Chapter Text
Rumi froze as the speakers came to life with a melody she never, ever wanted to hear in a public space. It was her song, the secret one about her father, that she’d only shared with two people. The two people in front of her on stage.
•
Mira felt her back go ramrod straight as recognition clicked behind her widening eyes. No. She turned to the woman on her left, pleading silently with her partner. Their eyes met, both thinking the same thing.
•
Did you do this?
No! Did you?
I could never!
•
Zoey turned and looked over her right shoulder, watching confusion and horror and betrayal and pain ripple across Rumi’s face. She wanted to reach out to her unnie, take her hand and promise that she and Mira had nothing to do with this. The song was playing too loud to speak over, their mics cut and useless. Zoey stretched her fingers out to Rumi.
•
They’re the only ones who know about this song.
Rumi’s breathing became faster and faster as she tried to figure out what was happening and disconnect from it at the same time. Mira was yelling for the crew to kill the audio. Zoey was trying to comfort her. The thought of letting either of them touch her made Rumi’s skin crawl. She turned her back on them, fully intending to flee the scene when the massive screen at the back of the stage lit up with more of Rumi’s secrets. An image of Rumi with her back to the camera and her robe pulled down, face angled artistically to the side. Her burn scars were on full display, huge and high-resolution and staring down at her. Rumi’s knees threatened to give out. Mira took that photo. They sent it to Zoey while she was in the states. It should’ve been a private moment between the three of them. Now it was anything but.
She didn’t remember running to her dressing room, her mind snapped back to the present with the slam of the door. Rumi whimpered at the sound and pressed her back to the barrier. She curled up in the darkness and stopped fighting back the sobs that tore through her. How could they do this to her? The shock on their faces replayed in Rumi’s mind, clinging to the hope that they were not behind this by her fingernails. It couldn’t be them. It couldn’t be anyone else. Very few people knew about Rumi’s scars. Only Mira and Zoey knew about that song. No one else. Her band mates’ voices pushed into the room, both begging Rumi to open the door, pleading with her to believe them.
Rumi’s phone buzzed on the countertop and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. She couldn’t deal with Celine and her reprimands. Not today. The phone didn’t seem to care, vibrating again and again and again, until Rumi rose to silence it- maybe even destroy it.
Jinu. Not Celine, but Jinu. She’d made the conscious decision to distance herself from him when it seemed like there might be something growing between her and her roommates. He’d been confused, but hadn’t reacted with the ire or anger Rumi had expected. He’d given her space.
She fumbled with the device as she answered, wracked with pain of all kinds and asking him to come get her the hell out of here. He agreed, no questions asked. Rumi breathed a little easier, knowing she had an escape route. Now all she had to do was survive long enough to be rescued.
Her hands shook a little less as she pulled the door open and yelled, howled like a cornered beast, for everyone to back the fuck up. Rumi pushed into the startled crowd, not seeing any faces and not wanting to. Every attempt to speak to her was ignored. Every attempt to slow her down was shoved aside. Nothing mattered more than getting out. Out of the building and out of sight.
•
Bobby cursed his short stature as he tried to make contact with Rumi. Physically, verbally, hell, even eye contact would’ve been better than watching Rumi navigate her surroundings like a concussed amnesiac. Nobody knew where the photos and MP3 file came from, or claimed responsibility for letting them loose on the audience. Bobby grit his teeth and made a list in his mind. Solving this mystery would have to wait. His only priority now had to be Rumi. Once she was safe, he’d find out what Mira and Zoey knew and go from there.
The traumatized woman sped up as she neared the private exit performers usually used to bypass excited onlookers. He ordered everyone who wasn’t security to freeze, to give Rumi a clear path to the door and to let her through it. The remaining members of Huntrix were exempt from his command and they all knew it. Guards of varying roles followed Rumi out, leading Bobby, Zoey, and Mira just seconds after. The defensive employees did their job without flinching, spreading out to intercept anyone who might try to rush the stars. Thankfully, their location hadn’t yet reached the internet, leaving Bobby and the girls alone in the night air just outside the building.
