Chapter Text
It was past dawn when Rumi sought Jinu out again, she wandered the empty streets in search of him until the street lights went out, and then simply gave up and teleported to him.
Safe to say, she was confused when she turned a full circle and he wasn't in sight. There was only a long queue outside a huge set of double doors and all the people were wearing some kind of merch and holding posters. But no Jinu.
Rumi huffed, looking at the queue again. It was made up of people of vastly differing ages and sizes. Some of them had T-shirts with the words "Saja Boys" printed on the front, or just the band's logo. One woman holding a light stick blinked at her and Rumi knew she'd be wondering where she'd come from, or if she'd been there this whole time.
These were the Saja Boys' fans, Rumi deduced after scanning the line once more. The question, then, was where was Jinu in all this? Had he set up a meet-and-greet that she didn't know about? Quite possibly. And this early in the day, plus the fact that the queue was already so long? Wow, humans sure did just about anything for their idols.
Her gaze settled back on a group next to the doors, drawn by a subtle rustling. This group had to be the most ambitious bunch of humans she'd ever seen. They were all in sleeping bags that indicated they'd been out here all night, hoods drawn tight over their heads, obscuring their faces. One of them sat on a chair shifted, wriggling as the tight cocoon loosened around their head. A face peeked out, just barely.
Rumi stared at it. The face stared back.
Why did she know this face?
Jinu started to grin. Rumi sucked in a breath and held it.
She turned away, resolving to keep to herself and let Jinu be a blue, puffy worm if he wanted. It was none of her business.
One pink poof later and Jinu was out of the sleeping bag and standing in front of her.
"Hey! You're alive!" He said, by way of greeting.
"Do I want to know what you're doing camping out on a sidewalk?" Rumi muttered.
"We're holding a fan-signing. I didn't think we were this popular already, but I'll take what I can get."
Rumi stared at him flatly, unimpressed. "That doesn't really answer my question."
"Oh. I just thought that showing up to our own signing like this would be funny," Jinu sounded much too enthusiastic for her liking.
"So," she said, pointing back towards the sad pile of sleeping bags. "Those are the your bandmates and you made them sit on the pavement while you got a chair."
When she said this, two of them shifted, the hoods of their sleeping bags seeming to war between keeping drawn tight, and opening up so they could see.
"Yeah?"
Unbelievable.
She almost thought she saw a sleeping bag start nodding. When she turned her head to look, it had gone still.
Rumi moved further along the sidewalk, far enough away so that no one else could hear. "I need to tell you something," she said, deciding it best to get straight to the point.
"I'm listening."
"I talked to the hunters," Rumi began.
Jinu interrupted, "For how long?"
"About five minutes. Pay attention. I talked to them and found out that they don't know what's going on either."
"Are you sure?" Jinu asked, surprised. "Just because they say so doesn't mean-"
"I'm sure," Rumi cut him off. "That's the thing, I didn't think they were telling the truth at first, but then..."
"What?"
"You're going to say this is cheesy."
"Maybe I am," Jinu said. "So out with it."
Rumi ground her teeth to keep herself from backing out. "I may have found out that I can... sense them through the Honmoon. There. I said it. Don't laugh."
Surprisingly, Jinu didn't, he didn't even snort or make a joke. Instead, he cocked his head, brows furrowed. "What do you mean you can sense them? Like you can tell when they're near or...?"
"I mean literally, Jinu," Rumi clarified. "I could feel what they were feeling. It was like- like feeling two things at once. Three things."
And they had been so present. She couldn't have ignored them if she wanted to. Throughout the night, a couple more sensations had popped up. First there'd been nothing, or it felt like nothing. Then a bout of panic, and shortly after, curiosity. All ebbing in the deep centre of Rumi's chest. The past few hours, there had been nothing but calm. They were probably asleep. Or maybe she only felt the bad stuff.
"Can they sense you?"
"Maybe, I don't know. Probably yes."
"Must be uncanny. So you're stuck?"
"Yes."
Jinu hummed, silent for a while. Then he spoke up, "I'm going to assume it didn't end well. But since you're here, how about we just forget about them now?"
Rumi huffed. "Kinda hard to do that when I have two people sharing my soul."
"Exactly. If you focus on something else, it'll make it less obvious. The signing starts in an hour, and I heard usually there's a whole set-up, but... we're demons." He flashed a smirk. "We'll get everything done in no time. Plus, there's a backstage area if you wanna hang out there while we sign. Totally private. It's not like we have any staff."
