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It doesn’t know exactly when it started to understand.
At some point, when it’s maybe fifteen, it wonders—because it’s not as if it doesn’t hear people calling it “she” pretty much every day. Hadn’t it heard that as a kid as well? Even when it didn’t really interact with anyone, when it was too young to be around people, when there wasn’t really anyone talking about it. So it’s not like anyone has ever actually called it “it,” even though that’s what’s accurate since it isn’t a she. It can’t be—because it isn’t human. It’s a demon. It’s a monster.
But when did it start to understand that? It always knew Celine didn’t quite like it, or maybe wasn’t quite comfortable with it. “Rumi,” she used to say to it, when they sat in front of its mother’s grave. “Your mother gifted you that name. Honor it.” So it does honor its name—Rumi. Sometimes it feels like the only thing that really belongs to it. It is Rumi, and it is a monster and a demon and it isn’t human and therefore can’t be a girl so can’t be a she. Maybe it’s just so obvious to everything and everyone in the world that there was no way it wouldn’t have been able to know that it was an it instead of a she—except people still call it “she.” People still call it a girl, a young woman or young lady. Maybe they don’t know.
“Girl,” Mira says one day when they’re seventeen and Zoey’s sixteen, rolling her eyes, “you’re impossible.”
Yes, it thinks. Yes, and no. It is impossible, an impossibility, a monster, something wrong and twisted and strange. But no, because it isn’t a girl.
It smiles, and laughs, and later it doesn’t even remember what they’d been talking about.
Celine taught Rumi to smile when it was five.
Not that it hadn’t known to smile before then—apparently smiling is a natural instinct even for monsters and demons. It had smiled and giggled and later it learns about human development and wonders, because from what it remembers hadn’t it been like that…? But that doesn’t make sense, because it isn’t human, so it shouldn’t develop like a human.
But that isn’t the point.
Celine taught Rumi to smile for the cameras when it was five.
She taught it to smile with its eyes even when it was upset, even when it was uncomfortable. She shone lights in its eyes and turned on videos of screaming crowds up to the highest volume they would go. She clapped in its face and got too close until it could smile no matter what.
Then she smiled at it, and it felt warm.
“I just want you to be safe, Rumi,” she said. “You’re already in the public eye, even though no one’s met you. Your mother died for you. It’s the least…it’s the least we can do to keep you safe.”
So it learned to smile when it was five, and it learned to lie when it was five, and some days it feels like it’s just one big lie, inside and out. What is Rumi, really? What is real? When it looks in the mirror and sees its mother’s braid in the purple hair of a demon, what does it mean? When it laughs with Zoey and Mira, or answers questions during an interview, is any of it really real? Maybe it’s real in the dead of night, when it curls up in its bed and counts its fingers and toes and teeth, because those are real, right?
Maybe it’s real when it wields a sword empowered by the soul of a demon who didn’t really know it, who used pretty words and a smile, who died to save it. Maybe it’s real when it floats above a crowd in an impossible daytime, a glittering rainbow around it.
Rumi decides it would like to try being real.
Maybe that’s why it cuts all its hair off when it can’t sleep the night after the Idol Awards.
They’d gotten back to the penthouse and almost immediately dispersed to their rooms; “Talk tomorrow,” Zoey had said, her eyes already half closed. “Sleep now.”
“Mm,” Mira had grunted, already staggering towards her room.
It had laughed, but the laugh had turned into a yawn that had cracked its jaw, and it, too, had retreated. It had fallen into bed—
And been unable to sleep.
It stared up at the ceiling. It counted sheep. It counted its fingers and toes and teeth—and discovered that its canines are sharper now. It rolled this way and that and pinned its braid under itself about a thousand times like it does every night—
And then it blinks, and it’s in its bathroom, a pair of scissors in hand.
It stares into the mirror, and holds its breath.
It had complained about the braid tugging once.
It had been four, maybe. It had itched at its scalp and asked, whining, why it always had to wear a braid. Celine had snapped at it, telling it that its mother wore a braid and it should be grateful to have anything from her at all.
Its braid was its mother’s, it understood then. When Celine braided its hair, humming the hunters’ song, it wasn’t for Rumi. It was for Rumi’s mother.
Now, it swallows, its fist trembling around the scissors. Its braid is its mother’s. It has two things from its mother: its name, and its braid. The braid tugs, and itches, and when it isn’t paying attention (when it isn’t in public) it sits on or accidentally pulls the braid hundreds of times in a single day.
But the braid is its mother’s.
And how can it give that up?
“I do!”
“All of me!”
…The braid is not its mother’s.
Because its mother is dead.
The braid is Celine’s. Celine’s attempt to turn it into something it isn’t—something she’d be able to love. The braid is Celine’s attempt to bring a dead woman back to life.
Rumi’s mother was dead before it was even really born. So can it even be said that it ever met its mother? Do the eight months spent inside her count? It had been born too soon, too early, because it is an impossibility and a monster and it killed its mother slowly, a parasite, rotting her from the inside out.
Rumi’s mother is dead, and therefore can’t care about a braid that’s just a braid. Rumi’s mother is dead, and never loved it because she never met it and it never met her. Rumi’s mother is dead, and Celine doesn’t love it, so why should it keep Celine’s braid?
That doesn’t mean its hands aren’t still shaking as it starts cutting at the base of its neck.
The scissors are sharp, but it has a lot of hair—something Mira and Zoey have commented on throughout the years. So it has to saw away for what feels like hours even though it’s probably less than a minute. And when the last strands snap under the blades—when its hand falls away under the weight of Celine’s braid—
Its head feels so light.
It chokes on a breath.
It looks at itself in the mirror.
The top of the braid is still there. But most of it is in its fist. And when it looks in the mirror, it sees the purple hair of a demon but it doesn’t see its mother’s braid—Celine’s braid—and Rumi starts to feel a bit more real.
