Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumi wakes up before her girls. Always. 

It's something about the silence of the early morning which she loves beyond all belief. The hustle and bustle below juxtaposed with the utter stillness of her room. The mini-forest on her balcony soaking up the sun, her meditative morning routine. She likes it. It's her small moment of complete peace, where she can pretend her patterns are gone and her girls are outside the door. 

And when she opens the door, she'll welcome them with bare arms and they'll look at her like-

Well. Like- something. Like she's enough. Like she's Rumi, human Rumi. Their Rumi.

Her girls know she likes her morning routine, they respect her wishes to the point even lovely Zoey messages her instead of calling her before eight in the morning (though Zoey is almost never up by then). Mira cooks breakfast for her later, after a small break and breakfast with Zoey (Rumi has always wanted to join them, but she has never been selfless enough to give up her moments of humanity).

So the bang, bang, banging at her door is concerning.

She slips her headphones off and is wrenching the door open before she can process why she's so afraid. 

Zoey's on the other side, teary-eyed and already racing away with a pile of medicinal bottles in her hands.

"Mira'ssickandidontknowwhattodosoifigureificoul-!" Her words dissolve into ramblings but she could recognize Mira's name and Zoey's love for their dancer even if Rumi had her eyes torn out and her ears ripped off, so she races past Zoey and stands in Mira's doorway.

There is a distinctly Mira-shaped lump beneath the bed-sheets and Rumi ponders on the politeness of knocking or ignoring it. 

But then Mira groans and a vicious, visible shiver rips through her blanketed body. 

She's at her bedside before she knows it. Carefully reaching for the edges of the blanket which Mira has shoved beneath herself, cocooning herself inside while her body overheats.

"I- Rumi." Mira whimpers and she shushes her, cooing softly when Mira lets her bring the blanket up to reveal their beautiful visual's face.

"Shh... You're okay, Mira. Let me see, you're okay."

She presses her tongue against the edges of her teeth, lest her chin warble.

Mira is shaky, panting, her eyes try to roll back into her head when she looks at Rumi and the wave of fear that washes over her almost roots her to the ground. Mira is sick, sick and Rumi can't fight this off, can only be there until she heals in her own time.

By all means it seems to be a simple fever, but Mira is sick, so sick, and Rumi can't snap her fingers and protect her.

She's their leader, she's supposed to - wants to, dearly and devotedly and despairingly - protect them.

Right. Leader.

A glance behind her reveals Zoey on the ground, rummaging through the piles of medicinal bottles of syrups and pills, some are colour-coded, some are not. She can see the ibuprofen pills in a pink bottle which has rolled off and is lying halfway behind the door.

"Zoey." Zoey whirls her head around, tears now fully cascading down her cheeks. Her hands twitch with the desire to hold her, to bring her into her arms, but Mira needs her medicine first and then the 'stay-and-wait' part can begin.

"The pills are behind the door." Zoey's on it before she can finish her words, grabbing the bottle and racing to put them into Rumi's outstretched palm.

She puts them on the nightstand and takes the time to beckon Zoey closer. Zoey shivers, mouth falling open slightly when Rumi puts a hand on the nape of her neck and brings her face in until their foreheads are touching.

"You will be fine." Rumi says quietly. Zoey swallows audibly, tears still drip, drip, dripping from her chin to land on Rumi's pants. "Mira will be fine, it will just take time, Zoey."

Her sweet maknae nods and Rumi squeezes her hand for a moment, relishing in the display of trust when Zoey just lets out a breath and closes her eyes. She could crush her neck like a soda can, but she won't, and Zoey believes that too.

I love you. Rumi almost says. "Could you please bring me the thermometer and a glass of water?" Is what leaves her mouth instead. Zoey nods and is away in seconds like a dagger let loose from Rumi's palm. Sometimes that is what she imagines their youngest to be, a sharp, deadly, knife that has carefully and lovingly been placed into Rumi's hand. If she drops it, it might shatter, or it might let her pick it back up again. 

She reaches into the blanket and puts her hand on Mira's cheek. Rumi takes the time to carefully note Mira leaning into the touch. 

'Shes in pain, vulnerable.' Her mind rationalizes. 'She probably wants comfort and is seeking it out through skinship, we shouldn't let her out of our sight.'

And, traitorously, some greedy side of her whispers, 'Our immune system is hearty, we could comfort her. Have her and Zoey all to-'

Mira whines. Rumi sits on the edge of the bed, bending down and lifting the blanket to shush Mira's whimper when the cool air rushes in. She ducks her head inside, letting her breaths wash over Mira's face who nuzzles closer at the body heat suddenly offered like a sacrifice on an alter. Rumi would slice a knife down her arm's artery and let the blood coat Mira whole if it would keep her warm, but that is a musing that is safe for the dark of nighttime and should be left behind-

Mira scoots closer and nuzzles Rumi's face. Lets out a sigh of relief. 

Rumi's heart pangs.

She smiles, feeling the choking of love grip her throat before two decades of media training take over her and she settles herself. Thankfully, her lapse doesn't seem to have been noticed with Mira's cheek pressed to her own. They lie there for a few moments and Rumi calculates the quickest set of moves to wrap Mira in her embrace after she takes the blanket off her.

"Mira." Mira lets out a shaky breath at her whisper. "Mira, darling, I need to lift the blanket."

"It's cold."

"I know, but you won't feel better like this."

All she gets is a shake of the head and Mira pulling back to look at her with bleary, pained eyes. Rumi's hand is around the side of Mira's neck before she knows it, almost, almost, completely enveloping it's circumference.

"Mira, I'm going to take the blanket off you." She says calmly, leader steel bleeding into her voice. Mira's throat bobs under her touch and she knows she isn't imagining the way Mira is relaxing, leaning into her touch like she trusts Rumi to handle her shattered, jagged, self with a grip tight enough to hold her together.

