Chapter Text
The group chat had gone quiet for a moment before the invitation dropped in—some random last-minute plan, to somewhere too loud and too crowded for the amount of sleep she’d gotten the night before.
Daniela stared at the text messages longer than she’d meant to. Maybe it was the fact that she had gotten ordered to do some fan service tonight, or maybe it was the fact that her eyelids were heavy, the type of heavy behind your eyes when it’s not only about sleep but people, expectations and worst of all: noise.
She lifted her gaze. 9:54PM.
Then she clicked out of her iMessage app and clicked on an app she had reused to open for ages: Weverse.
Live.
She thinks no one is there, but in reality, there’s like, fifty thousand clicks on her live already. She leans in to check on the camera, trying to figure out how the hell Weverse works, mostly because she’s lost all her memory on how to use stupid Weverse.
She furrows her eyebrows a little, just a tiny bit, as fifty thousand people are just watching her nose and those gorgeous, amber eyes that could definitely be completely yellow if the sun hit her eyes in the right ways.
“Hello? Hello?” she chuckles a bit, face still obnoxiously close to the camera, “Is it working, guys? Is it working?”
Then after a whopping thirty seconds of fifty thousand people just staring at her face that was inches away from the camera, she sets her phone down.
“Okay,” she says, then pauses, “I think it’s working.”
She fumbles with the controls a bit, then lets out a cute laugh.
“Okay, it’s working. Um, h-hi guys. Hi. I haven't gone live in like,” she ponders, “centuries.”
Honestly, the idea of doing a Weverse live alone made her feel nervous. It wasn't because she felt shy around the fans, no, it was because of all the hate she had been getting on the internet lately—whether it was because of her facial expressions and exaggerated dance movements.
So, she had been trying to make the decision if she should go live or not for the whole day, ever since she was getting ready for rehearsals up until now.
Remembering that there are fans out there who have been missing her greatly helped in making that decision. It was still her duty to feed the Eyekons some content anyway, and she wanted to reassure them that she was doing fine amidst everything.
She also wanted to prove that she was not a coward.
A loading sign is spinning on top of her screen. That is when she realises sixty thousand people are just watching her fumbling with Weverse controls.
“The heck?” she throws her arms up. “What the heck? Girl, internet, girl. Can y’all see me? Can y’all see me? Oh my god.”
She sticks out her tongue for a bit to fill the silence sixty one thousand people are watching from their screens.
“Okay. It is still, is the screen still black? As long as you guys can see me. Hello. Okay, anyhow," she awkwardly laughs for a bit. “What are my nails?”
She shows the camera her nails, which she thinks is just a little funny because she might as well be talking to herself in her tiny suite room and showing her phone which is, by the way, a piece of technology produced in a factory.
“Guys, a fan made this,” she takes out a small cut-out of a five-year-old version of her, serving face to it as she brings it to all the directions around her face. “Do y’all know who this is? Isn’t she so cute?”
Her Weverse lags a bit, and she waits for suggestions from the Eyekons.
sophamping
dani do u want to dye ur hair
When that question caught her attention, she read it aloud. “Do I want to dye my hair?”
It was something she already thought about, actually. She remembered their stylists suggesting plenty of hair colors that would also fit her, but the last time she only dyed it was blonde. But it was only for necessary reasons, such as wanting to fit in back in high school.
“Acually, yeah,” She lightly shrugged her shoulders, "I've been wanting to experiment on other hair colors that I think would suit me. I do miss my blonde hair sometimes.”
She chuckled softly as she continued. “But don't get me wrong. I still love my natural hair color. And curls, the continuous bleach really damaged them and I regret damaging them—now, I love these curls to death.”
me_inthemiddle
are you excited for the upcoming tour?
Her eyes lit up when she noticed that comment, the amber hitting the light of the hotel room, and she clasped her hands together to intertwine them as her smile grew on her lips. “So so excited. I can't wait to see all of you there and make new memories. To the Eyekons!”
She raised her hand as if she was clinking her glass with the Eyekons behind the screen, the corners of her lips lifting up to a smile.
As more comments flooded the live, her mind drifted back to the Beautiful Chaos tour. It had been one of her core memories. So many things had happened, with a few mistakes she'd rather not dwell on and interesting moments she had with her members that she would treasure forever.
Interesting moments. Such as her part with Sophia during Gabriela. She definitely did not fail to notice how the audience would squeal every time they would lean in towards each other just a fraction more than they should, but not too much so they would end up kissing.
That was a boundary they should never cross. Daniela has a boyfriend, for God's sake. Their label was only best friends. She ignored how that fact made her heart twist in ways it shouldn't.
criakilah
dani ilyyy my mommy got me vip tickets!!!!
