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Rumi had danced this choreography so many times that her body no longer needed her attention. The studio lights were too bright, the mirrors too honest, the music too familiar. Mira counted beats with sharp precision, Zoey corrected a turn with a grin, and everything about the room screamed routine. Discipline. Control. And yet, Rumi’s thoughts kept slipping, softly and insistently, toward somewhere else: tonight.
The idea alone was enough to make her chest feel warm and restless at the same time. She moved through the steps flawlessly, but her mind wandered back to the beginning. Not the romantic beginning people would imagine. Not stolen glances or charged silences. Their first meeting had been subtle and tense. Jinu had invited her, his expression unreadable, his posture guarded. He spoke of patterns as if they were scars and sentences at once, proof of what they were and what they could never escape. There had been no softness then. Only suspicion, curiosity sharpened into something almost dangerous. They were enemies.
Rumi remembered how she’d kept her distance, how she was on the edge of summoning her saingeom the entire time. How she’d listened more than she spoke, memorizing his tells, his tone, the way his eyes darkened when the subject turned too personal. Romance hadn’t even been a possibility, but something had shifted anyway.
It happened slowly, without permission. One meeting turned into another. Conversations grew longer. The tension changed shape. Somewhere between confessions about their patterns and silences heavy with unspoken truths, the lines blurred. Rumi didn’t notice when she stopped seeing him as an enemy. Only when she started counting the hours until she could see him again.
The studio music paused. Mira called for a short break. Rumi nodded, reaching for her water bottle, pretending her heartbeat wasn’t suddenly louder than the speakers. Mira and Zoey didn’t know. They couldn’t know.
These meetings existed in the quiet spaces between schedules, tucked carefully into corners of the city that never made it into press photos. Rooftops, empty stairwells, cafés that opened before sunrise. Places where no one asked questions and no one looked too closely. Places where Rumi could breathe.
She leaned against the mirrored wall, eyes unfocused, and let herself drift. She thought of the way Jinu watched her now: still cautious, but softer. Like someone afraid to touch something precious in case it disappeared. She thought of how his voice lowered when it was just the two of them, how he spoke her name like it carried weight.
The first time he kissed her, it hadn’t been planned. It happened after an argument. Voices low but heated, words sharpened by fear and longing. She accused him of holding back and not acting. He accused her of pretending not to care about his suffering. The silence afterward had been unbearable.
His hand had brushed hers, tentative. She remembered the way he searched her face, as if asking permission for something neither of them had said out loud yet. The kiss itself had been slow, almost uncertain, but full of meaning. A question and an answer all at once. After that, restraint became impossible.
Their romance didn’t explode, it deepened, grew roots. Each meeting carried more warmth, more familiarity. Jinu learned the way Rumi liked to be held, the places where her confidence faded into vulnerability. She learned how his touch lingered when he didn’t want to leave, how his breath changed when he smiled against her skin.
Rumi found herself daydreaming constantly.
During rehearsals. During interviews. During moments when she should have been fully present. Her mind replayed memories of his hands, his laugh, the way he looked at her like she was something unreal, something he wasn’t sure he deserved.
Tonight would be different. Tonight, they’d planned it. She could almost hear his voice already, teasing her for being impatient. Could imagine the way he’d step closer, closing the distance without even realizing it. The thought made her smile faintly, though she quickly masked it when Zoey glanced her way.
No one noticed. They never did. At least, that's what she thought. The music started again, and Rumi returned to formation. Every movement was sharp, practiced, perfect, but her heart was elsewhere. Somewhere ahead in time, where the city would quiet and the world would shrink down to just the two of them. She counted the beats until the end of rehearsal like a countdown.
The more she tried to focus, the more vivid her thoughts became. She imagined slipping away unnoticed, pulling her jacket tighter, waiting for Derpy to bring the note, giving the green light.. Imagined the relief that always washed over her when she finally saw him waiting.
Daydreaming, she realized, wasn’t an escape. It was anticipation.
As the final note echoed through the studio, Rumi exhaled slowly. Tonight was close enough now that it almost felt real. And for once, she didn’t push the feeling away. She let herself want.
She let herself imagine the way he would kiss her again. Unhurried, intentional, like time didn’t exist. Let herself believe that in those stolen hours, she could be just Rumi. Not a hunter. Not an idol.
Just someone in love, counting down the moments until the daydream became reality.