Chapter Text
“Look, I’m pretty good at reading people. Actually, I’m kind of an expert at it, and I just can’t shake this feeling that you’re keeping something from me…” Mira said, visibly frustrated.
Rumi’s heart, even while hammering in her throat from the adrenaline of hiding the blue tiger under a blanket, broke into a million pieces at how raw it sounded.
Just how much longer will she have to lie to her best friends? Keep up this pretense? Keep everyone at arm’s length? Overthink her wardrobe choices?
“Mira, I’m not -” She started to say reflexively, but stopped herself just as Mira muttered bullshit under her nose.
A tense silence stretched between them.
Rumi sighed. Squeezed her eyes shut. She knew her friends. She knew them better than Celine did, that was for sure. She knew they’d understand. Whether they would forgive her for keeping it from them this long was the question - but the longer she waited, the more irreparable the rift got between them, and… in a way, that endangered the Honmoon, too. If she put it like that, maybe Celine would forgive her for what she was about to do. She was done waiting for permission.
“I’m not hiding anymore.” She said more to herself than her friend, and shot up from her seat, completely forgetting that she was sitting on that damned tiger and hiding its tail with her body.
“Um… What is that?” Mira asked, her eyes travelling comically between Rumi’s face and the tiger’s tail poking out from under the blanket Rumi threw on it.
“I’m going to get to that, I promise.” Rumi said, already wanting to rip her own face off in frustration. “But first, we’re getting Zoey before I lose my nerve.”
True to her word, she grabbed Mira by the wrist and dragged her out of her room, making a beeline for Zoey’s. She barged in without knocking. Zoey was on her bed, headphones on, scribbling away into one of her notebooks.
“Oh, hey!” She looked up as they entered, taking in Rumi’s determined expression, her hand on Mira’s wrist, and Mira’s uncharacteristically out-of-her-depth look. “What’s up?”
“I-” Rumi started, her voice breaking painfully. “I need to talk to you guys.”
“Is this about the lyrics? I know you don’t like them, so I’ve been trying to think up more rhymes, if you want to take a look-” She started rambling immediately, holding the notebook out for her to see.
“It’s not about the lyrics.” Rumi said. She averted her eyes, and let go of Mira’s wrist. Mira slowly stepped around her to look at her.
Even without looking, she could feel two pairs of eyes on her. Her heart gave a painful twist as she looked back up at them. She tried to etch their open, honest, caring gazes into memory, just in case she never saw them like that again.
“You might want to sit down.” She told Mira softly, and the girl raised an eyebrow at her.
“Just hit us with it. You know you can tell us anything, right?” Mira replied.
“Yeah, Rumi, we’re here for you. Whatever you need.” Zoey agreed as they exchanged a curious glance with Mira, who sat down at the foot of Zoey’s bed.
She had the most wonderfully supportive friends in the entire world, and she was totally undeserving of them. Her eyes stung. Her hands shook.
“I-” She sobbed, despite all her efforts to keep her emotions at bay.
“Rumi…” Zoey called her name softly, and set her notebook aside. She was already making to get up and comfort her, but Rumi’s protest froze her in place.
“No! Please don’t.” Rumi said, voice breaking. She could feel her patterns curling around her chest and arms like suffocating vines. She was a liar. She didn’t deserve to be comforted. They might not want to comfort her anymore when the truth comes out, anyway.
“I… I wanted to tell you this for the longest time, but-”
“Rumi, we know you’re queer as shit, if that’s what you’re worried about-” Mira interjected dryly, trying to lighten the mood the only way she knew how.
“W-what?”
“We don’t mind,” Zoey stepped in, ever so sweet and helpful, “It would be rather hypocritical of us, really.”
“What? No.” Rumi said quickly, head thrown for a loop. She shook her head, trying to come to terms with the implications of their words, and scrambling to take control of the conversation again. “I mean, yes.” She let out a panicked little laugh. “Okay. I guess that’s sorted, but that’s not it.”
“Well then what has you so worked up? Unless you’re dying, or secretly a demon-” Mira started up again, but she stopped short at the sight of Rumi’s full body cringe.
“I wish you didn’t say that.” Rumi said in a small, vulnerable voice to fill the sudden, sharp silence.