“Aww…” Daniela jutted out her lower lip in a touched manner when she read the comment, placing her arm on her chest. She had a gut feeling that the commenter was a child. She wasn't going to ask what a child was doing in Weverse. She simply acknowledged them. “That's so good to hear, criakilah! I look forward to seeing you on soundcheck!”
Sponkyxospiky63
DANIIIIIIIIII do you have a plushie you sleep with heheheheheheh
“Do I have a plushie I sleep with?” she lets out a small laugh, her hands moving animatedly as she speaks. “I do! Its name is…”
She hesitated for a bit as her fingers fiddled with the curls of her hair, contemplating whether it's a good idea to reveal the plush toy’s rather corny, girlish name.
“Y’all it's so cringe, but its name is Princess. It’s pretty much… uh… torn to pieces, but I freakiiinnnggg love it to death. Y’know, I got it when I was born from my mom, so it means a lot to me. Uh…”
She scrambled through her bed for quite a bit as sixty five thousand people just stared at her rear end. She threw to sheets around, completely disregarding the hard work of the cleaning lady who just fixed her sheets an hour ago, then flipped her pillow which also landed in the pool of crumbs under her bed she swore to herself she would not step in (though she did).
Then she found it. The thread-bare, love-worn desaturated little thing. The thing’s face had faded into an uncanny blankness, eyes indistinguishable and the nose hanging by a thin thread. Yet, it didn’t feel eerie to her, instead, the fabric felt like a beautiful, open secret.
She brought it over to the desk where the phone had somehow automated to make it a blinding highest-light-mode. She grimaced a bit, eyes binding shut by reflex, and her fingers did its own thing to turn it into dark mode again.
God. Daniela could’ve sworn she went blind for a second.
Throughout the live, she continued answering more and more questions, even doing a fit check and sharing more stuff about herself. Daniela thinks this may as well be her longest solo live compared to her previous one during the Atlanta tour.
meganmyqueen
WHERE'S SOPHIA CAN SHE PLEASE JOIN THE LIVE WITH YOU?? to cure my little sodani heart❤️🩹💞🥹
“Sophia?” she pauses to think for a bit, “Sophia’s downstairs right now, I think she’s getting her takeout.”
Her eyebrows had lifted in surprise when she saw the comments flooding as they mentioned Sodani, along with people requesting for Sophia to come up on live.
Daniela had actually seen fans talking on social media about how long it has been since Sophia's last live. She felt a little guilty for not knowing that sooner. Since she always forgot her own password and never logged in, she was usually the last person to know when the other members were streaming.
“Errr…” she trailed off, contemplating, “she’ll join the live if she wants to, but I’ll ask her.”
She smiled reassuringly.
“If she can’t, I promise we will do one someday, okay?”
One thing for sure was that she was not bluffing when she said that, though. Sophia actually happened to be the one to suggest it to her on a regular morning when they were sat beside each other on the hotel's dinner table.
“Dani,” Sophia had said her name softly while deliberately stroking her arm—an action that Daniela was fond of. “Do you wanna do a live with me soon? The fans have been asking for it.”
And when she asked that question, Daniela said yes without hesitation. Who could ever refuse when being greeted by the sight of the woman's eyes which were filled with a glimmer of hope that combined with her soft smile?
Definitely not her. That's for sure.
Daniela’s eyes track the comments as they keep going. The audience kept talking about her and Sophia, and it reminded her just how popular their duo surprisingly was.
Brushing it off as she hugged her knees to her chest, she leaned her face closer towards the camera to read the comments properly.
“Alright guys,” she clicked her tongue, trying to see how she could keep the live interesting. Maybe a fan requests her to do something, or she could find something in the room to talk about. “Anything else you want me to do for y'all?”
lexiekeyy
go on a website called ao3 and read fanfics PLS
Fanfiction.
That seemed to catch Daniela's attention amongst the other comments. She remembered when Lara sent random fanfictions in their group chat during the SIS era. She never bothered to read any of them, but they were all Wattpad links.
She felt bad for Megan one time because she had expressed how she wanted to read them, but it was difficult because of the long paragraphs. The ones who got to read it were Manon and Sophia, but they only read at least two at most from what she could recall.
“Read fanfics?” She read out loud, a flicker of interest in her eyes. “Oh yeah, fanfictions of us exist right? But I've never actually…” she chuckled awkwardly, “read them.”
Thinking back on it now, she could actually use the opportunity to read some. It would be a way to spice things up in her live and see how fans perceive her and the group. She looked at the clock to confirm her decision.
I basically have the whole night to myself anyway; It probably wouldn't be that bad to acknowledge what they write about us.
