Chapter Text
It was…tense after the new Honmoon was built and they sealed Gwi-ma. After performing their new song, straight from their hearts, they were rushed home along with everyone at the stadium. It seemed that most of the people were unaware of the true magnitude of what happened, most thought it was a really elaborate show.
Gwi-ma and the Saja Boys being destroyed was a pyrotechnic show, the new HUNTR/X song was a clever marketing strategy and the fake breakup was included.
However, as Rumi was pulled slowly from exhausted slumber, her body aching everywhere, she realized that the fake breakup might have been more foreshadowing then the fans realized. After they got home last night, the three of them tried to talk about what happened, but realized that none of them had the energy to really think about it, and instead just wanted to be close, collapsing on Mira’s bed in a heap of relieved sobs and desperate grounding contact.
It was probably the most intimate she had been with them, as they all tried to hold on to each other, afraid to let go. Her patterns glowing faintly through the night, flickering with opalescent light, flecks of gold pulsing momentarily when one of them would tense and hold her even tighter.
Zoey was sandwiched between them with her head nuzzled into Rumi’s chest, and Mira’s arms stretched around her to hold Rumi’s clothed forearms. She took a moment to enjoy the contact, feeling Zoey’s breath on her collarbone and Mira’s grounding grasp on her arm. But the longer she was awake, the more she felt a strange pit in her stomach begin to grow, her body starting to thrum with overstimulation. She could feel her heart pick up and she tried to steady her breathing, but it was enough of a shift in the room to lure Mira into consciousness.
Rumi felt Mira wake up and they met each other’s gaze over Zoey’s still slumbering body and Rumi had a dawning feeling that today was going to be…a lot, for lack of a better word. Mira initially had a lovely soft expression, one of true peace and when she had first looked at Rumi, she thought that maybe things were going to be okay. But similar to what happened with her, Mira seemed to recall all that had happened, and a shadow descended across them. Now the tangle of warmth and desperate contact was suffocating and Rumi slowly and carefully extracted herself from it, her body hissing at the loss.
Rumi needed to shower then, just to feel the pounding water and the burning heat draw out the aches she felt, not just physically, but to dull the ache of their contact. When she checked Mira’s room afterwards, both her and Zoey were gone. There was a brief unbearable shutter of panic, that they had already left her, she was already alone. But noises in the kitchen and the smell of coffee and Mira’s favorite tea wafted through, and her heart paused its shattering for the time being.
After a quiet morning of the three of them getting tea and coffee, Zoey making breakfast, and Mira filling Bobby in about some of the details about the night before and what they thought was a good way to spin everything, they eventually sat on the couch. Each held their drink, and waited, neither wanting to break the fragile silence.
Zoey and Mira were conflicted. That much was obvious. She saw the way they sat close, and kept looking at each other, talking with their faces, wordlessly in a language Rumi didn’t know. Rumi had seen this before many times but she never felt so alone when it happened now. She really had distanced herself. She knew she had done it, of course she had, it was her entire life up until last night but she realized that Zoey and Mira were truly on another level, that she just wasn’t.
Her heart ached to be between them, to understand them the same way they seemed to understand each other. She wanted that. But her desires to be with her bandmates in intimate ways, to know them more intimately and to touch them, fuck she wanted to touch them . Her waking up wrapped in their embrace had left her thrumming with a need for it in a way that she had always pushed down and kept hidden. But now that everything was left on the table, now that she had been stripped bare for the world to see, she felt that hunger was louder and she didn’t know if she could hide it like before. She would try because they needed to talk, she needed them to know that they came first and that she would do anything for them, anything to make up for her decades of mistakes and lost time.
She had destroyed their trust and if they were kind enough, generous enough with their hearts, it would take a long time to mend that trust. But that would be a gift, time to mend that trust would be a wonderful gift that she would be lucky to be given. Rumi understood. It would be selfish of her to feel like they could move past it quickly. And while Zoey looked at her like she wanted to be near her, seemed far more willing to just move on, and let the betrayal fade while they tried to find out what their new relationship meant, Mira was stuck in the well of loss and confusion.
Rumi knew Mira had issues with trust, hell she did too. Different shades of the same color. And Zoey supported Mira, like she should be, choosing her in this moment to protect. Rumi was alone, but she was going to try to accept their words. Mira’s tight voice lulled her from her musings, and she looked up to them, her eyes settling on where Zoey’s head rested against Mira’s shoulder. She desperately wanted to be on her other shoulder, and for a moment, she felt her legs start to shift to pull her there, but she stopped them. Not your time. It might never be your time. And you did that.
