All That You Are Is All I'll Ever Need

15

Louis meets Zayn on campus in front of the university’s marble statue. It's ten ‘till six and only a hair darker that earlier, the sun slowly sliding down the sky. When Louis gets close enough, he can make out the smirk that's playing across Zayn’s face. Louis raises an eyebrow, pulling his hands from where they’re tucked in his jeans pockets, “What’s that smirk for, Malik?”

Zayn shrugs, “Oh I don’t know,” he starts, turning and walking around the statue, “it’s just that,” he walks back around, coming into Louis’ view, “I found these two skateboards.”

Louis. Oh.

He can feel his grin spread through his entire body, because it’s just- this is the reason Zayn’s his best friend.

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, I did.” Zayn says, raising his eyebrows. He tosses one of the boards to Louis, and Louis catches it reflexively, as if he never stopped skating when his uni work and past jobs took up the majority of his time.

He turns the board over in his hands, it’s still the same board it was nearly two years ago. It has all the same scratches, marks, chips. The top of it is still the same worn black, thick, sand-papery feel against his palms. His favourite part, the bottom. It’s all white, except the black cursive that spells out his name across it. He remembers him and Zayn spending an entire summer doing yard work around the neighbourhood to get enough money to get them both matching custom made boards with their names on the bottoms.

“You said I could keep whatever was left,” Zayn shrugs, “found it stuffed under your bed.”

“I completely forgot about it,” Louis says, looking up to Zayn, “also didn’t think you’d actually snoop through all the garbage under my bed.”

Zayn snorts, “I wasn’t snooping, me and Li ran out of condoms and I knew you’d have a full box stuffed somewhere in there.

“Oh sod off.” Louis flips him the bird, dropping the board to the ground and putting one of his feet on it.

“You look scared,” Zayn comments, still holding onto his own board.

“Well no shit. I feel like an eighty year old trying to stand up,” he moves the board with his foot, getting use to the wheels on the sleek pavement.

“Ha, like the first and only time Li tried skateboarding.”

Louis barks out a loud laugh, “He busted his arse, jesus christ.”

“Think we can get him on one now?” Zayn asks, finally dropping his own board. He doesn’t step on it though, instead he slips out the pack of cigs from his back pocket and pulls one out.

“Maybe if you're naked on one,” Louis replies casually as Zayn lights up, “I swear, the only reason he stopped being a prissy-baby and actually gave it a try was to impress you, bad boy.”

“Ha,” Zayn laughs sarcastically, taking a drag from his cig and getting on his board, “because ‘m such a bad boy.”

Louis watches as Zayn starts moving, slowly skating in zig-zags to get used to it again, “Well compared to our little straight-A-ed Liam, then yeah. I mean c’mon,” Louis threw his hand up, motioning to Zayn who raised his eyebrows, cig between his lips, “you were this chain-smoking, black-wearing, first-of-all-of-us-to-lose-his-virginity hottie. Liam had it baaad.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, ignoring Louis. “C’mon, you gonna get on that thing or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your cigs, bad boy Malik.” He takes a deep breath, carefully getting on his board. Surprisingly, it feels like nothing has changed. Skateboarding use to be like breathing to him, and he supposes you never really do forget how to breathe.