Mute » 1D

Chapter 19

Chapter 19


Harry


"Where's Kashine?" I asked. Louis shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "The last time I saw her she was going into her room, looking stressed." The other boys nodded and continued to eat.

It was the morning after Sunday, and Kashine was still asleep. Maybe. None of us had seen her at dinner either. It was like she just disappeared.

"Well, she's late, so she better get up soon," I said and dug into my pancakes.

"Why don't you go wake her?" Niall suggested calmly. "I know you want to." I nearly spit out my orange juice. I glared at him as he laughed. "Oh, come on, Harry," he said. "It's no secret. You just want to see her in her pajamas, don't you? And not just in her bed, am I right?"

The others started laughing, and I'll admit my face was a little red. What they didn't know was that I had already accidentally slept with her. Gosh, that sounded really wrong. But we didn't DO anything, just slept.

"Oh, shut up, Niall," I mumbled. Louis picked at his pancakes, but didn't say anything, which was odd. Usually he jumped onto stuff like this. "I need to talk to you," he finally said and jumped out of his chair, pulling on my arm. I stood up reluctantly, and he dragged me out of the room.

"Don't get too physical!" Zayn called after us.

"And don't forget about Kashine, Harry!" Niall added. I rolled my eyes. These guys were too stuck on the Larry Stylinson thing.

"You did return the journal, right?" Louis asked me when they were out of earshot. I nodded.

"Did the other boys see it first?"

I felt a small flash of guilt, but I pushed it away. I didn't do anything wrong. I took the journal from Louis and gave it back to Kashine. After reading it for a bit. I was such an awful person.

"Harry," Louis said insistently. I shook my head slowly and he sighed. "Why didn't you give it to them?" he asked. "If you think about it, Harry, we barely know her. And she's living with us! Also, I think if we read it we could find a cure to her silence. You know, maybe go punch some sense into Miley or something."

I stared at him. "You read about Miley?" I said incredulously. He rolled his eyes. "70% of her entries are Miley-related," he said like it was obvious. "Of course I read about her. She's a jerk."

"What about the other 30%?" I challenged. I wanted to know what Louis had read about Kashine. Maybe he knew about Keith. Louis looked like he was trapped, and that was all the answer I needed.

"Oh, just... other stuff," he said.

"Did you read about her crush?" I asked him quietly. He glared at me. "By accident, not on purpose, unlike you," he snapped. "Don't play dumb with me, I know you: you would research this guy as much as possible. I can't believe you!"

I winced guiltily. "I... I just wanted to know what Kashine--" I started to defend myself, but Louis interrupted. "I don't care about your petty excuses," he said darkly. "You read through Kashine's journal, probably through and through. And, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you also probably know how to make Kashine talk."

I was confused: was Louis mad at me or what? I thought over what he said to me and decided that he was still kind of mad at me, but I'd be able to make it up to him by helping Kashine.

"I've got nothing," I admitted. "But I'm working on it and I've come up with... a few ideas." Louis looked at me expectantly, but I wasn't quite ready to share them just yet. "I'll tell you later," I said quickly. "We better wake up Kashine and get to our sessions. We're already late as it is."

He scowled at me. "Since when did you become a Liam?" he asked, and for a moment I thought he was being serious with me. But then he grinned and I sighed and punched his arm. "Not funny," I scolded but I was grinning too. "Nobody deserves that kind of punishment."

Louis went back to the kitchen, but I paused by Kashine's bedroom door. I considered knocking, but being me, I just went in anyway. Kashine was fast asleep, amazingly, and she was all tangled up in her blankets. She looked really cute when she slept, and so peaceful too.

I decided to use this time to my advantage and I snooped around. She kept her room nice and tidy, and all of her clothes were folded neatly in her suitcase. Strange, since there's a set of drawers right over there.

I checked inside each of them and saw that they were all empty. I had no fear of feminine objects, since most of the time I got hit by them onstage, so I shifted through her suitcase. I didn't find her journal or anything that might help her speak, like pills or anything, but I did find a lot of other items. Like... you know, I'll just keep my findings to myself.

I wasn't quite ready to admit defeat, and her suitcase interested me. I swear I saw this on a commercial once. Then I saw the clip. I held it down, and a secret compartment popped out. Of course! This was the suitcase that had a bunch of secret triggers on it that revealed different pockets and stuff! Cool, Kashine got one of those? I thought it was a fake.

Inside the secret compartment was a small flat book. I took it out and realized it was Kashine's journal. So this was where she kept it. Good to know.

