Who are you?

chapter 6.

Louis didn't sleep at all that night. Harry had asked him to text him when he got home, just to make sure he was safe, and after he did, he didn't stop texting Harry. Harry wanted to know about what he's been doing the last three years, and well, so did Louis. He didn't know how to answer any of the questions Harry had asked, so he just made shit up on the fly. 

Yeah, I've been taking singing lessons since X-Factor, I've also started on guitar and dancing lessons. 

I've dabbled a little bit in football, I almost got to play for the Donny Rovers but work got in the way.

I did work at a record store but I quit some time back

Okay so he didn't entirely lie, but he did have to come up with stories that wouldn't make him seem weird or suspicious. Harry didn't seem to catch on, thankfully. Louis couldn't even began to think for an explanation if he got even a little bit suspicious. 

He learned that in this world, Harry never dated Taylor - which made sense, all things considered - but he did have quite a few hookups with Nick Grimshaw in the past few years, which made Louis want to kick the radio host's ass. 

"It's not real," Louis kept repeating to himself after Harry revealed that.

He also learned that while Harry wasn't completely out of the closet, management did let him say he was experimenting with boys once. Louis was jealous of that, but a part of him always knew that management would've been nicer about their sexualities if they weren't dating. Actually, Louis at least probably wouldn't have been out to their management if he wasn't totally in love with Harry from the moment he laid eyes on the curly boy. 

He also figured out that Niall was the 'funny one' of the group. Back in the early days of One Direction, they liked to frequently check what the fans had labelled them as, and Louis had been the 'funny one' since day one it seemed.  Embarrassing himself on the video diaries really helped that, he assumed. 

Niall was one of the funniest people he knew, so it was no surprise that he took Louis' place. Liam was still the 'dad' of the group, but apparently he wasn't as corrupted without Louis. He learned this because One Direction somehow got second instead of third in the X-Factor, and it was probably because Louis wasn't spending every waking hour trying to annoy the piss out of Liam or impressing Harry. 

See how much more successful they are without you? a voice said in Louis' mind, and Louis felt his heart drop. The voice was right. Without him, they almost won the X-Factor, and while they weren't famous worldwide, they were still pretty big in Europe.

'I'm going to go to bed,' Louis texted not long after that. After his sudden realization of how much better off the band was without him, he didn't feel like talking anymore.

'Aww, why? :(' Harry asked, and Louis smiled at the emoticon. 

'It's 2:30, Harry. I'm tired', he texted back, which was true, it was 2:30. They've been talking for nearly 3 hours. 'Besides, you should rest after the show. We can text any time,' Louis added as an after thought. 

'Okayyyy you're right, text me in the morning?' Harry asked, making Louis' smile somehow grow larger.

'Of course:)' 

':)' 

Harry's texting style definitely hasn't changed in this world, Louis thought to himself as he shut off his phone. He was glad that, even though he wasn't famous, he'd still found Harry. He did promise Harry that even if they didn't make it through X-Factor, he would find his way back to him. It was kind of poetic how that worked out, really.