She crossed her arms, her hands gripping her biceps tightly as she tried to ground herself. Zoey noticed and lifted her head, reaching over to gently pull her hand down and hold it, as Mira broke the silence.
“Rumi I need to know some things, I have some questions and I just, I have to know. Is that okay?‘ A new fissure split across Rumi’s heart then. Even in Mira’s furious and lost state, she was still asking if it was okay.
“Yes” It was all Rumi could muster before her voice broke. Mira nodded.
“Are you the Rumi we have always known?”
Rumi nodded. “I have always been this, it’s just… gotten worse recently.” Mira and Zoey both stared at her with an investigative intensity, but Rumi knew they could tell if she was being honest. Luckily, they knew each other well enough. They probably always knew she was hiding something. The thought of them knowing, and being kept in the dark caused another fracture, of her own making. This was all of her own making.
“So you knew this whole time? You kept it from us the entire time?” Mira’s voice was raised, and Rumi looked away.
“Yes.” She had some context she wanted to add, that Celine had taught her to do it. But she could’ve told them anyway. She had no real excuses. She did this and now she was facing the consequences.
As if hearing the name in Rumi’s thoughts, Zoey spoke. “Does Celine know?” Rumi heard the hope for it to only be Rumi they can’t trust and is sorry she has to break that too.
She nods. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this. But yes, she always did.” Both of them looked angry now, their eyes marred with betrayal, but not towards Rumi entirely. Zoey’s hand left hers and Rumi could feel herself slipping.
“Was this her idea?” Rumi sighed, the breath needed as she hadn’t realized she was holding it.
“Yes. But I could’ve told you. It’s not all Celine's fault.” Mira and Zoey shared a glance and Mira nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you trust us?” Rumi went to immediately answer and felt her mouth had no words. They sat in tense silence for a moment, watching Rumi’s eyes dart around as she tried to find the words, the way to explain that she did trust them, that she wanted to tell them, and that even if Celine didn’t want her to, forbade it, she could have anyways. And she just started talking.
“I did trust you. I wanted to tell you. I-” Rumi felt her patterns ripple, the color warped beneath her skin as the Honmoon responded in kind. “I was terrified to lose you and even though I got so close to telling you so many times, I just kept pulling away. It was easier to just run. I know I’m a coward but I think I was just hoping I could last long enough to fix it, fix me, if I could hide it long enough that you would never have to know.”
Mira couldn’t hold back. “How can you say that? How can you say you trusted us and still be afraid of us? We could’ve helped you! All this time we could have helped you, learned with you.”
Her voice was loud now and Rumi flinched. Mira pressed on. “You say that you trust us but your actions don’t prove it.” She took a deep breath and sighed, resigned to what she was going to say.
“You're both everything to me, and the anger I feel for you Rumi isn’t just because you lied, although that is a lot of it. But it’s because you didn’t let us help. We leaned on you, you took care of us for years, and we were never allowed the privilege to do the same for you.” Rumi saw both of them looking at her with the same angry and sad expression. She felt her heart crack again, like glass, stained with regret and desperate desire for this to have gone differently. “You know that feeling you got from helping us through something? Settling our emotions, getting us out of our heads? The affection, the love you felt when you did that for us? You didn’t let us have that. You didn’t let us love you back, in the same way you loved us. Not fully. You kept that from us.”
Rumi felt her heart momentarily stop. She had never thought of it like that. She looked at both of them who felt so much love for her, who were looking at her like she was the only thing in existence that mattered. She had been so greedy, taking love from them, giving all that she could to them, she thought that was good? Pleasing people, putting herself aside for others was what she was supposed to do. But she never realized that the happiness she felt when she did that for them, was what she was keeping to herself. She never thought she could inflict so much harm by not letting them see her pain. The tears were falling easily now, her patterns rippling with purple, and she knew they were both looking at them, watching her emotions visible across her.
Is it odd that she is glad that she couldn’t hide her emotions from them now, even if she wanted to? She was open to them, and she was glad she had no choice in it. In this one way, her curse was a blessing.
“I’m so sorry. I never- I never considered it like that. I-” the apology died on her throat when Mira scoffed and Zoey turned to Mira, speaking before Mira could bite back.
“Mira, she understands. This is hard on all of us, that’s not going to make it easier.” Mira sighed and nodded. Zoey looked at Rumi and smiled, broken, but trying to impart something. She reached out to Rumi, taking her hand away from her arm, showing both of them the red print that she was diligently pressing into her skin, the small red dots of pain that she was subconsciously using to center herself. They didn’t comment, maybe they no longer cared.
