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Mira didn't find out about Rumi's patterns on purpose. Rumi didn't tell her because she wanted to, not because she was just bursting with the need to tell the truth or because she trusted Mira with her deepest, darkest secret.
She told her because Mira was bad at emotional regulation, and Rumi was even worse at communication, and frankly it's just difficult to fuck out your frustrations when you're both clothed.
The day she found out, Mira's back ached from how often Rumi had slammed her into the ground during sparring. Her thighs ached from the particular choreography she had been drilling for their upcoming debut. Her shoulders ached from swinging her gok-do in training. Her fingers ached from plucking at guitars and slamming on drums all evening. And finally, her lips ached from where Rumi had bitten them after Mira had lost her temper and pinned her against her own bedroom wall.
Her aching fingertips dug into Rumi's sides, and it annoyed Mira that even her gasps and the hitch in her breath were fucking perfect.
"Mira-"
"We're not talking about this." Mira grumbled, her lips throbbing. She trailed her kisses down the column of Rumi's throat, careful not to let her anger ebb away into gentleness.
"No?"
"No."
Rumi shoved Mira back forcefully, and she stepped back far enough to let Rumi take a shaky breath. "First, you need to know something."
Mira raised one eyebrow and waited. "What?"
Well, now it was Rumi's turn to bite her own lip, and Mira narrowed her eyes. She didn't have the patience for Rumi to work through whatever was causing some sort of ridiculous insecurity, her mind was already wandering towards where exactly she could leave bruises that Celine wouldn't see.
"Fine," Rumi huffed. She crossed her arms at her hips and pulled her t-shirt up and off, slowly, seductively, and not at all intentionally so. Mira's eyebrows shot up.
For one, she knew Rumi was attractive. She had eyes. She hadn't expected the defined muscles in her abdomen or her arms and shoulders, but she should have.
Second, Rumi had magenta patterns that zig-zagged at jagged angles across her shoulders and began to wind down her biceps. Patterns, that Mira knew indicated a demon. She'd never seen one in person before, but Rumi's didn't seem to extend right. Celine had described demons as fully covered in patterns, this wasn't it.
Mira's brows furrowed. "How do you have those?"
Rumi winced. It had been an accusation, but it didn't carry a threat. Yet. "I was born with them." Her voice was low, intense, and her eyes strayed from Mira's face down to her hands. Hands trained to kill demons like her, hands Rumi had guided herself in the art of attack. "My father was a demon."
Mira worked her jaw back and forth. "You weren't planning to tell us." It wasn't a question.
Rumi shook her head. "Celine doesn't think you two will understand." Her eyes grew wide as she brought them back up to Mira's face. "But you didn't come here to talk."
Rumi stiffened as Mira approached, but made no move to retreat or attack. Mira seized her arms in each hand and hauled her around to the bed. She shoved Rumi harder than she had intended to when she sought her out in the first place, but the burn of only incidentally learning the truth still smarted, and she was here as an outlet for her anger anyway.
Once Rumi was on the bed, scooting back to make room for Mira, she pinned Rumi to the mattress and grabbed her jaw. "You'll tell Zoey tomorrow. Understood?"
It wasn't a question, and Rumi nodded.
She found through trial and error that Rumi bruised rather easily, considering they trained to fight demons, it surprised her. It added to the frustration bubbling beneath her skin the realization that she didn't know Rumi bruised easily because Rumi was good enough to avoid getting hit in the first place.
She bit down harder in retaliation. Rumi's hand covered her mouth as her yelp turned into a deep-throated groan. Her hips jolted as Mira moved down her body, and her other hand came up to grip tightly at the muscle in Mira's shoulder. Mira would have fingerprint-shaped bruises in the morning, but that was fine by her.
"Stay quiet, Princess." Mira rumbled against the soft expanse of skin beneath her lips. She licked and sucked at the ridges of her abdominal muscles while Rumi finished shimmying from her shorts and underwear.
"I'm not a-"
Mira bit down again, just to hear the hitch in Rumi's breath as she whimpered and struggled to keep her voice down. "Quiet."
Rumi's whine was certainly quiet. Mira could hear it anyway, and it only spurred her on. She didn't waste any time trailing kisses and sharp bites along Rumi's hips and thighs.
When she finally reached where Rumi wanted her most, Mira stopped, letting her breath fan out against the dripping folds before her. "Keep your mouth shut, Princess. You get too loud, I'll have to stop."
Rumi's whimper was muffled by her knuckle between her teeth. Mira watched carefully as Rumi's eyebrows furrowed in faux-concentration, a thoughtful little expression that Mira knew was simply a brace for what was coming.
Fuck, she even tasted perfect.
It pissed her off, just a little. Who did she think she was? Slamming Mira around, out-performing her, taking the lead on anything and everything, bossing her around, looking and sounding and tasting and being perfect.
Mira wanted to knock her down a peg, wanted to bring her to her knees. Wanted Rumi to beg for her. She wanted Rumi to ask Mira for permission, to concede to Mira's command, to do what Mira told her to do.
So she listened and watched and learned. When she found the right combination of licking and kissing and sucking, the one that she knew made stars dance in Rumi's vision, she grew vicious, insatiable, merciless. She didn't stop until Rumi's thighs were trembling, until she'd clenched around Mira's fingers at least four times, until her hands were scrabbling for a grounding grip in the sheets, Mira's hair, Rumi's own braid, anything to keep her tied to Earth.
And if her bottom lip was bruised, cracked, bleeding from keeping herself from screaming out? Well, that wasn't Mira's problem now, was it?
Their first demon hunt turned out to be extremely successful, if not terrifying. Rumi had been fighting demons since she could properly summon and use her sword. But she and Celine had kept Mira and Zoey sheltered as long as they could.
From what Rumi said, the tear was bigger than they'd seen in a while, and that they'd grown progressively bigger in the last few years. Celine suspected it was due to the slow fade of the Sunlight Sisters relevancy and a lack of a new group to take over.
There'd been one moment, exactly one, that Mira had been afraid of getting hurt. The demon managed to side-step Zoey's shin-kal and duck under Rumi's sword. It found Mira holding the flank alone and lunged.
Zoey shouted and Mira reacted exactly as they'd trained to for years. She whipped around and knocked the demon's wrists away by the pole of her gok-do. She shoved it back with a hard push to its throat but it returned quickly, forcing Mira to block again and the demon's fangs snapped and spit just inches from her face. It pushed hard against her, and Mira could feel her back foot sliding through gravel as she held her own. She hadn't noticed how physically strong demons were, hadn't seen it for herself until this demon bore down on her with all of its might.
She nearly stumbled forward as the demon's body was yanked away from her and physically thrown across the alleyway. It contorted and pulled itself back up, but Rumi already stalked forward with enough confidence to cause any demon to stagger.
The fight ended all at once, just as quickly as it began. Nobody mentioned the close call, in fact, Zoey was speaking too quickly and too excitedly about the sheer success of it all for anybody to turn on Mira and call her out.
Rumi glanced to her once, out of the corner of her eye, and Mira felt the sting of irritation bubble up, beginning in her gut.
That was also the same night that Mira forced Rumi to her knees in her own bedroom. Rumi made no complaint and Mira could only bare her teeth and try to needle it out of her. But Rumi stared up at her, compliant but not submitting, and Mira grabbed her jaw roughly.
Rumi probably didn't mean to snarl, she rarely ever lost her temper, but Mira pulled it out of her on purpose and when she did Mira froze.
Rumi noticed the change immediately and tilted her head, waiting for the reprimand or for Mira to flee the room entirely. Mira did neither. She was hesitant, almost, almost soft, as she reached with her other hand to Rumi's face and squeezed her mouth open with the hand on her jaw.
Rumi's questioning gaze never left Mira as she brushed the pad of her thumb against the sharp points of her canines. They were longer than average. Mira knew that just from observation. But now that she'd seen a demon up close, she could see the power and strength and dangerous potential Rumi had locked up in each tense muscle every time Mira pushed her closer to her snapping point.
"You're always holding back, aren't you?" Mira asked it without thinking, without really wanting to hear the answer.
Rumi hesitated, just one heartbeat, and nodded. "If I didn't, what would make me different?"
They stopped talking after that.
It was relatively rare when Celine allowed them outside of the compound to visit the nearby town. It was usually reserved for their birthdays and occasional supply runs, but this time, Rumi must have begged.
Zoey and Mira followed Rumi as they walked about town. Neither Mira nor Rumi were chatter kind of people, but Zoey happily filled in the silence with her own thoughts as they passed by marketplaces and standalone shops with ease.
Zoey never outright asked to visit a shop, and Rumi seemed to be on a mission, so every now and then Mira would pipe up and make a suggestion for a stop when Zoey's eyes would linger too long on a shop window. To which Rumi would blink at her like she had forgotten that some places were there for their exploration if they simply stopped.
