Chapter Text
Celine had been her idol since she had a memory. At least, she managed to hear her once on her mother's car radio, once she was returning to her house. Her mother had just passed by a fast food stand. She was enjoying a pack of nuggets and a milkshake when she heard them for the first time. It was a station that only played music from the 90s and 00s.
Surprisingly, her mother had liked it. Surprisingly, she let her listen to the station again and again. At some point, she confessed that even she liked the music too.
As a child, Zoey imitated her way of walking, imitated her hairstyle, and even imitated her way of speaking. For a long time, she only spoke about the Sunlight Sisters.
She carried her disc everywhere. She sought to look like the outfits of the girls. She loved them as much as an eleven-year-old girl could love an idol. And that love so pure and sincere had caused her mockery and questioning at her school.
She may have learned to hide her tastes, to put things aside, and to ignore her desires. But her love for the Sunlight Sisters had never disappeared.
That now she was about to meet a person personally, that she was about to train with her! It was complete madness. Zoey was excited, and at the same time... She was nervous.
As the best connoisseur of the Sunlight Sister, she knew that Celine was an exceptional person. A person who expected nothing less than perfection. Someone who strove to bring out the best in herself, even when there was nothing else to bring out.
The news that Mira was the one selected as the third and last member of the new group was a couple of days ago. The explanations that Rumi had had to give to Mira had been the best she had heard in her whole life.
Mira hated people who had had everything on a silver platter. Mira hated people who were liars. Mira hated people who obtained things without effort. Rumi met all the requirements for that.
For an instant, Mira refused to accept the position. Especially when she found out that it was Rumi herself who had chosen her from the start. She felt unworthy. Zoey wasn't sure how Rumi had managed to get Mira not to run away.
However, she had to prove her worth. Mira put her through extreme dance and singing sessions, just to demonstrate that she was worthy enough to be in the group. A test that, evidently, Rumi was able to pass. Zoey hadn't known a person as privileged as her when she had a voice like that.
However, seeing such a proof of talent had been enough for Zoey to start thinking about herself. She could only dream of the dance steps that Mira had demanded of Rumi in that moment. She would never reach the voice ranges that Rumi reached.
If she didn't stand out in something, when Celine saw her, she wasn't going to feel anything other than disappointment.
That was the thought that hadn't abandoned her. She was supposed to meet Celine since they had chosen her, but Rumi had told her that it was better to wait. The news they were going to give her required the three of them.
When Zoey saw herself in the mirror that day, after clearing everything she could have in her stomach, she wanted to cry.
The fluorescent light of the bathroom fell upon her without mercy. Zoey lifted the edge of her training shirt with trembling hands, expecting to see ribs, expecting to see the result of her sacrifice.
However, what her eyes returned to her was a deformed and expansive mass.
"No..." she whispered, while her eyes started to tremble slightly. "It can't be."
Zoey expected to see changes. The people on the internet said that the changes should have started weeks ago. Then... Why couldn't Zoey see them?
It is supposed that she should have a flat abdomen, she should see a bit of her ribs, and her waist should be sharp. But when she lowered her gaze, her brain showed her nothing more than a soft curve that protruded from her pants. Zoey pinched the skin of her side, looking for bone and finding what her brain registered as centimeters and centimeters of flaccid fat. It was a hallucination, but Zoey couldn't notice it. That was what she wanted to believe.
All that was due to what she had devoured at night. She was sure. They were excesses; she had to control herself.
"You are still huge," she hissed to herself, with the voice of that internal monster that sounded suspiciously similar to hers. "Look how the fabric of the pants tightens on you."
It didn't matter that the elastic band was loose and her pants were about to fall for being too big for her; Zoey felt that they cut off her circulation, that the flesh tried to escape over the fabric without control.
She got closer to the mirror, almost sticking her nose to the glass. Her fingers went to her chin, pressing the skin back, desperately seeking to hide a nonexistent double chin. She turned her neck, tensing the tendons, looking for that elegant line that Rumi possessed naturally, that aristocratic firmness that Mira sported without effort.
Zoey only saw roundness. A full moon face. A face that didn't deserve to be on the same poster as her friends. That didn't deserve to be an idol. That wasn't worthy of meeting Celine.
What was Celine going to think when she saw her?
"There is going to be an imposter," murmured Zoey, lowering the shirt with abruptness, as if she wanted to hide her body from her own sight. "She'll see the fat girl who can't stop eating. She'll see every gram that you couldn't purge today."
She imagined herself standing next to Rumi and Mira in front of Celine. Zoey would be a heavy and slow stain in the middle of them. A burden that they would drag to the stage.
She rubbed her arms with strength, feeling them gigantic, as if they occupied all the space of the small bathroom. She had to try harder. What she had done today wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.
"You have to be stricter," she ordered herself, drying a treacherous tear that threatened to ruin the little makeup she wore. "If you aren't perfect, you are nothing. You have to be it, you have to be it."
