Chapter Text
Jinu POV
“Jinu, you’re an idiot. This won’t work.” Mystery’s tugging at my shirt again.
“Don’t we deserve a chance?” The others look away.
“If not for us, then for Huntrix. They’re-”
“They hate us Jinu! We’re Demons!” Romance grabs my shirt.
“We changed! Our patterns aren’t part of our shame anymore.”
True to my words, our patterns are gone. Not like Rumi’s, iridescent and beautiful, ours are more like mostly gone scars, shining but white.
“Come on, we can’t really back out now.”
“We can teleport-” Baby tries.
“Don’t you dare.”
“..besides, I already told Rumi we’d be coming.”
“WHAT?!”
The elevator dings and the doors open.
Rumi POV
Jinu’s tiger disappeared a while ago, the hat stealing bird’s resting on my nightstand so I know the tiger’s coming back.
It’s been a few weeks since the defeat of Gwi-Ma. The fans have loved my patterns, which is a relief. We even have our new song “What It Sounds Like” as a fan favorite. Though with the slip of “Takedown” at the awards, they’ve been asking for that to be released.
It’s not too bad, we’ve been signing Takedown together ironically since the whole thing happened anyway, so we could easily release that one as well.
The tiger reappears, he starts making his way over to me when he knocks over my trash can. The bird looks at me in that deadpanned way of his and it bubbles a laugh out of me.
“Here let me help.” I walk over and reset the trash can away from the tiger.
He purrs and nudges into me, prompting me to pet him. The bird flies over to perch on the tiger and the tiger opens his mouth to give me a card.
“That’s weird.. where’d you get this?” I ask the tiger as I take it from him.
He just purrs again and settles down at my feet when I sit down on my bed.
I open the card to see a note.
“ ‘See you soon. You might want to go to your living room.’ Seriously, where’d you even get this?” The tiger just stands up and walks out of my room.
With a sigh, I follow him out.
“Hey Rumi! Are you ready?” Zoey asks, her and Mira already on the couch with snacks piled on the table and a movie series ready to play.
“Yeah, just a moment..” I look back down at the card.
”Is everything ok?” Mira asks while walking over, eyeing the card.
”I mean yeah, but.. I only got these cards from Jinu through the tiger, but he just came back with this one a few moments ago.” I gesture to the tiger who’s making himself comfortable on the floor in front of the couch.
I told them about the notes from Jinu during a confession session the night after Gwi-Ma’s defeat. That quickly spiraled into Zoey and then later Mira gushing over the Saja boy they like. Which turned our whole talk into just talking about the saja Boys.
“Maybe he just grabbed an old one and gave it back?” Zoey suggests, grabbing my arm as she leans around it.
“I thought so too until I opened it. He’s never written that before.” Mira hums at the note.
“Cryptic. Do you think it’s just one he decided to just not send?”
“Maybe? But then why would the tiger give it to me?”
The elevator dings and opens to-
“Uhh. Hey..?” Jinu says, turning to face us. The rest of the Saja Boys look a bit panicked.
Their patterns are white..
“I thought you guys died.” Mira says, flexing her hands like she’s ready to start summoning her weapon.
“Do we trust them?” Zoey whispers, looking ready to throw her kunais before they appear.
I ignore her question in favor of walking over to Jinu. He hesitates a second before walking over as well. He stands there, waiting for me to do something. My voice keeps catching. I can’t figure out what to do. What to say. Instead I sing the beginning chorus of Golden.
Jinu’s soul lights up in his chest. He looks relieved at that. I look past him to see the rest of their souls shining too. Baby’s hitches in a gasp. Romance looks like he can’t believe it. Mystery and Abby are looking at each other with small smiles.
Looking back at Zoey and Mira, they look surprised. And thankfully not ready to attack anymore. They’re great friends.
“You can come in.” I wave the boys over. They still hesitate for a second before finally walking out of the elevator and into the room.
Mira walks over to Romance, starting a (probably awkward) conversation with Abby who is leaning on Baby, arms around him as Baby produces a water bottle from somewhere.
I swear I blinked and Zoey appeared next to Mystery. Giggling as she starts talking to him.
“Didn’t you die? You gave me your soul.” I look up to Jinu. He’s looking at my patterns on my face before locking eyes.
“I thought I did.” He whispers “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“But you’re here.” He hugs me.
“I woke up on the Namsan Tower stage, the Saja Boys were already awake when I saw them. I didn’t know what else to do, so I brought them here. They weren’t exactly on board.” He chuckles.
“Did they think we’d hurt them?” I pull back to see his face.
“We did try to kill you.” He shrugs. We pull apart when the bird tweets and the tiger rubs against Jinu.
“I’m going to get Mira and Zoey’s opinions. Be right back.”
Mira seems to be doing fine with the three boys, though a lot more comfortable with Romance and Abby than she was before and at the signing. Mystery looks happy to talk with Zoey who is undoubtedly flirting by this point.
“Mira, Zoey.” I gesture to the side and they follow me over.
“Thoughts? Jinu said they were hesitant to come here.” Mira responds before Zoey could. Zoey looked ready to burst.
“Romance and Abby seemed to be worried I’d attack them if they said the wrong thing. Baby too, but he just kept looking at the elevator. From what they said they plan to continue being a boy band, so that might’ve been how they stayed here instead of disappearing under the Hunmoon.”
“Oh, you’re saying they gained their souls back cause they like being a band?” Zoey asks, she and Mira looking back at the boys. We just shrug at the thought.
“Jinu said he woke up on the stage, but he did have his soul before disappearing.”
“Ughh. They don’t have a place to go, do they?” Mira realizes.
“I mean we do have the space and the rooms..” Zoey looks giddy again. Mira’s hiding a smile.
We look at each other to confirm we’re on the same page. I turned towards the boys who had moved to stand with Jinu. Baby looks to be pouting at Abby and gesturing to his empty water bottle. Abby pats his shoulder with a sorry smile. The tiger and bird sitting in front of Jinu as he pets him.
The boys all tense up when they realize we’re looking at them. “How do you feel about a movie marathon? We were going to watch one before you guys got here.”
The boys sag in relief. “Thank you Rumi.” I smile in response. Walking over and taking Jinu’s hand, dragging him with me to sit on the couch. The tiger followed and sat at our feet. “You need to give those two names, or tell me them.” I say offhandedly as I grab a bag of chips from the pile on the table.
The boys slowly migrate to the couch. Me and Jinu are sitting on the right corner of the couch. Mystery sitting in front of us on the right side/turn. Romance, Abby and Baby sit to our left with a space open between Baby and Romance. Zoey grabs a few snacks and sits next to Mystery. Mira climbs over the couch and sits in the open space after apparently grabbing a bottle filled with juice. She hands it to Baby who quickly grabs it from her.
“Alright! Now hush up and watch!” Zoey grabs the remote to turn on the first movie.
We get a few minutes in before Jinu leans into my ear. “I’m sorry for taking so long” I turn my head into his neck. “You came back. That’s all that matters.”