Archive of Our Own

If you’d asked Rumi how it started, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Things just built up gradually, tiny little behavioral changes that stacked one on top of the other until one day she woke up and realized she was face-to-face with the towering monolith of a dynamic shift.

Perhaps the expression “face-to-face” was a little on-the-nose.

It wasn’t like affection was uncommon between the trio. They held hands in public, cuddled on the couch, and yes, occasionally kissed each other - quick, chaste pecks, usually on the forehead or the crown. Having spent her whole life in the industry, Rumi had seen plenty of groups whose mannerisms struck her as performative. Idols who pressed exaggerated smooches to their bandmate’s cheekbone while the recipient bugged their eyes out to drive home how “surprising” the gesture had been, sunbaes that doted on their maknaes a little too aggressively during interviews in order to disguise the resentment they clearly held. She could sniff out the vibe from a mile away, even with the better actors (who had presumably taken the time to learn the word “subtlety”). Their interactions always felt tacky and forced, like their manager had put a gun to their head and told them to “act flirty.” She didn't feel that way with Zoey and Mira at all. All of their habits felt very natural, like in the mornings when she got up to make coffee and Mira would stumble into the kitchen, wrap her arms around Rumi’s waist from behind and rest her head on her shoulder. Or when Zoey stayed up too late (even though she insisted she wasn't tired) and tucked herself under one of their arms, falling asleep curled up against their side until they took it upon themselves to carry her to bed. There was nothing performative about those private moments in the penthouse where Rumi would tuck a strand of hair behind her maknae’s ear, or place her hand on the small of Mira's back so she knew someone was crossing behind her. Since revealing her patterns, she’d learned to enjoy the feeling of a hand on her bare shoulder, or the brush of Mira’s skin against her arms as she corrected her poses or guided her hands while chopping vegetables. Celine hadn’t ever deprived her of physical affection per se, but it wasn’t in her way to be so casual or so frequent about it. Whatever this thing was, Rumi had never had it before, and she was reluctant to go back to being without it.

So a few weeks ago, when Zoey had kissed her cheek as she left the penthouse to attend a meeting with the label, she thought nothing of it.

Well, not nothing. She definitely felt some way about it, as evidenced by the warm blush that filled her cheeks and the tingly buzz that crawled across her skin as she rode the elevator down to the parking level. It was an unusual sendoff to be sure, but then again, just about everything about Zoey was unusual. It probably wasn’t normal for your roommate to follow you around the house as you got ready, chattering away without pause as you showered, dressed, did your makeup, and tied your shoes. It probably wasn’t normal for your roommate to hug you goodbye like it was the last day of summer camp even though they knew that you'd only be gone for a few hours and you had dinner plans together later. It probably wasn’t normal for your heart to race and your hands to shake after receiving a harmless kiss that didn’t mean anything specific, that was just a platonic gesture between friends, that was probably an accident anyway and wouldn’t ever happen again.

Okay, so maybe she thought about it. Maybe she thought about it a lot.

When they met up for dinner that evening, neither of them mentioned it. To her credit, neither did Mira, although Rumi could practically feel the side-eye she was giving. The meal was a crucible of self-consciousness that left Rumi mentally exhausted. Was she looking at Zoey too much? Or was it obvious that she was trying not to look at her too much? What kind of face was she making? What kind of face was even appropriate for the current topic of conversation?

...What was the current topic? She’d spent so long thinking about her face she’d lost track. When was the last time she took a bite? Had it been long? Had she not been eating or talking at all, and just stared at Zoey the whole meal? Was she still doing that?

“What do you think, Rumi?” Mira nudged the singer with her foot, pulling her out of her own head. She tried to interpret the look on her bandmate's face as something other than shrewd.

“I, um, what?”

“You seemed like you were hanging on Zoey’s every word. I just assumed you’d have some input on the mating habits of monk seals.”

Oh, Mira was going to get it — just as soon as Rumi’s brain could process thoughts again.

“Sorry, girls,” she said sheepishly, “I spaced out. Guess that meeting burned through my attention span.”

“That’s okay, unnie,” Zoey said sympathetically, taking Rumi’s hand into hers. Her touch burned, and Rumi tried not to bite through the inside of her lip. “That happens to me all the time. Mira shouldn’t tease you.”

“Just making conversation,” the model quipped, not bothering to hide her mischief-face as she chewed a piece of bulgolgi.

Two days later, Zoey kissed her goodbye again. And again the next day. And six more times over the next two weeks. After each incident, Rumi’s skin burned where Zoey’s lips had touched it and her head felt like a child’s balloon, dragging her limp string-body across the floor as it floated about.

