It was a crisp Friday morning in London; the fog still very thick, leaving the sky white in endless cloud. It was also a slow morning, where early birds woke up a little later than usual, and the streets cleared of any traffic.
Although everything seemed quieter than normal, and even slower than it should be, Niall forced himself to pick up his pace as he read and double checked forms; nothing at all too stressful, he just had to check if there was a signature from Harry in all of the right places then he'd clear it for giving it to Liam to finalize.
He's finally adjusting to the fast paced demands of working as an assistant, and it was certainly a feat of dedication. On some days, he feels like he's being pulled left and right, spreading himself far too thin to handle every task that he accepts to do. So usually, in those situations, when Niall comes running up to Liam with his blonde hair tangled in a nest of frustration, the older boy would take over for him.
Niall would have to credit Liam's years of experience; he'd dealt with the hot blooded rush of the business for quite sometime, and Niall had wanted to master it in a few short weeks. Nevertheless, he worked hard, and that was all that Liam expected from him.
And that brings Niall to the underlying reason as to why he's been working as hard as he was. Despite their hurried schedules and busy days, there was something much more to the lifeless mornings in London, something that made him take longer than necessary to drink coffee since his mind always wandered.
The long afternoons and the even longer nights felt drained from any purpose or feeling. Liam, however, did not seem to see it that way. He saw it as making 'fantastic progress' and 'visible improvements in the system', but Niall knew all to well that the lethargic crawl of the passing weeks was due to one single reason.
He missed Harry.
Yes, Niall hated to admit the spine shuddering truth, but in all honesty, Harry was the only one that gave any sort of excitement or entertainment to the new assistant position.
Sure, they had their falling outs, they've exchanged harmful jabs at each other's character, but as Niall walks down the extremely long, bland hallway, his mind often lingered on their cataclysms. They were memories after all, and the only ones he has with the younger lad, so Niall thought about them when he least expected.
And so as Harry had said, the two boys have gone nearly three weeks without seeing any sign of each other. Liam only kept in contact with him with the occasional text or when the two lads met for only a brief conference.
Niall supposed that since he was still very new to the corporation, he can't find a business related reason to see Harry even if he wanted to. And he tells himself that he doesn't, that he'd gotten what both of them needed, which was time away from troubling each other, but he knows he does and he frequently felt it.
"Liam, how come we never see Harry?" The blonde finally asks after two weeks.
"He's very busy, and he stays up very late," Liam would always say in reply.
Niall stayed silent until Liam stops what he's working on and looks at him, "I'm worried about him too sometimes. I'm sure he doesn't get enough sleep, but what can we do?"
His hypothetical question hovered in the air between them as he shrugged it off.
"Okay," Niall mutters, giving up.
As the third week rolled in, the work load was progressively diminishing, and Liam couldn't be any happier. He smiled much more than he used to and Niall liked that the older assistant finally has room to breathe. But with less work to do, the fewer things Niall can work on to distract himself from his recession.
