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Gwi-Ma's displeasure lashes through him, again and again. Until he is nearly at the coming apart stage of existence, until he is barely lashing himself together. He'll heal, but right now his hands don't work and his legs don't want to hold him.
Now his throat burns around every inhale, and his lungs hurt when they're full and struggle to fill when they're empty. He's both too hot and too cold at the same time, and Derpy is the only thing keeping him moving.
Later, he won't be able to explain it. Later, he might blame Derpy.
He's not conscious of where he's going, and he doesn't want to think too hard on what subconscious desire would take him to the hunters.
Functionally, it doesn't matter. He wakes up with his hands wrapped in a truly unsustainable amount of bandages, his head aching and his vision still spotty.
The hunter Baby likes is sitting on her chair backwards. Nervously fidgeting with one of her knives.
Jinu licks his lips and tastes blood and salt. "Hi."
"We didn't do this." She points at his hands, and motions to the rest of him.
"Sorry?" His voice is raspy and hurts - screaming always does that. And with Gwi-Ma- it's better to let him have the noise, making him work to get a noise out of him just ends with more pain.
When he moves, he can feel blisters breaking and he winces, thinking that he's probably ruining furniture.
She - Zoey. Her name is Zoey. - stands up. Clearly agitated. "You're hurt. Really hurt. You were bleeding everywhere - and you." She turns her back to him, one hand rising to her cheek and rubbing it roughly.
"Sorry." He whispers, all he can manage. "Demons...heal fast."
"Who did this?" She demands, turning to stare at him. "And why?"
He shifts, trying to see if he can get up. The shirt of his idol clothes cling to his burnt skin, and break as he does. The backs of his legs where the tendons were severed to make him crawl haven't healed yet.
The couch behind him rumbles softly in concern, and a wave of relief that he isn't damaging something expensive overtakes him. "I don't know why I came here."
Rumi. He came here for Rumi.
"I didn't ask why you came here. I asked why someone hurt you like this!" Zoey tells him, and then when he keeps trying to get up drops her weapon back into the Honmoon and brings him water in a plastic bottle that claims to be from a natural spring but tastes faintly of chemicals.
It's amazingly cold on his throat, and he obediently drinks for as long as she holds it in place. He's still thirsty when she stops, but he is at her mercy.
She crouches down to study him, something odd crossing her face as his eyes follow the bottle. "You can have it. I just didn't want to drown you." She starts to push it into his hands, and then seems to remember the damage and lifts it to his lips again.
Hunter mercy is strange, but he hasn't the energy to comment on it.
"Who did this?" She asks, when he has drank the water.
"Gwi-Ma." He says, soft, because he doesn't see the point in telling her something different.
"But you're his servant." She looks baffled. "Why would he?"
He wonders what this modern "servant" is. That a master cannot punish at their whim. "Gwi-Ma owns me. And he isn't satisfied with my progress. So." He holds out his hands, padded heavily with bandages.
"He tortures you?" She looks so deeply horrified that he wonders what the hunters tell their young - actually, no. He knows from Rumi that their understanding is at best vague.
Jinu nods, letting his head rest against Derpy's shoulder. "If he wants. He can control the speed of our healing as well." His voice still sounds raw, but it feels a little stronger.
Zoey looks like she's feeling too many things at once, though her tells aren't as obvious as Rumi's. She plucks at the Honmoon like a Bipa, sending ripples of light and color he tracks lazily.
It's beautiful.
"Is it keys?" He wonders.
Zoey startles. "What?"
"It's a different color." He tries to explain, and then realizes that to explain would reveal that he has been meeting Rumi, and quiets nervously. He is already going to betray her. He owes her that much.
"Sort of." She answers, not seeming to notice the awkward pause. "Mostly it's emotional." She sings a scale, and the colors shift, but don't change. "When we harmonize, it turns white." She shifts her hands until she is holding the honmoon strings like a harp. "I didn't know demons could see it. What does it look like underneath."
"Where it's solid- like a wall. Stone, maybe. Angry stone." Jinu says softly. " on this side. Lighter. Like an instrument I could pick up and play."
Zoey nods. "Do you play?"
"The bipa, mostly. I have one." He says softly, and his fingers twitch reflexively - the stiffed noise of pain that escapes him makes Zoey's eyes darken with concern.
