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Bonus Chapter
Word Count: 8500
Warnings: emotional tension, slow burn.
By the time Harry left for New York, Y/N had already learned that plants were much more demanding when they belonged to someone emotionally significant.
It was insulting, really.
She had moved to London. Actually moved. Not just talked about it in cafés, not just opened rental websites and closed them in fear, not just written dramatic things in her green notebook and pretended they were observations instead of decisions. She had done it.
Her studio was small, expensive, and hers.
It had one decent window, a kitchen corner that required emotional negotiation if she wanted to open the fridge and a drawer at the same time, and a shower that made a noise like it was reconsidering its purpose every morning. The building was newer than most of what she had looked at, which meant the walls did not seem haunted, the lift worked most days, and the heating had not yet personally betrayed her.
It was not perfect. It was hers.
That made it feel enormous.
The first week, she had cried once over a suitcase that would not close, once over a supermarket receipt, and once because she had managed to make coffee in her own tiny kitchen before work and the sunlight had come through the window in a way that made the whole thing feel real.
She had not told Harry about all three times.
Only two.
He had guessed the third.
Annoyingly.
“You cried over the coffee,” he had said on a video call from New York, face half-lit by the lamp beside his hotel bed.
Y/N had stared at him through her phone screen. “I did not.”
“You did.”
“You’re making accusations across time zones now?”
“You got quiet when you mentioned it.”
“I was drinking it.”
“You said it tasted terrible.”
“It did.”
“And then you smiled like it meant something.”
Y/N had looked away from the camera. “Your face is becoming a problem.”
“My face?”
“Your ability to read mine.”
Harry had smiled, tired and soft, and Y/N had hated the five hours between them more than she wanted to admit.
The time difference became its own strange character in their lives. London was always ahead, which Y/N found symbolically annoying. When she was finishing work, Harry was still somewhere in the early part of his day. When he called after a show, she was often in bed, half asleep, phone propped against a pillow, pretending she was not waiting for the screen to light up.
They spoke every day. Not because they had promised to. They just did.
Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for ten minutes. Sometimes with no real conversation at all, just Harry in a hotel room eating something from a bowl while Y/N folded laundry badly in her studio. Sometimes she worked with her laptop open and the phone beside it, and he stayed on the call silently while answering messages, warming up his voice, or looking through set notes.
It should have felt strange.
It did.
But it also became normal with a speed that should have scared her more than it did.
She had also, somehow, become responsible for his plants.
It had started as a joke.
Then Harry had handed her his house keys before leaving for New York and said, very seriously, “You’re the only person I trust with the cactus.”
Y/N had looked at him in horror. “That is an unfair amount of emotional responsibility.”
“It responds to you.”
“It’s a cactus, Harry. It responds to drought and trauma.”
“Exactly.”
She had taken the keys, because apparently that was her life now.
Twice a week, she went to his house in North London after work. The first time, she stood in the hallway for a full minute, looking around at the quiet, too-beautiful space, and felt the strange warmth of remembering herself there. Barefoot on the sofa. LEGO flowers on the table. His T-shirt soft against her skin in the guest room. His cologne caught in cotton. The kind of happiness that had arrived quietly enough not to scare her until the next morning.
Then she had gone straight to the plants and pointed at the cactus.
“You and I are not friends,” she told it. “We are professional associates.”
She sent Harry a video.
He replied within thirty seconds.
It looks healthier.
Y/N recorded another video, this time of her face.
“That is because it is living under fear-based management.”
His reply came as a voice note.
“I respond well to that too.”
She listened to it twice.
Then refused to think about why.
By the third week, the cactus had improved enough that Y/N accused it of showing off. One succulent had perked up. The leafy plant was thriving in a way that felt almost smug. Harry asked about them before he asked about her one evening, and she immediately looked offended.
“Nice to know where I stand.”
Harry, on the screen, had leaned back against a sofa in some backstage room in New York, curls slightly damp, hoodie pulled over his head.
“You’re above the cactus.”
“Barely?”
“Emotionally, yes.”
“That was not the reassurance you think it was.”
He smiled.
“I miss you.”
Y/N’s hand froze on her mug.
There were still things he said too directly.
There were still moments where she wanted to turn the laptop off and walk around her tiny studio until her heart behaved.
Instead, she looked at the screen and tried to sound normal.
“That was a very sudden emotional left turn.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just go from insulting my rank in the plant hierarchy to that.”
“I can.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Harry’s smile softened.
“I miss you,” he said again.
The silence that followed was not empty.
Y/N swallowed.
“I miss you too.”
She looked away as soon as she said it, because apparently there were limits to how much emotional maturity she could perform on a Tuesday night.
Harry did not tease her. That made it worse. Better.
Both.
A few days later, he suggested New York for the first time.
Y/N was working from home, laptop open, hair tied up messily, wearing a jumper that had not belonged to him but unfortunately reminded her of one that had. Her phone was propped against a mug while Harry moved around a dressing room on the screen, somewhere inside Madison Square Garden.
“You could come,” he said.
Y/N looked up from an email. “To what?”
“To New York.”
She stared at him.
Then slowly closed her laptop halfway.
“Harry.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I might.”
“That sentence has dangerous rich-man energy.”
He leaned closer to the camera, trying not to smile. “I’m not trying to buy you a trip.”
“Good. Because I’m not available for sponsored emotional tourism.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. No money. No rescue. No magical rent disappearance.”
“And no international version of that.”
“No international version,” he agreed.
Y/N watched him through the screen.
He looked tired. Not exhausted exactly, but stretched. Show-tired. New York-tired. The kind of tired that came with being surrounded by people and still missing one person in particular.
“You have shows,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I have work.”
“You work remotely most days.”
“That is a dangerous sentence coming from a man with a private jet face.”
“I do not have a private jet face.”
“You absolutely do.”
Harry laughed under his breath.
“I’m not asking you to drop everything.”
“It sounds a lot like you are.”
“I’m asking if you want to come for a few days. Work from here. See the show.” He paused, then added, softer, “Not from the crowd this time. Or not only from the crowd.”
Y/N did not answer.
Harry noticed.
“I don’t want you to come because I’m asking,” he said. “I want you to come if you want to.”
“That’s worse.”
“How?”
“Because now I have to know what I want.”
His mouth twitched.
“Terrifying.”
“Exactly.”
She did not say yes that night. Or the next.
Harry did not ask again immediately, which annoyed her because it was the correct thing to do.
Instead, he kept calling. Kept asking about work, about her studio, about whether the coffee machine downstairs still hated her, about his plants, about the cactus, about the studio building that had finally accepted her application after three separate emails and one phone call that nearly made her lose faith in administration as a concept.
He sent her pictures of New York from hotel windows. Blurry lights. Empty corridors. The side of the stage before soundcheck. A coffee cup with her name written incorrectly on it because he had ordered it “for emotional accuracy”.
She sent him pictures of London. Her desk. His plants. Rain on the window. A terrible sandwich. A screenshot of her calendar with two office days and three remote days highlighted.
Then, on a Thursday night, he called after a show.
Y/N was already in bed.
He looked wired, sweaty, and tired in the way he always did after performing, like his body had not yet understood the stage was over.
She looked at him for three seconds and said, “You look insane.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I’m taking it as one.”
“You would.”
He sat down somewhere backstage. She could hear voices beyond the room, distant and busy.
“Come to New York,” he said.
Y/N closed her eyes.
“Harry.”
“I waited three days to ask again.”
“That is not a legal defence.”
“I know.”
She opened her eyes.
He was watching her through the screen.
“I want you to see it,” he said.
“The show?”
“My side of it.” His voice was quieter now. “You saw Wembley from the crowd. You saw me from the place where everyone sees me. I want you to see the rest. The boring parts. The loud parts. The strange parts. The parts that make me disappear for ten minutes and come back with glitter on my face and no idea what day it is.”
Y/N’s chest tightened.
“That was almost poetic.”
“I tried to keep it under control.”
“You failed.”
“I know.”
She looked at him. He did not push. He just waited. The way he had learned to. Y/N sighed.
“I can work from there.”
Harry’s face changed.
Carefully.
Too carefully.
She pointed at the screen. “Don’t make that face.”
“I’m not making a face.”
“You’re making an internal face.”
“It’s very controlled.”
“It’s not.”
He smiled despite himself.
“So…?”
“So,” she said, as if the word weighed more than it should, “I can come for a few days.”
Harry’s smile broke properly.
Not big. Not dramatic.
But real enough to undo her.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She raised an eyebrow. He corrected himself.
“I’ll do.”
“Better.”
The flight to New York was booked by Y/N.
With her own card.
Even though Harry offered exactly once and then stopped when she stared at him through the phone like she was prepared to end international relations.
He arranged a car from the airport. She allowed that. After making him repeat, twice, that it was not “a luxury rescue vehicle” and that she was accepting it only because she had a suitcase, a laptop bag, jet lag and no interest in being emotionally mugged by airport transport after an overnight flight. Harry agreed to all terms.
When Y/N landed in New York, her phone lit up before she had even fully switched off airplane mode.
Landed?
She smiled despite herself.
No, I’m texting you from the Atlantic.
His reply came quickly.
Sarcasm survived the flight. Good sign.
Barely. I have lost all sense of time and possibly one kidney to the plane seat.
Welcome to New York.
That sounds threatening.
It is, slightly.
The city hit her before she even reached Manhattan. The noise. The scale. The way everything seemed to move with the confidence of something too big to apologise. London had always felt enormous to her, but New York felt like it had no interest in being understood. It just existed louder than the rest of the world.
By the time the car pulled near the entrance she had been told to use, Y/N was running on coffee, nerves, and the kind of tiredness that made emotions feel closer to the surface. Madison Square Garden did not look like a building so much as a fact.
A huge, ridiculous, iconic fact.
She stared at it through the tinted window.
“This is fine,” she whispered.
There were people outside already. Fans near barriers. Crew entrances. Security. Movement. A few cameras, not many, but enough for Y/N’s stomach to tighten. She had known, obviously, that Harry’s world came with attention. She had seen it online. She had seen videos, rumours, crowds. But there was something different about being near it. About feeling the air change because someone might decide your face belonged to a story.
A member of Harry’s team met her inside. Calm, friendly, professional.
“You must be Y/N.”
The sentence made her feel strangely real.
“I must be,” she said, then immediately wondered why she was like this.
The woman smiled. “Harry’s waiting for you before soundcheck. He said to bring you in if you were comfortable.”
Y/N adjusted the strap of her laptop bag.
“Comfortable is a strong word, but yes.”
They walked through corridors that seemed to fold into more corridors. Concrete, doors, cables, signs, people with headsets, cases being rolled past, bursts of music from somewhere distant. It was not glamorous. Not in the way people imagined. It was functional and chaotic and alive.
Y/N loved it immediately.
That annoyed her.
The woman led her to a quieter room near the arena floor. The door was half open, and before Y/N had time to prepare herself, Harry appeared in it.
For a second, he just looked at her. No stage. No microphone. No thousands of people. No screen between them.
Just Harry.
His face changed in that small, private way she had started to recognise. Like the world had moved slightly back into place.
“You’re here,” he said.
Y/N tried to answer normally.
“That does appear to be the situation.”
Harry smiled, but it did not fully reach the rest of him because he was already moving towards her.
He stopped close enough to touch, but still not assuming. That was the thing about him now. He could be in a building full of people waiting for him, with an entire show depending on his timing, and still somehow leave a question in the space between them.
Y/N saw it. Of course she did. So she stepped into him.
Harry’s arms closed around her carefully at first, then a little tighter. The hug was longer than it needed to be. Longer than a hello. Longer than something casual. Y/N let herself sink into it, just for a second. Maybe two. His T-shirt smelled like clean cotton, something faintly warm, and him. Not the trace left behind in fabric. Not the version caught in a borrowed shirt. Him, alive and solid and there after weeks of being a face on a screen.
She closed her eyes.
Harry’s hand pressed once between her shoulders.
“I missed you,” he said quietly, close enough that it was only for her.
Y/N breathed out against him.
“That was dangerously direct.”
“I’ve had weeks of video calls to prepare.”
“You’re not prepared. You just look tired enough to be reckless.”
“I can be both.”
“Concerning.”
He laughed softly, but he did not let go right away.
Neither did she.
For a moment, New York waited outside the room. The show waited. The team waited. The building waited. But Y/N stayed where she was, her fingers curled lightly into the back of his shirt, allowing herself one honest second of missing him back.
Eventually, she pulled away first because she was still herself. Harry let her. His eyes moved over her face, not in a way that made her feel inspected, but in a way that made her feel found.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Jet lagged, under-caffeinated, and standing inside Madison Square Garden with a man whose cactus is emotionally dependent on me.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It is.”
“The cactus is grateful.”
“The cactus is manipulative.”
Harry smiled. Someone called his name from farther down the corridor. Soundcheck was starting. He glanced back, then at her.
“I need to go in.”
“I know.”
“You can sit inside, if you want. Or backstage. Or wherever you’re comfortable.”
Y/N lifted her laptop bag.
“I have work.”
Harry looked amused.
“You actually brought your laptop?”
Y/N stared at him.
“I told you I had work.”
“I know, but I thought maybe—”
“That I was using it as a personality trait?”
“A little.”
She gasped.
Harry laughed, already walking backwards towards the arena.
“There are seats near the soundboard. You can work there.”
“I will work there and judge you professionally.”
“I expected nothing less.”
A few minutes later, Y/N found herself sitting in the empty arena with her laptop balanced on her knees, trying to answer emails while Harry walked onto the Madison Square Garden stage as if that was a normal thing to do.
It was not normal. None of this was normal.
He picked up a microphone, spoke briefly to someone near the front, then looked straight towards her.
Y/N narrowed her eyes immediately, because she knew that look. Harry lifted the microphone.
“Is this bothering your very important remote work?”
His voice echoed through the empty arena. A few people on the floor laughed. Y/N froze, then slowly lowered her laptop screen just enough to glare at him.
“Your voice is creating a hostile work environment.”
More laughter.
Harry grinned.
“That’s a formal complaint.”
“I’ll put it in writing.”
“Please don’t. My team has enough emails.”
Y/N lifted the laptop again as a shield.
Harry laughed into the microphone, and the sound filled the arena in a way that made her stomach turn softly.
She hated how happy she felt. Not really. But enough. She spent the next hour half-working, half-watching.
Mostly watching.
It was difficult to remain professional while Harry stood on the Madison Square Garden stage and sang fragments of songs into an empty arena. At one point, he sang a line directly towards her, and Y/N lifted the laptop higher, hiding behind the screen.
Harry laughed into the microphone. Someone from the band turned to look. Y/N lowered the laptop just enough to glare at him. He looked delighted.
Mitch passed near her at one point, guitar in hand, quiet and calm in a way that made Y/N immediately feel like she had been adopted by a very cool forest spirit.
“You’re the one taking care of the cactus,” he said.
Y/N blinked.
“That is, unfortunately, my reputation?”
Mitch nodded.
“Important job.”
“It’s under strict supervision.”
“Good. He shouldn’t be trusted.”
Y/N looked towards Harry, who was talking to someone by the stage.
“I’ve been saying that.”
Mitch gave her the smallest smile and moved on.
A few minutes later, Sarah came by with drumsticks in one hand, smiling warmly.
“So you’re Y/N.”
Y/N closed her laptop halfway.
“That depends. Has Harry said anything embarrassing?”
Sarah’s smile grew.
“Not embarrassing. Just… a lot.”
“Oh no.”
“In a good way.”
“That’s worse.”
Sarah laughed.
“He’s calmer when you’re around.”
Y/N did not know what to do with that. So she looked down at her laptop and said, “That sounds like a medical side effect.”
Sarah laughed again, and Y/N felt something in the air settle. Not approval in a dramatic way. Nothing official. Nothing said out loud.
Just warmth. Ease. People looking at her and not acting like she had entered the wrong room. People who knew Harry in a way most of the world did not, quietly deciding she was not something to be removed.
It should not have mattered.
It did.
The day moved in pieces. Soundcheck ended. Harry disappeared into meetings, fittings, vocal warmups, whatever strange rituals happened before a show. Y/N worked in a room backstage with a coffee someone had placed beside her without ceremony. Every now and then, Harry passed the open doorway and made a face at her until she looked up.
Once, he walked by slowly with two thumbs up.
Y/N looked at him over her laptop.
“No.”
He kept walking backwards. She pointed at the screen.
“Employment.”
Harry mouthed, Sorry. He was not sorry.
Later, she found him sitting on the floor of a dressing room, back against the sofa, looking at his phone while someone fixed something on a jacket nearby. The room was full of movement, but he looked up the second she appeared.
“Done with work?” he asked.
“For now.”
“Hostile environment complaint still pending?”
“Under review.”
He smiled and patted the floor beside him without thinking. Then he seemed to remember himself and stopped.
Y/N saw it.
The way he still checked. Still left space. Still refused to assume. So she sat down beside him. Not touching.
Close enough.
Harry looked at her from the corner of his eye.
“New York treating you well?”
“It has threatened me several times, but I respect the confidence.”
“That sounds like New York.”
“I think London insults you politely. New York just shoves you and tells you to keep walking.”
“Pretty accurate.”
She leaned her head back against the sofa.
“I get why you like it here.”
Harry looked at her.
“Yeah?”
“It’s too much.”
“That’s why?”
“Sometimes too much feels honest.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “I’m glad you came.”
Y/N turned her head. He was looking at her in that way again.
Direct. Unguarded. Like he had stopped caring whether honesty made the room harder to breathe in.
“Don’t do that before a concert,” she said.
“What?”
“Say things that make me want to have a crisis.”
His mouth curved.
“I thought you were managing crises professionally now.”
“Highly uncertified.”
“Still the best.”
She looked away before that landed too deeply. Too late.
A little before doors opened, the noise outside shifted. It happened gradually, then all at once. More footsteps. More voices. More radios. More energy in the walls. The building waking up.
Y/N was in the hallway with Harry when they heard a burst of shouting from somewhere near one of the outer areas. Not inside, exactly. Beyond. Cameras maybe. People calling names. The kind of sound that made Harry’s face change before she fully understood why.
A member of his team came over, phone in hand, expression controlled in a way that made Y/N’s stomach drop.
“Sorry,” the person said quietly to Harry. “This is already online.”
Harry took the phone. Y/N watched his face. Something tightened.
“Photos?” he asked.
“Outside. Earlier. Her arriving. Some from the car. Some when you met inside the side entrance.”
Y/N went still.
Harry looked at her before she could ask.
“Y/N—”
“Can I see?”
He hesitated.
That made it worse.
“Harry.”
He handed her the phone. The article was short. New. Already being copied elsewhere.
Harry Styles seen with mystery woman ahead of Madison Square Garden show.
Another headline beneath it:
Unknown guest spotted arriving before Styles’ concert.
And another:
Sources claim the pair have been spending time together in London.
And another, worse:
Harry Styles’ London companion sparks dating rumours after New York appearance.
There were photos. Not clear enough to feel fully like her, but clear enough.
Her getting out of the car. Her beside Harry near a side entrance. Harry looking at her. Not dramatically. Not scandalously. Just looking. But the internet did not need much. It never had.
Y/N’s face went cold.
For a second, she heard the hallway around them as if from underwater.
Harry’s hand found hers. Warm. Careful.
There was no time to ask a full question, but his fingers did anyway.
Y/N let him take her hand.
“Come with me,” he said.
She almost argued.
Then didn’t.
Harry led her into a smaller room off the hallway and closed the door. Not locked. Just closed. The noise outside became muffled, but her pulse did not.
Y/N still had the phone in her hand.
“They’re saying I was already with you in London,” she said.
Harry stood in front of her, close but not too close.
“You were with me in London.”
She looked up sharply.
“Harry.”
“Not like that. I know.”
“They’re making it sound ugly.”
“I know.”
“They’re making it sound like I was waiting for your life to fall apart.”
His jaw tightened.
“They make everything sound like something they can sell.”
Y/N looked back at the screen.
There were comments already.
Not too many yet.
Enough.
New girl?
That was fast.
Wasn’t he just engaged?
She was seen in London too.
Rebound?
Who is she?
Her thumb hovered, then stopped.
“I can’t breathe properly,” she whispered, hating the way the words sounded.
Harry’s expression changed immediately. Not panic. Focus.
He took the phone gently from her hand and placed it face down on the table. Then he stepped closer, slowly enough for her to move away if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
“I am.”
“No, you’re looking through me.” His voice stayed low. “Y/N. Look at me.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
Harry raised both hands and cupped her face with a tenderness that nearly broke her more than the headlines had. One hand on each cheek. Warm palms. Careful fingers. No rush.
Just him.
“There you are,” he murmured.
Her throat tightened.
“That was unnecessary.”
“It was very necessary.”
“I’m going to panic.”
“Okay.”
She blinked.
Harry nodded slightly, eyes steady on hers.
“You can panic. You can be angry. You can cry. You can call all of this insane, because it is. But breathe first.”
Y/N tried.
It came out uneven.
Harry’s thumbs moved once, barely, against her cheeks.
“With me,” he said. “In.”
She inhaled.
“Good. Out.”
She exhaled.
Again.
Once more.
His eyes did not leave hers.
The room steadied by fractions.
Not because the articles disappeared.
Not because the noise stopped.
Because he was not asking her to be fine for his comfort.
He was just holding her face like she was something real.
Like she was not a headline.
Like she was not a rumour.
Like she was not a role.
“They’re going to make me into something,” she said, voice smaller than she wanted it to be.
“They will try.”
“People are going to say I’m a rebound. Or that I was there before. Or that I’m—”
“Don’t.”
His voice was soft.
But firm enough to stop her.
Y/N looked at him.
Harry’s hands stayed exactly where they were.
“You are not going to use their words to hurt yourself before they even finish writing them.”
She stared at him.
“That was a very specific accusation.”
“I know you.”
The sentence landed between them.
Simple.
Dangerous.
Warm.
Y/N looked away as much as she could with his hands still on her cheeks.
Harry did not let her disappear.
“They don’t get to decide what you are to me,” he said.
Her eyes lifted back to his.
The room seemed too small.
“And what am I to you?”
He did not answer too quickly.
That was what made it worse.
Better.
Both.
Harry looked at her like the answer mattered too much to rush.
“Something I don’t want them to touch,” he said.
Y/N’s breath caught.
Outside, someone called his name from the hallway.
The show was coming.
The machine did not stop just because something inside her had.
Harry did not move immediately. His gaze dropped, not to her mouth, but to the space between her brows, to the worry still sitting there. Then he leaned in and pressed a long, gentle kiss to her forehead.
Y/N closed her eyes.
It was not a kiss that asked for anything.
It was not the kiss she had thought about and refused to think about and definitely thought about anyway.
It was quieter than that.
Safer.
A promise without making one.
A way of saying: I’m here, and you are allowed to be scared.
When he pulled back, his hands were still on her face.
“You can leave,” he said softly. “If this is too much. I’ll understand.”
“I just got here.”
“That’s not a reason to stay if you don’t want to.”
Y/N looked at the phone on the table. Then at him.
“I don’t want to leave.”
His shoulders lowered slightly, like he had been holding something up.
“Okay.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“And angry.”
“I know.”
“And jet lagged.”
“That one may be my fault.”
“Partially.”
His mouth twitched.
She breathed out.
“I still want to see the show.”
Harry looked at her.
“From backstage?”
“For now,” she answered.
He searched her face for one more second.
Then nodded.
Another knock came.
Harry closed his eyes briefly.
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
His hands slipped from her face slowly, like he did not want to take the warmth with him too quickly.
Y/N felt the absence immediately.
That was dangerous information.
Harry stepped back.
“Do you need anything?”
“A new identity.”
“I’ll ask the team.”
She laughed once, weak but real.
Harry smiled.
“There she is.”
“Go be a problem professionally.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The show was a different thing from backstage.
Y/N had known concerts were machines, but knowing and seeing were not the same. From the side, she could see the seams. The crew waiting for cues. The quick movement of guitars. The way Harry stepped into light and became something huge, then stepped back into shadow and became a man reaching for water, breathing hard, listening to voices in his ear.
It should have ruined the magic.
It did not.
It made it stranger.
More human.
More impressive.
She watched him from the side for the first few songs, heart still unsettled from the article, but slowly steadied by the force of him on stage. He was good. She knew he was good. Of course she knew. She had crossed countries for that voice before she had ever known what his kitchen looked like.
But seeing it from there, seeing the work around it, the precision, the sweat, the timing, the tiny flashes of communication between him and the band, made something inside her ache with a new kind of respect.
At one point, he came close to the side of the stage between songs and found her there.
He lifted his brows slightly, as if asking if she was okay.
Y/N gave him a very serious thumbs up.
Then lifted her laptop bag slightly.
Harry laughed, shook his head, and went back out into the lights.
She lasted backstage for almost half the concert.
Then she felt it.
The tug.
Not away from him.
Towards something she had been before him.
The fan.
The girl who had stood in Wembley alone, feet aching, voice gone, glitter stuck to her skin, watching him from the crowd and feeling for two hours like life was bigger than the walls around it.
Backstage was his world.
She was grateful to see it.
But the crowd had been hers first.
Y/N looked towards the stage, then towards the dark gap of the corridor behind her.
She did not tell Harry.
If she told him, he would understand.
That was exactly why she didn’t.
She wanted to choose this without it becoming another thing he had carefully made space for.
So she found one of the security guards she recognised from earlier and asked quietly if it was possible to get to the floor. Not too close. Not disruptive. Just somewhere she could watch like everyone else.
The man checked with someone through his earpiece, then nodded.
“DISCO side?”
The name hit her before she could prepare for it.
Of course.
That stupid, perfect, ridiculous word.
DISCO.
The place that had become hers before Harry was hers in any way at all. The area where he had found her at Wembley. The section that carried the memory of cherry gummies raised discreetly in the air, of him nearly missing his cue, of a smile the stadium thought belonged to everyone.
Y/N smiled before she could stop herself.
“Yes,” she said. “DISCO.”
A few minutes later, she was being guided through corridors and into the arena, the sound swelling around her until it filled her ribs.
It was not Wembley.
It was not the first route.
It was not even the same city.
But there, on the floor, surrounded by bodies and voices and raised hands, Y/N felt the memory of it so strongly that her throat tightened.
She slipped into a space near the side of the DISCO section, close enough to see, far enough not to be obvious.
For the first time all day, nobody was telling her where to stand because of him.
She was just there.
A fan.
Almost.
Y/N noticed the first look within two minutes.
A girl beside her glanced once.
Then again.
Then looked at her phone.
Y/N’s stomach tightened.
Of course.
The photos.
The articles.
For a second, she considered leaving.
Then the girl leaned closer, careful not to shout over the song.
“Are you okay?”
Y/N blinked.
“What?”
The girl gave a small, kind smile.
“Sorry. I just… people are being weird online. But you look like you’re trying to enjoy the show.”
Y/N stared at her.
The kindness was so unexpected that it nearly undid her.
“I am,” she said.
“Good.” The girl turned back to the stage, then added, “We won’t bother you.”
We.
Y/N glanced around and realised a few people nearby had noticed too. Not all. Not many. Enough. A couple of curious looks. A whisper. One person smiled and looked away deliberately, giving her space with the kind of kindness that did not need to announce itself.
Y/N swallowed.
“Thank you,” she said, though she wasn’t sure anyone heard.
The girl beside her grinned.
“Also, if he looks over here more than usual, I’m pretending not to notice.”
Y/N’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure.”
Y/N looked back at the stage, trying very hard not to smile.
She failed.
On stage, Harry turned during a song and glanced towards the side where she had been backstage.
She was not there.
For half a second, his face shifted.
Confusion.
A tiny crease between his brows.
Then he kept singing.
Y/N watched him scan once.
Not obviously.
Not enough for most people to notice.
Enough for her.
Then his eyes found the floor.
Found the DISCO side.
Found her.
Harry almost stopped.
Almost.
His eyes widened, and into the microphone, between one line and the next, he let out a sharp, surprised, “What?”
The crowd screamed, assuming it was part of the show.
Y/N burst out laughing.
The girls near her burst out laughing too.
Harry caught himself, smiling so hard he had to look away for a second before coming back to the song.
She shook her head at him, trying to look disappointed.
He failed to look sorry.
The girl beside Y/N covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
Y/N pointed at the stage without looking at her.
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You emotionally said several things.”
The girl laughed.
A minute later, when Harry came closer to that side of the stage, Y/N reached into her bag.
Cherry gummies.
Of course.
She had bought them at the airport, because apparently she was committed to emotional continuity.
She lifted the packet just enough for him to see.
Harry stared.
Then, without missing the beat this time, he made a quick gesture with his hand.
Two fingers towards himself.
Gimme that.
Y/N’s mouth fell open in fake offence.
She held the packet to her chest and shook her head.
Harry pointed at her.
The crowd screamed again, delighted by a private joke they could not possibly understand.
The girl beside Y/N shouted, “He wants your sweets!”
Y/N, still smiling, shouted back, “He can suffer!”
Harry seemed to read the shape of her answer somehow, because he laughed into the next line and had to turn away from the crowd for a second.
The people around Y/N noticed.
Not in a cruel way.
Not in a way that made her feel trapped.
More like they had accidentally witnessed something soft and were collectively deciding to be gentle with it.
As the show went on, she tried to stay discreet.
She really did.
After the paparazzi, after the headlines, after the way her face had looked strange and stolen on that phone screen, she wanted to disappear into the audience and just be one voice among thousands.
Harry made that difficult.
He did not stare.
He did not make a scene.
But whenever he crossed towards the DISCO side, his eyes found her.
A beat too long.
A smile too real.
A line delivered with just enough direction that the people near her looked at one another and pretended very badly not to understand.
Once, during a quieter moment, he looked over and lifted his brows as if asking if she was still okay.
Y/N lifted the cherry gummies again in response.
Harry placed a hand over his heart in exaggerated betrayal.
The girl beside her whispered, “This is the best night of my life.”
Y/N whispered back, “Please don’t say that.”
“It is.”
“Be normal.”
“I’m trying.”
“That word is banned.”
The girl looked confused, but laughed anyway.
Harry was happy.
Y/N could see it before she heard anyone else say it. It was in the way he moved. In the way his smile kept arriving before he could control it. In the looseness of his shoulders, the extra little laugh between songs, the way he seemed unable to keep himself from glancing towards one particular part of the floor.
He was always good on stage.
She knew that.
He was always charismatic, always alive under the lights, always somehow able to make a room that large feel like it was breathing with him.
But tonight there was something else.
A brightness that kept breaking through the performance.
Something unguarded.
The fans around her felt it too.
“He’s so happy tonight,” someone behind her said.
“He is,” another voice answered.
Y/N looked down.
Her smile arrived before she could stop it.
Ridiculous.
Her life was ridiculous.
A few months earlier, she had been a fan watching videos of him online, following updates, saving clips, reading captions, laughing at interviews, imagining concerts like they were doors into a bigger life. She had known Mitch and Sarah as names, faces, people from the stage and the screen. She had watched this world from the outside with the careful devotion of someone who never expected to step inside it.
And now Mitch knew her as the person responsible for the cactus.
Sarah had told her Harry was calmer around her.
Harry had nearly yelled what into a microphone because she had appeared in the DISCO section with cherry gummies.
Y/N looked up at the lights, laughing softly to herself.
Her life had become so absurd that there was nothing to do but smile.
So she did.
After the concert, backstage was chaos.
Harry came off stage surrounded by movement. People talking. Towels. Water. Sweat. Noise. He was all adrenaline at first, all breath and heat and glowing exhaustion, curls damp, shirt clinging slightly to his back, eyes too bright.
Y/N stood a little away from the main path, holding the cherry gummies like evidence.
He saw her almost immediately.
“You disappeared,” he said, walking towards her.
His voice was rough from the show.
Y/N tried very hard not to notice.
“I went to be a fan.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“That was the point.”
Harry laughed, still breathless.
“I almost shouted at you in front of twenty thousand people.”
“You did shout.”
“I said one word.”
“Into a microphone.”
“You appeared out of nowhere.”
“I appeared in my natural habitat.”
“The DISCO side?”
“Yes.”
His smile softened.
“Your favourite.”
Y/N looked at him.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered.
“Apparently.”
He looked at the packet in her hand.
“You brought those on purpose.”
“I am committed to tradition.”
“You refused to share.”
“You were working.”
“I was suffering.”
“You survived.”
“Barely.”
Someone from his team approached, asking something about timing. Harry answered automatically, but his eyes kept flicking back to Y/N.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
“Go do your post-show things,” she said.
“They can wait.”
“Harry.”
“They can wait two minutes.”
“That sounded very boss-like.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain sweat.”
He laughed, looking down at himself.
“That too.”
“Go.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“Will you wait?”
The question was simple.
The way he asked it was not.
Y/N held his gaze.
“Yes.”
Harry nodded once.
Then he went.
She waited in a smaller room after that, away from the worst of the movement. Someone brought her water. Someone else smiled at her in a way that suggested the band had absolutely noticed the cherry gummy exchange and was choosing to be polite.
Mitch passed the open door once, glanced in, and said, “Nice gummies.”
Y/N looked at him.
He kept walking.
She stared after him.
“Terrible people,” she muttered.
Sarah appeared a few minutes later, leaning against the doorway with a grin she was doing a poor job of hiding.
“You looked like you were having fun out there.”
Y/N narrowed her eyes.
“I was being normal.”
“Of course.”
“Very normal.”
“Absolutely.”
Y/N pointed her water bottle at her.
“You’re all worse than him.”
Sarah laughed.
“He’s happier when you’re here.”
Y/N went quiet.
Sarah’s smile softened.
“Sorry. Too much?”
Y/N shook her head.
“No. I just don’t know what to do with sentences like that.”
“Neither does he.”
That made Y/N smile despite herself.
By the time Harry came back, the room was quieter. Not empty, but close. The worst of the post-show rush had moved elsewhere. New York still hummed beyond the walls, but inside, the air had settled.
He had changed his shirt, though his hair was still damp at the temples. He looked tired now in a different way. Less electric. More human.
Y/N was sitting on the edge of a sofa, shoes touching the floor, cherry gummies beside her.
Harry closed the door behind him.
Again, not locked.
Just closed.
Y/N noticed.
“Still leaving escape routes?”
He looked at the door, then back at her.
“Always.”
“That was almost healthy.”
“I’m doing.”
She smiled faintly.
He leaned against the door for a moment, watching her.
“You okay?”
She looked down at her hands.
Then at the phone lying face down beside her.
“The photos are probably everywhere now.”
“Probably.”
“People are probably saying things.”
“Yes.”
“Ugly things.”
“Some.”
She looked up.
“You’re not going to say it’s nothing?”
Harry shook his head.
“No.”
“Good.”
“It’s not nothing.” He pushed away from the door and walked closer, stopping a few steps from her. “It’s invasive and loud and unfair. But it’s also not everything.”
Y/N breathed out slowly.
“I hated seeing myself like that.”
“I know.”
“I hated that they made it look like I was sneaking in.”
“You weren’t.”
“I know.” She looked at him. “But people won’t.”
Harry’s jaw tightened slightly.
“No. They won’t.”
“And that bothers me.”
“It should.”
“I don’t want to care.”
“I know.”
“But I do.”
Harry nodded.
“Of course you do.”
Something about that undid her more than “don’t care” ever could have.
Y/N swallowed.
“I don’t want them to own this.”
Harry looked at her.
“They don’t.”
“They already have pictures.”
“They don’t have us.”
The words stayed there.
Quiet.
Certain.
Not polished.
Not dramatic.
Just true.
Y/N looked at him for a long moment.
Outside, someone laughed in the hallway. A case rolled past. A muffled voice called for someone else.
Inside, the room felt still.
“You know,” she said slowly, “today was a lot.”
Harry’s mouth twitched.
“New York does that.”
“You do that.”
“Fair.”
“I saw soundcheck. I got publicly harassed by your microphone. Your band knows about the cactus. Sarah basically implied I’m good for you. Paparazzi photographed me. The internet gave me a job title I didn’t apply for. You yelled ‘what’ at me in front of thousands of people.”
