If someone were to ask Huntrix in an interview what they were best at besides being idols, Mira would say she was the queen of the kitchen. There wasn't a recipe she couldn't master, nor a kitchen utensil she didn't know how to use. The kitchen was her kingdom, and everything else was her subject.
The sink, however, seemed to have rebelled against her reign today.
No matter how hard Mira tried to turn on the tap, the water just wouldn't flow through the pipes and out of the spout so she could clean the dishes that had served as vessels for her latest creation.
"You good there, babe?" a voice said behind Mira before purple strands appeared in the periphery of her vision.
"Yeah, it's just this damn thing." She turned the tap on and off several times, as if that would change anything. "It just won't work."
Rumi hummed thoughtfully beside her, moving closer to inspect the sink more closely. She tried the same thing as Mira, and at first nothing happened, until Rumi opened both taps as wide as she could and a little water, barely a trickle, came out of the faucet.
"Huh," Rumi said quietly before turning off the taps. "Well, at least a little water is coming out, which means something might be clogged."
"Ugh, great," Mira complained, throwing her head back. "We'll have to call a plumber."
"Oh! No need to do that!" Rumi smiled at her. "It shouldn't be difficult to fix."
A pink eyebrow was raised skeptically.
"And who's supposed to fix it? I don't know anything about fixing sinks, and you know very well that Zoey is certainly a menace in the kitchen."
"I heard that!" They both turned toward the source of the sound, Zoey's scream at the end of the hall, from her bedroom with the door... closed... She certainly had tremendous lungs, not to mention her hearing.
Rumi chuckled softly before turning to Mira. "I can handle it. It wouldn't be the first time I've done something like this."
"What...?" Mira watched, wide-eyed, as Rumi bent down and opened the doors under the sink before sticking her head inside and inspecting everything. "What do you mean, 'not the first time'?"
"Celine and I used to live alone in the hanok, way out of town," Rumi said as she lay on her back and started fiddling with the pipes and valves above her head. "Hiring people to come and fix simple things like a sink or blown fuses was too much of a hassle. Once you understand how things work in your home, it's easier to fix them yourself than to ask someone to take a ferry ride all the way over, y'know?"
That... made sense, actually. How had Mira not thought of such an obvious thing? Of course Rumi knew how to do that 'fixing things of the house' stuff; she'd learned to treat her own wounds from a very young age, after all. Knowing how to fix a sink was, by comparison, a minor thing.
That proved to be a fleeting thought when Mira noticed what Rumi's new position was doing to her body. Her white tank top accentuated her strong arms, which flexed slightly as they inspected whatever it was Rumi was looking for in that PVC maze.
Mira wasn't staring, of course not.
Yes, appreciating was the right word, absolutely.
"Ah, I think I know what the problem is," Rumi commented, a cheerful note in her voice. Mira had to blink a few times to shift her attention from Rumi's biceps to whatever she was fiddling with. "The shut-off valves look worn out. I can barely move them; they're quite stiff. I think I'm gonna have to replace them."
"Uh..." If all it took to leave Mira speechless was for Rumi to lie down and raise her arms, they could have done it somewhere more appropriate, like any of their bedrooms. On the bed. Preferably naked. "Sure, yeah. Okay. Um, what do you need?"
Rumi grunted under her breath as she emerged from under the sink, standing a second later with seemingly inexhaustible energy, if her eager smile was any indication.
"We're going to have to shut off the main water supply to prevent accidents while I replace the valves." It was a criminal act for Rumi to throw her arms up to release some tension in her shoulders right in front of Mira. "Can you let the team know while I get my tools? I think they'll have to shut off all the water in the building, but it shouldn't take long."
Mira only remembered saying something resembling an affirmation before Rumi gave her a thumbs-up and disappeared into her room.
Minutes later, after they'd been told the water was shut off and Rumi had carried a toolbox into the kitchen that would put even the best plumber to shame (seriously, where did she keep that stuff?), the pair found themselves back in the same position that had almost made Mira blue screen.
Rumi, lying on her back, still sporting that goofy smile of hers, was wielding tools whose names Mira didn't know as she removed the darn valves that had caused the problem. Her arms and part of her abdomen were exposed for all to see, for Mira to admire, who couldn't look anywhere but at Rumi and only Rumi.
Was this what being hypnotized felt like? If so, please, never take Mira out of there. She was exactly where she wanted to be.
So focused was she on Rumi that the sudden giggles in the background felt like background noise, a product of her own mind. Thank Honmoon for her body's autopilot, which allowed her to hand Rumi the necessary tools when she asked, all while her eyes remained fixed on her girlfriendโher quite, criminally attractive girlfriend.
Perhaps the sink rebellion had been a good thing after all.
(Zoey's social media post, which appeared within hours of the incident, was, in Zoey's own words, her revenge for the "being a menace in the kitchen" comment.)
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