Stay with Me (A Niall Horan Fan Fiction)

Chapter 21

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of other person is essential to your own”- Robert Heinlein.

It was essential.

Niall’s happiness, his joy and his laughter have never been more essential to me than these days. His cracking laughs while watching Friends with me, his intense smiles when he made me smile or laugh with his never-ending jokes, the happy glow on his face when he talked to me about his childhood, the delightful dazzle in his blue eyes when he looked into me and every other little thing that made him exultant made me happy too. Very happy.

It has been two days since I came to Niall’s house at that night. I have turned myself into his unpaid nurse as I took routine care of him to help him recover from his fever. I cooked him breakfast, placed his medicine on the night-stand at his side of the bed and even strongly instructed him to gurgle using hot water sprinkled with salt. Even though he couldn't go to college I had to. However, I instructed Kumar to bring Niall lunch from a local takeaway restaurant close to the main road of Camac Street that made nice Indian cuisines. I was quite clear about mentioning Kumar to demand the restaurant to make the foods less spicy. He was a sweet person and a loyal friend of Niall to listen to my orders obediently. I paid him in advance for his travel and the food expenses but he requested on taking only the latter one. Yesterday while coming back from college, I went to do some grocery shopping for Niall and bought some Indian spices with me. At night, I cooked him a nice Indian dish of “Paneer Butter Masala and Paratha”.

Paneer is basically a fresh non-melting farmer cheese or curd cheese made from milk and is an essential ingredient in South Asian cuisine. Paratha on the other hands are thick round or triangle shaped breads that are made using flour.

Being a food lover, he loved it obviously. In fact, he specifically requested me to cook him the dish again some other time. I laughed and agreed. However, the most significant event that occurred in these two days was Niall calling his mom and talking to her. I understood it was a huge decision for him but I was extremely glad that he confronted it finally. They talked mainly on basic stuffs about how his life is going here in India and how is hers in Manchester and even though it lasted for some ten to fifteen minutes, I could read from his eyes that he was relaxed and relieved from inside. I knew on the other hand that a lot was still stuffed inside him that was needed to let up and I was resolute to make him do those. I received a strange feeling of joy making him unite with his family. A feeling I had when I was with my own family.

Anyway, today is 4th March. I woke up a little late in the morning and made some toasts and scrambled eggs for Niall. He was still asleep when I was about to leave so I left him a note that read,” Don’t forget to lock the door when you wake up. I've made breakfast for you. Bye.” He called me when I was about to enter the metro station with his hoarse voice and complained that I should’ve woke him up. I laughed at his frivolous anger and apologized before hanging up.

College has been very rough and boring these three days with the absence of Niall beside me. I felt like I went back to the time before he came into my life when no one cared to even talk to me and I sat all alone on my seat scribbling down notes on my copy. However, situation was a bit different this time with everyone being aware of Niall and I being a ‘thing’. My classmates like Ruchika and her friends namely Monica and Tina kept asking me about the ‘real deal’ between me and Niall during lunch-hour today. To be honest, I hated getting attention due to my relationship with Niall. It degraded the genuineness and trueness of what we felt for each other. It wasn't some kind of contract based affair to help me gain popularity or friends, it was love from my side and hopefully from his too, I guess. I somehow managed to drive them away without answering the intricate details they wanted to hear all of a sudden.