Chapter Text
The Honmoon thrummed. In four hundred years, he hadn't heard anything like it.
It was loud. Not in volume, but… something else equally overwhelming. Its tendrils stacked themselves together like a living basket as it weaved into something stronger. It reverbed through his entire being, deep into his bones like a primal call far down in the earth.
It was close. The golden Honmoon was close. He felt it despite lacking any hints of yellow within its blue threads. A mild panic crawled up from his gut, as if to reach for his unbeating heart. The severing of the two worlds would be catastrophic, even if he hadn't mingled with the living one for centuries. It had always been impossible to sneak up there of his own will either with Gwi-Ma's all reaching ear, and especially now when it took the Demon King’s increasing effort to push what dwindling minions he could through the strengthening barrier.
Jinu was a prisoner here. Always had been, always would be. The times when his dragging existence turned him bored, it led him to study the Honmoon's waxing and waning state the way one would a piece of nature.
There were limited options, otherwise; the sky overhead in the underworld was only pitch black nothingness. So occasionally - as he was now - he found himself ascending until it swallowed him. Only proximity would reveal where the void ended and the Honmoon began. Gwi-Ma had never not raged against its presence, but… Jinu often found himself slightly mesmerized by its blue waves. In a way, it was the closest equivalent he had to starlight.
The bars that made up his cage were, ironically, perhaps one of the few truly beautiful things down here.
Gwi-Ma hadn't called on him to pass it since the 1770s. A misdirect for the hunters was what Jinu was, at the time, as one of the demons who could actually manage to pass as human in demeanor. But it didn't matter the hunters hadn't suspected a thing when he'd fed them false information since his proof of competence paled to Gwi-Ma in comparison to one thing:
Jinu had hesitated. When the nothingness of the demon realm had faded away, when the real night sky had greeted him and the earthy musk of recent rainfall filled his nostrils… the billions of lights within glowing stardust yawning overhead for the first time in a century had made his eyes sting. But he had recovered. He had swallowed the tightness in his throat to focus. Perhaps he could volunteer to work upstairs again, even. Once his assignment was done later that night, when a sufficient amount of souls had been devoured… Gwi-Ma had dragged him back down.
Two minutes. A two minute pause had cost him “outside” for the next three hundred years. Gwi-Ma sent demons from there on out who likely never bothered to look up.
This wasn't a guess on Jinu's part. The King was not exactly secretive about how and where they were undeserving.
“You hear it… don't you?”
His thoughts were interrupted. Jinu blinked the non-existent stars from his pupils as he turned to face the black sky. Few ever came up here unless to transcend the barrier itself. Yet, illuminated by the rolling Honmoon, another Jeoseung Saja he recognized floated upright alongside him several steps away:
The broad one. The one with the absurd, thick eyebrows. He had never bothered to ask the guy's name. Jinu noticed him only because of the frequency he decimated a round of cards at the bar, or expertly dodged the fights started by the sore loser afterwards. They never lasted more than twenty seconds before the reaper's opponent was either groaning on the floor or found themselves surrounded by the other guests unhappy with their aggression toward him.
He was well-liked, Jinu assumed. Yet, despite his options for attention elsewhere, this reaper’s eyes often followed him from dark corners or gave him wordless nods in acknowledgement. It had taken Jinu years to suspect his vague curiosity went both ways - especially since he would rather evade unnecessary attention he wasn't in control of - yet he didn't mind this internally nicknamed “Eyebrows” must have followed him. He did shadow, on rare occasions.
Out of boredom, most likely. An aimless wish to simply observe, as Jinu himself was guilty of. Regardless, he supposed he felt a distant camaraderie with the guy if only since they found each other tolerable in their short exchanges.
Jinu hardly acknowledged his presence, outwardly. His response was slow. “You'll have to be more specific.”
“There’s a new harmony.”
He listened again. The Honmoon glistened in both his eyes and ears, but Jinu shook his head slightly. The tone of its humming always shifted. It was subtle, but it did so every twenty-some odd years: the telltale sign of the generational swap to the next set of warriors tasked to weave its web. So that in itself was not abnormal.
