Muke Oneshots || boyxboy

your voice

-unedited-

michael is mute. or at least, that's what everyone thinks. no one's ever heard him talk, but no one really pays attention to him anyway. michael doesn't have very many friends, so he just keeps to himself.

he also doesn't voice his opinion a lot because he's broken, and thinks everyone will think his opinion is worthless or laugh at whatever he has to say. he doesn't open his mouth because he doesn't want to be judged or taunted.

in fact, he gets judged and taunted for not speaking to anyone. but in his mind, it's better to be bullied for something he does rather than something he thinks. much better.

but now it's english class. the teacher has just announced that the class will be reading twelve angry men in class. michael doesn't think much of this, an keeps doodling on his folder. but the teacher catches his attention with the next thing she says.

"you will each be reading a juror's lines." yes, it caught michael's attention. he'd have to speak while the whole class listened. but he just shrugged it off because they were someone else's words, not his. no one would be teasing him for something e thinks.

as she went trough who was reading who, she said that michael would read for the guard in the first act. he felt people looking at him, wondering if he would say the lines. they don't understand- he's not mute, he just doesn't like to talk.

the teacher said they would start reading immediately. she gave them five minutes to read the foreword, and then they got right into the lines. a boy named ashton read the stage directions for the beginning of the play, and then they were off.

when it got to michael's lines, he nervously cleared his throat and said "all right, let's move along, gentlemen." everyone was looking at him because no one's heard him speak before.

ashton awkwardly looked back down at his book and read the next stage directions. eventually everyone's eyes drifted off of him, except for one boy's. and michael recognized that boy to be luke hemmings.

ashton finished with the stage directions and luke was still staring at him. there was a long awkward pause before ashton repeated "turning to the 8th juror." more silence. the teacher piped up.

"luke! you're seventh juror." his eyes finally snapped away from michael.

"wha-? oh yeah. uh.."

"page 6." he awkwardly flipped forward a couple pages to find the sixth one, and spent 10 seconds finding his line.

"do you want some gum?" he said, blushing. michael thought it was adorable.

--

michael had science class next. luke was in that class. he walked in and saw everyone standing at the back, so he went there too. he wanted to ask why they were all doing that, but he thought he'd get ridiculed for being dumb.

"okay, class!" the teacher says. "new seats! calum you're with ashton, louis with harry, josh with tyler, joe you're with caspar, luke with michael-" both of their hearts stopped. they glanced at each other, and sat down at the two-person table they were assigned.

when everyone had their seats, the teacher started teaching the lesson. they had to pull out our notebooks and take notes. michael noticed luke's was blank. but then, he started writing something. michael watched as luke ripped off that corner of his page, and pass it to michael.

michael slowly took it, flustered. he checked if anyone was watching and put down his pencil and opened it. it only had four words.