Chapter Text
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
The afternoon had been a lazy one, the air in Rumi’s attic refurbished and sun-coated as specks of dust danced between beams of light and shouts of laughter. A childlike warmth empties into the bedroom, short-lived and passing. Burbank hadn’t seen a sunset this early in months, a telltale sign of the long awaited Christmas break and the numbing cold that would tag behind.
Rumi relishes in the weathering transition, welcoming the slight breeze that slips past the curtains as it caresses her shoulders. It felt nice. Soothing.
Even if Zoey is screeching louder than the cicadas underground.
“One last game,” she'd begged, eyes pleading and wide. “I’ll even let you be the DM!”
How could Rumi say no to those eyes, heedless to the fact that she hates playing the role of Dungeon Master?
So, she agrees.
Rumi lets the hours and shadows stretch on, and so does the light from the lampposts in the streets, spilling out on the sidewalks. Outside, the sound of shrilling laughter and childish screams die down, distant and fleeting. Inside, Zoey threatens to wake the entire neighborhood.
“Come on, baby, c’mon!” she yells into her fist, a pair of dice rumbling under her palms. Clack, clack, clack. “Be good for daddy and give up that dungeon map!”
A scoff leaves Rumi’s nose as she cringes and plants her hands on top of Zoey’s, stopping her. “Ew, gross! Stop talking to my dice like that!”
Hands unmoving and covered, Zoey squawks, shifting on her knees. “Uhm, hello?! What’s wrong with you? You know better than to stop me mid-roll dude!”
“Well stop talking freaky to my dice, dude.”
Zoey huffs, “I’m rizzing them up,” she says, plainly, as if it were the most obvious and tactically sound way to play Dungeons and Dragons. Her face draws into a slight pout, eyebrows taut. “How else do you think I get good rolls?”
“Don’t care,” Rumi tries to hide the smile coming onto her lips. “You’re freaking me out.”
That earns her a glare.
“Well, you should care. My positive reinforcement works, no thanks to you.” Then, Zoey peers down at their clasped hands, armoring the dice that lay beneath them. “And you’re freaking me out with this sweaty ass grip you’ve got.”
Rumi stiffens at the remark, her palms dampened and still. Something warm blooms under her face.
“Shut up,” she snips, leaving no room for Zoey to poke fun at her clammy hands any more than she'd always had. Instead, she takes in a breath, and begins shaking their hands together to roll the dice.
“How about we test your theory and let go on the count of three? Since you’re so confident in it.” Rumi waits for Zoey’s ever prideful refusal, but none comes.
“Okay, fine.”
Zoey joins her and their hands shake wildly, a lot more effort being used from the younger girl, pleading for the dice gods to save her.
“One…” Rumi starts.
Clack, clack, clack.
“Two…”
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
“Three!” Zoey screams prematurely.
The dice drop and the two of them peek downwards.
A two and a one, the dice laugh in Zoey’s face and her knees bump under the table.
“What? Fucking hell…!”
A palm slams down onto their shared map with a bang!, startling the dice, but the answer goes unchanged. A part of Zoey secretly hopes she could gaslight Rumi into believing that she hadn’t rolled the worst numbers in the world. But the digits were striking and plain as day, a testament to Rumi’s skepticism.
She’d fall for it though, Zoey thinks, a glimpse of a smirk peeking through her lips.
Shortly, her amusement weakens as her eyes land on the unchanging dice again. Frowning, she slumps over, head resting against the table in defeat.
Pitifully, “This is all your fault,” she mumbles, pointing a lazy and accusatory finger in Rumi’s direction. “You jinxed me.”
Rumi’s eyes roll and she thinks twice about comforting Zoey, a reaching hand heading for her shoulder.
Knock, knock, knock.
The interruption makes up her mind as she snatches the hand back into her lap.
A creak of Rumi’s trapdoor turns both of their attention, and Celine’s troubled face pokes through the gap.
“Rumi,” Her tone is steady and iced, accent heavy, but there's an immediate understanding that makes Rumi’s back straighten. Zoey peeks her head up from the table, smiling with a weak wave, oblivious as ever. But she doesn't let the way Celine glances in her direction go unnoticed.
The older woman tsks, and begins to speak to Rumi with a Korean tongue that was unfamiliar to Zoey, sparing her the grace of acknowledgement. Awkwardly, Zoey watches, arms tucked under her chin as she tries her best to keep up with the conversation, bouncing off of the few Korean words her dad used to teach her. But every other word renders itself incomprehensible, painting a mottled picture.
“Loud,” Celine snaps.
“Friend.”
“Bad.”
Oh.
Zoey deflates and snaps her head away, cheeks flushed behind her arm, and she finally gets the message, despite its alien nature.
