Fckin Queer

Hello and welcome to MICE WEEK 2026!! Running from August 23rd-29th.

Prompts for this year are: Day 1: Hair Day 2: Separation Day 3: Pregnancy Day 4: Thirdlight/Outside POV Day 5: Performance Day 6: Reunion Day 7: Free Day Secret Day 8: Literal Mice NSFW is allowed, but please follow Tumblr guidelines with art. That being said, nothing is stopping you from posting a censored version and a link. ;)

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Tag @mice-week or tag your post with #Mice Week 2026 and we'll reblog it!

Submissions are accepted for 2 weeks after Mice Week 2026 officially ends.

For anyone just arriving: Celine swapped places with her evil, abusive AU counterpart, and has been attempting to fix things for Rumi’s counterpart, Sarang. Her endgame plan is to get Huntrix through debut and then a murder-suicide of herself and her counterpart. While the girls have been bonding, Sarang just got to experience her first panic attack, and isn’t doing great. Also, the two universes are in contact via Derpy.

And part of the problem is that Zoey is the problem she is currently trying to solve. Sarang flinches from them and has PTSD flashbacks because they were the ones to hurt her, and now they're the only ones who can even try to help her because she still looks like a fucking demon and so therapy is completely and utterly out of the picture. Every resource Zoey has looked at emphasized getting the victim away from their abuser and Zoey can't do that because she is the abuser and Sarang was kept so ignorant of the world that there is no way she can survive without them anytime soon.

Obviously, they've stopped with their previous behavior and they can try and support Sarang as she learns how to be a person, and remind her that she's a person when she forgets. But there's only so much they can do when it's likely that their very presence feeds into her triggers.

...Her triggers. That's one way that Zoey can help. She can make a new notebook, keep track of what triggers Sarang (bullet point one: any sort of violence directed towards her by them, no matter how playful or harmless), record what works and what doesn't to bring her out of her flashbacks. Zoey can be scientific about it, can help give Sarang tools manage the consequences of the damage she herself caused.

The outline of a plan, something to do to help, makes Zoey feel like there is ground underneath her feet again. Makes her feel like she can be something beyond the monster that caused this damage in the first place.

Mira returns with the muzzle shortly. There is a desperate relief on Sarang's face as she reaches for it and Zoey is keenly aware that she has been deliberately conditioned into needing the damn thing to feel secure. It's the most obvious symbol of what has been done to her remaining - even after she's left the kennel, she still wears part of her cage.

The corner of Celine's mouth twitches downward as she watches Sarang buckle the muzzle on. "Sarang, your room is a safe space for you to rest and recover whenever you need it," she says. "You can always return here, for whatever reason, no matter what you are doing before. Likewise, you can always leave it whenever you wish - it is not and will never be a cage."

She rests her hands on Mira and Zoey's shoulders, and gently guides them out of the room. "Come, girls. Let's give her some space. Sarang, we'll be in the living room. Feel free to come join us, when you feel comfortable doing so."

She has gotten so many more soft things since everything changed, of course—hotel room blankets and new clothes and even the feeling of her own hair and skin, once Celine explained to her how to use the toiletries like a person, including the conditioner and lotion.

The fabric of Zoey’s turtle feels a little like one of the hotel blankets, the one that was not a duvet, and a little like the skin on Sarang’s cheeks, where the hair is very thin and soft, and nothing like either. She doesn’t have good words for it.

And Zoey just… gave it to her. Claws and all. And then left it with her.

Real turtles do not have fur. They are reptiles, with shells made of bone covered in keratin. Sarang knows this because Zoey has said it, because Zoey loves turtles.

Sarang holds it again, close to her chest, and presses her face into it. The stuffed animal squishes against her muzzle, safely away from her teeth.

Of course you are broken.

Sarang, ungrateful creature that she is, still feels awful, no matter that Celine promised they would fix her.

She feels restless and sick, and she doesn’t want to stay still but she doesn’t want to go anywhere, and definitely not to eat, where she will have to take her muzzle off.

She kicks at the sheets and then feels worse, hurrying to right then again before anyone sees, checking that no damage has been done.

“Everything is fine,” she tells the turtle. “I put the bed back how it should be.”

And that feels nice, so she keeps telling the turtle things.

This is how the dresser is. This is her window. This is her carpet—the fur-fabric is much thicker than his, but not nearly as soft, and no, she does not know the word, but she doesn’t think people say that carpets have fur.

When she has introduced the turtle to her whole room, she feels much better.

“I hope you will remember me when you go back to Zoey’s room,” she says, even though she knows the turtle will not, because it is not alive.

As Mira is processing all this (and if there is a part of her that's afraid of the demon lurking behind her unprotected back, there is also a much louder part of her that is preening that Sarang chose her to hide behind), the cause of the furor enters the room. The tiger plods gamely along, bird perched on its head.

"Oh, hi, Tiger-ssi!" Zoey bounds up to him and gently divests him of the plastic baggie containing the note from their alternate universe counterparts. Missive delivered, the tiger wanders over to a sunbeam and plops himself down.

As Zoey opens the letter there is a tink as something small slips out of it. Mira, who has repositioned herself so that she is still between Sarang and the tiger's new location in the room, can only get a clear view of it once Zoey has bent over and picked it up. It's a USB drive.

Zoey finishes opening the letter and scans it. "Okay, so. It looks like alternate-me and alternate Mira had a LOT to say about musical and fashion trends from now until 2026, so they've compiled all that information on the flash drive, along with samples of their songs and choreography."

"I don't think we should be copying their music," says Mira, uncomfortable with the idea.

"You won't be able to," says Celine. "Almost all of Huntrix's songs were written for Rumi's vocal range as the main vocalist. Also, since you'll be entering industry within a typical company you won't have much control over your lyrics and choreography, at least at first."

"Yeah, uh," Zoey says, "that's also what they said. Rumi being the main vocalist, I mean. They suggested that Sarang sing background vocals or harmonies or something.

"By the way, Sarang, they said that they love that name for you!"

Mira is aware, suddenly, of the heat of Sarang's body as she huddles up behind her, the gentle puffs of her breath on the exposed skin of Mira's shoulder, exposed as it is by her fashionable asymmetrically cut shirt. She feels as well as hears Sarang's pleased hum.

"For Rumi's medical information, she says she cannot get blood transfusions for some reason? She doesn't remember exactly why. Presumably it's demon related?"

"She has RH null blood," says Celine. "Or at least, that's what the doctors told me. She's also allergic to several chemicals commonly found in antiperspirants, which limits which brands she can use." She levels a look at Mira and then at Zoey. "If you have questions about Ru--Sarang's medical condition, you can ask me. I was the one taking her to the appointments."

Mira and Zoey exchange sheepish glances. Sarang, still curled up behind Mira, is spared the full weight of Celine's Gaze of Mild Disappointment.

"Also! We asked about Rumi's patterns fading," Zoey says, a bit rushed to move off the topic, and Celine freezes. "And she says they faded when she accepted them as a part of herself and stopped feeling ashamed? Um. Hm. She spends a whole paragraph talking about how demonhood is intrinsically tied to shame. I don't remember any of this any of the Hunter documents?"

It doesn't make much sense to Mira. Demons kill people, and none of the demons that Mira has ever fought so far has seemed particularly ashamed of that. Except Sarang, who hasn't killed anyone (except Miyeong maybe?) and definitely feels shame about being a demon. Half-demon. Whatever. But that means that the only good demon Mira has ever met is the one who is ashamed of it, which sounds like the exact opposite of what Rumi's talking about.

She looks over to Celine for guidance, but all the blood has drained from her face and she looks as if she has seen a ghost. Zoey notices as well, and as she opens her mouth to ask--something, Mira will never know--Celine's arm darts out lightning quick and grabs the letter. Zoey yelps and tries desperately to hang on to it, but Celine meets her eyes with a stare so intense and expression so distraught that Zoey lets go.

Instead, she finds her own name first:

It’s my fault. I did something to hurt Celine pretty badly a few months ago.

Her vision blurs, a breath choking in her throat.

The very idea that Rumi would blame herself—

Her stomach lurches. She bites her tongue, hard, just like she’s seventeen again, and it holds back the nausea.

She keeps looking, trying her best to ignore—

I did something to hurt Celine pretty badly a few months ago. I don’t know what kind of mental state she’s in, but if she’s letting you see that she’s hurting, then it’s not good. I definitely wouldn’t tell her she doesn’t care about you again.

(‘Definitely’ is underlined.)

They need to be free to be honest; Celine doesn’t know why Rumi would say such a thing—is Celine being manipulative even from another world?

Finally, she finds it.

Rumi’s careful handwriting describing how a demon is controlled by their shame—how their belief that they are wrong and bad only makes them worse, whether directly (a demon resigned to their selfishness will hurt others unrepentantly) or indirectly (I would’ve done anything to keep Mira and Zoey from finding out—and I did)—but by recognizing that they are, like anyone else, a collection of both good and bad and capable of choice (In my case, choosing to embrace the truth rather than hiding) they can be…

You can take possession of your own soul once more, Rumi writes.

