Chapter Text
Thomas wasn’t really sure how he had ended up here. Teresa had been his best friend since he was three and they had been talking about moving into an apartment together for months now since neither of them could afford something on their own. At twenty- two, they were both ready to get out of their parents house. Somehow, the “let’s be roommates!” speech Teresa had been giving him had turned into a “I found the perfect place! One small thing…”
Yeah, that “small thing” was three other guys.
Teresa had, apparently, made a new friend. This friend had bought a house a couple of years ago and had been renting rooms to some of his friends. They currently had two rooms open and had offered one of the rooms to Teresa – who in turn had pulled Thomas into renting the other room.
So here he was, staring at a white two story house while Teresa pulled various items out of the back of Thomas’s dads truck (he had barrowed it so they could bring over the box’s – the bigger items, such as beds and dressers, had been moved when Thomas was at work the day before).
“Thomas! Are you going to help me or are you going to stand there?!” Teresa demanded, turning to him with ferocious eyes and placing her hands on her hips in annoyance.
“T, I don’t even know where I’m going yet,” Thomas reminded her, rolling his eyes at her show of annoyance. He had grown immune years ago. “In case you forgot, I’ve never been here.”
Teresa grimaced slightly at the words. “Right. Well, I let Minho know we are here and he said he’d be out in a minute to help us move the boxes in.”
As if summoned, the front door of the house flew open and two young men, both around his age if Thomas had to guess, spilled out onto the lawn. “Teresa! Hi!” One of the men yelled, running toward them with a bright smile on his face. He was Asian, with broad shoulders and strong arms. “You guys need help? You must be Thomas! I’m Minho! This is Gally,” he said quickly, motioning to the other boy beside him.
Gally merely nodded, his arms crossed over his chest as his eyes raked over Thomas. Thomas nodded back, his stomach sinking. Something about this guy didn’t sit well with him – something he had been afraid of when Teresa suggested moving into a house full of people he didn’t know. It would be just his luck to dislike his new roommates.
“Gally, help Teresa unload everything and I’ll give Thomas a quick tour! We’ll come back and help move everything into the house!” Minho rambled, grabbing onto Thomas’s arm and pulling him toward the house. Thomas looked over his shoulder to Teresa, eyes wide, only to see her smirking back at him.
Some best friend she is.
“Alright, living room,” Minho started, gesturing to the open room with a worn out sofa and two recliners that were facing a television. Thomas noted the multiple gaming systems surrounding the television and suddenly knew why Teresa was so fond of this guy. “Do you play?”
Thomas nodded, “Some.” Yeah, some. Teresa was the gamer out of the two of them but he couldn’t have been her friend if he didn’t at least play a bit.
“Awesome! Next is the kitchen,” Minho continued further into the house, showing a small kitchen with mismatched chairs at a table. Minho just waved his hand around, obviously not having much to say about the room, before leading them back into the living room and down a hallway. “Main bathroom, my room is across the hall. This,” he pushed open what Thomas thought was just a door to a closet, only to show steps leading down, “is the basement. When I got the house it was unfinished and a freaking mess. Newt, he’s not here right now you can meet him later, fixed it up and it’s his room. Not going down there, privacy and all.” He pulled the door shut once more and pointed to the staircase leading up. “Come on then.”
Thomas followed him up the stairs and into another hallway. “Gally’s room,” Minho said, motioning to the first door on the right, “across from that is bathroom. You and Gally will be sharing that one, Newt and I share the one downstairs. Not that you can’t use it or anything, its just easier in the morning’s when everyone is trying to get ready…” he trailed off and blinked for a moment, as if he got lost in what he was saying, before shrugging and motioning to the door beside the bathroom. “Teresa’s. We gave her the master bedroom. It has its own bath so we don’t have to worry about…” and there he went again but this time he blushed brightly as he turned and pushed open the door across from Teresa’s. “Tada! This one is yours.”