Harry tried not to smile.
“You did appear in the crowd without warning.”
“I reserve the right.”
“You scared me.”
“You nearly missed a lyric.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I recovered.”
“Barely.”
He laughed.
Y/N looked at him, and the laughter faded slowly.
“I’m glad I came,” she said.
Harry’s face changed.
Careful.
Hopeful, but trying not to be.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Even with the noise?”
She nodded.
“Even with the noise.”
Harry looked at her like he wanted to step closer and was holding himself back by force.
Y/N saw it.
Her heart began to beat harder.
“Harry.”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to stand there all night?”
His eyes lifted to hers.
The air changed.
Not suddenly.
It had been changing all day.
In the hug before soundcheck.
In the room where he had held her face and kissed her forehead.
In the way he had searched for her backstage.
In the way he had almost shouted into the microphone when he found her in the crowd.
In the way he had said they don’t have us.
Harry did not move yet.
“What are you asking?”
Y/N let out a breath that almost became a laugh.
“You’re really going to make me say it?”
His voice was low.
“I’m not assuming.”
Of course.
Of course he wasn’t.
That was the worst and best thing about him now.
Y/N stood.
Harry straightened.
There was still space between them.
Not much.
Enough to choose.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you all day,” he said.
Y/N’s breath caught.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say after a concert.”
“I know.”
“Adrenaline.”
“Not just adrenaline.”
“Paparazzi.”
“Not them.”
“Noise.”
“Not noise.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Then what?”
Harry looked at her.
“You.”
The word was quiet.
It landed everywhere.
Y/N stepped closer.
Not all the way.
Harry stayed still.
His eyes searched hers, then dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her face.
Still asking.
Still waiting.
Y/N hated that it made her want him more.
“Are you always this careful?” she asked.
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m trying to be.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
Harry corrected himself immediately, voice barely above a whisper.
“I am.”
Y/N’s mouth softened.
“Good.”
Then she closed the rest of the distance.
The first kiss was not dramatic.
Not at first.
It was careful, almost quiet, like both of them were listening for the moment it became too much. Harry’s hand lifted but stopped before touching her waist, hovering there for half a second.
Y/N noticed.
Of course she did.
So she stepped closer, giving him the answer without making him ask again.
His hand settled at her waist.
Warm.
Careful.
Real.
Y/N’s fingers curled into the front of his shirt, and Harry made a small sound against her mouth that seemed to surprise both of them.
The second kiss was less careful.
Still gentle, but less distant. His hand tightened slightly at her waist. Hers moved up to his shoulder, then the back of his neck, where his hair was still damp from the show.
Harry breathed out against her.
“Y/N.”
“Don’t make it poetic.”
His laugh broke softly against her mouth.
“I’m trying not to.”
“You’re failing.”
“I know.”
Then he kissed her again.
And this time, something shifted.
Maybe it was the weeks apart.
Maybe it was the whole day of almost touching.
Maybe it was the roar of the arena still living somewhere in his body, or the fear still living somewhere in hers, or the relief of finally choosing something before the world could name it for them.
The kiss deepened.
Y/N’s back foot moved without her meaning to. Harry followed. Not pushing. Just with her. His other hand came up to her face, thumb brushing her cheek, and she forgot, for a second, where they were.
He kissed like he had been holding back for a long time.
Because he had.
Because they both had.
Y/N tightened her grip on his shirt and pulled him closer.
That was enough.
Harry’s restraint broke a little.
Not completely.
Just enough that the air left her lungs.
He stepped with her, mouth still on hers, hand at her waist, the other sliding to the side of her neck. She moved back once, twice, and then her back met the door with a soft thud.
Harry stopped immediately.
His whole body went still.
“Sorry.”
Y/N opened her eyes.
He was close. Very close. One hand braced near her on the door, the other still at her waist but no longer pulling. His breathing was uneven. His mouth was red from hers. His eyes searched her face with so much concern that she almost laughed.
Almost.
“Don’t,” she said.
His brows drew together.
“Did I—”
“No.” She shook her head, breathless. “No. I’m fine.”
“Y/N.”
“If you ask me if I’m sure right now, I might actually scream.”
His laugh came out rough and disbelieving.
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked at him, heart wild in her chest.
“I’m sure.”
Harry’s gaze dropped to her mouth again, then back to her eyes.
Still checking.
Still him.
Y/N pulled him back by the front of his shirt.
The next kiss was not quiet.
It was not out of control, but it was closer. Hotter. Honest in a way that made her knees feel unreliable. Harry’s hand returned to her waist, then flattened against the door beside her as if he needed somewhere to put the force of wanting her without turning it into pressure.
Y/N noticed that too.
She noticed everything with him.
It was becoming a problem.
She kissed him harder for it.
Harry made another sound, low and caught in his throat, and she felt it everywhere.
Outside the room, New York kept moving.
Voices. Cases. Footsteps. The distant pulse of a building after a show. The world waiting to turn one photograph into a story, one headline into a certainty, one woman into a role she had never agreed to play.
Inside, Harry broke the kiss slowly and rested his forehead against hers.
Both of them were breathing too hard.
Y/N’s fingers were still curled in his shirt.
His thumb moved once at her waist, careful again, as if reminding both of them that careful still existed even here.
“Still noise?” she whispered.
Harry closed his eyes briefly.
“Still noise.”
“And this?”
He opened his eyes.
The answer took a second.
Not because he did not know.
Because it mattered.
“This is ours.”
Y/N looked at him.
For once, she did not argue.
She did not make a joke.
She did not look away.
She just nodded, barely, and let herself stay there, between the door and him, with the city shouting outside and his breath warm against her mouth.
A moment that belonged to them.
Somewhere behind the noise.
Final extra of this story, time to say goodbye. Hope you liked it my first ever series!
tag: @imjustanarrogantharrie (if you wanna be tagged, leave a comment and I will start taggin you!)
Harry Styles x Y/N
Bonus Chapter to: Not a Route Anymore
Word Count: 5800
Warnings: slow burn, emotional tension, domestic fluff, rent prices being emotionally violent (JOKE).
Y/N had told herself, very firmly, that dinner at Harry’s house was not a big deal.
It was dinner.
Food.
A table.
Cutlery.
Normal conversation.
He had made that very clear in his message, which, if anything, made the whole thing worse, because men who clarified the presence of cutlery were usually either dangerous or trying very hard not to be.
Harry, unfortunately, was both.
Not dangerous in the obvious way. Not in the loud, careless, reckless way. He was dangerous because he listened. Because he remembered things. Because he had looked at her across a London street and said he would learn how to walk to her, and then apparently decided to follow that up with burgers, apartment hunting and what he had called “real estate judgement”.
Y/N stood outside his house in North London, staring at the front of it.
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
Then she looked down at her phone, checked the address again, looked back at the house, and sighed.
“Of course.”
The house was beautiful in an offensively quiet way. Not flashy. Not golden gates and marble lions. Not the kind of place that screamed money.
Worse.
The kind that whispered it with excellent lighting, old brick, dark windows, a gate that looked simple until you realised simple probably cost more than her hotel stay, and a front door that seemed emotionally prepared to reject her bank account.
Harry opened it before she had time to overthink knocking.
He was wearing jeans and a soft, worn-looking jumper, sleeves pushed up, hair slightly messy, feet bare. Bare feet. In that house. As if the place did not require formal permission to exist.
“Hi,” he said.
Y/N looked at him. Then at the house. Then back at him.
“I knew you were rich,” she said slowly, “but this feels unnecessary.”
Harry leaned against the doorframe, mouth twitching.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t. It was a complaint with architectural evidence.”
He laughed, stepping aside. “Come in.”
Y/N walked past him into the hallway and immediately hated that the house smelled good. Not perfume-good. Not hotel-good. Home-good. Warm wood, something clean, something faintly like coffee, something she could not name and did not want to name because naming it felt like giving it power.
The entrance opened into a space that was too tasteful for her peace of mind. Warm lights. Wooden floors. Art on the walls that looked casual until she suspected it was worth more than a small car. A staircase. A ridiculous amount of calm.
Y/N stopped.
Harry closed the door behind her.
She turned slowly, taking it in.
“Do you live here or does a magazine borrow you occasionally for ambience?”
Harry looked around as if trying to see the house through her eyes.
“I do live here.”
“Bold claim.”
“I sleep here.”
“That proves very little. Rich people can sleep in showrooms.”
He smiled. “Would it help if I showed you the messier parts?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “I need emotional balance.”
He looked pleased by that, which was irritating.
“Kitchen first?”
“Wait.” Y/N lifted a finger and narrowed her eyes at something near the window of the front room. “Are those the plants?”
Harry froze.
It was tiny.
Almost unnoticeable.
But she saw it.
Of course she did.
A cluster of plants sat near the window: one leafy thing that looked moderately alive, two succulents trying their best, and a cactus that seemed to be reconsidering its choices.
Y/N walked towards them like a detective approaching a crime scene.
Harry followed behind her.
“Before you say anything—”
“Oh, I’m going to say several things.”
“They’re alive.”
Y/N crouched slightly, studying the cactus. “Are they?”
“They are.”
“This one looks like it has seen things.”
“It’s a cactus.”
“It’s a traumatised cactus.”
Harry crossed his arms. “Don’t judge me.”
“I’m absolutely judging you. How are you almost killing a cactus?”
“I am not almost killing it.”
Y/N looked at him over her shoulder.
Harry hesitated.
“It had a difficult week.”
“It’s a cactus, Harry. Its whole personality is survival.”
“I watered it.”
“That may have been the crime.”
He looked offended. “I was trying to help.”
“That’s what all botanical murderers say.”
Harry pointed at the plant beside it. “That one’s doing well.”
Y/N looked at the leafy plant. It did, admittedly, look decent.
She straightened and gave him a solemn nod.
“One survivor. Two witnesses. One cactus in emotional recovery.”
Harry rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh.
“I invite you to dinner and you immediately investigate my plants.”
“You invited me after admitting to a botanical murder charge. This is due diligence.”
“Fair.”
She looked back at the succulents.
“Also, these are almost cacti-adjacent. You should be ashamed.”
“They’re succulents.”
“That’s not a defence. That’s a category.”
Harry laughed then, properly, and the sound softened the house around them.
Y/N hated that too.
Not really.
But enough.
He led her into the kitchen, and she prepared herself for something too much. A chef. A table set like an award ceremony. Food with foam. Plates too large for the amount of food on them.
Instead, there were burger buns on the counter, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, bowls of sauces, fries waiting to go into the oven, and a pan ready on the stove.
Y/N stopped again.
Harry watched her carefully.
“I thought about cooking something impressive,” he admitted.
“And then?”
“Then I imagined your face if I served you something with foam on it.”
“I would’ve left.”
“Exactly.” He gestured to the counter. “So… burgers.”
She looked at him.
The annoying thing was that it worked.
It worked because he had thought about it. Because he had not tried to impress her by making the night expensive or impossible to touch. He had made it simple because he knew simple would make her stay.
Y/N put her bag down on one of the stools.
“Homemade burgers?”
“Attempted homemade burgers.”
“Important distinction.”
“I’m managing expectations.”
“Good. I respect that.”
Harry moved around the kitchen, opening the fridge and taking out a bottle of water.
“Do you want wine? Water? Something else?”
“Water is fine.”
“You sure?”
She gave him a look.
He lifted one hand. “Water. Understood.”
As he poured it, Y/N leaned against the counter and took in the kitchen. It was big, obviously. Too big for one person. Too beautiful to be practical. The kind of kitchen where even the knives looked like they had better career prospects than her.
“You know,” she said, “if I had this kitchen, I’d probably still eat toast standing up.”
Harry glanced at her.
“Same.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I have.”
“That feels disrespectful to the architecture.”
“It survived.”
“Did the cactus?”
Harry pointed at her with the bottle. “You’re not allowed to bring the cactus into every conversation.”
“That sounds like something someone guilty would say.”
He smiled as he handed her the glass.
For a while, they cooked. Or assembled. Or pretended to cook while mainly arguing about the correct amount of sauce.
Harry took it surprisingly seriously.
Y/N took that as a personal invitation to be difficult.
“That is too much mustard,” she announced.
Harry looked down at the burger. “It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s balanced.”
“That burger is asking for help.”
“You’re very opinionated for someone who hasn’t tasted it.”
“I don’t need to taste suffering to recognise it.”
He stared at her.
Then removed a little mustard with the edge of a knife.
Y/N smiled.
“Growth.”
“I hate that word now.”
“You should. It’s been used against you a lot.”
They ate at the kitchen island instead of the dining table, because Harry said the dining table felt too formal and Y/N said she refused to sit somewhere that looked like it had hosted contracts.
The burgers were good. Not perfect. Not restaurant-level. Better, somehow. The fries got slightly too crisp. Harry apologised. Y/N said she preferred them that way and then accused him of fishing for compliments.
He did not deny it fast enough.
After dinner, he disappeared into the next room and came back holding a LEGO box.
Y/N stared.
Harry held it out with both hands, almost ceremonially.
It was a botanical set. A wildflower bouquet.
Y/N looked from the box to him.
“You bought us emotional support LEGO.”
“I thought it was safer than emotional support wine.”
“Barely.”
“You like LEGO.”
“I do.”
“And flowers.”
“I like flowers that survive.”
Harry glanced towards the plants.
Y/N pointed at him. “Don’t look at the cactus. It’s been through enough.”
He laughed and put the box on the coffee table in the living room.
The living room was warm and large and unfairly comfortable. A huge sofa faced a TV, shelves lined with books and records behind it. There were more strange pieces of art, a stack of magazines, a throw blanket that looked soft enough to ruin lives, and a low table now occupied by LEGO flowers, two glasses of water, and one laptop.
Y/N sat at one end of the sofa.
Harry sat at the other.
There was space between them.
A lot of it.
An entire wealthy-person sofa of space.
Still, somehow, it felt intimate.
Maybe because they were both sitting barefoot now. Maybe because he had put Friends on mute in the background while they opened the LEGO bags. Maybe because there was something ridiculous about being in Harry’s house, after everything, sorting tiny green pieces into piles like two people with completely normal lives.
“Okay,” Y/N said, picking up the instruction booklet. “We need a system.”
Harry looked at her. “Of course we do.”
“Don’t say that like I’m predictable.”
“You are a little predictable.”
“I will leave.”
“You won’t. You want to build the flowers.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He smiled.
“Annoying,” she muttered.
“Accurate?”
“Unfortunately.”
They started building. Harry handled the first stem. Y/N took over sorting pieces and judging him.
“You’re doing that wrong.”
“I’m following the instructions.”
“With fear.”
“How does one build LEGO with fear?”
“You’re doing it right now.”
Harry looked at the stem in his hand. “It looks fine.”
“It looks emotionally insecure.”
“You say that about a lot of things.”
“I’m usually right.”
He handed her the piece. “Fine. You do it.”
She took it and immediately realised he had, in fact, done it correctly.
Harry watched her face.
Y/N refused to give him the satisfaction.
“Interesting,” she said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Was I right?”
“No.”
“Y/N.”
“You were directionally acceptable.”
Harry laughed.
The laptop sat closed on the table for almost half an hour while they built. That felt like something. The fact that neither of them rushed into apartment searches or difficult topics. They just made plastic flowers in his enormous living room while Friends played silently on the TV and London moved outside the windows.
Eventually, though, the reason for the evening returned.
Y/N opened the laptop and pulled up the listings she had saved.
Harry leaned closer from his side of the sofa, still holding half a flower.
She noticed immediately.
“Before you react, remember that normal people don’t have millionaire standards.”
“I’ll try.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I said I’ll try.”
She looked at him.
He sighed.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Better.”
The first studio appeared on the screen.
Harry said nothing.
Which was worse.
Y/N looked at him.
“What?”
He leaned closer, frowning at the listing.
“Y/N, this isn’t a studio. This is a hallway with plumbing.”
“It has character.”
“It has one window facing a brick wall.”
“That wall could become very important to me.”
“It has a bed two steps away from the oven.”
“Convenient.”
“It says ‘cosy’ four times. That’s a warning sign.”
Y/N snatched the laptop slightly closer to herself.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I’d rather give you the money than let you live in this.”
Her head snapped up.
“Harry.”
He lifted both hands immediately.
“I said I’d rather. I didn’t say I would.”
“No. Don’t even think about it.”
“I’m not thinking about it.”
“Your face is thinking about it.”
“My face is being unfairly monitored.”
“Good. Someone has to control the millionaire instincts.”
Harry tried not to smile.
Y/N pointed at him.
“I don’t need you to spend money on me.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
“I can do this on my own.”
“I know.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you?”
Harry looked at her properly then, softer but still light enough not to make it heavy.
“Yes,” he said. “I do. You can do it on your own.”
Y/N relaxed only slightly.
“Good.”
“I’m not offering to rescue you.”
“You sounded dangerously close.”
“I’m offering to judge terrible flats with you and maybe send one semi-normal email to someone who might know about studios.”
“Semi-normal?”
“It’s the best I can promise.”
She watched him for a moment.
“No secret payments.”
“No secret payments.”
“No calling some rich person and magically making rent disappear.”
“No magical rent disappearance.”
“No celebrity nonsense.”
Harry hesitated.
Y/N raised an eyebrow.
He sighed. “Minimal celebrity nonsense.”
“Harry.”
“One email,” he corrected. “No money. No pressure. You decide everything.”
She studied him for another second, then gave the laptop back.
“Fine. You may send one semi-normal email.”
Harry smiled.
“Thank you.”
“But if you accidentally buy me a building, I’m blocking you.”
“That feels fair.”
They went through more listings.
It became a sport.
A painful one.
Harry pointed at one studio. “This one has the toilet next to the bed.”
“That’s efficient.”
“That’s criminal.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“This is not drama. This is public safety.”
Y/N clicked on another. “This one is cute.”
“It has no oven.”
“I can adapt.”
“You deserve heat-based cooking.”
“I have survived worse.”
“I don’t like that sentence.”
“You don’t need to like all my sentences.”
Harry looked at her from the other end of the sofa. “I know.”
Something quiet passed between them.
Not heavy.
Just present.
Y/N looked back at the screen first.
“Stop looking at me like you’re about to say something emotionally inconvenient.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I was.”
“I knew it.”
Harry smiled and picked up another LEGO piece.
They built between listings. A flower, a terrible flat. Another flower, a slightly less terrible flat. A debate about whether “compact” was a legal term or a threat. A discussion about how far from a Tube station was too far. Harry tried to explain neighbourhoods without sounding like a real estate agent. Y/N accused him of sounding like a man who had never had to calculate whether rent plus transport plus groceries would leave enough money for joy.
He accepted the accusation.
Then sent the semi-normal email.
Y/N watched him do it.
He noticed.
“You’re supervising?”
“Yes.”
“I said no secret intervention.”
“And I am verifying.”
He turned the laptop slightly so she could see.
The email was, annoyingly, normal. He asked someone he trusted whether they knew of any studios becoming available in a newer building, something reasonable, safe, with no pressure and no rush. He did not mention money. He did not mention paying. He did not sound like he was trying to move the world around her.
Y/N read it twice.
Then nodded.
“Acceptable.”
Harry clicked send.
“High praise.”
“Don’t get emotional.”
“Too late.”
She threw a small LEGO leaf at him.
He caught it.
Of course he did.
Later, they moved the laptop aside and turned the volume up on Friends. Y/N claimed it was background noise. Harry said background noise did not usually require someone to gasp, quote lines under their breath, and aggressively judge fictional people they had watched five hundred times.
She said he had no evidence.
He had evidence.
They ended up watching properly, though the LEGO bouquet still occupied most of the coffee table. At some point, without either of them making a decision out loud, they both shifted position. Y/N ended up lying on her stomach on one end of the sofa, elbows propped against a cushion, LEGO instructions spread in front of her. Harry mirrored her from the other side, also on his stomach, facing her with a half-built flower between them.
It should not have felt intimate.
It was LEGO.
It was Friends.
It was a sofa large enough to host a small committee.
Still, there was something about being face to face like that, feet in opposite directions, heads close enough over the instruction booklet that their hands kept reaching for the same pieces, that made the room feel smaller.
Harry picked up a tiny green piece.
Y/N pointed at the booklet.
“No, not that one.”
He looked down.
“It looks exactly like that one.”
“It absolutely does not.”
“It’s green.”
“Incredible observation.”
“And small.”
“Groundbreaking.”
Harry looked at her over the top of the LEGO flower.
“You’re very bossy during botanical construction.”
“I’m protecting the flowers from your history.”
“My history is being exaggerated.”
“The cactus would disagree.”
“The cactus is not part of this conversation.”
“The cactus is always part of this conversation.”
Harry laughed and reached for the correct piece. His fingers brushed hers for half a second. Neither of them mentioned it. Both of them noticed.
On the TV, Chandler made a joke, and Y/N laughed before the punchline even landed.
Harry watched her for a second.
“What?” she asked, still smiling.
“You’re Chandler.”
Y/N turned her head slowly.
“I’m sorry?”
“You make jokes when you’re uncomfortable. You use sarcasm as a life jacket. You change the subject when things get too sincere.”
She stared at him.
“That is rude.”
“It’s accurate.”
“I am not Chandler.”
“You’re a little Chandler.”
“I’m Phoebe.”
Harry blinked.
Y/N lifted her chin. “I am spiritually Phoebe.”
“You do have Phoebe moments.”
“Thank you.”
“Honest. Unpredictable. Slightly terrifying.”
“Excellent.”
“But emotionally?” Harry tilted his head, trying not to smile. “Chandler.”
Y/N pointed the LEGO stem at him like a weapon.
“Careful.”
He rested his chin on his forearm, still watching her.
“You asked.”
“I did not.”
“You implied.”
“I implied nothing.”
“You breathed near the topic.”
“That is not consent for character analysis.”
Harry laughed, and the movement made the sofa shift slightly beneath them.
Y/N looked at the screen, then back at him, and suddenly smiled in a way that made him suspicious.
“You’re not Chandler either,” she said.
“No?”
“No.” She pointed at him with a piece of LEGO still between her fingers. “You’re Ross.”
Harry looked personally wounded.
“Take that back.”
“No.”
“Y/N.”
“You have the emotional spirals, the failed engagement, the dramatic pauses…”
“That is incredibly unfair.”
“And if life really wanted to complete the Ross storyline, your ex could leave you for a woman too.”
Harry froze for half a second.
Then he stared at her.
“We never got married.”
Y/N shrugged. “You were one ceremony away from becoming a full sitcom plot.”
Harry dropped his forehead onto his arm, laughing into the cushion.
“That was terrible.”
“That was accurate.”
“It was cruel.”
“It was educational.”
He lifted his head and looked at her, still smiling, cheeks faintly flushed from laughing.
“Zoë would’ve laughed at that.”
Y/N softened a little.
“Good. I’m not trying to be mean.”
“I know,” Harry said. “You’re just trying to ruin Friends for me.”
“Exactly.”
He reached for a LEGO piece and missed it because he was still looking at her.
She noticed immediately.
“Focus, Ross.”
Harry groaned.
“That cannot stay.”
“It absolutely can.”
“I regret this evening.”
“No, you don’t.”
He looked at her, chin still resting on his arm, eyes warm and tired and very much there.
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
The words landed gently.
Too gently.
Y/N looked back at the LEGO instructions before they could become something else.
“Good,” she said, handing him the correct piece. “Because you still have two flowers and a cactus apology tour to complete.”
Harry smiled and took the piece from her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
They watched another episode. Then another. The LEGO bouquet grew slowly on the coffee table, uneven but beautiful. The laptop remained open somewhere between them, still displaying a listing neither of them had the energy to judge. Their water glasses were empty. The burger plates had long since been taken to the kitchen. The house had settled into a quiet warmth that made time feel less strict.
At some point, Y/N yawned.
Harry noticed.
“Do you want me to call you a car?”
She blinked at the TV, then at the clock on the wall.
“Oh.”
It was late.
Much later than she had realised.
“That happened aggressively,” she said.
“Time?”
“Yes.”
“It does that.”
“Uncalled for.”
Harry looked at her for a moment, then sat up slightly.
“You can stay here, if you want.”
Y/N’s head turned so fast he lifted both hands.
“No. Wait. Not like that.”
“Harry.”
“I know. I heard it.” He shook his head quickly. “I have guest rooms. Three, actually. Four if you count the room with the terrifying chair.”
She stared at him.
“You have a room with a terrifying chair?”
“It came with the house emotionally.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It explains the chair.”
She narrowed her eyes.
Harry’s expression softened. “It’s late. You’re tired. I can still call you a car. I will, if you want. But you can also take a guest room. Door closes. No weirdness. No pressure.”
Y/N looked at him.
He was serious.
Not tense.
Not expectant.
Just offering.
A choice.
Again.
She hated how good he was getting at that.
“I’m choosing the least rich-looking guest room,” she said.
Harry’s mouth twitched.
“That might be difficult.”
“Don’t be proud of that.”
“I’m trying not to be.”
“You’re failing quietly.”
He stood and gestured for her to follow. “Come on. I’ll show you the options.”
The options, unfortunately, were all too nice.
One had a view of the garden. One had soft blue walls. One had shelves full of books. The fourth did, in fact, contain a chair that looked like it had been designed by someone with unresolved emotional issues.
Y/N stopped in front of it.
“That chair has secrets.”
“I warned you.”
“It looks like it knows where bodies are buried.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“That makes it worse.”
She chose the room with the books.
Harry stood at the doorway while she looked around. A bed made perfectly. A lamp with warm light. A small desk. A window facing the dark shape of the garden. It was simple compared to the rest of the house, but still nicer than any hotel room she had stayed in.
“There are towels in the bathroom,” Harry said. “Toothbrushes in the drawer. New ones,” he added quickly.
“I assumed you weren’t handing me a used toothbrush.”
“I panicked.”
“I noticed.”
He smiled, then glanced down the hallway.
“I’ll be downstairs for a bit. Then my room is on the other side of the house, so…” He stopped. “That sounded weirdly like a property tour.”
“It did.”
“Sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
Harry glanced into the room, then back at her.
“Do you want something more comfortable to sleep in?”
Y/N looked down at her clothes, suddenly remembering she had not exactly planned to stay the night in Harry Styles’ guest room after judging London rent prices and accusing his cactus of emotional distress.
“I’m fine.”
Harry gave her a look.
She narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
“That was a lie.”
“It was a polite survival response.”
“It sounded uncomfortable.”
“You sound rich.”
He smiled faintly, then stepped back from the doorway. “Wait here.”
“Harry.”
“No money. No rescue. Just cotton.”
Y/N opened her mouth, then closed it, because that was unfortunately difficult to argue with.
He disappeared down the hallway and returned less than a minute later with a folded T-shirt in his hands. It was plain, soft-looking, and clearly his. Not new. Not offered like a gesture. Just handed to her quietly, as if he already knew that making it too meaningful would make her panic.
“It’s clean,” he said.
“I assumed you weren’t giving me emotional laundry.”
“I’ve panicked about toothbrushes tonight. I’m clarifying everything now.”
Y/N took the T-shirt from him. The cotton was soft between her fingers, worn in the way only favourite clothes were. She tried very hard not to think about that.
“Is this going to fit me or am I about to be swallowed by celebrity fabric?”
Harry’s mouth twitched.
“It might be a bit long.”
“Good. I’m accepting only respectable guest-room fashion.”
“It’ll probably look like a dress on you.”
Y/N looked at him.
Harry immediately looked away.
“Not in a weird way.”
“Your face is fighting for its life.”
“My face would like to be excused from this conversation.”
She held the T-shirt against her chest, trying not to smile too much.
“Thank you.”
His expression softened.
“You’re welcome.”
For a second, neither of them moved. It would have been easy, dangerously easy, for the silence to become something else.
Harry stepped back first.
“Good night, Y/N.”
She nodded, quieter now.
“Good night, Harry.”
Only after he disappeared down the hallway did she close the door.
Y/N stood in the middle of the guest room with his T-shirt in her hands for a long moment before changing. It was, as promised, far too big. The hem fell low on her thighs, almost like a dress, the sleeves loose around her arms. She caught her reflection in the mirror and immediately looked away, because something about wearing his clothes in his house felt much more intimate than she had emotionally prepared for.
She brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush from the drawer, washed her face, and tried very hard to act like this was normal.
It was not normal.
Nothing about this was normal.
But when she slipped under the covers, the cotton moved with her, and there it was.
His cologne.
Not strong. Not deliberate. Just caught in the fabric, hidden in the softness of the T-shirt. Warm, clean, familiar in a way it had no right to be after so little time.
Y/N closed her eyes.
The room was quiet. The house was quiet. Somewhere far away, maybe downstairs, Harry existed in the same silence, giving her space, not asking for anything, not turning the night into something it wasn’t ready to be.
She hugged the blanket closer, but it was the T-shirt that surrounded her.
His scent.
His house.
His ridiculous plants.
His almost-dead cactus.
His careful hands leaving the choice with her over and over again.
For the first time in years, happiness did not arrive like excitement. It did not rush into her chest or make her want to prove it to anyone. It settled quietly, almost shyly, like something afraid of being noticed too soon.
But it was there.
Real.
A small, warm thing beneath her ribs.
Y/N thought about the way he had made burgers instead of something fancy because he knew she would hate being impressed on purpose. She thought about him buying LEGO flowers because he remembered. About him asking before reading the message about the studio. About the way he said, You’re you, and that is more than enough.
She pressed her face lightly into the sleeve of the T-shirt and smiled before she could stop herself.
“Terrible,” she whispered into the dark.
But she was still smiling.
Her last thought before sleep was not of Wembley, or the route, or the hotel reception, or even London waiting outside.
It was of Harry in the kitchen, barefoot and laughing, trying to defend a traumatised cactus from prosecution.
Y/N fell asleep with a smile on her face.
In the morning, Y/N woke earlier than expected.
For a few seconds, she forgot where she was.
Then she saw the unfamiliar room, the bookshelves, the window, the soft grey morning beyond it, and remembered.
Harry’s house.
Guest room.
Dinner.
LEGO.
Rent prices.
Ross.
She pressed a hand over her face.
“Oh my God.”
Not in a bad way.
Not exactly.
In a my life has become deeply strange and I need a responsible adult but unfortunately I am the adult way.
She got dressed quietly and went downstairs, intending to be useful. That was the only reasonable response to sleeping in a house that looked like it had its own postcode. Be useful. Make breakfast. Prove she had not arrived as some helpless guest needing care.
The kitchen was empty.
Y/N smiled.
Perfect.
She found bread. Eggs. Fruit. Coffee. A pan. She moved around carefully, trying not to disturb anything or accidentally break an object worth more than her future apartment.
The coffee machine looked intimidating.
She stared at it.
It stared back.
“No,” she decided. “I’m not fighting you.”
She made tea instead.
Much safer.
She was halfway through attempting scrambled eggs when she heard the front door open.
Y/N looked up.
Harry appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing running clothes, hair damp, cheeks flushed, skin shining with sweat, breathing still slightly uneven.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
“Good morning,” he said.
Y/N pointed the spatula at him.
“You weren’t asleep?”
Harry looked down at himself.
“No.”
“You went running?”
“Yes.”
“At this hour?”
“It’s morning.”
“That’s not an explanation. That’s a time of day.”
He laughed, walking in and grabbing a glass of water.
Y/N watched him drink half of it.
“You know,” she said, “for someone who keeps telling me to stop running emotionally, you do a lot of literal running.”
Harry lowered the glass.
Then pointed at her.
“That was unnecessary.”
“Educational.”
“Cruel.”
“Growth.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling.
Then he looked towards the pan.
“Are you making breakfast?”
“I was attempting breakfast.”
“Do you need help?”
“No.”
Harry looked at the eggs.
Y/N looked at him.
He wisely said nothing.
“Careful,” she warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face really suffers in this house.”
“Your face has a lot of opinions.”
Harry walked closer, still keeping enough distance not to crowd her.
“It smells good.”
“That was diplomatic.”
“It was true.”
“You’re improving.”
“I’m doing.”
She smiled despite herself and turned back to the pan.
Harry went upstairs to shower while she finished breakfast. By the time he came back down in clean clothes, hair wet at the ends, she had managed toast, eggs, fruit, tea, and coffee she had eventually made after losing a silent psychological battle with the machine.
They ate at the kitchen island again.
Morning softened everything. The house looked less intimidating in daylight. The garden beyond the windows was pale and green. The cactus, visible from the kitchen if Y/N leaned slightly, was still alive.
Barely.
But alive.
“So,” Harry said, picking up his mug. “The plant survived the night.”
“The cactus survived out of spite.”
“Still counts.”
“For now.”
He smiled into his coffee.
Y/N looked at him across the island.
There was something strange about morning.
Night could be excused. Night made things blurry. Night made emotional conversations easier and bad decisions easier and almost everything feel like it belonged to a world outside consequence.
Morning did not do that.
Morning was honest.
And somehow, sitting across from Harry with toast crumbs between them and his hair still damp from a shower, Y/N did not feel like running.
That was dangerous information.
His phone vibrated on the counter.
Harry glanced at it, then looked at her.
“What?”
“It’s about the studios.”
Y/N’s stomach flipped.
Harry did not pick up the phone immediately.
Instead, he asked, “Do you want to know?”
She paused.
That question mattered more than it should have.
Because he could have read it. Could have assumed. Could have taken the lead without noticing he had stepped ahead of her.
But he asked.
Y/N nodded. “Yes.”
Harry picked up the phone and opened the message.
His eyes moved over the screen.
“Well?”
He looked up. “My friend knows someone involved with a newer building. North-east, not central. Studios, small but apparently decent. Some furnished. Not cheap, because London is personally committed to violence, but not insane.”
Y/N’s heart started doing something inconvenient.
“Available?”
“Maybe one next month. They can send details. You’d have to apply properly. References, deposit, all that. No shortcuts.”
“Good.”
“I told him no shortcuts.”
She looked at him.
Harry held her gaze.
“No money. No pressure. No magical rent disappearance.”
Y/N’s mouth softened despite herself.
“Thank you.”
“For helping?”
“For helping,” she said. “Not rescuing.”
Harry’s expression changed. Not much. Just enough.
“I’m learning the difference.”
Y/N lifted an eyebrow.
He corrected himself before she could.
“I’m doing.”
She smiled.
“There he is.”
His phone vibrated again.
Harry read the next message, then turned the screen slightly towards her. “They can send pictures today, if you want.”
Y/N tried to keep her face neutral.
Harry watched her.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you pretend not to want something because wanting it makes it real.”
She stared at him.
“I hate that you’re learning.”
He smiled.
“I’m doing.”
Y/N looked at the phone again.
A studio.
A real one.
Maybe.
Not because Harry was buying her a life.
Because she had said out loud that she wanted one, and now a possible door existed.
She swallowed.
“Tell them to send the pictures.”
Harry nodded once and typed back.
Y/N looked down at her plate.
Her eggs were slightly overcooked.
The toast was uneven.
The coffee was too strong.
The cactus was still fighting for its life.
The LEGO bouquet sat unfinished in the living room.
Harry’s house was still too big.
His world was still too much.
Her life was still not magically sorted.
But there was a quiet morning between them.
Breakfast.
A possible apartment.
A man learning not to rescue her.
A woman learning that accepting help did not have to mean surrendering independence.
Harry put his phone down.
“Done.”
Y/N nodded.
“Good.”
He looked at her. “You okay?”
She thought about lying.
Then didn’t.
“I think I’m scared.”
Harry’s face softened.
“Of the studio?”
“Of wanting the studio.”
He nodded slowly.
“That makes sense.”
“It’s annoying.”
“That too.”
She looked at him.
He smiled faintly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Y/N said.
“Your face is thinking something.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t use my own methods against me.”
“I’m learning from the best.”
“Highly uncertified.”
“Still the best.”
She looked away before that could get to her.
Too late.
Harry reached for his coffee.
Y/N glanced towards the living room, where the LEGO flowers waited unfinished.
