Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

DuoInEveryTr/o (@huntrixanalyst)
Rumi is worthless and i hope she dies

Zoey was the most online member of Huntr/x. Mira would call her chronically online, but she wasn’t, really; she didn’t have time to be chronically online, what with their schedule. (Six hours a day wasn’t chronic, right?) In any case, as the band’s most active social media presence, she was pretty intimately familiar with their fandom. (And maybe she had a secret account active in the Polytrix shipping community, but her bandmates didn’t need to know that.)

Which meant she was one of the first to notice the rise to prominence of self-proclaimed #1 Rumi hater @huntrixanalyst.

Zoey knew it was a bad idea to obsess over the haters. Millions of people loved HUNTR/X, and that should be enough ... but she couldn’t help but let every insult and criticism linger, far longer than it should, in her mind.

And she’d been doing that for years. She’d heard basically every insult someone could come up with for her. Freak, half-breed, wannabe, cringe, loser. Whatever. She’d learned not to let it get to her. Or learned to try. But she was used to it.

It was different when someone was hating on her friends.

And the worst part was that huntrixanalyst loved Zoey. And Mira. The account showered them with constant praise, complimented their vocals, their outfits, their public actions — they seemed to have a very close knowledge of everything the band did; they were one of those fans who seemed to follow them everywhere — and just everything about them. They even reposted Zoemira fanart, which always made Zoey blush. (And maybe she saved the art to a secret folder on her computer. So? Mira and Rumi would never know.)

But when it came to Rumi?

Yikes.

As strong as the love the account had in them for Zoey and Mira was, its hate for Rumi was at least ten times as strong. Every time Zoey looked, it seemed like there was a new post screeching about how Rumi was a terrible singer, how she was the worst-looking of all of them, especially with her “new look” — she’d embraced, or tried to embrace, her patterns as part of the band’s Comeback — how she could never live up to the legacy of Celine and of Ryu Mi-yeong, and speaking of them, how she was the definition of a nepo baby and didn’t deserve to be in the industry at all. How she should just quit the band and stop holding Zoey and Mira back.

And they dug even deeper. Somehow, they knew which parts of the songs Rumi had written — Zoey wrote most of them, but everyone helped out — and kept calling them blemishes, scars across otherwise perfect pieces. Rumi was a great lyricist — a different style than Zoey, sure, but sometimes when Zoey would have writer’s block, she’d go ask Mira and Rumi, and they’d think of fresh ideas she never would have come up with, ideas that made the song, in her eyes.

Zoey fucking hated huntrixanalyst.

All of their posts made Zoey unreasonably angry. In fact, scratch that, very reasonably. This account was diving right into the heart of all of Rumi’s deepest insecurities. Hurting her, seemingly on purpose, seemingly for fun, or engagement, like, what else could they possibly be getting out of it??

Zoey fucking hated huntrixanalyst, but she kept reading all of their posts, out of, what? She didn’t quite know. It was stupid. But she wanted to know everything their fans thought, whatever it did to her. So she kept checking their profile. Every time she did, she regretted it. But she always came back.

The KPop Philosopher (@thepopphilosopher)
Anyone who’s active on Huntrix twt has surely seen the account @huntrixanalyst, a weird Rumi hate account that has been spewing nonsense almost since the band started. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve been thinking, “what is their effing problem??”

So I’ve decided, I’ll figure them out.

I will now become ... THE HUNTRIX ANALYST ANALYST.

The KPop Philosopher(@thepopphilosopher)
Huntrixanalyst video essay dropping on my YT chanel sometime next month!

DuoInEveryTr/o (@huntrixanalyst)
Rumi’s performance last night couldn’t COMPARE to zoey and miras!!!! she doesnt deserve them! Patterns still just as ugly

Mira closed her phone and threw it to the other side of the bed.

Then, considering, she picked it back up, opened Spotify, and put on “LA DI DA” by Everglow.

