i can't do this anymore guys. dostoevsky never wrote this. please. can anyone hear me. if you do proper research the earliest version of this quote is from like a 2010 facebook quote with a magenta flower on it. it's gotten so bad that it's even credited to him on goodreads but nobody can source where he wrote it because he fucking didn't. i can't keep seeing this in your web weaves. dostoevsky the author of crime and punishment did not in fact write "you were destined for me. perhaps as a punishment". that is just simply not true. please nod and tell me you understand
The avatar fandom is one of those places where you have about 5 months around the film’s release where there is like 20 fics a minute and then complete radio silence until the next film releases 2000 decades later.
SUMMARY: Raised by demons who were supposed to guard you, not love you — and absolutely not fall for you — you grew up Gwi-Ma’s secret weapon: half-human, half-demon, and a ticking time bomb. Alternatively, Gwi-Ma forces his demons to raise his daughter, and everything ends catastrophically.
PAIRINGS: Jinu/F!reader, Abby/F!reader
GENRE: romance, angst, eventual smut
WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES: unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, age differences, praise kink
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
author's note: Hello! Thank you all so much for all the support you have given me over the last few days, especially those who have left lovely comments.
In the next chapter, the events of the film will finally begin, so get ready.
The warmth still lingered in the sheets when you woke up — like someone had just been there.
But he wasn’t.
Only the pale pink flicker of morning light creeping through the curtains… and the silhouette of someone sitting at the edge of your bed.
“Hey,” a voice drawled, light but not unkind. “Rise and shine, boss.”
You blinked against the soft light, your vision sharpening slowly — catching the faint glint of gold from his eyes before anything else.
Abby.
Of course it was him. His pink hair was a tousled mess, sticking up in every direction like he’d lost a fight with the wind. His shirt was half-buttoned, collar askew, and one of his socks had a hole near the toe — a chaotic picture, down to the faint smell of smoke that clung to his clothes.
You noticed the faint shimmer of his patterns — dark violet, like cracks in marble. His golden eyes still carried that faint glow, even in daylight.
“Where’s Jinu?” you rasped, voice brittle from sleep… and something else.
Abby flopped back onto the mattress beside you with a grunt, big arms folding behind his head.
“He left a while ago. Said he needed to ‘cool off.’” He made air quotes with clawed fingers, then shrugged. “Didn’t look very cool when he left, though. Looked more like he was one bad thought away from combusting.”
You swallowed, throat tight. “Did he say where he was going?”
“Nope.” Abby’s voice was casual, but you caught the faint curve of his mouth — a tell. “Didn’t even slam the door. That’s how you know he’s in demon-crisis mode. Jinu always slams doors when he’s just angry. Quiet exits?” He whistled. “That’s heartbreak.”
Your fingers gripped the edge of the blanket.
Abby turned his head toward you, his golden eyes unreadable. The glow was softer now, more ember than flame. Still inhuman — but not unfriendly.
He studied you for a moment. “You okay?”
You hesitated.
Abby’s tone shifted, dropping the sarcasm. “Hey. I mean it.”
You nodded slowly, but the movement felt unconvincing even to you. “Yeah. Just… tired.”
Abby frowned, something flickering in his eyes. Not suspicion — concern.
Without thinking, he reached out and wrapped his hand gently around your forearm, his touch warm and surprisingly careful for someone with claws.
“C’mon,” he murmured. “Let me see.”
You blinked at him, confused, until you realized he was looking at your skin — your patterns. You followed his gaze.
The breath caught in your chest.
Where there had once been vibrant, shifting lines of purple fire — etched like constellations just beneath the surface — now there was only a faint residue. Dimmed, but still pulsing.
Abby’s hand tightened ever so slightly.
“Huh,” he said softly. “That’s new.”
You swallowed hard. “I didn’t notice.”
“Neither did I. Yesterday, they were bright. I saw them. Glowing like—like you’d just stepped out of whatever afterlife you came from.” He let out a humorless huff, then looked at you again. “Now? You’re fading.”
You met his gaze, and the expression you found there wasn’t teasing or amused.
It was worry.
Real worry.
You tried to pull your arm back, but Abby didn’t let go.
Not right away.
Eventually, he loosened his grip, just enough for you to slip free if you really wanted to — but you didn’t move.
Your gaze dropped again to your arm.
The patterns there had always glowed like faint cracks in obsidian, beautiful in a way that hurt. A reminder. A punishment. They had carved themselves into your skin the moment you struck the final deal with Mystery — a simple bargain that left you with a hollow pit of shame that bloomed louder than any victory.
That shame had shaped you.
Made you like them. Almost.
But something had changed after Rumi.
Talking to her had quieted the shame. Not erased it — nothing ever really could — but soothed the worst of it. The self-loathing. The guilt. The feeling that you were just one more devil in a world full of them.
Now your patterns were lighter.
You swallowed hard.
“I need to go up,” you said.
Abby tilted his head. “Up? To the surface?”
You nodded, already moving to gather cleans clothes.
He stood too, frowning. “Okay, back up. Why?”
“I need to see someone,” you said, not quite looking at him.
“Who?”
You hesitated. “You wouldn’t know her.”
Abby narrowed his eyes, arms folding across his chest. “Try me.”
“Her name’s Rumi,” you said softly, pulling on a plain coat — one that wouldn’t glow or ripple with your magic. “She’s a kid.”
Something in Abby’s expression shifted, but he didn’t interrupt.
“She reminded me of—”
You stopped.
“Of who?” Abby asked.
You shook your head. “Just… me. Before all this.
Abby stared at you, his gold eyes unreadable. You couldn’t tell if he was judging you or just trying to understand.
You continued anyway. “I need to know why my patters are fading.”
“And you think this kid—this Rumi—is the reason your patterns went from glowing ominous doom to tasteful demonic aesthetic?”
You looked at him, dry. “Yes.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’m coming with you.”
“Abby—”
“Nope. Shut up. You’re not going alone. You’re already half-glitching.” He gestured vaguely at your arms. “Your patterns look like they’re trying to delete themselves.”
“I’ll blend in.”
“You glow when you lie, remember?” he shot back. “You are literally a walking security breach.”
You opened your mouth, but he held up a clawed hand. “Not up for debate. I’m coming.”
You rolled your eyes. “It’s not like you can walk into a mall without being mistaken for a cosplay demon.”
“That’s what glamours are for,” he said, his skin turning pale and golden eyes melting into brown. “Besides. Who’s gonna stop me? I’m cute.”
You snorted despite yourself. The sound felt unfamiliar in your mouth — not unwelcome, just strange, like an old song you used to love but hadn’t heard in years.
Abby noticed. His smirk didn’t quite reach his eyes. “There it is. A real laugh. I was starting to think the patterns were eating your soul.”
“They already did,” you said, not unkindly. “That’s why I’m so charming now.”
He chuckled, transforming his clothes and hiding the last flicker of unnatural shadow beneath the glamour. It was a good one, you had to admit. Abby looked completely human now — a youthful college boy who maybe stayed up too late gaming and didn’t believe in sunscreen. His frame was still very solid, his shoulders still broad, but the angles had softened.
He looked… safer.
You both walked out of the fortress. The Honmoon shimmered just beyond, its veil thin and trembling like heat over pavement. You’d passed through it just the day before — it had been quieter then. The veil hadn’t pushed back.
Now, it resisted.
Abby noticed too. “It’s thicker,” he muttered, stepping beside you, his arms brushing yours. “Like it knows I’m with you.”
The Honmoon pulsed once. Not in warning — in recognition.
And then it let you through.
Abby stumbled after you, glamoured and grumbling about “earth dust,” but his eyes stayed sharp, scanning the street.
It didn’t take long.
The thread you pulled from the crayon drawing yanked in a single direction, clear and sure — toward a small park just outside an elementary school. Late afternoon sun stretched long shadows across the playground, and the wind had that faint trace of autumn that always felt like endings.
You saw her before you felt her.
Rumi. Sitting cross-legged beneath a tree, her hair still braided, her hoodie too big. She was talking to herself — or maybe to a bug in the grass — one hand picking apart clover petals. The hoodie sleeve had slipped up just enough to show the band of gauze wrapped around her arm, still hiding the marks.
She looked peaceful.
Which was the only reason you noticed the other presence — because peace didn’t belong here. Not near her.
Your head snapped up.
It was behind her. No glamour. A demon — thin, too long in the limbs, wearing a man’s face like borrowed skin. Its mouth twitched oddly, like it didn’t quite remember how to move like a person. Eyes locked on Rumi.
Abby caught your shift in stance. “What is it?”
You didn’t answer.
You moved.
In three steps, you were between her and the demon, arms flaring with a force you hadn’t used in years. You didn’t summon a weapon — you didn’t need to. You were the weapon. The demon lunged, a hiss escaping its fractured lips, but your hand caught its throat mid-swipe and slammed it back into the tree.
It didn’t scream — not at first.
It choked.
Clawed at your wrist with brittle fingers and let out a noise like glass being ground to dust. Your grip tightened.
You could feel it — the shame, the hunger, the flickering remnants of what it once was. A man, maybe. Or a boy. Something fragile that had begged for power and never realized what the price would feel like.
You didn’t pity it.
You recognized it.
And then you ended it.
With a twist of your wrist and a thought laced in the old language — the one only demons and the damned remembered — the creature’s body shattered into shadow. No blood. Just darkness peeling away from itself and folding inward.
Gone.
Behind you, a breeze stirred.
Children still laughed on the far end of the park. Someone tossed a ball. A teacher blew a whistle.
Rumi didn’t even look up.
You stood very still.
Your heartbeat thundered in your ears — not from fear. From clarity.
You turned your gaze to the sky, just for a moment.
Blue. Open. Real.
It had been centuries since you’d felt the burn of sunlight without flinching. Since your power had moved through you without twisting something inside. Since you’d protected someone without wondering what the cost would be.
Behind you, Rumi started humming softly — some tune from a commercial or a cartoon, slightly off-key, but sure of herself.
Abby approached slowly, eyes wide. “Was that—?”
“Just a stray,” you said, rubbing your hand absently. “Probably smelled her.”
“You didn’t even hesitate,” he said.
You didn’t answer. You were watching your hand.
The patterns had changed again.
The cracks had softened. Like light behind frosted glass.
His eyes flicked to Rumi, who was now gathering a pile of yellow leaves like treasure. “She didn’t see anything?”
You shook your head. “She didn’t have to.”
“Good,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t do great with kids. They smell fear.”
“She’s not like most kids.”
“You’re not like most demons,” he countered.
The silence between you stretched — not uncomfortable. Just full.
━━━━
Years passed.
Not like pages.
Like echoes.
Like the pulse of a song that never quite ended, just shifted tempo — slower now, deeper.
Rumi grew.
And you watched her transform.
