Happily

Chapter Nine: Not The Normality Of Coughs

 20 questions told me a lot about Marcel. He had one sister who was in Uni named Gemma, he used to go to private Christian School but had to leave- he wouldn’t tell me why when I asked- and he loves to spend his time reading and watching the Harry Potter series. And he also says that there’s a lot of literary genius when you look at subtext. I just nodded because I had never read Harry Potter- any of them- so I couldn’t converse about it. He had kind of a Harry Potter fettish but really the ‘kind of fettish’ was sort of an obsession. But that’s fine, because it may or may not get me to read the series sometime in the future. I wasn’t quite the reading person when it came to popular NY Times Bestselling novels; Shakespeare was more of my thing. “Shakespeare is fantastic!” Marcel told me. “But Harry Potter has sort of the modern art that Shakespeare didn’t have…”

We arrived at the mouth of a green and lush forest that screamed Hawaii. While Marcel went to go help Mrs. Sivan, I joined Niall, Liam, Zayn, and Stan. “Had a romantic bus ride with your nerd Lou?” Liam snickered. “Shut up Payne,” I moaned, rolling my eyes. Niall looped his arm through Stan’s and they began to mimic us, talking about Harry Potter and going “How I love just love my baby sisters!” Laughing, I tackled them to the ground, and we were lucky the entrance to this forest was a beach, because the soft crystal sand didn’t hurt at all when made impact with. “Louis and Niall and… Stan, is that you? Both of you get up right now or I will personally escort you to the airport!” Mrs. Sivan shrieked. Behind, Marcel had on her black backpack and a clipboard hand. He stood behind her silently chuckling. Getting up, I winked at him and he smiled warmly, and I swear to god, there was a bit up pink creeping up into his cheeks. We got up and walked towards a- as always- absolutely flustered Mrs. Sivan and laughed. She rolled her eyes at us, telling us to “go join Marcel back behind the bushes.” With that, Niall gave a wolfwhistle and clapped me on the back, earning the stares of a few students.

  

“’Ello Marcel boy!” Niall greeted once we reached the boy with the glasses. “Oh, erm, hello,” he replied. Niall threw his arm around him and Stan went up, “hi, I don’t think we’ve properly met an’ all. Stan Lucas.” He held out his hand and smiled. Marcel grinned, teeth showing and everything, and took his hand. “Hi Stan, I’m Marcel, Marcel Styles.”

“Nice to meet ya mate.” 

Next was Zayn and Liam. “Hi Marcel!” Liam smiled. “Got off to a rather funny start didn’t we? Me pummeling Louis in the face and that.” 

“It wasn’t a pummel Liam it hardly even hurt—” I chimed.

“Shut up Louis.”

“Okay.” 

Marcel waved a little and laughed. “Yeah, I suppose, I’m still not sure what that was about…” 

Zayn ruffled Marcel’s hair, and spoke: “And it’s better that you not lad. I’m Zayn.”

“Hi, I’m Marcel. It’s very nice you see, introducing me and all that, thank you. But honestly, I already know who you all are. Popular, you lads are.” Niall laughed.

“Awe, I guess, but it’s different Marcel, you can’t think of us like that, we’re your friends now!” And he laughed some more (Niall was quite the laugher) when Marcel beamed bright and shining. “Friends?”

“Friends,” I said. “But,” I continued, “remember you lump of nerd, that I was your first friend out of these twats, so I’m more important yeah? I get to be the best friend, yeah?” I looked around in mock expectancy for approval, and Niall rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever Louis.” Zayn laughed and walked away, joining a couple other people from the footie team. “Well actually,” Stan cut, “Louis would like to be—”