Moments

And About Time

"Annie, baby, we've got another leg of the tour starting soon. Goes over to Asia and Australia."

"I know. I ran in on Louis and El discussing that over at their place."

"Wha- how?"

"Ah, you know, I thought they were doing um… things… and I thought I'd um… prank them, really," I explain. He laughs.

"Nice one. Absolutely genius."

"I know, I know."

"Just lemme tweet that-"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"It's… it's…" I stumble as I struggle to think up a reason. "Just… I have to live with those two in my life, you know? It's really not a good idea to have it all over Twitter. They won't get too upset but they'll absolutely take the mick out of me."

"Fine then," he huffed. "Not talking to you."

"Oh come on, Niall." I wasn't expecting it. He launched into a tickle attack. I couldn't breathe. "S-stop it!" I manage to spit out while fighting off his arms.

"Not until you let me tweet about it and kiss me to make up for it," he laughs. Problem is, I can't even get out of wriggling around. Which must be the point.

I finally got out of it. He actually let me off if I just let him tweet it. "The kids have another break coming up, I'm going up to Doncaster. Haven't been there in ages."

"Say hello to your family for me."

"If you mean the Tommo's then sure. Mum and dad are still in Hong Kong, and the boys are both busy studying. One's out in Oxford, the other's over in Leeds."

"So that's…"

"Leeds in West Yorkshire. And Oxfordshire is something like halfway between West Midlands and London. Not quite but close enough."

"Your grandparents alright?"

"The colon cancer's not getting worse so she's still got some time to hang on. And the other two are alright. Gran-without-the-colon-cancer is actually quite healthy except for the arthritis."

"Do I want to meet them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, would they object to us."

"What?"

"I'm a European kid who doesn't speak their language and doesn't understand the culture. I'm just wondering if they'll approve me at all," he states pretty bluntly.

"If you're talking about meeting the extended family… well… that's a pretty major thing even by Chinese standards. And really, all they don't want me to marry is a mainland Chinese kid because of a subculture. There's not much that I can think of would cause an uproar as such."

"Yeah, I know, just… I don't want it to end up a surprise at a later gathering that I don't speak the language."

"Alternatively I could stick you in Shanghai or even up in Beijing for 5, 6 years and force you to learn the language there. Dan just sent me a video the other day of some white kid in a weekly documentary program speaking better Mandarin than me. The fact that you aren't a wacko blond kid already makes things easier. Anyway, they're mostly from Hong Kong so they're already used to Europeans."

"I'm not going to pick up the language, though."

"Well the girl in the doco grew up there and well… Dan only sent me the clip because he saw the book in the background on her desk."