Chapter Text
Rumi and Mira are warm and kiss drunk when they stumble back into the apartment, faces flushed ruddy, like the dying sunset they’ve just come in from. They linger on the threshold of the doorway to the common area, trading kisses back and forth.
Date night with Rumi was a marvel. Zoey is a marvel for suggesting it.
“We’re a trio, of course, and that’s awesome, I love doing stuff all three of us!” She explained, the last time they were in a cuddle pile.
“But we’re also three couple combinations too, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with exploring what that might look like, for dating, for sex, for whatever.”
Mira was against it at first, and that had made Rumi hesitate. The sex part wasn’t new, they’d had sex in twos before, when one of them wasn’t feeling it, or if one of their periods had snuck up on them. That part was easy, there was always something else for the uninterested party to do to keep busy, until they could come back and join the skin-on-skin cuddle pile, bringing snacks or water or towels with them. Or sometimes they didn’t even leave at all. Mira usually encourages her girls to fuck on top of her if they’re so inclined, seeing no reason to leave their sides even if she doesn’t want sex in the moment.
It was the dating in twos that had her worried. Because she still thinks about it sometimes, about her and Rumi having to corner their maknae and make her tell them what was wrong, because she knows that as much as things have gotten better for them since their comeback tour, since they all agreed to stop hiding, that healing is a cycle.
Too much and not enough would probably always whisper in Zoey’s ears, twin demons nurtured by two separate toxic households, and a lifetime of feeling in-between.
Mira and Rumi have held a lot of Zoey’s ugly parts in their hands. She’s stripped her soul bare for them, probably more than even they’ve done for her, though they try as best they can to match her. Mira knows that Zoey feels out of sync sometimes, that it sends an ugly prick of jealously into her when Rumi and Mira know exactly what the other is about to say, and Zoey comes out of left field. She struggles sometimes to believe them when they reassure her that they love how different she is from the two of them, that they never want her to stop doing that.
If it weren’t for Zoey presenting them with a third option, Mira fully believes her and Rumi would’ve gotten too in-sync for their own good, growing tired of the same things every time because there’s no one to throw something wild out with unabashed abandon like their maknae. Zoey is their glue, and it hurts when they can’t soothe the doubt in her.
Zoey didn’t roll her eyes when Mira told her all this, but she did have that quiet pursing of her lips, that determined set of her jaw.
“I’m not suggesting this just to please you both. I can handle you two being together without me sometimes too, and I want to show it to you. Besides, I think it might be interesting to have things we do just as couples rather than as a trio.”
Her smirk had sealed it. “And really, this is more selfish than anything, I get to have you all to myself sometimes Mira!”
Rumi had whined about not wanting to share and Zoey had shut her up with a kiss and that had been that. Mira had still had her quiet doubts.
But after finally doing it? Zoey is right. There’s something intoxicating about focusing so much on just Rumi for a night, cataloguing her reactions, watching her mouth, her hands, her patterns. They’d gone to a classic arcade bar Mira liked, with her leading the date this time, with the promise of Rumi being in charge the next time it rotated around to being just the two of them.
Rumi rolls onto her toes, sucking at Mira’s neck in the hall, each kiss and press bringing back an image of their date to Mira’s mind: introducing Rumi to DDR, dancing until they fell together, laughing, knocking elbows and knees on the bars of the machine, patrons kind enough to pretend they weren’t watching two of the three biggest kpop stars in the world make fools of themselves. Mira leaning against Rumi, pressing front to back, grinding just a little, just to take the pressure off at the arcade cabinet, arms around Rumi to ‘show her how to hold the plastic gun properly’. Drinking silly themed alcohol beverages and sneaking off to kiss in the bathroom.
Mira had discovered Rumi liked cheap beer, was an excellent shot, though the effect was ruined when she stuck her tongue out and closed one eye, and that they both sucked at alley rollers.
She can’t wait to tell Zoey. It thrills her to think about it, the idea that Zoey will get to hear about the date from both of them, separately, in between kisses, that she is excited and supportive and will be as fulfilled by hearing about it and the new facets they learned about each other as if she had been there herself.
It brings a new edge to their dates, the anticipation, that they’ll take turns leading, like a dance, partner dates and then trio dates; it felt like a widening of their relationship, like a fresh kaleidoscope of sensation to their dynamic.
Rumi would be going out with just Zoey in two days, and Mira found herself almost more excited for that, than for her Zoey date in five days. Almost.
Zoey is terrible at keeping her plans secret, so Mira already knows that she’s taking Rumi to the aquarium (she’s also taking Mira, because she fucking loves the aquarium and turtles and will probably take them there too on their trio date, and Mira’s head swims thinking about the look on Zoey’s face as she infodumps turtle facts, and knows she won’t care at all how many times she hears the same ones over and over.) And then after the aquarium to wander off to look at street art and finding live theatre to watch.
