Archive of Our Own

Ryu Rumi was made to worship at their feet.

She was born to bend at the knee for them. She existed just to—for them—to give them everything that— 

Ryu Rumi radiated power and control in a way that made others want to force her submission. She invited challenge like a widow invited pity; it wasn’t enough to accept her dominance, to respect her strength, or even her survival. Meeting her head-to-head made spite rise up in even the most demure of creatures, like nature itself wanted to cow her. 

That’s why none of them are surprised when the interviewer takes a strike at her.

“So, Rumi-ssi,” he begins, and her girls are already bristling at the familiarity of it, “there’s a rumor that you’ve recently created an account on K-Cue, the celebrity dating app. Care to speak on that?”

The interviewer, an alpha, grins at the question. His broad-cheeked face stretches in a way that catches the light reflecting from the stage in an almost sinister air. His voice carries from where he’s seated behind the camera—so much for the light and easy variety-style interview that this was supposed to be. It’s clear he’s gone off from the pre-approved script when Rumi glances down at the pile of cards in her hands and finds that they’ve circled back to the first question, which should have marked the previous one as the end of the interview. This footage was destined to be cut up and regurgitated back onto social media in bite-sized pieces for views. Certainly no place to be implying that Rumi was dating.

When her eyes return to the camera, a polite smile rests of her face. She focuses on the reflective lens; this man would not be dignified with true acknowledgement. Her distaste bleeds carefully into the air, controlled as always. Just a hint of stern displeasure, decades of media training collaring her rage and yanking on its leash.

“It sounds like K-Cue may need to review their approval systems if it’s that easy to impersonate someone. I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Namgung-nim. I can’t say I’ve made an account like that before,” she concludes with a light laugh. She knows that her smile doesn’t meet her eyes when one of the cameramen shifts uncomfortably.

Like most idols, her dating life has always been a hot topic for fans and press alike. It’s not the first time an interviewer has gone off script to try and catch a reaction that will grab the headlines of any music-focused magazines that are clued in. Scandal sells, and an alpha with stature like Rumi always pulls attention. Unlike most idols, it only got worse after an American magazine named her World’s Most Eligible Alpha Bachelorette last year. The youngest to hold the title in the last two decades, according to Celine. The only real benefit of that disaster was an increase in album sales during the overseas holiday season.

And still, this was only one part of her private life that press targeted. Alpha interviewers tended take her lack of a reaction as a challenge to push harder, further, deeper. Anything to break her composure, to trip her up for even a second. Part of her knew that it was in their nature, but the excuse rang hollow. If she could restrain herself, could hold back the inner turmoil of a demon and an alpha fighting for dominance, the least they could do is show some fucking professionalism for thirty minutes.

For a moment, Rumi is caught in her own head over the frustration of it all, and focused as she is on keeping her expression in check, she doesn’t notice as control of the situation is ripped away from her.

Mira clears her throat from where she sits at Rumi’s right. “Are we taking turns? Maybe we should ask what apps are on your phone next,” she drawls. And then with a grin, “Bet we could find something interesting in there.”

It’s toeing the line of what is appropriate, but it’s embarrassing enough for the interviewer that they’ll cut it before the footage makes it out and end the interview here. If there’s one thing that the omega is skilled at, it’s poking just the right places without fully breaking the rules. Years of teaching myself to avoid getting punished for acting out, Mira had told them during their training years. But I have more fun letting go. She had said it then with a more menacing grin than the one she wears now. Rumi can still taste the air of that moment, thick on her tongue, can still feel the way a shiver ran down her back when she met Mira’s gaze.

That was before any of them really knew each other. Before Mira and Zoey both met Rumi’s walls, one right after the other, over and over again until they both slowly stopped trying at all.

Zoey comes to her rescue in a different way as someone off camera calls out for the end of the shot. She moves closer to Rumi, the couch dipping oddly under their combined weight and dragging Rumi’s shoulder towards to their maknae.

“Rumi,” emphasized with a grin and a laugh that is just so Zoey. “If you ever do want to make a dating profile, you know you have to ask me for help, right? I’d be so mad if I found out you had one and didn’t even let me choose your profile pic.” She’s deliberately loud enough to attract the attention of the crew around them and just like that, the air of the studio lightens. It’s purposeful, of course. It always is with Zoey, in moments like this. She knows just what to say to bring everyone back together, something that both fascinates and haunts Rumi in a way that she sometimes can’t understand.

And because she can feel the interviewer’s attention return to her at Zoey’s comment, Rumi raises a brow at Zoey and offers her a quirk of her lips, amused. A reaction that should look suitably normal towards her group member. She says nothing, afraid for a moment that opening her mouth would let out too much of the flood behind it.

Her girls flank her as they step off the stage, every step feeling natural because they were born to be at either side of her. It’s a truth that has sunk so deep into their souls that none of them care to acknowledge that somehow, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

They start to separate again at their respective dressing rooms; one shared between Zoey and Mira and the other for Rumi.

As the alpha places one foot inside the doorway, there’s a hesitant, “Rumi?” And she turns to find Zoey staring at her, one hand at her side clenching and unclenching as she does. Mira watches them both carefully from over Zoey’s shoulder.

Whatever decision Zoey was struggling to make seems to have been made for her when Mira shifts behind her and gives a push to the maknae’s back. The only thing that gives it away is the slightest movement of one shoulder, and by the time Zoey is jogging up to Rumi and embracing her, Mira’s hand is once again relaxing at her side.

Zoey’s hug is loose but warm and Rumi is more than happy to ease into it. She’s never been able to say no to either of them, and despite Celine’s voice ringing in her head, she will always take any affection that they give her. For Zoey, that means running a hand over her head without tugging any strands of hair out of her twin buns. For Mira, that means returning the nod that she sends from the doorway to the matching dressing room.

“I’m okay.”

An hour later, the sun has long since set and they’re giggling at the way that Zoey trips over the curb and lands face-first into Rumi’s back, who in turn dominoes into Mira and now they’re collectively falling into the back seat of the car instead of piling in the way they had intended. Their driver patiently waits for them to get settled without surprise. It’s not the first time they’ve happily fumbled around in the too-small-for-three-adults backseat, and it certainly won’t be the last.

There was once, early into their career, that Celine accompanied them to one of the dance studios that Mira was hosting a class in and she had so helpfully floated the idea of pulling up the last row of seats in the car so they could all have some breathing room. When the trio met her only with stupefied expressions and silence, she dropped the idea entirely. She must have spread the word to the rest of their management team because no one else had pulled a stunt like that again.

“Okay, but all I’m saying is that if I was a worm, I’d expect you guys to still love me and keep me in your pockets,” Zoey declares as the car begins its journey back to the Huntr/x tower.

Mira’s face contorts at Zoey’s frankly absurd expectations. “Gross, dude. You want us to just keep a worm in our pockets? How would that even work when there’s two of us and only one of worm-you?”

