Harry - you paused with your hand on the doorknob, with enough squeeze to know you could open it with a nudge, but you stopped on your own feet, exhaling a shaky breath before you sucked in, shutting your eyes tightly. You heard him from where he sat on the edge of the bed, the same place you’d left him, “we…” he swallowed thickly, his words thickly drenched, “we can still be friends, right?”
"I… I don’t know, Harry," you thought enough to say to him.
"Please," he looked up with the same tears around the rims of his eyes all red, "I don’t want you out of my life, I…"
"We’ll see, Haz," you swallowed, "but um," you tried smiling, "right now, I’ve gotta go, so… I don’t know. I’m sorry, I just… I don’t know," and you left, closing the door behind you.
Liam - he jogged the length of the living room to catch you. He held you by your hips, leaning into you from behind. It made you stop, the way his hands pressed into your waist, his lips clutching small marks along your neck, “we… we can still be friends, right?” He breathed near your ear with a warm exhale that made you gasp, shudder ahead of him until he wasn’t touching any part of you anymore.
"No," you whispered, turning in the end, wiping tear-stained cheeks, "no, Liam, we… we can’t. It’s too hard."
"Then make it easy," he stepped closer again, taking one hand in both of his and holding it to his beating heart so you could feel each jump that happened for you, "stay with me, baby, please. Don’t go."
You moved away from him and all the parts of him again, “I have to.”
Louis - you jumped, clutching your chest when he slapped the wall next to you, with a flat palm and his teeth bearing before he remembered himself, catching his breath. He kept his palm against the plaster, flat, “(Y/N), let’s…” he swallowed, “let’s just talk about this, please?”
"No," you shook your head, sounding the word, "no, no, Louis, this is… it’s for the best. You know it is. I’m leaving."
"We…" he searched for you when you turned, frantic eyes looking after your body, "we can still be friends, right?"
"Yes, Lou," you strained your voice, "we can, I promise. I just can’t do this… whatever this is with you anymore. But I swear, if we can be friends, I’ll work at that. I will."
Zayn - you craned your neck to look over when you felt his weight leave the other side of the bed. You stretched an arm out after him on instinct, pulling back quickly before he could turn and see. You watched him jump into his jeans, and buckle his belt, the sound the only noise you could hear for a moment.
"So, um…" he turned in the end, scratching the back of his head. He nodded to himself before he did anything else, "we can still be… be friends, right?"
You shook your head and messy hair, sitting up and bunching the sheets around you, “you really want to be friends after this?”
"I’d," he dipped his head for a second, before he saw you again, "I’d like to, yeah."
Niall - ”We can still be friends…” his voice was quiet when he spoke from the other end of the couch, “right?”
"I think so," you knotted your hands together, "I… I don’t know. Maybe some time apart would be better, Ni. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while, even…" you took a breath and chanced looking over to find an expression you’d never seen across him, "as friends…" you finished as quietly as he’d been. You swallowed at his eyes and the way they wanted so much from you, all the things you couldn’t give because you’d taken them back and settled them away, before he could even say goodbye.
"Oh, yeah, yeah," he back-pedalled, nodding too much, "yeah, that, um, yeah… that makes sense. That’ll, um, that’ll probably be best, yeah…"
