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Jinu’s patterns never glow, and for that he’s thankful.
Thankful that he’s not a slobbering mess before Gwi-Ma, bowing and begging to let his soulmate go. Because he doesn’t have a soul—none of them have one, all sacrificed to that bastard, all the reason his flame hasn’t flickered out—and therefore can’t have a soulmate. Can’t have a partner.
Jinu can’t be manipulated like the rest because he realizes what all they’ve lost.
He doesn’t buy into Gwi-Ma’s romantic notion of if your marks glow with the slightest touch of another, they’re your soulmate. Because it’s all smoke and mirrors. An illusion to keep them in line. Those that still want to be human, that still have hope—it’s another way Gwi-Ma controls them. Maybe they don’t care about themselves, but what’s left of who they were doesn’t want to see this supposed soulmate in pain.
And for that, they will tear themselves apart over and over. Carve out their insides just to spare someone else—even if all that tethers them is Gwi-Ma’s tricks.
So, no, Jinu’s patterns don’t glow. It would be a waste of Gwi-Ma’s time and energy to find someone he’s supposed to care about. He has more effective ways to torture him—true and real ways—rather than some fairytale.
Besides, no one above or below would accept such a sorry specimen for their soulmate.
The leader of the hunters—Rumi, the most talented one, the one his eyes followed the most during his research—has him pinned against the bathhouse seat and wall, sword to his throat. Jinu may have underestimated her; in his defense, her going wide eyed and slack jawed at his appearance didn’t exactly instill the idea she’s this strong. A mistake, now that her blade creeps closer and closer to his throat. He’ll have to find an opening to teleport away, without tumbling through space with her—
—a flash of magenta, bright and blinding distracts him.
On her arm: patterns, glowing
On his hand: patterns, glowing.
She realizes the moment he realizes, and shoots back, fear in her eyes.
Aha! There we go! Jinu has her right where he wants her—
—the wall of the bathhouse crumbles, her fellow hunters cry out Rumi! Rumi! over and over, panic lacing their voices, and she stands still. Frozen in time. Hand trying to cover the hole in her clothes.
It’d be so easy to destroy them right now. It’d be so, so easy. Centuries of hunters ruined in a single instant.
Jinu pulls her to his chest, spins her around, and ties a spare handkerchief around her arm.
Hues of purple and pink shimmer under their skin the entire time.
Gwi-Ma doesn’t mention it. He says he has no control over her, but Jinu isn’t one to believe his honeyed words. This is all just a test—a test of his resolve, his loyalty. A last-minute problem with his plan, a way to make him waver. That way, Gwi-Ma can back out of their deal, reap all the benefits, and Jinu will have to think for another four centuries how he destroyed the world just to make himself feel better.
Why else would Gwi-Ma light up Jinu’s marks for a hunter?
So, no, Gwi-Ma doesn’t mention it, and neither does Jinu. There’s no point.
His faithful companion purrs beside him, snuggles closer. The magpie dozes off elsewhere, soft chirps in lieu of snores.
He scratches the tiger’s—Derpy, for lack of a better name—head. “I have a favor to ask you…” Jinu says, sealing his note.
Derpy perks up, pupils blown and tail swishing. He deserves a better owner, honestly. But it's been centuries and he has yet to leave Jinu’s side, even when Jinu tried and tried to push him away, to save him from a sinking ship. So Jinu just… does what he can. Tries to give him what love is left in his hollow shell.
It’s not much, but Derpy doesn’t seem to care.
Jinu points to a billboard with Huntrix’s faces plastered on it. “See the one with the braid?” Derpy nods. “I need you to deliver this message to her.” He places the note in his mouth, turns to the giant tower looming in the distance. “She lives there.”
Derpy phases through the honmoon, disappears with a few ripples. Sussie rumbles to life—must have sensed the disturbance. Still: “Go make sure he gets the right one,” Jinu says. His little plan won’t gain any traction if the tiger meets a different hunter.
Sussie squawks and flies away.
All a test, all a test.
He’ll have the upper hand soon enough, and Gwi-Ma will stop the light show.
Jinu reaches out to her, to Rumi, hand barely ghosting over her neck. Her patterns burn through her clothes; his hand lights up in turn, pulsing with every breath she takes.
She raises her sword to him, and he’s grateful for it.
The fansign event is an ambush, a chance to steal the fans, and a chance to corner Rumi after she ignored his messages. No, he’s not bitter; it’s just an excuse. A justification—to himself, to the rest of his motley crew. The hunters haven’t given them a second thought, plowing on ahead as if they barely exist.
They need to disrupt them, need to try harder.
Jinu sits near Rumi, careful about the distance. Can’t have them blind the fans.
