Chapter Text
After somehow managing to calm herself down, Rumi did her best to make herself look at least somewhat presentable. Freshly showered, she slipped into the hotel robe. The golden glow in her eye had faded, her claws had retracted, and only a faint magenta pulse still rippled beneath her skin.
She paced the length of the suite’s small living room, far too restless to remain seated for more than a few seconds. Her hands found their way into her hair for what had to be the hundredth time that morning, tugging and raking through the damp strands in mounting frustration. The neat dragon braid she had painstakingly done the day before was long gone, having fallen victim to both sleep and her ongoing mental breakdown. In its place sat a hastily assembled bun that was wet and looked as though it had lost a fight with a hurricane, with loose strands escaping in every direction and sticking stubbornly to her still-damp skin.
Shockingly enough, her outburst had resulted in a still-asleep Mira is beyond her. The woman was a light sleeper. Rumi knew that much and had been responsible for a few mishaps whenever she accidentally woke her.
But right now? She didn’t care about that; her mind was far too occupied with the ring on her finger and the very possible consideration of being married to her bandmate, who was still dozing off in a room over, oblivious to the turmoil happening just a few feet away.
Extending her hand that wore the piece of jewelry, Rumi inspected the band. It felt weird on her finger—familiar yet unfamiliar despite the countless pieces of jewelry she’d worn throughout her career.
Had she tried taking it off? No.
Had she thought about it? Yes. Multiple times.
Did she want to?
…
She couldn’t even bring herself to answer that one and decided to turn a blind eye to it.
She had absolutely no idea what to do. There was no strategy for waking up married in Vegas, and somehow even Celine hadn’t prepared them for this… Possibly.
She was basically useless, and now her ability to function altogether may be as useless as a furniture if she converses with the woman who may now be legally her wife.
The dress from last night rested on the back of a nearby chair, its dark fabric creased and wrinkled from wear. Against the vibrant colors decorating the hotel room, it looked strangely out of place. Every time she wandered too close, the faint scent clinging to the cloth reached her—perfume, sweat, and the lingering remnants of various flavored smoke that a few people had been vaping.
Evidence. Proof that last night had happened, even if her memory refused to cooperate. The dress remained exactly where she'd left it. Yet somehow it felt as if it was taunting her.
Rumi exhaled, scrubbing a hand down her face. The same memories replayed so many times that morning. Each pass uncovered some new detail she’d missed, only for another piece to slip through her fingers. It was like trying to complete a puzzle with half the pieces missing and the other half actively refusing to stay in place.
Out of all the things that had to happen, why this?
She shook her head and immediately regretted it when the world lurched all over the place. Staggering forward, a sharp whimper escaping as she held her head, the counter providing support as her eyes squeezed shut, the pain feeling like it had pounded on her skull.
Maybe this is fate telling me this is what I get for hiding all that stuff from them.
“Fucking great.” The words barely scraped on the way out, her throat dry enough to sting.
Rumi winced, pressing her lips together and rubbing her throat before making her way to the fridge tucked into the corner. She grabbed a bottle and downed it in one go.
It didn’t exactly banish the pounding in her skull, but enough that she no longer felt like she'd swallowed sandpaper. She lowered the bottle with a shaky exhale.
A suffocating silence settled over the room, but Rumi barely noticed it. Her attention had long since drifted somewhere beyond the hotel walls, unfocused as she continued her futile attempt to piece together the events that had led them here.
The obvious parts were a no-brainer, but now and then, some new and… interesting things came to light.
Firstly, Zoey had dragged them onto the dance floor, already buzzed by the first few rounds of shots. It took a while to wear Mira down, but later on caved in, and the three danced until the Maknae scurried off, leaving her and Mira alone among the sea of flesh.
What she never expected was how easily the lines between friendship and something far more intimate had begun to blur. Somewhere between the laughter, the alcohol, and the hazy fragments of a night neither of them could fully remember, she’d crossed boundaries she had never once imagined crossing with Mira.
Touching her—holding her, standing so close that personal space had become little more than a forgotten concept. Every brush of skin, every absentminded touch, every moment spent within Mira’s orbit sent something warm unfurling through Rumi's chest—a quiet, exhilarating feeling she had neither the words nor the courage to name.
None of it had felt strange in the moment. If anything, it had felt frighteningly natural.
That’s what unsettled her most.