It undoes the top of the braid, and hacks away at the rest of its hair in a fruitless attempt to even the purple strands out. It looks terrible—it doesn’t look like Rumi though Rumi doesn’t know what that looks like yet—but that’s okay. It has a lifetime to figure out what Rumi looks like.
It falls onto its bed with its braid still in its fist, bits of hair tickling the back of its neck—but somehow they don’t itch as much as the braid had, and it falls asleep within seconds.
It’s groggy when it wakes up the next morning, which means it entirely forgets what it’s done until it wanders out into the kitchen and Zoey says, “Morning Rumiii!!!”
It blinks at her. “Morning…?”
“Your hair!” she shrieks, and Rumi very suddenly remembers why its head feels so light and why something on the back of its neck is tickling.
“Oh,” it says awkwardly. “Um.”
“Why are we fucking yelling,” Mira mumbles from behind it, sounding as groggy as Rumi feels.
“Rumi’s hair!” Zoey says.
“What about—what the fuck,” Mira says, her voice getting much more alert about halfway through her sentence, but she sounds more intrigued than upset—not that Zoey sounds upset, it doesn’t think. And—
Well.
It doesn’t want either of them to be upset.
But it also realizes with some shock that it doesn’t care what they think of its hair.
Because the braid was Celine’s. And this hair isn’t Zoey and Mira’s.
“Holy shit,” Mira says in dawning realization. “Is your hair naturally purple?”
“Um,” it says. “Yes?”
“That’s so not fair,” Mira says, and then she plops down at the table which means Rumi doesn’t have to keep twisting its neck back and forth to see both girls, and Zoey realizes their breakfast is boiling over and turns back to the stove with a yelp, and Rumi tentatively takes a seat of its own.
They have to talk today, it remembers.
“Bobby’s gonna lose his fucking mind,” Mira says, her cheek propped up in one hand. “You’re supposed to be the femme one, girl.”
It blinks.
Girl…?
“Hey, girls can have short hair!” Zoey chirps. “Right, Rumi?”
“Um,” it says. “Yes. Right. But…I’m…?”
Mira’s eyes narrow.
“Still waking up?” Zoey asks, setting a couple dishes on the table.
“No,” it says. “Yes? I’m just…”
There’s a moment of silence—tense, uncertain. Zoey carefully sets Rumi’s bowl in front of it, then Mira’s, then sits with her own, and says quietly, “We’re not mad, Rumi.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mira says, but then she sighs, and says, “I just…want an explanation.”
“I can do that,” Rumi says, relief flooding its veins.
So it tells them—that its other parent was a demon, that it’s had the patterns all its life though they’ve spread faster in the past five or so years than the nearly twenty before, that Celine said when the Honmoon turned golden its patterns would be gone and it would be normal. “I…never really believed her, though,” it whispers. “I always thought…either they’d stay the same, or maybe I’d be dragged down to the demon realm, or something. I think Celine knew it too.” Knew that it is not, and will never be, normal.
It tells them that Celine had forbade it from telling them, saying that it wouldn’t be safe, that nothing could change until its patterns were gone. It tells them about Jinu seeing its arm, and sending the tiger and bird, and about planning and it all going wrong.
(It doesn’t tell them about going to Celine, and asking her to kill it. It doesn’t tell them about the anger and grief that had filled it when she’d refused. It doesn’t tell them those things because they scare it, because now the new Honmoon is glittering and its head feels light and it doesn’t want to go anymore.)
By the time it finishes talking, their breakfast is cold and none of them have eaten more than a couple bites. “Wow,” Zoey murmurs.
“Yeah,” it says.
“Wow,” Mira says.
“Yeah,” it says.
“Okay,” Zoey says. “Well. I think I’m mad at Celine now.”
“Oh yeah, I’m fucking pissed at Celine,” Mira says. “But I’m still a little mad at you cause like—you trusted her more than us?”
Rumi shrugs one shoulder. “I…didn’t want to make you choose,” it mumbles. “But I did, in the end.”
“And we chose wrong,” Zoey says firmly, almost forcefully. “Rumi, I’m so sorry for ever feeding into what Celine told you we would do. I’m so sorry.”
It sneaks a peek at her, and her eyes are bright with tears. It sneaks a peek at Mira, and she has the look on her face that she always has when she gets in her head.
“It’s okay,” it says, because it is, and because it doesn’t want Zoey to cry, and because it wants Mira to stop looking like she hates herself. “I don’t think you chose wrong.”
This time, there’s no silence—just Mira slamming a hand on the table and saying, “Fucking what?”
Rumi blinks at her, bemused. “Well,” it says. “I’m a demon.”
“A half demon,” Mira snaps. “Who’s never done a fucking thing wrong in—”
“Okay, let’s calm down a bit,” Zoey says.
“No,” Mira says. “Rumi, are you seriously fucking saying we should have killed you?”
“Well,” it says a bit uncomfortably. “I…don’t want you to kill me. And I don’t think you need to now, I think. But I was damaging the Honmoon, and I have patterns, and hunters kill everything with patterns, so—” Mira’s glaring at it, so it adds hurriedly, “I’m just saying it makes sense that you’d—you know, that…”
“No,” Zoey says, but where Mira’s voice is angry, Zoey’s is calm. “We should have trusted you. We’ve known you for years, Rumi. We know you.”
Yes, it thinks. Yes, and no.
“Well,” it says again, and it feels a bit like a broken record. “I’m just saying I’m…I’m not angry at you. And I don’t want you to be angry with yourselves.”
Mira looks like she wants to keep yelling, but she visibly bites it back, running one hand through her hair and breathing deeply. Then she says a bit more quietly, a bit more in her usual deadpan, “Okay. But I’m gonna be pissed at myself for a while, okay? And that’s not your fault.”
Rumi nods reluctantly, because logically it knows it’s not its fault—but at the same time it kind of feels like a lot of the past few weeks have been its fault, so at the end of the day—but Mira doesn’t want it blaming itself, so it’ll try not to, with this, at least.
“Okay,” Zoey says. “Should we heat up breakfast?”
