but as her fingers missed their grip over and over again, she settled on half-crawling towards her phone lying on the floor some several feet away.
What time was it? How long had she slept? When had she slept? How did she get back home— how did— everything—
Rumi’s eyes widened with alarm as the memories of that evening came flooding back to her, her patterns shown on live TV, Zoey and Mira tearing at her clothing, begging Celine, the fight with Gwi-ma, Jinu… Jinu, her soul cried with a renewed flare of pain, the traitor and the savior, the one who couldn’t be saved, the one who’d hurt her but that she’d failed in turn.
And now he was gone. And she was still here, and he was gone. And her patterns were still here, and he was still gone. Part of her felt glad that he wasn’t around to see how spectacularly wrong she’d been, back when she’d naively thought defeating Gwi-ma would fix everything. But most of her just felt sorrow.
She finally reached her phone, her body weak and protesting every ounce of effort, and checked the time.
And date.
Rumi shot up despite her aching self, her legs trembling and the phone slipping from her grasp as she stood. It’d been 3 days since everything had happened, and what? She’d been hiding in the corner the whole time? Who took her home anyway? Changed her into loose, comfortable clothing? Bobby? God knows it wasn’t Celine. The girls?
The girls.
Rumi stumbled over to her bed and collapsed onto it with a choked sob that was only partially informed by her raw, tender skin and bruising. The girls— her girls. They knew. They wouldn’t love her anymore, didn’t. They’d pointed their weapons at her. Which was when she ran to Celine, and then she’d disappeared back, and then…
…they came back.
Because of their duty to the Honmoon, no doubt, she thought with a lonely bitterness. God knows she’d powered through plenty in the name of the Honmoon. How they could fight alongside something as disgusting as her, she didn’t understand.
Her mind raced as she dug through her memories looking for any clue of how she’d gotten back, looking for any hint of a path of salvation going forward. It was hard to think. The adrenaline in her body subsiding gave way to a torrent of pain and sensations coursing through her veins, her body hot and feverish, but her skin so, so cold. Even as the blanket underneath her began to soak with a lukewarm blossom of red, she hadn’t the presence of mind to realize what it was. Only that, maybe Celine had done the job after all, her scattered memories a desperate hallucination for more.
Her eyes closed. She’d asked for it, after all.
She wished it hadn’t been Celine, wished it had been Mira and Zoey. At least she’d have seen them again.
If she was going to hallucinate, she wished it had them in it. But maybe she didn’t deserve that anymore. Couldn’t will her eyes to open anyway, couldn’t move her body any more than the few desperate steps she’d strained to already. Feverish pain and nausea and grief fogged her brain and began to cloud her consciousness.
“…mi? Rumi?”
“Open the door.”
“But—”
“Just—”
Distantly, she heard their voices, the sound of a door opening.
Half demon and monster that she was, Rumi was ever grateful she was still allowed the last moment of kindness to hear her beloved friends’ voices once more.
A trembling, small voice. “I knew I should’ve stayed.”
But she’d come back, and that already meant the world to Rumi.
A terse, serious voice, trembling even more gently. “We both needed to get some rest and heal from our own injuries. Check and see if that’s the only one that reopened.” A warm hand against her forehead sent sparks of pain and yearning running along her pale, clammy skin.
“No, that’s… none of them have reopened, that’s a new, one?” Zoey’s voice came into view.
“What?”
As did Mira’s.
A hand gently grasped Rumi’s wrist, fingers hanging limp and crimson-stained. “I think…”
“Right, well. Well.” Mira sighed deeply, and Rumi could almost see her one hand at her furrowed brow the way she always did, if only her eyes would open.
“I’ll get the medical kit outside, we’ll dress it and then we’ll feed her some more soup afterwards.” Zoey’s determined voice trailed off into the distance.
Mira’s voice was closer, came softer. More fragile.
“I don’t know what to do, Rumi. About you.” Her hand shifted to Rumi’s cheek. “I don’t…fuck.”
She’d give the world if only she could return the favor.
“Zoey’s been my rock, but I’m supposed to be the rock, I have to step up for you two,” for us both? Rumi thought with hope and awe. “And I’m just falling apart. You left— no fuck, that’s not right, you… I fucked up so bad, and I’m going to regret pointing my weapon at you for the rest of my life, but I need you in it. I need you in my life, Rumi.”
