The roof is empty and it is the first time all night that Louis can breathe without choking on the pungent scent due to mixed perfumes and deodorants and aftershaves and colognes, some eternally sweaty and stinky pits.

Louis brushes a strand from his cheek and flinches at the iciness of his fingers. They weren’t as cold ten minutes ago.

A sweet smell is carried by the winter breeze — cold enough to dry the perspiration dotting his temples but not enough for him to actually need a coat or freeze his already cold hands even more.

His socks glitter in the dark. Turning on the torch in his phone, he flashes the light around, trying to find something to rest his bum on for a bit. His dress shoes are biting into his ankles and his heel is sore from it.

Louis should’ve listened to Layla’s text and worn his vans instead but he was optimistic and the burst of energy fuelled by hopeful nostalgia has long faded into bitter nostalgia.

It was a harsh reminder, to see so many of his school-mates grown up, wives and husbands on their arms, tittering away at inside jokes which died the moment Louis came all by himself.

I came to see Harry, he had texted her, pouting because he was late — later than him, which was saying something — but he did show up, half hour before dinner, dressed in a burnt orange jumper and dark wash jeans, face scruffy and hardened with age, his wild curls still soft as ever.

Harry’s embrace was warm and lovely and made him tear up. He didn’t realise how much he had missed his childhood best friend until they were standing next to each other, falling into old habits and filling in each other’s awkward silences with a silly anecdote or another conversation.

It was comfortable and easy to mingle with the crowd, his friend’s presence grounding, making it all more bearable. 

The universe allowed him only so much mercy because as they were heading to dinner, pulling out chairs and sliding into booths, Zayn arrived.

Harry’s tattooed arm immediately wrapped itself around his middle, sensing the sudden tension tightening him up.

And when Louis was sure it couldn’t get worse, Zayn slid into the seat opposite to them, hair a rich violet, arms and chest littered with tattoos, his eyes just as bright and honeyed as they were back in sixth form, sending Louis’ senses into overdrive. 

The other man merely looked up and blinked, his thick lashes lazily brushed the arch of his brow bone. “Oh, hi,” he said and ordered his food, not sparing them — him — another glance.

Honestly, Louis was two seconds away from breaking down, surrounded by the people he went to highschool with, held by his once best friend, and sat facing his once boyfriend.

A testament to his sheer stubbornness to not let these people see him cry embarrassingly.

No amount of mindless chatter could drown out the roar of his heartbeat ringing loud in his ears. Instead of focusing on his food or making conversation, Louis was focusing on actively avoiding catching any glimpses of his ex.

Shortly after Harry left, claiming to be an old man and needing to get the fuck out of their slightly irritating school acquaintances’ presence, Louis made his own excuses — not that they were needed — and rushed out of the place.

He almost threw himself into the empty lift and frantically pressed the buttons.

That is how he found himself loitering around on a rooftop, avoiding a fucking reunion and acting like ten when he’s close to thirty. For Christ’s sake, he needed to get a grip on himself.

A loud cheer spills past Louis’ lips as he spots a rug. It is a little dusty but it won’t kill him — the tobacco from his college years might have if Zayn hadn’t stopped himself.

After a long night of chain smoking they had decided to quit together. Everything reminds him of Zayn now that he’s seen him again.

Putting his phone into his pocket, and snapping out of his thoughts, Louis drags the rug out and spreads it near the edge of the railing. 

The sweet air caresses him again. The fragrance reminds him of a peach tree.

They once went to Japan — Zayn and he — and kissed under a peach blossom tree, sheltered by the bark and giddy from happiness. Both of their hearts swollen with love.

Louis swallows a humourless laugh. It’s funny, it was supposed to be a happy memory, something that was one in a list of many but now it only brings bile to his throat and tears to his eyes.

Lost in the flashback, he doesn’t hear the rattle of the door or the footsteps of the man who plops down beside him, making him jump out of his skin and scream bloody murder.

Zayn breaks out into peals of laughter, little snuffles giving way to honking snorts. “‘S just me, Louis.”

It’s always just you. That’s the fucking problem.

“Almost pissed me pants, you wanker. I’m too young to die!” Louis squeaks out, voice stuck on the higher end, yet to recover from the scream he let out.

“Think some birds flew away with the scream. If anything I should be the one pissing my pants with how loud your voice was,” Zayn teases, soft and warm, eyes twinkling in the dark, all the stars in the night sky poured into his irises, gold from the sun forming a ring around the brown of them.

Even in the dark he can imagine it all. He’s spent years staring at those eyes, falling and falling and falling until his bones met the ground in a crash.

“Fuck off if you’re just going to make fun of me,” he grumbles while wishing for him to stay for a while.

Letting go of him never is easy. Louis knows it all too well. He would’ve never let him go but life demands the hardest and it was inevitable to stay with him.

Zayn’s thigh touches his. “I think I’m gonna stay.” After a beat he adds, “I — only if that’s okay with you. I’ll leave you if you want to be — want me to.”

