Archive of Our Own ^beta

Her name is Rumi.

(It almost always is.)

Her hair is purple, a soft lavender, cut at the ears. Wavy, constantly falling in her face, over her eyes in a way that she hates. Her face is a little more angled, her eyes are a little softer at the sides. Her crooked grin is the exact same as it always is, as it always has been; no matter what else changes, this stays the same. Always a little too wide, always wild, always a little crooked. Most things about her never seem to change—there are differences, as there always will be, but she’s so startlingly similar to her from the very beginning.

Something about her soul is just particularly stubborn. Particularly stubborn is hardly a good enough pair of words to describe what her soul is. Stubborn is far too gentle of a word for this soul in particular. Something about her soul is different from others, it’s more, it’s louder, it’s more inclined to fight and cling onto the world until it’s brought back to the ground, resurfacing out of the dirt, spreading up into the sky. Wild and untamed, always so fervently unwilling to go anywhere that it doesn’t want to go, and it’s been sticking around for far, far longer than it ever should have managed.

Stubborn. Determined. Adaptive. 

If anyone could manage to defy each act of fate, twisting the ends together until they meet again and bend in a way of which she’s pleased, it would be Rumi. 

This time, she’s Zoey. 

(She’s started to grow fond of it. For each time Rumi is Rumi, Zoey will be Zoey.)

It takes seventy-two years this time. Longer than the last, still nowhere near the longest. It falls somewhere in the middle, though the years still pass by with the same amount of restlessness and expectation. The time has become something to weather, something expected of her to handle, but it never becomes easier. Different, less overwhelming, but it never turns into something easier. Waiting has been more than half her life, and she’s gotten good at it, but it hardly means she enjoys it. 

She isn’t complaining. She would wait as long as she’s needed to, and she has.

Tirelessly, the years stitch together. The sun rises and sets. The hollow spot inside of her waits. She has tried to make sense of these stubborn souls and the way they come back to her, how they always, without fail, manage to weave their way back through her chest, settling perfectly in the empty space within her that stays empty longer than it stays fulfilled. It must have something to do with the way the world shifted one day, how it broke apart entirely before being put back into place, starting to spin again as if it hadn’t come to a crashing halt. At some point, Zoey’s soul came loose. At some point, two more found a home.

The hollow spot inside of her chest waits, and then there’s a tug. 

It’s unmistakable; even if it was easy to overlook, Zoey has become good at recognising it. The entire world shifts, stopping on its axis again, and then it begins to careen forward. Dizzyingly fast and determined and loud. Then, in a voice that has remained just as stubborn as the soul who used it first, comes the command: “Find me.”

And Zoey does.

It was easier this time. The tug led her into a well-worn coffee shop with flowers outside, and a chalkboard with the world’s worst handwriting, which she would know, because this handwriting was ridiculous and familiar.

(Zoey laughs about this for longer than she means to, but the tug has never lied to her before. Even when she walks past the shop, looping down onto a different street, it stays the same. It always ends up like this; she’s tried desperately before to make the tug wait, to have this be something grand, but it never allows for it. Maybe it’s in the universe’s makeup for this to always, always be how it starts. Maybe it has something to do with the way Rumi has laughed about it for years, wild and giddy, insisting that it continues the same. 

“Find me” is a demand that is always followed with, “Somewhere worse this time”. 

If there is anything that Zoey has been certain about throughout her life, it is the fact that the universe adores Rumi. That soul of hers has spent so much time within it that it’s become something of the universe itself. When her soul demands something, the universe will bend and make it happen. Fate twists over itself, turning itself in knots, and forces the universe to settle in a way that’s acceptable for her soul. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. 

It always is Rumi first. This soul has always been spoiled, and the universe understands that.

Zoey stands in front of the door and quietly begs, “Don’t. Can you let me win once?”

The tug gets louder. 

Spoiled.)

The bell chimed, and all it took was two steps into the building before Zoey saw her. 

Lavender hair cut short. Soft eyes and a crooked grin turned onto her in an instant. 

And now, one of her favourite parts: a pause.

Zoey can feel the way the tug in her chest sings with approval, soaring up in something like joy. This part of herself does not belong to her, not entirely, but the tug has always been just as excited to see her. Zoey has become adept at this part, and she’s already confirmed Rumi’s name in her mind, three seconds after walking in—still Rumi, still hers. Names are hardly binding and mean nothing other than what others pour into them, but Rumi has been the name that has settled in her mouth for years now, and Zoey has become terribly attached to it.

Zoey falls into this next part with ease, shifting on her feet as she gives a wild grin of her own, stuffing her hands in her pockets. 

Rumi is the one who speaks first, blinking once, twice. The habit is the same as always. 

“Hi!” Rumi greets. “What can I get for you today?”

Zoey has never been good at this part.

There’s another piece that clicks into place here, and it makes her so dizzy she can barely remain upright. Rumi’s voice, confident and unwavering, the same as it always is, the same as it always has been. Zoey has learnt how to hold herself together, how to remain steady and patient, how to tuck away the ache in her chest until enough time passes and it becomes needed to explain, but this part is always too much. 

Zoey blinks the tears out of her eyes, dragging one hand through her hair as she takes a step closer to the counter, offering a quick, “Sorry. The pollen is, like, crazy outside right now. Can I get...”

The tug in her chest fades, dimming just slightly. It won’t go away, not yet, not when there’s a piece of her soul still missing.

There she is.

Zoey found her.

(The tug in her chest stirs again. Soon, Zoey will find her, too.)

Her name is Zoey.

Rumi swears that she knows her.

It’s been five days, and she’s slowly driving herself insane. It’s gotten to the point that Jinu has directly started avoiding her whenever Rumi even starts a sentence with, “So, Zoey—” which isn’t fair, because she’s being totally serious about this. There is something so wildly familiar about Zoey, and Rumi swears that she’s seen her before. She would have remembered if Zoey was a customer she’s had before, and that’s been struck from the list, because Zoey told her that she just recently moved into the area.

Which can’t be true. Rumi knows that can’t be true. There’s no way that’s true. She’s refusing to believe it, because Zoey is so painfully familiar in a way that Rumi has never felt before, and that can’t just be something that’s suddenly happening to her. She’s always been hit by nostalgia a little harder than most people she knows—god knows Jinu has found her staring at something for way too long, only able to cite déjà vu as an excuse—but this is different. Zoey is different, and Rumi doesn’t know how, but she knows that it’s true.

The only saving grace in all of this is the fact that Bloom Together Coffee is just about the world’s most pathetic coffee shop, which is what enticed Rumi in the first place, with very little foot traffic most days. Twenty customers on a good day, usually spread pretty far apart that she’s left with hours of downtime. It doubles as a good study spot, which is part of the charm. How it’s managed to stay afloat when it definitely doesn’t make enough money is beyond her, but Rumi isn’t going to complain and accidentally put herself out of the world’s easiest job.

She rests her arms on the counter, leaning forward, tenting her hands over her mouth. “So.”

Jinu groans from his spot at a table across from her, throwing his head back as he slams his laptop shut. “No! We’re not talking about her! I don’t want to hear about her!” Jinu demands, jabbing a finger in Rumi’s direction with such animosity that it’s sort of ridiculous. “It’s all Zoey, Zoey, Zoey. Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just crazy?”

“Have you ever considered my fist breaking your nose?” Rumi snaps back, crinkling her nose. “Jinu, you have to listen to me. I’m coming up with theories. I have a lot of theories.”

“I don’t have to do anything, and I don’t want to listen to your theories,” Jinu helpfully informs her, but Rumi doesn’t miss the way he shifts in his chair, body angled toward her. “Rumi, I was here the day that she told you she moved in, like, three months ago. No one comes here. You would know if she came here.”

Rumi groans back at him, waving her hands in the air, making the world’s most convincing strangling motion. “That’s—that’s the point!” Rumi hisses, throwing her head back as she starts to pace, making strangled, choked noises as she slams her boots against the wooden floor. “I would have known! I would have! But she didn’t, and I still know her! I still know her! From where, Jinu? Where would I know her from?”

“Why would I know that?” Jinu sputters, almost incredulously. “Maybe you saw her and forgot. Or, consider this, you’re crazy.”

Rumi makes a frustrated noise, whirling back on her heels, about to dive over the counter and kill Jinu with her bare hands, and then the door chimes.

Rumi instantly stands perfectly straight, pushing her hair back, politely folding her hands over the counter as she keeps her shoulders rolled back and tight. Jinu does the same thing, swiveling back in his chair, back straight, staring straight ahead as he mindlessly opens his laptop.

There she is.

Zoey.

There’s that feeling in her chest again, stuttery and desperate. Rumi feels her breath hitch in her throat when Zoey walks in with ease, tugging at her jacket. “It’s getting cold out!” Zoey helpfully reports with a wide grin shot in Rumi’s direction. It makes her heart start to pound, and it’s all Rumi can do to remember how to breathe.

“Not a fan of the heat?” Rumi asks, feeling like her voice sounds too off, coming out weird and strange and squeaky. 

“Summer’s fine,” Zoey offers, her eyes soft and crinkled at the sides. She always looks so...gentle, maybe. Kind. “I like the sun, but I hate the humidity,” Zoey says, her lips twitching at the corners. “Plus, where I used to live, there was, like, no snow. It’s cool getting to see it.”

Rumi laughs, feeling dizzy, just like how she did five days ago, when Zoey walked in for the first time and ordered a pumpkin spice latte, saying, “Call me basic all you want, but I know what I like. I’m consistent, I can own it.”

She very quickly remembers that she’s meant to be working, and so she clears her throat, shifting on her feet. “What can I do for you today?”

Zoey comes to stand in front of the counter fully, her hair tied up in a bun. Rumi can see her freckles from this close, scattered over the bridge of her nose, curling up toward her eyes. Distantly, her mind says something like, one hundred and seventeen.

“Do you guys do hot chocolate?” Zoey asks, beaming at her.

Rumi feels like she’s going insane. 

“Absolutely,” she says through half-clenched teeth, smiling without meaning to. It’s hard not to when Zoey is looking at her like—like that. It makes her chest tighten every single time Zoey smiles at her. “I’ll get you started.”

Zoey grins at her, nose scrunching a little when she does it. “You’re the best, thank you!”

Rumi can barely drag herself away from the counter. Her heart races frantically, and she’s practically gasping for air by the time she slips out of sight, pressing herself against the wall. This is...Rumi feels like she’s going insane. What is happening to her? She grabs at her chest, swallowing past the lump in her throat, tipping her head back.

