When Louis opens the door to his apartment, he can feel some of the usual heaviness settle back down on his shoulders. At the sight of his girlfriend's clothes that are scattered over the floor in the hallway, his bad conscience starts scolding him for spending the day of her birthday working and, even worse, with Harry and some random kid instead of her.

On the other hand, he knows exactly that he would've absolutely regretted going out for dinner or whatever together with her friends. Some of them are quite okay and Louis gets along with them, but a few are also pretty weird. It is an open secret that they don't like him very much and Louis has no idea why. Granted, he doesn't really like them either, but he would've been willing to at least treat each other nicely.

They seemingly never considered this option and Louis is tired of their constant taunting remarks about him getting a proper job or his 'funny accent'. When he informed Jane that he finds their behaviour low-key rude, she brushed it off as teasing among friends and told him not to be so uptight. He can gladly go without another evening with jokes at his expense.

His first way leads him into the kitchen in order to make himself a cup of tea. In this regard, he really is the epitome of a Brit. Louis doesn't really know why British people tend to drink tea in any situation, but they do. Tea always helps, whether its with exhaustion, sorrow, grief, boredom, desperation or, as in his case, when you need to think deeply about something.

He must admit that the day went much better than expected. He actually was enjoying himself, both during his shift and afterwards. Although he doubts that Bear came up with the idea of asking him to join them himself, he is thankful that he did. On his way home, Louis came to the conclusion that over the past ten years, he had missed spending time with Harry much more than he is willing to confess. When he broke off contact, he was aware that he consciously lost the best friend he's ever had.

Back then, Louis thought that he would somehow be able to compensate this, that he would easily find new friends – maybe even better ones. Truth is, he didn't, and he never will, find anyone like Harry again. He found other people that became a very important part of his life, but they never meant the same to him as Harry did. Louis doesn't really believe in soulmates or whatever people call it, but if anything, he guesses that what Harry and he had comes closest to what they mean with this term.

He has never met anyone who he clicked with so fast and easily, who he trusted so unconditionally, who he had such a special place for in his heart – who he needed so much as him. Everything would've been fine if they had left their friendship at that. Maybe they would still be best friends.

After changing into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, Louis plops down on the sofa and turns on the TV. He stretches his legs out and drapes a blanket over his body. Zapping from one channel to the next, he can feel his eyelids already getting heavy. However, his plan is to stay awake until Jane comes back to make sure that she is fine. She will probably still be mad and won't talk to him, but that's okay as long as he knows that she is home safe.

Since he can't find anything interesting on TV, he eventually sticks with a documentation about gorillas while his thoughts drift back to Harry. Before today, Louis wasn't aware how large the hole inside of him is that was left after he removed Harry from his life. He got an idea of it after their first encounter after Gemma's wedding but at this point, he still told himself that it would be better to let it be.

Neither did he plan nor expect to see Harry again anytime soon. Although he played through scenarios in his head of what he would say or do if he did. Getting juggling lessons from Harry while sticking in a silly clown costume definitely wasn't among them, but it could've been worse.

The thought of what it would be like to have Harry back in his life, that he still tried to suppress over the past few weeks, is now present again and he doesn't even make an attempt to avoid it any longer. He misses having a best friend, his best friend. Truth is, he misses Harry. He saw that today. The thing is, he doesn't exactly know how the other man feels about this. Louis is certain that Harry would never force himself on him, that he would never make him do anything he doesn't want. If all he wanted from him was friendship, Harry would probably be okay with it. Louis trusts him in this case, that's not it. He just doesn't entirely trust himself.

He pulls his mobile out of his pocket, checking the time. It's only half past ten. He sets an alarm for the next morning at 7am. This should give him enough time to get ready and make it to the fair in time. He will have to work the whole day, not only the afternoon as today, but it probably will bearable. Since the gorillas in the documentary are not really able to catch Louis' interest, he decides to spend the evening with something more useful and catch up with Zayn a little. They haven't seen each other since their last film project and because Zayn was quite busy, they didn't manage to communicate much, apart from some curt text messages.

The phone rings for a few moments before he can hear the other man picking up. "Hello?"

"Hey man, it's me, Louis. Do you have time to talk?"

"Umm... Sure. For you always. What's up?"

"Nothing much. What about you?"

"I'm in Edinburgh right now for some kind of workshop. They showed us some pretty sick stuff today. It will hopefully be useful, I got a job, you know?"

"Wow, really? That's cool. Where?"

"Dominion Theatre. They were looking for makeup artists, I applied for it and what should I say, I was one of the lucky few. They hired me for a whole year, and I'll be starting next month!"

"Congrats, Zayn, really! Then I can always get free tickets from you," Louis smirks, playing with a loose thread on his sleeve.

"That's so typical," Zayn huffs into the speaker but he doesn't actually sound angry. "What are you doing right now?"

"Oh, I...," Louis trails off, a bit embarrassed to inform Zayn about his current job. "Someone seemed to find I was doing great as a clown..."

"You went to the circus?" Zayn laughs wholeheartedly. "I haven't been to the circus in ages, you need to get me free tickets soon."

"Nooo," Louis groans. "There's this fair here right now..."

"Oh yeah, I've heard about it. Dammit, I would've loved to see you as a clown," Zayn teases with a laugh, causing Louis to roll his eyes.

"Shut up. I'm a very good clown. I think it's one of my hidden talents."

"Not hidden anymore now. Any other talents I should know about?"

"Juggling, definitely."

"Since when can you juggle? You are the clumsiest person I know, what have I missed?"

"Learnt it today, actually," Louis says casually, ignoring Zayn's other remark.

"How come?"

"Harry taught me. You remember, this guy we met in Holmes Chapel?"

"Of course, the one it was complicated with...?"

Louis breaths out slowly. "Yeah, this one."

"So you two met again? How was it? Did you bite the bullet and suggest meeting or...?"

"No, it was accidental. He was at the fair with his cousin's son," Louis explains, not wanting Zayn to get the wrong impression.

"Just for the record... This Harry lad taught you how to juggle while you were in a clown costume? Jeez, why am I always missing the best stuff..."

"I'm not here for your personal entertainment so shut up already," Louis retorts, wiggling his toes in his socks.

"I'm sorry for breaking it to you but you definitely are."

"Great friends I have there," Louis mutters under his breath but loud enough for Zayn to here, earning a chuckle from him. "But I actually wanted to ask you for advice, you know, regarding Harry."

"Okay...?"

"Remember when you asked me if I wanted our friendship back?"

"Sure... And you said you weren't sure, but rather not. Have you changed your mind after today's juggling lesson or what?"

"Not just today... But I've had lots of time to think about it since the wedding."

"I see... And now you want to know what you should do?"

"Umm... something like that," Louis mumbles contritely.

"Well... Even though I don't know exactly what happened between the two of you, I'm usually for giving second chances. But it's up to you of course."

"Actually I am the one who would need a second chance in this case..."

"Come on, this guy taught you juggling today. Seems like he's more than willing to give you one."

"Should I take it?"

"Are you seriously asking this? Yes, for God's sake!"

"I'll think about it... Thanks for your help mate!"

"Anytime, Lou. I think I'm going to sleep now. Have a good night. I'll talk to you soon."

"Alright. Good night to you too, Zayn."

Hellooo my lovely people xxx

School has started again and it's weird with all the corona measures. We have to wear masks during the lessons and I can't breatheee

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