Chapter Text
Zoey can’t help the culturally induced disgust she feels at the prospect of eating raw meat. She knows that it’s a normal thing in many parts of the world. In fact, there’s probably more cultures that have at least one raw meat dish than ones that don’t.
Raw fish is alright (curse her arbitrary American peasant standards for acceptable foods!). It’s never been her favourite, but she can down sashimi no problem.
But Rumi’s beloved type of treat isn’t sashimi...
Yukhoe, mett, basashi, carne salada, and more. At any top end restaurant the girls find themselves at, dishes of these sort often end up on Rumi’s plate. Every bite relished, she thoroughly enjoys herself on these occasions.
Which is great for Rumi! All the power to her. If she wants to eat a plate of chilled, slimy, only barely seasoned meat strips that were probably shaved directly off a live animal the restaurant owner keeps out back, then who is Zoey to judge? She takes pride in having never been one to yuck on someone’s yum.
Zoey’s problem though, is that Rumi is exceedingly generous. Without fail, every single time, Rumi will offer for her girls to try some. Which is hardly out of the ordinary mind you! There’s not a single time when dumplings from one girl’s plate don’t end up on the others in exchange for some bulgogi and rice. During snack sessions chip bags are wordlessly rotated around the group in perfect lockstep. Ever since the girls started eating together, they’ve shared food.
Though Rumi shows no sign of offense, Zoey can’t help feeling a little bit bad about declining her offers. With how ubiquitous sharing is among them, it feels less like a simple turn down and more like a rejection every time her stomach turns slightly at the offered portion and she has to say no.
Mira will try the occasional tamer dish; steak tartare and its variants being a common one. Without fail, she’ll accept Rumi’s offer to try some, give a genuinely thoughtful look as she tastes, and tell Rumi, “not bad, but still not really my thing. More for you, tiger.”
While more adventurous than Zoey, Mira drew a hard line at torisashi. Tersely, she’d asked the older woman if she had genuinely lost her mind. That outburst was definitely on Rumi though. During a break on the Japan leg of their most recent world tour, she’d dragged them all to a famous yakitori place and practically jump scared Mira with the thin slices of chicken, all pink except for the outside that had been lightly torched.
Discretely pulling her skewers closer to herself in a protective manner, Zoey did ask that time if Rumi was really sure about this.
“Absolutely! Bacteria like salmonella come from cross contamination from the chicken’s gut. Raw breast like this is safe as long it’s fresh and butchered properly,” Rumi had reassured Zoey with a wide toothed smile.
“This is one of the top restaurants in the world, Zo. 100% there’s nothing to worry about,” she said as she had picked up a piece of chicken with the intention of offering it to Zoey. The gesture was aborted halfway when she saw the poorly concealed look of genuine fear on the younger woman’s face.
That was the only time Zoey had expressed something outwardly negative about Rumi’s particular choice of treat. While she feels bad about not sharing this these experiences with Rumi, she does pat herself on the back for mostly not letting any explicit disgust spill over. Rumi can still tell it makes her a bit uncomfortable, though. She doesn’t possess Mira levels of emotional perception, but it hardly takes a genius to clock the strain in Zoey’s voice when she gives a, “no thanks, Rumi! It’s your thing, really. You should enjoy it.”
All of that is to say, that’s why it takes a 2am kitchen tap water run for Zoey to witness Rumi tucking into the small stash of raw meat that is kept in their fridge.
She makes eye contact with Rumi and the older woman freezes in place. The beef strip that was pinched between her fingers wavers in the air slightly due to its abrupt stop on the way to her mouth. Neither of them dare to break the silence of this moment.
Wordlessly, Rumi offers Zoey her food like she always does. She makes a gesture, tilting her hand towards Zoey with an upturned brow. Zoey watches the beef swing lightly in response to the movement.
Maybe it’s because she’s dead tired. Or something about the scene itself, being a more intimate exchange between two women who mean the world to each other rather than a stuffy restaurant. But Zoey doesn’t feel the light massage of nausea in her stomach that usually accompanies watching Rumi eat raw meat.
Rumi had sat perched on the kitchen counter with her legs lightly kicking, picking raw beef out of a tupperware like you’d pick at barbeque leftovers before she’d noticed Zoey. Treating the beef not like a fancy delicacy that you swallow with a posh smile to posture to rich people, but just as a simple food that she likes. Suddenly the unconventional dish is not as intimidating
Fuck it
“Yeah why not,” Zoey sighs wistfully, holding her hand out to Rumi. With a slight twinkle in her eye, Rumi deposits the morsel into Zoey’s hand and it slumps down a bit like a worm.
