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They know.
It takes her a month to stop wearing turtlenecks. She still reaches for compression shirts and hoodies and sweaters at every chance she gets, but it slowly becomes easier to hammer it into her head that she doesn’t have to do that anymore. Doesn’t have to doesn’t entirely mean she doesn’t want to, but Rumi isn’t sure if she does want to. She doesn’t know what she wants (this is a lie), what she’s allowed to have, what can even be offered to her.
She doesn’t know who she is.
There are a dozen different people that she’s pretended to be over the years; the flawless idol, charming leader, dauntless and confident; the ruthless killer, a hunter with no fear; the quieter, more-subdued-yet-still-charming woman at home, for only two people to see; the perfect daughter; the not-so-perfect daughter.
None of them are real. Not entirely, Rumi thinks, not wholly, and she doesn’t know who she is. She isn’t perfect, she never has been. Her faults are the entire reason the honmoon turned iridescent rather than gold (and, distantly, she bitterly thinks that’s just another thing she couldn’t do right), her faults are the entire reason the world ended, her faults are the entire reason she has no idea who she is. It’s a tangled mess inside of her mind, strings all threading together, getting caught, being pulled apart, tearing her from the seams only to stitch her up in a slightly different way that maybe tastes a little less like a lie.
Zoey had been the one to say it—”We can’t tell your lies from your truths.”
Neither can Rumi.
And Zoey...
(there’s something more there, something bigger and louder and stronger than anything else she’s felt, and it’s just different, and she knows what she wants, and what she wants is—)
Zoey has been patient with her. Zoey has been the one who has taken charge and decided to tackle everything head-on, because, according to her, Rumi and Mira can’t be trusted to do it themselves without making things worse and then feeling bad about it and then making things worse again because of the aforementioned feeling bad.
It had been a very long-winded talk, and Rumi had never heard Zoey talk so quickly in her life, but she had been hanging on every single word, desperate to make Zoey understand that she would do anything for her (is that a lie?), that she was listening, that she would promise anything Zoey wanted, and that she would actually mean it.
The lying had been the biggest issue. Rumi still can’t make herself believe that they had been so focused and upset about that rather than her being a demon. It would be funny if it didn’t make her so sick and upset to think about, largely on days where she wonders what could have happened if they had known from the beginning, and considers that maybe there’s a world in which she is someone rather than an empty shell waiting for a purpose to be given.
The lying was the problem (and, admittedly, it still sort of is, though she doesn’t mean for it to be intentional these days), so they start with that. Zoey comes up with a simple, easy-to-implement solution, citing the fact that communication is nothing short of the literal devil, apparently, which...Rumi can’t contest, too ashamed to even try and do much more than nod her head along and agree to whatever it is Zoey wants.
Real or not real? starts off with the obvious.
You’re a demon.
Real.
You were born a demon.
Real.
You didn’t make a deal with Gwi-ma.
Real.
It takes no time at all for it to completely burrow its way into their day-to-day lives, which is hardly surprising, because it had been Zoey who introduced it, and everything she does is important enough to be appreciated. It goes from big, massive revelations, to more quiet, unimportant questions that add up quickly over time.
You actually get cold easily.
Not real.
You like turtlenecks.
Real.
For the right reasons.
Not real.
You were thinking of lying again.
Real.
Zoey eventually shifts the system into something a little different, casually adding a few more options to her roster: truth or lie, yes or no, good or bad. Very sweetly, Zoey tentatively adds a maybe option, because Rumi quickly discovers that there is a lot she is unsure about, and it feels like a lie to answer those questions in such a definitive way. It makes it easier to feel less nervous about answering wrong, even if Zoey has assured her there's no wrong answer other than her lying.
It usually starts with: You want to wear that hoodie. Real. Truth or lie? Truth. You’re sure? Yes. What are you feeling right now? Bad.
Rumi thinks that it helps with the lies. It helps Zoey and Mira, at least, who seem far more relieved that they have a quick, fool-proof system (that relies on Rumi not lying, but she promised, and she means it) that they can tap into whenever there’s an uncertainty that pops up. Rumi is allowed to use the system, too, and it’s encouraged, but she finds it difficult to know what to ask. All the questions she has in her head are ridiculous, and she feels like she doesn’t get to use the same system they’re using when she’s the reason it had to be implemented in the first place. It feels cheap, like she’s encroaching on space that doesn’t belong to her.
Mira is the one who tells her that that’s stupid. Zoey helpfully agrees. Rumi doesn’t think they mean to, not completely, but it becomes a group effort to use her guilt against her. You want to ask a question. Real. You’re not going to ask the question because you’re afraid. Truth. How do you think that makes us feel? Bad.
Easier said than done to change, especially with how her entire life has been spent...like this.
Zoey leads the charge again. Every single door in the house is suddenly open at all times, with the exception of hers, though Rumi has started to leave it a little cracked at all times rather than outright shutting it. Rumi is a little confused when she walks out into the hall to see both Zoey and Mira’s doors open without them in their rooms, and then she’s downright perplexed when she walks into the kitchen and sees every single cupboard open. The oven is open.