“I just need some time to think.” Mira couldn’t meet Rumi’s eyes, and she nodded. Zoey was rubbing Mira’s back, her face solemn, angry but strangely hopeful with her other hand in Rumi's, her fingers lightly grazing the pattern that wrapped around her middle finger. The touch was feather light, but to her it was a lead weight, holding her to the earth. She knew this craving had been there before, that she wanted to touch them so terribly before last night changed everything, but now it was a need, a clawing thing that was trying to force her to pull Zoey towards her, but she had to fight back. Having her hand on her earlier for such a brief moment seemed to start the spiral, and having it now, she never wanted to give it back.
She realised they were both looking at her. “I understand. Take all the time you need.” Rumi’s voice came out on its own, surprising herself by how small she sounded and how quick the words rushed out, obviously desperate. Zoey looked at her like she understood, her breath wavering like a ripple in a small pond. Zoey’s smile denoted her acceptance of Rumi’s words, however behind her eyes was something hard for Rumi to read. It was heavy, full and intense, and it forced Rumi to look away.
“We just need some time to talk, the two of us. Thank you for being honest, and that is not meant to be an insult.” Zoey’s words were soft, she was trying to make sure Rumi was okay, at least somewhat, and that gave her some comfort. She looked at Mira but she simply got up and walked away. And all Zoey’s offered comfort left, as she knew that they were not aligned right now, and that it could change. For the better or for the worst. Her walk was not all anger or rejection though, mostly it was purposeful. They needed to talk. And they are doing it now. Zoey followed after her, a quick squeeze of her hand imparting a warmth Rumi hoped never faded.
“I’m sorry. Promise me you’ll be here when we are done?” Zoey looked pleading and Rumi answered, honestly.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” She lifted her head to look at Zoey, trying to impart all she could. “I promise.” She never really considered leaving. She was terrified of them casting her out, but she was done running. The only way she was leaving them was if they wanted her too. Zoey smiled like she wanted to keep talking, just the two of them, but knew Mira needed her. Mira often needed them to help sort out her thoughts. Rumi hated that she couldn’t help too.
She stared at where the remnants of Zoey’s warmth lingered, the color prismatic as Zoey herself walked away. Rumi could see her patterns purple and pulsing with her heartbeat ever so faintly, and the only place that didn't match was where Zoey had touched, which was only now fading to purple from that prismatic iridescent. She sighed. This was going to be a long day.
She wasn’t wrong, and saying that the day she spent waiting for them to talk wasn’t one of the worst days of her life would be an understatement.
All throughout the day, she would feel waves, flickers and shifts in the Honmoon as they talked. At first it startled her, the emotion jolting her out of her thoughts and felt like a shock delivered right to her system at the same time she heard someone’s voice raise. At first she thought it was a demon or something horrible happening, but when she knocked on their door to ask if they were okay, her voice failing to hide the worry laced in it, Mira’s voice sliced through her instantly.
“We’re fine Rumi, just leave us alone.” Rumi flinched at the tone, as the Honmoon sent another slash of emotion through her and even though she could hear Zoey’s angry retort of “Mira, she’s just checking on us.” she backed off and knew that the Honmoon was likely not done with her.
She welcomed it. She deserved it after all.
As it kept coming, she felt herself starting to crave it, the violent emotions filling the space in her reserved for the hungering clawing want for contact. Sometimes small sharp points of tension sliced through her, causing her to stumble and lean against the nearest wall for balance, before she grasped her chest wanting the pain to hit her again. Others were waves of confusion and hurt that forced her to her knees and drew the air from her chest, having her gasping for minutes before it subsided, and she could feel herself lost as to why she wanted to keep drowning.
She could feel a dangerous addiction starting, and she spent hours waiting with anticipation for the next wave of anguish. Rumi knew she had an unhealthy love for sadness. Depression made it comforting, a loving consistency that she knew would hold her and let her cry and sob and wrack with yearning.
Sadness was her base emotion, her resting point. When all things were calm and normal with the world, she returned to its cold embrace to feel whole. It was known, too many nights spent alone wishing she could be with her hunters, her girls, but she couldn’t let them get closer, couldn’t do what she so deeply wanted to and just reveal her secret. Not until she was fixed. But that didn’t matter now, and so she lay on the couch, wrapped in Zoey’s blanket, in Mira’s sweater, and waiting for her next hit of their tide. She knew Mira would probably hate seeing her in her sweater, but if this was her last day as the leader of HUNTR/X, then she was going to allow a bit of selfishness.