Just as the chorus was hitting — “Got no time for haters, modu da jibeochiwo beoryeo” — Zoey walked in and sat down on the bed. “Wassup?”

“Not much,” Mira said. Zoey raised an unconvinced eyebrow. “Been reading stupid social media posts,” amended Mira. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I get you ONE HUNDRED PERCENT,” Zoey affirmed, rolling side to side on the bed and flinging her arms back. Zoey was endlessly full of energy. Well, until it’s time to practice choreo. “You can’t let them get you down, though. You’re the best! I’d never want anyone but you.”

Mira frowned. “It’s not me they’re hating on. It’s Rumi.”

Zoey sat up. “Wait, is it that stupid ‘huntrix analyst’ guy?”

Mira nodded. “You know them?”

Zoey groaned. “Ugh, they’re everywhere. But don’t worry, everyone else in the fandom disagrees with them.”

Mira thought back to the posts she’d seen. True, people had been all over them in the comments, arguing back, defending Rumi. But the posts had been liked, too, and reposted.

Plenty of people seemed to agree that Rumi was the band’s weakest link. And Mira wouldn’t let that stand.

“Do you ... do you think Rumi’s seen it?”

Zoey winced. “I hope not. She doesn’t really get involved with social media much, does she?”

Mira exhaled. “That’s true. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

DuoInEveryTr/o (@huntrixanalyst)
they shouldve cut off How It’s Done at 2:09. what the FUCK is that bridge

DuoInEveryTr/o (@huntrixanalyst)
Polytrix is the stupidest thing. Zoemira is perfect without Rumi + she doesnt deserve them

Having finally finished the last show of promo for their new EP “Comeback,” the HUNTR/X girls were relaxing in their apartment. They loved performing, but they had to admit it was draining, and they wanted nothing more right now than to sit down together, get takeout and eat watching some movie snuggled up on the couch. Best friends. The way it was meant to be.

Mira had volunteered to get the food, leaving Zoey and Rumi at home alone. “Hey, Rumi, smile!” said Zoey, lifting up her phone to take a selfie. Rumi startled a bit, then looked up and smiled for the camera. They’d both messed up their makeup, and Rumi’s braid was coming out a little bit, but Zoey didn’t care. This was them in the moment, and it was her favorite version of them.

She paused a moment to admire Rumi’s face in the photo. Zoey had been a hopeless gay disaster for as long as she could remember, and she honestly didn’t know how she’d survived being in a band with two gorgeous women this long without melting and decomposing. She was pretty sure Rumi was straight, though, and besides, Zoey was not one to make the first move. She was too scared of messing up, hurting someone. So she just had to admire them from afar. Or, well, they lived together. That wasn’t very far. But still.

She looked over at the real Rumi. She was reading something on her phone, Zoey couldn’t tell what, with a furrowed brow. That’s not right. We should all be relaxing right now.

Zoey got up and, very sneakily, if she did say so herself, walked over behind Rumi, catching a little glance at her screen.

Oh no.

There was no mistaking it. Rumi was scrolling through huntrixanalyst’s account.

“Rumi!” Zoey’s tone startled Rumi even more than before, and she jumped, spun around, hiding her phone screen.

“Why are you reading that asshole’s posts?” Zoey asked, her voice caring, her heart aching. “You know we love you.”

At that moment, Mira walked in. She sensed the tension immediately. “What’s up?”

“Rumi found that stupid account,” Zoey sighed. Her words sent Mira hurtling over to embrace Rumi, so hard she dropped her phone.

Zoey wrapped her arms around both of them. “Rumi, you know you can’t listen to haters online. What they think doesn’t matter. We care so much about you —”

“Wait, guys, stop.” They immediately pulled back. “It’s — it’s not what you think.”

Mira raised an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”

Rumi sighed. “The — I run that account,” she explained, hanging her head. “It’s just a way to vent. And it makes me happy reading all the replies supporting me. I guess that’s selfish of me, fishing for compliments —”

“No, stop —” Mira was saying, but Zoey couldn’t focus on that. Suddenly, she doubled over, giggling.

