Young & Beautiful

The sun travelled across the sky until it began to fall, and they walked and walked and walked,
drinking steaming cocoas along the riverbank and tucking their chins into their scarves,
exchanging sips and wondering if rivers could ever get thirsty.
“Think she’d probably enjoy some cocoa,” Louis had said, tipping his cup and letting a quick
splurt of chocolate silk drip into the water below. “All that mucky water’s got to get a bit boring to
taste, hasn’t it?”
Harry laughed, mirroring the action.
“I think I hear her saying thank you,” Harry smiled, listening to the soft babbles of water hitting
cement, and when Louis looked up, Harry’s eyes caught in the light, turning the world green.
“Let’s find a place we’ve never been to before,” Louis had said, voice catching. Harry met his
eyes, calm and content, a wind-born flush burning his cheeks. “And after today, let’s never go
there again.”
“So that we’ll always remember it together?” Harry asked happily, already backing into a different
direction.
Louis nodded, heart wincing. Because it was all just so close, so potent. So barely out of reach.
“So it will be ours.”
And Harry nodded once before taking off with childlike laughter and Louis didn’t hesitate to grab
his hand. A quick streak of surprise flitted through Harry’s eyes before it was replaced with mirth,
and then, hand in hand, they discovered a tiny spot beneath a bridge, entwined with dead ivy and
littered with washed up pebbles. It was small and slightly ominous and a bit crumbly, and it was
theirs.
Afterward, when the moon had risen and the stars had begun to blink awake, they had roamed
back to the school grounds, feet incredibly sore and aching, skin burning from the icy winds that
never stopped assaulting them.
Louis hesitated as Harry made to climb the steps by the garden to where his rooms lay.
“You best warm your bones, Curly. Have some tea and slap on some hideous slippers and enjoy
the rest of your night,” he said, heart thumping so loudly. And why?
Even in the blue dark, Louis could see Harry’s face fall.
“You’re not going to come with me?”
Thud, thud.
“I have my own flat, you know.”
“Oh. Yeah, yes, of course,” Harry had said, frowning and scuffing his toes against the ground.
“Niall’s probably waiting for you.”
Thud.
Louis managed a scoff. “He probably just wants to cuddle some more.”
“Cuddle?” Harry repeated, frown deepening remarkably, a scowl beginning to form.