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Giving name to his emotions was not a strong suit of his. To most, it appeared as if Jinu had a strong grip on who he is and who he chooses to be. With his vibrant stage presence, colorful outfits, and that unmistakable voice full of charm, it was easy to assume he was confident—sure of himself, bold, and unshakably in control.
But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jinu had mastered the art of performing emotion, not understanding it. He could smile on cue, deliver every line with feeling, and present himself as this free-loading servant of the Demon King Gwi-ma, though when it came to sorting through what was real, he often… found himself at a loss.
Or maybe, he was just scared.
It was easier to feel melancholy, stress, grief, all the other negative connotations one can think of. In fact, it seemed those things were all that he was capable of feeling behind the polished persona of the Saja Boys, even when he wasn’t in the Human Realm.
But….
Joy, happiness, love, satisfaction, and the like all lay dormant in his chest, the back of his throat.
Impossible to fathom.
And after four hundred years of forcing it down, you kind of get used to not acknowledging such trivialities. It was neither here nor there in his mind. Perhaps, from birth he had been this way, and it was not for a lack of positive experiences, it simply was. If you were to ask him the first emotion he might’ve recognized as feeling the strongest, he would probably tell you;
hopelessness.
He likened himself to the experience of being hopeless, before he ever learned the act of being selfish. It seemed any veer or misstep on the rigid face of the mountain he called a life would end in tragedy no matter what he did, let alone for his personal relationships, of which he didn’t have many, not anymore.
It was a shame, then, that she could scale any cliff she came to face, despite being late to realize it.
Contrary to arbitrary love stories that would have him swooning at the sight of her, Jinu was not particularly interested in Rumi’s introduction. It was true she was held in higher regard than other humans because she was a Demon Hunter and posed a threat to the Underworld, later revealing she had a pretty interesting secret of her own.
But it was not as if he thought anything other than it was a fortunate circumstance he was the one to discover her halfling side and that there was at least someone else out there that might’ve also shared in his pains.
He recalls it being their second nightly meeting when it happened, something akin to arrhythmia.
“You can be free from those voices forever.”
“What makes you think the Honmoon can save a guy like me?”
“A guy who tried to help his family? You made a mistake Jinu.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“But I am a mistake. Have been… since the moment I was born. So, I have to believe. Because if there’s no hope for you, what hope is there for me?”
The words leave Rumi's mouth low and heavy and convincing. Her grey cropped sweater rustles against her frame, caught in the night wind that sweeps over the hilltop where they stand. She looks at him with that fearful brown gaze, the gravity in her voice planting itself in the silence between them.
Jinu rememers staring.
The wind pushes strands of dark hair across his eyes, but he doesn’t blink them away. Behind her, the blue-purple sky blooms into the silhouette of the city—soft neon bleeding into the edges of the dark.
He should say something.
Should comfort her, joke, distract, perform .
But he can’t.
For the first time, he wants to deny her. Truly deny her.
Not because she’s wrong, but because he can’t bear that she doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that her birth couldn’t possibly be the mistake when he’s the one still walking around with the real one burning a hole inside his chest.
He wants to ask what she meant by that. To reach into the space between her words and pull out the truth, the raw, ugly, sacred thing she won’t show. But what right does he have?
And Jinu also wants to ask her as well; since the Joseon Era, has the world not really changed all that much? Have they not always been made to bleed quietly, to carry burdens passed down through centuries like scars written into their birth? Maybe the Hell he walks through every day isn’t so different from hers. Maybe it’s the Demon blood in both their veins. Or maybe it’s just being human that hurts this much.
He doesn’t say any of that though. He can’t, and especially not when they’re interrupted by the saleswoman giving out bracelets and he’s tumbling through a different round of awkward exchanges, once again left breathless by the power of the words she says in response to his lame attempt at humor.
His hopelessness
“That’s the funny thing about hope. Nobody else gets to decide if you feel it… that choice belongs to you.”
Following such an occasion, he treated himself and the boys to dinner the next evening for no reason in particular. The bracelet dangled from his wrist every time he reached for a piece of samgyeopsal on the hot tabletop, catching in the warm overhead light each time he moved. A simple thing—blue-threaded with a stitched pattern, the kind of handmade charm you’d pass by without a second thought.
She gave it to him.
And Jinu found his gaze drifting back to it again and again. There was nothing particularly magical about it. But it was still a reminder. A moment. Her voice on that hill, the night wind, the way she looked at him when she spoke.