Facing the camera again, the comments appeared to be going wild when Daniela finally mentioned fanfiction.
“Should I read one for you guys?”
The moment she asked that question, the comments went wilder, a mix of viewers encouraging her to do so while the others kept saying “NO” and how it's apparently a really bad idea.
She smiled in amusement at their panicked reactions. Unfortunately for them, it just boosted her curiosity to check it out and see what they've been writing. Her mind also drifted back to a fan she found in her Instagram DMs that somehow shared her a link to a certain fanfiction that they thought she would enjoy.
“I’ll go borrow Manon’s laptop real quick,” she paused as she got up from the bed, adjusting the hem of her jogging pants around her waistline. “Hold on.”
“Ugh, where the— where the frick is her laptop?” Daniela groaned, “Don’t leave me, guys, I’m still here, hi, WHERE THE FRICK IS HER LAPTOP? UGH—”
She definitely doesn’t care about the hotel cleaner lady’s efforts now, Manon’s bed was messy and stained by ketchup (sorry Manon, she was eating Mcdonald’s), Manon’s purse’s contents had now spilled all over the weirdly colourful carpet on the ground. Whoops.
The laptop was hidden under the pillow— just like Daniela hid her phone under the pillows when she was staying up late at night without her mother knowing.
Why the hell would she put her laptop here out of all places?she pondered while re-fluffing the pillow. She returned to her spot to appear in the camera, typing in the password for access. It was positioned on the desk, settled right beside the phone.
“Let me just log in on Instagram real quick,” She explained while keeping her attention on the screen, but giving a brief glance to the camera to make sure she was still on live.
She hummed, fingers clicking on the keys, “Because news flash is, there was actually a fan who sent me a dm on Instagram. It was a link to a Katseye fanfic that they suggested I should read. I guess I can try reading it now that we're here.”
“But what even is AO3?” She tilted her head and faced the camera again, searching for answers amidst her confusion. “I’ve never heard of that. Is it a website? Should I have searched that up?”
Olivia_kt23
its a website called archive of our own
“Oh, so that’s what it’s called. Archive of Our Own,” she blinked, stunned by this new revelation. “But what does the number three in AO3 mean though? I don't get it.”
Yet instead of waiting for an answer to arrive, she redirected her attention to the laptop as she finished logging in. The one she had already left on seen thankfully helped her find the one she was looking for when she checked the long list of her message requests.
“Oh wait!” Her brows lifted in delicate surprise. “Turns out that the link the fan sent me is from that website too.”
The corner of her mouth perked up as she clicked into the blue text.
The fanfic that the fan sent her didn't seem so bad after all, considering the tags… whatever that means. She was half afraid that it was going to be something weird and unbearable to read.
But then again, she didn't know how this app still worked, so it could still end up weird once she starts reading ahead, and she made a note to herself to discontinue the reading if her suspicions were proven to be true.
“I’m going to be reading it like a bed time story,” she finally leaned back to face the camera yet again, though her smile was mixed with nervousness. “Let's just hope this will be something I won't regret doing.”
ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
the unexpected sunshine
Summary: Sophia Laforteza, or used-to-be Elizabeth Guevara is a polished, perfect person who is allergic to loss of control. What happens when control slips out of her hands?
Words: 3,150 |
Chapters: 1/1 |
Kudos: 39 |
Hits: 463 |
She began to read the summary aloud.
“Sophia Laforteza, or used-to-be Elizabeth Guevara is a polished, perfect person who is allergic to loss of control. What happens when control slips out of her hands?”
She squinted her eyes at the paragraph after that. “A fic raising awareness for OCPD. So this one is centered around Sophia.”
The idea didn't seem so bad. She was also curious on how people interpreted Sophia anyway.
Pressing the down arrow key, she scrolled down and was met with the sight of what appeared to be a message conversation, and that fascinated her.
“So it starts with a few messages where I’m saying to Sophia in here… hi baby, I miss you.”
The comments went wild again after it had already calmed down just a tiny bit when she began reading. Daniela was not sure why her face felt hot all of a sudden.
Afterwards, she started reading the paragraphs which she commented on about how well written it was, including the wordings. She was glad to have a good grade in English back in high school, so she was able to understand deeper English vocabularies.
Writing stories, however, wasn't really her specialty. Daniela, practice your writing. Daniela, I have no idea what you’re rambling on about. Daniela, I could write this in my sleep.
She had kissed one boy, Leon. The name was etched into Sophia’s mind. The boy, the immature boy who left her for another girl. A prettier one. A messier one.
“She had kissed one boy, Leon,” Daniela said, her throat feeling a bit dry as she read the name out loud. “The name was etched into Sophia’s mind, The boy, the immature boy who left her for another girl. A prettier one. A messier one.”
