Just Your Average College Life

Chapter 5

Friday, 18th October, 5am:

“So then she wiped icing off of his cheek and their soulmate marks were activated! It was so sweet, literally” laughed Matt from his lounging position on the bile green sofa, a can of root beer in his hand and his glasses on the coffee table in front of them.

“Wow, that is an adorable soulmate story. Not quite as good as yours though, Matt” replied Shiro happily, also gulping down root beer and leaning back in a sickly green armchair, though he didn't look quite as comfortable as Matt- though it was Matt's apartment so it made sense.

“Could you stop bringing that up!?” He yelped unhappily, flushing bright red and glaring at the much taller, more muscled man.

“Not until the day I die. Speaking of your soulmate, is Allura paying you wages yet? You are literally there constantly and I'm pretty sure she's never given you a single dime.” questioned the 23 year old, smirking slightly at Matt's once more flustered expression before plastering back on a serious face.

“She- I… We-. Ugh, I may not have asked her for payment yet, technically she never hired me so what I'm doing is volunteer work…..”

Then Shiro really did break down into a fit of laughter then, letting his friend punch him angrily as he continued to chuckle.

“Ugh if only you didn't have so much muscle maybe you'd actually be able to feel my hits!” Panted Matt, retreating back to his slouch on the threadbare couch after failing to injure his best friend.

“It's called exercise, Matt. Us responsible adults try it sometime.” Said Shiro, still revelling at Matt's mock anger.

“Oh yeah? If you're so responsible then why are you drinking root beer at 1am in the Ultimate Party Animal's apartment, 7 hours before your 8am class, hmm?” Snipped Matt, making a good point Shiro was choosing to ignore in favour of keeping his responsible facade that he dropped whenever he was with Matt.

“I'd say I am a good adult since I'd never be doing this if your younger sibling was still in your apartment, but they're over at their friend’s dorm, right? Plus I may have a psychology  class in 7 hours but you have a shift at 5am. And since when does anyone call you the 'Ultimate Party Animal’?” Shiro countered.

“Fine, you win. But why didn't you invite Keith to come over with you? Isn't he free until 9am?”

“Yeah, but he's currently stress painting from our entire 'extra soulmate’ situation.” Explained Shiro, dropping into silence for a second as he too mulled over their problem.

“Sounds upsetting. Where are you with that by the way?” Asked Matt, now speaking seriously since his friend's feelings were in play.

He could remember how confused Shiro had been in the few weeks immediately following finding out that Keith was his soulmate and that he had another soulmate other than Keith. This was all information Shiro had neglected to tell Matt for weeks, except that Keith was his soulmate because he'd been there when the two had met.

“Well, we hope that our extra soulmate is the same person instead of us each having different soulmates, if you know what I mean? And even though I'm pan and open to dating anyone, Keith is full on gay so our soulmate has to be a guy who's also attracted to men. None of the guys who we know like that ended up being our soulmate, so we moved on to seeing if there were any guys both Keith and I were mutually attracted to who also had two soulmate marks.” Said Shiro tiredly, rubbing his temples and taking yet another sip of root beer.

“From your lackluster expression I suppose that plan didn't go so well?” replied Matt, moving towards Shiro to give his friend what he hoped was a comforting shoulder pat.

“No, no it did not. The only guy both me and Keith like is Lance McClain, he works at your coffee shop (I don't know how many soulmate marks he has, he has an unactivated one on his left palm, I think?), but he's clearly straight- he only works part time but whenever I see him there he's flirting with some woman or another.” Shiro basically whined, clearly upset by his predicament but Matt couldn't manage to suppress his laugh at what he heard.

“Dude!” He breathed in-between what could basically be classed as giggles, inciting rage and curiosity from the college student across from him.

“What?!”

“Lance is not straight, I'm tempted to say he's even more bi than I am! First time I walked into the café he started flirting with me immediately, and basically all the gossip over there is about his and Rolo's casual 'friends with benefits’ relationship a while back!” Explained Matt, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes.

“So…. He likes men?”

“Yup.”

__

At around half two in the morning Shiro passed out and Matt decided to just stay up until his shift and sleep afterwards; he didn't have any classes that day anyway. He also did the kind thing and set Shiro's alarm on his phone for 6:30am, giving the other man plenty of time to get ready for class and travel from Matt's apartment back to campus (it was only a 5 minute walk). Afterwards Matt cleaned up the discarded cans from around his already messy living room and poured himself some instant coffee- he was sure to be tired by the end of his shift...