Chapter Text
Fourth of july - 2 months after defeating Gwi-ma.
Penthouse.
It had been 2 months since that day.
It was finally over.
Their destiny—fulfilled.
Their mission—accomplished.
The greatest threat they’d ever faced—defeated.
They had sealed the Hoonmoon.
They had saved the world.
They had stopped Gwi-ma.
Things were settling down, even if slowly so.
And now… the world was settling, slowly but surely.
Mira was learning to trust them again, day by day.
Zoey, though unusually clingy, seemed lighter somehow. As if she wasn't laying awake at night anymore, wondering if they’d abandon her again.
Not that Rumi could be certain. She wasn’t a mind reader, after all. Demon powers didn’t come with that perk, unfortunately.
Oh, well.
The truth was… she was the one struggling now.
Rumi—the perfectionist.
The overthinker.
Always tense. Always trying to hold everything together.
Even now, after everything they’d endured and everything they’d overcome. After the truth had come to light and the world finally saw her for who she was.
She still felt… adrift.
It wasn’t the girls. God, no. They had been more than incredible. Patient and gentle, yet never treating her like she was fragile. They gave her space, teased her just the right amount—just like always. Just like family.
But something inside her felt different. Off.
Her heart, which had always carried the weight of expectation, ambition, pressure—it now felt hollow. Like it had cracked somewhere along the way and a piece had fallen loose, lost in a place she couldn’t reach.
Her eyes drifted to her desk.
His hat sat there, untouched. Unmoved.
Alone, like her.
Jinu had given it to her just before he...
"You gave me my soul back"
His eyes, though relieved, seemed sad. As though he was in pain, for going so soon. His trembling hand picked the hat in his head, placing it in her own.
"Now I'm giving it to you" His words were soft as he slowly disappeared.
Rumi could see his tears turn into nothing in the air as her own flooded her eyes while Jinu's soul fused into her.
She could still feel him, even weeks after everything.
The thing about Jinu was that—even though they’d only known each other for a few fleeting days—it felt like she had known him forever. Deeply. Intimately. As if their souls had brushed against each other in some other lifetime.
If she closed her eyes, focused hard enough, she could almost feel his arms around her again. Hear the rasp in his voice. Picture him smirking as he failed, once more, to tease her—right before saying something so sincere it felt like it cracked her open just a bit more.
Rumi missed him. Terribly.
Not in an overwhelming, suffocating kind of way—not anymore. In the beginning, yes, the grief had been sharp, nearly unbearable. But now it lingered softly. Like an ache. A bruise that still throbbed when touched but no longer burned.
It would take time to heal. Maybe a lot of time. But she wasn’t afraid of that. Not really.
With a sigh, Rumi closed her eyes. Her chest tightened—just a little.
There was so much she wished she could say to him. So much she wanted to share. Her loneliness. Her anger. Her pain and all of the things that went in her head when she thought too much. The jagged, hidden parts of herself she had never shown to anyone—not to Mira, not to Zoey, not even to herself.
But with Jinu, it had been effortless. Frighteningly so.
That ease infuriated her. And yet, it also comforted her in a way nothing else ever had.
She told herself—and the others—that it had been strategic. That she had used him. And yes, she had. Just like he had used her. They had a goal. A purpose.
But that wasn’t the full truth. Not even close.
Because everything that happened between them—every word, every glance, every truth shared in the dark—it had all been real. Maybe too real.
Jinu had reached into her chest and carved open her heart with bare hands. Stripped away every layer of armor she had carefully, obsessively built since childhood.
And she had let him.
She had wanted him to.
Rumi had never allowed herself to be vulnerable. To be honest. Not with her fans. Not with the girls. Not even in the silence of her own thoughts.
So when Jinu busted the door opens without disregard, it felt like a fucking relief.
Finally, she could breath.
Like the cage she had locked herself in was wide open. If only for a moment. If only for him.
And for the briefest flicker of time, Rumi—hopeful, desperate, foolish Rumi—believed.
Believed that maybe she could have something.
That maybe she could be something, without the whole world crumbling around her.
Without looking up and seeing expressions of disappointment and anger and disgust from her loved ones.
That maybe someone could see the parts of her she spent her life hiding—and not turn away.
Jinu would never loathe her patterns. He had his.
For the first time in what felt like forever, she wasn’t alone.
She didn’t need to hide.
Didn’t need to shrink herself.
Didn’t need to be ashamed.
Rumi could just… be.
And oh, how tempting it felt.
How hypnotizing. How intoxicating.
It was like Jinu brought air to her lungs, like she could finally move after being stuck, like maybe she could actually be free.
He had been skeptical in the beginning. Guarded. Cautious.
While she daydreamed of something real, he wrestled with doubt.
But Rumi—never afraid to fight for her goals—found the courage to pull him out of his shell.
They even had a moment, at the aquarium, Just the two of them, surrounded by quiet water and soft blue light, when her hair was taken down of it’s usual uptight braids, when it was just them and the beautiful sealife and Jinu was looking at her like he could see everything. Every part of her, even the bad ones. Specially the bad ones, and still—
“You’re just as beautiful with the cracks showing, Rumi.”
She had dared to hope.
That maybe—maybe—everything really would be okay.
And in the end, it was.
Or it would be.
Mira and Zoey had seen her. All of her. Patterns and all. And even though it was messy at first, they worked through it. They were still working through it.
She loved them more than anything in the world. Even more than she ever let on.
And if her heart still ached sometimes—just a little—so be it.
It was proof.
Proof that Jinu had existed.
That a piece of him still lived inside her, with his soul free from Gwi-ma.
And Rumi was free as well.
To sing, for herself and her fans.
And to be happy. Being herself at last.
Free to live, and maybe find out what she wanted.
Not as lost.
And just a little bit more heartbroken.