Left her for someone else? Daniela genuinely couldn’t imagine anyone leaving Sophia for another woman. The thought of Sophia getting her heart broken by some guy made her feel uneasy.
Especially by Leon. In real life, Leon was actually a nice guy. He was polite, dressed neatly, and always knew the right things to say to make parents and the people around him happy.
Every one of them knew he was courting Sophia. It was like a classic romance movie—he brought her flowers, checked in on her, and did everything right. Everyone else thought he was a great catch for Sophia because of it. They also fit each other’s style so well.
Daniela knew that. But for some reason, she just couldn’t stand him. She had even hesitated to follow him back on Instagram until Lara brought it up one day.
“You know Leon, right? Why are you the only one not following him? The rest of us do,” Lara had asked.
When she said that, Daniela noticed Sophia nearby, not saying anything. Daniela was worried that Sophia would think she did not support her dating a good guy. So, she gave in and followed him back. She wanted Sophia to think she was fully on board.
Because that’s what best friends do, right?
But Daniela didn’t want to admit, even to herself, why her chest actually tightened whenever his name would leave Sophia’s lips. It was not because he was a bad guy.
Maybe it was due to how softly the Filipina smiled whenever he was mentioned. It was the fact that Leon was allowed to pursue a side of Sophia that Daniela couldn’t touch because they were simply best friends and nothing more.
She was not worried he would break Sophia’s heart like the boy in the story. She just hated that he was trying to win her heart at all. It felt like he was stepping into a room that Daniela had spent months quietly worshipping from the doorway.
But to her, it just felt like an annoying wave of irritation—a protective instinct she blamed on normal best-friend behavior. She just thought she did not like his vibe.
Trying to shake off those thoughts, she kept reading for the viewers. She just hoped the Eyekons would not notice how distracted she was, or how her eyes drifted every time she unwantedly pictured Sophia and Leon together.
She cleared her throat, forcing her eyes back to the glowing screen. She squinted slightly at the next paragraph, her voice dropping a bit lower as she read the text aloud for the sixty-eight thousand people watching.
Sophia felt something special about Daniela. It was the way her heart would thump. The way her breath hitched. The way she memorized each shirt she’d wear, how her left eyelid would twitch as she ate one of her sour Haribo gummies, the way her left curl was slightly curlier than her right.
It was her gaze that was alluring. Those amber eyes which stared into her soul.
“Sophia felt something special about Daniela,” she started, her pace slowing down naturally. “It was the way her heart would thump. The way her breath hitched.”
Daniela paused for a split second, a weird sensation bubbling up in her chest. She quickly kept reading before the silence became awkward.
Dre_IIii
NOT HER BEING FLUSTERED
only_unoo
oh im definitely clipping this
“The way she memorized each shirt she’d wear, how her left eyelid would twitch as she ate one of her sour Haribo gummies…”
Daniela’s hand, which had been mindlessly twirling a piece of her hair, froze. My left eyelid twitches when I eat sour gummies?
She didn’t even know she did that. Did the fan who wrote this just guess or… did Sophia actually notice stuff like that? Did Sophia tell someone?
Her stomach flipped. She swallowed hard, her eyes darting to the next sentence followed after the comma.
“...the way her left curl was slightly curlier than her right. It was her gaze that was alluring. Those amber eyes which stared into her soul.”
Heat rushed straight to her cheeks. She felt her heart practically racing against her ribs. Wildly enough, an unprompted thought slipped into her head.
What if Sophia actually thinks about me like this?
Okay. Maybe it was one hell of a ridiculous thought, and that’s what made her feel partly embarrassed, aside from a positive feeling she could not name. Her skin also tingled, and that strange, dizzying flutter took over her stomach once again.
Then, she read the next lines.
Love wasn’t real.
She told herself that many times.
But then, she kissed her.
“Love wasn’t real. She told herself that many times. But then, she… kissed her.”
Kissed her.
Her breath hitched while reading that, which was why there was a subtle pause when that specific word came up. It made her stop reading entirely to process what she just read. But then instantly, her brain slammed the brakes on the whole train of thought, panicking at how deep she was letting herself sink into a literal fanfiction.
Woah, woah, okay, stop, She scolded herself, her internal defensiveness kicking in. I need to get a grip. It’s literally just a story.
Sophia was still her best friend. Her literal best friend. She was also still being courted by Leon, and she had a boyfriend for God’s sake. She would rather die than catch herself lacking with disloyalty towards Jonah.
