[a/n: bubbie is writing 'two ghosts'. his tummy is making soft. my dad 🥰]

//past//

❝ H A R R Y ❞

'hey. i was thinking maybe we should take a break from the tutoring for a while. we'll continue after two weeks. louis.'

harry kept looking at the message. why does louis keep messaging him through zayn's phone? why are they hanging out? isn't zayn his friend more than louis'? louis and him are friends too. shouldn't they be hanging out? they never chill apart from the tutoring thing and if he wants to get closer to louis— to win the dare— him and louis should spend more time together.

the truth was that louis had called zayn and asked him to message this to harry. he wanted to respect harry's words and never took his contact number from zayn.

harry really hated this empty feeling washing over him after reading the message. it's not like he'll miss studying but he'll miss louis' sisters.

sighing heavily, he lay down on his bed, gazing at his ceiling mindlessly. what has taken over him? why is he behaving like this? something inside him wanted to continue the tutor thing. two weeks are too long. too far. and what if it never happened?

what is special about louis? why was he being drawn towards the 'fat freak'? he cringed at the name. louis was anything but a freak. louis is like an addictive song, stuck in his head. no matter how hard he tries to push this song away, louis' melodious presence keeps running through his mind like a limitless loop. and each time it just gets even sweeter and gets harder for harry to forget about him. what is more scary is, he knows he will never get tired of listening to this melody. he will never get tired to louis. his favorite song.

"ew, what the fuck!" he whined. this dare, spending time with louis was a very bad idea. he knew he was getting affectionate with the 'fat' boy he had always bullied. he hated himself for that. "louis..." with every passing moment, harry just couldn't get rid of louis' thoughts, making him absolutely restless. he would try to dismiss them by either telling himself how absurd this is or he would insult louis in the back of his mind. but the latter would result in more agony and pain and more need to praise the other boy.

he shook his head. he needed some distraction. he really does. nervously, he took out his diary. a diary which had a piece of his heart since his childhood.

'i'm scared.'

-

after pouring his heart out in the diary, harry hid it back in the drawer and rolled back on his bed. it was boring, even his mom and sister were out shopping for the holiday. mindlessly, he scrolled through his instagram, scoffing at some people's cringe posts. how's lance already in love with whitney? they started dating three weeks ago. bullshit.

his eyebrows furrowed when he came across zayn's new post. oh, zayn never posts anything. it was a photo of zayn, louis and his friends. harry frowned at the picture, quickly tapping on the picture to see the tags. without contemplating much, he clicked on louis' profile.

louis didn't have a lot of following or neither did he follow a lot of them. him and louis had only a couple of mutuals and one of them was zayn. for bio, there was only one word, anthophile and what harry assumes louis' age.

'what does that mean?' harry wondered, quickly went on chrome to know the meaning. it meant someone who loves flowers. well, louis does love flowers. he switched back to instagram and opened one of the three posts. from what harry can understand is it was louis and his family. louis and his siblings were quite young, the twins were babies. for the first time, harry saw louis' mother, and louis was like a carbon copy of hers. the fairly young boy was clinging on her. louis was a cute kid.

the next post was of louis' garden and he had captioned the picture with my little paradise and harry couldn't help but chuckle. louis was such a nerd. the next post was similar to zayn's. seriously, when did they become friends?

without giving it much thought, he dialled zayn. after three rings, the lad picked up the call with a simple ' 'ello'.

"it's me, z."

"i know. i've your number saved, mate." zayn chuckled. "what happened?"

"why're you friends with that- y'know... uh, louis!" he couldn't bring himself to insult the lad.

"uh... you are not my mother. and not even mother has ever stopped me from making friends with anyone." he heard zayn scoff. "also, louis is a good lad."

"but you're my best friend!"

zayn frowned. "of course, you are."

"then won't you listen to me and stay away from louis?" harry tutted.

"you cannot control me."

"i can't seem to control anything these days!" harry muttered to himself, sighing heavily. "whatever. don't come to me when this will tarnish your reputation."

"yeah, you fret about yours, i'm pretty content with my life and my life. who cares about some ignorant lot anyway?" zayn sneered. "talk to me when you get your head out of your arse, h. bye!"

harry frowned deeply when zayn ended the call, he huffed angrily and threw his phone on the bed. "fuck you, too!" ... "louis, you will regret stealing my friend!"

-

❝ I'm still here but I don't feel the same,
I wasn't ready for the change,
But you can't control, what you don't see coming. ❞
— David Archuleta

____________________________

10/04/2021

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👀 : did you see louis' long hair?

❤️ : i love it. such a pretty lad 🥰

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excuse my mistakes. i hope you liked the chapter x