Luna clings to Jin and pouts for the umpteenth time that day. An unexpected blip in Megan thee Stallion's schedule meant she had to fly out to Houston tonight, four days earlier than intended. That meant that her soulmates couldn't come with. They had a few more interviews and photoshoots due over the next few days so they couldn't just drop everything—not that she expected them to.
"You're breaking my heart, Princess. We'll be back together before you know it," he says, rubbing his nose against hers in an Eskimo kiss before softly kissing her lips.
"I know, I just—I miss you already and I'm not even gone yet," she says, holding back tears.
She scolds herself mentally for being so emotional about four days apart, but she'd literally been with them every single day since they'd met; and this would be the first time they weren't within a few miles of her.
"Aww baby, the bond is hitting you hard because it's your first time away from us," Hobi coos, confirming her thoughts as he wraps his arms around her from behind.
"Thank you for confirming I'm not being ridiculous right now," she giggles through the tears that clouded her eyes.
"Not at all Noona. I still cry sometimes when we're apart," JK says, pecking her on the temple as he passes by on his way to the kitchen to help Yoongi with the dishes.
"Me too, you'll be okay Noona. Getting ready to leave and the first day away is always the hardest," Tae says, grabbing her face and swiping away a tear that had just fallen.
He leans forward and kisses that spot on her cheek before smiling at her sullenly.
"I need to uh, walk my fish," he says, making them laugh as he makes his way to the bathroom.
"He just doesn't want you to see him cry," Jimin giggles, rolling his eyes.
"Not true!" Tae says dramatically pointing in his direction before he closes the bathroom door behind him.
"We're all gonna miss you too Lu. Make sure you keep Drew with you. Her studio sessions look like a party sometimes," he says, making her giggle.
"Yes sir. I'm sure she'd be more professional than that considering I'm coming, but if she's not, I'll definitely shut it down. I can't and won't work like that. Drew wouldn't have all that either. Did I mention that they know each other?" she asks and he shakes his head.
"Drew and Megan? Small world," Yoongi says, drying his hands on the towel he had thrown across his shoulder.
"Yeah, Lola too. One of her Megan's older cousins is one of Lola's best friends, who also used to date Drew. I've seen her and some of her cousins growing up, but we went to different schools so we never really hang like that. My cousins know them better than I do. I was off working most of the time," she explains.
"Really small world. Wow, no wonder she says you inspire her so much," Joon says and she smiles.
"Yeah, I used to regret joining K3 with everything in me, but us going out there and making it really opened doors for women like Megan; and I'd do it all over again if I had to. Oof, I should be packing right now. My flight leaves in 2 hours," she says, noting the time on her watch.
They would make it there around midnight and she'd have a few hours to sleep before her meeting with Meg and the DC reps that were also flying in that morning to discuss what they were expecting from the song as well as brainstorm ideas for the visual.
The barely 3 hour plane ride was being spent with Lola and Drew clowning Luna for being sad about leaving her soulmates and her cursing them out for it. Amongst Lola and Drew were a few of her stylists as well as security, who sat in the front cabin of the jet.
Luna kept her nose in her phone, one airpod in her ear as she played her playlist of instrumentals she'd made, occasionally jotting down lyrics on her notepad since her soulmates were going to sleep one by one it seemed. She'd just told Jimin to call it a night and hadn't heard back from him so she assumes he's sleeping as well. Keeping herself busy in between writing, she decides to post a few promo shots for her single Green Light Go since the video would be released on her birthday.
@LunaOfficial Anybody else ready for the Green Light Go MV? I know I am! Coming out @ midnight on my birthday 6/14! Only 4 days away 🙀
#StreamGLG #DonatetotheBCRF #LinkinBio 💕
Shortly after she posted that, her pilot Sam announced that they would be landing soon, so she put all her things back in her purse and strapped on her seatbelt. This would be a long 4 days but she'd do her best to enjoy it. She had to enjoy every moment she got with her family at least. They'd cheer her up in no time for sure.
Thankfully, getting off the plane was uneventful—no fans or paparazzi, just staff at the private hangar they'd flown into. Drew dropped off she and Lola at their respective homes before making his way home himself.
Luna makes sure her doors are locked and makes a beeline to the bedroom, grateful that her grandmother had come over to dust the place and put fresh sheets on her bed despite it being untouched for months now. She shot a goodnight text to the group chat and finally let sleep take her. It had been a long day.
Luna straightened her blazer and silenced her phone before sliding her shades over her eyes and stepping out of the car when the chauffeur opened the door.
For some reason, the 11am brunch meeting had been pushed up to 7am instead. She'd just gotten in bed at around 1:30am and had to get right back up at 5:30 to get the day started, something that no one on her team was particularly ecstatic about. They were just as tired as she was so the car ride was quiet on the way there, everyone in their own little worlds.
