Work Text:
Sohee had a gift. She could see the pain people carried in their hearts, a weight that clung to them like an aura. Sometimes it was helpful. She could sense when she had hurt someone’s feelings or when a classmate was having a bad day. But more often it was a curse. As a child she grew up surrounded by her parents’ ever-swelling clouds of sorrow and resentment, at first unable to understand what she was seeing, and when their meaning became clear, her parents began to avoid her gaze altogether. The distance hurt almost as much as the truth in their auras.
She learned to adapt. In time she discovered that she needed a direct line of sight to see someone’s aura. Large, round glasses became her shield, a sanctuary she could retreat behind whenever the world’s pain pressed too heavily against her. Behind those lenses she was ordinary again. Around her parents, she never took them off. They were relieved to escape their daughter’s unnatural eyes, and Sohee, in her own way, was too.
By the time she reached high school, Sohee wore her glasses full time. Teenagers, she had learned, were walking storms of angst and drama, their emotional pain bursting forth in strange, unpredictable shapes. Without her lenses, class was impossible, her attention snagged on the bizarre manifestations around her. For instance, she still hadn’t figured out why the class president sometimes radiated hurt in drifting pink clouds that popped like soap bubbles, or why the track ace dragged chains of aura that pinned him to the floor no matter how fast he ran.
Still, old habits lingered. Every so often she would lower the frames a fraction, just enough to sneak a quick glance. Auras shimmered into being, her friends unchanged, their forms still wrapped in the dull haze of exam anxiety with the addition of their crushes outlined in faint, translucent hearts that pulsed half-hidden in the glow. Nothing unusual. She pushed the glasses back into place, comforted by the return to ordinary sight.
She let herself drift back into the conversation. Today’s topic was the same as always: K-pop idols. Her friends dissected the latest popular fancams, whispered over scandals, replayed variety-show antics with barely contained squeals. Sohee liked the music well enough. It was catchy, and the idols inhumanly good looking, but she could never quite understand the fascination with their private lives.
That was until, one evening, a friend fell sick and pressed a concert ticket into her hand. That was how Sohee found herself in the crush of a stadium crowd, swept up in waves of sound and light. The floor trembled beneath the chants of thousands, lyrics shouted into the air with reckless joy. She jumped with them, caught in the current, her own voice ringing out with words she barely knew as she watched the most popular K-pop group of their generation perform, HUNTR/X.
And in the middle of it all, one thought rose clear above the noise: would these idols, adored as if they were untouchable, carry the same shadows of pain she had seen on everyone else?
So Sohee lifted her glasses.
On stage, beneath the blinding lights and the thunder of adoration, the idols gleamed with confidence, but their auras told a different story. Rumi was bound in a tangle of thorned vines, so dense and dark they seemed almost alive, dragging her down even as barbs bit into her skin, drawing illusory blood. One cruel coil wrapped across her mouth like a gag, as if to stifle her voice. Mira stood within a ring of broken glass, the jagged shards glinting under the stage lights, poised to cut if she so much as shifted the wrong way. And Zoey, her aura flickered in restless succession, oversized masks with different exaggerated expressions and adornments slipping on and off her face in a dizzying parade.
Sohee slid her glasses back into place, her heart still racing. She stood frozen, the roar of the crowd fading into a blur behind her. Why did they carry such immense pain? What could possibly weigh so heavily on girls who shone so brightly, who sang as if nothing could touch them? And why, despite those auras that threatened to crush them, did they stand tall, smiling, radiating confidence as though the thorns and glass and masks weren’t there at all?
Sohee needed to know.
After the concert, still damp with sweat and dusted with stage smoke, she stumbled home, too wired to sleep. She opened her laptop, fingers trembling with the urgency of discovery, and began to search.
What she thought would be a night’s curiosity stretched into weeks. She probably should have spent that time studying instead of trawling interviews, message boards, and half-credible fan blogs, but she couldn’t let it go. Piece by piece, a picture began to form.
Zoey’s pain was the first she unraveled. Raised in America despite her Korean heritage and with parents that divorced early in her childhood, she had grown up straddling two cultures and two households. Each side pulled at her with its own expectations, never quite aligning, never allowing her to feel whole. Then coming back to Korea to become an idol after spending most of her life in America, has she ever not felt out of place? Sohee could almost see the masks flickering again. Was each mask depicting a role Zoey had to fulfill? Has she ever felt comfortable truly being herself? Sohee could relate to that sort of pain.
