He Doesn't Run Away from Unpleasantness

He's breathing a lot. Like an overzealous hyena. It's kind of sort of really embarrassing.

Kai glances down at himself and adjusts his pants, buttoning and zipping up. Tyson looks down too, curious about Kai but in the process he notices that his own schlong is still exposed and his own thighs are straddling his worst enemy so he tucks his dick in with mortification and gets off of him, landing sideways on the loveseat.

Kai's silent as he stands up, wiping his jeans with tissues he got from a box under the coffee table. He pulls more tissues out and throws them at Tyson whose brain is slowly coming back to its senses.

"I can't go back to the dorm like this," he says to Kai, catching the tissues and cleaning whatever he can. "I need to change my pants at least."

More silence. He's not even looking at him.

"Oh come on!" snaps Tyson. "You just touched my dick with your bare hands but you can't have your clothes doing the same?"

"Alright, Granger," says Kai, exasperated, finally meeting his gaze. "I'll lend you a pair of sweats."

"Thank you!" says Tyson in the tone of 'there you go'. "I'll wash them and return them to you in a couple of days I promise."

Kai throws the tissues in his hand into a bin and heads inside the house. "Not sure any will fit."

Tyson hesitates a beat before doing the same and following him.

He waits in the doorway.

Kai's taking out some clothes from his wardrobe.

"I'm sure they'll fit. You're not much taller than I am. I'll fold the leg sleeves at the hem if it's a little long for me."

Kai was about to throw the sweatpants at him but pauses at something Tyson said. Tyson whose mouth is running away from him because there's a lot of energy buzzing under his skin that he doesn't know what to do with. He fears he's red everywhere. He's starting to regret everything.

He has no idea how he's going to face himself in the mirror tomorrow morning once his brain fully catches up to the events of tonight.

"What sleeves?"

"The holes you put your legs through," whispers Tyson in a very quiet voice because he's trying to stop this nonsense. Swallow his own tongue. What the fuck is he saying? He needs to shut up. His entire face feels hot.

Kai looks unmoved. He looks like his regular self unlike Tyson whose slowly losing it. He launches the sweatpants Tyson's way and grabs a towel before heading to the bathroom, shutting the door after him.

Tyson stands in the doorway, silence all around him in that big house. His thoughts are getting louder and louder. He goes to the nearest bathroom in the hall to change before slipping out and walking to the dorm in the dead of the night with a head full of 'what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck'.

11 and a half months of no foreign contact on his dick and the hand that ends his year-long celibacy belongs to his one true enemy? Oh Tyson's living a cursed life.

He checks his hickeys in the mirror the next morning and heaves a big sigh. He's trying his best not to hate himself at this moment. They aren't even fading quickly. He's pretty sure they're healing at a much slower pace than normal hickeys. Kai's teeth must be poison to his skin. It feels like a branding. It feels maddening.

He presses the voice note button to record. "How do I get rid of these hickeys? Quickly?"

He hits send.

A reply comes soon. Hilary sighs through the speakers as he clicks play. "Normally, people just cover them up with concealer and wait it out."

"They're not going to go away anytime soon I fear," he shoots back. "Those were poisonous teeth on my skin."

"Did you go to a club without my knowing? Did you hookup with a stranger, Tyson? Is that why you regret it so much? Were they not nice to you?"

Tyson sucks on his teeth as he thinks. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. Come to my room then. I'll hide it for you."

"Thanks, baby."

"You're welcome," she sing-songs.

"I'm really sorry about the rumour that's flying around. I swear I've been telling people that it's not you every chance I get."

"Relax" Julia giggles, putting a hand on his arm. "It's fine. There's a different rumour about me every two days. They don't bother me anymore."

"Still sorry. It must suck having to deal with them all the time. I've been fighting for my life trying to ignore these rumours ever since my…feud with Kai began."

"Feud is a funny word," she laughs then gets a little serious. "Kai can be so vindictive." She looks around as if she's searching for him in the courtyard. "None of this is affecting you too much, I hope?"

"Well, you know me. I'll walk through hell with a smile on my face."