Thankfully, there was no press present when they pulled up to the building DC Comics had rented meeting space in. They wanted to keep everything under wraps for now so they'd picked a pretty low key area.
She and her team were greeted as soon as they walked through the door and she put on a bright smile despite her mood.
"Welcome Ms. Song, Ms. Pete has just arrived. Right this way please," Cecilia, one of the DC reps says, giving her a slight bow before turning around and leading the group in the right direction.
Security stayed posted just outside the room while Luna's lawyer, Jane Harper, and Lola accompanied her inside. Everyone stood and she made her way over to greet Megan, sharing a brief hug as they exchanged greetings. They'd have plenty of time to chop it up later. She shook everyone else's hands and sat on her side of the square table, Jane and Lola on either side of her.
"Welcome! Firstly, we'd like to apologize for moving the meeting up. We know you just landed early this morning Luna, so we'll keep this as brief as possible," Arthur, the rep she'd been in contact with the most, says and she nods.
"We have both your contracts and they've been adjusted accordingly, we hope. We'll pass those out to your lawyers so they can go ahead and read over them and make sure everything's satisfactory. While they do that, we'd like to discuss what we're expecting of the song. We'd like to show you the trailer for Birds of Prey so you can get a feel of the vibe this movie gives off first," he says, walking over to flip the lights off at the front of the room so they could see the projector screen clearly.
The trailer starts to play and just like she imagined there was a lot of girl power and badassery going on. There was a lot of focus on Harley Quinn, as expected, so they'd definitely have to bring some attitude with the song and the visuals.
"As you can see, it's pretty badass. We wanted you two specifically because we feel like you embody this in real life. We want something tough and badass and high energy. Who better for that than you two?!" Cecilia exclaims, her enthusiasm making them laugh.
"I definitely think we can deliver that no problem," Megan says and Luna agrees.
"You won't be disappointed for sure," she adds.
"Oh, we know. So now that you've seen the trailer, we'd like to leave the song in your very capable hands. You're the experts here when it comes to that. We do need to discuss visuals though. The video will be posted on the Birds of Prey YouTube channel as well as each of yours, so DC is a little more stringent with what the M/V will look like. We have a few sketches we'd like to show you," Arthur says, passing them both a folder.
"Love the car scene. I also love that we're doing fight scenes like superheroes," Luna smiles, flipping through the very detailed sketches.
It was almost like a flip book in the way it depicted the scenes, making it much easier to visualize what was happening in the video.
"I'm already in love with these outfits. I love the idea of putting our song names in grafitti on our outfits. Give whoever came up with that a raise," Megan says, making them laugh.
"That is a very dope idea. These other outfits are really blinged out, like covered in diamonds. I love it, but I especially love this sketch of Harley as Marilyn Monroe. They're so opposite of each other, but that would be fun to play with visually and lyrically though," Luna says.
"Yeah, it's like Marilyn is Harley's soft side. That's a cool concept," Megan says.
"Harley, soft?" Meg's manager scoffs, making them laugh.
"Meg has a point though. Harley does have a soft side. I mean, she let a criminally insane villain manipulate her. At the end of the day, she just wanted attention and to be loved right? Marilyn pushed the same agenda in her movies—male attention. When I think of Marilyn, I think of the song, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend." It was all about a man buying her diamonds, but in this era, we're much more independent. Women like us, women like Harley, don't need men to buy us diamonds. We can get them ourselves. I think it would be dope if we could include some scenes where Harley's all dressed up like Marilyn doing a show, like in her movie, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," but have Harley being crazy savage throughout," Luna says, fighting the urge to laugh as Cecilia nods and scribbles furiously on her notepad.
"See, this is why we chose you to direct the M/V. That sounds amazing," Arthur praises.
"Okay Ms. Director. I didn't know that," Meg says, making her laugh.
"It'll be my first time directing a whole M/V. I'm excited," Luna grins.
"We're just as excited to have you. Our set designer has an idea to incorporate a circus-like scene for the diamond outfits," Cecilia adds.
"That sounds cool. I like that the scene depicts what a real harlequin is. It also goes well with the show girl theme and so does this pink outfit they sketched for me," Luna says.
"Honestly, I think you would kill a modern day showgirl routine—eat it right on up," Megan says and Lola agrees.
"I just may do that. That way Margot won't have to actually learn any choreo," Luna says.
"Sounds great so far. Do you think we can pull it off with just these sets? If not, we'll have you speak with our set designers and have them create something for you," Arthur says.
"These should be fine. There already seems to be a lot going on in these sets. I wouldn't want to add anything. We can definitely get the scenes done with these," Luna confirms.
"Okay, with that being said, we can get on to the signing of the contracts and you two can get together and work on the song. When you're finished, you'll have to submit it to us and we'll let you know if it's approved or not. We'll discuss the best time to film after that," Cecilia says and they nod, turning to their respective lawyers.
