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(They find her in the dirt by the tree.)
It’s like this: Rumi is a liar.
Rumi is a liar and Rumi has betrayed them. They have known each other for years – the Honmoon has tied their souls together and set them on a shared path of destiny. Theirs is the closest a bond, any bond, can truly be.
And yet, Rumi has lied.
For years .
It’s like this: Zoey and Mira see the demon tearing Bobby away and they run because he is kind and gentle and it’s Bobby . They don’t want him to die and surely, surely this must be some sort of targeted attack from the Saja Boys, something to prevent them from going back on that stage and continuing their performance of ‘Golden’.
It is a targeted attack from the Saja Boys.
But the target is not Bobby.
‘Takedown’ starts to play.
“Why would they… Rumi .”
And then they are running, again , back through the corridors, back to where they came from. There are people everywhere, maintenance workers and staff members, and the space is getting crowded, is getting fuller. Neither of them understands why – not until they see the TV on the wall. Not until they see Rumi on it, looking around herself wildly, like some caged animal.
Not until they see themselves.
(They find her in the dirt by the tree.)
Rumi has lied to them.
Rumi is a demon – it’s undeniable.
She stands on that stage, hunched forward, shaking and spinning around herself in circles, her teeth bared and her eyes widened, claw-like hands held in front of her. Patterns burn over her pale skin, dark and purple and pulsating with something violent, and there is blood on her arms.
Rumi is a demon – Rumi has lied to them.
They have known each other for years.
They have movie nights twice a week and a dedicated video game day once a month.
They have seen each other at their lowest – after practice or before performances, in the aftermath of the fights against demons which have been getting more and more, fights they no longer escape unscathed from.
The Honmoon has tied their souls together for a shared purpose and they have known each other for years and Rumi has lied .
She doesn’t see them, at first, when she comes stumbling down that staircase.
(They find her in the dirt by the tree.)
Their leader is tumbling through the immediate aftermath of a panic attack, shaking all over. Her jacket is gone, torn away, and there are deep claw marks on her upper arms, running over the patterns and old scars there. Rumi’s own hands are stained with her blood, held in front of her wearily, as if she was afraid to fall. Her breathing is erratic and far too fast, far too shallow. It’s close to hyperventilating, even.
She sways.
Once.
Twice.
Blinks and blinks as if she’s not really there, not really in her own body.
It takes her a moment to notice them.
And when she does, the already broken look on her face shatters only further. Before, there had been dizzy panic and an echo of fear, had been widened eyes and bloody hands, had been hunched shoulders and a distance to her gaze that said I am not here, I’m within my own head, still .
Normally, when this happened, Zoey would drape herself over the other girl's shoulders and Mira would run her fingers along Rumi’s knuckles, until the girl came back from her state of panic and dissociation.
Normally, this would worry them to death, the way she doesn’t seem to be really in the room with them, at first, the way she had obviously hurt herself in her fear.
Normally, they would spend the next ten hours not moving from the couch.
But Rumi had lied to them.
She snaps back into herself, after that moment, already wide eyes widening even further as confusion and hurt seep into the panic still set on her face.
“W-what?” Her breathing is still erratic and shaky – and normally Mira would have said in, hold, out in a slow and calming voice but Rumi had lied to them and is a demon , so she doesn’t. Instead, they both watch as the shaking in their leader's shoulders begins to grow stronger again, her hands trembling in front of her. “H-how are you h-here? You were just on s- stage .”
She looks scared .
But she lied to them.
“That wasn’t you?” And for a moment, there is a flicker of hope on her face, just the smallest, tiniest one, gleaming through all the fear and panic and terror and hurt. As if she had been drowning in an ocean of darkness and finally, finally found something to save herself with. “ Oh , thank goodness.”
Rumi takes a step towards them.
And Mira doesn’t know which one of them backs away first – if it is Zoey or her. Either way, they move in tandem, as if under some sort of divine control.
(The Honmoon, distantly, shivers and whimpers and trembles with a muted warning.)