Mira was harder to decipher. Then one afternoon, as Sohee gazed absently out the classroom window, she caught sight of a bird bending low to feed its chicks, and then it clicked. The glass surrounding Mira hadn’t just been shards scattered at random, it had been arranged in a rough circle, jagged yet enclosing. A nest. A broken one. The metaphor stung with clarity. Mira’s painful break with her family was well known, and Sohee wondered, was the nest of glass meant to show rejection, the sharp edges of a home that had pushed her out? Or was it the opposite. A reflection of longing, of someone desperate to belong somewhere, even if the attempt sliced her raw?
Either way, the thought left a sting. Once again, Sohee felt she could empathize.
For Zoey and Mira, the auras eventually fell into place. But Rumi’s thorny vines remained an enigma no matter how far Sohee dug. She scoured interviews, searched fan forums, reread old profiles until her vision swam, searching for some hidden clue. Her best guess was that it probably had something to do with her parents. Yet every supposed lead on Rumi’s father dissolved into rumor and dead ends, and Rumi herself had once admitted she had never even met him. Pain that deep couldn’t be rooted in a stranger’s absence, could it?
Maybe it was Celine, the formidable woman who raised her, who seemed to manage every aspect of her career, applying pressure behind the scenes. Maybe it was the weight of legacy, the expectation to succeed in honor of the mother who had passed away. But none of those possibilities fit all the details. Why thorny vines, so sharp and choking? Why the one cruel coil that wrapped around her mouth, silencing her? The imagery was too precise, too deliberate, as though it held a meaning Sohee wasn’t equipped to decipher.
Worse still, the more concerts and fan events Sohee attended, the more the vines seemed to grow. Where Zoey’s masks and Mira’s nest of glass remained steady, Rumi’s aura twisted heavier each time, multiplying in number and thickening into almost completely engulfing her. Sohee felt her chest tighten whenever she saw it.
As she signed up for more fan events, tuned into late-night radio shows, and found herself in the crush of yet more concerts, Sohee realized that at some point her curiosity had shifted. It wasn’t just about the catchy music or even the puzzle of their auras anymore. Somewhere along the way, admiration had taken root. She was moved by the way HUNTR/X carried themselves, luminous on stage while shadows clung so tightly beneath the surface. Their resilience stirred her, the quiet strength it took to keep singing through the weight of so much pain. That, more than anything else, was what made Sohee care.
So at some point, Sohee could never pin down exactly when, her curiosity had deepened into devotion. She had become a true fan of HUNTR/X. Other groups passed across her radar now and then, polished and catchy enough, but none of them carried the same gravity of pain that HUNTR/X did. Especially Rumi. Whenever her friends gossiped about idols, Sohee joined in with fervor now and tried to steer conversations toward Rumi, hungry for any scrap of information that might explain the ever-thickening vines she saw tightening around her.
Then one afternoon her friends invited her to a live taping of Play Games With Us, a variety show spotlighting rookie K-pop groups. That was when she first laid eyes on the Saja Boys.
At a glance, they seemed like any other promising boy band. Handsome, charming, each one fitting neatly into an archetype designed to attract. But when Sohee lowered her glasses, her breath caught in her throat. Their pain was staggering. Each member bore their own strange manifestations, but Jinu’s eclipsed them all.
His aura unfolded into wings, enormous, white, and ruined. The feathers were ragged, the span of them clipped and drooping toward the floor. Beneath him, two pairs of spectral hands reached upward from the ground, straining to seize the broken wings and drag them lower still. Jinu looked like a fallen angel, luminous and tragic all at once.
And then he turned, and Sohee saw it. There was a heavy chain trailing from the center of his back, sinking straight into the floor. The others had it too, each boy tethered to something unseen. Was their agency binding them, hurting them in ways no one else could see?
Her thoughts scattered as the host laughed and remarked how proud their families must be. In that instant, Jinu’s chain pulsed, an eerie violet light coursing upward from the depths, flooding into his body, searing through his wings. They spasmed violently, convulsing as though the pain was too much to bear. Jinu flinched, just barely, but Sohee saw it. She had never felt so chilled.
What was that?
Sohee couldn’t look away. She kept her glasses off for the rest of the show, eyes fixed on the chains. Each time one of them pulsed with light, the Saja Boys reacted, drawing inward, their heads bowing, shoulders stiffening, flinches quick as if struck by an invisible blow. Jinu’s chain flashed more than the others, and with each pulse his smile grew tighter, the corners of his mouth trembling under the weight of holding it in place.
