Kpdh Side Blog

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.

She wonders if it's just part of the experience of parenting, of family. Zoey had hurt her mother (and her father, though he didn't discuss it; had just been relieved to hand her off to Celine). Mira's parents had hurt her. Their Celine wasn't family to Sarang but had abused her horribly. The Celine in front of them had tried to parent the half-demon and Rumi had apparently hurt her quite badly, for Celine to be crying.

(A part of Zoey wants to know what Rumi even did, to shake their stoic mentor so severely. Another part does not want to sit through an adult detailing all the ways their child has hurt them, she has had too much of that already, she cringes at the very thought of Celine doing that to her, to Rumi. (But then again, their Celine has done so so so much worse to Sarang. Orders of magnitude worse. So.))

But Celine doesn't seem like she's about to start explaining how Rumi ruined her life. She's taking deep, even, deliberate breaths and blinking rapidly. (And a shameful part of Zoey is glad. They can just. Move on! Move past it. Maybe stop taking letters from their alternate selves because they somehow always manage to make things worse!)

As Mira pulls the letter out of Celine's loose grip and starts furiously speed-reading it, Sarang cautiously approaches Celine. She holds out Logger-nim with both of her hands.

"That's very sweet of you, nae sarang," says Celine, only slightly wetly, "but Zoey gave him to you."

"I talked to him, and it made me feel better," Sarang says, and Zoey is so so glad that her idea - her stab in the dark at providing emotional comfort - worked. "I don't need him anymore. You could, um, maybe you can try, uh. I just thought..."

Zoey can't see Sarang's face from this angle, just the back of her head, but presumably something in her expression drives Celine to reach out and take Logger-nim. She looks awkward, standing there holding him like she doesn't know what to do with him, and it'd almost be funny except for the fact that she was just crying and that's just inherently distressing.

"What the hell did Rumi do!?" exclaims Mira, and Sarang flinches. "Not you," Mira hurriedly clarifies, "the other world's Rumi."

"Nothing," says Celine. "She did nothing but her best."

(And Zoey is glad, so glad that Celine isn't jumping to lay the blame on her daughter but also--)

"Rumi certainly seems to think that she hurt you somehow," says Mira, and Sarang whips her head around to stare at her.

Celine shakes her head. "I don't know why she's blaming herself for that night, but what happened between us was not her fault."

"What did happen?" presses Mira.

A hint of steel enters Celine's expression. "It's not relevant to you girls. There's no risk of it happening here."

Mira opens her mouth, but stops when Sarang takes a deep breath.

And then it’s gone, morphing into pain, into sympathy, into careful weight as she sets the turtle aside and gently puts her hands on Sarang’s biceps, running her thumbs over the skin there soothingly in spite of the tears still stuck on her face.

“Nae sarang, it’s more complicated than that,” she says.

(Mira… does not like the sound of any of this. It’s got her on edge, like she’s a dog and someone just forced their hand the wrong way through her fur. Something is wrong between Celine and the other Rumi, and Celine is lying to them about it. Again.)

“People hurt each other all the time,” Celine says. “Even when they don’t mean to. I hurt you.”

Sarang scowls. “N—“

“Just this morning,” Celine continues, steamrolling right over her, giving her a knowing, maternal look, and Mira doesn’t like it.

“So?” she asks.

Celine’s gaze jerks to her.

“So, what, you can’t be trusted around Sarang and you have to go back?” She throws out a hand, gesturing to Zoey, the words suddenly flowing out of her, unstoppable. “What happened to living with the consequences of our actions? Why do you get held to a different standard? If you don’t want to be around us, then—“

“That is not what I mean,” Celine snaps.

“Then just say it!” Mira snarls, and suddenly she realizes that she’s on the edge of shouting and her heart it beating out of her chest and she can’t—

She takes a ragged breath. Her eyes feel too wide. Stupid, she always does this, fucking—she always loses control of herself.

