Chapter Text
Mira lets her fist land heavily against the lockers, leaning in enough that she can see the way Rumi flinches back, clutches the notebooks closer to her chest like a shield. “Stop playing games with me,” she says. It’s supposed to be a growl, indignant, demanding. It leaves her mouth as more of a plea.
But Rumi shakes her head, refuses to meet her eyes. “I’m not,” she says, looking at the floor. “There’s nothing to play about.”
The words land harder than a slap; Mira rears back even as her hand slips from the lockers, reaches for Rumi’s left elbow. “I know you feel this, the same as I do,” she starts, only for a shrill bell to sound, loud and overwhelming. They both startle away from each other as doors open, other students filling the halls with chatter and laughter that grates on Mira’s nerves.
She can’t do this here, now, not in front of others. Mira lets herself get swept up in the motion of the crowd, turns and walks away. Doesn’t look back to see the longing look Rumi sends her way.
“And cut!” the director calls, and the extras start to melt away, leaving the stage empty as Mira returns to Rumi’s side, exchanging smiles. “Excellent, ladies,” Il-hwan says, and Mira feels Rumi nudge her lightly with an elbow, excitement clear in her body. The director is not one for giving out unearned praise. “Let’s take a short break, and then, Rumi, I’ll need you for scene 14, and Mira, both of you after that for scene 23. ”
Mira nods. She’ll need a costume change and new makeup for scene 23, but the shooting in between gives her plenty of time. Enough that she slings an arm around Rumi’s shoulders as they turn and head toward another part of the studio. “You know, Ha-eun,” she teases, resisting the urge to thread her fingers into Rumi’s dark hair. “You’re going to have to be a lot more convincing in your rejection than that.”
Rumi tilts her head up, smirking prettily. “Ha-eun’s going to shove you against those lockers and kiss you if I have to bribe the whole writer’s room.” At Mira’s laugh, Rumi’s smile settles into something gentler, fonder, and oh, there’s no doubt at all about why Rumi’s the darling of the entertainment industry, or why Mira’s lost her heart to her.
It’s embarrassingly cliche, falling in love with her co-star in this romance drama, but there’s nothing that Mira can do about it.
She and Rumi are definitely soulmates.
It’s too early to know for certain, since soulmate marks appear on your nineteenth birthday. They’re three months away from Rumi’s, when Mira will see her future sketched in Rumi’s skin, right below her left elbow. Eight months out from Mira’s own, when the universe will confirm what everyone knows.
Because everyone does know. The rest of the cast and crew see the undeniable chemistry, the way they gravitate toward each other, the way the room bends around them. The studio is practically salivating over the potential marketing benefits of their two leads — playing characters too young for marks dancing around their shared attraction — actually being soulmates.
Mira’s unwilling to let her non-scripted love life get used for publicity, but Rumi keeps assuring her that they don’t have to go through with any plans the studio is making. And Rumi’s been in the industry for a decade, ever since her long running stint on a K-drama, playing the young daughter of a single mother. She’s charmed audiences ever since, on both the small and large screens. The path of her life can be charted in magazine covers and award shows, her list of credits longer than Mira’s arm.
Being cast opposite her in this show had been Mira’s big break, after a handful of one episode appearances and a guest star turn in an ensemble cast. She’d only responded to the audition for a romantic lead after they specified they were looking for a more punk, bad-girl kind of vibe to contrast the straight-laced class president character.
When Mira had made it to the third round and the chemistry read, had walked into the room to see Ryu Rumi of all people standing opposite her, she’d—
Well, she’d lost her mind, apparently.
It had started normally enough, each reciting their memorized lines, an exchange where Rumi’s character, Ha-eun, accused Mira’s character, Ji-min, of flaunting the rules and not caring how it affected others. They’d traded frustrations and misunderstandings, riling each other up. And then Mira had stalked toward Rumi, closing down on her while Rumi had stood her ground, chin lifting stubbornly in defiance.
“Aren’t you tired of this?” Mira had hissed, which was not the line that she’d been given.
