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In the first few weeks after the Idol Awards, Rumi found herself feeling a strange sort of relief. After carrying an entire lifetime of shame and secrets, she felt nearly weightless, floating through her days now that she’d allowed herself to set down that burden.
Zoey and Mira were her anchors.
That first night, they sit in the main room in the dark, pile blankets and pillows together on the couch, and talk.
Talk, and laugh, and cry, there’s a lot of crying, but it’s mostly the kind that scrubs her insides and leaves her feeling drained but settled. The whole story doesn’t come out, but bits and pieces of the life she’s been holding back get shared over tears and ramyeon.
Her parents, what little she knows of them, what little Celine ever bothered to tell her.
Mira looks absolutely livid about that but doesn’t comment.
She quietly tells them about Jinu.
Mira lets out a snort when she mentions bedeading the mannequin.
Zoey cries when she tells them about their song the night before.
It had only been one night ago, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since then.
The halting apology as he burned, as he surrendered his soul to her, to fuel her sword and her counterattack to the demon king.
“He tried,” Zoey said quietly after Rumi had stopped speaking. The only other sound was the gentle whir of the air conditioner in the dark room. “He really did try.”
“Yeah,” Rumi murmurs, her throat closing as the grief settles on her once more.
It’s a strange thing, to hold so much in her chest as once, triaphump and grief, redemption and heartache. So much gained and yet lost, all at once.
Only once they’ve spoken until their voices were hoarse and the dawn was slipping into the horizon, do they finally separate.
They all need rest, Mira insists on it.
Rumi walks slowly to her bedroom and shuts the door with a soft click, then leans against it with a deep sigh. Weariness was dragging her down in a way she had not felt in years. Maybe not since the night Celine told her about her father, in halting, stiff words, trying her best to encourage her while simultaneously also telling her she was part monster.
The hypocrisy of it now stuck her in a way it had not when she was young, before she met Jinu and realized how wrong everything she’d been told was. When she was a child, it had felt like a weight, like a sin she had inherited by no choice of her own, but had to bear regardless.
Now with new eyes, the eyes Jinu had given her, she understood that it was never her burden, no matter what kind of man her demon father had or had not been.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a mistake.”
His words had been like a match struck in the dark. Small, but true in the way only small, honest things can be. He’d seen her drowning in the dark of her own shame, and instead of dragging her deeper, he’d given her a spark.
He’d given her hope and kept none for himself.
It’d been incredibly naive and arrogant of her to think a few moments of understanding and kindness could undo and free him from four hundred years of whatever being under the thrall of a demon king had done to him.
The betrayal still stung; she thought it might always hurt, but mostly because now he was gone, and there was no chance to try and mend the fragile thing between them that had been just taking shape.
That thought hurts more than just about anything else.
For a moment, she just breathes, listening to the sound of each breath filling her lungs before finally pushing off the door. She doesn’t turn the lights on; her bedside lamp remains off. The predawn light isn’t enough to brighten the room, but it’s enough to cast strange shapes in the dark.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she stares at her hands for a long moment, the smell of smoke and ash clinging to her hair and clothes.
She should shower. Wash the grime of the night away.
Try to cleanse the memory of watching a demon, who’d once been a man, who’d held her hand, who sang in a way that made the honmoon shimmer, turn to ash before her.
She didn’t move from the bed.
Just sat in the dark with the only light coming into her bedroom coming from the blurry city lights outside.
Drawing her sword from the honmoon was not a conscious thought; it was almost like a muscle memory, but somehow not of her own body. It felt almost like, for a brief second in the dark, that her body was listening to someone else’s command.
It was beautiful, the blade more than double its previous size, with swirls of floral motifs winding down it. It wasn’t bright anymore; it looked just like their honmoon weapons always did, the bright glow from the soul that had forged it gone.
Jinu’s soul.
A demon, with a soul brighter than the dawn. For that brief moment, it was the brightest and yet gentlest glow she’d ever known. It’d been warm, not the harsh heat of Gwi-ma’s fire, but gentle like early morning sunlight, glowingly bright before fading into the dark.
