Chapter Text
As the sun rises, the girls wake up and start their routine, with the boy still sleeping on Rumi’s bed.
By checking the living room, the trio seem relieved that the veil is still up and with no signal of demons around. They go to the kitchen and prepare breakfast, with toast, juice, tea and energy drinks.
“So, Rumi, what are the plans for today?” - Mira asks, as she takes a sip on her energy drink.
“Like I said yesterday, I will go to the sanctuary to check more about the weapon.”
Zoey appears with two cups of tea, one for herself, other for Rumi, which she puts one of them on the counter - “What about Celine? Won’t she be there? We know you haven't spoken to each other since… ‘The Takedown’.”
Rumi pauses for a moment, and sips a bit of the tea - “I’ll see what I can do. I’d rather focus on getting answers about that weapon for now than talking to her about that event.”
“Are you sure you want to go only by yourself?”
“Yeah, I think you two should take care of the kid while I am away.”
Zoey looks excited when hearing this - “If that’s the case! That’s great! I really want to go to buy a few groceries, we need to refill our snack stock. We can bring him together.”
Mira loudly cleans her throat.
“Em… Right… If you’re really sure you want to go to the sanctuary all by yourself, Rumi.”
“Don’t worry, one way or another I would have to face her again. And I’d rather do this personally…”
After the conversation, the bedroom door opens, with the boy coming out from the room, rubbing his eyes like he recently woke up.
“Look who woke up.” - Mira comments, as she finishes drinking her energy drink.
“Good morning!” - Zoey pulls a chair and taps on it, indicating for the boy to sit down - “Here, we made breakfast for you.”
Rumi places two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice in front of the child - “Here, I hope you enjoy it.”
He looks at the plate and the glass, the boy carefully picks up a slice of toast and watches the butter melt on it, curious, he takes a bite. It doesn’t take long until the flavor attracts him to make one more bite, and another bite. The boy quickly finishes both slices and drinks the whole glass of juice.
Mira puts her elbow on the counter and steals one of the toasters they made - “Glad to see he’s calmer than yesterday.”
“Hey, little one.” - Rumi draws his attention - “I know we’ve asked you before last night, but we thought you were too scared to answer this question. So, what is your name?”
He tilts his head to the size, struggling to remember.
“Don’t you remember your name?”
The boy makes a few gestures with his fingers, like remembering how to count. Only to give them a 4 number sequence “1-4-6-5”.
“1465? Is that his name?” - Zoey asks.
“Ok, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Neither was I.”
The girls look even more puzzled and a little worried.
“Well… That’s an awful name. I’m not calling him that.”
“Me neither. Who would call a child something like that?” - Mira sounds a little angry when saying that.
“Listen, we have no idea who gave you this name, but we don’t think it suits you. How about a new name? Luckily, when you were asleep, we were talking about the options of your new name if something like that happened.”
He looks at the trio, expecting to hear the new names, at this point, he stole three more slices of toast.
“If I’m not mistaken, I chose Jeong.”
“I went with Yong-Soo.”
“And my option was Shin-Won. Of course, if you don’t feel comfortable with either of them, we can try and choose a completely different one.”
With a new slice of toast in his mouth, the boy stares at the trio, waiting for some kind of response. By slowly raising his hand covered in butter and bread crumbles, he points right at Rumi.
“Shin-Won? You like this name?”
He simply nods, making the girls happy.
“Yay! He finally has a name!” - Zoey celebrates.
Rumi looks at the time from her cellphone, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning.
“Girls, I have to go. But first, there is one more thing I need to do.” - She gently grabs Shin’s arm and takes a picture of the sigil. Then she dresses herself in more discreet clothes, and with the broken dagger in her pocket, the leader walks towards the door - “Bye girls, bye Shin-Won, if anything happens, I’ll send you a message.”
“Bye Rumi.” - Both girls speak in unison.
Only three of them remain in the kitchen now.
“You know what?” - Mira stands up from the chair - “I guess it’s time for us to leave too. Those snacks aren’t gonna refill themselves.”
Leaving their home, both Mira and Zoey, like Rumi, are also wearing discreet clothing along with masks to avoid unnecessary attention. Shin-Won is wearing a jacket above the green shirt he was using due to the cold weather and still uses the paperboy hat Zoey gave him.
They were aware of the risk of being seen with the boy, but had no other choice, they didn’t want to leave the boy alone. They still had the fear of the dagger touching the Honmoon might have caught any demons’ attention inside their own home.
The trio is walking down the street, the sidewalk a little crowded due to the people walking to the subway station nearby to go to work. After avoiding the crowd of people, they enter a market.
“So, what do we exactly need, Zoey?” - Mira looks around, just to make sure no one recognizes them.
“We need a few more chips, bread and a few more things. I’ve heard they launched new flavors of ramyeon” - She checks the list on her hands.
