Chapter Text
Mira strode down the street, sipping her boba tea and balancing her dinner with her other shopping bags. It was a retail therapy day for her. Once a month she would splurge on herself and spend the day shopping around town, enjoying herself. Just a day to relax from the stress of her masters courses. As she stood waiting at a crosswalk, the sound of a guitar hit her ear along with a soft voice singing a low, solemn song.
She turned her head this way and that, her feet moving in the direction she thought the music was coming from. On the edge of an alley way she spotted the singer. A rather rough looking woman with choppy purple hair under a ball cap, wearing far too many layers of dirty clothing. For looking so rough, she had the voice of an angel. Mira stood a little ways away, mesmerized.
When the woman finished singing, Mira approached.
"I… that was beautiful. Uh, here? Dinner. It's mandu and kimchi fried rice."
Mira had set her shopping bags down and held out her dinner to the woman. Their eyes met, the woman slightly suspicious as she reached out to take it with a murmured thanks.
" You're welcome. And here, for the song," Mira said, pulling some bills from her wallet, dropping 100,000 won into the open guitar case.
The woman's eyes went wide and she quickly snatched up the bills, stuffing them in the pocket of one of her inner coats. She glanced around in a panic before her eyes settled back onto Mira.
"Th-thank you. I have to go now."
Mira barely had time to blink before the woman had packed up her guitar, grabbed the case and a ratty looking suit case, and taken off down the street with the food dangling precariously from her fingertips.
"Huh," Mira breathed as she gathered up her shopping bags, watching the woman disappear into the distance. She kept thinking about her all the way home.
For the next few weeks, fate seemed to keep bringing Mira to her. The woman would show up on different streets Mira would be walking through. She would hear that voice cutting through the drone of crowds and stop. Sometimes she would go get her food, and every time she would drop bills into her guitar case.
They didn't talk, didn't know each other's names, but Mira's very soul would calm each time they met. Sometimes she would stay for a few songs, giving her quiet company.
Her voice invaded Mira's dreams and even her waking daydreams. She felt a pull to the woman she couldn't explain. It was especially strong today, which is how Mira found herself out wandering the city instead of working, searching for the woman.
Mira walked for hours, frown deepening as she searched without finding her. Her brain was telling her to give up for today, that she was wasting time, but something in her heart kept her going.
Passing by a barely lit alley way, Mira heard a scream that had her blood flush cold through her body.
"It can't be," she whispered as she spun on her heel and backtracked into the alley. There lay the woman, crumpled on the ground and surrounded by three men kicking her and spitting vitriol.
Mira saw red and then black. Her body moved more on instinct than conscious thought. She flew down the alley in an instant, her fist connecting with the jaw of the first man, the one trying to pry the woman's guitar from her bloodied hand. He fell with a shout of pain. Mira hoped his jaw was broken.
"Don't you fucking touch her," she snarled at them. The third man stood, shocked expression on his face, but the second man was lunging at Mira. She stepped back out of reach of his meaty fist and swung one of her long legs to kick him right in the crotch. He jackknifed forward, allowing Mira bury her hands in his greasy hair and ram her knee into his face. Her knee came back covered in blood from his newly broken nose.
He crumbled to the ground, unconscious. The third man still stood, petrified by the furious, firey goddess that had swooped in upon them.
"Fucking bitch," the first man seethed from the ground, jaw sadly not broken. He spat at Mira's feet and got a boot to the face in response. He wouldn't be speaking again.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing," Mira raged at the third, who was shrinking away from her.
"We, she, she's homeless! She's bringing down the property values!"
That was the wrong thing to say. He really should have run. Mira lunged at him, slamming her head in his face, breaking his nose as well. They went down in a heap, Mira straddling his waist. She was beyond furious, punching him till her knuckles tore and he lay unconscious.
She stood, breathing heavy and shaking her head as she surveyed them, making sure they weren't getting back up. A broken whimper from against the wall broke through the darkness in her mind.
Mira turned and finally took in the woman. She was curled in tight on herself, split lip and gash on her cheek bleeding as she held her torso tight.
"Oh shit, fuck just, just stay still don't move."
She dropped to her knees beside the woman and pulled out her phone, dialing 112 for help. She relayed what had happened and the injuries.
Her breathing was returning to normal as they waited, tears welling in her eyes as everything caught up to her. They fell in fat streams as she noticed the woman on the ground crying too.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay, help is coming. I've got you," she leaned forward and gently patted the woman's matted hair. "I'm Mira, I've got you, you're safe now," she repeated.
The woman cracked her eyes open, looking up at her through pained eyes. "R-rumi," she replied, split lip bleeding even more.
"Okay Rumi just stay with me. I can hear them, help is almost here."
The police came first and took in the violent scene with mild horror. There's blood everywhere surrounding a tall, agitated women. Mira explained what happened, how she found three grown men beating a young woman to death. Rumi can only nod and wince in pain.
The ambulance arrives shortly after. Paramedics spread out, checking on all the wounded. The men are alive, to Mira's dismay as she barks at them to check on the real victim, Rumi. She's truly busted up. They put a collar on her and strap her to a back board to get her on the stretcher and into a waiting ambulance. Mira makes to follow, only for an officer to stop her with a hand on her shoulder. She wants to snarl at him, but takes a breath.
"I'm going with her. She's alone with no one else to check on her. If you want to question me, send someone to the hospital."
That seems to work. He let her go and she followed Rumi into the truck, chewing her lip the entire way to the hospital. She almost bites through when Rumi loses consciousness before they arrive. She doesn't know much, but she knows passing out with a concussion is bad.
She can't go back into the trauma unit with Rumi, so she paced the waiting area for hours, constantly asking for updates from the eternally patient staff. Finally someone came for her. Mira doesn't lie, she told them Rumi is homeless and she's just a friend. They brought her back to Rumi's room where Rumi is sat mostly upright and awake, looking so dreadfully tired that Mira almost started crying again.
The nurse asked Rumi if it's okay to share her status with Mira. She looked Mira in the eye for a long moment, as if seeing into her soul, before nodding.
Rumi's injuries were extensive but not life threatening. Gashes, a concussion, two broken ribs, and a sprained wrist. Lots of bruising on her torso, but thankfully no internal damage. They wanted to keep her for twenty four hour observation. Rumi sighed and melted back into the bed.
"Okay," Mira murmured, "but then after that? She'll be back on the streets."
The nurse gave her a thoughtful frown.
"We can recommend her to a shelter. It's not a long term solution, but that would give Rumi time to recover."
"No! Ow," Rumi hugged her ribs and cringed. "No shelters."
They both blinked at her, Mira staring. Her thoughts whirled thinking about what could have caused that reaction. She sighed internally, remembering an old class presentation someone had done on the lesser known dangers of homelessness. Clearly Rumi had negative experiences with shelters.
"She will come home with me. If she wants." Mira stepped over to Rumi and lifted her hand, stopping short when Rumi winced and settled it on the beds frame. "You don't have to take up my offer, but I've got a spare room doing nothing that you can stay in."
Again Rumi gazed up into Mira's eyes, searching for any malice or deceit. Her life had been long and traumatic. Trusting people was hard for her. Her mind wanted to say no, but there's a little spark in her chest that wanted to hope.
" Okay."
Mira breathed a sigh of relief.
"Okay. I'm going to go home and get it ready for you then. Let the nurses and doctors take care of you and I'll be back tomorrow to pick you up."
"My… my guitar?"
Oh yeah.
"I'll see if it's still in the alley. If the police took it as evidence, I'll figure out how to get it back."
Rumi gave her a small nod as a tear slipped down her cheek.