“We should finish the bouquet before I leave.”
Harry looked pleased.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I can’t leave emotional support LEGO unfinished in a house with plant trauma. It sends the wrong message.”
“Of course.”
“And then you’re watering the cactus under supervision.”
Harry paused.
“I thought we were taking things slow.”
Y/N smiled into her tea.
“We are. But the cactus may not have that kind of time.”
Harry laughed.
Real.
Warm.
His.
And Y/N, sitting in his too-large kitchen with London waiting somewhere beyond the windows, realised the scariest part was not the house. Not the money. Not the difference between their worlds.
A/N: This my first ever masterlist and i only write harry fanfic but i don’t mind request to involve other people in the stories,its completely fictional. i am open to improvements and criticism,please like and send messages for notes and requests if you enjoy!!
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the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me <3
word count: 5275 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
For three days, Harry didn’t appear. And Y/N hated admitting she counted. Not dramatically. Not with her phone in her hand every five minutes. Not glued to the hotel window like a side character in an overly intense adaptation of a romance she would pretend not to read.
But she counted.
On the first morning, she woke up and did not think of him. For almost seven seconds. Then she saw the note on the bedside table, folded beside the green notebook, and immediately hated herself for the way her chest tightened.
She didn’t open it again. She had already read it too many times.
I’m not going to show up today.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because I’m trying to learn not to turn you into the place I run to after doing something difficult.
It was a good note.
Annoyingly good. Mature, even. Which made it much harder to resent.
Y/N sat on the edge of the bed, staring at it as if the paper had personally inconvenienced her.
“You’re very evolved for a man who keeps leaving emotional stationery at reception,” she muttered.
The note, naturally, had nothing to say for itself. So she got dressed. She went out. She lived London. Or tried to.
It was easier in theory.
London had always been one of those places that existed in her head before it existed in front of her. A city made of old music videos, concert clips, rainy interviews, films watched too many times, bookshop windows, red buses, ridiculous rent prices she had once looked up for fun and then closed immediately for mental health reasons.
When she was younger, London had felt like a symbol. Not of perfection. Never that. More of scale. Like proof that a life could be bigger than the one people expected you to fit into. She had never known what she would do with that feeling. So she had done nothing. Which, she was beginning to realise, was a decision too.
A very boring one.
The first day, she walked until her feet hurt. She stopped for coffee near a window and watched people pass with tote bags, headphones, flowers, suitcases, office clothes, dogs, bad moods, and lives that seemed both completely ordinary and impossibly far from hers.
She opened the green notebook. For a while, she wrote nothing.
Then, slowly:
Today he didn’t come.
She stared at the sentence.
Added:
And I’m trying not to make that mean more than it does.
Then crossed out trying. Because, apparently, one emotionally complicated man had ruined the word for her.
She rewrote it.
And I’m not making that mean more than it does.
It looked much more confident than she felt. Still. Better.
On the second day, she went back into central London with less of a plan and more of a challenge. She wanted to prove she could be there without turning every corner into a possible scene.
Without imagining Harry walking towards her.
Without checking every tall man in a cap like some kind of deranged detective with romantic trauma and sore calves.
She lasted almost an hour. Which, honestly, she considered progress.
She went to Covent Garden and watched a street performer balance on something that looked both unsafe and financially questionable. She laughed when everyone clapped too early and the performer looked offended in five different languages without saying a word.
She found a small bookshop and spent twenty minutes in the notebook section despite already owning one.
“No,” she whispered to herself. “You already have an emotional commitment to a green notebook.”
A woman beside her looked over. Y/N pretended to cough. She left without buying anything. A triumph. She entered a perfume shop and left with a headache, which felt deeply on brand. Then she opened rental websites on her phone.
Closed them immediately.
Opened them again.
Closed them again when the prices made her stare at the sky as if God, the British economy and every London landlord owed her a formal written apology.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Maybe I’ll start by dreaming of a shared studio with three ghosts, a toaster, and a window that faces emotional damage.”
But she kept looking. Rooms. Jobs. Transport. Neighbourhoods. Courses. Coffee shops near Tube stations.
Little practical details that, together, began to look dangerously like a life. That was the part that scared her.
Not Harry.
Harry was improbable.
Harry was a story she would never have believed if someone else had told it to her.
London, somehow, felt possible. Difficult. Expensive. Terrifying. Too much.
But possible. And maybe that was why it unsettled her so much.
By the third day, she had stopped checking the reception desk every time she came back to the hotel. Mostly. Almost. Enough to lie to herself about it.
She had lunch alone and didn’t feel lonely the whole time. She took pictures of streets that looked too ordinary to be beautiful and decided they were beautiful anyway. She saved three room listings she could not afford and one she maybe could if she gave up joy, heating, and financial stability.
Then she sat in a café near the hotel, eating toast that had been buttered with the kind of care one might give to an enemy, and wrote:
Grown woman counts days since emotionally complicated man did not appear. More news at eleven.
She looked at the sentence.
Smiled into her cup.
At least she still had a sense of humour.
That seemed important.
Harry not showing up, this time, hadn’t been abandonment. She knew that. His note had been clear. He didn’t want to turn her into the place he ran to after doing something difficult. And Y/N respected that.
Even when she didn’t like it.
Even when a less dignified part of her wanted him to be less evolved and more impulsive.
Which was awful.
And human.
And, unfortunately, very her.
So she kept doing what she had promised herself. She lived London. Not as a tourist trying to tick places off a list, but as someone testing a possibility. As someone asking a dangerous question.
What if?
What if she came back?
Not for a concert.
Not for a route.
Not for him.
For herself.
The thought had started as a spark.
By the afternoon of the third day, it had become a thing she could not quite put down.
Y/N returned to the hotel with aching feet, a half-empty bottle of water in her bag, and a notebook full of sentences that were no longer all about him.
That felt like an achievement. Small. But real.
The receptionist looked up when she walked in.
Y/N automatically prepared herself for an envelope.
Seriously.
Her body had developed a Pavlovian response to hotel receptions. But there was no envelope.
Only the receptionist with a slightly different smile.
“Y/N?”
She stopped.
“Yes?”
“Someone is waiting for you in the lobby,” the girl explained, choosing her words carefully. “He said he only wanted me to let you know. If you don’t want to come down, he’ll leave.”
Y/N’s heart did that ridiculous thing.
Again: heart first, common sense second.
She looked towards the lobby.
And saw him.
Harry was sitting in an armchair away from the centre of the room, dark cap, simple T-shirt, sunglasses in his hand. No show. No visible team. No flowers. No gummies. No envelope.
Just him.
Waiting.
But this time, with permission. Y/N stood still for a few seconds. He saw her. He didn’t stand right away. Didn’t wave. Didn’t try to force the scene into happening. He simply waited. The decision was hers. Y/N drew in a breath.
“It’s okay,” she told the receptionist.
Then she walked over to him.
Harry stood when she approached.
“Hi,” he greeted.
His voice was careful. Not fragile. Careful.
Like he had learned that the space between them was not something to rush into just because he wanted to.
Y/N looked at his hands. Then his pocket. Then the table beside him. Harry followed her gaze and understood before she said anything.
“No envelope.”
“I’m shocked,” she commented.
“I’m trying to grow.”
“Dangerous.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Y/N crossed her arms, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
“And no gummies either?”
Harry slipped a hand into his pocket.
Y/N immediately pointed a finger at him.
“No.”
He stopped at once.
“You haven’t even seen what it is.”
“If it’s a gummy, I’m calling security.”
“Technically, there’s already security.”
“Then I’m calling security on you.”
Harry smiled.
For the first time since she saw him, the smile looked tired, but not lost. That did something to her.
“Do you want to take a walk?” he asked. “Or I can leave. Really.”
Y/N studied him.
He looked different. Not dramatically. Not as if one conversation, one broken engagement and a crushed gummy had somehow cured him.
But there was something less scattered about him. Less divided. As if some part of him had finally returned home.
“A walk,” she accepted. “But no route.”
Harry nodded.
“No route.”
They left the hotel and stepped into the late afternoon.
London was warm, restless and busy in that way it always seemed to be, as though everyone was late for something even when they had nowhere to be. Cars moved slowly. People crossed at the wrong times. Someone dragged a suitcase over uneven pavement with the kind of determination that deserved its own soundtrack.
For the first few minutes, they talked about small things.
Traffic.
The terrible coffee Harry had drunk that morning.
The fact that Y/N had seen another perfume shop and stood outside for almost two full minutes battling her own nature.
“And did you go in?” he asked.
“No.”
Harry looked genuinely impressed.
“Wow.”
Y/N straightened with fake pride.
“Thank you. I’m accepting applause.”
“Major personal growth,” Harry remarked.
“I almost cried.”
“I believe you.”
“Don’t mock me,” she warned. “It was a battle.”
Harry looked at her with exaggerated seriousness.
“I’m proud.”
Y/N turned her head to him.
“You’re saying that with far too much sincerity for a conversation about perfume.”
“I take your victories very seriously.”
She rolled her eyes.
“That should be annoying.”
Harry tilted his head slightly.
“And is it?”
“A little.”
“Only a little?”
“Don’t push it.”
He smiled. The lightness stayed between them for a few steps. Then, as always happened, the truth approached slowly.
Y/N was the first to glance at him.
“Are you okay?”
Harry let out a short breath.
“No.”
She nodded, almost satisfied.
“Good answer.”
He looked at her.
“Was it?”
“It was honest.”
“Wild concept,” Harry murmured.
“Truly. Should be in a manual.”
He let out a small laugh.
Then grew serious.
“I talked to Zoë.”
Y/N looked ahead. The name entered the air with the weight it would always have. Not because Zoë was there. Not because Y/N knew her. But because another person’s pain was not a detail. It was not something they could step around like a crack in the pavement.
“And?” Y/N asked.
“And it was awful,” Harry admitted.
“I can imagine.”
Harry shook his head.
“No. I mean, yes. But I don’t think you can really imagine it until you’re in it. There wasn’t shouting. There wasn’t a huge scene. That might have been easier.”
Y/N listened in silence.
He continued carefully, eyes on the street ahead:
“She already knew something was wrong. Not everything. Not you. But she knew I wasn’t there the way I should’ve been.”
Y/N’s throat tightened slightly.
“Did she ask about me?”
“Yes.”
Y/N closed her eyes for a moment.
Harry looked at her.
“I didn’t put you at the centre,” he stated.
She opened her eyes.
“Thank you.”
“I told the truth. That I met someone who made me realise things. But I told her this didn’t start with you.”
Y/N drew in a breath.
“Did she believe you?”
Harry took a while to answer.
“I don’t know if that matters right now. Not in the sense of making me feel better.” His jaw tightened slightly. “She’s hurt. She has every right to be.”
Y/N nodded.
“You’re right.”
“We’re… separated,” he said, the word coming slowly. “The engagement is over. But it isn’t clean. It isn’t simple. It isn’t something you close with one sentence.”
Y/N felt a strange tightening in her chest.
It wasn’t joy.
It wasn’t pure relief.
It was something more complicated, with guilt, tenderness, fear and a very quiet possibility mixed in.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Harry looked at her.
Y/N shrugged.
“I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say.”
“It is.”
“I didn’t want someone to get hurt.”
“I know.”
“But she did.”
“Yes.”
“And so did you.”
Harry nodded.
“Yes.”
She looked at him seriously.
“And that can’t become something beautiful just because you’re here now.”
“I know.”
“Good. Just checking.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“You’re still hard on me.”
“And you still need it.”
Harry’s smile appeared slowly.
“Probably.”
They kept walking.
A bus passed too close to the curb. A group of girls walked by laughing at something on a phone. A man in a suit rushed past them carrying flowers and looking terrified, which Y/N privately decided meant either romance or apology.
Maybe both. Harry’s pace matched hers. Not pushing. Not leading. Just there. That was new too.
“Did you want to come sooner?” Y/N asked after a while.
Harry looked at her.
“Yes.”
The answer came without decoration.
Y/N swallowed.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He took a second.
“Because I realised wanting to see you wasn’t the same as having the right to.”
She looked away. That was annoyingly good. Again.
“You’re getting dangerous with these emotionally responsible answers.”
“I’ve been practising.”
“With who?”
“My ceiling.”
Y/N laughed despite herself.
“Poor ceiling.”
“It’s heard a lot.”
“I hope you thanked it for its service.”
“I’ll leave a note.”
She looked at him immediately.
“Absolutely not.”
Harry smiled properly then.
Only for a second.
But it was there.
The laughter faded naturally, not because it wasn’t welcome, but because neither of them could stay away from the centre of it for very long.
Harry looked down at the pavement.
“I wrote to you three times.”
Y/N turned her head.
“You did?”
“Not sent,” he clarified. “Just wrote. Tore them up.”
“Why?”
“Because the first one was me trying to sound fine.”
“Terrible start.”
“Exactly.” He exhaled. “The second one was me trying to sound noble.”
“Worse.”
“Agreed.”
“And the third?”
Harry glanced at her.
“The third was me asking if I could see you.”
Y/N felt the words settle somewhere under her ribs.
“But you didn’t send it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t tell if I wanted to see you because I was ready, or because I was lonely.”
Y/N looked at him for a long moment. There were plenty of things she could have said. A joke would have been easiest. Something about emotional audits or men being allergic to solitude. But he had told her the truth. So she gave him one back.
“That was probably the right choice.”
Harry nodded, though it clearly cost him something.
“I know.”
“And I hated it a little,” she added.
His eyes lifted to hers.
Y/N looked ahead, pretending the street had suddenly become fascinating.
“I’m mature, not dead.”
A breath of laughter left him.
“Good to know.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Your maturity?”
“My honesty.”
“Too late.”
She rolled her eyes.
But she was smiling.
They passed a quieter street with trees and restaurants, people seated outside with glasses of wine, couples leaning too close, friends laughing too loudly, cutlery hitting plates. London seemed ready to begin another story before the last one had finished.
Y/N tightened her grip on her bag strap.
“I have something to tell you too.”
Harry turned his head to her.
“Okay.”
She pointed at him immediately.
“Don’t make a weird face.”
“I haven’t started.”
“You started internally.”
Harry blinked, amused.
“That’s a very difficult accusation to prove.”
“I’ve known you for a few days and unfortunately I already know when you’re about to make a face.”
He tried not to smile.
“Okay. I’ll control my face.”
“Thank you.”
Y/N took a breath.
“I’m thinking about starting a life in London.”
Harry stopped for half a second. Not enough to be dramatic. But enough for her to see.
“No,” she said immediately.
He blinked.
“No what?”
“Don’t make that face.”
“I’m controlling my face.”
“You’re controlling it badly.” She pointed at him again. “And before your world-famous ego starts writing internal speeches, this has nothing to do with you.”
Harry opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You said it with your eyebrows.”
“My eyebrows are innocent,” he defended.
“Your eyebrows thought they had just influenced migratory decisions.”
Harry laughed.
Y/N tried to remain serious, but failed.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“London existed before you, you know.”
“I have a vague idea.”
“Good. Just so you don’t develop an emotional Big Ben complex.”
Harry let out a real laugh. A few people looked over. He lowered his head, still smiling.
“Emotional Big Ben?”
“Yes,” Y/N confirmed. “Big, loud, and convinced the whole city revolves around him.”
“That was offensive.”
“It was necessary.”
“Cruel.”
“Educational.”
Harry looked at her, still amused, but his eyes had softened.
Y/N looked away towards the street.
“London has always called to me. Since I was younger. I don’t know how to explain it. There was something here that felt… bigger. Not perfect. Just bigger.” She paused, searching for the right words. “I think I always had that slightly ridiculous fantasy of living here one day. Not in a glamorous way. Not like I’d arrive and suddenly become someone with perfect coats and emotional stability.”
Harry made a small sound.
Y/N pointed at him without looking.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.”
“You are internally.”
“I’m controlling my face.”
“Barely.”
He pressed his lips together.
She continued:
“I just always imagined there would be a version of me here. Somewhere. A version who didn’t feel like she had to explain why she wanted more. A version who could walk into places alone and not feel like she was waiting for someone to make it legitimate.”
Harry didn’t interrupt. That helped. Y/N had not realised how much silence could help until him. Not the empty kind. The kind that stayed.
“I think I stopped taking it seriously because it sounded childish,” she admitted. “Like one of those things you say when you’re younger because the world still looks possible from a distance. And then you grow up and start calling everything that scares you reality.”
Harry looked at her, but didn’t say anything.
She glanced at him, then back at the street.
“And these days made me think. Not because of you. Or at least, not only because of you. More because I realised I’ve also spent too long waiting for life to give me some kind of permission.”
The words became quieter, but steadier.
“Maybe I need to make decisions too. Take charge of my life. Choose something because I want it, not because it’s easy to explain to everyone else.”
Harry stayed quiet for a few seconds.
Then he said:
“I’m happy.”
Y/N narrowed her eyes.
“Because I’d be closer?”
“Also.”
She raised her brows.
Harry lifted both hands, surrendering.
“I’m being honest.”
“Dangerous.”
“But not only because of that,” he added. “I’m happy because you’re choosing something of your own. Even if I weren’t here, I’d like knowing you chose.”
Y/N looked at him. The answer was annoyingly good. Worse, it sounded true.
“That was very adult.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m suspicious.”
“Understandable.”
“Was it rehearsed?”
“No.”
“Public relations?”
“Also no.”
Y/N sighed, pretending to worry.
“Terrifying.”
Harry smiled.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Even more terrifying.”
He laughed quietly. Then the conversation settled again.
They walked a little longer before finding a small square tucked between streets, quieter than the places around it. A few benches sat beneath trees. Someone had left a newspaper folded beside an empty coffee cup. A pigeon moved with the confidence of a property owner.
Y/N sat first. Harry sat beside her, keeping that careful space she had learned to recognise. Respect. Not distance. For a while, they watched people pass.
A woman with flowers wrapped in brown paper.
A man arguing with his phone.
Two children running after a ball.
A couple trying to understand a map.
London kept happening.
Without asking permission.
Y/N knew the next part had to be said.
Not because Harry seemed to be demanding anything.
He didn’t.
That was almost worse.
But because she needed to hear herself say it.
“Harry.”
He turned to her.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s replacement.”
His smile slowly disappeared.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be a pause,” she continued, eyes fixed on the trees ahead. “Or a reward. Or a plan B. Or the girl who appears after your life went wrong.”
Harry looked at her without interrupting.
Y/N took a breath.
“And I don’t want you to look at me months from now and realise I was just the person who happened to be there when everything got difficult.”
Harry stopped moving.
Not dramatically.
But enough for the air to change.
“Y/N.”
She kept looking ahead.
“That sounded dangerously serious.”
“Look at me.”
She exhaled softly.
“That sounds even worse.”
“Y/N.”
So she looked.
Harry’s expression was serious. Not harsh. Just clear.
“Stop doing that.”
She frowned.
“Doing what?”
“Putting yourself in a place I never gave you.”
Y/N went still.
Harry took a breath before continuing.
“You are not anyone’s replacement. You’re not an interval. You’re not a cure. You’re not a reward. You’re not the after of someone else. You’re not something that appeared because my life became uncomfortable.”
Her throat tightened.
“Harry…”
“You’re you,” he said simply. “And that is more than enough.”
Y/N looked away.
But Harry kept going before she could escape into a joke.
“It has nothing to do with other people. It has nothing to do with what ended, or who got hurt, or the mess I still need to sort through. I like being with you because you’re you.”
She pressed her lips together.
Harry’s voice softened.
“Because you tell me the truth. Because you make me laugh when I’m seconds away from turning everything into a tragedy with good lighting. Because you notice what people don’t say. Because you’re inconvenient at exactly the right moments.”
Y/N bit the inside of her cheek.
Harry saw.
This time, he commented.
“And because you do that when you’re trying not to feel something.”
Y/N closed her eyes.
“Illegal.”
“I know.”
“Extremely illegal.”
“I accept the sentence.”
She let out a low laugh, but there was emotion caught inside the sound.
Harry lowered his voice.
“I’m not asking you to fill any empty space. I’m asking you to stay in yours. As you. That’s all.”
Y/N looked at him again.
“That sounds simple.”
“It isn’t.”
“Right. I was getting suspicious.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“But it’s honest.”
She stayed quiet for a few seconds.
Then drew in a breath.
“Then be honest with me about something.”
“Whenever I can.”
“No.” Her eyes sharpened. “Not that.”
Harry accepted the correction with a small nod.
“Always.”
Y/N held his gaze.
“Don’t choose me just because I’m easier than the pain you still need to feel.”
Harry didn’t answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was low but firm.
“You’re not easier.”
She almost laughed.
“Thank you?”
“You’re more real,” he said. “And that is much less comfortable.”
Y/N stared at him for a second. Then pointed at him.
“That was almost too beautiful.”
“Almost?”
“Don’t push it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“You would.”
“I would.”
“At least you’re honest now.”
“Wild concept,” he echoed.
Y/N tried to stay serious.
Failed. The tension did not disappear. But it became bearable. As if the joke didn’t erase the weight. It only gave them a way to breathe inside it.
Harry looked down at his hands.
“I also don’t want to rush into anything,” he said.
Y/N watched him.
“Good.”
“Not because I’m unsure of wanting to know you,” he added quickly, then stopped himself. “No. That sounds like I’m trying to make a legal statement.”
“It did have suspicious press-release energy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Continue. Less lawyer.”
Harry breathed out a laugh.
“I want to know you. Properly. I want to talk to you. I want to know how your day went, which notebook you bought even though you didn’t need it, which perfume almost defeated you, which London neighbourhood you insulted for being too expensive.”
She almost smiled.
“All of them.”
“I want to know all of them.” His voice dropped. “But I don’t want to use you to skip over what I still need to feel. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to occupy a space that has only just become empty.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Good answer.”
“I’m trying.”
She looked at him sideways.
Harry immediately corrected himself:
“I’m doing.”
Y/N pointed at him.
“Better.”
“Thank you, teacher.”
“Don’t call me teacher.”
“Highly uncertified professional?”
“Also no.”
“Existential critic?”
She considered it for a second.
“That one maybe.”
Harry smiled.
For a moment, he looked lighter. Not fine. Not healed.
Just lighter. That mattered more.
Y/N took her phone out of her bag. Harry glanced at it.
She unlocked the screen, opened the Madame Tussauds photo and handed it to him.
“Before we continue this adult and emotionally responsible conversation, I need to show you something.”
Harry took the phone. Looked at the picture. Went still. Then looked at her.
“You went to Madame Tussauds?”
Y/N pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.
“I did.”
“And took a picture with my wax statue?”
“Technically, someone else took it.”
Harry looked at the photo again.
Y/N in the picture had the expression of someone trying not to mock a public figure made of wax. Wax Harry, naturally, looked flawless and empty.
He brought a hand to his mouth.
“Are you laughing?” she asked.
“I’m processing.”
“Liar. You’re laughing inside.”
“I’m laughing a lot inside,” he admitted.
“I laughed outside too. A teenage girl heard me talking to your statue.”
Harry closed his eyes.
“Please tell me you said something normal.”
Y/N looked away.
“Define normal.”
“Y/N.”
“I told him he was easier to deal with than you.”
Harry laughed so suddenly he had to lower his head.
Y/N looked deeply satisfied.
“And she agreed.”
“Of course she did,” Harry answered, still laughing. “He looks more emotionally stable.”
“Exactly.”
“Fewer notes?”
“Zero notes.”
“Arrives early?”
“He’s always there.”
“Doesn’t buy gummies?”
Y/N sighed.
“Unfortunately, no. A serious flaw.”
Harry handed her phone back, still smiling.
“I can’t believe you met my wax version before we exchanged numbers.”
Y/N looked at him.
The sentence stayed in the air.
Harry realised at the same time she did.
His smile softened.
“Can we?” he asked. “Exchange numbers?”
Y/N pretended to consider it.
“I don’t know. That’s a big step. So far our relationship has been sustained by hotel receptions and sugar.”
“We could try adult communication.”
“Do you know how to do that?”
“I’m willing to learn.”
“Good. Because leaving notes at reception does not count as adult communication.”
Harry raised one finger.
“It was a phase.”
“It was a limited series.”
“With strong reviews?”
“Excellent reviews. Terrible sustainability.”
Harry laughed.
Y/N handed him her phone.
He typed in his number slowly. Then called his own phone so he would have hers. When his screen lit up with her name, a small silence passed between them.
So simple. So normal. So strange after everything.
Y/N looked at the contact on her phone.
Harry.
Not H.
Not wired earphones stranger.
Not route.
Just Harry.
He put his phone away.
“Can I ask you something?”
Y/N looked suspicious.
“Depends.”
“If you really start looking for a life here… rooms, work, cafés, whatever… don’t choose London for me.”
She grew serious.
“I know.”
“I know you know,” Harry replied. “But I need to say it. Because maybe a selfish part of me is happy you’d be closer.”
“Maybe?”
He smiled without humour.
“Definitely.”
Y/N waited.
He continued:
“But I need to know that if I don’t enter this story the right way, you’ll continue yours.”
Y/N felt something in her chest.
Not a wound.
More like space.
“That’s the idea,” she said. “You’re not the city.”
Harry looked at her.
She shrugged.
“You’re just a very pretty problem inside it.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“Problem?”
“Pretty.”
“But problem.”
“Don’t be ungrateful.”
Harry laughed.
Then, lower:
“Fair.”
The city moved around them.
For the first time, the pause between them didn’t feel like uncertainty.
It felt like space.
Room for things to be careful.
Room for things not to be destroyed by being named too quickly.
Y/N looked at the trees in front of them.
“And you have to promise me something too.”
“Tell me.”
“Don’t make me a cure.”
Harry grew serious.
“I won’t.”
“Or proof that you made the right choice.”
“No.”
“Or a place you land when everything else gets difficult.”
He drew in a breath.
“Then I’ll learn how to walk to you.”
Y/N looked at him.
The sentence hit her quietly.
It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t exaggerated. It wasn’t forever. It was almost small. Maybe that was why it felt more true.
She looked away first, because of course she did.
“That was almost acceptable.”
Harry smiled.
“Almost?”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
“Of course.”
They sat there for a while, watching people pass.
Y/N did not know how long.
Long enough for the light to change. Long enough for the square to empty a little. Long enough for her to stop feeling like every silence needed a joke.
Eventually, Harry asked about London again.
Not like a man trying to be the reason. Like someone who wanted to know the shape of a dream without putting himself in the middle of it.
“What would you do first?” he asked.
Y/N looked at him.
“In London?”
“Yeah.”
She thought about it.
“Panic.”
Harry nodded gravely.
“Practical.”
“Then probably panic again, but with a coffee.”
“Reasonable.”
“Then maybe find a room that doesn’t look haunted.”
“Ambitious.”
“Find work. Or something that lets me stay long enough to figure out work. Maybe a course. Maybe something with music. Or writing. Or anything that makes me feel like I’m not just… existing between responsibilities.”
Harry’s expression softened.
“That sounds important.”
“It sounds expensive.”
“That too.”
“I looked at rent prices and almost had a spiritual experience.”
“What kind?”
“The kind where your soul leaves your body to avoid the deposit.”
Harry laughed.
Y/N smiled, but then her voice quieted.
“I don’t know if I’ll actually do it.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“I know.”
“But you’re allowed to want it,” he said.
She looked at him.
That hit harder than it should have.
Maybe because wanting things had always felt like the first step towards disappointing someone. Or inconveniencing them. Or having to explain herself.
Y/N swallowed.
“I’m trying to remember that.”
Harry opened his mouth.
Y/N pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
He closed it immediately.
“I was going to correct the word.”
“I know.”
“I’m proud of your self-awareness.”
“I’m proud of your obedience.”
“Temporary.”
“Obviously.”
They stayed there until the afternoon began folding into evening.
Lights came on slowly.
The air cooled a little.
Harry looked at her.
“I have to go soon.”
Y/N nodded.
“Me too.”
Neither of them stood right away.
This time, the silence wasn’t full of things unsaid.
It was full of things that maybe didn’t need to be said all at once.
Harry moved first.
“Can I walk you back to the hotel?”
Y/N looked at him.
He added quickly:
“Not as a route. Not as an excuse. Just because we’re going in the same direction. And because I’m still afraid you’ll wear criminal shoes without supervision.”
Y/N looked down at her trainers.
“They’re trainers.”
“Still. You never know.”
“Are you trying to seem useful?”
“I’m diversifying my skills.”
She laughed.
Then stood.
“You can walk with me for a bit.”
Harry stood too.
“For a bit.”
“No route.”
“No route.”
They began walking side by side. Not too close. Not too far.
Their shoulders brushed once when someone passed them on the pavement. Neither moved away.
Y/N looked ahead, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed. Harry did too.
Which meant they both had.
“Don’t say anything,” she warned.
Harry kept his eyes on the pavement.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was.”
“Illegal.”
“I know.”
She smiled down at the pavement.
Harry saw. Of course he did. This time, he didn’t comment.
Miraculously.
When they reached the hotel, they stopped before the entrance.
The street had that soft end-of-day noise: rolling suitcases, taxis, voices, an automatic door opening and closing behind someone.
Y/N turned to him. Harry looked like he wanted to say something.
Not a beautiful sentence.
Not a promise.
Just something.
“Thank you for not appearing right away,” she said before he could speak.
He looked at her.
“It was hard.”
“I know.”
“But it was right.”
“I know.”
Y/N drew in a breath.
“And thank you for showing up today in a way I could refuse.”
Harry nodded.
“I’m learning.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He corrected himself, almost smiling.
“I’m doing.”
“Better.”
Harry looked at her for a few seconds.
Then asked:
“Can I text you tomorrow?”
Y/N pretended to think.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“The message.”
“Good morning?”
“Strong contender.”
“How did you sleep?”
“Adult.”
Harry looked at a plant near the hotel entrance and then back at her.
“I saw a plant and thought of my botanical murder charge?”
Y/N laughed.
“That one wins.”
Harry smiled.
And then it happened.
Not a kiss.
Not a grand declaration.
Not a gesture that turned everything into certainty before its time.
Just his hand moving closer, slowly.
Open.
Visible.
Waiting.
Y/N looked at it. Then at him.
Harry didn’t move. Didn’t ask. Didn’t pressure.
He simply left the choice in the space between them.
Y/N drew in a breath.
And placed her hand in his.
It was brief. Warm. Strangely simple.
His fingers closed around hers for one second.
Two.
Then let go.
Long enough to be true. Not long enough to become a promise neither of them was ready to carry.
Y/N swallowed.
“Slow.”
Harry nodded.
“Slow.”
She smiled.
“Good night, Harry.”
“Good night, Y/N.”
She walked into the hotel without looking back.
Not because she didn’t want to.
Because if she did, she might turn the moment into a scene.
And, for the first time, she didn’t need to.
In the lift, her phone vibrated.
Y/N pulled it from her bag with her heart doing irresponsible things.
A message from Harry.
I saw a plant. Thought of my criminal past.
Y/N covered her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh alone in the lift.
Then replied:
Proud of your growth. But keep your distance from all botanical beings until further assessment.
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Understood. Good night, existential critic.
Y/N smiled.
Good night, emotional Big Ben.
She expected that to be it.
A neat ending.
A soft place to stop.
The kind of final message that made sense if one was trying to be normal, careful, mature.
Then, just as the lift doors opened, her phone vibrated again.
Y/N looked down.
Also.
She stepped into the corridor, suddenly suspicious.
Another message appeared.
Dinner at mine tomorrow?
Y/N stopped in the middle of the hallway.
Stared.
Then another message.
Before you dramatise: dinner. Food. Table. Cutlery. Normal conversation.
Y/N pressed her lips together.
Her heart, traitorous and clearly lacking professional boundaries, did something warm and stupid.
Another bubble appeared.
I can also help you look for places to live and judge your neighbourhood choices discreetly.
Y/N leaned against the wall outside her room.
Then typed:
Discreetly?
The reply came quickly.
I make no promises.
She laughed once, quietly.
Then typed:
This sounds dangerous.
Harry replied:
You said you wanted to make decisions. I’m offering logistical support and real estate judgement.
Y/N stared at the screen.
The smile faded slightly.
Not because the message was bad.
Because it was good.
Because it was normal.
Because it was domestic in a way that felt more intimate than any grand confession could have.
Dinner.
A table.
Looking at rooms.
Judging neighbourhoods.
It was not a route.
Not a hotel reception.
Not a midnight crisis.
Not Wembley.
Just an invitation into a piece of real life.
Which made it more frightening.
She unlocked her hotel room, walked in, dropped her bag on the bed and stood there with the phone in her hand.
For a moment, she almost answered with a joke.
It would have been easier.
Instead, she typed:
I’m not coming to dinner at your house as an emotional post-engagement replacement.
She stared at the message before sending it.
Her thumb hesitated.
Then she sent it.
The dots appeared.
Disappeared.
For longer this time.
Y/N sat on the edge of the bed.
Her stomach twisted.
Then Harry’s answer came.
I know.
A second message followed.
Come as Y/N.
Then another.
The person who wants London.
And another.
Not the person who has to fix anything of mine.
Y/N’s throat tightened.
She looked away from the phone for a moment.
The room was quiet. The city moved beyond the window. Somewhere below, people were checking in, checking out, arriving, leaving, dragging suitcases over carpet.
She looked back at the screen.
Harry sent one more message.
And only if you want to.
Y/N exhaled slowly.
There it was again.
Choice.
Not pressure.
Not fate.
Not a route.
Just choice.
She typed:
That was irritantly well answered.
Harry replied:
I’m doing.
She smiled.
Then wrote:
Okay.
A second later:
But if you judge my housing choices too harshly, I’m judging your decoration.
Harry’s answer came almost immediately.
Fair.
Then:
But I should warn you I have one surviving plant.
Y/N narrowed her eyes at the phone.
Surviving or hostage?
The dots appeared.
That will be decided tomorrow.
She laughed properly then.
Alone in the hotel room, hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking once.
It felt ridiculous.
It felt young.
It felt like the world had not become easy, but had opened one small window.
Y/N typed:
Good night, emotional Big Ben.
Harry answered:
Good night, existential critic.
She placed the phone on the bed and went to the window.
London shone outside.
Still huge.
Still expensive.
Still impossible.
Still calling her.
Y/N opened the green notebook to a new page.
She wrote:
Maybe I’ll stay.
She stopped.
Then added:
Not for him.
She smiled.
For me.
The sentence looked terrifying.
It also looked like hers.
She sat with that for a while.
Then, beneath it, she wrote one more line:
Tomorrow I’m having dinner with a problem.
She paused.
Then added:
A very pretty one.
Across the city, Harry read her last message one more time before putting his phone away.
He was alone.
Not completely fine.
Not completely whole.
Not free in the uncomplicated way people liked to imagine freedom worked.
There was still pain.
Still guilt.
Still conversations waiting.
Still silence he would have to sit inside without turning it into someone else’s responsibility.
But he was more honest than he had been in a very long time.
And, for now, that was enough.
He looked across the room at the plant by the window.
It was, somehow, still alive.
Harry pointed at it.
“You have one job tomorrow,” he told it.
The plant, wisely, said nothing.
Harry almost laughed.
Then his phone lit up again.
A final message from Y/N.
Also, if the plant looks traumatised, I’m taking custody.
Harry smiled.
A real one.
Small.
Tired.
His.
He typed back:
Understood.
Then added:
I’ll warn it.
Outside, London continued.
No Wembley.
No twenty-four-hour shop.
No route marked on the ground.
No invented fate.
Just an enormous city.
Two lives still being put back together.
And a possibility neither of them needed to rush in order to prove it was real.
For the first time, they weren’t repeating a route.
the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me <3
word count: 5275 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Y/N tried to make the rest of the day belong to her.
After reading Harry’s note on that small bench, with London waking up around her and the green notebook resting in her lap, she decided she wasn’t going to let the morning turn into something sad.
At least, not entirely.
She tucked the note between two pages, closed the notebook and walked without much direction for almost an hour. She went into a bookshop. Drank an overpriced coffee. Sat in a garden where no one knew anything about cherry gummies, missed routes or men who arrived too late.
