K-Pop Demon Hunters: The Sunlight Sisters

The Night in LA

Seoul Café at midnight. The broken air conditioning wheezed against LA's July heat. Three customers total—the owner half-asleep behind the register, an old man nursing cold coffee, and him.

Jimin kept his baseball cap low, watching the door. He'd been waiting here every night for three weeks, tracking her schedule. Failed audition at Capitol Records Tuesday, rejection from backup dancer tryouts Wednesday, another "we'll call you" from some nobody producer Friday. Tonight she'd finally show up at the only Korean place open past eleven.

The door chimed. Mi-young stumbled in, guitar case banging against the frame. Unwashed hair, the same jeans she'd worn to every audition, dark circles that made her look older than twenty.

She asked the owner for something in tired Korean. He shook his head—no, they were out of whatever cheap thing she could afford. Her shoulders sagged.

She turned to look for an empty table and stopped. Even with the cap, the oversized jacket, she knew. That jawline had been on magazine covers, billboards, TV screens across Korea for two years.

Instead of screaming or taking photos, Mi-young walked over and slumped into the booth across from him.

"I know who you are," she said in Korean, rubbing her eyes. "Famous people don't hang out in shitty Koreatown cafés at midnight unless they're running from something."

He studied her face—exhausted but sharp, broke but not broken. "Sing something."

"What?"

"Something traditional. From your grandmother."

Her eyes narrowed. "You've been watching me."

"For weeks. Every audition, every rejection. They don't understand what they're hearing, but I do."

She sang quietly, just for him. The melody her grandmother taught her, about women who dove for pearls and never came home. About waiting, about salt water, about strength that runs deeper than bone.

The fluorescent light above their table flickered once. The coffee mug between them vibrated against the table.

"That's not normal," Mi-young said, staring at the still-trembling mug.

"No. It's not." Jimin leaned forward. "How long has it been happening?"

"Since I was fifteen. Maybe earlier." Mi-young wrapped her hands around the warm mug. "Grandmother said it was the family gift. I thought she meant music."

"It is music. Just not the kind they teach in schools." He pulled out a business card—plain white, just a phone number. "There are others. Two more, actually. We found each other about a week ago."

"Others like me?"

"Like us." He stood up, leaving money on the table. "Meet us tomorrow night. Griffith Observatory, midnight."

"And if I don't come?"

He looked back at her, and for just a moment she saw something ancient in his eyes. "Then you'll keep sleeping in your car, failing auditions, and wondering why strange things happen when you sing. Forever."

The Observatory

Mi-young almost didn't come. Spent the whole next day talking herself out of it—this was crazy, dangerous, probably some elaborate scam. But at 11:45 PM, she found herself climbing the winding road to Griffith Observatory, guitar case slung over her shoulder like armor.

Three figures stood silhouetted against the city lights. Jimin she recognized. The other two were young women, both Korean-American by their features, both standing with the careful posture of people who'd learned not to draw attention to themselves.

"You came," Jimin said without turning around.

"Yeah, well. My other plans fell through." Mi-young approached the group slowly. "So. What's this about?"

The taller girl—elegant, expensive-looking clothes—spoke first. "I'm Celine. And if he told you the same story he told us, you think we're all insane."

"Pretty much," Mi-young admitted.

The other girl, younger, looked like she'd been crying. "I'm Stacy. And three hours ago, I accidentally broke every window in a Starbucks just by getting upset about a bad audition." She sniffled. "It was the one in Beverly Hills. I was wearing my new Chanel suit and everything. Now I'm banned from that location, and daddy's going to be so mad about the insurance claim."

"Show them," Jimin said quietly.

Celine took a breath and sang a single note—clear, perfect, impossibly sustained. The metal railings around the observatory platform began to vibrate. Car alarms went off in the parking lot below.

She stopped. The night went quiet again.

"Shamanic rituals," Celine explained to Mi-young's shocked expression. "Traditional Korean goot ceremonies. My family's been mudang for three generations. Except we don't just commune with spirits."

"We're hunters," Stacy added, her voice still shaky. "At least, our families were. Before the war, before most of them died, before we all pretended to be normal."

Mi-young looked at Jimin. "And you?"

"I made a deal. A long time ago." He turned to face the city, lights spreading out like stars. "Something's coming, Mi-young. Something that's been growing stronger for almost a century. We have about three weeks to get ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To stop the demons. Maybe save everyone."

The Choice

The silence stretched between them. City noise drifted up from below—traffic, sirens, the constant hum of eight million people living their ordinary lives.

"I've been alone for most of my life," Mi-young said finally. "Grandmother died when I was sixteen. Parents never understood the music thing. Came to LA because I had nothing left to lose."

"And now?" Celine asked.

Mi-young looked at each of them—these strangers who somehow felt familiar, like pieces of a song she'd always known but never heard complete.

"Now I still have nothing to lose. But maybe something to fight for."

Stacy laughed nervously. "This is insane. We're talking about fighting demons. With singing."

"You have a better plan?" Celine asked.

"No. But I also don't have anything else." Stacy looked at Jimin. "What do we call ourselves?"

He smiled for the first time since Mi-young had met him. "I was thinking... Sunlight Sisters."

"Sunlight Sisters?" Mi-young frowned. "That sounds like a 1970s folk group."

"It's terrible," Stacy agreed. "But I can't think of anything better."

Four people who twelve hours ago had been strangers.

"So," Stacy said. "What happens now?"

"We have twenty-nine days."