Chapter Text
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Rumi needs to bring new flowers next time. The chysanthamums were browning in the summer heat, several of them withered and scattered on the floor of the memorial shrine. She crouches down and starts to collect them piece by piece, dull orange and gold overlapping each other. Some of them crumble into dust in her hand, but some are still strong enough to remain whole. She wonders if she could make the flower whole again. She wonders if she could have healed the cracks that ran through Jinu at the end, forced the dust that his body became back together, simply pushed the spiritual energy back into -.
She shakes her head before she can continue that train of thought. There was no changing what had happened. She is alive. He is not. That’s the truth. He had stood in front of her and smiled until he was no longer able to, he had ended up fulfilling his promise in the end. She disrespected his memory by undermining the sacrifice he had made. She straightens and then places the petals into a shallow wooden bowl at the photo’s base.
It was a candid that she had taken of him during one of their meet-ups, where Jinu had crouched down to pet a stray cat and she hadn’t been stealthy enough to take the picture without him noticing. His smile is wide and unguarded, and his eyes are half closed. It’s not anything close to the closed mouth smiles he made in Saija Boy promotional pictures. It’s a smile just for Rumi, and her breath catches in her throat everytime she sees it.
Rumi knows that she’s lingered for too long when her vision becomes blurry at the edges. She refuses to cry in public. She turns, forcing herself to leave and - Rumi stares at Jinu’s cat.
It’s still large and blue, with that familiar cunning look in its eyes. She’s always felt trapped in its gaze, like she should never turn her back on it, never let it see how much its presence unnerves her. She cautiously steps towards it, aware of how sharp those claws were. She’s seen it infrequently since Jinu’s death, but it had always watched her from a distance, orange eyes always glowing in the darkness. This was the first time it had approached her in almost six months.
“What are you doing here?” She asks. The cat slowly blinks. Rumi sighs heavily. “Of course, you can’t talk, obviously. Uh, did you need anything-”
Before Rumi can even finish her sentence, the cat starts hacking something up. She grimaces - she did not miss having to handle the slimy paper invitations that Jinu insisted on sending even after he had her cell phone number. But this was not an invitation - her eyes widen, breath catching in her throat as a longsword clattered to the floor at her feet. She looks at the sword (the one that had formed in her hands after Jinu had disintegrated, when she was struggling to hold on to her humanity and the will to fight) and then back to the cat, who looks unbearably smug. It leans down and nudges the sword towards her with its snout.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
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Mira scowls at the blade in front of them, while Rumi slaps Zoey’s hands everytime she starts reaching for the pommel.
“C’mon Rumi, can’t you just let me hold it? Just a little bit.” Zoeys says, her eyes wide and pleading. “It looks perfectly balanced, and that edge! Imagine the kind of damage you could do with this thing!”
Rumi feels a sharp unpleasant tug in her stomach, and she narrows her eyes at Zoey instinctively. She’s not sure why, but the idea of anyone other than her handling the blade is sacriligious and deeply unsettling.
“Fuck no,” she says, tone sharper than she intended. Zoey flinches. Shit. Rumi takes a deep breath, and continues more calmly, “It’s covered in cat saliva, you really don’t want to touch that.”
Zoey frowns for a moment, her expression thoughtful, and then shrugs.
“Fair enough, cat saliva sword is all yours!”
“This is fascinating,” Mira says, glasses pushed all the way up the bridge of her nose as she inspects the blade. “It’s a long sword, obviously, and with the crosshatch leather pattern on the pommel - it must be at least 5 centuries old.” She smiles, looking directly at Rumi, “Only you would find a Ssang Soo Do after a giant demon cat vomited it up as an equally giant hairball.”
Rumi wrinkles her nose “You don’t have to make it sound so … insulting.”
Mira shrugs, slouching back into the couch cushions. “ I’m just telling it how it is. You’re always so lucky, but in the stupidest way possible. It’s truely a talent.”
“Sure, sure” Rumi mutters under her breath, and then says more loudly, “I’m going to put this away before either of you get any ideas. Thanks for your help Mira.”
She leaves to the sound of Zoe’s vague protests and Mira’s irritated huff. She places the sword in the back of her closet, and hesitates before wrapping it in an old blanket. For some reason she feels colder as she closes the closet, more exposed than she’s ever felt in her own home.
She turns sharply and leaves the bedroom before she gives in and grabs the sword again. She closes the bedroom door, and turns around to find Zoe standing there, an uncharacteristically serious look on the other woman’s face.
“Why did the cat give you the sword, Rumi?”
“How would I know? It doesn’t speak Korean. I don’t speak Cat.” She says, waving her hand flippantly.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” Rumi’s skin is still prickling, her hands flexing around a phantom blade.