From a kind-eyed little girl with her mother’s voice to a hurricane in heels, a melody wrapped in armor. You kept your distance. But only just. Shadows were your second skin. You never let anything touch her.
Not curses. Not contracts. Not demons who got too curious about her blood.
You always got there first.
You didn’t tell anyone.
Except Abby.
He didn’t tell Jinu.
Didn’t tell any of them.
Not Romance, with his velvet voice and wandering hands.
Not Baby, who still liked to terrorise you until you screamed at him.
Not Mystery, who knew far more than he said but never used it.
They all noticed the change in you.
Of course they did.
But they didn’t know the why.
They didn’t know that the child you once talked to at a graveyard had grown into the girl holding your shame together. That her safety stitched you closer to something you thought demons didn’t get anymore.
Hope.
Romance was the first to say it out loud — dramatically, of course, because he couldn’t breathe without flair.
“Someone’s been flirting with salvation,” he drawled one afternoon, draping himself upside-down on your couch, pink hair brushing the floor, golden eyes glinting. “Your soul's all glowy. You’ve been doing good things. That’s disgusting.”
“I’ve been doing necessary things,” you replied, flipping a page in your book.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling redemption arcs now?”
“Leave her alone,” Abby muttered from the floor, lounging like a cat in sunlight. He tossed a stress ball into the air and caught it one-handed, muscles flexing in a way that was absolutely intentional. “She glows because she’s human.”
Romance raised a brow. “Obviously. But she used to glow like sin. Now it’s more… nun with a dark secret.”
“Mysterious nun,” Mystery added helpfully from the corner. No one had heard him enter the room. Typical.
“I hate this conversation,” Baby announced, kicking in the door like he was late to a royal ball. “If we’re going to talk about glowy nonsense, can we at least do it in the arena?“
“You just want to spar because she ignored you all week,” Romance smirked.
“I didn’t ignore him,” you said.
“Yes you did,” Abby, Mystery, Romance, and Jinu (quietly, from behind a mug) all said at once.
You blinked. “Traitors.”
Jinu flushed. Actually flushed. His eyes darted to the ceiling like it was the most fascinating piece of architecture in Hell.
Which was rich, considering he now lived with a tiger.
A real one.
Well, mostly real.
Its stripes shimmered silver when it moved, and sometimes it spoke in dreams.
The bird had come first — three-eyed, black, and far too wise. It had perched on his windowsill like an omen. Now it followed him everywhere.
Romance called it “The Cringe Raven.”
The bird did not appreciate this.
Neither did Jinu.
So naturally, Romance said it louder.
The tiger came next — huge, ghost-striped, with eyes that glowed when it was amused. It liked to curl around the throne no one used and swat at Abby’s ankles whenever he passed too close.
It only listened to Jinu.
And you.
Which was probably why it ended up in your lap, purring like a thunderstorm while you looped scraps of black cloth together with needle and thread.
“You’re spoiling him,” Jinu said softly, kneeling beside you, watching your fingers work.
“He’s perfect,” you replied, not looking up. “He deserves a hat.”
“A hat.”
“Yes. A hat.”
“A hat,” he repeated again, but you caught the edge of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
You didn’t say anything.
Just kept sewing. You weren’t the best with crafts, but Jinu handed you the things you needed without being asked: thread, pins, a button.
The moment was quiet.
The kind of quiet that meant something.
His shoulder brushed yours when he leaned closer to examine the stitching. “You’re getting good at this.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m always surprised by you.”
You glanced at him — too fast, too sharp — but his golden eyes were soft. Honest.
Your stomach did a strange little loop.
But before you could answer, there was a sudden whoosh of air and a flutter of feathers.
“HEY—”
Too late.
The bird — that three-eyed menace — swooped down, snatched the tiny demon tiger hat between its talons, and flapped back toward the rafters like it had just stolen the crown jewels.
The tiger let out a confused chuff and stared mournfully upward.
You blinked. “Did it just—?”
“Yep,” Jinu muttered.
“Your bird just stole my tiger’s hat.”
“I told you it was cursed,” Romance called from the next room. “Its soul is made of sarcasm and spite.”
Jinu sighed, getting to his feet. “I’ll get it back.”
“No,” you said quickly, grabbing his hand before he could follow the bird. “Leave it. It’s just a hat.”
His gaze flicked down to where your fingers curled around his.
You didn’t let go right away.
Neither did he.
“…He liked it,” you said softly, motioning to the tiger, who had now flopped dramatically across the floor like his life had ended.
“I liked it too,” he said — quieter, but no less true.
The words sat between you.
Not a confession.
But something close.
And then—
“Okay, what is this?” Abby’s voice broke the moment like a brick through glass.
You startled just enough to yank your hand away from Jinu’s.
He didn’t look at you, but you caught the small shift of his jaw — like he was grinding down the part of himself that wanted to hold on a little longer.
Abby leaned against the doorframe, upside-down, doing a handstand for no reason at all. “Are we doing secret sewing circles now? Demon knitting club? Do I need to bring snacks?”
“You don’t eat food,” you muttered.
“Still offended.”
He flipped upright and flopped beside you like he belonged there — which, in some strange, deeply rooted way, he did. “You guys are acting all soft again.”
“Then leave,” Jinu deadpanned.
Abby gasped. “Sheesh. Even your insults are hot.”
You rolled your eyes, but it was impossible not to smile a little. This was your life now — somehow peaceful in its chaos.
Mystery appeared later, as usual, in the corner of a room he hadn’t entered.
He didn’t speak, but when you offered him part of the scarf you were half-heartedly crocheting (with leftover thread from the tiger hat), he just looked at it… and tied it around his wrist like it was something sacred.
He didn’t say “thank you.”
He didn’t need to.
Time passed.
Romance still dramatically recited a poem about your “forbidden glow” at least once a week, usually while sprawled across your bed or doorway.
“You’re insufferable,” you told him.
“And you’re divine,” he shot back, batting his lashes.
You rolled your eyes. But you didn’t stop him when he placed flower petals in your hair, humming an old human song under his breath — one he didn’t remember learning.
Baby kept challenging you to sparring matches, even though half the time he ended up flung into a wall or gently choked out.
“Just once,” he groaned one day, flat on his back, “I want to win.”
“You’d have to cheat.”
He grinned at the ceiling. “That’s my specialty.”
And yet, he never did.
Not with you.
None of them did.
You’d long stopped being just the one who made the deals. Somewhere in the mess of centuries, they’d become yours. Complicated, ridiculous, demon-hearted yours.
And you… you were softer than you had any right to be. Still dangerous, still sharp — but quieter, quieter now. Less full of rage. More full of memory.
Maybe that was the problem.
You were still dangerous — but you weren’t trying anymore.
Not like the beginning, when the fire in your blood matched Gwi-Ma’s. When person after person believed in you, and every smile was a lie carved in charm. When shame hadn’t yet bloomed into regret.
But regret changed you.
So did Rumi.
And while you were growing gentler, the world was shifting again — this time for real.
The Honmoon was beginning to glow golden at times.
Not just shimmer, not just flicker under the weight of three voices and a prayer.
It was glowing — faint gold threaded through the ancient threads that separated the demon realm from the human world. A steady light. A warning. A promise.
And Gwi-Ma felt it.
Of course he did.
⸻
You heard it first in the firepit — his body, if it could be called that, a mass of coiling violet heat and molten hatred. It trembled without sound, sucking light into its core.
The scent of burned ash stung the air for days.
Demons grew restless. Lesser ones paced the deeper corridors, teeth bared and voices fraying.
Souls were becoming scarce.
And worst of all — the hunters were winning.
The Honmoon had cracked and mended itself too many times to count across centuries, but this was different. The girls who held it now weren’t just hunters.
They were stars.
Voices that reached everywhere.
Their music filled stadiums. And you had watched Rumi — sweet, stubborn Rumi — carry a note that nearly made you jump.
She was powerful now.
Not just because of her voice.
But because of her heart.
She was becoming the kind of girl who changed things.
And you… you’d helped her get there.
⸻
Gwi-Ma hadn’t called on you in decades. Not directly.
But you started to dream of him again.
The fire. The pressure. The endless ache of want.
You woke up one night with your mouth dry and your body humming with something ancient. Hunger.
Not yours.
His.
Tag List (open): @bypanana @yumiblaze @yuurisfavblog @nightlark100 @fantasyhopperhea @sen-nes @sylum @insideoutjulie @satansdaughter123 @miyah-kaulitz @btsiguess-kpop @barryatsumu @avadakadabra93 @mshope16 @edgycatx @lovely-maryj
SUMMARY: Raised by demons who were supposed to guard you, not love you — and absolutely not fall for you — you grew up Gwi-Ma’s secret weapon: half-human, half-demon, and a ticking time bomb. Alternatively, Gwi-Ma forces his demons to raise his daughter, and everything ends catastrophically.
PAIRINGS: Jinu/F!reader, Abby/F!reader
GENRE: romance, angst, eventual smut
WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES: unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, age differences, praise kink
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
You considered vanishing.
You could do that — easily, quietly. Leave no trace but the disturbed grass and maybe the whisper of your scent.
But you didn’t.
Because something about that girl’s stare — calm, curious — felt like an anchor.
Not a threat.
Not a warning.
Just… gravity.
So instead, you stepped out from behind the sculpture. Slowly. Hands out where she could see them. Careful not to move too fast.
She didn’t flinch.
Her eyes were a soft brown up close. Kind, naive, eerie in a way that reminded you of yourself.
She was half-demon, just like you.
Your knees bent before your mind could catch up. You crouched beside her, ignoring the ache in your thighs — one of those annoyances that came with being almost four centuries old and pretending you weren’t tired of this world.
“She was a good woman,” you said softly. “A bit reckless.”
The girl didn’t respond.
You didn’t expect her to.
You let the silence hang a second longer before nodding toward her arm.
“Does it hurt?”
The girl blinked once. Then looked down.
You didn’t press, but you had already seen it.
Her pattern was a bit smaller than yours, still forming, but intricate — spiraling across the skin in strokes that reminded you of constellations.
“I think it’s beautiful,” you said honestly.
She looked up at you. “You do?”
You nodded.
There was a long pause, then — almost too soft to catch — she whispered, “Rumi.”
Your head tilted. “That’s your name?”
She nodded, still watching your face.
“Mine’s—” you hesitated.
You didn’t get to finish.
The air shifted — sharp and instinctual — and you felt it before you heard it. Footsteps. Measured. Light. But confident.
The woman was coming back.
You barely had time to process it. Just the faint rustle of grass, the whisper of wind, and then a shape moving between headstones. A flash of dark fabric. The distinct, precise cadence of someone trained.
Your body moved before your mind could catch up.
Reflex.
You stood in one smooth motion, already retreating.
The girl looked confused, her hand half-raised as if she might grab yours.
You were already gone.
The cold air outside the graveyard bit at your cheeks, but you didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The pull in your chest that had led you here twisted suddenly — from quiet calling to sharp alarm. Something primal screamed at you to move.