And because Rumi didn't have anything better to do and she was also avoiding any and all situations that could result in meeting up with more hunters, she said, "Sure. How do you know the crowd won't get too messy? Like you said, there are no staff. Someone could jump the barricade or something. Did you even set up any?"
"Ahem, not exactly," Jinu admitted. "I'll get it done. I can get some other demons to play as staff, it'll be fine."
Of that, Rumi was sceptical. "Are you sure we're talking about the same demons here? I will question you if you're planning to use Dokkaebi."
"How hard could it be?"
"Oh, let me see. Your fans could end up getting devoured while waiting in line, you could get squished by a happy horde, and depending on how big of a scale the damage is, you could end up getting hunted."
"When you put it like that, I see the point."
Rolling her eyes, Rumi directed Jinu towards the doors. "Enough trying to be dramatic, you can always re-enter the line before the signing starts. Or re-cut the line. Right now, you should be doing a proper setup."
Jinu mumbled something under his breath that she pointedly chose not to hear, then marched back towards the rest of the Saja Boys. Rumi watched his mouth move, stretching into a tirade of shapes and sizes, somewhere along the way, his arms went to his hips. She swore she could almost hear the groans emitted from the sleeping bag pile.
"Come on!" She could hear him as she drew closer. "You guys are lazy asses, get up and help me make this place look pretty!"
The largest response Jinu got was a single sleeping bag rolling over and curling up. Nope.
"Are you serious?" Jinu lamented. His eyes lit up once they landed on her, turning hopeful.
Rumi smirked. She didn't have to help him, he could figure it out, she was sure.
She gave in once the look on Jinu's face fell straight into downright despair. "You are lenient with them," she purposefully rolled the words a little. "No wonder they're a sad little pile of blue worms."
Four chubby worms stiffened, shooting upright. The sleeping bags were discarded in a blur. Jinu grinned like a kid who'd gotten an entire candy store as they zipped into the building at breakneck speed.
"You're the best!" He shot her a finger gun, entering the building as well.
"Less sweet-talk, more work," Rumi replied, following at a more leisurely pace.
Would her being there make things awkward for everyone else? Suppose Jinu really did enlist a couple of demons, like he said he would, what then? Rumi didn't want to be holing up backstage the entire time just to be out of sight, but the prospect of being skirted around at every second wasn't any more tempting. She could even say it was less so.
See. As long as she stayed hidden by the wall, the Saja Boys were functioning well. There was a bit of shouting going on, something about balloons versus streamers. She was pretty sure it was the largest one who'd said that. In his hands was a single ballon and a bunch of shiny strips shaking around.
"Just do both," the other one with pink hair was screaming back at him, hurling a balloon in his face. It floated about two feet before it lost traction and fell.
"What is that?" There went the turquoise one, pointing accusingly at a bright, neon-green signboard with the group's name on it. "Why are we green? It's supposed to be pink, dumbass. Change it!"
Jinu held up his palms on either side of his head. "Just trying something new."
"New?" The same Saja scoffed. "You have the worst design skills out of all of us."
"Rude."
"Truth."
The last Saja, with his hair obscuring everything but his nose and mouth, said nothing. He only snapped his fingers and summoned a whole slew of flower stands, arranging them nicely all over the place. He had to be the only one doing anything productive.
Evidently, they all got along incredibly well. This was the most lively Rumi had seen them thus far.
"Are you spying on us or something?" Jinu's shadow fell across her. "You know the building's open to you too. Come out of your little hidey-corner."
"It's not even a corner," Rumi grumbled, but she stepped out from behind the wall.
There.
A flick of a gaze, so quick she would never have caught it if she weren't looking for it. Jaws locked tight, yelling nowhere to be heard. Gone, just like that.
"I'm killing your mood," she said.
"Nonsense. The mood's perfectly fine."
What an obvious lie, but okay.
"The mood needs resuscitating," Rumi asserted. "I'll come back later when you're done decorating."
To give them room to breathe.
"Here's an idea. You can start reviving it by actually talking to them for once," Jinu said. "Make some friends who aren't just me. It wouldn't hurt to try."
"You make it sound like I'm a friendless loser."
"No, you're a single-friended loser. Facts, Princess. You basically did that I'm-a-demon-princess-and-I'm-going-to-eat-you thing when I introduced you guys." Jinu put an inflection in his voice to imitate her.
Rumi stared at him flatly. "Curse you. And curse your chicken. I don't know if you had a chicken in your past life but if you did, I'm cursing it. Besides, you showed up with four randos out of nowhere. Hospitality would've been the last thing on my mind."
"See? You're a natural! Just go exactly like that," Jinu said enthusiastically.
But did she want to?
