Young & Beautiful

Louis’ liking—Zayn exits into his rooms, Liam close behind.
As Louis watches them part, Niall sighs. “Today’s shite. I should’ve stayed home and smoked.”
“You’re absolutely not leaving me. You’ve already ditched me once in the past twenty-four
hours.”
“But you like them! You don’t need me here.”
“I like you, too. So stay, and stop acting like a peasant.”
Niall’s smile slowly creeps onto his face. “You like me?”
Louis shifts, flicking his hair out of his eyes. “You’ll never be able to prove I said that. Now hush
and discuss lunch options with me.”
And just like that, Louis forgets about Harry Styles and all the worries in his world, and instead
focuses on Niall’s lilting commentary on food and the way his pearly teeth glint under mood
lighting. And Louis thinks that, maybe, disengaging himself from Harry Styles’ existence won’t
be so hard after all.
**
The rest of the weekend and the next couple of days pass as they always do in Louis Version
2.0’s life.
The boys stroll around and bicker throughout the day, sampling the best of everything and flouting
hedonism in every possible manner. It’s lovely, really.
On Sunday they attend some posh dinner party, hosted by a man with too many teeth and greased
hair, filled with faces Louis can’t even pretend to place. And he feels out of his element, but he
laughs with Niall who chats up every living, breathing thing there, gets the gossip on everyone
from a slyly whispering Liam at his side, and exchanges mischievous glances with Zayn who
watches in great amusement as Louis slips cubes of cheeses into various guests’ unsuspecting
drinks when their eyes are averted elsewhere.
On Monday night, after three studious hours in the library (in which Niall spends his time texting
and blaring Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorns” at full volume on his over-sized headphones,
much to the distraction of every soul on the planet) Liam proposes that they treat themselves to a
quiet party at Edward’s summer home. It turns out to be a ridiculous affair though, with strippers
and ice cream trucks and fancy dress, and Louis mostly remembers laughing a lot while
consuming copious amounts of “Pink Juice” which tastes like candy and stings like battery acid,
and firmly ignores every other person’s inquiry of “Where’s Harold at, then?” because who is
Harry Styles? Louis doesn’t remember because he’s not been thinking about him and he’s not
concerned for him and he’s not acknowledging the fact that school’s started for the week and
Harry is still MIA, missing his courses and all.
Nope, he ignores everything, and so Louis bounces around with Liam and gets tackled by Niall
until they’re falling into a group of girls dressed as slutty rabbits, and Zayn pulls them up one by
one, passing them cigarettes and wine glasses as he smooths his jacket.
And then they leave early, donning every prop they could get their hands on, and stroll the
abandoned streets in the night with bottles of wine. Niall's wrapped in a velvet cape and insists on
being referred to as ‘Draco Malfoy'--though he repeatedly forgets as much, oblivious when the
boys keep calling him to get his attentions: “Draco!” Nothing. “DRACO.” Nothing. “NIALL!”
“Huh?”. Zayn is wearing a king’s crown (at Louis’s insistence), gold and encrusted with jewels