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Rumi can't get used to this new weight in her chest.
Ever since they defeated Gwi-Ma and rebuilt the Honmoon, ever since Jinwoo had sacrificed himself so that they could save the world, ever since her patterns had turned from the bluish-purple bruising of shame to the silvery scars of acceptance, Rumi has felt this weight in her chest.
It doesn't feel…painful, per se, she thinks to herself, rubbing an absent hand over her breastbone and feeling something almost like a flutter underneath her skin. More like…full? Like there's more to her than just herself, now. Like she's a little squished, inside herself, like a kimbap already packed full and she's trying to fit just one more strip of carrot into the wrap.
She sighs and drops her hand, shaking out her arms and rolling her head on her neck. They're back in the practice rooms, running through their new choreo for their next release, now that Golden promotions have finished. The Honmoon is back in place but it's not golden, not after it got completely destroyed and Gwi-Ma almost managed to fully manifest in the human world, so they're working flat out to rebuild it. That means no couch time for a while, and they're all feeling it.
"Everything good?" Mira asks, eyes sharp as she looks Rumi up and down for any sign of injury. Their dance leader takes her job very seriously, and Rumi can't help but smile fondly at her.
"Yeah, I'm good," she reassures her, kicking up her knees to stretch her legs out super quick. "Want to run it again?"
Mira watches her for one more second, before nodding decisively and barking at Zoey to get back into position. Their tiny, bubbly maknae groans loudly but obeys, and they spend another hour in exhausting, satisfying practice.
"But like seriously, Rumi, you sure you're okay?" Mira asks when they're all sprawled in sweaty heaps on the floor, gulping down water and doing their cooldown stretches. "You're acting kinda… I dunno, spacey lately."
"Yeah!" Zoey agrees, leaning over and shoving her sweaty face into Rumi's, narrowing her eyes threateningly. "You better not be hiding anything from us again, are you?"
Rumi leans back and chuckles, ruffling Zoey's wet bangs and shoving her face away as Zoey lets out a shriek of protest. "I'm not hiding anything, I just…" she hesitates, one hand drifting to her breastbone again. "I feel kind of different, after the battle? Like… I don't know, just. I feel different inside. Like my powers have changed or something. Or I'm. Like. More? Than I was before?" Her hand drops to her lap and she huffs out a little laugh. "I don't know, I'm not explaining it well. I just… feel like there's something new in my chest."
"Hmm." Mira crawls over the dance floor to perch on her knees next to Rumi, peering down at her with her sharp gaze. "Lemme have your hands." Already lighting up with the soft silvery-blue glow of their power, Mira takes Rumi's hands in her own and hums a low note to synchronize their energies, watching carefully for any differences. Off to the side, Zoey watches with wide eyes. Mira's always been the best at examining their energy, making sure it matches each other physically just as it does aurally in Zoey's lyrics.
"I can't see any difference in your energy," Mira finally says slowly, letting the glow fade, "But there does seem to be something different in your core. It kinda seems…almost demonic?" Her eyes flick up to Rumi's, the only sign in her otherwise stony expression that she's worried about how Rumi will react to her words.
"Ah." Rumi chuckles weakly. "I wonder if that's it. It's just something to do with my patterns." One finger absently traces a silver-purple line on her forearm. "We don't really know anything about them, after all."
Mira sits back on her heels, staring blank-faced at her leader for a minute. Then, in characteristically blunt fashion, she asks, "Have you ever done anything demonic? Like, used any demonic powers?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Rumi can see Zoey flinch, but their maknae doesn't do anything but bite her lip, clearly also waiting for the answer. Rumi sighs.
"When I…went to see Celine," she starts carefully. She'd already told them about the visit, the desperate begging for understanding, the request she'd made of her mother figure. The absolute heart-wrenching realization that her mother figure was just as flawed as she was, that her lifelong insistence on never admitting vulnerability or asking for support had perhaps doomed the entire world to darkness. "I… well, I wasn't exactly fit to ride public transit. And you know buses don't go out to the sacred tree anyway. So I…popped. You know, like the demons do. That's how I got to Namsan Tower in time, too."
