Chapter Text
The air of the practice studio was damp and stuffy. It smelt unpleasantly of sweat and failing deodorant. The three of them had been at it for hours, striving for perfection under Mira’s hawk-like gaze.
“That choreo is evil! You’re evil for making it, Mira-unnie,” Zoey whined, half in jest, though she had collapsed into a dramatic pile on the floor by that point. “I don’t think the demons will kill me. Your choreography will.”
Rumi silently agreed with her. Mira really had gone all out for what was supposed to be their debut single, though to be fair, so had Zoey with the composition. If Mira’s choreo didn’t do Rumi in, those vocal runs might just do the trick.
The song was beautiful, full of their hopes and ambition. They had poured their hearts and souls into its production in the hope that their true feelings might touch enough fans to strengthen the ever weakening Honmoon.
Celine had pushed their debut up by a few months already, because they were truly running out of time. The hunter group before them, BL8, was struggling to keep the Honmoon stable. Rumi could see the way it was fraying in places. Flashing purple and red were it should be blue.
They needed HUNTR/X to debut, and they needed them to be an instant success. It was a lot of pressure, but Rumi readily took the burden. To help people. To turn the Honmoon golden and be finally able to live in a world without demons (without patterns, and hiding).
The rushed timeline, however, meant a lot of sleepless nights for her, Mira and Zoey, as they strove to perfect all aspects of their approaching debut. It had to be perfect. They had to be perfect.
The song was already brilliant, Zoey had done a truly amazing job with it, but the dance was still lacking. Or rather, Zoey and Rumi’s dancing was.
Mira snapped her tongue like the merciless slave driver she was, as she scrutinized Rumi’s moves up close.
“Your angles are all off, Rumi,” she criticized, “Those are tutting moves, they have to be perfect, or else the whole choreo will look messy.”
Mira reached for her arm with a gentleness that might surprise people that weren’t that familiar with her. She angled her arm slightly differently. “90° here and a straight line on the next beat,” she advised.
“One and Two and,” Mira started counting and Rumi and Zoey obediently started up the choreo again. That time Mira didn’t have any complaints about Rumi’s angles, though she seemed to take personal offense to Zoey’s sloppy footwork.
Rumi was relieved that the attention was off of her for the minute. She exhaustedly sat down in one of the chairs at the edge of their studio, watching Mira mercilessly grill Zoey while she chucked down her water.
The studio was unbearably hot by that point and Rumi eyed the sports bras the other two were wearing with envy. The t-shirt she was wearing over her own sports bra felt like one layer too much and she longed to take it off, but she couldn’t. The patterns had made their way off her shoulders and to her arms. Not too far down yet, but Rumi now had to be careful with what she wore around other people. It felt restrictive, terrible.
She absentmindedly rubbed her shoulder, while watching her friends practicing.
Mira guided Zoey through the footwork with the same patience she had shown Rumi earlier. She demonstrated the moves again and again as their youngest fumbled. Eventually, Mira shook her head. “Alright, that’s enough for tonight. You’re no closer to getting that move right than you were 10 minutes ago, Zoey. We’ll pick it back up tomorrow.”
Zoey perked up. “Does that mean…?”
“Damn right. Couch.”
Zoey squealed in delight. The exhaustion and sweat suddenly forgotten at the prospect of curling up on her precious with some ramyeon. “We’re watching Show Champion, right? BL8 is performing tonight.”
“You got it. You down, Rumi?”
Rumi nodded her assent. She would have liked to practice her singing a little more, but she loathed disappointing her friends. Also, both of them tended to worry if she didn’t take a break from time to time.
“Great, couch time! I’ll get the ramyeon.”
“Shower first,” Rumi reminded Zoey with an amused grin tugging at her lips.
“Well, naturally,” Zoey deadpanned, like she hadn’t been heading towards the front desk and not their changing room.
They made it back to their dorm rooms in time for the Show Champion Broadcast. Barely. Though there certainly was no time left to prepare the instant ramyeon. So, in a feat of great sacrifice (encouraged by Zoey’s puppy dog eyes) Rumi volunteered to prepare the food, at the cost of missing the first few minutes of the show.
