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The fan sign has been going for two hours.
Dani is good at this part. She likes it, actually — the exchange of it, the way she can connect directly with her fans, how their faces change like she’s made their week — hell, their year — when she looks directly at them and means it.
The girl in front of her has been holding her album close to her chest since she stepped up, clutching it like she spent the whole two-hour wait rehearsing what she wanted to say.
"I just want to tell you that you made me want to start dancing again.”
Dani smiles at her. "That's everything. Thank you for telling me that."
The girl's face does the thing — the startled, bright thing people do when they realize they’ve been heard.
Dani smiles harder. She’s genuinely endeared by it.
All six of them spread across the table, sat in standard formation, fans moving down the line in order. Lara is to Dani's left, currently telling a fan something that is making the fan lose her mind in the best way. Megan is at the end closest to the door, waving a fan gift excitedly, showing it off to the rest of the room and is not one bit embarrassed about it either. Yoonchae is at the opposite end, with the slow, warm smile she does that makes fans feel strangely seen. Manon, beside Dani, takes a photo with one fan, then draws something that somewhat resembles Doodle Bob on the back of their wrist with a marker.
And Sophia is two seats down from her.
Dani knows this without checking. She’s been peripherally aware of Sophia's position since they sat down — the pull of her, like knowing where the warmth is in a cold room. It’s so second nature to her now that she doesn’t even notice how strange that is — her hyperawareness of Sophia, and only her.
She's reaching for a marker when she hears it — the crowd volume shifting, the pitch that means something is happening a few seats over.
She glances.
The fan at Sophia's seat is holding up her phone and gesturing between Sophia and Dani. Sophia looks up and catches Dani's eye, and nods once.
Dani caps her marker and walks over.
They've done hundreds of these. Thousands at this point, even. Photos of them where she ends up next to Sophia, their arms brushing, and the fan — tour shirt, slightly overwhelmed — holds up their phone and says "can I get one of you two together" and Dani says "of course" at the same time Sophia says "absolutely.”
That’s not the notable part.
What’s notable is what happens when they actually pose.
Dani's hand goes to the small of Sophia's back, easy and automatic, and Sophia leans in, head turned slightly toward her, and for the three seconds it takes the fan to get her camera up, they're just standing there like that, closer than they actually need to be. Sophia warm against her side. Stage lights and hairspray and underneath it something that’s just Sophia, shoulder pressed in, chin slightly down, turned toward Dani like this is exactly where she's supposed to be.
It’s a completely normal way to stand for a photo.
(She is aware, with the single active brain cell still attempting professionalism, that this is not a normal way to stand for a photo.)
The fan takes it. Looks at the screen. Looks up at them. Then at the screen again.
"Are you two —"
Her heart immediately jumps.
"We're very close," Dani says sweetly.
The fan nods slowly, with the careful kindness of someone who does not believe a word of it.
Sophia purses her lips. She knows better than to add fuel to the fire. Dani nods politely at the fan and goes back to her seat, ready to greet the next one that sits in front of her.
It takes her a minute to calm down her racing heart.
–
The van after is the usual — all seats buckled, everyone tired in a good way, somebody's playlist playing through the small speaker propped against the window. Dani is in the middle row, and Sophia is next to her, legs tucked up, eating something she stole from the green room like she always does — this time a handful of pretzels.
Megan is in the back and has been quiet since they got in. She’s been looking at Dani and Sophia with suspect interest and a knowing expression.
Dani notices this, but she’s too tired right now to ask or care.
Lara is in the front passenger seat, phone out, Instagram feed refreshing every few seconds like she’s been personally hired to monitor the internet. Yoonchae beside Megan, headphones half-on, head nestled on Megan’s shoulder, watching the road fly past them with sleepy eyes. Manon is next to Dani on the other side, watching TikToks on her For You Page because apparently that’s how she unwinds.
“That was fun,” Sophia says, still munching one of the last few pieces of her pretzel stash.
“It was,” Dani agrees, looking at Sophia’s snacks with rapt interest.