They came upon a small music shop that had Rumi abruptly turning on her heel along the sidewalk to approach the door. Mira and Zoey exchanged a confused glance and followed anyway. They had every iteration of musical instrument and accessory and book known to man, they had no need to visit a small hobbyist shop in town. Besides, it was just that. A hobbyist shop in town. Nothing they would have would be professional enough for the three of them to utilize appropriately.
But there was a skip in Rumi's step as she bounded up the stairs to the door and stepped in with a grin at the tinkling bell above them. Mira fought the fond feeling in her chest as Rumi shook her braid behind her and checked the counter for someone to help.
Nobody stood at the desk, and Zoey immediately skipped down a cramped aisle towards the back wall covered in music books. Mira lingered at an end cap to watch Rumi as she leaned over the counter to glance behind a row of instrument repairs.
Then her grin brightened again and Mira's chest clenched. She didn’t see that look on Rumi's face frequently. When she did, it always did funny things to Mira's gut. Rumi was just so stoic and reserved, it was rare to see unbridled happiness so openly displayed.
"Happy birthday!" She called gently, and laughter rang out from behind the row of instruments.
"Rumi! I can't believe you remembered." A voice called warmly, and Rumi straightened as a young man rounded the corner to lean against the counter to smile at her.
He was classically handsome. The kind of handsome that broke hearts and sold blockbuster movies. His hair curled around his ears and fell across his forehead with boyish charm, and his eyes were a deep brown that held a kindness Mira wasn't accustomed to. His shoulders were broad and toned, but he wasn't overly athletic either.
Rumi had to look up to meet his eyes, and they shared a look that Mira recognized as particularly loaded, particularly meaningful. "I know it's been a while. I've been so busy. But I wanted to stop by anyway."
His smile faltered as he glanced to Mira, they could hear Zoey muttering to herself in the back, even if they couldn't see her.
"They're friends." Rumi shrugged, glancing Mira's way. "Don't worry. My bandmates, actually."
"She found them then."
"She found them." Rumi smiled fondly, eyes still on Mira. "Had to beg to get the day today, but we're taking the time off and enjoying it."
"And you came to visit me? I'm honored." The man tilted his head, and lightning struck Mira as she realized that these two had history.
Rumi hummed, a little flirtatious lean, and Mira wanted to retch onto the floor. This was nauseating.
"My girl will be pissed though."
Rumi rolled her eyes, a teasing tilt to her lips. "I'm behaving. She has nothing to be jealous of."
"Oh sure, nothing at all." He teased back.
"Nothing!" Rumi laughed. "I'm wishing you a happy birthday, and my girls and I are going to walk around town. Nothing nefarious, nothing."
"Your girls," Mira mumbled to the extra guitar strings before her, sarcasm dripping from each syllable.
Rumi glanced at her up and down, smile not even close to dimming. "Mine."
And yeah, Mira didn’t often enjoy training with Rumi, but that did things to her heartstrings and she shut her mouth with a click before she could say something stupid or cheesy or both.
(It would have probably been something like, "always yours" with a dopey smile and dewy eyes, but Mira had self control, damn it.)
He shook his head, a soft little laugh escaping through his chest. "It hardly matters sometimes with her. You know how it is, Rumi. Wouldn't you be jealous?"
"Of? Some girl giving you attention? You have a high opinion of yourself and your looks."
"I'd hardly call Ryu Rumi just some girl." He laughed again, something hearty and full-throated. "It only gets worse from here. Once you debut, every girl in Korea will want to be you." His eyes trailed to Mira. "And your girls."
Rumi's attention fell back to Mira and she didn't really know what it all meant. Mira watched quietly until Zoey wandered back to her side and Rumi gave a soft, proud sigh as she came into her view. "We had our time, your girl has nothing to be jealous of now. We should get going. I'm taking Zoey to that import shop down the road. I think they'll have some snacks she's been craving."
Zoey perked up, eyes bouncing between the two as she put the pieces of the puzzle together faster than Mira ever could. But Mira was admittedly distracted by that look on Rumi's face. It was indulgent, proud, soft in ways that Mira rarely got to see.
She recognized that look after their nights in bed together. Usually the next morning, when Mira would crash into a breakthrough in her training like fucking clockwork, Rumi would look at her like that, the way she was looking at them now.
"I'll see you around. Have a good birthday."
"Bye, Rumi. Have fun with your girls."
Mira was in trouble. She noticed it as her reasons for knocking on Rumi's door late at night began to grow thinner and weaker. It had begun as an outlet for her irritation with Rumi, and if her therapist were really trying to get a rise out of her, with herself.
But it seemed to be working because Mira struggled to find things irritating enough to make her angry. She was having trouble justifying each bruise she littered across Rumi's chest and thighs, she was struggling to even get up the desire to leave them at all.
That's not to say she wanted to stop fucking Rumi entirely. Very much the opposite. But Mira couldn't be sure how amenable Rumi would be to tender sex, loving sex, maybe even hanging out for a little while afterwards?
Mira had already started lingering in bed longer than she could truly explain away. Rumi never kicked her out, never even implied she should get going. But she also never asked Mira to stay either.
Of course, tonight, Mira paced her room, the sexual frustration of several days keeping to herself just to prove that she could was getting to her head. Luckily, she had laundry to hang, and Rumi had been gone all day from training handling some sort of debut nonsense that Celine needed assistance with.
Her door wasn't entirely closed, so it's not that she necessarily expected a knock, but Rumi always did anyway. Mira didn't notice her sneaking through until the click of the lock closed behind her.
Rumi leaned against the door, her head tilted back to stare at the ceiling. Her shoulders were tense, but slowly easing downwards the longer she stood there and worked a breathing exercise Mira had recently learned from her own therapist.
Mira snorted, grabbing a cardigan from her basket and a hanger in the other. "That bad?"
"Celine," Rumi grumbled, as if Mira would simply understand. She did.
"I'm not the one you should be complaining about your mommy issues with." Mira couldn't help the needling. She had the whole day without Celine and Rumi, her day had been perfectly fine. Aside from the inherent horniness of self-imposed sexual repression, Mira was in a great mood.
Rumi's eyes darkened, a hungry look flashed across her face, and Mira could swear her eyes flickered a completely different color as she stared from the door. "I didn't come here to whine."
Mira couldn't fight her own smirk, couldn't bite down on the barb even if she knew provoking Rumi would probably not go the way she wanted it to. "That's exclusively what you do when you're with me."
She moved so quickly, Mira thought for a second that she'd teleported to her side. Mira dropped the shirt in one hand and Rumi snatched the hanger from her other and tossed it to the side.
Rumi grabbed the collar of her shirt and hauled Mira downwards to her lips. She tasted like the final remnants of strawberry lip gloss, and Mira gave in entirely, Rumi could have her way for a little while. She moved backwards until they were close enough to the bed for Rumi to twirl around and shove Mira to sit at the foot.
Rumi climbed into her lap with a graceful swing of her legs. She wore a pair of tight little shorts, shorts so short they would probably count as lingerie to the right denim enthusiast. Mira didn't care about the shorts, but she liked the bare skin of Rumi's thighs beneath her palms. With shorts so short, she could touch so much more without having to push her away long enough to strip.
Rumi's breath was shaky already, and she moved her hips slowly in Mira's lap. Enough to drive Mira a little crazy, but not enough to get anywhere.
As much as she did like the tight little shorts, it took approximately thirty seconds for Mira to get over it. She wanted them off. Now.
Rumi, evidently, seemed to want nothing more than to be in Mira's lap. When Mira pushed her thighs back to get her off, it took just a flick of her fingertips to unhook the button to her shorts. Rumi knew the drill, she stripped quickly and returned to Mira without another word.
Mira littered the column of her throat with kisses, nipping at her pulse point and along the tendons flexing beneath her teeth. Rumi seemed to like it best when Mira was a little rough with her, a little merciless in her teasing. Yes, sometimes Mira just wanted to kiss her senseless and bring her over the edge again and again until she seemed to float on clouds, but when Rumi was like this it was truly impossible to do anything but give her exactly what she wanted.
Rumi whimpered softly, burying her face in the crook of Mira's neck as she rocked her hips slowly into Mira's lap. Mira was still fully clothed, and while she would prefer to get undressed, the idea of pushing away Rumi again, especially naked, was antithetical to Mira's existence. It just didn't compute in her mind. She wasn't moving until Rumi was shaking and sweaty and gasping her name.
Mira's palms inched up the thighs bracketing her hips, and slowly, with agonizing precision, Mira cupped at Rumi's perfect fucking ass. She urged Rumi along in her lap, even if it didn't do much for her, Mira liked the way Rumi grew desperate and the pink filled her cheeks as she struggled to maintain composure.