“These?” Jinu reached out a clawed index. Against a seemingly random string of light, the Honmoon bent as he plucked three in succession like a harp. Each rang out at his intentional touch into a warm tone in a major chord. “They started six years ago. It's young, but it's not new.”
The broad reaper caught his meaning. His gaze sharpened as he finally looked at him. “So are these hunters different?”
“They all are.”
Jinu plucked another string of light. Its sound was not human, but low and almost husky in quality like an imitation of one. An alto. He didn't know who. Pluck. Despite the lack of any true vocal clarity, he recognized this second one: he'd misled her in the village square back then. Her lilting quality was hard to misplace.
“The lancer. Retired in the 1800s.”
Another. The tone pitched upward into a gentle slide.
“Mezzo-soprano… jazz singer. But these new hunters…”
Jinu reached again for what must be from one of the youngest threads. Pluck. The tone was light. Not just in how it glowed more white than blue from the strain he inflicted, but its quality was almost crystalline in its purity. For a very long moment, the two merely absorbed the sound as it echoed into the darkness.
Silence. Yet something lingered. Something evasive enough to his senses Jinu was certain he was imagining it, even as “Eyebrows” tilted his head curiously.
“Has it sounded like that before?”
No, but Jinu didn't answer him. He didn't want to bias his perception with his own. Eyebrows couldn’t help inching closer to investigate the thread, but he couldn't tell it apart from the rest for the attempt to go anywhere.
“And the others?” he requested instead.
Jinu plucked two more. One sweet and energetic, its reverb was not a note so much as a beat while the other was cool and textured.
“...the first one, again?”
A pause. If Jinu's lungs worked normally, they would have quickened in anticipation from how the reaper clearly didn't hear in the other two what he was listening for. Was it not imagined after all? The slow, cautious way Jinu extended his claw felt… final. He stared the reaper down, as if to stress this thread’s importance. Eyebrows' glowing irises stared back, equally fixated.
The Honmoon was pulled taut into a firm snap.
Slowly, it started to ring. Its crystalline, wordless voice lifted into a quiet lullaby, but to call it dainty or juvenile would be a mistake: its grit and volume grew with what could only be described as power, like a gentle stream of water warning of an approaching flood.
This was new. The Honmoon rippled into shimmering waves; one hunter's voice collided into its neighbor until it rang. Another, then another. Each voice stacked onto the next, off-rhythm until they stabilized into a harmonious choir. It enveloped them, wholly and completely.
The audial overwhelm uplifted. It suffocated. It blinded. Jinu shut his eyes against the whitening light. The melody drifted into something vaguely evasive like the first time, until the last of its notes faded into the void.
Silence. The choir still haunted his skin where it touched him. He itched.
The Honmoon had dimmed to its signature low blue by the time he'd opened his eyes. If Jinu were hoping his kin would be able to articulate what he couldn't, he would be disappointed. Instead, the reaper blinked with speechless apprehension, the same as he had.
It had affected him too. He scratched his arm.
“Gold, soon. It has to be,” Eyebrows managed. Jinu wasn't sure why the comment was not what he was looking for when the most simple answer was sometimes the correct one. He made a second observation Jinu already shared with a light scoff. “Explains why that fiery bastard's acting stupider than usual.”
Jinu tried to not let his smirk slip. He failed. Eyebrows' thick eyebrow quirked knowingly in silent appreciation of their mutual hatred. As the duo’s eyes drifted back to the blue Honmoon, a second unsaid agreement was understood implicitly:
Neither of them would tell anyone about this. And whatever this was… was a warning.
Back on the ground, Eyebrows departed from Jinu's company without a word. Their discovery was no one’s business except Gwi-Ma's.
Jinu wasn't going to bother to tell him. Not when he was certain the King's all-reaching ear had heard the Honmoon singing when he'd messed with it anyway. He likely noticed its worrisome thrum long before Jinu did.