(Tragedy swirls in the air between them.)
(This story will end one way and one way only.)
The look on Rumi’s face shifts.
The panic and terror is still there – but now, there’s a hint of betrayal.
But it’s unfair, isn’t it? She had been the one to lie, after all, she was the demon. For all they knew, she could be working for Gwi-Ma, could have been working for him this entire time. It wouldn’t make sense, of course, why the demon king needed the Saja Boys in that case, but Mira can’t think straight.
All she can think is: Rumi betrayed them.
(Betrayed what they had.)
Mira loves her and she knows Zoey does, too, and Rumi had betrayed them, had lied to them, had been this the entire time .
She thinks the disgust must be visible on her face, because Rumi flinches.
Flinches and slows and does not come closer.
Instead, her eyes follow their gazes, landing on the purple marks that tear through her skin – and Mira sees the moment the terror comes back, with full force, sees the moment Rumi realises just how far they extend.
Sees the way her hands start shaking.
Sees all the signs of yet another panic attack.
Sees it and sees it and doesn’t do anything to stop it, like she normally would.
Because she had loved Rumi and Rumi had lied to her.
Her norigae feels heavy, all of the sudden, as if someone had chained the entire world to the accessoire. Or, more precisely, not itself – but one of the tiny charms she had connected to it, the little replica of Rumi’s head that came as a key-chain to their merch store years ago.
She loved Rumi, so, so much.
Rumi has betrayed them.
(They find her in the dirt underneath the tree.)
“No.” The girl in question says, and a tremor seems to run through her body, getting stronger and stronger as her breathing picks up in pace once more and she stares, wide-eyed, on her shaking hands and the burning patterns there. “No, no .”
She’s clutching her own arms again.
Desperate and oh so frightened.
“H-how do you have patterns?”
It is Zoey who asks the question, and Mira’s own mind is screaming at her yes how how how why did you betray us like this , her gaze flickering towards the younger girl for only a moment.
Zoey, too, looks frightened.
Zoey, too, looks betrayed.
Yes, Mira decides, the hatred and anger burning in her heart is only fair.
Because Rumi had betrayed them, had lied, and it was cruel of her – to create some sort of illusion, some sort of false reality, where she pretended that she had loved them. The scared, panicked expression on Rumi’s face didn’t matter. Her erratic breathing didn’t matter. Her claw-like fingers, digging into her upper arms harsh enough to draw blood, didn’t matter.
(Fear makes the air taste like salt. Fate had doomed them years ago.)
“These were supposed to be gone.” The girl stutters, shakes, crumbles and begins to collapse into herself. “You were never supposed to see.”
She’s begging, now.
“You were hiding this from us,” Mira begins, and the hurt and betrayal in her voice rings loud in her own ears. “This whole time?”
She wants to cry.
She loved Rumi – Rumi has betrayed them.
“No,” The other girl says, but it is a desperate lie. “I had a plan to erase them. Jinu was supposed to– I– he was–”
“Jinu?” Zoey asks, and the betrayal sinks deeper and deeper, like rotten teeth into her heart. “You’re working with him?”
“No. No! No ! I was using him to fix all this. To fix me .” Normally, this would have made her heart flinch with empathy and worry – but normally, Mira wouldn’t be standing backstage at the Idol Awards, after one of her two best and only friends revealed that she had been a liar and traitor for years. “So we could all do our duty ! We could all be strong. Be together!”
Rumi is begging.
Rumi is begging and Mira had wanted to be just that, be together , up until five minutes ago – her and Zoey had talked about it in detail, how both of their heart were beating for two people, how easy it had been to fall in love with their leader, how they wanted to try and be more , once they had restored the Golden Honmoon.
But Rumi lied to them.
And Mira finds she doesn’t want her anymore, not right now.
(She doesn’t know, not yet, what she will lose. Destiny laughs into her ears and it is the sound of someone gone mad.)