She tried to convince herself she was fine.
She wasn’t unwell.
It was different.
She was somewhere between disappointment and understanding. Because, as much as it hurt to admit it, a part of her had already known. Harry could want to show up. He could want to breathe. He could even want to choose. But there was still an entire life pulling him backwards before he could take the step.
And she didn’t want to be one more thing pulling at him.
That thought stayed with her all day.
On the Tube.
In the café.
On the park bench.
While she wrote loose sentences in the notebook, not quite sure whether she was writing about him or about herself.
Someone can see you and still not know what to do with it.
Then she crossed the sentence out.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it was too right.
When she returned to the hotel in the late afternoon, legs tired and head full of sun, she almost managed to walk past reception without looking at the desk.
Almost.
The receptionist called her before she reached the lift.
“Y/N?”
She stopped.
Her body reacted stupidly before her mind could allow it: heart first, common sense second.
She turned around slowly.
“Yes?”
The girl smiled discreetly and lifted an envelope.
“This was left for you.”
Y/N closed her eyes for half a second.
Of course.
Because apparently, her life in London had become a sequence of envelopes left at hotel receptions by a man who should have had far better ways to communicate and yet kept choosing paper.
She walked closer.
“Thank you.”
She took the envelope.
Her name was handwritten on the front.
The same handwriting.
Y/N went upstairs with the envelope held tightly between her fingers, telling herself she wasn’t going to open it right away. She was going to shower, drink water, maybe eat something, maybe behave like a normal person with some emotional control.
She opened it the second she shut the door.
Of course.
The note was short.
Shorter than the last one.
But, for some reason, it felt heavier.
Y/N,
I don’t want to keep appearing on a street and waiting for chance to do the work for me.
You said you still had a week of London left.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at Kew Gardens at 11 a.m., near the glasshouse. Real flowers this time. Not LEGO. Not gummies.
You don’t have to come.
But I needed to make a choice that was mine.
No show. No route. No invented fate.
Just choice.
— H.
Y/N stood in the middle of the room.
She read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time, because apparently she had developed an unhealthy relationship with notes written by emotionally unavailable men.
Kew Gardens.
11 a.m.
Real flowers this time.
Not LEGO.
Not gummies.
No show. No route. No invented fate.
Just choice.
Y/N let out a low, humourless laugh.
“Great,” she muttered to the empty room. “Now we have existential botanical meetings.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and placed the note beside the green notebook.
She didn’t know if she was angry.
She didn’t know if she was touched.
Probably both, which was irritating.
She opened the notebook to a new page, pen resting between her fingers, and sat there for a while without writing anything. Finally, she wrote:
He arrived too late. Now he wants to arrive first.
She stared at the sentence.
Then added:
I don’t know if that changes anything.
She stopped.
Bit the inside of her cheek.
Remembered Harry noticing it.
“Forbidden,” she muttered, as if he were there. “This should be illegal.”
But the room didn’t answer.
Only the air conditioning, too cold.
The next morning, Y/N woke up before her alarm.
Which annoyed her immediately.
It was always a bad sign when her body woke before the alarm because of anxiety, hope, or some humiliating mix of both.
She spent a few minutes staring at the ceiling, just like the day before, but this time the certainty wasn’t simple.
She wasn’t going.
She was.
She shouldn’t.
Maybe she would.
It was only a garden.
Only a conversation.
Only Harry Styles asking her to meet him at eleven in the morning near a glasshouse, as if that were a remotely normal thing.
Y/N covered her face with both hands.
“Ridiculous,” she said into her palms.
But she got up.
Showered.
Dressed simply, because if she made too much effort she would hate herself, and if she made too little, she would also hate herself. She chose a light, comfortable dress with tiny flowers almost hidden in the fabric, and white trainers. She left her hair natural again, curls loose and still a little unruly from the humidity. She put on sunscreen, a little blush, and no glitter.
It wasn’t Wembley.
It wasn’t night.
It wasn’t a show.
It was daylight.
It was London.
It was choice.
Before leaving, she placed the green notebook in her bag. Then she hesitated beside the unopened bag of flower gummies on the bedside table.
She took them too.
She didn’t know why.
Maybe because if he was bringing real flowers, she could bring the ridiculous ones.
Maybe because she no longer knew how to meet him without carrying a joke in her hand, just in case she needed to defend herself.
The journey to Kew Gardens felt too long and too short at once.
By the time she arrived, the sun was already warming the ground. There were families with prams, couples walking slowly, people with cameras hanging from their necks, tourists checking signs. Everything looked too peaceful for the size of the confusion in her chest.
Y/N followed the signs towards the glasshouse.
With every step, she reminded herself she could still leave.
The difference was that, this time, she knew she wouldn’t.
She saw him before he saw her.
Or maybe he had already seen her and was simply giving her time.
Harry was sitting on a bench slightly away from the main path, wearing a pale cap, sunglasses, and a light linen shirt over a white T-shirt. His wired earphones were coming out of his pocket, loosely tangled. There was no team around him. No visible security. No crowd.
Just him.
Sitting.
Waiting.
And, for the first time, early.
Y/N walked towards him slowly.
Harry stood as soon as he saw her.
He didn’t smile immediately.
Maybe because he understood that an easy smile might ruin the seriousness of the moment.
“You came,” he said.
Y/N stopped a few steps away.
“You’re early.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“I’m trying to change the pattern.”
The sentence caught her more than it should have.
Y/N looked away towards the glasshouse behind him, the sun reflecting on the glass, the green leaves beyond it.
“That was almost adult.”
“Almost?”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
He let out a low laugh.
And for a second, it was easy again.
Which was exactly the problem.
Harry gestured to the bench.
“Do you want to sit?”
Y/N looked at it as if it were a highly suspicious proposal.
“There isn’t a hidden VIP list under it, is there?”
“No.”
“No team member ready to hand me water?”
“Also no.”
“Gummies?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag of cherry gummies.
Y/N stared at him.
Harry shrugged.
“Technically, I brought them myself.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Predictable, maybe.”
“That too.”
They sat down, leaving some space between them. Not much. But enough for the morning not to forget there were still things unresolved.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
The garden moved around them with an almost offensive calm. Birds, footsteps on gravel, distant voices, a light wind stirring the leaves. Everything seemed to exist without urgency.
Harry looked down at his hands.
“I didn’t send anyone to find you.”
Y/N turned her head to him.
“What?”
“After yesterday.” He took a breath. “I could have asked for your number. I could have asked where you’d be. I could have had someone find out. I didn’t.”
She studied him.
“You used reception.”
“I used the only door you had already left open.”
Y/N went quiet.
It was a good answer.
Annoyingly good.
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Worse.”
He smiled a little.
Then grew serious again.
“I didn’t want to invade your life.”
“Harry, you left a note at my hotel reception asking me to meet you in a garden.”
“I said I didn’t want to invade. I didn’t say it was completely normal.”
Y/N tried not to smile.
She failed slightly.
Harry saw.
Of course he did.
His eyes lingered at the corner of her mouth, then lifted to her eyes, and Y/N immediately felt the urge to hide behind sarcasm.
“Don’t start.”
He tilted his head.
“I haven’t started anything.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Doing what?”
“Noticing things.”
His smile appeared fully then.
Y/N pointed a finger at him.
“Right. That’s enough. You’re banned.”
“Again?”
“Always.” She narrowed her eyes. “We’ve talked about this. It should be illegal.”
Harry looked down, still smiling.
“I remember.”
“Then respect the law.”
“It’s hard.”
“It’s not hard. Just stop.”
“I don’t want to.”
The answer came out too simple.
Too honest.
Y/N lost the next sentence.
Harry looked at her calmly.
“I like noticing you.”
Her chest tightened and, by reflex, she bit the inside of her cheek.
His expression softened.
“See?”
Y/N closed her eyes.
“No.”
“You’re doing it.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re trying to run.”
“I’m literally sitting on a bench.”
“Inside.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, indignant.
“You’re unbearable.”
“You’ve told me that before.”
“And apparently it wasn’t enough.”
Harry laughed softly.
But then the laugh faded naturally, without becoming heavy. It simply became honest.
“You try to run the exact second something touches you,” he said. “You roll your eyes when you think I’m being dramatic. You look away when the conversation gets too close. You change the subject like a joke is a locked door.”
Y/N looked at the flowers in front of them.
Her entire body wanted to interrupt him.
Make a joke.
Tell him to shut up.
Ask if he had woken up wanting to be a garden therapist.
But she said nothing.
Harry continued, quieter.
“And then, somehow, you always come back to the truth.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was worse.
It was intimate.
Y/N tightened her fingers around the strap of her bag.
“You know that’s a dangerous thing to like, right?”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make it sound beautiful.”
“I’m not trying to make it sound beautiful.”
“You’re always trying to make everything sound beautiful.”
Harry looked at her.
This time, he didn’t smile.
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
Y/N looked back at him.
And for one second, the joke died between them.
Not heavily.
Honestly.
She looked away first.
Not because she wanted to.
Because his gaze was doing that thing again.
That irritating, calm, almost silent thing where he seemed to notice everything she was trying to hide. The way she tightened her fingers. The way she bit her cheek before answering. The way she pretended to look at the flowers when really she was just trying to buy time.
Harry didn’t push.
Maybe that was what made her speak.
Not pressure.
Not a question.
Not a look waiting for the right answer.
Just his silence.
A silence that seemed to say: you can say it, if you want. And if you don’t, I’m still here.
Y/N took a breath.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really let someone know me like this.”
Harry looked at her, but didn’t speak.
She laughed quietly, without humour.
“Or maybe I’ve never found someone who wanted to spend time doing it.”
The sentence came out simply.
Too simply for how large it felt inside her.
Y/N opened her bag, took out the green notebook and rested it on her lap, just to have something in her hands.
“I’m not saying this for pity, attention or some dramatic moment, okay?” She glanced at him, serious. “Don’t make a film out of this.”
The corner of his mouth moved, but Harry held back the smile.
“I won’t make a film.”
“You will. You look like you’re already choosing the soundtrack.”
He let out a low laugh.
“Okay. Maybe a short film.”
“Harry.”
“Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes, but there was something more fragile in the gesture.
Then she looked back at the flowers.
“I just…” She stopped, searching for the words. “Sometimes I feel like I notice everything. Little changes. People’s tone. What they say when they mean something else. The way someone goes quiet when they’re sad, or laughs too loudly when they’re uncomfortable.”
Harry listened with an attention that almost made her want to stop.
But she kept going.
“And I don’t know. I think, for a long time, I felt like I saw people that way, but no one saw me. Not like that.”
Her voice dropped.
“As if I was always paying attention to everyone and everything, but when it came to me, people only saw the easiest version. The one who makes jokes. The one who manages. The one who doesn’t bother anyone.”
Harry went very still.
Y/N bit the inside of her cheek.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
And, for once, she didn’t scold him for it.
“Maybe that’s why I’m so good at being alone,” she said. “Or pretending I am. Because it’s easier to say I like my own company than admit that sometimes it feels like no one has taken enough time to understand me.”
The words stayed between them.
Bare.
No joke to cover them.
Y/N let out a small breath and shook her head, as if immediately regretting having spoken.
“Right. There. It slipped out.” She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t turn this into a thing.”
Harry looked at her.
“It is a thing.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“Harry.”
“Not a thing I’m going to use against you,” he said, lower. “Not a thing that makes me pity you. But it is a thing.”
Y/N fell silent.
He continued carefully:
“Because I think I understand.”
She looked at him.
Harry drew in a breath.
“Not in the same way. I’m not going to pretend that. But I understand what it’s like to be surrounded by people and feel like almost no one is really looking. They’re just looking at what they need you to be.”
Her expression softened almost against her will.
Harry looked at the flowers in front of them.
“And maybe that’s why I like talking to you so much.”
Y/N held the notebook against her chest.
“Because I lecture you?”
“Also.”
She almost smiled.
Harry looked at her again.
“But mostly because you don’t look at me like I’m something already decided.”
Y/N didn’t answer.
His voice lowered.
“And I like noticing you because you seem to spend a lot of time thinking no one will.”
Her throat tightened.
“That was low.”
“It was true.”
“You’re very inconvenient sometimes.”
“I learned from a highly uncertified professional.”
She let out a small laugh despite the moisture in her eyes.
“Don’t use my own lines against me.”
“Never.”
“Liar.”
Harry smiled.
This time, she didn’t look away immediately.
And, for a few seconds, she felt something strange.
Not exactly safety.
Not yet.
But maybe the beginning of it.
The possibility of being seen without having to explain herself entirely.
The possibility of someone noticing and staying.
Even after the parts that weren’t funny.
Harry looked at the notebook in her lap.
“You used it.”
Y/N lowered her eyes.
“I did.”
“More than two pages?”
“Don’t be invasive.”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s an accusation.”
“I’m proud.”
“Don’t be. I could still dramatically abandon it on page three.”
“But you started.”
Y/N ran her fingers over the green cover.
“Yeah.”
Harry looked at her as if he understood what that meant, even without reading a single word.
And maybe he did.
Maybe some people didn’t need to know the exact contents of something to understand the effort it had taken.
Y/N took a breath and decided vulnerability had been given enough room.
“I brought something,” she said.
Harry lifted his brows.
“You did?”
She took the unopened bag of flower gummies he had left her at the concert out of her bag.
Harry looked at it and then at her.
“You didn’t eat them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they were too specific.”
“Is that a reason?”
“It’s an excellent reason.” She placed the bag between them. “Also, you said there would be real flowers today. I thought the fake edible ones might feel excluded.”
Harry laughed.
The sound spread into the morning with a lightness that felt almost indecent after the conversation they had just had.
“I wouldn’t want that.”
“Of course not. You’re very sensitive to botanical issues.”
“I am.”
Y/N opened the bag and took out a flower-shaped gummy.
She held it out to him.
Harry accepted it.
“Emotional treatment upgrade?” he asked.
“Clinical reassessment.”
“And the diagnosis?”
She watched him for a second.
“Still complicated.”
“Prognosis?”
“Guarded.”
Harry put the gummy in his mouth and chewed with exaggerated seriousness.
“These are better than the cherry ones.”
Y/N brought a hand to her chest, offended.
“Take that back.”
“I can’t.”
“You can and you will.”
“They’re better.”
“This is betrayal.”
“Maybe I’m evolving.”
“Not at the expense of cherries.”
He laughed again.
And for a few minutes, they let the conversation stay like that. Light. Absurd. Small. As if there wasn’t an engagement, an entire life, an inevitable conversation waiting for him somewhere else.
But there was.
Y/N knew.
Harry did too.
She was the one who returned to the truth first.
“Why did you ask me to come?”
Harry looked at the bag of gummies between them.
Then at the real flowers.
Then at her.
“Because I didn’t want the last thing between us to be me arriving too late.”
Y/N stayed still.
“That’s not enough of an answer.”
“I know.”
“Harry.”
He nodded slowly.
“I asked you to come because I wanted to make a choice that was mine. No stadium. No route. No adrenaline. No being able to say it was chance.”
Y/N watched him carefully.
“And now?”
He drew in a breath.
“Now I have to make the others.”
Her chest tightened.
“What others?”
Harry looked down at his hands.
“My life.”
The answer was simple.
So simple it almost hurt.
Y/N waited.
He continued:
“Yesterday, when I arrived late, I realised something I think I’ve known for a long time. I just didn’t want to hear it.” He paused. “I keep letting people decide where I should be.”
Y/N said nothing.
“Not only physically,” he added. “It’s not just the team, the friends, the commitments, the rooms where everyone seems to need ten more minutes of me. It’s everything. The image. The next step. What looks right. What looks mature. What makes sense to the people looking in.”
His voice dropped.
“The engagement.”
Y/N looked away for a second.
Not because she didn’t want to hear it.
Because the word still had weight.
Harry noticed, but didn’t stop.
“I think I accepted an entire life because it seemed like the next right thing. Because everyone around me seemed so certain for me that I stopped knowing whether I was certain too.”
The garden seemed to grow quieter.
Y/N looked at him.
“That’s sad, Harry.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“But it’s also your responsibility.”
Harry looked at her.
And, for a moment, instead of looking hurt, he looked almost relieved.
“See?” he said.
Y/N frowned.
“What?”
“That.”
“What, that?”
“You say things.” His voice gained a quiet intensity. “Even when they’re inconvenient. Even when I’d rather you softened them. Everyone around me tries to find a pretty way to tell me what they think I want to hear. You look at me and say, ‘that’s your responsibility.’”
Y/N crossed her arms.
“So you’re saying you like being told off?”
“I’m saying I like getting to know you.”
The sentence stayed in the air.
Simple.
Direct.
No metaphor.
Y/N completely lost the urge to joke for two whole seconds.
Harry continued, as if now that he had started, he couldn’t keep the rest in.
“I like knowing you buy notebooks and then get scared of ruining the pages. I like that you smell perfumes until you get headaches and then do it again anyway.”
Y/N opened her mouth.
He raised a hand.
“And I like that you’re incapable of admitting you were waiting for someone, even when you stand in a street long enough to start hating yourself for it.”
She froze for half a second.
Then narrowed her eyes.
“You don’t know if I stood there that long.”
“I don’t.”
“So you’re making it up.”
“I’m assuming.”
“Don’t assume.”
“I’m reading you.”
“Illegal.”
“I know.”
She tried to keep a serious expression.
She didn’t fully manage.
Harry looked at her with a softness that made the morning seem slower.
“I like that you tell me the truth to my face. I like that you don’t seem afraid to contradict me. I like that you pull me back to reality when I start turning my life into a well-lit tragedy.”
Y/N let out a short laugh.
“A well-lit tragedy?”
“I’m in entertainment. We have good lighting.”
“Idiot.”
“See?”
“What?”
“You’re insulting me.”
Y/N closed her mouth.
He smiled.
“Useless fact number four.”
She looked at him threateningly.
“Don’t use that.”
“Too late.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re not.”
Y/N narrowed her eyes.
“Careful.”
Harry’s smile slowly faded.
“Sorry.”
She noticed the shift immediately.
“No, I didn’t—”
“I know.” He nodded. “But I don’t want to assume you’ll stay. Not even as a joke.”
Y/N fell silent.
That small correction affected her in a way she hadn’t expected.
Because he had understood.
Even there, in the middle of a joke, he had understood the line.
Harry drew in a breath.
“I don’t want you to just be a stranger on a route,” he said.
Y/N went still.
The sentence seemed to touch her before she could stop it.
“Then what do you want me to be?”
Harry didn’t answer right away.
Maybe, in another life, he would have said something too big. Something too beautiful. Something that sounded like music, a promise, fate.
But that morning, sitting beside her with real flowers in front of them and no crowd to hide the truth, Harry chose to be simple.
“Someone I can get to know better,” he said. “Without Wembley. Without only showing up when I manage to escape. Without turning you into an excuse not to look at my life.”
Y/N looked at him.
“And Zoë?”
Harry closed his eyes for a second.
Not in irritation.
In guilt.
When he opened them, there was sadness there.
But there was something new too.
Clarity.
“I need to talk to her.”
Y/N didn’t look away.
“Because of me?”
“No.” The answer came firmly. “And that’s the first thing I think I’ve understood properly. You didn’t cause anything. You just made noise in a place I’d been trying to keep quiet.”
She stayed silent.
Harry continued:
“The conversation I need to have with Zoë started before I met you. I’m the one who only had the courage to hear it now.”
Y/N drew in a breath.
“Then don’t put my name in the middle of it.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He looked at her. “It would be unfair to her. And to you.”
Y/N studied him for a few seconds.
“And to you,” she added.
Harry looked surprised.
She shrugged, uncomfortable.
“You need to stop treating yourself like you’re just a consequence of everyone else’s life too.”
The sentence came out before she could polish it.
Harry went still.
Y/N grimaced.
“Right. See? This is why I usually make jokes. The moment I try to be serious, I sound like I’m writing quotes for motivational mugs.”
Harry laughed quietly.
But his eyes were different.
“It didn’t sound like a mug.”
“Liar.”
“It sounded true.”
She looked away.
“Worse.”
Harry smiled, but it was sad.
“I know I have to talk to her. And I know it can’t be about you.”
Y/N nodded slowly.
“It really can’t.”
“I’m not going to go to her and say I met someone.”
“Good, because that would be awful.”
“It would be cowardly,” he said.
Y/N looked at him.
Harry held her gaze.
“The conversation is: I’m not living a life I chose. Not properly. And maybe I let something go too far because everyone seemed so certain it was the right step, and I was too tired to be the only one saying no.”
His honesty sat between them, clean and heavy.
Y/N didn’t try to soften it.
He seemed to need her not to.
“That’s going to hurt her,” she said.
Harry swallowed.
“I know.”
“And it’s going to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“And it won’t all be solved because you said one pretty sentence in a garden.”
The corner of his mouth moved, but it didn’t become a smile.
“My responsibility?”
“Your responsibility.”
Harry nodded.
“That’s why I have to go.”
Y/N felt her heart tighten, even though she knew it was the right answer.
“Now?”
“In a bit.” He looked at her. “I wanted… I don’t know. I wanted to stay longer.”
“But?”
“But if I stay just because it’s easier to be here than to face that, then I’m doing the same thing again.”
Y/N looked at the flowers.
He was right.
Which was extremely irritating.
“That’s probably the most adult thing you’ve said since I met you.”
Harry let out a short laugh.
“Thank you?”
“Don’t get excited. The bar was low.”
He laughed.
And, for the first time that morning, the laugh didn’t sound like an escape.
It sounded like rest.
They sat there a little longer.
They didn’t talk about love.
Didn’t talk about the future.
Didn’t talk about promises.
They talked about small things.
The green notebook, which Y/N absolutely refused to let Harry read.
“Not even one sentence?” he asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“What if I promise to be respectful?”
“Worse. I hate respectful readers.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does in my head.”
“Terrifying.”
“Thank you.”
They talked about Kew Gardens, though neither of them seemed to know much about plants beyond “pretty”, “looks hard to keep alive” and “this would make a great LEGO version.”
Harry confessed that he had once bought a plant because someone told him it was impossible to kill, and it died within three weeks.
Y/N called him a botanical murderer.
He accepted it with dignity.
When the silence returned, it no longer felt so sharp.
It was simply the kind of silence that appears when two people know the important conversation has already happened, but neither wants to be the first to stand.
Eventually, Harry looked at the time.
Y/N saw.
“Go.”
He lifted his eyes to hers.
She tried to smile.
It wasn’t perfect.
But it was there.
“Go do the adult thing before you change your mind and start writing notes at receptions again.”
Harry let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“You’re very hard on me.”
“Yes.”
“I like that.”
“Concerning.”
He looked at her for a long second.
Then grew serious.
“I wanted to ask you to stay.”
Y/N felt her throat tighten.
“But?”
“But first I need to stop being someone who runs.”
She nodded slowly.
“Then stop running.”
Harry looked at her.
The sentence seemed to pass through him in a way no song, no light, no stadium could have.
Then he nodded.
“I’m trying.”
“No.” Y/N stood from the bench, holding the notebook to her chest. “Trying is what you say when you still want room to fail without taking responsibility.”
He went still.
She took a breath.
“Do it.”
Harry looked at her.
For one second, it seemed like he might say anything. A beautiful answer. A thank you. A promise. A sentence that would stay caught in the air between them.
But maybe he had learned.
Maybe, this time, he knew some things didn’t need to be made prettier.
“Okay,” he said simply.
Y/N nodded.
“Okay.”
Harry stood too.
They faced each other, the bench between them and the whole garden continuing around them as if nothing was changing.
He didn’t touch her.
She thanked him for that silently.
But then Harry looked at the open bag of flower gummies on the bench.
“Can I take one?”
Y/N looked at him.
“For emotional support?”
“For courage.”
She picked up one flower-shaped gummy and handed it to him.
Their fingers touched.
Just for a second.
Less than on other nights.
More honest than almost anything.
Harry closed the gummy in his palm.
“Thank you for coming.”
Y/N drew in a breath.
“Thank you for being early.”
His smile was small.
Sad.
Real.
“Y/N?”
“Yes?”
“I want to get to know you better.”
Her chest tightened again.
Harry continued before she could run from it.
“Not today. Not as an excuse. Not before I do what I need to do.” His voice dropped. “But I want to.”
Y/N bit the inside of her cheek.
He saw.
He didn’t comment.
Miraculously.
“Then do what you need to do,” she said.
Harry nodded.
Then he turned.
This time, when he walked away, it didn’t look like an escape.
It didn’t look like running.
It didn’t look like a desperate attempt to exhaust his body enough to quiet his mind.
It looked like direction.
Y/N stayed there, near the glasshouse, the green notebook pressed to her chest and the open bag of flower gummies on the bench.
She watched him disappear down the tree-lined path.
And she didn’t know if this was the beginning of something or the end of the most beautiful part of it.
Maybe it was both.
Maybe every real choice carried a little loss inside it.
Y/N sat down again.
Opened the notebook to a new page.
For a while, she didn’t write.
Then, with her hand slightly unsteady, she let the pen touch the paper.
Today, he arrived early.
She stopped.
Looked down the path where Harry had disappeared.
Then added:
Now we’ll see if he reaches himself in time.
She closed the notebook.
The sun shone against the glass of the greenhouse.
The real flowers stayed in front of her.
The fake gummies tasted far too much like sugar.
And, for the first time since Wembley, Y/N didn’t wait for a route to bring her an answer.
She stood.
Put the notebook back in her bag.
And walked through the garden, leaving enough space behind her for Harry, if he wanted to come back, to do it by choice.
the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me <3
word count: 7175 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Part 1, Part 2
The Route He Missed
Harry Styles x Y/N
Sequel to: Same Route
Note: Fiction/AU.
Warnings: emotional tension, internal conflict, mentions of an engagement, melancholic.
Y/N woke up with one very simple certainty.
She wasn’t going.
She stayed in bed for a few minutes, staring at the hotel room ceiling, the air conditioning too cold against her skin while the city was already awake beyond the window. London moved outside, bright and hot, but inside the room everything felt suspended between what had happened and what she was supposed to do with it.
On the bedside table, the last cherry gummy was still sitting beside the portable charger.
Small.
Red.
Ridiculous.
Harmless.
And yet Y/N couldn’t stop looking at it.
For the next route.
His voice came back to her with irritating clarity. Low, careful. The way he had said it without making a promise, but leaving a door slightly open.
And the worst part was that she knew Harry hadn’t done it just to be charming. Not entirely. Maybe charm came naturally to him. Maybe he had spent half his life learning how to soften the world around him with a smile. But that had been different.
Rawer.
More anxious.
More human.
Which was exactly why she shouldn’t go.
Y/N turned onto her side and pulled the pillow against her chest.
“You’re not going,” she murmured to herself.
It was supposed to sound firm.
It sounded tired.
The problem wasn’t going to the concert. She had been to his concerts before. She had screamed, sung, cried, lost her voice and felt Wembley shake beneath her feet.
The problem was giving her name at the entrance.
The problem was accepting something he had arranged.
The problem was letting a route agreed upon by two people who maybe should never have started talking take on a new shape.
Because if she said her name, it wasn’t chance anymore.
It wasn’t a wrong street.
It wasn’t a dying phone battery.
It wasn’t a man running after a concert and a fan choosing not to scream.
It was a choice.
And choices had weight.
Y/N sat up slowly and ran her hands over her face. There was still glitter caught near her eyebrow despite the rushed shower she had taken the night before. Her hair was messy, half-wavy, half-rebellious, and the DISCO VIP wristband still circled her wrist like a small provocation.
Her phone was full of notifications.
Concert videos. Messages. People asking how it had been. More clips of him smiling onstage. Theories about who he had been looking at. People turning a single second into public debate.
Y/N locked the screen before opening anything.
She didn’t want to see.
Not yet.
She got up, showered, and put on the first simple outfit she found in her suitcase: denim shorts, a light T-shirt, trainers and sunglasses pushed into her still-damp hair. She didn’t do much makeup. Didn’t add glitter. Didn’t get ready for anyone.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Before leaving, she looked at the cherry gummy again.
On impulse, she picked it up.
She didn’t eat it.
She tucked it into a small pouch in her bag, like a piece of evidence she didn’t want to admit she was keeping.
Then she left.
London welcomed her with a bright kind of heat, different from the nighttime warmth. More exposed. Harder to romanticise. The pavements were busy, cafés had tables outside, and tourists stood around checking maps with the same lost expression she had probably worn two nights earlier.
Y/N walked without much of a plan.
She wanted to fill the day.
She wanted to prove there was a London beyond him. That the city hadn’t turned entirely into a map of possible streets leading to Harry. That it could still be hers, only hers, even if some annoying part of her mind kept looking for traces of him in things that had nothing to do with him.
She went into a small stationery shop because she saw notebooks in the window.
It was a mistake.
She knew it was a mistake the second she pushed the door open and smelled fresh paper, pens, wood and air conditioning. The shelves were full of beautiful notebooks, the kind that seemed to ask for a new, organised life. A version of herself who woke up early, drank unsweetened coffee, made lists and never left important messages unanswered.
Y/N stopped in front of a central table.
There were plain notebooks, floral ones, others with small gold designs, and a few far too expensive for someone who had already bought merch and pretended that a tote bag counted as financial responsibility.
She thought of Harry.
Of course.
Because now even notebooks had the stupid power to lead her back to him.
I buy notebooks I think I’ll use for lyrics, ideas, phrases, lists, whatever.
And then?
Then I write two pages, decide everything is terrible, and use my phone notes instead.
Y/N smiled to herself, annoyed by her own memory.
She picked up a dark green notebook, simple, with thick pages and a small gold mark in the corner. It wasn’t the prettiest in the shop. It wasn’t the most expensive. But it was pretty enough to scare her and simple enough for her to try not to be scared.
She bought it.
She bought a black pen too.
The woman at the till placed everything in a small bag, and Y/N left the shop with the absurd feeling that she had just bought a promise.
She found a café with outdoor tables on a quieter street. She sat in the shade, ordered an iced coffee and spent a while just staring at the closed notebook.
It was stupid.
She knew that.
She had told Harry she bought notebooks as if she were starting a new life on Monday and then never used them. Now she was there, on a summer morning in London, with a new notebook in front of her and an impossible story stuck in her chest.
Maybe that was exactly why she had to open it.
Y/N took the pen out of its packaging, drew in a breath and wrote on the first page.
Not a beautiful title.
Not a perfect sentence.
Just the date.
Then she stared at the page for a few seconds.
The pen hovered over the paper.
And then she wrote:
I met a person everyone knows, but I think the problem is that no one really knows who he is. Maybe not even him.
She stopped.
The sentence felt dramatic.
Too dramatic.
She almost crossed it out.
But then she remembered him saying he bought notebooks and decided everything in them was terrible.
So she didn’t cross it out.
She kept going.
She wrote about the first night. About the almost empty street. About the wired earphones. About the way he had seemed ready for her to turn him into a photograph and how disarmed he looked when she didn’t.
She wrote about cherry gummies.
About the shop.
About the bus stop.
About the fact that he was engaged and still looked more lost than anyone she had met in that city.
She wrote about the second night.
About him showing up.
About her not waiting for him, even though some part of her had been.
About botanical LEGO, perfumes, notebooks and criminal shoes.
About the way he could say things that were far too beautiful and then just stand there, as if he didn’t know what to do with them either.
She wrote until her hand started to ache.
Then she read the last sentence she had written.
I’m scared I’m starting to like getting to know the real person, and the real person still doesn’t know if he exists outside the life everyone chose for him.
Y/N put the pen down.
She stared at that sentence for a long time.
Then she closed the notebook carefully.
The day went on.
She tried to let it.
She went into a toy shop because there was a box of LEGO flowers in the window and, obviously, because the universe had a terrible sense of humour. She stood in front of the shelf for far too long, comparing bouquets, orchids and little gardens as if the choice mattered.
She didn’t buy anything.
But she did take a photo of the bonsai set.
She almost sent it to him.
Then she remembered she didn’t have his number.
Good.
Very good.
Excellent.
She left the shop laughing to herself again.
Then she went into a perfume shop.
That was the second mistake.
The air was full of overlapping scents: flowers, vanilla, wood, citrus, notes promising absurd things like freedom, desire, Italian summers and infinite nights. Y/N told herself she would smell only one.
She smelled nine.
By the eleventh, she could feel a headache forming behind her eyes.
“You’re a disgrace,” she muttered, setting down a scented paper strip.
The shop assistant smiled politely, probably used to emotionally unstable tourists smelling perfumes as if they were looking for answers.
Y/N left without buying anything.
As always.
Outside, she put her sunglasses on and laughed again.
This time, the laugh died faster.
Because she realised that, without meaning to, she had spent the entire morning inside the useless facts she had told him.
The notebook.
The LEGO.
The perfumes.
As if she were visiting small pieces of herself after leaving them in his hands.
And that scared her.
Because those facts were hers.
Small, ridiculous, harmless.
And yet now, somehow, they were his too.
When she got back to the hotel in the late afternoon, tired, warm and with a slight headache, the receptionist looked up before she even reached the desk.
Y/N knew.
Her body knew before her mind did.
“Good afternoon,” the girl said, with a discreet smile. “I have something for you.”
Y/N stopped.
Her heart did that stupid little jump she hated.
“For me?”
The receptionist took a plain envelope from beneath the desk.
This time, there was no bag.
Only an envelope.
Her name was handwritten on the front.
Y/N took it far too carefully.
“Thank you.”
She went upstairs before opening it.
Not because she thought she was going to cry.
Of course not.
It was just that the lift was a very private place for a person to pretend she wasn’t about to open an envelope like it was a sentence.
In her room, she dropped her bag onto the bed, sat at the small desk and opened it.
There was a folded note inside.
The handwriting was simple, slightly rushed.
Y/N,
It’s sorted, if you still want to come.
Give your name at the DISCO VIP entrance. Someone will be waiting to hand everything to you directly — it’s safer that way.
I left water, cherries, and a small upgrade to the emotional treatment.
You don’t have to come.
But if you do, I hope you choose less criminal shoes.
— H.
Y/N covered her mouth with her hand.
She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh, scream, or close the envelope and pretend she had never received it.
She read it again.
And again.
It’s sorted.
If you still want to come.
You don’t have to come.
That was the problem.
He kept leaving the door open without pushing her through it.
And she didn’t know if that was respect or the most dangerous form of temptation.
Y/N left the note on the desk and paced the room twice.
Then once more.
Then she sat on the bed.
Then she got up again.
“You’re not going,” she said out loud.
The sentence fell into the room with no strength at all.
She looked at her suitcase.
Then at the mirror.
Then at the note.
Then at the green notebook on the bed.
She opened it to the next page.
She wrote only:
If I say my name, this stops being a coincidence.
She stared at the sentence.
Then she closed the notebook.
And started getting ready.
She wasn’t going because of him.
Not exactly.
She was going because she wanted to. Because London was hers that week. Because she had given herself the trip, the concerts, the streets, the cafés, the mistakes and the warm nights. Because somewhere inside herself she had promised she wouldn’t stop living something just because it was complicated.
And maybe, yes, because she wanted to know if he had really followed through.
But it wasn’t because of him.
Not only.
She chose an outfit different from the other concert nights, but still very much hers. A light top that left her shoulders bare, a short skirt with enough movement for heat and music, and trainers that weren’t as pretty as her boots but at least didn’t resemble medieval torture devices. She left her hair natural, curls loose and a little wild from the humidity and summer air. She added subtle glitter to the corners of her eyes, almost like a memory of the previous nights, and a soft lipstick that probably wouldn’t survive two songs.
When she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt beautiful.
That annoyed her.
Because part of her knew she had taken more care than she wanted to admit.
“It’s not for him,” she told her reflection.
Her reflection didn’t seem convinced.
Y/N rolled her eyes at herself.
“Shut up.”
The journey to Wembley felt longer than on the other days.
Maybe because this time her heart knew exactly where it was going.
