#polytrix fluff

the girls weren’t stupid, they knew that you were stuck in your head once again, your thoughts unyielding, louder than ever. they could practically see as each individual thought appeared as your eyes glared at the mirror, as if glaring would rid you of all your insecurities and put a stop to the thoughts.

rumi could relate the most to your body issues, only recently learning to love herself and her scars (both physical and mental), she hated what met her in the reflection for years due to celines clear distain for them, constantly reminding her of her past and how she was a ‘mistake’.

the girls all silently looked at each other before nodding in agreement, they could read each others thoughts by now due to living together for so long.

you jumped, a small yelp escaping your mouth at the sudden feeling of arms wrapping around you from behind, a warm presence making itself known against your back

you didn’t meet their eyes in the mirror, you refused to, knowing what they were thinking already.

“c’mon let’s lay down on the bed ok?” zoey asked, her hand gently tugging against your wrist to manoeuvre you towards said bed.

you let out a ‘huff’ from the landing onto the bed. before you could let your thoughts consume you once more, the girls all instantly tackled you into the bed before covering you in kisses

you giggled slightly, as some of the kisses were ticklish, only to stop as soon as they reached your thighs, where the stretch marks were most prominent.

you tried hiding your face against the pillow, only for rumi to gently take your face and make you face her, eyes staring into your soul, as if trying to dig deeper into your brain and scoop out the thoughts herself.

you felt zoey and mira gently kissing against the stretch marks as if they were made from fragile glass, their hands gently caressing your calves whilst doing so.

“y/n, you’re beautiful just the way you are. we love you because you’re you, we don’t care how you look. we love you now and we always will. we will kiss away every insecurity if we can, we will do whatever to keep your thoughts at bay” rumi whispered against your lips, before gently pressing hers against yours, letting it linger there for a bit before letting go.

you bit back a whimper, tears threatening to spill at the way they gently handled you as if you were made of glass.

the tears failed to get past rumi, her eyes on the verge of watering themself.

“do you want us to show you even more how much we love and appreciate you? we can do take this further if you want. if not then we can just sit here and watch TV” rumi asked, making sure you felt 100% sure and comfortable and not pressured into doing anything you didn’t want to.

“can we cuddle please?” you managed to sniffle out between tears, rumi simply nodding in response before she got up to get some snacks and comfy pyjamas whilst zoey put the TV on, an animal documentary solely on tortoises on the screen as usual.

you may have your bad days of body dysmorphia, but you know that the girls have your back no matter what and will always comfort you when needed, they’ll always be there for you and you for them in return.

you noticed how zoey started briefly stimming, her fingers actively wiggling about as if possessed. a big part of you was excited to hear her ramble about tortoises whilst the documentary played out, loving how she was so hyper fixated on reptiles.

rumi came back with the snacks and pyjamas. you and the girls changing from every day clothes to nice fluffy pyjamas.

now in comfy pjs’, with snacks set up and a documentary playing, you all cuddled up against each other. rumis’ hand squeezing yours, a gentle reminder she, and the girls, were there for you.

➽─────❥

Mira bumps her knee against Zoey’s, turning to frown at her. “Hey. You okay?” she asks quietly, so that the other students sitting in the lecture hall won’t hear her. 

Zoey gives her a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes like it usually does. “I’m fine,” Zoey whispers back, shooting Mira a double thumbs-up. 

Mira scowls down at her notes, her chest tightening with worry. 

Zoey doesn’t seem fine, is the thing. Sure, she’s taking notes as diligently as usual in her turtle-covered notebook, listening attentively to their professor drone on about mitochondria. But over the three months that they’ve been in Bio 100 together, Mira has gotten to know Zoey as a study partner and now a close friend, and she can tell when Zoey’s off. She’s paler than usual and drooping in her seat, propping her head up with one hand. Her eyes keep fluttering shut every now and then, almost as if she has to force herself to stay awake. 

It’s a stressful time of year, what with finals just around the corner and winter in full force, but Mira can’t help feeling protective over Zoey. That might be partially due to the fact that she definitely has more-than-platonic feelings for the other girl, but she doesn’t feel like examining that right now. Right now, she just wants to make sure Zoey is okay. 

 When class ends, Mira packs up her bag, then helps Zoey with her things, since she’s moving slowly. 

“Where are you headed? I’ll walk you,” Mira offers as they make their way out of the lecture hall. 

Zoey sneezes – a tiny, squeaky thing – and Mira feels her heart constrict with fondness and concern in equal measure. 

“I think I’ll just go to the library,” Zoey mumbles, rubbing her nose. “I think I’m getting a cold and my roommates are germaphobes.” 

Mira stops in her tracks, staring incredulously at her. “So they just expect you to camp out in the library all day while you feel miserable?” 

