Annie | AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cembree | I have discord but don't really use it xd (also help what am i supposed to put in my banner image)
tagging this betaadminshipping because I am honestly always so down to talk about this rarepair lmao also I have a lot of abandoned WIPs of this ship and if I get like 2 encouraging words I would probably try to finish them
My Romance & Mystery friendship truther post I will probably unlink it from this post eventually but I had a lot fun writing this lol
Mostly writing for KPDH these days but I definitely have a backlog of Pokemon plot bunnies to get through QQ
In general I REALLY like rarepairs and exploring interesting "what ifs" in any canon.
I should have made this post a really long time ago but then again I didn't realize until last week that my settings were such that my posts wouldn't show up in tags T_T this is very embarrassing considering how long I've been using this site :')
Inbox is always open; I LOVE brainstorming about canon and characters 😅
Tentative WIPs:
darker Miromance angst fic (K-Pop Demon Hunters, Mira/Romance)
She looks at him with such disgust that he believes she can see him for what he is. But she’s just as much a lie as he is, except worse, because she’s a fantasy he can’t break free of. Miromance, angst.
RoMystery / y/n fic (K-Pop Demon Hunters, Mystery/Reader/Romance)
Kind of gratuitous and explicit but mostly very dark.
anagnorisis (Pokemon ORAS, Courtney/Matt)
puppeteer (Pokemon FRLG, Sabrina & Sabrina's Alakazam)
An alakazam allegedly has an IQ of 5000. In a situation like this, who's the real trainer?
Sometimes I think about Jinu, after recovering his body and joining the girls, holding a memorial for Abby :(
I know the Saja Four weren't intended to be more than puppets but man I like to think that Jinu and Abby's physical contact was genuine camaraderie. It always kills me how Abby is the last of the four to abscond at the bathhouse, not turning around until he sees that Jinu is okay.
On one hand, I feel like the proliferation of "Celine killed Rumi's dad" in the general KPDH fanspace is due to a) a misunderstanding of concept art (i.e., concept art is not necessarily canon, especially for a movie that was tended to by this many cooks for so long) and b) a desire to villainize Celine but…
Crack concept: Celine/Starlight Sister #3 kill Rumi's dad without knowing he's a demon bc like.
Imagine you're one of two women in their very early twenties*, working in the notoriously predatory world of entertainment. Your friend starts acting a little weird (which fine, she's weird, Miyeong looks like she'd be weird af) and then suddenly she shows up with a very serious boyfriend out of the blue. This guy's age is unclear, but he acts strange, with tons of old-timey mannerisms and a general air of resignation that makes you suspect he's WAY too old (and his cageyness about his age only reinforces your suspicion).
Then, even worse, it turns out that he KNOCKED UP your friend, who, like the two of you, is still pretty early on her career (certainly not old enough to consider retiring, which, unfortunately being a wife and/or mother would have curtailed her opportunities in K-entertainment, especially back in the 90s) AND has a destinied duty to protect your world. The same friend who was just as dedicated to the cause as you are, until a switch flipped. Now suddenly she starts talking about how maybe you shouldn't be killing demons and shit.
So you wonder if her probably-older-maybe-even-much-older bum of a boyfriend (because seriously, what the fuck does he do all day) has been manipulating her all along, especially because she's spending less time with you, she won't hear any criticism against him, what if he's preparing to ruin her reputation if she ever leaves him, and fuck he's trying to babytrap her, isn't he?
Yeah I don't know, I'd consider killing him, too.
*based off tentative math from the 1997 on their vinyl + SES and FinKL ages
disclaimer: this post is like, 99% vibes based lmao. just My impressions
so i'm not really a cornturtle shipper but sometimes i think about how of the more common sajatrix pairing combos, rujinu + cornturtle is probably the one where everyone would get along the most?
like rumi and zoey are obviously friends, and jinu and abby too (ok i am a jinabby friendship truther so i'm biased, but the body language they exhibit in the movie seems indicative of at least some closeness) but the "diagonals" also work out quite well.
jinu and zoey seem like they would connect over music and Potentially Bad Ideas (i'm not a huge fan of the "raven-haired siblings" phrasing because some people seem to have the logic of "zoey reminds jinu of his sister" and idk a lot of us Asians have dark hair that doesn't mean we're all related come on 😭 but i do think this dynamic is popular for good reason) while abby seems pretty easygoing in general with Team Mom/Dad vibes so i can see him and rumi getting along and trusting each other
on the other hand, jinu and mira don't seem like they'd be a great personality fit to start (hard to articulate why but i think he'd find her uptight and she'd find him annoying/rude) and mira definitely seems like she'd hold mogging rumi against him. i'm sure on a rujinu/mirabby double date, both mira and jinu would Behave but they probably wouldn't be super hyped
with rujinu + miromance or zoeystery...it's of course hard to say, but both romance and mystery seem aggressive and neurotic/sensitive in ways that might not jive with jinu amazingly and i can see a potential energy mismatch with rumi, too. i think rumi does best with people who can get her out of her head.
i am a romystery friendship truther, but i feel like the diagonals of miromance + zoeystery might not work great either? again this is a vibes based post, but with the romance and zoey dynamic, I've always gotten the feeling that at best they would try to get along for the sake of their friends but Not Click, and at worst, romance would look down on zoey. i honestly can't a read on a potential mystery & mira dynamic.
i guess out of the common sajatrix ships, we still have the rujinu x zoebaby combo where the diagonals work out
(to reiterate these are just my vibes and one set of interpretations from seconds of screentime for some of these characters. i still eagerly await a miromance/zoeystery double date fic 😭😭)
nastiest trick in the book is getting you genuinely deeply attached to a character whose name sounds fucking stupid in any other context. this WILL happen to you at some point in your life.
many people have pointed out that Romance's "flirting" with Mira was an act of aggression. he clearly doesn't like physical contact--he's the only Saja Boy who doesn't initiate any physical interactions with group members--so him getting all up in her space and staying there is clearly him antagonizing her. his devotion is him basically trying to kill her with "kindness" because she knows it's fake but the fans will eat it up and she can't retaliate. I love him :')
Meanwhile, 3 seats down:
I'm sure Romance--if he noticed this--realized it was just Zoey being Horny (which girl same) but I'm cracking up at the mental image of Romance seeing this and assuming that Zoey was playing his game (projecting and all etc etc).
