Chapter Text
The adrenaline of a blowout concert doesn’t fade fast. HUNTR/X knows this better than most; it’s hard to remember a time that they didn’t have a blowout concert. The roar of the crowd, powerful enough to rumble the stage, the vibration of the cheers in the air and the ground snaking up their bodies. The sweat sheen on their faces, the kaleidoscopic lights, the stretching of their chests to draw in as much air as they could manage as they watched their fans scream their name.
It was the greatest reward Rumi knew, to be able to feel the vivacious energy from their fans after a set.
And it always flowed into their post-show routine. Walking backstage to a flurry of assistants, Zoey chatting up the audio technicians taking off her body mic and Mira rushing to the dressing room to get into a hoodie as fast as possible. Rumi would always check-in with Bobby, who would always be breathing hard after dancing to their choreo behind the curtains, but who would be beaming at them nonetheless.
“Another incredible show from my incredible girls!”, he’d always say.
Then, once all of their equipment and makeup had been removed, the three of them raced each other back to their apartment, unable to contain their boundless energy even after such a demanding concert. The Honmoon pulsed with life after their shows, and they always felt it. Rumi lived for the feeling, leaping through the city with her favorite people in the world as they poured themselves into the Honmoon, and it poured itself back into them.
Rumi had always thought that the day they forged the Golden Honmoon, they may never stop soaring.
So it was all the more piercing how quiet their dressing room was after Namsan Tower’s performance.
The quiet was a prison, seeping into Rumi’s cracks, both physical and emotional. Rumi knew quiet–she had hidden herself her entire life–but this wasn’t the quiet of safety and security.
This was the quiet before a moment you knew you could never come back from.
Rumi was slouched on a tan-white couch, long enough to fit five, left to fit one. She had curled her legs into herself, wrapping her knees tight with her arms, as if bracing herself for defense.
A few feet away sat Zoey on the counter, back pressed to a mirror, under the fluorescent yellow bulbs that lit up the room, their timid buzz the only sound in the room. The light wreathed shadows around her eyes as she sat unnaturally still, hands braced against the counter. No bouncing her leg, or tapping her foot on a stool. Zoey was deathly quiet.
Mira was even further back, slightly wrapped in the darkness of the wall. She was leaning against it, arms crossed. Quiet, and Rumi couldn’t tell if it was her usual quiet, or an accusatory quiet.
A quiet directed at her.
As they improvised their song to beat back the demons, Rumi had been able to shed any worry she was holding onto. She let herself accept the patterns, and she knew that Mira and Zoey accepted them as well.
But in this room, after the performance, everything from the past day came crashing back. It was still the same night that her darkest vulnerabilities were revealed to the world. It was still the same night where Mira and Zoey had turned their weapons towards her, the same night that she wanted them to.
Only mere hours had passed since she held her blade up to the closest thing she had to a mother and asked her to end it.
And those feelings hadn’t disappeared. Faded, for a while, but they were back in full force. The shame. The terror. The dawning of the fact that she could lose everything good she’d ever had, right here, right now, and she couldn’t– wouldn’t –do anything about it.
They could turn from her, and she would deserve it.
Rumi refused to look up. She couldn’t bear it. It was safer to stay in this moment before a decision forever than to know what they would do. Mira and Zoey, Zoey and Mira. Her judges and her jury.
Her executioners, if they so chose.
But of course, the silence couldn’t last forever.
Secrets couldn’t be hidden forever.
She knew that better than anyone.
Zoey was the first to break. Made sense; Zoey lived with words on her tongue and life in her fingers. Normally, Rumi craved Zoey’s words. They wrapped around her, around the world even, with joy and passion and ferocity.
In this moment, Rumi had never dreaded someone’s words more.
“Rumi, I…”
Zoey’s words fell off, like smoke dispersing in the air. Rumi heard her intake sharply, as if she were taking them back in to try again.
“You came back.”
Those words were sharper, deeper. They did not come from Zoey. It startled Rumi enough for her eyes to whisk up and meet Mira’s, who were staring back at her with… unidentifiable emotions, but intensity nonetheless.
Rumi dropped her arms from her knees, interlocking them under her legs instead.
“I did.”
A beat.
“And both of you are still here.”
Zoey slid off the counter, tense, hands slightly outstretched, like an animal ready to pounce but terrified to do so.
“We could never be anywhere else.”
Rumi met eyes with Zoey. Mira had practiced her mask, and knew how to hold her thoughts in her brain. Zoey leaked emotion with every part of her body, and Rumi had known her long enough to be able to read her through her movements.
In the shaking of her hands, Rumi saw fear. She understood the fear; at the end of the day, Zoey was looking at a demon. They were raised to fear demons. It was natural, it was right.
In the crease of her eyes, Rumi saw want. The want confused Rumi. She didn’t understand what Zoey wanted from her, and that was terrifying.
“Rumi, I’m– god, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry,” Zoey said, her eyes starting to glisten. She took a step towards Rumi, and Rumi flinched.
Zoey stopped in her tracks, then slowly dropped her hands to her sides. Rumi could tell it was breaking her not to go to Rumi immediately, but she didn’t think she could handle Zoey’s touch right now. She wouldn’t be able to tell whether Zoey would tackle her in a hug, or slice her throat open instead.
