Strawberries || H.S.

N I N E

At one point, Harry didn't seem to see the world around him. It wasn't that it was irrelevant to him, it was simply that he had ceased to care. This happened about the time he had turned eighteen. At eighteen it seemed as if the rest of his friends had found their place in the world, while he was still trying to read the fucking map. All he truly cared about was the bakery, his books, and his family. He didn't seem to comprehend how his mates had managed to create a world in which they truly belonged. They had managed to do this of course, with someone they had met and had fallen in love with. Leaving Harry and Niall to fend for themselves, as they of course were the only two bachelors of the group. Harry at first did not mind. He truly had ceased to care that the world he resided in was one he passively lived in. But now he yearned for what his mates had so badly it was beginning to eat away at him. Harry wanted to be with someone who thought of him constantly, who wondered about the intricacies he was made up of. He yearned to make his own world, not to keep passively living in one he so obviously didn't belong to.

"Fuck, I'm late again!"

Harry looks up as his flatmate runs across the wooden floor, almost slipping head first into the kitchen in the process.

"It's only half past eight."

"What!?" Niall looks at his watch and sighs loudly. "My alarm clock is fucking off."

"Is it slow?"

"I guess." Niall now takes a deep breath, buckles his belt, and slips on his shoes.

"Are you going now?"

"Yeah, should be early to make up for all the days I'm late."

"A responsible man you are." Harry retorts sarcastically.

"Shut up, twat. I'll be home tonight."

"Tonight? You? You're actually going to be home tonight?"

Niall simply smirks at Harry and proceeds to stuff things into his knapsack, "Yes, Harold, I'll be home tonight. In the evening, when the sun goes down."

"What's the occasion?"

"Occasion?"

"Yes, why are gracing me with your presence tonight?"

"Would you rather I not?" Niall says snappily closing his bag and slipping his sunglasses onto his shirt.

"I never said that."

"Then?"

"Well, you're never here on a Friday night, bit strange is all."

"Strange?"

"Niall, stop playing stupid. Why are you going to be home tonight?"

"Want to spend some time with my mate is all." He says feigning innocence.

"Fine. I'll be here."

"Good, I'll see you tonight."

Harry grins to himself as Niall walks out of the flat, concluding to himself that he did belong in this particular world. After all he did have Niall and his mum and Gemma. He knew that. He knew that he was a part of their worlds. But somehow it just wasn't enough. He wanted to have a fantastical world that he built from the ground up with someone.

And now he found himself in a state where he wondered if anyone else thought the same way. If anyone thought that their world could be built with him in it. Maybe even around it? Or even if a particular strawberry girl thought of him as the potential co-creator of her own spectacular world. Or, even, if any girl ever thought of him. He found it funny how flighty emotions could be, how you so easily could be taken off your feet with a mere look or with the touch of a hand. He thought of Mia constantly, incessantly, and fervently. He was a man obsessed. But it made him truly ponder if anyone were ever obsessed with him, if anyone had ever wanted to make him a permanent fixture in their life. Because he was certain that was what he wanted.