"It looks beautiful, Harry. Aubrey pink really does match the sheets in the best way."

"Thank you. But it's because of you. I probably wouldn't have chosen this if you weren't there with me."

Zayn tried his best to be modest. "Nope... All you. And I know Mindy is going to be very delighted when she comes here on Saturday."

"Yeah, she will." Harry felt his way to the door. "So now that we've made my bed, are we going to get to learning colors now?"

"Sure. Let's do it."

Zayn turned out the light in the room and they went down the hallway to the living room and where they sat down on the couch. Once he loaded up a website on his phone, he scanned over the page. "I'm looking at the way this is set up and I think we should do this in the order it appears on the website. One color a day, maybe?"

Harry pulled his sock covered feet up on the couch. "How many total colors are there?"

"In the world, there are millions of colors. But for this site, they listed the general ones. Let's see. There are..." Zayn counted out loud so that Harry would know that was what he was doing. "Twenty six colors." He finally said.

"Twenty six? That's an even number. How about we do two, then?"

"Two a day?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged his shoulders in agreement. "Sure. Two a day sounds fair. You're ready?"

He nodded. "Yep."

Zayn looked down at the phone and focused on the words on the screen. "Our first color of the day is red. It says 'red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility, which is why stop signs-"

"Zayn."

He looked up. "Hm?"

"You're reading."

"Yeah. This is what's on the page under the color red."

He smiled but shook his head. "No."

"No, what?"

"I don't want you to read to me. I want you to teach me in a way that I understand. I'm not saying don't look at the phone because you probably do need that. But I am saying you should tell me the things that apply to me. I hardly doubt the color red can make my blood pressure rise when I can't even see it."

When he said that, Zayn laughed and he pulled his own sock covered feet on the couch. "Okay, true. I wasn't even thinking about that. Alright. Let's see what I can take from this. Um... Red is described as emotionally intense here. Red is energy, it's strength, it's power, fire, war and it's danger. I also see this website doesn't say anger. But it definitely can represent that too. In the cartoons, the characters' faces turn red when they're angry. Sometimes in real life too."

Harry chuckled. "Wow. Sounds like the color red has a lot of aggressive meanings."

"Aggressive. But not all bad. For example, passion, desire and love can also be associated with it. Those are good. It can also cause erotic feelings, you know like... feelings related to sex. Sometimes guys find girls in red dresses, nail polish or lipstick a turn on and sometimes boys in red ties or red shirts have the same effect on girls. Especially scarlet red. There's just something about it."

Harry pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. "Don't boys also find boys in red shirts and ties a turn on?"

Zayn's​ mouth parted as he tried to fish for the right words without offending Harry or giving him the wrong idea. "I'm sure they do. I don't know any, personally. But I'm one hundred percent sure that happens somewhere."

Harry seemed to be thinking now. "You know what's interesting about the color meanings for red?"

"What?"

"Love. It's amazing how something so soft is also classified as strong."

Zayn sat the phone down in his lap. "Why do you assume the love it's referring to is strong? Why can't it just be love, period?"

"Because it's there with all those other aggressive qualities. And love can mean you'd give your life for someone. At least that's what Grandma once told me. It's got to be strong if you're willing to do that."

Zayn was mildly entertained by that. "Wait. Who's teaching who?" He joked.

Harry giggled. "You're teaching me. But you can't lie, that gets you thinking."

Zayn nodded. "It does."

"So what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Have you ever loved anyone?"

Zayn scoffed. "Of course. My mum, my dad and my sister."

"I don't mean your family. I mean a special someone. Someone you had to grow to love. Not someone you're supposed​ to love."

"Oh..." His voice lowered. "Well... I- I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry."

Harry wasn't bothered by that at all. "Don't be sorry. We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. But I don't mind talking about myself."

Zayn was relieved. He knew Harry was patient and kind, but that type of consideration meant so much to him. "Yeah. I would much rather do that."

"Okay." He sat back and leaned against the arm rest of the couch. "I was never in love with anyone but I did date."