Because Celine had stolen it from her for all those years, buried it away under all of the shame she taught.

“Celine?”

Something brushes against her, and Celine jumps backwards, arm jerking up to block an incoming blow.

She stares at Mira. At Sarang, who didn’t make it all the way over, huddled in the open space and eyeing the tiger so fearfully.

“You’re crying,” Mira says, quietly.

Thus far: college student Zoey, unwilling cultist Mira, and ancient hero Rumi were involved in a few summoning and a trip to hell before ending up with a minute to breathe at Rumi’s ancestral/shaman!Celine’s current home. Meanwhile, reporter Ryu Miyeong is attempting to untangle the mess left behind them.

She keeps her head tipped back, tracing them as she trails after Celine to the garbage cans kept around the back, shivering slightly. There's the Big Dipper, so the rest of Ursa Major should be there, and Ursa Minor-

"Careful!"

Zoey slams on her brakes moments before walking into a flowerbed and murdering some innocent carnations. She winces, shoulders pulling up sheepishly. Second time in as many minutes almost crashing into something in the shaman's house; that had to be a record even for her. She can hear her parents and teachers and, well, everyone back home now:

"Focus, Zoey."

"Pay attention, Zoey."

"Hey, space cadet! You coming back to Earth any time soon?"

She just couldn't get it right, could she? Blundering around the shaman's house, talking Rumi and Mira's ears off, being her overwhelming too-much self. That Gwi-Ma character was right; she was-

"Zoey."

She jumps at the feel of Celine's hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to the yard and moonlight.

"Sorry!" Zoey squeaks, hurriedly backing away from the flowerbed. "I'd- um, promise I'm not usually like this but, well, honesty's the best policy, right?"

Celine...doesn't roll her eyes. Or scold. Or...any of the usual reactions. Just offers a small smile. "Thank you for the honesty, Zoey, but it's alright. You've had a difficult couple of days."

"Don't I know it," Zoey huffs, falling into step alongside her. She kicks at a pebble. "Being a blood sacrifice, watching a guy get murdered, then that whole Gwi-Ma thing...honestly not sure which was the worst."

She purses her lips, mentally weighing- just for the fun of it (morbid though it is) those experiences against each other. They all, objectively, sucked, but...

She thinks back to that voice in her head, amplifying every horrible thought she's ever heard or had about herself, and shudders. Yup. We have a winner.

Celine hums, and when Zoey glances her way she's staring steadily- but not unkindly- at her, like she's reading her thoughts. "Gwi-Ma deals in lies. Whatever he said to you, it’s not true.”

Zoey chuckles, the sound falling flat in the dark. She wishes she could disagree, but, well. Being too much but still falling short? Being worthless? Not belonging anywhere? “I mean, it’s nothing I hadn’t heard before: being ‘too much’ is kinda the story of my life. And no offense, you've only known me for, like, a day."

"Perhaps." Celine motions her around a corner where the trash bin is waiting. “But it's a day where you went to great lengths to bring back Rumi-nim. And I've seen how you've been with Mira. They’re both lucky to have you.”

Zoey ducks her chin, trying and failing not to think about how Mira had looked at her from the doorway when she caught her rambling, or how Rumi had honest-to-God whimpered at her touch.

They really did seem like they…actually liked spending time with her. But it would change; it always did. In a couple of days they’d see what everyone else did. Probably sooner considering how she hadn’t been taking-

Oh, shit!

“Zoey?” Celine turned from the can as Zoey groaned and slapped a hand across her face. “Is something-“

“Fuck’s sake, Ryu, will you stop saying that?” Park snaps.

Miyeong spreads her hands apologetically, sitting up in the driver’s seat of the parked car. “Look, I had the cops hang up on me three times, okay? It’s a reality check.”

Park huffs, but seems to concede, flicking a dismissive hand.

They sit in silence for a moment. Miyeong wonders where Park’s mind is going—surely not the same places as her own, the list of question upon question about where the rest of Jaeho’s family was, what the weird symbols drawn around his body all meant, why any of this had happened.

“Is that what I’m here for?” Park asks at last. “Another set of eyes?”

Miyeong swallows. “Before I say this, I need to remind you that I’m not planning to write a story anymore. I’m just—all I want is to see who we can find. This is just the two of us and some really extenuating circumstances.”

“You want me to break patient privacy laws,” Park says, flatly.

Miyeong offers her a smile, unable to flinch from it but not quite stupid enough to say it out loud.

Park stares at her in silence for a long moment, and then gets out of the car to circle around it, pacing several furious laps. She stops, looking at the Kang house, and then takes another.

Through it all, Miyeong just… sits there. It’s not like there’s really anywhere else for Park to go, after all. It’s not like she really wants to be asking this of her, either.

Park opens the shotgun door again. She sits down. She says, “I swear to God if you’re recording this—“

“I’m not,” Miyeong says.

And then Park tells her about Zoey, who’d been drugged and restrained and whose address they could probably get from Billing, and the far stranger woman who had accompanied her and Mira.

Instead, Miyeong does what she can do without even turning on the car, and starts looking for the right Choi Zoey’s social media. Eventually, she finds the right woman, she thinks.

Just a kid, really, studying here in the city.

Since Park looks like the wrong end of a double-shift Miyeong decides to ignore the pointed remark. "Look." She taps back to Zoey's main page and pulls up some other posts, one after another. "She typically posts several times a day and leaves comments on other people's posts. But ever since the night in question..."

She pulls up the most recent post again. It shows Zoey slumped over a desk covered in books and pouting with the caption "Weekends in med school suck boooooooooo."

"Radio silence," Miyeong said, shaking her phone a little for emphasis.

Park snorts. "Recovering med student here: I have a theory."

Miyeong huffs. "Something tells me this Choi Zoey would at least post one update even if it was finals week."

Something like concern flickers across Park’s face before she settles back in her seat. “You obviously didn't go to med school."

Park, Miyeong decides as she turns the key in the ignition, was lucky she was such a tolerant and forgiving person. And desperately in need of a partner on this. "You said the woman she was with was strange. Elaborate?"

Park nods, not bothering to suppress a yawn. "Dressed like some Joseon LARPer; pretty accurate costume, except for the tattoos. Really committed to the bit, too. Acted like she didn't know what anything was. Heard a nurse say if they didn't know any better they'd thought she'd have never seen a lightbulb before."

Miyeong's ears perked.

Stories, she had learned over the years, were like halfway put-together puzzles; collections of images that seem related in some way or other but you just can't figure out how they fit together until you find that one piece that proves key and causes everything to click into place.

Something told her that this girl- this Joseon LARPer- was the key to cracking what happened to Zoey and the Kangs.

"Got anything else on her?" Miyeong asked as she turned onto the main road.

Park drums her fingers on the door. "She didn't talk much." The rhythm of her fingers slows, thoughtful, grave. "...One of the nurses said they think someone told her not to."

A cold, cold rivulet of dread trickled down Miyeong's spine. She wasn't on a crime beat, but she knew people who were, and she'd read their reports of the darkest corners of the city.

Hopefully this girl wasn't in danger...

---

Rumi could not remember the last time she felt so at peace.

True, her side and back still ached, and the floor she was camped out on was a far cry from a proper bed (which she would cede to Mira and her repaired-but-still-broken jaw). And...her heart was still heavy with thoughts of Jinu and how- how unworthy she was of all the kindness she's been shown in this new and confusing era.

But the room is filled with Zoey's snores and Mira's even breathing, sounds like the summer wind in the reeds.

And though she is disgusting and despicable for doing so, in the privacy of her mind she lets herself sink into them and travel back to the pond in the mountains behind her home, rimmed with singing reeds and a shade tree whose fluttering leaves had played accompaniment for her gayageum.

But she was a problem solver: promises that first thing in the morning they could see about getting her prescription transferred to a local pharmacy for pickup, coupled with a hot shower, had proven sufficiently calming. Now she was back in the bedroom with Mira and Rumi-nim, sleeping peacefully, and Celine could think.

Sitting heavily on her bed she shoved a hand through her hair, sighing deeply.

She should probably call her secretary in the morning, let him know she was taking an impromptu extended stay on Jeju and to not expect her in Seoul for the next few days. While it was, technically, Rumi-nim's house and Mira and Zoey, she was sure, were more than capable of helping her navigate the twenty-first century, she just...wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. That their needs were met. That there weren't any lingering vestiges of Gwi-Ma or other evils that needed a mudang's intervention.

She grimaced at that latter thought. Rumi-nim, preserve us from-

Completely unbidden, an image of Rumi-nim staring with incomprehension at undergarments popped into her head, derailing her habitual prayer.

Who would have thought the return of the great Rumi-nim would be so...complicated?

Not that she had regrets; it was an honor to be in her presence and she was so polite and thoughtful, how could one begrudge her anything? The same was true for Mira and Zoey.

And all three had been through so much...she just- wanted to make sure they were alright.

