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I didn't ask him what he was doing that day at the cafe, and he never told me.

When I arrived at school he was already there, sitting next to Niall on their usual bench, the black car back into the car park telling enough.

I bit my lower lip as I slowly approached him, feeling it slightly weird considering that we'd argued just some days before. Harry looked up from the phone he always seemed to be looking at as soon as I was close enough for him to notice that I was walking towards him, quickly locking the screen and sliding the device back into the pocket of his black coat. He slightly shifted to the side until he was sitting in the middle, closer to Niall, freeing up the right side of the bench for me to sit on.

"Hi" I said quietly, sitting down next to him, appreciating the way people had stopped finding the fact that I was hanging out with them so interesting.

"Hey!" Niall said excitedly before Harry could even open his mouth, making it clear that they'd sorted out the New Year's Eve issue.

Completely ignoring the little glare Harry sent his way, he started talking about our maths class, keeping Harry and I from interacting until it was time for us to get into the building as our first class would've started soon.

"Do you actually want to go in?" Harry asked all of sudden just as I was about to stand up to follow Niall and the flow of the students inside the building.

I turned my head to look at him, sitting back down next to him, giving him a confused glance. "What?" I asked him while trying to understand if he'd really said what I thought he'd said - not that it would've been surprising if he had, just unexpected.

Harry's green gaze landed on me, an unimpressed glance quickly finding its way into his eyes. "You heard me" he simply said, his voice low, before shooting Niall, that was still standing in front of us a quick look.

"I mean, isn't that what we're supposed to do?" I asked again, trying to figure out why he'd asked such a thing. What was it with him and always finding a reason to skip our classes? Not that I minded of course - after all, it'd happened not more than five times since the start of the year, and despite it being probably way more times than anybody should be allowed to, they still weren't enough to actually become a problem. Just like everything else about him, that too seemed perfectly calculated, as if he enjoyed walking on that thin line between what should and shouldn't happen.

Harry's stare focused back on me as soon as the shaky question left my lips, his eyebrows raising slightly as he gave me a painfully obvious glance. "I never liked to do what's expected of me" he replied, and suddenly everything started to make a little more sense. Was it really about us doing something else together, or was it about him once again finding a way to prove to himself that he could still bend the rules around him for his own enjoyment? Truth be told, I didn't really care about what was the reason why he'd asked that question in that moment, I was intrigued either way.

"I know" I said, suddenly unaware of the presence of Niall in front of us. Everyone else had already gone inside, but he was still standing there, silently watching the conversation unfold. "Are you saying we shouldn't go in?"

"You definitely should go in. Mum and dad will freak out if you skip" Niall said all of sudden, sliding into the conversation quickly when he understood where it was going, a worried look in his blue eyes.

Harry sent him a sharp glance from where he was sitting on the bench, not needing to stand up to be mildly threatening. "Then don't tell them" he replied quickly, the tone of his voice low.

The blonde boy sighed, the decision of covering for him clear in his eyes, but glazed over by a hint of insecurity. "I don't know..." he said quietly, turning his head towards the entrance of the building as he debated what to do.

"Please" Harry said all of sudden, making both our heads snap in his direction. He completely ignored my confused and mildly shocked glance, preferring to focus his attention on Niall, as if he knew for sure that the other boy wouldn't have been able to say no to him if he kept his gaze on him.

Niall gave him an equally bewildered look, making me realise that the word that had just come out of Harry's mouth really was as unused by him as I thought it was. "Alright" he said, letting out a little sigh as he gave in. "It's your life anyway." He gave another glance to the glass door behind him. "I'm gonna go" he added, turning around and rushing towards the building before any of us could say anything.

Harry stared after him, turning to look at me only when he entered the building, quickly disappearing from view. "Shall we go?" He simply asked standing up, nonchalance in his voice, as if he couldn't care less about skipping his classes. I'd never met anyone that managed to just not care about most things like he did, and while it was refreshing, it was also slightly concerning.

