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All of them had been invited to an exclusive party, one of those evenings designed not just for fun, to create connections, to weave the web of camaraderie and alliances that underpins life in the spotlight. The only one absent was Yoonchae, whose name surfaced in a collective sigh of tenderness. She wasn't eighteen yet, and that invisible line on the calendar separated her from the glitter and bustle of the night.
In a corner, Manon, with her carefree smile, had started an Instagram live, approved by the staff, of course, to give her fans a furtive glimpse. Daniela and Lara, like a whirlwind of energy, approached immediately, greeting with the effusiveness characteristic of those who feel on top of the world. Soon after, Megan joined, with her sarcastic humor, and finally, as if the stage had turned to illuminate only her, Sophia appeared.
And then, Daniela's eyes, once dancing and curious, became fixed. It wasn't a casual glance, but a silent, persistent effect. It cut through the crowd with the softness of a moonbeam, and Daniela found herself trapped. Most of the comments on the live stream quickly noticed, weaving a digital chorus of complicity.
"ARE WE SEEING DANI? GIRL SOPHIA IS GOING TO MELT UNDER THAT GAZE"
"DANIELA WANTS THAT COOKIE SO BAD"
"SODANIIIII. SOMEBODY TELL HER THE CAMERA IS BETRAYING HER!"
"THE WAY DANIELA CAN'T TAKE HER EYES OFF SOPHIA LOL"
Among other, slightly stranger and more speculative comments that made heat rise to her cheeks.
Daniela tried, with titanic effort, to divert her gaze towards the camera lens or towards any of her other companions. She sought refuge in Manon's calm smile or in a gesture from Lara, but it was simply impossible. Sophia was a magnet, and everything about her—the curve of her smile, the way she moved, the serenity she seemed to radiate—exerted a gravitational pull that Daniela couldn't, and didn't want to, resist.
"Maybe it's the alcohol," Daniela thought, clinging to the simplest explanation as a sip from her glass burned her throat. But deep down, a little voice told her no, that the spark she felt was too real, too vibrant to be just the effect of the liquor.
After about twenty minutes that felt like an eternity of sweet tension, Manon ended the live stream with a knowing wink. Daniela sighed, relieved and yet nostalgic for the end of the spell. She could already imagine the number of edits, compilations, and threads that would be born from it, pixelating her gaze into an infinite loop of fan theories.
"Dani..." Lara's voice, a whisper by her ear, pulled her from her thoughts. Her friend had a teasing smile, but her eyes conveyed a genuine warning. "You have to be more careful. We'll probably have a talk about fanservice tomorrow, and your name will come up."
Daniela opened her mouth to respond, to protest, to explain that it wasn't what it seemed, but Lara, swift as a sigh, was already moving away, blending into the crowd. She was left alone, with the echo of the warning and the buzz of the party.
Fanservice? she repeated to herself, feeling how the word tasted bitter and false. No, it wasn't that. She didn't like Sophia, not in the way the comments and looks implied. She simply... admired her. She clung to that idea with the force of someone grasping a lifeline. And why wouldn't she admire her? Who in their right mind wouldn't? Sophia was beautiful with an elegance that seemed innate, she was a tireless worker whose ethics inspired respect, and above all, she was an excellent person, with a kindness that filtered into every small gesture.
It was admiration, she told herself firmly, as her gaze, almost of its own volition, sought Sophia's silhouette in the crowd again. Pure and simple admiration. And if observing her so intensely made her stomach flip and a heat rise that had nothing to do with the alcohol... well, that was part of admiring someone so brilliant.
Sophia was chatting calmly, almost indolently, with a producer. Her laugh, a crystalline sound that Daniela felt was the soundtrack to her best days, rose above the murmur. Daniela, from her observation corner, thought about approaching, about inventing any excuse to exchange a few words. But just at that moment, as if a telepathic current connected them, Sophia turned her head. Her eyes, deep and perceptive, captured Daniela's furtive gaze and held it. There was no surprise in them, just a quiet recognition, as if she had been waiting for her.
