Top Posts Tagged with #hshq

The Route Back to Me Series

Part 2 - Same 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: 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.”

Harry kept looking at her.

His mind was clearly somewhere else.

Y/N narrowed her eyes.

“Harry.”

“Yes?”

“I can see you thinking.”

He tried to look innocent.

“I’m just listening.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing celebrity mental maths.”

“That doesn’t exist.”

“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.

Trending Tags

Last Seen Tags

#hshq

Trending Tags

Last Seen Tags

#hshq