Mira's hands drifted inwards, with one hand she pushed Rumi up and back down to seat herself on Mira's long, lithe fingers. She pressed her other palm to the junction between Rumi's hip and thigh, allowing her to reach her thumb down to circle her clit every time Rumi's hips jerked forward.
Rumi's mouth fell open, and Mira would have been happy to sear the inside of her eyelids permanently with the vision of Rumi's eyes rolling back and her head tilting to reveal the perfect curve of her throat, just so she could relive this moment every time she fucking blinked. Rumi's breath hitched high in pitch as she gasped, trying to keep as quiet as she could even as she rode Mira's lap faster and faster.
Mira aimed for the outer side of her shoulder, just where her bicep began, to dig her teeth down and muffle her own groans. Rumi didn't need much help nor encouragement to thoroughly fuck herself in Mira's lap, and Mira wouldn't have put a stop to it even if demons fell from the goddamn sky.
"Mira," Rumi whispered, voice cracking with effort. Her hips picked up the pace, and though the awkward angle burned in her wrist, Mira persevered. The shit she'd put up with just for this pretty girl in her lap, it was pathetic. "Mira," Rumi's voice hitched again. "Please, please-" Rumi's voice cut off as her thighs trembled and clenched, her little gasp choked out as she came as quietly as she could, and Mira desperately wished they could have just one fucking weekend where she could fuck Rumi into the mattress as loudly as they wanted. She wanted to know exactly what Rumi sounded like screaming Mira's name.
Rumi finally stilled in her lap with a quiet whimper, and Mira knew that Rumi would have made a weak excuse to leave for the night if she didn't do something. And well, Mira had been thinking about this for a while, had been holding off until she could actually ask Rumi about it later.
But then that man's face from the hobby shop would pop up in her mind and the jealousy and the frustration would bubble up again. Mira wanted to prove herself, wanted to show Rumi exactly what she had to offer.
"Lay down." Mira's voice was quiet, but it held a stern command to it that she only ever used with Rumi. Only ever used in bed with Rumi.
Rumi's breathy moan would have been embarrassing for her at any other time, but Mira had grown accustomed to the needy lilt to her voice in bed. She would never take it for granted, but she definitely found comfort in the familiarity.
Rumi did as she was told, allowing Mira to slip from under her and strip her clothes as she dug through a drawer.
The harness itself was nothing special, simple, relatively cheap, did its job. The dildo she fit into it, on the other hand, Mira had picked out specifically with Rumi in mind, even if she'd never admit to it.
It wasn't huge, but it certainly wasn't small, it was the kind of thing that took some adjustment, and Mira reveled in the way Rumi's eyes widened at the girth.
"Oh fuck," Rumi said so breathlessly that Mira thought her knees would buckle. "Mira-"
"Yes?" She didn't really mean to tease, but Rumi made it so fucking easy. She wanted Rumi begging for her cock, she wanted to put anyone else out of her mind for at least a few minutes, if not the rest of her life.
"Come here."
It's not that Mira didn't like it when Rumi took charge, in fact, she probably liked it a little more than she wanted to admit. But the command to Rumi's voice set Mira on edge. It was a specific deviation from their sexual dynamic that, while not unwelcome, would shatter the flimsy excuses they had to keep this going. Mira couldn't risk it.
So she crawled up the bed slowly, meeting Rumi for a deep kiss, mostly tongue and teeth, before she pushed Rumi back down fully onto her back. Rumi looked up at her so sweetly, so vulnerable, Mira had to sit back on her ankles and run a hand through her hair.
"Well?"
Between the arch of Rumi's eyebrow and the teasing tone to her voice, Mira's irritation broke through and she let it channel into the roughness of her hands. She grabbed Rumi by the hips and flipped her onto her belly, pinning her down with a hand between her shoulder blades. She pushed Rumi's thighs apart roughly, and trailed her fingertips up to the wet patch between them, still sticky and dripping from her first orgasm.
"I don't think you're in any position to tease, Princess." Mira whispered into the shell of her ear, leaning down to nip her earlobe. At Rumi's shiver, she stroked through her cunt, gathering slick along her fingertips with a cocky grin pulling at her lips.
Rumi groaned and buried her face into Mira's pillow. Her fists clenched into the bedsheets as she pushed her ass up into Mira's hands. She said something into the pillow Mira couldn't make out. But based on the way her voice turned upwards into a whine and the insistent buck to her hips, Mira would assume she was begging already.
Despite her bluster and aggression, Mira was gentle with it all. She didn't want to hurt Rumi like that. So she moved slowly, sinking inch by inch into her from behind as Rumi keened and whimpered into the pillow. This position, while unplanned, probably worked for the best, because Mira doubted Rumi would be able to keep quiet while she split her open like this.
Rumi gripped at the bedsheets with one hand and brought her other to her braid, as if to keep herself down even as her back arched into Mira's touch. It brought a thought to Mira's head, and once she'd fully sank in to the hilt and Rumi had adjusted to the size of her cock, Mira grabbed a fistful of her braid, right at the base, and tugged her head to the side to reveal her profile.
"Be quiet for me." Mira whispered against her cheek, placing a soft kiss where her lips met skin. She pulled her hips back and slammed forward in a quick little rut. Just enough of a threat to punch the breath straight from Rumi's lungs. "Got it?"
Mira loosened her grip in Rumi's braid enough for her to nod rapidly. Her eyes screwed shut as tight as they could and her breath came in quick pants as she adjusted to Mira's movement inside.
Another couple of thrusts had Rumi gasping and tugging at the sheets. Mira pulled away from Rumi's braid to readjust her angle, but Rumi would have none of it. She scrambled back for Mira's hand awkwardly and brought it back to her head. One eye cracked open to look over her shoulder, and it was Mira's turn to lose the air in her lungs.
Pink tinged Rumi's cheeks, and her eye had turned a bright gold. There was a desperate glint as she watched Mira, lips parted as her chest heaved with effort to keep quiet and still.
"Please," Rumi had probably said it aloud, Mira could hardly hear it over the thundering of her own pulse, but she could make out the word as her lips formed it.
Mira tugged gently at the braid beneath her hand, jogging her hips a few times until Rumi's eye rolled back again and she closed them tight. "Good girl."
Rumi turned her head then to groan into the pillow, a high-pitched, desperate sound that had Mira pushing into her again and again until she heard it repeated. What she wouldn't trade for just one day without anyone to overhear them. She wanted Rumi begging and crying beneath her. She wanted to hear the way her voice broke over the syllables of Mira's name. She wanted to be loud and rough and merciless until Rumi lost her voice entirely.
Oh, and when she came, it was glorious. Mira didn't expect it to be so easy, or even as simple as just fucking her from behind. But Rumi was squirming beneath her and panting into the pillow and pushing back to meet each thrust at just the right angle.
It was a final tug to her braid, a little murmured praise, and a couple of rough thrusts that pushed her completely over the edge into a messy desperate orgasm that had even Mira trembling.
Mira didn't want her to leave.
Mira didn't have any expectations for their debut. She anticipated anything between immediately going viral and hitting it big to flopping entirely and haters hunting them for sport.
She didn't expect the sheer amount of work it all was.
Celine and Bobby took a huge load off with administrative and organizational tasks, juggling four phones between them and an entire team of stylists and image experts. Rumi took to post-debut life like a fish to fucking water. It seemed any emergency Celine or Bobby were too busy to handle fell into Rumi's lap and was immediately handled with precision and expediency that Mira imagined seasoned politicians would drool over.
Mira and Zoey, on the other hand, were treading water. Zoey hadn't expected the sudden onslaught of social notifications, she'd always had a decent online presence. Now, with their meteoric rise to the top, Zoey's phone was constantly buzzing. Mira didn't envy her.
Mira got to experience true fame for the first time. Yes, all eyes had always been on her when she'd still been in contact with her family, but not to this level. Business executives were not followed and dissected and examined at every angle for the sake of speculation into every detail of their lives the way idols were. Mira had always been relatively private most of the time, at least, when she wasn't causing a scene on purpose. But now that privacy was a thing of the past, Mira missed the high walls of the compound and the complete social isolation that came with it.
Yes, Celine still took the reins every now and then to make major branding decisions. But the night before their debut, she had told Mira that the expectation with Mira's role as the lead visual of the group was to handle branding and imagery. Choreo had always been Mira's favorite part of training, and she had a wealth of ideas to execute and experiment with if she could just get some time in a proper dance studio. Knowing just exactly how flexible Rumi was, and knowing the literally superhuman levels of endurance that girl had in more ways than one, really did a lot of the work for Mira in the first place. She would never have to have that conversation with Rumi, the one where she had to tell her to eat more protein and do more cardio, she could rely on Rumi to perform to the highest of standards.
