In This World (Harry Styles)

23

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

*******

You clear the questions from my mind

I was afraid to say I love you

Afraid to take, and too eager to give

You helped me deal with what I'm feeling

With why and how I want to live

Take Yo' Praise - Camille Yarbrough

"Baby, we're gonna be late," he said as he entered the master suite early the next morning, noticing I was still naked and lying across the bed. I couldn't stop scribbling in my journal. I'd thought of a few last-minute lyrics and ideas, and knew they'd be lost to me unless I got them down right away. "Hey, fella, you're gonna throw us off schedule! Now get off your gorgeous little bum and get dressed already!"

"I will, I will! I promise! Five more minutes, I swear!"

"But you said that five minutes ago!"

"True, but I actually mean it this time...I think."

"Y'know what?" he quieted, approaching. "On second thought...don't bother..."

Suddenly his lips landed on my ass, kissing it like there was no tomorrow. Groaning about how sweet it was. How divine I smelled. I smiled and kept on writing, losing count of how many kisses landed.

"I've never seen a more perfect ass. Like, legitimately, H..." he muttered, mouth parted against the soft rise of my flesh.

"I dunno...yours is pretty magnificent too, mate."

"Hah! Well, you got me there. Hey I wonder if I could kiss my own if I tried??"

He was an idiot. I finished off the last sentence and popped the book closed, then turned to face him. Right away he started in on my flaccid cock, but I stopped him.

"Now look who's making us late!"

"Sorry, sorry. Shit, I lost myself. What's a starving man supposed to do when you set a bloody steaming hot banquet before him??"

"It's ok..." I grinned cheekily. "I'm irresistible. Let's be honest, I am." At that, I hopped up and darted away. I heard his laughter ring throughout the rafters as I headed into the closet to get dressed.

Overnight bags packed, we devoured the highway in his trusty Range Rover, heading back to Tokyo for the first time in over a month. It was still dark out, but dawn was breaking through the horizon and illuminating the sky with a host of airy colors. Albert Hammond's "It Never Rains in Southern California" was the road music of choice today; his playlist. Our tastes were quite similar, but not so much that we couldn't help one another discover new tunes from time to time. And that's what consumed a great deal of our conversations. Dialogues and heated debates about classic tunes and stellar indie artists who flew under the radar. We liked to find the obscurest stuff we could to make one another nostalgic, or shock each other into falling for something new.

Fuck's sake, I couldn't believe all that had transpired since I last stepped foot in Tokyo. Though scarce time had passed, I wasn't the same man anymore and neither was he. I glanced over and ran the back of my fingers against his cheek, his stubble tickling my flesh. Our madcap pornstaches were thickening by the day and I found them hilarious. Gray thought they were sophisticated, and as he put it: avant-garde. Man, he had a great way of looking at things that perplexed me, and I liked to reconsider the world from his point of view as often as possible.