all our younger years (l.s.)

1: the beginning

Once upon a time, it was the beginning of the end.

It was the second day of Harry Styles' summer vacation when his life seemingly came to an abrupt halt. Everything was perfect. Had been, at least. But now, he wouldn't allow himself to think of what would happen when school started again. Didn't matter. Didn't have anything to do with him. What was school anyway? Trapped for hours in a sweaty classroom, victim to the same daily routine, the same lessons, the same nasty kids. What a way to live. Subject to society's expectations of a regular seventeen year old's education; maths and science and biology and chemistry and reading and writing and essays and homework.

Harry always asked himself the same question, even when he'd given up on establishing a definitive answer long ago. His sleepless nights were abundant, especially because the house was completely free of air conditioning, so he figured he might as well conduct some kind of productive activity while lying uselessly on a creaky bed in his boxers, busying himself with trying to discover the answer to the question: what did it mean to be happy?

Took him a while before he even considered letting it go.

Because the truth was, if he could discover the long sought answer, maybe he could just make it happen for himself. He wasn't going to live on this earth for eighty years and then, on his deathbed, be asking himself 'was I truly happy?'. If only. That was really the phrase that would bounce around his brain and taunt him from behind his eyelids when he tried desperately to push himself into sleep. If only he knew how to be happy, if only he had some way to understand what it meant to be searching for something without knowing what he was even looking for. What the something was.

And well. Harry was a bit existential. He had never been the rebellious one.

That was Louis.

See, for Louis, happiness came easily. He didn't have to try. Happiness was as easy for Louis as compiling long, unnecessary mental lists was for Harry. He was just so effortlessly cheerful at every second of every day; he didn't seem to worry about being conscious of other people's opinions, everything just came so naturally to him. The world was his stage, his life was an unending frenzy of excitement and laughter. Harry really wasn't quite sure how they had become friends.

Well, actually, he was. He just wasn't quite sure why Louis had kept him around after all this time.

Harry was incredibly lucky to be best friends with someone who was so loved by everyone. There wasn't a single soul on the face of the earth who could have disliked his Lou. He was proud of that. He was proud to call Louis his friend.

He wished, maybe, secretly, they could've been more.

Summer, he figured, was a better time than ever to begin embracing his newfound sexuality. Well, he hadn't told anyone, but coming to terms with it himself was a good thing, right? Anyway, he wasn't going to tell anyone until he knew for certain. Because there was still a chance he could be straight. He was probably just waiting to meet the right girl. Definitely. He wasn't gay. (Harry had now recently entered the denial stage of discovery).

And, anyway. He was, in all likelihood, just going through a phase. Because when Louis had come out, he had made it look so easy. He was so openly and happily gay that everybody kind of knew yet nobody really mentioned it. Apparently he'd known since he was a little kid; at least, that's what he told Harry. And his coming out wasn't the extravagant ordeal that everyone had expected it to be. It was just a simple 'I'm gay' on a Thursday afternoon when he was fifteen, and that was that. Few of the kids at school even dared to make fun of him, and those who did were completely ignored.

So the truth was, he couldn't really take after Louis in terms of being gay. He just didn't have the courage.

And it wasn't like Harry was attracted to Louis or anything. No. Definitely not. Absolutely not. Louis was his friend. Louis was his best friend. Louis, who was currently chewing loudly through the speaker in Harry's phone as he simultaneously blabbered on and on about some book he'd read about the lives of fish.

"...you know they remember things, right? Like when people say you have the memory of a goldfish that's fucking offensive to goldfish, they've just been stereotyped. And like, why single out a single species? That's fucking cruel. You don't say slugs have bad memories, or flowers have bad memories. And they do. You just say goldfish and I think that's really species-ist. Don't you think, Harry?"

It was eleven in the morning, and Harry bit into a muffin.

"Yeah."

"See? It makes no sense, even you get it." There was a pause on the other end of the phone, a faint ruffling, some distant conversation. Harry collapsed on the couch and reached for the television remote, content with remaining there all day. "Mum says I've got to go. Can I come over tonight?"

"Sure. We're having a pot roast."

"Sick, okay, see you later."

He wasn't quite sure why Louis still bothered to ask about coming over. When Harry wasn't at his own house, he was at school, and when he wasn't at school, he was at Louis' house. A second home kind of thing. It wasn't like his mum minded; she was apparently thrilled to have another son to look after, another mouth to feed, another person to coo after and cluck over, despite all of the extra work. Not to mention that both Harry and Louis' mums were working alone, both single mothers for several years now. Jay a nurse, Anne an editor. There was probably a time, a long while ago, when they worried about how their homes appeared to other people, about if they presented themselves as collected and ladylike. But with Louis at his house, everyone simply became at ease; his sister more cheerful and teasing and his mother busier yet jollier. It was Louis' gift. Harry envied it just a little bit.

Harry didn't think he would ever get used to all of the energy at Louis' house. Like, he always had a marvelous time. He always enjoyed every second of the chaos that his friend was accustomed to, but with it always so loud and full of giddy and awake little girls and annoyed and disaffected teen girls, it was hard to not always be slightly astounded by the family's normal. His normal was always fairly quiet; he did his homework alone, he made regular conversation with his family but it wasn't the kind of alive, sparkling energy Louis' normal always was. Three kids at the table at the same time, all screaming for mum and Louis to help them with maths; mum in the kitchen screaming back instructions, Louis dusting eyeshadow on his youngest sister's face. Chaos. He loved it.