That intrigued him. "You did? Who did you date?"

"A guy named Mitchell. We only dated for four months when I was twenty one. He was ten years older but he was always so sweet to me. Despite not seeing him as often as I could have, I really wanted him to be that person to stick by me, you know. But I could never love him. No matter how far we went with each other, I just couldn't feel the way I knew he was starting to feel about me. I guess you could say I wasn't red for him." He said.

Zayn grinned. That was a nice use of the word. But still, he wondered what happened. "So what happened to your relationship?"

"I broke it off with him and we went our separate ways. But in the end it worked out. He's happily married to someone closer to his age now."

Zayn shrugged. "Well, at least you got to be the one to break it off with him. You had complete control over how things went. Must be nice."

"I wouldn't call it nice." He countered. "Even if he was so much older, I still regret it till this day. Mitchell really wanted to take care of me. I regret not wanting to love him and then breaking his heart because of it. He was my first and only boyfriend but I do think it might be better to be the dumped than the dumper in a situation like that. Because being the dumper forces you to think about how you actually gave away a good thing."

Zayn pondered that thought for a second and the more he did, the more he realized Harry was right. Boy, for a guy who wanted Zayn to teach him something so amazing and complex as colors, he sure appeared to be omniscient to the world around him and all of its predicaments.

"Well, I don't suppose you're interested in discussing light red then."

"Why not?"

"Because it represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity and... love."

He gasped excitedly. "Wait! That's what I was talking about. Bright red is the strong version of love. But light red is the soft version of love. The sweet kind. Doesn't that make sense to you?"

"Yeah. I would imagine that the sweet kind of love as the kind that motivates someone to purchase a bouquet of roses for their partner on Valentine's day. Or plan a romantic dinner. Or propose to them. Or make love to them."

Harry laughed. "I agree. And those are the type of things that match sexuality and sensitivity. All of those things require putting it out there and taking the leap. Being who you are and not caring about what people think of you. Even if only being attracted to boys gets you called every offensive word in the dictionary by a passerby."

Zayn looked sympathetically at him but also couldn't stifle his curiosity. "How did that become a thing for you, though? Because we know it isn't guys' physical appearances that attract you to them."

He crossed his legs now and smiled. "Mindy. When all you have is a friend who is a girl and all she talks about in her teenage years are boys and how cute, kind and sweet they are, you start to love them just as much in that same manner."

"Really? Now that's​ something I have never heard of before."

"Consider yourself lucky, then."

"Oh I will. But you won't be lucky until you name me five things that represent red."

Harry poked his cheek with his finger as he was thinking. "Strength, power, energy, passion, and love. Strong and gentle love."

Zayn smiled. "Good job Harry. We're finished."

He got up off the couch. "Not so fast. I've shared something about me with you. But we're not finished until I learn something about you too."

"Like what?"

"Well, you did say red also meant determination. So what's your biggest determination right now?"

He stood up too and almost answered. But he stopped in his tracks because what was he determined to do? What kind of goals did he have? Did he even have any? "I don't know." He finally said and it came out so distant. So lost in its uncertainty.

"You don't have goals?"

"No. Not really."

"Have you ever?"

"Yeah. I did. But they all got crushed a few months ago."

"Every single one?"

"Yep."

"At one time?"

"Uh huh."

He put his hands on his hips. "So you don't have enough goals then."

Zayn was taken back by that statement and Harry's dramatic leave out of the living room left him wanting to know more about why he thought he could just say something like that to him. So he followed him.

"What do you mean by that? What's considered enough to you?"

"When there's still something left to strive for even after something disappointing happened to you. Whatever it was that happened to you, if you had had more goals, most likely all of them would not have been crushed at the same time."

Okay. That made sense. "And you? What are your goals?"

Harry turned in his room and Zayn just leaned against the door frame at the entrance. He knew this was Harry's private place so he didn't want to make a habit of walking in his room. Helping him make his bed was one thing but coming in here just to come in here was another. But he did turn the light on so he could see him.

