Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thing about Rumi’s patterns is that there’s so many unknown variables— even to Rumi, who’s known about them the whole time. 

They don’t understand why sometimes the lines stretch farther than others, or why some days they seem to completely disappear while others they stand undeniably across her skin. Mostly, though, they don’t understand the whole glowing thing. 

It starts during their second visit to the bath house with Rumi. The three of them silent, the water bubbling around them, soothing sore muscles and tired hearts. 

Rumi sighs, head falling back, boneless. Zoey doesn’t think she’s ever seen her so relaxed; usually she’s wound up tighter than a loaded spring. Now, though, her tense mouth has gone slack, her shoulders falling from her ears. Zoey studies her freely, eyes wandering from her forehead (oh, how she wants to take that braid out of her hair, wants to see what Rumi’s face looks like without those lilac strands practically pulling her brain out of her skull), down the slope of her nose, over the ridges of her lips and then down the column of her throat to where her chest disappears under the water. 

She’s beautiful, like this. 

She’s always pretty, of course— they all are, they all have to be. The few times they’d been accosted by fans without their full beats, the photos had gone viral, paired with headlines about hiding and lying or backhanded compliments about being brave and uncaring. Zoey knows it’s all bullshit, but it makes something deep inside her chest ache, especially for Rumi.

Zoey has long lost the ability to care what people think about her appearance; she knows she’s gorgeous. Mira’s confidence is crazy high, but she’s just as insecure as the next girl if you press the right buttons. Rumi, though. Rumi is a people pleaser of the highest order. She’s a yes-man, a goody two-shoes, a suck up. She would do anything that anyone asked of her, and she beats herself up any time a modicum of disappointment comes her way.

So to see her like this, bare-faced and relaxed and flushed with the bath house steam, Zoey can’t help but feel proud of her. 

She scooches herself closer to Rumi until they’re almost shoulder to shoulder. Mira opens one eye, offering her a knowing glance, before she closes it again and sinks further into the water.

Zoey reaches a hand out, fingers just barely breaking through the surface, and traces one of the iridescent lines on Rumi’s shoulder. 

Rumi goes tense in a second, shoulders rising and head lifting from its laid-back position. Zoey would feel bad, but she only feels warmth bubbling in her stomach when Rumi’s eyes go all soft again when she registers that it’s Zoey’s hand on her. 

“Okay?” She asks, just in case.

Rumi hums and her body relaxes again. Only, she keeps her head up and her eyes on Zoey. Zoey doesn’t take her eyes off of Rumi’s patterns; she traces them over her shoulder, up her neck, across her cheek, and down again.

The patterns almost ignite beneath her fingers.

She gasps, startled, but still doesn’t look away. 

Their glow is soft like this, periwinkle blue and white beneath Zoey’s painted-purple nails. 

“You’re glowing,” Zoey whispers, nearly reverent with her words. An observation turned praise, a prayer on her lips.

“What?” Rumi’s voice is hoarse. She turns her head awkwardly to get a view of her shoulder and cries out in alarm.

“What?” Mira gasps, waking from where she’d obviously drifted off. “Oh, shit,” her voice drops when she sees the glow emitting from Rumi’s shoulder.

The color has shifted, now; more purple than blue, but beautiful nonetheless. Mira moves in to get a closer look, and Rumi tries to curl her shoulder away from them both.

Zoey whines, mourning the loss of Rumi’s warm skin beneath her fingers. Rumi freezes, blinking at her. “You don’t…mind?”

“No,” both Zoey and Mira say, voices louder than they’d meant them.

“No,” Mira repeats, quieter, “Can we see?”

The glow had faded slightly. Rumi hesitates, the purple dimming into something more like magenta, but nods. She uncurls herself slowly, and doesn’t move her eyes from where they’re trained on Zoey and Mira. 

Gently, Zoey reaches to cradle one of Rumi’s cheeks. They stay like that, still, for several long moments, letting Rumi adjust to the contact. It’s something they’ve been doing, the slow and cautious contact on skin that Rumi had never bared before. Like a stray cat that you have to coax into a kennel before you can take it to get shots.

Zoey starts to move her thumb across the crest of Rumi’s cheek. Back, forth, and back again. Then she uses her hand to guide Rumi’s head gently to the side, baring her neck and shoulder. Zoey brings her other hand up to trace the patterns there. 

Rumi’s eyes start to droop, and her shoulder goes slack beneath Zoey’s palm. Her head weighs heavier in Zoey’s other hand, the loss of tension making her load-bearing. 

“Good,” Zoey murmurs, “Relax, Ru. I’ve got you.”

Rumi sighs, but it comes out high and needy. She presses her cheek more firmly into Zoey’s palm, and her shoulder up into Zoey’s wandering fingers.

Mira studies the patterns. Zoey can tell that she’s itching to reach out and touch, but Mira knows as well as she does that this is delicate; that Rumi is delicate. 

They have to take this process slowly. They have to chip away at Rumi’s walls, remove one brick at a time, or they’ll fall so fast that they’ll all end up crushed beneath them. 

So Mira hums, just barely there, a tune to a song that none of them know. Zoey longs to curl up against Rumi, but knows that so much skin-to-skin contact would send the girl running for the hills.

Instead, she settles for the awkward stretch of her arm that holds Rumi’s shoulder and the simultaneous cramp in the one supporting Rumi’s head.

Beneath her fingers, Rumi’s glow shifts from magenta back into that periwinkle blue. 

Later, in one of her many journals, Zoey flips to the next blank page. They’re on their couch, dressed in oversized hoodies and stomachs full of convenience store snacks. As of…well, everything, Mira and Zoey have come to an unvoiced agreement to always sit Rumi between them. They will be her unwavering pillars, giving her strength and support where she can’t provide it for herself.

Also, the girl is touch starved beyond belief. Pressing their clothed shoulders together when they sit around on the couch is the least they could do.

Zoey studies her friends. Mira’s head is tilted over the back of the couch, her mouth open in a gentle snore, her limbs spread open. In direct contrast, Rumi’s eyes are glued to the TV. She’s got her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wound around them and head resting on her knees. She’s used up all of her relaxation for the day, it seems, her shoulders pulled up to her ears. Zoey can tell that her mind is spiraling, even as her gaze remains resolutely on the screen in front of her. 

Zoey leans her shoulder more heavily into Rumi’s, tucking her head into Rumi’s shoulder. When the shoulder presses down beneath her cheek, Zoey smiles and brings her pen down to her paper. 

In the margins of her latest lyrics, she scribbles down three bullet points. 

1. Light Blue: calm/relaxed
2. Purple: scared?
3. Magenta: confused??

Chapter Text

Mira can’t stop thinking about the whole bathhouse thing. 

It’s like, the bath house is a sacred space. It’s calm, and relaxing, and predictable. It’s a constant.

Until Rumi shows up.

Now, Rumi being there isn’t the problem. In fact, Mira had felt more content than ever with Rumi there. The problem was that Rumi had— unknowingly and unintentionally— created a variable in Mira’s one constant. 

Whatever, Mira’s not gonna begrudge her something that she can’t control. 

Days pass after the bath house, and Rumi’s marks do not glow. At least, not when Mira and Zoey can see her. 