And Rumi hadn’t faltered in the slightest. “Tired of your behavior?” she’d asked, arms crossed, eyes flashing. “Of the endless arguments? Of course I am!”
Mira had rolled her eyes, snapped some hair over her shoulder. “Then make a deal with me. I’ll do things your way for one day, and if it doesn’t kill me—” she can see Rumi’s mouth twitch in a smile, “—you then have to do it my way for a day.”
“That’s…” Rumi’d sputtered, nerves clearly failing poor Ha-eun, and Mira had leaned in. Rumi’s eyes had dropped to her lips, yanked back up to her eyes, and Mira had smirked.
“That’s the deal,” she’d repeated quietly, intent on the brown eyes locked on her own, noting the light floral perfume Rumi was wearing. “Take it or leave it.”
A pause, the air drawn tight around them. Rumi’s mouth had pulled down, and she’d broken first, taking a step back with a muttered, “my way first.”
The director had called the scene there, and Mira had nearly frozen when she’d realized just how far off script they’d gone. But one look at Rumi’s smile, small and warm and secretive, had thawed her out before she could panic.
Eight more months, and then Mira could blame that entire afternoon on the soulmate thing instead of her just being incredibly, immediately gay for a beautiful woman.
Said beautiful woman is pausing as they come to the set that represents Ha-eun’s bedroom, where the next scene is taking place. Two of her fingers hook into Mira’s, squeeze lightly before letting go, and Mira smiles. Rumi is ever the consummate professional while they’re on set; for her, affection like that in the studio is as loud as a shout.
“See you at the party,” Mira says. “Costume’s had like three arguments over my skirt length and if it’s too short.”
Rumi pretends to shove her away. “Don’t tell me that now,” she laughs.
Mira just gives her a little wave and turns away, walks toward the makeup room and presents herself. Sun-hee gives her a quick smile as she sits, before she starts wiping Mira’s face with a makeup remover, working gently but efficiently.
Mira’s always appreciated Sun-hee, who prefers to work in silence. Mira relaxes into the chair, starts reviewing the party scene in her head. It should be a fun one; Ji-min allowing herself to be a little looser, a little more bold. They’re supposed to have an almost-kiss, tucked away in a dark corner. Mira’s looking forward to it; there’s some very interesting notes in the script about hand placement and a nose dragging along a throat—
A shriek rips through the air, and Mira startles upright as Sun-hee staggers back, almost tripping and falling against the counter. Commotion erupts outside, footsteps running and multiple voices raised, all trying to shout over each other. Mira stares at Sun-hee for a moment, something wrong, wrong, wrong pulsing in her blood before she hurls herself out of the chair and back toward the set.
It clicks as she bolts through the chaos, heading toward the sound of the scream, toward stage 4, the bedroom. Because she knows the nature of that voice, even if she’s never heard that particular sound from it.
People crowd between her and the set, fluttering about uselessly, some trying to get closer to help or maybe just see, others turned away, trying to get out. Mira notes a woman with a hand over her mouth, tears starting to roll down her cheeks, and shoves someone else in the back to make way.
There’s only two more rows of bodies between her and whatever’s happening; she can see multiple people kneeling on the ground, a man struggling in the arms of two others who are dragging him backwards and away.
“I had to!” he’s shouting, working one arm free and flailing his hand in the air as others duck out of the way. “I had to, believe me, I had—”
An arm catches around her waist, pulling her back, and Mira jabs her elbow back in reflex, hearing a grunt of pain even as the hold on her stays stubbornly tight.
“Mira-nim, don’t,” a voice wheezes, and the recognition that it’s Bobby who has her is the only thing stopping her from straight up attacking their intimacy coordinator. “You don’t want to see this, please.” There’s a grief in his voice that drives her wild, renews her struggles to free herself.
“Let me go, Bobby,” she shouts, and the people in front of her turn to see this new commotion, part just enough for Mira to see:
Rumi, slouched on her knees on the ground, shoulders wracked with sobs. There’s someone Mira doesn’t recognize snapping on latex gloves next to her, another gloved man gingerly picking up what looks like a metal water bottle.
