Chapter Text
Harry was never the type to arrive at dinner time and have no food in the house, he would usually go to the supermarket in the afternoon right after his classes and before starting to study, but this time his schoolwork had absolutely taken over his schedule and he ended up having to order something.
He dropped his pen and stretched. His watch read 7 pm. He briefly entertained the idea of a last-minute trip to the store, but the tapping sound of rain against his window made him quickly change his mind.
It had been a long day and all he wanted was to snuggle up on his beloved sofa eating some takeout.
“Burger it is then.” he said out loud, as if there was someone listening to him. It had been almost a year since he had moved out of his family home into his university apartment, but sometimes he would still subconsciously expect his mom to greet him in the morning or his sister to share take out with him.
He picked up his phone and went to order his usual, except when he got to the dessert section he decided to treat himself and added a chocolate muffin. He placed the order and went back to his desk to put his school stuff away for the night, finally starting to feel relaxed. He put on his pyjamas and sat on the sofa, waiting for his food to arrive and already mentally tasting it.
When the doorbell rang, he ran to the entrance and opened the door quickly, hungry as ever. In front of him, stood a brown-haired boy, a little shorter than him, water dripping off his hair. The boy kneeled down to grab the food from his backpack, and when he lifted his head and their eyes met, Harry truly thought he had seen an angel. The most beautiful blue eyes were staring at him, waiting for Harry to grab the paper bag the boy was handing him.
“Oh- yeah, sorry.” Harry murmured and took his food, stepping back into the house. He could feel the tips of his ears turning red.
“Uh- thanks, have a nice evening.” he managed to say before clumsily closing the door with his foot.
Well, that was easily the most embarrassing interaction he’d ever had, he didn’t even give the poor boy a tip and probably scared him to death with the intensity of that stare.
But seriously, what the hell had happened? He thought to himself.
Never in his life had he completely glitched like that when talking to someone, how did this boy manage to make his brain shut down without even saying a word?
Harry decided to leave this thought for later, as now was the time to finally enjoy his burger and fries while watching his favourite show ever, Friends.
The night went by as usual. He finished his food and prepared himself to sleep, but as he crawled into his bed the image of the boy came back to him.
His hair was dripping wet and he had seemed quite tired, yet he was the prettiest boy he had ever seen. His gorgeous blue eyes were just stuck in Harry’s mind and there seemed to be no way of getting them out.
Harry fell asleep to that thought, his subconscious still keeping it alive in his dreams.
**
The next morning went by fairly normally: he woke up at 8 and went to his classes, where he also finally got the chance to talk to his best friend Niall, since the idiot had caught a cold and had skipped three days of school. They had lunch together at the school cafeteria at about 1 pm, right after their joint sociology class.
“So, what has happened in your incredibly eventful life since the last time I saw you?” Niall cheekily asked his friend.
“Well, I basically spent seventy percent of my time studying, so there’s that.” Harry responded ignoring the sarcasm in the question.
“Oh wow, you’re always so interesting to talk to.” Niall muttered with a mouthful of french fries as his friend rolled his eyes at him.
After lunch, Harry walked Niall to his car and hugged him goodbye, a habit they had had since they were only little, and never failed to make him feel better.
He then decided to go to the store, decided not to make the same mistake twice.
As he walked through the supermarket, though, a bittersweet feeling started to dawn on him. He knew that the only far chance he had of seeing the boy who struck him dumb was by ordering dinner again and hoping for him to deliver it. But was he going to go that far? Was he really going to?
Harry realised he had been standing in front of the fridge staring at the yogurts for more than the socially acceptable amount of time to do so, which made him snap out of it and continue his shopping.
After paying and almost tripping over an old lady, he walked back to his apartment, ready to dedicate the next four to five hours to his schoolwork.
Little did he know, his stupid brain wouldn’t have let him concentrate for more than half an hour before bringing back the boy.He couldn’t help it, the image of his dripping wet hair and sweet blue eyes just couldn’t seem to leave him alone.
He needed to distract himself, and what better distraction than his beloved best friend?
oi you free?
He hit send and decided to sort out his desk while waiting for a reply, but he barely managed to put his pencil back in the schoolbag, before his phone immediately lit up
picking u up in ten
He smiled at the screen, Niall understood him so well.
Harry sat on the steps outside his apartment for a couple minutes before he saw his friend’s car appear at the end of his street.
