Chapter Text
“I need help,” Jinu confessed. He teleports in a puff of red smoke when Zoey launches a chair at him, which he dodges, and Mira summons her weapon.
“How are you even alive?” Rumi asks, too stunned to properly enjoy that he is alive and standing in their home. Although, she does put a hand on Mira to keep her from getting too excited with her weapon.
“I can only guess at that,” Jinu confesses. “When I came to I was back in the demon realm, but Gwi-Ma… he has been reduced to practically nothing. He was the only reason any of us collected souls—”
“Killed people,” Mira drawls.
“Mira, give him a chance?” Rumi pleads.
“As demons we have abilities that are enhanced by souls, but only Gwi-Ma can turn the souls into power to be redistributed. None of us are willing to feed him and have his voice back in our ear, but I worry that restlessness will eventually cause someone to break,” Jinu explains.
“Wouldn’t it take a million years for any of you to do something that stupid?” Zoey asks.
“I want the demons to be safe from his voice for eternity,” Jinu says firmly, his eyes flashing to their demon form at the last word.
“Yeah so we’ll threaten the idiots to keep them from collecting souls," Mira decides as she crosses her arms.
“Actually, I had something else in mind.”
“No,” Mira says.
“Absolutely not,” Zoey agrees.
“This doesn’t seem like a great idea,” Rumi admits as the five demons stand in their living room in their demon forms, but with pretty (stupidly pretty) faces.
“Asking for help from hunters was stupid even for you Jinu,” Abby says as he leans against the other and flicks his hat with a pointed claw. The motion caused his button down to ride up.
“How are you guys even alive?” Mira asks and avoids looking at his stupid abs. Stupid stupid stupid. Who even likes abs? And what happened to his stupid jacket?
“Your weapons,” Romance begins, disappearing and then reappearing next to Mira to touch the handle of her weapon. He smirks as she launches it at him and he disappears and reappears next to Mystery.
“Guys,” Jinu sighs and shoos Abby’s hand away. “Your weapons don’t kill us, they just send us back to the demon realm, but they deplete our strength. The weakest of us can’t transform or cross the barrier without being given more strength from Gwi-Ma. That type of solitude would drive anyone crazy.”
“Okay, and your point is?” Zoey asks.
“If someone thinks their next encounter with you three is going to result in them not being able to leave then demons might start collecting souls even if it gives Gwi-Ma his power back,” Jinu explains.
“What can we do then?” Rumi asks.
“We want to live on the surface,” Baby says like it’s obvious.
“And!” Jinu begins before the other three begin to protest. “We can help with handling demons,” he explains.
“How?” Rumi asks.
“They like us,” Abby says with a wink.
The three hunters remain silent and Rumi rubs her face as she wraps her brain around what a stupid idea this is.
“Without Gwi-Ma’s voice in their ear, the demons have no reason to collect souls. You guys can let them come hang out on the surface, and we can make sure they don’t try anything stupid,” Jinu explains.
“What are you guys even gonna do on the surface?” Zoey asks.
“That’s why we’re here,” Romance says. “You three teach us how to live on the surface and then we’ll know how to keep other demons out of trouble.”
“But you guys were doing that before weren’t you?” Zoey asks. “As the Saja Boys?”
“Nah,” Baby says.
“After each performance we had to go back down. Jinu spent the most time up here,” Abby says.
“You guys stay here, and we can talk about it,” Rumi says and drags Zoey and Mira along with her to her room. She shuts the door behind her and looks to the other two. “Well?” She asks, expecting her friends to be opposed to the idea and having to convince them.
“We can always kill them if they act out of line,” Miya says with a smirk.
“Seriously?” Rumi asks.
“They don’t have a reason to collect souls,” Zoey shrugs. “I would wanna come here too after spending forever stuck with Gwi-Ma.”
“Okay,” Rumi nods with a smile. “I guess we should go give them the good news,” she says.
“Yeah, then it is getting late. We should have them leave until tomorrow,” Zoey says, but when they leave the bedroom the five guys have transformed into their completely human forms and are in pajamas and taking over the couch. Baby has his head in Romance’s lap and his feet in Mystery’s, while Jinu and Abby are both sitting next to Mystery.
