No, Louis, I’m not doing it. You can’t persuade me, whatever you do, okay?
It was the Saturday later when Louis had the troublesome task on his hands of trying to persuade Harry to do something he –even though Louis protested that inside he wanted to do it desperately– was claiming he didn’t want to do. They were back in the comfort of the piano room, as per usual, and after performing their routine clinking of the piano keys together, Louis had set upon that tricky task.
It was a particularly joyous, happy tune this week. Nothing at all including heavy clunking of the keys or the lower notes of the piano; they were all high pitched, staccato notes. The quickness of the speed made their hands tangle together in a messy sprawl of fingers. Although the tune was messed up and turned into a high pitched squeal of madness, the two boys just giggled it out. They weren’t embarrassed by their mistake; they weren’t annoyed; they were amused.
For Louis, he was particularly proud when their fingers mangled together. He was actually overjoyed. Of course the noise wasn’t pleasant, but Harry’s reaction was the seed of the pride. Harry didn’t freak; he didn’t scare. He didn’t zone out into the world of misery and taunt. He did the exact opposite. When Harry froze as they made such a noise, Louis suspected that the cheerful mood that the joyful tune brought would dissipate as fast as Harry’s good mood would.
Last time, Louis didn’t know the boy. He didn’t know his problem; he didn’t know the hurt inside that was so thickly covered up. He didn’t like him, nor did he have an unusually large crush –that sounded so childish, Louis thought, it was more than a childhood fancy on the school’s most popular kid– on the boy.
So, really, what was Louis to expect? When the same happened last time, Harry clammed up, and Louis was worried the same would happen. This was for two reasons. Reason one: he had no clue what to do. He proved his inexperience in dealing with Harry’s ‘problems’ when he took him to the gig all those weeks ago. Yes this would have been of a lesser accord, not as serious, but it was important nonetheless. If Harry’s mood had decreased dramatically, then Louis had this need to make it all better. And he didn’t know how to do that when the boy was so freaked out. Reason two: if Harry did freak out, then maybe Louis hadn’t made as much of an impact on the boy’s life as he thought. If he freaked out whilst in the presence of Louis, then surely he wouldn’t be as bad as he was at the gig? But if he was as bad, or even worse, then Louis’ mind would have ran into overdrive, thinking of all the things he could’ve done better to make the boy trust him more for times like this.
All this thinking, however, was irrelevant.
Harry giggled. Fucking giggled. That in turn made Louis giggle too, but that’s beside the point. He giggled. How adorable is that? It was a little bubble of bliss popping out his mouth. Did Harry really want to make Louis die, every time they saw each other, of his cuteness? Louis thought he did; he must’ve been doing it on purpose.
It had the same effect on Louis as that booming laugh on the top of the hill many weeks ago did. It made his heart swell and he grinned through his returning giggle so much it hurt his cheeks. It was almost flattering that Harry had the confidence to smile and laugh. With him.
So they giggled and smiled, chuckled and blushed, grinned and bloomed. It was just…lovely, a lovely few hours.
Backtracking to the Sunday morning after ‘the club incident’, it was a wary time for Louis. He wasn’t sure whether Harry would be awkward or annoyed at him and completely diminish his forgiving streak for the older boy. He woke up, Harry wrapped in his arms sleeping peacefully. At first, it was a bit of a shock. The blue paint of the walls was a shock to his system firstly. When his eyelids creaked open, covered in that film of sleep, the blue blur confused his mind. His walls weren’t blue; in fact, they were a bright shade of white, and he’d only repainted them a month or so prior so they couldn’t have discoloured that quickly. The light blue shade reminded him of his old bedroom in Doncaster, washing a wave of reminiscing memories over his mind. He remembered waking up time and time again, staring at that blue wall in front of him and almost praying to it that it’d close in on him and he wouldn’t have to get up for school. But then he tended to get a text from Zayn with either some confession about the party last night or a rudely pleasant wake up call.