Then HUNTR/X appeared. Rumi slid down the slide onto the stage, her vines thicker than before, thorns curling higher up her arms and neck. The interaction between the two groups was stiff. Yet Sohee noticed something interesting. The chains, which had pulsed almost without pause through the entire show, fell silent the instant HUNTR/X stepped on stage. Not a flicker, not a tremor. The air felt strangely still, as if pain itself was holding its breath. Was that just a coincidence?
Afterward, she threw herself into researching the Saja Boys. She dug through every site she knew, browsed obscure fan forums, searched Korean and English sources alike. Nothing. No birthdays. No childhood photos. Not even their real names. It was as though they’d appeared from nowhere, fully formed. The secrecy gnawed at her, but there was nothing she could do.
She kept going to events, her focus mostly on just Rumi and Jinu. The vines, the wings, the chains. They haunted her. But then, one night during a minor singing competition she went to in the lead-up to the International Idol Awards, she saw something that made her heart lift.
Before either group performed, Rumi and Jinu stood side by side amongst the crowd of competing idol groups, exchanging words. Their smiles looked brittle, sharp at the edges, even hostile to each other. But Sohee saw the truth. Rumi’s vines loosened around her mouth and throat, the cruel gag slackening. The spectral hands clawing at Jinu’s wings faded, retreating into the ground and becoming more translucent. Their pain was easing, just a fraction, but enough.
Sohee’s lips curved into a smile. How perfect. They both carried so much pain, yet together they could heal, if only a little. What should their couple name be? Jinumi? Ruminu? No… Rujinu. Yes, that was it! Rujinu.
She sighed in quiet contentment. She was witnessing the beginning of something precious. Of course, she would never breathe a word of it publicly. No sense in stirring up potential scandal. But silently, faithfully, she would support them. And deep in her heart, she carried a hope that one day both Rumi and Jinu would be free of the pain that bound them.
Still, the thought gnawed at her. Admiration wasn’t enough. She wanted to help, even in the smallest way. After the show she turned ideas over in her mind, searching for something she could do without drawing the wrong kind of attention. Then it struck her. The upcoming HUNTR/X fan signing. She could meet Rumi face-to-face, look her in the eye, and let her know she had fans rooting not just for the music, but for Rujinu! For healing. For happiness.
The plan blossomed quickly. She could make a shirt, something she could reveal to Rumi at just the right moment. But what to put on it? Her pencil scratched against paper as she worked it out. She wasn’t the best artist, but it was the feeling that mattered. Jinu would have his wings restored, vast and radiant, no longer clipped, soaring high above the clouds with Rumi who would be smiling freely, the thorns gone, the weight lifted. Together they would fly unburdened. Oh and hearts! She would add hearts to depict their love and freedom.
When she finished, she sat back and studied the drawing, cheeks warming with delight. It was imperfect, lopsided in places, and she forgot to draw Jinu’s arms, replacing them with the wings entirely, but to her it was perfect. She hugged it to her chest and squealed softly, giddy with anticipation. They’re so cute together.
When the day of the fan signing finally arrived, Sohee could barely contain herself. Outside the venue, the air hummed with the chatter of fans, laughter spilling into the street as the smell of markers and glossy photo paper drifted from inside. Even better, the Saja Boys decided to make a surprise appearance! And then, of course, Rumi suggested a joint signing. Chairs were shuffled, name placards rearranged, and just like that, Rumi and Jinu sat side by side.
Sohee’s heart soared. It’s like they’re not even trying to hide it.
The line inched forward, each step a battle between nerves and giddy excitement. Sohee slipped her glasses down just enough for a peek. As expected, their auras were calmer, only slightly, but enough to be noticeable. Her pulse quickened. Proof. The two of them really did ease each other’s pain.
When her turn came, she stepped up to the table, breath catching at the sight of Rumi and Jinu leaning toward one another, whispering, their faces close in a way that sent a thrill through her. She blurted without thinking, “Are you whispering?”
The reaction was immediate. Both of them jerked upright, eyes wide, cheeks coloring as they fumbled for words that wouldn’t come. Instead, they hastily signed and pushed an autograph sheet toward her, as if the distraction could cover their embarrassment. Sohee’s grin widened. She knew what she saw.