Sarang is shaking. And Zoey—Zoey hates it when people start yelling, because her mom—

Stupid.

“Some people don’t change,” Celine says, quiet, broken. “Some things you don’t fix. I have failed enough, as a guardian and… and as a Hunter, to know that sometimes, the answer is to cut a corruption out at the root.”

Oh.

Right.

Of course.

Of course Celine’s just been waiting to go back to her own world. Of course. Mira could never—she doesn’t deserve a family. A future.

"No!" Celine's eyes are wide and her face twists with the force of her denial, and Sarang is relieved, she is, she knew it, but still. It was the same face, saying the same words, about corruption and cutting it out of the world, and Sarang knows that corruption means -- it means the taint inside of her, it's what Gwi Ma does to humans, it's what makes demons.

"No, Sarang, no, she's--" Mira angrily shoves her hair out of her face. "She's talking about us."

"She's gonna cut you!?"

"No!!" Celine nearly shouts, and Sarang cringes. It's reflex -- if Master was raising her voice then things were bad -- and Celine is not Master but they sound the same. Celine reaches an arm out towards her but then pulls it back and shrinks away. "Mira, this is not about you."

"What's this about then?" Mira spits. "You're talking about... about 'corruption' and we're the ones here with Sarang's blood on our hands. We're part of why she can't even play dodgeball, and you have your versions of us to go back to, better--"

"The responsibility for your actions is mine," interrupts Celine. "Everything that happened in this house is my fault. You were children, trusting the guidance of your elder. The responsibility does not lie with you, but with me."

"What are you talking about!? Your fault!? You showed up two weeks ago! You're not our seonsaengnim."

There is a touch on Sarang's upper arm and she flinches. Zoey pulls back her hand for a moment, and then grabs Sarang's hand and pulls her gently but insistently out of the room. Once they are in the hall, Zoey slides the door to the living room closed and shoots Sarang a wan smile.

"I thought you might wanna get out of there."

"Celine's not going to cut Mira, is she?" Sarang worries. She can still here them, through the walls.

Zoey shakes her head. "No. Celine never--" she cuts off, cringes. "Not with us. Our Celine never hurt us outside of sparring, and I don't think this Celine would either."

In that case... "I don't understand," Sarang says. "Who is she going to cut?"

“She and I are far closer than you’d like to think,” Celine answers, with a wavering sort of steel.

She recoils. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

(Somewhere, distantly, she notes that Zoey and Sarang have left the room. That’s good. That awful, because Mira has scared them off, just like she always does.)

Celine looks at her flatly. “What do you think it means?”

And Mira—fuck, Mira hates that. She’s been the idiot kept in the dark too many fucking times. “Just tell me!”

“She asked me to kill her!” Celine all but shouts. “Rumi got on her knees and told me to kill her like the demon she was because she knew—“And she stops. Blinks against the tears, looking far smaller than she should. “—she knew that I had never been able to love her right. That I have never loved anyone right.”

Mira stares.

Celine shakes, turning away from her, hiding her face, fingertips sliding over the new note. In a whisper, she adds, “I took her soul.”

Finally, stupidly, slowly, Mira asks, “But… Rumi’s… alive?”

Celine nods, sniffling.

Which means… “So you didn’t try to kill her.”

“No!”

Mira looks at Celine. Celine looks at Mira. Mira is pretty sure that Celine has not just figured out that this automatically makes her less shitty than their Celine, at least, and probably Mira herself too.

“That automatically makes you less shitty than our Celine,” she points out.

“Language,” Celine says, which means she’s probably coming back to herself.

“That automatically makes you less bad than our Celine,” Mira corrects.

Zoey doesn't know if she can do it - just thinking about it makes her nauseous - but maybe, if it were to protect Sarang...

It'd just be like killing a demon, right??? Zoey's killed tons of those, and according to Rumi they are people after all, so it shouldn't be that different?

Oh GOD. Fuck!!! If demons are people, Zoey has killed so many people.