Want to be left alone. It was his initial sentence. 

Louis’ silly little heart aches in its cage of ribs.

“Stay. I could use some company.”

They sit in silence, the air around them is still. A flickering fluorescent bulb splutters to life somewhere near the lift. A weak glow fills the space, shadows cover half of his once lover’s face, the other half illuminated by the moon’s silver and the bulb’s white.

“It was weird, seeing them all here. So grown up and I dunno, just weird,” Zayn muses, planting his palms behind him, torso stretched out, the shadows slipping down to his mouth.

Louis knows how the light tastes on his mouth. He’s tasted it before.

Belatedly, he realises Zayn is waiting for a reply so he nods. “Yeah, yeah. I get what you mean. I still imagine them as the scrawny teens they used to be.”

“I get that.” They leave it at that.

This time Louis breaks the silence. “I didn’t know if you would show up or not.”

The admission feels far too vulnerable. The dark doesn’t mask the emotions.

“Me neither. Had a strange urge to show up and I did.” Louis thinks he sees his shoulders move in a shrug.

The rays ripple across his body like waves.

Zayn has always been an ocean to him. The deeper he allowed a person to peer, the more they saw and Louis has almost seen everything. He’s explored corners and edges and curves with his hands, his eyes, his lips, his body.

A surge of courage courses through his veins. “Did you ever think of me? After the break up?”  

The wind picks up again and his hum is lost in a wail. 

“I think about you every single day, Lou. You’re not easy to forget.”

And Louis, he wants to cry.

“You understood, didn’t you?” The question comes out laced with plea. He is begging.

For a long minute neither of them say anything.

Zayn shuffles closer. Their arms and shoulders brush. He crosses their ankles, delicate bones overlapping.

“I won’t lie. I was angry and sad for not seeing it. I was blind to it all, Lou, but with time I’ve learnt to not beat up myself over it. We were naïve kids with too many expectations.” Zayn’s words are even and calm and Louis wishes he were a little angry, a little mad so he could replace the growing ball of misery in his chest with something else.

Even after Louis broke his heart and ran away without an explanation, without an answer to his question, he is fucking kind to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, a long due apology for the way he’s handled things.

The night haunts him, it’s been over three years but Louis stills sees his face, confusion and heartbreak, hears the sound of their hearts shattering like stems of wine glasses, both of their dreams mixing with the dust, their love crumpling into a pile of nothing. 

“I dreamt of the ring for two months after we ended things.”

“I dreamt of you coming back to me,” he softly admits and Louis’ heart curls up into a tender little ball.

Louis leans his head on Zayn’s shoulder — now a little meatier than it had been and speaks into his shirt sleeve, moonlight staining his tongue. “It scared me. The magnitude of our love scared me so much, Zee. I wouldn’t have lasted. Back then, I constantly felt like I would burst any second with how much love I hold for you in me and it scared the fuck out of me. My heart, my body, it wasn’t built to hold it all in and somewhere along the way, the containment poisoned it.”

Zayn’s lips brush his temple and he is hit with a sense of déjà vu. 

He closes his eyes and thinks of that day in high school, the farewell party, his black jeans and sparkling shirt, worn vans — Louis still has a similar sense of fashion, a little more expensive maybe. They weren’t out but Zayn had dragged him to the centre of the dancefloor, tugging him away from an amused Harry who was totally in on whatever was happening, and —

Can I kiss you?

Yes, he remembers saying. Yes yes yes.

That night Louis had his first kiss and first boyfriend who soon became his first love.

Later his first ex. 

Zayn popped the question in Greece, in their semi cheap hotel room right after they had sex, hands and mouths and bodies still reeking of them, hair mussed up and eyes dazed.

All Louis remembers is the sudden spike of panic bleeding into his blood and a chant of no no no ringing through his head. 

The rest of their vacation was filled with tense silences and awkward half touches, hesitant and worried of the new boundaries. Tiptoeing around each other like they hadn’t spent years together.

This is what I was afraid of. Of us not being enough anymore. Needing labels and labels and more labels to keep us together.

Louis is pulled out of his thoughts by Zayn’s voice, silken and smooth as always.

“Do you think you could ever love me again? The way you did back then?”

Louis’ lips brush his cheek in reply. 

“Mhm, not the same way — we’ve changed, Zee.” 

A bubbly laugh. “True, I have a dozen new tattoos.”

“You probably do,” he agrees, closing his eyes and tilting his face up, lips puckered, waiting for a familiar pair to meet them.

They do.

The light on his lips tastes like peaches. Louis’ sweet, sweet love.

Another memory, he thinks, sighing into their soft kiss, thinking of the people they’ve ditched downstairs.

“Does this mean you’re giving us another chance?”

Louis fists his shirt. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

He cups Zayn’s cheeks and realises with a pleasant smile — his hands are warm.