Ray's class let out just before dinnertime, and when he returned to the apartment, he had hoped to find the lights on. When he arrived to an empty apartment, though, his hope dampened. He was alone again.
Ray sighed as he balanced his backpack and guitar bag in the foyer. He slipped his shoes off and locked the front door behind him. It was already dark—damn the winter months—and the apartment felt hollow with the street lights streaming in through the blinds. The blue, eerie shadows dissipated the instant Ray flicked on the overhead light.
He set his backpack on the kitchen table chair. Sora had come with furniture, but it wasn't enough to fill the sheer size of the apartment.
We'll need to go shopping, Ray thought as he went to his room. There was a sleeping bag on the ground from the night before, and Ray crawled on top of it, laid his guitar on the ground next to him, and hugged the neck of it for as long as it took for him to fall asleep—mostly by accident, of course.
He slept through what would have been dinner and didn't wake until a key turned in the front door. He startled to attention with a gasp, shoving himself up from the sleeping bag and twisting around to the open bedroom door. The living room lights were still on, and so he saw the moment Sora walked in, sluggish and tired, at midnight.
"Welcome home," Ray chimed, albeit hoarse with sleep, from his room.
Sora jerked with a start, eyes wide. Oh, right, he had a roommate. His shoulders slumped with a low curse, shoving his backpack onto the ground beside the table. He put his hands over his face and groaned, "Don't—scare me like that, Christ."
"Sorry," Ray said, hushed and guilty. He left his room and realized instantly that his stomach hurt so much because he was painfully hungry. He clutched at his stomach and sighed. "Are you hungry at all?" he asked.
"Starving," Sora confessed, and Ray brightened instantly.
"We should order something! I haven't had dinner yet," he said. He reached for the refrigerator door handle, and as he did, Sora peered around him to see the very empty refrigerator. "And we haven't gone grocery shopping yet. Aye, yai yai, that's gonna be expensive..."
"Don't remind me," Sora groaned, rolling his eyes away from the horror scene. He slumped against the kitchen table and reached for his phone. "I'd be down for pizza."
"Domino's?" Ray suggested, and Sora agreed.
As they waited for the pizza to arrive, the atmosphere of the apartment diminished to nothing more than a sense of awkward tension. Ray wanted to go back to his room, but Sora stayed out at the kitchen table. Perhaps they needed to talk things over? They did need to go shopping...
"Hey, Sora," Ray started, perched at the head of the table. Sora looked up from his phone. Ray's heart leapt into his throat at the look of murder in Sora's cold, black irises. He swallowed hard, ignoring every visual he had of theory class that day. "I'm thinking maybe... this weekend we could go shopping? Maybe get a futon or something..."
"I'm not going shopping with you," Sora deadpanned, and Ray's hopes and dreams plummeted. "Just pick something out and we'll go halfsies. I don't care."
"Really?" Ray huffed. "But going to Ikea together would be so much fun."
"Not a chance."
"Why not?"
Sora sighed as he set his phone on the table, hooked an arm over the back of his chair, and said, "I just don't want to be seen in public with you, alright? We don't know each other and I'm not comfortable with it."
All of the dismal energy in the pit of Ray's hungry stomach flared up then out of sheer anger. He crossed his arms and turned away with a scowl, seething, "I don't get it—you've got such an attitude. I don't see why half of our class is head over heels for you."
He didn't miss the way Sora's mouth fell open then, or how he blinked dumbly at Ray for several silent seconds. He cleared his throat, shifted uncomfortably, and said with a low, nervous grin, "Yeah right. I don't know where you heard that, but it isn't true."
Sora wasn't dumb, though. He preferred to play dumb and blamed it on his training with Charlie when it came to talking to customers. Play dumb, and only act like you know what's happening if it's for the benefit of getting a client flustered. Sora wasn't looking to call people out on their bullshit—he knew when his peers were checking him out—but he wasn't about to start that conversation.
Someone once asked him out to a house party last semester. Sora had meant to play dumb, but instead said, "I don't know what that means," and left.
He tended to play Too Dumb too often.
Ray floundered before erupting with an explosive, "You've got a whole fanclub! Are you seriously telling me you didn't notice when everyone was looking at you in theory today?"
Sora's eye twitched. He was still hung up on the fact that Ray talked about him with their classmates. "There's a reason I sit at the back of the class," Sora hissed. "And you talked to your 'friends' about me?"
"I didn't bring it up! They brought it up, and they also mentioned that you're..." The rest dissolved into a sheepish mutter. Ray's ears turned pink.
"I'm what?"
"Bi," Ray hissed.
Sora couldn't believe what he was hearing. Sometimes he wondered why he was bisexual. It wasn't his fault that he was attracted to the worst gender in existence (men) but there he was, batting for both teams.
He also dreaded the fact that the class knew this about him and it was all because of the first week of fall semester when a guy asked him out and followed up with, "But if you aren't gay, then I'm fine being friends," and Sora responded, "That isn't the issue—I swing both ways, just not your way."
And now everyone in the music theory major knew he was bisexual.
Great.
"Is that why you're nervous rooming with me?" Ray asked, ducking his head. "Because people might talk?"
