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They all have a penchant for wandering when they can’t sleep—Mira will retreat to the dance studio two floors below, practicing combinations until her feet ache and Zoey or Rumi will find her asleep on the polished floor, lights still on while Zoey finds refuge in one of their recording booths, nose buried in one of her many, many journals as she bangs out melodies on the keyboard or revisits old MP3’s until she passes out on one of the leather couches wrapped in one of their branded blankets. Despite their packed schedules, sometimes plain exhaustion isn’t enough to override their brains after hectic days so they all have their vices.
Rumi wakes with a start, blood thundering in her eyes like a storm as she blinks and the fog of her mind clears. Suddenly the tight, clawed hands around her body fade into Mira’s gentle hold, arm slung over her side and forehead pressed to the space of her shoulder blades and Rumi closes her eyes, focusing on Mira and Zoey’s slow breaths to steady hers until she’s no longer shaking.
It’s a miracle she hasn’t woken them. Rumi’s always had nightmares but since Gwi-Ma, since the Honmoon, they’ve worsened. Before everything, she was able to keep her paralyzing fear silent, choking down screams and just digging her nails into her arms as the patterns burned under her skin like fire, curling up and clenching her teeth until the physical pain devoured everything else and she was able to think again.
Then Zoey had kicked her door down in the middle of the night, Mira charging in behind her with her gok-do already swinging because Rumi’s thrashing and wailing had been so bad they thought she’d been attacked. Rumi hadn’t been able to explain it away through her sore throat, one eye glowing, and they ended up staying, sandwiching her sweaty body between them until the sun rose and she’d finally passed out.
They hadn’t left her alone at night since, so now Rumi extracts herself as carefully as she can to not wake them—she slips her pillow under Zoey’s head despite knowing Zoey’s not going to wake; their maknae sleeps like the dead. Once she’s out, she’s out, and more than once Mira has had to put a finger under her nose to make sure she’s still breathing.
“Only time she stays still,” Mira had grumbled, half-caught when Rumi chuckled before climbing in on her other side.
Deciding to risk it, Rumi presses a quick kiss to Mira’s cheek. She’s a lighter sleeper, almost too light, and Rumi holds her breath as Mira sighs before settling again before tiptoeing from the room.
She eases her door closed behind her with a silent click and heads down the hall, slippers muffling her footsteps until she’s at the elevator. The bright lights make her squint and she isn’t sure what number she hits until the doors slide open a minute later and she finds herself at one of their many, many practice rooms.
It’s still organized chaos from the day before, snack wrappers covering every surface, the indent of Mira’s elbow on the couch’s arm as they tried—and failed—to brainstorm lyrics. While they’re technically on hiatus, they’re all workaholics and had attempted to run with a singular line Mira had yelled across the intercom at them before dinner and announced a team meeting in 5. It hadn’t worked. They hadn’t even realized they’d skipped supper until Bobby had shown up, frowning as he juggled hotpot and listened to their bemoaning between searing hot bites.
Rumi sinks to the floor by the far wall, blinking away unexplained tears in surprise and then she’s reaching for her guitar.
She fiddles with the pegs, enjoying the familiar weight of the well-loved instrument in her lap despite the chill of the wood through her thin nightclothes. Zoey had tuned it earlier out of habit but Rumi continues to turn them meticulously, listening with a sharp ear, strumming with aching, stiff fingers until she’s happy and suddenly there’s a melody spilling out of her mouth, a hum that coats her throat like a hot, perfect cup of tea.
It feels familiar and she doesn’t know why so she lets it flow, eyebrows knitted as she tries to pin it down but it slips through her fingers like water.
The cold metal of the strings melts into a comforting warmth under the pads of her calloused fingertips and Rumi’s wondering why she hasn’t played in so long, reaching for one of Zoey’s journals to jot down the notes for later when it hits her what she’s playing and she stops, suddenly cold again in the lonely room dimly lit by a single lamp.
She swallows thickly around the knot in her throat, hugging the guitar to her chest as she closes her eyes, grounding herself in the shape of it, how the empty warmth could mimic a body if she thinks hard enough, if she hopes hard enough—
There’s a whisper in the back of her mind, an echo bathed in the soft dusk of a setting sun in the distance, a hand in hers.
Patterns that match her own.
Rumi licks dry, chapped lips, fingers dancing warily over strings but not pressing, too scared to. Why is she scared? It’s vulnerable, these lyrics, this song, burrowing somewhere deeper and more intimate than Golden; where Golden was a dream, a false sense of security, this is real, tangible hope. There’s a pit in her stomach, a kind of sickly purple-pulsing hesitation even as something murmurs remember.
She doesn't want to, but didn’t she say she was tired of running?
She opens her mouth and her voice breaks on the first note. She presses on.
The guitar warms in her hands, in her lap. She’s not damaged, she’s not dangerous. She’s not alone—never was, not really, with the promise of her parents' love, the Honmoon wrapped around her, Celine guiding her, with Zoey and Mira by her side, with Jinu crashing into her life and then leaving just as fast, even as the Honmoon and Zoey and Mira stay. They always stay.
If she presses her fingers too hard against the strings, they hurt. If she clenches her palm around the neck too quick, it stings. Rumi doesn’t stop. She trusts Zoey, and Mira, and the Honmoon. She trusted Jinu.
She trusts herself.
Outside, the sun rises and she fills pages with familiar but new lyrics, new chords, a new song, memories woven into every syllable but not straining, not stifling. A kind of hope. A kind of freedom.
Mira and Zoey will find her in the room in a few hours and Rumi will set aside her guitar and ask with bags under her eyes but a smile on her face, some kind of buoyancy in her chest, how they feel about her doing a solo EP.
They will smile back, take her hand, encourage her, and Rumi makes the decision over and over again to believe in that trust.