Jane quietly goes over the contract with Luna again, letting her know that the adjustments they'd discussed had been made accordingly. There was an NDA stating that she couldn't acknowledge that she was working for DC comics directly until after they said so, but she could tease a new project with Megan. DC wanted to be the ones to release that information as part of the promotion for the movie. Most importantly though, she'd be getting paid $60,000 for the song and another $10,000 for directing it. After she was sure she understood everything, she signed her name on the dotted line.
Another bag secured.
She and Megan swapped numbers after agreeing to meet that night at Meg's studio. They'd both just flown in the night before and were in dire need of food and a nap.
Back in the back of her car, Luna took her phone off silent text her soulmates the good news on the way to her grandmother's house. They'd had a long day the day before as well so she wasn't expecting a text back right away.
"Congrats Lulu, you're doing huge things girly," Lola says, making her smile.
"Thanks girl, generational wealth for the team is the goal," she says.
"I know that DC bag looking nice," Drew says, giving her dap.
"Extra nice," she grins, already planning to put it in the trust funds.
The drive to her grandma's house took about an hour and her stomach was touching her back by the time they made it there.
One look at her grandmother's house had her slipping off her heels and running after saying a speedy goodbye to Lola and Drew. Being here brought out her inner child and she just knew her grandma was up cooking breakfast, even though it was just her at the house right now.
She was just waking out onto the porch with a plate and a glass of lemon tea in her hand when Luna was making her way up the stairs.
"What you doing up so early girl? Didn't you just get here?" She greets, setting her plate and drink down on a table and reaching out to her for a hug.
"They moved the meeting up so I had to get up earlier than expected," she replies, stepping into her grandmother's embrace.
"You're gonna work yourself to death girl. Let me go fix you a plate."
"Yess, I'm starving," Luna says, making her grandma laugh.
"Always, fame didn't change that appetite at all," she says, placing a cloche over her food before going to fix Luna's.
Luna sat in the rocking chair on the other side of the table and looked around, glad her grandma had decided to re-decorate the nice, wraparound porch. At first, she'd shied away from spending money on anything, but had gradually gotten used to it. Now, here she was drinking from Crystal cups and using silver trays and cloches. Luna was glad she was finally buying the things she likes. She works the way she does so she wouldn't have to. Her grandma had been working hard since the tender age of 10, so she deserves everything she was giving her and more.
"I put a good bit of everything on here and there's extra ice and lemon in your tea."
"Thanks grandma, I really appreciate it," she says, standing so she could take the items from her hands.
"I know you do baby. How are my grandsons?" Mahalia asks, making Luna smile.
"They're doing well. They had to work so they won't be able to come until my birthday," she says before biting into a piece of country fried ham.
"We'll that's just a few days away. It won't be so bad. Cheer up buttercup," she says, sensing how sad she was.
"I know, it's just the bond making me feel it times 10. I just need to keep my mind off it," she replies, taking a sip of her tea.
Store bought lemon tea doesn't do this justice at all. Freshly brewed tea with a lemon straight off the tree would forever be undefeated.
"By drowning yourself in work," Mahalia says, a statement, not a question.
"Of course. I'm working on a song with Megan tonight for a really big project," she says, shedding herself of her jacket.
It was warm outside, but the breeze felt amazing in the shade.
"Pete? That's nice, working with someone from this area. I heard she raps, but the kids won't let me listen to it," she says, making Luna laugh.
"Yeah, her songs are more for the younger generation, no offense," Luna says, knowing her grandma would be clutching her pearls if she listened to a Meg song.
"Like your new songs?" she asks, making Luna nearly choke.
"You listened to them?" she asks, her eyes wide.
"No, they wouldn't let me but Katrina did tell me you finally clapped back at that boy down there at that label and his daughter," she says, making Luna laugh again.
"Yes ma'am. They were getting disrespectful, so I had to put them in their places. I don't like to be like that, but I had to do what I had to do. I won't let them bully me," she replies, sitting her empty plate down on the tray next to her.
"I'm not judging baby. At his big ole age, he should be focused on other things. He's still playing stupid games so he won a stupid prize. If he keeps it up, sue his ass for defamation. I bet that'll shut his broke ass right on up. Got me cursing," Mahalia fusses, grabbing her empty plate and standing up.
"I'm already suing him for the $100,000 he owes me. I think that'll calm those lips and fingers of his down for now," Luna grins.
She grabs her empty dishes and follows her grandmother into the house, convincing her to let her wash the dishes while she puts the leftovers away in containers. She dries her hands and they make their way into the living room to catch up more. Luna falls asleep to the sound of her grandmother's humming and game show playing on the TV, like she'd done so many times before when she was younger. It felt good to be home.