Zoey won’t watch anything that you have to sit down for, claiming it’s too elitist, she wants the raw human expression of black box theatre, in tucked away alleys by outdoor buskers, or set up in little coffee shops outside the tourist district. Mira doesn’t ‘get’ them, but Rumi seems to like it, and if her girls like it, she’ll watch it too, letting them explain the symbolism as they walk.
But in a few days she’ll get to hear about it instead and she’s excited to hear Rumi describe it to her, to see what and how Rumi focuses on Zoey, which moments each of them remember, which makes their hearts beat faster.
She also knows that after the aquarium on her Zoey date that they’re going to the skate park and Zoey will hold her hand, and maybe slip her hands down to her hips, grab her ass, as she tries to teach her to skateboard. That too, had been impossible to keep secret, Zoey absolutely insistent that Mira wear a helmet and thus they had to go shopping for one.
As if Rumi can tell she’s thinking too much, her hands trace up Mira’s chest, groping at her breasts through the thick fabric of her sweater until a sigh punches its way out of her ribs.
Mira’s head tips back until it meets the cool wall behind her, and she glides her hands up Rumi’s arms to grab her wrists, scratching her nails along Rumi’s pattern’s just enough to have her flickering with light. Rumi’s wrists are tiny—Mira can wrap her whole hand around them easily, and it’s hot as fuck—as she squeezes lightly against Rumi’s quickening pulse with her thumbs, a moment of reassurance before she moves Rumi’s hands off her.
“Not in the hall,” Mira huffs out, and there’s a sentence she never thought she’d be saying.
It’s… they have to follow the plan, if they’re going to date in twos. Coming home and having sex without Zoey like this feels like a deliberate exclusion, different from when Zoey chooses to sit out because she’s cramping or not in the mood, or too in the zone with her lyrics to even consider getting distracted by sex.
Mira would go on her date with Rumi, then fuck their leader within an inch of her life in her room, and then sexed out and showered would crawl into Zoey’s bed so they could all wake up together. That was the plan, that was how it was supposed to go, that was what they’d talked about and agreed to. It felt easier, somehow, the promise of closed doors and a separate room.
Rumi, bless her, understands without Mira having to say it out loud. She leans up to place one last chaste kiss on Mira’s cheek, just by her lips, before backing up, letting a rush of cool air in between them. Mira chases her, enjoys the soft wash of shadow that’s enveloping the hall as the sun continues to set, leans her forehead against Rumi’s and just… let’s herself be soft for a moment.
“Go get ready for me, tiger,” Mira growls, breaking the moment just as quickly to turn Rumi around and slap her ass.
Rumi just giggles, because she knows, knows that sudden and raw machismo is just Mira’s reaction to feeling like the sincerity is choking up her throat. That undercutting that sincerity is a habit that’s kept Mira safe, that it’s hard to break, even for her girls. She’s working on it.
“I want you naked and spread out on my bed in fifteen minutes,” Mira continues, dropping her voice an octave in the way she knows gets Rumi’s knees weak.
Rumi doesn’t give her the satisfaction, challenges Mira, stuffing up the moment with sincerity again. “It doesn’t take fifteen whole minutes to get undressed, baby. You’re going to check on Zoey first.”
“Yeah,” Mira admits, low and quiet in the soft dark.
“Good.” Rumi beams. “So am I.”
Yes, Zoey had rolled her eyes and reassured them for the twelfth time before they left, that she ‘would be fine’ and ‘didn’t feel left out’ and would be writing lyrics or planning more dates or just bingeing k-dramas thank you very much, they didn’t have to worry about her. And yes, she had promised she would text the moment that changed, wouldn’t hesitate to interrupt their date if her brain decided to trick her into thinking they hated her.
She had done all that. But Mira is worried.
Mira is good at watching people. It’s a skill she’s developed over many years, at first out of necessity and then, eventually, out of want, because watching is how she takes care of her girls. Zoey’s smile was a little too big this morning, fake at the corners, eyes glassy like she was gone, like the static was creeping into her head the way it did sometimes.
Sometimes I just get… stuck, Zoey had told them once. It’s not really one thing, life just slips into being too much sometimes. Too loud.
She’d looked and sounded the way she had before she disappeared on them, the first time Zoey’s mind plagued her with doubt after they began dating.
Plus, she hadn’t texted at all. Not even a cute heart halfway through their date. Mira gave it the benefit of the doubt at the time; but now, she wants to check in on her maknae, tease her and ruffle the hair on her head before going back to the plan.
Mira finally breaks off from Rumi with a nod, toeing off her boots before Rumi’s even bent down to undo the laces of her sneakers. As she moves to go find Zoey, Mira hears Rumi hum the unfinished bars of the new song they’re working on, Huntrix’s first love song.
The penthouse is oddly dark and quiet, only the whine of the fridge and the whirr of the central air disturbing the silence. There’s a light left on in the hallway further in, the one that leads to their rooms, and in the living room the tv is quietly cycling through the slideshow Netflix puts on when it’s been left alone for too long without any other inputs.
Something prickles along Mira’s neck, cold and sobering.
“Zo?” she calls, the sound echoing ahead of her as she closes the distance to Zoey’s room. “Babe?”