Aesthetics || One Shot

in which he learns mellifluous

I was officially the worst girlfriend ever.

I realized this when we were having lunch – Chinese takeaway, as usual – at the parlor and Liam asked, “The Funky Buddha next weekend?”

Louis paused mid-sentence in his conversation with Harry. Niall’s chopsticks hovered over his mouth, chow mein grazing his lips. Zayn and I…well, we stopped sneaking glances at each other as we ate.

“For Zayn’s birthday?” Liam prompted us when we all stared back at him blankly. I noticed that Louis, Niall, and Zayn had looks of recognition on their faces while Harry and I…wait–

“Birthday?” I asked, directing my full attention to Zayn now.

“You didn’t tell her, Zayn?” Niall asked through a mouthful of food.

Zayn ignored Niall and set his carton of food down. “Uh, yeah,” Zayn began sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck, “it’s coming up and Liam suggested that we, like, celebrate it at the Funky Buddha.”

“Oh,” I replied quietly, casting my eyes downwards, a million thoughts racing through my mind.

I was wondering why I was just now hearing of this and if Zayn ever planned on telling me, both about this and his birthday. I knew that some people weren’t keen on birthdays and maybe Zayn was one of them, but I still felt awful not knowing my own boyfriend’s – and I don’t think I would ever get used to calling Zayn my boyfriend – birthday. I was truly a terrible girlfriend.

“Hey,” Zayn said softly, cupping my chin, “it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you or that I didn’t want you to go, it’s just that I was kind of hoping that we could, like, just have a night in. Just the two of us, you know? S’all I need, really.”

I grinned, feeling my spirits brighten again, and started to open my mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Louis, who threw a fortune cookie at Zayn. “Christ Malik,” Louis groaned, “don’t be a buzzkill. You two can have birthday sex after we celebrate at the Funky Buddha.”

Zayn glared at Louis and then threw his own fortune cookie at Louis’ head before directing his attention back to me, a gentler expression on his face now. “Would you want to go?”

“You should go, Rose,” Harry chimed in. “The Dirty–”

“Funky,” Liam corrected, looking a little miffed. I supposed that was because he was quite fond of this Funky Buddha place, considering he went all the time according to Harry.

“–The Funky,” Harry amended, “Buddha’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll go,” I replied with a smile, mostly to Zayn, but also the others.

“Great.” Zayn returned my smile, his more radiant and dazzling, naturally. “You can spend the night afterwards too, like last time. You know, if you want. You, like, don’t have to if you don’t want to. I could always spend the night at yours. If you’d want that, of course. Or like, we could, um, just, like, go home to our separate flats.”

I placed my hand on top of his, hoping to put him out of his misery. “Spending the night at yours sounds great, thank you, Zayn.”

Zayn let out a breath that I hadn’t even realized he had been holding, looking significantly less stressed than he had a moment ago. “Of course, babe.” He leaned over to kiss my forehead and I felt both butterflies in my stomach and my cheeks heating up from knowing that the others were watching us. Or they were trying not to at least.