She isn't completely sure of the entire story, but it was pretty clear, sans the pretty. One thing Zoey is sure of, though, Celine was pissed, the slight jerk of her eyebrows and the twitch in her jaw was more than telling. Her tone stays quick and sharp, hardly allowing any protest. Rumi, who shakes her head in between sentences defensively, gestures in Zoey’s direction. Celine hisses something under her breath and shoots her down instantly. Zoey watches as her shoulders coil, tensed and pressed.
Rumi says nothing more, completely defeated.
The weight in Zoey’s stomach deepens, and she wishes she hadn’t met that glassy look on Rumi’s face.
Before Celine dismisses herself, she glances around the disheveled room, omitting Zoey’s presence entirely.
“Clean.”
Then, she disappears, sucking the air out of the attic with her.
It's only when the sounds of Celine climbing down the ladder start is when Rumi sighs, letting the air drop out of her shaky lungs, but her smile returns, albeit small and slightly embarrassed.
“You curse too loud,” she says after a beat of silence, shoulders still raised.
Zoey shoots up straight, covering her mouth with her hands. “Holy shit, Ru, I’m so sorry—!“
Celine’s voice cuts through the attic again, pointed and warning, “Rumi!”
“Okay!” she yells back at the sound of her name, noticeably more irritated than before.
How the hell did Celine even hear that?
Rumi stands and her head shakes, giving Zoey her undivided attention once again as she holds out her hand. “You have to go home. Sorry.”
Zoey peels herself off her heels as she's hauled up to her feet. “It’s alright,” she assures, dusting herself off from nothing. Her head still feels hot. “I’m sorry for getting you in trouble, she sounded...really pissed.”
Shrugging, Rumi hums, hugging herself. “S’fine, she wasn’t that mad…” Her heels shuffle under the weight of her body. “She’s just…dramatic.”
In spite of Rumi’s words, something cracks inside Zoey’s chest. She wants to believe her, to believe that it hadn’t been her fault. But she sees the way Rumi’s body shifts. The way her spine winds itself in a tight spring and doesn't let go. The flinch when Celine snapped at her. And the way her fingers were now running up and down her arms, eager to soothe.
Zoey wants to believe her, but the way Rumi avoids her gaze like the plague—
—It stings.
In the face of pain, Zoey lets it go, no matter how badly she wants to insist, because Rumi would do nothing more but insist the most. So, she holds her sigh, guilt eating away behind her eyes.
Then her hand gestures around the room. “Uhm, she said we should clean, right?” A chuckle escapes her lips, hoping to lighten the mood. “Not like she was wrong, though, this place is super trashed.”
Rumi snorts weakly, it would have been a laugh if her chest weren't as tight as it was. The sun lowers to the floorboards of the attic, light no longer reaching her eyes.
“Yeah…” her voice waters, lashes clumped and flickering in shame. There was nothing more to say.
They clean, picking their fun up off the ground in a weird, heavy silence, and something in Zoey’s stomach felt blunt, empty and massive all at the same time.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
It's nearly dark when they finish, a chorus of crickets, cicadas, and treefrogs ringing in Rumi’s ears as she stands under a stuttering lamppost. Carefully, she leans against the pole, arms crossed and eyes closed.
Flick, flick, flick.
Zoey was busy with her lighter, cursing through a tightly rolled leaf-paper every time the wind caught her flame. Rumi wonders if her thumbs were burned and raw by now, if she were tired of trying over and over again. She watches her struggle, amusement and disdain overlapping in her chest. Truthfully, Rumi wanted no part of helping.
“Celine would kill me if she saw you smoking that,” she says, plain and simple, with a hint of humor in her voice, though she didn’t find it all that funny. She would happily take the blame, but gave a warning anyway.
Zoey doesn't look up, growing increasingly frustrated with the fire between her fingers.
“Why would she kill you and not me?” she growls, joint hanging from her lips. “I’m the one she hates.”
Rumi sighs, eyes still shut. “She does not hate you.”
Flick. “Oh, please, you see the way she looked at me? I might as well be the gum under her shoe,” Zoey grumbles.
Well…
The silence after Zoey’s statement makes her chuckle, dry and pointing. “See? You can’t even argue. M’always getting you in trouble, remember?” Flick! A spark appears, fluttering in her hand. “Finally, geez!”
The fizzing sound of paper burning crinkles against the forefront of Rumi’s mind and she rakes in the smell of marijuana as it fills her nose, wafting through the air. Her jaw sets, firm and strained against her teeth. Rumi’s eyebrows frown with disappointment.
She doesn't know why, but the words bubble and come tumbling out of her chest, prepped and angry.
“When are you gonna quit that?” she quips, cutting sharper than she meant.
Rumi’s restraint falls, and a blanket of silence follows, hanging between the two girls.
Almost immediately, regret eats at Rumi’s skin and sweat starts to pool at her fingers, trying to escape through her palms, away from her mistake. She fixes her mouth to apologize, but Zoey stops her, huffing a gasp of smoke.
