Chapter Text
“Murder.”
Mira spat out her cup. Mocha dripped back into the fine china. She watched it swirl, bubbles of spit mixing with foam.
“What?!” Zoey asked, incredulously.
Hwa set down her cup primly. She dabbed her red lipstick with an embroidered handkerchief. Her grey hair was braided back cleanly, her dress was clearly ironed to perfection. She had little lace gloves with pearl cuffs and a matching pearl necklace. She looked like a mafia grandma.
It was oddly intimidating.
Hwa stirred her cup calmly. “Please clean that up.”
It wasn’t a question. Mira felt a flash of defiance that she forcibly pushed down. Hwa wasn’t her grandmother, regardless of her baseline poise and snobby attitude. And, more importantly, she could not afford to be pisssed off.
At least, that’s what Sena said when she sent them here. She had insisted, telling them she only knew pieces, and that Hwa could explain it better than she ever could. Then, the dial tone. Rumi had put down the phone, looked around at them, and asked, “Who’s Hwa?”
The second they opened the door, they quickly discovered their answer. Hwa’s red lips were as curved as she eyed them. “You must be the new generation. I was waiting for Celine to introduce us.”
Hwa, as it turned out, was a previous hunter. Mira clued in from the way she trailed her fingers lovingly over the honeymoon, an ax materializing in her hands. She placed it down right next to the tea in obvious warning, and then patted the seat next to her.
Mira stood up, crossing the little living room to the kitchen. She started blotting the tablecloth.
“I’m sorry,” Rumi said, laughing awkwardly. It pierced the air like a shotgun. “Do you mean to say murdering…” she trailed off, waiting for Hwa to elaborate, but the woman didn’t. Rumi was forced to continue, obviously grasping at whatever meaning she could find. Mira couldn’t see any. What on earth could Hwa mean by murder?
“D-do you mean to say we can manipulate the honmoon because of… murder?” Rumi asked.
Hwa hummed. Gnarled hands delicately tapped the tea set. “Not exactly. But it is one of the ways. It’s the way I did it.”
Mira let out a short laugh, and it echoed across the small living room, haunting. Zoey hurriedly joined in, either to take the heat off Mira or because she didn’t believe it either. Rumi didn’t laugh. Rumi slowly leaned back, her hands straying to the cushions, where the honeymoon rippled underneath her fingers. It took Mira a split second to realize Rumi was leaning away from Hwa.
Hwa set down her teacup. “Nice to meet you,” she smiled. “I am the Willow Butcher.”
Mira knew history. In another life, she thought she could have liked it, but in this life, it was forced on her by her many tutors. At the same time, she was treated as delicate, too fragile to really know the truth. It was why, when her parents ordered her and her brother to do a history presentation in front of their extended family, she had chosen to present on serial killers. Mira remembered her mother’s horrified face vividly. She remembered the way her relatives all shifted, uncomfortable.
She remembered that the Willow Butcher had killed fifteen children.
Hwa stirred her cup.
Mira stood up. Her fingers found the honmoon, grasping at the threads and pulling. Her guandao formed between her fingers.
Zoe’s eyes were sharp. She didn’t blink; she couldn’t, not with her eyes carefully tracking Hwa’s every move. Rumi let the honmoon wrap around her fingers, threads of red and blue; a warning.
“There’s no need for that,” Hwa laughed. Unlike her voice, it sounded young. Light and carefree, like she hadn't just confessed to being a serial killer.
“You killed five children,” Mira spit out.
Their graves were a tourist attraction. Even now, amateur detectives still came and went, trying to be the first to uncover the identity of the Willow Butcher.
“Maybe she’s joking,” Zoey suggested. Her tone was not hopeful. It was a warning, laced in a question. “Are you joking?”
Rumi wrinkled her nose. “That’s a disgusting joke.”
“It’s not a joke,” Hwa said.
Mira raised her guandao. She tilted it so the glowing blade aligned just between the old woman’s eyes. She wanted it to blind her. She wanted to kill her.
What was Sena thinking?
“Oh come on,” Hwa said. “Put the weapon down. No need to be dramatic."
If there was ever a chance of her letting go of the guandao, it was gone now. Spite was a powerful motivator, and Hwa’s voice sounded exactly like her grandmother's.
Maybe, if she were alone, it would have been a different story. Maybe she would have been open to listening. But Rumi and Zoey were here. And her feelings towards Rumi were complicated, to say the least, but it didn’t matter. Hwa was dangerous, and Rumi and Zoey were everything to her. They were her morals and her hope and her future. She poured every drop of love, every possessive thought, every worry, into them. Because they could handle it.
It was an odd dichotomy. She was thankful for the demons, for allowing them to be hunters; for giving her a family. And she hated them too, because every time she looked at Jinu, she saw someone who might become Rumi’s killer.