So, yes; not going back to Seoul for the foreseeable future. Just a quick trip into town for Zoey's meds. And some meal replacement shakes for Mira. And, now that she was thinking about it, she would need more groceries if she was going to be feeding four people (how much did half-demon deities eat?). Not to mention clothes for the girls, more painkillers, an extra roll of bandages-

But by the time they return from the Kang household, she’s hit her post-shift crash and become far too paranoid to leave Ryu alone—to be left alone—so there she sleeps.

It’s a nice couch, at least.

She wakes up and rolls over, nearly swinging her legs into Ryu’s head before she notices the ridiculous woman has fallen asleep sitting upright on the floor, back against the couch.

Which is… something.

Minji tries not to think too much of it as she slides around her.

She needs coffee before her brain will work. And preferably alcohol before she tries to force yesterday into focus.

Ryu’s bathroom isn’t hard to find, nor is her kitchen hard to navigate once Minji is done there. She not sure if Ryu will wake up, but she still gets out a second mug for coffee either way.

As her brain wakes up, she studies the army of sticky notes and printed off sources arranged surprisingly neatly on Ryu’s floor. There’s a section for some light stalking of Choi Zoey, another that appears to be a rough outline of the Kangs’ business dealings, and a third where it looks like Ryu was trying to figure out the weird chalk markings from the murder scene.

The last section is tasks and unanswered questions:

Who is Joseon LARPer?

Get transcript of 119 call—talk to paramedics/caller/witnesses.

Call Haneul about license plate of Kang car

Minji stares at the last one for a while, wondering exactly how many people Ryu has talked into crimes before her.

//

Rumi has always found physicians to be curious creatures, maddening in their ways—always so insistent on the relationship between the mind and the body, on the need to know things about her in order to treat her properly.

The physicain Zoey is dealing on the phone with appears to be maddening in another way entirely.

“Okay,” she says, “but I’m on Jeju. Which is why I’m trying to get my prescription filled out here. So I can’t really come in.”

From the look on her face, the fool does not suddenly understand.

Rumi considers offering to speak with him—or… not, she supposes, as men do not appear to dominate all such occupations any longer—before recalling that her name no longer carries any weight and her voice no longer knows the words to use.

She is useless.

“What if I made an appointment with a doctor here?” Zoey asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

And Rumi can do nothing.

What reason has she, if she is not to help those in need of help?

Even if she has spent so many years being told that she was wrong, was a creature of disorder and disharmony, was a fool to take on others’ private problems rather than dealing with her own house, Rumi has always had something she could do.

She looks down at her hands, the bindings weaving over and around them.

"So do you normally sleep like a horse or...?"

She should say something smart back, perhaps about how Park had drooled all over her very nice couch while she slept, but said drooler is passing her a cup of coffee and she needs it.

(She’d probably actually be crying if it weren’t for Rumi, who sat there making faces and keeping Zoey from losing it the whole time.)

“It, um, it’ll probably take a few hours to get filled, sorry, I know you have to drive a while to get into town and we have to go this morning to get stuff that Mira can eat—or drink, I guess—“

“Zoey,” Celine says.

Zoey stops, cringing.

“It’s fine,” Celine says. “I like the drive, I just don’t usually have an excuse to waste the gas. We could even just spend the day in town until it comes through. I’m sure we’ll have enough to do.”

She gestures to her list, inviting Zoey to take a look. Groceries, clothes that fit all of them, going to the town hall to find someone to bother about what to do with Rumi’s lack of documents.

The very idea makes Zoey’s stomach swirl with anxiety, but the whole list certainly does look like they could take their time.

“Oh,” she says.

Celine gives her a critical look. “Why don’t you go get Mira and Rumi for breakfast?”

So Zoey goes.

She finds them back in the bedroom they’d all shared the night before—and, no, Zoey is not thinking about having cuddled with Mira all night for the second night in a row—curiously looking at something on Mira’s phone.

“Zoey!” Rumi’s face lights up when she sees her. (That’ll stop soon.) “Were you aware that raised bed frames, such as this one, have mattresses that do not require being moved regularly, as they prevent the growth of mold by their very construction?”

Zoey shakes her head, and does not think about how she’d slept on a mattress on the floor for months after she and her mom moved back to Korea right before she wants to eat food.

“I didn’t know either,” Mira adds, wiggling her phone a little. The bruises on her face are wretchedly ugly—(your fault)—but they can’t spoil the slight tilt of her lips or the pleased look in her eyes.

When she enters the kitchen on the heels of a very eager and apparently hungry Rumi, bowls of dakjuk and fried rice and kimchi jjigae are waiting, all of which smell absolutely delicious and none of which Mira can eat.

Fuck.

Celine bows to Rumi when she sees them enter. "I know it's not much-"

'MUCH?!?' Mira's brain screeches.

"-But I hope you will find something to your liking?"

Rumi, the paragon of politeness, bows back. "It very much is. I thank you for your hospitality, mudang-nim." She smiles as she rises, an ear-to-ear thing that shows every tooth in her head.

It's funny, at least, the way Rumi's little display throws Celine, like she still can't believe (a) the great Rumi-nim is thanking her and (b) she smiles like that.

Still doesn't makeup for having to take a pass on five-star breakfast, though.

She watches with a watering mouth and no small amount of envy as Rumi sits and starts piling food on her plate, Zoey following suit, albeit with less gusto, mind clearly elsewhere (she'd have to ask her about that later).

Lucky ducks.

"Mira?"

She turns to find Celine holding out a glass containing something thick and creamy-looking.

"We can buy some proper breakfast food for you at the store today, but seeing how I didn't have any fruit I reasoned there was no harm in a milkshake. Is that alright?"

"Aw, lucky!" Zoey said around a mouthful of rice while Rumi paused in her eating to blink confusedly (why would you shake milk?).

Mira didn't answer right away, just stared at Celine holding out the milkshake, a concerned smile about her lips.

How old had she been...eight? Seven? She couldn't remember, just that she'd wanted something easy to chew because her tooth was loose and asked Eomma for a milkshake.

"There's yogurt in the fridge-"

"But I don't like-"

"Then you can be hungry."

Her heart twisted like a cloth being wrung out and weeping with each wrenching turn.

"You...didn't have to do that," she said at last.

Celine's smile didn't drop. "Mira, you're my guest; I'm not going to let you go hungry. And if you're going to eat, it may as well be something you'll like. Besides, it really was no trouble."

She holds it out again and Mira takes it, coldness seeping through her fingertips, and sips it.

It's vanilla (she's honestly not surprised that's the flavor Celine had handy), not a flavor she'd pick on her own. But good. Sweet. Familiar. Comfortable.

Just what her younger self wanted.

A cry from the table behind her interrupts her thoughts before she can cry again.

"What is wrong, Zoey?" Rumi's half standing in her chair and staring worriedly at Zoey, collapsed facedown on the table. "Is the food not to your tastes?"

Celine's already halfway over.

Zoey moans and shakes her head. "I just remembered: I need to kill all my credit cards since those asshole cultists stole them!"

Mira winced. Ouch. Zoey was too good a person to be going through all this.

(she really was from a shit family).

Rumi tilts her head, processing that, then straightens. "If it grieves you, I shall exterminate these 'credit cards' in your stead; I promise you they shall be dispatched cleanly."

(In theory, she knows she’ll have to see a doctor at least for getting them off, and that they should probably go back to the hospital sometime sooner.

But she also knows that there are a lot of dead bodies that she doesn’t want to think about, and a lot of cops who probably have questions regarding them.)

They all look a bit ridiculous in the car, dressed in Celine’s clothes, increasingly oversized as one works from her down to Zoey.

It’s probably some kind of apology that gets Zoey given the aux on the long drive down, but she uses it wisely, starting Rumi with something American that only loosely resembles rock as Mira knows it, and working her way across time and space to something more like the song they patched together to call her back.

“You’re sure you’re pre-med and not music history?” Mira asks.

Zoey ducks her head with an embarrassed shrug. “Music’s not really a career, so… no—not that I’ll have one after this. Do you think ‘I got kidnapped’ will get me any extensions?”

Mira shrugs back. After her brother’s disappointment of a major, her time at university was very carefully controlled. She took as many classes as they would give her, summer and winter sessions included, and she never missed a single deadline.

“I have internet up at the hanok,” Celine says, as if this weren’t a given. Yikes. “If you’d like to use my computer for anything, please, you only need to ask.”

Zoey nods, thanking her in a way that Mira thinks indicated she might’ve wanted failing to be taken out of her hands—not that it’s any of her business, really.

Zoey has a life to get back to. Mira shouldn’t get… possessive over her. She shouldn’t make it weird.

No one’s going to want to stay with Mira.

“Can you tell me more about education now?” Rumi asks, soft, curious, breaking Mira from her self-pity.

“The first girls’ schools…” Celine pauses and frowns. “Has anyone explained the fall of the Joseon Dynasty to you yet?”

She had known- she had known things had happened while she was sealed away. It was obvious. Inevitable. She was sitting in a cart that moved with no horse filled with music that did not come from an instrument. Just because she was removed from the world did not mean it stopped turning. And she had seen all the marvels and wonders and music of this new age.

