⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Her movements, such a contrast to her former role in the group, are slow, comprehending, yet you can perceive how painstakingly she’s doing it, like each droplet of water against fragile skin matters, because well, it really does. She talks to the baby under her breath — not baby talk, never baby talk — just sweet murmurs that sound like some sort of loving establishment.

The water is the perfect temperature; she’s checked it at least five times. Not because she doesn’t trust herself, but because this tiny person deserves perfection in a way Mira never thought she’d care about providing.

She’d seen it on the tube once, a stranger cradling a baby to their chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. She’d looked away then — she doesn’t have to look away now.

“Okay, little baby,” she mumbles, the edges of her mouth squirming into a grin. “We’re not crying today, right? Yeah, just you and me. Y’know, chill.” Of course, the baby doesn’t listen — wails anyway.

The baby — their baby, still a concept that makes Mira’s chest squeeze — thrashes her little legs and moves her fists, sending droplets everywhere. Water splashes across Mira’s oversized t-shirt ( one of Zoey’s old graphic ones, soft from a thousand washes and exchanges between the three ), and instead of some sort of irritation that would’ve consumed kid-Mira, she just chuckles. This tender, aerated sound no one outside her lovers has ever witnessed.

She can hear movement in the hallway, a hallway that’s quite filled with so many pictures — moments, big and small, debut to retirement, world tours to intimate travels, matrimony to birth, captures within frames that gave the place a homelier feeling. Rumi and Zoey, they’re pretending they’re not hovering. Pretending they’re not watching Mira be a mother like it’s the most miraculous thing they’ve ever witnessed. ( It kind of, greatly is. )

Mira supports the baby’s head with one stable palm — Zoey and her read almost an entire cathedral of books about infant care, watched countless videos at 3 AM, asked their pediatrician so many questions the woman probably dreads their appointments — while the other hand carefully lathered through the baby’s fins dark hair — Zoey’s color at first glance, but under the light, a touch of violet shimmered. Rumi’s influence, unmistakably.

And running down her left shoulder blade — another touch, a delicate streak of Rumi’s opalescent patterns, like brushstrokes of minhwa painting.

When they first laid eyes on her, Rumi had frozen, the ghost of apprehension, worry contorting her features.

I’ve cursed her, I’ve marked her, I’ve made her different. Will they love her as I already do? What if I do something to make her feel neglected ? Will I fail her? Have I failed them—

She’s fucking perfect. You hear me? Perfect, Rumi. They’re gorgeous on her. Because they’re part of her. Part of you. Part of us.

These patterns don’t define you, Rumi. They’re just part of your story. And now they’re part of her story too! Not a curse. Not a mark. Just ... her. Like they’re just you.

Each movement is attentive, observant in the way Mira's always been, scrutinizing for shifts in tone, mood, body language. Except now she's scrutinizing for discomfort, for cold, for any sign her daughter needs something Mira hasn't already anticipated.

“Your moms are spying on us,” Mira says conversationally to the baby, not bothering to include some hint in her voice. She knows they can hear her. “They think I don't notice. But I notice everything, don’t I? Yeah. Especially when it comes to them and you.”

She drew the infant to her sternum, bamboo-cotton towel, swaddling their tiny form, her cheek, flushed and aching from the jubilant and fond emotions overwhelming her, nudged the top of their damp head.

The baby makes a small sound, not quite a cry, just a vocalization, and Mira’s entire body responds instantly, adjusting her hold, drawing her daughter close to her chest.

“I know, it’s alright. Cold air is mean, isn’t it?” Mira keeps up the soft commentary as she carries the baby to the nursery, the one they’d spent months preparing. The walls are a soft lavender hue, with the animated decals of sea creatures scattered along one wall —Zoey’s contribution that needed to come to life. And in the corner, a collection of stuffed animals that they had tried to be practical about and failed completely.