Thomas stepped in, looking around the room curiously. It wasn’t huge but it definitely wasn’t small. About the size of his room at his parents. The queen size bed had been set up in the middle, the headboard pressed against the wall, while the dresser was positioned on the wall on the right. His computer desk was on the left, with the bookshelf beside it.
“I don’t know how much Teresa has told you… did she explain food and stuff?”
Thomas snorted at the question and shook his head, “The only thing I got from Teresa was ‘I found the perfect place for us! Don’t argue Thomas!’”.
Minho laughed loudly, wrapping his arms around his stomach, “Yeah, I can see that. Basically, you pay rent to me every month and it goes toward all the bills. I take some of that and put it into the grocery fund and every week someone goes shopping. We keep a list of the refrigerator of what we need. There is a calendar in the kitchen that we write down if we are going to be here for meals...” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not good at explaining it, Newt is better. He came up with the system anyway. But, basically, everyone’s name is on a board and we write our schedules down there. That way whoever’s turn it is to cook knows if someone is going to be here or not. We take turns making breakfast and dinner, lunch is fend for yourself… did that make any sense?”
Thomas nodded, making a mental note to go write his information on the “board” and see when it was his turn for cooking. He wasn’t a great cook but most of his simple meals were passable. “Do we have a schedule for other things, too?”
Minho nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. Just like cleaning after the meals and taking out trash and stuff. We added you guys in last night.”
Thomas nodded and the two went back downstairs, not surprised to see that Gally and Teresa had moved most of the stuff out of the truck. “What do you have in here, Greenie?” Gally huffed, holding one of the boxes and passing it off to Thomas as soon as he walked toward him.
Thomas groaned at the sudden weight but raised an eyebrow at the nickname. “Greenie? And books.”
“Thomas is a nerd,” Teresa teased as she walked by them, a large box in her arms.
Thomas rolled his eyes; he was used to the comments from his friend, and followed her into the house. Between the three boys and Teresa it took about thirty minutes to get the boxes where they needed to go and then the two were left to unpack.
“Well,” Teresa huffed from across the hall, her hands on her hips as she looked around her room. Thomas just chuckled as he watched her from his own open door. “We should go check out that schedule – Minho told you about that, right?”
Thomas nodded, “Yeah. I think he said it was in the kitchen?”
The two made their way back down the stairs, Thomas laughing when they passed Minho groaning from his sprawled position on the couch, and made their way into the kitchen. Gally was leaning against the counter, cramming a sandwich into his mouth. “Looks like I have cooking breakfast on Tuesday,” Teresa said, staring at the board hanging on the wall, “and cleaning on Thursday. You have dinner Monday and cleaning Wednesday.”
Gally swallowed quickly, motioning to the calendar beside the board, “Write you schedules down there. That way if someone has something to do one day and can’t cook or whatever we can change the schedule around.”
Teresa grabbed the sharpie beside the calendar and began to fill out her schedule, every so often pausing to frown in concentration. Thomas guessed she was having trouble remembering. After a few minutes she let out a deep sigh and passed the sharpie to Thomas. “I need to unpack,” she muttered as she did. She sighed once again and made her way out of the kitchen.
Thomas blinked as she retreated. He wasn’t going to question her odd behavior – honestly, he really should be used to her mood swings. He turned his attention to the schedule. It was Saturday and Thomas had to take off of work for the move, so let’s see… he worked nine to three tomorrow, and had classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 to 2. Tuesday and Thursday he only had a lab from 10 to 12. At least the classes didn’t change until next semester. His work schedule was a little trickier.
Thomas worked at a local coffee shop and his hours tended to change drastically depending on the week. This next Monday he worked from 3 to 8, Tuesday he had the morning shift from 5 to 9:30, Wednesday was 3 to eleven and he was off Thursday and Friday, and working 12 to 8 on Saturday. That meant it was going to be hard for him to cook dinner on Monday, and do the cleaning Wednesday. He let out a sigh, turning to look at Gally. “If you can’t-“
“Just look at the schedule and see if someone will trade you,” Gally muttered, rolling his eyes as he looked over Thomas’s shoulder. “You get you schedule a week in advance? We can try to work around it.”
