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Rumi knows she surprised Celine by visiting her house.
Rumi surprised herself, if she’s being honest.
It had been about a month and a few days since the whole Idol Awards… thing. Situation. After the girls and her had a very very long talk about everything that happened, her patterns and what entailed, the group started their hiatus (for real this time) and committed themselves to just rest and relax for at least 3 months.
Turned out that her bandmates had a secret of their own to share though.
As soon as the younger woman arrived at the older one’s doorstep, pleasantries had been exchanged, Celine ushering her to the small kitchen table while she prepared some tea.
Rumi hadn’t visited in… a while. Not since the day after the Idol Awards. Even longer since that, quite honestly. Celine had her favorite tea stocked anyway, like she always did for as long as Rumi remembers.
Celine places a light blue mug with a cartoon teddy bear in front of Rumi, moving to sit across from the younger woman with her own white mug with “worlds okayest Dad” scrawled on it.
They’ve been drinking in silence for approximately 15 minutes.
Fidgeting, Rumi keeps her eyes on the table, shifting between the warm tea on her hands and the tablecloth, noting with faint curiosity that it seems relatively new. The older woman in front of her doesn’t seem to have any problem looking at Rumi now. Openly and unashamedly staring at her child in front of her.
The silence is broken by Celine, who puts her cup down gently and rests her crossed arms on the edge of the table, sighing.
“Rumi” That’s all she has to say, her voice soft in a particular way, before Rumi slumps on her own chair.
“...Mira- Mira and Zoey are dating…” She tells her, slowly.
Celine’s neutral expression stays almost the same, the only things changing being the slight widened of eyes with the rise of both eyebrows and the smallest tilt of her head to the side in confusion.
Not that Rumi sees anything, staring at the cup in her own lightly shaking hands as she keeps it placed on top of the wooden table.
“And I’m glad for them! I Am! they’ve been so happy that they don’t need to keep hiding their relationship and just be together in the open and who am I to judge on that? It’s just-!” She keeps talking, rushing through her own stream of consciousness in an almost manic way.
And oh. Celine can see where this is going.
She knows where this is going. And seeing the familiar pain her daughter has written all over her face, one that Celine was used to seeing almost every day in the mirror, breaks her heart.
It’s not until Rumi runs out of air that she notices that Celine has not said a single word to stop her rambling.
She looks up at her.
Celine is still staring at her, but the calculating and curious expression her guardian sported had changed.
The slight furrow of her brows, the frown on her mouth. And her eyes. She stares at Rumi still, yes. But now she just looks at her with so much sorrow, so much pity, that Rumi almost breaks down in sobs, choking down a growl instead.
“Don’t- look at me like that.” The young woman spits out, pausing and taking a deep breath.
Celine doesn’t even blink. “Like what?”
“Like you feel sorry for me”
“That is because I do.” The older woman averts her eyes, now staring at her cup this time.
“Stop it.” Rumi growls out this time.
Celine just takes a sip of her tea. “No growling on the table.”
‘It seems fitting.’ Celine thinks with bitterness. That the thing that brings them together would be heartbreak. Like mother, like daughter. Right?
Her musing is interrupted by Rumi grumbling louder than she thinks she meant to.
“Seems pretty fucking rude to just say that to my face.”
The unusual vulgarity coming from her child startles a laugh out of Celine.
“All your life I have tried not to lie to you unnecessarily, I will not be starting now.” She tells her, a light huff betraying her amusement as she sets down her cup.
The lighthearted comment doesn’t hit as she thought it would, as her daughter suddenly tenses up and looks at her, frowning.
“But it was never a problem to do so to other people, was it?” her voice was small, but she might as well have slapped Celine across the face.
She glances to the side, zoning out into nothingness. “All your life as well, the one thing I wanted to do was to protect you. From demons, people, even your fellow hunters, if that was what it was needed.”
Celine takes a shuddering breath, as deep as her lungs allow her without crying, and yet with her eyes glassy and her hands holding the ceramic mug so hard it could threaten to break, she looks at Rumi in the eyes. “I am not sorry for my actions, as I truly thought they were the best thing to do to keep you safe.”