Which was fine, BL8 wasn’t set to perform first, anyway.
Rumi certainly didn’t expect to step back into their living room to find both Zoey and Mira basically hugging their small tv, ogling a boygroup with hearts in their eyes.
Rumi wasn’t really able to get a good look at whatever fine specimen had both Zoey and Mira so enamored, because their swooning faces were hiding the tv from her view, but she could at least say that she liked what she was hearing.
The song was catchy, and the live vocals stable.
“What’s going on here?” Rumi asked, trying to hide the amusement she was feeling as she put down the steaming noodle cups.
“Hush, we’re listening to the song,” Mira scolded, moving impossibly closer to the tv.
“Listening… sure,” Rumi said doubtfully, “Mind scooching a little, so I can listen too?”
Both her friends grumbled playfully, but they moved back to the couch. Zoey already reached for her noodle cup. Rumi slapped her hand back without even looking, then pointedly tapped her wrist thrice.
3 minutes, Zoey.
Normally, that would be met with Zoey’s quiet grumbling, but that day she simply turned back towards the tv without a single sound of complaint.
Rumi, curious what her friends were on about finally deigned to look at the performance, too.
And, yeah, okay. They were hot. Like the water she just poured over her noodles hot. Like I’m-surprised-they’re-not-melting-the-stage-hot. Like, really hot.
Rumi’s eyes quickly scanned the top left corner of the screen for the name of the group.
Saja Boys it read. Rumi had never heard that name in her life. Then, she read further. Hot Debut the screen proclaimed. Certainly hot, Rumi thought a little dazedly, finally able to appreciate what her groupmates had been drooling over while she’d made them food.
They didn’t perform like rookies, like at all. Live singing aside, they performed with an implicitness that was normally not found in a group that had just debuted. Their stage presence was just… out of this world and Rumi soon found herself drooling over them alongside her friends.
Their Main Vocalist (at least, she assumed him to be) was especially droolworthy. He was just her type, with his sharp jawline and chocolate brown, soulful eyes. And Rumi silently resented Show Champion for never putting an idol’s name above their subtitles. She just had to know.
Before she knew it, the performance was over and the camera zoomed in on the face of the man, Rumi had been drooling over for the last few minutes.
He smiles mischievously at the camera, showcasing a small dimple and Rumi was gone.
“They’re good,” Mira noted, voice steady, though a slight huskiness betrayed her true feelings.
“Very good,” Zoey nodded. They shared a glance, then turned towards Rumi.
“The song’s annoyingly catchy,” Rumi admitted reluctantly, shaking herself out of the daze the hot men had left her in. This was not a good thing. It was problem.
“That’s all you have to say? I mean, it is, but still…,” Zoey whined.
“Don’t you understand? This is a problem, guys,” Rumi voiced her thoughts.
“Good music is a problem now?” Mira asked, raising a judging eyebrow at her. “Or is it the hot men? Having a celebrity crush is fine, Rumi.”
“It’s not about crushes,” Rumi answered with a slight blush. “It’s a problem, because they are messing with our chances to win Rookie of the Year. We need the cloud to stabilize the Honmoon! They’re in the way!”
“Seriously, Rumi? They just debuted. We have no idea how that song is even charting yet. It’s catchy, sure, but it isn’t exactly trendy. All the successful boygroup debuts in the last year had darker concepts,” Mira pointed out rationally.
Rumi shook her head, exasperated. Her friends weren’t listening at all. “No guys, this is going to be a hit, I can feel it in my bones.”
Mira shook her head. “You said the same thing when BL8 debuted. Come on, Rumi, you’re worrying too much. We should concentrate on our debut first, before we focus on the Rookie of the Year Award. And that worrying should be left in the practice room. It’s couch time, now.”
Zoey, who had been eying their stand-off with neutral eyes nodded emphatically at the last part. “Exactly, couch time is sacred!”
Her next words were an obvious plight to distract both of them from their argument. “Anyway, have you guys seen the cutie with the blue hair?” It worked anyways. Because they were still girls and neither of them could resist gossiping about hot dudes. Even if they were a problem.