(A confession from long ago, whispered in the dark of a blanket-fort, courtesy of Zoey.

"I've always had to be the one who helped me." Mira's voice, quiet and brittle. A small huff of a laugh. "But, every time someone's tried to be there, they're always so gentle. That hurts more than nothing, because I still have to do everything while they just-"

A shaky breath. "While they just break me apart for their own self-satisfaction."

'Sometimes, affection feels like being hollowed out.' Rumi had thought. 'I know.'

The fact that Mira knew that feeling, knew to shy away from love, had ripped Rumi apart more than she thinks hiding the patterns ever did.)

"Mira." She says again when Mira's foggy gaze goes sharpens. Her beautiful, lovely, steel-edged and whip-smart dancer, her soulmate's eyes snap to her with all the calling of a soldier at attention. "I am taking the blankets off you."

Her other hand rises to cup Mira's cheek. "You can lean on me for warmth, okay? I'll keep you warm, not the blanket."

'Yes, she needs me. Her and Zoey, they only need me.' Her worst nature whispers and she imagines slitting its throat in her mind. Lets her head duck down to kiss Mira's temple even as her hand leaves her neck to grab onto the blanket's edges.

The padding of feet, the clink of glass hitting table. Crucially, Zoey's voice. "Rumi, I got the water. And- the thermometer."

"Thank you, Zoey." She says softly. "Do you mind going and heating up some water on the stove?"

"Ofcourse not! I'll get right on that." She stifles a laugh at the sound of Zoey running away, the slight tap of the door hitting the wall as she, probably, stumbles into it.

"She's going to burn it down." Mira says with wry humor and Rumi takes that moment of lightness to carefully unwrap Mira from the armour of cloth she's wrapped around herself.

"I'll put out the fire. It's okay." She assures her. Mira doesn't fight Rumi's hands as they free her, shivering viciously when Rumi finally manages to pull the entire blanket off and carefully throws it on top of the chair Mira has for her vanity table. It lands perfectly, thankfully, if it knocked anything off Mira would find all her strength just to get up and fix it.

"Rumi." Mira calls for her but Rumi is already crawling onto the mattress to cocoon Mira. Rumi herself is warm, has always run warm even underneath the white turtlenecks and jacket. Currently, she lets Mira slip her hands under her hoodie, wary of the single layer of an undershirt separating Mira's hands from the patterns on her stomach.

Mira wiggles under her body, grabs onto Rumi like a koala hugging a tree branch, and sighs. 

She smiles, pressing a kiss into Mira's cheek before humming.

"Come on," She slips her hands under Mira's armpits, pulling her up into a sitting position. Mira lets herself be propped up against the pillows, arms flailing under Rumi's hoodie to get out and help; Rumi stops her with a simple "Relax."

Mira lets her gently pull her chin down, placing a single pill on her tongue. Lets her mouth hang open as Rumi presses the glass to her lips and drinks greedily. Leans forward.

"You're too nice." Her beloved dancer whispers into the crook of Rumi's neck. "You're too nice to me."

"I think I'm not nice enough to you." She chuckles, letting her hand rise to cradle the back of Mira's head as she slips the thermometer in the woman's armpit. "You should get nice things, Mira. I want you to."

Rumi says such things, struggling not to let the truth trapped between her lips slip out even as Mira shakes her head and attempts to pull away. Because the painful truth is, she's not the lyricist, and so she has no idea how to say that Mira, Zoey, her girls were made for Softness. It is a gift they both share, a gift they give to each other and attempt to press into her hands in early morning breakfasts and late night water bottles even as she only takes the morsels and refuses the feast they present. It is - 'it' being emotional vulnerability, 'it' being comfort - something that they get and deserve freely, openly, belovedly.

They are made for these things, made for the kindness that humans exact on each other.

Rumi is not. But just because she can't take, doesn't mean she can't give. She is not made for these things but her girls are, and Rumi can drown them in the affection she wants to give even as she recoils from any attempt to reach back.

And Mira, her dear Mira, is made for love, for unconditional love, in a way that Rumi can't quite describe. Mira loves and cares so deeply and completely that Rumi sometimes wants to break into her family's mansion if only to make her family forget the love Huntr/x's visual once gave them so freely, wants to greedily hoard the very memory of it away from people, wants to let the bite of jealousy crawling up her throat when Mira signs a poster for a fan with a smile come free, finally, and hoard her girls away. 

Mira is love and softness personified. Rumi's mirror but where Rumi remains hidden, Mira has, fearfully but bravely, put herself forward to both of them. Let herself speak freely and open her heart to more pain, to more hurt, and had only bit back a smile and her tears when Rumi and Zoey gave her nothing but affection in response. Mira is the devotion of knowing her gokdo will protect Rumi's side in a battle, of tending to Rumi's plants when she's too busy and can't trust the housekeepers, of learning to cook so she could make the foods Rumi and Zoey loved.

Rumi takes score of the people she loves by what they teach her. If Celine taught her what it meant to leave behind softness and to find comfort in a protector you will never doubt or see falter, if Zoey taught her lightheartedness and how to find whimsy, joy and wonder, in (almost) every aspect of the world, Mira has taught her love without the need to shout it out. 

Has taught her the meaning of love so near plentiful it borders on unconditional.

But she doesn't know how to say that, so instead she just pulls away slightly, looking back at Zoey as her youngest band-mate bounds into the room.

"Oh, Mira." Zoey blinks, smiling at the sight of them cuddled up. "I'm glad you're okay, I was really worried when I saw how sick you were and I really don't know how to take care of people so I figured getting Rumi was probably the best idea, oh! Rumi, the water is boiling by the way."

'The water shouldn't be boiling but okay.' Rumi muses, pressing a kiss to Mira's head even as the woman huffs a watery laugh. 

