Cupid's Defence

Chapter 9

ix.

The interview was just as Louis said it would be: "Boring, but necessary."

There were no questions Harry felt as though he could not answer, but he could not help but feel that one of the people asking questions were not fully...Focusing, on him. It was a pale man with dark eyes and a very jittery composure, not too dissimilar to Louis'. And, for whatever reason, he kept glancing at the clock.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Harry asked, when the man had looked up for the thirteenth time.

"What?"

"The clock," Harry frowned, "You keep glancing its way."

"It's nothing," the man spoke, coldly, and they went on with the interview.

It was only after it had finished, and the men left with a flurry of notes, that Harry realised he had seen the pale one before. His eyes-- it was definitely his eyes. Brown, uncomfortable, and fleeting. The expression was what Harry recognised the most, however- because it had been the same the last time Harry had seen them. And how could he have forgotten?

It was the one time his arrow had missed.

He had tried to forget it since, because it really did make no sense at all, and he had told himself it had been a trick of the light. But the story still remained the same.

Eight years ago, he had felt a skip in his heart. It was in the mid-afternoon of a Tuesday, the summer air heavy, and the clouds sparse. Harry had flown outside of what looked to be a school, and sat in the tree closest to where his heart was skipping, so that he was not seen. He waited until his heart grew louder, and when he looked down, a crowd had formed beneath him.

The man had been there. He was younger, then, but held the same eyes. And he was in the midst of the crowd, being talked to by someone in a thick-looking outfit. Harry mused that there was no way that it could have been comfortable to stand in that outfit in the heat, but then again, young love rarely made sense. So, he watched the couple talk, and he watched the man's face twist with embarrassment, and he thought: this is it! This is the skip.

He held out his arrow and held it towards the boy in the outfit, and here's the funniest thing:

It bounced from him.

It ricocheted, and flew to the sky. Harry had never known anything like it. He had frowned, aiming once more, but the arrow refused to hit the boy in the outfit. It just-- didn't.

Harry did not understand how it could have been. He was feeling a skip in his heart, and yet his arrows would not let the couple be together. He'd watched them part, and watched the crowd laugh as the boy ran away, clearly distressed. Harry had been so ashamed in his failures that he did not share the happening with the rest of the gods. They would have found it amusing that his bow had defied him, how he was so powerful, yet had been bested by a human in a funny-looking costume.

And so he had forced himself not to think about it since. It still perplexed him, but he could not voice his concerns to the man now-- how could he? He had grown up since the last time Harry had seen him, and no doubt moved on from the failure in love that had occurred that day.

He wondered if he should have shared this coincidence of meeting with Louis. But, when Harry walked out of the office and into Liam's, he was no longer there.

-

Louis did not know why he agreed to it.

Colin had basically tackled him on his way to the toilet, all dark eyes, and thin mouth, and immovable posture. Louis had tried his best to avoid him, but Colin had already seen him, and, fuck--