His food was growing cold and they were running out of the time in which Gwi-ma allowed them to roam the Human Realm.
-·=»‡«=·-
When he first settled on ‘fondness’ , it was after they’d spent more time writing letters to each other and she ridiculed his aversion to Soda Pop. He found it fitting, his (purposeful) emotional immaturity and (in her words) “old-headed behavior” that led them to tease each other at every opportunity really pinned him this time. Yes, it’s true. The irony that his band’s most notable and only single was entirely centered around a drink he actually hated was not lost on him. But now he’s kind of hurt, come on Rumi…. he told her that in confidence.
Jinu didn’t think much on what he enjoyed and what he didn’t, but to find something so miniscule was met with skepticism and glee gave him the motivation to get back at her by throwing gelatin molds of his face at her window. They were manifested by way of his abilities (magic wasn't quite the right word), of course, and she was in for a rather permanent surprise.
An offering.
Perhaps it was a piece of himself he had given her.
Or that he would give her.
“JINU—" Her head had poked out the raised window, muttering curses under her breath as she jabbed a nail under the impossibly sticky candy, “YOU GET BACK HERE AND SCRAPE THESE OFF RIGHT NOW!! I’LL KILL YOU, DO YOU HEAR ME??”
He heard her, he really did. But he was too busy running and giggling off into the night.
Thankfully, the next time he saw her was when they were conducting interviews for both Huntrix and the Saja Boys back to back. She wore a nice pair of slacks that day, but a well-worn crew neck made up the rest of her ensemble— “for the sake of not being bothered during my well-deserved lunch break, so I have extra room to wring your neck!”
Her threats always fell flat the more often they spent time together, he knows she didn’t mean them anymore. And he wasn’t really paying attention anyway.
Sweat flattened the purple, close cut hairs on her nape, and the heat of the sun brought color to her cheeks and dipped into her thick eyelashes. Emotive descriptors were lost on him, but adjectives were not.
Oafish. Pretty. Fiery. Pretty.
Airheaded. Pretty. Smiling. Pretty.
His mind jumped to conclusions and some words stuttered the mechanism of his thoughts, and again his hindbrain sounded off.
Pretty.
Yes, he had settled on ‘fondness’ before, but now, Jinu decided that fondness was insufferable.
-·=»‡«=·-
Fondness was a vice, it turned out, because Jinu, well-established Demon Envoy of the Underworld was always expecting his tiger to suddenly leap through the vast portals of space and drop letters from Rumi at his feet. He wanted to seek her out any chance he got, would kill for just a look or a word or a smile.
The beginning of the fall of fondness started quick and nameless.
It occurred to him as he lay awake thinking of it, that perhaps fondness that didn’t dissipate through someone’s stupidity had a different name.
He landed on ‘ affection’ when she pulled him along by his sleeve into a street arcade, both of them dressed head to toe in hoodies and sunglasses, absolutely ridiculous. And having never seen such desperation, he dropped nearly an hour’s wage (of a Kpop Idol) into a balance claw machine for the toy she desired— a horribly lopsided plush bear with uneven ears and one button eye barely sewn on, because of course she wanted that one.
He’d also never used such a contraption before and so alas, fell victim to the shackles of gambling and playing games he’d likely never win.
“Why does it keep resetting? I had it. I had it, Rumi.”
“You’re not supposed to kick it!” she whisper-yelled, eyes darting around. “Oh my god, Jinu, we’re gonna get kicked out, stop stop stop—”
Too late.
One of the staff members spotted them. A blur of a red vest and walkie-talkie, and then they were sprinting out into the street, weaving through the tight maze of boutiques and storefronts like kids with stolen candy.
They only stopped when they ducked into a narrow alley, barely wide enough to turn in.
Her back hit the brick wall, and he nearly crashed into her, stopping himself just short. She was pressed up against his chest now, breathing hard, hands curled to her front. He could smell her perfume, something warm and citrusy, and it made his brain go blank .
Normally, Demons don’t have heartbeats. Not unless they chose to. Some used the organ like a metronome, a vestigial rhythm left over from something lost. Some just… kept it around if they weren't Hell-born.
For control. For nostalgia.
For pain.
Jinu’s was thudding hard against his ribs now, a chaotic percussion he couldn't seem to stop, one he knew she could hear pressed this close.
And then she looked up.