With a flourish, she directed their attention to her masterpiece, her hand-drawn Rujinu shirt, pointing to it. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she whispered conspiratorially.
For a heartbeat, the two idols froze, staring at her, caught in matching expressions of startled disbelief. To Sohee, it was utterly adorable. She had done it. She’d shown them they had fans who would support their bond, no matter what.
But fan etiquette was sacred. She couldn’t linger too long and hold up the line. With one last glance at their flustered faces, she stepped away, her voice slipping out in a breathless exclamation as she went, “Oh, so cute!”
Her cheeks ached from smiling, but she didn’t care. For the first time in weeks, she felt lighter, almost buoyant, certain she had just played her small but vital part in helping Rujinu bloom.
Later that night, after parting ways with her friends, she wandered home beneath the neon glow of streetlamps. The air smelled faintly of asphalt still holding the heat of the day. On impulse, she ducked into a convenience store, remembering her friends’ chatter about the new Saja Boys branded soda. Why not? She could treat herself while catching up on the homework she’d neglected in favor of designing the shirt.
In front of the refrigerator door, Sohee turned the can over in her hands, tracing the glossy print with her thumb. The design was sleek, the little lion mascots for the Saja Boys almost too cute to drink from. She lingered on it, smiling to herself, savoring the small joy.
She never noticed the shadowy figure emerge from the ground behind her, hand outstretched.
And then—darkness.
Sohee drifted, weightless, as though suspended in water. Her thoughts were sluggish, tangled in fog. What happened? Where am I?
Light pressed in from every direction, too bright to bear. She tried to blink, but quickly realized she had no eyelids, no eyes at all, yet she could still see. Slowly her vision adjusted, and the brilliance resolved into a field of radiant orbs scattered all around her, pulsing softly like distant stars. It might have been beautiful, breathtaking even, if not for the rising panic in her chest.
She willed herself to look down, to anchor herself somehow, but there was nothing. No arms, no legs, no outline of a body—just her perception suspended in empty space. Desperate, she tried to raise her hands, but there were no hands to raise.
Where is my body? Why don’t I have a body? Am I dead? Her terror built to a scream, though she had no throat, no lungs, no sound. The cry reverberated anyway, raw and silent in the strange expanse. Someone, please! What’s happening to me?!
A voice answered. “You are just a soul now, as are all of us here.”
Sohee startled, her panic breaking for a heartbeat. A voice? Relief fluttered weakly through her confusion. “What?” she asked, bewildered but grateful for the response.
One of the lights, a small, trembling blue one, floated closer, hovering just before her. It pulsed in time with the voice as it continued:
“We are trapped here until our souls are fully digested by the demon king, Gwi-Ma.”
The words struck her like ice water. “Demon king?” Sohee’s voice wavered, hysteria sharpening her tone. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re inside the demon king’s gut or something like it,” the blue light said, its glow dimming with each word. “I don’t really understand the mechanics, but if you drift far enough toward the edges of this place, you can… see outside through these windows. Hear what’s happening in the world.”
A pink light bobbed into view, spiraling down beside the blue with a bright, almost eager pulse and a bubbly, high pitched voice. “Yeah! And get this! Did you know the Saja Boys are demons? And HUNTR/X? They’re demon hunters! The Saja Boys were sent to the human world to steal HUNTR/X’s fans, fatten us up with devotion or something? I don’t know, but something called a Honmoon keeps getting mentioned. And then—” it flickered dramatically, “—harvest our souls. That’s why we’re here.”
From farther off, a purple light hovered listlessly, its glow dull and sluggish. “So basically,” it drawled, not bothering to drift closer, “we’re dead. Demon food. All because we liked K-pop.”
“This is a dream,” Sohee insisted, her thoughts scrambling for anything rational. “I’m dreaming. I must have slipped in the convenience store, hit my head or something.”
The purple light flickered in a weary sigh. “Denial. I suppose I envy you. Ignorance is bliss, after all. Maybe you can stay deluded until the digestion finishes.”
Before Sohee could respond, the pink light bobbed brightly, its glow quick and playful. “It’s not a dream, sorry! But hey, silver lining! You can see the Saja Boys as demons. Still pretty hot, honestly.”
“What?” Sohee blinked, too stunned to process.
“Here, come with me. I’ll show you how to look outside.” The pink light zipped away in a spiral.
Sohee stayed rooted in place, refusing to follow.