Going from aisle to aisle, the girls quickly fill the cart with everything they need, but then, they pass to a kid’s section nearby, filled with toys, coloring books and shiny masks, Zoey has an idea.
“Mira, wait here with Shin-Won.”
“Oh boy, here we go again with the turtle plushies and stickers…” - Mira complains, putting her hand on the forehead.
She looks at Shin-Won, and notices him staring at something, a white mask hanging on one of the market shelves, with the iconic horns and demon teeth coming out of its mouth, he looks a little bit uncomfortable by looking at it.
“Are you ok, Shin?” - She puts her hand on the kid’s head - “Don’t like the look of those masks? I know, they are ugly as hell, luckily, they don’t do anything like the ones you saw. We can wait for Zoey far from them.”
A few minutes pass and Zoey comes back with a few things on her hands.
“Pencils and notebooks? Did you already fill your other lyric notebooks?”
“Well… Kinda, but that’s not the main reason. I feel bad for not coming with Rumi to the sanctuary, so I thought we could help her in another way.”
“Go on.” - Mira raises her eyebrow.
“Since Shin-Won doesn't speak, why not give him a few notebooks and pencils for him to give us information about where he came from or something like that? He might even tell us about the dagger he brought.”
“That actually sounds like a good idea. But what about the rest in your hand?”
When mentioning this, Zoey flinches a little, trying to hide.
“Let me guess… Turtle stickers? Again?”
“Yeah… I’ve found more cute turtle stickers…”
“As always… Let’s just go before someone here recognizes us.”
After buying the groceries, the girls went to another shop, the clothing store, since the clothes the boy was using were too big for him.
It didn't take much long when selecting, just a few shirts, pants and hats with neutral and dark colors. They wanted to be as fast as possible, so Mira and Zoey figured out what is the perfect size for Shin-Won.
“I guess those would be enough from him.” - Zoey comments as she brings the clothes with her.
Approaching the cashier, the employee fixes her brown ponytail in a gradient with green and looks at Shin.
“What a cute kid! What is your name?”
“His name is Shin-Won!” - Zoey walks in front of the boy, covering her hat and adjusting her mask. Mira, afraid to be discovered, gives a weak punch on Zoey’s shoulder - “I’m sorry, he is just… a little shy when speaking to strangers.”
“No problem, when I was his age I used to be pretty shy as well.” - The cashier starts processing the clothes - “I’m sorry, I can’t stop noticing, it’s just… It’s the first time I see a kid using those purple marks on his neck.”
The faint patterns on the boy’s neck were well hidden because of the jacket, but not totally, depending on the angle, they were very evident.
And by hearing that, Zoey’s eyes widened, caught by surprise.
“OH! Em… It’s because… You know-” - She had no idea what to say.
Mira intervenes - “Our little cousin is… A huge Huntrix fan!” - She improvises by looking at her own band logo on the caps behind the cashier.
“Ye-Yeah!” - Zoey just goes along with Mira’s story - “His favorite singer is… Rumi! And since he saw those marks, he wanted to do those as well to look like her… They are temporary, of course.”
“That is adorable, he’s probably the youngest Huntrix fan I’ve ever seen, but why purple? Is it because of her hair?”
“You’re right! He asked us to paint them like Rumi’s marks, but we didn’t have any luck finding the exact colors… So we went with purple.”
“And I can see you two did a pretty good job. I bet he has a favorite song he listens to everyday. Which one is it?”
Zoey and Mira take a few seconds to answer the question, trying to act as natural as possible.
“He really loves… Golden.”
“Oh my god, yes! He won’t stop humming that song when at home.” - Zoey adds more.
“I really love that song too, the way the girls speak about themselves and their lives, I can really see myself in those lyrics. But there is one song I didn’t understand: Takedown. I mean, the song is great, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t feel them in that song, you know what I mean? I’ve heard rumors saying that this song was created to attack Saja Boys, but never knew if they were true or not. By the way, I never heard about the Saja Boys again, I wonder what happened to them.” - The cashier lightly sighs and stares at the wall after touching the topic.
A few seconds of awkward silence pass, with Zoey and Mira afraid to talk to the employee.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I got lost in my thoughts again.” - She proceeds to do her job until every piece of clothing is registered.
Both the girls pay for the clothes, and while organizing the bags, the employee looks at Shin-Won.
“Hey, Shin-Won.” - She gestures to him to come closer, when he’s close to the counter, she lowers down and whispers - “I know my boss will kill me if he discovers I did this, but I don’t care, could you give me your hand?”
The employee grabs something behind the count and gives a button on the boy’s hand. Looking closely, the button has ‘Golden’ written on it with the silhouettes of Zoey, Mira and Rumi outlined in gold.