“Well, well, well, would you look at that!” Zoey casually says from her spot on the couch. The drawer in the coffee table is open. “Huh. I wonder how this all happened,” she adds, waving her hands around, gesturing to all the—the things that are currently going on. “Every single door is open. I guess you could just look in and take whatever you wanted, huh?” Zoey asks, staring at her, hard and firm. “I guess if it’s open, that means it’s open for a reason. Clearly no one minds if you take something.”
Rumi stares at her for a very long time. She laughs without meaning to, feeling weirdly breathless and light, her throat tightening a second later, eyes stinging. “You’re really subtle.”
Zoey smiles at her, eyes soft, looking at her in a way that Rumi knows. This is...(too much, she can’t do this, not with her, not to her, not when she’s who she is, not when she doesn’t deserve her)
“Thanks,” Zoey says, easily. “Real or not real, you understand what I’m trying to say.”
“Real,” Rumi answers, honestly, because this is another thing Zoey has made easier for her; Rumi is usually allowed to answer with any of the options she’s been given, but Zoey will sometimes pick one for her. It makes it easier, even if it’s embarrassing to have to think about.
Zoey nods. “Is it going to change anything?”
Rumi winces. “Maybe.”
“Okay,” Zoey agrees, nodding again, as if that answer is even remotely okay. But Rumi doesn’t want to lie to her, and she can’t say truth without it being another lie. “That’s better than a lie,” Zoey adds with a wide grin, her eyes terribly soft and gentle and understanding. “We’re getting there.”
Rumi doesn’t know if they are.
She looks down to the floor, shifting on her feet. “You believe that. You mean it.”
It hurts to say, but the words come tumbling out regardless. Rumi doesn’t even get the rest of it out—can’t—but it doesn’t seem to matter, because Zoey is suddenly laughing, bright and beautiful. When Rumi looks up again, Zoey is grinning at her, looking more overjoyed than Rumi has seen her in weeks.
“Truth, real, yes, good, oh my god, yes,” Zoey rushes out, nodding frantically. “Real. Real. We’re getting there!”
Rumi doesn’t even have time to prepare herself before Zoey is racing over to her, tackling her into a hug, laughing against the side of her neck and squeezing her and promising, “Real, real, real, real, real.”
(Truth or lie: you know what you want.
Truth.
Real or not real: it’s her.
Real.
Yes or no: it’s always been her.
Yes.
How do you feel?
Terrified.)
Rumi wants.
Rumi doesn’t know who she is.
Rumi knows who she wants to be.
It’s late at night when she calls Bobby, giving a defeated sigh as she begs him to call her a driver to take her to the ocean. Bobby is immediately on guard, sputtering about, “Um, uh—Rumi, it’s...it’s really great to have hobbies, but, um...the ocean? Like...uhm, what’s—what’s goin’ on there? What are you going to do? Rumi, don’t put this on me.”
It takes a good thirty minutes for Rumi to convince him that she’s not going to kill herself—she didn’t even think that was an option, she knows how to swim, she’s not going to drown—but Bobby eventually relents. It means that Rumi has to explain the reasoning behind it, because Bobby is firm on not letting her leave until she tells him exactly what she wants to achieve, which means admitting it out loud, which means she gets to hear Bobby’s quiet sigh, followed by a soft, “Okay, kid. I’ll take care of it for you. I love you.”
It’s humiliating, but Rumi sniffles and tells him that she loves him too, and then she waits to be picked up. She makes herself wake up Mira and Zoey, because she knows they’ll both freak out if they find her suddenly gone. She promises she’s okay, citing Bobby as proof, though that doesn’t stop the barrage of their own questions.
Are you sure you’re okay? Yes, truth. You don’t want us to come with you. Real. You need to be alone. Real. You’re going to hurt yourself. Not real, no. You’re going to be okay? Yes.
After she promises, she gets a text from Bobby, and then she’s gone.
She could have teleported. Rumi is slowly learning how to do that, and the honmoon seems more than happy to help, but it felt...wrong. The drive gives her buffer time between here and the ocean, and she desperately needs all the time she can get.
The drive is, admittedly, too short. Her mind is a mess, a whirlwind is scattered thoughts, of tangled, loose ends that seem to come out of nowhere. Rumi doesn’t know who she is, and that hasn’t changed, but she knows who she wants to be. She knows who she wants to be, and she knows why she is so terribly desperate to change into that person, even if she doesn’t want to have to admit it. She’s realising that wanting something is embarrassing and shameful, and it makes her entire face hot, burning down the rest of her body.
Wanting is terrifyingly easy. Rumi finds herself wanting more and more, reaching out for things before remembering she shouldn’t, before remembering that maybe she should, before becoming frustrated and giving up. Zoey and Mira constantly assure her that it’s okay to want, that it’s normal, that she should want things. They follow it up with several soft assurances from their system, promising that they’re telling the truth. Real, truth, yes.
That doesn’t make it any easier to wrap her mind around. There’s already so much noise and static in her head that piecing together the actual words that manage to come through seems near-impossible.
And it’s humiliating, because she’s—she’s meant to be someone. Rumi has been so many people, she knows how to slot into those roles perfectly, she knows how to ease her way into masks. She’s meant to be charming, charismatic, daring, confident. Rumi hates how empty she feels, how powerless she feels, how weak she is. She’s supposed to be above all of this. She is a hunter, she is an idol, she is...
