Work Text:
The best way to express her feelings that Kang Haerin knows is to write a song.
'Shining in myriads of colors
The lines connecting us won’t be broken
No matter how bright you shine'
And it's kind of weird—this song is going to be sung by the muse herself: Danielle Marsh, the vocalist of NewJeans. It's embarrassing, but it's really the only way Haerin knows. And if Danielle doesn't get it after reading the lyrics, that's fine.
Haerin knew their drummer Minji through high school before NewJeans was formed, but Danielle was the one to drag her in as the bassist. She had spotted Haerin standing listlessly on campus with her bass guitar, and roped her into the project. It was a surprise to find out it was for Minji.
Originally, she was going to decline, but Haerin felt guilty for all of the nonsensical trouble that she refused to take part in whenever the older asked, so she agreed to play bass for them.
Then Minji's situationship, Hanni, whom she met in her music theory class, came in as their guitarist, and Haerin's cousin Hyein volunteered as their social media manager. It was a joint band formed for Minji's film project, to make an original soundtrack and avoid any copyright. Or so the older claimed.
After the project was turned in, they never disbanded. In fact, meeting up for practice became a regular thing, and planning their next gigs. NewJeans blew up and became a national sensation, and Haerin is still only a sophomore at Yonsei.
And so their meetups go like this: Haerin gets to the practice studio first. She hooks up her ice blue metallic Lakland Skyline 44-64 bass to the Fender amp that Minji had gifted her for her 20th birthday, and warms up with a Roselia song—particularly the song "R". The stylish notes of the intro fill the room, and a satisfied smile will make its way onto Haerin's lips.
Then, Danielle would quietly open the door, careful not to interrupt Haerin's flow. It doesn't work, because her mere presence gets the girl's mind jumbled up, but they exchange a shy smile when Haerin finishes her last riff.
In comes the arguing duo, bickering over something trivial, probably. They always make up within seconds. Haerin wonders when they will get together. She, Danielle, and Hyein have an ongoing bet; Haerin is going to lose 30,000 won to both of them if Hanni and Minji don't start dating within this month. And Haerin just spent a bunch of money on a gift for Hanni's birthday, which is next month.
The practice session officially starts when Hyein follows the two oldest in and sets up her phone onto her tripod. Initially, they had to stack random boxes on top of each other, then lean her phone against Danielle's yellow Hydro Flask, but one day Hyein's phone fell off and cracked its screen, so an investment into a tripod was unanimously decided for the phone's sake.
Anyway, back to the lyrics. They feel a little bit cringe, but they're honest. And Haerin knows she said that it was okay if the vocalist didn't catch on to what she means with these, but she's going to be very disappointed if she doesn't. It will subject her into another six months of pining.
"These lyrics are..."
"Well, they're definitely different from what you usually write," Minji finishes Hanni's sentence. "But they're good."
It’s the end of practice, and the feline called for everyone (sans Hyein, who has make-up lessons today) to come see the new lyrics. It’s always nerve wracking to have them look over the words she stayed up writing, despite the band being formed for almost six months. Hanni purses her lips and nods along to the melody that is probably swirling around in her head already, and Minji’s piercing gaze is bouncing back and forth between the vocalist and bassist. Haerin flushes.
Danielle hasn’t said a single thing since they gathered around the notebook, sitting crossed legged in a circle. There was a noticeable space empty for Hyein, that is until Hanni had pulled out a plush from her tote, which Haerin thinks looks like Hyein.
But Danielle’s silence makes her afraid. It’s unusual—typically, after reading the lyrics her eyes would light up and she would jump up to wrap Haerin in a warming hug, then pulling away to rant about how much she loves the lyrics while the feline stares starry-eyed at the girl that is simply the human embodiment of the sun. Right now she is burning a hole into the black composition notebook with her eyes and digging her fingers into her knees hard enough to leave red marks where her fingertips are.
