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It's not really Zoey’s fault.
Celine had warned them, told them not to follow what people were saying about them too closely, to not let it get into their heads.
“Happy fans, happy Honmoon," she had said and Zoey, Mira, and Rumi had taken it on as their own chant.
Celine had continued, “But don’t let the fans in too deep. Let Bobby and PR worry about what people are saying online.”
Really Zoey knew this was just another variant of Celine’s infamous, “don’t let your faults and fears be seen.” And she’d been dutiful! Her official and confirmed unofficial accounts were totally on the up and up.
But she’d gotten curious. She’d been a chronically online person, and it wasn’t something she could just turn off. She’d been part of the Sunlight Sisters fandom. How could she not wonder what her own fans were saying about her?
At first she hadn’t had time, between learning to fight demons, debuting, writing new songs, learning the choreography, doing interviews and photoshoots, appearing on variety shows, and honestly just trying to keep up with Mira and Rumi, who always seemed like they were taking to this so much better than her.
Rumi who had practically been raised for this, and Mira who was always so calm and cool even when everything was on fire. Zoey didn’t want to disappoint them and she didn’t want to slow them down, so she hadn’t had any time to even think about what the fans were saying in online spaces, because she’d been so focused on just keeping up.
And then a small part of her hadn’t wanted to know. Did the fans also see how much Zoey was struggling to fit in, to deserve her place in this trio? To get her Korean back up to snuff after so long in the states?
But then Huntr/x had hit a groove, won their first and second idol awards, and demon hunting had started coming naturally too, the three of them in sync and covering each other’s backs. And Bobby kept telling her how much people loved her cute maknae personality combined with her intense rapping, telling her to, “Keep up the good work Zoey! The fans are loving it!”
And Zoey couldn’t help believing it, because she could see the Honmoon glowing, strengthening. So now that Zoey finally felt like she had it all under more control, it meant she had free time that she hadn’t had before, and she was so curious. Like if she wasn’t part of Huntr/x she would definitely be part of their fanbase and part of the discourse and how was she supposed to resist?
For two weeks Zoey was good, but then Rumi and Mira had decided to do an afternoon workout and Zoey, comfortable on the couch watching turtle videos on one of their rare free afternoons, had declined. And suddenly she was all alone, and the internet was right there and would it really hurt to just take a little look?
Zoey looked at the door where Mira and Rumi had exited. And then back at her phone. She’d just create like a throwaway account, totally unconnected to any of her real accounts, take a quick look, satisfy her curiosity and then never ever do it again. It was just a quick one time thing.
It was not a quick one time thing. The Huntr/x online community was large and thriving and Zoey was immediately hooked. Zoey’s new account: HuntrixLuvr77 didn’t post anything but she immediately started following a lot of accounts that did. How could she not? The fans loved Huntr/x and it showed in their posts describing their choreography, talking about their outfits, and about how they connected to their music. Zoey especially liked when the fans turned them into different memes, cackling at the images.
She wished she could share them with Rumi and Mira, but knowing both of them, they’d remind her that it wasn’t a good idea to get too close to the fans. The fans were already so much up in their business. An even more parasocial relationship could be dangerous. But omg the memes were so good, and the fans were so heart warming. Zoey carefully stayed away from following any kind of hate accounts, so her feed was all just like cute fan edits and praise for the band. Sometimes there was some criticism of a design choice, or outfit choice, or the time they missed a concert because they were fighting demons which had been a real shit show, but nothing truly critical or hurtful.
Sometimes there were links to rpf stories, but Zoey knew better than to click on those. That would lead to a rabbit hole. But even those were fairly harmless, just like happy Huntr/x slice of life stories sometimes shipping the girls with various other idols they’d interacted with on game shows or competitions. Still Zoey resisted reading them.
For a while it went on like that. When Zoey wasn’t watching turtle videos on her phone she was trolling her anonymous account looking at all the nice happy stuff fans were posting about the band. It honestly brought Zoey a lot of happiness to see how much joy the three of them, that Huntr/x was bringing people. It wasn’t until right before their third idol awards that things started getting a little weird.
It started innocently enough, Zoey was getting better and better at handling all her responsibilities, so she started going through the fans' content faster than they were posting it. Not a big deal, she just started branching out and following more accounts. And at first it seemed like the content on her feed hadn’t really changed that much. It was still shots of the three of them, video compilations of Huntr/x being cute together, screenshots of Zoey and Mira laughing over something at a fan signing.
