Chapter Text
Rumi knew she had always been a monster
Since the day she was born she was a cruel, disgusting, demon.
While she was still a baby, this fact wasn't so obvious. She wasn't born with the purple marks or sharp teeth, only her bright lilac hair made her different from the other children. Her eyes were brown like her mothers and her skin was the same fair shade also.
But she had killed her mother. The day Rumi was born was the day Mi-Yeong had died. In that small hospital room she had laid there while giving birth to her daughter and had died. Mi-Young had made Celine promise that if anything were to happen, she would take care of her child. Celine kissed her hand softly and agreed. She hadn't known what she was signing up for.
-
When Rumi was four her demon marks started appearing. It was the middle of the night and young Rumi had awoken from a nightmare. Her breathing was short and her body felt like it was on fire. She screamed while grasping at her shoulders. Celine had awoken from the chaos and ran into her room quickly.
“Rumi! What's wrong?!” She exclaimed quickly. She grabbed the girl's shoulders and examined her all over. Her eyes darted across the small girl's body.
“It burns Celine! It really burns!” Rumi shouted through her tears.
Not before long Celine noticed the bright, jagged lines that followed Rumi's skin. They glowed shades of Purples. Rumi's skin even looked irritated around them, like an infection. Celine's eyes were filled with mostly shock but also horror. Rumi through her clouded eyes could see that look on Celine's face. The look people gave to raging dogs. To wild beasts. Once the initial wave of panic passed, Celine hugged her adoptive daughter tightly. Her own tears began running down her face into the back of Rumi's pyjamas. Young Rumi sunk into her embrace. Her breathing steadied.
“I'm so sorry Mi Yeong” Celine whispered
After that night Rumi had to learn what she was. She had to learn about all the hunters who would have killed her. And all the demons who would try to kill her too.
-
Celine began training her. She was brutal and unforgiving. Celine told Rumi that she could never become a hunter but that demons could still come after her and maybe one day she could help the future hunters with her skills.
For a while after the sparring sessions started Rumi thought it was a punishment.
Celine would best Rumi over and over again until she got it right. Even when she was six and crying on the studio floor, Celine told her it could have been much worse. And Rumi believed her. The patterns on her body only grew more when they trained. She became accustomed to the hot pain that shot through her when they spread.
Through their practices and sparring sessions, Rumi learned that hunters had to be tough. Tougher than she could ever be.
“That wasn't good enough”
“Do it again”
“Your not trying hard enough”
“You need to do more next time”
“I expected better from you Rumi”
But Rumi did try. God knows that Rumi tried. She tried harder than any child should have had to. The cold tone from her Guardian never gave comfort. She gave instructions and recognition of her mistakes. Her empty eyes would stare at Rumi's marks after she did something wrong. Like they were the cause of all this disappointment.
Sometimes that gave Rumi peace.
Occasionally she thought that it might just be the marks that were causing all these mistakes. But they were her marks, so what did it matter anyways?
A few times when she became so mad at herself she would claw at her own skin until it became red. Hoping that the marks would get the hint and disappear. She prayed that they would.
Overtime to cover them up instead.
She wore long sleeved tops or hoodies even for training.
Even when the heat from her clothes was hotter than the burning of her patterns, she didn't change because they were never going to go away.
-
By the time Rumin was eight her marks had already reached the ends of her wrists and all the way down to her knees.
The morning of her ninth birthday Rumi was angry. She was angry that her stupid marks continued to grow. She was mad that she didn't get to celebrate her birthday like the girls in her stories. She was upset that she had no friends to party with even if she wanted to. She was furious that the only people that knew her , apart from Celine, were old grumpy tutors who always scolded her.
In this anger she began throwing things around her room. Her fingers turned to sharp claws as she launched a globe Celine had gifted her across the room, it hit and recoiled off of her wardrobe. She shattered the few framed pictures that hung on her wall as she clawed them. She screamed and shouted hoping Celine would know just how enraged she was. Through her jagged breaths and teary eyes she began picking up her desk chair above her head when she felt a strange feeling.
