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All demons came from human souls.
The Jeoseung Saja—humans who made deals— were the most obvious example, but that wasn't the only method. Dokkaebi, for instance, were made by Gwi-Ma himself from the scraps left after he feasted on the souls presented to him as gifts.
But all demons came from human souls in one way or another, because the very creation of them required it. Something couldn't be created from nothing. An exchange had to take place, so if there wasn't a human to begin with? Something of equal value had to be destroyed instead.
Humans weren't made to give birth to demons.
Not like this.
Mi-yeong died when she was 24.
An exchange. A life for a life. A human for a demon. Mi-yeong for Rumi.
That was the only possible explanation for why someone young and healthy, someone who had access to the best healthcare in the world, would die suddenly during childbirth.
She was supposed to survive. She'd been excited to have a child. Celine wasn't supposed to outlive her. She'd never planned for it. She was never supposed to learn what it was to lose a third of her soul.
It felt like fingernails under her skin, grabbing muscle and tearing it from sinew, then pulling at the sinew until it snapped and fell free from bone. It felt like the deep cold of blood loss. It felt like the way ribs ached after vomiting. It hurt and it hurt and it hurt—like her eardrums were bursting and being stitched back together just so the honmoon could scream until they burst again.
Celine had screamed, too—a sound echoed by So-jin, because they were both there that day. Where else would they have been if not by Mi-yeong's side? She was their leader. She was the best of them.
Because the world was cruel, it continued to turn even as Mi-yeong's hands became cold between theirs. Without her they were untethered, a body sending signals to a brain that wasn't there to receive them, to translate them, to turn thought into action.
The honmoon wept like an infected wound.
A baby cried out for attention.
Celine never wanted children. She wasn't made to be a mother.
So-jin had loved Rumi immediately. She sang to her when she cried, she read books—bought by Mi-yeong—to help her sleep, she cradled her and soothed her and loved her as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do. Celine tried to follow suit, she did, but a demon couldn't be created from nothing, and now Rumi was here and Mi-yeong wasn't.
She didn't blame Rumi. It wasn't her fault, just like it wasn't the fault of a gun for being fired. Her father had pulled the trigger and fled before he had to see the blood.
She remembered arguing with Mi-yeong about it a month before she died. Mi-yeong had been adamant that Gwi-Ma had taken him, that he didn't abandon her, that he wasn't that sort of person, and Celine had agreed.
He wasn't a person at all.
They'd argued for hours until So-jin reminded them, in that soft way she often did, that stress was bad for the baby. It was pointless anyway. Regardless of which version was true, he clearly wasn't coming back. Celine wished that memory wasn't so firmly pinned to her mind.
Afterwards, Mi-yeong had made them promise to help raise Rumi—because she'd named her as soon as she decided to keep her—and they were helpless but to agree.
So Celine watched So-jin keep her promise while she slipped over the steps of being a parent like they were covered in ice, scrambling for support and grabbing fistfuls of air where there had once been Mi-yeong.
Rumi preferred So-jin, and Celine was glad for it. She was shaping up to be a wonderful mother, attentive and kind, and Celine…
Well.
The thing about hunters dying was that once it got out to the public it always gave the honmoon a little more strength. Fans poured their hearts and souls into their displays of mourning and grief, and those souls fortified it. It was as if the surviving hunters were being given a grace period to collect themselves before they had to deal with new tears.
Celine was a hunter without prey to hunt. The days trickled past, and she was numb to them. She passed them by mechanically, letting muscle memory take over while her brain still reeled.
So-jin came to her room some nights, unable to sleep, seeking comfort, and holding her flush to her chest was the only time she felt anything at all.
It had been a relief when, two years after Mi-yeong died, demons started to slip through the honmoon again.
She didn't hate Rumi. She didn't. She just didn't know how she was supposed to love her yet. They split the tasks, split the promises, and they kept both. Rumi was happier and safer with So-jin, and Celine had always been the more capable fighter.
Hunting alone was harder. Infinitely harder. She'd gotten so used to fighting alongside Mi-yeong and So-jin that she didn't know what she was supposed to do with herself without them. She set up enemies and nobody knocked them down. She distracted and directed their attention, but there wasn't anyone to take advantage of it. There was nobody to grin at her like sunshine and kiss her cheek as a thank you for having their backs.
