There's Nothing Holding Me Back | L.S.

One: Prom & Eyelashes

Word Count: 3,706

There's absolutely nothing in Harry's past that makes him not want to fall in love. No tortured exes who made him lose belief, no unrequited love experiences, no parental fights to make him disinterested. He just doesn't find it necessary. 

And he didn't consider himself aromantic, either. It wasn't that he never wanted to be in a relationship, he really doesn't think it could happen to him. Sure, he'd love it. It just seems unrealistic to him. He thinks maybe he reads too much fiction novels that convince him such unrealistic things could happen. 

Harry's reflecting on this early one day after not sleeping the night before. In fact, it's three in the morning. He's sitting on his roof, and if he wanted it he could create hilariously cliche scenarios that could happen while he's there, but he really didn't want that. He just wanted to sit and listen to his Spotify playlist called soft:) and look at the sky. There was something calming to him to look up and not see any power lines and only see the dark sky and shining stars through some tree branches.

Sometimes Harry wishes he had a better mind for his thoughts because he's trying to think of a way to describe the beauty he sees before him but there's absolutely no way he can. Maybe he needs an internal thesaurus.

And then Harry thinks that he's slipped into his hyperactive, romance movie and novel-induced imagination even though he doesn't want to because there's someone sitting next to him on the roof. But it feels different, and so Harry says "hi" without looking over. It seems to startle the person, probably because they didn't think either one of them would say anything so soon.

"Oh, hi," the person says, and Harry determines that though the voice sounds sort of feminine, it's definitely a man. "I heard your music. I live next door."

Harry sits up quickly and turns the speaker he was playing music on down. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Was I bothering you?"

The boy sits up as well, and Harry lets himself look over at him for the first time. "No, of course not! I'd be yelling at you if it bothered me, not climbing up here and sitting with you."

Harry calms down instantly, watching as the boy leans over his body to turn the music a few notches back up, but not to the volume it was at before. "Have we met before?" He questions as they both lie down again.

"I don't think so," the boy says, and Harry can see him playing with his fingers out of the corner of his eye. "I'm Louis," he states, turning onto his side and holding out one of his hands. Harry follows suit, shaking the boy's hand and trying his best to see his face.

The wind blowing works in his favor as it blows some of the branches laying above them out of the way so shafts of moonlight drape across Louis' face. Harry thinks his eyes are light grey maybe, but that could be the reflection from the moon.

"My name's Harry, by the way," Harry adds after a few seconds when he realizes that he hadn't said anything to Louis' introduction.

Louis grins, teeth shining almost as bright as his eyes. "I was wondering if you were ever going to say something or if you were just going to stare at me for eternity."

They stopped shaking hands once Harry realized they'd been doing that for a while, but they both remain on their sides. "What made you come up here if it wasn't the loud music?"

Louis shrugs, or does his best at shrugging as he's lying on his side. "I dunno, it's not often you hear someone outside blasting Shawn Mendes at three in the morning who's not having a party."

Harry snorts, grinning again. "Is Shawn Mendes really party music?"

"Hey, a lot of his stuff is fun!" Louis protests, sitting up. "This roof really isn't the most comfortable resting area... why the fuck are you up here?"