But like. If she hadn't killed them, they would have killed other people! Non-demon people! And fed them to Gwi-Ma, who is definitely evil! So it was the right thing to do, still. Objectively. Right?

Right???

A light brush against her upper arm jerks Zoey out of her rumination. she refocuses on the world around her to see Sarang staring at her with concern visible in her big brown eyes (only slightly shot through with gold right now).

"Sorry!" Zoey summons a smile. "Sorry! What were we talking about?" Her brain helpfully supplies a transcript, and she remembers where her train of thought had been heading before it derailed. "Right! Cutting! I, uh. I think Celine's gonna cut herself."

It makes horrible sense. During that conversation several days ago, Celine had mentioned that she planned on killing their Celine herself if she could. Which is fucked up!!! But during the conversation just now, this Celine hadn't sounded like she was talking about their Celine. She'd sounded like she was talking about herself.

And this Celine's mind had immediately leapt to murder when discussing how to deal with her alternate self. She didn't seem to spend much time thinking about any other possible solutions. It makes sense. She's a Hunter. Her skillset is singing, dancing, and killing. And they certainly can't sing their way into making their Celine treat Sarang well, so...

Their Celine used to talk about Sarang like that, calling her 'corrupted', and held no regard for her life - it was an unspoken assumption that the golden Honmoon would end her. Which means that if she's using that same sort of language to talk about herself, and she only has those tools at hand...

And then she bolts, straight back into the room from which she’d just been led, diving straight for Celine before her training and sense can catch up with her.

She wraps her arms around her, tight, doing her very best to mimic the chains that Master had put her in so many times.

Celine’s wrists twist, and its—Sarang’s rudimentary grip is broken before she can even think.

“I—Sarang, what—?” Celine blinks at her, her hold on Sarang’s wrists loosening.

(Sarang’s good sense catches up: there is no world where she could’ve held a Hunter. She is lucky that this didn’t result in a lot of pain.)

(But it did not, because Celine is kind.)

“You can’t die,” Sarang says, desperately. “You can leave if you want, you don’t have to stay her with me, it’s okay, but you can’t kill yourself, please, you can’t.”

Celine blinks again.

“You’re good,” Sarang tries, even if her words are clumsy and dumb and not worth much at all. “You can’t kill yourself.”

“I… Sarang…” Celine says.

“Also, I’m pretty sure you can’t argue with her about you being less bad than our Celine,” Mira says, which Sarang hadn’t even known was a question.

She nods fervently, half-burying herself in Celine’s chest in the process—it might be smarter to get away before Celine’s patience runs out, but she would rather press her luck and make sure Celine’s alive, right now.

“You know, since you never met her and Sarang had to deal with her for her whole life.”

She nods some more.

Mira looked up at her. "So?" They were told this already, by their Celine. It was why they trained, practiced, rehearsed. They would become a group, together, be as one, a family.

"So," Celine continued, her voice stilling, her hand resting on Sarang. "it means that as hunters you have to protect the Honmoon, and not let it weaken or be damaged. You need absolute faith and trust in each other. You have to work together. You three are a team and need to protect each other so that nothing can separate you or break you apart. Even me."

"But that wasn't you." Mira said, keeping her voice even, not wanting to scare Sarang.

Sarang, who also says. "You are nice. You won't hurt me." She did hurt, but it never lasted. And she apologized. Unlike the other one, who she didn't want back.

"The Honmoon is all that matters." was all that Celine said. This was what she told her hunters, the hunters she hurt, these were the same but not, and her girls did it. She maybe better than the Celine that they knew, but that did not make her the good Celine. She made Rumi think it was okay to ask-

"Girls. May I please go to my room?" she asked, calm, even.

"Yes." Zoey just wanted this to stop. This conversation. This day. to go back to the practice room where they played and danced and ate fruit.

"No." Mira knew this would fix nothing, and after what she was talking about, this woman was not leaving her sight. If Celine could not take charge, she could.

