Hello muffins,
How are y'all? Hope you have a wonderful day ahead. ❤️

As I mentioned on my message board, this chapter will be published in two parts. I was thinking of making it a single chapter but since I was already too late with the update, I decided to publish a part of it right now and the next part in a few more days.

Thank you so much for being patient for the updates. It really means a lot. So, I dedicate this chappie to every single one of you. Love you guys xx

And LET ME TAKE A MOMENT TO ADDRESS MY LITTLE HEDGEHOG'S MUSIC VIDEO OF 'TWO OF US'. MY BABY LOOKS SO SOFT AND PRECIOUS I MIGHT JUST DIE. THE VIDEO IS SO RAW AND GOES STRAIGHT TO THE HEART. TOTALLY AMAZING. I JUST LOVE LOVE LOVE THAT BOY.💙💙💙

Anyways, if I start talking about Louis right now, I won't stop anytime soon so without further ado, here's the next update. Hope you guys like it.

Please don't forget to vote and comment. xx

"No!"

"What do you mean by no?"

"No means no, Harry." Niall said while descending the staircase of their house. He walked to the dining table and picked up an apple.

Harry rolled his eyes and followed Niall closely, like a lost puppy desperately needing attention. Except he seemingly needed something else in this case. "I know what no means, Niall. But why the hell are you saying no?"

Niall turned around and gasped dramatically. He gently ran his hands over Harry's hair and said "Aww Haz, I think you lost some screws of your brain while you were asleep. Go check under your bed before they are lost forever, sweetie."

Harry took a sharp intake of breath to stop himself from kicking Niall's butt. "Pleeease shut up, Niall.' He said with gritted teeth.

"Me? I'd rather have YOU shut up. You've been annoying me right from the moment I woke up. For the gazillionth time Harry, I'm not giving what you want." He said with a huff and sat down at the table.

"And why the hell not? Why do you have to be such a dickhead every time I need something from you?" Harry whined and plopped down angrily on the chair next to Niall.

"No fighting kids!" Elisa came out of the kitchen with two plated to grilled cheese sandwiches and placed it in front of both the boys. She sat next to Niall and said, "Okay now tell me, what's the problem?"

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Your boytoy is being an ass. That's what the problem is, El."

Elisa burst out laughing at that. "Did you just call him my 'boytoy'?"

Niall grimaced and said, "You're supposed to be on my side, babe."

"Sorry, sorry. You can't blame me though, that was hella funny." She giggled but muffled it as soon as Niall narrowed his eyes at her. "Okay, back to the topic. What really is your problem, Harry?"

"Niall's not umm...ask him yourself." Harry said and dived into the sandwich.

Elisa frowned while Niall smirked mischievously. "Oh no no, why should I tell her? Come on Harry, tell Elisa what exactly you've been asking me since morning? And yes don't forget to add in the reason behind needing it. I would very much like to know that as well." He winked at Harry mockingly and took a bite of his sandwich.

"You know what Niall, if the law grants me pardon for a murder, it'll be yours." Harry said with a glare. Niall just never lets him hear the end of any of his embarrassments.

"I am well aware, dude." Niall said, not looking up from his sandwich as if he wasn't just given a death threat by his own best friend.

"Okay seriously, what is actually going on?" Elisa asked, trying to control her laughter at both the boys bickering like ten years old right in front of her.

"Ohh nothing, Harry just very desperately wants Louis' number." Niall stated casually, knowing very well that harry won't accept it himself. Elisa raised his eyebrows in amusement and looked at Harry who had sought resort in looking at the stuffings in his sandwich to avoid anyone seeing his flushed face.

"Ooooohhh. That's it?" She exclaimed.

"Exactly. See, it's not even a big deal and he's not giving it to me. And.." Harry said a bit too perked up. "I'm not desperate for it, alright!"

"Sure. But what do you need it for?" Elisa asked. It's not like she didn't know but Harry's reddened cheeks were not something she usually saw.