She hadn’t asked Zoey about the kisses. She was curious, of course, fervently, desperately, curious. And more than a little confused. But that curiosity was daunted by an impermeable miasma of foreboding that clouded her temperament. She couldn’t ask, didn’t dare breathe even one word about their new ritual for fear of the lingering threat that hung over her head like a guillotine: If she acknowledged Zoey’s behavior, spoke the words into the universe and made them real, Zoey might stop. At any given moment, Rumi had the potential to jinx the whole thing and lose access to a dynamic she hadn’t gotten the chance to fully understand.

So she said nothing. Each time Zoey leaned in, she stood statue-still and let the lyricist come to her, accepting the gesture with unwavering stoicism. Then she flashed her well-practiced “everything is fine, I’m definitely not a half-demon, have a pleasant day” smile, turned and walked into the elevator, watched the doors close, counted to five, and freaked out.

All in all, the system worked.

She’d hoped that the more physical symptoms would diminish with repeated exposure (or at the very least, that she would get used to the feeling), but there was no luck on that front. She didn’t particularly relish the way her head felt fuzzy, her heart leapt into her throat, or her stomach twisted and turned. And yet something about it was addictive, like chasing the high of a spicy pepper. If she truly found the experience unpleasant, why did she find herself daydreaming about the next kiss almost constantly?

She tucked the question in the back of her mind along with all the rest. The answer was too dangerous to contemplate, no matter how much she yearned to know.

And so they continued, day after day, conducting the unspoken ritual as though it was simply a fact of life. One could have almost considered the act mundane, until Rumi inadvertently committed a critical error.

She was going out to discuss key visuals for their new album. It was still early in the process, too soon for there to be any finished mockups to choose from, but Bobby wanted to have a pitch session about general vibes and aesthetics so their concept artists had a point to jump off from. She stood by the door, rummaging through her purse as Zoey approached.

“Headed out, hot stuff?”

Rumi made a noise of acknowledgement, preoccupied with the whereabouts of her her phone. She could’ve sworn she’d had it in hand a moment ago. Had she set it down on the counter and forgotten to pick it back up?

Failing to notice that Zoey had already begun to lean in for her parting gesture, Rumi looked up from her purse and turned her head—just in time to catch her hubae’s puckered lips with her own. Zoey made a small, high-pitched noise of surprise, but didn’t pull away. Rather, she leaned in, pressing their mouths together with intentionality.

Rumi froze, her brain having completely malfunctioned. Her veins filled with lava and her nerves crackled with electricity. She was distantly cognizant that she had no idea what to do with her hands, which sat limply inside her open purse. Then, as quickly as it started, it was over. Zoey pulled away, resting a hand on the front of Rumi’s shoulder. Her eyes sparkled in a way that Rumi had never seen them before, and there was a serene smile on her lips.

“Bye-bye unnie,” she drawled, her voice syrupy and demure as she wiped her bottom lip with her thumb.

Rumi said nothing, instead opting to flee as function returned to her muscles. As soon as the elevator doors opened at the garage level, she bolted into the waiting car and put her head between her knees to catch her breath. As she struggled not to hyperventilate, she felt something vibrate against her abdomen. Her phone had been in the pocket of her hoodie the whole time.

On the way to the label, she texted Bobby and pushed their meeting time back. Once she arrived, she spent half an hour in the building’s courtyard, staring blankly into space.

After that first “real” kiss, Zoey’s goodbyes became more…

Well, ‘passionate’ was a word that Rumi could almost manage to think without looking rather reminiscent of a magnolia berry.

Any expectation that the breathless, head-empty spells she experienced when leaving the building would diminish had quickly evaporated now that every departure was marked by the younger woman pushing her against the wall and shoving her tongue into her mouth. There had even been some lip-biting on one occasion, before Mira had pulled Zoey off of her, nonchalantly reminding her that it was her turn to brush Derpy’s fur. Rumi could swear that the pink-haired woman had winked at her as she made her escape.

This, of course, did nothing to deter her from making trips outside the tower. In fact, they were becoming more frequent than they had been when their hiatus started. For no specific reason, of course. There was simply work that needed to be done.

In another building.

Almost every day.

Even when Bobby was off for the day.

Secretly, Rumi had made efforts to be less of a “cold fish” during their encounters (which had resulted in the viewing of a number of increasingly embarrassing YouTube videos, all of which were promptly removed from her watch history so as not to give the algorithm the wrong impression). Her most recent neurosis was that Zoey would eventually realize that she wasn’t any good at kissing and find a more enthusiastic partner. Mira seemed like a good candidate. She was far from the kind to kiss and tell, but Rumi could read between the lines well enough to assume that she had engaged in her fair share of backstage trysts. Not that Rumi blamed her. Kissing, as it turned out, was pretty great.