"No." Sarang was always allowed to say no. If she explained why. But she didn't know how. Her mind was running like when she ran with her no don't stop can't stop, her chest was tight the ball hurt and then she fell but she was okay. Celine's voice was even, calm, like the other one when she wanted you to answer a question. When she expected you to know the answer. When she needed to get ready for her punishment. But this was different, she was different, this Celine was good. How can Sarang put it into words? If she can't say why it's a no then she won't be read to tonight. She wanted that, even though she got it when she took the note, and that was bad bad bad.

"You cannot go because, we need you." Sarang says. It is all she can think.

"You are...our mentor. and manager." Zoey reinforces. Her voice is quiet, and head down, but her voice was still there.

"I'm working on the new manager, someone I hope is good to you and I know will be an excellent manager."

"No." Sarang said again. But she had words. "We want you."

Who could ever want me after all of the hurt that I have caused?

---

And Sarang is not Rumi, but—

(Can she keep herself from treating her that way for ten minutes?)

All of this stumbles out as “I need to lie down.”

“Yeah, well, we’re still not gonna leave you alone,” Mira says, and Zoey says something about water, and the next thing she knows, Celine is in her bedroom and—

—and Sarang is kneeling on the floor.

“No, you don’t need to do that, please, you shouldn’t—“ she says, and all of this is clumsy and her head hurts and Celine had a plan, it was ugly but it was graceful and it would’ve worked.

And now Sarang is climbing onto Celine’s bed and looking at her with big, wet eyes. She doesn’t understand that she wouldn’t really miss Celine if she were gone, that it would be better for her.

Celine should explain. That she meant that Sarang didn’t have to stay, and never had to kneel. The way she’d explained so much better those first nights after coming to this world, because Sarang might not have ever been in her bed when Celine woke, but she’d come to understand that the second bed was for her.

But Celine climbs on, giving Sarang plenty of space, and thanks Zoey for the water.

Zoey looks like she’s about to cry too. Even Mira, when Celine looks at her in the doorway. Celine should fix the situation. She should tell them not to worry about her. To go do something else.

Her words seem to have abandoned her. It’s been a long time since she was in such a state.

Nonetheless, like she can read Celine’s mind, Mira’s face hardens a bit and she walks over to settle herself on the chest at the foot of Celine’s bed.

It’s not—

They’re only children. It’s not right for them to be looking at her with such worry.

Apologetic, and disgusted that all she can do is something so small, Celine reaches out a hand across the bed.

Learning about the history of paper planes and how they’re actually older than planes, people used to call them paper darts! She thinks this term is clearly superior

Vaccination arc where she’s delighted by how accessible medical care is now and by how good they are at medicine now but gets really concerned and confused when someone mentions how the vaccination regime is mandatory—surely that can’t be right? Everyone is different, how could one apply the same treatment to all people and expect good results?

Getting really offended the one time Zoey compares her to a knight bc she is not a dog of the state thank you very much and totally missing that it’s because she’s a gallant and romantic hero

Being used to going to sleep after dark (bc it was expensive as shit and very hard to provide any light) and getting up around sunrise (you’ve got shit to do!!!), and thus will conk out on Mira and Zoey and force them into a more reasonable sleep schedule

Also verrrry confused by the way time is measured with such precision and the fact that the start/end of a day is now midnight. Like it’s cool and all but what the fuck do you mean you changed how time works

Rumi learning about the style of plate metal armor usually used to portray medieval knights and just being like “oh i could shell them like abalone” totally disgusted at the comparison still

The girls getting to go to the beach and Zoey and Mira teaching Rumi how to swim freestyle bc it didn’t start becoming widely known until the 1800s and she’s so impressed with how efficient it is

Once she stops losing her mind over modern swimwear, anyway

(Both in the fun way and the “sensory issues are making this hell all of this is evil” way)

Mira giving Rumi a box of glow in the dark stars. My parents never let me have these I always wanted them, and Zoey wants to know what the constellations were like. It’s no big deal if you don’t want them ofc it was stupid

