Niall had a secret. The blonde was rather secretive person, so this wasn’t a big surprise. But what made this secret different from the other ones is that he hadn’t told it to his four best friends: Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson. Niall was secretive around everyone except his best, and only, friends. The secret? Niall Horan had asthma. While this wasn’t embarrassing to most people, it was to Niall. He still remembered the day he found out that having asthma was embarrassing.
It was three years ago, when Niall was 14 years old. He was alone in the nurse’s office, where he was calming down from a mild asthma attack. The nurse had left to go on her lunch break. She trusted Niall enough not to mess around in the office. Niall was told he could stay as long as we wanted. It was going fine until Josh Devine walked in. Josh Devine was the most popular, badass kid at Niall’s school. He was also a huge douchebag, so of course every girl was in love with him. Back then, Niall wanted everyone to like him. He wanted anyone to like him. It wasn’t that Niall wasn’t a friendly person, because he was; he was just dorky. Niall was short, was a little chubby because of his baby fat, had obviously badly dyed bleach blond hair, wore glasses, read comic books, and was the new kid from Ireland who used to be homeschooled. While everybody secretly thought he was sort of absolutely adorable, no one was willing to admit that and instead opted to make fun of him. Josh was no exception.
"Hey, homo," Josh greeted Niall. Mentally, Josh cringed. ‘You’d love for him to be a homo like you, wouldn’t you?’ a voice told Josh in his head. He didn’t want to be mean to the Irish kid, but how else could he get Niall’s attention without admitting that he liked Niall?
Niall looked down as he said, “Hi” back, looking at his inhaler in his hand. Josh noticed the inhaler, too.
"What’s that?" Josh asked rather rudely.
"My inhaler," Niall said back in his adorable Irish voice. ‘That’s so cute!’ Josh thought.
"That’s so gay," Josh said. Niall gave him a confused look.
"How is having asthma gay?" Niall questioned. Josh laughed.
"Are you really that retarded?" Josh asked meanly.
"Just tell me," Niall begged.
"Let me ask you something: What else have you sucked today?" Josh asked. Niall looked even more confused, which made him look adorable. Pushing his rather large black glasses farther up on his small face, Niall said,
"What do you mean?"
Josh scoffed. “So you are retarded. Do I have to spell it out for you? Sucking on an inhaler will make people think you suck on dicks. Duh!” Josh told Niall. ‘Is that your sick way of trying to get him to suck your dick? Pathetic,’ that voice in Josh’s head said. The blonde looked down as his lap as his face flushed in embarrassment. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Niall ran out the office, promising himself to never tell anyone else about his asthma.
Three years later, Niall had lost all his baby fat, was a normal height, had gotten a better dye job, gotten contacts, and had gotten generally hotter. There were some things that had stayed the same, though. He still read comics, still cared what everyone thought of him, and still hid the fact that he had asthma. Niall had also gotten friends for the first time in his life.
The first was Liam Payne, who also liked comic books and was the first person to actually talk to Niall nicely since he had moved. They met in remedial English class, as Niall was dyslexic and Liam was a terrible speller and writer. He was less nerdy than Niall and more muscular from being on the football team. All the girls loved Liam, but Liam preferred hanging out with Niall to dealing with the drama of a relationship. So people left the two friends alone.