She knows what she feels. She knows that she’s feeling something right now, she knows that she knows Zoey, and Rumi can’t...explain any of it. She can’t figure any of it out, she doesn’t know what the fuck is going on with her, but it’s happening. She swears that it’s happening.

Rumi presses her hand harder against her chest, feeling the way her heart pounds so loudly that it’s the only thing she can hear. Rumi knows her. Zoey can’t be a stranger.

It’s nothing short of an act of bravery when Rumi finally pulls herself together and makes Zoey’s hot chocolate. 

She tries to keep the tremor out of her voice when she hands over the cup, putting on her best smile. “Sorry for the wait.”

Zoey grins at her, bright and beautiful, and familiar, and says, “Not a problem, seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

She reaches out, and—

When Zoey’s fingers brush over Rumi’s, just for a second, everything calms down.

It’s like she’s been struck by lightning. Zoey only touches her for a second, nothing more than an accident, and then she’s pulling away to pay, and Rumi can barely breathe. Things are calm in her head, the panicked racing of her heart comes to a stop, but the noise in her mind only starts to get louder and louder.

Rumi helplessly watches the way Zoey shoots her another grin before she’s out of the shop.

The bell chimes.

Rumi feels a tug in her chest.

Her name is Mira.

(It usually isn’t.)

She’s more used to Zoey now.

When the world broke into pieces, two souls turned stubborn. One forced its way back down to earth, burrowing into the soil until it wrenched itself free when it chose to; the other stayed hovering in the air, carefully intertwined with the trees—still going against the grain, still forcing the universe itself to bend and break, but there was a certain sort of grace to it. Regardless of how each soul managed to coax the universe into bending fate, they both managed. They did more than that.

This soul, hers, has always been graceful. Elegant. Dancing away just out of reach, always fleeting, always elusive. Tempting and tantalising, careful, cautious. It’s in her nature to be difficult, it’s in her nature to flow with the world in a way that looks effortless, but is so clearly intentional if anyone spent the time to look.

And, of course, Zoey has.

She’s tall. She always is, but Zoey always, without fail, notices regardless. Sharp features, angular and pointed. Her eyes burn with the same intensity they always have (that had been what had drawn Zoey in; fiery, passionate, full of a sort of intensity that she had never seen before, a sort of look that only she could pull off). Her hair is long, tied up in a high ponytail. Pink. She typically has always stayed similar in appearance, but it’s her eyes that have never changed. Always intense, always passionate, always so full of emotion, even if it rarely comes in the way most expect.

The tug had been lower this time, quieter, softer. It always is when it comes to her; it isn’t to say that the tug in Zoey’s chest loves her any less, but Mira—how gorgeous of a name, Zoey can’t help but think—has always been stubborn in a sort of self-sacrificial way. Always so good at protecting others, always so good at offering up herself as the one to go first, to be found last. Stubborn, terribly stubborn, and so full of love that it has never once failed to make Zoey’s entire heart stop beating, just for a second—it’s the closest brush with death she has ever been lucky enough to have.

This is the part that Zoey finds herself chasing after the most.

It always starts out slowly. The tug in her chest chases after Rumi, following her until it’s satiated, until Zoey has heard her voice, has seen her crooked grin. 

It spirals from there. Once Rumi is found, there’s a shift in the world that will not settle back out until Zoey finds Mira. Zoey would feel bad about it—she can already tell that Rumi is feeling it—but Rumi (who hadn’t been Rumi then) had been the one who insisted on being found first, and Mira (who hadn’t been Mira then) had laughed, quietly murmuring, “Find her. Come back to me.”

A plea. Her soul has always been so terribly stubborn while being so terribly nervous. Asking for affection has never come naturally to her. Asking for anything at all was rare in itself. But then she said, asked, pleaded, begged, “Come back to me.”

And so Zoey does.

The tug had been a little harder to place. Zoey found herself pacing along the street, pausing randomly as she waited for it to pick back up. It had eventually guided her around a garden center twice, and sharply pulled her to the double glass door entrance, shrouded by flowers and bushes.

(Less ridiculous than Rumi, but this particular soul has always been less set on teasing her, on figuring out all the most unconventional ways to knit them back together. Zoey stays at the entrance for longer than she’d care to admit, feeling her heart hammer in her chest. The empty, hollow spot inside of her is half-full, twisting achingly, desperate to be whole again. 

It always takes her a second to breathe when it comes to Mira. This is the part where things shift. This is the part where things change completely, where everything clicks, where the cycle begins anew. With Mira comes steadiness. With Mira comes a certain sort of fullness in her chest that she has lacked for however many years; seventy-two, this time. Zoey is left breathless, her hands trembling as she pushes into the gardening center.

Mira has always been so terribly elusive, so quick to dart away. Terribly loving, too. It’s etched into her soul in a way that Zoey has never been able to quite figure out. The love that radiates off of her is so sincere and familiar, so achingly perfect, so very her, no matter what name she takes on. 

She has always, without fail, requested this. Being found second, waiting until Rumi’s soul has started to sing in a frequency they all can hear. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Taking the risk of being left behind; Zoey knows that has always been her biggest fear, and what a wonderful act of trust Mira offers to her, time and time again. A desperation to not be left, all while promising that it is okay to leave her until last.

When Zoey finds Rumi, the first thing she does is run desperately in the other direction to guide Mira back home, too.)

It took very little time to find her after that. Zoey passed through swathes of potted plants, carefully stepped around stray carts with arrangements of flowers loosely tucked into vases, and then felt the world click. 

Tall, pink hair. Heavy boots, a black tanktop, gold-rimmed glasses. Baggy cargo pants with a black belt to tie everything together. All of her is so her, familiar and different all at once. It never ceases to amaze Zoey how this soul has always found peace in the same things, even when it shows differently each time.

Her eyes meet Zoey’s just in time for a loud, “Mira!” To be yelled from across the greenhouse. 

Her head turns.

Mira.

The pause is heavy in the air, and Mira shifts on her feet for a second, eyes studying, calculating. Burning with an intensity and scrutiny that Zoey has been so desperate to see again.

Please, she thinks, figure me out.

“I can be with you in—in a second,” Mira says, smoothly, before she turns and makes her way in the direction of whoever called for her.

Low, raspy. This has never changed, either. The deep rumble of her voice, the taste of her words, the way she’s so quiet and yet so loud, able to fill a room with ease, is familiar. Zoey feels her heart stutter, lurching forward. She breathes in slowly, her eyes watering.

This is the part that usually breaks her.

She only just barely manages to wipe away her tears when Mira comes back, an empty pot tucked under her arm, her free hand coming to rest against her forehead. 

“Sorry,” she says, her full attention back on Zoey. Sharp and studying, brows twitching in a way that Zoey has seen a million times. “What can I help with?”

Zoey smiles, feeling the hollow in her chest ebb away from her. The tug disappears entirely now, shifting under years and years and years, burying itself away. It will come back, as it always does, but for now, it is content. 

“I’m looking for some easy houseplants to take care of,” Zoey says, breathlessly. “Any idea where to start?”

There she is.

Zoey came back to her. 

The world finally, finally settles.

Her name is Zoey.

Mira swears that she knows her.

Zoey, the charming woman with no knowledge about plants—how she managed to end up in a gardening center is still beyond Mira—and a loud, boisterous laugh that fills the entirety of the greenhouse. Zoey had given up her name a few minutes into Mira talking to her for the first time, beaming as she talked about moving in recently, how her new apartment has a terrace, how she’s been dying to try and get into gardening. 

Mira found herself hanging on every word.

She’s no stranger to attraction and what comes with it, and this is...different. Mira swears that Zoey is just different. There’s something about her that feels effortlessly easy, to the point that Mira found herself rambling about her own plants, talking about the different needs of plants Zoey definitely knew nothing about. She never talks about herself, even in a more superficial kind of way, with customers—never. Mira doesn’t need to have to deal with a thousand more complaints sent to her boss about “leading someone on” just because she looked at them for two seconds too long, and she’s never been interested in doing anything more than her job while she’s at work. Makes the hours go by faster.

Zoey, somehow, managed to push past that firm boundary in less than ten minutes, and Mira hadn’t even realised until Abby gave her a look, casually pointing out how it was, “Really, way, super out of the ordinary. You actually looked like you smiled. Do you even know how to do that? Smiling’s a muscle! We gotta work on that!”

Zoey keeps coming back. Mira can’t help but be drawn to her.

It’s up for debate if Zoey is actually buying things or not. She very rarely picks anything out in front of Mira, but she could very well be picking things up at the far end of the greenhouse where Mira isn’t. It’s hard for her to pinpoint what about Zoey is so familiar, because it’s kind of just...all of her. Everything about her screams familiarity, and Mira can’t really get a lead when there’s literally nothing in particular that calls to her, which is beyond frustrating, and it doesn’t make sense, anyway.

Mira has always been at the end of a thousand “old soul” and “poor memory” jokes. She’s rolled her eyes at them for her entire life, but they’ve never been completely pulled from nowhere. Mira has spent an embarrassing amount of time standing in one spot, feeling like she’s been there before, and then she has to spend the next five minutes of her life pacing, trying to figure out why she feels like that and where that feeling could possibly be coming from, because it happens to her all the fucking time, so maybe one of these days it’ll finally make sense.

Mira isn’t exactly keen on the superstitions that follow with déjà vu—because they’re ridiculous and stupid and she’s heard all of them way too many times—but Zoey is...

Zoey. 

And there’s something about Zoey that Mira can’t explain. 

It’s close to driving her insane.

Nothing makes sense when Zoey stumbles into the garden center, beaming at her, casually strolling through the greenhouse with her hands in her pockets, rambling about what she did over the weekend, how she’s enrolling soon—exact same college as Mira, at that—how she’s finally getting settled in.

Mira hasn’t been able to explain the way that, sometimes, when Zoey says something, Mira feels like she already knew the piece of information she’s been given. 

It’s happened a dozen times today. Zoey is at her side now, wildly talking about her plans, how there’s this killer coffee shop that she keeps going to, how her apartment is looking a little less empty, how she has to buy a good set of knives sometime this week because most of her kitchenware got lost in the move. Mira, obviously, couldn’t have known any of that before literally right now, and yet there’s just this—stupid sense of familiarity, like this is a conversation they’ve had a thousand times, and no matter what she does, she can’t shake it.

And then, after ranting about Costco for a full two minutes, Zoey suddenly says, “What kind of flowers do you like? You seem like...tiger lilies.”

