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Greeting fans was probably one of Zoey’s favourite things to do.
It wasn’t that she enjoyed the praise that came with it, but more so the joy she got to see on people’s faces as they came to her, showing off the drawings and notes they had made, or maybe even bracelets that she would slip over her wrist and display around her dressing room mirror for as long as she could before the space grew too crowded.
She cherished the little moments. When a young girl had come up to her and signed her name out, and Zoey, who had been smart enough to study sign language in her earlier years just in case something like that happened, was able to sign hers in return, when a couple had proposed in front of her, equally amazing and slightly humiliating on her part, or even on the rare occasion when someone would explain just how much she had helped them, just how much her lyrics ment.
It was an odd beauty, one not everyone could love the way she did, but she looked forward to it regardless. She kept her lucky signing pens with her at nearly all times, always greeted people with the deserved enthusiasm, and ensured she was never rude. Even her declines lay sweet and gentle, though those were mostly when she was in public without the intention of being seen.
Sometimes it was a challenge, yes, but people’s joy always lay as her top priority, even if they got a little too close, or a little too personal. But it wasn’t normally an issue. She could take a deep breath, clench her fists and cry about it when she got home. As long as she played it off as having a shower, no one really noticed, and she was cheerful enough afterwards that Rumi and Mira didn’t suspect a thing. She wasn’t hiding it from them, but they didn’t need to know either. It wasn’t important, that was all.
Plus, it hadn’t been bad since…well, high school. She didn’t need to worry about things anymore. She had control over her own actions, her plans, and her lists. She didn’t need to fear that her notebooks would be shuffled through or snooped at or ripped out of her hands by the same people who probably praised her all over socials now and bragged that her face was in their yearbook.
Even Rumi and Mira knew that her things were hers, even if it was never stated that she didn’t want them looked through. They looked at what they were shown. Just like she didn’t snoop when Mira went to the studio to dance alone or when Rumi hid out in her room for a couple of hours, her notebooks lay untouched. At least, they always had.
So perhaps when she’d come home from a particularly draining signing session, her arms sore from wielding a pen and some slightly creepy guy who’d grabbed her too hard and too close for comfort more than she could ever have wanted, she’d been a little more sensitive than usual.
But a shower always fixed that. It always had.
Zoey had excused herself quickly, smiling sweetly as she stepped into her bathroom and closed the door behind her, letting her shoulders drop as she stripped, not even bothering to wait for the water to warm up as she stepped into it.
It wasn’t as calming as the bathhouse, but sobbing fits weren’t the most calming thing in the world, regardless.
Except this time, she didn’t cry. She just stood there as the water increased in heat, letting it take the gross feeling of other people's sweat against her skin with it until she felt clean enough to step out and squeegee down the bathroom before putting on her robe.
She was feeling surprisingly refreshed by the time she entered her bedroom proper again, her wrists no longer popping with each rotation. However, her plan to throw herself down onto her bed was quickly stopped when she found that she was not, in fact, alone.
Her bedroom door was almost always open. A silent invitation for the other girls to come to her whenever they needed comforting, or even just a good cuddling session. It was just another thing that improved their relationship, a way to show that physical barriers were let down with her, too. Not that the other girls did the same thing, nor did they need to. Zoey certainly understood their reasons for the request to knock and complied.
However, she hadn’t expected to find Mira there.
They normally only came in later in the night, and when she was there. Never alone, it was still her space. She wasn’t irritated, just shocked in full honesty.
“Mira? You okay?” she asked, pulling the woman's attention away from whatever she’d been looking at.
Mira quickly looked up at her, brows arched before they settled, as if she had been too focused to realise the water had been turned off. She flipped something in her hands closed, then scooted off the bed.
“Of course. I was just looking over the lyrics of that song you were thinking about releasing. I think the choreo—” Mira didn’t stop talking, but Zoey’s head tuned her out instantly, her heart practically leaping to her chest.
Her notebook sat on the bed, now closed but freshly flipped through. It wasn’t a private one, in fact, it was one of her most recent. The song Mira had been looking for and a few others they’d written together were probably the only ones in there, but she knew she hadn’t left it out in the open like that.