It was a little over a week later when Zoey received a call from her mother. Zoey’s aunt was having a minor surgery, and they wanted Zoey to watch her little cousins while she and Zoey’s mother spent a night in the hospital. There was really only one answer to give; Zoey loved her cousins but hadn’t seen them in over a year, and she wasn’t the kind of person to refuse to do someone a favor, especially if they were a family member.

Two days later, Zoey stood in front of the elevator doors with an overnight bag and a suitcase full of presents. Mira, Rumi, Derpy, and Sussy were there to see her off (though the bird maintained its enduring air of indifference). Zoey hugged the tiger first, making sure to scratch behind his ears and cooing at his whine of reluctance. Then she held her finger out for the bird, which went ignored until she bopped him on the beak with it, earning herself an annoyed glare.

“Look after the Spectre Squad for me,” she instructed, pulling Mira into a bear hug and planting a chaste kiss on her cheek as Rumi huffed in faux-offense.

“I’ll do my best,” Mira bantered, reciprocating the gesture.

Finally, Zoey turned to Rumi. There was a playful gleam in her eyes that didn’t quite match her melancholic smile. “Are you going to be a good girl for Mira while I’m gone?” she asked coyly.

Something inside Rumi perked up its head, a beast that had laid dormant inside of her since the Idol Awards. It had finally awakened, and with it came a flare of fierceness that compelled Rumi to surge forward instinctively, grabbing Zoey’s head with both hands and pulling her into a zealous kiss. She used every trick, every piece of advice she’d researched in a dominating display of possessive affection. The first time Zoey pulled back, she chased her, catching her lips a second time with a growl that said “I’m not done with you yet.”

Satisfied with her conquest, Rumi withdrew, admiring her handiwork. For the first time, she was able to see her usual reaction from the other side. Zoey’s eyes were like saucers, her pupils blown wide and devoid of intelligence. Her stunned silence was all too familiar, and Rumi could practically hear the dial tone that rang through the woman’s brain. Her expression was akin to a cartoon character that had been hit on the head with a mallet, and would have been right at home under a halo of popping bubbles.

“Don’t you need to get going?” the half-demon suggested huskily, “It’d be rude to keep the driver waiting.”

Zoey nodded wordlessly, dragging her bags into the elevator. “See ya,” she croaked as the doors closed. She did not once blink.

Once the cabin was in motion, Mira turned to Rumi with a massive grin. “Now, was that ‘good girl’ behavior?”

“Shut up,” Rumi murmured, blushing a deep mugunghwa pink.

“I’m headed out to dinner,” Rumi narrated as she passed the couch and made for the elevator.

“Tell Bobby I say ‘hi’,” Mira called back, not bothering to look up from her book.

“And Celine?”

“If she asks, tell her she can bite me.”

“I’ll tell her you send your best.”

Mira snorted. “She should consider herself fortunate to get my worst.”

Rumi rolled her eyes. She knew that Mira didn’t actually hate Celine, but there was still a long road to walk before the bad blood between them cleared. Mira had made a lot of progress toward managing her anger since her teenage years, but she could still hold a grudge like nobody else.

“I’ll just hope she doesn’t ask about you.”

Rumi reached for the elevator button, but stopped short when something caught in her throat. She’d pressed it to call the cabin hundreds of times, but today the motion felt wrong. Unnatural. She triple-checked her person. She had her purse, her phone, her keys… there was nothing out of place. She stared at her reflection in the doors, noting that her hair and makeup were on point. Her driver was downstairs, and she had no reason to keep them waiting. Why couldn’t she bring herself to move?

“Missing something?”

She turned to see that her roommate was sitting up straighter, watching her from over the back of the couch. She opened her mouth, but found she didn’t know what to say.

Mira slid a bookmark into her novel and laid it down, sauntering toward the singer with the grace and allure that Rumi had only ever known her to possess, “Are you waiting for your goodbye kiss?”

Rumi’s mouth went dry, which made her realize that she still hadn’t closed it. She snapped it shut, but stayed otherwise completely still. She suddenly felt like a trapped rabbit staring down a hungry fox. Her breaths were shallow and her head had that fuzzy feeling again. Mira’s swaying hips held her in place, transfixed and dumbstruck.

The ghost of a smirk traced the dancer’s face, which now seemed impossibly close to hers. “Rumi,” she said, her voice husky and rich with honey, “I said, do you need a kiss?”