“Zoey? What’s funny?” asked Mira.

“Rumi ...” Zoey started. “You run that account? huntrixanalyst?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” said Rumi.

“The account that, in addition to being Rumi’s #1 hater, constantly reposts Zoemira fanart?”

Rumi flooded as pink as Mira’s hair.

Mira whirled to face Zoey. “What?”

“You didn’t know??” Zoey responded. Mira shook her head.

“Wait, so —” Mira looked like she was still processing everything. “Rumi, you ... you ship me and Zoey?”

Rumi somehow blushed deeper. “I mean ... yeah? I — god, that’s so weird of me —”

“If you say one more negative thing about yourself in this conversation, I will throw you out of the window,” said Mira. Rumi shut her mouth and nodded.

“Anyway, Zoemira is the most ridiculous bullshit I’ve ever heard.” A little part of Zoey died inside.

“If Zoey and I were to get together, there’s no way we’d leave you out of it,” continued Mira.

It was Zoey’s turn to turn pink.

“I — wh —” Rumi stuttered. “You —”

“Wait, Mira ... you’d ...” Zoey’s world was shattering, except in a good way, she guessed? That was stupid, Mira hadn’t really said anything —

“Come on. I’m not the only one,” Mira said, her eyes sparkling, the corner of her mouth twisted upward. She turned back to Rumi. “She doesn’t know we know.” Rumi’s eyes widened.

“Know what?” That Zoey was gay? She thought she was pretty obvious, but maybe —

“About your secret fan account. zorumiraforever, if I recall correctly?”

Zoey was dying. She was actually, physically dying, melting into the ground and rising into the ether.

“You didn’t hide it very well,” gloated Mira.

“I —” Zoey buried her face in the couch. “Why, you guys?” she groaned.

“It was cute,” Rumi said, her voice so soft and — arrghrhh, this was not helping.

“Hey. Zoey?” A hand on her shoulder.

Zoey looked up to see Mira’s face. “What now?”

Mira grinned. “Well, don’t you want to try it?”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “I —”

“C’mon, yes or no~~”

Zoey was dreaming, definitely. None of this was real, and she was imagining all of it. Rumi was probably about to turn into a turtle, and then they’d all levitate.

“Y- ... yes,” she whispered — definitely not whimpered, shut up — and closed her eyes as Mira’s lips met hers.

Maybe Zoey wasn’t dreaming, but she definitely still felt like she was flying. She’d probably get stuck on the ceiling and not be able to come down.

She kissed Mira back, deeper, hungrily. She’d waited her whole life for this. Or, at least four, almost five years, since they’d met.

Or, wait, weren’t Hunters joined at the soul? Maybe she literally had waited her whole life for this.

After what felt like an eternity, which was too soon, the kiss ended. Zoey blinked rapidly and pinched herself. Mira smirked.

Rumi was standing to the side, still furiously red, eyes wide, looking just as confused-but-happy as Zoey felt. “Come on, you too,” Mira said as she pulled Rumi in as well. Zoey watched as they kissed and wow, Mira was good at this. She’d probably had a bunch of girlfriends before. Zoey’s perpetually-single lifestyle had not adequately prepared her for this.

Eventually, Rumi pulled back, gasping for breath, but smiling.

“Uh ... wow,” she said raspily, looking a bit dazed. “... Thanks?”

Mira burst out laughing.

Zoey pulled them both into a hug. “I love you guys.”

“Me, too.”

“Me, too.”

The KPop Philosopher (@thepopphilosopher)
chat tell me why I may have found evidence that huntrixanalyst is RUN BY RUMI

The KPop Philosopher (@thepopphilosopher)
IM NOT KIDDING GUYS!! IT ALL FITS — THE GEOTAG DATA!!! THE WRITING STYLE!!! THE INEXPLICABLE KNOWLEDGE!!! I’M NOT CRAZY!!! I HAVE RECEIPTS!!!!