Zoey happily leans over Rumi’s body to make sure Mira gets full visibility when she starts gesturing wildly. “Well, obviously you’d also have to keep some dirt in your pockets too. For warmth! I don’t want to just be wiggling around in your bare pockets with all the lint.” She nods sagely, sitting up straight before tilting her head as if she could see how perfect this whole plan is in the alternate reality where she is, in fact, a worm. “And you’d have joint custody. I want Rumi on even days and you on odd days and then on weekends I’m expecting the full shebang. Ice cream with Mira and then a trip to the park with Rumi.”

Rumi considers this for a moment. It does make sense, sort of? But wait—

“Hold on, are Mira and I divorced in this scenario? And you’re our worm baby?”

Zoey squints thoughtfully at that. “No way! Ughhh, I need to workshop this one more. Come back in three to five business days and I’ll have a whole world ready for this hypothetical! And a PowerPoint!”

The amused snort that comes from Mira borders on pig-like and that brings a laugh out of Rumi and soon they’re all doubling over against their seatbelts and crowding into the center-most seat where Rumi is squished between her two favorite people. There’s peace in moments like this, so of course something has to come in and ruin it. This time, it comes in the form of a buzz in Rumi’s pocket.

She lets her laughter trail off while she squirms to fit a hand into her pocket and paw at her phone. She has to headbutt Zoey gently, just a little bit, to get her to move enough and free it and pop open her text messages from B-BOY. Bobby had insisted on the name when she first plugged his contact into her phone, saying something about how this just makes him more relatable with the theoretical kids, as if Rumi wasn’t well into seventeen when they met and didn’t feel much like a kid anymore. In the dark of the car, the phone feels almost too bright in her hand.

B-BOY

Saw the footage. We’re looking into where the rumor came from. Lawyers are talking to K-Cue now. Will get back to you with deetz!!! TTYL 😏🙃🙊💃💃💃💼🕴️

Alongside the text is a picture of Bobby pursing his lips at the camera in the way that he did in every selfie, and clearly visible behind him is half a dozen men in suits huddled around a conference table. The string of emojis following the message are almost incomprehensible. Almost. Just enough to make Rumi squint down at the text and give Mira and Zoey plenty of time to read over her shoulders.

Mira hums somewhere close to her ear and Rumi practically jumps at the way her emotions bounce from happy with her girls to exhausted thinking about the interview to nervous about their proximity, as if that’s ever been an issue before, in such a short time.

But it’s Zoey who speaks first. “Oh hell yes, we’re going to sue the pants off of those guys!” When Mira and Rumi turn to look at her, Zoey is happily pumping a fist into the air and wiggling in her seat. “No one messes with our Rumi!”

“Pretty sure we can’t sue people just for being assholes, Zoey,” Mira mumbles. Rumi watches her carefully, and Mira in turn is back to staring intensely down at Rumi’s phone, now long dim with inactivity. There’s something hidden behind her eyes, something that Rumi isn’t privy to. Mira has always been this way. Thoughtful. Careful, in an intense way. The mask slips, at times. When she’s upset. When she’s soft. When she—

Mira’s scent is more intense than usual, cinnamon and sandalwood and something sweet like honey. Rumi drags her eyes away. And because she never has a choice with them, her gaze immediately falls back on Zoey. Zoey, who looks up at her with big, wet eyes.

“You really didn’t join a dating app, right?” The question seems to fall from her lips unwillingly with the way that Zoey recoils at her own words. But now it’s out there, so she keeps going. “I mean, it would be okay if you did! It’s more of, just, that I think we’d want you to tell us. Just so we know what’s going on with you, you know? Because hey, if you’re suddenly going to be bringing guys home, I think we should know about that! As roommates. Bandmates. Whatever. Hunters, too!” Zoey ends it with a nervous laugh and her face twitches strangely in the light of the passing cars and streetlamps as she deflates.

Rumi doesn’t miss the implication that she may have lied, back on that stage. That maybe, Rumi slipped up somewhere and her perfect facade hinted that she wasn’t quite telling the truth. That maybe, Zoey suspected that she could ever lie to her about this, about the way her heart would only ever beat in time with these two souls beside her.

Rumi isn’t oblivious. And her girls, as perfect as they are, can’t lie very well at all. Who could blame them? The three of them are so much alike, so bent by their years of being hunters that they can’t quite fit the mold of normal humans anymore. They solve problems with action, with violence. They don’t talk out their feelings. But the difference between Rumi and her two girls is that Rumi was taught to hide from the moment she was born. She is a liar from birth, something made to be in the dark and quiet. Something different from them. So she schools her expression into a pleasant smile and quietly rejects them. Just like she always does, to spare them the pain of finding out the truth.

“I really didn’t. Promise I’d tell you first thing,” she smiles around the words, as if that would make the whole thing hurt any less. They’ve spent the last seven years together and they’ve haven’t fractured yet. Between late night practices, between the brawls in alleys with demons, between every soft and unspoken moment of release, they have always stayed together. She wouldn’t let anything break them apart. And so, she fights everything in her that wants to be accepted. “Maybe you can help me make one after the Idol Awards?”

Zoey’s face folds in on itself and then relaxes in a blink. She offers a nod and a strained smile before settling back into her seat without a word. Zoey’s scent presses against Mira’s now, her usual citrus and sugary sorbet spiked with something darker.

The rest of the drive back is silent.

Later, when they arrive back in their tower and they finally have true privacy, Mira and Zoey will paint a mural with their calming scents, a personal show for Rumi as she steps into her room without a word and closes the door behind her.

Rumi has never hidden that she’s an alpha. She couldn’t, even if she tried. It was woven so deep in her nature, in every careful step around Celine’s estate and then later with the tower. In every water bottle that she leaves at the door of their dance studio on days that Mira has hit a bump with building choreography. In every second that she lets Zoey lay her head in her lap while she scrolls through animal videos on her phone. Instinctively, she reaches to protect her girls at every opportunity.

It’s for this reason that Mira and Zoey know to leave her be when she steps out of her room one morning, her braid undone and hair puffing up around her head in a tangled mess. She makes her way into the kitchen muttering something under her breath, grabs a sports drink from the fridge, and heads back to her room without acknowledging them.

Mira watches her carefully from where she perches on the barstool, elbows up on the kitchen island.

In the corner of the kitchen, Zoey’s hands tighten around her coffee mug, some horrible blend that she imported from America insisting that no, no, it’s super good actually, you just have to drink it every day for a year straight and then you’ll start to like it.

Her alpha pheromones are controlled, tame like always. The only hint that this is coming is the bright red pen that circles those four days on the fridge calendar. When it comes to instincts, Rumi is made of stone. She does not move, does not waver, and does not fail to contain herself.

Rumi emerges again three days later. Just like she had six months before, and six months before that, and just like she will six months from now.

Zoey has always been aggressively curious by nature. If anything, her age has actually calmed her, if you could believe it. The way that she resists wandering into Rumi’s room during those three days should really go to show you that she’s gained a lot of self-control over the years. Really!

Because, well…

The first time it happened, she couldn’t help herself.

