Chapter Text
Yes, I saw them — their shining hair
And I could see it, our life in a movie
Her spiraled hair. Her fiery pink locks. Her sunlight laughs curling like ribbons through a warm kitchen. Gentle, enamored chuckles join like harmony. She was home.
Coffee and tangled sheets and dumb little grocery lists on the fridge. Warm and simple and ours.
And now I’m spinning, my web up in the air
My spider senses, the rain’s gonna fall
Wash away the life I’m weaving
But I don’t want to run from this.
Not this dream. Not them.
You told me you waited for me, you said that you won
Asked me on that couch in Seoul
“Will we ever talk about us?"
Hours before the Idol Awards, that fateful day.
Zoey’s voice shook slightly, like she knew names had power.
Mira squeezed Rumi’s thumb once, twice. Nervous. Hopeful.
A promise was forming in the space between them, shy and sacred.
Rumi leaned in.
Zoey’s breath hitched.
Mira’s lips parted —
Their foreheads brushed.
Gentle, uncertain kisses.
A new world waiting to be born.
And I woke up in a cabin
You were crying, I was numb
Rumi gasped awake to cold wood and quiet.
Zoey's cries in the dream’s echo.
Morning light through wood-paneled windows.
No laughter. No warmth.
No them.
Just her.
And the ache she chose.
Derpy hopped onto her chest, heavy and judgmental. Sussie rolled against her hip like a tiny heater.
“Yeah,” Rumi whispered hoarsely, scratching fluffy ears, “I know. Dumb dream.” The pillow was damp. She wiped her face before the sunlight could judge her for it.
Five years. Five years since the people she loved saw her for what she really was.
A monster.
A mistake.
Not the girl they remembered — a demon wearing her face.
She helped them rebuild the Honmoon. The one that shattered because she has been a mistake since her first breath. So she ran. She made it easier for everyone. She didn’t want to face their rejection again.
That couch promise smothered before it breathed.
She shook her head, chasing away the ghosts of memories. Not now, it’s too early. Her new norm as she got ready for the day.
Tea. Pour. Sip. Swallow. Pretend it helps. Plants watered. Bread pulled from an oven too big for one person. A notebook open with lyrics she’ll never show anyone — until Jinu bullies her again.
Alive but lonely. Safe, but hollow.
She chose silence. Silence stayed with her better than anyone ever had.
You could’ve asked me not to leave
I would’ve stayed
I would’ve stayed
Her hand tightened around her chipped mug. “I did leave,” she whispered.”You didn’t ask.”
As if the empty cabin needed reminding.
The couch overlooked the Seoul skyline.
Nervous fingers.
Zoey leaned just close enough to count freckles.
Mira laughed softly, shy in a way she never let the world see.
Three hearts on the edge of something more than friendship.
“After this,” Mira murmured, “after we win the Idol Awards and seal the Honmoon gold... we talk about us.”
“Promise,” Zoey said, pinky out.
Rumi hooked hers without hesitation.
They could have built a universe from that moment.
I thought you were gonna catch me
I never stopped falling for you
Now I know better, never let me
Leave home without a parachute
Takedown. Vitriol from her soulmates confirms Rumi’s deepest fears, a mistake since she was born, leaving her shame bare for the whole world to see.
Stumbling down the stairs to find that it wasn’t them. Rumi trembles in relief.
Only to be met with looks of horror and disbelief. Weapons raised to defend against their precious Rumi, who was no longer a hunter, but a demon playing as one.
“How do you have patterns?”
“You were hiding this from us this whole time?”
“Jinu? You’re working with him?”
“How could we be together if we can’t tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?”
“I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true. Did you... did you even mean what you said last night...? About us?”
“Don’t leave! Don’t leave! I can still FIX IT!” The magenta ripple in the Honmoon confirms their worst fears.
Staring down the weapons from those cradling her soul, she ran. Of course she ran.
Not away from them. Away from hurting them.
At least that’s what she tells herself at night when she doesn’t believe it.
Door bells chimed as Rumi walked into her shop.
A wide variety of books lined one wall. Mira’s favorite books and author's newest releases front and center.