She felt the sheets underneath shift as Mira brought her forehead to hers.
“I love you. Please don’t fucking die.”
Wet drops fell against Rumi’s face and mixed with her own.
“Baby…”
Mira leaned back up with a sniff. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She looked at Zoey with the weight of the world in her eyes. “Just…scared.”
“Me too.” Zoey’s eyes softened as she blinked away her rapidly-forming tears. “Come on. Let’s clean that wound for her.”
Zoey reached for Rumi’s top and began to gingerly lift it for access to the deeper-than-expected wound.
The feeling of fabric being pulled from Rumi’s body woke her.
Rumi woke up with a pained yell.
“Rumi!!” The two Huntr/x girls yelled in unison, a mix of worry and relief in their voices.
But the person before them looked anything but the Rumi they had known and loved for so many years. That confident leader in both career and in duty, fearless in her pursuit towards greatness and the ultimate goal of the golden Honmoon was nowhere to be found. Rumi’s eyes darted back and forth between Mira and Zoey, a pained frenzy look plastered onto her weary face. The two remaining bandmates couldn’t help but freeze in place, their eyes locked on Rumi’s, though her own were clouded, faraway and distant and so, so scared. Her patterns flared bright red and purple in protest, her skin a mottled purple towards her limbs. Claws that grew sharper and sharper against the fabric of the bedsheets. Still demonic in stature. But still…
“…Rumi?” Zoey whispered, quietly.
Rumi flinched and brought her arms up to her face protectively. “No, please, no— don’t, not again!” Her eyes were wide, glazed over. Fearful and confused. Scared of them.
“Rumi, it’s us.” Mira spoke as evenly and gently as she could, her hands raised halfway up in a comforting manner. “We’re here. You’re alive. You’re safe. We defeated Gwi-ma, we’re in our home right now. Do you recognize us?”
Rumi flinched at the sound of Mira’s voice which did not go unnoticed, a flicker of guilt and shame flashing across Mira’s eyes.
”Please, no, I didn’t mean to— I was supposed to fix this, I,” Rumi looked up at both Mira and Zoey, tears flowing down.
For a moment, Rumi looked at them like she was actually there.
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered, and wobbled and fell backwards, her eyes rolling closed as she passed out once more.
Zoey sobbed openly into her hands in the living room, the pretense of staying strong and handling her emotions long gone. Mira sat across from her, her eyes distant and reliving the same memories Rumi clearly was. After she’d passed out they’d silently cleaned and dressed the wounds and given her privacy. Her space. They’d intruded on enough of it already. The brief glimpse they’d gotten of her fractured psyche already felt too intimate, too undeserved for two friends who’d betrayed her in her time of need.
“She thinks, she thinks we hate her!” Zoey muttered in between hiccuped sobs and inconsolable whimpers. “We- we did this to her!”
Mira tenses. Not what Rumi was seeing and reliving. That wasn’t them. But hadn’t they betrayed her all the same? Abandoned her? It was all the same, in the end. It didn’t matter who did what. All that mattered was that they let her down.
And they’d spend their whole lives and more making up for it.
“Come on.” Mira stood up. “We can rest after.”
“After? After what?” Zoey looked up from her hands, wiping away tears.
The soup on the stove, long cold.
She looked to Mira, who was always the best about not letting emotions show on her face, always the more rational one between the two. Zoey sniffed as she saw tears streaming down Mira's face, no motion made to wipe them away. They locked eyes.
“Right now,” Mira said softly, “I love her more than I hate myself.”
Zoey’s face scrunched as she fought another wave of tears.
She whispered softly. “Yeah. I’ll warm it up again.”
“Hey.”
Mira’s hand blocked Zoey from moving any further.
“Come here.”
Together they embraced, cried, wiped each other’s tears, and whispered I love you’s until the cracks in their hearts felt better. And then they moved forward.
It was time to love Rumi, too.
