Harry Styles One Shots

Part 3 of: When Y/n dates someone, they find their soulmate. . .it's never her

iii.

Y/N's body aches.

She knows this feeling all too well; despite being beneath layers and layers of blankets and bedding, with Ferret warm against the back of her neck, her window being closed tightly, and her space heater rattling in the corner of the room – she shivers. Her brain feels filled with tufts of cotton, and her mouth and throat are so dry that she wants to shove her head beneath the faucet and let it run between her lips. Her head hurts, her nose is stuffed, and racking her eyes open feels like a chore.

How she got sick, she wasn't sure, because she's barely been around anyone for the last couple of days. After the pool party, she more or less shut herself away in her flat, and when she went back to work, she kept quiet and did her business. Eloise offers her ear whenever she's ready for it, Niall brings her snacks because, for him, the way to the heart is through a satiated stomach. The others at work see the heavy grey cloud looming over her so they don't make an effort to speak much, though she does hear whispers, some people theorizing if she and Harry are fighting or not.

It had been a little over a week since she found out about Harry getting his mark and a little over a week since she'd last spoken to him. The whole thing was just so fucked, she wasn't sure what they would even say to each other when they did speak again – if he even wanted to speak to her again. For all she knew, he could have found his soulmate by now and was living blissfully in the afterglow of their time together. Y/N was but a sad little memory in his now perfect, beautiful life, and she could just hope and pray that she didn't have to see them in public together or something.

The thing is, Y/N is always happy for the people she's helped when they find the person they want to be with. Not only was her job done, but she'd been a key part of bringing more love into the world, and she had always thought that was pretty nice. No matter how draining it was to take on relationship after relationship, to learn everything about a person for it to be yanked away, to know deep down that she was being used – she still felt accomplished. Still smiled to herself when they said they found their person and could rest easy that night knowing that she was useful. That someone so sad and downtrodden, when it came to love, would find a new light in their life, made just from them, from the moment they were even a concept thought up in the universe.

But with Harry...she didn't know if it would feel like that. She is mad at him for keeping the mark a secret from her, don't get her wrong, but even if he hadn't – even if he called her that Tuesday morning and told her he woke up with it all pretty on his hip – she doesn't know how she'd react. Happy for him? To a point. She wants nothing more than for Harry to be happy, but selfishly, she only wants Harry to be happy with her. The thought of him looking at someone else with those big, moony eyes he got when he was talking about the person he thinks his soulmate would be...she just couldn't be settled with it.

There was a yearning in her chest that had never been there before, something much crueler than anything she'd felt in the past. The longing for a soulmate had been replaced by an ache for Harry. For him to be hers, wholly, and truly hers. With there to be no agreement, no special "power", no fake dating; just for there to be matching soulmate marks and meet-cutes, and looking him in the eyes and just knowing, deep, deep down that he's the one.

Because she did know that he was the one for her, but not by the star's decision. In the stars, it's someone completely different; someone who didn't know that Harry was touchy yet. Someone who didn't know his affinity for cats that look stinky despite having one that is pretty enough to place in competitions. Someone who didn't know that the clean cotton scent soothes his mind, but a particular pomegranate scent reminded him of his hardest year in UNI so he couldn't stand it. Someone who didn't know that Harry's art was beautiful yet, who didn't know his brain was even more beautiful, who didn't know that his eyes crinkle when he smiles, and his dimples dot his cheek like a moon crater, and he drools a little and snores when he sleeps but somehow still looks cute.