Rumi did her best to stifle the tremors that ran across her skin. With considerable effort, she nodded twice, slow and steady, not daring to break eye contact despite the predatory glint in the pink-haired woman’s eyes. Mira took her face into her hands, drawing her in until she could feel her breath against her lips. “Good girl,” she whispered, before capturing Rumi’s lips with her own.

Kissing Mira was entirely different than kissing Zoey. Where Zoey was enthusiastic and exuberant (but not sloppy or unromantic), Mira was forceful and possessive, almost jealous. Rumi was simultaneously being crushed and melted by the weight and heat of passion. She whimpered into Mira’s mouth and leaned into her as her knees threatened to buckle. It didn’t matter. Mira was her rock, a stone wall against which she could always expect to shelter. Her heart pounded in her ears as wave after wave of intensity crashed through her. When her bandmate finally pulled back, she was left breathless and disoriented.

Mira took a step back, admiring her work with evident self-satisfaction. “You should probably fix your lipstick in the car,” she remarked lightly, pressing the elevator’s call button.

“Uh-huh,” Rumi mumbled, stumbling into the cabin. Some distant part of her mind had the wherewithal to hope she’d un-zombify before she had to face Bobby and Celine.

Rumi spent the evening curled tightly in Mira's lap, weeping into her chest.

After the Idol Awards, something inside Rumi had loosened. Their entire career, Rumi had been the stable one, the strong one, the person with the most experience in the idol industry. Day after day for nearly ten years, she had put on a brave face and dealt with logistics and public image and legal matters, precisely balancing amenability, amiability, and adaptability with an aura of assertiveness and confident resolve. She never let the mask slip, never showed weakness or uncertainty. Even private moments of vulnerability between the three were carefully calibrated in order to conceal fundamental pieces of her identity. Once her secret was revealed and the Honmoon renewed, that façade began to crumble.

Mira couldn’t say for sure exactly what was happening. She wasn’t a trained therapist, and Rumi was a complex creature. Perhaps the relief was too overwhelming to process, or perhaps the stress was the only thing keeping her together to begin with. Maybe she was already pushed up against her breaking point, and she would have fallen apart soon no matter how things turned out. Whatever the case, the events of that night had opened the floodgates, and all of the bindings that restricted Rumi’s emotions flew apart, dramatically altering her disposition. In some ways, it was a welcome change to see the real Rumi, authentic and vulnerable and human. Other times, it was like witnessing their best friend shatter into a pile of jagged chunks and being unable to decipher how they had ever fit together in the first place. Rumi experienced spontaneous episodes wherein she sobbed uncontrollably and even howled like she was in physical pain, becoming completely inconsolable until she burned herself out on her grief, her body so utterly depleted of energy that it had no choice but to sleep.

It wasn’t always clear what caused these breakdowns. Sometimes they came at the end of a particularly stressful day, or as a result of overstimulation or low blood sugar. There were more obvious triggers; sparring, for example, was done exclusively hand-to-hand or with simple wooden swords and staves. The thought of pointing anything that even superficially resembled a weapon at Rumi made Mira and Zoey sick anyway. Mira altered their choreography to ensure that they never touched Rumi’s shoulders during a performance. Zoey hadn’t even given Takedown the opportunity to become a problem. Only days into their hiatus, she ritually burned the notebooks containing the drafted lyrics and overwrote and formatted the studio hard drives multiple times military-style before changing her mind and hiring a service to shred them (Rumi found all of this excessive and unnecessary, but Zoey became almost hysterically upset when confronted about it, so the topic was dropped). Bobby had been given strict instructions to send takedown notices to any website hosting reuploads of the performance (the irony of which was not lost on him). There were some complaints about “self-censorship” and “fair-use” and “erasing history,” but Zoey didn’t care. The organization behind the Idol Awards held an archived copy of the show, which was as much historical record as there needed to be in her opinion.

But for all their efforts, Rumi still just… broke sometimes. If she was even self-aware enough to comprehend the reason it was happening, she wasn’t coherent enough to communicate it. All they could do was be there and hold tight to her until the moment passed. Tonight, Mira suspected, was not such a random event. It was the first night any of them had spent away from home and the longest they had been apart since… the incident. Zoey’s trip occurring while Rumi was exploring some new feelings was unideal as well.

Rumi gripped Mira’s shirt desperately, pressing herself as close as possible to the taller woman’s skin. During these breakdowns, Rumi became impossibly clingy, to the point that even passing her between the two of them was tantamount to abandonment. She acted like some invisible force was trying to tear her away from them, and if she just pressed against them hard enough, they’d absorb her body into theirs, preventing any such separation. Even Zoey (who was both relentlessly handsy and a Stage 5 Clinger) found this to be a bit much, but there was nothing to be done about it. Their leader needed them, and they were determined to stick by her through every up and down.