By the time she reached the stadium, the atmosphere was already alive. Groups of fans glittered in the late afternoon light, signs rose into the air, people laughed, took pictures, fixed their makeup, traded bracelets. Everything looked the same as the other nights and completely different at once.
Y/N walked towards the DISCO VIP entrance.
Every step seemed to say: you can still leave.
She almost did.
Right by the door, she stopped.
A member of staff was holding a list and speaking to another girl. Y/N stood a few metres away, pretending to look for something in her bag.
She didn’t have to do this.
Harry had said so.
You don’t have to come.
She could turn around. Go for a walk. Return to the hotel, take off her makeup, write in her notebook and protect herself before this became any more real.
But then she thought of the sentence in the notebook.
If I say my name, this stops being a coincidence.
Maybe she was tired of coincidences.
Maybe she was tired of pretending she didn’t want things just because they were unlikely.
Maybe she just wanted to prove to herself that she could choose something and deal with whatever came next.
She took a breath.
Stepped forward.
“Hi,” she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt. “My name is Y/N. I was told to come to this entrance.”
The woman looked at her carefully, then at the list.
For one second, Y/N was certain nothing would be there. That it had all been a misunderstanding. That she would look ridiculous in front of a stranger with an earpiece and an overly official list.
Then the woman smiled.
“Yes. You’re here.”
Y/N felt the ground slip slightly beneath her.
“I am?”
“You are. One moment, please.”
The woman spoke quietly into her earpiece, then gestured to someone near a side table. A man brought over a credential, a wristband and a small clear bag.
“Everything is here,” the woman said. “The water too. And this.”
She handed her the bag.
Inside was a bottle of water.
A bag of cherry gummies.
And another bag of gummies shaped like flowers.
Y/N stared at them.
Flowers.
Of course.
There was also a small note, folded once.
She opened it right there, with the sound of the stadium growing around her.
I saw these and couldn’t not think of you.
Flowers, but edible.
Less permanent than LEGO, but probably more useful during an existential crisis.
Consider this an upgrade to the emotional treatment.
— H.
Y/N laughed.
She couldn’t help it.
It was low, disbelieving, completely stupid.
The woman pretended not to notice.
Or maybe she was used to strange things.
Y/N tucked the note carefully into her bag, as if it were made of something more fragile than paper, and let them fasten the wristband around her wrist.
He had listened.
That was what hit her.
Not the entrance.
Not the credential.
Not the fact that her name was on a list it should never have been on.
It was the flower gummies.
It was him remembering something ridiculous she had said on a warm London street after midnight and turning it into something small, funny and intimate.
It was him paying attention.
And that was far more dangerous than any VIP access.
On the other side of the stadium, Harry was surrounded by people.
It was almost funny, he thought, how someone could be so accompanied and still feel so far away from everything.
There were voices around him. A team confirming timings. Someone talking about guests. A friend laughing loudly by the sofa. Someone else asking if he wanted to eat before getting dressed. A production member reminding him of a small change in the set. The distant sound of the stadium filling up.
And Zoë.
Zoë was there too.
Sitting on a nearby sofa, one leg tucked beneath her, looking at him every now and then as if trying to figure out exactly which part of himself he had disappeared into.
Harry could feel that look.
He felt it as much as he felt the dressing room lights, the fabric of the half-open shirt against his skin, the heat that didn’t come from the air conditioning but from somewhere inside him.
“You alright?” someone asked.
He answered without thinking.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
The lie came too easily.
So easily it irritated him.
Because since meeting Y/N, certain lies had started to sound louder.
As if she had placed a small light over them, not to shame him, but to stop him pretending they were invisible.
Harry glanced at the phone on the table.
No messages.
Of course there were no messages.
She didn’t have his number.
Still, he looked.
As if the phone could tell him she had arrived. That she had said her name. That she had accepted the door he had opened without knowing if he had any right to open it.
Someone from the team passed him and said quietly, “It’s sorted. If she shows up, she comes in through DISCO. They’ll give her the bag.”
Harry nodded once.
Tried to keep his face neutral.
“Thank you.”
The words came out too quietly.
The person walked away.
Harry drew in a breath.
If she shows up.
The possibility hung in the air like a suspended note.
“Harry?”
He looked up.
Zoë was watching him.
Not accusingly.
With something softer.
Harder.
Concern.
“Yeah?”
She got up from the sofa and walked towards him. She touched his arm naturally, her fingers closing lightly around the fabric of his open shirt.
“You’re strange today.”
He forced a small smile.
“Just tired.”
“It’s not just tired.”
The sentence caught him off guard.
Harry looked at her.
Zoë held his gaze, but her expression stayed gentle. Maybe that was what disarmed him most. She wasn’t accusing him of anything. She wasn’t trying to hold his hands down. She was simply sensing a distance he hadn’t even confessed to himself yet.
“I’ve felt like you’re far away,” she said, quieter, so no one around them would hear. “Even when you’re here.”
Harry swallowed.
He could answer.
He could say it was the pressure. The exhaustion. The show. The adrenaline. His whole life moving too fast. And all of that would be true.
It just wouldn’t be the whole truth.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Zoë softened.
“I’m not angry.” She ran a hand over his chest, adjusting the shirt in a small, intimate gesture. “I just feel like I barely see you. Even when I’m sleeping beside you.”
Guilt settled in his stomach like a stone.
Harry thought of Y/N looking away whenever a conversation got too close to a wound. The way she protected herself with jokes, as if every funny line were a door closing before someone could walk in uninvited. He thought of the way she rolled her eyes when she thought he was being dramatic, always with the corner of her mouth almost smiling, as if she were mocking him and saving him at the same time.
He thought of the way she bit the inside of her cheek when she started getting nervous. He had noticed it the night before, when he told her he had seen her in the crowd. She looked away, pretended to be annoyed, made a joke, but before that there had been that tiny gesture: her teeth catching the inside of her cheek, as if she were trying to hold back a reaction she didn’t want to give him.
Harry didn’t know why he remembered it so clearly.
Maybe because no one had felt new enough for him to notice details in a very long time.
Maybe because Y/N seemed made of them.
Small escapes.
Small defences.
Small truths slipping out between jokes.
“Harry?”
He came back to the present.
Zoë was still in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and hated himself a little for not having another word ready.
She smiled, but there was a shadow in it.
“After the show, will you stay with me for a bit? That’s all. No running, no disappearing, no going out alone for air.” She tried to laugh, making it lighter. “Just stay with me and your friends for one night.”
Harry felt his chest tighten.
The route.
The shop.
Y/N.
The time.
The concert hadn’t even started and already there was an invisible hand pulling him away from the street.
“Yeah,” he said.
The answer came before courage could.
Zoë smiled with relief and leaned in to kiss his cheek, quick and familiar, in front of everyone. No one noticed. Or everyone noticed and pretended they didn’t, because it was a scene that made sense.
His fiancée asking him to be present.
Him giving that to her.
Simple.
Harry looked at his phone again.
Still nothing.
Then he remembered something else.
Y/N saying she insulted people when she started liking them too much.
Useless fact number four.
It had stuck with him in an absurd way.
Not because of the sentence itself.
Because of the silence that followed.
Because of the way she had raised her hand, almost defensively.
No. Don’t do anything with that.
She had given him a truth and, in the same second, asked him not to turn it into a weapon, a promise, an excuse.
Use it as air.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment.
Tried to breathe.
Couldn’t quite manage enough.
When he stepped onstage, the stadium welcomed him as if nothing inside him could possibly be cracked.
The sound was enormous.
The kind of sound that hit his chest before it reached his ears. Lights, arms in the air, faces impossible to distinguish, signs, glitter, screams, love, expectation. All of it rising towards him like a tide.
Harry smiled.
Because that was what he did.
Because part of him loved it.
Because part of him was it.
But between one song and the next, before he could stop himself, he looked towards DISCO.
He searched.
This time, he admitted he was searching.
And she was there.
Y/N.
Her hair loose in natural curls, wilder than on the previous nights, light touching her shoulders, subtle glitter near her eyes, a new wristband around her wrist and a small bag held in one hand. She wasn’t trying to get his attention. She wasn’t holding a sign. She wasn’t screaming louder than everyone else.
She was just there.
Living the concert.
Her choice was almost louder than any scream.
She had said her name.
Harry felt something in his chest open and tighten at the same time.
For one second, he forgot the next line.
Not completely.
But almost.
The band carried the moment. He came in on time. The stadium never noticed.
Y/N noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Harry saw the way she lowered her head and smiled to herself, as if trying not to react. Then she rolled her eyes, discreetly, as if to say: focus, global superstar.
He almost laughed.
Almost.
But his throat felt strange.
Later, when he had a second near the part of the stage closest to that area, he saw her discreetly pull the flower gummies from the bag and lift them slightly.
Not enough to draw attention.
Just enough for him to see.
Harry lowered his head, pretending to adjust his earpiece.
He smiled at the floor.
This time, no one in the stadium understood why.
Or maybe everyone made up their own theories.
Y/N tucked the bag away and sang the rest of the song with bright eyes.
He tried not to look again.
He failed a few times.
Farther away, in the reserved area, Zoë was watching too.
She didn’t see Y/N.
There was no way she could know.
But she saw Harry.
She saw how, in some moments, he seemed less attached to the show and more attached to one specific point in the crowd. She saw a smile that felt different, though she couldn’t have said why. She saw his gaze linger half a second too long where it shouldn’t.
And she felt, without understanding it, that some part of him was slipping through her fingers.
After the concert, Y/N did exactly what she always did.
She didn’t run out.
She didn’t wait near private doors.
She didn’t try to figure out where he would go.
She didn’t open X looking for rumours.
She stayed a little longer.
She passed the merch stand again, even though she already had the tote bag and even though her bank account was probably drafting a farewell letter. This time, she didn’t buy anything. She only touched a T-shirt, smiled at the absurdity of wanting to keep everything physically, and moved on.
Outside, the atmosphere was still warm and alive. The summer air felt mixed with hoarse voices and sweet perfume. People sat on pavements, groups took photos, fans hugged each other like they had known one another for years.
Y/N stayed there for a while.
She didn’t want the night to end.
Or maybe she didn’t want to reach the part of the night where she would find out whether he came.
She passed the karaoke bar again.
The door was open.
This time, someone was singing an old song from the band with a terrible voice and absolute passion. The whole bar joined in, off-key and happy.
Y/N stopped at the door.
Smiled.
Went in for one song.
Stayed for three.
She didn’t sing into the microphone. Never. Not under threat. But she sang quietly by the wall, the small bag around her wrist, the flower gummies still unopened in her purse.
For a while, she managed to forget.
Or pretend she did.
When she finally left, the night was emptier.
Quieter.
Closer to the truth.
Y/N started walking.
The same route.
Just as she had before.
Just as she had said she would.
Not for him.
For herself.
Because the route was hers now too. Because she had walked it alone first. Because some part of her refused to change her own path just to avoid feeling.
The heat still clung to the asphalt. Her jacket hung over her arm. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck and her feet, even in trainers, were starting to feel the weight of another night standing.
By the time she reached the twenty-four-hour shop, her heart was already beating too fast.
Which annoyed her.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered.
She went inside.
The white light attacked her like always. The employee seemed not to recognise or care about her existence, which she was beginning to find strangely comforting.
She grabbed a bottle of water.
Stopped in front of the gummies.
Saw the cherry ones.
Picked them up.
Then she noticed, on a lower shelf, gummies shaped like flowers.
She stared.
She didn’t buy them.
His flowers were in her bag.
Still unopened.
And, for some reason, she wanted to keep them that way a little longer.
She paid for the water and cherry gummies, left the shop and stopped on the pavement.
She looked across the street.
The wall.
The closed doorway.
The shadow where he had stood the night before.
Nothing.
Y/N took a breath.
Okay.
Of course.
It was early.
Maybe.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe he was just late.
Or maybe he wasn’t coming.
She opened the water and drank some, just to give her hands something to do.
She stayed there.
Not long.
Just long enough to lie to herself and say she wasn’t waiting.
Five minutes.
Then ten.
Then two more, because hope is a humiliating thing and rarely owns a watch.
The heat of the night started to feel heavier.
A car passed.
Two girls crossed the street laughing, one of them barefoot with her heels in her hand.
The shop employee stepped outside for a moment to smoke, looked at her with no interest, and went back in.
Harry didn’t come.
Y/N felt her chest sink slowly.
It wasn’t a dramatic fall.
It was worse.
It was small and silent and almost adult.
The simple understanding that she had let herself hope a little.
Not because she was stupid.
Not exactly.
Because she was human.
Because someone had seen her in a crowd of eighty thousand people. Because someone had listened to her useless facts and bought gummies shaped like flowers. Because someone had said he looked for her before realising he was looking. Because someone had given her the dangerous feeling of being real to a person who seemed unreal to the whole world.
And that was it.
Sometimes that was enough.
Y/N let out a low laugh.
Almost bitter.
Almost fond.
“Congratulations,” she said to herself. “You managed to fall in love with a route.”
The word love startled her enough that she shook her head immediately.
No.
Not that.
It couldn’t be that.
It was curiosity. Affection. Tension. A strange thing. A story she didn’t want to be a story.
It was liking getting to know someone.
It was liking too quickly the part of someone he might not even know how to keep yet.
It was different.
It had to be different.
Y/N looked across the street one last time.
Nothing.
Then she put the gummies in her bag and went back to the hotel.
Not angry.
Not really.
Just sad.
And a little embarrassed to be sad.
In the lift, she laughed at herself again, but her eyes felt hot.
“You didn’t even expect him to come the first time,” she whispered to her reflection. “Now look at you.”
The reflection didn’t answer.
It had glitter near one eye, messy curls, a tired mouth and the expression of someone who wanted to be stronger than she was.
In the room, she didn’t turn on the light.
She put the water on the bedside table.
Placed the cherry gummies beside the old gummy and the portable charger.
Then took the flower gummies from her bag and placed them there too, still unopened.
Three small pieces of proof sat on the table.
Cherries.
Flowers.
Battery.
Practical and ridiculous things.
Things that, somehow, seemed to say: this happened.
Y/N opened the green notebook.
She wrote for a while.
Less than she had that morning.
The words came slower now.
At the end, she wrote:
I did the route. He didn’t come.
She stopped.
The sentence felt too simple for how large it was inside her.
She added:
Maybe this is good. Maybe this is exactly the reminder that someone can make you feel seen and still not be able to choose you. Maybe one thing doesn’t cancel out the other.
She closed the notebook.
Lay down without removing her makeup.
And for a long time, she stayed awake listening to the air conditioning and the distant city, trying to convince herself she wasn’t waiting to hear footsteps in the hallway.
Across London, Harry was trapped in a room full of people who loved him.
That was the cruelest part.
No one was hurting him.
No one was stopping him with malice.
No one was saying: don’t go.
It was worse than that.
Everyone needed him in reasonable ways.
The team needed ten more minutes. There were important guests to greet. A friend had come specifically to celebrate. Someone brought drinks. Someone asked for a photo. Someone talked about plans after the final show. Someone said he deserved to be surrounded by people who loved him.
And Zoë was beside him.
Closer than before.
As if, throughout the night, she had decided that if she felt him slipping away, she would hold onto him with tenderness.
Not force.
Tenderness.
And that was harder to refuse.
She touched his arm when she spoke. Leaned against his shoulder. Pulled him into conversations with friends. Laughed at things he barely heard, then looked at him as if waiting for him to laugh too.
Harry laughed.
Too late, sometimes.
At the wrong moment, others.
At one point, Zoë squeezed his hand.
“Stay with me,” she said quietly, beneath the noise. “Just tonight.”
Harry looked at her.
Her face was open.
Almost vulnerable.
And he saw, with painful clarity, that maybe he wasn’t the only one who could feel something changing.
Zoë didn’t know what.
But she felt it.
And because she felt it, she tried to come closer.
Tried to remind him of the life they had.
Tried to bring him back to the centre of the room, the centre of the relationship, the centre of the story everyone understood.
Harry looked at the time.
The hour of the route had already passed.
His stomach tightened.
He tried to imagine Y/N at the shop.
Water in one hand.
Gummies in the other.
Rolling her eyes to herself because he was late.
Pretending she wasn’t waiting.
Biting the inside of her cheek when she realised maybe he wasn’t coming.
The image nearly broke him.
“I have to go,” he said quietly.
Zoë blinked, surprised.
“Now?”
“I just…” He stopped.
There was no good way to finish the sentence.
I need air.
He had used that already.
I need to go out.
That too.
I need to get to a twenty-four-hour shop and see if a girl who shouldn’t be in my head is still waiting for me.
Impossible.
Zoë held his hand tighter.
“Harry, please.” Her voice was low, almost swallowed by the noise around them. “I feel like you’re always leaving.”
He went still.
The sentence struck him in the chest.
Because it was true.
Maybe not physically.
Maybe not always.
But inside, yes.
He was always leaving.
The room.
The bed.
The conversations.
The version of life everyone thought he should want.
And maybe the worst part was that he still didn’t know where he was going.
He only knew that lately, there seemed to be air on a warm London street, outside a twenty-four-hour shop, with a girl who pulled him back to reality every time he tried to dramatise his own chaos.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Zoë searched his face.
“For what?”
Harry didn’t answer.
He didn’t know.
Or he knew too much.
He stayed ten more minutes.
Then twenty.
Then long enough for the route to stop being a route and become a missed chance.
When he finally left, he didn’t run.
He wanted to.
But he didn’t.
He slipped out through the more discreet entrance, cap pulled low, wired earphones in his pocket. The night was still warm, but it felt different now. Less alive. Emptier. As if the city knew he was late and had no mercy.
When he reached the shop, the street was almost deserted.
Across the road, the wall where he had waited the night before was empty.
Harry stopped on the pavement.
The shop was still open.
White lights.
Colourful shelves.
The same small world where, for two nights, he had managed to pretend enormous decisions could fit inside a bag of sweets.
He went in.
The employee looked at him with no interest.
Harry almost smiled.
Y/N would have liked that.
He bought a bottle of water.
Bought cherry gummies.
Not because he needed them.
Because he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Outside, he stood for a few seconds in the same place where she must have stood.
Maybe she had.
Maybe she had waited.
Maybe she had laughed at herself.
Maybe she had walked away thinking he was exactly what she had always known he could be: someone who wanted to arrive, but still let too many people choose his path for him.
Harry closed his eyes.
The sentence came by itself.
I looked for you too late.
He felt a short pain in his chest.
Not only because of her.
Because of all the times that sentence had probably been true in his life.
Too late to say no.
Too late to say yes.
Too late to realise he was performing.
Too late to admit he no longer knew where what he wanted ended and what everyone else wanted for him began.
He didn’t go to her room.
Didn’t ask for her number.
Didn’t try to turn his absence into a dramatic gesture.
He went to reception.
The night receptionist was there, different from the one in the morning. Harry kept his cap low, his voice calm, and asked if he could leave an envelope for Y/N.
The receptionist looked at him for a second.
Maybe she recognised him.
Maybe she didn’t.
Maybe she did and chose to be kind.
“Of course,” she said.
Harry asked for paper.
He sat in a quiet corner of the small lobby, the bottle of water beside him and the unopened bag of gummies between his hands.
It took him longer than he expected.
Not because he didn’t know what to write.
Because he did.
And because every word felt like a confession.
In the end, he left the envelope at reception.
Then he walked out before he could change his mind.
The next morning, Y/N woke with her face half pressed into the pillow and her makeup still smudged near her eyes.
For a few seconds, she didn’t remember.
Then she remembered everything.
The concert.
The flowers.
The shop.
The empty street.
The sentence in her notebook.
I did the route. He didn’t come.
She stayed still.
She waited for it to hurt less in the morning.
It didn’t.
But it felt different.
Less humiliating.
Calmer.
As if the night had left a stain and daylight had only made it more visible.
Y/N got up slowly, showered and put on something simple. She packed the green notebook in her bag, along with the unopened flower gummies. She decided to leave early. Maybe go to a museum. Maybe a garden. Maybe anywhere no one knew a girl could be sad over a man not showing up on a street that had never belonged to her.
When she came downstairs, the receptionist called her before she reached the door.
“Y/N?”
She stopped.
Her heart did that thing again.
This time, she hated it a little less.
“Yes?”
The receptionist held out an envelope.
“This was left for you last night.”
Y/N stared at it.
For one second, she couldn’t move.
Then she took it.
“Thank you.”
She left the hotel before opening it.
She didn’t want to read it in the lobby.
She didn’t want anyone to see whatever her face was about to do.
She walked to a quieter street, where a small tree cast shade over a bench. She sat there, with London waking up around her, and opened the envelope.
His handwriting looked slower this time.
Less rushed.
Heavier.
Y/N,
I looked for you too late.
I think that sentence sums up more of my life than I’d like to admit.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for giving your name. Thank you for taking the route even when I couldn’t.
You told me not to use any night as proof of anything.
I’m trying.
But this one proved something to me: I still let too many people choose my path before I do.
I hope London is good to you tomorrow.
And I hope the cherry gummies stay too sweet.
— H.
Y/N read it once.
Then again.
By the third time, the letters weren’t quite clear anymore.
She folded the paper carefully, as if afraid of hurting it.
She didn’t cry beautifully.
Or dramatically.
A single small, irritating tear slipped out, and she wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand, laughing at herself a second later.
“Idiot,” she muttered.
But she didn’t know whether she meant herself.
Him.
The route.
Or the part of her that was still moved by someone admitting he had failed.
She opened her bag and took out the green notebook.
For a few seconds, she held it on her lap, one hand resting on the cover.
Then she opened it to a new page.
She placed the note between two pages, without tape, without any careful arrangement, just holding it there for now, like something that didn’t yet know where it belonged.
Underneath, she wrote:
He was too late.
She stopped.
Bit the inside of her cheek.
Then smiled without meaning to when she realised what she had done.
Harry would have noticed.
The thought hurt in a strange way.
So she wrote one more sentence.
But for the first time, maybe he knows.
She closed the notebook.
London continued around her.
Buses passed. People walked by with coffees in their hands. A couple argued quietly near a crossing. Someone dragged a suitcase that was far too heavy over the pavement. The city knew nothing about her. Nothing about him. Nothing about missed routes, cherry gummies or notes left too late at hotel receptions.
Y/N drew in a breath.
The morning air was warm, but lighter than the night before.
She still had a week in London.
No concerts.
No VIP wristbands.
No easy excuses.
No agreed route between Wembley and the hotel.
If Harry wanted to find her now, he would have to do more than appear where chance had already left them.
He would have to choose.
And Y/N, as much as it tightened her chest, realised that maybe that was the only continuation worth having.
She put the notebook back in her bag.
Stood up.
And walked down the street, unsure whether she was moving away from him or finally leaving enough space for him to come by choice.
the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me <3
word count: 7650 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Part 1 is here!
Same Route
Y/N kept her promise.
Just not immediately.
When the concert ended, she didn’t rush out of Wembley like she had some secret destination waiting for her. She didn’t linger near the side exits. She didn’t try to figure out where Harry might leave from, or open X to follow real-time fan theories about black cars, private entrances, and luxury hotels.
She did what any fan would do after a night like that.
She stayed a little longer.
She let herself move with the glittering, noisy crowd, the DISCO VIP wristband tight around her wrist and the bag of cherry gummies hidden in her jacket pocket like something forbidden. She wandered over to the merch stand even though she definitely shouldn’t have spent any more money. She touched a hoodie that was far too expensive, stared at a T-shirt she wanted only for the memory, and eventually bought a tote bag because she needed to pretend she still had some sense of financial responsibility.
Then she simply stayed there for a while, existing in the beautiful chaos around the stadium.
Fans sat on the ground trading bracelets. Girls fixed glitter in the reflection of their phones. Whole groups were still screaming lyrics, hoarse and euphoric, clinging to that version of the night where everything felt possible. Wembley glowed behind them like it refused to go dark.
Y/N walked without rushing, letting the atmosphere settle into her skin.
She wasn’t waiting for anything.
She repeated that to herself more than once.
She wasn’t waiting for him.
She wasn’t waiting for another impossible night.
She wasn’t waiting for a man with wired earphones and tired eyes to decide to appear again on a nearly empty street just because she had written a sentence on a piece of hotel paper.
Maybe that was why she stopped when she heard music coming from a small bar on a street near the stadium.
The door was open. Inside, warm light spilled over tables, glasses clinked, people laughed too loudly, and a karaoke machine projected lyrics onto a small wall. Someone was singing a song from his old band with far more enthusiasm than skill, and almost everyone in the bar joined in on the chorus like it was still 2013 and nothing bad could happen in the world.
Y/N smiled before she could stop herself.
She went in for just a few minutes.
At least, that was what she told herself.
She stood near the wall with the merch tote over her shoulder, her concert outfit still catching the low bar lights, her feet begging for mercy inside her boots. She sang quietly when an old song from the band came on. She laughed when a guy climbed onto the tiny makeshift stage and dedicated an overdramatic ballad “to Harry, who will never know I exist.” She almost cried when, afterwards, someone picked one of his songs and the entire bar sang like they were still inside Wembley.
For a while, it was only that.
Music.
Fans.
Hoarse voices.
People who didn’t know each other, but somehow understood one another because they loved the same thing.
Y/N realised then that maybe this was the most beautiful part of travelling alone for a concert: you were never really alone when someone else knew the same lyrics.
When she finally left the bar, the night had calmed down.
The streets around the stadium were emptier now. The crowd had slowly dissolved into stations, buses, Ubers, hotel rooms and phone calls home. Wembley still glowed behind her, but it felt farther away now, like a memory losing volume.
The heat, however, still clung to the pavement. It was one of those summer nights where the city seemed too tired to cool down, and Y/N could feel her skin warm, her makeup worn, her feet aching inside her boots.
Only then did she start walking back towards her hotel.
The same route as the night before.
Not because she was waiting for anything.
That was important.
She wasn’t.
She had stopped by the merch stand. She had soaked up the atmosphere. She had gone into a karaoke bar. She had given the night enough time to take its own course, for Harry to return to his life, his hotel, his people, his world.
If he showed up now, it wouldn’t be because she had waited for him.
It would be because he had chosen to come back around too.
Because, just like the night before, there was something about that street that seemed to offer a little air.
Y/N slipped her hand into her pocket.
Her fingers found the bag of cherry gummies.
Ridiculous.
She smiled to herself and shook her head.
“You’re not waiting for anything,” she muttered.
A girl passing by glanced at her for a second.
Y/N pretended to cough.
Great. Now she was talking to herself in London after concerts. Very healthy. Very balanced.
She kept walking.
The streets were no longer wet like they had been the night before, but the air was still heavy and warm, trapped between buildings as if London were holding onto the day’s heat. There was something stifling about that summer night, a mix of warm asphalt, perfume, sweat, spilled beer and glitter that seemed determined to stay on her skin.
The fans faded behind her slowly, turning into echoes, distant laughter, choruses lost somewhere down larger avenues.
Y/N ran a hand over the back of her neck, pushing away strands of hair that had stuck to her skin. Her jacket was hanging uselessly over her arm now, and her boots felt heavier with every step.
With every step, she told herself he might not come.
He probably wouldn’t.
He had a life. People. Responsibilities. A whole team around him. A strange conversation at a bus stop didn’t mean anything in the real world.
But then she remembered his smile onstage.
The one he’d tried to hide when he saw her in DISCO VIP.
That was worse.
Because something seen by eighty thousand people could still feel like a secret.
When she reached the twenty-four-hour shop, she stopped.
The blue-and-white sign glowed the same way. The window showed the same shelves, too bright and too colourful. The employee might even have been the same one, or maybe all late-night shop workers simply had that identical look of having lost all faith in humanity.
Y/N stood across the street for a few seconds.
No one was outside.
No man in running clothes.
No damp hair.
No white earphone wire hanging against a chest.
Something strange shifted inside her.
Not surprise.
Just the small, quiet humiliation of realising that, no matter how many times she’d sworn she wasn’t waiting, part of her had been.
She took a breath.
“Okay,” she said to herself. “That was it. You did the route. Now you’re going back to the hotel and sleeping like a normal person.”
She crossed the street.
Went into the shop.
The white light hit her eyes with the same violence as the night before. Everything looked the same and somehow emptier.
She grabbed a bottle of water.
Then she stopped in front of the sweets.
She didn’t need to buy anything.
She already had cherry gummies in her pocket.
Still, she picked up another bag.
Maybe because she was stupid.
Maybe because some things, when you didn’t know what else to do with them, became rituals.
She went to the counter.
The employee scanned the water and sweets without really looking at her.
Y/N paid, put everything away, and stepped outside.
That was when she saw him.
Across the street.
Leaning against the wall, half-hidden in the shadow of a closed doorway, a dark cap pulled low, a simple T-shirt clinging slightly to his chest in the heat, wired earphones wrapped around one hand.
He wasn’t running tonight.
He was just there.
Waiting.
Y/N’s heart stuttered so obviously she hated her body for betraying her, even from a distance.
Harry looked up.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
Then he crossed the street.
Slowly.
Like every step was a choice he still had time to undo.
Y/N stayed exactly where she was, the paper bag in one hand and the bottle of water in the other. She could feel the heat of the night on her skin, her hair stuck to the back of her neck, her boots too tight, the DISCO VIP wristband still on her wrist like bright proof that the night had really happened.
But this?
This felt impossible.
When Harry stopped in front of her, he wasn’t out of breath like the night before. He hadn’t come from a run. His hair wasn’t damp from a shower, his breathing wasn’t ragged from trying to exhaust his body into quieting his mind.
He looked like he had come on purpose.
The thought hit her too hard.
Y/N held the paper bag closer to her chest.
“You really came,” he said.
She let out a small laugh, but there was no way to make it sound normal.
“I said I’d take the same route.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t look so surprised.”
Harry looked down for a second. When he lifted his eyes again, there was something almost embarrassed in his expression.
“I think part of me thought you were smarter than that.”
Y/N tried to smile.
“And I thought part of you would be smarter than showing up.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Fair.”
Silence settled between them.
But it wasn’t like the night before.
The night before had been an accident. A phone nearly out of battery. A wrong street. A man running in the dark. A fan who chose not to scream.
Now there was choice.
And that made everything more dangerous.
Y/N glanced at the ground, trying to find something sensible to say. Something light. Something that wouldn’t reveal the fact that her heart was beating as if she’d run all the way from Wembley to this street.
“I didn’t think you’d actually show up,” she said finally.
Harry went still.
It came out more honest than she meant it to.
He watched her carefully.
“No?”
Y/N shook her head.
“No. I wrote it in the note, but…” She took a breath, suddenly feeling exposed. “It was more a way of saying you could breathe, if you needed to. It wasn’t… it wasn’t a real invitation.”
“No?”
“I mean, it was. But it also wasn’t.” She closed her eyes for half a second. “This is coming out terribly.”
Harry laughed softly.
“I’m following.”
“Great, because I’m not.”
His smile softened.
Y/N looked at the shop behind her, then at the almost empty street. Heat was still rising from the pavement, and the city seemed suspended in that odd space between the end of a night and the beginning of something no one should start.
“I stayed after the concert,” she said, as if she needed to explain herself. “I went to see the merch. Walked around a bit. There was this bar nearby with karaoke. They were singing your songs and old band songs, and I went in for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes?”
She grimaced.
“Maybe more than a few minutes.”
Harry smiled.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.” She looked at him. “A lot, actually. There was a guy singing a ballad with an absurd amount of feeling. I think he almost dropped to his knees during the chorus.”
Harry laughed.
“Brave.”
“Or stupid.”
“Could be both.”
Y/N felt a familiar pinch in her chest when he repeated her words from the night before.
He seemed to notice too.
His smile slowed.
“So you didn’t come straight here,” he said.
“No.”
“You weren’t waiting for me.”
It didn’t sound like a question.
Y/N lifted her eyes to his.
“No.”
Harry nodded slowly.
For some reason, that seemed to matter to him.
Maybe because if she had waited, he would have been a story.
If she had stood around looking for him, he would have been the main event.
But she hadn’t waited.
She had lived her own night.
And only then had she walked.
“I needed you to know that,” she said quietly.
Harry held the earphones tighter.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want this to look like something I planned.”
“I know you didn’t plan it.”
“Do you?”
“If you had, you probably would’ve picked better shoes.”
Y/N’s mouth fell open, offended.
Then she looked down at her boots.
“That was unnecessary.”
“But true.”
“They’re concert shoes. They’re not made for emotionally complex decisions after midnight.”
Harry laughed, and the sound moved through the warm air between them with dangerous ease.
Y/N smiled too, before remembering that maybe she shouldn’t.
Then her gaze dropped to his hand.
The earphones.
The same wired ones.
“You didn’t run tonight,” she said.
Harry looked at the road.
“No.”
“Why?”
He took a moment to answer.
“Because it didn’t work yesterday.”
Y/N’s throat tightened.
The answer was too simple.
Too raw.
“And you thought this would?”
Harry looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Harry…”
“I know.”
“Do you always know before I say anything?”
“No.” He let out a short breath. “But with you, I’m starting to know when an inconvenient truth is coming.”
Y/N folded her arms, maybe to shield herself from the heat, maybe from him.
“Then here’s one: this isn’t a solution.”
“I know.”
“I’m not a solution.”
“I know that too.”
“And yet you’re here.”
Harry fell silent.
The street around them looked almost like it had the night before, but Y/N couldn’t pretend this was a coincidence anymore. There was no dying map, no hotel to find, no practical excuse for them to walk side by side.
There was only them.
And what they shouldn’t be doing.
Harry wound the earphone cord around his fingers once, twice, three times.
“I spent the entire day surrounded by people,” he said. “Literally the entire day. Team, security, guests, friends, calls, messages. Everyone asking if I was alright, if I needed anything, if I was ready for another night.”
Y/N didn’t interrupt.
“And I kept saying yes,” he continued. “Yes, I’m fine. Yes, of course. Yes, I’m happy. Yes, I’m grateful. Yes, I’m ready.”
He laughed without humour.
“I said it so many times I almost believed it.”
Y/N watched him carefully.
“And then?”
“Then I went onstage.”
His voice changed on that sentence.
It didn’t get bigger.
It got more fragile.
“And I saw you.”
Y/N stopped breathing for a second.
Harry continued before she could say anything.
“And I know that sounds wrong.”
“It does,” she said, because she wasn’t going to lie to him.
He nodded.
“I know. But it wasn’t… not the way people would think. It wasn’t like seeing a girl in the crowd and thinking something stupid. It was more…” He searched for the words. “It was like seeing someone who knew I was performing.”
Y/N tightened her hold on the bag.
“Were you?”
“A little.”
“Only a little?”
He looked at her.
“Too much.”
Her chest tightened.
This was what scared her about him. Not the charm. Not the fame. Not even the fact that he knew exactly how to look at someone and make the air heavier.
It was the honesty.
The way he only seemed able to tell the truth with her because he wasn’t supposed to know her.
Y/N looked away towards the shop.
“I should go.”
Harry didn’t try to stop her.
Somehow, that hurt more.
“I know.”
She looked back at him.
“Then why don’t you go first?”
“Because if I go first, I can pretend I did the right thing.”
Y/N swallowed.
“And if I go first?”
“Then I’ll stand here wishing I’d said something different.”
The silence between them almost trembled.
She should have hated that answer.
She didn’t.
That was the worst part.
“You can’t say things like that,” she said quietly.
Harry closed his eyes for a second.
“I’m trying not to.”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“Because I’m failing.”
She let out a small, sad laugh.
“At least you’re honest about it.”
“With you, it’s hard not to be.”
Y/N looked at him.
Harry seemed to realise, immediately, that he had said too much.
His hand closed around the earphones.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise for being honest.”
“Then what should I apologise for?”
“What you might do with that honesty.”
He went quiet.
It hit him.
Y/N saw it.
And almost regretted it.
Almost.
But then she remembered that was exactly the problem: lost people could turn anyone who gave them a little light into an emergency exit.
And she didn’t want to be the door he used to escape.
At most, she wanted to be an open window.
Air.
Nothing more.
