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Maybe things would have been different if she had pushed up the Golden release.
Rumi finishes waving at the starstruck receptionist and steps out into the alley lined with other medical offices, greeting her with an endless array of plastic and vinyl signage full of toothily grinning people. Each one touts the promise of perfect skin or perfect teeth or perfect digestive systems if only the passerby might have the time, pain tolerance and money enough to invest. She pulls her hood a little further down.
Her left nostril is still numb from the medication the doctor had applied before sticking a camera down it. Then he had clucked over her vocal cords for some time before telling her that nothing looked out of the ordinary, but he would recommend another specialist to run more tests. She crumples the printed sheet containing the referral and the contact information, ready to just throw it away. Though on second thought, she pauses and smooths the paper out against her thigh.
Zoey will want to carefully look it over even as Mira will ask if they managed to fix her voice yet. Rumi will smile, telling them how the latest doctor is highly celebrated in treating these kinds of problem cases, and willing to make an appointment for her this week when most people had to wait months if not years. Then they will share a hopeful huddle and make plans about what to do once Rumi's voice is back to normal and the Golden Honmoon imminent.
But Rumi knows the next test will be just as inconclusive as all that came before, because she already knows what the problem is: Celine never should have allowed someone like her to become a Hunter.
She decides to take a longer way back home today.
She turns and stops as a thrum of strings catches her ear. Then there's another strum and another until the sound coalesces into song. There's no tinniness to suggest that it is a recording escaping one of the offices crowded along this street. Besides, who would be playing old-fashioned music to try to entice customers to step inside?
With a squint, she scans around and locates a seated figure dressed in traditional costume with an outercoat of pale blue and a broad-brimmed hat which obscures the musician's face. He holds a stringed instrument, smaller than a guitar, which he plucks with easy confidence, as if it is the most natural thing in the world for him to be dressed like that on a street corner outside the bounds of a tourist district, playing an instrument that Rumi recognizes, but, realizes with a pinch of guilt, does not know the name of.
Celine had tried to interest her in older music, lecturing at length about keeping traditions alive and to honor the ways in which Hunters of the past had touched and woven together the Honmoon. Rumi hadn't been disinterested exactly, but hadn't seen the point in much beyond her own dancing, singing, and fighting training, each day pushing her closer to when it would all come together with the whole world washed in gold as it lay beneath her feet.
She draws closer for a better look at the instrument, and then she discovers that it looks like something from a junk shop: its exterior battered and the wood unvarnished, with pale splotches of discoloration as if it had been left exposed to the elements. Rumi looks up, expecting the player to be as scruffy and ill-cared for as his instrument. Then she finds herself staring for an entirely different reason.
Objectively, she knows she must have seen hotter men before, but she suddenly can't remember when. She can't even pin down what she finds so overwhelmingly appealing about him: his elegant neck? Defined jawline? High cheekbones? Dark brown eyes fringed with lashes too long to possibly be genuine? Or is it something in how he plays, giving him an air of gentleness and melancholy?
That was it; she is touched by his playing. Her whole career is built on music's ability to reach the hearts of the audience so each will hear what they need in that moment. Was it so strange to find that she could be touched in the same way? It had, after all, been a very bad week.
She is disappointed there's no instrument case or bowl set out for tips, which is odd, but then he begins to sing, and Rumi realizes that something about all of this is wrong.
Rumi isn't falsely modest about her own talents. Natural aptitude plays a role: a sense of rhythm, a good ear for tone and pitch, and a voice capable of hitting a wide range of notes, but all of that was simply the base requisite. The rest was the time and money that could be put into someone spending hours everyday rehearsing. So, why was a man with an obviously trained voice like this dressed up and performing on some obscure street corner? Was this some kind of prank or recording for an online video?
Rumi looks around, conscious of the possibility of a discreet camera crew or at least someone making a recording on their phone. But now she sees that there isn't anyone else on the street. It is just her and the busker who can't possibly be a real busker.
An uncanny sense honed from childhood sends a chill down her spine. Now she actually catches the words of his song about a bird stuck in a trap and the singer who pities it. There's something almost ironic in how he sings it. And there it is: a flash of gold in his eyes. A demon.
"Is Gwi-Ma so out of ideas, that he's sending demons to compose songs just to annoy me?" Her sword comfortingly comes into her hand. She feels the slightest twinge at the waste of it, given his musical talent, but she isn't going to start shirking her duty now.
"He's decided on a new strategy. Can't say the same for you," the demon says, his eyes flickering to the referral she's still holding. She drops the sheet and growls.
On second thought, maybe slaying an obnoxious demon is just the thing to improve her mood. Her blade strikes out, but there's only pink smoke where the demon had just been. She hears the soft thump of feet hitting concrete and looks up to see the demon smirking down at her from the lip of the building's edge. He clearly wants her to follow him. Which means this is almost certainly some kind of trap, and the smart thing to do is to walk away. Clenching her jaw hard enough to hurt, Rumi starts to turn.
"And here I thought you would be interested in keeping your patterns from spreading. I guess I was wrong."
Rumi's feet easily finds the path to scale up the front of the storefront, pulling herself up to the canopy and from there using a sign as a step to get to the roof as quickly as possible. The demon dodges her first swing as she brings her sword down. He feigns a swipe at her right side before porting himself to her blind spot. She catches the trick in time and kicks him in the stomach to win back some distance. He's fast, she'll give him that, and even clever, but she's fought fast and clever before.
She throws her sword which flies through the air in a way that something its size shouldn't be able to. The move surprises the demon enough to make him yelp as he transports himself away again.
Panting slightly, she pauses, senses straining for a sign of where the demon hid himself, and if he had any other friends lurking up here. Her blood is singing. Now she would welcome the chance to slice a few dozen demons to ribbons, and then she could interrogate the leader demon and figure out exactly what Gwi-Ma knows about her patterns.
"I'm here to give you a message, not to fight," comes the demon's voice, but she can't quite figure out its origin.
"Interesting." It wasn't really, but Rumi needed him to talk more so she could find exactly where he was hiding. "Usually Gwi-Ma's demons just go on and on about how much they want to eat humans." There is a mass of HVAC equipment that she pointedly does not look at. It seems like the most likely spot, but she needs to be certain before making her move. She makes a show of investigating a skylight.
"I'm hoping to change that. If we can stop all this useless fighting so you can see that both of you have something you can offer to each other," the demon replies and now she has her confirmation.
She leaps on top of the largest metal box in a bound, her sword a flash of violet light that highlights his shock in relief as he falls backward. Her blade comes down a beat too slow because she doesn't actually want to kill him; not before she gets out of him everything that he knew about her and his source of information. Of course, he doesn't know that.
She quickly hops down from her perch, pressing her foot on the demon's chest, and setting her sword just this close to his throat. He raises his hands up, looking up at her while fluttering his long, dark lashes as if this has all been some innocent misunderstanding.
"I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong foot," he says, gesturing his chin at her foot, currently keeping him immobile while his eyes remain trained at her sword. Rumi doesn't move. He heaves a sigh as if she's being unreasonable, and then stretches a little, settling into a slightly more relaxed position. "You've lost your voice. We can help you."
