Chapter Text
Harry was pacing back and forth with a bottle of wine in his hands, it was Wednesday afternoon, but as his routine had already been disrupted enough since Monday morning when his boss called to say he was fired without much of an explanation, after spending almost a year in that restaurant as a waiter, he didn't think it was so important to stay sober on weekdays anymore. His head was throbbing when he woke up at noon today, due to last night's drinking with his friends, Zayn and Niall, who dragged him to a bar in the busy streets of downtown and after finding a half-empty bottle in his fridge he decided that red wine would be part of his lunch today.
Although there was no lunch, in fact, just a few snacks that he devoured while changing channels on the TV, until he decided to put a song on the YouTube app. So, now instead of walking around the room just swaying to the rock beats that filled the room, his body swayed more and more frantically and the wine shook in his hands reminding him of the reason he had started drinking it in the first place, get drunk again or at least try to ease his headache. Taking a few more sips and enjoying the sound of the music in his ears, he looked at his cell phone when the screen lit up, indicating that there were unread messages and that they were probably from his friends wanting to know how he was doing after last night.
Harry plopped down on the couch after dancing alone for a bit longer and didn't like it one bit when the thought of his rent and internet bills piling up next month crossed his mind, he needed to get another job if he didn't want to be completely broke.
He picked up his cell phone to respond to messages from his friends, but first he couldn't help notice the various emails that appeared in his notification bar and even though he already knew that most of them were spam and random promotions from websites he had signed up for, precisely receiving this type of email and never opening them anyway, he decided to see what the job vacancy emails could offer him.
He knew it would never work, he had sent thousands of resumes to all the online websites he could find but he was never called for any of the jobs offered there, so much so that the waiter position at the restaurant he had before was only obtained by chance when he was walking down the street and saw the poster that the place put up saying they needed employees.
Since he had already done this several times, he didn't think it would be a big deal to try again, going to some of the sites his email had recommended and applying to jobs that seemed to fit with the things he knew how to do.
Then he responded to messages from Niall, who by the way also had a slight hangover and from Zayn who already wanted to plan another night of partying with the three of them.
Harry knew he couldn't stay at home all day, watching nonsense on YouTube and drinking cheap wine, only to then go out at night with his friends and get drunk again, despite that being the only thing he really felt like doing. Even so, he decided to continue his search through the advertisements on job websites, sending messages and CVs to all the vacancies he could find, hoping that at one point or another someone would contact him.
It was almost seven o'clock at night when, after a lot of procrastinating, he decided to get away from the TV and go prepare something for dinner, he decided to heat up the last instant noodles from the back of his cupboard and help himself to water, as his wine had run out and his stomach found itself wanting to get sick due to the lack of food during the day. While the microwave worked to prepare the pasta, Harry scrolled his finger through the various things opened on his cell phone, some social midia, more job sites and some advertising websites that he didn't even remember how he had gotten to, but he was willing to see a little bit of everything and that's when he was surprised to find advertisements that asked for quick services, lasting a few days or weeks and seem to pay a somewhat reasonable amount on the spot.
Since most of these ads had a phone number or email to contact, unlike job sites where you just signed up for the job and waited for the company or HR to call you, he didn't think it was that bad or strange when he chose one of the ads to send a message, it was for working in a mansion apparently and this made Harry believe that the compensation would be bigger and better.
The ad also said that experience was not necessary, but as he already had some positions on his CV that fit with the vacancy of employee and kitchen assistant, he imagined that it would be a bonus to be chosen. After contacting the number with a brief mention of his interest in working for the 4 weeks offered there, his pasta was beeping in the microwave so he promptly organized his dinner in front of the TV and started eating while watching some random movie.
When he finished and left everything in the kitchen sink, he went straight to his room and got ready to go to bed, but when he was ready to go to sleep, his cell phone rang, too lazy to respond to anything, he just looked through his notification bar and saw the address written in response to his message for the job advertisement. Satisfied and with the small hope that he could get a job faster than he had imagined, given that the CVs he had sent would take weeks to be responded to and through this ad he could get money easily and faster, he decided to fall asleep and go there as early as possible the next day.