In a way, anyways. She was in their shared dressing room, mere minutes before they had to be live. Staring at her own reflection in the mirror.
A year ago, she had watched her patterns travel up the length of her throat. Like a manifestation from one of her worst nightmares. On the most important night of her life. And in that moment, it felt like she had already failed.
She couldn’t sing. If she couldn’t sing, the Honmoon would never turn golden. The Honmoon would never turn golden, and it was all her fault. It was all her fault for being a demon. For having patterns. For being born wrong. For being born.
That was all a year ago now. The weeks that had followed hadn’t been any better. Quite possibly the most stressful period in their entire careers (both official and “unofficial”). Rumi had actually been grateful when her girls had firmly (and immovably) insisted on hiatus following the Namsan tower “concert”.
She was grateful for her girls.
Mira and Zoey. Her two best friends, the loves of her life. Who she told herself repeatedly would’ve happily struck her down without a second thought, after everything they’d been through together.
It felt so silly thinking about it now.
Her fingers traced up her front to the zipper of her performance costume. As she pulled it down, she couldn’t fight the small smile that began to grow across her lips. The patterns on her neck were still there. Still as clear as the day she first saw them. But there were new marks there as well.
Hickeys. Lots of them. Blossoming red bruises on her throat, down to her chest, across her shoulders. There was one just underneath her jawline (Zoey’s favorite place to latch on), and when she slipped a hand into the collar of her costume around to the base of her neck, she shuddered as she pressed down on the mark that Mira had left when she’d practically tried to sink her teeth into Rumi’s flesh.
Almost all of them aligned with the violet-tinted patterns that marred her skin. As if they were worshipping them.
A year ago, she had stared at the same patterns on her skin in this same mirror and felt disgust. Felt empty. Felt hopeless. Felt herself fall as the world finally crumbled beneath her feet after years of standing on one isolated, lonely platform of solid ground.
A year ago, she had looked in this mirror and saw a demon. A horrible, filthy demon. A demon whose lies and secrets were going to cost her everything she had ever worked for sooner rather than later.
Now she felt like she was floating.
Now she could feel the phantom sensation of love, devotion, loyalty, ghosting just along her skin. Where soft reverent lips had been, where passionate hands had gripped her tightly, possessively. Quiet pleas for her to "stay", that she readily obeyed.
Now she looked in that mirror and just saw Rumi. Rumi who was loved. Rumi who was cherished. Rumi who was half-demon, and that was okay.
Rumi. Who she was always supposed to be. Who she always was.
“Rumi, you’re on in five!”
“I’ll be right out, Bobby!”
She zipped her costume back up, watching the marks on her neck disappear beneath the fabric.
Invisible to the world. But not to her. Not to her girls.
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
titsay
stormborns
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
