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If Niall wasn’t focused on the text messages flooding his phone from solely one person, he would not be surprised at the fleeting glances from strangers sitting around him in the cafeteria. By now, he should still be used to the glares and hesitant eyes directed his way from time to time. What’s concerning him the most right now is this conversation that’s spamming his phone about a double date Louis accidentally set up, all because of this one girl. Niall would like to call it desperation, but it seems deeper than that. Soulmates? Fate? Coincidence? It could be all those things; desperation doesn’t seem to fit in.Louis 2:30pm
 Wow!
 W O W!
 NIALL SAY IT WITH ME! WOWNiall 2:37pm
 Who is thatAt first, Louis really expected Niall to know who the random brunette is from the photo Louis sent from Instagram. Why, Manhattan is full of brunette, white girls with green eyes. It could be just about anyone and Niall wouldn’t know them at all. It was from her public Instagram that Louis must obviously be stalking through.Louis 2:45pm 
 The girl I sit beside in English! 
 We were partners in a discussion and she and her roommate r new to the city so I offered to show them the best place for a drink and to chillNiall 2:50pm
 Upstairs Pub?Louis only likes that place because the manager there gives him a free pint from time to time. That’s also because he’s there nearly every day for a drink or two while he’s studying. To study in a pub, you would need a high tolerance and strong will power to do such a thing.Louis 2:51pm
 Yes. We are goin tonight, dude
 She has a friend!
 And by friend, Niall, I mean we're double dating. She's your type actually
 BrunetteNiall really dislikes it when his friends, mostly Louis in particular, talks about his type, because he has none to begin with. This whole joke happened because it just so happens every fucking ex and previous potential dates he had were mostly brunette. Most of them weren’t even real brunettes—they just dyed their hair for the fun of it. So no, Niall has no fucking type, and he can’t even figure out a type because he hasn’t been committed to anybody for nearly a year.Niall 2:59pm
 Stfu I don’t have a type.
 And who says I’m going tonightLouis 3:01pm
 Me!
 We
 Are
 Going!!!!
 So 
 Fuck
 YouRight then, Niall took a deep breath and set his phone down on the table, screen facing down. When he finally looked up, it's when he noticed more fleeting glances looking his way. He always wondered what everyone’s thinking as they stared at him, no longer than a millisecond without Niall feeling weary at times. There’s only so much he really gives a damn about. People staring at him isn’t one of them. Maybe.Niall knows he has a choice, and that Louis isn’t someone he considers threatening. He said yes out of curiosity, wants to know what his friend’s friend looks like, wants to know how it feels to go out on a date after so long, and how double dates are supposed to go. Despite his demeanor and constant tendency to stress over every little thing, Niall is very open to doing anything. People may think because he loves his own company that he doesn’t know how to have fun and socialize. That’s really not the case if someone knows him.The thing is, Niall is deeply in touch with his intuition. Maybe it's his anxiety that work the gears of his mind to be aware of all kinds of people in many different environments. There’s never a time in public that he feels at ease unless he’s with someone who can distract him from all sorts of things his brain constantly presses him to be aware of. Anxiety and intuition both play a part of Niall’s demeanor until he’s truly at comfort’s embrace.He's got his music playing, earphones plugged in as he waits outside Upstairs for Louis. He left his house exactly at 7:03 in the evening to be able to arrive at Upstairs 10 minutes before the time Louis texted him to meet up in. Hand clutching the phone in his pocket, he's looking off at the distance, eyebrows furrowed in to avoid the wind against his eyes. From the corner of his eyes, he's watching the people walking by, hoping one of them is going to be Louis. All he’s getting are strangers' hesitant gazes and dirty looks that he looks away from. Niall swears he's just looking away—he’s not rolling his eyes because of how annoyed he is of people staring at him. They had no reason. He does; he’s looking for Louis and he won’t waste gazing over faces if he doesn’t recognize the person.Eventually, a minute after eight o'clock, Louis jumps right in front of him and shouts through his music. Looking up, he sees Louis first before the girl from his English class he was bragging about and her friend—brunette, tall, with dreamy eyes. She's pretty indeed, yet her lips are pressed tightly together, her eyes full of disinterest. Maybe it was the way he said, “hey,” when Louis' friend Ella introduced Hailee to him. What else is he supposed to say? How is he supposed to sound? He's not going to turn on his customer service voice and happily greet this girl he just met with such enthusiasm. His smile was taut, but at least he tried to look friendly.Intuition—always follow that shit, Niall tells himself.It's the micro expressions people have that Niall can read and eventually determine whether things are in his favour or he's just wasting his efforts. He can tell because he’s seen all kinds of faces in all kinds of situations. Even under the pub light, the subtle tug of the corners of Hailee's lips could be seen, along with the emotionless look of her eyes as she and Niall listened to Danielle's tangent about the vitamin pills she’s taking—some adult shit Niall's really trying to understand and engage with but he just can’t. The only thing he’s taking is multivitamins once in a blue moon. “How about you, Niall? What are you studying?” Hailee asks.He's listening. He really is. He just never expected the conversation to shift so fast—unless he really did tune out.“Journalism.” Niall’s nose crinkles abruptly out of self-defence. He knows how people get when he mentions he's studying Journalism. “That’s really cool!” Hailee beams all of the sudden. “It's a talent to be able to write."“I'm only friends with him so he can help me out with my essays.” Louis shrugs playfully. Niall can’t help but chortle at his stupid friend. They were friends long before Niall decided to switch from Psychology to English studies.“And I'm only friends with him because he can help me budget and do my taxes.” Niall replies back.“So much for genuine friendships.” Louis laughs deeply until he takes a sip of his beer.Between Louis and Ella's conversation, Niall and Hailee had their own as well. Although Niall knew what she was trying to do. She's putting more of an effort into this ‘date’ than Niall is. It's neither of their faults that none of them are enjoying the night. Niall's relaxed face must be way worse than he’s realized for her to not even look at him. It's really not his fault that when he's not smiling or doing anything, he just looks terribly ruder. He's not going to hold a smile in public just so everyone thinks he's not an actual asshole. That would just be way worse. And he's not going to soften his expression when it makes him vulnerable to strangers randomly approaching him. He really likes his own space and his own business.The conversation becomes short-lived, and they’re all back to talking about Business. Needless to say, the most fun he’s had is staring at the chandelier in the middle of the pub from time to time and eating the calamari he's ordered.If there’s a song Niall could easily lose himself to, it would be Everything by EXES. He could feel his head weakly bobbing and foot tapping to the rhythm of the first bridge and chorus. Easily, it pulls him off his current assignment which is an analytical essay on Hamlet. There’s a million of these out there. By now, with the amount of copies the internet has, each author must have been cited in their work as time passes by. Niall's citations will be three pages long if he used all the analytical pieces on Hamlet out there. He decides he's already done enough when he minimizes the tab, tucks his binder beside him on the arm chair, and pulls his phone out to another spam from Louis. He should be in Econ right now. How does he have the time to be texting through class? He failed his recent assignment.Louis 11:19am
  Lunch @ 12 
  I'm hungry
  I don’t want shawarma again
  Let’s do sushi
  And also, can you read my essay over? It's due in 2 hoursNiall 11:30am
  Yes to lunch
  You’re paying if you want me to edit your essay“Is this seat taken?” The thick Brit accent throws him off, causing Niall's eyes snap up to a man standing by his table. It’s a man with the brightest brown eyes and dark hair down to his shoulders holding a water bottle and a banana. Niall hates bananas. It may be peak time here, but the cafeteria has a few vacant seats all around with a bigger table. It's better if he sits there because, well—no one ever sits with him. They try to avoid it, even if he's sitting at the best spots all the time. Maybe that's why this guy wants to sit here. Still, it's a big first.He takes his earphones off before answering him, “No, go ahead.” Niall raises his brow and gives a quick glance at the seat across him just before he looks back at him.“Great.” He put his water bottle and banana down on the table before taking his backpack off. “Thank you.”“All good. I'm just about to leave.” Niall giving an excuse to this stranger? This is another first. He shoves his MacBook back into the pocket of his bag while the man takes a seat.“Oh, alright.” There’s a subtle wince in his eyes that melts along with the polite smile he gives Niall. “Later.”Niall's face relaxes until his lips form a really tight emotionless smile. “Bye.”Like always, Niall was stuck waiting for Louis outside the restaurant. Ten minutes, standing outside in the shitty cold weather of New York, peak time with the restaurant flooded for lunch. The wind was dangerously chilling and all he had was a jean jacket. Niall checks his phone for the time just for him to realize his music is still playing. Wow, he really sat through the bus ride without listening to anything and not one person approached him. Niall orders his favourite roll, taking him no time to order compared to Louis who wants to try something different every time they come here. And while they’re waiting for their food which comes fairly fast, he's got Louis’ macbook opened to his essay. It needs a lot of work.“How do you have spelling errors on Word?” Niall laughs, fixing ocurance to occurrence.“Fucking spell-check disappeared.” Louis snarks at him.“Didn’t wanna fix it for your essay?” Having spelling errors in an essay is a nightmare when a typical essay already has so many things a writer has to be careful about. “And sometimes fixing-the-grammar option doesn’t actually help, and ends up changing your tone.” It's a bother having to see a blue line where it doesn’t belong. “Word has its own algorithm when it comes to English. Turns your shit vanilla.”“Is it not vanilla already? I spent the whole morning writing it.”“There’s a difference between vanilla and a mess. Luckily, dude, you can fix both.”“Ugh! If you were a professor, I'd hate you.” Louis groans.“I'd be a great professor.” Niall muses.“You'd probably scare your students. Mean-lookin' ass.”“I'm not mean!” Niall defends as he jokingly rolls his eyes at Louis.“Mean-looking, I say.” Louis repeats.“Well, it's fun to see when people realize they’re wrong about me. Fucking judges, the world isn’t a courtroom.”“Yeah, that’s why shit ain't work out with Hailee.” Louis scoffs. “She was trying to flirt with you and you didn't even bite.”“She was? Well, I didn't see it.” Niall shrugs. “Besides, she just did that to see if I'd do something about how dry our conversation was.”“Look approachable then, why don’t you?” Louis scolds him. “And learn how to read the signs. She did like you—before you cold-shouldered her.”Niall scoffs just before he shuts the screen of Louis’ MacBook. “I'll look approachable, whatever the fuck that concept is, the same time you stop being plug-ugly, dude.” “Oh, keeping me down to earth I see. Thank you, Niall.”“Welcome.” Niall laughs.He didn’t realize until the next day when he's looking for his binder that he lost it. No one would steal such a thing from him so he knows he's gone and lost it like an idiot. He'd been attending school all his life; only an idiot would leave their shit lying around in public.That binder carries just about most of his notes. What better timing than now, two weeks before midterms. Fucking great. Really.There’s only a few minutes until class starts and there’s only ten of them in class out of seventy. Thursday morning—Niall wouldn’t go to a lecture either if midterms weren’t scaring him to death. But after midterms, it's reading week—which means freedom until school rips it away from him again.“Niall,” he hears his name over the music.He looks up to see if a classmate is calling him. Then off to the side, he realizes it's someone who shouldn’t be in here. They can if they want to. They’re making their way down the row, holding 2 black binders and a textbook in his arms.“Uhh, hi?” Niall greets the man from the cafeteria yesterday. He couldn’t help but stare at him in deep confusion because how does he know his name? He also didn’t mean to sound so cold.“This is your binder. You left it yesterday.” He puts down the black binder he was holding on his desk. Once he realized the cover of his binder has his timetable and name on it, this encounter felt a little less strange than it initially started out as. “Renaissance literature, huh.” He holds back his smile by tugging the corners of his mouth down. “Had me runnin' around looking for this building. I'm at the opposite end. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a reason.”“The science building?” Niall asks quietly. He's not sure what's going on. It's a conversation, yeah—but it rarely ever happens. Not even his classmates really talk to him unless it's a class discussion.“Yeah, I'm taking Chem.” “Okay.” Cool. If science was a little easier, he'd go into chemistry. Instead, he's in Journalism, making a fool of himself through his writing instead of labs.There’s a big sigh from the man as he looks at his watch. “Well, fuck, I'm late for class. I'll see you.”“Thanks, actually.” He wouldn’t know what to do without his binder filled with all of his notes.