And then, without a word to the producer, Sophia began walking towards her. Each step was sure, deliberate, and the world around them seemed to blur until only the two of them existed in the center of the room.
"Dani," Sophia's voice was soft, but it cut through the noise like a knife. "Do you want to go out?"
"What?" was all Daniela could articulate, her mind still trying to process that the magnet was moving towards her.
"Outside. To the rooftop. I need some fresh air. Will you come with me?" It wasn't really a question. It was an invitation loaded with an intensity that made Daniela's stomach do a somersault.
"Sure... Let's go," she nodded, feeling heat course through her veins.
Sophia, without hesitation, took her hand. Her skin was soft and cool, and the contact sent a shiver up Daniela's arm. Thus, intertwined, Sophia guided her through the crowd. Lara, seeing them pass, raised an eyebrow with a mischievous smile. Manon exchanged an eloquent look with Megan. They all noticed their departure, and in their minds, they were already weaving stories: a conflict? a group secret? or perhaps something more... intimate?
When the heavy rooftop door closed behind them, the world changed completely. The cold night air hit their faces, wiping away the stifling heat of the party in one breath. Sophia exhaled dramatically, as if she had been holding her breath for hours.
"Finally," she whispered, and leaned against the concrete railing, observing the vast tapestry of city lights stretching out at their feet.
The city looked beautiful, yes. A universe of twinkling sparks and winding traffic lines like rivers of lava. But for Daniela, the urban landscape was just a blurry background. The only thing she could see, with a clarity that took her breath away, was how majestic Sophia looked under the faint moonlight, her dark hair waving like living silk under the caress of the night breeze. The light from a neon sign illuminated her profile, creating a silhouette that seemed taken from a dream.
"Dani."
"Mmh?" Daniela managed to utter, shaken by her name.
"Come here." Sophia didn't turn her head, but she extended a hand backward, a gesture of invitation and trust.
Daniela obeyed, closing the distance until she was by her side, their arms brushing lightly. The simple contact was electrifying.
"You look very good tonight," Sophia said, finally turning her head to look at her directly. Her eyes scanned Daniela's face with deliberate slowness.
The compliment, so direct and loaded with intention, took Daniela by surprise, who couldn't prevent a wave of heat from rising up her neck to tinge her cheeks a deep pink. She stammered a "Thank you..." that sounded pathetically weak in her own ears.
"Of course..." Sophia murmured, and her smile widened a little, as if she enjoyed the effect she was having. Then, with a fluid movement, she pulled an elegantly slim cigarette case from the inside pocket of her jacket.
"Sophia... I didn't know you smoked," Daniela admitted, watching her with genuine astonishment. It was the first time she had seen their leader, the image of serenity and control, with a cigarette. She had seen Manon do it, with a carefree attitude, or Lara, in moments of stress, but she had never imagined it of Sophia.
"I guess we all keep secrets," Sophia said with an enigmatic smile as she pulled out a silver lighter and lit the tip of the cigarette with a soft click. The flame briefly illuminated her features. "Some more harmless than others."
Daniela stared at her, hypnotized by the ritual. The alcohol circulating in her blood was beginning to cloud her inhibitions, to loosen her tongue.
"You look too..." she started to say, her words propelled by a courage she didn't know she had. But the sentence was left half-finished, cut off by herself before she could finish expressing how "beautiful," "dangerous," or "irresistible" she found her at that moment.
Sophia laughed softly, a low, melodious laugh that mixed with the wind. She took another drag from her cigarette and then let the smoke out slowly, forming an ephemeral veil between them.
"Relax, Dani," she said, her tone playful, but her eyes didn't let go of Daniela's. "It's not going to make you less straight to say I look good."
Daniela averted her gaze to the city lights, feeling exposed and slightly embarrassed. "No... I didn't mean it like that," she protested, more firmly this time. She didn't want it to be just a label, a joke. She wanted Sophia to understand the depth of her admiration, of her... confusion.
"Why are you so nervous?" Sophia asked, and suddenly, her voice changed. The flirtatiousness faded, replaced by a sincere and concerned calm. There she was again, the Sophia Daniela knew best: the leader, the rock of the group, the one who always looked out for her members. "Did something happen?"