These were Jinu's friends. No matter how whacky his plans, Rumi could probably trust him to have good taste in companions. Probably. Jinu meant well, she knew. The risk in lowering her guard around these four was as low as it could get, and she'd have four less demons to pretend around. But. Just Jinu alone was plenty to begin with, a huge jump from near isolation before she'd met him. How he managed, she would never know.
No. Rumi could be content with just him.
Four more of Jinu would be exasperating, anyway.
"No thanks. You alone are enough of a headache, any more and I'll combust and you'll just have to go back to being a regular old demon again."
"How dare you." Jinu gasped in mock offence. "Have you seen my mystical tiger sprit guide? Tell that to his face!"
"The tiger who likes me more than you?" Rumi snickered.
"Yeah? Where are they right now, hmm? I don't see them following you around." Jinu pointed accusingly.
"Me? I thought they were with you."
"Uh, no? I haven't seen them since last night. They left and I assumed they went to you. Guess not."
One of those rare moments. Huh. Derpy and Sussie sure chose the weirdest timings to go off gallivanting.
Rumi didn't dwell on it.
She moved on to decorating, adding what she thought would fit with the stuff already there. A large backdrop with the band's name on it, for starters, or a huge banner. The balloons were nice, they were just... all over the place. The walls looked bald. And the streamers were falling onto the floor and the tape was peeling off.
Great ideas, less great execution.
She set to work, righting the mess so Jinu's signing would be at least presentable. If it wasn't, she'd never be seen next to him again.
"Huh," Jinu said when he came over to be nosey. "This is actually so much better than it was before."
"Anything I do is going to be better than what you did. Especially in taste," Rumi told him. She taped a couple of hot pink streamers to his shirt. "See? Fashion."
Jinu stared at the long ends of the streamers pooling at his feet. "Shall I wear it to the signing and trip?"
"Take more." Rumi bundled a second bunch into his arms. "Turn it into a wig if you want."
"I could probably fool Gwi-Ma with that wig. I wonder if he could wear it?"
"One of your fans will if he won't."
Jinu barked out a laugh, loud and sudden. He turned and called out, "Abs! C'mere."
"His name is Abs?" Rumi was genuinely baffled. Who named their child Abs?!
The largest Saja poked his head over the top of a table he'd been crawling under, beanie slightly skewered in a way that suggested he'd knocked his head. Strange, Rumi hadn't known that they'd added tables.
"Abby," Jinu corrected, gesturing for him to hurry up.
Abby was taller than Jinu, he was larger as well and-
Oh. The name made sense now.
He approached while pushing his beanie back into place, hair ruffling in the process, the colour reminded Rumi of a raspberry.
His pace slowed as he neared, keeping his eyes solely on Jinu. "What's up?"
"I got you something." Jinu snickered. "Here."
He held the streamers to Abby's beanie and taped them on.
"Ah- Seriously?" Abby clutched at it. "I just fixed that!"
He ripped the yellow beanie from his head and scowled, shaking it. "What's this supposed to be? And why are you wearing some?"
"A wig. Or like, a quarter of one." Jinu snorted. "Matches your hair, doesn't it?"
"Is that... it?" Abby snuck a glance Rumi's way, retracting it hastily when he realised she was looking.
Why wouldn't she be? She was here first.
"Have the rest." Jinu dropped the remaining streamers into Abby's unexpecting arms. "But don't eat any."
Abby's expression twisted into one of confusion. "Why would I eat-"
"Have fun!" Jinu sent him off with a smack on the back.
Rumi watched him run up to the other pink-haired demon and dump the load on his head, then start running while the other demon screamed and chased after him.
"Look at that," Jinu said. "Already working!"
Rumi glanced up at a large, digital clock hanging on the wall on the far side. "Time to do some real work, the signing is starts in ten."
Jinu's head snapped around, noticing the time. "Ahhh shoot, I forgot about the make-believe staff," he mumbled, then raised his voice. "Hey! Quit strangling each other and look pretty! We have fans coming in!"
Rumi only rolled her eyes and took it as her cue to explore backstage. She slipped through a door leading deeper into the building, entering a narrow pathway. She wandered aimlessly, nudging random doors to peek into tiny rooms. Most of it turned out to be storage, or break rooms, otherwise it was dressing rooms. Without any real staff around, the place was empty.
At some point or other, there was a muffled bang and the stampeding of footsteps entering the building. And the screaming, don't forget the screaming. Faraway screaming was still screaming. Rather than focus on the excited screaming, she'd prefer to focus on a decidedly familiar rumble she'd just picked up on.