Mira's flat expression didn't change. "You mean, like…the twisty red thing that they do?" She waved her hand around in a way that was apparently supposed to imitate the teleportation that demons were capable of.
Rumi can't keep a huff of laughter from escaping. "Yeah, the twisty red thing that they do. But…" She flexes her hand, staring down at it thoughtfully. "I don't think I can do it anymore. Or at least, I haven't tried. Or it feels a lot harder? I think my Hunter powers are kind of preventing it. Like, I could probably do it if I had to, but my Hunter powers are dominant."
"Sweet." Mira smirks. "You should totally master that. You'd be able to pop down to the conbini anytime we run out of honey butter chips."
Zoey giggles, falling into Rumi's side. "Teleportation is definitely awesome," she agrees, taking Rumi's hand. "But only if it doesn't hurt you, okay, Rumi? You're the only half-demon in the world, so we really don't know anything about what you should and shouldn't do. So be careful, okay?"
"I will," Rumi assures her, squeezing her hand tight. "Probably this thing in my chest is just my demon powers settling in with my Hunter powers. I'll let you guys know if anything changes, but it doesn't feel dangerous or anything. Just weird."
"All right," Mira groans, standing to her full lanky height and stretching her arms over her head. "Practice is over for sure tonight. Let's all go home and get some sleep before tomorrow's schedule."
—
Rumi practices with her demon powers, but the full feeling in her chest doesn't fade. In fact, if anything, it grows heavier. Fuller.
She doesn't tell her teammates. They're working hard, trying to stay on top of the tower of sand that is the k-pop industry, and it really doesn't feel dangerous. It just feels…foreign. And definitely demonic. She doesn't need Mira to tell her that anymore. She can feel it herself, a distinctly different flavor than her own demonic power.
It isn't until she wakes up gasping for breath in the middle of the night, feeling as though she's an overfull water balloon about to explode, that she finally thinks maybe something serious is going on.
"Rrr?" a little voice says next to her bed, and Rumi turns her head with difficulty to see—
Jinwoo's blue tiger. Familiar huge golden eyes stare unblinkingly at her, his wide toothy smile exactly the same.
"Ho—jakdo?" she manages to gasp. She'd never expected to see them again. They're guardian spirits, demonic only in that they're not part of the human world. Traditionally, the tiger and magpie ward off evil spirits and signal auspicious events and good news. It's why she'd felt comfortable following them that first night, even though Jinwoo had been the one to send them. "What are you doing here?"
"Rrr," the tiger says again, head tilting adorably. He doesn't look as happy as he normally does; the corners of his mouth and eyes are turned down, as if in worry. "Rrr." He turns his head and looks at her balcony door, just as a soft ruffle of feathers and a soft squawk heralds the arrival of his magpie friend.
Groaning, Rumi manages to sit up in bed, propping herself up on trembling arms. Her internal organs slosh around inside of her, as if they're being crammed out of place by something huge, something filling up every single available bit of space inside of her and some of the unavailable bits of space, too. The magpie is sitting on her balcony railing just as it had months ago, ruffling its feathers agitatedly. It squawks again, louder.
"What?" Rumi whispers, panting for breath. "What now?"
The tiger stands and moves slowly to the balcony, then turns to look back expectantly at her.
"Again?" Rumi groans.
The magpie flutters to the top of the tiger's head, and they both sink through the floor in a puddle of blue light.
Groaning with the effort, Rumi rolls out of bed, landing on all fours as she gasps for air. Her ears are ringing now. This is important. She staggers to her feet, all of her insides heavy and full, power rumbling uneasily in her chest. She barely makes it to the balcony, clutching the railing as she looks out for the hojakdo. They're waiting, glowing blue, on a street far below.
"Fine," she grits her teeth. "Fine. Let's do this." And she flings herself over the balcony.
She can barely see by the time the two spirits turn the final corner into an old (old, old) district of Seoul. Every part of her body is focused on keeping ahold of whatever it is inside of her—and it is starting to hurt now, her skin stretched to its limit, organs squashed and pushed out of the way, fingertips and feet buzzing with something that's not hers. But it also feels more important than ever, and she doesn't even need to see anymore to know where they're going, doesn't even need the blue tiger's direction. She falls to her knees at the base of an old peach tree in the center of an old hanok's courtyard, and digs her hands into the dirt.
Sweating and trembling, gritting her teeth, she digs down until she touches cold skin.
She knows who it is before she ever uncovers his face.
Jinwoo lies there, curled up in the dirt, clad in tattered rags of black robes, his demon marks faded purple in the night. His eyes are closed. He looks dead.
"Rrr," the tiger says, staring at Rumi.
I don't even know what to do, she wants to say, but she does know, somehow—because when her mouth opens, it's not those words that come out but instead a song.
It doesn't have lyrics. It's just a melody, one that sounds similar to the song they'd sung together on the rooftops so long ago, and as she sings the great thing inside of her heaves and detaches itself, streaming out of her throat in silver swirls and sinking delicately into Jinwoo's body. As she watches, his patterns go from purple to silver, sinking into his skin like scars.
His body takes a breath, and his eyes flutter open.
Then he coughs and wheezes, hacking up dirt. Rumi barely suppresses a hysterical giggle, plopping down on her butt right next to him. Not the most elegant and cool of entrances, but hey, that's what you get when you've been buried underground for who knows how long.
"What the hell," Jinwoo finally rasps, uncurling himself from his tiny ball and shoving more dirt off of his legs as he sits up. "Rumi? What the fuck just happened? How did you… What did you…?"
Rumi shrugs, beaming at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. "No idea," she says, giving a huge, snotty sniff and rubbing the sleeve of her hoodie over her eyes, "But I think I just gave your soul back to you. Again."
—
It takes them a while to sort themselves out. Rumi, now devoid of the full feeling in her chest—Jinwoo's soul—for the first time in months, feels shaky and wrung out, like a dishcloth that's been used for far too long. Her legs tremble like she's at the end of the longest dance practice she's ever done, barely supporting her weight as she gets to her feet and helps Jinwoo out of the pit of dirt where he'd lain…rebirthing. He's unsteady as well, his legs stumbling, hands unable to grip properly, like the muscles have lain dormant for so long they've forgotten what they're supposed to do.
Finally they make it inside the hanok, where they settle with sighs of relief at an old table. Jinwoo leans over it like it's the only thing propping him up, eyes wide and disbelieving, and Rumi gets it, 100%. She's sure her own face looks just the same.
"So," she finally manages, clearing her throat when her voice comes out a croak. "When you said you were, uh, giving me your soul. You meant that pretty literally, huh?"
Jinwoo rasps out a wheeze of laughter. "Yeah, I guess."
"But I didn't know anything about—well." Rumi gestures at all of him, whole and solid, silver demon marks looking just like hers. Definitely not consumed by Gwi-Ma. "How is this even possible?"
Jinwoo grunts in thought, finger scratching absently at the surface of the table. "Maybe… Gwi-Ma eats souls, not bodies. And the contract he made with me was with my soul. So because I gave it to you, he didn't…consume me?"
Rumi nods thoughtfully. That kind of makes sense. But— "That still doesn't explain why you have a body, though. And especially not a body here, in the human world."
Jinwoo shrugs, looking exhausted. "Well, you're here, and you were carrying my soul. And the Honmoon was a mess. I guess…whatever was left of me just slipped through the cracks, and ended up here."
"And you were rebuilding," Rumi says in realization. "You, and your soul. I've felt you, here," she explains, tapping her chest when Jinwoo looks at her in inquiry. "Ever since that night. But you were small, at first. Your soul was barely noticeable in the beginning, but over the past couple of months it's been growing and growing inside me. Felt kind of uncomfortable, to be honest. Bodies aren't meant to hold two souls. And then tonight, I think you were finally ready. And the hojakdo came and got me." She gestures at the blue tiger and the magpie, both settled in the corner of the room. The tiger just slow-blinks at them, apparently happy with this turn of events, and the magpie completely ignores them, settled down into a puff of feathers on top of the tiger's head.
"Derpy," Jinwoo mutters, his mouth twitching up into a tiny smile.
Rumi lets out a disbelieving huff of laughter. "What?"
"I call him Derpy. Because he is."
That…is totally fair. Probably the best name you could possibly give such a well-meaning but completely hopeless creature.
"So, now what?" Jinwoo asks, blinking tiredly at her.
Rumi stares at him, in his ragged traditional hanbok, barely covering enough to be considered publicly decent. At his blue tiger and six-eyed magpie, also staring expectantly at her.
She sighs.
"Now, I guess, we take you back to my place."
—
It's a fraught journey.
They'd come far into the hills of Seoul, up into the undesirable old neighborhoods that had been settled for thousands of years. Luckily the return journey is all downhill, because Rumi doesn't think she'd be able to manage Jinwoo up any type of slope; neither of them are in particularly good shape, but Jinwoo really seems like he's having to relearn what it's like to be in a body, how to make his arms and legs obey his commands at the same time. He leans on Rumi's arm the whole way back, his other hand braced on the broad head of Derpy.
This would have been so much easier if I'd thought to grab my phone, Rumi thinks, navigating a crosswalk carefully. She hadn't been thinking of anything other than the overwhelming pressure in her chest, of course, and now they're without phones or wallets, no way to call Mira or Zoey or even pay for a cab. Not that Rumi particularly wants to hail a cab; she can only imagine the headlines tomorrow, Queen of K-pop Rumi seen getting out of cab with Mysterious Strangely-Dressed Man. Dispatch would have a field day.
Not that walking all the way back to the Huntrix tower is any better, Rumi reflects, pulling them into yet another shadowy alley as a group of salarymen pass by, probably on their way to an afterparty. Then she eyes Jinwoo speculatively.
"I don't suppose you're able to do any…concealment magic, are you? Shapeshifting? Whatever it is that demons do?"
Jinwoo grunts softly. "I can try." His patterns light up with a very faint glow for a moment, before fading again. He sighs. "No, I don't have the power for that. Do you?"
Rumi blinks. "Me? I've never done it before," she says, surprised. The only thing she'd ever experimented with is the teleportation, which she definitely doesn't have enough power for right now. And she's never done it with a companion, anyway; she wouldn't want to risk it. "How easy is it?"
Jinwoo shrugs weakly. "Compared to what?"
"Well, I guess teleportation? That's the only demonic thing I've ever done." Jinwoo lifts his head and stares at her, and Rumi blinks. "What?"
"Of course," Jinwoo laughs, leaning back against the grimy wall behind him and letting his head thump gently against the bricks. "You overachiever. Of course you'd jump straight to teleportation and skip all of the easy stuff. Yes, Rumi, shapeshifting or even a glamour is much easier than teleportation. If you can hide your iconic hair and maybe give me some normal clothes, we should be fine."
"Okay." Rumi narrows her eyes and concentrates on pulling up her demonic power. Normally it's a bit of a tug, to get it out from underneath her Hunter powers, but tonight it comes easily, already at the surface. Probably from giving a demon back his soul, Rumi thinks wryly, and then focuses on changing her appearance. It happens easily enough, just like he said; all of a sudden her hair is black and in a ponytail, and Jinwoo is dressed in a shirt and slacks.
They're able to pick up the pace a bit, now that they no longer need to duck out of sight anytime someone passes by. Still, it's miles and miles of travel, and Rumi's feet feel like lead by the time they finally drag themselves to the back door of Huntrix's high-rise. Her organs still feel like they're resettling back into their normal places after being squished out of the way by Jinwoo's soul, and every single bone in her body aches—even her teeth ache with tiredness. Jinwoo had stopped talking an hour back, and only his feet still stepping one in front of the other tell her that he hasn't passed out.