Not that it’s difficult for her to not see Mira. Mira’s been kind of, maybe, just a little bit…avoiding Rumi. Like, okay, part-demon best friend. That’s fine! What Mira hates are the lies. 

Her whole life had been based on lies. Her parents telling her they’d love her no matter what: a lie; Celine promising them that they could always keep the Honmoon strong: a lie; Rumi swearing that she wasn’t in cahoots with demons: a big fat lie! 

So as much as Mira wants to snuggle up to Rumi on the couch, or to spin her in circles at dance rehearsal just to see her laugh, she can’t. Every time she gets close to Rumi, she sort of freezes up. She hears echoes of the demon’s voice, reminding her that Rumi lied, that Rumi never loved her, that Rumi doesn’t trust her at all. 

It feels really shitty, so Mira opts to avoid it. 

With the new Honmoon shimmering around them, and their songs receiving more streams than ever (and she is loath to admit that those stupidly attractive demon boys helped with that. Ugh.), they’ve stopped training as much as they used to. Their training room, which lay below their actual home, was probably gathering dust with every passing second.

Mira groans, rolling over in her bed, simultaneously bored out of her mind and wanting to stay exactly where she is forever. 

She sighs, pushing herself up to sitting. She’s just staring at the wall when it happens: a sharp tug in her stomach, an urgent bid for help.

Mira is up and out of bed faster than one could say ramyeon. She follows the tug through the hallway and down the stairs, breath caught in fear, when she finds the problem. 

Rumi is splayed out on her stomach in the middle of their training room. Her braid’s a mess, and the eyes that flick over to Mira are mismatched brown and gold. 

“Mira,” she gasps, “please.”

Mira, despite the echoes in her ears and the trepidation in her heart, drops to her knees beside her friend. A tiny blade, not unlike the ones that Zoey wields, is stuck into her back where she can’t reach it. 

Ever since they’d discovered Rumi’s secret, she’d taken to wearing more revealing clothes; now, she’s only in a white sports bra and pink shorts, neither of which will be salvageable after this.

“What happened?” Mira curses.

“Ricocheted,” Rumi murmurs, and then, “ouch,” when Mira presses one hand to her back and uses the other to free the blade. She shucks off her own hoodie, pressing it into the wound. 

“This is exactly why we don’t train alone, Rumi!”

“Sorry,” Rumi rasps, eyes squeezed shut against her demon-layered voice.

“You keep being sorry,” Mira bites out before she can think long enough to stop it, “But are you?”

Rumi blinks her eyes open, pained. She nods.

Mira scoffs, “How am I meant to believe you?” Tears burn her throat as she presses harder on her hoodie. The rust color taking over the pretty pink makes her stomach churn. 

Rumi closes her eyes again. As best she can with her cheek pressed to the ground, she bows her head. Defeated.

“Say something!” Mira cries, voice cracking over it. “You always know what to say, don’t you? You always know. You’re such a good liar, Rumi. Do you even know you’re doing it? Does it not hurt, to lie? To pretend? How can you just be fine?”

“I’m not!” Rumi, with a sudden bout of strength, pushes herself up. Mira falls backwards, stunned. The patterns on Rumi’s body flare in a bright pink. Vaguely, inappropriately, Mira wants to lick them. Now is so not the time.

“I’m not fine, Mira! I don’t sleep, I barely eat because I keep biting my own lips with these stupid fangs,” Rumi bares them for emphasis, bright white against the pink of her lips, “And I’m trying to give you space because you’re mad at me, but I hate it! It’s selfish, to ask you to forgive me, so I’m giving you time to…to do it on your own terms.”

“Rumi,” Mira holds her hands up, surrendering like she would to a wild animal: placating, calming. 

Rumi cries out in wordless frustration, marks glowing brighter. It lights up the whole room in shades of pink. 

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Rumi spreads her arms out wide. There are tears in her eyes. Mira’s hands shake as she lowers them.

“I know,” Mira says.

“I never, ever, wanted to hurt you, Mira.” Rumi’s voice is quieter, now, crackling over Mira’s name as the glow in her eye begins to fade and her claws shrink back into her regular almond-shaped nails. 

“I know,” Mira says, and means it. Rumi may have been a liar, and half-demon, but she’s never been malicious. 

“And I know I did,” her patterns have softened, glowing baby-pink, “I lied to you. But Celine— you know. I just did what I was told, Mira. I always do what I’m told.”

Mira swallows around a dry tongue. I always do what I’m told. God, Rumi couldn’t be any more different from Mira, but that. That constant want to be good, to do what your parents tell you, even though it hurts? Mira knows that better than anyone. 

“I know,” she says. Then, “It’s okay. I know.”

Rumi’s resolve finally breaks, collapsing into a sob. Mira crawls forward and pulls Rumi into her. Rumi doesn’t fight it, or even protest. She clings to Mira, hands fisted into her Huntr/x t-shirt, face buried in the long column of Mira’s throat. 

Mira’s hands come up on her back, pleased and a little bit stunned to find that the knife wound was already scabbing over. Demon powers, she guesses. That’s pretty sick, honestly. 

“I’m sorry,” Rumi gasps against her throat.

“It’s okay, Ru,” Mira glides her hands up to Rumi’s shoulders and down to her hips and back up again, soothing. The patterns there flicker between that baby-pink and periwinkle blue. “I forgive you.”

Rumi sobs again, clutching Mira even tighter, as if letting her go will change her mind.

“It’s okay, Ru,” Mira shushes, voice soft against Rumi’s ear. “I forgive you, you’re good. I promise, you’re so good. I know, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

She continues to murmur soothing platitudes until Rumi’s tears run dry and her sobs quiet into little hiccups and her fingers loosen their grip on Mira’s shirt. 

“I really did want to tell you, you know. I asked.”

“Celine said no?”

“Mm. Imperfections and all that.”

Mira scoffs, anger burning in her chest.

“You don’t have to be perfect, Rumi. Not with me, or Zoey. You just have to be you.”

“I always wanted to be more like you, actually.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re not afraid to be yourself,” Rumi says, “You do things your way, even when people tell you it’s not the right way.”

“Well, I am a problem child.”

Rumi snorts, the sound wet with the remnants of tears. Mira pulls back just enough to see Rumi’s face.

Her patterns are only flickering gently, light sputtering out as Rumi calms down. Her eyes are red and swollen, lashes clinging together with tears. Mira hates seeing her friend like this, and because of her? Some friend she is.

“Come on,” Mira says, gently reaching one hand up to swipe tears off of Rumi’s cheeks, “Zoey’s probably having a stroke, not knowing where we are.”

Rumi nods, sniffing. “Sorry about your sweatshirt,” she says, standing on wobbly legs.

“It’s yours, anyway.”

“Oh.”

They’re silent for several long moments, their footsteps echoing through the training room as they start to climb the stairs that will take them back up to the penthouse. 

“You know we’re not supposed to train with weapons on our own, Rumi.” 

“I know, but Zoey’s been outright refusing to train while we don’t have to, and you’ve been avoiding me, so…yeah. Not! That I’m blaming you, obviously, I’ve just been antsy and needed to do something besides lift weights or run on a treadmill, you know? Sorry.”

