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Harry always knew he’d meet the love of his life in a university dining hall. Well, not really, but the Peter Pan-lookalike shoveling cereal into his mouth across the room is making his chest hurt with what he knows is about to come.
He hates having crushes.
Putting aside the uncertainty and nervousness that comes with one, it’s also the fact that he’s pretty sure he’s cursed. If there’s a cute boy he starts to fancy, it’s written in the stars that he’ll do something cringeworthy that ruins it.
In year 5, it was Danny Cross and the purple pencil sharpener. He still glares at him when they cross paths. Harley Thomas in year 7 with the poorly timed snot bubble that ended up on YouTube and left him a schoolwide joke for weeks. And by year 11, a rash of unfortunate people had to fall victim to Harry’s hiccups, voice cracks, and flat jokes.
At this point, it’s inevitable he’s going to be humiliated.
“Zayn, stop for a second,” Harry says, interrupting his R&B rendition of the Spongebob theme song. “Who’s the bloke over there with the blonde?”
Staring blankly at him, Zayn retorts, “One day I’m going to be famous for my R&B cartoon songs and you’ll miss me being your personal jukebox. Cherish me.”
“I cherish you more than my banana cologne, Zaynie, you know that.” He affirms, adopting his angelic pout.
Zayn just squints his eyes and looks to see who he's talking about before answering, “That’s Louis Tomlinson, captain of the footie team.”
“Do you know if he likes boys?” Harry asks, not taking his eyes off him.
“Yeah, he dated that Ashton kid a while ago.” Zayn answers, still turned around.
When he looks back at Harry, there’s a blush creeping up his neck and Harry’s eyes widen.
“I know that look,” Harry smirks. “You like him, don’t you?"
“Don’t get your pants in a twist. He’s not my type."
"I wasn't talking about him,” He says with an eyeroll.
Continuing while Harry stares off in Louis’ direction, Zayn sheepishly supplies, “He's Louis's best friend, Niall.”
“And let me guess, is Niall the ‘golden-haired beauty’ you wrote about in your poem last week?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but I will not stand for this blatant disrespect. I’m leaving. Don’t be late for your first class of the term, okay?”
“Love you, byeeeeee,” He says offhandedly as Zayn gives him a forehead kiss and walks away.
Harry’s attention is brought back to Louis, who’s laughing so loud he can hear him across the room, and smiles dreamily. That one Big Sean lyric, “You got me ‘bout to pass out, I’m wondering if cupid gave you ass shots,” is echoing in his head as he picks up his tray to leave.
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“So I’m sitting there right, with barbecue sauce on my chest, and I’m thinking ‘what the fuck?’’” Harry says opening his textbook. “I’m never drinking tequila again.”
“You always say that.”
“Zayn, I mean it this time. My fruity drinks keep me safe.”
With a hard blink, he continues, “Whatever you say but please stop talking.”
Before he can ask why, there’s a hand on his shoulder and someone casting a shadow over his laptop. When Harry turns to see who it is, his heartbeat quickens and he almost knocks over his water to move his papers out of the way.
The boy he’s had a crush on for the last three months is sitting beside him in the library squeezing his shoulder with a toothy smile and Harry wants to die.
He has no idea how the hell he’s supposed to play it cool and not embarrass himself when Louis is this close and touching him.
Three months ago at the second lecture for his writing class, he might or might have not let out an “eep” in excitement when he sat down and saw Louis take a seat two rows in front of him.
He could barely pay attention to the professor because everything about Louis is apparently beautiful, even the back of his head.
30 minutes into class, the curse went into effect. It was something as simple as him twiddling a pencil in his head, making it shoot out of his hand somehow, and hitting Louis square in the neck.
All he could do was gulp and mouth “I’m sorry,” as Louis leaned back to return it, eyes lingering on the flower crown left on Harry’s head from his job as Zayn’s art model before class.
Harry thinks he saw a small smile appear on his face but at this point, he’s accepted it as his imagination.
“Hey there mate, I’m Louis,” He says sticking out his hand for him to shake. Harry has to try not to swoon at him still participating in handshakes. “Harry, right? I think we’re in the same writing class. Jones on Mondays?”
“Um yeah, I think?” I stare at the back of your head every class.
“Noice, how did you do on that last essay?”
“Bossed it,” He answers with wide eyes. “What about you?”
Louis takes his hand off him and says something that Harry misses because of how he’s trying to subtly get him to touch his shoulder again.