With reverent and gentle hands, she laid the sword on her blankets and looked down at it. It looked almost like a strange museum display, an ancient weapon lightly set on a delicate surface.
Her eyes linger on it for a long moment, her hand resting on the flat of the blade. It felt warm in the way a space feels warm after the body that pressed heat into it is long gone.
She takes a deep breath before slowly standing to remove her clothing, not caring where the pieces fall as she makes her way to her in-suite bathroom.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror in her underclothes, her eyes roam over the silver shimmering lines that now trace her entire body.
She traces a finger over the one on her upper shoulder; they’re no longer the harsh shade of a violet she’d known all her life.
Like Jinu’s.
Her throat feels tight; it’s hard to swallow, like she’s somehow swallowed glass. A part of her wishes she still matched him. So she’d have something left to connect her back to him.
But now there is only memory and ash and a handful of ridiculous note cards with his beautiful script on them.
She never told him that.
That she thought he had beautiful handwriting.
She makes it into the shower before the tears come, the white noise of water falling swallowing the soft sound of her sobs.
She’s had a lot of years to get good at crying quietly.
On her bed for a brief second, her sword flickers back to life, a faint glow that pulses like a heartbeat and then is gone.
Leaving only a dull blade in the predawn darkness.
~
She starts talking to her sword.
It’s not like she expects an answer; she knows Jinu is gone, but it helps to have somewhere to place all the thoughts in her head when they’re too heavy. The ones she’s not ready to share with the girls just yet. It helps her work through her thoughts before she brings some things to them.
Twenty-four years is a long time to keep secrets; the impulse to keep things to herself is not something that can be wholly undone in a few days or even weeks. She tells herself that talking to the sword is like having a journal or diary, except she speaks it aloud instead of writing it down, as Zoey does in hers.
They’re on break, will be for six weeks, Bobby had insisted, and Rumi didn’t have the heart to argue. He was right; they all needed it, even she could admit to that.
She was restless, though, and at night she often slipped out. Patrolling the cities’ never-sleeping streets from rooftops and alleyways just to try to settle the ache behind her ribs. The honmoon was stable, solid, not a single flicker since it had been formed.
A normal Idol Awards performance would keep the honmoon solid for several months. With all that had happened when forming the new one, it would likely be a good while longer before they had to worry about any breaches.
The predawn found her sitting on a familiar stonewall, her sword across her knees as she watched the haze of the cities’ lights below. She spoke about her days aloud to the sword, as if Jinu were sitting there beside her.
She could almost picture him, lanky from draped over the wall, feet kicking lazily in the air, that ridiculous smirk on his lips, but that incredible, gentle look she’d seen in his eyes before he’d faded away.
“You’re an absolute idiot, I hope you know that,” she stated flatly to the sword. Her own gaze looked back at her from the shimmering blade. She blinked back her tears; she really didn’t want to be crying again.
“You save me in the bathhouse, play stupid tricks on me, think a business meeting is somehow a date, and that blue tigers and three-eyed magpies make good mail carriers, harass me at my own fansigning, and–and–” the words cut off as she tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat.
“You betrayed me, and then you–you burned for me. Who does that?” She gripped the handle and lifted the sword to glare at its blade, furiously wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “An idiot does, that’s who!”
For a moment, she swore the floral designs on the blade flared, glowingly softly in the dark. Hastily wiping the last of her tears, she looked back down at the sword and saw nothing but the normal pale sheen of the blade and the distant city’s lights.
~
The months rolled past, and most days it got easier. She laughed with Mira and Zoey, and they eagerly planned their next album. Rumi felt the familiar and heady rush of the creative process as they stayed up late writing new songs. It was no surprise to any of them that this album’s theme leaned towards rebirth and healing, with their song from the final battle as the title track.
Rumi sat behind Zoey’s keyboard, a notebook open beside her on the bench. They were taking a short break. Mira and Zoey had run to get drinks and snacks. Insisting on going on foot to stretch their legs and get out after spending hours in their workroom.
Earlier in the day, Celine had reached out. Rumi had been ignoring her calls for over a month, and she’d finally shown up at the tower only to be met at the elevator by a furious Mira, Zoey right behind her.