Rumi just sorta staring at the box for a minute before she’s like. “You do not think… it is indulgent of me? Towards this weakness sod my spirit?” and Mira’s like “Rumi what the fuck I just want you to get some sleep”

And then they put up the stars together :) with lots of very necessary touching :) Rumi has to show Mira exactly where the stars were after all :)

Rumi making a whole star chart and precise coordinate grid of her ceiling and Mira and Zoey sitting there watching her feeling Extremely fucking soft about it

Rumi casually lifting Zoey up by her hips so she can get the ceiling. Of course this is the easiest way to get there why would they drag a chair in? Someone could fall!

And there’s not even a hint of exertion just. Up

"Gee Rumi how much do you bench?"

Rumi doesn’t know what they mean and Celine’s place doesn’t have a gym so they just wander around lifting different objects until someone gets the bright idea to look up the closest gym

Days later, Celine still hasn’t left her house and suddenly hears banging on her steps. She assumes it’s just an animal or the wind but she still decides to go check and opens the door to the same little demon from before staring at her with a giant grin and basket of fish. Celine is determined to go back into her house and collapse onto her couch but the young demon is determined to thank Celine somehow for saving her life.

(Rumi’s reaction to Celine rejecting her gift)

- @raidintombs

Rumi just wants this human to accept her gifts but she never does. She either tosses them into the forest or ignores it and it just pushes Rumi to keep coming back and trying to get Celine’s attention. She wants either her attention or for the human to be happy, either one would be enough.

- @raidintombs

Celine returns to the house, she’s tired, hurt and a little drunk. Her whole plan was to just go into the house and fall into the couch and not get up for hours (maybe tend to some of her worse wounds first but she can leave the others alone for now). It’s not a great plan but it’s one that has worked before and will probably work again.

Imagine this is the first time Celine has sat at the table to eat since Miyeong and Third’s death? She gets home, sees Rumi and she doesn’t really have the strength to tell Rumi to leave so she lets her stay and makes her some food, putting her own gas station food to the side for now. When she’s done cooking, Rumi is at the table because “isn’t this where humans eat?”. Celine gives her the plate of food before sitting down herself to eat. Even eating Rumi still has questions but this time it reminds her of sitting at the table with her former soulmates and how they’d laugh and talk for hours.

Rumi falls asleep not 30 minutes later and Celine tucks her in on the couch. (The child demon might be working her way to endearing but she’s not allowed in Miyeong or Third’s room ever and her own room is not in a good enough shape for Rumi to sleep there). There, watching Rumi, who’s happily curled up under the blanket, Celine falls asleep for the first time in a long time not completely in pain.

@sagewiththyme You know that's a fascinating point because I figure the two options are a) no one really remembers what happened at the end because of magic bullshit or b) they play it off as a really elaborate but fully planned performance.

And the second one - can you fucking imagine.

Imagine one of the most popular bands in the world have this ongoing lore bit that they're actually demon hunters and they're always referencing it in their songs. And then one day a new boy band pops up and gets wildly popular with an over-the-top-cutesy hit. They're so soft and sweet and respectful. They're called Saja (Lion) Boys and they're all like "join the pride!" How cute!

And then they announce a new concert and you get there and it's fucking this. They're all dressed as demons/grim reapers. Surprise, "Saja" meant Jeoseung Saja all along! They're singing about how they're here for your soul and they relish in your pain, just a stunning 180 from their previous personas.

And then while you're trying to process the emotional whiplash the fucking demon hunter band bursts in and beats the shit out of them with the most insane pyrotechnic show you've ever seen in your life. They "kill" the boy band demons and then you never see them again. The whole band was a fucking psyop for Huntrix to play up the "demon hunters" bit.

Except, uhhhh. We didn't expect them to get so popular so fast? They For Sure weren't supposed to make it to the final round of the Idol Awards. Like, for Legal Reasons. We were almost visibly panicking on stage when they announced that! I mean, do you know how it would look once it eventually came out that Saja Boys were working for us? "Oh, you planted a fake band so you could win the competition!" No joke. I mean, that is a pret-ty clear conflict of interest there. You know?