Sophia offers it to her wordlessly.
Dani grins like she’s won something big, and takes a piece from her hand. Sophia lets her.
Megan chokes on her drink.
"What?" Dani asks flatly.
Megan coughs, tries to get her breathing in order.
"Nothing," she eventually squeaks.
"You made a sound."
"I make sounds. I'm a person."
Dani turns around to look at her. Megan's expression is completely neutral in a way that she’s trying very hard not to give anything away. She looks at Yoonchae, who’s wearing a ghost of a smile. Then at Lara and Manon, who are both somehow even more focused on their phone than they did a minute ago.
"Okay," Dani says slowly, clearly not following whatever’s happening around her.
She goes back to Sophia, who is still eating, completely unbothered by the social abnormality taking place around them.
"I hope the next fan meet is just as fun,” Sophia says, smiling contentedly.
Dani hums in agreement.
Nobody else says anything. Lara's feed refreshes. Manon looks at the road. Yoonchae and Megan put their headphones in.
All of this somehow feels louder than if they were to actually say something.
–
Four hours between venues.
Dani’s grown accustomed to the travel. The van, the road, the comfortable presence of people she knows well. She settles in, gets a show queued, eats half a granola bar.
She is also, forty minutes in, asleep on Sophia's shoulder.
She doesn't actively decide to do this. Her head tips sideways in that soft, stupid place between awake and not, and Sophia's shoulder is there and — well.
Now she’s asleep.
Sophia doesn't move away from her. She shifts her arm — just enough to make it more comfortable for the both of them but not enough to displace her. Her arm rests along the back of the seat, not requiring anything of Dani. Like she expected this to happen.
Sophia looks at her once — a glance down at Dani's face, slack and relaxed, at the hand against her chest, at how the tension she’s been holding is gone, completely, like there's nowhere else she'd rather be.
Sophia looks back at her phone as if the glance has not just softened her entire face.
Megan, across the aisle, has been watching this entire thing unfold in front of her since the shoulder thing. She’s wearing that smug expression she gets when she's collected enough evidence to make her case. Usually it’s about a dessert choice, or what they should get for dinner.
Today though, it’s something else.
She looks at Manon.
Manon has headphones in, eyes closed. She had opened one eye approximately thirty seconds ago, looked at the situation, looked at Megan's face, and closed it again.
Megan opens her mouth, taking a deep breath like she’s about to say something.
Manon, with her eyes still closed, says without an ounce of emotion, “No.”
Megan closes it.
Three minutes pass. The road is flat and beige. Dani is asleep.
Sophia still hasn’t moved.
Megan opens her mouth again.
"No."
Megan frowns. "I didn't even say anything."
"You were going to."
"You don't know that."
"Megan, you’re the most obvious person out of the six of us.”
In the window seat behind them, Yoonchae has her headphones in too. She's looking at the ceiling of the van with the expression she wears when she finds something privately funny and has decided not to say so out loud.
Megan looks at her. Yoonchae, as though she can sense it, looks at her directly in the eyes and arches her eyebrow.
Megan settles into her seat, crossing her arms almost petulantly.
She holds out for a full minute before she leans over to Manon again.
"They've been doing this since —"
"Megan."
"I'm just — when do you think they’ll —"
"When they’re ready," Manon says tiredly.
Megan sits with that for a moment.
"Why don’t we just say something?”
Manon cracks one eye open. "I did say something once. To Dani. She just said they were close."
Megan stares at the back of Sophia's headrest. At Dani's hair. At the shoulder Dani is sleeping on. At Sophia's arm that hasn't moved once in the past hour.
“Oh my god, they’re going to take forever.”
Manon leans back on the headrest, both her eyes closed again.
“Yup.”
–
It’s a night show in October at an outdoor venue, which would be fine — phenomenal, really — if it weren’t for the fact that the temperature dropped by a third during the show, and by the end of it, they’re all shivering backstage in their stage outfits designed for hot lights they’re no longer under.
Dani checks her phone. Fifty-three degrees. The icon is a cloud with a wind swirl.