Practice ends by Minji clapping her hands twice and letting out a “Dismissed!” that she insists is necessary, although everyone says otherwise. Hanni enthusiastically tells the group that she already has a melody in mind, and leaves with the taller girl trailing right behind her. It’s only Danielle and Haerin now.
The bassist packs up her stuff; the other girl does the same, putting her heavily-decorated-with-stickers Hydro Flask into her camo green messenger bag that she got while thrifting. There’s a smiley face patch and a black cat patch sewed onto the front flap—she claims the black cat one reminded her of Haerin, which prompted the feline to put a singular golden retriever sticker onto her white ThermoFlask; the sole decoration that has lasted for so long compared to before, when she got embarrassed and cleared the bottle of anything with personality.
They wordlessly exit the studio together and begin their trek towards the bus stop. Haerin is supposed to get off a stop earlier from Danielle, but she always stays so she can talk to the girl a little longer. She’s pretty sure she has caught on that she doesn’t actually live near where she says she gets off, but they haven’t said anything about it.
Their bus arrives and Haerin makes to get on, but Danielle tugs on her sleeve. She looks back, confused and tilting her head. “What’s wrong?”
The Australian bites her lip and looks down. A beat of silence follows, and the bus leaves. Haerin’s heart thuds in her chest. She can’t help but think back to how the girl reacted earlier, and even now. It’s extremely uncharacteristic.
“The lyrics,” Danielle breathes out, finally looking up to meet the cat-eyed girl’s gaze. “I’m sorry I was so out of it earlier.”
You’re still out of it, Haerin wants to say. “It’s fine… Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer her question, but instead asks one of her own: “Were they about someone specific?”
Yes. They are about Danielle herself.
“Why?”
Danielle widens her eyes, as if she didn’t expect the response. “Ah, I mean, they were—they’re very… emotional? And, you know… That someone must be special if you went out of your way to write a song for them.”
“Yes. She’s very special,” The feline states. Her heart is threatening to burst out of her chest, she’s so, so close to doing it. But Danielle is confusing.
“She?”
“You.”
Haerin’s vision blurs. She can barely hear a gasp coming from Danielle before she makes a run for it and dashes far, far away. It’s only after she catches her breath that she realizes she’s all the way at Hyein’s house. And when she looks back, she only sees a pen that she dropped on the way here. She picks up the black and gold fountain pen and knocks on the Lee’s door, sighing.
The younger girl opens the door with a yawn, adjusting her pajama pants and rubbing her eyes. She must’ve just woken up from a nap, though it’s past dinner time now. The cat-eyed girl opens her mouth to apologize, but is interrupted before she could.
“Haerin?”
Haerin’s shoulders slump. “I messed up.”
Haerin stays home for the rest of the week, afraid of facing Danielle at school. When she gets a text from Hyein that the vocalist intends to visit her house to check up on her, she flees to the younger’s house.
“You can’t just avoid her forever,” Hyein frowns. The feline is currently doodling mindlessly in her journal, laying on her stomach with one of many of the other girl’s stuffed animals tucked under her chin. “What about practice?”
“I am practicing. I’m,” Haerin juts out her lower lip, “rocking out to some hits in my head.”
A phone is tossed next to where the journal lays. The cat-eyed girl glances at the taller, and picks the device up to peer at the screen. It displays a text conversation, with the subject of her thoughts herself.
dani [3:23 pm]
is Haerin ok??
have you seen her?
you [3:24 pm]
no i havent
i thought u went home tg?
There’s a noticeable gap between responses. Haerin furrows her brow.
dani [3:30 pm]
well
she ran off on Wednesday
and I haven’t seen her since
you [3:32 pm]
oh
um ill let yk if i find her
dani [3:32 pm]
thanks Hyein :)
The feline cranes her neck to send Hyein a questioning look. “And what is this supposed to prove?”
“That you should confront your greatest fear, duh?”
