Chapter Text
Celine answers the door herself.
She looks surprised—more than surprised, if Rumi’s being honest. But she doesn’t say anything about why Rumi is standing at her doorstep. Celine simply steps aside and gestures her in.
The house is exactly as Rumi remembers it. Neat to a fault, and still smells faintly like laundry and lemon oil. Rumi slips off her shoes at the threshold as she places them neatly beside Celine’s, just like she used to. The walls are the same pale cream, the picture frames still in perfect symmetry down the hall. The only difference now is the way the silence stretches between them—full of everything they’ve never quite said.
“I’ll make tea,” Celine murmurs, disappearing into the kitchen.
Rumi drifts into the living room.
The couch is new, but the throw pillows aren’t. She reaches out to brush one without thinking—navy velvet with the faint embroidery starting to come loose at the seams. She remembers sitting on this floor as a child, legs tucked under her as she practiced diction drills and breath support, while Celine hovered in the doorway correcting her posture.
It had been a good childhood.
Not easy, not without grief—but good. Safe. Celine had been steady in the ways that mattered. Never cruel, or cold, but sharp and protective as she was determined to keep Rumi as far from the spotlight as possible. Still, standing here again, Rumi can’t pretend that the resentment isn’t still there. The ache of a door closed too early. The sting of being told no when every part of her had wanted yes.
Celine returns with two cups of tea, sets one in front of her like it’s muscle memory. Rumi watches the steam rise from it and doesn’t reach for it yet.
“I meant to talk to you at the company today,” she says softly.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” Celine replies. She takes her seat, folds her hands neatly in her lap. “I didn’t think you’d come by.”
“I didn’t think I would either,” Rumi admits.
They sit in silence for a few seconds more. The tea cools between them.
“You were good to me,” Rumi says eventually. “You didn’t have to be. And I never forgot that.”
Celine says nothing, but her gaze is heavy.
“I grew up comfortably. You treated me like I was your own daughter, and I know you gave me a life I wouldn’t have had otherwise.” Rumi exhales through her nose, steady but strained. “But I think I needed to leave because of that, too. Because it hurt too much to stay in a place where I felt so sheltered, I couldn't breathe.”
“You think I smothered you,” Celine says quietly.
“I think you kept me from something I loved, something I dreamed about,” Rumi replies. “And I know it wasn’t out of cruelty. I know you were trying to protect me. I see it more clearly than I ever have now that I work with idols myself. But… it still hurt. And I don’t know how to stop being angry about that.”
Celine’s eyes fall. She reaches for her tea but doesn’t sip. Her voice is low when she speaks again.
“I’m not asking you to stop being angry,” she says. “I just want you to know that I would do anything for your forgiveness. Anything to make things right again. If there’s even a way to begin.”
Rumi is quiet for a long time. Then, without warning, she sets her cup down and lifts her gaze.
“Do you know a man named Gwi Ma?”
Celine stiffens, and Rumi watches her closely before continuing. “He runs a record label that’s probably under the radar, but I have reason to think it’s a front for something else. And he—” her breath catches, “—he hurt someone I care about. Badly.”
Celine doesn’t reply right away. Her face is unreadable, but Rumi sees the flicker of recognition in her eyes. The shift of her jaw. The silent calculation.
“Why are you asking about him?” Celine says slowly.
“Because I need to know what he’s capable of,” Rumi answers.
The air turns colder somehow, despite the tea. Despite the familiarity of the walls. Despite the old velvet pillows and the lemon oil scent.
Celine leans back in her chair. Her fingers tighten around her cup.
“I do know him,” she says.
Celine doesn’t elaborate right away.
Her gaze drops to the tea cooling in her hands, and for a moment, Rumi wonders if she’ll even answer at all. But then Celine exhales—slow and quiet, the kind of breath someone takes when they’re about to unearth something buried for a reason.
“He wasn’t always like this,” she begins. “When we were younger, Gwi Ma was... ambitious, eager. A little unhinged, maybe, but he had talent. He trained under a few decent producers. Wrote songs on the side. Everyone thought he was going to make it big.”
Rumi listens carefully. Doesn’t interrupt.
