Chapter Text
As the world flies by, Rumi feels more and more nauseated. Mira hasn't said where they're going, and she supposes it doesn't matter. Still, she just thought she'd be sent to a hotel or something or (wow, was her throat always this tight?) back to Celine on Jeju. She thought there might be more time.
Rumi hasn’t been able to bring herself to pack yet. Not until they tell her explicitly to go. It’s selfish, childish. Unsurprising, she thinks bitterly, she knows how to play her part, a clinging, mewling, pathetic demon. She’s not a fool. They will talk when they get far enough away from the penthouse that she can't follow them back easily, and Mira will cut her loose. Zoey, angry as she is, will not protest. They will leave her alone.
Mira seems to have packed for her though, which is a nice gesture.
She wonders how they will cut her free from their souls this time. The night of the Idol Awards was child's-play, the threads of that Honmoon were weak and dependent on secrets and lies. This Honmoon will be far harder to disentangle her from, but she has faith in her girls. They will find a way.
The scenery outside the widow becomes more picturesque as they near the coast, but Rumi doesn't have time to admire it. Her head is racing.
The first step will be to survive the initial rip of their souls from hers. She's dreading that part. If the paltry threads of the last soul bonds ripping away from her hurt like fire, she can't imagine what this tighter weave will feel like when they tear it.
She knows they think this is mercy. That Mira is doing her a favor by not killing her. Ugh. Her girls and Celine both. (She doesn't want to be dramatic and say she'd rather die than live without two integral parts of her soul, but she can't say the torn bond didn't influence her decision making the night of the Idol Awards.)
Step two will be acquiring a phone. She thinks that maybe the burner phone Mira has is for her, but Rumi doesn't want to push her luck. If they stop soon, there are a few places she could pick one up, the GPS on the dash says they'll be there in five minutes, so she tries to make a mental map to find the town again later. It's all pretty sparse. Mira reallydoesn't want her following them back, then.
She needn't worry. Rumi is actually quite proud of Mira for thinking to leave their phones at home. She won't be able to track them. Her girl is so smart.
Step three; call Bobby. Explain that she's leaving the group, it's all her fault, and present a plan to have Mira and Zoey premier again as a duo. They'll have to really villanize her for the press to buy it, but after the fiasco of their last performance, she doesn't think it will be too difficult. In truth, she's avoided looking at any social media at all so she has no idea what he's been doing already to mitigate the situation.
Step four; drain her bank account and disappear. She's always wanted to travel without the pressure of a tour and the Golden Honmoon and her secrets breathing down her neck. Some scissors and hair dye will assure her anonymity.
Step five... she- hasn't gotten that far. She supposes she’ll see her girls on hunts, but with the Honmoon sealed, those will dwindle. The fans will be upset, of course, but that no longer matters. What matters is their freedom. What matters is their ability to move on.
To find some happiness after Rumi is gone. But for herself... She doesn't know.
With that super hopeful thread left dangling, the car finally comes to a stop.
They're right on the beach. She hopes Mira takes Zoey someplace on the coast to heal after they're done with her. She's a total Cali girl through and through, and being somewhere like this will help her feel better.
The house they pull up to is sleek and modern, more glass than anything else and raised high enough to be safe from the edge of the tide. A deck stretches out beneath the bungalow, villa style with a lux outdoor pool hot-tub and shower looking out over the crystal blue ocean. A hammock sways gently in the breeze.
She sighs. Her girls are so kind, even when she doesn't deserve it. This is as good a place as any for a disgraced pop star to start over.
Regardless of the state of her life now, Mira is right. This limbo needs to break.
She does wish they'd given her a chance to say goodbye to her plants. She had a peace lily that was just about to bloom too...
Hopefully this will be fast
They get out of the car.
Rumi's feet sink into the dry white sand and the sun beaming down hurts her eyes. She hadn't had a chance to grab sunglasses and puts it on her mental checklist along with the new phone.
She shades her eyes with her hands as she looks back down the road the way they came. She estimates about a thirty minute walk to town. Not bad.
Mira starts unpacking the car. Zoey merely leans against the car door shuffling her feet in the sand.
After about five minutes of stalling Rumi can't help herself and mumbles "This is ridiculous, you could have just asked me to leave."
"Leave where?" Mira asks absently, fiddling with the side of a cooler to drain the water that's melted into the sand below.
Rumi looks at her dumbfounded. It's not like Mira to be this deliberately obtuse.