Demons were greedy , a voice like her own but different growled in the empty halls of her mind. She had never ripped off an article of clothing faster.
It continued through the day, a mix of sharp moments and drawn out gasping, before it culminated in a torrent of overwhelming heart clenching yearning that had her crying quietly on the floor of the kitchen with the sheer magnitude of it, like a confession carved into her soul. That moment lasted for what felt like hours, but when it passed she stood shakily to find that it was only long enough to boil the water for Ramyeon.
What triggered that? She allowed her mind to wander, to contemplate what that could have been, what her girls were talking about that would constitute such a yearning. Maybe they were talking about each other? Maybe they moved away from her and were now looking at each other with love before they touched, their lips just a breath away before someone closed the distance, Zoey making that cute whine she usually makes when Mira kisses her. It was something they didn’t know Rumi could hear through the walls, as Rumi would listen, perverted as they started their frequent intimate nights before she always had to put on her headphones and drown it out, sometimes waiting to press play because Mira groaned and she knew she was about to bite her lover's-
Greedy, disgusting demon.
She clawed at her arm, feeling thin lines of blood beginning to form to stop herself from indulging in the inappropriate thought. She was disgusting, her friends were in pain, pain she caused and her mind was pulling out memories like that?
Her other arm carved matching marks. Her patterns flickered purple and red, what she assumed was shame and lust, and she clawed again, this time the sharp pain finally stalling her thoughts long enough for her to let loose a shaky breath. Relief.
Her claw's would not scar. She knew this. By the time she was focused on the Ramyeon they had already healed and nobody would know they joined the invisible latticework of past relief she was used to carving. Her patterns settled into their resting state, a faint bluish purple with the edges pulsing with prismatic light.
She was alone again. The tide was the only thing that kept her company, the Honmoon wrapped around her, refusing to let her feel her own thoughts, as she basked in the contextless whirlpool of her companions' conversation and found she still craved more. More.
Greedy.
She made the girls dinner, bringing it to the front of their door and tapping against it. Zoey opened the door, her eyes red and her cheeks stained with tears and it took everything Rumi had to not drop the tray and break down herself.
She shakingly handed her the food and drinks as Zoey thanked her, and Rumi had to look away from the fond look Zoey had for her, lest she get drunk from it. But looking past her to see Mira on the bed, their eyes met for a moment and Rumi swore Mira was conflicted, that some kind of fondness lingered there, unlike the fury or disappointment she expected.
She couldn’t look long enough to confirm anything. She was in her room before she could even realize as she likely sprinted to it. Maybe she had even teleported again, something she didn't want to consider. And she was about to yell at herself for worrying them when she remembered that would imply they cared. The honest part of her, the part of her that loved them and nothing else, knew they cared and likely were worrying. It was wrong and self indulgent to her perpetual sadness to say that they didn’t, that decades of friendship and love could be erased in a single night and it was unkind to them, the people she desperately had wanted to tell long ago. If she wanted to tell them, that meant they would still care now.
But she was a greedy demon. And so she fell into sobs easily.
Her food went untouched, her appetite lost as she spent the night laying on her bed, oscillating between soft sobs and panic, exhaustion from crying taking her to sleep, before a shock of emotion would wake her, sometimes without her knowing what it was, and other times, when the memories of her distant girls ripping off her jacket in front of the world, to holding weapons out towards her would slowly fade from her vision, as if for a moment she was there again.
She knew it wasn't them on the stage, and yet that moment and all that followed would likely haunt her forever and she didn’t blame them. If anything that sick part of her that desired at all times to wallow was grateful for more memories to pull on, something to carve into her heart the same way she did her arms. It was a gift. And she could never blame them.
They had no idea what was happening and their hurt, fear and anguish in that moment could have stemmed from so many things. Did they believe she was even Rumi? Mira's first question confirmed they might not have. Did they think she was working for Gwi-Ma this whole time? That she and Jinu were working to tear them apart, or that possibly she had made a deal with him or Gwi-ma, the same kind of deal Jinu made.
Or maybe, they simply saw a creature, a monster that wore their friends face as a mask, like the demons did with their own on the stage, and they hesitated because the mask was good. The same way that she knew their demon doppelgangers would stick with her, despite it not being them. They had so many justifications for their actions, so many ways they could explain to her their thoughts at that moment and she would be satisfied. Not that she needed or deserved to be satisfied, just that…
Greedy.
