Akira prided himself on being composed in all situations.

But the sight that greeted him walking into his home after putting in long hours at the library, caused his mouth to drop open, his books to fall out of his arms and a low sound of disbelief to escape from his lips. 

Omega porn was blaring out of the television and eight naked alphas were standing up with towels draped over their erections, wiggling their hips around.

‘Aki!’ His roommate shouted out at exactly the same volume as when he spied Akira on the opposite end of the campus. ‘We’re just doing a new exercise routine. We’ve got about another half hour to go if you want to join us?’

Akira swept his dropped books up and cradled them in one arm. Then he walked over to the blackboard and in quick but neat script wrote:

Rule 31. No naked alphas exercising in the living room.

Then he went to his room without speaking a word.

Two hours later, Akira was studying at his chest of drawers. Although in truth, his mind was not as focused as normal. After a month, he was nearly satisfied with the set up of his room. He’d of course spent time before they arrived studying the floor plan of the living space they were being provided with and mentally designing the most efficient use of space. From the research he’d done, he learned that this apartment block had originally been designed as one bedroom starter homes for young executives. However, the predicted gentrification of the area never happened, and they’d fallen depressingly quickly into disrepair. Their benefactor could’ve afforded to house them in reasonable accommodation actually close to the university for less than she spent pampering her pet dogs. But yet here they were.

Akira shook his head. Such self-pitying thoughts were beneath him. There were other students in the block working every hour they could to try and afford tuition and living costs. And worse than that, whole families were squeezed into what had been designed for single people. Their last stop before the streets.

He was at the beginning of his adult life. He had got lucky that a rich person had not only read, but actually responded to one of the hundreds of begging letters he had sent out detailing his and the idiot blonde’s situation. As soon as he met her, he knew that Lady Mercia, as she insisted that he called her, was struck by both the romantic idea of sponsoring orphans, and the notion of having two young alphas dependent on her generosity. He did not resent any omega this; it was one of the things he’d hoped for. It was so unusual for alphas to be in need, he knew that someone would like the power high of having control over them. He’d seen that enough in the adults who ran the orphanage. But he was going to take this opportunity, work hard, and mould a life where he’d never have to rely on anothers charity.

The two ‘rooms’ in this flat had been divided badly. There had been a large temptation to take the much larger room, rather than the one that barely fit the raggedy single bed and chest of drawers in. It was easy to justify. He had need of space for books and notes. The idiot merely needed to do some press ups and crunches which he had no shame in doing in the middle of the living room. But from the moment he’d first seen the layout, Akira had known the real room belonged to the blonde idiot. How could he deny a first proper bedroom to someone who’d nearly collapsed from excitement when last year they were moved out of the main dormitory to the freezing attic which they only had to share with each other and a peasly six other teens?

As if summoned by thinking of him, the idiot chose that moment to burst through Akira’s room. He wore orange jogging pants and too clearly no underwear, but at least he wasn’t naked. At the moment, Akira was most worried about the protein drink he was carrying. It was so full of lumps that Akira had to resist the urge to grab it and take it back to the kitchen and try yet again to teach the idiot the simple techniques of stirring and mixing.

The idiot downed it though and then tossed the glass from hand to hand seemingly oblivious to the flecks of remaining mixture that spilt out. The idiot was obviously deep in thought. Which was not a good sign. The last few weeks he’d been nearly unbearable with his constant need to act out some fantasy of how alphas behaved. Akira believed that settling into his course and finding friends would settle him. But it hadn’t happened yet. So the idiot continued to act in a bossy intruding manner, which, amongst other things, involved barging into Akira’s room whenever he wanted without even the pretence of knocking anymore.

Akira gritted his teeth. There was too much work to do on the idiot. He wasn’t going to turn into someone’s nanny. He had enough to focus on academically without getting distracted by such a hopeless side project. Writing his rules down was the one release and semblance of control he allowed himself. If he managed to get the idiot to always wear clothes in public spaces that would be all the success he needed.

When Akira turned back to his work and was actually thinking about how to compose his next essay, the idiot finally flopped down onto Akira’s bed and decided to speak.

‘Aki, why didn’t you join in earlier?’

Akira refused to look behind him to check if the idiot was still holding the glass. Even though he could visualise it too clearly discarded next to the idiot dripping sticky globs over Akira’s bedding.

While writing notes, Akira calmly replied, ‘Why on earth do you think I’d join in with that? You should be questioning why you thought such a thing was appropriate in the first place.’

