Liam Payne walked out of his class with a ragged sigh. His schoolbag was hung off his shoulder, half opened from where his laziness hadn’t been able to find the effort to close it. It was another hot day, the temperatures soaring, and all Liam wanted to do was take a cold shower and wear nothing but his favourite pair of basketball shorts. But of course, he was stuck in this sweaty school uniform, which clung to his body the minute he started to sweat. He rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance as he yanked on the top of his tie, telling himself not to make the mistake of wearing his long-sleeved shirt again. He wiped his forehead a little, the whirring of the room fan still echoing in his ears.
His mind started to question why he had chosen such hard, homework-riddled A Levels to study as he walked into the sixth form corridor and headed to the common room for lunch. He’d had Double English and then History, both lessons had been in cramped classrooms with un-opening windows and little or no air conditioning, and not to mention rowdy teenage boys that were in a bad mood due to the hot weather. His mind felt heavy, like at any minute his heavy brain would cause him to be top heavy and fall over from the amount of information it was carrying on his shoulders. Liam was just looking forward to a relaxing hour of lunch with his three best friends, Harry included today, he would doubly make sure of it.
As Liam walked towards the sixth form common room, flocks of other sixth form students had the same ideas, and the small corridors were loud with the sound of teenage boys moaning and groaning about the weather and the heat. Liam rolled his eyes as a couple of year thirteen’s pushed past him, loudly chatting about how they were going home to make good use of their study leave by their pool. Liam grumbled, wishing that he too had study leave, although that was a privilege he would only have in year thirteen. Liam’s mind started to drift and daydream as he made his way down another corridor, a back corridor that meant going down to the common room by the longer, but more quieter way, but the daydreaming immediately stopped when his big brown eyes saw the sight in front of him.
Zayn Malik, the skinny little mute boy that has always had a way of creeping Liam out, shuffled out of the art room with a couple of bulky looking sketchbooks in his hands, his brown eyes were scanning over something on the sketchbooks as he walked towards Liam. Liam frowned a little. Even when he walked, or shuffled awkwardly more like, the kid didn’t make a noise. His feet stepped along the ground like he didn’t want to hurt the damn carpet, and the only real noise that came from him was the shuffling sound of his backpack rubbing against the back of his blazer. How the kid was wearing a blazer in such hot weather Liam will never know.
On any other occasion Liam Payne wouldn’t have looked twice at the kid. Why would he? Like he said, Zayn Malik creeped him out, especially the way he blanked out every five minutes to stare at something minute like a pencil sharpening was a little creepy too. Liam’s top lip curled up slightly as his mind traced back to the time when he and Zayn once shared a class or two in high school, and everytime Liam would glance at him the boy would be staring at something like it would get him a good grade or something. Liam shook his head out of annoyance. The kid was fucking weird, and he was glad that Niall wasn’t like that. If his younger brother were like Zayn, then Liam would have to lock the creepy kid out of his room to stop him from staring at everything. Liam’s lip seemed to curl more in distaste.
But, Liam was looking at the kid today, because Harry Styles had been leant against the wall opposite the art room with a slight smile. Liam had immediately stopped, darting behind a column that seemed to hide his broad shoulders pretty well. His head had been bopping a little, due to the blue headphones that were coming from his ears, but once Zayn Malik walked out of the art room Harry’s head ceased to bop to the song he was listening too. The small smile seemed to grow wider and the boy pulled an earphone from his ear, before his other hand reached forward, the curly haired boy’s finger prodding into the cheek of the mute kid. The silent boy gave a slight flinch and looked up with flashing brown eyes, but the minute they saw Harry, the whole boy’s tense body seemed to ease into a relaxed position, and the kid even smiled.
A short but heavenly laugh slipped from Harry’s lips as he pushed himself from the wall so that was stood opposite the kid, only half a metre of space between them.
“Scared ya! Did you pee? You look like you peed a little.” Harry chuckled, as his green eyes flashed with delight as he looked over the tanned boy. Zayn’s own eyes rolled, but there was a small smirk on his face, his bottom lip being held in place by his teeth.
“Harry…” Liam’s eyes widened. The mute kid wasn’t so mute after all, he acknowledged, as Zayn Malik’s voice rolled round in his head. Jeez, it was like rocky velvet…why did the kid not talk more often with a voice like that?
“Sorry, Z, I just wanted to see if you’d wet your pants. Fancy some lunch?” Harry smiled, and Zayn nodded a little bit with a bashful smile. Liam immediately frowned and rolled his eyes. He had to admit to himself, it was cute. Cute that the not-so-mute Zayn looked so happy about a lunch that wasn’t going to happen, and wasn’t going to happen anymore. Harry was Liam’s best friend and maybe one day more, and some art kid wasn’t going to get in the way of that.