She hadn’t thought of pulling away. She didn’t even want to.
Instead, she found herself leaning into every lingering touch as though she’d been waiting for them all along, uncovering a part of herself she’d spent years unknowingly burying. Which, in hindsight, was absurd considering how accustomed she’d always been to Mira’s touch.
Safe to say, there was no denying that every interaction happened.
What unsettled her wasn’t simply that it had happened.
It was the fact that if she were sober in the first place, she might never have had the chance to do that again. No wonder people called alcohol liquid courage.
Knowing they’d already been well past the point of sober judgment, the realization alone made Rumi want to disappear beneath the nearest piece of furniture and stay there, mortified that she’d been reckless enough to let herself get that drunk in the first place.
The only place she’d ever allowed herself to get that close to Mira had been in the safety of her own dreams—dreams she always dismissed yet yearned for the moment she woke up, pretending they meant nothing at all.
Her memories, however, had been far less forgiving when a few more pieces started to come together.
Eventually, the two made their way to the bar, where they ran into Zoey again. The maknae appeared for all of five seconds, spewed out incomprehensible words, shoved some bizarre, glowing concoction into each of their hands, declared it her newest masterpiece, and promptly vanished back into the crowd before either of them could question it.
Mira, for reasons Rumi would never understand, knocked hers back in a single swallow before immediately chasing after the dark-haired menace, leaving her alone at the bar.
She’d only managed a few cautious sips (maybe more than she would have liked) of her own drink before someone approached her.
From what she could recall, he had seemed harmless enough at first. Pleasant, if a little too friendly. Unfortunately, that friendliness soon gave way to an unwelcome confidence. He’d kept flirting despite her obvious discomfort, smiling as though her polite refusals were little more than part of the conversation. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he’d offered to buy her a drink.
Rumi had declined—or at least, she was fairly certain she had. The exact words had long since dissolved into the haze of alcohol and pounding music, but she remembered trying to turn him down as politely as she could.
Unfortunately, the stranger hadn’t seemed interested in taking no for an answer and proceeded to grab her arm.
That was where Mira came back.
She stood behind her with no regard for space, slipping an arm around Rumi’s waist, pulling her flush against her chest.
Rumi could still remember the warmth of Mira’s arm around her waist—the steady, reassuring pressure anchoring her before she’d even realized she needed it.
Mira had said something.
What, exactly, Rumi couldn’t remember. The words had long since dissolved beneath the relentless music and the alcohol clouding her thoughts.
The stranger’s reaction, however...
That part remained surprisingly clear.
They’d instinctively squared their shoulders, puffing out their chest as though trying to reclaim whatever confidence Mira’s first words had stripped away.
Then Mira spoke again.
Whatever she said, the man’s bravado evaporated almost instantly. The confidence melted from their face, slowly being replaced by something unmistakably close to fear. They muttered something Rumi couldn’t make out, avoided staring at them entirely, and, without hesitation, disappeared into the crowd with remarkable speed.
Rumi hadn’t even had the chance to process what had happened before Mira’s attention shifted back to her when she turned back to look at her.
The last thing she remembered was Mira’s face. Concern had been written all over it. Then, somehow, her gaze had drifted lower.
To Mira’s lips.
Her soul lodged itself somewhere in her throat. Of all the details her traitorous brain could have fixated on, it chose that. That decision immediately opened the floodgates.
Who made the first move? Her? Mira? Did she lean in first? Did Mira?
And if she had been the one to initiate it… did Mira actually kiss her back?
She immediately abandoned the thought before they got any more ideas.
In the next room over, the sheets rustled as the person lying on them shifted. It was soft. Barely noticeable but loud enough for one to hear if they paid attention to their surroundings.
Rumi didn’t notice or even hear the movement happening when she was too busy relapsing to bother paying attention. Even her super hearing from her demon heritage didn’t pick up on it.
On the bed, Mira stirred.
Her brows furrowed, lips pressing together as consciousness dragged her upward in uneven waves. One hand shifted on the mattress, fingers twitching until settling again.
Her eyes fluttered open.
With groginess and slumber still clinging to her, Mira pushed herself upright with a quiet groan. The blanket slipped down to her lap, revealing the maroon dress she’d worn the night before, now hopelessly wrinkled. One of the straps hung precariously off her shoulder while the other had twisted somewhere along the way. Her hair had fared no better. The usually neat pink strands had exploded into a chaotic halo around her head, sticking out in every conceivable direction, with one side noticeably flattened from the pillow. Faint creases marked her skin, remnants of sleep that somehow softened the sharp edges of her features.
