Empathy [Josh Dun - Twenty One Pilots]

THIRTY TWØ

"You all right, man?"

Josh looked up from the tv set where Yoshi was just recovering from a slip on a banana peel that made him lose at least three places in the ranking. Obviously, Josh wasn't completely all right, or he would have been first in the race with nothing else on his mind than the top-three podium awaiting his character at the end of the competition. But he couldn't really tell his best friend that, right?

"Yeah," he breathed, letting the controller fall on the ground in between his knees as Bowser crossed the finish line, earning a fist pump from Tyler. 

"Don't be such a sore loser!" the younger boy exclaimed, punching his friend lightly on the shoulder before dropping from the mattress to the ground.

They were now both sitting on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, their backs against the bedframe, their eyes looking dully towards the screen displaying a triumphant Bowser in the first place of the podium. Yoshi was nowhere to be seen. 

"What's wrong?" Tyler asked, and the question had nothing to do with the video game this time. They both knew it because none of them could lie to the other, and it was a relief. The two boys' friendship didn't only rely on trust and honesty. It was made out of trust and honesty. They couldn't get away from it, and although this was Josh's favorite thing about his relationship with Tyler, that was also the reason he didn't feel good these days.

"Tonight was a good night, right?" Tyler pressed, furrowing his eyebrows. 

"It was," Josh nodded quickly. Of course, it was. 

Under the commandment of Kate and the help and insistence of his own mother, Josh had played his part in organizing a surprise birthday party for his dad. They had rented a few alleys at the Bowling center and Josh had been allowed to invite his friends over, which had made the night so much more bearable. Spending the evening with Tyler, Mark and Debby had turned out to be something Josh realized he had been needing for a long time.

But of course, the cherry on top was his father. Against all odds, Josh had actually enjoyed spending time with who Jordan now called their "old man". They had laughed, shared stories and encouraged each other and for a certain amount of time, Josh had almost been able to forget the reasons why they had lost sight of each other in the first place. 

But it was one conversation in particular that had made the whole night so special. After the first game, his mom and Kate had asked him and his father to go get drinks for everyone in a well thought-out plan to make them talk. Let's just say the plan had functioned miraculously well.

They both were at the bar, waiting for their order and standing in awkward silence as they watched other families and friends fill the room with laughter and cries of frustration when a piercing scream resonated above all the other sounds, drowning them off. Josh was surprised to see that the horrifying shriek came from the tiny body of a small girl with pigtails, crying her heart out in front of the tiny podium the Bowling center had set up near the kids' lanes. The teenager quickly guessed that the boy standing proudly in the first place was her brother, and he smiled, shaking his head slightly.

"It's funny," Josh heard his dad chuckled beside him. "It reminds me of the last time we were here, when your mom and I..."

His voice quickly drowned in second thoughts, and Bill Dun almost thanked the waiter for interrupting the conversation by bringing the first half of the drinks they had ordered. The divorce wasn't a topic he wanted to get into just yet. But Josh stood there, his hands in his pockets, waiting to hear the story that sure would follow. 

"You were 11 or 12 at the time, and of course you had won against Jordan and Abby-"

Mr. Dun's voice shook a little bit at the last name, and Josh's heart skipped a beat like it usually did when his sister's name was mentioned. Nonetheless, Bill cleared his throat to continue. "But instead of running to that very same podium, you took Abby in your arms and Jordan by the hand, and you set them both in the first place, claiming you were still taller than them anyway - which you weren't!"