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Celine’s words ring through Rumi’s head every morning: Rumi-yah, cover it until we can fix you.
And every morning without fail, Rumi stares into her ridiculously large wardrobe of clothes, seeing only long sleeves and high-necked shirts looking back at her. Some additional sleeves, too, just in case an especially stubborn stylist insisted on a certain outfit and wouldn’t compromise. But even then, Celine had that rule implemented into the heads of all the staff. Rumi is particular about her clothes, always has been. You understand, right? she’d said before Huntrix debuted, her voice charming and sweet enough to have the stylist assistants nodding and cooing over Rumi. Once an idol, always an idol. Celine had a way of making her mark, even after retirement. To date, no stylist has ever tried to coax Rumi into wearing anything with short sleeves, or a low neckline; the row of neutral undershirts is a precaution.
So Rumi covers her demon mark—no, her patterns. That innocent, trivializing word for something so—so…! So revolting! A sign of a hidden evil, of a mistake! What half-human, half-demon? People are one, or the other.
Every morning, Rumi makes the choice between two natures. She picks the only correct option, which is to be a human. And Rumi is a human, that’s the thing. Patterns don’t make art, the artist with the brush does. And if that same artist covers those wretched, shameful designs, then who dares to accuse them of deceit?
Celine is right, Rumi reminds herself every time she sees Zoey’s cute, sleeveless tops, or Mira’s exciting, plunging necklines. The conservative length of her usual turtleneck bothers her little, even if it is impractical. She overheats easily, okay? Mira is obsessed with the most energetic, jumping choreography, and Zoey always favors Rumi’s strong voice for most lyrics, leaving her to leap and twirl and sing and perform for hours on end in that stupid, stuffy turtleneck, with its tight, irritating sleeves.
She tried flowy shirts—Celine disapproved, softly chiding her. It might ride up and show the bottom of your patterns... I wouldn't risk it.
She tried chunky, layered necklaces— Girl, is that you making all that noise!? Zoey giggled as Rumi nearly strangled herself twice with the tinkling jewelry.
She tried skin paint— Hey, Rumi. You got a little something over here, Mira pointed at her neck, mistaking the faint purplish streaks for the work of a clumsy makeup artist.
Yeah, she’s tried it all. The turtleneck and long sleeves are all that work to hide the proof of her… uniqueness.
Celine is right. Celine is…
Catching a glimpse of her unprotected skin in the bathroom mirror, Rumi flinches and looks away. A wave of revulsion rises within her with the taste of bile, but she breathes clean air until it disappears.
Even if it feels so wrong, Celine is always right.
One night, when they’re lingering before an inevitable goodbye, Jinu says, “You look much better without all of that… extra cloth.”
Before she even thinks about it, Rumi snaps, “Pervert.”
Jinu startles at the accusation, his collected facade immediately dropping as he yelps, “Hey, come on, I was just trying to be nice! You look much more relaxed and comfortable, that’s what I meant. Not…”
She sniffs, secretly thrilled about his broken composure, looking away from him. “Right, sure.”
After a pause, he chuckles quietly. “You don’t even realize it, huh?”
Rumi hates when this happens. Just when she thinks she’s got some kind of control over the situation, a leg up over his cool, calm front, he always manages to worm back into power. Unbelievable. It must be a demon thing, to be so conniving.
“You’re wrong,” she says firmly. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to waste any more of my energy on you. See you later, Jinu.”
“Have your friends even seen your shoulders before?” he asks.
Nail, hit on the head. A surge of anger and shame crashes over Rumi, and before she knows it, she’d whirled around and is jabbing her finger straight into Jinu’s firm chest, glaring up at his amused smirk. “Listen! That has nothing to do with you.”
Jinu coos, his eyes laughing at her annoyance, “Aw, I hit a soft spot. My bad. I thought you might have grown out of your cowardice since we last spoke, but I see—”
When Rumi draws out her sword, patience snapped into clean halves, he’s already vanished in a cloud of pink mist. All around, Jinu’s last laugh rings as she growls in frustration. Damn him! He always knows just how to get under her skin. No, she keeps letting him.