Celine’s voice hardens slightly. “But he never did, and instead of burning out quietly, he turned bitter. Started working with sketchy backers, taking cash under the table. He’s made a business out of promising desperate boys the dream. And when they can’t deliver, he finds other ways to profit from them.”
She pauses. “Drugs. Debt. Laundering through album sales, shell companies. God knows what else.”
Rumi’s stomach sinks.
“I only ever heard rumors,” Celine adds, “until one of our own trainees nearly got involved with him. A boy from Busan. We pulled him out in time, but…” She shakes her head. “Gwi Ma knows how to operate just outside of where the law bothers to look. That’s how he’s lasted this long.”
Rumi’s hands curl around her mug. “Then you know he can’t be allowed to keep doing this.”
Celine looks up, eyes sharp. “Who did he hurt?”
Rumi hesitates, then answers plainly. “His name is Jinu.”
The name clearly means nothing to Celine, but Rumi goes on. “He tried to sign with Gwi Ma out of desperation. He’s been working himself to the bone trying to support his mother and sister. He just wanted a way out. And for that, he got beaten within an inch of his life in front of his family.”
Celine’s expression darkens, but she doesn’t speak.
“So I’m asking you,” Rumi says quietly. “As someone who’s still part of this industry, who has power... Pull the strings. Burn the bridge. Make sure Gwi Ma can’t touch him again.”
Celine closes her eyes. “You’re asking for an awful lot, Rumi.”
“You’re the one who said you’d do anything.”
That lands heavy, and maybe that’s what does it. Celine opens her eyes again, and though her expression is taut, something in it softens. She sets her cup down beside Rumi’s, the two mugs now sitting side by side in the quiet between them.
“I’ll make the calls,” she says finally. “I can’t promise he’ll vanish overnight, but I can make it very, very inconvenient for him to stay in the industry.”
Rumi lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you.”
Celine studies her for a moment longer, like a mother seeing the girl she raised grow into the woman she is now.
“This... Jinu. He must mean a lot to you.”
Rumi doesn’t answer. She just stands, offers a faint bow of gratitude, and turns toward the door.
She’s halfway to the threshold when Celine speaks again.
“I meant what I said earlier.”
Rumi glances back, just briefly enough to see the small smile on her face.
“If there’s ever anything else,” Celine says, softer now. “Come to me first. You’re still my daughter, after all.”
For a moment, Rumi doesn’t reply. Then, quietly: “I will. But you have to let me come as I am. Not the girl you raised. Not someone shaped into who you hoped I’d become.”
Celine nods, and this time, doesn’t argue.
Rumi leaves with the scent of lemon oil still lingering faintly in her clothes—and the sense that maybe, finally, something long knotted between them has started to come undone.
...
Recovery is never linear, but Jinu takes to it with the quiet discipline of someone used to pain. The bruises fade first—blue to yellow, then nothing at all—but the ribs take longer. So does the fatigue. So does the fear. But he’s not alone now.
The first time he returns home from the hospital, Rumi is with him.
Technically, it’s Mira driving—Zoey’s in the passenger seat with Yuna on her lap—but it’s Rumi who lingers in the backseat, eyes flicking between the fading streetlights outside and Jinu’s pale face. Their shoulders brush when they turn corners. She doesn’t say anything about it, and neither does he. It’s enough that he’s coming home.
Celine held up her end. Rumi doesn’t know how, exactly—what strings were pulled, who was warned, what favors were called in—but she knows Gwi Ma’s reach has been clipped. Studio staff no longer whisper his name behind closed doors. One of his signees was quietly dropped by a choreographer Rumi knows. He’s still out there, but he’s not near Jinu. Not anymore.
Jinu never asks her what she did. But she catches the text when it comes a few nights later: Thank you. She replies with a sticker of a duck holding a flower, though he doesn’t respond.
Weeks pass, and Yuna finally goes back to school.
When Rumi sees her in uniform again, something in her chest eases for the first time in what feels like months. But Jinu still struggles with it.
“You didn’t have to pay off her tuition, too,” he says one evening, arms crossed while Rumi helps unpack groceries into their too-small fridge.
“No,” she agrees. “But I wanted to.”