And you obeyed.
Through alleys and empty streets, barely noticing the shifting lights or the thunder of your own heartbeat, you reached the Honmoon without thinking. Your fingers brushed the barrier.
And it opened.
The veil between here and Hell split like muscle under blade, and you slipped through.
Darkness. Heat. That low hum of something ancient breathing beneath your skin.
You stumbled on impact.
You never stumbled.
Hell was not gentle in its welcome — it never had been — but this time, the sensation of being watched followed you even here, lingering like smoke on your back. Your steps echoed across the dark stone path, panic still riding your spine.
You should’ve looked back. Said something.
But you hadn’t.
So now all you could do was run.
You turned a corner too fast, dirt skidding under your boots, and slammed right into something — someone — tall, solid, unmoving.
You inhaled sharply as human arms caught you. Familiar. Strong.
Jinu.
Of course it was Jinu.
You froze in his arms, your hands pressed flat against the hard line of his chest, breathless and still humming with the weight of what you’d just fled. Your heart hadn’t yet slowed — not from the run, and not from her.
His grip was firm, but not harsh.
His gaze met yours, sharp as ever. Dark. Unreadable to anyone else.
But not to you.
Not now.
“You went above,” he said quietly. Not a question.
You didn’t respond.
He already knew the answer. He could smell the living world on your skin — sunlight, ash, and something faintly floral. It clung to you like memory.
Jinu’s jaw shifted. That subtle tick he thought you didn’t notice. “You crossed the Honmoon without permission.”
“I didn’t think I needed it,” you said, voice steady, but the tremble underneath betrayed you.
He let the silence stretch. Not punishing — but deliberate. His hands still hadn’t left your arms, and you could feel the tension in them now. Not anger.
Restraint.
“I felt the shift,” he murmured. “I knew you were gone before the gate even closed.”
You looked down. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t lie,” he interrupted gently. “Not to me.”
Your throat tightened.
He stepped back — not far, just enough that the absence of his warmth registered. His hand drifted from your arm, slow, hesitant. Like it wanted to stay.
Like he wanted to stay.
But he didn’t.
His hand fell back to his side, fingers curling slightly like they still remembered the shape of you. His gaze dropped for a moment — not out of shame, not exactly — but something close.
The silence thickened between you, heavy as the air in this place. The kind of silence that only Hell could hold — vast and pressing and old.
When he finally looked at you again, his expression had shifted. Not neutral — Jinu was never neutral — but distant. Composed. Like he was putting old armor back on.
You hated that armor.
“I won’t ask why you went,” he said. His voice was gentler now, low and steady, as if too much force might make you run again. “Just don’t go back.“
You opened your mouth to speak — maybe to explain, maybe to lie — but stopped.
You saw it in his eyes before he said it. He knew. Maybe not the details, maybe not the name — but he knew you hadn’t just wandered through the Honmoon out of boredom.
And still, he didn’t ask.
He should have. He always had before. Jinu never left things unsaid.
Right?
“I was careful,” you said at last.
“I know.”
“No one else saw me.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted to see—”
He cut you off, but softly. “Don’t.”
It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t cruel.
It was pained.
You looked away.
Behind you, the red sky of Hell pulsed like a wound, casting everything in rust and shadow. You could still feel her voice in your ears — Rumi — and the strange, impossible familiarity in her eyes.
You didn’t belong up there.
But you didn’t feel like you belonged here, either.
“I’m not a child anymore,” you said, quieter than you meant to.
“I know that too,” he murmured.
And it hurt, somehow. The way he said it.
He turned slightly, looking down the path you’d bolted through minutes earlier — a jagged trail of disturbed dust and crushed ash-leaves. “Come,” he said. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Still, he didn’t touch you.
Not this time.
You hesitated. Then followed, just a step behind, your hands clenched and eyes burning.
Jinu didn’t speak again as he led you through the old hallways — familiar twists of stone and low flickering lanterns, their light barely touching the corners of the dark. You remembered trailing behind him like this when you were younger. When your legs were shorter and your fear louder. Back then, he’d always pause, wait for you to catch up.
Now, he didn’t look back. But he did slow his pace.
You noticed.
When you reached your room, he opened the door for you like he always had, a hand brushing the top of the frame as if to check it for danger — a habit he’d never broken, no matter how safe this wing was.
“You should rest,” he said, voice quiet.
You didn’t answer. Just stepped inside.
He didn’t leave.
You turned, brows knitting. “Jinu—”
“I’ll make you something warm,” he interrupted, already walking toward the small hearth in the corner. His robes shifted as he moved, revealing the pale skin of his neck, half-shadowed. You had seen his neck thousands of times. Still, something about seeing it now made your stomach twist.
“I’m not cold,” you murmured.
“I know.” He crouched down, lighting the fire with practiced hands. “It’s not for the cold.”
You watched him in silence. Watched the way his shoulders moved, steady and sure, the way he never flinched from the heat. The small flame danced up, golden and soft, painting his profile in light and shadow.
He found the herbs he always used when you had nightmares — the same ones he used to brew when you were too stubborn to admit you were scared. You remembered pretending you hated the taste, even though you secretly liked how it reminded you of his presence.
He worked in silence. But there was something different in the air between you now — not quite tension. Not quite calm. Something stretched thin. Pulled tight.
When he handed you the cup, your fingers brushed.
You flinched. He didn’t.
Your eyes flicked up to his. He was already watching you.
And for a split second — just long enough for your breath to catch — you saw it.
The way his gaze softened at you. The way his throat worked like he was trying not to speak. The way his jaw clenched, barely, before he finally pulled away.
You stared at the drink.
He sat in the chair across from your bed, as he always had. Like a guardian. Like an angel in disguise.
You wrapped your hands around the cup.
“I’m not a child anymore,” you repeated, almost a whisper.
His eyes didn’t move from you. “I know.”
“But you still look at me like—like you have to protect me. Like I’m—”
“You are precious to me,” he said, too fast.
The words hung between you, raw and clumsy and true.
You looked down at the tea in your hands, the steam curling upward like a secret. “Then stay,” you said softly. “Just for tonight.”
Jinu didn’t answer right away. He looked at you and you could feel the weight of it, like his gaze alone could anchor you.
He stood slowly, with the kind of quiet grace only he possessed, and moved toward the bed. He didn’t ask again. Didn’t hesitate. He simply toed off his shoes, put your cup away and slipped under the covers beside you, careful to keep a respectful distance.
Still, the mattress dipped under his weight. Still, his presence filled the space like sunlight chasing out a long-held shadow.
You lay down facing him, head resting on your pillow, eyes finding his in the dim light.
“You remember that time I got lost in the lower caverns?” you murmured, a small smile tugging at your lips. “I was crying so loud I scared off the bats.”
Jinu huffed a quiet laugh. “I remember. You were seven. I found you wedged between two rocks, furious that I hadn’t come sooner.”
“I told you I hated you.”
“And then clung to my leg the whole way back.”
You laughed, nose scrunching the way it always did when the warmth bubbled up uninvited. His eyes followed the motion with quiet affection, drinking you in like something rare. Something he didn’t deserve to want — but wanted anyway.
“You always came for me,” you said, voice softer now, more fragile. “Even when you shouldn’t have.”
“Of course I did,” he murmured, brushing a piece of hair from your forehead. His fingers lingered for a second too long. “I always will.”
You blinked slowly, the heaviness of the day finally pulling at your limbs. Your body melted into the sheets, the heat from Jinu’s side of the bed a quiet comfort you hadn’t known you craved.
“You smell the same,” you mumbled as your eyes drifted closed. “Herbs and firewood. And something else I can’t name.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, a smile in his voice.
You barely nodded. Sleep was dragging you down like a tide now, soft and deep.
“Jinu?” you whispered.
“Yes?”
“Don’t go.”
His hand found yours under the blankets — warm, steady, safe. His thumb traced a slow circle over your knuckles.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
And with your fingers curled gently around his, you finally let go.
You fell asleep with his name on your breath.
Jinu didn’t move.
Not when your breathing slowed into a steady rhythm. Not when the heat of your palm relaxed fully against his. Not even when the ache in his chest expanded — slow, aching, almost reverent — until it threatened to swallow him whole.
He just lay there. Still. Quiet.
Staring at you.
How many times had he imagined this? Not this, exactly — not you curling up beside him, not the warmth of your small hand in his. That would’ve been… too much to want.
But moments like this. Moments where he could just look at you. Let himself believe, even for a heartbeat, that you were his to look at.
He used to tell himself it was paternal — that it was the kind of love born from years of care, of watching you grow from a wild little spark into the sharp, burning thing you were now.
But it wasn’t that. Not anymore. Hadn’t been for at least a century.
He knew when it changed — when you changed. When your eyes started holding his a little longer. When your voice took on that quiet edge of independence. When your smile, tilted slightly sideways, made something in his stomach twist with shame and longing and something far worse.
He was a fool. A coward. A man who pretended too well and wanted too much.
And you? You were everything he shouldn’t want.
You murmured something in your sleep, your brow twitching faintly. Your fingers twitched around his, holding tighter for just a second, and Jinu stopped breathing.
He could count every constellation in your face. Every shadow and scar time had etched into you.
And yet you still looked at him like he was good.
He looked away, jaw clenching. A part of him — the small, selfish part — wanted to lean in. Press his forehead to yours. Just once.
Just once.
But he didn’t.
Because you were asleep. And he was still the young man who helped teach you how to walk with a blade. Who used to carry you home when you scraped your knees in the human world, who tucked you into bed after nightmares, who stood guard outside your door so no one would ever see you cry.
Because you still saw him as someone safe.
And that was something he wouldn’t lose. Not even for this.
Instead, he reached up with his free hand and brushed a stray strand of hair from your cheek — a feather-light touch, barely there.
“You’re not a child anymore,” he whispered, echoing your words. “But I still feel like the same idiot who raised you.”
He exhaled softly, almost a laugh. Almost.
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
And then the worst thing that could happen happened: You moved in your sleep.
A quiet rustle of blankets, the gentle creak of the mattress shifting — then warmth. Solid, steady, unbearable warmth.
Your body found his.
First your shoulder brushed his bicep. Then your knee bumped his thigh. Then, without warning, you tucked yourself closer, head nestling near the crook of his arm, your breath ghosting against his skin.
And then — then — your leg slid over his.
Pressed together.
Chest to chest.
His heart slammed against his ribs like a war drum.
Jinu went still.
Stone-still.
As if moving even an inch would shatter whatever illusion of innocence remained. As if he could trick his body into ignoring the way your breath made the skin on his neck go tight. The way your weight — soft and warm and trusted — anchored him to a version of himself he didn’t quite deserve to be.
His breath hitched.
It started at his fingertips. A heat. A throb. A pressure just beneath the skin.
No. No. Not now.