No, that wasn’t it. She knew Zoey enough to understand she was trying to apologize, and was simply doing that in the only way she knew how.
No, Rumi just didn’t know yet which option she herself still sought.
“I don’t know what to do,” Zoey continued. “I don’t know how to fix this, and I don’t know how to ever, ever make it up to you. But I can’t lose you, Rumi. Nothing else matters if you’re not here with us.”
Rumi blinked a hint of moisture away. “I don’t want to lose you guys either. You’re both… the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“But I’m a demon,” she said, gesturing weakly at her arms. “I can’t… I don’t know how to live like this with you. I’m wrong, I’m a mistake.”
“You’re not a–” Zoey started, but Rumi cut her off.
“I am, Zoey. I was born wrong, and my entire life has been for getting rid of the demons and making the Golden Honmoon. That includes myself. Now that we’ve done it… I don’t know what my life is anymore.”
Mira took a step out of the shadows. “Your life doesn’t have to be for anything. It shouldn’t be. Your life just… is.”
Rumi and Zoey both turned to stare at her. Mira didn’t wilt under their gazes, rather, she stared back with that same intensity.
“So much has changed,” Mira continued. “We won’t be the same. I will never, ever, forgive myself for raising my blade against you. And I know you, Rumi. You won’t forgive yourself for lying to us for a long time.
But that doesn’t mean we still don’t exist. I love you, Rumi. Zoey loves you, too. You guys are my family-” Mira’s voice cracked. Rumi had never seen her this vulnerable. “You’re family, and no fucking pattern is gonna keep my family from me.”
Rumi’s mouth felt dry. She didn’t want to give herself hope that could be taken away, the same hope that had shattered when Jinu’s demon clones had ripped her shields away for the world to see. But Mira was so sure of her words, and the human in Rumi wanted nothing more than to listen to her.
“How do I… How can I trust that?” Rumi’s words were small, almost a whisper, but she could still see Zoey and Mira react to them. A sharp breath, a twitch of the hand. “How can I still trust you’ll love me the way you used to?”
Mira stepped closer. “Trust can be rebuilt. I… still don’t know if I trust you right now, after you kept this secret for so long. But I know I’ll trust you again one day, cause I love you. And that’s enough.”
Rumi felt Mira’s gaze piercing through her, unraveling the deepest corners of her soul to bare to the world. Mira, always so sure of herself. So steadfast in her decisions, so quick to act on instinct. It was why Rumi had felt so definitively she had lost them when Mira pointed her spear at her.
And it was why, now, Rumi could grasp the faint spark of hope Mira had set in front of her. Because she knew Mira meant what she was saying.
“Please don’t leave again,” Zoey said, voice quivering with emotion and uncertainty. “Maybe none of us know how to move forward, but I know I can’t do it at all without you two. You’re everything I have. You’re… all I have. I love you, Rumi.”
She reached a hand out towards Rumi. Delicate, as if she were trying to touch the sun. Funny. The two of them had always been Rumi’s north stars.
There was so much work to be done, Rumi knew. An endless path that stretched beyond any horizon she could comprehend. There was still this unending sense of despair in her stomach. Of worthlessness, of bottomless self-hatred that she didn’t know how to deal with except to shut it away and pretend the world was okay.
She was still wary of both of them, and she knew they were wary of her. Their belief in their dynamic had shattered in the face of the end of the world, and even if it were rebuilt, the cracks and faults would always be there.
But, if Rumi had learned one thing in the past few days, it was that, maybe, she could keep living on with the cracks.
She took Zoey’s hand, gingerly. Zoey grasped tight, as if Rumi were a balloon that could fly off into space at any moment, and pulled her into a tight embrace. Rumi’s breath hitched at the impact, at Zoey squeezing her torso and pressing her face against her neck. Her tears felt wet on her skin.
But it was okay. Rumi knew which option she preferred right now. She wanted Zoey to keep her close as if nothing else mattered, and so she wrapped her arms back around her to do the same thing.
Slowly, she felt strong arms encircling both of them like a vice grip as Mira’s long hair skimmed her cheek and Mira’s nose buried itself into her own hair. Sandwiched from both sides, Zoey collapsed into her front while Mira tightened herself against her back.
The feeling was heaven, after an eternity of living a hell. It finally shattered Rumi, and she started to sob, wetness spilling out of her eyes and breath forcing itself out of her as she broke down in their arms.
Zoey started to cry hard as well, and Rumi could even feel Mira sniffle into her hair. They stood there for a long time, heaving out the emotions they couldn’t say, the words they couldn’t place.
Rumi didn’t feel better yet. She didn’t even feel safe.
But, for the first time in a long time, she truly felt like she was where she belonged.
After what felt like hours, Rumi’s arms went limp around Zoey. The two girls released her in turn, stepping back as they all wiped their eyes clean of moisture.
“What do we do now?” Rumi asked to no one in particular, and to the universe in turn.
Zoey took her hand in response, and after a few moments, Mira took the other.
“Home,” said Mira.
“We go home.”