Work Text:
Today could've gone a lot better.
Rumi was sitting on the couch between her bandmates, Mira on her right doing some light social media damage control (she had explicitly banned Rumi from monitoring their socials for the rest of the week, and Bobby taking her side shut down any amount of pushback the purple-haired workaholic was willing to attempt), with Zoey on her left showing them the 700 two-second turtle videos she was going to show them last night.
Last night. Before Rumi robbed her of the chance with the early release of Golden.
Guilt and shame rolled through her gut and shot through her patterns, with an especially sharp ache hitting the point at the end of the one on her larynx - it probably just grew another millimeter. If only her voice had blown out last night, before she canceled their staycation. As tempting as it was to jump to the conclusion that her demon side was exclusively responsible for her current ailment, she couldn't shake the idea that she just overexerted herself and couldn't fully tell over the ache of the fresh pattern. Or maybe her patterns were exacerbating the injury, and she would've been fine if she either got ahead of them or waited a few days-
"Rumi?"
The concerned tone of the turtle-obsessed woman brought Rumi out of her own head. Before she could refocus and figure out what she had missed in her funk, Mira's voice came over her shoulder.
"You good?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Rumi tried not to let her mental state leak into her response. "Just a lot on my mind, you know?"
Zoey seemed to zone out a little herself as she muttered, "Don't I know it." She refocused and gained a bit of a teasing tone. "I mean, having to cancel a performance and being banned from social media?" She leaned back and feigned fainting, back of her hand against her forehead for extra dramatics. "Whatever will you do with yourself?"
Rumi chuckled at the show, and she could her Mira behind her doing the same. Zoey peeked at them from her reclined position, a huge goofy grin covering her face before she sat back up. "Anyway, that's all the turtle videos I've got. What do we want to do now?"
Rumi thought for a second. "Actually, I think I missed the last dozen or so. Can you show them to me again?"
"Sorry, I already pruned the playlist." Shockingly, the maknae didn't seem too upset about it.
"You didn't miss much," Mira explained over her shoulder. Rumi turned to face her. "The last forty or so weren't anything too special." She leaned to look past her leader to the one she might've just accidentally insulted. "No offense."
"None taken." Zoey's response was unusually calm considering the subject matter. "I had intentionally moved all the less interesting ones to the back in case one of us started nodding off after the concert."
After the concert. Because they were supposed to do this last night. Before it got ruined by-
"So, what do we want to do now?" Zoey's question pulled Rumi out of her spiral once again.
"Well, I don't know about you," Mira stated as she picked up and swirled her mostly empty glass. "But I need another drink. And it looks like both of you do too." She grabbed the other two glasses and somehow handled the odd number of cups gracefully with her zero waitressing experience. "Any requests?"
"Do we have any Mountain Dew left?" Zoey seemed to get a bit of a sugar high from the mere mention.
"You're the only one here who likes that stuff, Zo. We have enough to last you through the apocalypse." Mira turned her attention to Rumi. "And for you?"
She thought for a moment. "Just some water, please."
Mira smirked. "The freshest water for the princess and radioactive runoff for the gremlin, coming up," she responded before walking off toward the bar behind the couch.
Rumi smirked at her snark and turned back to Zoey to catch her pulling her tongue back in her mouth, clearly having just stuck it out at her insulter. She noticed eyes were on her now and leaned in. "So…?"
Rumi thought about the question that had just been silently restated a third time. "Can I take a look at that list of ideas you were talking about at dinner? I know you already decided on one you're keeping secret -" Despite saying the one she was going with was her favorite, she refused to let either of her bandmates in on it, claiming it to be a surprise, "- but I want to see what else you had in mind."
Zoey barely paused at the request, already tapping and swiping at her phone screen. "Sure! I'll warn you ahead of time, there's only about a dozen or so that are fully serious. There's a good amount that would work…" She trailed off briefly as she handed her phone to Rumi. "But they're more joke ideas that I thought were funny enough to keep for cases where you needed some humor more than an actual proper fix. And a few on there are straight nonsense that I amuse myself with."
Rumi looked down at the phone and instantly knew what she was talking about when the first thing she read was 'Cough Drop/Lozenge Taste Test and Rating Livestream'. She tilted the phone back toward its owner and just pointed, raising one eyebrow. Zoey just grinned and responded "Tell me that wouldn't work."
"What wouldn't work?" Mira asked as she returned with their drinks.
"Livestreaming me taste-testing every over-the-counter throat medicine in South Korea and streaming it to our fans," Rumi responded.