Mira stiffens. There’s no way.

“Yeah,” she tentatively agrees, opening and closing her mouth for a second. “How’d you figure that one out?”

This is different, too. Why is she talking to Zoey? When did Zoey go from being a customer to someone that Mira is actively going out of her way to talk to? Mira realises, embarrassingly enough, that it definitely happened the first day Zoey walked into the greenhouse and asked her for help with houseplants. She could have just googled that.

Zoey just grins, rocking back and forth on her heels for a few seconds. “Lucky guess, probably. You just have those vibes.”

Mira snorts, barely able to believe her ears. She stops what she’s doing, barely remembering why she even has this stupid fern in her hands in the first place, and turns to look at Zoey head-on. There’s a quiet moment where the silence around them—though it isn’t entirely silent, with the other nursery workers moving around and chattering quietly with customers—and Mira feels her heart stutter. 

Her mouth opens before her brain can process that she’s saying, “You like forget-me-nots.”

Mira practically withers away on the spot when Zoey’s eyes widen. That’s—what? Why did she fucking say that? That’s not even...

It’s true. It has to be true. There’s a voice in the back of her head that tells her that it’s true, but Mira doesn’t know that, because Zoey has never—

“They’re my favourites!” Zoey agrees, easily, as if Mira didn’t just say something fucking weird to her. “Kind of cliche,” she continues, in a softer voice, still grinning, “But, y’know. They’ve got, ah, a pretty special place in my heart. I’m a sucker for stuff like that.”

Mira feels her heart pound, scrambling to figure out something to say that doesn’t sound stupid, that isn’t ridiculous, and that doesn’t come from the insane part of her mind that has suddenly decided it’s acceptable to say things like that. Mira eventually settles on an all-too-soft, “They’re pretty.”

Zoey levels her with a soft look, one that makes Mira’s head spin. She’s looking at her like—Mira doesn’t know, but Zoey is looking at her in a way that makes the world around them go silent, actually silent this time. It makes the world stop, coming to a screeching halt.

And then Zoey grins, ducking her head. “Hey, if you want—this is kind of out of nowhere, sorry—maybe we could get coffee sometime?” Zoey asks, looking back up a second later, her grin turning into something much softer. “I told you about that super good coffee place. They have tea, too, if you don’t like coffee. Super great hot chocolate, too.”

Mira can feel the way her breath hitches in her throat, how the world still is stuck in time around them, how everything is still so quiet, and all she can hear is Zoey. It goes against her better judgement almost entirely when Mira draws in a slow breath and says, “Sure.”

Zoey gives a little cheer, flashing her another wide grin, her eyes sparkling. “I can give you my number,” she offers, wiggling her phone. “Or the other way around. Whatever’s easier for you.”

They exchange numbers. Zoey’s fingers ghost over the back of her hand for a second. Mira’s heart threatens to beat out of her chest the entire time. 

Zoey doesn’t stick around long after that, citing that she has to figure out college courses and then go shopping. Mira still finds herself hanging on every single word, feeling lightheaded when Zoey shoots her a smile, waving as she bounds out of the greenhouse, calling out, “I’ll see you later, Mira!”

The way Zoey says her name makes Mira dizzy to the point that she has to sit down. She stares at Zoey’s number in her phone for minutes until she’s able to start breathing again, and then there’s this...

Feeling.

It hits her hard and fast. She turns to look at the double glass doors, narrowing her eyes as the world gets quiet again, just for a second. 

Just long enough for Mira to feel a tug in her chest.

Her name is Mira.

(Her name is Rumi.)

Zoey introduces her as soon as she bounces up to the counter, but she’s been talking about Mira for at least a week now. Rumi feels that warm sense of familiarity that always hits her when Zoey walks in, and then she directs her gaze to Mira, to—

(Zoey talked about Rumi the entire walk to the cafe, and Mira had dutifully listened. Rumi, apparently, makes the best coffee in the world. Mira wrinkles her nose at the loud chime of the bell, quietly listening as Zoey immediately starts into a rant when she sees Rumi behind the counter. Mira politely listens, feeling the weird, twisting familiarity in her chest, and then Rumi raises her head, and—)

Rumi stares.

(Mira stares back.)

Something shifts. It’s sudden and harsh and fast, and Rumi can feel the way that the world just...stops. Like, completely stops. Even the air goes totally still, and the shop is just...paused. The tug in her chest—she’s been feeling it since Zoey touched her hand—suddenly snaps into place.

(This feels the exact same as when Zoey touched her. The buzzing, the dizziness, the restless energy. It’s all the exact same, and Mira can feel it in her stomach. The world stops again, the quiet comes back, and then everything is still. It takes a second for Mira to realise that the tug in her chest—she’s been feeling it since Zoey—grows bigger and bigger until it snaps, and then the world—)

—Is full of noise. 

(This is the same. Mira swears that it’s the same. Rumi is the exact same as Zoey.)

Rumi can’t help but stare, because this is...it’s just like Zoey. Mira is just like Zoey. Rumi swears that they’ve met before, she’s so certain about it that it makes her sick, but she didn’t even know Mira’s name until a few minutes ago.

(Mira knows her. Mira knows her. She can’t possibly know Rumi, obviously she can’t know Rumi, but she does. Mira can feel it in the back of her mind, in the same way she knew what Zoey’s favourite flowers were.)

Rumi feels her heart racing. “Hi, Mira.”

(Mira feels her hands shaking.)

“Hi, Rumi.”

This is her favourite part.

Zoey knows how many times this has happened, but it feels just as exciting and thrilling and right as it did the first time and the second, and the third, and the dozens of other reunions that could hardly be considered first meetings.

(“Rumi! This is Iseul!”)

(“Hana, meet Nari!”)

(“Mira, have I introduced you to Eunyeong yet?”)

(“Hi, Rumi! This is Mira!”)

She watches the way they look at each other. 

They never remember, not entirely; their souls remember completely, never changing, never wavering. Their souls hold each memory, carefully tucked away. Slowly, things will resurface—or quickly, she thinks, remembering Mira’s recounting of her favourite flowers—and distant fragments of lives not entirely theirs, but not wholly separate, will become easier to imagine. Rumi and Mira are them, the two souls Zoey broke the world into pieces for, even when their names change, even when there are slight differences in their appearances.

They are always the same. 

Mira is a gardener at heart, though Rumi always realises she has a passion for it, too. Rumi is a singer, a songwriter, a songbird who adores the thrill of performing, no matter how big or small the crowd. Mira is a dancer, a gymnast, a ballerina, finding ease and stability while working through her own choreography. Rumi is a baker; Mira is a cook. Rumi runs cold and Mira runs hot, and this has never changed, not from the very first moment they had been hers.

Zoey feels the world click into place. It settled perfectly after she came back to Mira, but it feels steady now, right, stable. The hollow in her chest has been filled. 

They are, without fail, always aware. It makes her heart stutter, giddy and sick with joy every time they meet eyes and come to the same understanding, that they must know each other from somewhere, that they must know her, that the strange, aching hollow in their own chests was not because their souls had been taken from them, but because their souls had been trying to find her, so she could bring them back together. It never takes very long for the two of them to realise that this cannot be accidental, that the way they feel cannot be excused by luck.

Fate, maybe. Though Zoey almost finds it amusing to call it fate’s doing, when that honour wholly belongs to Rumi and Mira, who have stubbornly clawed their way back down to earth to stay settled in her chest, to stay curled up against each other, to refuse to leave her behind. 

It has always been the three of them. The greatest act of love they have ever given her has been staying.

There are differences in what comes next. When Rumi had been Nari, it took a full month for her to demand answers. When Mira had been Iseul, it took over a year before she tentatively asked, “Who am I to you?”

Now, Rumi is Rumi, and she is saying, “It’s...nice to meet you, Mira.”

Now, Mira is Mira, and she is following up with, “Yeah—yeah, uh, you too.”

And this time, Zoey is Zoey. She’s been Zoey for longer than she expected to be, and any other name she used to have no longer means anything, not when Rumi and Mira have both had the name Zoey in their mouths this time.

Zoey watches them, breathless as Rumi and Mira watch each other, as they look at her only seconds later. She’ll explain all of this in time, when it seems less unfathomable to them, when it doesn’t place expectations upon them. They’ll believe her—they always do. 

For now, Zoey is Zoey. Rumi is Rumi, Mira is Mira, and she has brought them back home again, and the hollow in her chest finally, finally is filled again.

Three months.

“It’s freezing out!” Rumi groans, grabbing at her coat as if to emphasise that.

“Can’t take it, Rums?” Mira teases, a sharp grin across her face. She’s wearing a heavier coat than Rumi, plus the scarf, and the gloves, and the earmuffs.

Zoey grins when Rumi starts sputtering, laughing when she outright starts punching Mira’s arm and shoulder until Mira starts to laugh and relents, retracting her comment. She can see the way they linger next to each other, the casual affection that has become strangely easy for them. It has always been like this—Mira and Rumi never start off as touchy. Something to do with the way they were raised, something to do with the idea of affection being difficult to understand. It takes no time at all for that hesitation to turn into desperation, until they’re both wrapped around each other, wrapped around her, constantly reaching out for more.

The parts that come after the reunion are breathtaking. Zoey has watched this more times than she ever expected to when the world came apart, but she never has once felt anything less than hopelessly giddy while she watches it happen. 

Rumi and Mira are immediately comfortable with each other. They are both terribly strong personalities, but the push between them is never stronger than the pull. The playful bickering is a result of years upon years of trial and error, unlearning the bite they both always try to resort to, figuring out the boundaries, the lines, when to stop, when something becomes too much. They tease each other, they bicker, but it never ends in anything more than laughter.

Zoey knows that they have always been the same—their souls are too stubborn to allow for anything else—but it never fails to make her laugh at the way that they are simply them. 

Rumi started singing when she was five. Mira was immediately hooked by dancing when she turned four. Zoey almost wants to roll her eyes at the two of them sometimes; her two stubborn souls have always been insistent upon the fact that they’re unknowable and mysterious (it usually comes out of teasing after Zoey informs them that no, they are not, that they are hers, and she knows them better than they could ever hope to imagine) and yet here they are, Rumi half-humming, half-singing a Christmas song under her breath, Mira swaying a little as they walk.

Zoey is in love with them.

