Young & Beautiful

struggle and if Louis had thought that that night had encompassed the epitome of human suffering,
then he was really fucking incorrect because the next day was, somehow, even worse.
He’d woken up to an empty bed—unsurprisingly—with only a note from Harry that read:
“I believe in Willie Hughes.”
And on the back:
“Thank you”
He pocketed it, tucked it away when he dragged his weak, heartbroken body back to his flat (Niall
was gone, probably still hadn’t come back from the night before), then texted Harry asking his
whereabouts, every tap of the screen shooting through Louis’ core because he didn’t want to see
Harry but he had to see Harry—it was like taking the most beatifically scenic route to one’s death:
a gorgeous demise.
He was merely sent an address in reply and so Louis began walking—he always begins walking
—and found Harry smiling sweetly in a nearby park, bundled in ebony and silver and sporting a
grin that warmed the cold white skies of the morning.
“I want to spend the day away from school. My only goal is to not step one foot onto its property
until the sun sets,” he said, words curling into smoke and twisting through his reddened-by-cold,
vibrant lips. He squinted against the sun that seemed both distant and too bright, curls tumbling
softly in nipping breezes.
“It’s not even midday,” Louis replied, still hollow, still drained, still so in love with the
unreachable diamond before him. Still so fucking pathetic, that he brought the damn note from that
morning with him, tucked it back in his jean pocket. (Nobody had to know.)
“It gives us plenty of time to see beautiful things,” Harry grinned.
Louis cracked a smile, cracked the ice of his body and heart.
“It gives us plenty of time for adventures.” He cocked his head, catching the sunlight in his hands
and shading Harry’s eyes. “And I’m quite the adventurer, you know. Don’t even need a treasure
map to find treasure. See?” he said, waving his hands in the sun’s beams, the shadows of his
hands flickering across Harry’s face. “Look at all this gold.”
And Harry smiled wider and Louis did too, and they took off as one and never looked back.
They spent the day scouring bookshelves in shops (Harry bought every single Oscar Wilde book
he came across; “Healthy state of mind, that,” Louis had mocked, nodding towards the two, very
large bags in Harry’s hands, stuffed mostly with the same book; “Books are food for the brain. I
can’t think of anything healthier,” he replied with a sniff) and collecting pints in warm pubs as
Harry scribbled their “adventures” in a freshly-purchased journal, smiling as he slid it across the
surface of the table towards Louis so he could “add a different perspective—everything is always
better in multicolor.”
They taunted the world and ignored the world and adored the world and Harry quoted Keats and
Byron and Wilde and sometimes Poe and Louis scribbled their names on every surface he wasn’t
allowed to, taking photo after photo so that, someday when he had no memories and lots of time,
he could always, always remember the way Harry looked when he was Louis’ for one day. The
way he grinned, holding his stuffed bags in his mittened hands, the way the silver of his scarf
shimmered against pearl skin, the way the wind swept up his laughter and the velvet of his voice
in great whirls that tufted his hair, and the way his profile burned black against the cityscape,
framed in blinding sun.