“Don’t mention it.” He throws a peace sign up in the air as he walks away.His class is starting as well. And Niall is opening his binder to a fresh page behind his ‘Renaissance Lit.’ divider, only to have his face twist in confusion. There is no divider of that name when there should be. Instead, he's looking at notes on organic polymerization of ethene. What the hell does that mean?Niall expected either one of them to chase the other person down after seeing the other person’s binder. Sitting at the library, a day later with Zayn's binder in front of Niall—it's obvious that it isn’t the case. Yeah, he learned his name by flipping through his binder for clues as to what classes he’s taking and where he’ll be on certain days. Niall really expected him to appear at the end of his Renaissance class to give Niall his binder back again. He waited three minutes before he decided to head home, so he's left to use Zayn's binder to write his notes in until he finds his.When he decides to look up from his lunch, gazing across the cafeteria, his eyes surprisingly catch Zayn at Starbucks picking up his thermos just after having it refilled. Different sweater today—it’s a dark-grey wool knit.He's busy making his coffee—pouring a hell of a lot of milk. He should’ve just ordered a hot macchiato then. Now he's adding quadruple the amount of sugar. Jesus, that's painful. He focuses on his hand again; notices the litter of tattoos on his hands. It’s a simple, thin cursive style font on his hand just right below his knuckles spelling out love. For him, there’s a lot of controversy with word tattoos on hands. It's the one spot everyone will constantly see. Unless you wear gloves, you can’t hide hand tattoos. To Niall, love is feeling a person experiences everywhere from all sorts of different occasions. Having shit like ‘bad' or ‘cool' doesn’t seem right to have on a hand. There’s tape over it—meaning it was just done. Niall continues to stare expressionlessly at Zayn’s new tattoo fitting in with the little dove and the red lips blowing out smoke. He probably has no plan whatsoever with his tattoos. He must get them as he pleases and hopes for the best.Then his eyes move down on the table where he glances at Zayn’s binder. Niall should probably give it back even though he doesn’t want to walk across the cafeteria to this Zayn guy near Starbucks, stirring his coffee at a table. How did he not realize he had the wrong binder or read Niall’s timetable again to figure out the classes he has during a week. It's been six days since he’s been holding his binder hostage. Wanting to read this Zayn dude's notes, he can’t because he doesn’t know shit about chemistry.He's walking up to him, ready to hand Zayn his binder and ask him back for his. There were only a few more days until his midterms—he doesn’t want to find himself begging his professors for a pass at the end of the semester because he failed his midterm. He knows better.“Hi—”And there goes his good shirt, ruined by Zayn’s coffee. He really didn’t close his thermos before walking away? At least it's not steaming hot. It's just unbearably warm. He sucks in a deep breath as he glares off in the distance.“My bad, mate. Really. Wasn’t watching where I was going.” Zayn frowns at the sight of Niall holding his shirt off his skin.“It's fine.” Not really. At least he didn’t do it on purpose. But now he’s here for four more hours with a dirty shirt. Won’t be home until four in the afternoon.“I…” Zayn sighs. From the frown he still on his face, he feels really guilty about it. Niall's expression softens because it really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s just a shirt.“It's cool.” Niall assures him quietly.“Nah. I'll buy you a shirt at the bookstore.” Niall shakes his head. “You can’t be walkin' around with a stain.”“Zayn, it's not a big deal. I appreciate it, but—”“How do you know my name?” Zayn cuts him off.“It's in your binder that I have…?” Niall's voice trails off questioningly. Niall barely knows who he's talking to but it's as of he's met him before the first time they saw each other at the cafeteria. It's like he knows him well.“Oh okay.” Zayn laughs quietly. “I thought I had done something I don’t know about that everyone else knew, like get nominated for student president.”“Nah.” Niall laughs quietly as well. “Just learned it from your binder.” He had to emphasize on that.“Alright, we'll do the exchange right now then we'll go off and buy you a new shirt.”Zayn takes out Niall's binder from his bag. For Niall's sake, he flips it open to show him his notes from his English classes. Yes, now he's sure that's his and it’s in his hands.“You really don’t have to.” Niall reminds him as he tucks it into his backpack.“It's what you call chivalry. You know what that is, journalism major, so you know you gotta let me do it.” Zayn shrugs. “Besides, it's like, an excuse to hang around you.”“Oh, okay.” Niall nods weakly.There was no use fighting it. He already brought his wallet out from his back pocket, tapping the bind of the wallet against his palm. It's a ten-minute walk to the bookstore from the cafeteria, and they spent it in silence. And it left a lot of room for Niall to ponder about why there's this interest in conversation from Zayn's side. Niall doesn’t have much to show towards strangers and acquaintances. They know that fully well looking at him at first glance. At least he didn’t force the small talk on him. Niall really dislikes small talk if it doesn’t serve a purpose.There were all kinds of shirts at the bookstore for Niall to choose from. He took the navy-blue shirt with the white print logo of the university on his breast. He wasn’t looking for anything fancy but not too plain either. It was a free shirt after all.“Hopefully, I don't ruin this one.” Zayn sucks in a long, sharp breath as Niall comes out in his new shirt.“Yeah, uh, thanks again.” Then he remembered something. He wasn’t going to let Zayn slip away again. “Uh, actually, do you mind if you take your binder out? I wrote my notes in there. I've got 4 days worth, and midterms are next week…”“I’m not holding it hostage. Of course.” Zayn let’s his bag hang on one shoulder as he pulls out his black binder. They walk over to the closest flat surface so Niall could flip through the pages. “Wouldn’t want to be the reason you fail your midterms. I don't think I've got the credentials to influence your professors to pass you.”“Could just pay it off with t-shirts.” Niall tells him.Suddenly, Zayn cracks up in a short laugh, completely startling Niall from taking his notes out. “You’re hilarious!”“Thanks.” Niall says quietly. “I’m done.”“Okay, mate.” Zayn takes his binder back and stuffs it right inside his bag again. “I'll see you around some time.”“Yeah. Later.” Niall juts his chin at him before turning away.Niall really liked Louis. They’ve been friends for a long time; if he didn’t, he would’ve forgotten all about Louis, drop him before Niall considered him an important person in his life. One person who isn’t is this Ella girl. They’ve been going out casually for two weeks now, and it was about time Niall had dinner with Louis to catch up. And only Louis. Not Ella, but here she is. Is she third wheeling? Because it really feels like Niall is, and this was his dinner plan with Louis. So much for it.At least Louis didn’t have anybody to set him up with. Niall doesn’t think he has anyone anymore—Niall's gone and scared them off to the hills with his demeanor. He really doesn’t have time to get to know people who don’t want to know anything about him. And when they do, there's only a selective few that really care to know about from him. Most of the time, people who don’t find Niall intimidating to approach, they’re looking for a hook up with a pretty face. He's flattered, except he doesn’t sleep with just anybody, even if it is all just for fun. There’s more to him than his face if anyone gives a fuck.“You alright?” Ella taps the spot right in front of Niall.“Yeah?” Niall answers.“You're staring off like you hate your life, man.” Louis stifles over his short laugh.“Nah, I'm good.” Niall shakes his head. “Thinking.”“About what?”
Leaving?
“Reading week.” Niall answers vaguely.“Any plans?” Ella asks.“Picked up extra shifts at work so I'll be in for 10 hours for 5 days straight.”“I'd hate my life after the first hour.”Niall went back to staring around the restaurant, hoping Louis would understand he really doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t need to do anything for Niall once he realizes—he just needs to know and feel bad for making him the third wheel in their dinner plans.After a brief glance, he does a doubletake at the bar when he recognizes the bartender's familiar face and the sound of his laugh. It's that Zayn guy again. The world feels so small for Niall to see him 4 times in three weeks, not even on purpose.And the only reason—out of all people in this restaurant—Zayn catches his eyes is because the guy he's talking to must be talking about Niall. He's staring Niall's way, grabbing his short-lived attention before he’s turning his head away from them. Whatever that was, Niall isn’t interested.“Dude!” Louis slaps the table. “You’re so absent!”“Sorry,” Niall shakes his head. “I saw someone I recognized.”“From school?”“Somewhat, yeah.”Niall doesn’t point him out—not like Louis would know him anyway. Eventually, Louis and Ella started a new conversation about their classmates. Niall doesn’t know who Kyle is but he's sounds like a massive douche bag from what they were saying. Funny how even in their massive class of 300, they know who each person is.“Hey!”Niall startles at the sound of Zayn's voice at their table. There's a pint in his hand as he's leaning against their table, mostly directing his body towards Niall.“Zayn.” Niall exhales, fixing his posture. “Funny seeing you here.”“Funny? I work here.” Right. He's the one who’s new to this place. Not Zayn.“What are you doing here?” Niall’s eyebrows push together in confusion. Not sure if Niall thinks Zayn wants to talk to him anyway—at least not for himself. From the looks of it, he was probably sent here.“That guy with the green shirt bought you this drink actually.” He puts it down on the table.And he was right.Niall frowns as he looks at the drink. “Why? Who is he?”“I don't know. Lonely lad. Was a coward to come here so he paid me to scout for him.” Money is the motivation, they always say. Zayn clears his throat just as he juts his chin forward. “Told him you're a nice and friendly guy. Didn’t believe me. Said some shit like how you’re intimidating.”“Right.” Niall laughs. “But I'm good.”“You keeping the beer, then?”He shakes his head. He’s not taking a drink bought by some sleazy man.“Alright. If you say so.” Zayn takes the pint back. “How were your midterms?”“Uh, alright.” He shrugs. He's not certain he failed but he's not certain he did so well either which is always the shitty thing about exam season.Zayn blinks with his eyebrows raised and lips weakly pressed together. “I read your notes and they looked really good. I’m sure you did great.”“Thanks.” Niall laughs quietly. He read Zayn’s notes as well and they were just as good, if not better. It was all colour coded with different highlighters and written with using different pens. There’s even small drawings beside definitions. Silence filled in between them. Niall didn't have much else to say, besides wanting to go home. He really hates third wheeling Louis and Ella when they're always pressed hip to hip together.“Ow!” Suddenly, someone kicks his shin from under the table and he immediately glares at Louis who's shooting weird looks at him and then subtly at Zayn.“Okay, well…” Zayn sucks a sharp breath in. “It was nice meeting you. Uh, nice seeing you again, Niall. Thanks for the drink. I'll let the man know the verdict.”He tries his best to smile at him but it proves to be a bad idea since he looks fake bidding him farewell. “Bye, Zayn.” Once he left, Niall has a drink of his own that he needs to finish and decides to drink it down. Behind the glass, he can see Louis shaking his head. It's most certainly his fault but he isn't going to press him for a reason because he doesn't really care why Louis' laughing at him. During reading week, work was the only thing running through his mind. Once he's clocked in, he's like a robot working in a factory. Making drinks needs to only take less than three minutes so he has no choice but to become automatic. They've got two baristas and one cashier working at a coffee shop standing between the hub of the city and campus—a bad idea when they're constantly packed with coffee addicts from the school and offices. Being open from 7am until 9pm, Niall thinks there would be some part of the day where he can stop, give his hands a break, and breathe. Unfortunately, the only time he'd get one would be on his break and the moment he closes the door. And it's exhausting. He's got this forced smile on his face as he calls out the drinks and this forced enthusiasm he find ironic because constantly does neither of things when he's not working. People like it; his manager definitely likes it to be paying his ass to make customers happy. It doesn't bother him as much as he likes to complain about it. The stigma of having a relaxed expression that translates to him being rude takes a bigger toll on him than people like Louis realize. He doesn't say anything because it's better to let everyone believe what they want to see. There's only so much he can say to defend himself before people start ignoring him and he starts looking like an idiot for catering to these kinds of people.You can make it, he tells himself. It's his third day—he's got two more days until his freedom then two days before he's back in the clutches of capitalized education. Right now, no one is interested drinking coffee at 8 in the evening if they weren't doing it to stay awake for a class so Niall is able to start cleaning a little bit earlier. That way, he can go home earlier than 10 and he actually has a little bit of time to watch a movie before going to bed.He was the only one there to close after he let the other girl leave half an hour past 8. He prefers it this way so he can play his own music, mellow out the atmosphere of the café with Jazz and Blues instead of blasting the café's pop playlist. Just as he's collecting mugs and plates left over by customers, there's a soft sound of the chime above the door that grabs his attention. First, it was him who discovered where Zayn works—now he was here, holding an empty cold drink glass.“Oh, hi.” Zayn says breathily. “You work here. Of course you do.”“Is that bad?” Niall asks indifferently. “No.” Zayn answers calmly. “I like seeing you.”Why wouldn’t he? In fact, Niall considers him a close acquaintance seeing how often they bump into each other. In other words, Niall likes seeing him too. But he can’t help but ask, “Are you following me?” Niall winces. Seriously, he's never bumped into someone so often.“Okay, definitely not.” Zayn laughs. “I’m just looking for a place to hang before my friend picks me up. Don't worry, I'll buy something.”Niall blinks slowly before he puts the small plates down back on the table and holds all three mugs from the handle in one hand. With his other hand, he grabs Zayn's glass and brings it behind the counter.