Tolerate It || l.s ✓

Chapter 2

"Harry." Louis nodded in greeting.

"Oh, hello." Harry looked up from the counter.

"Enough water for me in there?" Louis motioned towards the kettle.

"There should be." He nodded.

Louis leaned against the counter next to Harry, "good weekend?"

"Alright, yeah." In fact, it was shit. But there was no harm in a little white lie. "You?"

"Good yeah, good. My sisters popped over so it was quite busy."

"That must've been lovely." Harry was not good at small talk.

"It was, I don't get to see them all too often now they're getting older. They're busy with school and friends and whatnot. You know how teenagers are."

"Yeah, teach a couple myself." Harry attempted to make a joke. Key word: attempted. They both worked in a secondary school, surrounded by teenagers. Harry winced at himself.

"Do ya?" Louis grinned, going along with it. "Heard they're becoming rare these days."

Harry was thankful that Louis played along, but he was more thankful when the kettle stopped bubbling- giving him an excuse to escape the awkward conversation.

"Kettle's done." He pointed out. Okay, maybe the awkward conversation wasn't over.

"Really? The light switching off and the lack of bubbling lead me to believe that it was still on." Louis's voice dripped with sarcasm, but it wasn't unkind.

Harry's cheeks turned red. "Yeah, sorry."

"No need to be sorry, I'm just messin' with you." Louis sent him a reassuring smile.

Harry didn't respond, instead giving him a nervous smile back. He finished using the kettle before placing it back down.

"I'll talk to you soon." Harry said.

"Yeah, see you around. Have a good day."

"You too." Harry replied. Then they went and sat at opposite ends of the staffroom.

In comparison to the majority of the teachers, Harry hadn't really been working at the school for that long. So whilst others had settled into their groups, Harry had remained an outsider, and he didn't do much to help himself with his small conversations about the weather and his lack of social skills.

He observed the other groups who had each settled in their own sections of the room. He felt very much like the weird kid in the school canteen. Each group huddled, talking loudly or in hushed whispers, with no in-between, or laughing obnoxiously at something someone had said, and he just curled in on himself.

Thankfully the bell soon rang and Harry scurried off to his classroom. He always found comfort in the bell that signalled the end of break or lunch. It meant that he could return to a place in which he had at least a bit more control.

The students soon filed in and Harry took his place at the front of the class. He began to run through the context of the current book they were studying, but paused when he noticed too girls whispering to eachother whilst looking directly at him.

"Girls, can I help you with anything? Is there a part you don't understand?"

They turned to eachother, covering their mouths to conceal their giggles. Harry looked at them unsurely, but no. No way was he about to let two teenage girls put him on edge.

Why on earth did he decide to teach teenagers in the first place? They were probably the most terrifying people in the world. He would've been much safer if he had decided to teach preschoolers, or primary school kids at least.