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inbox. (diadem)
INBOX
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no subject
But then ... in that length of silence, Jinu will suddenly hear soft rhythmic breathing and an even softer snore against him.
Yep, Rumi has fallen back asleep, standing up, forehead still pressed up against him.
Okay, listen —
Now that the threat is over, there's clearly no other need to be alert right? It's like, 3AM, give her a break. ]
😤
His heart beats a little faster than when he'd nearly been speared with a sword as he looks down and assesses the situation. Looking around proves fruitless — there isn't a lamp or desk or mini-fridge that is gonna save him from this situation right now. Well. Maybe there's no saving needed, as long as she doesn't resurrect from her slumber and launch another attack.
With a quiet sigh, he pushes his mussed hair out of his face and considers his options. After taking in another moment in the silence with her, Jinu winds one arm around her back, warmth flooding his chest and face as his hand slides through soft purple hair — then he carefully lifts her up into his arms, one hand at her back and the other under swaying legs.
Softly:]
... Please don't wake up and stab me.
[It's a very short walk to the bed, but he walks with slow caution regardless.]
😪
Clearly no stabbing will be occurring now that she knows there's no danger here, as though her demon-hunting instincts have deemed Jinu's particular brand of demon safe. Is it because he'd saved her life at a moment when it mattered most? Or because his soul is now, in some unexplainable way, a part of her? (She still hasn't figured out how that part works — but then again, she doesn't know how any of this works now that they have this second chance.)
And mostly-asleep, it isn't exactly what she's thinking about either. ]
no subject
She'll just have to live with the one pillow. He's not gonna risk returning it.
In fact, when he flops back down onto the floor and into his own bedding, he steals it for himself. He's pretty sure that's the least she owes him for attempted murder for the sin of bathroom breaks at midnight.
... Only, he just lays there, staring up at the ceiling, Rumi's confiscated pillow clutched to his chest forgotten. He whispers to himself, brow furrowed and so utterly serious about it:]
... Did I really look that scary? Maybe I should wear an eye mask at night...
[He'll fall asleep with a little time and patience.
And if Rumi wakes up before him this time, she'll find a sleeping demon covered in patterns, snoring peacefully with her pillow still clutched in his arms.]
no subject
It kinda comes with the gig. Waking up at around 4:30AM was typical in the Huntr/x household for those early morning workouts (and a little breakfast) before public appearances and rehearsals, and squeezing in as much time at the studio as they could to write new music.
Even now that she no longer has any of those obligations, it's hard to beat the habit — just like it's hard to kick off her hunter's instincts, apparently. Because she wonders now about the strangest dream she'd had last night ... there were glowing yellow eyes in the darkness, and a confrontation she doesn't remember the conclusion for. She doesn't remember killing anything — barely even remembers poking at anything with her sword, in fact — and she'd woken up with only one of her pillows on her bed.
Weird.
Sitting up, she makes quick work of surveying the bedroom before peeking over the edge of her bed to where Jinu is still asleep. And there it is, her pillow nestled in his arms as if it were a stuffed plushie. (When did that happen?)
He looks so ... at peace.
It's weird, she's been thinking a lot more these days about whether demons slept or what they might look like if they did. Did they hang upside down like bats somewhere? Did they just not sleep ever, like vampires?
Or did they sleep like Jinu does now, when he may or may not even wholly count as 100% demon anymore (despite the patterns across his skin), now that he has his soul back.
Either way, she's likely to still be lost in thought, hand tucked under her chin, when Jinu begins to stir. ]
1/2
Maybe now they're more alike than ever.
As he sleeps, his patterns occasionally ripple across his skin. It's almost as if muscle memory is trying to rouse him with his human mask in place — something inside him too aware that he needed to maintain order in the land of living by looking the part. One bleary eye slowly opens, glowing yellow for a only a moment before it fades into a familiar warm brown.
He looks up at her. She's looking at him. He blinks in a syrupy slow way.]
no subject
Are you watching me sleep?
no subject
She doubles back, clears her throat, and starts to pull her hair back as though she's been busily trying to get herself in order this whole time, actually, and just happened to look over and see him, a big ol' pillow thief. ]
No. What? Ew.
[ Pfft.
Is her face heating up? It feels warm in here. ]
Obviously not. I was just wondering who stole my pillow, and it turns out it was you.
no subject
Goblin mode.]
Maybe you should've done a better job keeping it.
You practically launched it at my head.
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Still preoccupied with re-braiding her hair, she deliberately ignores the way he looks in her direction. ]
I don't remember doing that.
no subject
Well, to be fair, you didn’t intentionally throw the pillow. It just flew off your bed as you were trying to impale me on a magical sword.
[Surely she’s just pretending not to remember that??????
Surely????]
no subject
And then to look past the foot of her bed. The standing lamp that had been positioned neatly by the wall is now kind of haphazardly placed, as though there'd been some kind of a —
Oh.
Oh, no. ]
Wait. That wasn't a dream? That really happened?
[ Her hands go down, and her braid unravels. ]
I didn't hurt you, did I?
[ She'd remember if she did. How could she not? ]
no subject
[Remember how crafty he was in the sauna? How good he was at evading imminent death while mouthing off? Let’s pretend that’s how he was, and not caught totally unaware, half-asleep and shuffling from a bathroom.]
… Aaaah… You really thought all of that was a dream, huh? That’s some instinct you’ve got.
no subject
And if she'd found him sleeping as peacefully as he had, then clearly nothing bad could have happened. She relaxes a little and shrugs a shoulder. ]
Muscle memory. I started training as a hunter a little before I started idol-training so I could do it in my sleep. A hunter's duty was never over until the Honmoon was sealed. For good.