“Why did you tell us this?” Rumi asked. Her voice was calm, her face decidedly… wasn’t. She stood up, pushing her shoulders back to her full height. She was wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck to hide her demon marks. It was a precaution, in case Hwa was one of the few who didn't see the disastrous idol awards.
She slid in front of Mira, her back to the guandao. Mira lifted it up higher, a clear warning behind Rumi.
“And what do you mean by ‘one of the ways?’”
Hwa smiled.
Mira wondered if Rumi wasn’t the first half-demon to exist. Something about Hwa’s too-white teeth looked inhuman.
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
Mira didn’t sit. Neither did Rumi. Zoey was completely still, her muscles tensed. At a moment’s notice, she would leap out of her seat with the force of a panther. At a moment’s notice, her hands would become blades, and Hwa would be in danger.
“I won’t hurt you,” Hwa said.
Mira almost scoffed.
“Sit down,” Hwa ordered.
Zoey touched their hands, smiling calmly. Her fingers didn’t spark with the honmoon, but it curled around her, tightening around her neck like a noose. Every inch of her body was tense; primal.
Mira sat down. She sat on the back of the couch, her socks on the cushions. Rumi sat on the arm of the chair, her toes brushing against the hardwood floor. Zoey was the only one truly on the couch, relaxed back into the cushions.
One little thing about Zoey: she enjoyed blood.
She enjoyed the hunt. She truly enjoyed the kill.
Rumi was in it because it was all she had ever known. Mira told Celine it was her duty, but it was Zoey and Rumi keeping her fighting.
But Zoey?
She had learned to fight long before she knew demons existed. She was angry, hidden under that bright smile.
Mira wanted to protect Zoey. She was the youngest, the brightest. She was the bond that tied Rumi and her together.
But she had to admit, she felt safer when Zoey wanted to protect her too.
“So,” Zoey said cheerfully. “What was this about the honmoon?”
Hwa took a long sip.
Almost like she was dragging the process out, which was seriously annoying. She seemed too refined to ever smirk, but Mira could sense old-lady amusement over the tilt of her cup. Her eyes glittered when they took in Mira’s guandao.
She placed the cup down with a twang.
“To manipulate the honmoon, you need souls.”
Mira traded glances with Zoey and Rumi. Her eyebrows stretched high on her head.
“Excuse me?”
Hwa continued.
“It’s like gravity,” Hwa said. “In outer space, when a star has enough mass, it bends the fabric of space-time. It creates a gravitational pull, pulling other planets into its orbit.”
Mira remembered a project at an old science fair. It was the project of a billionaire’s daughter, this rich, mean girl. Mira had checked it out, secretly hoping it wouldn’t be good. Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed.
The girl had set up a spandex sheet stretched tightly over a round frame. She had dropped a small ball on the fabric, and nothing had happened. But when she placed a heavy ball, the fabric dipped around it, the ball moving to the center. She had placed smaller balls on the fabric, too; and Mira had watched as they spun around the larger ball, being pulled toward the center.
This is gravity, she said.
She had placed another heavy ball on the fabric. Each created a little dip in the fabric, which she called a well. They spun around each other, and Mira had watched how their wells merged.
Those are two black holes, merging into one. Because a black hole has so much mass, it affects the fabric of space-time.
Stars will fall into their orbit. she said. Like this. But very, very slowly. Over the course of trillions of years.
Finally, she had removed the second heavy ball and started pushing the first ball up and down on the fabric, jigging it. It warped the fabric, spreading ripples outward. The smaller balls moved with the shifting fabric.
Real gravitational waves come from the fabric itself. But these are the visual representations of them.
The girl had won that science fair.
“What?” Mira asked. Her head felt like it was underwater. Somehow, she always thought the honmoon was… magic. She didn’t associate science or space with it. It was just… there. A secret, meant only for them. A magic secret she was invited in on. It didn’t feel like history, or math, or science. It didn’t feel like it belonged on earth. It felt like hers. Like a piece of nature only she could see.
Hwa smiled. Her grin was cat-like, her eyes tracing the dips of Mira’s face. Almost like she knew what she was thinking.
“The honmoon is made up of souls. To manipulate it, you need more influence than it.”
Zoey jolted. “Wait—what?”
“Whoa—” Mira reared back. “Um–wait—no, no no. Sorry, what did you say?”
“Wait, wait, wait—” Rumi repeated, over and over again, like she couldn’t think of any other word. Her hand frantically rubbed her forearm. Mira was spitefully glad to see she was just as unaware as the rest of them.
Hwa’s eyes twinkled. She smiled a close-mouthed smile.
“The honmoon,” she repeated slowly, “is made up of souls.”