Generic Huntrix Stan (@hntrxunofficial)
... so Rumi is a Zomira shipper ??

Rumi (@rumiofficial)
Once, yes, but Ive changed my ways. Polytrix forever now!

Generic Huntrix Stan (@hntrxunofficial)
CHAT???

polytrix pollywog (@jaajajae)
are we seeing this

the turtle from HUNTR/X (@zoeyofficial)
RUMI THE PR

Who cares (@miraofficial)
RUMI THE PR

Chapter Text

“Hello, everyone! Welcome back to The Pop Philosopher. I’m Sam, and I think too much about pop music. Today, I’m going be talkig about the very strange story of ... Huntrix Analyst.”

Rumi, Mira, and Zoey were snuggled up on the couch, watching a video. It was in English, but there were Korean subtitles.

“The K-pop girl group HUNTR/X formed a few years ago, in 2018, and released their first single, ‘Who’s Next?,’ in November of that year. The band, consisting of Zoey, Ryu Rumi, and Choi Mira, quickly became once of the most popular K-pop groups out there, dominating the Idol Awards every year from 2019 til 2024, and uniting South Korea and the world. Their music is powerful and uplifting, and brings people together, giving us something to fight for.”

“Hell yeah,” said Mira.

“But with popularity, there come challenges. Challenges like rivalries, scandals ... and haters.

“HUNTR/X have received their fair share of hate since forming, especially during their recent feud with the boy band the Saja Boys, who just disbanded at the time of writing.” Zoey winked. “But one hater in particular is infamous in the fan community. They go by the name of Huntrix Analyst.

“Huntrix Analyst has been there almost since the beginning. Their first post was made in December of 2018 ...” The post was shown on screen. “For all her familial legacy, Ryu Rumi can barely sing.” A post that Rumi had herself written, all those years ago. Zoey squeezed her hand.

“And ever since, they’ve dedicated their account to three things: showering Mira and Zoey with — deserved — praise and adulation; reposting — justified — Zoemira fanart —” Zoey giggled.

“What do they mean, justified?” Mira said indignantly.

“I mean, it’s real. I think that's pretty justified,” teased Zoey. Mira batted her face.

“— and, most of all, constantly taking — decidedly undeserved — shots at Rumi. And no one could figure out why.

“The account posted practically constantly ever since the band’s inception, but it didn’t become very well known until 2022, when more attention started getting called to it. At that point, Huntrix Analyst became infamous in the HUNTR/X fandom. Everyone knew about that one weird Rumi hate account, and most people approached it with ridicule.”

“As they should,” scoffed Mira.

“Yeah! We love Rumi!” cheered Zoey. Rumi felt her heart melt.

“Now, idols like Rumi, Zoey, and Mira are constantly in the public eye, and have next to no privacy. (If you want to learn more about the toxic side of idol culture, I’ve got quite a few videos discussing it here.) But of Huntrix Analyst, despite their status as a legend in the fandom, very little is known.”

Sam paused dramatically. ”Until now.”

Rumi groaned. Mira snickered.

“I have done some independent research, and right now, I can tell you Huntrix Analyst’s day job, full legal name, birthday, mother’s maiden name, and eye color. How, you ask?

“Well, it’s because ... Huntrix Analyst is not who you think. And I can guarantee you, you've heard their name too. Because ... it’s in this video. Go back, if you want. Rewatch and see who that leaves us.”

“I don’t like how they’re implying it was me or Zoey,” said Mira.

“Could it, perhaps, be Rumi’s own bandmate, Zoey? She’s always been open about how much she loves and cares about both Mira and Rumi, but maybe she secretly hates Rumi? I don’t know, sounds a little far-fetched to me.”

“That’s right it’s far-fetched! I’d never do that,” affirmed Zoey.