That meant there was a giant and firm boundary between them, and thinking any further into a fictional story was just crossing a line. She needed to remind herself that it was totally normal for fans to write crazy, romantic stuff about them because of their chemistry in public, but real life was not a fanfic.
“Oh, wow,” Daniela laughed it off, her voice getting a little higher than usual as she looked down at the camera. She brought her hands up to cover her face for a second, trying to hide the blatant blush creeping up her neck. “The sour gummies part is so specific, oh my god. What made the author think that?”
She let out a nervous chuckle, adjusting her position on the bed to shake off the weird tension.
“And kissing? Girl, what?” She shook her head, putting on a playful, exaggerated look of shock for the viewers to cover up the way her pulse was still hammering. “Y’all have way too much imagination. I feel like I’m really missing out on all of these. This is crazy.”
She still kept reading anyway.
“I bought tickets, all day passes,” Sophia rambled on, still holding Daniela close. “I also bought some fast passes for rides. And oh, I booked a romantic restaurant inside the park. I hope you will like them.”
“‘I bought tickets, all day passes,’ Sophia rambled on, still holding Daniela close,” she read, her voice dropping slightly at the description of them holding each other. “‘I also bought some fast passes for rides. And oh, I booked a romantic restaurant inside the park. I hope you will like them.’”
A memory flashed in her mind. Back when they all traveled to London and France to promote their Beautiful Chaos album. There was a specific morning in France when it was just the two of them who had gone out for a brunch date. They were sitting outside on a small, round table, sharing pastries and beverages in the sunny weather.
She hadn’t thought twice about it. Not really, because best friends go on “dates” all the time. It was just a hang out, spending time together to grow closer and improve friendships. It was totally platonic to go out for nice meals, take cute photos of each other, and spend hours just talking.
Well, shit. Daniela was starting to regret this. She was starting to overthink it because the story was putting weird ideas in her head.
“Dang. Fast passes and a romantic dinner?” She chuckled out loud, rolling her eyes playfully to hide the fact that her mind had just taken a detour to France. “Girl, she doesn’t even buy me McDonald’s fries without making me beg for one.”
She grinned, waving her hand dismissively at the screen.
“But honestly, this is so Sophia. Did you know she loves planning everything out? When we visited Europe before, we went on a little brunch date together in France, and it was just the both of us. It wasn’t anything romantic, obviously—we’re literally just best friends—but she definitely tried to organize the whole thing. She’s a perfectionist like that.”
She glanced down at the chat, watching the messages fly by at lightning speed as the fans reacted to her mentioning their canon European brunch date.
katsainz_
saying it like we never knew when sophia literally posted it on insta cause she loves dani that much
s0phiala4teza
OK now when’s the actual romantic date
Daniela knew it was time to look away from the comments when they started bringing up questions about their little friendly date. It was making her feel… weird.
“You have good energy today,” Daniela observed. “You’re making jokes. An improvement. Now shall we go to the park, Laforteza?”
Laforteza. The name still felt weird spoken by Sophia. It was a name she avoided for years just to be clean and clinical. It was a name that supposedly defined Sophia, but it never fit her properly. It was everything she wasn’t— Laforteza meant strength, it meant strong. Sophia was neither of that.
“Laforteza. The name still felt weird spoken by Sophia. It was a name she avoided for years just to be clean and clinical. It was a name that supposedly defined Sophia, but it never fit her properly. It was everything she wasn’t— Laforteza meant strength, it meant strong. Sophia was neither of those.”
Daniela frowned because she absolutely disagreed. In fact, she had always thought that Sophia was all of those, rooting from her leadership and responsibility that she never failed to show since Dream Academy until now.
So when she came across this particular text, a look of pure disbelief and slight sadness crossed her face. Sophia isn’t strong?
It truly did not make sense to her. She thought incredibly high of Sophia, considering her as the one who is the absolute definition of strength itself. She was the one who carried so much weight on her shoulders, and the one who anchored every one of them when things got too stressful. Hearing a story describe Sophia as if she was not strong just felt completely wrong, no matter what alternate universe it was supposed to portray.
And beyond that, Daniela had always secretly loved Sophia’s last name.
She leaned towards the phone again to bring her face closer to the camera, her expression switching from confused to earnest as she looked directly at the chat.
“Wait, hold on, timeout,” Daniela said, shaking her head and waving her hand to pause the story telling. “I actually have to disagree with the writer on this part. Like, for real. First of all, Sophia is literally the strongest person I know, so this paragraph does not make sense to me. But second of all… Laforteza? That last name is so beautiful though.”
jenmi_9602
girl it’s just fanfiction
meganmyqueen
if u think it’s beautiful you can just get her to slip a ring on your finger and you can have the last name!!
