Come June [ h.s. ]

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Harry Styles hadn't laughed for a long, long time. Long enough for the fact to be worrisome; perhaps, long enough to write a book, which he could never seem to get around to.

There were a lot of things he couldn't seem to get around to.

Like phoning his mother back, for example. Or having that red flannel ironed. Or watering the plants. He wasn't, after all, used to doing things all by himself.

He woke with his feet sticking out at the foot of the bed. He'd always been too tall for the quilt he slept with, and the first thing he felt was cold. Scrunching up his toes, he groaned underneath a single white pillow and let out a sigh.

It was officially February.

Today, Harry was thirty years old.

Thirty!

Oh, how the years go by, he thought to himself, sitting up in the still-dark space, running his fingers through his hair. His room was pretty small and almost hauntingly clean. A few abstract pieces hung on the walls. At the moment, it was 6am and too dark to see most of them; the only light came through a small slit in his navy-blue curtains.

Harry didn't want to get out of bed today. As he lay there, breathing in the cool air and rubbing his feet against each other, he mulled over the fact that he was officially through with his twenties.

The thought was unsettling.

He wasn't... young, anymore. And his days of being under bright lights were in the past, of course. All things in life end at one point or another. Harry's career had done just the same. Granted, it didn't happen too suddenly, which he appreciated.

Things simply died down.

He died down.

Sure, it was nice to walk down the street and not be smothered. People still took pictures and asked for autographs, and interviewers who (more often than not) seemed rather inexperienced called out his name, hoping for any scoop they could find.

But Harry Styles wasn't doing much nowadays.

It was almost remarkable now much spare time he had now that his schedule was practically nonexistent. Compared to what it had been at the age of 21, he often humored himself with the thought that he was like any other normal human being now. Or, at least, he was treated like one.

The people he had cared for the most were the ones who gave him the dignity of just treating him like an old friend; one from another life, who'd never stepped onto a stage... Just made their day a little brighter with small talk and comfortable laughter.

He sat up in bed and sniffed, then swung his legs over the right side. The floor was cold against the bottoms of his feet, and a little shiver ran up his back as he padded out into the kitchen.

Harry's kitchen was small and there wasn't anything particularly special about it. Like his room, it was kept very clean, with a granite countertop and blue theme-- in the center of his table, which sat four but was usually only used by himself, sat a bright orange tea kettle that he used every day.

"Hello, kettle," he greeted on that morning, his voice still heavy from slumber.

Not feeling particularly hungry, he prepared a small breakfast of cream cheese on toast, which he ate while standing in the middle of the room, looking around at the walls.