Like the way she flips from >>>:( to :3? Romance is probably thinking "that one is a MENACE, how DARE she, that fake ass hunter. we need to watch out. she's just trying to provoke a reaction out of him--Mystery DON'T FALL FOR IT--and thinking about exactly how she'll dissect him" and meanwhile the only thing in Zoey's head is "huehuehue LIPS BICEPS HAIR <redacted>"
Gwi-Ma promised her a place to belong to. He stripped her of everything she knew and loved, and watched her rise in a cursed facsimile of her past self, but…
As much as she hates to admit it, this is her home now.
In which Zoey succumbs to Gwi-Ma's voice on the walk to Namsan.
Fandom: KPop Demon Hunters
Relationships: Mystery/Zoey
Characters: Mystery, Zoey
Word Count: 2205
AO3 Link
FFN Link
You're too much. And not enough. You'll never belong anywhere, but I can give you a place to belong.
--
Near the end of his reign, the demon king Gwi-Ma came close to freeing his people. Some historians still marvel that he failed–after all, it has always taken three hunters to build and maintain the Honmoon–while others point out that his defeat shouldn’t be surprising considering Kang Rumi’s pedigree rendered her twice as powerful as any ordinary hunter.
But losers can still claim spoils of war, and for Gwi-Ma, that victory lay in a singular, precious soul.
--
In the late 2020s, Seoulites begin to speak of a new urban legend. She’s so nondescript, so pretty, that it takes years for anyone to realize she’s more cryptid than human.
They say she lurks around late night ramen joints and boba shops, and sometimes, you’ll even catch her at a concert or two, hovering in the back row and mysteriously vanishing whenever a security guard turns their head.
She always watches the same two women. Then later, these two women and a man. When they inevitably start families of their own, she looks after them, too.
But she never talks to or touches them. The moment she tries, she sinks through the ground like a droplet of water.
--
Gwi-Ma always had trouble controlling her.
Some say it’s because she’s modern. Her insecurities are as old as time, but the nuances are painfully new and unfamiliar.
Others say it’s because her mind’s a labyrinthian mess of fog and contradictions. She can’t seem to focus on anything for longer than the blink of an eye, and when she does, she’ll forget everything else. It’s no wonder she found the mate she did, because he’s never been the most clear-minded either.
The more naive, soft-hearted folk say it’s because she’s kind, in spite of her demonic nature. She threw herself in front of her husband, after all, when they’d exchanged no more than twenty words with each other. Even after they became Demon King and Queen, she remained fair and discreet, rather than taking pleasure in punishment as her predecessor did. Gwi-Ma perceived it as weakness, but-
And then someone will inevitably pipe in to ask, did you all forget what she was before she was tricked into giving up her humanity?
Never before has a hunter become a demon, and it stands to reason they’d wield power beyond imagination.
--
It’s also unclear when her husband began to love her, when he began to see her as a mate instead of a plaything or a souvenir from an exciting trip to the human world. Despite his placid exterior, he was known as a sinister and conniving being, both capable and willing to use his pretty face and angelic voice to dupe humans and demons alike. (And of course he was: there would have been no other way for him to protect her during their early years together.)
The more sordid observers claim it’s when Baby joked about sharing her, and Mystery almost ripped his face off, not that it prevented their menage a trois decades later. Of course, this perspective suggests that he fell for her almost immediately.
Others say the turning point was the executions of the reapers once known as the Saja Boys, when she saw a glimpse of lavender hair on the dais and begged Gwi-Ma to take her instead. The Demon King taunted her so viciously, ridiculing her every weakness, and then with the flick of an ember, he burned away Mystery’s facade.
But she did not recoil at the sight of his true face. If anything, her eyes only softened, while the corners of her mouth lifted into a beaming smile. And perhaps Mystery, despite half a millennia of cold ruthlessness, was so touched by her actions that his stone heart turned back to flesh.
At this point, someone will roll their eyes and point out that he’d just lost Romance, his oldest friend, and perhaps he would have settled for any replacement.
But it doesn’t matter how it started, really, because the beginning of their story is inconsequential compared to the end.
--
No one knows exactly how their rebellion unfolded.
The two of them quickly became a familiar sight in the Demon World. She began to partake in the same games every demon, no matter how much they tried to resist, inevitably succumbed to. He only encouraged her, and no one, not even Gwi-Ma, batted an eye when he reclaimed his old position of power.
Gwi-Ma’s greatest flaw was that he underestimated his opponents. In a sense, it was inevitable. He burned bright for thousands of years, long enough to forget the urgent pettiness of mortality.
For him, all emotions eventually fade into a low thrum of suffering.
It never occurred to him how intensely humans feel about such minor things.
--
They would move worlds to recover their long-lost sister, and they do. It takes over a decade, but they finally lure her to the other side of the Honmoon under the spirit tree.
Zoey cries when she sees them. She thinks it’s a joke at first, some cruel mirage, and she refuses to speak. Then they demonstrate to her that it can only be them, evoking suppressed memories from years gone past.
