Chapter Text
Rumi's pov
The penthouse always felt the most ethereal during golden hour. When the sky outside blurred between pastels and honey. Sunlight came in broken patterns, splitting the main room into uneven bands of gold that walked up the walls, and pooled on the floor. Rumi was folded up into one corner of their sectional couch, legs tucked under her. Lavender braid spilling over a pillow and in between her fingers as she played with intricate weave. Twisting and undoing the same little knot she made hours before. Eyes fixed on the flat blue light leaking from the TV.
In contrast to the tiny section she had, Mira was sprawled at the opposite side. Magenta hair bunched where she had her head tipped back against the armrest. One arm over her eyes. Shielding her face from the sun. Buried beneath a cocoon of blankets. Despite the apparent near coma, her phone was clutched in her hand. Scrolling, always, scrolling. But not quite engaged. Except for the occasional laugh out loud. She had one blue fuzzy sock braced on the low table (which itself was a disaster.) Music sheets layered, three half drained takeaway cups (all Mira’s) and an empty soju bottle. Zoey had repurposed it as a vase for a single wilted carnation (a gift from a fan.) They hadn’t mustered the strength to toss it.
Zoey had claimed the gradient rug in its entirety. She sat cross legged. Surrounded by an explosion of gel pens, and lyric notebooks. Zoey’s nails, orange and chipped already, tapped out a beat on her knee as she doodled verses. She was singing a barely audible melody. Something Rumi liked. Every now and then Rumi would give her a small smile, I like that, and Zoey would return a grin back nodding in agreement before scribbling words down.
The streamer on screen, Jadoodoo (twitch famous, and emotionally unstable) was in the middle of a catastrophic losing streak. Her frizzy hair, and lower lash line was in ruin. Rumi watched not for interest in crypto trading, but for the way a real meltdown looked on a social media persona. She stared unblinking, as Jadoodoo screamed curses and pounded her desk so hard the webcam shook.
Three girls, spent from rehearsal. Microwave tteokbokki in the air. And a familiar fatigue between them. Exhaustion of a fourteen hour day. They’d been like this for hours. No one tracked time unless Bobby made them.
Mira had spent the first fifteen minutes declaring that she was going to die of boredom, then promptly passed out? Possibly? She couldn’t tell. Maybe her thumb had just gotten so used to the motion it couldn’t stop.
Zoey had cycled through three different notebooks, and many different colored pens. Tongue out farther, the harder she thought.
Rumi as always, drifted between both present and not. She liked watching them more than she liked participating. Which is why she now stared blankly at the streamer on screen. It was merely background noise.
Zoey snapped a lid on her marker with a theatrical snap!
“So,” She announced, “Is Bobby killing us tomorrow, or is it just a light rehearsal?” She cocked her head, “Because if Bobby schedules another pre-dawn ‘Midnight’ choreography session, I am changing my name and moving to Canada.”
“Me too,” Mira raised her hand lazily. I thought she was asleep, “What would you change it too?”
Zoey considered the question, bobbing her head left, then right, then shrugged, “Something cool probably. What about you Rumi?”
Rumi kept her eyes on the screen but turned her head towards her best friends. Rumi narrowed her eyes. The question wasn’t complex. It just wasn’t one she’d ever considered. Even as she thought now she couldn’t think of anything. She rolled her shoulders, lightly shaking her head.
“I don’t think I’d change it.”
“Borrrrrinnnggg,” Mira’s thumb, still moving on her screen absent mindedly. Rumi shrugged content with her friend’s judgement.
“Your name is kinda perfect,” The golden light created a white outline along the curve of her nose and bubbly cheeks. In that moment, she couldn’t be envious of just how pretty her friend looked amongst her tiny world of crafted chaos. Her hair out of its usual space buns and sitting just above her bare shoulders, where her sweater kept slipping as she moved. She took a second to admire it. She allowed herself to linger in a stare. Brown eyes almost a transparent topaz in the afternoon light.
She was about to divert her attention back to Jadoodoo’s on screen disaster (now with the chat melting down with her,) when the notification came. Her phone, which she’d forgotten beneath the throw pillow she was cradling was suddenly the most important object in the room. As she scrambled to find it Mira lowered her own device. Attention bringing her back to life.
“Hot date?” Mira’s eyebrow arched. The perfectly practiced arch that made entire Twitter threads lose their minds. She stretched, “Or is it another DM from our stalker fan? The one that keeps asking for a lock of your hair?” As Rumi unlocked her phone the comment went through one ear and out the other. She was too focused on the words on the screen to reply verbally.
Zoey cackled, nearly inhaling a pen cap she had tucked between her teeth, “That guy scares me.”
