this side of paradise l.s.

chapter iii.

im pretty sure i failed my calc exam. im gonna drop out of college and sell drugs.

anyway, remember that receipt that said louis would get super hyper backstage before shows and harry was the only one who knew how to calm him down? yeah ❤
²⁸ ⃤

It's always have and never hold
You've begun to feel like home
What's mine is yours to leave or take
What's mine is yours to make your own

-Look After You, The Fray

²⁸ ⃤

Harry was starting to hope. It was a double-edged sword, hope. He used to think it was the most amazing thing in the world until reality knocked on his door and kicked him in the shins. It was never a good idea to hope too much for things, not as intensely as Harry did. He had the bad habit of putting too much of himself into the things he hoped for, and when it eventually crashed and burned, he lost a part of himself. Hoping for things meant risking too much, and he was scared of one day looking himself in the mirror and not recognizing the face staring back.

But.

But Harry was starting to hope. It was a stupid, giddy feeling developping in his chest like a disease, but it made him grin. Because it seemed like they actually had a chance of winning. With every live show and every performance and every vote, every night that they weren't sent home, it seemed like One Direction actually had a chance of making it. Of winning the X-Factor.

And so Harry began to hope.

They were currently high off of the kind of manic energy only five teenage boys could have after consuming three cans of Redbull each and running away from Savan, their vocal coach, who was trying and failing to get them to go over "Only Girl In The World" one more time. The Redbull was Louis' idea. Harry wasn't sure where he got them from since, after week 2, he was banned from consuming anything that had caffeine in it. He was stroppy about it for all of two days, complaining about his need to drink at least one cup of tea before bed, until he annoyed the employees enough that they shoved an entire box of Yorkshire tea at him and told him to shut up.

Harry now watched him bounce all over the X Factor house, terrorizing the other contestants by barging into their conversations, hiding the remote for the telly, and putting hair gel on the palms of anyone who was unfortunate enough to get caught kipping at 4 in the afternoon. He was insane. It was adorable.

"Harry!" Niall leapt over to him, his face splitting wide open in a crooked smile. He was always filled with such genuine happiness Harry wondered if it was actual water he was drinking from his water bottle. He wouldn't be surprised if it was spiked, even less so if Louis was the one who spiked it. "I was thinking how 'bout me and you play a round of FIFA 'fore they find out what happened to Matt's pillow."

"What happened to Matt's pillow?" He asked, gulping down another sip of Redbull. Was his blood supposed to be thrumming this much?

"Nothing that they can prove was us," Niall cackled, slightly manic. Maybe they shouldn't have drank all that Redbull.

Harry shrugged and dropped his can in the nearest recycling bin. "Sure."

Playing FIFA with the boys was always an interesting experience. Harry wasn't awful at it; in fact, he considered himself rather good. But Niall was strangely competitive, narrowing his blue eyes and swearing with the vocabulary of a Scottish pirate every time he so much as lost the ball. His temper flared so often, Harry was more afraid of getting punched by the Irish menace than he was at dying. Liam and Zayn were equally as competitive, but Liam was a lot shittier at the game than he boasted. Louis, on the other hand, was a cheater. No one knew if he was actually good at FIFA or if he was so good at riling you up that you didn't notice how much he sucked. He had no qualms over pinching whoever was currently winning, shoving his dirty feet in their faces or screaming in their ears.