"What- the penthouse. I would have found a place, you didn't have to drag me out here."
"Rumi, what the hell are you talking about?!" Mira says turning to face her, genuinely irritated.
Rumi chokes on her next words. She hadn't factored this response.
Zoey finally speaks numbly, eyes staring a million miles away. "She thinks we're leaving her here. She thinks we'd do that to her."
Mira face turns deathly pale and her eyes widen.
"Why would you think-?"
"Oh, why wouldn't she, Mira?!" Zoey snaps, a nasty edge to her voice.
The silence that follows last a solid minute before Mira takes a deep breath and pulls the cooler and three suitcases out of the trunk.
"We are all staying here until we sort ourselves out. and then we are ALL returning to the penthouse, hopefully able to look one another in the eye again. Got it!? Great. Now, considering neither of you can drive, I suggest we go inside. Now."
Rumi is- confused, but she does as she's told, grabbing her purple suitcase from the trunk along with a teal one she now realizes is Zoey's. Zoey makes no move to carry anything and whisks past both of them once they open the door. Maybe to go explore the house, maybe to plant bombs, right now it's anyone's guess.
Unfortunately for her, there isn't much house to explore, just an open concept living and kitchen area on the bottom floor and a bed and bathroom suite up the stairs. Zoey reappears on the landing, face unreadable. "Why is there only one bed?"
Rumi's face immediately flames, and Mira only shrugs.
"This is what Bobby had available on short notice." she says "It was an emergency. I wasn't picky."
Zoey just hums in the back of her throat and disappears back into the bedroom. Rumi and Mira follow her up the stairs with the luggage. Rumi freezes in the doorway. She's not sure what she expected, but the Texas king sized bed does give her pause if only because she's never seen a bed that large. It will fit all three of them easily.
However, that doesn't stop the emotional whiplash she feels at going from 'my girls are leaving me to suffer alone and probably ripping my soul into three pieces later' to 'I have to share a bed with my girls until Mira decides we're healed'.
In sync, they leave the luggage in the bedroom and troop back downstairs gathering on the ridiculously uncomfortable couch.
Zoey smushes herself into the corner, obviously put out for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being that this couch corner is vastly inferior to her spot at home. She can't properly burrow, and it's clear on her face that it bothers her. Rumi would laugh in any other circumstances.
Mira follows downstairs with Tommy the Talking Turtle in her hands. Oh, she's serious serious.
"Ok, I talked to my therapist and here’s how we’re going to do this-"
Zoey squirms on the couch biting out "Oh yeah? Did she sign off on you literally kidnapping us?"
"Not important. OK! I feel statements only. I'll start,"
Mira sits down rather awkwardly in the armchair across from them, unable to find a comfortable position, but takes a deep breath after a few moments of fidgeting, the turtle plush clutched in her hands. "I feel like I'm losing you both. Even though we sealed the Honmoon and hugged at the end, I feel like you're slipping away from me. I feel like we need to talk about this," she starts to tear up, her voice going shaky and tight. "because I can't- I can't lose you. You're my family. I feel so hurt by what happened and so guilty for my reactions, and I have felt seconds from imploding for weeks."
Her fingers come up to dash at the tears and she laughs mirthlessly, whispering "And I can feel you both now, but we're all pretending like it's not happening, so please can we talk? Please? Because I'm so scared."
Her words hit like a punch to the solar plexus.
For a minute, Zoey and Rumi just look at her. Mira is strong, Mira is steady, and Mira is breaking in front of them.
Zoey slowly rises and reaches for the turtle. It slips easily from Mira's fingers, and no-one breaths as Zoey perches back on the edge of the couch, Spine ramrod straight, tears already falling. "I'm angry- sorry, I feel angry. I feel angry that I was lied to. I feel angry because you both scared me. I feel angry that I-"
She scrunches her eyes shut and scootches back on the couch legs folding into her chest, gripping them like she'll fly apart if she doesn't. "I feel angry with myself most of all." She turns to Rumi, face red, tears in her eyes "Because when you needed me I- I abandoned you. Mira raised her weapon first, but I ripped you from our souls because I was scared, and I don't know how you could ever forgive me because I can never forgive myself." Her words give way as she soaks the turtle's fuzzy shell with her sobs.
Rumi's heart is in a vice squeezing so tight she's sure she'll die from it. Zoey's agony, given name and context, flows through the weave of their souls like a tidal wave combining with Mira's abject terror and making the room spin.