Rumi’s cheeks caught fire, blotting her face with a heat so sudden and vivid. Get it together. She should have locked the phone, or laughed and tucked the device back under the pillow.
Her pulse thudded incessantly in her ears. She’d performed on live TV. Sung millions of times in front of a legion of rabid strangers. But at the moment she was stupidly embarrassed, caught off guard, and at a loss of words to type.
kkeut: thinking about you
i know it’s crazy. but i think i’m in love with you
What? Rumi dropped her gaze. The words swelled, splitting her into two halves. One uncertain, and one wonderful and hungry for attention. Taehyun could be a lot of things. Funny, thoughtful, kind, inappropriate at times. But he wasn’t reckless with words. Or maybe he was. This felt kind of reckless. Maybe he was drunk and she had missed it in between messages. She clamped the phone in her hand, her knuckles aching with the pressure. Fighting the urge to read the messages again, and the urge to reply with the same energy. I think I'm in love with you too.
“What’s with the look?” Mira asked. Celine told her once that people only got jumpy when they were doing something wrong. Thats how she should know she was doing something wrong. And she’d been doing something wrong for months now.
Hiding this from your friends is wrong.
Rumi shook her head, “It’s not the creepy guy.”
“Bad news?” Mira was no longer in her blankets. She had emerged into a sitting position to scoot on the couch. Rumi recognized this as her attempt to get a glimpse. Rumi yanked the phone away, defensive, and heart a seismic slosh of patterns.
Zoey, perked up, “Ooh, is it gossip? Please be gossip!” She scrambled across the rug, scattering highlighters and lyric scraps like confetti, climbing onto the couch, shoulders now bumping into Rumi’s. “Or is it Celine? Did she finally get back to you about that kimchi recipe.”
“It’s not Celine,” Rumi said sharper than she meant to, earning her a suspicious look from both of her friends. She tucked the phone into her lap, keeping her eyes on the TV screen, trying to neutralize her features despite her knowing her face was probably full of pinks and reds.
“Okay-” Mira drew it out, “You’re acting pretty weird for it being ‘nothing’” She crossed her arms over her chest. God, Mira was just so observant. Any hope of her letting it go and returning to her mindless scrolling was lost. A direct spotlight now casted on her she couldn’t squirm away from.
She tried to deflect, “It’s just some dumb comment on our promo.” Mira narrowed her eyes.
“You’re cheeks are all pink,” Mira countered, voice equal parts serious and teasing.
Zoey tucked a pen behind her ear, journal in her lap, “Is it that dude from the studio last week? The one who tried to freestyle a love song about you?” She mimed a guitar, voice soaring into a deliberately bad falsetto, “Lavender lady- you drive me so crazy…” Zoey snorted at herself, “I can’t blame him,” she nudged her with an elbow. The joke should have broken the tension, but it only made Rumi’s panic more intense. They knew she was talking to someone. Probably knew for months now. And this banter had gone on since she became more phone obsessed. She couldn’t help but feel like they were on the brink of finding out. And it terrified her. Rumi dug her nails into the cloth of her hoodie, grinding the spiral of embarrassment deeper. Mira was still watching her.
This is the type of thing you needed your friend’s opinion on.
She felt herself sinking into the couch. Limbs heavy. The combined scrutiny was nearly enough to make her blurt everything she had been keeping hidden for the past six months. She wanted to spill everything. The ridiculous text, late night voice notes. The dumb inside jokes her and this boy she met online shared. And she wanted more than anything to ask their opinion on what she should say to the ‘L’ word.
“You guys are nosey,” She tucked the phone deeper beneath the pillow she now had squished against her. As if she could smother the messages. The Jadoodoo stream kept screaming above them. Wails and drawn out swears punctuating her shame. Her phone vibrated again. She tried herself not to look at Mira. And when she did, she was right, she was suspicious. Rumi wanted to slip away and dissolve into the velvet sunlit haze, “Seriously, guys.”
The friendship they formed long ago on the elementary school playground suddenly burning at her pinky finger. It was so easy to cave. Blurt everything. They deserved to know about her secret six month relationship with someone she had never even met. Deserved, especially after everything they’d been through, “I need water,” Rumi announced, springing to her feet. Hoodie sticking to her back from where she had practically melted into the cushions. Either from the text or from her friends stares, she couldn’t tell which.
“You good?” Mira had the kindness there. She knew her friends only pried out of love, and for humor. It wasn’t because they really believed there was something hidden. She hated herself for it.
“Fine, really, it was just some hate comment.” Mira relaxed a bit. Returning to her cocoon but not to her phone.
