Diana

“Lou, I swear to God if you take that from me I’m gonna be so pissed. That’s the last banana!” says Harry as he chases Louis across the living room.

“I want it too, though!” Louis replies with a pout.

Sadie is cuddling comfortably in Niall’s arms; currently watching Juno on DVD. “Jesus, you guys are such babies! I don’t know how Eleanor can bear to be with you, Lou!” she says jokingly.

“She’s just such a sweetheart,” says Louis with batting eyes and his hands on his chest, mimicking the gesture of a princess.

Just when Louis is about to peel the banana, Harry jumps on his back from behind. “Dude, gimme!”

“No! Goodness, Harry, get off me! You’re not as little as you think you are!”

“Give me the banana first! I called dibs!” he claims.

The boys’ little struggle stops for a while when they see Diana and Jace walk down the stairs, and then go pass them into the balcony. The glass door that separates the living room from the balcony closes behind them.

Once Diana has his attention, Harry immediately loses his appetite and gets off Louis’ back.

Totally unaware of the situation, Louis childishly cheers, “Yeay!” and takes a bite straight off the fruit.

“You guys are honestly just five year-olds trapped in the bodies of nineteen and twenty-one year-olds. How can you possibly deal with these children, babe?” Sadie says to Niall, and playfully touches the tip of his nose.

“Oh Nialler himself is not as civil as you think, Sade,” Louis says as he sits on one of the couch’s arms, with his legs resting on the couch itself.

At that point, Harry seems to have muted all the noises around him, and his eyes are completely stuck to the girl outside. Harry starts to notice that the guy she is with has been coming around quite often lately, and it just gets into his nerves to see the both of them together. Every time he is here, Diana shuts out of the group and completely directs her attention to him, which makes Harry’s already-small chance of talking to her even smaller. It riddles him to see that Diana and Jace have gotten closer together, while until this day he, himself, still struggles just to see those cerulean eyes again.

Harry feels like he can’t stand the sight of Diana with him on the balcony, but his eyes beg to differ. Every a couple of minutes, they are absent-mindedly drawn back to her.

He wraps his undeserving arms around her, and she welcomes it like he is home, Harry observes as he sits on one of the chairs in front of Louis.

Meanwhile, Louis is just about to reveal some of Niall’s many bratty stunts to his girlfriend, “You know, one time, Niall and I stole—“

“Borrowed, “ Niall interrupts.

“Okay, borrowed a hotel’s golf cart and drove it around the hotel grounds.” Sadie finds her mouth opens wide, but Louis is not finished, “We drove it so fast that we didn’t even try to figure out where the break is.”

His head snuggles down to her neck, sweeping off some of her goldilocks.

“Before we knew it, we were going towards a lake in the middle of a golf court—“

She slightly turns her head to face his, and I swear, he must not realize how incredible his view is.

“—so we had to jump off the cart because we didn’t have time to stop it!” Louis continues too excitedly.

“Oh my, Niall, you little trouble!” reacts Sadie. Niall just hides his face and shakes his head out of embarassment.

Something he just whispered to her ear makes her giggle, showing the crinkles on her cheeks that I never knew she has.

“He’s quite gullible too, though! Zayn and I once pranked him so good on Nickelodeon,” Louis declares ever so proudly with a wide grin.

“On TV?! Do tell!” Sadie squeals as she sits straight up, releasing herself from Niall’s embrace.

A string of small kisses lands on her neck as his hand traces her every line, and she gleefully struggles to handle the tickles.

“Okay, we were told to get ready for an interview on Nickelodeon right, but it was actually a set up for a prank that Zayn and I had planned,” Louis tells as he tries to hold his chuckles. “We had an actress to play the show’s producer, who is pregnant, and had her pretend to be in a labor when she was briefing us!” He just can’t hold his laughter any longer and bursts out.

Sadie had the same reaction and laughs like she never have before. “And you fell for that?!” she asks Niall, who is now nothing but drowning in shame.

“Yeah he did!” says Louis. “But I gotta say, Harry’s reaction was the best. He was literally breathing in and out with her trying to get everybody to call everybody. He was genuinely panicked, right Haz?” he continues as he directs the question to Harry.

As said before, the world around Harry is basically muted so he doesn’t respond.

“Haz?” Louis says again. When there is still no answer, he smacks Harry’s head lightly, “Haz!”

Harry snaps back and turns to Louis with an annoyed face, “What?”

“You weren’t even listening, were you?”

“I, umm…”

The laughters fade and Louis stares at Harry for a good few seconds. After a moment, he takes a glance at the direction Harry was looking at, and instantly knows what’s actually going on. “Haz, are you seriously still thinking about her?”

“No, I’m not,” Harry says in denial.

“Even I can see that you are, love, “ says Sadie as she turns the TV off.

“If you actually want her, then why are you being so passive, dude? During the course of three years that I’ve known you, you usually just go for it when it comes to girls,” adds Niall.

“I—“

“Yeah, I’ve always seen you as the headstrong, “doesn’t take no for an answer” Harry. Where’s that cheeky lad now?”

“Okay first off, I don’t want her,” Harry says before anyone cuts him again, “And second, she’s with Jace now, so…” he trails his sentence while shooting a look at each of them.

“Mate, you clearly do. You most certainly, obviously want her. Seriously, just go ahead and talk to her, it must not be that hard,” Niall insists.

Harry scoffs a little too loud, “Yeah, I’m sure it’s not that hard.” He doesn’t realize that he doesn’t deny Niall’s first statement.

