Another World

Walking into my flat after a horrible, long day at work, I was delighted with the thought of taking a calm and warm bath. With that in mind, I heard a bunch of laughter and hurried footsteps before unlocking the front door. When I stepped in the living room, my jaw dropped as I saw Harry, Zayn, Louis, Liam, Niall and Kate running around the flat. That wasn't even the worst part, the mess in the living room was unbelievable!

"What the fuck is going on?!" I asked as everyone scurried away when I stepped in and threw my keys on the table and coat on the couch. "Show yourselves!"

One by one they poked out of the hallway that opened up to the living room. I looked around for some sort of alcohol involvement but found nothing. They were truly insane by themselves.

"NEW GAME, DON'T LET VAL CATCH YOU!" Louis yelled at the top of his lungs, and with that, chaos erupted.

I headed over to the cabinet in the kitchen filled with bottles of wine and drank a bit before I groaned as I ran around trying to grab anyone I could get my hands on. "All I wanted was to come home, take a damn bath until my skin looked like a damn prune and now I can't even have that!"

"NOT OUR PROBLEM!" Kate called out as she laughed and zoomed passed me.

My breathing became heavy trying to chase these fuckers and I almost gave up until I noticed that Zayn tripped on a shoe that was in his way. I jumped and literally pounced on his back, causing him to tumble to the floor. I turned him around so that he was facing me, his uncontrollable giggling was the cutest thing I've ever heard and it put a big smile on my face -- which I definitely needed because of those damn kids at my job today -- as I pinned his hands down against the cold floor tiles.

I leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Caught one! Game over!" I announced out of breath.

Everyone complained and threw insults towards Zayn, he didn't seem to hear them or care as he stared at me with the grin that had been on his face since I dropped him to the floor.

"Dammit, Malik! You're usually good at this game!" Harry frowned. "Don't let Val distract you, mate!"

I chuckled. "Shut up, Haz."

"Hey, don't talk to Harry like that!" Kate intervened.

"Callate!"

Kate and I laughed as the boys looked at me with a confused expression. As if they've never heard someone speak Spanish before.

"As much as I fancy you being on top of me, and I really do, I'm losing the blood circulation in my wrists, babe."

I loosened my grip on his wrists and stood up with a chuckle. "Sorry."

Liam walked up to me with a greeting smile. "Hi Valarie, sorry about the mess. Louis always gets carried away on the twenty-second."

"The twenty-second?"

"Basically on every twenty-second of a month, we just run away from everyone." Louis explained after playfully punching Liam's shoulder.

"And this is the first time that we brought in two special guests, usually it's just us lads." Niall added as he fixed his sweater.

Let me just add that after meeting the rest of the boys a week ago to celebrate -- yet again -- Kate's first ever interview, we all as the boys would say, "got on really well" and ever since then, they've welcomed themselves to Kate and I's flat whenever they were free. Not that I complain. Except for when I walked in after work a moment ago, but that didn't count.

"Well aren't we lucky." I responded with a smile.

"I'm starving, what are we eating today?" Niall asked as he put his hands on his stomach.

"Jesus, Niall, we ate like an hour ago." Zayn mumbled.

I looked over at Liam who was picking up the mess in the living room. "Everyone follow Liam! It's clean up time!" I clapped my hands and began to help Liam out.

"How are you not with Liam? You two seem perfect for each other. The two clean freaks!" Louis teased followed by a slap in the back of the head by Zayn. I chuckled, shaking my head and saw Liam turning a tad bit red.

"Kate!" I looked around the room and found her talking with Harry very closely in hush tone.

She removed her gaze from Harry's green intrigued eyes and fixated them towards me. I have to give her some credit for having the will power to do such a thing. "Yeah?"

"This is your home, too. Why is it such a mess?"

"Well when I came out of work, Harry surprised me by stopping by. He brought Zayn with him thinking you were home already, but obviously you weren't at the time. The rest of the boys came because they wanted to say hi, Louis talked about that it was the twenty-second and how they haven't done "it", I asked what "it" was then they all began running away from me. Then you came home."

I couldn't help but laugh at how genuine they all were. They were international pop stars and yet they acted like they were still those young guys from the neighborhood. That's what made them so fun to be around.

"Hey who plays the guitar here?" Niall asked picking up the untouched guitar that was on its stand in the corner of the living room.

"No one, but it's Kate's." I answered with a laugh.

