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The hunter’s compound is silent, with a heavy sort of stillness weighing down all around you. You’ve come here more times than you can count in the last handful of months; treks to your tree, to his grave, lingering cautiously around the spot in the dirt that never seems to fade. The scuffs from your knees are hardly there anymore, but the sight is burnt into your mind, as if you watched it happen rather than begged for it. The words are still loud in your ears. Your demands, your pleas, the crying, all of it. You still think it has to be something sort of like love—it’s only three steps away from where Celine almost broke your nose.
You slink through the grass, weaving your way down dirt pathways that stretch on endlessly. Despite having a limited amount of space, the hunter’s compound has always managed to seem vast and expansive in a way similar to the ocean; Zoey’s voice chimes easily through your mind at that, followed quickly by Mira’s low hum, in some sort of agreeance. You smile at the tone, carefully tapping your foot three times against the ground, watching the honmoon ripple in its own agreement. You know they’ll feel it.
You’re here alone. The sun is just barely in the sky, dragging along streaks of gold and orange and pink, covering up purple and blue. You had woken up Zoey and Mira to tell them you were leaving, tempted to dance around where it was exactly that you were going, though you knew you never stood a chance against not telling them. You received somewhat unexpected responses: Zoey told you it was a good idea, Mira begrudgingly agreed that it probably was. You know that both of them are still figuring things out in their own right. They have different feelings about that night than you do.
You’re also pretending that you don't know about their meeting they had with Celine only a week or so after the Idol Awards, because they're both strangely secretive about it, and, well, it’s not really a secret if you know about it.
Your childhood home is lit up golden, warm light illuminating every edge and shingle. You told Zoey and Mira. You notably did not tell Celine.
This place is your home, too. You hardly need an invitation to show up, though you’ve always at least called, or mentioned if you were planning on coming inside. These days, most of your time is devoted to that trek up to your tree, where you watch a good portion of your sunrises. Celine is aware of that, and she rarely intrudes, so you don't say anything when you arrive. You haven’t needed to.
You should have said something this time. Should have. You reach the door faster than you want to, your hand hovering in the air. You definitely should have said something, but you had been compelled to just...show up. The itch in the back of your mind has been relentless, and you couldn’t choke it back for any longer than you already had been, and now you’re here.
You breathe out. You run your tongue across the scars on your lower lip, knocking twice just as you remember what your own blood tastes like.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise when Celine immediately appears—you had known she was going to be awake; Celine, of course, was the person who instilled your inclinations for waking up before the sun. Still, you can’t help but take half a step back, your heart catching in your throat as you realise that you’re here, and that there isn’t much of a chance to back out now.
“Rumi,” Celine murmurs, her words soft, hesitant, cautious. “Did something happen?”
Your heart drops at the sound of Celine’s voice, though it only hangs there for a second before it starts to pound in your chest, hard enough that you wonder if you might die.
Celine doesn’t invite you in, but she shifts so her body is pressed more to the door than anything else, which is enough of a signal for you to make your move, which you do. You silently pad through the short hallway, hovering in front of your dining room table, dragging your fingers across the wooden top. The door closes a second later, Celine’s footsteps echoing from behind you. Celine is equally as silent as you are, but you’ve had an entire lifetime of practice when it comes to her.
“I know it’s early,” you start, clearing your throat as you turn on your heels, holding your hands in front of yourself, fingers half-intertwined. “Sorry.”
Celine’s lips twitch. “The door is always open for you.”
You swallow back the restless unease that threatened to outright kill you only a few seconds ago, carefully tucking it away in the very back of your mind. Dozens of thousands of words pop up in your head, and you cycle through each one of them, your lips drawing into a thin, tight line. You had an entire speech planned out. You wrote it down for hours, looping over certainties and feelings and all the things in between those. You wanted this to go...
Specifically? A certain way? Easily? You almost grimace. You don't actually know what you wanted. Probably for all of this to come to you as easily as you ridiculously hoped it might.
“Can we talk?” you ask, feeling your jaw tick at how stupid the words sound. You’ve spent your entire life working things out in your own mind, carefully delving into each and every intricacy, toying out the meanings of words and the nature of being pedantic, and Celine makes you throw all of that away.
You’re nervous. It makes you want to roll your eyes and cry at the same time. It feels a lot like how you felt at thirteen, carefully standing in the hallway from the bathroom to the kitchen.
Celine dips her head. Walks past you and around the table to sit in her spot. You don't sit, but you do twist around to face her properly, feeling like your entire body is primed to do something if you sit, so you choose to stand.
If it bothers Celine, she doesn't show it.
[ patience ]
“Steady,” Celine is saying, hand pressed gently to the small of your back. “The honmoon won’t hurt you, but it can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to connecting to it. Breathe.”
You do. You close your eyes and curl your fingers in the dirt, your entire body trembling. “What if I can’t do it?” you whisper through clenched teeth, trying to focus on the ripples you can see, but can’t quite feel.
Celine hums, quiet and assuring. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“No,” you disagree, frustration building up in your chest. “What if I can’t do it ever, Celine?”
“That won’t happen, Rumi,” Celine murmurs, her voice growing more steady, more firm. “You can see the honmoon, can’t you?” she asks, leaving a deliberate pause in the air between the two of you. You nod, and only then does Celine continue, “Then you can connect to it.”
You crinkle your nose, feeling hot, burning tears well up in the corners of your eyes. You sniffle as you press your palms harder to the ground, bowing your head low enough that you almost can taste the earth. Your knees ache, and it’s your fault, really, but you want this. You want it so badly. Celine talks about how the honmoon already has picked you, and you can tell, and it just takes time, and you’re young, but you hate waiting. You hate this, and you just want to be able to connect to it already, and...