Not much of anything these days.
Rumi is left on the beach.
She’s never come out here before on her own. She’s never been to any ocean on her own. Zoey has always been the one who has been desperate to return, who practically thrives off of being in the water. It’s like a piece of herself that only comes to life when she’s in the waves, and Rumi has spent her entire life desperate and wanting, trying to catch glimpses of that secret part of her. Zoey loves the ocean, she loves the water, she loves slipping away into the seafoam.
Zoey has told her the ocean is like her home. Zoey has told her that Rumi smells like the ocean. Like home.
Rumi wants her.
Rumi isn’t what Zoey needs. How could she be? There’s nothing—there isn’t anything that makes “her” up. Ryu Rumi is just the name of a face that can be anything except for what it should be. There is no “her”. Rumi doesn’t know who she is, and she doesn’t think she has ever actually been anyone, but she so, so desperately wants to be someone that Zoey can love.
She’s quiet as she trails along the coastline, carefully working her way along the beach. The ocean roars and rumbles at her, as if it’s demanding why she’s here and why Zoey isn’t.
She feels stupid when she finally turns to look at it, watching as it crashes along the shore, pulling back sand. The ocean isn’t demanding anything from her. It’s not like the honmoon.
Rumi winces as soon as the thought pops into her mind. Maybe it is. Maybe for Zoey it is. And that’s why she’s out here, isn’t it? There has never been a time in her life where she felt like she couldn’t go to the honmoon for answers, even if she never received them in the way she would expect. At the very least, she felt listened to. At the very least, it felt like there was some kind of comfort.
Rumi sighs, squaring her shoulders. She can slip into a mask for the time being—she’s spent all of her life being strong, she can grow up and be brave and deal with this.
“How do I be more like you?”
Rumi lets out a frustrated, near-pained noise. Okay. Absolutely not.
“Don’t—” Rumi groans, burying her face in her hands. “Forget it. Forget I said that. You’re not even sentient. I’m talking to myself because I’m going fucking crazy.”
Real.
Rumi crinkles her nose at the severely unhelpful voice that pops up in the back of her mind. Not necessary.
“I want her to love me,” Rumi whispers, the words coming a little more freely. No one is here. No one is here, and this feels like Zoey, and Zoey has always made things so much easier than Rumi ever thought they could be. “I want her to love me, but I don’t know who...that is. Or who I am. How do I do that?” she asks, quieter now. “How do I...how can I be someone good enough for her?”
The ocean says nothing at all. It doesn’t even acknowledge her.
Rumi rolls her eyes, dropping down into a crouch. She holds her hand out, gently dipping her fingertips into the water. “Right,” she murmurs, feeling her shoulders sag. “Zoey’s the one you want. Not me.”
The honmoon ripples indignantly from below her. Rumi laughs, shaking her head as she watches it spread out into the water, iridescent patterns ebbing into the ocean.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” Rumi promises, setting her other hand on the beach, feeling the honmoon buzz under her palm. “But this is different. I need you,” she says, turning her gaze back to the water. “She loves you. I’ve seen her surfing, and how she is here, and I just...” Rumi sighs, squeezing her eyes shut. “I want that. I can’t be...who she wants. I don’t know how. Please,” Rumi whispers. “Help me.”
The waves recede, crashing back into her a second later.
Rumi sighs, dropping her head. “Please.”
The ocean almost seems to get a little louder.
Rumi squeezes her eyes shut, her heart pounding in her chest, when she says, “I love her. Please. I love her.”
The honmoon practically erupts into song, thrilled, dancing around her; the ocean is silent.
Rumi returns to the penthouse feeling like she lost more than she found.
It comes spilling out in the morning one day. They’re still on an indefinite hiatus—Celine had been insistent upon it, actually—and the downtime is new to her. It means she has more time with her thoughts than she ever really has before, and that means she fixates on them a lot, more and...
“I don’t know who I am.”
Rumi doesn’t mean to say it. She had just been watching reels off of Mira’s phone, sandwiched in between both of them. In an instant, she feels Mira’s hand gently cup over hers, and the phone is eased away from her. Great.
“What do you mean?” Mira asks, softly.
“Like...” Rumi wants to disappear. It’s too late to take it back, and it’s not the sort of thing that they’ll allow her to slip by with, not anymore. She has to talk about it. “Me. As a person,” Rumi tries. “I don’t know who I am.”
Zoey makes a quiet noise, resting her hand carefully over Rumi’s leg, squeezing a second later. “We can help with that,” she offers, almost tentatively. “We can figure it out together.”
Rumi twists her face up. “It’s—stupid,” she mutters, a little more harshly than she means to. “I should know.”
“You’ve spent your literal entire life hiding,” Mira helpfully says, with an edge of warning in her tone. “Real or not real?”
Rumi makes a frustrated noise, but she admits, “Real.”
“See?” Zoey presses. “We’ll figure it out together. You know what you’re definitely not? Patient with yourself. You’d be patient with us, right? Yes or no.”
“Yes,” Rumi mumbles, because of course she would be. She’s just...different. She should know.
“Exactly,” Mira hums, the edge fading from her voice. “Take it slow, Ru. We’re figuring stuff out. We’ll get there.”
