Chapter Text
Baby Ryu was whisked out of the room almost immediately, as more support staff streamed in to tend to her rapidly destabilizing mother.
The nurse pushed the bassinet into an auxiliary pod, separated from the main hallway by a curtain. Though none of the prenatal appointments had given any indications of potential problems, they were still always a risk, and they were, of course, prepared for them.
It never made the reality any easier, though.
The immediate postnatal checks indicated a normal, healthy baby girl. Her heart rate was a little low, but not concerningly so, and her tiny hands and feet had a grayish tinge, but that was normal. She was otherwise active, responsive, and clearly had a great set of lungs. Maybe that made sense, given who her mother was.
When the press had realized Ryu Miyeong was pregnant, and particularly when they realized there was no secret husband--nor any father in the picture at all, as far as anyone had been able to tell--they had been...well. They had been unkind. That wasn't something she had to worry about here. Their hospital had almost certainly been chosen because of their experience in treating public figures, and their well-known discretion in doing so.
Though now, of course, there were much more pressing issues than rude reporters.
Baby Ryu was still squalling. "I know you want your mama," the nurse cooed. "Just hold on for a little while longer, okay?"
Weight, 2.7 kg. Length, 47 cm. Eyes, brown. Hair...
Baby Ryu's hair was sparse. She wasn't the baldest baby the nurse had ever seen, but she wasn't too far off either. Her thin, fine hair was still damp from the afterbirth. But even so, it was clear it was too light, greyish instead of black. Nothing like her mother's. It could be just an odd quirk, birth fuzz that would fall out in a few weeks before her full head of hair grew in. Or it could be a sign of something else. She'd have to ask the neonatalist what he thought as soon as he arrived.
She checked the baby's heart rate again, just to see. It was no faster, but no slower either. And her hands and feet were starting to pink.
She had wondered, when she found out Ryu Miyeong would be delivering here, if there might be a man accompanying her after all. Even someone pretending to be on her staff, maybe. But the only people with Ryu Miyeong had been Kang Celine and a very polite (female) assistant, who'd been dismissed a little while back as the labor progressed.
No father in sight, and a mother who--well. No need to borrow trouble.
There was one more thing to note down before she could swaddle the baby and hopefully calm her. There were some birthmarks on her right upper arm. She palpitated the area gently, but the discolored skin was flush with the peach parts, and there didn't seem to be any pain. Still, another thing to ask the neonatalist about. She made her notes and then bundled up the baby. She'd have to unwrap her to do the blood draw, but the poor thing had to be freezing by that point.
"Almost done, dumpling. Just one little prick so we can do your bloodwork, and then I'll make sure the doctor's on his way, okay?"
A quick patdown of her pockets and a scan of the drawers in their alcove revealed a distinct lack of needles with the right gauge. She'd left some things behind in the rush to get out of the way of everyone swarming on Ryu Miyeong. She took one more look at baby Ryu's pink cheeks, at the way her body wiggled inside the swaddling, to make sure everything looked alright. Then squeezed the baby's toes in apology and slipped to the other side of the curtain.
"Ahnjong?" she called to the girl behind the nearby desk.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know where--oh never mind, I found them. Do you know if Dr. Ji's on his way?"
"Not sure. I think he was with the Parks. Is there a problem?"
"Not so far. Make sure he knows where we are?"
"Sure thing."
Nearby, baby Ryu's cries had finally quieted into grunts and sighs. She was a chatty little thing. Maybe that was a good sign; maybe peace in the child reflected peace for the mother.
She stowed the supplies in her pocket and briefly stepped behind the desk. "Can you pull out Ryu Miyeong's chart?"
"What a mess," Ahnjong said as she handed it over.
"Did you see what happened?"
"They took her to surgery basically as soon as you left. No updates so far." For all the negative coverage about the pregnancy, Ryu Miyeong was still a beloved public figure, and it would reflect very poorly on the hospital if anything were to happen to either her or her baby.
She flicked through the chart, knowing she couldn't take too long to get back to the baby. Obviously, anything concerning would have been noted in the delivery plan, but there was still an urge to see if anything jumped out in hindsight. But everything recorded seemed normal. The pregnancy had progressed as expected at every stage. The OBGYN had noted that the mother seemed anxious, and there were some episodes of an elevated heart rate, but nothing that couldn’t be adequately explained by nerves and the normal hormonal changes in her body.
She did note that despite the professed anxiety, Miyeong had turned down any prenatal genetic testing. All the Sunlight Sisters were rumored to be superstitious, and some people believed such tests invited trouble. Now, though, she suspected an extended suite of testing would be ordered for baby Ryu, just in case.
There were no answers to be found here. Sometimes there were no answers to be found at all. That was too often the way. She sighed and handed the chart back.