Rumi hadn’t heard everything they’d told Celine, but they hadn’t allowed her inside and had told her she needed to wait until Rumi reached out to her if and when Rumi was ready for that conversation.
Rumi wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for that conversation.
She wasn’t sure what made her chest ache more, the lifetime of shame and lies, or that Celine hadn’t meant to hurt her but had done it all the same. Strait cruelty might have been easier to accept than the fact that Celine thought everything she was doing was for her own good.
She’d swallowed the lump in her throat, and Jinu’s soft, understanding eyes had flashed through her memory. Gods, she missed him so much. Celine’s sudden interruption had broken their creative flow, prompting Zoey and Mira to suggest the break.
Her eyes drifted from where she’d been staring without seeing at the keyboard down to the open notebook. The pages were smudged with ink.
Their song.
Not the song that she and the girls had been working on earlier, but the song she shared with Jinu. She’d written all the lyrics down months ago, but hadn’t really worked on an actual arrangement for it.
She’d not had the heart to sing it since that night.
It felt wrong somehow, without him. But she couldn’t bear the thought of letting it be forgotten.
She was free in every way possible now, except for the weight of memory.
With a deep breath, she reached for the keyboard again, and a soft melody filled the room. She let herself be pulled back to that night on the rooftops. That one tiny moment of peace, to the gentle astonishment in his eyes. Like her holding his hand was the most precious thing he’d ever been allowed to hold.
She sang. The words rough and low, with an ache that she felt in every halting breath. She sang until she reached his first verse, and her voice faded out, and her fingers slipped from the keys.
She sat in the quiet, letting the last of the piano notes fade.
Sniffling from the doorway caused her to turn quickly to find Zoey and Mira there with takeout and boba tea. Zoey was desperately trying to avoid crying into her drink, “Was that–was that your song?” she whispered, “The one you sang with Jinu?”
Rumi nodded with a sad smile, “Part of it.”
“And the rest?” Mira asked softly, setting down the food on the side table.
Rumi gave a tiny sigh, looking back down at her notebook, “The rest is here, I can’t ever seem to bring myself to sing his part.”
Zoey moved to sit beside her on the bench, head on her shoulder, gently leaning over so her eyes could scan the page rapidly. Her gaze softened further, “It’s beautiful, Rumi. Like something straight out of a movie.”
Mira gave Zoey an affectionate eye roll before sitting down backward in the chair across from the keyboard. “Do you want to put it on the album?”
Rumi looked back down at the notebook in her lap, at his words written there. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to finish it.”
“I think it would be beautiful if you did,” Zoey said quietly, her soft tone a stark contrast to her usual bubbly temperament. She gripped Rumi tightly in a side hug, and Rumi found herself grateful for the strong pressure. It made holding all her pieces together a little easier.
Mira reached out and took her hand, “Whatever you want to do, we’ve got you.”
~
That night, Rumi lay awake on her side, her sword beside her on the blanket. Reaching a hand up, her fingers trembled slightly as she traced the details of the grip. “I’m not sure I can sing our song without you, Jinu, at least not exactly as we did, but I want to try.”
She laid her hand flat upon the blade; it always felt warm these days, like something left to sit out in the sunlight. “I don’t want to forget. Not our song, not you.”
She hums their song in the dark.
When she falls asleep, she finds herself back on the rooftops again. The familiar sloping tiles and plants surround her as she brushes her hand along a wall, and watches the honmoon glitter beneath her fingers—a warm, glimmering blanket, glowing softly in the dark.
She looks across the opposite rooftop. Jinu is there, not in the hoodie from that night, but the heavy dark durumagi he wore the night of the final concert. The dark fabric sways around his legs in a gentle breeze, its edges frayed and burned, with heavy boots on his feet. He’s looking at her with such reverence that it makes her want to hide her face, but she fights that feeling, not wanting to lose this moment. She still feels heat creep up her neck and cheeks.
His eyes are demon gold as they gaze at her, but still as gentle as they had always been on that night.