“Same goes for Mira. If she didn’t like Rumi, she’d go ahead and say so, as she’s done of countless other idols, random interviewers, and political figures. She certainly gives their PR team some work to do.”

They all chuckled. It was true.

“So if not them, who was it?

“What if I told you that Rumi’s #1 hater ...

“Was Rumi herself?”

“I'm still so — how did he figure that out?” Rumi shook her head.

“Now, that’s barely more believable than it being Zoey or Mira. Huntrix Analyst always talks about Rumi in the third person — though, admittedly, the charade wouldn’t have lasted long if they hadn’t. It actually ... wouldn’t have been a charade at all, would it? Yeah, that doesn’t actually work. Reminder to rewrite this part later.” Zoey giggled.

“Anyway. No, it doesn’t seem very plausible that Rumi was the one behind the Rumi hate account. But there’s a lot of evidence supporting this theory. First up: geotag data.

“Twi — ahem.” Sam put on a faux corporate voice. “X, formerly known as Twitter, allows users to ‘geotag’ their posts, which attaches precise location data to them. Huntrix Analyst hasn’t had this on for a very long time, but certain tweets from 2018 and early 2019 have geotags. And aside from two that were at HUNTR/X concerts, these were all around an estate in rural South Korea. Specifically ... the estate of Celine, of the Sunlight Sisters. Celine, who raised Rumi and trained HUNTR/X ... at her estate. Already, this is a pretty convincing case that Huntrix Analyst was one of the HUNTR/X girls. That, or Celine, or a stalker who hung out at their house all the time.”

“Celine would do that, though,” said Mira.

Rumi blew air out of her nose. “Maybe.”

“The next point is a bit less definitive, but was a lot more fun to research. Huntrix Analyst’s writing style has changed over the course of their posting: in the beginning, they wrote in complete sentences, with full capitalization and punctuation, but they evolved over time into a more natural, less formal style.

“We can trace the exact trajectory of their changing voice by making a list of their tweets, keeping track of certain data points, and graphing them. Normally, this would take a very long time — Huntrix Analyst has made roughly sixteen hundred posts that include original text. It would be terrible to go through them all by hand. So I programmed a macro to do it for me, counting two statistics that can be used to track their stylistic evolution.

“First of all, we can see a clear upward trend in the number of spelling and grammar suggestions given per post when the post is fed into this video’s sponsor, GrammarMe. GrammarMe is a —” Zoey leaned forward to skip the sponsor segment.

“I’m ... very impressed at the level of effort they went to,” said Rumi.

“Our fans our serious,” said Zoey.

“— try GrammarMe today. Okay, got that over with. Now. Our second statistic is the percentage of characters that are punctuation. The trend here is ... basically flat, which doesn’t really track, until I realized that while the number of, say, periods at the end of sentences, is going down, what’s going up? The number of punctuation marks at a time!” Screenshots of tweets with very long strings of exclamation marks and question marks flashed on screen. “Tell me how rumi got into the band????????????” “Zoemira forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“So that was messing with our data. We can get around this by counting repeated strings of certain characters as a single character, and then, there we go, our expected downward trend appears.

“But, you may be wondering, how does this suggest that it’s Rumi? Let me show you with another set of data.”

More lines appeared on the graph on screen — two purple, two blue, and two pink, to go with the black lines already there. The purple and black lines were closest; the purple and pink lines were close-ish to each other, but far from the others, and much flatter.

“Here, we have the same statistics, this time with data taken from a set of all of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey’s confirmed official and unofficial accounts. There’s much less data here, for Rumi especially, but you can see how her writing style changes in tandem with Huntrix Analyst’s.

“Why was her writing changing? I’ll let her tell you.” Suddenly, an interview clip was playing. Rumi, saying, “I didn’t grow up with social media, so I didn’t really know how to use it in the beginning. [Laughter] Zoey and Mira taught me how to write like a normal person.”

“We’re not quite at ‘normal’ yet,” complained Zoey.