She leaned back slightly, her hands moving animatedly as a soft, dreamy smile slipped onto her lips before she could even stop it.
“Like, seriously, you guys. It sounds so powerful and elegant at the same time. If I had that last name, I would never stop saying it. Like, if my name was Daniela Laforteza, I would be walking around introducing myself to everyone like, ‘Hi, I’m Daniela Laforteza,’ just because it sounds so good. I’d love to call myself that.”
She giggled, a little lighthearted but utterly sincere, “So yeah, I dunno what the story means by it not fitting her. I think it’s an amazing last name.”
The weight of what she just said hung in the air of the hotel room. If my name was Daniela Laforteza.
me_inthemiddle
dani calling herself daniela laforteza was not on my 2026 bingo card what the actual fuck
Sponkyxospiky63
oh she kept that sodani married allegations ALIVE just by saying that
She hadn’t meant for it to sound like…that. But seeing the comments’ reactions, she realized exactly how it sounded. It did not sound like a friend complimenting a friend’s surname. It sounded like someone daydreaming about having it.
Her cheeks flared up into an intense blush, and she quickly looked back at the laptop, her fingers flying to the scroll wheel as the Weverse live comments were still in the middle of erupting.
Olivia_kt23
SHE WANTS HER LAST NAME SHE WANTS TO MARRY HER OMG BYE
Dre_IIii
the way she smiled when she said daniela laforteza… girl is downbad and doesn’t even know it
Daniela spent the next minutes of storytelling into acting like she did not just say that. Underneath it all, her heart would not stop beating so fast at the possibility of Sophia finding out she said something like that on her own solo live.
Scratch that—more like reading a fanfiction of the both of them is much worse, actually. Because she has definitely caused moments which were clip worthy. She prayed and hoped that Sophia would not question her once she found out.
“Oh, look!” her eyes lit up in awe as she clicked on one of the buttons after a paragraph, “I can click on the buttons. Is it supposed to do this? I didn’t know this was interactive.” She spent a few seconds clicking onto the coding and reading what was in each of the buttons.
“This is so cool.”
Rebooking
Contact the Service Booth near the entrance to rebook your experience
Cancel and Refund experience
Contact the Cancels and Refunds Booth near the food stall to refund your experience
Her voice proceeded to slow down as she read the paragraph aloud. Each word sliding out of her mouth deliberately.
Sophia loved control. She loved power. She loved rules. She loved order.
Today was everything not.
She had done everything to prevent this from happening. She had bought tickets in advance, she had checked the weather forecast nine days prior, she had paid for all the fast passes and triple checked them.
Now she was left with a thunderstorm and nothing.
No power. No rules. No order.
No nothing.
“‘Sophia loved control. She loved power. She loved rules. She loved order. Today was everything not. She had done everything to prevent this from happening. She had bought tickets in advance, she had checked the weather forecast nine days prior, she had paid for all the fast passes and triple checked them. Now she was left with a thunderstorm and nothing. No power. No rules. No order. No nothing.’”
As she finished reading it, the light atmosphere that had returned in the room seemed to fade a little. The Latina stared at the screen that was too bright yet too dim, the blinking cursor reflecting in her eyes, the trackpad which felt like a sin to scroll at but weirdly she still wanted to sin.
Even though it was just a fictional story about a theme park trip that had gone wrong, the core of Sophia fussing over the loss of control while being faced with unmet expectations made Daniela think about Sophia's actual life as the leader of their group.
Sophia always carried herself so well with grace, always smiling for the cameras and checking in on the other girls, including Daniela herself. She was the one who made sure everything ran smoothly during rehearsals, interviews, and travel days.
But Daniela knew how much pressure came with that role. She wondered if Sophia ever sat alone in her room, staring at a schedule or a list of tasks, feeling exactly like the Sophia in the story—overwhelmed with things she could not control.
What if she's feeling like this right now? With Coachella coming up and all the rehearsals?
A wave of worry hit Daniela's chest. Is that why she decided to stay at home like me? Is that why she needs to stay home to rest? Is it tiredness or is it…
She felt a strong urge to just close the laptop, walk to her bedroom, and check on her. To tell her that she didn't have to carry everything by herself all the time.
“Uh…” She trailed off softly, not knowing what to say but still chose to break her silence. “This part actually makes me a little sad. Because being a leader is really hard, you know?”
She leaned her chin on her hand, eyes softening as she spoke directly to the fans.
“Sophia works hard for us, every single day,” She sighed, “Sometimes I worry that she places too much pressure on herself. I mean… it's a lot of weight to carry.”
A smile curved up her lips as she watched the chat, some still trying to get her to answer their questions with spamming comments and the others actually talking about how much they sympathize with Sophia. The latter side made her smile even more with satisfaction.
