Chapter Twenty One

Zayn Malik had been busily drawing in his precious drawing book, underneath the window of the art closet when Harry had walked inside, fifteen minutes after Zayn had arrived there. Zayn had immediately looked up at him with a wide smile, and Harry reciprocated the smile, as he closed the art closet door and made his way over to the small couch cushions. The temperature of the room was much more bearable today than it had been the last time that the two boys had been in here, but it was still warm enough for Harry to pull his blazer off before sitting next to Zayn with a slight sigh or delight.

“What are you drawing today, babe?” Harry’s voice was cheerful, as he leaned over a little, and his emerald eyes looked over at Zayn’s drawing book. Zayn smiled widely and stopped drawing for a moment, so that he could show off the drawing of a flower that he had been doing, his mind had been thinking back to the rows of colourful flowers in his Nana’s garden, all the bright petals and the beautiful colours, and now Zayn was recording them. Each detail was still bright and clear in his mind, even though it had been almost half a week since he had last seen the flowers.

“Aww wow, that looks awesome, Zayn! You’re so amazing at drawing it’s unreal…” Harry gasped, as he gently took the drawing book from Zayn so that he could look at the drawing much more properly. He wanted to take in every detail. It was just so amazing he couldn’t believe it. Harry could never get over how something as small and innocent as Zayn could produce such work that it would make whoever painted the Mona Lisa feel like shit. 

“Thanks, Harry.” Zayn spoke happily, his small cheeks blushing a little as he took his drawing book from Harry. Harry let him take the book back, even though he wanted nothing more than to look through Zayn’s works, but of course, they were Zayn’s, and he knew how much the book meant to him, as Zayn closed it gently as it sat on his lap.

“No problem…so how was your weekend?” Harry asked, before his green eyes finally looked up at Zayn’s face properly. The two boys sat next to each other so closely in the small art closet that when they looked at each other their faces were always only a small space apart. This was how Harry finally saw the large bruise on Zayn’s jaw. It was a mixture of blue, purple and yellow, with tiny speckles of red in places. Harry immediately sucked in a breath in shock. How had he not noticed the huge bruise the minute he walked in the room?

Harry immediately regretted the question he had asked to the younger boy. By the large bruise it was obvious what had happened on his weekend. While Harry had been tugging Louis through the superstore and then working his weekend away, it seemed that Zayn had ran into some kind of trouble. As the green eyes went back to looking at the bruise, the curly haired lad couldn’t help but wish that Zayn had done something stupid like tripped over a magazine on the floor and face planted the floor, but the cynic inside him knew it wasn’t true. The cynic inside him knew that Zayn hadn’t fallen onto the floor, he’d fallen onto someone’s fist, or foot.

Zayn must not have noticed Harry staring at the large bruise on his face. Even though Harry made it fairly noticeable that he was staring at first, Zayn didn’t notice. He just noticed how nice Harry smelt, how warm he felt, how green his eyes were. Zayn never noticed what Harry was doing, he was too busy looking at just Harry. He loved to look at Harry, he liked picking up one small details that he may not have noticed before, so that when he drew the boy, he could draw the small details and improve Harry’s perfect face on his drawing.

“My weekend was nice.” Zayn smiled, looking back down at his drawing book as Harry’s green eyes stared at him. Zayn’s toes tapped a little in his black school shoes before he looked back up at Harry with that ever-innocent smile on his face. Harry cleared his throat for a moment, a slight frown etched onto his face as he turned away from Zayn, but he quickly forced the frown away.

“Good…good.” Harry replied, nodding his head a little, as his large hands brought out his lunchbox, and then a smaller one, which had passed to Zayn. Zayn took the small box curiously in his hands and looked into it.

“Yeah, my Mum made you a lunch too. She said she likes making pack lunches again, makes her feel less old or something…I don’t know.” Harry babbled on, even though it was a slight lie. His Mum had been away on a course for her work lately, and Harry had taken advantage of that by making him and Zayn lunches. He had a sad feeling that no one else was going to be making Zayn a lunch that morning anyway.

