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“Mira? Mira?! MIRA! Wake up wake up wake up it’s already 10 AM!!!” Zoey screeches at the top of her lungs, catapulting pillow after pillow at a messy-haired, barely awake, very much disgruntled Mira.
The victim immediately sits up straight and glares at the maknae, narrowing her eyes at the unwelcome intrusion. A final pillow hits Mira in the face and slides down her face.
“Zoey. It. Is. A. Saturday. Morning.” the pink-haired girl grits through clenched teeth.
“I know I know I know! That’s exactly why you have to wake up because WE’RE GONNA BE LATE!!!” Zoey hollers.
“Late? Late for what?” Mira asks, confused.
“Rumi? Jinu? The ‘little outing’ Rumi’s been blabbing about nonstop for the past week?!” Zoey responds, dragging her hands over her eyes.
“Oh crap!” Mira exclaims, climbing out of bed and bolting to the bathroom, “I’ll be ready in five!!”
“OKAY!!!” Zoey screams back.
-
“So where are they going again?” a now fully dressed, wide awake Mira asks. To her side is Zoey, who’s wearing a camouflage-green sweatshirt and crouching down, frantically looking left, then right, then behind the two of them. It looks ridiculous in broad daylight.
“Gongwon Park,” Zoey replies in a whisper, tiptoeing around the sunny street, “But first you need to take these.” She shoves a pair of sunglasses onto Mira’s face.
Despite it being way too early into the weekend for anyone’s mouth to theoretically function, Zoey’s ability to blab never fails to cease Mira.
“...I mean, we have to protect her! We don’t know what Jinu’s capable of! For all we know that little Gwi-Ma destruction thing could’ve been a trick! He’s totally lying to our faces and thinks we’re stupid, which, okay, maybe we do have a track record of falling for cute boys, but me and you got over that real quick, now all we have to do is convince Rumi otherwise…”
“Totally agreed that we should keep an eye out for her,” Mira starts.
“PLUS is Jinu even that cute anyways? Like, sure, maybe he looks kinda decent in his human form but OH BOY I can’t imagine how silly he looks without all that magic and makeup. Plus, isn’t it a little weird that he’s like, a gajillion years older than unnie?”
Mira contemplates the nicest way to shut Zoey up (“didn’t you like someone a gajillion and a half years older than you” versus “hey is that a squirrel?”), then spots a glint of purple hair out of the corner of her eye—
“Zoey! Over there,” Mira whisper-shouts, motioning a perfectly manicured brow in Rumi’s direction. As soon as she sees her other unnie, Zoey’s eyes light up.
It was hard to describe Rumi as anything short of stunning. On top, she wore an asymmetric purple blouse, matching with a lavender-to-navy gradient chiffon skirt below. Her golden earrings and matching golden manicure glistened in the morning sunlight. Still, the hardest to ignore was the big smile on her face as she turned to face HUNTR/X’s ultra ultimate big mafia superboss arch-nemesis: the former demon Jinu himself.
Zoey and Mira freeze.
In slow motion, the two girls watch as a stray hair falls from Rumi’s braided ponytail. Rumi’s hand reaches for the strand, but Jinu beats her to it and gently brushes the hair aside. Once their hands collide, Jinu sweeps their hands downwards and proceeds to walk along the park holding Rumi’s hand.
“He has no right doing that this early on the first date!!” Mira fumes.
“Demon? He’s probably also a cannibal who wants to eat her hand. Watch out, Unnie!” Zoey whines.
“Hand? More like yummy food,” Mira mutters. She and Zoey side-eye Jinu as the couple walks up to a tteokbokki stall. Rumi’s eyes flutter back and forth between the soondae and twigim and the old lady running the stand gives her an ugly scowl. Suddenly, Jinu steps in, gives the lady a fistful of money accompanied with a warm smile, then picks up both dishes and guides Rumi to a nearby picnic area with a table already set up with a tablecloth and candles.
“He’s good,” Mira grunts.
Zoey replies with a stomach rumble.
“Hey, it’s getting kind of late in the day and we haven’t had breakfast yet,” Mira said, “let’s get some food, ‘kay?” Zoey’s demeanor immediately brightens, and she happily dances her way to the tteokbokki stand. Just as she reaches the front—taking in the sight of the huge cauldron bubbling with bright red deliciousness, the pile of golden fried vegetables to its right, the mountain of steamed rice sausages to its left—Zoey bumps into a mass of muscle and a flash of dark hair.
“Oh, sorry about tha—” Zoey begins, then screeches to a halt once recognizing who Mr. Muscles is.
Holding two pairs of chopsticks in his hands is none other than Rumi’s new favorite person. He merely nods politely and swiftly walks back to his date. Once he arrives, he speaks a bit with Rumi, then casts a glance in Mira and Zoey’s direction, which Rumi follows.
Uh oh.
“Busted,” Mira facepalms.
-
“I can’t believe my two best friends won’t even let me go on a freaking date without feeling the need to stalk me! This is totally ridiculous!” Rumi seethes.
“We’re sorry, unnie, it’s just…” Zoey looked to Mira, who couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, “We were just so worried about Jinu and his demon past, and the last thing we want is you getting hurt.”
“Yeah: if you want to run away from us with a demon boy, that’s fine with us. Just don’t get yourself hurt while you’re at it,” Mira says quietly.
“No, no, you don’t understand, it’s not like that!” Rumi says frantically.
“I think what she means,” that stupid voice of Jinu’s enters, “Is that the bond between you three is irreplaceable. Rumi and I are merely trying things out right now, and no matter how far our relationship goes, it will never replace what you three ladies have together.”
Jinu looks at Rumi questioningly. She gives him a small “thank you” smile in return, then turns to hug her fellow HUNTR/X members tightly.
“You guys will never be replaced, okay? I love you all forever.”
Jinu chuckles, Mira blinks back tears, and Zoey’s stomach grumbles in response. Rumi grins knowingly.
“Let’s dig in!” she declares.
“Yes ma’am!” the other three reply in unison.