ASTEROID ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ

Rumi slammed through the exit door, sprinting down the alleyway without really seeing where shes going. Her chest hurts from all the running, shes been at it for almost an hour now, moving from building to building in the hopes of losing her pursuers.

Turning sharply, Rumi ducked behind a dumpster and crouched in place, holding her breath. She knows that if they find her here again, she won’t be making it far. Her leg still throbs from the earlier cut, and she still hadn’t managed to find anything to clean or wrap it with.

The door she just came from slams open again, she doesn’t bother looking. They’re always just that little bit too close, that little bit too fast, for her to find a good hiding spot. She just has to hope they give up when they can’t immediately see her.

Footsteps, so soft she almost missed them, start making their way down the alley towards her hiding spot.

Dont find me please dont find me I can’t run anymore please

The footsteps pause when they reached the dumpster. Rumi held her breath, hoping, praying that they’d leave her alone.

Whatever god cursed her with her birth marks must have chosen to give her a modicum of mercy, because the pair of footsteps slowly receded.

Rumi waits several seconds until she hears the door to the office shut. Letting out a sigh of relief, Rumi reached her hand out around the dumpster, starting to pull herself out.

Something impossibly strong grabs her wrist, yanking her harshly out from behind the dumpster. Pain flashes through her as shes slammed into the wall beside it, an arm at her throat pinning her there.

Rumi lets out a ragged gasp of pain, squeezing her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to be here, she wants to be back in the studio with Bobby, she wants to feel safe again.

The hand at her throat tightened harshly, making Rumi try to gasp as her eyes flew open, her hands jumping to grab at it.

“How are you affecting the Honmoon like that, demon?”

The girl holding her by her throat is wearing glasses, her cheeks flushed with the exertions of the chase. Under different circumstances, Rumi might’ve found her beautiful.

But right now?

Rumi’s never been so scared in her life.

“Answer me!” The girl shook her, her pink hair falling over her face from the aggressive movements.

Rumi tried to answer, but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs to answer. A dry, rasping sound left her throat as she clawed weakly at the hand around her throat.

“Mira! She can’t answer if you’re choking her!”

A second girl, standing by the door with her hand on its handle, speaks up then. (Ah, so they’d used it to trick her.)

The girl holding Rumi, Mira, glances over at the dark haired one. “Zoey, if I let up at all, it’ll probably scream for help.”

Shes right, but Rumi won’t say it.

“She won’t. Because if she does,” Zoey pulled out two knives from seemingly thin air, making Rumi’s eyes widen in surprise and terror. “Then we just send her back to Gwi-ma!”

Well. There goes the “scream for help” plan. It sounds like they’ll just kill her if she tries.

Mira considers the idea for a moment, her grip tightening slightly and making Rumi gasp for breath, before she let her grip relax somewhat.

Rumi dragged in greedy breaths of air, still holding onto the arm attached to her throat. Zoey’s standing next to Mira now, balancing the knife on the tip of her finger as they waits for Rumi to catch her breath.

“L-look, I don’t have much money, but I’ll give you everything I promise!” The two look stunned for a moment, so Rumi keeps going. “I-I won’t tell the police or the tabloids anything, just please-“

Shes cut off by Mira slamming a fist into the wall beside her head, making her flinch in fear.

Mira slowly draws her hand back, glaring at Rumi as she does so. “Drop the act, or I will break your arm. Understood?”

Rumi tries to figure out what on earth she means. She isn’t acting, shes terrified right now! These two maniacs followed her from the bus stop, then chased her for over an hour across Seoul without a single cop somehow seeing them, before slamming her into a wall and choking her!

“I’m not acting, I swear! I’ll give you whatever you want just-“

Mira grabs her arm then, pulling it down in an angle. Rumi barely has a moment to register the movement before Mira’s knee comes up and pain explodes across Rumi’s arm.

She would’ve dropped to the ground if not for the hand around her throat, the same one that’s keeping her from screaming.

The pain is blinding, and Rumi is too distracted by it to notice when the tears first started falling.

After a few minutes of hyperventilating, Rumi slowly came back to herself. The first thing she notices is that she’s not being held by her throat anymore. The second is that her forearm is currently bent 45 degrees in the wrong direction.

But the third, and possibly most important, is the glowing blade pointing at her chest.

Rumi flinches, leaning against the wall as far back as she can. The blade stays pointed at her chest, and it takes several seconds for her to slowly look up towards the metal attached to it, following it with her eyes to the hands that had moment ago broken her arm.

Mira’s standing there, her eyes narrowed. Rumi risks a glance to the side, spotting Zoey talking into her phone while turned away from her.

Not wanting to risk angering her captors, Rumi huddles as tightly as she can into a ball, keeping her eyes on the blade in front of her.

Zoey finishes the conversation a few moments later, ending the call with a muted click. She turns back around as she slips her phone into her pocket, walking back over to where Mira and Rumi are.

Zoey’s giving Rumi an odd look, like shes some kind of mystery meat in a meal shes reconsidering. It reminds Rumi too much of how people reacted when she tried to produce music the first time.

