Work Text:
The room was colder, a nice cold. It was refreshing. The air conditioning at the cafe she worked at, Uncommon Grounds, broke a month ago and between the late spring weather and the ovens, it felt sweltering in there. Most customers sat on the patio anyway.
“Ms. Zoey please.” The pink haired woman interrupted her thoughts. “sit.”
The chair looked stable at least. That was the nicest descriptor for the metal thing on the other side of the wooden desk the woman was already sitting at. Filing cabinets lined every wall in this room, much like the rest of the institute. Cramped, Zoey thought. It was a cramped room in the basement of a cramped library sort of place. When led here by a nice old lady she’d seen parts of the actual library, that was the first floor, half shelves, half offices. It seemed bigger in the basement however. Mostly offices, a maze of doors and piled boxes.
There was no name plate on this door. There were names on all the others, but this one looked freshly scraped off. It hadn’t been replaced yet.
The old woman had knocked, and a frazzled and annoyed looking woman had answered the door. She was pretty, despite the whole intimidating aura she had, with brown slacks, her wrinkled white buttoned up shirt and large gold rimmed glasses.
When she spoke Zoey tripped on her shoelaces. A musically deep voice. with the perfect amount of disinterest to have Zoey nearly obsessed.
“I’m busy, Diane.” The woman said. Diane smiled sweetly.
“Mira dear, this is your job now I’m afraid.” It was only slightly scolding on Diane’s part. “She has a statement to give.”
The woman, Mira, regarded Zoey now. Zoey had nervously shifted in place under her gaze. She then sighed and turned back to the little office, gesturing for her to follow. Zoey waited a beat, unsure of what was happening, before Diane urged her forward.
That leaves Zoey where she is now, settling uncomfortably in the small room, boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling, crowding the lone desk.
Her mind drifts, wondering how busy Mira’s life is that her office, presumably, has become so disorganized. She wonders if the boxes are only filled with paper.
A click and a soft whirring take her from her thoughts. Zoey must have flinched too hard, or maybe the speed at which her head snapped to look at Mira was too fast. The woman winced, apologetically, the first expression she'd shown on her face aside from annoyance and resignation.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to spook you." She says, settling down herself. "It's old, and loud."
"It's alright. At work, why I'm here by the way, I have a similar problem with this downright ancient coffee machine. It always makes the coffee too hot, and it is loud as all hell, I can barely hear customers over it. But Mystery Girl prefers it, its the only reason I haven't just thrown it out. She likes-liked? doesn't matter- anyway she likes her coffee hotter than fire-"
The woman arches an eye brow, a small smile trying to creep into her face. "Slow down. We'll start at the beginning, okay? I just have to-one second."
Zoey didn’t know what came over her, when the pink haired woman asked her to slow down, to explain herself. Usually when people told her to slowdown, it was code for her to be quiet. It normally made her face burn, not in a good way, and makes her stomach all gross. But when Mira said it was like a cup of coffee, just a plain one, an easy one. Her words felt like honey, slowing down her breathing, her words. Maybe her voice was tea, a bag, hot water and a little honey.
Then, sort of jarring, the woman cleared her throat and said into her recorder.
“Statement of Choi Zoey regarding a mysterious woman in her coffee shop.” Mira says it, like a robot, but her voice was still calming, letting Zoey's gloved hands rest on her lap. They sit in a still silence for a moment. "Go on."
"Right yeah. Um. Where should I start? My thoughts normally just…bounce." Zoey winced, it felt like there was something stuck in her throat.
"How about when you first saw this Mystery Woman."
"Yeah, okay that's easy enough." She took a deep breath before letting the words flood out of her. "It was February, the 10th. I don't think I could forget her. I knew she wasn't normal, I thought maybe that's why my heart stuttered when she came up to order a black coffee. Nothing else, not that day. She was beautiful too, even under all those layers. Turtle neck, hoodie, then a black trench coat. I almost dropped her drink, I stumbled over like all my words. It was awful"
Zoey smiled, reminiscing and pausing to take a breath.
"Rumi. That's all I got out of her that day, her name and a smile. She came back the next day, stuck around this time. I'm not sure what she did for work, she mostly just sat, wrote in a little notebook if she got like bored. I'm basically always at the shop, I genuinely think it would fall apart without me, so I greeted her whenever she came in. Took her order, it was always a black coffee. Sometimes she'd ask me what pastries I liked, and then she ordered one of those. She only did that when it was slow, she'd let me ramble on until someone else came in. She was…kind"
Mira isn't speaking. She is only gazing, not uninterested, only slightly bored. Oddly, her expression doesn't phase Zoey like it should have. There is no indication that the woman is annoyed, honestly the opposite. So Zoey takes the chance, the invitation to continue gushing.
"But she never…drank the coffee. Never actually ate the pastry. She wouldn't throw it out, at least, not in front of me. No, she always took it to go. At three everyday she'd leave and turn right. And she was always alone. There was only one time she wasn't. She was with this…man. Um. I don't remember him well, but he is important I promise. He was tall. Skinny, with like, floppy black hair. He had tattoos, they were like, spiky and almost faded looking. He did most of the talking, but I politely did ignored them. I'm not like, a complete weirdo. Oh, he was Korean too, but he sounded weird sometimes. Like old. He couldn't have been older than thirty, though."
Zoey thought back to that day, five months ago now.
"That was back in…April. Yeah, I remember, cause the fan had broken again and the place was so hot. It made the guy sweat. But Rumi, she wore the same outfit she always did, three layers. I couldn't understand how she did it. Okay, I tried not to listen, its rude to eavesdrop. I know that. I didn't. But the shop is small, I couldn't really make out what they were talking about but he said something about Rumi being…released? Maybe she had recently gotten out of jail, I'm not sure. Rumi didn't do much of the talking, she mostly looked out the window. Anywhere but at the man. At three p.m she stood up, and told him she was going now. She didn't wait for him, just, left."