It’s late into the summer and Zoey is on summer vacation, thank god, because tenth grade is so hard and sometimes she struggles to even see why school is necessary at all. Dropping out and joining a really cool circus seems much more appealing, in her opinion. Or maybe she could sell so many silly bands that she can buy a house and just live like that! Or, or — maybe her mom would let her stay with her and her new husband in Korea and maybe their schools are actually waaay better! The possibilities were endless.

Or, they were until her dad calls her into the living room one afternoon and introduces her to a thin, balding man that calls himself Mr. Jones. He must be anxious because he stands so quickly to introduce himself and follows it up with an absolutely excessive number of bows. She shakes his hand politely, even though he’s nervous enough to have a tremor when she does, just like her mom taught her and he rewards her with a broad grin and a few rushed words in accented Korean.

She squints up at him in confusion and that’s all he needs to see before he switches to fluent English. “I’m with Sunlight Entertainment,” he explains carefully. “We saw clips of one of your… performances online.”

Pieces click together in her mind and then her brain is scrambling to keep up with the whirlwind of thoughts. She knew what he was talking about, because there was only one such performance that made it out of that basement and she had been grounded for two months because of it. And it wasn’t even her best freestyle! Maybe that’s why her dad had been so mad? What’s worse than finding out that your daughter is attending underground rap battles? Finding out that she rhymes Burbank with bronze rank, bottom lane gank, of course. Curse this fucked up League of Legends brain.

Her brain stumbles over the thought, redirects, and heads straight towards the next. An agent? Reaching out about her freestyle? Signing her? Giving her a record deal? And it wasn’t even her best freestyle!

Then the next. Sunlight Entertainment—a small group? She can’t think of anyone she knows with that label. Okay, she can work with that. That means less pyrotechnics in music videos, but it isn’t the first time she’s had to make do with setting fewer things on fire. Briefly, the word association reminds her of the Sunlight Sisters and—

“—and she would like to meet you,” he finishes. Right, finishing the statement she was definitely listening to.

“Who?” She asks, and with any luck he hasn’t actually mentioned anyone by name yet so she doesn’t come off as too rude.

The way that he smiles suggests that she was right on the money with that, because he follows it with, “Celine.”

For a long time, Zoey thought something was wrong with her. Something that didn’t quite fit what she heard from the other kids at school and definitely didn’t fit anything she heard adults talking about. There was this kind of… emptiness to her. Like a big hole, something cavernous and all-encompassing that felt like it could swallow whole world around her.

There was talk of depression and then ADHD before landing on autism and none of it felt right to her, but the her appa does his best to try and help and sometimes that means sitting in front of a doctor and nodding along even when she doesn’t agree. Sometimes it meant watching her medical file balloon after another visit and being okay knowing that it would only ever grow and things would only ever be more complicated than they were the day before.

And so now, when a drop of water falls into that hole and stays there—doesn’t disappear and doesn’t make it grow but instead fills it comfortably, she has a moment that feels like things finally make sense. That things are finally right.

Her appa spends the next three hours locked in his office with Mr. Jones in a slow discussion about what all of this really means for his girl. Zoey, of course, has no choice but to sit outside the door of the office and listen to what she can make out through the crack where the door meets its frame.

Between her sparks of boredom that inspire her to walk over to the fridge and stare at the tower of food inside it before deciding there’s nothing to eat before circling back to the office door, she makes out a third voice joining them. A woman, it sounds like, someone obviously talking over speakerphone to both of the adults.

As the time passes, she really does try her best to stay dedicated to the delicate act of spying, but by hour two she decides she can’t really hear what they’re saying anyway. When her appa and Mr. Jones emerge to find her sitting cross-legged on the couch and doodling in a sketchbook, her dad just offers Mr. Jones a shrug at his hesitance and this spurs Mr. Jones forward with his phone in hand.

And that’s how she meets Celine. Over the phone during her tenth grade summer break, when the asphalt outside radiates heat in the California sun and with the sound of an ice cream truck making its way down the cul-de-sac. With Zoey sitting on the old, worn couch in her living room, wearing her favorite baggy pants and her hair mussed from a failed kickflip a few hours ago, not quite fitting the image of an idol that Celine seems to want her to be.

Celine explains carefully that accepting this means that Zoey won’t be seeing her friends at school for a long time, if ever again. And Zoey gets to happily explain that it won’t be a big deal, because it’s not like she has any friends to begin with, and wow, she’s always wanted to travel. What hurts more is the realization that maybe she won’t be going to the skatepark with her appa again for at least a few months, and then that timeframe stretches into maybe years when he gently tells her that he’s staying in the States.

What follows is another long conversation where they drag her eomma into a three-way call and hammer out plans for how custody will be handled before the sun has fully set and Mr. Jones makes a polite exit with more dramatic bows. It turns out, you can’t just ship your kid off overseas to become a pop idol on a whim.

The rest of her summer break is dedicated to calls with lawyers and government officials and trips to state buildings where she gets her passport and long discussions of citizenship, all while her appa enforces strict Korean speaking at home to get her to relax into a language that she doesn’t use nearly enough anymore. Then there’s the matter of her schooling, a conversation that Celine happily takes to.

“Education is of the utmost importance to Sunlight Entertainment. While there are differences between the standards of education in the United States and Korea, we are more than able to conform to testing requirements of either country while Zoey’s citizenship and visa status remains a question. We have tutors on the estate three times a week, specializing primarily in maths and sciences. I personally cover other topics throughout the week according the academic needs.” The sound of Celine’s smooth Korean over speakerphone has become so common in Zoey’s household that she doesn’t even blink at the idea that Celine has prepared a PR-style monologue about even the most niche issues. “The girls are currently ranking in the top ten percent across every age-appropriate measured education standard in Korea. I am happy to make adjustments for those in the States as well.”

The words take a moment to sink in before something in Zoey’s mind pings in alarm. “The girls?”

The silence that follows from the other side of the line is broken by a barely audible intake of breath as Celine seems to collect herself. “Yes. There are two others,” she says carefully, “that you will be joining. Rumi and Mira.”

Zoey barely registers the sound of her appa excitedly emphasizing that Celine should have mentioned this sooner, that knowing there were two other girls the same age would have made him feel much more comfortable about the whole thing because his daughter needs the companionship. She doesn’t react to him pulling her into a one-armed hug while he continues to talk to Celine.

So that’s how she finds out about the two of them. Like they could ever just be part of an offhand comment from Celine, like the woman hadn’t even planned on her finding out until after she’d been shipped off to another country. What Celine doesn’t know is that just the knowledge of who is waiting for her on the other side of the ocean has filled that hole in Zoey’s heart just a little bit more.

Three days before she would have started school again, Zoey is meeting Celine face-to-face in the parking lot of an airport in South Korea. When Celine slowly explains that there’s parts of her training that they hadn’t covered yet, that there’s more they’ll be asking of her and once again things are growing complicated, Zoey finds that she stops measuring time in school breaks and starts measuring it in before and after the formation of Huntr/x. Because yeah, who would say no to Celine of the Sunlight Sisters, especially when she’s offering an escape from the mundane in the form of a demon-fighting girl group?

