Akira awoke from his midday nap with a start. He’d been dreaming of the idiot. It was not an unpleasant dream. Which was what made it disturbing.

The current sleeping arrangements were the problem. No matter how often he changed the sheets, his whole room stunk of the idiot. Spending a few hours a day in his own space though was still preferable to trying to rest in a room that smelt of the idiot with added beta stench.

After that first night, Akira had expected Bikey to scurry off to an expensive hotel and that to be the end of it.

But here they were weeks later with Bikey still living in their flat. He lived out of his suitcases, refusing the idiot’s insistence that he use the nearly empty wardrobes and drawers, (apart from the idiot’s athletic clothing, they were both in rare agreement that they shouldn’t waste their budget on new outfits). But then always giving into the idiot’s over the top pleading when Bikey hinted at finding somewhere else to stay.

Despite his initial confidence, Bikey never directly asked the idiot to share a bed, but gave him irritating cow-eyed stares that the idiot seemed entirely ignorant of. So somehow, they had remained with Bikey sleeping in the idiot’s bed, the idiot sleeping in Akira’s bed, and Akira officially sharing a room with Bikey, but in reality, studying through the night and sleeping in his own bed during the day.

He moved slower than normal stretching out.

At least summer would end and then Bikey would go to his expensive student accommodation. And if they were being realistic, he would not make the athletic team, and would simply be studying an advanced sport psychology course. And out of the idiot’s daily life.

Akira’s body remained stiff as he walked into the main living space and he tried to focus on the work he could get done while he had the flat to himself.

Sitting at the desk, he realised how tired he was. He spent a full minute searching for his favourite pen amongst his notes and books, before it struck him that the idiot had hid it.

He leaned his head back and gazed up at the ceiling with a heavy sigh.

It was undeniable that in some ways Bikey had had a positive effect on the idiot. For reasons Akira did not particularly want to mentally explore, within a few days, the idiot was listening to Bikey in a way he hadn’t listened to Akira over the whole year: he took his outside shoes off and changed into slippers; he actually took the few extra seconds to properly dispose of rubbish rather than just throwing everything in the rough direction of the bin; he cleaned up immediately after finishing his meals; he no longer left his sweat drenched clothes around the lounge or dropped wet towels wherever he happened to be standing when he randomly decided his body was dry enough. And he had completely stopped his over exuberant hugging. Of Akira. The idiot and Bikey hugged. A lot.

In other ways though, the idiot had got nearly unbearable since Bikey’s arrival. Akira, who knew the idiot so so well, this time didn’t even know if it was one of his attempts at alpha posturing, or if it was just normal joking around that Akira had never found amusing. In his experience too much of what was basically cruelty and bullying could be hidden behind the excuse of ‘just having a laugh’.

The sensible thing would be to do his work with another pen. The thing about the idiot hiding things was that he put them in idiot places that normal people couldn’t think of. Over the past week Akira’d had to find a missing shoe in the oven, dig his toothbrush out from amongst their big bargain bag of rice, and search for the notes he was currently working on threaded with surprising care amongst the idiot’s physiology folder.

Against logic though, Akira began looking for his pen. He was methodologically going through the sofa and each of the idiot’s beloved cushions when for some reason his eyes struck on the rules board and he stopped what he was doing and just stared at it.

From Bikey’s first night, it still had in enormous letters ‘Listen to Bikey’ scrawled across it. Underneath that many of the rules were blurred or were unreadable and others had words rubbed out so they now read differently, Akira’s eyes read and reread ‘Do     walk around naked’.

The idiot found it funny. Bikey wanted to clean it all off. Akira insisted it remained as it was. It was a constant reminder to Bikey of his drunken behaviour. Which made him sheepish. Which was important because it gave Akira some sense of control over their guest.

Bikey possessed the unconscious arrogance of the always monied who had socialised all his life with similarly rich people. He so clearly looked down on their accommodation and lack of what he considered basic necessities, (but what for them were undreamed of luxuries), that he had no idea how patronising he was: it’s amazing how good you manage to look in non-tailored clothes; I’ve never met anyone before who didn’t have a hairdryer; I’m sure that once you finish university, you’ll find your proper place in the world and never have to live like this again.  

This attitude was mixed in with one of the most interesting things about him: his upbringing in a community that ignored equality laws and openly favoured omegas. Akira was curious if an omega-led world would be different to the normal alpha-led one. But sober Bikey was ashamed of his people’s beliefs that alphas were only of use for breeding and their superior strength; he expertly dodged all Akira’s questions.

Then there was the fact that Bikey was a beta who faced parental disapproval for lusting after dominant alphas.

The idiot hadn’t been able to follow much of what Bikey had said in his drunkenness, and Bikey himself didn’t seem to be able to remember all the things he’d shouted out about himself and his fantasies. The full revelations of that evening rested in Akira’s mind alone. He wasn’t sure if it was possible in a lifetime to learn more about someone’s secret thoughts than he knew about Bikey from that one night.

There was nothing unusual in anything drifting through his mind, but when Akira looked down to continue his search for the pen, he saw drops of water marking the floor. He wiped a hand over his eyes, he was silently crying.

His immediate instinct was to stop such a stupid and unwarranted display. But he knew that it was better not to try and apply logic when these rare moments of emotion hit him. He sunk down on the sofa and let the tears continue to fall. His head dropped into his hands, his breathing became uneven and his sobs were now loud like a child desperate for attention and comfort. And that was exactly what he felt like; that this was his true identity, a crying scared child needing to be loved. Being an adult, studying, trying to make a home, was all let’s-pretend. No more real than the daddy-and-daddy games the idiot had pestered him into playing when Akira had first arrived at the orphanage.

Remembering the idiot as that yellow haired child who had welcomed him with that stupid goofy smile and acted as if the world could be happy if they just tried hard enough to pretend it was, made Akira cry even harder.

Now he did try to wipe away his tears and pull himself up for being so pathetic. But it was too late.

Maybe because of his dream, he was struck with an incredibly strong urge to see the idiot. Akira glanced at the clock. The idiot should be home any moment now. Maybe the timing of this outpouring wasn’t accidental, maybe it was meant to be like this. At some level something inside of him was desperate to strip all the protective layers away and just be a weeping mess in front of another person. And be held. And be listened to. And feel supported and cared for.

And the only person who he could ever let see him this weak was the one person who frustrated and annoyed him more than anyone else ever could.

But he was suddenly certain that in this moment of unexplained tears, everything that the idiot would say and do would be perfect. He’d be exactly who Akira needed. Akira could tell him everything, reveal all his fears, all the strain he was struggling under, he could be entirely honest, hold nothing back. The loneliness would finally be over.

The door clicked open. Akira sprung to his feet, ready to rush into one of the idiot’s crushing hugs. The sound of raucous laughter, the idiot and Bikey sharing one of their constant jokes.

Akira quickly turned on his heel and rushed to the desk. He bent over his notes, grabbed the nearest pencil and started scribbling nonsense in the paragraphs of his textbook.

Bikey and the idiot continued laughing and chattering to each other behind him, thankfully ignoring him.

The tears stopped. His breathing was normal. When the idiot spoke to him, he could snap something back in his normal voice. He saw he had written the same word again and again: please. He quickly rubbed it all out. Then he was ready to turn to the idiot and his friend and start ranting about his missing pen.