But about two days into adding the new accounts to her feed Zoey noticed the tags on some of the posts. #ZoMira, #RuMira, #ZoRumi. Oh no. She clicked on them. There were fan edits of her making heart eyes at Rumi. Clips of her and Mira hugging or locking eyes. Mira looking at Rumi with adoration while Rumi answered an interview question. And that was just the videos. The artwork was a whole other animal. A lot of it was not safe for work and it made Zoey flush madly and look wildly around as if she expected to be caught even though she was safely cocooned in her own bedroom. She couldn’t stop looking.
She hadn’t realized that fans shipped them that way. She didn’t know why she was so surprised. They were very rarely seen with any men. Part of that was demon hunting combined with producing and performing music; they just didn’t really have time for romantic relationships. But the other part was the idol industry which was brutal to idols in relationships, they were expected to be single.
Before they’d debuted Rumi had said, “I know this is a lot to ask, but for the sake of the Honmoon, I think we should all wait until after it's sealed,” here she had fidgeted embarrassedly before continuing, “to pursue any kind of like romantic relationship. Fans can really freak out about stuff like that.”
Mira had laughed, “Like we’ll even have time for that between being idols and demon fighting. But no, I agree.”
Zoey had nodded too and it’d been done. No romantic relationships until after the Honmoon was sealed. And like Mira had said, she hadn’t really thought about it since too busy with other things. She had a trusty vibrator and an extremely busy day-to-day schedule and romantic thoughts had been the last of her worries. But apparently they hadn’t been for the fans.
There was just so much content and so many shippers and while some of it made Zoey flinch, a lot of it was just really cute. It gave Zoey a strange thrill knowing that if she held Rumi’s hand extra long at the end of a concert some fan would take a video of it and post it under #ZoRumi. Or if she whispered in Mira’s ear at a fansigning the #ZoMira tag would light up.
But it also made her act awkward and uncomfortable around the girls. She laughed too loudly at a bad pun Rumi made and when Mira grabbed something off a tall shelf for her, her thank you was very fumbled. It felt like somehow Zoey managed to make everything strange. Suddenly she was overthinking every little interaction with her bandmates. Perhaps this was what Celine had been trying to warn her about.
“I’m just not feeling that well,” Zoey lied to explain away the weirdness.
Mira had frowned, “That sucks Zo. Why don’t we order some of your favorites for dinner to help you feel better?”
Rumi had lit up at the idea, “Yeah we can get that soup you really like!”
And with that the two of them had launched into plans to make her feel better, trying to help her recover from her “sickness”. It had made something in Zoey’s chest tighten to realize how much they cared for her. And it had also made her laugh at the shippers because obviously there was no duo in this trio. While Rumi and Mira plotted how to make her feel better Zoey collapsed on the couch and pulled out her phone.
On her anonymous account she pulled up an old picture of the three of them, one that had been shared on their official account to the public. It was one of Zoey’s favorites. Bobby had taken the picture without any of them realizing, too busy laughing at a joke Zoey had just finished telling. Under the photo Zoey posted:
Obviously they are a trio #polytrix.
Zoey had not known what the ship name for all three of them was, or if it even existed. But she personally liked polytrix and how it rolled off her tongue. She definitely hadn’t spent days thinking of potential good ship names for the three of them. That’d be weird.
Even though Zoey’s anonymous account didn’t post much stuff normally, people she’d followed had followed her back, and slowly and then faster and faster, her post went viral. Until #polytrix took on a life of its own. Very quickly other people started contributing, posting fanfics, compilations, videos, and artwork.
It was not what Zoey had intended (what had she intended?), but she couldn’t really complain. The three of them as best friends! made a lot of sense, and if people wanted to ship them all together that was totally fine. It's not like it really mattered, once the Honmoon was sealed the three of them could do whatever they wanted with romantic relationships, and the shipping would cool down.
Zoey figured it was sort of like Yaoi in shonen manga, you had to ship the boys together because there were no girls (who weren’t horribly written) to ship them with. Once there were actual guys to ship Huntr/x with, this whole fad would quietly disappear.
Zoey, for one, was very interested in exploring her romantic compatibility with that hot rapper from the boy band Tectonic. And if that didn’t work out, she had been secretly compiling a list of all the cute guys she might be interested in hooking up with after the Honmoon was sealed. She was pretty sure Mira was doing the same. She and Mira gossiped about hot guys all the time. They were both super into abs, though Zoey was a sucker for guys with pretty faces and dyed hair.
The #polytrix didn’t die down, and Zoey was totally normal about it.
