Work Text:
"Get it over with…."
"Please"
Wanting to die wasn't exactly a new concept to Rumi, but this would be the first time she's ever followed through with the idea.
Her mind had almost always wandered back to her girls. They were the only constant in her thoughts, always on her mind in someway, shape or form.
They compelled her to do everything she could, for them.
Rumi knew she should care more for demon hunting, for saving their very world (they were her world), but all she cared about was them.
Thinking back to how her band mates—Because that's all she could ever be to them—would feel if she were gone. No not gone, but dead, by her own wretched hands.
Never to see their faces again, because in the end she had always known this was how her fate was to end, she had never truly deserved to see the light that was their happiness.
To bright and much to good for a demon like her to see and exist under.
Celine should have ended her long before she could have grown attached to them. Should have ended her the moment she came out of her mother's womb with her disgusting demon patterns.
She cared about them (and they were all she cared about) and that was going to make it hurt so much more.
She had always hated herself for how much she cared. Celine would never approve of it, demons aren't supposed to care, aren't supposed to feel.
And she was no exception to the rule.
She was supposed to be an emotionless being until she finally achieved the one thing she had been trained for her entire life—The only reason she had been allowed to live—turning the honmoon in its entirety gold. Her purpose.
Only then would she finally be allowed to fully express herself, To be free of the cage that was her own person, her patterns where the bars to her jail and the golden Honmoon her perfectly fitted key.
Pondering upon if her hypothetical suicide would affect them was something she had come to accept as normal.
Would their day to day lives still include the little habits and routines they had all done together? Things that Rumi wasn't supposed to get involved in but did anyway, like a weed growing in a beautiful patch of flowers, not supposed to exist and ruining the lives of all that it surrounded.
Would Zoey remember to eat after she'd been up all night watching turtle documentary's? (Rumi had made it a habit to make an extra portion of breakfast if she heard Zoey's TV playing past 12 AM) who would be there to remind Zoey to take her AD-HD medication when she was to tired, too restless after sleepless nights or busy days?
Would someone remind Mira to take her contacts out and carry around her spare pair of glasses? Who would remember that Mira was iron deficient, her medication always shoved into Rumi's bags or pockets, always carrying a snack or two on her just in case.
Who would? Because one day it couldn't be her (despite how much she wished it was always her)
Hopefully Zoey and Mira gave Bobby the letter she had written (she slept with it under her pillow, every night she checked to make sure it was in good condition), A goodbye—that she didn't deserve—but also ideas for how to explain her vanishing and most importantly extra detailed information and instructions for her inevitable replacement.
Mira and Zoey deserved only the best, Someone much better and less tainted by darkness would be able to give it to them.
She to think about simply getting up and leaving, with no trace left to be found. Gone with the wind and forgotten by all those who'd ever known her, it would have been better if they had never known her in the first place.
She hadn't thought about simply ending her own disgusting demon life in months, It wasn't a fitting end for something so vile.
But the utter longing for them to never learn the truth of what she was, So they couldn't hate her while she was still alive, while she still bathed in the sun that was their love.
They might just hate her from beyond the grave if Celine had an inkling to tell them the truth of her ancestry, of the mistake that was Ryu Rumi and how she had winded up existing and ruining her own mother's life and all those she had ever met.
But right now, all that she had deemed disgusting and vile had come to light, They knew and if she could look at their faces. She knew that the hatred in their eyes would be all consuming.
They assumed her a full demon and she knew that while biologically wrong, she may have well been.
She was certain they wouldn't care now about all those little facts. They didn't matter at this very moment in time.
The biggest current indicator being the weapons currently pointed at her. Held aloft with trembling hands and the Honmoons wails of distraught in her ears, devastating cries and yells that their chosen where wrong.
Rumi ignored the Honmoon, she knew she was the only one who could hear It, had heard it's songs and cries since she was merely a babe and ignoring it had become second nature.
(The Honmoon had wailed, cried and begged. Had screamed with sorrow and apologies when Rumi had first knelt down and held her recently summoned Saingeom to her chest, A girl of 9 should not know how to wield a blade as efficiently as she did, but she held the blade anyway.
But Rumi could not do, couldn't harm the first and only friend she'd ever had. The Honmoon had always protected her and listened, Her only confident)
Refocusing on the moment at hand, Rumi lifted her eyes up to the hands of the (her) girls.
It was strange the way Zoey only had 2 of her shin-kal out instead of her normal 6 and the way Mira's Gok-do shook in her hands with a tremble that hadn't been in Mira's hand since the first time she had held the blade, maybe it was simply nerves. They'd never had to kill a demon they knew before.