"Let me guess... Gwi-Ma will give me my voice back in return for my soul and eternal servitude," Rumi drawls and inches the sword just that much closer to his pale, vulnerable expanse of neck, getting a fissure of pleasure as she watches him try to master the instinctual panic that flickers in his eyes. In his song, he'd compared her to a trapped bird. What then exactly did that make him?
She leans down a little closer. "I work in the entertainment industry; I know a terrible deal when I hear it."
He frowns. "Like it or not, you and Gwi-Ma are at an impasse. He can throw all the demons he likes at you and you'll just cut them down. But without your voice to seal the Honmoon completely, he'll always be a threat. So why don't you negotiate?"
"Because negotiating with a demon is a terrible idea."
The demon laughs and through the bottom of her shoe Rumi feels that it's genuine, resounding deep in his chest. "Point taken, but tell me: what choice do you have? You can visit all the doctors you like, take every kind of medicine, undergo any type of surgery even, but we both know that it won't fix your voice. At some point your friends are going to start asking why. Are you prepared to tell them?"
Rumi knows it's just in her head, but she swears she can feel her patterns like vines crawling up her skin, wrapping themselves more tightly around her neck. She keeps her grip on her sword steady, but the demon wears a triumphant smirk. He knows he hit his mark.
"What kind of deal is Gwi-Ma even offering?" she barks.
"What if you supplied Gwi-Ma with the energy of souls without consuming them?"
"What?" Rumi says, nearly moving back in surprise. "That's not possible."
"Why not? You use the energy of souls to create the Honmoon and it doesn't seem to bother anyone. They even like it." There's a suggestive implication in the way he says this that makes Rumi want to break in and explain that their performances are part of a long and honored tradition, and there was nothing the least bit inappropriate about it, but the demon carries on: "As a Hunter you are connected to the Honmoon, and as someone with Gwi-Ma's mark you are connected to him. Why couldn't you just give that energy to Gwi-Ma directly instead of using it to keep him out?"
"It doesn't work like that," Rumi insists. Even the suggestion of taking what was entrusted to her and just giving it over to Gwi-Ma was an offense to everything she had ever been taught.
"Have you tried?"
"Of course not," Rumi snaps.
"Then how do you know?"
Rumi grits her teeth and for a moment considers that maybe beheading his messenger would be the only way to properly convey to Gwi-Ma exactly what she thought of this— this— disgusting suggestion. The demon must have read this in her face because he quickly adds, "If you give Gwi-Ma the energy freely then he would have no reason to send demons to ever hurt another human. You could become the savior of two worlds. And in return, he would give you your voice back, maybe he could even get rid of those patterns."
It is a fantasy. A poisonous fairy tale. Yet it came in such an earnest voice, his eyes dark and pleading as if he really believes that Rumi, because of what she is and not in spite of it, could somehow be his salvation. Rumi isn't stupid.
"How does Gwi-Ma even propose to set up something like this? How could I ever trust that he'd keep his word?"
The demon's face twitches slightly and his Adam's apple bobs as if he had just run the probability of Rumi cutting off his head for what he was about to say next and he didn't like his odds. Despite herself, Rumi can't help but feel a thrill of anticipation as the messenger is finally forced to put away all the flowery preamble and say precisely what kind of deal was being offered:
"Marry Gwi-Ma."
"So you finished the whole regiment of tonics?" Zoey asks, a notebook spread open across her lap. Rumi nods with disappointment as plan #27 is unceremoniously scribbled out in black marker much as plans #1–26 had been before it.
They're in the recording office where they usually have their creative brainstorming sessions, but instead of lyric notes and sheet music, there are piles of referral letters, doctor profiles, and test results scattered across the table. Zoey and Mira sit together on the small couch while Rumi leans back in the plush desk chair, trying not to feel like an employee receiving a lackluster performance review.
"I am still waiting to hear back from Dr. Seong," Rumi adds, which makes Zoey perk up a little.
"But he ran basically the same test that the two doctors from before did, and both those came back inconclusive," Mira says, closing her eyes and sighing before opening them again. "We're not giving up, but have you considered that maybe... it's not physical?"
Rumi feels again the sensation of her patterns tightening around her throat, tendrils coiling and cutting into the skin. "What do you mean?" she asks, it comes out too loud and too defensive. Zoey and Mira's eyes meet, silently asking each other what was wrong with her.
"I've been reading up on this stuff and sometimes things like this can be psychosomatic," Mira continues.
"Oh! I can start looking into some doctors that specialize in that!" Zoey says, pulling out her phone and beginning to type with a desperate edge.
"You're saying I might be making this up?" Rumi asks, knowing how accusatory it sounds, but can't keep it back.
"No, that's not what I'm saying. Of course it's real, but you've been under all this pressure for even longer than either of us. Have you ever considered that maybe you need to take an actual break? Maybe this is your body telling you that," Mira says.
"We just had a break. Technically, we're on a break right now," Rumi snaps.
"And, yeah, you sure seem relaxed," Mira mutters, and rubs the bridge of her nose. "Look, Rumi, whatever is going on; we're going to need to cancel our Idol Awards performance."
Rumi rises to her feet. "No!"
Mira and Zoey look alarmed, almost frightened, by her response. Rumi panics that some of her demon power had escaped and rippled through the Honmoon like it had before. She shrinks back and tries to smile, but knows it must look awful. "Not yet. We're still waiting on the results. I can go see a therapist or a psychiatrist or whatever you think will help. We should at least wait until after my first session before deciding." She knows she's pleading.
Mira shakes her head. "There's no time. We should have made the decision last week. There's no way we can perform like this: It's done." Zoey looks miserable, but she doesn't object.
The words hit Rumi like a physical blow. She's never canceled a performance for a personal reason before. Worse still, is the sense of relief in the pit of her stomach. She won't have to spin more excuses, more lies, until the night of the Idol Awards and be forced to cancel when the miracle she keeps hoping for doesn't happen.
Mira reaches out and takes her right hand as Zoey takes her left. "Getting your voice back and turning the Honmoon gold is more important than another big concert. So we have to kill a few extra demons: big deal," Mira says.
"We'll figure this out, no matter how long it takes," Zoey adds soothingly, thumb rubbing the back of Rumi's hand. Rumi tries to focus on this sensation, and not the dread rising up like bile. Gwi-Ma will know exactly why they wouldn't be performing at the Idol Awards this year.
All their heads snap up to attention as a crackling flash of magenta sweeps through the Honmoon. Demons.
Without thought or coordination, they race towards the latest tear, and arrive to find a band of goblins, brandishing clubs and claws. They don't even strategize before jumping into the fray, weapons in hand and begin banishing the monsters away before they have a chance to go after anyone. It feels good to do something, but Rumi can't banish the feeling that Gwi-Ma is just playing with them.
They will defeat these goblins, and the monsters he sends out tomorrow, and the next day, but now Rumi knows that alternatives are possible, even if they're terrible alternatives. She half expects to see Gwi-Ma's messenger silhouetted against the roofline of a nearby shop, maybe ready with a new mocking song. Then he would make the same grotesque offer once again—
Mira shoves her gok-do into the goblin who nearly sinks his claws into Rumi while she is distracted.
