17 Black

6•

It's Monday afternoon and Louis is sitting in his last hour classroom, foot tapping impatiently against the tile floor as he tediously watches the hands on the clock. His history teacher is blabbing on about how they have "two precious minutes" left in school to do their homework, but Louis and everyone else in the room knows that it's complete bullshit and that no one actually does their homework anyway. He has been waiting all day and he's tired of school and just wants to get out of there. He doesn't know why he is so eager for class to end, but he just is. Okay, maybe he does know why. But it certainly doesn't have anything to do with him being a little bit excited to see his coach at practice today.

The bell finally rings, and Louis grabs his stack of books and rushes out of the classroom. Walking to his locker doesn't take as long as it usually would, because for one, fortunately, Ryan is not present, and also because Louis's moving much quicker than he normally would as he hurries through the halls. It's odd, but he's excited, even if he doesn't know why, and he can't help it. He dumps his books carelessly into his dumpster of a locker and somehow manages to fish his gym bag out of the bottom, shutting it with a slam and heads towards the locker room. When Louis sees Liam waiting for him outside the door, he's already smiling brightly.

"Hey, Li," he greets the brown eyes boy, who gives him a look, but nonetheless returns his smile.

"Hey, Tommo, what's with the good mood?" He questions with a grin. "I mean, good for you and all, but what's up?"

Louis shrugs as they push through the door.

"How dare I be happy to see you, Liam," Louis says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Liam puts his hands up as if to surrender, a smile on his face. Louis smiles back, and then faces into his little corner of the lockers and begins to strip, modestly, of course. It's still intelligent to be aware of the several homophobes on his team that might be present in the room with him, and who would probably not be very pleased if he flamboyantly flung his clothes off like the rest of them. As he straightens his practice uniform, he thinks about how sad it is that he has grown into the habit of hiding himself all the time just because he likes guys. Like, so what, it's not like any of the dickhead anti-gay dudes in this school are enough to impress him anyway.

Liam shoots him a warning look before rushing out of the locker room, and Louis already knows he's probably going to be late again, much to his disappointment, and fear. So he goes extra fast as he laces his boots and he flat out runs through the door of the locker room, surprised when he isn't the last panicked player in the room.

When Louis steps out onto the pitch, he spots Harry right away. He looks especially tall as he stands off to the side by himself, squinting with his face practically pressed to his phone. The fact that Harry appears to be slightly pigeon-toed somehow makes him seem more endearing than Louis knows he really is. But in all honesty, Harry is looking good. Like, he always looks hot, but today, he just looks so sexy. His hair looks especially soft, like it would feel like a cloud if you touched it, his lips look so full and heart shaped and perfect for kissing (or other less innocent purposes), and the green of his eyes is especially vibrant, yet somehow still soft.

Louis knows that it is probably so obvious that he's staring at Harry, so as much as it displeases him, he looks away and quickly makes his way over to Liam and Isaiah who are chatting casually about something near the bench. The two smile at him as he approaches.

"Hey, Louis," Isaiah greets him warmly.

"What's up guys?"

Liam rolls his eyes and sends Isaiah a look.

"Isaiah was just educating me on a few of the more explicit details of his and his girlfriend's weekend together," he says, his nose scrunched up cutely with disgust.