when she was little, rumi used to ask celine to kiss all of her teddy bears before she went to sleep. this was pretty easy back when rumi only had a few teddy bears, but it definitely became more and more of a lengthy ordeal as her collection grew.
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.
when celine sees rumi kiss one of her old teddy bears, and wish it good night with the same cadence she used to wish it goodnight, she has to walk away for a few minutes to compose herself, because she knows if she stays there watching any longer, she will burst out into tears
areudirty
titsay