[ She tries to remember how the whole thing was triggered ... something about two creepy looking lamps in the middle of the night — and they were staring too, she thinks. ]
What were you doing anyway?
no subject
... And stealing your secondary pillow. A bigger offense.
He gives her a skeptical squint.]
What do most people do in the middle of the night?
[He drank a lot at dinner, because he was thirstier after work, which made him extra hungry and extra tired after the fact. But the rise and falling action of what led to the creepy glowy-eyed creature in the darkness makes him ponder on other things too. Leaning his chin on his arms, he sighs and stares at the sheets bunched up at the end of the bed.]
I've been feeling — different. Like something's...
[Wrong? Wrong isn't the word. It's not wrong in the same way nobody in this place doing the exact same things as him are wrong. But it doesn't feel right after centuries of numbing that he can't really put into words. He settles for this:]
— changed.
no subject
(Well, okay, the pillow thing is kind of pushing it.) ]
Hm. Changed.
[ Rumi repeats, allowing herself to study him as though she might be trying to look for said changes if they were at all physical ones. Or maybe she just likes looking at him (which is true) and just wants an excuse to do so (this may also be true).
But in her observations, she does feel like ... something in him has shifted. It's not a bad thing, though — but then, once they began talking, and once she started to let her own guard down around him, she had already begun to see the good in him. She suspects that it's always been there, somewhere, buried beneath years of torment and the necessary instinct to forget. She believed in him then, and she still believes in him now.
She starts to lift a hand as though to reach out to him, and then thinks better of it. ]
I think it makes sense that you feel that way. You're finally free from the voices and Gwi-Ma, and you have your soul back. Maybe that takes some adjusting to.
no subject
He glances up to her with a weak chuckle, though his gaze shifts almost immediately back to the bed. The voices melting away had definitely the biggest change. It was... the loudness of silence. It had been so hard to think straight before, and if it wasn't the echoes of memories, it was the whispering. Always with the whispering.]
Ha... Yeah...
I'd forgotten what it was like... to only hear yourself.
I keep anticipating something that doesn't actually happen.
[Like it would all be some great lie or trick and he was still just as stuck as he was before. But Gwi-Ma is still gone when he wakes up, and he's just as free as he was when he finally drifted to sleep — still re-souled, for better or worse. (He'd like to think for better. Generally.)
He pushes ahead, eager to not think too much about it:]
Eating and sleeping does feel different, though. I mean, it's not like demons can't sleep when they're tired. Or bored. And when I was able to sneak through cracks in the Honmoon, I definitely ate a lot of convenience store snacks. Just for the novelty of it, you know?
But now it's all... fuller. Heavier.
A good kind of heavy, I think. It's just... weirding me out is all.
no subject
[ She doesn't envy him, being plagued by those whispering voices, all of the taunts for a mistake you'd made being inescapable and impossible to ignore. She might be part demon, but she had managed to escape Gwi-Ma's terrible influence somehow, maybe because she was a hunter, or because she had never spent a moment in Gwi-Ma's presence to begin with. She isn't without her own voices though, despite all that, and they often sounded a lot like Celine.
But still ... the quiet is hers when she wants it. ]
I don't know what it's like. [ But she's so grateful that he's telling her this right now. It seems only fair for her to share something of herself too. A trade. ] For me, it was the demon part that always felt like a huge weight. It was this shadow that I always had to hide away for fear of anyone finding out. I never spoke about it to anyone until I met you. And now that they know ... I feel just a little bit lighter.
[ She looks down at her hands, finding her sleeves and pushing them up to reveal the silvery etching of patterns across her skin. They faintly pulse with her will. ]
I'm trying to get used to it too.
no subject
[It is. It's good. It means freedom, and regardless of the struggles that came with these changes, life could never be so dark as it had been before. He has to believe that.
Or would that be irresponsible of him?]
... I'm just glad that you have good people in your life.
People you can trust with that kind of weight.
[Jinu's gaze traces over the reflective patterns on her skin.
Beautiful, he thinks, resisting the urge to reach across the bed and trace them with his hand. But then... she was the first time he'd ever looked at those marks and saw something beyond the pain they carried. He saw her for her, demon and human as one, but... he had shared the same ache she did. That the demon marks were a dirty thing, something to be ashamed of. He just didn't hide it. He had accepted what they meant for him...
And now...
He turns up his hands where they had been rested, frowning and willing them to reflect his true self. Color drains from his fingers, the palms, lifelessly blue like a drowned man. His own patterns show darkly across his arms. Maybe if he stared long enough, something would change. A shadow would lift, or the weight would fall away.
But it doesn't, and he masks the patterns under his illusion once again before looking up at her. 'I'm sorry for showing them your patterns', 'I wish I had done anything differently', 'I'm proud of you for proving me wrong'. All thoughts that flutter through his mind before he bites his lip and gets up.]
Breakfast?
no subject
[ Before they both do.
Because if Rumi is going home to their world, their Korea, she's taking Jinu with her. She's decided it already; she's not leaving him behind. She's not losing him again.
But before she can add to her thoughts, or say anything else at all, the patterns that had scattered his skin in a reflection of hers suddenly disappear, fading into his usual 'normal human guy' mask, and he gets to his feet, leaving the edge of the bed lighter.
Her own patterns fade to barely visible wisps and she blinks, quickly composing herself. ]
Um. Yeah.
[ She tugs her sleeves back down around her arms and slowly gets out of bed too, her hands immediately going to her long hair to quickly braid it back as she does. Multi-tasking: it's a thing. ]
I think we might still have some coffee left.