“I know, baby,” Mira whispered, stroking her orchid-colored hair and pressing kisses into her scalp. She did know. Even without the gut-dropping spine tingle that accompanied the ripples of magenta Rumi's wails sent through the Honmoon, she felt the ache of Zoey's absence. “I know.” She did her best to ignore the ever-present voice in the back of her mind that liked to pipe up during moments like this.

You don’t deserve to hold her like this.

You helped cause this pain.

If she had anyone else, she’d want them instead. She only thinks she needs you because she doesn’t know any better.

The Voice brought with it memories of Mira’s childhood, when she’d been hurt or scared and wanted her mother, only to be met with cold indifference. Time after time, she’d begged for sympathy and been rewarded with apathy bordering on disdain. It had taken her a long time to learn her lesson. Children instinctively look to their parents for comfort, even when the parent in question has unquestionably proven themself incapable of providing anything but callousness and cruelty.

You’re just like her, The Voice whispered, She’ll just keep coming back to you until you destroy her completely.

Mira clenched her jaw and tightened her hold.

No, she snapped at it, I won’t ever hurt her like that again. Nobody will. Not while I’m here.

They stayed like that for what Mira estimated to be roughly an hour, the half-demon sobbing wordlessly into her collarbone while she held her and whispered “I love you”s and “you're okay”s until the trembling settled into uneven sniffling. She carried the barely-conscious woman into the bathroom and washed their faces, then to her bedroom to change before returning to the couch. Rumi remained wrapped around her, face pressed into her neck as Mira buried them in a nest of blankets and turned on the TV for background noise. Derpy hopped onto the couch next to them and nuzzled into his mama protectively.

As Rumi's breathing steadied and deepened, Mira pressed a kiss to her temple. “I love you, sweet girl,” she whispered, “You’re safe with me.”

💗Mira💗

Today 8:30 AM

Should be home in 10!

Loved “Should be home in 10!”

Be quiet when you come in; Rumi’s asleep on the couch.

Liked “Be quiet when you come in; Rumi’s asleep on the couch.”

Late night?

Yeah.

I kissed her last night.

Emphasized “I kissed her last night.”

Mira, you dog 😏

Wait, why were you two up late?

We PROMISED we’d take it slow! And that we’d all be there the first time! 😠

What? No! That was a non-sequitur!

We were up late because she had another episode.

Because you kissed her?

God, I hope not.

I hadn’t even considered that. I shouldn’t have pushed her.

Don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure there were other factors at play.

I wish I could just take all of her pain. She doesn’t deserve it.

I know, baby; but you don’t either. She wouldn’t want you to have it.

Try not to spiral too hard. I’ll be home before you know it.

I hope so. She needs you, Zo.

We both do.

Loved “We both do.”

Read

Zoey sighed, slipping her phone into her hoodie pocket. She wasn’t surprised that her absence had triggered an attack. She’d considered the possibility. But time with her family was scarce and sporadic, and it wasn’t realistic to pretend that they’d go the rest of their lives without ever spending a night apart. She didn’t regret her decision, but she still felt guilty. Two things could be true at once.

Maybe it had something to do with how… familiar their relationship had become. Although she’d never admit it to Mira, she hadn’t exactly had a plan when she jumped into this whole operant conditioning thing. There was a concept there, and a desired outcome (vaguely-defined though it may be), but nobody had ever accused Zoey’s methods of possessing rigor. Hell, she hadn’t even planned to start the experiment when she did. She’d kissed Rumi on a whim, just because it felt right, and the whole thing had snowballed from there.

So yeah. She felt a little bit guilty about the whole “bailing to stay at her mother's while Rumi was at her most vulnerable” situation. It was a minute betrayal in the grand scheme of things, but Zoey was her own harshest critic, so she couldn’t help but add a mark to the “abandoned Rumi when she needed me most” scoreboard in her head. The brazen afterimage burned itself into her mind’s eye parallel to its brother, twin indictments of her character. Every time she blinked, they flashed red in her eyes, forcing her to stare down her shame.

“Here we are, miss.”

The driver’s voice pulled Zoey out of her head and she realized that they were indeed sitting at the off-street entrance to Huntr/x Tower. She thanked him and headed inside, doing her best to shake the tension out of her body.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, she spotted the ridiculously pink back of Mira’s head. The dancer turned and nodded at Zoey silently as she gingerly set her bag on the counter. As she approached the couch, she saw Rumi, eyes red and puffy, still sleeping in their bandmate’s lap. She looked like a purple burrito twisted up in multiple blankets, as she was wont to do. Zoey carefully positioned herself between the half-demon and the back of the couch, wrapping an arm around her and resting her head on Mira’s shoulder. Rumi stirred at the new presence, not yet opening her eyes.