Her hair tickled his chin. Her eyes were wide behind the tint of her sunglasses. Her face flushed from the run or maybe from him, and Gods, she was adorable. He couldn’t think. He just moved without it, arms reaching to pull her in, to explain himself or maybe apologize or maybe say something honest —
But she shoved him back with both hands, flustered and muttering, turning away before he could get the words out.
Eventually, the silence stretched a moment too long.
Jinu shifted awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck like that might undo the last five seconds of his life. Rumi was still facing away, her arms crossed now, and the breeze tugged gently at the hem of her hoodie.
“…Guess you didn’t really want that plushie after all.”
She turned halfway toward him, brows furrowing.
“Huh?”
He grinned. Snapped his fingers.
Above them, the sky shimmered for a beat, then from a twist of soft red smoke, the very same crooked plush tumbled down like a falling star. It landed right in her arms with a whump , head lolling to the side like it had been waiting to be held.
Rumi blinked down at it.
And Jinu wore the most smug, self-satisfied look known to mankind. “What can I say? I’m resourceful.”
“You’re a cheater,” she said flatly, but there was a smile fighting its way to her lips.
“Still counts. It’s in your hands, isn’t it?” He wiggled his fingers with mock flourish, clearly proud of himself. “And hey, technically, that’s a win. You got what you wanted.”
Rumi huffed, hugging the plush a little tighter. “Loser,” she muttered cheekily. “You could’ve saved us the drama if you just did that in the first place.”
He tilted his head, batting a definitely innocent gaze.
“But then we wouldn’t have had our epic escape sequence. The drama is part of my charm.”
She just rolled her eyes.
Jinu’s mind, again, supplied how stupid this all was, and he quieted it, smiling as she lifted the bear high in the air, spinning and nearly stumbling headfirst into a trashcan.
I’m so fond of her, he thought.
His stomach clenched with the foreign feeling of not enough.
I feel for her, he tried again, I feel ‘affectionate’ towards her.
It satisfied the hunger in his soul, albeit briefly.
Affection was comfortable. Despite all of the difficulties the fallout of fondness brought, affection was…easy. A steady, gentle thing. Everything she did now, he simply felt the thing in his chest stir, giving it name, and moved on.
As time went, he found that it truly was everything.
A smear of sauce on the corner of her lip, the wrinkled expression she made at things that bothered her, always overdressed for the weather because of her patterns, the sound of her voice when she belted a high note on stage, and the tenderness of it when she admitted her fears about the Honmoon.
Everything was affection, affection, affection .
And then… came the night before the Idol Awards.
-·=»‡«=·-
“I spent my whole life keeping this secret, this shame of what I am.”
Her voice cracked, trembled. It was a raw and imperfect thing, and Jinu felt the sound all the way in his bones. His chest ached with it. There was something about hearing Rumi like this, so much more unguarded and fragile than usual, that it made everything else cease to matter.
“The more I hid this shame,” she continued, blinking rapidly, not to cry, but to keep control of her words, “the more it grew and grew until it started to destroy the one thing that gave me a purpose… my voice .”
He understood. He did.
He did .
He’d seen it happening to her— and all the times she’d touch her throat beneath that turtleneck she loved. Acting like a shield against the vain judgment of people who could never hope to understand them or their patterned proof of detriment, the pain they wore on their sleeves.
Now she was looking at him, truly looking, with an expression so drenched in relief, he felt something fracture inside him.
Not from pity.
From recognition .
“But since I’ve met you… and the more I talk to you, I don’t understand it, but somehow… my voice is healed.”
She said it like she didn’t believe it was real. Like she was afraid speaking it aloud would take it away. And Jinu said nothing at first. He just stared, pathetic excuse for a heart pounding unevenly in his chest, the way it always did when he didn’t have the words but felt too much anyway.
She didn’t say anything more after that. There was no need.
Instead, she used that sound of hers that she so desperately feared losing and she sang .
A rush of emotional continuity. A song of identity.
The story of Rumi.
And then… eventually also, the story of Jinu.
Their voices poured from them like confessions in melody, layered and flawed and real . The kind of real that stripped you raw and made it impossible to ever go back.
He’d never dreamed of this.
Not this level of understanding. Not this feeling like they were the last two people on Earth as they held each other’s hands. Like the rest of the world had folded inward, and now there was only the echo of two souls (one in the possession of another) choosing, again and again , to be seen, who have been seen by nothing but the best and worst of each other.