Zoey shifts on her feet, hiking up her shoulder bag. “I don’t mind…” she says, trailing off uncertainly. Mira takes a long look at her tired eyes and the pallor under her skin and makes a snap decision. 

“C’mon,” she says, slinging an arm around Zoey’s shoulders and pulling her close. “You’re coming to my room.” 

Zoey hesitates, peering up at her. “Won’t Rumi mind? I’m all gross right now.” 

“You’re not gross,” Mira says patiently, gently steering Zoey in the direction of her dorm. “And you know Rumi loves you as much as I do. Plus she’s really good at taking care of sick people. She brought me like, twenty different kinds of soup last time I was sick.” 

Zoey giggles, which turns into a cough. Mira holds her even closer, tucked warmly under her arm. Mira wasn’t lying, her roommate Rumi has adored Zoey since the first time they met, so she knows bringing Zoey over for a little TLC won’t be a problem – in fact, Rumi will probably jump at the chance to dote on her. 

Thankfully, Mira’s dorm isn’t far from the lecture hall, so they make it over in a just a few minutes. But Mira can feel Zoey shaking against her with tiny shivers that she’s clearly trying to suppress, and she wants to get her warmed up pronto. 

“Zoey!” Rumi exclaims cheerfully once Mira unlocks the door and ushers Zoey inside. Rumi jumps up from her desk and comes over to greet them, but her smile drops off her face as soon as she gets a good look at Zoey.

“What’s wrong?” Rumi frowns, obviously noticing the way that Zoey has all but melted into Mira’s side, leaning against her pale and listless. 

“She’s not feeling well and her roommates are assholes,” Mira says succinctly, gently pushing Zoey to sit down on her bed and immediately wrapping her up in her softest blanket. 

“Oh, poor thing,” Rumi coos, without a hint of teasing. Her eyes go wide and she sits down next to Zoey, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “Aw, Zo-zo. You’re really warm, I think you have a fever.” 

“I’m okay,” Zoey mumbles, blushing slightly. Rumi just kisses her hair and tucks the blanket tighter around her shoulders. 

“No you aren’t, but we’re going to take care of you,” Rumi murmurs, tucking a strand of dark hair behind Zoey’s ear. Mira feels a stab of something in her gut – not jealousy, exactly, but maybe something more like longing. Her feelings for both Zoey and Rumi are far from simple. 

“Mira, can you order some chicken noodle soup for delivery?” Rumi asks, already getting up to rifle through her sizable medication stash. “She likes that one from the deli on second street, right Zo?” 

Zoey nods, looking a little flustered by all the attention, then suddenly sneezes again. 

“Aw, bless you baby,” Mira says, her voice going usually soft and the nickname slipping out before she can think better of it. She joins Zoey on the bed, handing her a box of tissues. She starts rubbing her back with one hand and scrolling through her phone on the other, looking for the right deli to order from. 

“Sorry I’m being all…germy, in your room,” Zoey says, peering up at them over her tissues. “I really can go if you guys don’t want to get sick. In fact, I probably should go, honestly, I’ll be fine –” 

She starts to rise, but Mira gently pulls her back down. “Nuh-uh. You’re staying here, Zo. It’s fine, I promise,” Mira says, squeezing her shoulder. 

“Yeah, we want you here, sweetheart,” Rumi says, giving her a small smile. “Now do you want strawberry or grape for the medicine?” 

Zoey makes a face. “Uhh…neither?” 

“You have a fever,” Rumi says, in a tone that Mira immediately recognizes as the one that means she’s not changing her mind anytime soon. “Fever means meds. Grape or strawberry?” 

Zoey pouts. “Grape, I guess.” 

Rumi smiles at her, then pours out the medicine into a small cup. Zoey takes the cup reluctantly but swallows down the medication anyway. Mira kisses her temple, and Rumi squeezes her hand. 

“You guys are too sweet to me,” Zoey says, looking between them both, her cheeks slightly pink. 

“Nah. We’re just as sweet as you deserve,” Mira says, rubbing her back. 

“Yep. Let us fuss a little, you’re sick,” Rumi grins. She fluffs up the pillow on Mira’s bed, then pats it invitingly. “Why don’t you lay down and rest a bit while we wait for the soup?” 

Zoey glances at Mira. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” 

“A hundred thousand percent sure,” Mira nods. “C’mon Zo, when do I ever sugar-coat things?” 

Zoey snorts a little. “Never.” 

“Exactly,” Mira smirks. She lays down, then holds out an arm. Zoey obligingly curls up against her side, nestling into her. Rumi somehow manages to squeeze onto the tiny bed as well, laying down on Zoey’s other side. 

Mira closes her eyes. For her whole life, she’s never quite felt like she fit in anywhere. But somehow, with these two women, she’s suddenly found a home. 

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.