Work Text:
There were four things that Mira loved more than anything else:
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Rumi and Zoey
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Dancing
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Ramyeon
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Fucking With Celine
The first was a given. Every time she was in the same room with either of them she felt lighter. Oh, she didn't like to show it, but she knew she softened a little. Her edges became duller and she didn't even mind. Fuck's sake, she could cry around them. First time that happened she'd been pissed at herself, then they were both holding her and it was really the first time she'd felt like she'd found something that she'd been looking for her entire life.
Dancing was how she'd found them. It was what gave her life meaning and she relished movement, tapping both into her natural instincts and years of ballet training to make something beautiful.
When she was dancing, especially with her girls, she felt the most alive.
Ramyeon was also a given. Delicious, filling, and she knew it would piss her parents off and spite just made everything that much more flavorful.
Mira frequently operated on spite. Fucking with Celine was also operating on spite. A different sort of spite.
Celine was always so cold and distant, even with Rumi. It bothered her. It bothered her in ways she could barely articulate to herself until after she'd nearly lost Rumi and Zoey. Now she understood and the only person higher on her shit list was a twelve year old. (they know what they did)
Maybe Mira had been a little more wild than she needed to be just to make Celine's eyebrows twitch or that vein on her forehead pop. Getting any reaction out of the woman was a major victory.
Zoey, being on the same wavelength, would often help. She was a lot more open with her affections to both Rumi and Mira, which Mira found exhausting and endearing in equal measure. Celine didn't like it. It was too open, too honest.
But it was Zoey and Mira would do anything for Zoey, even if she complained the whole time.
Sometimes, she took Zoey to clubs when they could spare a night. She danced too close. Something unspoken shifting between them, something that Mira was chronically afraid to acknowledge.
They always invited Rumi and a few times she actually came. Neither she nor Zoey left any space between them and Rumi that first time. Zoey at her back, Mira her front, Rumi's fingers digging into her hip.
It was the same that second time. The third.
The three of them, Rumi in the middle, eyes closed, basking in the contact. A different shift, no less important, no less confusing.
Mira knew that blurry pictures leak online, tags trended, Bobby pulled out his hair and yet the looks from Celine only fueled the fire.
It never went further than that but god did she want it to. She'd come home, fantasies clawing at her skin and yet time and again she let herself be burned by Rumi's gaze and Zoey's touch. Mira decided that once they turned the Honmoon gold she'd tell them how she really felt. Carve her heart out of her chest and put it in Rumi and Zoey's hands.
Then Rumi pulled away, leaving an ache in Mira's chest.
Saja Boys. Woo Jinu. Idol Awards. The three of them broken into a million pieces that couldn't possibly be glued back together into what it had been before.
Mira tried, and with Zoey offered her hand out. Rumi took it, drawing closer again.
Yet things were still up in the air, tender, raw. A wound only beginning to scab over.
A month after the Idol Awards, after they'd lost everything and started to build something terrifying and new, Mira stood at the island that separated the kitchen from the rest of the penthouse and put down three boxes.
"What's this?" Zoey reached for the box in front of her, then pulled her hand back when Mira lightly swatted at it.
"Give me a chance to explain first." Mira's eyes slid to Rumi. Rumi in a tank top, an easy smile on her face, her patterns shimmering like holographic paper. Rumi, who sometimes crawled into her bed or Zoey's, when she was woken by nightmares or felt the darkness closing in. Rumi, who seemed to sleep best when pressed between the two of them at once.
Zoey's hand rested on top of Rumi's, her smile wide. Zoey, who clung to them the hardest, who cried openly, hands clutching at one or both of their night shirts. Zoey, who laid across them as if it would prevent them from leaving her. Zoey, who loved so openly and unconsciously that it made Mira's heart beat faster.
And Mira, Mira let out a breath, opening the box she had for herself. Mira, who never wore her heart on her sleeve. Mira, who'd given it to them without a second thought. They didn't even realize that they held it. Mira, who loved them more than anything in the world. Even the world itself.
"My parents used to take me to art exhibits all over the world. They tried to instill in me an 'appreciation' of art, but the idea of actually making art was apparently a step too far." Mira snorted, and pulled out a bag full of broken ceramic.
"When we … when your voice called us back." Her throat constricted. Rumi reached out and touched her hand, the act grounding her, "I've been thinking about that ever since. The way those lyrics just flowed out of us. Beauty in the broken glass. And we can't be what we were before and that's okay. But I thought—it gave me an idea."
She signaled that they should open their boxes. Mira didn't usually speak this much at once but now that she'd started she couldn't stop, "I was ten when they took me to a special exhibit. There were some examples of Korean work like this but it's most famously Japanese. It spoke to me then and it's really speaking to me now. After everything. This … this is us. Broken, waiting to be mended."
This broken ceramic that sat in front of them.
There were brushes, bottles of lacquer, packets of dust in various colors and mixing bowls. Red, gold, platinum, even a sort of iridescent silver that she'd picked out specifically to match Rumi's patterns.
"We glue the pieces back together, make it whole. But this preserves the cracks, the scars. We remember the history and make something new, but still beautiful."
Afraid of betraying the true extent of her emotions, Mira looked down at the counter, gripping it tightly. She heard the crinkling of plastic, the sound of ceramic sliding together.
Then Rumi's voice, "You're right. We can't put together what we were before. But I don't want to. This is who we are now and I want to see what it looks like."
"This is a beautiful idea," Zoey's voice was far too serious. Touched. Stunned.
Mira turned around, walking to the fridge to get some water as an excuse to force her eyes to stay dry, "Pick whatever colors you want. Gold is traditional."
"Is anything about us traditional?" Rumi asked.
When Mira returned, she gave them each some water, then took a seat on the other side of Rumi and got to work.