"I couldn't give you anything for the pain while you were asleep. Does Tylenol work on demons?"
"I don't know what that is." He admits.
Zoey's face takes a journey he can't quite follow, and she pulls her phone out to start typing. "We're going to have to move you." She decides.
Jinu, who had slipped into a light dose against Derpy's side - waiting for Gwi-Ma to decide this game is over can be a lengthy process, and sleep is the only true escape. "Why?"
"Because I can't have Mira and Rumi finding out you're here." She says, hands on her hips. "They wouldn't understand."
Rumi might understand. Rumi would, he thinks. But he can't reveal that. Can't tell her that her friend is his friend too.
Is she his friend?
He's going to betray her.
"Why are you helping me?" He asks, instead of arguing.
Her face softens, eyes tracing over him. "You got hurt because of us."
A laugh rattles through his chest. "What?"
"You said - that Gwi-Ma was upset by your progress." She leans down, easing him onto Derpy's back. "That means you're doing an ok job at being an Idol."
"We won." He points out, lips twitching.
She grins at him. "An okay job at being an idol, but a bad job at doing what Gwi-Ma wants, right? Being a demon. So he tortured you."
It's a terrible leap of logic, but the thing is she isn't wrong. "What if it's just a long con?"
"I think he'd let you heal if it was, right?"
Every movement pulls something loose from the skin on his back, and he swallows back the whimpers until she and Derpy ease his useless body onto a bed of towels in the bathroom.
"I'll ruin them." He pants out.
"They're towels, Jinu. Forget about it." Zoey scolds gently. "We should get the hoodie off while you're up. Are you burned under it too?"
He doesn't want to take the hoodie off, but he doesn't know how to argue with her. "Less…bad?"
Derpy lifts his paw and very delicately nudges his leg.
His vision goes white, and when when he can hear again - or at least process words - Zoey is talking to Derpy like he absolutely can give her feedback on what ails him. And his pant leg has been rolled up, revealing more of him than he's prepared for - claw marks clear where the tendon was severed.
"You need to tell me these things." Zoey says, when she realizes his eyes are focusing. "I'm going to go raid the merch stash. We need shorts. And probably a bigger hoodie. I think I'm going to have to cut that off of you to take care of your wounds."
~*~
To give credit where it's due - and Jinu tries - Zoey is decent at first aid. It still hurts, every bit of it hurts. But she is as gentle as he thinks anyone could be, and she even spreads something over the burns that leaves him pleasantly numb and disconnected from his body. They settle on cutting his pants rather than taking them off, and he mourns the death of the single pair of jeans he owns as she cuts off the leg under the knee. He manages to wiggle out of the jacket and the hoodie under it - but his t-shirt is a lost cause.
She wets the bandages swathing his hands carefully to get them off his burns, and it's agony. But she gives him something that makes the agony feel very far away for a long while.
She's gone when he wakes up, but Derpy is a warm weight against his side, and he finds his way back to a surprisingly dreamless sleep.
"alright,should have fed you before I gave you that." Zoey tells him cheerily, settling on the floor next to him. "Maybe I can just keep you here until after the Idol Awards, wam, jam, Golden Honmoon."
Jinu cracks an eye open. "I think I'm healing, or I've opened up all the blisters on my back." He tells her, voice rough.
"Jinu." She looks briefly distressed, shaking her head. "We've got to work on your delivery." She pops open the container. "I hope you like Kimchi rice, I didn't want the others to notice."
it's an enormous container of food, and some part of his brain denies that it's for him. Even though since they've been top side - getting food has been so easy. Ro nearly made himself sick on noodles one night.
"Anything is fine." He tells her, and tries to make up his mind to grab the chopsticks even though he knows he'll be clumsy and it will hurt.
Zoey doesn't let him, and lifts the first bite to his mouth. "What do demons eat, anyway?" She asks.
He chews the first mouthful,, savoring it. It's warm and familiar, the bite of the fermented vegetables and the spice - it tastes like home. The rice isn't sandy at all. He swallows it, chasing the taste of it around his mouth. "Gwi-Ma is the only one that consumes souls." He says finally. "We can eat normal food, but nothing grows in the demon realm and so getting it isn't easy."
"So what do you do then?" She asks, offering another bite.