Because Zoey is curious by nature, she had already done tons of digging on both Rumi and Mira by the time she even boarded the plane there. Or at least, she tried to.

She had expected to find at least a few social media profiles, but what she found for Rumi was way more than that. Interviews, red carpet pictures, paparazzi photos from a distance. Zoey knew about the Sunlight Sisters’ breakup and how it all went down in flames when Ryu Mi-yeong passed away and left behind a child that no one had expected. But it was still shocking to see how thoroughly Ryu Rumi’s life had been documented by the public. It almost felt wrong to read the articles speculating on Rumi’s upcoming career and how she had been born to carry on Mi-yeong’s legacy. And so Zoey… didn’t. She read the first, the second, then closed every tab she had opened for later and cleared out her phone’s history and didn’t look back.

Mira, on the other hand was way harder to pin down. Mostly because Zoey hadn’t caught her family name, but also because her usual sleuthing managed to pull up thirty pages of unrelated social media profiles—which she knew were unrelated because yes, she was dedicated! Of course she clicked on every one—before finding a single private account with an icon of a girl with bright pink hair offering the camera the slightest tilt of a smile, cheek-to-cheek and squished just into frame with one Ryu Rumi. Reverse image searching the icon pulled up nothing, and the profile name of just Mira. didn’t help much either.

So when Celine informs her that the two girls she will be meeting will be part of their greater trio of demon hunters, she bounces into the estate knowing a lot less about them than she’s really comfortable with, but that’s okay. Because she looks out one of the estate windows into the courtyard and catches sight of pink and purple flying around each other through the dirt arena at lightning speeds, and she feels something click inside of her and lock into place.

Walls have never stopped her before, and she gets the bonus of enjoying a surprised yelp from Celine when she pulls open the window separating her from pink and purple and leaps through it. Her foot catches on the frame at the last second and sends her into a stumbling sprint as she glances back and out of the corner of her eye, she catches the sight of Celine pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. The magnetism of the two girls is strong enough that she feels like she physically can’t stop her gaze from pulling back towards them as her momentum carries her forward.

She gets to watch as Rumi rolls forward to dodge a strike from Mira’s wooden polearm, the price of the longer range of the weapon making it easier for her to slide in close, then under Mira’s arms completely. Her own training sword skids along the ground as Rumi does a sweeping turn through the dirt and rounds on Mira. The muscles of Mira’s shoulders flex as she starts to pull her polearm back, head twisting to keep Rumi in her sight. Rumi seems more than happy to take advantage of her slow recovery, already barreling towards her again before Mira has the chance to straighten.

Shoulder meets shoulder and Rumi twists her entire body over Mira’s, rolling her back against the other girl’s, flipping and landing on the other side of Mira’s body with surprising grace. Her sword falls to rest on the back of Mira’s neck. The whole thing happens so quickly that Zoey has only just gotten close enough to make out Rumi’s sly grin down at Mira and the sound of the taller girl groaning in frustration.

“I just don’t get why I have to worry about keeping track of every enemy all the time,” Mira grunts, slumping forward and dropping her polearm to the ground. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching my back? It’s not like I’m ever going to be fighting alone.”

Rumi’s laugh sounds like music. It bounces through the air as she pulls her sword back and lets Mira rise to her full height. “Celine wants us to be prepared for anything. It’s easy to get separated in the middle of a fight—”

Her eyes finally land on Zoey’s rapid approach and her entire demeanor shifts, mouth zipping and heels meeting with a quiet donk of sneaker against sneaker as her posture goes from casual to stiff in the amount of time it takes Zoey to take another three steps. Mira is quick to follow her gaze, and while her shift is less dramatic, she follows suit in suddenly straightening before crossing her arms over her chest.

Zoey can almost see the walls coming up for both of them, but that’s okay because walls have never stopped her before, everything is okay because she’s two steps away now and she just needs to— 

She tackles them both, stretching her arms enough to pull a muscle in her shoulder, oww, but it’s so worth it because now she has one in each arm and she’s grinning like a maniac as they all fall to the ground in a pile. Finally, finally, finally, she feels like that hole in her is overflowing and the world pulses around her in waves, the rhythm matching the beat of her heart. It’s overwhelming and she watches the way the lines over the world shift to coalesce around them and push her even closer to them. “That was soooo sick! Me next!”

She’s met with two dumbfounded looks and Mira and Rumi look between her and each other. Zoey makes out something like a gyuh? and a huh? from them while they exchange looks over her head. She’s laughing as she leans back and manages to really take the two of them in. Rumi is everything the red carpet photos have made her out to be, all sturdy bones and miles of purple hair, huge brown eyes and the slightest crinkle between her brows on an otherwise perfectly soft face. She’s gorgeous, competing only with the girl next to her. Mira is long-limbed but not gangly, a soft air of precision and high cheekbones and bright pink hair. Zoey elects to ignore how the edge of Mira’s mouth twists in irritation and instead focuses on how she manages to look stunning despite it. Or maybe because of it? Okay, that’s something to worry about later. Now it’s time for her girls.

“Rumi, Mira,” Celine’s voice calls from the edge of the arena. Zoey twists to see her approaching from a much more logical door instead of a window, her steps not rushed but focused. “Meet Zoey. Your third hunter.”

Whatever reaction she’s expecting them to have, it’s not the rapid fluctuations between stiff, nervous and relaxed, but hesitant that Rumi goes through as she tenses in Zoey’s arm. Or the way that Mira stops breathing entirely for a moment, before a deep frown etches itself over her face and she lets out a loud exhale in a way that leaves Zoey feeling like maybe she has intruded upon something that isn’t meant for her. But that can’t be right, because she can feel the way the Honmoon vibrates beneath them and the way her heart tugs on something deep inside of her.

Okay, okay. Maybe this is too much all at once. Celine’s gaze rests heavy on her back as she pulls away entirely, grabbing at the nothing in the dirt around her. “Oooops? Sorry.” She’s not really what she’s apologizing for, if it’s hugging them or being there at all, but it feels like the appropriate reaction, especially when neither of them are making eye contact with her. Mira’s eyes trace quick patterns in the ground and Rumi’s follow Celine carefully.

“Celine,” Rumi’s voice is steady but Zoey can see the way her mouth bends uncomfortably around the name, like she wants to call her something else, “why didn’t you tell us that you found her?” The question hangs like she means more of me instead of us.

“I wasn’t certain how soon we’d be able to get her here. This should be a pleasant surprise for you both,” Celine hums thoughtfully. “I’ll be in the city for the next week to wrap up her papers. Get to know each other— Rumi, I’m expecting her to know the basics by the time I’m back.” And just like that, she’s walking back to the building and leaving Zoey alone in a country that she’s only visited a handful of times, with two girls that she doesn’t know but desperately wants to. And Celine didn’t even bother to finish the tour of the estate, so she doesn’t know where the nearest bathroom is or where they keep their snacks. This is a quick write-off as a bad start in her mind.

Rumi hunches forward and drags her hands down her face with a groan as soon as Celine is out of earshot. Mira is no better, letting out another huff and mumbling yes, Celine under her breath.