"Everything's fine, Soph," Daniela replied, feeling how the change in tone unbalanced her even more.
"Do I make you nervous?" The question came again, but this time without the initial jest. It was a genuine question, loaded with a curiosity that made Daniela's heart race.
Daniela was completely taken aback, trapped on the emotional rollercoaster that was Sophia. How could she switch so quickly from being flirtatious and provocative to becoming deeply concerned, only to throw her another hint that left her breathless? She was going to drive her crazy. She was playing with her, but in a way that didn't feel malicious, rather... exploratory.
Before she could formulate a response, one that wasn't a meaningless babble, Sophia let out a fresh laugh and gave her arm a gentle pat.
"Just kidding, Dani!" she said, stepping away from the railing and walking a few steps, leaving a trail of smoke and perfume. "Don't take everything so seriously. Sometimes it's nice... to escape the script a little, don't you think?"
When Sophia moved away, breaking the spell of their closeness, Daniela felt a sudden cold, a tangible loss. Her feet moved before her mind could process it, shortening the distance as if an invisible thread connected them and was stretched to the breaking point. She needed to feel her warmth, the magnetic field that her body seemed to radiate. She needed, simply, to be close.
Sophia noticed, of course. Nothing escaped her sharp perception. A spark of malicious triumph shone in her eyes, so fleeting it could have been a reflection of the city. Instead of commenting on it, she slid the conversation into more dangerous, more intimate territory.
"Have you ever smoked, Dani?" Her voice was a husky whisper that blended with the night breeze. It wasn't a casual question; it was a probe, an invitation to lower another guard.
Daniela shook her head slightly, feeling her tongue grow heavy. "No," she managed to say, and the word sounded ridiculously innocent in her own ears.
"Would you like to try?" The offer wasn't just about the tobacco. It was about sharing a vice, a secret, a fragment of the Sophia no one else saw. It was a bridge to her private world.
Daniela's eyes, treacherous, dropped to Sophia's lips. She watched how they pursed around the cigarette, how the moisture from her mouth left a faint mark on the paper. An involuntary, dizzying image invaded her mind: What would it feel like to touch them? Not with the roughness of the paper, but with her fingertips, or with her own lips. Would they be as soft as they promised? Would they yield under pressure? A sudden heat flooded her. "Does it taste bad?" she asked, desperate to anchor the conversation in the practical, in the safe.
"I won't lie to you, it tastes a bit bad," Sophia admitted with a lopsided smile, exhaling the smoke in a serpentine column that vanished into the darkness. Her smile was an artifact of shared complicity.
Daniela swallowed, trying to clear her mind of that reckless tactile fantasy. "It's okay... I'd like to try."
Sophia's smile softened. Her gaze became penetrating, serious. "If you don't want to, it's okay, Dani," she said, her voice losing its playful tone. She looked at the cigarette as if it were an object of contemplation. "Don't feel like you have to do this just because I told you to. I don't want you to feel obligated."
That retreat, that unexpected respect, was what sealed her decision. It wasn't pressure; it was a choice offered to her with rare delicacy. "No... I want to try it, really."
"Good..." Sophia closed the remaining distance. Her hand, cool and sure, took Daniela's. It wasn't a grip, but a placement. She guided her fingers with exquisite precision, placing the white cylinder between them, adjusting the pressure with an almost imperceptible caress. "Hold it like this... Gently. As if you were holding a feather."
The contact, though brief, was a jolt. Daniela felt every nerve ending in her hand alert, recording the texture of Sophia's skin.
"Now," Sophia whispered, leaning in until her breath, a mix of mint and tobacco, brushed Daniela's cheek, "bring it to your lips. And inhale... slowly. Let it fill you without fighting it."
Daniela obeyed, guided by her voice. But the body betrays the novice. The smoke, harsh and hot, burst into her mouth like an invasion. A violent, dry cough shook her chest, bending her body forward. Her eyes instantly filled with tears of agony and embarrassment.