It came from the end of the corridor and just around the corner, beckoning her towards it.
"Derpy?" She rounded the corner, peering down the hallway. She knew it was him. That was what he sounded like when he was trying to get her to pay attention to him. But he wasn't there.
At the end of the hallway sat another door, just one, and from behind it the rumbling floated in, poking at her to hurry up.
"Yeah, yeah," Rumi grumped. "I'm coming."
She put her hand on the doorknob and turned. It opened a smidge and there he was, large eye filtering through the crack and all. Rumi opened the door wider, greeting ready on the tip of her tongue.
It died before she could say anything.
It was Derpy alright, and Sussie. And next to them were the same hunters Rumi had been religiously avoiding since last night, rooted to the spot as if they hadn't expected to see her here. Granted, that part was probably true, but still.
"What are you two doing here?" Rumi demanded, instantly on guard. "And why do you have Derpy?"
The hunters blinked, faces stained with the kind guilt that came from being caught while doing absolutely nothing.
"Woah," Mira spoke first, although she did not move. "We're not stalking you or anything, the tiger brought us-"
"His name is Derpy?!" Zoey screeched, cutting her off abruptly. Her eyes went wide and she smacked a hand over her mouth.
Rumi's brain stalled. "...What?"
"Ahem." Zoey coughed awkwardly, removing her hand. "I mean... So he's yours?"
Again, what?
"Ye- No, Derpy is Jinu's," Rumi replied without thinking, then paused. "Why do you know Jinu's tiger?"
And also, why was she talking to them? She should turn around and close the door. Derpy could always phase through it with Sussie later.
"Are you kidding? They broke into our penthouse last night." Mira scoffed. "They dragged us out this morning like we owed them rent. We do not. We own our apartment."
Rumi cast the tiger an affronted look. "You broke into someone's house?!"
Derpy faced her with his signature blank, wide-eyed stare.
"Did you and Sussie stay there?"
He butted her side with his head.
Derpy? Sussie?! You traitors?!?!
Sussie tweeted lazily from her perch on Mira's shoulder. Rumi stared. She was so ratting them out to Jinu. She might not have the heart to wrangle the pair of them but he would gladly.
"So um," Zoey piped up, dragging Rumi from her glaring contest. "Not sure if this is the time but... We got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I know we totally tried to kill your friend but that's our job, so hopefully you won't hold it against us."
"Yeah," Mira said, blunt. "And I was a little short with you. Sorry. We could try to talk again if you want, since we're here."
Her first instinct was to decline.
"We really weren't tracking you, by the way," Zoey said. "Not a morning person. Our guides were very insistent."
Once again, Rumi shot a glare at Derpy, and one at Sussie. Derpy nudged her in the back in response, towards them.
Was he telling her to go with them? Seriously? Well, she wasn't going to. He couldn't make her. Neither could Sussie, even if she began to peck at her. The hunters definitely couldn't, either.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Mira shrugged, but her expression was serious.
"This is just making up for yesterday, we don't even have to talk about hunter things," Zoey said, equally serious, a touch more anxious.
And, holy moon and whatever stars were still in the sky, Rumi could feel their genuine honesty and it was uncanny. She did not like being made to feel things that weren't hers.
Maybe she'd ask them if it was the same on their end... Wait. No. She wasn't going to talk to them. What was she thinking?
She sighed, stroking Derpy between the ears as he sat.
Last night, she'd been the one to leave first, hadn't she? Gotten all hot and bothered and ran off in a fit. It wasn’t their fault.
"Where are we going?"
Their reactions were instantaneous, perking up and sharing an eager glance.
Rumi held up her hand before they could say anything. "Just to be clear, I'm doing this because I was the one who ran out on you, and the tiger said so. It's not for you."
They nodded, excitement never dimming.
"Sure, yeah."
"Cool."
Rumi took another look at Derpy. “And you are coming.”
He didn’t protest.
She exited the building, closing the door behind her, starting forward. She stopped after realising she didn’t know where she was trying to go.
“Well?” She turned back towards the hunters, only a little bit impatient.
They wanted to talk and they weren’t moving?
They snapped to life.
“There’s a CU down the street with seats inside that aren't facing the window…” Zoey led the way, grabbing Mira by the wrist and hurrying past. She went without complaint.
Rumi followed behind them, with Derpy chuffing at her heel. He took great pride in making her do things against her will. Yes.
The CU turned out to be a convenience store that was about a five-minute walk away, with a strangely unnecessary number of twists and turns. They could've reached it in two turns, instead they'd taken six, and the inside of the store was a whole other maze. Why were there so many sections in one store? She swore she saw a round plastic bowl with a lid and a sticker on top that claimed it was porridge.
