Affection (H.S.)

two.

Harry wouldn't lie, he totally wished Niall wasn't here right now. His friend had quite a way of, well, ruining a moment. It wasn't that Harry would be a perfectly smooth-talking gentleman if Niall wasn't here, it was just... it was the popcorn throwing. The constant laughing at Harry whenever he jumped at a scary part of the movie. And the burping. God, it was like he had no decorum.

YN didn't seem to mind it, she would giggle every now and then and seemed to entertain Niall's idiocy in general, but Harry couldn't. Not now, at least. When he had YN's shoulder pressed up against his, her sweet maple smell pleasantly overtaking his senses. He'd missed her this past week (it had been about that long since he'd come home to see her in his kitchen), so much it actually scared him. Because this wasn't normal. Harry didn't become this attached to people this quickly. He didn't crave the smallest of looks, touches, or acknowledgement from someone he'd only met twice. And after a night of lying in bed staring at the ceiling and not getting a wink of sleep, turning it all over in his brain, Harry still wasn't sure what he should do about it.

The decision had been made for him momentarily when Niall announced that he'd texted YN to see if she wanted to see that one horror movie that just came out that everyone was raving over. And Harry didn't even have time to bitch at Niall because Niall knew he couldn't do horror movies, because he was too busy feeling his heart actually splinter at the revelation that Niall had YN's number.

"You have her number?" He'd all but burst out, feeling a pathetic frown knot his brows. Clearly this meant she didn't like Harry, not nearly as much as he liked her, which was fine because he liked her a lot, too much, and she'd given Niall her number for a reason. Right? Was he holding on to some ridiculously insane hope? Probably. Was he crazy for feeling unsettled that she gave Niall her number and not him? Probably.

"You want it? Here, I can give it to y--"

"No!" Harry'd yelped, "Then she'll know you gave it to me! God, Niall, that's pathetic!"

"Yeah, that's the pathetic part of all this," Niall had grumbled under his breath.

And now, Harry was not only trying to refrain from jumping out of his pants at every jump scare, but he was finding it impossibly hard to not dump Niall's popcorn onto his stupid Irish head. Harry was pretty sure he was sweating and breathing too hard and God he had a headache from not sleeping last night and YN just had to be next to him and it was all Niall's fault—

There was a hand on his. A quick side-glance told him what he knew was already true—but had a hard time believing, honestly—that it was YN. Her soft palm rested lightly on top of his clenched fist that he hadn't noticed was gripping the armrest of his seat.

Heat grew in a warm fuzzy ball from the point of contact up his arm, through his chest, down to his tummy, making his toes tingle. Flushed, bitten lips hung open, throat bobbing audibly as she shot him a reassuring smile.

Harry didn't think this would help his breathing or nerves; in fact, he now felt lightheaded. Hyperaware of the strength of his breathing and how sweaty his palm was becoming, Harry very well believed he was going to have a panic attack. And possibly die.

What a way to go.

But then he looked at her, really looked. At the frizzy flyaway hairs fuzzily framing her face and making it look softer than usual; the light blue bags under her eyes illuminated by the movie; the large sweatshirt she was wearing that bunched loosely around her chest.

And he felt calm.

It was weird—bizarre, actually—but he didn't question it, for once. Just let himself be comforted. His eyes felt dry and irritated (he knew it was from lack of sleep) and as he kept a discreet eye on YN's profile he felt them becoming heavier and threatening to close. Suddenly exhaustion was upon him with a vengeance, and he didn't fight it either. He was too tired. So he let his eyes slip shut and his breathing even out and his head didn't fall sideways in slumber until he couldn't see YN anymore.