He takes it, chews the fluffy rice and the spicy vegetables, lingering over the flavors. "Mostly we don't." He tells her.
"Don't- eat?" She looks horrified. "You starve?"
"We can't really die of starvation." He explains.
"But you still feel hungry, right?" She demands, worried.
Jinu nods. "Yeah."
"Jinu!" She sets the bowl down for a second, covering her face with her hands and taking a hard breath through her teeth. "That's awful."
He feels like he should apologize, but he can't look away from the bowl of rice on the ground between them.
Zoey picks it up and resumes feeding him. "Should we- I dunno, take some sort of precautions so you don't make yourself sick?"
"We've all been eating since we were topside. I don't think we can…ah. Suffer any illeffects?"
"That's still awful." Zoey proclaims. "Gwi-Ma is the worst."
Jinu doesn't feel like he needs to defend Gwi-Ma to a hunter who already hates him, but he feels his lips twitch up at the odd fellowship in her tone. "Yeah."
"Do all demons hate him too?" Zoey asks, never pausing in the steady scooping of rice into his mouth.
"It's complicated." He settles on, after several mouthfuls of his meal. "Most demons… resent the deals they've made and the cost for whatever thing they wanted when they made it. But there are a few that are…well. His. I suppose. He wants me."
"Wants you?" Zoey asks, puzzled.
Jinu hesitates, studying the ground. "He wants a singer, like any other king. He wants my loyalty, and while he can claim my obedience, he can't lay claim to that. I have…favor. Or…he notices me more…and there are some who…well. Don't think I appreciate it enough."
"He cut the tendons on your wrists and ankles." Zoey says, her forehead furrowed.
"And there are those that think I should thank him for paying me such personal attention." He says, bitterness leaking into his voice.
"You're not a thing to be owned, you're a person." Zoey pauses, gaze going far away for a moment, as though she processes what she's said. "You're not a thing." She says, and the Honmoon ripples around them, visible. "You're a person."
Jinu studies her, trying to decide what conclusion she's arrived at, and how it will impact him.
"Zoey?" Rumi's voice calls from the other room. "Hey, you good?"
Zoey 'eeps' and shoves the bowl on his lap, jumping to her feet. "Fine! I'm fine!" She practically runs out of the bathroom. "Hi! Rumi! What's up?" A loud, fake laugh and she tries to nudge the bathroom door closed behind her.
"The Honmoon was…."
And then Sussie dives through the door like an arrow of mischief.
"No! Bad bird! Bad!" Zoey scolds as Rumi appears briefly in the doorway, her eyes locking with his and going wide.
Zoey slams the bathroom door hard enough that the mirror shakes. "You didn't see anything!"
"Zoey-"
He can hear the sound of a scuffle on the other side of the door, while Sussie does a single circuit around the bathroom and lands on his lap, picking at the rice with a smug look on their face.
"That wasn't nice." He tells the bird, only to be completely ignored.
The door opens almost sheepishly, and Rumi and Zoey slink in and close it behind them.
"Jinu…" Rumi looks worried.
"Gwi-Ma did it to him." Zoey explains. "Nice bird?"
"Sort of a menace." Jinu says, not looking away from Rumi while Zoey negotiates possession of the bowl.
"How did you end up with two animal sidekicks. They're not demons."
"No, spirit animals. And - it's a long story." He answers, sucking in a nervous breath.
Rumi dropped down, lifting his hand into hers and cupping it carefully. "This hurt?"
He shakes his head, watching as she examines the bandaging, waiting with the rest of the universe as everything seems to hold its breath.
Her patterns bloom across her skin and Zoey drops the plastic bowl on the floor, splattering Kimchi rice everywhere.
"Rumi…." There's something hushed and almost reverent in her tone.
"I'm sorry." Rumi says quietly. "I should have told you, and Mira. I wanted to tell you both….I just….din't know how?" Rumi's fingers brush against the tips of his, and the Honmoon hums low and peaceful beneath them.
"Oh Rumi." Zoey throws herself at Rumi, arms going around her tight. "I'm so sorry."
Rumi freezes, giving him the startled deer look that says she has no idea what to do with that. Jinu shrugs, because he hasn't known what to do next for at least a day.
Rumi hugs her back, and his mind is very very quiet.