Gay Ramblings, Probably

Celine: of course. Thank you for your… discretion

Bobby: and for signing all 23 NDAs

Warden: *opens cell door*

Mira, 45 years old and sporting a nasty black eye, lounging lazily in her cell: hey guys. Thanks for the bail money.

Bobby: oh my god. *immediately rushing over and fussing over her* Are you bleeding? Are you hurt???

Mira: *smirking* not as bad as the other guy is, you should see what I left on his stomach-

Celine: -Ryu-Choi Mira, let me make myself very clear. You had better have a very good reason that I’m bailing you out of jail for assaulting a reporter.

Bobby: *shakes his head disappointedly* Mira, I know you know better than this. Is this really the example you want to set for your kids?

Mira: *grumbling*

Bobby: Mira.

Mira: *growling* he laughed at me and said it was a good thing we *aggressively air quotes* finally had a boy, since apparently we just couldn’t stop trying until we got one, otherwise Zoey and Rumi would never keep the baby weight off.

Celine and Bobby: …

Celine: … you should’ve aimed lower. I trained you better than this.

Bobby: I’m filing a restraining order. And mailing a glitter bomb. Then I’m taking the kids for ice cream while you and Zoey and Rumi go kick his ass.

When she catches Rumi staring AGAIN this time her gaze is trained on Zoey's arms. Once again Zoey looks to see if there's a bug crawling on her, a rip in her sleeve, anything out of place that would have Rumi so intensely concentrated yet unwilling to say WHY she's staring.

It happens again later that night when Zoey is getting ready for bed and her tank top exposes her shoulders which Rumi cannot tear her eyes from. "Ok you have got to tell me why you keep looking at me like that! It's starting to freak me out."

Rumi, like evey other time she's been caught, lightly coughs and pink dusts her cheek. "Your um, freckles...there's more."

Zoey looks to her shoulders and down her arms and starts laughing. "Yeah, they do that sometimes when it's sunny." She can tell Rumi is confused by this so she explains, "when I am overexposed to UV rays my freckles darken and appear to multiply, in a way they're kinda like my patterns."

Rumi steps closer into Zoey's space so she can examine the freckles that dot across Zoey's nose. She ghosts a finger over Zoey's cheek still bewildered by just how many more freckles there are than usual. She whispers, "they're beautiful"

Now it's Zoey's turn to blush. She lets Rumi trace over the dots like she has to Rumi's patterns numerous times before. And if she weren't so paralyzed by the anxious butterflies im her stomach she'd probably say something stupid like "wanna count them?" Instead she just watches the way Rumi's eyes rake over her shoulders and down her arms. She's relieved when Rumi asks what she can tell she's thinking is a silly question, "do you have any favorites?"

Yes she does, numerous ones, and for different reasons. She points each and every one out to Rumi with increasing enthusiasm, including the lone freckle that's a little too close to somewhere she probably shouldn't be showing off willy nilly.

Okay, this was written late at night for me, so not much in terms of editing. Also probably the most explicit piece I've done, but you know what? @princington's latest FK!AU piece gave inspiration. So here you go. Full smut under the cut.

Superhero Mira, pressured on all sides to start killing villains by her peers (most of whom do so) her parents (legacy hero’s) her brother (who is a jerk) and the media.

Civilian (no powers) Zoey is the only one who tells her not to kill the villains, instead arresting them and putting them through the courts via gadgets she makes/info about their powers.

Rumi who’s a “Supervillain” (who targets corrupt hero’s and takes away their powers) runs into a burning building and saves Zoey. (Zoey was caught in the crossfire between Mira and Rumi.)

Zoey is obviously working with one of the hero’s, so Rumi takes as much of her gear as she can along with Zoey to get info. (She intimidates but won’t hurt her.)

Mira assumes she kidnapped Zoey and is planning on torturing her. She ends up finding them a week later where Rumi is literally on her knees begging Zoey to leave her secret lair, no, stop, why are you taking apart my sunlamp, WHERE DID YOU GET URANIUM?? Stuff like that.