“Dunno. Maybe when my life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, y’know?”
Rumi pales at the sarcasm in her tone and her head jerks in Zoey’s direction, a heat brewing behind it. Stomach plunged and stirred, she backpedals.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
Her voice trails, wandering off from her train of thought. Somehow, embarrassment swallows her even more, though she feels as if she were in the pit of its belly already.
Nice job, Rumi, she thinks, ready to die on the sidewalk.
Suddenly, Zoey’s laughter breaks into her. It was genuine yet dry, slowly sanding Rumi’s embarrassment down to almost nothing, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Her laugh.
“It’s okay,” Zoey says with a tinge of mirth in her voice. The joint burns brighter, longer—red and pulsing. “I know what you meant.”
We both know what you meant.
After a few more hits—and a lot more silence—Zoey smiles as she bends down and ashes the paper into her sneakers, but something about her smirk was flat. It wasn’t quite there.
“I probably should quit, huh?” Zoey asks quietly, peering over her shoulders to meet Rumi’s gentle yet nervous gaze.
Dumbfounded, Rumi shrugs, earning a chuckle from her best friend.
“Hm,” Humming, the girl holds out the remainder of the joint in her palm. “Want the rest?”
Almost immediately, Rumi shakes her head, waving her hand in refusal.
“No, thanks. I have practice tomorrow,” A humored breath rumbles through her lips. “And what do you think Celine would do to me if I was the one smoking that?”
Zoey smiles, brighter this time, and bumps their shoulders together. “I just had to ask, you should relax.” Then, teasingly, she says, “But your footwork is pretty weak, so maybe getting high before practice isn’t the smartest move.”
They bump shoulders again, giggling as a hushed, “shutup” leaves Rumi’s lips, not really meaning it. Never really meaning it.
Softer now, the air was no longer tense. It was like an imaginary bubble had burst around them, the fragments gently pattering down on them like light rain. Rumi sucks in a breath between her teeth, washing her anxiety down with a gulp of air.
“Want me to walk you to the bus stop?”
Rumi watchs as Zoey chucks the spliff down onto the concrete before she answers her question, smushing it under her shoe then sweeping it into a drain. That was a first.
“Nah,” she says, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Go talk to yourself in the mirror and psyche yourself up for practice tomorrow.”
Blushing, a hand shoots up to Rumi’s neck feverishly as she glances away and sputters. “I—It’s called positive affirmations!” she argues.
With a shrug of her shoulders and a tug of her lips, Zoey twists away, hands sunken in her jeans. Her eyebrows raise incredulously.
“Whatever you need to call it, it’s freaky, remember?” A laugh rings out over her shoulder, hiking away from Rumi’s house.
Rumi watches her leave without rebuttal, almost stalking Zoey down from afar. A chill in the air runs over her frame and she hugs herself tighter, hoping to replace what little warmth she had left. It lingers for no longer than a minute, cruel and disregarding as her lips twist, wishing Celine hadn’t been in such a huff.
The wind howls, whipping Rumi’s bangs into her eyes. When her vision clears with a brush of her fingers, Zoey is further up the hill of the street, peering down at Rumi.
Zoey's shoulder-length hair laps up the wind and she beams, a smile crinkling her eyes like she was in on a secret no one but them knew.
God…She was…
That was all Rumi could think.
Weakly and chicken-hearted, she refuses to think more.
She couldn’t.
“Hey, Rumi—!” Zoey yells into her palms, bellowing out over the neighborhood. “—Can I borrow your bike?!”
She feels ridiculous, but Rumi shouts back into her own hands, echoing up the pavement.
“No!”
“Yes? Okay! I’m coming back down!”
Shoulders lapsed and stuttering, Rumi laughs, waiting for Zoey as she stumbles down the stretch of the hill. The sun was long gone, and wouldn’t rise again for a nightfall, but Rumi feels that if she squints, she can see it tumbling towards her.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
9:35 PM.
Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her jeans, insistent and annoying, but Zoey brushes it off until she can at least get on her lawn first. With ragged breathing and grilled lungs, a bead of sweat trickles down her temple, doing little to cool her off. She doesn't know how the hell Rumi does it.
If the hike up and down Rumi’s street hadn’t worn Zoey out, dragging the bike off and onto the bus put the biggest strain on her body. Any energy to walk—let alone cycle—back to her house was long depleted, the night dragging behind her heels as she pushes the bike into her driveway. Not that she was in a hurry to get inside of course.
The bus ride had been long and stretching, just barely feasible by virtue of the music feeding into Zoey’s ears.
Thank God for maladaptive daydreaming.
As the thought had crossed her mind, her shoulders jumped, swaying into the backpack she’d nearly abandoned at Rumi’s house. She let her body rock forcefully with the music under bumpy and battered roads. Unphased, Zoey watched the window blur into hues of green, blue and streaks of light. It was a slow ride, a partial result of the buzz that followed Zoey home. With a tinge of regret for the smashed marijuana, now in a drainpipe, she made a note to ask Jinu for that specific strand again. Later.