“Rumi?” He tried, heart breaking at the survivalism in her posture. Rumi wasn’t with them, despite standing mere feet away. “Girls, what was that?”
Lights flashed from the shadows of the building next door, an engine started up and made Bobby’s hair stand on end.
Rumi flinched, then flung herself in the direction of the vehicle. She moved without grace, scrambling like a startled bug as if those headlights were her only salvation.
•
Rumi didn’t even know she’d been followed outside, let alone hear anyone calling her back as she left them in her wake. Jinu was here. Her nightmare would be over soon. She just had to make it to the car. Just make it to the car and fall inside and keep her head down until they were far, far away from here. The door was open when she reached it, the car beginning to move before she’d even pulled it shut behind herself.
“J-Jinu,”
“It’s okay!” He promised, arms moving as he operated her sanctuary with ease “I saw online. You don’t have to say anything.”
Relief rocked Rumi like thunder, knocking her mask out of place as she fell apart in his passenger seat.
•
“Fuck!” Mira slammed the sole of her boot against the bricks
Bobby shuffled forward. “Whose car is that?!”
“Jinu’s.” Zoey spat, more venom in her bubbly voice than Mira or Bobby had ever heard before. “She shouldn’t be with him! Not ever, but definitely not now.”
“What?”
Bobby’s clueless stare felt like sandpaper on Mira’s mind. “He’s bad news, Bobby. We didn’t say anything because Rumi wouldn’t have listened anyway. Goddamn it! Why didn’t we say anything?!”
Zoey moved toward Mira, unfazed by her rage as she kicked the wall again. “We have to find her. She took her phone. We can figure out where they’re going.”
Mira’s fists clenched. Of course Zoey had a plan. Thank god for Zoey and her plans. Mira nodded and followed her girlfriend back inside, the pair looking almost as haunted as Rumi had, racing to retrieve their phones from their shared dressing room.
“I’ve got her location, too!” Bobby reminded them, breathless and leaning on the doorframe to the private space “Get your stuff, we’ll go after her.”
Mira shoved her hyperactive device in her bag and took Zoey’s hand. They separated for just as long as it took to climb into Bobby’s car before reconnecting, Mira reaching from the passenger seat to feel Zoey trembling in the back.
“He’s gonna make her turn her location off.” Zoey whispered
“Don’t say that!” Mira snapped, knowing the maknae was right and hating that she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. “He can’t get away with this.”
“Why was he even there?” Bobby demanded
Mira’s blood ran cold before boiling in her belly.
Zoey blinked owlishly “What?”
“He was at the private entrance,” Bobby clarified “He started his car. He didn’t pull up, he was already there.”
Mira saw the moment the realization hit the rapper, felt their skin rub uncomfortably where they both tightened their grip.
“He set us up!” Zoey fumed “He set Rumi up! He’s behind the whole thing!”
Mira’s mind begged for release, to allow herself to stop fighting the sedimentary emotions that flooded her. She didn’t flinch when Zoey kicked the back of her seat and slammed her fists against the doors. Better the smaller woman let her rage out than Mira. There was no way Bobby’s car could survive the fury she forced down. Zoey could feel her feelings a little at a time and then reel them back in. Mira couldn’t. If she let herself give in now, she’d be no good to Rumi.
•
Rumi knew where she was. She was in a car. Jinu’s car. He was taking her somewhere safe. Rumi couldn’t imagine feeling truly safe ever again, but she trusted him. She didn’t have much choice. So she let go, let herself fall to pieces in his front seat. She cried and scratched and writhed and drifted outside of herself when it all got to be too much. How could this be happening? This shouldn’t be happening!
Through it all, Jinu never flinched. He never asked her to explain or told her to calm down. He just drove, taking as many back roads and side streets as possible, avoiding any and all prying eyes.
“You should turn off your location services.”
Rumi dragged her mind back into her brain. “What?”
“Whoever did this clearly knows no bounds and might be tracking you.”
“My location is only shared with Bobby, Celine, and the girls.”
Jinu gave Rumi a side-eyed stare before focusing again on the road.
“They wouldn’t.” She curled further into herself “None of them could’ve done this.”