“Stop,” Celine says. The word feels like a cut through the air, and you let out a quiet noise, torn between a gasp and a sob. You push yourself back, still kneeling, but your hands hang limply in your lap. You sniffle again when you feel Celine’s arms wrap around you, her head settled right on top of your own.
“I’m sorry,” you mutter, wiping at the stupid tears that burn all the way down your face.
“It’s okay,” Celine quietly assures you. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Do you know how long it took me to connect to the honmoon, Rumi?”
You shake your head the best you can manage.
“I was the last out of all of us. Your mother, she...” Celine goes quiet for a few seconds. She always gets quiet when she talks about your mom. “She was something of a show-off. It found her first, something she never, ever let anyone forget,” Celine murmurs, a soft laugh following her words. You only ever hear Celine laugh when she talks about your mom. “Kimmy connected second. I had a hard time.”
“Why?” you ask, scooting forward so you can tilt your head, curiously peering up at Celine, who has a soft half-smile stretched across her face.
“Sometimes it just happens like that,” Celine says, gently. “I worked myself up over it. Got frustrated, just like you,” Celine continues, with a jab to your ribs that has you giggling even despite your frustration. “But the honmoon found me, it chose me. And it chose you. And I was older than you. Be patient, Rumi.”
You feel your nose twitch. “But it’s different.”
Your patterns. You have five jagged and sharp purple lines on your shoulder. Your right arm. You count them every single night, because you only barely remember having four a few years ago, and you don't want to ever lose track ever again. You won’t. Not until they’re gone.
“A...little,” Celine admits. “We have time.”
You’re not old enough to grasp that Celine is partially lying to you. You’re also not old enough to grasp that this is the closest thing to an I love you that you have ever gotten. You aren’t even old enough to grasp just how much you crave hearing those words.
Celine reaches out, gently taking your hand into her own, thumb running across your knuckles. “Let’s go out for the day. Maybe...” she trails off, another soft half-smile on her lips. “Hm. You didn’t like the toy store we went to last time very much, didn’t you?”
“What?” you gasp, entirely affronted. “No—I did. Celine,” you whine, planting your hand down onto hers, making your eyes as big as you can as you peer up at her, practically pushing your nose against hers. “Celine, please? Please? Please? Please? Please?”
Five pleases is usually enough.
Celine, as expected, relents. You, of course, are victorious once again—not like you’re keeping track (you totally are). She lets out something close to an exasperated sigh, pressing her nose to yours briefly. “Fine. You’ve won me over. If you can beat me to the house, we can stop by the library.”
You’re running before the words have even left her mouth.
“It’s...” you breathe out slowly, your hands trembling. You’re quick to tighten your grasp on yourself, steeling yourself as you stare past her, at the wall behind her. “A lot. I think it’s going to be a lot.”
Celine hums. The noise is unwavering and solid and intense, and it makes you shift on your feet. You thought you hated her when you were seventeen, and maybe you do, but you think that you love her more than you know. Your earliest notebooks are full of information about her. All the things she likes, all that she doesn’t, everything you couldn’t quite get a read on. You know her. She knows you. You think that maybe the problem lies somewhere within that.
Celine leans forward, her head bowed slightly. “I have spent my entire life preparing you,” she murmurs, voice carrying across the room despite her speaking softly. “You are more than capable of this.”
[ please ]
You settle in the dirt with your saingeom above your head.
It’s a beautiful night. The sort of night that Celine would offer to spend outside with you, silent, sat side by side on the porch, not touching, but existing. The closest thing to affection you have received from her in years.
Your grasp on your saingeom is light. You’re not the one meant to be holding it.
She’s going to take it from you, you think. She has to. This is what has to happen. This is what it was always going to come down to if you failed, and you did. You failed completely.
Tears burn in your eyes. You ran out of time.
“Please,” you whisper, your voice raspy and harsh and loud and entirely not your own. “Please, Celine. Do what you should have done years ago.”
The silence feels like a rejection. It’s so quiet. You’ve never heard the world so quiet before, never have heard the honmoon so quiet.
You crane your head up, watching as Celine stares at you with an expression you have never...no, you realise, you have. Once. When she almost broke your nose. Horror? Panic?
In the next moment, her hands are resting atop yours, and your saingeom is removed from your grasp, knocked into the dirt. You let out a choked sob, frantically reaching out for it again, managing to wrap your fingers around the hilt. You pathetically drag it back closer to you, keeping the blade against the ground as panic guides your movements.
“If you love me,” you babble, “If you love me, you’ll kill me, Celine. You have to kill me, please. Please. Please, Celine, you have to, I can’t—I ruined everything, I ruined everything! Celine, I can’t. Please. Please.”
(Five.)
“Stop,” Celine demands, her voice trembling. Her hands rest on your shoulders, forcing you to your feet.
You obey without question. You’ve learnt how to be unlovable. This is nothing more than a final denial. One last reminder of what you are, and how what you are is nothing more than a monster.
“I can’t,” Celine whispers, hands hovering above you now, on either side. “You—you are all I have, Rumi. I promised your...I swore to Miyeong, I would do anything to protect you. To keep you safe. You were...you were nothing that I had ever expected. I could never have...but I tried,” Celine insists. “I did my best to accept you. To raise you.”
You stare at her now, eyes focused on hers. “Accept me? You told me to cover up. To hide!” you hiss, snapping out your words like an animal. Celine flinches back, barely. If you were anyone else, you wouldn’t notice.
“Yes!” Celine hisses back out at you, brows drawing together. “Until we can fix this.”
“There’s nothing to be fixed!” you shout, feeling the honmoon ripple and protest around you. “I can’t be fixed! Can’t you see? Why can’t you see that? This is—this is who I am! This is what I am!”
“Rumi—”
“Look at me!” you scream, the words torn from your throat. “Why can’t you look at me? Why—why couldn’t you love me?”
