message man | joshler

2. late night

Checking on this account became his daily (and nightly) routine.

To his surprise, he notices one video he hasn't seen yet, which was uploaded exactly 17 minutes ago. Wow, they uploaded a video at 4 a.m. "Another timezone," he realizes, before getting sadder at this thought, again.

The video is called "MY FAMILY HATES ME & IMPORTANT NEWS". Interesting. Very interesting.

He grabs his headphones and starts the video, which is almost 7 minutes long and remembers, that Ashley can be here in a moment. Fantastic.

He starts watching anyway, reading all the comments by the time. He can't watch anything without scrolling through them. He has to repeat the video afterwards.

He manages to read at most 3 of them, until he hears knocking at the glass. "Of course you have to interrupt everything." He gets out of the bed with a big effort.

"What did you say? Open the window, I'm freezing," Ashley whispers loudly, kneeling in front of his window, with winter coat and sweatpants on.

He quiets her, putting his finger onto his mouth and tries to open the window without any possible noise, "It was your idea, you deserve to freeze."

"When I was climbing the tree, I scratched my chin a little bit." She jumps off the windowsill. "I can't wait to stain your pillow with my blood," she smirks and he rolls his eyes, hurrying her, because she was right, it can be summer, but it's freezing at night.

"Sit, just don't break my bed." He slowly closes the window. They probably woke up the whole neighbourhood already.

"You have these cute lilac sheets again! I made a right decision to break into your house tonight." Tyler loves his lilac sheets too. They have a cloud theme above and some galaxy on the other side.

She takes off her jacket and, a second after, almost jumps into the bed, when he manages to stop her, "Wait! There's my phone somewhere here."

"Oh, sorry." She jerks the sheets. "I think I feel it," and she looks between her knees. "Here."

"Please, tell me you didn't break it."

"Me? Breaking something? Never. But let's check for sure." The screen lights up the whole room, and his opened Youtube app appears. "Seriously... You're watching him again?"

"Yeah, and what's your issue here?" he asks simply.

"Nothing, but it just seems like you don't take any rest from it. You are hypnotised."

"And you're overreacting. I didn't let you in to instruct me again." He climbs into his bed and cuddles his pillow.

They lay in silence for a couple of minutes. They can hear birds singing already. It's weird, how everything sounds different in the early morning. Everything is louder and clearer.

"I don't want to come back to school," she speaks up again."

"Me neither, please, don't remind me about it, because I'll cry." And he isn't lying as his words come out of his mouth in crying-like voice.

"This year will be hell, I know it," she whispers, staring at the ceiling, "But i miss teachers a little bit."

Tyler lets out a giggle. "What? Are you serious?"

"Yes, of course. They all love me, admit it."

"Obviously they love you, especially when you always decide to add your rude comment to their speech."

"See?" She turns to face him. "I'm at least one of these few students, who actually are interested in lesson."

"But it's still one free day left. We can worry about school later, maybe not at night, okay?"

"Sure." She turns around and cover her whole face with bed sheets, so he sees only a few strands of her blue hair. "Thank you for letting me in. Your bed is better than mine."

"What if I wouldn't let you in?"

"You would anyway," she says loudly, "but if you're asking me, I could just break your window or show your pictures on social media."

"Yes, I would let you in anyway."

"Go to sleep. We have a big day the day after tomorrow. Or tomorrow, because it's late after midnight already."

"Goodnight," he smiles and closes his eyes.

"Goodnight."

Ashley falls asleep immediately. Tyler isn't that lucky and he has to listen to birds singing even louder now, until he manages to doze off.

•

notes:

the first few chapters may seem boring, weird in general, but they lead to good stuff later, i promise.

don't forget about leaving a comment and vote. okay, that's it.

i hope you enjoyed this one.
until the next time,
liv 🌵