“Not really, I was a little distracted by the gorgeous guy with the pink hair.”
“Of course, you were,” Rumi chuckled fondly.
As it turned out, Rumi’s prediction had been right on the nose.
Soda Pop was an instant hit. Fancams, Song clips, dance challenges… the song was everywhere. It played in the coffee shop when she got her sorely needed caffeine boost in the morning. It was in the background when she took the elevator up to their practice room at ARTemis Entertainment.
And Rumi got it, she really did. The song was catchy, addictive and simply fun. Of course, it would be everywhere. Originally, she would have had no problem with that, but it upped the pressure that had already been enough to grind her into pieces before by a not insignificant amount.
The Saja Boys hadn’t been on the K-Pop scene for a week and already they were amassing absurd numbers. Social Media followers, Album sales, Views. Every metric she looked at was through the roof, and Rumi wanted to feel happy for the members of the new boygroup, but she couldn’t, because they were in the way of HUNTR/X’s success. There could only be one Rookie of the Year and it had to be them, not the Saja Boys. Especially because the Honmoon seemed to be growing weaker at an even more alarming speed then before. She didn’t know what was happening, but the effects were very noticeable.
There were a lot of missing person cases popping up in the last few days. They were running out of time to stabilize the Honmoon before it broke. Which upped the pressure even further.
They all felt it, even if they hadn’t taken on the official mantel as hunters yet. The way the Honmoon shook and trembled under an invisible strain.
As a result, they trained harder. Eager to push their debut even further up.
Mira and Zoey had taken to watching the boys on variety shows as means of decompressing, so Rumi couldn’t even escape the reminder of the upcoming challenges at home.
She had never imagined having true competition for the Rookie of the Year Award. It made her anxious. She smiled through it, of course. Because her faults and fears weren’t meant to be seen, even by her closest friends, but inwardly she was freaking out.
So, Rumi did what she had always done when everything got too much. She buried all her feelings below absurd amounts of work, pushing herself harder and harder the closer they got to their debut date. Everything had to be perfect. Better than perfect, in fact, so that they’d be able to compete with the sudden force of nature that was the Saja Boys.
And Rumi made sure their work met these ever more absurd standards with an obsessive zeal. The others noticed that something was up. Of course, they did, but they still went along with it. They endured Rumi’s sudden push towards perfection with little complaint, even if they went home exhausted after a day spent in the recording studio, singing lines that they had already finished recording weeks ago over and over, because Rumi had found a small flaw in a single that Zoey had already finished mixing.
Then, the day Rumi had been working towards since she had been a little girl finally came. April 25th 2019. Their debut date. The album had dropped early in the morning, but neither of them had any idea how it was charting yet.
They had refrained from looking at the numbers before their debut stage. It would just distract them from their performance.
To say that they were nervous would be an understatement. Rumi did her vocal warm-ups with a slightly shaky voice while the stylists did up her hair. Mira had gone remarkably still, stiff as a board as a stylist applied her eyeshadow. Zoey was the exact opposite. She was fidgeting wildly, no matter how often their poor stylists told her to quit it, so they could do their job.
The song they had chosen for their debut wasn’t flashy and over-the-top the way a lot of the recent releases were. It was a grounded R&B song. One might call it simple, if it weren’t for the brutal vocal runs that really pushed the agility of Rumi’s voice to its limit.
It was a hard song to sing and the choreography Mira had come up with didn’t exactly make it any easier to perform. Still, Rumi loved that song. It was theirs through and through. Zoey had produced it and written most of the lyrics. Mira had choreographed it and Rumi had come up with a lot of the harmonies.
The song was HUNTR/X. All their hopes and dreams condensed into three and a half minutes.
Rumi really hoped it would chart well.
It got worse, the longer they waited. The anticipation was really killing her at that point. And then it happened. A staff member came up to them.
“You’re up in ten,” she informed them. Rumi immediately jumped up from her chair, quickly followed by the other two girls.
They got led to the stage and outfitted with their mics.
Rumi had been on that stage earlier that morning. They’d gone over the performance with the camera man, as some of their staff discussed the lighting and made them do a sound-check. Things that went decidedly over Rumi’s head.