“Cool, I just need to nip to my locker, I’ll meet you in a few minutes, yeah?” Harry smiled, before he poked Zayn’s nose with a goofy smile. The other boy immediately scrunched his nose up with a slight squeak. Liam frowned, was that really a squeak?
Zayn nodded and held onto his art books as he watched Harry wave and walk off the other way towards the door. The door was where Liam had been heading too, until he saw this. It lead to a short staircase that went down to a room full of lockers and then had a way of going round to the back of the common room. Harry disappeared, leaving the door he had walked through slowly swinging back closed. Zayn shuffled on his feet before he started to walk towards Liam. Liam took a short breath in, his brown eyes glancing backwards to make sure that the corridor was completely empty, and once they were sure that it was, he knew what he had to do. He dropped his bag by the column slowly, and the minute Zayn walked within Liam’s reach, he immediately pounced out like some sort of viper striking out.
Zayn Malik gave yet another squeak as Liam’s big hands wrapped around his school collar and pressed him against the opposite wall. Zayn’s sketchbooks had fallen from his hands, causing him to whimper before his whole body was forced backwards, the pressure coming from his collar. Zayn’s eyes were snapped shut as his back of his head hit the wall. Liam had the slightly smaller, and much skinnier boy pinned to the wall. He smiled a little in triumph. Liam stood waiting for the kid to look at him, but after a few minutes of the boy pressing himself against the wall with his eyes squeezed shut, Liam rolled his eyes.
“Open your eyes, idiot. Look at me.” Liam demanded, and the minute his stern words had left his lips, Zayn’s eyelids slowly fluttered open until they met Liam’s dark brown ones. Liam smiled sickeningly at the kid as a devilish voice in the back of his mind asked him to make the scared boy squeak again.
“Zayn, I want you to think of me as your friend.” Liam started, tilting his head to one side as his words slowly dripped from his mouth. Zayn’s big brown eyes seemed to scan over his face as he talked, which made Liam scowl. He added more pressure to his hold on the kid before continuing.
“I’m going to tell you something that is the best for your own good. You need to stay the fuck away from Harry Styles. I know you like him, but he doesn’t like you. See, the thing about Harry is that he’s what I like to call a card collector.” Liam spoke, looking at Zayn like the creep he was. Liam’s face was etched with superiority as he looked over the gangly boy in his grasp.
“Are you going to ask me what that is?” Liam suddenly spoke, using a voice that he would normally talk to a toddler with. Or his brother on some occasions. Zayn’s big brown eyes were looking at him with such fright that it reminded Liam of the time when he had been driving with his Mum and she almost ran over a rabbit, giving them both a heart attack and something they could later laugh about.
“What is it?” Zayn’s voice came tiny, a silken whisper, which made one of Liam’s eyebrows raise itself.
“It’s someone who goes around, sweet talks you, makes you feel special, makes you feel like you’re their everything, and then they take away the only thing that ever mattered to them…” Liam looked at the kid for a minute, and after not getting any other response than a blank, deer in the headlights look he gave a ragged sigh, “‘which is?’” he prompted, shaking the boy ever so slightly.
“Which is.” Zayn’s voice came as a silky squeak once more, and Liam smirked as the devilish voice inside of his mind burst into laughter.
“Your virginity, Zayn. That’s all Harry Styles wants. He just wants to get you into bed, fuck you, and then be known as the guy who fucked the not-so-mute creep. It’s a title, Zayn, and to Harry it’s a worthy title.” Liam explained, the sickening smile on his mouth being genuine.
He knew his words were lies, due to the fact that Harry wouldn’t even know how to take a guy’s virginity. From what Liam already knew, being the guy’s best friend, Harry was a classic closet gay who was still trying to find himself. It was Liam’s job to help him along with this, knowing deep down that sooner or later Harry would make the confession that he liked boys one way or another, and would start thinking about having sex with another boy, but nevertheless, that wasn’t Zayn’s to have, it was going to be Liam’s.
“I’m just being nice to you, Zayn. And plus, even if you thought Harry was really interested in you, he’s not. Why would he when he has me, a guy who’s not a retard like you.” Liam sighed with a smile, before he loosened his grip on Zayn’s collar and brought his hands back to his hips. Zayn’s body seemed to stay in the same pressed up position against the lockers. Liam looked over him expectantly, wishing the kid would speak up or say something instead of just staring at him the way he was. It was like being looked at from under a microscope when this idiot looked at you.
“What’s a retard?” Zayn’s quiet voice came out like a whisper, and Liam frowned a little. He rolled his eyes and hit the lad round the back of the head.