She left the bathroom, giving Mira her best smile, before taking the car that Celine had sent to meet them.
The Sunlight Sisters weren't Zoey's only taste, of course not. Like every girl who had fallen into the labels of "geek" and "nerd," she had many more things for which she was recognized like that.
One of those was for her taste in video games. With such absent parents, whose idea of parenting was signing checks and ensuring that she lacked nothing material, it was evident that Zoey had been raised by the blue light of a screen. When she was five years old, she had obtained her first PlayStation, so she would spend all the time she wanted in front of the television and wouldn't be bothering her father all the time to go out for a walk or enter some extracurricular activity.
Of course, neither did they bother to describe what kind of games were the ones that their little daughter bought. She was eight years old, and she was already a complete expert in Street Fighter.
Another of her tastes, evidently, was comic books. Whenever she could, Zoey was reading a new volume of the DC series. Zoey always adored Supergirl, and her dream was to be like her.
Being a demon hunter brought her closer to being like Cassandra Cain or Katana, but those were secondary details. The point was that now she was about to be like a superhero! Saving humanity from horrible things as demons were!
Only... There was a small detail. A small, minuscule, and devastating detail that comics had never warned her about. And it was that Zoey didn't know any superheroine who was fat. No one saved the world having extra kilos. No one was going to be a hero when they had a physique as deplorable as hers.
Gravity didn't forgive heavy girls. No one was going to trust a hero with a physique as deplorable and overflowing as the one she saw in her own reflection.
Zoey had run out of air at the first training as hunters. It wasn't even a big deal; Celine had warned them that things would get worse with the passing of the days.
"Five more laps! Come on, don't lower the pace!" shouted Celine. Zoey didn't even have an idea of how she managed so that her voice was heard so high in a space so open.
Zoey tried to inhale, but the air seemed to have converted into liquid cement. Her lungs burned with an air so cold that it went up her throat and hurt her. Beside her, Rumi barely sweated, maintaining a constant and elegant pace. Mira, although she snorted a bit, kept going without really suffering.
But Zoey... Zoey felt that she was dying.
Her legs, which she felt were massive and heavy, trembled violently with each step. The ground seemed to tilt under her feet. Suddenly, the whole place began to darken. Black dots, like static flies, began to dance at the edges of her vision, closing into a suffocating tunnel.
"Don't stop... don't stop..." she begged herself, but her body didn't respond.
She stumbled, falling on one knee, gasping like a fish out of water. Her heart hammered against her ribs, complaining about the nutrients it hadn't received in too much time. She crawled toward her water bottle, taking it with hands that trembled so much that she could barely unscrew the cap. She drank desperately, swallowing with strength, as if it were the last water she would drink in her life.
"Are you okay?" she heard the distant voice of someone, perhaps Rumi, but the buzzing in her ears was deafening.
Zoey looked at her thighs crushed against the ground. In her head, which throbbed with painful pulsations that seemed to want to burst her skull, there was only one possible explanation. The only one her head allowed her to identify. The only one that had logic for her, and not reality.
It is because you weigh too much.
The voice in her head sounded with clarity.
Look at Rumi. Look at Mira. They fly because they are light. You crawl because gravity hates you. You are carrying all that useless fat. That's why you get tired. That's why you faint. Because you are weak and heavy.
Tears of frustration mixed with the cold sweat on her face. Fat people like her couldn't be Cassandra Cain. They couldn't be Supergirl. They couldn't be a hunter. She couldn't save humanity.
If she wanted to be a hunter, if she wanted to be at the height of Mira and Rumi and not be a shame for Celine... the solution was obvious.
She had to lose weight. She had to get rid of that ballast. She had to close her mouth.
She looked at the water bottle between her hands, feeling her empty stomach contract with painful cramps of hunger, and made a silent and terrifying decision.
Tomorrow I will eat less, she promised herself, while the world stopped spinning slowly. I have to try harder. I have to disappear more.
It was so difficult to fulfill, and it hurt so much, but in Zoey's mind it was the only way to become the heroine she dreamed of being.
When Celine took charge of Sunlight Entertainment and remained in charge of Rumi, she promised herself to do the best she could for that little one and for the world of idols.
Of course, taking care of a baby who had been born being half demon was something that Celine would have never imagined. And less that she could grow fond of and love so fast someone like Rumi.
However, despite the enormous affection and love that Celine had developed with Mi-Yeong's daughter, she knew there was a duty to fulfill. She knew that the honmoon must be sealed. That she had to form a new group. That Rumi was destined to form part of it.
Celine wasn't dumb; she knew that Rumi suffered from the fact of having demonic patterns on her body. She knew that Rumi suffered from the fact of having to hide them. But it's not like she could do anything else; her defects had to be hidden. That's how it would have to be so they could seal the honmoon. Celine couldn't avoid that.
What she could do was avoid Rumi's life as an idol being as horrible as those of many other singers. After all, she herself had lived it. She knew the world was so horrible that was the world of show business. And if there was a way to avoid making her little Rumi suffer that, she would do it. She would avoid her being an idol.