“What are you guys doing?” Rumi asks.
“Do we get to stay?” Abby asks.
“If not, we'll send Jinu to convince you,” Baby declares with a smirk as Romance gently fixes stray strands of Baby’s hair.
“You guys need to leave for the night and come back in the morning!” Zoey says. “We have very important couch-ing to do until… then.”
“Please?” Mystery asks with a small smile.
“Ugh!” Zoey turns around to be not looking at them. “Mira, tell them!” she says, but Mira is distracted by abs since why is Abby shirtless.
“Rumi?” Mira nudges her.
Rumi sighs, but then looks at Jinu who smiles. “We’ll stay out of trouble, and we could join you guys for the uh…”
“Couch-ing?” Abby suggests with a smirk.
“Couch-ing is our time, sorry,” Rumi says, and is immediately faced with five pouts. “A little help?” Rumi asks only to see that Mira has also turned to not look at them. “Seriously?” Rumi groans.
Jinu snickers before he stands up. “We’ll come back in the morning, the others will probably want to hear the good news. Come on guys,” he says and then the five vanish.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Mira groans as she and Zoey settle onto the couch where the demons had been.
“I can’t believe he’s alive,” Rumi breathes, but she joins them on the couch where Jinu had been sitting. Still a demon though. She supposes there is no getting rid of their patterns. She looks at her own with a smile and glances out the window at their iridescent honmoon. No cracks and yet the demons can still come. Rumi can’t help but wonder why, but she supposes it is something that they’ll have to learn together. So long as Gwi-Ma isn’t in control of them, she doesn’t think them being able to come is such a bad thing.
“You said to come back in the morning,” Jinu says.
Rumi supposes she is glad she woke up first. It won’t be that way for long if Baby doesn’t quit burning eggs in their kitchen. “So you guys decided to raid our fridge?” She asks.
“Nah, just him,” Jinu says.
Remi rolls her eyes as she makes her way over, weaving between the demons, who are all on their pretty demon forms, and looking at the pan. “Do you guys even eat?”
“We don’t need to,” Abby says.
“He likes to,” Mystery adds.
“Okay,” Rumi says and takes the pan from him and discards the burnt egg. She puts the pan in the sink before grabbing a clean one and adding butter to it before putting it on the burner and turning the heat down quite a bit. “So,” Rumi begins as the demons watch her. “How old are each of you?” She asks.
“Asking a demon his age? How forward of you,” Romance teases.
“What?” Rumi tenses up and grips the pan tighter before releasing it with a thunk. She gets a bowl and cracks some eggs into it before she begins whisking them. “I wanted to know how much you guys are going to need to be taught,” she says.
“Jinu is the oldest of us,” Abby says as opposed to actually answering. Rumi supposes it might be a sore spot. She dumps the bowl of whisked egg into the heated pan and glances over to Baby who seems to be watching intently.
“And you guys don’t have different names?” Rumi asks.
“We don’t remember them,” Mystery says, “Gwi-Ma took the memory of our names away.”
“Not mine,” Jinu says when Rumi glances over to him.
“We gave ourselves names when we formed the group,” Abby says.
Rumi nods, even if she thinks they could have chosen better. She supposes they could always choose again. “Wait, so what about before Saja Boys?” She asks.
“What do you mean?” Mystery asks with a tilt of his head.
“What did you call each other before that?” Rumi asks.
“Before Jinu came up with the idea we didn’t do much of anything, we had no reason for names,” Romance explains.
Rumi nods with a hum and has Baby grab her the cheese and chives from the fridge. She shreds some cheese and cuts some chives before adding both to the omelet and beginning to fold it.
“Are you not able to cross over?” Jinu asks.
“Why would I try?” Rumi says, which is fair. Most demons wouldn’t stay if it wasn’t for Gwi-Ma dragging them back down. “Alright, this is done,” Rumi says and puts it on a plate before handing it to Baby who grins at the sight of it, before his grin falls and he tilts his head.
“Do you have hot sauce? He puts that on everything,” Jinu explains.