“Send love to Sophia, everyone. If she was on live with me right now, I would definitely give her a hug.”
With that, she moved on to reading again for the fans until the end. She smiled every now and then at the sweet dialogues and moments along the way, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.
Strangely enough, that fluttery feeling in her chest wouldn’t go away. It was a familiar, warm sensation that she had already grown accustomed to when she got into a relationship with her current boyfriend, but it felt foreign at the same time. She tried to compare it to what she felt about J*nah, but that was not it.
Hell, she did not even know what she was feeling right now as she read this. All her mind was doing was tormenting her own haze of confusion, making her involuntarily picture each scene being described with Sophia.
Sophia, Sophia, Sophia.
As they walked down the road, light rain trickled down, not enough to use an umbrella, but still there. Daniela intentionally slowed to pace to match Sophia’s, giving her time for her breaths to slow down. The clicking of Daniela’s boots had become her anchor, messy, uneven, but somehow reliable, like her own unsteady heartbeat. She followed the sound til they ducked into a narrow lane where a cozy bookstore squatted between a Chinese place and a mix of elderly facilities and a children's playground.
Daniela pushes the door open, the small bell above the door frame jingling. The air was thick with the scent of ink, old paper and rain soaked leather. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that didn’t make Sophia choke, but rather exhale.
Sophia scanned the spines on each book, a patchwork of colours, uneven spacing, uneven sizes.
It should have bothered her. It should have unsettled her.
It didn’t.
For the very first time that day, she let go of Daniela’s hand, not out of fear, but to trace the spine of the book with trembling fingers.
“It is messy,” Sophia murmured,
“That is exactly how you know it’s lived in,” Daniela grinned.
Sophia’s lips twitched, and said, “Maybe… just maybe I can live in it too.”
“And… that’s it. That was the end of the story,” Daniela announced, letting out a loud breath as she clapped her hands together with a bright, exaggerated smile to reset the mood.
“Wow. Shoutout to the author, you can really write, girl. That was like a whole movie in my head.”
With another breath, her expression softened into fondness, “Also, it was cute. Love how it turned out to be a happy ending,” She tilted her head towards the chat like a hopeful puppy, “how was my storytelling guys? Was it good? Did y’all like it?”
here4sodani
i could sleep peacefully to your voice
katsainz_
dont think we didnt notice you blushing the whole time when u read ts
s0phiala4teza
thank you for saying that about sophia, dani 😭she really is the best leader
“See? I’m not a coward,” Daniela teased, leaning in close to the phone screen with a triumphant grin. “I survived my first fanfic. And look at that, the live didn’t crash. Weverse actually behaved today.”
She checked the time on the screen of her phone. But as she did so, a tiny spark of curiosity flared up in her chest. The story she just read was still stuck in her head, and a part of her suddenly wanted to know what else was out there.
What other things were people writing about her and Sophia? The thought made her heart speed up in nervousness, but mostly intrigue.
Suddenly, she felt an impatience to wrap things up.
She proceeded to stretch her arms over her head, her joints popping slightly. “I think that's enough reading, though. You guys might make me read something even crazier, and my eyes are actually getting tired from staring at the laptop’s screen.”
“Alright, guys,” Daniela continued with a chuckle, purposely avoiding the comments that were still analyzing her facial expressions throughout that storytelling. She waved at the camera, her smile a little quicker now as she tried to play it cool. “Make sure you guys get some rest, okay? Thank you for hanging out with me. I love you guys so, so much. Bye! Bye-bye!”
She hurriedly tapped the screen, finally hitting the end button. Just like that, the live ended as the app automatically worked on saving it for replay. Daniela quickly closed the tab, logged off her account on Instagram, and closed the laptop shut that left her room dark now.
Reading that entire fanfiction definitely took longer than her live should be, but on the good side she was able to feed the fans with an interesting type of content. Still, that same curiosity about what else could she read from Sodani fanfictions kept bugging her.
Maybe a bit more hurried than it should be, her fingers subtly trembled as she placed the laptop on one of the cabinets where she knew her roommate usually keeps her laptop in properly—not under the pillow this time. She grabbed her phone from the table and scrambled back to her side of the bed.
This means nothing. Totally nothing, She kept convincing herself over and over as she opened Safari and searched up AO3, a shortcut that she recently learned from her fans. But what struck her was the unfamiliarity of the home page, where she absolutely did not know where to start.
At some point, she worked on familiarizing herself with the buttons, even accidentally coming across filthy tags of a fanfiction from a fandom she did not even know about. A glimpse of that made her face instantly go red, her thumb immediately scrolling past it as if the words could somehow jump off her screen and blind her.