“We can’t accept that kind of help—”
“Fine,” she cuts in, not looking at him as she sets down a basket of tangerines. “Think of it as a loan.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You said the same thing about my hospital bills.”
“Exactly,” she says, peeling a tangerine with practiced fingers before handing it to him. “Which means you’ve got your whole life to pay me back. Better live a long one.”
Jinu falls silent, but takes the fruit. Not in the stiff, bitter way he used to—but something closer to surrender. And when Yuna bounds into the kitchen, shrieking about the snack stash she found in Rumi’s bag, the moment ends anyway.
After that, she becomes a regular in their household.
Not every day, but often enough that Derpy, their blank-faced cat, starts waiting by the door around dinner time. Rumi always brings something—honeyed ginger for Mrs. Jung’s throat, new socks for Yuna, dried anchovies that Derpy stares at like a sacred offering. Even when she has nothing in hand, she comes with stories, warmth, and quiet comfort. Jinu’s mother fusses over her like she’s her own. Starts knitting her a scarf “just in case the cold settles in early this year.”
The first time Rumi wears it, she almost cries.
It’s a small thing. Soft, oatmeal-colored yarn with one side slightly tighter than the other. But she knows what it means; knows that love sometimes lives in the things people make by hand when they don’t know how else to say they want you to stay.
And so she stays.
She finds herself folding laundry with Mrs. Jung on Sunday afternoons. Watching horror movies with Yuna on low volume after dinner. Letting Jinu lean against her side on the couch while pretending to be half-asleep just so he doesn’t have to admit he likes the comfort.
It’s strange, really. After everything they’d been through—their silence, the fights, the heartbreak—it’s not a grand gesture that brings them back. It’s these tiny, invisible stitches. Warm food, mended clothes, shared evenings.
And the moment she realizes it’s happening is when Jinu lets her adjust the hot pack under his shirt without flinching.
Lets her thread warmth into the places he’s always guarded.
Lets her love him, not with declarations, but with oranges peeled and tea brewed and care that asks for nothing in return.
He doesn’t refuse her anymore, and Rumi, in turn, no longer fears she’s giving too much.
She’s just… home.
...
Game night at the girls’ apartment is always a little chaotic.
Tonight’s no different. Mira and Zoey are deep into some absurd new board game they thrifted, something involving cards, plastic crowns, and a questionable amount of gag pieces. Yuna’s in the thick of it, giggling breathlessly as she tries to hold a tiny scepter upright while Mira reads a penalty card in an overly dramatic British accent. Zoey’s half-draped across the couch, blaming her defeat on “societal oppression” and poor dice rolls.
The living room is loud with laughter. Pillows are everywhere. The playlist shifts between nostalgic K-pop and the occasional trot ballad, and someone spilled melon soda on the rug again, though no one’s confessed to it yet.
Rumi finds herself at the dining table instead.
She’s seated beside Jinu, far enough from the chaos to enjoy the quiet but close enough to hear Mira threatening to exile Yuna for hoarding too many power cards. Between them sits a bottle of soju, mostly empty now, along with shot glasses and a small dish of halved strawberries.
They’ve been trading shots in companionable silence. No expectations, no pressure. It’s just nice, having him close like this.
But then—
“Did you ever want to be an idol?”
Jinu’s voice is soft, almost too soft beneath the noise. His eyes are on the table, the green of the bottle catching the kitchen light, and his thumb taps once against his glass before stilling. Rumi blinks, caught off guard. The buzz in her system makes it hard to deflect the way she normally might. Instead, she lets herself tip back slightly in her chair, eyes drifting toward the ceiling like the answer might be written there.
“Where’d that come from?” she murmurs.
Jinu shrugs. “Just thinking. You’re always looking out for your trainees. You’re good with them. You know all the tricks, all the survival tips. Like someone who’s been through the system.”
“I never got far enough for that,” Rumi says, voice slow and steady. “Celine didn’t let me audition. Ever.”
He looks up, frowning faintly. “Why not?”
Rumi exhales through her nose and lets her gaze fall to her hands. She studies her nails, the faint line of a callus still lingering on her index finger from guiding piano chords earlier this week.
“My mother was an idol. Her name was Mi Young—maybe you’ve heard of her.”
Jinu stills. She doesn’t need to look up to see the recognition dawn in his expression.