A moment later the pink light came darting back and nudged her from behind, pulsing cheerfully as it shoved her forward.
“Wallowing isn’t good for you,” it scolded. “You’re a Saja Boys fan, right? This’ll make you feel better.”
Too dazed to resist, Sohee let herself be herded along. Soon, stretching into the distance, she saw them: chains. Thousands of them. They radiated outward from a massive purple core of light, a monstrous orb throbbing at the center of the space, and branched in every direction like veins.
She noticed they were following the path of five chains that ran side by side, thicker, darker, and occasionally pulsing with purple light. She recognized these chains. These were the chains that were connected to the Saja Boys backs.
“What are these?” Sohee whispered.
“These five are linked to the windows for the Saja Boys,” the pink light said, circling them. “Maybe this is how the demon king spies on them or gives them orders or something. You can look right out and see each of them on the outside if you follow the chain.”
Sohee thinks the chains were for more than just spying given that she saw as part of the Saja Boys’ pain aura. She drifted closer, unable to stop herself. Cautiously, she brushed against one of the links. To her shock, it rattled under her touch. She recoiled, heart pounding. She had never been able to interact with pain manifestations before, only see them. Yet here, in this place, she could feel it.
Curiosity outweighed fear. She pressed her weight against the chain again, fingertips that weren’t fingers dragging across the cold metal surface. The chain shuddered. Then a pulse of purple light surged through it.
Sohee gasped. The moment it touched her, she was drowned in shame so heavy it hollowed her out. Images ripped across her. A fragmented, painful vision of a woman sobbing, a child crying at her side. The grief was unbearable, crushing down on her until she almost tore herself free.
Sohee yanked her hand back from the chain, reeling from the vision.
“Yeah, weird, right?” the pink light chirped, its glow fluttering with nervous energy. “Be careful of those purple pulses. They hurt. Anyway, come on! The windows are this way!” It nudged her forward, insistent.
Her gaze flicked once more to the vast purple core looming in the distance, throbbing like a diseased heart. If this really is Gwi-Ma… then these chains… are they conduits? Is he feeding pain into the Saja Boys, binding them with it? Is this how he keeps control?
They drifted along the tether until they reached its end. There, a strange bloom awaited them. Circles of multicolored light fanned outward, petals of brilliance sprouting from the chain’s terminus, forming a strange bouquet of light.
As Sohee drew closer, the sound hit her, an onslaught of chatter, rising and overlapping. Each circle was alive with soul-lights pressed tight against an unseen barrier, their bodies flashing in rapid pulses as they babbled about what they saw beyond.
The pink light guided her to a gap in the crowd, where the largest circle burned around the darkest of the chains. “Go on,” the pink light urged, practically humming with anticipation. “Touch it. This one’s Jinu’s.”
Hesitant, Sohee floated forward.
The instant her essence brushed the surface, her vision tore away from the void. She stood… no, floated, inside a concert stadium, her senses flooded with the roar of thousands of voices. She recognized the venue as Namsan Tower and the silhouettes of the Saja Boys commanding the stage. They were performing a song she had never heard before, lyrics pounding with unfamiliar intensity.
But all of it fell away when she looked down to see Jinu. His wings had grown, vast and terrible, spreading wide behind him. They were no longer white and clipped. They had turned pitch black, the feathers glistening like oil in the stage lights. What did that mean?
The pink light’s tone softened, its glow trembling faintly like a candle in wind. “Oh… this isn’t good. So many more are about to be lost. Where could HUNTR/X be?”
A green light pulsed from the cluster nearby, its voice flat and resigned. “They’re disbanded. Mira and Zoey are out there in the audience, hypnotized like the rest. This is the Saja Boys’ ‘End of the World’ tour now. Humanity’s toast.”
Another light, yellow and restless, quivered in protest. “It’s a shame. If they weren’t eating souls, I’d really like this song. Why couldn’t they just be idols who didn’t harvest people’s souls? I could get over the whole demon thing.”
The lights fell quiet after that, their glow subdued. Together they hovered at the edge of Jinu’s chain, watching the performance unfold with an odd, solemn reverence, as though bearing witness to a funeral masked as a concert.
Then Rumi appeared.
She strode into the concert hall, her features partially demonic. She looked so resigned, and Sohee saw that the thorny vines were wrapped so tightly around her that Sohee couldn’t see anything but her face.
“Whoa!” the yellow light gasped, flickering wildly. “She’s a demon too? What a twist! Was she working with Gwi-Ma all along?”