“Ugh…” Mira groaned, wincing as she pressed her fingers to her temple. “I am never going out drinking again…”
She grimaced when her voice came out rough and dry like a desert, the sound scraping unpleasantly against her throat. Her hand drifted instinctively to her neck as she cleared it, only to wince when it accomplished absolutely nothing.
She felt a tap on her shoulder, and a bottle of water appeared in her peripheral vision.
Mira accepted it without question, muttering a quiet thanks, and unscrewed the cap, draining nearly half of it in one go. By the time she was finished, the bottle was practically empty.
She set it on the bedside table without a second thought.
A yawn escaped her as she stretched lazily, rolling her shoulders and arms, closing her eyes at the satisfying crack of bones, and enjoying the pleasant looseness in her muscles. Then her brain finally processed one very important detail.
Someone had handed her that water.
Mira stopped mid-stretch.
Slowly, Mira opened her eyes. Her expression remained perfectly stoic as she turned her head to the left to find Rumi.
Standing beside the bed.
All she did was give a slow blink.
And the girl standing beside the bed? Well, she found herself completely at a loss.
The tense silence stretched longer than it should have been. It became too much to endure, and Rumi was the first to look away. Her gaze lowered instead to the blanket draped over Mira, studying the folds of fabric with an intensity usually reserved for life-or-death situations as she tried not to fidget under the scrutiny. Anything was preferable to meeting those hazel eyes again.
Eventually, Mira spoke. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh…” Rumi blinked. “To… help?”
“This early morning?” The usual dry sarcasm that only belongs to the pinkette came into full effect. Rumi isn’t sure whether to take it as a good or bad thing.
“Technically, it’s past ten, so…”
“My apologies. I must’ve missed the memo that knocking becomes optional after ten.”
If Rumi had a rebuttal prepared, it died a swift and unceremonious death when her brain decided to abandon her. All she did was make a great imitation of a fish gasping for water.
While she was busy short-circuiting, Mira’s attention drifted to her surroundings. Her gaze swept across the room, taking in every detail with quiet deliberation.
The colors hit first. Loud. Clashing. Red bleeding into gold, patterns layered over one another like someone had tried to make it luxurious and lost control halfway through.
The furniture didn’t help. Too much shine. Too much leather. A glass-topped table sat slightly off-center, reflecting the chaos right back at her, while an oversized chair slouched in the corner like it had been shoved there as an afterthought.
Her gaze swept the room with mounting suspicion. Every passing second seemed to uncover another questionable decorating choice.
“…This isn’t the hotel.”
Rumi, who barely recovered, wisely decided silence was the safest option. She merely shifted from foot to foot as tension coiled on her shoulders while Mira continued her inspection with the focus of a detective arriving at an especially confusing crime scene.
Then Mira stopped. “…Is that Elvis?”
Rumi frowned and looked at what she meant. Huh.
A life-sized cardboard Elvis leaned precariously against the wall, held upright by what appeared to be blind optimism and a strip of tape that had clearly given up several days ago. His signature grin remained perfectly intact, making the entire room feel somehow even more cursed.
She wasn’t sure which disturbed her more—the inexplicable Elvis or the fact that she hadn’t noticed him until now.
Mira stared at it. Rumi did the same. Eventually, both gazes met, and it took all within the latter not to poof away or fidget under the intense gaze.
“Explain.”
“Well… judging by the design and the, uh, barely surviving cut-out of Elvis, I’d say we’re in… Vegas?”
Apparently, that wasn’t the answer when Mira almost resembled Celine when she was getting annoyed.
“You know,” Rumi quickly added, spiraling into a ramble, “Elvis, gambling, bad decisions, entertainment—Oh.” Rumi stopped short and blinked.
Mira frowned and echoed the sentiment. “Oh?”
“…We had a concert. Last night. In Allegiant Stadium. After that, Bobby mentioned something about an afterparty.”
Mira blinked. It took a second or two longer than it should have, but the memory clicked.
“…Right.” She pushed herself upright, one hand bracing against the mattress as she leaned back, shoulders tensing while she fought to steady the slight sway in her balance. “…Bobby mentioned something along those lines. Seeing as we’re here, apparently, we didn’t go back to the hotel with Zoey… Why do I feel like that wasn’t a good idea?”