It’s only then that she manages to make eye contact with Rumi through the gaps between her fingers. Whatever it is that sparks between them has Rumi pushing away and jumping to her feet the next second. “Okay! You next.”

“This,” Rumi begins as she moves into a fighting stance, “is an exercise in keeping your eyes on your target.”

They spend that first day clearing out the awkward energy of Zoey’s aggressive entrance with what they call sparring, but what really feels more like really bad boxing when Rumi turns down Zoey’s request to use what she calls a sick-ass sword. At least that gets a laugh out of Mira, who quickly tries to hide it with a cough.

She even manages to get a quiet whistle of awe from Mira when she shows off her gymnastics skills with a flip into a one-arm handstand to dodge one of Rumi’s low kicks. Sure, she’s showboating a little bit, but it’s so worth it when even Rumi seems impressed.

By the time Rumi has given her a new pair of pajamas and lead her down to their joint room, explaining that it’s for bonding, of course, Zoey has gotten her ass kicked. A lot. More than she’d like to admit, but she’s really trying to roll with the punches of this whole demon hunting thing and it’s not like she’s actually been trained to fight much of anything. Mira is more than happy to brag that her arrival to the estate didn’t involve so much sparring with Rumi on the first day, which Zoey is jealous of until Mira gets to explaining that she was only allowed to stay because of something involving a real, actual demon, a lot of blood, and her brother. She doesn’t elaborate more than that and frankly, Zoey does not want to ask.

They spend that night sitting at the edges of their respective beds and whispering amongst each other, swapping stories and fitting so naturally together that Zoey might finally understand why sleepovers are so popular. She learns very quickly that there are things that Rumi and Mira don’t talk about, in her own messy way when she stumbles into topics that make them tense and bristle. This is followed by a quick change of subject and then they’re back at it again.

She learns that Mira and Rumi have been together for two years. The way that Rumi says together makes Zoey blink at the distance between their beds and tilt her head. She can feel the way Mira watches her cautiously and when their eyes meet, Mira gives a quick shake of her head. It turns out, Rumi just… says things like that, sometimes. Things with such intense weight that she puts out there without a care, without understanding their implications. This will come to haunt Zoey later in her life, though she can’t possibly know it that first night that they’re swapping stories and laughing amongst themselves.

Zoey presents as an omega a year and three months after that first day.

They don’t really talk about that sort of thing until then. Rumi and Mira both had presented before she had arrived, which wasn’t surprising given their relative ages. It’s never been something they’ve needed to acknowledge before, not when they fit together so well as a trio just as they are. Which doesn’t even begin to cover the number of reasons why it’s never come up, given the complexity of their lives with patrols and demon hunting and idol training and homeschooling and the constant history lessons about the Honmoon and their sort-of hidden society.

So when Zoey wakes up in pain and salivating and Celine has to pull her into a separate room from the other two, that’s the first time they really talk about it. Or at least Celine talks about it, in the way that she does when she’s displeased but begrudgingly putting up with educating them on something necessary but unpleasant. Zoey has conveniently missed most real education about the topic, though she helpfully supplies that she has learned a lot from fanfiction, so she’s practically an expert, and that brings out a groan from Celine before she gently corrects her on stereotypes.

This is a new measurement of time for her; the before presenting and after presenting. It’s highlighted by a feeling almost akin to new colors being born. The before is dull, the after is alive with sights and smells and feelings that she’s never had before. She learns that Mira, Mira smells like sandalwood and a hearty fire on good days, that there’s a hint of cinnamon floating around her and something that sneaks in when she’s relaxed that is close to being sugary and sweet. She learns that Rumi smells like…

Well, there is a scent that is wholly Rumi. It’s something deep, like the ocean and not unlike saltwater. It’s vaguely vanilla and faintly of something fresh like green tea. It’s not to say that Rumi’s scent is confusing, because there are moments when Zoey can make it out so clearly that it hits her like a brick, but it’s muted. She knows Rumi isn’t on blockers because the only time that Rumi is really alone is the bathroom, and Zoey has searched it high and low out of desperation to finally close whatever gap is currently between them. She feels bad each time she does it, because what if this is just how Rumi is? What if she really is just quiet in every way?

Zoey stops searching their bathrooms two weeks after presenting, even though the longing drags at the back of her mind when she resolves to accept Rumi as she is.

Zoey knows that Mira is an omega. She knows that Rumi is an alpha. But knowledge doesn’t stop the way that things finally click in her mind, that their group calendar has a set of days each year blocked off labeled separately with their names. Celine is careful to avoid scheduling group training during those days and Zoey is more than happy to treat them as mini brain breaks when the estate enters a sort of lockdown, emphasized by stockpiling food the days leading up to the breaks and ensuring that no one enters the estate, including their tutors. Those days are strictly dedicated to solo exercises, spread over different corners of the estate, that leave Zoey too exhausted to crawl back to their joint room and instead leaves her stumbling into the first guest suite that she can find.

None of this lowers the necessity for patrols, but during these stretches it’ll usually be just Zoey and only one of the other girls that manage to drag themselves into the dark of the forest surrounding the estate to respond to the way that the Honmoon ripples magenta. Sometimes it will be her dragging Mira through the dense foliage while she mumbles sleepily, and other times it will be Rumi cutting the head off a demon that has approached Zoey from behind. The most she’ll see of them during those times is a few fleeting glances during a fight, a soft exchange of words before separating to their respective wings of the estate once more. It never feels like enough, because they’re never all together, the three of them, during those few days.

In fact, it doesn’t occur to Zoey exactly what the other two girls are doing during this time until after she presents and she gets her own set of days added to the calendar. The knowledge that it’s coming doesn’t stop the loneliness that crawls down her throat and sits there when Mira’s stretch of four days finally arrives and Zoey is whisked away from her girls.

It feels almost cataclysmic when, on day two, she realizes that the end of Mira’s stretch of days has just barely overlapped with Rumi’s, meaning that this has turned into eight days of not really seeing them, eight days without the three of them all sneaking into one bed in the middle of the night and waking in each others arms.

On day six, Zoey has had enough. Her bones ache and she’s so exhausted that she can barely stand and it feels like the choreography for their debut single has burned itself into her corneas and she might just start doing dance moves in her sleep.

It’s a combination of curiosity and loneliness and irritation that drags her across the building. She isn’t even sure who she’s looking for at this point, just someone who will be with her for a few moments when they aren’t being attacked by demons.

So that’s how she finds Rumi.

The air in this section of the estate is stale in a way that makes her scrunch up her nose and makes her want to pick up her pace to get out of here as fast as possible. Something is wrong with the way the silence stretches here, something thick and strange making it feel like she’s wading through water while she walks. The oppressive emptiness drags down on her enough that she has to hold herself with one hand on the wall— or maybe it’s just that she’s so tired, but it’s hard to tell when she’s so focused on finding her girls.

She doesn’t stop, can’t stop until her hand goes to rest on a wall and instead finds a door that isn’t fully closed, sending her stumbling into a room. Another guest suite? It must be, with the bed sitting in the center of the room, the nightstand, the dingy old TV in one corner. Her eyes trace over the thin layer of dust that covers everything before finally landing on Rumi.