“Heya” he said while he climbed in the passenger seat of Niall’s crusty old Ford Fiesta.
“Heyy what’s up” his friend replied enthusiastically. “You’re coming to the shopping centre with me mate, need some new shoes.” he continued as he turned his head to reverse out of the street.
After a couple of frozen yogurts, a vivid conversation about whether or not shoes are to consider an item of clothing, and a new (horrendous and tacky, in Harry’s opinion) pair of trainers for Niall, they drove back home.
When Harry finally let his body fall on the sofa he realised how tired he actually was, he hadn’t really stopped all day.
As he laid there, his muscles relaxing and his eyes closed, he decided he was going to make an order for dinner.
If he delivers it, good. If it’s someone else, I’ll stop thinking about him and move on, he thought to himself.
As he picked his food, he cursed himself for believing something could actually be born from this, but he decided to just give it a shot and placed the order.
It didn’t take long for the doorbell to ring, and Harry prepared himself for disappointment as he walked towards the entrance.
But as he opened the door, he quickly realised that standing in front of him was the same boy who had made him lose the ability to speak only yesterday.
The boy was wearing a dark green hoodie with a sunflower embroidered on his heart and dark jogging trousers. His hair was dry this time, which made Harry notice how soft it looked, slightly messy and pushed to the side, almost covering his right eyebrow.
As the boy kneeled to get the paper bag from his backpack, Harry thought to himself that maybe if he hadn’t spent all this time preparing for disappointment, and had instead thought about what to say in the off chance that it was him, now it wouldn’t have to be this awkward.
But as Harry took the food and thanked him, something unexpected happened.
“Do you study at Manchester university by any chance?” the boy asked.
Harry realised this was the first time hearing his voice and mentally screamed at how nice it sounded, a slight northern accent transpiring.
“Uhm, yeah actually, you too?” he responded.
“Yeah, last night I knew I had seen you somewhere already, what are the chances? Anyway, I’m Louis.” the boy smiled and Harry felt his heart jump for a second.
“Well, nice to meet you Louis, I’m Harry.” he answered, surprising himself for not only being able to speak, but also sounding relatively calm and normal.
There were about two seconds of silence, after which Louis zipped his backpack, threw it on his shoulder and added: “See ya next time then!”
Harry smiled and walked back into the apartment, his heart racing and his mind incapable of functioning.
As he sat down and started eating his food he kept replaying the scene in his head.
"See ya next time then"
What had he meant though? Was he referring to uni? Or did he assume Harry would have made the same order a third time?
Harry thought to himself that even he didn’t know if that assumption would have been correct, but he decided this was future Harry’s problem, and finished his food, mindlessly watching tv.
**
Although Harry only had classes from 10 to 12 the next day, his forgetful self didn’t close the shutters before going to sleep, so the sun in his eyes had him awake at 8. Having nothing to do at home, he decided to go hang out for a while on campus before his first class, maybe even getting the chance to have breakfast, a luxury he had long forgotten.
On his way to the campus he stopped by a coffee shop to get an iced latte and a chocolate muffin, his go-to snack.
When he finally sat down on the grass in front of the building, ready to enjoy his food, he noticed a familiar figure walking through the school gates. As the guy kept walking in his direction, Harry quickly realised the reason he seemed familiar were the multiple hours he had spent thinking about him, and right as he thought it would probably be better not to be seen, Louis met his gaze.
“Oh, hey you!” the boy’s face lit up in a smile.
“Heyy, how you doing?” Harry managed to respond, despite his whole body suddenly feeling like mush.
“Am alright thanks, what you up to?” Louis asked, as if he couldn’t see his breakfast sitting on the grass.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for my 10 am class to start.”
“It’s…8.43, early bird huh?” Louis cheekily responded after checking his watch.
Harry blushed and thought to himself that yes, there definitely was some northern accent going on there.
“Well, I’ve got to go now, enjoy your breakfast Harry, see you soon!” Louis smiled as he started to walk towards the building.
“Oh, okay uh- thanks! Maybe see you at lunch?” Harry couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth, but there was nothing he could do by now.
Louis briefly stopped walking again, thought for a second then answered: “Yeah, sure.”
As Louis walked away, Harry sat still in shock. It took him a solid minute to go back to his muffin, a thousand thoughts going on in his mind.
"Early bird huh?"