I put it back inside, despite my instincts screaming at me to open it, and locked the compartment. I hadn't messed up Kashine's clothes that bad so I left those alone and took a step back.

Did it look like a nineteen-year old guy by the name of Harry Styles had just searched through Kashine's room? No, not at all. I decided it was time for her to wake up.

I shook her arm, and almost immediately her forest-green eyes shot open. She sat up and I backed up a step. She stared at me like she couldn't quite believe I was standing there, then rubbed her eyes, blinking them multiple times. She gave me a confused look.

"You're late," I said and pointed to her alarm clock. She took a look and gasped. She glared at me and pointed towards the door: get out. I nodded quickly and rushed out the door, closing it quietly. Then I ran to the kitchen, where the other boys still were.

"There you are, Harry!" Zayn cried. "Where were you? We were about to go looking for you." I rolled my eyes. "Is that really necessary?" I asked. "I live in this place, does it look like I'm going anywhere?"

"Perhaps down Kashine Avenue," Niall smirked and the others burst out laughing, while my face turned beet red. "What is your problem?" I demanded.

"I don't have a problem," he said, looking hurt. "I was just stating the obvious."

"He's got you good," Louis giggled and they high-fived. I huffed indignantly. "Looks like you've found yourself a new best friend," I said.

"Aw, Harry," Louis said and gave me a hug. "Niall could never replace you." I smiled while Niall complained, "Well, there goes that dream." We laughed at him.

"Did you wake up Kashine?" Liam asked after I managed to pry Louis off of me. "Yeah," I said.

"Shouldn't she be here?" Zayn pointed out.

"I don't know, she looked kind of freaked out," I said. Just then Kashine ran into the kitchen, and I say this in the nicest way possible: she looked awful. She had dark circles under her wide eyes and her near-white hair looked unbrushed and tangled. Her clothes were wrinkled and looked like she had just thrown them on carelessly.

"Good morning, Kashine!" Niall said cheerfully.

"You're looking good," Louis added sarcastically and I slapped his arm. Kashine blushed and looked into the nearest mirror, which wasn't hard. Zayn had them all over the place. She gasped and nearly dropped it. Then her face turned red and she looked like she wanted to apologize for her appearance. But I thought she looked fine. Could do better, but fine.

She sighed, grabbed a napkin, and took the pen out of her pocket. She wrote on it carefully and handed it to me, the one nearest to her. It said:




I have some bad news. You know those LWWY dance moves? They are apparently useless now. Simon sent me an email saying he wants me to choreograph the "Up All Night" album, and LWWY is not on that album. We have two weeks until your next concert, and eight songs to choreograph. No more separate sessions: you all will be working with me for the next few days. Depending on how well you all cooperate and know how to do the moves, we still might be able to take the day off on Saturday, or we might not. I still have some stuff to do, so until further notice I want you all to start stretching. I need you to work with me here. Okay?




I nodded and passed it to Louis. I couldn't believe we did all of that hard work for nothing! We wasted a whole week dancing for a song that didn't matter anymore! Great, just great.

The other boys weren't happy as well by the time Kashine got her paper back. She didn't look all too thrilled either, and I realized it must have been too late by the time she got that email. I decided to lighten up the others.

"Well, the good news is we know how to have balance," I said. "And we know how to dance better and we know how Kashine works with us. That's all good, right?"

"I suppose," Zayn said grudgingly. "I can't believe I did all that for nothing! We wasted a whole week!" Kashine winced and looked down. I put what was hopefully a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It wasn't your fault," I said. "If we work hard enough and don't mess around we'll be able to get all this done. We can do eight songs, right, boys?"

"No!" they shouted at me, and I glared at them, tilting my head towards Kashine. "Oh!" Liam exclaimed. "Yeah! Right! Totally! We can do eight songs! Pfft, no biggie!" Kashine looked up and she was smiling slightly, like she was trying not to laugh.




Thanks, guys. I'm going to go work on "Tell Me a Lie". I'll give you the details later. For now, stretch.




"Yessir!" we yelled and saluted her. She laughed and ran off, forgetting about breakfast. She skipped dinner, and now breakfast. I didn't want her to starve over this. I called Niall over. "What's up?" he asked.

"Can you make sure that Kashine eats?" I asked. "It doesn't have to be a big meal, just a snack or something three times a day. I can count on you, right?"

"Totally!" he chirped. "Kashine will never starve under my watch!" I tried not to laugh at that. "Okay, everybody!" I shouted. "To the yoga room!"

"Charge!" Louis added and we ran off.