ILTHY | l.p.

18 | 'uh-oh' indeed.

CHAPTER 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍
❛ 𝗨𝗵 𝗼𝗵, 𝗜'𝗺 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 ❜
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[ y/n ]

I just wanna know you better now...I just wanna know you better now.

Louis' voice is nothing close to an angel's, but it weirdly has a certain charm on it. Maybe it's the accent? Or the way how everything he says has a hint of emotion, like he could never hide himself. His lips move like he means every lyric sung; the sincerity cuts so deep that it is like he is sharing a deep, dark secret that only I can know.

It's a silly way of describing how the Louis I once knew is actually not what he truly is.

"We're rewriting this part," Louis announced as he scratched a verse with a pen. "Rearranging this one, removing that one."

"Jeez. Why don't we just scrap the whole song and make a new one?" I couldn't help but sarcastically remark. It's still annoying, really. At least that part about Louis hasn't changed. Mr. Bossy Pants.

"You're going to have to trust me more." Louis chuckled.

"Lemme see then." I move away from my drum set and take the papers from Louis' hands.

Wow. There are a lot of erasures.

"Tell me, Louis. Are we trying to write a song, or are you trying to make the sheet a coloring paper?"

"What I will tell you is this: you need to be more patient." Louis snatched back the sheets, resuming to scribble in them with his pen. It would be a matter of time before he'd accidentally make a hole. "Perfection doesn't come immediately, you know," he later added in a mumble.

"Perfection does not exist," I countered. "A well-known fact that everyone knows, really. But maybe freaks like you try to ignore the truth."

"Freaks like me succeed more than those who never try at all."

I frown, then cough. I hate how Louis was living proof of his own philosophy. But perfection is born from personal beliefs and opinions. Even if it is flawed.

I chose to stay silent, watching Louis work. The way he would occasionally curse and grunt in frustration, run his hands through his fluffy hair more times than he probably meant to, and have his nose twitch whenever he had a sudden urge to sneeze out of nowhere—

That is weird.

I quickly look away, towards the window instead. I could feel my face getting hot, probably from embarrassment or the fact that Louis still looks perfect even when he's frustrated.

Yet I can't help but wonder what he thinks of me. In the end, I am just a silly girl, dying to know what is going through a boy's mind.

Louis has clouded my thoughts a lot recently; it's starting to drive me insane. I can't believe I'm even thinking of him. This man, who probably never had a single thought about me, and I'm wasting my time pondering.

"Let's try one more time." Louis interrupts my torment, reaching for the laptop once more. "In three, two, one..."

I place my headphones on and position my sticks against the snare drum, hitting it precisely to the beat Louis and I made together. And while I was in the middle of playing, he interrupted again.

"Let's add the piano," he said and stood up, walking over to the area where the old organ my mom used before was. I didn't really have the patience to learn how to play it. He sat down and carefully handled the cover, rubbing his hands together slightly, and finally settling on the keys.

He pressed a few, then a couple more, and I watched him fuss over the scattered notes to find which was the right one.

Eventually, I felt sorry for him and abandoned my drums to sit down beside him on the stool.

"Maybe you're going about this all wrong."

"How?"

I didn't mention how I never knew how to play, but changed its settings a bit to get the sound I thought would be a nice match. I pressed on a few keys myself, wincing whenever it came out horrible—but stumbled on a good one.

I pause, then press on it again, and as luck has it, press on another great one. "Play the record," I tell Louis.

Louis didn't question and reached for the headphones, placing them on my ears carefully. I could feel his eyes on me as I worked on adding depth to the song. I was far from the perfectionist he is and also did hit sour notes, but after I was finished, he looked astonished. His dark eyes had the golden flecks again, shimmering with excitement and so on.

He was in awe of me.

I blushed at the way he seemed like he was admiring an exhibit in a museum. Bashfully, I cleared my throat and pushed my headphones down to rest around my shoulder.

"What?"

"You're perfect."

"What?"

"You've done it. The missing pieces on the notes. I don't know how, but you did." Louis babbles on, and I rethink his words: whether I should be offended by how he was insisting, like he was expecting me to mess up, or be touched that a perfectionist freak like him just called me perfect.

"That's...great." I say hesitantly.

"Yeah." Louis breathed out and looked away, as if shaking off what was going on with him. "Um. Good job, Y/n."

"Thanks."

"Let's record that, yeah?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

And so Louis and I spent the rest of the time seated side by side on the stool of my mom's organ. Thank god she never listened whenever I asked her to sell it off.

ⵌ

[ ✪ ]

It was dark when Louis left. He had AirPods on, walking down the streets of London. His mind was cleared of distractions—only set on one thing and one thing only: his bed. He didn't know why he chose to take the tube tonight, but somehow there was something poetic about taking it during late nights.

He waited patiently behind the yellow lane, watching as people unloaded the train before he got on.

Until he gets a whiff of a familiar scent that makes him stop, time pausing with him. Of something flowery, and unmistakably from the girl who he grew up with. A girl he was now used to seeking. The world slowed down but did nothing for his heartbeat. A magnetic pulse that he could not stop.

Louis turned his body before he could think, trying to catch a glimpse of the hair he was familiar with in the crowd of commuters.

Y/n?

But Louis saw no one.

He felt a squeeze in his chest from the disappointment, his fists clenching just a bit. When he faced the train to get on, its door closed right in front of his face.

Damn it.

Louis watched his train travel without him in it. And now he has two things in his mind: his bed and you.

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