Mira’s brow furrows. “You noticed?”

Rumi scoffs, “Kind of hard not to. We live together and I only ever see you when Zoey’s there, too. It’s fine, Mira; I told you that I don’t blame you for that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” 

Later, both of them changed into looser, softer clothes, they gather on the couch for Zoey’s mandated movie night.

“Not horror,” Rumi pleads, as Mira hovers over The Exorcist, listed under Because you watched ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. 

“Vetoed,” Zoey chirps, leaning over to click the select button on their remote. Rumi groans, sinking lower on the couch. 

Not even twenty minutes in, Rumi’s shaking like a leaf. Mira and Zoey lock eyes above their leader’s head, smiling. They both scoot in closer, pressing their bodies together, shoulders down to hips. Rumi still shakes, but she turns her face into Mira’s shoulder and squeezes Zoey’s thigh when the tense music crescendos. 

After it ends, Zoey reaches for the remote and finds Lady and the Tramp. It’s Rumi’s comfort movie, and also the farthest thing from scary, and she settles more firmly into the couch. By the time the baby is being sung to sleep, Rumi’s head is tucked into the space between Mira’s shoulder and neck, sound asleep. 

“She glowed again, today,” Mira says. 

“You poor kid,” says the Tramp, “We’ve gotta get this off.”

Zoey brightens, eyes wide. If she were a dog, her ears would be perked and her tail would be slapping the couch cushion beneath her. 

“Really?” she whispers.

“Yeah. Pink.”

“We haven’t seen that one before!”

“I think because it’s for anger.”

“Anger? Rumi? She’s never mad!”

“Yeah. I think she was mad at herself but I…compounded it, I guess.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. We talked about it; I think we’re good now. I just hate that she felt like she had to hide for so long.”

Zoey hums, nodding, but allows the silence to carry. 

“Come on, Pidge,” says the Tramp, “The place is ours.”

(What neither of them see, hidden by the bulk of Rumi’s sweatshirt and the crevice of Mira’s neck, is the way her patterns glow just faintly gold where they touch.)

The next morning, after Rumi makes omelettes, Zoey opens her notebook.

1. Light Blue: calm/relaxed
2. Purple: scared?
3. Magenta: confused??
4. Pink: angry
5. Light Pink: sad? defeated??

Chapter Text

Days pass, quiet and blissful in the wake of Rumi and Mira finally talking their shit out. The girls are relearning each other, reweaving ties that had snapped with…everything. 

The first few days after the so-called ‘everything’, all three girls avoid social media. There’s surely very little good to be seen, with the sudden disappearance of their rival group, the hundreds of missing people that had coincided with the Idol Awards— no, it’s surely a better idea to stay away for a few days and wait for something new to lead the media’s circus. Even their messages from Bobby are few and far between.

They mostly spend the days lounging on the couch, cycling through shows and movies, binging like their lives depend on it. Can you blame them? They never have time to binge, okay? They’re always too busy.

Zoey’s starting to realize why they all keep so busy, too. It’s more than just for the honmoon or for their fans; the three of them are intrinsically different, but they’re all the same in the ways that matter. And also in the way that gives them that constant itch, that need to do something, to move on and on and on. The itch that prevents them from staying still for too long, that keeps them alive in battles, even when they’re half asleep.

So combining that whole mess, plus no phones? Yeah, there’s no way it lasts long. 

It doesn’t last long. Three days is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. 

It’s Mira who breaks first, habitually clicking open apps on her phone and, after a few swipes that don’t reveal anything absolutely awful, settles deeper into their couch with it. Zoey and Rumi join her; Zoey snuggles under the arm not holding her phone, and Rumi perches herself on the other side. Zoey reaches across Mira to poke insistently at Rumi’s stomach until their leader is laughing, swatting Zoey’s hand away, and relaxing into the back of the couch. 

Zoey thinks it may be a trick of the light, the way that Rumi’s patterns shine gold when she laughs or sighs or gasps. Zoey would do anything to find out for sure— would keep her laughing and sighing and gasping until the day Rumi dies, if she could. 

The three of them swipe through several videos; some of animals, some of global politics. One, notably, of the Saja Boys that makes Rumi’s breath catch and has Mira scrambling to swipe on to the next thing. 

The next video, as it turns out, is so much worse.

There’s text over it: HUNTR/X NEW SONG?!?!!!

It’s the three of them on a stage, lit up in blood red lights. It’s the three of them singing a song that they’ve never performed live, the three of them dancing together in steps that have never left rehearsals. It’s Mira and Zoey singing to Rumi, rather than with her.

Oh, fuck. 

Instinctively, Zoey opens the comments. Her stomach churns at them: Are they calling Rumi UGLY??? ; #rumidefensesquadRISE. ; ru obviously did something to get mir and zo to act like that. ; personally, im not taking sides until they do a press release abt it. ; do u think they’re talking abt how rumi and jinu are obv in love?!! maybe they’re jealous. ; if they break up im gonna find a sewer and slide.

They go on and on, never ending and never getting better. She clicks out of them, unable and unwilling to keep falling down that spiral. 

“You…thought that was us?” Zoey’s voice is so, so small, even to her own ears. 

Mira and Zoey watch as the video loops again and again, as video-Mira and video-Zoey shove and shoulder check and scowl at video-Rumi. They can’t tear their eyes away, even as real-life-Rumi’s brings a hand to her mouth to muffle an awkward half-laugh, half-sob. 

“Yeah,” she croaks, “and then I ran into both of you for real. They’re just demons. It wasn’t…it wasn’t real.”

“But you thought it was.” Mira’s voice has that too-hard edge that it gets when she’s fighting off tears. Zoey’s already lost herself to them, tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. Thank goodness she hadn’t put makeup on that morning, or it would’ve been a total waste. 

“Well, you’d just been on the stage with me— I didn’t know you’d left.”

“Demons,” Zoey whimpers, bringing up a hand to swipe away tears, “There were demons.”

Rumi snorts, wet and bitter. “Story of our lives, huh?”

The video is still playing. A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live. Zoey’s hand darts out, snatching the phone and turning it off before throwing it to the other end of the couch. For a long, long while, there is nothing but the sound of their sniffling cries.

“I wish,” Mira starts, voice hoarse, “I wish you’d told us before then.”

“I told you,” Rumi’s voice is quiet. Defeated, even. “I wanted to. Celine told me that you would…that you would never accept me.”

“What the hell does she know?” Mira barks, hands coming up to tug at the hair around her temples, pulling her pigtails awkwardly. “We might’ve! We do now!”

Rumi shrugs. “It’s a moot point, isn’t it? We’ll never know how it might’ve gone. When you first saw, you hated me, right? I guess that’s probably how it was always bound to go.”

“No,” Zoey says, voice determined, if not strong. “We love you, Rumi. We always have. If we could’ve talked about it, known about it in a way that it was, I don’t know, not so sudden? We would’ve figured it out together.”

Rumi sighs and lets her head fall backwards, looking straight up at their ceiling. 

“Maybe.”

