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His roommate, a New Yorker named Alexander, was shifting through a box on his bed. If Thomas’s side of the room was bright, then Alexander’s was pitch black. From what Thomas had seen, the guy only owned black or gray clothes and had adopted a very grey toned color palette. Thomas didn’t really care if that was what the guy liked but the way Alexander’s eyes kept drifting over the greens and blues of Thomas’s bed and posters, his collection of “coding ducks,” and the pride flag made Thomas wonder about the guy.
Alexander’s brother, a made man if there was ever one, had been similarly dressed in dark clothes and had looked less than pleased when he had walked into the room after Thomas put his flag up. That had made Thomas anxious, but he held the man’s stare without thinking, the way Jake had always told him. It wasn’t as if he was rooming with the guy. The older man with Alexander, a guy they just called Buck, had smacked the guy hard in the back of the head when he walked in on the stare down.
“I’m- I’m sorry about him,” Alexander said suddenly.
“Hm,” Thomas blinked and looked back at the other freshman. “You talking to me?”
The dark haired boy turned around, fidgeting with a book in his hands. “Yeah, I— I’m sorry about my brother, earlier— he’s— uh—” He rubbed at his neck. “He’s a big brother, ya know?”
Thomas smiled at him. “I’m an only child so not really,” he said, getting up. “But it’s fine. You’ll find out around here that people don’t scare easily from being mean mugged. How many siblings do you have?”
Alexander looked at him like he asked how many miles to the moon. The book slipped from his fingers, landing on the ground spine corner first.
Thomas, who had been crossing the room, caught the piece of paper that flew out of it with his slipper toe. “Oh,” he said once he had picked the paper up and realized it was an old photo. “Are these your siblings?”
The photo showed seven people, a father and six kids. The oldest looked to be about their age now and the youngest about eight or ten years old. He thought Alexander must be the youngest and the brother he had met looked to be the boy fifteen or so in this picture. In addition to the three boys, three girls were also pictured, the oldest around the older boys’ ages and the younger two between the fifteen and ten year old. All posed stiffly around a man who looked so much like Alexander’s brother, he almost could be his twin.
Thomas realized that Alexander hadn’t said anything and glanced up. “Alex?”
The boy had gone pale, staring down at the picture in Thomas’s hand.
“Yo, Alex,” a voice called from the hall and panic rose in Alex’s face.
Thomas shoved the photo into the pouch of his hoodie as the dark haired brother walked back into their room with a set of keys.
“You ready for some—” the man broke off, looking between the two of them and narrowing his eyes.
“No, the Tree Rings are an environmental group,” Thomas said evenly, keeping both hands in his hoodie. “They’re sort of annoying but harmless. They just want to keep the loggers away from the woods and keep the parks open. The Rings of Enlightenment are the cultists. You’ll know them because they’ll try to give you secondary locations off campus to meet with someone. Good rule of thumb for this place is if they want you to meet off campus alone, it’s bad news. My buddy Issac is a grad student and said if anyone does that to politely decline then beeline it to security to report them. They aren’t supposed to be on campus.”
“Wh- Oh!” Relief washed almost comically over Alexander’s face. “That makes sense. Okay.” He looked at his brother. “What were you saying?”
A thick eyebrow rose as he glanced from Thomas to Alexander and back again. “Uh huh,” he muttered, then focused his brother. “Dinner. Let’s go!”
“Oh, right,” Alexander agreed. “I’ll be right there. I just want to ask Thomas a couple more things.”
Dark eyes rolled but he moved away from the door. “Don’t take too long, I’m starving.”
“I won’t,” Alex called after him.
Thomas held up a hand when he went to speak, stopping him. “Right, so, the other people apparently are the Rings of Thread,” he said, talking a bit louder than he needed to as he leaned carefully back. He could just see the dark shoulder of the man hiding around the corner. “They are a crafting circle. Great resource if you want handmade stuff or need to fiddle with your hands. They do demonstrations on Market Days according to Issac and sometimes will give away hats and scarves for free if you look cold enough—” The shadow moved away, “—but they’re more likely to teach you how to make it than give it away. He said they sell kits for just about anything you can think of.” He paused, leaning a bit more back and hummed. “He’s gone,” he said quietly, looking back at Alexander and taking the photo from his pocket.
“You’re… you’re really good at that,” he said, looking at Thomas like he was a different person as he took the picture back.
Thomas shrugged, putting his hands back into his pockets. “You pick up a few things living in this city,” he said, wondering if he could just bluntly tell the other student that he knew damn well what his brother and the two friends he had brought with him to help Alexander move were Mafia. Italian he would guess based on them being from New York and their general appearance. “You’ll see. You better hurry. He seems like the kind of person who gets hangry.”
A smile tugged at Alexander’s lips, the first one Thomas had seen since he arrived. “He is,” he agreed, putting the picture into his own black hoodie pocket. “Do you want to joi—”
“Respectfully, hell no,” Thomas said, smiling back at him. “I don’t think he likes me very much. Besides, a friend is dropping by. I’ll see you tonight when you get back.”
“Right, sure,” Alexander agreed, his eyes darting around the room. “I’ll— have a good night!”
Not exactly a shining moment of honest living, Thomas thought, scratching at the stubble on his cheek as Alexander rushed out.
Seong had laughed when he had seen it last week, taking hold of Thomas’s chin to turn it one way then the other. “I think it’ll suit you well,” he had said, smiling at him and tapping Thomas’s nose.
Seong, Thomas thought, smiling to himself. The last two months they had been seeing a fair bit of each other. In fact, it felt like if Thomas didn’t have plans with Issac or Kevin and Mark, he was finding himself with Seong instead. Seong’s affectionate touches had increased since the island, like a door had been opened when they had embraced each other and hadn’t ever closed, not that it had gotten any wider either.
As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Thomas turned to see Seong leaning against the opening, smiling at him.