“Zo?” she croaked.

“Hey there, unnie,” Zoey whispered, “‘Dja miss me?”

“Mmm,” Rumi affirmed, snuggling closer. Despite her guilt, Zoey felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. A part of her couldn’t fathom why anyone could ever bring themselves to leave such a beautiful woman, even for a night. She turned to share a look with Mira, who met her with a relieved smile of her own. The Honmoon gently hummed with what must have been its version of a sigh of contentment. Zoey took a deep breath of her own and slowly let it out, letting herself acclimate to the ambience of the penthouse. The smell of the air, the warmth of Rumi pressed against her, the softness of Mira’s sleep shirt on her cheek, the couch cushions sinking in around her, the hum of the air purifier, they reminded her that she was home.

Always has been; always will be, she reminded herself, Wherever we are, we’re home when the three of us are together.

Rumi yawned a tiny, squeaky yawn, repositioning herself slightly.

“Are you hungry, baby?” Mira asked, tucking a strand of hair behind their leader’s ear, “I can get started on breakfast.”

“No,” Rumi pouted sleepily, “I wanna stay here with you and Zo. Wanna stay here forever.”

The maknae gave her a squeeze. “I might have to pee at some point. But we can definitely make today a couch day.”

“Absolutely,” Mira agreed, “anything you want.”

“‘Sright. I’m the leader.”

Mira rolled her eyes. “You’re a brat is what you are.”

True to their word, the trio barely moved all day. They ordered in brunch (Rumi didn’t truly wake up until 10:30, which gave Mira and Zoey plenty of time to catch each other up), watched approximately 200 short videos, played multiple board games, and ordered in dinner. By evening, they found themselves sprawled out on the couch, barely paying attention to trash TV.

While Mira teetered on the edge of nodding off and Zoey played a game on her phone, Rumi did her best not to squirm in her seat. She was still getting used to the whole “taking it easy” thing. Every moment they spent doing nothing felt like a waste when she could be in her room drafting guitar riffs or answering e-mails. After the Idol Awards, she’d had to confront the reality of her workaholism—now that the Honmoon was renewed and Huntr/x was an international sensation, there was nothing to work toward. Not without massively diminishing returns, anyway, and both her body and her coworkers had forced her priorities to shift. Still, old habits were hard to break, and during quiet moments like these, it took a considerable amount of restraint not to excuse herself from the room and throw herself at a project.

With the bulk of her concentration directed toward not vibrating through the floor, she couldn’t help but steal glances at Zoey and Mira. They were beautiful, this was already known to her, but for the first time she was becoming aware of just how distracting that beauty could be. Even half-asleep, Mira emanated an elegance that could not be rivaled, and her proximity to Zoey allowed her to count each individual freckle sprayed across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. Even though Zoey always got embarrassed whenever somebody mentioned them, every single one was special to Rumi. They were part of what made Zoey Zoey.

On her next peek, her gaze drifted toward the younger woman’s mouth. Its unique shape had become something of a fixation for her of late, often rising to the surface of her thoughts when she let her mind wander. She’d never bothered to catalog all the specific reasons Zoey was so cute—that seemed like something creeps on an online message board would do—but recent events had led her to recognize just how much her lips played into it. They were pinker than hers and Mira’s, and significantly more heart-shaped as well. Amusingly, her mouth was deceivingly small in contrast with the amount of time it spent yapping. And while most people would never know for certain the extent to which this was true, one could tell just by looking how soft those lips were.

Rumi’s heart stirred at the thought. It felt like it had been years since she’d felt that softness against her own mouth. She was more than a little disappointed that her maknae hadn’t kissed her upon her return this morning. But of course she hadn’t—that wasn’t the procedure. Kisses were for goodbyes, and nobody had left the penthouse all day. Internally, she cursed herself for having dinner delivered instead of getting takeout. Maybe if she really played into the brattiness, she could’ve scored a goodbye kiss from both Zoey and Mira—although she wasn’t quite sure of what the rules with the latter were yet. Maybe those were reserve kisses, only to be redeemed when Zoey was unavailable.

She racked her brain for an inconspicuous reason to leave. It hadn’t been long since dinner, but she had never known her girls to be abstemious. Maybe she could justify her departure by claiming to crave shrimp crackers or turtle chips? Or was a desert run more believable? Maybe if she could discretely text Celine, she could have her fake a minor emergency. Nothing serious, but enough to urgently require her presence. Her brain riffled through pretenses so fervently that she failed to realize she was blatantly still staring at those soft, pink lips.