He could feel it — the telltale sting of transformation, the quiet hum of something ancient and wrong just beneath the surface. His nails itched, begging to extend. His fangs ached in his gums. And his eyes — oh stars, his eyes burned, glowing faint and dangerous.
Not because he wanted to hurt you. Never that.
But because every part of him — human and demon and everything in between — wanted.
Wanted you.
Wanted to pull you closer. Bury his face in your hair. Trace the curve of your neck, memorize the shape of you, hold you like a man who had never been allowed to want.
His hand twitched.
Claws.
He clenched his fist, shoving it beneath the blanket, hiding it from view. He squeezed his eyes shut.
This is wrong. She trusts you. She’s asleep.
He forced his breathing to slow. Grounded himself in the sound of yours.
In. Out.
In. Out.
You murmured something. A faint whisper. His name.
And then — as if the universe wasn’t already cruel — your arm looped around his waist. Loose. Instinctual. Home.
Jinu bit down on the inside of his cheek, just to feel something else. Something human.
His body hummed with power. With restraint. With the weight of every line he couldn’t, wouldn’t, mustn’t cross.
So he just lay there.
Pressed to you. Breathing with you.
Dying a little more with each beat of his unbeating heart.
And somewhere — deep beneath it all — the demon in him smiled. Because it knew.
It always knew.
You’d never really belonged to the light.
Tag List (open): @bypanana @yumiblaze @yuurisfavblog @nightlark100 @fantasyhopperhea @sen-nes @sylum @insideoutjulie @satansdaughter123 @miyah-kaulitz @btsiguess-kpop @barryatsumu @avadakadabra93 @mshope16
SUMMARY: Raised by demons who were supposed to guard you, not love you — and absolutely not fall for you — you grew up Gwi-Ma’s secret weapon: half-human, half-demon, and a ticking time bomb. Alternatively, Gwi-Ma forces his demons to raise his daughter, and everything ends catastrophically.
PAIRINGS: Jinu/F!reader, Abby/F!reader
GENRE: romance, angst, eventual smut
WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES: unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, age differences, praise kink
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
After Mystery, you stopped going on missions.
Not because anyone told you to. No decree from the higher circles, no chains around your ankles, no burning sigils on your back.
But something shifted the day he crossed over — quiet and irreversible.
Maybe it was the way he looked at you. Or at least you think he looked at you.
Like he knew.
Not what you were, not what you’d done — but who you’d been to him.
Before.
You still remembered that day. How the air felt different, heavier. Like the world itself was bracing for his fall.
You felt it in your chest before the scouts even brought news.
He had died quietly. In shame. His face hidden, body broken. A boy who spent his whole life behind a mask, terrified of being seen, and the moment he died… it was with his true face turned to the ground.
You had waited for him by the gates.
And when he stepped through — skin marred violet, hair shining like silver, the shape of sorrow stitched into his bones — he didn’t ask you who you were. He didn’t flinch. He simply took your hand, and for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, you didn’t feel alone.
After that day, you hadn't left.
And your first pattern appeared on your skin like a disease.
⸻
Hell moved on. As it always did.
There were still souls to be harvested. Contracts to be signed. Human hearts to break.
But your name had been taken off the roster.
You had refused to even come close to the Honmoon — it hadn’t mattered whether it was blue or not.
It wouldn’t last forever, of course. Sooner or later, Gwi-ma would ask you to leave again. But lately, something had been bothering him.
You had heard the rumor that a demon had escaped and fallen in love with a human. You had just snorted when you heard it. As if that were possible.
It had been years since you crossed the gate into the mortal realm.
Your room — or what passed for one in Hell — had become something of a shared space. Not officially. But the boys never seemed to leave.
They were demons now, after all. Bound to you. Whether they remembered it or not.
Some days, it was quiet. Other days, it went like this:
“Boss, tell Mystery to stop brooding on the ceiling again.”
You sighed, not looking up. “Mystery, off the ceiling.”
A pause.
A slow drop of violet mist.
Mystery dangled upside-down by one leg, his silvery hair half-obscuring his glowing eyes. “But the vibes up here are immaculate.”
Romance appeared beside you, leaning his weight onto the back of your chair like he was at a bar and not in the middle of a cursed citadel.
“He only did this when he was mad that Abby beat his time at the pit run,” he whispered, all glossy smirks and lashes. “I, for one, enjoyed the view.”
You turned to look at him. “Of Mystery?”
Romance smiled wider. “I meant you, obviously.”
⸻
Romance flirted like he breathed — meaning, constantly and with the weight of someone who thought he was doing you a favor. His patterns were perfectly symmetrical, his pact mark elegantly spiraled over his throat like a necklace he refused to remove.
He brought you the most interesting soul-flowers that sprouted in the volcanic gardens and always presented them with a “For the queen of our lovely damnation.” He called you “darling” when he wanted something and “love” when he didn’t.
Always flirted. Never lingered.
The day he let it slip that he used to be beautiful, wanted to be loved by all, and still had dreams where everyone looked away from him, even now—
You didn’t comment. Just touched his arm briefly.
He didn’t smile for the rest of the night.
⸻
Baby was all pride and bite. His teasing came with challenges — a smirk and a sword toss.
“If you beat me in three rounds, I’ll owe you a favor. Any favor.”
You arched a brow. “Any favor?”
He leaned in, eyes glowing beneath his wild minty hair. “Anything. But you won’t win.”
You did.
He still hadn’t collected the price. You thought he was scared of what you’d ask.
He acted like a prince — because he had been one. But the kind who never got to grow up. The kind who wanted power because he was tired of being overlooked. His mark burned like gold fire across his back, and when he fought, it was with the rage of someone who still thought he had something to prove.
He teased to distract from the cracks.
“Don’t fall for me, alright?” he had told you once, cocky grin in place.
You had just looked at him. “Too late?”
He had glitched for a full five seconds.
Romance still teased him about it.
⸻
Mystery didn’t demonstrate anything with words. He demonstrated his opinion by existing two inches too close to you at all times.
He never said what he was thinking, but he always seemed to know what you were thinking. Sometimes he finished your sentences. Other times, he just watched you until you said something, like you were a puzzle he had already solved but wanted to hear you work through anyway.
When he touched you, it was casual — a brush of his sleeve against your wrist, a hand on your back guiding you through the corridor — but it lingered like static.
“Why don’t you go out anymore?” he had asked once, voice low, rough.
You had shrugged. “Why would I? Everything I summoned is here.”
He had stared at you then, or you just assumed he did, for the first time in weeks.
“I didn’t know I was summoned,” he said softly.
You didn’t correct him.
⸻
Abby was the only one who still called you “boss.”
He did it with a grin that was far too bright for Hell, like he hadn’t fully registered he was a demon now. Like he didn’t realize that his transformation had marked the end of something ancient — a timeline that could never return to what it once was.
He flexed every time he passed you. Every single time.
Once, you had asked if he was hurt — there had been this weird crick in his shoulder, and he kept rotating his arm.
“Nope,” he had said proudly, flashing that lopsided smile, “just makin’ sure you see the gains.”
You hadn’t had the heart to tell him you’d seen them. You always saw them. The violet skin only made the muscles stand out more. His pact mark — a jagged swirl right over his heart — pulsed whenever you were near.
He had been built like a gladiator, all brawn and golden eyes, but he still stumbled when he talked too fast. Still offered to carry everything for you, even if it was just a scroll.
Once, you had caught him trying to deadlift one of Hell’s stone pillars.
“Dare,” he had shrugged sheepishly when you raised an eyebrow. “Romance bet I couldn’t. Also… thought you might be impressed.”
You had to walk away before he saw you laugh.
Abby might not have remembered the deal he made — but sometimes, you caught something deeper flickering in him. A shadow behind the smile. A boy who had once wished so desperately to be loved for his outside, that he had forgotten he already possessed something worth loving within.
He had gotten close to you in physical ways — a hand on your shoulder, a knee brushing yours when you sat, leaning over you just a little too long when he showed you something he’d found in the ashfields.
The others had noticed it, of course.
Romance rolled his eyes every time Abby opened his mouth.
Baby called him “boulder-brain” more often than his name.
Mystery… well. Mystery just watched. No one had ever been sure what he was thinking.
Unfortunately for everyone — you included — and you blamed your hormones for this one, your heart had decided to trip over itself every time Jinu so much as looked your way.
Not that he looked your way very often anymore.
He had when you were younger — when you were still new to the world, sharp-toothed and half-lost, clinging to the only being who had ever offered you something close to gentleness. Jinu had been your shadow back then, quiet and steady, the way mountain roots must feel to trees — unmoving but always there. He would braid your hair if it tangled, hum under his breath when you couldn’t sleep, and say your name like it wasn’t a dangerous thing to love someone like you.
But the older you got, the more he withdrew.
Now he stood a little too straight, always facing a little too far away, speaking to you like a general might to a soldier. Kind. Careful. Distant. He never teased you like the others did — not like Romance with his dramatic flattery, not like Abby with his sunshine grins and half-shirtless sparring sessions. And he definitely didn’t hover the way Mystery did, eyes half-lidded, curious, attentive.
No — Jinu was always looking somewhere else. Like you were a fire he knew better than to touch again.
Sometimes you caught him staring, though. You’d turn your head a little too fast and find his gaze already on you — soft, unreadable, a little tragic. The second you met it, it would vanish. Like it had never been there to begin with.
That day, by the blackstone steps of the citadel, you’d muttered something dumb under your breath about how Abby would break his spine if he kept lifting doors instead of opening them. Baby had laughed. Romance had made a sound like a swooning noblewoman. Mystery had, predictably, tilted his head and said nothing.
And Jinu had opened his mouth. Like he was going to say something.
But then Baby had shouted “Boulder-brain!” across the courtyard and launched a chunk of bread at his head.
Jinu caught it, sighed, and walked away.
You stared after him, heat crawling up the back of your neck, your chest tight with something you didn’t like naming.
Because he was older. Because he had raised you. Because he shouldn’t look at you like that, and he didn’t, not really, and because…
…because the stupidest part of you still remembered how it felt when he used to braid your hair, fingers careful, voice quiet, and said you didn’t have to be afraid of being different.
But it remembered everything. The warmth of Jinu’s hand around your wrist when you were scared. The rasp of his voice at dusk, telling you stories of a world before yours. The feeling of safety, of knowing someone had chosen to stay beside you when he could’ve left — when he should have.
He never left.
And maybe that was why it hurt so much now that he’d grown careful.
So you buried your feelings and tried to laugh louder at Abby’s jokes.
Tried to match Baby’s banter, let his teasing settle on your skin like sun-warmed armor. Let Romance braid your hair while he flirted with his own reflection. Let Mystery watch you in silence and told yourself it was comfort, not scrutiny.
You tried.