The veil no longer comforts her, as it did when she used to cry herself to sleep every night in middle school. Instead, it burns, even when her hands hover over it, yet she can’t bring herself to walk away.
“It’s intention-based,” Rumi says gently. “So there must be a way of bringing you back to us.”
“I’ve tried,” Zoey replies sadly. She tries again to press the pads of her fingers against the Honmoon, as if hoping it’ll finally remember what she used to be. “But he watches me too closely.”
Mira frowns, eyes twitching with the exhaustion of motherhood.
“But Jinu can stay on this side permanently. So why can’t you?”
They come back every year until they die. And every time, Zoey wonders if they’ve finally realized the truth.
“It’s complicated,” she always tells them. “I would cross over in a heartbeat if I could. But there’s too much that keeps me bound.”
It really isn’t that complicated. Their new Honmoon recognizes intention, end of.
All they can see when they gaze upon her eternally youthful appearance is their cute, happy Zoey who loves turtles and can’t lie to save her life. Their love blinds them to the fact that she’s been corrupted long, long ago.
Maybe Jinu realizes, because he always looks at her strangely. Still, for the span of his short life–perhaps it’s difficult for his soul to stay in his body when it was separated for so long–he never speaks a word of his suspicions.
Gwi-Ma promised her a place to belong to. He stripped her of everything she knew and loved, and watched her rise in a cursed facsimile of her past self, but…
As much as she hates to admit it, this is her home now.
--
Though there are few demons alive to remember it, Gwi-Ma was not the only demon king.
His reign was marked by countless insurrections, and the unrest only intensified after the establishment of the Honmoon. In those olden days, when demons could pass freely between the worlds, they had quotas, but at least they could consume their harvests.
Mystery never forgot the stories his elders–now long gone, executed by either the hunters or their lord–told him, and so he began to plan.
It’s unknown for how long he wanted Gwi-Ma gone. Some even theorize that despite agreeing to help erase Jinu’s memories, his real purpose for joining the Saja Boys was to collect souls and adoration to grow his own powers. There is some speculation that Romance, known for his charming wiliness, fit into this somehow. Whatever strategy they concocted, the participants are either dead or willing to die if it means keeping their secrets, and thus it’s unclear if anyone will ever know the truth.
What is universally agreed upon, though, is that Zoey was the last piece of whatever plans he had. She was a hunter, even if the Honmoon abandoned her, and so she remained uniquely powerful for a demon. Perhaps she protected both of their minds from Gwi-Ma.
This, of course, is a controversial opinion. Demon mate bonds do not exist, in spite of common colloquialisms that invoke them.
Their closest friend, advisor, and occasional lover, known by many names including Baby, is one of the few authorities who can comment on this manner. Not that his testimony is of much help. He’s a rude and sarcastic entity whose every word must be questioned. This fact has never been clearer as when someone finds him on the outskirts of the central settlements and, after plying him with various human delicacies, asks him how they took down Gwi-Ma.
He’ll say something to the effect of, “Everyone thinks we did something special,” and then bark in laughter at the confused expression that greets him.
“Consider,” he’ll elaborate, glaring as if this conversation were beneath him, “that killing Gwi-Ma was never that difficult. Anyone in the last few centuries could have done it, after the hunters cut him off from his supply. You or me, even. But making sure he can’t get into your head, or staying lucid enough to keep to your plans instead of folding? That’s harder than you think. If Romance had lived, he would have sufficed. Would have taken much longer, though–hunter magic is always nice to have–but he could have grounded Mystery well enough.”
No matter how much he’s asked to say more, he almost never will, and eventually, it’s agreed upon that despite his proximity to the king and queen, perhaps he knows as little as anyone else.
--
“I found it.”
She doesn’t have to ask what “it” is.
“You can go home now.”
“And what about you? You have your soul, too.”
Mystery taps his fingers as he thinks.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. Zoey can hear a lining of desperate confusion against the bells of his angelic voice. “We’ll leave a power vacuum if we leave now. But-”
“But?”
He stares into the dark dusky distance, filled with the colors and chants of annual festivities held in their honor. Ironically, he has never enjoyed public celebrations, but he accepts that this is inevitable. The two of them symbolize a new era, a golden age after those old painful days, and he can’t fault anyone for celebrating it.
“I love you,” he murmurs, as he’s done every day for the last century and a half. “I can’t ignore how wistfully you gazed upon your fellow hunters, how you cried when they passed. How your first action after our coronation was to look for your parents. If your desire is to return to the human world, then I will gladly come with you.”
“Mystery-”
“We could have the family we always wanted, Zoey, the children you always wished for. We could grow old together and pass on together.” He cradles her chin in his hand, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “You’ve adapted well here. But I know this isn’t what you wanted. And truthfully…I don’t know if it’s what I want, either.”
He doesn’t cry, she knows. It was stamped out of him as soon as he could talk. And with the crowns so heavy on their heads, they can hardly show any weakness or regret.
“This is my world now.” He turns to her in surprise. “All my family is dead. Mira’s gone, Rumi’s gone. I don’t know any of their descendants by this point. So what would I even return to?”
She places her hand on his.
“All I wanted when I became a hunter was to find a purpose. I used to feel so useless as a child, as if everything I touched would rot under my fingers. For half a decade, I thought I found my place with my sisters. And now, I find it with you.”
Zoey still cries. Sometimes, when they’re completely alone, she sobs, heartwrenching tremors that threaten to tear her in two, with rivers of tears enough to drown them both.
“But you’ve been alive so much longer,” she whispers, her voice thick and uncertain. “And if what you want is to be free-”
Mystery presses his finger to her lips.