So much for probably quitting.
The bus rumbled for what seemed like forever. Mansions blended into suburban recluse on the ride home, quickly bleeding into nothing but an urban and deserted sprawl. Finally, the bus came to a halt. The last stop: a block away from Zoey’s house, further south of Burbank.
Much further south of Rumi.
Dazed, Zoey blinked out of her sleep and floated off the bus onto the sidewalk, bike in hand.
She took her time getting to the front yard of her house. She took her time strolling down the driveway, into the carport. And she especially took her time putting Rumi’s bike away with old zip-ties, careful not to scrape the purple paint off.
It chips anyway, with her luck, and she curses, hoping Rumi would be none the wiser to the scratch.
In the midst of her dazed frustration, a thud! sounds at the window under the carport. Delayed, Zoey jumps at the noise, whipping her head around hardly on cue.
A little girl hovers in the window frame, palms pressed and pale, peeking through the curtains as her face twisted into something silly.
Zoey smiles at the sight.
Charming as ever, Aya.
She softens, relaxing her shoulders as she rolls her eyes and makes a face back, hooking her fingers into her cheek and pulls.
Aya giggles behind the glass and Zoey watches as she tries to one-up her. Her fingers start to poke into her nose, but then her head snaps in the opposite direction, attentive and raised. She pauses.
Then she flinches.
The curtains close as she ducks back onto the couch Zoey knew was behind the wall, and Aya disappears.
Zoey’s heart lurches and her blood sobers, thinning out as she gathers her keys and abandons the bike, letting it clatter onto the pavement.
The air inside is thick, suffocating Zoey with the stench of cigarette butts and mothballs upon impact. She tries to take a breath when she steps through the door but it feels like trying to breathe behind a crop duster. A foolish thing. There was no air in there, not any for her.
Before the door can even click behind her, before her eyes can search for Aya, a rasped and tired voice comes from the living room.
“You’re late.”
Somewhere between the TV and the couch, Zoey hears the clink of a wine glass hitting the side table. She sighs, but the air clings to her ribs.
“I know,” Zoey tries to breathe, keeping her hands busy as she peels her sneakers off. “There was a car accident, sorry.”
The voice says nothing, letting the apology hover in the air.
Zoey thinks for a moment that was the end, ready to bolt upstairs, but then:
“Your sister hasn’t had any dinner,” Flick. A grey cloud appears from behind the couch and the smell of tobacco intensifies. “Make her something.”
Zoey knows better than to mutter, than to breathe, to do anything in protest, so her head only nods. Silent. Agreeable. “Yes, ma’am.”
Finally, no retort, no push. No fight.
She didn’t have it in her anyway.
Scanning, her eyes eventually find Aya, behind the loveseat, hiding. Hushed and careful, Zoey rounds the couch and ducks down, legs tucking beneath her weight.
“Hey.”
“Hey…”
The shrinkage of Aya’s voice, tiny and soft, makes Zoey’s heart snap in half.
“Did she yell?” she whispers out of earshot, pushing a long strand of hair behind Aya’s ear as a shield of secrecy forms around them.
Aya nods in response.
Was that it? Zoey almost asks.
But she never put a finger on Aya. Never.
“Okay,” A controlled breath leaves her nose, trying not to let her concern show and Zoey drops it at that. “What’d ’ya eat today?” she asks, brighter than before.
Nervously, the little girl rubs a palm across the back of her hand and pulls at her bottom lip, avoiding Zoey’s gaze.
“I ate some of your snack stash,” Aya murmurs, guilty and pitiful. “M’sorry.”
Zoey chuckles after a beat and ruffles the top of Aya’s head, coaxing a mix of quiet giggles and protests from her baby sister. “You’re lucky you’re cute and I don’t need the extra pounds anyway.” She stands up, straightening her back and her mind.
She rummages through the drawers of her brain for potential dishes she could whip up. Something easy and quick. Simple. Quiet.
Aya looks up at her, puppy eyes wide and expecting. Zoey swears her knees would buckle and she'd crumble under the sheer weight of cuteness.
“What do you think about macaroni and cheese…and…”
Zoey pauses, waiting for Aya’s reaction. She gasps, fist balling into her knees with excitement.
“Dino nuggets?”
Another gasp, and Aya jumps into Zoey’s arms, squealing like she might explode. Zoey hauls her up but covers her mouth with a warning palm, carefully pressing it to her lips. Her head swivels into the living room.
A beat.
Then nothing.
Only hushed murmurs of the television meet their ears and the coast is clear. Zoey lets go of Aya’s mouth and the breath she was holding. After a heavy pause, relief washes over the both of them as she presses their foreheads together, bursting into a soft chorus of giggles.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
10:22 PM.
