Silence and Sound

“I’ll be right back with everyone’s order,” the coral haired girl tells them. “Be nice to Echo, or I’ll be forced to kick your arse.” Her eyes glare at them all, and a silence fills the air. “I’m just kidding. I know you wouldn’t do anything to my friend, and she could kick your arses anyway. Echo isn’t just funny. She’s also had some martial arts training because I told her too.”
“Really?” Louis questions. “She’s so petite that I can barely see her doing something like that.”
“Oh, you would not believe how big her opponents were. They had to have been 6’5”!”
“You can stop telling lies now,” Echo giggles. “If you guys must know, I was the worst in the class. Coral just makes this stuff up to intimidate anyone that I’m left alone with. She’s like an older sister that way even though I’m technically older.”
“You’re older by a month. That doesn’t count.”
“What? I can’t hear you.” Echo smirks. “Now, why don’t you go get these fine lads their food? I’m sure they are starving, and I don’t like it when my models are starving. Run along now, younger one.”
Coral smiles a bit at her friend’s attitude and starts heading towards the door. Echo’s trained eyes follow her movement just in case her manager is going to say anything else. It’s a known fact by all of Echo’s regular customers that they always fight to see who can have the last word. Just like the artist thought. The hazel-eyed girl does try to get the last word in.
“There she goes again. I get it that she’s my employer, but she does this all just to annoy me because she’s a month older than me. She may be older, but I’m still more mature.”
Coral opens the door, and Echo knows that this is her chance to get the last word in. Yes, she’s only acting, and this helps her seem more believable. OK, and it is kind of funny seeing her like that. Even someone that doesn’t trust people and likes being distant would enjoy doing this. It’s almost like time is going slowly. The legs of the manager slowly start to make their way out of the room. Now is the time to get her before she can say anything back.
“Wait. Did you say something about the age thing because I still can’t hear you.”
The door closes. Echo has won another round. Even if Coral came back in to say something, the win would still be her’s because of how the unofficial rules go. As soon as someone leaves, the round is over. Joining the conversation again will not account to anything at all. The artist doesn’t really remember how those rules came into effect or how the game started to begin with, but she does know that she is still the unofficial champion. Coral always wants to win, so she actually keeps track of how many wins they have.
It kind of reminds her of this anime that Coral watches called Naruto. Kakashi-sensei and Guy-sensei always do these little competitions, and Guy-sensei always keeps track of wins and loses. Coral is like Guy-sensei. She keeps track of them all and gets into them. Echo is more like Kakashi-sensei. She’s more laid back about it all but still does them. They amuse her almost as much as art does. When it comes to art, she’s a lot more like that character. What’s his name? Echo believes that it is Sai. He uses this kind of art power. If she was a ninja, she would want something like that.
The brunette feels someone tap her shoulder. She turns her head to find that it was Niall, who is sitting on the couch next to her. The blond points his finger towards his bandmates. One of them must have said something to her while she was thinking about that show which reminds her that she still needs to borrow some manga off of Coral. Reading it is a lot easier, and the artwork is better. She had told her manager that she wants to broaden her horizons in the art world. Of course, Echo really just didn’t want to tell her that she enjoys it. That would become another subject to talk about, and the brown-eyed girl really doesn’t want to make another one of those.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Echo says to them. “Did one of you say something?”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “We just wanted to know what was all that about. It looks like you do that a lot.”
“That’s because we do. It’s like a little game that we play. The winner of the round is whoever can say the last word. She’s gotten so into it that she even keeps track. That’s how I know that I’m still winning. It’s fun seeing her like that. It just adds to the fun of seeing her when I point fun at her for being a month younger than me.”
“Really? When are your birthdays?”
“Mine is the beginning of September, and her’s is the beginning of Oct. We’re both nineteen.”
Louis clasps his hands together. “Why don’t we play a little question game in order to get to know our new friend more? We can all sit in a circle and ask her questions.”