Celine doesn’t raise her head when she whispers, “I do.”
“All of me!” you snarl, the honmoon crackling at your feet, flickering, broken. Shattered. You’re destroying it. You look down at your hands, one of them clawed and ugly, turning a dark shade of purple that spreads up your wrist like an infection. Your patterns have spread all the way down to your palms, wretched and ugly and horrifying.
You stumble forward. You reach for your saingeom, ignoring the protest from the honmoon. You grab the blade, spinning the hilt around, taking two more steps forward.
“Please,” you beg, desperate and frantic. “I love you. Please, Celine. Stop me.”
Celine reaches out. Takes the hilt from your hands. You’re hopeful for only a moment before you watch Celine spin the blade back around, pressing the hilt back into your palms.
“I can’t,” Celine repeats, softly. “Not to you.”
You’re old enough now to grasp what she’s saying to you. This is the closest thing to an I love you you have gotten from her in eleven years. You understand how badly you have wanted this for your entire life. You want her to mean it.
Your body is out of your control. The world spins from under you, and you’re suddenly gone, the ghost of saying it back on your lips.
“What did you tell them?” you ask, dancing around the words you should be saying instead. Celine allows it, her head tipping forward, eyes fleetingly meeting yours. You ignore the clench in your gut as you replay the last words she said to you, only a few seconds ago. Sincere. Genuine.
Celine taps her finger against the table three times. “I told them everything about...”
She gets choked up. You blink as you watch her mouth draw into a thin line, her head twisting to the side as her jaw clenches. It takes her a full minute before she opens her mouth, another few seconds before she finally spits out the words.
“That night.”
It’s like the words pain her to...
This is what it sounds like when Celine speaks when she does not want to. This is what it sounds like when she admits something that hurts to admit. This is what it sounds like when she is spitting out words because she has to.
You almost start to cry.
“How did they...how did they, um, handle it? How’d they...react?” you ask in a trembling whisper, your voice betraying you by cracking halfway through your sentence.
Celine gives you a look, one that borders on confusion and exasperation and something like distant humour, though none of it entirely reaches her eyes. “Zoey handled it quite well. Mira slapped me.”
“What?” you rush the word out, your eyes widening. You plant your hands onto the table, leaning forward, opening and closing your mouth as you try to desperately come up with some sort of explanation or apology or anything at all to make sense of what you’ve just been told.
“It was deserved,” Celine says, more humour seeping into her voice. The corners of her lips twitch, and you watch her raise her index finger, just slightly, just for a second. It’s enough for you to realise how hunched over you are. You breathe out, rolling your shoulders back, moving your hands to where they had been.
“I—”
“Rumi,” Celine interrupts, firmly, but not entirely unkindly. Not unkindly at all, you correct. “Don’t apologise for something you didn’t do. I raised you better than that.”
You look down to your feet. “I don’t know if you did.”
The words are sharp and bitter and taste disgusting in your mouth. They burn the tip of your tongue, and shame washes over you as soon as you raise your eyes back to hers, another desperate need to apologise weighing in your chest.
Celine doesn’t look away. “I don’t know if I did, either.”
[ hidden ]
You settle at the very top of your favourite tree, staring up at the sunlight that slowly filters in through the leaves. You think you’ve been up here for...an hour? You had woken up and found that your patterns had spread, and you remember panicking before your body suddenly no longer belonged to you, and then you were here. Tucked away carefully above the world, somewhere hidden from sight, kept out of reach.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair.
You crinkle your nose, biting your tongue harder than you know you should. You’ve tried to stop crying, really, because it doesn’t do anything, but it’s hard, sometimes. You’re so angry all of the time, and that only makes you angrier, which you know is stupid, but you just don’t know what to do with it all. You’re stuck with a body that hates you, that shouldn’t exist. Ten jagged lines wrap around your right arm, curving down to the crook of your elbow. You hate them. You hate them, and you hate yourself, and you hate that the honmoon picked you, and you’re so mad.
You press your palms into your face, burying your head against your hands. None of it is fair.
There’s an itch in the back of your mind that suddenly starts to make you aware of it. You blink back tears, quickly wiping your knuckles across your eyes.
You love being tucked away. Hidden. Somewhere that only you belong, somewhere sort of unreachable. Who would ever look for you here? Being so high up is thrilling, easy. It makes you feel like you can finally breathe. You still keep covered up, very carefully making sure your shirts cover your arms, but if you messed up here, if your sleeve rolled up a little...it would be okay. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. You constantly think about how the world is so close to ending, how it might be your fault.
The honmoon sings back to you when you sing to it. It provided you with your saingeom. When you walk, it ripples under you, matching each one of your movements, sort of like it’s walking with you. You know that you’re helping strengthen the honmoon, you’re going to turn it gold whenever you meet your other two hunters, but you’re so scared of hurting it, of being the one to tear it apart.
You sigh, shaking your head, trying to push those thoughts away. They don’t help with anything, they’re just distracting you from your actual goals, and you know that. You decide to follow the itch instead, dropping from the tree with an easy, silent thud, and...
“Celine!” you hiss out, darting back, your saingeom already grasped tightly in your hand. You immediately feel bad for pointing your weapon at her—Celine has taught you all about the importance of never pointing your actual weapon at someone unless you mean to do some kind of harm—and let it fade away into the honmoon just as quickly as you pulled it out.
Celine hardly stirs from where she sits at the base of your tree. Her lips quirk upward, her head gently coming to rest against her knuckles. “Good job, Rumi.”
You stare at her, quickly clearing your throat, warmth settling in your chest. Right. You always have to be prepared, you always have to be ready, you always need to be expectant and perceptive. You hadn’t expected her, but you managed to react quickly, all without overreacting and hurting her. You took the time to figure out what was happening. Sort of.