Before she can hesitate, Zoey puts it in her mouth and… it’s not bad at all. She continues to chew as Rumi picks out a juicy piece to feed herself.
For some reason she always expected it to be pungent. Her whole life she’d been conditioned to view raw meat as something in a constant state of rotting. A breeding ground for life threatening bacteria that can only be cleansed by a strict 70 degree internal temperature. She braces for a stench to flood her senses as she’s met with… not very much to be honest.
The taste is mild. There’s subtle hints of that distinct “beef” flavour, but overall the slight metallic taste of blood is what hits Zoey as being most prominent.
The texture though, is exquisite. From watching animal documentaries, predators struggling to tear into their kills, using the full force of their neck and swallowing chunks of meat whole, she expected to be gnawing for a minute at least. But the meat practically melts in her mouth. No doubt because Bobby settles for nothing less than the highest quality possible when it comes to organising stock for their fridge.
Zoey swallows and is surprised that she wants more.
She joins Rumi on the counter and upon making a move closer to the container, Rumi immediately repositions so that Zoey has easy access.
She helps herself to a few more strips, familiarising herself with the taste and gives Rumi a quick hug (with her non meat hand). She hops off the counter to wash up and just like that, heads off back to bed. She was still incredibly tired after all
After that, Rumi’s a lot more comfortable raiding her treats when Zoey or Mira are up and about. Zoey will even help herself to a couple of pieces more often than not. Now bonded by this early morning encounter, Rumi’s even gotten her to try a few other animals and even organ meats when she had them in the house.
The thing is, now that Zoey’s also helping herself to whatever gamey treats happen to lie in the fridge, she’s realising just how much raw protein Rumi actually consumes. There’re some days when she’ll notice a good 500g of assorted meats in the back of the fridge when she stops by the kitchen for breakfast. After hours holed up in the studio she’ll come back to see over half of it gone, and then in the morning it’ll full again with different meats, having been replenished. Zoey assumes by some delivery that comes in at ass o’clock in the morning and is accepted by Rumi who makes a habit of being up at that time.
This is starting to seem less like the occasional delicacy Rumi enjoys and instead like something that makes up a significant portion of her diet.
At some point, she ends up alone with Bobby and can’t help interrogating him about this quirk she’s only recently noticed.
“Heeeey Bobby. You’re pretty involved in all of our catering services, yeah? Have you ever noticed how much raw meat Rumi eats?” Zoey attempts to say casually.
“Oh yeah, we have an arrangement with one of the top butchering companies. Rest assured Zoey! Only the absolute freshest and best quality for my girls,” he replies with a smirk, giving the lyricist a set of playful finger guns.
“But Bobby, it’s so much! I swear she never used to eat it this much. Maybe she’s developing some kind of iron deficiency and that’s why she’s got this sudden craving. Or-“ Zoey’s interrupted as Bobby lightly lays a hand on her shoulder.
“Zoey, I’ve been ordering the same amount of high grade meat ever since you guys moved into the penthouse,” Bobby says with a chuckle. “Rumi made it very clear from the start that this is something she wants always stocked in the house, no questions asked!”
At this revelation Zoey just levels Bobby with a blank stare. Grin faltering a touch, Bobby continues.
“I mean, yeah. It’s a little bit weird, but you should hear some of the horror stories about other celebrities I’ve got,” Bobby says with a grimace, as though just the recollection brings him physical pain. Shaking his head to clear the memories, he squares his shoulders and puffs his chest out with pride.
“If the only unconventional request Huntr/x has is that their lead singer needs to be fed like a siberian tiger,” he brings a closed fist down into his empty palm in a gesture of determination, “then I will do everything in my power to keep that fridge stocked with the highest quality stuff possible and be happy for it!”
To be honest, Bobby is completely right. While certainly strange, there’s nothing upsetting or sinister about this particular eccentricity of Rumi’s. Especially when compared to the insanity that crops up in other branches of the idol industry.
Zoey’s curiosity is hardly sated, though. She starts to keep diaries, notes about what she notices Rumi eating and how much. Theories begin to fill her pages.
During one of their quiet days, which Bobby ensures they get every once in a while through sheer scheduling magic, Mira leans over from her perch on the couch to peer over Zoey’s shoulder. Sat on the floor, the younger woman is surrounded by scrap pieces of paper, some organised in vague stacks and other scrunched and tossed aside. Working through two sizable notebooks at the same time, Mira watches as Zoey churns through data tables and hand plots graphs. She flips expertly between pages, cross-referencing different observations and tearing out scraps for rough work. Zoey’s always been mesmerising when she gets “in the zone”, but Mira’s willingness to enjoy the show wavers when she catches one of the table titles.
“Zoey. Why do you have a table with columns named ‘date’ and ‘amount of meat Rumi ate by mass’?”
