Chapter Text
Tyler tentatively walked through the hallways of his new school, textbooks and notebooks clutched tightly to his chest as his scanned the placards next to each door proudly declaring what number was assigned to each classroom. First period has just finished (English) and he was headed off to his second period class (chemistry.) As the small boy walked through the hallway, small crowds parted for him to walk through, some curious stares sent his way. This was a rather small school and the arrival of new students was highly anticipated.
Tyler’s dad worked for a rather large company and was sent around the United States with his family every few years so that his father could coach a new branch of the company how to set up and gain revenue. Because of this, Tyler was unfortunately very used to being the new kid. Some schools were better and accepted new students more than others. The public schools in larger cities tended to be better, with the children of semi-wealthy businessmen being shuffled in and out on a semi-regular basis, mixed in with kids who had been living there their entire lives. It was the smaller towns were the problems tended to lie. In small towns, everyone knew everyone else, and any disruption to the norm sent ripples through the town. Many of the kids attending Tyler’s new school had never encountered a new student before, and no one knew what to make of him. Because he moved so much, Tyler was relatively used to this treatment, but that still didn’t make it any less nerve wracking whenever the time to enter a school came up again.
His dad’s most recent assignment had placed him in a small suburb of Columbus, Ohio. With his family being somewhat religious they made the decision to send him and all three of his siblings to the nearby christian school: Worthington High. This was the first time that Tyler had ever gone to a private school. In all of their previous locations, there had simply been not enough money to send all four children to private school, but Tyler’s father had been given an exceptionally good salary this time around and him and his wife decided to splurge a little and take the leap to apply all four of them to Worthington High and the associated middle school: Worthington Junior High. (Tyler could tell right away that the school very much prided themselves on their ability to name their schools very creatively.)
With going to a private school, there was a rather strict uniform that came along with it. Boys has to wear a blazer with the school’s (unnecessarily) fancy emblem sewn on the left breast, a white button down shirt tucked into gray slacks, and black dress shoes with white socks. The girl’s uniform was exactly the same except that they replaced gray slacks with a knee length gray skirt, white socks with white mid-calf length socks, and black dress shoes with black Mary Janes. The middle and elementary schoolers got off easy though with only having to wear a white polo shirt (with the school’s emblem sewn on,) khaki pants/shorts/skirts, and any shoes that even somewhat resembled being the color black. Tyler was secretly jealous of his littlest sister and brother for getting such a lax uniform in comparison to the one him and his other brother were forced into wearing.
After walking through the eleventh grade hallway for roughly five minutes, Tyler found the room labeled 213 and walked through the door, his eyes immediately darted across the remaining empty seats. He was pleasantly surprised to find that about half of the room was unoccupied and promptly plopped himself on a desk next to the window and about halfway between the teacher’s desk and whiteboard at the front of the room and the opposite wall. Tyler considered himself lucky to be able to snatch a seat this good before someone else did. As they were on the second of the three floors of the school, the window provided a rather nice view of the american football field and surrounding forest off into the distance.
Tyler found himself so entranced by looking at the patterns the trees made on the horizon that he barely noticed the ringing of the bell some minutes later, signifying the beginning of class.
What he did notice, however, was the loud thump the stack of books carried by the teacher made against her desk as she walked into the room. She appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties, some off her hair starting to turn gray.
“Welcome class, to a brand new year of learning!” The teacher declared cheerily, before turning to write her name on the whiteboard behind her, “My name is Mrs. Thompson and I hope you are as excited as me to be taking Chemistry II: The Periodic Table and Everything Surrounding It.”
Tyler heard several half-hearted groans from the other students at the mention of the course name and learning, but Mrs. Thompson simply opted to ignore them and continued speaking.
“I see that you all have taken the liberty of choosing your own seating placements, but unfortunately I will be now taking that away.” Moans of protest were emitted from the general student body, but Mrs. Thompson retaliated with a roll of her eyes. “Right off the bat, I can see that this won’t work. I’m looking at you two boys in the back, Mr. Dun and Mr. Urie!”
Tyler twisted in his seat to look at the two people she just called out and found himself making eye contact with a boy in the back with bright pink hair. Tyler was very surprised that they even let him dye his hair pink, given how strict the school had been with their uniform. Pink hair boy studied Tyler for a second before winking in a very flirtatious way. Tyler immediately felt a pink tinge rise on his cheeks and turned back around to face the teacher again. Just as he did that, she began rattling off a name Tyler didn’t recognize and pointed at the desk in the far right corner of the front row. A nervous looking student wearing bright pink socks gathered her belongings before trudging across the room and sitting down in her next desk, leaving the student previously sitting there to hold his things awkwardly and wait for his name to be called. She continued all along the front row, continuing to list names that Tyler did not know.
As she made her way to the second row, she finally recited a name that Tyler recognized: “Tyler Joseph!” she said while pointing to the desk in the second row farthest to the left. Tyler quietly picked up his books and walked over to his desk. This new seat, Tyler couldn’t but help to notice, was significantly closer to the front of the room, making it harder to space out without being noticed, and was the seat in his row that was the farthest from the window.
Before moving on to the next desk, Mrs. Thompson made eye contact with Tyler and said quietly: “Welcome to Worthington High, Mr. Joseph,” before moving to the desk next to him and declaring: “Joshua Dun!”
Tyler looking to see no other than the pink haired boy making his way across the classroom to sit at the desk next to Tyler’s.
The pink haired boy (that Tyler now knew was named Joshua) made eye contact one again and this time sent a smirk in Tyler’s direction, before turning to face the front of the classroom, the smirk slowly faded off of his features.
Tyler couldn’t help but stare at the boy next to him, eyes flitting across his face and soaking in his features: dark brown/hazel eyes, a slightly too big nose with a nose ring embedded on his left nostril (Tyler was once again surprised that the school’s dress code allowed for that. At this point Tyler wouldn’t have been particularly surprised to find a tattoo hidden underneath the sleeves of his blazer,) and soft looking pink lips.
Tyler had known for quite a while that he was attracted to both girls and boys for quite some time now, so the fact that he was suddenly felt a very strong urge to kiss the boy sitting across from his wasn’t very surprising. However, he wasn’t out to anyone except for his friend Jenna (who lived in Portland, Oregon, where Tyler had been last) but he had decided to at least try to suppress his homosexual urges considering the fact that he was now attending a christian school and gay people were very looked down upon.
That plan was already failing all because of some pink haired punk named Joshua Dun.
Tyler had a feeling that Chemistry would soon grow to be one of his favorite classes.