2015.
For Niall, this is a difficult scenario to deal with. He's alone in a college with no new friends, and his new roommate couldn't be more indifferent to the fact that they both need to get along to continue living under the same dormitory without there being a heinous crime inside.
Bobby had told him about his own experience with being roommates with someone he didn't know at the time. His father said they got along quickly, and soon they were each other's best man at their respective weddings. (The marriages didn't last too long, but this part of the story does not matter in Niall's head for now.)
Right now, Niall is staring at the bedroom's large window, with white painted wooden edges around it. The NYU'S outfield looks exactly as his father had described to him before: the well-kept green grass being a space for new and old students to sit and talk outdoors, as if that place was, in fact, a dream becoming reality. Harry Styles is still asleep at the top bunk bed, his arms crossed above his own chest, deep breath being the only sound coming out of his body.
Niall decides that it's about time to unpack his baggage and put everything in the wardrobe provided by the university, and he notices Harry hasn't done it for himself.
"Fuck that." He mutters to himself. "He better wake up if he wants to put his shit here."
First, he arranges his button-down shirts on hangers that he himself brought from home; then he folds his jeans so that they fit on the top of the wardrobe; finally, the blond man chooses to place his few pairs of shoes on the bottom of the object. Once he finishes his part, Harry stands up from the bed, watching his roommate with arms crossed in front of the wardrobe.
"The fuck is going on?"
"I arranged my things inside it." Niall answers his question, shrugging right after that.
"But my clothes..."
"I'm pretty sure you can find space in there. Just like I found space inside this room when you clearly would love to live alone here."
"Horan." The English accent of Harry calls Niall's attention, while the taller man takes one step closer to him.
"Oh, so you remember my last name?"
"You basically occupied the entire wardrobe. That's unkind of you."
"And what about it?" The Irish lad fakes a strong laugh, stepping away from Harry before anything violent happens between the two of them. "You asked for it, Styles."
"Oh, so you remember my last name?" Harry gives back the question.
"Of course I do. I must remember the ones that I want to see far away from my sight."
With that said, Niall leaves the room, closing the door with a loud bang. Once he turns around to walk around the NYU with no specific place to go, he bumps head-on against a person who was walking in the opposite direction from his own.
"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry", it's Niall's instinct that makes him start apologizing right before he sees the one in front of him.
"It's okay, I didn't see where I was going either... oh, man."
They immediately recognize each other in the middle of the hallway.