“How?!” The word burst out of Rumi wildly. Like it had been trapped inside her chest, clawing free.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I don’t joke,” Hwa said.
“This whole experience feels like a joke,” Zoey muttered.
Hwa’s smile turned sharper, but she didn’t say anything. The disgust and derision she looked at Zoey with said enough. Zoey’s face flushed, but she stubbornly kept her chin tilted. Mira’s fingers twitched on her guandao.
“It’s a living barrier. It is their energy that powers the honmoon. Once they die, their souls continue to power it. They are the honmoon.”
The idea felt alien.
The idea felt terrifying.
“No,” Rumi said.
“Occasionally, they can break free. When the honmoon is torn, they can escape. But when it turns gold, they are trapped forever.”
Mira felt ice in her veins.
Killing took a toll. Demons, for all their evil, looked human. The same face shape, even with tusks and patterned skin. It was hard to get over the initial roadblock. Hard to stop flinching when they screamed as they died.
Celine had taken her chin between her fingers and told her that demons weren’t humans. That she was saving souls. That hunters were defenders of humanity.
Her life as a hunter was based on that core moral. She killed and fought to survive. She didn’t have the option of laying down the guandao. Not even because the world was counting on her; but because demons would find her. They could hunt her down. She would run, and they would chase. She fought because if she didn’t, she would die.
But she chose to fight because she thought she was special.
She chose to fight because she wanted to look into the crowd, and now they owed their lives to her. She wanted that secret tucked close to her chest. She wanted to walk through life and know the world owed her.
“We’re trapping them?” Zoey whispered, horrified.
Are they aware? Mira wanted to ask. Do they know who we are? Do they hate us? Do they wish for a demonic attack, so they can get set free?
Hwa laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? In life, demons are their enemies. In death, it’s you.”
Mira felt nausea churn in her gut. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream.
“How can we stop it?” Rumi asked urgently.
“You don’t. It’s the tradeoff. To live life freely, they must serve in death.”
Mira’s guandao seemed to take on a terrifying hum. She stared at the glimmering metal, the swirls of blue and pink, and felt sick. She was wielding a weapon made of human souls. They were trapped in the guandao she loved. They were trapped, and she had swung them. She had killed with them.
“You aren’t evil,” Hwa said. Maybe she said it because she felt bad, maybe because she felt amused. Mira wondered if a serial killer even could feel. “At least their souls exist. If a demon consumed them, they would die in every sense of the world.”
“But they’re trapped,” Zoey snapped. Her voice broke, and it shattered something in Mira. She felt like her insides were being run over with glass. She felt like there were shards inside her lungs, shattered edges flaying her skin.
“Are they aware?” Mira asked quietly. She needed to know.
She crossed her fingers.
Hwa hummed. “Of a sort. They are their deepest emotions, their most instinctual states. Without the memories of the body, they are reduced to animals. They can form their own likes and dislikes, and of course, they want to be set free. When their souls are released, they usually regain their memories.”
Zoey’s shoulders unwound a fraction.
Somehow, that made Mira feel worse. It wasn’t slavery anymore; it was abuse. They were stuck, and they didn’t like it, but they had no high functions to try and escape. They were trapped in their helplessness. They were penned animals, scratching at the bars. They found demons their greatest salvation. Because those demons let them go.
“How do you know all this?” Zoey asked.
Hwa grinned. “I was waiting for you to ask,” she half-said, half-sang. Her voice was a singsong tone. The honmoon glittered pink and green. Mira averted her eyes, but she couldn’t escape it. The barrier was all around her. She felt trapped. She wanted to throw up.
“When you interact with someone, it leaves their imprint on your soul. Depression can leave tears. Strangers you bump into leave a little smear. Friends can change your soul’s color, and any type of love leaves such a deep imprint it changes the shape of the soul. But death is the strongest imprint. When you kill or save someone, it warps your soul. Because their life was in your hands, their soul wedges itself into yours. The colors become yours. The shape becomes theirs. And it becomes much heavier. You become your own black hole, bending the honmoon around you.”
The weight of her words pressed down on Mira. Her fingers dug into her chest like it was moments away from clawing out her heart. She felt like she could feel her soul, and its heaviness.
Hwa stirred her tea. “You three either saved or killed somebody.”
Zoey’s lips pressed together tightly. Her face had drained of color. Rumi looked around wildly. “But I didn’t—I-I…” she fell silent, a memory—or perhaps a realisation—washing over her.
For Mira, understanding came in an instant. Her fingers touched the souls and her beck and call, and she knew why.
“I was an organ baby,” Mira said.
Zoey’s hand stretched out to squeeze hers harshly. It felt terrible, like someone was squeezing her heart. It felt good, because she could feel the warmth of her skin and the calluses on her hand.
