Impurity

Prologue

He was the shadow of the brightest smile on a bleached out poster in the abandoned bedroom of a strange girl that left home long ago and forgot about the achy daydreams that had made him who he used to be. He was the haunting echo of a fake laugh in an empty room, the great pretender. He wore his mask well. Neither had he ever let the blonde grew out, nor would he ever forget the lyrics to the songs some still asked him about when they met him in the streets. If they wanted him to, he sang them. With a smirk on his face. Loud and passionate, because he was passionate about everything he ever did. He had always been this way. And when what he once heard coming from thousands of mouths in a crowed arena made a stranger’s face light up as he sang it to them, it felt a little like it did back then. When the careless boy he had been enjoyed the time of his life for as long as it lasted. Well, it did last. But then, it ended.

It didn’t go out with a bang. It kind of faded into what the media called a „dramatic nothing“. He wasn’t ashamed of the past or of how it was now. There was no reason. He was proud. Proud of himself. Proud of what he had achieved. And if it wasn’t for his ambition, for his narcissism, for his huge ego, he would’ve just stayed at home, in Mullingar, raised a family, and kept the framed picture of him and his former best friends on the night stand, in honor of an era they had shaped in first line. „The biggest boyband in the world“. That was the craze that had made him a millionaire by the age of nineteen, granted him with the lifelong first row guarantee and countless invitations to every possible public event there was.

He still recieved letters. They still played their songs on the radio. And when he met one of the boys, they’d always wallow in all the good memories. Usually, he was the one who rembered the most. The time of his life. For as long as it had lasted.

But now, he wasn’t boyband member Niall Horan anymore. To them, he was relatively popular singer Niall Horan, handsome irishman of twenty-nine years, ex X Factor host and sweetheart of those who remembered his crooked teeth and saggy tanktops.

He never complained, it wasn’t like him. And when they invited him to aninterview, he went there, politely answered all the annoying questions about whether he missed One Direction, what Harry Styles was up to and why, unlike the other four, he wasn’t at least engaged yet. He made jokes and knew the now grown up girls shook their head and laughed about the man they used to be madly in love with. Without even knowing him. They believed nothing had changed. At least not about him. But they didn’t know him. They never really did.

He wasn’t happy anymore.

Even if it had surely depressed him, and there were still days on which he missed them so bad it really hurt, it wasn’t the end of One Direction that turned him into what he now was on the inside. It was different. Maybe it had always been there.

And when he saw her, the first thing that came to his mind was Zayn saying: „Don’t get me wrong, but there has to be a dark side to you.“

And him shrugging, then shaking his head, saying: „No.“

But he’d been wrong. There was a dark side to everyone. Some showed it without fear, some used it. He hid it. Because it was more like a cruel bacterium he carried in his organs. And when he saw her, it germed. She made the hard shell of this ulcer leak. Its poison coursed into his veins as she infected him with her own darkness.

„I’m Niall.“, he said, mashed and awed by his sudden nervousness.

„I know.“, was all she replied before she turned away.

She was so wrong, too. She knew nothing.