NIAM STORIES (BXB ONE SHOTS)

The Clock Hand Stuck at Eight (Part One)

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars... Rocky planets circling a star... Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto too... These are the planets from Mars and through..."

It all started in high school.

By that certain year, Liam had transferred to enough schools for his entire lifetime. He hated every part of it because he never got to make friends. Every year or so his father gets stationed to another satellite office of the company he was in and they'd all have to move again - different house, different neighborhood, different school, and different people. Liam wished they would stay put for a change.

When Niall's father died, he, his brother, and his mother moved to their aunt's old house in a town just outside of Dublin. Aunt Pridda quickly got their mom a slot at the factory she was working in and to say the least, they settled in quickly. They never went to move again - same house, same neighborhood, same school, and the same people. Niall wished things would stay exactly the same.

At the ring of the fourth bell, on the fifth hour, of the sixth class that seventh day of the eighth month of that year, the start of the new term beginning just a few hours before, Liam wasted no time to head to the library before the next period an hour later began. He didn't like staying in the classroom where there was too much noise for his liking, to many guys staring at him, and too many girls trying to flirt with him even if they didn't even know yet what it meant to fall in love. Neither did Liam, but he just thinks they don't as well.

Pulling out Prince Caspian from one of the shelves, Liam shooed himself into a far corner, squeezing into the crooked shadows, and putting on his headphones and started playing If I Let You Go on his Walkman; his fingers drummed rhythmically onto the tarnished velvet hardcover of the old book. While the quintessential pop ballad of boyish vocal proportions blared through his headphones, the minutes passed by quickly as the pages of Caspian flew by, dragging Liam along on a trip to Narnia.

That is to say why he didn't notice the sunshine-blonde haired lad standing in front of him until he stomped his foot and Liam, startled and ripped away from the story he was reading, gave out a yelp and his headphones flooped over his face and formed a wanky bridge over his nose. Liam scrambled to poise himself, taking off the jumbled cords of his Walkman and standing up while scooping up the maltreated book that lied face down on the floor.

Liam was slightly taller than the lad but the stern look over the lad's face that was pale and had rose-stained cheeks were all the more intimidating. Blue-grey eyes pierced through him like an icy spell, as if the lad could gobble him up in one chomp. He's heard of initiations - the new kid gets bullied around until he's accepted kind of stuff - but he felt so unprepared that Liam thought he would wet himself by whatever was coming next. He wasn't ready for that; there were no initiations in his previous schools and he was hoping there won't be any of that here.

"What'dya think you're doing?" said the blonde.

"I..." Liam hesitated; they might call him a sissy if they found out he was reading a fantasy book by his own. But then again, Liam recalculated. There's nothing bad about telling the truth. His father always lectured him about telling the truth. "I-I was reading Prince Caspian."

"Reading?" The blonde raised his eyebrow, the stern look not leaving his face. "You can't read here! You have to borrow the book first!"

"I-I'm sorry," Liam stuttered, "It's my first day and...and I didn't know! Please don't hurt me..."

Liam bottled up, curling slowly into a defensive position, hands over his face like a steely shield, awaiting the blow that would confirm the tick of fear in his brain and the wobbly feeling on his legs that made them noodles. But instead there was a bright snicker - no, not a villainous cackle but a playful chuckle - that changed into sonorous laughter that sounded majestically beautiful, rendering Liam confused on what had just happened - or why he thought it was beautiful.