Silence weighs on them like stones, heavy and thick and oppressive. Zoey wants to scream, but the weight is pressing on her ribs, suffocating her. God, Rumi thought that they’d done…that, and then they went and pointed their weapons at her. At Rumi! As if they’d ever hurt her. They wouldn’t, neither of them, but did Rumi know that? She did, right? She knows that Zoey and Mira would both rather sink their blades into themselves than into her? 

At some point, Rumi gets up. She says nothing, only grabs her sneakers from the shoe rack by the front door, which she closes behind her gently when she goes. Mira gets up next, retreating to her room without grabbing her phone. 

Zoey sits alone on their couch for a long, long time. 

Days pass, like this. In silence, in avoidance, in anger and sadness and regret and fear. 

Rumi runs all over the city, usually reappearing in their doorway with a glowing eye and razor-sharp nails. Fleetingly, Zoey thinks about how those claws would feel against her skin. She wonders if Rumi would ever let her get close enough to her demon form to find out. 

While Rumi runs, Mira locks herself up in her room or their dance studio, music blasting either way. The floor shakes with it as Zoey spends her own time curled into the corner of their couch with her notebooks open in her lap. 

The couch is the perfect place; both Rumi and Mira have to eat at some point or another, and Zoey can at least lay her eyes on them from her perch. She writes songs, all of them heavy and dragging with the same sadness and anger that fills their penthouse. She fills pages and pages with lyrics and word vomits that she can’t speak aloud, with doodles and wishlists and her constant string of thoughts.

A day and a half in, she has to go out and buy more notebooks, and she makes sure to go while Rumi is sure to be out running and after Mira has shown herself for breakfast. Zoey’s exhausted.

Three days— and Zoey’s changed her mind, three days is a long time when you live together, by the way— into the silent treatment, Rumi gets home earlier than usual, just as Mira is making herself lunch. Both of them freeze. Zoey’s eyes go wide as she watches from her perch. 

Mira turns to retreat back into her room, shoulders pulled up to her ears.

“Wait,” Rumi says. Mira freezes. Zoey feels relief wash over her, and their honmoon sighs with her. Finally.

“No…no more secrets, right?” Rumi shifts awkwardly, foot to foot, looking like she wants to crawl out of her own skin. 

Mira turns around, a pinch in her brow. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. 

“Right,” Zoey chirps, interrupting before a conversation devolves to a fight for no reason other than her partners being super high-strung and stubborn. 

Both of their heads snap to her where she’s nestled into the corner of their couch. It’s basically a nest, now, blankets and pillows piled up around her, a poor replacement for two warm bodies. She pats the empty spaces next to her, inviting.

Rumi and Mira blink at her, and then at each other. Simultaneously, though Zoey’s sure they don’t realize it, they set their shoulders and their jaws and come sit with her. 

Now, Zoey knows that this is going to be a serious conversation. Really, she’s prepared to listen and provide her undivided attention to both Mira and Rumi, honest! But even if they were brought to her to have what will quite probably be the worst conversation ever, giddy bubbles of warmth fill her stomach because they’re here. They’re with her, exactly where they’re meant to be. 

Mira clears her throat. “So?” She asks, “What are you hiding, now?”

Zoey bites her tongue, but doesn’t quell the glare that she meets Mira’s eyes with. The taller girl scowls in response, but Zoey can see the twitch of regret in the way her lips twist down. Zoey knows that Mira’s only upset because Rumi hadn’t believed that they wouldn’t care about her patterns and that she’d run off to avoid a continuation of that conversation. Zoey knows this, but now is so not the time; Rumi’s obviously about to tell them something important.

Rumi doesn’t flinch away from the accusation; she’d never let her emotions flit across her face so willingly. Of course, it’s not her face that ends up giving her away. 

Rumi takes a deep breath, steeling herself before she speaks. 

“Um, okay. After…after you two found out, I went to Celine.” Rumi squeezes her eyes shut, as if in pain. Her mouth twists, fighting the frown that threatens her. She crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself, human nails digging into the patterns on her biceps. Her running clothes— just a sports bra and matching leggings— do absolutely nothing to hide the way that her marks flicker, purple licking across her biceps, down to her wrists and up her shoulders. 

Scared? Zoey’s mind supplies, her little list burned into her brain. But scared doesn’t seem quite right; it’s not really fear; it’s more specific than that. 

Besides, Rumi’s not scared of them. 

…Right?

“She’s always told me that— that my patterns have to stay hidden.” Her fingers press more harshly into her arms, the marks beneath them flaring. 

Oh. 

Rumi’s not scared of them. 

Mentally, Zoey fixes her little list, throat tight with almost-tears. 

“Sealing the honmoon permanently was supposed to fix me.” Her nails dig in, dragging along the patterns there. “It was supposed to get rid of my marks. But you two— I— we fought, and I thought that there was nothing left to be done. I couldn’t seal the honmoon without the two of you.”

Rumi hunches over on herself, head bowed. Zoey and Mira both start to reach out for her, to console her. Mira is angry, but she still loves Rumi, still hates to see her cry, to watch her dig her fingers into her own skin and scratch. 

Neither of them touch her. They keep their hands hovering, awkward, over Rumi’s shoulders. 

Something like fear sparks in Zoey’s stomach.

“So I went to Celine,” Rumi’s voice is hollow. It’s quiet, nearly too low to hear at all, but Mira and Zoey are too close and too quiet to miss the next words that fall from Rumi’s mouth. 

“I went to Celine,” she repeats, “and I asked her to kill me.”

Zoey stumbles to her feet, using Rumi’s shoulder to push herself up, running as best as she can with tears blurring her eyesight. She barely makes it to the kitchen sink before the meager contents of her stomach are forced from her throat. 

1. Light Blue: calm/relaxed
2. Purple: scared? insecure
3. Magenta: confused??
4. Pink: angry
5. Light Pink: sad? defeated??

Chapter Text

“I went to Celine,” she repeats, “and I asked her to kill me.”

Mira stands and scrambles after Zoey, bile roiling in her own stomach as she rubs Zoey’s back. Rumi remains on their couch, still as a statue. Her patterns are still glowing purple, but little sparks of that light, rosey pink stutter across her skin. 

Mira hates this. She hates this conversation, she hates that she can’t rub Zoey’s back and hug Rumi for all she’s worth at the same time— hates that Rumi probably wouldn’t even let her. 

Mostly, she hates herself. 

She had pointed her blade at Rumi first. She was the one who kept pushing and pushing about lies and secrets and distrust. 

She kept Rumi so far away that she almost lost the ability to keep her at all.

There are tears on her cheeks. She doesn’t bother wiping them away; they’ll be replaced with new ones faster than she could ever wipe them off. She bows her head, pressing her forehead between Zoey’s shoulder blades, and cries. 

“Um,” Rumi says, however long later, voice shattering the careful almost-stillness of quieting sobs. “That’s it. You know everything now, so. Yeah.”

“Rumi,” Zoey gasps, and Mira tightens her arms around her waist, almost afraid that she’d be sick again. “If you run off right now I will never forgive you.”

It’s a lie, and a bad one. Zoey would never hold a grudge like that, but it stops Rumi in her tracks.

Rumi blinks, and her marks— which had since dimmed— flare so brightly that the whole room is bathed in shades of rose. A choked gasp echoes in the now silent penthouse. 

“Sit back down, Rumi,” Zoey says, “Please.”