“What are you doing?” Louis asks, distracting Harry from his mission.
“Um getting my pen,” Harry replies dropping his pen. Nice..
When he sits back up hoping some of the red has left his cheeks, Louis is looking at him with a raised eyebrow and laughter in his eyes. “But what’d you say? I zoned out,” Harry continues.
“I said I did the opposite. I was actually looking for someone in the class who like did okay to possibly help me out and you’re the first person I recognized.”
“So like a tutor?” Harry says, mentally punching the air because his voice didn’t embarrass him.
“Yeah, exactly that. I can’t get below a second level in the class if I want to keep being football captain so I’m a bit desperate, mate.”
“I can definitely help,” He tries not to reply too eagerly. “I’ll give you my number and we can like iron out all the details later.”
“Happy days,” Louis says, smiling at him and pulling out his phone.
Curse - 2. Harry Styles - 1.
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These few moments before Louis is supposed to meet him at the library have to be the most nervewracking of Harry’s life. He’s never been more aware of his ownself until this moment. Does his breath stink? What if Louis doesn’t like his hair? Does this sweater make him look old? All questions running through his mind as he sees the familiar windswept hair and blue eyes heading over to his table.
“Hello mate!” He says with a smile, placing his bag on the table and taking the seat opposite Harry.
God, he hopes he doesn’t look like the overeager puppy he feels inside.
“Hey, what’s up?” Totally cool.
“Trying not to fail this term mainly. All my other courses are like smooth sailing but this one is getting my head done in. Do you know how many calculations I did to see what’s the lowest possible grade I could get and still pass?” He gets out, lacing his fingers behind his head. “So really mate, all I need is a lower second-level and I’m good. Can you help me get that?”
“Of course.” Harry says, smiling at him and being met with one back. “Um, let me see your last essay and that way we can start looking at your trouble areas.”
The first 15 minutes of their session consist of them not doing much talking and Harry editing and circling while Louis sits there with his chin on the table watching him work.
“Okay, I think I’m done.” He says, handing it back to him. “You have a really good base so far but your grammar could use a little work. I have to ask but like why do you put spaces before your punctuation?”
“Habit, I guess? Um I’ve been doing it since year 9 when I got my bebo.”
“Wait. Please tell me you still have access to it, I have to see.” He begs, clasping his hands to together and doing an exaggerated pout.
“I do still have access actually but there’s no way I’m showing you,” Louis answers, crossing his arms.
Harry just continues to pout until eventually, Louis rolls his eyes and grabs Harry’s laptop.
Once he’s done typing, he turns the computer back around and Harry is met with a picture of 14-year-old Louis Tomlinson wearing white retro Kanye glasses.
“Holy shit,” Harry whispers going through his profile, cringing. But also? Slightly endeared.
“What is that look on your face? I’ll have you know this was considered fire back in the day.”
“‘Me wit a footy on my head’ oh my god Louis, this is amazing.”
Harry just continues scrolling through his profile, heckling his fashion choices and typing style while Louis sits back with a playful pout and arms crossed.
“Okay get your jokes out but since you’ve seen mine, I have to see yours.”
“I deleted everything once we all made the transition to facebook and twitter,” He smirks. “Oy I’ve been going through this for 20 minutes, why didn’t you stop me earlier? How much longer do you wanna go for this session?”
“I wanted to catch up on Game of Thrones tonight but we can meet another time to go more in depth, if you want?”
“You’re watching it too? How far have you gotten?” Harry excitedly asks, forgetting about acting cool.
“Beginning of second season. If you want, we can go back to my flat and watch it?” He says, gesturing outside.
This is the best day of Harry’s life.
“Sure, let me just pack up my stuff.” Harry answers, trying his hardest not to beam. When he gets up to leave however, his bag flips making everything fall out. Nice to see the curse is still in effect. He’s still going to Louis’s flat though so who’s really winning.
Curse - 3. Harry Styles - 2.
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No more than five steps into Louis’s flat, he’s hit in the eye with an orange and has to be rushed to the kitchen for a frozen bag of peas.
Harry truly cannot believe this.
As the coolness from the peas soothes his eye, Niall rushes in to apologize profusely while also handing him a beer because “pints make you forget the pain.”
“Are you okay? If you want to leave, I’d totally understand,” Louis says, wringing his hands.
“No, I’m fine! I’m fine.” Harry winces as the bag is jostled. “Are we watching this in your room or out here?”