“She died when I was a baby,” Rumi continues. “Complications from childbirth. The industry loved her, but it ate her alive. Celine… she was her best friend. Took me in after and raised me like her own.”
There’s a small pause before she adds, “She hated the idea of me going into entertainment. Said she didn’t want me to become another tragedy, and I get it. I do.”
Jinu stays quiet. His fingers graze the neck of the bottle but don’t reach for it.
“I used to practice in secret,” Rumi says, softer now. “In the laundry room, in the back stairwell, sometimes under the covers. I had notebooks full of stage names. Spent all my allowance on cheap demo mics. I wanted it so badly. I just wanted to sing and be seen for it. Wanted to feel like it was something I could claim.”
She finally glances at him, and while Jinu’s expression is unreadable, his gaze hasn’t left her once. He looks at her like he’s seeing something new. Like this is a piece of her he’s never known—something private and tender and still healing in places.
“And now?” he asks quietly.
“I still sing, still teach. It’s not the dream I imagined, but it’s a good life. Although, sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if things had gone differently.”
Jinu doesn’t answer. He just refills her glass, then his, and raises it wordlessly between them.
“To different lives,” he says.
Rumi clinks her glass against his.
“To the ones we still ended up living,” she replies.
They drink, and for a moment, the noise of the room fades just a little. Enough for the quiet between them to feel like safety, not emptiness. Enough for Rumi to remember that no matter what she lost, she’s not alone in the aftermath.
...
The dream begins somewhere she vaguely remembers.
It’s early morning, the kind where the light is blue and the world is still wearing sleep. Rumi’s walking down a stone path with frost edging the leaves, hands shoved into the sleeves of her jacket as a quiet laugh slips from her lips. Beside her, Jinu says something under his breath that makes her laugh harder, bumping his shoulder into hers in that easy, thoughtless way he always used to.
Trailing behind them are two creatures.
A massive blue tiger pads quietly in their wake, its fur rippling with every breath, and its yellow eyes burn like low embers. Each step it takes is deep and careful as though it has followed them this way for lifetimes. Overhead, a magpie with three eyes hops from one tree branch to another, keeping pace. Its feathers glint like ink in the morning light, and its gaze flickers down toward them every so often.
But Rumi isn’t afraid. She knows them. The tiger walks like it belongs to Jinu. Or maybe Jinu belongs to it. The magpie, strange and shining, always lingers near her shoulder. Their presence is familiar in the way dreams often are—no need to question them.
She glances at Jinu.
He’s wearing a hoodie against the morning chill, and so is she, though from the corners of his neckline, she can see the faint suggestion of strange, purple patterns curling up from underneath. She looks down and finds the same marks blooming beneath the edge of her collar, faint and flickering like something alive.
They stop walking. The tiger waits behind them. The magpie cocks its head.
When she turns to face him, Jinu’s already watching her with that look. The one that makes her chest feel too small for her heart. His hand brushes hers, tentative at first, and then their foreheads lean together. Their mouths are just a breath apart. Rumi’s lips part, just slightly—
And she wakes.
Her breath catches in her throat.
The room is still dark, morning barely brushing the horizon outside the curtains. Their apartment is quiet save for the soft chorus of sleep all around her—Yuna’s faint snoring from the futons laid out across the floor, Mira’s arm slung over Zoey like she always does, a phone screen dimmed against a pile of blankets.
Beside her is... Jinu.
Fast asleep on the living room floor, barely a foot away, his features soft with rest and the faintest curve to his mouth, like he’s dreaming something warm. Their arms aren’t touching, but they’re close. Too close. Like he turned toward her in his sleep. Like they’d been—
Rumi stares at him, blood draining from her face.
She thinks of the dream. Of the tiger and the magpie. Of the marks on her skin, the weight of his hand in hers, the nearly-kiss. It had felt so real. Real enough that her heart is still racing; that she reaches up, almost subconsciously, to touch the spot just beneath her collarbone where the purple patterns once curled in her dream.
She lets out a breath.
It was just a dream.