What Celine learned is that things were very different when you were on stage and when you were responsible for managing everything that happened before the public saw you. As the owner of the company, Celine could make all the final decisions. And, for the group that Rumi would debut, she had taken charge of doing things completely differently.
She didn't allow any of Rumi's tutors to hit her, humiliate her, or belittle her. Neither did she allow them to make her train until her hours of sleep were nothing more than that, a dream. Not even she herself, as a trainer of hunters, made Rumi train until exhaustion.
She could be strict, but she wasn't a monster either. After all, she herself had experienced what it was to be an idol, and she had detested it. She didn't impose a diet on her daughter; she didn't make her reach a specific weight. She didn't make her operate on her face to reach a standard where she could never please everyone.
And, since she had to be coherent and fair, neither did she force any other girl to do the same. The rules of her company were clear. No trainee was going to be exploited while she was in command.
So her disappointment was major when Rumi told her that there were people who were not respecting her orders. That her instructors didn't respect her decisions. Apparently, she had spent too much time being the good person CEO. Evidently, all those people ended up fired.
Celine had the hope that none of those people had been able to hurt those girls. That they hadn't damaged someone, or that would be something that Celine would never forgive herself for.
Quickly, she realized that they had affected one of her girls. One of the most important ones. She had fired the abusive instructors. She had implemented healthy menus in the cafeteria. She had prohibited public weigh-ins. After all, she knew what that meant in a trainee.
But she knew the signs. She had seen them in the girls of her generation. Enough idols had gone through things like that for Celine not to notice the signs, the language. That Zoey was going through something more than the changes of a growing teenager.
She noticed how Zoey's training shirt, which a month ago fit her tight, now danced around her waist, hiding a figure that was shrinking. She saw how, during the five-minute breaks, while Rumi and the others ran for their water bottles or joked, Zoey sat immediately on the floor, hugging her knees, with a lost gaze and skin in a tone paler than normal.
"Zoey, turn now!" shouted Celine, waking her reflexes so she would finish with the demon lure that was approaching her.
Zoey turned. It was a fraction of a second, a slight hesitation upon landing. Her legs trembled. She didn't have the strength to hold her weight, a weight that was already alarmingly low.
Celine clenched her jaw.
She is not eating, she thought, feeling a wave of cold. Damn it, she is not eating anything.
That night, while they dined in her house on the outskirts of Seoul, Celine decided to approach the subject with caution. She didn't want to scare Rumi, but she needed a confirmation of her suspicions.
"Rumi, darling," began Celine, serving a bit more stew on the little one's plate. "How have the trainings been? Do you think they are fine, or am I being hard?"
Rumi nodded with enthusiasm, with her mouth half full.
"They are perfect, Celine." She answered. "I think they are excellent. We are coupling fast."
"I'm glad to hear that." Celine paused, stirring her tea with a spoon. "I have noticed Zoey a bit... off lately. Do you know if she is fine?"
Rumi stopped, thinking about Celine's words. It was true that Zoey was weird. It was true that she seemed to be pale and was tired all the time, a bit more... fragile. But it wasn't something that didn't surprise her. She would almost swear that it was nothing more than tiredness.
"Off? Mm... I think she is just focused. She wants to do it very well for the debut. She says she has to try double because she gets tired faster than us, and she wants to rise to the occasion."
Celine felt a pang in her heart upon hearing that.
"She gets tired fast? Have you seen her eat well in the cafeteria?"
"Zoey? Of course!" she answered, almost immediately. "Well, at first she doesn't want to eat much, and sometimes she just accompanies us. But almost always she eats as much as us or more!"
Celine narrowed her eyes. That was strange. Unless... Darn. Rumi had no idea of what she was describing in reality. She couldn't even imagine Celine's suspicions. But she couldn't worry her that way; there was no point in telling her. That was something she had to resolve between Zoey and her.
Zoey had focused so much on reaching the perfection that she longed for so much that she got lost in one of the most important aspects of her routine. Discretion.
She started to become careless. She let more people see what was happening to her. She started to ignore the recommendations and skip steps. Whatever. Anyway, she thought that nothing was working.
"Zoey, do you want to accompany me to the baths?" Mira suggested it to her on one day. "We deserve a break. We can invite Rumi if you like. Spend a good time together."
Mira's invitation made Zoey shudder. The baths... It was supposed to be something cute and relaxing, from what her mother had told her, but... To her it did nothing else but give her anxiety. Entering the baths implied many things... It implied that someone else saw her body. It was getting naked.
Zoey's heart hammered against her ribs. A part of her was desperate to find an excuse, like her head hurt or that she didn't feel very well. But the tiredness was so deep that the lie got stuck in her throat.
Accept, go on. You still have a bit of fat left on your legs. Your abdomen is still too big.
That twisted logic, added to the fatigue, made her nod.