"Weelllll, ummm you know..." Harry trailed. Niall snickered behind his cup of tea and mumbled in a high pitched teasing voice, "It's because Hazza is craving to talk to Tommo."

"No, he's not. Come on Niall, Louis is my manager, remember? I need to keep his mobile number with me. How else am I gonna get my schedules and routines and about management meetings and so many other things?" The green eyed boy had had enough of this Irish leprechaun's taunting and barked out.

"Just like how you've been getting them for the last couple of weeks?" Niall said and shrugged.

"But.... but it'll a lot easier that way. He could just call me directly and I-I can also occasionally call him too...but only when I need to, of course but anyways..It'll save him the trouble of sending all the details to you and then asking you to send it to me and you know..." Harry said, trying to sound convincing. He did have a fair point but if only his friends didn't know him sooo well.

"Oh so you're doing it for saving Louis from the 'trouble' of sending Niall the schedules? How considerate, Harry." Elisa asked while biting her lips to subside her giggles.

"uhh Yeah. But of course, everyone needs to have their manager's mobile number, right? It can be needed any time!"

Elisa nodded, "Yup that's true."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he found Elisa quite convinced with his reasons and if Elisa was convinced, he knew that she could get Niall to finally give him Louis' number. "Oh Thank God, at least you understand me, El."

"Excuse me? You mean I don't understand you?" Niall asked offended while taking the last piece of his sandwich in his mouth and sneakily sliding his hands towards Harry's abandoned sandwich. But the green eyed boy was quick to swat his hands away. "If you do, then give me his number."

"Nuh-uh"

"What the hell, Nialll!"

"Hey hey, I do understand whatever you just said or stuttered morelike and I totally agree. A superstar like you has places to be and people to meet. You never know what event comes up suddenly so I say you must and you should definitely have your manager aka Louis' number."

Harry's glare at Niall deepened, "Seriously Niall? I have been repeatedly telling you the same thing since morning and you get it but STILL...you're not giving me his number?"

"Yup." Niall said with a smile and Elisa burst out laughing. The green eyed boy was seconds away from gabbing the knife on the table and jumping right at Niall.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing. Look all I'm saying is that if you really need Louis' number that bad, why don't you ask him for it?"

And that had Harry's mouth shut up. He tried to come up with an excuse for that but nothing came to his mind. "I- I can't."

"And why not?"

'Cause I am too chicken to do it'. He thought. "I just can't, Niall."

He obviously wasn't going to admit that he was nervous to ask Louis for his number. For the last couple of days, Harry had just listened to his heart and had given in to his feelings and emotions. As a result of which his heartbeat tended to go haywire around Louis. He involuntarily changed into the seventeen year old boy he once had been who just couldn't think straight whenever he was with Louis. And that was just too embarrassing for a twenty five year old man to admit. Moreover, the little stack of ego that he still had, wanted to convince him that he was just being generous by forgiving Louis and refused to believe that he was gradually developing a crush on the blue-eyed beautiful boy once again. His self-conceit wanted him to hold an unaffected, hard to get demeanour and not some sickly smitten boy with strong infatuation, in front of Louis.

Therefore, asking Louis for his number wasn't even in his options.

"Harry, Niall's right. You need Louis' number, then you gotta ask him yourself."

"Fine!" Harry said and stood up from his chair. He started walking towards the stairs before turning towards Niall with a growl, "You did this to me again and I seriously hate you for that" He said and stomped off to his bedroom to get ready for going to the studio.

"Love you too, bro" Niall shouted towards his best friend's retreating figure.

"What did he mean by you doing this 'again'?" Elisa asked which instantly brought a sinister smirk on Niall's face. He took a sip of his tea and said, "Welllll, it's not the first time Harry's asked me for Louis' number and... let's just say that annoying Harry has always been my favorite hobby." He winked and stood up from his chair to go change in his bedroom.