Zoey was no slouch either. Starting off as demon hunters and idols-in-training did so much for whipping them all into perfect shape and a well-oiled, precise machine. They were an unstoppable unit, and even if they rarely got the time to goof off the way they did as trainees, the camaraderie was still there and Mira knew even if they were exhausted and busy, she still had Rumi and Zoey at her side.
Zoey liked to share the memes with them, and Mira looked forward to their extremely early morning breakfasts together for that exact reason. She and Rumi would sit across the table from each other with their coffees in hand, watching the other over the rim of their mugs as neutrally as they could, while Zoey would chatter sleepily. She'd punctuate jokes with little yawns and show them fan edits and videos. She'd read out comments complimenting Rumi's range or Mira's outfits. Zoey usually skipped the ones talking about her until she'd turn the phone over to Mira or Rumi and they would take advantage of the time to read the thirstiest comments with exaggerated levity.
Zoey never failed to giggle. And a few of the most outrageous lines became silly in-jokes that they'd repeat from across the stage during rehearsals or mutter as they reapplied makeup in their dressing rooms before shows.
Rumi and Mira never quite breached the steady ceasefire they had, though they complimented each other and made silly jokes the way they always had, they kept their hands to themselves, and they kept the jokes strictly platonic. It was starting to drive Mira up the wall.
While exhaustion and business kept them from sneaking across halls or knocking on hotel doors, touring meant sharing busses and planes and personal space with Rumi in a way that Mira could rarely retreat from. Suddenly, all she wanted was a couple of extra milligrams of caffeine and a dark stretch of wall to pin Rumi against.
Arriving back in Seoul, while a relief, also meant a new kind of busy. Rumi disappeared into her room at night more often than not, and Mira feared it was likely not to go to bed. Rumi had a desk and a decent lamp in there, the level of workaholic Rumi had hit was beginning to be "stage an intervention" levels of obsessive.
And none of that included the demons.
Zoey took over their socials, and though it was rocky at first, she adapted quickly. She introduced their fans to new ways to connect by streaming video games and dance sessions. She would giggle on the couch every now and then during her lyric breaks and refuse to tell Mira the punchline to whatever jokes she shared with their fans. Mira would hazard a guess a lot of it was at her expense, but she trusted Zoey not to cross any lines and to come to her defense when she needed it.
But what she really, really needed? She needed her fucking dance studio to finish construction three floors down. The penthouse was nice and all, but having to call a driver every time she needed to hit the Sunlight studio downtown was getting ridiculous, and sometimes she just needed a late night workout without having to ask some poor soul to leave the warmth of their bed just so she could struggle with her own sexual frustration. She hadn't realized how badly she'd come to rely on Rumi to help her get through her issues until they'd entered this weird, frustrating stalemate of silence and chastity.
They'd just about finished the final stages of song-writing for their second album when Rumi emerged from her room with a sigh and a soft smile.
She held a little envelope in her hand, robin's egg blue, Zoey's favorite color. "Okay, you two. Listen up." Rumi practically skipped to stand between the couch and the television, smiling down at them both and the scattering of papers between them with music and lyrics and doodles all over. "It's been a long almost-year. I'm so proud of us. The tour went amazing, the next album is almost ready for recording, and demons have been struggling to get through the Honmoon for months now." Rumi's smile stretched even wider. "So I have a surprise for you both. A thank you."
Mira furrowed her brows. Rumi wore a hoodie she knew was fleece-lined, and sweatpants she knew always hung too low on her hips to be anything but a temptation, and her cabin socks were fluffy and bright pink in a way that clashed with the other colors to her outfit. Rumi was dressed for lounging, but Mira knew damn well that Rumi took fewer breaks than even she or Zoey did.
Zoey clapped excitedly. "Aw! Rumi! You know you don't have to. We're a team! We couldn't do any of this without you either."
Rumi's smile grew crooked and much more genuine as she looked to Zoey so fondly it made Mira's chest clench. "Here, this is for you. Please don't take it the wrong way."
Zoey took the envelope Rumi held in her hands and tore it open with an excited squeal. The card was simple, something she probably picked up at a random gas station or convenience store. Nothing in any way sentimental. But a slip of paper fell from the card and into Zoey's lap.
She grabbed the slip and took a look carefully. "A plane ticket? Are you kicking me out- oh! LA!" Zoey danced in her seat. "You're sending me home for the weekend?"
Rumi nodded. "It took some begging and then some scolding, but Celine agreed to let Bobby give us the weekend. I know you've been homesick since our US tour, I thought I'd give you a few days to be at home with your family."
Tears welled in Zoey's eyes, and she hopped up to throw her arms around Rumi's shoulders, fully jumping into her arms with her legs locked around her waist. Rumi stumbled back in surprise, but her laughter was bright and sweet and Mira wanted to join them so badly.
"Flight leaves tomorrow morning. Really early. I'm sorry, it was the best option." Rumi kissed Zoey's cheek dramatically and squeezed her arms around her again. Her eyes wandered over to Mira still on the couch, and her smile grew gentler. "Your turn, Mira."
Zoey jumped back, bouncing on her heels. "Mira's turn! Mira's turn! What'd you get Mira?"
"We have to go see it. Grab your shoes."
Rumi didn't bother to change from her atrocious but admittedly cozy-looking outfit, so Mira elected to just slip on her house slippers and a cardigan. Zoey bounced into the elevator just before the doors slid closed wearing a hoodie and shorts, quite the combination, and bunny slippers.
The moment Rumi pressed the button, Mira knew what was coming. Her lips twitched excitedly as she tried to keep her usual, stoic mask on. But if she was right, she was going to pin Rumi to the elevator wall, poor Zoey be damned.
The elevator chimed cheerfully, and the doors slid open to reveal an empty lobby and an entire row of frosted glass. Rumi led them through and kicked off her slippers to enter the dance studio with a happy little huff.
"I'll admit, this is the first time I've seen the finished product in person," Rumi said, voice echoing off the hardwood floors. Mira stepped through next, and her mouth dropped open.
The dance studio was fucking perfect. The frosted glass gave her some privacy, and the opposite wall was made of the building windows, floor to ceiling glass that let in the clear, sunny day that they'd been ignoring all morning. It was cold outside, Mira knew, but it looked beautiful anyway.
One wall held the barre, and the other was floor to ceiling mirrors, practically seamless, the panels were so perfectly fitted together.
"I know there were a lot of delays with construction for permit reasons. But I got a little extra cash after that cameo I did a couple of months ago, so I made sure the crew got a little extra to speed things along." Rumi shrugged, suddenly shy as Mira ran her fingertips along the barre. "There's a remote over by the door and a control panel over there that will let you tint the windows. It gets bright in here at sunset because the windows face west, and I know you like to dance at night when you can't sleep so I figure being able to tint the windows for privacy would help-"
"It's perfect." Mira finally interrupted Rumi's anxious rambling, and she turned in a full circle to really examine the room. "Thank you."
Rumi's blush was fucking beautiful, and Mira really, really wanted her naked.
Zoey's whistle broke the tension as she bounced from heel to heel. "I've trained in some dumps, but this place is next level. I think she likes you best, Mira. You got all this, and I got a red-eye out of the country."
Rumi laughed, blush creeping higher up her neck. "Shut up! I'm trying to be thoughtful. If you don't want to visit your parents-"
"I'm not complaining!" Zoey threw her hands up in mock surrender. "I'm just saying."
Upon their return to the penthouse, Zoey skipped away to pack a bag, already blaring music loud enough for the bass line to beat through the door. Rumi's light laughter followed her down the hallway and it was everything Mira could do not to melt into a puddle at her feet.
It was impossible these days. There were two versions of Rumi and while work-Rumi drove Mira a little insane with her constant badgering and demands and refusal to relax. Rumi-Rumi, the real Rumi, was sweet and sensitive and thought about Mira and Zoey with as much care and love as she could hold in her heart.
The way Rumi had watched Mira explore their studio with trepidation and a little excitement brought it all forward. Mira and Rumi had kept apart the last few months (almost a year, goddamn, what a dry spell) and Mira realized it hadn't necessarily all been the distractions and the exhaustion. Mira didn't want to fight Rumi anymore. There wasn't an ounce of animosity left in her, not after watching Rumi dive between her and the biggest demons she'd ever seen, not after Rumi's steel-voiced threats to the venue crew after a near-miss mishap with some stunt props that nearly set Zoey on fire, and certainly not after she used an extra paycheck to grease the palms of a construction crew just to give Mira a place to retreat to.
Rumi had never been the best with words, Mira couldn't blame nor judge her for that. But she spoke with her actions, and finally, finally, Mira had learned to listen.
Because Rumi sighed just a little too happily at Zoey's closed door, and then her shoulders tensed just a little awkwardly as she realized that Mira stood next to her, and then she turned so, so slowly to watch Mira uncomfortably.
"I'm sorry."