"Where?" I asked curiously in reply, and I stood up as well, swinging the strap of my bag over my shoulder and keeping it from slipping with my hand as I walked with him towards the car park.

Harry gave me a side-glance as we stopped in front of his car. "You already know I won't answer, why bother?" He simply replied, surprising me with his forwardness. But he did have a point after all, considering that I'd asked him that question way more times than I probably should've, considering he hadn't even answered it once.

I let out a chuckle at his words. "True."

Harry opened the boot of his car, making me take a step back to avoid accidentally getting hit by it. "Leave your bag in here" he quietly instructed, and I nodded, sliding it off my shoulder and putting it inside, where it was quickly followed by Harry's. He shut it quickly before making his way towards the driver's side, leaving me to make my way to the opposite side of the car.

I opened the door and slid into the vehicle, closing it after me and giving a fast glance in the direction of the building, feeling a hint of anxiousness pervade me at the realisation that I was indeed skipping my classes again. I wasn't like Harry, I wasn't made for that kind of stuff, so I was certain I would've never got used to it, no matter the number of times we would've done it.

He started the car, and before I knew it he was out of the car park and driving in some mysterious direction I had no idea about. It probably shouldn't have been as thrilling as it was to me, in that moment. He was like a drug, and moments like those easily became addicting when it came to him. That was just how he was, he went from giving his all on one day to the absolute nothing on the other, making my head spin in the attempt at following him.

The car ride was a bit more silent than usual, but I didn't really mind, and I just resorted to lying back against the seat, looking at the trees that quickly passed by as he drove. I closed my eyes after a while, feeling a hint of nausea at the action, listening to the quiet hum of the car, that was the only sound that broke the silence.

I opened my eyes all of sudden when I realised that the car was no longer moving, and I gave a confused glance around. "Where are we?" I asked as soon as I realised that we literally were in the middle of nothing. Harry had always seemed to have a knack for bringing me in random places, but that one definitely beat them all.

"Get out" he simply said, turning off the engine and opening his door, sliding out of the car quickly.

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, but I did just as he asked me to do and got out of the car as well. I shut the door and gave another wary look around, starting to regret my decision of leaving my phone in my bag. I closed my coat, starting to feel a bit cold - which wasn't a surprise, considering that we were in mid-winter.

"Come on" Harry said quickly, walking towards a little hill that was some feet away from where he'd parked the car, that I hadn't previously noticed.

We reached it, and I eyed in suspicion the thin layer of sand that was under our feet. There was no way that he'd actually brought us where I thought he'd brought us, was there?

He easily started to climb it, and then turned around, offering me his hand to do the same. I hesitated a bit, but then I took it, experimentally putting my foot on the slope and pushing myself up, feeling a bit of the sand under my foot crumble apart, making it harder to walk up. With the tiniest bit of difficulty, we finally managed to make it on top on the hill, and I looked at what was in front of us in awe.

Harry had definitely brought us where I thought he had, and my eyes were now focused on the silvery water that lapped the sand sixty feet in front of us. Despite the cold, I felt a sudden warmth spread through my chest. I would've never even imagined that he would've taken me to see the ocean one day. "This is unexpected" I said, voicing my thoughts.

"Is it, though?" He simply replied from where he was standing next to me, his voice low, over the sound of the crashing waves afar.

I pursed my lips, thinking about it. He did have a point, indeed. He seemed to love to take me by surprise and bring me to crazy places without even advising me beforehand, so maybe him taking me there wasn't as surprising as I initially thought it was. "Probably it isn't. You're right, I should've expected it" I replied before carefully making my way down the hill on the other side, careful not to slip over the sand, knowing that if it had got all over my coat it would've been the end of me. "I love this" I told him, knowing that he was right behind me, walking towards the water and stopping a few feet away from it.

