Chapter Text
“We could schedule it on the twenty third, we don’t have anything booked that day,” Rumi taps her pen against her planner, trying to figure out where to put an event in their busy comeback schedule.
“Um, no we can’t? I cleared that day for a reason?” Zoey protests.
“You did?” she tilts her head.
Zoey swallows the retort that if she weren’t around, Rumi would work herself into an early grave.
“It’s your birthday?!” she reminds her, voice going high in her disbelief.
“Oh yeah,” Rumi notes, casual as if it’s an afterthought. “We can still-”
“Absolutely not,” Zoey puts her foot down.
“It’s not a big deal-”
“Uh-uh,” she shakes her head before Rumi can finish. “I put up with the ‘I don’t care about my birthday’ stuff before when we were hiding patterns and bottling feelings-”
“You were hiding patterns?” Rumi jokes and Zoey rolls her eyes.
“You know what I mean. Now I know you love it when we spoil you, so I’m not buying it anymore. Why don’t you want us to celebrate your birthday?”
“Let her have it, Zo,” Mira smirks as she enters the kitchen, placing her empty mug in the sink.
“Thanks for teaming up against me,” Rumi mutters at Mira who just eyes her with that teasing and affectionate look they both love.
“I’m curious, too,” Mira shrugs.
“I don’t know,” she answers, pensive, and this time it sounds genuine. “I guess Celine never made a big deal out of it so I thought that was normal.”
“I mean, not everyone makes a Zoey-tier production out of it,” Mira reasons. “But some kind of acknowledgement is nice.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining about Zoey-tier productions last night.”
“I wasn’t, Zoey-tier is top-tier,” Mira holds her hands up, disarming.
“So, like, what did Celine do on your birthdays?”
“Tell me happy birthday?”
“That’s it?” Zoey exclaims, truly horrified.
“Is there supposed to be more?”
“If you have a halfway normal parent, I think so,” Mira answers and Zoey whirls on her.
“Oh my god, you are not off the hook for that, we’ll get to you when it’s your birthday,” she admonishes before turning back to Rumi. “Yeah, there’s supposed to be more than that. At least your favorite dinner or something.”
“Oh,” Rumi blanches. “That explains a lot.”
“Explain to me?” Zoey asks, tone a little gentler as she takes in Rumi’s downcast eyes, darting around as if looking for an escape.
“Apparently my favorite was my mom’s favorite too. Also, the anniversary of her passing was, like, a week after my birthday, so she was always kinda…” she trails off, letting the silence speak for her.
“Sad,” Zoey finishes. Rumi nods in agreement.
“That’s…tough,” Mira acknowledges.
“Yeah. But at the same time, it sounds like she let your birthday get wrapped up in the sads.”
“Maybe but I don’t think it was just that. I think even if my mom was around, she’d have complicated feelings about me,” Rumi laughs but Zoey and Mira don’t join in. She clears her throat awkwardly, clearly struggling to finish the thought weighing on her. “I think my birthday might’ve been sad for her on its own.”
Zoey keeps her shoulders straight, keeping her expression as neutral as she can so she doesn’t upset Rumi further. She hopes Rumi can’t tell that that broke her heart into a million pieces. It also makes her want to use a picture of Celine for target practice.
“She’s such a hypocrite,” Mira scoffs, anger gaining traction. She’s been the least forgiving of Celine, not that Zoey can blame her. “Miss ‘faults and fears must never be seen’ making her kid’s birthday into a fucking funeral.”
Zoey puts a gentle hand on Mira’s arm. She agrees with her, but too much of a rant is just going to scare Rumi back into silence.
“Okay, point is, we are celebrating the shit out of your birthday this year,” Zoey points to Rumi for effect, determined. “We have twenty-three years of birthdays to make up for before you hit twenty-four.”
“You don’t have to-” Rumi trails off at the stern look Zoey aims at her. “Nevermind.”
Zoey peers over Rumi’s shoulder at the planner she’s holding.
“We’ve got a couple months. Should be enough time.”
“A couple months?” Rumi croaks as Mira gives a startled what? at the same time.
“We’re doing something to celebrate every birthday you missed.”
“I didn’t really miss it, it still happened.”
“Arguing makes it worse,” Mira mutters to Rumi. “Trust me.”
“You’ve got some time to mentally prepare while I brainstorm.”
“Why does it feel like I’m preparing for my funeral now?” Rumi grins back at Mira. Zoey would protest if not for the soft looks they aim her way.
Within moments, Zoey is settling down to scribble in one of her notebooks, settled comfortably on the floor, using the coffee table as a desk. Mira sits on the couch just behind her, while Rumi stretches out next to her with her head in her lap.