So they do, and they eat, and Mira insists on just buzzing Rumi’s head because its hair is too uneven for anything else. So it’s while they’re doing that, Rumi sitting in a chair they’d dragged into Mira’s bathroom, Zoey sitting in the shower, Mira running clippers that she has from when she had an undercut a couple years ago over Rumi’s head, that Mira says quietly, “So when Zo said that thing about girls having short hair.”
Rumi’s still exhausted from the past couple days; it’ll admit that it’s half falling asleep with the buzz of the clippers and Mira’s warm hands. “Mm?” it says, only barely registering her words.
“Why’d you sound confused?”
Rumi considers this, then realizes it really doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and says intelligently, “Huh?”
Mira clicks her tongue; Zoey snickers. “Like when I said girls can have short hair you said yes,” Zoey says. “But you sounded like you were about to…I dunno, say…”
“Say you aren’t a girl,” Mira says, characteristically blunt.
It blinks.
Once, twice.
“I’m not?” it says, though it comes out sounding like a question.
There’s a long pause.
“Okay,” Mira says on a slow exhale. “I can’t tell if this is you coming out to us as trans or there’s something else going on here.”
“Oh,” it says. “Well I’m not trans. I don’t think. I was never a girl. I’m a demon.”
“Half demon,” the other two chorus. “But the Saja Boys were boys,” Zoey tacks on.
Mira’s finished up and put down the clippers, so Rumi is able to shake its head, running its hand over the evened out fuzz. It likes the feeling. “No,” it says. “They were boys in the same way I’m a girl. They’re not human, so they can’t be boys. I’m not human, so I can’t be a girl.”
In the mirror, it sees Mira open her mouth to speak, but Zoey beats her to it, saying, “Okay. What do you mean by that?”
It shrugs, still a bit confused. “I mean…I’m not human…?”
“So if you’re not a girl,” Zoey says, endlessly patient, “what are you?”
It shrugs one shoulder. It knows its answer will upset them, so it doesn’t say “a monster” even though that feels like the simplest way to put it.
“Okay, let me ask this a different way,” Zoey says. “Do you use she-her pronouns?”
“Yes,” it says automatically, then pulls a face at itself in the mirror and says, “Well—I mean that’s what other people call me.”
“What would you call yourself?” Zoey asks.
“An it,” Rumi says.
Mira disappears from the mirror as she suddenly sits on the floor behind it. Rumi can feel its neck crawling—it doesn’t like that it can’t see either of them, not because it feels unsafe, but because it feels…bad. It upset them, didn’t it? It turns sideways in the chair, and finds that Mira has put her head between her knees, and Zoey is nodding thoughtfully, trying to hide something very, very sad in her eyes.
“Sorry,” Rumi says, even though it’s not exactly sure what it’s apologizing for.
Zoey smiles and shakes her head, but her lips are pressed tightly together, and her eyes are bright, and she doesn’t speak. So none of them speak, for a bit. They just sit there, in the brightness of Mira’s bathroom, little bits of purple hair scattered on Rumi’s shoulders and on the floor.
Eventually, Zoey takes a breath, like she’s about to speak, so of course that’s when someone’s phone rings with Bobby’s ringtone, and of course they have to answer that. They talk through some logistics with him (it turns out most of the city has only vague memories of the past twenty-four hours), and by the time they’re done it’s lunchtime, so they order takeout, and Rumi showers off the hair while they wait for the food to arrive, and they eat on the couch while one of Zoey’s turtle documentaries plays in the background, but it’s…
Different.
Rumi doesn’t like that it’s different, because it knows it’s its fault. It knows that the girls are upset. It doesn’t really understand.
It clears the takeout containers when they finish eating, and it can hear them talking softly while it’s in the kitchen. It makes a point not to listen in, humming softly even though its voice sounds odd, uncertain, wobbly. When it finishes putting away the leftovers and throwing away the trash, it hesitates for a long moment, then steels itself, and heads back into the living room. Sure enough, Mira and Zoey are looking at it, and it wants to shrink away from their sight, but Zoey’s smiling softly, and Mira looks relaxed, and they pat the spot between them.
“Is it okay to keep talking a bit?” Zoey says. “About what we were talking about before Bobby called?”
It shrugs, because it doesn’t want to upset them but it’s pretty sure saying yes and saying no will both upset them, and it still wants to try being real. “Yes,” it says. “Yeah, that’s fine.” It picks its way over, and settles cautiously between them.
“Okay so I know we’re having a serious conversation but also can I pet your head?” Zoey says, quick and eager, and that’s almost normal so Rumi laughs, and nods, and Zoey squeals with joy and rubs her hand over its head and it feels really, really nice. Like really nice—like Mira’s hands had been nice before, but the buzz of the clippers had distracted it, and now there’s no distractions and it finds itself slumping, its eyes drooping, a tickle in its chest.
“Aww,” Zoey murmurs softly. “You’re like a big cat. Mira, get in on this.”
“I’m not a—” it says, and it means to finish with the word “cat,” but just then Mira’s hands join Zoey’s and the tickle in its chest gets too strong to ignore and—
“Oh my god you’re purring,” Mira says, delighted in the understated way only Rumi and Zoey can recognize, and Rumi covers its burning face with its hands, whining past the rumble of what is undeniably a purr that it has never made before.
“How did we not know you can purr?” Zoey says indignantly.
“I don’t know,” it says. “I didn’t know I can purr. Oh god, this is so embarrassing—”
“No it’s not,” Zoey says, one hand leaving Rumi’s head probably to wave in the air dismissively. “It’s…” Her voice softens again. “It’s…cute. Sweet. It makes me happy because it means you’re happy and comfortable, I hope.”
It is happy and comfortable. But it reluctantly sits straighter, and the girls take the hint and pull their hands back, and the purring fades out and the tension returns.
“Okay,” Zoey says. “So when you say you’d call yourself an it…is that…bad, to you?”