It had been with the rest of her notebooks. With the ones that had coffee and tear stains side by side on the pages. One’s filled with things she didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t help but keep. From when she’d sit in bathroom stalls at lunch and write whatever came to mind, hoping no one would pop in and start puffing on a cigarette. From when she’d bury them deep in her bags and hope no one would steal them or rip them or wreck them.
And now Mira had looked through them. Could have picked any of them up and read it. Wrecked it. Not that she would, Zoey knew that was illogical to think about. In fact, if she’d ever actually stated that she didn’t want her things looked through, Mira of all people would be someone who understood. She knew what it was like to have the things she loved taken and destroyed. She would have understood.
But Zoey hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t assumed she’d have to.
“Zoey? Are you listening?”
Zoey blinked, then again, wishing her throat would stop contracting and tears would stop pricking at her eyes. It was her fault. She should have set boundaries, and now she had to deal with what she’d started.
If only she knew how.
Normally, when she experienced any sort of distress that wasn’t fan-related or just plain out stupid, Mira and Rumi’s arms were always open and waiting. She didn’t like being alone; she liked being held and squeezed until the fears were all gone, as long as it wasn’t too much for the others.
But this was different.
She didn’t want Mira to hold her; she just wanted her out of her sight. She wanted to scream and rock and press her hands over her ears or ram her head into a wall until the thoughts went away. She wanted to tell Mira it wasn’t fair, that she couldn’t just touch her things like that, even though she’d never told her not to.
Finally finding control over her body, Zoey felt her brows furrow into a frown, and tears welled like glass dust in her eyes, sharp with every blink. She didn’t know what to say. How to respond. Of course, she wasn’t listening.
Mira went to say something else, but Zoey brushed past her before she could, grabbing the notebook from her bed and flipping it open to the song Mira had been looking at.
And then she ripped.
The pages came out easily; it was tear-friendly paper after all, but it didn’t stop the sting that came with the sound. She’d heard it before, but never from her own hands (aside from when she’d torn up Takedown, but Rumi had mattered far more than her lyrics in that moment).
And then she thrust them forward, nearly knocking Mira back with the force of her hand as the papers crumpled against her chest. She made a sound of surprise, her mouth opening again, though Zoey didn’t let her scramble over words in whatever confused manner she was going to. She needed to calm down, and that wasn’t happening with Mira there.
“Get out.” It wasn’t supposed to sound harsh, but Zoey might as well have spat in her face. Even she wanted to apologise the moment she said it, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
“Zoey, what? What’s wrong-”
“Get out of my room!” Zoey practically screamed, forcing her hands forward and shoving Mira away. Her heart was pounding fast enough for her vision to start spotting over, but she forced her body to stay upright and the tears to stay restrained. “NOW!”
“No- what? I’m not leaving! What’s wrong? What happened?” Mira’s confusion turned to a defensive anger, and Zoey could see Rumi approaching her door, too. Coming to see the mess she was causing because she couldn’t just pull her shit together for one second.
Zoey didn’t speak irrationally. She didn’t need to. That was a bad habit that was mostly carried by Rumi, although it had improved over the course of the last few months.
“You!” Or maybe she did. “You did! Get out! Take the song and get out!”
“Me? You’re the one who just suddenly lost it! All I did was look for the so-”
“No, you looked through my stuff! Why? Why did you look through my stuff?” Zoey felt the tears finally break free, including those she hadn’t realised she’d been holding back all throughout her shower. “Were you going to wreck it?”
The anger shifted to confusion again as Mira glanced over at Rumi, who had let herself into the room without a single thought, though not yet thrown herself between the two. “Wreck it? Zoey, what do you mean? I was looking for a song for our choreo.”
“Oh, of course, of course you were just looking for something. That’s what everyone says! What are you really gonna do, go– go rip it up? Throw it away? Hide it?” she shouted, her voice trembling. “ Do you think this is funny ?”