Vrumi 🏎️💨[10:22pm]
Got home okay? 🩷
Zoey [10:22pm]
nope.
a buncha homeless people jumped me otw home :(
Vrumi 🏎️💨[10:24pm]
???
Call me.
Snickering, Zoey’s fingers find the camera app, snapping a silent, off guard photo of the table.
Zoey [10:27pm]
kidding, kidding. don’t piss youre pants!!!!
aya says hi :P <3
Vrumi 🏎️💨[10:27pm]
Your***
And hi, Aya. ☺️
I miss you guys.
A smile presses itself hard onto Zoey’s lips, parting them breathlessly.
This girl…
Before she can make a terrible, terrible decision, a voice comes from beyond the table, high-pitched and intrusive as ever.
“Are you gonna eat?”
Zoey looks up from her phone and over to Aya. Her mouth is smeared with boxed macaroni and cheese, freckled with—well—actual freckles and crumbs from the dino nuggets Zoey had barely rescued from the air fryer. Thankfully, Aya hadn’t minded, no matter how much Zoey apologized for the nuggets being “a bit crispy.”
Her heart rocks at the sight across from her and Zoey shakes her head.
“Nope, I ate at Rumi’s,” she pats her growling stomach. “Still full,” she lies.
“Is that why you’re smiling really hard right now?”
Zoey chokes, inhaling nothing but her own spit and the sputter of her words. Awkwardly, she laughs. “What? What are you—? I wasn’t—I’m not even smiling that hard…!”
Aya says nothing, quizzical and unconvinced. She had always been a smartass for a five-year-old, which Zoey hated.
A ding! rings into the dining room, grabbing Zoey’s attention almost immediately.
Vrumi 🏎️💨[10:31pm]
Not gonna say it back? ☹️
A smile makes its way to her lips again and Aya giggles, gently kicking her older sister under the table. Their eyes lock, waggling brows burning into Zoey’s poor soul with cheeky intimidation. A heat rises in her face, burning and persistent.
“Bed,” Zoey grits through her teeth. “Now.”
Aya never listened, so Zoey doesn't expect her to—not with the poor display of dominance she was putting up and the obvious fever running through her face.
A song ripples through the house, featuring Aya as the lead singer, “You have a cruuussshhh!” louder than Zoey would have preferred.
But before she can give into the urge to strangle Aya, the sound of their squeaky refrigerator peels open into the air, stopping her.
“Who has a crush?”
The question drops into Zoey’s stomach like a stone in water, weighted and sunken to the bottom.
She was awake. Like, actually awake.
The pins in Zoey’s blood prickle, dread settling into her veins. Pain blooms into her wrists, courtesy of her unkept nails, willing away her nerves with a pinch to skin. A distraction. An anchor. Something to drive that stupid fear backwards into whatever dark corner of her mind it came from.
She forces a chuckle from her ribs, painfully, watching as her mother pours another wave of crimson into her glass.
“N-No one! She’s just being silly…” It was Zoey’s turn to kick Aya now. “Right, ‘Yaya?”
A feverish nod answers between three. “Yeah,” Aya's voice was weak and small, hardly heard above the buzzing silence. “Just kidding…”
They pause between the sound of bottles clanking and the refrigerator closing again. Their mother doesn't say anything. Zoey takes it upon herself to claim the opening, swiftly cleaning up their mess and shrinking herself in the process.
When the table looked as if it had never been touched, Zoey scoops Aya up in her arms. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says, as a small and placating hand presses into her back. She aims for upstairs, smooth sailing, but her travel is cut short.
“Zoey.”
Her name cuts through her frame like a knife. Her nerves hike, teeming with anticipation. Zoey holds onto Aya a bit tighter before she peddles back into the kitchen doorframe.
Maybe if she kept Aya in her arms…
Maybe she wouldn’t...
She waits for what seems like nothing, the moisture in her mouth drying out as her heart thumps vehemently, banging into her ribs. A breath catches in her spine and she holds it there with a purpose. Maybe she could just turn invisible before she turned blue.
“The electricity is due,” her mother slurs, cigarette and wine glass in tow. “Call your dad. And check the mail.”
The synergy of Zoey’s organs return and her mind slows its instinctual racing. Suddenly, Aya feels far lighter in her arms than before.
“O-Okay,” she swallows and winces, damning herself for not concealing the fear in her stutter. “I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.”
Her feet move faster than she swears they can, quickening in pace as she carries both herself and Aya up the steps. Behind her trail, she doesn't leave room for another useless argument to be born.
The bath is swift, no time left for play. They keep quiet as Zoey dries Aya’s hair before tucking it into a long braid with a conjured practice and plenty of gossip. Everything feels smaller when Aya’s bedroom door closes shut; quieter, but Zoey can still hear the faint hum of the television from downstairs.
