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It was eight months after the idol awards disaster when Huntr/x had their first major tour.
Six months after their three-month hiatus had finished, and four months since they opened up about their relationship.
They were doing one of their rehearsals for Golden, as every time they’d tried to perform it, it ended up being cut off.
This would be their first full live performance of the song.
Theyd been practicing on the aerial hoop, something booby didn’t like, but Rumi loved; she loved being up high.
She was on her third take of the performance, doing well.
She soared above the floor, leaning forward on the hoop, reaching with one arm and pivoting the ring back as it’s lowered, she could see Mira and Zoey grinning at her from the stage.
She’d done it hundreds of times, and then, the wire connecting the wire to its anchor snapped. She let go of the ring, but being that she was already tipped down, she was left to the mercy of gravity.
She was quickly approaching the stage, and her left shoulder slams into the edge, the sickening pop, and a flood of pure heat down her arm numbs it to the immediate pain.
She dropped the remaining five feet and slammed the side of her head into the concrete below.
Pain burst through her arm and head.
She’s on her back on the concrete, dazed.
“Rumi, baby, it’s okay, you’re okay, shit,” Zoey is already above her, looking at her arm.
“It’s dislocated,” she grits out. It’s not her first dislocated shoulder, but this is a bad one.
“Yeah, we heard it,” Mira says, but she’s touching where she hit the side of her head, and Rumi winces. Mira’s fingers come away bloody. She presses something to the side of her head, pressing down.
“That sucked,” she says, trying to joke.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Mira deadpans.
She tries to sit up, but the world tilts and spins; she must have hit her head harder than she thought.
“Whoa, careful,” Zoey says, supporting her with a hand on her back.
She cringes and tries to move her shoulder, only succeeding in making the pain worse.
Bobby is in her field of vision now; he’s on the phone and taking off his coat.
“Use this as a sling,” he says gently.
So with a lot of pain, they do manage to get the coat wrapped into a makeshift sling.
She tries to stand, only to be hit with a wave of violent nausea. She turns her head to the side, trying not to jostle her arm too much, and throws up onto the floor.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“No apologies, Rums,” Mira says, still supporting her and holding her up.
“Everything is spinning,” she says, screwing her eyes shut.
“An ambulance is on the way, should be here in five,” Bobby says gently.
Her ears are ringing.
The lights sting her eyes.
“Turn down the stage lights,” Zoey calls, and the lights dim; her eyes hurt less, she knows it far from any of their first concussion, given their jobs as hunters tend to lead them into dangerous situations. It's nice having someone who can tell what's wrong.
Time is passing weirdly because suddenly the paramedics are there, flashing lights in her eyes. She must’ve passed out because she’s lying down again.
“Pupils aren’t equal and reactive, what’s your name?” one of them asks.
“Rumi,”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two?” she says after a moment, but she can see by the looks on Mira’s face that she’s wrong.
“What year is it?”
“Twenty-twenty-one,” she says.
The paramedics grimace. She starts to sit up again, hit with another violent wave of dizziness.
She blinks, and she’s back on the ground on her back.
“She’s done that two times since hitting the floor,” Mira says.
She can feel something dripping down her nose, across her face. She reaches up with her good arm, touches, and realizes that it’s blood.
The paramedics are wiping it away with some wipes.
“You’re okay, you passed out, but you’re safe,” one of them says.
“We have to put you on the stretcher, we’re going to take this slow,” one of them says.
Slowly, they help her up. Her legs are weak, and her knees buckle; she’s so lightheaded, and her stomach is twisting.
“Gonna be sick,” she mumbles. That’s the only warning she can give before she’s hurling onto the floor again. The paramedic is holding her up, one arm on her good arm, the other on her ribs.
“Sorry,” she says.
“Don’t be,” the paramedic says gently.
Eventually, they do get onto the stretcher.
She closes her eyes against the pounding behind her eyes.
Exhaustion flushes through her.
“Don’t go to sleep Rumi,” Zoey says beside her.
“I’m not,” she whispers.
The movement from the stretcher makes her paler.
“I’ll meet you at the hospital with Mira after we finish the investigation,” Bobby says, allowing Zoey to go with her.
The ride to the ambulance is filled with them taking her vitals, getting her to follow a pen light.
Her head pounds, and the world is merging and then apart. Sometimes it looks like there are three Zoey's, and sometimes her vision distorts and makes it look like there’s only part of her.
She throws up two more times in the ambulance, this time into a bag, and then she’s being hauled out of the ambulance.
“Adult female, twenty-four, Rumi Ryu, fall victim, head trauma, has lost consciousness twice, pupils are not equal and reactive, laceration to the temple, vomited three times, mostly stomach acid, dizzy, lightheaded, not cognitively intact, nosebleed, dislocated right shoulder,” the paramedic relays as the doctors and nurses take over.
Zoey is next to her, looking at her with worried eyes.
The doctors put her through tests, ruling out brain bleeds.
They put her through a CT scan, and then as well as she can with one lame shoulder tests her coordination, only to realize that she has next to no coordination, they try a test her balance by getting her to take a few steps but the world spins violently, and Zoey has to catch her when she tilts left, she’s groggy and wants to sleep.
“This seems like a severe concussion; she’ll need stitches and an X-ray on that shoulder, then we can try and reset it,” the doctor says after an hour and a half waiting for the results of the CT scan.
Rumi is resting with an IV in and a regular sling; the doctors do all the same tests and more for her head.
