Finding You Was So Hard

Chapter 1

"Niall!" Louis yelled, pounding on the door to Niall's flat.

Niall sat up on his bed, eyes darting around the room quickly as he spit out the dummy in his mouth and shoved it under the pillow. He brought the blanket that was tangled around his legs up to his chin self-consciously. When he saw that Louis wasn't in the room, he relaxed slightly, but still stumbled out of bed, wrestling to pull some pants on over the nappy he was wearing.

When Louis still didn't get a response from Niall, he beat on the door again. "Niall, I know you're home. Don't make me pick the lock," Louis threatened.

Niall rolled his eyes at his best friend. He knew that Louis had no knowledge of picking locks. Niall scanned his room and then the rest of the flat for any suspicious items and sighed in relief when he saw that there were none. He quickly made his way to the door before Louis beat it down; Now that was something he probably could do.

When Niall finally opened the door, Louis gave him an agitated look. "What the hell, mate? What'd you hide your spare key somewhere else for?"

"To keep you from barging in all the time," Niall shrugged, closing the door as Louis pushed past him. His heart was still beating rather quickly from the panic of thinking Louis had found out.

"I should be offended," Louis said, falling onto Niall's couch.

"Last time you came in my house when I wasn't home you ate all my food," Niall replied flippantly. "Decided not to make the mistake again."

And it was true; Last time, Louis had eaten all of the food that he'd just bought at the grocery the day before. After all, Niall was just a broke university student living off of the allowance his parents sent him monthly. He supposed he shouldn't complain, though, since his parents were paying for his schooling, his flat, and almost everything else.

Louis wasn't much worse off. He was at Uni on a football scholarship, so most things on campus were paid for. And of course he could get his own food, but raiding Niall's pantry was easier.

"Yeah, alright, I'll find it soon enough, Horan," Louis said, picking up the TV remote and flipping through the channels. "You going for pizza with the lads tonight?" Louis asked after a second, apparently already over getting locked out of Niall's flat.

"Always do," Niall replied easily. Every Friday night he and his three friends, Louis and Liam and Zayn, went out for pizza. They'd all been mates since kindergarten and also happened to go to the same university. Although they each had different majors and schedules, they each set aside Friday nights for getting together.

Niall slowly walked toward where Louis had draped himself on the couch, trying to gauge his range of movement and keep and noise the nappy might have made silent. He wasn't usually brave enough to wear a nappy around his mates, even Louis, let alone out in public, but lately he'd been a little less wary of being found out about. Tonight was the first night he was going to go out in a nappy, and even though he was just going out for pizza with a few of his best mates, Niall couldn't help but feel nervous that something would go wrong. It wasn't that big of a deal, but Niall was naturally very sensitive, and he wished he had someone reassure him. He'd always wondered what it would be like to have a "Daddy," but for some reason he could never see himself trusting anyone enough.

"Why are you walking like that?" Louis asked, pulling Niall out of his thoughts and sitting up to give him a weird look.

"My foot's just asleep," Niall said quickly.

Louis eyed him suspiciously for a few moments before letting it go.

"I'm just going to go change," Niall said, nearly running down the hallway to his room. He knew it was irrational to be so shaken up; it wasn't like Louis was going to think anything of it.

Niall quickly dug through his closet to find a pair of his baggier jeans and a tshirt. He threw them on and decided to put the rest of his...things away in the box at the back of his closet. He remembered the dummy under his pillow and looked at it longingly before putting it in the box too.

"Are you ready, Lou?" Niall asked as he walked out of his room and down the hall, fixing his hair as he went.

"Yeah, just waiting for you," Louis said, turning off the TV.

With that, they both walked out to Louis' car and drove to their usual pizza place. They made comfortable small talk on the way, occasionally telling a story about something that had happened over the week. By the time they got to the pizza place, Zayn and Liam were already there. Louis and Niall slid into the opposite side of the booth that the other two were already at.

At first, Niall looked around nervously and shifted awkwardly feeling like everyone was staring at him, like everyone knew he was wearing a diaper. After a few minutes, Niall began to relax and get into the conversation.

"You alright, Niall?" Liam asked, pausing the story he was telling. "You look a little tense."

"What? Oh, no, I'm fine. Just a little tired," Niall said and then cringed at what a bad excuse that was.

Zayn and Liam both gave him a weird look while Louis shrugged it off, but Niall was saved when a large group of loud people came into the restaurant. Everyone's attention was immediately pulled to the commotion, and Niall's strange behaviors were forgotten for a moment. Niall sighed and sat back in the booth.

"They're a rowdy bunch," Zayn said. The rest of them mumbled their agreements as the pizza they ordered finally arrived and was set on the table in front of them. They all dug into the food and had a good time until a few of the people from the "rowdy bunch" were suddenly becoming Louis over.

"Hey, I know them!" Louis said as if people he didn't know would call him over to their table. "I'm gonna go say hi, be right back," he said, sliding out of the booth.

Niall watched him go and greet a few of the boys before taking the opportunity to excuse himself to the bathroom. Niall was trying to make it to the bathroom unnoticed, but apparently Louis had other plans.

"Niall!" Louis called out, waving animatedly at him. "Come meet Harry," he said.

Niall looked over toward the person Louis was apparently referencing. His eyes widened at the tall boy with curly hair. Niall's eyes flicked between where Louis and the other boy were standing and the direction to the bathroom nervously. He bit his lip before deciding the bathroom could wait. Besides, it would only take a second to meet this Harry kid and leave, right?

A/N: okkkkkkk, so chapter one done. This is wayyy different than anything I've written in the past, so that makes me nervous to post this, but also excited. It's also kind of short, but future chapter will be longer, this is just kind of an introduction. So tell me what you think! Please?

PS. I'm still writing TFC, and I'm also going to start the ziall story, probably by the end of the week :)