And Mira couldn't for the life of her guess why the hell she'd say that. "What?"
Rumi's smile returned, a sad one instead. "I know you haven't gotten much time to yourself lately. But I have a lot of work to do anyway, I promise I'll be quiet, stay out of your hair."
"Wait, what?"
Rumi shrugged, it was a poor attempt at nonchalance, but Mira watched the way Rumi's eyes trained on the floor, like she couldn't quite bring herself to watch Mira confirm what she already believed to be true. "You know how the compound is, there's like no internet or cell service. I can't get anything done there. But like I said, I'll be quiet and I won't get in your way."
Mira's eyebrows furrowed and despite their little stalemate, Mira wanted to step in. To grab Rumi by the chin and force her to look Mira in the eyes when she's speaking. The other part of her though, didn't want to see how much Rumi believed that Mira didn't want her around.
"Are you not going to take a break too?"
Rumi glanced up in surprise. "Uh, no? There's still plenty to do and I know you guys needed the break-"
Mira had to reach deep inside, past a whole lot of disappointment and concern, to find the anger she kept hidden away these days. She needed the fire to embolden her to say what she meant, to tell Rumi off for neglecting herself and to have something else to blame for her own roughness. Mira wasn't capable of gentleness, it was easier to have an excuse for her bull-headed aversion to vulnerability.
"So you'll just work yourself to the grave instead?" Mira snapped. Rumi shrank in on herself with a frown, though she didn't give in to Mira's anger, she didn't meet it head on the way they did as trainees.
Rumi averted her eyes to the side and waited a beat for Mira to calm down. "It's not that- I just. There's a lot to do and you two deserve a break. It's my responsibility to look out for you and make sure you're okay. Zoey likes her people and you like your time alone. I can give you guys that. So I did."
Mira frowned. Maybe anger hadn't served her well this time. She took a breath, in through her nose and released it slowly through her lips, allowing her shoulders to fall with the deflation of her chest. "I guess. But- you know I like having you around, right?"
Rumi's eyes were wide and bright and so, so pretty when they stared up at her. It was like Rumi wouldn't dare to hope— hope for what, Mira couldn't say —but Rumi couldn't seem to help the anticipation anyway. "I-" and instead of finishing her sentence, Rumi simply shut her mouth with a click of her teeth and a soft little shuffle of her sock-clad feet.
"We're friends, aren't we?" Mira asked, and yeah, she didn't like how needy she sounded then, but all could be forgiven by the way Rumi nodded so quickly. As if comforting Mira were second nature, as if she'd jump at the chance to love her.
"Of course! I just- you like being alone sometimes."
"Rumi, you live here too. I like having you around." Mira shrugged. "You don't have to hide and pretend you don't exist anymore."
Mira hadn't given too much thought into living with newly-debuted, international superstar Rumi, of Huntr/x fame, mostly because she'd lived alongside Rumi for years. Ever since Mira had run away from home to join idol-slash-demon-hunter training, Rumi had lived just a door down the hall. Back then, Rumi was still trying to control teenage-hormone related acne and struggling to find a decent place to hide her journal. Rumi had been so painfully normal and abnormal at the same time. Growing up simultaneously in the spotlight as the daughter of one of the most beloved K-Pop idols of the previous generation (raised by her bandmate on top of that) and also hidden behind the tall walls of a compound nobody but Celine and carefully selected staff could enter made for an interestingly socialized child. Mira wasn't an expert on being normal, but Rumi wasn't it.
That said, Rumi, who Mira once watched devour an entire rotisserie chicken by herself with her hands, was also now widely-known as one of the most beautiful people on Earth. Mira could pretend she didn’t get the hype. But she did.
She absolutely did.
Rumi had grown from covering as much skin as she feasibly could without attracting suspicion back when she had been hiding her demon heritage, to wearing cute and tastefully revealing outfits around the compound, to practically fucking nothing now that the three of them had their own place to live. Zoey had been vocal about not giving a fuck about what they wore in the comfort of their own home, and she was sure to lead by example, but Mira had a few objections. Not because she was a prude, far from it, actually. But because Rumi was, as previously stated, one of the most beautiful people on Earth and Mira happened to know what she looked like on her knees.
All of that to say, Mira needed the universe to toss her a bone, give her a break, strike her with lightning, anything.
Rumi wasn't even trying and that made it all worse. Mira wanted her so badly, and Rumi was entirely oblivious to the dog-like drooling Mira struggled to contain.
It started, that first morning, after Mira had finally pulled herself from bed around mid-morning. Mira found around nine in the morning to be the perfect sweet-spot between treating herself by sleeping in and being up early enough to spend her day doing the things she liked to do on her days off. Rumi, though, was a little freak. She liked the early mornings for the sake of running, the absolute maniac.
Mira had given her hugs and well-wishes to Zoey the night before, because no matter how much she loved Zoey, she needed the rest and would not be getting up before dawn to see her off to the airport. So, Zoey was long gone, Mira was sipping at her coffee in an abnormally silent penthouse apartment, and Rumi was nowhere to be found.
Until the elevator door opened.
It was so quiet in the penthouse that Mira could hear the gentle panting of Rumi's breath from the kitchen island, and without her permission, Mira could see flashes of pink cheeks and parted lips in her head. Then, of course, Rumi rounded the corner and Mira went a little dizzy at the sight.
Rumi's braid was artfully mussed, stray strands stuck to her forehead, and her cheeks were indeed flushed much the same way Mira had imagined. Her lips were in fact parted around her breath, and her chest heaved as she took in air.
Mira watched a droplet of sweat travel from her throat down the divot of her collarbone, it lingered on the soft skin of her chest for just a moment before it continued and disappeared into the line of her cleavage. Her chest still rose and fell with each rapid breath, and Mira could only tell what color Rumi's eyes were because she'd spent years before this moment staring into them like a lovesick puppy.
Her sports bra, on the other hand, was a lilac purple and her joggers matched. Her stomach was still toned like the last time Mira had seen her without her shirt, probably last week, and her hips swayed with each step she took.
Mira managed to blink back up to stare at a point between Rumi's eyes just as she tugged her earbuds from her ears with a satisfied smile. "Good morning!" She chirped out. She held her reusable water bottle in her hand and opted to refill it with cold water. When she tipped her head back to take a sip, Mira lost focus again and let her eyes drift back down.
"Uh, morning." She managed to choke out around the rim of her coffee mug before Rumi got too suspicious of her silence.
Rumi hummed happily into her water, and finally brought it down to wipe at her bottom lip with her thumb. Mira had never been more jealous of someone else's hand than she ever had in that moment.
She needed to get a grip. Or maybe jump from the balcony. Either could work.
"Good run?" She asked instead.
Rumi smiled brightly then, a smile reserved special for Mira, she'd come to find. "Yeah, maybe…" Rumi trailed off for a moment. "Only a few kilometers. Lost track. But you were right yesterday, I deserve a break too."
"You're admitting that out loud? Think I could get that on video?" Mira smirked into her coffee, and enjoyed the way Rumi's head tilted back with her laughter.
"I'll have legal draft a document for you." Rumi replied easily.
"Oh good, we'll get it notarized."
And the simple huff of Rumi's laughter made Mira a little weak at the knees, so she took a seat, careful not to drag attention to the huff of air she let out as she collapsed. "Anyway, I should get a shower." Rumi sighed, pulling a few strands from sticking to the side of her neck. "Let me know if you're doing anything fun. I'll make some time today."
Mira was able to bite down on a needy little whimper before it escaped, just as Rumi huffed another breath and breezed from the room.
Her joggers had something written on the back, Mira couldn't say what.
The second gay crisis struck just before lunchtime.
Rumi's hair was a behemoth task worthy only of heroes and gods. Mira knew better than to interrupt, so she put on some old, American comfort watch of Zoey's and lounged back onto the couch with a happy sigh. Even despite the lingering sexual frustration, Mira found her shoulders relaxing anyway as the outrageous English voices chattered on screen.
"Isn't that show for kids?" Rumi asked, voice extremely close to Mira's ear.
Mira jumped, tried to hide it, and realized she'd been caught anyway and grumbled about it under her breath for a second. "Tweens, actually. Thank you very much."
"Because there's a difference, I guess." Rumi smirked, and Mira felt her breath fan against her cheek.
Something inside Mira desperately wanted Rumi to press a gentle kiss to her cheek, or brush her hair back from her face, or something distinctly not-platonic. But Rumi only laughed and rounded the couch to sit next to Mira.
They sat too far apart to comfortably touch, but close enough that each of them could tell the other wanted to. Mira heaved a sigh again and turned up the volume.
"I can't believe Zoey watched this drivel as a kid." Rumi muttered at a particularly stupid joke.
"That last line was pretty good though."
"Only because it was for the adults."
"Yeah, but it was clever enough to make us laugh without letting on to kids that something naughty is happening."