She makes a silent stretch for her own bedroom, bolting behind the door.
The air in her lungs returns and she can finally, finally breathe—for the first time since she crossed into the house.
Instinctively, her hands pull towards the lock on her door, but she hesitates.
She wouldn’t lock it.
She couldn’t.
So, she drops her arm, placing it at her side. Her back slides to the floor, barricading against the peeling frame behind her. The worn and beaten hinges rattle when her head thumps back into the door, resting it there as her chest cracks open in relief.
There were two things Zoey hated about leaving Rumi’s house:
Leaving Rumi,
And coming back to her own.
She sighs, bowing her head as her knees meet her forehead.
Monday morning couldn’t come any fucking faster.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
The front door clicks behind Rumi, shutting the night out. The contrast is blinding as fluorescent lights beam down into her eyes, heated paneling seeping up into the gaps of her jeans as Rumi could feel the beginnings of a headache. One she can probably sleep off with a glass of water.
She steadies herself against the doorframe, her breathing still heavy from running inside and her lips tug upwards, a lingering payoff from Zoey’s poorly told turtle pun.
Before her leave, Zoey hadn’t been much help, but Rumi enjoyed her looming presence anyways. Even if she was being distracting.
“Hey, Rums,” she says, leaning over the fence, pushing the post. “How did the turtle react to his son coming out?”
Hardly paying Zoey a piece of mind, Rumi struggles with the brakes and chains of her bike. “I dunno, Zo,” She grunts through squeaking metal. “Maybe he helped his son fix his bicycle so he could ride it with his boyfriend.”
The shorter girl makes an exceptional impression of a buzzer with her mouth. “Wrong answer!” Her laughter can hardly be contained as she giggles. “He was shell-shocked! Get it?”
Rumi hadn’t laughed then, not understanding why the pun had to be about gay turtles—of all things. But now, in the pale and cavernous confines of her home, and the lack of Zoey’s presence, her chest rumbles with the laugh she held in as her face began to burn with something she couldn’t name.
Before the embers in her stomach can ignite, Celine enters the room, washing it out with her presence.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
Rumi jumps, head snapping at the sound.
“C-Celine! I…didn’t hear you come in either,” she stutters, tripping on the words in her mouth. Her heart skips a beat, surprised, then, “I thought…I thought you were still at the studio.”
Her aunt only hums, eyes closed, massaging her neck in a slow, ruminating motion as she tosses her keys onto the kitchen island.
“Marcus let me go early,” Celine mutters. “The damned fool didn’t even know what he needed. Wasting my time and gas…”
When her eyes open, her palm keeps rubbing into her neck and her gaze shifts onto Rumi, taking her in. Her eyebrows furrow. Her hand stops.
“I thought I told Zoey to go home.”
Rumi freezes. Wondering what gave her away, she looks down, searching for the culprit. There, below her ankles, dirt clad sneakers peer back up at her, dragging a streak of mud across the marble.
Crap.
“Sh-She did!” Rumi attempts to neutralize Celine’s anger, but it falters under her glowering eyes. “Then…she came back…” Her voice was puny and insignificant as a hand falls to the side of her neck, in hopes of pushing the projection in her voice.
“She just needed my bike,” she blurts. But it didn’t placate Celine’s bile.
A dry, sunken laughter breaks into the air, offensive and chilling.
“So not only did you deliberately disobey my instructions, but you also gave her your only mode of transportation.” A sigh leaves Celine's throat and her nose pinches between her fingers. Rumi watches nervously from afar as her eyebrow ticks. “Now I suppose I have to wake up even earlier to get you to school?”
Well, you did take my car keys.
She blinks, silently communicating. Rumi knows better than to voice what she was thinking, biting the retort behind her tongue. It stays there and dies, buried between her teeth, a fault in Rumi’s courage. Her silence is all but deafening as it fills the air.
Exhaling, Celine grumbles something under her breath, rounding the kitchen island with nothing but an aggravated huff.
The thought of anything else besides the ring of jingling key crosses Rumi’s mind. It isn't until the keys to her car were halfway across the room and shot into the face of her palm, caught with a second nature.
Her hand stings from the impact, but Rumi’s chest flutters with surprise nonetheless.
She can tell that when she glances upward, Celine doesn't share the same amount of relief, still disappointed that her wishes had been ignored, but Rumi happens to notice the small, upward pull of the older woman’s lips. Her heart relaxes, keys toying between her fingers.
Celine chuckles, straining the side of her temple with an aged finger. “I suppose that isn’t all that fair, hm?”
Apprehensively, Rumi only shares a small and an empty laugh of her own, hoping to avoid the oncoming lecture by offering no further response.
It doesn't work, of course, but one of these days it would, Rumi thought.
“Y’know,” Oh boy. “I give you your keys, but you two really have got to stop joyriding, it’s too dangerous,” Here we go. “I mean—“ Rumi groans inside her head, wanting to bash it into the floor. “What are you even doing that late at night?”