She looks down at Mira who's slipping her hands out of Rumi's hoodie, pointedly nudging at her arm where the thermometer is still lodged. "Keep this pressed, okay?"

"Zoey can you check her temperature in five minutes?" 

Zoey bounds onto the bed, slipping into Mira's side like a puppy who quickly slings her unoccupied arm over her to keep her close. "Ofcourse! I've already got a playlist of five hundred shark videos lined up for you, Mira, you'll love them, I swear!" 

Mira leans her head on Zoey's shoulder, bleary eyes on the phone screen where Zoey's thumb is scrolling and scrolling away, probably showcasing her collection. 

"I'm sure. Are there hammerheads?"

"Mira!" Zoey squawks. "Who do you take me for?!"

Rumi smiles and almost leaves it at that, ready to go, but Mira's earlier words ('You're too nice to me') are still ringing in her ears so instead Rumi leans a little bit closer and quietly murmurs to Mira.

"I am nice to you," Mira's head twitches, so minute but Rumi's sharp eyes see everything both of her girls do. Zoey's head has already snapped over to look between the two of them, concern in her eyes. 

"I am nice to you," Rumi repeats. "Because I love you, Mira. You're made for these things, you know? Love and affection, kindness and care, you give them freely and you will take them freely."

She leans closer to whisper into Mira's ear, "Love suits you."

And then she's pulling back, waving slyly at Mira's stock-still self, wide eyes looking at Rumi like a light in the dark, and Zoey's affectionate, proud, smile.

Their expressions make her feel heavy, and so Rumi only dares to let her smile turn bittersweet when she's in the kitchen.

She turns off the stove, some of the water has boiled away and so she adds some more.

All three of them love soup and so there's always packets available in their kitchen. A quick easy meal, comforting to have.

Mira's favourite is the tomato soup. Apparently she used to douse things in ketchup when she was younger, Rumi considers it egregious but if she can make her girls happy she'd let Mira eat all the ketchup she wants.

Thankfully, she's a lot better about it now.

The soup is made in ten minutes and fifteen seconds. The smiles that face her when she walks in are tired but happy. Zoey has tear-stains on her face and Mira is resting her head on Zoey's shoulder. Both of their eyes are on her and Rumi smiles gently as she approaches.

Mira tries to take bowl of soup in her hands and Rumi lets her but still puts her hands on top of Mira's as she takes small sips. A glance at Zoey has her smiling when she finds the woman fully cuddled into Mira's side, a leg swung over their visual's long legs like a hook into a fish's gills.

Mira is soft, so soft between them as she takes sips of water, and Rumi doesn't understand how anyone could ever see the woman and find anything other than an ocean of love in her being.

Between her and Zoey, Mira is the gentlest out of the two of them. Her youthful rebellion brimming in the memory of her mind but cooling into all the affection she couldn't find an outlet for when she's with the two of them.

Rumi is, privately, so grateful that only her and Zoey know about this side of Mira. The vulnerable side that Mira will blush about later and that the fans will never, never, see.

She sits down with them, looking at the temperature when Zoey holds the thermometer up to her eyes. 

"39.2 Celsius." Zoey says, "I don't know how bad that is, but you shouldn't go over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and that's around 40 Celsius so should we be concerned?"

Rumi shakes her head. "No, we just need to make sure it doesn't reach 40."

Zoey nods, putting the thermometer away. They spend the day staying in bed and keeping Mira company. Rumi makes Mira all the bowls of tomato soup she wants, is up and in the kitchen the second Mira starts to look tense from hunger. Zoey brings out every single hours-long shark, octopus, dolphin, and tiger video compilation she has sequestered away in her hundreds of playlists, keeping Mira entertained all the way throughout.

At some point, Zoey puts on a documentary and turns off all the lights in Mira's room ("for the movie theater experience! You can't watch a movie with lights on!") but she turns on the light in the main lounge, slapping the light switch placed beside Mira's door as she enters with an armada of snacks.

Because Rumi is afraid of the dark.

'Ah, I love you.' She thinks with a smile as she makes some hot and sour soup alongside the tomato. Mira hasn't tired of her beloved tomatoes but Zoey must be getting bored, so Rumi makes Zoey's favourite as her maknae's final meal of the day.

She splits some of the soup into her own bowl, carrying the tray to where her girls are laying in Mira's bed, watching a documentary from the drop-down projector Mira has installed in her ceiling.

Rumi presses kisses to their heads and stays with them until they're both sleepy and tired. Zoey is completely knocked out, drooling onto Mira's shoulder and star-fished atop her. Rumi covers her and Mira in a blanket, carefully tucking it under Zoey's body so it doesn't cover Mira, who gives her a slight "really?" of a smile as she does so.

Mira herself is blinking sleep out of her eyes, but she seems better now, calmer. Rumi mentally notes to set an alarm for four hours to check on her in the night. She takes the bowls, stacking them, and quietly tells Mira to go to bed.

She turns off the projector and it silently slips up and out of sight as the ceiling panel slides back into place. The weight of Mira's gaze is like a warm hand ghosting over her skin and she pretends she doesn't notice it as she turns to leave.

"Rumi." Mira calls for her just as her foot is outside the bounds of her room. Quiet enough to not wake Zoey, knowing Rumi would hear her.

She turns around, giving Mira a slight smile. "Yeah?"

Mira hesitates. It's a normal thing, Mira hesitates sometimes, small pauses before she speaks.

But this moment of hesitation is long and it stretches until Rumi feels like it's more of an instance of Mira analyzing her.

Mira reads people. And sometimes, terrifyingly enough, Mira reads her. Drags pieces of her into the spotlight, pieces that have spent so long in the dark she almost forgot they could be seen at all. Thought they were all inside her and out of sight, a small sign branded into the inside of an empty turtle shell, how could anyone ever see it? Ever see past her facade?

