Young & Beautiful

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, and his voice cuts through the air, hitting Harry like a bullet.
Immediately, he shoots up, as if he’d been awoken from a deep sleep, his fingers untangling from
his hair.
“How long have you been here?” he demands, his voice thick from exhaustion.
“Long enough.” Louis glances around the room, at the stacks of blank paper, the sheet music
littering every inch of the floor, bits of paper crumbled, an odd book or two cracked open and
lying expectantly. He toes at a particularly chaotic looking page. “What is all this? Are you in a
music course?”
“No.” Harry stands up, beginning to gather the loose papers off of the ground.
“Did you write all of this?” he asks, stunned.
And then Harry’s head snaps to him, eyes glaring. “Stop asking questions.”
Louis’ eyebrows raise. “All right, Gestapo. Care to take away my right to vote as well?”
Harry ignores him, continuing to pile his papers together, before selecting one and bringing it over
to the piano. He stares at it as his other hand taps out a simple melody, while Louis watches from
the doorway.
And then suddenly Harry’s whipping across the room, brandishing a guitar at him.
“Play a ‘C minor.’ I want to hear how it sounds with the piano.”
Louis stares at him. “Curly. In no way do I know how to play a guitar.”
He practically growls, taking the guitar back. “You don’t? What the hell did they teach you
growing up?”
“Reading. Writing. Addition. Subtraction. How to fake sick.”
Once again, Harry doesn’t respond, instead grabbing a fresh piece of paper and beginning to
scribble out a series of notes.
“You seem stressed,” Louis says, awkwardly standing in the doorway, bag hanging from his
shoulder.
“Yeah, well, I am. And I’m not really in the mood to tutor you today, so how about we just
cancel.”
“Well. All right, then. But…” Louis pauses, inspecting his fingernails. “Would you, er, mind if I
just stayed here anyway, then?”
Harry stills. “What?”
“Just to study, like.”
“Look, I really don’t feel like helping out right now—“
“I know, you great prat, I heard you the first time. I just want a place to study. I’ll keep to myself.
It’s just that Niall’s home and he’s playing video games because he never does his homework and
he’s making a general mess of the place and, well. Ya know. I could use a bit of time away. And
since you’re also working on something…”