“How could we be together,” Zoey asks, voice full of accusation and pain and anger she rarely dares to show. “If we can’t tell your lies from your truth, Rumi?”
“I knew it.” Mira scoffs, more to herself than either of them – something cold is curling around her chest, around her heart, slipping into her ribcage with greedy fingers. “It was too good to be true.”
And it was.
Because Rumi was beautiful and they loved her and she had betrayed them.
And Rumi is still begging, desperate and scared and hurt, with a look in her eyes that a caged animal might have. Like a starving dog gone feral.
Zoey takes the next step back.
Mira follows.
“No.” Rumi gasps, pained and desperate and lonely and afraid, gasps and begs as she follows them, her hands shaking as they reach out, as she pleads with them. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave!”
Her voice breaks.
And normally, Mira would have long since jumped to comfort her, would have wrapped arms around her shaking shoulders and run her fingers through pretty lavender hair in calming motions.
Normally, she would have never stood by and watched one of her best friends go through a panic attack right in front of her, without trying to help.
They back away further.
And for only a moment, the desperation and terror and fear on Rumi’s face turns into something else, something angry, as her voice tilts and she screams: “I can still fix it !”
All around them, the Honmoon ripples and frays and tears apart.
(Rumi opens her mouth and screams and screams and it scares everyone who ever loved her away.)
In the end, Mira does not remember if it is her or Zoey who tears the bond between their souls apart.
Remembers only one moment where it is flickering and gleaming and anxious with pain and fear – remembers how it snaps and how everything Rumi seeps out of her ribcage, as if someone had stabbed a blade through Mira’s heart.
The two of them stay connected, her and Zoey, weaker than before, missing its third half and souls grasping for the separated thread in the air between them. But Rumi had betrayed them, had lied, Rumi was the enemy – and so, she did not deserve to be a part of this.
I love you so much . Mira thinks. I love you so much, why did you do this to me? I don’t think I can forgive you.
(She knows she will never forgive herself.)
Then, she raises her gok -do.
The blade shimmers with bright, white starlight, shimmers and gleams in the dimness of their surroundings. Mira raises it high, without second thought, in the same opening stance she always takes – the weapon is pointed directly at Rumi’s chest, directly at her heart, right now.
Rumi, who merely stares.
Rumi, who shakes and trembles and stares at the weapon as if she is both hurt and not surprised.
There is a look of resignation on her face, now.
It has settled over the fear and the terror and the panic, has smothered out the desperation in her eyes and replaced it all with a blank, hurt sort of acceptance.
She pleads with them, anyway.
But her voice is broken, her words empty, as if she knows that they will not listen.
“ Please .” She says, and in Mira’s head the words don’t leave, don’t leave, I can still fix this keep ringing and ringing and ringing until she hears nothing else except for the rushing of her own blood. “ Please .”
With nothing but pain in her heart and betrayal lacing her tongue, Mira keeps her weapon pointed high.
Rumi runs, after that.
(They find her in the dirt underneath the tree.)
(The begging will stay with both of them for an eternity.)
– .˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳. –
(She goes to Celine.)
(There is no doubt how she must look – the injured, broken look on both Mira and Zoey's faces was enough for her to know. The burning of the patterns as they etch themselves into her flesh is enough to know. The distant glow that surrounds her is enough, the way one of her eyes is burning and sees things differently.)
(She has torn the Honmoon apart.)
(And in response, Mira and Zoey broke the soul bond between them.)
(In her chest, there is nothing but a void.)
(She goes to Celine and begs. Because that is all she was still good for. Begging. Like a starving dog, desperate for people to love her. She knows that Celine doesn’t, of course. She had hoped that Mira and Zoey would maybe, but she should have known better.)
(After all, Rumi is a mistake and nothing more.)
(So she goes to Celine.)
(She goes and falls to her knees and offers her blade – because Celine doesn’t love her, never has, and because Celine had wanted her gone since the moment Rumi had caused the death of her mother.)
(Because Celine had loved her mother.)