She lays the baby on the changing table, one hand never leaving her daughter's stomach. That protective instinct, the one that used to make her check on Rumi and Zoey obsessively, that made her the first to reach out when something was amiss, has magnified tenfold. She’s done the research: babies can roll at unexpected times. She’s not taking chances.

“Alright let’s get you dressed. I know, I know, you hate this part. Join the club — I hate putting pants on too. Especially trying to keep them on.” Her mouth tilts upward. “Just ask your moms — wait. No not — eh, you won’t remember.”

The outfit chosen is one of the many onesies they bought — a specific one with almost watercolor like jellyfish scattered everywhere. The baby stares up at her with eyes that shift between Rumi’s amber and something softer, hazel brown assisted with the cinnamon sprinkle of freckles along her button nose. They’re alert, focused, looking at Mira like she’s the most important thing in the world.

The feeling is intensely mutual.

Mira dresses her daughter with careful attention to tiny limbs, to making sure the onesie's seams won’t irritate sensitive skin, to the soft cotton socks that keep tiny toes warm. The outfit is honestly really cute, Mira gives Zoey her flowers, yes, with a matching headband that Mira adjusts three times until she gives up.

“Eh… I think you look good. Best dressed baby in Korea.” Mira declares, lifting her daughter up. “Best dressed in the whole world.”

While deftly holding her with one arm, the other hand reached for the pacifier, burp cloth, and a crinkle fabric type of toy that has completely enthralled this baby’s attention span. It supposedly supports development. Yeah, she’s read about that too.

Mira lays the baby on her stomach for tummy time, then positions herself right there at eye level, propped on her elbows. One hand comes to rest on her daughter’s back, thumb making small, gentle shapes. She’s that helicopter parent, the one who checks the baby monitor seventeen times a night, who researches every developmental milestone obsessively, who Zoey had to physically restrain from buying a medical-grade thermometer because Rumi was no help ( she too was considering buying this thermometer ).

But she’s also equally parts fascinated. How can someone be this freaking small? This grand? This beautiful? This loud? ( The baby's lungs are impressive — Mira suspects she got Rumi's vocal genetics. ) This perfect?

She’s captivated by how this tiny human can already have such a strong personality, how her daughter’s cry is different when she’s hungry versus tired versus just wanting to be held. Wide browns that somehow inherited Mira’s depth stare right back at her.

“Strong baby, aren’t you? You’re gonna be stronger than me. Probably even your moms. You know why?” Mira’s chin canted down, such certainty laced in her words. “You’re never going to have to hide who you are. You’re already perfect.”

The baby makes a sound — a gurgled coo and a determined grunt when she attempts to lift her head, and Mira's heart sweetly swells in on itself.

“Your halmeoni and harabeoji don’t even know you exist,” Mira mumbled, pushing back her frames. “And that’s their loss. Because you’re gonna grow up knowing exactly how loved you are.”

The tip of her finger strokes the little one’s nose, humming. “I know. I'm getting sappy. You’re doing great, sweetheart. So, so great — woah, 3 whole seconds, well what do you know.” The praise comes naturally, aggressively sweet — it’s all really the same language to her.

There’s a sound in the hallway — someone failing miserably at not crying. Probably Zoey — she’s been leaky ever since Rumi’s pregnancy symptoms started, all soppy and sentimental. It’s gotten progressively worse after the baby’s birth. Happy tears, the majority of the time, sometimes the other kind. And Mira more than gets it — she’s been living somewhere in that same blur.

( the symptom Mira got stuck with however was the constant craving for sugar — which was fucking weird for everyone to see her gobbling down honey-combed candies, dalgona, marshmallow choco pies and such when she always thrived for flaming spicy shit. )

“You can come in,” Mira calls, still transfixed on her daughter. “I know you’re both out there. You’re not good at being subtle.”

The door opens wider, and of course her gaze cannot avoid looking at them; Rumi, purple cascades loosely entangled in a braid that sits on her shoulder, pearlescent etchings displayed without shame. And Zoey, her million-watt smile wobbling with tears pearling her lashes, phone in hand because she’s been documenting everything — most likely enough to fill thirty scrapbooks.

“Ugh, she’s so perfect and cute, Mira, baby, look at her!” The ravennette gushes, plopping down next to Mira and nuzzling her freckled cheek into the curve of her shoulder. “Oooo, little fashion baby, excellent taste."

“She gets it from her eommas,” Rumi hummed at Mira’s other side, one hand on the small of Mira’s back as she pressed a gentle kiss to her damp temple — where wisps of brown and pink clung in sweat-slick strands.

Their daughter, their infinite love resulting in eight pounds of perfect human — kicks her legs and waves her arms, making sounds that are probably meaningless but that Mira’s already interpreting as profound.

“She’s telling us about her bath,” Mira explained solemnly, smirking. 

Rumi grinned at the tiny girl, lovingly stroking her head. “Very important baby news.”

Zoey giggled before sporting her serious face, nodding along. “Clearly. She is very articulate and needs to share this with the world.”

The baby starts to fuss — small sounds that Mira’s already learned to differentiate. That's not hungry-fuss. Not tired-fuss. That’s getting-bored-of-tummy-time fuss.

“Okay, okay,” Mira grunted, sitting up before carefully rolling the baby onto her back, then lifting her up against her shoulder. She stands in one fluid motion — dancer’s grace never really leaves — and starts that sway-walk that all parents seem to discover instinctively. “Let’s walk around. You want to see the house? Yeah?”

She moves through the interior of their home, this cozy place on the outskirts of Seoul where they’d retired from the spotlight, from the hunting, and ensuring the safety of the world. Just three women who’d chosen healing over duty.

And now, three mothers raising a daughter who will never have to make that choice.

Mira narrates while she walks past the kitchen where their matching aquatic mugs sit drying by the sink; “Your mom Zoey’s is obviously a turtle, your mom’s Rumi’s a whale shark, and mine for some reason’s a puffer fish… Did you know they’re one of the only fish that can blink? Yeah I don’t even know, Zoey told me that information—” 

She continues walking, continues talking — about nothing, about everything. About how the house plants are doing ( Zoey’s responsibility ). About what they’re having for dinner ( Rumi’s cooking this week ). About the weird sounds the washing machine makes ( Mira's going to fix it this weekend, she swears ).

Past the living room where Rumi’s guitar and notebooks full of old lyrics rest on the coffee table next to Zoey’s current obsession ( a book about developmental psychology — they’re all still trying to learn everything ). Past the photos in the hallways….

Mira slows here — she always does even after passing them a thousand times.

She’s seen love in these walls her whole adult life, assembled piece by piece without fully realising what she was building. Seen it in the early HUNTR/X years — three girls who had no business trusting each other so completely, so fast. Seen it backstage after sold-out shows, adrenaline still thrumming, Zoey shrieking with joy, shaking Mira bythe arm and Rumi laughing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. Seen it at 3 AM over ramen, over nothing, over everything. Seen it hold strongly through secrets and weapons drawn and all the worst things she ever said when she was frightened.

Bobby’s face in the frame near the end of the hall: the moment they’d told him about Rumi’s pregnancy. He’d burst into full sobs before they’d even finished the sentence, nearly knocked all three of them over trying to hug them at once, kept repeating I knew it, I always knew you girls were magic! You girls are going to be the greatest mothers ever!

She’d seen it in him too, that messy, devoted, pure love he’d harbored for them since the beginning. It somewhat showed up in the wrong moment in the exact right way, if that makes sense.

The final frame is the one Zoey placed last — the three of them in the delivery room, minutes after. Rumi exhausted and radiant, Zoey’s face cascading with tears. And Mira, holding their daughter for the first time, looking down at her, terrified and completely, irrevocably certain.

She stops in front of it now. The baby makes a small sound against her neck — sleepy and droopy-eyed, mouth going slack — and Mira exhales so slowly once her child nuzzles deeper into her.

Mira thinks about her parents. About the house she left. About the girl who was always too much, too difficult, too loud — who weighed that verdict in her chest for years like it was just true, like it was just her.