Her teeth chatter as her bandmates grab things to warm them up. Megan has a zip-up she kept under her stage jacket. Lara produces a spare oversized hoodie from her bag that she promptly puts over herself. Yoonchae has her own fluffy jacket because Yoonchae is the type of person who checks weather apps. Manon is already wearing what appears to be someone else's fleece.
And Dani—
Dani has a very revealing stage outfit and the consequences of her optimism.
She rubs her hands together in a sad attempt to warm herself up.
She’s fine. It’s only fifty-three degrees. People live in fifty-three degree weather. She is not going to make this a whole thing with the staff. She’ll deal with it and suffer the consequences of her decisions.
Sophia appears beside her.
She doesn't say you look cold or do you want this or I have an extra. She just steps in front of Dani, unzips her own jacket, and puts it on her. Like, actually placing it on Dani’s shoulders, and pulling Dani’s arms through the sleeves.
Dani just stands there stocked still while this happens, a little unsure what to do.
"I'm fine," Dani eventually says, because she’s been convincing herself that for the better half of twenty minutes and she might as well say it out loud to someone else and try to manifest it.
"I know," Sophia says, zipping the jacket up three-fourths of the way, and then turns around, already heading toward Yoonchae, where the water bottles are.
The jacket is too big. The sleeves come down past the heel of Dani's hand. It smells like Sophia's perfume and the shampoo she's been using for this leg of the tour.
She pushes the sleeves up.
They fall back down.
From across the green room, she's aware of Sophia glancing back once — quick, taking inventory. The jacket. The sleeves. The way Dani’s standing in it.
Sophia's expression does something that Dani can’t quite make out. It starts off as something warm, something pleased, then something not hidden quickly enough — something gentle — and then she schools it completely and turns back to Yoonchae.
Dani pushes the sleeves up.
They fall back down. Again.
She doesn't try pushing them up a third time. She just lets them envelope her hands, making her arms look like penguin fins than actual arms.
"That's Sophia's," Lara notes as she comes up to her.
"I know."
"She gave you her —"
"I know, Lara."
Lara looks at the jacket. Then at Dani's face. Then at the jacket again.
She arches a brow at her. “Do you, though?”
She doesn’t wait for Dani’s response and walks to the snack table, where Manon is.
Dani watches her go, wondering what Lara meant by that.
(She keeps the jacket on for the rest of the night.)
—
It’s three hours before the concert doors open.
They’ve just finished sound check and have a bit of time before they actually have to prepare for hair, wardrobe, makeup — all the works.
They decide to lounge together in the green room. Lara has the left cushion of the couch, Megan has the right. Yoonchae takes the armchair, stating ‘maknae privileges,’ and hasn't left that spot since. Manon is on the floor with her back against the wall, legs stretched out, earbuds in.
Which leaves one cushion left and two people who still haven’t claimed a spot.
A math problem, technically.
Dani and Sophia arrive at the couch at the same time from different directions.
They look at each other, silently deciding what to do.
"You take it,” Dani starts. “I'll—"
Sophia sits down on the last available cushion and pulls Dani onto her lap without preamble. One motion. No discussion.
Just — there. Done. Like this is something that happens all the time.
The thing is, it isn’t something they do all the time, and Dani immediately goes rigid.
This is fine, Dani thinks. Normal people do this, probably, somewhere, at some point. She tells herself she’s going to act like it’s normal because Sophia is already talking to Megan about the setlist like it is normal, and now Dani has no choice but to also act like it's normal.
She tries to actively relax her body. It requires great concentration and effort on her part, but she does it. Her shoulders first, then her hands, then the tension in her lower back.
And during all of this — this internal crisis that Sophia has created without realizing — Sophia is comfortingly warm underneath her and, offensively, not making it a thing.
At some point Dani leans back subconsciously, her cheek resting on Sophia’s head.
She doesn’t mean to do it. It just happens.