By the time the 5th Idol awards were rolling around, Zoey had pretty much given up on following Celine’s advice. She was in the tags, posting her own pet theories, and reposting her favorite artwork and videos. She could appreciate polytrix as a ship, you know, without it necessarily meaning anything. Mira and Rumi were her best friends, even when Mira was being a jerk, or Rumi was being annoyingly modest, and from a fans perspective the three of them could make a lot of sense, okay.
It wasn’t until Rumi pushed up the release of golden that it occurred to Zoey that tightly wound up workaholic Rumi, who she honestly couldn’t imagine relaxing enough to be with anyone, she wouldn’t even go to the bathhouse with Zoey and Mira, might have ulterior motives for wanting to seal the Honmoon earlier than later.
She mentioned it to Mira in passing when Rumi wasn’t around, “Do you think Rumi wants to seal the Honmoon so badly, so she can get laid?”
Mira had snorted, her composure totally ruined by the suggestion, “Don’t be absurd Zoey.”
But then Rumi started disappearing off to see Jinu, and Zoey knew the thought had come back to Mira.
“Jinu’s a demon. She definitely wouldn’t want to sleep with him,” Mira complained after the woo Jinu incident. But even to herself she didn’t sound too convincing. Zoey shrugged.
“You’re pretty upset about this,” Zoey said. It was the wrong thing to say.
Mira threw up her arms in the air in frustration, “Because he’s a demon!” she yelled before storming out of Zoey’s room.
After the Idol awards and defeating Gwi-Ma and creating a whole new Honmoon, Bobby and Celine had very strictly told the girls to stay off social media while they dealt with the PR issues from the idol awards and Saja boy fallout. They said they were handling it and Zoey trusted and believed them, but it didn’t stop her from being super curious about what the fans were saying.
She was good for a week, focused on bonding and relaxing with Rumi and Mira. Now that Rumi’s patterns had been revealed it was like that invisible barrier that had always kept her slightly removed from them had been removed, and it was amazing. Rumi was going to the bathhouse with them, they were having movie nights where they all cuddled up together on the couch, and sleepovers.
It occurred to Zoey while they were at the bathhouse with Rumi! that there was a much simpler explanation for Rumi’s behavior.
“Oh my god, Rumi, it makes way more sense that you wanted to seal the Honmoon so you could stop hiding your whole half-demon thing, but I totally thought it was because you really wanted to get laid,” Zoey told her without any shame.
Rumi’s whole face flushed red and she tried to hide her embarrassment by sinking into the water.
Mira’s chin lifted up, her eyes lighting up, “I guess we can pursue whatever romantic entanglements we want now, huh?”
Rumi’s head swiveled at that, eyes wide, “Uhh I guess so.”
Zoey couldn’t resist teasing, “Anyone special you got your eyes on Rumi?” and then regretted it immediately thinking of Jinu. Mira frowned slightly next to her.
Luckily Rumi didn’t seem upset by the question, “I was so focused on getting rid of my patterns, there was no room for anything romantic.”
But she got quiet after that, as if for the first time she was thinking about it.
That night while they were all sprawled on the couch before movie night, Rumi told them, “Celine didn’t tell me much about my Dad, but she did say my parents loved each other, and that my mom knew he was a demon.”
Mira looked relieved by this information, and Zoey felt a little embarrassed. She, unlike Mira, hadn't considered the logistics of Rumi being half-demon and whether or not consent had been involved. Obviously Rumi hadn’t consented to being born half-demon, but it was nice to know that her parents had.
Rumi continued, “Gwi-ma killed him,” and then with a little bit of dry wit, “Though I think Celine would have liked to.”
Zoey snorted, but Mira was nodding along, eyes bright, “Sick. A forbidden romance on both sides.”
Rumi smiled at the two of them pleased by their reaction. She stretched out her legs before placing them over Zoey’s and leaned back into Mira, who began petting Rumi’s hair.
“Should we start the movie?” Rumi asked.
Zoey woke up a few hours later. She’d fallen asleep on the couch wrapped up in Mira and Rumi. She grumbled waking up the other two. The three of them slowly disentangled and made their separate ways to their rooms wishing each other good night. But after brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas, and happily throwing herself into her bed, Zoey found that she was suddenly wide awake.
It had been a week of not looking at her anonymous account, of not knowing how the fans were reacting, and the itch to check would not go away. Zoey glanced at the clock. It was 2 am. She’d just sneak a little look and she’d be asleep before 2:30. No biggie.