"What was that?" Mira barks, annoyed but more confused by her carelessness.
"Thanks for having my back," Rumi deflects, lifting her sword and immediately reentering the fight.
Later, once the fighting is done, they slump together in a mostly empty subway car, heading back to the tower. Even Mira and Zoey seem to sense how empty a victory this is. Without their Idol Award performance to reinforce it, the Honmoon would be ever more fragile and tears more common.
"What happened back there? It's not like you to zone out in a battle," Mira says. Her cheek presses against Rumi's shoulder taking any bite out of the accusation. Should she tell them about the messenger? The offer? She wouldn't necessarily have to tell them everything...
"I... I got distracted by another demon," Rumi begins haltingly, still not sure whether even a half confession might open up too many doors Rumi would prefer to keep shut.
"Distracted? What do you mean?" Mira looks up and must read the guilty indecision on Rumi's face. Her mouth quirks up. "Do you mean, like, by his abs? Rumi, I didn't know you had it in you."
"No, of course not—" Rumi sputters.
"Mira, come on." Zoey pokes Mira's side. "We all know demons are gross and disgusting, though, I mean, if you were going to go for one I guess the goblins aren't the worst..." she trails off speculatively. "There's a lot of muscle."
"Oh, water demon for me definitely. Nothing like clammy skin and bulging eyes to really get me going," Mira says and makes a gagging sound that Zoey gleefully joins in on. They both glance at Rumi, and she realizes it's her turn to play the game.
"Yeah, I mean Jeoseung Saja, nothing like a guy in creepy black pajamas to sweep you off your feet," Rumi says weakly.
All three of them burst out laughing together and things feel alright again. Rumi's inattention is forgiven and forgotten.
Once they arrive home, they call Bobby up right away. There is no reason to put it off. Huntr/x for the first time in five years would not be performing at this year's Idol Awards due to undisclosed health concerns. Bobby's expression of horror is quickly mastered into one of determination as he assures them that he stands behind their decision 100%.
Rumi almost wishes he would rant about the network's anger and their fans' disappointment and everyone on the team who depends on them for their livelihoods. Instead all these considerations just play in Rumi's head, where there is no escape from them even when the call ends.
Zoey collapses on the couch with a loud sigh and asks aloud what everyone wants for victory takeout. Mira wants ramyeon as spicy as they are legally allowed to sell it. Rumi murmurs that she isn't really hungry and flees to her room.
Zoey and Mira probably didn't even want to look at her right now.
She sits on her bed, not bothering to turn on a light. Through her sliding glass door, Seoul is spread out: radiant and alive as only a city of millions could be. Usually it was a view that filled her with pride to be part of something so vast. Now she can only think of those places where even the shining lights of the city didn't touch, where demons were lurking, waiting for their opportunity to cross over and sink their teeth into anyone who happens to cross their path.
She clenches her fists, pressing them against the top of her thighs as she rakes over and over in her mind what options are left. Even if she is willing to face Celine about this, it's not like Celine would have any more information about how to reverse the spread of Rumi's patterns. It was plain now that human solutions weren't capable of solving a demon problem.
She lifts her head, glancing again at the balcony and sees a tiger waiting there with patient yellow eyes as it had for the past several nights. Rumi stands up and slides the door back.
"For what it's worth, demons don't think of marriage the same way humans do. It's mostly a business contract, just an extremely formal one."
The night is warm for spring and the view of Seoul from the hanok's ceramic tiled roof is spectacular, but the skyscrapers and blazing electric lights now seem alien compared to the buildings of Bukchon Village, most only a few stories high, as if they are hunchbacked elders resentfully huddled together in opposition to the younger, sprawling metropolis that grew up around them.
"How would it even work? Gwi-Ma's not a person."
"He might not be a man, but he's very much a person," Jinu replies. Despite not needing to pretend anymore, Jinu still looks entirely human, just one that happens to be wearing an outercoat of silk several centuries out of vogue, though, unlike their last meeting, he's bareheaded. He shares the same roof, but keeps a distance that she's not sure whether to read as respectful or an instinct for self-preservation. It is possible both. "If he was just evil incarnate, I don't think he could be such a bastard."
Rumi turns her head fast enough to catch a flash of real distaste across Jinu's face before it smooths once again into a pleasant mask. She hates to admit it, but that glimpse actually makes her like him a bit more.
"I thought you're trying to convince me to marry him."
"I am, but I'm not going to lie and tell you he's nice."
"Well, good to know you're not completely stupid," Rumi says. She's not remotely considering the deal, but demon problem means demon solution, and so far her best source of information about Gwi-Ma and demons is apparently the demon world's most inept matchmaker.
"Hunters aren't known for being particularly nice, either. At least," he adds a little slyly, "not as far as demons are concerned."
"You come here to eat people. Sorry, if we don't roll out a tablecloth and tableware," Rumi says with bared teeth.
"Gwi-Ma needs to eat. Do you blame a tiger for preying on other animals to survive? Many humans kill other creatures for all kinds of reasons. Can you really call Gwi-Ma a monster?"
"Moral equivalency is a terrible argument."
He pauses and tilts his head back slightly. "Moral equivalency, huh. Not what I was expecting to hear from a pop idol."
"That doesn't mean I'm stupid." She has to put a nice face on when an interviewer implies it, but here there are no cameras and she couldn't care less if a demon thinks she's rude. Jinu lifts up his hands as if offering her a point.
"But what if you could make it so Gwi-Ma can eat, without anyone needing to be harmed. What about the morals of someone who could do that, but chose not to?"
"What about the morals of someone who knows that they're being told to do monstrous things to others but does it anyway?"
"I've never made any claim of being a good person," Jinu says lightly, but there's something in the set of his shoulders that makes Rumi's own predator instinct flag that she's finally found something soft to tear into.
"Have you ever tried fighting against Gwi-Ma?"
"It doesn't work like that."
"Don't you feel any shame at all working for him?"
"Of course, I feel shame." He glowers at her. "Shame and misery are all demons feel. Do you think these patterns are just an aesthetic choice?" he holds out his hands, and now she sees violet lines entwining them. "Do you really not hear him?"
"What do you mean?" Rumi asks. Demons had always seemed so patently, obviously evil that it never really occurred to her to wonder why they did Gwi-Ma's bidding. She just assumed they enjoyed it. Yet, nothing in Jinu's face spoke of enjoyment.
Jinu takes a breath that comes out as an almost imperceptible sigh. "I heard him for the first time four hundred years ago. My family was very poor, no need to bore you with the details. I tried busking the streets, but, well, you know." He shrugs, looking incongruously modern despite his traditional outfit. "Being in the arts isn't always lucrative. And then I heard him, heard Gwi-Ma."
His smile is bitter as he flexes his hands, and Rumi watches as the violet patterns begin to glow. "Overnight my fate was changed. I was praised for my voice, even by the king. We were safe and clean and had more food than I ever imagined existed. But it was short-lived. The patterns spread, consumed me, and I was condemned to the demon world."