Rumi, who kneels quietly on the bed and doesn’t seem to notice that Zoey is with her. Rumi, eyes closed, clothed and unmoving. The only indication that Rumi is even alive is the soft inhale and exhale that Zoey can hardly see because Rumi is just sitting in the dark and not moving.

Zoey knows what a rut is. She knows that the dates on their calendar are for ruts and heats, the only real price they have to pay for their presentations. Finding Rumi like this, kneeling on the bed in the coldest, darkest corner of the estate that Zoey has ever been to, no warm, calling scent in the air feels so wrong that she starts to feel strangely nauseous at the entire scene.

Instinctually, her own scent starts to pour over the room. What control she’s gained over the last month since presenting isn’t enough to stop the way she wants to fix this moment. Maybe there’s something of a romantic living in her brain, because the echoing thought of ruts should be loving bounces around her skull until it’s all she can hear. Rumi looks so lonely, sitting there in the dark.

Zoey takes a step towards the bed, towards her Rumi, towards the girl that she’s known for just over a year now and who she craves in a way that doesn’t have words. On her second step forward, Rumi finally moves, thank goodness, because Zoey’s mind is so loud now that she can’t hear Rumi’s soft breaths anymore and she needs to know that she’s still alive.

Rumi’s nose twitches just slightly. One eyelid raises and even with the distance between them, Zoey can see the way Rumi’s pupil is blown so wide that it makes her entire eye look dark, the light from the hallway reflecting dangerously against it.

“Zoey,” she calls. “You shouldn’t be here.”

The words send a shiver of unease rippling through her body. So she runs. She turns around and runs out the door and doesn’t look back. She tries not to dwell on the way that Rumi smelled like nothing at all, like someone had stamped out whatever light was in her and what Zoey saw was a shell of her Rumi.

She doesn’t register where she’s going or what scent she’s following until she falls into Mira’s temporary room with a slam against the wall opposite the door. Zoey tumbles back onto the floor next to the bed where Mira jolts awake and is already brushing against the Honmoon to summon her gok-do. Fingers halt just above the pulsing waves of the Honmoon’s barrier as Mira takes in Zoey’s distressed appearance.

“Zoey?” Mira looks down at her in confusion, but all Zoey can hear is a different voice echoing her name, back in that cold room where it feels like something has curled up and died. “What’s wrong?”

The pounding in her chest feels like it can’t contain how wrong it felt to find Rumi like that. “It’s— Rumi, I saw her.”

Mira squints down at Zoey for another second before slapping one hand down on her nightstand in search of her glasses. “You saw her? You see her all the time. We live together, Zo.”

“No, no—I saw her, Mira!” Zoey repeats, as if that will explain the twist of her heart when she pictures Rumi in that room alone. Mira, finally settling her glasses on the bridge of her nose, furrows her brow and Zoey can see the way her brain processes Zoey on the floor of her room and connects that to Rumi and the calendar.

There’s a long pause before Mira mutters a quick, “Gross, dude.”

“No, no! I mean, she wasn’t doing anything weird and I didn’t—I didn’t mean to see her, it was an accident, sort of, but I walked in—and she was just sitting there, Mira. Like a statue.” The words fall from her mouth in a waterfall of syllables and she’s tripping over her words again, which is so unlike her because Celine says she’s actually very good with words and she was even thinking of making Zoey their official lyricist and— “Fuck, okay. I mean—There’s like, something actually wrong with her or something. Like—it was so weird. It wasn’t what it was supposed to be. She looked like she was literally dead, Mira—”

“Zoey, Korean, you know I’m behind on English—”

“—Mira, it’s like she was meditating. But… it’s her rut…” The waterfall finally pitters out and Zoey can feel how the energy seeps out of her. She can feel the way that Mira looks at her like something is wrong with her instead, like she’s the one they should be focusing on instead of their girl who was alone in that cold, dead room.

“Zoey,” Mira begins cautiously, “you know meditating isn’t a bad thing, right? This is a pretty extreme reaction to someone doing nothing.”

She isn’t understanding, so Zoey grabs at Mira’s knee and uses it to pull herself closer to the other omega. “Mira, something is wrong with Rumi.” It comes out as forceful but it needs to because that might be the only way to get Mira to understand how important this is. Hearing herself describe how she found Rumi, she knows it sounds silly to be worried, but Zoey has always trusted her heart and right now it’s screaming at her that they need to do something.

It must work, because Mira meets her eyes and after another long silence, she nods. “Okay.”

Zoey guides Mira back to the room where she found Rumi, but by the time they’re pushing the door open again, Rumi is already gone. Mira takes one look around the room, her eyes tracing the outline that Rumi’s body left in the layer of dust sitting on the bed, sniffs at the stale air, and looks at Zoey with the seriousness that tells her that she finally understands.

They don’t leave each other alone for the next two days. When Rumi returns, it’s to Mira curled around Zoey in their joint room.

They don’t talk about what Zoey saw in that room and Rumi falls so quickly back into her regular patterns that it’s hard to accept that their leader remembers it at all.

Mira has spent the last nine years being slowly tortured. So yeah, sometimes she sits outside of Rumi’s door during her rut and just… listens. She’s earned the right to do this, the way that she has sat so pretty and perfect at Rumi’s side, even after all this time. The way she stomps her anger, her frustration, down into the dirt and learns how to behave.

Sometimes she just listens. It’s been six years since Zoey told her what she saw and the only sound that Mira has ever heard from the other side of the door has been plastic bottles crunching in Rumi’s hand as she sips her sports drinks.

Maybe they’re cowards, her and Zoey. Six years of whatever this is and neither of them have done anything about it. So she sits and listens.

They’ve debuted and fought and made up again and fallen apart and put themselves back together. Maybe she doesn’t have a right to whatever is happening beyond Rumi’s door, but she has a right to this side of it and so she takes, takes, takes like it’s all she knows how to do. Like it’s all she’s ever done, because maybe it is.

She grabs her bottle of soju and moves away from Rumi’s door when her phone finally hits four in the morning. Just like she’s done every night that marks Rumi’s rut since that evening six years ago. She makes sure Rumi knows it, too, though the scent marking of her door didn’t come until she started drinking on her self-imposed job, four years ago. The first two years, it had been in the form of leaving little gifts at Rumi’s door. Another water bottle. A cheap little glass tiger that she had bought at the market. A hairband. The sock that Rumi had sworn was lost last month. Anything she could find that would tell Rumi that she was there, that she wasn’t alone.

But Mira likes to ruin things, so after two years without Rumi opening up about it, she ruins this too. Now, the only mark that Mira leaves is the one that says this is mine.

Two weeks before the Idol Awards, Rumi misses practice.

“She’s never missed before,” Mira says after an hour of waiting. She watches Zoey in the studio mirror, studies the way the maknae lets out a dramatic sigh and flops onto the ground behind her. Acknowledging the elephant in the room is all it takes to send Zoey into a spiraling fit every time.

