You and I | Harry Styles/1D Fanfic

Two.

Westfield Shopping Centre was surprisingly busy for a Thursday afternoon. Swarms of girls spilled out of shops, stalls, restaurants – they were literally everywhere. I looked over the barrier to the floor below and there was literally a queue of hundreds of girls in front of this long empty table in the middle of the mall.

"Why aren't these little shits at school?" I wondered out loud. It was half past one, surely afternoon classes should be starting for these kids? We squeezed through a crowd of girls (and by squeezed through I mean I put my excessively pointy elbows and zero shits given attitude to extremely good use) to make our way into HMV. The scent of Victoria's Secret spray hung heavy in the air as the sound of One Direction's 'Midnight Memories' rained down from above. I felt like all my senses were being attacked at once. Sure enough, I turned around and found myself face to face with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Justin Bieber.

"Okay, we need to leave." Zoe rolled her eyes.

"Stop being such a drama queen, Tay." My eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

"Drama queen? Victoria's Secret? One Direction? Justin Bieber? Zo, I feel like I'm trapped in your little sister's bedroom during an incredibly well attended sleepover," I ranted. I pointed at the cardboard cut-out. "Justin Bieber. You know how I feel about Justin Bieber." Zoe grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the offending object. We turned into one of the pop aisles and I literally froze in my tracks. One Direction. One Direction everywhere. As in there were about a thousand copies of each of their albums stacked on the shelves, not to mention a couple hundred of each single. There were 1D DVDs, 1D vinyls, there was even a 1D cut-out.

"Okay, what the fuck is happening?" I backed out of the aisle quickly, accidentally bumping into some guy as I did so. I glanced at him as he readjusted his shades and pulled his hat down further. I threw a "sorry" over my shoulder at him as Zoe dragged me back into the one direction that I really didn't want to be going in. We went right down to the end of the aisle where Zoe pointed at a sign on the wall.

"Look," she said. I inspected the notice, more as a way of distracting myself from the ever present 1D merchandise than for anything else.

"The boys will only be signing copies of their latest album, 'Four', at the signing this afternoon," I read aloud. I looked over at the section that was supposed to be containing that album and sure enough the shelves there were completely empty. I turned back to Zoe. "Oh." So there was a One Direction CD signing at Westfield today? That explained a lot.

I opened my mouth to let Zoe know that now a valid explanation had been given as to why it had seemed like I'd walked into a living nightmare, I was more than ready to calm down. Unfortunately, it was only then that I caught the expression on her face and realised that she was not.

"Ohmygod Tay it's One Direction! Actual One Direction are here! As in the real people One Direction! They are here today! Here! Please can we go, can we can we can we?" she squealed. I raised my hand to silence her before she could continue.

"Zoe Sofia Murray, do not start with me," I warned her. "You know how I feel about this." I mean, it wasn't that I hated One Direction. It was that I hated the response that people, noticeably young girls (and apparently Zoe), had to them. The screaming, the crying, the proclamations of undying, unyielding, never-ending love for a group of five, oops I mean four, boys that literally do not know who the fuck these people are... it just drove me mad. And now, for Zoe to willingly ask me to stand and immerse myself in the madness?

"Tay Ta-"

"Don't you dare Tay Tay me young lady," I warned. "I will not encourage your infatuation with this band of talentless pretty boys!" The guy I bumped into earlier turned to look at me over his shoulder. Oops, I must've been speaking louder than I thought. It was kind of disconcerting him staring at me like that. His shades were so dark that I couldn't actually see his eyes, and his jacket was done up right to his chin. Combine that with the fact that his beanie was shoved so far down his forehead that I couldn't even see his eyebrows, and, effectively, I was staring into the eyes of what looked like an enormously large blue bottle or something. I muttered the word "creep" under my breath before being drawn back into my conversation with Zoe.

"Taylor, please! You know how much I love them." She was whining again. For all of Zoe's many good attributes, her main failing was how much she loved to whine. Well, that and her love for 1D. They were her two main flaws. But I'd never been combine assaulted with both of them at once and there was something very draining about it. I was almost about to give in when I realised something.

"There aren't anymore 'Four' albums left!" She couldn't argue with that! Oh no, what a shame... Zoe seemed to realise that she'd been beaten then. She let out the most exaggerated sigh I think I'd ever heard (and trust me, I'm the queen of exaggerated audible noises) and looked down in defeat.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I grabbed her arm and linked mine through hers. I hated it when we linked arms. She loved it.

"I'm sorry you don't get to meet the four loves of your life toda-,"

"Love of my life. Just one. It's only Niall. Oh, and maybe Harry," she frowned to herself. "Yeah definitely Harry. Okay, so two loves, not four." I rolled my eyes.

"Okay, whatever, the two loves of your life then. I'm sorry you don't get to meet them," I lamented. "But don't let it get you down. You weren't planning on meeting them in the first place so just pretend that you never knew you could." Zoe shot me a glare. "Okay fine, maybe that's too big of an ask... They're shit with signings and things anyway, even you know that. You've heard the stories – they literally sign the CDs then move the fans along so fast I'm surprised they haven't faced lawsuits for whiplash. They barely even say hello! You don't want to queue for hours just to be disappointed to find out that they're all massive twats, do you?" Zo looked thoughtful for a moment.

"No, I guess you're right." I grinned at her.

"You know I'm right, I always am." We raced out of the 1D aisle, brushing past the weird insect dude as we left, before leaving the store. She rolled her eyes at me but she was smiling. I laughed. "Come on, let's go eat. I'm starving!"