Haerin sighs and swings her legs over the edge of Hyein’s bed. “I bet you stole that from a dumb Pinterest post.”
Grabbing her phone and tucking her keys (which are attached to a Keroppi-themed lanyard) into her pocket, she takes a few steps towards the door. There’s a signed Twice poster taped onto the front of it, and a few strips of LED lights outlining the door frame that the designated “Social Media Manager” never took off since it trended in 2020.
Hyein spins around in her purple Kuromi gaming chair (which Haerin thinks is absurd, not because of the chair but because the only game the younger girl plays is Dress to Impress on Roblox), raising an eyebrow. “And where are you going?”
Haerin glares at the younger girl. For a college freshman, she has one hell of a shit-eating grin. “Home. And if Danielle is at my house, I am going to run to the nearest Taco Bell and drown myself in Baja Blast. Enough to kill me.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Hyein giggles.
She gets flipped off before the door slams shut.
“Hey!”
Haerin stiffens, clenching the straps of her backpack. Her psych lecture still hasn’t quite sunk into her mind, and she can’t deal with anything else until she remembers what the hell “GRIT” stands for again. ‘Guts. Resilience. Integrity. Fuck. Who—’
Someone taps her shoulder insistently, and the smell of cinnamon and light honey fills her nostrils. She almost falls to her knees when she turns around to see Danielle.
Haerin manages to muster up a flimsy smile, her grip on her backpack straps hardening. “Danielle! Fancy… seeing you here…?”
A confused grin settles on the girl’s face. “I’m kind of offended…? We just came from the same class, ‘Rin.”
Oh. “Sorry. I’m sleep deprived. I’m still digesting the lesson.”
Haerin takes a deep breath. She hasn’t looked Danielle in the eye at all, but she can feel the swarming disappointment that is being emitted from the girl.
“Do you need something?”
She finds herself at the campus café, which is notorious for housing the campus cat Stephen. Stephen is a ginger tabby cat who loves taking naps under the shade provided by trees and roofs, and also curling up under the lamp in the study corner inside the café. He also bears a resemblance to Haerin herself, to which she vehemently denies but practically everyone at Yonsei knows.
He’s also (amongst the girls, at least) known for hating everyone in NewJeans except his human counterpart and the living sunshine. It’s true, really; he always swats at Minji, Hyein, and especially Hanni. It’s like he has a certain sense for when the golden retriever-black cat duo arrives, and another for when his least favorite guitarist of NewJeans is present.
Stephen is currently purring on Haerin’s lap, receiving nothing but the occasional scratch beneath the chin; the bare minimum, but he doesn’t seem to mind as long as it’s Haerin. She, on the other hand, is scared shitless. The ice in her cold brew is melting at a steady pace. She hasn’t taken a single sip.
Danielle pulls out a composition notebook— Haerin’s composition book, which leads her to wonder when she had left it behind—and clears her throat, successfully garnering the felines’ attention.
“I looked over the lyrics again… Sorry I took your notebook.”
Haerin shifts in her seat in discomfort. Part of her wants to come up with an excuse and run away, but she couldn’t do that to Danielle of all people. Her guilt would eat her from the inside and out. Stephen meows and noses at the hem of her worn-out unofficial Lamp hoodie that she thrifted a few years ago. “It’s fine. I didn’t realize it was missing.”
That’s a lie. She noticed as soon as she got home from Hyein’s, after reluctantly eating dinner with her friend’s family when they offered. It was still on the studio floor last she remembered.
Danielle peels open the notebook, stopping at a certain page, which is now decked out in yellow sticky notes with notes that consist of hand-drawn emoticons and short comments written in purple gel pen.
There’s something that sticks out, though. Since there was a gap between some of the lines in the last verse, Danielle had taken to filling it in herself. It isn’t a necessary addition, but Haerin wouldn’t call it an unnecessary one. It fits just right.
