Chapter Text
The third bedroom sat empty.
When, a few weeks before their debut, Celine said they should pick an apartment in the city, Mira and Zoey had been all for it. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the compound. It was great. But living there while training to be demon hunting idols and living there while actively being demon hunting idols were two very different things. Living in Seoul was basically a necessity at that point.
Mira and Zoey had found the perfect place for them. Top floor penthouse, large windows that gave an amazing view, and the best couch either of them had ever been on. They hadn’t expected Celine to just buy the whole building, but they weren’t complaining. They had expected the penthouse to be set up with three bedrooms, but again they weren’t complaining. They’d need it when they found the third hunter.
Normally HUNTR/X wouldn’t have even debuted without her, but after years without a proper group strengthening the Honmoon, it had started to weaken and fray. With nothing to show for years of fruitless searching, Mira and Zoey had to call in the towel and launch as a duo. Introducing a new member later would be simple enough, even if they’d absolutely have to give Bobby a bonus. Maintaining the Honmoon just couldn’t wait anymore.
Besides, it wasn’t meant to last long. Mira and Zoey would start up, they’d find their third member soon enough, HUNTR/X would be complete, and then they could create the Golden Honmoon together. When put like that, the third bedroom had been basic common sense. It wasn’t even empty. Not really. It was just waiting. Waiting for its occupant.
Now, almost a year after HUNTR/X debuted, the bedroom just felt empty and imposing. A reminder that they were no closer to finding the third hunter. A cruel joke laughing at them and saying they never would.
Mira did her best to put it out of her mind, but it got hard to do when she had to pass that closed door to get to and from her own bedroom. Though the other girl never said it, she knew Zoey felt the same way.
Mira sat on the couch, her legs folded up and a notebook on her lap. Occasionally she’d scrawl something across the page, but she almost always crossed it out immediately afterward.
She really shouldn’t have been awake. She knew that. It was almost three in the morning. By all rights, she should have been exhausted and sleeping. Rehearsals for their upcoming anniversary concert had drained her of all energy. Even though it was still a month away, it was taking up most of their time already.
And yet Mira couldn’t bring herself to even close her eyes. Somehow, energy was buzzing under her skin. And she knew for a fact she wasn’t the only one.
A pair of arms snaked around her shoulders. “Miiiiraaaaa,” Zoey whined against her. “I’m booored.”
Mira barely glanced up from her notebook. She just sketched out a new move. That she then crossed out immediately after. “Maybe you should do something, then.”
“That’s what I want to do.”
“Great.”
Zoey didn’t pull away from Mira. She just shifted to rest her chin on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Choreography.”
Zoey nodded slightly. “How’s it going?”
Mira glanced at the page. It was covered in crossed out scribbles. None of it was even legible, let alone anywhere close to viable. She just grunted in response.
“Get that,” Zoey agreed. She sighed and slumped even more over the back of the couch. “Have you tried…” Zoey trailed off and didn’t say anything more. Not that she needed to. Mira knew very well Zoey was thinking about the other notebook lying innocently beside her. The one containing all her choreography for three people instead of two. Just like Mira knew Zoey had a similar notebook for her lyrics.
How was it that every little thing reminded them they were missing someone?
Mira abruptly stood up. Her notebook clattered to the floor in front of her. Zoey yelped when Mira suddenly pulled out of her grip, falling over the back of the couch and landing slumped on the cushions.
“We should go out,” Mira decided.
Zoey rolled over and vaulted to her feet beside Mira. “Where did you wanna go? What did you wanna do?”
Mira shrugged. “Haven’t thought that far ahead.” Still, she moved to grab her jacket and shoes.
At some point, Zoey had pulled out her phone. “There’s a new twenty-four hour boba place,” she reported. “It’s a bit of a drive, but the reviews are absolutely amazing, and at this time of night there won’t be much of a crowd.”
“Sounds great.”
The twenty-four hour boba place was easy to find. Mira hadn’t expected it to be difficult or anything like that, but she also hadn’t expected it to be as easy as looking for a sign with the words “TWENTY-FOUR HOUR BOBA PLACE” emblazoned across it. And yet that was exactly what they had to do. Turns out that’s what the place was actually called. Simple and to the point. Mira approved of it.
It also helped that the boba was really good. Definitely worth going out at three AM for. And, as promised, it had been almost empty. Mira and Zoey hadn’t had to bother with a disguise, and that was always nice. Mira loved her fans and how much they loved her was always humbling and she wouldn’t trade it for anything, but rarely being able to go out without being recognized could be a hassle at times.