<<FLASHBACK:

"OVER HERE, HARRY!" Niall shouted when he saw Harry entering the classroom. It was the last class of their first day in school and Harry was glad that he shared it with Niall. History never really interested him anyway. His previous class was with Liam, a new friend that he had made in this school. The lad was really friendly and helping. He had even walked him to the history class to show him the directions.

The curly haired boy made his way to the seat Niall had kept reserved for him. He saw many students that he shared his other classes with and even waved at the red haired girl whom he had met in his English class.

Harry fist bumped with Niall and opened his bag to take out his book.

"So, how would you describe your first day in this school as?" The blonde haired boy asked when he saw they still had five minutes before the class started.

"It was good. Better than I hoped. I mean I had thought that it'd be boring for the first few days, considering we won't have our friends here. But, Liam, Zayn and Louis were so friendly all day. I had this other class with Zayn and he introduced me to a lot of other kids. It was fun. Plus, it's a good thing that we all have the break together."

"Yeah and you know Liam is the captain of the school's football team."

"Oh really? Did you ask him if we can join?"

"Yeah he said tomorrow after school, we can meet the coach."

"Hmmm okay." Harry said with a nod. "So, any classes with Louis?" He asked nonchalantly.

Niall shurgged his shoulders and said, "Yes,why?"

"Ohh no it's nothing. I didn't have any with him today." Harry mumbled while looking into his book.

"Oo-kay" Niall said with furrowed eyebrows. "But we all met during the break. Didn't you match your schedules with his?"

"Oh yes I did. I have three classes with him tomorrow." Harry said with an excited smile. "He umm... He seems like a wonderful person. Doesn't he?"

"Yup. All of them are wonderful. Louis, Liam, Zayn and Andrew." Niall said. He felt his phone vibrating and fished it out of his pocket while continuing, "You don't think so?"

"Of course I do." Harry said with a scoff. Harry liked all of them. He could see all of them being his close friends in the near future. But there was something about the short and cute Louis that made him want to know more about him. Those intriguing blue eyes pulled him in every time he looked at them. Louis' smiley, bubbly and happy go lucky attitude was just really delightful. Also, not to mention, the boy was beautiful as heaven.

On top of that, Harry and Louis also seemed to have clicked instantly. The two of them had chatted for most of the time of their break and Harry had really enjoyed Louis' company. All through that half an hour spent in the school's cafeteria, it was mostly Harry talking to Louis and acknowledging others only a few times in the middle. He already felt like he had made a new best friend and the first day of school wasn't even over yet. It was like the boy was pulling Harry towards him right from the moment they met. Harry just found Louis lovely and couldn't wait to see where his bonding with him went to.

His revering thoughts of this new friend of his were interrupted when his old one laughed loudly next to him. Harry whirled his head towards Niall to see the boy chuckling at his phone and typing something. He was about to ask Niall, whom he was texting when the teacher entered the class.

"Good morning students. To the students who are seeing my handsome face for the first time, my name is John Graymark and I'll be your history teacher for this semester. And to the students who have the pleasure of knowing me from before, well, welcome back to the 'hell hole', as you like to call it." The professor said with a mocking tone.

The class continued like that for the next ten minutes where Mr. Graymark asked the new students to introduce themselves to the class and the old students to tell the class about how they spent their summer. Considering it was the first day of the semester, he decided not to teach anything in the class and asked them to just go through the first ten pages of the first lesson.

"Remember, you're given a work so I don't want to hear any noise. And, no phones in the classroom unless you're really keen on getting a detention for the entire first week." He said.

Harry sighed and started flipping the pages of his book mindlessly. He would just look at the pictures of historic places and people and then move to the other page only to repeat the same thing.

Five minutes into this, and he was bored. He turned towards Niall to talk to him but the blonde boy was again engrossed in his mobile phone and looking at the phone screen with a toothy grin.

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "You aren't supposed to use the phone. Do you seriously want detention on your very first day, man?"

