Chapter Text
"I don't know what steps to take // I do the easy ones until it helps.
Little acts of conversation // I don't think I really like myself."
Keep The Rain - Searows
There are plenty of things she could thank Celine for, really. She didn’t even have to think that hard about it. Most of the time, when her idle thoughts wandered back to those earlier years tucked away in a hidden compound with nothing but the two of them and miles of thick gnarled trees, the memories that did linger were light and charming. Like soft little footnotes that floated around in the margins of her mind. How she and Celine had always sat at the dinner table together. Always went out on walks and hikes together. Always put away the groceries—Celine put away the groceries, anyway, until Rumi was tall enough to reach the cabinet shelves—together when Celine returned from the store and pressed the paper bags flat so they could be tucked down neatly in a drawer.
It was easy, or easier at least, to summon memories of warm stomachs and hummingbirds in the garden. To recall the same homely, happy feeling that a warm bowl of budae jigae could conjure. Even if it was from a cheap-papery-takeout bowl from the corner store and about ten degrees too cold, these days. Celine had always said it was for practicality. Something like:
“You could make a bunch all at once, waste less time.”
…or was it:
“It has good protein, to keep you from getting too weak.”?
You always had to finish every last drop of it too, lest you waste some amount of spare change in broth or noodle or sausage or what else. Not that they had ever been starved for money, exactly, but Rumi figured it was the principle of it. It was good manners, at least. Celine always did her best to make sure Rumi had the decency to be polite in spite of only being sort of human, at the end of the day.
It must have been hard. For Celine. Rumi had gotten the sense that Celine never really anticipated, or wanted, to have kids. Let alone Rumi. But Celine had loved her mom and Rumi knew that her mom loved Celine too. So it made sense that she would take care of Rumi after her mother died. That Celine would do this in return.
Celine had been good too. All things considered. They didn’t really do a lot of stuff that normal families did, but Rumi wasn’t a normal kid and they don’t make parental guides for the kind of thing Rumi was—is—anyway.
But Celine did teach her all the important things. Her “please”s and “thank you”s. The “may I”s and “pleased to meet you”s and “how can I help”s. She learned that you always brought a gift when you went somewhere new, especially if it was someone’s home. (Unless it was a store. Then you always had to buy something). When she was really small those were always some of her favorite days, when she and Celine would go out together to a new place. It had not become disconcerting yet, to enter into a place your body didn’t know, where there were probably people you had never met. Where the only thing you could control was what type of homemade dessert you brought and whether to knock or ring the doorbell. If Rumi had thought about it back then, she might have figured somewhere in her developing brain she had crossed the wires of fear and excitement over each other so tightly that they were basically the same. Feelings that involved adrenaline all tend to feel alike, in any case.
It was complicated, teaching Rumi manners, when most of the socializing she did was with tutors and doctors. Seldom did she ever interact with someone that was within ten years of her age in either direction. At the time, the only scenario where she actually met anyone who was a true stranger was in that sterile anti-septic-smelling waiting room at the hospital. It was also the first time she had ever gotten sunburnt.
It had been embarrassing, how it happened. Had Rumi been paying more attention she probably wouldn’t have tripped and sprained her ankle and had to limp the rest of the way home in the sun. They had never gone to an emergency room before, and almost didn’t. Until Celine had found Rumi—and what had been Rumi’s breakfast—sprawled across on the hallway floor. Rumi wanted to tell Celine she was fine, and she really was fine, but Celine had that face on her. The kind that made something in Rumi’s stomach sit heavy and icy and fluttery and tight all at once. It made her feel sick all over again. It made her feel terrible and awful, to have Celine get so upset. Over her. For something stupid that she did to herself. She felt awful and embarrassed and silly and stupid and guilty.
Regardless of what Rumi was, of what Rumi had cost, Rumi knew that her very existence was important. If not for anything else, she was currently the only new Hunter in training. As such, she couldn’t afford to make silly mistakes.
Yet, somewhere inside that hurricane of rotten and awful, Rumi couldn’t help but hold on to each microsecond that Celine looked at her. Like Rumi, suddenly, had her full attention. In that moment, Rumi was overwhelmed by how much she wanted that.
Which, of course, only made her feel worse.
She was grateful to be ushered into the car. Buckled into the back seat with hastily cooled towels and all two of their ice packs thrown across her skin. At least then, she didn’t have to say anything. Celine, thankfully, didn’t talk either. They spent the entire trip in silence, except of the muffled sounds of wind and of other cars as they passed them. It was only after they finally sat down in those dingy fabric waiting room chairs that Rumi realized she was in a new hospital.
There were a myriad of new faces sat at random around the waiting room. Rumi let herself be selfish, cataloguing each new face. Her eyes roamed greedily along each wrinkle, each haircut, each body, if only to focus on something else aside from the lingering shame she couldn’t seem to shake from the car ride over.