So she made mistakes. She got hurt. Demons got away.
A cracked rib benched her, and then she and So-jin had to swap. She'd dreaded feeling that next tear, dreaded sending So-jin out solo, dreaded being alone with Rumi—because if she couldn't love her right she'd be letting all of them down, and Celine had never known how to love properly.
If she had, Mi-yeong would never have fallen for a demon.
While So-jin investigated a tear, Celine played with Rumi the way she'd been told to—the way Mi-yeong would never get to—and tried to learn.
It was in that moment, staring at her purple hair—the only sign of her heritage, and she prayed it stayed that way—and at her chubby cheeks, at her soft brown eyes, hearing her loud, shrieking giggles as she showed off how fast she could run, that she saw what So-jin saw. She felt the threads of affection pulling her heart back together in long, looping stitches. It was a small, fragile kind of love, but it was there.
And then the honmoon howled.
Fingers under her skin. Sinew from bone. Cold, cold, cold, and then white hot agony.
Celine screamed, and it was the last time she harmonized with the honmoon.
So-jin died when she was 25.
There wasn't a body to collect, taken by the same demons who murdered her, but Celine didn't need there to be a body to know she was gone. She felt it the second it happened, and she knew immediately she'd be feeling it for the rest of her life, just like she did for Mi-yeong.
Humans weren't made to hold that kind of grief.
It poured out of her, from her mouth, from her eyes, dripping down her fingers as they shook and staining the penthouse in wide arcs of crimson as she beat her fists against the honmoon and demanded it tell her why—why it didn't keep So-jin safe, why it didn't kill Celine herself instead, why it left her alone.
Rumi sobbed.
She hoped it was just fear and that she hadn't felt it, too.
The kindest thing the honmoon could do for all of them was to not pick Rumi.
She'd thought it a gift when she'd first been told she had a duty and two soulmates to help her fulfil it, but she could see the burden of it now, seeping into the space left by them. The world needed to protect Rumi, not the other way around.
She moved out of the penthouse that year. There were too many rooms she couldn't stomach entering, too many pictures that made her sick with grief, too many ghosts looping along the path Mi-yeong walked from her room to the kitchen, in the divot on the couch where So-jin always napped after rehearsals and, later, napped with Rumi held to her chest.
She'd have to move back to Jeju at some point, anyway. Someone would have to train the next generation of hunters. If any of her mentors were still alive she might've passed the duty to them, but they weren't, so she made some statements to the press, said she hoped they found out what happened to So-jin—a lie, because the truth was dangerous—and she moved her life back to Jeju, back to the hunter compound, back to the place she learned that her faults and fears must never be seen.
With the loss of So-jin and Celine's confirmed retirement she was granted another grace period where the honmoon was strong enough to stand on its own, a grace period spent raising a child she hadn't asked for and had no choice but to love.
Because she did love Rumi. What had started as something small and fragile grew alongside her, reaching down into the dirt and stretching up into the sky with every new thing Celine learned. Her favourite colour was purple, her favourite songs were the ones that Celine sang the most on, her favourite genre was fantasy, and her favourite book was always whichever one she'd read most recently.
She tried to be a good mother, but it just wasn't in her. Loving her wasn't enough when she looked at her and remembered how Mi-yeong's final breath rattled in her lungs. Still, it wasn't Rumi's fault, and Celine did her best. She paid for the best tutors, bought her anything she asked for, tucked her in almost every night, and sang for her on request.
Five years after Mi-yeong died, and three since So-jin joined her, a mark Celine had foolishly assumed to be a birthmark on Rumi's upper arm started to spread in harsh, angular lines.
Patterns.
Rumi had come to her in panicked tears, telling her it hurt, telling her she was scared.
Every one of Celine's finely honed instincts kicked in at once and she was reaching for the threads of the honmoon before she even realised what she was doing. Everything that had patterns was a demon, and demons had to die. It was her job, her only job.
Except, it was Rumi, and by now the love she held for her had grown roots.
Instead of calling her weapon, she cradled Rumi's face and told her she'd be okay and she'd find a way to fix it. She held her until Rumi stopped sobbing, and then she locked herself in her office—it used to belong to the maknae of the group before them, but she was dead and now it belonged to Celine—and sat with her thoughts.
