strawberries and cigarettes (always taste like you)

Part 2: Sixteen

Flashback: The time Harry and Louis first met (and fell in hate)

Louis' POV:

I was super lucky to sit next to Alaska Winters  in one of my business studies classes. It was my first class of the semester, and I still didn't have a place to live in. I know, I know; I'm a fucking idiot. I should have arrived at the college premises at least a week ago, so I could find a place to live. I had applied and hence got accepted into the college kind of late; and all the dorms had been booked. So, I literally had no place to stay; I'd have to find something myself. It's common knowledge that finding an apartment and the process of moving in takes a lot of time and is super fucking hectic.

But everything worked out for me. Things fell into place quick enough, and it was all because of Alaska. So, the first time I saw her, she walked up to me and took a seat next to me in our business studies class. She had her headphones in, and kept singing along to whatever she was listening. She kept flaying her arms around too, and it got real annoying real quick. I tried to politely tell her to not sing a few times; I was trying to look up apartments for rent, okay? She was being a downright disturbance.

When she didn't take notice of any of attempts to shut her up, I finally reached over and plucked the headphones off her head, "Oh my god, can you shut the fuck up?"

She glared at me, "Hey! That's rude."

I rolled my eyes, "Sorry, but I've been trying to get you to shut up for like ten minutes now."

She at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed, "Sorry, my bad. I get caught up in music."

I peeked at her phone, "What are you listening to anyway?"

She showed me her phone screen, "Arctic Monkeys! I absolutely love them."

I whistled, "Oh, fun. I've heard a few songs by them."

She grinned at me before taking a look at my laptop screen, "Oh, what are you doing?"

I sighed, "Trying to find a fucking apartment. Honestly, I've had such shitty luck trying to find a place to live. I'll probably have to sleep on the streets tonight at this rate."

Alaska looked at me carefully for a few seconds before speaking up again, "Hm. Do you have a roommate application or something of that sort ready? Like you know, information about you and such."

I pulled out the file from my bag and handed it over to her, "Well, duh. Here you go."

She took her sweet time going through my file while we waited for our teacher. Before she could say anything about it, the teacher arrived and we spent the next hour studying about types of businesses or whatever. Once we were both out of the class, she handed my file back to me, "Your file is pretty decent. You don't look like a psychopath either. I've been looking for a roommate, actually. Do you wanna come check it out?"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "I don't even know your name."

She groaned, "Right. I'm Alaska Winters. And you're Louis Tomlinson; I got that from your file."

And that's how it all started. I agreed, obviously, and she took me to her place. On our way over, she told me about the house, and that it used to be a frat house. She explained that the house had six rooms, so other than her, she had been looking for five roommates, and that she already had two flatmates. 

I met the other two soon enough. Alaska unlocked the main door to the house and called out as soon as we stepped in, "Nialler, I brought someone!"

Within a minute, two boys walked downstairs. One of them had blonde hair; probably not natural. The other one had pretty green eyes and pretty brown, curly hair. God, he's cute. Is he into guys? Is he single? I want the curly one! Okay, not important right now. 

The blonde one looked at me and grinned, "Hey! I'm Niall Horan."

I shook his hand, "Louis Tomlinson."

Alaska corrected me, "Louis Tomlinson, potential flatmate. Niall, check out his file, will you? Harry, could you get him tea or something?"

Harry's eyes raked over me once before he spoke to Alaska, "Sure. Come on, mate."

I handed my file to Niall before following Harry to the kitchen. He started working on making the tea, "I'm Harry Styles."

There was something to his voice which annoyed me. Like yeah, he was fucking hot and all, but there was a smug undertone to his voice I did not like. That most definitely did not stop me from blurting out, "I'm single."

Harry laughed; his laugh was so deep and rich and chocolatey. Can voices even be chocolatey? His voice was definitely chocolatey. He shook his head, amused, "And I don't care. No offense, but you're not my type, mate."

I sighed, "Ah. Straights. How unfortunate."

His eyebrows shot up immediately, "Who said I'm straight?"

I blinked at him, "You're not? But you just said..."

He scoffed, "Wow, you're arrogant. I said you aren't my type. I never said I'm not into guys."

I blinked again, "So, you are into guys? Just... Not me?"

He rolled his eyes as he poured out some tea for me, "Precisely."

And holy fucking hell, that stung. I'd gone and made a complete idiot of myself in front of my potentially new flatmate. Could anything get any worse? Well, it could. It'd be way worse if Niall didn't agree to accept as a flatmate. Then I'd actually have to sleep on the streets. 

Fortunately, when I saw Niall again, he informed me that he was totally on board with having me as a roommate. Harry was a bit reluctant, but who cares about that asshole, right? Alaska told me that the the top floor was completely occupied. Both the floors (other than the ground floor) had three rooms each, and the rooms on the second floor were occupied by Alaska, Niall and Harry.

That was fine by me; I didn't want to be on the same floor as Harry anyway. Apparently, he felt the same. He scoffed when Niall informed him that I was here to stay, "Fine. At least the pervert isn't on my floor. He'd probably be creeping around all the time."

Alaska admonished him immediately, "Harry!"

But he just rolled his eyes at her, before going up to his room. Asshole. He didn't even offer to help me move in. But that's okay. Alaska and Niall were perfectly lovely and helped me get my things from the office, and then move everything into my new room. It was great. Who cares about that asshole upstairs? Not me.

Eventually, Harry introduced us to his friend Liam, and he ended up moving in with us too. I met Zayn in the parking lot, smoking. He'd been kicked out of his apartment for smoking too much. I wasn't sure if Alaska would be okay with it, but as it turned out, she got along with Zayn quite well. Hence, Zayn moved in with us too. So, that was all six of us.

Over the next few weeks, I had the best time at college. My roommates were great, and Zayn was definitely my best mate. His room was across mine, and Liam's was on the same floor as us as well. I got along well with everyone. Except Harry, of course. God, he was such a pompous, pretentious jerk. Seriously, he thought everybody wanted him. News flash, nobody cares about you, Harry. Ugh. 

This one time we all went clubbing, Harry was practically having sex on the dance floor with this one girl. It was absolutely disgusting to watch. Does he have an exhibitionism kink? Probably. He seems like the type.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Harry and I definitely did not like each other. Soon enough, our hate for each other was pretty infamous. Nobody really knew why, though. Honestly, neither did I, but whatever. He can go fuck himself, for all I care.

***

A/N

Let the Part 2 begin! So true besties. Part 2 is basically a bunch of flashbacks on their relationship. Does that sound fun? I've been planning this for this fic :) Once the flashbacks are done, the usual fic continues as Part 3, so true. Oh and, thanks so much for the feedback :D

~Sofia x