Chapter Text
“Are we going to talk about what happened?” The youngest of the three asked.
Zoey, Rumi and Mira were sitting on the massive white couch in their penthouse. It had been a few days since the night of the Idol Awards and the three hadn’t yet discussed the events that transpired that evening.
“What about it?” Mira asked monotonously.
“I don’t know?” Zoey shrugged “Any of it? All of it? I’m just…. I feel so guilty.” She said softly eyes teary, her voice cracked slightly as she spoke.
“Zo, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” Rumi assured, smiling warmly she put her hand on the youngest hunter’s shoulder.
“Rumi.” She paused, still in tears. “We pointed our weapons at you! Like…. Like you were one of them! Like one of those demons we kill. You! our best friend! Our leader.” Zoey looked crushed and hurt, like the night she had raised her shin-kal towards her friend.
Rumi’s smile fell, she had felt betrayed when Zoey and Mira raised their weapons at her. She remembered the emotions spiralling through her mind as her secret was exposed in front of the world on stage; by her friends. Whom she only found out later were demons being controlled by Jinu.
She’d felt alone, isolated, hurt, like her whole world had just fallen apart. When she had realized the Zoey and Mira on stage were in fact, not her real friends she was relieved. Relieved that there was still a chance they would accept her and when it seemed they had turned against her she was devastated. Zoey and Mira had been the one constant in her life the past few years. Whenever something hadn’t gone as planned they’d always been there for her, they’d always been together. Even though she’d been hiding her secret from them for years, everything else she had shared with them. They’d been around for every major life event since Huntrix had first formed.
She wanted to console her friend yet part of her was still angry about what had happened that night. She wanted to wrap Zoey in her arms and forget about everything. Part of Rumi knew Zoey and Mira had already accepted who she was.
Half Demon, Half Human, Still Rumi.
Still, the past few days had felt different. At the end of the idol awards, Gwi-ma had been defeated and the honmoon was stronger than ever before. Zoey and Mira had come together in the end and accepted her, her demon side and all. Yet, an uneasy feeling still hung over her. Every time she walked past a mirror Rumi hoped she wouldn’t see the deep purple patterns flashing at her, that she wouldn’t wake up and realize a glowing yellow set of eyes were staring back at her. That somehow her hands hadn’t turned into sharp claws, capable of tearing one’s flesh apart.
She’d remembered how her friends must have seen her that night. Covered in deep purple electric looking jagged patterns. Demon patterns. How they must have felt when her voice caused the honmoon to shudder in colours of pink and red, weakening it even more.
Rumi had spent the past few days acting like nothing was wrong. She hadn’t spoken about what happened that night, she hadn’t talked about what being half demon meant. She hadn’t told Zoey and Mira about her Demon father. Rumi fiddled with her fingers, avoiding eye contact with them. She wanted so much for them to understand everything, she wanted to tell them everything eventually; but for right now she wanted to avoid the conversation to live in blissful ignorance a little while longer. Even though for so long all she had wanted was to tell them, so much so that she had thought about what it would be like if she could tell them, if they found out. Now that they had Rumi was at a loss for words. She couldn’t put her thoughts together to tell them exactly what she was going through. She didn’t know how to piece together a coherent thought.
“Rumi?” Zoey called softly.
“Hmmm.” The elder girl answered lost in thought replaying the events of the evening at the idol awards. Over and over in her head the image of her friend’s weapons pointed at her forever etched into mind.
“We…. We.” She fumbled over her words searching for the right thing to say. “We were bad friends.” Zoey wept softly. Burying her face in her hands.
Rumi thought to herself maybe they had been bad friends. But, she hid her true self from them for years. Perhaps she’d been a bad friend too. If she hadn’t listened to Celine and just trusted that her friends would understand they wouldn’t have been in this mess to begin with. She wouldn’t be sitting on the couch trying to rehearse some sort of explanation in her mind about what being half demon really meant.