Tried to pretend that sparring with Abby at night didn’t leave your limbs aching for a different kind of closeness. That the sweat and bruises were just battle, not avoidance. He’d grin, tumble you to the ground with a loud, “Gotcha!” and you’d laugh through the sting, panting, hoping it would be enough to forget how Jinu used to steady you with one hand on your back, murmuring “easy now” like it was sacred.
You tried to let Baby distract you. He was good at it — too good. He teased you shamelessly, threw his arm around your shoulders like he belonged there, whispered scandalous suggestions in your ear just to watch your face heat up. It was never serious. You knew that. Baby didn’t do serious. He did spark and storm and beautiful messes you couldn’t hold onto.
But sometimes, when the firelight hit just right and his jokes softened into something more human, you’d wonder if maybe he was just pretending too — if maybe all of you were.
Romance was safer.
He called you all types of endearing names, always with that theatrical tone that made it a performance. He’d sigh dramatically when you didn’t react, then flounce away to flirt with a tree if no one else was around.
But once, just once, he said softly, “I know what unreturned affection feels like, you know.”
And didn’t laugh after.
Didn’t smile.
Just let the silence fall between you, and then looked away.
Even Mystery, with his unreadable stillness, gave you moments. When the others were gone, and it was just you two sitting by a stream, he’d sometimes speak — a word, maybe two — and you’d catch a flash of something real. Not comfort. Not romance. But recognition. Like he saw the rot of longing growing in your chest and understood, because it lived in him too.
And maybe that’s why you stayed with them. Why you let yourself try to forget.
Because Jinu wouldn’t look at you the way he used to. Wouldn’t let his hand linger on your skin. Wouldn’t meet your eyes for too long without shifting away like your gaze burned.
Because even though he was still by your side, it felt like grief.
The quiet kind.
The kind you’re not allowed to name.
So you laughed with the boys. Let them orbit you like moons around a dying star.
Let them distract you from the one truth you couldn’t scrub clean:
You were in love with someone who saw you as a kid and nothing more.
Maybe that should’ve been enough to stop it. But hearts aren’t obedient. You’d tried everything: flirting with the others, smiling through the ache, pretending it didn’t twist something deep in your chest every time Jinu pulled away like you were fragile porcelain.
But it was getting harder. Too hard.
Because none of them were him.
So you walked.
Past the garden Abby had half-built and abandoned. Past the crooked fence Baby had tried to fix once and declared a “statement.” Past the quiet room where Jinu used to brew tea for both of you without needing to ask.
You told yourself it was just to clear your head.
Just to move.
Just to breathe.
But your feet didn’t listen to your lies.
They carried you to the edge of the forest. To the border you hadn’t crossed in years.
The Honmoon pulsed like a bruise behind the trees. Distant. Strange. Familiar. You had avoided it for what seemed like forever. The threshold buzzed with old power — demon-forged, blood-sworn, buried deep in the soil. It was the place where everything had begun to unravel.
And yet…
You felt it.
A pull. Like a thread in your chest had been yanked. Gentle, insistent. The kind of summons you used to send.
We are hunters, voices strong
You stood there for a long time. The air shimmered — warmer than it should’ve been, sweeter than night air ever was. The Honmoon was a crack in the world, and it was calling you.
Slaying demons with our song
Maybe you should’ve turned back.
Maybe you should’ve run.
But you were tired.
So tired of pretending you were fine.
And a small, selfish part of you — the part that still waited for Jinu to say your name the way he used to — whispered: What if there’s an answer there? What if there’s something that makes sense again?
You stepped over the threshold.
Fix the world and make it right
The world shifted.
It always did when you crossed. The trees grew taller, shadows deeper, colors more real somehow — too vivid, too sharp. This was the Honmoon: the place between. Where demons bled stories into the dirt and every memory echoed twice.
You took another step. And another.
Each footfall felt like a decision you couldn’t undo.
Leaves crackled. Magic prickled beneath your skin.
You kept walking.
The deeper you went, the more the pull settled into your bones. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t even urgent. It just was — like something had decided you belonged here again, whether you liked it or not.
Mist crept low over the forest floor. The wind barely stirred the trees, but every branch seemed to lean toward you, listening. You adjusted your clothes and kept your steps light.
When darkness finally meets the light
And then you saw it — iron gates, black and polished, stretching high like the arms of a cathedral. Beyond them: stone paths, trees shaped into delicate spirals, graves with names carved in clean Hangul, lined with offerings — ribbons, candles, flowers still fresh.
A cemetery.
But not like the forgotten ones scattered across the rural towns you used to visit with Jinu.
You stepped closer to the fence and crouched low. The gate was half-open.
Inside, at the far end of a sloping path, you spotted them.
A little girl.
Purple hair pulled into a neat braid. A light brown dress. She stood in front of a polished stone with glittering letters, and you couldn’t see her face, but something about the way she kneeled — her tiny fists clenched, her shoulders stiff — made your chest tighten.
Next to her was a woman. Mid-twenties, maybe. Expensive coat. Dark hair cascading down her shoulders. She knelt beside the girl, adjusting her sleeve — no, hiding something.
Marks.
Demon patterns. You could tell from the faint glow before the coat was pulled over them.
Your breath caught.
She was six. Maybe.
They hadn’t seen you. The woman spoke low, urgent, but you couldn’t catch the words. The girl didn’t respond. Just stared at the grave.
You moved silently behind a sculpture, eyes locked on them. You weren’t proud of spying — but something about this felt important.
You glanced toward the grave.
Ryu Mi-Yeong.
A hunter, then.
Your fingers curled around the edge of the stone lion beside you, the cold carving biting into your palm.
That name — you didn’t know all the hunters by heart. Their names blurred after the first hundred years.
But her?
You remembered her.
Not because she was famous, or ruthless, or one of the few who walked into demon territory with zero backup and came out whistling. Not because she killed more of your kind than most.
You remembered her because she almost caught you once.
Almost four hundred years gave you a pretty good survival record. You didn’t get sloppy. You didn’t linger. You never looked back.
But Mi-Yeong…
She looked at you.
You were trying to seal a deal when it happened. She had been seventeen. Young. Unseasoned. Still glowing with that righteous, blinding light the hunters wore like second skin.
And yet, when you fled — bleeding, panicked, your soul shining inside your chest — she hadn’t tried to kill you.
She’d lowered her blade. Said:
“Run. If I see you again, I won’t miss.”
You had never seen her again.
Until now.
Her grave was made of white stone, ringed with lilies. Someone had left a microphone charm tucked beneath her name — a fan, probably. You stared at it for a long second.
Idol. Hunter. Dead.
You inhaled quietly and turned your gaze back to the girl.
So this was her daughter.
You hadn’t known she had one.
But now, looking at the kid — her small hands, her shy posture, the flash of something under her sleeve — yeah.
You could see it.
She had her mother’s mouth.
The woman with her — tall, protective, trying too hard not to look like a stern parent — gently pulled Rumi back from the headstone. Her voice was soft but firm. You still couldn’t hear the words.
She glanced around, and you ducked instinctively.
Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t recognize you.
You crouched lower, heart ticking in your ears.
The air around the girl felt strange. Off.
No — not off.
Just familiar.
You should’ve walked away. You’d survived this long by not involving yourself in this.
But the pull was back.
Stronger.
Humming.
Coming not from the grave.
But from the little girl.
And deep in your ribs — the part of you that had long ago stopped pretending to be entirely human — something old stirred.
The woman gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and left momentarily, probably to give her privacy — or maybe to speak with someone at the gate.
You weren’t sure.
You couldn’t look away from the child.
Then her head lifted.
And her gaze snapped directly to you.
You exhaled through your nose.
Well.
Shit.
Tag List (open): @bypanana @yumiblaze @yuurisfavblog @nightlark100 @fantasyhopperhea @sen-nes @sylum @insideoutjulie @satansdaughter123 @miyah-kaulitz @btsiguess-kpop
SUMMARY: Raised by demons who were supposed to guard you, not love you — and absolutely not fall for you — you grew up Gwi-Ma’s secret weapon: half-human, half-demon, and a ticking time bomb. Alternatively, Gwi-Ma forces his demons to raise his daughter, and everything ends catastrophically.
PAIRINGS: Jinu/F!reader, Abby/F!reader
GENRE: romance, angst, eventual smut
WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES: unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, age differences, praise kink
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
They said spring in Gyeongju could make even ghosts forget.
Maybe that was why Jinu brought you there.
The lanterns floated over the rice fields like low stars, trembling gold and red. Silk flags danced from rooftops. Paper dragons swayed with incense smoke. You’d never seen this many humans in one place, not since that night years ago—when your mother wept and Jinu’s arms were the only home you had left.
But this was different.
This was warm.
A festival pulsed through the town like a heartbeat. You didn’t know what they were celebrating—only that children ran with sugar on their cheeks and old women tied wishes to trees in silk thread. And you… you were one of them, for a moment. A girl in a borrowed hanbok, cheeks pink with heat and laughter. Unseen. Unhunted. Almost alive.
Jinu walked beside you. He looked human then. He’d once been one, after all.
He carried two skewers of honey-glazed tteok on a paper fan, one half-eaten. The other he handed you without a word.
You took it, chewing slowly, sticky sweetness melting on your tongue.
“Do you miss this?” you asked, your voice still small, uncertain.
He looked at the children playing tuho nearby. His jaw tensed.
“Yes,” he said finally.
He didn’t say what “this” was. But you knew.
You didn’t ask again. Just let the silence settle over both of you like a shawl, warm from the dusk.
Nearby, firecrackers popped in the village square — little bursts of red light and sound — and children screamed with laughter. You kept watching the river.
Then Jinu shifted beside you.
You felt it more than saw it — a ripple in the air, a faint warmth as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. A quiet sigh escaped him, like he’d been holding it for years.
“You like it here?” he asked suddenly, voice lower now. Like a secret.
You nodded. “It’s… nice.”
A pause. Then, softly, “They smile a lot.”
“They don’t know what’s coming.”
You looked over at him, but his eyes were on the water. Reflecting the lanterns. Reflecting you.
You swallowed, then asked, “Will we stay here for long?”
He shook his head once, almost apologetically. “No.”
It wasn’t cruel. Just honest.
You didn’t want to cry, not in front of him. You were too old for that now — twelve, maybe thirteen — old enough to know that you couldn’t keep anything. Not places. Not people. Not even names.
Still, the thought of leaving made your throat burn.
You didn’t speak again for a while. Just sat there, letting your bare toes touch the water, letting the cold bite a little, grounding you.
Then Jinu’s voice broke the silence again.
“You did good today,” he said. “You talked to the lantern seller.”
You blinked at him. “She was nice.”
“She was terrified of me,” he said, dry. “But she smiled at you.”
You frowned. “You don’t look scary.”
His eyes flicked toward you, amused. “No?”
You shook your head. “You look like the princes in the stories.”
He laughed. Actually laughed — short and surprised. It cracked something open in you.