"Sure... let's go," muttered Zoey, avoiding Mira's gaze. When they went to offer the trip to Rumi, she could only refuse. Somehow, Zoey wished that she had had the courage to do the same.
Upon arriving, the baths flooded her with a smell of eucalyptus and humidity, making the effort so that anyone there would want a moment of relaxation. While they walked toward the lockers, Zoey felt dizzy. The heat of the place clashed with the perpetual cold she felt in her hands and feet. She started to take off her clothes slowly, with her back to Mira, trying to use the locker door as a shield.
She took off the loose sweatshirt. Then, the thermal shirt. Finally, the underwear.
Mira, who was already ready and with a small towel in her hand, turned around to wait for her with a smile on her lips, willing to continue chatting about the choreography. But the smile froze on her face.
Zoey had barely turned a second to reach her towel when Mira realized the reality. After all, Mira had seen many athletic bodies, bodies of all kinds, but nothing like what she had seen in that moment.
She felt a lurch in her stomach when she saw Zoey's body. Her back revealed all the bones of her spine that protruded like a chain of beads about to break the pale and almost translucent skin. Her shoulder blades looked like cut wings, too sharp, projecting deep shadows over her back. And when she turned a bit more, Mira saw the ribs. They could be counted one by one, marked with a terrifying clarity.
"Zoey..." whispered Mira, slightly scared. "What happened to you?"
Zoey covered herself quickly with the towel, crossing her arms over her chest with strength, digging her nails into her skin.
Why is she looking at me like that? She thought with panic and rage. Is she making fun? Is she thinking that I am fat?
"What are you talking about?" asked Zoey, trying to smile, without much success. It was evident how scared she was.
"Your body..." Mira took an insecure step toward her, with her hand extended as if she wanted to touch her to make sure she wasn't going to break. "You are very... all your bones show, Zoey. I had never seen something like that."
Zoey noticed the fear in Mira's eyes. A genuine fear of someone who didn't quite understand what was happening. For an instant, she felt uncomfortable. Definitely, she didn't like how Mira was observing her.
"Don't say nonsense!" Zoey stepped back, crashing against the wooden bench. "Don't joke with that, Mira. It's not funny."
"I'm not joking," insisted Mira, frowning. "Zoey, you don't look well at all, it's... Weird. Are you sure you are okay? What is happening to you?"
"It's just that I have been training hard!" Zoey raised her voice and hands, trying to defend herself. "Even so, I know it's not enough. I am striving to improve! Don't pay attention to me, seriously, you are exaggerating. I am perfectly fine. In fact, I still need to go down a bit more."
Mira stopped. The assurance with which Zoey spoke made her doubt. Perhaps the girl had been like that since forever, and she was making too much drama. Zoey seemed so sure, so annoyed by her comment, that Mira started to feel guilty for having offended her.
"Sure?" asked Mira, lowering her voice, relaxing a bit, although her eyes kept traveling over her friend's bony shoulders.
"Very sure," said Zoey, forcing a tense smile while she adjusted the towel. "Let's go to the hot water. I am freezing."
Mira nodded slowly. She decided to believe her. Even when it was strange that she was cold when the bathroom was full of steam and heat.
"Okay," conceded Mira, although a small shadow of doubt remained in the back of her mind. "I guess that... I am sorry if I managed to bother you."
"Yes, yes, sure," answered Zoey, feeling a momentary relief while they walked toward the showers.
Unconsciously she sighed. She had dodged the bullet. Mira had believed her. Zoey submerged herself in the hot water moments later, ignoring the dizziness that the change of temperature caused her, and closed her eyes, convincing herself once more that Mira was wrong and that she, in reality, had everything under control.
But, despite everything, it was only the first time that Mira started to notice strange things in Zoey.
The second time was a couple of days later, when Mira woke up in the early morning on one occasion. It was a quite strange event, since the pink-haired girl didn't have the habit of staying awake until late.
She didn't know why she had had some thirst. She didn't know what had happened to convince herself to get out of bed and look for a glass of water. She didn't know what on earth had happened that day. But it made her feel chills.
She hadn't turned on any light. It wasn't necessary. Her eyes adapted well to the gloom. However, before reaching the kitchen, a sound stopped her dead.
It wasn't the usual sound of someone pouring themselves a glass of milk. It wasn't the soft clinking of a spoon against ceramic. It was a... desperate noise. A scratching of wrappers breaking with violence, followed by rapid chewings, almost choking, and forced gulps.
Mira peeked through the , and the scene that greeted her left her frozen, with her hand suspended in the air before reaching the light switch.
The only lighting came from the refrigerator, open wide, projecting a beam of artificial and ghostly light over Zoey.
But it wasn't the composed and perfectionist Zoey that Mira knew.
Zoey was sitting on the floor, with her legs crossed in a messy manner, surrounded by open containers. She had a tub of half-melted ice cream in one hand and a bag of sliced bread in the other. Mira saw with horror how Zoey put handfuls of food into her mouth without even stopping to breathe.