"That'd totally work." Mira was smirking as she placed the drinks on the coffee table next to them. "Might be fun if multiple of us blow our voices out at once. One could talk with chat and the other two with whiteboards."
Rumi rolled her eyes at the idea and continued scrolling. There were some good ideas on there - voice and throat specialists across the globe, world-renowned vocal coaches, locations of various famous tea shops that dealt in brews known for healing properties. There were also ones that seemed to be more on the homeopathic side, which she mentally lumped in one item that just said 'Han the Healer'. She had seen him pop up on her feed a few times, but something about it always seemed off. I hope that's not one of Zoey's serious considerations, Rumi thought to herself. There were also the aforementioned not-as-serious items, like wrapping her in a blanket burrito and waiting on her hand and foot to ensure she couldn't try to push herself behind their backs, or getting her to go to the bathhouse in a wetsuit so she wouldn't have to be nude and expose her patterns since she was clearly uncomfortable with it but the steam would be good for her. Mira was reading over her shoulder and chuckling/adding commentary as Zoey either laughed along or defended her options. They got to the bottom of the list and the vibe changed dramatically as Rumi's blood ran cold reading the final item.
-
Help Rumi work through her Demon Stuff
Rumi was rendered speechless as Mira uttered a confused "What the hell?"
Zoey peered over the top her phone and let out a small noise. "I forgot I left that on there."
"Why would that even be on there in the first place?" Mira wasn't yelling, but her unamusement was strong enough to make Zoey shrink slightly anyway.
"Look, that one's a total crack theory. I don't even believe it, that's why I said at dinner there's only 57 things on the list. It's completely not serious. You know what, I'll delete it right now-"
"Explain your reasoning."
Zoey and Mira both froze and turned to their leader, simultaneously uttering a confused "What?"
Rumi knew this was probably a bad idea. She should shut down this conversation now, allow Zoey to delete the 'joke', get all three of them to go to bed, and never mention this again, lest the pieces be put together and she get sliced apart, or kicked out - she wasn't sure in that moment which would be worse. But the temptation of the scenario was too great to ignore. Zoey clearly had an inkling that something was up, and had not acted on it. Maybe she would be willing to listen. Maybe she'd understand.
Maybe she understood.
"Explain your reasoning. Everything on this list, no matter how much of a joke, clearly had some basis in some sort of reality. I want to know how this ended up on here."
Zoey took a deep breath. "Okay, but I'll warn you now that it comes from a lot of overthinking and connecting dots that probably have nothing to do with each other." She took another deep breath. "So, obviously there's the easy target sort of things, like how you keep wearing less revealing clothes and refuse to go anywhere with us that involves nudity, like the bathhouse or sharing a dressing room. If you had patterns that you were hiding, that would probably be the easiest way to avoid revealing them, especially since you've lived with Hunters your whole life."
"Okay, before we go any further," Mira interrupted. "You have non-demon explanations for all this too, right? We don't need our fearless leader going to bed thinking we suspect her of being one of our sworn enemies."
Too late, Rumi thought. Years too late.
"Of course," Zoey dismissed with a wave of her hand. "She could just have scars from childhood injuries or some sort of skin condition that she's self-conscious of. Which leads into my next point: Have you ever worn one of Rumi's hoodies?"
"No," Mira responded. "They're all too small for me."
"I have once, about a year ago. Grabbed it rushing out the door to a solo modeling gig I had been running late for. I didn't realize it wasn't mine until I got to the dressing room at the shoot, took it off, and found my shoulders covered in old concealer."
Rumi mentally scolded herself for that.
"And," The maknae continued. "Have you seen this girl's sleep schedule? It's worse than mine, yet she has the most focus, drive, and energy out of the three of us!"
"Hey now," Rumi interrupted. "I think you're easily the most energetic of the three of us."
"I second that," Mira added.
"Being energetic and having energy are not the same thing," Zoey retorted. "There's a reason I'm usually the first to retreat to my room when we have nothing planned and we break off to do our own stuff. Meanwhile Rumi will be the last to bed and first to get up 90% of the time."
"And that proves she's a demon how, exactly?"
"Do demons need to sleep?"
They all paused at that. Rumi broke the silence with an utterance of "I…don't know."
"The demon realm is supposedly under us. Do you think they have day and night down there?" Mira followed.
"No idea," Rumi responded.
"Exactly." Zoey continued as if their uncertainty proved something. "By itself, not really a compelling piece of evidence. But combined with other things, it could be a sign of…well, something. If not demon stuff, maybe just untreated insomnia or something related."