It hardly feels like a reassurance, not one that she can believe, but it eases some of the tension from her shoulders, and that seems to be something like progress.
“Your name is Rumi. Real or not real?”
“What?” Rumi laughs, looking over at Zoey. Zoey has migrated into her room for the time being, at least three separate notebooks sprawled out in her lap from the side of the bed that she claimed. Rumi has been—unsuccessfully—trying to play guitar again, though it’s mostly just weight in her lap.
Takedown is hardly fresh in her mind, but it’s there. Lingering quietly, always threatening to poke its head up at the first chance it gets. Rumi finds it more annoying than debilitating, because she knows that it’s over and done with, but her body still has yet to figure that out. Healing takes time, whatever, Rumi wants it to be over with by now.
Zoey looks up at her, eyes soft, gentle. She says again, “Real or not real?”
“Real,” Rumi says back, slowly, because Zoey clearly expects an answer, and she can answer this just fine. Obviously she can, it's her name. “You know that.”
Zoey hums, nodding, her eyes drifting back down to her notebooks. Rumi is entranced by the way she writes, how quickly she writes. She’s always been enamoured with how talented Zoey is, how she excels at songwriting and lyricism like no one Rumi has ever met before. Every single part of Zoey is just...loud. Loud, big, out there, bright, unavoidable, impossible to ignore. Rumi has never craved being thrown into constant noise before, not until Zoey, not until she realised that silence slowly turned into another way to say Zoey isn’t here.
Rumi loves her. Zoey does not need Rumi to love her.
After another second, Zoey asks, “Real or not real, you like plants.”
“Real,” Rumi tells her, watching her a little more intently now. “Why?”
Zoey shrugs. “Your favourite colour is purple. Yes or no.”
“No,” Rumi says, drawing her brows together. “Zoey, I don’t understand—”
“Pink? Yes or no.”
“No.”
“Blue?”
“No.”
“Gold?”
“Maybe?”
Zoey nods, and Rumi catches sight of her pen moving. “Good to know.”
Rumi stares at her. “Zoey, I don’t...get this. What am I missing?”
It isn’t an official system they’ve come up with, but it’s something that Zoey and Mira have pressed into her head a little more over the past couple of weeks, insisting that she asks when something doesn’t make sense, or when something is unclear. Rumi is good at figuring people out—mostly—but she has a blind spot when it comes to herself, apparently. And she’s still getting used to the way Zoey and Mira treat her, how they’re sweet and attentive and gentle with her, and it doesn’t always make sense. Not in a way that she can wrap her mind around.
Plus, they’ve been trying dozens of different things in an attempt to figure out solutions to obscure, random problems. Like, Mira (casually, of course, very nonchalantly) started to send her links full of dozens of questions to answer. Rumi hasn’t answered a single one of them alone, too embarrassed to, but she did ask if all three of them could do it together, as if they were still getting to know each other.
Mira and Zoey’s answers were, of course, expected. For the most part. Rumi did find out more about them than she expected to, little things that must have slipped through the cracks, small bits of information that were always implied, but never outright stated.
Most of Rumi’s answers fell somewhere along the lines of uncertainty. Maybes, mostly. She hates how unsure she is about everything.
Zoey looks back up at her, giving her a soft, sheepish grin. “I’m trying to help you figure yourself out. We’re starting small. We can work our way up to the bigger stuff later.”
Rumi blinks.
She’s in love with her.
Rumi is in love with her. Zoey does not need Rumi to be in love with her, she doesn’t, she doesn’t...
Rumi desperately wants to be someone Zoey could love. She desperately wants to be the type of person that could be good enough to deserve Zoey.
“You’re...” Rumi trails off, feeling her chest tighten. Perfect? That feels like too much.
“Making a list,” Zoey says instead, grinning a little more now, her eyes sparkling. “Your name is Rumi and it’s a maybe to gold. Hm. Yellow? Yes, no?”
Rumi laughs, her heart clenching. “I—maybe?”
“A strong contestant!” Zoey teases, sticking out her tongue, shooting her a wink. “Real or not real, you...uh—coffee over tea?”
Rumi crinkles her nose. “Not real.”
Zoey nods, entirely seriously. “Okay. Tea over coffee. Good to know. Okay. Real or not real, you like playing guitar.”
“Real,” Rumi says, immediately. Obviously.
Zoey squints at her, clearly disbelieving. Maybe not disbelieving, Rumi thinks, but...tentative. Cautious. “You like playing guitar. Not because it’s your job, not because you have to. You like it. Truth or lie. Think about it.”
Rumi obeys. She sits there, tapping her fingers against the body of her guitar, and thinks. She’s immediately reminded of hundreds of memories, hours spent in their home studio, the three of them laughing wildly. Rumi remembers first learning how to play, how Celine was patient with her, carefully instructing her through how to hold it, how to move her fingers, how to tune it properly. She thinks about the quiet, late nights, retreating to her room and finding something like comfort in being able to play—for herself, where no one else would hear.
Rumi breathes out. “Truth,” she says, firmly.
Zoey’s grin is back, wide and sharp, her eyes crinkling at the sides. “I’ll write it down.”