"I'm glad you do" Harry said quietly as soon as he reached me, stopping next to me. "We can sit on my coat" he added, taking it off to reveal the white warm looking knit jumper he was wearing under, making me wonder if he'd planned it all along.

I nodded, turning around and going to sit on the black coat that he'd put down on the sand next to him, staring at the waves in front of us. It wasn't a sunny day and the sky was covered in light grey clouds, so the water wasn't blue, but of some darker shade of silvery grey, that made the rough sea seem even more majestic.

"You never draw the ocean" Harry stated after a while, catching my attention.

I gave him a little shrug, turning my head to look ahead again and bringing my knees up to my chest. "I can't draw it" I admitted quietly after a couple of seconds, not glancing at him to see his reaction as I spoke.

"I'm sure it isn't true" he said gently, surprising me. I turned my head in his direction, discovering that he was looking at the water just as I'd been doing, leaning back on his arms.

I shook my head at his words. "It is. I just..." I stopped talking, trying to find a way to describe what I felt about it in the best way possible. "Everything I draw has a certain structure, you know?" I said in the end. "Leaves, eyes, people. They all do. The ocean though, is unpredictable. I could never draw something like that." I sighed, crossing my legs and straightening my back, side-glancing at Harry.

He turned his head to look at me, the green of his eyes seeming darker and greyer under the cloudy sky. "You try to follow schemes too much" he said easily, as if he wasn't quietly analysing me.

I shrugged at his words, even though I knew that he was right, going back to looking ahead. "Don't we all?"

"I don't."

I glanced at him again. "I know" I replied quietly. He was everything but predictable, sometimes he seemed to take every day as a new adventure, while others he seemed to be more than happy to close himself in his own routine again, as if he'd never wanted to get out of it at all. I wonder how it felt to be someone like him, someone that doesn't worry too much about their responsibilities or consequences of their actions. It sounded like freedom, but I wasn't sure it was a kind of freedom I would've been comfortable with.

"It just makes it easier, I guess" I said after a while, suddenly feeling the need to explain why I was how I was. "I don't mind having a scheme to follow, a routine if you will, even though I know it would probably get boring for someone else."

"Does it make it better, though?" Harry asked softly, sitting up and crossing his legs, covering his hands with the sleeves of his jumper to shield them from the cold weather.

I pressed my lips together, thinking about it. "Isn't easier also better?" I asked him, sliding closer to him a bit, wanting to keep him warm, but also knowing I would've never been brave enough to be the one to close the distance between us.

He pursed his lips, seeming to muse on it quickly before replying. "It is, but better isn't easier sometimes."

"You're right" I said after a second, glancing up at the sky. It'd become a bit darker in the short time we'd talked, but it didn't look like it would've rained anytime soon. I closed my eyes, ignoring the feeling of Harry's gaze on me, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the coast, that increased a bit every time the cold wind hit my cheeks, just to slow down again once the breath of air disappeared again. "How do you do it?" I asked Harry after a while, opening my eyes again and glancing to the side, noticing that he'd turned his head while I wasn't looking, and was looking at the water in front of us again.

He glanced at me, furrowing his eyebrows slightly at my question. "Do what?" He asked, confused, his voice low and barely hearable over the sound of the waves.

I gave him a little shrug. "Just... not care about anything" I replied gently, looking at him expectantly. It was something I'd always wondered about him. How could he just appear so careless all the time, as if he strongly believed that nothing at all could touch him?

"I do care" he just said, a frown making its way on his face, as if he felt truly bothered by my assumption.

I gave him a confused glance. "Why don't you show it then?"

He gave me a light shrug, letting his gaze drift down to the brown-greyish sand in front of us. "Because people take advantage of it."

I gave him a little nod, not being able to take my eyes away from him. It seemed odd to think that, behind the wall he'd build between himself and everybody else, there were some things - and some people - he truly cared about. It probably shouldn't have felt that weird, though. Nobody can just not care about anything. Everybody has something that's important to them - and Harry did too. The idea of there being something that made his heart beat a little bit faster and his cheeks a little bit flushed made my own heart skip a beat. "Yeah, you're probably right."