She'd lost track of the hunters a while ago.
A shelf wobbled, its contents quivering with it.
Rumi looked and found Derpy doing his best to shimmy down the narrow isle she was currently standing in, without knocking anything over. He was barely fitting.
"If you break anything, it'll look like a ghost did it," she told him.
Cameras just didn't capture spiritual guides very well.
"Oh, you're here," a figure popped into sight at the end of the isle. "Mira! I found them!"
A voice still out of sight hissed. "Zoey!"
A sheepish grin, then softer, "I found them!"
Mira appeared wearing an unimpressed look. "What are you doing in-" She checked the shelves. "-Flavoured milk?"
Rumi was indeed surrounded by something called Mint Chocolate milk. Whatever that was supposed to be. Another bottle said Lychee Peach. Interesting stuff, humans.
Rather than answer like a normal person, she asked a question of her own, “Why do you want to know?”
Mira visibly paused. “Why do I want to know? Whatever. What do you want. We got ramyeon.”
She paused again with puzzlement written on her face.
New question - What was a ramyeon?
It was probably the plastic cup in their hands with squiggly lines on them. Was that supposed to be… food?
Rumi arched her brow just a bit. She’d always assumed a hunter knew that demons didn’t eat human food. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
“You could just try something?” Zoey suggested, giving the cup in her hands a shake, the contents rattling.
She disappeared for a second, then when she came back there was another cup in her grasp.
“Here, how about this one?”
Rumi shrugged noncommittally. As long as it didn’t kill her tastebuds when she put it in her mouth, anything was good. And she had never said anything about wanting to eat, but if they wanted to, she wouldn’t stop them. None of her business.
They went to pay, only the hunters stopped right before reaching the cashier.
“Actually, could you take these up there with you?” A sheepish smile emerged. It took Rumi a good moment to get that Zoey had spoken to her.
Mira nodded once. “You can take my card. On us.” A sleek, rectangular piece of black plastic presented itself.
Rumi stared down at it and could not decide if they were being serious.
This… piece of plastic… was going to pay for all this?
But Mira didn’t so much as twitch, and after another short moment, Rumi simply decided she would find out.
She swiped the card and the cups and marched up to the cashier. There wasn’t even the need to explain how she was going to pay because the guy took one look at the card and jabbed at the screen and told her to tap it on a small white box. He passed her three semi-long, stick-looking things in wrappers.
A beep sounded.
She grabbed everything and went back to where the hunters were still waiting. Mira uttered a word of thanks as she shoved her card away.
Zoey lit up more visibly. “The hot water should be over there,” she said, gesturing toward the back. “Next to the seats.”
The water was being held in a dispenser with a red sticker warning anyone reading it to not stick their hand under the spout. Why did they need hot water for a cup?
Rumi saw why as soon as they peeled the lids of the cups halfway off and there was something inside. Noodles? Dried noodles?
She observed them filling their cups with water up till the line near the top, copying the action, putting the lid back down and sliding one of the wooden sticks on it to hold it down.
The wrapper told her it was a pair of chopsticks. She’d have to ask Jinu if he knew how to use one.
Next, they moved to survey the seating area, going straight for the table at the farthest corner in the back. Boxed in on two sides by walls and well away from windows, the hunters chose exclusively to face said wall, no question whatsoever, almost muscle memory, and so Rumi took the only seat facing outward.
She sat with her ramyeon cup steaming on the table, grey wisps curling against the ceiling lights and... did... nothing. There was nothing to do. Unless she counted staring awkwardly and wishing Derpy would show up from wherever he had gone to.
They didn't move until a short while later, when one of them decided to tear the lid right off their cup and rip the chopstick-thing in two with a sharp thwack. It evolved into two wooden sticks that looked to Rumi like the flimsiest things she had ever seen. Once one started, the other followed, and suddenly it was just her staring at the cup in front of her, unsure of what she should do with it.
She chanced a quick glance at what the hunters were doing.
Zoey was about halfway buried in her cup. Interestingly, that round, tough piece of dried up noodles had softened, and now it was like any other noodle string Rumi had seen before. Seen, not eaten. Never eaten. At the rate Zoey was going, she'd finish everything before Rumi even looked at hers.
Mira had her eyes on her when Rumi looked over. Their gazes locked for a brief moment. Rumi's brain blanked. Mira's expression was stony and unreadable, eyes flicking from her, to Zoey, and back to her again. And then down, to the untouched ramyeon.
"What the hell are you waiting for? It's going to get overdone."