Rumi’s fingers massage at her temples. Bitter regret washes over her, I should have never agreed to meet him. We didn’t even make any progress! He just—he’s so—I hate him!
Oh, if only. Her dreams that night sing with his laughing voice, the fading glint of his unnaturally luminescent eyes before he’d disappeared back to Gwima.
“Come with us to the bathhouse!” Zoey pleads. At this, Mira’s pink hair bobs as she snaps her head around, gasping with excitement.
“Yes, absolutely,” she says, rushing to accost Rumi at her bedroom door. “Come on, we’ve been begging you for ages. Just come one time.”
“It’s soooo relaxing, you’ll have so much fun!” Zoey moans, wiggling her shoulders as if reliving the experience. “And we can just chill together, you know!”
Mira adds, “And finally decompress after all of that practice for the Idol Awards.”
It does sound tempting. Kicking up her feet, settling into hot water with her friends as they giggle and talk and allow the water to soak up all of their aches. These past few weeks, Rumi has been running herself—and everybody else, to be fair—ragged. They all deserve a break before somebody gives in and goes crazy, revolving between the dance studio, the recording room, the same penthouse. Already, Mira’s been snoring into her ramyun and Zoey’s been stumbling over her own lyrics, exhausted beyond repair.
“Nah, I’ll stay,” Rumi says, smiling at them sheepishly. “I want to nail down that one step in the choreo that I keep messing up.”
At this, both of them groan exaggeratedly. “Ugh, unnie!” Zoey uses her strongest card first, along with the sweet pout. It actually does work somewhat, melting Rumi’s heart in the way only Zoey’s cuteness can. “Such a workaholic!”
“I knew she was gonna say no,” Mira mumbles, but she looks no less disappointed for it. “Rumi, you need to take a break sometime. Why not now?”
“Yeah, otherwise you’ll like. Die, or something.”
“Way to be extreme… no, she’s kinda right. Rumi, you're going to die if you don’t come to the bathhouse with us.”
Snickering at the new line of jokes, Zoey says, “No, Rumi. I’m going to die if you don’t come!”
Mira shakes her head solemnly, placing a hand on Zoey’s shoulder. “Look what you’re doing to us, Rumi. You’re killing her. You’re killing our poor maknae!”
Rolling her eyes, Rumi pushes them both away from where they were starting to make grabby, pleading hands at her. “What maknae? She’s only younger by a few months!”
Zoey makes a pitiful sobbing noise. “How could you deny my truth? Mira, look what she’s saying! She’s denying my place in this group's dynamics, in our lore! That’s part of our lore, unnie, that I’m the beautiful, lovable, cute maknae! It’s! Our! Lore!”
“You’re ruining our family, Rumi,” Mira insists, as she catches Zoey mid-swoon, holding her up with the effortless strength of a girl that does not mess around at the gym. "The horror!"
She leans her hip against the door. Cocking one eyebrow, Rumi says, “Wow. Yeah, that was amazing. Very moving performance, 10/10, no notes. No rotten tomatoes. But, uh…”
“Did it convince you?” Mira asks, her eyes narrowing in challenge.
“No,” Rumi says, before laughing over their shared sigh. “Guys, I’m sorry, really! You know I don’t do bathhouses. It just… makes me uncomfortable!”
“Rumi-yah, come on!” Zoey complains, even as she settles into an easier position, accepting her loss. “The bathhouse is a completely different environment, nobody ever looks at you weirdly.”
“I get it, I get it,” Rumi says, in the tone of somebody used to this old song-and-dance.
Mira makes as if to walk away, but then suddenly whirls her head around to glare at Rumi, playfully annoyed, yet somewhat genuine in her disappointment. “We’ll get through to you one day, don’t worry. This is not over.”
In support of this motion, Zoey boos at Rumi, who watches in fond amusement as the two make multiple I’m-watching-you gestures, walking backwards to maximize the effect.
When they’re gone, Rumi runs herself a bath in the oversized tub, filling it with some generic bath salts Bobby had given them all as a housewarming gift years ago. She doesn’t know if it’s exactly like what Mira and Zoey are doing right now, but it helps to ease the soreness of her shoulders.
