Chapter Text
Rumi could see the Honmoon from the moment she first opened her eyes.
At least that's what Celine used to tell her.
She was barely a week old when Celine and her fellow Sunlight Sister Kimmy had met her for the first time, sitting in Rumi's mother Miyeong's home drinking tea and watching with wonder as the baby girl's eyes followed the shimmering blue lines across the ceiling and walls.
The three women in the room had all been taught to see the Honmoon by their mentor back when they were kids. None of them had ever heard of a Hunter being born with the sight.
So Rumi was special, Celine would say. She was chosen. She was born for this. Destined to turn the Honmoon gold. And someday the Honmoon would lead her to her fellow Hunters, just like it led Celine to Kimmy and Miyeong.
Rumi hadn't believed her about that part until the first time she felt them.
She was five years old, sitting in the garden singing the Hunter's Song while Celine braided her hair. It was a sort of ritual they did, singing together and putting Rumi's hair up to mark the end of playtime and the start of training.
Celine liked rituals. She liked structure. She liked things organized and tidy. So Rumi did too.
But there was something wild in the way the Honmoon hummed that day, something disorganized and vibrant. Rumi had been restless since the moment she woke up, like she was waiting for something.
But she wouldn't let her energy interfere with training, or their ritual. She didn't want to bother Celine with it. So she clenched her fists and sang dutifully as Celine wove her long hair with deft hands, harmonizing with her.
“We are Hunters, voices strong. Slaying-”
Rumi gasped mid-verse, watching as a pulse of brilliant gold spread through the lines of light beneath her before racing off across the landscape in a specific direction. Then a second pulse, just like the first, but it went a different way.
Rumi looked over her shoulder, eyes wide, to find Celine smiling at her. Her hands fell gently to Rumi's shoulders, and Rumi could tell that Celine was excited too, in her own way.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered, and Rumi did. “Follow the light. Can you feel them?”
And Rumi could.
They were faint and far away, but two little flames were out there in the dark, calling to her. Bright spots of warmth, wrapping Rumi in the feeling of a towel fresh from the dryer or a purring cat lying in the sun.
Until then, Rumi had always doubted that there were really two more girls like her out there. Celine was always alone, no Sunlight Sisters left by her side. Just Rumi.
But they were out there. She felt them. And she was breathless with joy just knowing they existed.
“We'll find them someday, when the light gets stronger,” Celine had told her as she resumed braiding. “The Honmoon will lead us to them. They can't see it yet, but they'll start to feel you soon too.”
Rumi practically vibrated with excitement. They could feel her too, whoever they were. She hoped the feeling they got from her was half as nice as the one she got from them, half as warm and welcoming.
She didn't know it then, too young to have the emotional vocabulary, but the feeling from those two little lights in the dark was home.
Zoey loved Rumi's voice. Like, she was obsessed, if she was being honest with herself. She was always ready to tell the press and interviewers that whoever claimed to be Rumi's biggest fan was actually her third biggest, because Mira was number two and Zoey was number one.
It killed as a joke. But Zoey was dead serious.
That was how she'd found them, after all. After years of feeling like something was missing from her heart, like there was a great love out there waiting for her to find, she started hearing Rumi's voice in her dreams.
The first time, she was six. She had been dreaming of waves, like the ocean, but made of… light? And then there were ripples, big ones, like two heavy stones had been dropped in the water at different points far away and she was just now seeing the effect.
But no, heavy stones wasn't right. It was more like… sound waves. Yeah, like the forms in the audio editing software she played with on her laptop when she was supposed to be doing homework. There were two new sounds out there, she could feel it. A vibration, a humming, a… a pair of heartbeats, perfectly in sync with hers.
And then she heard her voice.
Just one voice, which was weird because there were definitely two hearts out there that she needed to find. But wow, that voice.
“We are Hunters, voices strong…”
She sounded so far away. That wasn't fair. She needed to be closer.
“Slaying demons with our song…”
There was so much yearning in that voice, a loneliness, a longing. And Zoey recognized those feelings immediately because they were hers, too. They were reaching for each other, all three of them, across space and darkness and silence, and Zoey needed to find them.