(Like how Rumi loved Mira and Zoey. Who had stared at her with betrayal and hurt and had pointed their weapons at her when she had taken a step closer. Who she had begged don’t leave, don’t leave and who left anyways.)
(She had never wanted to tell them, scared of how they might react – and now, they have proven her fears to be right.)
(For just a moment, she feels as if this is unfair.)
(Had she not tried?)
(She tried, so, so hard. Her mother made her and then she left her, and Rumi had been buried in a box of doom from the day she had been born. And yet she had tried, so, so desperately to claw and gnaw her way out of it, to sink her teeth into fate and get it to change its will.)
(I don’t want to be a tragedy, she thought once, blood in her mouth and a bruise blooming on her cheek, where Celine had gotten her during training. I don’t want to die like my mother did.)
(But it didn’ matter.)
(It wasn’t enough.)
(She thinks of raised weapons and Zoey and Mira and all the love fate had promised, but kept over her head for years.)
(This is for them, too.)
(Rumi is a monster after all – monsters need to be put down.)
(But it’s better like this: she wouldn’t have wanted to put the guilt, the pressure, the shame upon either of them. To stain their weapons with her blood would have been another sin on her long list of mistakes – no, it’s better like this.)
(She goes to Celine.)
(And perhaps, in another word, the woman would have betrayed her. Would have denied Rumi the first and only thing she had ever begged for, would have rejected her blade and hissed cruel, cold words into her ears.)
(Celine does not betray her.)
(Celine sighs, as if this is no more than a simple annoyance, and takes the offered blade with skilled, experienced hands.)
(“How pathetic.” She says, as she raises the weapon and sets the point onto Rumi’s chest, right above her shuddering, stumbling heart. Their gazes meet – she looks upon the woman who adopted her, raised her, looks and begs, quietly, her breathing erratic and her hands shaking and her mind screaming please, please, please .)
( How pathetic , the woman who had raised her mumbles, and she cannot help but wonder, distantly: how can you still be mad at me for my sins? You made me like this. She did.)
(Celine adverts her eyes. “Your mother would have been so disappointed.”)
(The blade hisses through the air like a shooting star.)
(She feels it cut through her skin and flesh and bones, feels how it sinks into her body with a divine ease – it slices through her chest and tears apart her insides, tears and tears and tears like those hands did on that stage.)
(She feels it sink into her heart and lungs.)
(The blood doesn’t come as a surprise – she does choke on it still, on the blood and the guilt and on the pain exploding behind her eyes.)
(It is blinding hot and sharp and visceral, tearing her apart as the blade sinks and sinks and finally stops, flickering and flinching as the connection between them loosens. It hurts, she realises.)
(Repentance burns within the shattered bones and cut flesh in her ribcage. She wonders, distantly, if this is enough – if finally, like this, she had earned an ounce of salvation for the sin of her existence.)
(There is a pool of red around her.)
(Crimson pours and pours and pours.)
(How odd – that this is the most human part of her.)
(Her soul, a broken, shattered thing, trembles once, already hanging on by barely a thread. It trembles and shakes and reaches out with desperate, grasping fingers, towards the only thing that might still save it. Begging and begging and begging for them to see, to help. But the bond is broken.)
(There is no one in the world who loves her.)
(She wonders, as her gaze grows distant, whether Celine will bury her next to her mother. It’s foolish, of course. Who would mourn her, anyway?)
(Rumi dies a brutal, bloody death, crimson seeping into the dirt around her body, choking on the blood in her mouth and the sword through her ribs. She dies with her own divine blade in her chest and nothing else, heart shattered, soul lonely and swallowed up by the void.)
(There really isn’t much else to say.)
– .˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳. –
Gwi-Ma takes control of them.
The darkness whispers into her ears I can love you, I won’t leave you, I will be your family .
It whispers and whispers and takes them both.
Fire burns, purple and red and bright orange.
(Distantly, she feels a tremor shake the soul in her chest.)
