Build-A-Boyfriend

27

I groan as I enter the passageway to our block of apartments.

The stack of precariously balanced parcels is even higher than yesterday's lot. With a sigh, I grab half of them and stagger up the stairs. Harry will have to get the rest of them.

The problem is that Harry has discovered online shopping.

There's nothing I can do about it, it's all his own money from his booming cake business that he's using. He's already decorated my entire studio in Hufflepuff colours, including painting all of the walls a headache inducing glowing yellow and black. The worst part is the enormous Hufflepuff badger that he painted on the wall that looks more like a mutated killer whale.

Harry was so incredibly proud of himself that I couldn't bring myself to complain, but it's so hideous that I can't even focus on the TV without feeling its lopsided eyes boring into my soul.

Of course, being Harry, he didn't stop there. He's ordered himself a series of increasingly elaborate suits that he just wears casually on a daily basis.
He treats me too. Yesterday he presented me with a new pair of running shoes, as he 'knows how much running means to me.' The worst thing though is all the absolute tat that he orders. It's sitting in little piles all round the room and me and Dave have to pick out way around Harry Potter chess sets and life sized Ed Sheeran cut outs.

I can smell Harry's baking from the floor below ours. It smells amazing. I'm kinda shocked how well his business is doing in such a short space of time, last week he proudly insisted on paying the rent and wouldn't let me pay for the weekly food shop.

I've been a bit worried about him for the past week though. Despite everything, he's seemed a little bit off. He's been calling the other Dream Factory boys a lot, having long whispered phone calls that he doesn't seem to want to talk about with me. I'm getting worried that he isn't happy with me, because it's playing on my mind that apart from that one kiss at the ball, he hasn't tried to kiss me again. Even when I've taken the lead and tried to initiate it, he just shies away.

It takes me several awkward attempts to open my door, given that my arms are full of parcels. The moment I'm inside Dave makes what I can only assume is a serious assassination attempt on me by running directly in front of me so that I almost fall over.

Cursing, I shove Harry's parcels on the sideboard and pick my way around a limited edition, full sized plastic Gollum statue to open the second door.

Harry is stood with his back to me, stirring the contents of a large pan. The rich smell of sauces and spices mingles with the smell of his cakes. I grin to myself when I see he's wearing his favourite pink flowery suit today.
I'm about to call out when I realise he's on the phone. I make to slip into the room, until he speaks in a low voice.

"I just don't know how to say it to her." His tone has that oddly childish, anxious quality to it. He pauses to listen before speaking again. "Yes, but I don't know... She's not what I expected when I came out of the pod, I suppose I expected her to be more-"

He's interrupted by the unknown person on the phone and halts stirring as he listens.

He expected me to be more what???

My heart sinks and I back slowly into the hall. This doesn't sound good.

"Yes, but I'm different from all the rest of you aren't I? My batch was faulty. Maybe that's why I feel differently about it." He sounds so desperate that my heart pounds.

Oh my god. He sounds so unhappy. Does he feel trapped? He tells the dream factory staff that he's happy with me. But then due to the way he was created he doesn't have much choice other than to like me-