Demons couldn't be made from nothing, but Rumi wasn't a demon. She couldn't be a demon. The patterns had to be inherited, like the purple hair. This wasn't the end for either of them, she just had to find a solution. She just had to fix the problem.
Rumi had knocked on the door an hour later, asking if she could help with anything—because she always wanted to help—and Celine told her to go to bed.
She told her about hunters and demons in the morning, because she needed to understand the position they were both in, and Rumi had laughed—treated it like a story. Celine had leveled her with such a severe look that she'd immediately apologised and, because she trusted her, she believed her.
She withdrew her from public school because the risk of someone seeing the patterns was too high, and it was hard enough justifying her having purple hair. Rumi had wanted to stay with her friends, and Celine had to put her foot down. It was the first time they argued, really argued, and the tantrum Rumi had thrown was so loud that the honmoon reacted. It recoiled from her, pulling taught, shifting from blue to red under the strain of its desperation to escape the sound even as Celine dropped to her knees and tried to soothe her.
And Rumi noticed. She saw the honmoon in pain—pain that she had caused—and apologised. She called it back over to her and smiled when the threads leapt to meet her fingertips.
Because of course it chose her. Of course it would be that cruel. Of course it picked someone with patterns to protect it. Of course the honmoon rested against Celine like a dog, asking if it had done well, asking if she was happy to have company again, as if it hadn't just doomed the only person left alive that she loved to an unjust fate.
All hunters had to be perfect, all hunters had to hide their flaws, because if the public found them wanting they couldn't do their job. Rumi had to be even more perfect than any hunter before her. Her emotions were dangerous, she was dangerous.
Rumi was a hunter, but she had patterns, and her voice was a double edged sword.
Celine taught her how to bury her emotions beneath brick and mortar. She had to. It wasn't a choice, it was a necessity, because Rumi's tantrum had damaged the honmoon enough to allow demons back into their world. Celine had to hunt alone, again, and this time she couldn't afford any injuries. She couldn't even afford to die—no matter how much she wanted to—because leaving Rumi in the world alone was an intolerable thought. She had to at least find her soulmates first.
Her days became busy, every moment spent teaching Rumi to control her volatile emotions, then honing her talent in singing and making her stretch and exercise gently to prime her for what would be expected later on. She took Rumi to see Mi-yeong's grave—So-jin didn't have one, and she wouldn't until the police closed the investigation—and braided her hair while she taught her about different kinds of demons. She wasn't cruel, she didn't demand the same dedication from Rumi while she was so young, she gave her free time, and while Rumi played Celine researched how to remove the patterns.
And, of course, she still had to hunt. While she hunted Rumi practised on her own, because she was old enough to be on her own for short periods of time; as long as her hunts were quick, clean, and efficient, she'd be okay.
Things rarely turned out so easy, but her injuries were a teaching opportunity. Rumi would have to learn how to treat her own injuries, because an idol can't keep going to the hospital with the sorts of wounds earned on hunts. Even the most extensively NDA'd doctors in the world couldn't be completely trusted, and especially not with someone like Rumi.
On hunts that went wrong she'd drag herself home and let Rumi watch her stitch the claw marks on her leg, or set a dislocated shoulder, or clean a bite wound. She talked her through it between hissed exhalations and bitten back whimpers because she practised what she preached and if Rumi was going to have to learn to control her emotions Celine would teach by example.
It was something she'd been learning to do ever since Mi-yeong died, anyway, and she did it so well that she barely recognised herself in the mirror anymore. It was her own face, but she remembered being happier.
She was happy, sometimes. She was happy when Rumi asked to cook with her, she was happy when Rumi liked a gift she'd bought, she was happy when she could tell Rumi she'd done well and Rumi beamed in response.
But most days, she didn't feel much at all.
Rumi continued to have tantrums—continued to hurt the honmoon—until the lessons, both the ones taught and the ones shown when Celine returned with worse injuries after stronger demons snuck through, finally sank in.
Ten years after Mi-yeong died, eight after So-jin died, Celine came to a conclusion.
Gwi-Ma controlled demons through their patterns. If Rumi could turn the honmoon golden and seal him away it would prevent him from ever getting his claws into her. With the demon world sealed away it would remove the patterns, too. It had to. It was the only option, the only thing that protected both the honmoon and Rumi, and Celine didn't want to sacrifice either.