“They are lucky we can’t respond,” Mira warned. Arms tucking behind her head. Zoey nodded in agreement. Not because Zoey, would have anything actually mean to say back. Rumi wouldn’t either. But Mira would, in fact, make them cry. If it was a real hate comment of course. Rumi nodded as well, practiced, and calm she opened the fridge, popping the lid of a canned water she didn’t actually want.
“I just–” she started, then realized she had nowhere to go with the sentence. She let it die. But Mira and Zoey hadn’t. They both had turned to her. Ready for whatever it was to come out. Retreat, “Am ready for a nap.” She escaped the kitchen, retrieved her phone and made a show of yawning with a small signal of goodbye she started for her room.
“Have fun!” Zoey called after her. Before she could close the door she caught the beginning of a whispered conference.
“Something’s up.” It was Mira.
“Duh,” Zoey replied, not discrete at all, she wasn’t a great whisperer, “But if it was, she’d tell us. That’s what we do.”
Rumi turned the knob, slipped inside and closed the door behind her. The problem, beyond the countless obvious ones. They did tell each other everything. All the ugly, all the stupid, all the days when getting out of the bed could only be described as impossible. That’s what made the group work. But this secret pressed tight beneath her ribs. She couldn’t tell them.
She pressed her phone to her chest, the screen still warm. Then let her eyes flutter shut. She wanted to listen for some warning signal in her body. And there was something, but it was her heart, Iloveyou, IloveryouIloveyou. It ricocheted through her nervous system, every repetition making it less ridiculous, more dangerous. Louder than any applause, bigger than any crowd she had ever faced
When she opened her eyes, dusk was starting to creep in, smothering the once warm light in cool shadows. Rumi’s bedroom was the only place in the penthouse that never looked lived in. The walls were an ashy cream, and never marked witch so much as a poster or a thumbtack. No clutter. The bed was made every morning with military precision, sheets pulled tight and corners squared. Most days it took less than a minute to erase any sign she’d ever slept there.
A single bookshelf guarded a window. Lined with the same mix of Korean poetry, old music magazines, and spiraled school notebooks she’d had since high school. Her notebooks, (her other secrets) stood sentry on the lowest shelf, spines battered and curling at the edges. On the desk, a skinny standing lamp, illuminating her beaten laptop, scattering of pens, and paper cranes in clashing colored patterns. Zoey had folded them as a gift when the pair had gotten stuck in the penthouse elevator last June. Rumi, of course freaking out, had been handed them and reminded in a small gesture that everything would be alright.
She crossed to the window and pulled the curtain, just enough to let the city in. Seoul at night was beautiful as always. The sunset bleeding into blue’s, indigos, and violets. Streetlamps flickering to life, headlights winding around the lip of the river. It was still something she still had never gotten used to. She tried to picture Teyhun out there, in the knowledge she had. Maybe standing in his own room, staring at the same sky- She hadn’t answered him!
She opened the chat in a sudden frantic haste. The last message now demanded attention.
kkeut: i know it’s crazy. but i think i’m in love with you
She read it once, then again, as if the words would change if she stared long enough. She stared until the words were just shapes. Until she was looking at them in pieces. I’m in love with you.
Her thumb hovered over the reply box. It was impossible for her to respond normally. She was theoretically a professional at conversation. Interviews, fan signs, even flavor of flirty banter on stage. But none of that was real. It was falsified for fans. She typed a few words, deleted them. Then put her phone down on the desk with a thunk.
Taehyun made her laugh when she was supposed to be sleeping. Rehearsal in two hours. He’d never once asked her for anything more than she was willing to give. And now it was terrifying to realize she was willing to give this. I love you.
She sat at her desk flipping open her laptop, the screen making her grimace, cracked at the corner. I should buy a new one, a fleeting thought as she opened a new tab.
I love you.
The only words she could get on the empty doc. Testing how they would feel. More importantly how the words made her feel. Nothing in particular stood out. Just the strange fondness of them. The idea of them feeling better than the actual thought of sending them to Taehyun. She could really use Mira’s brutal honesty, and Zoey’s dreamy ideology. A perfect balance of contradicting opinions she trusted the most.
kkeut: you okay? I didn’t mean to weird you out. if it’s too much, just ignore me LOL
She hated this, the way her brain was crowding, the way her heard was more in control than the usual logic Celine had drilled into her.
gamtanha: That’s not crazy
I feel the same. Maybe more.
She hit send. Despite every muscle repelling the thought. Her brain reminding her she was an Idol, in public eye. Had sense to know better than to tell someone she couldn’t prove to be true that she loved them. But this truly felt like love, she reasoned with herself. Besides, she didn’t say it outright. She would save it. But he had a right to know that feelings were there. Strong ones, and she wasn’t afraid to admit to them.
kkeut: good. that makes me really happy
She scrolled through the months worth of compiled messages. Memes, inside jokes, voice memos, the little confessions and creative bickering she had all here at the tip of her fingertip.
