Animal

Chapter 8

*NARRATOR'S POV*

For a whole minute Louis loses himself to the other side, where motion slowed to nil and everything was frozen. He stared at his desk and his pencil stops scraping against his notebook. His chest beats harder than before, filling up with dread and innate curiosity that this voice sounds too familiar. Styles. Of course it was familiar. He entertains the pathetic hope that this person is a totally different Styles, like in that MTV show with werewolves.

He takes deep breaths and whispers a prayer or two before looking at the door, but his hand grip Niall's arm tightly when his eyes meet dark green orbs staring back at him.

"Louis!" Niall hisses and frees his arm with a light shove that knocks Louis' fingers against the solid wood.

Louis brings his unfeeling hand onto his lap and Harry's eyes dart from Louis to Niall, but nothing in his gaze says his recognises either. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe not. In his distant mind travel, Louis finds himself gripping his scissors - where did that come from? and blindly slicing the skin of four fingers across each other. Brilliant.

"Lou? You're bleeding." He curses when Niall points it out.

Nevertheless, the Earth tilts back onto its axis and Harry settles into a seat at the back of the room while Niall supplies four plasters.

"Always be prepared." Louis notices the strange lilt in Niall's voice.

"T-Thanks." Louis mumbles and gets back to the slide show, unable to ignore the burning of two eyes into his back.

Class lasts another forty minutes and Louis forces himself to fully catch at least thirty of that for his exams. The heat of a familiar stare doesn't wear off and in the end, Louis predicts his spiral into insanity is inevitable. Maybe Harry didn't even walk into class and he's just going mad at an early age.

A peek over his shoulder squashes that theory when his eyes greet Harry's staring back at him emptily. He was wearing regular male attire and maintained an impassive composure that drove Louis mad because what was he playing at? Why was he here? How did he find Louis? Was he angry? If so, what was Louis going to do to keep them apart now?

With all these questions still haunting him, Louis grabs his things and sprints out of the dull theatre before Niall even finishes his yawn. When the blonde youngster finishes up putting their mugs into his bag, he nods at the newbie with dark locks of hair whose watching the door where a silhouette of Louis' exiting form still hung. He finds Louis waiting outside with a busy foot tapping the tiles, lip bitten raw and fingers drumming against the edges of his textbooks. The fresh pages were giving Louis paper cuts that he hardly noticed.

"Are you bipolar and just forgot to tell me? Because that changes our entire room-mate agreement, mate." Niall throws an arm over Louis' shoulders and leads them towards the elevators.

"N-No." Louis seemed to think about the answer after saying it. "I'm fine. I'm good."

"Sure?"

Louis nods with an interval between goes, and presses the elevator button hard enough to attract the attention of the college shrink, Mrs. Gorgam. Niall waves at her, and pulls Louis' hand away from jabbing the poor button over twenty-seven times.

"One more lecture then we're free for an hour." Niall leans against the elevator mirror wall.

"Yeah."

Louis is staring at the ground, and when he looks up he gets to see Harry step into the hallway and glance his way. The elevator doors thankfully close before something disastrous can come into play. He was scared of Harry's intentions, not knowing what they are yet either. What if it was a sadistic revenge intent? Louis just didn't know and that terrified him.