At one point, she happened to lock eyes with an older gentleman. Pale-faced and sweaty, a growing stack of sodden tissues in his lap as he waited. He had been rubbing at his nose, and it had been a bit gross to watch, when he looked up and noticed Rumi from several chairs over. His eyes dropped to a strip of skin left exposed under one of the towels Celine had kept draped over her. A raw and scorched stretch of angry red and blisters along her leg. He visibly winced, and Rumi quickly pulled the towel so that it covered her fully. She watched as the old man then looked at Celine, sat stiff as stone in the chair next to Rumi. His face twisted into something dreadful and accusing and all those unpleasant guilty feelings flooded back all at once.
Movement in the corner of the room caught her attention then. A girl, sat near the back of the waiting room, one leg now crossed over the other. The first thing Rumi noticed was her hands. One of her arms was draped over the armrest of the chair, elevated in a way that Rumi knew was uncomfortable, but on this stranger seemed almost natural. Nonchalant, and easy in a way that was completely foreign to Rumi. That elevated hand, however, was a gruesome sight.
Immediately, she knew that the stranger’s hand was broken. Broken bad. Two of the knuckles—the pinky and ring finger—seemed sunken into the meat of her hand. A large bulb of swelling where the bones had certainly fractured. The skin across the top of her hand was shredded and gnarly. Patches of dark crusted blood decorated the high peaks of skin over bone. It would almost be funny, if not for the obvious carnage, that someone had tried to tend to her via a single Hello Kitty bandaid that clearly did nothing to actually staunch the bleeding or stabilize bone. The girl’s other hand—bruised, but in much better shape—supported the wrist of her injured one.
The second thing Rumi noticed was the girl’s hair. It was long. Almost as long as Rumi’s, and Rumi only ever got her hair cut once a year, and by Celine, who only ever really cut off the stringy, broken ends. And it was pink. A loud, bright, hot pink that almost looked red. Idly, Rumi thought, they sort of matched. The stranger’s hot-pink hair and Rumi’s hot-pink skin. It was through that association that Rumi could feel the heat radiating off her, even from the far side of the room.
The third thing Rumi noticed, was that the stranger had the most intense eyes she had ever seen. They were sharp and narrow and steady in a way that landed somewhere between sort-of uncomfortable and straight-up scary. Deep and rich browns dressed up by thick, dark lashes. And they were looking right back at her.
It made her stomach pitch in a sickly direction a bit to close to puking. She felt the air of the waiting room strike up to near unbearable, while all the blood from her fingers to her toes fell the opposite way, straight towards freezing. Rumi remembered a book she had read, months ago, that had little pictures in it. Of bugs stapled to cork board with all their limbs and antenna and wings all pulled out. She had imagined this must be what that felt like. She was the closest person to Rumi’s age that she had ever met. Or at least, had been this close for this long.
Rumi wasn’t sure how long they spent just looking at each other, but she couldn’t help herself. Rumi spent most of her time in that waiting room looking from that stranger’s right eye to her left and then back again.
At one point, the girl across the room quirked her brow. It arched perfectly, unfairly, in what must have been a very practiced movement. Rumi tilted her head, just slightly, in response. Her own gaze now locked on the apex of that arch.
“Rumi,” Her eyes snapped up. Celine still had that crease in her brow, her mouth pressed tightly into a flat line. “Don’t stare.”
Rumi only looked at safer things after that. Her hands. The little picture of the green running man that sat above the door. The weird, purple-brown-confetti-colored carpet on the floor. She kept them down until she caught her own reflection in the bathroom mirror that night. Medicinal salve and capsules momentarily forgotten on the counter as she stared down the glass. Her own withering gaze, too-wide eyes set in a too-red face in a not-at-all-normal kid.
(Years later, in the midst of all the growing pains that came when “I” becomes “Us” Rumi would learn the story behind that hospital visit. How she caved a boy’s nose in. How her parents didn’t come. How she started dying her eyebrows to match her hair, after that visit.)
Having grown up in a private compound without other kids—at least, not yet—also had a lot of upsides. Rumi’s schedule was completely dictated by herself and Celine. Her teachers were some of the best private educators you could find, and her coaches were top performers in their fields, with long track records of success in mentorship. Whatever it was that Celine needed Rumi to learn, she curated the best conditions for Rumi to learn it, and get good at it, fast. Her life orbited around it. Isolation from her peers eliminated any potential distractions, which Rumi understood, even then, and was grateful for.
There were small things, though. Gaps in her education that would crop up now and again. Unnecessary things.
