‘Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.’
As the clock on the wall ticked away, soft snores could be heard from the room’s lone occupant, a girl, who was currently hunched over her desk sound asleep. Surrounding her were numerous torn pages from the notebook she had laid her head on, each one filled with various crossed out words, lyrics she felt were unsuited to the melody her bandmates had worked on.
The girl had been at this for several days now, racking her brain for the perfect words, the perfect lyrics to match this melody. Unfortunately, songwriters are not exempt from writer’s block, and every word she could come up with just didn’t feel right. Tonight was just another night spent agonizing over words that she felt but couldn’t describe; words that were on the cusp of leaving her mouth, but instead leaving only empty air.
Earlier in the day she had come to a certain senior for help, desperate after several days of banging her head against the wall (figuratively; she still needed some brain cells for homework). After all, who better than the legendary songstress herself to get advice for lyrics? Still, the advice she got, though helpful, only left her with a fresh perspective, and not the words she was desperately seeking.
“Don’t just think of the perfect words. Feel them,” the girl had said.
“What do you mean by that?” she had replied with confusion.
A small giggle. Her heart may never get used to knowing that that sound was real. “Songs are extensions of you, of your feelings. It’s okay to think of words, but you can’t just think them.”
The girl walked away from her to grab her guitar and began to slowly strum it. “Sometimes, words come out once you lose yourself to the melody.”
The girl looked at her with a smile. “So, care for a short jam session? It might just help.”
She smiled back at her. “Of course.”
As the girl put down her notebook and grabbed her own guitar, the other slowly picked up her strumming, playing out a familiar chord progression and giving the other time to join in.
With the dusky skyline being their only witness, the two girls let themselves get lost in the music they shared together, chills running down their backs as they played and played and played, the melodies exchanged reverberating throughout the empty classroom of a world born of feelings.
While the session had helped her understand how to feel the melody, she still could not find the words that let her feel the same way she did when she had that jam session. And, unfortunately, her notebook was quickly running out of pages– the fact she was sleeping on it notwithstanding.
As moonlight gently made its way through the curtains, painting the girl in a peaceful glow, her phone suddenly flashed, though it was ineffective in stirring the unconscious girl from her dreams of singing on a stage with a twin-tailed musician. As for said twin-tailed musician, her miniature holographic form displayed itself on top of the desk. She was surprised to find her junior sleeping on the desk she usually worked on.
“Oh my…” she had thought to herself as she looked at the mess of crumpled papers strewn about the desk. “You shouldn’t be sleeping here, your neck won’t like it.”
Moving closer to the sleeping girl’s head, she began to whisper the girl’s name into her ear, hoping it would stir her enough to go sleep on a bed instead of a desk.
All she got back in response was the girl lightly giggling in her sleep while mumbling back the songstress’s name.
The songstress smiled at the small moment before trying again.
“Come on~ You shouldn’t sleep here. You need to rest on a bed!” she whisper-shouted.
After about 5 minutes, the sleeping girl began to stir and slowly raised her head with a yawn. The songstress took this moment to blip out of her hologram form so as not to scare the girl who had just woken up.
The girl, upon gaining some level of self-awareness, realized exactly where she had fallen asleep. She briefly lamented all the crumpled-up papers and decided to just sleep, but this time on a bed and not her notebook.
Once her breathing slowed down and evened out, the songstress projected herself, this time in a bigger size, beside the sleeping girl’s bed. She let her form “sit” on the bed, though as a hologram she wouldn’t really affect anything, and watched her junior sleep.
She was looking forward to the lyrics the girl would give to this song, but she didn’t like it when she pushed herself this far over writing said lyrics.
“You shouldn’t overwork yourself for things like this.” she whispered to the sleeping girl.
The sleeping girl turned in her sleep, causing her long black locks to cover her face.
Subconsciously the songstress reached her hand out to move the girl’s hair out of her face, before catching herself.
Try as she might, she was still a hologram. Her hand couldn’t touch anything. She wasn’t real in this world.
She sighed. The thoughts were coming back. The selfish thoughts.
She wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but she liked the time she spent alone with the other girl, whether it was over discussing songwriting, having a jam session, or casually hanging out (though that was rather rare, she lamented).
And well, the melody of their latest song struck a chord in her virtual existence.
Somehow, listening to it made her feel something. What that something was, she neither knew nor understood. What she did understand was that hearing that melody and playing it alongside the girl had made her feel something akin to happiness and satisfaction.
What scared her was that it was a happiness and satisfaction that was completely different from the feelings she experienced as a senior. She felt it when they played their guitars in sync, when they’d lock eyes with one another for a moment and smile, and when, for the briefest of moments, they had made playful contact.
This wasn’t something she was supposed to feel. She was supposed to exist to help her, help all the girls discover their true feelings. She wasn’t supposed to deal with her own.
Still, as scary as these feelings were, she couldn’t quite deny just how nice it felt to her whenever she’d gaze warmly at the girl and receive the same. She couldn’t deny how badly she wanted her to visit the other world more often just so they could play together. She couldn’t deny how badly she wanted to be a bigger part of the girl’s life than just someone who would be there as a reliable senior whenever they crossed over.
The songstress’s thoughts were interrupted by the shifting of the sleeping girl, her hair no longer blocking her face.
The songstress let out a quiet giggle. The girl was really cute in her sleep.
Scratch that, she was just really cute in general. And cool whenever she performed.
‘Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.’
The songstress turned towards the wall clock. 3:30 a.m. it read.
“That’s still a lot of time,” she thought to herself with a small smile. “I’ll be with you for just a bit longer.”
As she watched over the sleeping form of her dearest junior, the songstress quietly began humming the same melody the girl had been agonizing in her songwriting process for.
Before the songstress could realize, words began to slowly pour out of her mouth as if they were the most natural thing in the world.
She felt it again.
She just kept singing.
She knew that was what she was made for.
She knew that no one would hear her words.
But tonight she would keep singing, singing the perfect lyrics for this melody.
Singing them for the girl she held most dear, even if the songstress hadn’t realized or accepted it.
Night soon changes to day, and the songstress is met with the rays of dawn creeping through the curtains. As the first rays of sunlight land on the sleeping girl’s form, she takes her leave, waiting for her to come visit her again.
—
The next time they meet, the girl arrives with complete lyrics and samples it for everyone.
The songstress flushes at the words that come out as her junior performs.
“They’re…” she whispers to herself as she listens to the sample, feeling the emotions behind the words.
They’re the exact words she sang that night.
Hopefully, her blush isn’t obvious to everyone else when the girl asks for feedback.