"That was, okay it obviously wasn't the first weird thing about Rumi, but it was new. She never met with him again, at least not at the shop. I waited another month, before Bobby confronted me. confronted is a strong word. Really he just told me to ask her out. To at least try." Zoey smiled, feeling a familiar flutter in her stomach.
"So I did. This was in May now, in case you need a timeline or something. She came in, ordered her coffee. She giggled, I said a really dumb joke, like truly cornball shit, I don't remember exactly what I said but she laughed at the joke. Most girls just roll their eyes. She looked so genuine with her laugh, though. So I just blurted it out. Asked her if she wanted to go to the aquarium with me. She seemed surprised, but smiled. Grinned, it was blinding. I gave her my number. She said she'd be there at four thirty. She didn't say a day. So I went every day at 4:30 to the aquarium until I saw her there. It was only three days, but still. I think I would have gone for a month straight." Zoey thought a moment. "No I would have waited a year. If it meant a date with Rumi I would have spent a year waiting for her."
Zoey shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. She played with the fingers of her gloves.
"She showed up that Saturday in the same outfit as always. Not the exact same clothes, just the same formula. I asked her if she was warm, she said not really. I left it there. I did most of the talking, as you might have expected. I don’t even remember half the things I said now, just a meaningless babble of thoughts, personal details, anecdotes. Rumi let me, she smiled, walked beside me as I told her about every exhibit.
At the end of it she was biting her cheek, I could tell she was nervous. I didn't push or anything. I told her we didn't have to kiss or anything, if that's what she was worried about. Rumi had just shaken her head a little. Smiled at me again, sadder for some reason. She asked me if I wanted to go on another date. It's embarrassing how quickly I said yes."
Zoey looked up and saw the pensive and attentive look on Mira's face.
"Almost done, I promise." Zoey took another breath to begin the last half of her story. "I started writing pick-up lines on her cups. I'm not sure if she ever saw, she never said anything. We went on four more dates before she asked if I wanted her to be my girlfriend. It was a picnic that time. I obviously said yes, what else was I supposed to say."
"Our next date after that one was maybe two weeks later. We went for a walk, I bought her ice cream and we just walked around. We were watching the sunset when she asked me if I thought about souls often. I was confused, but answered of course. I said not often, but that I have. It feels like I have a soul, at least some concept of one. Then after she was silent for a beat too long I asked if she meant like soulmates. She said no, that I was right with my answer. I mean I was only more confused. I didn't think about that part of the night much longer. I thought about how beautiful she looked with the sunset in front of her. How the sun made her brown eyes look almost golden from the right angles."
Mira made a face. Some strange sort of possibly recognition. Mira didn't interrupt, so Zoey continued.
"Our last date was September fourth. About a month ago. It was a strange day. Rumi was withdrawn the whole time. Not like she was mad, or upset, at least not with me. I know when people are upset with me, I can recognize that well enough. This wasn't that. I tried to ease whatever was making her anxious. Silly jokes. Pointing at some cute things along our walk. After dark, I suggested that we should maybe head back when she suddenly grabbed her shoulder. She hissed, like she was in pain, and stumbled. I rushed to her, tried to grab her but she pushed me away, and grabbed at her neck…area. I thought maybe she was choking, but she could still speak." Zoey had been so confused. So panicked. "After about five minutes she coughed out that she needed to go home. So I took her, of course I took her. She directed me, leaning against me. She was so weak after that incident. She looked sick."
"We never…I don't remember seeing her home. Last I remember was her needing a break, and sitting down to catch her breath. After a few minutes she looked at me with a sort of hunger."
"I have tried to piece it back together, tried to figure out what happened. Hoping it might lead me back to her. What I do remember is her asking to kiss me. I remember nodding. I remember the brilliant light that had blinded me. I don't- I can't tell if that's a metaphor or if there was some kind of explosion. She had been holding my hands, and it felt painful. It felt like my skin was fading away. It felt like it was on fire. I felt like I was burning. There was a strange tug in my chest. It wasn't my heart, it was deeper than that."
Zoey began to pull at the top of her leather gloves. Wincing at the memory more than any current discomfort.
"I woke up the next morning in the grass. I was alive, clearly. It was morning, I'm not sure where all those hours went, but Rumi wasn't there. I didn't look at my hands for the entire time it took me to stumble to the shop" Zoey continued. "Bobby was there, he had just finished unlocking the shop, I remember the horror on his face when he saw me. He drove me to the hospital. I remember that. I asked about Rumi, and Bobby only looked at me like I was crazy."
Zoey finished removing her gloves. Mira looked down, who flinched. That didn't hurt. It couldn't hurt. Not anymore.
The skin was raised where the scars were left. It looked bad, Zoey knew that. Her hands looked mangled. Leathery and painful. They looked more torn than burnt in some parts. A webbing of sharp scars that crept beneath her sleeves. What Bobby had seen that day would have been worse.
"I'm not. Crazy, really." Zoey insisted. She sounded desperate now. "I know Rumi was real, I have receipts to prove it. I have the scars to prove she's real. She's out there, I'm here because she's missing. I've been looking for-for a month."
Her voice cracks, and Mira is looking at her. In the way that makes Zoey's skin crawl.
"Stop. Don't-She's real. You deal with the supernatural right? No one has been able to figure out how this happened to my hands, and no one remembers Rumi. So please. Please will you help me? I love her, I didn't get to tell her that." Zoey knew she sounded like a madwoman. Her eyes must've looked manic. "Please. You have to help me."