“Niall’s watching derby so my room, if that’s okay with you?”
“Yeah definitely. Lead the way,” He answers, jumping up.
While Louis rushes to make up his bed, Harry’s able to get a good look at his room. It’s exactly how he would expect it to look. There are football trophies scattered all over with tens of football posters littering his walls. His closet is messy and Harry doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone with such a vast collection of Vans.
Looking at a framed picture of Louis with four little girls pulling his hair, Harry asks “are these your sisters?”
“Yeah, Lottie is oldest at 15, Fizzy is 12, and the twins are 8.” He says, beaming with pride. “Alright! Sit,” He pats the spot next to him on the bed and turns on the telly. Harry’s nerves are on fire.
“I love Daenerys,” Louis says laying back and putting his legs on Harry’s lap. “She’s so sick.”
Honestly how does Louis expect Harry to talk when he has his legs on him like this.
Harry gets over his nerves fast enough though when both him and Louis are yelling about Craster sacrificing his baby boys/grandboys to the White Walkers.
“You know, you act kind of like Renly,” Harry says, tilting his head to look at Louis. “It’s a compliment.”
Harry thinks he can see him blushing before coming out with, “You’re like Loras,” and clearing his throat and getting back to the show.
Was Louis implying….
Probably not.
That doesn’t mean Harry doesn’t spend the entire rest of the night, trying to subtly shuffle closer to him though.
Curse - 4. Harry Styles - 3.
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Over the next two weeks, Harry and Louis have five more study sessions that always end with them going back to Louis’s flat and Harry feels like he’s floating.
He thinks he can now say solidly that they’re friends outside of tutoring and he couldn’t be happier. Harry’s even taken to talking Zayn up to Niall and bringing him over some nights. Life is going good for him despite the curse hanging over his head.
Today, they got their final essays handed back to them and Louis suggested they do their debriefing at his favorite teashop on campus.
When Harry walks in, he finds Louis and tries to read his face to see if he can tell if he did well or not but he can’t.
“Hey mate,” He says, smiling up at him.
“Hey Lou,” Wait. Where did that nickname come from? Judging by the look on Louis’s face, he’s wondering the same but smiles even wider at it. Anyway. “Um what’s good here?”
“Something with caramel, definitely.” Louis replies, sipping his drink.
After Harry orders, they fall into easy conversation and he makes a mental game out of counting how many times he can make Louis’s eyes crinkle while laughing. So far he’s at 15 and feeling pretty damn good.
“Hey, me and Niall are having an ABC party this Friday. You and Zayn should come.”
“What’s an ABC party?”
“‘Anything But Clothes,’” He answers, laughing at Harry’s confused face. “Not naked, calm down. You just have to make a costume out of something that’s not clothes.”
“Oh my god. Uh, yeah, we’ll definitely be there.” Harry agrees as his drink is sat before him. “Do you think I’ll need to add sugar to this?”
“No, you’re sweet enough,” Louis answers, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “Uh I haven’t looked at my grade yet, want to do the honors?”
So Louis is going to act like he didn’t really just say that. Okay.
“Sure,” He says grabbing the paper out of his hands. Keeping his face stoic so as not to give it away too early, he puts on his X Factor announcer voice and continues, “Louis Tomlinson, here I have in my hands the results of your Contexts of Writing Final Essay….it’s my great disappointment to announce that….I will have to continue listening to you whine about footie because you got first class!”
Louis’s eyes widen and he slaps his hands down on the table. “You have to be joking,” He exclaims.
Eyes shining, he turns the paper around and shows Louis who jumps up, bumping the table, and runs to hug Harry who melts into it once they touch. After a few seconds, Harry realizes the hug is lasting a little long and before he knows it, Louis is recoiling from him like he’s a snake and backs away to leave. Throwing his tip on the table, he says his goodbyes and walks out, leaving Harry confused and sad.
It couldn’t have been the curse that time.
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This thing is ruining Harry’s life.
It’s because of the curse that he’s standing in the middle of a party right now, dressed in a barely-there outfit made from bananas, and has just spilled an entire cup of beer on Louis.
If the universe were truly on his side just this once, it would cut him some slack by opening a giant manhole to swallow him up then and there.
"Zayn, I have to go home right now immediately," Harry complains, flopping down on the couch next to him. “My entire beer spilled on Louis and got his cereal boxes soggy.”
Zayn frowns and puts his arm around Harry in comfort.“Where is he right now?”