Observing for now, Jinu mused from the shadows as Gwi-Ma sent envoy after envoy up to the human world. The demon hordes gathered in the square before the great hearth each time they departed. Creatures of hunger, greed, and lust were in no short supply, and always the first at the King's steps as if they could somehow taste the souls vicariously through his potential incoming feast. Others of less passion - sloth, apathy, or despair - often simply had nothing else to do but watch whenever they were fortunate enough to not be commanded to face their ruthless enemies next.
The hunters had always made them work for their food. That was nothing new. But now that Jinu was paying attention…
Another troop descended into the underworld in a ball of black dust like a meteor. The demons that tumbled out of it on impact with the stone floor, did so with a pathetic yelp.
Jinu looked overhead for orbs of light. Not one. Not a single soul had broken through the entire month he'd been counting. A century ago, it was a given they'd manage at least eight a month, and that had been considered a rough season.
Gwi-Ma's rage was standard. Jinu didn't bother to stay and watch as the King launched yet another failure of his kin directly into his burning, gaping mouth. Their screams faded with distance as Jinu drifted away under the hongsalmun gate. If the Honmoon sealed for good, the rest of them were open season for the bottomless pit that was Gwi-Ma, so perhaps that was his own inevitable fate. The only consolation was the fire would fade in the end too once there were none remaining to cannibalize. Less consoling was the fact it would likely take several decades for Gwi-Ma to starve, and he would be sure to make the last of them feel every last hunger pang with him.
The cobbled path led Jinu away. Gwi-Ma's underworld, lit as if under an eternal late dusk, was made up of four things: stone, mist, shriveled forests, or murky bog. The scenery leading away from the hearth was no different. A water demon buried itself in a pond of muck as Jinu passed; another of the winds rattled a leafless tree as it soared by. None of the passersby seemed to be all the wiser to the cage slowly locking them in from above.
Were these hunters really so much more adept than their ancestors? Or was this just the payoff for their work in progress over centuries? He'd somewhat assumed that crystalline voice was different from its sisters somehow to set that choir off, but maybe Jinu had it backwards. Maybe the voice struck him as distinct only because it happened to be the last in one collective effort: the grand finale to the world's longest and largest gut the manshin had ever performed.
Through the muted blue mist, a large dark shape emerged as he approached: a choga house. Then another, its rotted thatch roof partly caved in. Nature and bog-land gave way to hints of humanity in the form of a shadowy imitation of a village as more wooden doors revealed themselves in rows. The telltale silhouettes of gats on the heads of fellow Jeoseung Saja bobbed into view as more drifted past him down the pathways.
They were hardly sociable. Most of them hardly talked. The younger ones who did only used hushed whispers, or stifled snickers to not disturb the grave-like quiet. Jinu grew tense when he realized he'd thoughtlessly taken the long way home, but he curved around the hut on the corner regardless.
The woman was on her porch again. Her long dark hair in an unkempt, sideways braid seemed youthful as it hid half her face, but was undercut by bald spots on her scalp where clumps had fallen out. A bulging growth protruded from her shoulder. There was no mind paid to how her joint creaked while she swept her doorway with a gnarly stick, nor to the long scratch in the floor from her continuous motion. Her one visible eye, grotesquely too bulbous for her human skull as if it was squeezing itself out, set him on edge.
It used to fit right. But such was every demon's eventual fate. No older than forty, yet she already grew more monstrous by the year several stages ahead of him. If Jinu's uncertain estimate was correct, he'd start transforming likewise within the next two hundred years regardless of how well he was fed like some twisted, second puberty. He had never asked when his canines were due to grow into tusks, or when his skin was supposed to toughen like leather over his lips and eye sockets into the permanent mouth-less scream of a dalgyal gwishin. He didn't want to know.
At least your outside will finally match your inside.
The stone fence along his left gave way to a dirt courtyard to a large hanok. Its intricate roof was chipped, its bright paint faded.
The place wasn't his, necessarily. Jinu entered the front where the door still tilted crooked and open on its hinge from when one of his roommates had busted it. His shoes vanished in a puff of dust at the entrance. The debris of wood pieces on the floor from the splintered wall scattered where he walked as he wandered down the far hall to his bedroom to sleep.