She could hear muffled speaking every once in a while when she would wake up, coming from the living room or Mira’s room next to hers, but she dared not try to listen. They needed privacy, and she didn’t want to hear the heartbreak before they were ready to tell her.
They were done. Obviously. Rumi was not foolish enough to think that HUNTR/X was a thing anymore. The tidal waves of negative emotions over the day and night were enough for her to know that, but Zoey’s tears were the seal. Her mind had quickly ignored the yearning she saw in both of them, discarding facts so that she could keep drowning.
She knew they were trying to find a way to let her go, to tell her that they couldn’t move past it and that they were done with her.
So when she heard a soft knock on her door, and heard Zoey’s quiet voice, she knew it was time.
They sat together in the living room, Mira and Zoey on one side of the couch, with Rumi on the other. So far away. She hadn’t seen them in hours, hadn’t felt the gut wrenching knife of the Honmoon, which felt like the finality she was desperate to avoid. She wasn’t looking at them, instead her eyes were unfocused, idly watching her hands tugging on the sleeves of the old oversized sweater, her own this time, she had been wearing all night.
“Rumi, can you look at us?” Zoey’s voice was kind, and Rumi looked up. She would do anything for them. She was no longer under the delusion she was here for herself. Apparently, she had decided during her long day of heartbreak that she would be pathetic and desperate.
They looked tired, their bodies exhausted from talking and their faces streaked with tears. But in their eyes was something she was not expecting.
Hope.
She had come into this so prepared to see hatred, disappointment or disgust. Or sadness, the loss of someone you once thought of as family, someone you loved, needing to be cut loose. Betrayal calcified, and unchangeable. Hope wasn't even on her list.
Mira spoke next.
“Rumi, I don’t think I can trust you right now. I want to, but I can’t. I’ve been betrayed and cast out by the family I was supposed to love, and I couldn’t break from the feeling that this was the same. That it happened with the family I chose, that I thought was unbreakable. With you and Zoey.” Mira seemed to be reading from an internal script, trying her best to say exactly what she decided on. Rumi felt her chest cave in.
She didn’t see hope. Was she so desperate, so lost in denial that she saw hope when in reality she should have seen disgust? She felt her heart begin to crack, pieces falling slower as her patterns began to rippled, in time not with her heart beat, but with each piece that fell away. The Honmoon rippled as well, and maybe for the first time, maybe for the hundredth, her bandmates felt her emotions like she had been feeling theirs all day, and it shook them.
What Rumi didn’t realize is that, while she could see the spikes of emotion she felt from her companions throughout the day, like tidal waves, or shards of glass flicking out towards her, Mira and Zoey could also see Rumi’s. And hers took a different form, as the Honmoon seemed to linger around her, ribbons constantly flowing out of her, filling the air around them. Rumi, no matter how small she felt, took up space in the Honmoon. She was the roots, and the Honmoon made a patterned trunk and branches. And right now it was jagged, like frozen bolts of black lightning.
Mira’s eyes widened and Rumi, diligent and pathetic, had not looked away. She was asked to look at them. So she did. And Mira buckled under the eye contact and the weight of the Honmoon above her, her voice a bit more frantic than the measured practiced speech from before.
“Rumi, it hurts that you didn’t trust us. That you felt, that for whatever reason, you couldn’t confide in us. That your fear about the worst case overrode the years of trust and love we had. I-I’m furious just thinking about it. But” she looked at Zoey who nodded supportively, but was glancing at Rumi with each word as Rumi felt pieces fall in the same cadence. “But, I also know that I’m an angry person. I know I'm tough to be around sometimes, intense, overly blunt, everything you both know. And I know that I hold on to anger because it’s familiar, it’s comfortable. And you both have been so gracious with me all these years. I’m lucky to have you both holding me up.” Mira looked up at Rumi fully now.
“I want to be angrier, to throw something, to cut you out of my life and leave. But I can’t. I can’t muster it because at the end of it all, I would miss you. I would be broken, missing a third of myself if you were not here. Rumi, Zoey, you both are a part of me and I cannot imagine living without you. All I want is the both of you, by my side. And-”
Mira choked up and seemed to be unable to continue, looking down as she tried to find the words. Rumi was at a loss, her mind had gone blank. She didn’t know how to process what she thought was happening.
Zoey looked down, like she was steeling herself as her hand grasped Mira’s.
“I feel the same. Rumi, you hurt both of us, but I’d be lying if I said that it wouldn’t break me more than anything to lose you. Either of you.” She looked to Mira who smiled at her, and Rumi’s heart lost another chunk, at the sheer gravity of the love she felt for them, and the weight of the ache that they were not looking at her like that right now.