She mixed things that made no sense. A piece of leftover cake, followed immediately by cold rice and direct spoonfuls of jam. Her cheeks were swollen, her eyes wide and fixed on nothing, glassy, as if her mind wasn't there, as if her body had been possessed by a hungry and primitive entity that had taken control.
There was no enjoyment on her face. She swallowed with difficulty, almost choking, and immediately sought more. Her hands, those thin hands that Mira had seen tremble in the bathroom, now moved with a frenetic speed, stained with food.
Mira felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the hallway.
That didn't seem human. It reminded her of the stories of famished beasts that lost their reason after a winter too long. Zoey emitted small moans, guttural sounds that denoted a mixture of physical pleasure and emotional suffering.
Mira's instinct shouted at her to flee. She felt that she was witnessing something deeply private, something forbidden and dark that she wasn't destined to see. She wanted to call her, ask her if she was okay, but fear tied her tongue. The violence with which Zoey devoured the content of the fridge frightened her.
She stepped back step by step, with her heart hammering against her ribs, until the wall of the hallway hid her from the view of the kitchen.
She returned to her room almost running, completely forgetting her thirst. She got under the sheets and covered herself up to her head, with the image of Zoey engraved on her eyelids.
"She was just hungry," whispered Mira in the darkness, trying to convince herself. "It's normal... she has trained a lot. Surely, she just needed to recover energy."
But even while she said it, a sensation of uneasiness twisted in her stomach. Because the way in which Zoey ate didn't look like someone enjoying a late dinner. It seemed like someone who was trying to fill a void that had no bottom.
Mira closed her eyes tightly, deciding that the next day, if Zoey smiled as always, she would pretend that that grotesque scene under the refrigerator light had never occurred.
Rumi had stayed too much with the conversation that Celine had had on that day. If Celine had asked her something like that, it was because she had noticed something.
Something that Rumi still didn't manage to notice. But she was willing to discover. Because, at the end of the day, Rumi didn't want any of her friends to be unwell.
And for a few days, Rumi couldn't find the reason why Celine seemed to be so worried about Zoey. Zoey had acted as always. The same cheerful and fun girl she knew. The one who made her smile like no one else.
At first, it was difficult. Zoey smiled a lot. Zoey laughed loudly. Zoey was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. Nothing out of the ordinary. Rumi had to try hard to notice the cracks.
She noticed it first in the mirror room. While everyone breathed, agitated by the effort of the choreography, recovering their breath in a matter of seconds, Zoey stayed bent in half much longer. Her breathing wasn't rhythmic; it was a painful, sharp gasp, as if the air wasn't enough to fill her lungs.
Rumi saw how Zoey's legs trembled even when she was still. It was a tremor of pure weakness that couldn't be stopped with anything.
And then there was the food.
Rumi observed a pattern that made her dizzy. Whole days when Zoey barely pecked at a lettuce leaf, saying she was "very full" from an imaginary breakfast. And then, out of nowhere, moments where Zoey seemed to lose control in front of a plate of food, devouring it with a speed that scared, with glassy eyes, almost without chewing.
"What hunger you had!" Rumi had commented innocently once, happy to see her eat.
But Zoey's smile didn't reach her eyes. And five minutes later, the same thing always happened.
"I'm going to the bathroom for a moment, girls. Wait for me to rehearse."
It was always just after eating. She always returned ten or fifteen minutes later. And Rumi noticed something strange. Zoey returned smelling excessively of mint, gum, or toothpaste, but with red and watery eyes and skin even paler than before. She seemed empty. As if the energy that the food should give her had vanished down the drain.
The breaking point for Rumi's observation arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. The instructor had asked to repeat the final routine. It was demanding, full of jumps, and forceful, but necessary to impress.
"One more time! From the top!" shouted the man.
The music exploded. Rumi moved with her natural agility; Mira followed her with power. But Zoey...
Zoey jumped, but she didn't have the strength to land.
It was something subtle, not a resounding fall. Simply, her knees gave way upon touching the ground. She staggered, and Rumi saw the panic on her face. It wasn't that Zoey didn't know the steps; her mind was there, but her body had declared itself on strike.
Zoey tried to get up immediately, propelling herself with her arms, but her elbows faltered. Rumi saw how Zoey's knuckles turned white upon squeezing the floor, trying to force her muscles to respond, but there was nothing.
Rumi stopped dead, breaking the formation, and ran toward her.
"Zoey!" she exclaimed, crouching by her side.
Upon touching her shoulder, Rumi shuddered. Through the clothes soaked in cold sweat, Zoey felt fragile, like a little bird made of dry twigs. She was burning and freezing at the same time.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," gasped Zoey, pushing Rumi's hand away with weakness. "Just... I slipped. I just need... a second."
But she didn't get up. She stayed there, on her knees, with her head down, while her chest rose and fell violently, trying to hide that the world was spinning for her and that her vision was clouding.