Rumi, her left arm dangling, right hand clutching at her bicep, and—
At first Mira thinks it’s makeup. Special effects. The rawness of Rumi’s left arm, from just above her elbow to her wrist, doesn’t make any sort of sense. Mira lets out a choked noise when she finally processes what she’s seeing, the damage to Rumi’s flesh, the muscle exposed—
Il-hwan suddenly looms in Mira’s vision, blocks her line of sight even as she goes limp in Bobby’s grasp, the man shifting to supporting her rather than restraining her.
“We’ll take you to the hospital when she goes,” the director says quietly, not unkindly, “but let security and medical work right now. You need to be somewhere safer.”
Safer. Because Rumi had been attacked. Because someone had targeted her left arm, where the soulmark would appear.
“Come on,” Bobby urges her, pulling her back. Mira doesn’t resist this time.
Rumi never lifts her head.
——
Three months later, Mira’s knocking on the door to Rumi’s apartment. The party isn’t set to start for another hour; the studio had insisted on renting out a restaurant so that everyone could be present, but the tone around the event has been one of nervous anxiety from the rest of the cast and crew.
Nineteenth birthdays are usually centered around one thing, after all.
“Forget the number. Just treat it like she’s turning twenty,” Mira’s told people over and over again, felt relief and anger in equal measure when people seem to grasp onto the idea with enthusiasm.
Because they can forget the number. They can ignore the elephant in the room.
Rumi answers the door, dressed in long sleeves. The same thing she’s been wearing since the bandages came off. And Mira’s heart sinks, because she knows what that means.
Despite the sudden sheen to Rumi’s eyes, she steps back to allow Mira inside.
As soon as the door closes behind her, Mira turns and holds out her arms, sighing in relief when Rumi lets herself fold into them, right arm slipping around Mira’s waist.
“It didn’t come in,” Rumi murmurs, her body trembling.
“Which we figured,” Mira reminds her. She remembers Bobby (and Bobby has gone so far above and beyond for them since the attack, has become something close to an actual friend) wincing at Mira’s stark tone at times in the hospital. But Rumi is nodding, some of the tension in her shoulders easing. Sometimes Rumi doesn’t need platitudes or meaningless sweetness. Sometimes Rumi just needs to know that the truth isn’t that scary.
So Mira gives her the only truth that matters.
“It doesn’t change a thing,” Mira tells her, soft but fierce, and thrills when she feels Rumi’s left arm wrap around her as well, drawing them even closer.
——
Mira’s nineteenth birthday is much quieter; the advantage of not (yet) being at Rumi’s level of star power is that the studio doesn’t insist on doing anything for her. Mira has valiantly fought off all attempts by her friends to set something up, has promised them tomorrow and the day after, just so that she could have her actual birthday for herself.
Well. Not entirely to herself.
Her phone buzzes with Rumi’s text that she’s on her way up; Mira scrolls through her feed until a polite knock lands on her door.
And stays seated, humming to herself as the knock sounds again, slightly louder, more insistent.
Her phone pops up a notification:
Rumi:
I know you’re in there.
i gave you a key so i wouldn’t have to stand up
Mira smiles to herself as she hears an exasperated noise from behind the door, before a key scrapes into the lock. “Hi,” she says, glancing over as Rumi enters.
Rumi just shakes her head, closing the door behind her and toeing off her shoes. “Happy birthday,” she says drily. “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you too much.”
“Not at all. Come here?” Mira asks, patting the couch next to her, trying not to look too smug. A snarky Rumi means one who isn’t spiraling over the significance of the day. Not that it’s totally escaped Rumi’s attention; Mira watches her eyes zero in on Mira’s left arm, currently hidden under a sleeve.
But Rumi’s wearing long sleeves too, so fair’s fair.
“You’re planning something,” Rumi accuses gently, even as she walks directly over, sits where Mira had asked.
“What gave it away?” Mira asks, eyebrow raised. “That I asked you over on my birthday and insisted we weren’t going out?”
“We could if you wanted,” Rumi insists, not for the first time.