Drugs.
No, definitely not drugs.
No drugs.
Well, just a drug.
A tiny one. No biggie.
Rumi shrugs and nothing illegal exits out of her mouth as her lie begins, carefully threading through her words. “Just…seeing the city…” She shifts her weight, tonguing her cheek. “And a few friends.”
Celine scoffs at that, making a show of her disapproval as her palms bare against porcelain. So dramatic.
“Last time you two were just seeing the city, you almost got yourselves killed.”
A sigh tears through her chest and the urge to roll her eyes is a strong one that takes everything in Rumi to ignore. “Killed” was an overstatement.
That hospital was abandoned, for the record.
And sure, she and Zoey weren’t supposed to be there technically, but neither was that homeless man.
And he certainly was not supposed to chase after them with a pocket knife. Who the hell even does that???
It wasn’t funny then when Zoey had fallen through a rickety floorboard, begging for Rumi to help her. It wasn’t funny when Rumi couldn’t peel out of the vacated parking lot fast enough with Zoey repeatedly screaming, “We’re cooked!” in her ear. And it wasn’t humorous in the slightest trying to explain the huge crater in her bumper to Celine. Nope. None of that was funny then.
But Rumi could laugh about it now.
“Is something funny?”
Or not.
A weariness washes over her as her smile flattens out and a shaky hand cards through her bangs, smoothing them back into her braid as she regains her composure. “No, no,” Rumi lies. “Nothing’s funny—I just…”
Her tongue clicks as she chooses her next choice of words thoughtfully and cold hands weigh themselves inside her pockets like rocks, stuffed down into the hem of her jeans. The car keys clutched in her fists weren’t as warm and forgiving as they should have been, but they give her a push of bravery as the jagged edges kiss her knuckles.
Rumi swallows the bitter taste rising in her throat.
“I’m nineteen, Celine," she says, tilting her head to the floor, and the next few words that come, she isn't too sure of. “I can handle myself.”
She waits for Celine to get frustrated and argue with her. To say she was just a kid. A stupid kid. She waits for her to say Rumi didn’t have a clue as to what she was doing with her life. That she didn’t have the agency to handle herself. Rumi, who had heard it all before, held space for the oncoming lecture, like she held the breath in her lungs.
“You’re right.”
Rumi hadn’t closed her eyes once, but she blinks, snapping her head upward and it feels as if she had opened her eyes for the first time. She was right? She opens her mouth to say something, but Celine stops her.
“You can handle yourself. You’re not a kid anymore,” her voice is steady, as calm as the hand that runs through her hair, and it should have been motherly, but Rumi can tell that it's far from that. “But when you’re under my roof, my rules, I’m responsible for you. Your mother made sure of that.”
And then, quieter, a pledge:
“I’m the one who has to keep you safe, Rumi.”
Oh.
Rumi sucks in a cold breath at the admission and for some odd reason, her throat swells and her vision blurs.
Fuckfuckfuckfuck.
Do not freaking cry right now, she thinks, but her nose betrays her anyway, sniffling as tears brim her eyes. Still, she holds her head up and nods, not trusting her voice in the moment.
“Do you understand that?” Celine asks.
Rumi nods again, more convinced than before. “Yeah, I do,” she whispers. “M’sorry.”
And then, almost like a light switch, Celine turns off the maternal warmth in her voice—clearing her throat as if she hadn’t meant for that much softness to seep into her words. Her eyes don't meet Rumi’s gaze again.
“Don’t be sorry, be careful.”
And as quickly as Rumi had forgotten, she remembers: Celine is not her mother. She doesn't want to be. And Rumi had really got to stop pretending like she was.
“Yes, ma’am.”
That awkward silence that Rumi hated when Celine was done scolding her is thick, crushing her under its smothering weight. When there is, at last, nothing left to lecture, nothing to pick at, like an angry sore that they couldn’t let heal, Celine turns away from Rumi with an unreadable expression. The refrigerator door opens and the room somehow gets colder.
“Are you hungry?” she asks almost robotically, like it was an obligation to know, to fulfill. “I can make something if you are.”
Rumi shakes her head, then, realizing Celine couldn’t see from behind her, she forces a verbal answer past the lump in her throat. “No, it’s fine.” she lies, pushing that uneasy feeling down in her belly where she couldn’t find it. “I-I think I’m gonna turn it in for the night.”
Before Celine can question the trembling in her voice, Rumi’s footsteps carry her faster than her tears can fall. The beeline she makes for the staircase afterwards is stark,—“rude” as the older woman would put it,—but Rumi doesn't care. It should’ve been quick and it should have been easy.
“Rumi.”
But Celine never made anything quick or easy.
Her footfalls stops through her ascent and she waits, narrowing down at her aunt past the railing.