Rumi takes the time to consider the question, even though it kind of already knows the answer. “No?” it says. “I mean. It’s just true, so it doesn’t feel bad. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” Zoey says, though it still sounds like she doesn’t quite agree. “So can you try to explain why it’s just true?”
It gnaws on the inside of its cheek, and has to ease up because its newly sharp canines dig in. “I…can,” it says reluctantly. “But…I don’t want you to be upset.”
“Okay, lemme get this straight,” Mira says, her voice just a bit sharp. “You’re about to say something you’re totally fine with, but you’re pretty sure will upset us. How is that not bad, Rumi?”
“Well,” it says sheepishly.
“Shut up, Mira, just let—” Zoey cuts herself off, then continues almost without missing a beat, “Rumi finish.”
Very suddenly, it wants to cry.
Because the girls are listening, they’re trying, and why oh why had it ever listened to Celine? Why hadn’t it trusted them? It swallows back the lump in its throat, and says, “It’s just—you know. Demons aren’t people. They’re monsters. They’re evil.”
Mira sits back into the couch, and throws one arm over her eyes.
“Okay,” Zoey says, forcefully calm. “So you would call yourself an it because you think you’re an evil monster?”
…Okay, so maybe Rumi kind of gets why they’re upset. But at the same time it’s obvious, isn’t it? Like they wrote in “Takedown.” Rumi is part demon. Therefore, part of Rumi is an evil monster. Rumi, who has known itself all its life, knows that all it has from its mother is its name (no longer her braid), so doesn’t that mean that everything else is from its demon parent? Rumi has known itself all its life, so it knows that it is a monster. It almost wants to call Celine, to get her to explain to the girls because surely she gets it, but the idea of talking to Celine so soon after under the tree, after holding up the sword, after “Why couldn’t you love me?” makes its stomach turn.
“Well,” it says again.
“Okay,” Zoey says. “What makes you evil? You, specifically—not just demons in general or anything like that.”
“Um,” Rumi says, because it hasn’t thought past the whole demon thing. “I…lied to you for years?”
“That’s not evil, that’s fear,” Mira says from behind her arm.
It fidgets, picking at the fabric of its pants, fighting to keep from biting its cheek again. “I…” And then it hits it—something it’s always connected to being a demon, but something that is unquestionably specific to it. “I killed my mom.”
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god—” Mira says, and Zoey reaches past Rumi to thwack her on the thigh.
“Rumi,” Zoey says, with a sweet, dangerous smile, “you were literally an infant. Saying you killed your mom is like saying the sun killed some flowers by going behind a cloud.”
Rumi doesn’t think that’s precisely right, but it doesn’t say anything because it doesn’t know what to say. It knows that it is a demon, a monster. The girls don’t understand that. It doesn’t really know how to make them understand.
“Alright,” Zoey says, rubbing at her eyes. “So to sum up—you call yourself an it and mentally use it-its pronouns?”
“Mm-hm,” it says, nodding.
“And you do that because you think you’re an evil monster?”
“Mm-hm.”
“So if you weren’t an evil monster would you call yourself an it?”
It considers this. It’s an interesting thought experiment; if Rumi’s mother had been impregnated by a human, a man, then Rumi would be a human too. A girl, probably, though maybe not. “I don’t know,” it says. “Probably not, I guess.”
Zoey appears to steel herself. “Would you be more comfortable if we used it-its pronouns for you?”
…Would it? It would make more sense, sure, but Zoey and Mira (and the rest of the world) have only ever used she/her pronouns for it. And it gets the sense that using it/its pronouns for it would deeply distress the girls. But it wants to be real, doesn’t it? Is this real?
“I don’t know,” it says. “I don’t want to upset you.”
“Let’s just pretend for a second that this isn’t about us,” Mira says sarcastically, which tells Rumi that she thinks it’s not about her and Zoey at all. Which is silly, because—
“But it is,” Rumi says. “Because if you call me an it but it makes you upset, that’ll make me upset, so then I won’t be more comfortable.”
“But in a vacuum?” Zoey says.
It shrugs. “I…don’t think I really care? Maybe? I mean people have been calling me ‘she’ all my life, so I’m used to it.”
Mira groans, and drops her arm back over her eyes—Rumi isn’t sure when she lifted it. Patiently, Zoey says, “Rumi, babes, we’re not asking about whether you’re ‘used to’ something. We’re asking what would feel best. In a vacuum, ignoring us. It-its pronouns? She-her? He-him? They-them? Just your name? English has a bunch of neopronouns too.”
And Rumi…
Rumi thinks about being real, and about its mother’s only gift being its name, and about cutting off its hair, and about being evil except Mira and Zoey really don’t think it is.
“I don’t know,” it says.
“Okay,” Zoey says gently. “We’ll experiment.”
So they do.
Over the next couple days, as they stay holed up in their penthouse at Bobby and Celine’s instruction, Mira and Zoey call Rumi many things, including “it” though Rumi can tell they don’t like that one. When it asks them, carefully, why they don’t like “it” but don’t mind other neutral pronouns, they grimace.
“It’s not like some people don’t use it-its pronouns,” Mira says. “Like there are people who reclaim that sort of thing. Objectifying, and stuff. People who got called ‘it’ to hurt them, and now they own it.”
And Mira would understand that sort of thing, Rumi knows. She’s been called so many awful things, and she’s taken the words and twisted them until they glitter as brightly as she does.
“But this feels a little different,” Zoey says. “You’re not reclaiming something. You’re calling yourself evil. So…it feels like we’re calling you evil, every time we say it.”
“Oh,” it says, because yes, that’s kind of the point, but it supposes that does explain their discomfort. It doesn’t really know how to fix it, other than the girls changing their minds about it being evil, or it changing its own mind, which doesn’t seem very likely.