Sophia's arm tightens around her waist in response. She leans forward slightly, rests her chin on Dani’s shoulder, settling in. Her thumb moves lightly back and forth on Dani's forearm, almost absentmindedly, as she keeps talking to Megan about the setlist and the choreo and—
Dani looks at the opposite wall, trying very hard to calm down her heart rate.
Megan, to her credit and personal suffering, does not react with her face. She maintains the conversation, asks one follow-up question and listens to the answer.
She does not call out anything she’s seeing in front of her.
She does, however, make eye contact with Manon and Yoonchae, briefly, who both nod their heads in acknowledgement and roll their eyes at how obvious and oblivious Sophia and Dani are being.
Megan presses her lips together.
It takes a surprising amount of willpower she didn’t know she had to leave them be.
-
The flannel appears on a Tuesday.
Dani’s wearing it at breakfast — soft, faded, washed past the color it’s supposed to be and into something that’d loosely be in the vintage tie-dye family. She has it open over a tank top as she’s eating cereal and looking at her phone, looking like someone who got dressed without turning the lights on.
Lara sits down across from her with her coffee and looks at the flannel.
She stares at it for a long moment.
"That's Sophia's.”
Dani continues munching on her cereal. “Why are you surprised? We all share clothes.”
“Bitch, that’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Dani looks up at her, still confused, and swallows. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”
Lara sighs. It comes out a little frustrated. “That was in Sophia’s bag when she packed for Seoul. Why would you have something that wasn’t in her closet, but in her bag?”
Dani looks down at the flannel, then back up at Lara.
"It migrated?”
Lara looks at her, unamused. “Really.”
“It happens!”
“And how long have you had it?”
A pause.
"Three weeks?” Dani says weakly.
Lara hums, like she’s caught Dani doing something she shouldn’t have. Which is ridiculous — they share clothes all the time. What’s wrong with that?
"It's just a flannel," Dani asserts again, this time said with more conviction than she actually feels. "It's not a thing."
"Right.”
"We're close. It migrated."
"Uh huh."
"Lara.”
Lara lifts up her hands in mock surrender. "I believe you!”
Manon arrives three minutes later, scans the room. Notices the flannel, arches her brow, and pours herself coffee.
"Still?" she asks Lara.
"I know, right?”
“I’m right here!”
They both ignore her.
Dani looks down at her cereal. It’s gone soggy.
She crosses her arms. "It's not a thing," she pouts to her cereal.
Neither Manon nor Lara respond.
Sophia comes in wearing Dani's zip-up — the grey one from the Tokyo flight, which had been unlocatable up until now. She has it on over her pajamas, sleeves pushed up. She gets coffee, sits beside Dani, and takes a spoonful of her cereal.
“It’s soggy,” Dani warns, though she still moves the bowl closer to her.
Sophia hums. “It’s fine,” she mumbles, chewing. She scoops another spoonful but this time holds it in front of Dani’s mouth, like she’s going to personally feed Dani.
“Ah,” Sophia says.
Oh. She actually is.
Dani, naturally, opens her mouth and lets Sophia feed her.
From the corner of her eye, she sees Lara looking at Manon, who’s looking back at Lara. Exchanging a silent conversation Dani cannot follow.
She’d be more annoyed about it, but Sophia’s still feeding her cereal. So.
There’s that.
-
Pre-soundcheck.
The venue is arena-size, which means the backstage has actual room to exist in. Dani is at the snack table, eating something and looking at her phone to pass the time.
Then Sophia comes up behind her.
Arms around her waist, chin settling onto her shoulder. She says something about the setlist in a completely normal voice, like she is simply asking about work and hasn’t just wrapped her arms around Dani from behind.
Dani stops moving.
Not visibly. Her shoulders are still relaxed, and her face is still neutral. But she’s staring at the snack table very, very hard.
There’s fruit on it.
"I think they kept it," Dani says, focusing on keeping her voice steady.
"Did you see the email about the stage configuration?"
"I saw it."
"What do you think?”
"More room. Probably better."
"Yeah." Sophia's chin adjusts on her shoulder, leaning her head to the side to get a better view of Dani’s profile. "Okay."