“That sounds like a great idea, Lou,” the curly-haired boy agrees.
Normally this would be a great way to get to know people and would be a lot of fun. Well, in Echo’s case, it’s no fun at all. She had to just think over explaining to Niall why she didn’t want to tell him her life. How’s that going to be for four other people. Coral really doesn’t know anything about her. She just acts like she does. The brunette doesn’t want anymore people barging into her life. It’s bad enough being stuck with one and having to work with others because of her job. She’s about to tell them that she doesn’t want to, but another voice speaks up for her.
“I don’t think that that is such a good idea,” the Irishman says. “She might not want to tell us her life story.”
“Fine,” Louis huffs, “but can we at least ask simple stuff like favorites?”
Echo sighs. The brunet with blue eyes will probably not shut up about it until she says yes to something. Favorites can’t be that bad, right? It’s not like she has to tell them why she’s deaf or anything. That wouldn’t work. Plus, she might lose it if that happened over and over again. Echo isn’t the best actress in the world. Sometimes she snaps. Although that normally doesn’t happen because she gets into character as much as possible for someone like her, but she has snapped at her hazel-eyed friend before when they first met. Being a complete bitch isn’t like the character she created for herself, so she wants to stay clear from it unless she really can’t take it anymore which would still be in character.
“I guess I can handle that.”
“Yes!”
All six of them get down onto the carpeted floor in a circle. Echo makes sure that she sits next to the blond because she knows that he’ll make sure that a different kind of question comes up. She doesn’t really trust him, obviously, but he seems to be understanding and he has already done it once before for her. Echo also makes sure that she’s not sitting next to Louis since he came up with this whole thing. The brunette doesn’t like that one bit. She ends up sitting in between Niall and Zayn. Echo doesn’t really know much about any of them, but Zayn seems OK since he hasn’t really said much, and Liam seems fine too. He kind of comes off as the dad in their group. Oh, maybe he’s the one that Coral is talking about when she mentions “Daddy Directioner”.
“I guess I’ll start it off with something simple,” Liam says. “Em, what’s your favorite color?”
Echo appreciates the question. It’s probably the most basic, and it’s something that anyone can talk about without even thinking of any consequences. The artist hopes that the other questions will be like this. If they are, this will be an easy game. Everyone will be happy, and she will have been able to keep her mean side inside.
“That’s actually a lot harder than you might think. As an artist, I love all colors. I’d say rainbow, but that’s not a color. If I had to choose... I’d either go with sky blue or green. They are absolutely lovely when you see them together outside in nature. Nature pictures are nice to recreate. Our world is a beautiful place after all.”
“That’s a bit boring,” Louis says. “Let’s change things up and expand some. Let’s make it basic questions instead of just favorites.”
“Oh, em, I’m fine with that.” In reality, she’s not.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Echo chuckles and replies sarcastically, “Oh course I do, and his name is Artie.”
All the boys chuckle lightly but Louis. “I don’t get it. What’s so funny?”
“You really don’t get it?”
“You told us you have a boyfriend named Artie. Why is that funny?”
“Artie as in art. I’m basically dating my career.”
“Oh, now I get it.”
“I guess I’ll go next since we seem to be going in order,” Harry says. “If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go, and why?”
Now, that one hits a bit too close to home for the brunette. “Em, well, I’m not sure. I might go to Japan to see the cherry blossoms or maybe some of the old towns in Germany. They are lovely. Of course, I’m fine with staying right here in London. It’s nice here.”
“Huh. It’s just that I thought that maybe you’d say Ireland because you’re Irish. I guess I really don’t know anything.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to go back there.” It slipped of her tongue before she could stop it.
“Why not?”
Echo doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t want to tell them why because the reason why is about of her secret past. The brunette can’t tell them that. She can’t tell anyone that. Plus, she can’t think of a good excuse. Ireland is a beautiful country, and she loved living there. It was and still is her true home. She can’t just make something up on the spot about it being bad. Besides, she doesn’t want to do that anyway. Echo starts to play with her necklace because of it all.