They go back and forth like that for at least another hour before Zoey is satisfied, waggling the notebook in both hands, seemingly triumphant. She promises to keep doing it until Rumi feels a little more sure of who she is, and Rumi can barely do much more than thank her, even though there’s a terribly loud thought in the back of her mind that makes it difficult to speak at all.
All she wants to be is good enough for Zoey.
“You believe me when I say that your patterns are gorgeous,” Zoey murmurs. “Real or not real.”
“Mostly real,” Rumi offers, giving a sheepish smile.
She’s been trying to cut back on giving uncertainties as answers, but her life has been built up on uncertainty, and it’s almost all she knows. Unlearning it has proven to be harder than Rumi wants to admit, and a lot of her responses are led by caution, by being unsure.
Zoey and Mira talk about how they love her patterns all the time. Zoey is the loudest about it—she always is; Mira has always been the one to silently appreciate—and will find every opportunity to tell Rumi that she’s beautiful, or gorgeous, or pretty, or that her patterns are ethereal, or that she looks stunning in an outfit that shows more skin than what she’s ever worn in recent time. Zoey traces along her patterns with ease, as if she’s marking them out, mapping them.
It makes Rumi feel a lot that she hasn’t entirely been able to work out in her mind, but she knows that she wants it. She wants Zoey to tell her those things, to touch her, to keep doing all of it. The tangled mess in her head has gotten slightly easier to work with, but it’s still jumbled and difficult to work out. Rumi has started to understand that she can want without having to understand why, or what she wants specifically, just that she does.
Zoey, of course, is the exception. Rumi wants her, and she knows exactly why she does.
“Because of anything I’ve done?” Zoey follows up. Rumi blinks. Zoey quickly adds, “Yes or no.”
“No,” Rumi says, with ease. “It’s—it’s a me thing.”
Zoey nods, and Rumi doesn’t miss the way her lip twitches, or how her nose crinkles, just for half a second. “How does it make you feel when I—”
“Good.”
“You don’t even—”
“Don’t need to,” Rumi teases, flashing Zoey a wide grin, laughing a little at the hard eye roll that gets her. “I like it. It’s...nice,” she says, a little softer. Nice is too small of a word to describe what all of this is, to describe what Zoey means to her. It’s not enough.
Zoey makes a pleased noise regardless, nodding her head again. Rumi watches as her pen races across the page, easily making note of everything that’s just transpired. Rumi knows that there isn’t a world in which Zoey forgets any of this, she’s always been ridiculously kind, and part of that kindness comes in the form of remembering. Part of that kindness is spent making sure that both Rumi and Mira don’t feel forgotten, or like they don’t matter.
Rumi spends a few seconds messing with her blanket, pulling at a loose thread. It’s not enough.
All very suddenly, Rumi is hit with the memory of the ocean, of watching Zoey surf, of sitting with her on the beach and having Zoey tell her that she smells like home. Her heart pounds, racing wildly in her chest, and she’s just as dizzy as she was when it happened. Zoey made her head spin, and it didn’t even seem like she—like she noticed. There had been a point where Rumi thought—must have convinced herself—that she saw Zoey’s eyes go to her lips, that she saw Zoey lean in, and then it was just...
Too much, because Rumi was lying to her, and Rumi couldn’t be good enough for Zoey.
“Zoey,” Rumi murmurs, watching as Zoey’s eyes immediately look back to hers. “My patterns, um. It makes me feel kind of, like, like I’m home, I guess, when you say it. You feel...like home,” Rumi offers, wincing through each word, because there’s no way this is coming out the way she wants it to. “You always have.”
Rumi feels horribly nervous when Zoey doesn’t say anything, staring at her instead, eyes trained directly onto hers. For half a second, it’s like there’s a flash of conflict, but the expression is smoothed back out just as quickly as it happens.
And then, quietly, “Real or not real. When you—when you reached out to Jae...you said you wanted to see me surf.”
Rumi feels like she’s been betrayed, because she had deliberately said that in confidence, but she figures she should have known Zoey’s brother would tell her everything. She can hardly blame him, not really, but there’s a small part of her that can’t help but be frustrated. She hadn’t even been lying, this doesn’t need to be brought back up.
But Rumi still says, “Real.”
Zoey laughs, ducking her head. “How’d it make you feel? On the beach, uh, when I told you that you reminded me of the ocean? Like, you know. You smell like ocean breeze, kinda like home. How’d that...how’d that make you feel?”
“Good,” Rumi murmurs, not trusting her voice to work for her if she tries to speak any louder.
“Good?” Zoey repeats, her smile turning a little nervous. “Like...really good, or medium-level good, or just kinda good, or...?”
“Like I wanted you to say it again,” Rumi says, drawing in a shuddering breath. “Like I—wanted you to only feel that way about me.”
Rumi immediately feels like she’s burning alive as soon as the words are out of her mouth. It takes every ounce of willpower to keep herself breathing, mostly because her body has directed all of its attention to sending her into cardiac arrest.
Zoey looks at her, and then, all very suddenly, she starts to crawl across the bed, reaching out to cup Rumi’s face. Softly, Zoey says, “Real or not real. On the beach, you thought about kissing me.”
Rumi feels her breath hitch in her throat. “Real.”