"My goals are to get out and go places, learn new things. I want to learn Spanish too. But I'm a procrastinator."

Zayn smiled even though he was confused. "Why do you want to learn Spanish?"

"Just because it can give my mind something to help it stay sharp and busy. There doesn't have to be an elaborate reason."

He nodded. "True. Your reason works just fine, then."

He felt around his dresser for something. "Yep. And you know, Zayn. Just because something disappointing happened to you, it doesn't mean that you have to give up your goals. Maybe they weren't crushed. Maybe they were just put on hold for the moment. You never know what could happen to you later in life. Don't give up on them."

He folded his arms. "Yeah, you're right. I could still try to stop smoking. But looking for love... I don't know."

"I think those are both great goals. They're lovely. So find what you feel is most easiest to accomplish and start there."

"Smoking, by far."

Harry stopped what he was doing. "Huh? You think quitting smoking is easier than falling in love by far?"

"It is.

"But Zayn- well, I'm not one to talk after what I told you about me and Mitchell- but so I've heard, falling in love is a lot easier than learning to quit smoking. Smoking is an addiction so quitting is hard. But love is... it's natural."

"It is." He readily agreed. "And that's the problem. Its naturalness makes it too easy. It's so easy, it's dangerous."

"Well, love and danger. Those things were both under red, were they not?"

Zayn nodded once. "They were."

"So that's what love can be at times. From the way people talk about it, falling in it must be scary in the beginning. But I bet once you're in it, bliss takes over and you forget how dangerous it can be. If that's really a goal of yours and you're not just saying it, then I think you should take the leap. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, that is."

Zayn stood up straight and put his hands behind his back. "Sure, Harry. I'll see."

Finally after feeling around for a while, he found what he was looking for. He walked over to the direction he heard Zayn's voice and felt for him. He ended up touching his stomach and Zayn giggled before telling him "yes, I'm right here."

Harry held out a little notepad and a pen to him.

"I don't write mine down. I type them in a note pad on my phone so it can read them to me. But I heard it helps if you write down your goals."

Zayn took his hands from behind his back and took the items from him. "Wait. You want me to write them down on your stuff?"

"That pen and pad came with a little crafts kit I got for my birthday a couple months ago. I don't use it, so it's yours now."

Zayn swallowed the lump in his throat. "Thanks."

"Now go on. Write your goals down."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. Or you might forget later."

He opened the pad and then clicked the top of the pen so that the nib was exposed. "Alright. So I'll write 'I want to stop smoking' then."

Harry quickly reached out to stop him and ended up touching his chest. "No, no, no."

"What?"

"Don't ever say 'I want to'. That's a given because that's why it's a goal in the first place."

"So what am I supposed to say then?"

"Say 'I will'."

Zayn stopped and looked at him. He could see his reflection in Harry's sunglasses and he looked just as disconcerted on the outside as he was inside. "O- Okay." He stumbled out. "I will stop smoking." After jotting that down, he sighed. "There."

"You're not done."

"I'm not?"

"You named two goals. You should write that one down too."

Zayn stilled. "Uh... Right..."

After a few seconds, Harry folded his arms. "I don't hear a pen on any paper."

He groaned. "Okay. Fine." He put the pen to the paper and begrudgingly wrote down the seven words. "I will fall in love with someone."

"Good." Harry clasped his hands. "Now excuse me."

Zayn backed out of the way and let him move past. As Harry walked down the hallway, he read everything he wrote down in an undertone. "I will stop smoking. I will fall in love with someone." That last one got him thinking, so he repeated it to himself. "I will fall in love with someone. I will fall in love with someone. I will..."

But with who? Who was going to want to get to know him for him? And was he supposed to wait for them or go in search of them himself? He turned out the light in the room and slowly made his way down the hallway, thinking intently on that. He guessed in order to find out, he'd have to do exactly what Harry said to do. Take the leap. That is, when​ever the first opportunity finally presented itself.