Mira’s eyes went wide, her mouth falling slightly open–although silent– hands twitching in a way Zoey recognised. The same thing she always did when her mum tried calling, or when someone asked her something a little too personal.
“I told you to get out !”
She’d seen Mira fight demons with her arms practically crossed, but she’d never seen her turn as quickly as she did then, practically dragging a very confused-looking Rumi out with her before she slammed the door with enough force to rattle the walls.
She didn’t take the song with her.
Zoey watched as the papers floated to the floor, her breath coming in short bursts until she couldn’t stand anymore, and then she fell with it, tears coming out faster than before, dripping down her chin and onto her knees as she curled into a ball, letting the only soothing sensation she could muster—a quick rocking motion—overtake her.
= = =
Mira pressed her back to Zoey’s door, hands shaking like a rattling train as she brought them up to her necklace and fiddled with the pendant.
She wasn’t sure what she’d done, but Zoey being that irrational was rare. She was the calm one, the one who could maintain her composure when everyone else was lunging at each other's necks.
And she trusted people.
Somehow, that fact hurt the most. Did she not trust Mira enough to believe her? Did she really think she would do those things?
Rumi’s hand fell over hers, her thumb running over her knuckles as she whispered out, “I don’t think she meant those things,” as if it would change anything. As if Zoey hadn’t looked so damn frightened.
“Yes, she did.”
“Mira, come on. She probably just got overwhelmed and wasn’t thinking straight–”
“No.” Mira stepped away from the door so she couldn’t hear the sobbing quite so easily. Couldn’t hear Zoey breaking behind her with no way to help, because she was the one who’d hurt her. “She’s right. I went through her stuff; I invaded her privacy. I should have known better.”
Rumi frowned, not taking her hand off. “Not once in seven years has she told us not to go through her stuff. How were you supposed to know? She gives us her notebooks all the time. You were just looking for something. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But I still hurt her, Ru, she’s crying. I can’t just fix that!”
“We could talk to her,” Rumi offered, her nose scrunching anxiously. “Well, I’m not the best at that, but you could…Actually, I don’t think you are either, she’s normally the one who’s…”
“It doesn’t matter, she made it clear she didn’t want me there. Let’s just let her sort it out.” Anger bubbled up within her, tightening painfully in her chest in a way that made her want to throw her fist against a wall. She didn’t, she hadn’t done that since she was a teenager.
Rumi’s patterns flashed orange, flickering guiltily. “I’m not letting her sob in there!” she hissed, finally pulling away.
“Then deal with it yourself. She’s made herself clear enough.”
Mira tried to ignore the pang in her gut as she walked away, heading straight for the kitchen—the furthest point in their house from the rooms.
She slumped against the counter, pressing her head to the cool quartz as if it could soothe her rushing thoughts. The ones that screamed the same thing Gwi-Ma had, although she knew they were only her own this time. That the family she had built was ripping apart, just like the papers that had been shoved at her. All her fault.
Time ticked on.
She didn’t move, nor did Zoey’s door open, and therefore she assumed Rumi didn’t either. They all just waited as if someone was going to be brave enough to make the first move, to talk things out.
And then the tears stopped, and even from her position so far from them, Mira stiffened.
Slowly, she raised her head, eyes meeting Rumi’s, who’d somehow positioned herself on the couch silently within the time she’d been there.
Rumi looked like she was about to say something, but the creak of a door hinge interrupted her, and both of their heads snapped towards it.
Zoey looked at Rumi first, only making Mira’s worries flare, and then she turned to her.
Her eyes were rimmed with red, cheeks blotchy, and lips chapped. She looked like Mira felt. Her arms had scratches down them, like she’d been clawing for a way out, stuck in her own mind. Yet, Mira couldn’t have helped. She had been turned away.
Mira didn’t know if she wanted to scream or make a run for her own room. Her body felt glued to the floor just as much as she felt the pent-up urge to run. To lock herself away in a studio and blast music loud enough to make her eardrums sting until she could dance off the hurt.
But instead, she found herself moving towards Zoey, or maybe Zoey moving towards her. She didn’t know, but somehow, they met in the middle.
