Chapter Text
“Jinu?!” Rumi cried. Her hands flitted around him, unsure what to do as his breathing became rapid and pained.
The patterns on his body began to pulsate with magenta light, shining out from beneath his clothes and bandages like cindering flames. His hands made aborted motions towards his head, like they wanted to stave off whatever was assaulting his mind.
“Jinu. Jinu, open your eyes,” she begged. She chanced prodding him on his hip to try getting him onto his back again.
He let out a groan as he flopped, limbs spasming, eyes rolling farther back into his skull. “No,” he gasped, his hands turning to fists at his sides.
“Jinu, it’s okay. Listen to me.” She set her fingertip against his too-hot cheek. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“Please,” he breathed, gritting his teeth as his patterns seemed to undulate in a wave of crimson down his body. It was clear that whatever Gwi-Ma was doing to him was agonizing.
Rumi had never seen anything like this before. She was completely out of her depth.
All she knew was that he couldn’t go on like this. Not while this badly injured and tiny to boot. She decided that even if he couldn’t hear her, she could at least offer him the comfort of touch and warmth.
She moved her fingers beneath his back, aiming to pull him up and into her hands— only to find she couldn’t move him more than an inch off the bed.
“What?” She said, bewildered. She tried again, but was met with a strange resistance each time she tried. She’d pull Jinu up an inch or two, but beyond that it was as if his tiny frame weighed a thousand pounds. She let out a grunt as she tried again.
Jinu whimpered as her tugging seemed to strain him somehow. She immediately set him down. His eyes opened blearily, but it was clear to her that he wasn’t fully present. She was taken aback by how bright and golden his irises were.
“Jinu?” She tried again.
“No,” he whispered brokenly, shaking his head back and forth against the tepid washcloth. “No, please.”
This time Rumi decided to try more slowly. She looped her fingers beneath his shoulders and legs and carefully raised him into the air. Yet again, she was kept from moving him too far. Like something was tugging his body back down with each attempt.
She studied him. His patterns pulsed violently all over, but just over his wrists the glow was nearly blinding.
It was then that she realized that with each failed attempt to hoist him up, his hands stayed firmly pressed against the bed. As if they were shackled there.
She set him down again, this time taking his wrist between her thumb and pointer finger. She tried pulling it from the bed, but it wouldn’t budge. The threads of light around his wrists became brighter in resistance, rounded fingertips sharpening into deadly claws.
Her heart thundered in her ears, an empty mimicry of what Jinu must have been hearing in his own.
Gwi-Ma was chaining him. Using Jinu’s patterns as some sort of demented restraint.
The realization came to Rumi like a blow, nearly knocking her breath from her lungs. Not only could Gwi-Ma hold minds captive, but he could strip bodies of their autonomy, too.
How much hope did demons even have against such a force?
Slowly, like a curtain being drawn back from a window to the night, Jinu’s body began to change. His pale, human skin tone shifted to something sickly and inhuman. The violet skin consumed him from head to toe. His claws dug divots into the cloth, his teeth sharp and white against the stark contrast of his skin. His patterns continued to glow bright and miasmic all the while.
The transformation looked almost painful, and tears ran freely down his cheeks.
Before long, he was fully demon.
Rumi stared at him for a long while. She’d never seen him like this. She’d caught glimpses of his demonic form in the bathhouse, flashes of yellow eyes and sharpened claws. She’d seen his patterns in smatters across his skin. But never like this.
Now that the illusion was shattered, she could finally see him for what he truly was.
His patterns were everywhere. Across his face, his throat, his chest and arms. Winding down beneath his waistband to the rest of him.
Rumi shuddered at the thought that one day, hers could be like that.
But for some reason, as she looked at him, as the magenta flames of his patterns died down into a muted glow, she didn’t find herself detested by the sight of them.
She traced the geometric branches winding across his skin with her eyes, mouth open in wonder. She zeroed in on two patterns that crossed over the bridge of his nose. Almost like a scar. But somehow they suited him, and suddenly, she couldn’t imagine how he looked before. There was another cluster of swirls on his hand. Shaped like a little love heart.
Rumi had one like that too.
She reached out a hand to touch him again. To let their shared burden of shame meet once more. But the moment her skin touched his, he stiffened and let out a heartbreaking cry of despair, patterns set ablaze once more.
“I’m sorry,” Jinu cried softly, voice ragged and devastated. “I didn’t want this.” Then he began to speak a type of Korean that Rumi couldn’t fully understand, his words slurred and sing-songy. Occasionally she would recognize his words (“don’t” and “please” being the primary repetitions that filtered through) but for the most part, his heavily accented speech was nearly completely unrecognizable.
Suddenly it occurred to Rumi that he was speaking an archaic form of Korean, one that would’ve been spoken hundreds of years ago. Despite what Jinu had told her only days before, that he’d once been a human from the Joseon era, it never had quite dawned on her all that his admission entailed.
