(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Ehehehehe…

-x-X-x-

“Now kiss!”

Rumi was going to kill him. Forget the whole debate about whether she was in love with Jinu or infatuated with him, it wouldn’t matter anymore because she was going to fucking kill him!

As his words hang in the air, the bastard even has the audacity to give her a big grin and a thumbs up, like he hadn’t just ruined an otherwise amazing moment! They’d just done it. They’d completed the Rainbow Honmoon. And sure, Rumi didn’t know whether that meant the Honmoon was ‘sealed’ or not at this point, but damn if it hadn’t felt good to sing What It Sounds Like again all the same!

And then Jinu had gone and done… that. Ugh, he was just the worst!

When Zoey and Mira start to react, beginning to pull away from her grasp, Rumi… does something that might be inadvisable. Namely, she grips down harder, holding them fast and not letting them go. This gets their attention back on her, their faces flushed from the singing… but the heat on Rumi’s cheeks has nothing to do with the performance they just did together.

She looks into their eyes… and her girls look back at her. No words are spoken. Nothing is said out loud. But then, it doesn’t really have to be? Rumi laid it all out in the song. She put her entire heart and soul out there… and she could feel it as Mira and Zoey did the same.

Slowly, she sees true comprehension dawn on the two of them. Their eyes widening, their lips parting slightly in matching silent exhales. Rumi licks her lips and gives them both a hesitant nod. Their eyes dart to one another for just a split second before returning to her.

Then… it’s like all three of them start moving in unison. Nobody starts it necessarily, they just all start to lean in at the same exact time. They’re really going to do it. They’re really going to kiss.

… How the hell does a three-way kiss even work? Rumi has no idea, but she finds she also doesn’t care. They’ll figure it-

Ding!

OH COME ON! The sound of the elevator suddenly goes off from across the common area, signaling that someone is about to arrive up at the penthouse in just a few seconds. Mira and Zoey jerk away and whip their heads around towards the noise and Rumi can’t even blame them.

All three let go of one another in unison like they’ve just been burned, just in time for the elevator doors to open and both Celine and Bobby to step out.

Celine… Celine is humming the melody to the Hunter’s Mantra under her breath as she leaves the elevator, her fingers gliding across the glowing iridiscent strings of the Rainbow Honmoon that hesitantly manifest for her. The veteran hunter is clearly studying what they’ve done and Rumi finds herself tensing up when Celine lifts her gazeand their eyes meet.

She expects to see confusion and uncertainty at best and judgment and anger at worst.

… Instead, what she gets is pride. Celine’s eyes shine with pride as she smiles softly and nods her head to Rumi, looking like she’s truly delighted at what they’ve done. Rumi doesn’t even know how to begin feeling about that, especially when she’s more than a little frustrated by what Celine and Bobby just interrupted.

Speaking of Bobby, it doesn’t look like he’s even noticed what Celine was doing because he’s currently glued to his phone and looks panicked in a way that screams ‘PR emergency’ to Rumi. He’s muttering to himself as his thumbs tap-tap away at the smartphone’s screen and he looks very, very unhappy.

Of course, when he realizes he’s left the elevator and arrived at his destination, he finally stops for a moment to look up at all of them with an apologetic grimace.

“Girls! I’m so sorry girls, this is really bad and I know I fucked up! Once I’ve taken care of this for you, if you want to fire me I fully understand! Just please let me help finish cleaning up my mess first!”

What. Rumi blinks owlishly, exchanging confused looks with Mira and Zoey. Celine sighs and shakes her head, speaking up in an uncharacteristically quiet and gentle tone.

“It’s not actually his fault; he’s just blaming himself. But there is a bit of a situation developing, admittedly.”

Then, she smiles at them again, eyes crinkling at the corners as she observes the Rainbow Honmoon.

“Well done though, girls. I know I don’t have the right… but I’m proud of you three all the same.”

Rumi flushes. Even if she’d seen it in Celine’s eyes a few moments ago, she’s still caught off guard when the older woman says it out loud. Mira, of course, can’t help herself.

“Us three and Jinu, actually. Couldn’t have done it without him.”

Rumi shoots the taller girl a look, but Mira doesn’t meet her gaze. Jinu, meanwhile, freezes up as Celine’s eyes dart over to him. And then his jaw drops when the veteran hunter suddenly drops into a ninety degree bow.

“Thank you for your assistance, honored elder.”