It wasn’t until she had already lost all her baby teeth that one of her tutors, an elderly woman who’s name Rumi never really remembered—and felt quite badly about that, in fact,—told her the kkachi must have really loved Rumi, to give her such healthy teeth. It took Rumi several days of research—and a number bizarrely specific library requests about oral anatomy and avian behavior—to figure out what her tutor was talking about. Along the way, she learned a lot about bird-watching, too. About how you could build little houses for the birds to come visit, if they wanted. Or you can leave out certain kinds of seeds or fruits or nuts or sugar-water and if the birds were hungry they could come down and eat until they were bored. And the birds might even stay for a long time, and make nests and visit more than once, so long as you didn’t get too close to them or bother them at all. In the end, Rumi couldn’t shake the faint but persistent weighty feeling in her stomach after her research was finished. The thought of it, magical magpies, was a bit silly anyway.
Even so, through all of it, from the moment she could even start to form memories, Rumi had always been guided by one thing. The Honmoon. It made sense, after all. The all-encompassing barrier that protected humankind from some absolute and terrifying evil that she was born to protect and serve. That her mother had served and Celine served still. Between the lessons and the hot meals and the sunburns and the baby teeth was the Honmoon. Her sole purpose and mission. It had been the most important factor in Rumi’s life, at the time.
Which may explain why suddenly everything was so…weird.
The Honmoon was sealed. That fact was still a hard thing to believe. It had been so long, so many generations of hunters had tried, and they were able to actually do it. No more late nights chasing tears in the barrier. No more huddling around a pink-stained bathtub sewing each other back together. No more mandatory training session or planning for every worst case scenario. In a way, that old version of Huntr/x was over. They wrapped the tour, wrapped the interviews and fan-signings and meet ups, and officially started on a long-awaited hiatus.
Months lie ahead of them full of empty calendars. In a way, it was nice. An almost fresh start. But, at the same time, Rumi couldn’t shake the unease of it all. All her life, she fought for the future. For this exact thing, to protect her family and her friends, the fans. She’d be lying if she said she even considered this as a possibility. She figured she would follow the path of all the hunters before her and train a new generation when their influence started to fade away.
Or get skewered by a demon. Whatever came first.
Now, with it all done, Rumi was adrift. The whole point was the Honmoon. Even her life with Zoey and Mira, belonged to the Honmoon. Every day since felt like some strange game of ‘dress-up’ Rumi dragged out until someone was tired of playing with her.
What else was left?
Rumi tried not to think about that too much. Not yet, at least.
To be fair, Rumi’s brain was category five mush at the moment, and the soft scrape of Zoey’s blunt nails over her scalp did very little to help.
That is, until Zoey hummed and said. “Rumi, I hope you never go bald.”
Rumi blinked several times. Fog still lingered in her mind, but she was pulled back from some deep floating place enough to hear Mira’s voice from somewhere in the kitchen.
“What?”
Zoey, instead of explaining, raked her nails through Rumi’s hair again. From the very edge of her hairline all the way down to the little baby hairs at the back of her neck. Honestly, Rumi didn’t really need to know what Zoey was talking about.
“Also,” Zoey pressed her finger against the back of Rumi’s left arm, “this one kinda looks like a dog doing a biiiiiiiiig stretch.”
That was another thing. Her patterns.
Something she had spent her entire life trying to hide, were now just…there. It was still difficult a lot of the time, to have them visible. Rumi rarely felt brave enough to wear shirts without sleeves or high collars out in public. But she tried, when she could. Inside the safety of their home, with Zoey and Mira around to reassure her, she could push herself a little harder.
Mira walked around the back of the couch and leaned over, cool eyes on that spot where Zoey’s finger landed. “I see a worm.”
“You say that for literally all of them.” Zoey huffed.
“Because that is what I see.”
“False, you can’t see. I’ve seen your prescription, grandma. I’m shocked they let you drive-“ Zoey squawked as a pillow slammed into her face. “Hey! I’m doing important work here!”
They wrestled a bit more. Mira trying to shove Zoey’s face into the couch and Zoey valiantly fighting back while trying not to smack Rumi with her elbows. On the TV, some documentary played. They had started it nearly an hour ago just to kill the stale quiet of the penthouse. Something about the history of fishing. An ancient-looking man with a giant white beard and an even larger wide-brimmed hat was on screen, talking about lures.
(Rumi would come back to this documentary later, when she was alone in her room. She would spent the rest of the night watching him talk about all the different types of lures that fish liked through the tiny screen on her phone. She’d look them up after, too, until she could envision them without looking.)
“Now I have to start over,” Zoey grumbled. Rumi, through the haze, could feel the soft tugs of Zoey’s hands as she unraveled the braid for what was probably the fourth time since they sat down. “I feel like my arms are going to fall off,” she said, as she ran her hand through Rumi’s hair, making no move to start re-doing her braid just yet.
“Hm,” Rumi replied, with the last remaining braincell she had. She could feel the soft puffs of Zoey’s breath on the back of her neck as she laughed.