“I'm here,” she called out, and the waves of blue light around her rippled and hummed.
“Fix the world and make it right…”
The song was still so quiet, still so far.
“Where are you?” Zoey shouted, tears in her eyes. She was going to wake up soon, she was going to lose them, and she grew desperate and panicked. “I need you! Help me find you!”
“...I'm here.”
Zoey gasped in excitement. It wasn't the singing voice, it was the other one. The third heartbeat. Even further and quieter than the song, but…
“Please,” Zoey cried, reaching blindly into the dark.
“When darkness finally meets the light.”
The singing faded away to a whisper. She was waking up.
“I love you!” Zoey called out while she still could. “I love you both! I'll find you!”
When she woke up, she was inconsolable for about a day before she realized something.
She finally knew that they were out there somewhere, for sure. The pieces of her that were missing. She'd always felt their absence so acutely, but now she'd heard them.
They were there. Calling to her.
And she could find them.
For a large portion of her childhood, Mira thought she was haunted. Which was like… metal, so. Cool.
Ever since she was seven, she was visited almost every night in her dreams by two ghosts.
They were sort of… wispy. Immaterial. Like she was always seeing them out of the corner of her eye through a fogged window. But she grew to recognize their shapes, the way they moved.
They were two girls, like her.
No matter how odd or scary or boring the rest of the dream was, her ghosts were there. Out of place. Like they were both from other dreams and had ended up in hers by accident.
Mira was tactile. She liked watching how people moved. How they held themselves, how they walked, how they played. So even before she started to see more details, she knew which was which.
The one she'd seen first, she was more… still. Purposeful. She reminded Mira of the other girls in her ballet class that she'd hated and gotten kicked out of. Poised. At least, most of the time.
There was an anxiety in her too. A restlessness. Like there was some explosive energy building up inside her slowly that she had to let out in little bursts. Mira understood that well enough, what with her so-called anger issues. She spent most of her time simmering, but every so often she boiled over.
The other ghost, the one that had joined the first after a couple weeks, was smaller. Wilder. An unstoppable force of energy and excitement. She was always bouncing, hopping, like she was constantly listening to music that Mira couldn't hear.
Which was a bummer, because Mira loved music. She loved to dance. She just didn't like that jerk ballet teacher.
Mira eventually named her ghosts, when their shapes started to resolve into something more defined. The first was Borasaek, for all the soft purple light that surrounded her like a halo. The second was Paransaek, for the blue sparkles that seemed to follow her every move.
Mira started martial arts when she was eight because she could see Borasaek practicing it sometimes and it looked cool. She tried skateboarding for a while too when Paransaek started gliding around her dreams at high speed, but she didn't stick with that one.
She did keep dancing. Just not ballet.
She didn't connect her ghosts to the hollow longing in her chest until the first time it seemed like they saw her.
The dream was strange that night. She was in an empty space with only her ghosts for company. They were both far away, much too far away, but dream logic still allowed her to see them as clearly as ever.
Borasaek was kneeling like she was meditating. The smudgy violet halo around her flickered with movement. But most noticeable was the light pouring off of her, rolling waves of shimmering blue lines spreading out from beneath her like a blanket over the world. The lines pulsed to a consistent rhythm, but as usual, Mira couldn't hear anything.
Paransaek, on the other hand, looked frantic. She was facing decidedly toward Borasaek, reaching for her. Light pulsed off of her as well, but not to a rhythm, not controlled. More like she was shouting or crying.
They were so far away. But Paransaek looked so scared. Maybe… just knowing she was there with her would help. So Mira took a slow, settling breath.
“...I'm here,” she said gently, and the change was instant. Paransaek whipped toward her, and the waves coming from Borasaek stilled. They were both looking for her, she realized with a start.
Of course they were. Because she was looking for them. She had been looking for them her whole life.
They weren't ghosts. Not really. They were her girls. Hers. She just had to find them.