She’d simply performed. Again, and again for about half an hour as the staff adjusted everything that needed adjusting. She hadn’t been nervous then. There had been no audience to speak of, simply people doing their jobs.
It was different when they stepped up to the stairs that would lead them to the stage in that moment. Rumi could already hear the fans. People that were there specifically to support their debut. Old fans of the Sunlight Sisters or BL8 perhaps. Not their fans, just people who wanted to support the juniors of their favorite groups.
It didn’t matter. They were still here for them, and HUNTR/X would make sure that they didn’t regret that decision.
“One minute,” a staff member informed them, and the girls gathered in a loose circle.
“You guys ready?” Rumi checked.
“As we’ll ever be,” Zoey confirmed.
“Let’s kick ass,” Mira nodded.
Rumi grinned and placed her hand in the middle of their little huddle. Zoey and Mira immediately placed theirs on top.
“HUNTR/X don’t miss!” they chanted, big grins on their faces.
And then the staff member ushered them up and everything else was a blur. They positioned themselves on stage, Rumi in the center and she didn’t remember much beyond that. She could recall how wildly her heart had been beating in her chest. How her voice had been a little shaky on the first few notes.
“Light in the dark,” Rumi was the one to start of the song. Unsure, maybe a little unstable, but then the other two joined her in harmony and from then on it was just easy.
“Shine light on my heart
Erase all shadows and strive
Leave a world shining bright”
She might not recall specifics. But Rumi did remember the fanchants. They were louder than she had expected, considering the guide to them hadn’t been uploaded for more than two hours. They pushed all three of them further than she had ever dreamed, erasing all nervousness and leaving her just able to enjoy performing.
Rumi thought that she smiled a lot during that performance. Her cheeks certainly hurt by the time they fell into the ending pose with Mira in the center.
It was over, and Rumi didn’t remember a thing, other than the joy she had felt on that stage. She wanted to do it again.
The audience cheered. Loud and enthusiastic when the girls bowed to them. They didn’t have time for much more, sadly. The next slot was up in fifteen minutes and they still had to prepare the stage for whoever would be performing next.
So, they left to the loud chanting of their names. They took off their mic packs silently. And then it was like a dam had broken. Zoey squealed, jumping up and down joyously. She pulled both Rumi and Mira into a hug.
“That was amazing!” she screamed, maybe a little too loudly, considering they were still in the catacombs and not their changing room.
“You guys were soooo cool,” Mira gushed agreeably, though at a slightly more socially acceptable volume.
Rumi nodded. “I want to go again.”
“Me too,” Zoey agreed.
“Then, let’s win the trophy! I’d be down for that encore stage.”
“That trophy is already reserved, I’m afraid,” a smooth voice drawled behind them. It sounded beyond smug and Rumi was already not a fan.
She turned around to a face she’d seen plastered on many a billboard in the last few weeks. It was one of the Saja Boys. The one with pink hair. Rumi had never bothered to learn their names in the end.
He was alone, a look in his eyes that fit his smug voice. Rumi wrinkled her nose.
“You always tryna pick fights backstage? It’s unbecoming,” Mira was the first to intervene. Rumi was used to her looking with heart-eyes at that particular Saja Boy. They were nowhere in sight in that moment, replaced with steel and visible disdain.
Oh, how quick a shallow crush could die.
He laughed. The sound was airy. “I’m joking, guys. chill. Well. Mostly. You really shouldn’t expect a win on your debut date. It’s near impossible with how the points are calculated.”
“Is that a challenge I hear?” Mira asked, somehow both offended and grinning.
The guy didn’t seem to know what to make of that expression either. “Huh? Ahhh, sure,” he fumbled, then seemed to catch himself, “But you’ll lose.”
Rumi really wanted to retort, but before she could she heard hurried footsteps jogging down the hallway.
“Romance, how many times do I have to tell you…” a voice followed soon after. It wasn’t loud, but echoed quite far through the empty catacombs.
A figure rounded the corner and broke off mid-sentence when he took notice of the girls “Romance” was talking to. It was Jinu. And yes, Rumi (much to her misfortune) hadn’t been able to forget the name that droolworthy face belonged to. The rest of the Saja Boys were right behind him.