“No.” Mira breathed, her eyes widening in disbelief. Zoey looked between the two of them, trying to make sense of the turn of events.
Rumi hung her head and made to take off her hoodie, slowly revealing the patterns covering her arms and shoulders. The rest of them on her torso were mercifully covered by the sleeveless white turtleneck she wore underneath. She felt their eyes on her, but didn’t dare to look up, afraid of what emotions she would find there.
“Rumi, you have…” Zoey started.
“Patterns.” Mira finished, voice barely a whisper.
“As I was saying, I wanted to tell you for the longest time, but-”
“How are you a demon, seriously?” Mira interjected, finding her voice again. She shot up from her place on the floor. “I can’t believe it.”
“My father… he was a-” Rumi started, but Mira interjected. She wasn’t really interested in answers yet, apparently, needing to get her frustration out.
“How the fuck didn’t we see it?” She continued to vent, pacing up and down. Her hands were buried in her hair, grabbing handfuls of it.
“I-”
“Why did you keep it from us?” She asked, wheeling on Rumi. Rumi instinctively took a step back.
“Mira, let her explain, you’re scaring her.” Zoey said, getting up from the bed and taking one of Mira’s hands in hers. Mira shot her an incredulous look, but the action was enough to snap her out of her interrogation.
Rumi looked at Zoey, a hopeful smile trembling on her lips, but was only met with shock, grief, and betrayal from Zoey. Still, she took her side. Kind of.
She didn’t deserve her friends.
Mira shook her hand out of Zoey’s grasp with a huff, and crossed her arms across her chest. The hurt was clearly visible on her face, but it gave Rumi hope. Maybe they would really understand. Maybe they would forgive her.
“Mira’s right to ask, Zoey. I owe you guys a lot of answers.” Rumi said, and Mira huffed. “I- I don’t know everything, but… I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Why now, though?” Mira started up again, “Is it just because I was onto you? How long were you planning on keeping it from us?”
“I never wanted to lie!” Rumi burst out, her voice suddenly distorted and deep. The Honmoon rippled an angry red around her, and her patterns flared up in vivid, pink light.
Mira took a step back, partly covering Zoey with her body. Her hand was outstretched to the side, ready to call on her weapon. The fight instantly left Rumi at seeing that familiar movement - not unlike her own hand when calling forth her sword. She couldn’t bear seeing their faces staring back at her as if they were seeing something unrecognisable.
“I never wanted to lie.” She repeated, sagging to the floor. It was a testament to the trust between the three of them that the girls got on their knees, following her with only a beat of delay.
“Then why did you?” Zoey asked, leaning closer. “I thought we were a team, Rumi. I thought we trusted each other. I thought we shared everything.”
“We are hunters, voices strong-” Rumi started the old song, but couldn’t bring herself to continue in the moment. She didn't need to. She saw the recognition in the other two’s faces.
“Celine raised me, told me to hide it. Made me believe that if you ever saw me, the real me, you’d just. Do what you do best.”
The implication hung between them in the silence for a few heavy seconds before anyone spoke.
“That’s… cruel.” Zoey commented, “Did she want you to keep it a secret forever then?”
“Not… forever.” Rumi said, staring at her arms. The pink luminescence was fading slowly, giving way to the pale purple that the patterns usually were. “She told me that when the Honmoon finally turns gold, the patterns would be gone, and then I wouldn’t need to hide anymore.”
“That’s why you pushed Golden so much.” Mira spoke, more to herself than anything.
“Yes,” Rumi confirmed nonetheless.
“But… that doesn’t make sense. How would your patterns disappear? I thought the Golden Honmoon was supposed to keep out anything with patterns.” Zoey said.
“I… never really thought about it.” Rumi said, hugging her shoulders with her hands. “I just wanted to believe that there would be a way to finally be with you. Without secrets. Without lies. Just us.”
Zoey reached out and touched Rumi’s shoulder tentatively. Rumi stiffened for just a moment before she settled into the contact and looked up at her face. Fear was no longer present, replaced by sadness, and some other, indiscernible underlying emotion.
She looked at Mira next. Her face was harder to read - she was wearing a stubbornly stoic expression as always.
“Can you forgive me?” She asked her, voice raw and honest, prepared for the worst.
