One Shots

Gobsmacked

A/N: Bit of a different writing style for this one that I tried out. Hope you enjoy it all the same :)

He always sat in the back of the class.

He always kept his head down.

He always kept to himself.

He never sat with anyone at lunch.

He never interacted with anyone in school.

He never got called on in class.

You would think he was invisible.

But people noticed him.

They didn't bully him for his isolation.

But everyone silently wondered what his deal was.

So imagine everyone's surprise when his name was seen in the program for the school's talent show.

Imagine what was more surprising was that he was going to sing.

Imagine the audience's surprise when he started singing an original song.

Everyone thought he was mute.

Everyone was shocked.

They weren't sure how to react.

He had a great voice.

But until his performance, they didn't know he even had a voice.

The room was deafeningly silent when he finished the song.

He stood awkwardly for a moment.

The crowd burst into applause right as he was about to start leaving the stage.

He felt himself blush.

He did a miniature bow before awkwardly walking off stage.

He felt shy and awkward now that the adrenaline of singing wore off.

The talent show eventually came to an end.

Anyone who performed after him did not receive as much focus.

Everyone was too caught up in thinking about the silent boy's beautiful voice.

The show was over, so the performers came out from backstage.

They joined their friends and families in the rows of seating.

He came out with everyone else.

Being small and hunching to make himself even smaller, no one noticed him.

He quietly slipped through the crowd to join his friends that came to see him.

Yeah, he has friends.

They just don't go to the same school.

They have no idea that he's such an enigma at school.

He's a mystery to the student body and even to the staff.

But his friends don't know that side of him.

To them, he's outgoing and playful.

They joke that he had the biggest crackhead energy out of their friend group.

And he can't refute it because he knows it's true.

One of his friends ruffled his hair, and he laughed.

They pulled him into a group hug.

"Thanks, guys," he mumbled when they all pulled away.

Standing in an unintentional circle, they talked about how good his performance was.

He sang a song they never heard before.

He sings a lot when his friends are around.

He doesn't hide his songs from them, even though some are really personal.

But, this was a new one none of them heard.

It was meant to be a surprise.

It was a good surprise.

They all loved it, and they told him so.

He was showered in praise.

He blushed and shrugged them off.

That only seemed to encourage them to keep going.

Some people began to leave, clearing the auditorium.

This meant the group was more noticeable, which meant that he was more noticeable.

People he sees daily during normal school hours began coming up to him.

They complimented him, his voice, and his song.

They told him how surprised they were that he could sing so well.

They said that they didn't know he had it in him.

Some were not subtle.

Some said that they thought he was mute.

His friends had a field day with that one.

"This guy?" They would point at him. "Most of the time we can't get him to shut up."

This caused him to look down abashedly at his shoes.

After awhile, most of the crowd was gone.

The group took this as a sign to start making their way out.

They moved slow but eventually made it outside.

They told him they were having a sleepover to celebrate his first live performance.

They already spoke to his parents earlier.

They agreed to letting him spend time with his friends.

He smiled when they told him.

They piled into their cars and went back to one of their houses.

It was a good night.

He was glad the performance went as well as it did.

He was really nervous.

He knows his lyrical content could be concerning at times.

He went for it anyway.

He was encouraged by his friends.

They helped him a lot.

He couldn't have done it without them.

He wasn't always okay, but tonight, he was.

There was no guarantee for how tomorrow would go or how people would react on Monday at school.

But for now, he was content.

A/N: So I don't know if anyone cares, but this one shot is very twenty one pilots coded because I've been fixated on them recently. I purposely didn't name the main character, so it's up to you to decide if you want it to be an au or not. If you want to read the character as Tyler, go for it. If you don't care for him/the band, it doesn't have to be him. (The character was definitely based on him, but I also didn't want to explicitly make it a fanfic so) But since I had them in mind, I leaned into it and named the one shot after a lyric from Overcompensate.