Zoey pulled out her phone and swiped to her account. And oh wow it had been busy. It seemed like Bobby and Celine did not have this because it was madness. The theories were rampant. Zoey scrolled and scrolled. Luckily there was nothing about demons, but there were a lot of nasty things being said about Rumi. Theories that Mira and Zoey really had meant Takedown to be directed at her; that the picture perfect image of Rumi was a lie. That the lack of any news from Huntr/x recently was because they actually were breaking up.
It made Zoey incredibly angry and before she knew it she was posting:
Guys come on takedown was clearly a staged fight between Huntr/x so that we’d be hyped for the Namsan performance. Did you miss the part where they were all holding hands under a rainbow singing about “my voice without the lies”? If they’re pushing an agenda it's the gay agenda. Both songs were so obviously queer coded. Zoe and Mira love Rumi. #polytrix
It was a dumb post. It was 4 am and it didn’t really make any coherent sense. But Zoey just wanted people to stop hating on Rumi, so she posted it anyway. She closed the app still angry.
The next day Zoey just kept posting polytrix theories all over the place, and it was slowly gaining momentum. Other accounts started posting too, providing more screenshots of the three of them in matching white outfits holding hands in a circle and before Zoey knew it #polytrix was trending globally. It made Zoey sigh in relief. +1 Zoey over the Rumi haters.
Zoey felt less good about it a week later, when #polytrix continued to trend. It had meant to be a simple distraction to remind people that Huntr/x loved each other and was not fighting, not a thing that was meant to keep going. She’d stopped contributing to the fire at this point and was just getting more and more antsy. At least Mira and Rumi hadn’t seemed to notice. Rumi was hardly touching her phone, not wanting to see what people were saying, and Mira had a very curated online presence isolated from the madness of the fans. Unfortunately their blissful unawareness could not continue forever.
“Hey Bobby!” all three chimed when Rumi picked up her phone.
“Hey girls!” came Bobby’s reply.
“What’s up?” Rumi asked.
“Is it okay if I come over? I don’t want to interrupt your break, but I want to talk about something with the three of you. It's kind of important,” Bobby said.
The three of them shared confused looks before Rumi responded, “You know you’re always welcome. What do you need to talk about?”
“It’ll be easier to just explain in person. I’ll be there in 30,” Bobby told them before hanging up.
“I wish he’d be here sooner,” Mira complained, “Now we’re just left in suspense.”
Rumi shrugged but the forehead crease that appeared suggested she agreed with Mira.
“So the PR team’s been struggling a bit,” Bobby was telling them half an hour later. Rumi winced.
Zoey asked, “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Yeah, Bobby, what do you need?” Mira chimed in. Bobby glanced at all three of them.
“Well we were starting to get it under control, but uhh, there were still some Rumi hate flying that we needed to get under wraps. But then polytrix started taking off and we thought that might work well, so we let it happen, but now it's not really going away,” Bobby told them. Zoey groaned.
“Polytrix?” Rumi asked.
“It's our ship name,” Mira answered, “You, me, and Zoey.”
Zoey blinked at that, surprised Mira knew. Bobby nodded along.
“Yeah, so we think it might be good if one of you were spotted with like a boyfriend or something,” Bobby told them, “You know to take some of the pressure off of it.”
Mira frowned, “Wouldn’t it be better to just let it naturally die down? Getting a boyfriend seems like it would add fuel to the fire.”
“We’re not sure it will naturally die down,” Bobby told Mira. He pulled out the manilla envelope he’d brought with him and brandished a printed sheet from it to show the three of them.
“This is the original polytrix post from like 2 years ago and the tag hasn’t ever lost popularity since,” he told them, “We’ve tried to get it under control various times over the years, but it keeps coming back.”
Zoey stared at the piece of paper; it was her post printed on Bobby’s sheet of paper. The picture of the three of them with the caption: Obviously they are a trio #polytrix with her account id HuntrixLuvr77. Oops. So maybe it was sort of Zoey’s fault.
Mira pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration while Rumi inspected the post.
“At least they picked a cute picture of us,” Rumi said.
This was Zoey’s fault so she should fix it.
“I can get a boyfriend,” she told Bobby, “No problem!”
She gave him a thumbs up for double confirmation.
“No, no,” Rumi interrupted, “This is all my fault. This stuff is all because of me. I’ll get a boyfriend,” Rumi told Zoey earnestly.
“Don’t know if you noticed, Rumi,” Mira announced, “But we were all at Namsan, we were all in the little circle holding hands, not just you. None of us should have to get a boyfriend just because a random ship is trending.”