It still doesn’t want to talk to Celine, but when, a week after the Idol Awards, the choice is taken out of its hands because she shows up unexpectedly to discuss the future of HUNTR/X, it decides it may as well take the opportunity provided to it. So after the long, awkward conversation in which Mira barely speaks because she’s too busy glaring at Celine, and Zoey talks too quickly because she’s anxious, and Rumi just waits for its chance to change the subject, Rumi says, “Celine, I have a question related to demons.”
“Of course, Rumi,” Celine says, her voice perfectly smooth, perfectly calm—even though Rumi had seen her jaw tense when she’d seen its hair (or lack thereof). She still can’t look at it, and that still hurts like nothing Rumi’s ever known except for the moment when Mira and Zoey lifted their weapons against it, but now that Rumi’s back to properly regulating its emotions it can handle the way Celine’s eyes slide from Mira to Zoey, skipping Rumi like its face is a frictionless surface. It’s nothing Rumi isn’t used to, after all.
So, Rumi says, “Would you consider a demon to be an it?”
Zoey and Mira stiffen at its sides.
Celine frowns. “Well,” she says. “Yes, with no further clarification.”
“Okay,” it says, almost relieved. “So that would make me an it, right?”
There is a long, empty silence. It’s kind of like the silence in the bathroom, after Mira had cut its hair, after it had told her and Zoey that it’s an it, a monster, a beast that can’t logically be placed in the category of “person.” It’s kind of like that silence, except that had been so…melancholy isn’t the right word. Rumi can’t really think of the right word. This silence is just empty. And then Celine says, “What?”
Hm. This maybe is not exactly what Rumi expected.
“I’m an it,” it says. “Because I’m a demon.”
“Half demon,” all three of the others chorus, and it can’t help a little grin because it feels like the first time in years they’ve all been on the same side, even if that side is kind of against Rumi. It doesn’t really think the whole “half” thing matters anymore—not when its patterns are so visible, not when it knows it can turn bestial in a moment, not when it’s used the demonic power of teleportation even if only the once. Besides, even if it did matter—Rumi has understood itself as a monster, an it, for as long as it can remember, even when the “half” part mattered to it.
But that’s not the point right now, so Rumi just waves them aside, and says, “Demons are monsters, so they aren’t really hes or shes, just its, so I’m an it.”
Celine opens her mouth.
She closes it.
She looks sick.
“Oh yeah,” Mira says, leaning back in her seat with her arms crossed, darkly satisfied. “You fucked up.”
Rumi tilts its head, blinking. Is this…did it upset Celine? But that wouldn’t make sense. That’s the whole reason why she can’t love it, after all. Mira and Zoey are crazy, so they love it even though it’s a monster, and anyway they say they don’t like thinking about it as a monster. But Celine? The whole reason she can’t love it is because it is a monster that killed the person she loved most in the world. When she’d come today, with no warning, Rumi had darted into its room to grab a hoodie, even though it had made Zoey frown and Mira grind her teeth. Celine knows that Rumi is a monster.
…Right?
“Rumi,” Celine says—
And for the first time in years, she looks at it.
It holds its breath.
Celine stands from her seat in the armchair, moves closer to them on the couch, and Rumi feels the other two tense. It still hasn’t told them about that night under the tree, but they distrust Celine anyway, even as she goes to her knees in front of Rumi like Rumi had done in front of her a week ago. Rumi isn’t afraid of her, really. It doesn’t think. But it doesn’t know what to do with itself, when she reaches forward, when she hesitates a breath from its cheeks and then—
Her hands burn.
It squeezes its eyes shut and swallows.
“Rumi,” she whispers. “You’re not a monster.”
And…
Rumi’s world crumbles around it.
“But I am,” it says, its voice still steady. “I’m a monster. I’m a mistake.”
“Rumi,” Celine says, and when it cracks one eye open her expression is dawning horror, and her eyes are welling with tears. “Rumi, sweetheart—how long have you—you’re a girl, a little girl—”
It shakes its head, closes its eyes again, leans back until her hands aren’t cupping its cheeks anymore. “I’m not,” it says. “I can’t be. Little girls are people you love. I’m a thing, I’m a—I’m a monster, I’m evil, right? Demons are evil, hunters kill everything with patterns so I—I-I’m not—” It’s crying. It hadn’t wanted to cry—it had wanted Celine to nod, to smile, to say of course it’s a monster, an it, a thing. It had wanted Zoey and Mira to understand—
Except it hadn’t.
Because every time they say it isn’t a monster—
Every time they laugh at something it says, or hold its hand, or rub its head and coo happily when it purrs—
“I don’t want to die,” it chokes out. “I don’t want to die, I’ll—I’ll cover them back up, we can pretend I’m not a monster—we can pretend I’m a person—”
“Rumi you are a person,” Celine says, and she sounds like she’s begging, and Rumi shakes its head hard—it can shake its head so much harder without its mother’s braid weighing it down. It shakes its head hard and it can’t stop, just shakes its head and shakes its head and shakes its head—
Very suddenly, it’s holding something soft.
“Rumi, honey,” Zoey’s voice says, calm, quiet. “Can you tell me four things you can feel?”
What? Four things it can feel? It can’t feel anything—it can’t—but Zoey asked it a question so it tries to focus. It’s holding something soft, right…? It was suddenly handed something soft. “Soft,” it croaks.
“Good,” Zoey says. “Very good. That’s Mr. Leatherback—do you remember Mr. Leatherback?”
A plushie Mira had won for Zoey at the aquarium arcade years ago. Rumi remembers.
“Three more things you can feel, baby,” Zoey murmurs.
It thinks, hard. “H—hand,” it says, realizing someone’s gently rubbing its head. “Hand on m-my—head.”
“Good job,” Zoey says. “Two more.”
It focuses. “M’hoodie,” it says. “Floor.”
“You’re doing such a good job,” Zoey coos. “Okay, baby, three things you can hear.”
“You,” it says immediately. “Mm. Heartbeat. Mira’s breathing.” It doesn’t know how it knows it’s Mira’s breathing, not Celine’s. But it does.
“You’re doing so good. Two things you can smell?”
“You and Mira.”