Greedy . Selfish.
“We’re sorry it took so long. We wanted to be thorough, because so much has happened, and so much has changed and the lies were so big. We care too much about you and us to act rashly.” As she spoke Rumi could hear Zoey losing it too, losing control and sobs began to creep in between the words. “We care about what happened, it will take time to move on, but the thing that dominates our hearts is how much we care about you.” Zoey looked up, finally meeting her gaze and Rumi began to feel her own tears fall at the hopeful pleading in Zoey’s eyes. Zoey chuckles then, not with mirth but at the absurdity of what she says next.
“It’s kind of selfish of us, we know, but we realized that through all the anger and betrayal, maybe we can afford to be a little selfish. And choose you because we can’t live without you, not because we have stopped being hurt. Hurt makes you want to self destruct, to break everything that caused it, to hurt back. But that means hurting the people you love most and we can't do that to you. Not after we can see finally truly see the pain you feel. This hurt is temporary, and while it sucks, it will be worth it to fight through this, because what we feel for you is etched into our souls.”
She didn’t deserve them. Her patterns rippled in time with the Honmoon, as a flash of momentary gold passed over her. The lightning was shifting into proper branches. Rumi could feel the first stitch mend her shattered vessel.
“We need you, Rumi. We need your light, your endless empathy, your willingness. We need your passion, your drive to make us all better, and your unwavering support. We need you, all of you. We just want you to let us in. To be selfish with us and take from us our love. To accept it. You already shoulder our pain, please let us shoulder yours.” Zoey’s voice cracks as tears begin to fall, as she whispers the next part of her desperate plea. “I love you Rumi.”
Mira’s head looked up as Rumi sat in shock, and she saw within Mira’s gaze the same heavy deep emotion she saw in Zoey. The same thing she saw before they even had left to talk. Her voice was small but resolute. “I love you Rumi.”
They loved me?
She lost track of time as the world slowed as her chest bloomed with something odd, an aching sweet feeling that slowly spread to consume her body, and the tears that fell now were different. She never would have thought this is how it would go. She was so convinced of the devastation, the fact that her world was going to end.
But they loved her. They wanted her to stay and they loved her. They were hurt and still wanted her. She had hurt them and they still loved her. She smiled and looked down at her hands, the tears falling and her patterns flickered. For a moment, a ripple of gold spread through them. She frowned then and realized that as much as she wanted this, she was greedy, a creature of shame and she took them up on their offer.
Maybe it was too soon or maybe they were not expecting it so quickly, but Rumi was done hiding. They wanted to be let in, to explore every part of her, and she wanted them there too.
“My patterns…” Her whisper was so quiet but they heard her all the same. It was selfish to say something like this, selfish enough that she couldn’t dare look at them. To ask for them to confirm that their love included her patterns. The night of the Idol Awards flashed in her mind, her screaming “ALL OF ME” at the mother figure who only ever loved a part of her. Maybe only her mothers part. Maybe never her, but the memory of the mother she reminded her of.
She needed to know.
Zoey and Mira both looked frightened. What Rumi couldn’t see was the Honmoon above her, which had been slowly shifting to golden branches and prismatic ribbons, had suddenly and aggressively become aflame, dark purple and red at the mention of her marks. They knew it wasn’t breaking, that there wasn’t a worry about demons coming through right now, but merely that it was reflecting Rumi’s emotions, and they were confronted with her self loathing openly.
“No Rumi, please don’t think like that. Your patterns were a shock, but they do not bother us.” Mira was panicked but her voice remained stern, like she really needed Rumi to hear it. “We were wrong to raise our weapons at you. We were afraid and acted on reflex. I-I would have never been able to hurt you. Your patterns are a part of you, and they don’t change how we feel.”
Zoey’s words come out hastily, almost as if she wasn’t thinking. “They’re actually really pretty”
Rumi’s head whirled up and her eyes locked onto Zoey as Mira nodded along with the shorter girl, even as Zoey clamped her hand over her mouth like she didn’t mean to say it. Rumi released a breath she had apparently been holding for a while, the exhale releasing pent up emotion as her whisper seemed to bounce across the Honmoon, which calmed into swirling undecided thought.
“Pretty?”
The finality of the death she had requested of her guardian, the finality she craved, was felt in the love that consumed her now.
