Spicy Cheese

- Due to storms, they had to evacuate the National Mall grounds. But the MAGA crowd didn't want to leave. They just stood around chanting "USA! USA!" They were convinced liberals were messing with the weather. Reportedly, one of the security guards got so fed up that he threw a chair at them.

- Fox News didn't have anything to share while they were waiting for Trump's delayed speech, so they just showed a feed of him staring at the TV. And he was watching Fox News.

- A bunch of the crowd that was evacuated wasn't even let back in, and they were raging about it on social media. Some of them waited 10 to 12 hours in record-setting heat (102°F) and never got to see anything. All special passes were canceled. So much for money privilege.

- Because the program was running so far behind, several performers were cancelled.

- Trump's speech began at 11:15 p.m., after a sizeable amount of his followers had abandoned the event. It was unremarkable in just like all of his other ones- a bunch of "America is the greatest nation," blaming Democrats for everything bad, and general gibberish.

- The fireworks didn't begin until almost midnight, so they ended on July 5th.

- They wanted to have more fireworks than ever before, but they set off so many that the sky was covered in light, and it just looked like everything was on fire. The finale was not visible due to the smoke.

- Trump appeared to fall asleep during the show.

- The immense amount of pyrotechnics fucked up the air in DC

Ohhhh that would be. Not good! Seeing as this is an au where Rumi was conceived during rape.

Might be a little like this:

Celine is turning to her, oh no, turning the full brunt of her fury on Rumi—

And the anger dissolves into something else, something horrible, like terror, like abject pain.

Zoey’s hands squeeze the mutt’s shoulders; she hadn’t noticed them touching her at all.

Mira huffs. She’s planted herself directly in front of the mutt. “Let's try that again, huh? Kid, this is Celine, who is usually cooler than this. Celine, say ‘hi, kid who can barely squeeze a lemon without feeling bad about it’.” 

Celine abruptly schools her expression into perfect neutrality. She’s looking directly at the mutt from behind Mira’s shoulder. Something in her intent focus is almost reminiscent of Rumi. Truly, this is the gaze of a hunter.

The mutt swallows, the urge to run fighting with the urge to placate the Hunter fighting with the urge to duck herself closer behind Mira and all resulting in her doing nothing but shaking like the miserable, useless creature she is.

Zoey’s hands squeeze her shoulders again, comfortingly, pulling her back to her body.

Celine bends down to pick up her bag, finally looking away.

“Do you want to go back into the kitchen?” Zoey asks quietly. “You can stay in there as long as you want.”

The mutt shakes her head. If she went, she would never come back.

“You’re sure? I can go with you if that helps,” she adds.

But the mutt—the mutt looks over at Rumi, and Celine, and their intense gazes. She’s like me. Her voice shakes, but she still manages to force herself to speak. “I want to be brave.”

The silence on the way to the couch is deeply awkward. And when they sit down.

“I am sorry,” the mutt says, remembering.

Everyone looks at her.

“About your tupperware,” she clarifies for Celine. “I should not have stolen it.”

And despite how Rumi and Mira and Zoey had talked about how upset Celine would get over the good tupperware being gone—though only ever when they thought the mutt could not hear, which meant the consequences very much would impact the mutt—Celine does not get angry.

“It’s alright,” she says. She does not sound like she means much it, everything flat and hollow, but she says it. “The girls can get new ones.”

The mutt wishes that she would just be upset. It is easier than kindness, even real-kindness and not false-kindness, though she knows it would make Mira, Zoey, and Rumi sad if she said that. Even so, it can feel like waiting to be hit.

Her voice had been so warm and alive, behind the door, when she was speaking to Rumi. And then she had seen the mutt, and became quiet and careful.

The mutt understands. When you’re dealing with an unknown threat, it is smart to wait and observe. But she is in no way a threat to Celine, and she knows how dangerous it is for her to be perceived that way. What she doesn’t know is how to fix it.

Mira catches her eye and wiggles her eyebrows. The mutt does her best to wiggle back.

“Orange slices, anyone?” Mira says in a perfect monotone.

“Yes, please!” Rumi and Zoey say almost in tandem, and then smile warmly at each other.

The mutt collects all these looks for morale and looks at Celine. “You—you have raised Rumi well,” she stumbles. “She’s—great.”

Rumi smothers a laugh with an orange slice. But Celine frowns.

“Thank you,” she says slowly. “She is.”

Rumi chokes the orange down and fans herself. “Oh, go on.”

Celine eyes her sidelong. “With an ego to match, I’m sure.”

“I do nothing by half measures,” Rumi agrees.

“Mm,” says Celine, and is silent again.

Mira turns to Celine. “How about you ask her a question?” she says bluntly.

Celine obligingly turns to look at the mutt, and the mutt does her very best to meet her eyes. She manages only a glance. There’s something unfocused in Celine’s gaze. “How are you finding your room?”

“Good,” the mutt forces herself to say. “It’s—it’s very good.”

“Hm,” says Celine.

The mutt wants to wipe her sweaty palms on her nice new linen pants, but she resists.

“She’s been into linear algebra lately,” Mira says pointedly. “She thinks eigen decomposition is elegant.”

“I see,” says Celine.

The mutt has something stuck in her throat, she’s pretty sure, although she hasn’t touched the orange slices.

She takes a deep breath through her nose, grabbing her temper tight. “I don’t know what your issue is, but you better work it out before we get back in there.”

Celine doesn’t say anything.

Rumi doesn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t that.

She turns around.