“Maybe you should let someone else take over,” Mira said as she plopped down on the couch next to them, “Might actually get done during our lifetime.”
Rumi could hear the smile in Zoey’s voice when she said, “Jealous?” Mira’s face pinched into a scowl. She reached over and shoved her fingers into Zoey’s side. Zoey squealed and batted Mira’s hand away. “Fine! Fine, geez.” Rumi could feel Zoey twisting her hair with barely any effort. She leaned forward to whisper in Rumi’s ear, loud enough for Mira to hear. “Someone’s grumpy.”
Rumi cracked one eye open and peeked at Mira, who admittedly, did look a bit petulant from her little corner on the couch. Rumi huffed out a quiet laugh. Mira’s eyes narrowed.
“What I am is bored.” Mira grumbled. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m getting a bit tired of couch time.”
It had been just over a month since their vacation had started. At first, it had been heavenly. Uninterrupted time to sleep, eat, catch up on shows and chores and re-lax-ation. The first week alone was spent mostly unconscious and, in the few hours they were sentient, at the bathhouse. Yet, as the days passed they started to blend together. They had developed some sloth-esque routine of ordering in, watching shows, lounging on couches, then going to bed just to do it all over again. Trained from youth for constant high-stakes high-adrenaline activities, the sudden cold-turkey-ing of their daily lives felt a little like withdrawal. Rumi had to agree that things had gotten a bit too quiet, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t even know where to start.
Lucky for her, she didn’t have to figure it out.
Zoey tied off the end of Rumi’s braid as she finished and slid out from behind her, taking the small space between Mira and Rumi. She pushed at Mira’s shoulder, forcing her to scoot further into the corner of the couch.
“What you need is a hobby, Mi-Maw.” She said.
“Ugh, definitely not,” Mira’s faced scrunched up in disgust at the nickname. “And I have plenty of hobbies.”
“Oh yeah? Name ten hobbies you have.”
Mira raised a brow. “Zoey, nobody has ten different hobbies."
“Okay, then five.”
Mira held up her hand, counting off her fingers, “Dancing—“
“Nope!” Zoey shook her head, “Can’t be something we already do for work. Hobbies are strictly for leisure time, work stuff doesn’t count.”
Rumi frowned. That didn’t make any sense. That pleasant fog abated.
“But, what if we like the stuff we do, even if it’s for work?” Rumi asked. Zoey and Mira looked to her, like they hadn’t expected her to chime in.
“Then we’re really lucky,” Zoey said, smiling, “But it’s also important to have stuff you like doing that isn’t for money, or fans, or anyone else. Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy something that’s just for you, y’know?”
Rumi tilted her head. She didn’t know. The way Zoey said it was soft and sweet. Kind of like how Celine used to say stuff to Rumi when she was a lot younger. Which almost negated the little twisting feeling that settled in Rumi’s stomach. Almost.
Zoey turned back to Mira, not even pretending to hide her smug little face. “I’ll make it easy. Name one thing you do for fun, that isn’t singing or dancing or related to music.”
Mira opened her mouth.
“Playing word games on your phone also doesn’t count.”
“Of course that counts!"
The two of them stared each other down. A series of minuscule eyebrow twitches between them. Some silent battle, until Mira—unable to answer—scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Rumi?” Zoey asked. “What about you?”
Something she does for fun? Something she would do even without fans, or money? That was easy.
“Hanging out with you guys.” She said.
Mira huffed, but Rumi could see the faintest flush of pink across her cheeks. Zoey turned and placed both of her hands on Rumi’s cheeks, and pressed so they squished in a bit.
“Sap,” Zoey cooed, “That, while very sweet, is also not a hobby.”
Well, Rumi couldn’t help but feel a little dumb.
“Well, what do you do then? Since you’re such an expert?” They really must have been entering the ‘cabin-fever’ stage, if Mira was being this cranky. Rumi would never say it, but the picture of her—long limbs all tucked up on the couch, face pinched and pouty, light flush high up to her ears—was unfortunately cute. Zoey leapt to her feet, smile bright.
“I’m so glad you asked!” She whipped out her phone, and began to scroll through something, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately, like, how crazy it is that all the stuff we do together is also stuff that we have to do? I mean it’s fun and my biggest dream and life purpose for sure—but—I was watching this video online about this guy that knows a bajillion languages—,”
“Bajillion can’t be a real number,” Mira mumbled.
“—and I was thinking about how I had to learn just two languages as a kid. Then I started thinking about all the other stuff I used to do as a kid, and how it would be fun to try that stuff again now that the Honmoon is chill—,”
“Chill?” Rumi whispered. Mira shrugged.