Rumi sits. (I always do what I’m told.) She sits how she does in interviews, all straight-backed and just barely perched on the very edge of the couch cushion. Ready to bolt. 

“She didn’t, though, right?” Mira asks, her voice thick with tears and something stronger. “I mean, obviously she didn’t, but—?”

“No! No. She just said that we could say it was a trick. Like, just tell you that my marks were a trick by Gwi-Ma. Get you to…to trust me again.”

“She thought we couldn’t? Because of the patterns?”

“Well, she’s never been able to trust me because of them, so I guess…” Rumi trails off with a halfhearted shrug.

Mira scoffs and Zoey whimpers, tears threatening again.

“That’s because Celine is so stuck in the past that she can’t see you as anything other than your mom.” Mira crosses her arms and turns her nose up. Rumi curls further into herself, rose licking up her arms and throat.

Mira is suddenly very sure what that light pink means, and her heart takes a cleaver right down the middle, remembering when the rose color was because of her. 

Yeah, she really hates herself right now. 

Zoey wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, “The honmoon would've never sealed without you,”  she murmurs, crossing back over to Rumi with slow, cautious steps. “What did you think would happen if you— if you were—?” Zoey can’t seem to squeak the words out.

“Dead?” Rumi fills in, “I don’t know. I would love to say that there was a thought process, but honestly? I was just trying to get rid of my mistakes.”

Mira chokes on her own sob, a renewed stream of tears spilling over her cheeks.

“You’re not a mistake, Rumi.”

Rumi looks briefly startled by the harshness of Mira’s tone, eyes going wide when her head snaps over to look at her. Mira crosses over to her, falling to her knees in front of the couch. Zoey follows her lead, collapsing down with her not a moment later.

Rumi blinks down at them, confusion pulling at her brows. She tries to lean back and away from them, but Mira reaches up and grabs at the sides of Rumi’s neck before she can. She laces her fingers together behind Rumi’s head and runs gentle thumbs over the line of Rumi’s jaw, over the patterns there. She wishes for the calm blue from that day in the bathhouse.  

“Do you hear me? You’re a lot of things, Rumi, but you are not, and have never been, a mistake.”

“But I’m a demon. Look at me! We’re supposed to kill things with patterns. I'm a thing with patterns, Mira!” The fading rose of her marks flash purple.

“You’re not a thing!” Zoey’s hands reach up— uncomfortably high for her— to stack on top of Mira’s, palms pressing Rumi’s cheeks in a way that has her lips puckering like a fish.

“You’re not,” Mira agrees, “You’re Rumi. You’ve always been Rumi.”

Rumi bites on the inside of her lips, an old habit that was easily hidden from Celine. Less easily hidden when one has fangs, evidently. 

“Ow!” Rumi gasps, hand coming up to press into her injured lip. It’s blocked by Mira’s and Zoey’s reaching limbs, and Rumi blinks down at their arms.

Zoey moves first, one hand lifting from Rumi’s cheek. “Can I?” she asks, so, so softly.

A beat passes, then two. Zoey’s cheeks start to blotch with pink, blinking hard against the hurt, embarrassed tears that stick to her lashes. Rumi, finally, nods.

If Zoey’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. She just smiles through her tears and moves her hand slowly, first just placing the pads of her fingertips to Rumi’s lips and holding them there, allowing her time to pull away if her mind changes. When Rumi doesn’t move or protest, Zoey gently pinches the center or Rumi’s bottom lip between her fingers. Rumi’s eyes flutter shut, and the marks on her face shift from lilac to iridescent white. Mira’s own breath catches on the memory of their most recent performance, of creating a new honmoon. 

It is so much better than the blue. 

Zoey pulls Rumi’s lip down slowly, gently. 

Rumi sighs, shoulders falling with the way she basically melts beneath their hands. Mira would do anything to keep Rumi relaxed like this. 

Sure enough, there are two little pinprick marks on the inside of Rumi’s lip. One on either side, right beneath her actual, literal fangs. 

“Oh,” Zoey gasps.

“Sick,” Mira agrees. 

Rumi’s eyes fly open: one brown, one gold. She pulls her head back, trying to close her lips over the revealed fangs. Her patterns flash purple. Mira wants the pearly iridescence back.

Zoey, bless her, doesn’t let go of Rumi’s lip. Rumi scowls, but it’s honestly impossible to take her seriously with her mouth stuck open like that. 

“Soey!” Rumi whines, not quite able to make the z sound. 

“They’re already gone!” Zoey turns to Mira, eyes bright, “Did you see?”

“Yeah, she’s got super cool healing powers. Lucky her.”

“It’s a good thing, too,” Zoey giggles, “Maybe next time she rolls her ankle in her platforms she won’t have to ice it for an hour!” 

Rumi squawks, offended. Zoey brings her hand up to cover Rumi’s mouth. “Ah-ah,” she giggles, “I’d hate for you to hurt my hand with those fangs!”

It’s a joke. Mira knows that it’s a joke. Hell, even Rumi probably knows it’s a joke. But it’s a poorly timed one, and it has Rumi freezing, her eyes going wide and her patterns flushing back to that rosey pink faster than she can jump in and fix it. 

Why would she be sad, though?

Mira’s brow furrows, words in the back of her mind trying to fight their way forward. Her fingers itch where they’re still resting against Rumi’s throat. 

A pink sweatshirt turned to rust; a practice throwing knife; a room bathed in hot pink.

I’m not going to hurt you!

Oh, that’s why. Crap.

“She knows you won’t hurt her, Ru,” Mira murmurs, fingers tightening around Rumi’s neck, “I promise.”

Zoey startles, confusion and hurt pulling sharply at her features. “Of course not!” She says to Mira. Her head snaps over to Rumi, “You would never!”

Her hand slides off of Rumi’s mouth, settling back over her cheek. The position is starting to get really uncomfortable, but Mira and Zoey, she knows, are both just as unwilling as the other to get up. Their hands may as well be the only things holding Rumi together. 

“I could,” Rumi insists, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“I mean, sure. But Rumi, that’s always been the case. We’re Hunters. We’re trained to kill demons. Any of us could hurt each other.”

Huh. Mira’s gotta give Zoey credit for that one; she never would’ve thought of it that way. Rumi wouldn’t have either, apparently, given the way that her patterns have dimmed, very nearly settling back into her skin, even as the rose deepens to a vaguely magenta color. 

“But…fangs. Claws. Teleportation!”

Mira and Zoey both gape at their leader. “You can teleport?!” 

“Um,” Rumi offers, flushing a pretty pink that has nothing to do with the patterns etched into her skin. 

Zoey recovers first, finally deciding to be a little bit less uncomfortable. She pushes herself up and onto the couch next to Rumi, not letting go of her cheeks. Mira’s reluctant to let go of her for even a moment, but her shoulders are cramping. She moves to sit on Rumi’s other side, moving one hand down to twine her fingers with Rumi’s. 

Oh, this is way more comfortable. 

“Look,” Zoey says, voice confident, if wet with remnants of tears. “You’re part demon. So what? You’re still our Rumi, okay? And our Rumi would never hurt us, and we know that.”

“I did hurt you, though.”