It was nice enough and the streets were deserted enough for the two of them to enjoy their treat outside. Zoey especially really enjoyed hers. She drank the last of her boba and let out a squeal. “We have to come back here,” she declared, slamming the empty cup onto the table. The flimsy plastic let out as loud a thunk as it could. “Like, all the time,” she continued. “All the time. Do you hear me, Mira? All the time.”
Mira took a deliberately long sip of her own drink. She put the half-full cup down on the table. “All the time, huh?”
Zoey jumped to her feet, slamming her hands on the table. She leaned over to stare at Mira. “All. The. Time. In fact, we should just never leave.”
Mira couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at her friend’s exuberance. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” she asked with a wry smile.
“It would!”
Mira didn’t get the chance to respond to that. A clattering from an alley beside the shop caught her attention. She glanced over at it. “Did you hear something?”
Zoey didn’t respond. She was already marching over to the alley. Mira rushed to follow her. They looked around the corner, peering into the darkness.
“I don’t see anything,” Mira said. “Do you?”
“Nothing,” Zoey admitted. “No one. No… thing. You know.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
There was a beat of silence. Zoey turned to look at Mira. “We’re being paranoid, right?”
“Probably. Probably, yeah. But…”
“Yeah.”
Mira shrugged lightly. There was nothing for it. She turned and led the way back to the table. “It was probably just a cat, right?”
“I hope it’s okay,” Zoey muttered. She dropped down into her seat. She grabbed her cup, scowling when she remembered it was empty.
Mira sat down and reached for her cup. Her hand closed around nothing. “What the…” Mira looked down, only to find the tabletop empty. “Where’d my drink go?”
Zoey blinked. “Huh,” she intoned. “Maybe someone thought we were done and cleaned up?”
“They left your cup.”
“Right. Weird. Guess someone stole it?”
Mira sighed and shook her head. “Who would even… no, I don’t want to know.” She pushed against the table and stood up. “I’m getting another.”
Zoey perked up. “Mimi, if you get me one I will literally love you forever!”
“As if you don’t already,” Mira quipped. Still, when she walked back out a few minutes later, she carried a second cup that she passed into Zoey’s hand.
“Oh my goshness, you are the best!”
“I’d better be,” Mira muttered. She settled back in her chair. She had just raised her drink to her mouth when another clattering echoed from the alley. Mira glared over at it. “Nope,” she decided. “Nope, not doing that again.”
“But what if it’s important?” Zoey asked. Mira just stared at her, raising one eyebrow.
Another clatter came. Longer and louder than the last. “Not falling for it,” Mira muttered, forcing herself not to look at the alley.
“But what if someone’s hurt?” Mira glanced up at Zoey. She stared into her eyes for a moment. They were a wide, shiny brown that seemed to glisten in the low light.
Mira sighed and stood up. When she and Zoey returned to the alley, they kept their drinks in their hands. They looked into the alley, seeing nothing in the darkness. “There’s nothing there,” Mira said.
“Yeah,” Zoey agreed.
Except… that wasn’t strictly true. For a moment, just a very brief moment, two tiny glowing yellow pinpricks seemed to just appear in one of the shadows. Before either girl could get a proper look, a rock was flung out of the shadow.
It knocked against Mira’s forehead and ricocheted to the side, hitting Zoey’s head next. Both girls recoiled, closing their eyes and stumbling back. Mira dropped her drink. She reached up and rubbed her head. She opened her eyes to see Zoey in almost the same position. One hand devoid of her drink and the other rubbing where the rock had hit.
“I don’t know what that was,” Mira said, pitching her voice so it could be heard throughout the alley. “But it was not funny!”
There was no response.
Zoey sighed and looked down. “I didn’t even get to… finish… huh?”
“Huh what?” Mira grumbled. She looked down, but didn’t see anything. Wait… she didn’t see anything. Where there should have been a mess from their spilled drinks, there was nothing. Thinking on it, Mira wasn’t even sure she’d heard them hit the ground. “Huh.”
“Something weird is going on.” Zoey’s hand twitched, but she didn’t summon her shin-kal. Yet.
Mira glanced back to where she’d seen the yellow pinpricks. The yellow eyes, she was sure. She grabbed Zoey’s arm. “Come on,” she hissed. Mira led Zoey out of and away from the alley, all the while staring at the same shadow. She saw nothing there.
Once they rounded the corner, Mira and Zoey exchanged looks. They nodded and split up. Mira went around to the other side of the building and scaled the wall. She crouched on the roof, staying hidden while still surveying the tables below.
