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The knock at the door came right as Rumi was putting the finishing touches on dinner.
“Can someone get that?” she called. “I’m covered in soy sauce.”
“Got ittttt,” Zoey sang. She hopped over the couch in a completely unnecessary show of agility. Clearly she had some energy to burn off.
“Did any of you order someth… hello,” Zoey stuttered to a halt.
Rumi could see why. The woman standing there was gorgeous. Almost as tall as Mira, beautifully styled bleach-blonde hair, a pair of small earrings on one year, and a smirk that said she knew exactly what effect she was having on people.”
“You must be Zoey,” the stranger said.
“Yes. Zoey is me.”
“…”
“…”
“Invite her in, Zoey!” Mira called from down the hall. “I’ll be there in a second!”
“Right!” Zoey spluttered back to life. “Please come in, miss, um?”
“Call me Ahri,” Ahri filled in smoothly. Her tone brooked no argument.
“Right. Ahri it is. Nice to meet you!”
Zoey seemed caught between bowing and offering a handshake. In lieu of either she just vibrated a bit.
Rumi finished washing her hands and walked out from behind the island.
“I’m…”
“Rumi, yes. Mira’s told me all about you.”
“Has she now?”
Rumi tried not to blanche. That could mean a whole lot of different things.
“Only the good parts,” Mira said.
She stepped out from their shared bathroom, and it was only years of discipline that kept Rumi’s jaw off the floor.
Ahri looked good, great, incredible. Mira looked like a goddess descended to earth.
Her makeup was always impeccable, but this was something else. The eyeliner looked like it had been applied with a knife, and the eyeshadow was a subtle pink shade that looked like it could hypnotise. The gold studded in her ears perfectly complimented the glitter on her cheeks. And of course her outfit was…
“WAIT,” Zoey shouted, clearly recovering from Pretty Woman Stunlock faster than Rumi. “Are you going on a date?”
Mira smirked. Rumi went back into crashlooping.
“I don’t know,” she demurred. “It can be hard to tell with girls, sometime”
“I was hoping it’d be a date,” Ahri said. “If that’s alright with you two.”
“With us?” Rumi frowned. “Why would…”
“Okay yeah hey wait good question,” Zoey cut her off. “I guess we never really talked about this. I um. I kind of thought we were exclusive.”
Rumi’s frown deepened. “Exclusively what?”
“Only seeing each other? Like we’ve got this throuple thing going on, and like obviously there’s many different shapes that can take but we’re Huntr/x together, we never really take on collaborators, so I kind of thought it was just us. Movie nights, super stardom, the other stuff”
“Throuple?”
“Yeah, like a couple, but three. It’s a portmanteau. Like Huntrix is ‘Huntress’ and ‘Domi’—”
Mira facepalmed. “Zoey! That’s not what it stands for and you know it—”
“Wait, are you two a couple? Are you dating? Am... am I dating?”
Three heads turned to look at Rumi. Three faces looked different amounts of incredulous.
“Rumi,” Mira started. “I know you’re a little sheltered but… we all live together”
“That’s because of our… duties”
“We all sleep in one bed”
“It’s just cozy! Zoey gets cold!”
“We went on an aquarium date last week!”
“That’s just what friends do!”
Zoey cut in. “I caught you and Mira making out yesterday”
“She said she was just kissing the homies!”
“And last weekend we all…”
“We were drunk! It doesn’t count! Well I didn’t drink anything, but still!”
Mira looked incredulous. Zoey was trying not to crack up.
Rumi looked nervous. “I thought we were just really good friends. I haven’t… had a lot of friends. And the way Celine always talked about her friendship with my mom...”
“Ohhhh,” said Mira and Zoey, as if that explained everything. “You think Celine and your Mi-Yeong were ‘friends?’”
“Yes? What else would they be?”
Zoey scrunched her eyebrows adorably. “I haven’t actually talked to her about it but they absolutely had something going on before. You can see it in all the old photos, she looks at Mi-yeong like she hung the honmoon. I dunno if it’s the ‘hunter’ bond or whatever but they absolutely explored each other’s bodies.”