But her gaze drifts back to him, and something in her chest stirs—an old ache, an impossible pull. Like something is trying to tell her that there’s more to all of this. That it didn’t come from nowhere. Jinu shifts slightly in his sleep, a soft sound escaping his throat as his brow furrows for the briefest moment. Then he relaxes again.
And Rumi, heart thudding like a drum, lies back down.
She doesn’t sleep again that morning. Not because of the dream, but because she can still feel its heat lingering behind her ribs.
And when she glances toward Jinu one last time, she wonders—
Had he dreamt it too?
...
Life doesn’t change all at once.
It turns gradually, like a tide warming with spring. No grand announcements, no fireworks—just steady, accumulating grace.
Jinu still works three jobs. Delivery courier by day, kitchen help by night, and guitar tutor squeezed somewhere in between. His schedule is still brutal, but something’s shifted in him lately. He doesn’t drag himself through the motions anymore. He comes home to warmth now—to clean laundry drying on the balcony, to the soft clatter of dishes from a kitchen someone else has already stepped into.
Sometimes, when he returns to their little home past midnight, he finds a tupperware in the fridge labeled Eat this or I’ll cry in Rumi’s handwriting.
He always eats it.
And every time he tells her she doesn’t have to do any of it, she rolls her eyes and does it anyway.
Yuna and their mom have started selling small crafts outside her school as well. Beaded keychains, hand-knitted bookmarks, little pouches sewn from donated fabric—just enough to lighten the weight Jinu carries on his shoulders. Rumi once saw a tiny embroidered pouch shaped like a dumpling and bought five. She gave one to Zoey, Mira, Celine, and tied the rest onto her bag like a badge of honor.
Jinu’s still paying her back in small increments. Ten thousand won here, twenty there. Always with a sheepish look, always with the same stubborn insistence.
Rumi accepts it without protest.
She could tell him that he doesn’t need to pay a single won. That his being alive is more than enough. That she doesn’t measure what they have in debt or dignity or any ledger that keeps tally of who gave more. But she respects him too much to say any of that out loud.
Instead, one weekend afternoon while they’re out walking after lunch, she brings it up as casually as she can manage.
“I’ve been thinking of opening another set of classes at the studio,” Rumi says, nudging his elbow with hers as they wait for the crosswalk light to change.
Jinu glances at her. “Yeah? Thought you were already maxed out.”
“Not for voice,” she says. “Something new.”
He tilts his head. “What kind of class?”
Rumi grins at the sky. “Guitar.”
“...You play guitar?”
She laughs, soft and delighted. “God, no. I can barely hold a barre chord. But I know a very patient, very dedicated teacher who could do the job.”
It takes him a second before it clicks.
Jinu turns to her with narrowed eyes, suspicious. “You mean me.”
“I mean,” she says sweetly, “how does Teacher Jinu sound to you?”
He groans immediately, dragging a hand down his face. “Absolutely not. Do you know how cursed that sounds? That sounds like I have a fan café.”
Rumi beams. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He snorts at that, but there’s color blooming at his ears. And maybe a little softness at the corners of his mouth too. She watches him for a moment longer, eyes catching on the slope of his shoulders, the way the light catches the curve of his jaw. Then she bumps him again with her elbow, lighter this time.
“I’m serious, Jinu. You’re good with kids. You’re a good teacher. And you deserve to do work that doesn’t eat your entire soul.”
He’s quiet for a moment, gaze fixed on the sidewalk ahead.
Then: “You really think I could do it?”
“I know you could.”
He glances at her again, more solemn now, like he wants to say something deeper, something heavier. But the crosswalk light turns green and the moment shifts again—just another small kindness folded into the shape of their afternoon.
...
It starts with Mira and Zoey acting weird.
Which, okay, isn’t exactly new. But when Rumi wakes up and finds the apartment suspiciously empty—with no breakfast spread, no loud music, not even Mira’s usual screeching about whatever hair product Zoey “borrowed permanently”—she knows something’s up. Zoey even left a post-it on the mirror that says nothing except :) and a smudge of glitter. Suspicious behavior.
She doesn’t have time to linger on it, though. Today’s the last day of her summer voice program, which means recital day. Which means hours of tech checks, parent wrangling, and pretending she’s not frantically fixing mic wires five seconds before the kids go on.
