Chapter Text
“He's like a lovesick puppy.”
“Like a fly that’s really dedicated to romance.”
“No, he’s more like a stray you feed once that keeps coming back for more.”
“Or a cat who keeps begging for food even though you definitely already fed him.”
“He’s hopeless.”
“Utterly besotted.”
“Woah, that’s a word I've never heard before.”
Mira interrupts their back-and-forth to make that comment. Zoey scowls at her with her best adorable-angry face.
“Maybe you just need a bigger vocabulary. If you looked it up you'd totally agree with me. It's, like, exactly what he is.”
Trading her chopsticks for her phone, Mira does exactly that. “Oh, yeah, you’re totally right. He should be the photo in the dictionary next to this word.”
“Right?” Zoey says, narrowly avoiding launching a dumpling across the restaurant as she gestures.
Mira nods, then digs back into her dinner. The conversation is briefly stopped.
Rumi breathes a sigh of relief as her friends fall silent, although it's muffled by her hoodie. She'd gone from laughing along to hiding her face in her hands, all the way to fully resting her forehead on the table in despair as Zoey and Mira speculated about the nature of her and Jinu's relationship.
Eating out with each other once a week isn’t new for the trio – it’s a tradition extending back into high school, when they’d first met, and now that they all live together it’s only gotten easier to explore the city instead of just ordering takeout at least once every seven days. The routine of it brings Rumi comfort, letting her leave the house far more often than she otherwise would without having to brave the terrifying outdoors by herself.
However, her friends’ recent topics of conversation have not been so welcome.
Mira talks through a mouthful of ramyeon like her words are a life-changing revelation.
“What if he shows up at the apartment with flowers?”
“We'd have to kill him,” Zoey responds without hesitation.
“Obviously.”
“Guys,” Rumi tries to protest, lifting her head so she can be heard.
“Shush,” Mira says. “What if he starts throwing rocks at the window?”
“We're on the twelfth floor, that would honestly be kind of impressive,” Zoey hums. “But he’d totally break the window and then we’d have to make him pay the landlord to fix it. Plus pay us back for the security deposit.”
“Glad we’re in agreement.”
Zoey gasps. “What if he shows up at Rumi's work? That's, like, totally stalker behavior!”
“Our lawyers would be on his ass,” Mira says. She cracks her knuckles for emphasis.
“Guys, please,” Rumi tries again.
Zoey wags a finger at her. “Nope, no arguing. We're keeping you safe here.”
“I mean, I'm looking for an excuse for violence. But yeah, what Zoey said,” Mira says.
“Jinu doesn’t have a crush on me!” Rumi wails, probably too loudly. Around them, the restaurant goes dead silent.
After a moment, Mira scoffs. “Yeah, and my parents are proud of me.”
“Trust me, Rumi, he totally does. You may not be able to see it, but take it from us! He is so down bad for you.” Zoey's smile is at least a little more sympathetic than Mira's, and Rumi savors it.
“Listen, we get it if you have a secret boyfriend you don’t want us to know about, that’s up to you,” Mira says.
“I don't have a boyfriend! And if I did, it definitely wouldn't be Jinu. We're barely even friends! We're, like, acquaintances. Business partners. That's it.” Rumi knows her face is turning red, and she can tell that it's making her friends less inclined to believe her words.
“Well, even if you aren’t in a fanfiction-worthy mutual pining ouroboros,” Zoey starts, pausing to narrow her eyes at Rumi as if she’ll suddenly give up the act and reveal her secrets, “that doesn’t erase the fact that Jinu is absolutely whipped. He’s got full-on heart eyes every time he looks at you.”
“Oh, yeah, it's really bad. Like, if you could zoom in on his brain, it would just be a bunch of photos of you and your name with hearts around it instead of real thoughts," Mira adds.
Zoey nods. “He’s the most brainless straight boy I've ever seen, and that’s saying something.”
“I’ve seen dumber,” Mira argues.