To be fair, Rumi’s jaw also drops open at the respectful address. Mira and Zoey look just as flummoxed when she glances over at them. Jinu just stares, his eyes wide for a moment, before he finally just nods.

“Uh… sure, no problem.”

Fortunately, panicked Bobby is there to rescue them all from the awkward silence a moment later. Unfortunately, it’s because of the situation they still don’t fully understand.

“We don’t have time for this! We need to decide on an action plan immediately!”

Right. Okay. Crossing her arms over her chest, Rumi clears her throat and tries very hard not to think about how close she just got to kissing Mira and Zoey. Focus.

“We’re still in the dark here, Bobby. Put down the phone for a moment, take a deep breath, and then explain to us what’s going on.”

Her ‘Leader Rumi’ voice does the trick, just as it always does where their manager is concerned. Bobby straightens up, puts down his phone, breathes, and nods as he gives his report.

“For starters, Celine is wrong, this IS all my fault. I got sloppy and complacent. Basically… everyone knows about Jinu now. It’s all over the internet.”

Wait, what? Rumi’s eyes dart to Jinu, who just looks confused. Then, she looks to her girls. In unison, all three of them pick up their phones and turn to social media to figure out what Bobby is talking about. It only takes a minute to catch on to what he means… after all, Jinu is trending on pretty much every major app. Not to mention, the news headlines…

Man staying as a guest at HUNTR/X Tower: Boyfriend material?!

Homeless Busker disappeared by HUNTR/X from park: For What Purpose?!

Rumi’s secret lover: Queen of Pop finally found her King, or just a Consort?!

Mira’s clandestine dalliance: Problem Child strikes once again at HUNTR/X’s expense!

It goes on and on and on, and the comments are eating it up like crazy all over the place. In fact, the only one they’re not accusing Jinu of being involved with is Zoey. Apparently, their cute little maknae is too ‘pure’ for such things.

Rumi huffs, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Funnily enough, she’s most annoyed by the idiot news site that’s currently calling Jinu her ‘consort’. She’s never letting him find out about that, not if she can help it.

“… How did it leak, exactly?”

Bobby swallows, wringing his hands for a moment before explaining.

“I’d been careful, you know? I went to the park that day as incognito as possible. Jinu and I weren’t caught at the café nearby either, I made sure of it. Refuge in audacity type stuff! Then, when we took Jinu shopping, I made sure we used private boutiques so that our exposure to the public was a minimum!”

Rumi nods along, having been there for that part. They paid extra for discreet service, obviously, because if they went into a normal shop, they would be mobbed in minutes. And then pictures of them with Jinu, making him try on clothes for them, would have been online within an hour.

“… It all slipped through the cracks last night. Most of the Tower Staff weren’t aware of Jinu’s existence because we used the private entrances and exits for the Tower. All they knew was that one more guest apartment was in use than usual and that was it. As it should be!”

Yes, of course, that was all tracking perfectly. Sure, she wanted to say she trusted and loved every single person working in HUNTR/X Tower, but there were hundreds of employees moving in and out of the skyscraper every single day. Some were obviously more trusted than others, and some things such as Jinu staying with them was a strictly need to know basis.

“Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a rush last night. Getting the Tower… prepared for Celine took priority, or so I thought. And I didn’t really think when I had some of the Tower Staff move all of Jinu’s new clothes to a different guest apartment so that Celine could be in the one across from me.”

Oh. Rumi thinks she can see where this is going. Bobby confirms that she’s right a moment later.

“They extrapolated the existence of a young, fit male living in the tower from the clothing and one of the staff proceeded to leak it to the public overnight through half a dozen burner accounts. By the time our team caught it, it was too late… the proof, pictures of all of the masculine clothes laid out on a bed in one of our guest apartments, had already spread like wildfire…”

Slumping, Bobby groans.

“From there, the vultures came flying in and people figured out within hours that the time frame seemingly lined up perfectly with Jinu’s busker persona in the park disappearing and a man moving into the Tower. He had drawn a moderately large audience through fan videos taken of him, so people put two and two together…”

Okay. Rumi could see how all of this happened now. And Celine was right; Bobby wasn’t responsible for any of this. Rumi was.

“You’re not at fault here, Bobby. I am.”

Bobby gapes before going to protest, but Rumi cuts him off.

“I’m the one who told you to handle everything. I’m also the one who ordered you to put Celine where you did without remembering that it was Jinu’s apartment first. The blame lies with me, not you. Full stop.”

“B-But I-!”

Rumi overrides him once more, already moving things along.