He was greedy for it. He always had been.
Could never differentiate the voices of doubt from the voices of truth.
Only hers seemed to be the correct one.
And the vulnerabilities they admitted and shared could’ve read like poetry pressed in the pages of a book lost to history, lyrics and words of dwindled, faded art forever immortalized on this night alone. He felt it—how their identities, long buried under memories, expectations, regrets, and fear, were surfacing at last, floating upward like breath through water.
They couldn’t fix the pain by pretending it never happened.
But maybe they could free themselves by trying, by naming it. By letting each other in.
Let the past be the past ‘til it’s weightless.
They weren’t perfect. They were messy and complicated and fractured in different ways.
But that was enough for him, even after that they came to different realizations in several elongated moments; he gifted her a voice in her heart and she gifted him the precious silence in his head.
The sound of a sigh escaping gave him the confidence to glance her way. To stop her before she left, to admit that he was excited to see her on that stage, to see her win like she said she would.
He saw the color in the tips of her ears climb to her cheeks as she agreed to his words, then turned to trot down the concrete stairs.
Affection, affection, affection.
What’s done is done, no amount of yearning or bargaining could repair his conscience, could convince him this was wrong and that he should give her up.
No amount of affection could properly sum up the feelings he had for the storm that was Rumi.
For she has tempted a Demon and it is truly appropriate to call him damned.
To the point of no return, he has fallen…
In fondness.
In affection.
In love.
Below them, the clustered rooftops sprawled like a sea of mismatched puzzle pieces, lit softly by the dream-like haze of purples, deep blues, and flickers of jade.
His hand moved without permission—without even thought—reaching for her wrist in an automatic way, like a lifeline. Something to anchor him. Something that reminded him she was here in this moment and he couldn’t let her go just yet.
Her expression was still soft with a happy ecstasy, but curious. “What?” she asked, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, like maybe she already knew he was about to say something stupid or reckless.
His hands rose to her shoulders, gripping gently, thumbs brushing the fabric of her sweater where it bunched at the seams. His lungs stuttered, his jacket collar too tight, and his eyes, frantic and full of too much, searched hers. He was looking at everything all at once—at the way her pupils dilated, how her breath hitched, how her rosy lips parted just barely in surprise.
Her lips.
He could barely stand it.
“I—” he started, but it tumbled out before he could collect himself, voice hoarse and quiet and shaking.
“Can I kiss you?”
He swallowed.
“ Please let me kiss you. Please.”
And something in her, everything in her… visibly unraveled, willing to let the light pour in. She looked at him like he was a miracle, like she’d been waiting her whole life to be asked that way and with such assurance.
She nodded, equally as fast and breathless, in barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah. Yes. Please do. ”
And they moved— no, they rushed toward each other, bodies colliding in that way only people desperate for closeness do. Her arms flung around his neck, and his hands found her waist, pulling her against him with all the care in the world and none of the patience.
They misaligned at first. Her nose bumped into his cheek awkwardly, and their teeth knocked together with an audible click that made them both wince and let out half-laughs, half-frustrated huffs of air into the space between their faces.
But they didn’t stop.
They readjusted, stumbling clumsily into something right . And when their lips finally met, soft and trembling and unbelievably warm, everything else slipped away.
The entire universe narrowed to just the shared oxygen between them.
Her lips moved against his with the kind of slowness that only comes from meaning it. From feeling it. It wasn’t practiced or poised, it was vulnerable and eager and full of years they hadn’t even lived together yet.
He kissed her like a man who hadn’t known he was starving for closure until the first taste of sweetness in four hundred years. And she kissed him like she’d never believed she was allowed to want anything this gentle in her life.
Far too much, and yet never quite enough. Hope bloomed between the empty spaces of his ribs, his body made a garden for a woman who’ll never walk away unchanged.
Their lips met again and again, stubborn little nips between gasps for air, the lingering tang of salt from cascading tears caught on the edges of their mouths. Jinu didn’t know when he started crying, or if it was her. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe their bodies were just learning how to feel all of it at once and couldn’t contain the sheer magnitude.
His height, something he'd never used to his advantage before, now made him feel both foolish and powerful as he leaned over her, cupping Rumi’s body like something precious and breakable and absolutely his . His arms pulled her in closer, impossibly close, one hand slipping from her waist to the small of her back where the fabric dipped and gave way to the gentle curve of her spine.