“Speak up, please.” Liam demanded, looking at the boy with a curled upper lip. In all honesty, he’d heard Zayn loud and clear, he just really wanted to hit him over the head.
“What’s a retard?” Zayn tried again, his voice rocky and stuttered as he raised his words to reach a higher volume. Liam looked at him with a mocking look of pity.
“You.” He answered simply, looking up and down the kid before sighing again, quickly becoming bored of the situation. Turned out seeing the kid so jumpy and scared wasn’t as interesting as he thought. Zayn’s brown eyes looked up at him and looked over him, and he nodded and gulped a little. Liam rolled his eyes and walked away from him, nudging one of Zayn’s sketchbooks with his foot before he went to reach down for his schoolbag.
“I’m sorry.” A quiet, silky voice whispered, and Liam shot up back to his full height. He turned around slowly, a slight frown over his brow as he stared at Zayn with an obvious confusion.
“What?” Liam asked, before his mind felt it was slapped with a cricket bat as a memory of one of his and Niall’s fights hit him.
Liam’s large hand quickly pushed his younger and hysterical brother to the floor almost effortlessly. Niall hit the floor with a thud and he let out a long whine as his shoulders shook. It was a typical fight between two brothers. All siblings fight, this was just how the average fights between Liam and Niall went. Liam had been up all night studying, he didn’t need this.
“Liam! Don’t push!” Niall cried, his small face puffy with tears.
“Well stop annoying me then! I told you to get out of my room and you didn’t you had a tantrum and messed up my bed so I am going to get mad, Niall!” Liam quickly snapped back, as he kept his eyes down on his work, his hands shaking as he tried to write. Another long cry and whine came from his brother, who was still laid on the floor, clutching half of Liam’s duvet that he had earlier yanked from the bed for comfort.
“I’m sorry! I can’t help it!” Niall cried loudly, still rolling on the floor, wrapping himself up in the duvet as he cried. Liam let out a shaken sigh as he tried to ignore his young brother.
“I can’t help it, Li Li!” Niall almost screamed, before their Mother barged into her eldest son’s bedroom and hell broke loose as she gathered Niall into her arms, screaming at Liam for being such an unfeeling brother.
“I-I’m sorry…” Zayn Malik’s silk spun words wrapped around Liam once more, causing the boy to shake a little. Liam said nothing as his breaths began to shake through his body more unevenly. Zayn’s brown eyes watched as the boy slowly worked himself up, Liam’s eyes twitching open and closed as his knuckles clenched. It was pure irony that Zayn, who had been talked to and treated as some sort of baby-minded idiot by the elder boy saw what was coming before Liam even knew what he was going to do.
Liam’s fist flew into Zayn’s face before he could even control it. But Liam wasn’t punching some kid at school, it felt like he was taking years of being the bad person in his own home out on someone. Liam’s eyes welled with tears when he retracted his fist with a loud hiss, his face scrunching up in pain. Zayn, who was used to those sort of blows managed to let out nothing but a whimper, before the boy gathered his books and ran away from the other boy, who was now leaning against a wall with too many shaken emotions to process.
Liam Payne sat there for a moment, pushing everything back into the bottle in the back of his mind like he always did when he felt like this, which was more often then many people realised. He brought himself back to his feet, still a little shaken from what he had just done. The back of his hand quickly swiped the tears from his face as he stood in the corridor alone and regaining his breathing. He gave one last sigh as he pulled his bag over his shoulder, before he rushed towards the direction of Harry’s locker, telling himself that Zayn Malik wouldn’t dare speak about the fact that Liam and pushed him to a wall and punched him. The kid made out that he couldn’t even speak anyway, so he doubted that he’d go running to tell anyone.
Harry Styles was smiling to himself as he closed his locker as Liam reached him. Liam tried to smile, pushing the incident that had just happened to the back of his mind, and when he saw Harry likewise greeting him with a smile, the smile on Liam’s own face was genuine.
“Harry…” Liam started, reaching out to gently trail his fingers over Harry’s bicep as his brown eyes met emerald. Liam had hoped that the curly haired boy would maybe shiver under his touch, but instead he tensed a little, but then tried to dismiss it. Liam had to keep his frown at bay.
“Everyone’s out tonight…Niall’s got some scout presentation or something. Come round to mine?” Liam asked with a small and hopeful smile, and Harry smiled back before nodding a little, as he locked his locker and pushed his keys into his pocket.
“Yay! Come to lunch with me?” Liam asked excitedly, looking forward to spending some time with Harry. He grabbed hold of Harry’s wrist with a beaming smile and pulled the boy in the direction of the common room before Harry could even reject.
A/N: It was so hard to write this chapter...why do I put my characters through this?! Remind me to write a cheery fanfic sometime, yeah guys?;p Thanks for reading!<3