quixotic//l.s. au

four.

Two days.

Louis was able to stay away from Harry for a total of two days after the sports banquet incident before caving.

"Alright, lads," Louis nodded, nonchalantly dropping onto a seat at the younger boy's lunch table. "What are we up to?"

Harry's eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of the boy, apple slice nearly lodging itself in the back of his throat. 

He wondered if choking to death on fruit would be better than whatever conversation Louis planned to have here, in front of all his friends.

He decided it would've been. 

Liam's eyes flicked suspiciously to his best friend coughing erratically, basically choking, but, he decided to write it off as a coincidence.

For now.

"Um," Jamie decided to speak first, glancing at his friend Nick nervously, unsure who was supposed to answer Louis' question. "Geometry homework."

Louis was trying to keep his gaze off of Harry - he really was.

But, honestly, Harry looked like he'd just been properly fucked, still trying to catch his breath from choking, face flushed.

"Right," Louis nodded, trying his best to pretend he was interested. "Your class reviewing quadratic factoring, as well?"

The faces of the preps were obviously those of pity, realizing that, while they were sophomores in Honors Geometry, Louis was in the grade above them, moving at a slower pace in regular.

"Yeah," Nick lied, elbowing Jamie under the table. "S'pretty hard stuff, right?"

Louis shrugged, mumbling something in agreement, obviously uncomfortable with academic conversations.

"Anyways, uh, Haz," Louis finally started, glancing up at the nervous boy, who looked as if he was a deer in headlights at only the mention of his name. "Would you be willing to go work on perfecting your step-over move right now? Coach is riding my ass about me helping you-"

Harry shook his head, feeling guilty for declining.

"I missed breakfast," He lied, motioning to his lunch box apologetically. "Sorry."

Liam glanced over at Louis, seeing the slight bit of hurt in his face at Harry's rejection, understanding there had been something going on since he Nick caught them at the banquet on Tuesday.

He decided to help his Captain out, pretty sure those marks on Harry's neck weren't from a paintball match, like he'd claimed before having his sister cover them with her makeup. 

"Good thing the only snack left is this baggie of Goldfish," Liam grinned, cheeky as ever as he leaned over Harry and snatched them. "My favorite." 

Harry had never been so angry with his best friend.

"Right," Louis nodded, insanely grateful for his clever teammate. "We better make the best of the last twenty minutes of this hour, then, Haz."

Harry basically sulked the entire walk through the school, into the gymnasium, into the locker room to slip into their cleats, and out to the soccer field.

Louis tossed the younger bay a stray ball near his foot with a grin, truthfully amused when Harry caught it with a glare of pure hatred.

"Alright," Louis shrugged, unaffected by the obvious attitude. "Keep it up and I'll have you running some laps as a warm-up."