Honestly, he doesn’t even know what’s coming out of his mouth—petty prattle, probably. She responds just in kind, and it becomes a sort of a game they play. Cat and mouse. Hunter and demon.
Someone clears their throat, and they reach for the same pen.
Patterns bloom on her hand; she gasps, the fear from the bathhouse returning tenfold.
She recoils as if his touch burned her, and it very well might have. Her hand flies down below the table, head whipping around to make sure no one saw.
Jinu watches his patterns fizzle out. Softer, more delicate than he’s ever seen them. Weird. They’re normally a lot uglier, a lot more unsightly.
Here, they’re almost pretty.
“Excuse me, Mr. Jinu,” a child—unable to see over the table, words still having a baby-like cadence—says, pulling him back to the stupid event, “I made this for you.” She stands on her tippy-toes, hands over her paper.
Oh.
Jinu takes the drawing—carefully. It’s a picture of him as an angel, telling him he has a beautiful soul.
Soul.
He doesn’t have one, not anymore. Hasn’t for four-hundred years.
Even as Rumi sits by him, her patterns matching his, he knows he’s just playing the part of a fool.
Rumi holds out her hand.
Jinu tilts his head.
She groans and grabs his hand, interlocks their fingers. Their patterns match, pink and purple just like the early morning sky.
“Why do they do that?” she asks, marvelling at the show.
Jinu shrugs. “It’s just a demon thing.”
“I’ve never had this happen before…” she looks at him with those big, doe-like eyes. Something in him trembles. “Have you?”
He takes his hand back, scratches his neck. “Well, no.”
“Then what makes us so special?”
Soulmates, Jinu almost says; he laughs at himself instead. If he says Gwi-Ma is just tricking him, tricking them, then she won’t invite him out again, won’t entertain anything else. And then Gwi-Ma will just drag him down, berate him, so—
“—maybe since I used to be human,” he says, making it sound like some educated guess. “Have you ever fought anyone like me?”
Rumi frowns, perfect plush lips twisting. “Well, no.”
“So you see—”
“—but you’re around demons all the time,” she says, voice like steel. Determined. No one is as bright as her. “I don’t see you react like this with the Saja Boys… and you just admitted this is the first time. So it’s just for the two of us.”
Smart. “Um—”
“—I’m right, aren’t I?” Rumi reaches out to him, hand tenderly cupping his cheek; Jinu holds in a breath he doesn’t need, patterns tracing along his face, along her hand. She leans in, studies him, and just when he thinks something might happen—not that he, like, wants anything to happen—she yanks his cheek out.
Hard.
“Ow!” he says, voice slurred. “What’s this for?”
She lets his cheek fall back into place. “Just… checking something.” She soothes where she pulled, hand rubbing over it. It just irritates his skin even more, but he’ll hold back his commentary. For now. “They keep lighting up.”
“Well, yeah—”
“—you know why, don’t you?”
Jinu covers her hand with his, removes it from his face. He smiles, doesn’t let it reach his eyes. “I’m just as lost as you.”
He doesn’t have a soul. He doesn’t have a soulmate. It’s all a trick, a trick, a trick—
—Rumi leans against him, eyes watching Seoul come to life, not caring that her patterns show now.
Jinu swears he feels her heartbeat in his chest—because it can’t be his.
“I’ll make sure the Saja Boys lose tomorrow.”
“Then we’ll both win.”
Rumi stands before him, marks covering her body, tears streaming down her face, claws and teeth bared. He feels like he’s been the one split in two, the one betrayed—an old ache in his chest bubbling to the surface, stabbing him in his nonexistent heart.
Jinu dismisses the other demons; he needs to do this alone.
Needs to break her heart.
That way, she’ll give up on him. On this. On whatever she’s seen in him, on letting him into her life.
Hell, he’ll even give her an opening, turn his back to her and offer up his head on a silver platter—
—she doesn’t take it. She yells and clings to his shirt instead. Both their bodies glow and pulse with each other and oh, Jinu just wishes he died back in Joseon.
So he’d never experience this.
So she’d have better than him.
“Are you ready to forget it all?”
It’s not like he can change his ways now, can he? Not like he can undo all the hurt, the pain, the shame.
Not like he can give her a better soulmate.
Rumi takes the full force of Gwi-Ma’s attack, more powerful, more deadly than he’s ever seen. Her body is pushed back, bowing to the flames, her screams deafened by Gwi-Ma’s roar.
The heat scorches Jinu’s face.
He understands those fools now, begging to be the one to take their partner’s place, pleading for their other half’s safety.
Whatever bits of his soul he’s managed to wrangle free is hers for the taking.
It was already hers, anyways, long ago, written in the stars.
Dying is (un)surprisingly boring.
Jinu floats in an endless darkness; the only sounds he has for comfort are Rumi. Her voice, her singing, her breathing—all of it slices through, briefly illuminates his world.