Her body was ablaze and the Honmoon mirrored it. But this time, Rumi was the source and the girls responsible were at the mercy of her radiance. They both sucked in a breath as they felt the Honmoon erupt, as golden light filled the room, the Honmoon a radiant eruption.
Zoey and Mira were both awestruck, tears momentarily forgotten. She looked down at her hands and saw her patterns were shimmering with a liquid golden light, the edges of which were prismatic, a rainbow of color that punctuated the vibrant glow.
She breathed, beginning to lose herself in a panic, the gold wavering for a single moment, before the words hit her again, her brain finally granting her a gift in remembering why she was here, why she was glowing in this way. Both their voices ringing as one.
I love you Rumi.
She looked over at her two companions, and the world seemed to right itself.
“I love you too. I’m so sorry.”
Zoey and Mira rushed to her, fresh tears in all their eyes as Rumi bolted towards them, collapsing together in a tight hug in the middle of their living room. The Honmoon swelled in turn, finally feeling whole.
It took a while for them to speak again, reveling in the love they shared. All of them knew that they loved each other before the Idol Awards but this time, it was heavy with revealed intensity, like they truly and finally connected, the Honmoon focusing it to a point within all their chests.
But Rumi had one final thing she needed to tell them, they deserved to hear.
“I- I need to say something” They pulled apart slightly, hearing the hesitant tremor of her voice and shared a look.
Zoey and Mira nodded, maybe not trusting their voices in case their fear of what was to come would bleed into it.
Rumi took a breath, before revising her planned mental script, the one she wrote before she was blindsided by the overwhelming kindness of the women holding her. “You deserve an apology. You are both too breathtakingly kind to not hear it. You deserve to know that I’m not taking this-this” Her inhale felt like drowning “…for granted.” She paused before continuing, feeling Mira’s hand lightly rubbing her back and Zoey reaching up to hold her cheek, the liquid gold still swirling, painting her skin. Zoey nodded for her to continue. It took a moment for her to breath and nod, the touch across her face spreading a coiling hunger through her like she had never felt before, but she had to continue.
“I lied for years and kept my distance. I kept a massive secret from you both when I should have told you. You deserved the same level of trust you offered me, the same level of devotion you gave me. I put us in an uneven relationship and you didn’t even know. ” She was stuttering, the touch and the weight of her words stalling her thoughts but she pushed forward.
“I didn’t want to lie. But I did, and I know I might never fix the hurt or loss of trust. But I don’t want to hide anything anymore. I’ll spend the rest of my life dedicated to you both. You deserve that, I need you to know that you do. I want you to take anything you want from me, I want to know you intimately, and I want you to know that the words you said to me, the love you shared, that you are everything to me. And I will try for the rest of my life to deserve it.”
Zoey and Mira had radiant smiles on their faces, and they leaned forward, the three of them letting out a joint shuttered breath as their foreheads rested together, the two of them lending a hand to rest on Rumi’s cheek. Her hunger was consuming her, threatening to overtake her and she attempted to let it, but like how it’s hard to rip off your own finger, her body recoiled, creating just enough distance between their foreheads to let her senses work. She took their hands in her own and put them on her lap, not letting go, but creating a touch that she was more used to, to stall the coming inferno.
What is going on with her? Zoey’s voice allowed her a moment of reprieve.
“We weren’t totally in the dark you know, we knew you had something. You were so reserved and so strict about your distance from us, there was no way it wasn’t something big. For a long time we thought you didn’t like us.” Zoey spoke with sincerity, putting a finger to Rumi’s lips as she was about to interrupt. Rumi’s breath hitched at the softness combined with Zoey’s adoring look, which flickered with something more intense when they watched Rumi’s patterns shift to darker gold, swirling with a rose pink. Rumi could feel that hunger, that devouring desire for touch flare with the shift in color, and she simply allowed herself to revel in the skinship, however she could feel the sensitivity beginning to overwhelm her, her earlier attempt to stave it off failing in the wake of Zoey and Mira.
“But you were too kind and loving in other ways for that to be the case. You took care of us, you drove us to be better, but were always making sure that we could handle it. And when we needed a break, and we knew you didn’t want the break yourself, you chose our needs, not your own.” She sighed and looked at Mira who continued, like they had the same thought.
“When you pushed Golden’s release, that was the first time you seemed to push that aside, and that’s why we knew something was up. At first we were happy you were being a bit selfish for once, until we realized it was more than that. We knew you were struggling. And it hurt that you kept pushing us away.”
Zoey’s finger had retreated back to her cheek, Rumi almost shuttering at the relief and just listened, no longer knowing what to say. Mira smiled.