Rumi let out a quiet, humorless chuckle. “Because it probably wasn’t.” If only she knew.
Mira didn’t respond immediately. Her eyes stayed glued to the floor before shifting to focus on Rumi.
“…What do you remember?”
Her hesitation became evident when Mira raised a brow. Should she? I mean, she could explain what happened during that time they were in the nightclub…
The rest of the story? She couldn’t give half-baked answers when she herself didn’t know the full details yet. There was also the… possible kiss… and the getting married part…
Mira’s gaze flickered toward the singer’s neck. It narrowed when she spotted her patterns pulsating in dark magenta.
“Rumi.”
“…There was the concert,” Rumi began. “Then the nightclub. We got a VIP booth, had a few drinks…” She frowned, trying to untangle the haze in her memory. “Not that many, I think. We were mostly just hanging around after that. There were a few artists we knew—a small group. We didn’t really talk to them much, but they seemed interested in talking to us.”
She paused.
“Then Zoey dragged us away.”
“Kidnapped,” Mira corrected automatically. “Pretty sure that's the more accurate term.”
Despite everything, Rumi huffed a quiet laugh.
“She dragged us onto the dance floor.”
Mira rubbed at her temple, following along as pieces of her own memory slowly resurfaced. “...The music was obnoxiously loud.”
Rumi nodded. “And somebody challenged Zoey to a dance battle.”
“That sounds exactly like something she'd agree to.”
“She did.”
A beat passed before Mira's lips twitched. “...She won.”
“As if we expect her to lose.”
The faint smile on Rumi's face lingered only briefly before her expression tightened again. “After that, we ended up back near the bar.”
Her words stopped. Something clicked when an overlooked event suddenly revealed everything. “…Zoey.”
Mira frowned. “Zoey?”
“She found us again.” Rumi's eyes slowly widened. “She came back carrying those weird neon drinks… and shoved one into each of our hands…”
She looked up. Mira stared at her. Then the memory caught up.
“…Wait.”
Her expression flattened.
“…Those drinks.”
A low growl escaped her throat. “Oh, when I get my hands on that little gremlin…”
Rumi couldn’t help but sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose. As much as she wants to protect Zoey from Mira’s wrath, she can’t deny that she wanted to join in on the torture. “Just... try not to kill her.”
If Mira had any objections to finding the request to be unreasonable, her expression says otherwise.
“I’m really not in the mood to explain to Bobby why our maknae mysteriously disappeared while you were busy committing a felony.”
“I’ll try to keep the property damage to a minimum.”
“Clearly.”
Rumi shot her a glare. Mira returned it without hesitation.
Neither woman blinked. Seconds stretched. Eventually, Mira resigned first. Not because she’d lost. Merely because Rumi's patented Leader Glare had somehow become more effective with age.
Celine deserved at least partial blame for that.
Ignoring the annoyingly smug expression spreading across Rumi's face, Mira motioned for her to continue. “What happened after Zoey gave us the drinks?”
Rumi hesitated. “That’s… where everything starts falling apart.”
She met Mira’s eyes with the most serious expression she could muster. “Because apparently, you took whatever Zoey handed us and decided the most reasonable course of action was to knock yours back like a shot before chasing after her.”
Mira had the decency to look embarrassed. “…Yeah.” She rubbed the back of her neck, wincing. “I honestly couldn't tell you what possessed me to do that.”
Her gaze flicked toward Rumi. “…I’m guessing that was a terrible idea.”
Rumi held her stare for a long, silent moment. “An impressively terrible one.”
Mira let out a defeated sigh. “…That tracks. Especially since I don’t remember jack shit after that.”
“Pretty much.”
The conversation stalled.
Rumi stared at the floor, lips pressed into a thin line. She'd been hoping the difficult part was over.
It wasn’t.
Mira’s expression softened almost imperceptibly as she watched her struggle. “...There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Rumi closed her eyes for the briefest moment. She hadn’t exactly told her about this particular bit, but the longer she stalled, the more difficult it would be for her to explain as it went on. There was no point dancing around it anymore, and it was time for her to stop acting like a coward and be done with it.
“Yeah. There’s...” She swallowed. “There’s more.”
For a brief second, her eyes flickered toward Mira before darting away.
Unfortunately, that was more than enough to catch her attention.
