seasons of love | Narry Storan AU

chapter 18.

2015

"For the first test of the semester, I'm going to ask you all to write and record a demo version of any song you have in your notebooks." Professor Mendes walks through the classroom, his glasses standing right above his nose and his tattooed hand well hidden inside the pockets of his black jeans. "I know you all are talented and stubborn enough to have at least a verse and a chorus written in your personal objects, because that's the kind of thing that every single songwriter does in these modern times."

"Are we?" Harry asks to himself, believing no one heard him.

"I'm not even going to answer that." Niall suddenly says, calling his roommate's attention.

"Why not?"

"If you're right here, sitting in this classroom, listening to what our teacher has to say and studying musical composition, it's probably because you wrote something and called it a song before."

"An idiot argument to use."

"But I'm still right." The Irish lad shrugs, returning to pay attention to what Shawn is explaining to the entire class.

"Oh, there's something else: the project must be done with at least one partner. It could be more, like the songwriting camps that big singers do to record songs for their albums? Yeah, it could, and you can do it if you want to. But I guess that, for now, the fewer people in the task, the better the result."

"Shit", Niall blurts out.

Everyone ends up watching him curse himself for five seconds before he realizes that all eyes are on him at the moment.

"Oh, sorry."

"Any problem with that, Mr. Horan?" The professor asks, sharing a smirk with his student.

"No, no, everything's fine, don't worry about it", the blond guy is visibly nervous, but he tries to shake off the feeling by staring at the ceiling instead of Shawn's face.

The class comes to an end. Niall starts packing his things to go find his friends, but Harry is the one who stops him before his plans come true.

"What do you want now, Styles?"

"Still being harsh on me, huh?" Harry mocks his new friend, but when he doesn't receive a laugh back, he decides to say what's on his mind. "I was thinking if you'd like to do this work with..."

"You?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know we just started trying to be less cruel with each other--"

"True."

"Could you please let me finish? I'm trying really hard here!" He screams, but in a nervous way.

This is the part when Niall finally pays attention to him.

"Okay. Do your thing." The young Horan crosses his arms above his chest area.

"You're basically the only person with whom I have talked to in that room."

"So is it all about convenience? You want to work on a song with me because you already know me and you don't want to start a new friendship, even though you have the perfect personality to make friends out there?" The words slip out of his mouth like water, and he doesn't even notice when Harry starts laughing. But once he sees it, he gets mad. Again. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because you look different when you're nervous and mad at me at the same time." Harry simply answers him, letting out a smile at the end of his sentence.

"Different?"

"You don't look like that angry dude who slapped me in the face three or four times." He explains. "You look like another shy student at NYU who basically screams "LEAVE ME ALONE!" all the time even though you already have friends."

"You think too much about me to actually pretend that you don't care about my presence in your life, Harold."

"I care about you, Niall."

2032

"Wow. What just happened?" Taylor blurts out, his eyes wide open in shock. "I mean, how long has it been since that Sunday morning when you woke up with a hangover, dad?"

"About a month, actually. It was time enough for anyone to care about their friend, right?"

"Not at all, dad, not at all", Chloe rolls her eyes. "I took three months to actually realize that my friends Lucy and Alison were important to me."

"And I took six months to actually have friends." Her brother completes the argument.

"So what you two are telling me is that he was already liking me right before I could realize it?" Niall concludes, still surprised by what his kids just told him.

A lot of things make sense in his read right now.