Niall and Louis stand like that for a while, Louis softly sobbing into Niall's jumper and Niall repeating over and over again how proud he was of Louis.

What a strange sight it must be for strangers, two boys clinging onto each other, one sobbing and the other awkwardly patting his back, but Louis didn't care what anyone thought, he couldn't be more relieved and grateful and he wanted Niall to know that.

After a while, the two leave the café, and as they walked along the sidewalk, Niall nudged Louis softly before speaking up.

"It was Harry wasn't it?"

Even though Louis had no idea what Niall meant by that, just the mention of Harry's name brought a smile to his face, his heart already beginning to beat a little more urgently.

"What do you mean?"

"It was Harry that sparked this gay awakening, wasn't it?"

"How are you so good at this!? It beats me." Louis playfully punched Niall before resuming.

"Yes it was Harry. It's not just one big incident but many small ones rolled together that make me finally realise that maybe I'm not who I was pretending to be all these years. For instance there was that first boner when I saw him after he took a shower.." Louis looked at Niall who was smugly smirking before continuing. "After that the boners kept coming and you know, I never got proper hard with women etcetera etcetera. So then I asked him if there was any age by which one had to discover their sexuality because you see, I used to think that if I hadn't had the realisation yet, when I'm 21 years old, it wasn't possible that I was gay but Harry cleared that up too."

Louis withheld the fact that another factor was how he had developed feelings for Harry. He wanted to keep that information just for himself, atleast for a little while.

"I'm so happy for you Louis, you genuinely have no idea. It sucks that you had to pretend all these years to be someone you weren't but better late than never isn't it?"

"I mean I'm still not a hundred percent sure, Harry said he did some research and stuff, I'm going to do that as soon as I get back, hopefully it'll be the confirmation I need."

"Well then let's get you home!!! The sooner you rid your mind of these doubts, the sooner you'll feel free and the sooner I'll be able to be able to throw you a rainbow themed coming out party!"

Louis smiled and ruffled his hair affectionately, allowing himself to be ushered back towards the apartment complex.

Niall dropped him off at the gate and gave him one last hug.

"You can call me anytime if you feel panicky or anything okay? Don't hesitate. I'm so proud of you Lou, remember it's okay to be gay."

Louis hugged him back, not knowing how to respond for what seemed like the thousandth time that day.

He walked into the apartment. Harry wasn't there yet. His watch showed that it was only 6 pm, he still had some time before Harry was back from work.

He was mostly certain about the whole gay thing and seeing how positively Niall reacted made him feel even better about the whole situation but he wanted to be as clear as he could. He was tired of blindly stumbling in the dark, with an empty heart. It was time for clarity.

He walked into Harry's room with his laptop and flopped onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. His own room was pretty much used as a storage space for all his stuff, considering that he spent all his time in Harry's room anyway.

He switched on his laptop and opened a blank tab on his browser. The first thing he looks up is 'how did you know you were gay' a reddit site pops up and he finds himself engrossed in people's stories, the support from the community strong and unwavering and Louis can't help but feel welcome and like he finally belongs.

He looks up various things, articles about people's coming out stories, some happy, some sad. He finds stories about people who discovered their sexuality when they were over 30 years old and feels an odd sense of reassurance knowing he's not the only one who's a little late.

He reads articles about how gay artists in the various industries such as the music industry were closeted in the past, forced to act straight for the benefit of their audience and his heart fills with hatred and disgust that such things happened in the world.

Harry texted him in the middle to say he'd be late because he was heading out with some girl called Natalie or something. Normally he would he would have been upset but today, he was oddly relieved. He very much needed this time alone to get everything figured out.

At the moment, he felt stupid and naive. There was so much he didn't know, so many things he'd have to figure out. It was like a whole new world had opened up in front of him and he felt like a child, taking their first steps, unknowing and unsteady with a whole new universe to discover.

He continues browsing around for a while, drifting from website to website, eagerly soaking up all this new information until he comes across a site that says 'gay sex, everything you need to know' and his breath hitches.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoyed this chapter,happy reading xx