Care for me (L. S.)

5

Wednesday the 2nd of September | Harry

Harry was still half asleep leaning on the door frame of the classroom, looking at the time on his phone. It was three thirty-eight. The tutoring session was supposed to begin a few minutes ago. He had never tutored someone before (if you didn't count letting people ahum Liam copy his notes) and he wasn't sure how it would work out. Was he supposed to be like a second teacher or was it more of an after school study group kind of situation?

He sighed, staring at the ticking clock and weighing his options. He could wait in the hallway forever (and then get locked up by the concierge and have to spend the night at school. Cozy.) or ditch the lad. It wouldn't technically be ditching considering he was the one to be late in the first place. He was about to leave, going with the second choice, as he heard footsteps approaching, echoing through the corridor.

Harry turned around, already feeling like his patience was being tested. Louis was casually walking, not even ashamed that he wasn't on time for their very first tutoring session.

"You're late mate," he said, praying he wasn't going to regret his teacher's offer, because Louis had thrown his jacket on the floor and was already rolling his eyes.

"Don't do that thing where you rhyme everything, it's so annoying. No one likes that." He closed his eyes and rubbed the skin above his eyebrows with his fingertips, like it had actually hurt him.

"Well no one likes tardy people either so I guess we're even," Harry shot back innocently.

Louis looked defeated for a split second, debating on whether Harry had proved a point.

"Alright, let's get this over with." He sauntered to the desk next to Harry's, throwing his books on there and looking like he really didn't want to be there. He mentally sighed: he'd only been in the presence of this lad for half a minute, and he was already wondering what Miss Falcon's reaction would be if he asked her for a tutor fee.

"O. Yes, sure. Let's start with some simple equations, which are just like a base. What about you just do 1, let's say 'g'." His own politeness was annoying him.

After some more silent protesting, the other boy finally opened his book, occasionally writing stuff down and chewing on his pencil.

After a few minutes, Harry looked over the older boy's shoulder to check how he was doing. As his nose entered Louis' personal space, he couldn't help but notice his mixture of smells: apples, soap, sun with a hint of ginger and something else he wasn't able to pinpoint.

The paper on his desk was still completely white apart from a small sentence in the middle: 'maths = fucking stinky.'

In the corner of the paper, he'd drawn a little stick man hitting – what he assumed was – a Falcon with a large bat.

Louis seemed to have a good sense of humor, which was always nice. Harry found himself wondering if he had to try to be funny, or if it came naturally. He figured it was probably the second one, which he was sour about because he himself was only capable of making a decent pun once in a while.

"I like the... um- the drawing," he complimented, unable to stop the giggle from escaping, covering his mouth with his hand.

Louis' eyes widened, like he couldn't believe Harry's reaction. His overall appearance and behaviour had been a little off putting, but looking in his eyes, Harry decided they were kind. He figured he would try to give this tutoring thing a fair go.

"Let's do this for real though, you're stuck here anyways so why waste the opportunity." He was starting to feel like Nanny Mc Phee and if Louis didn't start being serious about this soon, he would act like her, too!