“I am free,” he says softly. “I have you. And now I have my soul, if I want it.”
He pulls her closer and kisses her cheeks, one at a time. In spite of her tears, she giggles at the softness of his lips on her skin.
For the span of a heartbeat, they stand on the altar that used to burn violet, watching the glowing iridescent sky that stretches above them. In the distance, the celebrations slowly subside, and the plains grow dark once more.
“We can stay for now. We should, until everything’s completely stabilized. And when we’re ready to go…We’ll return to the human world.”
Hands clasped and fingers intertwined, they fade into a cloud of pink mist.
I am a Romance & Mystery friendship truther and here is why
I've always believed that the Saja Boys friend group falls along JinAbby and RoMystery lines, with Baby swinging between them. The former is self-explanatory. The looks, the touching, the fact they're always the ones showing patterns either on their skin or clothes...
As for the latter? Well, read on :>
(Concept art by galaxyspeaking / Marion Bordeyne; Photoism pop-up. Our book genre duo is so so cute :') )
Table of Contents✨💞
The Aesthetics (TM)
Touch touch touch touch touch
Darkness and Harmony
The Personalities
Relationships as Performance in K-Pop
Warning: long post ahead!
Part 1: The Aesthetics (TM)
1.A. those matching chains man
(high res screenshots from this post! god I want Romance's lightwash plaid-cuffed pants
They both wear identical star chains on their pants. Sure, it matches Mystery’s little sweater stars. But why Romance? His whole schtick is hearts. The other Saja Boys do some matching (i.e., Baby and Abby’s yellow hats), but no one else has the exact same accessory.
There’s no reason for them to match, which makes it feel like a deliberate personal choice, either in a cute “besties :3” or a territorial “this is my friend, gtfo” way.
(But you might be thinking, this seems like such a small detail if their intention was to match. Well, yes, but as we discuss below, neither of them seem to be the most publicly showy people.)
12/26/2025 edit: I completely forgot about this fabulous RoMystery post by nucl34rfusion that touches upon this and more QQ
1.B. the fuck ass hair
Everyone else’s hair is more or less Normal. You could literally show up to your workplace with Abby’s cut. On the other hand, Romance and Mystery went all out. It’s like they binged on second gen K-Pop videos and decided Pineapple Hair was an example to emulate and not a warning. (Seriously, 2000s-2010s K-Pop hair is WILD.)
Either:
a) They have similar taste and/or are really committed to the 2nd gen aesthetic. Maybe they bond over ordering industrial-sized palettes of gel and doing their hair every morning. (Seriously, they have those hair styles even in their demon forms so...Either they've always looked like that, or they actually committed to gelling their hair instead of shape-shifting/glamoring.)
b) They both thought it was fucking funny and decided to Commit to the Bit. Or maybe they're taking the piss a la "Hey how chopped can we get before people stop stanning us?"
Also you cannot convince me Mystery is not constantly rolling his eyes under that mop of his do you think sometimes Romance feels a disturbance in the force and Just Knows that Mystery is trying to reach him for a side eye
Part 2: Touch touch touch touch touch
thought about you way too much much much much much
When we dissect the Saja Boys' physical interactions, Romance and Mystery show a clear familiarity with each other.
Sources:
Saja Boys Touching/Leaning On Each Other Compilation by Purplecatghostposts
Saja Boys Interactions Analysis - how clingy is each Saja Boy? by MariBatPL and Caelis_909
2.A. Frequency
Romance, contrary to his name, initiates exactly 0 instances of physical contact except for the Abby Ass Hover where no one knows if his hand actually made contact. (I assume either they're fucking, he's being a bro and censoring Abby's crack for the cameras, or he fucking hates Abby.)
the frame that launched a thousand Romabby ships
Either he hates the other Saja Boys or he's not into touch. Like Jinu doesn't initiate contact either, but he gets touched so much more that I can only assume Romance doesn't want you in his personal space at all.
(This also adds a new undertone to his interactions with Mira. For someone who cares so much about personal space, leaning so close to her at the fansign is a sign of aggression.)
Mystery initiates exactly 2 instances of physical contact, and both are with Romance.
(from Saja Boys Interactions Analysis - how clingy is each Saja Boy? by MariBatPL and Caelis_909)
Furthermore...
2.B. Intensity
Let's look at the way Romance gets touched. Baby only ever gently places his hand on Romance's shoulder (and always in public), even though he's touchier with Jinu and Abby. Abby's one shoulder lean is still fairly bro-y and public. Perhaps they know that he's sensitive and might retaliate if there aren't people around.
Mystery? He's always WAY into Romance's personal space. His elbow is literally poking into Romance's neck. Yet Romance's body language and expression are relaxed.
This shows that they do this a lot and know each other quite well. It takes a lot of finagling to touch someone so tetchy, both in gauging "Hey are they down for it even if they would never say so?" and "How do I strike the right pressure and position?" (Brought to you by someone who HATES friendly pats unless they’re done with enough pressure by the right person :’) )
2.C. Place
Romance only has 1 private physical interaction, and that’s in the bathhouse.
(Screenshot credits to this post again! Also can I just comment on how Mystery's arm steadily creeps into Ro's personal space? Not that either seem to care T_T)
No one’s there except Huntrix. They don't need to perform intimacy. Thus, we can perceive these private interactions to be "genuine" aka the Saja Boys like vibing together. (And we see some good JinAbby too!) Mystery’s shoulder lean is even more invasive than in front of the Play Games with Us studio audience.