“You want to right now,” Zoey whispers, thumb stroking over Rumi’s cheeks, her eyes burning impossibly bright. She wants this. She wants it, she wants Zoey, she’s wanted all of this for years.
Rumi wants her, and she’s not—this isn’t something she should want. She shouldn't do this to Zoey. Rumi can’t be who she wants her to be, she knows that she can’t. She’s never been able to be anything anyone could ever want.
Zoey presses her hand against Rumi’s face a little more firmly. “You want to kiss me right now. Nothing else. Real or not real?”
Nothing else. Just want.
“Real,” Rumi breathes out.
“Can I kiss you?” Zoey asks, her breath against Rumi’s cheek.
“Please.”
Zoey’s lips are on hers in an instant, hands tangled in her hair, and it’s all Rumi can do to not gasp. She wraps her arms around Zoey’s shoulders, her entire body thrumming with energy as Zoey nips at her bottom lip, as she feels Zoey’s bright grin curve against her, as she feels Zoey start to laugh, giddy and breathless.
Rumi pulls back for half a second, just long enough to breathe, to catch a glimpse of the wide, brilliant grin Zoey flashes her, before she’s leaning back in to kiss her again.
“Rumi!” Zoey laughs, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, which makes Rumi practically hiss out in surprise, in want.
“What?” Rumi miserably asks, though she’s hardly miserable when her head is spinning so hard she can’t see straight. Zoey would probably make a joke about that, Rumi distantly thinks.
Zoey giggles, pressing another kiss to her lips, soft and fleeting. “I love you. I love you so much, I’ve—do you even know how long? Oh my god,” Zoey laughs, shaking her head a little. “We have to talk about this, though. We have to. Nothing bad! We just need to...figure it out. Add it to the list.”
Rumi breathes out, nodding a few times, trying desperately to ease the rush of her heart. “Okay. Okay.”
“Good,” Zoey says with a grin, her eyes sparkling. “And I—I want this,” she presses after a second. “I want this. But, um, you know. There’s still a lot going on. We can take it slow. I want to take it slow.”
“I want that, too,” Rumi quietly agrees. “Mostly.”
She tacks that on the end a second later, because the first part wasn’t a lie, but it almost felt like one. She does want to take this slow. She does, she knows that she’s not...there’s so much in her head, and she needs to figure out how to detangle about a thousand more threads before she can even begin to understand where to go from here. Rumi just wants Zoey, and she’s never realised how deeply impatient she was until now.
Zoey hums, giving her a soft kiss on the cheek. “Mostly?”
“Mostly,” Rumi murmurs. “I just want...you.”
“You have me,” Zoey promises. “Real. Truth. It’s just—like, you know. Well, it’s not, it doesn’t have to be that big of a deal, I guess. I mean, it’s not going to, like, totally change things, or whatever. But it’s just...good to take it slow. I’m not going anywhere. Are you?”
“No,” Rumi quickly promises. “Never.”
She means it. Real.
“Then there’s no rush,” Zoey says with a wide smile, eyes crinkling at the sides. “We’ve got time. Okay?”
Rumi breathes out, nodding. “Okay.”
She can barely wrap her mind around any of this, around the way that Zoey still looks at her like she’s...
Like she’s someone Zoey could love. Like she’s someone Zoey does love. Like Rumi is good enough for her.
It does something to her heart that Rumi can’t entirely explain. Another thread she’ll have to untangle—later. For now, Rumi is more than happy to sit on her bed, with Zoey’s hands on her, listening as Zoey quietly starts to come up with a plan for them, offering up all the possible things they should figure out.
Together.
There are moments of weakness, moments of breaking down. It happens more than Rumi expects.
(“How can you love me?” Rumi demands, so sick with fear she thinks she might accidentally teleport, because the demon part of her is a wild, untamed beast that relies on instinct and emotion rather than logic. “I don’t even know who I am!”
“I’ve loved you for years,” Zoey says back, patient as ever, a steadying hand on Rumi’s leg. “We’re figuring it out together, Rumi. You’re you. There’s—”
Rumi shakes her head. “No. No, no, Zoey, I can’t—I can’t be who you want,” she whispers. “I don’t know how to be good to you. I don’t know why you want me. I’m not—I’m not...perfect, or even—I don’t know, good, I’m not good enough for you, and I don’t know how to be that for you. I don’t know how to be what you want me to be.”
Zoey’s hands come up to grab her face, firm and steadying, nails brushing against her cheeks. “Rumi. You’re good enough. You have always been good enough. I want you to be you, I don’t want—I don’t want whoever you’re trying to be because you think it’ll make me happy. Don’t do that to me, Rumi. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rumi whispers, because there’s nothing else she can say, not when Zoey is looking at her like that, her eyes burning and intense, focused entirely on her.
“It’s you that I want. It always has been, Ru,” Zoey murmurs, voice a little less harsh. “I don’t want you to try and change into someone you’re not, because I want you, okay? I’ve always wanted you. Just you. I know you—you’re Rumi. And I love you. Okay?”
Rumi breathes out, squeezing her eyes shut. “I love you. I’m sorry.”
“Bumps in the road,” Zoey softly assures her. “Happens. It’s why we’re driving slow.”)