“Since you remember my young little brother, who was a big fan of them too, I want you to have this button. It’s a limited edition button when the Huntrix released their single.” - She closes his hand and makes the gesture of putting the finger on her lips - “This is our little secret, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
The boy agrees by shaking his head.
“Now that we were speaking about the Huntrix, you two look a little bit familiar.”
By hearing this, both Zoey and Mira rushes and picks Shin by the hand.
“Thank you for your service! Have a nice day!” - The girls say in unison.
Back at their home, Zoey and Mira go to the living room and organize the groceries they bought. Mira and Zoey’s cellphone vibrate.
It’s Rumi’s message, writing that she’ll come back soon, and she has some news.
“I hope she has good news.” - Says Mira.
“Me too.”
Shin-Won, starting to get hot due to the heavy jacket, tries to take it off, but since he doesn’t know how to use the zipper, he struggles, making his hat fall.
Seeing this, Zoey offers to help - “There, you need to pull down the zipper.” - She carefully removes the jacket and looks at the green shirt.
Zoey goes to the bags and grabs a shirt, with the Shin’s size and decides to switch them.
“How about we change your shirt?” - She comes closer to Shin-Won and takes off the shirt.
Accidentally, Zoey’s nails ended up scratching the boy’s torso when removing the clothing, which he violently reacted to by pushing her.
“Shin!” - She exclaims in surprise.
The imminent feeling of dread rushes through Shin’s spine, the boy desperately looks around, feeling watched, tears start running down his cheeks. The sounds of branches breaking, the putrid stench, the screaming, the number 1465 echoes inside his head repeatedly. The aching feeling from his chest starts to get stronger, louder, suffocating. The world around him gets dark and darker.
“Zoey, what did you do to him?!” - Mira asks, also surprised by the boy’s reaction.
“I-I didn’t do anything. I just tried to change his clothes.”
He crouches in a corner, fearing the worst, fearing to see that mask again. That ugly worn out white mask. He can’t go back there, he doesn’t want to, despite being the only place he knew his entire life.
“Shin-Won…” - Zoey slowly approaches him - “Are you okay?”
The girls never saw him so afraid before, he still looks around erratically, hands violently shaking while covering his face, feeling surrounded and exposed. The once before faint patterns on his body start to glow purple, just like Rumi’s.
“Shin, calm down, it’s us.” - Mira, besides Zoey, approaches too.
Zoey slowly walks until she’s next to him, and gently grabs his hand. She doesn’t know how to calm him down, that was the best idea in her mind at the moment - “Shin…?”
He feels the gentle touch on his hand, and little by little, Shin starts calming down, but still crouching on the ground.
“Shin…” - She looks at the boy in the eyes with a regretful expression, and pulls him for a hug - “Whatever I did to scare you… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
His golden eyes, once looking around in fear, lock on Zoey and Mira now, yet showing a bit of discomfort remembering something from the past not so long ago.
Slowly getting up, Zoey gives up by changing his clothes for now, but another thing caught her eye, a huge scar could be seen in the middle of the boy’s chest, Mira notices the scar too, but both agreed on not insisting seeing it, fearing that might make Shin-Won have another panic attack or something similar.
As the sun goes down, Rumi appears with a big book in her hands. Mira and Zoey were waiting for her while Shin-Won was sleeping on the couch, looking very tired after the incident.
“Rumi!” - Zoey hug her.
“Hey Rumi.”
“Hey, girls, how did it go?” - The leader looks at the boy on the couch - “Something happened?”
The duo look at each other - “Yeah… We need to talk about him…” - Mira confirms.
After a few minutes of explanation about what happened, Rumi looks worried about Shin-Won.
“So, he had a panic attack when changing his clothes?”
“I swear! It wasn't my intention! I think my nails scratching his belly reminded him of something bad…”
“Zoey, no one is blaming you for this, you didn’t know.”
“But I still feel bad…”
Mira puts her hand on Zoey’s shoulder to comfort her. And adds to the story.
“Another thing that caught our eye, is the fact that he has a scar, a huge one on his chest.”
Rumi sounds puzzled when hearing it.
“A scar?”
“It’s like someone did a surgery on Shin. Now that we’re mentioning it, I recall seeing another scar on his neck in the bathroom yesterday.”
“Another scar? On the neck? That explains why Shin doesn’t talk then?” - Mira sounds angrier, but doesn’t yell to not wake the boy.
“I know this is a revolting situation.” - Adds Rumi - “But since Shin is safe here with us, we don’t need to think about this right now… Or… That’s what I thought…”
“What do you mean by that?”
She puts the book on the kitchen counter, where the girls sit around it. By opening it, Rumi reveals a sigil on the book’s writings. The sigil is almost as identical as the one on Shin’s arm, despite a few runes inside being completely different.
“It took me a while to find this sigil in the book.”
“‘Property Sigil’?” - Zoey reads.