Harry sighs, looking around the room trying to spot him. “Probably being beautiful somewhere else, talking to other beautiful people and wishing this klutz didn’t spill shit all over him.” Zayn tries to not laugh at the pitiful look on his face.
Harry continues unfazed. “It was horrible, Zayn.”
“Did you at least get to talk to him?”
“I might have only said sorry, threw napkins at him, and hurried to come find you? Oh my god Zayn, why am I like this?” Harry says throwing a hand over his face.
The last thing Zayn wants to do is handle a drunk and distraught Harry. “It’s okay, I’ll fix it but,” Zayn pauses, looking down, “I’m going to need you to fix that banana, it looks like a dick and I’m pretty sure you’re scaring people away.”
Harry giggles although Zayn wasn’t aiming for funny. “Thanks Zaynie, you’re my forever fave,” Harry says kissing his knuckles.
Harry watches Zayn get up, still not sure what he’s planning on doing, but he’s so thankful he gets to call him his best friend. They’ve known each other since they were five years old and have been inseparable since. Harry was there when Zayn lost his first baby tooth and Zayn was there when Harry hosted his first stuffed animal tea party. Harry was there when Zayn was heartbroken for the first time, and well, Zayn was there when Harry broke Brian Warhol’s glasses trying to hug him, the self-proclaimed love of his life, when they were 9.
He’s also been there to listen to Harry whine about his “Louis problems” for the past term. He deserves a medal.
While Zayn’s gone, Harry replays the entire evening in his head and wonders how the hell he managed to spill his drink on Louis when they weren’t even talking. It’s like a force overtakes him whenever he’s around a cute boy that makes him into an embarrassing floundering idiot, going out of his way to do something foolish.
He has no idea why he thought once he started uni it’d go away, but now he’s 19 and of course had to go and get a crush on Mr. Perfect.
Despite the few minor curse-motivated slip-ups here and there, Harry thought him and Louis were heading in a good direction. All their tutoring sessions involved lots of smiling and teasing and Louis was the reason he was at this party in the first place.
He still doesn’t know what happened after that hug and to be honest, he’s trying not to dwell on it.
Before he can lament even more over the sloshed beer and crushed hopes and dreams of being Louis’s one and only, Zayn comes back in the room and yells “Everybody get in a circle!” with no other explanation.
Starting to feel the warmth in his belly from the beer, he sidles up to Zayn and sits tentatively on the floor with his legs crossed watching everyone else waddle into positions, including Louis in his ensemble made from cereal boxes. Harry can see the blush in his cheeks from the alcohol and the kind of peaceful sleepy look in his eyes that Harry’s come to associate with that perfect level of buzzed.
After everyone sits and quiets down, Niall who Harry didn’t realize came back in the room attached to Zayn, stands up and clears his throat loudly. Harry notes he pinches Zayn’s thigh and raises his brows, causing him to blush.
“Alright listen up! Me and Zayn here feel like acting as our younger selves tonight, so we came up with the idea for a party game,” he says turning to Harry and winking. “We’re going to play an old American classic, Seven Minutes In Heaven,” He goes on which is met with cheers from everyone else in the room.
So this is Zayn’s idea of fixing it. Alright.
“Rules are we have this beer bottle here and one person will spin it and whoever it lands on, they go into my closet with the person who spun it and do...whatever they want really for 10 minutes,” Niall continues. “Harry! You look eager, how about you go first?” He beams at him.
With an uneasy glance at Zayn, he shuffles forward on his knees to reach the bottle and wishes that the floor would collapse.
The cool glass of the bottle is basically taunting him as he twists his wrists and gives it a little spin, closing his eyes. It feels like it’s been spinning for an eternity before Zayn tells him to open them.
The bottle is pointed at this girl named Asami from his biology class and he gulps.
“That was just a test spin, don’t worry! Harry, go on and do it again,” Niall shouts, almost knocking Harry off balance.
Still as nervous as he was the first time, he resumes the previous position, closes his eyes, and twists his arm even more for the bottle to spin faster.
When he can’t hear it anymore, he opens his eyes to see….
The bottle is pointed at Louis.
Harry can’t breathe.
“Go on lovebirds,” Niall coos, making kissy sounds.
He looks at Louis who nods at him and they both get up and make the trek to Niall’s room amidst the jeers from the other people at the party. Harry honestly does feel 12 again.
After the closet door closes, Harry sits down and looks at the time on his phone to see how much his curse can fuck him up in 10 minutes.12:15 am. Nice. So by 12:25 Louis will have ran even farther for the hills.