Throughout it, she keeps her eyes closed, in this large, empty porcelain bathroom. If she sees those twisting patterns, creeping further across her skin, Rumi will vomit up every ounce of peace she’s gained.
It’s not just the markings, but nobody else knows that. Not even Celine.
Some of the differences between her and others are in her favor, and Rumi doesn’t mind those as much. Things like her voice, which needs no microphone to resonate over entire arenas, her keen eyesight, her sharp hearing, the natural strength of her body. For Huntrix, these things only help to propel them in popularity; her musical inclination is practically a legend among idols.
It can be fun, too! Mira loves to spend lazy afternoons painting her and Zoey’s nails, sighing over the length of Rumi’s nails, already sharp but practically weapons once she files them, insisting she spill the secret about her superhuman nail growth. In fits of creative anxiety, Zoey bites her nails, so she always needs extensions for Mira to work her best magic, but Rumi comes naturally prepared.
…Jinu likes her nails. Celine would always tut at them, cutting them down to stubs even when they would grow back rapidly within a few days, but Jinu has some kind of twisted obsession with them. Once, Rumi slapped him in the chest and he allowed it, but only to then grab her hand and analyze every inch of Mira’s artwork.
“Very fitting,” he snickers at the dagger charm on her middle finger. Though raised with good manners, Rumi deeply considers allowing him to see it up close. “You should give your friend a raise—I know you have the money, and these claws are pieces of art.”
He likes to call them claws, but only because it unsettles her so terribly.
“I’m not some kind of beast!” she says, even though she knows he's baiting her. “Not like your kind.”
And then, just like every time before, with the smuggest grin on his stupid, handsome face, Jinu wiggles his own nails at her, giving her an unwanted eyeful of his own sharp, lengthy nails. Disgustingly, there's something reddish stuck under one of them. “Then, why do they look the same as mine?”
As Rumi storms off, a fierce scowl on her face, Jinu calls out, “You think your friend will paint my claws too, if I ask?”
“In your dreams!” she yells back, hiding her hands in her pockets. At home, Rumi will cut all of Mira’s hard work off, forcing herself not to feel any kind of regret. The next morning, her ‘claws’ will appear again, begrudgingly distracting Mira from her anger with the promise of a new canvas.
Frustration heats Rumi’s collar whenever she looks at her hands, hearing Jinu’s taunt of claw every time.
But he hadn’t said it in a rude way. He wasn’t saying it to express his disgust at it, so much as to rattle her. Jinu had held up his own hands, wiggling them to say, See? We’re the same. Rumi finds that she doesn’t mind them on him as much as she does on herself.
Because claws don’t belong on humans like Rumi. They’re for monsters, beasts, predators. Demons like Jinu.
Celine tells her to hide the truth. But Celine knows nothing—not the pain, the agony, the discomfort. She knows—she—ugh!—she knows nothing! She says it so easily, Rumi-yah, hide it until we can fix you. But how? It's her skin, damnit, it's her skin, it's in her skin, where Rumi can't reach with her claws to rip it out, what kind of human has skin that heals so quickly, anyway, what kind of Hunter's blood boils at the strengthening of the Honmoon, what kind of—
Mira always looks tough, but she would be so betrayed. Zoey would overthink everything, wondering why Rumi couldn't trust them enough. And Celine would be so, so disappointed.
...but, where is Celine? Where has she gone to, whilst Huntrix is on the frontlines? Retirement, in a solitary house, deep in nature? When Rumi's skin isn't enough to hide what kind of monster she could be if she allowed it, Celine is asleep? When Rumi needs to be fixed—
Now! Rumi can fix—she can, Rumi is... She can fix it. Maybe she's still working on it, yes, but just listen, okay! She can fix it. Mira, Zoey, wait, okay, Celine, please, please, Rumi is trying. Almost there. One day, Rumi will be fixed, and everything will be okay.
Mhm, yes, yes. Right. One day.
All the same, the most sickening thing about Rumi is worse than swirls across her body, nails that taper to a point and eyes that can see in the dead of night; her appetite.