Rumi tries to keep her breathing even, tries not to imagine the patterns, currently hidden beneath her sweater, growing and growing, until it is impossible for her to hide them. Would that be her someday? Would she be dragged down and forced to serve Gwi-Ma whether she wanted to or not? No. She wouldn't do it. She would rather die than become his puppet.
She is too consumed with her thoughts to notice Jinu's approach until he stands before her, somber and backlit by the lights of the city, fingers reaching out slowly to rest not far from the base of her throat. "You have a shame of your own, but you have the choice to change things. What would you do to be free of it?"
Rumi has lived her whole life afraid of the answer to that question.
"I think your story just proves how stupid it would be to make any kind of deal with Gwi-Ma," Rumi says and lifts her sword, not so much a threat as a signal of the difference between them. She isn't desperate enough to gamble her soul and lose everything. Not yet.
He lifts his hands, patterns now gone, smiling and calm as if she isn't menacing him with an ancient weapon of power. He takes a few steps back. "You need some more time to think things through. I get it. Let me know when you want to talk again."
A part of her wants to thrust out her blade just to see his shocked face as she banishes him back to the demon world, but he is already gone.
Despite ostensibly being temperature controlled, the practice room is stiflingly hot. Rumi needs to focus. She needs to focus on the choreography, needs to focus on her breathing and the rhythm, needs to focus on her whole body as it exists and not on the imagined creeping sensation of patterns inching their way up her throat, day by day, until soon her turtlenecks won't be enough to cover them up...
"Rumi, you're not focused," Mira says. They stop the routine, though the music over the sound system keeps going, and Rumi has never before found the sound of her own singing so grating.
"I'm sorry, let's just take it from the top."
"We've taken it from the top more than three times. If you don't want to be here, you don't have to be."
"No, I want to be here. I'm just a little tired."
"If you're tired, then you should be home resting. You're not any use to us exhausted."
Rumi wasn't much use to them in any condition lately. She rubs at her face with the back of her wrist, sweat stinging her eyes.
"Hey, I know this has been hard on all of us..." Mira tries to gentle her tone and somehow it's this, Mira even attempting to soften her usual brash approach in a bid to manage Rumi, that sets her off.
"Oh, so you've been getting cameras shoved down your nose every other day?" Rumi snaps and regrets it instantly, but it's too late. Mira's expression goes blank. "Mira, I'm sorry. I'm just..." she looks down at the scuffed floor of the studio. "I'm just tired."
There's nothing but a terrible silence for a while until Mira finally breaks it with a quiet, "Still nothing from the doctors?"
"Inconclusive."
Mira moves closer, peering at her with narrow eyes. "Is that really all they've been saying?"
"...And maybe we should take a break," Zoey desperately breaks in.
"No, I'm OK. Let me drink some water, and we'll run it again," Rumi says.
"Actually, I think I need a break." Mira picks up her jacket, shrugging it on over her practice sweats, turning up the collar. On anyone else that would be an embarrassing affectation, on Mira it is just effortlessly cool. "I'm going to the store. Anyone want anything?"
"Barley tea for me!" Zoey pipes up.
"Nothing for me, thanks," Rumi says softly.
Mira stares at her for a beat before turning away towards the door, lifting her hand in a casual wave. "OK, be back soon."
Once the door closes, Rumi turns to the binder of choreography notes Mira had drawn up. They might not have any performances scheduled, but once Rumi gets her voice fixed they would need to schedule a live show as soon as possible. They couldn't afford getting rusty. There was simply too much at stake.
When Mira comes back twenty minutes later, she hands Zoey her barley tea and leaves a bottle of green tea and a wrapped package of kimbap next to Rumi's things.
"I have some questions," Rumi says as she walks along the stone wall, enjoying the height it gives her over Jinu.
"I'm listening," Jinu says casually. He's left behind the traditional look today, instead opting for jeans and a dark jacket over a sweatshirt. At a glance, he doesn't look any different than the dozens of young men that Rumi might pass in the street on any given day.
She hadn't recognized him when she'd first arrived at the meeting spot, and wondered how she was going to get rid of a civilian when the blue tiger appeared, butting its head against the man's hand as the magpie, still wearing its ridiculous hat, landed in a nearby tree. Then the tiger glanced over at Rumi's hiding spot with a curious half-purr half-growl that ruined her surprise appearance.
Now Jinu strolls in the road as the tiger trots alongside him, with the magpie nestled on the tiger's broad head, as if they are eccentrics taking their pets on a walk in the early hours before dawn.
"What do you even get if I agree to this crazy plan?"
"Besides not being trapped for the rest of eternity with an ever-starving demon king?" Jinu replies, and puts his hands in his pockets. "He's promised to erase my memories."
Rumi stops. "That's it?" Jinu and the tiger take several steps before they pause realizing that Rumi is no longer walking alongside them. "I nearly chop your head off and you don't even get your freedom if you somehow pull this off?"
"I like to keep my expectations realistic," Jinu says.
"And what odds are you giving yourself that I'll actually go along with this?" Whatever they were, they needed to be lower.
"Believe it or not, this wasn't my first choice. I actually had a much better plan, but Gwi-Ma shot it down. He thought it was too... unconventional," Jinu says. The tiger bumps its head against Jinu's hand, disturbing the bird who squawks indignantly and flaps past Rumi's head, startling her into ducking. Jinu laughs a little at her discomposure, but it's not unkind and then occupies himself by scratching behind the tiger's ear with an expression more genuine and soft than Rumi would have thought him, or any demon for that matter, capable of.
Rumi grows conscious that she's staring and looks away. "I've had to work with people like that. That's why I always negotiate for full creative control in all of our contracts now."
"It helps when you're one of the biggest acts in the world. Most people aren't that lucky," Jinu says without bitterness, just an acceptance that this was the way of the world and continues to pet the tiger who wiggles happily at the attention.
Silence stretches out between them, but it's surprisingly comfortable, and she almost regrets breaking it when she can't resist asking, "Are there many other demons like you?"
"What do you mean demons like me?" Jinu asks, a smirk curling in the corner of his mouth. "Extraordinarily handsome?"
"No! Ew! Of course not! I meant..." Rumi rubs her upper arm and looks down. "Tricked by Gwi-Ma into becoming his prisoner."
"I don't think you understand." Jinu stops petting the tiger and looks up so their eyes meet. "Gwi-Ma doesn't trick anyone. Everything he says is perfectly true. He just lets you trick yourself."
"Do you think it's possible that not all demons want to work for Gwi-Ma?" Rumi asks softly, so tired after another battle.
Mira and Zoey are sprawled out, battered and bruised, and stare at her like she sprouted another head. Mira recovers first, lip curling. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, just, do you ever wonder what makes them act the way they do?"
"Uh, no, usually we're too busy stopping them from stealing people's souls."
"But how do we know they're really evil—"
"Maybe the fact that they eat actual babies, Rumi! What's up with you?"