“Shhh,” the green light snapped. “I can’t hear what she’s saying. And no, she’s half demon, but she’s been fighting demons this whole time.”
Sohee leaned forward, her focus narrowing. Unlike the Saja Boys, Rumi bore no chain tethering her to the demon king. And the thorny vines, though clinging so tightly, no longer gagged her. Her mouth and throat were free.
Then she began to sing.
The sound pierced the hall like light through shadow, and Sohee saw the impossible happen. The vines writhed, loosened, and began to slough away. One by one, the bindings that had held her down fell, curling into nothingness as her voice rang out.
“Nothing but the truth now
Nothing but the proof of what I am
The worst of what I came from, patterns I'm ashamed of
Things that even I don't understand”
At last, Sohee understood what Rumi’s pain had been. The vines were the weight of her secret, coiling across her mouth to silence the truth of her demon heritage. Perhaps they also bound her with guilt, the agony of choosing a side and cutting down demons who might themselves just be puppets of Gwi-Ma’s will.
Around Sohee, the other soul lights flared in excitement as Rumi strode toward center stage. Her voice rose in open defiance, every note striking like a blade. With each phrase, Sohee watched Mira and Zoey stir from their trance, their eyes clearing as if the song itself had pulled them free. When the two joined in, their voices weaving with Rumi’s, Sohee saw the last of Rumi’s vines slither away, curling into nothing on the stage floor. She found herself cheering too, her pulse glowing with theirs.
But Gwi-Ma would not accept defiance so easily. The air split open, disgorging a horde of faceless demons. They surged forward in a tide of claws and shadows, only to be cut down with ruthless grace. HUNTR/X moved like dancers, conjuring glowing magical weapons from thin air, singing all the while as they tore through the oncoming swarm.
“Uggh,” groaned the yellow light, dimming sheepishly. “I feel kind of stupid now. I always thought the demon fighting at their concerts was just a gimmick, like, fancy special effects.”
“At least we get to witness a ‘Save the World’ song,” the green light replied dryly. “They’re ridiculously talented to improvise something like this on the spot.”
“I swear I can hear full musical accompaniment,” said the yellow, brightening again. “Is that… part of their magic?”
“Aww,” the pink light cooed. “They hugged and made up. That’s so sweet.”
The yellow bobbed rapidly, sparks flashing around its edge. “Wait! Their clothes just changed with that pulse of light! They’re totally magical girls!”
Sohee’s gaze lingered on the three of them. Not only had Rumi’s pain disappeared, but Mira’s broken glass nest had shrunk to fragile shards, and Zoey’s flickering masks were fewer, lighter, almost translucent. The hug had stripped so much of their suffering away. Sohee glowed with happiness for them, her relief like a balm.
But the joy didn’t last.
The chains connected to the Saja Boys trembled violently, dark pulses flooding down their lengths like poisoned veins. The Saja Boys convulsed under the impact, their bodies snapping into motion as they were forced into combat. All of them jumped into the fight against HUNTR/X… all except Jinu.
He remained rooted in place, his chain pulsing furiously, the dark energy spasming through his black wings. Sohee could see his pain growing. And yet he did not move to strike. He only stood there, eyes locked on Rumi, unblinking, unyielding.
Sohee knew she had to act. Tearing herself from the window, she flew to Jinu’s chain, the massive tether gleaming like a black serpent coiled in the void. At first she pressed against it tentatively, testing, but then with all her strength she pushed herself forward, driving her entire essence into the iron-dark links, trying to pull it free somehow. Agony ripped through her, hot and electric, a searing shame that wasn’t her own, but she forced herself to endure it. Again and again she pushed against it, willing it to loosen, to crack, to give Jinu even the smallest chance at freedom. But the chain remained unyielding, immovable no matter how much force she mustered against it.
Desperation took hold. She drifted back, gathered herself, then hurled her entire being at it. The impact sent her spinning, pain lancing through her like splintering glass. But what did it matter? She was already a soul, nothing but a wisp waiting to be digested. This was the only thing she could do.
She rose again and slammed into it, harder. The blow rattled the window to Jinu’s world, ripples spreading across it like cracks in water. Soul-lights nearby startled and pulled back, whispering in alarm.
“Stop! You’re hurting yourself!” the pink light cried, its glow quivering with panic.
