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Zoey can’t stop giggling while they touch up their makeup before the cameras start rolling, putting her eyeliner at great risk while she’s still applying it to once again look past Mira and at Rumi.
Mira smiles slightly, and Rumi can’t help blushing with nerves and excitement. It’s their first interview back– which means their first time getting ready together, one dressing room, no secrets. Rumi slips one of her old favorite interview tops from before the jacket era– the asymmetrical short sleeves had always been for function of concealment, but she does truly adore the look– and sets her compact down so they can all check each other’s hair for flyaways.
“Okay girls, one more check-in.” Rumi looks into the mirror to meet their eyes. “We’re okay telling pretty much everything Hunter-related? You’re sure?”
“Rather talk about that than my parents again,” Mira agrees.
“If the first Hunters didn’t see a need to keep it secret, why should we?” Zoey adds. That revelation– that the secrecy of the duties of Hunters had been added so much later, a false foundation just like the idea that faults and fears must never be seen– had lifted the final little bit of weight from all three girls when they discovered it. No more lies– not that any would’ve been enough to cover up what happened at Namsan Tower.
Glossing over one or two demon deaths as special effects is one thing, an easy excuse the unknowing public can accept without much reconsideration. Being mind-controlled into a near mass-sacrifice to the king of the demons himself and then lending your very soul to be used to create a magical protective force… that one’s harder for people to come up with alternate explanations for. And they shouldn’t have to– they made the Honmoon as much as Hunter/x did. They deserve to know what they were apart of.
There’s a gentle knock on the door. “Hi girls! Almost ready?”
“Hi Bobby!” they chorus.
“You can open the door,” Rumi says, and Bobby swings it open with a wide grin and eyes shining proudly. Rumi can’t help grinning back, knowing her patterns shine with iridescent joy as she does.
“This is going to be our best comeback interview yet!” Bobby holds up a clipboard, facing it towards them and tapping it with the back of a Hunter/x-branded pen. “But the international audiences are definitely going to believe it’s a gimmick, so just let me know how you want that handled and I’ll have our team on it as soon as we get rolling!”
“Eh, let them believe whatever they want.” Mira is the first to step out of the dressing room, an easy nonchalant smile on her face as the fluorescent hall lights make the glitter on her half-lidded eyes sparkle like the Honmoon itself. “The most important thing is that our fans will know.”
“Including you,” Rumi says, giving Bobby a quick one-armed side hug. “I still can’t believe you didn’t ask for an explanation the whole hiatus.”
“You girls needed a break from all your responsibilities. I knew I’d get one when you’re ready.” Bobby’s phone buzzes in his jacket pocket and he pulls out phone. “Oh! We should hurry, the host is already on the set!”
A few minutes later they’re sitting, poised but more relaxed than they’ve ever been in an interview, as the crew behind the camera indicate they start in three, two, one–
"Good morning, Seoul. Today we have with us the iconic, and now widely known as heroic, Hunter/x!”
They all bow slightly, still sitting.
“I think we all know what we’re going to talk about today,” the host says, gesturing to her heart. “Namsan Tower– it was practically the entire population of Seoul there that day, and while we know what we saw, we don’t know so much of what surrounded it. Let’s start simply– for how long has Hunter/x been protecting us from the things we saw at that concert?”
“Hunters have been protecting the world for generations,” Rumi says, smile soft and proud. “My mother was a Hunter, so I’ve been training for my entire life.”
“Zoey and I were born with Hunter voices, but we didn’t know until a few years before our debut as a group,” Mira adds.
“Hunter voices?”
“Our voices have the power to connect people. That’s what the glow was, when everyone woke up from their trances!” Zoey gestures out at the audience made of the camera, studio crew, and Bobby. “Everyone’s souls connecting over music!”
“It’s also what powers the Honmoon– which we all created together when you, the fans, used your souls to give us the strength to defeat Gwi-Ma.” Rumi looks into the camera, hand over her heart. “Our voices may be what weaves the Honmoon, but it could never exist without all of you, sharing in the experience of our music.”