Zayn burst into a wide smile as he opened the box and looked at the yummy contents inside which made his tummy rumble. Harry let out a chuckle at the boy’s rumbling tummy, and couldn’t help but smile as he looked over Zayn eyeing up the food. Harry still remembered when he would have to tickle the boy next to him to get him to eat, but here he was, eagerly accepting the food and nibbling away at it like the baby bird that he was.

Two dimples slowly popped from Harry’s cheeks out of pride. He couldn’t help but feel good about himself for looking after Zayn like this. This certainly did make the rumbling thunder of his conscience die down, although it never went completely.

“So, what did you get up too at the weekend, then? Since you said it was nice?” Harry couldn’t help but let the words pour from his mouth. He wanted to know why the boy thought showing up to school on Monday morning with a bruise the size of Harry’s palm on his jaw would reflect on how he had had a nice weekend.

Zayn immediately smiled and looked at Harry, munching eagerly on the small ham sandwich.

“I met a girl!” Zayn grinned, and Harry felt like someone plunged a javelin into his heart. He made sure that nothing other than a smile forced it’s way onto his face, even though all he wanted to do was frown. Zayn met a girl? Did Zayn even like girls? What was so good about girls, anyway? Millions of questions kept swirling round Harry’s head viciously.

“A girl?” Harry replied, before he started to think of how on earth Zayn had met a girl anyway. He didn’t even talk to anyone but him! Why was he talking to girls when he only talked to Harry?

Zayn nodded with a smile, unaware of the jealous mess that was Harry Styles next to him.

“She’s nice. Her room is next to mine, whenever I need her I just knock, and whenever she needs me she says she will knock.” Zayn explained with a small smile, and Harry frowned a little.

“You what?” He quickly asked, as imagines of Zayn knocking on a wall for some girl to come into his room whenever he ‘needed her’. Zayn wasn’t allowed to do that, Zayn was too innocent and beautiful to be like that; or to be anyone but Harry’s for that matter. Harry frowned when he realised what he had just said to himself in his mind.

“Whenever I need her, she said all I have to do is knock on the wall,” Zayn spoke a little more slowly, before he leaned over and tapped his knuckles softly against the wall on his side of the closet, before turning back to Harry, “And she said that she will come over. She’s nice.”

Harry forced a nod. He still didn’t know why it felt like everything in his body was grinding away like a tyre caught in the mud. He just felt that he had managed to bring Zayn out of the unsocial little bud that he was and give the boy some confidence; that he thought was only shown towards him. Obviously not. That was what annoyed Harry, in a selfish way, which Zayn was using all the confidence that Harry had gave to him and was using it on girls. The last thing Harry wanted Zayn’s confidence to go towards.

“Cute.” Harry answered simply, as his internal battle raged on. Half of his mind was angry and jealous. Zayn was his, no one else’s, and certainly not any girl’s for that matter. Then the other side of him told him that Zayn was a guy, and that he did not even like guys, even though Harry was starting to doubt that as the jealousy raged on inside him.

Zayn smiled and nodded innocently, before he turned back to eat the sandwich that Harry had prepared for him. Harry took a deep breath as he looked over the boy’s face. Those precious cheekbones, the dark raven hair, and those big brown eyes that kept him coming back so many times even though he had tried to keep away.

Now, Harry guessed that there were others that were in the same boat as him, who were coming back again and again for those chocolate pools of eyes that were on Zayn’s perfect face. Harry glanced down to the boy’s jawbones, still sharp and precise, even if covered by blotches of blue, and his small pink mouth.

“Did you kiss her?” Harry’s words flew from his mouth bluntly; he couldn’t bite his bottom lip in time to stop them, even though part of him didn’t want too. Zayn squeaked a little, almost choking a little on a mouthful of sandwich before he quickly looked at Harry with wide eyes and pinkly flushed cheeks.

“No!” Zayn quickly replied, and Harry suddenly felt bad for jumping to conclusions. Harry bit on his lip and shook his head at his own behaviour.