“His,” meaning A bedroom. And “sleep” meaning to lay there and dissociate for several hours straight. It was less a necessity and more of a lingering habit he liked to call Empty Brain Time.
A door slid open. Jinu ignored the three reapers inside who sat crowded on the floor, shoulder to shoulder at the misplaced soban, perhaps salvaged and put here on account that the dining room roof had caved in recently. They ignored him back to stare into space with hands loose around a set of teacups as Jinu crossed to the far end of the room. Same went for the fourth reaper who was already lying in the only futon in the house that was still usable.
Jinu leaned over the wood platform where the bed was elevated. He tugged the “sleeping” reaper's arm by the wrist. She didn't even react as she slid out from under the sheets, nor when he rolled her down the couple platform steps into a heap. He stepped over her jumbled form to climb in by himself.
{Of course you did.}
Jinu ignored the voice as he removed his gat to set it aside. He pulled the blue comforter over his shoulders as he settled in.
{Was it worth it?}
He nestled deeper into the pillow as if it would shut it out. But instead, something hard and jagged felt like it was stabbing into his ear and neck. He shifted. The fabric softened like silk again.
{A fair trade, then? Two lives, for a silk pillowcase… what did they rest their heads on, I wonder? A boulder? The rotting floorboards? Her shawl was wearing out. But she still would have given it to her, even if it meant she was colder. Unlike you.}
Jinu turned to his other side.
{It couldn't have been easy on Mother’s bad back. Do you think she pulled it when she had to shovel Nari's grave?}
You don't know that.
Bad idea. The voices grew emboldened.
{Don't we? The little one was more brittle than most. What are the chances she survived the next winter? Then, if starvation hadn't already come for Mother, a broken heart would. How many times must we go over this?}
He had no argument.
{Sorry, am I disturbing your beauty rest? Or did you want another kind of company?}
Memories flashed against Jinu's closed eyelids in succession. He hadn't been sure if the woman in a yellow jeogori had meant to lock onto his gaze within the palace gates, but... it had lingered before she'd climbed into her family's gama.
She'd stopped by the palace again the next day, and this time, happened to catch him at a more secluded corner within its outer walls. Jinu still wasn't used to being noticed, let alone by nobility. The unquestionable warmth in her pupils - peeking between the edges of her sseugaechima overcoat - took him aback.
Despite her humble yet bold introduction, the yangban woman did not seem offended when he'd excused himself out of caution of transgressing his fragile station in addressing her; her gaze merely burned on his neck as if in amusement at his retreat.
An outdoor gathering. Jinu wandered in a sociable stroll with the men who'd invited him, also interested in the court's newcomer. In the privacy of the woods, the off-duty scholars razzed him for the idea of a cheonmin snatching a noble’s daughter. Not that it was even remotely possible, but one had gossiped anyway how she had sought him for overly friendly conversation Jinu should have known had been witnessed.
An offer: they could all chip in for a cheap prostitute, if Jinu was so curious. More in his range. Despite his strained smile at their joviality, the mere idea disgusted him as much as the suggestive language that followed, as if a woman could be used so trivially.
{So noble of you. Won't pay for a service, but discard them like garbage as soon as it suits you? You're not any better.}
He wasn't. Jinu curled the pillow around his ears in vain.
{You may as well have taken their offer, by that point. Then, when it was done, you could tell the prostitute how you stuffed your face like a pig every night after leaving your child sister in the street. I'm sure she would have found it hilarious. Or better yet, what if you did gain that noble girl's hand? You could finally have answered your bride where her new in-laws were... Surely, you'd do better next time with the next family you gave her. What do they matter when you can get a replacement that looks a little nicer on your arm?}
Gwi-Ma laughed. Jinu didn't. He lay motionless as the Demon King inhaled for a breath he didn't need. If he didn't move, he'd get bored eventually; yet Gwi-Ma sighed, content to continue alone.
