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“I hate you so bad, you know that, right?” Rumi demands through gritted teeth.
Mira just grins all obnoxiously, stretching her arms above her head with a pleased hum. Rumi takes that time to elbow her right between the ribs, snickering at the squawk that gets her. Mira scoffs at her before she sneers, “I’d hit you back, but you might explode and die, so I’ll be nice.”
Rumi glowers right back at her. “It wasn’t my fault! My foot got ran over! I couldn’t do anything about that!”
“You literally put your foot in the street.” Mira narrows her eyes. “That’s on you.”
“I literally didn’t do that,” Rumi immediately argues back; she didn’t.
Or, well, technically she did. But god forbid a woman tries to walk across the fucking street in this day and age, apparently. She was barely off the sidewalk when a car sped past and ran directly over her foot, effectively breaking it instantly and leaving her down on the pavement. Really, Rumi was more desolate over the fact that she was going to have to call either Mira or Celine about what had just happened to her. She had considered walking to the hospital herself before she eventually caved after a small swarm of people had rushed over to check if she was okay.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over that. She felt like an idiot sitting there, scooting herself back just in case another car went rogue and tried taking her out like the easy prey she suddenly turned into. It took a grand amount of effort for her to get her phone out and it took even more effort for her to pull up Mira’s contact and pathetically go, “Hey, Mira, um, I know you’re at work right now, but can you drive me to the hospital?”
Mira was nice enough to come and get her, though Rumi doesn’t think she’d use the word ‘nice’ to describe any part of that car ride. As soon as Mira stumbled out of her car, near-frantic like she was actually concerned, and realised that Rumi was totally fine other than no longer being able to walk, she burst out laughing. And then she had the audacity to crouch down and pat Rumi’s knee and say something stupid and condescending like ‘it’s gonna be okay, sweetie’ like an asshole before she finally stopped being such a dick and got Rumi into her car.
Rumi still hasn’t seen the pictures Mira apparently took while they were in the hospital. Mira outright refuses to show her, and no amount of whining and begging and pleading has made her budge even a little, but whatever.
Despite all of that, Mira still stayed with her in her apartment and helped out with effectively everything. Rumi had to buck up and deal with the incessant teasing in return for having her meals made for her, but she’d probably choose that every single time, because Mira is a really good cook. She can take a month and a week of harassment in return for not having to cook her own meals. She’s totally cool with that.
What she couldn’t handle was being on bedrest. She does think she very genuinely came close to killing Mira when Mira insisted she stayed in bed or on the couch, and then Rumi did get physical when Mira cheerfully suggested the idea of carrying her around. It was so much worse, too, because Rumi wanted nothing more than to tackle her to the ground, but Mira danced just out of reach, and what the hell was Rumi supposed to do? Get up and try to get her on one foot?
Yes. And she did. And she fell on her face like a fucking idiot, and Mira laughed at her so hard she nearly threw up, so Rumi never did that again.
She loves her beyond words; Mira is her best friend and she truly cannot see herself living without her in any capacity. They’ve been with each other since they were kids, and that’s just—that’s always how it’s been, even when Rumi desperately wished that wasn’t true. She isn’t always able to wrap her mind perfectly around their dynamic even now, but it doesn’t matter to her. Mira is such an integral part of her life that Rumi thinks being away from her would be like stripping out half of her soul.
That’s all completely true, and it’s also completely true for Rumi to say that she would happily and easily drown Mira with her own two hands if she got the chance after the shit Mira put her through this last month. Who does that? Who the hell sees someone who is injured and defenseless and goes ‘wow what an easy target!’ instead of ‘oh I should help them’? Mira, apparently. Rumi guesses it’s sort of on her in a sense—she would genuinely pick Mira over anyone and everything, even after what they went through together this past month.
Yes, Rumi absolutely needed to get out of her apartment or else she was going to go crazy. No, Mira enacting their stupid half-shuffle half-screaming-match to the balcony wasn’t good enough. Yes, Rumi was desperate to be able to run and walk and leave her apartment on her own.
She guesses it’s also her fault for begging Mira to either kill her or let her break her foot again without giving her perfectly clear instructions. She guesses the instructions she had given were too up to interpretation, because now they’re out in the middle of a rainstorm that Rumi knew was going to happen—she has the weather app on her phone! Mira doesn’t! Like a freak!—but Mira promised it wouldn’t, and then she dragged Rumi out the door without even letting her put on a windbreaker or anything heavier than the stupid tank top she rolled out of bed with, also like a freak.
But obviously Mira brought a jacket for herself and she’s adamantly refusing to share, and Rumi probably wouldn’t even accept her offer anyway, just out of pride. So now Rumi is soaked, they’re on a run, albeit more of a slow shamble, and her foot hurts crazy bad, and it’s all Mira’s fault.
God, she sucks so bad. Rumi doesn’t think she’ll ever let herself get over the fact that she apparently likes this enough to stick around.
Mira drags her hands back through her soaked hair, still grinning as she starts to walk again. She had paused for half a second to let Rumi adjust and balance on her once her foot started hurting more than the normal amount, but clearly that timer is up now.