This part is always a little harder, a little more difficult to work through. Here they are, both within reach, all three of them together, but there’s another period of waiting—smaller, this time—that she has to deal with. Both Rumi and Mira keep looking at her, and at each other, with that expectation in their eyes, though, which leaves Zoey hopeful that she can explain those feelings sooner rather than later. She had never been a patient person before the world cracked and broke, but she has had to learn, had to figure out ways to force herself to wait and watch and observe. 

That does not stop Zoey from wanting to kiss them. 

It used to be a thought that left her feeling selfish, and she’s sure that it still is a selfish thought, but there has not been a single time in which that sentiment was not returned toward her. It always goes the same: Mira falls first (second, technically), and Rumi falls second (third, really), and Zoey patiently waits for them to stop being so scared about it. At first, she can’t say, I’m in love with you both and I have loved you for my entire life, in every single place on earth, in all of the universe. At first, she can’t say, I pulled apart the earth to keep you. I broke the world on a day that never seemed to exist. I will always find you, I will always come back to you, I will always bring you home. 

It takes time for her to ease those words into their day-to-day lives. For now, although she can’t say this either, the words that settle on the tip of her tongue are simply, I love you.

Zoey watches the way Rumi pauses. Watches as she easily crouches down, scooping up snow into the palm of her hand.

“Don’t,” Mira warns, without even turning her head. Zoey giggles so hard she feels like she might be sick. 

She’s only seen this about a thousand times. 

Rumi laughs under her breath, gloves patting at the snow. “Don’t what?”

“If you hit me, Rumi, I’m going to—”

The snowball hits her square in the back of the head.

Rumi immediately runs in the opposite direction. In an instant, Mira is giving chase, and Zoey can see the wild, thrilled look in her eyes, the wide grin across her face, the look she shoots at Zoey before she shouts, “Help me!”

Zoey watches as Mira pauses, putting her arms behind her back, crouching down a little, hands folded up neatly. Zoey takes the hint, laughing wildly as she steps up onto Mira’s hand, looping her arms around her shoulders as she’s hoisted up. Then her legs are over Mira’s shoulders, Mira’s hands are wrapped around her legs, and Rumi is shouting when Mira starts to run at full speed again. 

Seventy-two years, and they’re in the snow again. It’s nothing short of breathtaking for her.

(Her body is a terrible amalgamation of something, old, stitched up threads of the universe interwoven into whatever else it is that makes her up. The hollow in her chest is hardly just a feeling, but an actual part of her that she knows is there, in the same way that she knows Rumi and Mira, how they know her. It is there, it has been there since the world split, and it will always be there until she finds them, until their two souls have come back to her. 

With the hollow comes pain. Anguish, grief, an awful, harrowing feeling that only goes away once she has found them again. It is the worst pain she has ever felt, and it lingers in every touch she offers to them, in every gaze, in every second that passes where she has to wait.

But once they’re here, like this, together, the pain goes away. It happens almost instantaneously, and Zoey is always so enamoured and wrapped up in the two of them that she never notices. The grief disappears, because what does it have to stay for? Here they are, hers, and they are always the same. They have never been different people when it comes down to it, there has never been the act of having to relearn how to love someone who only shares the familiarity of someone who they used to be. Rumi and Mira have always been Rumi and Mira. Their souls are too stubborn to become anyone else.

The pain leaves, and Zoey will forget it was ever there. When they meet again, all there ever is is joy, breathlessness, love. The pain will be gone, and Zoey will forget how devastating it was, and she will not remember until her countdown begins again.

All that is to say that, when they inevitably collapse onto the sidewalk, shamefully inching away until they can stand up, Zoey gets the worst of it: a scraped elbow that starts to bleed. Mira is frantic and apologetic, Rumi is just as bad, and all Zoey can do is laugh when they both pull Mira’s scarf from around her neck to press against the scrape, still profusely apologising.

All that is to say that, even despite the blood, all Zoey can do is think about how much she loves them.

When she insists that it doesn’t hurt, she means it.)

Five months.

They’ve established movie nights. Zoey picks the most intentionally poorly-made movies she can, because her favourite movie has been lost to time no matter how hard she searches for it, and she’s more bitter about it than she would care to admit. There are always more pressing matters on her mind throughout her life—obviously Rumi and Mira—but Zoey has had far, far too much time to explore the world.

Her favourite movie has more or less been scrubbed from existence. Rumi and Mira used to both adore the same perfume company (Zoey still has the bottles) that went out of business...a long time ago. There are recipes in the very back of her mind that she doesn’t know how to replicate. The number of places that have changed within half a century, to the point where she can’t recognise them, is absurd. Zoey has never gotten over the lost pen Mira gave to her, or the scarf Rumi made that blew away in the wind. 

Most movie nights, Zoey does not get to pick. Mira immediately snatches the remote as soon as it even gets close to Zoey’s vicinity, muttering something about not wanting to watch ThanksKilling for the fifth time.

Zoey just giggles and grins, stretching her arms behind her back. “It’s part of my charm. You’re just gonna have to get used to it.”

“Charm, yeah,” Mira shoots back, teasingly. 

Zoey rolls her eyes. It always gets easier and easier to settle into herself here, to push the threads of the universe still in her mind just slightly off to the side. It always takes a few months for Zoey to come into herself again, to snap out of her waiting mode, to fully process who she is again. Parts of her have started to shine through again, like how right now she wants to pointedly show Mira that she knows every single exact spot on Mira’s body that would make her melt, so yes, she is charming.

“I’m the most charming there ever was,” Zoey says instead, hearing the way Rumi laughs from the kitchen. “You wanna get a piece of this too, Ru?”

The laughter immediately stops. “Mira, contain her.”

Mira’s arms wrap firmly around Zoey’s shoulders, tugging her closer. “Sorry. Rumi’s decreed it.”

Zoey grins, wriggling back against her, feeling the quiet huff of laughter against her neck. She cranes her head to the side, beaming up at Mira, watching the way her eyes get soft around the edges, how the faintest flush spreads over her cheeks. Familiarity. Zoey feels her chest tighten.

“Sure,” Zoey agrees, grinning a little harder when Mira refuses to meet her eyes. “You’re so pretty, Mira.”

Mira is gorgeous, she always has been. Zoey has spent so much of her life tracing her angles and edges, learning her body, committing it to memory. She has two freckles in the crook of her elbow. Zoey saw them again just last month, and she had barely been able to contain herself. 

“Whatever, Zoey,” Mira grumbles, squeezing her a little tighter. “I’m trying to pick a movie.”

“Not very hard,” Zoey teases back, tipping her head as far as it can go, watching the way the flush across Mira’s cheeks only gets worse. “We should just watch you instead.”

“Zoey,” Mira groans, but there’s the quiet half-whine in her voice that Zoey hasn’t heard in forever, and now that she has, she feels her entire body light up, thrumming with energy, with familiarity. “You have to quit.”

Zoey laughs, feeling her heart race in her chest. “Or what?”

Mira shifts, eyes finally meeting her own. “I might kiss you.”

There she is. Her voice is teasing enough that, if this wasn’t exactly what Zoey wanted, it could easily be played off as a joke. It’s hardly a joke to Zoey. How could it ever be?

“Okay,” Zoey agrees, easily. “You’re pretty. Beautiful, really, I mean, have you—have you seen yourself? It’s kind of—”

Mira kisses her.

There she is. Zoey immediately loops her arms around Mira’s neck, fingers grazing against the spot below her ear that has Mira gasping against her, which, she hadn’t meant to do, but she supposes that habit is a difficult thing to break out of. Zoey kisses Mira like she’s dying, like she’s starving, and she thinks that she must be, that she has been. She’s waited so long for this to happen again, so long to finally have her come back, to finally find her, to have—

“Oh—!” Rumi hisses out through a gasp, and it’s all Zoey can do to not laugh when Mira pulls back, guilt and worry across her features. “I’m sorry, I—sorry, you’re, um, it’s fine, I didn’t—”

“Rumi,” Zoey laughs now, setting a pacifying hand against Mira’s chest, feeling the way her heart steadily beats under Zoey’s palm. “Come here.”

Mira gives her a look, wide-eyed and worried, and oh, Zoey has seen that face before. She would have assumed that Mira’s soul would have learnt by now that it’s the three of them, always, that there is no such thing as picking and choosing. It is always, always all of them.

Rumi obeys. Not without hesitancy, but she does eventually walk over to the couch, bowl of popcorn still in hand. Zoey has to shift to take it from her, gently setting it down on her coffee table, even more gentle when she takes Rumi’s wrist and pulls her closer.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Zoey says, quietly, because Rumi has always responded better to directness. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Rumi whispers. 

Zoey grins, giving Mira another soft peck. “You’re going to kiss her after me. Okay?”

Mira shivers. “Okay.”

“Good,” Zoey rumbles.

And then she tugs Rumi closer, feeling her heart stutter in her chest when Rumi’s lips meet her own. Zoey rubs over her wrist, getting her another accidental gasp, because, right. Sensitive. Zoey gives a breathless laugh when Rumi pulls back, her eyes huge. She only lets Rumi stand there for another second before she tugs her forward, all the way, practically pulling her onto the couch. 

Zoey wriggles out of Mira’s lap, allowing the both of them more room to actually touch. It really only takes one look back from Mira, one nod from Zoey, and one trembling hand of Rumi’s coming to cup Mira’s face, before they crash into each other. Zoey trembles as she watches them, watches how Mira’s hands stay steady at Rumi’s hips, how Rumi’s other hand tangles in Mira’s hair. How long ago was it that they had discovered that they enjoyed that? That small act of remembrance is enough to make Zoey desperate.

She makes herself wait, though it’s hardly waiting, more so enjoying. There’s always been a certain kind of breathlessness in watching Rumi and Mira remember her, slowly but surely, but there’s a thrill watching them remember each other. They had been so worried about all of it, so terrified that they would never meet again, that somehow, one of them would get lost, that they would live their whole lives knowing something was missing, but never being able to understand what it was. 

Zoey knows why she’s so sick with excitement, why she’s practically falling apart at the seams, so thrilled and giddy and happy. Rumi and Mira are going to figure it out later, they’ll remember just enough to be able to put together the pieces, and then Zoey will help snap the world back into place for them, but for now, there’s just the feeling that this is, somehow, right. That all of it makes sense in a way nothing ever has before.

Zoey watches as Rumi pulls away first, her chest heaving, a soft bark of laughter escaping her lips. Mira’s hands curl against her hips, her lips slightly parted as she stares up at Rumi, and then to her. 

What Zoey wants to say is, I found you. I found you, I came back to you. This is what I feel every single time I bring you home to me.