Zoey turned her head slightly, making eye contact with Rumi. “You can kiss me,” she offered, “if you want to.”

Rumi wanted to.

She leaned in, slow and uncertain. She had hoped Zoey would meet her halfway, but the lyricist waited a frustratingly long time to move, letting Rumi to come to her. When their lips finally met, it was unlike any of their previous kisses. Zoey was slow and gentle, seemingly content to simply experience the moment without pushing. When Rumi pushed her tongue forward experimentally, Zoey's met it, tender and languid. It wasn't the passionate claiming that characterized their goodbye kisses. It was something much more thoughtful and savored and steady. When they broke apart, she saw the pure love that lived in Zoey's eyes, broadcasting just how much she appreciated her leader's presence. Suddenly remembering that there was another person in the room, she shifted her gaze to Mira. She wasn't sure what to say, but her face must have asked the question for her.

“Me too, baby,” the pink-haired girl answered.

Like Zoey's, Mira's kiss was lower and slower than before, but the possessiveness remained. Mira kissed the same way she hugged, the same way she spoke, the same way she stood next to Rumi in battle and at public events: steadfast and safe. It told Rumi "You're mine. And I don't let anyone hurt what's mine."

As they broke apart, Zoey's hand caressed the taller girl's jaw and drew her face in. Rumi watched reverently as her bandmates melted into each other. Their kiss radiated fondness and familiarity, and something else—closure. The end of an enduring longing.

“Hold on," she said, "have you two…?”

“A couple of times.” Zoey leaned back on the couch, cheeks flushed. “Years ago.”

“There may have been a few isolated slip-ups since then,” Mira added sheepishly. Despite her and Zoey's best attempts at abstinence, their mutual desire had overpowered them on a handful of occasions, causing passionate (albeit brief) makeout sessions that quickly descended into regret and self-loathing. As sweet as the forbidden fruit of intimacy could be, it was never commensurate with the guilt that followed.

Zoey placed a hand on Rumi's thigh, eyeing her with sincerity. “We wanted to wait until you were ready,” she explained.

“Zoey has a very creative interpretation of the concept of ‘waiting.’”

“Hey, nobody made you do anything. You keep waiting as long as you like for all I care.”

“Please. Now that the genie's out of the bottle, you're going to be needier than ever.”

“Excuse me for being affectionate!”

Her bandmates’ bickering faded into the background as Rumi realized just how much she had been missing. Her life before the Idol Awards had never felt empty (aside from the obvious). Mira and Zoey had given her meaning, purpose even. Until they entered her life, she had never been able to picture what it would be like after the Golden Honmoon. Her patterns would be gone, like she had always wanted, but then what? Celine had raised her to be a perfect Hunter, but a sealed Honmoon had no need for Hunters. Try as she might, she had no idea what she'd do with her newfound humanity. But as she approached adolescence, a dark thought crept at the edge of her mind.

Maybe the Honmoon chose me as penance for Miyeong's mistake. Maybe once it’s sealed, I'll just disappear.

The idea should've scared her. It didn't. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that it was an appropriate denouement to her story.

But then she met Mira and Zoey. It had taken them some time to get used to each other, but eventually… there was something special. Performing felt right, Hunting felt natural, and every moment in between was magic. It was as if a storm cloud had been swept away, and Rumi could live in full, unfiltered sunlight for the first time. And she finally knew what she wanted to do after her patterns were gone. She wanted to live. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, she wanted to be with them, freely, openly, genuinely.

Zoey and Mira were her everything. And yet there was more she could've had. There was so much she didn't even realize she was allowed to ask for, just waiting to be taken. They were waiting for her.

The thought made her stomach turn. Zoey and Mira already had something, and they'd refused it because of her. Because she couldn't be open with them. She kept them at arm's length and lied about who she was. All the while, unknowingly stealing a part of their lives from them and locking herself away with it.

They deserved the world. And she couldn't even give them the truth.

"You didn't have to," she said quietly.

The two froze mid-tickle fight, Mira's fingers still resting on Zoey's ribs.

"Wait, I mean," she explained, addressing the unspoken question their eyebrows were asking, "If you two wanted this kind of intimacy, you shouldn't have held back on my account. You deserve to be happy."

Mira's face morphed into a concerned expression. Zoey's was more difficult to read. 'Distraught' seemed too severe, but 'confused' didn't quite capture it. Rumi settled on 'hurt,' although she didn't understand what could have prompted that reaction.