Neither of them move, and they’re just standing there. The question about the setlist has been answered and Sophia is still there, her arms around Dani's waist like this is just where she ended up and there's no reason to go anywhere else.
Dani’s gaze is still locked on the fruit.
She’s warm, is the thing — Sophia. She’s soft and warm. Her arms around her and her chin on her shoulder and her breath against the side of Dani's neck.
Dani looks calmer than she actually feels.
After another moment Sophia tilts her head — cheek against Dani's shoulder now instead of chin.
Dani can feel the exhale, hot and slow, and her heart rate spikes again.
Then Sophia starts talking about the tour logistics and Dani, with all her remaining concentration, tries to engage with the topic, talking through venues and dates and stage outfit changes.
It's a good conversation. Easy. She starts relaxing into Sophia’s hold as they’re running through the details. She's mid-sentence, explaining why the outfit change in Gabriela is actually doable, and she says, "—because it’s a timing thing, babe, if you look at the —"
Dani stiffens in Sophia’s arms.
Five words. She got five words in before it registered to her what she just said and she’s now stopped — mid-sentence — the word suddenly in the room with them like a stranger barreling through a door, unannounced and unwelcome.
She snaps her gaze back to the snack table. She swallows hard.
Dani has never said that word out loud.
It lives somewhere in her head — the word, the multitude of names she’s reserved for Sophia but hasn’t had the courage to say. They’ve lived there quietly for some time.
She hasn’t actively thought about them or even thought about saying any of them out loud. But now, it came out in the middle of a sentence about stage outfits on a Tuesday, which, frankly, is rude timing.
She can feel Sophia openly staring at her. Burning a hole on the side of her head. Still not saying anything.
The silence between them lasts another ten seconds until she finds it unbearable.
"The outfit change is doable," Dani says.
She’s still not looking at Sophia directly — she’s refusing to look at her after saying that — but from the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees a small smile appear on Sophia’s lips. The quiet, private kind.
"Yeah,” Sophia agrees. “You’re right. Totally doable.”
She looks at Dani for another moment. Then, because she hasn’t embarrassed Dani enough in the last twenty minutes, she places a quick kiss on Dani's cheek and then straightens up.
"Going to find Yoonchae," she says, then gone, already calling Yoonchae's name as she leaves the room.
Dani stands there staring at the snack table, cheeks flushed red, trying to process what just happened.
-
It’s the last show of the tour.
The venue goes dark, and the whole building seems to hold its breath with them. They stand in the wings while the crowd noise crests and settles — not sad, just present. The fullness of something ending well.
They've done the group moment onstage — the one that happens at every last show, with the lights down and all six of them just standing there feeling it. Megan cried. She always cries. Yoonchae and Lara held her and were also crying but will deny this. Manon held all of them with wide arms, consoling them like the honorary big sister she is.
Now it's later. Everyone has dispersed the way last nights go — Lara, Manon and Megan to wherever they go when they have feelings to metabolize, which involves a lot of food, drinks, and a long conversation. Yoonchae went to bed, had said goodnight and meant it.
Dani and Sophia are in the green room.
It’s mostly cleared out. Low lights. Someone left a speaker running — something ambient, a playlist winding down. Sophia is on the couch with her jacket and shoes off, phone in her lap. Dani is beside her.
Sophia is looking at the room — taking it in, the last instance of it. And Dani, well —
Dani’s looking at Sophia.
She's been doing this for a while, she realizes. Looking at Sophia directly without knowing she’s doing it, like her eyes just gravitate to her. Not consciously. Just instinctively.
She does a lot of things instinctively when it comes to Sophia. And all of it always feels right.
"I think," Dani starts.
Sophia looks over at her.
"I think we've been doing this for a while,” Dani says quietly. "Like—“ She stops, does a small gesture between them. “I think this has already been a thing. For a while."
Sophia stares at her for a moment.
"Yeah," she murmurs.
They sit in silence.
"How long?” Dani eventually asks.
A small smile appears on Sophia’s face.
"A while.”