"That's not a concern," he said, standing and grabbing his phone from the table. He pushed away as Ray watched him leave. "Because I'm not—nor will I ever be—interested in you."
Ray's jaw dropped to his lap. He wanted to tackle Sora to the ground right then and there, but instead, he just sat there, dumbfounded, sitting on the only piece of furniture in the shared living space of their apartment.
Sora leaned out of his bedroom door and said, "Tell me when the pizza gets here," before shutting the door.
Ray clenched his hands into fists on top of the table. He gave them a good, solid slam before shoving to his feet. He glared in the direction of Sora's closed bedroom door before grabbing his backpack and marching to his own room. Two could play at this game.
____
Prior to their first class, Ray visited the coffee shop down the road and, by complete coincidence, bumped into Sora there as well. Ray's trip to the coffee shop was swifter—what with his car to help transport him—and so he hadn't realized that Sora left the apartment an hour earlier to sip his mocha in peace. Sora's bedroom door was shut, so Ray merely assumed that Sora was sleeping in and that they didn't, in fact, have their first Tuesday class together.
And, so, when Ray waltzed down the sidewalk to the coffee shop just down the road, he was more than surprised by the sight of Sora sitting at the countertop along the street-side windows, a travel mug to his lips.
Sora looked up from his computer and his eyes stilled on Ray, who froze mid-step, eyes wide and stuck on Sora through the glass store front.
Ray pointed to him, as if to say, "Aha! Cryptid spotted!"
Sora turned away, nose in the air, and cup to his lips as if to say, "You dare look at me, peasant?"
Ray's hand swung to his side, scoffing under his breath. He glared at Sora one last time before making his way to the door. He pushed inside and climbed the short set of stairs to the main floor of that narrow, small coffee shop where he and Sora had first seen each other.
The coffee shop was rustic with stained wood countertops and cabinets and iron-framed stools and chairs. Ray passed by the pastry glass and tried his best to ignore the Smoking Hot Piece Of Ass sitting at the front window (Sora Ikeda). It was an immensely difficult task, one that Ray's self-control could be proud of.
But hot damn, Ray's brain was splitting in two directions—one towards the cash register, and the other hyper-aware of Sora sitting at the window. Ray pinched his fingers to his bottom lip where he took to worrying it between his teeth. This was too much for one gay boy to handle, truly. A coffee shop? It was the ultimate Meet Cute location! Prime Partner-Searching Territory.
"Sir?" the cashier said, head tipped to the side.
Ray blinked, startled. "Oh, sorry. I'll get a matcha latte, please."
She tapped Ray's order into the computer and, after paying, set to work on his drink. Ray caught himself glancing at the back of Sora's head and only did so when the barista leant over and said, "Cute, huh?"
"Excuse me?" Ray squeaked, alarmed.
The barista gestured to Sora and rose her eyebrows at Ray. "That one over there."
Ray wanted to shrivel up and die.
"Oh, no, I was just, um... looking at the decorations," Ray said, putting his eyes back to the vaulted ceiling where old barn wooden planks lined the walls.
"Uh-huh, sure hun," she said.
Ray laughed and went to the counter alongside the espresso machine. He leant his forearms against it and asked, "What's your name?"
"Lorelei," she said with a bright smile that made her look like an absolute doll with her round cheeks. "But everyone just calls me Lorel."
Ray gave a soft nod, still smiling wide. "Well, Lorel, nice to meet you. I imagine you'll be seeing a lot more of me here."
"And why's that? You move in near here?"
"Yeah, actually. Just down the street," Ray said.
They engaged in small talk until the exact moment Ray heard Sora shut his laptop. Lorel slid over a cup of green tea to Ray, who took it with one hand as his eyes followed Sora's exit from the coffee shop. The instant Sora was gone, walking past the glass store front, Lorel snapped her fingers in Ray's face.
"Just ask the fella out," she hissed at him.
Ray startled, alarmed, and waved his hand with a dismissive, awkward laugh. "Oh, no, it's not like that. Really!"
"It never hurt anyone to try."
"No, I'm... pretty sure it has," Ray argued. "You'd be surprised by what's emotionally damaging."
She snapped her fingers again, this time, directly in front of Ray's nose. He leant back to avoid getting hit. "That isn't the attitude I'm looking for, mister. Seize the opportunity, dammit."
Ray laughed again, smiling wide. "I shouldn't. We're, uh—" She's a barista, not a student! "—we're actually roommates. Random roommates, so we don't know each other very well yet."
Lorel put a hand on her hip and hummed in understanding, peering at Ray from down her nose with a devilish glint in her narrowed eyes. "Ah, I see how it is..." she sang, her pursed lips spreading into a wide smile. "You are in a perfect position, Ray."
She read his name off of the cup in his hands. Ray glanced at it and laughed, saying, "Uh, yeah, I don't think so. We aren't exactly roommates by choice."
"By fate then?" Lorel suggested, leaning an elbow to the counter.
"Not likely," he giggled. He raised the tea up and said, "Have a nice day, Lorel."
"You as well," she said with a lovesick sigh. Ray smiled as he left the coffee shop, fully aware that Lorel had her eyes on him as he crossed in front of the coffee shop window on his way to his car.