"Rumi," Mira said slowly, "We wanted to wait for you. Because we wanted you to be there. Does that make sense?"

When Rumi didn't answer, Zoey piped up. "Unnie, when we… when things happened between us, it didn't make us happy. It felt wrong. It felt mean. We felt like we were excluding you. Like we were making something together that you couldn't be a part of. It was like…" her eyes drifted to the ceiling for a moment while she tried to conjure the right words. "Like, what if I secretly wrote a song for our next tour, but it was a duet for just me and Mira. And you didn't even know about it until it came up on the set list for our first performance, and we made you watch us perform it together while you just stood there in the wings. Wouldn't that be awful?"

"All the choreography I do is for three performers," Mira interjected, "What if Zoey and I tried to do a show without you? Don't you think it would trip us up if we tried to execute it without your cues? Wouldn't the audience definitely notice the gap where a whole person is supposed to be dancing?"

Zoey took Rumi's hand and laced their fingers together. "All our songs are three-part harmonies. That includes the ones we sing in private. Forever and always."

It occurred to Rumi that she was crying. She wasn't quite clear on when she had started, but she could feel the tears running down her cheeks as the other two looked at her, their eyes steady and determined. There was no room for doubt in their expressions. She knew their faces too well by this point. Mira's jaw was set, the way it got when she wasn't about to let a man tell her how to do her job. Zoey's eyes had the same ferocity as when she told a venue owner that they would serve dolphin-safe tuna and stock paper straws or there would be no show. There was no lie in those faces, no attempt to humor her feelings. For them, this was stone-cold serious business.

When she finally spoke, her voice was watery and wavering. “I love you.”

The resulting assault was swift and total. In a flash, Rumi was on her back with two women piled on top of her, pressing kisses anywhere they found exposed skin. Zoey's hands gripped the front of her shirt with white-knuckled intensity while one of Mira's slid lazily under it, caressing her abdomen as she kissed the crook of her neck. For her part, Rumi tried to return the favor, but it was hard to tell what was what from her position in the dogpile. She ended up kissing a lot of foreheads, temples, and crowns while rubbing Zoey's back and holding Mira's other hand. Her vision was completely obscured by pink hair when she heard Zoey cry "Wait, Derpy! Don't—" followed by two "oofs" and the weight of a thousand suns crushing her ribs.

It was fine. Knowing how much Zoey liked pancakes, she'd probably learn to love a flat Rumi.

"Phone?"

"Yep."

"Keys?"

"Yep."

"Purse?"

"Got it."

"Kiss?"

Rumi leaned in obediently, letting Zoey stake her claim. Although they'd stopped dancing around it, their goodbye ritual still hadn't lost any of its excitement, even after a month of daily kisses. In fact, Rumi found herself looking for excuses to leave the house to stretch her legs more frequently than ever. She had taken up a morning run around the neighborhood, despite the state-of-the-art recreational facilities housed by the tower. Suspiciously, they always seemed to be out of one condiment or another, prompting an emergency visit to a corner store. And despite her ability to teleport to the ground floor with ease after some practice, she always opted to take the elevator, loudly announcing her departure each time.

When Zoey had smudged her lipstick to her satisfaction, Rumi called to the couch. "I still need some sugar from my Panda Bear!"

Mira groaned theatrically, but stood up anyway. "I don't get why I'm Panda Bear. Zoey's the one that's White and Asian."

"And red all over, after we've had our way with her," Rumi teased, collecting her going-away tax from the dancer, "Zoey can't be a panda, she's already our byeolbit."

"You're a tiger; I'm a bear; why doesn't she get an animal name?"

"It's because of my sparkling personality," Zoey quipped, sticking her tongue out.

"It's because you're easily distracted by shiny objects."

“HEY—”

"Be good while I'm gone, you two," Rumi instructed in her leader-voice, "I want everyone to have the same number of eyes and limbs when I come back."

"Yes leader-nim," they responded in unison (although one voice was significantly more sarcastic than the other).

"Enjoy your meeting," Mira added, fixing the corner of her sunbae's lipstick.

"I'll be thinking of you the whole time." Rumi blew them one final kiss as she stepped into the elevator. "Bye Mir-bear, bye haetsal!"

"She gets TWO nicknames?!"

The half-demon grinned as the doors closed behind her. The light, fuzzy feeling hadn't gone away, but it had a different quality to it now. Instead of anxious and embarrassed, she felt grounded and content. Maybe what they had was different from what other K-pop groups had. Maybe it was different from what most people in general had. But whatever it was, it was theirs. And that was the best thing that it could be.