Her mouth felt watery.
Her gums felt hot and cold at the same time
Her jaw filled with a pain she hadn't felt before.
Soon, she was hunched over on her wooden floor. Her claws pressed against the floor to let herself hover above the ground. She coughed wet coughs as she struggled for breath. Soon four of her baby teeth popped out of her mouth and fell to the floor as blood poured from her mouth and down her chin all the way to her shirt. In their place, huge, sharp canines grew.
Celine had originally been ignoring Rumi's tantrum but after hearing the abrupt stop and coughing, she came along the hallway.
Rumi's door was open slightly and Celine could hear Rumi's choked breaths.
“Rumi?” Celine called from outside her room.
“Eomma,” Rumi had replied quietly.
Usually Celine would have corrected her. Rumi wasn't allowed to call her that anymore.
But instead Celine pushed the door over. She then saw Rumi lying on the floor next to a pool of red liquid and a few small white teeth. Rumi's eyes were wide and she was staring into the distance in front of her with one hand covering her mouth.
“Rumi? What did you do!?” Celine said, crouching down to meet her.
Rumi showed her Guardian her mouth. Through her red stained jaw Celine could see her new teeth. She could see how they began shrinking as Rumi calmed down. Celine didn't hug her this time. She didn't do that kind of thing anymore. Instead she took a deep breath, stood up and got Rumi a cloth. She carefully wiped the blood that poured down Rumi's chin. The young girl felt her mentor's soft touch and tried not to lean into it. Her gums began to feel numb as her teeth shortened.
“You're going to have to stop smiling as much now Rumi. We don't want your tutors or the fans seeing your teeth. If we are out in public you need to tell me if you're getting angry. Nobody needs to see your..features.” Celine said calmly
Rumi listened as hard as she could manage. Celine had always said she had her mothers smile and now she was telling her she wasn't allowed to anymore? But Celine was right. Nobody could know. So Rumi sucked it up. She tried to be as strong as she knew how to be.
“Yes Celine,” She said without a single waver.
-
Sometimes when Rumi became uncomfortable or angry again and her teeth or claws started growing and it was hard to stop them.
One time at the library some other kids were being loud. They talked about Rumi and her ‘un-natural purple hair’ and how her clothes were weird for this weather. Rumi knew better than to react in public to what they were saying so instead she got up and left. She could feel her teeth becoming wildly and her hands began to twitch. She stood behind a big book shelf in a dark corner, rolled up her sleeves and sunk her teeth into her arms. One tear rolled down her cheek. The pain in her arm managed to distract her from the one in her chest.
Later on the drive home Celine had scolded her.
“I saw you behind the books Rumi.” Celine said from the driver's seat as she looked in the mirror.
“I'm sorry Celine, I didn't know what else to do” Rumi said cowardly, looking down at her hands.
“Does biting things help?” She questioned
“Sometimes”
“You can't hurt yourself Rumi. You need to be strong so you can help the future hunters and keep yourself safe from demons. You can't just bite your own arm when you get upset.”
“Sorry Celine”
The next day Celine had bought Rumi a chewable necklace. She left it on the floor outside her room. Rumi beamed with happiness that Celine had bought her a gift. They never spoke about it outwardly but over the years Celine had bought others, more than a few times when they needed replacing, each one was always a different colour from the last.
-
Celine didn't hit Rumi outside of training. She scolded her and sometimes raised her voice but she didn't hit.
Apart from one time.
When Rumi was thirteen Celine had begun looking for the next hunters. She was starting in Seoul. One time Rumi was with her at Sunlight Entertainment, in the office. Celine was talking to the new manager she had hired called Bobby. They were talking about which big dance schools they should call first. Rumi, who was known as the daughter of Mi Yeong, Celine's adoptive, shy daughter, was sitting in the corner of the room. She was bored, per usual when something passed the office window. She didn't know why but it caught her interest.