He looked too much like the picture perfect twenty-something year old idol. His haircut, his clothing, even down to the way he walked spoke of modernity. Occasionally his accent would give him away. But what betrayed him most were his eyes. They were old, weathered by time and sorrow. Rumi noticed them sometimes, when he spoke more quietly. When he stared out into space or down at his hands as darker memories consumed him.
It was becoming more and more difficult for Rumi to separate this modern, idol Jinu, from the ancient being she knew he really was. Parading around in a body far too young to contain all the years and hardships he’d experienced.
She tried to picture him, hair long and tied in a sangtu. Wearing the ragged clothing of his lowly cheonmin status. Begging for food in broken, illiterate speech.
Watching as the patterns continued to crawl up his skin. Falling into the abyss under Gwi-Ma’s flames. Leaving his family behind.
400 years of torment. 400 years of slavery. And now, Gwi-Ma had brought the suffering to her very doorstep.
Jinu whimpered.
Rumi wondered then, if this awful display of forced subservience was intended to be a lesson for Jinu or a lesson for her.
How much of their conversation had Gwi-Ma heard?
It must’ve been infuriating for the Demon King to see one of his own finding common ground with a Hunter. A half-demon Hunter no less.
Gwi-Ma knew he couldn’t touch Rumi. But Jinu was fair game.
Was he… trying to threaten her through Jinu?
“Well, joke’s on you, you stupid bonfire,” Rumi huffed, rolling off of the bed with a resounding stomp. “I’m not letting Jinu go back to you. Not ever again.”
She snatched up the discarded checkered handkerchief, draping it over Jinu’s newly shivering form and tucking it in. “I’m gonna fix this,” she promised.
She wouldn’t let Jinu suffer. Not here. Not ever again, if she could help it.
But how can I help him? She glanced around the room, looking for anything that might give her an idea to combat Gwi-Ma’s all-consuming influence.
She glanced at the photo of her mother tacked onto the wall. Then a thought popped into her head, unbidden. Sing. She raised a hand to her ravaged throat. She wasn’t sure the Honmoon would be too pleased with her current level of ability. Plus, Jinu deserved more than some mediocre, off-key tune.
Maybe she could mask the sound of her broken voice with her guitar.
“I’ll be right back,” she promised the tiny demon on her bed. She didn’t know if he heard her, his half-lidded eyes still roaming in lazy lines across the room.
She shut the bedroom door behind her, taking a deep breath as she held the handle at the small of her back.
“Mira? Zoey?” She called as she finally found the courage to move to the living room.
Her friends looked up at her from their spots on the couch, looking worried and a bit weirded out. They’d already cleaned up Jinu’s bloodied gauze (how would they feel if they knew they’d touched a demon’s blood?) and it seemed like they were trying to refrain from seeming too eager at her appearance.
“Are you okay?” Zoey asked, raising to stand.
Rumi nodded, trying to reign in her emotions. She couldn’t leave Jinu alone for too long. “I’m sorry about earlier,” she said sincerely.
“Oh don’t sweat it!” Zoey waved her off. “We’ve all been there! Bad periods, ya know? The WORST!” Her eyes darted to Mira. “Uhm, but we didn’t find any spiders in the house…”
"Oh, yeah..." she held herself, unsure of what to say.
“There were never spiders, huh, Rumi,” Mira said, folding her arms. She looked more concerned than upset.
Rumi shook her head, unable to meet her gaze.
“What’s going on?” Mira asked softly.
Rumi took a deep breath and let all the pent up emotions of the day spill over. She wouldn’t have to sell it too hard if most of the feelings were real.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled, letting a few tears drip down to the hardwood floor. “I’m just stressed. Everything with my voice and the Golden Honmoon and the Saja Boys,” she tried to let her conviction show on that last one, “It’s just a lot right now, and… and I haven’t really been sleeping—“
“Oh! Take Doctor Han’s sleeping tonic!” Zoey bounced up from the couch, already rummaging through her bag to grab it. She held out a little glass vial filled with milky white fluid. “It’s supposed to help with bad dreams, remember?”
Rumi stared at her friend. She knew Doctor Han was a certified quack. But something about the mysterious little vial had her entranced. The way the liquid sloshed against the glass seemed unnatural. Almost... otherworldly.
It was probably just curdled milk.
But Zoey looked so earnest. All her friends wanted to do was help.
What was the worst it could do?
“Thank you Zo,” Rumi smiled, taking the vial carefully in hand.
The moment their fingers touched, Zoey pulled her into a bone-crushing embrace. Mira came up to hold her from behind and she drooped against them, allowing a few more tears to spill.
“We’re here for you, Rumi. Anything you need,” Mira said, rubbing her arm as she pulled away.
“I know,” Rumi sniffled. “Thanks you guys.” She glanced over to the studio, where she knew her guitar was displayed. “I’m just gonna practice some guitar in my room for awhile. Try to clear my head.”
The girls smiled at her, recognizing her need for space.
“Let us know if you need anything!” Zoey called as Rumi rushed to the studio.
She snagged her guitar and an oral syringe from the closet, and hurried back to her bedroom.
