"What's wrong with you, man?" James asked on Wednesday morning as we took our seats in Prof. Jane's class. It had to be my face or the way I was dragging my feet. Even my clothes gave me away. I'd grabbed the first things I saw, so my shirt was wrinkled and my jeans looked off.
The lecture hall was already half full. Chairs scraped as more students came in. Voices drifted around the room. Someone behind me laughed loudly, and it got on my nerves. I just wanted it to stop. My eyes felt heavy.
"Nothing," I said, looking away. The thing about my friends, they can read me like a book.
John made a face. "Doesn't look like nothing to me. You look like shit."
"Didn't sleep well," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. It wasn't a lie. James looked like he wanted to ask more, but the professor walked in and shut that down. I let out a quiet breath. Good. I didn't want to explain that I'd been up late trying to catch up on reading.
Professor Jane's heels tapped as she moved to the front. She wore a fitted blue shirt tucked into a dark skirt that stopped just above her knees. Her hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders. She looked younger than most professors and yeah, she was hard to ignore. Somehow, she reminded me of Lena.
She started the lecture, but my eyes kept dropping. I caught bits and pieces, then lost the thread again. The room blurred as I fought to stay awake.
By the time she finished and wrote the assignment on the board, I knew I hadn't followed any of it. I glanced at my friends. They didn't look much better.
She'd spent forty minutes talking about proprioceptive training, and I'd checked out halfway through.
Then the slide changed. Maybe it was the bold heading ASSESSMENT, but the word snapped me back. The sleep was gone. I sat up. My friends did the same.
"This assessment," Professor Jane said, pointing at the screen, "is worth forty percent of your semester grade. You'll design and run a four-week injury prevention and performance program for an active athlete."
I leaned forward, finally paying attention.
"You must work with a real athlete in this university," she added. "At least three sessions must be recorded on video."
Groans spread across the room. James muttered, "That's a lot."
"A real athlete," Professor Jane repeated. "No casual joggers or regular gym-goers." She paused, then added, "And don't pay anyone to do this for you. It's straightforward. Just follow the steps and record your sessions."
James leaned closer. "An actual athlete? Where are we supposed to find one?"
I ignored him and kept listening.
"You have two weeks to find your participant," she said. "They must be part of a university sport, and the athletics department has to confirm it. You'll submit a written report in week nine."
"Fucking hell," I groaned, dropping my head on the table.
Why does this course have so many assessments? I didn't expect this much stress.
John clicked his tongue. "It's not that serious. This school is full of athletes."
"I've got a cousin who runs," James said with a grin. "I can ask him."
"Does he go here?" John frowned. "And since when do you have a cousin? Eli, do you know any cousins?"
James scratched his head, looking at us. "No… he doesn't go here."
"Then he doesn't count," I said, reaching to smack the back of his head.
He dodged and laughed. "I'm just thinking out loud."
Class ended soon after. Out in the hallway, John shoved his hands into his pockets. "What about the football team? Someone has to know someone. Come on, there's no way we don't."
"The football team hates us," James said.
I scoffed. "They don't hate us. They don't even know we exist. That's not the same."
"You're one to talk. You know an athlete," James said, wiggling his eyebrows. "We are the ones that have to start finding strangers."
Of course I knew an athlete. I knew one very well, so well that I've shared a room with him for months. I've been unwillingly acquainted with every detail of his training, diet, and even the exact way he grunts during five-thirty morning pull-ups. I haven't memorized it on purpose, that would be crazy, Dosu was just painfully loud.
I knew a basketball player on this university's team, and for the past two weeks, he'd stopped actively making my life miserable. I was grateful. We're not at peace exactly, more like a ceasefire with zero formal terms. We don't talk unless necessary. And that has been the best two weeks of my life. I'm not about to ruin it by asking Dosu Michael for anything. I'd rather stab myself in the gut.
"What?" James said, reading my expression.
"Nothing," I said again.
He glanced at John, who looked back. Some wordless exchange passed between them.
"Eli, he's a basketball player," John said. "He literally plays for the university. That's exactly what the assignment needs."
"I'm aware."
"So why—"
Images of Dosu and me working together flashed in my head, setting up cameras, arranging props and every scenario ended with us yelling, maybe even hitting each other.
I shook my head. Never. "I'm not asking him. Guys, it's bad enough sharing a room with him. Spending time and making videos? He'll drive me insane."
