this side of paradise l.s.

chapter ii.

I realized too late that this chapter was getting too long so i cut it in half so no louis pov yet lmao also my tiktok got 10k followers and idk how to tell them im a larrie one direction acc. Anyway, take a shot every time i call louis pretty.

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"shall i write it in a letter?
shall i try to get it down?
oh you fill my head with pieces
of a song i can't get out

can i be close to you?"
-Bloom, Paper Kites

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The awful thing about having a crush is that it doesn’t go away just because you wanted it to. If that was the case, Harry could’ve saved himself the next five years of heartbreak, but alas, he was stuck with it. He was wedged between one side of the couch in the X Factor house and someone’s old guitar, arms crossed in frustration as he watched Louis chat with two of the other contestants - their rivals, that traitor - with a smile that made Harry’s stomach do somersaults. The girls were standing far too close to him, the brunette twirling a lock of her hair around her finger flirtatiously while the other was biting her bubblegum pink lips. How Louis didn’t notice the blatant flirting was anyone’s guess, but that didn’t stop Harry from wanting to push those two out of the way and take up all of Louis’ attention. 

He frowned. Jealousy does not look good on you, Harry, he thought to himself. Just because someone is interested in Louis doesn’t mean they deserve to be hated. They’re just like you. 

One of the girls made Louis laugh and Harry forgot his previous train of thought. 

It wasn’t fair, was the thing. They had just moved into their rooms after barely making the cut, and that was only because Simon Cowell had decided to put them in a boy band. Bands were supposed to spend time with each other and be best mates and maybe have one of the members profess their love to another member so that they could get married and live happily ever after, but Harry got zero private time with Louis. The X Factor house was a food chain and Louis was at the top, garnering attention everywhere he went and making easy conversation with everyone. Whenever Harry decided to come up to him, there would always be someone else there, making Louis smile or laugh or blush, the way Harry wanted to.

Jealousy was a disease and Harry was the member of the month at the A&E. 

“Who pissed on your cornflakes?” 

Harry startled, face reddening even though he technically wasn’t doing anything wrong. “What?”

Niall Horan shoved the guitar none too gently over and plopped down next to Harry, a plate of cookies cradled in his arms like an infant. His bleached hair was spiky as if he lost a fight with hair gel and his jumper had crumbs all over it. “You look like your cornflakes got pissed on,” he repeated, eyes trained on the forgotten telly playing a riveting game of croquet. Harry didn’t even know that was a sport. 

“No one pissed on my cereal,” he scoffed. “I didn’t even eat cereal today, I had a banana and a muffin.” 

Niall gave him a weird look. Harry gave him one back. 

Niall was one of the members of the band Louis and Harry were in. He was older than Harry but not by a lot, evident by the way Louis pinched his cheeks and called him “a little leprechaun”. It was great because Harry wasn’t the only one being babied, but also awful because Harry wasn’t the only one being babied by Louis. Niall was violently Irish and had blond hair so bleached it couldn’t have been healthy. He was abnormally good at making friends, charming the pants off of all the contests and gossiping with the cleaning ladies. It was impossible to be annoyed by him, even when he stole chips off Harry’s plate while he was looking and drooled when he slept. Harry couldn’t find a single thing to dislike about him, not that he wanted to. Harry liked making new friends. And Niall was the perfect person to rant about Louis to because he stopped listening the minute Harry opened his mouth, which meant any embarrassing details about his love for the way Louis’ eyelashes fanned on his cheekbones were wiped from his brain.