They stare at each other and Zoey's eyes flicker uneasily between them. Rumi looks away first. "Sorry, you're right." She rubs her temple. "I haven't been sleeping the best and I've just been thinking weird things."
"Have you been having headaches?" Zoey interrupts. "Because I just ordered this new type of ice pack that's supposed to be a miracle for migraines..."
Rumi sees that Celine left her a voicemail. She swipes away the notification.
Despite the late hour, the market is dense with bodies taking advantage of the mild spring weather. Rumi's hood is up, keeping her braid out of sight, and no one gives her or Jinu a second glance as they shuffle their way along. The air is saturated with the smell of sesame oil and fresh produce and frying meat, and the deeper in they go, the more appealing everything looks: croquettes, fried stuffed peppers, noodles both knife-cut and hand-torn, fish cakes served in hot broth... She stops for a little too long at the deboned chicken claws, making Jinu have to turn back so they aren't separated.
"I thought we were here to try hotteok?" Jinu's amusement awakens her from her hungry daydream and they continue following the current of the crowd.
"I just can't believe that you've never had it before," Rumi shoots back and does not discreetly check her reflection to make sure that she hadn't been drooling.
"Gwi-Ma's import policies are pretty bleak."
"Just another reason why I'm never marrying him," Rumi replies and they both share a glance and then laugh as if it were something funny and not a matter that the future of so many rested on. Around them ajummas shuffle along with bags full of groceries and gaggles of uniformed kids, newly released from cram school, shove twisted doughnuts into their faces. It all made the thought of demons and Hunters and ancient wars seem remote and laughable.
"You know what boba tea is, right?" she asks, stopping again, unable to resist a brightly-colored laminated menu boasting a wide selection of flavors and toppings.
"I have been banished in the demon world, not dead."
They approach the counter and Jinu orders the seasonal special strawberry milk flavor while Rumi asks for black milk tea.
"That's a bit boring, isn't it?" Jinu teases as he receives their drinks, and holds out Rumi's cup.
Rumi snatches it from him and stabs her straw through the thin plastic lid. "It's a classic, that's very different."
Jinu just smiles and sips his own drink in such a way that somehow conveys that he doesn't quite agree with her, but he's not interested in arguing.
They wander, pointing out novelties and chatting intermittently about nothing. It was the sort of thing Zoey loved to do whenever they traveled anywhere, watching travel videos and reaching out to their followers for suggestions of the best places to check out. Rumi realizes with a pang that she can't remember the last time she, Mira and Zoey had done anything like this. Certainly not since her voice problems began.
She is working on it though. This isn't actually a date. She is gathering information and feeding Jinu up is just another strategy to get him to loosen his tongue.
Jinu stops short, and Rumi, preoccupied in her own thoughts, nearly bumps into him. "What's this?" he asks, gesturing at the nearest stall. She glances over at what caught his eye.
"Tteokbokki, it's a rice cake covered in a sauce usually made with gochujang. You don't have this in the demon world either?"
Jinu shakes his head, and he almost sounds shy when he asks, "Can we try it?"
Rumi orders a cup and grabs two toothpicks, handing one to Jinu as she spears the first piece. The rice cake is chewy and the sauce is deliciously spicy. "It looks like you really enjoy it," Jinu observes, still holding his wrapped toothpick. Rumi waits a beat, expecting him to add that she has sauce on her face, but Jinu seems entirely sincere and somehow that only makes her feel more self-conscious.
"Yeah, it's one of Mira's favorite things to get after a concert. Wherever we're staying she'll look up reviews of which places serve the spiciest tteokbokki." She's aware that she's babbling and tilts the cup towards him. "Here, try it; that's why I bought it." He spears a rice cake and somehow manages to eat it with all the enviable neatness of a food blogger.
His eyebrows rise as he chews and then swallows. "I think it's spicy enough as it is," he says and takes a long sip of his bubble tea.
Rumi laughs and takes another piece. "I would have thought demons could handle spicy foods."
Jinu frowns. "Not all demons are the same," he mutters with a hint of wounded pride as he takes another piece from the cup.
"What do you usually eat in the demon world?"
"Whatever we find, I guess. I mean demons can eat, but we don't exactly need to." Jinu seems to take pleasure in fishing out his next piece, taking care to make sure it's evenly covered in sauce before popping it into his mouth. He adapts quickly. Rumi could almost envy him. Improvisation has never been her strength.
"Don't demons ever get hungry?"
Jinu chews slowly as if thinking very carefully about his answer. He swallows. "We're always hungry."
"Oh," Rumi replies after an awkward pause. She knows that there's really no reason to feel bad for demons, who, it bears repeating, literally eat people. Still, she leaves the last piece of tteokbokki for him.
They finally arrive at the hotteok stand and it seems popular judging by the length of the queue, but the line moves quickly, giving Rumi just enough time to panic over the different possibilities that she asks for a traditional hotteok with a brown sugar syrup filling. Jinu's choice of filling is new enough that it is written out in marker on the menu board. Jinu had smirked when he heard her order, but he didn't say anything as they waited.
Their fresh hotteok are served folded into curved smiles to fit the shape of the cups. They continue walking as they eat, drifting towards the less congested part of the market.
"How is it?" she asks, nibbling along the edge of hers, trying not to scald the roof of her mouth or have the syrup dribble everywhere.
"It's interesting," Jinu says in a careful way that implies he had been raised too well to ever say that anything someone else bought for him is bad. "I wasn't expecting noodles to be in there. Want to try a bite?" He tilts his cup towards her only for them both to realize that the offer is far more intimate than sharing a cup of tteokbokki had been. He starts to tilt it back in expectation of rejection only for Rumi to lean forward and take a bite, pointedly not thinking about the fact that Jinu's mouth had just been there.
"You're right, the noodles do make for an interesting texture," she says, once she finishes chewing. He just stares at her and she doesn't really know what's the appropriate response so she lifts up her cup with her own hotteok. "Want to try a bite of mine?"
He takes the offered cup quickly, taking a bite before handing it back to her. "It's good!"
"It's a classic for a reason," Rumi replies, and does not stare as he lifts his thumb to catch the smudge of syrup at the corner of his mouth.
They're now in a comparatively abandoned part of the market, dotted with souvenir carts in the center of the row, many of which had already been closed for the evening.
"I have a question," Jinu says.
"Yes?" Rumi replies lightly, thinking she'll probably be explaining what a Labubu is now.
"Gwi-Ma said that you bore his mark, but that he has no control over you." Rumi's whole body tenses, and her eyes dart around, as if the handful of people walking past, most of them on their phone, might be listening in. Jinu must see her discomfort, and draws closer, lowering his voice as he continues, "You have patterns, but you don't hear his voice. How is that possible?"
Rumi instinctively wants to snap that it's none of his business. The whole point of them going out like this had been for her to casually interrogate him. She knows that anything she tells Jinu probably wasn't all that far off from telling Gwi-Ma himself. Even if Gwi-Ma must know at least part of the story, was she really stupid enough to open up to a demon? Jinu lets the silence spool out as they continue to walk, apparently unbothered by Rumi's indecision. She could say no and knew Jinu would just smile politely and change the subject.