“—and I realized I don’t really know what other kind of stuff you guys used to do as kids.” Zoey pressed her phone against her chest. That brilliant smile now changed to something more sheepish. “I don’t know, I thought maybe it could be fun. Like, to try something new together.”
Used to do as kids.
Rumi realized she must have misunderstood something, somewhere in all of Zoey’s rambling. Ever since she was born, she’s always done the same things. In fact, they were things other kids did too, sometimes. Sing and dance, math and martial arts. Made even more meaningful for their purpose. Had Rumi not spent every second of her life doing those things, there is a high chance they’d have been demon kibble before they even left the compound.
Doing things out of necessity and doing things out of desire were the same.
Mira leaned over the arm of the couch, chin propped up in her hand. Her peevishness somewhat soothed. Rumi could empathize. Zoey always did have some innate ability to endear herself to anything that breathed. Her charm was impossible to fight, and Rumi had given that battle up a long time ago. Idly, Rumi thought, if they had been able to put Zoey in front of Gwi-Ma long enough they could have solved the Honmoon situation with a lot less drama.
Mira, on the other hand, seemed to get off on always being a bit of a brat. With Rumi unsure how to proceed, Mira was left with the reigns. She let the quiet sit long enough to watch Zoey squirm just a bit, until her lips twitched, and the bit was over.
Mira shrugged with one shoulder, “Sure, why not.”
Zoey cheered, throwing both hands in the air.
“Oh my god, I’m so excited, I have a list!” Zoey pressed a loud kiss to both Rumi and Mira’s foreheads. “I figure maybe we can make it a game, or put a bunch of ideas in a hat or something. We can always add more stuff, of course, but I have some ideas just to start us off.”
Mira leaned in close to Rumi, smirk playing on her lips, “Who’s gonna tell her watching instagram videos isn’t a hobby either?”
Rumi bumped her shoulder against Mira’s, lightly chastising, “Be nice.”
Mira gave a quiet chuckle. Her breath warm and light against Rumi’s ear, “Sure, unnie. I’ll behave.”
Mira leaned back, arms loosely crossed, as she watched Zoey giggle at her phone. Rumi, to her credit, did not make a big deal about the blooming tingles that coursed from her ear all the way down the side of her neck. The brief flood of sparkling static across the top of her brain.
Huh.
“I figure we can start with something laid back,” Rumi reeled back as Zoey’s phone was shoved in her face. Opened was a note-taking app with a list off bullet points that trailed down beyond the screen. “Rumi, you pick first. Mira, you get to pick last.”
“Last? I’m feeling targeted.”
“That’s ‘cause you are.”
Rumi leaned back and squinted at the screen, which was still far to close to actually read without her eyes straining. Plus, with Zoey and Mira arguing, the phone kept bobbing so that Rumi could only make out a handful of words. One entry on the list, however, popped out to her.
“Bird-watching?” Rumi read.
“Oh, yeah!” Zoey threw herself down next to Rumi. She leaned over and pointed to the list, where ‘bird-watching’ sat innocently. “I figured this was a pretty lowkey thing. Mostly just an excuse to go out, really, but I figure we can be like those old ladies at the park that are always surrounded by birds and stuff.”
Mira caught Rumi’s gaze over Zoey’s head and raised a brow and mouthed ‘old ladies?’. Rumi shrugged.
Zoey looked up at Rumi, then Mira, when they remained silent. Her smiled faltered just a fraction. “Or, I mean, it’s a bit silly. We could do something else, too.”
Mira, always quicker on the up than Rumi, stood, “Sounds fun. Let’s do it.”
They stopped at a little corner store on the way to grab the ‘essentials’. Rumi mostly waited by the fridge section with Mira, who grabbed a handful of cold waters and juice, while Zoey stacked snacks and bread high in her arms. Mira made the reasonable point that there was no way they were going to need half the store’s stock of food for birds. Zoey only relented when Rumi made a comment about getting the birds sick. In the end, they left the store with several drinks, a full loaf of white bread, dried peaches, some small bags of potato crisps, and two small snack bags of sunflower seeds.
“My dad and I used to do this all the time back in America,” Zoey said around a mouthful of crisps. Her cheeks were all puffed out in a way that reminded Rumi of a hamster, “We had to stop going to the park by our apartment cause the birds would chase us if we didn’t bring bread with us.”
Zoey offered a crisp out to Rumi, who took it from between her fingers. Rumi reached into the bag of peaches and fed one to Zoey in return.
Mira’s eyebrows furrowed behind her sunglasses. “How did they even recognize you? They’re birds.”
“Actually, birds are like, super intelligent—,” and Zoey was gone, regaling them both on the impressive brain capacity of different types of birds, with no sign of stopping. Rumi sneaked a glance and Mira, most of her face obscured by her hat and her dark glasses, but nothing could hide that soft little curl at the corner of her mouth.