Sometimes he sees a sliver of light—pure, beautiful—and reaches for it. His hand will move, try and grasp it, and fall just short. Barely scraping, barely feeling the warmth.
Rumi will ask: “Jinu?”
And he will respond: I’m here.
But it’s not like she can hear him, right?. And that’s—that’s fine. Everything he’s put her through, all the suffering… he doesn’t deserve anything else.
He died for her, their souls became one; maybe he’s still selfish, happy that a part of him will always be with her, but ultimately?
Jinu is glad he’s the one that paid the price.
“I know you’re still here Jinu.”
And if I am?
“Since when have you hidden yourself?”
I’m full of surprises.
A ragged breath. “I’m still lonely, you know.”
The light comes closer, closer, dances around him, inviting him to join. It pokes at him, pushes against him, then retreats. Hovers away, and he comes to understand he has a choice now. The first real choice he’s had in ages.
Jinu holds it. Firmly.
Flames lick up his arm. Unlike Gwi-Ma’s, he feels no pain, no discomfort. Only Rumi—as if each tendril is an extension of her. It’s comforting. It could almost lull him to sleep.
Maybe his soul is finally being purified, finally allowed to pass on. Maybe he’ll be reborn. It’s more than enough—
—the flames cover his vision, engulf his body. Fate is knocking on the door, and Jinu accepts it. Chuckles at the whole ordeal, and closes his eyes, prepared to face the judges, prepared to face his family after all this time, prepared for whatever punishment he’s incurred.
Arms circle around his neck.
“There you are,” Rumi whispers, hiccuping at the end.
His eyes fly open; a rainbow flickers all over the room, her patterns and his glowing like mother-of-pearl. Why or how rests in his throat, but Jinu realizes: he doesn’t care.
He holds her back, complete.
Rumi straddles him. She traces a finger up his abs, stares at the way his patterns pulse from the single point of contact, at the way her finger tip glows. Jinu swallows, throat dry; she meets his eyes with a smirk. “Finally ready to tell me what it all means?”
Well—“—no.”
Even if he’s come to terms with it, even if he can admit it to himself… he doesn’t want her to know. Doesn’t want her to be burdened more by their strange connection.
She pinches his side.
Jinu jolts up. “What—”—she lets go—“—will you stop—”
—Rumi cuts him off with a kiss. And then another when he goes to complain about his sore side, and then one more for good measure, tongue darting in and out, hands squeezing his face. He melts into it, closes his eyes, lets their light show dance against his eyelids, her heartbeat thrumming under his skin.
She bites his lip and pulls back; Jinu follows, kisses the air around her instead.
Rumi has scooted to the edge of the bed, staring at him all the while. Her eyebrows have a determined crease between them. “You know what it means, Jinu.”
His brain is far too addled to form a good response. “It’s just… a demon thing.”
“That only we share?”
“...yeah?”
“Jinu.” She leans forward to take his hand, holds his knuckles to her lips. “Tell me.”
He still doesn't have enough air in his head. He mutters out, “I… Gwi-Ma.”
“Gwi-Ma?”
Yeah. That guy. “He used to… manipulate others. Make them think they mattered to each other.”
“He’s never had control over me, and he doesn’t have control over you any more.” Rumi squeezes their hands; the light grows stronger. “We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
And Jinu knows this, but centuries don’t just suddenly disappear. He still catches himself waiting to be pulled under. “He only did it to those that used to be human.”
“Did what?”
“Make them think they had a soulmate.”
Rumi gawks, mouth slightly open. Her hand drops his, and she opts to run it over his forearm. He shivers at the touch. “Patterns glow when you touch your soulmate?”
“That’s what Gwi-Ma said.”
“What do you think?”
“I thought it was just nonsense, but…”
“...but?”
“...now I just wish I could take it back. Give you someone… else.”
Rumi rolls her eyes. “You’d get way too jealous.” She pushes him back down, hands on shoulders, firm; once she’s satisfied with how compliant he’s being, she rests her head in the crook of his neck. “I have another idea, then.”
Jinu holds her tight. “What?”
“Everyone has a soulmate.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But not everyone can figure it out.”
“Why?”
He feels her smile against his neck, resting on his pulse point. “Not everyone has patterns.”
Jinu snorts. To think what tortured him—them—all these years could lead him to her—what a strange twist of fate. What a wonderful theory. “You aren’t upset that your soulmate is an old man?” he asks, wry.
“No.”
“Or a demon?”
“No.”
“Or that he betrayed you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rumi kisses him once more. “Because I only feel fully myself if you’re here.”
Whatever protests he had dies out, replaced by the need to kiss her again and again and again.
The space around them fills with color, with light.
With the proof their souls are one in the same.