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“I asked Celine to kill me.”
Rumi doesn’t know what compelled her to say that. The sound of chopsticks clattering to the floor, though, stokes an immediate regret that urges her to get up and run.
She knows better now. Running makes things worse. She had to learn that lesson the hardest way imaginable. So she swallows the lump in her throat and curls into a meek little ball, waiting for Zoey or Mira to put her out of her misery and say something.
The silence draws on for much longer than anyone would find comfortable. Such a brazen confession. They’d been having such a pleasant evening, too. Maybe she’s disturbed them so badly that they can’t bear to look at her, let alone speak? Rumi’s patterns begin to sizzle and glow. They flicker to the rhythm of her anxiously beating heart.
As luck would have it, being true to herself at long last hasn’t changed the more tiresome intricacies of her half-demon physiology. She’s a walking mood ring.
“…When?” Mira finally asks. Her tone is unreadable. Her flat affect has only ever been endearing, but now, it’s stirring Rumi’s lunch.
Rumi shuffles her knees close to her chest. “About a month ago,” she chokes out. “Right after—I mean, during the whole Gwi-Ma thing.” She won’t mention what specifically was her breaking point. The guilt would eat them alive. Then it would eat her alive. It’d be a terrible and pointless feedback loop.
That’s what she tells herself, anyway. To feel better about telling half-truths. To not see this as a relapse. Her patterns burn hotter. They sting around the edges. She flexes her fingers, digging them into her sleeves, fighting a compulsion to rake nails where it burns.
A pair of arms are suddenly snapping around her waist. They ensnare her like a pair of bolas to cattle. A shuddering puff of air tickles her neck, and she realizes it’s Zoey on the verge of tears. It takes a lot for Rumi not to backpedal and pretend she never opened her stupid mouth.
Leaning forward, a pang of consternation breaks through Mira’s practiced poker face. “I wish I knew what to say,” she confesses. She’s sounding remarkably calm, though. All things considered. “That’s…”
“Selfish?”
“I was going to say heavy.” Mira frowns, looking almost offended. “Like, I’m definitely going to be crying about this once the shock wears off. My brain really hasn’t wrapped around the bomb you just dropped.”
Rumi winces. “Right. Sorry.”
With a weepy sniffle, Zoey finds her voice. Her grip on Rumi is fierce, like she’s worried their leader could disintegrate if she lets go. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding her?” she croaks. “Celine, I mean.”
Lips pressed into a line, Rumi lets out a mirthless chuckle. “It’s part of it, yeah.” It’s not all of it, though. That can of worms is too cavernous to crack open tonight. Decades of well-intentioned shame, all leading Rumi down a path that would eventually have her aching for an end to it.
At least once daily ever since, her mind wanders to what might’ve been if Celine had done it. Would Gwi-Ma have won? Would Jinu be alive? What would Celine do with herself after? What would become of Zoey and Mira? The fans? Bobby?
Her patterns ripple—a wave of heat that crawls through her limbs. It’s going to be a long time before she can fully unpack her feelings toward her surrogate mother figure.
Meanwhile, her girls are still staring at her with wrinkled, worried expressions. And in a burst of neglected impulse control, Zoey peppers her lips along Rumi’s pulse, an action that has a different kind of heat creeping up Rumi’s neck.
These moments of not-so-platonic affection have become more frequent since the Idol Awards. Rumi doesn’t know what to make of it yet, but she’s afraid they’ll stop if she acknowledges it outright.
“I’m glad she didn’t do it,” Mira whispers. She cards her fingers through Rumi’s hair, stopping to thumb the bend of her ear. It imparts pleasant tingles all across Rumi’s scalp. “I’d never forgive her for taking you from us.” Zoey nods her assent, as her lips are too occupied with Rumi’s neck to say it.
Each kiss grows more fevered, lips lightly parted, just enough to pull a breathy shiver from their recipient. “Okay, okay, Zoey,” Rumi finally nudges the girl away, her cheeks on fire and her patterns doubly so.
Tonight just isn’t a good time for the conversation they’d need to have if Zoey keeps going.
Despite whining like a kicked puppy, Zoey must know this as well as anybody. She backs off without argument. “Sorry! Sorry.” She huffs embarrassedly and decides that the floor is suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. “I just—when you said that, I—” She curls into herself. “I really, really need you to know how much you mean to me.”
'It’s literally life or death' goes unsaid.
Rumi exhales softly. Before she can give her answer, though, Mira is cutting in. “Me too. I’m no good with stuff like this, but it’d seriously mess me up if you died. You… You know that, right?” She pierces Rumi with her gaze. She drills straight through her, to her heart, where her desperation can be fully conveyed.
“Girls, I know.” Rumi takes both their hands in her own and gives them a comforting squeeze. She traces their knuckles with tender sweeps of her thumb. “I haven’t doubted that once since we defeated Gwi-Ma.”
“Have you thought about dying since then?” Mira tersely asks, sounding more dire than she ever has in her life. Which is a high bar to clear.
And, well…
A lie would be so delicious here. It splays out sweetly on the tip of Rumi’s tongue, tempting her with simplicity and status quo. She clenches her teeth (have they gotten sharper?), her patterns thrumming as she decides whether or not to violate their trust again. She feels like she’s been doused with ice water. An adrenaline filled shiver claws up her spine to prove it.
“Rumi?” Zoey urges, sounding so unbelievably sad.
“I, uh…” She swallows thickly. She squeezes her eyes shut, which have adopted their demonic amber hue. “I… It’s not, like… I don’t want to… I just think sometimes…” That’s all she can manage before her tongue becomes a lead bearing in her mouth.
Thankfully, it’s enough for her girls. Zoey reclaims her spot pressed against Rumi’s front, now with unfathomable urgency. Mira moves closer as well and clings to Rumi’s back. Her brain must’ve finally come to terms with the conversation they’re having, because she’s soon weeping fully into Rumi’s neck.
She clutches her with all the fondness and regret in the world. Zoey does the same; their lyricist blubbers incoherently until her breath leaves her. Rumi joins in not long after.
It’s cathartic.
Nobody keeps track of the minutes that pass before their group crying session fizzles out. They wordlessly hold each other for a while longer after that, and Rumi can only imagine that Mira and Zoey are thinking the same thing that she is: Thank God we still get to have this.
“Thanks for telling us,” Mira finally murmurs, always the first to break these kinds of silences.
“Love you, Rumi,” Zoey says. The effects of her bawling have left her voice raspy and raw.
“So much,” Mira finishes for her.
And as Rumi exists here, surrounded by warmth and tangled limbs and slowly drying tears, she knows she’ll eventually be thanking Celine for not honoring her dying wish.
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