And now, Rumi feels a flash of white hot anger course through her. Feels her whole face contort on the beginnings of a snarl, but before she can do or say a thing, Celine seemingly deflates, lowering her head, and her hold on the mug slackens.
“What I will always regret is that in my need to keep you safe, I hurt you. Intentionally or not, I hurt you.”
It’s Rumi’s turn to stare at her mother? guardian? the woman across the table. She can see Celine’s hands trembling, her shoulders starting to lightly shake as she swallows down her own cries to keep talking.
“I am sorry, Rumi. That in my misguided efforts to protect you, I ever made you doubt my love for you.” Celine lifts her head, enough to look at Rumi again.
Rumi begins to faintly shake her head, and is suddenly reminded of that night by the tree. They are again across from each other, one taking blame and the other wanting to deny it, the difference is that now Rumi is the one who can’t seem to keep her eyes on the woman just past the old wooden table.
Said woman gently, almost timid, moves one of her hands to the middle of the table, reaching. It is a question. An offer. Rumi takes it, just as gently.
Celine’s hold on her hand is firm, grounding and familiar. Those same hands patched up Rumi’s scrapped knee when she fell from a swing as a child. Wiped her tear stained cheeks each time she cried, no matter how big or small the reason for it. Brushed her hair out of her face as she sang her to sleep.
Those are the hands Rumi asked to kill her with. To soak them in her blood instead of her now dried up tears.
The thought of what she asked Celine to do, now dawns on her. The horror of it. Back then she hadn’t wanted to keep living, it never occurred to her that she had people who didn’t want her to die.
After another steading breath, Celine talks again, squeezing Rumi’s hands briefly.
“I cannot… do not expect your forgiveness, but you nevertheless deserve an apology. For what I did, and what I didn’t, I can only promise you to try and to do better for you, if you let me.” Her voice doesn’t waver, steady and strong with the weight of her promise, and while her eyes blink away the stream of tears that flow freely she never once looks away from Rumi.
The distance is all at once too much for Rumi, and the next thing she knows she feels a tell-tale tug on her chest and she’s suddenly almost tackling Celine from her chair, the last traces of the pink smoke of her teleportation already fading away.
Celine for her part again does not even blink, just braces herself and turns her chair to give Rumi more space, before immediately wrapping her arms around her sobbing child.
“I promised your mother I would protect you.” Her hold on Rumi tightens for a second. “But you have always been my daughter, Rumi. I’m sorry-” Her voice breaks, but carries on. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear enough. I’m sorry you ever thought I could hurt you like that-”
And that last thought is what makes her break into sobs, clinging to her child so hard she absentmindedly thinks she’ll have to apologize later for being too rough.
Rumi for her part isn’t any better, wailing as if she was a little girl waking up from a nightmare again, instinctively reaching for the comfort of her mother’s arms.
They both stay like that for a few minutes, feeling as if hours are passing. Celine is the first to calm down, having years of practice controlling her emotions, and softly rubs Rumi’s back as her child’s wails turn to sobs, those eventually turning to whimpers and after some deep breaths that take some light coaching, just some light sniffles as both women relax their grip on the other, enough to breath easier but not enough to let go.
—
After a few more minutes both mother and daughter move again, this time sitting side by side on one end of the table, and they again fall into silence. No longer awkward nor stifling, just contemplative. The only sounds that could be heard being the soft hum coming from the fridge, along with the soft sniffles coming from both women.
Celine stares at the table, looking at the Sunlight Entertainment papers she had to review and set aside the moment Rumi knocked on the door, the half eaten pack of cookies she was snacking on, and finally the two mugs she set down, now side by side instead of across one another.
That teddy bear cup was a light blue color with a cartoon bear sitting near a pine tree, said bear had a cartoonish thinking bubble with a smaller bear on it, the text near the bottom reading “bear in mind”. She got it for Rumi from the Teddy Bear Museum as a birthday gift, several years ago now. The little girl used it religiously every day for almost six months. It is a miracle and a testament of the care Rumi had for the things she cherished that it seems to have survived until now.