"Alright, dumpling," she said as she stepped around to the other side of the curtain, "I promise this won't--"
Instinct stopped her in her tracks. Baby Ryu wasn't crying. She wasn't grunting or sighing. She wasn't moving at all.
Her hand moved to the page button automatically, but she knew what she would find. Baby Ryu had died, likely within minutes of her mother.
She never even got a name.
Twenty years later
Zoey peered into the shop window, using her hands to reduce the glare from the setting sun and leaning as close as she could without smudging the glass.
When she pulled back, Mira was already pulling the door open. "Oh, we don't have to go in here."
"You sure?" Mira said, holding the door in place. "We can go in if you want."
"Nah. I thought maybe they had a new display, but I'm pretty sure that's the same one as last time."
There was a Sunlight Sisters song playing in the shop, which cut off abruptly as Mira released the door to let it it swing closed. Which was kind of a whole other thing. Zoey didn't really want to be reminded of that right now.
The last time they'd talked to Celine, she'd told them they'd have to finally move pretty soon. The Honmoon wasn't in dire straits yet--according to Celine, the rise of recorded media had done wonders for helping preserve it between Hunter generations, and she was incredibly canny at being able to goose people's nostalgia for the Sunlight Sisters. But that strategy could only take them so far.
Once upon a time, Zoey had been excited for the next steps. She had been young, and the training had been difficult (it took her ages to figure out good breath control while dancing), but she had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted her debut. To finally finish the journey she had started under Celine's tutelage.
Except you couldn't debut a new group of Hunters if you didn't have a group of Hunters.
Zoey was tired. The Honmoon held for now, but it wasn't great, and it turns out two wasn't quite enough people to keep up with the demons that bullied their way through it. The idea of adding more, of everything they'd have to do on top of the demon hunting if they debuted? She was pretty sure she was just going to melt into a puddle of stress one day.
"I wish she'd show up already," Zoey muttered as she and Mira walked down the street. She didn't need to specify who "she" was. They'd been talking about her for years at this point. The (theoretical?) third Hunter. The one who seemed to be willfully avoiding them at this point. The late one. The Lauryn Hill of demon hunting, if you would.
She also didn't need to explain her leaps in logic to Mira. Mira either got it, or she didn't and was more than happy to let Zoey's mind wander wherever it would.
When Mira spoke, her voice was slow. "I think...maybe we need to start assuming she won't."
"What?" Zoey whipped her head to the side to take in Mira's expression. "Celine's still looking for her, isn't she?"
"Do you think she is?"
"You don't?"
Mira shrugged, her nonchalance painfully fake, but Zoey wasn't sure what she was hiding behind it. "Maybe."
"Celine said we'd have to move soon," Zoey reasoned out. "Soon, but not now."
"Yeah, true."
Zoey sighed. This isn't how she wanted things to go. Today had been a nice day, a mostly free one except for a meeting Mira had had that morning to talk to some accountants (and thank god Mira was willing to talk to the accountants). They'd sparred and stretched and then wandered the city, poking in and out of shops and having a nice leisurely lunch together. It'd been great until Zoey's brain had run off in the wrong direction and made things weird.
She rolled a shoulder with a grunt, feeling out the stiffness in it. Mira's hands were on her almost immediately, lightly squeezing her shoulders and digging her thumbs into the muscles of her upper back.
"You good?" Mira asked.
Sometimes, selfishly, Zoey was glad it was just the two of them. Usually on the lazy mornings when they could lie in bed together, curled around each other. Or when they had the kind of long conversations that could be peppered with kisses without losing the flow. It kind of felt like someone else would mess up the dynamic? They'd probably have to have a lot less living room sex, at least.
But then they'd have a particularly hard demon fight, and Zoey would remember, oh yeah, this sucks.
She dragged her thoughts back to the present moment and said, "I'm fine. Just sore."
Mira dragged her hands up and down Zoey's back. "Let's go home. I'll give you a massage."
"Yessssss."
Then a red flash of "danger" rippled through the Honmoon around them.
"Nooooooo."
Mira squeezed her shoulders one more time. "Come on."
They took off together.
--
As they neared the epicenter of the signal the Honmoon had sent them, they could hear the sounds of a scuffle, and picked up their pace. If someone was trying to fight back against the demons, that probably wasn't going well for them. (Although she'd once seen a drunk college boy put up a surprisingly effective fight using a traffic cone as a club.)
Before they could turn the corner, though, a dokkaebi flew out of the alleyway and slammed into the opposite wall.
Zoey flung a shin-kal into its chest faster than she could think about it, and it melted away.
Before she could even exchange a 'what the hell was that' look with Mira, another dokkaebi tumbled ass over teakettle towards them, landing at Mira's feet. The butt of her gok-do made short work of it.
