Chapter Text
Josh was making his early commute to school. It was a brisk morning, as he walked cars zoomed past, everyone going their own way, some kids he knew were being driven to school, some walking and some even riding bikes.
He walked through the school's doors and made his way to his locker, he sighed as he opened it. He already wanted the school day to be over, as he was in his own mind getting his books out someone tapped on his shoulder.
“...Do you know where the office is? I was shown during my tour here but forgot” the brown haired boy with a white shirt, grey zip up and denim jeans stood in front of josh asked.
“Yeah it’s down the hall and… to your right” Josh replied, hoping to keep the interaction short and to his luck it was, the brown haired boy zipped off pretty quickly after he spoke to Josh and he was happy with that.
Ten minutes had past and Josh was sitting in the back of class, hood up, in his own world and drumming a beat softly on his desk, not loud enough to distract others.. At least that's what he had hoped.
Someone opened the door to the class room and walked in, not unusual but when Josh looked up he saw the brown haired boy again, looking shaken like he had walked into a class he shouldn't have. The teacher looked away from the board, she looked at the new student and then the rest of the class, “This is Tyler, welcome him to the class with open arms” she then looked at Tyler “Sit anywhere that has an open seat”.
Tyler mumbled something back to the teacher and scanned the room, the only free seat seemed to be the one next to the boy in the back with blue hair and piercings. Tyler took his chances and sat next to him.
Josh looked up from the edge of the desk to the person sitting next to him. “I’m Tyler.. I guess you know that already though” he coughed out.
“Josh” he replied, after the interaction he put his hand in his lap and sat silently, resisting the urge to make a beat but not wanting to disturb Tyler.
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After school Tyler walked to the gym for basketball tryouts, he had signed up that morning and hoped he wasn't late after circling the whole school 3 times before finding the gym. “Hey! Welcome to try outs, is your name on the list?” someone called out to Tyler as he walked in.
“Yeah, I signed up this morning..” he didn't look down but didn't keep eye contact with the other guy either.
“Perfect!” The other guy smiled and scribbled something down on a piece of paper on the plastic table he was sitting behind.
Tyler had clobbered the competition for the open spot on the team, he was officially on the school's basketball team and was invited out to hangout after tryouts.
The group walked to the mall and on the way there Tyler had noticed a record shop, he stopped in front of it and just stared, noting where it was and to have a look around by himself, the rest of the group noticed and laughed “I think Josh works there, don't get to close”
“Huh..?” the comment had snapped Tyler out of his mind. “What do you even mean by that?”
“He’s a freak, ‘ooohh I’m so quiet, I sit by myself at lunch because im sooo emoo’. If you got to close to him your phone would blue tooth to those piercings” the teammate stood in front of Tyler laughed as he mocked Josh.
Tyler let out a chuckle "Totally”, he had no choice but to agree, he didn’t want to be left out of anything especially as the new kid.
Josh looked up just as Tyler walked away, hoping his shift would be over soon, he loved working where he did but he had a long day, especially in his mind.
After another hour of checking people out and resorting vinyls and CD’s Josh’s shift was over, he clocked out, waved goodbye to the other person on shift and walked out, happy to be finally going home, his walk home was long and cold, when he got home he went straight up to his room and got on his drumset.
After his mom called out about 10 times he snapped out of his trance, for 3 hours he had been playing the drums non stop, he finally took a breath and got up but almost fell, he quickly grabbed his dresser and steadied himself before going down stairs.
He sat down at the dining table with the rest of his family, “How was your day sweetie?” his mom asked with a smile.
“It was okay, same as yesterday pretty much” he played with his food “I guess we have a new student in my class if that's anything?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Thats nice” His mom smiled and for the rest of dinner consisted of his family talking about their day, funny things that had happened and general chit chat. Josh finished his dinner and cleaned his plate before going up stairs relieved to be able to go to sleep.
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Josh laid in bed with his eyes shut, clinging onto the last moments of sleep he could get before having to actually wake up.
He eventually got up and put on whatever was clean, which was usually a band tee and some sort of jean shorts or sweat pants. He grabbed his bag as he rushed down the stairs, he yelled out a goodbye to his mother as he walked out the door.
Josh walked through the school's doors someone behind him shoved him and harshly hissed “Move it” in his ear. He saw the other person walk past, it was Tyler, Josh gave him a nasty glare and quickly moved onto heading to his locker down the hall.
When he sat down in class he was ready to be ridiculed, he knew how bullies worked, they’d try to find every insecurity in him and make him stay up with the words inside his head for nights on end. But when Tyler sat down beside him he didn't say a word, didn’t even look at him.
By the time the class ended and everyone was leaving to get to their lockers Josh was left a little confused, he expected something especially since how Tyler was acting that morning and who he got a glance at who Tyler was hanging out with the day before.
Josh stood by his closed locker scrolling on his phone when he heard shuffling shoes coming up to him, he thought it was one of his friends but before he could turn around someone had pinned his head to his locker. laughing started as Josh tried to get out the person's grip and only continued when he was shoved around and onto the ground, the person who stood over him was Tyler, with a painful smirk.
Josh looked up at the other boy, expressionless. He knew if they got a reaction out of him it’d be worse so he picked up his phone that had now fallen out of his grasp and got up but before he was even all the way up off of the ground he was shoved down again, Tyler grabbed Josh’s phone out of his hand, tossing it to one of the other guys that stood behind him.
When Josh looked up he was met with Tyler's pain filled eyes, Josh recognized that he didn’t want to be doing this but he also knew that he was an easy target.
The bell rang and Josh was relieved, as he watched the group separate he got up and saw Tyler look back at him and place his phone on the ground near a wall, being careful to place it somewhere it wouldn't get stepped on. Josh got up and rushed to his phone, sighing as he grabbed it, he got his wired headphones out of his pocket and plugged them into his phone before heading off to class.
Josh was quiet for the rest of the day, knowing that this will be the start of a long year.