“We all made mistakes, Zoey.” Mira pointed out. “I, raised mine first.” Mira didn’t make eye contact with either of them as she spoke. Her words becoming softer, remembering the events of that evening made her uncomfortable, she felt a tightness in her chest, a constant feeling of guilt and embarrassment for what she had done to her friend. She wished someone would say something to decrease the awkward silence hanging in the air.
Rumi sat cross legged on the couch, holding a pillow to her chest. Now that her two best friends knew her secret, part of her felt relieved. Another part of her didn’t want to talk about what happened that night at all. She had hoped what she spoke about with Celine underneath the tree that night never came up. How when Rumi had come to her, she’d asked Celine to kill her. How her hand had turned into a demons claw, how her eye had turned a glowing yellow. Rumi still had not told the girls about her conversation with Celine, and she’d hope she never had to. She knew that it would probably send them both into an overprotective spiral and right now, while she appreciated her supportive friends, what she wanted was less attention not more.
“It doesn’t matter.” Rumi finally said breaking nearly a minute of silence. A hint of annoyance wavering in her voice. “Let’s just move on.” Her patterns flashed deep purple for a moment. But Zoey and Mira didn’t acknowledge it. She didn’t want to get roped into talking about her conversation with Celine under the tree that night and she was nervous that was where their conversation was heading. At least she knew Celine was too embarrassed to talk about what happened with Zoey and Mira. Lately she had been less involved in their lives; Rumi was at least grateful for that.
“Rumi?” Zoey asked nervously. “Are you sure everything is okay?” Zoey knew her friend was hurt by what happened that evening but didn’t want to push her too far.
“Yeah.” Mira added “We were sorta jerks.”
Rumi looked down picking fuzz off her pyjama pants. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Celine trained us, she told us to kill anything with patterns and I just thought for a moment you were going to.” She paused trying to catch her breath. She could feel tears forming in her eyes, a lump in the back of her throat. “I thought you were going to kill me too.”
At that moment Zoey practically jumped up from her spot on the couch. Tackling her friend with a huge hug. “I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you.” She cried. “Never!”
Mira had never been one to show much emotion. She sat quietly on the other side of Rumi. Her eyes softened as Rumi looked over at her, after Zoey had released her from her right grasp. “You know we would never hurt you right?”
“You guys just mean to much to me.” Zoey teared up again. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I love you both too.” Rumi smiled softly. “I just don’t think I’m ready to talk yet.” She breathed in deeply. “I know you want an explanation. I just don’t know how to give you one yet.”
Mira looked at Rumi she nodded in understanding. “We care about you, you know. Tell us when you’re ready and we’ll listen.”
Rumi smiled at her friends. “I will, I’ll tell you everything. I promise, I just don’t have the words right now.” She grew teary-eyed and felt Zoey’s tight squeeze once again, her younger friend’s arms nearly suffocating her.
“I think I’m going to head to bed early ” Rumi yawed, she stretched her arms over her head. “I’m just really tired, and I think I just need to be alone for a while.” Rumi got up off the couch before Zoey and Mira could say anything or protest her leaving. She walked quickly to her bedroom and shut the door. Tilting her head back and closing her eyes the eldest Idol sighed deeply.
They Knew
They knew she was a Demon
They finally knew
Rumi made her way into her own private bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. The patterns now on her arms and legs, her neck her face had become iridescent. Much less noticeable than they had been that night on stage. Although whenever she could feel herself become agitated, embarrassed or upset shed often see them flicker deep shades of purple. As if she were a walking mood light. It made her nervous, that she could still turn one day, turn into the thing she was always taught to hate. It had happened once just days ago and it could happen again.
She shook the thought from her head and turned on the shower; peeling her clothes off she stepped underneath the hot water. Perhaps the reason she’d always enjoyed nearly scalding hot showers was thanks to her being half-demon. She let the water wash over her body, trying to push all the thoughts out of her mind and just relax. The warmth of the hot water soothed her aching body. Fighting demons nearly every night started to take a toll on her body. Paired with the fact that she wasn’t a teenager anymore. Her muscles often ached in protest after a particularly rough night of fighting. Granted the past couple nights had been eerily quiet but the fight against Gwi-ma and his hoard of demons at the Idol awards had left Rumi more sore than usual; even days later.