“Hey, unless you read minds, you have no idea what I'm ordering.” Zayn frowns at him. Niall ignores him throughout the entire time he's making a drink for Zayn. Eventually, he gives up telling Niall to stop and just leans against the counter. He holds off any hard-caffeinated drinks and sticks to a house sparkling lemonade with a twist of his.He hands Zayn his glass back; it's a strawberry lemonade with blood orange san pellegrino—a cocktail he created while he was bored. “Sorry if you wanted like, an iced coffee.” Niall grimaces softly. “But it's on the house if that makes you feel better. It’s a thank you for the t-shirt you bought me the other time.”“I take my comment back.” Zayn smiles at him. “Thank you, Niall. You're very sweet.”Niall's lips curl back momentarily before he starts loading the glass washer with mugs. “So, where are you going tonight?”Zayn winces at him in a conniving way. “Would you believe me if I told you I'm going to my first college party?”“I try not to make a habit of guessing what type of people are with a look.” Niall answers instead. “Either answer is fine.”“Alright. Well,” he laughs lightly. “It is.” Then he continues. “No one really invites me because I'm not that close with anyone to be invited. I do have friends, but it's not like they throw any either.”“The movies make it more than what it is.” Niall starts to empty an old box of milk. Everyone just sits around talking, drinking, maybe play some cards, and the music sucks most of the time.“That's a relief.” Zayn exhales quietly. Then his eyes light up all of the sudden like he has an idea. “Maybe you could make it even better by coming? Bet you'd make it really fun.” He bites his bottom lip after.“Thank you but I can't.” Niall taps the box over the edge of the sink. “I've got work tomorrow and I really need some sleep.” He’s been going at this many days straight. He isn’t a robot.“Right.” Zayn shakes his head. “Sorry. I should leave as well.”“No, it's alright.” Niall waves his unneeded apology off. “Come over more often. I usually work Tuesday's, Thursday's, Saturday's.”Niall decides to change his mind as soon as he saw the knit between Zayn’s eyebrows. He shouldn’t have asked. They aren’t friends, but maybe they were getting there? Because Zayn just invited him to a party—a thing friends do. He jumped the gun quick on that assumption. As fast as his heart started beating at the supposed negative reaction, it slowed down at the sound of Zayn’s airy laugh and raised eyebrows. “S-sure? I'll definitely drop by.” And it was just like he said—on Thursdays and a couple of Saturday mornings that Niall’s working, Zayn drops by two hours before closing to study. On rare occasions, he lets the café empty until he and Niall are only ones left to talk. While Niall’s working, he keeps to himself, orders an iced cappuccino to stay hydrated. Although, he should probably stick to water and hold off on coffee. Maybe he’ll start with a chai latte.Niall on the other hand, spends his entire shift talking, and he’s fucking tired. It’s not a nuisance like he exaggerates it to be but he’d rather not be stuck in a conversation about taxes. How does even find himself talking about taxes? Ask the old guys that come in here.Zayn doesn’t stay all that long when he comes in so they don’t talk a lot at all. When Niall leaves, Zayn’s already gone with the crumbs of his chocolate banana cake collected off the table with his napkin. He always leaves his spot clean and brings his mug to the counter. He really doesn’t need to do that but he still feels compelled to and Niall turns soft at the sight of the mug on the counter all the time.Maybe the campus is smaller than Niall realizes. When he crosses the walkway between the English and Arts building towards the main building where the cafeteria is so he can meet Louis, his eyes catch Zayn with his friend at the corner of table with their feet up on the extra chairs. Even though he knows Zayn well enough now, he doesn’t move from his spot to say hi—he continues to shuffle through his playlist until a song he actually wants to hear plays.“Sorry, I’m late. Prof went overtime!” Louis sounds breathless as he holds Niall’s shoulder.“That’s all good, bro.” Says Niall. “I’m craving Chinese.”“That’s more like a dinner thing. Let’s get that tonight instead.” Louis weakly slaps him with the back of his hand repeatedly. “For lunch, let’s do Mongolian grill.”Niall groans until he can completely roll his eyes at Louis. “That’s just another style of Chinese food.” “Fresher! Better! Let’s go!” Louis beckons at himIt’s not like he has any say. He did and it got pushed aside for tonight which doesn’t entirely make sense when he remembers Louis saying he’s having dinner with Ella. Unless...“Are you serious? I gotta go on your date?” Niall frowns.“No...” Louis denies. “You’re my date. Ella is the third wheel.”“It’s the same thing! You just changed our titles.” Niall laughs coldly. “It’s seriously fine—I don’t have to go at all. You can just grab me take out.”“Eh, I don’t think it’ll make it to you by tonight.”“All the more reason why I’m not going.”“Why don’t you invite that guy from that pub we went to?” Louis asks. “I saw something between you.”Niall snorts at Louis. “What, air?” “Yeah, coming from you because you’re so dense.” Louis huffs. “Fine. Don’t come. I’ll just give you $20 for fried chicken from Sweet Afton.”“Best date ever.” Niall and fried chicken. Hell, he’ll even drop by the liquor store and grab beer.Niall switched with his co-worker to do a closing shift on Saturday instead of opening. He sort of regrets it because no one really wants to have coffee and breakfast bagels at 8pm on a Saturday. Unless someone’s getting ready for their graveyard shift. But it’s not like he has anything better to do on a Saturday evening if he agreed to close for his co-worker. He’s got no life indeed. Better yet, he’s got bills to pay which is why he’s working so much during the week.Closing alone is all sorts of fun because he gets to play his own music. He plays his upbeat playlist filled with electronic pop, synth, or anything timelessly exciting. An example of that would be Mr. Brightside.It’s easy to sweep to Mr. Brightside. It makes cleaning more fun than it has to be so he doesn’t hold back belting out the lyrics, bouncing his knees, and banging his head like he’s at a rock concert. He yells out the last note of the verse, holding it strong until he sings the finishing, “dun dun dunnnn!”Out of thin air, he hears laughing and mid-paced clap beside him. Shit, his music is so loud he didn’t even hear the bell above the door ring.“You saw that?” Niall frowns.“All 3 minutes and 43 seconds of it.” Zayn says it proudly with a grin. “I say this with baseless facts but one way to get to know someone is going out for karaoke.” It doesn’t work if Niall hasn’t seen Zayn embarrass himself like he did.Tired of Zayn’s jokes, Niall’s face turns bleak as he tells Zayn, “We’re closed. We reopen at 7am tomorrow.”“I know. I actually was wondering if you had dinner yet.” Zayn winces at him with a grin. “I was on my way home when I remembered you work here—until 8, 9—whatever.”He doesn’t need a second to reply to Zayn because he remembers he’s got a plate of left overs. “I’ve actually been eating—there’s leftover cookies so we gotta get rid of them in some way. Usually if there’s way too much, we donate them to the shelter. If it’s just half a dozen, there’s someone bound to finish them. Thanks for asking.” “Cookies aren’t a real meal.” Zayn argues. “Seriously, my treat. I can cook. I make awesome instant noodles.”“Me too. I’ve got some at home.” Niall tells him and Zayn’s jaw practically drops until Niall follows up with, “But I’m not great with chowder.”“I can make you chowder.” Zayn laughs. “The best kind.”“I’m sold.”This is the first time he’s ever been in Zayn’s apartment. He’s lucky to be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Chinatown since not a lot of people can with the city being so populated. Now that he thinks about, he’s not so far from him—he’s only up at East Village. The world is really small.  Zayn told him to make himself comfortable, but he doesn’t. He walks around looking at Zayn’s shelf and table decorations. Sometimes it says a lot about people. He’s got several photos with family and friends on his shelf and a large print of a rainforest somewhere in Asia hanging on the wall. It’s nice that it’s tidy too; it even smells like sandalwood.“Are you done collecting intel about me?” Zayn jokes. He’s in the kitchen stirring the pot of interesting chowder that he’s cooking up. It’s interesting because he’s never seen someone use coconut milk as a base for chowder before.“Yup. That’s what I came here to do.” Niall snorts quietly.“What’s your conclusion?”“Cozy.” He says as he finally takes the offer to sit down on his couch.“That’s a good word.”“English major.” Niall points to himself absently. “But you’re in organic chemistry which is cooler.”“It’s cool that you think that.” Zayn joins him in the living room, holding his very high-quality ginger ale soda made by some brewery. He sits at the opposite end of the couch, his body quarterly facing towards Niall. “I haven’t thought about organic chemistry as cool since shit started getting tougher, or maybe since I said I need a long-lasting career.”“Chemistry in general is cool. You get to mix all kinds of elements and make something out of something.”“Any other words besides cool we can use?” Zayn laughs.“Wonderful.” Niall’s face twists in disgust. “Just kidding. My brain isn’t working all that well right now so we’re stuck using cool until we’re sick of it.” He coughs. “Anyways, is there a chance you’re like, Spiderman or something?”“What?” Zayn bursts out laughing. “You’re a science nerd living in New York.” Niall points out as he looks at all the science textbooks on his shelf. “It’s okay if you are, I won’t tell. It’s kind of obvious though.”“If I was, I’d re-enact that upside-down kiss in the rain.” Zayn huffs. “And I’d swing to school instead of taking the stupid subway.”“You probably are already.”Zayn gives him a wink before he goes back into the kitchen. Zayn’s chowder ends up being a coconut chipotle base—a twist he hasn’t experienced until now. He’s got corn in it which is really nice, and tons of white fish and shellfish. He says he got the recipe from a cook book his cousin gave him.Niall does the dishes while Zayn throws the one portion of leftovers in the fridge with a flourless sugar cookie in his mouth. It always seems like he’s cleaning at the end of the day; but this is the one time he wants to. After eating, they hang out at the couch some more, playing high or low on the space left between them. Neither of them were interested in drinking so they put eating olives as a wager if someone loses. So far, Zayn’s eaten ten spoonfuls of olives and Niall’s eaten eight. Zayn gags behind his hand as Niall pulls out Zayn’s third card. It’s an even card—what are the chances that another two gets flipped and not a high card? A lot apparently. That’s four olives for him.“I’m going to email my professor saying I’m sick.” Zayn grimaces at the four olives on his spoon. Why does he even have a jar of black olive slices? “You have class tomorrow?” Niall asks him like it’s something new. “I should probably go.”“No, stay.” He quickly shakes his head. “It’s alright. I don’t have class until noon.”“Seems like you wanna keep playing.”“Please.” Zayn makes a tight face of disgust. “Let’s just watch a movie instead.”Niall wanted Zayn to choose the movie since he suffered from eating more olives than Niall did. As Zayn was getting it sorted out, Niall was sitting in the middle of the couch, thinking to himself as to why Zayn wants him to still stay around. He may have class at noon but it’s nearing close to 11pm. Doesn’t he want to sleep early?“There we go.” Zayn sighs, and sits right against Niall. Why is he sitting so close? He must be sitting on his spot? But if he was, Zayn would’ve said something. “What are we watching?”“Legend.” Zayn answers. “Starring Tom Hardy. He plays twins in this movie.” “Cool.” Niall muses. As interesting as the movie is, maybe it wasn’t that much to neither of them. Niall’s trying his best to watch; so far, he really likes it, mainly because he loves mafia and gangster movies set back in the 1960s. There’s also a part of him that’s tugging his attention away from the screen so he could just give into what he really wants to look at.Niall’s never seen anybody as beautiful Zayn that it hurts his chest knowing he’s growing to feel this way towards him. He doesn’t have a clue as to how he can approach him. Sure, they were sitting together, they had late dinner together, but that’s because there isn’t anything to call it—it’s always easier that way.Out of nowhere, he feels Zayn’s head collapse on his shoulders. They were 30 minutes into the movie which isn’t that long; Zayn must be exhausted. On the plus side, Zayn smells good—kind of woodsy and citrusy.“You’re really warm.” Zayn mutters. “Are you sick?”“No.” Niall looks up at the ceiling. “My temperature is just always very high.”Zayn laughs quietly. “If you have a cat, this is why they’re always cuddled against you.”“I do have a cat.” Niall pulls his phone out and clicks the lock button so he can show Zayn. “She’s my chubby tuxedo cat, News.” His lock-screen would be News leaning off against a wall-shelf. He uses the portrait option to take pictures so it makes it seem more artistic.“Adorable.” Zayn says softly.Zayn eventually falls asleep as the movie continues. He really should have just told Niall he was tired; Niall will be more than happy to go home. With Niall putting Zayn in a more comfortable position by getting him to rest his head on a throw pillow over Niall’s lap, Niall can’t leave now—he’ll wake him up.He pulls the blanket folded by his side over Zayn’s body to keep him from getting cold. Niall can tell through the way Zayn tucks his arm under his chin, turning against it so the air won’t breeze right over. It’s quite funny to see him sleeping when this is his apartment. The only one awake is Niall who has no significant role right now. He doesn’t feel like he can just leave, or walk around without his boundaries just being limited to the bathroom and living room. He doesn’t seem significant enough to carry Zayn to his own room so he could sleep there instead and just leave him a note saying thanks and that he’ll see him soon. The two of them meeting stopped being coincidental and started becoming something they’ve done on purpose. Although it wasn’t something they spoke about doing on purpose, the ‘coincidences’ could end just like that. Truthfully, he didn’t want it to end. It was nearing to 1am when Zayn jolted up. The movie was close to finishing but Niall got distracted on his phone and started looking at hypothetical questions that he never thought he wanted answered himself.