She shuddered .
It shot through him like wildfire—her body reacting to his touch, the subtle arch of her back, the hitch in her breath, the silent permission in the way she tilted her face up to him again.
And then, it happened.
It began at the tips of her hands and the base of his throat, those delicate, thorned markings as purple as her hair, usually dormant on the surface of their skin now ignited.
Soft lines, like etchings made by celestial lightning, glowed to life in pulsing ribbons of silver and deep violet. They snaked under their clothes, up their legs, their torsos, arms and necks and faces in mirrored patterns, like their bodies were singing in some ancient dialect neither of them had words for.
The scars of “evil” shimmered goodness, in agreement , resonating in a harmony deeper than sound. And it radiated from them, outward, bright and wild and uncontrollable, casting light into the night like some divine sunstroke had anchored itself to their skin.
Jinu's hands moved, tender and trembling, to her face when she hesitated.
“Shhh it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here. No one can see you but me right now… “ he inhaled so deeply, “...I wish you knew how beautiful you are, my Rumi.”
“Jinu—”
Fingers brushing over her cheeks, his thumbs cradled the slender curve of her jaw. He kissed her again, mouth lingering, full of quiet reverence and something so fierce it nearly consumed him.
And then, with lips swollen and breath uneven, he strayed.
To the corner of her mouth; soft.
Her nose; warm.
Her closed eyelids; sacred.
And her temple, he kissed like a prayer.
How blasphemous it is that a Demon would pray .
To another. For another. That he would get more time.
Some say that to die without the sin of love is a price worse than the anguish that comes with it.
And yeah, he didn’t care anymore.
His love smelled like dusk and something floral as he reached the space above the line of her turtleneck, where more of those patterns lived. Lightning marks different from the ones on her face that had crawled to the surface, shining through the same stars that hung in the sky above.
One had crept up her neck, a branching arc that pulsed like it had a heartbeat of its own.
He bent to it.
Mouthed along it like it was scripture.
And Rumi gasped , the sound caught between surprise and something too intimate for language. Her breath came heavy against his ear, and he could feel it—feel her—like her soul was trying to leap into his chest.
He didn’t know how to carry all this love. He didn’t know where to put it.
So he let it out through his mouth, through the kisses, through the way he held her like she was the last safe place in an uncertain future. He loved and loved and loved until it hurt to even breathe, until his knees felt weak from it, until he forgot entirely who he was without her.
She trembled in his arms.
And he would’ve burned the world down with the same fire he served, if only to keep her warm.
When they finally parted, foreheads rested together, and their breath mingled in the cool night air. His hands remained on her waist, one of hers tangled in the locks of hair at his nape, while the other came up to thumb at her lipstick smudged across his mouth.
Neither spoke as he grasped for that smaller hand against him and instead, just pressed her knuckles into another kiss, exhaling in satisfaction.
There were only them in this city—two demons, two humans, two halves of the same ache finally giving in to the thing they were always meant to become and to chase.
Freedom.
Together.
-·=»‡«=·-
The building didn’t close until midnight, and they still had time. Just enough.
There weren’t many people left. A few couples, some stragglers, maybe an off-duty employee trailing behind on their break. But no one looked too hard, and no one came too close.
Rumi wore a visor over her face mask, a ridiculous combination Jinu had stared at for a solid ten seconds when she first emerged from her room. And yet, somehow, she’d made it look good. Or maybe he was just already lovesick beyond repair.
She said she didn’t want to be recognized, not before tomorrow, not like this .
He wore a mask too, and a different jacket over his white dress shirt. Just enough to slip through unnoticed.
Jinu knew, he knew , it wasn’t the crowd she was really trying to hide from.
But herself.
They wanted more time. That’s all. A few more hours stolen away before the world came crashing in. Before the big showdown tomorrow. Before they had to lay everything bare, all their cards on the table, without flinching.
He was already starting to feel it. The consequences of love.
Of this .
Unlike before, his unlabeled emotions now had too many names; devotion, sentiment, warmth, endearment, friendship, weakness, beloved.
Doing things he wasn’t supposed to do. Being places he wasn’t meant to be. Thinking thoughts that would get him punished. And yet he didn’t think himself to be a romantic at heart, before Rumi, he had never known what love was or how it could feel.
Perhaps, he had just forgotten. Consumed by that terrible shame.