Rumi sat down. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying and failing to respond to that.
Zoey and Mira left her to her revelations, moving back to Zoey’s question.
“I’m a little hurt,” Zoey admitted. “This was supposed to be movie night”
“Zoey, every night is movie night.”
“Yeah! It’s great! Who doesn’t love movies?”
“I’m not saying I don’t like couch time with you! But sometimes a girl just wants a little variety.”
Zoey raised a finger. “What about—”
“No, mixing in a Netflix miniseries does not count as variety.”
“Objection withdrawn.”
“I love you two very much, but I think Rumi has point, in a very misguided way.”
“Hey!” Rumi called.
Mira ignored her. “Being around you two is perfect. It’s as easy as breathing. But sometimes a girl wants a night out! She wants to be… romanced.”
“Mmmm, I think I get it,” Zoey responds. She grabs a new notebook off the stack in the corner. “I’ve been sleeping on an entire category of Mira lovin’! Tell me more about your ideal date.”
“Well, look at me. I got dressed up. We were going to a really nice restaurant, the kind where a reservation involves owing some concierge a ‘favour.’ It’s on the top floor of a tower so you can see the whole city… and there’s tiny food that mostly just serves as an excuse to drink a lot of wine.”
Zoey was scribbling frantically. “Oh that does sound nice! Do they have coffee instead of real dessert?”
“Yeah, probably. It’s okay, that’s just an excuse to ask someone if they want to try the Hagez Daaz in my fridge.”
“Smooooth. Wait wait wait, do we have ice cream?”
“We absolutely do.”
“Oh you are such a charmer. Can I have some?”
“Absolutely.”
Rumi surfaced enough to request a bowl as well.
The three of them sat on the couch, dinner forgotten. Also forgotten was Mira’s date, who had taken a hint at some point and slipped out.
“Dis ‘s real goob,” Zoey mumbled around a spoon.
Mira nodded. “I know how much you like pistachio, and this was limited edition so I had to grab it.”
“Guys?” Rumi asked quietly. “Can I… ask a question?”
“Obviously”
“Of course!!”
“Are you two my… girlfriends?”
Mira and Zoey looked at each other, and nominated Mira to handle this. “Do you want us to be?”
“I… yeah. I really want that. I didn’t know… that was an option. For all three of us.”
“Well considering our anniversary is in a month, I’d say it’s a pretty good option.”
Rumi buried her face in her hands. “We’ve been dating for a year?”
“Yeah, that’s the first time we managed to get you into the bathouse! And then we all came back home and cuddled, and you kissed me for the first time.”
“Right. That did happen. I thought... I was just so glad you two didn’t run out on me.”
Zoey patted Rumi’s head. “It’s okay, unnnie. We were okay taking it slow with you.”
“You don’t have to,” Rumi said nervously. “Take it slow, I mean.”
“You sure?” Zoey asked.
“You can take all the time you like,” Mira added. “We’re not going anywhere.
Rumi blushed deeply, head suddenly filling up with a lot of very steamy images of her two best friends. Her two girlfriends. That she had. Apparently had had for most of a year.
She looked at the two of them carefully and nodded meekly.
The look on Mira’s face turned from kind to downright predatory. “Let’s show our girlfriend what she’s been missing out on.”
“Wait, missing out? You mean you two have ohhhhhhh,”
That line of questioning was thoroughly shut down by Mira’s teeth on Rumi’s neck. Zoey blinked, scribbled a couple more notes in her notebook, and then dove in after them.
Later that week, Mira met Ahri in a bar a few blocks from the penthouse.
“How’d it go?” Ahri asked.
“Perfectly. You were just the push we needed to sort everything out.”
“Glad to hear it. Did you decide you’re exclusive?”
Mira took a sip of her whiskey. “Afraid so. I’ve got my hands full with those two, I think.”
“Ah, probably for the best. You still owe me a nice dinner, though.”
Mira rolled her eyes. “You know I didn’t even have a reservation that night, right?”
“Still. You can afford it.”
Mira smiled. “You got it. One strictly platonic restaurant date coming up”
“Can you wear that dress again?”
“Don’t push it.”