Her own mug had been a gag gift from both Mira and Zoey, funny enough. A couple of months before their debut she’d seen all three girls seemingly scheming something, talking quietly amongst themselves and stopping once Celine came into the space they were in.
She was obviously suspicious, but was glad at least the three of them were working together in harmony for something else other than idol or hunter work. She hopes so, at least. Celine only questions Rumi about it when her curiosity gets the best of her.
“It’s nothing nefarious… I’m pretty sure.” It’s what her daughter tells her, almost as confused as her.
That is not reassuring.
“I think they want to give you a gift? Of some sort? I’ll be real with you, they haven’t told me much either.” Rumi gives her a little grimace as she shrugs, helpless.
Celine makes a point to reassure her she’s not any kind of upset, just curious, and leaves her to keep plotting with her girls. It’s not until about two weeks before they are set to debut that the girls approach her, a mix of sheepishness and anticipation between all three, and present her with a little box, carefully wrapped on silver paper and adorned with a teal colored bow. Inside was the mug.
Her curiosity while opening the box turns to confusion at seeing the plain white mug, and it turns to a slight bewilder when she takes it out of the shredded paper it’s nestled in and turns it on her hands to show the text painted on it.
‘World’s okayest Dad’ is written on black letters, with what Celine can recognize is Mira’s calligraphy. She tilts her head confused and blinks once, twice, and just looks at the girls who have not stopped their fidgeting, standing in front of her.
Rumi gets impatient after a moment and bounds up to Celine, standing on her tiptoes for a bit to get a good look at the cup.
Her surprised expression is almost the same as Celine’s, but to her shock she lets out a small snort, quickly covering up her mouth and letting out a fake cough.
Zoey speaks first “So like, you know how I’ve been keeping up with my ceramics class and all? And well, Mira started getting pissy about not spending enough time together-”
“I did NOT-”
“So I took her with me, buuuut her talents are on other artistic areas because she sadly sucked ass on the throwing wheel-”
“True but fuck you.”
“She was more suited for glazing the pieces though! So like, we got to thinking about doing something together and we also were thinking about getting you a gift so, it was like a two birds one stone situation-”
“Oh my God, long story short: we made this for you. Do with it what you want. Use it, or not. It’s whatever.” Quickly finished Mira, blushing
Celine, for her part, took her time looking at all three of them. Rumi looking incredibly fond and proud, Zoey nervous rocking on the balls of her feet and glancing at each of them for a couple of seconds at a time, and finally Mira, arms crossed and frowning while staring at a spot on the ceiling, the light but quick taping of her fingers on her arms giving away her feelings.
The older woman puts down the box on the kitchen counter, keeping the mug on her hand and watches as the girls just stare at her, waiting for her reaction.
She just gives them a small smile, something that has been more common since all of them started training and staying in the house, and just asks them simply “how about some tea?”, to Mira’s relief and both Zoey and Rumi’s delight, that is the very first moment she uses the mug.
Celine ponders those memories, one hand fiddling with the rim of the cup, her other entire arm occupied holding Rumi, who is now sitting beside her, her head slumped on her mothers shoulder. Her arms are almost in the same position as her mother, one hand on her cup and the other holding the loose bottom of Celine’s shirt.
She remembers, vaguely, how this whole situation started. Rumi at her front door, the heartbreak on her shifting eyes.
“You should tell them.” The older woman speaks quietly. She doesn’t specify what Rumi should tell, nor to whom. It’s not needed.
Rumi tenses, the grip on Celine’s shirt tightening before she just slumps, exhaling from her nose and not even lifting her head from the shoulder it rests on, just shaking side to side.
“I had my chances. I won’t ask for any more.” It’s all Rumi answers, defeated.
There is one thing Celine hates to feel, and that is powerless. She remembers Rumi being a baby, crying her little heart out and Celine trying feeding her, diaper change, and nothing working.
She remembers feeling almost as she does right now, and as such does much of the same actions. Celine just holds her daughter closer, her hand on the back of her child's head, and kisses her forehead. Not able to provide solutions, she is at least able to give her comfort.