Rumi huffs as she trails alongside her. She hooks their arms together and ignores Mira’s airy bark of laughter, leaning closer to her than what’s technically necessary. She feels a lot better than she did even a few days ago, but Rumi still feels off-balance and a little off-kilter more often than not. It’s been hard for her to get back into the swing of things, which she knows Mira knows—that’s why they’re out here in the first place. Barring...everything...about their current situation, Rumi is genuinely beyond appreciative of her. She knows Mira doesn’t like going for runs nearly as much as she does, that she’s really only doing this for Rumi’s benefit, and it makes her feel warmer than anything ever has.
Mira gently knocks their shoulders together. “We can walk on the way back.”
“You’re so generous, did you know that?” Rumi teases. She can’t stop the way she breaks into a grin, ducking her head as she laughs under her breath. She knows Mira’s grinning just as widely as she is. “Yeah, okay. I can’t believe you didn’t believe me when I told you it was gonna rain!”
“Because you’re usually wrong!” Mira laughs back. “It’s barely even raining, don’t be such a baby. You won’t melt.”
Rumi rolls her eyes. She’s halfway through saying, “You don’t know that,” when she goes completely still, dead in her tracks. She ends up yanking Mira back largely by accident, and she can distantly hear Mira asking her something—probably demanding why she stopped in the first place—but Rumi’s mind is occupied with a dozen other thoughts. Mostly stuff like ‘oh my god, she’s gorgeous’.
Up ahead of them, maybe ten or so paces, is a park Rumi likes to go to in her free time. There’s a tennis court that she’s only seen be used by groups that were clearly fucking around, but now it’s occupied by someone who might be the most gorgeous woman alive.
She has wavy black hair and Rumi can see the scattered freckles along her shoulders. She isn’t wearing much other than a cropped t-shirt and a pair of baggy pants, and if Rumi moves forward just a little, she can just barely make out her face, and oh, she’s gorgeous. Her freckles extend up to her cheeks, over the bridge of her nose. She has a beautiful smile and her eyes are scrunched up at the sides, and when the woman raises her arm up to wipe her hair away from her forehead, Rumi can see that she’s toned.
It takes her another second to process the fact that the woman has a tennis racket in her hand. She’s still standing there with her jaw dropped to the sidewalk when she watches her raise up the racket and connect to the tennis ball itself. She hadn’t even—Rumi didn’t even really realise she was playing with a partner, which, okay, that’s stupid and she knows that, because it’s not like tennis is a solitary sport, except, well, kind of, right? Like, you can play with those machines that spit out balls and stuff, but this court is right next to a park and probably isn’t given enough money to put in one of those machines, so obviously she has to have a partner, and—
“Oh,” Mira says from beside her. The only reason Rumi is drawn back to her body is because she hears the instant mocking lilt in Mira’s voice. When she finally manages to tear her gaze away from the woman and look toward Mira, it’s already too late. Mira’s grin has turned downright wolfish, her eyes sparkling when she teases, “So...do you want me to get her number for you, or...?”
“Shut up!” Rumi hisses. She detangles herself from Mira just so she can shoot her hands out and grab Mira by the collar of her stupid shirt, rapidly shaking her back and forth. Mira throws her head back and cackles, practically giddy, Rumi can hear it in her stupid tone. “I’ll kill you!” she seethes. “I will kill you right here, right now, Kang Mira, don’t you dare fuck with me like that.”
Mira laughs even harder. “So you don’t want her number? Can I ask her out just for, like, me?”
“You don’t even—!” Rumi hates the way her voice pitches up. She makes a strangled noise from the back of her throat and breathes out slowly, refusing to rise to the bait more than she already has. “You suck. You suck. You hate me and you suck.”
“I was just asking.” Mira’s eyes are still sparkling with mirth, amusement etched into every line of her face. “She is pretty. Oh, she’s looking at you.”
Rumi snaps her head to the side so fast she winces from the instant protest her neck gives her. And the woman isn’t even—
Rumi goes back to shaking Mira back and forth, far more furiously than she had been the first time around. Mira laughs harder this time, clearly overjoyed, because she does suck and she does hate Rumi. “I hate you so much,” she groans. “You don’t even get it.”
Mira just snickers. “No, but she is pretty. I get why you like her.”
“I never even said I liked her,” Rumi grumbles. It’s a weak protest and they both know that, but it’s more a matter of shielding what little pride she has left. Not like that’s a lot, but she still makes an attempt more out of obligation than anything. “We need to go. I don’t want to just—we’re being weird.”
“We?” Mira demands incredulously.
“You’re standing here too!” Rumi says in a laugh. She ignores Mira’s pointed eye roll and grabs her by the arm again, forcing them to start moving. She doesn’t want to seem like a creep, even if the woman hasn’t noticed her at all. That’s the last thing she needs.
Rumi gets about halfway past the tennis court before she hears a voice call out, “Hey—hey, wait!”
She doesn’t even need to turn to see if it’s the woman calling out for them, because the voice she hears is genuinely beyond beautiful. Rumi glances at Mira first, unsurprised to see her lips curling up into another stupid, wolfish grin as she nudges Rumi with her shoulder.