She couldn't look at their faces to confirm what they were thinking in this very moment but she knew her worst fears would be reflected on their faces.
The look of disgust on their faces would kill her long before any blade could, looking at the weapons in their hands seemed much easier. Especially when she knew just where the weapons could go, to help her.
Slowly lowering herself to her knees, one leg buckling slightly before Rumi catches herself and Lowers the other one slowly.
The ground is cold on her exposed legs, the concrete is thick and tough, digging into her knees and sure to leave indents.
Lowering her head down in a form of acceptance of death but also for the fear of disgust that would be present on their faces, tilted down with her head not quite touching the concrete
The tears that had started falling long before she had wandered downstairs and learned it wasn't the real version of Mira and Zoey up on stage but simply other monstrosity's like her (Rumi wondered if they also felt regret when they hurt people, when they scared the innocent and stole the souls of the unlucky)
The repetitive pitter patter sound of her tears was the only sound that you could hear besides Rumi's own sharp breathing pattern, The tears and breathing booming in the silence between them.
A vast valley of regret and hurt that stood between them and the redemption of both what they once knew and who they once knew, Their image of Rumi less than an hour ago was dead and this was what she truly was under all those layers.
What they had just had just learned about one of their oldest friends, their leader and someone they had thought they could trust with everything, with their true selves.
Only for her to have been lying to them the entire time they had known each other, 7 years going on nearly half a decade of friendship, down the drain because Rumi was plain and simply a liar.
Someone who couldn't be trusted and needed to be put down like the rabid animal she knew she was, a feral dog foaming at the mouth, who knew they had no chance of life left.
In her final moments Rumi wonders if she'll leave behind a body or if she would simply evaporate into smoke like the other demons they'd all but vanquished together. Destroyed their spirits and sent them to reform with Gwi-Ma, where she might just end up next.
She hoped if she did leave a body, that they'd bury it far away from everybody, so she could be forgotten.
she had always wanted to be buried somewhere warm and maybe somewhere high, so she was closer to the clouds and further away from Gwi-Ma and his realm, she had always wished to be buried facing the sunset.
So the world wouldn't remember the mistake that was Ryu Rumi. The girl who had lied constantly to the ones she loved, forgotten by the masses and never truly mourned by those who knew her. Someone to be forgotten and never forgiven by all that has crossed her path, an entity of distrust and disgust.
Or maybe they'd simply leave her to rot here, her body slowly becoming nothing but an empty shell of the person she once was, if she even counted as a person to begin with and not just a husk with a brain.
Taking a deep breath knowing it's probably her last and letting her tears continue to fall as she simply... Waits
Waits for the inevitable feeling of a blade in her neck, Hoping that Zoey or Mira would grant her one last pity by making it a quick death. A clean cut that would hopefully be a painless one, a single slice to end her days (and her lies).
It was to much for Rumi to process, Her ears start to ring and she lowers her head fully towards the ground, placing her temple to the floor, feeling the cold concrete and still pushing slightly harder, making it hurt.
Her head was in an almost prayer like position, if not for the violence she was inflecting upon herself to bow like this.
The ringing in her ears is loud and it is violent, it causes her thoughts to jumble around and trying to focus on more then one thing, such as the sounds around her, becomes something extremely difficult.
Maybe that's why as she slowly lifts her head up once more, in a weak attempt at being brave, despite the fact she only gets as far as to look at their shoes instead of their faces. She doesn't hear the loud cluttering and clanging of metal hitting the floor and the small poof that comes with the Honmoon weapons dissolving into thin air, absorbing themselves back into the strings with a shallow and sad sound, an almost whine.
Losing herself with thoughts of nothing but disappointment in herself, Rumi notices none of that.
Only to be brought back into the real world by the feeling of a smaller and lithe body slamming into her and causing the already lacking amount of air in her body to seemingly evaporate, knocked out of her by the force.
She is falling and the other person is falling with her, she wraps her arms around the smaller body anyway, She shouldn't have to deal with the pain of the fall.
Only for the both of them to be swiftly caught before they could hit the ground by a pair of arms that Rumi had admired long enough to know who exactly it was without looking up.
The slightly taller idol's arms slowly settle them down on to the ground. Shuffling them into a slightly uncomfortable seating position and bringing them closer to her own body in a way of giving comfort to all of them.
Rumi's back is to Mira's chest as if she was a shield made to defend them from all threats, curling around them like a dragon curls around their own precious treasures.
