careless // joshler

1½; josh

josh was walking back home, and his thoughts were circulating around one subject, or person, in general. the boy on the bench.

well, he probably was a boy in other places too. or maybe not, how could josh know? he wants to know, though. he wants to get to know the boy so badly. he wants to get to know why he always seems so sad. he wants to help.

but how would he approach the boy? just randomly going up to him at school would be very weird. but wasn't that how people made friends at school? just going and sparking up a conversation? wasn't that how josh became friends with brendon in the first place?

yes, it was.

so why did it seem so inappropriate to do with the bench boy? why did josh feel so weirdly of it? it's just a normal everyday interaction, it isn't supposed to be weird. it's supposed to be normal.

josh sighed at himself, his own brain, his every fibre and cell. why wasn't he born with super-intelligence or problem-solving skills or something? why was he always just mediocre at best? why was he never good enough to be the teacher's favourite? why was he alwa-

"just cause you're bigger than me, just cause you're smarter than me, just cause you drive a better car than me does not mean, no way and no how, i am sucking you off for any amount of money, so fuck the hell off!" josh heard someone yell, causing him to snap out of his thoughts and turn around to see what was happening.

the view in front of him made him chuckle slightly. a guy around his age with hair that seemed to be related to a fire-engine was flipping off some musculous guy down the street. the guy's face was almost as red as his hair and josh could imagine the smoke rising out of his ears as he looked at the scowl on the guy's face.

josh stood there on his place, analyzing the guy as he was walking closer, josh did that a lot. he never seemed to realize when he was staring for too long, and that caused him to get into a lot of 'payback' situations, which always seemed to end with brendon having a black eye.

"stop staring, kid," the red-haired guy half-assedly shouted as he got closer to josh, who started to panic.

it wasn't until a few seconds later that josh noticed the guy wasn't alone. no, he was with some boy.

with a-a brown-headed boy, josh concluded as he tried to see behind the red-head. 

a brown-headed boy with brown eyes and a frown on his face.

it was bench boy! josh realized this was his shot to try and speak to him, so he cleared his throat before speaking up with a soft voice.

"sorry," was all he said at first.

when neither of the boys seems to react, he decided to speak again.

"hello."

the red-haired boy gave josh a questioning look, to which josh replied with a happy smile.

"what do you want? i swear if you're some boy scout trying to sell coupons or whatever i'm gonna drag you to an alley and hide your body in my own basement afterwards," the red-head said with a sweet smile rivaling josh's.

josh let his smile falter and took a worried, small breath.

"no, no, i just, uh," he said, waving his hands slightly. "i was wondering who your, erm, friend is?"

"that's none of your business, stalker-boy," bench boy quietly said, giving josh an annoyed glance.

"r-right, sorry, uh," josh mumbled, looking down at his hands that were fiddling with his shirt.

he felt the two boys walk past him, and one of them bumped into him. although josh hadn't seen who, he had a pretty solid guess.

well, this got off to a bad start...