The Idol Awards are all about the fan's choices, and we just accidentally rigged the game.

The Saja Boys had to win the Idol Awards, now, but there was no chance. They only had two songs, Soda Pop and Your Idol. We couldn't have them push up the debut--I mean, we thought about it, Your Idol's a banger song and it totally would've given us a run for our money--but we'd have to follow it up with This Is What It Sounds Like, first off, and second, 'killing' the Saja Boys onstage would be like. The Media equivalent of announcing we won, like the Fans didn't have a choice in the matter. At the Idol Awards? Ha. Yeah. That's a no-go.

And I mean. Soda Pop is catchy but not that catchy guys, c'mon. We were totally gonna cream them with Golden.

So we were all scrambling. Rumi and Mira and I were trying to write and choreograph a brand new song, Takedown, something good but not Good Enough To Win, to maybe prolong the Rivalry, you know? To make our comeback all the more sweet. But it was all such short notice, and the song wasn't working, and Huntrix never gives a shoddy performance, on principle. We couldn't do it. But it was looking like the only way we were gonna legitimately lose was if something... happened during the competition.

Like, obviously the Saja Boys weren’t a “real” band, so it makes sense they’re not coming out with new music, and since they’re “dead”, of course all their official band accounts have gone quiet, but like… someone would have had to be portraying the band members, right? Even if you wave that off as them being some of the same actors who portray the “demons” at their concerts, someone would definitely have to be lending their voices for the songs. Who were they? They couldn’t have been well-established in the industry, otherwise they’d have been recognized too quickly and the ruse would have been up, and something like this would have been a huge break for new performers.

So why’d they just disappear?

Where are the actors?

Person: I-

Chapter 5 is out now!!

Some people did find this funny XDD

maybe even two versions of each letter for them, because she couldn’t decide if she wanted to let them know about her being half-demon after her death or not.

obviously she doesnt give it to them. she doesnt die to the golden honmoon because they dont make it. so the letters just sit in a box in her room back on jeju, where the only person who knew about them was celine, who was asked to give them to their respective recipients in the case of her death (which made celine’s eyes flash with terror and her breath catch in her throat and start coming out funny, but rumi couldnt stop to think about that because shes too busy repressing and hating herself to think about how her death would affect her loved ones)

one day, the three of them visit jeju to go get some of their old stuff, just on a whim or because celine wants to make some space.

and mira and zoey find the letters. and they read them (because there are no more secrets between them now, and besides, they’re addressed to them and they look like half a decade old)

by the time they’ve finished reading them, theyre sobbing on floor, leaning on each other for support.

they talk about how proud she is of them. how much she loves them. how in love with them she is. all the things she loves about them. how she’s so glad they were the ones chosen by the honmoon to be her teammates, how there’s nobody in the world she would’ve rather been hunters with.

she leaves them guitars and pianos. divies up stuffed animals that would’ve felt even more lifeless without her there. she tells them which hoodies they can each have, because she knows they love her hoodies (they love them because they’re rumi’s, because they smell like her. eventually, they’d stop doing that, and they’d just be some clothes).

she ends the letters by telling them that she’s proud to have died for a cause as worthy as the golden honmoon. to not spend the rest of their lives mourning her because they deserve a life of peace and freedom from the heavy responsibility thrusted upon them by the universe, and thoughts of her will only weigh them down.

and thats just the non reveal letters.

they crack open the other letters addressed to them, expecting, hoping to see a happier version of those letters, one for when she didn’t die when they made the golden honmoon.

they’re not. they’re almost the exact same letters, but theres a section in each of them of her confessing to be a demon. not even half demon. she just figured if she died, then she must be a demon, full stop. she apologizes for not telling them. for not trusting them with the information. for being a monster (zoey almost throws up when she reads that. mira almost tears the paper to shreds). she tells them they shouldnt mourn her, becomes demons are unworthy of any grief dedicated to them.