“Do I wanna know what we smell like?” Mira says, quiet, wry but like she’s hiding behind the joke.
“Good,” Rumi says. “You smell good. You always smell good.”
“I know that is not true,” Zoey says. “But we can argue about that later. Last one—one thing you can taste.”
It pokes its tongue around in its mouth, and realizes it must have bit the inside of its cheek or something. “Blood.”
It hears three sharp, unison inhales.
“It’s okay,” it says. “Just bit myself, I think.”
It wants to say that it doesn’t matter. That things get hurt, and monsters get hurt, and no one cares.
But they care.
Mira and Zoey care.
Maybe Celine cares, a bit.
Bobby cares, even though he’s not there, even though he doesn’t know it’s a monster, except maybe it’s the only one who thinks it’s a monster and it doesn’t know what to do—
“Breathe for me, baby,” Zoey whispers. “Just hold Mr. Leatherback and breathe.”
So it does.
And eventually, its muscles loosen. It slumps back, and the hand on its head doesn’t leave, strokes gently, and it pushes into the warmth. The hand is Mira’s, it knows now. It hadn’t been able to tell before, which is weird because Mira and Zoey’s hands are so different. Mira’s are larger, slim fingered. Zoey’s have more callouses. It loves them both.
Zoey’s hand joins Mira’s, and its chest itches, but it resists because Celine’s still here. “It’s okay,” Zoey says, like she can tell. “Just relax, baby.”
The itch breaks free, for a moment, into a purr, and Rumi tugs it back with the tiniest whimper. But then Mira gently scratches its scalp, and it melts, and the purr vibrates in its chest and its body relaxes even further.
“So is this a new thing?” Mira asks, but Rumi knows she isn’t talking to it so it doesn’t answer even though it could say that yes, it is, didn’t they already cover that when it said it hadn’t even known it could purr the first time it happened?
“No,” Celine whispers, and Rumi’s eyes open without it meaning them to.
She’s standing, several steps away, still looking at Rumi, and her eyes are overwhelming and Rumi’s purr falters so it closes its eyes again and nuzzles into Mira’s hand.
“No?” Zoey says.
“No,” Celine repeats. “Sh—Rumi used to purr, when sh—in infancy. When held and rocked. As a toddler, when I braided Rumi’s hair.”
Oh.
“Why’d the purring stop?” Zoey asks.
Celine makes a tiny, shaky sound that Rumi is sure none of them were meant to hear—it’s so soft. Then she says, “I…I told her to stop.”
Rumi swallows a lump in its throat.
The purring cuts off.
“No,” Mira says, low, angry, and her free hand touches Rumi’s cheek and brushes a thumb under its eye. “Fuck that. Rumi, if you’re not comfortable with her in here I’ll kick her out my goddamn self. If you feel like purring, you fucking purr, you hear me?”
Rumi whimpers again. It reaches for her, blindly, and she pulls it into her lap and Zoey scoots closer on the other side, and it wants to purr.
So it does.
It purrs, almost desperate at first, and it’s the first time the purr has been purposeful instead of prompted involuntarily by Mira and Zoey’s touch. It purrs, and purrs, and the rumbling vibration feels like it shakes its muscles loose, and it buries its face in the crook of Mira’s neck and just is. Somewhere, vaguely, it can hear the others talking—can feel Mira’s voice in her throat against its forehead. It doesn’t focus on the words, or the quiet sound of their door opening and closing. It just purrs, until it doesn’t have to try anymore because Mira’s gently scratching its scalp and Zoey’s hand is smoothing circles on its back.
It doesn’t know how much time has passed by the time it speaks.
It doesn’t even really mean to speak—doesn’t know where the words come from. But it turns its head so its voice won’t be muffled in Mira’s shoulder, and whispers, “I don’t want to be a monster.”
“You’re not,” Mira murmurs.
“You don’t have to be,” Zoey says. “What do you want to be?”
It sniffles, its face screwing up and fresh tears starting to roll down its cheeks. “I think I wanna be a girl,” it whispers. “But I don’t know how.”
“That’s okay, babygirl,” Zoey whispers back, and the pet name hits somewhere deep, deep inside it and it shudders. “We’ll help you.”
So, like with testing pronouns, Zoey and Mira help it again. This time, they mostly avoid pronouns all together, though use “she” when necessary. The main things—the things that make Rumi feel like maybe it could be a girl, and not a monster—are the soft, sweet nicknames.
Zoey calls it “babygirl,” “pretty girl,” “beautiful.” Mira calls it “lovely,” “princess,” “sweet girl.”
They both call it “ours.”
And—sometimes—Rumi can believe them, mostly. Rumi can feel Zoey tickling the little hairs at the back of its neck, and hear her say, “My beautiful girl,” and the words seem less like a joke or a costume and more like the truth.
Rumi gets coffee with Celine, when it feels ready. It doesn’t really actually feel ready, but it asks the girls to come with, to just sit at a table a little ways away, and that makes it feel better. And it’s…not good, quite, but…okay? Celine has circles under her eyes, and this time, the way she won’t look at Rumi reads less as disgust or disappointment or fear and more as shame. She apologizes, for the way she raised it. She apologizes that she made it feel like a monster. Rumi gets overwhelmed pretty quickly, but then it glances over at the girls and sees Zoey forcefully holding Mira down as Mira glares across the café, and that makes Rumi feel a bit better. And later in the conversation, when Rumi has to scrub away tears, it glances over again and sees that Zoey has graduated to sitting on Mira’s lap to pin her down, and that makes Rumi want to laugh.
They relax their way through two months of their hiatus before they have to start making appearances again—Rumi still doesn’t know how Bobby managed to keep the media off them for so long when usually they have interviews, photo shoots, advertisements, and a million other things that have nothing to do with performing. Three days before their first interview since the Idol Awards, Mira lightly scratches Rumi’s scalp, and says, “I think we have to get you a wig, hm, princess?”