Guiltily, they were both glad Rumi wasn’t awake. It made the process of feeding her one spoonful at a time much easier when she wasn’t jerking her body away from them like she had earlier. To both of their credits, Zoey and Mira hadn’t cried since the living room earlier. A tear or two shed as they saw Rumi’s wounds, still dark red and an array of bruising all around her body, as their gazes lingered on the prismatic sheen of the patterns Rumi had tried so desperately to hide for so, so long. All those years. And maybe more shed as they saw all the faint scars of battle from those years, as she dressed and attended to her own wounds, all alone, hiding, fearful. As they held her hands carefully, the claws and purple receding in Rumi's sleep.
But not crying.
They fed her and loved her, cooed and told her that they’d wait for her as long as she needed. They sat beside her, too worried to hurt her delicate body to lay beside her though they yearned for that as well. Eventually, they slept by her, with Mira’s head dipped down as she leaned back in the chair and Zoey on the ground half slumped over the bed.
Rumi woke up with a start.
Where was she? And how— she winced as a red hot pain in her side made itself known. She looked down and saw Zoey slumbering to her side and saw Mira asleep in the chair.
She put it together faster this time.
They were…here. They…took care of her, Rumi noted as she brushed the bandage on her side gingerly. Medical kit on the floor. Pristine, unstained blankets around her. An empty bowl on the table.
Tears sprung to her eyes. They- they’d forgiven her? Or, they’d, what? Why go to all this length if they were going to…
She shuddered and shook her head. Even if they were going to end it, she owed them one last explanation. Of everything.
Rumi mentally (unfairly) unraveled her relationship with the people she’d come to known as the only family she’s ever had, beyond Celine, as she reasoned to herself that they’d kept her alive for one last goodbye. If she was lucky, they’d kill her quickly. If she wasn’t, they’d just leave her to do the job alone. The mere thought brought tears back. She raised her hand to wipe them away, only to feel resistance. Zoey’s hand fell away, her fingers having lovingly intertwined themselves with Rumi’s in her sleep. The motion stirred the poor girl out of her uncomfortable sleep.
“Mmmnn… Rumi…" Zoey stirred, eyes slowly blinking as she craned her neck upwards at the disturbance. Her eyes widened for a beat.
"RUMI!” Zoey jumped to her feet and yelped as she immediately fell back into the bed, her legs and feet numb from resting in her awkward position for so long.
“Are you oka— Agh!!” Rumi winced, regretting reaching her other hand out to Zoey who looked up in concern, her own pain forgotten.
“Will you two…” Mira groaned as she cracked her neck loudly. “Stop hurting yourselves?”
A giggle broke the tension, the smallest hint of a smile on Rumi’s lips. An involuntary flash of memory struck Zoey and Mira, of when those same lips were still and spattered with blood. The mere thought they’d be smiling again so soon after they’d nearly lost her was enough to make them hug her, if it wouldn’t have hurt her broken body.
Rumi’s body shook as the small laugh turned into mournful sobs, her eyes shut tight in grief.
“Rumi…does, does it hurt?” Zoey asked anxiously.
Everything did, but she shook her head.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Mira took Rumi’s hand in hers. The tender motion was enough to make Rumi cry even harder.
“I wish we could have stayed like this forever.”
“We still can.” Mira’s grip on Rumi’s hand tightened, her voice firm. “We’re not letting you go. Not again.” Zoey took Rumi’s other hand gingerly.
“What do you—what do you mean?” She sniffed openly, hands too occupied and spirit too exhausted to hide her emotions.
“Why, well why do you think it has to end?”
When Rumi looked into Zoey’s eyes, she could practically see her heart breaking.
“If you’ll…have us back,” Zoey continued, “if you’ll ever forgive us, we’ll spend our whole lives to make up for what we’ve done. Both of us.”
“Both of us. Forever and always.” Mira let Rumi’s hand go, afraid clasping it any tighter would hurt her, and wiped her tears away.
“Rumi.” Mira commanded Rumi’s attention back towards her and made eye contact. “I am so fucking sorry for what I did.”
“And I’m sorry we didn't know how to believe you,” Zoey added on.
“I’m sorry I lied! For so long! I’m sorry I’m like this, I’m sorry I tried, and that I failed,” Rumi tumbled over her words, crying more and more with each apology.
“One thing at a time, wait your own turn.” Mira gave a forced chuckle through her own tears.