(and banes; after watching Zoey kill her credit cards- an endeavor on par with her call with the physician- she was not sure why so many people had these 'cellphones,' seeing how using them seemed to cause a great deal of frustration)

And it's not like the world she knew was without its blemishes; the freedoms her father gave her are now commonplace, it seems. Zoey, at least, is a scholar, and neither her nor Mira have mentioned impending marriages or male relatives that they need to send word about their whereabouts to.

That is good.

(because it is just and right, not because she wants them for herself; that is wrong and lecherous and demonic and wrong she is horrible she is disgusting she is-)

But Celine's words, gentle and delicate as dew, still strike her, hailstones and winter sleet and the fury of a monsoon all at once.

'Annexation.' 'Occupation.' Their country was not their own.

'Enforced westernization.' 'Repression.' Their culture was beaten from them like the life from a gasping nag.

'War.' 'War.' 'War.' It never stops, it seems, the hatred and the violence. Why must it never stop?

And- and it seems fine now. Zoey is a scholar. Mira's jaw will heal from the physician's touch. Celine kept her apple trees; they will bear fruit in the fall.

There are still stars, somewhere.

But as the countryside rolls past the car- so impossibly fast it seems to blur like a rain-washed painting before her eyes- lush and green and contented, all she can see are ravages.

Strife.

Sadness.

Pain.

Fertile ground for Gwi-Ma to sow and tend and harvest.

Her country...her homeland...her people...they had needed her.

And she hadn't been there, in body or spirit. Because she had failed.

"Rumi?" Zoey's hand is on her knee; she can feel Mira's eyes on her. "Do you want some more music? Or-or we can talk? Talking might be good."

Rumi does her best to smile, but it feels weak. Limp as wet paper. "I thank you, Zoey, but..."

But what right has a failure to such pleasure ?

"...I am tired."

"Oh, okay, yeah, sure!" Zoey smiles in a way that just makes Rumi feel worse as she retreats to her part of the car. "Gotta rest up for our big shopping excursion- wait." She winces. "Um, I kinda don't have any money, though..."

Mira grunts. "Same. I mean, I have money just- not here."

Rumi is, of course, still far more pleasant about it than Mira has ever been. She likes natural fabrics and loose fits (makes sense, given what she grew up with) and is fascinated by the colors modern dyes can achieve.

Mira is generally a picky bitch, but given that she’s working on Celine’s dime in a tiny town with a very limited selection, she focuses on finding things that will fit her frame in the clearance sections.

(On the other hand, Celine does fully offer to drive them to the next town to buy fabric if nothing is “suitable”, so…)

(On the other, other hand, people—other customers, the cashiers, whoever—keep staring. At her. And her face. And she knows it’s greedy but part of her really wants to ask if they could maybe buy some concealer.)

It’s probably for the best that they’re in the middle of nowhere, because Mira thinks a supermarket might just push Rumi over the edge—the market they end up at is a lot more traditional, different vendors set up in their stalls.

Still, she stares in wonderment nonetheless.

Some ajumma calls Celine over, berating her for not telling them she was coming back into town, and Celine goes, politely apologizing and promising she’s only been back a day, where else would she go to get her vegetables? Mira takes the opportunity.

Now, while Rumi won’t feel any need to perform for Celine’s idea of her, she sidles over. “Have things really changed that much?”

Rumi turns to her, startled, and for a moment, her expression is wrenched with grief. But then she tilts her head, and it disappears.

“I figured that maybe safety standards had improved, but we aren’t even really introducing you to any foreign food yet,” Mira says, tucking that away, reminding herself not to push too hard.

“Actually, potatoes are native to the Americas!” Zoey says cheerfully, pointing. “And I bet we’ll see some tomatoes too.”

Rumi smiles, and for the first time since the car, it almost makes her look lighter.

“I am not familiar, but I am not familiar with much.” (And here, she starts to blush, which is just—it’s fucking unfair to Mira’s bisexual self that she does that and then Zoey looks at her with those starry eyes and both of them are just. Unfair.) “I very rarely went, before. Most everyone seemed to be of the opinion that it wasn’t suitable, and I always had other duties to fulfill.”

Mira snorts, understanding perfectly.

Not when Minji was literally the only person in Korea willing to take the murder-slash-disappearance of the Kangs and the strange girl who may-or-may-not have been raised in their basement seriously.

The steamroller approach was, if not always perfect, very useful for keeping people from asking exactly what outlet Miyeong was with. Or, today, noticing such vague words as ‘associate’ and ‘case’.

The man took a step back, startled, and bowed back automatically. “Nice to meet you, I’m Jeong Bobby… but you probably knew that already.”

Miyeong decided not to let him in on the fact that she didn’t. “Could we have a minute of your time, Jeong Bobby-ssi?”

“It’s no trouble if not!” Minji added, looking utterly mortified. She really had to get rid of those scruples if they were going to get anywhere with this.

“I, uh, sure!” Bobby said, looking, if Miyeong judged this right, slightly flattered. Which was much better than disturbed. “What exactly is this about?”

“An incident you were involved in the other night,” Miyeong said. “Three young women? The hospital?”

(She did not say Kang Mira’s name. She wasn’t going to invoke that jinx until she had to.)

“Oh!” His eyes went wide. “Are they okay?”

Miyeong couldn’t stop herself from exchanging a look with Minji at that, barely biting back a full-body wince.

“…Well,” she said at last, “that’s the issue. We don’t know. Why don’t we sit down?”

So they slipped into the shop—Minji grumpily took Miyeong’s card off her hands so she could get at least something to eat, and Miyeong guided Bobby to an open table.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked, the moment they sat down, face pale with distress, and so she gave him a neatly trimmed story and did her best to calm him down, and then he started talking.

Their LARPer was apparently named Rumi, and Zoey had, in fact, told her not to talk to anyone at the hospital. Given that Bobby had assumed she was having some kind of mental health crisis before she showed up carrying both Zoey and Mira in her arms, he’d assumed it was to prevent anyone with psych admissions powers from doing the same.

Miyeong did her best not to look inappropriately triumphant when he mentioned imprisonment by a cult.

At least, according to him, she and Zoey had last left the hospital of their own volition.

Given that they’d been looking for Mira, and someone had… had brutally bashed a man’s skull in in Mira’s living room, while Rumi could physically carry multiple people at once…

But Miyeong’s job wasn’t to draw conclusions.

An ever-smaller part of her was left clinging to the hope that any of these kids were safe as she clicked off the voice recorder and thanked Jeong Bobby for his time.

When she finishes, Minji is frozen, pastry suspended halfway to her gaping mouth. Miyeong sits back, giving her a moment to process everything, especially the bit about the cult she was totally going to dangle over Minji's head once the dust settled.

Slowly, the pastry is lowered. Minji blinks. "What. The. Fuck."

"I know," Miyeong nods, pulling out a notebook. "I was thinking-"

"She carried both of them?!?"

"Yup."

"Both of them?!?"

Clearly, they were going to be stuck on that fact for a while. "Yes, both of them. Choi Zoey and Kang Mira. At the same time."

"She didn't look like she could carry both of them!"

Miyeong glanced up at Minji as she dug around for a pen. It suddenly occurred to her she'd failed to ask a basic question about the LARP- Rumi. "How did she look? Apart from the cosplay?"

Minji raked a hand through her hair, making it look more disheveled than it already did (shoot she'd forgotten about offering that brush). "Not like someone who could carry two grown women! Just, like, a normal twenty-something in her rebel phase."

"Rebel?" This was the first she was hearing about this...

"Dyed hair. Face tattoos. God!" Slumping back in her seat, Minji pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. "This doesn't make sense!"

"It makes a little," Miyeong hazarded, jotting down some notes. "She's strong, she was looking for Kang Mira, she was told to keep quiet and was having some kind of mental health crisis and- well, you saw the body in the Kang's house..." She trails off, looking at Minji meaningfully.

A good reporter does not draw conclusions; they let the facts speak for themselves. If those facts happen to shout a particular conclusion that is not the reporter's fault.

Neither is the fact that Minji, for all her shortcomings as an investigative reporter, is quick on the uptake.

When she brings up getting Choi Zoey's address again, Minji doesn't argue, just nods and leads the way to the hospital.

If there was any lingering doubt that these girls- wherever they were- needed help, it was rapidly dissipating. If her and Minji were confused by the chain of events, she could only imagine the girls...

***

"Wait..." Brow creased in utter confusion, Rumi considered the plump red 'tomato' in her hand. "So is it a fruit or a vegetable?"

"Vegetable," Mira said without missing a beat, casting a wry glance at Zoey.

"We've been over this...only if you go by the 1893 case of Nix v. Hedden!" Zoey groaned, throwing her head back. "Botanically, they are fruits!"

"Then why are they in vegetable soup?" Mira countered wickedly.

"AUGH!!!"

From where she was completing her purchase Celine glanced bemusedly at the girls. She should probably step in and be a tiebreaker, but...