“Water under the bridge,” Mira says, squeezing Rumi’s hand in hers. “We forgive you if you forgive us.”

Silence for several long beats. Zoey’s thumbs take to stroking over the marks that sit high on Rumi’s cheeks, and Mira scratches her nails lightly into the back of Rumi’s head. 

“Okay,” Rumi finally agrees.

“Great!” Zoey chirps, “Now we can work on you forgiving yourself.” She says it so easily, like it’s so obvious. Maybe it is, but Rumi’s sputtering protests make Mira smile— just a little. 

“Later,” Mira says, “I’m exhausted.”

“Ugh, me too! No one’s allowed to have any more emotions for at least forty-eight hours.”

Rumi gets halfway through a worried apology before Mira’s hand comes up to cover her mouth, much like how Zoey had earlier. 

“No more apologies. We’re going to lay here, and we’re going to watch some shitty American reality show that Zoey swears is good, even though it’s not—”

“Hey!”

“—and we’re going to sleep.“

“Fine,” Rumi mumbles, “but I’m showering first. I feel dirty.”

“What, from having emotions? Hate to tell you, babe, but emotions are things that even regular humans have.”

Rumi shoves at her, lightly. “No, babe,” she mocks, but Mira’s stomach does a little flip. Whatever. “Because I went running earlier and now my sweat’s all dried and I feel all sticky and salty.”

If Mira were braver and Rumi were more used to more intimate touches, she’d lick the exposed line of Rumi’s jaw, and joke about her tasting like salted noodles. As it is, she just smiles at her friend and pulls her hands away to allow her to stand, Zoey doing the same from Rumi’s other side. 

Mira’s pretty sure that she’s not imagining the disappointment that flashes across Rumi’s face before it’s schooled into her regular impassive gaze. 

Interesting.

Later, Rumi steps out of the bathroom, her hair almost indigo from being washed. It’s down. Rumi never wears her hair down. Mira can’t even remember if she’s ever seen it down at all; it’s so long that it drags the floor, even as she has it scooped over her shoulder. She scowls playfully at Mira and Zoey, “I didn’t feel like drying it.” Which, you know, fair enough. 

She comes to stand with them at the kitchen counter, pressing herself further into them than she ever has before. She’s dressed in a black sports bra and sweat pants, skin still pink from the shower steam. She smells like Mira’s lavender lotion.

The three of them have leftovers for dinner— Zoey had ordered in the last few nights, hoping that the smell would drag Rumi and Mira from their rooms. No such luck with that plan, but they’re grateful for it now as they eat and take a few ibuprofen pills for their post-crying-session-headaches. 

When they lounge on the couch, Dance Moms playing on their flatscreen, Rumi doesn’t protest at all when both Mira and Zoey slip their fingers into her hair. In fact, as she drifts off to sleep— and Mira has no idea how, with Abby Lee screeching like that over a chair of all things— the patterns around her temples glow softly iridescent. 

And the marks that carve themselves over Rumi’s heart glow in bright, shiny gold. 

Very interesting. 

1. Light Blue: calm/relaxed
2. Purple: scared? insecure
3. Magenta: confused??
4. Pink: angry
5. Light Pink Rose: sad? defeated??
6. Iridescent: pleased/content
7. Gold: ????

Chapter Text

Rumi’s secret is that she knows Mira and Zoey are tracking what her colors mean. She knows that they’re linking the glows to situations and thoughts and feelings, that they’re keeping note of all of it in one of Zoey’s notebooks.

Her other secret is that she already knows what they all mean. 

She’s spent hours since the creation of their new honmoon puzzling out her own colors, watching videos and listening to music and losing herself in memories to bring her strongest emotions to the surface. 

She thinks it’s cute that Mira and Zoey are trying so hard to figure it out on their own rather than ask her. Especially now, since weeks have passed without arguments or tears or coughed-up lies. 

Rumi’s phone buzzes on her bathroom counter, Bobby’s name flashing up at her. “Shit,” she curses, forced to let the few knots of her braid fall. She’ll have to start over.

“Hey, Bobby,” she says, putting him on speaker so she can rebraid her hair while they talk. 

“Rumi!” he chirps, “Are the other girls with you?”

“No, just me. They went to get Mira a new pair of sneakers, I think? She’s been writing a ton of choreography; you’ll love it.”

“That’s great!”

“I know! It’s absolutely beautiful, and it goes so well with Zoey’s new songs— she’s been writing a ton— we’ll have a whole new, tour-ready album by the end of the year.”

“Ugh, my talented girls! But listen, Rumi: there are some…rumors…making their way through socials. Our team is totally on it already, but I wanted you to know before anything gets too crazy.”

Rumi’s fingers pause. Unease bubbles in her stomach, expanding and swallowing her lungs.

“Yeah?” She gasps out.

“Some of the fans are…speculating…on why you took your break.“

“We told them it was to relax after the tour and Idol Awards.”

“Yes, but you guys have never exactly been, ah, relaxed. They’re starting to question why you’ve been on such a long hiatus.”

“And they think it’s because…?”

The words that spill out of Bobby’s lips run together in a way that’s absolutely not at all comprehensible. 

“Bobby, slow down. What?”

“They think that you and the girls had that little temporary breakup for a very…specific reason.”

“Bobby.”

“They think that you’re a closeted lesbian who is in love with Mira and/or Zoey and they found out and hated you for it.”

“Oh.”

Now, to be clear, this isn’t the first time Huntr/x has faced dating rumors; the Saja Boys had been proof enough of that. Standing too close to someone on a red carpet, or holding a conversation just a few seconds longer than passing small talk, and there are ship names trending within the hour.

It’s just not usually the three of them being shipped together. 

Don’t get it twisted; it happens. She’s seen the memes and the edits and the occasional fanart drift across her own socials once or twice or twenty times. 

But there’s never been the connotation of hatred paired with it.

“So what’s the plan?” She asks, because she’s a professional.

“Zoey’s had that Outright allyship shoot done for a while, we’ll just have to push it and get it out ASAP. Mira’s reposted about a hundred posts about supporting the queer community, so we’ll just dig them up or have her post another. We can do a statement, if they want to, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”

“What do I do?”

Rumi can practically hear Bobby’s shrug. “You don’t have to do anything. I called you because I wanted you to hear it from me, and not from some nobody who’s just trying to get clicks. And to remind you that you’re one of my girls, no matter what.”

Rumi smiles at herself in the mirror, her lips stretching further when sparks of periwinkle light up along her arms. 

“Thank you, Bobby.”

“Anything for my girls, you know that! You okay, though? You know that’s not what happened, and that Mira and Zoey would never do that, right?”

“Yeah,” Rumi says, and she does. She’s not lying at all. “I know.”

“Good. I gotta call Outright, see what we can do to push that release up some. Call me if you need me, right?”

“Always. Bye, Bobby!”

“Buh-bye!”

Rumi ties off her braid and bundles up in a cozy HUNTR/X sweatshirt and pajama pants patterned with surfing dogs. She settles herself on the couch, throwing on a k-drama that she’s never seen but is inevitably hooked on by the end of the episode— and when she looks, it’s not even the first one. Evidently, Zoey or Mira had started it at some point, leaving Rumi to have to double back a season and a half. 