“How?” Mira pressed.
Rumi’s fingers curled into the fluffy fabric of her robe. “We danced.”
Mira waited. There was clearly more. When Rumi didn't continue, she raised an eyebrow. “...Rumi.”
The singer suddenly found the carpet infinitely more interesting than the conversation. “Yes?”
“I’m aware that we danced.”
“...Right.”
Another beat slipped by.
Rumi shifted awkwardly in her slippers, rubbing one foot against the other as though they required her full attention.
Mira crossed her arms.
“Rumi.”
“It wasn’t just dancing,” she admitted at last, the words barely audible.
Mira’s brow furrowed.
“We were just...” Rumi trailed off, searching desperately for a phrase that sounded significantly less incriminating than the truth. “...close.”
Something flickered across Mira’s face. It was subtle. Brief enough that almost anyone else would’ve missed it. Rumi didn’t.
She almost wished she had. “...How close?”
Rumi’s lips parted. Nothing came out.
The silence stretched.
Mira didn't need an answer. She set the comforter aside and took a slow step forward. Then another.
“Rumi.”
The warning in her voice made Rumi instinctively shrink inward. Her fingers twisted tightly into her robe as she scrambled for literally anything useful to say. “I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
Another step. Then another.
Rumi retreated without realizing she was doing it until her back finally met the wall.
Trapped.
Her patterns had long since abandoned any attempt at subtlety. Bright pink glowed beneath her skin and flickered steadily through it, broadcasting her feelings to the person in front of her. Her jaw clenched hard enough to ache as she avoided the pinkette’s gaze. “You were just there, okay?”
Unfortunately, Mira seemed to agree. “Just there?” she repeated, slow and disbelieving.
“In context, it’s accurate enough.”
“No,” Mira said flatly, taking another step forward. “It really doesn’t.”
Rumi’s heart kicked violently against her ribs.
Desperate, she tried to end the conversation to prevent herself from dissolving into turmoil any further. Unfortunately, between her complete inability to lie convincingly and the increasingly forced smile she wore whenever she had, the battle had been lost before it even began.
“Seriously, Mira, there’s nothing else to tell you other than that.
One second. Two. Three. Mira stared at her with her unreadable gaze. “… So you’re telling me I almost pounced and gave a guy a black eye when he thought your no was a yes for him to lay a hand on you? Rumi,” Her hazel eyes stared at honey-brown. “I know I was drunk that night, but even I know whatever you're saying right now is bullshit.”
“I’m not lying,” she insisted through gritted teeth, shooting Mira what was meant to be a withering glare.
It would’ve been far more convincing had she not been blushing so furiously that she resembled a ripe tomato wearing the indignant expression of a sulking child.
Mira remained entirely unconvinced. She closed the remaining distance between them anyway.
“I can smell the bullshit from here.”
“I’m not—”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
Rumi’s gaze snapped upward on instinct.
Mira stood right in front of her.
Hazel eyes held hers with quiet, unwavering intensity.
The distance between them had shrunk to almost nothing. Rumi could feel Mira’s warmth, could hear the faint rhythm of her breathing. It was dangerously easy to imagine how little it would take to erase the remaining space.
Don’t look.
It was a simple instruction. One she had failed almost immediately.
Her gaze dipped before she could stop it, lingering for the smallest fraction of a second.
Brief. Involuntary.
Toward Mira’s lips. It was close. So close. Just moving an inch further would mean their lips would have touched, but she refrained from doing so. So instead, she changed course towards her hand.
Or more accurately, towards the ring.
The simple band sat comfortably on her finger as though it had always belonged there. Sunlight caught against the polished surface, making it glint.
Oh no.
Realizing too late that she had been staring far longer than necessary. She immediately diverted her gaze as though she’d been burned.
Unfortunately, Mira noticed. Her eyes followed what got the singer’s attention. Confusion furrowed her brows till it turned to suspicion. Raising her hand, she stared down at the thing that caught Rumi’s interest.
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
Rumi hardly dared to breathe. She stood frozen where she was, fingers curling against her palms as unease twisted tighter and tighter in her stomach.
Across from her, Mira remained perfectly still.
Her gaze never left the ring resting on her finger. She rotated it absentmindedly, studying the simple band with an intensity that made Rumi’s pulse spike.
She didn't speak.
Somehow, that frightened Rumi more than if she’d started yelling.