Kate sat on the couch with Harry. "Hey I play from time to time."

"Making up silly songs while fiddling with the strings doesn't count."

"Okay, then I don't play from time to time."

The room flooded with laughter while I took the guitar and passed it to Kate. "Let's perform for them, shall we?"

And by perform I meant let's just sing things that rhyme with each other while you play horribly but hilariously on the guitar. The plus side was that we made them burst out in laughter. They ended up joining in, adding lines to our "song" which lasted until our neighbor began to complain.

"They don't know real talent when they hear it, obviously!" Louis joked as he rolled his sassy eyes.

"Haters gonna hate!" Kate yelled towards the wall where the neighbor lived on the other side of it.

"We need a picture to always remember this day." I ran to my room, looking through my draw and grabbing the camera. "I haven't used this old thing in a long time."

Everyone positioned themselves for the picture. From left to right it was Harry, Kate, Me, Zayn and Louis, Liam and Niall sat on the floor in front of us.

"Okay, I set the timer and it'll take the picture in ten seconds so be ready."

"You guys need a bigger couch."

"Sorry, Louis. Peasants like us don't have money coming out of our asses like you." Kate responded with a playful shove.

"Yeah! We like our couch anyway!" I added as I sat back to my seat next to Zayn. "Now hurry, everyone say 'cheese'!"

"CHEESE!"

"...The awkward moment waiting for the piece of rubbish to take the photo!" Zayn said through his teeth.

A couple more seconds of us positioned and we began to lose our patience.

Zayn turned to me. "Valarie, what the hell?"

Liam faced me, waiting for me to actually respond.

Louis also took it upon himself to fully face me, body and all. "Val, while I'm young, please?!"

"Honestly." Zayn added.

Suddenly a flash of light came out of the camera.

"Well that was a massive fail," Harry got up and headed for the camera. "But it looks smashing!" He called out as he stared at the picture and cackled. "It'll be up on twitter as soon as possible." He added with a slightly evil chuckle.

Niall got up and stood next to Harry. "I think it looks good!"

"Let me see," I also got up and looked over Niall's shoulder to see the picture. The picture was of Liam and Louis' backs facing the camera as they looked at me, Zayn and I staring at each other, my face was as if I was being bullied while Zayn looked impatient, Harry and Kate showing their dimpled smile as they looked at each other, and finally Niall, the only one looking at the camera with a bright grin. "Are you kidding me?!"

"It looks rather good." Harry smirked as he wrapped his arms around Kate and leaned in to kiss her.

"Another! Another!" I begged.

Liam's phone began to ring and we stared at him until he finished talking. "Duty calls, lads, we have to go."

"Aww, wait I haven't seen the picture yet!" Louis whined.

"Neither have I." Zayn sat up and walked over to me with Louis right behind him. I handed them the camera and began to clean up.

"Well well well, what do we have here." Louis raised his eyebrows repeatedly.

Oh god it couldn't have been good if Zayn had that look on his face.

"What did you do now?" Kate whispered.

I shrugged and snatched the camera away which revealed a picture of Jason and I kissing on my bed. I felt my whole face burn up and I tried to explain but nothing wanted to come out of my mouth. To make matters worst, Harry and Louis began to tease me about my so called "rude actions".

"It was a very old picture! I told you I haven't used it in a while." I explained as I deleted it.

Everyone said their goodbyes and I stopped Zayn before he walked out, giving him a hug. "Sorry you had to see that."

"You'd think I'd get used to it by now." He joked as he kissed me on the cheek.

Harry walked up to us and switched his stare from Zayn to me. "I still don't quite understand why you and Zayn aren't together yet." Harry blurted, making me want to ring his little pop star neck.

"I don't either, mate." Zayn said with a shrug before heading out the door. Great now I look like the bad guy.

Harry went over to Kate and gave her a goodbye kiss. "Call you later, babe."

"Aww." I teased.

Peace and quiet returned to our flat as soon as the front door closed for the final time.

"Well today was interesting."

I looked at Kate with a goofy grin. "You and Harry are the cutest things and you two will make the cutest babies with dimples I just can't!"

"Stop it!" She joked as she waved her hand. "What about you and Zayn! I saw you two!"

"What are you talking about?! Things were horrible, especially because of that damn picture! I wonder how long it'll be until he snaps." I sighed as I slumped on the couch.

Kate chuckled. "Next time, Val, check your shit before showing Zayn for god sakes!"