When Zoey catches Rumi staring at her multiple times in the same day, she starts to worry there's something wrong with her appearnce. She rushes to the mirror to inspect her teeth for stuck food, her face for unsightly blemishes, even her hair for wind messiness. And yet she looks completely normal.
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.
Rumi can't stop thinking about Zoey's freckles, and that one in particular, for the rest of the week.
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