Zoey exited the store carrying two more drinks. She made a show of looking around the empty table in confusion. Eventually she put the drinks down and wandered away. A few seconds later, she was crouching beside Mira. Neither spoke, just watched the table and alley in a tense silence.
Soon after, their efforts were rewarded.
With a puff of magenta smoke, something appeared right beside the table. It had long matted hair and baggy clothes, but neither was enough to obscure the rest of its features. Its eyes were a bright, glowing yellow. When it bent over the table, a tail swished around behind it. And a myriad of glowing patterns crossed over their skin.
A demon.
The demon grabbed the abandoned boba cups in its clawed hands. It disappeared in another puff of magenta smoke.
Mira and Zoey exchanged looks. Then they scrambled across the roof so they could peer down into the alley. It was still hard to see, and for a moment it seemed the alley was empty. Then something shifted in the darkness.
The demon stood up, still clutching the stolen drinks. It looked around, side to side. Mira and Zoey only just had time to duck down before the demon looked up. They gave it a few seconds just to be sure, then peeked over the edge of the roof again. The demon was walking down the other side of the alley.
“We have to stop it,” Mira said. She silently shuffled along the roof, her gok-do held in her hands. She didn’t remember actually summoning it, but that was beside the point.
“Here?” Zoey’s eyes flitted around the building. Below, the demon stepped out onto one of the side streets. The streetlamps were all out and the street was empty, but they could still see it flitting about. “Now?”
“We can’t delay! Who knows what it could do?”
“I know, I know. But anyone could see us.”
Mira inclined her head, acknowledging the point. “The demon’s going somewhere,” she whispered. “So we’ll follow it. Wait until we’re in a more isolated area. But if it looks like it’s going to teleport or attack someone…”
“Caution to the wind,” Zoey finished. “We can make that work.”
Mira and Zoey both nodded in agreement. They stayed on the rooftops, following the demon. It made its way through the alleys and backstreets. It never dipped into any proper lighting, instead sliding from shadow to shadow, following a trail of broken streetlamps.
Mira tried not to think of the implications of the obvious familiarity the demon showed with the area.
Eventually, they and the demon arrived at their destination. An old building with boarded up windows. It was tucked in between several equally shabby buildings, and yet somehow just looking at it something seemed different. Like it was lonelier and more abandoned. It gave Mira chills. Beside her, Zoey actually shivered slightly.
The demon crawled through a broken window on the first floor. Mira and Zoey quickly made their way through a window on the second. They slowed down their movements to keep the demon from hearing their approach. They set about looking for the stairs. Either to go down to the demon, or to wait and ambush it later. In the end, neither option mattered. In the next room over, they found a big hole in the floor. One large enough that they could just jump down. And definitely one they could look through.
The two of them crouched down to peer through the hole. The demon walked into the room below. It disappeared from view. They shifted to look at it again. The demon had sat down against the back wall.
They could see it a bit better now. Its hair and tail were both a deep purple color. Though with how dirty it was, they couldn’t tell much beyond that. It had its legs pulled up in front of it, one arm slung over its knees and its tail tucked on its lap. It lifted up the boba with one clawed hand, gently taking the straw into its mouth.
Mira and Zoey looked at each other and nodded, getting ready to jump down. A creak below had them freezing. They watched in growing horror as someone stepped into the room. They were very clearly human. No claws or a tail or patterns of any kind. And, beyond that, they were small.
A child.
In a room with a demon.
A child in a room with a demon.
Mira and Zoey shifted and got ready to jump down. There was no way they’d be sticking to subtlety when a child was in danger. When anyone was in danger, really. Sure enough, the child opened his mouth to scream. Not that he could be blamed. The sight of a demon would scare anyone.
“Hey, Rumi,” the kid said easily. “Back already?”
The thought that the kid would actually talk to the demon was so baffling that Mira and Zoey faltered. Zoey looked at Mira and mouthed ‘Rumi’ in very clear confusion. Was that a name? Mira shrugged. Demons could have names, she supposed.
Of course, when Rumi shifted and opened its mouth to respond, they again tensed to jump down. But what happened next was so shocking that the girls couldn’t help but freeze in shock. The demon spoke.
“It was a pretty busy night,” Rumi responded. It held up one of their boba cups for emphasis. There was no way the kid could miss its claws. Could miss anything about it. And yet… he just nodded in some kind of sage agreement.
“I had a pretty busy night too,” he said, his voice even and casual. Too casual. Like he was forcing himself to stay calm. Like he was terrified.
