It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when a band that’s enjoyed some degree of success in the world takes a break, the word “reunion” will circle its members like a dog underfoot, nipping at their heels. Ask the Spice Girls. Ask N*SYNC. Ask Destiny’s Child. And now ask One Direction. Or don’t because someone else will in good time.

Take Niall “Cute One” Horan. He’s on the cover of Billboard, ostensibly to talk about his eight-point plan to become the Irish Ed Sheeran or what have you, but he spends most of the time talking a 1D reunion. “I told my managers from the start: When One Direction comes knocking, fook what I’m doing,” Horan said. “I don’t give a s—t if I sold out arenas or won Grammys. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for that.”

Isn’t that true for most of us? Wouldn’t we drop everything and do whatever it takes to buy back into that first direction, to remember the way it was before they went off into five of them? We wouldn’t be doing this, the thing each of us are doing right now, if not for them. But it’s still a little too early to start talking reunion. We haven’t even seen Harry Styles’s acting debut in Dunkirk, for goodness sake. We have no clue whether or not film is a viable career path for the guy.

It’s not Niall’s fault, though, all this reunion talk is so early. (Though it’s not the first time he’s spoken about it, either). Nor is it Harry or Liam or Zayn’s fault when they’re forced to dance around the topic while promoting their respective albums or in the future, when they’re promoting sophomore albums or other projects entirely unrelated to recording music. Each will be asked about it from now until it happens, after their solo careers are settled well enough, but before they’re knees get creaky, like at the M.T.V. Awards in 2029 or a whole tour in 2033. And then after it does happen, whether in one year or twenty, they’ll be asked when it’s going to happen again.

It does seems especially right that Niall would be the one to say this, though. He was always the “earnest one” to Zayn’s brooding, or the “sweet one” to Harry’s raw charm. The bleached blonde tips to Louis’s highlights. Doesn’t it seem even more likely that before One Direction, the entity, comes knocking, Horan will get the email chain going? “Subject: Missing u Lads. Plans in April? ;)."

One thing he did confirm to Billboard is that the hiatus plan is truly indefinite. “We haven’t even had a conversation about how long we think the break will be,” he said. “When [the reunion] will be, I don’t know. I’d prefer not to do it after I’m 40. I’d prefer the next few years.”