Rumi face is buried in between the shorter girls neck, the way Zoey had launched herself had forced Rumi as close to her neck as possible.
Trying to get more air despite the way her face is curved into Zoey's neck is almost impossible, Rumi bares it anyway with no signs of her moving.
while Zoey bawls her eyes out into Rumi's neck mumbling over and over again, about how sorry she is. Doing so repetitively as if both a prayer and an apology all In one.
The half-demon whines in confusion like a dog who had been kicked and muzzled their whole life and only now had just started being loved, unsure why their just now receiving the very thing they'd longed for their entire lives, had craved.
Rumi starts to choke when her breathing gets heavier and her tears start to clog her vision causing even more whining, only for her breath to hitch when the feeling of nails gently running up and down on her arms slowly releasing pressure from Rumi's hunched shoulders.
The feeling of Mira's nails directly on her patterns causes them to dim slightly from the dark and harsh purple to a lighter indigo that seems to reflect Rumi's slightly less volatile state. Her emotions being reflected by her greatest disgust, helping her despite her self hatred for them.
The feeling leaves her in a state similar to putty, molding herself into Mira's back and burrowing in, slowly and carefully moving back, ready for someone to yell at her for ruining everything.
Before Rumi could even think of her next move or a new idea on how to place the blame of everything going wrong on herself. Zoey pulls herself closer to Rumi, pushing herself in closer, pulling her face next to Rumi's ear.
Breathing out breathless apology after apology and thoughtless chatter that seems to almost drown out the self deprecating thoughts in Rumi's head.
Rumi upon shuffling herself into Mira's front, had accidentally pulled away from Zoey. Who still refused to let go of her and for which she showed a great disdain for the distance that had been put between them, that especially in such a distraught state caused it to seemed like the end of her world.
Mira huffs, slow and deep in her chest before slowly leaning her head down and placing her chin atop Rumi's head, Hair from Rumi's loose braid caressing the taller Idols face.
Pressing her lips into a flat like before slowly opening her mouth to speak "I- wait no, We are sorry" Her voice wavers and cracks slightly when correcting herself.
Zoey nods into Rumi's neck, mumbling out a small "mhm" in agreement to her statement, placing a light—barely there—kiss to her neck, feather light but makes the half-demon's breath catch nonetheless.
Breathless and filled with a drop of hope. Rumi is hit with the apology, she wonders how she can repent for her sins, she knows Mira rarely apologized for anything, so she knows she's fucked up big time when Mira felt the need to apologize for her.
Rumi was aware that she needed to explain, that she needed to explain how none of this was their fault and they shouldn't be apologizing to her at all, ever.
Bringing her face up slowly from Zoey's neck and letting Mira slowly move with her, she extracts herself from Zoey's bottomless depths.
Only for her to seemingly dislike this idea and hold Rumi tighter, pulling her back into her embrace. Jostling Rumi and causing her to bite her lip to muffle a groan at the sudden tightness in her chest at the hug, just to feel sharp fang like canine teeth that certainly weren't their before that puncture into her lip and causing it to bleed, Quickly letting go of Zoey in the moment and struggling to pull her hands up to her lip.
Only for Mira moving fast and only just ducking out of the way of Rumi's head which had flown back slightly at the pain, to quickly grab Rumi's hands in the chaos of the panic before she can press them to her lips or her teeth "no no, sweetheart calm down, let Zoey have a look," her tone soothing.
Rubbing her thumb slowly up and down on Rumi's hands, a similar motion to what she had been doing to Rumi's patterns on her arms earlier.
Stopping her struggle and sitting as still as possible, not wanting Mira to stop but also desperately wanting to deal with the problem herself.
Rumi can hear Zoey's mumbled apologies stop as she sees her shuffle back from Rumi, leaning slightly back and slowly allowing Rumi to see her move. She grabs her chin and tilts her side to side, angling so she can see Rumi's lip wound better
A small gasp of wonder escapes Zoey's mouth when she sees Rumi open her mouth so Zoey can have a better look, letting her inspect her mouth by shoving a finger in to touch a fang and causing Rumi and her patterns to turn a slight red, a soft shade.
"your fangs are hot" seems to just slip out of Zoey's mouth, she doesn't seem to notice her self say it and Rumi nearly slams her mouth closed in shock, before having to stop herself with Zoey's finger still in her gullet.
A small chuckle that shakes Rumi causes to lightly tap the hand that had been rubbing her patterns, two taps, meaning no in the pre-developed signals they'd had for demon hunting but found where all so helpful in everyday life.
They weren't OK right now, but maybe soon they would be
Soon there would be happiness and joy