She flips open the hidden panel and scans her handprint, then types in her unique passcode when the keypanel pops up. The door slides open with a quiet hiss, and she heaves Jinwoo inside and to the back elevator. Dumping him against the railing, she has to take a minute to remember her passcode for this elevator, but once she does, they rocket toward their penthouse apartment, not stopping at any of the other floors that lead to various levels of their entertainment company. Rumi sags against the railing next to Jinwoo, finally allowing herself to relax. They'd made it.
There's no thought for any kind of makeshift bed. Rumi heaves Jinwoo's arm over her shoulder for the last time and they weave drunkenly through the apartment, trying not to trip over anything, until Rumi can finally slam her bedroom door shut behind them and dump him onto her bed. Jinwoo goes without a single complaint, flopping facedown on top of her sheets, and Rumi barely has the processing power to shove his arm out of the way before she flops right down next to him and is out like a light.
—
A scream jolts Rumi out of her dead sleep a few hours later. She sits bolt upright, flailing for her sword, eyes barely open. From somewhere next to her, a deep, anguished groan sounds muffled by blankets.
"Wha—whassa matter?" Rumi slurs, tugging strands of hair out of the corner of her mouth. Then she sees Zoey standing in her doorway, eyes huge over where her hands are clasped over her mouth, and feels a shot of dread spike through her.
"Rumi," Zoey whispers theatrically, lowering her hands, "Did you bring a boy home?" Then her nose wrinkles. "Dressed like that?"
Rumi glances down to see that at some point during the night, Jinwoo's clothes and her hair had reverted to their original forms; her usual purple, now impossibly messy and tangled, and Jinwoo's…not very nice clothes. Rumi can see a fair amount of skin that she probably shouldn't be able to see. She clears her throat and flicks a corner of blanket over his butt.
"C'mon, let's go out," Rumi says quietly, rolling off the side of the bed. "I'll explain." She ushers Zoey back out of her room, glancing back just before closing her door to see Jinwoo burying his face deeper into her pillows.
Mira is out in the kitchen area, making coffee. She arches an eyebrow at the two of them expectantly, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter as the espresso machine hisses and sputters. "Well? What'd you do that has Zoey screaming this early in the morning?"
"Rumi has a boy in her room!" Zoey blabs immediately, bouncing her way over to the countertop and pulling herself up onto a stool.
"A boy?" Mira looks Rumi up and down, turning to pour an espresso shot over a prepared cup of ice. "Damn, girl, and I thought Zoey was going to be the one to get into a scandal first."
Zoey sputters, her face turning bright red. "Wha—me—that's—okay, fair," she says aggressively, jabbing a finger in Rumi's face as she joins her at the countertop. "But it wasn't me, it was our fearless leader! So start talking, missy! Who and what and where and why?"
Rumi sighs, taking the cup of iced americano that Mira slides over the counter to her and wrapping her hands around it. "I've been carrying around Jinwoo's soul for the past two months, and last night his body was finally ready for rebirth, so I was drawn out to his body, gave him back his soul, and then brought him back here to crash."
She takes a sip of her americano as her two bandmates gape at her, dumbstruck. Mmm. Mira always knows exactly how to make the best coffee.
—
Two hours later, they're all sitting in silence on their big couch, staring at each other. Jinwoo had finally woken up, and Rumi had offered him her shower and some of Mira's baggiest clothes (Mira being the only one of them tall enough to have pants even remotely long enough for Jinwoo's ridiculous legs). So now here they all are, Jinwoo looking soft and vulnerable, damp hair dripping onto Mira's grey hoodie.
"So," Mira says finally, breaking the silence, arms folded over her chest as she squints threateningly at Jinwoo. "You're looking remarkably alive, demon."
Jinwoo huffs out a soft laugh, tugging the cuffs of his sleeves over his hands. "Yeah, believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are."
"And you have no idea how this happened?" Zoey asks, leaning forward. "Rumi said she was carrying around your soul."
Jinwoo shrugs. His fingers are fiddling with the edge of his sleeves. "Yeah, I guess. I really don't know. I thought I was dying, when I blocked Gwi-Ma's blow at the concert. I've seen him devour demons before, disintegrate their souls so they can't come back. But I guess giving Rumi my soul was a little more literal than either of us had planned."