Rumi loves meat, even more so than self-proclaimed carnivore Bobby. If alone, Rumi can easily tear through a dozen steaks, a hundred or so dishes of yangnyeom chicken, and she adores bulgogi. As it is, she plays at being a normal person, adopting the omnivore habits of other humans instead of drooling over the last barbecue wing in the takeout box. No matter how much she eats, she never feels satiated. It feels like play-acting when she eats with Mira and Zoey, a child playing house with empty tea cups and plastic food.
Some days, Rumi wakes up a starving, stray dog, and others she feels hollow, like a void that needs nothing and everything at the same time. Food isn’t enough for Rumi, which makes her sick to think about. Demons eat one thing only, and nothing else will suffice for them.
Bound by honour and righteous disgust for all things demonic, Rumi refuses to think about that despicable instinct in her. It craves endlessly, when she’s deep in the fray of combat and civilians are walking by unnoticed, their souls pure and unharvested. She goes home from patrols, some days, and presses the soft, fleshy pads of her fingers against her teeth, pushing into her gums as though pressure can get rid of the burning itch. Blood trickles into her mouth, satiating a lust she's never noticed.
When she was younger, watching from backstage as Celine and the only other member of Sunlight Sisters dispatched of demons, Rumi would cry for hours over the pain in her mouth that wouldn’t relent, no matter what strategy the old mothers in the staff swore by.
“It’s almost like teething pains,” one of them had tutted, stroking Rumi’s flushed cheek as she sobbed into Celine’s glittery stage outfit, held against her warm chest to be soothed. There was always a guilty feeling when she had to pull Celine away from the stage, even for a moment, but she never got angry at Rumi for it. “But she’s so old, and with all of her teeth. Oh, you poor dear, it hurts, doesn’t it?”
It does, Rumi had screamed in her head, wanting to claw the hunger out of her stomach and the pain from her teeth. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!
Celine finally decided to dismiss the pain after numerous dentist appointments yielded no results. “It’s a thing that probably comes and goes. When you’re older, you’ll notice that some things always seem to hurt for no reason. It’s natural, okay? Don’t worry, Rumi-yah, ahjumma is here for you. I’ll help you when it hurts, okay?”
Now, Rumi, deep into her twenties with nobody to stroke her head as she cries in agony, can only push and push at white bone, calming herself with painkillers until she sways during dance practice and slurs belting lyrics into soft, mumbled croons.
Jinu has the same problem, but none of her revulsion to it. When they’re together, sometimes his gaze goes cloudy and his head tilts absently in the direction of a distant human, an innocent with no idea of the predator marking their every move.
After a second, his eyes re-focus on Rumi, but she sees his tongue push against his cheek. Impatient. Agitated by the prospect of a meal fleeing him. She firmly believes he only stays so that he can annoy her to the max.
The instant she notices what he has, Rumi feels that same pain in her canines, like they’re trying their damndest to grow even longer out of her skull. By now, she’s a master of concealing it, and just continues talking.
“I don’t get why you hide it,” Jinu says, seeing right through her charade in the way only he can. Even as he speaks, his eyes glint yellow, the sharp edge of a fang peeking out behind plush lips. “If you’re hungry, then just eat. It’s that simple, even for humans.”
“I’m not hungry,” Rumi insists. But she is. Oh, yes, she is. The pain intensifies, and when she darts a glance, the patterns on her arms shine purple in the fading sunlight.
It's not what it seems like.
She just has to wait, and everything will be gone. One day, these instincts will be gone.
Jinu grins at her, always amused to see her suffer. He says, “Is that so?” and Rumi looks up at him, at the sunlight flashing in his eyes, gold, then black, gold, then black. The undoubtable emptiness of his chest, his hollow heart, the patterns that he sometimes reveals when the world is dark enough, and Rumi so easily agitated by it. In the wrong lighting, his skin looks dead and gray. Even like this, at his most sadistic and dangerous, so handsome.
Footsteps in the distance make her restless, the thrum of somebody else’s heartbeat in her mind. She follows it, tracking with a hunter's instincts.
...oh, God—she would never hurt a soul. She isn't demon, she would never do anything so awful. Though, what a sin it is: to be born, naked and ravenous, vulnerable and soft in a world of food, and to still not be nourished by any of it. Yet—but—
How awfully hungry Rumi is.