“You do,” you insisted, cheeks warming. “But sad.”
“Ah.” He tilted his head. “A sad prince.”
“With a sword he never uses,” you added, voice turning dramatic. “And a secret.”
“Oh? What secret?”
You turned serious, narrowing your eyes. “He’s lonely.”
The laughter died out of his face. For a moment, he just looked at you. As if seeing something that hadn’t been there before — or maybe had always been there and was just now making sense.
“Maybe he isn’t,” he said, very quietly, “not anymore.”
You didn’t answer. Just leaned your shoulder a little into his arm.
He didn’t move away.
That was enough.
Later that night, the sky smelled like smoke and sugar.
You held a sticky rice cake in your hand, still warm from the fire, while the crowd pressed and danced around you — ribbons of color, drums echoing like a second heartbeat in your chest. Lanterns swayed above, pale and bobbing like ghosts.
Jinu stayed close. Always close. Not touching, but never more than an arm’s reach away.
He didn’t wear his usual black. For once, he’d allowed a pale robe with silver thread along the cuffs, like starlight stitched into silk. His hair was tied back properly. It made him look younger. Kinder.
But you saw the way the villagers looked at him. Too long. Too quickly away.
They didn’t know what he was, not really.
But they sensed it.
So did the others — the demons who came with you. You didn’t know all their names, just that they smiled too wide and never blinked enough. One had eyes like oil. Another wore a straw hat but no shadow.
They called you “little charm” or “the quiet one.”
And they kept their distance.
Even when they laughed. Even when they danced.
You didn’t see when Jinu disappeared.
One moment, he was there — watching you nibble at the rice cake with something soft in his eyes — and then he wasn’t.
The absence was sudden and loud.
You turned in a slow circle, the noise of the festival folding around you like water. You caught a glimpse of the straw hat demon speaking to a woman whose lantern had gone out. Another trailing incense smoke as he wandered toward the edge of the trees.
You knew what they were doing.
You weren’t stupid.
You followed.
The path to the woods was barely lit. Just a few broken lanterns, and the flicker of moonlight through trees that whispered.
And then you saw him.
Jinu stood half-shadowed, kneeling beside a man slumped on the ground — a traveler by the look of him, older, too drunk to fight back. Jinu’s hand rested lightly against the man’s chest.
His eyes were dark, golden and distant.
His mouth glowed faintly blue at the corners.
You didn’t make a sound.
But he sensed you.
He always seemed to sense you.
Jinu’s head turned, slowly, like something woken too soon. And when he saw you — lantern light catching the side of your face — something in him cracked.
He let go of the man, who slumped forward, not quite dead. But less.
“Don’t,” he said. Voice raw. “You shouldn’t have followed.”
You didn’t step forward. But you didn’t run either.
“Was he bad?” you asked. Your voice barely broke the hush between the trees.
Jinu closed his eyes.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Then why him?”
Silence.
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t lie.
Instead, he looked at you — really looked — as if trying to memorize this version of you: still young, still whole, still willing to stand in front of him.
“You were supposed to stay with the others,” he said quietly.
“I don’t like them.”
He exhaled through his nose. “That’s smart.”
You took a breath. Then another.
“Does it hurt?” you asked.
He blinked. “What?”
“To take someone’s soul.”
He stared at you for a long time. And for the millionth time, you saw it — not the power, not the sharp grace of him, but the sadness buried underneath all of it. The ache he never talked about.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Not in the way you mean. But yes.”
Your hands curled at your sides.
He hadn’t moved. Not toward you. Not away.
The glow around his mouth had faded, but the rest of him — the eyes too dark, the faint, branching markings across his neck and jaw, the way the shadows clung to his shoulders like armor — remained.
You had seen him in this form before, lots of times. In glimpses. In the corner of your eye.
But never like this.
Never with the truth dripping from his mouth.
He hated you seeing him in this form.
The soul he’d just taken still hung in the air. You could feel it — a cold, fragile thread pulling itself back into the dirt. It smelled like burned candy.
And for the first time, your chest tightened.
He was a demon.
A real one.
Not just the quiet one who sat beside you at riversides. Not just the strange, sad boy who fixed your lanterns and tucked winter rice into your sleeves. Not just Jinu.
Something dark. Something made of hunger.
And you — you had a soul.
A glowy and beautiful soul inside your chest.
He could take it.
You took a step back.
It was almost imperceptible. But you saw his eyes flick down. Saw the way his shoulders dropped — not in hunger, but in shame.
“I would never hurt you,” he said, barely louder than the wind. “You know that, right?”
You swallowed.
Did you?
“I’m not sure,” you whispered.
He flinched. Not from your words — from what they meant.
The silence between you grew thick. Alive.
He turned his face slightly, showing you the edge of a cheekbone that didn’t belong to something human. The patterns there shimmered like bruises.
“I shouldn’t have brought you,” he said.
“I asked to come.”
“I should’ve said no.”
You watched him, heart still hammering. “Do you eat all of them?”
“No,” he said quietly. “Only the ones no one will miss. Or the ones who ask for it.”
That last part made you hesitate. “Ask?”
“There are people who want to forget everything. Who want to stop feeling. Sometimes… giving up their soul is the closest thing to peace.”
You didn’t know what to say to that.
But you knew one thing.
“You’re still dangerous.”
His jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to disagree. But he didn’t.
“Yes.”
You stepped closer again, just enough that the edges of your sleeves brushed.
“I’m not stupid,” you said. “I know what you are.”
His eyes searched yours — slowly, deeply — like he was looking for something to hold on to.
“I hope you never have to find out what I could be.”
He looked horribly desperate.
Not monstrous. Not cruel.
The golden glow in his eyes flickered once, then dimmed entirely.
And before your eyes, his form began to shift.
The shadows peeled away from his skin like smoke, the sharp edges of his face softening. The markings along his jaw faded. His eyes dimmed to a dark brown — not quite human, not quite not. But familiar.
His hair, once sleek and otherworldly, was now tousled. The tips curled slightly from the humidity of the night air.
He was back.
Or at least, the version of him you knew best.
And he looked nothing like a demon now. Just a boy again. One with long sleeves and ink-stained fingers, who laughed too quietly and spoke too carefully and gave you the last piece of candied chestnut at the festival even though you both wanted it.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and took a half-step back — like he didn’t trust himself to be close. “I didn’t want you to see that.”
Your voice was a breath. “But that’s part of you.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to see it.”
The ache in your chest twisted.
You looked at him — really looked — and for a moment, you didn’t see fangs or flickers of soul-light or even fear.
You saw how hard he was trying.
You saw how scared he was.
“I’m still scared,” you said. “I probably will be for a while.”
He nodded, eyes lowered.
“But I’m still your friend, right?”
His gaze shot up.
You took a slow step forward. Then another. Close enough that you could see all his dark and long lashes brushing against his skin. Close enough that your fingertips could’ve brushed his if you reached out.
“I don’t think I could stop being your friend,” you added. “Even if I wanted to.”
Something in his face broke open then — not literally, but it felt like it. His shoulders slumped, like he’d been holding tension for days, years, and now it was slowly releasing.
“I wouldn’t let you,” he whispered, and his voice was so raw you barely heard it.
This time, you reached for him.
Your hand barely touched his sleeve.
“I trust you, Jinu,” you said.
He closed his eyes.
“I’ know,” he said like he mourned it.
━━━━
You were fifteen when the first demon hunter carved her name into the sky.
It didn’t sound like war at first. Just a whisper—one that rode the wind wrong, that slid through cracks in Hell no wind had touched in centuries. Even Jinu noticed it. Especially Jinu.
“They’re calling themselves demon hunters,” he said, voice low, his back to you as he stared into the chasm.
You didn’t know what to think. It had been months since you were last in the human world. In your world.
Jinu hadn't taken you out with him again, too ashamed to have shown you his true nature. It was one thing for you to see him with his blue-purple skin and the marks of the demonic world, but it was quite another for you to see him devouring souls. Or so he told himself.
In recent days, you only went to the human world to continue ageing.
In any case, everyone was very tense since that blue dome had spread across the sky and the earth.
Hell wasn’t supposed to fear anything. But demons—real ones, old ones—whispered about the demon hunters with something new in their throats. Something like… worry.
“They can kill even the elders,” someone said once in passing.
“With light that burns past the skin,” said another.
“They cut Gwan-do in half,” said a third, wide-eyed, trembling. “He never even saw them coming.”
You didn’t know who Gwan-do was. But you felt the shift. Felt it in the way fire recoiled from the surface of the underworld. In the way even Gwi-ma’s voice grew sharper. Demons were being hunted. Not feared.
“They’ve made a barrier,” Jinu told you one night, as he handed you a cloth to wrap around your human-like face. “To contain us. To hunt us. And they’re looking for something.”
You stared at him.
“What?” you asked.
He hesitated. “Someone.”
That was when the whisper became a blade.
You were different. Even in Hell, even among monsters, you didn’t belong. The other demons had purple patterns, teeth that changed, voices like growls. You didn’t. You looked like a human girl with wary eyes and silence in her bones.
You never questioned it before.
You never needed to.
Jinu never made you feel like you had to explain yourself. The others — the older ones, the crueler ones — sometimes stared too long, sometimes circled you like they were trying to sniff out what you were. But Jinu always placed himself at your side, always let the silence answer for you.
And maybe that’s why you never asked.
But then the Honmoon was built.
You didn’t know the word for it at first. Only that the world cracked a little one day, and a shimmering wall appeared across the trees like a wound of light. It burned the ground where it touched, etched runes into the stones.
One of the elder demons tried to cross it.
They didn’t even make it halfway.
Their scream was short and sharp, and then gone.
The smell of their soul-scorched body lingered long after the light vanished.
“Demon hunters,” someone muttered that night, bitterness curling on their tongue. “Their voices created the Honmoon.”
That was when the word Honmoon was spoken. With fear. With hatred. With recognition.
You didn’t know what it meant, not really — only that it was meant to destroy. That it burned demons to ash if they crossed. A trap. A warning.
And so you stayed away.
For days. Weeks. Until the boundary crept closer.
Until it swallowed a path you used to walk.
You were alone that day, gathering the dried moss Jinu liked for the ink he made. You were supposed to turn back, but you didn’t.
You stared at the glowing curtain between two trees.
It hummed softly, like it was breathing.
Your heart pounded in your chest. The voices in your head screamed don’t. Every instinct said run.
But your feet moved forward anyway.
The light reached toward you like a knife.
And then—
nothing.
It didn’t burn.
Didn’t scream.
Didn’t fight you.
The Honmoon let you through.
Your breath caught as you stepped beyond it — whole, untouched. The air shimmered like heat but didn’t sting. No scars formed on your skin. No pain.
You turned, expecting some trick. Some delay.
But there was none.
The barrier hummed, soft and steady.
Behind you, birds chirped.
In front of you, the forest was quiet.