She steels herself as she turns to face the woman, who’s suddenly a lot closer than she had been; she’s at the small, chain fence that separates them, but she has a jacket thrown over her shoulder this time. Before Rumi can open her mouth or try to do anything at all, the woman grabs her jacket, reaches across the fence, and pushes it right into Rumi’s hand.
“I have another in my car,” the woman says with a bright grin. She tilts her head to the side, letting out a pretty giggle as she waves her hand up toward the sky, then toward Rumi. “And you look like you kinda need it so...”
Rumi feels her heart catch in her throat. Okay. So she’s drop-dead gorgeous and also sweet and considerate and thoughtful and they don’t even know each other. Good god.
“Thank you,” Rumi softly says. She thinks it’s something of a miracle that she manages to speak at all, but she knows if she fumbles this, she’ll literally never hear the end of it from Mira. “Are you sure? I don’t live super far from here, I can—”
“It’s really not a big deal!” the woman rushes out. She beams a little harder at her, eyes scrunching up at the sides. She’s...stunning. That’s the only word Rumi can think, and it echoes throughout her mind the longer she looks at her. She’s so beautiful. The freckles scattered across her cheeks are gorgeous, her eyes catch what little sunlight filters past the clouds, and she’s so...
Rumi clears her throat, forcing herself to smile back; it isn’t a particularly hard thing to do, not when she’s trying really hard not to act like an idiot. “Thank you,” she repeats, a little more firmly now. “Do you usually come out here?”
The woman falters for a second, and Rumi almost backtracks, but then she’s saying, “Uh, yeah! Pretty much every day for the last month, honestly.” She tips her head to the side. “Why?”
“So I can give this back,” Rumi says, lifting up the jacket. She feels a little stupid after that, so she quickly steps away from Mira to pull it on. The jacket smells like warm vanilla and cinnamon, and—Rumi swears that the woman hadn’t been wearing it, but it’s so unbelievably warm, soothing away the rain on her skin.
“Oh, you don’t, you don’t have to,” the woman says with a laugh. “It’s okay.”
“I’m going to,” Rumi promises. She hopes it doesn’t sound weird, because she doesn’t mean it like, like a threat, or anything, she just would do literally anything to see her again and thinks the most normal way to go about that is to bring her jacket back. Which is a normal thing to do generally, even if she didn’t have ulterior motives, or anything like that.
The woman deflates, ducking her head. “Okay,” she eventually says. “Well, I’m Zoey. So if you come out here and I’m not at the court, just call around, okay?” the woman—Zoey—says. “Get home safe! And warm!”
Rumi lets out an involuntary, sort of stunned laugh. That quickly turns into breathless giggling, and then she’s tempted to whirl around and run into traffic to keep herself from fucking up more than she already has. But Zoey just grins back at her and then turns on her heel and jogs back toward the net and her partner, and Rumi is left standing there in a daze, stars in her eyes.
Mira drapes an arm over her shoulders, leaning in close with a wild grin when she asks, “So...Zoey, huh?”
“Shut up,” Rumi says back, but her voice comes out soft and dreamy and she knows it. There’s nothing that can be done, really. What a shame. “Do you think I can get her number?”
“Dude,” Mira says with a snort. “She literally gave you her jacket unprompted. Yes, Ru, you can get her number. Not right now though. C’mon, you look like a weirdo.”
Rumi lets Mira drag her off, away from the tennis court and away from the park. It takes an insurmountable amount of effort for her not to keep her head turned in the direction of Zoey—Zoey, Zoey, Zoey!—but she manages well enough, if not only to avoid Mira’s mocking. The walk back to her place takes way longer than it should, she’s still sort of recovering and doesn’t want to fuck up her foot more than she already has, but they get there in the end.
As soon as they get past the door, Mira is leaning up against it, waggling her eyebrows up and down as she beams. Rumi jabs a finger at her in response, and Mira raises her hands up in mock defense. Rumi still can’t believe they’ve known each other long enough to have an entire conversation entirely with their eyes, but it’s too late to go back and change anything.
Mira relents. She drops her hands with a sigh, pushing away from the door after she takes off her shoes. She makes it to the kitchen before it must just be unbearable, or something, and calls out, “Hey, do you think she was the one who ran you over, or—?”
Rumi groans, letting out a series of pained noises that just leave Mira cackling. “Shut up!” she whines. “Why do you have to do this to me every single time? I never do it to you!”
“Uh, duh?” Mira shoots back. “‘Cause it doesn’t happen to me?”
“Can you let me win literally anything ever?” Rumi demands. She huffs, flinging herself into her couch. She jams her hands in the pockets of Zoey’s jacket, her heart stuttering and skipping a beat as soon as she’s reminded that this jacket decidedly does not belong to her even a little. Maybe a little too hopefully, Rumi feels up the pockets of Zoey’s jacket in an attempt to find a piece of paper or anything left behind.
Unfortunately, she’s met with nothing. Rumi sighs, tipping her head back over the couch. She ignores Mira entirely—she’s not even doing anything right now, but Rumi knows her, she can practically feel Mira mocking her silently—and delves into her plan for tomorrow. What does she wear? The jacket probably, right? Or is that weird? Is it weird of her to wear it and then take it off? It has to be weird. But it’s also probably pretty weird to just hand over a jacket to a random stranger on the street, right? Or is that just nice? It was very nice, actually. Incredibly nice.