But, maybe, it would be a relief to actually talk about it?
"My father was a demon."
Jinu's eyes narrow as if he was trying to connect things in his mind very quickly. "I didn't know that was even possible," he says, curious, not disturbed.
"How did my parents meet? What kind of relationship did they have? How could they be that careless? I don't know." The years of wondering, which, as she grew older, only curdled into fear of what must lurk in the answer to those questions. Otherwise, why didn't Celine ever trust her with the full truth of it?
For years, she comforted herself thinking it was her actions that made her what she was, not her origins, but always knowing that it wasn't quite true. Her patterns now threatening to ruin everything is proof enough of that. "Whatever the circumstances, I don't think anyone expected a child like me."
Rumi can't quite meet Jinu's eyes, but he's still standing close and there's no trace of disgust or pity in his face. She hadn't even realized how afraid of that she had been until it didn't happen.
A voice calls out loud and bright: "Handsome boy! You should buy something beautiful for your beautiful girlfriend!"
They look over to see an enterprising older stall owner, clearly still trying to get a few sales before he closes his stand for the night, gesturing at the colorful display of memorabilia he has on offer. They sputter denials together for a few moments until Jinu announces a desperate, "She's dating my boss!"
Rumi glares at him as the older man looks between them in embarrassed confusion, and probably would have been happy for this strange pair to keep walking. Instead Rumi approaches the stall, now intent on drawing out everyone's discomfort. "That reminds me that I was meaning to pick something up for him," she says obnoxiously sweet and glances back at Jinu. "What do you think he would like?"
It's clear the only thing Jinu wants is to be somewhere else, but he follows along, coming to her side, insisting that he's terrible at picking out things and they should just move on. Rumi examines the merchandise on display, most of which were things bought to not take up much room in luggage and were just nice enough to be accepted without grumbling but impersonal enough that they could be given to any cousin or a coworker.
There isn't anything Rumi wants, but she finally decides on a simple norigae with a chrysanthemum knot and a tassel of blue that catches her eye mostly because it is a similar shade to the tiger. She buys it and the stall owner is so grateful to get rid of them that he doesn't even try to badger Jinu into buying something matching.
What was the point of that?" Jinu mutters once they're far enough away.
Rumi nearly archly replies that it would teach him not to lie so obviously, but as she dangles the norigae in front of her, she rethinks that. "I think it's important to make choices," she says slowly. "Even the small ones that don't seem like much, like what food you're going to eat or who to spend an evening with, because otherwise how can you prepare yourself for making the bigger choices?" She holds the norigae out to him. "Do you want it?"
His eyes move from the norigae up to her face then down again to her offering palm. His hand twitches forward, but then he pauses and pulls it back, sticking it in his pocket as if he didn't trust it. "Nothing is free."
Rumi's eyebrows draw down in confusion. "I just paid for it."
Jinu shakes his head. "It's when you can't see the strings that you should be most cautious."
Rumi closes her hand around the norigae and feigns indifference. "Your loss then." She tucks it away, but doesn't miss the unhappy resignation that settles on Jinu's face. He had wanted it and that... that was interesting. "I'll hold onto it for now."
"What will Gwi-Ma do to you if you fail?" Rumi asks.
They're looking out from Geumgang bridge and usually she enjoys being high up, but now she finds herself dwelling on what would happen if a body were to fall from this height. It makes her uneasy.
"I haven't failed yet," Jinu says with a smile like it's a private joke between them, but there's really nothing funny about it.
"But you know it's a matter of time." Time is running out for both of them and they know it. The desperation of their situation should have made them bitter enemies, and yet, somehow, it didn't.
"I'm not going to turn my back on everything I've ever known and marry a demon king I've spent my whole life fighting. So, what's the point of this?" Rumi asks.
"I like talking to you."
To that Rumi has no reply.
Rumi lies on the living room couch, ostensibly looking over some merchandising contracts that their lawyers had sent over. What she is actually doing is staring off into space every few paragraphs of dense legalese remembering how the night before Jinu had suggested she try riding the tiger. This led to one of the most amazing experiences of her life up until her hair had gotten caught on a tree branch and nearly pulled her off. Jinu had snickered, but then helped her untangle herself with surprisingly deft hands. It should have been humiliating but...
"You've seemed... happier the last few days. Has there been good news?" Zoey asks tentatively.
"Oh, have I?" Rumi asks, and quashes the guilty impulse to run away. "I mean, they've put me on this other treatment and the latest prognostics have been promising. It's a step in the right direction anyway," Rumi says, hoping she's not overselling anything. She hates the hopeful look Zoey and Mira exchange.
She hates lying to them, but what could she say? That with Jinu somehow she forgets, even just for a little bit, the weight of the city sinking down and slowly crushing her. It's a cowardly comfort. She knows that, but she also knows that she's going to be meeting him again tonight.
"What type of treatment have they been putting you on?" Mira asks.
"I really feel like my voice has been stronger lately," Rumi says, dodging the question, not wanting to dig the hole deeper. "Do we want to give a run-through of Golden a try?"
The suspicious look Mira gives her is eclipsed by Zoey launching herself at Rumi with a squeal of, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Even Mira can't resist smiling at that and getting swept up in the excitement as they move aside ottomans and push the coffee table closer to the couch so they'll have more room for their impromptu rehearsal. It almost feels like they're kids playing make believe that they're pop stars.
Golden begins to play over the sound system, and, after a little adjustment to account for the smaller space, they quickly get into the routine. Rumi's not hitting every pitch perfectly, but she's shocked by her own voice's solidity. She had suggested this as a distraction, but her lie isn't a lie after all. Her voice has somehow miraculously improved, and she feels herself swept up as she hasn't been for the last several weeks as their voices weave together, telling the story that they had worked so hard on: the story not just of where they had been, but where they were going to go.
As they move triumphantly into the chorus, Rumi imagines golden threads of power sweeping over everything, washing over her and the ugly snarl of patterns finally gone. Except now, as she comes to the song's triumphant apex, the image of Jinu trapped on the other side of the veil comes unbidden to her mind.
She can't stop the coughing once it begins. Irrepressible, hacking heaves as if somehow the patterns on her throat, instead of creeping upward, had decided to worm themselves inside, and no matter how she hacked and choked, they couldn't be dislodged. Tears from pain and exertion stream down her face as she coughs and coughs and can't stop.
Mira and Zoey are on either side of her. Zoey's hand on her back as Mira holds a bottle of water ready. The tight, choking sensation in her throat begins to loosen and the coughing fit subsides slightly, enough for her to take sips from the offered water to soothe her raw throat. She closes her eyes not wanting to see on their faces as it must be dawning that whatever was going on with Rumi's voice represented not just a challenge, but an existential threat to their public careers and their duty as Hunters.
"You were doing really well until we got to the chorus," Zoey coos, still rubbing her back. "Next time, we'll do a proper warm up, and try something a little less technical."
"I knew it, it's something really serious, isn't it?" Mira says, and Rumi doesn't need to see her to know Mira is picking at the skin of her left arm like she always did when she got really agitated.
