Twenty Øne Piløts||Imagines

Distant//Josh[BLURB]

Word Count:472

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As I was watching some cheesy soap opera that had just happened to come on, the TV suddenly switched off, and I looked over to find my friend Josh, remote in hand as he returned to his seat on the couch.

"Hey, I was watching that!" I exclaimed playfully at him. In reality, the two of us had been sitting on the couch, messing around on our phones for the past half hour when he turned off the TV that we had going, just as background noise.

"Hey, what's been going on recently?" Josh asked out of nowhere.

"Huh?" I questioned, caught off guard by the seemingly random question. "What do you mean?"

"You've been really distant recently," he frowned as if he was thinking hard about what to say next. "You've been really quiet and down for the past few weeks, and you're spacing out a lot more than usual."

"Oh," I tried to laugh it off, suppressing the fear bubbling up inside me. "I'm fine, just been dealing with work and family stuff. It's been keeping me really busy and exhausted."

"Oh, come on, Y/N," Josh scoffed. "'I'm tired'? That's the excuse? That's the oldest trick in the book! I've even used that excuse. 'I'm tired' never means 'I'm tired'. It means 'I'm having a really hard time with something, but I'm not telling you about it.' But I'm your best friend, and if you're not telling me, you're probably not telling anyone else, either, and that's not good for you." After a moment of silence, he added, "So please talk to me?"

"I'm okay, Josh, really."

He didn't say anything, only sat staring at me with a stern look on his face.

"Okay, fine, there's been some stuff going on recently, but I'll be fine," I caved, letting my wall down only slightly, hoping that would get me by without any further questioning.

Unfortunately, Josh knew me all too well.

"Okay, that's a start," the same stern look remained on his face as he spoke. "So what's been going on?" he spoke more deliberately this time, urging me to get to the point.

I sighed, thinking about it for a moment before I replied, "There's not really a single thing I can pinpoint. Everything just seems... harder... and worse. I can't seem to figure out why."

Josh shifted over so he was sitting next to me on the couch. Instinctively, I leaned into his side, his welcoming arms wrapping around my frame, holding me close.

"You know you can always talk to me when you're feeling like that, right?" he asked, a hint of sadness in his voice. I merely nodded at him. "Please call me, or text me, or come over or something. Don't try to go at it alone."

"Thanks, Josh."

"Anything for you, Y/N."