Rumi looked at her, and for the first time, Celine's words took on a terrible and clear meaning. Zoey was excessively thin. The clothes fit her too big. She was weak... It wasn't her.
Something was happening to her, something grave.
"Do you think she is sick?" asked Rumi one day, while she watched Zoey go to the bathroom with a bit of suspicion.
Mira didn't know how to answer. She narrowed her eyes, thinking of an answer, but without finding exactly what it was that Zoey could have.
"I don't know." She answered in the end, watching the girl move away down the hallway. "She acts weird, but... I don't know. I don't know if it's just that that's how she is."
Rumi bit her lower lip, a habit she had acquired recently when something unsettled her.
"Celine asked about her too; I think she saw something; she seemed to be worried," she explained, mentioning the name of her mentor. "She doesn't usually make mistakes with these things. If she asked me, it's because she saw something bad. Besides, didn't you hear how she breathed a while ago? She sounded as if she had run a marathon, and we were barely stretching."
Mira leaned against the wall of the hallway, crossing her arms. Her rational mind tried to join the dots of what was happening, but the pieces didn't fit in any puzzle that she knew.
"Maybe it is the stress of the debut," theorized Mira, lowering her voice. "I have heard it said that before debuting, the body goes crazy. That everything hurts, that you don't sleep, and that you get weird. Maybe Zoey is just trying too hard to make a good impression on our debut."
"But so much as to fall?" insisted Rumi, full of worry. "I don't know. I am nervous about what will happen, but... I don't feel like that, about to faint, you know?"
"I know, I know. I also have nerves, but I don't feel like that," sighed Mira, passing a hand through her pink hair. "However, if we do something and it turns out that Zoey just has a strong flu, or that she is just nervous... Zoey would hate us for talking and that leading to having consequences. She has worked harder than anyone for this."
That was the real fear, for neither of the two wanted to be the cause of Zoey's dream breaking because of a misunderstanding.
"Then, what do we do?" asked Rumi.
Mira looked toward the hallway, confirming that Zoey still wasn't on her way back.
"We can only observe, I suppose." She sighed. "Trust that Zoey is going to be okay. That soon it will pass... Whatever it is that she has."
Zoey knew that they were doing things for her good. Zoey knew that things couldn't be the same. Zoey knew that things were going to be different.
When she woke up the next morning, Zoey managed to hear Rumi and Mira moving all over the penthouse. Her instinct told her to turn her head to look for her cell phone and check the time, but something told her no. That she was going to feel worse if she realized the time.
Knowing her girlfriends, they had let her sleep all the time she wanted.
Zoey sighed. If she had a wish in that moment, she would like to forget what had happened the previous night. She knew what was coming, and... honestly, she didn't feel like it happening.
She sighed, standing up walking to look for something to wear. She stopped in front of the full-length mirror just for a second, enough time to avoid looking at her reflection directly in the eyes or analyzing the shape of her body. She took a gray sweatshirt that fit her a bit big, more than she remembered, and some soft sweatpants. She didn't want to think much about it, truly.
She passed her hands through her hair, trying to tame the messy strands, and took a deep breath. The air got stuck a bit in her throat.
Just go out there. It's them. It's Rumi and Mira. They love you, she repeated mentally, although guilt shouted at her that she didn't deserve so much patience.
Upon opening the room door, the smell hit her first. It smelled of vanilla, fresh fruit, and soft coffee. She walked down the penthouse hallway, feeling how the midday sunlight flooded the living room through the large windows.
There they were.
Rumi was at the kitchen island, cutting strawberries with precision, while Mira was next to the stove, watching something in a pan with crossed arms. Neither of the two was an expert, but... They seemed to be making their effort. As soon as they heard her steps, both turned in unison.
Zoey expected them to see her in some way. With reproach, with reservations, and even with a bit of pity, but none of that happened. On the contrary, it seemed that none of that had happened. It was as if it were another normal day. Without anything around her.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty," said Rumi, leaving the knife aside and offering her a soft smile, trying to break Zoey's defensive barrier.
"Rather good afternoon," corrected Mira with a calm voice, turning off the stove. "The coffee is freshly made; it is just how you like it."
On the table, everything was already arranged. There was chopped fruit and a bit of yogurt. Zoey knew perfectly what it was. They were options.
Zoey approached, dragging her feet a bit, and hugged herself, hiding her hands in the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
"You let me sleep too much," murmured Zoey, lowering her gaze. "We had things to do today. The meeting with the producers..."
"Cancelled," said Mira simply, serving a cup of steaming tea and leaving it in Zoey's place. "Bobby took care of that, and Celine is taking care that no one asks questions. Although they mentioned something about wanting to come later."
Wonderful. They also know. They have told them already.
"Besides, anything that has to do with work can wait a bit," added Rumi, circling the island to approach her. "The only thing you had to do today was rest."
Zoey looked at the table, then at her girlfriends. The knot in her chest tightened. She knew they remembered last night. She knew the conversation was pending, floating in the air like dust in a sunbeam. And she knew that all that was just a false reality. But she was willing to go with the flow.