So Mira ends up just casually walking up behind Rumi and hugging her (her flame powers would let her burn Rumi to a cinder, and Rumi’s teleport wouldn’t work while someone’s holding her). She asks Zoey if she’s ok, and Zoey starts rambling about how nice Rumi is and how she refused to torture Zoey “even though she wanted info about *insert transparently corrupt hero’s name here* which I do have.”

For Mira it clicks really fast that Rumi isn’t targeting hero’s as a whole, specifically corrupt ones after she sees the meticulous notes Rumi has. (She let go of Rumi and started rifling through them despite her protests.)

(“Did you color code your notes about hero’s costumes?”

Rumi, who is blushing and stuttering and trying to grab the papers Mira is holding out of her reach and flustered in a way Mira’s never seen:)

Basically, the two of them adopt Rumi into their little group of “no-kill hero’s-villains-civilians”.

right around the first time rumi’s patterns spread, when she was 7 or 8, she stopped asking celine to do it. despite how long of a task it had become, celine was genuinely disappointed the first night she wasnt asked.

decades later, rumi and her wives and their 3 year old daughters come to visit jeju for a few days. like their mama, the triplets have started to amass a collection of their own plushies. celine also cant help but notice that a few of rumi’s old teddy bears have made their way into her daughters’ possession, passed down to them. they have names for each and every one of their plushies, some of them more unique than others (hani has a stuffed frog named sir cornellius wobblytoe hoppington xiv, while jihae has a stuffed cat named meowmeow. aeri’s two favorite plushies are a stuffed turtle named shelldon jr, who is the son of zoey’s stuffed turtle, shelldon sr, and a stuffed alligator named bear), but they have kept the same names that rumi had for her teddy bears.

one night, celine walks to the bedroom her granddaughters are staying so she can wish them goodnight, and she sees rumi in there.

the sight of what she’s doing sends her mind back decades in time. tears form in her eyes.

rumi is kissing her daughters’ plushies, and wishing each and every one of them goodnight. the three of them watch her with expressions that celine distinctly remembers seeing on rumi herself while she watched celine kiss her teddy bears. they even hand the next one to be kissed off the same way she used to.

they seem to have a bit of order to it. each girl gets a turn handing off a plushie to rumi, who kisses the toy and wishes it goodnight, then hands it off to mira, who does the same and then hands it to zoey, who does the same, before she hands it back to whoever’s plushie it is. each girl waited patiently for their turn, so there was no fighting about who got to go next.

zoey having exclusively fair-weather friends. when they're having fun, it's fun, and she recalls the memories for days . but when days are too long and school hallways are too narrow, she cannot confide in any of them.

zoey being part of trios, except she always feels like a placeholder, like a punchline to a sour joke. and so, since third wheeling is anything but nice, she ends up in bigger friend groups, hoping that would help her fit in better.

instead, the issues repeat, except they're even more obvious. she is ignored and talked-over, included solely because no one wants to be the one who directly tells her to leave them alone.

zoey's mom telling her to stop wearing earbuds so much—you'll damage your hearing—and she thinks to herself, there is nothing good to hear around me anyway. zoey's dad telling her to go out sometime, to stop draining nights by writing until the sunrise—your eyes will shrivel up from staring at the paper—and she thinks to herself, the outside world has nothing nice to offer.

and her parents think she's fine, you know? their girl is this bubbly and extroverted person, jumpy and jittery. when they visit uncles and aunts in other states, she plays with her cousins. during dinners, she still chatters and jokes. sure, her eyebags are more prominent, but she's a teen!

zoey dreams about an escape. there's a period—mid-divorce, when talks of custody cloud any other topic—when she believes living in korea would offer her a new, fresh start. but then she thinks how teens there are likely no different from teens here, and she will always stick out like a sore thumb.

she is destined to be alone. too boring/annoying/weird for her peers, and to her parents a bullet point in the lawyer's office more than a daughter.