Harry glanced down at the bag in her hand.
“You bought gummies?”
Y/N blinked, caught off guard by the change of subject.
Then she looked down at the bag.
“I did.”
“Cherry?”
“Obviously.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Continuous treatment?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but existential crises require regular follow-up.”
“That sounds made up.”
“I’m a highly uncertified professional.”
Harry laughed softly.
And, for a moment, the night grew lighter.
Y/N pulled the bag out and held it out to him.
This time, he didn’t hesitate.
He took one.
His fingers touched hers.
Not by accident.
Not completely.
Neither of them spoke for a second.
Then Harry put the gummy in his mouth and chewed it with the same absurd seriousness as the night before.
Y/N tried not to smile.
“Well?”
“Still too sweet.”
“And yet?”
He took another.
“And yet.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling.
That was the problem.
With him, everything felt like it was about to hurt.
But before it did, he made her smile.
Harry looked at the bag, then at the street.
“Can I walk you back to your hotel?”
Y/N looked at him.
He raised a hand before she could speak.
“Just walking. Same route. Same distance. No going inside. No… making it more complicated.”
She wanted to believe that was possible.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
“And then you’ll leave?” she asked.
Harry nodded.
“Then I’ll leave.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Y/N studied him for a moment.
“I don’t fully trust you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Probably wise.”
“I don’t fully trust myself either.”
His smile slowly disappeared.
Her honesty sat between them, bare and dangerous.
Harry nodded, more serious now.
“Then we walk slowly.”
Y/N took a breath.
“Slowly.”
They started walking.
The same street.
The same route.
But everything felt heavier this time because neither of them could blame chance.
Harry walked beside her with a respectful distance between their bodies, but an impossible closeness in everything else. Y/N held the water in one hand and the bag of gummies in the other, trying not to notice the way his shoulder came close whenever the pavement narrowed.
The heat stayed trapped in the night.
It wasn’t the loud heat of the crowd anymore. It was quieter. More intimate. The kind of heat that made skin remember every inch of nearness.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Y/N glanced at him.
“Can I ask you something?”
Harry looked amused by her caution.
“You can.”
“Why?”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“Why what?”
“Why me?” she asked before she lost her nerve. “Why do you talk to me like this?”
Harry didn’t answer right away.
Y/N let out a small laugh, more nervous than amused.
“Sorry, that sounded so dramatic. I don’t mean it in a ‘why me, I’m so special and different from everyone else’ way.” She grimaced. “God. I hate that.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“So do I.”
“I mean… you don’t know anything about me. Nothing. I could be a terrible person. I could have awful taste in music.”
Harry looked at her with mock seriousness.
“That would be serious.”
“Very serious.”
“Unforgivable, maybe.”
Y/N smiled, then grew serious again.
“I mean it. You don’t know anything about me.”
Harry looked down at the pavement for a moment, like he was choosing his answer carefully.
“Maybe that’s exactly why.”
She looked at him.
“That’s not a very safe answer.”
“I’m not saying it’s smart.” He let out a short breath, almost a laugh. “I’m just saying that sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who hasn’t already decided who you are.”
Y/N fell silent.
The answer touched her more than it should have.
“But I have decided some things,” she said.
Harry looked at her.
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m curious.”
“I’ve decided you run to avoid thinking.”
“We knew that already.”
“I’ve decided you pretend not to like cherry gummies, but you do.”
“That’s defamation.”
“It’s scientific observation.”
“Questionable.”
“And I’ve decided you look like someone who thinks he can control everything as long as his schedule is organised enough.”
Harry looked at her for a beat too long.
Then he laughed, but something caught in the sound.
“You’re becoming annoyingly good at this.”
“I told you I was intuitive.”
“You did.”
“Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“To decide things about me.”
Harry looked at her, but not in a way that made her feel exposed. It was more attentive than that. Gentler. Like he was trying to see past the glitter, the DISCO VIP wristband, the boots, and the impossible night that had placed them there.
“Okay,” he said. “I think you came alone because you were tired of waiting for someone else to want to live things with you.”
Y/N stopped smiling.
The street seemed to go quieter.
“That was very specific.”
“Wrong?”
She looked ahead.
“No.”
Harry didn’t seem pleased to be right.
He almost looked sorry.
“I also think you’re the kind of person who makes jokes when a conversation gets too close to a wound.”
Y/N let out a short, humourless laugh.
“Okay, running psychologist.”
“Wrong?”
She took a breath.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“And I think,” he continued more slowly, “that you’re much more afraid of being a burden than you pretend to be.”
Y/N looked at him.
The sentence landed too close.
Too close.
So she did exactly what he had just accused her of doing.
She turned it into a joke.
“Right, that’s enough. You’re banned from analysing me. This is becoming illegal.”
Harry smiled.
“You started it.”
“And I’m ending it. Useless facts only from now on.”
“Useless facts?”
“Yes. If we’re going to pretend two people who just met can have deep conversations on a hot street in London, we also need to balance it out with completely irrelevant information.”
“Seems fair.”
Y/N thought for a second.
“Useless fact number one: I have an obsession with LEGO.”
Harry turned his head to her far too quickly.
“LEGO?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of LEGO?”
Y/N narrowed her eyes.
“That question was way too interested.”
“Answer it.”
She laughed.
“Flowers. Gardens. Botanical things. Or movie characters I like. Depends on my emotional state.”
Harry stopped for half a second, barely noticeable.
Y/N noticed.
“What?”
He shook his head, smiling down at the pavement.
“I like LEGO too.”
She froze.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t steal my weird fact.”
“I’m not stealing. I’m sharing.”
“This is very serious.”
“I like the botanicals too,” he admitted.
Y/N brought her free hand to her chest, theatrical.
“Of course you do.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Nothing. It just makes too much sense. You have the energy of someone who would build a LEGO orchid in silence for three hours to avoid an emotional conversation.”
Harry laughed so genuinely that Y/N nearly tripped over her own feet.
“That is… frighteningly specific.”
“Am I right?”
He took far too long to answer.
“Maybe.”
“I knew it.”
“I also have a bonsai.”
“In LEGO?”
“In LEGO.”
Y/N pointed at him with the water bottle.
“I knew it. I knew you had LEGO bonsai energy.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”
“It’s one of the highest compliments I can give.”
Harry smiled.
“Then thank you.”
They kept walking, and for a few steps the tension seemed to ease. Not disappear, never that. But change shape. It became less like a weight in her chest and more like warmth, something easier, almost dangerous because of how light it felt.
“Useless fact number two,” Y/N said. “I’m addicted to smelling perfumes in shops.”
Harry looked at her.
“That sounds fairly normal.”
“Not the way I do it.”
“I’m concerned.”
“You should be. I go into a shop telling myself I’ll only smell one or two, and suddenly I’m comparing twenty perfumes like I’ve been hired to do it. Then I leave with a horrible headache and swear I’ll never do it again.”
“And then you do it again?”
“The next weekend, if I can.”
Harry laughed.
“So you don’t learn.”
“I learn. I just ignore it.”
“That’s a gift.”
“It’s an illness.”
He smiled sideways.
“What’s your favourite?”
Y/N opened her mouth, ready to answer, then closed it.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s far too intimate.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“More intimate than your obsession with botanical LEGO?”
“Much more.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You do.”
“No.”
Harry leaned slightly towards her, just enough for her to feel the heat of him before he moved away again.
“I’m building a picture of you in my head. I need details.”
Y/N tried to ignore the way that sentence hit her chest.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because then I become a real person.”
Harry looked at her.
The humour faded a little.
“Maybe that’s the point.”
Y/N looked away too quickly.
“Useless fact number three,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice. “I have a ridiculous ability to buy highlighters, notebooks and pens like I’m starting an entirely new life on Monday.”
Harry accepted the change of subject. Maybe out of kindness. Maybe because he needed it too.
“And do you?”
“Never.”
“Never?”
“Sometimes I write the title on the first page.”
“Ambitious.”
“Very. Then I abandon the notebook because I don’t want to ruin the pretty pages.”
Harry laughed, shaking his head.
“That’s very specific.”
“And very true.”
“I have a similar thing.”
“You?”
“With notebooks.”
Y/N looked at him, surprised.
“You buy notebooks you don’t use?”
“I buy notebooks I think I’ll use for lyrics, ideas, phrases, lists, whatever.”
“And then?”
“Then I write two pages, decide everything is terrible, and use my phone notes instead.”
Y/N pointed at him.
“You’re the same.”
“Don’t say that like an accusation.”
“It is. I’m deeply offended we share this many flaws.”
“Maybe they’re qualities.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
Harry laughed again.
And it was so easy to laugh with him that Y/N almost forgot everything else.
Almost.
Then his hand brushed hers when they both reached for a gummy at the same time.
Their fingers stayed close.
Too close.
The lightness shifted temperature.
Y/N looked down.
So did Harry.
Neither of them moved away immediately.
It was only a second.
But some things needed less than that to become dangerous.
Y/N cleared her throat and took a gummy from the bag, putting it in her mouth like it was a strategic decision.
Harry smiled at the street.
“Are you running away?”
“I’m eating.”
“Was that a yes?”
“It was a cherry gummy. Interpret it however you want.”
He laughed softly.
Her hotel street started to appear in the distance.
Y/N felt her chest tighten, as if her body already recognised this moment. The point where the night stopped pretending it could go on forever.
Harry slowed too.
But this time, before they reached the blue-lit entrance, he looked at her.
“How was the concert for you tonight?”
Y/N glanced sideways at him.
“Are you really asking for a review?”
“Maybe.”
“Professional or emotional?”
“Both.”
She pretended to think.
“Professionally, you almost missed the start of a song because you were looking at DISCO VIP.”
Harry turned his face forward too quickly.
Y/N smiled.
“Emotionally, it was beautiful.”
“Beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“Just beautiful?”
“Do you really need me to feed your ego after eighty thousand people screamed for you?”
“Not when you put it like that.”
“Then yes. It was beautiful.”
He smiled down at the pavement.
“And you?”
“Me what?”
“You looked different tonight,” he said.
Y/N laughed awkwardly.
“You saw me during the concert?”
“I did.”
The word was simple.
Too simple.
Her heart did not handle it well.
“It was impossible to find me in that many people.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Harry.”
“What?”
“Don’t say things like that.”
He looked at her.
“I’m just answering.”
“No. You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you say something that sounds innocent, but then it stays here.” She gestured vaguely towards her chest. “Making noise.”
Harry was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Sorry.”
Y/N sighed.
“You’re forgiven.”
“You forgive me too quickly.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He laughed.
And there it was again.
The ease.
The problem.
The part of him that made everything feel simple even when it clearly wasn’t.
When they reached her hotel street, Y/N slowed.
So did Harry.
The blue entrance appeared ahead of them, discreet and too brightly lit, just like the night before. Y/N felt the same weight in her chest.
Reaching the hotel always seemed to be the point where reality came back to collect whatever the night had allowed.
They stopped before the door.
Farther away than the night before.
Maybe for safety.
Maybe out of fear.
Harry looked at the building, then at her.
“I promised I’d leave.”
“You did.”
He nodded.
“So I’ll leave.”
But he didn’t move.
Y/N crossed her arms.
“You’re doing a terrible job.”
He smiled, but there was sadness in it.
“I am.”
The street went quiet.
Y/N tightened her fingers around the bag of gummies.
“Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“When you go back tonight… don’t make any decisions.”
He looked at her, confused.
“I thought you wanted me to make my own decisions.”
“I do. But not tonight. Tonight you’re tired. Confused. Full of adrenaline. And maybe slightly full of sugar.”
He let out a small laugh.
“Your fault.”
“Completely.” She smiled, then softened. “Just… don’t use tonight as proof of anything. Not to stay. Not to leave. Not to change everything. Not to pretend nothing happened.”
Harry looked at her for a long time.
“Then what do I use it as?”
Y/N thought about it.
“Air.”
The word stayed between them.
Small.
Enough.
Harry lowered his head.
When he looked back at her, there was something less desperate in his face. Not resolved. Not happy. But less trapped.
“Okay,” he said.
Y/N nodded.
“Okay.”
Neither of them moved.
Then Harry held out his hand.
For one second, she thought he was going to touch her face. Or take her hand. Or do something that would make all of it impossible to undo.
But he only handed her a cherry gummy.
The last one from his bag.
Y/N looked at it in her palm.
Then at him.
“Really?”
“For the next route.”
She let out a small laugh.
But it wasn’t happy.
Harry noticed immediately.
“What?”
Y/N closed her fingers around the gummy.
“There might not be a next route.”
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
But it changed.
“Why?”
She looked at the hotel entrance, then back at him.
“Because this was the last concert I was going to.”
Harry went very still.
The heat of the night seemed to grow between them.
Y/N continued, trying to keep her voice light even as her chest tightened.
“So I won’t be walking from Wembley back to the hotel after another show. No more DISCO VIP wristband, no gummies in my pocket, no excuse to take this route in the middle of the night.”
Harry looked at her like that information had arrived too late.
Like, in some absurd way, he had assumed the route would exist for as long as he needed it.
“It was your last?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He looked down at the gummy in her hand.
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah.” Y/N tried to smile. “You just learned a not-useless fact about me.”
He didn’t smile.
Instead, he looked at her like some part of his mind was already trying to solve it. A new route. A new excuse. A way of making sure this didn’t end here without having to say he didn’t want it to.
“How long are you staying in London?” he asked.
Y/N hesitated.
“Another week.”
Harry looked up.
“Another week?”
“Yeah. I came for the concerts, but I’m staying a few extra days to explore London. Museums, shops, gardens, maybe pretending I’m a cultured and well-rested person.”
“It does. It’s when a normal person would think ‘that’s a shame’, but you’re clearly trying to solve the problem with access, lists, and people who say ‘yes, of course’ whenever you ask for something.”
Harry looked down and laughed.
Caught.
Y/N pointed at him.
“I knew it.”
He looked at her again, and there was something almost shy in the way he spoke.
“Tomorrow…”
“Harry.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“Just…” He took a breath. “Just go there and give them your name.”
Y/N went still.
“What?”
“At the stadium. Or at the VIP entrance. I’m not sure what the best way is yet.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself for not already having it figured out. “But give them your name. Say that… say that there might be something arranged for you.”
Y/N stared at him.
“Harry.”
“I’m not promising anything right now, because I don’t want to say something and then have someone else make it complicated. But I can try to sort it.”
“Sort what?”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The honest answer caught for a second.
Then came out quieter.
“Another route.”
Y/N felt her heart falter.
It wasn’t a ticket.
It wasn’t access.
It wasn’t just a famous person casually being able to get things.
It was that.
Another route.
Another possibility of air.
She slowly shook her head.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t ask you for anything.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t want you to feel like you have to give me something just because—”
“That’s not why.”
The speed of his answer left her speechless.
Harry took a breath, as if he had startled himself with his own urgency.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Y/N looked at him.
“Then why?”
He looked at the hotel entrance, then the street they had walked down, then back at her.
“Because tonight, onstage, I looked for you before I realised I was looking.”
The sentence stayed between them.
Y/N felt the world tilt slightly.
Harry continued, quieter:
“And when you said there might not be another route, I…” He laughed without humour, looking down at the ground. “I didn’t like the way that sounded.”
Y/N didn’t know what to do with that.
Didn’t know where to put it.
It was too beautiful.
Too dangerous.
Too wrong.
And still, every part of her wanted to keep it.
“This isn’t simple,” she said.
“I know.”
“It can’t just be ‘go there and give your name’.”
“I know.”
“You can’t make this easy just because you have people who can open doors.”
Harry nodded.
His expression was serious now.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” He looked at her. “But I also know that, for the first time in a very long time, there’s a part of my life that doesn’t feel like everyone else decided it before I did.”
For a moment, Y/N couldn’t breathe.
Harry seemed to realise he had gone too far.
Or too close.
“I’m not asking for anything,” he said. “Really. I’m not asking you to go. I’m not asking you to accept. I’m not asking you to make this a story.”
Y/N almost smiled at the repetition of their word.
Story.
“Then what are you asking for?”
Harry looked at her for a long time.
“A chance not to let the route end just because the concert did.”
The silence that followed was enormous.
London continued around them. A car passed in the distance. Someone laughed on a nearby street. Warm air moved through her hair, bringing with it the far-off smell of food, asphalt and summer.
Y/N looked down at the gummy closed in her hand.
Then at him.
“And if I don’t go?”
Harry swallowed.
“Then you don’t go.”
“And you won’t come looking for my hotel again?”
The question came out more serious than she expected.
Harry understood.
He didn’t joke.
“No,” he said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
Y/N studied him.
“And if I do go?”
He took a breath.
“Then you give your name.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“And if there’s nothing there?”
“Then I was incompetent.”
Y/N let out a small laugh despite herself.
Harry smiled, relieved to have made her laugh.
“And if there is?” she asked.
His smile softened.
“Then maybe there’s another route.”
Y/N looked at him, trying to decide whether that was the most beautiful or the stupidest thing anyone had ever said to her.
Maybe it was both.
Like travelling alone for a concert.
Like going into a karaoke bar in London.
Like buying cherry gummies for a man who shouldn’t be standing there.
“I’m not promising I’ll go,” she said.
Harry nodded.
“I know.”
“And if I do, it won’t be because you’re you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“No?”
“It’ll be for the continuous emotional treatment.”
Harry laughed.
“Of course.”
“And because maybe I want to see if you can actually arrange something with nothing but your global-superstar charm and the face of a man who needs sleep.”
“Now you’re just insulting me.”
“Useless fact number four: I insult people when I start liking them too much.”
Harry went quiet.
So did Y/N.
The sentence had escaped before she could stop it.
Too honest.
Too clear.
The air between them changed.
Harry looked at her with a softness that scared her more than any intensity could have.
“Y/N…”
She raised a hand.
“No. Don’t do anything with that.”
He closed his mouth.
Y/N took a breath, trying to regain control.
“Use it as air, remember?”
Harry nodded slowly.
“As air.”
“And not as proof of anything.”
“Not as proof of anything.”
“And not as an excuse.”
“Not as an excuse.”
His voice was low.
Almost obedient.
Almost broken.
Y/N felt her chest tighten again.
“Goodnight, Harry.”
He looked at her like he wanted to ask for one more minute.
But he didn’t.
“Goodnight, Y/N.”
This time, he was the one who turned first.
Y/N stood by the hotel entrance as he walked away down the warm street, hands in his pockets, wired earphones swinging against his leg.
He didn’t look back.
Not once.
And Y/N understood that it was the kindest thing he could do.
She went inside with the last cherry gummy closed in her hand.
In the lift, she looked at her reflection.
There was still glitter near one eye. Her hair was messy. The DISCO VIP wristband shone on her wrist like proof that the night had happened.
When she reached her room, she didn’t turn on the light.
She sat on the edge of the bed and placed the gummy on the bedside table beside the portable charger he had left her that morning.
Then she opened her phone.
His name was still trending.
Videos of him smiling onstage filled Instagram.
On TikTok, someone had already posted a clip of the moment he lowered his head and smiled during the concert.
The caption read:
who did he smile at like that???
Y/N stared at the video.
She saw the smile.
The moment.
She saw herself outside the frame, invisible to the world, but present enough to change the air around him for one second.
Her fingers hovered over the comments.
Then she locked her phone.
It wasn’t a story.
Not tonight.
Not to her.
But on the bedside table, beside the cherry gummy and the portable charger, there was something new now.
A possibility.
And that was far more dangerous than a promise.
A few streets away, Harry walked into his hotel room and closed the door behind him.
The room was dark, except for the soft light slipping through the half-closed curtains and the glow of a phone forgotten on the table. The air conditioning was on, too cold after the warm night outside, and for a second Harry stood by the door as if he had walked into the wrong room.
But it wasn’t the wrong room.
It was his.
The large bed was undone on one side.
Zoë was lying on the other, half covered by the sheet, her face resting against the pillow, her hair spread out in a pretty, sleepy mess. She had fallen asleep with an open book against her chest and one hand over the blanket, as if she had waited for him for a while before sleep finally won.
Harry stood still.
There were messages waiting.
Calls.
People.
His entire life.
But before he could move, Zoë opened her eyes slightly.
“You’re back,” she murmured, her voice rough with sleep.
Harry slipped his phone into his pocket without even checking it.
“I’m back.”
She blinked slowly, still half asleep, and gave him a smile filled with the kind of easy familiarity that didn’t need long explanations.
“Went for another walk?”
Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second.
“Just needed some air.”
Zoë closed her eyes for a moment, as if the answer confirmed what she already believed.
“You always get like this after shows,” she murmured. “Too much adrenaline in your body.”
Harry said nothing.
She didn’t look suspicious.
She didn’t look hurt.
She didn’t seem to imagine those late-night disappearances could be anything other than runs, walks around the block, innocent attempts to calm his head after eighty thousand people had screamed his name.
To Zoë, it was simply Harry needing to come down from the adrenaline.
Harry going out to breathe.
Harry coming back.
Simple.
And maybe that was what hurt most.
The simplicity with which she believed him.
Zoë lifted an arm from beneath the sheet and reached for him.
“Come to bed.”
Harry looked at her hand.
Then at her sleepy, peaceful face, half hidden against the pillow.
For one second, he saw two realities at once.
This one.
The shared bed. The woman who had known him long enough not to question his silences. The engagement. The life that made sense to everyone looking in. The peace he was supposed to feel.
And the other one.
A warm street in London.
A girl with glitter near her eye.
Cherry gummies.
Botanical LEGO.
Perfumes smelled until they gave her a headache.
A voice saying: don’t use tonight as proof of anything.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, Zoë was still looking at him, sleepy and patient.
“Harry?”
He forced a small smile.
“Coming.”
He took off his shoes slowly. Set his cap on a chair. The wired earphones stayed in his hand for a second longer than they should have before he tucked them into his jacket pocket.
Only then did he realise he still had Y/N’s folded note with him.
He felt the paper against his fingers.
No pressure. No story. Just air.
For a moment, he thought about leaving it on the table.
He didn’t.
He placed it in the bedside drawer, underneath a hotel notepad, as if hiding it made everything less real.
Then he got into bed.
Zoë moved closer almost immediately, still half asleep, and wrapped an arm around his waist. She pulled him into her with the ease of someone who had done it many times before. Her body fit against his, warm and familiar, and she pressed her forehead to his shoulder.
“You’re freezing,” she murmured.
“It was warm outside.”
“Then it’s you.”
Harry didn’t answer.
Zoë tucked herself closer, one hand resting on his chest, her fingers drawing absent circles over his T-shirt.
“Sleep,” she whispered. “You have another huge day tomorrow.”
Another huge day.
Another concert.
Another decision.
Another route, maybe.
Harry lay in the dark with Zoë pressed against him, her breathing slowly returning to the rhythm of sleep. Her body was familiar. Her scent was familiar. The weight of her arm around him should have felt like comfort.
And maybe part of him still wanted it to.
But his chest didn’t know what to do with that tenderness.
It didn’t know what to do with the guilt.
It didn’t know what to do with the fact that there was a woman sleeping in his arms while another occupied the silence in his head.
Harry stared up at the ceiling.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t run.
Didn’t put on music.
He just lay there with his eyes open while Zoë slept against him as if he were still simple.
As if he were still simple.
As if going out at night was only a way to come down from the adrenaline of concerts.
In the drawer, the folded note felt heavier than paper had any right to be.
Harry drew in a breath.
Once.
Then again.
And for the first time since meeting Y/N, he didn’t know whether the air was saving him or condemning him.
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the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me. mwah <3
word count: 8860 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Wembley was still glowing behind Y/N when she realised she was lost.
Not properly lost. There were signs, maps, stations, groups of people moving in loud little clusters with feathers in their hair, glitter on their cheeks, scarves around their necks and empty plastic cups in their hands. Everyone seemed to know where they were going. Everyone seemed to be finding their way back to something.
Except her.
Y/N walked slowly, her concert outfit still clinging to her skin and her voice rough from singing for hours. Her feet ached inside her boots, glitter was starting to peel away from her face, and her jacket kept slipping off one shoulder. Still, she couldn’t stop smiling to herself.
Couldn’t stop humming either.
“You know it’s not the same as it was…”
The lyric left her like a whisper, soft and accidental.
Some part of her was still inside the stadium. Still under the lights. Still surrounded by thousands of voices. Still caught in that strange, floating feeling of having lived something huge and somehow walking out of it alone.
That was probably why she almost missed him.
The footsteps came first.
Fast. Controlled. Heavy against the damp pavement, like someone wasn’t running to get somewhere, but to get away from something.
Y/N turned her head.
A man was running on the other side of the street, dressed in black: running shorts, a light hoodie darkened slightly at the shoulders, hair still damp like he’d showered and left before it had the chance to dry. Wired earphones hung from his ears, the kind that looked almost too simple for someone like him.
She knew before she wanted to know.
Her heart stopped for a second.
Harry.
Not Harry Styles from the stage. Not Harry Styles under the lights, holding an entire stadium in the palm of his hand. Not the man who had just made eighty thousand people scream like the world began and ended with him.
Just Harry.
Running alone through a nearly empty street, breathing hard, head lowered, like he was trying to exhaust something out of himself.
Y/N froze.
Her first instinct hit fast and hot and embarrassingly human. Say his name. Do something. Prove that this was really happening.
But then he stopped under a streetlamp, only a few metres away, bending slightly with his hands on his knees as he pulled one earphone out. His breath came heavy.
Tired.
Human.
And that was when she understood.
This moment wasn’t for her.
It wasn’t for fans. It wasn’t for photos. It wasn’t for Instagram stories or shaky TikToks or all-caps posts on X.
It was his.
So Y/N swallowed everything down.
The shock. The excitement. The ridiculous urge to cry.
She lowered her eyes and took a step back, ready to pretend she hadn’t recognised him.
Then the sole of her boot slipped on the wet pavement.
Harry looked up.
Their eyes met.
For one second, neither of them said a word.
He looked prepared for impact. For the scream. For a phone in his face. For his own name to be dragged out of the quiet.
Y/N swallowed.
“I’m not going to scream,” she said softly.
His expression barely changed.
But it changed.
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“That bad, huh?”
Y/N let out a nervous laugh, clutching her jacket tighter around herself.
“A little obvious.”
He looked at her for a moment, then at her outfit: the glitter, the tired makeup, the concert wristband still circling her wrist. Proof that she had been there. Proof that she had been one of thousands of voices calling his name like she knew him.
“You were at the show,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Y/N nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
She almost answered too quickly. Almost gave him the easy truth, the fan truth. That it had been perfect. That he had been perfect. That it had been one of the best nights of her life.
But something in his voice stopped her.
It didn’t sound vain. It didn’t even sound polite.
It sounded practised.
Like he knew how to ask, but didn’t know how to feel the answer anymore.
“I did,” she said carefully. “But I don’t think you’re asking because you want me to tell you how amazing it was.”
Harry went still.
The street seemed to empty around them.
“What makes you say that?”
Y/N should have lied. Should have laughed, apologised, walked away and kept the whole thing as an impossible almost-story.
But he was standing there in front of her, hair damp, earphones hanging around his neck, chest still rising and falling too quickly, and it felt less frightening to tell the truth to a stranger than to perform for someone the whole world pretended to know.
“Because you look like someone who ran until his body got tired, but his mind didn’t.”
Harry looked away.
And that was how Y/N knew she was right.
No matter how badly she wished she wasn’t.
He pushed a hand through his damp hair and let out a short breath.
“You always say things like that to people you’ve just met?”
“Only to world-famous singers hiding in plain sight after their own concert.”
This time, he laughed.
It was low. Brief. Almost broken.
But it was real.
And maybe that was what made Y/N stay.
Not because he was Harry Styles.
Because, for one second, he looked relieved that someone had seen the person before the name.
She glanced down the street, then back towards the tired gold glow still hanging above Wembley.
“Anyway,” she said, clearing her throat. “I should probably find my way back before my phone dies and I become a very glittery missing person.”
Harry looked at the phone in her hand.
“Is it dying?”
“Four percent.”
“That’s basically a farewell letter.”
She laughed, and it came out more nervous than she meant it to.
“Yeah, well. I didn’t exactly plan on getting lost after seeing you perform in front of an entire stadium.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Y/N squeezed her eyes shut for half a second.
“Sorry. That sounded very fan.”
Harry shook his head, the wire of his earphones still hanging against his chest.
“You’re allowed to be a fan.”
“Not when you’re clearly trying not to be Harry Styles for five minutes.”
He didn’t answer.
This time, the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable. It felt like she’d said something he hadn’t expected to hear from someone with glitter on her cheek and a concert wristband still on her arm.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
Y/N raised an eyebrow.
Harry caught the question before she said it.
“I meant so I can point you in the right direction,” he corrected quickly. “Not in a creepy way.”
“Good to know.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
She unlocked her phone in a hurry, the battery flashing red, and opened the map. The cold light from the screen lit her face from below, catching the smudged eyeliner near her lashes, her dry lips from singing too loudly, the exhaustion tucked under her eyes.
“Here,” she said, showing him the name of a small hotel a few streets away. “It was the cheapest one I could find that didn’t look like I’d wake up in a crime documentary.”
Harry leaned in slightly to see.
It was close. Too close to justify a cab, too far for someone who didn’t know the area and had four percent battery left.
“I’m going that way,” he said.
Y/N looked at him.
“Of course you are.”
“I am.”
“Convenient.”
“It is, actually.”
She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.
“Do you always go running alone after shows?”
Harry looked down the almost empty road. There was a parked car in the distance, a plastic bottle abandoned by the kerb, and the faint sound of fans still singing somewhere on a larger avenue. But there, in that side street, it felt like London had turned the volume down just for them.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“Because you like running?”
“Because it’s hard to think when your lungs are burning.”
The answer landed somewhere strange inside her.
It wasn’t poetic. It didn’t sound rehearsed.
It was just too honest.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I get that.”
Harry looked back at her.
“You run?”
“No.” She laughed softly. “I overthink in bed until three in the morning like a normal person.”
This time, he really laughed.
The sound was low and rough and so human that Y/N almost forgot who he was again.
“Fair enough.”
They started walking side by side.
Not too close. Not like people who knew each other. But not like complete strangers either. There was a small charged space between them, filled with the uneven sound of her steps in uncomfortable boots and his, still measured from the run.
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
Y/N tried not to look too much. Tried not to notice the damp curls near his forehead, the way he pulled in a breath every now and then, the tired set of his shoulders. Tried not to think about the fact that only hours ago he’d been on a massive stage making the world feel lighter, and now he was walking beside her on a quiet street like he didn’t know where he was going either.
“Did you travel for the show?” he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
Harry looked at her differently then.
“That’s brave.”
Y/N shrugged, pretending the simple way he said it hadn’t made her chest tighten.
“Or stupid.”
“Could be both.”
“Probably both.”
He smiled.
“Was it worth it?”
It sounded like a simple question.
It didn’t feel like one.
She could have said yes. She should have said yes. She had travelled, spent money she probably should have saved, stayed in a simple hotel, eaten something quick at a station, walked alone through London in an outfit that glittered too much for streets this empty.
All to see him.
All for a night he would probably forget among so many others.
But she didn’t want to say it like that.
She didn’t want to put him back onstage.
So she looked ahead and answered carefully.
“It made me feel less alone for a while.”
Harry’s steps slowed slightly.
Y/N kept speaking before she lost her nerve.
“I know that sounds dramatic. But I think that’s why people love concerts so much. It’s not just the music. It’s being in a place where everyone is feeling something at the same time. Like, for two hours, nobody has to pretend they’re fine.”
His expression sobered.
The street felt too quiet again.
“Is that what you were doing?” he asked. “Not pretending?”
She looked at him, surprised.
Then she smiled without humour.
“For two hours? Yeah.”
“And now?”
Y/N didn’t answer right away.
Her hotel still wasn’t visible, but the map said they were close. She hated the thought of arriving. Hated even more that she hated it.
“Now I’m talking to a stranger in running clothes who happens to have my entire Instagram feed in a chokehold, so I’d say I’m handling things pretty well.”
Harry laughed, but there was something sad in his eyes.
“A stranger?”
She took a breath.
“Isn’t that what you are?”
The question settled between them.
Harry lowered his head, watching the pavement as they walked.
“Most people don’t think so.”
“Most people know the version of you they need.”
He looked at her again.
Y/N felt her stomach tighten.
She shouldn’t have said that. Again. It was the second time that night she had crossed an invisible line, and still, he didn’t look angry.
He looked relieved.
“Do you always do that?” he asked.
“What?”
“Make people feel like they’ve been lying to themselves.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Only when my phone is on four percent and I have nothing left to lose.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Ahead of them, a blue light flickered above the entrance to a small hotel. Y/N recognised the sign from the map and felt something drop strangely in her chest.
“That’s me,” she said, softer.
Harry looked at the building.
It wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t beautiful. It was just simple. A glass door, a reception area too brightly lit, two snack machines by the entrance. The kind of place someone stayed when they had spent the rest of their money on the ticket, the trip, the outfit, the memory.
He stopped beside her.
Y/N stopped too.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
She should have thanked him. Should have gone inside. Should have turned it into an absurd story she might one day tell someone and still fail to make sound real.
But Harry looked even farther away now than he had when she found him.
Like the run hadn’t worked.
Like the walk hadn’t either.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
The question came out small.
Simple.
Almost dangerous.
Harry looked at the hotel door, then at her.
And for the first time that night, the mask slipped far enough to scare her.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The world seemed to slow down.
He pushed a hand through his damp hair and pulled in a long breath, like he regretted the words the second they were out.
“I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear that.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But you said it.”
He looked at her.
There was something in his eyes that didn’t match the rings, the stadiums, the headlines, the name everyone spoke like they owned a piece of it.
“Everyone thinks I should be happy,” he said.
Y/N didn’t interrupt.
Harry laughed without meaning it, staring at the empty street.
“I have everything, right? That’s what it looks like. The shows, the people, the life. And now…” He stopped, like the next word weighed more than it should. “Now everyone keeps saying I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.”
Y/N knew exactly what he meant before he said it.
The engagement.
The headlines.
The photos.
The pretty story the world had already written for him.
She felt the fan instinct disappear entirely, replaced by something quieter.
More human.
“And are you?” she asked.
Harry took a long time to answer.
When he did, his voice was almost a whisper.
“I don’t know if I chose it because it was right… or because everyone around me started choosing those things.”
Marriage.
Houses.
Children.
Futures with pretty frames and names printed on invitations.
Y/N’s throat tightened.
It wasn’t a confession of love. It wasn’t even about her.
It was worse.
It was more intimate.
It was a man admitting to a stranger that maybe he had confused movement with direction.
“Sometimes,” she said slowly, “people mistake being ready for being tired of running.”
Harry went completely still.
The sentence seemed to hit him straight in the chest.
Y/N regretted it immediately.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “That was too much.”
But he shook his head.
“No.” His voice was low. “No, it wasn’t.”
The automatic hotel door opened behind her as someone stepped out, bringing with them the cold smell of air conditioning and cheap detergent. The moment should have ended there.
But Harry didn’t step back.
And neither did Y/N.
She glanced at the hotel door behind her, then at him.
“Well,” she said, tilting her head, “I’d invite you up so you could keep having an existential crisis under fluorescent hotel lighting, but unlike some people, I don’t take strangers to my room.”
Harry stared at her for a second.
Then he laughed.
Not the polite little laugh from before. A real one. Almost surprised. Like she had caught him off guard in the middle of his own sadness.
“Unlike some people?” he repeated.
Y/N shrugged, far too innocent to be convincing.
“I don’t know your life.”
“You absolutely do not.”
“Exactly. Stranger.”
He shook his head, still smiling, and ran his tongue over his lower lip like he was trying to hide how badly he needed the distraction.
The automatic door opened again behind her, this time for a man in a suit speaking into his phone. The sound of reception reached the street for two seconds: a low television, the beep of a machine, someone dragging a suitcase across the floor.
Y/N stepped aside so she wasn’t blocking the entrance.
Harry didn’t move.