Rumi screws up her face. “Never fall in love,” she mutters under her breath.
Mira snickers from the kitchen. “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it. Do you want me to walk you up to her like I did this time, or are you brave enough to do it yourself tomorrow?”
“How is it my fault that we were walking together?” Rumi whines. She tries to make her voice come out firm, but she knows she fails on all fronts there. Whatever. “No. Don’t follow me, either.”
“I would never follow you,” Mira assures her in the tone she exclusively uses for when she’s blatantly telling lies. “It’s kind of a far walk. Are you sure you can make it?”
Rumi makes a noise. “Yes, I’m sure I can make it. You literally made me go on a run with you an hour ago, don’t act like you’re actually worried.”
Mira lets out a low bark of laughter, very clearly pleased with herself. Rumi can’t help but smile in return, fondness settling in her chest. For as much as they fight, it’s never serious. Rumi can’t even pretend not to love and adore Mira for a second.
“It was good for you,” Mira says, simply. “If you didn’t go on that run, you’d never have met Zoey, so...you’re welcome. Don’t wear her jacket to bed, that’s total freak behaviour and I’ll never let you live it down,” she warns. Which—Rumi totally wasn’t going to do that. She definitely was not. “Do you want me to make lunch, or do you wanna order out?”
Rumi flops over the side of the couch and looks up at Mira with her biggest, most sorrowful-looking eyes. She can’t keep up the act for very long, breaking into a wild grin when Mira just snorts and waves her off, already turning back toward the kitchen.
Rumi doesn’t go to sleep in Zoey’s jacket, but she does wear it for the rest of the day. She ignores all of Mira’s stupid looks and pays no mind to her constant grins. The smell of cinnamon and warm vanilla follows her all throughout her day, and Rumi happily welcomes it.
Rumi doesn’t think she’ll ever live down the hours of her life she spends getting ready for what decidedly isn’t a date and has no implications of becoming a date, no matter what Mira says. Also, how would she know? She’s literally never gone on a date before! Rumi spends her entire morning in a blind haze of panic, stalking around her room as she paces back and forth until Mira makes her sit down and bluntly tells her that she’s being a freak about this. Rumi thinks really hard about choking her out for that until she realises that Mira is, unfortunately, right, and so she sits down and takes a breather.
Admittedly not for very long. She’s back on her feet within the next couple of minutes, but this time she makes more progress in the form of migrating to her bathroom. Mira sits on the bathroom edge and rolls her eyes the whole time Rumi frantically tries to explain to her why this is genuinely a nightmare situation for her to be in before blanching when Mira helpfully floats the idea of just not returning the jacket. Which, absolutely not. She can’t do that. That is total freak behaviour more than anything else, and Rumi can’t do that; especially not after she told Zoey very directly that she was going to give her jacket back.
Mira manages to get her to calm down midway through Rumi brushing her teeth—probably because she can’t really fight back no matter how badly she wishes she could—and brings up the fact that, if things go poorly, they literally can just avoid that park for a few weeks until she gets over it, problem solved. And if things don’t go poorly, then cool, nothing to worry about. Mira also reiterates maybe a thousand times that Zoey was the one who reached out first and gave Rumi her jacket unprompted, which definitely means something.
All of that is true. Rumi knows all of that is true, and hearing it be repeated back to her a little more bluntly and harshly through Mira helps a lot. She stops being deathly terrified and nervous about the whole situation at hand, finishes brushing her teeth, and decides to put her hair up in a half-bun after Mira outright makes fun of her over the idea of Rumi going all out when she’ll literally be spending most of her time outside.
By the time Rumi is actually finished getting ready, it’s taken her maybe twenty minutes at best. She guesses she shouldn’t be surprised; she wasn’t...really getting dressed while she was miserably pacing around her bed and stressing herself out worse and worse before Mira finally stopped pretending to be asleep and started grumbling at her for waking her up.
She still has ten or so minutes before she’d like to leave. Rumi doesn’t know if Zoey comes out at the same time every day, but it feels like her best option to go out when she did last time, and it’ll take her about...fifteen minutes to get to the park if she walks? She can’t wait until she’s fully healed and doesn’t have to deal with being slower than usual.
Rumi shifts back and forth on her feet, glancing over toward Mira on the couch. Mira is very obviously pretending to be on her phone, but Rumi can see her eyes flitting up every few seconds before she looks away again. She can’t help but smile, rolling her eyes when she catches Mira looking at her briefly again before acting like that never happened.
“Are you okay with this?” Rumi asks, making a vague motion to Zoey’s jacket on the back of her front door.
Mira sets her phone down in her lap almost immediately. She gives Rumi a sorely unimpressed look before she says, “I really couldn’t care, like, at all. She’s gonna have to get cool with a lot of things pretty fast, though.”