Romance clearly doesn’t love physical contact, at least not in front of other people. The fact he tolerates it at all from Mystery suggests that either a) he’s okay with it or even enjoys it and/or b) he’s very possessive of Mystery. And Mystery is very comfortable doing it. Look at that slouch and smile.
(Even in the RoMystery concept art, it’s Mystery initiating the contact :’) Getting into HC territory: I adore the idea of a Romance who desperately wants love but shies away because he doesn’t think he deserves it. It's sad and ironic, and it also parallels Mira’s abandoning Zoey because “I don’t deserve a family.”)
Part 3: Darkness and Harmony
GOD they were made to sing together.
(comments on: Your Idol with louder backing/background vocals. Seriously, if you haven't listened to this remix, do it. It changed my life QQ)
Romance and Mystery usually sing right after one another, even sharing lines sometimes. Their vocal chemistry is clear in background vocals, too. Take their post-Baby verse (1:39 in the video above). The way Romance hisses his background vocals for Mystery’s lines? Mystery perfectly echoing Romance? Them coming together? chef’s kiss
(I know we joke a lot about Jinu having to train demons up from scratch, but I don't know. I feel like RoMystery have been singing for a long ass time. Maybe that's how they met Jinu.)
Harmonies are critical to the Honmoon. After Rumi leaves, Zoey says:
What are we gonna do without Rumi? Our songs are three-part harmonies.
What It Sounds Like, the song that creates a Honmoon, involves thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voices singing together.
Guess who's constantly harmonizing, whether with each other or Jinu?
Beautiful work by kalbits. Yes, please please please be my idols I wasn't planning on doing anything useful with my soul anyway.
In Soda Pop, we actually get a lot of non-RoMystery harmonies. One could argue this is a purely musical choice. Romance and Mystery are the "high" voices and Baby and Abby are the "low" voices. Perhaps they didn't need as many high x high harmonies in Soda Pop. But it's also possible they were doing A/B testing for future songs and found that RoMystery worked best (worst?). When it comes time to summon Gwi-Ma himself, Your Idol is swimming with RoMystery (and Abby’s cute little YUHs).
Of course, the harmonies themselves don't indicate friendship. K-Pop is full of beefing members. But! I think it's very conspicuous they keep showing up at the crime scene 👀
Bonus headcanon: I like to think that they wrote their Your Idol lines together. Don't let it show, keep it all inside /The pain and the shame, keep it outta sight feels surprisingly in-character for Mystery and it could also work for Romance. Basically one coped with frigid, barely contained anger, and the other coped with violent, aggressive rage. What if that verse is an adaptation of all the shit Gwi-Ma has said to them through the centuries? Jinu clearly repurposes his voices for Rumi.
Part 4: The Personalities
Word of caution: we get very little characterization for the Saja Four, and so we have to rely on the most miniscule bits of body language. Definitely some YMMV here!
To explain my thought process: IMO, the Saja Four are most honest at Namsan. They've basically won at this point. What's the point of pretending now?
That's not to say their idol personas are 100% fake. It's easier to whitewash your real personality than to reinvent yourself. Romance being obsessive and neurotic -> Romance being a dainty lover boy and Mystery being Fucking Weird -> Mystery being difficult to understand ("mysterious") make way more sense than, say, having them pretend to be sweet himbos (Abby). (Also LMAO they definitely told Baby to shut up and just let his cherubic face do the talking.) Think back to Huntrix's idol personas, which are surface-deep and full of marketing.
4.A. Character discussions (mostly of Mystery)
In more wholesome interpretations of Romance, he's a sweet submissive lover boy, someone endearingly annoying, a smooth but lowkey soft guy, and/or maybe a secret Loser. This meshes well with interpretations of Mystery as some version of a shy/quiet guy, an incorrigible simp, a puppy dog (literal or not), and/or someone unintentionally roped into destroying the world.
But there are a lot of Romances who are dark, manipulative, and obsessive. Some are even sociopathic. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Romance is the predator that Jinu wishes he could be" (don't agree with this) or "Romance is clearly the most dangerous of the Saja Boys" (yes but I believe he would hurt himself first :(). His body language and microexpressions give him a devious, potentially neurotic vibe. In my experience, dark!Romance interpretations have only gotten more common as time passes.
I know we as a fandom have agreed that Jinu was the one on the chair queueing for the fanmeet, but I don't know, I can see it Romance being granular enough to think of bringing a folding chair and still not sleep well or at all.
(Can I just say that if the “Gwi-Ma can transmit physical pain through the patterns” fanon is true, poor Ro? He probably has a perma-migraine by this point QQ)
So how does Mystery fit in with that?
So I think there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Mystery is smart, aggressive, and very much in control of his actions. It's just that people get thrown off by spaciness all the time. Stereotypes of intelligence suggest someone with a thousand yard stare is empty-headed. But spacy =/= dumb or unaware :P (Also for those who subscribe to neurodivergent!Mystery, contradictory skillsets are a common aspect of being neurodivergent.)
Yes he barks. But that doesn’t mean he’s a dog. People definitely bark IRL. I used to work with people who would growl at you when you forgot to refill the acid wash bottles. Hell, Zoey makes hyperrealistic random animal sounds (caw caw, anyone?). Why would Gwi-Ma make a deal with a dog, anyway? And Zoey would want more stimulation than that. I think she would dig a cunning centuries-old boyfriend who's constantly ideating like she is.
Given the Saja Boys showed up at the fansign to psych the girls out, it’s not beyond imagination that Mystery barked because a) he’s fucking weird to start and b) he wanted to connect with Zoey / seem less intimidating. I'm sure Zoey's gone full Zoo on lives or variety shows or something. It wouldn't be hard for him to figure out this aspect of her personality.