The coffee station, filled with all the possible ingredients to make disgustingly sugary drinks, not at all matching the flavor profile of her Japanese customers, but of a certain sunshining American.
Flowers bloomed across another in brightly colored pots decorated with sea animals.
A piece of each of them. Because she didn’t know how else to keep breathing.
And in the corner – her shame and shrine – a shelf full of recent merch from a certain power-duo that had spent the last five years touring the world and haunted her sleep schedule.
The Saja Boys waved from deeper inside the store, now disguised as “normal guys working in a cozy mountain café” (they were not convincing, but the locals found them charmingly weird and the foreigners exceptionally hot; it was good for business). Each man manned different stations as they set up for the business day.
Jinu flicked a straw wrapper at her. “There she is,” he grinned. “Our resident phantom lesbian poet.”
“She has returned to her natural habitat,” Mystery narrated. “The Lesbian Yearning Gift Shop.”
Rumi scowled. “It’s a book/plant/café dream store.”
“It’s a GAY shrine,” Baby corrected.
Abby held up a mug: World’s Softest Tsundere. “You didn’t even try to hide the theme.”
Rumi pretended to count receipts. “Mugs are universal.”
“Not when you designed them with Mira’s handwriting font,” Jinu sang.
Rumi froze. Slow blink.
Zoey memorabilia: sea creatures hidden behind “plant care supplies.”
Mira energy: the velvet sofa she swore she bought because it “fit the vibe,” not because Mira once curled up on velvet in an interview and Rumi’s brain melted.
Rumi, muttering: “It’s minimalistic.”
Baby looked around at fairy lights, sea-glass bottles, and pastel stationery and shot her a pitying look.
Sussie squawked, offended on her behalf.
Derpy head-butted her leg like, girl, you are not helping your case.
Rumi patted their heads. “Thank you for your service, buddies, but you've got to go before you make another ajusshi faint.” She still had nightmares about gaslighting an elderly couple into believing Derpy was a hallucination.
Jinu leaned close. Low voice, teasing but gentle. “You know it’s okay to miss them, right?”
Rumi didn’t answer. She checked a potted thyme plant that absolutely did not need checking.
Jinu continues, “Please tell us you at least recorded your pining. We need something to work on before I or someone, ” Jinu throws a judgmental glance over his shoulder, “starts serenading the plants again.”
“I only did that once,” Romance muttered, watering a succulent.
“It wilted, dude,” Mystery whispered. “It WILTED.”
Rumi sighed and pulled out her phone, “It’s not always yearning...” (That was a lie and everyone knew it.) She sent them the new vocal clip anyway.
Rumi only ever uploads them unlisted — personal archive, proof she still felt things. She wasn’t trying to be heard. She always knew that her emotions were better felt through song.
Little did she know that the boys were plotting and becoming wingmen in their song-building sessions.
Later that day, the boys sprawled across their apartment like overgrown houseplants that learned emotions too late in life.
Rumi’s newest recording played through expensive speakers — raw, shaky, beautiful.
I thought you were gonna catch me (watch me fall)
I never stopped falling for you (watch me fall)
Jinu scrubbed a hand down his face. “This is giving… therapy bill.”
Romance nodded solemnly. “My heart hurts. And my pancreas. Is heartbreak stored in the pancreas?”
“Everything is stored in your pancreas,” Mystery murmured like a man who had seen too much.
Baby stretched, back cracking like a tree splitting in winter. “She’s doing better than she was five years ago. Remember when she tried to disappear into the mountains and emotionally hibernate like a lesbian bear?”
Abby sipped tea. “She literally tried to die, twice.”
Silence. Heavy. Familiar.
They remembered finding her — shivering, patterned magic burning like punishment under her skin. Crying and furious and convinced she’d been unwanted.
Baby’s expression darkened. “She didn’t just run because she was scared.”
Silence tightened, sharp and brittle. Everybody knew the rest.
Celine’s voice still echoed in the cracks of Rumi’s memory.
“Fix it. Seal the Honmoon.
Then disappear. They don’t want your ruin near them.
You don’t get to touch what you already broke.”