Still, as she walks to the studio, there’s a quiet hum in her chest. The sky’s a little too blue. The cicadas are screaming. Her iced coffee is exactly the right amount of sweet. Even the delivery guy at the corner convenience store gave her a polite nod today.
Maybe birthdays don’t have to feel so heavy after all.
When she arrives at the studio, the hallway is already buzzing. The kids from Jinu’s early guitar lessons are filing out one by one, their hair damp with sweat, guitars strapped awkwardly over their backs like tiny rockstars.
“Bye, Teacher Rumi!” one boy chirps.
“Your hair looks really good today!” says another.
She waves back, laughing, already tugging her bag onto her shoulder as she peeks into the guitar room. It’s empty now, but still warm with the remnants of laughter and strings. Jinu must’ve already packed up, which isn’t surprising. He insists on keeping his courier job on weekends (“It helps me learn the city,” he says like he’s not a local—like Google Maps isn’t free).
Whatever. She rolls her eyes fondly just thinking about it.
Rumi makes her way toward the vocal room next, expecting the usual shuffle of chairs and parents, maybe some spilled juice boxes.
Instead, the lights are dim.
And the room is full.
All the kids are lined up near the mirror wall, wearing matching ribbons and beaming wide. Parents are scattered around, phones out and already recording. The atmosphere is… suspiciously charged. Before she can ask what’s going on, Mira grabs her by the elbow and tugs her all the way to the front like she’s escorting a confused celebrity.
“Mira, what the hell—”
“Shh, you’re ruining the moment.”
“What moment?”
“The moment,” she says cryptically, still snapping photos with her phone as she ushers Rumi into a folding chair near the piano. “Sit. Smile. Cry later.”
The lights brighten, and that’s when Rumi sees it.
Yuna. Eri. All her students, lined up neatly in front of her, and right at the center—guitar in hand, sleeves rolled up, hair still a little messy from the heat—is Jinu. He gives her a soft, sheepish smile. One that makes her stomach twist in the worst, best way.
Then the music starts.
It’s a melody she doesn’t recognize at first—plucked gently, carried by hesitant voices that grow stronger with every line. She can’t catch all the lyrics, but she hears her name once. Then again. Then something about warm-up scales and never giving up. Something about “the best teacher in the universe” (Yuna’s words, obviously). Eri’s voice wobbles at the high note, but powers through anyway. Someone in the back adds a harmony that’s slightly off. Jinu strums in time, guiding them all without ever drawing too much attention to himself.
Rumi’s throat goes tight.
She’s already tearing up when Zoey emerges from the crowd like it’s her damn Coachella set, backwards cap and sunglasses on indoors, mic in hand.
“YOOOOOOO,” she declares, to no one in particular. “I wrote this in the bathroom while pooping so you better cry, bitch.”
Rumi bursts into laughter. A few parents cough politely. Mira is openly wheezing behind her camera.
The rap is… absurd. Ridiculous. Something about vocal cords and warrior hearts and “Teacher Rumi’s got the range of a goddess, no cap.” But it’s so sweet it makes her eyes sting. Every bar is a reminder of how much she’s loved—even when she doesn’t know how to ask for it.
When the performance ends, the kids bow.
Rumi stands there, stunned. Her cheeks wet. Her hands clasped in her lap because she doesn’t know what else to do with them.
She looks at Jinu, but he’s watching her already.
Their eyes meet across the room. And he mouths—Happy birthday.
The applause rises around her, but Rumi barely hears it. She’s too busy holding this moment in both hands.
Too busy realizing that maybe this year, she doesn’t have to wish for anything else.
By the time the last student leaves after the last performance, the sky outside the studio has turned a quiet violet. The space is still warm from the laughter and the lights, but most of the noise has faded—only the low hum of a floor fan and the faint rustle of wrapping paper remain.
Rumi stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by a mountain of gifts—bouquets and handwritten notes and enough snacks to feed an entire idol dorm. Her heels are off, her hair a little mussed, but she’s glowing in the way people do when they’ve been loved out loud.
Jinu bends down to pick up a fallen ribbon, stuffing it into a paper bag. “You’re popular,” he says lightly, trying not to smile too much.
She nudges him with her foot. “Jealous?”
