My Mate Is My Roommate?

Chapter 10 - First Real Kiss

It rained after the Daiki incident, hard enough that afternoon practice was canceled and the dorms lost power for an hour at six.

Kaito and Renji did homework by the light of Renji's phone flashlight, sitting on Kaito's narrow bed because the desks were too far from the lamp and because after the field they didn't want distance. Their knees touched. Their shoulders touched. Neither moved away. The filter hummed on battery, the rain hammered the windows, the room smelled like wet air and cedar and peach mixing.

"You meant it," Kaito said suddenly, not looking up from his literature notes, which he hadn't read a word of. His voice was small. "On the field. You said 'he is mine' and you looked at me and you meant it. Not fake."

Renji's pen stopped mid-sentence on his tactics sheet. "Yes."

"But we are fake," Kaito said, his pen too tight in his hand. "We set rules. We said no real marks, but you did. We said no kissing, but - we almost -"

"Are we?" Renji asked, turning to face him fully, his knee pressing harder. In the dim phone light, Renji looked younger, less captain, more boy his age. His hair was messy from rain, his black shirt damp from running back in the rain, his cedar scent softened by humidity and something sweeter underneath that Kaito now recognized as worry and want.

"I don't know," Kaito whispered honestly, looking at his hands, at Renji's hand close. "I know I liked it when you touched my neck at the mixer. I know I liked it when you said I was yours in front of everyone and I wasn't scared. I know I haven't thought about suppressants as much as I think about you, and that scares me, because I promised myself I would not need anyone. I was safe alone."

"I know," Renji said, soft, his voice low to match Kaito's. He brushed a tear before it fell, thumb warm. Kaito hadn't realized he was crying. "You are safe with me. Even if you don't want me like that. You are safe even if we stay fake forever. I will still bring you lunch and fix your filter."

Kaito looked at their joined hands, at Renji's mouth, at the faint mark still on his own neck that Renji had given him and then defended. He thought about the paper bag of pills, the porridge, the hand on his neck asking permission, the forehead press at the mixer. He made a decision that felt like jumping off the lacrosse fence again, but not scary this time.

"I want you," he whispered, his voice cracking but clear in the rain. "Not just fake. Not just for my mother or yours or Daiki. I want you to kiss me and mean it. If you want me too. If you - do you want me? As real?"

Renji stared, pupils blowing wide, breath catching. For a second he didn't move, as if he didn't trust he heard right, as if his captain brain was buffering. Then he leaned in, slow enough that Kaito could stop him, slow enough to ask without words, and pressed his lips to Kaito's, soft at first, careful, a question.

Kaito answered by making a small, broken sound that was half sob half laugh and pushing closer, hands fisting Renji's damp shirt, kissing back. He tasted like peach and rain and the strawberry chapstick he used. Renji made a low, pleased noise in his throat and deepened it, one hand sliding to Kaito's nape, thumb on his mark, the other on his waist pulling him flush against him on the narrow bed. Kaito kissed like he had been waiting and starving, and Renji kissed like he had been patient for a month.

They broke apart breathing hard, foreheads together, noses brushing, rain loud on the windows. Kaito was crying a little, smiling so wide it hurt. Renji was flushed to his ears, his own lips wet, his eyes bright.

"Was that real enough?" Renji whispered, breathless, his thumb stroking Kaito's mark, his other hand tight on his waist.

Kaito laughed wetly, tears on his wet lashes, and pulled him back by his collar. "Do it again and I'll tell you. Do it properly this time, captain."

So Renji did, again and again, until the rain stopped and the dorm power flickered back on with a hum and the filter went loud and Kaito was marked not just on his neck but on his mouth, his hands, his laughter, his scent gone sweet and cedar all at once. Fake had ended somewhere between the mixer and the rain, maybe at the first bento, maybe at the first mark, and neither could remember when, only that it had, and that it felt like breathing after holding their breath for weeks.

Later, lying tangled on the narrow bed too small for two but they made it fit, Kaito's head on Renji's chest listening to his heart slow, Renji's hand in his hair, Kaito whispered against Renji's jaw, where his pulse was, "So what are we now? Are we - real boyfriends?"

Renji kissed his temple, his mark, his mouth, unhurried, sure, and said, "Yours, if you want. Real. Not fake. I was yours since you ran onto the turf with your bloody handkerchief, Kaito. I just didn't have words."

Kaito, who had traveled light his whole life with one suitcase and a locked pill case, finally felt like he had arrived somewhere he could unpack. He turned his face up and kissed Renji back, real, deep, and didn't let go, and outside the window the campus lights reflected on the wet pavement like promises.

The power came back at seven twelve, the filter humming louder, the dorm lights flickering then steady. Renji reached to turn off his phone flashlight but Kaito stopped his hand. Leave it, he whispered, his face close, his lips a breath away. I like you in this light. Renji's eyes softened and he leaned in again, slower this time, tasting Kaito's smile. They kissed until Kaito was breathless and laughing, until Renji's shirt was wrinkled where Kaito had pulled him. Later, when they finally sat up to do the homework they had ignored, Kaito wrote his name and then, without thinking, wrote Renji's name next to it in small letters in the margin. Renji saw it and didn't say anything, just covered Kaito's hand with his own and squeezed.

The rain had stopped, but the window was still wet. Kaito wrote Renji's name in the condensation, small, then quickly wiped it away before Renji saw. Renji saw anyway, and smiled into his pillow.

They did not label it right away. They fell asleep with hands touching between the beds, a new distance neither wanted to close too fast, and woke to the same filtered air, sweeter now.

The rain had stopped and the window was still wet, but Kaito left Renji's name in the condensation just a second longer before wiping it away.

Kaito fell asleep with Renji's hand still in his, the window still wet, and woke once in the night to find Renji awake, watching him breathe, cedar soft and steady.