“Rumi, you don’t have to dedicate your life to us, I want you to be you, with us. I don’t even know if I want you to try and make up for it, I’m pretty sure I love you both too much to let this linger long term.” Zoey and Rumi just melted, Mira was being uncharacteristically forward with her affections.
“But I would be lying if I didn’t love the idea of you being with us forever.” Zoey looked at Rumi then and Rumi blushed but did not break Mira’s gaze. She was theirs, and she wanted them to know that.
Mira got slightly more serious and took a breath.
“I want to start moving on. I hate wallowing in this anger and I know Zoey hates it even more than I do. Rumi, I know you have been wallowing in your own emotions too. The Honmoon seems to reflect us way more than it used to and we knew you were struggling yesterday. We’re sorry for that.” Rumi was about to counter but this time Mira’s finger stopped her, lightly pressed to her lips.
She felt her body react instantly, her starving feeling causing a small whimper to escape her as her body shuddered and her eyes flickered. The touches were getting more intense now and with her emotions now only filled with love for her bandmates, there was nothing to dull the starvation that lingered behind her skin.
They both looked surprised before melting into fondness at her that she felt her newly patched heart crack again, but this time from the light bursting within.
“Oh Rumi, we’ll help with that too. I can’t imagine how it feels after hiding all your life.” Zoey took her hand and kissed her palm, and Rumi could feel herself getting faint. It was too much, too much all at once, the love and kindness and the touching and she was struggling to accept it. She wanted them to take it from her, wanted them to take anything they desired, she wanted to make up for years of not doing this, but her starvation was overwhelming her, and she couldn’t breath.
When did she become so sensitive to touch?
It had never been this all consuming. She had cuddled with them before, held hands, even shared drunken kisses, quickly ignored the morning after but this was barely touching, barely any long term contact and Rumi felt like she was breaking.
Was it raw unfiltered love? Is it just this moment? Or is this how demons feel, is this what feeling is like for them? Is this how it's going to be? It couldn't be, she just finally got to be close with them, no lies, nothing holding her back and now she couldn't revel in them? Couldn't share in that kind of love?
This was fire, this was cinders, and it was going to reduce her to ash. It wasn’t deep in her core, it wasn’t wrapped in moans, heady emotion and desire. Maybe it could be, but now it was uncomfortably raw, like a fresh wound someone was playing with.
They were still touching her, but they started to notice the color breaking, as purple broke through.
Panic. A strained breath alerted them, and Mira yanked Zoey back, protecting always.
“Oh Rumi I’m sorry, oh fuck it’s so much worse than we thought.” Zoey had her hands out, trembling in the air as they waited for Rumi to come back to them. Rumi felt the sting at the loss of connection but finally was able to take a breath, the scorching heat pulled back and she pushed through the fear and panic trying to settle herself for them.
“Mira, please keep talking.” Her voice was strained, and Mira nodded, knowing she needed something to ground herself. She needed to be pulled from the abyss she was starting to fall towards.
“Uhh…” She coughed and took a breath. ”What I wanted to say was I want to start moving on. No more lies, no more hiding. From now on, we are all going to be open and honest with each other.” Mira’s voice was strong, thick with emotion as she paused again, checking in with her. She nodded again to continue. Mira pushed on.
“Even if we think keeping a secret will be good for the three of us in the long run, I want to hear it. I want to know you both, wholly and intricately and I want you both to know me in the same way. And I really want to go back to feeling good. I want it to be us again. I know it won’t be the same as before, but I don’t want that. I want this new thing, I want to learn and grow together.”
Rumi finally settled, Mira’s voice calling her back like a siren and she opened her eyes to see both her girls, her Zoey, her Mira relax. They all looked at each other, their shared fondness and agreement obvious. Zoey checked Rumi, making sure she was good to continue, and Rumi nodded.
“No more lies. Mira, Rumi, I want to know you and I want you to know me wholly. Everything. Inside and out, no matter what. Forever.” Zoey’s voice was charged but unwavering. Certain. This wasn't a promise, it was a vow.
“No more lies. Zoey, Mira, you have my heart, all of it, my thoughts and truest desires, everything. Forever. And I hope to deserve yours in time.”
Zoey and Mira smile, but looked intense for a moment.
“You already deserve it.” Mira’s voice was unflinching.
“You already have it. ” Zoey’s voice was unflinching.
Rumi may never recover. The room ignites in gold and Mira and Zoey look at her like she’s their own personal sun. And she looks back, and they are everything.