“I’m so sorry.” Zayn rubs his face and takes the pillow off Niall’s lap. “I fell asleep on you.”“It’s alright.” Niall waves off the apology. “I should go so you can have more of your sweet dreams.”“I don’t think I’ll be having anymore.” Zayn leans the side of his head on the couch.When he’s standing at the door with his coat on, he looks at Zayn once more, his chest feeling heavy as they both stare at each other.“Thanks for helping me out. I could never eat it all myself.” He never went back eating regular chowder after learning how to make this version but rarely makes it because he can’t eat such a thing all by himself.Niall cups something in his pockets before he pulls it out—something he forgot about the rest of the night. “I managed to snag some cookies from work. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat anymore so keep’em.” He extends it towards Zayn.“You didn’t have to.” Zayn frowns, even though he takes a step forward to get them.“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Niall smiles softly.“Oh.” Zayn’s voice becomes faint with a taut smile. “Yeah. Of course, Niall.” He tries to smile genuinely but Niall can already see it on his face that he’s not fond of the idea. He can feel his own smile fade away, replacing it with a grim expression. Zayn must not be able to read it as well as Niall can with just about any other person because he says nothing.Silence makes it easier to leave.Louis went back to the idea of putting Niall out for blind dating. It’s also one way for Niall to start hating on him but it’s just a test run—a test he’s done twice now but third time’s a charm, they say.Louis thinks it’s a good idea because Niall can finally have someone to go out and eat with while he and Ella are out. This wasn’t about trying to ditch Niall and give him someone to date so he could be just like Louis. No, he knows Niall a lot better than that. In fact, he knows that despite having this magnetic aura where people can’t help stare, regardless it’s out of jealousy or in awe, Niall won’t do anything about any of it. Louis’ not sure why, but this is just to help him out in a way. After this, Louis will give up on finding Niall a date to eat with since it’s something he always seems to be doing instead of cooking. Lazy ass.Louis suggests they have Sugar Freak on 30th Avenue, Astoria. It focuses on soul food which is what Niall’s craving tonight. He decides quick on what he wants but Louis tries to stall because the date that Niall really is here for hasn’t arrived yet. But Louis can only stall for so long.“Please, hurry up. Our server came like three times already. What are you doing?” Niall asks earnestly.“I’m... Just... Waiting... To... See...” Louis says as he looks around the restaurant.“Just roulette it.”  Niall taps his menu down on the table twice.“I can’t.” Louis shakes his head. “I’m waiting for someone.”“Oh, seriously?” Niall looks up at Louis with a deadpan expression. “Don’t tell me it’s Ella.”“N-no!” Louis responds in growing excitement. “They’re here. Sit up, it’s your blind date.” He sticks his head and arm out.“Who...?” Before Niall can finish asking who Louis invited, he looks over his shoulder and it’s not Ella for that matter. It’s someone worse.Zayn’s dressed in an earth-toned plaid shirt and jeans with the corners of his lips stretched into a smile—his left corner being stretched even farther. Niall’s so used to seeing Zayn all the time, this is something that shouldn’t even shock him. But he’s here because he randomly saw him. This doesn’t even look like a group date which is what Louis wants this to pass as. It’s a stupid blind date.“Are you serious, Louis?” Niall huffs. His face is heating up—it only happens when he’s pissed. “I thought it was just us two.”“I-I can go...” Zayn winces, talking to Louis more so than Niall.“What’s the big deal?” Louis grimaces at Niall.Niall shakes his head. “Sorry, Zayn. I’m not doing this.”And just like that, Niall left the two of them behind and went home by himself. He expected someone to at least chase him, but they must be just as pissed at him as he is with them—specifically Louis.He isn’t going to have things be like this anymore.Niall didn’t speak to Louis for a week. He needed time to cool off and find the words to tell Louis that he needs to stop setting him up with people who aren’t interested or people he barely knows. It just wastes everyone’s time and he doesn’t want to be held accountable for it.But there was something he did do—he’s not so sure what specifically. He just knows it’s connected to the lack of visits made by Zayn at the cafe. He didn’t think it’d affect him that much until he’d find himself closing the cafe and the tables are littered with crumbs and garbage from people’s pockets and bags. He knows it’s not their garbage because the cafe strives to be waste free.His phone rings as he’s walking home from the subway. After three calls from Louis over the last few days, he finally picks up. Quickly, he’s greeted with a hostile tone.“It takes you six days to pick up my call?” Louis asks in irritation.“You know that I don’t like being set up, so out of all people, you try to set me up with Zayn?”“What’s wrong with Zayn?”“Nothing. That’s the thing!”“Huh?”“There’s nothing happening.” Niall explains. “I already saw it coming from the beginning so you just, wasted our time when he could’ve been doing something better that night.”“Niall, I don’t get you at all.” Louis sighs sharply. “Do you not like him?”“Of course I do. I’ve made it obvious but like, he doesn’t see it. I’m not sure he even likes me even as a friend anymore.”“Oh my god!” Louis yells through the phone out of frustration. “I don’t know how you and Selina dated for a year. You’re clueless.”Selina was his ex-girlfriend who he met at his general English studies class in the first year. They were partners for an assignment and it just went on from there. Although, Louis might have a point. They didn’t start going out until Selina called him one night and told him how she felt. Even then, she was unsure about him since she initially thought he was toying with her. They’ve hung out constantly and there were things happening between them that seems blurry but now looking back, he always waited for her to finish her classes, spent his lunches with her—he hung out with her more than he did with Louis and that’s saying a lot. Maybe the most telling thing of all is that he’d always have his arm around her shoulder and eventually hug his other arm from the front, buy her lunch, and all the things that make you think that there’s something more. And it went on for so long without any progress that she thought was just trying to get to sleep with her. No, he really did like her and it was a shame they broke up.These days, it’s different. Everyone’s perception of Niall always fluctuates and his perception of everyone does too. And right now, this is the one time he feels left in the dark, not knowing what’s really happening. Shit, maybe all this time he doesn’t know everything after all. That must be his biggest flaw, and it’s gotten in the way of him having more time with Zayn.Thursday was pouring harder than he’s ever seen before, and he’s stuck closing during the day the rain decided to pour. There was no way to save the chairs outside. He may or may not get shit for that. It would be stupid of him to—they’re patio chairs. Does his manager expect to hide all 10 metal chairs from the rain? She better not.He locks the shop around the usual time that he finishes closing, and finds his rain jacket soaked under ten seconds. That’s also the moment he turns away from the door and finds himself looking at someone he hasn’t bumped into since that stupid blind date Louis tried to set up two weeks ago. There must be a good reason why he’s here, soaking wet in his jean jacket.“Zayn?” Niall winces. It’s hard to see with the rain pouring so much and the street lamp being three feet away.“Hi.” Zayn waves at him. “I’m sorry I haven’t stopped by.”“It’s alri—“ “But you do know you’re an idiot!” Zayn exclaims out of nowhere, shoving Niall back until he hits the corner of the wall by the door. What a change of heart—Niall is complete shock hearing his tone. “... A really nice idiot I enjoy seeing.” He sighs afterwards.“Why are you calling me an idiot?” Niall raises a brow, straightening his jacket out. “You’re the idiot.”“Why is it that I’m the idiot?” Zayn pulls his chin back.“I thought we were friends but it seems like it was something you didn’t want.” Niall explains aggressively. “So you’re the idiot for coming back here.” Then he asks in genuine curiosity. “Are you confused?”“N-no.” Zayn answers, even though he really isn’t sure where this is going, there’s only one thing he’s certain of. “Because I’ll always look back at the moment I decided to sit across from you at the cafeteria which I enjoyed just like now.”“You always talk like you’ve got a secret to hide, something I’m supposed to decipher. I’m the English major here.”“Can I ask you something? Maybe you won’t have to decipher it at all.” When Niall nods, Zayn moves closer to him. “Why did it take you so long to realize I’ve got feelings for you?”Not until now did he realize and his face showed it. Even as they were arguing under the overhang of the door of the cafe, still getting hit by the rain, it wasn’t what Niall was thinking. But he’s in relief—mostly happy, also surprised.Since he turned 18, there’s only been one thing that people want out of Niall and it’s always been sexually related. He figured it was something about college that changes people to behave a certain way. Although it isn’t bad, it isn’t his thing. And he tells Zayn with a weak grimace because he’s unsure of what to expect telling someone something that could be seen vain. “Us pretty faces are more than that.” Niall jokes. “But it’s kind of exhausting to always have to fend yourself from that shit by scaring everyone off. Even though I knew not everyone was like that, it’s hard to tell when everyone used to look at me a certain way.”“Did something happen?” Zayn asks curiously.“No.” Niall laughs quietly. “I just don’t wanna be seen as easy like I was for a while. If that’s still a thing.” He looks up at the streetlight to see if the rain has let down yet. “So I usually just play naïve and think everyone wants to be my friend. Most often, it isn’t the case since nobody stays long enough to get to actually know each other. It hurts, y’know.”“Mhm.” Zayn hums, pushing himself deeper into the corner of the door where the rain isn’t hitting him that much.“So, you like me?” Niall has a soft smile on his face when he looks at Zayn standing just inches away. The brunet looks back at Niall like he just caught up. “Is that why you came?” Wait, is that why he always came to the café?“I came to, uh—yeah, I came to see you.” Zayn swallows. “I don’t see you around on campus anymore and you never drop by the pub.”“I’m not necessarily a fan of beer. Sorry.” Niall offers a half-smile with his joke. Besides, Zayn didn’t tell Niall the days and hours that he’s there. Why would Niall go to a place that probably won’t have Zayn there?“So if I invited you to drink at my place...” Zayn narrows his left eye at him.Niall grins. “If you only have beer, I probably wouldn’t go.”“You’re a brutal guy.” Zayn laughs. “What can I do? You don’t like anything!”Niall starts to laugh too just before he pulls Zayn in, pressing a kiss over the corner of his lips. He didn’t like a lot of things, but he knew he definitely liked Zayn. And it felt like that was the only way for him to let Zayn know how he feels after all the times he’s missed what Zayn’s been trying to say all along.And thankfully, he gets it when Niall pulls back, only for Zayn to nudge back in for another kiss—one done properly this time, right in between the lips with no hint of being timid. “You could come over my place for tea instead, and tell me about your day.” Niall mutters in between them.Tea is good because it’s hot, and it doesn’t have as much caffeine compared to coffee. In fact, tea helps Zayn when it comes to sleep. And one day, Niall will take Zayn’s offer on that beer.Hanging in the living room, talking with music playing in the background, they’ve got an entire pot of it with the loose leaves steeping inside. They’re on their second cup with the pot barely half-empty; it isn’t so easy drinking something piping hot. Niall didn’t even give Zayn milk for it because green-jasmine tea is the type of tea to drink plain with sugar as an exception.But heat isn’t the only reason why Zayn’s barely touched his cup. He doesn’t have any interest in breaking away from his position—which is him leaning against the arm of the couch with Niall resting his back against him between his legs. Zayn isn’t sure how they got there—all he knows is that he was cold from getting rained on and now he’s the one with his arms wrapped around Niall. Yeah, Zayn’s warm but not that warm—it should be reversed! Although, he doesn’t say anything because it’s not something to complain about when he really is enjoying every second of them just talking. “Hey, by the way, how did Louis get your number before I could?” Niall asks as he aimlessly points his laser on the ground for News to paw at.Zayn stammers before he scoffs at Niall. “You want my number, you have to ask.” He lightly flicks Niall’s chin up. “He got my number because he came by the pub and wanted to set us up. I figured it would help my chances a little, but you dashed out of there that night.”“He gets in my business way too much. I wasn’t feeling it.” Niall laughs quietly at his cat before he goes back to the conversation. “Sorry I left like that though.”“It’s cool.” Zayn grins. “I ended up here, didn’t I? Despite my endeavours trying to flirt with you, can’t help the fact that you’re naïve.”Niall leans off of Zayn so he could look back at him. “A-are we dating?” Suddenly, Zayn went brings his arms to his chest, trying not to touch Niall. “N-no?” Zayn lifts a brow.“That’s too bad.” Niall starts to move away, inching farther from Zayn.“Wh—“ Zayn’s eyes widen while he starts to cross his legs in. “W-well... We can. If you want. Like, if you’re okay, with that.” He stutters. “Unless you’re not.”When Niall starts to laugh, Zayn starts to look embarrassed. “Your sentences are seriously broken.”“You just sort of threw me off.” Zayn smiles softly. And he’s put more off to the edge when Niall closes in—not for a kiss, but the same feeling was still there when their noses brushed together and found themselves smiling against each other. Zayn eventually relaxed and held Niall’s cheek. Niall, who couldn’t fight the urge, kisses him deeply until he’s back between Zayn’s legs, his body on top of his.That probably means they are in Niall’s language.