"Oh come on, Haz. You know I've always been .... what's the word?"

"Disobedient?" Harry said with narrowed eyes.

Niall scoffed and said, "Naah, rebellious is the word, bro." He said and smirked.

Harry couldn't help but chuckle at that, making sure to keep this voice low enough to not reach the teacher.
"Who are you texting anyway?"

"No one important. It's just Louis." Niall said without looking up from the phone.

Harry turned his head towards Niall in a split second when he heard that. " YOU HAVE.." he stopped when he noticed the teacher raising his head for a moment to see who made that noise and realised that he had exclaimed a bit too loudly. He scooted a little closer to Niall and when he saw the teacher turn back to his book, he whispered so as to grab no one else's attention, "You have Louis' number?"

Niall typed a quick text before stuffing his phone back in his pocket and shifting his attention to his best friend who was just acting plain weird, "Yes I do. Why?"

"Cause I don't have it." Harry mumbled under his breath. He frowned at the fact that Niall managed to get Louis' number right on the first day of school but he didn't. "When did you ask him for his number?"

"When I had my English lesson with him? Okay why are you acting so bizzare?" He asked when he found Harry a bit too interested in asking useless questions which somehow included Louis.

Harry fake chuckled and said, "Pfft Bizzare? Me? Not at all! Anyways, you were saying. How did you get his number?"

"Actually, he was talking about the drama club that some students from the English class organise and he asked me if I wanted to give it a try. I agreed so he gave me his number to inform me about whenever he goes to the club."

"Hmm. okay" Harry said with a nod. "Give it to me as well." 

Niall looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, "Give you what?"

"Louis' number, what else?"

Niall looked at him skeptically, "And why do you need it?"

"umm forrrr... the drama club." Harry said, trying to sound casual and fished his phone out of his pocket.

And that's when Niall knew for sure that Harry was totally acting absurd. He narrowed his eyes and said, "Drama."

"Yes", Harry replied.

"You?"

"Yes"

"Yeah, right," Niall said with a scoff. "You suck at acting Harry and you hate it too. You literally vanish into thin air every time Anne comes up with the idea of playing dumb-charades in the house on Christmas."
(Harry's acting in Dunkirk was mind blowing. Let's just assume he doesn't like acting in this story. Thank you 😁)

And Harry couldn't argue with that. He always preferred staying far away from acting, so naturally drama club was nothing he would ever be interested in. What interested him here was Louis' number. "umm Why not give it a try then? I mean maybe this drama club can improve my acting skills, right?"

"Riiiiiiiight!" Niall said mockingly. "Like that would ever happen."

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Shut up. Just give me the number."

"Dude I can't just give you his number without his permission. What if he doesn't want you to have it?"

Harry looked offended at that, "Why not? I'll have you know that we talked a lot in the canteen during the break. He likes me, okay."

Niall shrugged and said, "Then ask him yourself for his number. Matter solved. " 

Harry opened his mouth to protest but stopped before any word came out. Niall did have a point. He could just go ask for Louis' number from the boy himself. Simple. He wondered why that thought never came to his mind. It's not like Louis wouldn't give him his number or something. "umm yeah okay." He said and resumed going through his history book.

Niall looked at the curly haired boy with furrowed brows and an amused expression. The blonde boy really didn't understand what was so big of a deal about it that had gotten Harry acting so fidgety and weird. It was just a phone number after all, that too of a person they had met just today. Niall sighed and shook his head at Harry, deciding not to bother with his crazy behaviour and concentrating on his book once again.

He could hardly read a word before Harry spoke up once again, "uhh By the way, what was it he was texting that made you laugh?"

Niall closed his eyes in annoyance before turning back towards Harry, "Okay seriously what's wrong with you?"

"Whaat? It's a simple question." Harry answered back in a defensive tone.

"I won't tell you." Niall said and looked at his book once again.

Harry whined and said, "Come on, Ni."