“Mm,” Rumi hums, distracted by the comforting touch. “Mm, prob’ly.”
Mira’s quiet for just long enough that Rumi peels one eye open to blink at her. They’re on the couch, its head in her lap, and she’s smiling the soft smile she only has for Rumi and Zoey. Rumi smiles back up at her sleepily, and she chuckles, and says, “So, d’you wanna keep your head buzzed? Or d’you wanna grow it out?”
Rumi blinks at her again, letting its mind absorb the question. Then it says, “Um.”
Mira stops the movement of her hand on its head, and it tries not to whine. “It’s like we talked about before,” she says. “You don’t have to have long hair. You don’t have to have short hair. Honestly I think you look hot no matter what but Bobby’s right that the network would have a fucking nightmare, so wig it is for now.”
“The braid is an iconic look,” Zoey’s voice says, and then she leans over the back of the couch, her head above them next to Mira’s. “You’re kinda known for it. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s my mom’s,” Rumi says, closing her eyes and wishing Mira was touching its hair again. “It’s…I cut it off cause I wanted…”
“You don’t have to explain,” Mira says softly. “We get it.”
“We do,” Zoey says.
“And you don’t have to decide about your hair yet,” Mira says. “It’s just getting to the length where you probably wanna cut it again if you’re keeping the buzz, or trim it into something resembling a style if you wanna grow it out. No matter what it’ll hide under a wig.”
“Mm,” Rumi says, and then it reaches blindly for Mira’s hand and pulls it back to its head, and the girls laugh, and it smiles.
Rumi does want to grow out its hair, it thinks. It knows girls can have short hair, and it does like the feel of Mira and Zoey’s hands on the prickles of its buzz, but…well, it can always cut its hair again if it doesn’t like it.
So, they start making appearances again in the month leading up to their comeback, and interviewers ask questions about Rumi’s “tattoos,” about the Idol Awards performance, about the Saja Boys’ disappearance, and they have scripted answers for everything. What they don’t have a scripted answer for, though, is this interviewer—
Who has just commented that they look a lot more relaxed.
“Just at home in your own skins,” she says, smiling—she’s a radio journalist who’s had dozens of interviews with them, pretty much since their debut, and there’s something in her smile that says she’s genuinely happy for them. “You’ve always been confident, but it’s like you’re glowing, now.”
Which is funny, because, as they’ve discovered, Rumi actually does glow when it’s feeling strong emotions. Right now, it’s fighting to keep the glow from the patterns on its face, because it’s suddenly hyper-aware of Mira’s arm resting on the couch behind it, and Zoey’s hand lightly on its knee. Rumi is more relaxed. Rumi is at home in its own skin, mostly. And it feels…a little shy.
“Oh, you know,” Zoey says, leaning into Rumi’s side, tipping her head against its shoulder. “Rest and relaxation, right?”
“Mm-hm,” Mira says, and her hand lifts and creeps subtly under the wig at the back of Rumi’s neck—hair and makeup are going to have a field day with that, Rumi thinks distantly as it tries not to melt under her touch. “We just…took a lot of time to talk and just spend time together. Something we haven’t been able to do in a while.”
The journalist is still smiling, her eyes even softer, and Rumi swallows and hopes it isn’t expected to say anything, because right now all its focus is on keeping the purr in its chest from breaking out. “Well,” she says. “I’m sure the fans are all looking forward to seeing what’s blossomed from this time of rest.”
It’s later, when the recording has stopped, that she smiles at them again, and says, “I’m happy for you, girls. Remember to keep resting.”
They thank her, and head home—it’s thankfully their last commitment of the day—and it’s as they step inside the penthouse and Mira lets out a groan of relief as she takes off her shoes that it hits Rumi.
“I’m happy for you, girls.”
The words…
Hadn’t felt strange.
Rumi listens closely, the next time Bobby greets them with a cheerful, “Hi, girls!” But the thing is, that’s never felt strange, exactly. Or has it? Rumi spends the day thinking too hard about it, and eventually Bobby shoos them off to a surprise reservation he’s made at a fancy restaurant with private rooms, saying, “Only the best for my girls,” and—
Rumi’s able to hold it together until they get into the privacy of the car, and it’s there, while Mira and Zoey are still chattering excitedly about the restaurant, that it starts crying.
They notice right away, of course, and are all over it, Mira easing the wig off without regard for the fact that they could still be seen while walking into the restaurant, Zoey cupping its cheeks and thumbing away the tears, both asking what’s wrong. Rumi shakes its head, unable to really articulate that for the first time, today, when Bobby said “my girls”—
It believed him.
It blubbers out something that makes the girls soften in understanding, and they hold it close, and scratch at its scalp, and whisper, “We’ve got you, beautiful. Our pretty girl. Our princess. Ours.”
Their words, and Bobby’s, and the journalist’s, don’t fully work. Rumi still thinks of itself as an it, but…less, it thinks, than it used to.
Their first performance post-hiatus is maybe their most successful ever, and when they get home they’re so hyped up that Rumi ends up chasing Zoey around the living room while Mira dances on the couch. They fall asleep in a tangle, and when Rumi wakes it wants to stay there forever.
Rumi’s hair grows quickly, so even with trims to keep it looking decent, it’s soon more like a pixie cut than a buzz. The wig still hides the short hair, and their stylists are good at their job so no one even guesses. Rumi is confident, now, that it prefers the shorter hairstyles to the nearly floor-length braid. It finds that it prefers the pixie cut to the buzz, because now when Mira’s touching its head she sometimes lightly tugs on its hair in a way that has it melting into her lap.
Not everything’s perfect, of course; there’s still the odd rude interviewer, or fan angry with the changes HUNTR/X is making, with Rumi’s “tattoos,” with their comeback album, with perceived slip-ups during performances. And while the new Honmoon hasn’t yet torn at all, there are still demons here or there that had been on their side when the new Honmoon was created. So even though the relaxation from their hiatus stays, there are still moments of anxiety, of stress, of Rumi trying to stay up late with training or paperwork. During one of those moments, when Zoey and Mira are on the couch and Rumi is pacing, talking too fast about everything they need to get done, Zoey says firmly, “Rumi.”