II
There's a pang of sting on the tip of his tongue from the coffee he bought before coming to this party with Zayn. He's burned it, and it would take a few hours for it to recuperate before the ripping feeling of the tip from his tongue disappear and feel alright again when he presses the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It's not a big deal to find himself worrying on a mistake such as a paper cut or someone's shin taking quite a blow from the legs of a table. In fact, he prefers to make these simpler mistakes rather than the ones he often has to try and pass by like it's nothing. From time to time, it's never nothing, it's never something he can even apologize for.This wasn't the first party he found himself acquainted to. Brought along by Zayn, he's his date to these kinds of events with a mass crowd he's not forced to socialize but actually obligated to share something about himself and maybe grow something out of it. Maybe he's planted a seed of an oak tree because nothing has sprung from the earth when it came to meeting Zayn's friends.He doesn't even try to tend the plant anymore—he distances himself in the backyard at the pool house of the host's house where he can see everyone losing themselves to the red cups full of alcohol and weed that everyone seems to smoke these days. As well as everyone else, they can see him too, but it's not like they'll do anything about Niall sitting alone and looking at good documentaries to watch on his phone.His knee bounces to the pulsing beat of the tunes playing just outside while he reads. Honestly, he’d love to go out there and belt out the song with his buried spirit and jump his heart out. Neither of them would happen—he’d embarrass himself doing one of those things and not unless he wants to experience a 2-minute conversation that will end tragically, then no thanks. Maybe if he was more comfortable with the atmosphere. He's not. All he’s hoping for is this absence of Zayn to be filled.Sooner that he thought, his lips part to greet the click of the door opening.No.The world was toying around with him.As he leaves the pool house, Niall pockets his phone inside of his jacket before straightening it out. He shakes his head, trying to erase the images in his mind of the couple who were obviously going to be using the pool house for something anyone isn’t really interested in being the bystander for. Suddenly, arms latch around his chest from behind. The world must not be toying with him after all."There you are." Zayn snugs his face onto Niall, trying to squeeze the life out of him while he encourages Niall to join his group of friends by pushing him forward."I know you saw me in there." Niall slips his fingers through Zayn's that clutch together to hold around his torso. Niall saw Zayn too—literally three feet outside the radius of the pool house with a drink in his hand, having a good laugh with acquaintances, soon to be friends. They're standing just a few feet away, eying Niall like Zayn's theirs."You didn’t wanna come out!" Zayn's nearly yelling, not close to his ear but close enough for Niall to wince. The yelling, the laughs between nothing, him trying to squish Niall—he's obviously drunk now. Zayn continues to talk, "You’ve been on your phone.”Niall only now realizes how close he is to everyone. The smile wiped off his face and he suddenly lets go out Zayn's hands, twisting his body to put his hand on Zayn's back. He nudges him forward, knowing everyone would be far more interested with Zayn's presence than his. Heartbeat pacing, he's itching his palm with his fingers of the same hand."Who?" Zayn’s friend, Liam asks with a twisted expression on their face. Well, Niall was, and his cheeks are burning anxiously."Niall." Zayn tells them. “He’s usually reading up on current affairs. I don’t often read up on them to know exactly what’s going on but Niall tells me what’s usually happening.”Just because Zayn hates reading, doesn't mean he won't listen to Niall go on and on about current events. It was interesting for the both of them. Niall's got his literature and journalism to talk about while Zayn has science and music. One thing stuck in both of their minds."Reckon it’s a domino effect. It all started with that rotten orange being elected as president working real hard to like, destroy this country with everyone else just like him backing his shit up." Zayn didn't just say it, he illustrated it out for them. It's like Niall expected, no one's interested in these things but the two of them. He reckons they see an old man sitting with his friends in a boring place, talking about boring crap like Global Warming and all of its political & social implications—not that they were experts about that. But what Niall sees is like what impressionist artist Monet feels when he moved to the countryside of Giverny—peace, but never mind tranquility. There's no tranquility when it came with Zayn.Winter is tranquil for Niall. The season had nothing but the soft snow blanketing itself on everything. Zayn wasn't winter. He was the fury of autumn that lashed its colours on nature, forcing its environment to correspond with it. It was bright, despite the early, anticipated sunset. It was wrathful, despite how it swings left and right like a cradle when it falls.That was Zayn."Why are we talking about this here? It’s a drag." Liam scoffs. Niall swallows the build up in his throat“Liam, relax.” Zayn warns him.A point comes from his left—Zayn’s friend Aaron. "What do you major?" It was rather a snarky look that made Niall unresponsive. At least for just a while. Zayn's waiting for an answer as well."I... Am majoring in Journalism. R-right now, I'm just looking at documentaries to write my report on for a class." Sometimes when Niall's asked a question that leads to what he's passionate for, he would never fuck his sentences up. But now, his voice was shaking to the point he feels like he's about to break down for nothing. This is what they always want."Why don't you just say media studies?""Um." Niall grazes his bottom lip with his nails. "Because, this isn't media studies? It’s more complex. I don’t watch movies for fun or talk about the kind of camera angles they use in filmmaking. It’s to learn what kind of details, nuance, and clarity documentarians use that relate to journalism." Niall scoffs.Aaron shakes his head, rolling his eyes with this smirk on his face. "You—need to relax with all this nonsense. Take my beer if you like.""Hell, Zayn. Where'd you meet this guy?""At school. Met a few more times after that.” Zayn presses a kiss on Niall’s cheek, and he’s never felt any sense of shame standing right beside Zayn until now.Niall never felt bad for himself until the day they started going out. He spent an entire month and a half with his eyes closed, unaware that Zayn was trying to flirt with him. It’s hard to tell these days when compliments are nothing more than compliments. They’re not things he should be overthinking about but seeing how indirect everyone is these days, it might actually just be something everyone else seems to overanalyze. Because if Zayn truly was trying to become his friend and also somehow be flirting with him at the same time, he should’ve said it blatantly after a few weeks. Wasn't Zayn aware Niall liked him? Didn’t he make it obvious?At least for 4 weeks, Zayn teased him on and on about it. Niall didn't like it at all until two weeks passed by and he realized he can make fun of Zayn too for claiming that he was obvious at his flirting when he wasn’t, making him a terrible one. Zayn was really nice about it, using words such as 'cute' and 'hilarious' to describe what he noticed from that moment. Niall didn't mind at all—he liked it a lot.Niall spaces back into the conversation at the worst time possible. Pretending to be preoccupied, he looks past the group's heads who don't want to even ask what the hell he's looking at so intently. He doesn't even know what he's staring at and he's already wearing his glasses.
You should've went out with someone else. I don't like him.
