So, What? // 1D AU ✓

Chapter 9

~And guess what?,

I'm having more fun~

"You can't bring your keyboard, love," Cole says into his boyfriend's ear, which was only a couple of inches from his mouth. The two of them are sitting in his room at Anne's, going through the last of his things before they move down to L.A. Harry had been staying at Cole's apartment for the last week or so while they got a housing situation figured out.

Cole had been packed for a while - the minimalist, but Harry was very sentimental and it was like pulling teeth just to get him to pick one of three toothbrushes. The car they were taking was very small, and to help Harry, he set the packing limit at two suitcases and one backpack, which was not enough.

He pushed himself out of Cole's lap and faced him, back against his childhood bed. "I'm sticking up for my keyboard. It's my most prized possession."

"You got it at a garage sale for two dollars, Harry!" Cole didn't break eye contact with him, until Harry stood up and got up onto his bed, to have the moral and physical high ground. "We don't have fucking room. With the T.V, and the microwave, and the mix-matched boxes."

Harry bit his upper lip and then released it. "I will break up with if I can't bring my keyboard. You don't understand. It's a part of me. It's who I am." He was five when it came into his life. It had been there through everything. Singing in the bathroom with only Gemma as his audience. His parent's divorce. Middle school. Singing lessons. Music classes. His sexuality crisis and string of really bad breakups. When Gemma was in the psychiatric ward after a mental break. College Even if he wasn't singing, that was non-negotiable.

"Relax, relax," Cole said, trying to deflect. "Think rationally, Harry,"

"Think rationally, Harry!" Mocking his boyfriend, Harry glared down at him before pointing an arm towards the door. "I'm spending the night here. Come back when you decide we can keep the keyboard."

Rolling his eyes, Cole swept his brown hair off of his forehead and left, hands in the air in a show of surrender. Anne was still at work for the day, and that meant that the only person Harry could possibly vent to was Gemma - halfway across the city and dealing with her own life. Surely she was past petty relationship squabbles, having been dating the same man since Harry was in high school.

Nonetheless, he called an Uber and went right up Gemma's steps, letting himself in for no thought with what he might find inside. But he knew things would be as they always were - she was a creature of habit, and she was on her couch with her laptop and cat, with a cup of tea.

"Hey, Harry," She smiled. "Take your shoes off and there's cookies in the kitchen."

God, she's even more Mom than Mom.

He paused for a moment by the door to remove his Chelsea boots, and then crossed the floor to the kitchen to grab the plate of peanut butter cookies - a Gemma classic - and flopped next to her on the couch. She was sure to ask questions about his sudden appearance, but he would've been perfectly fine to watch whatever show was on her T.V. and eat the cookies, feeling miserable about his situation.