“Sorry, just, I’m being a dick. Ignore me, Z.” Harry quickly mumbled, telling both parts of his still arguing mind to shut up as he reached for his own lunch so that he could start eating his lunch. From the corner of Harry’s eye, he saw Zayn shake his head with a small smile.

“You’re not a…dick,” Zayn’s voice lowered increasingly at the word he registered as naughty, “Harry.”

Harry looked up at him with a wide smile, a small chuckled flowing from his lips due to Zayn’s absolute purity as a human being. Harry just wanted to wrap Zayn up and carry him in his pocket for as long as possible, so that whenever the world showed it’s ugly face to Harry, he would have Zayn to remind him that there was something good in the world; something beautiful.

“Thanks, love.” Harry spoke, before he rested his head on Zayn’s shoulder with a warm smile. All the previous feelings of jealousy and anger slipped away from him as he leaned on Zayn’s shoulder, taking in the boy’s sweet smell. Zayn’s own head slowly fell until it was propped on top of Harry’s; the two boys like puzzle pieces that were complete. They both sat in a content silence, before the quieter of the two boys broke it, much to the other’s surprise.

“I only like to kiss you, Harry.” Zayn spoke quietly, and at that moment, as the two boys leaned on each other in their little art closet, any leftover doubts of Harry’s confusion dissolved. It seemed like it fell onto the floor of his heart like fairy dust, spelling Zayn’s name as it landed softly. Harry grinned widely, entwining his hand in Zayn’s before he looked up at the boy.

Two blushing cheeks and an innocent smile greeted him, before Harry leaned up and kissed the boy’s soft cheek.

“I only like to kiss you too, babe.” Harry chuckled, looking back up at Zayn’s brown eyes. Zayn smiled widely and nuzzled his head against Harry’s, and Harry cooed at the boy’s kitten-like features. Harry half expected the boy to purr.

“You’re all fluffy, you know.” Harry then spoke, when he looked at the small amounts of stubble that was on Zayn’s cheeks. Zayn frowned a little in confusion, causing Harry to smile a little. He reached his large hand up to the boy’s face and softly trailed his thumb over the small amounts of stubble on the boy’s face.

“You’ve got your fluff on, that’s what me and my Step-Dad say!” Harry chuckled, stroking the boy’s cheek once more before returning his hand to his lap once more regretfully. Zayn giggled a little, before he looked down at Harry with the same innocent look he always had.

“I don’t know how to get rid of it, I’ve never had it before…” Zayn mumbled, before he scratched the small patches of stubble on his cheeks. Harry chuckled a little and brought Zayn’s hand away from his face.

“You shave, you never done it before?” Harry asked with a soft smile, retracting his head from Zayn’s shoulder so that he could look at him properly. Zayn shook his head quickly.

“It’s okay, I’ll teach you.” Harry suggested with a warm smile, before he remembered that his Mum was off on her trip and his Step-Dad had gone with her, meaning he had the house to himself most of the time, since his sister was either with her boyfriend or her friends.

“You know, you could come round to mine for the night! It would be fun!” Harry suggested with a wide smile, and Zayn looked at him with that cute look of blankness he always gave when he wasn’t quite sure what Harry meant.

“You can come for a sleepover round my house, on Friday night?” Harry suggested once more, and Zayn smiled but shrugged a little.

“Would it be okay for me to come over?” Zayn asked with a slight smile, causing Harry to nod a reassurance to the boy next to him.

“Yeah, else I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?” He chuckled, before he leant over and tickled the boy’s sides, causing a slight giggle to come from Zayn as he wriggled under Harry’s playful touch. Eventually Zayn nodded in agreement, and Harry smiled excitedly. He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly really excited by the thought of him and Zayn having a whole evening to themselves with a couple of movies, some pizza and other junk food.

He was going to make sure that this Friday night was special, so that maybe Zayn could forget the awful bruise on his jaw for a few hours and focus on Harry.