“Yes…” Mira sighed after a too long pause, sounding drained. “I understand why you hid it. The fact that you told us before we found out helps,” Mira said, her voice artfully neutral save for a tiny tremor. “But I’m still waiting for an explanation for what’s in your room.”
That was fair, Rumi supposed. Better than she hoped for, even.
“Oh. Of course.” She said, curtly, pushing off the floor to get up.
“What’s in Rumi’s room?” Zoey asked, following her.
“... Let’s just go see. I’ll… explain.” Rumi said, voice tired.
It didn’t take long for them to return to Rumi’s room. The tiger was still occupied with trying to right the paper basket that was knocked over when Rumi and Mira stormed out. The bird looked on from the bed in a resigned manner. The girls stopped in the doorway to observe.
“Are those… demons?” Mira asked, voice filled with disbelief.
“They’re… nice demons?” Zoey asked. “They look more harmless than what we deal with daily.”
“I don’t even know what they are.” Rumi said as she entered the room and righted the bin. The others entered after her, sitting on the bed, but not taking their eyes off of the tiger who went to butt its head into Rumi the first chance it got.
“It looks very comfortable with you.” Mira observed.
“They came to deliver a message from Jinu.” Rumi said, deciding to cut to the chase.
“You’re talking to him?”
Rumi sighed.
“No? When we fought them in the bath house… When I ran off after him, he saw my patterns. He seemed shocked, but we didn’t really have time for a chat, you know, demons actively trying to kill us and everything… But then he sent me these… messengers? Asking to meet?”
“Did you meet him?” Zoey asked, uncertainty in her voice.
“Yeah, I went there with the intent to kill him, get the whole Saja Boys apocalypse over with, but he kept dodging and mocking me.”
“Asshole.” Mira remarked, “You should have taken us with you, we could have kicked his ass.”
A small, hopeful smile tugged at Rumi’s lips upon hearing that.
“He tried blackmailing me with the patterns. Leveraging that he could have told you, and he didn’t. Then he told me that he knows what they feel like, that he’s the only one who can understand me.” Rumi still got riled up just thinking about the memory.
Mira scoffed. “He’s so annoyingggggggg.”
“Right?” Rumi said, a nervous chuckle rising from her lips. “I shoved my sword into his face and left after that. He’s been sending me invitations to meet ever since, with that tiger. He basically doesn’t leave me alone. I’ll be here when you’re done pretending, my ass.”
“Are you gonna meet him again?” Zoey asked tentatively.
“I don’t want to,” Rumi admitted, “But… He told me things. About himself. About demons. About Gwi-Ma. And I don’t know if he’s just trying to put ideas in my head, or if what we know about demons is completely wrong… and I don’t know who could help me figure that out. Figure myself out.”
“Certainly not Celine.” Mira deadpanned. “But we can’t rule out the possibility that the second time could be a trap.”
“Yeah.” Rumi admitted, deflating. She sat down on the bed, and let herself lie back on it. She felt the bed dip on her left side, then the right. She looked, and saw her friends perched on either side of her bed, looking at her. Looking at her arms, in particular. It made her want to cover up. She didn’t.
“This whole thing is so fucked up.” Mira groaned, and flopped down beside her.
“I still can’t wrap my head around it… your mom and a demon?” Zoey asked, settling against a pillow.
“Yes.”
“But she was a Hunter. A Sunlight Sister. How does that happen?”
“I don’t know. Celine refused to talk about it.”
Mira made another disapproving throat sound, but didn’t speak. A silence settled between the three of them again, heavy, but not entirely uncomfortable.
“Are… are we going to be okay, girls?” Rumi asked tentatively. There was a beat of stillness, but then she felt first Zoey, then Mira reach out and take her hands in their own.
“We’ll be okay,” Said Zoey, squeezing her hand.
“Yeah… but no more secrets, alright?” Mira asked, turning over and propping herself up on one elbow to look Rumi in the eyes.
“No more secrets.” Rumi repeated, and squeezed both of their hands.
They fell together in a tangle of arms and legs, hugging each other. Rumi let out a shaky exhale, and finally let herself relax.
They have forgiven her. They were okay.
But that meant Celine was wrong. And if Celine was wrong about this, what else could she be mistaken about? And could Jinu be telling the truth?