Rumi giggles, ducking her head before she nods in agreement. “Yeah. She seems really nice, though. Like, I know she gave me her jacket and everything, so I’m a little biased, but...I don’t know, that’s what nice people do, right? Like, even if you wanted to hit on someone, you wouldn’t have had to do all of that, but she did. That’s super sweet.”
“She does seem nice,” Mira agrees. “Which is why you should stop freaking out over her. She’s not going to be randomly mean to you, Rumi.”
“I know that,” Rumi mumbles. “She was just really nice and really pretty, and, I mean, you know.” She gives a helpless sort of shrug, looking down at the floor. “I haven’t done anything in a long time. I just feel weird about it.”
Mira hums. “Yeah. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” she asks.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Rumi laughs. “Don’t be weird, Mir. If it—if it goes badly, um, which I’m not saying it will! But if it does, will you finally let me make you watch—?”
“It’s not going to go bad,” Mira quickly interrupts. “So, no. Actually, leave early. You never know. Bye! I’ll see you later! Have a good time on your date! Love you!”
Rumi throws her head back when she laughs, rolling her eyes so hard it makes her head hurt. She’s never been able to get Mira to agree to watch any horror movie in the history of existence after one time where she didn’t warn her that’s what they were going to watch, and that—that had been years ago! They’re adults now! Rumi still giggles and feels infinitely lighter than she had only a minute or two ago. She doesn’t even feel as anxious when she reaches out for Zoey’s jacket and slips it over her shoulders.
She turns her head over her shoulder, grinning at Mira. “I love you, thank you for...” She makes a vague gesture toward herself, then out toward the living room. “All of that.”
Mira shrugs and smiles back at her, waving her off. “No big deal. Text me when you get there and when you’re on the way back. Especially if you need something.”
“I will!” Rumi promises, and then she grabs her keys and is out the door without another second of hesitation.
The walk to the park doesn’t take long at all. It shouldn’t, at least. Rumi maybe drags her feet more than she should, because okay, maybe she’s still really anxious and super nervous, and there’s definitely a part of her that wishes she took Mira up on her offer to come with, even though that’s probably really weird. Or, well, is it? It’s not like Zoey didn’t see them walking together. She actively made the choice to approach Rumi even despite that, so maybe it’s not as weird as she’s making it in her head. That’s usually how it goes.
Rumi feels her heart rate spike up as soon as the park comes into view, and, more importantly, the tennis court.
And...oh. Zoey is already there.
She’s wearing a short white t-shirt and different, more teal-coloured baggy pants this time around. Her partner from yesterday is also there, a guy who honestly looks pretty close to Zoey, now that Rumi is actually looking at him. Her attention is immediately drawn back to Zoey, though. It’s not Rumi’s fault that she’s captivated by how Zoey races across the court, dodging from side to side as she slams her racket to the ball.
Rumi can’t believe how quickly she’s decided that she’s pretty into tennis. It literally never once has crossed her mind before this—it’s always been a sport that she’s technically known about and knows surface-level information about, but that’s the extent of her knowledge or her general want to further that knowledge. And now here she is, standing just out of sight, watching Zoey and her tennis partner hit the ball back and forth, stunned to genuine silence with how downright beautiful she finds her.
It only gets worse when Zoey breaks out into giddy laughter after her partner misses a swing and the ball stays on the ground on his side of the net. She shoots her arms up and flexes, letting out a whoop as she grins and spins in a little circle. Rumi can distantly hear her partner grumbling and saying something, but she’s far too focused on how Zoey just shrugs and keeps grinning, clearly strutting across the court.
She’s so fucked.
Rumi shakes her head and forces herself to keep walking. She can do this. She can do this, and she needs to stop just standing there like a loser and actually go and talk to her. She wishes she took Mira up on her offer so badly. Mira wouldn’t even need to be right next to her, she could just be in the park, or something, and Rumi would feel a million times less nervous. But she was so insistent that Mira stayed at her apartment, and...whatever. It’s fine. She can deal with this just fine. She’s a grown woman with a crush, she can handle that by herself and not psych herself out of her mind.
That mantra loses any of the hold it had once Rumi comes right up next to the chain-link fence and Zoey spins around all very suddenly, like she was waiting. That thought does something quite frankly embarrassing to her heart, and Rumi feels herself flushing at the idea that Zoey, Zoey, might have been waiting for her.
“Hi,” Rumi breathes out. She can’t help the way she grins, leaning over the fence. She’s incredibly grateful that Mira didn’t let her leave her apartment as dressed up as she wanted.
“Hi,” Zoey says back. Rumi watches as she shifts on her feet, swaying back and forth for a second before she offers, “So...you survived the tsunami then, right?” and then grimaces. Rumi almost laughs when Zoey rapidly backtracks, “Well, okay, I mean—clearly you did, since you’re here! And...and you’re here! I didn’t really expect you to come back,” she admits. “But I was hoping you would.”
Rumi feels her face heat up worse than before. “Of course I came back,” she says. She pulls away from the fence, tugging Zoey’s jacket off her shoulders. She shivers as soon as the cold air hits her bare skin, but she still neatly folds up Zoey’s jacket and stretches her arms across the fence. “I had to bring this back. And I wanted to see you again.”