“Oh yeah, I think Mira does,” Rumi says and goes back to the fridge before she finds it and puts some on the omelet for him.
“Thanks,” Baby says before he goes to take a seat at the breakfast bar. The other demons watch him eat with what Rumi quickly realizes is envy.
“If you guys wanted some you should have said so,” Rumi says as she begins to clean up.
“What are you eating for breakfast?” Jinu asks as he swoops in to do dishes for her.
“Zoey, Mira, and I are going out for breakfast,” Rumi says.
“Can we come?” Abby asks with a grin.
“We can’t have breakfast with you guys! It’ll be online everywhere!” Rumi says as if it is obvious, but the five guys either don’t understand or don’t care. “Unless you guys can choose different forms? Can you guys turn into girls?”
“Do you guys know anything about demons?” Abby asks.
“What he means is,” Jinu begins, “Transformation magic isn’t our specialty, and because of how some of us were sent back before the honmoon was sealed, some of us wouldn’t be able to hold it for very long.”
“Right,” Rumi sighs. “Well, I have to go get ready and I can ask the girls about this, but I don’t think they’ll go for it.”
“Why don’t you let us ask?” Romance suggests.
“Whatever,” Rumi says as she walks off and goes back into her room.
Two weeks into their three month hiatus and they have five demons in their house who want to live on the surface. Celine would disapprove, but Rumi hasn’t seen her since… Rumi hasn’t seen her. There is no rule book for this, and any rules that existed before were destroyed with the old honmoon and are being rewritten on pages lined with iridescent ink.
It is exciting, but also terrifying. They have to keep demons from making the illogical and stupid decision to bring souls to Gwi-Ma, but after an eternity of his voice in their ears, it doesn’t seem like the most far fetched thing in the world. It is possible some may prefer that voice if the only alternative is silence.
“We should get to know each other,” Zoey explains her reasoning as the large group walks to a breakfast joint.
“Bobby is so gonna scold us later,” Mira says.
“Do we know the same Bobby? He’ll be sad we didn’t invite him to breakfast, but he is spending our hiatus at that no-phone spa,” Rumi says.
“Anyway, since you guys are like a billion years old I chose this place because they do modern and traditional breakfast!” Zoey explains.
“A billion years old?” Abby asks. All the demons in their human forms, fitted with modern clothes.
“Well you guys won’t say how old you are, so we can only assume,” Rumi shrugs.
Inside the restaurant they are sat at a table and Rumi sits next to Jinu with Baby sitting across from them. Zoey ends up next to him with Mystery beside her. Beside Mystery is Romance and across from Romance is Mira with Abbey sitting between her and Jinu.
They are each given menus by a waitress who seems to be having an internal freak out about the two bands sitting in the restaurant, but is too timid to say anything.
“We should see if she wants to take a picture after!” Zoey says.
“Good idea, I think she might combust,” Mira says with a smirk.
“She did look ill,” Romance says.
“She’s just excited, you guys are pretty popular even after disappearing for two weeks,” Rumi explains.
None of them seem to know how to reply to that, although Rumi thinks it makes them a little flustered based on how some of their faces look a little warm.
“Oh! We can totally talk about songs now! Which one of you guys is the lyricist?” Zoey squeals.
“And the choreographer?” Mira adds.
“Baby and I did the writing,” Jinu says, “Although he does most of the back track and music with Mystery.”
“Otherwise it would sound old,” Mystery says as Baby nods very seriously.
“And Romance and I do choreo,” Abby sends a grin to Mira as Romance smiles in a far too friendly manner.
“It took forever for Jinu to learn it,” Romance adds.
“Hey!” Jinu protests.
“It did,” Baby insists as he flips through the menu. “They have kimchi,” he comments idly.
“Well you guys can order what you want, it’s on us,” Rumi says.
“What do you three usually get?” Jinu asks.
“Pancakes!” Zoey cheers.
“As many kimbap as I can stuff my face with,” Mira says, determined.
“We usually get a bunch of things to share,” Rumi explains. Everyone else seems pretty on board with that, although Baby seems adamant about getting an extra side kimchi for himself (and then stealing the other sides when their food is brought to them).