“Thank you,” you murmur, smiling back at her. “How did you know I was here?”
Celine stands this time, coming over to rest her hand atop your head. “I always know.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” you grumble. “I...”
Ah. You shouldn’t say that.
“Snuck out?” Celine says for you, but there’s no anger or frustration in her voice. “I know that, too.”
“Stop!” you laugh, squirming out from her grasp. You dart back two paces, squinting at her, planting your hands on your hips as you puff out your chest. “I was just, um...having a hard time thinking,” you admit. “I like being...up.”
Celine looks amused, her eyes finding yours easily. “You’re not in trouble, Rumi. Do you feel better?”
“Yes,” you answer immediately, nodding frantically. “Can we train a little more? Please? Please? Please? Please? Pl—”
Celine laughs, actually laughs, and you’re almost surprised before you feel her hand covering your entire face, pushing you backward, forcing you to either walk or topple over. You crinkle your nose, quickly ducking away so you can bounce back up at her other side, easily keeping pace with her.
Celine guides the both of you back through the winding graves, settling you close to the house.
“Your saingeom,” Celine instructs, gently. Then, you watch as she pauses, her eyes narrowing a little. Her hand raises up, tapping at her right arm. You very quickly reach up to tug your sleeve down, wincing when you realise it had been pushed up. “Saingeom, Rumi?”
“Right,” you breathe out, feeling the honmoon ripple around you as your saingeom comes to rest in your hand.
You’ll be free of all of this soon, you whisper in your head. The patterns, the itch, all of it. You just have to hide and wait until then.
“I don’t...” you whisper the words, pursing your lips, trying desperately to gather your thoughts. To not let this slip out of your hands like it’s threatening to do. “Everything almost fell apart because I thought I had to hide. Because of you. Because of what you taught me,” you continue, trying to steady your voice, trying to keep the tremor out of it.
Celine doesn’t break your gaze. It makes you sick with an emotion you can’t entirely place.
“If I kept hidden, if I didn’t go back, like...like this,” you say, gesturing at your patterns, “I would have lost everything. The whole world would have been...gone. I can’t be fixed. I don’t think...I never needed to be fixed,” you say, with a little more conviction. “I needed you to love me.”
Now, Celine wavers. Her lips twitch. Her eyes flick to the side, but she’s quick to meet your gaze once more, the slow rise and fall of her chest giving too much away, filling your mind with information you’ve known since you were young. How long before she breaks? How long before she can’t hold it together anymore? You’ve seen this before. Every single year. Two days after your birthday.
“I did,” Celine murmurs, soft and quiet and so lowly that you don’t even know if she meant to speak at all. “I do.”
“You told me to hide,” you protest, weakly.
Celine bows her head. “I was trying to protect you. I thought that would keep you safe.”
“It didn’t,” you whisper.
“No,” Celine agrees, voice just as quiet as your own. “It didn’t.”
You breathe out, twisting your head to the side, your heart hammering in your chest. “Did you really think that you were protecting me?” you ask, closing your eyes for a moment. “Or did you just not want to have to see them because they reminded you of what I was? What I am?”
“Both,” Celine answers, simply. “I was terrified that they would take you from me.”
Your patterns. Ugly, warped, disgusting. They curl around your cheekbones and dance along your jaw. There’s no hiding them now. You don’t hate them nearly as much as you used to. They’re...you. Monstrous, but somehow lovable—to Mira and Zoey, at least, which is all that matters to you.
“Did they?” you ask, forcing yourself to look back at her.
Celine is quiet for a moment. She looks away, and each second that passes feels like a stab in your gut, a knife in your chest, twisting, carving out your heart, curling up between your ribs to gut you like an animal. Love, hatred, indifference. What is this? It leans so closely to indifference that you feel sick. It would be better if she hated you.
“No,” Celine says, her eyes meeting yours. You stare at her in surprise, trying to calm your panicked, racing thoughts. “They brought you back to life.”
[ unease ]
You stare at the stars, head tucked against your knees, arms wrapped tightly around your legs. Mira and Zoey have both gone home, which they’ve been doing more and more; Zoey constantly offers to take you back with her, but you always turn her down. You’re sick with fear and restlessness more often than you’re not. You got so good at hiding, at keeping things carefully under wraps, but you also didn’t have two people who you’re expected to be close with in your life.
You know you can love them. The thought still makes you sick, to the point where you find yourself desperately trying to convince your body to not act on the feeling, but it’s there. Plain and simple. The thought of love, the knowledge of what you’re capable of, is settled in your mind. You could love them. You know that it’s only a matter of time. It must have something to do with the honmoon, you think. Zoey connected to it just a week ago, giddy and buzzing. You were so happy for her, but now all you can feel is dread.
You have to be careful. More watchful than you ever have been in your entire life.
When the door creaks open behind you, you don’t turn your head to look at her. When Celine settles beside you, there’s an entire person-sized gap in between the two of you. She uses that space to place down a cup of tea, gently nudging it to be comfortably taken by you, if you wanted to.
“Celine,” you whisper, feeling worse as soon as you start to speak. “What if I mess everything up?”
“You won’t,” Celine says, simply.
“But what if—”
“You won’t, Rumi,” Celine says, voice hard and firm now. “You can’t, and you won’t. You’re smart, clever, strong. You know your goals, you know what you have to do.”
She expects the mantra. You breathe out, “Turn the honmoon gold, get rid of my patterns. I’m just...”
You stare at the grass, running your tongue over the scars in your mouth.
You’re afraid. You are so afraid. You’re sick with fear until it makes you dizzy. You want to love Zoey and Mira so badly but that’s terrifying and you don’t know how to love in a way that anyone could possibly want, and you’re...you. You don’t know how to be anything else.