Which worked! He got publicity via Zoeystery. At the final fight, instead of straight up shivving him, she took the time to look at his face which gave him the time to teleport away. Unless that was an animation mistake. Please let me dream orz
And yes, he is spacy, which throws people off.
(Mystery my sweet space cadet...Where are you looking...And the more his members talk, the more he turns away from them AHAHA. Perhaps he picked that hairstyle to avoid eye contact?)
Yet he's the only Saja Boy who catches the bouquet mid-air at the fansign.
god his cute little finger taps.
Either he's very alert, or he was thinking “Oh right we planted a demon in the crowd to throw us and only us flowers to psych out the girls. That should be coming any moment now!” He’s thinking. Maybe too much.
And god, can we talk about his one non-barking line?
And to our fans, thank you. We really feed off your energy. We're so excited to show you...what's next.
You can argue that he was assigned this line, which sure, but why him? Either way, he's pretty smug about it, like he thinks it's funny the fans have fallen for him.
And he's pretty sassy. People like to point out this line in Your Idol:
More than power, more than gold (yeah)
Mocking the Golden Honmoon? Maybe! But this is actually Romance's line with Mystery as backing vocal. On the other hand, let's look at the lines right before it, which are 100% Mystery:
Know I'm the only one right now (yo)
I will love you more when it all burns down
This can be read as mocking Zoey's attraction to him, yeah? Almost like "you're a hunter, yet you fell for me (with only half my face showing). keep going, will you? until you've given up your entire world." (Not necessarily mutually exclusive with Zoeystery. Self hatred makes you look down on the people who like you, especially when their adoration is as instinctive and pure as Zoey's. It's so obvious you're a shitty person who doesn't deserve to be loved, so how foolish does someone have to be to fall for you? And the more you want that love, the harder you push against it.)
And whew that second verse:
Don't let it show, keep it all inside
The pain and the shame, keep it outta sight
This has got to be straight up traumatic for a lot of the people (and demons) around. Like talk about co-opting Gwi-Ma's talk! It can also be seen as a riff on the Hunters' mantra:
"We are Hunters, voices strong. Your faults and fears must never be seen."
If RoMystery are centuries old, chances are, Huntrix aren't the first hunters they've run into. Anyway, all of these lyrics are the handiwork of someone very savvy and not just a little audacious.
Finally: we have to talk about Soda Pop.
For someone who says so little, Mystery sings A LOT. Before the various a capella, background vocal versions, and solo covers came out, people misattributed a lot of Mystery's lines to Romance. (That entire last pre-chorus is pretty much all Mystery with a little of Romance, which became more clear after Kevin Woo released his solo cover.) No one's made an updated line distribution video with time counts, but like...Romance was coming out with more singing time than Jinu.
(2:39 in Saja Boys - Soda Pop - Line Distribution + Lyrics from July 1, 2025)
If we correctly assign those lines to Mystery, then Mystery and Romance would probably be flipped here. Interesting!
All of this is to say that Mystery is not the "innocent one" in any sense of the word. I would 100% believe if they told him "Please shut up before the fans realize what's wrong with you." In other words, this is someone who would get along great with dark!Romance.
SIKE one last thing. His fucking Unnecessary Thigh Exposure. Who asked for this?? (Fine...me...)
(Left: post; Right by Heartki, seriously check out all their Mystery fanart it's SO GOOD)
This is the personal styling choice of someone very eccentric. :')
4.B. They're both fucking extra
Maggie Kang confirmed that Jinu specifically sought out the pretty attention seekers of the Demon World. Not only does this mean the Saja Boys are full-fledged individuals and not puppets, it also changes the tone of their transformation scene.
From post
People originally assumed the top image is the "real" appearance of the Saja Boys, and then Jinu cast a spell or something. But if he scouted the pretty ones, then that means the bottom image is their "real" appearance and they covered up just to do a Cool Reveal. Kind of like showing up to prom in a trench coat and then throwing it dramatically to the ground to reveal how Hawt you are.
Which is A Lot in and of itself, but like. Can we talk about how Romance and Mystery are the most extra here? All four boys hid their beautiful flowing locks, but like. RoMystery fucking put on fangs for this:
Mystery's tusks to earrings transition was *chef's kiss* and not just a little bit dramatic
Side note: I wonder if that's why we don't see an Abby transition. Not because there wasn't one, but because he wasn't doing *waves hand*. In general, Abby, while mischievous and wild in his own way, seems a bit less Weird which is evident in everyone's Your Idol poses.
4.C. Aggressive
All right. Namsan Tower. Masks off. Romance and Mystery show themselves to be especially aggressive.
Both try to bite their respective love interests’ faces off.
Daddy, chill. Screencaps source
They’re both actively charging at their assigned hunters.
Source Hell hath no fury like a boytoy scorned I guess? And this isn't the only time Romance does this, I can only assume he wants to die or something.
Contrast this to the other boys. Baby is very restrained. And savvy. He's the only Saja Boy to lay his hands on a hunter. He even partially regains his human eyes at the end.
Source Damn now I wish I did Zoebaby week
Abby is more aggressive than Baby, but he's still calmer than RoMystery. He seems content with letting the abs speak. Which, the less said, the better.
Source omg they have PATTERNS
Look, I'm not saying that lowkey feral people have to be friends with lowkey feral people BUT if you're a biter, you're probably friends with people who think biting is acceptable :P Sensitivity and anger are alienating qualities. It restricts you to people who either share them or people who don't give a fuck (and connecting with the latter can be hard).
And when Rumi shows back up:
(Collage from u/wandering_lazer)
Romance does attack first, but I'm not counting this because that's more a function of the fact they fucking choreographed this. Boys from edges first, then moving in. You extra demons. ILYSM.