That was something she noticed Mira doing a lot, since their break. Sure, Mira—even Rumi on occasion—could tease until they were blue in the face about Zoey being a “Yap-oholic.’(Zoey’s own term, that she apparently discovered from an english fan account). But Mira could always find little ways to bait Zoey into rattling off for hours. Whether it was about song ideas, or animal facts, or places to eat, Mira always managed to say just the right thing to send Zoey off. She listened too. Sometimes, she’d even quote a fact or comment Zoey had mentioned ages ago, and Zoey’s eyes would sparkle like little evening stars. Rumi couldn’t even make fun of her for it. She’d do the same thing just to see Zoey look at her like that, if she only knew how.
Rumi admired that about Mira, how she could put her own pride aside just to carve out a little space for Zoey to shine. Of course, she admired quite a lot about Mira in general.
Zoey was right, Rumi was getting sappy. Maybe she really did need to get out more.
Rumi pulled her hood a little lower. The streets themselves were busy as the afternoon crowds bustled through. Swarms of people moved in and out of stores and office buildings, either going home or to an early dinner. Groups of them pushed and pulled, the streets swelled and shrank in rhythm. Inhale and exhale. It kind of reminded Rumi of those schools of fish in the sea. Or wax inside a lava lamp.
It had cooled a bit, since the sun had started to fall behind the tall buildings of the city, but Rumi could feel that sticky heat under her jacket. Dense bodies packed in close made the heat spike, from proximity or anxiety was hard to tell. Rumi pulled the collar of her hoodie away from the wet skin on her neck, in a bid with the air to tempt some cool breeze under it.
Mira and Zoey flanked to either side, bags swinging just too wide to be accidental, and managed a small breach of space for them. Just enough to part the crowds until they reached the trailhead. Mira’s hand found Rumi’s as they walked, the cool tips of her fingers sat on the small slip of skin above Rumi’s palm, right where her pulse beat quick and light. It was a relief in its own way, cool and confident. Rumi, happily, let herself be lead by that guiding touch.
It wasn’t a long walk to the park, and crowded streets aside, it didn’t take long for them to reach those first cutaways of green.
It was always beautiful, these places, any time of year. It had been some time, Rumi realized, since they’d had a chance to be out together without anything to do. Longer still since they had spent any meaningful time in nature. Ever since they moved into the city, after leaving Celine’s behind. It was a shame, thinking on it now, how much they took it for granted. These parts of their homeland, full of life that had been there long before any person had.
In all the places they toured around Korea, around the world, Rumi couldn’t ever imagine calling anywhere else home.
They took the wide-paved trail into the park. The walkways were all shaded now, as the sun curved westward across the sky. Above them stood trees that were tall with bushy green needles all bundled thick together, or stouter with dense canopies of leaves colored richly with green and yellow, little spots of orange spotted among their branches. Ferns and potentilla and glasswort and white forsythia lined the edges of the trail all tangled and knotted together. All their foliage packed in tight, and between them, bushels of white-petalled flowers peeked with their centers stuffed full of yellow pollen. Like little powdered sponges made for the bees to press their little cheeks on.
The throngs of people had since dispersed, and the three of them could walk without needing to press up with each other. Still, Mira’s hand stayed against Rumi’s wrist. A gentle usher as they sought out a place to stop. Rumi could hear them, all the birds and bugs tucked up in the safety of the trees as they called and chirped. It reminded her a lot of being at the compound, when her and Celine would go hike—or just sit out under the big birch trees together.
She hadn’t spoken to Celine in a while.
Before she had a chance to feel guilty about that, Zoey latched onto her, finger pointed somewhere up ahead.
“What about there?” Rumi followed her direction to a little bench sat just off the side off the pavement on a little patch of grass. “We might even be able to see over some of the city from there.”
Rumi looked up at Mira, only to find Mira looking back at her. Mira shrugged, with a small tilt of her head.
“Sounds great,” Rumi said as she turned back to Zoey.
Zoey grabbed Rumi’s hand and started to pull her over to the bench, grinning. “Then let’s go! I wanna make sure we have enough time before it starts getting dark and the bugs start biting me.”
“Your fault for being so sweet,” Mira droned. Rumi pinched the bridge of her nose. Zoey just laughed.
“God, you are such a loser. I’m gonna expose you.”
“No one will ever believe you.”
They settled together on the bench. Zoey on one end, Rumi on the other, and Mira sandwiched between them. Mira refused to participate in the actual ‘luring’ of the birds. She had said, “The task is bird-watching, not bird-feeding,” as well as, “I don’t like their beady eyes.” Naturally, Zoey shoved her in the middle so she should get ‘maximum bird exposure.’
