Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

NINE

Harry had begun to lose track of the days, they seemed to pass tediously, almost as if they didn't want to pass at all. Yet it had only been five days since Reagan had arrived and about three since they had begun seriously working on their album. But that's how it had always been, he knew that. He knew that it would be like this for a while, that they needed to be locked into the studio in order to produce the work everyone doubted they were capable of. And while they were resentful of it on beautiful days like today, in November, when the album is released, they'd think differently about it.

He sat outside the recording box, next to their producer, and watched with a pain face as Niall was attempting his part in his new song. Everyone else though was off doing their own thing, Liam and Louis busily writing and Reagan with her laptop monitoring the boys' social media accounts. She had convinced Lydia to allow the boys to have their respective twitters back, full access no more of that checking what they decide to post before they posted it. Of course, they had rules, but they were just happy to have the power to post whenever they wanted and whatever they wanted. The novelty wore off about the second day though, when Reagan reminded them that even though they got to post whatever they wanted again, they also needed to start promoting the album.

Social media privileges just weren't enough to keep them happy though, the boys were becoming antsy as the day progressed, and even more so after they began rehearsing Harry's newly written song. As much as they loved their bandmate, they hated the way he acted with his songs. He was very possessive of the idea of them, as in, he needed them to be reproduced in the exact way he imagined them. There was no room for error with him.

See, the thing is that artists are very particular, they have visions when they are creating something and when those visions aren't able to come to life because of something that is out of their control it becomes an incredibly frustrating process. The boys were no exception to this. After going through one of the first songs that Liam and Louis had penned, Harry decided to bring out his own piece. Now, Liam and Louis' songs don't usually cause many problems, not really. It was Harry's that were problematic, simply because he was so illusioned with each and every work he had written, and god, you couldn't really blame him. He had a few songs in the works, one completed, one he started the night that he and Reagan had met. He wasn't far along enough on the latter, so he brought the completed one hoping to see it really come together.

"That was...okay," Harry said with a nod, pressing a button so that Niall could hear him within the tiny room.

Niall simply furrowed his brow, "Just say it."

"Say what?"

"Don't even start with that shit, say what you mean."

"What?" Harry said innocently.

"Was it flat? Did I not hit the right note?"

The problem though was that Harry was far too kind to criticize the boys when they did anything wrong or not really the way he imagined them. Sometimes not going according to the rigid plan in his head has paid off, sometimes in fact, the song is recorded completely with a different rhythm or note because it sounded so much better than what Harry could have ever imagined. But this song, he had plans for this song, and Niall was killing them softly with his notes.

"I just..."

"You just?"

"When I wrote it..."

"Here we go!" Niall said throwing his arms up and throwing the stack of sheet paper at Harry. It hit the glass and fell onto the floor. Niall threw his headset as well, stomping out of the recording area simply to stand before Harry angrily.

"You asked me to say what I meant!" Harry said helplessly.

Reagan, hearing the argument from a few feet away, turned from her conversation with Liam and walked over to the two, "What now?" She said in a voice that only shone very little patience and a lot of frustration.