‘If I could be a constellation with you
Painting the sky and creating our ideal night
Even if the moon will always outshine us
That’s why I want to be a constellation with you
Shining in myriads of colors
The lines connecting us won’t be broken
No matter how bright you shine’
“You…” is all Haerin manages to get out, her hesitant gaze meeting Danielle’s intense stare.
The Australian continues, “You said that the lyrics are about me, so…” she coughs, “To be honest, I loved them even before knowing. But it just made me love them more, and well, I thought I could add a little bit of my own touch to it. The last verse seemed a little incomplete, I hope you don’t mind...”
Her rambling goes on and on, but Haerin is slightly mortified. Except it’s not at the fact that she added to the lyrics—it’s that Danielle pretty much stated that she likes her back through the addition.
“Oh no,” Danielle whimpers, “You totally hate them after all. I’m so sorry, I just thought that it’d be cute and I didn’t want to just outright say I liked you back because that’s not what you did and you know what maybe you don’t even like me like that and you meant it platonically—”
Stephen jumps up and away at the sound of his automatic feeder in the staffroom. Haerin shivers at the loss of warmth but swipes the fur left behind off of her jeans. “I like them,” she mumbles.
“And for the record, I do like you. That’s… um. Kind of why I ran.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And I’m sorry for running. And avoiding you.”
“And ditching practice.”
She winces. “Yeah.”
Danielle reaches over and places her hand over the bassist’s own, her touch cold as ice in contrast to Haerin’s warmth. She always found it amusing that no matter how bright the girl’s personality was, she was always suffering from the cold. Even if the blazing heat of the sun waved outside, she would shiver in the presence of an air conditioner.
“It’s okay.”
And just from those two words, a huge weight gets lifted off of her chest. Haerin decides to finally take a sip of her watered down cold brew, expecting a nice burst of energy, but instead being met with: You guessed it, watered-down cold brew.
The girl across from her lets out a boisterous laugh, the melodic sound resonating throughout Haerin’s senses. Is this what heaven sounds like?
She lets Danielle intertwine their fingers and grin happily at her. Unfortunately, she still has to finish her cold brew. The café recently raised their prices, and she didn’t pay 7,600 won just to not drink it. Stephen returns to rub his head against the girls’ legs, and jumps up to sprawl out on Danielle’s lap this time.
The curly-haired girl laughs again.
Maybe it was worth it.
“They’ve been closer than usual lately, haven’t they?” says an amused Minji. Hanni shrugs and pulls out her phone to take a dozen photos of the affectionate pair across from them. It’s clear what their relationship is, but they haven’t admitted to anything to the group yet.
They’re currently in the spacious living room of Minji’s apartment, though it seems more like Minji and Hanni’s apartment—what with the latter’s belongings scattered throughout the home.
(They had finally gotten together, and within the month too, so Haerin’s wallet felt significantly heavier. Though she did feel guilty for charging Danielle, the latter was firm on keeping her word.)
Hyein smiles. They might be overly-sweet and gross, but at least the days of Haerin leeching off of her queen-sized bed and her mom’s cooking are finally over. “You guys are like that too.”
“Ew,” Hanni makes a face. It causes Minji to start whining and clinging onto her, which she immediately pouts in response and starts peppering kisses all over her face.
“Ew,” Hyein mirrors. “You may even be worse.”
In the distance, Danielle is cooing at Haerin, who is nestled comfortably on her lap. She’s combing through her hair while Haerin rants about whether only being able to drink chocolate milk, strawberry milk, or banana milk for the rest of her life would be better. Danielle’s unoccupied hand is entwined with the feline’s, and—Hyein groans. She just reached up to move her bangs out of her face.
The youngest sips from her carton of strawberry milk, which has multiple failed stab-attempts dented on the shrink sleeve.
She sighs. “Nevermind. You all are bad enough.”
“Hey! That was my last strawberry milk!”
“Shut up! I don’t get paid enough for this.”
"You're unemployed. You manage our socials for free."
"I said shut up!"