She’d spent so long watching love from the outside, analyzing it, caching it away. The couple in Seoul who missed their stop, the scattered couples among the crowds of their concerts, her parents, the cautionary tale she’d folded but kept. Rumi and Zoey, long before she’d let herself understand what she felt — all that warmth she stored away and scrutinized and refused to spend, certain that if she reached for it, she’d find out she was right about herself all along.

Too much. Not quite made for it.

But it had been there all along, sprouting in her soul without permission. She’s not watching love from a distance anymore.

And the more she’d looked — without meaning to, without wanting to — the more she’d found it; everywhere, in all of them, in herself.

It brings out the worst, it brings out the best — she has lived both. She knows which ultimatums she regrets, she knows which moment Rumi’s voice pulled her back through a fog she couldn’t have named. She knows what it cost and what it gave back and she’d pay it again, every time, in full.

She’s not watching from the outside anymore.

Rumi and Zoey appear at her sides, drawn the way they always are, looking at the frame, looking at her. Their expressions are something she’ll never be able to describe and will spend the rest of her life trying to deserve.

Zoey tucks herself against Mira’s free side, chin finding its familiar place on her shoulder. “Look at us,” she whispers, genuinely awed, like she can’t quite believe the photo is real, that all of it happened and kept happening and led here. Her hand finds the baby’s sock-covered foot and holds it gently.

Rumi’s arms come around her tall lover, cheek against her jaw: “She’s going to know exactly where she came from." Her mouth quirked, patterns casting a warm, earnest glow. “All of it. Even the hard parts. Especially those.”

Mira doesn’t answer right away, only looking at the photo — the three of them, who they were in that room, who they are now in this hallway.

“I’ve seen it my whole life,” She uttered finally, not quite to the baby or to them. Just — out loud, because it’s truth, and she’s no longer keeping true things quiet. “I guess I just didn’t know I was looking at what I was going to have.”

The baby sighs so serenely against her collarbone, and Mira’s eyes flutter shut for just a moment.

She thinks about what this little one will never have to do.

She will never stand at a distance, cataloguing love like evidence, quietly building a case for whether she deserves to be inside it. She won’t have to.

Because she never spent a single day outside of it — not one. From the very first flutter in Rumi’s womb, she was already held. Already known. Celine had pressed both hands to Rumi’s rounded stomach and wept without apology, murmuring something in a low voice none of them fully heard, and they hadn’t needed to.

Bobby had talked to her through Rumi’s belly for six months straight — full conversations, updates about the world, terrible jokes while Zoey documented the whole thing — utterly convinced she could hear him, probably right.

And maybe she had. Maybe she arrived already knowing, on some wordless cellular level, that she was expected. That she was wanted. That the people waiting for her had been loving her long before they met her.

She won’t learn love the way Mira did — from the outside, through glass, wondering if it was a thing that happened to people like her. She’ll learn it the only way she’s ever known anything: from the inside. From the very beginning.

That’s the part that undoes Mira the most, if she’s being honest.

Not that she found it. But that her daughter will never have to find it at all.

Her parents were wrong. This little girl doesn’t need Mira smaller, quieter, easier. She needs Mira here — all of her, all the love that had nowhere to go for so long it essentially built its own house.

She’s breaking every cycle; her daughter will never earn affection. Will never be handed a verdict about her own nature and forced to carry it quietly. Will grow up with her patterns and her heritage and her difference, and every part of her will be exactly enough and perfect, from the very first day.

Mira already knew that from the delivery room.

5.) Wall-E — “Look at how devoted he is! That’s attractive! And he's so, so sweet!” Zoey will die on this hill. ( me too )

6.) Rapunzel from Tangled — Zoey has a thing for creative, bubbly energy. “She’s literally me but with magic hair!”

“So you’re attracted to yourself … and Rumi?” “…Maybe?”