James placed a hand on my shoulder. "Can I have him then?"
"He's not a toy." My voice had a sharp edge I hadn't meant to hear. "And I don't own him."
Honestly, I didn't care what they did with him.
"Yeah, right," John muttered.
I groaned. "You guys are the worst."
Back on my way to the dorm, my phone buzzed. A text from Lena: you've been quiet. everything okay?
I stared at it for a while before typing a reply. Lena was a good person. She genuinely cared. And somehow, that made it worse. I hadn't been ignoring her on purpose, I'd just been elsewhere, stuck in my own head, in a place where normal conversation, normal feelings, and the version of myself that knew how to be a good boyfriend didn't exist. I loved her, I knew I did, but I couldn't love her the way she needed me to. The way she deserved. And that felt worse.
yeah. sorry. I was in my head about this assignment, I textedback.
She replied immediately, which she always did: tell me?
Guilt stabbed at me. I decided to tell her. I sent a voice note, explaining the athlete requirement, the forty percent weight, and the two-week deadline.
She replied with three voice notes in a row, her usual way when her thoughts poured out. I listened with one earbud while walking back to the dorm. She suggested a friend-of-a-friend whose brother runs track three hours away. Sweet of her, but I had to remind her it had to be someone at this school.
I'll figure it out, babe, I texted.
Then I saw her reply, and my chest tightened: I miss you.
I stopped outside the dorm building, staring at those words, trying to measure what they stirred in me. I realized I did miss her. I missed our walks in high school. I missed that beautiful scent of hers. I missed her smooth skin and her hair. I missed everything about her. But I didn't miss her like a boyfriend should miss his girlfriend.
miss you too, I sent back.
#
The room was quiet when I pushed the door open. For the past two weeks, it had been like this with no music blasting, no stomping feet or that usual chaos that came with Dosu.
My body relaxed, the way it always did when I came home to find him gone. I closed the door gently behind me. Ellie was right about one thing: I cared too much. In a normal world, there was no reason to be this stressed about a boy in my room. Boys were loud, messy, and generally impossible. My friends were loud, too, though not messy, and I realized there was no way I could ever live with them. I liked my peace and quiet.
I kicked off my shoes and held them in my hands, about to cross to my side of the bed, when I froze. A figure was on Dosu's bed.
I yelped quietly, but it came out anyway. My heart jumped. Blond hair stared back at me. I exhaled, shaking my head. What did I think? That someone had broken in?
Dosu was lying on his back, one arm behind his head, the other resting at his side. He was still in his practice kit. His shirt had been tossed somewhere near his pillow, crumpled. His phone lay on his chest, screen dark, as if he'd been using it and just stopped mid-scroll.
He looked exhausted. Even asleep, it was clear. There was a way his body had completely surrendered to the mattress, and I could tel. it was a brutal practice.
I didn't know why I cared. I didn't know how long I stood there, but long enough to notice things I shouldn't. Long enough for my brain, which should have been focused on the forty-percent assignment, to start its own unauthorized inventory.
Dosu Michael… well, objectively, if you stripped away context, history, the months of passive-aggressive tension, he was built. Really built. The kind of body that came from years of real athletic training.
I swallowed, my eyes tracing his arms first, then his chest rising and falling evenly, and his stomach… I looked away, licking my lips. The wall suddenly seemed fascinating. Somehow, he looked even more attractive this way.
The thought hit like a punch: The fuck was that? Did I just call Dosu Michael attractive?
I pried my eyes away and set my bag down quietly.
Wow. Look at the state of me. A straight guy, standing in his dorm room, staring at the wall because apparently, looking at anything else was… unsafe for reasons I didn't want to admit.
And of course, my stupid phone decided to ring.
I snatched it up so fast it nearly flew out of my hand. Lena's name flashed on the screen. I cursed under my breath. Why now? Who knew if Dosu had caught me staring?
My heart was still hammering, but otherwise, I was okay. I stepped into the hallway, pulling the door nearly shut behind me, and answered.
"Hey," I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
"Hey, you," her warm voice said. "I wanted to hear your voice."
"Yeah," I replied. "Good. Hi."
A small pause. "You okay?
"Completely. Yeah. Just got back," my voice was like a man who had just gotten caught cheating. I wasn't cheating. I wasn't even doing anything.
I told myself to calm the hell down. She wasn't the reason I'd been gawking at Dosu like a fool. We settled into the conversation. She asked about my day, and I told her.
