Chapter Text
Manon was woken up with Lara panicking.
“Lara, what's going on? It's like two o’clock in the morning”
“We can't find Sophia.” Lara continued her pacing.
“She hasn't gotten back from her classes yet. And I heard her and Dani got into a fight with Jonah.” Yoonchae's voice could be heard faintly from Lara’s phone.
“I’ll call Dani to see if she’s seen her.” Manon reached over to the bedside table and called Dani.
She didn’t answer.
Manon called again.
It rang for a minute.
She still didn't answer.
Manon tried to be optimistic.
“Maybe they're together and made up.” She tried to smile. Though it sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than the others.
She called Dani again.
Her phone rang three times before the call went through.
“Hello” Dani sounded like she been crying her soul out. Her voice was raw and her nose sounded clogged and she kept sniffling.
“Have you seen Sophia?” Manon got straight to the point.
“Not since earlier” Dani left out what happened earlier. She was still processing.
“So you don't know where she is?”
“No, why?”
“We can't find her”
“What do you mean?”
“She's missing, we can't find her.”
“Ok” Dani hung up.
Dani was home when Manon called. She had cried herself to sleep that night thinking about Sophia. So hearing that Sophia was missing triggered something in her. When Manon had said the first time that she was missing Dani was already out the door. She got into her car and started driving.
She ended up at the university. She got out of the car and walked to the lake. From there she used her memory. She walked out of the area and turned left towards the campus like she was following Sophia as if she was actually there. The first building was the dance building. She checked all three floors three times before leaving. Next was the art building. She checked high and low, left and right, upside down and up right, horizontal and vertical, and inside and outside. Next was the theater building.
She pushed the heavy door. The metal cool against her palms. The doors creaked a bit.
“Sophia” she called out, “Are you here”
She took a step forward, her footsteps loud in the quiet building. She called out again. There was a faint sound of a leaking faucet. She walked over to the first door and twisted the handle. Unlocked. She walked around the desk at the front of the room and went to the far left corner and walked towards the seats.
“Hello, Sophia, are you around here?”
She was now in the back of the classroom. She walked to the back wall and started heading toward the front of the classroom checking between seats as she walked. She walked out the classroom with no luck finding her bae.
She walked down the hallway using her phone flashlight to see. The rest of the lecture halls were locked except two. She still has yet to find Sophia. She went up the stairs to the second floor. No doors were locked. On her way out the building she checked the rooms again. Still no Sophia.
Dani had checked the whole campus twice with still no luck. She continued her search behind the campus. She checked the smoke spot, the after party makeout spot, the sunny take a nap spot and the spot with a suspicious amount of animals. Still no Sophia. She was starting to get desperate. She looked around and the only other possible answer was the woods. She started walking.
So lets get this straight Dani is not lost. She just doesn't know where she is. She has been walking for a while and she has seen at least twenty deer. She looked at her phone that she was using as a flashlight. No service. She sees another deer. At this point she is sleep deprived, cold, and desperate. She gets a really stupid idea. It came from the fact that she was tired of seeing deer. So she chased one. She chased it around a pond over a fallen tree and through more woods. She was really tired of seeing woods. Up ahead she saw a break in the vast darkness and trees. It was a clearing. ‘Finally’ she thought, ‘No more woods’
She reached the clearing and caught her breath.
“Deer are now my favorite animal. After lions and pandas of course” she announced to no one.
She looked up at the field. It was pretty. There was an old deserted blue car on one side, bunnies and deer sleeping in bunches, a lot of fireflies and someone resting on a tree.
“Wait a minute. What the fuck” Dani looked over.
The person was wearing black boots, black baggy jeans, a tight fitted black shirt, and a black leather jacket. They also had long black hair and were curled up into a ball. Dani felt a flicker of familiarity.
“Are you ok over there?” Dani yelled from where she was standing. She didn't want to get close just in case the person was dangerous.
The person didn't react. Dani took a step forward. Her stance lowered just in case she needed to hit and run. She slowly closed the distance between her and the person. About twenty feet away she realized. She found her bae.
“Sophia?”
She broke into a run. When she got to Sophia she dropped to her knees and uncurled her.
“Sophia wake up”
Dani started shaking her.
“Sophia please wake up”
Sophia stayed still.
“Come on Fifi please”
No response.
“Please wake up”
A water droplet fell onto Sophia's cheek. Dani was crying.
“Please Fifi”
More tears fell onto the sleeping person. She eye lids fluttered.
“Dani?”
Sophia sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“What's going on? Why are you crying?”
“Yoonchae said you didn't come back to their place and you weren't answering the phone and we thought you were missing and I couldn't find you and I searched everywhere and then you weren't waking up and I thought Jonah got you and I thought you were dead.” Dani said through sobs and sniffles.
“Hey, it's okay. I'm okay. We're okay. There's no need to cry.” Sophia pulled Dani into her lap and started rocking her.
“It’s okay, calm down.” Sophia felt like she was coxing a scared kitten.
After Dani calmed down Sophia called Yoonchae to tell her she's safe and Dani found her.
“Hey Dani” Dani looked over at her, “While I was asleep I had a dream where we were both thirty five years old and we had a house in the suburbs and we were married. You were a famous choreographer and I was a famous actress and we had a baby on the way. We were in the nursery painting the walls green and building a changing table. We were both happy and excited and in love. It was nice.” Sophia finished and looked over at Dani.
She had tears in her eyes and an incredibly soft expression.
“Really” she asked. The word came out wobbly.
“Do you wanna make that happen with me?” Sophia asked, already knowing the answer.
Dani nodded.
Sophia moved closer to Dani. Dani moved closer to Sophia. They were shoulder to shoulder now. Sophia moved first and Dani met her halfway.
It was a soft, tender kiss surrounded by fireflies and under the moon light. It was the lightest the both felt in months. All tension slowly eased out their bodies. Daniela smiled into the kiss. When they broke apart Dani spoke.
“We should go check in with the others."