"Shut up, you idiot."

"Then tell me."

"No."

"Tell me, Niall."

"It was just a text, Harry. Why do you even wanna know?"

"Because I...uhh.. I just want to. Tell me."

"You are being really weird, you know."

"Just tell me, Niall."

"Okay okay fine. He had texted me about the drama club and I told him that I am in Mr. Graymark's class. He was just telling me about a funny incident about him. Once, some kids had started a food fight in the canteen and Mr. Graymark had gone to stop them. But instead a bowl of noodles dropped right on him and he slipped over the thrown pizza on the ground." Niall said and chuckled. He kept his voice extra low and kept looking at the teacher occasionally, to make sure that he couldn't hear him. Harry too couldn't contain his laughter and snickered softly. But he stopped as soon as Niall continued, "That's what he had texted me. I told you now, Happy?"

Harry cleared his throat and put up a nonchalant expression and said, "Ohh.......okay....yeah. I was j-"

"I can hear some murmuring guys. Didn't know you all love detention that much, huh?" The teacher's voice immediately made Niall and Harry scoot away from one another and look into their history books. 

"I don't want to be in trouble right on the first day because of you Harry. So shut up." Niall said and flipped the page of his book.

Although Harry snubbed Niall's words as he focused on thinking of asking Louis for his number. He just wanted the class to be over and meet Louis at dismissal. Harry didn't know why and how Louis had affected him this much in just one day but he was sure that the small, sweet (and insanely gorgeous) blue eyed boy was going to become a huge part of his life real soon.

FLASHBACK OVER>>

And just like all those years ago, the same Harry was standing in front of his bedroom's mirror, while buttoning up the sleeves of his one of the many gucci shirts that he was wearing, thinking about what he was gonna say to Louis while asking for his number. 

"Give me your number." Harry spoke to the mirror. He instantly scrunched his face on hearing how it sounded, "No, that's too blunt."

"Please give me your number, Louis. Nah too desperate."

"Hey Louis, I was wondering if you could give me your number?" He said with a smile. "No, that's too smitten. He should feel like you're asking your manager's number, Harry" He scolded his reflection in the mirror. "Not some boy you have a hopeless crush on." He murmured the last part to himself while rolling his eyes.

He blushed a little at his own thoughts before shaking his head to get those thoughts away. "Tough, tough. You gotta be tough, Harry." He looked at his mirror image once again and tried one more time.

"Louis, you better give me your number or.... Don't. sound. threatening. Harry UGHHH" He said with gritted teeth. By this time, he was frustrated at himself. He just couldn't find the right words to say. It wasn't even a big deal. All he had to do was ask the boy for his mobile number and that's it. But seemed like he couldn't even get that done.

And even though he wouldn't admit, he knew that he was a confused puddle over such a trivial thing only because it was not just anyone he had to ask the number from. It was Louis. The boy whom he had loved and then hated but still loved. The boy whom he had started to forgive for what happened six years ago but hadn't gotten past everything just yet. Harry's mind wasn't completely ready for him to be all sweet and nice to the boy once again but his heart wasn't allowing him to be tough and firm in front of him either.

He whined and plopped down on his bed while running his hands through his hair in annoyance. He sighed and looked up at his disheveled hair in the mirror and couldn't help the helpless chuckle that escaped his lips.

"Louis Tomlinson, what a mess you always turn me in. You don't even have the slightest idea." 

💙💚💙💚

So, how was it?
I'm sorry for the mistakes, if you've found any.

Wait for the next chapter to find out whether Harry gathers enough courage to ask for Louis' number or just convinces Niall to give him it. Also, a big thing is coming up in the next part. What do you think it could be?(Hint: It's not Larry related)

I'm not sure how much you guys would've liked this chappie. Please let me know your opinions or any suggestions in the comments. I'll try to improve.

Thank you for reading. Please do vote and comment.️️❤️

Updated: 17/05/2019

I love you,
Pragati💞💞