Although the other four seem a little iffy about eating.
“We ordered all this food, it is rude not to eat,” Rumi says.
“Here, try this and this and this and this and this and this and…” Zoey trails off as she loads food onto Mystery’s plate. “And,” she says as he looks over to Baby. “You should eat something besides kimchi,” she says.
“If they have hot sauce here then sure,” Baby shrugs.
“Just ask them for it,” Mira comments.
“Jinu, can you ask?” Baby requests.
“Seriously?” Jinu sighs. “Yeah, when they come around I will,” he agrees.
“Why can’t he?” Mira asks.
“He’s shy,” Romance explains.
“Had to hype himself up when we performed,” Abby agrees.
Baby flips them off as he shovels kimchi into his mouth. The action makes the two pink haired guys laugh and Jinu smiles at their antics.
“Well there is no time to learn like the present,” Zoey decides.
“That is the point of this,” Rumi agrees. “So you should try asking for your own.”
Baby sighs and swallows his kimchi. When the waitress comes back around to get them more water and tea, all Baby says is “hot sauce”.
“Would you like some?” The waitress asks and Baby nods.
“Please,” Rumi adds, unable to help herself as she flashes an apologetic smile to the waitress who leaves. “What was that?”
“I don’t know!” Baby says as his face burns red and the patterns creep up his neck.
“Hey, it’s cool! It’s about learning, don’t be embarrassed,” Zoey says and sets a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but his eyes flash to his demon form and he pushes himself up.
“Let’s go to the bathroom,” Mystery decides and gets up to take him there as Baby keeps a hand on his neck to cover his patterns.
“Will he be alright?” Zoey asks.
“It’ll probably keep him awake at night,” Abby says. “Metaphorically! We don’t sleep,” Abby elaborates when the girls look at him, as if that makes it any better.
“That’s so weird! He is crazy talented on stage,” Zoey says.
“He gets into a different head space for that, normally he is uncomfortable talking to people,” Jinu explains.
“He talks to us just fine,” Rumi says.
Jinu shrugs with an easy smile. “I’m not sure how his head works,” he says. “Although we should eat, he’ll probably be more embarrassed if we wait for him.”
When they get back, the hot sauce is on the table and Baby has successfully kept all of his demon parts under wraps.
“I thanked her for you,” Zoey assures. “And she does want to take a picture with us afterwards,” she adds.
“Seriously?” Baby asks.
“Yeah, you’re her favourite apparently,” Jinu shrugs.
Baby glares at the hot sauce before he uses it on the food Zoey had plated for him.
After breakfast is done and paid for, they take pictures with the waitress and any other wait staff that want one since it isn’t very busy in the restaurant.
“Sorry about earlier, I have a hard time talking to people sometimes,” Baby apologizes with this overly friendly smile and gives her a slight bow.
“Oh it’s okay! I get it!” The waitress insists, flustered. “Could we get a picture together?”
“I’d love that!” Baby grins and tilts his head, his hair bouncing slightly as he hands Jinu the phone to get their picture together.
“How?” Rumi breathes as Zoey and Mira stare at him being all bubbly and friendly.
“He rehearsed it in his head, that’s why he didn’t talk for the rest of breakfast,” Mystery explains.
“Ah,” Zoey sighs but smiles anyway.
They make their way out and Baby’s bubbly deminur drops almost instantly as they make the walk back home. He seems more than ready to not socialize for the rest of the trip, which makes it a pain when they seem to constantly run into fans, but what else is to be expected by them walking.
“Couldn’t we have taken a car?” Baby asks after the fourth fan interaction.
“We are on hiatus, but we still wanna see our fans!” Zoey says.
“It’s important to keep the hanmoon strong,” Rumi adds.
“Can’t you guys teleport? You could head back if you wanted,” Mira mentions.
“Whatever,” Baby grumbles.
“You’re chatty today for someone who doesn’t want to socialize,” Jinu mentions and pokes his cheek even if he almost loses a finger to Baby’s teeth in the process.