"What about someone from the athletics department?" she asked. "Can't you just go ask?"
"It's not that simple. You need someone who'll actually commit to four sessions, show up, take it seriously. An athlete you know is better than a stranger, babe. Most people won't commit to anything."
There was a pause on Lena's end. I could almost picture her shaking her head. "So find an athlete you know. It shouldn't be a big deal, Eli. This could be a way for you to interact more. You need to have a story that is better than if you had just two friends in uni. That's boring. You don't even go to parties."
"This is not about making friends, babe. What I'm trying to—"
"Eli."
I closed my eyes. "Babe."
"I'm just saying—"
"Lena."
She made a sound, like she was trying to calm me down. "He's literally right there. Kiss and make up or whatever. Just let him help you."
The word kiss didn't help. It created an image that had never even happened: Dosu lowering his face, me reaching up. I groaned, leaning against the wall, resting my head.
What was wrong with me?
The door swung open.
Dosu was standing there, hair flattened on one side from the pillow, eyes still carrying that just-woken depth, squinting slightly at the hallway light. He looked at me.
"Sorry," he said, not sounding it. "Didn't know you were out here."
I lowered the phone slightly. "I was trying not to wake you."
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze slow. "That's new," he said. "You being considerate. Are we being soft on each other now, Eli? Are we starting to be what they called roomies?"
"Fuck the day that happens, dickhead."
The corner of his mouth tilted into a smile. "That's the boy I know. Who are you talking to?
There was no reason to tell him anything, we didn't have that kind of rapport. But the last few minutes had scrambled my brain, so I bit my lower lip and shrugged. "My girlfriend."
Something flickered across Dosu's face, unreadable, gone before I could catch it. "Right. I can't believe some girl is trying to date someone like you. You're boring, Eli. So boring."
I flipped him off.
He laughed.
"Eli?" Lena's voice came through the phone.
I held it back to my ear. "Sorry, babe. My roommate from hell woke up."
"Oh." A beat. "Is that… the one?"
"Yes," I said. She knew all about my living situation. There was only one.
"Hi," Dosu said from behind me.
I raised an eyebrow. "What the fuck? Get the hell out before I bash your teeth in."
"Tell him I say hi back," Lena said, which was so Lena. "Don't be rude, Dosu. He needs you."
I looked at Dosu, muscles and all, and forced a glare. "I don't."
"Put the phone on speaker, babe."
"What? No."
"Eli, I'm begging you."
"Lena, don't talk to him about anything—"
"Just do it."
I clicked the phone to speaker. "Hey, roomie. This is Lena. Eli needs your help, he has an assignment and he needs an athlete. He told me all about your great—"
I cut the speaker off, phone back to my ear. "Babe."
"What? You need him."
"I don't."
Dosu tilted his head. "She sounds nice."
"She is."
"Unlike her boyfriend."
"Goodbye," I muttered.
He stayed in the doorway. I turned slightly, lowering my voice. "I'll call you back."
She sighed that particular Lena sigh and said, fine, before hanging up.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and turned back to the doorway. Dosu was still there with that look on his face. The one that meant he'd heard something and already decided what to do with it.
"Sooooooo," he drawled, stretching the word until my left eye twitched.
"What?"
"You need me."
I folded my arms. "Need you for what?"
"For a practical assessment. Forty percent."
I froze. Lena hadn't mentioned all that. It clicked instantly. "Motherfucker. How long were you awake?"
"Long enough."
My heart thumped faster. Did he…oh my God. Did he watch me stare at him? I tried to gauge his expression. If he did, he'd have taunted me by now.
He shrugged one shoulder. "I'll do it. Just because I love my boy and we're on the route to becoming good room buddies. What's next? Sleepovers?"
I pretended to gag. "Please. I don't want to pour my food down here."
"Yeah, yeah. Act repulsed all you want. I'll be your athlete anyway. A chance to watch you do whatever I want? Please, I'll take it."
The offer hung in the hallway between us. I looked at him, half-asleep, pillow-flattened hair, offering himself like it was nothing, like the last few months hadn't been a battlefield.
"No," I said.
"Why?" His brows furrowed, like he couldn't understand why anyone would say no.
I smirked. "Because I said no. It's my assessment, not yours."
He nodded slowly and pushed off the doorframe. "Okay." He turned back into the room. "Offer stands if you change your mind."
"I won't change my mind."