23 Years of Birthdays!
1.
Damn, she’s already hit a hurdle.
“Did Celine do a dol for you?” she asks.
“Yeah, I think that’s the only traditional birthday thing she did. It was small but there are pictures somewhere.”
“Putting that on the list of things to ask about,” Zoey mutters, flipping back a few pages to add it to a list. “I need those pics. So what did you reach for?”
Rumi winces and Zoey can’t wait to hear what’s behind it.
“Yeah, so apparently she had stuff like my mom’s old headset, her swords-”
“She had her swords out for you to just grab?”
“They were sheathed! Then she had more normal stuff like a toy stethoscope, a calculator. I think she was trying to see if I was hunter material,” Rumi laughs.
“So, I’m assuming you grabbed the sword?” she asks, remembering Rumi’s wince, but her sheepishness deepens as soon as Zoey asks.
“She said I skipped over all of them and grabbed a strand of the Honmoon.”
“Holy shit,” Zoey giggles. “That’s terrifying.”
“This is why it would’ve been cool to know you were a fucking child prodigy before we started training with you,” Mira drones from her seat on the couch without looking up from her phone. “You almost gave me a complex.”
“I didn’t know! I grew up with another hunter, I thought I was normal! Well, except for the patterns.”
“Cool, so technically that means only twenty-two birthdays you missed.”
“Only twenty-two,” Mira snorts, reaching out to play with the wispy hair at the nape of Zoey’s neck. Rumi gives Mira a wide-eyed look, wiggling a little bit until Mira puts her phone down to play with her hair, too. Zoey giggles and keeps writing.
23 Years of Birthdays!
Dol- Cake smash? That’s technically 1st bday. Finger painting? COMBO? EDIBLE PAINT?
She’s mostly silent as she works with the occasional (loving!) interrogation of Rumi for inspiration.
“Do you, like, have any memorable birthdays? I know you didn’t do much celebrating, but-”
“Hm,” Rumi thinks aloud. “Trying to think. A lot of them were pretty crappy, honestly.”
“That’s okay, gimme the crap,” Zoey tells her. “Still inspo.”
“I lost my baby blanket when I turned four. Celine took me out shopping with her and I must’ve put it down somewhere. One second I had it, the next it was gone.”
“Aw, oh my god,” Zoey coos, reaching out to pet Rumi’s cheek.
“I’m okay now,” she laughs. “Poor Celine looked everywhere, asking staff if they’d seen it. It took her forever to get me to stop crying.”
- Something to do with that blanket!! We are HEALING that baby Rumi heartbreak!!!
“Um,” Rumi continues, trailing off for a bit. “Oh, I lost both my front teeth on one of them. Six or seven I think?”
“Okay, how?” Mira asks, looking at her with exasperated concern.
“I was, uh, climbing that huge tree when I wasn’t supposed to,” she smiles and Zoey can imagine the little gap-toothed grin she must’ve had. “I slipped and hit one of the branches trying to climb down.”
“Did you guys do the tooth fairy when you were growing up?” Zoey pauses, suspecting it’s more of an American thing.
“No?” Mira quirks a brow. “But I definitely want an explanation.”
“You’re supposed to put your tooth under your pillow and the tooth fairy leaves you money.”
“You made that up,” Rumi accuses as Mira just stares, dumbfounded.
“I didn’t!”
“I guess throwing them on the roof for a magpie to pick up isn’t less weird,” Mira shrugs and Zoey stares.
“Humanity is just weird about teeth everywhere, I guess,” Zoey shrugs.
“I wasn’t, we didn’t do anything with my teeth!” Rumi tells them, wide-eyed.
- Let's get weird with teeth, baby! But not like that, saving that for the 18+ bdays ;)
It can still be a little tough to get Rumi talking after she’s spent a lifetime keeping secrets. But Zoey and Mira have been pleased to find that if they can get her over that initial hurdle, she doesn’t stop talking. They’re relishing learning new things about her.
“There was a whole thing that year about whether I was old enough to start school, too. Celine was pushing for me to start younger.”
“I assumed you were home-schooled,” Mira notes.
“Celine tried to let me go to private school for a few months, but when my patterns were almost past the uniform sleeve, she thought it was too risky.”
Zoey just lets her talk as she writes. Not all of it is super helpful, but she’d listen to Rumi read an instruction manual so long as she got to hear the warmth of her voice.
When she starts to get stuck in the grade school and tween years, Zoey reasons not all of it has to line up with her birthdays exactly. If something notable happened during that year, that could still work. It's about giving Rumi the experiences she should’ve had.