Julia gives him a smile that Tyson's learned is her 'I find you adorable' smile. "That's the spirit," she says, tapping him on the shoulder. "I'll be on my way now."

"Bye! Ace that quiz!"

She wiggles her fingers in adios as she turns around.

They're enjoying smoothies in their favourite café when a familiar face, one that he met very recently, shows up. He nearly chokes on his drink as he lifts his head.

He spots him literally a second later, lapis lazuli eyes falling on him and lighting up in recognition.

"What are you doing here?" asks Tyson with a smile as Trent marches up to their table with a matching one.

"I'm visiting a friend," he says with a shrug. "Thought I'd get him and I some drinks. Who's this?" he asks, looking at Hilary who appears very much surprised and confused.

"Trent, this is my soulmate slash best friend slash the greatest person on earth, Hilary Tachibana," he says, flourishing a hand towards her in grand introduction. "Hilary, meet Trent, my…"

"Your…sixth American friend?" supplies Trent teasingly, recalling the words Tyson had said to him the last time they met.

Tyson smiles sheepishly. "Yeah" he says in a subdued voice. "I met him at the last Date Challenger."

Hilary stops herself from spitting out her smoothie and swallows her laugh as she reaches out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Trent," she says with a bright giggle.

"Nice to meet you too," he says, grinning. They shake hands. Then he turns towards Tyson. "Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping I'd bump into you."

"Who are you visiting?"

"Uh…Johnny. Electrical Engineering. Sophomore."

"Yeah, we know him," he says, glancing at Hilary who nods. Johnny made a big fuss when he first joined wanting a bigger room all to himself with no roommate. They had to put up with his bitching for weeks. But he got what he wanted in the end.

"We don't share the same dorms though so," says Tyson, "that's probably why I didn't see you earlier."

"Are you gonna stay the weekend?" asks Hilary.

"Nope. Just for tonight. I'll be heading back tomorrow morning."

"Damn," says Tyson balefully. "I was thinking we could get some coffee together before you go."

"We can still do that," Trent says with a grin. "You guys don't have classes on Saturdays, right? Let's hang out tomorrow morning. I'll be here till ten."

"Sounds like a plan," says Tyson. Hilary nods.

"Well, I'll uh, see you guys later. Can't keep Jo waiting for too long."

"Do you need help deciding what drinks to buy?" asks Tyson. "We're here like all the time so we know which ones taste the best."

"Will you?" he asks with wide eyes, awkward all of a sudden. He's cute. "Help?"

"Of course" Tyson beams.

Kai calls him around 5 pm to sign up for something.

"What is it this time?" he asks as he strides up to the booth where Queen sits filing her nails with utter boredom. Kai stands next to her, arms folded.

"The event that you made flyers for."

"The obstacle run?" He peeps at the registration sheet. It's halfway empty. "People aren't signing up?"

"Not enough. Guess your flyers were shit after all."

Tyson glances at him. "You 'ok'ed them, big guy. It's on you too."

Kai's gaze moves from Tyson's eyes to somewhere lower, to his cheek. Almost appreciatively. With a slight smile on his face.

Tyson looks away. Giving his attention to the sign up roster again. "Isn't the event on Monday? How many more people do you need?"

"At least eighteen more."

"So thirty in total?"

"Ten to fifteen teams," says Kai. "You're my partner of course."

Queen pops her bubblegum at the same time a laugh bursts out of Tyson. Why does Kai want him on his team? "I thought people tended to stay away from those they dislike," he says slowly, looking over his shoulder at Kai.

"I don't have the habit of running away from unpleasantness," he replies without missing a beat.

Unpleasantness

"Right, I forgot." Tyson leans forward and whispers: "You like jerking them off."

Kai grips his arm and pulls him away from the booth, out of Queen's earshot. She doesn't appear to have heard anything, busy with her nails.

"You weren't so unpleasant last night, were you?" he mutters into his face once they're a few feet away and Tyson's wrenched his arm out of his hold.

"I wasn't unpleasant?" asks Tyson, incredulous. "I was real palatable to you, was I?"

"Tolerable" Kai corrects. "As long as your mouth is shut."

