The Roommates: Part 3

It started like any other weekday, except Jonas wasn't in the room. He had left early for his morning class and texted Rafael halfway through the afternoon.

"Hey, forgot my textbook for Literature. Can you grab it? Should be on my desk. Thanks."

Short. Casual. Like it didn't twist Rafael's chest in ways he didn't want to name.

Still, he replied fast.

"On it."

He didn't have class until evening. It was a good excuse, no, a good reason,to do something that let him step into Jonas's space for a little while.

Their dorm building was nearly empty that hour, everyone either in class or off somewhere else. Rafael took the east wing stairwell. It was the one rarely used. Quiet, narrow, and a bit dusty from disuse, but it cut right through to the hallway near their door.

He didn't expect to hear voices.

Not in that stairwell.

Not his voice.

Rafael slowed, pausing halfway up the flight.

Jonas was laughing.

He didn't laugh like that often. It was soft. Light. A sound Rafael remembered from their rare movie nights, when something genuinely caught him off guard. It was real.

And it wasn't meant for him.

There, pressed against the dimly lit stairwell wall, Jonas was half-pinned by someone taller. Blond. Foreign. The new guy, the one Rafael had only seen in glimpses across campus. Their bodies too close. The blond leaning in, his hand brushing Jonas's hip. Jonas's fingers curled at the other boy's chest, not pushing, not pulling.

Just there.

Rafael froze.

Something sharp sank in his stomach. He couldn't breathe for a second.

He didn't mean to stare, but his legs wouldn't move. His chest felt too tight.

He should turn away.

He should call out, interrupt, laugh it off, anything,

Jonas tilted his head, said something Rafael couldn't hear. The blond leaned in. Their faces drew closer. Lips just an inch apart.

Rafael took a step back.

Then another.

He didn't make a sound, but his footsteps echoed anyway. Like guilt pounding through concrete.

He didn't look back.

Didn't need to.

He felt it already. Every silent obsession. Every stolen breath of scent. Every memory he had folded neatly in the back of his mind, burned.

That night, Rafael returned the textbook.

He didn't ask about the stairwell.

He didn't ask who the blond was.

He smiled like he didn't see a damn thing.

But later, when Jonas showered…

Rafael held the book in his hands.

He gripped it tight enough to crease the corner of the page.

And whispered to the silence, "I saw you."

Rafael lie on his bed at night, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling while the memory of Jonas against that wall replays over and over. The sound of laughter from Jonas's phone call on the other side of the room? It claws at him. The faint scent of Jonas's cologne when he comes back late from class? Torture.

He doesn't speak of it. He won't. He can't.

But oh, how it brews in him like a storm begging to break.

The dorm room was dim when Rafael returned.

Only the desk lamp on Jonas's side was on, casting a soft amber glow over his roommate's hunched figure. Jonas didn't even look up, just kept scribbling something in his notebook, headphones tucked into his ears like the world outside didn't exist.

Rafael stood by the door a second longer than necessary, his fingers tightening around the strap of his bag.

He walked in with quiet steps, placing his things down with care, as if afraid to disturb the calm. But he couldn't stop the glance, his eyes flicked toward Jonas, tracing the shape of his jaw, the curve of his neck where a single bead of sweat clung. Probably ran to get back. Probably for him.

Rafael's jaw tightened. He turned away quickly, hiding his face.

The scent hit him next, Jonas's cologne, faint but laced with something else. The same perfume he'd caught clinging to Jonas's clothes for the past few days. Not his. Not theirs. Someone else's.

He opened his closet wordlessly, changed into a loose shirt and shorts, and flopped onto his bed. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling again, the fan blades spinning overhead in a blur.

Minutes passed. The sound of pen scratching on paper, the occasional rustle of pages, filled the space between them.

Then, Jonas finally spoke.

"Hey," he said, casually, as if he hadn't just been missing for most of the day. "Raf, you okay?"

Rafael didn't look at him. "Fine."

Jonas hesitated. "You've been kinda quiet lately."

Rafael gave a small shrug, one that meant nothing and everything.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Jonas shift, pulling his legs up onto his bed, hugging his knees lazily.

"That guy, Lars, he's pretty chill," Jonas offered like it meant nothing, like he wasn't shoving a dagger deeper. "Helped me out with a few classes. I guess we kinda clicked."

Rafael's throat tightened. He managed a nod. "Cool."

Jonas stared at him longer, like he was waiting for something else. But Rafael gave him nothing.

He turned to face the wall instead, fists curling into the sheets beneath him, his chest tight with an ache he couldn't name out loud.

Jonas didn't say anything else after that.

The room went silent again.

But in Rafael's chest, the storm only grew.