Rumi does not remain convinced that she’s what Zoey wants, but the more Zoey says it, the easier it is to believe that it, at least, is probably true. She knows it’s true—Zoey wouldn’t lie to her, and Rumi has used the systems in place to quietly ask for assurance in a way that makes more sense to her. She’s heard dozens of reals and truths over the past few weeks, to the point that it almost makes her laugh, because Zoey nearly says them every other word.
They take it slow.
Zoey continues to sit on her bed and ask her questions—almost always mundane in nature, like her favourite snacks, or how she likes her hair done, or watch shows she likes—and they’ll work her out, together, for hours.
At some point, Rumi starts to feel like more of a person. At some point, it gets a little easier for her to recognise traits that she has to have that come from popstar royalty, Ryu Rumi, like her confidence, or daringness, or the way she adapts to any problem thrown in front of her with ease. There are traits from demon hunter, Ryu Rumi, like her recklessness, or the way she always seems to bite off more than she can chew, or how she’s selfless (though she hasn’t figured out how much of this is actual selflessness versus how much of it is a punishment for existing). Not every mask of hers was completely fabricated, which Zoey and Mira both laugh at her for, because obviously some of those traits had to come from somewhere.
Zoey and Mira both make separate lists. Lists of personality traits, some underlined five times (like “stubborn”), some circled (like “compassionate”), some very deliberately crossed out with X’s all around them (like “easy-going” or “laid-back” or “relaxed”). It helps to know how the two of them see her, and Rumi finds that she has an easier time working herself out in her own mind when she has a starting point to bounce off of.
Zoey in particular is always insistent on Rumi actually reading and actually processing the information given to her. Zoey cites that she’s a good judge of character, which Rumi thinks to some degree is true (Jinu hadn’t exactly been a nice demon, but he hadn’t been completely evil), so she promises to do her best to believe it when Zoey calls her kind, sweet, genuine, sincere, stubborn, hardworking, confident, brave, detail-oriented, strong, careful, careless, brilliant, lovable.
There are times where it makes Rumi bitter.
Mira and Zoey insist that they love her, and she believes them; she genuinely believes them. The room for doubt in her mind has grown smaller and smaller, and it’s rare for her to think that they’re lying to her, even if by accident. And if Mira and Zoey love her now, then that means they could have loved her then. That means there are years worth of her life, almost all of her life, that she spent hiding. Years where she lost herself, where each piece of who she could have been, splintered and fragmented and faded away entirely.
Now she’s left with threads. That awful, ridiculous tangled mess up in her mind. Rumi can’t help but think that there’s a version of herself that has been loved fully from the very beginning. That there’s a version of herself that never had to deal with what it feels like to have to go through your own mind and force strings to go together until something clicks and doesn’t feel sickeningly wrong. There’s a version of herself that is effortlessly enough, effortlessly just what Zoey needs, and...
Zoey’s voice is immediately in her head: “Maybe she’s what that Zoey needs. Not me, though!”
It gets easier to believe her.
Rumi is more angry than she is scared, which Mira in particular says is progress. It’s difficult to believe that, especially because Rumi has never been an angry person, not like this, and it feels so overwhelming it hurts sometimes, but Mira promises her that it’s normal. Promises that she went through the exact same thing, that it evens out faster than Rumi thinks it will, that it helps that she already has Mira and Zoey to be there for her.
Slowly, Rumi starts being more certain of herself. Slowly, the need for their systems dwindles, though they still use them. They work well for more mundane, domestic things, and help ease the pressure off of...everything. Rumi has lost count of how many times they’ve gone over grocery lists with a sort of seriousness that is hardly warranted, all while carefully asking, “Real or not real, you want that kind of cereal. Truth or lie. Truth or lie. You’re lying. You’re lying to me right now I know you are I can feel it in my bones.”
It gets easier.
Rumi breaks down less. She gets angrier less. She feels like she can breathe most days, like the world isn’t suffocating all around her, like she’s able to find her footing without being terrified of getting her legs swept out from under her.
They take it slow, and Rumi finds herself grateful for the steady, even pace. No expectations, just...them. Zoey is more than happy to kiss her and tell her all the ways that she loves her, how Zoey realised she was in love with her forever ago, how that has always been true, but it’s still slow. The world doesn’t fall out from under them. There’s no sudden shifts. Rumi clings to the stability that Zoey has offered to her, and hopes that she’s offering some of her own.
It gets easier.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Rumi thinks that she might be something close to the person she wants to be.
Rumi is left breathless as she watches Zoey swim into the ocean, submerging herself, reappearing a good distance away. She pokes her head out, shaking her hair out of her face, giving Rumi a wide, beaming grin.
Rumi is so in love with her it aches.
Mira had been the one to shoo them out of the house, groaning the whole time, going, “All you do is look at each other! Stop! Or do it away from me! I can’t take it, you guys are literally awful, stop making out with your eyes, let me cook in peace, get out of my house!”
Zoey, of course, insisted on the ocean. Rumi, of course, has never been able to say no to her.
They’ve only been here for thirty minutes, or maybe just under. Zoey immediately charged into the water, gleefully cackling, swimming out into the distance. No matter how far she gets out, Zoey always manages to catch her eye and wave, shooting kisses and winks her way, and Rumi is so stupid in love with her that they make her blush every single time, without fail.