Mira was visibly enjoying herself, Zoey was fighting a smile, and Rumi-nim...Rumi-nim looked happy.

It set something at ease in Celine to see her like that, especially after the car ride.

Miyeong and Minji do their best to tell her less.

It’s a very unpleasant conversation.

Their next port of call is one that Miyeong generally avoids—a friend of a friend of Yeonggi’s, one who she’d gotten in a little too deep with back when things were… bad.

“Wait in the car,” she tells Minji. “Just—trust me, yeah? I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Don’t say shit like that,” Minji hisses, slapping her shoulder. “Jesus, now I’ll be thinking you’re getting murdered.”

Miyeong shrugs back, pretending like she isn’t terrified, like she doesn’t wish this guy didn’t know she existed. “Maybe extorted. Or arrested!”

Minji flips her off.

So. She gets out of the car. Takes a train. Calls a number she wishes she’d deleted.

Hanjae is entirely polite, very happy to help. He doesn’t ask why she’d want to know where the car is or was over the past few days. He promises to call her back.

She sits on a bench in a park and waits.

He calls her back, maybe an hour later. The last place it went in the city was a shaman’s office. Two young women entered, and they left with the mudang with them.

The last place he has so far is a ferry in Mokpo, to Jeju Island.

“Thank you,” she says. “You don’t need to keep looking.”

“Are you certain?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says.

“Would you mind,” he says, pleasant and entirely polite, “if I sent you a camera?”

“No,” she says. She would, but she also knows his prices. There will be a camera, and a location, public but… not quite innocuous. Right across the street from a bank. Above the door of a gay club. Inside an ambulance bay, once. Not enough to argue, just enough to crawl under her skin and stay there.

Hanjae finishes his pleasantries.

Miyeong putters around the park a little longer. Goes to buy a tea to soothe her stomach, barely thinks the better of it.

Takes the train back.

“We’re going to Mokpo,” she says.

“Well, that isn’t ominous at all,” Minji says.

It's rare and taboo for a gumiho to have this bond with a Human. Mira has done it with two humans. This incarnation is Rumi. Rumi was a demon hunter raised by her aunt. (Demon hunting is different no honmoon or singing) she died but has unfinished business so she stays on earth as a ghost. Celine her aunt knows Rumi won't pass on and seeks Mira's help to be able to see her. Mira was going to refuse until she sees Rumi. Her soulmate returned. But Mira is too late again. Surely, the least she can do is help Celine say her goodbyes and help her move on. Rumi doesn't move on. Refuses to day what she is staying here for but hangs out with Mira.

The rest of her family in korea had always seemed stiff and colorless in comparison. It felt doubly so now. The deceased, had pictures of her through the years smiling bright and full of life. Zoey recognized her own too wide smile that crinkled eyes in her halmeoni's face. The living looked slightly vacant. Like the spark was gone from them. Which would makes sense for a funeral. Except zoeybfelt like that is how they always seemed.

Zoey's eyes caught on a pop of color. A dark pink towering above the rest. The sea of black hair and dulled faces parted before this woman. While her family members scowled in their black suits and dresses at this woman as shebpassed by, Zoey was enraptured. She wore a traditional undyed hanbok. She gave the impression of a woman from out of time. Her demeanor was straight backed and imperious but not stiff like her family. Grace echoed with every step and she was coming to Zoey. She was looking directly at her. Zoey felt panic course through her. Like a predator had locked in on her and it was too late to flee.

The woman with sharp fox like features stopped in front of her and bowed. Her voice came out deep and gravelly. " Zoey-nim, it's an honor to meet you in person. Chae-Yeong always lit up when she spoke of you." The woman rose from the bow and proffered a small envelope. Floral patterns and her Halmeoni's careful writing made it clear to Zoey who it was from. Zoey reached out and didn't notice the tears falling from her eyes until the woman offered a handkerchief as well. "I'm Mira. She was very important to me as well. I'm sorry for your loss. If you ever need anything or wish to speak about her I have a shop nearby. Yeonglihan Yeou, it's a tea and herb shop."

Zoey grasped the other woman's hand. "Thank you. I miss her so much. Having one last letter from her means the world." Zoey went to let go, but the woman stayed grasping her hand. She looked a little shell shocked as she looked at Zoey's and her hands intertwined and then scanned Zoey's face as if she was really seeing her for the first time. A mask of neutrality slowly slipped back as sheblet go of Zoey.

Celine also justifies how she was trained by saying she became the best weapon the honmoon has produced, and that it allowed her to carry on by herself when SLS feel apart.

Rumi and the girls have always wondered why Celine's mentors never helped train them. They were, as far as they were aware, still alive and still relatively young (even if 50-60 seemed ancient to them) and surely they knew how busy Celine was?

It's not until after the Idol Awards, when the girls have come to visit Celine (finally ready to have that conversation) when they get the sense of what growing up with the mentors must have been like when they hear all three of them yelling at Celine and Celine meekly saying,

Rumi doesn't remember ever meeting Celine's old teachers beyond the grainy footages of the dusty casette tapes of broadcasted performances Celine kept in the TV console.

Celine barely talks about them beyond how they found her in her old Church, how they helped her meet her eomma and Hyeonjeong-sunbaenim, how they trained them to become the top idols of their generations and it's because of their training that Celine managed to survive on her own.

But now they're here, their hair still a sea of charcoal with lines of silvers running through, wearing the most gaudy of outfits, and they were...short, shorter than even Zoey, but Celine looks almost ready to fold from their gazes.

"You let them break it." The middle one hissed.

"Yun-seonsaengnim," Celine steadied her voice, but the tremor behind it betrays her. "It was not my intention nor was it their doing. Gwima sent a group of jeoseung saja to deceive everyone in order to destroy the girls and the Honmoon. But they were able to fix it and change it —"

"Fix it?" The second one spits,"To fix something would imply something was broken in the first place. The Honmoon had been strong for centuries before you were even born. Even in the midst of war and poverty, we continued to maintain the Honmoon and protect the world from Gwima and yet, not only had your girls broken the Honmoon, but they let thousands of souls be eaten."

"I—"

The third one stepped forward, "Where were you Celine?"

"I—"

Celine's shoulders slumped further down that they already were, "I was here...in Jeju."

"And what did you do?"

"Nothing. I did nothing."

Yun-seonsaengnim scoffs, "That's always the issue with you, isn't it? You always do nothing. You did nothing from stopping those girls from destroying the Honmoon, you did nothing to stop Hyeonjeong from leaving, you did nothing to stop Miyeong from conceiving that 뒤기—"

Celine locks eyes with Rumi. 

There's fear in her eyes -- actual fear as er gaze flickers across the patterns covering Rumi's body. Something Rumi hasn't seen from Celine since that awful night Rumi had fallen to her knees before her, the honmoon unraveling all around them. 

(It had been Mira who convinced Rumi that she should wear the off-the-shoulder crop top that she loved -- before her spreading patterns made it impractical. 

"You don't think this is too... in your face?" Rumi had asked, drifting towards the section of her closet dedicated to beige hoodie. 

"You used to wear that all the time," Mira said, looking at the different colors of the same crop top with a note of distain. 

"Yeah, before --" 

"Yes, yes, before your patterns," Mira said as she gently tugged the hoodie from Rumi's fingers. "This is supoosed to be about building a new relationship with Celine, right?" 

"But what if it upsets her?"

Mira shrugged. 

"Then she's upset," she said. "And she'll just have to deal with that. Besides, I know you and I know Celine. If you show up hiding your patterns, the two of you will talk around them for the next decade.") 

No, please stay at the hotel, Mira and Zoey, I don't need help speaking to my own not-mother. 

Rumi wishes she could kick herself. 

Just as the shock wears off and they're about to run after Rumi, Bobby explains over their ear pieces what happened. He apologises for not thinking about Rumi's reaction before hand, but the whole SE team is a mess and his phone hasn't stopped going off. Same for Rumi's in the dressing room. He begs the girls to wrap it up as best as possible.

They do. They manage to apologize in Rumi's and the whole Huntr/x team's behalf —without saying what's exactly happening— and disappear before the fans get a chance to react.

The few angry comments and posts about the show being cut short are soon drowned by the news of Celine's hospitalization and SE official statement. People start sharing the video soon after and it goes viral.

(She wants them to shut up. To go away. That she doesn't know anymore than they do so can they leave her the fuck alone -- )

She doesn't even realize she's left Zoey and Mira at the stadium until the car hit the fifteenth thousand red light and the only sound is her frustrated breathing and the driver saying, "almost there, Rumi-nim."

"You know, most people survive their first heart attack," Zoey would say because Zoey knew so many different things and she would be trying to keep Rumi calm.

"Celine's stubborn, Rumi," Mira would say. "She's probably eating a jello cup and ready to give us an earful about not staying to finish the concert. Just you watch."

"She's not ready for visitors."

"I'm her daughter!"

"Ma'am, no visitors."