“No,” he says, straightening. “Proud.”
She pauses.
He always does that—says things plainly, like they’re facts. And maybe they are.
The studio feels quieter now. Mira and Zoey had conveniently vanished as soon as the final performance ended, offering vague excuses about groceries and “weirdly urgent roommate business.” Rumi didn’t press them. She suspected what they were doing, but the truth is, she didn’t mind. Not anymore. Jinu was too familiar a presence. Too easy to fall into.
“You look tired,” he says, brushing his knuckles along her shoulder before stepping past her toward the mirror wall.
“I feel amazing,” she replies truthfully, sinking onto the low padded bench near the windows. “My cheeks hurt from smiling.”
He chuckles, then pulls a small package from behind the guitar case he stashed earlier.
“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat. “Before we leave.”
She lifts her head.
“I have something for you.” Jinu holds it out awkwardly, like he hadn’t been sure if he’d go through with it. “Been saving up for a while.”
Rumi blinks, taken aback. “What— Jinu, you didn’t have to—”
“I know.” His gaze is steady. “But I wanted to.”
She opens the box slowly.
Inside are two things.
The first is a bracelet, delicate and woven with purple-blue silk thread, studded with tiny stone beads and a single silver charm shaped like a tiger’s eye. It glints faintly under the studio light.
“It’s called a mongduri,” he says. “Traditional charm. They say it guides you toward the life you’re meant for.”
Her fingers still against the threads. The breath in her throat goes shallow.
The second gift is a small, handmade music box. It’s painted in soft colors—lavender and cloud gray—and when she winds it, it plays a gentle, familiar tune. One she recognizes immediately as the Joseon song that Yuna said was her brother’s favorite. She often hummed under her breath when she was nervous before recitals. Jinu must’ve transcribed it himself.
“I—” Rumi breathes, throat tightening. “Jinu, this is—this is so much.”
He laughs under his breath, sinking onto the floor across from her. “See? Now you know how it feels.”
She laughs too, a little too breathless, a little too full of him.
So they sit there on the studio floor, the two of them in the middle of a mess of tissue paper and candy wrappers and their own tangled history. Rumi clutches the bracelet in one hand, trying not to cry. Jinu leans back on his palms, smiling like someone who never expected things to turn out this soft.
“I’ve been having weird dreams lately,” she blurts before she can stop herself.
Jinu raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
She hesitates. “Of us. Walking together. And there’s a blue tiger with yellow eyes. And this bird—a magpie, I think. With three eyes.”
His eyes widen, slowly. Not with disbelief, but with recognition.
“You’ve been having those dreams too?”
The silence between them changes. It warps a little, curves at the edges like something pulled from another life.
Rumi lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Okay, what the hell. Is this a weird reincarnation thing?”
“Maybe we were spirit companions in a past life,” Jinu offers, playing along. “The tiger and the magpie were probably our familiars.”
“Oh my god,” she groans, hiding her face in her hands. “Maybe that’s what the dream was trying to tell me. That you’ve always been annoying.”
Jinu grins, and it’s the softest thing in the world. “Maybe.”
She peeks at him from between her fingers. “You think we’re tied together or something?”
His smile fades into something quieter. Jinu reaches over, tugs gently at her hand until she lowers it. Their fingers graze, and she stills. The bracelet is still warm in her palm.
“I don’t know if I believe in fate,” he says slowly. “I think life is something you carve out yourself. That nothing’s really promised. Not even the people who feel like home.”
She holds his gaze.
“But if something—anything—led me to you,” he says, voice low, steady, “then I’m grateful it did. No matter how many lifetimes it took.”
Her chest tightens all over again.
He leans in.
Not all at once. Not the way you do when you’re desperate or drunk or trying to prove something. It’s slower than that, softer. Like he’s memorizing her—eyes flicking down to her mouth, then back to her gaze, checking if she’ll pull away. If she’s still letting him in. Rumi doesn’t move. She just watches him come closer, breath catching, heart thudding quietly in her chest. His hand brushes her cheek, calloused fingertips against her skin like he doesn’t want to break anything.
And then he kisses her.
It's feather-light at first—just a touch, a question asked in the quiet. His lips against hers feel like he’s spent years holding this moment back and finally, finally let himself cross the distance.
