Kai woke in a hard rush, breath caught halfway up his throat, hands already reaching for a threat that was not in the room.
He had dreamt about something ugly and it still clung to him in ugly pieces...Ayan’s hands at his neck. Elias kissing him through the pressure. The whole thing had been wrong in a way that left his skin hot and his stomach unsettled, and for a second the large bed beneath him felt less like safety and more like another stage where someone could pin him down without asking.
He forced air in, then out, and waited until the dream lost its grip.
Only then did he look to the side.
Kole was not in the bed.
The empty half of the mattress brought the previous evening back in one clean humiliating sweep. Kai remembered how stupidly he had handled first contact, how easily he had gone quiet under the man’s presence, how quickly his usual defenses had softened into awkward staring and incomplete sentences. Heat climbed into his face.
"Goodness," he muttered.
The left side of the room was his. That much had been settled the night before when he finally unpacked properly from the ring. He could still see the arrangement from where he sat, clothes set in order, academy materials stacked with more care than he usually bothered to show strangers, the few personal things he had not bothered hiding placed as if the space already expected him to remain. Kole had watched the storage ring work with open fascination and called it strange magic, which would have been fine if Kai had meant to reveal it.
He had not.
He had particularly, almost deliberately, planned on not showing that ring to people. It was one of the few practical advantages he preferred to keep quiet. So why exactly had he shown it to Kole so easily?
Was it for show?
Had he felt so insignificant in front of that kind of presence that he reached for something impressive just to prove he was not empty-handed? Had it been the need to please a man who looked like he had stepped out of a higher tier of the world and silently announce that there was something special about him too?
Because Kole had not reacted to his beauty the way most people did. There had been no startled furrow of brows, no visible hit behind the eyes, no hungry double take dressed up as politeness. He had simply looked at Kai as if acknowledging a person in the room, nothing more and nothing less, and that plainness had unsettled Kai more than open desire ever did.
Kai sighed and dragged a hand down his face.
"What a hassle."
He said it to no one in particular, which made the deep voice that answered from directly in front of him land even harder.
"Did you sleep well?"
Kai shuddered and snapped his head up.
Kole stood there in the open space between the trees and the bed, naked again underneath loose robes that did almost nothing to reduce the impact of him. The fabric hung open enough to show the dark stretch of his chest and stomach, berry-black skin clean and reflective under the morning ward light, and Kai’s mouth nearly betrayed him before his brain caught up. Everything about the man was exact in a way that felt unfair. Height, frame, composure, even the calm way he waited for an answer. Kai stared too long and completely forgot there had been a question.
Kole tilted his head, studying him, and let out a low growl.
"Your face."
Kai’s attention snapped back at once.
"My face? What happened to my face?"
"It’s quite unusual."
Kai felt heat rise into his cheeks before he could stop it.
"What? How?"
He only noticed he was touching his hair when his fingers were already in it. It had grown more than he had been tracking through the months of academy pressure and ranked routines. The white length now reached his shoulders, soft enough to catch against his neck when he turned too quickly.
Kole kept watching him with that same unnerving steadiness.
"It’s different from the humans I have seen."
Kai had no useful answer for that, so he gave none.
"You are beautiful," Kole said.
The compliment was simple, almost spare, and somehow that made it worse. There was no performance in it, no practiced charm, no attempt to buy a reaction. Coming from him, the words carried enough force that Kai’s breath hitched on contact. He looked over Kole’s frame again despite himself and had to swallow before he could answer.
"You are beautiful too."
Kole smiled.
It was, without exaggeration, the most beautiful smile Kai had seen in a long time. Clean white teeth, visible fangs, and a warmth that softened the severity of his face without reducing any of its strength. Kai felt the stupid urge to move forward rise so sharply that he had to lock his body in place to keep from doing something embarrassing before breakfast.
"Thank you," Kole replied, and then he began crawling onto the bed toward him.
Kai moved back on reflex, surprised by the advance and immediately unsure of its intention. Was he trying to have sex with him? The thought arrived complete and vivid. Kai was not against the idea in principle. After the way the man looked, sounded, and occupied space, a more physical turn would not have been the strangest outcome of the morning. The issue was how direct it seemed, how little warning it carried, how easily Kole closed distance as if the room already belonged to both of them.
Kai shut his eyes and pulled the sheets higher against his body, bracing for contact out of instinct more than fear. He felt Kole’s breath at his neck a moment later, warm and close, then moving upward in a line that made his shoulders tighten with expectation.
Then Kole spoke again, still near enough that the words touched skin.
"You need to get ready. Intermediate orientation usually happens today."
Kai’s eyes opened at once.
Kole was right there in front of him, green eyes soft and intent in a way that somehow made the almost-contact worse than a direct proposition would have been. Puppy was a ridiculous word to attach to a man built like that, and yet it was the one that crossed Kai’s mind before embarrassment flooded in behind it. The man had not been asking for sex after all. He had been waking him up for schedule.
Kai blushed hard.
"Yeah. Right."
He sat there for a second longer than necessary, sheets still gathered in his hands, pulse still too aware of how close Kole remained, and understood with perfect clarity that Room 51 was going to test more than his intermediate coursework.