Sυρєя Sтαя [Lαяяу Aυ]

Pяσℓσgυє

He remembered the day so clearly. It could have been yesterday, the details were so sharp and vivid in his mind when he pictured it. The sun filtering in through the windows, the sky was colored azure, naked without a cloud to mar it. He had to grasp the details. He couldn't let himself forget how it felt, standing off to the side, his lower lip jutted out and just about wobbling with the quiver of emotions that was running throughout his entire being. He remembered how he wanted to crumble into a heap of skin and bones onto the floor as he watched his best friend since the sixth grade, his best friend for four years, packing up his bags to go. To start a career so fresh into their sophomore year and abandoning his side for the first time in what felt like forever in their century long friendship.

It all started a year prior when the shy Harry Styles he knew posted a video online of himself singing. It had managed to become an overnight sensation on YouTube. Harry had went to bed one night a normal man, and the next he had girls lining up on his doorstep, determined to be his future Misses Styles. He had gotten signed only a short month after, and began to brew up such a wonder of a first album, and already had a few hit singles under his belt and a tour he was readying himself to depart on. It felt like a part of Louis was leaving him that day.

Harry was his partner in crime, his other half. Without Harry, who would watch his back? Who would warn him when someone was coming and he was doing something stupid? He would be on his own for the first time in forever, and he didn't feel emotionally stable enough for something like this. There was nothing to ensure his emotional stability, one less beam to hold up his structure of emotions than what was required, and if another broke, so would he.

"You promise you'll text me?" Louis croaked, his voice wet with the fresh tears that were staining his cheeks. His heart was cracking. The idea of being left behind when they had hooked their pinkies together and swore on a sacred oath that they would always stick together, two peas of a pod, and always be the best of friends, was devastating. Louis had believed in that oath, he had believed in that sacred pact that they had formed together. And now it felt almost as if they were throwing it at all away. He must digress and say he was so unconditionally proud and excited for him. It was the mere idea of being trapped here while he went off to see the world and make his dreams come true that did not sit well with Louis.

"Everyday." Harry confirmed, throwing in a few blazers into his suitcase. Closing it was futile, so he attempted to make all the things he crammed inside of his bag fit by pushing down on it with his mammoth-like hands (at least to Louis, who at that time, was much smaller and more 'frail'). "Ugh," The sixteen year old grunted. "Please close! I'll marry you, and we'll go to a honeymoon wherever you want. Italy, America, Canada...Pizza Hut, if you would just close!" A snort emitted from Louis as he watched the lankier boy, squirming and struggling in a war against his indomitable suitcase.

Walking over, the older boy took his clothes out and folded them delicately, and then gently tucked away his clothes inside, after he managed to organize the rest of it's contents, rather than balling it up into one big mound. He easily zipped up the suitcase after that, and he rubbed his hands together, a smug look etched into his face despite the angry red eyes and runny nose. Harry stared at him in the few moments of silence that shortly ensued. He took in the other's profile, and his face softened at how vulnerable and small he looked, basically caving in on himself as he stood only a few inches in front of him. He was worse than Harry's mother, who had sobbed and hugged her baby with shaky hands, sniffling about how he would do more at only sixteen than she had ever done in all her years. He pulled Louis into a tight embrace, just as he had done to his mother as she cried.

"I sure am going to miss you, Lou."

"I'll miss you too, Super Star." Louis breathed into his ear. He started up with that nickname to grate Harry's nerves when they discovered that his video already had over half a million views and counting. Harry had been squealing in excitment (though he sounded like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on) and Louis had chuckled at his reaction of jumping up and down, and teased him by saying, 'calm down there, Super Star'. Harry had wrinkled up his nose in rejection to the name almost immeditately that first time, and he held the same reaction then.

"Don't call me that, you Lou-ser!" Harry wailed. He gave Louis one big shove, and with the unexpected force that pushed at his petite figure, Louis flew straight onto his bed back first and bounced up ten feet from the soft nudge of the springs. If he hadn't known gravity better, he would have suspected he may have dented the ceiling of Harry's room.

Harry cackled, and laughed like a seal, his hands clapping together as if he had witnessed a comedian talk on stage. After about five minutes of this, and Louis whining and protesting, Harry finally managed to calm down. He got onto the bed and crawled over, just so he plop down beside Louis, and somehow manage to curl up into a ball small enough for him to nuzzle in underneath the shorter boy and tuck his head underneath Louis' chin, despite his being taller. Louis tried his best to stay strong and resist the urge to wrap his arms around Harry. He wanted to be upset with him after his humiliating him like that, but of course Harry managed to melt his heart with the cat-like purr he perfected long ago, that now rumbled out of his throat lowly, as he whispered out a fond, "I love you Louis." Louis subcuumbed into the said urge shortly after that, and hugged the sixteen year old to his chest.

"I love you too." A blanket of comfortable silence filled the air around them. Louis could have basked in it all day, with Harry in his arms and tucked into him the way he was currently. His heart was beating like a drum against his chest, about ready to burst through his ribs. This was so comfortable, so normal, and now their routine was about to be disrupted by the calling of fame to Harry's name. There had been so much that hung in that silence. So many affectionate words that could have rolled off his tongue, but there was so little time. So he only settled with the words he spoke next. "Promise you won't forget me?"

"Lou," Harry rolled his eyes. "It's only a few months. I'll come back to visit every once in a while. For you, Gems and my mum. I couldn't just stay away from you guy's that long. I couldn't just forget either."

"Just humor me here Styles." Louis begged. "Promise me."

"Fine, fine. I promise I will never forget you, you idiot." Harry retorted. His emerald eyes were light and playful, twinkling like a green star in the illumination of the artificial light. Louis petulantly whacked Harry's bicep for the ending adjective. It only evoked a hearty laugh for Harry. Louis rolled his eyes, but then he held up a pinkie for Harry childishly, just as he had all those years ago in the sixth grade when they first met, and promised each other that they would always be the best of friends. It was a sacred oath, Louis remembered, one that could never be broken. It was all very dramatized, but so real to a pair so young.

"Pinkie swear it?" Louis gave him the most challenging, daunting look he could muster. Another fond look appeared on Harry's face, the ends of his smile miles apart, with dimples deep enough at each end for the ocean to fit inside them both individually. He took his own pinkie and hooked theirs together tightly. The physical contact was one of their last. It left butterflies in both of their stomachs as they stared so meaningfully into one another's eyes.

"I swear it. We'll be best friends forever, Louis." And Louis had believed him. Just as Eve believed the serpant, whose tongue was so sharp and cunning, that it managed to weaken her defenses. Harry had looked so elated, so happy and so small at the idea of facing the world alone. It had felt so real.

They were a duo, the two that were connected by the hip. They were the match made in heaven, the two very best friends, who held a bond so strong that it was rumored nothing could ever tear them so easily apart.

With something like that, who could have imagined such a short forever?