If Zoey or Mira were here they could have distracted her, told her jokes and stories, gotten some coffee or food or they could have started a plan for how to sneak into Celine's room, but they aren't and Rumi isn't ready to be arrested (yet) so she's forced to sit on the uncomfortable chairs and wait.

It feels like it's been an eternity.

Rumi has spent an eternity stewing in her own thoughts and when the doctor brings them to a private room in the ICU, for a moment her feet freeze at the treshold and she thinks, what if she's dead, before Zoey tugs on her arm and pulls her inside the sterile hospital room.

There's a bed surrounded by beeping machines.

Rumi doesn't look at it.

She can't.

What if she's dead --

"I know it can be a shock," the doctor is saying. "But your mother is responding well to medication and the stent. She's awake if you'd like to speak to her."

Numbly, Rumi nods.

The hand resting on the stark, white sheets is pale. Delicate, porcelain blue veins run under her skin -- so thin and weak it reminded Rumi of rice paper.

When did Celine's wrist get that thin? Rumi wonders.

She doesn't know if she's allowed to grasp Celine's hand but no one stops her from gripping onto Celine's fingers. The weakness of Celine's grasp as her fingers curl around Rumi's makes Rumi's eyes sting.

"I -- we came as soon as we could," Rumi says quietly.

Her voice is so small. Celine’s voice should never sound that small. The woman who had commanded board rooms and trained the to be hunters—who carried the world on her back for years—should not sound this small. Suddenly the gray stripe in her hair is looking more and more clear.

“I thought you had a concert.”

“We left it.”

“Hmm.”

“How….How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. Everything’s fine. I just overdid it.” She’s too weak to do so now but Rumi know that if Celine had more strength this is the moment she would turn away and never talk about the incident again. She’d assure Rumi she was fine and continue on as if nothing had happened. In a hospital bed, hooked up to machine, with the words heart attack patient now permanently sitting on some form, she can’t.

"Breathe, Rumi-ya." Celine's voice is barely more than a breathy whisper; Rumi has no idea how she heard it over the sobs storming from her chest. "You're going to make yourself sick."

Rumi both can and can't believe what she's hearing. Celine really just had a heart attack and is more concerned about Rumi puking on the sheets.

If she wasn't so damn distraught she'd start laughing hysterically.

Still, Celine asked her to breathe, and fifteen minutes ago she was afraid she'd never ask her anything again, so when Mira's hand appears on her back and she starts coaching her through slowly breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth Rumi follows along until she's no longer gasping for air.

Celine's thumb drags across her knuckles, like she always did when Rumi did something to her satisfaction. "Better?"

No.

Celine's thumb was shaking, and felt like a skeletal twig in winter.

She can feel Celine's eyes on her, noting her silence, the stiffness in her shoulders, the way her gaze is fixed on the far wall, and the way she doesn't answer. "Rumi-ya, look at me."

The words are a knife, plunging straight into her gut and twisting so her organs were shredded into bloody and dripping ribbons.

How she had screamed those words at Celine...how she had damned her for being unable to...how she had stewed over the memory on so many nights since then...

She had told herself, during those nights, that if the tables were turned and Celine was the one making the plea, she would have stared her straight in the face and said no matter how she looked or what she was she'd love her.

Now she was staring in a mirror, horrified at the reflection, each mechanical beep and hum and whirr of the hospital machinery in the background a condemnation.

"Look at me," her mother in all but name asked.

And Rumi couldn't.

***

Celine remembered that night, those words. They haunted her, and if she was the kind of person to defer to doctors (which she apparently had to become; wonderful), she'd say they were a large part of what landed her here, in a hospital bed with waspish blanket and nurses who were thrusting their noses in her business and her daughter ward daughter sobbing in her lap.

"Look at me," echoing in the night.

"Look at me," darkening birdsong in the day.

"Look at me!" scalding her soul like boiling water, like sun in high summer, like the fires of Hell.

But she had welcomed the pain; it was her penance. For as much as they hurt her she feared they had hurt Rumi more to say.

Now she knew.

"Look at me, Rumi-ya," she asks beneath the sighs of the oxygen tank, the words quivering and taut, the rope that keeps the dangling climber from plummeting.

Rumi stares at the wall.

Her heart giving out for real, somehow, hurt less.

(and she deserves this, she deserves this, she deserves this, but…

She needs her baby to look at her.

But Rumi can’t.

Not from some kind of revenge stance or a desire to see Celine suffer but because her eyes refuse to allow Celine to look like that. To look weak. To look so quiet and helpless and small. It’s selfish, Rumi knows that, but she can’t help it.

“Rumi?”

“…..I can’t.”

The monitors are beeping the second the words leave Rumi’s mouth.

“Eomma?”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

"She's supoosed to avoid excitement," a harried nurse says sharply after the equipment stops screaming and the doctors are confident Celine isn't about to die in the immediate future. "If you girls can't follow simple instructions, then you should leave!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Rumi gasps out between her sobs.

Mira's arms tighten around her shoulders. A warm hand -- Zoey's -- rests on the small of her back.

"Yes, thank you, Nurse-nim," Mira says stiffly.

The nurse walks away.

Only then do Mira's arms loosen.

"Don't listen to her, okay?" Mira whispers into Rumi's hair. "We all know that was -- "

"It wasn't your fault," Zoey says.

She's smearing what's left of her makeup onto Mira's shirt as she shakes her head.

But it was.

This was her fault. This was all her fault.

If she had just been able to --

(Look at me! She had screamed.)

If she hadn't said --

(Why can't you look at me!)

If she had just --

He makes sure to remind them only one person should be in the room with Celine at a time, and to avoid any overwhelming conversations. He explains she's lightly sedated at the moment and out of danger, but he needs whoever stays to keep an eye on her and stop her if she tries to move.

Everyone stays put, waiting for Rumi to follow the doctor back to the room, but she doesn't move, barely holding her sobs back.

Mira shares a knowing glance with Zoey and Bobby.

"Rumi," she says, placing a comforting hand on her back. She needs Rumi to stop crying and listen. "Rumi, it's okay. She's okay."

"Yeah. Totally. Celine's tough," Zoey joins in, squeezing Rumi's arm. "She'll rest better knowing you're okay and staying close."

"Yeah, for a hunter she's a big softie about a particular demon," Mira teases.

"Demon?" Bobby asks, confused

"Celine would tell us all these stories about Rumi being a little demon as a child! You know, a little brat... It's a thing between them" Zoey says with a nervous laugh.

Moving away from them, Rumi sits in one of the plastic chairs with a sigh. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," Mira insists. "There's no place you'd rather be than by her side."

"And when she did see me, she nearly had another attack. I'm just...I'm not what she needs right now."

"Rumi, Celine really wants to see you---"

"I'm not seeing her!"

"How can you say that?" Zoey demanded, "She's your mother. You have to go see her."

Tears were already streaming down Rumi's face before anyone could move, "No! I don't. If you two want to go see her so bad then you do it, but I will not be responsible for another parents death! I won't!" The lead singer moved towards the door and out towards the waiting room without letting anyone get in another word, leaving Bobby, Mira and Zoey to stand silently in the hallway.

The doors on the patients rooms all had little windows on them so doctors and nurses could give patients a quick check while passing by. For now, Celine's window was just used for Mira, Zoey and Bobby to see Celine silently staring out the big window and waiting for a very specific someone to come see her.

Bobby remembered the first time he'd seen Celine not as an idol, but Kang-daepyonim, CEO of Sunlight Entertainment. With ramrod posture and a stare sharper than the ironed crease in her slacks, she was dressing down someone from marketing who felt 'Zoey' was too 'American' a name for an idol.

She was terrifying. Powerful. A force that would not be reckoned with, unless you wanted your career to die.

The woman before him wasn't any of those things. It was like seeing a husk that resembled Celine rather than the woman he'd been working under all these years, even as she slowly became 'Celine' when it was just the two of them rather than 'Kang-daepyonim.'

He could understand why Rumi hadn't been able to look at her, or wanted to come see her. And he'd never dream of forcing her to do something she really didn't want to.

Still, when Celine slowly turned to see who was coming through the door, eyes sunken and sadder than he'd ever thought possible, he lowkey wanted to drag her back in here by her braid.

Celine blinked dazedly, looking somehow smaller and paler. "Where's Rumi?"

"Outside with Mira and Zoey," Bobby tried to smile reassuringly. "Just getting some air." (he'd never lied to her before, and he wasn't about to start; this...was technically true)

A knife in his stomach would have hurt less than the look she gave him.

"She's mad at me, isn't she?" As he got closer he saw her eyes were swimming, the sedative making her emotional as well as groggy.

"No." Bobby shook his head firmly as he pulled up a chair. "No, Celine, she isn't." If anything, Rumi was mad at herself, but he didn't say that, since he was fairly sure that fell under the 'overwhelming' umbrella. "She's...had a long night." (also not a lie). Then, added: "She was really worried about you. She really does love you. A lot."

Celine didn't say anything to that, just limply shook her head as she laid back against the pillows and shut her eyes, letting the tears fall.

Rumi ignored the resquest and kept scrolling, her eyes barely registering the comments passing by as she scrolled down once again.