“…What,” Mira finally asked, her voice carrying the kind of dangerous calm that only appeared when she was one inconvenience away from snapping, “is that?”
“Nothing.”
The lie escaped before Rumi could stop it. The moment it left her mouth, she wanted to take it back.
Not because she wasn’t good at lying.
Quite the opposite.
Years of interviews, press conferences, and carefully crafted public answers had made deception come far too easily whenever she needed it.
Unfortunately, Mira had known her long enough to recognize a bad lie at a glance.
The pinkette stared at her. Then at the ring. Back to Rumi. Then the ring again.
It was the sort of look one reserved for someone who had just insisted the sky was green.
“You think this is nothing?” Disbelief bled steadily into exasperation. Mira lifted her hand, turning it over as though seeing the ring from another angle might somehow make it disappear. “Does this look like nothing to you?”
To emphasize her point, she thrust it forward. The ring seemed significantly more threatening up close. Rumi briefly wondered if spontaneous evaporation was a medically documented phenomenon. Because if it was, now felt like an excellent time to test the theory.
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Just words that got stuck in her throat that are stubborn enough to stay there.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance to let it out.
“Fucking hell, Rumi.” Mira dragged a hand through her hair, looking seconds away from a collapse. “I’m married.”
“I didn’t—” Rumi immediately tripped over her own words. “I mean, maybe it’s not real— it’s not—look, I’m in the same boat as you, okay? I don’t—”
The sentence died. Both women stood frozen in the bedroom.
Rumi stood frozen, hardly daring to breathe. Her pulse hammered relentlessly in her ears, each frantic beat urging her to say something—anything—to stop the situation from unraveling any further.
Then, painfully slowly, Mira lifted her gaze from the ring back to the singer. “…Rumi.”
Hearing her name spoken that quietly felt far more threatening than being yelled at. Mira held her own between them. Waiting. Steady. Unmoving.
“Show me your hand.”
Rumi stared at it as if it were going to bite her if she did.
A second passed. Maybe more.
Rumi honestly couldn't tell anymore. Her heartbeat thundered so loudly it drowned out everything else, leaving only a cold numbness creeping through her limbs. Her brain, ever helpful, offered nothing. At this rate, she was fairly certain her soul had already started filing its resignation.
Slowly, she raised a hand.
The movement felt impossibly heavy, as though gravity itself had decided this was a terrible idea and was doing everything in its power to stop her. Her fingers trembled despite her best efforts to steady them, betraying the panic she was desperately trying—and failing—to hide.
For a brief second, they hovered uncertainly in the space within. Then, with all the strength and force she could muster, her hand finally made contact with Mira’s own.
That alone nearly caused Rumi to die due to the lack of oxygen entering her lungs.
Mira, meanwhile, had gone unnervingly still. Her attention remained fixed on the gold band resting against her palm. Brown eyes stayed fixed on the ring, unwavering, like she was trying to make sense of something that refused to.
Even without the overhead light catching it properly, the ring sat gleaming on the finger of a famous K-pop icon.
Bright. Cruel. Unmistakably real.
Mira didn’t say anything. Her hand remained still beneath Rumi’s, rigid enough that the tension bled through the contact.
Nothing crossed her face. No anger. No disbelief. No visible emotion at all.
Rumi would have genuinely preferred yelling. At least yelling meant she knew where Mira stood.
This?
This terrifying, unreadable silence was far worse.
She shifted as the uncomfortable silence stretched. Her fingers twitched uselessly against Mira’s hand as she fought against the urge to pull it back and hide it behind her back. “… Can you please say something?” she muttered weakly.
“…This isn’t a joke,” Mira said, softer, quieter. Her hazel orbs finally met with hers.
She didn’t answer. Not because she thought any of this was funny—God, there was nothing remotely humorous about waking up married to your best friend—but because she genuinely didn’t know what to say.
Every possible response felt wrong. No matter how she tried to frame it, it only became more complicated in her head. Any explanation she gave would only make things worse—for Mira, for herself, for both of them. So, instead of speaking, Rumi did the only thing she could.
She stayed silent.
Mira’s hands gripped hers tighter. “…Tell me you’re messing with me.”
Still nothing.
That silence said everything Mira didn’t want it to. She exhaled through her nose. Slow. Controlled.
“... Shit.”
Rumi couldn’t help but agree wholeheartedly.