You were through.
And the Honmoon had let you go.
⸻
You didn’t tell Jinu right away.
Not because you didn’t trust him. But because something inside you curled at the knowledge.
Because it wasn’t just the Honmoon that hadn’t hurt you.
It was the way it recognized you.
Like it knew you weren’t fully demon.
Like it knew something you didn’t want to remember.
You sat by a river that evening, staring at the reflection of your own face — one that looked too human to belong in Hell.
It bothered you, in a way it never had before.
Your eyes weren’t glowing like the others’. Your teeth didn’t sharpen when you were angry. Your skin didn’t carry the ink-like marks that pulsed when demons fed.
You were… soft. Fragile-looking. Mortal.
The Honmoon hadn’t burned you, and that should’ve terrified you. Instead, it left you hollow. Like the floor beneath you had given out and no one noticed.
“I must be more human than I thought,” you whispered, fingers brushing the water’s surface. “Maybe that’s all it is.”
It made sense. Sort of. If you were born half-human, maybe the Honmoon didn’t know what to do with you. Maybe you were a mistake it couldn’t parse.
You didn’t know much about your parents. The others only talked about your father — and even then, only when they thought you couldn’t hear. Gwi-ma’s child, they’d mutter, like it was both a warning and a threat. As if his blood in your veins made you something to be wary of. Something unnatural.
But none of them ever mentioned your mother.
You assumed she was just… human. Some woman Gwi-ma used and discarded, like he did with everything else. You never let your mind linger on her.
Until now.
The Honmoon’s silence pressed into your skull like a second heartbeat. You couldn’t stop thinking about it — how the others screamed, how they burned, how their bodies collapsed into ash.
And you?
You’d walked through like the barrier wasn’t even there.
It didn’t make sense. Not really.
Not if you were just some half-blood thing born from chaos and a mortal woman. Not if you were nothing special.
“Maybe it doesn’t see me as a threat,” you mumbled, even though the words felt weak. “Maybe it doesn’t see me at all.”
You hugged your knees to your chest, watching the reflection of your face shift with the ripples. The water made you look softer. Sadder. Almost like a little girl again.
You didn’t cry.
But you hated how lonely the air felt around you.
You weren’t human. You weren’t demon. Not really. You were something in between, stitched together from two worlds that didn’t want you.
And now, the only line between you and the ones who hunted your kind had let you pass — without hesitation.
Behind you, a twig cracked.
You stiffened, instantly alert.
Then a familiar presence swept over you like a warm shadow.
Jinu.
He didn’t say anything. Just moved close enough to sit beside you, but not so close that you’d feel trapped.
You didn’t speak. Neither did he.
The silence settled between you like a blanket.
And then he said, softly, “You walked through it.”
You nodded.
“Did it hurt?”
“No.”
He exhaled, low and slow, like he didn’t know what he was feeling.
“It should’ve.”
You swallowed, eyes back on the water. “I know.”
A beat of quiet.
Then, barely audible:
“Are you afraid of what that means?”
You considered the question.
“I don’t know,” you admitted.
Jinu’s jaw shifted. There was something guarded in his silence now. Something… bracing.
You could feel it coming. The weight of change. Like a storm you hadn’t seen until it was already over your head.
“I saw him,” Jinu said finally, voice low. “Gwi-ma.”
Your fingers curled in the grass.
“He knows?”
Jinu didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Of course Gwi-ma knew. That was the kind of thing he always knew.
“What does he want?” you asked, trying to keep your voice from shaking.
Jinu turned his face away from yours, to the darkness beyond the trees. “He wants to use you.”
You expected that. You’d always expected that.
But this was different.
“How?”
Jinu’s silence stretched. The river murmured quietly below your feet, like it, too, was holding its breath.
“He wants to send you across,” Jinu said at last. “Through the barrier. Into the human towns.”
You blinked. “To hunt?”
Jinu looked at you then, sharply. “No.”
And somehow, that scared you more.
“He wants you to talk,” Jinu said. “To tempt them. To look human. To smile. Make them trust you. Make them ask.”
Ask. The word curled inside you like something rotten.
“So I can give them a deal,” you said numbly.
“Not you,” Jinu corrected. “Him. Through you.”
You swallowed hard.
That was worse than hunting. Worse than blood.
It meant staying in your skin. It meant using your voice. It meant being looked at, trusted, listened to — by people who didn’t know that you weren’t one of them.
It meant lying with your face.
“I can’t,” you whispered.
But of course, you could. The Honmoon had let you pass. You could walk into the world, into a market or a palace or a town, and no one would know. Not until it was too late.
And that was exactly what made you dangerous.
“I won’t,” you added, firmer this time.
Jinu didn’t look relieved.
Instead, he looked pained.
“You won’t have a choice,” he said. “He’s already decided.”
You didn’t realize you’d stood up until the grass shifted under your feet.
“No,” you said. “I’m not like him. I’m— I’m not—”
But the words felt thin, paper-cut and weak.
Jinu stood too, slowly.
“I know you’re not like him,” he said quietly.
You looked at him. Really looked. There was something tight in his eyes. Fear. Guilt. Something like grief.
“How long have you known this would happen?”
Jinu didn’t answer.
That was an answer.
Your stomach dropped. A part of you wanted to scream. To run. To claw your way back through the barrier and disappear into the dirt like a worm.
But another part of you — the part you hated — had known this day would come.
You were too useful now. Too rare.
“I’m not a weapon,” you said under your breath, but it sounded like a plea.
“No,” Jinu agreed. “You’re not.”
And then, even softer:
“But he doesn’t care.”
The words tasted like betrayal. Like a truth you hadn’t wanted to believe but had always known deep down. You weren’t entirely sure who you meant — Gwi-ma, the demon you had never dared to call father, or Jinu, who had shielded you for so long you forgot that he, too, had his limits.
The silence that followed didn’t comfort you. Neither did the way the mist curled over the riverbank like fingers.
But you stood.
You went where they sent you.
It began with strangers.
Random faces. Desperate souls.
You made the offers. Spoke the words you were taught.
They listened, always. It was like they couldn’t help themselves.
Because you had a soul — and that made you easier to trust.
You never had to push. You just had to ask.
And when they signed, when the ink burned black into the contract, when the winds changed and their eyes dulled —
That’s when you realized how easy it was to ruin someone.
How easy it was to become what Jinu swore he would protect you from.
But it didn’t stop. Because Gwi-ma saw potential.
“She can walk between,” you overheard him say once, his voice curling with pride. “No stench of sulfur. No corrupted breath. A perfect fox in human skin.”
And so the missions grew… more precise. Less random.
Throughout the days, months, years, and centuries that your mission lasted, while the demon hunters continued the cycle and the Honmoon turned blue again and again, you offered tempting deals left and right.
You didn’t stay to watch.
You never did.
But you always knew when it happened.
When their wishes soured.
When the glittering promise dulled and the mirror cracked and they realized the deal hadn’t given them what they truly wanted — just what they asked for.
That was when the marks began to bloom.
Like cursed constellations on their skin.
That was when their bodies changed, violet as dusk, inhuman in ways that couldn’t be undone.
The first one was an artist.
Once, he’d been adored — a poet, a performer, the kind of man whose smile could open doors and loosen laces. But fame is a fickle beast, and time had turned his name into a whisper barely anyone remembered.
You found him kneeling in the dust of his own posters.
“They used to scream for me,” he said. “They used to cry when I sang.”
“And what do you want now?” you asked.
He looked up, desperate, trembling.
“To be loved. By everyone. Always.”
Your smile was thin, but kind.
“Done.”
He didn’t see the way your eyes flickered golden for a heartbeat.
For a while, it worked.
Crowds returned. Lovers wept at his feet. Artists sketched his face into stone.
But love forced is not love at all.
It curdled.
And when the applause began to feel hollow — when people followed him only because they had to — he began to scream.
You saw it happen.
You were there when his skin split into violet vines of madness, when the pupils of his eyes turned sharp and strange. When his voice, once smooth as silk, twisted into something hungry.
“Make them stay!” he cried. “MAKE THEM STAY!”
You didn’t answer.
The marks bloomed across his chest that night.
You named him Romance.
The second was a prince.
A prince with too many guards and no real power.
He sat on a throne meant for another, his hands trembling under gold rings he hadn’t earned.
“I want to rule,” he told you, voice shaking but hard with hope. “Truly. Without limits.”
“Done,” you said.
He didn’t see the shadow that passed over your face.
In the years that followed, he became what he asked.
Not a ruler. A tyrant.
He crushed rebellion, burned dissent. He ruled not with wisdom, but with fear.
He forgot why he wanted it in the first place.
He forgot the boy he’d been.
And one night, when he stood alone at the top of his palace and realized no one would weep if he fell — the marks split open across his back.
You were there when he cried to the sky.
You said nothing for he would not remember your voice.
You called him Baby and it stuck.
Then came Abby.
He was soft, unsure, all restless limbs and stammering truths.
“There’s a girl,” he said, face pink with shame. “She doesn’t see me. Not really. But if I had a better face — a stronger body — maybe she would.”
You traced the shape of his cheekbone with one finger.
“You’re already enough.”
“But not for her,” he said.
So you gave him strength. Gave him height. A voice that didn’t shake.
And when he smiled at his reflection — finally — your heart cracked like glass.
The last was Mystery
He wore bandages on his face.
Not for injury — but shame.
People whispered when he passed. Some said he had no face at all. Others said he was cursed.
He wanted to disappear.
“Then disappear,” you told him.
His deal was the easiest.
He was always going to choose silence.
And for a time, it was peace.
He faded. No one remembered him. He could walk without stares.
But then — he realized something far worse than shame.
Loneliness.
He couldn’t be found, even when he wanted to be.
Even when he screamed.
You watched him claw at the walls of the world.
You saw the moment he shattered.
The marks burned across his skin like a mask — smooth and terrible.
His scream was one you’ll never forget.
Every single one of them arrived in hell, but none remembered your face.
Tag List (open): @bypanana @yumiblaze @yuurisfavblog
SUMMARY: Raised by demons who were supposed to guard you, not love you — and absolutely not fall for you — you grew up Gwi-Ma’s secret weapon: half-human, half-demon, and a ticking time bomb. Alternatively, Gwi-Ma forces his demons to raise his daughter, and everything ends catastrophically.
PAIRINGS: Jinu/F!reader, Abby/F!reader
GENRE: romance, angst, eventual smut
WARNINGS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES: unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, age differences, praise kink
Part 1 Part 2. Part 3 Part 4
Your mother didn’t believe in monsters.
Not in the old gods, not in whispers from the forest, not even in the claw marks left on temple stones. She believed in hard work, clean water, and the kindness of strangers.
She lived alone on the edge of a village that no longer remembered her name. She sang while she worked. And when the tall man with eyes like firelight came to her door, she smiled at him like he wasn’t a curse.
He spoke like honey, moved like a dream, and called her beloved.
She believed him. Because no one else ever had.
You were born beneath a blood moon, the villagers said. They never touched you. Your mother wrapped you in cloth soaked in saltwater and kissed your brow like a promise. She called you mine even when you were quiet and strange and strange-eyed, even when the crops died early and the animals refused to come near.
You were five winters old when the man returned.
But he did not come himself.
He sent a demon.
The boy arrived before dawn, soaked in snowmelt, his hands bare. He looked too young to carry death on his back.
Your mother cracked the door open with a broom in hand. You peeked around her legs, breath frosting in the air.
She did not recognize him — but he knew her.
And he knew you.
His eyes lingered on your face, something sharp breaking behind them. Not hunger. Not delight.
Regret.
“I’m here for the girl,” he said.
Your mother stared. “You must be mad.”
The boy shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “Just… damned.”
She slammed the door. But he didn’t leave.
You remember her panic. The way she bolted the door. The way she clutched your shoulders. The way her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
And then, the sound: wood groaning, something heavy cracking through the doorframe.
The boy didn’t tear it down. It opened for him.
Your mother threw herself between you. She screamed curses at him, words you’d never heard, clawed at his coat with bleeding hands. He didn’t fight her. He just looked at her like he didn’t want to be here either.
And when he finally touched you, it was so gentle you nearly leaned into it.
“I’m sorry,” he said to no one in particular.
Your mother wept. You screamed. But he carried you away as if you were glass, as if maybe this one small mercy might outweigh the damnation he’d chosen.
The world changed somewhere between footstep and fall.
One moment, there was snow. Wind in the trees. The shrill crack of your voice calling Mama. Then, silence.
Not quiet. Silence. Like sound had been swallowed whole.
The sky split.
Colors bled wrong here — too dark, too loud. The ground beneath his feet looked like stone, but pulsed faintly, like something living curled just beneath the surface. Shadows clung to the boy’s shoulders like old friends. The air tasted like ash and honey.
You couldn’t breathe for a moment.
And then you screamed again.
He didn’t hush you. He didn’t promise things would be alright. He only looked forward and walked. The path sloped downward, wide and spiraling, as if the entire world had been carved into a mouth.
You clung to his shoulder with your small hands, your face sticky with tears, until even screaming felt pointless.
Finally, you spoke. “Are you going to eat me?”
His steps faltered.
“No,” he said. “No. Not you.”
You didn’t know it then, but most demons didn’t walk the path. They were born in this place, or made in agony, bursting out of the void as if the pit itself had spat them up. But Jinu was different. Gwi-Ma had spared him that torment. Only that one.
Instead, he offered him a deal, a voice that could steal breath from lungs — and a command.
Bring her to me.
And Jinu, tired and lost and only a few months into his damnation, obeyed.
He didn’t understand why.
He wouldn’t understand until much later — when he heard you sing for the first time.
When the gates appeared, you buried your face in his shoulder. You don’t remember what they looked like, only how they felt: cold, and enormous, and watching.
They opened without a sound.
He didn’t stop walking.
The gates peeled open like breathing stone, thick with ash and echoes, and the heat hit you like a wave — not the heat of a sun, but something alive, ancient and watching. The kind of heat that burns your name off your soul.
You buried your face in Jinu’s shoulder again. His skin smelled like smoke and rain and something colder underneath. He didn’t comfort you, didn’t lie. He just kept walking through the mouth of hell like he’d been here before.
Because he had.
The realm inside was vast and dark and wrong.
There was no sky. Only a storm of molten clouds far above, pulsing violet and fuchsia, streaked with what looked like veins of lightning. The landscape shifted when you weren’t looking — hills made of glass, trees that moved like muscle, rivers that didn’t flow with water.
And demons. Dozens of them. No two alike.
Some crawled. Some floated. Some wept into the dirt like they’d never stop. Others stared at you from behind masks — or wore faces you swore you’d seen in dreams.
None of them dared approach Jinu.
Even in his silence, he was terrifying.
Even in the calm way he carried you — like porcelain, like obligation, like guilt with a heartbeat.
He walked across a stone bridge suspended in nothing, to the place where the throne was.
But there was no throne.
Only flame.
Pink and purple and seething — a column of living fire that pulsed with breath and voice, flickering higher than any tower. The heat licked at your skin, but didn’t burn. It recognized you.
It knew what you were before you did.
Gwi-Ma.
“Show her to me,” the fire said.
It did not echo. The words bloomed in the air behind your eyes.
Jinu stopped at the base of the flame. Slowly — so slowly — he bent down and set you on your feet. You stood on trembling legs, too stunned to cry.
“She’s small,” Jinu said, voice low.
And then the fire bent — unnaturally, impossibly — coiling downward until it hovered just above your face, like a dragon made of smoke and stars.
You didn’t flinch. That’s what you’d remember years later. You didn’t scream or run.
You looked it in the eye.
And the fire laughed.
“She has your defiance,” Gwi-Ma mused, though to whom, it was unclear.
Jinu didn’t answer.
“She’ll survive this place. Or she won’t.”
Still, no response.
“Take her,” Gwi-Ma said. “Raise her. Feed her. Teach her nothing of her mother’s weakness.”
Jinu’s jaw clenched. “And if she asks?”
“She won’t,” the flames answered coldly. “Children only remember what pain allows.”
And then, like a match being pinched out, the fire collapsed into itself — a final hiss, a flicker, and gone. The heat remained.
Jinu reached for your hand, and for the first time, you didn’t resist.
He looked different in this light. Not human. Not anymore.
His skin shimmered with the faintest lines, like cracks carved by magic. His golden eyes, cat-slit and burning, never left your face. He wore his darkness like a robe, layered and neat, like he had accepted it long ago.
But his hands were still gentle.
“Come on,” he murmured.
“Are you my father?” you asked, small.
He blinked. The question hit him like a knife. And yet, the corner of his mouth twitched into a sad, confused smile.
“No,” he said. “But I think I’m the one who has to stay.”
You didn’t understand what that meant — not fully. But something in you knew it wasn’t good.
You held out your hand.
He stared at it for a second too long before he took it, his claws careful not to scratch your tiny fingers. His palm was warm. Steady. It felt like the safest thing in this place where nothing else made sense.
You walked with him into the dark.
The path twisted like a serpent through the fire-lit halls. Demons lurked behind shifting walls — some curious, some mocking, a few licking their teeth. But none came close.
They could smell it on you. What you were.
What you might become.
Jinu ignored them all.
You tried to, too.
The room he brought you to was carved from black stone and lit with floating orbs of purple fire. It was small — just a table, a cot, a basin. Not a prison, not quite a home. But it was his.
And now it was yours, too.
He knelt beside the cot and unwrapped the heavy coat from your shoulders. His claws fumbled a little at the knots in your dress — he’d never quite done this for his sister — but his movements stayed slow, precise.
You stood there, silent, watching him work.
“Are you going to hurt me?” you asked softly.
His hands stilled.
“No,” he said. “Never.”
You looked at him for a long time. Then, quietly:
“Even if the fire says to?”
His golden eyes met yours.
“No,” he said again, this time like he meant it.
He brought warm water in a carved bowl, soaked a cloth, and tried to wipe the dirt from your face. You squirmed. He didn’t scold you. Just tried again, more gently.
Your voice broke the silence first.
“What’s your name?”
“Jinu.”
“That’s not a demon name.”
He paused. “It used to be a human one.”
“Are you human?”
“I was.”
You blinked. “Why aren’t you anymore?”
He didn’t answer right away. His hands dipped back into the bowl. The cloth dripped between his fingers.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “And then I made another. And then I said yes when I should’ve said no.”
“That’s a lot of mistakes,” you said wisely.
Jinu laughed. Just a breath. Just once.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “It is.”
That night, he slept on the floor beside you.
You asked him if the monsters would come.
“They’re already here,” he said.
“Will they eat me?”
“No.”
“Will they eat you?”
“…Maybe.”
You sat up and peered over the cot’s edge, your little brows furrowed.
“Then you can sleep here,” you offered, scooting over.
He looked startled. Then thoughtful.
“No,” he said quietly. “But thank you.”
And somehow, that was the first time you smiled.
It wasn’t much—just a small tug at the corner of your mouth, the barest shift in your eyes. But he saw it. Jinu always saw everything.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked away, jaw tight, as if the flicker of warmth had cut deeper than your silence ever had.
━━━━
He walked ahead, shoulders tense beneath his robes. You followed, the heat of Hell licking at your ankles like wind, curling up your back like a reminder. The other demons kept their distance—always did. They whispered about you, loud enough for you to hear but never brave enough to speak to your face.
“Why is she here?”
“She doesn’t even look like one of us.”
“She smells like a human.”
They were right. You looked like you didn’t belong. Like your skin had never cracked under fire. Like your soul hadn’t been scorched down to its softest parts. But Jinu never questioned it—not out loud. Not even when Gwi-ma’s flames had ordered him to protect you.
“You remind me of someone,” he said once, later. His voice had been quieter than the fire around you. “My little sister. She had soft hands too.”
He hadn’t looked at you when he said it.
You didn’t know what to say, so you didn’t say anything. But you remembered. The way his voice broke at the word sister. The way his golden eyes dimmed with something almost human.
You were supposed to fear him. All the demons were terrifying—twisted, snarling things that dragged their pasts behind them like chains. But Jinu…
Jinu was still beautiful.
He shouldn’t have been.
His skin was marked in violet lightning, his eyes molten gold, hair falling just shy of his brow like shadow. He was carved in elegance, in stillness, the only demon who moved like the world owed him space. And maybe it did.
You saw how the others averted their gaze when he passed.
But you didn’t. You stayed close. You followed.
Some nights, he stopped at the edge of the obsidian lake, where the screaming trees reflected against the still black.
“She used to braid flowers into my hair,” he whispered, as if forgetting you were there. “I miss her.”
You didn’t reach for him. But you sat beside him. Quietly. As if you belonged there.
He noticed. He always noticed.
“You’re not like them,” he said once, studying you. “Not like us either. What are you?”
You met his eyes. “I don’t know.”
He stared for a long time. The answer didn’t scare him. Nothing ever seemed to. But it made him sad.
“I think that’s worse,” he finally said, almost to himself. “Not knowing.”
I love the concept of Maul blaming everything wrong in his life on kenobi.
But consider the concept of any time someone makes a good battle strategy he credits it to Ahsoka. Not because he likes her but because she’s the only one he even kinda respects.
Maul in a fight: Ah! Excellent execution. You must know Lady Tano.
Random ass guy who had the misfortune of fighting maul: Who??
Maul: Lady Tano. Only she could preform such disciplined techniques. You must be her apprentice.
"actions speak louder than words" unless you’re a writer, in which case you’ll spend 300 pages describing a character’s inner turmoil while they stand perfectly still in a room.