“Hi,” Zoey whispers, grinning so hard her face hurts. You’re home. I found you. I came back to you. “Come here.”

And they do.

Rumi is the one who triggers it.

Rumi and Mira moved in a month ago—ten months total—and have filled all the empty spaces perfectly. 

Zoey moves often. It almost killed her the first time she had to leave behind the house she had spent all of her life (eighty years, that time), because the tug in her chest pulled and pulled until she could no longer ignore that it was dragging her away from her town entirely. 

Admittedly, Zoey has gotten good at...keeping. There are old houses that have never been torn down, covered in moss and ivy, that she pays to have saved. Suddenly inheriting a large amount of money from her dozens of grandparents has gotten her by pretty well over the years, and once she realised she could keep memories without necessarily having to hold them in her hands, she started to do that.

This apartment likely won’t last. They’ll move into a house at some point—never the same one, Zoey is staunchly against that—and their apartment will be lost to time. Zoey has already taken a thousand pictures and videos, hiding the pictures in her lockbox. The apartment won’t last, but the memories will. 

Mira is absentmindedly scrolling through her phone, Zoey is half-paying attention, though she’s mostly watching the slight quirk of Mira’s lips every time she scrolls past something that she finds a little funny enough to humour with a quarter-smile. Rumi finished showering about three minutes ago, and Zoey can hear her footsteps padding out into the hall, hears the huff before she even has to see the fact that Rumi is pouting.

Rumi stands at the beginning of the hallway. She crinkles her nose. Zoey almost laughs at the clear lookover she does of the apartment, and when that doesn’t stop her from pouting, her gaze turns onto Zoey.

“Jian, do you know where my phone is?” Rumi asks with another huff, and oh, Zoey hasn’t been Jian in a very, very long time. She almost laughs at the memory, because oh. That had been a while ago. Jian and phone should not be in the same sentence together.

It takes Rumi a second. Her and Mira both, because Mira doesn’t even look up until her brows suddenly knit together, and then Rumi’s jaw is snapping shut with a click, and there’s a heavy pause in the air, because they shouldn’t know that Zoey used to be Jian.

Rumi stares at her, open-mouthed. Mira shifts, and Zoey can feel her gaze darting between her and Rumi. “Zoey,” Rumi starts, her voice soft. “This is going to sound insane.”

Zoey almost wants to roll her eyes. Rumi’s soul is the most stubborn, competitive, determined soul she has ever met. She’s confident and loud and bold, but there somehow always manages to be room for uncertainty. 

“It’s not,” Zoey quietly assures her, and then looks over to Mira, who is clearly trying to figure her out. “It’s not going to take as long to explain as you probably think.”

Rumi pads into the living room, phone entirely forgotten. Mira sets her own phone on the coffee table, face-down, pushed away from her.

Zoey moves away from Mira, taking her spot on the coffee table, too. She gestures for Rumi to sit down, smiling when she finally does.

“I knew you,” Rumi blurts out. “When you walked into the cafe for the first time, I knew you. I thought—I thought I was losing my mind. Why do I know you?”

Mira nods her agreement, opening and closing her mouth for a second. Then, softly, “It happened for me. When you walked in and came up to me. And—you,” Mira adds, looking to Rumi. “It felt the same for you.”

“Yeah,” Rumi agrees in a whisper. “It did.”

“You do know me,” Zoey says, feeling the world get lighter around her. “You always have.”

“Always?” Mira presses.

Zoey beams at her, so wildly in love with the both of them. “Always.”

The first time she had found them, had come back to them, Zoey never told them. It nearly drove her insane when they would look at her with something more in their eyes, but she had never prompted them to fall into the deep end, to finally be able to pinpoint those feelings. The time after that, she had broken down and admitted everything almost immediately, and they both demanded that she always tell them after that. At some point, they started figuring out on their own, as if to take the weight off of her. They’ve always been so good at that.

“Like, always, always?” Rumi asks, blinking at her, twice.

Zoey does laugh this time, holding up her hands in defeat. Right. Direction and clarity. “Yes, always. Like, I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, softly. “Like, this always happens eventually. Like, I’ve known the two of you for a really, really long time, and you know me, and it’s always been like this.”

Mira stares at her. Rumi stares harder.

“Waiting for us,” Mira repeats. “You...”

“Introduced Mira to me,” Rumi finishes, the pieces clearly clicking into place. 

Zoey nods her agreement. “One of us had to stay behind.”

(Zoey was the one who broke the world apart.)

(Her world had broken apart. They were dying. They were dying, and she would have done anything to save them, and so she did. Desperation fueled her every movement, and she did not rest. She demanded the world to work for them. She traded away every part of herself to beg the universe to let them live, and the universe listened, at a cost. It hardly was the first time someone had ever fought the universe itself to force it to save their lovers, but it was one of the rare times that it worked. Her soul was taken from her, replaced with the hollow in her chest. And then she was given the gift of time and the instruction to find them, to come back to them. They will always be there, and she will always find them, and that will never stop being true.)

Rumi breathes out. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Zoey disagrees, pursing her lips as she nods. “You were right. You knew me, both of you did, and you knew each other, too.”

“How long?” Mira asks, more hesitantly. She’s always been the more cautious out of her and Rumi during these conversations.

“Forever,” Zoey offers, sincerely. “Hundreds of times.”

“So, you’re just—you’re...” Rumi laughs, something torn between disbelief and understanding and relief and finally knowing. “You’ve been waiting? You’re, like, what, immortal?”

Zoey grins, heaving a long sigh. “Something like that.”

(Her world ended early for her. It had been part of why she had been so desperate, so furious. She was twenty-two. They were dying, and she was only twenty-two, and she had not had nearly enough time with them. She was not going to let them go.)

“And we’re not,” Mira says, with the same disbelief-understanding-relief-finally-knowing tone as Rumi. “But we knew you, and each other.”

“Yeah,” Zoey agrees. “You have stubborn souls.”

Putting it lightly, really. 

Mira is the one who finally nods, because, while she’s the most cautious, she’s always been good at adapting to the storm around her. “Are we—are we like, I don’t know, them? Us? Are we just...how does this work for you?”

“You’re always the same,” Zoey promises, softly. And then she breathes out, “Your favourite flowers are tiger lilies, you like to paint, you’re always a dancer, you hate doors that push out and not in, you’re terrified of anything that has too many legs and can fly, you don’t like getting your face wet, you take burning hot showers because you’re freezing cold, and you—” Zoey clears her throat, letting out a trembling breath, “You have two freckles in the crook of your right elbow, and two on the inside of your right thigh.”

Zoey points at Rumi. “You get dizzy easily, you pace when you’re upset—ten loops around whatever object you see first. You tap your foot five times when you get upset, you hate the smell of lavender because it’s too strong for you, you’ve always been a singer, you always cut your hair after having it long for most of your life because you finally realise that’s something you can do. You,” Zoey whispers, “Have two freckles on your left hip. You have a scar on your right shoulder. How’d you get it this time?”

Rumi’s eyes are huge by the time she’s done speaking, and then she’s tugging at her shirt, fingers tracing over the scar that is always, always there.

“One of my friends was teaching me how to skate,” Rumi whispers. “I fell.”

Zoey grins, feeling lightheaded. She’s always so desperate to know. This part is another one of her favourites, too.

“Where’d you get the scar on your arm?” Zoey asks, turning her gaze back to Mira. “Cooking?”

“Burned myself,” Mira agrees, quietly. 

“You always do,” Zoey teases. 

“Your favourite flowers are forget-me-nots,” Rumi says, suddenly. Mira lets out a bark of laughter, shaking her head.

“I said that to her, like, five days after we met. After we—” Mira cuts herself off, blinking. “Met again, I guess.”

Rumi lets out a shaky laugh, her crooked grin returning to her face. “And you don’t like heights,” she says, to Mira.

“You get motion sick,” Mira says back, just as easily. 

Zoey giggles, giddy and breathless. “I missed you.”

The chorus of, “I missed you, too" makes Zoey's head spin. 

There they are.

“There’s no way I wrote that.”

“Hate to break it to you, babe,” Zoey says, waving her hand. “You did. And I’m keeping it, you don’t get to throw it away.”

“What language even is this?” Rumi demands suddenly, scoffing. “This isn’t a real language.”

Zoey laughs, dipping her head. “Well, not anymore. It used to be.”

Mira scoffs back, squinting at the letter she has in her hands, the one she’s embarrassed about, as if she doesn’t still mean every word on the page. “You could be lying about what it says, and we’d just never know.”

“You usually piece together bits and pieces,” Zoey assures them with another laugh, watching as Mira gently, gently sets the letters back down into her lap. “I mean, you’re never going to be fluent, and I’m also not fluent anymore, so don’t ask, but, you know. You’re just out of practice.”

Rumi grumbles, almost bitterly. “It’s not fair. This is literally my handwriting. I should be able to read what I wrote.”

“It was a really long time ago,” Zoey offers, sincerely. That doesn’t stop her from laughing at the way Rumi crinkles her nose, like it personally offends her that she can’t figure it out. “You’re going to make it, Rumi. Promise.”

“Was I Rumi when I wrote this?” Rumi asks.

This has become normal, too. Asking about names, about who they were, about what roles they had taken on. It always happens like this, but Zoey can’t help but laugh at how much more often Rumi and Mira ask. They’ve never been so insistent on having these specific names before. 

“No, you were Eunyeong,” Zoey says, easily. “But you,” Zoey adds on, pointing to Mira, “Were Mira.”

“And who were you?” Mira asks with a triumphant smile that she directs to Rumi when she says, “I got to keep my name.”

“You know what?” Rumi demands, setting down the letter she’s holding so gently that it makes Zoey laugh at the stark contrast between her voice and her actions. “You don’t get to be Mira ever again. I’m taking that name. You don’t deserve to have it.”

“Good luck,” Mira says, her smile stretching out into a sly grin as her eyes crinkle at the sides. “I’d love to see you try, tiger.”

“Don’t speak to me ever again,” Rumi huffs. “Never talk to me.”

Zoey rolls her eyes, grinning so hard it makes her face hurt. “You’ve been having this literal same argument for years. Can you chill?” she asks, but she lets out a bark of laughter when Rumi just sulks, while Mira practically preens. “Ridiculous. Both of you are ridiculous.” 

“Who were you?” Mira presses again after a second. 

Zoey shrugs. “I don’t know. Jian, maybe.”

“What do you mean ‘I don’t know'?” Rumi grumbles. “You should know that.”