{But this was the deal… a roof over your head… You wanted this bed, so...?}
…so lie in it. It's what he'd asked for.
For a moment, the voices quieted. Then, an unwarranted one piped in impulsively:
How old is this? How many demons have had sex on this thing?
Not Gwi-Ma - that one was Jinu. Regardless, he couldn't find it in himself to care.
{Lots. Hundreds.}
Jinu groaned. He didn't want to talk. But the unexpected dryness from the King provoked a tired sense of humor out of him anyway.
…Really?
{This futon is filthy, Jinu.}
Everything is. Would it kill you to assign a cleaner? Or did your greedy ass eat them all?
{I did. They were delicious. So cleaning duty falls to you.}
With what?
A large metal bucket clattered onto the hardwood floor out of nowhere. Incredulous, Jinu couldn't help but lean upright to peek inside. He could tell by smell alone the supplied brush was putrid as it leaned upright inside the discolored water.
It was kind of funny. Sort of. It’s not like there was any fresh water so maybe it really was the best he could offer. Jinu scoffed, lacking any real bite.
Oh, fuck you.
{So picky. Where's the other futons?}
They're all shredded, no one takes care of them. Why haven't YOU ma-
{Why do you think that is?}
Because they're all animals.
{Because of all the demon sex. They're only being extra gentle with this one since it's now a finite resource.}
Thanks for the visual. Pervert likes to listen, huh?
{More like you… animals subject me to your depravity whether I like it or not. No one suffers more than me. But we're all doing it together, aren't we? One big miserable family.}
Jinu pinched the bridge of his nose. Gwi-Ma's lapse didn't last long.
{So you really didn't need to kick her out, you know. But I don't know what I expected. You never do treat your sisters well.}
A beat. Suddenly, Jinu kicked the blanket off him. Okay, fine, FINE! The random siste- lady! The stranger was using the futon first, so he should just let her have it, right? Is that what he should have done?
He rolled out. Jinu scooted impatiently to the edge of the platform and leaned down. Turning the reaper over, he lifted under her armpits. She was still an unresponsive dead weight as he sat her upright.
{Wow… not only do you refuse to clean, but you're going to put her back in the contaminated sex bed.}
Gwi-Ma was still deeply unserious. He picked up on Jinu’s rebuff in refusing to grant a response as he dragged her up the platform.
{I'm only pointing out the obvious. Yet you don't even care at all.}
He moved to the next step. The reaper flopped in his arms as he shuffled backwards.
{...This is pointless, you know.}
Jinu stopped. He was already sat the top edge, but the reminder’s effectiveness could only come from hearing it far more times than he could count. When Gwi-Ma continued, his voice was neutral as if merely coming to a logical conclusion that set Jinu's hair upright.
{What do you think this will achieve? A murderer tucking another murderer into bed… how quaint. Who knew a blanket was all it took to abolish your sins?}
It missed Jinu’s notice he never said it would. But to lift her back into her stolen resting place was at least simple enough. When he shifted in contemplation to do just that, Gwi-Ma beat him before he could decide.
{…But it really should be cleaned, you're right.}
The bucket tipped with a jarring clank. Foul water spilled all over the platform to soak the already worn futon. Jinu knew what was coming; the stoic mask fell like a practiced sheet across his face as he watched over his shoulder.
The spill wasn't thorough enough. The brush was lifted by an invisible hand to scrub its crusty bristles into the top of the quilted comforter. No doubt top and bottom would be permanently stained. No matter. Jinu didn't really need it, yet that didn't stop the sharp prick inside his chest once the soppy quilt was lifted. The brush shoved itself under the sheets to soak the mat.
It felt ridiculous. Conjuring a sponge, the King mopped up the spilled water off the floor so he could then press it into the silk pillow. It felt ridiculous that the visible soaking of the already grey case into a murky brown was enough to set Jinu's eyes stinging. The image was ridiculous how Gwi-Ma's scrubbing grew more needlessly agitated, but the underhanded point grew more implicitly understood with the visual:
Any dirt on the blue quilt did not come out; it instead bled into a dark near-black with the effort. The intent to cleanse it at all was in itself a flawed endeavor.
