be my inspiration (niam)

cheeky boys and laughter

The lingering feeling of stress was all around the college. Everyone was waiting to take finales or were stressing about their possible grades from the tests they'd already taken. Niall was worried about his music finale. Honestly it was a bit of a simple one, but still nerve wracking. He had to sing a song he'd written himself and anyone who knew Niall knew that his skill in getting thoughts onto paper was terrible.

To take his mind off the performance he would be doing later he was reading a book, or trying to at least. He had his back to the wall, sitting cross legged. Short blonde tufts of hair blocked bits of his face. There was a book in his lap, but all the words were just floating off the page, swirling around, and then landing back down in a jumbled mess. Niall sighed and snapped the book shut. He threw it across the floor where it landed at a young curly haired boys feet. Niall just leaned his head back on the wall and closed his eyes.

"You okay mate?" A low raspy voice floated to Niall's ears. He opened one eye to see the boy bend down and pick up the book. He examined it for a couple moments, before walking over to Niall and sliding down the wall to sit next to him. He placed the book on Niall's lap and the blonde just looked down at the book. Niall shook his head at the Curly's question. He took in a breath of air and held for a couple seconds before letting it go. The blonde felt calmer now, which was more than could be said a couple minutes ago.

The bell rung, both Niall and Curly sighed "Well, I got to go, See you around." The raspy voice floated into Niall's ears again and he just nodded. The boy got up and gathered his messenger bag from across the room; Niall assumed he had left it there when he came over to sit by Niall.

"Hey!" Niall's own Irish voice filled the air, "What's your name?"

"Harry: Harry Styles." The boy said with a wink to Niall. That gave the blonde boy a small smile.

"Niall Horan." Niall said he felt the need to give the curly boy his own name. Harry nodded and went to shake his hand, but the bell rung again. Harry muttered a few words under his breath that Niall couldn't fully catch, but then to the still seated boy he said: "See you around Niall!"

Niall waved and then Harry was gone. The blonde was left on his own again. He checked his own watched and sighed when he noticed that he still had an hour to spare. So he just sat there watching the white wall across from him.

***

"Should we wake him?" A voice with a thick Australian accent somehow floated into Niall's subconscious.

"I don't know, he might want the extra ten minutes of rest." Another voice floated into his head, again Australian

"But, what if he needs to get something from somewhere?" There was a third voice and Niall just wanted the voices to stop.

"Something from somewhere? That's very descriptive, Calum." And a final voice, sounding a tad bit softer than the others had with some traces of sarcasm in it.

"Shush. I'm tryin' ta sleep." Niall's Irish accent was thicker than normal and laced with sleep.

"Nope, you're waking up!" The first voice said. Niall opened one eye to see Ashton, Luke, Calum, and Michael standing around him. Ashton had leaned down and had grabbed Niall's arm and was pulling him up. Niall got a glance at the watch on Ashton's wrist and jumped up himself startling the four boys.

"I got to go!" He said as he collected his things and waved bye to the shocked boys. Niall needed to be on time for his music finale, he just needed to. He got there right as the bell rung saying it was starting.

***

The blonde boy didn't have a good feeling after taking his music finale. His stomach was churning and he felt like he was going to be sick. His performance hadn't gone well to him. His voice had been shaky, he nearly drop the mic twice due to his sweating hands. It was nerve wracking and Niall felt utterly wracked.

So now he was heading to a coffee shop. He wanted to study up for his science finale the next day and possibly get rid of the sick feeling in his stomach.

What he didn't expect was to run into Harry, literally. Now getting hit by a Harry Styles is much like getting hit by a baby giraffe: tall, gangly, and a lot of limbs. Niall had stumbled back and Harry stumbled forward causing both to fall to pavement below. So that's how the blonde ended up getting pinned by a baby giraffe. Harry pushed himself up so he was hovering over Niall and flicked his curly hair away from his face.

"Hi Niall, it's nice to see you again." He grinned down at the blonde. Obviously the boy had no problem falling on top of people. Maybe it's a normal occurrence...Who knows? Niall didn't.

"It's nice to see you too Harry." The blonde smiled back at Harry. While it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world for Niall it was a good distraction that the blonde needed right at that moment.

"I didn't expect to...run into you so soon." A cheeky smile and laugh emitted from the boy. With the combination of both the joke and laugh, Niall joined in. Harry rolled over and laid just to Niall's side. He was clutching his stomach; his eyes were closed with wrinkles in the sides and tears threatening to fall from laughing so much.

Since the two had bumped into each other on the sidewalk there were people walking past the two laughing boys. A couple passed by with worried looks, others with confused, some with blank, and a couple with annoyed looks like they despised the two boys laughing. Neither boys cared and continued laughing for a couple more minutes.

Niall was the first to calm down from laughter and got up to his feet and brushed himself off. Niall offered his hand to help Harry, who had stopped laughing so hard, get up. The curly haired boy took it happily. Now that both boys where back on their feet Harry slung an arm around Niall's shoulder.

"For that, I'm getting you free drink from One Direction coffee." Harry said while wiping away a few stray tears.

"Okay!" Niall happily agreed and slung one of his own arms around the boy's shoulder.

And that was how the two entered the coffee shop; Harry with a bright smile, dust and dirt all over his clothes and Niall with an equally bright smile, but less dust and dirt.

The two boys disconnected once they got to the counter, where Harry grabbed a green apron walked around to stand behind the counter and face his blonde haired companion.

"What can I get for you sir?" Harry said in his best posh accent and that sent Niall into a fit of laughter. Half the cafe turned to look at the giggling boy. Two in particular took more notice than necessary.

A feathery haired boy with ocean blue eyes looked between the two boys. Wondering if the two were dating, and oh he hoped not. Someday the boy was going to ask the curly one out, but today didn't seem to be that day.

The other was staring at the blonde. He had heard the exchange between the two and something in there had sparked something and he had an idea for a story. Also he found the blonde cute as hell, and he may have mentioned that in his typing, but no one has to know that.

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i swear niam comes in the next chapter and the one after that and basically probably all the ones after that somehow. for some reason i just spend like 2-3 setting stuff up, giving a lil background before actually getting into the niam. i dunno why. or if it's a bad thing or not.