She’d believed it. Every venom-soft syllable.
Believed she was a stain on their lives, not a part of their future.
“Monster.”
“Burden.”
“Wrong.”
Words that weren’t hers but lived in her bones anyway.
After some time, Rumi had finally told them everything:
the confession on the couch
the way Mira and Zoey looked at her like sunrise
the kisses that felt like fate
the Takedown performance
the confrontation and weapons drawn
the moment she saw her patterned hands and believed the universe had tricked them all
“She really thought they only loved the memory of her,” Jinu said quietly. “Not… her.”
“They forged the Honmoon rainbow with their feelings for each other and for her,” Baby whispered. “We all saw it. It wasn’t memory. It was real.”
Rumi, convinced destiny was a lie, ran anyway.
Ran until she nearly broke.
They dragged her back from the edge and then just… stayed. Teased her. Fed her. Respected her boundaries. Became older-brother idiots who protected her like she was something fragile and feral and precious.
Romance sniffled. “She deserves someone to look at her like she’s not a weapon.”
Abby shrugged. “She had two of them. Therapy for all of them. Immediately.”
The song hit the chorus again.
Leave home without a parachute
Watch me fly
Jinu swallowed. “Okay. We’re uploading it.”
“We are literally asking to be murdered,” Mystery whispered.
“Worth it,” Abby said confidently. “If she kills us, we die as matchmakers.”
Baby typed the channel username and caption, cackling.
Title: Parachute
Jinu hit publish.
“God help us,” he muttered. “She’s going to beat my ass, and I will deserve it. We just got out of hell…”
A tiny parachute thrown into the internet.
A breadcrumb back to her heart.
Rumi had no idea.
They’re eating breakfast at the counter, knees bumping. Mira steals a strawberry from Zoey’s plate. Zoey bumps her hip in retaliation; it’s soft, familiar, easy.
It looks like love — and it is.
Just incomplete.
A radio in the background plays a song that isn’t hers. Still, Mira hears a phantom harmony.
Zoey still hums high harmonies she hasn’t needed in a year. Mira still leaves room in the melody without thinking.
They made rules, eventually.
No saying her name before noon. No three-part harmonies unless it’s a holiday or someone is drunk. No listening to break-up songs in the shower (because the acoustics make it worse).
Later that day, on a familiar couch, Zoey lies peacefully on Mira’s lap as she scrolls through endless Instagram reels and videos, ranging from turtle facts to conservation efforts. She stumbles upon a Huntrix fan post, with a caption that takes her breath away.
‘I know Rumi hasn’t been seen in years (wherever she is, free her PLS), but doesn’t this song sound so much like her??? Or am I delulu?” A clip of a song, with a link to a YouTube video.
Zoey doesn’t want to get her hopes up. They’ve been down this rabbit hole before; it’s not worth the heartbreak. But something tugs on her soul, and she switches to YouTube to humor this fan (and with bated breath that it really could be her).
Tell me what was the moment
You decided to give up
You could’ve told me what you wanted
I would've done
I would've done
Anything
I would've done anything
The room goes quiet when the song ends, the ghost of its final note hanging like something unsaid. No face to the voice, but there’s no mistaking it. It’s her.
At some point, the phone was transferred to Mira. Mira scrolls down and freezes. Zoey leans in.
Username: lilac_lesbian_longing
Caption: five years later and I'm still allergic to communication
Zoey snorts, a helpless, startled sound. Mira chokes on a laugh she definitely wasn’t prepared for.
“Oh my god,” Zoey whispers, hand over her mouth. “She has not changed.”
“She got worse,” Mira breathes. “She got so much worse.”
A tiny laugh cracks out of Zoey before it breaks into a sound that isn’t laughter at all. She wipes under her eyes quickly, pretending it’s just a stray eyelash.
“I hate her,” Zoey lies. “So much.”
“Yeah,” Mira whispers. “Me too.”
They sit there, shoulders pressed together. Laughing. Hurting. Loving someone who isn’t here to see it.
Mira swallows. Zoey doesn’t look at her, doesn’t look away either. Just... exists in that in-between space they’ve mastered.