Now they did exchange a look. They slowly and quietly ventured down the alley towards the continued sounds of fighting. Celine had told them that it was always in their best interest to exercise caution. That they couldn't help anyone if they were badly hurt or dead. That they should retreat if the situation looked too dangerous.
Zoey wasn't sure if every Hunter got that advice, or just the ones who were...incomplete.
When they reached the end of the short alley, they saw a huge dokkaebi staggering around the empty space on the other side. It had something attached to its face.
No, not something. Someone? For a moment, Zoey thought it was a person, before realizing that was dumb. Then she saw the jagged patterns and realized it was a demon--maybe a gwishin?--which made sense until, wait, no it didn't, why would it be fighting the dokkaebi then? And then she didn't have any more time to think before the gwishin (?) ripped a purple, clawed hand across the dokkaebi's throat, and smoothly leapt off of its shoulders as it melted away.
For a moment, the only sounds were the gwishin's harsh panting. (Did gwishin need to breathe? Why?) It was standing with its back to Mira and Zoey, who were still frozen in shock and confusion. (It had purple hair. That was neat, and not something she'd seen before. Did that mean if you passed away with dyed hair, you got to keep it forever?) Then the demon stretched, and it occurred to Zoey that there was still a demon in front of them, and they really ought to do something about that. (Was that a Twice logo on the back of its sweatshirt? Where did it get that? FOCUS ZOEY.)
Before they could do anything except hesitantly raise their weapons, the demon turned around, saw them, and disappeared with a hiss and a flash of pinkish light.
"Huh," Mira said, which, yeah, about summed it up.
"Do demons fight each other?" Everything was quiet now except for the normal street sounds faintly filtering in, so Zoey dismissed her shin-kal.
"Maybe. I think..." Mira's brow was furrowed in concentration, even as she continued to scan the area around them. "I think maybe we talked about that? That demon infighting can happen sometimes because they're violent." They'd talked about a lot of stuff during their training, and maybe not all of it had stuck one hundred percent.
"Yeah, that sounds familiar." Zoey grinned. "How do we get them to do that all the time?"
Mira snorted and finally let her gok-do dissolve back into the Honmoon. "Do you think there's a demonic rumor mill? Could we start some beef?"
"Next time we fight dokkaebi, we leave one alive to send a message. And that message is, 'Hey, we ran into some mul gwishin at the bathhouse, and they said you guys suck.'"
"I'm down to give it a try."
Zoey had been inching closer, and now she was close enough for Mira to rest her hands on Zoey's waist.
"Hi," Zoey said.
"Hi." A smile was tugging at the edges of Mira's lips, soft enough that she probably didn't realize she was doing it. In comparison, Zoey felt her own grin stretching her cheeks, but she loved Mira's little smiles. "Guess we got lucky. Ready to head back?"
"We're gonna get lucky."
"Not if you make puns like that."
"Boo."
Mira lightly pinched Zoey's waist and then took her hand. "Come on," she said again. "Let's go home."
When Rumi's feet reappeared beneath her, her stance was uneven, and she stumbled into a nearby wall and cursed.
Panic teleporting was always a bit of a gamble. "Away" wasn't really specific enough to get her where she really wanted to be, and if she didn't know where she wanted to land, the landing was often rough.
She'd just known, as soon as she'd seen those girls, that she had to get away.
It was hardly the first time a human had stumbled into one of her fights, especially if they were noisy. Or even the first time someone rushed in wielding weapons, though she saw a lot more blades out in the boonies than in the middle of a huge city.
But she'd never seen weapons that glowed before. Even in the last bits of sunlight, strong enough that the streetlights hadn't come on yet, they had been radiant.
It reminded her of the light from the Honmoon. Brilliant even in the middle of the day. Bright when it felt like it shouldn't be.
It reminded her of other things too. Stories that pricked at the back of her memory.
One thing at a time. She felt lightheaded, and it was probably about dinner time. Time to forage for food.
The first bin she checked didn't have anything that looked promising, but she did see the gleam of a glass bottle, improperly recycled. She filched it before continuing on her way.
--
By the time it was full dark, Rumi had acquired both dinner and about half a dozen glass bottles, jangling around in a plastic bag.
Judging by the spotlights streaming through the sky and the crowds swarming the sidewalk, there was probably a concert happening at the large stadium nearby. Rumi teleported again, this time with a destination in mind: A secluded rooftop not too far from the venue. Up here, the sound pumping out of the stadium echoed a little strangely, but it was more than loud enough for her to enjoy the show too.
