Collision

chapter 2: university of the three

Okay, so maybe Louis hasn't thought this through properly.

It's not that he doesn't believe in his cause anymore; he's still determined to find out what's so insufferably terrible about this guy.

It's just that, well, Louis has absolutely no idea where to look. He doesn't know where this soul, where Harry, would choose to spend his free time. He doesn't know if Harry has friends. He doesn't know if he's secretive or open, if he sits in his dorm and ignores the environment or if he's out socializing with like-minded people.

After a while of aimlessly walking around campus, Louis knows he has to ask someone. Which would be mildly humiliating.

How would he even do that? Hey, so there's this creature called Harry that I've never met, never seen and not heard of before this afternoon. Do you know where he might be?

Louis cringes at the thought.

Maybe he could treat it as a joke. Haha, would you believe it, right, I just lost a bet to my friends and now I have to go find a dude called Harry Styles. Do you know who that is?

Is that a thing you can do? Would that be acceptable?

Louis doesn't know.

There aren't a lot of people out right now and more are disappearing inside by the minute as the sun progressively sets, so Louis knows he has to act quickly. Looks like he doesn't have much of a choice here.

It's like ripping off a band aid, he thinks.

(Not that he'd know what that feels like, it's a phrase he'd heard a human use once. But he guesses it's supposed to mean that something's quick and harmless. Hopefully.)

With his mind still racing unintelligibly, he aims for a centauress sitting calmly under a tree by the main marble steps. She looks agreeable enough. From what Louis' gathered, centaurs are agreeable creatures for the most part. Slightly elusive and eccentric, but he can deal with that.

When Louis stops in front of her he awkwardly clears his throat to get her attention, and she stops combing her platinum blonde hair with her fingers for a moment to look at him.

"Hi," Louis says, and he can feel his cheeks going uncomfortably hot. "Sorry if I'm disturbing, but-you don't happen to know where Harry Styles is, do you?"

The centauress looks him up and down, and a frown deepens on her smooth face. "Why would someone like you want anything to do with Harry Styles?"

"Um." Louis looks down on his bare feet. "It's-it's nothing. A stupid bet. You know? And I've never seen him or anything, and I-I thought maybe you have?"

Well, that's just the smoothest he's ever been. Really, congratulations, Louis, he scolds himself internally and it takes all his strength to not kick himself in the shin or something equally embarrassing. She'll definitely be able to look past your breakable appearance when you blush like a hedge of roses and stutter worse than a suffocating pigeon.

"Oh, hun." She looks at Louis with concern, and yeah, Louis hates being a fairy. Screw all the advantages with being one, he wants to be a scary giant. He wants to be an incubus. He wants to be a fierce dragon. He wants to be something that makes people look up at him with respect and preferably slight fear, not something that makes people look down on him as if he's a fragile little autumn leaf.

"Do yourself a favor and turn around, yeah?" she continues, anxious wrinkle between her eyebrows painfully visible and making Louis go positively insane. "Go back to where you came from and tell your friends that they're terrible souls for betting about this. This is not something you should do."