“This isn’t quite confirmation, but in combination with our first piece of evidence, this points quite a convincing finger at Rumi.”

Suddenly, the scene changed. Sam disappeared, and it was just an audio recording playing, one that sounded like a voice memo or something.

“Okay, so this is Sam ... so I was working on writing the, uh, next part, where I was gonna dive into the, eh, I was going to talk about, like, how, uh, Huntrix Analyst knew things that an, stuff that an average fan wouldn’t be, uh, privy to, when, uh, some really major — some stuff happened, on social media. So I’m gonna have to improvise a bit, but I’ll record it properly. Just wanted to, uh, get this idea out.”

Then they were back, with a microphone again. “So, on June 11, 2025, I obtained — or really, was handed on a silver platter — the final, most damning piece of evidence suggesting that Huntrix Analyst was, in fact, Ryu Rumi. Which is. She admitted it herself.”

Screenshots of Rumi’s (now-deleted) posts appeared onscreen. “Once, yes, but I’ve changed my ways [...]”

“These tweets have since been deleted, but this is basically an outright admission by Rumi herself that she ran Huntrix Analyst. Which is very interesting.

“Since HUNTR/X’s announcement of their new ‘Comeback’ era, Rumi has been open about her struggles with depression and with her self-worth.” Mira put her hand on Rumi’s. “It seems likely that Huntrix Analyst was created as a way for Rumi to vent her insecurities, and probably also to get compliments and affirmation from her defenders. Which, while she might catch some criticism for that, I think is understandable. Everyone likes compliments, and the idol lifestyle is very unforgiving. Besides, she deserves it.

“However, I imagine something else is on all of our minds after this revelation. Which is ...

“‘Hold on a second, Rumi spent six and a half years reposting Zoemira fanart?’

“Which brings us to what happened on June 11.”

Rumi groaned. “We deleted ittttt ...”

“The internet is forever,” Mira and Zoey said at the same time.

“Here’s the full post.” It appeared onscreen, in all its glory.

“In which Rumi semi-accidentally confessed to (1) running Huntrix Analyst, (2) previously being a Zoemira shipper, and (3) now being a Polytrix shipper. And her shipping Polytrix is rather significant, considering that, well, she is one of the members of that ship — Polytrix, if you didn’t know, is the ship name for Rumi, Mira, and Zoey.

“As of yet, none of the members have released a statement about this, but theorization is running wild. People say there’s no way Rumi would have had that sudden pivot without some reason to it, such as, for instance, Polytrix getting together?

“As someone who’s shipped Polytrix roughly since I heard of HUNTR/X, and *ahem* maybe wrote some fanfiction of them *ahem*, this is definitely an enticing theory. And it’s rather hard to think of other explanations, considering this is Rumi’s confirmed official account, and given Mira and Zoey’s responses. But ...” Sam sighed dramatically. “We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m the Pop Philosopher, everyone, and thanks for watching. A big thank you to my Patreon —”

Zoey closed the video. Rumi leaned back even further into the couch. “How did I get us into this situationnnnnnnnnnn.”

“It’ll be fine, definitely!” said Zoey. “We should —”

“— wait for it to blow over,” finished Rumi, but Zoey — and Mira — had a different idea: “— come out.”

“Wait, what?” all three said in unison.

“I mean, think about it. Sure, we always get shipped sometimes, but this time your official account was involved. It’ll be hard to justify. Besides, it’s not like the company can drop us for being gay or anything.”

“But our fans can!” protested Rumi. “And if our fans hate us, then the Honmoon is weakened and demons will destroy the world!”

“Sure, some of our fans will hate us for it,” acknowledged Mira. “But do we really want them in our community anyway?”

“Besides, a lot of our fans are queer anyway. This would bring them even closer together, and strengthen the Honmoon!” added Zoey.

“But —” Rumi sighed. “I guess so.”

“No more hiding,” said Mira.

“No more hiding,” agreed Zoey and Rumi.

☆ ☆ ☆