Chapter Text
“So how much English do you know, kid?”
“Excuse me?” Rumi snapped into the phone, ruing the way she stumbled over the overly complicated English vowel sounds.
“Eh. Good enough for me,” the man on the other side sounded amused.
Excitedly, Zoey stepped up and leaned towards the phone so closely that Rumi had to take a step back. Rolling her eyes, she put the American hunter on speaker.
“Who are you?” Rumi asked, keeping her voice polite and level. All Celine had told her and the girls was that these men were hunters, too, from across the world, and they needed HUNTR/X’s help.
“I would be asking the same, if I didn’t already know. What kind of hunters do they hire over there in Korea? What do you even do, sing at the monsters?”
“Answer the question,” Mira barked suddenly into the phone.
The man laughed. “Dean Winchester. My brother here is Sam. And—well, Cas isn’t here right now, but—“
“We can’t see your brother,” Mira pointed out.
“Oh, sorry. Hey,” a different male voice, presumably Sam, said casually through the speaker. “Don’t mind Dean. He gets a little—“
“Okay, Sam, enough. You know, as much as I hate to ask for help from a group of…what was it?”
“K-pop idols,” Sam said helpfully.
“Yeah. Whatever. As much as I hate doing that, apparently you guys are actually really good at this. So Cas is forcing me to reach out.”
Rumi scoffed. “I can see why American hunters keep dying all the time.”
“At least we don’t sing.”
“What’s wrong with singing?” Zoey asked plaintively.
“Okay,” Rumi said, exasperated. “Just—tell us what the problem is.”
For a moment, it almost seemed like Dean was hesitating. “There’s something new here. Something we’ve never seen before. Cas told me that you three might know something about it, somehow.”
Zoey glanced up at Rumi, eyes wide. “Gwi-ma? But I thought—“
“Whatever that is, that’s probably not it,” Dean interrupted. “I doubt you’ve fought anything like this before either. It’s…some sort of deity. Older than time itself.”
“And how would…Cas know that we could help you with this thing?” Mira demanded.
“I know about as much as you do,” Dean said drily. “I kind of have to trust his judgement, though. He’s an angel.”
“An angel?” Rumi echoed, reaching self-consciously up at the patterns crisscrossing her arms. “Like…an angel from heaven? Those are real?”
“Yeah, we didn’t know that, either. Until they started chasing us around.” Dean let out a mirthless laugh.
“He thinks it’s all worth it to have met Castiel,” Sam added.
“No I don’t,” Dean snapped.
“He does,” Sam said.
Rumi stood with her mouth open, searching for words. These hunters didn’t know about her parentage yet—she’d kind of been hoping to put off telling them for as long as possible. But an angel? She had to imagine they took even less kindly to demons than hunters did.
“So, um, Cas,” Rumi started awkwardly. “What would you say his stance is on…demons?”
The silence that followed dragged on for longer than it should’ve. “Don’t tell me you’re a demon.”
“Um,” Rumi said. “Not…fully. Just, you know, a half-demon.”
She heard Dean let out a long exhale over the phone. “Tell me this isn’t going to be another Ruby situation.”
“Rumi’s not like that!” Zoey jumped suddenly to Rumi’s defense. “Not that I know who Ruby even is, but…Rumi’s a hunter through and through! No betrayal here!”
“It’s not the same thing, anyway,” Sam added from the other end. “What they call demons in Korea isn’t what we call them here.”
Dean groaned. “Okay, then, you little half-…whatever you are. Just don’t cause any trouble, and we’re golden.”
“Golden? Like—“ Mira elbowed Zoey before she could finish.
Rumi winced. She’d been through enough of this already. Her friends had understood as soon as she’d been able to give them a proper explanation, but Celine’s words still echoed in her head more than often than she would have liked.
HUNTR/X kept well away from other hunters in Korea, for the most part. As a matter of fact, Rumi had already dodged several assassination attempts since she’d started going public with her patterns.
As far as she knew, American hunters were even less tolerant. But these guys seemed desperate—plus, it seemed they’d gone through quite a bit in their time. Enough to not be phased by working with something they would have considered vermin otherwise.
“Like the song?” Sam said from the other side of the phone.
“What?” Dean demanded.
“They have a song called Golden. It’s pretty good.”
“Oh!” Zoey piped up cheerfully. “Kamsahamnida!”
“What the hell did you just call me?”
“She said ‘thank you’, Dean,” Sam said, extremely amused.
“Can we stop messing around and focus?” Dean said sharply.
Rumi raised an eyebrow instinctively, although Dean couldn’t see her expression. “So what do you want us to do? Fly out to America?”
“That would be preferable,” Dean answered. “The thing’s over here. Not in Korea.”
Zoey let out a long sigh. “We’re supposed to be on break.”
“Hunters never get breaks,” Dean said briskly. “You three are just rich. Go ask any other hunter in Korea.”
Zoey and Mira both cast a longing glance back at their couch, which Rumi found rather hilarious. “Fine,” Mira groaned.
“Wait,” Rumi broke in. “This is good. What do you say we go on an impromptu tour of America?”
“Not happening,” Dean barked.
Mira and Zoey ignored him. “Oh my gosh, you’re right! Imagine how much money we could make!” Zoey gushed, eyes glimmering.
“Okay,” Dean said, exasperated. “I can already tell I won’t be able to stop you. Just don’t let it get in the way of the job.”
“We never do,” Zoey assured him. “Come on, Rumi! Let’s go and tell Bobby already!”
…
That very night, the girls ended up in a stuffy airport, clad in their disguises. Social media was blowing up already with the news of HUNTR/X’s surprise tour, and they kept themselves entertained by scrolling through it all.
“I would like to meet this Castiel Dean keeps talking about,” Mira mused in Korean while Zoey giggled at yet another TikTok that really wasn’t all that funny. “I want to know what exactly he thinks whatever they’re dealing with over there has to do with you, Rumi.”
“No way it doesn’t have anything to do with these.” Rumi pulled up one of her sleeves to show her patterns, prompting Mira to snap her head up and glance around the airport.
“Careful,” she murmured. “There might be other hunters here.”
Rumi shrugged. “What are they going to do? Attack me?”
Zoey clearly hadn’t heard a single thing they said. “Do you guys know anything about American monsters already? I heard they have less of a demon problem, but more of a problem with…everything else.”
“No, but apparently they have angels, so that’s something,” Mira said.
“Do you think he’ll hate me?” Rumi asked quietly.
“I doubt it, if he was the one who told Sam and Dean to call us,” Mira pointed out sensibly.
“And even if he does,” Zoey added, “we’ll stand by you, Rumi. No angel is going to get between us.”
Rumi couldn’t help but break out into a grateful smile. “I love you guys.”
“Aww,” Zoey cooed, leaning over to rest her head on Rumi’s shoulder. Rumi’s patterns started to glow softly as her heartbeat kicked up a notch. “We love you too.”
“Save it for later,” Mira said, amused. She glanced pointedly at the people on the seats across from them, several of whom were shooting Rumi an odd look.
Rumi gave Zoey a lighthearted shove. “We’re going to take this thing down,” she said confidently. “We’ll show those American hunters just how good pop idols can really be.”