"Stop it," Mira repeated, taking the phone from Rumi's hand. "Bobby didn't bring this for you to try and drown in work."

"I wasn't working. I just wanted to see what people were—"

"Sounds a lot like work to me."

After handing her friend a bottle of water, Zoey sat on Rumi's other side. The three were perched on the short fence outside. It wasn't ideal, any passer-by could easily get a quick picture, and before the company could do anything about it, a wave of reporters would be blocking every exit. But mentioning it would be a lot like working, exactly what Mira was trying to avoid. There was a Kang already in hospital for overworking herself — a useless attempt to quiet whatever her heart was telling her — they didn't need another.

"It's normal to be afraid," Zoey said, hoping to stop the argument that was only starting. Rumi didn't look at her, but she knew she was listening. "I can't say I know exactly what you're going through. But I know I was terrified the time I got a call saying my dad was in hospital. Being on the other side of the world only made it worse. There wasn't anything I wanted more than to be close to him, but it was physically impossible. Even if I got on a plane that instant I knew I would be late if anything happened."

"Zoey, I—"

"No, no. Let me finish... I know this is different. But the truth is you're simply avoiding it because you're afraid. Afraid of looking at Celine and realizing she's getting older. Afraid of all the time wasted in these uncomfortable silences between the two of you... Afraid of hurting her when you're only trying to be there for her."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Mira asked, hoping Rumi saw the irony. For months Celine and Rumi had been dancing around each other, both afraid of the same thing.

Rumi sighed. She knew it was true. But she couldn't risk it. "What if I'm the reason her heart stops?"

"Would you rather it stopped because the two of you are finally trying to bridge the distance, or because she thinks you don't want to see her anymore?

Mira hated when her tongue was too fast and she didn't get to filter her words, but before she got to apologize or explain herself better, Rumi disappeared into the building. With a sigh, she stood up and offered Zoey her hand to help her stand as well.

“I saw her.”

“Hmmm?” Celine had been so quiet that Bobby almost forgot she was in the room. She’d always had a talent for that, since her idol days. If she wanted to be quiet, a person would never know she was nearby and listening to everything.

“Mimi. I saw her.”

Miyeong.

The sedative talking. Definitely the sedatives, “Oh?”

“It wasn’t for long. Just a second but I saw her and she-she looked sad. She looked like I had betrayed her all over again and I couldn’t—I tried to reach out to her and explain but the doctors pulled me back before I could. She hates me.” The tears are in Celine’s eyes again before Bobby can react.

“She doesn’t hate you—“

“She should! I failed her and I failed her daughter. The last thing she asked of me was to take care of Rumi, to make sure she was safe and loved, and I completely blew it.”

“You weren’t ready to be a mom. No one is a perfect parent.”

“A decent parent doesn’t make their child think they have to—“ Celine froze on the bed, her mouth clamping shut, “Nevermind.”

When she was younger she'd hide next to the one in the cafeteria of Sunlight Entertainment. It wasn't a very good hiding spot; it didn't really hide her, but no one bothered her there, which was all she wanted when the people at the office kept cooing over how she looked just like her mother (which made her mad, because she was trying to look like Celine!).

Hopefully Mira and Zoey would remember when Celine told them that story (against her will, she might add) and leave her be if they found her, she...needed to think.

Leaning against the metal, feeling it bleeding cool into her cheek, she replayed Zoey's words.

'Afraid.' Was she afraid?

She considered, imagined a life without Celine, felt the tears threaten when she did.

Yes, yes she was. But fear could be a good thing, right? It kept you safe. Hers was keeping Celine safe, because...because Rumi wasn't good for her, not anymore. Not since the night at the tree...

A pang of guilt pierced her chest, and Rumi shut her eyes against it. That night's probably what did it. The first domino in the heart-attack chain. She'd held out her sword for Celine and killed her without even striking a blow.

She buried her face in her knees. She should just go. Mira and Zoey and Bobby could explain it to Celine, that Rumi just- wasn't good for her. That she was better off without her. That-

"Ru?"

She looked up in time to see Mira and Zoey folding themselves to sit on the floor next to her vending machine, concern in their eyes. She braced herself for more attempts to get her to do something that wasn't in anyone's best interest, when Zoey spoke.

"Do you need anything, unnie?"

"Yeah," Rumi scoffed. "A do-over at life. Apparently I'm gonna be what kills Celine."

Mira reached out and laid a hand on her knee. "Okay, one; no, you're not. I didn't mean it like that, and I'm sorry it came out that way. You've had a shit night and that was...not the best way to put it. But we can talk about that later, when you're not sitting on the floor next to a vending machine, 'kay?"

Rumi sniffed, nodded. "Kay."

Zoey smiled softly. "Great! So, what do you need to feel a bit more like yourself right now? A snack? A walk? Something else?"

Honestly, there was only one thing that came to mind.

Eomma.

The eomma who stood tall and proud in the boardroom and sparring ring, who tended flowerbeds and Mi-yeong's grave, who showed her how to be an idol, a hunter, a woman. The one who had made mistakes, taught her shame, but who had also taught her to unapologetically be herself in every other way.

Not the one frail and sick in a hospital bed, who could die any moment, because of her.

But that was still what came out.

@frozenartscapes , saw your tags on @waterfire1848 's post and have you seen the fic about the woman who made a deal with I think the fae and was asked to choose between a changling child and her human child? And she picked both?

That, but with Rumi.

Both girls grow up looking kinda similar but one definitely develops more demon traits and that SHOULD be the first clue that Sarang is the changling. But nope! Celine anxieties (and mostly love for the kid but convinces herself for a while its anxiety) herself into thinking maybe the demons who kidnapped thought rumi was more human then she was. So nothing happens. The girls grow up and argue as siblings do. They have a semi decent childhood all things considered.

Then rumi is chosen by the honmoon and, this really should clue Celine in. But she once again convinces herself there is no way too be certain. And this time she knows shes being oblivious out of love but will be dammed if she admits it.

When she was younger, she used to ask Celine, "what if -- what if I were the fake?"

And Celine says, "Don't ask questions like that, Sarang."

For the sake of Celine, Sarang stops asking about it. But she never stops wondering what the answer would have been if Celine had stopped, for a moment, to actually consider it.

Would Celine have said that it wouldn't have mattered? That she had raised her two girls for the last twelve years and she would be damned if she only started raising one of them now? Sarang wants to believe that that's what Celine would have said.

Rumi figured out a while ago that she's the fake. She's absolutely convinced that she is.

Despite how her teeth came in straight and regimented instead of curling grotesquely into tusks. Despite how she only has the faintest band of patterns around her arm. Despite how she never once spent a day in Celine's bed, cuddled up to her while she worked remote, a cool, slightly bloodied cloth on the horns budding painfully from her scalp.

Even as she watches Sarang glamour herself into a neater, cleaner, more human-looking version of herself, Rumi knows.

She's the demon.

How can she not be?

Celine always said Gwi-Ma's forces were, despite being duller than a well-honed blade, crafty, like the foxes that tried to raid the henhouse. They wouldn't be so foolish as to plant a changeling in a nursery crib that looked like anything less than a full-blooded human. A whisper of patterns easily concealed and hair a color that almost looked a natural hue in dim light was just the right amount of expected demon-ness to ascribe to a halfling.

They never would have guessed to give Mi-yeong's child tusks.

She's also certain Celine figured it out ages ago, when Sarang's demon traits manifested in all their patterned violence and she remained a passable human-looking thing. But she never did anything about it, for some reason.

Probably busy with the label. And finding two more Hunters.

Rumi knows she should say something; tell her she knows the truth. Offer her the sword the Honmoon has given to her as a mistake (the demons really did do a good job with her, to fool the Honmoon).

But she doesn't.

Because...she likes this life. Likes Celine. Sarang too, when she's not touching her stuff. And- and her new Hunters. Maybe...maybe that's why the Honmoon chose her, so she can seal it and be rewarded with permission to stay.

Because it would have to reward her if she served it thus, right? Let her remain with the humans even though there's nothing human about her?

Right.

Now I can't help but imagine third and miyeong getting constant tugs from the honmoon whenever celine gets seriously hurt or sick or injured (because accidents happen. humans are unpredictable. celine spent years if not in poverty then somewhere borderline, she wouldn't have been safe. and that's without taking into account how appetizing the lone hunter and the half demon would be to gwi-ma and his minions)

third gets good at ignoring it (she gets good at ignoring a lot of things, from guilt and self hatred, to absences louder than words, to the spaces still left empty for someone who will never return).

miyeong meanwhile lives on a constant edge, fingers twitching whenever the honmoon shudders, too brief for her to even pinpoint a direction. (she thinks she would have helped if she knew where to go. carves that belief into her heart. truth is, all it would have taken was a tug of the soulbond for her to find celine)

And then, one day, the honmoon shakes. like, full on reverberates down the spiritual richter scale. third and miyeong look at each other - they're probably mid event, or doing an interview - and after a long moment they just nod. abandon everything and go.

when they arrive, all they see is a sacked flower shop, with red and purple splotches of blood marring the walls and floor.