His smile faded slowly, but he didn’t return completely to that lost expression. Something was different now. More awake. Like his body was still tired, but his mind had found somewhere to rest for a moment.
“You hungry?” he asked suddenly.
Y/N blinked.
“What?”
“There’s a twenty-four-hour shop near my hotel.” He pointed vaguely down the street, like the idea had only just arrived and he needed to say it before he could think better of it. “I saw it when I left.”
She looked at him.
“Your hotel?”
Harry heard the way it sounded and lifted both hands slightly in surrender.
“Not like that.”
“Good.”
“I meant the shop.”
“Convenient again.”
“Apparently I’m having a very convenient night.”
Y/N tried not to smile.
Failed.
Harry looked at her phone.
“Your phone’s dying. You probably need water. And I…” He stopped, like he had only just remembered the state he was in. He looked down at his running clothes, at the damp material near his chest, at the earphone wire looped around his fingers. “I definitely need water.”
Y/N should have said no.
She knew that.
Because he was him. Because there were headlines about him everywhere. Because somewhere else in London, there were probably people waiting for him. A team. A driver. Maybe someone who had the right to ask where he was.
And because she was a fan.
Even if she felt more like a person than a fan in that moment, that was still true.
“Harry…”
His name slipped out before she could stop it.
The first time she’d said it.
He went quiet.
The whole street seemed to hear.
Y/N felt her face heat.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “That was weird.”
“No.” His voice was low. “It’s my name.”
“Yeah, but not really.”
His brow furrowed.
She took a breath, trying to explain without sounding ridiculous.
“It’s your name, but it’s also… you know.” She made a small gesture with her hand, as if pointing to the stadium, the songs, the magazines, every bedroom wall that had ever held a poster of him. “It belongs to everyone a little bit. Which must be awful sometimes.”
Harry looked at her.
“Sometimes,” he said.
The honesty of the word left her unable to joke.
She looked down at her boots, glittery and uncomfortable.
“I shouldn’t go anywhere with you.”
“I know.”
“You’re engaged.”
The sentence came out simply.
No accusation.
No drama.
But the effect was immediate.
His face closed for a second, not with anger, but with guilt. Or fear. Or some ugly combination of both.
Y/N regretted it, but she didn’t take it back.
“I’m not saying that to judge you,” she continued quietly. “I’m saying it because I’m not stupid. And because I know exactly how this looks.”
Harry looked at the pavement.
His hand rose to his earphones, wrapping the white wire around his finger.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He lifted his eyes.
There was an intensity in them that made her forget the cold.
“Yes.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Then why are you asking me to go with you?”
Harry didn’t answer right away.
His silence was worse than any quick reply.
Because it sounded like he was trying to be honest.
Not charming.
Not convincing.
Honest.
“Because I don’t want to go back yet,” he said at last.
Something tightened in Y/N’s chest.
Harry let out a small, humourless laugh and looked down the empty road.
“And because you’re the first person tonight who hasn’t looked at me like I already know what I’m doing.”
She had no answer for that.
In the distance, fans were still singing. Scattered voices, laughter, someone belting a chorus like the night refused to end. But between them, everything felt dangerously still.
Y/N should have gone inside.
She should have charged her phone, taken off her boots, cleaned the makeup from her face and gone to bed with the impossible memory of Harry Styles walking her back to her hotel.
But the truth was, she didn’t want the night to end either.
And that scared her more than seeing him had.
“Just the shop,” she said, trying to sound firm.
Harry nodded.
“Just the shop.”
“And then I come back here.”
“Of course.”
“And you go back to… wherever global superstars go after midnight jogs and emotional damage.”
He laughed softly, looking sideways at her.
“That’s confidential.”
“Government secret?”
“Higher.”
“Management?”
“Much worse.”
She smiled despite herself.
And that smile was what broke the last of her resistance.
Y/N slipped her nearly dead phone into her jacket pocket and pointed down the street.
“Fine. Lead the way, stranger.”
Harry looked at her for one second longer than he should have.
Then he started walking.
Y/N followed, keeping a safe distance between them, though nothing about that night felt particularly safe.
The shop was too bright for that hour.
White lights. Slightly sticky floors. Fridges humming at the back. Rows of colourful packages lined up like nothing important could ever happen between a crisp aisle and a broken coffee machine.
Harry stepped in behind Y/N with his hood pulled slightly forward and his head low.
There was hardly anyone inside. Just the employee behind the counter, half asleep and looking at his phone, and an older man by the fridges, choosing a sandwich like it was a life decision.
She turned towards one of the shelves, pretending to be very interested in chocolate so she didn’t have to process the fact that Harry Styles was standing next to her in a twenty-four-hour shop after Wembley.
Harry went straight to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Then another.
“Very exciting,” Y/N said.
He looked at her over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Water.” She pointed at the bottle. “Wild choice.”
“I just went running.”
“Exactly. Very on brand.”
He shut the fridge with his elbow, trying not to smile.
“And what would you suggest?”
Y/N slowly turned towards the sweets.
The answer was there before she thought about it.
She grabbed a bag of cherry gummies, her favourites, and held them up like she’d discovered a miracle cure.
“These.”
Harry looked at the bag.
Then at her.
Then back at the bag.
“No.”
Y/N’s mouth fell open, offended.
“You didn’t even ask what they are.”
“They’re sweets.”
“They’re happiness shaped like tiny questionable animals.”
“I don’t really eat those.”
“Of course you don’t.”
He tilted his head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Y/N walked closer with the bag in her hand and an overly serious expression.
“It means you look exactly like someone with a very strict meal plan, a very serious trainer, and at least three people who would faint if you ate sugar after midnight.”
Harry stared at her.
For half a second, she thought she’d gone too far.
Then he laughed under his breath, almost despite himself.
“You’ve built quite a profile.”
“I’m intuitive.”
“You’re guessing.”
“I’m right.”
He didn’t answer.
The silence was enough.
Y/N smiled, victorious, and pressed the bag of sweets against his chest.
Harry looked down without taking it.
“I can’t.”
His voice was light, almost amused, but there was something underneath. A stiffness. An old rule. A habit of saying no before he had the chance to want anything.
Y/N noticed.
It wasn’t about sweets.
Maybe it never was.
She lowered her voice a little.
“Harry.”
He looked up.
“You need these right now.”
Harry looked at the bag pressed against him.
Then he read the flavour.
The corner of his mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
“Cherry?”
Only then did Y/N look at the bag properly.
And realise.
Of course.
Cherry.
Of all the sweets in that shop, all the colours, all the flavours, she had picked that one.
The irony dropped slowly between them.
“Oh,” she said, trying not to laugh. “That was not on purpose.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Sure.”
“I swear.”
“Very convenient night.”
“Apparently.”
He looked down at the sweets again, but this time something passed over his face. Not sadness exactly. More like a memory moving through without permission.
The joke softened in Y/N’s hands.
“Bad choice?” she asked quietly.
Harry took a moment to answer.
Then he shook his head.
“No.” His voice was rough in a way that had nothing to do with running. “Just… funny.”
“Funny good or funny painful?”
He looked at her.
The question was too small for the answer it seemed to ask.
“Both,” he said.
Y/N nodded slowly.
For a second, she thought about putting them back. Swapping them for strawberry. Cola. Bears. Anything that didn’t carry a ghost inside three syllables.
Then she thought better of it.
Maybe that was exactly why it had to be this one.
She pushed the bag back towards him, firmer this time.
“Then you definitely need them.”
Harry let out a small laugh, but still didn’t take the bag.
“I told you, I don’t really eat those.”
“And I told you to trust me.”
“That’s a lot to ask from a stranger.”
Y/N tilted her head, pretending to consider it.
“True. But I’m a stranger who didn’t scream, didn’t take your picture, didn’t post your location, and didn’t invite you to my room even though, honestly, TikTok would’ve turned that into a twelve-part storytime.”
Harry laughed suddenly, bringing a hand to his face like he wanted to hide it.
Y/N smiled, satisfied.
“So,” she continued, shaking the bag gently between them, “I think I’ve earned a little credibility.”
He let his hand fall.
His eyes stayed on hers for too long.
Then, finally, he took the bag.
His fingers brushed hers for less than a second.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
Y/N pulled her hand back too quickly and turned towards the shelf beside her, pretending to look for something else.
Harry noticed.
Of course he noticed.
But he didn’t say anything.
“Fine,” he murmured, looking down at the cherry gummies like they were a far more dangerous decision than sugar shaped like fruit. “I’ll try one.”
“One?” Y/N turned back to him, horrified. “That’s not how this works.”
“How does it work?”
“You open the bag, eat at least three, complain they’re too sweet, then keep eating them anyway.”
“That sounds oddly specific.”
“It’s called expertise.”
He shook his head, still smiling, and walked to the counter with two bottles of water and the gummies in his hand.
Y/N followed, trying to ignore the ridiculous feeling of victory in her chest.
The employee scanned everything without really looking at either of them. Harry paid before Y/N could even open her mouth.
“Hey,” she protested. “The emotional support cherries were my idea.”
“Exactly. I’m funding the treatment.”
“Very generous of you.”
“I’ve been told.”
They stepped back outside as the automatic door slid shut behind them.
The street seemed even emptier now.
Harry opened one of the water bottles and drank almost half of it at once. Then he handed the other to Y/N.
She took it.
“Thanks.”
He nodded, then looked at the bag of sweets.
Y/N crossed her arms.
“I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to stop acting like those are a legal commitment.”
Harry sighed dramatically.
“Pushy.”
“Hungry people are vulnerable. I’m helping.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re emotionally hungry.”
He stopped with the bag half open.
Y/N stopped too.
The words had come out as a joke, but they both heard them another way.
Harry looked at her.
The shop light behind them cut his face in half, one side bright, the other in shadow. For a moment, he looked like the man she’d found running in the dark again. Not the star. Not the fiancé. Not the headline.
Just someone tired of pretending he was full when maybe he had been empty for too long.
“Maybe,” he said.
The word was so quiet it almost disappeared into the street.
Y/N softened.
“Then start with cherry.”
Harry looked at her for another second.
Then he put one in his mouth.
Y/N waited.
He chewed slowly, with absurd seriousness.
“Well?” she asked.
He looked at the bag, then at her.
“Too sweet.”
Y/N smiled.
“I told you.”
Harry put another one in his mouth.
She pointed at him, triumphant.
“See?”
He looked away, but he couldn’t hide the smile.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I changed your life.”
“You gave me a sweet.”
“A cherry sweet. After Wembley. At midnight. During an existential crisis.” She shrugged. “That’s basically literature.”
Harry stared at her.
And this time, when he smiled, it was different.
Slower.
Sadder.
More dangerous.
“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “Maybe it is.”
A few metres from the shop, there was a narrow bench by an empty bus stop.
It wasn’t pretty. The paint was chipped on one side, an old advert was peeling behind the glass, and the ground still held the shine of earlier rain. But it was far enough from the harsh shop lights and close enough to feel like an innocent decision.
Harry looked at the bench.
Then at Y/N.
“Still just the shop?” she asked before he could say anything.
He lifted his hands in surrender.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked.”
“I’m allowed to look at benches.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
He smiled.
Y/N should have gone back to the hotel. The sensible part of her knew that. Her phone had officially died in her pocket. Her feet hurt like her boots had been designed by someone who hated happy women. And above all, there was an invisible line between them that seemed to thin every time he smiled at her like that.
But then Harry opened the bag of cherry gummies and held it out.
“Since you changed my life,” he said.
Y/N looked at the bag, then at him.
“Already admitting it?”
“Don’t push it.”
She took one and sat down first, like that somehow made her the more controlled person in the situation.
Harry sat beside her.
Not too close.
Close enough.
For a few seconds, they sat in silence, eating cherry gummies at an empty bus stop after a Wembley concert, as if any of it was normal. As if he didn’t have a whole stadium waiting to turn him into thirty-second videos. As if she hadn’t travelled alone to see him and now found herself beside him, trying to remember how to breathe.
Harry leaned back, a bottle of water between his hands.
“Your phone died?” he asked.
Y/N pulled it out and pressed the button.
Nothing.
“Completely.”
“That’s not good.”
“Depends. It means I can’t make a bad decision and go on Instagram saying I’m sitting at a bus stop eating cherry sweets with you.”
Harry glanced at her.
“You’d post that?”
“No.” She thought for a second. “I mean… my fifteen-year-old self would’ve fainted, woken up, and posted it on X in all caps.”
“Only your fifteen-year-old self?”
“Fine. My current self would mentally write the tweet. But I wouldn’t post it.”
“Progress.”
“Maturity.”
“Is that what we’re calling this?”
Y/N bit into a gummy to stop herself from smiling too much.
“I don’t know. I’m still deciding.”
Harry stared out at the empty street.
A car passed slowly in the distance, headlights sliding over his face for a second before disappearing. In that brief light, Y/N saw the tiredness more clearly. Not just physical tiredness. Not the run, the concert, the night.
Something deeper.
An old exhaustion hidden under good coats, good smiles and perfect interview answers.
“You’re very calm for someone whose phone just died in a city she doesn’t know,” he said.
“I’m sitting next to a man whose security team is probably three missed calls away. I think I’ll survive.”
Harry let out a low laugh, but he didn’t quite take the joke.
“Probably more than three.”
Y/N looked at him.
“You left without telling anyone?”
He wrapped the earphone wire around one finger.
“I told someone I needed air.”
“And then ran away?”
“I went for a run.”
“That’s the rich-and-famous version of running away.”
He looked amused.
“You’re very judgmental.”
“I’m very observant.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly.
Y/N noticed.
It was strange, noticing things about him. Almost wrong. Like the whole world had access to his face, but not to the way he disappeared inside himself between one sentence and the next.
Harry ate another gummy.
“Still too sweet?” she asked.
“Terribly.”
“And yet…”
He held the open bag between them.
“And yet.”
Y/N took another one.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty now. It was full of things neither of them should say.
Harry broke it first.
“Do you ever feel like everyone decided who you were before you had time to figure it out?”
Y/N looked at him.
The question felt too big for that bus stop.
“Yes,” she said. “But I think, for me, it happens in a normal way. Family, friends, people who think they know what’s best for you. For you, it happens with the whole world.”
He looked down at his hands.
“Sometimes I think I played along too well.”
“With what?”
“With all of it.” He made a vague gesture, but Y/N knew he didn’t just mean the concert. “The charming thing. The grateful thing. The ‘I’m fine, I’m happy, I know exactly what I’m doing’ thing.”
His voice softened on the last part.
Y/N’s chest tightened.
“And you don’t?”
Harry laughed, but there was no humour in it.
“I thought I did.”
She waited.
He drew in a breath, looking at the road like it was easier to confess something to the pavement than to her.
“Everyone around me started moving into these… chapters.” The word seemed to cost him something. “Marriage, kids, houses, proper grown-up lives. And I kept thinking maybe that’s what peace looks like. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to want now.”
Y/N stayed quiet.
She didn’t want to interrupt.
Didn’t want to make it about herself.
But her hand was too close to his on the bench, and being aware of that made everything harder.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, damp hair bending under his fingers.
“And then people started saying I looked settled. Like it was a compliment. Like I’d finally become easier to understand.”
Y/N looked at his profile.
“Maybe you don’t want to be understood that way.”
He turned his head to her.
The sentence hung there.
Y/N shrugged slightly, suddenly unsure of herself.
“Sorry. I’m doing it again.”
“What?”
“Talking like I know you.”
Harry looked at her for too long.
“But you’re not pretending you do.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
It hit her strangely.
Because it was true. She didn’t know him. She knew songs, interviews, photos, TikTok theories, pieces of a life turned into Instagram posts, fan videos, rumours discussed on X by people who spoke with far too much certainty about someone they had never seen without a camera nearby.
But she didn’t know him.
And maybe that was exactly why she could listen without trying to fit him into anything.
“No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
Harry nodded slowly.
“That helps.”
The honesty of it left her unsteady.
He looked down at the bag of gummies between them, then gave a short laugh.
“This is ridiculous.”
“What?”
“I’m sitting at a bus stop eating cherry sweets with someone I met twenty minutes ago, and somehow this feels more honest than half the conversations I’ve had this month.”
Y/N’s heart skipped.
“Maybe because I have nothing to gain by lying to you.”
Harry looked at her.
“Most people gain something.”
“I’m a lost fan with a dead phone, a cheap hotel down the street and blisters on my feet. What exactly would I gain?”
He tilted his head slightly.
“A story.”
Y/N’s face grew serious.
The answer came before her pride could stop it.
“You’re not a story.”
Harry didn’t move.
The whole street seemed to hold its breath.
Y/N felt heat rise to her face, but she didn’t look away.
“At least not tonight,” she added. “Not to me.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Small. Almost nothing.
But she saw it. The way his eyes softened, like the words had touched a place that had been left unprotected.
“Thank you,” he said.
Two simple words.
They sounded more intimate than they should have.
Y/N looked down at her hands.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.”
The silence came back, heavier this time.
Not uncomfortable.
Just dangerous.
Harry shifted slightly on the bench and his knee brushed hers.
Accidental.
Probably.
Y/N went still.
So did he.
Neither of them apologised.
She could feel the heat of his leg through the fabric, the clean smell of his skin mixed with the cold night air, the presence of him far too real for someone who, only hours earlier, had existed mostly through songs and screens.
Harry looked down to where their knees almost touched.
Then at her.
“Y/N…”
Her name in his mouth was worse than saying his for the first time.
Because he didn’t say it the way a fan would.
He said it like a question.
Like he was asking permission to stay there, to feel whatever this was, to not go back to the life waiting for him.
She took a breath.
“You’re engaged.”
The sentence came again.
Quieter this time.
More fragile.
Harry closed his eyes for a second.
“I know.”
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
He opened his eyes.
“How am I looking at you?”
Y/N let out a small, humourless laugh and turned her gaze to the street.
“Like I’m an exit.”
Harry didn’t answer.
And the lack of an answer was answer enough.
Y/N stood before her courage could disappear.
“I should go back.”
Harry stood too, too quickly, like his body reacted before his head did.
“Y/N—”
“No.” She shook her head, but not harshly. “It’s okay. Really. But I think we both know there’s a point where a conversation stops being just a conversation.”
He stood in front of her. Not blocking her. Never that.
Just there.
Close.
The bag of cherry gummies was still in his hand.
Ridiculous.
Sweet.
Dangerous.
“I don’t want to use you to run away from my life,” he said.
His voice almost broke at the end.
Y/N’s throat tightened.
“Then don’t.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“I know.”
And she did.
That was what made it worse.
If he had been arrogant, it would have been easy. If he had been playing with her, it would have been easy. If he had seemed like a bored celebrity looking for a distraction after a show, she would have walked away without thinking twice.
But he looked lost.
And lost people could hurt you without meaning to.
Y/N looked at him, trying to remember the moment without turning it into a fantasy. The damp hair. The wired earphones. The dark hoodie. The cherry sweets in his hand. The man who had the world at his feet and still didn’t seem to know where to put his heart.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
Harry nodded.
“Please.”
“Don’t choose something just because everyone else is calling it happiness.”
He went very still.
Y/N went on, her voice softer.
“And don’t choose the opposite just because one strange night with a stranger made you breathe better for five minutes.”
His face changed.
This time, it was pain.
But respect too.
Like she had refused to become his excuse.
Like that made him admire her more.
“That’s very inconvenient advice,” he said quietly.
Y/N smiled sadly.
“I’m a very inconvenient person.”
Harry looked at her like he wanted to say something he had no right to say.
The shop door opened in the distance. The employee stepped outside for a cigarette, coughed, looked down the street with no interest and went back in.
The world carried on.
Even as that moment felt trapped somewhere only the two of them could reach.
Harry held the bag out to her.
Y/N looked at it.
“Keep them,” she said.
His brow furrowed.
“They’re yours.”
“Now they’re yours.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, trying to sound light.
“For the next existential crisis.”
He laughed softly.
But his eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the shop lights.
“I hope there isn’t one.”
Y/N stepped back.
“There will be. You’re human.”
Harry smiled without joy.
“Unfortunately.”
“Fortunately,” she corrected.
He looked at her.
Y/N drew in a breath.
“Goodnight, Harry.”
His name didn’t feel impossible anymore.
Just sad.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then he said, “Goodnight, Y/N.”
She turned before it could get harder.
She walked back towards her hotel with aching feet, a dead phone and a heart that felt far too awake. She didn’t look back for the first few steps. Or the next few. She told herself she wouldn’t. Told herself she wasn’t going to turn this into a film scene.
But when she reached the corner, she failed.
She looked.
Harry was still standing by the bus stop, unmoving, the bag of cherry gummies in his hand and his earphones hanging around his neck.
Watching her leave.
For one second, Y/N thought he might call after her.
For one second, maybe he thought the same.
But he didn’t.
And she silently thanked him for that.
Because some things only stayed beautiful when they weren’t ruined by rushing.
When she stepped into the hotel, the reception was empty. The air conditioning raised goosebumps on her warm skin. The white lights made her feel real again, alone again, just a girl with tired makeup and glitter on her neck.
She took the lift in silence.
In the small smudged mirror, she saw herself properly: messy hair, bright eyes, no smile.
She looked like someone who had just lived through something she would never be able to prove.
Maybe that was better.
Upstairs, she pulled her boots off with a low groan, plugged in her phone and sat on the edge of the bed without turning on any more lights.
The screen took a few minutes to come back to life.
When it finally did, notifications fell in all at once: concert videos, messages asking if it had been incredible, fan stories, clips of him already spreading across Instagram and TikTok, his name trending on X like Harry Styles was less a person and more a weather event.
Y/N stared at it all.
The whole world was still talking about the version of him that had lit up Wembley.
No one knew about the other one.
The man in running clothes at a bus stop.
The damp hair.
The cherry gummies.
The low voice saying he didn’t know if he was happy.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
For one second, she imagined writing something.
Not his name. No details. Just a sentence nobody would understand.
Sometimes you meet someone for five minutes and they feel more honest than people you’ve known for years.
She deleted it before posting.
Then she dropped the phone onto the bed.
Outside, London stayed awake.
Y/N leaned against the headboard, still wearing her jacket, and closed her eyes.
She didn’t know that a few streets away, Harry was sitting on the floor of his hotel room, back against a bed too large to feel like it belonged to him, the open bag of cherry gummies beside him.
She didn’t know he had ignored calls, messages and questions.
Or that he had taken his earphones out of his pocket, put on a song, then turned it off before the first chorus.
Because for the first time that night, silence didn’t feel so threatening.
It sounded like her voice.
Don’t choose something just because everyone else is calling it happiness.
Harry closed his eyes.
And ate another cherry gummy.
The next morning, Y/N woke to the grey London light slipping through the thin curtains.
For a few seconds, she didn’t move.
She just stared at the ceiling with that strange feeling of the body waking before the mind has accepted everything that happened the night before.
Wembley.
The crowd.
His voice.
The empty street.
The wired earphones.
The cherry gummies.
Harry sitting at a bus stop like he was just a boy too tired to go home.
Y/N shut her eyes.
It felt absurd in daylight.
At night, certain things were allowed to feel real. In the morning, the world had a cruel habit of turning them into delusions.
Her phone was fully charged on the bedside table, drowning in notifications. Messages. Videos. Stories. People tagging her in clips from the show. Harry from every angle: smiling at the crowd, running across the stage, lifting a flag someone had thrown, tilting his head back while thousands of voices sang for him.
Y/N scrolled without opening anything.
The version everyone had seen was right there.
The other one wasn’t.
The other one almost felt invented.
She got up with her whole body aching, glitter still stuck to her neck, and walked to the bathroom. She had dark circles under her eyes, messy hair, and leftover makeup smudged near her lashes.
“Great,” she muttered at her reflection. “Very mysterious main character of you.”
She showered slowly, trying to convince herself that the night before could stay exactly where it was: no proof, no posts, no messages, no ruining it.
It was better that way.
It had to be.
She dressed simply, tied back her still-damp hair, and went downstairs to look for coffee, food, and maybe a new soul, because hers seemed to have stayed behind at a bus stop a few streets away.
The girl at reception looked up when she saw her.
“Good morning,” she said with a polite smile. “Are you Y/N?”
Y/N stopped.
Her stomach tightened before her brain caught up.
“Yes?”
The receptionist reached beneath the desk and came back with a small paper bag in her hands.
“This was left for you earlier.”
Y/N stared at the bag.
No name.
No ribbon.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a plain brown paper bag folded over at the top, the kind you got at a corner shop.
“By who?” she asked, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t.
The receptionist smiled slightly, as if she knew the answer didn’t fully belong to her.
“A man. Running clothes. Curly hair.” She paused, then added with careful casualness, “Very polite.”
Y/N’s heart stumbled.
She took the bag too carefully.
“Thank you.”
She went back upstairs without coffee.
Without breakfast.
Without a new soul.
She shut the room door behind her and stood in the middle of the room for several seconds, staring at the bag like it might explode.
Then she opened it.
Inside was a bottle of water.
A cheap portable charger, still in its packaging.
And a bag of cherry gummies.
Y/N brought a hand to her mouth.
There was no note.
Of course there was no note.
That would have made it too easy. Too romantic. Too obvious.
Instead, there was only this: water, battery, cherry.
Three small things that said more than a whole paragraph ever could.
Y/N sat on the edge of the bed with the bag in her lap and laughed softly, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
“Idiot,” she whispered.
But she said it with tenderness.
For a while, she just sat there looking at the sweets.
Then she stood so suddenly it felt like her body had decided before she did.
She searched her bag for a pen, found one nearly out of ink at the bottom of a pocket, and tore a clean sheet from the hotel notepad. Sitting at the tiny desk, she took a breath and wrote.
Stopped.
Crossed it out.
Started again.
It couldn’t sound too desperate.
Couldn’t sound too cold.
Couldn’t sound like she was waiting for something.
Even though she was.
Maybe not for him.
Maybe just for the version of herself who had been brave enough to tell the truth to a man the whole world thought it knew.
In the end, she wrote:
For the stranger with wired earphones,
Thank you for the water. And the charger. And the emotional support cherries.
I’m going to the show again tomorrow. DISCO VIP this time, which is ironic, considering I could barely afford the hotel.
I’ll take the same route back afterwards.
So, if you need an inconvenient stranger again, I’ll be there.
Same route. Same terrible shoes. Probably same questionable life advice.
— Y/N
She stared at the note for a long time.
Then, in smaller letters, she added:
No pressure. No story. Just air.
She folded the note before she could lose her nerve.
Then she went back downstairs.
The same girl looked at her.
Y/N felt ridiculous before she even spoke.
“Sorry,” she said, holding the note between her fingers. “If the man who left the bag comes back…”
The receptionist didn’t smile this time.
Maybe because she understood it wasn’t a joke.
“Should I give him this?”
Y/N nodded.
“Only if he comes back.”
The girl took the note carefully.
“Of course.”
Y/N thanked her and left the hotel before she could change her mind.
London looked different in daylight.
Louder. Less magical. More capable of swallowing a whole night and pretending nothing had happened.
But in her jacket pocket, the cherry gummies were heavy enough to remind her she hadn’t invented it all.
And a few hours later, on the other side of the city, Harry stopped outside a simple hotel he had no logical reason to visit again.
He wore a cap, casual clothes, and his wired earphones were tucked into his pocket instead of his ears.
The receptionist recognised him.
She didn’t say his name.
So he liked her immediately.
“She left something for you,” she said simply.
Harry went still.
Then he took the folded paper.
He didn’t open it straight away.
He stepped outside first.
Walked to the side street where no one was looking at him.
Only then did he unfold the note.
He read it once.
Then again.
The third time, he stopped on the last line.
No pressure. No story. Just air.
Harry closed his eyes.
All day, people had talked to him about schedules, security, guests, setlists, press, family, plans, the future. Everyone seemed to need him to be something. A fiancé. An artist. An icon. A man with his life together. A happy man. A man certain of the life he had chosen.
And then there was Y/N.
A girl who had travelled alone to hear him sing and still somehow seemed to be the only person not asking him to perform anything.
Harry folded the note carefully and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
That night, when Wembley lit up again, he searched for her before he admitted to himself that he was searching.
It was ridiculous.
There were thousands of people.
Lights, signs, arms in the air, cameras, glitter, screaming, faces melting into one impossible sea.
But then he saw her.
In DISCO VIP.
Not right at the barricade. Not desperately trying to catch his attention. Just there, with bright eyes and a smile that looked like it was trying to pretend everything was normal, as if there wasn’t a secret folded in his pocket.
Harry almost missed the start of the next song.
Almost.
Y/N noticed.
Of course she noticed.
And for one second, between the roar of Wembley and the entire weight of his life, she lifted the bag of cherry gummies into the air, subtle enough that no one else would understand.
Harry lowered his head, trying to hide his smile.
He didn’t quite manage it.
The whole stadium thought the smile was for them.
Y/N knew it wasn’t.
And maybe that was dangerous.
Maybe it was wrong.
Maybe it was just one of those things that shouldn’t exist in daylight.
But that night, while he sang to eighty thousand people and looked once, only once, in her direction, Y/N knew she was going to do exactly what she had promised.
After the show, she wouldn’t wait for him.
She wouldn’t look for him.
She wouldn’t message anyone.
She would simply walk back to her hotel the same way as before.
In the same terrible shoes.
With the same cherry gummies in her pocket.
And if he needed air again, he would know where to find her.
the one where Y/N flies to London for Harry Styles, but somewhere along the route between Wembley, Madame Tussauds and the city lights, she realizes she might have been searching for herself all along.
author’s note: hi everyone!! this is my first story, so please be kind with me <3 english isn’t my first language, but i really wanted to share this little piece of my heart. i’d love to know what you think, if you enjoyed it, and if you think i should continue. any feedback would mean so much to me. mwah <3
word count: 8860 words of London, Wembley magic, quiet self-discovery, fangirl chaos and the kind of route that changes everything.
warnings: emotional introspection, mentions of feeling lost in life, loneliness, nostalgia, big dreams, soft angst. ALL FICTIONAL
let me know what you think of The Route Back to Me here!
Wembley was still glowing behind Y/N when she realised she was lost.
Not properly lost. There were signs, maps, stations, groups of people moving in loud little clusters with feathers in their hair, glitter on their cheeks, scarves around their necks and empty plastic cups in their hands. Everyone seemed to know where they were going. Everyone seemed to be finding their way back to something.
Except her.
Y/N walked slowly, her concert outfit still clinging to her skin and her voice rough from singing for hours. Her feet ached inside her boots, glitter was starting to peel away from her face, and her jacket kept slipping off one shoulder. Still, she couldn’t stop smiling to herself.
Couldn’t stop humming either.
“You know it’s not the same as it was…”
The lyric left her like a whisper, soft and accidental.
Some part of her was still inside the stadium. Still under the lights. Still surrounded by thousands of voices. Still caught in that strange, floating feeling of having lived something huge and somehow walking out of it alone.
That was probably why she almost missed him.
The footsteps came first.
Fast. Controlled. Heavy against the damp pavement, like someone wasn’t running to get somewhere, but to get away from something.
Y/N turned her head.
A man was running on the other side of the street, dressed in black: running shorts, a light hoodie darkened slightly at the shoulders, hair still damp like he’d showered and left before it had the chance to dry. Wired earphones hung from his ears, the kind that looked almost too simple for someone like him.
She knew before she wanted to know.
Her heart stopped for a second.
Harry.
Not Harry Styles from the stage. Not Harry Styles under the lights, holding an entire stadium in the palm of his hand. Not the man who had just made eighty thousand people scream like the world began and ended with him.
Just Harry.
Running alone through a nearly empty street, breathing hard, head lowered, like he was trying to exhaust something out of himself.
Y/N froze.
Her first instinct hit fast and hot and embarrassingly human. Say his name. Do something. Prove that this was really happening.
But then he stopped under a streetlamp, only a few metres away, bending slightly with his hands on his knees as he pulled one earphone out. His breath came heavy.
Tired.
Human.
And that was when she understood.
This moment wasn’t for her.
It wasn’t for fans. It wasn’t for photos. It wasn’t for Instagram stories or shaky TikToks or all-caps posts on X.
It was his.
So Y/N swallowed everything down.
The shock. The excitement. The ridiculous urge to cry.
She lowered her eyes and took a step back, ready to pretend she hadn’t recognised him.
Then the sole of her boot slipped on the wet pavement.
Harry looked up.
Their eyes met.
For one second, neither of them said a word.
He looked prepared for impact. For the scream. For a phone in his face. For his own name to be dragged out of the quiet.
Y/N swallowed.
“I’m not going to scream,” she said softly.
His expression barely changed.
But it changed.
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“That bad, huh?”
Y/N let out a nervous laugh, clutching her jacket tighter around herself.
“A little obvious.”
He looked at her for a moment, then at her outfit: the glitter, the tired makeup, the concert wristband still circling her wrist. Proof that she had been there. Proof that she had been one of thousands of voices calling his name like she knew him.
“You were at the show,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Y/N nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
She almost answered too quickly. Almost gave him the easy truth, the fan truth. That it had been perfect. That he had been perfect. That it had been one of the best nights of her life.
But something in his voice stopped her.
It didn’t sound vain. It didn’t even sound polite.
It sounded practised.
Like he knew how to ask, but didn’t know how to feel the answer anymore.
“I did,” she said carefully. “But I don’t think you’re asking because you want me to tell you how amazing it was.”
Harry went still.
The street seemed to empty around them.
“What makes you say that?”
Y/N should have lied. Should have laughed, apologised, walked away and kept the whole thing as an impossible almost-story.
But he was standing there in front of her, hair damp, earphones hanging around his neck, chest still rising and falling too quickly, and it felt less frightening to tell the truth to a stranger than to perform for someone the whole world pretended to know.
“Because you look like someone who ran until his body got tired, but his mind didn’t.”
Harry looked away.
And that was how Y/N knew she was right.
No matter how badly she wished she wasn’t.
He pushed a hand through his damp hair and let out a short breath.
“You always say things like that to people you’ve just met?”
“Only to world-famous singers hiding in plain sight after their own concert.”
This time, he laughed.
It was low. Brief. Almost broken.
But it was real.
And maybe that was what made Y/N stay.
Not because he was Harry Styles.
Because, for one second, he looked relieved that someone had seen the person before the name.
She glanced down the street, then back towards the tired gold glow still hanging above Wembley.
“Anyway,” she said, clearing her throat. “I should probably find my way back before my phone dies and I become a very glittery missing person.”
Harry looked at the phone in her hand.
“Is it dying?”
“Four percent.”
“That’s basically a farewell letter.”
She laughed, and it came out more nervous than she meant it to.
“Yeah, well. I didn’t exactly plan on getting lost after seeing you perform in front of an entire stadium.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Y/N squeezed her eyes shut for half a second.
“Sorry. That sounded very fan.”
Harry shook his head, the wire of his earphones still hanging against his chest.
“You’re allowed to be a fan.”
“Not when you’re clearly trying not to be Harry Styles for five minutes.”
He didn’t answer.
This time, the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable. It felt like she’d said something he hadn’t expected to hear from someone with glitter on her cheek and a concert wristband still on her arm.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
Y/N raised an eyebrow.
Harry caught the question before she said it.
“I meant so I can point you in the right direction,” he corrected quickly. “Not in a creepy way.”
“Good to know.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
She unlocked her phone in a hurry, the battery flashing red, and opened the map. The cold light from the screen lit her face from below, catching the smudged eyeliner near her lashes, her dry lips from singing too loudly, the exhaustion tucked under her eyes.
“Here,” she said, showing him the name of a small hotel a few streets away. “It was the cheapest one I could find that didn’t look like I’d wake up in a crime documentary.”
Harry leaned in slightly to see.
It was close. Too close to justify a cab, too far for someone who didn’t know the area and had four percent battery left.
“I’m going that way,” he said.
Y/N looked at him.
“Of course you are.”
“I am.”
“Convenient.”
“It is, actually.”
She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.
“Do you always go running alone after shows?”