It’s a hell of a lot bolder than what she’d usually go for, but the longer they speak, the longer Zoey looks at her, the more Rumi thinks she might be good to do so.
Zoey giggles. Her fingers briefly brush against Rumi’s as she goes to take the jacket, and Rumi swears it’s like electricity shoots through her entire body. She shudders again, desperately trying not to be weird about it as she moves her hands back to her sides.
“Well, I’m here.” Zoey beams at her, tilting her head to the side. “It, uh, it kept you warm, though, right? I know it’s kind of an old jacket—not that that’s why I gave it to you! If the one in my car was literally any better I would’ve gotten that one, I just had this one on hand,” she rushes, “I...I hope it was, like, fine, though?”
“It was good!” Rumi quickly agrees. “It was really warm. I really like your perfume.”
Oh, that’s probably super fucking weird to say, good god.
Zoey pauses, opening her mouth for half a second before she breaks into another wide, beautiful grin. “Yeah?” she asks, sort of slowly. “I’m glad, I like it too. And, um, I was being serious.” She wiggles the jacket a little, then looks back up to Rumi. “If you wanted to keep this, I’d let you. Well, actually.” Zoey holds up her other hand. She inclines her head back toward the bench within the court, saying, “Can you give me a second?”
“Y-yeah!” Rumi nods. “Yeah, of course.”
Zoey beams at her again and then spins on her heel, jogging away from the fence and further into the court. Rumi glances over to the guy she was playing with, watching as he rolls his eyes and starts making his way to—oh, he’s coming over to her. Great.
It’s a little funny how, as soon as he gets to the fence, Zoey whips her head around and shouts, “Do not talk to her! Don’t talk to her, Jinu, I’ll kill you! I’ll do horrible, awful, super fucked up shit to you! Get away!”
The man—Jinu, apparently—doesn’t even look back at her. He drapes his arms over the fence, looks at her for a second, and deadpans, “She likes boba and her favourite shop is about...” He gives a low, noncommittal sort of hum, gesturing vaguely past Rumi’s shoulder. “I don’t know, five minutes away from here? Take her there so you don’t, like, interrupt another one of our games. Thanks!”
Rumi can’t help but laugh, sort of stunned and in disbelief. “...Right,” she slowly agrees. “Sorry.”
Jinu doesn’t get a chance to speak, because Zoey has materialised across the court and has her arms wrapped around her neck. Rumi is genuinely shocked that she doesn’t suplex him then and there, but he does get dragged away from behind, and then pushed off to the side. Zoey looks up at her, a sheepish grin stretching out across her face.
“Um,” she says. “Sorry. That’s, um, that’s my brother. He’s literally the worst person ever and I only talk to him because I feel bad that he was adopted at birth, and—”
“That’s not true!” Jinu hisses. “What do you even see in her?”
“Go away, freak!” Zoey laughs, whirling around. She plants her hand on his chest and shoves him farther away from her; Jinu relents this time, throwing his hands up in the air as he stalks off to his side of the court again. Zoey lets out a quiet huff before she faces Rumi again, her expression softening.
She holds up her jacket again. Rumi doesn’t know how she knows, but she instinctively reaches out for it, and Zoey presses it into her hands.
“Are you—?”
“It’s probably gonna rain again in the next, uh, five minutes,” Zoey rushes out. “So...keep it. Just for tonight, obviously. And then you can bring it back tomorrow, right? And if it starts raining again when you bring it back, I guess you’ll just have to...” Zoey waves her hand, grinning a little harder. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to keep it again. Sucks, huh?”
Rumi lets out an involuntary giggle, smiling so wide it leaves her cheeks aching. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, I guess it does suck. Oh!” She winces, feeling like a total idiot. She sways on her feet, tentatively offering, “I-I’m, um, I’m Rumi, by the way. Sorry. I never gave you my name.”
Zoey gives a soft hum. “Rumi. That’s okay. I’m glad I have it now. Hey, I gotta go back to kicking my brother’s ass—” Zoey gestures out toward the court—”but I’d really like to see you again tomorrow, maybe? Or sometime later. Uh. Feel free to let me know.”
Feel free to—? Rumi doesn’t have...
Oh, she thinks. She maybe makes more of a show of it than she needs to, pulling Zoey’s jacket over herself, but who’s to say, really? And then she slides her hands into her pockets, and...
Rumi grins so hard it hurts. There’s a little slip of paper there that hadn’t been there before, she would know. She sees the flush that spreads across Zoey’s face now, feeling sort of giddy at how nervous she looks. Thank god it’s not just her that’s freaking out about this.
Rumi maybe also makes a show of it when she pulls the slip of paper out, holding it between her fingers. She grins, wiggling the paper in her fingers and says, “Yeah, okay. I’ll text you when I get back home.”
“Cool!” Zoey says, her voice higher-pitched than it was before. “Cool, cool, cool, cool! I’ll, um, I’ll be waiting.”
“Have a good match!” Rumi beams. She feels like she might pass out with how excited she is. “I’m rooting for you.”
Zoey flashes her a grin, grabbing her racket from where she left it leaning against the fence. She hikes it over her shoulder, plants her other hand on her hip, and says, “That’s all I could ever ask for,” before she stalks back to the net and picks up the ball.