"Mira, we agreed not to pry—"
"It's cancer, isn't it?"
"Mira!"
"Don't you trust us, Rumi? Whatever is going on, we want to be there for you."
"Of course, I trust you," Rumi rasps, she wants to say more, but she doesn't know what to say: That she loves them? That she was so lost and alone before they came into her life? That she doesn't know what she would do with herself if she ever lost them? All these things are true, but seem inadequate in the face of everything else.
She has another coughing fit, and as she regains her breath, Mira draws her arm around Rumi's shoulder as Zoey wraps her arms around Rumi's waist and they hold her close. Rumi rests her cheek against Mira's shoulder and through bleary eyes checks the reflective surface of the TV screen to confirm that her patterns are not visible on her face.
"Do you ever imagine running away?" Rumi asks. They're in Bukchon Village again, sitting on a roof as the tiger's heavy head rests on her lap and Jinu sits on the other side of it, absently petting its back from time to time.
"Imagine? Sure, sometimes. But it's impossible, so there's no use dwelling on it."
"Why?"
He lifts his hand and she sees the purple patterns there stark against his skin. "These will follow us no matter where we go."
"But if there was a way to get away from Gwi-Ma, would you take it?"
He peers over at her, his expression cautious. "Go on."
"I was able to sing today. Not perfectly, but more than I've been able to do in weeks," she says, observing him out of the corner of her eye, and his face goes carefully still. "It could be a fluke, but it seems like just talking to you has helped... at least a little bit." She isn't going to mention how the rehearsal ended. "Maybe there's a way to seal just Gwi-Ma. You said he is weak and starving right now. If we can make a barrier just around him, so others like you would at least have a chance to escape—"
"Do you have any idea if that would even be possible?" Jinu asks dubiously.
"Do you know if your idea of using my connection to the Honmoon to feed Gwi-Ma would even work?"
"It is more likely than whatever this is. You would need the other Hunters. Are you going to tell your friends about your patterns? Where you've been sneaking off to for the last few weeks? Do you think they'll trust you to try something this risky knowing how much you've been hiding from them all this time?"
Rumi didn't think they would react well, but there had to be some way. "It's not like they need to know everything. If I just tell them I figured out another way to defeat Gwi-Ma maybe I— we—" She wants to show a proof of concept, but doesn't dare sing Golden, not with how it ended last time.
What is the easiest song she knows? The Hunter's song came to mind. She doesn't even remember learning it, as if it had always been some part of her. She sings, voice wavering slightly to begin, fearful of the choking sensation returning. By the time she ends with darkness meeting the light, she sees the threads of the Honmoon appear and glimmer around them. Jinu looks distrustfully at the lines as if he expects them to sting.
"Now you give it a try. Did you catch all the words?" she asks. Jinu archly parrots the words back at her as if insulted by the implication he couldn't master a nursery rhyme after hearing it once. The Honmoon shimmers which catches them both by surprise. Two people aren't the same as a stadium of souls, but it is clearly something.
She holds out her hand. He takes it and begins to actually sing the words as Rumi hums a harmony. Jinu's grip tightens as they watch the lines react and shine at their voices coming together. It still feels fragile, but that in time it could grow and strengthen, like a shoot newly sprung from the ground.
"I think, if we work together, we can make it work," she says as the light of the Honmoon gently fades.
"I— I'll think about it," Jinu says, but he meets her eyes with something like wonder, and Rumi feels something strange in her chest as if a bird were somehow caught in the space between her ribcage.
"Thank you." She rises to her feet, and the tiger makes a huff of dissatisfaction at being disturbed.
"Rumi— wait—" she looks back at him and there's conflict in his face, lashes shading his eyes before he looks back up and meets her gaze: "What you bought in the market. I want it."
She smiles and takes the norigae out of her pocket. She kneels and affixes it to the front of his jacket. "Be sure not to lose it."
They should have won the fight easily.
The mass of featureless demons crawling from the gash in the Honmoon are creepy, but no more powerful or clever than any of the other monsters Gwi-Ma had thrown so ineffectually their way. It doesn't give Rumi pause to fight these demons, blank except for their bright purple patterns. It is hard to imagine that they have much sentience at all beyond wanting to attack and eat.
They aren't performing at their peak, but their song knits together better than it had in weeks. Their formations flow together with ease, cutting through the wave of attackers like water on sand. It feels right.
Zoey sends Rumi a broad smile and thumbs up after they dispatch an encircling crush of demons. Mira gives her a nod when Rumi cuts down a demon that tried to attack Mira from behind. Rumi is still flush with the excitement that she and Jinu touched the Honmoon together, proving that at least some of her tentative plan might be possible: take things to the source and lock Gwi-Ma up to starve forever.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, Rumi sees a flash of dark fabric. The Jeoseung Saja's back is to Rumi. Had Gwi-Ma sent Jinu here to get killed in the confusion of the fight? Rumi's heart squeezes with terror and her sword lowers to her side.
"Jinu?"
The Jeoseung Saja turns sharply and it's not Jinu, but it's already too late for Rumi to defend herself. The demon's claws arc towards her for what feels like hours but must have only been seconds, knowing the razor sharp points would tear into her, but without any way to counter. Except the claws don't sink in, instead she's on the ground and she can only look up to see that Mira has taken her place.
Mira must have used her gak-do to sweep Rumi's feet out from under her to get her out of harm's way, but in doing so left Mira open for the Jeoseung Saja to turn and rake his claws into her side.
Rumi doesn't hesitate. She rises to her feet and puts her sword through the demon's middle before he can try to press his advantage. The Jeoseung Saja grimaces and curls in on himself in wounded terror before disintegrating. Rumi calls out to Zoey and together they dispatch the rest of the straggling demons who despite their blank faces somehow convey that even they have the capacity for fear as they meet their pathetic ends.
There's no victory, only panic, when they rush back to Mira, who is awake, but exhibiting signs of shock. The gashes aren't wide, but they're deep. Celine trained them in basic first aid, so they keep the pressure on injury, and try to keep Mira as comfortable as possible until they are able to get her to the hospital with Zoey rattling off some wildly unlikely story to the doctors.
By the time they are allowed to see Mira, she is in a private room, sitting up, magazine in hand and complaining about the poor selection.
No eyes are dry as Zoey and Rumi fall across her, taking pains to put no weight on Mira's injured side. She would be kept overnight for observation, but if her injuries remained uninfected and she didn't develop any other symptoms, she would be free to leave in the morning. Mira wanted to argue for a sooner release, but the other two wouldn't hear of it. They aren't willing to take any risks. Instead they climbed into or leaned over the bed as best they could, pulling up videos that Mira would find funny (this was mostly Zoey) or sharing industry gossip (this was mostly Rumi) but always with their hands in each others grip.
It is far from the first time that any of them had been injured while demon hunting, occupational hazards being what they are, but it had been a while since they had to navigate something this serious. Something that so easily could have been far worse.