That's how she ends up with twenty-seven stitches in the side of her head.
They give her some pain medication for her shoulder, and get ready to set her shoulder.
She lays flat on her back, and the doctor as gently as she can stretches her arm out straight and pulls it up, she pulls until almost pointing all the way up, pain pulses through her and she can’t help the sounds of pain she makes as her shoulder tries to fix itself, then her arm pops back in and theres pain and a flood of relief.
They fit her with a special sling, the straps go around her neck, under her armpit, and around her waist with a foam block between her side and arm. They call it an immobilizing sling, and she’ll have to wear it for four to six weeks. And is on strict rest for at least a month, then limited activity for three months because of the concussion.
“The tour,” she mumbles after a while, her and Zoey are alone in the room, she’s fighting sleep.
“We’ll cancel it, Jagiya,” Zoey says.
“I think we need to give up trying to perform that song; it’s never gone well,” Mira says as she walks into the room, followed by Bobby.
“I agree,” Zoey says.
“So, what’s the news?”
“Severe concussion, three months of rest, we have to wake her every two hours for the first forty-eight hours, obviously dislocated shoulder, six weeks with the sling, then physio, oh, and they want to keep her for observation for twenty-four hours,” Zoey relays.
Mira nods.
“How are you feeling, love?” Mira asks.
“Tired, dizzy, my head hurts, so does my shoulder,” she says.
“What’s the culprit at the arena?” Zoey asks.
“Faulty wire, lack of inspection on it, it was frayed, just happened to snap, they’ll be in a lot of trouble,” Bobby says.
“Good,” Zoey says, looking at Rumi, who’s pale, with dark eye bags under her eyes.
“Try and rest, Ru,” Mira says, taking her hand, careful of the IV.
She does, letting sleep drag her under.
“Up, up, up it’s our moment, gonna be gonna be glowin gonna be gonna be golden,” she sings as she floats over the crowd.
The wire snaps, and she slams into the stage, in front of millions.
Bloods, everywhere, pouring out of her mouth, her nose, down her face.
“Rumi, come on, you have to wake up,”
She gasps awake and cringes when pain explodes through her skull.
“Ugh,” she groans, pressing fingers into her eyes.
“Sorry, baby, the doctor told us to wake you every two hours,” Mira says gently.
“It’s fine,” she mutters, feeling more than a little irritated over what should be nothing.
The day follows like that, falling asleep for a few hours only to be woken, either by her girlfriends or by a nurse when visiting hours are over.
She tries to eat, but her stomach is too rocky.
Mira and Zoey are back in the morning, helping her get ready to go home. The nurse shows them how to remove and put on the sling, and a few hours later, they’re fitting her with a temporary cane to help with the unsteadiness.
With it, she’s able to walk herself out to the car, not without Mira and Zoey hovering close to her.
The world is still spinning, and she has to stop every so often.
The car ride is worse again. She’s violently nauseous the whole time.
They stop at the pharmacy and get her prescription pain meds for both her arm and the concussion, along with some clean gauze.
They drive back to the tower, and by the time they are there rumi’s half asleep again.
“Let’s get you inside, Tiger,” Mira says fondly, retrieving her cane. They walk in together, Mira gently holding her arm to make sure she doesn't tilt.
The elevator ride feels like an eternity.
“Bobby already made an announcement and fully refunded tickets for the tour. The fans have been understanding,” Mira says once they’re on the couch, Rumi is lying on her back, her head on Mira’s lap.
She hums in acknowledgement.
“Get some sleep,” Mira says, carding her fingers through Rumi's hair. Zoey is running gentle fingers along her calf, holding her like she's something precious.
She's in and out of sleep for the better part of two days, awake mostly long enough on the third day to eat.
The world still tilts too violently, and she’s too off balance.
But she needs a shower.
She walks to the shower only to realize she can’t take the sling off.
She hobbles out to Mira and Zoey.
“I need help,” she says.
“With what Tiger?” Mira asks.
“I need a shower, but the sling,” she says.
“You’re not supposed to shower with the stitches,” Zoey says.
For reasons unknown to her, she feels like crying.
“Please,” she says, and her voice wobbles.
Mira’s eyes widen comically.
“I’m sure we can try and just avoid them?” Mira says.
So together they help her, taking off the sling and putting a waterproof sling on.
Her eyes had blackened, and her shoulder was bruised as well. The shower was life-changing; she could feel the day's worth of sweat coming off, and it was so refreshing.
After the shower, they get her dressed, always careful of her arm, then put the immobilizing sling on, they rebandage the gauze, and Mira presses a warm kiss to her cheek, then one on her lips, and Rumi melts. They pull apart, and Zoey follows with a kiss of her own.
They eat supper together and get into bed, Mira on one side, and she tucks into the taller woman, mindful of her arm, Zoey curls into her back, pressing her face into her back.
And for weeks, they did this, helping with showers, until her arm was back to normal again, and her head was manageable.
“Thank you, girls, for everything,” she says one night when the three of them are curled together in bed, Rumi pressed to Mira’s back, and Zoey curled into her front.
“It’s what were here for, Ru,” Zoey says sleepily.
Mira nods into her back, agreeing.
“I think we should remove the hoop from the golden coreo,” Mira mutters into her back.
It draws a laugh from the group, but they all agree. It hits Rumi how normal it all feels.
She knows she’s do it all over again for this, but she won't have to because her girls always give it freely, and she’s happier now than she can ever remember being.