“Well, I’ve been Zoey for a pretty long time,” Zoey says with a wave of her hand. “I pay attention to your names. I like Rumi and Mira.”

Mira flushes. Rumi does the same, but it’s far more noticeable on Mira, which makes Zoey laugh. “I guess we’ll just be Rumi and Mira forever, then,” Rumi decides, casually.

“Sure,” Zoey agrees, grinning. “If that’s what you want.”

Mira lets out a low laugh, nodding a second later. “I still don’t believe I wrote this. I can’t believe I—said all of that.”

“Bet you could read it with your eyes closed,” Zoey teases, and judging by the way Mira looks away, she definitely could. 

Their souls have sort of settled into place, getting a little louder. Memories and feelings are easier to come by, and the both of them have been taking it in stride. They always handle it well, but it gets easier every time. Rumi barely even blinks anymore whenever she pauses in the middle of their apartment and says something suddenly, like, “You used to make birdhouses. I remember birdhouses.”

Zoey is always delighted to say back, “Mira liked to watch them. Like a cat.”

The memories tumble freely. Deep autumns, first snows, early mornings, the rattle of a city that Mira and Rumi have never been to. They’re always so small and insignificant overall, but they’re so wildly important to Zoey that it makes her dizzy each and every time Rumi and Mira will pause and recite a piece of their lives from before.

(“We used to have a farm,” Mira says, one day. “I remember having chickens.”

“One used to bite you all the time,” Rumi says from the other room without a second of hesitation. “The one with one leg that Zoey saved.”

“She hated you,” Zoey adds on with ease, giggling. “I think she was protective of me.”

Mira scoffs. “And I buried her. She attacked me every fucking day of my life and I buried her, didn’t I? I remember doing that. It was winter, too, right?”

“Spent the whole morning digging at the frozen ground,” Zoey agrees, grinning at the affronted, irritated look on Mira’s face. “Because you lo-o-o-ve me,” she sings, watching as Mira crinkles her nose.

Rumi laughs, giving Mira a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Softie.”)

Zoey combs through the letters, fondness settling in her chest. She has thousands. Her lockbox is full of memories, full of centuries upon centuries worth of love and familiarity. Pictures are scattered around, and she’s stopped hiding the ones of them that she’s already put in there. Rumi and Mira are insistent on taking more for the future, and Mira in particular has decided to write notes “for next time” on how to be less embarrassing. 

Zoey pauses when her fingers graze over a record, grinning so hard it hurts. “Rumi.”

“Hm?” Rumi hums, looking up from the letter she’s picked back up.

“I have one of your records,” she says, carefully raising it up. “We could play it.”

Rumi flushes, grimacing. “Was I—like, good? I’m good now, I know that, but...oh my god. What if I was an awful singer? You have to get rid of it if I was awful, Zoey.”

Zoey rolls her eyes. “You’ve always had a beautiful voice, and even if you didn’t—which you do—I would keep it. You’re gonna have to get used to it.”

“I would kill to hear that record,” Mira helpfully says, and Zoey catches her grinning at Rumi in a way that makes her flush even harder. “You have a record player, right?”

“Three,” Zoey agrees. She shifts, pressing the record into Mira’s hands. “Would you?”

Mira gives her a soft smile, moving from the bed to the side of their room. Rumi buries her face in her hands, heaving a sigh. “It’s going to be awful. This is, like, the weirdest secondhand embarrassment I’ve ever had ever. I don’t get how you live like this.”

Zoey giggles, resting her knuckles against her cheek. “You get used to it.”

And then Rumi’s voice (she had been Rumi here, too) fills the air. Zoey laughs at the way Rumi gasps, at how Mira stiffens, at how the both of them are looking at each other, and then at her, and then at the record player, and then back to her. 

“That’s—that’s you!” Mira laughs, her eyes huge. 

“Oh my god,” Rumi whispers, jaw slack. “That’s me.”

Zoey grins so hard her face hurts, closing her eyes as she listens to Rumi’s low rumble, beautiful as ever. “Yeah, it is.”

It doesn’t take long for Rumi to start humming the melody, like second nature. It doesn’t take long for Mira to start singing along, laughing between words when she realises that she’s doing it.

Zoey whistles along as she sifts through letters, giggling every single time that Rumi realises she can’t read what she’s written, or every single time that Mira picks something up and starts recalling a memory. 

It’s nothing short of perfect.

“You broke your arm once,” Rumi says, like an accusation. She points her finger at Mira, eyes narrowed. “Which one?”

“Left,” Mira says. 

Zoey rolls her eyes. “Right.”

“And how would you know?” Mira playfully demands, her eyes sparkling. “Were you there for that?”

Zoey shakes her head, holding her hands up in defeat. “You know what? Probably not. I guess I’m just wrong. I'm always wrong about everything all the time, always. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Mira grins. “Yes.”

Rumi does not feed into this for even a second. “How did you do it?” she asks a second later. “I can’t—it’s driving me insane, Zoey. I know that it happened, but I don’t know how.”

“She fell from a tree when she was a kid,” Zoey supplies, easily. “You were...seven.”

“Eight,” Mira disagrees, sounding a little more sure about this. “I had just turned eight.”

“Right,” Zoey says, smiling. Stubborn.

“I used to do cheerleading,” Mira softly tells her one night on the couch, her hands carding through Zoey’s hair. “My schedule was really busy when I was in school. Dance, gymnastics, ballet, cheerleading. I was pretty much always out of the house until I turned eighteen.”

Zoey shivers, committing the information to memory immediately. She’s asked them to tell her about their lives from before her, the twenty-three years of time in between. It’s a desperate sort of feeling to know. She knows them so terribly well, so completely and wholly, that not knowing what they had done before her is enough to make her feel a deep sense of dread that she only feels when it comes to this. 

So, randomly, Mira and Rumi will spill years of their lives. They talk in great detail about what they had been doing, what their childhoods were like (always the same, but Zoey thrives on hearing it regardless), what pets they had, the hobbies they grew up with, the sorts of things they had always been inherently drawn to without being able to explain why, like singing and dancing and gardening and art. 

“I almost broke my foot during ballet,” Mira adds on after a second. “And I almost broke my wrist from a bad fall dancing. It was just a sprain, but it still sucked. I was a flyer. A good base, too, but they liked throwing me up in the air, like, all the time. It was kind of stupid.”

Zoey laughs, closing her eyes as she pictures it in her mind. “Do you have pictures?”

“Unfortunately,” Mira says with a heaving sigh. “I looked good. The uniforms were just stupid.”

“I want them,” Zoey says, immediately. “Forever.”

Mira laughs, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “Okay. I’m going to be mad about that next time.”

“No, you won’t,” Zoey teases, cracking open an eye just in time to catch the way Mira rolls her eyes. “You love me too much to be mad at me.”

Mira gives a thoughtful hum, her fingers tracing the curve of Zoey’s jaw. She’s done this a thousand times. Zoey will never grow tired of it. “I guess that’s why I keep coming back, huh?”

“Something like that,” Zoey agrees in a whisper, her heart pounding in her chest, so unbelievably happy that it washes away the number seventy-two, as if it never existed at all.

“I taught myself how to ride a bike,” Rumi tells her, standing out in the kitchen. “I was really stubborn about it, and Celine didn’t know what to do about it, so she just let me. My mom was always mad at her for it, but...” Rumi trails off, giving Zoey an awkward, sheepish smile. “I was pretty stubborn with her, too. My dad got on the tricycle I grew out of and, like, raced me. He kept—beating me, and it made me so angry that I learned literally just to win.”

Zoey cackles, shaking her head as she grins, pausing her movements. “You’re the most stubborn person I have ever met.”

Rumi grins, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know what was wrong with him. I have no idea how he figured out that that would get me to, I don’t know, finally get pushed over the edge and just suck it up and figure out how to ride my stupid bike. I used to climb stuff all the time, too. Like, all the time. I scaled the house once. I got grounded for a month.”

Zoey snorts, barely able to make herself go back to watering her plants. Well, their plants. Rumi had a small army of houseplants, and then Mira brought all of hers, and now it’s sort of a mess. They’re moving out soon, into a much nicer house that is much bigger and will absolutely have a garden, but for now, Zoey is stuck on watering the ten thousand plants that take up almost all of their apartment space.

“I bet Celine was really happy about that.”

“I thought she was going to kill me,” Rumi admits, sheepishly. “She was really quiet the entire time, which is way scarier than her yelling at me. I think she knew that, too, which is why she did it.”

Celine has always been Celine. Zoey has never asked, but she’s always been...interested. Celine has always been Celine. Zoey has been Zoey for a very long time. There’s a part of her that feels like the universe might have bent for her, too.

“I have pictures from when I was learning to skate,” Rumi says, suddenly. “Most of them are blurry. Like, really blurry, but I have them. It was Jinu, by the way. I’m honestly pretty sure he pushed me.”

Zoey laughs, inclined to believe that, because Jinu and Rumi have always had the sort of friendship that always hinges on one of them trying to kill the other. Rumi is usually victorious, but Jinu has taken a few cheap shots to turn the odds in his favour. “I would kill for those pictures.”

“They’re totally in a scrapbook somewhere,” Rumi laughs. “I’ll steal one from Celine and hope she doesn't notice.”

“Good luck,” Zoey teases. “You can’t blame me when she does, in fact, notice. Do you know how insane it is to explain everything to someone who doesn’t get it?”

Rumi lets out a huff. “Well, it was pretty insane to hear it, and I do get it, so...you know, I can kinda imagine. You did a pretty good job.”

“Thanks,” Zoey says with a grin, ducking her head. “I’ve had practice.”

“Have you ever just, like, come up to us and said that we were long lost lovers?” Rumi asks teasingly, but there’s a note of seriousness in her voice. “Honestly, I think I would have believed you.”

Zoey hums, rolling her eyes. “You’re never together. I always find you first, then Mira.”

“Huh,” Rumi says, making a noise. “I guess I’ll have to find her first next time.”

“It’s really not a challenge, Ru,” Zoey says, laughing at the noise of disagreement that gets her. “But okay! Sure! Good luck, babe. It’s never happened before. I’m pretty good at this.”

Rumi makes a few more—clearly mocking—noises before she says, “Yeah, we’ll see. Just you wait.”

Zoey laughs, so wildly in love with her. 

She supposes that she will see. And she can’t wait to prove Rumi wrong.

Rumi and Mira, because at some point, Rumi ropes Mira into it.

“There’s no way it’s always been Rumi, then me.”