But look at their faces. Jinu is completely passive. Baby and Abby aren’t happy, but they’re mostly stony-faced. Abby does grimace when he shoulder pats Jinu, but it feels more like “Bro I got this” (he, in fact, did not “got this”) than “GRRRRR”.
Romance and Mystery, though? They're clenching their jaws and snarling (see: Mystery in row 3). They are NOT happy Rumi returned. I wonder why. Are they especially invested in the Demon World Order? Are they sad they'll have to fight their girls? Are they just over everything? Whatever it is, I'm sure they unpacked it once they escaped the stadium.
4.D. Lover boys
An argument can be made that both Mystery and Romance both show some interest in their love interests.
Mystery smiles when Zoey wassups him, and a popular headcanon is that he barks because he's jealous of a fan interaction. He does charge at Zoey in the final fight, but, er, maybe he just wanted a war trophy for the road home?
Romance is transfixed by the sight of Mira. Miromance body language post by kuidore makes a compelling argument that he is paying her a ton of attention, perhaps more than your run-of-the-mill enemy demon would. Interestingly enough, for all his aggression, he seems to balk at actually killing her. Is he more bark than bite? Is he secretly nice? Or does he also want an (ideally intact) war trophy for the road home?
This comic by Shizu_no1102 made me fall in love with the concept of Romance accidentally giving Bad Dating Advice to Mystery AHAHAHA God I love the thought of these two doofuses Plotting how they're going to impress their crushes :') So many fun ideas hehe.
4.D. Who may or may not hate Jinu (/j i don't actually believe this)
Baby are you fucking naruto running?
Romance is the first to run, followed by Mystery. It’s not even close. They wanted OUT.
There's a joke that they don't like Jinu since they have 0 physical interactions with him. I don't think we see enough to conclude that they hate him, but damn maybe they started taking bets on how long it would take for him to get skewered LMAO
Part 5: Relationships as Performance in K-Pop
honestly i think this part is probably a headcanon/post in and of itself
All right. This final section will be very meta. It's less movie analysis and more a discussion of K-Pop as an industry and why I think a RoMystery friendship is interesting from a narrative perspective. To be clear, I don't hate K-Pop--I have been listening since 2014 (thank you SNSD <3 <3)--but it's undeniably A Lot. I could write a whole other post on how K-Pop Demon Hunters as a movie is perfectly constructed to “debunk” / "address" Western stereotypes of K-Pop which is why it’s become so successful with non-KPop audiences but that’s for a different day.
The Saja Boys are basically industry skinwalkers. They debut with a perfectly empty pop song that tells us nothing about themselves. They match each boy with a compelling persona that he may or may not actually vibe with. (Baby Saja, anyone?) Regardless of their feelings about Huntrix, they present themselves as picture-perfect hoobaes. Everything about them is engineered to be Perfectly K-Pop. I shudder to see Jinu's Pinterest.
So why not take it a step further?
And that brings us to the practice of ship-teasing in K-Pop, where an agency will coach members to play up specific relationships to cater to shippers, either platonically and/or romantically.
You might be wondering, but why? Isn't the whole point of K-Pop so that fans can ship themselves with idols?
Sort of. But more generally, K-Pop is all about fantasy. (Hey, do you think they ever considered calling Abby "Fantasy" instead?) At its most parasocial (aka most profitable--who else is buying hundreds of albums to try and win fan calls?), it's supposed to find people with deep psychological needs and tap into them. The music is really just a bonus.
Boyfriend/girlfriend marketing (with ahjumma/ahjussi marketing as a more fucked up variant) is one of the most profitable fantasies. [Seriously, this stuff goes deep. A producer of Produce 101 was documented on record for saying Produce 101 was meant to be "healthy porn for men". Which...First of all, there were a LOT of teen contestants, as young as 15. The age range of the final group (I.O.I.) was 16 to 21. Second, it's unfortunately not the only instance in K-Pop. Blog that gives a source for the quote and walks through examples in the genre.] But it's not the only fantasy K-Pop sells. Take the self-insert fantasy, like Blackpink. They're a very "inaccessible" and "luxury" group, where the fans want to be them instead of date them. We also have friend fantasies, where either you feel like an idol can be your friend or the K-Pop group itself models a friend group or at the least presents platonic relationships fans can get invested in. It's not a standalone fantasy, as much as it adds to a group's appeal or is at least a talking point in fanwars.
You might be thinking, wait. People actually care about this?
Haha they do. Here's a recent example. Ryujin and Yeji from Itzy went on a junior idol's show (Illit Minju's Pink Cabinet, ep here). Ryujin advised not hanging out with group members on days off, since you'll miss them more and realize how much they mean to you. Which, seems non-controversial, right? Most people can't see their coworkers at work, home, and on their days off. Yet people were upset and accused Ryujin of "prioritizing" her other friends over her members, even though Itzy is known for being a close group that hasn't fought even once over their 6-7 years together. But that's a fantasy in and of itself: imagining a group of people who love each other so much that they can transcend human boundaries. When two idols in a group don't have a ton of variety or live interactions, people immediately speculate if they hate each other. (E.g., KARD Somin and Jiwoo.)