Arms wrapped around her neck, the familiar feeling of a face pressed into her chest. Zoey’s breaths were far from calm; she hadn’t even stopped trembling, yet she didn’t let Mira pull away. She was saying something, muffled by Mira’s chest, but her body language said enough.
It was a sorry.
A sorry that Mira wasn’t sure if she’d earned, because Zoey always seemed to be the first to apologise, even if she was wrong, but it healed something. Patched the part of her that screamed no one cared, that her feelings didn’t really matter in the equation.
And so she hugged in return. Pressed kisses along Zoey’s hairline, temple, shoulders, anything she had access to until Zoey’s rabbling had stopped, and they were only swaying in the centre of the home–their home–any trace of the anger replaced with a soft worry that Mira didn’t understand, but tried to.
Zoey pulled back, fresh tears lining her cheeks, and dragged Mira to the couch, where she accepted Rumi’s outstretched arms, dragging her with her.
They sat on the couch longer than they had stood, watching the sun set and lights illuminate the apartments below. Until afternoon officially turned to twilight, and all their legs were twitching in a desperate attempt to stay still.
And then, finally, Zoey spoke.
“I know you wouldn’t do that.”
There was no ease into the conversation, no dogging the way in, just the truth. Blunt, no hidden meaning, there.
“Then why did you say it?”
The answer didn’t come for another few minutes. Painful ones, even when Rumi’s fingers began to rub circles over Mira’s arm and Zoey’s breaths kept bouncing between their regular state and something that dangerously edged close to hyperventilation, like the words were choking her out.
“I was being irrational,” Zoey shrugged, and Mira’s chest tightened, because then there were lies again. Not clear ones, the sort that could just be considered blurred edges. She knew Zoey felt it, knew it was the reason she took another deep breath.
“People aren’t irrational for no reason. Why did it…trigger you?”
“Because it’s what they used to do– look through my things.” They, being her parents or her old ‘friends’, Mira didn’t know, but she knew what both parties had done to Zoey’s work at some point, or at least what she was willing to disclose.
Zoey’s hands shook, and she balled them into fists, closing her eyes, but not stopping. “It had already been a hard day, I should have just told you, but I was worried it would be– I don’t know, too much, that I would be too much,” Rumi kissed her shoulder at that, brows furrowed, “and when I saw that you had one of my notebooks I realised you must have looked through the others to find it, my private ones.”
“We didn’t know you had private ones,” Rumi chimed in, rather helpfully, considering Mira felt as if her voice was wedged in her chest.
“I know. I should have told you, but I assumed it just…wouldn’t be an issue. I know you wouldn’t do what they did, I really do, but all of a sudden it was– I was just a teenager again, I don’t– I don’t know, I felt out of control, I lashed out, and I’m sorry.”
Mira took a deep breath, willing herself to say something reasonable, but all that came out was her usual bluntness, something that probably stung more than it needed to. “It was a pretty shitty move.” Rumi pinched her with a scowl. “But I was in the wrong, too, and I should have asked before looking through your stuff.”
“Thank you,” Zoey smiled, hand still balled in worry, but her eyes turned soft.
“Is there anything else we should know?” Rumi asked. “Anything you think is ‘too much’?”
Zoey was leaning into them more now, accepting the warmth her girlfriends could provide, like she usually did. Something about that seemed to coax the truth out of her.
“Fan greeting is overwhelming, like, really overwhelming. It…I mean, normally I just go have a shower so you can’t hear me cry-” she paused, narrowing her eyes, “you can’t, right?”
Mira squeezed her tighter, shaking her head. “No, but I wish I had. I knew people got in your space, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“You could always come to us when you need it,” Rumi added, “you don’t need to be alone when you’re upset, however ‘dumb’ you may think the reasoning is, okay?”
The girls wrapped their arms around her as she nodded, rolling into a hug that was a dog pile more than anything; Zoey squished between them with no hope of even attempting to escape.
What had been tears turned to laughter, then something a little closer to tears again for all three, and more kisses were passed around than Mira could count, but it felt good, it felt safe, and most importantly, it felt like home.