Harry looked down the almost empty road. There was a parked car in the distance, a plastic bottle abandoned by the kerb, and the faint sound of fans still singing somewhere on a larger avenue. But there, in that side street, it felt like London had turned the volume down just for them.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“Because you like running?”
“Because it’s hard to think when your lungs are burning.”
The answer landed somewhere strange inside her.
It wasn’t poetic. It didn’t sound rehearsed.
It was just too honest.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I get that.”
Harry looked back at her.
“You run?”
“No.” She laughed softly. “I overthink in bed until three in the morning like a normal person.”
This time, he really laughed.
The sound was low and rough and so human that Y/N almost forgot who he was again.
“Fair enough.”
They started walking side by side.
Not too close. Not like people who knew each other. But not like complete strangers either. There was a small charged space between them, filled with the uneven sound of her steps in uncomfortable boots and his, still measured from the run.
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
Y/N tried not to look too much. Tried not to notice the damp curls near his forehead, the way he pulled in a breath every now and then, the tired set of his shoulders. Tried not to think about the fact that only hours ago he’d been on a massive stage making the world feel lighter, and now he was walking beside her on a quiet street like he didn’t know where he was going either.
“Did you travel for the show?” he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
Harry looked at her differently then.
“That’s brave.”
Y/N shrugged, pretending the simple way he said it hadn’t made her chest tighten.
“Or stupid.”
“Could be both.”
“Probably both.”
He smiled.
“Was it worth it?”
It sounded like a simple question.
It didn’t feel like one.
She could have said yes. She should have said yes. She had travelled, spent money she probably should have saved, stayed in a simple hotel, eaten something quick at a station, walked alone through London in an outfit that glittered too much for streets this empty.
All to see him.
All for a night he would probably forget among so many others.
But she didn’t want to say it like that.
She didn’t want to put him back onstage.
So she looked ahead and answered carefully.
“It made me feel less alone for a while.”
Harry’s steps slowed slightly.
Y/N kept speaking before she lost her nerve.
“I know that sounds dramatic. But I think that’s why people love concerts so much. It’s not just the music. It’s being in a place where everyone is feeling something at the same time. Like, for two hours, nobody has to pretend they’re fine.”
His expression sobered.
The street felt too quiet again.
“Is that what you were doing?” he asked. “Not pretending?”
She looked at him, surprised.
Then she smiled without humour.
“For two hours? Yeah.”
“And now?”
Y/N didn’t answer right away.
Her hotel still wasn’t visible, but the map said they were close. She hated the thought of arriving. Hated even more that she hated it.
“Now I’m talking to a stranger in running clothes who happens to have my entire Instagram feed in a chokehold, so I’d say I’m handling things pretty well.”
Harry laughed, but there was something sad in his eyes.
“A stranger?”
She took a breath.
“Isn’t that what you are?”
The question settled between them.
Harry lowered his head, watching the pavement as they walked.
“Most people don’t think so.”
“Most people know the version of you they need.”
He looked at her again.
Y/N felt her stomach tighten.
She shouldn’t have said that. Again. It was the second time that night she had crossed an invisible line, and still, he didn’t look angry.
He looked relieved.
“Do you always do that?” he asked.
“What?”
“Make people feel like they’ve been lying to themselves.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Only when my phone is on four percent and I have nothing left to lose.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Ahead of them, a blue light flickered above the entrance to a small hotel. Y/N recognised the sign from the map and felt something drop strangely in her chest.
“That’s me,” she said, softer.
Harry looked at the building.
It wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t beautiful. It was just simple. A glass door, a reception area too brightly lit, two snack machines by the entrance. The kind of place someone stayed when they had spent the rest of their money on the ticket, the trip, the outfit, the memory.
He stopped beside her.
Y/N stopped too.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
She should have thanked him. Should have gone inside. Should have turned it into an absurd story she might one day tell someone and still fail to make sound real.
But Harry looked even farther away now than he had when she found him.
Like the run hadn’t worked.
Like the walk hadn’t either.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
The question came out small.
Simple.
Almost dangerous.
Harry looked at the hotel door, then at her.
And for the first time that night, the mask slipped far enough to scare her.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The world seemed to slow down.
He pushed a hand through his damp hair and pulled in a long breath, like he regretted the words the second they were out.
“I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear that.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But you said it.”
He looked at her.
There was something in his eyes that didn’t match the rings, the stadiums, the headlines, the name everyone spoke like they owned a piece of it.
“Everyone thinks I should be happy,” he said.
Y/N didn’t interrupt.
Harry laughed without meaning it, staring at the empty street.
“I have everything, right? That’s what it looks like. The shows, the people, the life. And now…” He stopped, like the next word weighed more than it should. “Now everyone keeps saying I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.”
Y/N knew exactly what he meant before he said it.
The engagement.
The headlines.
The photos.
The pretty story the world had already written for him.
She felt the fan instinct disappear entirely, replaced by something quieter.
More human.
“And are you?” she asked.
Harry took a long time to answer.
When he did, his voice was almost a whisper.
“I don’t know if I chose it because it was right… or because everyone around me started choosing those things.”
Marriage.
Houses.
Children.
Futures with pretty frames and names printed on invitations.
Y/N’s throat tightened.
It wasn’t a confession of love. It wasn’t even about her.
It was worse.
It was more intimate.
It was a man admitting to a stranger that maybe he had confused movement with direction.
“Sometimes,” she said slowly, “people mistake being ready for being tired of running.”
Harry went completely still.
The sentence seemed to hit him straight in the chest.
Y/N regretted it immediately.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “That was too much.”
But he shook his head.
“No.” His voice was low. “No, it wasn’t.”
The automatic hotel door opened behind her as someone stepped out, bringing with them the cold smell of air conditioning and cheap detergent. The moment should have ended there.
But Harry didn’t step back.
And neither did Y/N.
She glanced at the hotel door behind her, then at him.
“Well,” she said, tilting her head, “I’d invite you up so you could keep having an existential crisis under fluorescent hotel lighting, but unlike some people, I don’t take strangers to my room.”
Harry stared at her for a second.
Then he laughed.
Not the polite little laugh from before. A real one. Almost surprised. Like she had caught him off guard in the middle of his own sadness.
“Unlike some people?” he repeated.
Y/N shrugged, far too innocent to be convincing.
“I don’t know your life.”
“You absolutely do not.”
“Exactly. Stranger.”
He shook his head, still smiling, and ran his tongue over his lower lip like he was trying to hide how badly he needed the distraction.
The automatic door opened again behind her, this time for a man in a suit speaking into his phone. The sound of reception reached the street for two seconds: a low television, the beep of a machine, someone dragging a suitcase across the floor.
Y/N stepped aside so she wasn’t blocking the entrance.
Harry didn’t move.
His smile faded slowly, but he didn’t return completely to that lost expression. Something was different now. More awake. Like his body was still tired, but his mind had found somewhere to rest for a moment.
“You hungry?” he asked suddenly.
Y/N blinked.
“What?”
“There’s a twenty-four-hour shop near my hotel.” He pointed vaguely down the street, like the idea had only just arrived and he needed to say it before he could think better of it. “I saw it when I left.”
She looked at him.
“Your hotel?”
Harry heard the way it sounded and lifted both hands slightly in surrender.
“Not like that.”
“Good.”
“I meant the shop.”
“Convenient again.”
“Apparently I’m having a very convenient night.”
Y/N tried not to smile.
Failed.
Harry looked at her phone.
“Your phone’s dying. You probably need water. And I…” He stopped, like he had only just remembered the state he was in. He looked down at his running clothes, at the damp material near his chest, at the earphone wire looped around his fingers. “I definitely need water.”
Y/N should have said no.
She knew that.
Because he was him. Because there were headlines about him everywhere. Because somewhere else in London, there were probably people waiting for him. A team. A driver. Maybe someone who had the right to ask where he was.
And because she was a fan.
Even if she felt more like a person than a fan in that moment, that was still true.
“Harry…”
His name slipped out before she could stop it.
The first time she’d said it.
He went quiet.
The whole street seemed to hear.
Y/N felt her face heat.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “That was weird.”
“No.” His voice was low. “It’s my name.”
“Yeah, but not really.”
His brow furrowed.
She took a breath, trying to explain without sounding ridiculous.
“It’s your name, but it’s also… you know.” She made a small gesture with her hand, as if pointing to the stadium, the songs, the magazines, every bedroom wall that had ever held a poster of him. “It belongs to everyone a little bit. Which must be awful sometimes.”
Harry looked at her.
“Sometimes,” he said.
The honesty of the word left her unable to joke.
She looked down at her boots, glittery and uncomfortable.
“I shouldn’t go anywhere with you.”
“I know.”
“You’re engaged.”
The sentence came out simply.
No accusation.
No drama.
But the effect was immediate.
His face closed for a second, not with anger, but with guilt. Or fear. Or some ugly combination of both.
Y/N regretted it, but she didn’t take it back.
“I’m not saying that to judge you,” she continued quietly. “I’m saying it because I’m not stupid. And because I know exactly how this looks.”
Harry looked at the pavement.
His hand rose to his earphones, wrapping the white wire around his finger.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He lifted his eyes.
There was an intensity in them that made her forget the cold.
“Yes.”
Y/N swallowed.
“Then why are you asking me to go with you?”
Harry didn’t answer right away.
His silence was worse than any quick reply.
Because it sounded like he was trying to be honest.
Not charming.
Not convincing.
Honest.
“Because I don’t want to go back yet,” he said at last.
Something tightened in Y/N’s chest.
Harry let out a small, humourless laugh and looked down the empty road.
“And because you’re the first person tonight who hasn’t looked at me like I already know what I’m doing.”
She had no answer for that.
In the distance, fans were still singing. Scattered voices, laughter, someone belting a chorus like the night refused to end. But between them, everything felt dangerously still.
Y/N should have gone inside.
She should have charged her phone, taken off her boots, cleaned the makeup from her face and gone to bed with the impossible memory of Harry Styles walking her back to her hotel.
But the truth was, she didn’t want the night to end either.
And that scared her more than seeing him had.
“Just the shop,” she said, trying to sound firm.
Harry nodded.
“Just the shop.”
“And then I come back here.”
“Of course.”
“And you go back to… wherever global superstars go after midnight jogs and emotional damage.”
He laughed softly, looking sideways at her.
“That’s confidential.”
“Government secret?”
“Higher.”
“Management?”
“Much worse.”
She smiled despite herself.
And that smile was what broke the last of her resistance.
Y/N slipped her nearly dead phone into her jacket pocket and pointed down the street.
“Fine. Lead the way, stranger.”
Harry looked at her for one second longer than he should have.
Then he started walking.
Y/N followed, keeping a safe distance between them, though nothing about that night felt particularly safe.
The shop was too bright for that hour.
White lights. Slightly sticky floors. Fridges humming at the back. Rows of colourful packages lined up like nothing important could ever happen between a crisp aisle and a broken coffee machine.
Harry stepped in behind Y/N with his hood pulled slightly forward and his head low.
There was hardly anyone inside. Just the employee behind the counter, half asleep and looking at his phone, and an older man by the fridges, choosing a sandwich like it was a life decision.
She turned towards one of the shelves, pretending to be very interested in chocolate so she didn’t have to process the fact that Harry Styles was standing next to her in a twenty-four-hour shop after Wembley.
Harry went straight to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Then another.
“Very exciting,” Y/N said.
He looked at her over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Water.” She pointed at the bottle. “Wild choice.”
“I just went running.”
“Exactly. Very on brand.”
He shut the fridge with his elbow, trying not to smile.
“And what would you suggest?”
Y/N slowly turned towards the sweets.
The answer was there before she thought about it.
She grabbed a bag of cherry gummies, her favourites, and held them up like she’d discovered a miracle cure.
“These.”
Harry looked at the bag.
Then at her.
Then back at the bag.
“No.”
Y/N’s mouth fell open, offended.
“You didn’t even ask what they are.”
“They’re sweets.”
“They’re happiness shaped like tiny questionable animals.”
“I don’t really eat those.”
“Of course you don’t.”
He tilted his head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Y/N walked closer with the bag in her hand and an overly serious expression.
“It means you look exactly like someone with a very strict meal plan, a very serious trainer, and at least three people who would faint if you ate sugar after midnight.”
Harry stared at her.
For half a second, she thought she’d gone too far.
Then he laughed under his breath, almost despite himself.
“You’ve built quite a profile.”
“I’m intuitive.”
“You’re guessing.”
“I’m right.”
He didn’t answer.
The silence was enough.
Y/N smiled, victorious, and pressed the bag of sweets against his chest.
Harry looked down without taking it.
“I can’t.”
His voice was light, almost amused, but there was something underneath. A stiffness. An old rule. A habit of saying no before he had the chance to want anything.
Y/N noticed.
It wasn’t about sweets.
Maybe it never was.
She lowered her voice a little.
“Harry.”
He looked up.
“You need these right now.”
Harry looked at the bag pressed against him.
Then he read the flavour.
The corner of his mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
“Cherry?”
Only then did Y/N look at the bag properly.
And realise.
Of course.
Cherry.
Of all the sweets in that shop, all the colours, all the flavours, she had picked that one.
The irony dropped slowly between them.
“Oh,” she said, trying not to laugh. “That was not on purpose.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Sure.”
“I swear.”
“Very convenient night.”
“Apparently.”
He looked down at the sweets again, but this time something passed over his face. Not sadness exactly. More like a memory moving through without permission.
The joke softened in Y/N’s hands.
“Bad choice?” she asked quietly.
Harry took a moment to answer.
Then he shook his head.
“No.” His voice was rough in a way that had nothing to do with running. “Just… funny.”
“Funny good or funny painful?”
He looked at her.
The question was too small for the answer it seemed to ask.
“Both,” he said.
Y/N nodded slowly.
For a second, she thought about putting them back. Swapping them for strawberry. Cola. Bears. Anything that didn’t carry a ghost inside three syllables.
Then she thought better of it.
Maybe that was exactly why it had to be this one.
She pushed the bag back towards him, firmer this time.
“Then you definitely need them.”
Harry let out a small laugh, but still didn’t take the bag.
“I told you, I don’t really eat those.”
“And I told you to trust me.”
“That’s a lot to ask from a stranger.”
Y/N tilted her head, pretending to consider it.
“True. But I’m a stranger who didn’t scream, didn’t take your picture, didn’t post your location, and didn’t invite you to my room even though, honestly, TikTok would’ve turned that into a twelve-part storytime.”
Harry laughed suddenly, bringing a hand to his face like he wanted to hide it.
Y/N smiled, satisfied.
“So,” she continued, shaking the bag gently between them, “I think I’ve earned a little credibility.”
He let his hand fall.
His eyes stayed on hers for too long.
Then, finally, he took the bag.
His fingers brushed hers for less than a second.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
Y/N pulled her hand back too quickly and turned towards the shelf beside her, pretending to look for something else.
Harry noticed.
Of course he noticed.
But he didn’t say anything.
“Fine,” he murmured, looking down at the cherry gummies like they were a far more dangerous decision than sugar shaped like fruit. “I’ll try one.”
“One?” Y/N turned back to him, horrified. “That’s not how this works.”
“How does it work?”
“You open the bag, eat at least three, complain they’re too sweet, then keep eating them anyway.”
“That sounds oddly specific.”
“It’s called expertise.”
He shook his head, still smiling, and walked to the counter with two bottles of water and the gummies in his hand.
Y/N followed, trying to ignore the ridiculous feeling of victory in her chest.
The employee scanned everything without really looking at either of them. Harry paid before Y/N could even open her mouth.
“Hey,” she protested. “The emotional support cherries were my idea.”
“Exactly. I’m funding the treatment.”
“Very generous of you.”
“I’ve been told.”
They stepped back outside as the automatic door slid shut behind them.
The street seemed even emptier now.
Harry opened one of the water bottles and drank almost half of it at once. Then he handed the other to Y/N.
She took it.
“Thanks.”
He nodded, then looked at the bag of sweets.
Y/N crossed her arms.
“I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to stop acting like those are a legal commitment.”
Harry sighed dramatically.
“Pushy.”
“Hungry people are vulnerable. I’m helping.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re emotionally hungry.”
He stopped with the bag half open.
Y/N stopped too.
The words had come out as a joke, but they both heard them another way.
Harry looked at her.
The shop light behind them cut his face in half, one side bright, the other in shadow. For a moment, he looked like the man she’d found running in the dark again. Not the star. Not the fiancé. Not the headline.
Just someone tired of pretending he was full when maybe he had been empty for too long.
“Maybe,” he said.
The word was so quiet it almost disappeared into the street.
Y/N softened.
“Then start with cherry.”
Harry looked at her for another second.
Then he put one in his mouth.
Y/N waited.
He chewed slowly, with absurd seriousness.
“Well?” she asked.
He looked at the bag, then at her.
“Too sweet.”
Y/N smiled.
“I told you.”
Harry put another one in his mouth.
She pointed at him, triumphant.
“See?”
He looked away, but he couldn’t hide the smile.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I changed your life.”
“You gave me a sweet.”
“A cherry sweet. After Wembley. At midnight. During an existential crisis.” She shrugged. “That’s basically literature.”
Harry stared at her.
And this time, when he smiled, it was different.
Slower.
Sadder.
More dangerous.
“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “Maybe it is.”
A few metres from the shop, there was a narrow bench by an empty bus stop.
It wasn’t pretty. The paint was chipped on one side, an old advert was peeling behind the glass, and the ground still held the shine of earlier rain. But it was far enough from the harsh shop lights and close enough to feel like an innocent decision.
Harry looked at the bench.
Then at Y/N.
“Still just the shop?” she asked before he could say anything.
He lifted his hands in surrender.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked.”
“I’m allowed to look at benches.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
He smiled.
Y/N should have gone back to the hotel. The sensible part of her knew that. Her phone had officially died in her pocket. Her feet hurt like her boots had been designed by someone who hated happy women. And above all, there was an invisible line between them that seemed to thin every time he smiled at her like that.
But then Harry opened the bag of cherry gummies and held it out.
“Since you changed my life,” he said.
Y/N looked at the bag, then at him.
“Already admitting it?”
“Don’t push it.”
She took one and sat down first, like that somehow made her the more controlled person in the situation.
Harry sat beside her.
Not too close.
Close enough.
For a few seconds, they sat in silence, eating cherry gummies at an empty bus stop after a Wembley concert, as if any of it was normal. As if he didn’t have a whole stadium waiting to turn him into thirty-second videos. As if she hadn’t travelled alone to see him and now found herself beside him, trying to remember how to breathe.
Harry leaned back, a bottle of water between his hands.
“Your phone died?” he asked.
Y/N pulled it out and pressed the button.
Nothing.
“Completely.”
“That’s not good.”
“Depends. It means I can’t make a bad decision and go on Instagram saying I’m sitting at a bus stop eating cherry sweets with you.”
Harry glanced at her.
“You’d post that?”
“No.” She thought for a second. “I mean… my fifteen-year-old self would’ve fainted, woken up, and posted it on X in all caps.”
“Only your fifteen-year-old self?”
“Fine. My current self would mentally write the tweet. But I wouldn’t post it.”
“Progress.”
“Maturity.”
“Is that what we’re calling this?”
Y/N bit into a gummy to stop herself from smiling too much.
“I don’t know. I’m still deciding.”
Harry stared out at the empty street.
A car passed slowly in the distance, headlights sliding over his face for a second before disappearing. In that brief light, Y/N saw the tiredness more clearly. Not just physical tiredness. Not the run, the concert, the night.
Something deeper.
An old exhaustion hidden under good coats, good smiles and perfect interview answers.
“You’re very calm for someone whose phone just died in a city she doesn’t know,” he said.
“I’m sitting next to a man whose security team is probably three missed calls away. I think I’ll survive.”
Harry let out a low laugh, but he didn’t quite take the joke.
“Probably more than three.”
Y/N looked at him.
“You left without telling anyone?”
He wrapped the earphone wire around one finger.
“I told someone I needed air.”
“And then ran away?”
“I went for a run.”
“That’s the rich-and-famous version of running away.”
He looked amused.
“You’re very judgmental.”
“I’m very observant.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly.
Y/N noticed.
It was strange, noticing things about him. Almost wrong. Like the whole world had access to his face, but not to the way he disappeared inside himself between one sentence and the next.
Harry ate another gummy.
“Still too sweet?” she asked.
“Terribly.”
“And yet…”
He held the open bag between them.
“And yet.”
Y/N took another one.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty now. It was full of things neither of them should say.
Harry broke it first.
“Do you ever feel like everyone decided who you were before you had time to figure it out?”
Y/N looked at him.
The question felt too big for that bus stop.
“Yes,” she said. “But I think, for me, it happens in a normal way. Family, friends, people who think they know what’s best for you. For you, it happens with the whole world.”
He looked down at his hands.
“Sometimes I think I played along too well.”
“With what?”
“With all of it.” He made a vague gesture, but Y/N knew he didn’t just mean the concert. “The charming thing. The grateful thing. The ‘I’m fine, I’m happy, I know exactly what I’m doing’ thing.”
His voice softened on the last part.
Y/N’s chest tightened.
“And you don’t?”
Harry laughed, but there was no humour in it.
“I thought I did.”
She waited.
He drew in a breath, looking at the road like it was easier to confess something to the pavement than to her.
“Everyone around me started moving into these… chapters.” The word seemed to cost him something. “Marriage, kids, houses, proper grown-up lives. And I kept thinking maybe that’s what peace looks like. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to want now.”
Y/N stayed quiet.
She didn’t want to interrupt.
Didn’t want to make it about herself.
But her hand was too close to his on the bench, and being aware of that made everything harder.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, damp hair bending under his fingers.
“And then people started saying I looked settled. Like it was a compliment. Like I’d finally become easier to understand.”
Y/N looked at his profile.
“Maybe you don’t want to be understood that way.”
He turned his head to her.
The sentence hung there.
Y/N shrugged slightly, suddenly unsure of herself.
“Sorry. I’m doing it again.”
“What?”
“Talking like I know you.”
Harry looked at her for too long.
“But you’re not pretending you do.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
It hit her strangely.
Because it was true. She didn’t know him. She knew songs, interviews, photos, TikTok theories, pieces of a life turned into Instagram posts, fan videos, rumours discussed on X by people who spoke with far too much certainty about someone they had never seen without a camera nearby.
But she didn’t know him.
And maybe that was exactly why she could listen without trying to fit him into anything.
“No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
Harry nodded slowly.
“That helps.”
The honesty of it left her unsteady.
He looked down at the bag of gummies between them, then gave a short laugh.
“This is ridiculous.”
“What?”
“I’m sitting at a bus stop eating cherry sweets with someone I met twenty minutes ago, and somehow this feels more honest than half the conversations I’ve had this month.”
Y/N’s heart skipped.
“Maybe because I have nothing to gain by lying to you.”
Harry looked at her.
“Most people gain something.”
“I’m a lost fan with a dead phone, a cheap hotel down the street and blisters on my feet. What exactly would I gain?”
He tilted his head slightly.
“A story.”
Y/N’s face grew serious.
The answer came before her pride could stop it.
“You’re not a story.”
Harry didn’t move.
The whole street seemed to hold its breath.
Y/N felt heat rise to her face, but she didn’t look away.
“At least not tonight,” she added. “Not to me.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Small. Almost nothing.
But she saw it. The way his eyes softened, like the words had touched a place that had been left unprotected.
“Thank you,” he said.
Two simple words.
They sounded more intimate than they should have.
Y/N looked down at her hands.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.”
The silence came back, heavier this time.
Not uncomfortable.
Just dangerous.
Harry shifted slightly on the bench and his knee brushed hers.
Accidental.
Probably.
Y/N went still.
So did he.
Neither of them apologised.
She could feel the heat of his leg through the fabric, the clean smell of his skin mixed with the cold night air, the presence of him far too real for someone who, only hours earlier, had existed mostly through songs and screens.
Harry looked down to where their knees almost touched.
Then at her.
“Y/N…”
Her name in his mouth was worse than saying his for the first time.
Because he didn’t say it the way a fan would.
He said it like a question.
Like he was asking permission to stay there, to feel whatever this was, to not go back to the life waiting for him.
She took a breath.
“You’re engaged.”
The sentence came again.
Quieter this time.
More fragile.
Harry closed his eyes for a second.
“I know.”
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
He opened his eyes.
“How am I looking at you?”
Y/N let out a small, humourless laugh and turned her gaze to the street.
“Like I’m an exit.”
Harry didn’t answer.
And the lack of an answer was answer enough.
Y/N stood before her courage could disappear.
“I should go back.”
Harry stood too, too quickly, like his body reacted before his head did.
“Y/N—”
“No.” She shook her head, but not harshly. “It’s okay. Really. But I think we both know there’s a point where a conversation stops being just a conversation.”
He stood in front of her. Not blocking her. Never that.
Just there.
Close.
The bag of cherry gummies was still in his hand.
Ridiculous.
Sweet.
Dangerous.
“I don’t want to use you to run away from my life,” he said.
His voice almost broke at the end.
Y/N’s throat tightened.
“Then don’t.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“I know.”
And she did.
That was what made it worse.
If he had been arrogant, it would have been easy. If he had been playing with her, it would have been easy. If he had seemed like a bored celebrity looking for a distraction after a show, she would have walked away without thinking twice.
But he looked lost.
And lost people could hurt you without meaning to.
Y/N looked at him, trying to remember the moment without turning it into a fantasy. The damp hair. The wired earphones. The dark hoodie. The cherry sweets in his hand. The man who had the world at his feet and still didn’t seem to know where to put his heart.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
Harry nodded.
“Please.”
“Don’t choose something just because everyone else is calling it happiness.”
He went very still.
Y/N went on, her voice softer.
“And don’t choose the opposite just because one strange night with a stranger made you breathe better for five minutes.”
His face changed.
This time, it was pain.
But respect too.
Like she had refused to become his excuse.
Like that made him admire her more.
“That’s very inconvenient advice,” he said quietly.
Y/N smiled sadly.
“I’m a very inconvenient person.”
Harry looked at her like he wanted to say something he had no right to say.
The shop door opened in the distance. The employee stepped outside for a cigarette, coughed, looked down the street with no interest and went back in.
The world carried on.
Even as that moment felt trapped somewhere only the two of them could reach.
Harry held the bag out to her.
Y/N looked at it.
“Keep them,” she said.
His brow furrowed.
“They’re yours.”
“Now they’re yours.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, trying to sound light.
“For the next existential crisis.”
He laughed softly.
But his eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the shop lights.
“I hope there isn’t one.”
Y/N stepped back.
“There will be. You’re human.”
Harry smiled without joy.
“Unfortunately.”
“Fortunately,” she corrected.
He looked at her.
Y/N drew in a breath.
“Goodnight, Harry.”
His name didn’t feel impossible anymore.
Just sad.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then he said, “Goodnight, Y/N.”
She turned before it could get harder.
She walked back towards her hotel with aching feet, a dead phone and a heart that felt far too awake. She didn’t look back for the first few steps. Or the next few. She told herself she wouldn’t. Told herself she wasn’t going to turn this into a film scene.
But when she reached the corner, she failed.
She looked.
Harry was still standing by the bus stop, unmoving, the bag of cherry gummies in his hand and his earphones hanging around his neck.
Watching her leave.
For one second, Y/N thought he might call after her.
For one second, maybe he thought the same.
But he didn’t.
And she silently thanked him for that.
Because some things only stayed beautiful when they weren’t ruined by rushing.
When she stepped into the hotel, the reception was empty. The air conditioning raised goosebumps on her warm skin. The white lights made her feel real again, alone again, just a girl with tired makeup and glitter on her neck.
She took the lift in silence.
In the small smudged mirror, she saw herself properly: messy hair, bright eyes, no smile.
She looked like someone who had just lived through something she would never be able to prove.
Maybe that was better.
Upstairs, she pulled her boots off with a low groan, plugged in her phone and sat on the edge of the bed without turning on any more lights.
The screen took a few minutes to come back to life.
When it finally did, notifications fell in all at once: concert videos, messages asking if it had been incredible, fan stories, clips of him already spreading across Instagram and TikTok, his name trending on X like Harry Styles was less a person and more a weather event.
Y/N stared at it all.
The whole world was still talking about the version of him that had lit up Wembley.
No one knew about the other one.
The man in running clothes at a bus stop.
The damp hair.
The cherry gummies.
The low voice saying he didn’t know if he was happy.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
For one second, she imagined writing something.
Not his name. No details. Just a sentence nobody would understand.
Sometimes you meet someone for five minutes and they feel more honest than people you’ve known for years.
She deleted it before posting.
Then she dropped the phone onto the bed.
Outside, London stayed awake.
Y/N leaned against the headboard, still wearing her jacket, and closed her eyes.
She didn’t know that a few streets away, Harry was sitting on the floor of his hotel room, back against a bed too large to feel like it belonged to him, the open bag of cherry gummies beside him.
She didn’t know he had ignored calls, messages and questions.
Or that he had taken his earphones out of his pocket, put on a song, then turned it off before the first chorus.
Because for the first time that night, silence didn’t feel so threatening.
It sounded like her voice.
Don’t choose something just because everyone else is calling it happiness.
Harry closed his eyes.
And ate another cherry gummy.
The next morning, Y/N woke to the grey London light slipping through the thin curtains.
For a few seconds, she didn’t move.
She just stared at the ceiling with that strange feeling of the body waking before the mind has accepted everything that happened the night before.
Wembley.
The crowd.
His voice.
The empty street.
The wired earphones.
The cherry gummies.
Harry sitting at a bus stop like he was just a boy too tired to go home.
Y/N shut her eyes.
It felt absurd in daylight.
At night, certain things were allowed to feel real. In the morning, the world had a cruel habit of turning them into delusions.
Her phone was fully charged on the bedside table, drowning in notifications. Messages. Videos. Stories. People tagging her in clips from the show. Harry from every angle: smiling at the crowd, running across the stage, lifting a flag someone had thrown, tilting his head back while thousands of voices sang for him.
Y/N scrolled without opening anything.
The version everyone had seen was right there.
The other one wasn’t.
The other one almost felt invented.
She got up with her whole body aching, glitter still stuck to her neck, and walked to the bathroom. She had dark circles under her eyes, messy hair, and leftover makeup smudged near her lashes.
“Great,” she muttered at her reflection. “Very mysterious main character of you.”
She showered slowly, trying to convince herself that the night before could stay exactly where it was: no proof, no posts, no messages, no ruining it.
It was better that way.
It had to be.
She dressed simply, tied back her still-damp hair, and went downstairs to look for coffee, food, and maybe a new soul, because hers seemed to have stayed behind at a bus stop a few streets away.
The girl at reception looked up when she saw her.
“Good morning,” she said with a polite smile. “Are you Y/N?”
Y/N stopped.
Her stomach tightened before her brain caught up.
“Yes?”
The receptionist reached beneath the desk and came back with a small paper bag in her hands.
“This was left for you earlier.”
Y/N stared at the bag.
No name.
No ribbon.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a plain brown paper bag folded over at the top, the kind you got at a corner shop.
“By who?” she asked, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t.
The receptionist smiled slightly, as if she knew the answer didn’t fully belong to her.
“A man. Running clothes. Curly hair.” She paused, then added with careful casualness, “Very polite.”
Y/N’s heart stumbled.
She took the bag too carefully.
“Thank you.”
She went back upstairs without coffee.
Without breakfast.
Without a new soul.
She shut the room door behind her and stood in the middle of the room for several seconds, staring at the bag like it might explode.
Then she opened it.
Inside was a bottle of water.
A cheap portable charger, still in its packaging.
And a bag of cherry gummies.
Y/N brought a hand to her mouth.
There was no note.
Of course there was no note.
That would have made it too easy. Too romantic. Too obvious.
Instead, there was only this: water, battery, cherry.
Three small things that said more than a whole paragraph ever could.
Y/N sat on the edge of the bed with the bag in her lap and laughed softly, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
“Idiot,” she whispered.
But she said it with tenderness.
For a while, she just sat there looking at the sweets.
Then she stood so suddenly it felt like her body had decided before she did.
She searched her bag for a pen, found one nearly out of ink at the bottom of a pocket, and tore a clean sheet from the hotel notepad. Sitting at the tiny desk, she took a breath and wrote.
Stopped.
Crossed it out.
Started again.
It couldn’t sound too desperate.
Couldn’t sound too cold.
Couldn’t sound like she was waiting for something.
Even though she was.
Maybe not for him.
Maybe just for the version of herself who had been brave enough to tell the truth to a man the whole world thought it knew.
In the end, she wrote:
For the stranger with wired earphones,
Thank you for the water. And the charger. And the emotional support cherries.
I’m going to the show again tomorrow. DISCO VIP this time, which is ironic, considering I could barely afford the hotel.
I’ll take the same route back afterwards.
So, if you need an inconvenient stranger again, I’ll be there.
Same route. Same terrible shoes. Probably same questionable life advice.
— Y/N
She stared at the note for a long time.
Then, in smaller letters, she added:
No pressure. No story. Just air.
She folded the note before she could lose her nerve.
Then she went back downstairs.
The same girl looked at her.
Y/N felt ridiculous before she even spoke.
“Sorry,” she said, holding the note between her fingers. “If the man who left the bag comes back…”
The receptionist didn’t smile this time.
Maybe because she understood it wasn’t a joke.
“Should I give him this?”
Y/N nodded.
“Only if he comes back.”
The girl took the note carefully.
“Of course.”
Y/N thanked her and left the hotel before she could change her mind.
London looked different in daylight.
Louder. Less magical. More capable of swallowing a whole night and pretending nothing had happened.
But in her jacket pocket, the cherry gummies were heavy enough to remind her she hadn’t invented it all.
And a few hours later, on the other side of the city, Harry stopped outside a simple hotel he had no logical reason to visit again.
He wore a cap, casual clothes, and his wired earphones were tucked into his pocket instead of his ears.
The receptionist recognised him.
She didn’t say his name.
So he liked her immediately.
“She left something for you,” she said simply.
Harry went still.
Then he took the folded paper.
He didn’t open it straight away.
He stepped outside first.
Walked to the side street where no one was looking at him.
Only then did he unfold the note.
He read it once.
Then again.
The third time, he stopped on the last line.
No pressure. No story. Just air.
Harry closed his eyes.
All day, people had talked to him about schedules, security, guests, setlists, press, family, plans, the future. Everyone seemed to need him to be something. A fiancé. An artist. An icon. A man with his life together. A happy man. A man certain of the life he had chosen.
And then there was Y/N.
A girl who had travelled alone to hear him sing and still somehow seemed to be the only person not asking him to perform anything.
Harry folded the note carefully and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
That night, when Wembley lit up again, he searched for her before he admitted to himself that he was searching.
It was ridiculous.
There were thousands of people.
Lights, signs, arms in the air, cameras, glitter, screaming, faces melting into one impossible sea.
But then he saw her.
In DISCO VIP.
Not right at the barricade. Not desperately trying to catch his attention. Just there, with bright eyes and a smile that looked like it was trying to pretend everything was normal, as if there wasn’t a secret folded in his pocket.
Harry almost missed the start of the next song.
Almost.
Y/N noticed.
Of course she noticed.
And for one second, between the roar of Wembley and the entire weight of his life, she lifted the bag of cherry gummies into the air, subtle enough that no one else would understand.
Harry lowered his head, trying to hide his smile.
He didn’t quite manage it.
The whole stadium thought the smile was for them.
Y/N knew it wasn’t.
And maybe that was dangerous.
Maybe it was wrong.
Maybe it was just one of those things that shouldn’t exist in daylight.
But that night, while he sang to eighty thousand people and looked once, only once, in her direction, Y/N knew she was going to do exactly what she had promised.
After the show, she wouldn’t wait for him.
She wouldn’t look for him.
She wouldn’t message anyone.
She would simply walk back to her hotel the same way as before.
In the same terrible shoes.
With the same cherry gummies in her pocket.
And if he needed air again, he would know where to find her.
Hi! I'm new to this thing of writing but I'm about to publish my first thing... I never wrote before and english is not my main language so please be nice to me
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