She exhales against him, eyes fluttering shut. Her hands lift instinctively, curling into the front of his shirt to anchor herself. The kiss deepens, not with urgency, but with a kind of aching reverence, as though he’s tracing the shape of every unsaid thing that had ever stood between them.
Jinu tilts his head, coaxing her closer, and her whole body follows. He kisses her like he doesn’t want it to end. His thumb brushes along her jaw, cradling her face like it’s the first time anyone’s ever been gentle to him and he’s trying to return it tenfold.
When they finally break apart, it’s slow. Their foreheads stay pressed together. Their breathing softens in tandem.
Rumi opens her eyes first.
Jinu looks like he’s still reeling—like he hadn’t meant to go that far, but he wouldn’t take it back for anything.
“You okay?” she whispers.
He lets out a breathy laugh. “I think I’ve been waiting to do that since spring.”
She smiles, lips still tingling. “What took you so long?”
Jinu shrugs. “Maybe I was waiting for a sign.”
“And that sign was a dream with a three-eyed bird?”
“That sign,” he murmurs, brushing his nose against hers, “was you.”
And before she can tease him for being sappy, he kisses her again—firmer this time, no hesitation, no tiptoeing.
“Oh my god.”
The voice is loud. Unmistakably Eri.
Rumi jolts upright so fast she nearly smacks heads with Jinu. He startles too, blinking at the stairwell just in time to see Eri peeking from the edge of the wall with her hands on her head like she’s seen the end of the world. Behind her, Yuna is tugging uselessly at the hem of her hoodie, trying to pull her back.
“Eri, nooo—!”
“See!” Eri exclaims, pointing dramatically at the two of them. “They’re kissing! I knew it! They’re totally dating! I called it first!”
Jinu groans, flopping onto his back in defeat as Rumi buries her flaming face in her hands.
“Oh my god,” she mutters into her palms. “We forgot they were still here.”
“We didn’t forget,” Jinu says helplessly. “They were supposed to go home.”
“I tried to tell you!” Yuna says from the stairs, flustered and mortified but clearly trying not to laugh. “She insisted she left her umbrella!”
“I thought it was suspicious!” Eri huffs proudly. “You were acting weird all day!”
Jinu glances over at Rumi, who is trying and failing not to laugh as she slides his hoodie over her head to hide her face entirely. He reaches up, tugging the fabric down just enough to see her eyes.
“You’re really gonna hide now?” he murmurs, amused.
“I don’t know how to live like this,” she whispers back. “This is middle school levels of humiliation.”
He smiles. “Well. They’re your students.”
“They’re your sister and her chaos gremlin best friend.”
“Fair.”
Eri points again. “I’m telling Big Sis Mira!”
“Don’t tell Mira!” Rumi yelps, finally peeling herself off the floor.
“Too late!” Eri’s already halfway down the stairs, pulling Yuna with her. “I’m gonna make her buy me boba for being right!”
As their footsteps fade away, Rumi sinks back down beside Jinu, completely red-faced and still laughing breathlessly.
Jinu stretches out beside her again, brushing a hand over her hair. “We’re gonna have to tell everyone eventually.”
She sighs, curling into his side. “Yeah, but I didn’t want to do it with a thirteen-year-old as our herald.”
“You’d prefer a press release?”
“I’d prefer privacy.”
“Well,” Jinu says, shifting to kiss her hair, “at least now they’ll stop trying to set us up.”
Rumi rolls her eyes. “They’re still going to try. Eri has a Pinterest board for us, I just know it.”
He chuckles, warm and low in his chest. “Let her. It’s cute.”
She glances up at him, her hand finding his again. Their fingers slot together easily now.
Everything still feels a little ridiculous—absurd, even. But also real. Warm. Like laughter after a long winter. Like something stitched from both the dreams they can’t explain and the small, quiet choices they’ve made in waking life.
“I guess this means we’re a thing now,” she murmurs.
He turns his head, leans in close. “We’ve always been a thing.”
“Gross.”
“Shut up.”
And they’re still smiling when Jinu kisses her again—soft, unhurried, content. With love that feels like thread pulled taut across lifetimes, finally knotted just right.