Louis’ smirk as he had said that just kept replaying in Harry’s mind like a broken record.
"Yeah, sure."
Surely Louis didn’t think of it as some kind of lunch date, surely he just meant it as a “we go to the same school so I’ll probably see you at the cafeteria” kind of thing, right?
Right?
Harry wasn’t quite sure, but came to the conclusion that only time could tell, so he picked up his stuff and walked into school, deciding it wouldn’t harm him to go revise in the library for a bit.
As time passed by, seemingly at half the normal speed, Harry got more and more nervous. Was he supposed to sit at Louis’ table? What if it got really awkward? And what about Niall?
These questions occupied Harry’s mind for the entirety of his classes that morning, completely keeping him from paying attention, taking notes, or intervening at all. It was only at the stroke of noon, when his history teacher closed his book and started walking out of the classroom, that Harry snapped out of it and realised he, once again, hadn’t prepared in the slightest for the situation about to occur.
As he walked out the door he found himself greeted by his best friend, cheerful and happy as usual.
“Hey mate!” Niall’s eyes lit up as he smiled.
“Heya.” Harry wrapped his friend in a warm, very needed hug.
“I’m absolutely starving, let’s go.” Niall said letting go of him.
As they arrived in the cafeteria, Harry quickly eye-scanned the entire room but saw no trace of Louis. To be fair though, there were at least a hundred students cramped up in those fifteen squared meters and about seventy percent had brown hair, so the numbers weren’t exactly on his side.
But right as Niall pointed at two free seats on the other side of the room, Harry felt a poke on his shoulder and turned around.
“Hey you! My friends and I have a table outside if you two wanna join us.” Louis pointed at one of the wooden picnic tables in the garden right outside the cafeteria.
“Oh, uhh- sure! Niall?” Harry turned to his friend, who shrugged, and they all walked towards the glass doors.
“Guys, these are Harry and- Niall, right?” Louis introduced them to his friends.
“Yep, nice to meet you all.” Niall sat down and rushed to grab a sandwich from his lunch box, not caring for chit-chat.
Harry took a seat next to his best friend, and Louis joined them on that side of the picnic table. In front of them, sat two boys around the same age, both brunettes and very calm-looking. They looked at each other and giggled, then the one to the left looked at Louis and said: “So you’re not gonna introduce us? Rude.”
He then looked at Harry and added: “Well I’m Liam, he is Zayn.”
Harry smiled and nodded, as Louis laughed and said something along the lines of being hungry and tired. Harry wasn’t quite sure, really, because at that point all he could focus on was the boy’s laughter. The sun made his blue eyes sparkle like diamonds, and his smile seemed to be able to single-handedly erase any sense of tension or sadness in Harry’s body.
Everyone then joined Niall in eating their lunch and conversation started flowing.
“So, Harry, what are you studying?” Liam asked in between bites of his tuna sandwich.
“Law, sociology and literature, what about you?” Harry was having a hard time focusing on the conversation, because all his brain could focus on now was Louis’ right leg touching his, and their arms occasionally brushing against each other. Fucking tiny picnic table.
Liam answered his question, then added something that made Zayn enter the conversation, and now Niall was taking part in it too, full-on bantering with the other boys. As all this went on, Louis sat in his corner minding his own business and focusing on his salad.
“Not in the mood for chatting?” Harry almost whispered to the boy next to him.
“Oh no, I’m just kinda tired.” Louis lifted his head and looked at Harry “I worked a bit too late last night.” he smiled.
“I’m sorry about that,” he stopped to think for a second “but do you have like a set number of hours where you have to deliver? How does it work?” Harry saw it as a good conversation starter.
“Not really, I can choose how many hours to work and when-“ Louis must have spoken a little louder, because Liam heard him and cut him off.
“Mate, mate, is it true that you can pick which orders to deliver? Matt told me that when he was a delivery boy he would only deliver to hot girls.” Liam said and the other boys laughed, going on with their conversation.
Louis went silent for a second, then laughed and said: “Well Matt is one smart lad.”
None of the other boys were really listening to him anymore, completely lost in their discussion about whether or not Matt was hot.
Harry, on the other hand, couldn't move past Liam’s question.
They know who they’re delivering to? They can… choose?
Harry’s mind replayed a scene from the night before.
“What are the chances? Anyway, I’m Louis.”
What are the chances?