Chapter Text
Her shoes beat a rhythmic pattern into the pavement. The cool breeze of a September morning in Seoul brushed refreshingly across her face. She breathed slow and steady in time with her cadence. 1-2-3 in; 1-2-3 out.
Rumi gently rounded a bend in the trail as she continued on her morning run through the park. It was early enough in the morning that she didn’t normally run into fans, and when she did, they were usually busy enough with their own exercise to not interrupt her. At the moment, though, there was no one. Just her and the trail.
Then, she saw it. Up ahead, a hare was sitting out in the open, munching on the flowers. A small one, a juvenile. Probably only a few months old. Perfect.
Rumi glanced around and, when she didn’t see anyone, stepped carefully off the path. She didn’t break her stride, but crouched low and shortened her steps while shifting her weight to be purely on her toes. The thump thump thump of her normal running cadence became a soft pat pat pat as she smoothly glided across the ground. Her torso barely moved, and if anyone was watching her solely from the shoulders up, she would have looked like she was floating along.
She ran in an arc centered on the hare until she was upwind of it. Then, she angled back toward the hare, slowly lengthening her strides while staying in her crouched pose. Most women would struggle to maintain the posture for more than a few steps, but Rumi wasn’t most women.
The hare saw her coming and took off in the opposite direction. Rumi responded by abandoning her crouch and breaking into a sprint, swinging her arms with a furious energy. She closed the distance quickly, and the hare tried to escape by suddenly darting to the left.
The move would have worked against most predators, but Rumi was ready for it. She drove her right leg down with a slight angle, so it drove her to the side rather than forward. She twisted her core to lean further into the turn until she was nearly sideways, her long braid whipping to the right as it struggled to keep up with her.
Instead of tumbling with the sudden turn, Rumi reached out with her left hand. Most women might have broken their wrist or shoulder after landing on an outstretched arm with such force, but the only thing that broke was the hare’s spine as Rumi’s palm slammed into it.
Rumi flexed her hand and speared the hare with her talons as she brought it to her mouth. She bit down on the hare’s head and, with a wrenching motion, ended its suffering. She quickly scarfed down the carcass. The bones made a satisfying crunch as she munched them down and took a moment to savor the marrow on her tongue.
Her snack complete, Rumi wiped her mouth, glanced around to make sure she was still alone, and then rejoined the trail to complete her run.
Returning to the HUNTR/X penthouse, a wonderful aroma greeted Rumi when she opened the door.
“That smells good,” Rumi said as she started to take off her running shoes.
“Zoey was craving gyeran bap,” Mira muttered over a cup of coffee.
“Well, now I am too,” Rumi said as she reached for Mira’s coffee, laughing when Mira hissed and pulled away from her.
“I made tons,” Zoey called from the stove. “I figured you’d be hungry. How far did you run? 8k? 10k?”
“21,” Rumi said with a smile as she started to pull some tea and a mug out of the cabinet.
“You’re bleeding,” Mira interrupted their banter.
Rumi turned to look at her with a frown, and Mira tapped the corner of her mouth. Rumi reached toward her own mouth and found that it came away with a bit of red. The hare. Shit.
“Oh, I must have bit my lip while running,” Rumi said.
Mira frowned and put down her coffee mug. She stood and strode across the room until she was looming over Rumi.
“Rumi,” she said softly, “you’re lying.”
“I’m not–”
“No,” said Mira as she took Rumi’s hands, “this is like when you were hiding your patterns. You’re scared of us finding something out.”
Zoey set a pair of bowls on the table and then joined the other two, taking one of Rumi’s hands from Mira. “You don’t have to hide from us anymore. ‘We are Hunters…’”
“‘Voices strong,’” finished Rumi. “I know, it’s just…”
“You’re used to hiding,” Mira said. “How about this? If you tell us you don’t want to talk about something, we can respect that. But, out of respect for our feelings and the fact that we worry about you, you need to at least tell us that much.”
Zoey nodded enthusiastically. “No lying. You can have privacy, but no acting like we don’t love and accept you.”
Rumi nodded and swallowed. “There was a hare.”
“A hare?” Mira quirked an eyebrow.
“It was near the trail on my run, and I thought…well, not really thought more like just reacted. But I saw it, and I was just like ‘ooh, a snack.’”
Zoey’s eyes grew wide. “You ate the bunny?”
“Zoey,” Mira scolded.
“Right,” Zoey said. “Love and acceptance. We love and accept the bunny-eating Rumi.” She nodded enthusiastically and forced a smile onto her face.
Rumi winced. “Um, yeah. I ate it.”
“Is that a demon thing?” Mira asked. “Like, new instincts or something?”
“Demon? Yes,” Rumi said. “New? No. Celine…uh…taught me not to do it in front of people when I was a kid.”
“So, you just randomly eat rabbits sometimes?” Mira asked.
Rumi blushed and looked at her feet. “And songbirds. And the occasional squirrel. And a frog once, but that was kinda gross.”
Zoey frowned. “Does this mean you don’t want my gyeran bap? Because you already ate?”
Rumi laughed. “Zoey, I will always want to eat your gyeran bap even if I’m already stuffed full.”