Summary:
If Liam really thinks it's funny to send him on a surprise date with a tattooed, leather wearing punk then Harry's going to have words with him later. When he's managed to stop staring at the guy across from him.
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Harry's quiet and shy and does all his homework. Louis drives motorbikes and never turns up to school. Their respective friends think they'd be a cute couple.
***
It'd be good for you, to get out. See someone. You know, live a little.
Which Harry had thought had been kinda rich, considering Liam had only been to one more party than Harry (who, as of yet, has not attended one) and two more dates (which is also at a total of zero, for Harry). So it's not as though he's the sudden celestial being of knowledge on 'living a little'.
Most importantly, Liam's ill advised lecture has been floating it's way around Harry's head for the past fifteen minutes and he has completely no idea of anything that just passed in that stretch of time. It's all Liam's fault. He's never explaining the quadratic formula to him again.
"And as you can see, the use of sibilance here emphasizes his later evolution into a character more sinister. Why do you think the author has done this?" The teacher looks at the class expectantly, peering over his glasses at them. No one even bothers to feign interest anymore, because Hobbs is the kind of teacher who would lecture to an empty classroom and probably not register any difference to a full one.
Harry thinks idly that he most definitely hates English.
"Foreshadowing." Mr Hobbs says, smiling widely, before it drops completely off his face and he goes back to sending the class into their usual semi-comatose state. If Harry was willing to waste paper and ink, he'd doodle or something, but you know, he's not. It leaves his brain awfully lively though, thoughts buzzing around and rebounding off the inside of his skull and forcing him to rethink them.
I don't need a date, he thinks to himself, tapping his fingers together languidly. He knows he's probably going to have to catch this lesson up later, and that's going to royally screw up his timetable for his night (it's actually a very good thing that he's organized, because organized men are hot), but he really can't bring himself to listen. It's just; there are categories that people fall in to. There's the majority, the ones who date in school and go through relationships like they're old news, and then there are the people who wait until they're older and have a few, serious relationships. Harry is the second. He's always been the second (as is evident from his glittering track record of romantic success). So, Harry guesses, he's kind of reconciled himself with his fate of not really having anyone, not during school, anyway. (His mum would probably have some kind of fit if he did bring someone home even if there was such a person, because one of his mother's most favourite mantras is that if he wants to get anywhere in life, he needs to work hard, and girls are an unwelcome distraction from that, will tear him from his textbooks, and no doubt send him spiralling down into a web of deceit, failure, sex, drugs and rock n roll. Harry also decided not to mention the fact if he were to bring anyone home, it wouldn't be a girl.)
Still, he thinks he'd like to know just exactly who it is that Liam's set him up with. For scientific reasons, obviously. But it would help him to really cement his decision to not go if he knew exactly who he was supposed to be seeing.
*
"What do you mean it's a blind date?" Harry asks, incredulous, staring at Liam in enough surprise for his eyebrows to begin to climb their way up across his forehead. They've relocated to their usual corner of the dining hall for lunch -where no one usually bothers them much, because there's only so many times that shouting and jeering at stoic statues can really be entertaining- and Harry's had his math textbook lying open and unread on his lap for most of the time and he tries to extract information from a tight lipped Liam. It's like, he reflects sadly, trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