Sohee ignored it. Again and again she threw herself at the chain, pain tearing through her but her resolve burning hotter. At last she saw it. The link she’d been striking had begun to shift, opening ever so slightly, a hairline seam of possibility. She redoubled her efforts, ramming herself against it with everything she had.
“What are they trying to do?” a lavender light whispered, hovering at the edge of the crowd.
“I think…” the green light from earlier pulsed, “I think they’re trying to break the chain.”
“But isn’t the chain just making the window?” the lavender asked.
“No,” the green answered grimly. “It’s probably how Gwi-Ma controls his demon minions.”
The yellow light from earlier flickered brighter. “So if we break it, Jinu can’t be controlled anymore?”
“I guess?” the green replied, uncertain.
A beat passed. Then the yellow light shot upward, glowing like a spark, and joined Sohee, slamming itself into the chain beside her.
“Why?” the pink light wailed, its pulse tight with grief. “You’re not going to break it! You’re just hurting yourselves for nothing!”
But Sohee was already gathering herself for another strike, pain or no pain. She had to try.
“Look!” the green light cried.
Sohee faltered mid-flight. The link she had battered again and again was bent, its edge pried open much more noticeably than before.
Before she could react, a blue light called out in alarm. “Oh no! Rumi’s in trouble!”
At once, the crowd of soul-lights that had drifted away to watch Sohee turned back toward the window, pressing close against the barrier to see.
“If Rumi falls here,” the lavender light whispered, its glow trembling, “the world is doomed.”
The green light dimmed, as though bracing itself, then flared bright and shot forward, slamming into the chain alongside Sohee and the yellow light. After another jarring impact, it reeled back and shouted, “Everyone! Help! This is the only thing we can do! Maybe, just maybe, if Jinu is free, he can save her!”
Sohee, her essence ragged and nearly unraveling from the torment, tried once more to lift herself for another strike. Her vision blurred with pain, but then she froze.
Hundreds of lights were rising into formation.
One by one, in quick succession, they hurled themselves against the chain, a relentless storm of color and will. The sound was like thunder, echoing through the void. Sohee stared, transfixed, as the chain shuddered violently under the barrage, until, at last, it gave way.
The link snapped, the black iron dissolving into a radiant burst of light. Both severed ends unraveled, vanishing into nothing.
Sohee, more weary than she had ever been in life, drifted toward another window, guided by instinct more than choice. It opened onto Mystery’s vantage, and there, framed in firelight and chaos, she saw Jinu. No longer bound by Gwi-Ma’s pulsing grip, his aura was his own again, and with it came a surge of strength.
Be free, Jinu, Sohee whispered within her heart.
He launched forward, wings flaring, and placed himself before Rumi, shielding her from Gwi-Ma’s torrent of flame. The dark wings at his back blazed, feathers igniting with light, until they were no longer broken or blackened but whole, gleaming, and white. They spread wide, magnificent and untethered, as if to take flight. And then, they began to dissolve, followed by Jinu wearing the gentlest smile Sohee had ever seen.
Where he had stood, there was only light. It drew together into a single blue soul light, glowing like the ones that surrounded her. For an instant, the small blue light hovered, then darted straight into Rumi’s chest. For a heartbeat, Sohee thought she saw Jinu still there, his brilliant white wings wrapped around Rumi like a final embrace. Then the glow sank into her, and from Rumi’s back unfurled small, pristine wings of white, delicate and radiant.
Sohee’s own vision dimmed, her essence unraveling at the edges. She let it take her, clinging to the image of light breaking from darkness, of love rising out of anguish.
And she wondered, how could something so beautiful, so fiercely born of love, also hurt so much?
The question ached through her as she frayed further, her memories slipping away like water. The sound of laughter with her friends. The nervous joy of sketching a crooked pair of wings for a shirt. The thrill of whispering Rujinu to herself, certain she had uncovered something precious. One by one, each fragment drifted loose, fading into the dark.
She tried to hold them, but she had no hands to grip with, no body to anchor her. Only the wonder and the ache remained.
Her gift had always shown her the weight of pain. But now, in the final breaths of herself, she understood: these pains are all born from love in some way. Love for family. Love for friends. Love for idols who bore more pain than anyone could imagine.
It was love that had driven her to strike the chain. Love that unraveled her now. And love that made it worth the cost.
And as her memories unraveled into nothing, what remained was Sohee’s love, fearless and undefined, providing the last bit of fragile warmth as she dissolved into the dark.