“Well, maybe, but he’s the worst I've seen in a while,” Zoey says.
Mira nods, apparently satisfied.
Rumi sighs. “I just don't understand what you guys are seeing. He doesn't act any differently around me than around anyone else! He’s just an all-around nice person, that's all there is to it.”
“So when he invited you for coffee on Saturday, that was just him being nice?” Mira raises one eyebrow.
“I had been talking about how I didn't have any weekend plans and I was gonna be bored,” Rumi explains.
“And when he won you a three-foot-tall stuffed tiger at the arcade?” Zoey says.
“He won it for himself, I was just carrying it for him!”
“And that’s why it’s still sitting on your bed,” Zoey says.
“Well-”
“And why you sleep with it every night,” Mira adds.
“Thats-”
“Rumi, girl, come on. You have to be intentionally ignoring it. It’s getting a little mean at this point,” Mira says, her tone as close to kind as it ever got. “Not that I don't always support being mean to men, but come on. This is hurting your chances.”
“He is kinda cute, in the right lighting,” Zoey says, tapping her chin with a finger as she imagines it. “I could see you as a couple. You have a real shot!”
Rumi feels her stomach turn. “No. Not happening. Eugh.”
“Wow, maybe don’t look so much like you just smelled week-old rotting garbage,” Mira says.
“Sorry, just…” Rumi takes a deep breath. “Can we drop this? Zoey, I want to hear about the slam you have coming up. How's that going?”
Zoey hesitates for a second, but one look at Rumi’s face has her shifting gears into a monologue about how this time, she’s going to win the poetry slam she goes to every month, and how she’s going to spend the prize money on an adorable turtle blind box she saw at the mall.
Rumi tries to pay attention, and she mostly manages it, but she can still feel her skin crawling. The more Zoey and Mira insist that Jinu likes her, the more uncomfortable she gets, and every time they imply that he and Rumi could date, Rumi feels nausea and anxiety rise up into her throat. Still, she can't seem to get the idea out of her head.
Jinu is, objectively, very pretty. A lot of other girls like him. At least, those of them who haven’t heard him speak. But that’s not because Jinu is a jerk, he’s honestly really nice, and a great listener, and he always makes a point to ask Rumi about her day without it feeling like he’s prying, which is a difficult balance to strike for someone as compulsively cagey as Rumi.
They could date. Celine would… Well, she wouldn’t like it, because Celine would rather Rumi spend all of her time at voice lessons without ever interacting with another person her age, especially not romantically – but she would probably prefer Jinu to some of the alternatives in Rumi's life. Jinu is kind, respectful, and very polite. He could probably charm Celine, as long as Rumi does most of the talking.
Rumi tries to picture it. Leaving work one afternoon and meeting up with Jinu, walking to a park or a cafe hand-in-hand, sharing a kiss under the shade of a willow tree…
Again, that anxious feeling rises in her belly, and suddenly she’s hit with a realization.
Maybe she does have a crush on Jinu.
The next day in their shared music history class, Rumi keeps sneaking glances at Jinu, imagining him with this new crush coloring her perception.
Or, at least, she’s trying to sneak glances. She keeps making eye contact with Jinu. It feels like every time she looks over, he’s already looking at her, and then both of them have to look away and it’s a whole awkward moment.
It does make Rumi's heart flutter a little bit, though.
Is this what a crush feels like?
She doesn’t take a single note throughout the whole lecture, and when she gets back to the apartment, she brushes Zoey and Mira off completely to lock herself in her room and open Google.
how to tell if you have a crush
crush vs friendship feelings
is nausea a crush symptom
crush warning signs
One helpful Reddit post says, “You can tell if you have a crush if you find yourself thinking about that person more than usual, or if the idea of them makes your heart rate go up. If they make you blush, giggle, or think about how they perceive you, chances are high you have a crush!”
Rumi really thinks over every interaction she’s had with Jinu.