Zoey tore into the loaf of white bread she got from the store and quickly began to tear a slice into little bite-sized pieces. Rumi watched as she pulled the bread apart, a giddy grin plastered onto her face, her tongue—wet and red—caught between her teeth. Once she had them separated to her liking, Zoey took a handful and tossed them in a wide arc on the grass in front of them.
A small group of birds, stocky and grey, descended onto them. Conditioned from years of people tossing trash and crumbs and chunks of bread, they approached without fear and pecked away. Zoey turned to Mira and Rumi, beaming with all her teeth.
Rumi tore open her small bag of sunflower seeds and collected a little handful of them. With much less fanfare, she sprinkled them around the grass so that they landed a safe distance away. She made sure to keep them far enough away from their bench. She didn’t want to get to close, lest she accidentally scare the birds off.
Slowly, but surely, those little birds started to explore the grass for the little treats. They hopped about on their thin legs and cooed. Rumi carefully added more and more seeds to the ground, as more birds appeared and picked at them. She had been so focused on being careful, she hand’t realized that a flock had formed near their bench until she felt Mira’s hand press over hers, halting her.
“Damn, Rums, you’re like a bird whisperer,” Zoey, bread forgotten, curled up onto the bench to watch Rumi and the small flock of brown-grey birds gathered at her feet. Rumi hadn’t really noticed how many had started to peck at the grass by her shoes, where she had spread the seeds. She didn’t know whether it was cute, or off-putting, to have all those little beady eyes watch her.
Mira leaned over to Zoey, conspiratorially, “A chick magnet.”
Zoey slapped a hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to cover her laugh. Rumi, exasperated and embarrassed in equal measure, slapped Mira on the shoulder. The birds startled at the sudden movement and fluttered up into the trees. Rumi winced.
“Shut up,” Rumi scolded, a bit half-heartedly, still guilty from scaring the birds. “Besides, they’re turtle-doves, they’d technically be squabs.” She reached across Mira and offered the rest of her seed bag to Zoey. “Here, they’re pretty granivorous, so…”
Zoey took the offered bag, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Huh. I thought they were pigeons.”
They were actually both part of the Columbidae family. If you wanted to be a purist about it, you could argue that doves were of the smaller variety when compared to the more robust pigeon. Depending on what kind of dove, you could also denote they had specific feather markings or patterns, different pitched coos and peeps from their larger cousins. You could point out that pigeons tended to be native to North American and European territories, whereas doves tended to be more common in East Asia. Or that Dove and Pigeon evolved from Germanic and Latin respectively, which could imply enough difference in genealogy to prove they are, in fact, different subfamilies—or (more reasonably perhaps) that different cultures could come up with different names for the same thing.
Rumi wasn’t a purist. She also wasn’t particularly partial to doves or pigeons or any of the Columbiformes to care that much. Except to know they liked seeds.
“Same thing,” Rumi shrugged.
Zoey pulled out a handful of seeds from the bag and tossed them into the grass. The Dove-Pigeons descended in a thick flock, all soft coos and flapping wings. Zoey, enraptured by a particularly chunky one, whipped out her phone and started to snap pictures.
Rumi leaned back into the park bench. Despite the hard panels of wood and metal digging into her back it was nice, she’ll admit, with the scent of fresh air and blooming flowers. The soft breeze that curled around her neck and under the sleeves of her shirt, cool, even under the high sun. Blessedly, no one had yet noticed them—and if they had, they were respectful enough to keep quiet about it. It was peaceful.
She rolled her head to the side, just to look, and caught Mira’s gaze. She’d been watching Rumi, eyes hidden behind dark lenses. Rumi couldn’t tell without seeing, whether Mira was merely looking too, or worse, inspecting.
In any case, Rumi could feel heat crawl up her neck. Mira’s mouth quirked just a little, then flattened out. Rumi wished she could read her better. Wished she could identify all those little twitches and flickers and arched eyebrows. Knew a little better what Mira was thinking. Rumi had always felt that Mira could read her mind, even if she didn’t mean too. Mira was always so discerning and Rumi was, most of the time, quite terrible at pretending.
“I didn’t know you knew so much about birds,” Mira said.
Rumi, bashful for whatever reason, said, “I don’t, really. I mean—not like other people, I’m sure."
Mira’s face did another series of well-controlled twitches before it settled into something neutral. Rumi ground her teeth together in her mouth. For some reason, she felt she had done something wrong just now, but couldn’t figure out what.
Zoey knocked their shoulders together, the movement travelled between them like a Newton’s Cradle. Whatever tension had built in that brief silence, evaporated. “Whatever you say, Zo-Rum-bafoo.” She said.
Mira’s eye roll could be seen even behind her thick glasses. “I’m not even going to pretend to know that reference.”
“That means you need more exposure to American culture.”
“I actually can’t think of anything I need less.”