Celine doesn’t reach out, but you hear the way she breathes, how she shifts. Closer to you without covering any real distance.
“The honmoon picked you for a reason, Rumi. You are more than capable of this. Our faults and fears must never be seen.”
“I know,” you mumble. “Sorry.”
There’s a quiet pause before Celine murmurs back, “It’s okay.”
You’re old enough now to understand this means I love you, but you’re past the point of caring. You grit your teeth and clench your jaw, staring up into the sky. To say it back would be to take the tea she made for you.
You don’t move. You stay perfectly still until Celine eventually sighs and stands up, murmuring something about coming inside soon and sleeping. It takes her fifteen minutes to leave.
You let the tea get cold.
It doesn’t make you feel better.
“I wanted you to kill me.”
Celine looks away now. The words make her react the same as when she forced out “that night” like it had been a knife in her own chest. Her jaw ticks, clenches. She won’t look at you. This is hardly indifference. This is hardly hate.
“You thought I would?” Celine asks, though her voice is flat, dull. Smoothed over and even. If you were anyone else, maybe you wouldn’t hear the tremor below her words, the way her lower lip wobbles for the slightest second before she controls herself again.
“I wanted you to,” you correct, because you’re very suddenly realising that there is a difference here between wanted and thought, and you understand that, somewhere in the middle, love is unspoken. You know what she’s asking of you, and you don’t quite give her the confirmation or denial it is that she wants; Celine is asking, Did I raise you so horribly that you thought I would feel nothing, that it would be easy for me, that I could do that to you? Do you think I could kill you?
You’re saying, No, but you made me think it was something I could ask for. You made me believe it was the one thing I could want.
Celine still does not meet your eyes when she says, “I meant what I said. I couldn’t. Not you, Rumi.”
I love you. I love you. I love you. You told me killing you would be love but it would break my heart.
“I know,” you softly agree.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I wanted you to say it but you never have so I reached for what was familiar.
“Are they taking care of you?” Celine suddenly asks, her eyes back on yours.
You almost laugh, taken aback by the bluntness of her words, though they’re uncharacteristically soft for her. Taking care of. They roll off her tongue with a practiced ease that you recognise in some of the things you say, which means she’s said them before. This is not the first time she’s asked this, though you weren’t the target when she spoke them first.
You think of Zoey’s nails raking down your scalp, pressing rapid, peppered kisses all over your face. You think of Mira’s head coming to rest atop yours, her arms wrapped tightly around you. You think of Zoey finding you on your terrace, carefully padding around your plants—the ones she’s asked you so much about—to settle beside you and tell you that she loves you. You think of Mira cradling your face in her hands in the early morning, looking at you just to look at you. Hands under bathroom doors. Paint stains on skin. Friends. You could be worse. Taptaptap.
“They are,” you promise. “You told us we always had to take care of each other. Why did—why didn’t you let me trust them?”
Celine looks pleased even despite your next sentence. “Because I taught them to be hateful,” she says, simply. “I taught them all that they knew.”
You’re struck by an uncharacteristic act of boldness—likely spurred on from Celine’s own split from her usual style of speaking—when you say, “You didn’t kill me. You said—you promised that you couldn’t. I don’t think that you taught them very well.”
What you mean is, I’m sorry for letting the tea get cold and not coming inside with you. I’m telling you that I know. I know you love me. You don’t have to say it. I don’t think you’re as good at pretending as you think you are.
Celine’s lips tremble again. Another tic you would never notice unless you were looking, unless you knew to look. “You’re very convincing,” Celine rasps out, her voice barely above a whisper, so quiet that you almost think you made it up.
You are lovable. You are so lovable that I would drop my weapon and go against every single thing I have ever learnt, and so would they, because of you. I taught them to hate while love still poisoned my thoughts.
This time, you do laugh, dipping your head as unexpected warmth settles deep in your chest. “I think I get it from you,” you say, because you’re realising the word forgiveness has made a home on the tip of your tongue. You won’t say it—there’s still a heavy amount of unease resting in your mind, and you think it might always be there—but you can feel it. It feels heavy and weighted and painfully familiar to love. You think they must be far more similar than you ever realised.
Celine gives you a soft-half smile, though her eyes betray her. “You would have gotten it from Miyeong.”
“I learnt everything from you,” you correct. You don’t have to tell her that most of those lessons were unnecessary and unneeded. You don’t have to tell her that you’re trying to disregard a lot of what you were brought up with. “I’m happy, Celine,” you say. Please be happy for me. Please.
“Good,” Celine murmurs. “That’s all I have ever wanted for you.”
“You wanted my patterns gone,” you say, though you know what her response will be. You just need to hear it.
“I did,” Celine confirms. “I thought that would be what...I thought that’s what had to happen. Wrongfully,” she adds on, a little louder. “I assumed wrong. If anything, I should have...” Celine trails off for a second, her lips quirking up into something more than a half-smile. “I should have known you would have never followed the path I laid out for you.”
There isn’t a single note of disapproval or disappointment in her voice. No bitter-tinged hints of failure.
Celine looks proud of you when she whispers, “You’ve always been stubborn. I’m glad they are, too. And Mira, and Zoey.”
You frown at the separation of “they” from “Mira and Zoey” until you catch her eyes shifting, studying you. Lingering on your patterns.
[ touch ]
You’re seventeen when you come back to the compound from your first fight.
The honmoon had wavered in a way that sounded completely different than anything you had heard before. The waves rippled pink, and the hair on the back of your neck stood up, prepared for a fight. Mira and Zoey had the same look, and Celine told you exactly what needed to be done, even though you could feel it deep in your stomach.