Rumi stared at her, then whipped her eyes back to Hwa. Her gaze was a warning.
Mira felt strangely naked now that she said it aloud. Zoey and Rumi knew, but telling this stranger—this serial killer? It felt terrible.
Her parents had never wanted a second kid. They had Ji-hoon, and their image was complete. Maybe they loved him; Mira didn’t know. They left him for nannies to raise, but they showered him with everything he could have wanted. Was that love for them? Mira wasn’t sure.
Ji-hoon had been born with a condition called Thalassemia major, or Cooley's anemia. It was a genetic blood disorder, where red blood cells are fragile. It was a debilitating disease. He needed blood transfusions every few weeks to survive, which led to iron buildup in his organs. It required constant medical care and expensive therapy. But with her family's wealth, anything was manageable. And then, at seven, he had gotten leukemia. Blood cancer.
With Thalassemia major, leukemia—already a dangerous diagnosis—turned deadly.
Mira had been a C-section, because her brother needed umbilical cord blood. At five, she had given bone marrow. At seven, stem cells. At twelve, they were talking about a kidney.
She had been the spare parts for her brother. The sandbox to pick and choose. An object to pilfer through. She hadn’t been allowed to ride a bike in case Ji-hoon needed her. She hadn’t been allowed to go on their skiing trips in case Ji-hoon needed her. The maids were told to treat her like glass in case of Ji-hoon. She had to be perfectly healthy for Ji-hoon. Her whole life existed as Ji-hoon’s ready-made parts. At eighteen, she had walked away. She tried to join a band, and then applied to community college, and then started posting videos of her dancing.
At twenty, Celine had been her savior.
She traced her chest idly. Her brother’s soul was imprinted on her own. The brother that she hated, the sister he scorned her. And yet his soul was wedged into hers.
She wondered if her family saw Huntrix. She wondered if they were ashamed of her in front of their chaebol friends.
Hwa sipped her tea. “Manipulating the honmoon comes before ever seeing it. To see it takes training. To manipulate it is instinct.” She set down her tea cup with a sharp clink. Her smile turned soft, almost wondering. Her grey hair swam around her face like a halo, curling in the hollow of her throat. She looked younger in joy, with fewer lines across her face. “But death is quite an intimate thing. I would see these flashes of color. Blue on black concrete. And then Kyung-ja found me.”
Rumi swallowed. It was loud in the silence. “Did she know?” she whispered.
“Kyung-ja and Aee?” Hwa asked in surprise, as if she couldn’t realise the burning question on the tip of Rumi’s tongue. Mira looked at Rumi and Zoey and imagined loving them even as murderers. She imagined Celine inviting a serial killer. “No, not at first. I only told them years later. Back then, no one knew why someone could manipulate the honmoon. But I figured it out. They wanted to know now.”
Her smile was triumphant, proud. Her eyes glittered with superiority.
This was a woman who liked killing, enjoyed her kills, and found pride in her murder of fifteen children.
This was a psychopath.
This was a murderer.
“Did you tell Celine of this?” Zoey asked.
Hwa smiled. “Sometimes. I told them why we can manipulate the honmoon.”
Mira felt nauseous at the thought that Celine—that Sena knew that the honmoon was made of souls. Knew their beloved fans, the ones who supported them, loved them, would be trapped for the next hunters. A migraine pricked at the edge of her mind.
“Did no one give you up?” Rumi said with a dry, disbelieving laugh. It was bitter and jagged.
Hwa smiled. “Of course not. They knew no one would believe them.”
Mira almost didn’t believe it. Not with her perfect manners, her little gloves, her short stature. She looked like an old woman.
“But—” Rumi started, but she was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door.
Her nerves were so thin, Mira immediately jumped up, whirling around with her guandao. The movement brought instinctual flinches to Rumi and Zoey. Not of fear; of adrenaline. Their bodies had been trained for fights. The honmoon flexed under their fingers.
“Ahh.” Hwa carefully stood up, unraveling herself from her seat. She patted her little hands on her floral print dress. She hobbled past them, which felt wrong for some reason. Hwa seemed like she would rather die than be seen as lesser in any way. “That would be my guests.”
“Wait!” Rumi cried, whirling around.
At the same time, Mira asked, “Guests?” in disbelief. Was Hwa kicking them out? Now? After giving them so much to ask?
“No,” Zoey said, her face panicked. She looked like her mind was buzzing with questions.
Mira made her guandao disappear just as Hwa opened the door.
A woman with thick, curly hair—almost an afro—stepped through. There were more women behind her, and two men, looking alien among the others. Some were teenagers; some were old women; a couple looked Celine’s age.
“Hello,” the woman with the curly hair said to them.
Hwa’s voice was delighted.
“Sena! Welcome.”