“Now that we’ve settled who’s at fault here, let’s talk options. Action plan, like you said. What have we done so far? Have we put out a statement yet”

Bobby shakes his head, picking his phone back up and getting back to it.

“No… I didn’t want to say anything without you girls weighing in. So far, all we’ve done is track down the staff member in question. They thought they were slick, but we caught them fairly quickly. The employee in question has been fired immediately for breach of NDA and permanently barred from Tower Premises as well blacklisted from all future HUNTR/X Events.”

Rumi holds in a wince at that, her constant need to make the fans happy warring with her righteous anger for a moment. After all, she knew full well that any member of the Tower Staff that was willing to do something like this would also be a huge fan of her and her girls. Unfortunately, some fans… just didn’t know when to stop.

Ultimately, the punishment for a leak like this had to be all-encompassing, both to keep the perpetrator from getting the chance to do it again, and to show people that trying to do things like this in the future would have just as dire consequences.

“That’s good, we don’t need to go any further than that. How is public sentiment looking so far?”

Bobby grimaces but before he can speak, Zoey calls out from where she’s sat down on the couch and is scrolling on her phone.

“Not good. Fans are really confused about what’s going on. Especially since everyone has started linking Jinu’s homeless busker persona to ‘guy now living in our tower’ and are wondering what we’re even doing with him.”

Mira also pipes up, grunting from her own hunched posture as she stares at her phone with narrowed eyes.

“The split between the groups who think he’s dating you or me is impressively close, Rumi. They can’t seem to decide what they want to be true… and which of us they want to hate for daring to have a relationship ‘behind their backs’.”

Rumi grimaces hard. This too was a dark part of their lives as idols. It was fine when the fans shipped them with other idols and each other and made up all sorts of fantasies about their love lives. But the moment an idol actually HAD a love life, it attracted a very specific, very toxic, very dangerous type of fan.

Now, Rumi didn’t think for a second that any saesang fans could come close to harming her or her girls. Not only did they always have top notch security, but between the Honmoon and their hunter training, they were pretty unkillable by mortal means.

Turns out when you can skydive from tens of thousands of feet in the air without a parachute, you can also pretty reliably tank bullets and blades.

… But at the same time, this was a huge problem because even if they just got done finishing the Rainbow Honmoon, Rumi didn’t know with absolute certainty whether it would be able to stand tall against a tidal wave of fan backlash.

If the fans started to turn on them as a group, would the Rainbow Honmoon weaken like the old Honmoon would have? If it did, Gwi-Ma would definitely take advantage of it…

“Maybe I should leave?”

Jinu’s voice suddenly cuts through the tense silence that had overtaken the penthouse. Everyone looks to him as he blinks.

“I could… return to the park? Pretend like nothing ever happened, perhaps? It would surely die down quickly in that case?”

Rumi shakes her head.

“No, Jinu. It really wouldn’t. Not in this day and age. And you would be mobbed at the park all day long. People wouldn’t even let you play, all they would do is ask you questions. It’d be akin to throwing you to the wolves.”

Jinu frowns, looking troubled. Tch, the Saja Boys really hadn’t been around long enough to experience any of this, had they? Actually, from what Rumi knew, they probably hadn’t even noticed any scandals or PR disasters that happened during the two weeks leading up to the Idol Awards.

They’d done whatever they wanted and used their demonic charms to get away with it. Stuff like crashing HUNTR/X’s fan signing and all that. It wasn’t like they were planning to last long enough as a boy band for anything to matter after all.

But things were different now. Rumi definitely wanted Jinu to stick around for a long, long time. She wasn’t about to let him go anymore than she intended to let Mira and Zoey go.

It hits Rumi then that she really does want all three of them. She wants to make it work, somehow. She wants her girls AND her stupid, old demon boy and she wants them to all want her in turn.

… But first they need to figure out a way out of this mess.

“Apologies.”

Celine’s quiet voice garners everyone’s attention as she smiles slightly.

“I know my opinion might not be wanted in this moment… but I am the CEO of Sunlight Entertainment with all the experience that comes with it. As such, please do not take offense when I say… the solution here is rather obvious.”

-x-X-x-

A/N: Well everyone? Do you think the solution is as obvious as Celine says it is? :P

Also you guys aren’t upset about the kiss being interrupted right? Right guys? Fufufu…

Shoot me a Comment or Like over on the Patreon or drop a message in the Discord if you’re enjoying the story! Knowing you guys are liking this (and also what you’re liking in particular) makes it all the more fun for me!