She gave both Rumi and Zoey disapproving looks before turning to Bobby, “Right Bobby?”
He put his hands up, “Of course none of you need to do anything you’re not comfortable with, but polytrix doesn’t really seem to be slowing down, so uhh think about it?”
Zoey frowned as Bobby left.
“The Honmoon is sealed, there’s nothing stopping us from getting boyfriends, and with this ship drama, now seems like a pretty good time,” Zoey told Mira, “Plus I’ve got a really good list ready to go!”
Mira sighed, “Zoey so much has recently happened don’t you think we need to just chill and rest for a while? And not massively change things?”
Zoey pouted, “We’ve been chilling for two weeks now. That's really long for us!”
Rumi was still holding the piece of paper Bobby had left behind, evidence of Zoey’s original sin. She was staring at the picture of the three of them, not really listening to Mira and Zoey’s argument.
“Fans really ship the three of us?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, hardcore,” Mira responded, “I go check the tag every once in a while just to make sure there’s no new scandal. No one ships us harder than HuntrixLuvr77.”
At this Mira shook her head in amusement. Zoey’s stomach dropped as Mira pulled out her phone to show Rumi some of HuntrixLuvr77’s other posts. It felt weird listening to Mira explain her posts to Rumi, like an out of body experience. Kind of like your worst nightmare brought to life. Because Zoey had meant those posts jokingly, but read by Mira it suddenly didn’t sound that way. It sounded like HuntrixLuvr77 really wanted Rumi, Mira, and Zoey to all get together and be madly in love. And oh god, did Zoey want that?
“Zoey you okay?” Mira was asking, “Your breathing got all weird.”
Both Rumi and Mira were looking at her with concern, Rumi holding Mira’s phone, and Zoey stared back and opened her mouth multiple times as if to say something, but nothing came out.
Rumi grinned then, “It's okay Zoey. I’m everyone’s type.”
Mira hit Rumi for that, but it was good because their normal bantering took Zoey out of her panic, which was likely what Rumi had intended in the first place.
“This is all my fault,” Zoey told them with a moan.
“As we already covered all three of us were there, Zo,” Mira complained.
“No. The post,” Zoey interrupted, “Its my post. I’m HuntrixLuvr77. I was mad people were shipping us as duos, so I posted that we should only be shipped as a trio.”
The two of them stared at her for a moment taking this in. Zoey could see Mira’s eyes narrowing as she took this in and combined it with all her other knowledge about Zoey.
“Why the fuck do you have a boyfriend list then?” was the first response from Mira before she realized what she’d said and her face flushed a horrible red color.
“Nevermind not important. What the fuck Zoey?” was Mira’s second attempt.
“I don’t know!” Zoey said, “It just happened, and kept happening. I should have listened to Celine,” Zoey pouted.
Rumi was still holding Mira’s phone looking through HuntrixLuvr77 posts, “Zoe and Mira love Rumi,” she read aloud.
“Is that true?” she asked. She looked at Zoey first and then directly at Mira.
“Of course we love you,” Mira answered instinctively.
“Romantically?” Rumi questioned.
Zoey groaned, “It's my post, it's clearly meant to be read as romantic.”
“No, I’m not asking about the post,” Rumi said, “I’m asking you. Do you love me romantically?”
“What are the consequences of my answer?” Zoey asked.
Rumi blinked at that, taking in Mira who’s face was still bright red, and Zoey who was bouncing uncomfortably from foot to foot like she was preparing to be shot. She glanced back at the phone at the posts there.
“Fuck it,” she said. And then suddenly Zoey was being kissed. Mira made a sound like a grieving wombat and Rumi pulled back from kissing Zoey to laugh at her, “Feeling left out?” she questioned.
Mira didn’t bother replying, spinning Rumi around and kissing her intently. Zoey spluttered.
“What about all the guys with hot abs?” she asked. There was no reply for a moment as the two continued kissing.
“Hey!” Zoey yelled.
“Oh my god Zoey, I like girls with hot abs, too,” Mira told her annoyed. And then without any preamble she leaned in and kissed Zoey too.
“I guess we should talk about this,” Rumi suggested.
“Yeah Rumi, how long have you been in love with us?” Zoey questioned, “Because apparently I’ve been in love with the two of you for like at least two years.”
“And been a total dumbass about it,” Mira added on. Zoey stuck out her tongue at her.
Rumi smiled at the two of them.
It was Zoey’s fault, and she takes full credit for it.