Rumi hummed, and to Mira's shock, stretched her arms up to roll her shoulders and fell to the side dramatically, landing her head directly in Mira's lap with an exaggerated sigh. Rumi kicked her feet up and curled comfortably onto her side, watching the TV as if she hadn't taken Mira's heart into her fist and ripped it from her chest for a personal keepsake.
"This show is awful. Why are we watching it?" Rumi whined.
"Why are you complaining?" Mira whined back. "You said you would leave me alone and now you're judging me."
"One, you gave me explicit permission to bother you. And two, I would never judge. My statement was fact."
"You suck." Mira muttered, but the laughter in her voice made the insult shake and lose all venom.
Rumi turned her head to smile so sweetly up at Mira that she forgot what she had been complaining about. "I do much more than that, actually."
The air rushed from Mira's lungs like she'd been punched.
It wasn't until Rumi had wandered off to do some "minor work" (doubtful) and Mira had finished a short nap, that she finally came to the realization that Rumi was actually an evil mastermind and Mira, for all her big talk and scary-girl reputation, was nothing but prey.
Because Mira returned to the kitchen for some afternoon tea and Rumi already sat at the counter with her own and a laptop. Rumi's braid hung down her back behind her chair and her shorts rode up her thighs and her crop top slipped off her shoulder to reveal such biteable skin. And Rumi wasn't even listening to music, she just looked at the screen and focused without even having to try. Rumi looked up from her screen so easily as Mira waited for the kettle to whistle that it had Mira wondering just how much of the words on the screen Rumi had actually been reading. Her eyes zeroed in on Mira's face, and Mira watched as Rumi's gaze trailed from her eyes slowly, slowly down to her chest, and then her waist, and then her thighs, then back up to her hips for good measure.
Then Rumi's smile was crooked and genuine and sharp at the edges like she knew exactly what that smile did to Mira.
"Good nap?"
"The best," Mira answered, voice hoarse, not from sleep but from something else.
"Good," Rumi said, bringing her eyes back to the screen.
Mira wanted those eyes back on her.
"What are you working on?" She asked, leaning against the island to try and tip her face towards the screen.
Rumi hummed a soft note. "Some proofs for album covers. Recording starts on Wednesday, but the design team wants to get a jump on concept art so we're ahead of schedule and we can get started on marketing ASAP instead of last minute. Celine sent these to me a couple of days ago and I'm starting to get passive aggressive texts so I figured I'd take a look now that I have some extra time."
Mira nodded, though she'd zoned out halfway through Rumi's explanation. Her lips were so pink and full and soft. That last part Mira only knew from experience, but she wanted Rumi's lips on hers so badly, could anyone blame her for zoning?
But Rumi's lips twitched up like she knew what Mira was thinking and that cocky little asshole needed to be knocked down a peg. Mira leaned away, saved by the whistle of the kettle, and prepared her tea without another comment.
"Hey," Rumi spoke up, and Mira turned her head just enough to let her know she was listening. "I've been playing with a song concept, it's going pretty well, but I wanted to hear your thoughts. Can I run it by you?"
"Of course," Mira said as she added a splash of milk to her tea. "You have it there?"
"No, it's on my set-up in my room. This laptop isn't good for anything that complicated."
"Lead the way." Mira nodded her chin in the direction of Rumi's room. She briefly considered bringing her tea to hold in her hands like a shield, but ultimately decided to set it down because she knew how obssessive Rumi could be about dishes in her space.
Rumi perked up then and hopped from her seat to lead Mira down the hall. "I actually don't think it'd fit Huntr/x very well." She sent a smile over her shoulder. "I was thinking of selling it or maybe doing like a solo extra track on a future album when we're more established and have a solid brand."
"I don't think anyone else could do it as well as you could." Mira shrugged as Rumi opened the door for her, gesturing her inside.
"You haven't even heard it yet," Rumi teased.
Mira gave a noncommittal grunt in response, glancing about the room. She hadn't realized that she actually hadn't seen the inside of Rumi's room yet.
It was nice, cozy, a little sparse, but that was just Rumi in general. Rumi made a beeline for her music production set she had in the corner opposite her bed. She grabbed the headset she kept plugged in and handed them over to Mira as she typed into the search bar for a file.
"Your mind works in mysterious ways." Mira rolled her eyes as she settled the headset around her neck. "How do you keep track of files like that?"
"It's literally numbered?" Rumi raised an eyebrow as she straightened. "Is that not organized enough for you?"
"Rumi," Mira leveled a flat look in her direction. "'Track 3192' says nothing about the file!"
"Yeah it does," Rumi pointed to the screen. "It's a track, number 3192 to be specific. So…"
"So, what's the song about?" Mira asked, placing a hand on her hip. There was no way Rumi knew exactly which track she was playing based solely off a numbering system that went into the thousands.
"Love," Rumi blinked. "The numbers aren't random, if that's what you think. They're in an order."
"Please, please, explain your system without sounding insane. I dare you." Mira pressed her palms together in mock prayer.
Rumi smiled with a roll of her eyes. "Another time. Just listen, tell me what you think."
Mira shook her head, but pulled the headphones on from around her neck without any further complaint. And yeah, Rumi may have been born into the music industry, but she had no shortage of talent.
There was still work to do, Mira could tell. The production still needed polishing and there were notes that Mira could tell Rumi was still experimenting with, but the accompaniment was fucking perfect, if anyone asked Mira.
Mira knew Rumi could play the piano and the guitar, but how she managed to make both instruments yearn the way she could make her voice, Mira couldn't guess.
Speaking of her voice, it was haunting. Each note built to a climactic belt that had Mira's chest aching tighter and tighter until finally Rumi's voice soared into the rafters and Mira's heart right along with it. When the song finally ended with a listless final chord, Mira removed the headphones and took a few minutes to breathe, her palms sweated a little against the plastic of the ear covers, but she needed something to keep her hands from reaching for Rumi.
"What did you think?"
Mira didn't mean to say anything outloud without permission from her brain, but her mouth blurted out anyway: "your voice is so beautiful, Rumi."
And so was her blush, now that Mira was thinking about Rumi and her beauty.
"I- that's not what I meant-"
"I know." Mira shook her head. "I mean it though."
Rumi shut her mouth and watched Mira try to catch her breath without it being obvious she'd lost it in the first place.
"It's a work in progress," Rumi finally said. "I still have work to do on it."
"It's pretty polished, actually." Mira countered. "How long has this been in progress?"
Rumi shrugged her shoulders. "Couple years."
"Years?" Mira placed the headphones down and crossed her arms. "Who has you yearning for years at a time?"
"Who said I was yearning?" Rumi giggled. "I can just write love songs, you know."
"Yeah, yeah." Mira waved her hand between them, but she didn't really have anything else to say to that. Instead, she tried so very hard not to think about how close they were standing together, about how Rumi's eyes kept glancing to Mira's lips, about how Mira was intimately aware that Rumi was within arm's reach of her and a bed.
Fuck it.
She wasn't sudden with it, she wasn't rough or angry with it, she wasn't demanding either. Mira moved rather slowly, actually, brushing her fingertips across Rumi's cheek and down the curve of her jaw to cup around the back of her neck. She swiped her thumb along her bottom lip and pulled her in slowly enough for Rumi to resist if she wanted to.
But Rumi didn't resist.
Their lips met gently at first, and at the first swipe of Rumi's tongue, Mira burst into flames. Her other hand gripped tightly at Rumi's waist and Rumi's hands were already buried in Mira's hair.
Rumi nipped at Mira's lip and she hissed a curse quietly into the air between them.
Rumi sighed, almost dreamily, and pulled back enough to tug Mira towards the bed. "It's been so long."
Mira let Rumi pull her down to straddle her hips on the bed, and Rumi worked slowly to unbutton the first few buttons of Mira's pajama shirt. "I see now." Mira whispered between them already panting and breathless. "You had a whole plan, didn’t you?"
Rumi grinned that specific smile that was all Mira's, and Mira couldn't help but laugh into a new kiss as Rumi finished the buttons. Her hands were just a little cold as they explored the lines of Mira's hips and abdomen. And she gasped when her hands reached her breasts, brushing and pinching at her nipples.
"Not the whole time."
Mira hummed, licking into Rumi's mouth and letting her hips roll with each twist of her fingertips. "How long?"
"I timed it, it took you two entire minutes to stop staring at me and say good morning back."
"I'm never living that down." Mira groaned as Rumi's fingernails raked down towards her waistband.
"Never."
"I'll get you back." Mira swore as she trailed kisses to Rumi's ear and the spot just below it that she liked so much. "Be careful what you ask for."
"I think it'll be worth it."
"Cocky little shit."
