Chapter Text
It’s only been two days, and Rumi is already going stir-crazy.
She’s deep cleaned her very much spotless apartment top to bottom, repotted all her otherwise thriving plants, and caught up on the latest episodes of a tv series she’s missed. She even reorganized the bookshelf and the vinyl holder, twice. First, she alphabetized them by title, then - because she’s not a psychopath - she returned everything to the previous state of being sorted by author and artist, respectively. There is literally nothing else to do, except repeat the entire process again and again like a madwoman.
Rumi is weighing the pros and cons of going for the second workout of the day, rhabdomyolysis be damned, against breaking into the office with the sole purpose of inflicting physical pain on Jinu, the person responsible for her being locked out of both the building and the company email, when her phone chimes on the coffee table.
Rumi opens the messenger app and rolls her eyes. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear with an unrestrained amount of emojis in tow.
Today 8:47 am
Jinu
how’s vacation
Rumi
I have just enough free time to plot your downfall, thank you for asking
Jinu
the only thing going down is supposed to be your stress levels, princess
Rumi
Reactivate my keycard, and I will show you exactly how much more relaxed I am
Jinu
sure
do you want my letter opener with that
Rumi
You deserve nothing less than a Sain-geom
They go back and forth for a while longer, just until Jinu has to start his meeting, just until Rumi’s eye starts twitching with the restraint of holding herself back from finding a way to put her hands on him - she’s agitated, sue her.
Sure, she hasn’t had a single day off in more than a year, and, sure, she might have taken the frustrations of having yet another incompetent man complicate her work out on the uncooperative break room coffeemaker, but those are decidedly not good enough reasons to force her into a sabbatical.
Jinu called her dramatic for using the term to describe a standard two-week vacation, but the point stands. What is she supposed to do with 12 more days without work?
Her best friend, of course, is a fountainhead of ideas, has been nagging her to book a trip, or sign up for a pottery class, or make a spa appointment, or even try golfing (the thought of swinging a club around doesn’t sound entirely unappealing) since he escorted her out of the office with a stern no work.
The latest stroke of genius he leaves her to consider before going back to his own business is dipping toes back into the dating pool. Sends her a link to download an app and everything, defends it with his favorite argument - he and Abby met on there, and are still going strong.
So Rumi sulks, texts Abby her condolences for having to put up with the mulish know-it-all, and begrudgingly downloads Honmoon.
It has been a while, it’s no secret. The last date she’s been on was even more of a distant memory than an off day, and she walked out of that one barely five minutes in because the figuratively literal manchild she was sat across was reprehensibly rude to the waitstaff, and Rumi has never once been in the mood to stick around and find out if a sob story of parental neglect would be used as an excuse for that particular sort of behavior.
Predictably, she steers herself clear of that line of thought, indubitably not avoiding thinking of Celine, by opening the new addition to her home screen; Honmoon welcomes her with an iridescent glow of animated patterns streaking across the glossy display.
Well, then.
The next hour is spent reading the terms of use and the privacy policy. Rumi is pleasantly surprised by how transparent and genuinely protective of user data the company seems to be, a downright rarity in this day and age, so she creates an account.
It’s very uncomplicated and straightforward at first: name, age, identity - Rumi chooses to display she/her and bisexual on her profile in a half-hearted attempt to avoid running into casual biphobia face-to-face. Is it foolproof? No. But what else can she do about it.
Setting preferences is plain sailing too. Women and non-binary. The idea of having another man open his mouth in her general vicinity any time soon is too triggering. Just, no. Polyamorous partners? Sure, why not.
That’s about as far as she gets in terms of uncomplicated and straightforward because with the next question asking her to specify what she’s looking for, her mind screeches to a halt. What is she looking for? Can’t exactly put herself down for a ‘distraction’, feels too close to objectification for her comfort, but that’s just it, isn’t it?
She isn’t looking for a happily ever after, doesn’t have time for anything serious. To be quite frank, she doesn’t have the mental capacity for anything of the sort - her work is her everything. Rumi is half convinced the only reason she even has a best friend is because they share an office wall and because with their split workaholic tendencies they’re joined at the hip virtually 24/7.
Now, she does not have time to unpack all of that, so she returns to the taunting riddle at hand, and before she can spiral again she chooses the still figuring it out option, however much she resents the notion of not having something solved and put away in a labeled box.
The short reprieve from the mental strain the setting of distance preferences has provided isn’t nearly enough to prepare Rumi for the next step. And the amount of time it takes her to figure out what to put down as her interests surely would have been a fine point of Jinu’s mockery, but he will never know because she cleared her search history, duh.
The headache she feels coming on makes her leave the rest of her bio blank and settle on choosing the least outrageous of options her ever so helpful, supportive, and definitely not overbearing friend provides her with to use as profile pictures.
There. Done. Over with.
Rumi is drained of all the previous agitation after having gone through it, so in a roundabout way, she supposes, Jinu’s idea worked. Not that she will ever give him the satisfaction of admitting he’s right about anything, no way, his head is too big as is.
In any case, Rumi feels a bit too unmoored to go on, so she steps into the kitchen - there isn’t a single thing a warm cup of tea won’t soothe, after all. She busies herself with rearranging the contents of the cupboard while she waits for the kettle to do its thing, then tidies up before moving back to the couch where the unlocked phone is awaiting for her return.
She’s in a staring contest with an inanimate object for a while, long enough to finish the tea that’s started to grow cold, long enough to feel ridiculous for not being normal about any of it. But it’s rational to be wary of new things, isn’t it? She’s never done this before - both the idea of presenting herself like a product to be appraised and the inherent appraisal she’s bound to do as a semi-willing participant somewhat unsettling.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Ethical dilemmas be damned, she’s never left anything unfinished once in her entire life, so she will give this a fair chance before filing the entire experience away under the wasted time category.
All the bravado goes out the window when the very first things to greet her are short bangs and mentions of turtles. Rumi is in a daze, not knowing which way is up or down, certainly has no clue which way she swiped or where she pressed on the screen when her vision is filled with vibrant pink, and her eyes skim over a curt don’t piss me off. Is she having an out of body experience? Experiencing clinical death, perhaps? Because she was definitely not breathing, and she swears her heart stopped beating for a moment there at the very least.
She has to have done something else in her daze because when she wrangles herself into feeling human again two pairs of brown eyes are staring back at her from the screen with a jolly It’s a Match! plastered across it.
Rumi catches herself actually rubbing a hand over her eyes, confused. Never mind having matched at all, how is this possible? Her bewilderment doesn’t go unanswered for long.
Today 11:03 am
Zoey
omg hi!!
i looked it up hm is doing poly matches for 24h
happy metamour day ig??
Mira
crazy work
hi
where’s our third
Rumi
Present and accounted for
Hello
Zoey
wow we are terrible at flirting
Mira
just warming up
need a couple of drinks in me for the full experience
Zoey
bet!!
are you two busy like rn??
there’s this cute place that does lunch service if we make it in time
Mira
im down
Rumi?
Rumi
I don’t have any plans either
Zoey
any allergies or restrictions or sensitivities??
Mira
dairy
Rumi
Gluten
Zoey
hot girls with tummy issues unite!!!
Rumi doesn’t know how it happens, doesn’t have time to think any rational thoughts at all because in under an hour she is expected to join two of the most attractive women she’s ever seen in her entire life on a lunch date.
What the fuck?