17 Black

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Louis frowns, confused, and watches Harry's lips quirk upward just a little bit more. "What in the world are you doing with those?"

"Haven't you ever seen a whisk before?" Harry answers in a pleasantly - and surprisingly - teasing manner, bright eyes flickering up to Louis for a moment before he's smiling playfully back down to his whisk bowl.

Louis scoffs, pretending to be much more offended than he really is, propping his elbows up on the counter and leaning forward. He's almost shocked at how quickly his mood has changed - after only a minute of conversation with Harry, he feels unbelievably lighter, almost having forgotten already the dark lingerings of stress that swirl at the pit of his stomach. He won't lie, he is a little bit grateful that Harry didn't immediately fix pity-eyes on him the moment he walked into the room, or that the first thing that came out of his mouth wasn't "are you okay?" Louis knows that he came here for comfort in the first place - despite the fact that he thinks he might've been only half aware of himself doing so - but sometimes, it seems like Harry knows what he needs better than Louis does, himself. The thought is both eye opening and rousing in an overwhelming way that makes Louis push the idea away for another time.

"Of course I've seen a bloody whisk before," Louis retorts with a roll of his eyes. "And I meant the random ingredients. Although whisking does look pretty weird, though."

Harry's whisking hand stills, and Louis's attention is briefly pulled to how it makes lean muscles in his forearm flex smoothly. He looks up at Louis with a cocked eyebrow and an unimpressed look written upon his features. The expression is oddly attractive - maybe it's just Louis.

"That sounds like something someone would say who doesn't know how to whisk." Harry counters, a challenging tone in his words and a taunting glint in his stare. "C'mere."

Paying no attention to the flutter in his chest, Louis puts on his best fake-exasperation face and rounds the counter to stand beside Harry and his bowl of weird ingredients.

"This is a whisk," Harry begins, holding up the whisk for Louis to see, milky substance dripping down the wires. Louis rolls his eyes and is about to make a comment defending his whisk knowledge when Harry is suddenly pushing the objects into his space.

"Take the whisk in your dominant hand, and steady the bowl with the other," Harry orders him, bowl and whisk outstretched, expression impressively blank. Louis almost lets himself smile. 

"Whatever you say, Martha Stewart," he mutters, taking the items from Harry's hands and following his instructions.

Admittedly, the whisk does feel awkward in his hands, and he honestly isn't really sure how to use it. He's seen Karen do it before, and he's seen chefs do it on that one show that Liam likes where a bunch of little kids have a cook-off and make some crazy shit like perfectly smoked salmon with gold flakes on top and caviar on the side. Louis has never whisked anything, though, and he would be lying if he said he isn't actually a little bit nervous under Harry's professional judgment.

"Now, like, stir it, only with more wrist than arm," Harry directs, making a vague swirling motion with his hand and peering down at Louis expectantly.

Louis sighs dramatically and starts moving the whisk in shaky circles, contents of the bowl swirling against the edges. He doesn't think he looks even close to as cool as those little baby chefs on Liam's show. He can feel Harry watching him, and he just knows that he's taking pleasure out of this, so Louis tries a little harder, determined to prove his whiskmanship. He thinks he might be getting it, because the ingredients start blending together a little, but one backward glance at Harry, and he groans in frustration at the amused smile on Harry's lips and the crinkles by his eyes that tell Louis he's close to laughing. He halts his whisking and glares up at Harry.