But, as Mira doesn't look away, Rumi realizes that perhaps she isn't as good at lying as she thinks she is.

Mira finally opens her mouth, her beloved darling dancer and ocean of love finally opens her mouth and rips into her.

"You're made for love and affection too."

Rumi pauses. Stares. Pauses. Opens her mouth, closes it, opens again, closes it. 

All of a sudden, the shadow of her form stretching out in front of her into Mira's room feels like an intrusion. The light behind her is a hard rock and she is pinned by the knowing in Mira's stare.

Mira reads people.

Rumi counts as 'people'.

Technically.

Her heart rises into her throat, keeps rising until she thinks she'll say something dumb and Soft and too open, so-

She reaches up and turns off the light.

They are bathed in darkness (every sense of her crying out danger, danger, danger). Mira must be blinded, suddenly, but her eyes don't move from where Rumi is and she can tell they start to adjust after enough time.

She almost leaves without saying anything, but Mira is still sick and Rumi still wants to brand affection into her until she stops asking her stupid questions wrapped in self-derisive statements ('You are too nice to me' a cover for 'Why are you so nice to me?').

Eventually, the words that end up leaving her mouth are:

"You are very kind, Mira." 

It's a whisper so thin it almost gets lost on its way to her girls. But Mira's expression shifts into a grit jaw and eyes swimming with concern, hand fisting in Zoey's back.

And Zoey twitches.

'Ah.' Rumi thinks. 'I see.'

She leaves before Zoey can lift her head and search for her, before Mira gets off the bed and finds her in the dark.

It is tempting to close the door. Let all the softness and love in the world be cradled in that room, hiding in the dark and lingering in the air for them. Let the door function as a definitive edge between Rumi and what she wants. But it's too clean-cut, too cruel, a knife's edge slicing a delicate thing far too cleanly.

And Rumi doesn't ever want them to rip apart cleanly. Wants to leave pieces of them behind inside her fabric, wants them to walk away remembering her, she wants to be greedy.

So she leaves the door open and pretends it isn't a gaping wound in her back. That there isn't a piece of her still standing in the doorway, longing to go inside.

That her girls aren't better off without her.

Rumi slips into the room in the middle of the night.

Mira's always been a light sleeper, so she can tell. 

Zoey is a dead weight on top of her, drool having thoroughly ruined Mira's tshirt's shoulder. She wakes up at the sound of a small crackle, Mira doesn't open her eyes, grasps onto her breathing with tight hands and keeps it from becoming erratic. 

The bed doesn't dip, but she feels something gently poke her armpit, something cool and made of glass judging by the feel of it on her skin.

The thermometer. She realizes just as Rumi slips it up her sleeve, doing so delicately enough that she would never have noticed it if she wasn't already awake. Her mind is attuned to footsteps, placements, hands touching things in her room, not - not slipping a damn thermometer up her sleeve to take her temperature.

She opens her eyes, and Rumi freezes.

But the thermometer is already in and Rumi won't leave before she ensures Mira is safe, so Mira doesn't grab her. Watches her instead.

Rumi's eyes dart from where her hand is still holding the offending object to Mira's eyes to Zoey's sleeping face. Mira shifts slightly, scoots her face along her pillow closer to her darling vocalist.

Their devoted leader whose gaze snaps to the movement. Who uses their free hand to smooth Mira's hair out of her face and cup her cheek, letting Mira trap it against her skin and the pillow.

'Youre made for kindness too, Rumi.' Mira almost says. 'I just wish you knew it.'

('Love suits you, Mira.' whispered in her ear like a confirmation or an affirmation just something lovely trying to mask what Rumi must have known Mira would find in the words preceding that lovely phrase.)

Rumi takes her temperature and whatever she sees on the thermometer (in the utter darkness, how is she reading that? is that what natural 20/20 vision is like?) makes her relax. Makes her smile and lean down to kiss Mira's forehead.

Mira grasps onto her wrist before she can leave. 'Stay.' she tries to plead. 'Please.'

Rumi doesn't stay, but she takes off her hoodie with careful hands to reveal a white turtleneck underneath (of-course she's wearing something underneath) and gives Mira her hoodie like it could ever be a substitute.

Then Rumi leaves, and Mira is left holding a hoodie that smells like her.

She lays it across her chest, carefully arranging it to not touch Zoey. Zoey who automatically turns her head and snuggles into the fabric, a content smile forming on her face. Mira can't deny that even she feels comforted by the familiar enveloping scent of Rumi so close to her. The headache of the day is still knocking on the door in her mind and Rumi's moment in the doorway has branded her memory of the day, but when she falls asleep she does so wishing for Rumi.

And knowing that Rumi cares, no matter how much she pushes her. That Rumi will always come back, even when she goes too far and Rumi has to turn off the damn light just to feel comfortable. Between the darkness and Mira, Rumi had decided one fear was more tolerable than the other.

'She turned off the lights.' Is the last thought on Mira's mind before she falls asleep.

Chapter Text

Zoey is sick.

It's the single thought reverberating through Mira's head, a thought so vicious it's taken hold of her even as she sits in the backseat of the car with Driver Hyun in the front. Usually, she would check the schedule for the day, eye whatever she was supposed to model and try to figure out how much she would have to push to make artistic choices. 

The answer was normally "Not much at all", but some people liked to try to 'tame' her. And that never worked.

Mira only ever cut her claws for two people.

'Zoey is sick.' She thinks again, fiddling with her phone. Rumi has been sending her updates every thirty minutes on the clock with exact timings for when Zoey woke up, ate, and went to sleep. In case Mira was worried.

But Mira doesn't know how to tell Rumi that, really, she knew Zoey would be fine. Rumi was with her, and Rumi took better care of them than anyone else. The only thing that was troubling her was that she couldn't be there with them, not after their vehement pushing for her to go do her modelling gig. 

