Flicker 》Harry Styles x Kennedy Walsh {COMPLETED}

21: Sealfish

"The truth," he says so simply, hard eyes trained on me.

I give in. "I'm scared shitless."

"Of me?"

"Yes, and of something else."

"Of what?"

A stretch of silence fills the room before I answer. "Of getting my heart broken by you."

His expression softens and his body goes lax. I force myself to keep my gaze on him—to get a read of his emotions, and it's there, written all over his face. There's sadness and understanding in his eyes, as if he could also feel my hesitation with the same intensity.

He scoots even closer, now toe to toe with me since we'd mirrored each other, hugging our knees.

"I like you because you're you—you're confident in yourself but become incredibly shy when you're actually given a compliment, you're smart and quick-witted, you have a mouth on you . . ." he grins at the floor, "but you genuinely care about the people you love, great sense of humor—morbid actually but still in a funny way, but most especially, I like that you get flustered around me yet still treat and see me as you would a normal person."

He slowly reaches forward—as you would when approaching a wild animal so as to not surprise it, taking my hand in his and pressing his thumbs against the lines of my palm, an action that I found to be deeply comforting despite the fact that internally I'm freaking out because of the fact that he's touching me. I'm breathless.

"Should I say more?" He asks, genuine curiosity on his voice.

"There's more?"

He smiles softly as his eyes dance in merriment. "There's always more with you."

I feel the blood crawling up my neck towards my face. Weird how I've always thought I wasn't capable of blushing, but with Harry around, it's all I seem to do.

He runs his thumb over my knuckles, his eyes watching his own movements despite the sudden faraway and somber look written on his features. "I can't promise about not breaking your heart." Right as he says that, thousands of red flags flash in my head and a hundred warning bells start ringing. "But I can promise to try my hardest not to."

Silence—inside my head, in the room, in my heart. Deafening silence. And I know, at that moment, that I couldn't give him an answer—that I would have to mull it over. I wasn't so in over my head to blindly and impulsively enter something just because I'm so incredibly overwhelmed.

Harry seems to have read my thoughts as he gives me a small smile and a nod in understanding. He suddenly leans close—way too close for comfort—making me rear back in surprise. He smirks, returning to his original position but with something in his hand.

"I knew you were drawing me!" He exclaims, excitement making his voice raise.

----

I finished my sketch, frustrated that it didn't look like him—not in the slightest. Maybe it had something to do with him finding out about it. What was even more frustrating was the fact that Harry wouldn't stop teasing me about it. He would strum on my guitar a few times then abruptly stop and ask how the sketch was going.

Time had passed by us so quickly. It was now afternoon, the sun about to set outside and we're sharing a bag of biscuits. Harry is still plucking the strings when I chance a glance at him. He meets my eyes, a serious look on his face.

"When are you going back?"

His mouth curls up in a teasing smirk, his fingers having a mind of their own as they continue their movement. "Kicking me out already?"

I blush. "I didn't mean that," I say, but immediately cringe at how small and demure my voice sounded.

"Tomorrow afternoon. We have rehearsals the morning after," he says before tapping on his phone which had been laying on the floor in front of him.

I crane my neck, with no intention whatsoever to look at his screen, only wanting to get back at him for doing the same to me earlier. He snatches his phone from the floor and hugs it to his chest, a nervous smile playing on his mouth.

"Harry Styles," I say in a faux condescending tone, "is that what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is?"

I fake a gasp. "It is, isn't it?" The nervous look on his face was just what I needed to know that my bluff was going to work.

Just as I tell him about seeing Porn Hub's logo, he says at the same time, "I wasn't recording your voice on purpose."

I laugh, a tinkling sound, as his face flushes in embarrassment. Now that was a sight to see. "You were recording my voice?" I laugh again, delighted.

He sighs, caught. "You spoke while I was recording a tune. Your voice was caught by the recorder—it wasn't intentional."

"I mean," I start, pushing my hair behind my ears before digging my hand into the bag of biscuits, "if you wanted to bring a piece of me to tour, you should've just asked me."

The smug look on my face made him blush deeper. "Like I said, it wasn't intentional."

I ignore him, swallowing down the biscuit I popped into my mouth before talking. "I really hope you don't lose so much battery power listening to that over and over and over again."

He huffs, shaking his head, but a corner of his mouth was threatening to curve upwards. I chuckle softly. He moves closer, leaning against the wall behind us with his pajama-clad leg lightly pressed against my stretched-out ones. He resumes his strumming.

I look down at the small physical contact he'd initiated, and in a moment of pure stubbornness, I move my leg and the biscuits away. "Ew, don't touch me."

He turns towards me and deadpans, "I didn't want to."

I scoff, both of us bursting into giggles at the same time. I shake my head in fake exasperation. "You're mean." I reposition my leg back, the heat from his skin palpable from being so close. He tugs the bag closer to him.

And his lips do curl up this time.

"And you're sealfish."