“Don’t let her get you in more trouble. You’re too smart for that.”
Despite the tear deepening in her chest, cracked and flaming, like hell opening up under the earth, Rumi nods, good and obedient. Composed. Not the reflection of whatever was twisting inside of her.
“I know,” she says, chin high, spirits low. “I won’t.”
Once Celine was satisfied, the path to Rumi’s room is a straight shot, brisk and avoidant. With a nimble climb, the trapdoor to Rumi’s bedroom opens and slams closed, walling away any more of Celine’s unwanted criticism.
Rumi’s chest empties, exhaling from exhaustion.
With habit, she immediately finds a seat on her bed and her thumbs move through the few saved contacts in her phone, having a mind of their own.
Zoey texts back instantly, sending a photo of Aya at the dinner table.
Rumi smiles, hearting the picture with a click. She texts a few more times before Zoey stops responding entirely.
Her chest sags with disappointment. It was late for a school night, she guessed.
But Rumi still feels restless and she wants a distraction, a disturbance from the unsettling feeling Celine left in her bones.
Her laptop lights up from the bedside, sitting comfortably at her desk, painting the wall behind it in a blue tint. Rumi kept it turned around, in case of needing to swap tabs at any given moment where a prying aunt may barge in.
Now, she swivels tirelessly on the wheels of her desk chair, checking the notifications that ran up her screen and clicks onto one tab in particular that makes her smile behind picked nails.
Asukaslefteye is typing…
My flight was delayed :\
I hate it here.
Should I jump?
rainonrumi
Good evening to you too, Mira.
You’re so dramatic by the way.
Ever watch Final Destination? LOL
Asukaslefteye
Ha. Ha. Not funny. Also the sun is out in seoul dumbass
And maybe I’m not dramatic, maybe I’m just excited 2 see you ? ;))
A slow and painful draw of air hangs in Rumi’s chest at the message. She responds, fingers softly clacking against her keyboard.
rainonrumi
You’re gonna make me delete our messages again.
Behave.
Asukaslefteye
Whatever, u love it
Is Celine still being a 🐕 about ur computer…?
She did not, in fact, “love it” but she let Mira believe what she wanted. Even if it did stroke her ego a bit. Before the comment on her aunt can be tackled with a big fat paragraph and angrily tapped keys, Rumi’s phone (thankfully) buzzes.
ZoZo💙🐢[11:01pm]
soz, had to put aya to bed
i miss you more!!!!!!
ft me pleasesee, my moms not being a bitch tonight
Rumi’s eyes roll, and she glues her fingers back onto her laptop, deleting her previously unsent message.
rainonrumi
Kinda. I’ll fill you in when you get here.
I gotta go. Good luck with your flight, Mir.
Goodnight. <3
The computer closes, not waiting for a response, abandoned to the desk as Rumi rolls over to the foot of her bed and does a belly flop. Her thumbs move quickly, resting on her pillow and the phone rings once.
“Hellooo!” Zoey sings.
Rumi giggles. “Hi.”
It had been that simple, like it always was.
The room fills with a warmth that Rumi is all too familiar with as Zoey’s voice filters in, overflowing at every edge and corner of the attic. That ache in Rumi’s bones melts, dissolving and null. If she closes her eyes hard enough, she thinks she can feel it enveloping her, as if Zoey was there in the flesh, pressing into her side even though there was always plenty of space in the bed for both of them.
“It’s more comfy this way,” Zoey would attest to her act of clinginess and Rumi never disagreed.
Their phone call persists, scooping the rest of the night up into a little box, a small piece of the universe that feels like their own, fragmented yet seemingly endless.
The night drags on and Rumi’s palm wipes at her heavy eyelids as she half-listens to Zoey’s high-strung (and mostly exaggerated) story, nodding and humming on cue. When the last bit of laughter dies, Rumi plants her face into her pillow, wondering if all this talking was worth her sleep as she still tries to pay attention.
Then the call falls silent.
She isn't sure how long she’d been grumbling into her pillow, but surely she hadn’t hung up by mistake, right?
“Zoey?”
The faint hum of a running fan and Zoey’s snoring cuts through the phone, a telltale sign the girl's out cold. Rumi scoffs in disbelief and chuckles with a strangeness in her chest as she turns off her lamp, leaving only the moon to leak into the attic.
She lies there for the rest of the night, staring up into the ceiling as it dances under her gaze and the sounds of Zoey’s slumber hushes Rumi into one of her own, like she was being swaddled in a heap of fresh, warm laundry. It soothes her, obnoxious snoring and all.
When her eyes close, a tug of excitement begins to pull at her buzzing, blanketed skin, a hope that she would see Zoey again before the sun. Knowing she would see her again was—admittedly—exhilarating in the most pathetic of ways.
She smiles and her face burns, caring not for the tightness in her chest as her mind shuts off with a final thought:
Monday morning couldn’t come any faster.