My words were followed by a silence that lasted a few minutes, that we just spent staring at the increasingly rougher and darker waves in front of us. It wouldn't have been long before the water would've been violent enough to lap our feet.

"The ocean is like a mirror" Harry said all of sudden, shaking me out of my thoughts, and I gave him a confused glance.

"What do you mean?" I asked him, not understand where that was coming from, or where he wanted to go with that, for the matter.

He sent me a little glance before looking at the ocean again, brushing his hair back with a fast move. "You can't follow a specific scheme to draw it. It's supposed to be a reflection of how you feel." He side-glanced at me as soon as he was done speaking, observing my reaction to his words.

"I'm not good with that kind of stuff. I just care a bit too much for that" I admitted with a little sigh, shocking myself with how honest I was being with him on that day. I would've never thought I could've spoken with Harry so openly about whatever, but there we were, doing exactly that. Maybe it was something in the salty air of the ocean, but I didn't really mind it at all. It made me feel free, in a way. We were there even though we should've been somewhere else, and we were talking about stuff we would've never talked about anywhere else. For some reason, there was something that just made so much sense in all that.

A little chuckle escaped Harry's lips at my reply. "You care to care?" He asked, the irony of it all not being lost on me.

I laughed. "Pretty much." I sighed, glancing at him, observing the way he instinctively bit his lower lip as he looked ahead, before his tongue came out to soothe its slightly chapped surface.

"I care not to care" he said after some seconds lowly, as if he'd told it to himself more than anyone else, and hadn't even intended for me to hear it.

I shrugged, looking at the water again before he could turn his head and catch me staring. "Maybe we should both learn not to care to care."

"That would make everything a little less interesting and a bit more hurtful though, don't you think?" Harry said, turning his head slightly to glance at me.

I puckered my lips, feeling a shiver run down my spine when the wind blew though us again. "Probably, is there a problem with it?" I asked back, hiding my hands in the pocket of my coat.

"It would be a waste of time" he replied quietly, shifting his gaze to the horizon.

I turned my head to glance at him."Would it really?" I asked, so lowly that he didn't even have a chance to hear it over the sound of the waves.

Another breath of wind came by, and Harry straightened his back, his jumper not being enough to keep him warm. I moved a bit closer to him, hesitating a bit before leaning my head against his shoulder. He tensed up in the second I did, but he didn't move away. I wrapped my arm around his stomach and sighed, smiling to myself when I felt his body relax against me.

We stayed there for some more minutes, until the cold became a bit too much and it became clear that it would've started raining at any second, and then we got up, quickly retrieving Harry's coat from the ground and shaking it to get rid of the majority of the sand. He took his coat back but he didn't put it on, resorting to hold it as we carefully made our way up the hill and got down on the other side, making our way towards his car as quickly as possible.

As soon as we reached it he unlocked it and threw his coat in the back as I sat in the passenger seat, and then he got into the car as well, closing his door and starting the engine.

I leaned back against the seat as soon as Harry turned on the heat, going back to looking out of the window, feeling as if, even though the magic of the moment had shattered, there was still a hint of what that morning had been in the air.

It took about half an hour to get back into the city and, miraculously, it still hadn't started raining.

I furrowed my eyebrows when Harry parked almost in front of the cafe I'd been to with Ella and Aiden - and where I'd seen Harry as well. "What are we doing here?" I asked him, confused.

"Picking up something I forgot here" he said before opening his door and getting out of the car. "Come on" he added, making me understand that it wouldn't have been quick, and I got out of the car as well, closing the door and making my way around it to reach Harry. "May I offer you something to drink?" He asked as soon as I did, and I gave him a little nod.

We walked inside and to an empty table - thankfully, there didn't seem to be as many people around as the last time, considering that it was just sometime around midday.