“I don’t want to forget, Jinu,” she swallows hard, “Even if it hurts. You were there when I was at my lowest, when every lie I’d ever told brought me to the brink, and you still saw me, the real me, before I’d even known it myself. It hurt, everything that night hurt, but even still I–” Rumi’s voice breaks. “I still wanted you to stay.”
He’s too far away on the rooftop, and she can’t reach him. She wants so badly to jump up like they had that night and reach for his hand. To intertwine their fingers and patters and hold on with everything she had.
“Rumi–” he says and smiles at her, really truly smiles at her. She realizes in that moment that she’s never seen him smile before, not really, plenty of idol smiles and grins, but not like this, where the light actually reaches his eyes, and the skin at their corners crinkles in a gentle joy.
In the dark of her bedroom, while Rumi dreams, her patterns blaze brightly in the dark. Glowing so bright they ripple light across the ceiling and walls, the way clear water reflects sunlight.
Her sword beside her glows brightly in reply.
~
Rumi can feel the roar of the crowd through the floor and walls of her dressing room.
It’s been a whole year since the final battle at Namsan Tower, and Huntrix is performing the first show of their new album.
The entire night has been a blast; it feels so good to be back. The crowd is electric, and the honmoon ripples around her now with that energy. It’s the brightest it’d been since its formation, shimmering and flickering, ripples of prismatic light cover every surface.
She’s alone in the dressing room.
She had been sharing one with both Zoey and Mira, but for this last song, she’d requested space. Both girls had smiled and hugged her tightly; they both understood how important this song was to her.
Standing in front of her mirror in a white-and-purple modern take on a hanbok, long boots covering her legs, she took a deep, steadying breath. Tonight is it. The night she sings their song.
With steady hands, she reaches down into the honmoon and pulls her sword out. The blade is warm beneath her palm, so warm, like his hands had been in hers, one year prior.
“Jinu,” she whispers in the light of her vanity mirror, “listen for me tonight. Listen for our song.”
She leaves the blade sitting on the couch in the dressing room as she heads for the stage.
Standing in the dark of the bare stage. She holds her breath. One second, two. The spotlight flicks on, casting a circle of light around her feet. Jinu gave her that spark, one single spark; it was up to her to feed it until it outshone anything the dark could throw at her. She would be a light so bright its glow burned the night away. A light that burned when all other lights went out.
She breaths deep.
And sings.
Backstage, from under the door of her dressing room, a light burns brightly, brighter than it ever has before. With every note and verse, it shines through the bottom of the door, growing brighter and brighter.
She reaches the chorus, and backstage, the room goes dark.
~
The crowd is silent for a split second after her song finishes, and then the roar of their approval washes over her, and the stage lights go dark. She takes her final bow and runs into Zoey and Mira’s arms backstage.
They hug her fiercely.
“You did fantastic, listen to that crowd.” Mira smiles and squeezes her shoulder.
“They love it!” Zoey adds pressing a water bottle into her hand.
“Thank you.” Rumi hugs them again and promises she’ll join them soon after she changes out of her stage outfit.
Her golden boot heels click softly on the backstage, the crowds roar, still a physical thing against her skin. She breaths deep and opens the dressing room door, and it shuts with a soft click.
Her eyes slowly come into focus, the room much darker than the blazing stage lights. The room was lit by a soft rippling glow that had nothing to do with the light bulbs around her vanity.
She turns to the couch and stops dead in her tracks.
He’s on the floor, with his back against the sofa. His gat is on the sofa cushion with his long legs sprawled out in front of him. He looks like hell itself just spat him back up, but his eyes are bright, his patterns are even brighter. Glowing with hues of gold, purple, and green. Her sword is still on the sofa, but it’s small once more as it had been before. In the back of her mind, she belatedly thinks they match once more.
His tiger and bird are sitting in the corner of the room, and she has no idea when they got there. The bird looks smug, the tiger looks as ridiculous as it always has.
Jinu looks up at her and grins, “Did I miss the encore?”
She stares for half a second before blinking and throwing her water bottle at him, and then rushes forward to hug the breath from him.
“You idiot.”
In the dark, the honmoon glows and in its strings a song hums, soft and low, a hymn against the eternal night.