-
Zoey hadn’t been feeling like herself lately.
Which was saying a lot, because “herself” wasn’t exactly a consistent concept to begin with.
“Ughhh.”
She groaned, dragging her pen angrily across yet another page in her notebook, scratching over a half-baked lyric like it had personally offended her.
It was only 8:04 a.m.
She had been up since 5.
Again.
Her head has been even more messier and full than it normally is and her nerves were getting the best of her more easily than usual, so she thought – after realizing she couldn’t sleep anymore, being that agitated – that she could write something.
They were on hiatus—an actual, honest-to-god break this time. Two whole weeks of rest at minimum!! No choreography. No interviews. No late-night demon hunting. Just peace. Quiet. Her and the girls.
But Zoey's brain didn’t seem to get the memo.
If anything, it had become even louder.
She thought writing would help. Get the noise out, like bleeding ink onto paper might quiet the hurricane in her chest. But it hadn’t worked. Not after ten tries, not after fifty.
Every page looked the same—rambling verses, crossed-out words, tiny angry doodles with stars around them and a weird, lopsided sketch of a girl who looked suspiciously like Rumi.
God, she was losing it.
Not even cat reels were working anymore.
And if cat reels weren’t working, it was officially a crisis.
She tossed the notebook aside and flopped back onto her bed, arms spread, staring at the ceiling fan turning slow circles above her.
Her body felt restless. Her heart, worse—like it was holding something it wasn’t built to carry.
Something big. Something unbearable.
Something like want.
Thoughts of Rumi filled her head before she could shield her herself against her own chaotic mind.
This wasn’t new.
It was always little things, stupid things. The kind that shouldn’t matter but did.
The way Rumi laughed when Zoey and Mira made a dumb pun. The way she furrowed her brows when reading something serious. The smell of her shampoo when they sat too close on the couch, watching a movie neither of them was paying attention to.
The quiet strength in her silence.
Her gentleness, soft and ease, but surrounded by something more. Something deep and rooted that made her hold back. Even now, after everything, Rumi was still holding back.
Zoey didn’t felt particularly guilty for having these thoughts. One could only resist so long being near Rumi, right? The woman was gorgeous, funny, smart and stupidly hot.
And worse, she was... kind. Attentive. Like she cared so much, even though she held herself at a safe distance.
It made Zoey ache. Oh, how badly she ached for her.
Longing, picturing the day where Rumi would let her guard down and maybe look at her and just... Let it go.
Zoey had loved her for years now. Since she was sixteen, probably. Since the beginning of everything—Huntrix, the demons, the fame, the late-night rehearsals, the friendship, the exhaustion, the saving-the-world part.
At first, it had just been a crush. Rumi was beautiful and cool and older, and Zoey was an idiot with a tendency to fall hard for people who wouldn’t even look her way.
But Rumi had looked. From the start.
Not in the way Zoey wanted her to—not really. But she saw her. Treated her like she mattered, like Zoey was someone Rumi actually enjoyed having beside her.
Like she didn't care if Zoey was quirky and annoying and too much, like Zoey was just the right amount of... enough.
Rumi listened.
Rumi cared.
Accepted her. Every part of her.
It had been a lost battle since day one. Zoey stood no chance. Not when Rumi's eyes held her gaze so dearly.
But, even so, even by the time they became best friends alongside with Mira, and Zoey felt like the girls knew her most intimate parts, and she knew theirs... Even then, Rumi... felt far away.
It wasn't just the way she'd never go to the bathhouse with her and Mira, or the way she progressively dressed in more covered clothes and spent less and less time with the girls as the years went by.
No. It wasn't that, even though that did linger. It hurt, of course, but Zoey also had her own boundaries, and so did Mira. So she respected it.
What really stung was the unsaid things. The way Rumi always seemed to always want something but she'd never ask. Never demand.
She was always working, always determined to seal the hoonmoon, to defeat Gwi-ma and protect the fans and the world.
Always doing things for the sake of the greater good. Never quite for herself.
Sometimes, it felt like Zoey barely knew her. She'd shove those thoghts away, how ridiculous right? Of course she knew the girl she had spent years of her life living with, singing, sharing cat reels and midnight thoughts and meaningful hugs.
Mira could also be closed off and Zoey was sure she knew her like the palm of her own hand, so of course she knew Rumi.
Of course she did.
Sometimes, when the doubts were too much, she'd go to Mira. To people outside, the older girl might look like a scary, mean, powerful woman—and that was actually the truth, but not all of it—but to Zoey, she was just Mir. Her best friend, her confident, and sometimes... more.
Thing were easier with Mira. Sure she had her hard moments, and could be a huge pain in the ass from time to time, but she was never untruthful. Mira always said things. Always spoke her thoughts and wants and needs, even if she often did it while bullying someone or agressively eating cereal, she talked.
That sincerity made Zoey feel safe, light. Like she could rely on her and be sure Mira would never actually back away. Never run from her.
Except for that night, when Gwi-ma got to her.
But Zoey doesn't think about that! Nop, no, no, no she doesn't.
The point was, Mira was a steady presence in her life. The first one. Perhaps even the only one.
And while Mira was more than enough, and while Zoey loved her—if Zoey's notebook full of lyrics and declarations were any proof of it—, she wished she could feel something similar with their older friend.
Zoey sighed. She would get nowhere like this. Her eyes drifted to Rumi's room. Her door was shut, the girl had gone to sleep earlier last night and still hadn't come out.
She had seemed sad, as she said she'd go to bed.
"I'm tired" Rumi told them just after the clock turned midnight, and just from Mira's look, Zoey knew she wasn't the only one who thought something was bothering the older girl.
But that was the problem with their leader, Rumi never talked.
And in the kitchen, alone, Zoey wondered if she would ever do it.