Oooh awful. Awful awful awful (amazing blend everyone)

//

The dark purple blood, almost indistinguishable from the human red until they got up close and saw the unnatural shimmer, told them that it was a demon that had attacked the shop though what kind of demon could bleed this much and also get injured by a civilian, they didn't know.

Seoyi seems just as surprised as Celine herself, turning to Miyeong with wide eyes, but—a hand brushes something in the movement and Celine hisses.

She watches them both flinch.

“Just help,” Seoyi adds, in that same voice, loud and deliberate and meant to carry through the door. “No weapons.”

Celine can hear Rumi and Mira behind her, moving. She offers her arms up in surrender, and still-familiar hands move her off of the door. Even not doing any of the work, her vision goes first black and then white with pain.

Her blood is all over everything.

The door clicks. She stiffens—a mistake, but impossible to avoid—and Mira shoves the kit out before it shuts again. Protecting Rumi, like she expected her hand to be grabbed and her to be yanked out.

“Is—that child, are they hurt?” Seoyi asks instead, voice blank in a way that meant she was grappling at turmoil but set in her course of action. Even if it was Rumi, Celine realizes, she’d help her.

Even if. She hates them so much right now.

“No,” she grunts. Miyeong pokes her hand. She wiggles her fingers and toes in answer. All four limbs still with feeling and motion.

Celine needs to be awake and aware, when there are Hunters around, but it’s hard. She’s in so much pain, and their hands are so gentle, and this situation is—

“Stay awake,” Miyeong says.

“Ungrateful,” Seoyi huffs, stitching up her side.

“Are you kidding me?” It comes out too bitter, too honest. Rumi and Mira are listening.

“We’re trying not to damage your guts, dummy,” Seoyi huffs when Celine grumbles over Mi easing the horn from where it’s jabbed in her side rather than just yanking out the damn thing.

The whole time she can feel her grip on consciousness slipping, but sheer desperation keeps the encroaching nothingness at bay. She can’t recall his hear her girls listening from behind thr door, and while Mi and Seoyi promised no weapons she refuses to extend them that level of trust.

How did they expect her to, when they’d done nothing to earn it back?

(this- seeking her out when the Honmoon cried and stitching her back together- doesn’t count; this is basic human decency)

(Though…it does feel nice, being tended by hands she knows rather than a stranger’s, and whose touches bring her back to a time a corner of her soul misses…)

“Here. Help me get her inside.”

Mi’s voice, calm though it is, shrieks against Celine’s ears, yanking her back from the half-drowse she’d stumbled into. “No.” She winces as she tries to shrug them off.

Seoyi arches a brow. “What, you want to recuperate in the hall? On the floor?”

“Yes.” Then, hearing how that sounded, she clarified: “I can get inside myself.”

Mi purses her lips, the way she always did when she detected a lie, and before she can protest Celine gathers her legs under her to prove them both wrong.

White-hot pain rips through her side as she moves to stand, spots blotting out far too much of the hall for her liking, and she can’t stop the cry that escapes her lips.

Mi and Seoyi’s arms are lowering her back to the floor before she can further prove them right; she can just hear the sounds of gasps from behind the door.

She cannot let them into the apartment.

“You have a couch, right?” Mi’s asking. “How about we just dump you there?”

“Get you situated with some painkillers and frozen peas before we go?” Seoyi offers with that crooked grin that’s never changed, doing as poor a job as ever at hiding her worry.

Celine’s going to say ‘no.’ She has to say ‘no.’

When Mira had come to live with them, eomma had sat them both down and said, "if anything happens, the two of you need to look out for each other, okay?"

And they had both nodded but tonight, when the big demon had torn front door off the shop and dozens of little demons had rushed in, the two of them hadn't been able to do anything except run upstairs, hold each other, and hide while eomma got hurt.

When Rumi cracked open the door and looked outside, she thought the woman staring at her looked a lot less scary than the demons.

"Is eomma hurt bad?" Rumi asked. She was too scared to look down and see what was making her toes wet.

The woman glanced down towards eomma quickly before she looked back up at Rumi. She had the look on her face that adults got sometimes when they wanted to lie for good reasons.

"Eomma is fine," eomma said, weakly.

"The fuck you are." Rumi heard an unfamiliar voice grumble.

"Language," eomma and the woman said. The woman glared briefly off to the side where Rumi couldn't see.

"Rumi-ya, why don't you and Mira-ya go to your room, okay?" Eomma said. She sounded even weaker. "This is adult business."

Mira clutched Rumi's arm.

Seoyi tried not to think about how much easier it made this. She didn’t know which of them is the baby demon baby, so she didn’t have to know.

"Are you joking?" Seoyi asked as she checked Celine over again to make sure the stitches were holding and that the gauze was still tightly bound over the worst of her injuries. "Do you actually want us to dump you back in that hall so you can bleed to death? You do remember that the honmoon can only heal the living, right?"

"I don't want you two here at all," Celine grumbled.

Miyeong and Seoyi did an admirable job pretending that the words didn't feel like a hundred arrows shooting them through the chest. Unfortunately, the three of them still knew each other a little too well because Celine winced -- this time, not because of any physical pain -- before a quick, "sorry" slipped from her.

And what were they supposed to say to that?

They were saved from having to talk by the two girls returning carrying, between the two of them, what looked like every blanket, pillow, and towel in the apartment.

The girls stared at the adults staring back at them.

"We panicked," Purple-hair says, giving them a nervous, toothy grin.

Her incisors looked bigger than normal and she was missing a few teeth in the front. Seoyi supposed that even demon babies had to go through baby teeth. The thought made her want to laugh in its ordinariness.

Miyeong was wrapping gauze around Celine's arm over a wound that was barely larger than a scratch.

"That's okay," Celine says, giving the girls a weak but genuine smile. "It's always better to overprepare, right?"

"Right," the girls said.

They nod so seriously that Miyeong has to duck her head and bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. Or crying. The stinging in her throat and eyes made it hard to tell what emotion wanted to spill from her.

The girls slide next to Celine. Black-hair tucks a pillow underneath Celine's head while her -- the demon -- drapes a thick, gray blanket over Celine's body, carefully tucking her in before shyly pulling out an old, well-loved teddy bear out from the bundle of blankets and sitting it next to the pillow.

Miyeong didn't think about the tightness suddenly wrapping itself around her chest. She certainly didn't feel raw and bloody as if something was ripping open all the old wounds inside of her that had long scabbed over.

Seoyi flinches. Then pretends she cannot see the way Celine is side-eyeing at her.

"She'll be fine," Celine tells the children, "this all just looks like it was very scary and she needed a moment."

"It was scary" says the girl with black hair.

The demon other kid nods, "it was, but i told you Eomma would win! She promised not to let anyone hurt us!"

"So since we're all about being prepared for anything and everything here, I'm gonna assume you have ice." She smiles at her and Mira, in a wobbly way that makes it hard to believe she's an idol. "Either of you want to point me to the kitchen?"

Mira escorts her, eyes narrowed suspiciously; Rumi suspects it has less to do with making sure the freezer door closes properly (they learned the hard way that the seal was going bad) and more about making sure she doesn't try to hide a weapon in her sleeves or something. Mira's good like that.

But...somehow she didn't think it was necessary...

"Rumi-ya, don't sit on the arm of the couch."

Rumi glances at Eomma as she obediently slides to the cushion, curling up near her feet. "The Hunters have been nice," she whispers, keeping her voice pitched low enough it wouldn't carry to the kitchen.

Eomma grunts.

"It was good they came, huh?" Because hearing Eomma's ragged breaths once the demons were gone, smelling the blood lying thick on the air, seeing how pale and still she was when they finally opened the door...it made her feel all trembly, like a wind was buffeting her insides. And while her and Mira had gotten pretty good at using the emergency kit, it had been nice to have someone else around to do the scary, stomach-twisting work of stitching Eomma up.

Another grunt.

Eomma clearly doesn't want questions, but Rumi can't help one more "...Why did they come?"

This time Eomma doesn't answer, and lets it hang until the hunter and Mira return, armed with ice packs and bottles of painkillers the hunter is threatening to "shove down Eomma's damn throat herself" if she doesn't take some right now.

Still, Rumi wonders.

---

Down below, Mi starts picking through the debris littering the flower shop floor, shards of glass clinking timidly into a trash bag. She barely sees what she's doing, though; thoughts stuck on the purple-haired girl upstairs, tucking a teddy bear next to a woman she lovingly called 'Eomma.'

Nothing demonish about her (hair notwithstanding); as sweet and loving a little girl as any mother could ask for.

And she....she had actually suggested...

She's careless with the next shard, and her own blood drips to splash on Celine's.

Selene's final tour ends in South Korea and taking this opportunity (and because it's been a while) Mira asks Selene to hang out with them. When Selene asks who will come, Mira tells her it's the girls and the Duo.

Selene has to stopped herself from declining immediately hearing it. She cant back out now, not when Mira has been excited.