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Chapter Text

He hears him first before he sees him come through. Instead of a blaze of fire signaling his return, it's a door being unlocked by a set of keys to their temporary apartment. If Jinu didn't bother to find one, they'd all still be stuck in the realm under with Gwi-Ma. Without it, he suspects Jinu would have been happy to stroll all around and across the city in his lonesome with his familiar whenever the king isn't bothering to pester him about reports.

He's done it before. And he'd gladly do it again. Jinu's predictable like that.

".....You're back late." Baby says, switching channels on the TV with a remote to feign indifference. Jinu takes it the wrong way obviously, he can see his defenses raising up, mind a mess as it sorts through catalogues of excuses to use.

He settles with "I was out." Quick and simple, not lying, one for the books.

Baby stares at Jinu, to which Jinu holds eye contact long and intense. Almost like he's challenging Baby to say it outright, go on, defy and question your leader. So long as Gwi-Ma doesn't mind, then Jinu is free with his affairs. Sometimes, being the demon king's favourite isn't so bad. It's a silent reminder, that Jinu can overpower Baby if he tries to be violent about his confrontation should he choose.

But Baby isn't afraid of Jinu, and he doesn't like the notion that he's impotent against him. Physically the weakest among the Saja sure, but far far above than those other lowly demons. Baby can play dirty if he has to.

"That hunter," he says without an ounce of hesitance, and Jinu stiffens almost immediately before he recovers, "She's swaying you."

Jinu scoffs at that, shaking his head. Slowly he walks over to the living room until he's looking, towering down over him, the way filthy lowlifes and bullies would when they're rattled but trying to hide it.

The same Jinu who took him under his wing as a fledgeling demon, still rattled by his recent death caused by its endless memories. The same owner of those careful hands that plucks leaves and dirt off his hair with the same gentleness as he would strum on his bipa, that ruffled his hair and pinched at his cheeks, a privilege that he only allowed to him without a cause for injury. The same demon he's granted the honor of renaming him.

"It doesn't change anything." he darts his eyes back and forth, unlocking his gaze for the first time, "And she's the one being swayed. The plan is unchanged."

Baby lets his brow raise in mild surprise. The plan being that humiliating reveal at the upcoming Idol Awards, to distract that cheerful manager of those girls with a seemingly elaborate plan of disguising as him instead of simply kidnapping him straight. All just so two demons can replace the two other Huntr/x girls, to reveal and out that half-human girl's shame and marks out into the world.

It's cruel enough to satisfy Gwi-Ma, but Baby likes to believe it could be worse. It's why he initially volunteered to be one of the disguised girls along with Abby, who, was more interested in dabbing into the choreo more than anything else, after all, the Saja Boys are trained enough to learn and dance much more quickly than starting from scratch with other demons.

He imagines ripping those layers along with that proud smile off that demon hunter girl's face that everyone is so fond of, put her in her place and remind her she's just as worthless as her kin of demons, that she's no better than them.

In the end, Jinu aches for control, and he knows Baby and Abby too much to trust them to just do as they're told.

"And here I thought you were slipping." he says instead.

He thinks of that one fan meet, the way they were so artfully arranged with each Saja to pester a certain hunter they've set their eyes on. Baby mostly kept to himself by Jinu's side. A sickly sweet smile on his face as he signs the signature he's practiced over and over a thousand times.

He shrugs past the fans and their persistent shrieking with a royal breeze, ears perking up and intently attentive to the conversation between the demon and the hunter to his left.

It's too intimate. The words used, the proximity, the overall tension between the two of them, as if they aren't bare in public for the world to scrutinize.

It bothers Baby, more than he should ever admit.

It's an easy thing to shrug off for the others, this is just a demon playing into their charms, acting up their tragic woe of a past for anyone who will listen. An easy justification.

"Of course not," Jinu jeers, cold and aloof. It brings a blink out of Baby, bringing him back to the present. "Don't you trust me, Baby?"

Baby looks up at him, remote forgotten in his grasp. Jinu smiles that same warm smile that's achingly human, the kind but egotistical Jinu he met all those centuries ago, and he thinks, there, that's the smile that caught him in his trap, forever to remain.

As human as that Rumi girl. The hunter who desperately tries to shed away her demonic side, clings onto humanity with all that she has. The human with a prowess to be kind and selfless that he could have cared less to be in his human life, as much as he remembered anyway. Maybe he was once kind like that, or maybe he never had the urge or the capacity in the first place.

It doesn't matter.

Jinu's looking at him now. Baby has and will always be there, will choose him first, unlike her.