"This tastes horrible, Sophia," she gasped, her voice ragged, "and I almost choked..."
A low laugh, warm and not without tenderness, was the response. "It's normal if it's your first time, Dani," Sophia murmured, and her hand found her back. A series of slow, comforting circles drawn between her shoulder blades. "Are you going to try again?"
Daniela straightened up, wiping her tears with a brusque gesture. She looked at the cigarette, now stained with her own lipstick alongside Sophia's. It was a banner of her clumsiness, but also of her courage. "I think so..."
The second time was an act of pure will. She inhaled more carefully, suppressing the urge to cough. The taste was still a harshness burning her throat, and a slight rasp escaped her lips, but she held her ground. "Okay, I think that's enough..." she conceded, feeling a slight dizziness she didn't know was from the tobacco, the alcohol, or the company.
It was then that she caught Sophia's gaze. It wasn't mocking, nor concerned. It was... intense. A deep gaze, charged with a mischievous curiosity and a slow approval that seemed to travel every inch of Daniela's face. A gaze she knew she would engrave in her memory and would probably think about, obsessively, for the next two weeks. Is it the effects of the cigarette? Daniela wondered, desperate. Or is it the smoke enveloping Sophia in this hypnotic aura, making her seem the only real entity in the whole night?
"You've become an expert, Dani," Sophia's voice was as soft as velvet, and her hand closed over Daniela's not to take the cigarette, to envelop it. Her fingers briefly intertwined with Daniela's around the object before taking it possessively.
Then, in a movement that seemed to happen in slow motion, Sophia brought it to her mouth. Right where Daniela's lips, moist and trembling, had just been, now rested Sophia's, confident and experienced. She inhaled deeply, and her eyes didn't leave Daniela's for a second.
"Sophia..." Her name wasn't a word, but the arrowhead of a desire finally piercing the surface.
"Mmh?" Sophia's reply was a thread of voice, laden with a perception that already knew, that already expected.
And then, the truth, long contained, exploded in the space between them, raw and glorious. "God, I just want to kiss you."
The silence that followed was so dense it drowned out the city's murmur. Daniela brought her trembling fingers to her lips, as if she could recapture the confession and lock it back in the dark, safe confines of her chest. The air had turned to glass, and she had just shattered it.
For the first time that night, Sophia's impenetrable composure cracked. Her eyes, usually veiled by serene amusement, opened with a genuine, naked astonishment. A soft "What?" escaped her, more a sigh than a word.
"I'm sorry... I... I didn't mean to say it," Daniela lied, averting her gaze to the infinite mosaic of lights, feeling the scorching weight of her own audacity. Her world was crashing down.
But Sophia moved. With a definitive gesture, she threw the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under her sole, a symbolic act that sealed the end of frivolity, the start of something irrevocable.
"Hey," she murmured, and her voice was now an audible caress. Her hand, warm and firm, found Daniela's cheek, guiding her face with a tenderness that disarmed all her defenses until their gazes, one full of panic and the other of a deep understanding, met again. "It's okay. You don't have to apologize."
Daniela leaned into that touch, a gesture of total surrender. The need she felt for Sophia was an underground current now emerging, sweeping everything away. It was a physical yearning, a sweet, urgent ache in the core of her being.
"Sophia..." her voice was a fragile, broken thread. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't think this is... just admiration. This is something else, isn't it?"
A smile, slow and luminous, illuminated Sophia's face. Her thumbs gently stroked Daniela's cheekbones, tracing reassuring circles. "Dani. Breathing is normal. A heartbeat is normal. And this... feeling this curiosity, this attraction... is normal too." Her gaze dropped to Daniela's parted lips and then returned to her eyes, with an intensity that made the universe contract to that very instant. "If you really want... to kiss me, there's nothing stopping us."
"I've never... done it with a girl," Daniela confessed, her voice so low the wind almost stole it, as if she were sharing the most vulnerable secret of her soul.
Sophia's smile softened, filled with a kindness that went deep. "That doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the desire."
And then, Sophia closed the final centimeters.