Oh my god. People actually write stuff like that?
She mentally scolded herself for even thinking this. Of course people write stuff like this. Adult romance books existed for a reason, and people’s imaginations were endless. But the realization that Archive of our Own did not turn out to be an innocent place for sweet, fluffy stories but also for wild and completely unfiltered ones hit her like a bucket of ice cold water
And if people were writing that kind of filthy stuff for other fandoms… did that mean those types of stories existed about her? About her and Sophia?
The thought alone made her hands twitch around her phone. A normal person would probably close the tab right then and there, lock their phone, and try to forget they ever saw it. But Daniela’s curiosity had always been dangerous, with that being the reason she had encountered regretful situations at some point in her life.
So it made her want to know the truth even more, even though she probably shouldn’t. She wanted to see how far their fans actually went.
Swallowing the dry lump in her throat, she carefully typed Katseye into the Fandom section, clicked the only result and clicked the search button, making sure her fingers did not slip.
She held her breath as the page started to load under her blankets, and the results made her eyes almost bulge out in shock.
“Holy shit,” she whispered under her breath as she scrolled through, “there’s this many? This is over two thousand!”
As she scrolled through, she noticed that there was more fanfiction written for her and Sophia, placing second place after Megan and Yoonchae.
Damn. Our duo is THAT popular?
She also noticed that the stories that reached the most hits also consisted of the both of them as the main couple. There was Lucky, project_daniela.log, First Time, Hearts Under Contract, and so much more.
It made Daniela think that maybe she could spend the rest of her day binge-reading many of these fics. Because if it had this much amount of views, it meant that it was enjoyable enough to read, right?
Still, her thumb kept flickering upwards. There were so many different summaries, but the tags were what caught her attention the most that her heart leaped straight into her throat.
Right there, nearly tucked under a title she did not quite register, were full of tags she recognized as dirty for an adult her age. Cunnilingus. Porn With Plot. Masturbation. There were even those that she did not recognize but sounded filthy just by the bright red E on the left side of the fanfics.
So they actually write these kind of stuff about us.
Now she understood why exactly the comments were panicking when she brought up the idea of reading fanfiction, and why Lara and Manon had those kinds of reactions when they did so a few months ago: speechless and horrified. It seems that they had encountered through weird stories instead of the one she had found.<
I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t, she chanted in her head the image of her own boyfriend and Sophia’s softness when it came particularly to Leon flashed briefly in her mind, and it added more guilt to the layer of forbidden thrill.
But the problem was, her curiosity had completely taken over. So instead of backing out, her mind drifted back to the story she had just read on live. That author, valxkats, had written something sweet.
Maybe…maybe they had other works? Surely someone who wrote that kind of story wouldn’t write anything close to that, right?
Needing safety from those explicit tags currently staring right back at her, Daniela taped the search bar again. Her fingers fumbled slightly as she typed the author’s username.
She hit search, and fanfictions from the same author loaded. Daniela blinked. Thirteen works. Wow, they were really dedicated for a supposedly romantic pairing that she thinks never even existed between her and Sophia despite all the closeness and affection they had been giving each other as of late
She scrolled down the list of stories with her eyes skimming through the summaries until a particular one caught her attention. It was actually something explicit given by the bright red E on one of the squares again.
Oh. Well it looks like she thought wrong.
Smut was the only explicit tag mentioned—one that she recognized. There were no other specific tags, and it made Daniela feel nervous all of a sudden. A shiver ran up her spine, sending a shudder through her feet to her head.
An anniversary? Her mind tried to process the concept of her and Sophia having an anniversary since in her actual life, anniversaries were only with Jonah. They were for couples who belonged to each other in ways she and Sophia legally never could, boundaries-wise.
Her fingers twitched over the title, the alarm bells for her morals starting to ring loudly in her head. But what if it gets weird when I look at Sophia in the eyes tomorrow morning… all because of what I read?
If she was reading this, she would basically be crossing a line she knew she was not supposed to cross. It would be like invading a privacy that didn’t even exist.
Yet the thrill of it was like electricity across her skin. Her dangerous curiosity whispered that nobody would ever know. She was alone in the room, all of the girls were out to have the time of their lives, and Sophia was in her own room, probably asleep by now given that it was getting late.
In a way, the word “smut” was vague enough to make her brain run wild with questions. It did not explain enough what kind of stuff she would encounter, what kind of moments she would have to imagine just to understand, and that reasoning alone made her think that maybe it would not be so bad. That she would not think of Sophia any differently after this.
Fuck it.
Biting her lower lip again, but this time hard enough to feel the sting, Daniela finally let her curiosity win. She tapped the red text of the title.
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.