Celine presses a heavy bag of frozen peas to your jaw, her hand absentmindedly coming to brush your hair out of your face. Every single part of you aches. Bloodied knuckles, a split lip, an ugly bump forming on your head. Your jaw is probably the worst—you hit the ground hard, but you don’t regret it. Mira was getting overwhelmed. She’s only had her woldo for a week and a half, and she’s a fast learner, but there were so many demons.
“I’m sorry,” you mumble, biting back the sharp pain that splinters all through your face. You almost chase after it, but you know that you can’t flex your jaw in a way that Celine won’t notice, so you force yourself to abstain.
Celine makes a noise, pressing the bag a little firmer to your face, not unkindly. “Don’t talk. You did just fine, Rumi. Hunters are meant to protect each other. You do not leave one another alone. You do not leave your fellow hunter in harm’s way.”
“Still,” you mutter, feeling the heavy weight of her expectations. “I should have...shouldn’t have even let it happen in the first place.”
You’re bitter. You scowl at the floor, anger and something that you think might be hatred surging up in your veins. You can’t stop thinking about the way she said I love you like a chore. Celine hardly touches you these days, and this hardly feels earned. You messed up. You messed up, and you feel like you’re being coddled, and...it feels like how it did when you were ten and suddenly stopped wanting to be taken care of. It feels like the last time Celine pressed a band-aid onto your nose because you asked her to stop. Why did she start again? You said you were going to your room to patch up after Celine had done a run-down on Zoey and Mira, and then she followed you, and...
“You’ll learn,” Celine tells you, her hand hovering above your shoulder. In what feels like a split second decision, her knuckles come to rest against your cheek. You lean into the touch and feel disgusted with yourself immediately after. “Mira is okay. So is Zoey.”
You squeeze your eyes shut. “Stop. Please.”
Celine says nothing more. You pretend like you aren’t imagining that splintering pain through your face is actually from the time she nearly broke your nose. It makes it easier to bear the feeling of her hand against your face, burning your skin, making you wonder if the love you crave from her will always have to hurt.
“They—?”
“I learnt everything from you,” Celine interrupts, her voice steady. “You have taught me more than I ever could have expected. Do you remember your bike?”
You swallow past the lump in your throat, confused on what this has to do with anything. “I taught myself.”
“Stubborn,” Celine agrees, and the word makes your lips quirk up, just slightly. “Your trees. I didn’t teach you that, either.”
“No,” you agree. “I figured it out.”
Celine dips her head. “I tied your shoes for you. It was harder than I expected it to be, doing it for someone else. I was terrified I somehow managed to do it wrong, that you would fall, that you would hurt yourself. I hated buying you that bike because you were so reckless.”
You can’t stop yourself from smiling. “You had a motorcycle.”
“And Miyeong was equally displeased about that,” Celine quips, her eyes sparkling in the golden light that has found its way inside your home. “Being hypocritical has been something I’ve struggled with my entire life. Ideals, routines, orders, structure. Everything is expected to go somewhere particular. I should have been the one to teach you to ride a bike.”
You blink, unable to pick up on the specific emotion in her voice. “I was—”
“Stubborn?” Celine offers again, her lips curling back just enough for you to catch a glimpse of teeth. “I should have taught you. I couldn’t understand what you were unable to pick up on. I let you hurt yourself while you did what I should have done.”
Scraped knees, bloodied elbows. It looked worse than it felt, you had just accidentally smeared blood down your legs when you planted your hands on your knees and then doubled back over when your palms found the raw skin.
You know what she’s saying. You understand this. The quiet meanings behind meanings, the way you both dance around what you both want to say. Still, you go on, “It really wasn’t—”
“Rumi,” Celine cuts you off, her voice soft, but commanding. You snap your jaw shut. “I should have taught you; you taught me. You were always...mature. Insightful. Particularly well-spoken for your age. And these...” Celine breathes out, her hand stretching across the table.
You place your hand down. Her fingers ghost over your knuckles before her fingers intertwine with your own. She’s touching you. Your patterns, she’s touching your patterns, and she’s looking at you, and she’s touching you.
“You figured this out on your own, too. I’m sorry,” Celine whispers, squeezing your hand. “I should have been the one to teach you how to love these. I’m sorry, Rumi.”
She’s touching you.
You don’t mean to, but your other hand clasps atop hers, and you tap out a quick, frantic, taptaptap that makes your heart catch in your throat as soon as you realise what you’ve done. Celine, of course, is staring at you, something like expectancy and bewilderment written across her features.
“I’m—” you cut yourself off. Sorry? Are you? “It’s...it, um, Zoey was the one who—” you sink your teeth down into your lip, willing yourself to actually speak and stop stumbling over your words. “It means...I love you. She, um, she thought that I didn’t really...or couldn’t, maybe, say it.”
You’re almost ready to plead with Celine to forget this—you very strongly consider pulling out your five pleases as some sort of last ditch attempt at saving this—but before you can even speak, you feel Celine’s hand slip from your own. You watch as she rises from her chair, coming around to stand in front of you. The pause feels like it lasts a lifetime, thousands of years placed into a matter of seconds. The silence buzzes like hope rather than rejection.
Celine wraps her arms around you. She pulls you against her chest and settles her head to yours, and she squeezes you as tightly as she can before one of her hands comes to settle on your shoulder—your bare shoulder. Slowly, with no uncertainty of the meaning but with all the hesitancy of being fearful that she might get it wrong, Celine presses three trembling, gentle taps to your shoulder. To your patterns. You have them memorised, you know where they’re at on your body, you know that she’s touching your patterns and she’s touching you and she’s saying, I love you, all of you, I love you, and you think you might start to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Celine whispers, her voice loud in your ears, “That I could never make it mean enough to you.”
You throw your arms around her and bury yourself in the crook of her neck. You don’t offer up another series of taps, but you tremble in her arms and allow her to hold you, and you feel like the heavy weight tied around your throat has fallen.
