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Grief is a funny thing, really. Of course there is the grief of lost loved ones, where you miss the presence of someone important to you. But you can also grieve missed opportunities in your life, or friendships that did not work out. And you can grieve someone you never even knew, the idea of someone.
Rumi was grieving. Her grief and guilt weighed her down. Throughout the day, she had kept asking herself whether there was something she should have done differently, if she even could have done something differently, of if it was always going to end with Jinu dead.
It was a good thing that HUNTR/X went onto hiatus for a few weeks. Rumi would not have been good at work.
And now, she laid awake in her bed, unable to sleep, when a crash sounded from her balcony. For a brief moment, Rumi contemplated whether she should just stay in bed and not move, but the caution and curiosity took over. She drew her new sword from the Honmoon and approached her windows.
Jinu´s demon tiger stood on her balcony, trying to right the flowerpot it had thrown over. It was the same one it had thrown over the last time it had come to visit her. Rumi let her sword vanish and went onto her balcony. It was the quietest time of night, and the air was neither too hot, nor too cold.
“Hey, tiger”, Rumi greeted Jinu´s pet while sitting down. “What are you doing here?”
Of course, the animal did not respond in any meaningful way, but it did stop trying to right the flowerpot for a few seconds to look at her. For just a moment, the world held its breath. Then, the tiger went back to trying to set the flowerpot upright, and while Rumi could not help a little amused smile, she was struck with a realisation.
“You probably miss him too, right?” she asked without expecting an answer. “And with the new Honmoon you can´t even go back to the demon world and I´m the only one you know here, isn´t that right?”
At last, the tiger seemed to give up on the flowerpot. Instead it went over to where Rumi sat, curling itself around her and settling its head next to her.
For a few moments, they just stayed like that, relaxing in the quiet of the night.
“It´s funny I should miss him”, Rumi began talking. “After all, I really didn´t know him, and we only met a few times. I don´t even know if we even would have gotten along at all! We never had the time to properly find out. One of the two only times we didn´t fight, was when I gave him that bracelet.”
Rumi still remembered that look on Jinu´s face, when he had grabbed her wrist and looked up to her, even though he was taller. She did not think she would ever forget it. That look of tentative hope, of not wanting to be alone any more, of wishing to finally be free, and tinged with just a little bit of desperation. That look on his face would probably be forever burned into Rumi´s memory.
“That little old lady had actually given it to me, when she thought Jinu was being a bad boyfriend!” Rumi could not help but chuckle a little at that.
“And then I offered it to him, and at first he refused it, but then it turns out, he did want to have it”
The tiger flicked its tail and a few seconds of silence passed.
“He wanted to be free so badly”, Rumi whispered.
“Great!”, she scoffed. “Now I´m talking to the demon pet of my dead demon not-boyfriend who first betrayed me and then sacrificed himself for me. That must certainly be not insane at all, right?”
Her voice became shaky towards the end, but Rumi did not cry. The tiger curled itself around Rumi just a bit more tightly. The young woman looked down on it and started petting it a little.
“Are you trying to comfort me right now? You´re so cute.”
Of course, Rumi did not know whether Jinu and her would have made a good couple. On the night with the bracelet she certainly thought so.
For what it´s worth, I don´t think you´re a mistake.
Even though, looking back on it, he had probably still been resigned to never breaking free from underneath Gwi-ma, Jinu had still offered her comfort.
That is part of why she did not believe him, when after his betrayal of her, he had told her that he had abandoned his family.
“I think Gwi-ma gaslit him into believing that he had abandoned his family, you know? Because, when we met on the rooftops, he said he always hears Gwi-ma and that Gwi-ma controls the demons through their shame. I think Gwi-ma latched onto the demons´ regrets and controlled them like that, making them believe that it´s their own fault. You know what I mean?”
The tiger did not respond.
“There is one thing I still don´t understand though. Why did Jinu cover my patterns in the bathhouse? For all I know, he probably did not yet have any hopes of breaking free from Gwi-ma. I mean sure, he was confused that a hunter was part demon, but that shouldn´t have been reason to cover for me, right? I just don´t understand”, Rumi sighed.
Again, she just sat against the tiger.
Anger surged through her: “Why did that stupid demon sacrifice himself? We could have defeated Gwi-ma without that! He could have been free! All that trash about him giving me his soul!”
Tears had sprung into Rumi´s eyes and she rubbed at them in angry frustration.
Rumi had blocked Gwi-ma´s attack with her blade and struggled against it. Mira called out for her. Rumi heard her fighting off demons while trying to reach her. Even though she had been pushed back a few steps, Rumi was sure that she could stand her ground until Mira would reach her.
The push against her blade stopped. Rumi looked up. Jinu was shielding her from Gwi-ma´s attack with his body.
“Jinu… No!”
“I´m sorry for everything.” Jinu was a little out of breath and Rumi realised at once that he was about to sacrifice himself.
“No!”, she protested weakly. “I wanted to set you free!”
“You did!”, Jinu insisted. “You gave me my soul back. And now I give it to you.”
Those were Jinu´s last words, before his body could no longer hold up against Gwi-ma´s attack and disintegrated.
After that, HUNTR/X had defeated the demon king and created the new Honmoon.
At the memory Rumi finally let go and cried. She turned to her side, hugged the tiger and burrowed her face into its soft fur. The tiger draped its tail over her body.
Whenever her crying calmed a little, body shaking sobs overcame her again and she burrowed ever deeper into the tiger´s fur.
After many minutes, her crying came to an end. Rumi was exhausted.
“You know”, she whispered. “In a way it´s really my fault. I failed to make him believe that he had an actual chance. I failed to defend myself against Gwi-ma´s attack in such a way that he didn´t feel the need to step in.”
A moment of quiet again.
“I wanted to save him. I wanted to save him so badly, and I failed. I said if there´s hope for someone who is a mistake like me, then there is hope for someone like him who only made a mistake. So why is he dead and I get to survive? It just isn´t fair! It is not fair, tiger!” Her voice became progressively louder. Even though Rumi was shouting at the end and had sat up, the tiger wasn´t bothered. It laid down on its side and with its front paw it pulled Rumi down in front of it.
With the tiger embracing her, Rumi looked over the city below them.
“You were Jinu´s friend. Shouldn´t you agree that it´s my fault that he´s…” Rumi had to take a breath. “… that he´s dead?”
The tiger huffed and sharply flicked its tail against her feet.
The sun started rising and cast bright pink light against some fluffy clouds. Maybe, if the tiger did not fault her, it really was not her fault, Rumi thought.
Having trouble to keep her eyes open, Rumi asked with a sleepy voice: “Can you stay with me? I mean, you don´t have to. I just thought, since you don´t have anyone here…”
When the tiger did not respond immediately, she quickly added: “I´m sure if we talk to Mira and Zoey, they will understand!”
The tiger draped its tail across Rumi´s legs. Very soon after, Rumi fell asleep.
Grief was a very funny thing indeed. Rumi would probably forever grieve Jinu. She would probably forever grieve not finding out how things would have gone, had he stayed alive. Some days she would probably not know how to deal with her grief, and those days would probably never go away fully. But they would become fewer and further in between.
And on some days Rumi might even forget her grief for a while. At first she would feel guilty for it, but then she would resolve to live for both herself and Jinu.
After that, she allowed herself to have fun again. Zoey, Mira and Rumi would become closer than ever before.
And the tiger would stay by her side through all of it. And together they would watch the sun rise from time to time.