Platonic shipping can quickly turn romantic, and as a wise man once said, your obsession feeds our connection. Agencies track everything, including which members are most popular together, and they'll push popular pairs and tell them to play it up for the cameras. TVXQ's "Yunjae" (Yunho/Jaejoong) is the best-known example of this. They were good friends even before their debut, but then their agency pushed it to eleven, having them looking, touching, grinding, even acting out a gay fanfiction of each other on national television. There's a great Hobbydrama post for those who want to learn more, and it describes idol shipping perfectly:
Because holy shit did the amount of touching, looking, and suggestive comments between Yunho and Jaejoong escalate during this year. And yes, it's obvious that a lot of this was instigated by SM telling them to amp up the fanservice. The thing is that it was also obvious that not all of it was just fanservice. The reason Yunjae grew so popular was because it wasn't all just for show---you could tell Yunho and Jaejoong genuinely cared about each other as people and as friends on and off camera. So now you have amped up fanservice on camera, combined with acts done "off camera" that can be used to argue it's not all for show, and you have a recipe for a whole bunch of fans who genuinely and sincerely believe Yunjae are a real thing.
Their agency (Ejae's old agency actually lmao) ran a fanfic writing competition for them even 💀(I wish I was joking) Ship teasing still exists to this day, though it's less overt than it was in the 00s and 10s.
Okay, back to demon idols. I'm intrigued by the idea that the Saja Boys are exaggerating specific pairings for the girls and secondarily, the fans. They've already completely committed themselves to faking it all. So why not go all the way?
The two pairings we see the most of in the movie are RomAbby and MysteryBy. But they don't really exist outside the context of the hunters, and I wonder if the Saja Boys sat down at some point and mapped out how they were going to divide and conquer. We see a concerted effort to make sure RomAbby gets grouped with Mira and MysteryBy with Zoey from the fansign onwards.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying these pairings are fake or that the boys aren't actually close. A lot of shipped idols are genuine friends, like Yunjae above. But RomAbby and MysteryBy mostly exist because of their associations with Mira and Zoey. Romance and Abby don't interact much besides the Ass Hover the fan sign, and maybe a quick glance during the alleyway scene (it's unclear who they're looking at). Mystery and Baby interact even less. There's one physical interaction and a look during the final fight scene. (It's telling that on a recent shipping poll, "Headcanons made this couple more favorable" is a reason cited for Mysteryby.)
Why would the Saja Boys do this?
First: they've always waged a psychological war. They cannot win in hand-to-hand combat against a fully powered Huntrix, so they have to destroy the girls from the inside. Jinu’s the only one Rumi found attractive so he was an easy match, even before the patterns reveal. The way he talks to her in the beginning is pretty manipulative and clearly set up to isolate her from her groupmates.
You know you can tell me. I'll understand. I'm the only one who can.
Jinu connected with Rumi pretty early, so no need for the other four to get involved. But Romance + Abby is clearly tailored to Mira. Mira is captivated by Abby, and she is most similar to Romance of the five (sensitive and aggressive, VERY pretty and pink, the most uncannily animated of their respective groups in a way that makes you wonder if they're satirizing beauty standards, both of them have elements of gender fluidity while still being undeniably feminine and masculine respectively). Also they're all pinkheads. For Zoey, Baby is her direct counterpart (rapper maknae with the "cute but a menace on stage" duality). Matching Mystery to her feels like a shot in the dark given that the main time she salivates over him is in the privacy of their penthouse, but it's possible someone realized "weird likes weird". Abby could probably have been assigned to either Mira or Zoey, but Mystery x Mira and Baby x Mira are both crack ship material which rules out RoMystery/BAbby and RoBaby/MystAbby for Mira/Zoey.
Second: publicity! The Saja Boys said it themselves in their 50 million fans announcement, that they couldn't have done it without Huntrix. What better publicity than shipping?
Slight tangent: people have commented on fan reception to the movie's ships being unrealistic, and while it is, I will say that I can actually see Huntrix's fans being quite supportive. Huntrix is a badass "I wanna be them" kind of group. A Mira fan would see Miromabby and feel validated that her fave could pull two hotties lmao. If anything, the criticism would be more "No they're not good enough for her." Romance and Abby would probably have the worst fanbases though...RIP Mira, maybe avoid googling your name for the next two months.
Hey do you think Romance/Abby and Mystery made a bet about whose ship would get fanart first? I mean...who's seen Mira in her disguise, other than Healer Han and the Saja Boys? Maybe Romance/Abby prepped this because they were NOT going to lose to Zoeystery except they both got sniped by Rujinu lmao
Third: RomAbby and MysteryBy have a lot of potential fan appeal.
People IRL are really into RomAbby. It's just as popular as MirAbby and more popular than Miromance. Which, same, they're two pinkheads with a fun mix of aesthetics and tropes. What's not to love? MysteryBy is "the 'cute' quiet ones" with just enough spice for fans to imagine fun dynamics. The first time we see either RomAbby or MysteryBy is at the fansign, when the Saja Boys have been active for a while already. Perhaps they realized this is what worked for their in-universe fans?
Tying into movie themes of reality vs image: I like the idea that the Saja Boys choose to "hide" their "true selves" for their idol career, including their closest friendships. RoMystery or JinAbby or BAbby don't work well for the hunters and maybe the fans just aren't that into these pairings either. If that's the case, I can't really blame the demons for taking it all in stride, given how commoditized relationships are in K-Pop. Fans are waiting to dissect friendships and speculate about those that aren't performed "correctly". (E.g., people who used to speculate Red Velvet didn't like each other because they're a more introverted group; fans evil editing All Day Project's recent "dissing each other" segment on a variety show to imply beef between members.) Why would you want to subject your friendship to that?
They’re already giving so much of themselves to captivate the humans. Who could fault them for keeping this one last thing for themselves?
Conclusion
If you've gotten to this point of a long ass post, THANK YOU. QQ
I am/have always been chronically attached to rarepairs (platonic and romantic) and unexplored territories, and I guess Romance & Mystery is no exception :')
But seriously. I think they could have SO many fun dynamics.