If it came to it, she knew what her answer would be, she knew which one she'd save. It didn't bear thinking about, though, because this would work.
Rumi first summoned her sword a year later, when she was eleven. It was a good weapon for her, adaptable and commanding—a weapon for a leader.
The little free time Celine had was redirected to finding Rumi's soulmates.
She found the first one when Rumi was fourteen, the same year she started joining Celine on hunts. She came from Seoul, where she lived with her parents—old money—and Celine knew she was attuned to the honmoon the moment she met her in person. She felt it in the way the honmoon leaned against her again. She'd been eager to return with Celine then and there, but her parents had refused because they wanted to marry her off and they couldn't do that if she wasn't around. Celine caught the anger that surged up through her between her teeth and swallowed it back down, because how dare they treat their daughter like property, but if she argued with them it'd make things even harder further down the line.
She told Rumi that it would take a while longer and, because Rumi was a good child, she didn't complain.
In the two years it took to bring Mira home to Rumi, Celine came to another conclusion.
She couldn't tell either of them about the patterns. It would complicate things. If they knew someone could have patterns and not be a demon they'd always be second-guessing themselves, or they'd question every demon they fought. Even a second of hesitation would get them killed, and then there wouldn't even be a body to bring back—they'd just be marked as missing, a cold case that grew colder every year.
Celine knew that now for certain, because the police investigation had been concluded and So-jin's empty grave was put next to Mi-yeong's.
Rumi would have to keep it a secret from her soulmates just as much as she kept it a secret from the rest of the world, something she accepted with little argument. She rarely argued anymore. She was getting better at controlling her emotions, and Celine ignored the pang of grief she felt at watching it happen because keeping Rumi alive was the most important thing.
Watching Mira and Rumi circling each other like two cats meeting for the first time was almost amusing. Underneath the caution she could see the love, especially in the way Mira lit up when Rumi entered the room. It felt like looking in a mirror, an echo of Celine meeting Mi-yeong. She buried the recognition with handfuls of dirt from the same ground she'd buried Mi-yeong under, that she'd never bury So-jin under.
Shortly after Mira was recruited, Celine located Zoey.
It wasn't really a surprise to find out that the reason she couldn't find her was because she was in America. It rarely happened before, but the world was changing. That would be something Rumi would need to consider for the next generation of hunters.
Zoey's mother had been more agreeable than Mira's family, and it had barely taken much convincing at all. Especially not when Zoey overheard their conversation and begged.
She'd seen the open delight on Rumi and Mira's faces when they met Zoey, and she'd felt their joy in her chest. She'd had that, once. Another mirror, another handful of dirt. She was too busy to be sentimental. She had to do the work of three hunters entirely on her own, and Rumi, Mira, and Zoey would have to seal the honmoon. It would have to be them, for Rumi's sake.
As Rumi grew, so did her pain at how much she was hiding. Celine wasn't unsympathetic. She understood perfectly well what it was to hide so much of yourself, but the world was cruel and Rumi couldn't tell Mira and Zoey about the patterns for the same reason Celine couldn't tell Mi-yeong and So-jin that she was in love with them—it wasn't safe. Celine had found ways to be happy, and Rumi would, too.
She wished it wasn't true, she wished Rumi didn't have to live the life she had, but what Celine wanted didn't matter in the face of what the world needed—what Rumi needed.
Mira and Zoey were both trouble, in their own ways.
Zoey was wild and unpredictable, always acting before she thought, but quick to apologise and even quicker to overcorrect.
Mira, on the other hand, was all barely restrained anger, snapping her teeth when someone got close and then whimpering when they backed away.
She was surprised at how immediately fond she was of both of them, a fondness that only increased as they settled into their new lives, cooling off into complementary shapes.
Every ache Celine felt for what she'd lost when she saw them together was soothed by the way Rumi laughed and relaxed into their presence.
The arguments started again, not long after. It wasn't unexpected, and Celine had already prepared several counter-arguments to whatever point Rumi tried to make about why she should be allowed to tell Mira and Zoey the truth. It was the only thing they argued about, and it was an argument Celine always won.