It was futile.
Once the pillow was doused as the rest of it, it seemed to be done. Not so. Gwi-Ma instead conjured another bucket. He poured the vile contents again over the entire thing, as if in renewed war against his own self-inflicted soiling.
It was futile.
He rubbed rapidly, furiously, against the pillowcase and the quilt for another round to erase the patterns of filth until the weak bristles of the brush snapped off. When it did, the brush threw what remained of itself against the wall.
A flinch racked Jinu's body at its clapping impact. Gwi-Ma’s invisible presence stilled entirely.
{...There. It's ready now.}
Jinu didn't dare move. Neither said anything. Instead, Gwi-Ma just waited. He did so with an innocent, expectant air that would have fooled no one, as if there was any plausibility he could use it now.
You wanted this bed, so…?
It clicked. Four hundred years, and it had finally clicked, or more accurately, finally allowed itself to be admitted what Jinu already knew:
The hanok didn’t always look like this. When Jinu first arrived, he actually had a bedroom in the left wing as his own private space. Other than the new demonic neighbors, it hadn’t even been a huge shift from his housing in the palace grounds. The paint had been at least somewhat bright, the sheets comfortable with the vague scent of incense or blooming trees through the window. Not that they were actually there, but it at least smelled like they were.
His wish and his reward, Gwi-Ma had said. His fulfilled end of the bargain.
Jinu could not pinpoint when the situation had shifted. There were plenty of times “reality” down here became dreadfully muddied or surreal like a hazy nightmare he couldn't stir from as the years blended together. Sometimes he couldn't even recall an entire decade. When had the house plants started to wilt? The wood had bent and smelt of rot until the usable sections of the building shrunk smaller and he had access to less and less. He supposed Gwi-Ma had gotten lazier, or weaker with the upkeep.
But that was just an excuse. Maybe, just like the invisible fruit trees, he’d only had the illusion of it. Had any of that ever been a reliable given, or had he just wanted to believe it was?
The question was his own, but Gwi-Ma saw it on his face. He always did, no matter how unbothered or unreadable Jinu tried to be.
{There's no need to look like that. There was no chance saving it when it was dirty to start with.}
Jinu cracked. Humiliation leaked from his tear ducts. Yet, the wet choke breaking out of him like a dam was far heavier than this single act could have called for.
{Jinu…}
His ears rang. Please, not again. Jinu wasn’t even in control of himself as he turned his back to point his blurry gaze upwards.
{Look at her, Jinu.}
How many times? How many more times did he have to hear this? He knew, he already knew that he was so unbelievably weak over something this petty! He hurt them, he betrayed them because his stomach growled! For a silk pillowcase! For NOTHING! He had always been selfish, repulsive, useless, untouchable, soiled-
{Look. At. Her…}
Jinu’s body obeyed against his will; it always did as soon as the voices became a demand. It took him a moment to realize the shuttering gasps were his own as his head tilted down to finally take in the stranger’s face, her neck still leaning against his bent knee. Glassy, distant, red-brown irises stared off into nothingness. Reapers were usually cold, but her entire countenance was utterly stiff.
She was a corpse. He hadn't even noticed. Why had he...? Even as her pupils twitched, her mind elsewhere entirely, he was dragging a corpse to sleep when rest was impossible for any of them.
{Do you think she cares about this? Any of them?}
Dazed, cheeks wet, Jinu looked at the other trio of mindless assholes still sitting at the table with cups of cold tea they never drank. It was all a façade, wasn't it? An imitation they still clung to in pointless pretend as if any of this was even still intact - a bunch of empty dolls playing house!
{She's gone. They have been for a while. She can't even help herself, so why bother if she can't return the favor? What do you even get out of it?}
Jinu had hated at first whenever Gwi-Ma sported this neutral, logical tone that always made him feel like he was acting irrational to contest it.
{She's gone. They're gone. It's done.}
But not now. How could he argue they weren't? He agreed, not for the first time. He agreed the same way a body agrees to bleed after a thousand repeated cuts.