By the time Rumi was twelve, she felt them all the time.
When one of them was angry, she felt it sharp and hot like a sunburn. When one of them was sad, she shivered with cold and ached in her chest. She could feel their excitement as their connection got stronger, their loneliness at still having not met, not found each other.
They could feel her too, just like Celine had said. They dreamed together most nights, though they couldn't really communicate. Rumi could just feel that they were there, and they knew she was there, and they all ached to find each other.
Her fires in the darkness got brighter every night.
She asked Celine about it fairly often, wondering when it was time. How would she know? She felt so bound to them already, she was mostly confident if she started walking she would know which way to go.
But not totally confident. Not fully sure. And Celine told her she would know. She was impatient, and that was okay, because Celine remembered that feeling. But that also meant it was soon. So soon.
And then one morning, it was there. The confidence. The surety. She'd dreamed about them, two familiar gold flames reaching for her, so bright and close, and when she woke up it was like the Honmoon was showing her a path. A gold line leading out of her bedroom. Out of Celine's house.
“I know where they are,” Rumi declared the second she entered the kitchen for breakfast. “I can see the way. I can find them.”
Celine didn't question her. She trusted her implicitly, and soon they were out the door and into the car she had called for them. Rumi sat in front, giving directions to the somewhat confused driver.
Rumi's heart was racing by the time they reached Seoul. She couldn't sit still, practically vibrating in her seat as she directed them to Olympic Park. She didn't wait for Celine when the driver stopped at the curb, just opened her door and ran toward the World Peace Gate without a second thought.
The Honmoon was so bright Rumi could hardly see. Or maybe that was the tears in her eyes. She looked around frantically, still running as fast as she could, and-
“Get back here, young lady!”
A stern male voice was shouting somewhere far off to her right.
“Slow down, sweetheart! Don't run off!”
A worried female voice called from somewhere to her left.
Through the crowd of tourists, there were two roaring fires headed right for her. So bright they were blinding.
The three of them collided in a hug.
The crowd faded to white noise in the background as Rumi held them, finally, one arm around each of their shoulders. They were all laughing and crying, breathless from running, no words exchanged yet but so much feeling.
One of them, slightly smaller with glitter on her cheeks and bandaids on her knees, grabbed Rumi by the face and kissed her right on the lips, no hesitation. Then she turned to the taller girl with pink hair and spikey bracelets and did the same to her.
They all dissolved into tearful laughter, not one of them letting go, hands squeezing arms and cheeks rubbing together as the pieces fell into place.
Mira's ghosts, Zoey's heartbeats, Rumi's fires in the dark. The missing pieces of their souls, found.
“Here you are,” Rumi finally cried, and she couldn't miss the gasp from the smaller one at the sound of her voice. “Found you. Finally.”
“I've missed you,” the smaller one squealed, bouncing happily in place. “I love you both so much!”
“Can you really miss someone you've never met?” the taller one asked, sarcastic, but there was fondness in her voice. “I… I love you both too.”
“I love you too,” Rumi laughed through her tears.
There was a rather intense and confused conversation happening somewhere nearby between Celine, Mira's parents and brother, and Zoey's mother and stepfather, but the girls didn't even notice. They all pulled back just enough to see each other's faces, still refusing to let go.
“I'm Rumi,” Rumi said.
“Zoey!” the smaller one blurted, bouncing again.
“Mira,” the taller one finished, and they all just looked at each other for a few breathless moments.
Rumi slid a hand up from each of their shoulders to their faces, stroking her thumbs along their cheekbones. Mira blushed but nuzzled into the touch. Zoey turned in just enough to press a kiss to her palm.
Her girls.
“Hi,” they all said in unison.
Eleven years and one near-miss demon apocalypse later, they were a few days into their well-earned hiatus. A nature documentary was on the TV, captions on and volume low.
Rumi was deep in the couch, Zoey's head in her lap as she hummed idly. The patterns on her fingers shimmered as she slowly brushed them through Zoey's hair, nails barely scratching her scalp. Zoey's eyes were closed comfortably, her hair down from its usual buns so Rumi had free rein to comb through it as much as she wanted.