She liked the city. She hadn't always; when she was younger, the busyness had seemed overwhelming. But she was better at getting around now, and she liked that there was always something happening. Music playing, different things being displayed on the large screens decorating the buildings on the main thoroughfare, random festivals what felt like every other week. She always made sure to avoid the thick of it, made sure that wherever she was, she could escape if need be. But even just watching from a distance was its own entertainment.
Now though, the city apparently had girls with strange, glowing weapons.
Rumi felt a bit better after eating, and was ready to turn her thoughts to that particular problem. She hadn't gotten much of a look at them. Had let instinct grab her instead of trying to figure out what was going on. She was pretty sure that there were two, and that they were young. And that they had looked confused, but not shocked. Not...afraid.
Like they weren't scared of demons. Maybe like they'd been expecting them.
The word lingering at the back of her brain finally pushed its way through. Hunters.
Just the thought made a tightness shoot up from her belly, squeezing her ribs, almost seizing her throat. She stopped: stopped moving, stopped remembering, stopped thinking, stopped everything except breathing. Slow in, slow out, trying to force the air down deep to push away the tightness. She listened to one song, then two, then three.
When she finally felt in control of herself again, she tried to pull up what little she knew. It wasn't much. She'd heard stories of Hunters when she was younger, although she didn't know if she should believe most of them.
She'd heard that they wielded magic weapons that glowed with holy light. (That seemed to be true.) That their weapons could kill with a touch, and that Hunters would swing them at anyone with patterns, no matter who they were. (They'd had a chance to stab her in the back and hadn't, but maybe Rumi had just seen them before they could swing.) That they were superhumanly fast and strong. That if you knocked one down, she would get right back up. That their blood sanctified the ground, so if you were going to make one bleed, you had better finish the job. That they could fly. That a Hunter's voice would make you go mad, and if they sang in harmony, you'd die on the spot and the only defense was to stuff your ears with mud. That as they aged, they could get up to three meters tall, and also could regrow limbs if you cut them off.
She'd also heard that there were three of them at a time. Had there been three girls? She only remembered two, but the alley had been narrow and maybe there had been one behind them.
There was one other thing she knew about Hunters. But thinking about it tempted the tightness at the bottom of her ribs to return, and so she didn't. She squeezed the fingers of her right hand with her left instead, and distracted herself by looking at the stadium.
If she shifted her vision just slightly, she could see the thousands of souls filling it. Brilliant points of light blending together in a mass that, had it been physical, would have pierced her eyes to the point of tears.
Was it any wonder the Hunters had weapons of light, if this was what they were protecting?
The light of the Honmoon was so much closer here than in the demon realm. It was always right under her fingertips. She traced its lines now, seeing the way they swayed to follow her touch, the way the light pulsed gently around her. A melody that didn't match the song pumping out of the speakers in the arena, but one she felt she could hear all the same.
Rumi stayed on the rooftop, feeling the aches and pains from the previous fight slowly fade, until the music stopped.
--
The warehouse she was staying in was clearly long abandoned. On the lower levels she could see where others had bunkered down at various points, but the staircase leading to the top floor had rusted away. It would be difficult for a human to get up there. Not impossible--she'd seen many a human do foolish things--but difficult.
Even so, she circled the floor thoroughly, until she was satisfied that the only marks in the thick dust were her own.
The door to the small room she stowed her supplies in was propped open, as she had left it. She scanned as much as she could before entering, and looked around again when she was inside.
When she was assured she was alone, she closed the door. There was a pile of heavy objects she had painstakingly collected to use as a barricade, and she went through her nightly routine of piling them in front of the door. It wasn't enough to keep out determined demons, she knew, but would make it difficult for most humans to force their way in.
When she was done, she arranged most of her bottles precariously on the piles of assorted junk in front of the door. The crash of shattering glass made a good alarm.
There was one small window high up in the corner. It was too small for anyone to pass through, and had a grate on the outside besides. But there were Hunters in town, apparently. And while she thought the story that they could squeeze into any space that fit their head was probably just someone messing with her, better safe than sorry. She put the last couple of bottles on the windowsill.
Then she fell back against her collected blankets and thought. She'd only returned to Seoul recently. The last time she'd been here, there hadn't been Hunters. Maybe it was safer to leave before she got any more settled. Probably it was.
But maybe...maybe if there were other people here to fight demons, she wouldn't have to fight so much herself. Maybe for once she could lay low. Maybe if anyone did come after her, the Hunters would find them first. Maybe it was worth staying to see.
She wondered if they ever hesitated before swinging their weapons.
She wondered if they had as many dumb myths about demons as demons had about Hunters.
She wondered if the Honmoon ever sang to them.
She wondered where they buried their dead.
She wondered what she was going to eat for breakfast, before firmly slotting that into "tomorrow's problems", rolling over, and going to sleep.