Of course he would be. Why wouldn’t he? Mira could have kicked herself for the thought. Or, rather, she could have kicked the demon.
“We all have,” the kid continued. “So, you know. We’re all here. You know. In case you wanted to know. For whatever reason.”
“And if I didn’t?” Rumi asked in what was almost approaching a playful tone. Or at least as playful as a demon could get. The kid’s eyes widened and he blustered out a response, though what he actually said was anyone’s guess. It was more of a squeak than anything resembling words.
Rumi shifted and poked a claw through the bottom of her nearly empty boba cup, letting the rest cascade into its open mouth. The demon tossed the empty cup away and stood up, letting its tail unfurl and hang beside it.
The kid perked up and leaned back toward the door. “Come on!”
Immediately the door swung open. A cascade of kids poured into the room. Boys and girls of all ages rushed in and settled around the room. They were all thin and had the same shabby look as the first kid and even Rumi had. And none of them seemed scared by the obvious demon in front of them. They didn’t even look surprised. Like they were used to it.
Just how long had this demon been here? It… it couldn’t have been that long, right? Sure, Mira and Zoey couldn’t exactly strengthen the Honmoon on their own, but they could mostly maintain it. Had it really gotten so weak?
Mira shook her head. No. Bad Mira. She couldn’t just sit around anymore. All those kids… she couldn’t let a massacre happen. And that’s exactly what it would be, she knew. The floor creaked as she and Zoey both pushed themselves up.
They couldn’t freeze this time, no matter how confusing or baffling things got. They had to act. They couldn’t let anything stop them.
The Honmoon quivered and thrummed around Mira and Zoey. Quite possibly the only thing that could have broken through their determination, and it did so immediately. It didn’t make sense. Why would it react now? Mira hadn’t done anything to it, and she knew Zoey hadn’t either.
Down below, Rumi shifted to look around the kids. It opened its mouth. It took a deep breath. And it began to sing.
“How did we get here, all alone in the night?
“Us against the world, not a safehouse in sight?”
The effect was instantaneous. Mira’s entire body relaxed, and warmth wrapped around her like a cocoon. She was nice and cozy and comfortable, despite being awkwardly crouched in a random building in the middle of the night and ready to attack. Despite the demon below.
Because of the demon below.
Rumi’s voice was beautiful.
It was soft and gentle and it had a faint roughness to it. Yet that roughness didn’t detract from it. If anything, that edge only made it all the better. More comforting, more soothing, more… otherworldly. Which, considering it was coming from a demon…
Mira’s eyes snapped open. She hadn’t even realized she’d closed them. She forced herself to look down at the demon again. Her hand twitched to re-summon her gok-do (when had she gotten rid of it? When… when Rumi started to sing? Why?). It didn’t come naturally. She had to all but force the Honmoon to comply.
“A double-edged sword, practicing what you preach.
“A foolish battle when you’re empty of speech."
Mira looked at Zoey. The other hunter was kneeling beside the hole, her eyes closed and body swaying slightly with the music. Mira shook her head and shuffled over to press her hand on Zoey’s shoulder.
Zoey jolted and let out a gasp. She looked at Mira, her eyes so wide that Mira honestly expected them to pop out of her head. Her mouth worked open and closed, but didn’t form any sounds. It didn’t need to. Mira knew what the question was. It was the same one Rumi herself was asking.
“Can you hear me?”
And the answer was yes. Yes, she could hear her voice, hear the power within it, could hear and feel the Honmoon. Feel the way it thrummed and buzzed pleasantly with Rumi’s voice. As if it were happy. And content. Because it was.
The two of them looked down again. They could energy building up and flowing out from the kids below. It flowed up out of them and spun around the room. Each strand joined together, weaving and intertwining their way around the room and beyond.
“Standing at the edge of midnight in this perpetual rain.
“Drowning out the voices saying ‘things are better this way.’”
Mira and Zoey had been protecting and maintaining the Honmoon for almost a year. They’d performed in stadiums of thousands of people, each of them uniting to protect the Honmoon.
Down below, Rumi was performing for a small crowd of kids. Singing a song to comfort and distract them. And yet in that tiny room in the middle of the night, the Honmoon felt stronger than it ever had before.
There was no denying it. Even if they wanted to, which Mira knew she certainly didn’t. Zoey nodded her own agreement to the unasked question. She didn’t want to deny it either. The Honmoon sang the truth below them.
The demon below them… Rumi… she was the third hunter.
“Bracing for the dawn of disaster.
“But we’ll keep dancing through the flames tonight.”