Rumi rolled her hips up with the trail of Mira's fingertips. It didn't take long for either of them to strip, and when Mira's thigh wedged between Rumi's legs, up and up until she could feel the wet patch practically throbbing against her quads, Rumi's hand covered her mouth to muffle her whimper.
Mira clicked her tongue. Rougher than she intended to, but not completely unwelcome, she grabbed Rumi's wrist and pinned it to the mattress beside her head. "No, I want to hear you now."
And this time, Rumi didn't grit her teeth, didn't bite her lips, didn't cover her mouth. Instead, her lips parted around a soft moan that had Mira's thigh jolting against her. "Fuck, Rumi, your voice." And Mira's was already shot to hell. "Let me hear you, don't hold back."
Rumi's whine hitched upwards as Mira trailed kisses down far enough to bury her head between Rumi's thighs.
Rumi still tasted perfect, even after years of fucking and not-fucking. It just didn't piss Mira off anymore. How could it? Rumi was so beautiful and sweet and kind. No matter how much Mira gnashed her teeth and fought every attempt at friendship, it was all so inevitable.
"Mira," Rumi sighed at the first brush of her tongue. Mira repeated the motion, and Rumi's voice rose. "Mira!"
Mira never had any real opinion of her name, it's not that she didn't like it, or that she did like it, it was just her name. But falling from Rumi's lips? Gasped out like a prayer to the universe? Mira didn't want to hear it said any other way.
In fact, if nothing else, Mira would be happy never leaving this bed again. Not as long as Rumi said her name like that.
Had this been what they'd been missing keeping quiet for so long? Mira mourned for her past self, this was ecstasy, this was a heaven no one but Mira could ever ascend to, not without Rumi.
Rumi didn't last long, but Mira had no room to judge, she suspected that a light breeze could tip her over the edge. Mira never wanted to go so long without Rumi ever again, and she never wanted Rumi to muffle her voice ever again.
Mira made her way back up, with a brief detour to press a kiss to her chest just over her thundering heart. Rumi evidently didn't have time for sentimentality because she tugged Mira by the hair back to her lips. She didn't seem to mind as her own slick smeared between them and across her face, and Mira would try to at least wipe herself off if Rumi's hands hadn't found their way between her own thighs.
"Fuck, Rumi-"
Rumi's smile was bright and a little wild. "Oh yeah, I see what you mean." Her fingertip slid through Mira's already dripping cunt up to her clit, and Rumi gasped in time with Mira. "Don't you dare hold back. I'll stop."
Mira's whine was simply embarrassing, but at least Rumi didn’t stop. In fact, she pressed on, and with just a few swipes of her fingertips, Mira was already following each twitch with her hips, gasping and moaning whenever Rumi hit that spot that only she really knew about.
"Please, please- Rumi!" Mira whimpered, burying her face in the crook of Rumi's neck and grinding down onto her palm. "Please."
"Say my name again."
"Rumi," Mira didn't even fight it. Any other time, she'd object to Rumi taking charge, but it'd been so long since Rumi had touched her, since anyone but herself had touched her. She couldn't bring herself to care that Rumi took charge. "Rumi, Rumi, Rumi, please-"
Mira broke. Rumi was too experienced with what Mira liked, and it'd been too long since they'd last fucked like this, Mira couldn't keep going.
Her orgasm crashed into her like a bolt of lightning or like a rising wave of storm-whipped water. It dragged her under so fast Mira couldn't even take a breath to prolong her drowning. She gasped and trembled, and Rumi panting in her ear didn't help her calm down.
It felt a bit like a hurricane lashing at a streetsign. Every gust of wind brought a new wave of pleasure that made her knees weaken and tremble until finally, she resurfaced in Rumi's arms, gasping for air.
Mira probably would have been happy to spend the rest of her life in post-orgasm haze surrounded by Rumi and the remnants of her perfume. But Rumi had another idea in mind, Mira couldn't say when she ended up on her back, but with Rumi straddled across her hips, it was hard to care.
By the time Rumi reached her collarbone, Mira recognized the plan. "No!" She yelped, tugging at Rumi's braid.
Rumi froze, pulling herself back up to be nose to nose with Mira. "Are you okay?"
Mira nodded, maybe her eyes were still a little crossed, but she could still see Rumi's concern. Her chest ached a little at the thought of worrying her, but that was nothing compared to the twist in her gut at the idea of letting her go, even if just to go down on her.
"Stay here." Mira mumbled, pressing a kiss to Rumi's jaw. "Fingers."
Rumi sighed. "Okay, baby. Anything you want."
Mira's whine could be attributed to Rumi's palms as they explored her body, relearning the curves and edges. But she knew the truth.
She liked the pet name.
Baby, in Rumi's voice, echoed through her mind as Rumi found the curve of her ass and then the jut of her hip bones and then the inside of her thighs.
"Is this what you wanted?" Rumi whispered, her fingers were knuckles deep inside and every time she curled just right, Mira would throw her head back with a groan. "You wanted me to fuck you like this? Right here so I can kiss you too?"
And Mira was nodding, she didn't think anything of it until Rumi's lips were on hers. Mira couldn't do much to kiss her back with Rumi pumping in and out like she was, but she absolutely knew she didn't want Rumi to retreat.
She seized forward with one hand tight on the base of her braid and the other arm wrapped around her shoulders to keep her in place chest to chest. Rumi didn't fight it, in fact, she leaned in.
Mira was babbling by this point, she couldn't say what she said, just that Rumi picked up the pace and her palm dragged across her clit and she wasn't quite sure she would survive another orgasm.
There was no storm-water this time, it was all engulfing flames bursting through each individual nerve-ending until Mira was taut as a bowstring and trembling, trembling, trembling. Rumi huffed a little laugh and the bowstring snapped.
Rumi didn't even stop this time, by the time Mira had come down the second time, Rumi was stretching her with a third finger and whispering in her ear about "one more, baby. Just one more, you can do it."
Mira was sure there were scratch marks littering Rumi's shoulders at this point, but neither of them gave one single fuck about that. She hadn't caught her breath yet by the time she was cresting into a third climax.
She didn't know where Rumi's confidence to talk came from, but Mira loved every second. Between gasping for breath and just the slightest, delicious ache in her lower back, Mira didn't know what the hell Rumi even said, just that she loved her voice and never wanted her to stop.
Rumi hummed mischievously in her ear as she finally managed to fill her lungs with air. "I think you can do one more."
"Please, please, Rumi. I can't- I can't-"
"Please baby? Just for me. One more. I promise." And Rumi's voice was so sinfully sweet, so soft and indulgent and Mira couldn't get enough. She'd do anything to hear more, and anything included a fourth fucking orgasm.
Mira whimpered into another kiss, nodding as Rumi resumed pumping her fingers. This time, she lined her thigh up to use her hips for added leverage. It was brutal, it was overstimulating, it was a violent clash with the sweet softness of Rumi's voice.
"That's it baby, almost there, I can feel it." Rumi trailed away from Mira's mouth to her ear, kissing her jaw along the way. "You're so close, aren't you?"
Mira nodded again, there were no more words to form, she wasn't sure she could take it anymore. She trembled so hard, her thighs already ached, another orgasm might just take her apart bit by bit.
God, did it try.
Mira would deny she screamed until her dying day, but she would admit to an elevated tone of voice. Everything was just too much, and her mind had fully turned off, all there was in the world was the cresting pleasure shaking apart her bones at the joints, the bed sheets slick with sweat beneath her, and Rumi whispering praise into her ear as she slowly, slowly came down.
Mira hadn't realized tears had leaked from her eyes until Rumi was wiping them away with a gentle smile. It took several minutes to catch her breath, and with Rumi humming softly as she pressed gentle kisses along her overheated skin, the first words out of her mouth made Rumi bark a laugh.
"Jesus, Rumi. Where the hell did that come from?" Mira's words slurred a little, she was on her way to sleep already, but she just had to know.
Rumi's giggles settled down as she pressed kisses to Mira's shoulder and collarbone. "I've had time to think about what I wanted to do to you for a while now."
Mira grumbled under her breath. It didnt take very long for sleep to claim her after that.
Mira couldn't remember a time she'd ever been truly and completely relaxed. The kind of relaxation that makes a person boneless and putty in the sheets.
Despite her utter comfort, there was some sort of motor running in the room, because it seemed to shake the entire bed, and if Mira weren't absolutely certain that it was impossible, even the Honmoon itself.
There was a warm weight across her chest, and that was definitely hair tickling her cheek, and Mira never, ever spent the night with Rumi, so it was hard to tell without opening her eyes exactly where she was. It was also extremely difficult to pick up the desire to open her eyes to find out in the first place.
But the tickling across her cheek was getting annoying, and now that she was awake, the rumbling was going to keep her from going back to sleep, and her body ached in a delicious kind of way.
She opened her eyes. It was bright outside in the specific shade of blue that meant she'd slept through until early morning, but those were definitely not her windows, definitely not her walls, and that was definitely not her balcony.