Fire burns, and Mira is ready to burn with it. Or well, not ready, not like she wants to die and give up – but the voice in her ear is soft and sweet and oh so kind, and it keeps repeating I love you, no matter what as if it truly means it.
It’s nice.
And then there is something else.
An all too familiar voice, ringing out into the darkness – heavy with grief and pain and sorrow. Something is off about it, she notices, the pitch is not entirely right and it tilts at the end of her lines as she sings. Oddly, twisted, as if it was coming from far, far away.
Mira regains consciousness when the second voice joins in.
She only has a single moment to think that Rumi looks like a ghost, hauntingly so – the lines defining her body are blurred and unfocused, like colour spread with too much water. She seems awfully pale in the light of the Honmoon around them, pale and translucent, almost as if she were not entirely there: similar to the look of dissociation on her face, earlier.
Except it seemed to be her body, now, not her mind.
But Mira only has a single moment to notice that.
Then, they are fighting.
It’s not until afterwards, not until Gwi-Ma is defeated and the Saja Boys gone, that Mira notices something else, as well.
The Honmoon, though rebuilt and whole again, is weaker. Fainter, sadder, trembling all over and fraying at the edges. It's not fixed , not like they had wanted it to be – as if something was missing, as if it had lost a vital part. Like a moon without its sun, barely reflecting any light at all.
Starlight flickers.
There had been a bond, only hours ago, tying her soul to Zoeys and Rumi’s, tying all of them together. It had been there for as long as she can remember, always soft, always gentle, always with a steady, white glow. It had brought comfort to each of them, and told them when the other one was in danger.
It had always, always been there.
And then Mira and Zoey had cut it off.
And she finds that it is missing, still – and that Rumi herself is nowhere to be found, either.
(They find her in the dirt by the tree.)
– .˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳. –
(She dies with blood in her mouth and tears on her cheeks.)
(No one will mourn her.)
(The Honmoon cries as it feels her slip away, as her soul begins to tear into two – the part that will go back to Gwi-Ma and the one that will go wherever humans do when they die. Or perhaps it will all go to the demon realm.)
(She deserves it.)
(But the others do not.)
(She dies with blood in her mouth and tears on her cheeks.)
(The Honmoon wails as it loses the hunter it had chosen, wails and wails with grief and pain and sorrow. It wails, because it knows that she was not loved, in the end. Because it had tied her soul to two others and they have rejected her, and so she is alone, completely alone, when her gaze finally loses its light and her blood pours and pours and pours her life away.)
(She deserves it – but the others do not.)
(The Honmoon, good and cruel and full of regret in the end, grants her permission to do her duty. It does not allow her soul to find peace, in turn.)
(She dies with blood in her mouth.)
(Tears on her cheek.)
(Unloved and alone, like she always knew she’d be.)
(Celine leaves the body in the dirt where it belongs.)
– .˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳. –
She knows before they find out, she thinks.
Namsan tower is chaos – the people are all confused what exactly they are doing here, why exactly the stage is burning. Mira and Zoey barely manage to flee backstage before they can get trampled down by excited fans.
“Where’s Rumi?”
She stares.
Swallows.
A shiver runs down her spine and her heart shakes, aches – the soul in her chest has gone silent and still. It barely reacts when she reaches out, and there is nothing on the other end of the bond.
Because they cut it.
She thinks she knows, even before they find out.
They call Bobby.
Rumi is still nowhere to be found.
They call Bobby and he shows up, crying his eyes out and hugging them both close.
Then, he asks: “Where’s Rumi?”
(She knows, she knows, even before they find out.)
Bobby calls Celine.
Well, he calls Rumi herself, first, but the call goes straight to voicemail and something in Mira’s chest clenches when she hears ‘Hi, this is Rumi-’ out of the phone, before their manager hangs up. Tries four more times.
Then he calls Celine.
“Oh, her .” The woman says, in the distance the sound of driving. “Yes, I have been made aware of your incident at the Idols. Don’t worry – I took care of it.”