“If you say so.”
Stomach churning and eyes burning, Rumi set her phone to airplane mode.
•
Zoey began to worry about the structural integrity of the car’s windows, the glass absorbing yet another strike from the side of her fist before she stilled. It wasn’t voluntary. The fit, nor the end of it. Zoey had several more minutes of pissed-off punches in her before Bobby’s phone let them know that they’d lost their objective. Being right didn’t usually taste like stomach bile.
Zoey wretched into a plastic bag Bobby pulled from nowhere as the car slowed to a stop.
“Why are we stopping?!” Mira made her feelings clear as ever, fingers jarringly gentle as she held back Zoey’s hair “We know where he lives! Let’s go!”
“Put it into the GPS, then we’ll call the police. They can probably get there before us, anyway.” Bobby waited for Zoey to be done puking before rejoining the flow of traffic “I’ll get us there, but one of you has to alert the authorities. And Celine.”
Zoey almost hurled again. They hadn’t told Celine when they learned the truth about Jinu because Rumi begged them not to. She did have a tendency toward over- protection when it came to Rumi, so the girls were sympathetic to her desire to keep his past between them, but it hadn’t felt right to Mira or Zoey. She looked up at the dancer, her phone poised halfway to her ear as the same memory landed on her thoughts like a wet blanket. A wet blanket made of razor wire.
Mira lowered her phone and handed it to Zoey. “Here. Give me yours. You talk to the cops, I’ll call Celine.”
“No,” Zoey pushed it away “Celine won’t like that I’m freaking out, but it’s more important that the police be able to understand what we tell them. They won’t understand me like this. Celine will. I’ll call her.”
Mira clearly wanted to argue, but Zoey had made an excellent point. Whether Mira’s lack of tears was a trauma response or an appropriate delegation of priorities, dispatch needed clarity that Zoey’s raw voice couldn’t provide. Mira dialed and waited.
•
Celine had never driven so fast in her life. Not that it mattered. By the time she reached Jinu’s address, the police had already let them know that he wasn’t there and hadn’t been for several days, according to his neighbors. Celine felt her legs go numb from the knees down as she held Zoey’s shaking body in one arm, the other still hanging in the air after Mira began pacing.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Kang.” Bobby bowed deep “I had no idea this man was a danger to Rumi. I would’ve done something-“
“It’s not your fault.” Celine hadn’t heard herself sound so pathetic in decades. “Rumi has always been good at keeping things to herself. She’s strong. She’ll get through this.”
•
Rumi had no idea where she was. The city lights had stopped flashing by some time ago, the roads becoming emptier and more worn. Rumi sat up, wiped her face, and frowned. “Where are we going?”
“My uncle’s place. Where we had Brady’s birthday, remember?”
“Why not go back to your place?”
“Same reason you turned off your phone.”
Rumi looked down at the motionless device on her lap. “It’s not off, just on airplane mode.”
Surprise flashed over his face for only a second. “Really? I’d have thrown it out the window by now.”
“Not everyone wants to live off grid, Jinu.” Rumi had hoped the teasing comment would cut through the tension she’d only just noticed. Jinu gripped the wheel, hard, and drove like the roads were his. He’s angry on my behalf, she reasoned. Her internal voice had never sounded so hollow.
“You’re staring.”
“Sorry,” Rumi looked down again “You just seem… off, I guess.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. I’m not exactly being normal myself.”
“Exactly.” His shoulders relaxed ever so slightly “It’s been a crazy night. Once we get to the house, you can sleep it off or shower or whatever you need to do to regroup. Deal with all this tomorrow. Sound good?”
Rumi hated putting off problems. It felt like tying a ghost to her waist, like begging to be haunted by would’s and could’s and should’s. Mira usually rolled her eyes, reminding her to relax. Zoey normally invited her to join whatever mindless activity she’d chosen to wind down with. Shaking her friend’s faces from her thoughts, Rumi sank back down into her seat. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“Damn right it does.” Jinu’s hand slipped off the wheel and landed on Rumi’s leg. It wasn’t as comforting as she thought it should be.