At some point, Zoey decides to paddle back to the shore, resting on her stomach on the beach for all of ten seconds before the ocean hits her with a particularly rough wave and drags her back into it, and then she laughs and moves onto the safer part of the beach.
“Hi,” Zoey says with a grin, kissing Rumi before she even has the chance to speak.
Rumi laughs against her lips, kissing her a little harder for that. “Hi. You’re soaked.”
“Sure am,” Zoey rumbles, her grin turning a little sharp. “It’s just what looking at you does to me.”
“Zoey,” Rumi groans, laughing as she plants her hands on Zoey’s chest, shoving her back. “You know what I meant!”
Zoey cackles, immediately careening forward to wrap her arms around Rumi’s shoulders, burying her—very wet—face into the crook of her neck. “I chose to ignore it,” Zoey giggles, planting a dozen kisses to Rumi’s neck, over her shoulders, along her patterns. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Zo,” Rumi says, tousling Zoey’s hair, crinkling her nose when Zoey shakes a little, not unlike a dog, and somehow manages to get every droplet of water in Rumi’s mouth. “You know, I—”
She cuts herself off.
She is not telling Zoey about her embarrassing, harrowing, greatest moment of defeat.
Zoey stares at her with wide, curious eyes. “You...?”
“No,” Rumi disagrees. “No. I changed my mind.”
That gets her a hard squint. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
“Rumi,” Zoey warns, though the grin on her face is hardly the image of threatening. “I’m going to start biting you.”
Rumi crinkles her nose. “I’ll take it.”
“What? No!” Zoey groans, curling her fingers in Rumi’s tank top, pressing their noses together. “Rumi, you have to tell me. You can’t just—you can’t just start a sentence and then not—what is wrong with you?” Zoey demands, through breathless giggles that make Rumi start to laugh right alongside her. “You have to tell me! You have to! We’re—we’re dating! Girlfriends! In love! You can’t do this to me, Ru, you just can’t. It’s fucked up.”
Rumi throws her head back, laughing harder, which only seems to make Zoey more miserable, with her threats becoming increasingly creative and slightly deranged. It’s when Zoey says, “So help me god, Ryu Rumi, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to bury myself in the sand and die there!” that Rumi decides she has to relent.
“Okay!” Rumi giggles, holding up both hands in defeat, trying to choke down the shame she feels. She is stubborn, she’s realising. Rumi thinks she’s always known this, but over the last few months, it’s become very prevalent in her mind. And her stubbornness knows no bounds, and it makes her far more prone to feeling shame and embarrassment.
She is also easily embarrassed, apparently. A less fun revelation.
Rumi heaves a sigh, leaning back on her elbows, letting Zoey situate herself between her legs. “When...it was a while ago, um, pretty soon after the Idol Awards. About a month and a half, maybe?” Rumi offers, helplessly. “I came out here and...asked the ocean what to do,” she admits, defeatedly. “I wanted to, I don’t know. Figure out how to be someone you could love, and you love the ocean, and oh my god, I need to stop talking forever.”
Zoey helps her with that, at least, because Rumi finds herself being kissed so hard that it leaves her gasping, hands desperately coming to clutch at Zoey’s shoulders, running her fingers over her back muscles, cupping the back of her neck.
When Zoey pulls away, Rumi is left breathless, staring, wide-eyed, up at her. “What did the ocean say?” Zoey asks, in a slightly huskier voice without an ounce of teasing.
Rumi swallows, ignoring the way her heart pounds in her chest, how every single brush of Zoey’s skin against hers makes her feel lightheaded in a way she can barely process.
The ocean hadn’t said anything. It very pointedly ignored her, actually. The honmoon had been what had lit up, practically trilling in delight when Rumi weakly confessed her love for Zoey with her hands in the water, nails curled into the sand, desperate to understand this part of her, desperate to be someone Zoey could love in the same way.
Rumi breathes out, studying the way Zoey’s hair falls in her face, how the water glistens on her skin, how each freckle of hers seems to be brought out by the moonlight and water. The intensity in Zoey’s eyes makes Rumi dizzy. She’s beautiful, Rumi thinks. Stunning, gorgeous, perfect. Rumi loves her.
The ocean roars around them, picking a different note than the one it had taken when it had only been Rumi.
The ocean loves Zoey, too. It has to. How couldn’t it? Anyone who has ever met Zoey has loved her, it’s impossible not to.
Rumi reaches out, cupping the side of Zoey’s face, feeling her heart stutter when Zoey presses her cheek into her palm, eyes fluttering shut for half a second.
“To love you,” Rumi whispers.
Zoey grins at her, sharp and wild, so beautiful that it makes Rumi’s heart clench. “Do you?”
“Yes,” Rumi manages to get out, her entire body alight with electricity. “Real.”
Zoey kisses her again, tasting like sea salt and water, and Rumi chases after the kiss, after her, after all of her. The ocean gets quieter after that, fading away into the background.
Rumi breathes her in, and all she can think is that she loves her, that this is what she has always wanted, that maybe this is exactly who she needs to be for Zoey, that this is who she was always meant to become.
The ocean has never been her sanctuary, not like it is Zoey’s, but as Zoey kisses her, hands tangled in her hair, Rumi is convinced she finally has been brought home.