When Mira naps at the other two's insistence, Rumi and Zoey fall into sympathetic dozes or chat quietly. It is more than they had talked in weeks. All estrangement gone in the face of a crisis. This is what Rumi needs to protect, and she scolds herself for allowing her worries and secrets to keep her from what was more precious to her than anything else.
She smiles at them as Zoey is showing another video to Mira who watches dutifully, eyes only slightly unfocused by the pain medication.
"When Mira is better, we should go to the bath house," Rumi says.
The two look up from the video and their eyes are star bright. "You really mean it?" Zoey asks.
Rumi nods solemnly and reaches out, taking both their hands. "We'll make a whole day of it."
"If I had know me getting stabbed would get you to go to the bath house, I would have done it sooner," Mira deadpans.
"Mira!" Zoey nudges her, but then they all fall again into laughing and then crying, happy to be together and safe enough to crack tasteless jokes.
Rumi plays this future out in her mind: relaxing in the bath house together even as Mira and Zoey tease her for years of reluctance. She would ask them defensively if they were going to bring that up every time they went and Mira and Zoey would answer back yes in unison before they all devolved into laughter.
With each of their hands in hers, it was almost possible to believe that this future could have become reality.
The sky outside the window is pitch dark and Zoey leans against Rumi, half asleep. Visitor hours must be long over, but no one bothers them. With great care, Rumi disentangles herself from Zoey, murmuring about needing to use the restroom. Zoey only makes some vague assenting sighs as she turns to snuggle instead into the obnoxiously large polar bear plush they had purchased for Mira.
Rumi silently goes to the door and places her hand on the handle when she hears, "So, who's Jinu?"
Rumi turns to see Mira sitting up and staring at her.
"What do you mean?" Rumi asks, cringing knowing it's useless.
"That's what you said to the demon right before it tried to wreck your shit. So, who's Jinu? Is he who you've been sneaking out to go see?"
Rumi tries to keep her breathing calm, but knows she's not doing a good job of it. "It's to fix things."
"And you already decided that Zoey and I can't help," she says bitterly, looking more hurt than angry. "We know you keep secrets, Rumi. We trusted that you'd tell us what's important, but that hasn't felt true in a while now. Are you really not going to tell me what's going on?"
"I can't."
Mira looks down at her hands. "Can you at least promise that you'll come back?"
Rumi remembers the moment of the Jeoseung Saja tearing his claws through Mira's side, and how easily it might have been her throat. "I promise."
Rumi finds Jinu leaning on the railing of the Seonyugo bridge's observation deck looking over towards the park. The light coming off the bridge casts the greenery into a sea of shifting shadows. She wishes they could have met during the day and walked beneath the flowering trees and by the pools of lotus. But it is too late for that now.
She expects Jinu to chide her for being late, but instead he smiles when he notices her presence, straightening a little. "This used to be a mountain once," he says by way of greeting, gesturing towards the park.
"It was?" Rumi looks over at the park's flat, cultivated surface and can't imagine a mountain, but she is willing to go along with it to postpone what would soon need to be said. She didn't think the Han river was so deep that there were secret underwater mountains, but knowledge of local topography was another one of those things that she had sacrificed to her grueling work schedule.
"It was known as Seonyu Peak, one of the finest places in the area to climb and see everything all around. It was quite famous; there are many paintings of it if you ever want to look it up."
"What happened to it?"
"There was a great flood. In response, the city turned Seonyu Peak into landfill to create high banks on the sides of the river so it would never flood so badly again. Then the mountain became a flat, useless piece of land that no one cared about anymore."
"Now it's a park."
"Yes, eventually, they turned it into a park," Jinu says, the light coming from the bridge created unsettling shadows across the planes of his face. "But it doesn't change what happened. It will never be a mountain again."
"You're right," Rumi agrees, but thinks to herself that at least it succeeded in protecting the city.
She closes her eyes and feels the spring breeze coming off the river and the smell of fresh green things. She wonders how long it would be until she feels and smells anything like this again.
"I accept your deal," she says. There's no point in putting this off any longer. "I have a few stipulations, but I'll do it."
She opens her eyes and Jinu is looking at her as if she'd struck his face. "You don't mean it."
“This isn't something I'd joke about. I'll marry Gwi-Ma."
"You're really serious?" Then of all things, Jinu begins laughing helplessly. Rumi's face burns in fury. She had been agonizing over this and he was behaving like an actor who hadn't bothered to read the script beforehand. This is why she hates working with amateurs.
"I can't just do nothing anymore, waiting for something to happen," she snaps. "People are getting hurt."
He covers his face with his hands, trying to get himself under control and she sees his patterns are visible, gleaming dimly.
He manages to stop laughing, but doesn't uncover his face when he asks, "But what about your plan?"
"It's too late. I don't even know how to begin to implement it."
"But your voice—"
"It's still far from fully recovered, and it might get worse again."
"You don't know what you're agreeing to."
Rumi wants in that moment, more than she's ever wanted anything before, to reach out, and take his hand again. To let him talk her out of this choice. But next time it may not be just a hospital bed if she keeps letting others take the consequences for her. Maybe one night soon, Jinu simply wouldn't show up, and then what would she do?
"Will there be a written contract before it's finalized?" she asks.
"Yes."
"He'll stop attacking the human world?"
"Yes."
"He'll let all the demons under his control free?"
"You can't do this for me—"
"I'm not doing this for you." She swallows, and continues, "I was using you. I thought that if I learned more about demons and Gwi-Ma that maybe I'd find some way to fix my voice enough to turn the Honmoon gold, and put an end to all of this. I thought I could fix it; could fix me, but I've run out of time," Rumi admits hollowly. "It's time to negotiate. If he doesn't have a demon army, he can't keep stealing people's souls, can he?"
She looks up at him, expecting a flinch of disgust, or, even worse, pity. Instead his expression is grim, but now his markings cover his face in veins of muted purple. It doesn't make him ugly, she thinks, but it does make him look unmistakably like a demon.
"Gwi-Ma is old and clever. No matter how careful you are: he'll trick you."
Rumi's smile is bitter. "What choice do I have?"
There's a crash of booted feet striking against wood and both turn to see six of the largest demons Rumi had ever seen standing at attention. They are all dressed very neatly in robes of silk with round brimmed hats perched carefully on each head, making only slight allowances for various horns and ears, attaching ribbons tied beneath their chins. They stood in two rows of three, holding on their shoulders a great palanquin made of dark, lacquered wood, carved with intricate designs impossible to make out and its curved roof painted a deep crimson like fresh blood.
The demons did not threaten or announce their purpose, they merely knelt as one so the palanquin rested on the ground. Its door opened of its own accord.
Rumi turned back to Jinu, but there was nothing more to be said. She had made her choice. This exchange of looks was all that was left to be shared between them.
She steps away. Some part of her, the part that loved stories with happy endings, expects him to reach for her hand or for Mira and Zoey to appear at the last moment and snatch her away, but she knows neither will happen. No one else could do this. Perhaps now her birth could be forgiven for the chance to put an end to so much suffering.
She bows, lowering her head to enter the palanquin, turning once inside to catch her last glimpse of Jinu, still standing there, watching as the door shuts itself and blocks him entirely from view.