The world didn't just stop; it vanished. The first contact was a promise: soft, tentative, a silent question imprinted on their lips. They were as soft as Daniela had dared to imagine, and their taste was a new, intoxicating territory: the bitterness of tobacco mixed with the sweetness of alcohol and the cherry aftertaste of her lip gloss. It was the taste of Sophia, and Daniela knew, with a visceral certainty, that it would be forever etched in her gustatory memory.
Sophia's hand on her cheek slid to the nape of her neck, sinking into her hair with a delicate possessiveness that made her shiver. Then, the other hand joined, framing her neck, cradling her head as if it were something precious and fragile. It was a gesture of protection and dominance, and Daniela melted into it, losing all notion of where she ended and Sophia began.
Her own arms, hanging inert at her sides, awoke. They rose of their own volition, finding the familiar curve of Sophia's waist. She pulled her close with a force born from her very core, eliminating any last shred of distance. Sophia let out a soft gasp, a vibration of surprise and approval that merged with Daniela's sigh, and she yielded, allowing their bodies to align in perfect, burning synchrony.
The kiss deepened, shedding its initial shyness to become a feverish dialogue. Sophia knew exactly how to move her lips, how to vary the pressure to steal Daniela's breath, who followed every movement with the devotion of a novice. When Sophia's tongue gently touched her lower lip, Daniela felt a shiver run down her spine and opened her mouth in a trembling invitation.
The taste intensified—now not just tobacco and cherry, but the very essence of Sophia, intoxicating and exclusive. Daniela, driven by an instinct she didn't know she possessed, tangled her fingers in Sophia's soft hair, pulling her even closer if possible. A guttural sound, almost a moan, escaped Sophia's throat, and Daniela felt it as an intimate victory, a newly discovered power.
Sophia's hand left her nape and began to descend, tracing a line of fire down her back until it stopped at the curve of her hip. Her fingers clenched the fabric of the dress, crumpling it, anchoring Daniela against her with an urgency that betrayed her own lack of control. Daniela instinctively arched her back, pressing her body against Sophia's, seeking more contact, more friction, more of that electrifying sensation threatening to consume her.
"Sophia..." Daniela gasped, breaking the kiss for air, but keeping their foreheads together. Their breaths mingled, rapid and hot. "This is..."
"Quiet, Dani," Sophia whispered, her voice rough, laden with an emotion that needed no name.
And she kissed her again, this time with less patience and more hunger. Her teeth gently nibbled Daniela's lower lip before plunging back into the depth of her mouth. Daniela was no longer thinking, she only existed in the storm of sensations. The cold of the night on her back contrasted with the heat Sophia generated at every point of contact. Sophia's faint perfume, now heightened by the warmth of their skins, enveloped her like an intoxicating mist.
Suddenly, Sophia turned them gently, swapping their positions until Daniela's back touched the cold wall of the rooftop. The contrast made her shudder. Sophia pulled away just enough to look at her, her dark eyes, pupils dilated, scanning Daniela's flushed face, her lips swollen and damp from their kisses.
"See?" Sophia murmured, sliding her thumb over Daniela's lower lip. "It's not so complicated."
Daniela couldn't answer with words. Instead, her hands found Sophia's face and drew it to hers, sealing their mouths again in a kiss that was at once an answer, a plea, and an affirmation. One of Sophia's legs slid between Daniela's, pressing gently, and Daniela felt a wave of pure pleasure course through her, making her knees buckle.
In the distance, the sound of a door closing downstairs made them pull apart abruptly, panting, their hearts hammering in their chests. Reality, harsh and intrusive, was returning.
They looked at each other, lips swollen, hair disheveled, breath ragged. The world they had put on pause—the party, their careers, the expectations—waited on the other side of the door.
Sophia, regaining some of her composure but with a softness in her eyes Daniela had never seen before, stroked her cheek.
"We have to go down," she said, her voice still slightly tremulous.
Daniela nodded, not trusting her own voice. Her world had changed forever on that rooftop, amidst the smoke and the shadows. And as she looked at Sophia, she knew that, no matter the consequences, she would not regret it.