When they debuted and moved to Seoul, the patterns on Rumi's arm started to spread again. By the time she'd plucked up the courage to tell Celine, they'd already spread from her bicep down to her elbow. Rumi asked why it was happening, and the truth burned in Celine's throat—she didn't know. She didn't know why they were spreading, she didn't know what that meant for how long Rumi had, and she was terrified.
She only told Rumi the first part, and emphasised how important it was for them to seal the honmoon as quickly as they could. She saw in Rumi's face that she understood anyway, and she was proud and hurt in equal measure at how quickly Rumi shut her emotions down, turned hurt and fear into understanding and determination.
She was so much like Mi-yeong that it dug deep into Celine's heart and dragged its claws across the stitches there.
A year later, when Rumi was 22, she let herself into Celine's office in the tower and waited for her to arrive, hands folded in her lap, lower lip pulled between her teeth, wearing long sleeves despite the temperature. She said she had to tell her something, and Celine sat in the chair next to her and waited with fear bubbling under the surface of her skin.
When Rumi told her she thought she liked girls, she nearly laughed.
Of all the things Celine had expected her to confess, that was very low on the list. Not because it was surprising—on the contrary, she wasn't blind, and she'd seen the way Rumi looked at both Mira and Zoey—but because she didn't understand why Rumi was so afraid to tell her. She'd only ever told her to keep the patterns a secret, but she'd never punished her for being honest with Celine.
Instead of laughing she held Rumi's hands and told her it was fine, that she still loved her, and that once the honmoon had been sealed and she was no longer under the pressure of being perfect she could pursue whoever she wanted. Rumi had asked her to repeat herself, so she did.
In retrospect, she should've realised then that what Rumi was asking her to repeat was that she loved her.
Seeing Rumi on her knees, begging Celine to kill her, put a lot into perspective.
It mostly put into perspective how poorly equipped she'd been to raise a child. She did what she had to do, she took the only option available to her, she kept Rumi alive, and it wasn't enough. She raised her to think that she'd have taken her saingeom and-
Celine wasn't made to be a mother, and it showed in ways she never intended.
She tried to think back on all the times she'd told Rumi she loved her before that night and realised, to her shame, she could count them on her fingers. The words never came easily to her. Love was something she preferred to act on rather than just say, and she did act on it.
The fact that Rumi didn't know how much she loved her sent an ache through her chest, an ache that felt like sinew being torn from bone, an ache that burned so hot it turned cold.
"If she does anything to upset you…" Mira mumbled.
It was hard to blame Mira for being angry. It's what she'd have felt, in her position.
"We'll just be on the couch, okay? If… you know…" Zoey said.
She couldn't hear Rumi's responses through the wall, too quiet in her upset—just the way Celine had trained her to be—so she watched the door patiently, hands folded in her lap as she sat on Rumi's bed.
She hadn't expected Rumi to want to speak to her at all after what happened at the tree. She'd expected to be invited to the penthouse—to her bedroom—even less, but she'd take whatever chance was given to her to have this conversation, even as every part of her screamed not to. Her faults and fears must never be seen, but they already had, and now she had to face it.
She caught a glimpse of Zoey as the door opened, caught the curve of her scowl, and took it on the chin. She was glad they hated her—glad they loved Rumi enough to hate her.
And then Rumi was in the doorway instead, hair tied up in a messy bun, exhaustion leaving its mark in the form of dark bags under her eyes.
"You haven't been sleeping well," Celine said before she could stop herself, anything to distract herself from the iridescent patterns all over Rumi's face and arms. She'd had time to get used to them, but seeing patterns still tugged on her instincts in a way she couldn't stomach.
Rumi paused and stared at her for a moment, then closed the door behind her with a click that echoed in Celine's mind.
"I have, just not these past few days," Rumi said slowly, "Not since I asked to talk."
"You still need to sleep, even when you're stressed," Celine continued.
Rumi took a few steps closer, hovering awkwardly like she used to in the office as a teenager.
"They know about what I asked you to do, at the tree," Rumi said instead of acknowledging Celine's comment. A silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and uneasy, before Rumi spoke again. "They don't hate you, I don't think? They're just… struggling."
It was an unexpected relief. She couldn't imagine Rumi had told them everything, certainly not enough to put a lifetime into context, to put that into context. Even with the full story Celine still reeled from the memory.
