Chapter Text
Harry, 14 years old. Louis, 16 years old.
"Okay, everybody look at the camera and say, Paris!"
"Paris!" Exclaimed the group of students at the same time as the click of the camera sounded and a flash stunned most of them.
"No way, I think I closed my eyes," a blond guy complains, pouting.
Students and teachers start taking their stuff to continue on their way through the train station.
"Don't worry Niall," the curly one turns to see his friend, "we have many photos waiting for us and an amazing holiday to live."
"You're lucky, you're in the city of love with your boyfriend."
Louis arrives from behind, hugging him in the back, causing a joyful laughter on Harry.
"Well, yeah, but I don't just say it for that," Harry turns his gaze to the boy who stole his heart a year ago.
Who doesn't get excited when you are in Paris?, a place full of surprises and artistic history in every architecture and landscape you see throughout the place.
The teacher calls everyone to follow her and continue with the program of arrival in the country. Harry separates from Louis to take his backpack and walk with the others, while continuing the conversation with Niall and Louis, who holds him by the hand.
"The only thing that bothers me," Niall complained as they follow the others, "is that we also come to study."
"It's not as bad as it seems," Louis contributes. "We'll be able to visit some tourist spots here, won't it Hazz?
Harry returns his eyes, distracted a little by what his classmates muttered.
"Uh... yeah, of course!, as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, oh, the River Seine..." Exclaims Harry, jumping with emotion, forgetting what he heard. Louis cannot help but let his beautiful smile show when he sees his boyfriend so happy.
"Tell me I won't be the third wheel."
"Of course not, we'll tell Zayn and Liam to join us." The couple laughs with each other and Niall just rolls his eyes with fun.
A couple more minutes later, they arrive at the entrance of the train station, where a few more streets away is the school bus that will take them to the hotel where they are staying for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, when it was by grade, Louis and Harry had to travel on separate buses, but they knew it would only be a few minutes before they arrived at the hotel and managed to convince the teacher that it's a brilliant idea that a bedroom have ninth and eleventh year students.
"Hey, are you okay? You were a little serious as we got on the bus," the blond asked worried once they took their seats.
"Not at all," Harry shook his head, showing only a dimple on his right cheek. "I'm tired, that's everything."
"Okay… then tell me... Do you have plans with your boyfriend?" Annoy, causing the curly to blush and cover his face with shame.
"Paris is not only love and cliche," he answers when the blush comes down. "I really wanna know it, feel the history go through my body, doesn't it catch your attention?"
"I just wanna know why everyone loves and admires the Mona Lisa," he responds without giving it much importance.
At that moment, the bus starts to move.
"There are many things we will be able to discover on the journey, Ni." Harry begins to open the window curtain to observe the landscape they are going through.
"Why do you say so?"
"I don't know, I have a feeling."
○°•●○°•●○°•●○°•●
A few days later...
"Harry! Harry, please listen to me!" Louis cries out as he runs after him, but the curly just ignores him without preventing tears from falling down his face.
He needs fresh air, so he heads to the backyard of the hotel where no one is likely to hear or see them.
"Harry, everything is a misunderstanding, please!"
"I saw you, Louis, I saw it all!" He cries out by turning around for a second, then resumes the path until they reach the backyard, but his legs keep moving.
"But things are not as you imagine!"
Harry stops, but doesn't look at him. If he does, the image of what he saw a couple of minutes ago will be reproduced again and again. It will cause chest pain and more desire to cry; a lump will form in his throat that will prevent him from speaking, even though he doesn't want to do so at that moment.
Louis tries to approach him and grab his arm. Harry refuses to touch him.
"Hazz, that was nothing, and you know it."
"It wasn't nothing?! Louis is the second time something like this has happened!" He wants to look at him, face it once again, but he knows it will hurt.
"And both times it was an accident!"
As soon as anger entered his system, he could turn around to look him in the face.
"No, no, no, the first one was, this wasn't it, I saw it!" He insists, wiping his face.
"You don't know what really happened!" Louis tried to be peaceful, but he had to raise his voice to talk to him.
"So it was a coincidence?"
"It seems so…"
"Well, there are too many coincidences. It happened twice, both in front of our classmates and with the same person! Louis, it looks like you're playing with me..." Sadness invades him again.
"I would never do that to you."
"And what do you want me to think when everyone says so?!" Harry raises his voice again, hugging himself because despite the warm season, the cold is drowning him.
"They don't know a fuck about us, Hazz. I think you're giving a lot of importance to something that ain't worth it."
No one is really thinking about what they say, they just blurt out the things they feel in the moment.
"It was our first kiss, Louis, something special because we’d do it under the Eiffel Tower, how do you want me not to give it importance?!"
"Cuz it was nothing!" Louis raises his arms in despair, exalted by what Harry says. "You're making this a problem not worth discussing!
"I'm younger than you!" He points out himself. "It's obvious that these things are important to me and are valid for me."
"They are worth it if I really had done it with the intention, you're being immature and dramatic by not—!
"I'm dramatic!?" Harry can hear his voice cut and more tears start coming in. "I apologize for expressing myself in this way, but I'm sure this would be different if I had done the same thing!"
"You're stubborn, I had nothing to do with it—!"
"Of course you did!, and you didn't think about how this would affect me!"
"You're being selfish," Louis shakes his head, starting to walk back and forth.
"I'm realistic. Everyone says that cuz I'm younger than you, I don't care about what you do 'cause I'll always forgive you, but no."
"And I've told you not to listen to them!" That declaration almost comes out as a scolding, it's clear that Louis is trying not to lose his sanity.
"I can't help it, they... they were all right..." Harry muttered, lowering his head and letting the crying run its course.
"What do you mean?" Louis stops and turns to see him, watching his world break in front of him.
"This is not gonna work if I always get hurt."
"Hurt from where? I have never intended to do so."
Louis takes one step forward, while Harry takes three steps back.
"But you will, you have experiences that I don't know and I don't want you to get stuck for me."
"What are you talking about?"
"This ends Louis, I can no longer make you wait... We don't deserve it."
"Harry..."
Harry totally ignores him as he walks back to the hotel. Louis begins to despair because he doesn't know what else to say to prevent this from really ending, and without thinking too much he lets go of those important words for both of them.
"I love you Harry!"
Harry slows down his path, but he doesn't turn to see him. Tears continue to fall and he feels a hole in his stomach. This should not have been so.
"How do you blurt out those words, out of nowhere when I don't know if you really do?" Harry asked with a mixture of anger and sadness in his voice.
"Because I do, and—"
"And why did you kiss her?"
"This discussion is absurd if you'd only let me speak..." Louis tries to get close for the last time.
"No... this is over, I don't wanna listen anymore, you're just hurting me more."
Louis didn't remove his sapphires where the curly had gone. The tears soon began to come out thanks to everything that happened. He felt lost, confused, and very afraid of what was going to happen.
His world began to move forward without giving him time to process his pain, without giving him time to think about what he could do to get him back, because no, Harry wasn't a game for him.
It was certainly stupid to think that the next day things could be the same as it was, but Harry was serious about what he said.
Soon after their return, everyone knew what happened and that affected both of them, but Louis knew it was worse for Harry. They were on everyone's lips in a thousand ways, where sadly, criticism of Harry predominated.
Louis didn't think that a few words could cause one of them to leave and never hear from the other again. From that day on, he spent his nights staring at the roof of his room, in a lonely bed, lamenting for being stupid and wishing that Harry would never leave that day.
One of us is crying, waiting for a call that over the years, he thought would never come..