“It’s as simple as ‘how’s your day?’ Haz. It’s not rocket science,” says Louis.

“Well even if I want to, she has her bloody boyfriend with her right now anyway, so I’ll have to do it later.”

“Jace is not her boyfriend,” claims Sadie.

A surprised look is immediately written all over Harry’s face, “He’s not?”

“At least that’s what Diana told me last night. She’s just hard to commit like that. She won’t admit that he is, but clearly what they have been doing doesn’t say that they’re just friends.”

The look brushes off. “Well, see,” Harry swings his hand in defeat.

All of a sudden, a hard slap from Louis’ hand lands on Harry’s cheek, leaving a visible pink mark.

“HEY! What was that for?!” he angrily yells as he rubs his tomato-red cheek.

The slap is so hard and loud that it captures Diana’s attention and makes her look inside for a while, but then she quickly ignores it.

“For being such a pussy! You are undoubtedly all over this girl and here you are sitting on your ass doing absolutely nothing,” Louis continues.

“I am NOT!” he grunts. Harry is still trying to convince them, or rather himself, that that is not true, “You guys know I’ve been hanging out with Kara lately.”

“Yeah, for publicity,” Niall points out.

Louis just can’t stay silent seeing how his best mate is behaving. “Haz, I swear, I’ve seen the way you look at Diana, and it didn’t happen only once. You can say whatever you want, but I know that you, no matter how little, are into her. Seriously, what’s stopping you?”

Harry’s hands are messing his hair up while he groans, finally giving in. “She is! She never lets me look at her, much less talk to her!”

He reduces his volume down, remembering that the only thing that’s between him and the girl he’s talking about is a glass door. “The only full sentence that I’ve ever gotten from her was ‘You should really try the fried shrimp dumplings, theirs is the best around here,’ before she looked away again. What the fuck do I care about fucking dumplings?” Harry ducks his head down while he nervously rubs his thigh.

“I didn’t do nothing, okay. I did a few things. But short answers and cold reactions that she always gives in the end made me reluctant to continue the effort. Why should I be the one doing all the work?”

“Because if you don’t, it will just cut any chance of having her in your life at all,” answers Sadie quietly. Harry knows that she’s damn right.

He continues in a much quieter voice, “I just don’t get why she is keeping such a distance from me. The only physical contact that I made with her was the onetime I helped her in the club that night.” He now sounds more like he’s talking to himself than to everybody else.

“Oh, and that first time I met her when I bumped her on the street, but could that small little bump really make her that upset at me?”

No one responds. They are too astounded by Harry’s outburst.

“I just…” Harry lets out a sigh before he goes on, “It drives me crazy to see her mess around with you guys like it was no big deal yet she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence in the room. I’d rather have her yell at me and tell me what’s been bothering her than to even try to accept the fact that she just plainly hates me. What did I do wrong?”

Harry’s question remains unanswered, as none of them really knows the answer either. Harry now catches his breath after giving the lengthy explanation, with his head still looking down. He notices Sadie’s presence from the corner of his eyes, who now has moved from Niall’s side to his, sitting on his chair’s arm. She kindly rubs the back of his neck, stunned to realize how much impact has her roommate made on him.

Niall’s cough breaks the silence. “Maybe you just come off a little too strong around her?” he says as he tries to solve the problem, but he doubts that his guess is anywhere near accurate.

“Yeah, with your eyes practically piercing through her every chance you get, I think she just takes it a little too much,” Louis tries to break the tension, but knows that he fails miserably when Niall hits his upper arm.

“As much as I hate to say it, Louis may be right, babe. Try to ease your mind a little bit,” says Sadie.

“If she never starts a conversation with you, then you should start one with her, a real one; don’t settle with the Chinese food talks. Just try to start by joining in our chats,” Niall suggests.

“Yes, like actually speak to her about actual things. Don’t just give up and shut up,” Louis agrees.

“Has she ever said anything about me to you, Sade?” Harry wonders.

It takes a moment for Sadie to think about it, but in the end she is just as clueless as he is. “No, not really. All I know is that from the start, she has been a bit skeptical about you guys; you know, because of the whole boyband thing,” she explains.

Louis nods in response, understanding exactly what she means. He remembers how cynical Diana was when they first met.

“But now she seems to be okay with the other boys, doesn’t she? I didn’t even realize that the situation is like this between you two. I always assumed that she’s fine with all of you now. At least she hardly ever makes any snarky remarks about you guys anymore,” Sadie continues.

Harry is a bit disappointed in Sadie’s answer. He was hoping for some kind of hints and clues regarding the reason of Diana’s actions towards him, even if they’re awful ones. At this point, horrible answers are better than no answer at all. Harry scratches his head even though it’s not itchy, in attempt of processing all things that is happening in his head right now.

He is Harry Edward Styles, one of the most wanted bachelors in the whole wide world. He is worth millions of pounds and is one-fifth of the one of the biggest boybands in history. He can get any fish in the sea, and all he has to do is point his finger. In fact, he has already gotten one recently, model Kara Rose Marshall, yet he still can’t get his mind off this ity bity little fish in front of him. Diana Erin Parr.

Not long after the last word leaves Sadie’s lips, the glass door to the balcony swings open. The thump stuns everyone and attracts their attention.

“So I’ll just see you—Oh, did I just interrupt something?” Diana says when she realizes that her presence stops the activity in the living room.

Notes