Later– and Rumi means that. It’s almost dinnertime, at this point– when Zoey and Mira walk in the door, arms laden with bulky bags, Rumi gives them a strange look, “I thought Mira was the only one getting new shoes.”

“I was,” Mira says, tone flat, but the twitch of her brow betrays her.

“But there was this pair that came in three different colors: one pink, for Mira, blue for me, and purple for you! So then we all had to have them, obviously—”

“Obviously,” Rumi agrees, a smile tugging at her own lips.

“—but the laces they had on them were grey. Like, boring! So I bought new laces for them, too, and then they had these workout sets in the same colors as our new shoes, so I had to get those, too!”

Rumi raises her brows at Mira, who scowls back. “What?” She gripes, newly-freed arms crossing over her chest, “You try stopping her when she makes that face!”

And Rumi knows the one, seeing as she’s fallen victim to it more times than she’s willing to admit. She glances back over at Zoey, whose grin is more victorious than anything. 

“Try on haul?” Zoey asks.

“Later. Bobby called while you were out.”

Both Mira and Zoey straighten. Bobby calls a lot— he checks in on them at least every other day— but if Rumi’s actually bringing it up, it can’t be good news. Rumi powers off the television so she doesn’t have to go back (again) to find her place.

“Zoey, he’s talking to Outright now to try and get that shoot you did for them released sooner. And Mira, if you happen across any of those queer activism posts, would you post it to your story? Bobby says we shouldn’t need a statement, so really everything’s fine, but, you know,” she shrugs here, trying for nonchalance, “Better safe than sorry.”

“Rumi, slow down,” Mira says, reaching out to set a hand on her shoulder. “Why are we doing that?”

“Not that we wouldn’t anyway,” Zoey adds, stepping towards them so that they’re all in the same bubble of not-so-personal space. 

“Right, obviously, but something happened, right?”

“Yeah. Some of the fans think that— oh, I don’t even want to say it.”

Mira’s fingers tighten reassuringly on her shoulder. Zoey reaches out and links their fingers together. Rumi takes a deep breath and tries again.

“Some of the fans think that our temporary breakup was because you two found out that I was— am— gay and hated me for it.”

“What.” Mira’s voice is hard, her jaw clenched so tight that Rumi’s vaguely worried about the cavity filling she’d gotten a few weeks ago. Can’t those pop out with too much pressure?

Zoey’s reaction, predictably, is a lot louder. 

“Why would they even think that?!”

Rumi’s breath catches. Surely Zoey’s not…she’s not. She’s not, because if she is, then Rumi’s going to make their penthouse very, very pink. 

“Why would they think that we’re homophobic?” She wails, her fingers squeezing Rumi’s hand in a way that’s sure to turn it purple, and not in a demon way. Rumi releases her held breath. See? She’s not. 

“I don’t know. I don’t even think it’s a whole lot of them, just a handful of people who are very loud and very wrong.”

“Are they?” Mira asks, catching Rumi’s eyes. “Are they wrong?”

“Wh— you’re not homophobic! I mean, right? You’re not—?”

“What? Of course not! I’m a lesbian!”

Oh. That’s news to Rumi. She knows that, beneath the cover of her hoodie, her marks are pulsing orange with anticipation. “So then how could they be right?”

“I was asking if you’re gay, Rumi. If I ever claim to be anything other than a lesbian, please just punch me in the face, because that’s not me.”

“Oh.” Rumi licks her lips, looking down at the ground. She can feel a heat that has nothing to do with her patterns lick up her throat and down her chest to settle in her stomach.

“You don’t have to say,” Zoey says when Rumi’s obviously taken too long to respond, “It’s okay.”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean— I like boys.”

And Rumi’s not as good at reading people as Mira, and she’s not as emotionally aware as Zoey, but she’s almost positive that she’s not imagining the disappointment that twists both of their mouths.

“Okay,” Mira says, her hand sliding off of Rumi’s shoulder. Rumi wants it back.

Here’s the thing: Rumi has been diligently avoiding the things that she’s wanted for a long time. She’s given up her own wants to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good Hunter. She heels when she wants to bark, stays when she wants to fetch. She’s been so good for so long, never reaching out to take what she wants. 

Her hand that isn’t wrapped in Zoey’s darts out and wraps around Mira’s wrist.

“I like boys,” she repeats, eyes flicking from Mira’s to Zoey’s and back again, “and I like girls, too.”

The shift in mood is instantaneous. Zoey shrieks nonsensically, and a not-so-rare smile blooms across Mira’s lips.

“So they weren’t very wrong,” Mira quips around her smile, “Just, like, partially.”

Rumi rolls her eyes, fond affection warming her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She slides her hand down Mira’s wrist, entangling their fingers and using her hold to yank her forward. 

Despite all of Rumi’s studying of her demon powers, she still doesn’t really know her own strength. 

Mira stumbles forward, right into Rumi, who doesn’t have the time to widen her stance and steady them. They go down, poor Zoey getting dragged down with them.They land in a pile on the floor: Rumi on her back, Mira and Zoey both on top of her, their shoulders digging into her chest.

“Ow,” she grunts, but doesn’t push them off. In fact, she holds them tighter, squeezing.

Mira and Zoey rearrange themselves, shuffling just enough to get comfortable on the floor, Rumi’s chest now serving as their shared pillow rather than armrest. 

They mirror each other, each with a leg hitched up over Rumi’s, one arm slung across Rumi’s stomach and the other snaking underneath Rumi’s back. For all intents and purposes, they could’ve just been trapping her.

She doesn’t feel trapped, though. She feels…heavy. Grounded. Secure. She closes her eyes and basks in the quiet comfort of having the two people closest to her so, well, close. She kind of wants to be absorbed into them entirely, to take up residence behind their ribs. Safe. 

She can’t buy property inside her friends, but the arms wrapped around her will serve as their shared ribcage and Rumi will be a lung, breathing for them while they protect her from the dangers of the outside world.

Even with her eyes closed, Rumi can see the iridescent light that dances off her visible patterns, bright and warm in the dim of dusk.

Rumi’s eyes fly open, startled when Zoey’s hand on her stomach drifts up to the hand that Rumi has wrapped around Mira, and is tracing the patterns on her wrist where her hoodie had slipped down to her elbow.

Zoey stops at Rumi’s hesitation. “No?” She asks.

“No, um, it’s okay. Just wasn’t expecting it. No one ever…touches them like that. Or ever.” Zoey makes a sort of wounded-sounding noise in the back of her throat. Mira tightens her arms around Rumi’s middle. “It’s okay,” she soothes, “Most people can’t see them and Celine…well, you know. Faults and fears and all, and my patterns are both.”

“They’re not a fault,” Mira says– growls, really– pressing her nose into Rumi’s collarbone.

“Yeah! And everyone who can’t see them is missing out. They’re pretty.” Zoey’s fingers skate gently over Rumi’s knuckles.

“I wouldn’t say pretty…”

“I would.” Mira takes her arm that had been over Rumi’s stomach and instead grabs the neck of Rumi’s hoodie and pushes it gently aside to reveal the patterns on her throat and top of her chest. She presses her face there instead, her cold nose stark against the flushed warmth of Rumi’s own skin. Rumi’s breath stutters, her heart taking up a jackrabbit tempo. 