Zoe sighs, and rubs her temples with her fingers.
“It feels like Jinu,” She says, “Almost like he was just handling it. And it was the one that you had that night, wasn’t it? At the end? I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Rumi blanches, her eyes darting back to the bedroom. It feels like Jinu? Was that his sword? She wants to throw it out the window, she wants to hold it close enough that she picks up on whatever Zoe had sensed, she wants to hold it in her hands again. She wants to melt it down and purify it of Jinu’s memory, she wants to - . It would be the only thing of Jinu’s that hadn’t burned into ash when he died.
When she looks back at Zoe, she’s watching Rumi with an apologetic expression.
“I’m sorry Rumi,” Zoe says.
Rumi smiles tightly, pushes everything into a small box in the back of her mind.
“It’s fine.” She says, and threads her arm through Zoe’s. “Let’s go beat Mira’s ass in Dance Dance Revolution.”
Zoe lights up, gripping onto Rumi with her freaking superstrength and clambering up her back until her arms were wrapped around her neck. Rumi flails.
“Damnit Zoe! Let go!” But as Mira laughs from the other room, as Zoe giggles and presses her face into the back of Rumi’s neck, she hopes that this moment lasts forever - the three of them together, with no enemies at the gates and no worries about the Honmoon. She wants them to be happy and safe forever.
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Rumi arrives at the gym at 6:15 am. She’s 45 minutes behind her usual routine, but she’s been having trouble sleeping since the cat appeared two weeks ago and it had caught up with her this morning. She walks past the early morning gym buffs into a private room. She started going to this gym because of the close proximity to the apartment and recording studio, and the discretion and anti-recording policy that had allowed the place to retain a celebrity clientele. She stayed for the ability to practice kumdo with a live blade without drawing suspicion to herself, and the bomb ass snacks in the vending machines down the hall.
The room is warmly lit, with cushioned mats covering half of the floor, several punching pugs hanging along the far side and floor to ceiling mirrors on the right wall. She stretches quickly, and then starts whaling on the punching bags until she’s worked up a good sweat and her heartbeat is thudding through her entire body.
It’s only then that she turns towards her bag, and reaches in to grab Jinu’s sword. It’s somehow always body temperature - and she must be more sleep deprived than she realized, because she could swear that it hums with pleasure as she unsheathes the blade.
She starts off with Hyung forms, matching her breath with each sword stroke. This is the closest she will ever come to meditation, just her and the sword, striking at the air again and again until they both hum with joy. Practicing with Jinu’s sword has brought training to a new level, and she feels more settled than she has in a very long time, maybe ever. If she closes her eyes, she can imagine that he’s here right next to her. She can almost hear his low laugh echo through the room, feel the unnatural demon heat of his presence. She speeds up, blocks and cuts and strikes until the only thing she can hear is her heartbeat, the only thing she feels is the sword in her grip and the pulse of the Honmoon above her.
Rumi grins, runs through a complicated drill and then flows, under body strike, side slash, overhead slash, under slash . She repeats it again and again until it’s perfect, and then once, twice, three times after that. Rumi feels perfect clarity, perfect calm, perfect belonging in the way she only ever feels with a sword in her hand. Her mind is open and malleable when she’s like this, to the point where she can communicate with Mira and Zoe mentally. It’s an essential skill to have in battle, is what makes them such a cohesive unit together. Full of pride and the satisfaction of making something perfect, she pushes the last couple of minutes to them, and then she hears Mira say fucking awesome Rumi, that’s what I’m talking about . Then Zoe asks her to do a backflip, just once, they should make a signature duo move together and backflips are always so cool! Rumi flushes with pride, and is about to tell Zoe hell yes , when she hears Jinu say, watered down and quiet but still audible: that was excellent, try the next form now and watch your elbow, it flared out a bit there and you’re gorgeous Rumi .
Wait, Jinu? She halts when she hears that last sentence, and comes back to herself in a rush. Jinu’s presence disappears instantly, and Rumi is left standing there, gorgeous echoing through her mind again and again as she stares at her flushed face in the mirror. She turns away, unable to look at her reflection any longer.
She pushes reassurance to Mira and Zoe, who are both concerned after they felt a flash of alarm from her. She doesn’t tell them what happened, that Jinu had spoken to her because Jinu was dead and spread into a million pieces over the city and was not able to communicate because he was dead.
I’m pathetic , Rumi thinks to herself, sliding the blade back into its sheath violently, chasing after a demon six months dead. Why can’t I let the past stay in the past? She pretends not to feel the sudden wave of sadness that cuts off the second the blade is completely sheathed. It’s just her imagination, and she can’t spend all of her time chasing ghosts.
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