The interviewer curls her hand where it still rests over her heart. “I could feel that connection. It’s amazing to know it was so essential to defeating… you called it Gwi-Ma?”
“The king of the demons,” Mira all but growls. “Every soul a demon ever stole went to him.”
“With him gone now, we’ve had a lot fewer problems with demons… in general.” Rumi can’t help rubbing her arms a bit, curling in on herself slightly. “We’re not sure if it’s because the new Honmoon is so strong… or if the demons just have so little reason to try without his command.”
The interviewer breathes a very genuine sigh of relief.“And… what are demons, exactly? It was clear the SajaBoys were in the end– but it was also clear one turned on them, and clear you, Rumi, have similarities and differences.”
Rumi nods, swallowing– she casts her eyes around nervously, searching for any sign of distrust in her, confidence wavering as the time actually comes to talk about it.
She finds no distrust. Just curiosity, and Bobby’s encouraging smile as he gives her two thumbs up.
“My… father, was a demon. I don’t know my parents’ story– Celine had her own view of what happened, and… neither of them left behind anything I could learn it from. Not as far as I know.”
Mira and Zoey both take her hand on either side of her, and she takes a deep breath, sitting up a little straighter. “I spent my entire life aiming to get rid of my patterns, because Celine believed that if all the demons were sealed away, it would mean that part of me would be cast away too.”
The interviewer nods, looking at her arms. “But that wasn’t true?”
“I’ll never know– we were going to make it happen at The Idol Awards, but demons replaced Mira and Zoey onstage with me. I didn’t know until after, but… I thought they’d found out. Celine told me they never could, and… it was my worst nightmare come true.”
“So the breakup was fake.”
“Yes and no…”
“We thought she’d started working with the demons,” Mira says. “We didn’t even know people could be part demon, or that some demons used to be people.”
“We thought the worst, and backstage…” Zoey trails off, looking past Rumi’s head to meet eyes with Mira. “We rejected her.”
“Gwi-Ma’s power got to us too after that,” Mira says. “The voices, the insecurity…”
Everyone in the room shivers.
“Rumi coming back saved us.” Zoey’s eyes water. “Even after we raised our weapons to her.”
“I could never abandon you two.” Rumi removes her hands from theirs to bring them into a hug. “For as long as I live.”
Bobby’s loud sniffling, barely muffled by his face being buried in his sleeve, is surely caught by the studio mics.
“We all feel safer knowing your bond is so unbreakable. … And we are safe, aren’t we? Gwi-Ma and the SajaBoys are gone?”
“As far as we know, yes.” Rumi squares her shoulders with determination. “But even if they aren’t, we’re vigilant as ever, and better than we were. Jinu taught me that some demons are just, lost people, who can be saved. Mira and Zoey have shown me that we can always find our way back to the people who truly need to be in your life. And all of you? Accepting us, as our true selves? You’ve all shown me that hiding our faults and fears are not worth the shame it brings.”
The applause is quiet, echoing in the studio like it’s trying to pad itself out to sound fuller– but it’ perfect. Each clap is meant, with a whole heart. Bobby is still teary-eyed, pausing his applause to wipe his eyes again for only a moment.
The interviewer nods, misty-eyed herself, and sighs contentedly. “Well, I suppose there’s only one more thing to ask.”
The girls all wait, prepared for any question she has, and–
“Will What It Sounds Like be released as a single?”
They all sit and blink for a moment. They’d been so focused on what they’d say for the demon hunter part–
They totally forgot to prepare for questions about the Kpop part.
“We’ll think about it,” Mira finally ventures.
“It’ll be hard to capture that feeling in a recording,” Zoey says. “But… we can try?”
And Rumi…
Nods.
“But just so everyone knows, streaming numbers don’t quite strengthen the Honmoon. … They don’t hurt it though!”