•
Celine fumed behind her carefully neutral expression. The more she learned about this man, the more the idea of him being alone with her little girl scared the shit out of her. It wasn’t often she let herself think of Rumi like this, as hers, but she couldn’t resist that temptation and fight off her sudden craving for Jinu’s blood. Not at the same time. So she stood and took Mira’s place, marching from one end of the room to the other and back again as if carving a rut in the floor would reveal some sort of Hail Mary that could save Rumi.
Celine knew she was being watched. Mira and Zoey’s eyes flicked her way every few minutes, hoping their mentor would come up with something to solve everything and put the world back on its axis. She knew the police were likely trying to find a chink in her armor, a reason to turn their investigative spotlight on her if only so they could say they had a lead. She knew what few members of the staff had been allowed into the penthouse, for questioning and for briefing, were trying to be polite, but they’d never seen her being quite so human before and she couldn’t hold their curiosity against them. The only gaze that made Celine want to shrivel up and disappear was Mi-yeong’s.
It was an old, old coping mechanism. One Celine thought she’d outgrown after the loss of her brother— until the day after Rumi was hers. Celine saw the dead woman everywhere she looked, felt her eyes on her every waking moment, so she decided to talk to the ghost. Completely opposite to how she’d been in life, Mi-yeong had nothing to say in return. For the only time in 20 years of her spectral companionship, Celine found herself grateful for the silence. She wasn’t strong enough to look the apparition in the face that night and she damn sure wasn’t strong enough to hear her lost love’s thoughts on the situation.
When Rumi was only a few months into her new life with her new guardian, she’d gone blue in the face from choking on a piece of a toy. Celine would never forget the relief she felt when those tiny lungs began to wheeze back to life. In that moment, she knew she could never survive a world in which she let anything happen to Rumi. If she hadn’t been able to get that fucking plastic out of her throat, she’d have killed herself right then and there. She couldn’t imagine any other recourse. As she stared down the same existential hypothetical, she found herself begging to be sent to hell in her afterlife. Not just because she’d deserve such a fate for letting Rumi be hurt, but also because the idea of having to look Mi-yeong in the eyes, the real Mi-yeong, and tell her that she’d broken her promise was worse than any hell any devil could come up with.
If anyone saw her flinch when she finally sat back down, they knew better than to mention it. What would she tell them, anyway? That she’d felt a dead woman’s hand on her arm and recoiled, not because of the supernatural element but because Celine didn’t deserve her comfort? Getting locked up for losing her goddamn mind wouldn’t help Rumi.
•
Rumi stared in horror, wishing she was anywhere else. How had she been so stupid?! She’d walked with Jinu’s guidance from the car to the front door without even looking around for signs of any other people nearby. It hadn’t occurred to her to watch for mailboxes or driveways on the way here, either. So Rumi had no clue who, if anyone, was nearby except for Jinu. Just how he wanted it.
He’d brought her inside and led her to the shower, slipping her phone into his own pocket under the guise of removing the temptation to go online.
The fatigue of the day was not only catching up to her but trying to tackle her to the floor. She didn’t have it in her to question him. Hell, she barely had it in her to stay on her feet for the entire shower. It helped that she didn’t bother washing her hair, just undoing the braid and letting the water soak her loose waves. The towel left on the counter was large, but not enough to have any unused surface left when she finished squeezing her hair as dry as it was gonna get. Rumi sighed and cracked the door open. “Jinu?”
“In here!”
Rumi rolled her eyes. He could be so lazy sometimes. Wrapping up in the fabric that was almost as wet as her skin, Rumi ventured into the hall. She heard his voice echo toward her from the bedrooms and tried to remember which one he’d stayed in when they were last there. She’d guessed wrong, and found herself facing the unimaginable yet again.
The desk was tidy, but the wastebasket next to it overflowed with paper. She’d almost missed it. Part of her wished she had. The part of her that won needed answers.
Trembling, Rumi took a step into the room and reached out for the page that made her stomach drop. Building schematics. For a concert venue. One she’d been in so many times, including during the worst moment of her life.