She's always excited to talk to him. Recently, she’s definitely been thinking about him more than usual. His constant gloating and self-confidence makes her laugh more than any other jokes, but what’s the difference between a laugh and a giggle? Is it a giggle when she laughs at him for running into a street sign? When he compliments her form at the gym, does that make her blush, or is she just flushed from the workout?
Another Reddit post says, “if you overthink every interaction you have with them, you probably like them.”
Is this overthinking? If so, she must overthink everything, all the time, so she doesn’t think so. She did this same Google-spiral when she met Mira and Zoey for the first time, too. Maybe this is just how she reacts to making new friends. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but Jinu is the first friend she’s really made since high school. She has no frame of reference, that’s the problem.
Rumi doesn’t look up from the screen until it’s long since gotten dark outside. She can’t tell what broke her focus until she hears it again – knocking at her door, and Zoey's voice.
“Rumi? Can I come in?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Rumi calls, quickly closing all of her tabs and shutting her computer.
Zoey cracks the door, then opens it fully. “Hey, Mira tried to get you for dinner, but you didn’t answer. Are you okay?” She’s in her pajamas, a purple two-piece set with skateboarding turtles printed all over it. The pants are slung low on her hips, and the shirt is a little cropped, so Rumi can see an inch of skin at Zoey's hip bone. She ignores it.
“Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I just had a lot of reading to do, and I was really in the groove.” The lie flows easily. Rumi barely even feels the twinge of guilt that comes with it when Zoey nods, not a hint of suspicion in her face.
“Don't apologize, you’re totally fine! We were just wondering if you wanted food, and we were gonna watch a movie, but if you’re busy I totally get it-”
Rumi cuts Zoey off. “No, no, I was just about done. And I really should eat some food. Thanks, Zoey.”
Zoey beams, and leads Rumi to the living room as Rumi stretches out from her terrible hunched posture. The room spins a little when she pulls her arms above her head, which probably isn’t great, but Rumi ignores it.
Mira is already positioned on the couch when Rumi walks in. She glances as Rumi with feigned aloofness. “Your plate’s in the fridge.”
“Thank you, Mira," Rumi says, trying to put all her feelings into the words. She holds eye contact with Mira for an extra second, and she can see Mira defrost in real time for her efforts.
“No problem, whatever,” Mira mumbles, looking away.
Rumi smiles to herself as she puts the plate in the microwave. Mira is usually so put-together and stoic, it’s nice to see the little moments when the facade falls. It reminds Rumi that Mira is human too.
Dinner is tasty, even reheated, and Zoey's eight-hour Youtube documentary makes great background noise as the trio sits on the couch, quietly enjoying each others’ company.
Rumi lives for these moments. She was always so lonely, she remembers, stuck inside with Celine and her expectations like a blanket over the mood of the house, the pressure comforting only in its familiarity. Here, with her girls, Rumi feels none of that pressure. She feels light as a feather, light enough to fly.
She loves them, she thinks, and it’s not even the first time she’s had that realization.
Except this time, thoughts of love drag her mind back to Jinu.
Is it as easy to breathe with Jinu as it is with Mira and Zoey? Would it be, with enough time?
Is she missing something by not being in a relationship?
Rumi thinks of her life now, what she likes about it, and what she thinks she’s missing.
She can’t remember the last time Mira or Zoey asked her about her day.
It feels silly and small until she thinks about it a little more. She starts thinking about how easy it feels to start conversations with Jinu, how she can talk to him and not feel judged, not have him jump to conclusions.
She loves her girls so much, but sometimes, it feels like she’s trying to talk in a crowded room with the two of them. But Jinu offers silence when she talks. His full attention, always.
Rumi realizes, then and there, in a silence that she feels is rapidly turning sour and awkward under the Youtuber’s droning voice, that she doesn’t think she could start a conversation right now.
And that feeling hurts.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Rumi says, so quietly it breaks into a whisper halfway through. She flees to her bedroom and doesn't come out until morning.