Rumi watches her for a second longer. Her heart pounds so fiercely in her chest that she’s sort of surprised it hasn’t broken free yet. After another beat, Rumi ducks her head, forcing herself to move away so she doesn’t stand here all day. If she had any less shame, she probably would. She definitely would, actually. But she has just a little more shame than boldness, so she sets out on the path back home.
She doesn’t stop running her fingers over the piece of paper in her pocket. She so desperately wants to whip out her phone and just, like, call Zoey outright, but she forces herself to chill and wait. It’s only fifteen minutes of a walk. It’s only fifteen minutes, and...
Well. Jinu said that boba place was nearby.
Rumi can totally take a detour. She’s sure Mira will understand.
It starts raining again before Rumi ever leaves the boba place.
She practically slams open her apartment door, soaked and literally drenched like never before, her chest heaving as she stands there and pants in the doorway. She ran the entire way back, which she loved, she will never take running for granted ever again, but she’s been out of practice and also her foot hurts crazy bad now, which is her own fault, but still.
Rumi is hardly surprised when Mira just raises her head up a fraction of an inch before she looks back down at her phone. Has she even moved from that stupid couch? Rumi is almost tempted to pick a fight with her for no reason other than because she wants to, but then she smells jajangmyeon, and...okay, maybe she was too quick to start something, that’s on her.
“So...” Mira starts, amusement shining through her voice. “Did you forget to give her her jacket back, or...what happened there, Ru?”
Nevermind. Maybe she will actually start something.
Rumi rolls her eyes, grinning as she closes and locks the door behind her. “No, I didn’t forget, thank you very much. I gave it back to her and then she gave it back to me, and she gave me her number!” Rumi spins around and grins even harder, a laugh torn from her chest. God, she still can’t believe that happened. “I need to text her, like, right now.”
Mira makes a noise. “Wow, really? I can’t believe this.” She’s so deadpan about it that it’s almost impressive. Rumi just rolls her eyes again, kicking off her boots before she pads out to the living room and throws herself across Mira’s lap, decidedly ignoring her yelp of surprise, then her protesting grumbles. It doesn’t take her very long to cave, and then her hand is in Rumi’s hair, her phone resting on her back. “So it went pretty good, then?”
“Really good,” Rumi agrees. She fumbles around before she takes Mira’s other hand in her own, squeezing three times. “I’ll probably ask if she wants to go on a date with me, or something. Her brother—that’s the guy she was playing with—told me that there’s a boba place she really likes pretty close by, so...I’ll probably take her there. I can bring you back something whenever we go. Um. If. If we go.”
“Sure.” Mira squeezes her hand back. “So, like...are you gonna text her, or are you gonna make her wait?”
Rumi lets out a groan, burying her face further into the couch. “Can I not hang out with you for two seconds?” she demands. She huffs after another second, pushing herself up. She ends up twisting and flopping into her back, ignoring Mira’s little scoff when Rumi accidentally flings her phone onto the ground. She fishes her own phone out of her pocket, then carefully pulls the little piece of paper out and hands it to Mira. “Can you read this for me?”
Mira hums in response. For once in her life, she doesn’t put up a fight or tease Rumi for twenty minutes before caving; she slowly reads out the numbers until Rumi has successfully made Zoey a contact. It’s an impressive feat for her, given how bad her hands are shaking by the end of it. She doesn’t remember the last time she was this nervous over just texting someone. She guesses it’s been a few years since she’s been on any dates at all, let alone a relationship, but...still.
Rumi breathes out. She props herself up out of Mira’s lap, adjusting so that she’s settled with her back to Mira’s shoulder. “Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay. I got this.”
Mira snorts. “Yup. It’s just a text, I believe in you. Also, can you, like, hurry up? I made lunch an hour ago because I thought you’d be back way sooner. Where did you—?” Mira pauses. “You went to the boba place.”
“Um.” Rumi grimaces even though Mira can’t see her doing it. “Maybe.”
“Dork,” Mira mutters. “Okay, text her! Jesus, Ru. You’re stressing me out.”
Rumi rolls her eyes, but she eventually manages to bring herself to start typing.
hi! this is rumi :)
i said i’d text when i got back home, so...
hi!
Rumi withers as soon as she sends the third text. She throws her phone across the room and buries her head in her hands, letting out a noise of pure agony. “God, I sound so stupid!” she whines. “She’s gonna think I’m such a loser, oh my god. Who says that? Who says any of that? Mira—”
Mira just laughs at her and unexpectedly gets up. Rumi yelps when she falls backward onto the couch, quickly flipping herself over onto her side as she watches Mira cross the distance of the living room to retrieve her phone. Before she can even futilely beg Mira not to read her texts, Mira already has the phone up to her face, squinting down at it. Fondly, Rumi realises that she’s not wearing her glasses.
“This is literally normal,” Mira says, looking up at her. “Rumi. These are literally normal texts.”
“Are they really, or are you just saying that?” Rumi asks. She knows it’s a stupid question as soon as it’s out of her mouth, because Mira doesn’t ‘just say’ anything, especially not to her. Mira gives her a look that says as much back, quirking her eyebrow up in such an unimpressed way that it’s almost funny. “Okay, okay! I get it! I just—I don’t want her to think I’m, like, weird, or whatever.”