The three girls sat together and cried together. Gently and very carefully held one another. Cried until there were no more tears left to cry.
Their lives had been shattered and their friendship driven to its limit, but from the mess and ruin of it all, something stronger than tomorrow promised to grow.
But healing was never linear.
They’d hoped that evening was the beginning, the spark of something new and hopeful and loving, but in retrospect it had been wishful thinking. In reality they were still stuck in the complicated web of lies and hurt, knotted and tangled and painful to see, but even more painful to ignore. Maybe it’d started when they first crawled their way back home after the Idol awards, gently lowering Rumi onto her bed with the last of their strength and then all but collapsing on the couch in the living room, unable to make it to their own respective bedrooms. Maybe it’d started in the exhausted sobs they’d exchanged, words barely strung together uttered with trembling voices as they held hands and slipped into fitful sleep. And it was their fault, maybe, that Rumi hadn’t been included, but Rumi was unconscious and still healing, and would she want to see them anyway? And maybe they were afraid of Rumi seeing them like this, shivering and crying because of the hurt that they’d inflicted on her. And they were ashamed of it.
Or maybe, it had started so much earlier. When the group had started arguing about Takedown. Maybe when Rumi first lost her voice during the Golden release.
Maybe earlier, all those times Rumi refused to go to the bathhouse. When Rumi would stay for extended training with Celine.
And hadn’t Rumi been with Celine for so long? Always staying behind, always practicing more than the others. Raised by her?
And it was a fact now, that Mira and Zoey had come to realize separately. Celine had known all along. Had treated Rumi coldly, had always patiently taught and trained and raised Mira and Zoey, but had averted her eyes when it came to Rumi. Averted her eyes, but not in the way that Mira and Zoey adored Rumi from a distance, her radiance like a sun impossible to stare at directly. Averted her eyes in the way something was painful. Or beneath her. In the way Rumi wasn’t worth her acknowledgment. Maybe there was guilt there, or regret.
But they weren’t particularly keen on giving Celine any excuses at the moment.
That’s where the backslide had begun. After much gentle coaxing, Rumi had finally relented and left her room, her steps timid as if she didn’t live in the same penthouse with them, didn’t deserve to take up space. Wearing her usual hoodie. (They weren’t going to press her.) She’d sat with them in the living room, watching ocean documentaries Zoey turned on just to have the TV going, to fill any of the heavy silence that hung over the three exhausted girls. Too exhausted to talk, to have conversations that desperately needed to happen, but just enough physical contact that promised it would be soon. Hands gently placed on top of one another, soothing circles rubbed on backs. Legs pressed together on the couch, feet searching for warmth in each other’s skin contact.
Then, Rumi’s phone rang.
Mira could swear Rumi’s reflexes had never been sharper on stage or in battle than when Celine’s name flashed on her phone screen. Zoey whined playfully at the immediate withdrawal of Rumi’s touch until her eyes followed the sound of the vibration and her smile faded. She immediately shifted and hugged Rumi, unmoving as Rumi flinched instinctively.
“Baby…it’s okay. You don’t have to answer.” Any other day Rumi would have noted the pet name with a skip of her heart and a lump of hope in her throat. Today, her eyes shut painfully and her face twisted into a fearful, guilt-ridden expression. Her face quickly melted into placid dissociation in self-defense, eyes opening but distant and glazed, too far away from her emotions to feel.
The vibration of Zoey’s pocket against her body brought the torrent of feelings back as Rumi wordlessly and quickly extricated herself from Zoey’s embrace and fled to her room as the two girls remaining watched her mournfully.
Zoey didn’t even have to check her pocket, didn’t want to. Angry tears sprung to her eyes.
“I don’t…” she started softly. “I don’t want to make this about me, but I can’t talk to her right now.” Her fists balled up by her sides. “How dare she.”
The vibrations ceased, though not for long. Mira brought her phone to her ear immediately - Zoey could swear it was before it even started buzzing.
“We are not available right now,” Mira responded in a professional yet icy tone. “Please direct all inquiries about the group to Bobby.”
Zoey could barely make out Celine’s voice on the other side.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know it’s me calling. I texted, you know. You were the ones that didn’t respond.”
