The X-Factor Experience | L.S

Four: September

"Oh my God. I can't believe it, Niall," Harry muffled, face down in a pillow. "Why do these type of things always happen to me?"

Niall who was sitting on the edge of his own bed with his foot up rubbed Harry's back. "I know."

"I mean, do you know how embarrassing that was? He didn't even recognise me."

"I know that too. I was there, Har. But hey, on the bright side, you got to see him shirtless?" Niall suggested.

Harry lifted himself up from the pillow with an unamused expression painted across his face. Niall removed his hand from his back, and backed away a little. Then Harry broke into a smile.

"Yeah. That was pretty fucking hot," he admitted and waved with his hand like a fan. "Phew."

There you go," Niall laughed. "Bootcamp starts tomorrow, right?"

"Right."

"You nervous?"

"Couldn't be more terrified. I should probably get some sleep then, oh my God I'll have to wake up at, like, 6 every morning, Niall," Harry said. He immediately closed his eyes and got comfortable under Niall's sheets. Niall just laughed at him, because his feet still had his shoes on.

The next morning Harry walked into the X Factor building where all the other contestants were already divided into groups, sitting on the floor of the stage and planning. He realised he was very late and that they had already started. His eyes went round in horror. If he was nervous before, he was terrified to his guts now.

"Uh," he tried to say, getting everyone's attention. Cheryl looked over at him and offered him a smile. "Harry," she said. "Don't worry, you can still pick a song off the Wall Of Songs. Go on."

Harry hesitatingly ran over to the wall and picked the only song that was left, Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Diane Ross.

When he saw that Cheryl was occupied, Harry's eyes wandered over to Louis who was crouching down, assisting one of the groups. He was wearing a suit today. Harry wondered what the occasion was. Simon visibly sighed at him across the building. He approached Harry and directed him to his respective group.

There were a girl and a boy in the group. Harry joined them on the floor, "Hello," he said sort of awkwardly. He scratched his neck.

"Hey!" The girl said. She was chubby and had glowing hair. "What's your name?"

"Harry."

"I'm Ronja. This is, uh," she gestured to the boy who was sitting with her.

"Stuart," he said.

"Right," Ronja snapped her fingers. "Okay, Stuart and I was just talking about rehearsing. We have the whole week, so we thought we'd rehearse Tuesday, Thursday and then Friday morning."

"That's not a lot of time, though, is it?" Harry said.

"A week?"

"I mean we have a lot of individual vocal training too. And we also have to sleep. So we don't really have the whole week," Harry trailed off, already nervous about the performance.

Ronja nodded, "you have a point. Alright, so we rehearse at any chance we get, sound good?"

Stuart and Harry nodded in sync. "Perfect," Ronja said and jotted a note down on the piece of paper. "When do you think we're taking off?"

"I think soon," Stuart said. "When the judges reveal their categories and stuff. I heard we're going to this lake where we have to live in small cottages."

"Oooh, that's so exciting!" Ronja exclaimed, "I love cottages."

Harry smiled. That sounded delightful, he thought. Although he was going to miss his family - and Niall. He patted the duffel bag he'd brought. God, bootcamp was scary. He'd only heard the worst about it...