“You literally—” Zoey cuts herself off, pursing her lips. “When it happened for the first time, you told me to find Rumi first and then come back to you. You always have wanted to go second. So, you go second. Rumi goes first, and then I come back to you, and that’s always how it goes.”

Rumi grumbles something at that, clearly displeased. “No. I don’t like that.”

“That’s great, tiger,” Zoey helpfully says. “You asked me to find you first.”

“Well,” Rumi grumbles again, giving a huff. “I want you to find us at the same time.”

Zoey rolls her eyes, exasperated. She can’t pretend to be annoyed, though, not when she wants nothing more than to just end this conversation by kissing the both of them senseless. “I literally can’t help it, Rumi. Change starts with you, you know.”

Mira laughs, deeply and rumbly and warm, and Zoey catches the way her eyes light up in challenge. “Okay. I bet we can manage that.”

“I’m telling you that it’s never been like that,” Zoey repeats, stupidly fond of the both of them. 

“I’m going to make it happen,” Rumi decides. “Good talk.”

“Great talk,” Mira chalks on a second later. “Fantastic talk. You’re going down, Zoey.”

Stubborn, stubborn souls. 

“Do you ever...” Mira starts, her voice soft. “Um, miss them, I guess? Or...us? Who we used to be?”

Zoey stares up at the stars, watching each one twinkle. They finally managed to move, and most of the boxes had been Zoey’s. Years upon years worth of memories add up over time. Zoey had been insistent on a driveway date, and Rumi had been beyond thrilled to lay out about a dozen blankets so they could camp out and watch the stars.

Zoey closes her eyes for a few seconds, listening to Rumi’s quiet hum of agreement, prodding her on to answer. “I miss you all the time when I’m waiting,” she says, honestly. “But you’re always you. Both of you are always, always you, or them. You’ve never changed.”

Rumi hums again. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to figure it out,” Zoey teases, gently. “You’ve never changed. You’re always the same, so...no, I guess, not really. It’s always been the both of you. Your souls are too stubborn to be anyone else.”

Mira lets out a soft laugh, sounding pleased with that answer. “I was kind of worried about it. About...replacing whoever I used to be, maybe. Or like you were just...getting used to us, or...I don’t know.”

“You’ve always been you,” Zoey insists, a little more firmly. “It will always be you. There’s never any replacement. You’re still the same as you were when I loved you for the first time.”

Rumi makes the same pleased noise as Mira. “How long did you wait for us? This time, I mean.”

Zoey opens her eyes again, staring up at the sky, counting constellations. “Not as long as I could have.”

“Not an answer,” Mira teases. “Do you not remember?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zoey says, sincerely. “You’re here now.”

The first signs of age begin to shine through. Wrinkles, tougher, more worn skin. 

Zoey stays the same.

They notice, but Rumi and Mira hardly say anything. It makes it easier to ignore at first, but Zoey knows that she can never ignore it for very long.

“I’m getting old,” Rumi miserably announces as she passes off a jar to Zoey, watching her intently. 

“That happens,” Mira agrees, amusement shining through her voice, from her spot in the kitchen. Sunbathing, always close to the window, just like a cat. “Kind of natural, tiger.”

Zoey grins when Rumi scowls and says, “You’re going to say that when Zoey is standing there?”

“I’m a special case,” Zoey teases, twisting the lid off with a pop. She hands the jar back to Rumi, giving her a soft peck on the cheek, then on the lips when Rumi makes a noise. “You’re beautiful, Rumi,” Zoey murmurs, cupping her face, thumbing over her cheekbone. “Gorgeous.”

Rumi’s eyes flutter shut for a moment. Zoey can see the crinkles around her eyes, can see the crow’s feet and smile lines and laugh lines. With time, the longer Rumi has spent out in the sun, a few scattered freckles have come to rest right under her eyes, faint and soft. 

Zoey listens as Mira stands, letting out a low groan as she lazily stretches her arms above her head, sauntering over to wrap her arms around the both of them, pressing a kiss to the side of Zoey’s head, then doing the same to Rumi. 

Mira has smile lines, too. She had quietly shared that she never thought she would have those, that the wrinkles around her eyes were nothing short of a miracle, because she never thought she would laugh enough to have them, never thought she would smile enough, never thought she would be happy enough to have them.

“And so are you,” Zoey rumbles, capturing Mira in a kiss. “My pretty girl.”

“Says you,” Mira teases back, but Zoey catches the way her eyes crinkle even harder, how she flushes, even now, even after all these years. “You don’t look a day over twenty-two. What’s your secret?”

“Really good skincare,” Zoey says, giggling when Mira rolls her eyes and shoves her shoulder. 

The years always pass so quickly, Zoey feels. It couldn’t have been that long ago when they were first meeting, when Rumi still had her job at the coffee shop, when Mira was still working in the gardening center. It couldn’t have been that long ago that they were still living in their too-small apartment, figuring out how to manage the overgrowth of plants.

And yet it’s been years, Zoey knows that. There’s something about the time that just seems to dissolve when she finally finds them again. The years are long, every single moment is spent in a delighted haze, and then twenty have gone by, and Zoey is reminded that there is a period of waiting that she has to go through again.

It terrifies her.

She’s so scared. She’s been herself for longer than she hasn’t (this isn’t true, but it feels true), and she knows that once they’re gone, she’s going to become something hollowed out by grief and sorrow, and it will take her another near-century before she manages to figure out who she really is.

(The only reason she has ever clung onto aspects of herself is because Rumi and Mira adore them. Her sense of humour, her teasing jabs, her never-ending flow of thoughts. If Rumi and Mira weren’t there to coax that back out of her, Zoey doesn’t think she would have a reason to return to herself.)

Zoey lets out a shuddering breath, and then Rumi and Mira are wrapping themselves around her, murmuring softly to her. Gentle assurances, sweetly whispered I love yous, soft and promising and beautiful, and it eases the fear inside of her. The fear does not go away, but it quiets.

Zoey has not felt pain—not real pain—in twenty-eight years. She closes her eyes and lets herself be held, and pretends that she isn’t already starting to remember what it feels like.

“What are you doing?” Zoey asks quietly one night, watching as both Mira and Rumi look over to her. She had been asleep, and so had they, and then she woke up alone. 

Rumi gives her that crooked grin, a little sheepish at the ends. “Writing letters.”

“I can’t let whoever I used to be win at love letters,” Mira adds on, smoothly. 

“That’s—” Zoey laughs, shaking her head as she comes to settle at the table, resting her head on the smooth wood a second later. “You’re both ridiculous. Take it easy. Your hands—”

“—Are fine,” Rumi soothes. “I’m sixty, Zoey. I can handle writing. I’m a big girl.”

Zoey grumbles, closing her eyes as she pretends like the words don’t hurt to hear. “A big girl with arthritis.”

“A big girl who refuses to wear her wrist brace,” Mira helpfully adds on a second later. “Stubborn.”

Rumi scoffs. “You’re the worst. I can’t believe either of you.”

“You keep coming back,” Zoey teases, peering up at her, studying every single line on Rumi’s face, counting each wrinkle, each freckle. “You like it.”

“I’m in love with the both of you,” Rumi corrects, waving her other hand as she goes back to writing. “I’ll have you know,” she grumbles. “Unbelievable. Both of you.”

Zoey laughs, feeling her heart grow a little less fearful. She listens to pens scratching against paper, hears Rumi and Mira’s quiet hums, immediately recognising the tune as one of Rumi’s songs from forever ago. It makes her head spin, her entire chest seizing up with so much love and adoration that she almost cries.

“I love you,” Zoey whispers.

“We love you, too, Zoey,” Mira whispers back. “Always.”

“Always,” Rumi quickly agrees, her hand coming out to settle atop one of Zoey’s arms. “Forever.”

Zoey knows that they mean it. It helps ease the pain that her body has started to remember in full.

It’s always Rumi first.

Zoey cradles her face in her hands, Mira traces along her jaw.

“I love you,” Rumi whispers, voice tired, weary. Her songbird grows quiet. “I can’t wait to see you again. Both of you.”

“You will,” Mira promises, her voice just as exhausted, just as tired. 

It feels wrong when Zoey speaks, young, no age to her tone, “Always. You always will,” she promises, trembling.

Rumi grins at her, wide and wild and crooked. “Find me again.”

“I will,” Zoey whispers, her voice cracking halfway through. “I promise.”

(One of her souls disappears from her chest. It escapes into the night air, singing and laughing and forcing the universe to bend to its every whim. It returns deep to the earth, and waits.)

Mira always goes second.

Just like the tug in her chest, it never takes long for it to happen. Mira will always wait for Rumi to be found, for Rumi to go first. 

Mira has her head against Zoey’s shoulder, quiet, laboured breaths filling the room. “I love you,” she murmurs, drawing in a much slower breath a second later.

“I love you, too,” Zoey whispers back, holding her tighter. “You can go, if you need to. You can go to her.”

Mira makes a noise, something torn between amusement and sorrow. “I hate leaving.” 

“I know,” Zoey laughs, a broken sob escaping her lips. She buries it in Mira’s hair, peppering kisses to the top of her head. “I know you do. I know.”

“Read the letters I wrote for you,” Mira mumbles, softly. “Come back for me when you find her.”

“I will,” Zoey promises, on the verge of begging, of pleading. “You know I will.”

(Her second soul slips free in the early hours of the morning. Gracefully dancing through the sky, easily finding its way to the first. The world snaps into place, two souls reunited, a hollow being left in their wake.)

She has gotten very, very good at finding hidden places, tucked away in the furthest corners of the world. 

She screams in a place where no one will ever hear her. Breaks into anguished howls, sobbing until her voice is taken from her, until the universe puts enough pressure onto her that she collapses under the weight. She still screams, but no noise comes out. The pain tears her apart, splitting through her, worse than anything she has ever felt before or ever will feel. It breaks her completely, bringing her to lay with her face in the dirt, chest heaving, every broken gasp feeling like it will be the last she ever takes.

Death is something that she has never had to fear. Death is something that eludes her, that stays out of reach, that never will come for her. 

She can only imagine that this must be what it would feel like to die. 

Her body protests the action, refuses to give in. She will not die. The universe still tries to kill her. 

Sometimes, she thinks that it gets close. Sometimes. she thinks that she wishes it would. Sometimes, she thinks she wants to die.

The universe won't let her.

