lumière

1.

"You don't just grab onto people and assume they're on edge, Styles." I laced my voice with sarcasm as he rubbed his arm and pouted.

"You don't have to punch so hard, I was just messing around." I rolled my eyes. "Why are you being so secretive?"

I raised my brows. "I'm being secretive? Since when was walking through a library, also known as the place where I work, considered being secretive?"

He pondered it for a moment to long to be considered actual thinking. "D'know, just seemed like the right word to use." He walked over to a pile of books sitting on a table. He picked up the one on top, stared at it, frowned, then put it down.

"Harry, hasn't anyone ever told you not to judge a book by its cover?" He made me ask the most cliché of questions and it irked and amused me at the same time.

He picked up another book in the pile. "Yeah, but it said The Library of Unrequited Love. W​hat does u​nrequited​ even mean?" He frowned again at the cover of the book he was holding.

"It means unreturned by someone." I walked over to the pile he was rummaging through and yanked the books away from him before he could judge them anymore. He looked at me in confusion. "Okay, so a feeling is one thing that could be unrequited, as in not returned. So an unrequited book can mean a book that hasn't been returned."

"Oh so like love, then." He walked over to a shelf and ran his fingers along the spine of a book. It said O​n The Way To Emphemeral Experiences. H​e frowned again.

"Exactly like love." I placed the books on the cart next to the table and pushed it to the corner of the room to be placed back on their rightful shelves. I looked over at the table the boy was sitting at and wondered why he came to the library if he never read anything. Maybe he just liked the quiet.

"So guess what Zayn did for my birthday," Harry came over to me and looked at the boy briefly before looking back at me.

"Do you actually want me to guess or are you going to just tell me anyways?" I sighed and went to sit down on one of the cushions used to get more comfortable if one wants to enjoy a nice sit with a book.

"Right, well. He took me to one of his art shows the day before my birthday at like 11:30 at night, and he held my hand the whole time. He kept pulling me over to this wall of paintings and I couldn't understand, for the love of me, why the hell he was doing it." He paused and smiled. "Then he started taking the paintings off the wall and there was a message of sorts behind it. Can you guess what it said?"

I gave him a look.

"Right, well, it said "I'm in love with you, Harry Styles" painted with different variations of the number '21' over and over again in green." He started hitting my arm like it would relieve his sudden rush of happiness.

"Wow." I was at lost for words. For the 10 years (including high school) Harry and Zayn knew eachother, they've been in love for 8 of them and it didn't seem like they were ever going to stop. It's kind of crazy how much they commit to eachother. I couldn't hold a relationship longer than half a year. With a girl, or a guy. 

Harry grinned at me before standing up from his cushion. "I know and that's not even the best part." He suddenly showed me his left hand, which sported an assortment of rings. One on his thumb, on his pointer­finger, and one, a very silvery, and a very shiny one, right on his ring finger.

I felt my eyes widen to its fullest. "He proposed?​!"

He scoffed. I raised my brows just as he said, "It's a promise ring, Lou. He and I already know we're not that ready for marriage." He paused. "Besides, my engagement ring would not look like this a'tall."

"Harry­—"

"I​'m just saying, if he wants me to marry him, he has to give me a ring with ​at least​ one diamond on­—"

"Oh, please, Harry. You'd marry him if he gave you a ring pop." I heard a cough come from the corner of the library, and turned my head slightly to see the boy still looking down at the table. I frowned.

"Yeah, you're probably right, but it better be a g​ood ​ring pop—hey, who're you looking at?" He suddenly pushed me slightly, and for for some reason, I felt myself blush. He noticed of course. "Oh,​ I see.​You like him, don't you." He paused. "You do. ​He's cute."

I hit him in his arm three times harder than I did before and he yelled out. "Would you be quiet. And I don't like him." I peeped at him from the corner of my eyes and saw him frown deeper. Unless I was imagining it. "I mean he is cute, like really cute, hot even, but I don't know him enough to like him, y'know?"

"What's his name, then?," He leaned over the side of my chair and checked him out in the most obvious way. I punched him in his thigh. "Oi!"

"I don't know his name, you tall loof. That's what I meant when I said I didn't know him. Now would you stop looking at him like that." I made way to hit him again but he dashed out of the way.

"Fine, but at least find out his name so you can quit looking at him like you've seen Father Christmas." He stood in front of the chair now, looking down at me with that stupid dimpled grin on his face.

"Whatever, Harold." I rolled my eyes at him. 

He looked at his wrist as if he had a watch on it. "Well, would you look at that, it's time for me to get back to the love of my minuscule life, while you, Sir Louis, work on getting to know yours." He grinned at me before turning around.

"You don't even know what minuscule means!" I heard him laugh. "And tell Zayn I said 'Hello!'"

"Bye, Lou!" He was out the door and I was walking towards the cart of books when I heard a small voice talk from the corner of the room.

"My name's Niall, by the way." 

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And there's the first chapter. This is going to be a fast paced, short story, so bear with me on the rate at which they get to know each other. And I threw in a bit of Zarry for you.

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