text me, maybe?

prologue

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in which tyler joseph finds a phone number in the school bathroom stall and messages it, meeting a cocky boy who calls himself josh. ( and who ends up turning his life upside down )

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~

Tyler truly hates highschool with every ounce of soul in him.

Well, that's not entirely true. He does often enjoy the classes and seeing his friends on a daily basis- but he's fairly dramatic and actually does despise the hallways during passing periods, which is where he happens to be right now. So he's just a bit irritated.

The sophomore attempts to navigate the sea of people in his way as his friend Patrick talks to him- or rather, at him, since he's not listening- and strides alongside him to their fourth period.

Don't get him wrong, Patrick is one of Tyler's best friends, but when he's getting bumped and shoved every which way he's too annoyed to initiate conversation. Plus, all these people and judging looks aren't doing any favors for his ever increasing anxiety.

"Hey," Tyler turns to Patrick suddenly, cutting into his rant. "Let's go in the bathroom and wait. At least until the crowd dies down."

His friend is only momentarily upset at being interrupted before he nods, understanding Tyler's hatred for large groups of people and follows his friend into the nearest boys restroom. Fortunately, it's empty and Tyler locks the door behind them. 

Patrick dumps his bag on top of the sink and opts to slumping to the ground, leaning his head back against the tiled wall as he resumes telling his story. Tyler meanwhile checks his reflection in the dirty mirror, eyeing his mess of curls and the oversized sweater he wore through thick mascara coated lashes. He doesn't care too much for makeup, but he loves the way mascara looks on his lashes so he often wears it, pretending not to notice the strange gawking stares he receives.

"-you feel me, Ty?" Patrick asks from behind him. Tyler steps back from the sink to pace past the stalls, replying a 'yes' to his friend without missing a beat.

This satisfies Patrick, as he hums in agreement before settling down, pulling his phone from his pocket and then beginning to scroll on it.

Tyler takes to wander around the small room. From reaching up on his tip toes to peek out the small window, to gagging and shutting the stall doors, to...finding a crumpled piece of paper on the tile.

For lack of better judgement, Tyler reaches down and snatches the paper. It makes a crisp crinkling noise as he unwraps it, gaining the attention of his friend.

"What's that?" Patrick asks. Tyler stares down at the page. Sloppily written in black ink is a message that reads;

Bored. To whoever (if somebody ever does) finds this, text me for a good time ;)

P.S. and by good time, I mean I'll entertain you with my knock knock jokes.

yeah text me, maybe?

And underneath that, a set of numbers. Tyler chuckles under his breath before crumpling it back into a ball. Before Patrick can ask what it is again, the bell rings, and he motions for them to leave.

As Tyler passes the garbage can on the way out, he surprisingly doesn't toss the letter.

~

It's around 2am when he digs around his pocket and brings the paper ball back out again. The house is quiet as his family is asleep, as usual, but he isn't. Tyler fiddles with the corner of the page as he gazes out his bedroom window. A cool breeze blows in and the moonlight dimly illuminates the sheets on his bed- shadows cascading over the imprints of his legs under the comforter.

Fine. He'll text the number.

Its not as if he has anything better to do, and sleep obviously won't come anytime soon, either.

Tyler punches in the digits to his phone before his fingers hesitate over the keyboard. What would he even say? Why is he even texting this random person? He's not even completely sure if the owner of the number goes to his school or if a random stranger just happened to wander in and drop a letter. Or a murderer. Or a kidnapper.

Tyler stops himself before the train of thought continues. Don't overthink this, he tells himself.

Typing a measly 'hey', he hits send, not really expecting back a reply as he turns off his phone and shifts in bed, attempting to get some shut eye.

Blissful unconsciousness is on the brink when he's awoken by a high pitched ring. Cursing his way through the darkness, he fumbles around until he finds his phone and- to Tyler's surprise- a new message notification lights up his screen.

Unknown: Who is this?

Tyler pauses. He doesn't want to necessarily give out all his personal information and life story to this stranger yet, so he settles for something vague.

You: uhh...I found your number in the boys bathroom?

A new message follows quickly after that.

Unknown. Oh. Hi! I didn't think anybody would actually reply to that.

You: yep

Unknown: what's your name?

You: tyjo

Unknown: I'm josh

Unknown: wait tyjo isn't your real name is it

You: nope.

Unknown: oh. That was probably a smart idea.

Tyler laughs to himself.

You: hi josh. What are you doing up so late?

Tyler doesn't know why he's still texting or attempting real conversation at this point.

Unknown: I could ask you the same thing.

You: I don't sleep so well.

Unknown: yeah me neither buddy.

You: it was nice meeting you, Josh.

Unknown: you too, tyjo

Tyler doesn't reply after that, but he does change the contact name to Josh.

~

a/n: so prologue is finished! I have some good ideas for this story but I'm mostly planning on going with the joshler flow. hope this was an interesting set up and the next chapter will be up really soon. fyi: most of this book's format will be in texting, but I will definitely try to include some traditional story excerpts too :)

stay tuned for next time & vote if you ship joshler (because like who doesn't TBH)