Dani puts her face in her hands.
Sophia laughs — the real one, soft and warm, tipping her slightly forward. She reaches over, takes one of Dani's hands and pulls it down from her face.
"Hey.”
Dani reluctantly opens her eyes.
Sophia is close — the same level of closeness she's been for months, except the pretense is gone. She's looking at Sophia in the low light at the end of a tour and Sophia is looking back and the thing between them has stopped pretending to be anything else.
Dani leans in.
It's gentle. Easy. The kind of kiss that doesn't need to prove anything. Just Sophia's hand tightening around hers and Sophia kissing her back like she's been here before. Because she has, in every way that mattered.
When they pull back, Sophia is still smiling.
"Everyone else already knew," Sophia says.
"I know."
Sophia's thumb runs back-and-forth the back of Dani’s hand, the small absentminded motion she does when she’s close to Dani and doesn’t think about anything else. Dani watches it, thinks about all the times she’s done this — all the times Dani had noticed but didn’t put a name to it.
Then Sophia lays down, head on Dani’s lap, legs facing the other arm rest, and settles there.
Dani's hand finds her hair.
The playlist winds down. The green room is quiet. The tour is over and this is where they are.
Exactly where it's been heading the whole time.
Dani thinks, with affection and annoyance, that the girls are going to rub it in their faces.
She runs her fingers through Sophia's hair slowly, watches Sophia close her eyes contentedly.
It doesn’t matter though.
They’re here now. That’s what matters.
–
The hotel breakfast room is the same as every other hotel breakfast room. Same layout, same options, same too-bright lighting that makes everything look slightly institutional. Lara, Megan, and Manon are already sitting, having gotten their breakfast early in an attempt to cure their varying levels of hungover from the night before. Yoonchae is buttering her toast calmly, looking at the three with quiet judgement and amusement.
Then Dani and Sophia come in together.
This is not new. They have walked into rooms together for three months. What makes Megan reach under the table and grip Yoonchae's knee without looking, is the jacket Sophia’s wearing.
Not any jacket. Dani's jacket. Her favorite one. The one she's been particular about all tour, the one that has lived in her bag and nowhere else, and doesn’t let anyone else borrow it.
It's on Sophia's shoulders. Unbuttoned, sleeves slightly short, put on because it was nearby and smelled right.
They head to the coffee station. Sophia’s hand slides in the back pocket of Dani’s jeans. Dani reaches back without looking and covers Sophia's hand with hers.
They stand there at the station, waiting for coffee to brew, unbothered.
Megan's grip on Yoonchae's knee tightens.
“Ow!” Yoonchae yelps, slapping Megan’s hand away from her.
Manon and Lara groan simultaneously.
“Indoor voices, please,” Manon begs.
Lara rubs her temple, nodding her head slowly and carefully in agreement.
“Are you guys not seeing this?” Megan whisper-shouts.
“We do,” Lara mumbles. “We’re not blind.”
Dani and Sophia come to the table with a plate full of food and coffee in both hands. They sit down, and Sophia immediately steals something off the plate to feed Dani, which Dani happily takes.
They all stare at the two of them with blank expressions.
Dani rolls her eyes at the dramatics. “Yes. We’re together. Officially.”
They cheer in varying levels of enthusiasm.
Dani cocks an eyebrow. “Wow. Thanks for the support, guys. Truly.”
Sophia covers a hand over hers. “Baby, it’s okay. They’re all hungover.”
“Baby?!” Megan screeches.
“Megan,” Manon scolds, covering her own ears as Lara winces at how loud Megan is.
“Stop acting like this is new to you,” Yoonchae says to Megan.
“It isn’t but — they weren’t acknowledging the obvious yesterday and now they’re —” Megan stops, trying to find the words. “Baby?”
“They’ve always been like this,” Lara points out. “They’re just putting words to it now. Stop acting weird.”
“Yeah, stop acting weird,” Yoonchae murmurs, and kisses her on the cheek.
Megan sputters.
Sophia and Dani watch this all unfold, hands still tangled together, smiling.