Young & Beautiful

Harry’s head snaps up before it falls back down, his feet pawing at the thick, Persian rug. “Well. I
was just sort of getting ready for the day. I mean, I don’t have classes or anything, because I’ve
already finished the coursework for all of them. Just, like, doing little things and looking over my
song. So, I mean, yeah, that’s fine,” Harry rambles, and he’s fiddling with his watch.
Louis grins. Success.
“Splendid!” he says, and immediately makes a beeline for Harry’s bedroom. “Let’s go in here,
yeah? It’s cozy. I like it,” he smiles, and settles down in his chair.
Harry follows behind him, eyes watchful but almost smiling? It’s a pleasant look, whatever it is, so
Louis nuzzles deeper into the chair and smiles sleepily up at Harry.
“Have you finished your song?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Can I hear it?”
Harry turns, walks to the window, and stares out. “Yeah.” The sun catches in his skin, his hair, his
troubled eyes. “In a bit though. Not right now, yeah?”
“Yeah. All right,” Louis says softly, and he watches the boy before him, bathed in golden light.
And then Louis begins to study and Harry begins to putter about, sifting through his papers,
tapping out quick texts on his phone, and pulling worn books off of the shelf to read them,
standing long and looking impossibly elegant—casual attire and all—framed in the window.
He literally looks like the embodiment of gold, the sun doing wonders to his body as it streams in
through the windows behind him, and the book is so frail and so fragile in his creamy white
hands, his fingernails perfectly groomed and soft in hue. His eyelashes glow in the light and the tip
of his nose is pink and his lips are wonderfully crimson and—
Okay. Maybe textbooks aren’t the only thing Louis’ studying.
He pulls his gaze away.
“Do you get on with your father?” Harry suddenly asks in his deep, musical voice that sits
somewhere on the floor, and it’s out of nowhere and he’s still holding that book in his hands
which he’s apparently only pretending to read and it startles Louis completely.
“What?” he asks, taken aback, staring at Harry’s shimmering outline.
He doesn’t look up from the book. “I noticed you call him by his name. And you said he didn’t
like you. Why?”
And these questions are so stark and so personal, but Louis finds that, beneath the shock, he really
doesn’t mind. So he stares at Harry, shrugs, and plays with the spiral of his notebook.
“We just clash. He thinks I’m annoying and too loud. And immature.” He pauses, fiddles with his
fringe. “But to be honest, I think the main reason he dislikes me is because I’m gay.”
Harry’s whole body reacts, seizes completely, but it’s so subtle and hard to catch that he doubts
anybody but himself would have noticed such a thing. Which, yeah, maybe Louis really does
need to get a hobby and stop obsessing over Harry. Maybe.