“Hi, Zoey! Okay. Okay. I’ve never done this before. I mean, I’ve recorded myself—and I guess I did that when I was, like...not-me, or whatever—but it’s just different. Maybe you get it? Anyway, I just wanted to say that I love you. And this is actually a message for future Rumi—who might not be named Rumi, I guess, but honestly, she should just change it—and...okay, I’m getting so off-topic, sorry. I’m rambling. I’m nervous.”

“Okay. Future Rumi, or future not-Rumi, listen up. You better be good to Zoey, you hear me? She likes her eggs scrambled, she hates the whites. I have apparently not figured this out yet in centuries, as Zoey has so nicely informed me, so, you know, I’m saving you the hassle of getting laughed at.”

“Zoey, I’m serious about you just kissing me when you see me again. And it better be me first, since you kissed Mira first, which wasn’t fair. I was literally getting you popcorn! It was for-you-popcorn! And you kissed Mira first? Who didn’t get you for-you-popcorn? Never again. That can never happen again. You have to kiss me first.”

“Okay, I think you’re coming back inside. You already know I’m doing this, but I want it to be, like, kind of still a surprise. I love you, Zoey! I’ll see you soon!”

Click.

“Hi, Zoey!”

Click.

“Hi, Zoey!”

Click.

“Hey, Zo. I just remembered something from...a while ago, I guess. You never tell us when anything happened, and I haven’t figured it out yet, so I don’t know when, but...it was when we had that farm. That was when you started making birdhouses, right? And your awful chicken, the one who bit me all the time. I can’t believe I dug a grave for her in the middle of winter. She didn’t deserve it.”

“I just remembered, um, writing some letters. Some of the ones I, you know, um...got embarrassed about when you first showed them to me. You were right. I can pretty much recite them. Do you know how...Zoey, I am so sorry. I don’t understand how you like them. The poetry is...it’s not good, Zoey. I don’t know how to get better at it.”

“I’m going to try to write better ones. You deserve better poetry, not whatever that was. You’re too important to me, I can’t let you live—neglected. I love you. I’m gonna write really awful poetry for Rumi, though. I just remembered the time she showed up really, really late to a date and then acted like it was my fault, so, you know. Century-old karma is a bitch. Her fault, though.”

“What did you just say?”

“Rumi—”

“No, no, say it to my face, Mira. It’s too late, you have to own up to it.”

“I’m recording!”

“Zoey can hear it, too!”

“No, that’s—”

“Zoey! Take my side! Whatever she said, I know she’s lying about it!”

“You know what? I’m going to—get over here!”

“You gotta catch me first, Mir!”

“Zoey—I love you, I’m sorry, I’m—”

(Giddy laughter, wild and loud, shrieking a second later, over-exaggerated kisses.)

Click.

The letters are perfect. Smudged ink, stained lipstick kisses on the edges. Promises of returning.

She grows tiger lilies. Calla lilies. Forget-me-nots.

Helps keep her busy. Makes it easier to pass the time.

She waits.

Fifty years.

Half a century.

The house is quiet, as it always is. Their voices still fill the hallways, still echo throughout each room. The voice recordings make that literal, though she can always see them dancing just out of reach from the corner of her eyes. Their souls are not here, the hollow in her chest is enough to make her understand, and she has always known that their souls do not linger once their bodies die, but sometimes they feel so, so close. 

They have always been stubborn like that. Clinging on to different places, carefully tucking themselves away, waiting to be found. Their souls are not in the house, or in this town, or in any of the spaces they used to frequent, but there are memories there. It makes it easier to remember that this will not be forever. That does not make it easier to endure.

The pain continues to rip her apart. The letters help, the pictures of them, of all three of them, of both, of just one, help. The voice recordings—some intimate and sweet, others painting a picture of whatever day they had been recorded on, some snippets of singing—help. There are videos they have left behind. Dancing, singing, painting, living day-to-day. Little reminders that they are simply waiting for her to find them.

She waits.

Seventy-eight years.

Six more than before.

She watches birds from Mira’s spot. Bathes in sunlight like she always used to. She finds peace in humming Rumi’s songs, but she can hardly stomach the idea of properly playing the songs, or hearing her voice. Not now. 

She keeps the houseplants. Presses them until they’re dried, and then she tucks them carefully away in a journal. She gardens, keeps flowers alive, and waits.

Eighty years.

This part has never entirely made sense to her. The universe makes up bits and pieces of her, threaded ties to it have kept her alive. The time spent waiting goes by in minutes, and then it spans centuries longer than it really has been. Eighty years, and she swears that they had moved into her apartment (the building has been destroyed) just yesterday. Eighty years, and she swears that it must have been close to a thousand years since she last saw them.

She is no longer reclusive, not entirely. She goes out, spends hours looping through places that used to belong to her. It serves to remind her of the hollow in her chest, how it twists and twists and twists until she can no longer breathe. 

She spends a long time lingering in places that almost feel right. Familiar in a way they should not be. Places where she almost could be convinced she will find them, places that Rumi would adore, places where her soul would run to. There are places that are more concealed, more intimate, and that is where she feels she might find Mira.

She waits.

There’s a tug in her chest.

Zoey breathes for the first time in eighty-three years.

It’s ridiculously loud in her mind.

Zoey follows the tug until it leads her to a park, a good few cities away. It is far too reasonable of a place for her first stubborn soul to be, but the tug is insistent. It pulls her hard, harder than it ever has, and it almost feels as if it’s choking her. Zoey doesn’t understand why it’s so strong, why it twists and pulls a little differently than it has before, but it doesn’t stop.

She follows it regardless, listening to the birds sing all around her, to the faint noises of strangers, to the giddy laughter that comes from children running around in the grass. Zoey smiles for the first time in eighty-three years, feeling a little giddy herself. The pain hasn’t gone away, and it will remain until she finds the both of them, but it dims just enough for her to be able to breathe again, for the weight inside of her chest to ease off of her. 

Zoey walks along the path that cuts through the park, wincing when the tug suddenly jerks her to the side, almost slamming into the side of her ribs. Zoey obliges, rolling her eyes when it starts to push harder and harder. Stubborn souls, she thinks, feeling a little breathless. Her stubborn souls. Hers. 

She’s here, somewhere. Zoey still can’t entirely figure out where, can’t quite pinpoint where to find her, but she knows that she is here.

Zoey continues moving, letting the tug guide her throughout the park, curving up over a hill. She keeps moving, walking along the sidewalk, hands in her pockets. The tug snaps again; Zoey nearly stumbles on her feet at how hard it wrenches her forward.

“Stop,” Zoey hisses out, breathlessly giddy, even with how harsh the word comes out. “I know.”

It tugs again. Hard. 

This time, Zoey does stumble forward. 

It hardly helps that she hits a crack in the sidewalk (and suddenly, it makes exceptional sense that this is where she is, because it truly is the worst place Zoey has ever had to find her in), but Zoey doesn’t hit the ground.

“Woah! Are you okay?”

And—

“That’s gotten me, like, a dozen times.”

There’s...

Zoey laughs. 

She laughs so hard she almost throws up, unable to get herself to breathe as she stays half on the ground, one hand planted on the sidewalk, cackling wildly, her eyes stinging with tears, her chest aching in an entirely separate way than how it usually hurts. Zoey gasps for air, almost bursting into actual sobs. She only just barely manages to steady herself, shaking her head, sniffling.

“Sorry!” she laughs, swallowing, pushing herself back onto her knees. “I’m sorry, that just—it’s...it’s been one of those days.”

She laughs. 

And so does she.

“I get it,” she says, a wide, crooked grin stretched across her face. “The amount of times I’ve seen her eat shit—”

“Whatever,” she says, her eyes narrowing, sharp and intense. “You’ve done it just about a million times, too. Are you okay?”

Zoey giggles, grinning so hard it makes her face hurt. The muscles there have gone unused for so long. “I’m great,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I’m Zoey. Thanks for catching me...?”

“Mira. That’s Rumi,” Mira, intense eyes, says. Rumi, crooked grin, waves a little, blinking at her once, twice.

Zoey can’t help the way her jaw drops, can’t help the tears that spring to her eyes, can’t help the way she starts to giggle again, breathless and shaking and trembling. 

“Hi,” Zoey manages to force out, so dizzy she feels like standing might be impossible. “Thank you, seriously. I just moved, and I’m new to the area, and, you know. The one park I decide to go to tries to kill me. You’re like, my heroes.”

Mira studies her, lips quirking upward. Pink hair again, and she must be an inch taller, but her hair is twisted into pigtails instead. She’s wearing a black shirt, fishnets over it, a thin choker around her neck. Two lip piercings, about a thousand earrings. Gold-rimmed glasses. 

Rumi only offers her another crooked grin, her hair tied up into a braid. Purple, again. She’s wearing a white tank top, and the scar on her shoulder is showing. 

“Just moved, huh?” Rumi asks, tipping her head to the side. “Do you need help setting anything up? Like, boxes, or whatever?”

“I’m good!” Zoey giggles, grinning. “I live just—just over there,” she adds on, pointing in the direction of her apartment. “I thought it would be nice to live by a park, but, you know. This one hates me.”

Mira lets out a huff. “It hates me, too, don’t worry. It’s probably just evil.”

Rumi snorts. “You’re just blind. Are you sure about not needing any help?” Rumi asks, directing that wide, crooked grin back over to Zoey. “Seriously, I’m in the area—so is Mira. We actually live pretty close to you, I think. I moved in a year or two ago, so I totally get, like, being new. There’s a super cute coffee place just a few minutes away from here.”

“Don’t make me go into work on my day off, Rumi,” Mira grumbles, but it lacks any bite.

Zoey bites down on her tongue, rapidly nodding. “I do have a few, um, boxes. I can pay for coffee if you’re, like, serious. My treat?”

Rumi nods, nudging Mira with her elbow. “It sounds like a great deal to me.”

“You don’t have to pay,” Mira assures her a second later. “I get an employee discount, and they can’t stop me from handing it out for free. Consider it, like, a welcoming gift, or whatever. Or maybe a, good job, you survived the evil park gift.”

Zoey wants to say, “You did it. You managed. I don’t know how you did, but you managed. How did you find me this time around?”

Zoey laughs again instead, finally pushing herself up to her feet. “You know what? I think I will.”

The walk to the cafe where Mira apparently works is short, but it feels like it stretches on for minutes. Zoey listens to the two of them argue, playfully bickering back and forth, trading jabs, all while their eyes keep drifting back to hers. 

You found me, Zoey thinks, the hollow in her chest fuller than it ever has been, the pain forgotten entirely. Her stubborn, stubborn souls.