Abandoned (A One Direction Fanfic)

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

If you asked any seven year old boy, they wouldn't know what love is.

If you asked them what they thought of girls, their reply would be "girls are icky and have cooties".

If you told a seven year old boy what love is, they still wouldn't understand.

That is, unless that seven year old boy is Harry Edward Styles.

One year had passed since the boys became brothers, and they'd experienced almost everything with each other. From living alone on the streets to just being normal children.

Harry knew what love was.

He knew because he was in love with someone.

He didn't dare tell that someone, he wasn't even sure if he truly was in love with them. He was only seven, what would a seven year old know about love?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And Harry was sure that he didn't know much either.

He lay on the ground, waking up from a long night's sleep. He looked over at the other boys. He noted that Louis was snoring (rather loudly), Niall appeared to be dreaming about eating something, Liam breathed quietly through his nose, and Zayn smiled in his sleep, clearly happy about something.

Harry sighed, and let his friends sleep. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he stood up and tip-toed to the lake. He prayed that he didn't wake any of them, considering they all looked so peaceful. He quietly sat down and placed his feet in the lake. It soothed him. Sitting by the lake was one of Harry's favorite pastimes, allowing himself to think. He was unsure of what he was going to think about, but then one word appeared in his head.

Love.

One of the most misused words in the English language. The one that Harry was struggling to get a better grasp of. Of course, being only seven, how could he? He didn't know. He also didn't know that Liam faced the same problem.

Back near the bushes where the boys slept, Liam sat up quietly. He always woke up shortly after Harry. The mornings were always his favorite time to think as well. Without tripping over any of the sleeping boys, Liam walked to a nearby tree that he named his "climbing tree". He would climb it and wait for the sun to rise. It was always such a pretty sight. He was worried the boys would laugh at him for watching the sunrise, he knew his father would have.

Liam thought.

He thought for a while.

About one word.

Love.

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Louis was the last one awake. He had seen the boys' clothes astray on the ground, meaning they were bathing in the lake. Pushing his hair out of his face, the nine year old boy stripped his clothes off and walked over to the lake, where the boys all cheerfully greeted him. He responded with a smile and a wave. He slid himself into the warm water, praying that none of the boys peed in it. It had happened one time, and as Louis hoped, it would never happen again.

"Let's go for a swim lads," he said one morning a month or so before.

"Alright, just a minute," Niall cackled.

Respectively, Louis waited for the boys, and he waited for a long time.

"Um, boys?" he said, a bit worried. They hadn't answered.

Ignoring them, Louis placed himself in the water. Then he heard a trickling sound. At first, he thought nothing of it. He decided to ignore it. Then he felt a warm liquid on his back, and it definitely wasn't lake water.

He turned around to see the boys standing in front of him, butt-naked, and peeing on him. They were all cracking up.

Louis was really mad.

He didn't bathe that day, because there was still urine in the water.

"Did you guys pee in...?" Louis tried to ask.

"NO!" They all chorused, irritated. "Louis, you ask us EVERY SINGLE DAY," Zayn said, annoyed.

"Yeah," Liam agreed. "Just because we did it once, doesn't mean we'll do it again."

"Once is bad enough!" Louis said angrily.

"Oh come on, Lou," Niall joked. "You LOVED it."

Louis chuckled.

"In your dreams, Irish boy."

He proceeded to cleanse himself, using a bottle of soap that he'd gotten with the same act he'd used to get the food before. As devious as it may have been, it got him the necessary things that he and the boys needed to survive. And they didn't mind.

Except for Harry.

He knew what Louis was doing was illegal. He was scared that something would happen to him. Or even worse, if he never saw him again.

Louis moved on to wash his brown hair, asking the boys if they needed any shampoo. Since they had already washed their hair, they responded by telling him no. He brushed his fingers through his short hair.

"So, Louis," Liam said out of the blue. "What's on the agenda for today?"

Louis shrugged. "What do you boys want to do?"

"I don't know," Zayn responded. "But we gotta find something, because I am bored out of my mind!"

"Me too!" Niall complained.

"I think we should go to school," Harry said suggestively.

"WHAT?!" Niall and Zayn yelled. "ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

"No," Harry said, and he wasn't. "I just think we need some book smarts."

"But how?" Liam wondered. "We need money to get into any kind of school, and as far as I'm concerned, WE DON'T HAVE ANY."

"Sorry," Harry said, his pale face turning a bright shade of red.

Honestly, Harry didn't know what to do. None of the boys did. As he thought for a while, he realized that they should do something calming.

"How about we walk through town?" he suggested, and to his luck, didn't receive any negative responses.

"Sounds good!" Louis agreed, high fiving the youngest boy. "We'll walk through town."

Dressing themselves, the boys began to walk through town. It was peaceful for a while, until the boys got to the busy streets.

They weren't worried about the traffic, not at all.

What they saw shocked them all.

"W-what is that?" Liam said worriedly, pointing to a poster of Louis hanging on a telephone pole.

"A wanted poster!" Louis shouted. "SHIT! Liam, sorry for the language, but this isn't good!"

"It says...um...what does it say?" Niall wondered, having poor reading skills.

"It says I'm wanted for stealing that stuff we have back at the lake! We gotta get rid of these! There must be more of 'em!" he said, panicked.

The boys ran in separate directions, all looking for posters with Louis on them. Every one the found had been thrown away, and they met back with Louis after twenty minutes.

"I think...that's all of them," Zayn huffed.

"Let's hope," Louis muttered. "Thanks guys."

They told Louis it was no problem, and for his sake, hoped it wasn't.

Harry was just glad that his favorite brother was going to be okay.

Or so he thought.

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A/N: WHOA! CLIFFHANGER PR WHAT? THANKS SO MUCH FOR 200+ READS! I AM SO BLESSED! THANK YOU SO MUCH AND ILY! <3