The train ride starts off quiet. They board, take their seats and a small quiet comes over them. Wendy just lets Joohyun do what she needs, this is all about Joohyun and Wendy only wants for the brunette to have a moment to just breathe.

So she lets her make the first move because right now it’s her who calls the shots.

And the first move was quiet.

So that’s what Wendy gave her.

Watching the trees whizz by and thin out as they travel closer and closer to the city, Wendy lets her eyes go lazy and allows her head to swim and think about all that’s happened over time.

She thinks back to how it all started over a simple cup of coffee and how that was it. One glimpse of the small girl behind the counter, whose glasses had steamed up a little too much from the machine and she was gone. She’d never known herself to fall so hard, so fast, for a complete stranger and yet after a few visits she’d been sharing her music with her.

Her music.

Her music. Her heart and soul. Everything she thinks and feels gets translated into beats and notes for all the world to hear but for no one to understand. Not until Joohyun heard them.

When Joohyun listened to her music she just seemed to get it straight away, the feeling, the expression, the fact that when the notes were pulsing through her ears, that every chord and every snare was wholly and unapologetically Wendy.

And she just got it.

As if it was that simple, that easy, for Joohyun to understand her.

No wonder she fell so fast.

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by a soft pressure on her shoulder, Joohyun’s fallen asleep on her again. She can’t help but huff out a small laugh at the snoozing girl next to her,

“We always end up like this, huh?” she softly laughs to herself, trying not to wake the girl as she slowly maneuvers herself to pick up her jacket from between her legs, folding it up into a makeshift pillow and trying to, ever so gently, slip it under Joohyun’s resting head.

After watching Joohyun sleep for a few minutes more, Wendy manages to finally tear her eyes from her and instead uses her free arm to fish out her laptop and earbuds from her bag, moving slowly and carefully trying not to let Joohyun’s limp head drop suddenly.

After having finally set up her laptop in front of her she opens up the lid and almost robotically opens up the same software she always does. But when the presets come up, Wendy pauses and looks over to Joohyun again, still sleeping, blissfully ignorant to all that is around her.

She looks at the presets again, all her old synth setups, still there, ready for use to make the same music she always does.

But she’s not the same anymore.

Things are different now.

She’s different.

The Wendy who started to make all those synth and vaporwave instrumentals isn’t the same Wendy who’s sat looking back on them now.

So why should she make the same old music?

A beat passes before she decides it’s time for her music to catch up with her. A new Wendy needs a new soundtrack after all.

She wipes the presets and opens up her samples and spends the rest of the journey playing with sounds she never thought she would, building melodies she’d never imagined before and it felt good.

It felt new.

She liked new.

New gave her Joohyun, new gave her Yerim, new gave her a new sound, it gave her a reason to keep making music, to keep going.

As she starts to play around with her instruments she feels movement on her shoulder, Joohyun’s stirring. Wendy halts her movements, mentally willing her girlfriend to slip back into sleep. It works and Joohyun soon stills and her breathing becomes light once more. Wendy lets the arm Joohyun’s leaning on fall into her lap, thinking it’s best not to use it at all if moving it risks waking her up, she’ll just make music one handed.

I guess that sounds more badass anyway, she supposes.

~~

It’s a couple hours before they start to reach familiar scenery, trees now replaced with concrete walls and telephone lines. With Joohyun still resting safely on her shoulder, Wendy decides to pack down her laptop, with one of her samples already nearing completion she feels it was a successful journey for them both; Joohyun finally rested and Wendy found her new sound.

Looking over at Joohyun for what must be the hundredth time that journey Wendy can’t help but feel the warm happiness spread through her body. Watching the rise and fall of her chest,  her soft breathing through her slightly parted lips and her glasses slightly slipped down the bridge of her nose brings nothing but this overwhelming feeling of calm in Wendy. She feels it through her whole being, from her head, through her chest and in her fingertips.

She can’t help the soft smile that plays across her lips, it’s there before she even knows it. She lets her fingers ghost over the soft brown locks, pushing away the few strands that have fallen across her face, gently tucking them behind her ear. Her fingers dance lightly over the shell over her ear before softly allowing her touch to drift down her delicate jawline.

She’s startled when a soft voice comes from the apparently sleeping form next to her.

“That tickles,” the small voice says. Wendy is taken aback at first but can’t help but let her surprise soften as those small eyebrows knit together in confusion in front of her.

Wendy just presses a little more firmly into her cheek, brushing it with her thumb,

“Sorry babe, I was trying not to wake you but we’re almost home,”

At that, Joohyun lifts her head off of Wendy’s shoulder and looks out of this window. She rubs her eyes free of sleep under her glasses and looks at Wendy sleepily,

“I fell asleep on you again…” she says quietly, a little hint of embarrassment evident in her tone.

“It’s okay,” Wendy shrugs, “your tiny head isn’t that heavy,” she shrugs, and while it wasn’t, trying to support it and keep her girlfriend upright for a few hours was little more of a challenge, but Joohyun didn’t need to know that part.

Joohyun instead playfully punches her lightly at the small dig but she just laughs it off. After that they start to gather their things as the train pulls into the city and nears the station.

It’s a small walk through the city streets back to Joohyun’s apartment block after they disembark the train and both girls groan in relief as their limbs are finally stretched out from being cooped up in their seats during the journey.

They reach Joohyun’s apartment block soon enough and the brunette turns to Wendy with an expectant look on her face, silently asking if she was going to come up with her.

“Not tonight, Hyun,” she answers her unasked question, “school starts again in a couple days and I still have a ton to do for it,” Joohyun quirks an accusing eyebrow at that statement, “What? So maybe I ‘forgot’ to do any whil