She’d let her patterns show then. Hadn’t hidden her face from the public. She’d learned her lesson after the third time someone told her to her face that she should cover up more.

“Celine’s bringing the car around now. Shes already almost here, apparently shes been following us with the phone trackers.”

Zoey’s voice yanks Rumi out of her thoughts, making her flinch in surprise. The sudden movement makes her arm move, making her hiss in pain and causing more tears to fall.

She doesn’t notice the blade lifting away from her, but she does become uncomfortably aware of how close Zoey is when she crouches right in front of Rumi. Rumi flinches again, this time biting back the hiss of pain.

Zoey looks almost… concerned, which is laughable considering what she and Mira have been doing to Rumi.

Nodding to herself, Zoey stands back up, turning to Mira behind her. “Yeah, clean break. It’s not a fake blood pack, like you thought. Whatever she is, she isnt just a demon.” Zoey turns back to look down at Rumi, the concern now mixed with something Rumi can’t quite identify.

The sound of breaks squeaking draws all three woman’s attentions to the alleyway entrance, where an unmarked van pulls to a stop. No one gets out, but Mira and Zoey nod to each other.

Zoey crouches next to Rumi, reaching towards her before pausing at the way Rumi flinches. “I’m sorry, but until we know you’re not dangerous you have to come with us.” Her hand closes on Rumi’s upper arm, lifting her with more strength then her small body led Rumi to assume she had.

Shit. Bobby had told her that if ever someone’s taking her to a secondary location, they’re probably going to try to kill her. Opening her mouth, Rumi starts screaming.

“HE-“

A cloth is shoved into her mouth, cutting her off and choking her slightly. Zoey’s hand is still on her arm, keeping her from pulling back far enough to get away or pull it out.

Another woman’s standing in the alleyway now, gray hair mixed with black the only sign of her advanced age.

“Mira, Zoey, get her in the car now. We can worry about the broken arm when we figure out what she is.”

She speaks sharply, leaving no room to argue or ask question’s. Rumi tries to spit out the cloth, but Mira’s hand covers her mouth as the two young women march her towards the car.

The pain in her arm flares, drawing more pained tears from her eyes as she fights. But shes outnumbered, overpowered, and exhausted.

Rumi doesnt know when she passed out from the pain, or for how long, but the next thing she’s aware of is something tight cutting into her good arm.

Slowly opening her eyes, Rumi looks about. It appears shes in some kind of office, left laying on the floor. Sitting up slowly, Rumi becomes uncomfortably aware of the weight on her arm, and a quick glance confirms her fears. A manacle and chain are on her arm, attached to the floor.

Theres no telling how far they are from help, or if anyone would help if they were close enough. She doesn’t even know whos kidnapped her, or why.

Her left arm is wrapped now, bandages covering the broken bone. It still hurts, but not quite as badly as it did before.

The door across from her clicked, drawing Rumi’s attention as she curled into a tight ball. She squeezes her eyes shut as it opens, not wanting to see whoever would be hurting her yet.

It takes several moments before Rumi can force herself to open her eyes. She flinched when she sees the familiar pink hair and glasses. The unfamiliar part is the look of guilt on her face, but Rumi doesn’t trust it for a second.

The two regard each other for several seconds, neither willing to break the silence first.

Finally, Mira shifts, looking away for a second before glancing back. “Can you tell me something?”

Rumi doesnt move, not trusting herself to tell this woman whatever it is she wants to hear. After a few moments of silence, Mira shrugs.

“I’ll ask, and if you can answer me this’ll go a lot easier for both of us.” She says it like it makes any more sense. It’d probably help more if she’d say what she wanted to know, but Rumi’s not gonna say something that’ll get anything else broken.

“Are you a demon?”

Rumi blinks. She had expected a lot of questions, like her banking info, numbers for celebrity’s she knows, or even once Bobby’s personal number.

But a demon? Rumi doesnt even want to guess what that’s about.

Mira is watching Rumi intently, clearly waiting for an answer. Without unfurling herself or soeaking, Rumi shakes her head once.

A clear no.

Mira rubs at her eyes, as if trying to clean away some kind of lie.

It appears she still sees the same thing, if the way her mouth slightly tightens is any indication.

Several more seconds of staring at each other, Mira turns, walking away and out the door.

It clangs shut behind her, making Rumi flinch.

Rumi slowly puts her good arm around her legs, pulling herself into a ball. The tears start falling despite her best efforts, the fear, adrenaline, and everything else catching up finally.

__

Mira can hear the sounds of crying even through the door. It’s like a knife, stabbing into her heart with each choked gasp.

She messed up. She messed up bad.

If Zoey’s theory’s is at all correct, then not only have they been hunting a woman for the last hour, not only had Mira broken her arm, she had also helped kidnap her.

Whatever this girl is, shes having the worst day of her life, and now Mira’s sure she doesn’t know what a demon is.

All Mira can do now is hope Celine has some kind of plan.