Mira squints at him for a few moments longer, then sighs. "And are you still bound to Gwi-Ma?"
Jinwoo blinks, looking shocked. "Um." One of his hands drifts up and presses absently against his chest. "…No," he says slowly, disbelievingly. Hopefully. "No, I'm not. I—I don't hear his voice anymore. It's—" His voice hitches. "It's gone."
"Good." Mira thumps the butt of her gokdo, suddenly manifested out of the thrumming Honmoon, on the floor in front of her and glares. "Because if you did, I would punt you back to the demon realm myself this very instant. As it is…" She sits back and lets her weapon dissolve back into aether, glancing flatly over at Rumi. Rumi stares back, fingers twisting together in her lap, practically vibrating. She doesn't know why this feels so important, so pivotal, but it does. If Mira and Zoey can accept Jinwoo, with his silver demon marks and demonic past, then… Rumi doesn't know what then, but it feels huge. "…As it is," Mira repeats, "I guess you can stay here for now. If it's alright with Zoey."
Rumi lets out a tiny, completely involuntary squeak. "Really?"
"Yeah," Mira drawls, all feigned nonchalance as she leans back into the couch. "Better than him running around the city where we can't see him, I guess."
Rumi turns to Zoey. "Zoey?" she asks pleadingly, clasping her hands beneath her chin.
Zoey glances between Rumi and Jinwoo, biting her bottom lip. "Yeah, I guess it's alright with me," she agrees. Then she glares at Jinwoo. "But try any of that shit you pulled at the Idol Awards, mister, and you'll find all of my knives in your soft spots! And that goes double if you hurt Rumi's feelings again!"
Rumi claps her hands in excitement, ignoring the burning heat of embarrassment in her ears. "Great!" she exclaims. "Now we'll just have to explain you to Bobby, and figure out where you're going to stay, and make sure you have an identity here… I don't suppose you have any form of identification, huh?"
Jinwoo shakes his head. "I've watched the world for the past 400 years," he explains, "but I haven't taken part in it, until I came up with the Saja Boys plan. And then we were only in the human world for our idol activities, we didn't hang around."
"You came up with—" Rumi cuts herself off and pinches the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath in and out. "Okay. Fine. That makes sense. We'll just…have to figure something out for you to do, then, while you're here. I don't suppose you have any transferable skills?"
Jinwoo shrugs, giving a wry smile. "You've seen all of my transferable skills. When I was alive the first time, I was a performer. I can sing, play the bipa, and dance. And kill people, I suppose, but I don't imagine that that skillset is going to be very highly desired."
"Yeah, not so much," Rumi mutters. "Luckily, the Hunters know a thing or two about slipping someone into the fabric of society. We'll get you sorted out. Wait…" She turns slowly to face Jinwoo. "You came up with the Saja Boys plan."
Jinwoo leans back a little, looking slightly wary. "Uh, yeah."
"So did you write their songs, too?" Rumi leans forward, not looking away from Jinwoo. She's not entirely sure what her face is doing, but Mira and Zoey are leaning away now too, looking both concerned and intrigued.
"Uh. Yeah." Jinwoo looks a little freaked out now, pressed back into the corner of the couch.
"And there was definitely some demonic manipulation going on there, but those lyrics were fire," Rumi breathes. On her other side, Zoey gasps loudly.
"They were!" Suddenly she's all up in Jinwoo's space, practically vibrating with energy. "You wrote them all? Soda Pop was so good, if you hadn't been trying to steal all our fans and destroy the world as we know it I would have loved to pick your brain, the wordplay was so clever and I loved all the little hints about you guys being demons—"
"Yeah," Mira drawls, looming over them all, hands on her hips and a smirk on her face. Jinwoo, fenced in with Zoey and Rumi on each side, Mira in front and the couch at his back, looks thoroughly freaked out. "Welcome to the madhouse, buddy. Looks like we just found ourselves a new member of our production team."