"What do you want?" Harry asked as I took off my coat and put it over the back of the chair, a slight pinkness spreading through his cheeks at the passage from cold to warm air.

I scrunched up my nose, remembering the similar situation that had happened the day before. "I'll get a cappuccino" I simply replied, and he nodded.

"Alright, wait here" he said, before quickly making his way towards the till.

I sat down, staring at him from afar as he seemed to exchange a few words with the woman behind the till. All of sudden she turned around and disappeared in a back room on the side, returning just a few seconds later with what seemed a bunch of paper sheets. She gave them to Harry and he nodded, taking them and folding them before putting them into the back pocket of his jeans. He said something else, and then it was her turn to nod.

At that point I looked away, feeling like I was intruding in his business, and resorted to glancing out of the window while I waited for him to come back.

After some more minutes a cup of cappuccino was put in front of me, and I looked up, seeing Harry sit down with a cup of tea.

I gave him a little thank you and I smiled, softly blowing on my cup before hesitantly taking a sip, careful not to burn myself. "You got me cappuccino" I stated, remembering what had happened the day before, and he gave me a confused glance.

"Isn't it what you asked for?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows and lowering his cup.

"It is" I said with a little nod, apparently managing to make him even more confused than before. "Don't mind me" I added, quickly deciding that it wasn't something worth telling him.

He wrapped his hands around the warm cup in front of him. "Alright" he said quietly staring down at the table for a second.

I took another sip of my cappuccino. "What did you pick up?" I asked curiously, suddenly remembering the weird exchange I'd just witnessed.

He shrugged, playing it off as if it wasn't important, his following reply making it clear that it was the exact opposite instead. "A paper sheet. I forgot it here the last time I was here."

"Alright" I replied, letting it go. I perfectly knew that if he'd stopped by to get that paper sheet it meant that there was clearly something important written on it, but I certainly wouldn't have been the one to force him to tell me about it if he didn't want to.

He gave me a slight nod, and we quickly finished our beverages in silence, welcoming the warmth after all the time we'd spent in the cold air.

"It started raining" Harry stated all of sudden, glancing in the direction of the window. "I should probably get you back home before it gets worse."

I nodded and we both stood up, getting out of the cafe and walking quickly towards his car, unprotected under the rain.

It didn't take Harry long to drive me back to my house. When we arrived we got out of the car and covered our heads with my coat as I retrieved my bag from the boot of his car and rushed towards the entrance of my house.

"Do you want to come in?" I asked him, taking my coat back once we were safe under the canopy above my front door.

He shook his head. "I have to go back to pick up Niall" he said, and I nodded, understanding how quickly things could've gone downhill if for some reason he hadn't managed to pick him up in time - considering they were supposed to be in class together.

"Oh, that's fine then" I replied, the elation from the little run wearing off and leaving me with warm cheeks and a fastened heartbeat.

He nodded slightly. "I'll see you tomorrow" he whispered, his eyes wide and his hair wild from the run under my coat.

I stared at him for a few seconds, before managing to master up the courage to stand on my tiptoes and leave a fast, and somewhat icy considering we were both freezing down to our bones, kiss on his lips. "See you tomorrow" I whispered back, and he gave me a little smile before running to his car again, getting in and driving away quickly.

I shook my head and let out a little laugh as I stared after him, thinking of the absurdity of the day I'd just had. I turned around and made my way into my house, quickly hanging my coat and taking off my shoes before taking my bag and going upstairs with it.

I took my phone out and checked for any calls, discovering that I'd got a new message about ten minutes before. I unlocked the screen quickly, sighing when I realised that it was from the same unknown number again.

I read it and my phone fell from my hands.

Or about how he left him in his grave?

Finally the chapter is here! It's a day late, I know, but yesterday I was busy with my exams so I couldn't write.

I hope you enjoyed this one x

Miki

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