That shatters something in Mira’s chest, the concern that had been subtle earlier now rising to the surface, digging frightened teeth into her heart.
“What do you mean,” She says, slowly, a ringing in her ears and her gaze distant, barely noticing the sheer fear on Zoey’s face next to her and the confusion on Bobby’s. “You took care of it .”
“It won’t be an issue anymore.” Comes the reply, cold and stern and with the hint of something annoyed. “I am driving back to Seoul right now – we will have to have a meeting with the board of ‘Sunlight Entertainment’ about your rebranding, but it should be possible. We might have to make up a reason for your break-up, but I’m sure Rumi won’t sue when we paint her worse than she actually was. Make a real monster out of her.”
The words are like a starlight sword, stabbing her through her chest.
Both her and Zoey are running, a moment later, Bobby yelling after them.
But she cannot be bothered to listen – not when the fear in her chest is growing into an uncontrollable thunder storm, not when the Honmoon is quivering and whimpering in the corner of her mind, full with dread and sorrow, not when the other side of the bond they had cut is so, so empty .
Please . Mira thinks as she runs towards the parking lot, eyes finding the black van Bobby had called for them. Please please please no .
She throws the driver out and slips behind the steering wheel.
‘I took care of it.’ Rings through her mind, as Zoey jumps in next to her and she presses onto the gas, fear pulsing through her veins. ‘I took care of it. I’m driving back to Seoul right now.’
She knows where Rumi must have gone after she ran away from them.
After they pushed her away.
She knows because Rumi always went to the shrine when she was overwhelmed, during the time before they moved into the penthouse.
And so Mira drives.
Drives and hopes and prays that they are not too late.
Please, please, please. She keeps thinking. Please, I love you, I am sorry. Please, be okay.
They find her in the dirt by the tree, cold and pale and covered in blood.
It’s Mira who sees her first.
And isn’t that cruel?
Mira had almost never been first in anything.
Not the first born child, and definitely not the one loved the most; not the first in any of her classes during school or the training she went through. She had not been the first of them who mastered her Honmoon weapon, and hadn’t been the first of them to kill a demon.
She was the first and the best at dancing.
And now, she is the one who sees Rumi first.
In the dirt by the tree.
She stops dead in her tracks.
And Zoey, poor, sensitive Zoey, walks into her back, stumbles, startles, finds Mira’s eyes with her own, nothing but questions in her gaze. Questions that turn into confusion, turn into fear, turn into sheer terror.
“ No .” The younger girl whispers. “ No , she isn’t –”
But they find her in the dirt by the tree, cold and pale and covered in blood.
They find her, crumpled and collapsed, sprawled out over the ground. Unmoving, unmoving, unmoving. So deadly, deadly still.
No, don’t leave! Echoes through her head, the memory sharp and brutal. Don’t leave .
And they did.
And then Rumi did, too.
They find her in the dirt by the tree, cold and pale and covered in blood.
It’s Zoey who throws herself forward with a strangled sort of sobbed scream, with the desperation of a woman who’s heart is breaking apart.
They find her in the dirt by the tree and Zoey screams, bolts forwards, trips over small rocks and patches of grass and almost falls when her boots slip on the dirt surrounding Rumi.
It’s soaked with blood.
Zoey crashes to her knees and Mira is right behind her, is right there, close enough to see her break apart, to feel herself break apart.
Rumi’s eyes are open.
Not fully, not as if she had been scared when she died, not as if she had been staring wide-eyed – but they are open, partially, her two coloured eyes dead and empty.
Her lashes look like ghostly fingers, haunting her skin.
But her eyes are open and so is her mouth, crimson staining her lips and chin and jaw, as if she had been choking on it, desperately trying to spit it out.
Her skin is pale and cold to the touch.
Mira knows, because she reaches, reaches, reaches, desperate like the soul in her chest – because her hands close around Rumi’s shoulders and she turns her around, and the skin is cold to the touch. Freezing, almost.