But she wasn't here to talk about Mira and Zoey's feelings about her. She was here for whichever conversation Rumi had decided it was time to have, and now Rumi was stalling.
"I understand," Celine said placidly, and then, "Have you been eating properly? Does Mira still cook for you?"
Rumi blinked slowly. "Yes, to both."
Celine nodded. "Good. Good."
She was stalling too, she supposed.
A pause, a silence that stretched thin, and then—slow and careful as if she were testing the waters—Rumi said, "She cooks for me more than you did."
Celine glanced away at that. A fair comment, but she could feel the question underneath it. It didn't have to be asked for it to be answered. "I wish I'd had more time to do it, but I was busy. There was too much to do for me to cook every meal."
Rumi shifted where she stood, hands fidgeting at her sides restlessly. It was unbecoming, the sort of thing she'd have chided her for a decade ago.
"You could've made time," Rumi said after a moment.
"I made all the time for you that I could," Celine responded, harsher than she intended, and the words tasted like ash on her tongue.
"Did you consider it? Killing me?" Rumi asked, so sudden and abrupt that Celine barely had time to process it before she was answering.
"No," Celine said, firm despite the way her body begged to tremble at the image that flashed through her mind. She was scared of very little, but only because her fear of losing Rumi dwarfed everything else.
"Not just at the tree. Did you ever…? When you shut yourself in your office, were you thinking about-"
"No," Celine repeated, "I just needed time to think about what it meant. The patterns worried me, but I never wanted to hurt you."
Rumi leveled her with a look so severe it struck Celine like a memory.
"Promise that you're telling the truth. I can't-… I need to know."
Celine met her stare evenly. "I promise. I never wanted, or planned, to hurt you," she said, honestly and sincerely, because even when she'd thought Rumi to be a demon she never truly thought about killing her.
"You hurt me anyway," Rumi said softly, hands fidgeting again.
"I know," Celine agreed easily. That much had been made abundantly clear.
Rumi huffed. "Are you even-…" she gestured vaguely, fumbling for words, "Do you even feel bad about it?"
She felt herself rankle at it—at the suggestion that she didn't feel guilt about the choices she had been forced to make.
"Of course I do," Celine said quickly, sharply, "I didn't like telling you to hide any more than you did. If there had been another option, I'd have taken it."
Rumi scoffed and Celine drew her head back, eyebrow arched. Instead of being cowed by it, Rumi only pressed harder.
"Did you even try? You just took the path of least resistance. You lied to me-"
"I didn't lie-"
"Yes! You did! You told me they'd kill me!"
"Which was the truth, Rumi! I thought they would!"
She didn't like raising her voice at anyone, least of all Rumi, but she couldn't allow Rumi to think anything she did was done because it was easy. The easy solution had never even been an option for her.
Rumi didn't like people raising their voices at her, either, and Celine saw the instinctive duck of her head, but then Rumi met her eyes with something burning and fierce.
"Just because you would've doesn't mean they're the same."
"Rumi," Celine snapped, pushing herself to her feet. "We talked about this, I-"
"Didn't want to. That doesn't mean you wouldn't have," Rumi said unsteadily, "You didn't want to make me lie either, right?"
Celine stopped.
That was different. That was for Rumi's safety.
She took Rumi's hands in hers—because she needed her to understand what she was saying, not just hear it—and held firm in preparation for her to try and pull free-
But she didn't. Instead, Rumi froze completely, eyes falling down to where their hands were linked.
"Look at me," Celine said. Rumi's eyes snapped back up, and Celine continued, "If I had to choose between you and the honmoon, I'd choose you every time. I did choose you every time."
Rumi looked back at their hands, and this time Celine followed her gaze.
The patterns pulsed where she touched them in vibrant purples and pinks, a harsh contrast to the subdued iridescence that painted her skin elsewhere. It was the way they'd looked at the tree, when she was in pain, when she was begging for death.
Celine let go like the contact had burned her, and Rumi's expression shifted into the same kind of hurt she'd worn the first time Celine had told her to hide the patterns, back when it was just a small patch on her bicep.
"Because you love me, or because you owe it to my mom?" Rumi asked thickly.
Celine opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Rumi's jaw twitched in that way it always did when she was trying not to cry.
"Was I just a burden to you?" she continued, voice low, "Did you only love me because-… because you promised?"