{I don't tell you this to be cruel, Jinu. I know you think it. I understand. But I remind you when you forget because it's the truth. Because I'm the only one who cares enough to give it when it's difficult to hear rather than easy falsities.}
Another teardrop fell on the woman's robe as Jinu's shuttering breath calmed.
{You are a sinner. Should I deny it? Deny you your rightful penance? To become purified, you must go through what can only be done through me, your refiner's fire. Despite all you've done, I'm still here. Despite your selfishness, I've given you sanctuary away from those who would rather slay you where you stand for what you are.}
The reaper slid from Jinu's loosening hands on her arms.
{But have I ever flinched from you, Jinu?}
…No.
{Abandoned you? Let you starve?}
No.
{No. Because I know you in your entirety, and I accept it when your kind wouldn't. All I ask is you stop resenting my innate nature the way I don't resent yours.}
The next thought Jinu sent in exhaustion was one of habit; silence was only what had ever met it.
You hate me.
But this time, the resignation in the Demon King's voice was difficult to interpret as insincerity.
{…I do not.}
He still didn't believe him.
You lie.
Gwi-Ma paused. Jinu could feel him move against his shoulder as if he leaned in to whisper in his ear. His entire countenance shrunk; but a slap, literal or vocal, didn't come. Instead, the warmth of the great flame enveloped him entirely. Rather than the Honmoon's itching, blinding light, Gwi-Ma's presence reached like a gentle hand Jinu hadn't felt in ages. One that stroked his hair and rubbed his back until his spine curved with disgusted want.
It soothed. It suffocated. The warmth invaded even as it encompassed him like a radiating fireplace, like the blanket he'd just destroyed. Familiar, like coming home. Any home, no matter how broken it was. Jinu couldn't lean into it, but he didn't try to leave. He had long learned there was nowhere to go.
The voices softened.
{That's the beautiful part in all this, Jinu. We both know I don't have to.}
The tremor that wracked his limbs was worse than if the King had been violent this time. Jinu would rather he was.
{You have me. Always. I will be here when you're ready to talk.}
Gwi-Ma finally, finally departed as he wished, leaving Jinu to both curse and clamor for the frosty air left on his skin. It was so cold here. Cold, and lonely, and empty, and dark. The ancient hearth was the only real source of light they had down here, except one other…
The Demon King and the Honmoon: his tormentor and his cage.
That's all he could hope for.
That's all he could see.
Ten minutes later, the corpse woman was back in a heap on the floor. The futon was left abandoned: pointless and filthy as it had been from the start.
.
..
…
The cage...
The light, growing tighter...
It would be over soon...
...
..
.
Epiphany struck.
The Honmoon.
The Honmoon.
Why hadn't Jinu thought about this already? Gwi-Ma would try anything to escape its golden light. He already was. The flame would soon be running on fumes, or at least believed so, and that belief was enough.
Jinu would never have considered entering another deal with the King since their last one but… with desperation came exploitable opportunity. His exhausted mind stirred like a hungover drunk. An… idea had slept in the back of it for years, but spite at the King's incompetence as each generation of hunters outwitted him had kept it hidden there. Now? It awoke. It stumbled upright the same as he did to find its strength to walk.
The vision of it cleared. There was a weak spot to the hunters Gwi-Ma was too distracted by his ravenous clawing against their trap to consider there was another way to break it. It could only come from Jinu, to which another point crossed his mind:
His voice was all he had left. It needed to still be proven more useful as a tool intact than as something taken, next. He was no fool. He had died forever ago: now was just borrowed time.
The choice was easy. A deal was the only shot he had to be released from this. Any part of it. The memories... the voices... if Gwi-Ma was going to erode everything from him eventually, then let Jinu at least choose the next one that could numb him to it.
They were a lost cause. How could he hold onto them over something more substantial in his throat? On his tongue? It was selfish, he knew. But that's what he was. He was done pretending to fight it.
He was done.
Nothing, and no one, was going to change his mind.