Zoey even told her to take some photos for their eyes alone to which Rumi had shaken her head with the prettiest blush on her face.

Ofcourse, she also worries for Rumi.

Mira was... polite in sickness, she had never been cared for and she knew Rumi was always troubled by how quietly she cried, how silent she was. It was only when Rumi and then Zoey came along that she could break that habit, finally able to take love with gentle hands and know that she wouldn't get an eye-roll or a disdainful glance for it. And Rumi was so loving, so ready to give them all the love they wanted and more, that sometimes Mira didn't know what to do with all that affection. So overwhelming she could have lived a hundred lifetimes and never run out of it.

Which was why she tried to be careful. Tried not to claw Rumi's vulnerability out from her, tried to give her space and have calm, respectful conversations with open communication. To give her space, to let her run away.

Mira was careful.

Zoey isn't like that, Mira knows. Zoey realized early on that the two of them meant it wholeheartedly when they said they would always love her and she has greedily taken everything they give ever since with no hesitation.

If Mira is hesitant about taking affection, Zoey justifies taking as much as she wants.

To Zoey, sickness has always been a weapon. Mira only realized this when Zoey fell sick from the temperature change early on and used it to force them all into caring for her, using the time spent together to share confessions, knowing Mira would give up her own memories in commiseration and Rumi out of a sense of obligation.

Rumi, who was always so closed off. Bearing everything, all on her own.

'At this point, she's going to have a mental breakdown.' Mira thinks, eyeing Zoey's contact number on her phone. Rumi would have Zoey's phone, so she can't contact her there. She opens up Discord instead, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

It would be an dangerous match. Zoey who will happily chip away at Rumi's armour with love and try to worm her way in through the cracks and Rumi who will run away at the first sign of the spotlight on her.

It's a delicate balance. But Zoey would never hurt Rumi, and knows their beloved leader well enough to know when to pause, even when sick and vomiting. Rumi herself is too steadfast to leave, not when Zoey is so sick.

She closes the app.

Mira trusts her girls will take care of each other. It's not hard to do.

'Zoey is so beautiful.' Is all Rumi can think. Zoey hunches over the toilet bowl, biting down a gag. She knows how this goes. The urge to gag is there, but Zoey hates wasting the medicine she manages to cough down, so she just swallows whenever she wants to vomit.

Rumi has tried to make her vomit anyway, telling her they have the money. Zoey has always refused. So she stays by her side and gives her napkins to wipe away the spit on her chin instead.

"Thanks." Zoey says calmly. Rumi runs a hand down the length of her back, then up. Down, up, like Celine used to do. 

"Ofcourse."

One could be mistaken for thinking Zoey wore sickness poorly. She was shorter and people always assumed her to be the weakest. From what she knew from Q&As and talk shows and late night television interviews for when Zoey visited America, the larger part of the world thought Zoey was someone who was physically weak.

Physically weak, mentally weak. Zoey was always the so-called 'heart' of the group, when really, in Rumi's mind, she was the light. The only thing that kept Rumi and Mira anchored to make sure they didn't get too entrenched in their heads, the one who kept on the right path.

'As long as you're around.' Rumi thinks, watching Zoey spit into the napkin with a grimace. 'I will never be lost.'

Rumi knows Zoey, has heard plenty of stories from her of getting sick and simply staying sick because both of her parents were too busy working. She knows of the long days and nights where Zoey took and retook her temperature, praying it wouldn't go too high because no one could take her to the hospital. Knew of the time she had her brain "boiling" for almost a week straight, vomiting so much everyday that she couldn't eat until she collapsed in gym class and got carted off to the ER for an IV.

So Rumi stays. She hopes it's enough, for her darling lyricist.

Then Zoey turns, looks at her. Softens.

Rumi smiles, giving her a small wave. "Hi."

Zoey's smiles, hazy eyes narrowing as she waves back. When she speaks, it's with a rough voice. "Hi."

Zoey scoots closer to her and Rumi follows her lead, until they're both leaning against each other, Zoey resting her face in the crook of her neck. She lets her do so, carefully taking the napkin from Zoey's hands so she can put it on-top of the step-stool underneath the sink.

"Rumi."

"Yes?" She answers and Zoey takes a breath. Sighs.

"I want to tell you something but I..." Zoey's voice quietens, dims, and Rumi can't help the way her hands rise to wrap around her in an embrace. Pulling her as close as possible, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

"I'm here, Zoey." She murmurs. "I'll always be here. Always."

Zoey takes in another deep breath, a kind of preparation she can tell though she can't discern what for. Probably to mentally ready herself for whatever mental hurt she's about to share with Rumi. But Zoey can share any mental hurt she wants at all, Rumi will take them all happily, if only so Zoey never has to bend under their weight.

"It's okay, you can say it." Rumi tells her gently. "You can tell me anything, Zoey. I'll always listen to you."

"What if it's really bad?" Zoey whines, hands fisting in the fabric of Rumi's hoodie.

"Then I'll pay even more attention. And I'll be here in the aftermath, I promise." She assures her.

Zoey says nothing, resting the back of her head against the toilet seat. It makes her neck stretch and muscles in her neck strain as she swallows tightly. Rumi watches them move under her skin, and she can't quite help the feeling of reverence that overtakes her. 

"Sometimes..." Zoey pauses, looking at the tiled floor wordlessly. When she speaks, her voice is rough and throaty. Rumi strains forward to hear her.

"Sometimes I think you don't love me."

Howling, in her heart. 

She can't help it, she flinches. Her hands pull away like they've been burnt and Zoey's expression changes into one of regret and terror so visceral Rumi can't help but latch right back onto her. Like a magnet pulled away from it's counterpart, her hands clasp around Zoey's arms.

"What? Why?" Rumi asks, Zoey looks up at her with an expression quickly bordering on relief. "What have I ever done to-? Did I...?"