"I always thought you and Harry would click." They try to make it discreet from Niall. They're doing a bad job of it. He's itching to go home, dying to free himself from this cage that he's always stuck inside—a repetition of these days where he has to hear Zayn's good friends speak the dirtiest kind of shit about him in his face, under their breath, and behind his back.“Nah, mate. Let it go. You know I’m with Niall.” Zayn tries to hiss back at his friends.“I’m just saying.” Aaron scoffs."I mean no offence, Niall. We don't peg you dating Zayn. You're just really composed and Zayn is... Zayn." Liam pulls him into the conversation he doesn’t want to be involved in. "Seriously not a bad thing."No offence? Do they mean to say this so they can excuse themselves from insulting Niall so openly?Composed is a term Niall likes. They've tainted it, appropriating it into some kind of joke. Composed? Just say boring, lacking of life, hateful. Niall would gladly give them terms to use besides composed that would fit very well with what they really mean. Like 'Zayn's Zayn'; oh, you mean not boring? Not lacking of life? Loving? This brooding, cold guy who would rather be home right now? Sugar coaters are quite something here, alright.And it's not just their dislike for a robot to be dating a human being, it's the league Zayn's in that Niall isn't fit to be. Who gets all invited to the parties? Zayn. Who does he bring along? Niall. Who's greeted first between the two? Zayn. Who's never greeted? Niall.Who's out of Zayn's league? Niall.Who does everyone hate? Him. They hate Niall. They loathe him from every side, and god knows what he's done to make people feel so cold. He can't guarantee anything to anyone. He wasn't the first, and he may not be the last. But oh god, how he's trying to be the one Zayn's proud to talk about. Even Niall’s friends would invite Zayn out and enjoy it.Shit, this wasn't baseball. This isn't dodgeball where Zayn picks who his teammates are based on skill.This is... This is supposed to be something people envy, something people want to have early at their age. This isn't supposed to be the moment where he feels conscious.Because if he's going to be honest with anything, it's going to be this.And it's ruined like always.Making excuses might be his new skill now. With a few questions here and there, Zayn finally lets him leave, only making Niall promise that he'd come right back to him.He's in the washroom, wondering if Zayn would look better with Niall not wearing his glasses or the brown hair. Maybe it's his lack of facial hair . Everyone seems to be growing theirs out now. Niall can't grow anything out in four days so he's excluded from that. Fuck, it's not even how he looks—it's just the sole matter of who he is.It's as if people don't realize that he hears and speaks english as well. It somehow leaves their minds that he's present within the social circle.'Niall's a special one!' They say, with him standing right beside the commentator. Always, always—he has to encounter that kind of indecency everyday if he's ever around Zayn's friends. And it's not the good meaning.He tries not to make a big deal of what everyone sees in him when he stands beside Zayn. There's nothing to make a big deal from when it's just two simple people that like each other are dating. It's the movies and shows that corrupt their minds to ask ill-thought questions without thinking twice if it's a social norm. Along with comments that they believe wouldn't matter to Niall after a few years, will come out. It'll always be in his mind if people want to wonder why he's always quiet around them. What's really the problem?He thinks these thoughts—these over-weighted thinking sessions bringing him down in a bathroom will stop. That's what he hates about the mind; the ability to remember something that he doesn't like. He wants the moments that made him happy to stay within his mind, not the ones that cause him to stray from Zayn in a bathroom and hope the tears he's fighting to hold back, don't come crashing like tsunami tides.Thirty minutes have passed by. It's not as if he's counting the minutes he’s locked himself in the bathroom; more like counting the minutes he's been away from Zayn who he made a promise with to come back which he broke once they made it. What's supposed to happen if he ever does go back? Were things supposed to get better for him? Would people finally stop talking about the way they weren't good for each other? How dating Niall is a terrible choice? Would that stop ringing in his mind like a telephone? The quaking thoughts that weigh down his chest, the wave of tears that are rumbling within him certainly proves that it's not going to happen soon. His features are certainly not the problem causing his headaches.By the curb, he watches the people coming in and out of the house. The bathroom wasn't a choice of a hide out anymore after he heard a loud retch outside the door with everyone reacting quite indifferent if anyone puked.Not a lot of cars are passing by so his chances of being hit by standing on the edge of the curb are low. So was Zayn now."Hey, why'd you leave?" Zayn throws his arms around Niall's neck.Maybe being hit would be better."How did you find me?" He holds Zayn's waist."People said you left." Zayn waits on Niall to say his reply. A rather dumb move at that. "But you're right here.”"Mhm." Niall hums disinterested while he tries to get them away from the curb."It'd be nice if you were inside." Zayn waits again. Nothing. "It's gonna rain.""I'll give you my sweater." That's what a sweater is good for, right?"No, I don't need that. I need you." "Come on, take it." Niall laughs quietly."Okay." That was easy.After throwing on the hoodie, he lets Niall wrap his arms around him with his face pressed against his shoulder. When Zayn's drunk, he's more affectionate than the usual. "Zayn. I'm going home. Would you like me to walk you home?"Zayn lifts his face off Niall's shoulder. "I thought I was staying over.”"Not tonight, Zayn." "Really?" Zayn frowns."I don't feel good. I-It's a bad night." Niall cups Zayn's face. This was killing him to even say, let alone do. "It's best if you're at your place tonight. Come on. It's gonna rain.""No, you totally hate me. I'm staying." "Don’t say that. I love you.”"So tell me what’s up.”"I can't." Niall's voice trembles."Why not?""I can't say.""Okay, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow." Zayn trudged back into the building while Niall watched him make himself safe from the rain with his jacket.By the time he gets home, he's soaked. His t-shirt was sticking against his skin and fully see his skin through it.All he wanted was to be alone and not drag Zayn down from his high pedestal and have him join the feeling of being six feet under. In three days, he believed he'd be okay. It's the fifth day when the tears start coming out of nowhere—wipes his face as soon as the tears fall. The idea of not being good enough never left his head. It almost replayed enough time that Niall's beginning to believe it. And he falls back on everything.Three weeks pass and it’s hard to say he’s okay anymore. He's not okay enough to text the ten messages back from Zayn who's asking about their abrupt distance apart. He's definitely not alright when he makes plans to what time he'll leave his class, what exit he'll take just to avoid Zayn constantly worrying that shouldn't have to exist in the first place if Niall didn't let the opinions of Zayn’s friends control him.Even Louis worries when Niall gets ambushed by him, forced him to with him to get a gift for his sister who's visiting from London. He's not stupid to figure that out because Louis never meets him outside his class.Through a series of stores, Louis without a "welcome back" gift, Niall catches him sneaking a few stares from the mirrors in boutique shops and pass the racks. It could've been a good day.At the bookstore, Louis disappears to the back, and Niall couldn't be anymore selfish when he walked out of the store from Louis who's unknowingly searching for a book."Where you running off to, shithead?" Louis laughs and immediately throws his arm around Niall who startles in fright. "I want to know what book I should get Felicity."Niall grunts when he backs away from Louis's presence. "Diary of Anne Frank. Unlikely she's ever read it, I assume?" He mutters. Everyone knows the story but no one ever really took it in Anne's perspective. "Besides, humans have this tendency to put themselves in someone else's life. It's second nature.""Hinting at something?" Louis asks. Niall likes that Louis doesn't own a bone of kindness that would hold him back from going straight to his point."Maybe." Niall sneers. He hadn't thought of it like that. It's just everyone around him, including himself, have this kind of urgency to learn about people's life. It comes through the form of gossiping and reading. It's everywhere, even in this part of his life."We all got our shit." Louis shares with him. “So what’s wrong? Can I talk to you about him now?"Niall shrugs. He doesn't have the nerve to admit he needs someone to talk. Opening his mouth to talk never did quite happen so often. He let everything but words speak for him. The nerve he's got over his skin is his pride—he doesn't need anyone to tell him what he's doing wrong."Your come nowhere as understandable as math, you know." Louis laughs quietly. "It's only so rare to find someone who loves the complications behind numbers and letters."Niall sighs, wincing. "It's not him.""He might not know that."Niall wish he can tell him, but he can't. Not yet anyway.The first time he meets Zayn is after the many weeks he's avoided him is planned. He wasn't going to do it forever, move as if Zayn's to blame for everything he's secretly dealing with on his own between Niall and Zayn's friends. This was a fight he's been carrying with him since Zayn introduced Niall to his group of friends. They were always chilling towards him. Many days since, he still has no clue why the fuck they hate him."So," Zayn starts with a dry and awkward opening. What do you really say to someone you're dating but haven't seen them in weeks? "My mom says hi. She kind of wanted me to hand you these sweets, but I might've ate them all, I'm so sorry.""It's okay." The corner of Niall's mouth barely curls into a smile, but it's there—faint and hesitant. He really likes Zayn's mom. Niall refers to her as like a baking master. Her things may not look like desserts you find in books and magazines, but they taste way better than anything a bakery sells. "I wanted to drop by and say hi. But things, kind of, had gone different ways, and I just had to see how they would go if I wait it out.""Are you alright now?" Zayn asks."Uh, I'm—" Niall wants a word to define everything for him, to finally tell Zayn again, without having any kind of frightening results like before, that things aren't going so well. So Niall settles with, "not." And Zayn's turning to gaze at Niall with eyebrows furrowed quite in."Tell me, yeah." Says Zayn in a soft tone that Niall considers some thought into that decision."Maybe—some other time." That's his conclusion, and he won't pretend that didn't hurt him to say out loud as it did to catch a glimpse of emotion fade away from Zayn's face. "I-It's not something for you to spend time worrying about, okay?""I haven't seen you in a week, Niall." Zayn sighs with disappointment laced all over it and in between—everything from his breath, to his face, to his name. "And I know when you're okay and when you're not. You can't play that on me, making me believe a false idea that you're okay.""It's not something to talk about when we're out." Niall keeps his eyes steady off somewhere else, instead of Zayn who's peering him down with every iris of his and depth of his pupil. There's nothing to look at but the park where the cherry blossoms are blooming and people are taking photos. "So when can we?" Zayn's voice starts to inch firmer."If you want the truth, I'm not okay." Niall immediately breaks out of the shell he's been hiding himself behind for weeks now. And it's only because of Zayn's tone that he should be annoyed of, but is—only because he cares, is why he sounds annoyed. "Of course you know that, so I really don't know when I'm ready to talk about this problem that keeps growing and growing.” Niall exhales in exasperation when he looks at his surroundings finding people that are subtly trying to listen. Even when he doesn't do anything, it's evolving into something bigger that it'll grow until it knocks him down, and he’s left standing on his knees."Fine. Let's go home and we'll talk about it." Zayn stops walking when everyone else starts to walk ahead. Niall's huffing, trying as hard as he can not to let this go by."I can't. I'm heading to the doctor's after for a check up.""Then we'll talk tonight at Aaron's place."And there's that weight on him that he starts to breathe all shallow. "I'm not going." Niall shakes his head. "Niall, stop avoiding me. What did I do?" Zayn huffs."I don't wanna talk to you there." Niall explains himself with his voice raising as well. "I'm not going because I want to avoid you. Why would you think that?""Because you never said a word to me this entire week." Zayn's voice is starting to shake. "And when you finally do, it's for a brief minute before you try to leave again, and I'm here left hanging, not knowing how to help you.""Zayn, I've told you." He had to lower his voice to a drone. Zayn was always more prone to vulnerability than he was, and no one ever seemed to realize. "I want to talk where it's only between you and I. Not like this, and not where your friends around. Just you and I." And his arm is around Zayn's shoulders, where he's bringing them aside to a bench."I know—" Zayn's breath trembles once they sit turned face to face. "But I just hate seeing you handle it all alone.""Fine." Niall shakes his head, grimacing just as he sees Zayn's unfolded collar from his plaid shirt that he fixes. "It's your friends, Zayn." Niall looks up to Zayn's eyes, but quickly looks to his fingers fixing Zayn's collar. “They talk a lot of shit and I’m sure they don’t care if I hear them or not anymore.”"I’m so sorry, Niall. I'll talk to them again." Zayn's sighs. "But just try to ignore them. They’re stupid as shit. It’s me and you, yeah? I’ll always have your back.”Niall nods weakly, and that's all he can do with Zayn's advice that he can't believe he's going to listen to him for the second time now—ignore what his friends have to say, like it isn't constantly ringing in his head that they think he isn't right for Zayn.The worse thing is, later that night, he's out with Zayn and his friends at a bar they planned to all go out to. And maybe planned without Niall, but he's there, feeling their stares burn into his skin. He didn't want to be there too, but Zayn asked him with this smile on his face that tonight would be fun. In what way, Niall has to figure that out for himself