"You're intolerable whether or not your mouth is shut. A nightmare eyes open and closed, you bastard," he says before storming off, annoyed to astronomical levels.

"You forgot to put your name down," Kai calls after him.

"Do it yourself!" yells Tyson, stomping his way into the building.

Saturday morning, Tyson walks to Kai's house carrying his sweatpants in his satchel after hanging out with Trent for like an hour. Hilary had cancelled last minute so it had been just the two of them. Being around Trent and all his bright energy first thing in the morning had put Tyson in a good mood. He hums a soft melody on his way up the steps and rings the bell.

Bryan answers and lets him in with an unintelligible grumble before exiting the house himself.

Tyson heads to Kai's bedroom and finds the door ajar, he opens it wider with a knock and upon finding it empty ventures inside and leaves the freshly laundered pair of sweatpants at the foot of his bed.

He's on his way back out of the house when he hears voices coming from the second floor, sounds of people moving around. It's dead quiet on the first floor so sounds carry easily. He ignores the squabble however and continues down the foyer, opening the door. That's when he hears shouts. Frantic shouts.

What's happening upstairs?

He should go take a look. What if someone needs help?

He jogs up the staircase and follows the panicked yells.

"What did you do?" he hears Kai shouting.

"I don't know! I gave her the vial you asked me to give her!" says Sergei.

Tyson hurries towards the bedroom where they are and stops in the doorway.

"Which one?" asks Kai, standing next to the bed where his mother lays breathing abnormally quickly, her face turning red as she stares unseeingly up at the ceiling. He'd brought her home. That's why Kai hasn't been calling Tyson over as much as usual.

"The one you-"

"Point to it!"

"That one," Sergei points to a tube on the table full of medicines. "The one with the green lettering."

Kai grows pale. His voice is as low as a whisper as he says, "That's only meant to be taken in small amounts because she's allergic to a chemical in it. You gave her the whole vial?"

"Y-yeah." Sergei rakes his fingers through his hair in distress.

Kai pulls out his phone and dials what Tyson guesses is the number for the ambulance as he tugs open a drawer, rummages through it, fruitlessly. "Where are the epipens?" he asks. He pulls open the one right below it and goes through that one too without finding what he's searching for. "Check in her bag! Yes hello, I need an ambulance…"

Tyson sees Sergei's face grow paler than Kai's. He has a feeling, so he only waits till Sergei finishes saying the words: 'I took them out earlier' before running out of there without listening to the rest of that sentence.

He sprints towards the frat house two blocks down where Michael's bike is parked outside next to a bunch of other vehicles because there's a pool party going on. He always keeps two epipens on him as he has peanut allergies and Tyson saw them in the pouch attached to his motorbike's engine less than a half hour ago when he dropped him off at the dorm before driving here.

He unzips the pouch and is relieved to find the epinephrine shots. He takes one and rushes back to the Blitzkrieg house, climbing the steps as many at a time as he can to reach the second floor.

"Here" he says, running inside and thrusting the pen into Kai's right hand. He looks shocked to see Tyson but moves in a second and administers the dose to her thigh. One side of her face was already swollen and turning purple by the time he got there, her breath coming out in choking spasms. She wouldn't have made it long enough for someone to make a trip to the nearest pharmacy or till the ambulance arrived. Michael deciding to go the party next door with his bike quite literally saved her life. Kai closes his eyes in relief as the choking sounds cease and she's able to breathe again, her skin returning to its normal colour.

Colour returns to her son's cheeks and lips as well.

Tyson releases the breath he'd been holding then, almost sagging with the exhale.

"I'll ready the car," says Sergei, disturbing the serene silence that had taken over the room following the scare. "We'll be able to get there quicker." He disappears into the hall.

Kai looks up at Tyson.

Tyson freezes wondering if he'd tear into him for coming over without being invited especially when his mother is at home.

But that doesn't happen. Instead, his gaze lingers on him for a long moment before he says quietly, "Thank you".

Tyson's eyes widen in surprise, not having expected his gratitude or for him to express it out loud. He nods because he doesn't know what else to do, his heart still aflutter in his chest.