Mira drops her phone on the nearby table and turns to Rumi fully, swinging her legs up onto the couch and leaning back against the armrest. She guides Rumi to sit between her legs, pulling her back against her chest. “I don’t want to,” she says, kissing her hair and feeling Rumi relax into her arms. “I want to cuddle with you and watch a movie or something. Definitely we’ve got to bake a cake—”
“You cannot make your own birthday cake,” Rumi objects.
“I want you to make it and I’ll do the frosting,” Mira teases, drawing her arms a little tighter around Rumi. “Last time you got too impatient and it melted everywhere.”
Rumi blows out a breath, but Mira can catch the upturned corner of her mouth. “It tasted good.”
Mira hums her agreement. “It just looked very sad.”
“Fine,” Rumi says, curling in a little closer, tucking her head against Mira’s shoulder.
Mira lets the silence linger, feels the little tics and trembles of Rumi’s body, the deeper inhales that go nowhere, the shift to sit more upright followed immediately by her pressing herself closer. She doesn’t offer Rumi an out for what she is clearly working herself up to, just holds her close and steady.
Finally Rumi sighs, turns her head to mumble into Mira’s shirt. “Can I see it?”
“Yeah,” Mira tells her, “and you can even if you say no to this question.”
Rumi raises her head, looks up at her in clear confusion.
“Rumi,” Mira starts gently. “Will you take off your shirt?” As she watches, Rumi’s fingers curl around her left arm, right above her elbow.
After a moment of chewing on her lip, Rumi nods, the movement a little jerky. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Mira repeats, and shifts back to give Rumi space to work, lacing her hands behind her head to resist the urge to help.
Grasping the bottom of her shirt with both hands, Rumi’s lips thin into a determined line before she pulls the garment off in one smooth motion. For a moment, Mira thinks she’s going to throw it onto the floor, but she drapes it over the back of the couch instead. Her shoulders curl in, arms tucked close to her chest, but she looks at Mira expectantly.
So Mira follows through, copying Rumi’s motion to pull her shirt off and placing it next to Rumi’s; she twists to grab two small items from the table before resettling herself, drawing Rumi back against her. The warmth of skin against skin soothes them both, Mira thinks, hearing Rumi’s little sigh.
“Here,” Mira says, turning her left arm over and extending it, resting her knuckles on Rumi’s leg. The mark below her elbow is on full display, the lavender swoops and swirls of it standing out on her skin. “Our mark.”
Rumi rests her fingers on Mira’s arm, fingertips millimeters away from the mark itself. “We don’t know that,” she says quietly.
“We’ve known that for over a year,” Mira reminds her, and Rumi shakes her head even as her fingers slide slowly over the mark. Mira swallows back the relief as she watches Rumi’s fingers trace a line. Touching another person’s mark is not forbidden, but it is seen as intimate; maybe she won’t have to fight as hard as she feared.
“Not like this,” Rumi says, grief thick in her voice, and Mira nods, knowing Rumi will feel the motion.
“I thought you’d need to see it,” Mira tells her, bringing her right arm around Rumi again, pressing a small jar into her hand. “Hold this for me.”
“What—” Rumi doesn’t have more time than that before Mira’s laced her fingers through Rumi’s left hand, rotating it gently so that their forearms are parallel, facing the ceiling.
Rumi’s left arm is covered by scar tissue, largest around her elbow, tapering and thinning as it twists down toward her wrist. Mira’s massaged lotion into it, held Rumi after her exercises to try and regain the full range of motion.
She kisses Rumi’s shoulder, then unscrews the lid from the jar that Rumi is holding, flourishes a paintbrush in her vision before dipping it in.
And draws lavender across Rumi’s arm, using her own mark as a guide.
“Mira,” Rumi breathes, watching. And “Mira,” again, more shakily, when the brush catches on a twist of scar tissue, leaves the line bumpy and imprecise.
“Give me a break,” Mira tells her quietly, deliberately misunderstanding. “This angle is awkward.”