because it's really not.He can't talk to anybody; no one here was interested in talking to him anyways. Zayn was absent, but there, with his hand on Niall's lap, rubbing his hand on Niall's thigh just so his hand can do something to tell Niall he's right beside him.But it's not working, so he drinks and drinks the drinks that come around, and orders a few more that he knows Zayn's friends are judging him for. If he can't talk, he'll occupy himself to drinks to seem like a socialite.It's not the conversation to blame, nor the people. It's something else no one can really be blamed for, but the bad vibes Niall gets that he might be reading wrong, but obviously that's wrong because no one's talking to him.He's not drunk, but he's at the brim of being brave. "Are you good?" Zayn asks quietly, rubbing his thigh."I think I'm gonna head home." Niall exhales."Yeah, I guess we should." Zayn checks his phone for the time while Niall catches a glimpse of it—it’s only 10:40."I think you should stay." Niall holds Zayn's shoulder as he maneuvers out of his seat. "Night's still early, and I don't wanna hold you back from your friends." He says in a whisper at this point."No, come on." Zayn tries to move but Niall's shaking his head. "Please," Niall mumbles. "Just—have fun."He drops a few bills to pay for his drinks and anybody who needed help paying there's off. And there he goes, out from another prison he's eventually going to have to go back to.What's he supposed to say to everyone—you all make me feel like shit just for being where I don't even want to be? It's to the point that Niall feels like he can’t do anything so he goes to Trisha’s house because somehow, she's really the only one he can talk to without having to feel like he doesn't belong.So he's at her door with a small box of pizza in case she didn't have anything to eat yet this late in the hour, or if she still feels hungry. And her smile was probably the only uplifting thing that made him smile too today."I haven't seen you!" She gives Niall a tight hug with a kiss on his cheek. "Oh, you stink."That makes him laugh. "I had a few drinks and I was caught up with school." Niall shrugs, handing her the box before he can start stepping on his heel to take his shoes off."Where's Zayn?" She asks."He's out with friends." He slides his shoes aside to the rack. "Kind of why I'm here.""Ok." She nods, holding the cushion of the couch. "Do you want anything?" "No." He waves his hands as a no before he sits. "I shouldn't be here so late either, I'm sorry.""Don't worry. It's catch up time.""You're not dealing with too much at work?" Zayn's mom owns a restaurant, and things like that get so tough as Niall recalls in a few food shows. She also has a spot beside Niall's university which could get pretty hectic at certain hours."No, hired a few more hands who need the hours." She starts to ponder. "An ordering mishap but it's all cleared.""Got too much?" "No. I wanted farmer's market vegetables, and they gave me like Walmart market produce.""Hope it wasn't as terrible as it sounds.""Somewhat, but we've managed to fix it." She looks at the pizza box.But Niall shakes his head before she can get up. "That's for you.""Are you sure you don't want any?" She lifts a brow. "You did buy it.""No. I won't hang here much longer." Because Zayn might be visiting any time soon and that's the last thing he wants to happen while he's here."Are you okay?" She asks quietly.He squeezes his eyes shut from letting the pricks of his tears fall as he shakes his head. But it doesn't work, and he's crying already in front of Zayn's mom."What's wrong?" She quickly sits beside him."I don't know what to do." Niall shakes his head. "I haven't done anything, and somehow, every one around Zayn hates me that I don't wanna be with him anymore.""Niall, I'm so sorry." She starts to rub his back."Don't think it's Zayn, okay?" He wipes his eyes with the bend of his thumb. "It's just the company around him. I’m sure they’re alright if I wasn’t around for them to see.""Did you talk to him?""Yeah. Told me to ignore it, and that's really as far as we go." Niall swallows. "I tried, but I can't. They won't change. It's been six months since I met them and they've hated me since and I haven't done anything. If I did, I wanna know.""But you need to do more than ignore, and you know that. Zayn doesn't know that.""I can't go out with him and his friends without feeling like I don't belong." Niall huffs. "They say things like Zayn should be with someone else in front of my face, how better off Zayn would be without me.”"These are things that you have to talk through one on one. You guys can't let friends nose in on your business. And Niall, you can't look for acceptance.""No, I don't want accept—" Niall exhales, but Trisha cuts him off."People aren't gonna like you. And I'm sorry that Zayn's friends haven't given you the chance to show who you really are. However, you're going to let them win if you leave." Niall shakes his head, and Trisha’s tone had gotten firmer all of the sudden. "You guys are good for each other, even if I didn't see it at first. The two of you get so happy when you're around each other. He isn't there to complete you, but he's the one person that's on the same boat as you. If you walk away because of these people, then you let them win."His voice trembles when he confesses, "I'm terrified of them." And that's probably the answer to everything."There's no reason to be." She embraces him with her arm around his shoulder.He went home with Trisha’s advice, and went through another night where he had to let Zayn's text go through his phone like he never saw it. There were plenty asking him if he got home, and if things are okay—the usual questions that Niall likes to hear. But he's the jerk who won't reply if he doesn't feel it, and he's barely feeling it after nights like these. Especially tonight.It's different when Zayn's with Niall's friends. Way different. But he won't say anything.The night of the Year-End Exhibition, Niall’s friend Eddie is presenting a painting he's worked on since the semester began. It involved acrylic and oil on a 20x15 steel plate, and many layers of overlapping and scraping paint over one another. That was Eddie’s favourite piece. Everything else he has up were all suggestions, and little did he know he'd get good reviews. His friends had come to: 1. Check Eddie’s part of the exhibit, and 2. See how pretentious everyone else was. At least that was Niall, Louis, and Zayn's idea of fun at an art school."Hey!" Zayn's voice broke through the din conversations happening around the place. Niall's turning to greet Zayn with a hug that was long overdue."Did you see Louis?" Zayn asks, and he continues to stay attached by Niall with his arm around his waist. "I haven't, so we’re going to hang out here while we wait for him if it's no trouble for you.""None at all." Niall shakes his head, then leans to press a kiss on Zayn's neck. That was long overdue too. "Eddie won’t mind. It’ll stir people up, wondering why there’s a crowd of people at this spot.”"His paintings are so beautiful." Zayn laughs. "I know.”Finally Louis arrived, and Zayn's excited to roam about the school and see the people dressed up all extra.It's just like Niall knew, Zayn and Louis left to chill around the exhibit while Niall went back to Eddie. That's the difference Niall had always seen between them as they go out. He hasn't see Zayn's friends for a two weeks now, and it's been the best two weeks he's ever lived. And it'll always come tumbling down on him when he has to face them again, and have the expectation every time. Why couldn't it be like this all the time? Louis approved Zayn when Niall had broke it to him and a few other friends that they were going to try this dating thing that scared Niall so much. It still does.This was one of the many nights Niall really felt like they're together. He wants to say it’s like that every day and every night, but he'd only be lying.He couldn't forget the words Zayn's mom had told him. It rings with the rest of the things that made him afraid, but it rings louder than anything he's ever heard.But it wasn't for tonight. Tonight was lovemaking. This is the rush Niall wants to feel constantly, not fear. He wants to sweat for it, not when he's around those who despise him. Niall kisses him all over his body, from the neck to his hip to the lower part of his spine. It was for a while Niall forgot how it all felt because he let those friends of Zayn win. Until tonight, Niall's gone back to remembering how he loves to kiss, loves to lick his neck and nipples, and Niall knew how it made Zayn all breathless and edgy. Everything else became a blur after. Zayn wished he had focused every nerve of his to count how many times Niall made him moan, how hard he made it for Zayn to keep his mouth shut, and to just make him feel good. It was his night, but Zayn made sure it belonged to the both of them. At least this once if he doesn't make it to the next.And he thinks he can't the next time when it's Zayn's upcoming birthday. This was a decision he had to make, one he had cried about and pretend like it's not consuming him to the bone.So, they came home to Zayn's flat where Zayn felt his heart stop when his friends had somehow found a way to get in, clean and decorate his flat, bring all these drinks and food in with the company he loves. And Niall wondered if he should call his family to come, because Zayn's family came to Niall's birthday party when Louis and Zayn planned it. But he had to let it go, just like he did with many things.Especially when Niall is wandering around with Zayn to thank the people who came, just to find himself constantly hearing, "nice party you threw for him", and Niall's repeated answer, "not me" with a fake grin.He dismissed from the little greets to get a drink from the kitchen, stopped himself from breathing, kept his focus on the hardwood floor, and let them talk. Ignore it. Ignore it all. It didn't mean Niall never heard what they had to say under their breaths. It's funny because it's true: what kind of a boyfriend doesn't throw his own boyfriend a party? They were always so honest."Hi Niall." Zayn's mom hugged him. This was no greeting, but a check up because his face always said it all. He was lucky she was away from the crowd, because he was already squeezing his eyes shut, trying not to let the tears come out this fast again."I don't think I can do it. I can't even be here to celebrate his birthday without so much guilt." Says Niall through the music. Her face softens when she hears his words."I wish I can help." Because Niall knows this isn't middle school where she can just tell Zayn to find new friends. Niall was just the boyfriend, to be honest. He wasn't there with Zayn like his friends were from high school. "It's okay." Niall tried to force a smile on. "I just wish I wasn't the asshole leaving so soon.""I understand, and by any means, don't feel bad. I don't know how bad this is becoming but if you need to leave because of it, then go, okay?" She smiled tightly. "I'll make something up.""No, I'll tell him myself." Niall sniffs. "At least it's something I can do for him.""Hey!" Zayn had joined all of the sudden, giving his mom a big hug and kiss on her cheek. Niall had to swallow that lump clawing his throat. "I think we just got a puppy." Niall didn't even realize Zayn was carrying a puppy in one arm."As if you can take care of it." His mom laughed."Niall'll help me. He's good with animals anyway." Zayn pouts while he pets the head of the puppy. Then he brings it towards Niall who looks at the King Charles cavalier puppy with sad eyes. "What's wrong?""Um, I don't even know actually." Niall laughs half-heartily. "And I don't know how to say this, but I'm gonna head home.""Why? It's only 8." By then, Zayn's mom had already left to talk to Zayn's cousins who were hanging around in their own group. "I don't feel good.""Okay, you head back, and I'll be there at 9 top.""No, Zayn." Niall laughs again, his chest twisting. "I want you to enjoy your night. It's me that has to go, not you.""Niall, what do you mean have to?" Zayn asks. He puts down the puppy to roam."You told me to ignore it, and I have. I've ignored it when I didn't want to, I've ignored it when I knew I shouldn't, and I've ignored it since the beginning." Niall exhales with the biggest smile he's had tonight. Fake, no doubt. "I don't wanna keep ignoring something that's calling for my attention. I'm not strong like you. I wish I was, then I wouldn't be running away from your friends.""Niall, lets talk in my room." Zayn had taken his hand but it didn't last for long because Niall had taken it back, stayed on his spot for Zayn to understand he can't."I can't even do that." Niall exhales, while he shakes his head. "I wish I can tell you everything, but staying here is just so overwhelming. I know I'm an asshole, for leaving on your birthday, but it's what your friends want, and I hope you don't mind.""How long?" Zayn grimaces, and Niall can't even pretend he doesn't see Zayn ready to bawl. It's sad that he gets it. It's sad that Zayn knows he won't be leaving just for tonight; his absence is more than a day."I don't know." Niall shrugs with a taut grin. "It'll be a while before I can say. I mean, for a year... It just lasted that long that I can't say I’ll be okay in the next week.""Don't say a month." Zayn scoffs with his eyes wetting up. He starts to laugh as well. "Say like, tomorrow.""There’s no way." Niall swallows when he fixes the collar of Zayn's shirt. "It's just too quick to say.""So, then stay for the night, and then leave in the morning.""I can't do that to you." Says Niall quietly. He didn't think this was going to happen like this, so maybe going Zayn's room was good plan.When they got there, Zayn had dropped to the end of the bed, sat there without stopping the tears going down his face. Niall sat beside him, pulled his sleeves to his fingers where he turned and looked at Zayn's face, wiped the tears he didn't wanna stop."I'll stay for now." Niall decides. He couldn't leave so quick into the night, drop these things on Zayn and expect it not to get bad at all."Where's your brother?" Zayn sniffs."Busy. But he won't forget your birthday." Niall shakes his head. He's sure of it."I wanna tell you how sorry I am." Zayn swallows."Zayn, it's not you." Niall huffs. "You didn’t do anything to make me do this.""But I should've done more. I wasn't thinking about you. I didn't think at all." Zayn explains. “Because that’s the thing, I didn’t do anything.”"Don't worry." Niall sighs. "Enjoy your birthday. Your cake is probably melting." He had a glimpse of it when he was scavenging Zayn's fridge for a beer. "I'm not hungry." Zayn grumbles."So what are you in the mood for if not cake?" Cake always makes a lot of people happy."I'm in the mood for you to be happy.”A smile forms on Niall's face as he chuckles airily. "I'll be here until everyone clears out." Niall decides on that."Take