Mira was sitting up on the back of the couch behind Rumi, who was snug between her legs as she slowly teased her long violet hair out of its ever-present braid. Her eyes were focused on her hands, but every so often she squeezed her knees together a little or tugged on a lock of hair just to make Rumi laugh.
“Rumiiiiii,” Zoey sighed blissfully, stretching her toes out toward the end of the couch and snuggling herself further into Rumi's lap. “Will you sing for me?”
Rumi laughed again, a soft, comfortable sound, and Mira couldn't help the smile that rose to her face.
“Of course,” Rumi purred, running the tip of her pinky down Zoey's nose and grinning when she got the desired reaction of Zoey's face scrunching up adorably. “Any requests?”
“The Hunter's Song,” Zoey said immediately, beaming up at the two girls above her. Rumi and Mira both looked quizzical, and Zoey blushed. “What? It's what brought us together.”
“What do you mean?” Mira asked, head tilting curiously and a fond chuckle in her voice. Zoey's gaze slid to Rumi, who looked just as puzzled. Zoey frowned.
“We heard you singing in our dreams before we met met,” she answered like it was obvious, looking to Mira again. “Remember? She was calling to us.” Her eyes flicked back to Rumi. “Weren't you?”
Rumi looked mystified, and Mira shook her head.
“I could never hear either of you,” Mira supplied, brow furrowed. “I could only sort of see you. I thought you were both ghosts for the longest time.”
“Wait wait wait, you could hear me? And see me?” Rumi asked, startled. “I could always just kind of… feel you, out there somewhere.”
They all stared at each other for a beat.
“How have we never talked about this before?” Zoey blurted.
And the three of them locked in, settling onto the couch all facing each other and taking turns filling each other in.
Zoey and Mira already knew Rumi could always see the Honmoon, since she didn't have to learn to like they did. But the fact that she could feel them? When she called them her little fires in the dark? Zoey got so overwhelmed by the thought she dissolved into tears. Followed closely by the other two.
Mira blushed when she recalled how she had named them Borasaek and Paransaek, face turning redder than they had ever seen when they both melted and cooed and squished her face between theirs with kisses. They immediately started calling her Bunhongsaek.
When Zoey recounted her very first dream of them, of falling in love with Rumi's voice and begging for them to tell her where they were, of hearing Mira's quiet declaration that she was there, the memory hit Mira and Rumi like a freight train.
“That was the first time you both looked at me,” Mira whispered. “When I realized you weren't ghosts, you were real. You were out there.”
Zoey reached for Mira's hand wordlessly and they intertwined their fingers with comfortable ease, sharing a gentle smile. But they were interrupted by a loud sniffle, both of their gazes snapping to Rumi.
Tears were pouring down her face, her patterns sparkling like a kaleidoscope of pastels and gold. They reached for her immediately, cradling her face between their free hands.
“That was the first time I felt you love me,” Rumi laughed through her tears.
There was a single moment of stillness and silence before Zoey and Mira crashed into Rumi, folding the three of them into an embrace of tangled limbs and kisses and sobbing.
In fact, this moment felt a lot like that first one in Olympic Park all those years ago.
The Honmoon flared brilliantly around them, pulses of gold flowing out across the shifting rainbow lines.
When the girls eventually settled back into the couch together, all cried and kissed out, Rumi in the middle with Zoey tucked into her left side and Mira on her right, they all let out long sighs of contentment.
A few moments of comfortable silence passed before Zoey couldn't stand it anymore.
“So we're like, soulmates , right?”
Mira snorted a laugh. Rumi hummed.
“Yeah, totally.”
“Absolutely.”
Zoey wiggled happily in place.
“Okay cool, just making sure.”
Rumi sang the Hunter's Song for them and was the last to fall asleep, eyes following the shimmering rainbow lines across the ceiling and walls before they drifted shut.
It wasn't the same Honmoon that had brought them together. It was one they'd made themselves, from the pieces of the old one they loved the most.