The words stopped being legible, whether due to the vibration of the paper in her hand or the tears in her eyes, Rumi couldn’t be sure. She needed to be sure. So she took another step and shook the computer mouse, guessing the password as she prayed she was wrong and nearly screaming at what she saw next.
The photos.
The song and its lyrics.
The articles Celine swore had been scrubbed from every website possible.
It was all there.
And so was Rumi.
And so was Jinu.
•
Zoey liked to think she knew Mira better than anyone, except maybe Rumi. The idea that the three of them weren’t exactly equal never seemed to make any sense in her mind. All labels aside, they were her girls. Zoey’s girls, and she knew them better than anyone.
The urge to beat herself up over this was strong, her mind insisting that she should’ve done something different, done something to prevent the day from ending like this. It was bullshit, she knew. But usually Mira was the one to remind her of that. It’s how they operated. Zoey spiraled and Mira stopped her in her tracks. Mira got stuck in her head and Zoey set her free. It’s how they’d always been.
Zoey knew what was different about this time. She was the only force on earth that could break Zoey and Mira of their patterns. Celine had tried, helping them lose bad habits and learn new skills as their debut date drew nearer and nearer. But only Rumi could truly lead them, could truly get them to change course with one word, could fit so neatly in between them without acting as a wedge. She had to come back. She had to. The world simply couldn’t keep turning if she didn’t.
•
Rumi didn’t know how long she’d been there, locked in that room with a black eye and a concussion and no way to call for help. Why did she confront him with what she found? Why couldn’t she just pretend she’d never seen? Pretend she didn’t know?
“Tell me you didn’t do this,” she’d growled, anger fueled by the emotionless look in Jinu’s eyes “How could you do this?!”
Snap.
She’d struck him first, sure, but her hands weakly landing against his chest didn’t excuse the way his hand cracked across her face, sending her spinning to the floor and losing her grip on the towel that covered her.
“How could I not? You were going to leave me. For them!” Of course it was the thought of Mira and Zoey that got a rise out of him. Not the evidence of his betrayal, not the proof of his stalking and plotting and scheming, but the thought of the people who had seen through him from day one. If Rumi survived, she owed her girls one hell of an apology. “They could never understand. Not like I can. You and me, we’re the same.”
“I’m nothing like you!” Rumi snarled, rising to her feet some distance away from him
“Denial.” Jinu chuckled “Your father and mine, monsters. And the two of us? We carry them in our veins. In our hearts and in our minds, Rumi. Don’t you get it?”
“That’s your trauma talking. You have to fight it!”
“That’s not how it works!”
“Yes, it is!”
Slam!
Rumi’s head hit the floor and she saw stars.
“Is it working?” Jinu scoffed “I’ll be here, when you’re ready to talk. Until next time.”
Rumi waited for the door to close before curling in on herself and praying there wouldn’t be a next time.
•
Mira felt the planet grind to a halt, then tip onto its side and start spinning at a wholly unnatural speed. It was the only explanation for the soul-deep vertigo she felt when Bobby ran into the room and announced that he had Rumi’s location back. She was about an hour away and it had been so fucking long since any of them had last seen her. Mira’s mind whirred and whirled, churning out the worst case scenarios she could think of until Zoey’s hands found either side of her face.
“She’s hurt, Zo. I just know it.”
“Me too.” Zoey’s bright eyes were bloodshot and distant “Lets go help our girl.”
Mira was following Zoey into Celine’s back seat before she’d finished processing the younger woman’s words. Time was passing too slow, their police escort not moving much faster, as Mira’s heart showed both how it’s done. The muscle slammed in her chest like the recoil of a shotgun, over and over and over. She knew Rumi was hurt. She wished she didn’t. She wished she knew more. “Did anyone call an ambulance?”
“Baby, you already asked that twice.” Zoey gave her hand a patient squeeze. “Do you remember what I said last time?”
“Bobby called.”
“That’s right.”
“They’re gonna meet us there.”
“Mhm.”
“She’s hurt, Zoey.”
“I know.” Mira leaned into the arms that pulled her close “We’ll be with her soon. We’ll help her feel better. She’ll be okay.”
