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.
Zayn sighed and led Harry over to the couch. "Sit here, I'll make you some hot cocoa."
This raised the boy's spirits a bit. Harry loved hot chocolate. He grabbed his backpack and curled up into the corner of the couch to start on his homework.
He vowed not to get distracted by Zayn's beauty until the schoolwork was complete.
School comes first.
Zayn walked back into the room, handing Harry the hot drink and settling into the opposite side of the couch.
He had nothing much to do except observe Harry. He certainly wasn't doing homework.
After what seemed like forever to Zayn, Harry closed his notebook and put everything away neatly in his bag. He turned to Zayn expectantly. "Now what?"
Zayn got up to stretch, causing his shirt to ride up. Harry caught a glimpse of his muscles and his cheeks darkened to a pretty pink color.
All of the sudden, Zayn's phone went off, and before he even got the chance to answer it, his front door was swinging open. Revealing a smiling boy with light hair.
"I was in the area so I decided to stop by." He said, not even looking to see if Zayn was there. He took off his shoes and plopped down on the living room floor like it was his own house.
Zayn rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples. "How many times have I told you that you can't just barge into my apartment without telling me, Niall? I've known you for like a week and this has happened how many times?"
Niall just stared up at him innocently. "I called!"
Zayn just grumbled something that Harry couldn't make out and sat back down, seeming to give up.
Harry was a tad confused because he thought he heard Liam and Louis say that Zayn beat Niall up. How could they be friends?
"And who's this? Already trying to replace me, I see." Niall said, motioning towards Harry.
"I'm Harry." He said softly.
He snapped his fingers as if he was remembering something.
"Oh! You're the kid with the locker next to Louis, yeah? He's got a mad crush on you."
Harry's eyes widened and he looked away. No one had ever had crush on him before, not that he knew of at least.
Zayn grumbled for a reason Harry didn't understand.
"You need to leave, you're stressing Harry out." Zayn pointed a tattooed finger towards the door.
"I most certainly am not stressing Harry out. Right Harry?"
Harry just nodded his head, still confused about Niall and Zayn's relationship and the wild piece of information Niall had just told him.
"No. Harry's sick. He needs calm and quiet, not loud and annoying."
Niall put a hand over his chest, faking a hurt look. "Loud and annoying? You're just full of kind words today, aren't you Zayn? I'll let you know that I asked an amazing girl on a date about twenty minutes ago and you've just ruined my whole entire day."
"Quiet down, will you? I never even signed up to be your friend, I don't know why you're always pestering me."
Niall got up with a huff, walking towards the front door. "We're absolutely not friends anymore, Zayn Malik."
"We never were!" Zayn called out.
As Niall opened the door to leave, he turned back to Harry with a bright smile on his face. "Lovely meeting you Harry! We should hang out sometime!" And then he was gone.
Zayn walked to the front door to lock it. "God, he's a lunatic and a half."
Harry practically had whiplash. Niall had only been there for a few minutes and managed to fit an entire argument in.
Zayn sat back down, closer to Harry this time, and turned on the TV.
As Zayn flipped through the channels, Harry squealed when he saw that Princess and The Frog was on. Zayn clicked on it and set the remote down so he could wrap and arm around Harry, pulling him into his chest.
Harry snuggled close, briefly worrying about getting Zayn sick, but dismissing the idea because he was so comfortable.
The corners of Harry's lips turned up when he felt Zayn place a gentle kiss to the top of his head.
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a/n
My favorite thing about Wattpad is that you don't have to be a good writer. Like, your story can be borderline unintelligible and people will still read it.
Niall is the best fucking character in every fic