"Just like your untreated insomnia?" Mira quipped.
"Hey," Zoey retorted. "I've tried to treat it, just nothing's worked so far."
"Anything else?" Rumi asked, trying to get the conversation back on track. Probably not the smartest move given the subject matter, but curiosity was eating away at her at this point.
Zoey tilted her head to the side and began counting on her fingers. "Not…really? No, I don't think so."
A deep breath came from behind Rumi. "Okay, so then what?" Mira asked. "Let's say I believe your little crack theory there and Rumi is secretly a demon. What then?"
Someone might want to call the Ministry of Environment and let them know about the swarm of butterflies that had just materialized in Rumi's stomach, because she was pretty sure they were invasive.
It was Zoey's turn for a deep breath. "Well, for starters, this couldn't be recent, since most of these things have been ways Rumi has been acting since we met her. Also, I don't know of any way she could sneak off and steal souls or anything, since she's almost always with at least one of us and it's not like there's a pattern of suspicious missing person reports whenever she's by herself. And I think we'd know if assistants kept disappearing at shows or events or whatever."
Rumi stayed silent. Mira took the opportunity to ask, "Okay…but like, what would she have even sold her soul for?"
"See, that's just the thing. What could Rumi possibly have want of that would be worth selling her soul? Clearly she didn't try to get her parents back-"
"I don't think younger me would've ever been dumb enough to try that." Rumi's voice was slightly more raw than she expected. "Also, never tell Celine this, but I don't miss my mom enough to even think about it."
"Shoot, Rumi…" Mira seemed like she'd been sucker-punched by that statement.
Zoey blinked a few times, looking as if she'd been smacked in the face. "Anyway," she continued. "She wouldn't've sold it for riches, since Celine has never been less than financially well off for Rumi's entire life, which also rules out any kind of worldly possession. There's no way she'd sell if for fame, power, or talent, since not only does she value putting effort into things but it also goes against the entire point of being a Hunter. And I doubt it'd be for love, since I've never even see her crush on anyone."
It was both comforting and disappointing to to Rumi to know there were still some things about her that Zoey couldn't read.
"So what, she was just born that way?" Mira's tone was half sarcastic.
Zoey's eyes lit up like Mira had just guessed the winning lottery numbers. "Exactly!"
The noise that came from behind Rumi indicated that Mira had not been expecting that response. "What, you think Mi-yeong was a demon?"
"Nonononono." Zoey's hand was waving hard enough Rumi thought it might break and fly off. "There's no way she was a demon, especially with some of the outfits she was wearing just before she passed, there'd be no way to hide it. Now, her FATHER on the other hand, is a complete and utter mystery, which leaves every possibility open including this one."
Danger. Red Alert. Abandon ship. Retreat. Abort. These thoughts and more were flying through Rumi's head like a typhoon. They were close. Too close to the truth. It's time to shut the conversation down and go to bed. Yet the part of her that wanted desperately for them to know, to understand, to accept, was putting up a valiant effort to keep her from retreating. So when Mira got her to turn so they could lock eyes and she could ask, "Rumi, you don't know anything about your father, right?" Rumi paused for only a moment before responding.
"No. I never met him, and Celine never told me anything about him."
Not a lie, actually. The matter of him being a demon was evidenced enough by the marks it left on her skin that they never had to verbalize it.
"See, not even she knows." It was Zoey's turn to be the voice over her shoulder. "Which means nothing's off the table for him! Missing parents: the cause of and solution to all of your personal mysteries!"
Neither Rumi nor Mira reacted to the joke. The vibes were too intense at this point. Their gazes were burrowing into each other at this point.
"Okay…" Mira shifted her attention over Rumi's shoulder, presumably to lock eyes with their maknae. "So let me see if I've got this all down here: According to your little crackpot theory, Rumi is a half-demon by birth on her father's side and has been hiding it her entire life - probably at Celine's insistence, since there's no way she wouldn't've known - and something about that has gotten to the point where it's affecting her voice. She doesn't steal souls, almost certainly doesn't report or even talk to Gwi-Ma since that probably would've come up be now given the incompetence of most of the demons that come after us, and otherwise doesn't seem to be evil or malicious in any way." Her face moved as she spoke, seemingly tracking Zoey's movement and being confirmed as such as she entered Rumi's view and knelt down next to the couch between the two of them, nodding to confirm everything Mira was saying. Her next words shot a bolt of panic straight up Rumi's spine.