"Thanks," whispered Zoey, sitting on the chair. "It smells good."
Mira sat by her side and Rumi opposite.
"Eat what you can, Zo," said Mira softly, putting a hand on Zoey's knee under the table. "No pressure. Just... let's be here a while."
Zoey nodded, trying to demonstrate a bit of empathy. Eating was something simple, of course it was. She could do that. She could show them that things were not as bad as they were imagining.
But when she saw the food in front of her, Zoey paled. Immediately, all the memories of what she had eaten last night came to her head. She hadn't purged any of that; they were still digesting in her stomach. It was still transforming into fat.
Zoey tried to take the fork, trying to lift the fruit and put a piece in her mouth. But as much as she tried... She couldn't do it.
"I..." she murmured, staring fixedly at the plate of food, not daring to take another step. "Uh..."
The harmony and calm that were in the place seemed to disappear in that fraction of a second. Mira stopped smiling, and the patterns inside Rumi's skin started to shine a bit stronger.
"Zoey." Exclaimed Mira, bringing the plate a bit closer to her. "Eat."
Mira's words sounded more like an order than a suggestion. Zoey swallowed saliva, nervous. She tried again, but all the orders in her head prohibited her from being able to lift the fork.
"I-I'm coming." She murmured, trembling. "Just... Give me a second. I am going to..."
"Zoey." Insisted Mira, frowning more. "Eat. Give it a bite."
Zoey started to sweat cold and tremble with more strength. She felt as if her eyes were popping out while she saw the food. Rumi noticed it. The tension was so great that it could be cut with a knife, and she was ceasing to be able to tolerate it. But she should wait. It wasn't her moment to intervene yet.
"I'm coming, Mira." She answered much faster than the first time. "I just have to..."
"Zoey." Mira's voice was much higher. Definitely, now she was ordering. "It is just a bit of fruit. You have to..."
"I can't!" she shouted finally. Tears began to fall from her eyes without control. "Damn it, I can't!"
The silence that followed was absolute and terrifying. Zoey covered her face with both hands, sobbing with an anguish that came from the deepest part of her throat, shrinking in the chair as if she expected a blow. Mira stayed paralyzed, with her hand still extended toward the plate.
Rumi moved before either of the two could react.
With a movement, she slid the fruit plate away from Zoey, pushing it to the other end of the table. Then, she interposed herself physically between Mira and Zoey, putting a firm hand on the shoulder of the pink-haired girl.
"Enough, Mira," said Rumi. Her voice wasn't a shout, but it had an authority of steel that she rarely used. "Stop right now. You are not helping."
Mira opened her mouth to protest, to say that Zoey needed to eat, but seeing the state her girlfriend was in, trembling violently, hyperventilating, and murmuring incoherent apologies against her palms, reality hit her. She let herself fall into her seat, defeated; again, she had made a mistake.
Rumi knelt next to Zoey's chair, remaining at her height. She didn't force her to uncover her face. She simply surrounded her shoulders with her arms, drawing her toward a warm and protective embrace.
"Shh, it's okay. It passed," whispered Rumi near her ear, rubbing her back with slow circular movements. "No one is going to force you."
Zoey took several minutes to calm her breathing before the sobs turned into silent hiccups.
Rumi moved away enough to look her in the eyes, wiping a tear from her cheek with her thumb. Then, she looked at Mira, indicating with a soft gesture to approach, but calmly.
"We can't keep pretending that this is normal and nothing is happening," said Rumi, breaking the white lie that they had tried to maintain all morning. "We can't wait for everything to improve simply by ignoring it."
Mira lowered her gaze, ashamed.
"I got scared, okay? I got petrified last night, and I get scared now. I don't know what to do."
"I know." Rumi took Mira's hand with her free hand and Zoey's with the other, joining them in an imperfect triangle on the table. "Both of us are scared. But forcing her almost caused her an attack. That is too much for her right now."
Rumi fixed her gaze on Zoey, trying to seek compassion.
"Zoey, honey... Please. We need to understand. We have to talk about this. You have to talk about this."
Zoey felt a knot in her throat. She was afraid to speak. She was afraid to confess how much she had failed again, expose her feelings... everything.
"I am sorry..." managed to articulate Zoey, with a broken voice. "I didn't want you to see me like this. It is disgusting. I... can't control it."
"It is not disgusting; it is an illness," intervened Rumi quickly, cutting the self-loathing by the root. "And it is evident that it is bigger than you and bigger than us. We tried to give you space, we tried to take care of you with tasty food and rest, but... This is not cured with a good breakfast, right?"
Mira raised her view, seeing the plate of food that had remained in the distance.
"Tell us what happens in your head, Zoey. Please. Stop saying that you are fine. We need to know what we are fighting against, because if I try to help you again and end up making you cry like this, I am never going to forgive myself."
Rumi nodded, squeezing Zoey's hand gently. Zoey had to take a long breath to answer.
