My Mate Is My Roommate?

Chapter 6 - The Mixer

The mixer was in the main hall, string lights and cheap beer and a playlist that was too loud to talk without leaning close. Every club had a table with flyers. The lacrosse table was surrounded by girls in skirts and Alphas in letter jackets, laughing too loud.

Kaito stood outside the double doors at 6:58, pulling at the hem of his sweater. He had let Renji pick it - soft white, a little too big, that made his neck look long and his wrists small, with a wide collar that would show a mark if there was one. Renji had said, "Wear something you feel good in. You look good in soft things, Kaito." Kaito had wanted to hide in the bathroom after that.

Renji arrived at seven exactly, hair combed, wearing a black button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, cedar scent clean and sharp and freshly showered. He looked at Kaito standing under the hall light and went quiet for a second, his eyes doing a slow, honest sweep that made Kaito's ears burn.

"You look -" He stopped, swallowed. "Ready?"

Kaito nodded, unable to speak. Renji took his hand without hesitation. His palm was warm, dry, and he laced their fingers like he had done it before, thumb pressing to Kaito's pulse. Kaito's pulse was rabbit-fast.

"Rule reminder," he murmured as they walked in, close enough that his breath touched Kaito's ear and his cedar wrapped him. "If you want out, squeeze twice, fast. I will get us out. No questions."

The hall went quiet in the way halls do when the captain arrives with someone new and not expected. Renji guided Kaito to the lacrosse table with a hand on his lower back, proprietary and gentle, fingers spread. It was a touch that said mine without words.

"This is Kaito," he told his teammates, who were staring. Sota from the text, the vice-captain, others. "My boyfriend. First year literature. Be nice."

The word boyfriend in Renji's low, calm voice did something catastrophic to Kaito's nervous system. His knees softened. He smiled, small and shy, and said, "Hi. I am his roommate too. We - we were roommates first. We are trying."

A girl at the next table - the one Renji's mother had sent, pretty Beta named Mika with perfect hair and a nice smile that didn't reach her eyes when she saw them - looked at their joined hands and flinched. "Oh," she said. "I didn't know you were - Renji, your mother said you were single."

"I didn't tell many people," Renji said, even, not cruel. He lifted their joined hands slightly, showing. "We wanted to be sure before we told family. We are sure now."

He squeezed Kaito's hand. Kaito squeezed back without thinking, his thumb stroking Renji's knuckle.

They did the circuit as a couple. Renji bought him a soda he didn't ask for, kept his hand on Kaito's waist while they talked to professors, laughed when Kaito spilled a little on his white sweater and dabbed it off with a napkin, close enough that his scent wrapped Kaito like a coat and his fingers brushed Kaito's stomach through the sweater. Kaito found himself leaning into it, forgetting to be scared, forgetting it was fake, laughing for real when Renji told a story about his first lacrosse game where he ran the wrong way.

Halfway through, near the drinks table, a third-year Alpha from the rugby club approached. He was taller than Renji, broader, with a scar on his chin. He looked at Kaito with open interest, ignoring Renji completely, inhaling visibly.

"You are Kaito, right? Literature? I have seen you in class. You smell -" He leaned in, too close, too familiar, nose almost to Kaito's hair. Kaito stepped back, hitting Renji's chest. " - interesting. Soft. Like you are trying to hide something sweet."

Renji moved before Kaito could step back further. He didn't push, didn't need to. He just placed himself between them, his scent flaring hard, cold cedar turning sharp as ice, an Alpha warning. He tilted his head, exposing his own neck slightly in a dominance display that made the rugby Alpha straighten, and laid his hand flat on the back of Kaito's neck, thumb stroking the sensitive skin where a mating bite would go, where Kaito's gland pulsed hot.

Kaito shivered violently, his knees weak, a soft, helpless gasp escaping before he could swallow it. His blocker couldn't hide the sweet puff that escaped. The rugby Alpha's eyes widened.

"He smells like me," Renji said, quiet but everyone nearby heard, his voice low and absolute. "Because he is mine."

The rugby Alpha backed off, hands up, eyes down. "No need, Takamori. Didn't know he was claimed. My bad."

"He is," Renji said. His hand stayed on Kaito's neck, possessive, his eyes never leaving the other Alpha until he turned and left, muttering.

When they were alone by the drinks table, Kaito whispered, shaking, "You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to claim -"

"I wanted to," Renji said, and his hand was still on Kaito's neck, and his thumb was still stroking, and his eyes were dark, pupils wide, and his breathing was not steady. "Did I hurt you? Tell me."

Kaito shook his head, face crimson, scent sweetening despite his blocker, his whole body leaning into the hand without permission. "No. It - it felt - I liked it."

Renji leaned a little closer, scent wrapping them both in a private cloud that the loud music couldn't cut. "Tell me to stop and I will. Right now."

Kaito looked at his mouth, at his hand on his neck, at the room watching. For a second the loud hall disappeared, and it was just cedar and peach. He whispered, barely audible, "Don't stop. Please."

Renji's breath caught audibly. He didn't kiss him - not here, not now, with rules - but he pressed their foreheads together for a heartbeat, hand still on his neck, thumb stroking, and said so only Kaito could hear, voice rough, "Then stay close to me the rest of the night, boyfriend. Stay where I can touch you."

Kaito stayed, hand in Renji's, neck warm under his palm, and when the pretty Beta girl Mika left early and texted Renji's mother a photo of them with the caption "He is very happily taken, Auntie, you can stop worrying," neither of them noticed, because Renji was looking at Kaito like he had forgotten it was fake too.

After the rugby Alpha left, Renji walked Kaito to the balcony for air, away from the music. You are shaking, he murmured, his hand still on Kaito's neck, his thumb warm. Kaito nodded, leaning into him. I liked it when you said I smell like you, he admitted, quiet. It made me feel - not alone. Renji's scent softened, cedar going sweet. You do, he said, his forehead near Kaito's temple. You smell like peach and like my sheets now. Good. They stayed on the balcony until the song changed, Renji's hand never leaving Kaito's neck, and when they went back inside, Sota gave them a thumbs up and Mika was already gone, her chair empty, her phone out.

Outside the hall, the string lights buzzed. Inside, Sota was already texting the team group chat. Kaito didn't see it. He was looking at Renji's hand, still on his waist, and at the Beta girl's empty chair, and understanding that pretend had a weight.