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Even in her isolated section of Jeju Island Celine had heard about the surprising ballad that had HUNTR/X topping the charts. It wasn’t their usual style, it didn’t have the fast paced rapping, the gut punch deep vocal timbre delivering lines like a fist, or the typical trap beat mixed with floaty pop that always became a crowd pleaser when mixed with their unique styles. This song was more visceral. There was talk about how Rumi’s vocals were beautiful and raw, the harmonies Mira and Zoey provided were a seamless compliment to the intensity of the lyrics. Multiple reviews claimed it was a crown jewel of emotion for an album already packed with intensity, sincerity, and undeniable marketability. There was speculation it was a love song, yet there was never a mention of a lover, or even a gender the song was being sung to. Recordings of live performances showed Rumi at a piano, Mira and Zoey flanking her, protecting her as she poured out her heart. It wasn’t typical K-Pop choreography and that had made it all the more eyecatching.
Celine hadn’t been intentionally avoiding HUNTR/X music. She’d simply been acting as a silent sentinel to the past. The mounds of dead hunters, draped in the new honmoon needed to be tended to, and that was her priority. Yet, she couldn't deny that at the market, in the car, on the ferry, she’d avoided the radio. She hadn’t been watching TV as she used to, she hadn’t been using her phone as often. She’d studiously stuck to remote work for the label HUNTR/X was contracted with, and only ventured far enough to monitor financials, PR, and auxiliary details that were always more divorced from the actual music itself.
It was after coming back from another trip to the grocery store that she decided to turn on the ballad one night. She’d seen a magazine on the rack at the store that had all three girls on the cover, announcing multiple Grammy nominations for the song and the album as a whole. It was a first for a K-Pop band, and even under the carefully crafted shot on the cover, Celine could see the shine of excitement in all 3 of them. She’d known about the nomination, it was her job to know. What she hadn’t seen, in so long, was that excitement and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.
It was with little fanfare, and a lot of trepidation at hearing Rumi’s voice for the first time since the honmoon was reforged, that Celine put on her noise cancelling headphones and selected the track.
[verse]
Tell me that I′m special, tell me I look pretty
Tell me I'm a little angel, the sweetheart of your city
Say what I′m dying to hear
'Cause I'm dying to hear you
Tell me I′m that new thing, tell me that I′m relevant
Tell me that I got a big heart, then back it up with evidence
I need it and I don't know why
This late at night
Acceptance. Understanding. She could hear it vibrating from that angelic voice, the piano no doubt being directed by Rumi. Celine tried to just listen, despite the nagging feeling at the back of her mind. These are all words you could say about idol life, about wanting the fans to validate you, she reasoned. Rumi’s voice swelled into the chorus.
[chorus]
Isn′t it lonely?
I'd do anything to make you want me
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be
The number one girl in your eyes
Your one and only
So what′s it gon' take for you to want me?
I'd give it all up if you told me that I′d be
The number one girl in your eyes
Building desperation. It was tearing at Celine’s flimsy delusion that this was just a basic pop ballad, a song about anyone. The vocals weren’t overly produced, they were strong, but with a hint of a hitch, as if there were tears just under the surface, pleas. Your one and only. What was Rumi if not her only child? The last connection to such great love she’d carried around in her heavy grief?
[verse]
Tell me I′m going real big places, down to earth, so friendly
And even through all the phases, tell me you accept me
Well, that's all I′m dying to hear
Yeah, I'm dying to hear you
Tell me that you need me, tell me that I′m loved
Tell me that I'm worth it and that I′m enough
I need it and I don't know why
This late at night
That line: Tell me you accept me. There was no stopping the choking sob, a sound she didn’t think she could make after all these years of burying the stones of her past. Tell me that I′m loved wasn’t what slipped into her mind so persistently, it was the quiet part, the I’m loved for all of me. That was a shape so large in its omission. It was a plea that was loud in its absence, a buzzing sound in an empty room that couldn’t be turned off because how do you escape silence that exists in sound? The harmonies of Zoey and Mira on certain lines, as if holding Rumi up, allowing her to expose the most fragile pieces of herself.
[chorus]
Isn't it lonely?
I′d do anything to make you want me
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be
The number one girl in your eyes
Your one and only
So what′s it gon' take for you to want me?
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be
The number one girl in your eyes
It was shrapnel, directly to all the pieces of her that Celine thought she’d fortified. The trenches around the painful memories were flooding, the tears rolling down her face. So what′s it gon' take for you to want me? Not love her, not care for her. Just to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be thought of, to be wanted. Not as a daughter, not as a friend, not as anything other than herself.
[bridge]
The girl in your eyes (eyes)
The girl in your eyes (eyes)
Tell me I′m the number one girl
I'm the number one girl in your eyes
The girl in your eyes (eyes)
The girl in your eyes (eyes)
Tell me I'm the number one girl
I′m the number one girl in your eyes
The repetition, over and over, all of them together, singing for something. It was Rumi Celine heard, her voice that came through so clearly. Her want, her simple ask. She wasn’t singing that out to the universe, she was singing it to Celine.
[chorus]
Well, isn′t it lonely?
I'd do anything to make you want me
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be
The number one girl in your eyes
Your one and only
So what′s it gon' take for you to want me?
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be
The number one girl in your eyes
I′d give it all up if you told me that I'd be, The number one girl in your eyes. And hadn’t Rumi done just that when she offered up her life? When she’d honestly believed that Celine would do it? She couldn’t drown out the memory of Rumi pleading, saying she was a mistake–a mistake Rumi thought Celine would correct. Celine said she couldn’t do it–not wouldn’t do it. She’d pointed to a promise, not love, that made her take in Rumi. She’d said she’d tried to accept her. For all her experience as a singer, crafting words that strengthened the fabric between worlds, all she’d done was recite a condemnation to the woman, the child, she’d cared for all her life.
[outro]
The number one girl in your eyes
How could she reach out across the world to tell the child she’d raised that she did love her? Rumi was right here in the room, a ghost haunting Celine with gentle vulnerability. How could she have broken the death wish of her greatest friend? She’d promised to take care of Rumi, but what was this song if not an indictment? She wished Rumi had released a diss track, a scathing rap filled with deserved hatred. She wanted a pounding in her head from banging drums announcing a war of wrath and judgement. A jagged edge of broken glass that could be lodged into her heart, swiftly injecting pain that could pass after the initial attack.
This–this melody full of truth and emotion–was a scalpel, so precise to all the places that mattered. It wasn’t full of accusations or statements, it was questions. It was pleas. Despite everything, Rumi only sang about wanting, about trying, about all she’d do for just a fraction of the love she deserved. What could Celine do but fall to pieces at such a gentle yet exacting crack to her glass armor?
She kept her headphones on, playing the song back over and over. A river of fire, pouring so smoothly. It didn’t snap, it didn’t hiss, it simply burned in its attempt to find warmth. No one else on the island knew the relentless rain of heartache that was passing over their part of the world, none of them could feel the earthquake of a ballad that had split the ground beneath Celine’s feet.
Of course it was a chart topper. Of course the fans loved it and the honmoon vibrated with strength. Who wouldn’t be moved by such an admission of wanting? What would inspire more love than a baring of the soul?
Why didn’t I ever let her call me Mom? Why didn’t I tell her I love her? Why didn’t I say that even without a promise, I’d have chosen her? Listening over and over, a torrent of her own questions rose to meet Rumi’s. Questions she knew she didn’t have an answer for, questions she knew would only be a trickle in the face of the waterfall of emotion in this song.