"I... I read a forum on the internet. It was from our fans..." She closed her eyes with strength, looking for the right words to explain. Without being sure of what. "They were talking about the live events. About us... About me, to be specific."
Mira approached a bit more, taking Zoey's shoulder and squeezing it slightly hard. She frowned even more. She could already imagine those kinds of comments.
"Zoey..." She tried to speak, but Zoey didn't let her.
"They were talking about my physique." The tone of Zoey's voice lowered a couple of tones more. "They said that... that I..."
Upon noticing that the tears started to arrive again to Zoey's face, Rumi hurried to act, hugging her.
"Zoey, no... You don't have to continue." She assured. "We can already get an idea of everything. Don't worry, no..."
However, Zoey didn't plan to stop. She needed to say it. She needed to get the memories out of her head. The things she couldn't keep quiet anymore.
"They said I was fat. That I was obese. That I could die. There were photos, photos everywhere! They remarked on every one of my movements... absolutely everything was seen! I read it all and... I realized that they were right. That if I continued like this... I would only be a burden for Huntr/x."
Rumi and Mira turned to see each other. Now they knew the trigger, but they didn't know if that made them feel better.
"I... I just wanted to do something to avoid the comments." She murmured. "Maybe the forums would go down, but the thoughts would remain the same. I wanted to avoid more people thinking like that... That they hated us. And I only knew one fast way."
"But..."
"I thought... I thought that now I did have control." She interrupted them without giving them a chance to speak. "After all, it had already passed. I thought... That I could do it well this time. I started doing it only a few times a week. I did more exercise, followed diets... I started seeing the numbers go down and... I stopped. When it was necessary, I stopped. But then the anxiety started to arrive, and it occupied my thoughts. So I did it again, and then again. And then I felt guilty and ate the first thing I found, because I was dying of hunger, and that made me feel worse... And everything became a vicious circle that... That has no end."
Zoey broke again. She leaned forward, hiding her face in Rumi's chest, clinging to her girlfriend's t-shirt as if it were the only solid thing in a world that was crumbling.
Mira hurried to fully embrace Zoey, surrounding her with her arms, and taking Rumi's hand. She wanted to protect Zoey from everything, from everyone... Prevent her anxiety from returning that way.
"Those idiots know nothing," said Mira with a hoarse voice. "They don't know who you are. They don't know how strong you are. They are just empty voices on a screen, Zo. They are not worth a single one of your tears."
"We are here, Zoey. We have you," murmured Rumi against her hair, rocking her softly. "You are not alone in this. We are going to break it together, I promise you. We did it once, and we will do it again. Now we are together, we are going to be together as always..."
They stayed like that for a few minutes, letting Zoey cry for everything she had been accumulating for weeks. When the sobs started to space out, Rumi separated enough to look her in the eyes, trying to give her a bit of encouragement.
"Listen to me," said Rumi, taking Zoey's face between her hands. "We are going to solve this. Maybe we can take a break, Zo. We can take a real one. Something that lasts a couple of months. Go far away, to a country house. Where there is no internet nor training... Just the three of us, watching movies and resting, recovering in reality. We will look for doctors and a good psychologist. We will go at your pace. There are no pressures, not this time. So your mind clears and your body heals."
Maybe it sounded like something good. All that sounded like a great plan. Zoey knew she needed therapy. Zoey knew she needed professional help. Zoey knew they needed a break. But she couldn't... The idea was terrifying to her.
That was like accepting one more defeat.
Zoey's body tensed abruptly under her hands. Her eyes, red and swollen, opened with panic. She released herself from Rumi's grip and stepped back, shaking her head frantically.
"What? No... No!" Zoey's voice shot out, sharp and terrified. "We can't do that; we can't take an indefinite break. That is not an option!"
"Zoey, you are sick... We just said that we can't continue like this and..." Mira tried to reason, unsuccessfully.
"Exactly! And if I stop now, it will get worse," interrupted Zoey, standing up with trembling legs. She started to walk from one side of the kitchen to the other, gesturing nervously. "If I stop training, I will lose muscle mass. If I stop rehearsing, I will forget the choreographies. My mind is not going to stop thinking about all that, my anxiety will increase, and..." She brought her hands to her head, horrified by the mental image. "I will get fat. I will return to being the one from before. All the effort will go to the trash."
"You are not overweight, and your health is the effort that matters!" exclaimed Rumi, standing up too. "Everything you say can be solved! We don't need to be working for that."
"But the group is what matters!" shouted Zoey, turning toward them with desperation. "Don't you understand? This is my life... The group, the music, everything! I... I don't want to stop. I can handle it. Now that you know, you can help me to... to control it by continuing with the work. I don't need vacations. I need to continue. If I stop, I am going to go crazy for real. I have to work. I can go to the doctor, to whatever you ask me... But... We must not stop."
Rumi and Mira exchanged a look of helplessness. Zoey's fear of stopping was as big as her fear of food. Somehow, they couldn't tell her no.