7.) Bob Ross — Not fictional but she’d put him on there. “The way he talks about happy little trees is SO soothing and attractive, sue me!” Nobody really argues with this because this is probably the closest to a sane and normal hear me out they'll ever come across.

8.) Bullet Bill from Super Mario. Just don't even ask because Mira is close to throwing the hear me out cake away while Rumi's attempting to go to her room.

"Your insides are getting drilled and destroyed with this one." "Yeah uhm, the visual isn't pretty, Zoey." "PLEASE, I get drilled with the both of you. And while the visual may not be pretty, it still feels good!" "... fair point."

9.) Venom ( VALID ) — "He's protective! He's misunderstood! He's basically a golden retriever in a scary package! Plus the whole 'we are Venom' thing? It's PARTNERSHIP. That's COMMUNICATION."

"Zoey, he eats PEOPLE. WE LITERALLY PROTECT PEOPLE FROM GETTING THEIR SOULS EATEN."  "He eats BAD people. There's a difference!"

10.) GoGo Tomago from Big Hero 6 — "She's cool, she's fast, she doesn't waste words, and she's got that 'I don't care what you think' energy but she DOES care about her friends? That's—" 

Rumi, looking at Mira: "She's basically describing you."  "—incredibly hot!" "Yeah, smash." "...Me too."

11.) Crush the Sea Turtle from Finding Nemo — Obviously. "He's 150 years young! He's wise! He's a TURTLE! He says 'righteous'! What more do you need?!" This one gets zero pushback because they all saw it coming.

12.) The Geico Gecko — "He's got a soothing voice! He's helpful! He's financially responsible!" 

"Zoey, what the actual FUCK." "Don't gecko-shame me." "You know what, she does need someone who helps her handle her financial responsibilities. Let her have the Gecko."

13.) Dug from Up — "He's enthusiastic! He's loyal! He just wants to be loved! 'I have just met you and I love you' that's PURE nowadays."

"It's concerning how the majority of these are animals."

14.) Aunt Cass from Big Hero 6 — "Supportive, runs her own business, makes great food, caring—" 

"That's just... that's actually a normal crush, Zoey!"  "Wait, really? Oh thank god, I was worried this one was weird." "The fact that THIS is your normal one is worrying me."

15.) Nala from The Lion King — "Strong, independent, that TACKLE scene, those EYES—"

"Zoey, that's a a wild lion." "A lion with AGENCY and SASS! She didn't wait around, she went and FOUND help!"  "This one's... almost normal?" "The bar is in hell. We're dealing with a furry."

16.) Lola Bunny (Space Jam), YES.

"Okay this one's CLASSIC. Athletic, confident, 'I don't play defense' SHE ATE!" "...That one's fair actually."  "SEE! I'm not crazy!"  "That's not what we said, sweetheart."

17.) Tadashi Hamada from Big Hero 6 — Wait this one's actually normal—

"No wait I'm talking about him AS Baymax — like his consciousness IN Baymax—"  "There it is."

18.) Hei Hei from Moana — "He's stupid in an endearing way! He's chaos! He somehow SURVIVES EVERYTHING despite—" 

"Are you attracted to him or do you just relate to him?" "Why not both?!" "You actually have a serious thing for animals and I think we need to check it out." "Keep her away from Derpy. And Sussie." "NO WAIT GUYS PLEASE LISTEN I SWEAR I'M NOT—"

19.) Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas — "Dramatic, misunderstood, wants to try new things even if he fails, PASSIONATE about his interests, and he's got that tall lanky thing going—" 

"You like tall lanky ones?"  Zoey, looking her up and down : "I'm discovering I might have a type, yeah."

20.) Spider-Man's Web Shooters — Not even a character, just the web shooters themselves. 

"Zoey, that's EQUIPMENT. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT." "Versatile! Creative! Reliable! Gets the job done!"  "...I think she's having a breakdown. I’m done, we're done."

Speaking of equipment, it comes to conclusion that Rumi's Saingeom and Mira's Gok-Do are also Zoey's absurd hear me outs.