Jinu hadn’t heard from Gwi-ma in hours. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe the Demon King had gotten bored. Or maybe his silence was the calm before something worse. Either way, Jinu was thankful. He hadn’t been ripped away from this yet. He intended to wring every second from this night before fate came knocking.
So that’s what he did, he indulged.
The glow of the aquarium wrapped around them like a dream. Every wall was a living window—tanks of glass that stretched overhead, beside them, behind them. Blue light glowed from within, murky and comforting, casting shifting shadows across the floor.
It was quiet.
They walked slowly. Together. Their fingers hooked, hands swinging lazily between them like they had nowhere else to be.
“Which one’s your favorite?” he asked, voice low enough to be just for her.
Rumi took a moment. He could hear her hum, faint through her mask. “Jellyfish.”
He blinked. “Seriously?”
“Mhm,” she said, nodding toward the enormous tank to their right—soft and translucent bodies floating like alien silk beneath a wash of ultraviolet blue. “They’re gorgeous. Strange. They move like dancers. And they’ve been around longer than most living things.”
She turned to look at him briefly. “They’re symbols of adaptability. Of rebirth. Of courage. Femininity. Intuition.. that kinda stuff.”
Jinu looked at the tank. Then at her. And then back again.
“…So you basically just described yourself ,” his lips quirked under his mask.
That made her laugh. She shrugged, clearly pretending to be modest. But she didn’t disagree.
He tugged her a little closer, their hands still swaying, catching rhythm in the ambient thrum of water pumps and the sound of a stingray sliding past in the neighboring tunnel.
“You know,” he said, “maybe a jellyfish stung you when you were a kid. Maybe that’s how you got your cool markings.”
She looked up at him, brows raised above the rim of her visor.
Oops.
It was probably insensitive. He knew how she felt about them, especially when they had lit up not long ago and now sat quiet and hidden beneath the knit of her sweater. They weren’t something she flaunted. They weren’t easy to talk about. But his intentions were never meant for harm, so used to feigning lightheartedness and using the reality of the situation to make humor.
To encourage her to feel proud of herself and who she is, whether through making up stupid stories or singing in harmonies that only he had the privilege of hearing or kissing away the bad memories associated with the part of her identity that she hated.
It would take a long time before she was ever truly confident, he knew that, and yet…..
He opened his mouth to backpedal—
But she smiled. A small, lovely thing.
“Well,” she tilted her head toward him, “then they must’ve stung you too.”
His breath caught.
And Rumi kept walking. Just like that.
He was still standing there when she turned back around to nudge him in the ribs.
“Come on dork,” she said. “You’re gonna get hypnotized if you stare at jellyfish too long.”
He followed. He always did. He always will.
But his fraud of a heart was full of her words, full to the point of aching.
They must’ve stung you too.
He wanted to believe it, he’d rather that be the truth.
So he did believe it.
He believed a lot of things when she was near. That they could survive this. That there was something waiting for them past the battle. That the future could be more than a series of bleak obligations and chains made of blood and fire and brimstone.
They moved from tank to tank, never really talking about anything important, but also somehow talking about everything .
He memorized the colors of her in that light—the violet reflection across her cheeks, the blue sweeping into her hair. The way her eyes lit up when a school of fish passed too close. The way she kept unconsciously brushing their shoulders together like she needed to remind herself she wasn’t alone.
And then…. Jinu wasn’t exactly sure how the next conversation had started.
One moment, they were nibbling on the refreshments provided by a snack vendor and sitting together on the low bench beneath the glow, her thigh brushing against his, her head resting briefly on his shoulder.
And then she was talking.
The words just… happened.
“I meant what I said before.”
Her voice was calm. No wobble, no bitterness, just steady honesty. The kind of honesty that took longer to build than most people realized.
Jinu shifted slightly, just enough to see her better, though she didn’t lift her head.
“When I said I shouldn’t have been born… it wasn’t for drama. It’s just what I thought. For a very long time.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“My mom was a Demon Hunter like me,” she continued, like it was a fact she’d learned from a textbook and not something that had shaped her entire life. “One of the good ones, I’ve heard. Precise. Unshakable. She knew how to do her job and protect the Honmoon. And my dad…”
Rumi paused, gaze fixed on a creature that drifted by in the far distance of another tank.
“My dad was a Demon .”
“I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know if they loved each other, or if it was a mistake, or a betrayal. There’s no record, no story, no answers. I don’t even know if I want to know.”
Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, knuckles pale and she let out a breath.
“But I think… I’m finally okay with it.”
“I spent so long hating it. Hating them . My mother for falling, for being reckless, for dying and leaving me on my own. My father for existing. For infecting me. I was born in contradiction, Jinu. I am a walking curse. Couldn’t be reasoned with, couldn’t understand how anyone— anyone could love a Demon, no less as one myself. I was taught that they are all inherently evil and that I should never embrace that part of me.”
“And again, then I met you.”
His throat closed. He couldn’t breathe around the weight of her eyes.
“I still don’t know what kind of Demon my father was. Maybe the terrible kind. Maybe not. But if he had a heart anything like yours… if he felt even a fraction of what you feel, if he had moments where he hurt, and loved, and tried—” she swallowed, “—then maybe I get it. Maybe my mom loved him because he showed her something different. Something worth breaking the rules for.”
“I don’t hate them anymore,” she whispered. “Not really. And I don’t hate myself either. Not as much— well, I do. But I’m going to try to stop being afraid, little by little. I’m going to win for us all tomorrow.”
Another jellyfish rushed past them in a shimmer of opalescent pink. “And you?” she asked, quieter still, nervously twisting her fingers down the length of her braid.
“You make it make sense. That someone like me… that it’s possible I could be loved, even as imperfect as I am.”
Those words shattered him.
He turned to her, cupped her face with both hands so gently, so reverently, thumbs brushing the curve of her cheekbones like she was made of glass. He wanted to tell her the details of his own past, leave out the lies he had spilled before, but not now, very soon. This was her time, her moment.
“You are loved,” he said, and it wasn’t desperate now. It wasn’t pleading. It was a truth, whole and undeniable. “Rumi, you are .”
She closed her eyes, removed her visor and leaned into him, forehead pressed to his.
“By you?” she asked, breath catching.
He laughed softly, like he couldn’t believe she had to ask. Like the whole aquarium and every creature in the world should’ve known by now.
“By me ,” he said. “And I’ll help you learn to love yourself too.”
And there, in the lull of light and the hush of unseen tides, she whispered back;
“Then I understand. If that’s the case, in return…. I’ll also help you, Jinu, to learn to forgive yourself.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
And the glow around them didn’t come from the tank this time. It came from something older, something deeper, something eternally interlinked.
Glancing up, his fingers hooked delicately under the edge of her mask. He pulled it down just enough so that it settled beneath her chin, revealing the curve of her lips, the slope of her nose.
His hand lingered. Brushed past the side of her face, fingertips ghosting over the shell of her ear. A strand of hair had come loose from the usual style, fluttering against her temple like a flower petal. He caught it carefully and tucked it back where it belonged, smoothing it into the neat line of her braid.
But even then, he hesitated. Let his fingers run lightly through the length of it before resting them against the back of her neck.
“You should let your hair down sometimes, Rumi,” he murmured, “And remember what I told you earlier.”
He meant all of it.
About her voice. About her worth. About being loved not despite what she was, but because of everything she was.
Her hair was long and silken, and he wanted to learn how to braid it— her braid, the way she liked it. He wanted to practice carefully, fumbling through the strands until she laughed and told him he was doing it wrong. He wanted to see her with her hair down, the way it probably touched the floor, curled at the ends, wild and soft.
But the truth was, it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter whether her hair was up or down. Whether she had eyeliner perfectly winged or if her face was bare. Whether she was performing on stage with HUNTR/X or curled up in a hoodie half-asleep, mumbling about sea creatures. Whether she carried lightning across her skin or kept it buried beneath sweaters and soft sighs. Whether she got her markings from some mythic jellyfish or from the sacred, strange dawn of her birth.
Whether she was Human or Demon.
None of it mattered.
Because she was Rumi .
And she was his . And he was hers .
He looked at this woman like there was no one else in the world.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said slowly, “you’re just as beautiful with the cracks showing…and you never have to hide from me.”
Her eyes flickered, stunned for a second.
Then he kissed her again, she was ready for it. Wanting and waiting and keening.
Not hurried. Not stolen or desperate or chased.
The soft press of her lips against his felt like gravity, like the forgiveness she promised to make him realize. She leaned into it, arms coming up around him again, slow this time too, and he felt her melt, felt the tension fall from her shoulders like an exhale.
He kissed her like he’d been waiting lifetimes.
And he had.