Escape Route (Decode Sequel)

Chapter Thirsty Seven - No Control.

Lennon.

I had never been to Ikea and if I knew what exactly a trip to said furniture shop entailed, I wouldn’t have brought Harry along, let alone Niall. I literally had no idea why Niall wanted to come furniture shopping, though he had mumbled something about meatballs and hot dogs when we left the house. 

Harry and Niall were like two big kids in an adult playground, I felt like pulling my hair out. We needed furniture for our new house but Harry was more concerned about winning the beanbag fight he was having with his best mate. Apparently pillow fights were overrated. I frowned at them like a disappointed parent as passers by looked our way with disgust sprawled across their face. It was harmless fun, they needed to keep their snotty nose opinions to themselves, their behaviour was just annoying rather than an inconvenience to anyone in the shop. 

I had managed to wrap the really badly made yet free, tape measure around my wrist too many times absentmindedly, that my fingers were beginning to turn an unpleasant shade of purple. I sighed and unwound it from my arm and left them to it. If Harry didn’t like the interior I chose that would be his fault, he probably wouldn’t care anyway. All he wanted was a bloody beanbag. 

“Hey did you see that self cleaning fish tank over there?” Harry jogged up to me as I inspected a wardrobe closely. I stopped what I was doing and turned my head to look at him questionably.

“No,” I paused. “Since when do you like fish?”

“I don’t, but it looks pretty cool.”

“So you plan on just filling it with water?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s a fish tank, you have to at least put fish in it.”

“But I don’t like fish.” He smirked and I swear I could have wiped it off with a gentle slap, but I refrained because the stares I had already gotten irked me enough, we didn’t need to have a domestic in the middle of Ikea. 

“Where are you gonna put it anyway?” I asked, turning back around to focus on the wardrobe again. It was study and a dark mahogany colour, I really liked it. I wrote down the product number on the piece of paper I had picked up on the way in for future reference. 

“Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom..” Harry listed off numerous rooms.

“Why would you put a fish tank in the bathroom? Who’s gonna see it there?”

“Me. When I’m taking a bath in my own fish tank.”

“You don’t take baths.” I dead-panned.

“I might take them up, I am slightly bias towards the bubble variety though.”

“Has anyone told you, you’re really fucking weird.” 

“You think I’m weird?” He laughed heartedly. “Niall has been walking round with two football cushions shoved under his shirt pretending to be a Katie Price wannabe for the past ten minutes.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.” But he wasn’t. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Niall strolling around the aisles with two cushions shaped like footballs pushed up his shirt. It was bad enough the fact he had done it in the first place but he was actually asking people to touch them, no surprise that most people ran away from him. “Should have got one of those kiddie carts to put him in.” I muttered but it was still funny watching him act like a complete idiot. 

Harry went back to messing with Niall after a brief encounter but not before he wrote down the product number for the so called self cleaning fish tank. I wasn’t against the idea, I just knew Harry would probably forget to feed the fish, if he ever did actually put any in there in the first place.