Celine is still standing at the door.

Rumi presses a hand against her temple, tired. “Look, I—I know I’ve done a lot of things that weren’t necessarily what you’ve wanted, but—“

“What?”

“She’s just a kid,” she finishes, nonetheless. “Whatever it is, don’t take it out on her.”

Celine looks—stricken, for some reason, at this remark. “Rumi-ya, I—I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, I never meant—I promised—“

“To protect all that was left of my mother, I know.” Rumi’s only heard it a million times. “Is that all you care about?”

“No, I—“ Celine closes her eyes and leans back against the door. “Before that. Miyeong made me promise her that I would never hold the demon against you.”

And Rumi’s breath stops. Her anger falters.

The demon means her father, however rarely Celine has spoken of him. Rarely enough that Rumi’s never heard this before.

“And I know she isn’t guilty of…” Celine pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes. “She looks so much like him.“

“Guilty?” Rumi echoes, the lump in her throat a violent and living thing.

(She doesn’t remember when she first came to the quiet, sickening conclusion that her father had raped her mother. She does remember the moment—the exact moment, watching Jinu look at that little girl with her hand drawn card—when she’d let herself consider anything else.)

Celine opens her eyes. “I never once looked at you and saw anything other than someone your mother loved. I know she isn’t your father. I’ll get over it, I promise. I just need a minute.”

(The consideration turns to ash.)

“No, you’re not,” Mira grumbles, visibly annoyed. “Celine is.”

“You were cute as a button!” Zoey agrees, and takes her hand so that now the cuticle-worrying is a much greater logistical challenge.

“Are buttons very good at making a good first impression?” 

Zoey giggles. “Well… Celine is notoriously hard to impress.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mira says firmly.

The mutt frowns. None of that sounds right. “You don’t need to lie,” she says.

Mira looks offended. “I don’t lie.”

“She’s a Hunter,” says the mutt. “I’m a demon.”

“Can I make it any more obvious?” says Zoey. “No, Mira’s right, though. Even if that was her problem, no way that’s your fault. She knows better by now.”

“I think she’s… scared of me,” says the mutt.

They both laugh. 

The mutt slips her hand away and tucks it in her lap.

“Nooo, sweetie, I’m sorry,” Zoey scrambles. “It’s just, we know Celine. She doesn’t get scared like that.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s a block of granite brought to life,” says Mira.

The mutt stares at her lap. She trusts their judgement, so much more than her own. But she knows what fear looks like.

On the streets, in a situation like this, the best strategy was to run. But, maybe here there could be a better option. She had rarely had the opportunity to clarify her intentions. Well, except—except for the woman who had taken the containers. And now she’s gotten to apologize for that too.

For all the good that did. In order to explain herself, she needs to be able to explain stuff. 

Mira snickers.

The mutt considers her plan. Her thumb starts to drift towards her cuticle again.

“We should do your nails sometime,” Mira says, passing her an orange segment, not casually at all.

Unfortunately, they took the peels off earlier, so all the fiddling that she could do with the orange would be messy. She takes it anyway.

“Ooh, yes!” Zoey agrees. She holds her hands out in front of her, examining her nails. “Since we’re on hiatus right now, glam won’t even yell at us for at-home mani-pedis; we could have a chill hangout here or we could make a whole thing of it.”

The mutt knows this is an attempt to distract her from thinking about Celine. She hides her smile behind the orange segment. Lucky that she came up with an idea already.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Mira adds. She gestures between herself and Zoey. “We might be beholden to makeup culture and shit, but you shouldn’t be.”

The mutt considers this, for a moment. Zoey had helped her clean and trim her nails once, on the same day she had taught her how to wash her hands properly (all while rambling about how being several centuries old did not mean that a demon couldn’t keep up with advances in hygiene).

It was nice, having someone hold her hands so gently.

“Maybe,” she says. She would need to know more about what ‘a whole thing of it’ means first.

Before she can explain that, she hears footsteps down the hall, and goes still. Now it is time for her to put her plan into action.

Rumi comes in first, and she looks at the mutt, and she is… devastated. It is such an expression that the mutt looks down at herself, half-expecting to see blood spreading across her warm new shirt.

But there is nothing. And now her timing is off.

EYECRIMES WERE REQUESTED AND SO HERE THEY ARE FOR SHAME! @whitebeltwriter @huntrx-dont-miss @secondtolastrow ARE YOU PROUD OF YOURSELVES TUMBLR SICKOS DOT COM DOT PNG???

IN THE WET CORNER, FOR TRAUMA FEST 2026, YOUR REIGNING CHAMPION........ RYU RUMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IN THE ALSO WET CORNER, A NEW CHALLENGER.... MUTT LASTNAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???????

OUR SOB OFF BEGINS STRONGLY, SEOUL IS UNDERWATER IN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES

CELINE HAS FLOATED AWAY

ZOEY AND MIRA HAVE FOUND A BOAT. SO FAR, BOTH CONTENDERS HAVE PERFECT POINTS FOR SOBBING: CRITERIA: BIG SAD EYES, AMOUNT OF TEARS, POWER CRYING

JOIN US NEXT TIME FOR THE NEXT EVENT:

SAYING YOU ARE FINE WHEN YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT FINE AT ALL

🫡 gotcha pal

HOW COULD WE FORGET!

THE CHAMPION OF ANGST

THE TEARS FROM JEJU!

THE SOBBER OF SEOUL!

UNDISPUTED! UNDEFEATED!

KANG CELINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE