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Ripples of gold thundered across the stadium, invisible to most, but gleaming in Kabru’s eyes as he stared, utterly entranced. He only could register the sharp sting of his knees as he fell forward, his hands dropping at his sides as he stared at the completed Honmoon. They did it. They won. Hands reached out, scooping him back to his feet from under his arms as their fans screamed, their lightsticks waving like fireflies across an already glittering sky.
He’d be pissed at Laios later for almost falling for Gwi-ma’s influence. He’d tear his hair out, rambling about how they almost lost, how the world could have been swallowed by demons for good. For now though, he’d bask in this: this is what he worked for since he started singing. He deserved this.
Looking down the runways at his fans, Kabru’s throat felt dry despite the welling in his eyes. They were safe. They were all going to be safe now; no one would be taken in by the demons again. On shaky legs, Kabru took a step toward the pits of screaming people, beautiful people with lives, loves, hopes, all protected forever now that the Honmoon was sealed.
As he swept his gaze over the stadium, his eyes paused on a lone figure on one of the runway platforms. Hunched, kneeling and holding his arm– Kabru recognized him immediately. Hadn’t all the demons disappeared? What… Kabru leaped forward, ignoring Toshiro’s quiet beckoning to stay with the group. Racing down the lane, he threw some waves and smiles, but his intent found in his stride spoke his true turmoil in. Another demon. He shouldn’t be here. The Honmoon is sealed, Gwi-ma disappeared-
He reached the man in moments, but didn’t dare summon his gilded sword. The demon hadn’t even looked up: he remained on the ground, his head bowed to the sleek stage.
“Why haven’t you disappeared?” Kabru ordered through his teeth. Laios began saying something. Immediately, the fans diverted their attention to hear his voice. A few cooed about how a performer got hurt and Oh So Nice Kabru came to help him, but Kabru had more of a mind to take this trash to the backstage to properly maim him out of existence.
The man didn’t answer. He continued to kneel there, silver hair falling over his face, but his straight, small mouth didn’t budge. Kabru saw blood trickle through the gaps in his fingers that held his upper arm. Licking his lips, Kabru nudged him with the tip of his boot, stepping back immediately after. “Answer me.”
With that, the man finally looked up and Kabru’s heart stilled. His face was bloody, the floor around him was bloody, his skin was so white– And then he slumped forward, collapsing without even a cry.
Kabru fell to the ground beside him, lightheaded from his own suddenly accelerating breathing– No, no, no, no, no– He checked the man’s pulse, checked his arms, checked– Where are his marks? He’s… Kabru flicked down his mic, cutting Laios off from wherever he was in his speech about who-knows-what. He probably was telling them about the Honmoon again and making the fans think he, once again, was just really into a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (a lie Kabru spread to get people to not know about their life secret that had to be hidden at all costs).
“We need a medic! Please, clear room. We need a medic!”
The stage lights became a blur. With his word, staff arrived on stage and soon they surrounded the man– the man-- and he was lifted off to the privacy of the back of the stage. Kabru ran after them, only stopping when Toshiro’s hand collided with his shoulder, bracing him back to keep him from leaving the spotlights. “Kabru, what are you doing?”
“He’s not-” Kabru silenced himself, ripping off the earpiece and mic he wore. He shoved it into Toshiro’s hand, then stepped out from beneath his heavy hand. “He’s not a demon. He’s hurt.”
“--And we will be right back to perform our new single for you! We are so excited to-” Kabru pushed past the wing staff, following the dot of people pushing the man away with a cot. He managed to reach it, grasp the fabric of the gurney bed in his trembling fingers, look into the face of the injured man, the blood down his cheeks, the dark pit of mush– Someone moved and grabbed him around his waist, wrenching him from the fleeing medics and the red lights flashing in the distance from a propped open door.
Kabru flailed for a moment, wheezing as he was crushed against a broad chest. “Kabru! Kabru, calm down! He’s alright!”
“Let me go!” Kabru hissed, kicking once as he was lifted from the ground. Laios grunted behind him, his chin hooking around his friend’s shoulder.
“Hey, it’s alright! Kabru, we have to get back on stage– The fans–”
Kabru let out a ragged breath, stilling for a moment before surging with energy again, but it was quelled as Toshiro stepped into frame. “Kabru, we can check on him after. Just one song, then you can go.”
Just one song, then you can go.
Just one song.
Then
You can go
“Then you can go.” Kabru panted, his forearms pressed into the ground. He lifted his head, watching as she stared down her nose at him. After a few more seconds to catch his breath, Kabru got up to his knees, his hand blindly finding the handle of his wooden sword. He used his dull blade to pluck himself from the dust, but Milsiril had long since abandoned her post, her living dolls falling dead along their training field, Helki choosing to sit on the ground several feet away. Kabru braced himself into his starting form, but she only huffed. “I said, you can go.”
“I’m not done yet,” Kabru replied promptly, steadying the shaking tip of his sword.
“I’m telling you: you are done,” Milsiril replied. She sat on the bench she had Helki bring for when she watched their sparring sessions. She always wanted to analyze Kabru’s methods, always to reprimand. With one last disdainful look over her shoulder, she laid her back against the warmed wood from the April sun.
Helki leaned back as well, his claws flexing at his sides as he massaged his hands. Kabru watched the ripples of purple throughout his arms and legs, easing behind the golden collar on his ankles, wrists, and neck.
“Everywhere in the world,” Milsiril said, “are people who’ve been impacted by Gwi-ma. People have lost their friends, their brothers, their mothers to the demons that hunters try desperately to keep at bay. If their soul gets taken, they disappear from this world: only a select few will ever remember they were there at all. It’s a curse you were born with, Kabru, but that doesn’t necessitate you becoming a hunter. You survived something many could not. Rest with ease. You will be protected now.”
“I don’t want to be protected!” He shouted, throwing his sword to the ground. Storming up to the bench, he clutched his chest, gesturing out to the field as he proclaimed, “It’s my duty to seal the Honmoon; I don’t want to just be lucky. I want to eradicate all of these monsters!”
“Can you not count me in on that?” Helki muttered before sighing. “Nevermind. Can I be the first?”
“If you actually wanted to kill all the demons,” Milsiril replied, even in her tone as she squinted through the daylight to catch her son’s blue eyes, “you’d better strike with certainty. You are lacking. You will always be lacking if you don’t aim to hit and don’t hit to kill. Don’t forget that, for they know it well. We are done for today.”
Kabru came to from the fog of motions in their dressing room. He was wedged between the wall and the couch, a giant plant pot nudging his shoes, head in his hands. When he looked up, he noticed Laios waiting on a ramen cup, his fingers tapping together impatiently. Toshiro was pacing, hand tucked close to his mouth. He paused when he spotted Kabru. Crossing the room, he knelt down in the space between the couch and the plant.
“Are you alright?”
“I think I just killed someone,” Kabru stammered.
“We did kill it!” Laios replied brightly as Kabru dropped his head back into his hands, burying himself into his knees. “The Honmoon is sealed!”
“He’s talking about something completely different,” Toshiro barked, giving Laios a shake of his head before returning his attention to Kabru. “It was a demon that hadn’t disappeared yet. I’m certain not all of them were erased at the same time.”
“No, I saw him.” Kabru trembled as he touched his own wrists. “He didn’t have the marks, but I remember him. He was with the Saja Boys. He was that one– god, I know he was with them. I remember– I struck him on stage. I-I didn’t even process that he– I don’t think he ever had the mark of Gwi-ma.”
Laios pulled open the tab on the rest of the ramen. He offered it to Kabru, but took the rejection without complaint, eating it on his own as they sat thinking.
“Well, if he is siding with the demons as a human… is it really so bad if he-”
“Laios!”
“I was going to say if he got injured! I heard they took him to the hospital.”
“I’ve got to go.” Kabru got up, climbing over the couch arm. He grabbed a hoodie from the floor, throwing it on over his stage clothes. “When do we have to perform-”
“We already did.” Toshiro stood, eyebrows draw tight as he walked with Kabru to the door. “Look, this is not a good time– I don’t think you are in the right headspace to be–”
“Toshiro,” Kabru snapped as he threw open the back door. He spared one last look inside as he kicked off his platforms in favor of his worn-out sneakers. “I need to make sure he’s alright. I hurt him.”
With that, he took off. The door clattered behind him. No footsteps followed. With care of anyone lingering by the venue, Kabru ordered a ride and hid until it was ready. It took longer than he wanted– He wanted to keep walking and tell the driver to catch up, but he waited, fingernails digging into his phonecase, picking at the star charm dangle he had. When his ride came, he hadn’t much to say beyond “whatever hospital is closest”. He almost demanded the man wait outside whilst he checked to make sure the man was taken there, but he didn’t. Instead, he relied on luck. It didn’t fail him.
“Hello, I’m here because one of my backup dancers-”
“OH MY GOD, are you?”
“Yes. Can I have-”
“Can you-” Kabru’s eye twitched.
“I’m sorry; I don’t have a pen.” He smiled patiently as she thrust one into his hands. He signed the napkin she held out to him. “A backup dancer from my concert– I’ve come to check on him-”
“Oh, yes! Let me get you that right away!”
He supposed the great part about fame was that everything becomes accessible either with a facecard or platinum credit card. Upon receiving a room number, Kabru pulled his hood up and made his way. Another strike of luck on his side, he was familiar with hospitals, procedures and layouts. It didn’t take him long to find the correct room. It took him longer, maybe, to step inside.
He drew back the divider curtain, stepping inside with a caution. The tang of antiseptic hit him first, sharp and sterile and dizzying, threaded through with the faint musk of blood. Past the faintly beeping equipment was the bed, and lying upon it was the man from before. Gauze wrapped his face and arm in stark white layers, face just as pale as the bandages.
Kabru lingered, watching for any twitch of motion beyond that breath. Nothing. Just the shallow rhythm of survival: he knew the sensation all too well. He pulled a chair close, the legs scraping against the waxed floor, and sat with his hands folded tightly in his lap.
Now that he was here, he realized he hadn’t thought beyond this moment. Even if the man woke, what then? Kabru’s mind usually ran ahead of him, sharp and nimble, two steps before the press, quick enough to spin a headline into praise or scandal as the moment demanded. But here, he felt stripped of that armor. His thoughts scattered like startled birds. He caused harm to this man, this average person. He wasn’t a demon.
“It doesn’t hurt.”
The sudden voice startled him so badly he lurched, shoes squealing against the polished floor. His breath caught. Only when he saw the man’s uncovered eye slit open—dark and glinting faintly beneath the weight of exhaustion—did Kabru force himself back into the chair.
“They probably have you on quite a lot of painkillers,” he managed.
“Probably.” The man’s reply was lazy, unbothered. A little dry like he was in need of water. His gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling, lids heavy, but then his cracked lips shifted. “But I was talking about my eye.”
Kabru’s throat tightened. His hands curled into fists against his knees. “I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out too fast. “I’m sorry—I didn’t think I… I don’t aim like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t.”
The certainty in the words knocked the panic right out of him. You didn’t. It was delivered flatly, without room for doubt. Kabru felt his chest loosen, though guilt still thrummed in his pulse. He wasn’t the reason for those bloody tears, but they were still there.
“You got my arm,” the man continued, “but not my eye. That belongs to Gwi-ma.”
Kabru’s jaw clenched, suspicion lancing through his brief relief. “So, you are a human who was working with the demons?”
The man’s gaze didn’t move, still pinned to the ceiling as though it held him captive. “Congratulations.” Kabru braced for sarcasm, a sly twist, the kind of barbed quip Mickbell or Chilchuck would toss. But the man’s voice was hollow, emptied of mirth, his tone so stripped of life it chilled the room further, “on sealing the Honmoon.”
He rubbed at his eyes as he leaned closer to the bed, blinking hard to wipe away fatigue and the tremor of nerves. “You lost—why would you congratulate me?”
“I don’t have a mind to do much else,” the man answered.
Kabru felt irritation prick at him like a splinter. He pushed himself up from the chair. “Tell me why you were aligned with the demons.”
“Okay.” One dark, lazy eye rolled toward him, heavy with whatever sleep or drug still hung on it. “I sold myself to him—Gwi-ma.” The man lifted his injured hand and pressed three crooked fingers to his temple as if to steady the memory from the cottony smog from the medicines. Kabru wanted to snatch the gesture away; the bandages tightened and spread faint red where the skin strained beneath, but the man did not flinch. “Souls are taken in like kindling on his flame. Demons are born from the imperfections in humanity. When he came to me in my head—” he tapped his forehead again, a small, ridiculous punctuation—“he told me he’d give me everything I desired. There was little time, so I had to act swiftly.”
Slowly, as if performing some ritual, the man dragged his hand over the bandaged socket. He began to peel away the gauze. Kabru grabbed his wrist and wrench the strips back into place, but the man, with stubborn, practiced motions, stripped the layers away until the hollow where his eye had been sat revealed and dark beneath the ragged edges. The empty socket was dry—no fresh blood, only the healed scar tissue and the dark depth of absence.
“He couldn’t wait for me to die,” the man said. “He asked for my eye so he could see through me, tell me what to do. Since that bargain, it has felt foreign in my body. I haven’t been able to see through it. The blood now is like tearing off a scab. I’m not hurt.”
The picture of a demon coiled in someone’s socket made Kabru blanch; he covered his mouth with his palm. He drew a sharp breath, counted backward from five to steady his pulse, then peeled his hand away with a shudder. “What was it?” he demanded. “What did you want so badly you’d do that for him?”
The man set his arms along the mattress and let his ruined bandages fall in a careless scatter, as though they were nothing but tragic confetti. He pursed his lips. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said finally. “I won’t cause any more pain. Gwi-ma took my eye, yes—but he took those desires too. He took them all. I’ll wait to die, and then he’ll take my soul as I promised.”
Kabru gave him an unsteady smile and let his gaze linger on the dark smudge of blood under the man’s fingertips. “Well, he’s gone now. I’m sure your soul is safe.”
“Safe?” He made a slow, bitter sound. “He took a potion of it. It’s gone. I'm not whole.”
Kabru’s smile softened; he shifted closer, lowering his voice. His had brushed the railing of the bed. “That doesn’t mean you’re empty. People survive things like this — you can rebuild. You can be forgiven– It’s not your fault you fell for him. He tricks people. He—” He shook his head. His hand fell to the man’s wrist. The man’s hand was cold. “You didn’t choose this.”
“You think so?” His single eye looked at Kabru like a weathered coin, dull and tossed through too many hands. “My desires almost ended the world, and you think I deserve them again?”
Kabru’s mouth tightened. He swallowed, then let out one shaky laugh. He sat back down in the chair, and the man didn’t seem disturbed or irritated at him deciding to remain. “You think I haven’t been tempted?” Kabru bit the inside of his cheek. “I heard it too. Gwi-ma whispered to me too. Promises, bargains, the stuff I couldn’t fathom wanting. I felt everything was lost, that I might as well give in. If I can live with giving myself another chance after that, you should get one too.”
“I can’t feel what he took from me anymore. Even if I wanted to love those things again, I don’t think I could taste it the same way. It’d be like nothingness, I’m sure.”
Kabru pondered that for a moment. “...Can you develop new ones? New ways to want. Not the old ones—ones that are brand new, but give you the same feeling.”
The man let out a breath that sounded like a sigh. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It sounds like more effort than I can endure.”
“Then we’ll find out,” Kabru said, more certain than he felt. “We’ll figure out what those threads lead to.” He looked at the man head-on, not softening, just plain and true. “Can we… would you like to be friends? I want to help you–- If you want to try.”
The man’s lips twitched. His hands flexed at his sides, then went limp again.
“It’ll be hard, but you won’t do it alone.”
Kabru waited, his hopes faltering when he didn’t rise to the bait. With one last shot, Kabru pushed a little further. “You probably know my name already; it’s Kabru. What is yours?”
The man glanced up at him. After a short pause, he muttered, “Mithrun.”
“Well, Mithrun,” Kabru recited, testing the name on his tongue. “Let’s find that missing part of your soul.”