flower crowns // l.s.

Prologue

* This story contains possible triggers. !!please!! read at your own risk.*

January.

"No, no," Harry huffs out, frustration evident in his actions. He's in a rush to get home, but he has most definitely caught a cold and can't find his favorite type of cough syrup. It was really upsetting the pink-cheeked boy. He clenches his right hand into a fist and coughs into it, the sound deep and loud and dry.

Harry doesn't like being under the weather. This means that he's having to spend his day inside, watching silly shows, doing nothing productive, and not having any human interaction for at least a week. A week is a long time to Harry. He loves people, loves talking, and loves making people happy; he can't do that when he's sick.

"Look, mate, I get that you're sick, but you've been standing in that spot wallowing in self-pity for about thirty minutes, so either get what you're looking for and scoot, or I'll just shove ya outta the way."

Harry frowns at the somewhat high-pitched voice and lookw over his shoulder. Standing behind him is a guy; this guy has brown hair laying on his forehead, a fringe in a mess, tattoos scattering his arms (Harry thinks the boy should be wearing a little more clothing. C'mon, it's January, not June), and piercings in his eyebrow and lip. He looks quite edgy. And Harry would have moved away, yeah, the guy's eyes were such a bright blue that he couldn't look away even if there was a rope around his neck and a horse was trying to tug him away. So he just stands there, staring at the pretty boy with tattoos. He's short—well, not too short; shorter than Harry. But Harry's always been a tall fellow.

Once Harry realizes that he's just been staring like the weirdo he is, he coughs (not on purpose) and moves to the side, nearly tripping over his own feet. "Can't find my—" He coughs again, eyes shutting just a little bit before settling back on the blue eyed boy. "Favorite cough syrup, s'all." He shrugs after that, sniffling his nose which was red at the tip.

The other boy just stares at Harry like he was crazy, the left side of his lip raising and his eyebrow furrowing as he made his way to where Harry was standing. "Yeah. Well, I don't really care, so—" And then Harry was about to make him stop talking because there was a lady pushing a cart and not even caring to look up, but it was too late. She ran into the boy and the boy ran into Harry and Harry ran into the shelves which causes boxes upon boxes to fall into heaps across the tiled floor. "What the fuck are you doing? Can't ya look up, woman? Jesus. There are people here, you know. Now some kids that work here have'ta clean up the mess you caused and I bet you don't even care—" Harry didn't think the blue eyed boy cared either. "—Do you think this world revolves around you? Think again! Running into sick people like this, I should just fuckin' spit and cough all over that fake mouth of yours just to make you get sick, ya fuckin'—"

"Hey."

The lady looked as if she was about to cry, apologies spilling from her lips when the blue eyed boy took a breath in between his words. And the other boy had his hand waving around, face beginning to redden from anger. Now they both stopped talking to look at Harry, probably because he hadn't said a word until now and they forgot about him even being a part of this, too.

"This isn't nice. Let's try to—try to—" He tips his head back, screws his eyes shut and releases a loud sneeze into the sleeve of his sweater. "Get along." He finishes, trying to breathe through his stuffed up nose.

Harry was expecting the both of them to agree, nod along, shake hands and exchange apologies, but neither of them did. Blue-eyed boy just scoffed and shoved his hands into his pockets, eyes rolling. And the girl just grabbed her cart and turned around, going the opposite way rather quickly. "Well," Harry sighs out, looking at the boy, and then at the mess on the floor. That made Harry think back to what the boy was saying to the lady. He didn't want others cleaning up a mess they didn't do—though it was probably their job—so he put it upon himself to clean it up. Why not? There's no harm in it.

He walks over to the mess and scoops a pile of the boxes into his arms, trying to hold as much as possible, but even his long and somewhat muscular arms couldn't gather up all of the boxes at once. They just started falling back to the floor, box after box.

Harry let unintentional words pass through his lips, such as: "Ah," or "no, stop," and "dammit." This shouldn't upset the sick boy like it did. Now he's sad and coughing and wanting to help out. This day just isn't his day, and that's what made him a pouting, eye-watering mess. And what made this even worse is that Harry knew the pretty boy behind him hadn't left. He would have heard him leave if he did.

"You can go, the show's over," said Harry, his voice quiet and hoarse. He didn't want to cry in front of the tattooed guy.

"Nah, I think it's just begun."

Little did Harry know that the blue eyed boy was speaking the truth.