“When did she write that?” Zoey finally whispers. Mira’s laugh is soft, humorless. “Probably the night she left.”
They don’t cry. They don’t fall apart. They’ve already done that. They’ve learned to breathe with bruises.
Zoey rests her head on Mira’s shoulder.
She doesn’t say I miss her, too.
She doesn’t have to.
They have each other.
And an absence, shared like a vow.
A phone buzzes — Bobby, reminding them of their upcoming performance.
Zoey stretches, rolls her shoulders, blinking back a glimmer of tears threatening to form. “We should warm up before rehearsal.” Mira replies, “Yeah. Let’s get ready.”
They move with practiced ease, getting ready and packing what they would need for the evening event. Gentle touches and kisses, grounding them to their current reality.
As idols, they’re doing fine. Coming out as a subunit as Rumi’s disappearance was disguised as a hiatus, following the backlash of her new tattooed look. Bobby framed it as a mental health break, when in reality, no one knew where Rumi had gone. Their frantic searching had dulled after 2 years. Why try to find someone who doesn’t want to be found? They deny that they are always scanning for that distinct purple hair.
Sometimes, when a tear in the Honmoon rips open across the city, Mira feels her.
A voice.
A pulse.
A familiar warmth sealing the rip before they could even arrive.
A promise they never got to keep.
Zoey grabs her journal, knuckles white for only a second, “We should get going.” Mira nods, gaze darting back towards that spot on the couch neither of them wishes to touch; it’s hers.
They don’t talk about how this song feels like a ghost brushing past them. They don’t talk about how they miss her like a phantom limb. Their third harmony silent. They just move. Breathe. Live. And in the quiet behind everything – they ache.
I never stopped falling for you.
Rumi hums the last line without realizing it, fingertips brushing soft leaves as she waters the tiny forest throughout the cottage. It’s quiet, save for the whir of one lazy ceiling fan and the gentle thud-thud of Derpy’s tail against the rug.
“See?” she murmurs to the spirit animals, “totally well-adjusted hermit. Has plants, no relationships, cries only sometimes.”
Meow. Squawk.
“Don’t guilt me.”
Rumi melts into the couch, a heavy weight present in her chest. Sussie kneads her thigh like she’s trying to sew her back to the earth.
Rumi lets her, hand sinking into feathers like she could anchor herself there. She breathes. She exists. She tries.
A ripple across the Honmoon, a small tear that should be easy to seal in minutes, before the other two could even think about making the trek out.
She sighs, gentle, resigned. “Okay. Just real quick,” she murmurs to the Derpy and Sussie, grabbing her jacket. “I’ll bring back treats.” The tear hums beneath her skin — a reminder she was built for battle, not belonging.
Teleportation hums low in her bones. Power she never wanted. Duty she never asked for.
Chains she’s still untangling from her ribs. But for the ones that meant the world to her, she would go out every time.
She never goes close enough to be seen.
She mends the world from the shadows and leaves before anyone can turn around.
Still, she turns anyway. No one is there. Of course, no one is there.
But her chest aches like someone almost called her name.
When she returns, Derpy is waiting by the door like he knew — tail thumping, eyes bright, love stupid and pure. Sussie perched on his head, looking unamused.
Rumi kneels. Forehead presses to fur. Hand lightly petting the six-eyed Magpie. Breath shakes once — only once — before she lets it go.
“I’m okay,” she whispers.
It’s not a lie.
But it isn’t the truth.
Back on the other side of the city, Mira’s mic squeals, glitching with Honmoon interference. Zoey flinches like someone walked over her memory.
A world away, Rumi pauses mid-step in the cottage. Heart tight. Breath caught.
Something is shifting.
Pulling.
Not fate — she doesn’t believe in that anymore.
But a thread.
Thin, stubborn, uncut.
Mira inhales, feels heat beneath her sternum.
Zoey’s hand twitches like she almost reaches for someone who isn’t there.
Rumi looks toward the horizon, jaw set.
Some loves don’t fade, they soften. Some ghosts don’t haunt, they hover. And some promises stay unspoken because speaking them would break the world open again.