His voice was even more pleasant in person. Smooth and deep and tinged with the slightest accent, she wasn’t able to place.
His eyes weren’t on her though. They had narrowed on his rude bandmate, a silent reprimand in them. Then he finally turned towards the three of them and bowed.
“I must apologize for him. Whatever he said, he probably didn’t mean,” Jinu said.
“It’s fine,” Rumi answered at the same time Romance said: “Actually…”
That protest was cut short by a cuff over the head, however. It was the buff dude, who looked about as disapproving as Jinu. Mira’s heart-eyes were back, that time focused on the buff dude, who actually winked at her. Mira’s whole face turned red as a tomato and Zoey squealed. If on Mira’s behalf or because she was eying the guy with the long ass bangs, Rumi couldn’t tell.
“Romance-hyung sadly things that a good-looking face makes up for his lacking social skills. We’ve been trying to disabuse him of that notion,” one of the boys explained. He was slightly shorter than the others and still had baby fat clinging to his cheeks.
“It’s worked pretty well so far. I’d ask if you have tried, but alas…” Romance trailed off. Rumi blinked. He was as rude to his bandmates as he had been to the three of them. She felt bad that the boys had to put up with him. They seemed a lot nicer than Romance, at least (not that that seemed to be a high bar to meet).
The kid (Rumi didn’t think he was of age yet) just stared at his older bandmate in a deadpan.
“I know, I have no need for such tactics,” he answered drily, “My social skills are actually decent.”
Romance seemed to be fuming just a little. Zoey couldn’t hold back a small chuckle. “That’s not what I meant,” Romance grumbled.
“I know what you meant, just be glad I chose to ignore it.”
“Guys, please…” Jinu inserted himself into the conversation again. His ears were red. He seemed to be embarrassed on his bandmates’ behalf.
“I really am sorry about them. They always antagonize each other before a performance. I think it might be relaxing to them,” he added with a decisive nod. Like that explained anything.
“It’s fine,” Rumi hesitated, then added, “Jinu, right?”
His eyes widened, as the redness spread from his ears to his cheeks. It was cute, Rumi thought.
“Right. How rude of me. I haven’t even introduced myself. Yeah, it’s Jinu. And these idiots are Romance,” he pointed at the bully in pink
“Baby,” the kid that was still staring Romance down with dead eyes
“Abby,” the slightly violent buff dude
“And Mystery,” the one Zoey kept drooling over for some reason. He hadn’t even said anything yet.
Jinu seemed to hesitate a second, too. Then he asked: “And you are?”
Rumi could have hit herself. Of course, they didn’t know HUNTR/X either. They’d just debuted.
“Yah, Jinu! What are you doing? Just tell them, you’re a fan, instead of acting all aloof. Seriously,” Abby interjected. He raised a hand, probably to cuff Jinu over the head too, but an icy glare from their leader seemed to stay his hand quickly.
The glare wasn’t enough to hide the way he was turning even redder, though.
“Jinu is a huge Sunlight Sisters fanboy. Of course, he kept up with the Miyeong’s daughter,” Baby interjected, a grin on his face that suggested that he relished in Jinu’s silent embarrassment.
Rumi would do the same, but she was too busy hiding any signs of the way her heart was trying to beat out of her chest. The cute Saja Boys leader was a fan. (Maybe). A fan of the Sunlight Sisters at the very least.
Whatever way she was looking at him made him turn even redder.
“Well, as much fun as it was meeting you. We gotta go. We have- ahhh- a song to perform, yes,” Jinu forced out, rather suddenly. It was an obvious ploy to escape further embarrassment. The smile on his face was forced and awkward, as he pushed the other boys towards the standby-area.
“A song to perform and a trophy to win,” Romance threw over his shoulder with a haughty grin. Mira narrowed her eyes at him threateningly.
“It was nice meeting you guys too,” Zoey called after them. She was the only one to answer. Mira was too busy glaring daggers at Romance’s back and Rumi was still staring at Jinu with what she hoped was a neutral look and not the dreamy eyes she suspected she was making.
They were so fucked.