Rumi slips next to Zoey and rests a hand on her arm. Wordlessly, Zoey passes the turtle. "I owe you both the truth I've owed you both the truth for a long time now." she whispers. And then she tells them everything. She tells them about her parents and growing up with Celine. About her patterns and the shame and the longing for closeness, about Celine's refusal to allow her to tell anyone or acknowledge them that manifested into her own fear and self-loathing.
She tells them about the patterns spreading, about Jinu and feeling free for the first time without lies in the way, she tells them how much she's longed for that with them and how she feared it would break her if they couldn't accept her. She tells them about the Idol Awards and what she went through on that stage. She gets all the way to beneath the stage after the disastrous Takedown performance and then-
"And then?" Mira says with the dreadful sober clarity of someone who already knows the answer.
Mira knows.
"You called Celine?" Rumi asks weakly.
Mira doesn't answer, she presses. "And then what happened, Rumi?"
Mira knows, and she's giving Rumi a chance to speak the words aloud, to be honest with them
"I asked Celine to kill me." she says quiet as a brush of ink on paper.
Zoey goes statue still
Rumi rushes to explain "I was breaking the Honmoon. You saw! I thought if I was taken out of the equation-"
"Taken out of the equation?" Zoey hisses venomously "You mean dead, Rumi?"
"I thought I was giving you a chance to fix it without me ruining-"
Zoey's up and in Rumi's space before she can finish the sentence kneeling before her and looking wreaked, tears and snot streaming down her face. Her hands come up to grip Rumi's cheeks fingers fanning back into lavender strands. She shakes her gently
"Listen to me. I would rather let Gwi-ma take over the world than lose you." she says quietly forcing Rumi to meet her eyes. "I'm not kidding. Maybe that makes me a bad person or a bad Hunter, but it's true."
"But I'm-"
"If you say 'but I'm a demon' like it's a valid argument, I will get upset and also violent." Based on the tension in her body alone, Rumi believes her.
Rumi shrugs off her hands, but Zoey stays where she is knelt before her. "Well anyway- that- didn't happen and well, you know the rest. Now you're stuck tied to me again and I'm" she sighs into her hands fighting the tears "I'm so sorry"
She resists Zoey's attempts to rip her hands away from her face trying to tune out her stifled gremlin noises of rage. Mira has made her way to kneeling in front of Rumi as well, aiding Zoey and managing to reveal Rumi's face eyes tightly shut.
"Stuck!? Rumi we chose this! We all chose to-"
Rumi's eyes snap open in a fury "Chose?!? Chose?!? You didn't choose this! You didn't choose any of this, you didn’t get a choice! The Honmoon chose-" A palm is slapped over her mouth with a force that momentarily stuns her.
And then
"I wasn’t pulled." Zoey says quietly
"When you came back, when it looked like Gwi-ma won. When you sang to us, the Honmoon didn’t exist anymore. The pull I always feel from the Honmoon when you sing to join you wasn’t there."
Zoey's voice is choked and she looks at Rumi like she's something precious "I sang because I chose to. I rebuilt the Honmoon with you because I chose to."
Mira unwinds the fists Rumi's hands are clenched into, lacing their fingers together. "No one made us rebuild the Honmoon with you." she murmurs "No one made us weave our souls together with yours."
"We had to actively fight Gwi-ma's control to do so." she brings Rumi's hand to her lips and kisses her knuckles gently. Rumi thinks her heart might give out. "So no we did not choose to become hunters, but we chose to be with you."
"Maybe the first Honmoon chose us, forced us," Zoey says, removing her hand from Rumi's mouth and cradling her cheek, "but this one is made of something different."
Rumi breaks into a million pieces, falling forward into their arms with a cracking sob. They catch her. Of course they catch her.
There is crying and apologies and forgiveness, and she can't tell who's hands are where now, but she doesn't care because they're hers and they have her now.
Zoey is wailing into her shoulder that she's 'so sorry, Ru' Mira is begging her to let them 'keep her' and it's glorious and awful and overwhelming and oh god, she thought they were going to leave her.
And then Rumi is wailing too. The swirl of emotions between them is so fast and so potent, she can't actually tell who's is who's anymore, and that's probably what they should talk about next.
But right now-
Right now, she's being cradled between her girls, Mira behind her, Zoey finally finding a place to burrow in her chest, and something that had been spasming painful and untethered in her chest finally...settles.