Jinu looked largely unchanged. But it still stole her breath away how dark he looked against the sharp contrast of the white cloth. He hadn’t ceased his slow writhing against the bed.
“I’m back,” Rumi said quietly. “And I brought some medicine. I have no clue if it’ll work, but might as well try,” she laughed humorlessly. She opened the vial, taking a little whiff. It didn’t smell like anything.
At least it wasn’t rotten milk.
She filled the syringe a tiny bit, just enough for a full mini-sized portion. She lifted Jinu’s upper half up as much as she could with his illusory shackles, and pressed the plastic tip into his mouth. She slowly deposited the liquid down his throat, satisfied when he didn’t choke. She watched him swallow until it was gone. He let out a breath when she laid him back down, eyes fluttering beneath sweat-soaked bangs.
She sat with her legs crisscrossed on the bed before him, guitar in her lap. “Please let this work,” she whispered.
Her fingers struck the first chord, something light and beautiful that she’d never played before. Rumi was known to be a master composer. Music came to her as naturally as air, and this time was no different. But when the words came to her, sitting heavy on the tip of her tongue, she hesitated.
“I tried to hide, but something broke…”
She tried to ignore the tickle in the back of her throat. She swallowed, slowing the stanza a fraction before continuing.
”I tried to sing, couldn’t hit the notes,
The words kept catching in my throat.
I tried to smile, I was suffocating though…”
Jinu twitched on the bed, muttering something under his breath. Rumi considered pausing the song to check on him, but a feeling told her to keep going.
”But here with you, I can finally breathe.
You say you’re no good, but you’re good for me.
I’ve been hoping to change, now I know we can change,
But I won’t if you’re not by my side.”
Jinu’s head tilted towards her, like he was listening to her for once, and not the voice in his head. Rumi had to hold back the sound of excitement that threatened to leave her at the positive response.
”Why does it feel right every time I let you in?
Why does it feel like I can tell you everything?
All the secrets that keep me in chains, and
All the damage that might make me dangerous.”
Jinu’s eyes opened, yellow and slitted and demonic. He blinked blearily before his gaze settled on her, softening as he took her in. She smiled at him, threading her fingers through his hair for a moment before returning to the strings.
“You got a dark side, guess you're not the only one
What if we both tried fighting what we’re running from?
We can’t fix it if we never face it.
What if we find a way to escape it?”
Tears began trailing down her face as the lyrics lightened, so raw and so true to what she felt. Never had she felt more connected to a song, in the same way she had never felt more connected to a person. She could see Jinu’s mouth trying to form a word, but he winced and pressed a hand to his chest instead. Unrestricted.
His hands were free.
Rumi nearly shot out of the bed in elation. It was working! Her voice was actually helping him! It was blocking Gwi-Ma’s connection!
"Jinu?" she knelt over him, studying his every movement. He stared up at her, almost puzzled, brows furrowed deeply. "Are you okay?"
He blinked again, eyes clearing a bit with every passing second. But she could tell that his lucidity brought pain. She frowned as he gasped, trying his best to sit up. She tossed the guitar to the side, cupping her hands around him and lifting him carefully into her palms.
“Jinu?” She asked, keeping her voice low and calm despite the racing of her pulse.
His face relaxed as his eyes roved over her. “Hi, Rumi,” he smiled a tired, toothy grin. Her heart skipped a beat at the flash of his fangs. “Pretty song.”
“Is he still here?” She asked, hoping beyond all hope that Jinu’s mind had quieted.
“No, I…” his voice tapered off. His eyes widened in shock as he brought his hand up to his ear. “I… I can’t hear his voice,” he said, his expression painted with awe. "I can't hear him," he repeated, as if it was too good to be true. He looked up at her, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Thank you,” he breathed.
“You’re welcome,” Rumi said, relief pouring into her soul as she settled herself against the headboard. She carefully brought Jinu up to her chest, cradling him close. He melted against her with a sigh, cheek pressed against her collarbone. If she paid close enough attention, she could feel the fluttering of his own little heartbeat against hers.
He still retained his full demon form. She wondered if it was because he was too exhausted to use the glamour, or if it was because he truly felt comfortable in his own skin around her.
She hoped it was the latter.
Because she felt the same. And she’d never allowed herself to feel like that before. Never felt like she could have her patterns on display in front of anyone. Never felt like she could share an intimate moment with anyone because it would be sullied by the reality of what she was.
She looked down at him, smiling at the sight of her patterns glowing where she held him. She watched as his claw reverently traced the pink lines. They brightened happily at his touch.
Maybe her patterns could be beautiful too.
“Thank you,” he whispered again, breath ghosting across her skin.
In response, she held her hands as a shield over him. A silent promise to keep the voices at bay for as long as he was under her care. She wondered if one day, when all was said and done, if she could hold him under different circumstances. If the voices and the patterns and the demons could disappear for good.
If they could be free together.
That feeling returned, telling her to keep singing. So she did.
”We could be free, free.
We can’t fix it if we never face it.
Let the past be the past ’til it’s weightless.”
The Honmoon hummed in contentment around them as they fell asleep.