He jumps when he feels Louis turn to face him and tries to will eyes to adjust to the darkness faster.
“Have you ever played this before?” Louis asks, breaking the silence. Does he sound nervous?
“Once when I was 14. The bottle landed on a best mate at the time, Susie. She knew I wasn’t into her like that though so we just sat and talked about our hot professor Cameron.” Harry smiles thinking back on it. “What about you?”
“Never.” Louis says, pulling on his cereal box tie. “Is it hot in here to you?”
“Nah mate, I’m only wearing bananas,” he says wiggling his hips making the bananas jump.
Checking the time again he sees it’s 12:17 and no cringeworthy moments yet. He’s on a roll.
Suddenly, the closet is flooded in hazy fluorescent light and Harry can see a very focused Louis.
“I kind of have something to say and think it’d be better if I could actually see you,” he says, scratching the back of his neck.
Confused, Harry gives him a look to go on so he lets out a sigh and begins, “Look, I’m sorry about Monday. I was being a knob and it’s like I fancy you? And I don’t want that to mess up our friendship, you know? Like if the feeling, um, wasn’t mutual,” He finishes, looking down.
So that was. Okay. Harry swears he can hear a choir singing “Hallelujah” as he looks at the sheepish look on Louis’s face.
“You’re such an idiot,” Harry says after a beat, covering his eyes and smiling. “I’ve fancied you since I saw you the first day of term in the caf.”
Harry watches the worry completely vanish from his face and be replaced with elation. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Louis this happy.
With a blush in his neck, Louis just comes out and bluntly asks, “Wanna make out now? Might as well,” with a smirk that has Harry agreeing immediately.
Before their lips touch, Louis looks at him with a glint in his eye and says “you’re really cute” and proceeds to press his softly against Harry’s.
Wow.
Kissing Louis is like being cuddled by 15 puppies while listening to your favorite song and eating ice cream. His lips are the perfect size and he applies the right amount of pressure and Harry’s heart is beating so fast, he wonders if Louis can hear it too.
What started out as kisses that were shy and timid and clumsy soon become heavy and heated and he can’t help but moan when Louis begins to lick into his mouth and tug lightly on his hair.
As soon as Louis moves down to his neck, there’s a knock on the door accompanied with an “oh shit!” that Harry guesses belongs to Niall. With all the blood rushing in his ear, he can barely hear what’s being said as he tries to come back to himself but Niall leaves soon after.
“He said to get out and let other people play,” Louis says breathing into his neck. “And just so you're aware, once I saw you in that flower crown, I was a goner. Thanks for throwing the pen at me that day.”
Giggling at his confession, Harry takes Louis’s hand and leads him out of the closet to the cheers of their friends and feels like he’s on cloud nine.
Curse - 4. Harry Styles - infinity.
*******************************************EPILOGUE***********************************************
“Harry, there’s a time and a place and now’s not it,” Louis hears Zayn yell in the locker room as him and Harry try to steal a few more kisses. “Someone’s going to take our seats, hurry up.”
“Wait, I have to tell him something important!” Harry yells back.
“You should get out there,” Louis says, kissing his nose. “He sounds stressed. Just tell me later?”
“No, I want to tell you now.” Harry smiles.
“Okay, go on,” Louis says, nipping at Harry’s bottom lip.
“Don’t laugh but um, before we got together, I think I had this curse on me.”
Confused, Louis asks, “What kind of curse?”
“Well like, the kind where whenever I’d start to fancy someone, something embarrassing would happen,” Harry answers. “But I think I broke it when that bottle at the party landed on you.”
After a beat of silence, Louis just smiles at him and replies, “Or you’re just a bit of a klutz and I moved the bottle while your eyes were closed, babe.”
Harry’s jaw drops and he makes a mock offended noise.
Pulling him closer, Louis kisses his neck and says, “Baby, all that means is there’s a chance both of us had a hand in breaking it. We are the dream team, right?”
Harry looks like he’s contemplating it, before rolling his eyes and mouthing “the dream team” as Louis kisses his forehead.
“My boyfriend and I were done with this 15 minutes ago, Tommo, we do have a game,” Niall says grabbing Louis’s wrist and leading him out to the pitch. Blowing a kiss over his shoulder, he smiles as he sees Harry make a big production of catching it and putting it in his pocket.
Curse - 0. Dream Team - 1.