“I knooooow!” Zoey shouts at the ceiling with all the exaggerated sadness she can muster. Mira pokes at her like this on purpose and there’s only one appropriate reaction to it, so the sound gives Mira just enough warning to dodge the empty plastic boba cup that comes flying at her. “Do you think it’s because of Jinu?”

“Ugh, don’t even say his name. I want to crush that little twink into a powder and scatter his remains in the sea.” Mira picks up Zoey’s cup and gives it a precision toss into the trash can across the room. She and Zoey always match one another’s energy perfectly, which is awful when one of them is upset because it means that they have to drag the other down with them. And now they bounce against each other and go into a quickly deteriorating ouroboros of misery.

Zoey’s head pops up at that, grin stretching wickedly as she sets the trap. Though she doesn’t move from the floor, she does tack on a quick, “You’re kinda hot when you’re jealous.”

“Not jealous!” She doesn’t meet Zoey’s eye in the mirror, opting instead of stare pointedly at the ground just below it.

Zoey hums in response and falls back flat onto the floor. “We could give him a Viking funeral after you kill him. I’m sure there’s some trick to making sure the body doesn’t turn to smoke and I think you’d really enjoy setting him on fire,” she tells the ceiling.

She’s right, and normally Mira would be happy to admit it, but something about it makes her feel like she’s swallowing nails. Rumi would be hurt if Jinu died. The thought rings in her ears even if the hunter part of her brain struggles to iron out the details of it. It isn’t clear exactly what is happening between Rumi and Jinu, but she’s seen the way Rumi’s eyes linger on the defaced Saja Boys poster in their home recording studio. It isn’t right, because how could Rumi be drawn to someone she’s just met when Zoey and Mira have been there for her for years—

No. Bobby had managed to convince her to go to therapy one whole time years ago, and so she pictures placing that thought in a folder and filing it away somewhere that she can return to when she’s ready to unpack it, just like she learned to do. It’s unfortunate that she didn’t show up for the second session, where they went over the returning and unpacking process. For all intents and purposes, she locks it away and will not come back to it if she has a choice in the matter.

Two nights ago, Mira had knocked quietly on Rumi’s door. She had pretended that it was worry when she slowly turned the nob and let herself in, because worry was the only reason she’d allow when no response came. Worry was in the way she looked around the empty room, the way she tensed when her eyes fell on the open screen door onto the balcony. Worry was the only thing she’d let herself feel when the only scent in the room was one that she recognized faintly as that of another omega—of Jinu—when it should have still held the last remnants of Rumi’s rut, ended just a few days prior. Rumi was gone and the only thing she’d left behind was a cold room and her set of teddy bear and train pants that smelled of Jinu.

Something is off with Rumi and Mira is determined to find out what because if she can’t understand it, expert that she is in understanding others, then there’s no way Rumi understands it. This doesn’t even begin to cover the way that Rumi had hiccupped through her line in Golden the day after the empty-room-and-pants incident, or how she had suddenly decided she needed a fourth layer of clothes over her at all times.

Zoey’s face fills her vision and it shocks her back into the moment more than the following flick to her forehead ever could. “You’re thinking too hard again!” Zoey smiles as she says it, falls back from her tiptoes and hard onto her heels, and then keeps going. “What’s Celine going to say if you start getting wrinkles before you’re thirty?” She straightens, raises one hand and schools her expression into what must be her best approximation of Celine. “Our faults and wrinkles must never be seen!”

Mira lets out a dry laugh before mimicking Zoey’s posture. “Our faults and grey hairs must never be seen.” A quick movement of one hand and she’s plucking at one of three grey hairs clearly visible at the peak of Zoey’s head.

“Stop that! You’ll hurt George,” Zoey gasps in mock offense. “What would his brothers, Gabe and Geoffrey, do without him?”

“Uh-oh. You know that you get attached when you name things, Zoey. I’m not going to hold you when you’re crying after they fall out.” She makes her way around Zoey and towards their speaker setup. Rumi may not be showing up today, and sure, all their songs are three part harmonies, but that doesn’t mean that she and Zoey can’t use the duo practice. Much of their choreography is designed like this anyway—Mira ensuring that a careful distance is kept between the two omegas and the alpha. It helps that the excuse of well, this is your line so you should be in front never really gets old and Rumi’s powerhouse vocals often kept her in the lead.

“So you’d let me just suffer alone?” Zoey asks incredulously.

It’s another trap and Mira walks carefully around it by poking at the speakers until the backing track of Golden begins. It won’t sound right without Rumi, so the most she does is hum along with her lines while moving into formation and gesturing for Zoey to do the same.

The maknae follows her lead, even if she groans as she does so. Mira needs this, the focus on something productive that will keep her mind off the way Rumi has been acting lately. She does her best to thank Zoey without saying the words out loud, though she’s not certain if she’s more thankful for Zoey’s presence or the distraction of it all.

And distract it does. Rumi has left them all tense and the way that Zoey leans heavy into the choreography, the dip of a hip and swaying shoulders, tells Mira that maybe Zoey needs this just as badly. Zoey has a swagger about her, baggy pants and loose shirt that hides the muscles that Mira knows she has. Where Mira flows into the choreography and lets the sliding movements carry her along, Zoey jerks with quick steps and even faster footwork, releasing like a spring with whatever it is that she feels over Rumi’s absence.

But this is still practice. This is Mira’s choreography, her movements. Zoey’s spin on it doesn’t fit the group flow, so they stop the track and rewind. They go again. They stop. They rewind. Zoey’s energy bounces off Mira’s tension harshly and the Honmoon’s ripples start to spike sharply beneath them. They go again.

Zoey moves too quickly around one turn, lands faster than Mira and their rhythm is out of balance. If Rumi was here, this wouldn’t be a problem. Rumi slowed Zoey, brought her in time with Mira until they all moved in sync. Without Rumi—They repeat this until the frustration that Mira has been stuffing down for the last week starts to boil over.

Zoey doesn’t seem bothered by her own mistakes. She keeps eye contact with Mira after every correction, a faint smile on her lips. She presses in too far with a hip bend while they’re facing each other, her smile quirking up lopsided when she looks at Mira. The energy that twists inside of her doesn’t dull, doesn’t bend to Mira’s irritation. It’s like she’s mocking Mira.

The music stops abruptly when she presses down on her phone.  “No, not like that. You’re still going too fast—you need to hit the top when the track drops here.” She demonstrates again, for the fourth fucking time. Her aggravation has the words coming out harsh but maybe that’s what Zoey needs to get it together. They don’t have time to waste on whatever bullshit prank the younger girl is pulling, not when Rumi is gone and the Idol Awards are only two weeks away and this might be the only way that Mira can show Rumi that she’s still here for her, that she always will be— 

Something in the air sparks when Mira finally gives in and lays a hand on Zoey’s shoulder to correct her posture again. Zoey holds her gaze. Mira doesn’t initiate physical touch often, even less recently, and it occurs to her when Zoey’s smile spreads again that this is the first time she’s touched her all day.

“Mira,” Zoey says, her mischievous grin wavering into something soft. Something meaningful. Something that’s too much. “Relax. Dance with me?”