•
Celine’s hands ached as she finally released the steering wheel. She didn’t bother with the keys, had barely put the car in park, before bursting out and running blindly into the building. She’d have to be told much, much later just how many obstacles she’d blown through to get to where she knew she was needed.
Rumi was curled up on the floor, showing far more skin than she’d ever been comfortable with and hiding the worst of it under a bath towel as she screamed at anyone who drew near.
Celine dropped to her knees and crawled forward, speaking softly and never taking her eyes off of Rumi. “I’m here, little love. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Rumi did a double take, blinking through salt water.
Celine was at her side before Rumi even considered reaching for her. She gathered her into her arms, trying her best not to make any skin to skin contact. She knew. She didn’t want to know and she didn’t want to be right and she knew, she knew that she was. When a pair of latex gloves appeared at her side, Celine didn’t hesitate.
•
Zoey had seen a trashed house before. She had been to wild parties and come home from school after one of her parents worse fights. She had snapped out of hyperfocus to see that someone had made an utter mess of her space. She expected the inside of the cabin to look like that. It didn’t. It should’ve.
Zoey let Mira pull her through the house, following Celine to where most of the police presence seemed to be. Zoey held her breath and waited for the carnage as they rounded the corner. It wasn’t there. The destruction she’d anticipated wasn’t present. The bed seemed to be the worst of it- indicating a struggle Zoey couldn’t let herself look at. Then she saw it, what she’d been bracing for. She never could’ve prepared enough.
Rumi shook like a leaf in a hurricane, blood smeared across her skin. Please, God, Zoey prayed, let it be his blood and not hers. The bruises forming on Rumi’s face lent no help to the outcome she wished for. Between the red streaks and the purple marks, the shaking and the crying, Zoey had never seen anyone look so wrecked. Least of all Rumi. Their lead singer, the oldest of the three, the one who seemed to wield her PR mask like a master puppeteer. Rumi never looked disheveled in front of strangers. Zoey almost didn’t believe her eyes.
Crime scenes should look like crime scenes. Evil should look like evil. Rumi should look like Rumi.
Nothing made any fucking sense.
•
“Where is he?” Mira seethed, eyes locking on the nearest police officer and glaring with a darkness that seemed to startle the stranger
“We haven’t found him yet, Miss Hong.”
“Then what the fuck are you standing around for?!”
“Mira,” Bobby raised his voice louder than anyone knew he could “They need photos and a statement and evidence. They need to do their job.”
“I swear to god, if you’re about to tell me to calm down, I’ll put my fist through a fucking wall.”
“You’re not who I’m worried about.”
Mira deflated. Bobby was right. Rumi didn’t need anger and she certainly didn’t need more violence. From where Mira was standing, what Rumi needed most urgently was to be able to breathe.
Celine had been able to get close, a lot closer than the waiting medics, but her presence wasn’t calming Rumi down. A glance to her left told Mira that she and Zoey were on the same page. At least something still made sense.
•
Rumi didn’t know how long she’d been crying, only that she wanted to stop. She needed to stop. She couldn’t breathe and she was bleeding. She needed medical attention and she needed to give the cops her statement and she needed to apologize to her girls and she needed to be able to fucking breathe. Celine’s arms around her and the soft, motherly words she’d whispered into the mere millimeters of space between them had been enough to bring Rumi back to herself, only to be met with an entirely new problem. She didn’t know how bad of a shape she was in when she’d been elsewhere. It wasn’t until her senses came back to her- or her to them- that she realized how little she felt and how much she still couldn’t feel. There was pain, on every level, that she couldn’t place. That she had expected. But the fact that she couldn’t feel all of her extremities was terrifying. Did she have a spinal injury? Massive blood loss? Was it just shock? As if shock was something that could “just” be. The confusion became a hurricane in Rumi’s mind, stealing more and more oxygen from her cells, until she found herself in the eye of the storm.
Time slowed. She tasted air. A tingling sensation crept into her fingers and toes.
Those eyes.
Rumi knew those eyes.
Rumi loved those eyes.