The idiot sighed loudly. Then he sighed even louder. ‘I’m trying really hard to introduce you to my friends, but you refuse and hole yourself up with books. It’s not good for you. Coach says to stay healthy alphas need to spend lots of time with other alphas.’

When Akira didn’t reply, the idiot took that as a sign to ramble on.

‘She says alphas only understand other alphas, so they need to do everything together. I told her, yaknow, well, I’ve told everyone, because of what you said about alphas being confident and not being ashamed of anything…but yeah, I told her about only like developing as an alpha really really late, and how people said I was just a beta who happened to be able to run fast. Which, yaknow, makes sense because I had to run away from the bullies all the time, and like dodge what they threw at me. And she says that I was clearly an alpha, but I didn’t have any alphas around to make me into a real alpha so it stunted me. It’s like a…ummm chemical thing….or something. She says because they’re jealous and bitter, betas would suppress alphas if they could. But normally they can’t because alphas are so much better at everything than them. But because of my being an orphan it like put me in a bad position. She says that I’m obviously really lucky you were at the same orphanage as me, as abandoned alphas are like so not a thing that happens. But if you hadn’t been there, I might never have developed at all. So wow, I’m even more grateful that we're friends now!’ The idiot’s voice brightened up. If Akira turned to look at him, he knew he’d be smiling his most inane, brightest smile.

Akira did not turn. In a flat voice he said, ‘Hearing that, I’m sure my parents would have willingly given their lives and been ecstatic that my uncle hired a lawyer skilled enough to inherit all their money without the burden of having to care for their child, thus ensuring that you got to live out your alpha dream.’

‘Oh, sorry! Oh no! I did not mean it to sound like that.’

Before he could move, naked muscled arms were wrapped around him from behind almost yanking him off his chair. ‘I’d rather be a beta all my life living in the middle of nowhere, just working odd jobs or whatever, rather than as a fancy university athlete with you suffering what you suffered. I know I sound like a jerk, but it’s because my head just empties out when I’m around you. It’s not because I’m that much of a jerk. You do know that, right, Aki? Aki?’

‘Yes. I do know you,’ Akira said in the same toneless voice.

The idiot somehow squeezed him even tighter.

‘You can let go now, before you break both me and the chair,’ Akira said.

‘Right. Yeah. Of course, mate.’ The idiot stepped back and then sidled around so he was leaning back against the chest of drawers. As usual completely oblivious to how much he disturbed Akira’s work. ‘Seriously though. Am I doing something wrong? Coach says alphas enjoy being with each other more than anything else. But you…don’t seem to enjoy being with me?’ He rubbed the back of his head and gazed downwards even after moving to a position where he could look into Akira’s face. ‘Coach says I’ve adapted like really well considering my background. She says its really common even for alphas who are used to being around other alphas to not like the scent of each other. Basher comes from a whole family of alpha relatives and he’s puked in the locker room lots of times. And I said I like the sweaty smell of other alphas as it means we’re all friends hanging out and bonding together. And Coach said everyone should take their lead from me. And, yaknow, I didn’t say this to any of them…but I’ve always been happy around you…like your room stinks of musty books, but its still really nice because it’s you and no one smells as good as you do. And Coach says…’

‘Perhaps, if you wish to talk about this coach all the time, it’d be pertinent to explain exactly what she said that led you to be blatantly watching pornography in our shared living space, despite my repeated requests that you keep your unclothed body in the privacy of your bedroom.’

The idiot preceded to explain in great detail everything Coach had told them about the importance of sex to an alpha’s athletic performance. Even at one point racing with puppy dog enthusiasm to go and fetch a pile of scrawled on pieces of paper which he conveyed incredible pride in and referred to repeatedly as his ‘academic work’.

Akira only managed to get rid of him when he pointed out to the blonde that he was already seventeen minutes late beginning his nightly flexibility training.

Finally left in peace, Akira tidied his room. Smoothing out his bedcovers. Getting on his hand and knees checking for any spillages. Carefully reoganising his notes.

He settled down to continue his work. After thirty seconds he pinched the bridge of his nose, gave a soft sigh of defeat and picked up his diary. He flicked to tomorrow and marking with urgency and as a priority task wrote:

·         Research scientific credibility of links between alpha sexual activity and athletic performance

        (Idiot’s coach background check. Alpha supremist? Simply a pervert?Trying to motivate her team in unsuitable ways?)

Then he closed his diary and with another soft sigh did return to studying.