°• 𝙰𝙻𝙱𝚄𝙼 𝙰𝚁𝚃 •°[ 𝚣𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚢 ]

All my heroes 🥂

ZAYN

" All my heroes got tired
And all the days, they got short
And a love that I dreamt of
Came to me at my worst."
We'd been deep in the brainstorming phase for the past few days—pulling reference images, throwing out wild concepts, building vision boards, and trying to pin down the emotional tone of the album with some kind of visual language that felt just right. As chaotic as those initial stages always are, there was something electric about this one. There were ideas flying around that had real potential—stuff that felt bold, intimate, slightly surreal, and distinctly Harry.

Naturally, all of our ideas would eventually be filtered through him. Harry had made it clear from the start that he was very hands-on with this project—not in a micromanaging way, though. He trusted the creative team. Respected the process. But he also wasn't just slapping his name on a finished product. He cared. He had opinions, taste, and a sharp sense of aesthetics, and when he offered feedback, it never felt overbearing. It was like he was building the world with us, not above us.

I was starting—just starting—to get more comfortable with his presence. By that, I mean I no longer had to consciously remember how to breathe every time he walked into a room. Progress, right?

That said, my heart still did its best hummingbird impression whenever I caught sight of him. Especially when he wore one of his absolutely ridiculous, absolutely perfect shirts—loud prints, soft silks, colors that would look unhinged on anyone else but made him look like he'd just stepped out of a dream sequence in a Wes Anderson film. It was... disorienting.

Right now, though, I wasn't thinking about any of that.

I was tucked into the corner of the little employee café on the ground floor of the Columbia offices, nursing a cup of coffee that had probably gone lukewarm fifteen minutes ago. I'd carved out this rare sliver of downtime for myself—a quiet moment amid the whirlwind—and I intended to savour every bit of it.

My sketchpad was open in front of me, and I was doing what I always did when I needed to feel like myself again: sketching. The streets outside were half alive with movement—delivery vans, people in coats, the blur of city life that never really stops—and I was trying to capture it all in loose, confident lines.

Sketching had always been my anchor. Long before I had job titles or deadlines or campaigns, it was just me, a pen, and the need to get something out of my head and onto a page. It was why I chose this path in the first place. Graphic design felt like the intersection of art and stability—creative, yes, but also practical enough to make a living. I'd always been too scared to pursue being a full-time artist. But this? This felt like the right compromise. I loved my job. I got to make art with purpose, collaborate, communicate, create. And when I had a few quiet moments to myself like this, I still got to be that kid who loved to draw for the joy of it.

I was so caught up in what I was doing that I didn't even realise someone had walked over to my table until they pulled out the chair in front of me. I looked up.

And there he was.

Harry. Styles.
Holding a coffee. Smiling at me.

My soul momentarily left my body.

"Hey," he said casually, like he hadn't just completely short-circuited my brain. "Mind if I sit?"

I shook my head, probably too fast, and gestured awkwardly at the empty seat like I was some sort of old-timey gentleman. He sat down with an easy grace, like this sort of thing happened all the time. Maybe for him, it did.

I offered him a small, probably very stupid smile, and tried to look normal. Chill. Collected. Not like I'd spent several formative years imagining this exact moment in a hundred different variations.

"What are you sketching?" he asked, leaning forward slightly.

I froze.

I looked down at the page like I'd forgotten what was on it. I'd just been doodling city scenes—people walking, a stray dog, the window of the bakery across the street. Nothing fancy. Just movement. I flipped through the pages and then, after a moment of hesitation, handed it over to him.

He took the sketchpad gently, thumbing through it in silence. I watched him as subtly as I could, which wasn't subtle at all. My palms were sweating. My knee was bouncing under the table. I had no idea why this made me so nervous. Maybe because these sketches weren't work. They weren't polished or client-facing. They were just... mine. Personal. Honest.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, and the longer he looked, the more I debated whether I could make a run for it and get away with it.

Finally, he smiled. That real kind of smile that crinkles at the corners.

"You're really, really good," he said, looking back up at me. "Which isn't a shock, considering your job, but... wow."

Wow.

My brain repeated the word like an echo chamber. I felt heat rise to my cheeks, tried to force myself to stay cool. I gave him a small smile, trying to play it off.

"Thanks," I said, and I swear my voice cracked like a teenager's.

He handed the sketchpad back, still smiling, then took a sip of his coffee before asking, "So... what got you into album art? It's such a specific thing to focus on."

And just like that, something shifted.

The nervousness dulled a little—enough to let me talk. Really talk. I told him how I'd always loved trying to visualise sound, how music sparked images in my head that I needed to get down on paper. I explained that for me, designing an album cover was like trying to catch a feeling mid-air and give it shape. How I loved the idea of someone holding a record in their hands and feeling like they understood the music before they even heard it.

He listened with full attention. Nodding, smiling in places. Encouraging me to keep going. He shared a bit about his own process too—about how writing his latest album had been about learning to sit still, to feel things without immediately trying to fix them. We talked about where we came from, what shaped us, where we wanted to go next. It was... easy. Natural.

And for a little while, just for that stretch of time in the corner of a sunlit café, maybe I wasn't melting into a puddle of nervous energy. Maybe I wasn't the intern who once had a "Mrs. Styles" phase. Maybe I was just me, and he was just him, and we were two artists talking about what we love.

It felt good.

It felt real.

And when he finally stood to leave, offering another one of those ridiculous, gentle smiles as he said, "I'll see you around," all I could do was nod, heart humming like a struck chord.

Yeah. I really hope you do.