•
The apology that tripped past Rumi’s lips hit Bobby like a shot of tequila, burning in his belly and crushing his voice and firmly planting a haze in his head. I’m so sorry. It was so Rumi it was almost comforting. She was still in there. As if her reaction to Mira and Zoey hadn’t made that perfectly clear. The second the singer saw her friends, her entire body began to return to normal, like it had been waiting for their presence to be safe to do so. Her eyes cleared up just enough to focus on their faces and the rest followed. She still leaned on Celine, but less out of necessity than preference.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, pretty girl.” Zoey cooed, reaching a gloved hand out to Rumi. Their fingers found each other like magnets. “You didn’t do anything to us.”
“I thought you might’ve done th-this. At the show, I thought-“
“And you had every right to.” Mira insisted, scooting forward and wrapping her hand over the point of contact between the others. “You had no reason to suspect him. He set us up. He tricked everyone.”
“Not you.” Rumi choked “You knew. And then Zoey found it all online and I-“
“That doesn’t matter anymore, Ru.” Zoey drew a little closer “You’re all we care about. Especially right now.”
Bobby bit his tongue. Oh?
“We just want you to be okay.” Mira nodded, “Will you let the paramedics look you over?”
“Don’t leave.”
“We won’t.” “God, no!”
Rumi nearly crumbled. She’d sounded so scared, as if asking them to stay had even been necessary, as if there was any chance of them letting her out of their sight.
Oh.
Bobby turned and began shooing people out, not giving a damn about credentials or procedures. If Rumi was finally gonna let the medics help her, he wanted it to be as painless as possible.
•
Celine knew Rumi needed her girls. She hadn’t expected the effects to be so immediate. One second her baby is falling apart in her arms, the next she’s speaking, and then she’s agreeing to let strangers close. Celine remembered what that kind of love felt like.
“Mama?”
Celine locked eyes with the source of that small word. “I’m right here.”
“I can’t… Will you… It’s just, I-“
Celine waited patiently for Rumi to get the words out until suddenly she didn’t need her to. “Okay. Okay, Rumi. I understand. I’ll be right outside. Okay?”
Rumi nodded and started a tearful apology.
“No, no, no. None of that. You get to decide what happens next. If you want me to step out, I’ll step out. If you want me to come back, just say the word.”
Rumi nodded again, this time pressing her lips together and looking so, so much like Mi-yeong as she did.
Celine gave Rumi one last squeeze before gently surrendering her protective position to Mira and Zoey. The two had eyes only for Rumi, surrounding her in a way that would’ve felt claustrophobic to Celine but instantly comforted Rumi. A few stray tears slipped out before Celine reached the door, closing it behind herself and allowing the rest to fall only after it clicked shut.
Rumi was hurt. Celine hadn’t been able to stop it. She couldn’t take the pain away or kiss it better or even tell her how long it would take to heal. But it didn’t matter. Rumi didn’t need all of that. She had what she needed.
She needed Zoey’s soft voice and softer hands, light enough to keep Rumi out of her own head without being superficial or insincere. She let Rumi in and showed her all the chaos inside, making Rumi feel comfortable enough to admit to a little of her own chaos in a way that no one else ever had. Zoey was the air Rumi breathed, whether it was a raucous laugh or a soothing exhale.
She needed Mira’s big presence and bigger heart, strong enough to meet Rumi’s stubbornness head-on without ever crossing her boundaries. She’d push them and test them, showing Rumi where her comfort zone could use a little flexibility and supporting her when she pushed herself a little too hard in her endless pursuit of her own worthiness. Mira was the ground beneath Rumi’s feet, the safe haven she could retreat behind and the warmth of a reliably rising sun.
Celine ached at the memory of a love like that, wishing with her whole being that she could tell Mi-yeong their baby was gonna be okay. She was strong and adaptable and even when she couldn’t be those things, she found people who could and who loved her no matter what. Celine read once that all life came from the ocean and felt a static shock tug at the muscles around her mouth, goading her into the memory of a smile. Mi-yeong was the blood in Rumi’s veins, Celine the sea that sustained her, but Mira and Zoey were Rumi’s whole world and she was theirs. She could get through anything so long as she had them, and they weren’t going anywhere.