Rumi had met Taehyun on a songwriting Discord, late at night. On a server called “terminally online creatives.” She’d joined under the username “gamtanha.” It was a half hearted joke, and she expected it to get buried in the scroll of desperate self-promoters and performative personalities.
The first time she had posted, the comments came fast, and- well - unkind. She had almost deleted her account before she saw a DM from kkeut. The icon was a tabby cat with purple sunglasses.
kkeut: your lyrics are sick but the melody’s a bit weird.
Constructive, and true. She didn’t usually write without Zoey, or Mira. She almost didn’t respond but the voice note attached was a rough, half sung version of her song, except better. He added a melody that made her lyrics flow, comparable to how Zoey, and Mira, would have handled them. The only reason she left it up to strangers was due to the emotional undertones she couldn’t answer to.
They argued about chords, about rhyme schemes, about which syllables sounded better that night. He rewrote her lines and made fun of her taste in music. But never in a way that was hurtful. He challenged her. They started swapping scraps of themselves since then.
With Taehyun, she was nobody but herself. She could say anything and not have to check her own face for the right expression. Perhaps, that was the beauty of being online.
kkeut: you still there? did i just get ghosted?
gamtanha: Not ghosting sorry, just distracted
kkeut: haha, good. i’d be devastated if who may be my soulmate ghosted me.
He always did this, sprinted past the awkward and into something bright and stupid, and oddly comforting.
gamtanha: Do you say that to every girl you collab with?
kkeut: nope just you.
She closed her eyes, let her head thunk gently against the window glass. Was it possible to even be with someone she’d never met in person? Was it stupid? Of course it was, her brain answered for her.
kkeut: so when can I tell people i’m dating a pop star?
gamtanha: Never. Unless you want to get assassinated by our PR team. Bobby Mira and Zoey may get to you first though.
He sent back a gif of someone ducking. Releasing a small chuckle from her throat.
kkeut: honestly, i’m cool keeping it secret. makes it more fun.
It was dumb to tell him she was in HUNTR/X, though. That she could admit. But he had never treated her differently.
kkeut: are you excited about this weekend? The room I booked for us is amazing. we’ll have the whole view of hongdae. just the two of us
The second dumbest thing she’d done. Agreeing to meet up with him. Even after she complied a list where the con’s outweighed all the pro’s by masses. Taehyun had convinced her. Paid for the hotel, promised anonymity. It felt safe at the time. It still felt safe now. Rumi smiled, tiny and private. Her mind at combat, as she actively torched everything she ever knew about herself for a boy she only had pictures of. Sure, she had his age, likes and dislikes, fears and dreams. Videos she had compiled for her viewing when she wanted to be reminded someone was there for her. But there was no actual proof he meant that he was in love with her. All she had was the promise, and the signs that she felt it back. Rumi traded her seat at the desk for her bed. Mattress bowing as she sat.
kkeut: or we can wait? no pressure. i just want to see you irl even if its just for five minutes.
That’s all she wanted too. And it felt worth it to the clearly undeveloped part of her brain. She couldn’t defend why the choice felt right. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t tell Mira, and Zoey. How would she defend his confession of love when she didn’t know if the pictures were real or falsified. How could she say that he knew everything about her, when he had never even sat in the same room as him. He didn’t know how sloppy she ate. Or how she had to light a candle before she showered. He also had no clue that she couldn’t sleep without the blue stuffed bear Celine had won for her at the fair. Little things that she knew sounded important in the name of love. You’re being stupid, Rumi. Cancel the trip and try the boys you meet in the studio. No, then she would have to restart getting to know someone. And she felt pretty confident she could answer a quiz about Taehyun. Maybe just not questions like - does he snore in his sleep?
gamtanha: If you still want to . I want to see you too.
Stupid, stupid, that was an out you idiot! To prevent you from completely ruining your life.
kkeut: really?
i mean yeah, no pressure, i just
fuck. im excited.
Rumi let out a laugh, something breathless. She rolled onto her side, curling in the beige sheets.
She still had the matter of making up a lie to get past Zoey, and Mira. Really, she owed them the raw, embarrassing truth. They’d understand, she tried to tell herself. They had always proved that to be true. But as she tried to believe it, she saw their faces, betrayed and hurt it had been hidden for so long already, and they would pretend not to be.
It was their kindness that would hurt the most.
She would tell them. She would tell them eventually. Maybe after she proved he was real.