A shuddery inhale, enough that Mira lifts brush from skin so as not to make any stray marks. “Right,” Rumi says. “And you wouldn’t want to get paint on the couch.”
Mira would paint the couch in some sort of terrible polka dot pattern if it got Rumi to smile today. “Definitely.”
Rumi doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t pull away, barely flinches when the paint doesn’t sit evenly. She even holds the little pot of paint closer when Mira needs to dip the brush, which Mira does with another kiss to Rumi’s head.
They continue like that, until Mira finishes with the final part in the middle, a little curlique that curves in on another. Mira hums her satisfaction as she twists to place the brush on a towel that she’d left on the table for just this reason.
Rumi offers her the paint and quiet laughter. “You’re cute when you’re concentrating, by the way.”
“You couldn’t even see me,” Mira accuses.
“I could still tell.”
Mira grumbles, fewer words and more just a general discontent, before looking back at the mark that now covers both of their arms. “It’s a good color on you,” she says.
Rumi doesn’t answer that, fingertips of her right hand hovering over the drying paint before she lets her hand fall into her lap. “You don’t…” she starts, then swallows. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“You’re right,” Mira tells her. “I don’t. But I want to.”
Once again, Rumi doesn’t reply. This time she doesn’t speak at all, the silence lingering as she keeps her eyes down.
Eventually, with a sigh, Mira wraps her hand around Rumi’s elbow, lets her thumb come to rest on the crease right above the painted lines. “Look, I’m not trying to force you into anything. You don’t have to—” Fear rises in her chest, crushes her lungs and smothers the words. Mira’s breath stutters, and Rumi shifts in her arms at the sensation. “—to accept this, if you don’t want it. The mark. Being my soulmate.”
“I want it,” Rumi says with a sudden fierceness, turning around completely until she’s on her knees on the couch, both hands at Mira’s cheeks. Holding her in place so she can’t look away from Rumi’s eyes even if she wanted to. “Mira, I do. I just…” she swallows hard, and Mira grasps her wrists lightly, runs her thumbs soothingly over skin. “I just wanted to see it.”
“It’s right there,” Mira tells her. Rumi’s lips press together, but Mira hurries on before Rumi can object. “I know,” she says, tone softening, because she does. Rumi’s cried about it before, face tucked into Mira’s neck, tears hot on her skin. Mourning what is missing, feeling like something was taken from her. She’s watched Rumi pace rooms, spiraling between guilt and anger and grief, all because a man who believed she should belong to no one thought he was doing the right thing.
And there’s something in Mira that aches when she looks at Rumi’s arm and sees nothing there. A small, scared part of her that fears Rumi will drift away without that tether, the same way her brother had, when the tensions between her and their parents had drawn too tight and balancing between her and them had become too much of a strain.
He had chosen their parents over her, and most days she doesn’t blame him. He always told her he wanted things easier. He’d told her. She just wished he would have made an exception.
“I wanted to see it too,” Mira says, voice quiet, and Rumi sags, eyes shimmering until she blinks it back.
“I love you,” she says, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “I loved you at eighteen. I love you at nineteen. I’ll love you at ninety.”
“Wow,” Mira drawls. “That’s quite the jump. Only one year in and you’re ready to pledge your life to me.”
Rumi straightens, cheeks flushed, slaps her lightly on the shoulder. “Shut up,” she says. “You just drew your mark on me. You’re one to talk.” When Mira just laughs at successfully getting a rise out of her, Rumi clearly fights back a smile. “You’re the worst,” she insists. “The absolute worst.”
“And you’re my soulmate,” Mira says back. “What’s that say about you?”
All at once the laughter in Rumi’s eyes softens; fingers brush through Mira’s hair, tuck some behind her ear. “I have no idea what I did to deserve you,” she says, the sincerity in her voice stealing all of the teasing from Mira’s mouth.
“I loved you at eighteen,” she repeats, because there’s only the truth left, and because Rumi smiles, small and hopeful and giddy with it. “I love you at nineteen. I’ll love you at ninety.”
Mira knows that as fact. And if Rumi ever doubts it, she’ll remind her. Mira can be certain enough for them both.