Scoots, at least." Zayn laughs. "To keep each other company."He shrugs before he can give Zayn the definite answer he wants to hear. "It's the least I can do.""I can visit, right?" Zayn swallows. "Like to visit her...""Oh sure. Can visit me too.""I—yeah, of course." Zayn exhales, and leans against Niall's body for that accepting embrace of his.All Niall could think about at this moment was the music invading their room through the thin walls. There should be something happening, and he figured it's his fault for holding Zayn back in from his party. Literally. His arm is wrapped around him over his lower back, made him feel like shit that he doesn't wanna do anything anymore but stay with him. That's even worse."Let's go out." Niall nudges him. "Can't be in here all night.""What about... I don't want you to feel uncomfortable.""I-I'll try." And hope nothing happens between him and Zayn's friends on Zayn's birthday.It was the least he can do for Zayn to enjoy the rest of the night he hasn't ruined for him. They eventually find Scoots who is only spending her time here getting the attention of the people with its cuteness. He never did want to be driven out like this. He knows better than to let people like Zayn's friends push him to his limits. Can't figure out why they do, yet they just do without a reason. Despite the uncomfortable stares he had while he sat aside with Louis as Zayn said hi to a few more people, he liked the night. It was about Zayn, and he's happy to see his flat filled with people who care about him to spend their Friday celebrating his 22 years."What's your present?" Louis asks, moving his hip as he finds a comfortable spot on the couch."It's in his room." Niall shrugs; he had dropped it off earlier before they occupied themselves the whole entire day and came back. Besides, Niall had already done plenty for him today—not saying he can't do more, but he got him a pair of Nike runners which is what he left in his room, a watch that Zayn's wearing now, and then a blender.Constantly through the night, he'd be looking for him; turning his head left and right if he doesn't find Niall anywhere. Smile, if he does find him then turn back. Niall would grin back awkwardly and look away. It felt all wrong to have to do this. At the same time, it's comforting to know Zayn's thinking about him between his conversation with his friends who Niall wants to avoid. They're the ones beside Zayn when he blows the candle off his cake, and the ones who sink his face in the cake after before they brought out the real one. They're the ones who laugh with him and take pictures, and Niall's the one who admires from afar, hoping Zayn all the best before he's going home. He can't do it.It's hard to look at Zayn and be happy while his friends intimidate him to the verge that Niall can't be happy at all. It'll be long before Niall can again, and it isn't in a day.He spends the majority of his week working at the cafe. His friend Hailee, who he had gone on a blind date with set up by Louis months ago, is the one who goes with him to the movies and restaurants he wants to visit. Maybe Louis too if he wasn't so busy with Ella. Hailee had no real connection to Zayn. She has an idea of him, but he's only told her he's been busy with things which is why they've been spending time apart. It's funny when the truth is Niall's only trying to figure out what he's good for in Zayn's life. So far, he's only distracted himself from working on it. Scoots was also a distraction. A cute distraction and good company. The way she slept beside him and woke him up with her nosing against his neck, Niall would almost think she's looking out for him until he's okay again. He had to owe it to Zayn to take care of her, give her the love that she's been providing him.It's a long process but he's getting there. It's been two weeks; he and Zayn text on certain occasions, wondering how each of them are doing. Niall really misses him, to say the truth. And there's nothing more he wants than to feel Zayn's warm embrace spread. It's just so hard to go back to someone he’s been with for nearly two years, while he’s constantly fighting words in his mind from people Zayn is so close to.Niall would go back if the way he felt changed for the better.He was closing tonight. He took the opportunity to play his music through the sound system, and sing at the top of his lungs with Hailee. Niall would laugh when their voices would harmonize together, and it's freaking weird how amazing they sound."What are you doing this Saturday?" Hailee asks.Niall shrugs, "At this point, I really don't know what I'm doing in general.""What do you mean?" She asks. "What's up?""I don't wanna tell you... For your sake anyway." Niall exhales. However, Hailee's got opinions that Niall doesn't mind listening to. She has insight on things nobody can influence, an opinion Niall might only consider. "Must be bad?" She turns down the volume of the music."No," Niall sighs, leaning himself against the edge of the counter. "I've called things off with Zayn, just for a while. I don't know when I'm ready to get back together. I don't think I can.""What happened?" "Long story short, I don't think I'm good enough for him." Niall shrugs indifferently. "His friends hate me, tell him without holding back on every word—they must see something I don't."She sighs, a smile forming on her face. "Niall, you won't ever be good enough for someone—that’s how life is. But at least you're there for him. Like, it's hard, especially with people who don't like you. There will be people like that, Niall. Do you really want to impress them? What are you impressing them for?"His lips twist off to the side, contemplating what he really wants. Then he looks up at Hailee with firm gaze. "Nothing. I just want them to stop saying that shit because I’m dating him. I’m not dating them.”Hailee asks softly. "Doesn't Zayn know that you’re good to him? That is why he's with you, or was, right?""Yeah." Niall swallows with a weak grin.And that's all he needed to hear.Good thing someone was leaving Zayn's apartment. It saved him the trouble of asking Zayn to let him upstairs. He doesn't want him to know he's coming—he doesn't know what he's here for yet but to save Zayn from thinking they're over.It does make things easier. They've only been dating for nearly two years and he's gone way past the field of no return. Things between them won't exactly fall apart. As if they're an old architecture, it'll crumble down bit by bit until there's nothing anymore. Better slow than all at once like demolition, right?There's a very light tap from his knuckles that he begins to regret already when he hears the din of conversation through the walls. Unclenching his knuckles, he's backing away from the door and farther into the hallway when he hears a din of people talking from his place. And the words of demeaning were back."Niall!" Zayn calls from his door."Oh," Niall turns just to see Zayn for the first time in a month. A sigh escapes, and he's trudging back.They meet in the middle. The first one to make a move is Zayn. "Is everything okay?" Zayn throws his arms around Niall, mouth pressed over the crook of his neck."I thought you're alone, but..." Niall tightens his arms around, his hand holding Zayn's nape."Please, Niall. Just stay." Zayn exhales shakily. "I know you don't want to but I missed you, and I didn't think you were ever gonna come back.""I just want you to know," Niall's voice drones quietly. He needed Zayn to hear him clear enough without anyone else catching a word. "The things your friends say might be true.""It isn't." Zayn takes a step back from Niall and shakes his head with a glare. Zayn doesn't pay any clue to what they really say. Though those three always express their hate for Niall, and they're not afraid to make it known when they're together. He just knows they're wrong."I'm not finished." Niall puts a hand out to stop Zayn from doing anything else but listen. He swallows before he can continue with, "your friends know things we don't, so maybe I get why they hate me. I didn't necessarily take time to get to know them so they might've been holding that against me. And I'm being sincerely honest." Zayn only nodded, and never questioned the cliché confession he's expressing about life. That's what really impressed Niall. The one person who has a comment for everything finds a way to shut his mouth up and listen. And it might be even killing his nerves to nod and listen without having a word in yet."Between you and I, we know what goes on. And it’s taken me a long time to realize that because I’m an idiot. It’s just you and I—I’m not dating your friends so I really don’t care if they hate me or not anymore." Niall exhales. They spend a long time in silence. From Zayn's facial expression, Niall can see he's thinking deeply.“It’s not that they hate you.” Zayn finally opens up. “They’re more annoyed with me because they’re all closer to this other guy who’s not quite happy that I’m with you. I should’ve told you it was like that."“Is it that Harry guy?”“Yeah... It has to do a lot more with me than you.” He swallows. "My friends introduced him a few months after we started going out. I found out he had feelings for me and wanted me to break up with you. When I said I wouldn't, he sort of told everyone and twisted the story.""Are you alright?" Niall asks with his eyebrows narrowed in with worry. "I had no idea they were doing this to you.""I'm good, yeah." Zayn laughs. "They get on my nerves a lot, but they're my friends. I guess." He rolls his eyes afterwards.Niall’s lips twist off to the side. He's not sure whether he's allowed to say it, and of course he's not. Though it's on the tip of his tongue, and Zayn's smiling like this is finally it of this bullshit."Seriously, fuck your friends." Niall grumbles when he gestures at them with his head. "Can't even shut their mouths to save themselves."Zayn laughs quietly. Thank goodness he isn't mad. He shouldn't be anyways. They're real dicks who can't keep their comments to themselves, always blurting stupidity out as if it's not embarrassing them.Zayn’s the first one again to make a move. Niall believed it should have been him to make it just like a moment in a movie when a big speech happens. Fuck it anyway. He leans in too, pushing their lips together. He figured that's what Zayn wanted to do when his fingers pressed on his nape and his head tilted to the left.Zayn's laughing in between before jutting his lips back between the other pair. Usually, when Zayn laughs like this, something's up. Niall can question it but he won't; he's pushing his lips harder between Zayn's bottom lip.There's the taste of what he's missed on Zayn's lips that Niall needs to familiarize himself with again. And the feeling he gets... Oh man—words can't express how much it makes the hairs on his arm stand, makes his cheeks throb with such a heat, and hate Zayn altogether for driving his mind crazy like this. He's supposed to think straight right now. But he's dumb instead to keep this happening in the hallway and not inside his flat.Zayn closes his lips between Niall's top lip before he can pull away just an inch enough and still keep their bodies pressed together."I love the speech." Says Zayn smirking. Niall laughs while he taps his fingers on the small of Zayn's back. "That's only to scare them, right?" He purred through his smile. "Other than that, you're the sweet, kind, and very thoughtful man of mine that I adore the most about you." Laughing, Zayn pecks Niall's lips; slow and soft. He needs it from time to time and Zayn's glad to do it."I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Niall has to make sure. It's the least he can ask when he took Zayn from his friends the whole entire night. "No." Zayn grins and tilts his head to the left."Zayn!" A voice calls from inside. Maybe he spoke too soon.With Niall behind, Zayn's heading back inside, greeted by unhappy faces when they look at the lad closing the door behind him. He juts his chin at them as a hi while Niall turns the lock before he can turn and see all three of the assholes are here. Still can't blame Zayn; they are his friends after all.They turn away from Zayn, only because their mood flew right out of the window as soon as Niall stepped in. He wasted Zayn's time out there—continuously wasting his time with the way Niall won't give up on Zayn. It's annoying; no one likes him anyway.Niall was still overwhelmed with fear, but it was okay because Zayn knew how they were and at the end of the day, it would always be the two of them. Although, he does feel like a stranger to them and Zayn's flat."I'll be in your room." Niall mutters."You took long because of him?" Liam asks quietly but loud to Niall that it was blaring in his mind that he stopped walking and glared at Liam. Really, these were Zayn's friends?“Hey, when you guys are done being fucking annoying, just shut the door behind yourselves.” Zayn cuts in."Dude, it was a joke." Aaron scoffs."Yeah, that's why I laughed." Zayn grimaces and the corners of Niall's mouth pull down. He's doing his best not to laugh at the harsh sound of Zayn's sarcasm. "Seriously, I'll see you guys when you stop being rude. I know you don't like him—you don't even try to hide it anymore, even though I asked you to keep your shit to yourself. It's irritating.""Alright, whatever." Liam mutters as he awkwardly scratches his head. Aaron's just laughing behind his knuckles, but he knew he screwed up pissing his friend off. It's hard to come back from that. He can tell Zayn went easy on them; he would have kicked them out if it were just any other person.They don't bother waiting for Zayn's friends to leave and went into his room without giving them the benefit of the doubt. Niall knew at this moment he shouldn't say a word, that he should just give into the moment Zayn looked at him differently—sad almost, but sincere—then took the will to hold both sides of his neck and lean in.Just give and take back without any questions is what Niall told himself a few times until it meshed with every other thoughts that were flittering in his head. Zayn was kissing him into their room. That had to mean something.Then the thoughts became nothing and Niall was kissing back with nothing—just his body, using every part of him to give back what he wants to share with Zayn. No one spoke. There were sounds instead. Beautiful sounds that made Niall's stomach twist and limbs ache. And the flushed skin he felt under his finger tips was bliss. He was in a state of happiness. The idea of Zayn ditching everyone for him repeated in his mind. It was what made him laugh the whole night, what made him bite his lips with a mad look on his face while he went down on Zayn.  All Niall heard was the door shut after twenty minutes—or it might've been Zayn's head on the headboard. Whatever. They're gone—for now.The next time Niall goes out with Zayn , he sees his friends and all he can do is grin at them and cackle in his mind.