“Gorgeous,” Zoey confirms, pushing herself up enough to line her nose up with the column of Rumi’s throat. Rumi’s lashes flutter as she tries to slow her heartrate. 

“Oh,” Rumi breathes, relaxing beneath Zoey’s and Mira’s grounding touch. She tilts her head back, just a little; Zoey makes a pleased little noise and presses closer. Mira’s arm that’s still wrapped underneath Rumi tightens and she presses her lips, feather light, against the center of Rumi’s collarbone. The patterns there flare orange before shifting into a gold so bright that it lights up the entire penthouse, despite the lack of lighting otherwise.

“So pretty,” Mira murmurs into her skin. Rumi exhales shakily, dragging her hand from the center of Mira’s back up, up, up to cradle the back of her neck and hold her there. Mira hums and Rumi can feel the imprint of a smile against her chest.

Zoey makes a muffled noise of agreement, a mhm that vibrates against Rumi’s throat making her gasp. Zoey pauses, a held breath, before placing a soft, open-mouth kiss against the fluttering of Rumi’s too-fast pulse. The noise that tears from Rumi’s throat can’t be described as anything but a whine. Something distinctly animalistic– demonic. Her gold marks flicker with purple sparks.

Zoey pulls her head back and tugs her arm out from under Rumi to prop herself up on her elbow. She meets Rumi’s eyes with a concerned furrow in her brow. 

“Okay?”

“Um.”

“If you’re uncomfortable–?”

“No!” Rumi says it too loudly in the quiet stillness of their home. “No,” she says again, quieter, “I’m not uncomfortable.”

“Are you sure? Your patterns went kinda purpley.”

Rumi frowns, tearing her eyes away from Zoey to stare at the ceiling, watching the way her glow dances there. 

Before she can answer, a low rumbling sound interrupts their fragile quiet.

A beat, then, “Sorry,” Mira groans, blush high on her cheeks, “We never had dinner.”

Rumi breaks first, a snort devolving into uncontrollable giggles. Zoey huffs, flopping onto her back, her own laughter spilling from her lips. 

“So…dinner?”

Rumi rolls her eyes, gently nudging Mira off of her before standing. “I think we’re out of eggs, but we could do bibimbap without the egg?”

“That takes so lo-ong,” Mira whines, dragging the word.

“It’ll go faster if you and Zoey help me prep,” Rumi probes, sing-song, like she’s trying to convince a child rather than two grown women.

“Ugh. Fine.”

They help chop the vegetables while Rumi starts on the rice and sauce, the three of them moving around the kitchen in gentle companionship, humming and laughing and smiling. Rumi’s marks have started to glow iridescent and gold in equal measure when Zoey clears her throat.

“You never answered my question earlier, Rumi.”

And, you know, Rumi really should’ve seen this coming. Zoey is the sweetest person ever, probably, but she gets hung up on little things. Like Rumi’s marks glowing just barely purple for, like, five seconds. 

“I wasn’t uncomfortable,” she echoes herself from earlier, feeling her body flush at the memory of both Mira’s and Zoey’s lips on her skin and their bodies around her, holding her; of their fingers on her patterns, of their praises. “I promise!”

“O-kay, so why’d you go all purple?” Mira asks, sliding her chopped vegetables into a bowl.

Rumi has to make the conscious decision to not bite at the inside of her lips. It’s been a process, kicking that habit in favor of not having constant splits in the soft skin, and she has no interest in voiding all of that work.

“I…I’m working on being cool with the whole part-demon thing, okay? Some stuff is just, I don’t know, harder to deal with. It had nothing to do with what you two were doing! Well, kind of, but it wasn’t because of you.”

Mira’s eyes light up with recognition. “Because you whined?”

Rumi flushes from the top of her hairline to her toes, chest feeling too-warm. All at once, her marks go purple.

Zoey’s own eyes go bright at Rumi’s reaction: a confirmation. Laughter bubbles from her chest, eyes crinkling, even as Rumi hunches over herself, shoulders rising as she turns to strain the cooked rice.

“Oh, darling, that’s not a demon thing,” Zoey says, breathless with laughter, “It happens to the best of us.” Zoey tugs gently on Rumi’s arm, turning her so that they’re face-to-face before pushing forward to wrap her arms around Rumi’s neck. She pulls her down and kisses her cheek with a loud mwah!

“Plus,” Mira says, coming up behind Rumi and wrapping her arms around Rumi’s waist, “It’s cute.”

The purple dims, just a little bit. 

“And you’re sure you weren’t uncomfortable?” Zoey asks again. Rumi almost rolls her eyes, but Zoey steamrolls over any response. “With both of us, I mean, because we both…well, I guess I shouldn’t speak for Mira, but I really, really like you. Both of you. And I know a lot of people think it’s weird, or unnatural, but I just can’t imagine only having one of you and not the other! So if it does— make you uncomfortable, I mean— we’ll stop and—!”

“Zoey, you’re rambling,” Mira interrupts her, voice hard, but Rumi can still pick up the undercurrent of trepidation.

And here’s the thing: Rumi has been diligently avoiding the things that she’s wanted for a long time. She’s given up her own wants to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good Hunter. She heels when she wants to bark, stays when she wants to fetch. She’s been so good for so long, never reaching out to take what she wants. 

“I think,” she says, one hand covering Mira’s on her stomach and the other reaching up to cradle Zoey’s cheek, “I think that I’ve never been more comfortable in my life.” 

Zoey makes an excited noise and pushes up on her tiptoes to press her lips to Rumi’s. The kiss itself is chaste, barely more than a peck before Mira is complaining about being left out and freeing one of her hands to turn Rumi’s head to have her kiss Mira instead. 

Rumi pulls back, both of them smiling too much to really be kissing, so Zoey grabs Mira’s face and tugs it down to her. 

As she does, their home is drenched in gold.

(Rumi’s list lays on her nightstand, on the back of a receipt:

1. Orange: excited
2. Rose: sad
3. Bright Pink: anger
4. Magenta: confusion
5. Purple: insecure
6. Blue: calm
7. Iridescent (White): content
8. Gold: adoration

She’s not sure why she doesn’t glow some colors, like green or red or silver, but maybe not everything has to have a reason. Maybe, sometimes, you get to have things just because you want them.)

Later sees the three of them curled up together on Zoey’s bed, limbs entangled and more relaxed than any of them have been in a long time. She’s cozy, having ditched her pajama pants in favor of not having a heat stroke with Zoey or Mira or both of them on top of her, but there’s still something that she has to do. With Zoey and Mira sleeping, Rumi stretches awkwardly for Zoey’s phone on the nightstand, wishing briefly for Jinu’s tiger who was strangely absent today. When she finally gets it, she unlocks it (487499: HTRIXZ) and shoots off a message to Bobby.

>>Hey Bobby it’s Rumi. Thanks for calling earlier, we’re all good here:)

<<Always good to hear that my girls are good. Give them my love!!!

>>Always<3

She powers off the phone and curls back into their cuddle pile. As she drifts off to sleep, Zoey’s walls and ceiling swirl with blue and white and gold.