'Did I not love you enough?' The edges of her she imagined to be darker whisper, but maybe they too just wanted something constant. Some definitive factor about herself that wouldn't falter under scrutiny. A Hunter but she bears the marks. A daughter but her mother is dead/does not allows her to call her Eomma. A Pop-star but a fighter. Beautiful but tainted. Desired but unknown.

To her one constant: Mira&Zoey's band-mate. Their's.

An amendment: Their's but she does not love them enough.

'If I'm not made to love you, then what am i made for?' A part of her whines. Rumi imagines hugging it and then stomping her younger self's skull into mush on the ground.

('Their Rumi.' Her dead self keeps whispering. 'Their Rumi. Their Rumi. Their Leader. What a fucking joke of a-')

"I don't know, I just..." Zoey shrugs, half-hearted. "You don't talk to us."

"I talk to you. I talk to you two more than anyone else in my life." 

She says and even her desire to keep this stable, Safe, does not keep her from letting slip the almost accusatory tone in her voice. She shakes her head the moment she notices it, gritting her teeth and trying to get herself under control at the blatant display. The look she sends Zoey is pure apology wrapped in guilt.

Zoey flinches anyway. "I just-! I don't know, you're so distant from us most of the time! And you don't talk at all about how you feel or if you're sad-" Her voice breaks. "-even when it's really obvious to us that you're not okay and you don't open up and it always feels like you don't trust us! At all! And it hurts, Rumi!"

By the end Zoey's speech itself sounds like an accusation and a plea. Rumi stares at her, speechless. For once, Huntr/x's vocalist has lost her voice.

Does she have a place here anymo-?

Her phone is in her hand before she knows it, wrenched out of the the pocket in her hoodie. A few taps and Mira's contact number shows up on her screen. Zoey is still panting when the call connects, only a few seconds after she reaches out, across a city, to Mira.

"Rumi-?"

"Do you think I don't open up to you?" She asks quickly, desperately. "Or that I don't trust you?"

There is silence on the other end of the line. A hand comes to rest on her arm and she can't help the shiver that wracks through her. In response, her youngest leans in so close Rumi can feel her breath on her cheek, ear pressed to the other side of the phone.

Mira hums. There is the distinct sound of some thing being put down. She imagines Mira sitting at her vanity table, makeup or hair stylist behind her. Mira dressed up and pretty, motioning for the poor woman to leave so she can take precious time out of her scheduled day to talk to Rumi. She can't help the utter wave of possession which claws up her throat.

"...Rumi." Mira finally calls. "If I ever was hurting, really badly, emotionally I mean. Would you want me to reach out to you?"

And trap itself is so obvious but Rumi walks into it without hesitation. Because to say otherwise would be insane, would be akin to turning her sword on the Honmoon and trying to rip it apart, it's not even an answer she would ever consider.

"Yes." She says. "Absolutely, always."

Zoey makes a wounded noise infront of her. She grabs onto the hand Zoey is still holding onto her with, rubbing small circles on the back of it in assurance. 

"Well, we feel the same way about you." Mira says calmly. "Zoey can you put me on speaker?"

A click on the phone later and it rests between them, safely cradled in Rumi's lap so they can hear it echo in the acoustics of the bathroom.

"It hurts when you're sad, Rumi. It always does." Zoey whispers.

Mira agrees on the other end of the line but Rumi's mind is already buzzing with regrets and realizations.

They were right. She knew they were right. Always she had given and never had she taken, and she took pleasure in doing so. Had considered it 'right'. Had considered it 'duty'.

('Our faults and fears must never be seen, Rumi.' Celine whispers in her mind but then there are the memories of Celine allowing her to bandage her wounds. Celine letting her slip into bed with a poor excuse, acting as if she wasn't aware Rumi could hear her whimpers when the night got too dark. Celine letting her give and give and how happy she was when Celine (Celine!) let her take care of her. 

Why had she denied her girls that?)

'Maybe, denying you Softness like this wasn't good for you. Maybe it just hurt you.' Rumi thinks. She blinks, meeting Zoey's worried gaze and her lips move before she can stop them.

"I- I'm sorry." She says. "I didn't know this was hurting you. I didn't talk to you because..."

She pauses, shrugs. "It's just not your burden to bear, I guess. And we're already so busy, I didn't want to put too much on you."

Mira groans, some wordless mix of hurt and frustration "We want you to put that weight on us, Rumi!"

"Yeah!" Zoey says, moving forward to clamber halfway into her lap. "And if it's too much for the both of us, then it's definitely too much for you."

"I didn't want to offload my problems onto you. You don't deserve that."

"We will talk about that whole 'deserving' thing soon." Mira mutters.

Rumi pauses but thankfully Zoey quickly jumps in with,

"Oh so whenever I'm worried I'm being annoying and I'm too much, I should just keep quiet?"

"No!" 

The wave of protective fury that washes over her makes her pull Zoey further into her lap. She doesn't even realize the phone is in Zoey's hands until she feels it rest against her back so Mira's quiet huff of a laugh can reverberate against her spine.

"Ofcourse you answered that so fast." Mira says fondly. Rumi is far too focused on Zoey's hands on her face, directing her head away from trying to glance over her shoulders as if she could see Mira's face if she turned her neck enough to meeting her lyricist's eyes.

"Exactly, so talk to us, Rumi!" Zoey says and the pure want in her voice makes her flinch. Makes some old rusty part of her kick-start like old machinery being turned on again. Ready for use, ready for purpose.

"About anything!" Zoey says. "Anything at all! Anything that hurts you, or makes you sad, or that you want to get off your chest, we are here to take your burdens for you the way you do ours so let us."

"I-" Rumi's lips pause. She can feel Zoey waiting and so she just says, "I don't actually like dolphins?"

Zoey blinks. "I, what?"

