Sweet Pea •Zarry•

5.

Harry was sick the next day.

That didn't mean he stayed home, of course. His need to complete all his schoolwork outweighed his need to stay home and rest. He would have gone to school with pneumonia if it meant he would keep his grades up. Harry could be very determined when he wanted to be.

Fortunately, he didn't have pneumonia, he had some sort of cold. The poor boy looked pitiful. His nose was red and he couldn't stop sneezing.

Even Liam and Louis, who never paid much attention to Harry, gave him looks of concern when he stopped at his locker that morning. Louis dug through his messy bookbag and pulled out a crumpled package of cherry-flavored cough drops, which Harry gladly accepted.  

He didn't spot Zayn anywhere at school that day. It put him on edge since he definitely saw Jeremy and his group if mean friends walking around. Thankfully, Harry avoided them. He was getting quite good at that.

As he stepped out of the school building, all bundled up in his puffy coat, scarf, and hat, he finally spotted Zayn.

He was leaning against the fence a ways away from the entrance, smoking.

Harry was mortified.

How could someone so good be doing something so awful?

He marched over to Zayn with full intent to tell him how terrible smoking was for your body and all the horrible side-effects he had learned about in health class.

Harry realized halfway over there that absolutely did not have the guts to do that.

He stopped in front of Zayn, staring at his toes awkwardly. "Hi."

Zayn chuckled and looked down at the smaller boy, his dark hair falling into his eyes and making him look absolutely gorgeous in Harry's opinion.

Zayn placed two fingers under Harry's chin to bring his face up. "Everything okay?"

Harry nodded. He didn't really know what his purpose here was after he chickened out on lecturing Zayn about his smoking. So he took to just smiling sweetly at Zayn and hoping that he would start a conversation.

Well, he was smiling sweetly until he was rudely interrupted by a small  sneeze, and another, and another.

Harry rubbed his nose in contempt.

Stupid cold. Ruining everything.

Zayn took a drag of his cigarette and Harry wrinkled his nose, not that he had much sense of smell with his cold.

Zayn took note and dropped the smoke, putting it out with the toe of his worn-out sneaker.

"You wanna come home with me?" He asked, his attention now focused solely on the darling boy standing in front of him.

Harry thought for a moment. "Will I be able to do my homework?"

Zayn smirked. "Of course you can. Come on, let's go. My car is this way." He tugged Harry off towards the parking lot.

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Zayn lived alone.

He explained to Harry on their way in how his parents had disowned him, and how he worked at the mechanic downtown to support himself.

Harry was amazed. If Zayn found his way on his own so easily (apart from the disowning), maybe he could too.

A bout of coughing broke him from his daydream.

"Are you sick, Harry? Why didn't you stay home?"

Harry shrugged. Not wanting to disappoint Zayn.