“This is enough," you whisper, breathless and winded and dizzy. This is big, this means something, this is more than you could ever speak into the air.
Grand and insurmountable. Just like love always is.
[ different ]
You spend the early morning of your twenty-fifth birthday at the compound; you offered it up as a win-win to Zoey and Mira—who were both miserable about not getting to have you for the whole day—so they could have time to plan whatever they wanted for when you got back. That was enough to get the two of them to light up, and then they were practically shoving you out the door. After a very romantic breakfast in bed, obviously.
(Derpy, of course, also enjoyed his breakfast in bed. You’re still trying to teach him how to not beg for food, albeit with little success, but you’ve at least had more success than Zoey has with trying to teach him soft paws.)
You let Bobby drive you to the compound, because he was insistent on getting to see you for at least a little today, citing that the last time you saw each other had been a full two weeks ago, and he couldn’t take it any longer. You love him more than you could ever say—isn’t that how it always is when it comes to you?—and capitalised off of his insistence by dragging him to a flower market. You were almost buzzing when you came out of the market, arms full, Bobby struggling to carry out the three basil trees you were dead set on.
Celine has always been more inclined toward succulents and cacti, but she has a soft spot for the beautiful and well-made little terrariums that are more for decoration than anything else. You also bought flowers. A lot of flowers. Lisianthus—blue picotee, because you caught Celine staring at them for half a second too long when you were ten, and you noticed how they were always placed on the table when you would bring them to her in your older years. Front and center.
Bobby helped you carry your haul to the front door before he retreated back to the car, though he gave a very firm reminder that he is “right there in the car”, and then demanded, “you will come and get me if something happens Rumi tell me that you’ll do that can you promise me that if something happens you’ll leave the house and turn left and come get me”, which you laughed and promised him that you would, though you had to promise it a full five times before he eventually relented and disappeared from your line of sight.
You knock with your shoulder, because your hands are full of bags, and you’re convinced if you move too much, you’re going to knock over all three basil trees that sit at your feet, which you really don’t want to do.
It doesn’t come as a surprise when the door immediately opens. You offer a sheepish grin when you watch Celine arch an eyebrow at you, blinking as she clearly takes in the scene in front of her, which you can’t blame her for; you have at least three bags hooked onto both arms, you’re slowly moving to stand on only one foot because one of those bags is way heavier than the rest, and you also brought trees, so there’s that, too, and okay, maybe you went a little overboard.
“Rumi,” Celine greets, her lips quirking up into a half-smile, amusement clear in her tone. Celine immediately takes four out of the six bags from you, carefully joining you outside. She hooks one of the trees under her arm, pausing as she waits for you to follow. You’re quick to grab the last two trees, bounding after her once she starts to move again.
The trek to the greenhouse—the makeshift greenhouse, really—isn’t a long one. Or, at least, it’s one that you’re so familiar with that it feels like second nature to navigate to it. It’s unusually nice for today; it’s the warmest it’s been this entire week, even with the sun slightly obscured by clouds. There isn’t very much snow on the ground, though you’re still convinced that there’s going to be another snowstorm before spring fully takes hold, and you’re usually right about those kinds of things.
You let the bags roll off of your arms once you reach the greenhouse, setting both trees down carefully. Celine does the same, stretching her arms above her head, resting one wrist to her forehead.
“Happy birthday,” Celine murmurs, gaze suddenly directed onto you. “And thank you for these. It should be the other way around.”
You laugh, crouching down to pull flowers and plants out of your bags. “Think of it like a mutual gift,” you say, keeping your tone light, though you’re being deathly serious. “You introduced me to all of...” you spread your arms out around you, beaming. “This.”
“You’ve always had a natural inclination,” Celine says, her eyes sparkling a little. “What did you get?”
“Basil trees,” you say, gesturing to the three trees that sit close together. They’re not really trees—just basil plants that have been grafted onto rootstock. You’ve been more or less enamoured with them for years. “Lisianthus, for you,” you continue, pulling those carefully out of the bag, setting them gently onto the ground beside you. “Some succulents, three cacti. This one has a hat.”
You grin when you pull the spiral cactus out of the bag, pulling out the little rawhide hat a second later. “You don’t have—”
“Leave it,” Celine says, almost gently. “If it came with it, then it’s meant to have it.”
You dip your head, grinning at the ground. “Okay. They had a few terrariums,” you say, pulling two glass spheres out next, adjusting them so the openings are facing Celine. They’re nothing that special; just assorted succulents settled in a rocky terrain, with a few fake, plastic sprigs that are more or less just for flourish. “Delphiniums,” you add on, tugging those out of the bag. “And...more.”
Celine gives a light huff, which is basically a laugh. “How long were you there?”
“I was the first person there,” you tell her, beaming at the look of pride that crosses over her face. “Only for an hour or so. Bobby looked like he was going to die if I gave him another basil tree to hold.”
“He’s built for handling crises and doubly sold-out venues,” Celine agrees, crouching briefly to scoop up the majority of plants you’ve lined out along the ground. “Thank you. The greenhouse is always more alive when you visit.”
You take the words for what they are; a massive praise, a genuine compliment that will settle inside of your chest and stay there for the rest of your life. You carefully pick up each flower binding left over, working to lining them up against the tables at the entrance of the greenhouse, placing them in segments—most of the plants will stay in here; some of them will return to the house. You keep the lisianthus specifically placed at the farthest edge of the table for ease of access once you leave.
You fall into an easy pattern, Celine’s movements mimicking your own. Or, you correct, it’s the other way around. You work effortlessly around her, beside her, alongside her, falling into a familiar rhythm that reminds you of the taste of sun and soil and early mornings on Sundays. Celine introduced you to the greenhouse when you were eight, though you really started appreciating it more when you were ten. You always preferred hiding away in your trees when you got frustrated, but you found yourself in the greenhouse a lot, too.