The panic gripped her tight for just a second before the weight on her chest shifted and the rumbling stuttered to a slow stop. Mira glanced down to find a mess of purple hair nearly wrapped around her arm, and Rumi snuggled tight to her chest with furrowed brows.
What the fuck?
Mira froze and the tension trickled back into each of her muscles quite quickly. It must have woken Rumi, because she pulled back to blink blearily up at Mira with a confused, concerned little frown.
There was an urge, a small one but it was there, to coo at Rumi's sleepy face and pull her back down for them both to fall back into the realm of sleep. But the urge, ultimately, was a small one and easily ignored.
Rumi blinked another few times and sighed. "Please don't freak out."
Mira's chest stuttered with a shaky breath and there was nothing she could do but be honest. "I'm freaking out a little."
Rumi deflated. "Okay, well. Go get a shower." She rolled away from Mira and suddenly she was extremely cold and lonely. Mira wanted to reach for her again, but Rumi had already stood, fully naked, to disappear into her walk-in closet.
Mira had no choice but to do as she was told.
Mira took her time drying her hair and, because this was her long weekend at home, she dressed herself in a new, clean set of pajamas and called it good. She could hear Rumi moving about in the kitchen, and so Mira took a couple of steadying breaths and entered with more confidence than she really had.
It all melted away at the sight of Rumi leaning against the counter with a steaming mug of tea and another mug on the kitchen island across from her. Mira could smell the mingling scents of their differing preferred flavors, and she knew Rumi had prepared it exactly as she liked it without even needing to take a sip.
Rumi was clearly freshly showered and sipped at her tea slowly. Her head tilted just right to reveal the darkening marks up and down her throat that Mira had left. Her shirt fell just slightly to the side off of her shoulder to reveal a particularly dark bruise that Mira didn't even remember, but those were definitely her teeth marks littering Rumi's skin.
"I can't do this anymore." Mira blurted out. She was unable to take another step into the kitchen, she couldn't take the tea even as the peace offering that it was. She couldn't look Rumi in the eyes and pretend that she wanted nothing more, let alone to hurt her.
Rumi blinked at her, looked away casually as if Mira couldn't see the tears welling in her eyes, and took another sip of her tea. "Do what?"
"The casual sex. I can't do it anymore."
Rumi shrugged, but refused to meet Mira's eyes. "Then we don't."
Mira didn't like that answer either. "Rumi- I can't do the casualness anymore." Mira took a shuddering breath. "I can't keep pretending I don't want more." Mira paused, and when Rumi didn't move, she soldiered on. "I want more."
Rumi's sigh was a soft little release of breath through her nose, and after a few seconds she managed to unfreeze herself from staring at the floor to look back at Mira. "I've always wanted more."
Mira had a suspicion, but her heart broke at the admission anyway. They stood in silence for several beats before Mira's breath finally hitched, and her voice pitched up a little too closely to hysteria. "Why did you let me treat you like that?"
Rumi blinked again. "Like what?"
"Like- like- I used you!" Mira tipped right into full-blown heartbroken whining. "Rumi, you never deserved that!"
The mug settled onto the counter with a soft thud, and Rumi turned to lean her hip against the counter instead. She crossed her arms across her chest and tilted her head the way she did when she was confused. When something seemed obvious to her but wasn't obvious to anyone else. She was so clever, it was impossible to keep up sometimes, and when she looked at Mira that way, it was hard not to notice how far behind Mira always was.
"You were obviously working through something. I wanted to help however I could." Rumi let her gaze roam back to the floor. "I was being selfish. You needed a friend and I took what I could get. I'm sorry."
"What the fuck?" Mira mumbled under her breath, openly gaping at Rumi. "I don't think you understand that I was in the wrong here."
Rumi shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"What do you want?"
"What?"
"You," Mira said, jabbing her chin in Rumi's direction. "I've taken what I wanted for years. What do you want?"
"I- what does it matter?"
Okay, now Mira could feel the residual anger building up again in her chest. It was all directed at herself, but Mira knew the moment she let it take over, she would lose Rumi for good.
"What you want matters too."
A tear traced down the apple of Rumi's cheek and Mira wanted to lurch forward and wipe it away, to kiss the tear track into oblivion and hold Rumi close until she never wanted to cry again.
"I- I want to hold your hand."
There was a brief, delirious moment that Mira nearly burst into laughter. That was it? Just that?
But then, it seemed the dam broke, and Rumi kept going. "I want to hug you whenever I want, and cuddle on the couch during movie night." Rumi took a step forward, like two magnets inching closer to each other, Mira stepped forward too. "I want to fuck you speechless like I did last night and I want to fall asleep next to you without it being weird in the morning."
Mira was within arm's reach, finally, and she waited as patiently as she could be for Rumi to finish.
"And I want to tell you how much I love you, as often as I can until you believe it. And then more."
Mira lost the waiting game. She reached out and grabbed Rumi by the shoulders to bring her to her chest. Rumi wrapped into her arms like she belonged there, which Mira fully believed that she did, and tucked her face into the crook of Mira's neck with a soft shuddering breath. Mira cradled her head close, and when Rumi's arms came up to wrap around her waist, Mira understood the shake to her voice. Everything clicked into place then, and Mira would be damned if she let go without Rumi knowing exactly where they stood.
"I love you."
And Rumi's little hiccup sounded less like the smile she could feel and suspiciously like a sob instead. It made Mira a little sick to her stomach, but she wouldn't let go if the world were on fire.
"I love you too."
"God, Rumi, I'm so sorry. You deserve so much more."
"I don't want anything else." Rumi whispered against the soft skin of Mira's throat, sending a shiver down her spine. "I just want you."
Rumi's sleepy sigh was just about the cutest thing in the world. Mira wanted to punch herself for missing it the last year or so. The fact that she made such soft little noises just on the cusp of sleep, that the only time she really snored was in the few minutes between awake and asleep, and that instead of snoring, there was something like a motor in her chest that seemed to rumble the entire world around them when she dreamt, the fact that Mira had missed all that ignited a new kind of burning frustration deep inside her. A self-loathing that she knew she needed to work through, because she absolutely would not be threatening her mornings with Rumi ever again with her stupid bullshit. Her therapist had her hands full.
A soft little snort hiccuped through Rumi's nose, and Mira continued tracing the patterns beneath her fingertips. They reached nearly down to her mid-forearm now, and Mira hadn't realized that they'd spread so far since the first time Rumi had shown them to her.
"I love you." Rumi sighed, apparently tipping back from the brink of sleep.
Mira hummed. "I love you too, Princess." Her finger followed the jagged edge reaching towards the inside of her wrist. "These have spread." Her heart lurched a bit, and Mira bit her lip. She could keep her mouth shut, or she could just ask the question that would eat at her until she did. "What happens if they take over?"
Rumi shrugged. "I don't think they'll grow much anymore. I wouldn't worry."
"That's not an answer." Mira frowned at the back of Rumi's head. "Why won't they?"
Rumi shrugged again, and Mira's frown deepened. As if she could sense it, Rumi sighed. "They only spread whenever I lied to you and Zoey before I told you about them. Then, after that…"
"After that?"
Rumi's silence spoke volumes, but Mira hadn't learned to read them yet. "It was only after we slept together that they would grow."
"Every time?"
"Every time."
Mira really considered bolting. But she'd promised herself, and by extension Rumi, that she would be brave, that she would stop the suppression and the running and the hiding and the angry outbursts. It was time Mira grew up and faced the consequences of her mistakes. "What's the difference now?"
"I'm not lying anymore."
"You were lying before?"
"Kind of." Rumi turned her head, and when she met Mira's eyes she fully rolled over to face her. "They only spread when I'm at my absolute worst. I always felt so ashamed when I lied to you or Zoey, I think it had something to do with that." Rumi hesitated. "I was lying by omission, you know? Whenever you knocked on my door or I knocked on yours and I pretended it was just to relieve stress or fuck out my feelings. I was taking advantage of you. It made my patterns grow every time."
Mira's eyebrows met in the center of her forehead. "Baby, no." Then the full weight of her words hit Mira like a truck. "We slept together at least a few times a week. They grew every time?"
Rumi nodded her head. "It's true. I'm sorry. I should have been honest with you."
Mira wasn't proud of it, but the tears came after that. "Rumi, you didn't do anything wrong." It came in waves then, and Mira pressed a wet kiss to Rumi's forehead. "I did this to you. I'm so sorry, love. I'm so sorry."
"Mira-"
"No, no. I was wrong." Mira shook her head, refusing to look back at Rumi's face. She zeroed in on the wall behind her instead. "I'll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you, I swear. If you'll let me."
Rumi pulled her closer with a fist in her shirt. "The rest of our lives sounds nice."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."