call it what you want • narry storan AU

eight: niall

"It's done. You can open your eyes now."

Harry initially seems scared to follow my instruction, but as soon as I touch his cheekbone with my thumbs, he feels comfortable and open his eyes wide for me. I pull back so he can see himself in the mirror, his jaw barely dropping to the floor seconds after that. I grin a bit with the sight in front of me, and put my hands on each of his shoulders.

"What do you think, Haz? Did I do a wonderful work?"

He doesn't answer me. Instead, his eyes are still wide open and I start wondering if he's hating the result of the haircut.

"Nialler."

"You hated it", I start panicking, pacing the room back and forth to the position where Harry is sitting. "I'm sorry if you hated it, I just wanted to end the torture of presencing your hair go wilder above your head."

He suddenly gets up from the chair, wrapping his arms around my waist and, once again in this day, burying his face on my neck, planting quick pecks there.

"Thank you", he mutters. "It's perfect."

"No, it's not", I say, "you'll eventually have to fix it with a professional, you know."

"Still perfect, Ni. Still perfect. I wanna show it to Gemma, she will freak out."

"Woah, woah, you need to calm down. Take a shower first", I pat his left shoulder. "You better do as I say."

"I will, daddy", his words make me laugh out loud - like, really loud. "What?"

"Don't know. The way you said daddy maybe did hit me different", I joke, rolling my eyes as I leave his bedroom.

"I love you!" I hear him scream from his bathroom, and I can't stop myself from smiling widely after hearing him say those words.

I wait for him on the living room, watching celebrations of the new year around the world, but my head is definitely on the clouds. I guess you can tell that I'm always daydreaming about a hundred things in a single day, and I guess I can tell you that's right. I had a little trouble with that when I was younger and still a high school student, trying to find a place in the world - or something like that - until Simon Cowell put me in a band, and the rest is history.

Literally.

I try to think of words I can choose to tell Harry about my feelings. Feelings that did not fade away ever since we became close friends. I mean, how can you basically declare your love and affection for someone who only sees you as a friend/more-like-a-brother for a couple of years? It's not hard, I tell myself. Although I know it can ruin everything we've built all this time.

That's the part I fear the most.

"Horan", a dark shadow appears in front of me, almost scaring my entire body. I look up just to realize it's Harry, with a washed hair, completely different clothes and a smirk on his face. "You spaced out again?"

"Yeah, sorry", I smile back, giving space on the couch for him to lay down next to me. "Has your sister seen it?"

"She's not home. Again", Harry shrugs, putting his right arm around my neck. "What can we do tonight?"

"Wasn't you supposed to kill my blond hair or something like that?"

"Nah, I'm tired."

"Damn, we look exactly like who we used to be on our first tour", the words slip out of my mouth. I don't know why I'm talking about past when we don't even have decided what to do now, but as soon as I'm realizing, we're into this topic.

"What do you mean?"

"Remember when we had, literally, nothing to do on the tour bus and so we just kept staring at the ceiling all the time?" He laughs, probably reminding himself of those days. "Liam and I, we, kind of, invented a challenge because of that."

"The first one to come up with a really great idea to make time pass faster would sleep in the best bunker of the bus", Harry completes verbally what I was thinking of, making me smile proudly. "And the last one would sleep in the couch. A terrible idea, I must say."

"Of course it was a terrible idea. You lost the challenge almost every time we made it!"

"Not a fair game, okay?" He looks really outraged by this. "Zayn was the best at playing it, we gotta credit him for the success."

"Yeah." It's always a hard feeling that comes with the 'Zayn' topic. But we're slowly trying to ease it ever since the end of the 'Made in the A.M.' era. "He was really good at it."

Suddenly, I hear an unexpected rain pour down outside the house, and an unexpected idea comes to my mind, taking me off guard. The words, once again, are said before I can think about it.

"We should cuddle up. The rain outside is a perfect sign for it."

He looks at me with a little bit of disbelief in his eyes, but he shrugs for the fifth time today.

"My bed or yours?"

"Mine. It's a king-sized bed, you know", I say, getting up from the couch and extending my hands so he can hold on to me to get up too.

Five minutes later, we're cuddled at the big bed on the guests' room. The fingers of my right hand are tangled between his hair strands, while my left hand rests above his chest, his hand above mine too.

"Niall."

"Yeah?"

"I said earlier that I love you."

"I know."

"I still do."

I can't contain a smile on my face. I want to cry just because I heard those words from him.

"In what way?" I ask, without thinking too much about it.

"All the possible ways." He turns around, lying on his back. My arm is still resting on his chest, but now, I draw imaginary hearts with my index finger on his T-shirt. My eyes don't meet his until he lifts my chin, and this is how I realize that I'm so fucked up for loving my friend.