You’re just about to move the cacti closer to the window when you realise Celine is staring at you. You managed to make it clear to her that it was important to you that she looked at you. She hasn’t seemed to have an issue with it ever since your talk, which you appreciate more than you can say, but this is different. This isn’t holding your gaze while you speak, it isn’t her not turning her head away just because your patterns show more these days. It’s heavier. Studying, calculating.
The silence is broken by a simple, “You cut your hair.”
Mira had cut your hair months ago, back before even Zoey’s birthday. She touched up on it again last month, though it had hardly grown out at all in that time. You had talked to Celine—really talked to her—only two months ago. This isn’t the first time she’s seeing you like this.
“Mira did,” you quietly correct, suddenly nervous. “She did a good job.”
Celine hums. “She did.”
There’s a pause. Studying, calculating. You can practically feel Celine working out her thoughts in her head. You think you must have gotten that from her.
“You look good,” Celine murmurs. And then, softly, “I like it. It suits you.”
You completely stop your movements, staring at the cactus in your hand. You grin so hard that your face hurts, aching in a way that you’ve learnt to associate with love and familiarity and home and family and taptaptap rather than blood and broken noses. You raise your other hand, running it through your hair, letting out a low breath of relief.
“Thank you,” you say, though the words hardly feel like enough. You’ve never been good at this part.
Celine hums again, quieter, softer. “Do you like it?” she asks, with the slightest tinge of hesitancy and uncertainty to her tone. Careful, cautious. Neither of you have ever been good at this, either.
“I do,” you assure her, twisting your head to the side to watch her. “I think I’ll keep it like this for a while.”
Celine dips her head. “Good.”
You shift on your feet, practically thrumming with excitement. You can feel the honmoon sing excitedly with you, the soft humming coming up to a crescendo, washing over you. You force yourself back into your movements, though it takes another few seconds before you actually remember how to move like a person. You cut across the greenhouse, situating the cacti with the rest of your collection, very precisely setting the rawhide hat on top of the spiral cactus. You can hear Celine moving from behind you, and the familiarity of it all makes your chest ache in a way you’ve never been able to describe.
Heaviness, the always-weighted whisperings of love. You’ve started to write more than just certainties, though you keep your new journals very separate from your usual ones. Your new journals are filled with...maybes. What-ifs. Things you think are probably true, but you’re still working out in your mind. You’re still learning how to want and how to tentatively reach for things without feeling like you’ve taken too much just by considering it. You’re starting to figure out love in a way that you have only ever read about before. It’s tactile, sort of. Present in more than just words and grand declarations, which you’ve always known, but you’re only just now really understanding what that means.
Part of it is hearing Celine in the greenhouse. Part of it is the dirt under your nails and the feeling of the sun that still lingers on your neck. Part of it is the way Celine told you to keep the ridiculous hat on the cactus you bought for her. Part of it is the fact that you are choosing to spend the early morning of your twenty-fifth birthday with her.
You spot Celine slipping on heaving gardening gloves. You’ve always been adamant on not needing them, and that especially rings true now; you have claws these days, too. You don’t want to accidentally poke holes through the fingertips, though you can already hear Celine’s voice in your head, assured and steady, “You won’t. They’re designed to be tough.”
“I think they’re going to get me flowers,” you suddenly say, turning your head over your shoulder to look at her again. “Did they call you?”
Celine gives you a look that gives away everything. “No.”
You squint at her. Celine squints back. It’s a ridiculous display that you haven’t seen since you were a child, and it makes you laugh. You roll your eyes, grinning as you turn back on your heels, picking up a potted evergreen to keep your hands busy. That only lasts for a second, because you realise the evergreen doesn't need to go anywhere else, so you begrudgingly set it down. You stand there for a few moments, your hands hovering in the air.
“Rumi,” Celine says, voice full of amusement. “Help me with your trees.”
You’re more than willing to do that.
You stride over to her, hoisting up two of the basil trees, letting Celine pick up the third. You follow her farther down the greenhouse, setting both of your trees down when she places hers back onto the ground. You help adjust them, making sure that all of them are being hit by the sun. You and Celine have both always been particular, which you think you sort of have to be when it comes to plants, though you know that Zoey and Mira would tease you about how it takes three whole minutes of careful adjusting before the two of you are pleased.
It goes like that for the next hour. Trimming, propagating—Celine’s snake plant hoard only grows each time you come to visit—and watering. It’s an easy routine that you delight in having, and Celine’s company feels more like warmth rather than anything else. Neither of you are distant. It’s easy. For the first time that you can remember, spending time with Celine feels easy; no pressure, no expectations, nothing. Just you, just her, together.
You had broken down a week before you showed up unannounced to talk with her. You begged Zoey to tell you that everything would turn out fine, that you wouldn’t freeze up entirely, that you would be able to handle whatever came of it. Zoey assured you that you’d be fine, quietly telling you that, It’ll probably be different, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s bad. It’s just different.
Different settles in your mind. This is familiar. Working in the greenhouse with Celine is hardly anything new, but the warmth, the ease, the comfortability, is all different. Not new, but...more. Easier. The long stretches of silence are more comfortable than they are harsh. They’re not tinged with anger.
“Celine,” you murmur, watching as she pauses. You lean against her shoulder, resting your head against hers. “I love you.”
You watch as she slips off one of her gloves, her hand finding your own. She squeezes your hand three times. “Happy birthday, Rumi.”
Different. Not bad, but different.
You close your eyes and grin, squeezing her hand back. Different.
Love seems to be so much easier when given the chance to show up differently. Grand and insurmountable as always, as it always will be, as it always has been.