Zoey had not thought about the creep factor of what she was working on. Caught out with everything open in the middle of the living room floor, she balks and scrambles to cover her work. Mira’s now much more pointed gaze continues to rove over her papers despite her effort.
“Gu-uhhhh,” Zoey lets out unintelligibly as her widened eyes meet Mira’s pointed stare. In response, her disapproving scowl deepens slightly and her eyebrow raises.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Zoey blurts as an embarrassed flush begins to dust her cheeks. At Mira’s lack of response, Zoey keeps going.
“It’s just.. uhhh. Have you noticed how much raw meat Rumi eats? I don’t just mean at restaurants and stuff,” Zoey makes a strange waving gesture with her hands. “She works through the stuff she keeps in the fridge here like a machine. You know she keeps some in the back of the fridge, right? Raw meat. That she usually just eats as is?”
No longer feeling quite as pinned by Mira’s gaze as she starts to talk, she turns back to her notes and looks for some data.
“I’ve known she had a little stash for a while, but Mira! I never knew she ate so much of it. This isn’t like, weird rich delicacy stuff. There’re some days I’ve seen her work through a kilogram of the stuff.”
Finding the page she was looking for, she shoves the graph she was working on into Mira’s face.
“I was trying to plot the amount that she eats over time to see any patterns. Maybe cycles that coincide with the moon?” Zoey says with perhaps too strong of a hopeful lilt. “But nothing. With the data I’ve got, it looks like it just fluctuates randomly. If there’re any trends they’ll hopefully show up if I can get my hands on more data.”
Well and truly, Zoey is back to being in her own world, the appropriate level of awkwardness for this situation she had experienced under Mira’s scrutiny completely forgotten.
“I’ve been trying to categorise what type of meats she’s eating as well. But that’s harder to do because I don’t actually want to dig through her food. Besides, it’s kinda hard to tell what species something came from when it’s just a pink blob,” Zoey says, trailing off at the end, caught by another thought.
“Oh! I can’t tell specifically what she’s eating, but I have been eyeballing how much organ meat she eats versus muscle meat.” Zoey, grabs at her second notebook, presumably to show Mira the table where she’s recorded this information. “I’m not really sure what a preference for one or the other would imply, though. Something I’ll definitely have to research int-“
Zoey is cut off as Mira gently grabs her wrist.
“Yes Zoey, I’ve noticed this about Rumi. She’s been doing it since we moved in here.” Finally, Mira’s eyes soften a touch. “I’m curious as well but I always just figured it was something medical.”
Among all of her theories about werewolves, cannibals, or family curses, that one had surprisingly never come up in her brainstorming.
“Look, I can appreciate the enthusiasm. But just be careful about prying too far? I know all about defensive Rumi,” Mira says with a roll of her eyes, recalling some of the clashes she’s had with the incredibly private woman when she’d gotten the sense that she was hiding something important. “I’m the last person who’d back down from confronting her on something that matters. But genuinely, I don’t think there’s anything there that’s worth invading her privacy like this.”
“Oh,” Zoey says quietly in response. Looking down at her sprawling papers, it hits her that she might have gotten a bit overeager.
The revelation that Mira’s probably right and this is likely some private medical matter is one hell of an excitement killer. While she still keeps her old notes and takes down new observations when they arise, she no longer sneaks into the fridge multiple times a day to pull out Rumi’s tupperware and weigh it.
After a few days pass, and Zoey’s had time to come down from her research induced mania, she’s shocked to realise she never thought to try the most obvious line of investigation.
She should just ask Rumi.
Not even a few hours later, after catching Rumi in the kitchen after returning from a photoshoot, she gets her answer.
“I just like it,” the older woman says while digging through the fridge for the container whose contents have been haunting Zoey.
Right. That’s why it hadn’t occurred to her to ask Rumi. It’s because Rumi is about as forthcoming as a brick wall.
A prime example of a Rumi answer right there. Short. Sweet. Offering barely any new information and simultaneously being almost impossible to follow up.
What’s Zoey supposed to say? ‘Actually, I think you’re wrong’? Absolutely masterful answer from Rumi if her goal had been to drive Zoey insane.
Defeated, Zoey picks out a cube of beef liver from the selection Rumi holds out towards her. Like always, a soft, genuine smile overtakes her features as Zoey indulges her. Most of what Zoey was feeling about her failed attempt to learn more washes away as she returns the grin.
She still really wants to know more. You don’t just stumble into eating raw meat like that. Even if you’re introduced to it young at some fancy restaurant. But with the way Rumi genuinely lights up with joy when sharing the little moments with Zoey, she’s fine with not knowing for now.