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Huntr/x penthouse has never been quieter before. After sealing the honmoon, the girls took a very needed time to recharge. There were no rehearsals scheduled, no cameras trailing their movements, no emergency calls from the company and no demons to hunt for a while. For the first time in years, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey were on an enforced hiatus.
Amidst all of this calmness, Rumi was silently mourning. Jinu was gone. She did not say his name out loud after that. And every time she thought about his fate, the air in her chest collapsed inward like a cave folding on itself.
In the beginning, she slept too much. Then, suddenly, not at all. Some mornings she woke convinced she had dreamed the entire battle against Gwi-Ma, Jinu's sacrifice, the way he just disappeared in front of her... Other mornings she woke already crying, with the memory present more like a feeling before consciousness fully returned.
During all this time, her friends learned how to deal with the stranger stillness of their days. As funny as it is, they really wanted this, but now that the time came, they got to get creative to pass their days.Mira and Zoey noticed the change in Rumi's behavior and checked on her whenever they could. But she always said everything was fine. Despite being close by, they gave her space, after all, they also had moments that shook the group. The wound was healing.
Weeks passed and something in Rumi’s body began to feel… wrong. At first, she thought it was just grief. Grief could twist the stomach, erase hunger, make the world tilt and spin without warning, right? But was it possible that this unwanted feeling could also make you dizzy when you stood up too fast, make you forget what day it was, make smells feel too sharp?
When nausea crept in quietly during the mornings, she dismissed it. Then when food tasted strange and fatigue grew heavier instead of lighter, she blamed exhaustion and told herself healing wasn’t linear. But one morning, standing in front of the bathroom mirror with pale skin and dark circles beneath her eyes, she realized her cycle was late. She stood there for a long time, fingers gripping the sink.
“No…” The hunter whispered. The word didn’t come out as denial, but as pure fear. Rumi had faced demons without flinching, had stared down death itself with steady eyes, but this possibility made her legs tremble.
She didn’t tell Mira or Zoey immediately because she needed to know first for sure. She sat on the edge of the bathtub while waiting, staring at the tiles, counting the cracks between them with the test on her hand.
When the result appeared, clear and unmistakable, her breath left her lungs in a rush.
Positive.
Rumi laughed once as if her body had mistaken the moment for something absurd, then her hands began to shake. Jinu was gone and she was carrying his child.
The bathroom felt too small and she slid down to sit on the floor, back against the tub, test still clutched in her hand. She cried then with the raw sound of someone that was losing and finding something at the same time. The duality of feelings making her heart ache.
Over the next two days, she moved through the apartment like a ghost. Or at least, she tried too, because Mira noticed it.
“You’re not eating.” She said bluntly one afternoon, while pushing a bowl of soup toward her across the table. Rumi stared at it, then looked away.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve said that a lot lately. And when you do that, it is usually the total opposite.” Zoey pointed while she watched her carefully.
Rumi swallowed. Her friends could read her like an open book sometimes. She had faced battlefields with these two at her side and lying to them now felt unbearable.
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That night, while her friends were listening to songs, lying lazily on the puffs in the penthouse’s small studio, Rumi stood outside the door for a full minute before knocking. Zoey opened it, surprise flickering across her face.
“Can we… talk?” The leader asked quietly.
They moved to the living room. Mira sat with her arms crossed. Zoey perched at the edge of the couch, already alert. Rumi didn’t sit right away. She stood in front of them, fingers laced tightly together, eyes fixed on the floor.
“I found out something.” She said while her voice wavered.
Mira’s expression sharpened. “What’s wrong, Rumi?”
The purple haired woman took a breath that felt like stepping off a cliff.
“I’m pregnant.”
The room fell silent. Zoey’s eyes widened, breath catching. Mira stared at her as if trying to process a language she didn’t know. The maknae stood up in one smooth motion and crossed the room, hands hovering uncertainly before finally resting on Rumi’s arms.
“Oh, unnie…” She whispered. Surprised and not sure how to feel about the news.
Mira blinked once. Then twice.
“It is Jinu’s?” She asked softly.
Rumi froze and hesitated at first. How did Mira knew that? But then nodded.
“JINU?!” Zoey's expression turned to complete shock, as if some gear had stopped working in her head at that moment. “H-how, I mean, when did that happen?” Then, she turned to Mira. “And how did YOU know that?”
"It was a hunch." Mira shrugged, gazing at the floor. "The way Jinu sacrificed himself for her, the way she's been acting since he's been gone…” There was nothing more to be said or done. Resentment had no place there, and all she felt at that moment was sorrow for what her friend was going through.
The wordless understanding that followed was heavy and gentle at the same time. Zoey pulled Rumi into a hug without hesitation. Rumi stiffened for half a second before breaking, shoulders collapsing inward as she clung to her friend.
“I don’t know what to do…” Rumi choked. “I don’t even know how to feel. And I’m terrified, and I’m sad, and I’m-” Her tears came intensely, like a cry from her soul begging for help.
Mira joined them, wrapping her arms around both of them with fierce protectiveness.
“You don’t have to know right now, okay? We are here with you. Just breathe.” The hunter said firmly
They sat on the floor like that for a long time. Rumi told them everything. How she missed Jinu, how hurt she felt when he was gone. Then the way she had dismissed the symptoms the past days. How the test felt like a sentence and a miracle at once and how part of her felt guilty for even considering joy at that moment. The girls just held and listened to her, while they shed tears together. She was no longer a leader at that moment, no demon hunter, no superstar. Just their friend, heartbroken, grieving and carrying a child of her gone lover.
As time passed by, grief didn’t disappear, but it changed shape. Rumi stopped feeling like she was only moving forward for herself. And even though living in a world that had just lost Jinu still hurt, it no longer felt empty. That never was, actually. Her friends were there for her, and soon, also a new life carrying her lost love’s legacy.