its about this point that rumi finally walks into the room. shes been helping celine with some stuff in another room, and celine got suspicious when they couldn’t hear the two of them for a while, because usually that meant they were up to something.

rumi comes in, cheerful and curious, saying “hey guys! what are up to…”

she sees the letters. sees the devastation in their faces. she rushes to explain, tries to tell them “i swear i was gonna burn those! i just forgot! they kind of became irrelevant after the golden honmoon thing became a bust anyways! i-“ as she speaks, they approach her, slowly inching towards her until their right in her face.

they grab it. both of them look at her, inspecting her skin, trace her patterns, delicately at first then firmer. she lets them inspect her, unsure of what it is theyre looking for, until they both have a hand over her heart. they gasp in sync with her heartbeat.

and then they break out in sobs, hugging her from either side, crying about how much they love her, how glad they are that she’s still here, how the golden honmoon would’ve meant nothing to them if it had killed her, how they’re glad they’ll never see it now.

she can barely keep up with what they’re saying because theyre a little incoherent and they’re kind of talking over one another and they’re talking kinda fast, and then they start kissing her and her mind goes a little blank

(celine finds them mid-life-affirming-sex, and mira and zoey barely stop what theyre doing to rumi to yell at her to get out, partly because they wanna keep going and can’t while she’s there, and partly because they cant look at her right now after reading those letters without feeling a little sick.

Chapters: 14/? Fandom: KPop Demon Hunters (2025) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Mira/Rumi/Zoey (KPop Demon Hunters) Characters: Mira (KPop Demon Hunters), Rumi (KPop Demon Hunters), Zoey (KPop Demon Hunters), Jinu (KPop Demon Hunters), Mystery (KPop Demon Hunters), Celine (KPop Demon Hunters), Bobby (KPop Demon Hunters), Sebastian The Turtle Additional Tags: Polyamory, polytrix, Polytr/x, Polyamorous Huntrix (KPop Demon Hunters), Sugar Baby Zoey, Trust Fund Mira, Gen Wealth Rumi, Zoey Has ADHD (KPop Demon Hunters), Mira Owns a Dance Studio, Rumi Is a Music Production Major, Zoey is a Music Production Major, Flirting, Awkward Flirting, #Girlfailures, Sortof College AU, Kissing, Motorcycles, Cars, Motorcycle!Rumi, Bad Parent Celine (KPop Demon Hunters), Celine Redemption (KPop Demon Hunters), Eventually though, Panic Attacks, Gay Panic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, always the comfort after, Trust, Mommy Issues, Daddy Issues, Family Issues, orange nation mentioned, hi arty :), Go-karts, They’re so very gay, and extra stupid, As it should be, Just how I like em’ —-

CHAPTER 14 IS OFFICIALLY LIVE WOOT WOOT 

9400 words of nonsense

One day, she was preparing dinner when she feels numbness across her face and back. It feels wrong. Something is wrong. Rumi rushes towards her and fussing over her eomma.

...

Two AMAZING fics that I have been currently been reading(and aggressively obsessing over, frothing at the mouth even) are Wasting All These Nights(Trying To Keep You Off My Mind) and Enjoy the Silence by the wonder amazing fantastic incredible Hocapontus on AO3! @hocapontus on Tumblr!

I got bored, and because I think of Polytrix when I’m bored(then again I think about when I’m not bored too. I think something’s wrong with me), I decided to draw brief interactions between each of the girls. Without further ado

Please please PLEASE go read both fics they’re AMAZING!!! WATN is currently still in the works but it’s WORTH the wait! ETS is finished(but I’m currently on chapter 16 right now, I’m getting there…) and it’s ALSO GREAT

SERIOUSLY GO READ IT WATN HAS STRIPPER ZOEY! STRIPPER ZOEY!! NEED I SAY MORE???