She places a hand on top of Mira’s, pulls it away from her shoulder and holds it gently while her other hand dives into her pocket and she takes control of the music. What follows is the sound of a song that definitively doesn’t belong to them and certainly won’t help them prepare for the upcoming performance. Mira knows this, even as she lets Zoey pull her gently back into the center of the room.

Her hand falls from Zoey’s only when the maknae pulls away and starts to dance. The beat falls fast and hard, English lyrics that she doesn’t bother trying to catch.

It’s nothing like Mira’s typical choreography. Zoey’s heel snaps up from the ground with tight precision, curves as she lifts her leg and her hips follow the motion through her body like a wave as she turns. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mira is making a note to incorporate more hip hop in Zoey’s solos because this certainly isn’t part of their choreography, but Mira won’t deny that it’s smooth, even as her anger settles into a simmer. Zoey knows it too, with the way that her foot lands and she twists on her heel to face Mira directly. A wink is sent Mira’s direction and if the way Zoey preens tells her anything, it’s that her face is slowly turning red.

It isn’t fair, because they don’t do this to each other. She and Zoey—they’re each other’s rocks. When Rumi pulls away, she leaves the two of them to chase away loneliness together. They don’t do this. They don’t tease, they don’t flirt because that would mean it’s something more than what they have with Rumi. They’ve drawn the line there, where Rumi stands, and measure the distance using her shape. 

Mira tells herself that it’s just because she’s never one to turn down a challenge and takes a step forward. The dance floor is her territory and she certainly won’t let Zoey take this from her, not when everything else is slipping out of her control. She’s a half step behind Zoey now as she reaches out—

Mira goes stumbling over their unspoken line when she lays a hand on Zoey for the second time that day. Or maybe Zoey crossed it first when she tugged at Mira’s hand and asked her to dance like it wouldn’t break them completely.

The touch is brief before she pulls back again, leaving only a hand hovering over Zoey’s waist as Mira slides in front of her. Her eyes trace Zoey’s movements, less erratic now that they’re sharing the space. A breath passes and then they’re moving together, Mira careful to follow Zoey’s lead. Zoey dances the same way she fights demons, fast and unburdened. Keeping up with her is a struggle, her muscles protesting with every unpracticed slide across the floor.

And then Zoey is closing the distance, slipping under Mira’s armor and falling backwards into her arms. Any hovering is over and a pulsing heat spreads through the room as Mira feels the way that Zoey grinds back against her. Hips against hips, and Zoey’s touch fills her brain. There must be some part of her that knows that they shouldn’t do this, that this is too much, because she takes a careful step backwards, seeking separation or distance or something that isn’t feeling the warmth of Zoey’s skin through her clothes. Zoey’s smell rests heavy in her lungs and the room closes in around her until Zoey invades all her senses.

Zoey, Zoey, Zoey. Mira’s hand reaches out involuntarily, grabbing and Zoey’s hips even as she tries to back away. The resulting pull leads them stumbling back into the studio mirrors. Mira’s back lands on the floor-to-ceiling mirror to the beat of a new track and her body is quickly trapped between cool glass and warm, warm, warm body. This new beat is slow, steady, and Zoey adjusts to it happily, rolling her body back.

Mira, for her part, stares down at where their bodies meet in open awe. She isn’t supposed to—they can’t—her hands tighten around Zoey’s hips and pull her closer. She feels her own hot breath bouncing off the back of Zoey’s head as the omega stretches and leans back into her. Zoey bends, arms raised and reaching for something behind her until they land on the back of Mira’s head and pull her upper body forward until what little space remains between them is gone.

The music beats over every movement. Did someone turn the volume up? It’s so loud now that she can’t hear her own thoughts and all she sees is Zoey. All she can see is the way Zoey moves against her, body on body.

Tense hands guide Zoey’s hips harder, needier. Mira’s panting lands perfectly against the nape of Zoey’s neck and faintly, she’s aware of how this can’t all be Zoey doing this, not when she has to bend down so far to fit herself against the shorter woman just right. Her body responds even as her brain begs it to stop. She can feel the way a shiver passes through Zoey in a wave until it reaches her hands, still resting in Mira’s hair.

“Fuck,” Mira mumbles into Zoey’s neck. The word must have broken whatever spell they’re both under because Zoey freezes. Desperately, Mira craves for just a second to see what kind of expression Zoey wears. Does she regret this? Is she upset? Is this— a breath passes and before she can fully spiral, Zoey’s hand firmly grasps Mira’s hair and pulls.

The momentum of it gives Mira enough control to push off of the mirror, to start taking control of whatever this is. She takes Zoey and turns her, pushes her face-first against the mirror with a grunt, follows after her and pins her against it when Zoey’s hands go to brace herself. And she’s rewarded with her first good look at the younger woman in what feels like ages.

What she finds is beautiful. Zoey stretches out pliantly under her, every breath wracking her body. Her reflection brags with a face so red that even her freckles are hidden beneath the blush. The thin sheen of sweat on her body drags a trail across the mirror’s surface to the treasure of Zoey’s body. Mira burns the image into every corner of her brain even as the sight vanishes swiftly beneath the fog of Zoey’s panting. “Mira—ahh.”

The way Zoey pulls and stretches her name into a moan sends the heat straight to Mira’s stomach. It feels right, having the omega submit to her. A dark part of her brain echoes with serves her right, teasing me before she can stop it.

Her eyes trace higher and she meets her own reflection. Everything that Zoey shows, she does the same, tenfold. Her disheveled hair, her mussed clothes, her red face. She holds her own gaze for a breath and lets herself feel the thrill of doing something that she knows she shouldn’t. Faintly, she can feel her brain working over some kind of problem. Something is off about her reflection, about the heat in the air. She pushes the thought away and begs for focus on this moment.

Mira places her hands almost delicately along the mirror on either side of Zoey’s body, fully boxing her in. Their new position gives Mira her first real turn at being the one to grind against Zoey and she chases the opportunity at a sprint. Her hips move forcefully into Zoey’s ass even as her eyes stay locked onto the way Zoey’s mouth goes slack and her moan fills the air. The phantom feeling of what if I was an alpha drives her to make the motion again and again and again. She imagines what it would be like to split Zoey open and feel the tight, wet heat that calls to her.

And Zoey, perfect Zoey who reads her better than anyone else can, responds as if she can feel the stretch. She works her hips back when Mira pushes forward, pulls away when Mira backs up, moans when they meet again. Her sighs and grunts wash out any thoughts Mira may have left in her mind. For once, Mira gives instead of takes.

Even clothed, their fevered movement against each other are pushing her closer and closer— 

The door opens.

They can’t fall away from each other fast enough, can’t hide the flush over their skin or the way they’re tripping back from where their bodies had met just seconds ago. In any normal situation, this would have been the bucket of ice water to bring her back to reality. But this isn’t a normal situation and she’s watching Rumi step into the room. Rumi, who only meets her with a sharp, distrusting gaze before letting her eyes fall away.

And the heat in Mira only builds.