all our younger years (l.s.)

epilogue

eleven months later: moving day

"Who knew Harry Styles had so many goddamn clothes?"

There were only two suitcases. Harry had expected there to be a lot more, considering Louis had four on his moving day, but he made up for it with rolls of posters, the bags stuffed full of pictures and postcards, the stupid drawing Louis did for his 18th birthday of a dog with wings, flying close to the top of the London Eye, which he'd insisted on framing. (Louis. Louis had insisted on framing it, not Harry. Who'd pretended to hate it, but secretly loved it).

"They're not all clothes," Harry defended. "There are books in there. And shoes."

"Sure," Louis grunted, acting like he was hauling some kind of dead animal up the single flight of stairs leading to his dorm. "You're roommate better be fucking hot, or I'm dropping out of uni and becoming a rubbish bin man. I hear they get paid well."

"His name is Zayn," Harry panted. "Maybe he's goth. What if he's goth? Will you make me switch rooms?"

"I love you, Harry dear, but I'm not okay with you sharing a room with a goth. No poetry readings in graveyards for you, darling."

"What if he's hot?" Harry pressed, and it was then that they turned the corner of his doorway and came face to face with his supposed roommate. Whatever Louis was going to say got caught in his throat and he burst into a fit of abrupt coughing.

Zayn the roommate looked like a model. That was the only way to describe him; swooshy, glossy black hair, perfectly flawless dark olive skin, outfitted in tight black jeans and plaid button-down, sleeves rolled up. He was in the middle of tacking up a Metallica poster on his side of the room when they walked in, and he turned quickly, greeting them with a crooked grin and stepping away from the wall to extend a hand.

"Zayn Malik," he introduced. "You must be 'arry. Nice to meet you, mate."

"Yeah," Harry said breathlessly, shaking once. "Cheers. I'm Harry. You already knew that."

Zayn Malik the Model turned to Louis. "Hi, man," he drawled. "You two brothers or something?"

"Boyfriends," Louis blurted out thoughtlessly. "I'm taken. I mean, he's taken. I mean, what?"

Zayn laughed. "It's okay, I'm taken too."

Louis scratched his chin, and Harry rolled his eyes at the slightly disappointed look on his face. "Lucky girl," he muttered, nudging Harry's side and squeezing his hip just to remind him he was teasing.

"Boy," Zayn clarified, and both of them jumped. "His name's Liam."

"Liam Payne?" they both squeaked at the same time, and Zayn's face lit up.

"Yeah! You know him?"

There was a brief, awkward pause, and Harry chuckled uncomfortably. "Yeah. Well. We, erm, thought he was straight though."

"Guess you learn something every day," Zayn said, smirking a bit. He was very, very attractive. He returned to the poster on the wall, one loose corner still hanging down, a flap of tape gathering the dust floating around in the air.

"Hmm," Louis said, and dropped everything, coughing again and punching himself in the chest. "H, help me make the bed, love?"

Neither of them said anything while doing so, both exchanging similar looks but remaining silent. Everything felt kind of surreal; Harry was here, finally, at ManU, and Louis was with him, and his roommate was fit, and his room was nice, and it was sunny out and he had a bit of extra money for their first planned date night as two uni students, and they didn't have to worry about things at home because Anne had promised she'd look after all the girls.