The problem is that she wants some of this to be a surprise and despite Rumi talking right now, there’s no way she’ll remember every little detail of her younger years. Zoey also doesn’t want to grill her about her life to the point that she withdraws again.
It could be useful to ask Celine, but would surprising Rumi with something she hasn’t told Zoey backfire?
“You okay?” Rumi asks, noticing Zoey’s unfocused gaze.
“Sorry, yeah,” she waves her off but Rumi isn’t fooled.
“Okay, if I have to tell you why I don’t like my birthday, you have to tell me what you were just thinking. You looked stressed.”
Dammit. Well, maybe just asking her outright would be better, anyway.
“I was thinking of asking Celine if she remembers anything about your birthdays growing up. Maybe about you growing up in general, too. But, then, I worried that you might not like that,” Zoey fidgets with the cap of her pen, avoiding Rumi’s eyes. “I don’t want to, like, grill you over something that’s supposed to be a fun surprise but I also don’t want to pry where you don’t want me to.”
Rumi considers it in a silence that feels so long to Zoey. She really hopes she didn’t already mess up.
“Can I think about it?”
“Yeah, of course,” Zoey nods, gratefully looking at her again. “I hope I didn’t upset you by asking-”
Rumi places a gentle hand on her cheek and Zoey loses track of any other thoughts she had as she leans down to give her a quick kiss.
“You didn’t. I think it’s sweet.”
Zoey abandons the notebook for more kisses until Mira interrupts them.
“You’re really gonna take up my lap and then ignore me?” she asks in a mock-huff.
Rumi pulls away, giving Zoey a scheming look.
“You’re right, so rude of us,” she turns, placing a warm, open-mouthed kiss to Mira’s bare midriff. That’s what she gets for taunting them when she’s in a sports bra and shorts.
“So rude,” Zoey echoes, softly kissing the inside of her knee. “Guess we gotta make it up to you.”
She looks up at Mira who stares back at them both, a brilliant red flush on her cheeks. It’s one of her favorite things to watch Mira’s nonchalance come apart the second they touch her. She and Rumi happily abandon the birthday list for the night to ignore everything except Mira.
The next morning, Rumi nervously darts her eyes at Zoey over her breakfast.
“You okay?” she asks softly, giving Rumi the window to speak if she wants to.
“You can ask Celine,” she murmurs with a halting smile.
“Only if you’re sure.”
Rumi nods again.
“It could make this whole radical honesty thing a little easier.”
“True,” Zoey giggles before gently nudging Rumi’s leg with her own. “Thanks for trusting me with this.”
“I trust you both more than I trust Celine,” Rumi answers in explanation before looking down at her breakfast again.
Mira and Zoey lock eyes. All they’ve ever wanted is Rumi’s trust and every time she reminds them that they have it now, it’s both beautiful and terrifying.
With that on her mind, Zoey almost chickens out. Rumi is handing her her heart and what if Zoey’s making a bad call?
She guesses she’s just going to have to trust Rumi’s trust in her.
She texts Celine before she can keep talking herself in circles.
Zoey pauses, at an impasse. Should she tell her? Celine is well aware that things between them are strained right now. Zoey has been the most communicative with her. Rumi has had a few tense conversations with her and Mira…well, Mira doesn’t talk so much as threaten so she’s avoiding Celine like the plague.
God, this radical honesty stuff is so, so, so uncomfortable. Zoey likens it to the cold plunge at the bathhouse. Trying to ease in just draws out the discomfort, so she takes a deep breath and jumps in.
Zoey sighs deeply. Rumi has had a few conversations like this with Celine, but they tend to devolve into an emotional mess that ceases to be constructive after a certain point.
It’s clear that Rumi needs some distance before she’s able to be this frank with her and Zoey can’t blame her. It’s too close to home. She’s also unsure what to do with these admissions. Zoey fights the knee-jerk urge to offer comfort, to smooth over the conflict. It isn’t hers to manage.
Celine seems to realize that Zoey isn’t sure what to say as she continues.
At least that’s one more down.
- Turn one of the walls into a chalkboard.
Celine diligently sends things as she remembers them throughout the day. At first, each message has her scribbling in her notebook until it starts making Rumi nervous. After that, she puts the phone and notebook down for a little while, resolving to keep going when Rumi is otherwise occupied. She has an errand to run for birthday number one (well, technically two) if she wants to get it all set up for tomorrow.
- Zoey
- brb heading to the store
- Mira
- Rumi
- Rumi
- Zoey