“Besides, she is right,” Romance says. “You could stay down below if you don’t want to be out.”
“He just likes to complain,” Mystery says.
Baby rolls his eyes but otherwise stays quiet and doesn’t complain much aside from the occasional sighs until they get—
“This isn’t the house,” Baby says. If that skyscraper could even be called a house.
“We’re just picking up a few things,” Mira says as they get to a high end boutique.
“Don’t you guys have people to do this kind of thing?” Abby asks even if he looks amused.
“But if we get other people to do this then we can’t window shop and convince Rumi to try on a million things,” Zoey explains.
“We gotta make up for lost time,” Mira agrees.
“Do we get to choose outfits for her?” Abby asks as the demons smirk.
“Well it would have been a yes until you guys did that,” Rumi rolls her eyes.
“What did we do?” Mystery asks.
“The whole demon eye thing and the creepy smirks,” Mira says as they all head into the store anyway.
“Go to the men’s side,” Zoey shoos them away before they drag Rumi off into the store.
Abby groans, but Jinu drags him to the men’s side so they can all look around even if they don’t have money and don’t really need clothes. At the very least it can give them ideas for what to wear when they transform.
For a moment none of them actually look around, they’re all just waiting for the hunters to be done, but then Romance finds this white silk button up with gold embroidering.
“That must be actual gold,” Romance decides when he sees the price tag.
“You can just transform into it later,” Abby says dismissively.
“Yeah, but I never get the details right on these kinds of things,” Romance sighs.
“We could ask one of them to take a picture with their phone,” Mystery mentions.
“I hope being up here doesn’t mean we have to learn how to use those things,” Jinu decides.
“You would be helpless,” Abby agrees with a smirk as he looks at some button ups with patterns and Mystery pokes around some of the jackets.
“Probably,” Jinu agrees.
They get bored of poking around fairly quickly and end up waiting an eternity for the hunters to be done shopping. When they are done, they come to the front with one bag.
“Seriously? We thought you guys were buying the entire store,” Abby says.
“Oh Romance,” Mystery reminds.
“Right,” Romance nods. “I was wondering if one of you would take a picture of a top for me.”
“Yeah sure,” Mira shrugs and the two head off.
“We could buy it,” Zoey mentions. “We really should have had you guys try on outfits.”
“Next time,” Rumi decides very seriously.
“I don’t think we would ever leave,” Abby says as Mira and Romance make their way back.
“Thanks Mira,” Romance smiles.
“Whatever,” Mira rolls her eyes, her face warm.
“Are we going back now?” Baby asks.
“Yep!” Zoey grins.
“We gotta work on a new song,” Rumi explains as the group begins to head back.
“We want to release an album once our hiatus is done,” Mira adds.
“You guys could work on a new single,” Zoey mentions.
“Might keep you guys from being bored,” Rumi agrees.
“What about your honmoon? I don’t think it likes our singing,” Abby says.
“We don’t know how this one will react, it’s new,” Rumi says and her patterns seem to sparkle with the honmoon itself.
“I guess if those two feel like writing something we could,” Abby grumbles and looks away from Rumi.
“You guys should, your singing is so good!” Zoey says.
“We do have those verses we took out from Your Idol,” Jinu mentions to Baby.
“I didn’t realize you wanted to learn more choreo,” Baby scoffs.
“I did not,” Jinu agrees.
“Yeah and because of that we got fewer lines,” Romance nods to Mystery, both not thrilled about having fewer lines.
“Could we hear it?” Rumi asks. She doesn’t know about rereleasing the song, but they seem to enjoy singing and she thinks that can’t possibly be a bad thing.
“Sure?” Jinu says as he looks at the other guys who seem on board with it.
“No weird demon magic, I actually want to hear it this time,” Zoey says.
“No promises,” Abby grins.
“He’s kidding,” Mystery says.
In the elevator the guys learn that the hunters only live on a couple of the floors and that they have a floor dedicated to writing and recording music and another dedicated to practicing choreography. Zoey explains the layout of the building to them as they head to the floor for recording.
“The acoustics are good there,” Rumi explains.