"What a stupid question." He simply says, boredom dripping with every intonation. Just for something to do, he click on another button of the remote, changing to a non-existent channel with a static screen and noise.

It seems to be the right answer. Because Jinu's smile widens, like he's succeeded in tricking him. It doesn't matter what he or Baby thinks, the younger demon can't betray Jinu either way lest he wants to lose him. But Jinu doesn't have to know that.

The warmth returns to Jinu's voice and touch, because now he lends out a hand for him to take, the other moving to its rightful place atop Baby's head that he can't help but lean into.

"You must be tired," Jinu says, kneeling down on the floor in front to catch him by the couch. "Go to sleep? I'll make you hot cocoa."

Baby closes his eyes, reaches for his hand, lets his weight lean into Jinu's. Safe and comfortable. "Mm. 'kay."

Jinu laughs, soft and fond.

"That's my Baby."

Baby melts.

He hears the TV being turned off, but his brain is pulled into a land of molasses, that stupid migraine coming back in waves. This is the price to pay for forgotten memories of their past lives. Vaguely, he wonders what Jinu thinks when he finds them at this state, and it makes him curious on whether or not that he second guesses if it really is worth it to erase his own.

Jinu makes his hot cocoa, leaves him to his own room when he's done, mug in hand already to clean it up. And that's that.

Days later, Baby will look back at this, and wonder why he hadn't said more. It's these dastardly feelings that caught a whiff of Jinu's possible betrayal in the future, but it's also the very same thing that stopped him from revealing the truth to Gwi-Ma and the other demons.

He only has himself to blame when Jinu is dead and gone, all for a girl who loves with an open heart.

Can't compete with that.

Chapter Text

It happens in a snap. One second that hunter girl is losing against Gwi-ma's might will all of her strength, then in the next, Jina is there, shielding the girl with the brunt of her back, a warm smile painted on her face when she faces her before she disintegrates. Bits and pieces of her peeling away as if she wasn't a feared demon for the past four centuries.

Her eyes doesn't search for hers, not even for a half-second.

Gwi-Ma dies after that too, but she really couldn't fucking care less.

Someone's screaming. The shriek so loud it shatters glass from each and every stage lights all around. It takes Baby a moment to realize that the earth-shattering scream is coming from her.

It doesn't matter. The moment she feels her legs she starts to run, towards the girl, towards where Jina was. Towards her own very death.

Survival instincts gone, she runs against that rational side of her mind, runs against Jina's and all the other girls' constant reminders to never face a hunter alone, no matter how strong you think you are.

"And now, I give it to you."

Baby wants to die. Baby wants to kill Jina herself, because how dare she. How dare she care so much with a heart so big. It would've been so much easier if she had just accepted her sins like Baby and all the others have.

She hates Jina. She hates Jina so much. Maybe that's why Baby isn't wasn't isn't enough for her, because Rumi still had her humanity with her, still cared with an empathy that Baby couldn't bother with even when she was alive, not when it could have costed her her own life.

She skids to a stop in front of Rumi, and the girl jumps back as if she doesn't see her coming. Of course she doesn't. She's small fry, nothing compared to Jina and Gwi-Ma with her overbearing strength and gift as a half-demon hunter.

Baby doesn't let her give another word. Instead she drops to her knees, eyes to the ground, to her newly formed sword. Uncaring of the other Saja Girls yelling for her to run away, of the other hunter girls slowly approaching.

"Please," Baby begs. Begs. She never does that. Not even Gwi-Ma or Jina can make her do that. "Please let me see her, please let me. I don't want her gone. I don't want to be alone again. Please."

Rumi staggers back a few steps, confused, as if surprised. Funny. Didn't Jina tell her demons feel too? Or did Rumi really think Jina was the only sole exception to unfeeling emotions, the rest of them damned and deserving every bit of hell?

"What are you, I don't—"

"The sword." Baby interrupts, looks up. At Rumi's face still streaked with tears, at the sword that shines a soft blue, a hint of purple.

"Jina's in there." She pleads. She doesn't care if she sounds desperate or dumb or hysterical. She doesn't care if Jina chose Rumi over her. Baby just wants to see Jina again. Can't lose her. Can't can't can'tcan't can't.

Rumi's eyes widen, and for the first time she looks to her newly formed weapon, and Baby can't help the spiteful glare for not even noticing the difference.

"I.... I don't know how to do that." Rumi says.

Baby closes her eyes shut, tears finally falling across her cheeks.

Unbeknownst to the two of them, the sword shines a brighter blue.