Each of the pieces she'd selected were something she felt reflected them. Zoey's was a ceramic bowl painted with turtles and fish and Rumi's a teapot painted with floral designs. Mira had tried to choose for herself something she thought they would have picked out, so she had a plate with a design of a dancer against the night sky.
Maybe she'd just really liked it.
"Did you smash these yourself?" Zoey asked, eyes focused as she carefully tried to position two pieces together. Rumi glanced up, tongue still sticking a little out of her mouth as she concentrated.
Mira had to pause her own work to admire them both, "You've met me right?"
"She smashed them herself," Rumi guessed.
"There's a place where you can go and break glass. Just go ape shit." Mira returned her attention to her plate, "It's therapeutic."
"Take us sometime?"
She looked up again, staring at Rumi, then smiled, "Yeah. I can."
"Rumi?" Zoey set down her pieces, then reached over and ran a finger along her shoulder, tracing the pattern there like she was repairing a piece of her bowl, "How do you feel about going out dancing again?"
"I'd like that." Rumi leaned into the touch.
Mira caught Rumi's shiver and her lungs forgot how to work for a moment. She refocused on what she was doing, forcing herself to relax as they started to talk. Make plans. To go dancing, to work on their next album, to go to the bathhouse.
To be alive together.
Hours later, a deep contentment filled Mira's chest as she set her work aside to finish drying. Her lips danced with a smile she couldn't contain, committing to memory their shared laughter at gentle ribbing and reminiscence.
It was like the space between them all had shifted back into something comfortable. New. But comfortable.
She was so distracted by Zoey's laughter that she missed the first part of what she was saying.
"You can't be serious," Rumi replied, swiveling in her chair to stare at Zoey.
"Yeah the first time Mira and me went to the club together was mostly because we knew it would annoy Celine." Zoey giggled, carefully setting her bowl to the side, "But it was so much fun that we just wanted to keep doing it."
Mira nodded, "I liked the times you came with us. You always got so relaxed."
"It was the drinks," Rumi said, ducking her head as a blush crept up her face. "I wanted more, but I was afraid of where it could lead."
"You mean the things that were more fruit than liquor?"
"Alcohol is nasty," Rumi protested. "I need the fruit flavor!"
A laugh rippled out of Mira and she suggested, "We don't have to go out to go dancing."
Rumi blinked, then looked between them.
"It's going to take awhile to dry, so lets dance?" Zoey asked. Her eyes were lit up and her expression so hopeful that Mira knew Rumi would not be able to deny her.
"Only if Mira leads."
Mira got up, pulling them both to their feet and into the living room, dimming the lights on the way,
Zoey started a playlist then tossed her phone onto Couch™ before sliding an arm around Rumi as Rumi leaned back against her, while resting her head against Mira's shoulder.
The music playing was charged, hot and heavy and they fell into a rhythm together. In the dim lighting, Mira could imagine them dancing like this in the club, the throng of bodies around them but the center of her universe being her girls. Grinding, writhing, hands twisting into the fabric of clothing, nails digging at bared skin. No one to see them. Nothing to stop her from caressing and touching them, laying claim in the moment. For the first time she could taste possibility in the air.
A suspiciously romantic song started to play and they slowed down to match it, movements languid, slow, but somehow even more heated. Mira felt Rumi's hands under the back of her shirt, nails slowly dragging down her skin.
Threading her fingers through Rumi's hair, she pulled, Rumi's head tilting back and her mouth opening. Zoey's lips pressed in behind Rumi's ear, eyes flicking up to meet Mira's as a soft, sweet sound escaped Rumi's throat.
Zoey move her hand up Mira's arm and then onto the back of her head, but Mira's mouth was so close to Rumi's. She hesitated. They were new again, the lacquer still drying on their broken pieces. If she breathed wrong, it could all fall apart. But Zoey's lips nuzzled Rumi's ear, her gaze still locked on Mira's face, a reassuring glint in her eyes.
"If one of you doesn't kiss me," Rumi whispered. "I might actually die."
Rumi had barely finished her sentence when Mira kissed her, pressing her lips against Rumi's as though something had uncoiled within her and Mira was the one that would die without a kiss. Rumi gave way almost immediately, leaning up into the kiss and threading one of her arms around Mira's shoulder. The other was still on her back and her nails dug in hard enough to sting.
Loosening her grip on Rumi's hair, Mira deepened the kiss, tongue snaking into her mouth and drawing out the kind of sound that had always haunted her dreams. Her head spun when she came up for air.
She barely had a chance to take a breath before Zoey was kissing her, hand on her cheek, mouth insistent. They'd come close before but in all these years one or the other had always hesitated, pulled away. Mira actually groaned, pushing Rumi into Zoey as she devoured Zoey's lips.
Kissing Rumi, kissing Zoey, it was worth the wait.
Rumi slipped out from between them, moving around behind Mira and then wrapping her arms around her, kissing her shoulder, lifting her hand to press over Zoey's on Mira's cheek.
Mira broke the kiss, leaning into it, breathing heavily and too close to tears for comfort.
She felt Zoey and Rumi's fingers thread together, then brought her hand to join theirs. No words, they weren't even dancing any more, and yet their silence—heavy, but comfortable— spoke volumes.
Another song played, she swayed with them, holding their joined hands against her cheek.
"Let's sit," Rumi hummed, before guiding them back to the chairs at the kitchen counter. The lights remained dimmed, but Zoey switched to a calmer, soothing playlist.
"Do you think they're done?" She asked, gingerly poking her bowl.
"They need a bit longer to dry and set." Mira wiped her thumb beneath her eyes, "But they'll be fine. Like us."
Pieced back together, something made new and beautiful and unique, the past not forgotten but remembered.