“I thought it was going to be one question per each of us,” Niall cuts in.
Echo almost wants to hug him for saving her like that, and by the little look in his blue eyes and that tiny little smile on his face, she can tell that he did it for her. He really is a gentleman. She really wishes there were more of people like him in this world. It would make it a lot easier for her to keep her past hidden. In fact, it would just make her whole life easier.
“My question is what’s your favorite food?”
“That’s a tough one. I’m going to go with pizza because there are so many different kinds. Just by having that as your favorite food, you’re getting a favorite food for each day of the year if not more. I actually really like food, and Coral swears that my cooking is almost as good as my art. Pizza is also nice to get because I could be working on something or not in the mood, so I can just get some pizza, ya know?”
“Pizza is amazing. I’d rather eat pizza than kiss a girl.”
“Yeah,” Louis laughs, “but you also like food a lot too, so that sentence doesn’t mean all that much.”
Niall chuckles. “Oh, shut up.”
“For the last question,” Zayn starts, “I guess I’ll just ask you how long you’ve been creating art. I like art myself, so I couldn’t have that question get unanswered.”
That question is a little bit personal, but Echo gets asked that a lot, so she’s able to leave the personal bit out of it. “I’ve been doodling for as long as I can remember, but I think I really got into it when I was nine or ten. Of course, I’ve always told everyone that I wanted to be an artist, but art really got ahold of me when I was about that old. I’ve been keeping art the main thing in my life ever since. Art is just really special to me. It can make you happy. It can make you angry. It can make you sad. Art just has power like that just like music does. As musicians, you should understand that.” They all nod. “Well, that was an interesting game. Now, I think I’m going to doodle like the good old times when it wasn’t my career while I wait for Coral to get back with our food. I’m really starving now, and you don’t really want to talk to me that much when I’m hungry. The bear inside me comes out. Roar!”
The artist leaves the circle and goes back over to the couch to draw. She pulls out a pencil and the thin sketchbook she keeps in her bag in case she wants to draw while on the job. A smile finds its way onto her face. Yeah, art really can do a lot of things to you. She looks at the guys one last time to see what they’re doing. They are still sitting on the floor in their circle talking. Well, all of them are except for...
The blond sits down onto the couch next to her. Her brown eyes look at his face and see the little smile he has. He really is cute. Echo should probably thank him for helping her out back there. She’s about to open her mouth to say something, but Niall knows what’s she going to stay, so he stops her by shaking his head slightly with his lips still in that same smile.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he mouths to her. “I saw that you needed help, but I did what any gentleman would do and helped out.”
“Still, thank you,” she mouths back. Echo figures that he’s not really talking because the guys aren’t even looking their way.
Niall gives her one last smile before getting up and going back over to sit with his friends. Echo can’t help but smile herself. She doesn’t really like people all that much, but the blond really does seem to be alright. If it wasn’t for her past, they would probably already be great friends. Of course, life had to be hard on her and ruin everything, so it would take a lot more before she can even consider him that even if they all consider her a friend. Life.
While the artist waits for her manager to get back, she starts to sketch in her book. She doesn’t realize what she’s drawing until it starts to take shape. The nose that is kind of high on the face. That smile with the pearly white teeth. Those adorable eyes. She didn’t mean to sketch him. Echo starts to play with her necklace and looks away at her book to make sure that none of them are looking at her. She hasn’t even known him for a day, but she did it. The picture in her sketchbook is none other than Niall.

Notes

Sorry this took forever. I took a week off because of concerts and personal reasons that I won't bore you with. However, I did make this chapter a lot longer that normal. I know this is one of the longest chapters for a fan fiction that I've written, and it may be the longest. It's past my bedtime, and I kept writing and writing and writing.
Anyway, hope ya liked it!