"I mean, i don't know!" She yelps. "Mira liked the sharks and you liked the turtles and i didn't want to take any of them from you so I said dolphins - But I really hate dolphins!"

Zoey bursts out laughing at that. Her voice is a tad hysterical and Rumi wraps her arms around her to keep her close, keep her tied to her so she doesn't slip away into her mind and spiral. Already her laughter is so frayed.

It is Mira's silence on the phone that pulls her attention away from her maknae.

"No. Rumi." Mira sighs. "What we meant was... something like-"

Mira pauses, hums. Zoey sighs, letting the final waves of her giggles leave her like the ebb and flow of a tide Rumi could drown in. Wants to drown in, to escape into.

"...I still miss my brother sometimes." Mira whispers suddenly and her voice is so faint. So terribly faint. "He was the golden child, I know, but- he was good. Nice. Until the day I left obviously but..."

And then Mira doesn't say anything, yet Rumi's heart is already aching to race over to her. Climb through the damn phone screen to wrap Mira up in blankets and say 'its okay' and say 'you are more loved than you could ever imagine' and say 'you deserve better' and say 'i wish i could go back in time and tell your child self how loved you are'.

"When I used to get bullied," Zoey begins next. Words ready to leap from her tongue, it makes Rumi hold her closer. Mind running wild with musings on whether Zoey had wanted to say this, had wanted to share this but had held back. In her refusal to take Softness, had she set a terrible precedent for her girls?

How horrible (of her).

"People used to hurt me." Zoey says. "But I used to hurt them back too. And they always felt so happy doing it, the hurting, but I always felt so bad. I don't know, sometimes I wished I was a bad person so they would leave me alone."

Her hand cups Zoey's cheek, the other rising to rub at her nape. Zoey looks into her eyes and melts, letting her take the pain and the hurt, siphoning it away with each beat of her heart, only-

"Don't even think about going into protective-leader mode Rumi, I will bludgeon you." Mira states. "This is about you."

'Me. Right.' She blinks. "I, uhm."

"Uh, Celine is my mom?" Rumi says, hesitance bleeding from her tone but then, like a wave crashing over her, Zoey leans a tad bit closer and she realizes that oh she's actually really wanted to tell them this.

"I mean, Ryu Miyeong is my biological mom, obviously. But my legal name is Kang Rumi since Celine raised me. She said she thought I would change it when I became an adult but I kept it." Rumi pauses, twists the words in her mouth. Thinks of her murdered dead self in her mind, her child self still on the ground and longing for Softness (to give/receive/take/be proud of).

"I don't really know how to tell her." She whispers, leans in closer. Lets Zoey bring the phone up so Rumi can confess into their ears.

And she lets her younger self speak for once. 

"I didn't know Ryu Miyeong." Rumi pauses. "I mean, please don't tell Celine this, but I've seen the clips of her and i don't know her. you can't know someone through a screen. It doesn't matter if the video was for the public or the private, it's impossible no matter how much you try."

Zoey is still. So still. Like she'll scare Rumi off if she twitches. Rumi doesn't know how to tell her she just might.

"Celine, she's always, she feels really bad for me. Because I didn't get to meet my mom, but..." She bites her lip. "But, I don't really.... care."

"Celine's always been enough for me. She was very affectionate when she was younger. She only stopped when I pulled away, but she never stopped caring." Cut up fruit in the fridge. Always there to let her bandage her injuries. A true spar against her mentor/mother before Rumi's first demon-hunt. The touch of a hand on her back in pride. The twitch of a finger as Celine tried not to hug her and Rumi tried not to notice. The books on touch aversion on Celine's bookshelf alongside books on parenting and vocal technique and How To Make Your Teen Take Care Of Themself: A No Bullshit Guide.

Celine's own way of caring.

"When I was very young," She says calmly. Like she isn't about to admit the worst thing she's ever thought in her life. "I used to wish Miyeong was just some dead hunter in the grave. And that Celine was my mom."

"Since, then, people wouldn't ask me 'Oh, how do you feel about your Auntie?' and I wouldn't have to say 'Oh, okay, she's very kind to me.' and I could just have a mom and not worry about her crying when I call her 'Eomma'. Because she felt guilty." Rumi pauses, processes, wonders why there are tears in her eyes.

'Whatever.' Rumi thinks. 'I'm not made for this, anyway. This is only for them.'

She thinks of this exact speech she's repeated ad-infinitum in her mind, trying to justify, trying to rationalize. Her younger self had said the words in a closed mouth so often she could feel them forming on her lips like muscle memory sometimes. Readying herself to belt out a song and instead saying 'I didn't know how to tell her, you know? I didn't know how to tell her I didn't care but I pretended to. Celine always seemed to believe it was a great travesty I didn't meet this woman but I had no point of comparison. I only had Celine, and Celine was more than enough for me. The fact that she didn't know it cut more deeply than anything else.'

What a horrible opening line.

"I don't know." She says again to soften the blow of it. The honesty, the pure gut-wrenching and terrible Soft honesty of her words. "I guess I wanted her to be more than just Celine to me."

'I was looking for things I couldn't get access to.' Her mind muses and Rumi, privately, finds herself disagreeing for once. Celine has always let her access her love, has never stopped her from calling her Eomma, has only ever taken the time to go and cry over her ripped out heart in private where Rumi couldn't see the damage.

Celine had just never considered Rumi would go looking for her.

'Is this you looking for me?' She wonders quietly as Zoey finally relaxes slightly, uncoils from her face still buried in Rumi's shoulder. Smiles quietly at her.

'Am I hiding, even in this?' She wonders as Mira lets out a long breath from the other side of the call. 

Despite their silence, she doesn't find herself concerned. Because Rumi knows the two of them, beloved and loving as they are, won't just leave her here like this.