"So…then what?"
"So…" Zoey responded with a smiling look of really? "Number 58! We help her through her demon stuff, make sure she actually doesn't steal souls, or need them to survive or anything like that, and otherwise love and cherish her like we always have because if she's really been like that this whole time then suddenly learning she's a demon wouldn't change the fact that she's our Rumi!"
Rumi forced herself to stay composed. Zoey was literally just working off loose speculation and was already ready and willing to accept her entirely. She could cry at that thought.
"Okay…I'm convinced." Mira placed a hand on Rumi's leg and locked eyes with her. "Rumi, if it ever came out that you were secretly a demon this whole time - and it's through no wrongdoing on your part, and you don't steal souls or sabotage us for Gwi-Ma or anything like that - well, I'll be a bit miffed about being lied to for so long, but once I got over that I'll be there for you."
That did it. Rumi felt the first tear squeeze out of her eye and it was all over.
"Girls, I-. You-"
Within seconds she was a sobbing, sniffling, blabbering mess. Zoey and Mira raised their hands in panic, seeming to be hesitating from simultaneous hugs.
"Ohmygod, Rumi, I'm so sorry! You've been going through a lot, and now to scrutinize you like this over nothing, I should've known better…" Through her tear Rumi could barely see that Zoey was on the verge of them herself. She needed to stop that. She knew words wouldn't work right now. She could feel her patterns starting to ache again.
She reached up and yanked down the collar of her turtleneck. Heard the two of them gasp. Squeezed her eyes shut.
Felt two bodies slam into her and four arms wrap around her.
They remained like that for a minute and a half. The tightness of the hug varied in intensity as the three of them squeezed and relaxed at different times, until eventually Mira pulled away with Zoey following suit. Mira wiped the tears away from Rumi's eyes, took her hand and met her gaze once more, clearly a little misty eyed herself.
"She was right?"
"Yes," Rumi choked out. "By birth, no deal, whole life, Celine knew - all of it."
"But…why?"
Rumi was caught off guard by the question. "Why what?"
"Why did you hide it from us? I know Celine probably told you to, but-"
"Mira," Zoey interrupted. "We're hunters."
"So WHAT?" Mira turned to Zoey, almost yelling at this point. "So because we might hurt Rumi - which she could've very easily trained us not to do, I'm sure - Rumi has to hide herself from us for the rest of our lives?"
"No." Rumi was very quiet. "Turning the Honmoon golden will get rid of my patterns."
Zoey went wide eyed. "That's why you pushed up the song release."
Rumi nodded.
Mira sighed and covered her face with her hands, then dragged them down. She stopped halfway and, at a normal volume, asked, "Wait, are half-demons a thing that have happened before?"
"No. As far as I know, I'm the only one."
"So how do you know turning the Honmoon golden will get rid of your patterns and not banish you to the demon realm or something?"
Rumi paused a moment. "I don't. But it's a sacri-"
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY IT'S A WORTHY SACRIFICE, BECAUSE IT'S NOT!" Mira was full on yelling at this point.
"And we don't care if you're willing to make it, because we're not." Zoey was teetering on the verge of crying now.
Rumi looked at her girls. Mira with angry tears. Zoey with sad ones. Both spurred on from the thought of losing her. Born from love and acceptance that she thought herself unworthy of until her patterns were gone, yet in actuality was here the whole time. She tried to find the right words, but found herself unable to speak.
She settled for crying again, and this time she wasn't alone. The three of them held each other tight, until there were no more tears left to shed.
"Well, I guess I can cancel the appointment with Han tomorrow."
Mira wrinkled her nose. "The social media doctor? I'm pretty sure he's a con artist."
"I won't go that far," Rumi added. "But I do get some less-then-reputable vibes from him."
"Aww, come on, guys!" Zoey pleaded. "Look, he's got this special tonic that's supposed to heal everything from sore throats to-"
"Literally reading reviews of it now," Mira interrupted. "They all say it's just relabeled grape juice."
"Well…" Zoey mulled it over for half a second. "Grape juice is purple, and Rumi's patterns are purple, so maybe it will help!"
Rumi sighed and leaned her head into her hand. "Not how that works, Zo."
Mira lightly snorted. "By that logic we should try rubbing her throat with her hair dye."
Rumi looked at the pink haired woman and responded, "Actually, I've never dyed my hair. The purple is from being a demon."
One voice in shock, one voice in frustration, both answered by yelling "WHAT?"