“And we gotta do some writing after,” Zoey grins.
“And you’re good to do this?” Jinu asks Baby.
“Yeah, it isn’t like we’re actually performing,” he says.
They head to what seems to be a writing studio and the girls sit on the couch. “Dazzle us,” Rumi grins.
“Acapella?” Romance asks.
“Do you guys have a uh…” Mystery trails off.
“Drum machine?” Zoey suggests and gets up to make sure it is plugged in and turns it on for Mystery to use. He messes around with it and Zoey smiles at the way he perks up as he learns to use it. Zoey sits back down as Mystery begins to mimic the backing music they had when they originally performed, and then Jinu and Abbey begin to sing.
The girls sit and listen as they go through the song, and the honmoon becomes visible just as the demons’ patterns reappear on their skin.
“Don’t let it show keep it all inside, the pain and the shame keep it outta sight,” Mystery sings as he looks at the patterns running along his fingers.
“Your obsession feeds our connection. 이 순간 give me all your attention,” Romance continues.
“You know I’m the only one who’ll love your sins…” Jinu stops as the honmoon seems to glow brighter, illuminating the otherwise dimly lit room. Mystery turns off the drum machine.
“That was the only different part anyway,” Mystery says as the honmoon fades and the demons force their patterns to disappear.
“What about you guys?” Jinu says.
“Uh, what about us?” Rumi asks. The demons move on so quickly and avoid giving the hunters a chance to even think about why the honmoon did that and if it is good or bad.
“You three gonna sing us that song you wrote about us?” Baby asks with a smirk as he holds up his hands to make a heart.
“What song?” Rumi scoffs.
“So sweet, so easy on the eyes,” Romance begins.
“But hideous on the inside,” Abby continues.
“Whole life spreading lies, but you can’t hide, baby, nice try,” Romance sings.
“I’m ‘bout to switch up these vibes, I finally opened my eyes. It’s time to kick you straight back into the night,” Baby sings with a grin.
“Yeah we’re not doing that song anymore,” Rumi says, before they can continue “How did you guys even get the lyrics?” She asks.
“Tiger,” Jinu shrugs, but has the decency to look guilty about it.
“That song is badass,” Baby decides.
“It’s hateful,” Rumi says as she looks at her own patterns. “And I never want to perform that song on stage again if I can help it,” she decides.
“I’m…” Jinu trails off.
“Were you guys actually fighting that night?” Rumi asks.
“Something like that,” Mystery says.
“This one was getting a scolding from Gwi-Ma,” Abby nudges Jinu.
Jinu nudges him back, “We all kinda were.”
“Why?” Mira asks.
“We were having too much fun, it isn’t eternal suffering with Gwi-Ma if we aren’t suffering,” Romance explains.
“Then he turned the voices up, we cut that verse and booked a concert,” Baby says with a dismissive wave.
“I’m just glad it’s finally quiet,” Mystery nods.
“I feel like I could actually sleep and I haven’t slept since before this,” Romance agrees.
“You guys didn’t sleep?” Rumi asks.
“No, and there isn’t really a place to sleep down below,” Jinu says.
“Well no wonder demons are in such bad moods all the time!” Mira says and Zoey nods.
“You five should seriously go get some sleep up in the penthouse,” Zoey orders.
“It isn’t something we actually need,” Jinu assures.
“That isn’t as assuring as you think it is,” Rumi teases. “You guys are as free as you’ll ever be, right? That means you're free to sleep and the three of us will wish you good dreams.”
Jinu’s face flushes, as do most of the other guys.
“You three seriously want us to go sleep?” Abby asks.
“Go sleep or go couch, whatever gets you guys to relax,” Zoey decides.
“You guys are worse at it then Rumi,” Mira agrees. “Also, we’re going to the bath house tonight and unless you guys are going to the men’s you gotta find something else to do.”
“But worry about that later, there are guest rooms. Make yourselves at home,” Rumi says.
“Uh, sure,” Jinu says when the others are looking at him. Then they disappear into a puff of smoke.
“Hopefully they sleep,” Mira says.
“Hopefully,” Rumi agrees.