"Do you feel better?" Mira asks softly. Rumi pauses, goes looking inside of herself for her younger hurt self bleeding at the base of the tree. For once, she feels light doing so, like there's no weight on her chest. And her younger self is happy, for once, is light, for once.

"Yeah." She confesses. "Yes. I do."

Zoey's lips twitch, wobble, and then she slams into Rumi. She grunts as the ground rushes to push at her back, smiling despite herself. The phone clatters to the floor but even then she can hear Mira's words over Zoey's happy giggles and cries of 'You did it Rumi, oh my gosh I'm so proud of you, I'm so proud, thank you so much, so much, i love youuuu'

"I'm coming home, my shoot was done anyway."

"I love you." Zoey says, squishing her cheeks. Rumi smiles back at her and she can't even push it down when her lips pull up and her teeth show. Zoey calls it her 'Toothless' smile - named after some dragon from a kids movie. Rumi doesn't know, or care, about this 'Toothless'.

"I love youu." Zoey says again before turning around and grabbing the phone to say into the mic, "Stay on the line."

"Ofcourse." Mira agrees casually. Rumi can't help but smile as Zoey goes back to hugging her senseless. Body weight heavy on top of her and with the knowledge that Mira is on her way home, Rumi clings to her maknae and lets her spread her germs to her. 

Her immune system is great, anyway. Her body can handle a sick person on top of her, surely.

Zoey giggles, smushes her cheek against her so she can smile at her with bright eyes, and Rumi thinks, 'I love you so much.'

It was worth it. The entire day was worth it, for Mira coming home and Zoey smiling at her like this.

"Mira's coming home." She whispers, daring to let her excitement at the return of their missing third show. Zoey's grin widens. 

"I know." Her beautiful, amazing, sweet darling whispers back. "I'm so happy."

"Me too." Rumi admits, lets her smile soften and lets Zoey hug her just that much more tighter. "Me too."

Zoey stares at Rumi, through the clog in her throat and the strawberry toothpaste taste in her mouth.

Sadness has always been Rumi's birthright. A depressing thing to think, but true.

Rumi is holy in the light of the television, bathed in the light of the ocean's infinite blue. Mira shifts, leaning on Rumi further and Rumi huffs, tugging on her so she falls into her lap. 

She can't help but laugh at Mira's indignant squawk, as if she wasn't trying to make Rumi do just that. Zoey rests her hand on her cheek as she watches her two girls watch the documentary on Hammerhead Sharks (Rumi's actual favourite marine animal, confessed after Mira had threatened to never look at a shark picture or video again. Loved because of how dumb they look).

By all means, the cards had been stacked against Rumi at birth. Born an orphan, mother a Super-star and father unknown, the world's eyes on her from the moment she took her first breath to now. A Hunter with the weight of lives on her shoulders, no guardians save one emotionally stunted woman and only a legacy to live up to. 

People like to call Rumi a nepo-baby and for all that Zoey pretends she agrees, she sometimes wonders if the only difference between Kang Rumi and one of her old homeless skater friends from back in Burbank is that Rumi had a Celine.

But even Celine hadn't been perfect, keeping Rumi as un-socialized as she did. Zoey had been less than charitable about it at first, anger simmering quietly in the depths of her heart, the knowledge of loneliness and the way it cuts bearing heavy on her. 

It was Mira who took her aside. Who explained that Celine herself seemed lonely. That perhaps Celine wanted to be alone, viewed it as something under than cruelty, after all, Rumi had lost a mother but Celine had lost a band-mate.

Celine had lost one of Them, and Zoey had thought of losing Mira or Rumi and understood.

If they had a child before dying and the other one just left, she would hide from the world too.

It was just a very long journey before Rumi acted like she was friends with them. Even though she was sure that line had long been breached in Rumi's mind.

She still remembers their early days, back when Mira had been made of jagged edges that hadn't been soothed yet and Rumi was still too flighty. Zoey had gotten sick, then, and promptly used it to force them together. Celine being out to gather medicine since apparently no one at the compound got this sick, and her girls around her with worried eyes and frantic hearts.

Zoey had acted up her illness and her girls had fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

It was in that room, small but comfortable, that Zoey had watched Mira lose her anger and develop the steady nature she held like a shield for her girls now. That Zoey watched Rumi settle for a moment to give them such gut-wrenching love that she had to take a deep breath after Rumi left to go get her some soup. That Mira had to raise her face to the skies and bite her lip, trying not to cry.

('Ofcourse I want to take care of you.' Rumi's voice, in her head. 'Why wouldn't I? You two are... you.')

It's only when Mira shuffles, pointedly dragging herself further into Rumi's lap, when Rumi scratches at her scalp with her fingers that Zoey realizes she's missing out on some premium cuddles.

"Hey..." She whines, crawling closer to the two of them so she can climb on-top of Mira and hijack Rumi's affection. Mira groans good-naturedly but rests on her stomach so Zoey can push herself flush against her back. 

She can't see it but she can hear the smile in Rumi's laugh when her hand comes down to lightly grasp the nape of her neck. It makes her kiss the back of Mira's head, unable to hide the grin on her face.

Rumi always treats her with near reverence when she's like this, openly asking for things so greedily, Zoey's younger self must be writhing in jealousy right now but she doesn't care.

Rumi wants to give. Zoey wants to take. It's a simple equation.

Mira always says she should be more careful. She doesn't see the point.

"I love you, Rumi." She says loudly over the sound of the narrator. 

"I love you too, Rumi." Mira repeats, voice muffled from where her cheek is smushed against Rumi's thigh.

There is a pause. Her ears catch the sound of Rumi swallowing, it sounds wet, and Zoey slowly turns her head so Rumi can stop her if she doesn't want to be seen.

Rumi lets her see her, and the wide grin on her face takes Zoey's breath away.

"I love you too." Rumi says, radiant. "Both of you."

Zoey falls in love with her all over again.