Rumi stepped out of the shower and wrapped her long hair up in a towel. Drying off, she put on her favourite pair of pyjamas. A plain white shirt and her pants with teddy bears and trains on them. The same once which Jinu had mocked her for.
Jinu
Would she be dead if it hadn’t been for him? He had stepped in front of her when the demon king had attacked. She remembered struggling against Gwi-ma. It didn’t seem to matter how hard she pushed or fought. The Demon King was stronger than she was. Rumi remembered the moment before Jinu had stepped in front of her. The feeling of dread, a feeling like she was going to die. She had closed her eyes tightly, giving one last show of strength before feeling a rush of relief pass over her as the brunt of Gwi-Ma’s attack had been taken by Jinu. She remembered looking at him as his form faded from existence.
Rumi crawled into bed. She could hear Mira and Zoey chatting and laughing from her bedroom. Therese noise was almost soothing. A comfort knowing her friends were close, and that they had accepted her, they loved her.
All of her
She closed her eyes pulling the soft covers over her tired aching body. Slowly she drifted off to sleep.
____________
Rumi woke up surrounded by a deep sense of pervading sadness, a feeling of dread washed over her. She shivered, her heart raced. The world around her was dark; there was nothing but darkness all around her. Rumi pushed herself off the ground. It was cold as stone. She shivered, there was mostly silence but she could hair faint echoes of pained cries in the air. She looked down, her patterns flickered in deep shades of pink and purple illuminating the space around her. Her right hand had changed its form to once again to a demon’s claw.
No, no, no, not again.
How could she let this happen again.
How could she turn into a demon again.
Panicking Rumi wandered the dark wasteland searching for something, anything that would give her a glimpse of her reflection. Had she changed? Had her eye turned yellow again, was she becoming what she had always feared? Rumi swallowed, a lump forming in her throat. She began hearing garbled voices speaking incoherently, softly at first and then louder. The voices seemed to get louder until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Rumi?”
A soft voiced echoed in her head. When she turned to face the person it belonged to the darkness around her faded. Her vision becoming blurry, she was blinded by unrelenting bright lights. In a panic she stumbled backwards. Her body slamming into the wall behind her.
“Zoey?” Rumi questioned rubbing the back of her head, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly; squinting at the bright lights. “What… what’s going on?” Rumi asked.
Zoey looked concerned. She tilted her head confused. “You walked out here in all in a panic, but you weren’t answering us.” She said.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the large penthouse windows.
She looked normal.
No brightly coloured patterns flashing pink and purple. No bright yellow demon eye. Rumi looked down towards her right hand; no claw. She sighed relieved.
“Are you okay?” Mira asked popping up from the couch.
“Yeah.” Rumi nodded. “Fine.” She paused sighing deeply. “Just a bad dream.”
Zoey didn’t look convinced. “You were like, sleepwalking I’ve never seen you do that before.”
“Im fine Zo….” Rumi trailed off. “Just processing everything I guess.” She shrugged, glad to learn that the darkness and her demon form had all just been part of some terrible nightmare. ‘What time is it anyways?” She asked her eyes still adjusting to the bright lights.
“Mhmm, like ten at night, Mira and I were going to watch a movie. We uh can’t really sleep.” Zoey confessed. “Do you want to join us?” She asked hopefully.
Rumi sighed. “Yeah, okay.” She really didn’t want to go back to sleep and face another nightmare. She figured that her friends might keep asking questions if she continued to refuse their attempts to get her to join their activities.
“Really?! Yay!” Zoey smiled brightly she grabbed Rumi by the wrist and yanked her towards the couch. “We have so many snacks! Also you’re going to love this movie. I used to watch it all the time back in California. It’s totally one of my favourites.”
Rumi settled herself on the couch. Mira glanced at her, a look of concern still on her face. Zoey might’ve been convinced she was fine but Rumi felt like Mira sensed something was still wrong.