Chapter Text
"What dye do you use?"
Rumi startled like a baby deer, not helped by the big doe eyes blinking up at her in confusion.
"Dye?"
Mira raised an eyebrow, gesturing to her own hair, "Hair dye. What brand do you use?"
"I-I don't," she stuttered, "I don't use hair dye,"
"Oh come on!" Mira laughed, playfully elbowing her new teammate's shoulder, "You don't expect me to believe that's natural, right?"
Rumi looked downward, her lips puckering as she shuffled in place, and Mira's heart dropped.
"Oh shit, I'm sorry I didn't-,"
"It's alright," her leader, who'd always seemed confident to the point of obnoxiousness, said bashfully, only making it worse.
"So your hair is just…purple?"
"Yeah, it's always been purple. Celine says it was because I was chosen by the Honmoon at birth, since I'm so…connected to it,"
That Mira could believe. She was still new to this Honmoon stuff but it seemed to respond to everyone differently. With Mira it was like a dance partner, someone whose rhythm she was still adjusting to, to Celine it seemed like an old friend, responding to her like someone she could talk to without speaking.
But to Rumi, the Honmoon seemed to be a part of her very being, she raised her voice in song it leapt to answer her, she reached out for it and the strings tangled around her fingers like yarn.
"Yeah, I buy that," she snorted, "Being the chosen one's got to have it's perks after all. Natural anime hair seems better than a lot of alternatives,"
Rumi smiled, small and enigmatic, "Yeah, it is,"
---
"Hey Rumi, do you dye your hair?"
Rumi pulled her head from Couch, looking down the length of her body and the assortment of crumbs covering her tanktop to squint at Zoey, taking up starfish position at her feet.
"Wait a minute," Mira piped up, having taken up starfish position behind her head, "You think Rumi dyes her hair?"
"She doesn't!?"
"I don't," Rumi confirmed, "You've seen how long it takes to do Mira's, when would I have the time?"
"Okay, don't laugh at me, or like, feel bad, but I thought that's what you were doing whenever we went to the bathhouse without you,"
"Oh god no, I still don't think I'd have enough time. You really thought I dyed it?"
"What was I supposed to think? That you had naturally purple hair?"
"I thought Mira told you,"
"Rumi, I thought you told her,"
Nobody spoke for a moment, filling the room with the sound of Danny Glover chasing Predator through an LA that Zoey had joked about (at least, that's what Rumi hoped) only being slightly exaggerated.
Mira groaned, "We really need to work on our communication skills,"
Zoey and Rumi grunted in response.
"Soooo….Mira, how did you find out Rumi's hair was naturally purple?"
"Well, before you arrived, I asked her about dye and she told me it had been like that since birth, said it was a Honmoon th-wait," Mira shifted, "Is this a Demon thing instead?"
"I mean, all the pictures I have of my father show him with black hair, so it could be a Honmoon thing,"
"Yeah, but four of the five other Saja Demons we've actually spent significant time with recently had pastel hair,"
"So what?" Mira drawled, "It's like, a gene you get when you become a Demon?"
"Maybe,"
Another silence washed over them as Keyes' Anti-Predator soldiers stalked the alien poacher through a slaughterhouse.
"Hey Rumi?"
"Yeah?"
Couch dipped and Rumi ripped her eyes from the screen to see Zoey looming over her, a dastardly smile on her face.
"Does the carpet match the drapes?"
Mira cackled like a maniac.
Rumi blushed, her patterns shining but she managed to stop herself from doing anything too embarrassing, "I-I thought you would've already known that from our bathhouse trips,"
Mira's cackling grew louder as she slid off the couch with a thump.
Zoey managed to turn her sputter into a dismissive snort, "As if I'd peek!"
Mira snorted, "No, you were too busy staring at her tits,"
Rumi giggled, growing louder as she watched Zoey's eyes briefly dart to her chest.
"If you're so curious why don't you find out for yourself?" she smiled, wiggling her hips.
Zoey went as red as a firetruck while Mira made a choking noise behind her.
Predator 2 suddenly seemed startlingly unimportant.