And there is a hole in her chest.
And Mira can feel it, almost.
She recognises the mark, recognises the way the edges of the injury seem to have been burned, recognises how easily and deep the weapon must have cut. She knows it must have been one of their weapons. She knows it must have been Rumi’s.
Rumi, who has a hole in her chest.
Who stares, with open and empty eyes, into the night sky.
Who had begged no don’t leave don’t leave I can still fix this !
And Mira can feel it, almost.
How the blade cuts through her own chest – how it sinks through skin and flesh and bites into bones, how it tears open her lungs and her heart apart.
Something in her own ribcage shatters.
Next to her, Zoey lets out a wounded cry of grief.
It’s a desperate, broken sort of sound – Zoey screams as if someone had taken her sun away, as if someone had plunged a hand into her torso and tore out her heart. Zoey screams and screams and her voice falters as she begins to sob.
Mira’s hands slip off of Rumi’s shoulders.
And then Zoey’s are there, shaking so, so badly – like Rumi’s had done, backstage, when they pointed their weapons at her – as she grasps, desperately, for anything to hold on to, as her fingers dig into the red-stained fabric of Rumi’s crop top and begin to shake the other girl.
Zoey screams and screams and screams and Mira finds that she can’t.
There is a ringing in her ears.
The soul bond is eerily, eerily quiet.
And Zoey is wailing, like a hurt animal, is wailing and sobbing and dragging blood-stained hands from Rumi’s chest to her cheeks, cradling her pale face between her hands, shaking her, shaking her , as if she could wake up again.
As if her eyes aren’t empty and dead.
As if Rumi isn’t.
She had looked so haunted, backstage after ‘Takedown’.
Had looked so hurt and scared and in pain. Had begged and begged for them to not throw her away.
And yet, they did.
And here they are, now.
Zoey’s screams echo in her ears, echo in the shrine around them – Mira does not manage to open her mouth.
She thinks she might throw up if she does.
But Zoey is still screaming, please please please , and her hands are still cradling Rumi’s pale, lifeless face, as she begins to run blood-stained fingers through lavender hair, pushing messy strands behind the dead girl's ear.
As if they could fix this.
As if they hadn’t already broken everything.
As if this wasn’t all their fault.
Her heart shudders, once.
We need an ambulance . She thinks, distantly. We need to get help .
It’s foolish, of course. No hospital could help with this – a starlight blade had sunken its blazing judgement through Rumi’s chest, had burned away skin and cut her heart in half. The sheer amount of blood is enough to know that there is no going back from this – it stains the dirt underneath them, stains Rumi’s clothes and runs like rivers over her skin.
It’s not even all fresh anymore, some of it already dried.
She must have died more than an hour ago.
And they didn’t notice.
Because Rumi had been begging don’t leave, don’t leave , and yet, both Mira and Zoey left, anyways.
Zoey, who is still wailing, pleading into the empty night air for a miracle.
Mira, who is frozen, has turned to stone, who has not moved since she fell to her knees next to them and knew, knew , that they were too late.
Crimson stains her legs, sticky and not completely wet anymore.
Her vision is blurred, her hands shaking, gaze refusing to wander away from what is in front of her, refusing to spare her the gory picture of a torn chest and empty, dead eyes.
There is a bloody handprint on Rumi’s cheek, where Zoey had desperately cradled her face.
There is no we . Mira had said, earlier, after the Idol Awards and just before Gwi-Ma took control over both of them. I don’t get to have a family.
But she had, at one point.
Had had a family.
Mira thinks back to the weight of her gok-do in her hands as she summons it, to the haunted look on Rumi’s face, blinks once and stares into empty, lifeless eyes and upon the deep tear where she knows a heart should be. She stares and stares as Zoeys wails turn into quiet sobs, and thinks: you had a family. And look what you have done with it.
How cruel and how fitting, still – that in the end it was not Rumi who betrayed them, but them who had betrayed her.