Two Floors Apart (Louis Tomlinson AU)

0 » First Interaction

0.   Z E R O   //   P R O L O G U E   //   F I R S T   I N T E R A C T I O N

a u g u s t   2 0 1 1

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Louis muttered to himself as he sprinted back to his flat, his messenger bag hitting his leg in a steady rhythm. He skipped out on hanging out with his friends after a short drama class because he forgot to check if he had any bread and the grocery store near him was twenty minutes from closing time. The owners—who were celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary—had warned all their customers that they were planning on going away for a week, meaning the store would be closed for the duration of their trip. He did not want to travel more than he needed to unless absolutely necessary.

            When Louis entered the lobby he ran straight to the elevator and pressed the up button repeatedly. He did that for a solid two minutes before realizing there was a sign on the metal doors saying that it was temporarily out of service, causing him to groan dramatically as he rushed over to the stairwell and lugged the heavy door open.

            Right, Tomlinson, he thought, giving himself a pep talk like his football coach would have. You've done footy drills worse than sixteen flights of stairs. The eighth floor is no big deal. You can do this.

            Louis took the stairs two at a time at first, the steady beat of his chinos echoing throughout the stairwell, overlapping each other in a cacophony of noise. Chinos were not made for rushing up the stairs when the elevator was out of order. They weren't necessarily made for running. At all.

            Once he reached the fifth flight he began to jog quickly, taking the steps one at a time—

            —and somehow managing to bump into someone on his way up.

            "Watch where you're going, you twat," the female voice shot at him. Louis didn't stop his trek up the stairs. He couldn't. If he did, he might miss closing time by a minute or two.

            "Sorry! I'm in desperate need to check if I have bread in my kitchen!" he called out. He didn't even know if the girl was listening to him or not but it made him feel better to apologize out loud. When Louis finally got to his flat he was more out of breath than he thought he would be, making a mental note to give himself football drills every few days at the nearby soccer field to help his stamina rise again. Throwing his bag on the floor and opening the fridge once he was inside his flat took under thirty seconds (unlike when he was fumbling with his keys; that took several minutes) and he was back out before the front door could fully swing open on its own. He ran back down the stairwell and almost fell several times; the only difference was that he shifted to his left as who he believed to be the same girl walked up the stairs, one cardboard box on top of another in her arms.

            "So being a gentleman does exist these days," she commented as he ran past her again.

            "No bread. Need it. Sorry again," Louis said, hearing something that resembled a scoff mixed with a laugh echo down the staircase. Back outside of the building, he sprinted over to the grocery store, talking to himself under his breath about how he would curse the grounds the store rested upon if he didn't get his loaf. He pulled his phone out of his pocket without slowing down and saw that he had two minutes left. He would make it.

            Correction—he would have made it if the one street he had to cross didn't change its light the second he was about to step onto the street. He saw the orange hand pop up by the crosswalk and he tried to stop his feet as best he could. He didn't stop himself on time and a passing car released a loud honk as it swerved around Louis, who was stuttering out a mixed string of curses and apologies despite the driver already being out of sight. If Louis' life were a movie, him waiting at the crosswalk would be accompanied by elevator music, a distant drone in the background. The streetlights changed to green, the white walking man flashed, and Louis was back to running, almost literally slamming into the glass door of the grocery store. He read the note that was posted on the door.