Eventually, their snacks ran empty and the birds dispersed, as they tend to do when you run out of the only thing they want from you. The three of them spent some time longer just sat together on that bench. They argued over TV shows and major formative celebrities of their childhood until Zoey had demanded they all head home to binge through some show about a man who solo’d through some of the worlds most treacherous environments. Mira, to her credit, seemed excited. If nothing else, to enjoy some intense survival entertainment that involved some amount of fire. Rumi, who knew enough about different knots and how to start fires with string and sticks, was content to keep the day alive for just a little longer.
Eventually, they found themselves back on the couch, all pressed up together, Zoey spread across Rumi and Mira’s laps. Rumi wrapped her arms around Zoey’s waist, Zoey’s fingers absently tracing along the edges of her patterns. The warm heat of her lured the fatigue behind Rumi’s eyes like a siren. Rumi rested her chin on Zoey’s shoulder, and let her eyes slip closed. Just for a few moments.
Rumi must have dozed off, somewhere in the middle of an episode about the American Rockies. When she came to, it was to the gentle music of a ‘Planet Earth’ documentary, a firm hand on her shoulder, and hot breath on the side of her face, a quiet voice whispering her name.
“Mhm,” she managed, eloquently. The voice—Zoey—laughed, sweet and serene.
“I think it’s bedtime, eepy,” Zoey nudged her shoulder into Rumi’s. Rumi, who was absolutely discontent with the thought of moving, groaned long and childish. She pressed her forehead back into Zoey’s neck and slumped against her, as if she could will her to allow a few more minutes. Zoey humored her for a moment, her hand reached up and scratched soothingly along the back of Rumi’s neck. Rumi hummed at the feeling so deeply she could feel her whole chest rumble with it.
She could feel Zoey’s shoulders tremble with her silent laughter. “Be strong, Bubs, or I’m gonna make you be the one that has to wake up Mira.”
Rumi cracked one eye open and peered over to where Mira was curled up on the couch. At some point, she had pulled her long legs up and tucked her knees against her chest. She had her arms wrapped loosely around one of the couch pillows, with her face cushioned against it. Her glasses had been pushed askew on her face, and she had bits of her long, pink hair pressed up against her face. Placid in a way she hardly ever was awake. Rumi sighed and sat up.
“Fine,” she huffed. Zoey smiled wide and beautiful.
“So proud of you,” She teased in a way that was too tender to actually land. She pressed a soft kiss to Rumi’s forehead as she stood, “Goodnight, Rumi.”
In her groggy haze, Rumi stumbled to her bed. Her feet dragged on the floor, and just as she flopped forward on her mattress, her foot collided with a solid heavy thing under her bed. She groaned and rolled over.
“C’mon…” She slid off the bed and reached underneath to pull out the thing that so rudely got in the way of her foot. She pulled out a slightly dusty cardboard box. It’s top folded closed.
Right. That. She had almost forgotten.
She rubbed at her eyes, which stayed stubbornly blurry. She remembered ages ago when she had first packed this box and shoved it under her bed. A promise that she would get to it later that she never actually intended to fulfill.
Maybe it was fatigue, or maybe it was the lingering heat on her skin from the sun, or some secret third thing she was too tired to even imagine right now that had her opening the box.
Inside, was a stack of books. All of which varied in size and shape, and all of which remained unopened since Rumi first received them. She remembered when they first started to show up in their mailbox. One or two at a time, each wrapped with brown butcher paper or something similar, each tied with little letter cards with ‘To: Rumi’ printed on them in looping, exquisite script. Each one signed ‘Celine’.
Celine had started sending them some time after their debut, with long chunks of time between. At first, Rumi wasn’t aware Celine had even mailed her something until over the phone she had asked.
“Did you get the package I sent?”
After that, Rumi would always wait on the phone with Celine, talking about work or the Honmoon or traveling until Celine would ask if Rumi got her latest parcel. It had become Celine’s way of signaling she had to hang up soon. Rumi would always tell her yes. Celine never asked if she read any of the books she sent, or what she thought of them, and Rumi never asked why Celine bothered to send them in the first place.
(Well, she had an idea. Especially after opening the first one and seeing a book called Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow. Rumi had been so mortified she kicked it into her closet and left it there for weeks).
Eventually, she’d accumulated enough to justify their own container. Thus, this box of inconvenience. Rumi picked up one of the books from the top. It was a quasi-journal-workbook thing with little pictures of flowers and burning suns on it. For a brief moment, she considered opening it. Perhaps a quick skim of the pages. Maybe then she could understand what the hell Celine wanted from her.
Quick as it came, that thought fled, and Rumi dropped the book back in the box. She haphazardly folded the cardboard flaps closed and pushed the box—mostly—back under her bed. She’d get to it later.
With a yawn and a stretch, Rumi crawled under the covers, and fell asleep.