And it had been true. Mira and Zoey had ignored and silenced all texts, wanting to focus on each other and Rumi, and most definitely not wanting to have their first conversation about the whole mess be with Celine, of all people. They’d quickly texted Bobby that Huntr/x wouldn’t be available for inquiries for the foreseeable future, and to his credit he’d immediately agreed to sort out everything regarding PR and statements on his end after a quick confirmation the three of them were okay. Encouraged the girls to get some rest and let him know when they were ready.
Celine was not as understanding.
By the way Rumi had reacted, Celine must not have reached out to her until just now. Mira would almost be bitterly thankful for that, if it weren’t for the utter injustice and cruelty of it all.
“Texting us before her? Not even bothering to call until a week after?” Mira struggled to keep her voice level but could not help raising it. Zoey placed a hand on her shoulder, encouraging deep breaths.
“…You girls know full well that she wouldn’t have wanted to hear from me. After all that.” Celine’s voice trailed off. “But I had… I needed to know she was okay. So I called. That’s all.” She cleared her throat, stubbornly refusing to let her voice waver. “Clearly by your tone, things are fine, so I’ll leave you to it.”
“FINE?” Zoey blurted out, a frustrated laugh on her lips. “You think things are fine?”
The other line was quiet for a moment. “…What’s going on? What isn’t fine?”
“I don’t know Celine, everything!” Mira clutched her phone, whisper yelling into it. “She hasn’t spoken. She won’t eat. She barely lets us change her bandages.” Her voice cracked. “She’s not here half the time. She’s next to us but she’s not here. And—”
“So she’s sulking is all,” Celine sighed. “I thought you meant something was wrong.”
“How dare you,” Zoey interjected, unable to keep herself from raising her voice.
“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Celine spat out, her voice a mix of bitterness and relief. A shaky breath. A pause.
“And you care so much about that, don’t you?”
“How dare you, Mira. I raised that girl, I gave her everything.”
“The kind of life you gave her? Teaching her how to hate herself? That’s what you have to say?” Mira shot back.
“So it’s MY fault she came to me and asked me to kill her, is that what you’re saying!?” Celine’s voice screeched, completely unlike her regular, composed self. “It’s my fault that she doesn’t want to live? The big house, your group, number one group in all of Korea, the penthouse, the luxuries she has now? That wasn’t enough for her?”
The penthouse was quiet.
“She what?” Tears spilled over and fell in easy, wet drops against Zoey’s shellshocked cheeks.
“She asked you to—” Mira’s turn.
“…Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s my fault the Honmoon isn’t golden. Didn’t train her well enough, none of you well enough.” Celine’s sorrow was audible, though not for the broken girls on the other line. “Maybe I failed my promise to her.” Only now in the weakest of moments, did Mira and Zoey pick up on the slurred words and mumbled breaths from the other line.
“You’ll have to ask her. I know I’m a monster in your eyes, but don’t,” Celine took a sharp breath in. “Don’t ask me to relive that.”
Ever the professional, she dismissed her emotions that had snuck into her earlier outburst with a deep breath. “Don’t tell her I called if it hurts her so much to think of me. I don’t know what the Honmoon is right now, but it’s not golden. And I called to make sure you were okay, because eventually we’ll see the consequences. You can put the group on hiatus, but you have a duty as demon hunters. Don’t get lazy.”
Another pause.
“…Make sure she eats.”
Beep, beep, beep.
Mira’s home screen reappeared. A candid photo of Rumi wiping ice cream off of Zoey’s cheek. A rare day off from a lifetime ago.
Would they ever be able to have that kind of free, loving life again?
* * *
A week since the call had passed before Mira realized it wasn’t a guarantee, anymore. No matter how optimistic a red, puffy-eyed Zoey would disagree, her smile never quite reaching her eyes.
A week had passed since Rumi last left her room.
And now, Mira and Zoey stood by her door. They made eye contact and nodded. Held shaky hand in shaky hand through their fear.
They hadn’t wanted to pressure her, wanted to give her her space, but it was becoming more and more clear that they didn’t have the luxury of taking it slow - not when they could feel the walls being built back up again. Not when they were slowly losing Rumi all over again. Not again.
No more waiting. They needed to talk.
Together, they both raised a hand, and knocked.
“Rumi. We’re coming in.”