“She gave you her jacket back and her number,” Mira points out. “Clearly she’s into you.”
Rumi screws up her face. “Yeah, but what if—?”
Her phone chimes.
Rumi sits up so straight she swears she feels her spine shatter into a thousand little pieces. Mira still has her phone. Wow, she thinks, this literally could not be fucking worse, actually.
“W-what did she say?” Rumi rushes. “Mira. You have to tell me.”
Mira just holds up her hand, waving her off so dismissively that Rumi can’t help but be offended. “Chill out, I’m reading.” Rumi doesn’t have much of a choice other than to relent and let it happen; god forbid she tries to tackle Mira to get her phone back and she ends up accidentally calling Zoey, or something awful like that. After another second, Mira’s lips curl up into a pleased smile, and she says, “She said hi back. She asked if you got home before the rain or not.”
Mira tosses back her phone after that. Rumi catches it, immediately staring down at the texts Zoey sent. And, true to Mira’s word, Zoey did ask about that.
omg hi rumi!!!!!! i was wondering when youd text!!! :D :D :D !
did u make it back ok? i know it started raining like crazy soon after you left.
She watches the text bubble pop up for a few seconds.
did the jacket help? warm as yesterday? hehe
Oh, she’s so fucked.
Rumi giggles, quickly typing up a response.
it was very warm!! :) thank you again haha it’s a really nice jacket
i’m sorry it took me a bit, i had to stop somewhere really quickly before i went back home
how did your match go? did you win?
Zoey’s response is near-immediate.
I DID! i think u rooting for me like fueled me or smth
sooooooo
if you wanted to help me out again or smth you could totally come back another day and like
maybe stick around? you havent seen me actually play right? i promise i’m pretty good haha ;)
:)*! :)*!!!!!!!
u dont have to if you don’t want to!!!! thats like totally cool it’s no big deal haha i was just offering
up 2 u!
“Oh my god,” Rumi whispers.
“What?” Mira asks back, sounding a little urgent. “Did she say yes to your date? Have you even asked her yet?”
Rumi shoots up a hand, holding up one finger. “Shh!” she hisses. “I, I’m getting there!”
i would really like that actually!!
maybe after we could go get boba or something? i’ll pay :)
and maybe if it’s not raining we could go for a walk. if you wanted to
i would love literally all of that omg
is tomorrow ok? i know thats pretty soon so we dont have to if it’s too like inconvenient or whatever
honestly not soon enough for me haha but tomorrow is a close second. i’d love to :) around the same time sound okay? i can do whenever!
mmm youre so sweet rumi
yes i would love to see you tomorrow
meet me at the court ok? :)
Rumi breaks out into a wild grin, giggling so hard she can barely get herself together.
i’ll see you there zoey :)!!
She sets her phone down after Zoey gives her a little blue heart reaction to her last message, just...buzzing. It takes Mira laughing at her and asking, maybe not for the first time, “Hey, Ru, are you still, like...with me? You good over there? Did she say yes? Did you finally ask her out this time? Rumi?”
“I did,” Rumi slowly says, still giggling. “I did. She said yes! Tomorrow! We’re going—we’re going tomorrow! And she—I’m going to watch her play a game, and...” Rumi trails off, laughing as she finally shakes herself from her stupor. “Mira, oh my god, she doesn’t think I’m a total loser. This is huge. Fall in love all the time. Love is real and thriving.”
“Yeah, okay, dork,” Mira says with a laugh. She reaches out to flick Rumi’s forehead, trailing off into the kitchen. “Take off her jacket before you eat. It’s wet!”
Rumi rolls her eyes, but she does as she’s instructed and takes Zoey’s jacket off. She makes sure to carefully hang it up on the door hook before she bounds into the kitchen, wrapping her arms around Mira from behind. She rests her chin on her shoulder and sighs, quietly murmuring, “Thank you for helping me with this.”
Mira hums softly. “Yeah, Ru. Of course. If you ever want to invite her over or something, you can. I don’t mind.”
Rumi lets out a noise. “Maybe think about that, like, way later?” she offers, her voice a little squeaky. “Nothing’s even happened yet! You can’t invite her over to dinner when nothing has even happened yet!”
“I’m just saying!” Mira laughs out. “The offer is on the table! Chill, I’m not saying you need to instantly have her move in, or whatever. Just that, uh, you know. If things do go well, I should probably meet her, and, so, you know. Um. That’s all.”
“Softie,” Rumi teases. She ignores Mira’s quiet grunt in favour of squeezing her a little harder before she backs off. “Thank you for making lunch, it smells really good. Hey, since today went really well, can I put on—?”
“Rumi, get the fuck out of my kitchen.”
Rumi throws her head back as she laughs, but she relents and scampers right back into the living room. She collapses on the couch and grabs her phone. She opens Zoey’s contact, grinning so hard it hurts as she scrolls through their—albeit short—conversation. She can’t help but eye the little blue heart.
She can’t wait for tomorrow.