She knew what she needed to say, but the words caught on her tongue and when she swallowed they fell back into her throat and formed a solid lump that hurt to breathe around. Rumi's tears spilled over with a shuddering, disbelieving exhale.
The truth was going to hurt.
"Was I ever your daughter?" Rumi pushed.
The stitches in Celine's heart pulled taut, hard enough to snap, hard enough to break her all over again-
And then fell loose. Her heart continued to beat, blood continued to circulate. Rumi had never been the stitches holding an open wound closed, but the tissue that bridged the gap—palpable and permanent.
The words were pouring from her mouth before she could catch them.
"At first it was a promise, but that was before I knew you," Celine said, reaching to take Rumi by the shoulders, "I do love you, Rumi, not because of what I promised your mother, but because I know you. Everything I've done I've done because I love you. You are my daughter in every way that matters."
Rumi's breath stuttered, and then she was pressing her cheek to Celine's shoulder as she wrapped her arms around her and hugged her so tightly it made her ribs ache.
"I'm sorry I let you think you weren't. I'm sorry you didn't know. I should've-… I should've told you more," Celine said. A memory floated to the surface, and she gave voice to it. "I've made a lot of mistakes, but you were never one of them, do you understand?"
Rumi gave a shuddering sob, and Celine was ashamed to realise she couldn't remember the last time she held her like this. It must have been when she was a child, back before she became a hunter, before she could delegate showing Rumi she was loved to Mira and Zoey, who had always known how to do it better than Celine had.
She pried Rumi from her shoulder gently so she could look at her face, lifted a hand to wipe away her tears, and hesitated.
She wasn't sure she was made to house this kind of love, the kind So-jin had for Rumi, the kind Mi-yeong would've had, but it had settled inside her anyway, and she welcomed it. She'd spent 24 years shaping herself around her grief, but her love had been there just as long, and it was time she knocked down some walls and gave it room to breathe.
She pressed the pad of her thumb to the pattern running along Rumi's cheekbone as she wiped a tear away.
It didn't burn her hand, it didn't make Rumi wince, it didn't make the honmoon recoil—it felt exactly the same as the skin around it, warm and soft and alive.
Celine exhaled shakily.
"I'm sorry, Rumi," she said again, "If I'd known there was another option, I would've taken it."
Rumi closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, just a fraction, just for a moment, before she pulled away.
"I want to forgive you," Rumi croaked, "I just-… I don't-… I don't think I do right now."
It hurt, but the truth often did.
"I understand," Celine said as evenly as she could, "Mira and Zoey… they take good care of you. I trust them to keep taking care of you."
Rumi blinked, then gave a watery smile. "I love them a lot. I-… if I'm gonna-… if you're gonna stay in my life, you need to know that-…" she trailed off, looking away.
Celine furrowed her brow. "You…?"
Heat crawled up Rumi's neck. Her patterns pulsed a soft pink, not the bright glow of before, but something softer, something closer to a sunrise. "It's not like… it's a new thing. Kinda. We're still figuring out how-… is that-… are you okay with that? Me being with both of them?"
Celine surprised them both by exhaling a soft laugh. "Yes, I already guessed that much. I meant… I didn't expect you to still want me in your life."
Rumi toyed with her fingers—another awkward, nervous gesture—before she spoke. "I mean… yeah? I can't try and forgive you if you're not around, right?"
Celine swallowed hard, then nodded. "Okay."
The silence stretched awkwardly between them. It wasn't something Celine had experience with, and she found herself wholly unsure of what she was supposed to do next. Maybe that should've frustrated her, but this was something she had to let Rumi lead on, so she supposed it was right for her to feel that way.
Rumi blinked suddenly. "Sorry, what-… what do you mean you already guessed?"
Celine gave a wry smile. "You aren't as subtle as you think you are."
Rumi's offended scoff landed firmly in Celine's heart and carved out a space for itself amidst the emotions she'd long since perfected burying. It was a space that she intended to nurture, to allow it to grow into the shape of Rumi's joy, the joy she'd brushed aside in the face of duty. Maybe she wasn't built to hold it, maybe she wasn't made to be a mother, but she'd become one anyway, and now her daughter was building a bridge on her side of the chasm Celine had let grow between them.
She owed it to both of them to meet her half way.