“Celine?”
“Yes Rumi?”
“Can I go to the bathroom please?”
Celine had nodded before she continued talking to Bobby. She knew this was wrong but she had been so bored. What harm could she cause by wandering down the corridor?
She passed offices, some empty and some full. She passed the bathroom door she was supposed to be entering. Rumi didn't know what she was looking for.
Maybe it was a demon. Or maybe it was just nothing.
But the further Rumi got away from Celine's office the more free she felt. The heavy weight that constantly sat on her chest slowly began lifting with every step she took. In these moments walking though the halls Rumi didn't need to worry about the way Celine's looked at her. She didn't need to worry about her sparing sections. She didn't need to even think about her mother.
For a second Rumi thought that maybe she could run. She could sprint down to the end of the hall, take the elevator and leave. Rumi was fast. Her demon half helped with that. She could run and keep running until she was free.
But what was Rumi without Celine?
What could Rumi be if she wasn't Celine's daughter.?
She wasn't talented. She wasn't brave. She wasn't loud enough to survive anywhere but home. The heaviness of her life rested once again. She could feel it in her bones. With her head more droopy now, she turned around to walk back. Instead she was faced with a furious Celine who grabbed her wrist and took her into a small room with no one inside. Before Rumi could say anything she felt Celine's hand strike her face. Celine's eyes were wide and her body was still.
“Never do that again Rumi”
And she didn't. Rumi knew that Celine was
more scared of losing Rumi than she knew how to admit.
Because Rumi had always been nothing without Celine.
But Celine was now nothing without Rumi.
-
Rumi felt like nothing often. She would sit in her room for hours not doing anything. She did well with her tutors because that was easier. She tried not to bother Celine because that also made things easier. She sometimes went on walks around the compound, to visit her mom's grave or to look at the trees. She liked tending to the flowers that consumed the land and the ones that lived in the plant pots outside her window. Sometimes she read books, mostly fiction ones based in other worlds far away. But she didn't need to do that all the time.
The truth was Rumi was alone.
She was more alone than she knew how to be. Celine became so busy with trying to find her next hunters that she didn't realise how little she saw of Rumi. Sometimes, Rumi would stay in her bed for days at a time. When Celine went on work trips or had busy weeks at the office, Rumi didn't need to leave her room. She would lay there with the curtains down and her headphones on. At times she would listen to music, Sunlight Sisters hits or other artists she enjoyed. Other times she sat in the silence. Rumi couldn't always remember what she was thinking about afterwards. But she imagined it was similar to what she thought about all the time:
How much of a mistake she was.
During these long periods she did not eat. She could feel her stomach churning in hunger. She kept a bottle of water by her bedside that she occasionally filled up after going to the bathroom, but that had been about it. She thought that the hunger silenced some of her worser thoughts. She would sleep but often nightmares disturbed that ability.
These phases happened mostly from when she was fourteen to sixteen.
They weren't constant. But after them Rumi felt she was more alive. During them became stuck in her head, with all her terrible thoughts about things she could never change. When she awoke from these dark blurs she became busy again. She landed herself in a harsh cycle of needing to feel dead only so she could keep living.
It worked. For a while.
-
Overall, Rumi had become quiet.
When Celine wasn't there she didn't speak. She didn't need to. The tutors stopped coming around as her Guardian thought her education was as high as it would need to be.
Rumi wasn't going to be anything anyways.
She was happy being silent. That was okay.
What good did a talking demon do anyways?
But when Celine had told Rumi she had found two of the three hunters Rumi was excited. She was happy that she could speak to someone other than Celine. Sure Celine had told her she wouldn't see them that often, considering they would be training. But that didn't bother her.
Because maybe now, when she laid in her bed, the walls wouldn't be so silent anymore.