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Danny liked singing.
Not like as in wanting to upload videos of him singing on Youtube or getting something out of it. You see, he was super shy about it. The only times you would be able to hear his singing was at night after a long fight. Or maybe when he was sitting on the rooftops, staring at the stars as if they might actually give him the answers he was looking for. Like how Ember had spotted him that night.
Ember felt down and knew that Danny was always there to help, to listen. But when she phased through the walls and stood inside of the halfa’s bedroom, she found nothing else than the usual place she always knew, except for the fact that the plastic stars taped on the ceiling were lighting the room up in a pastel-ish way. Ember could recognize some of the patterns from the sky, like the Ursa Major and another one she couldn’t remember the name of.
After staring at the stars and unknowingly calming herself, Ember sighed, muttered “geek,” and phased out of the room again. Her plan was to leave and come back another day, but then she heard it. Danny’s voice.
Just this wasn’t Danny’s voice in a way she had ever expected it to sound. The usually sarcastic, slightly harsh and confident tone was completely gone and replaced with a tiny, innocent one. If she tried really hard, Ember could hear him half-mutter-half-sing the words “how rare and beautiful it is to even-” and then something that sounded a bit like insist. Gosh, he sounded like a tiny kid. Ember’s music taste was usually very punk and upbeat, but oh how she wanted this on vinyl. She had to hear more of his tiny, vulnerable singing.
Without paying much of her mind into it, Ember flew up to hear him clearer, completely forgetting everything about the halfa’s ghost sense.
Before she could even spot the top of Danny’s hair, he had already reacted and was now standing in a position close to a fighting stance. Maybe it was a fighting stance, just an incredibly poor one.
Ember put her hands up in the air, just like people did in all the movies.
“It’s just me, baby pop.” She looked at Danny as his shoulders fell down once again and he breathed out.
His left hand reached up and rested on his neck. “Geez, give me a warning next time you decide to randomly pop up and surprise me.” The halfa sat down again, silently inviting Ember to sit with him. She took the offer.
They both sat there together and stared at the stars. There they were, the constellations that Ember had seen inside Danny’s room a few minutes earlier. The Ursa Major one and the other one that she still couldn’t remember the name of. Stupid memory.
Ember got impatient and decided to break the silence.
“So why are you up here this late?”
“It’s not that late,” Danny said as he took his phone out of his pocket and turned it on, showing both himself and Ember his background (a stunning picture of Tucker with a burger smeared all over his face.) and the clock showing it was 03:12 am.
“Oh, shit-” Danny said and got up quickly. It was a school night after all.
Danny frantically looked around the roof to make sure he didn’t forget his stuff up there again.
He turned to Ember and said: “Can we hang out another night? Mr. Lancer will flip if I don’t get any sleep again.”
Ember chuckled and got up as well. “Of course.”
Right before Danny completely phased down from the roof to his bedroom, he could hear Ember yelling as silently as possible. “Oh, and let’s make a song together sometime! It’ll be like Eminem and Ed Sheeran but way cooler and punk. Your girlfriend would love it!”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” Danny silently yelled back. “And also, why would we make music together? It’s not like-”
Realization obviously hit him when his eyes went wide enough to pop out of his skull. “Did you hear me? How could you have-”
He was stopped by a cold hand folding over his mouth.
“Go to sleep, baby pop. Let’s talk about it later.” Ember could barely contain her giggles as she forced him to quiet.
The halfa did not look satisfied at all, but he left seconds after with the most childish pout any 16-year old could ever muster.
Ember stayed a bit longer to look at the calming stars before she also left. Somehow, sitting there made it feel real in a whole other way than anything else did.
It made sense why Danny surrounded himself with stars and constellations.