“According to this book, the Property Sigil has a function to mark something or someone that belongs to some demon or entity, like a trophy or something similar.”
“A trophy?! I swear to god if I find the demon who did this to Shin, I’ll do something worse to them before killing them.”
“So… You’re telling us that there are high chances of something or someone kidnapped Shin before we found him?”
Rumi simply nods, worried.
“Good, that will make things easier for us to kill if it decides to ‘retrieve’ him.”
“But wait, what about the dagger? Did you find something about it too?”
“No… There are no recordings about something like this weapon, probably we are the first hunters we’re seeing this kind of relic…”
Upon hearing this, Mira starts to fit the pieces together - “Hold on… If we are the first hunters to discover a weapon that could easily cut the Honmoon’s veil… But the demons didn’t use it against us… That means…?”
“Something else besides a demon made this dagger?” - Zoey complements.
“I guess so… Gwi-Ma would absolutely use it to obtain advantage if he knew about it. There is no way a demon could have made it without him knowing its existence…”
“This is getting way worse…”
“I know… Right?”
“That’s all I could find inside the sanctuary. It ain’t much...”
“But it helped a lot.” - Says Mira.
“Yes! Indeed.” - Zoey confirms.
Rumi gives a sigh and stands up from the chair, letting the girls see the book, and searches through the cupboard afterwards.
“Rumi?” - Mira calls for her - “What about Celine?”
She stops for a moment, and grabs a cup of rameyon to prepare it.
“It went… Well…”
“Did she say something about the book?”
“No… Actually, we didn’t talk to each other. It was… Awkward… She was just there. Celine didn’t start a conversation, so, neither did I… To be honest, I thought I was ready to speak, but… I couldn’t even look at her face… I didn’t have the guts to do this…” - Rumi seems frustrated when talking about this - “I wanted to tell her, to scream at her for what she did to me… But I wasn’t strong enough.”
“Rumi, it’s ok… This shows that neither you nor Celine were ready to talk. I mean, I can’t speak for her. But I can totally feel you tried.”
“Zoey’s right, maybe you just need more time.”
Rumi quietly heats her rameyon, and sits back on the counter.
Mira looks at her friend, she’s visibly upset about it - “Listen, how about this? Next time you go to the sanctuary, we can go together.”
“But what about Shin? We can’t leave him alone.”
“Don’t worry about it, we’ll find our way, like we always do.”
Rumi seems relieved by hearing this.
“Thank you, girls.”
Later that night, the girls had dinner together with Shin-Won. They had a great time together by telling the story about how Mira and Zoey were almost discovered by a cashier in a clothing store.
All the girls went to their bedroom to sleep, except Rumi. She likes switching channels on the tv until falling asleep when something is bothering her enough.
Suddenly, she hears something coming from her bedroom door, Shin-Won appears from the darkness, with a sleepy face.
“Hi, Shin-Won. Why are you awake this hour?” - She quietly asks - “Can’t sleep?”
The boy simply nods.
“Guess we’re both on the same boat then.” - She gestures to him to sit next to her, which he obliges.
With both on the same couch and staring at the tv, Rumi notices something on Shin’s pocket, something golden.
“What is this?” - Rumi picks up the shiny golden button - “Oh, I remember this one, this is the promotional button when we released ‘Golden’. The internet went crazy when we announced those. Where did you get this? I’m sure they’re pretty rare nowadays.”
Without knowing how to answer, Shin just remembers the gesture the cashier made to him when she gave the button, he does the same thing to Rumi, making her giggle.
“Full of secrets, huh?” - Rumi looks at the button for a few more seconds, and her genuine smile becomes a sad look, remembering about the events, the Idol Awards, Celine, the Takedown, Jinu.
Shin couldn’t help but notice Rumi’s sadness, he gently pulls her hoodie.
“Sorry, I just got… Carried away… Let’s play a game, the one who sleeps first loses, got it?” - The boy looks tempted to play along, but agrees - “Ok, in three, two, one… Go!”
Both watch the channels switching on the tv, but it doesn’t take long for Shin to lose the game, resting his head on her shoulder.
She turns off the television and looks at the boy’s patterns on his arms and remembers again about Celine, about the Takedown.
“A mistake since the day you were born…”, “Cover those up…”, Those were the words that stuck most in her head most of her life when seeing her own patterns. But watching the boy’s patterns, she knows he is not a mistake nor a monster, he has nothing to do with demons, she still remembers the hopeful way he looked at her in that crack, to finally see someone like him, to help him. Somehow, it hurts her heart by trying to imagine the boy in despair like Zoey and Mira told her before she came back home.
And with this thought in mind, she made a decision, she will NOT be like Celine.
She gives a faint smile while looking at him, puts back the golden button in his pocket - “Goodnight, Shin. See you tomorrow.”
Rumi rests her head on Shin, quickly falling asleep too.