My Mate Is My Roommate?

Chapter 4 - Suppression Failure

The pills ran out on a Thursday, which should not have been possible because the bottle said eighteen and he had only been here seventeen days.

Kaito counted them three times, shook the bottle, turned it upside down, tipped it. One pill left, then none. The label said to reorder a week before, but he had been too embarrassed to go to the campus clinic and say "Omega suppressants, please" to the smiling Beta nurse who knew Renji by name. He had been too scared to list it on a form that Renji might see in the trash, even though Renji never looked in his trash. He told himself he could stretch it.

He told himself half a dose would hold. He took half on Thursday night, breaking the small white pill with a kitchen knife, and woke Friday feeling like his skin was too tight, like it didn't fit. He took the other half Friday night and woke Saturday morning burning.

Classes passed in a blur. By noon his temperature was 38.2 on the cheap thermometer he kept hidden in his sock drawer, his shirts sticking to his back, his gland swollen and tender. He told his literature professor he had a cold and left mid-poem, walking back to the dorm through cold rain without an umbrella because he couldn't stand being in a classroom full of Alphas who might start to smell him.

Renji wasn't there. The bed was made, the desk tidy, a note: "Practice until 4 - ice ankle - R." Good. Kaito locked the door and the bathroom door and sat on the tile and let it happen because fighting it made it worse.

Heat without a full dose was not like real heat. The clinic had warned him. It was jagged, incomplete, his body trying to tip over an edge and failing, spiking and falling. He sweated and shivered, his scent pouring out of him unchecked - peach milk, overripe, desperate, the scent he hated most because it made him feel like fruit left out. He bit his fist to keep quiet, ashamed of the noises he made, of the way he ached between his legs, of the way his thighs pressed together seeking friction, of the name that kept rising in his throat despite every pill.

Renji. Renji. Renji.

The dorm door opened at four oh three. Kaito heard the limping step, the crutch tapping the floor, the rustle of a wet jacket. He went silent, praying, pressing his face to the cold tile, willing his scent to be smaller.

"Aizawa?" Renji called, voice carrying. He knocked on the bathroom door, not trying to open it. "Are you in there? You left your key inside, the door was unlocked. Are you okay? You didn't answer my text."

Kaito couldn't answer. A fresh wave rolled through him, his back arching off the tile, and he whimpered, betraying himself, a high, broken sound he would have given anything to take back.

Silence on the other side. Then Renji's voice, lower, careful, with no panic, just recognition. "You are in heat. Or close. How far?"

"No," Kaito sobbed, but his scent said yes, filling the small bathroom and seeping under the door. "No, leave -"

"I am not going to open the door," Renji said quickly, firmly. "Listen to me. I will go to the clinic and get you what you need. What is the name of your medication? I will not tell them your name if you don't want. I will say it's for my cousin."

Kaito shook his head, then remembered Renji couldn't see. His forehead was on the tile, his hair damp. " - can't. They will know. Everyone will know. Please don't -"

"They are doctors," Renji said, patient, not moving from the door. "They have confidentiality. Or I can call a friend. My cousin is an Omega, I know the pharmacy that delivers in unmarked boxes. Tell me the name, Aizawa, please. You are shaking, I can hear you."

The rain hammered the window. Kaito's fever spiked to 38.9. He pressed his forehead harder to the cold tile and whispered the name through his teeth, dosage, and the fact he had about two hours left before full heat, and that he had no blocker spray left either.

Renji repeated it back, correct, calm. "Stay in the bathroom, lock it. Open the window a little, just a c***k. I will be back in twenty minutes. I will knock three times, slow. If anyone else knocks, don't answer. Okay?"

Kaito made a small noise that might have been yes.

He left. Kaito heard the crutch, the door closing, the lock clicking from outside to show he was gone, not to trap him. He counted the seconds, trembling, smelling his own shame in the small bathroom, hating that he needed help, hating that he was glad it was Renji.

Renji came back in eighteen minutes, soaking wet from rain because he had run - limped, really - knocking three times slow as promised. He slid a small paper bag under the bathroom door and stepped back three steps. He was breathing hard.

"Two weeks' worth. And water. And a new blocker spray that is unscented, the pharmacist said the scented one irritates glands. The pharmacist said half-dosing is why you crashed - it confuses the axis. Don't do it again, okay? Take it now."

Kaito's hands shook so badly he dropped the pills, scrabbled, found one. It was right, the same imprint, same size. It was everything.

"How much - I will pay you - I have -"

"Later," Renji said. His voice was strained, like he was breathing through his mouth, not his nose. The bathroom was full of Kaito's heat scent, and even with the window open it was overwhelming, sweet and needy. Renji's cedar had gone sharp with restraint. "Take it now. I will wait in the hall. Take your time."

Kaito took the pill dry, then drank the whole water bottle in gulps. In ten minutes the edge dulled, his temperature started to drop from 38.9 to 38.1, his hands steadier. He washed his face with cold water, sprayed the new blocker lightly on his neck, and opened the door, legs still weak.

Renji was leaning against the opposite wall, crutch beside him, face flushed, hair dripping. His eyes were dark, pupils wide, and his cedar scent was sharp with the effort of not reacting.

"You should have told me you were low," Renji said, not angry, but something rough underneath, worry. "I thought you were sick. I could have helped sooner. You don't have to be alone for this."

"I was scared you would want me out," Kaito whispered, eyes red, looking so small in his damp shirt, hair stuck to his forehead, lips chapped. "That you would tell housing and they would move me."

Renji pushed off the wall, limped forward, and before Kaito could flinch, placed a careful hand on his forehead to check his fever, the way someone would for a roommate, nothing more, fingers cool. His palm was steady.

"You are still warm," Renji said, his thumb brushing Kaito's temple once. "Go to bed. I will make porridge. And we will set an alarm on my phone too, so you never run out again. Okay?"

Kaito stood frozen as Renji's hand lingered a second too long, then dropped, respectful. That night Kaito slept for twelve hours straight, curled on his side, and Renji slept on the floor by the door with the window open and a pillow over his nose, keeping watch, keeping the door locked from inside.

The porridge Renji made was from a recipe his cousin sent: rice, water, a little salt, egg stirred in last. He made it on the hot plate that was technically not allowed but everyone had. Kaito ate it in bed, his fever finally at 37.4, his scent finally softening to warm milk rather than sharp peach. Renji set an alarm on both their phones for seven AM, labeled MEDICINE - KAITO, with a small pill emoji, and showed Kaito. Is this okay? he asked. Kaito nodded, eyes wet, because no one had ever set an alarm for him. When Kaito fell asleep, Renji took the empty pill bottle and wrote the reorder date on the wall calendar in his neat hand: REORDER - 10 DAYS BEFORE, so he would remember even if Kaito forgot to ask.

Renji wrote the reorder date on the calendar in blue ink, right under his lacrosse schedule, as if Kaito's medicine was as important as any game. Kaito watched the letters dry and felt something tight in his chest finally loosen.