It stops in its tracks, and looks at her, eyes wide.
She smiles, and pats Mira’s thigh, and says, “Just come over here for a bit. Relax, babygirl.”
“I can’t,” Rumi says. “I—there’s so much—”
“There’s nothing we can do right now,” Zoey says, then corrects herself. “There’s nothing we need to do right now. Except relax! We could go to the bathhouse if you want.”
“It’s like ten PM.”
“There are twenty-four hour ones!” Zoey says.
The idea of leaving the house makes its skin itch. It shakes its head, shoulders hunched in.
Mira speaks up, then. “C’mon, princess,” she says, holding out one arm almost lazily. “Just sit for a bit.”
It hesitates.
“Rumi,” Mira says.
It deflates, and obeys, shuffling towards them and crawling onto the couch, flopping over their laps. Mira chuckles, and runs her fingers through its hair, and murmurs, “Good girl,” and—
Rumi stiffens, and holds its breath to keep from whimpering, and buries its face in Mira’s thigh.
“Huh,” Zoey says above it, and traces a pattern on its lower back because of course it’s wearing a damn crop top and of course its patterns had glowed when Mira had said that—
“Oh?” Mira says, her voice a touch lower, teasing, still quiet. “Did you like that, Rumi?”
“I think you did,” Zoey says with a smile in her voice. “That’s a girly part of you we haven’t talked about.”
“Hey, not all girls have vaginas and not all vagina-havers are girls,” Mira says, but her fingers curl and she tugs Rumi’s hair, light but firm, until Rumi lifts its head. She dips down, hunching over until her face is next to its, and whispers, “Do you want to be our good girl, Rumi?”
Rumi swallows an embarrassing whine, and nods.
So, they find a new way to relax—and a new way to make Rumi feel like maybe it could be a girl. Because in Mira and Zoey’s bed, with Mira and Zoey’s burning hands and whispered praise, Rumi feels pretty, and beautiful, and sweet, and lovely. It feels like a princess. It feels good.
It feels theirs.
Eventually, Rumi’s hair gets long enough that hair and makeup starts using extensions instead of a wig, which are better and worse because there’s no fear of them slipping, but they’re more annoying to put in or take out. They hit a year since the new Honmoon was created. They win the Idol Awards.
Two months after the Idol Awards, Bobby sits them down and says that it’s time for a change. He talks it through with efficiency and poise, and by the end Rumi’s almost convinced that it has nothing to do with him wanting them to be comfortable and everything to do with what the network wants and what will look good for their brand. But of course, he oh-so-casually brings up hairstyle changes, and they’re all grinning at him, and he waves them off with a roll of his eyes.
The next day, Rumi wakes up alone, which is much less common now than it was a year ago. It stretches, yawns, then rolls out of bed to find the others.
It hears giggling coming from the hall bathroom, and the door is cracked open so it pushes it wider. For a moment, it freezes, staring.
Mira, who’s in the middle of cutting Zoey’s hair—Mira, whose hair is now shorter than Rumi’s, just barely brushing her shoulders—notices Rumi first, and grins. “Hey, princess,” she says. “Like what you see?”
Zoey yelps, and whips her head around. “You’re so quiet!” she says. “How are you so freakin’ quiet!”
“Careful,” Mira says, “unless you want a bald spot.”
Because Zoey’s hair is even shorter than Mira’s—a pixie cut, feathery and ruffled, and it makes her eyes sparkle—or maybe that’s just the way she’s smiling at Rumi.
Finally, Rumi finds its voice. “I don’t think this is what Bobby meant,” it manages, and the girls laugh.
“Yeah,” Zoey says. “But look at it this way—you have the most iconic hair, but I’ll be making the most dramatic change! So really, who wins?”
Rumi does, Rumi thinks to itself, its heart swelling with emotion. Rumi wins.
Bobby nearly faints when they video call him. “I meant Rumi!” he yelps. “I meant we could do a Rumi hair reveal!”
“We know!” Zoey and Mira chorus, Zoey’s grin wide and innocent, Mira smirking.
The network loses its mind. The fans are in an uproar. Thankfully, most of them like the new looks, though Zoey gets some hate for the short hair and there are hardcore Sunlight Sisters fans who dislike the missing braid. Overall, it’s not too bad, and Bobby had brought it up so soon after this year’s Idol Awards for the express purpose of giving everyone time to get used to the change before next year’s. But it means Rumi doesn’t need a wig anymore, or extensions, and it experiments with what styles it likes now, with its hair reaching just past its shoulders, wavy, thick. “I think I like it this length,” Rumi says one day, lying with its head in Zoey’s lap and its feet in Mira’s, Zoey braiding and unbraiding tiny sections of Rumi’s hair while they watch a documentary on big cats.
“Mm,” Zoey says.
“It’s hot this length,” Mira says.
“You’d say that if I was bald.”
“Mm-hm.”
Zoey giggles, and leans over to press a kiss to Rumi’s forehead. “You’ll always be our pretty girl,” she says. “Even if you go bald.”
Rumi swallows, because it believes her.
It’s an innocuous day. Rumi wakes up between the girls, and gently wiggles out from their arms to go to the bathroom. Rumi goes pee, then picks up the purple toothbrush resting in the cup—they were in Zoey’s room tonight, but at this point there are three toothbrushes in each of the bedroom bathrooms. Rumi squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles, lifts the toothbrush up, looks into the mirror—
And sees a girl.
A sleepy girl in a tank top, with mussed purple hair, and faint iridescent patterns on her face, her neck, her shoulders and arms (plus a hickey or two on her collarbone). A girl, with two bandmates—partners—soulmates—who tell her she’s beautiful, and good, and worthy of love.
A girl.
Just a girl.
Real.
Rumi takes a deep, shaky breath—
And she smiles.