“Usually two,” Thomas answered, scanning the calendar to see if there was anyone that could take his time and he could work theirs. Teresa had late classes on Monday’s, so that was out. Gally was open, but his day for cooking was Wednesday, so that wouldn’t work either. Minho was also open Monday and he had the breakfast shift Monday morning, maybe he would just trade him?
“I can trade cleaning days,” Gally muttered, marking his name off of the Friday slot and placing Thomas’s in, while placing his own over Thomas’s Wednesday. “Hey, Minho! Trade Thomas cooking on Monday!”
“Why?”
“He works late! You take dinner, he can do breakfast!”
“Fine!”
“See Greenie? All worked out,” Gally muttered, smirking slightly.
Thomas nodded, looking over the board and noticing Newt’s name was on most of the cooking slots. The others only had to cook one day a week, but Newt had the rest. “Why is Newt cooking so much?”
“Huh? Oh. Newt goes to school but he doesn’t work. He trades his rent for doing most of the cooking and klunk. He also fixed the basement so it’s actually livable. We just do the cooking and stuff on the days that he has classes or can’t be here.”
Thomas nodded in understanding and looked at the calendar toward Newt’s name. He was on for dinner tonight, but it looked like Minho had been on breakfast. “He went out of town with his girlfriend yesterday. I think he said he’d be back around five,” Gally answered the unasked question, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Girl’s a menace. Wish he’d just get rid of her.”
Thomas wasn’t sure how to reply as he didn’t know the girl in question, but he didn’t have too. Minho took care of that for him, “Oh, stiff it, Gally,” he muttered, walking into the kitchen and looking at Thomas’s schedule before whistling. “busy, aren’t you?”
“You don’t like her either,” Gally snapped at the other man, moving back toward the counter and his sandwich.
“No, but I also don’t make comments about it. You know how Newt is. Even if he wants to end it with her he won’t because it would prove you right. Back off and he’ll do it sooner or later,” Minho said calmly, crossing his arms over his chest before turning his eyes to Thomas. “Honestly though, she really is horrible. No clue why he started up with her in the first place.”
“Maybe he liked her?” Thomas questioned, smiling lightly as Minho chuckled.
“Wait until you meet her. You’ll understand then. I don’t know how anyone could like her.”
Thomas nodded, motioning toward the stairs. “I gotta unpack.”
____________
It took a little over two hours to get everything out of boxes and in some semblance of order. He needed to redo his books and his movies but otherwise things seemed to be where they needed to go. He had just sprawled out on his bed, exhausted, when Teresa barged into his room with a bright smile on her face.
“You know, you should know by now not to do that,” Thomas remarked mildly, remembering the times his best friend had come into his room unannounced and seen him in positions they would rather both forget.
Teresa’s smile instantly dropped at the memory. “I figured you were unpacking. God, we’ve only been here three hours!”
Thomas just laughed and sat up, looking toward his friend. “What’s up?”
“Dinner! You haven’t got to meet Newt yet, right? He’s been here for about an hour but he said you haven’t made an appearance. He made chicken!”
Thomas moved to his feet, feeling somewhat nervous to meet the last member of the household. He guessed Gally wasn’t too bad, he had helped him in the kitchen after all, and Minho seemed great. He really hoped the last guy was alright.
He followed Teresa down the stairs and into the kitchen. Minho and Gally were already sitting at the table with some sort of chicken on their plates. “Hey, I’m Newt,” an accented voice sounded from Thomas’s left, making the male freeze slightly. He always had a think for accents.
Thomas turned his head slightly to see a smiling blonde. A very attractive smiling blonde. He smiled back automatically, mentally cursing Teresa for not warning him. “Hey, I’m Thomas.”
Newt’s smile grew as he motioned toward the table. “Help yourself.”
Thomas slid into the seat beside Teresa who was fighting back a grin. He shot her a glare before taking a piece of chicken as Newt sat across from him, beside Minho. “Unpacked?” Minho asked through a mouthful of food. Teresa shot him a disgusted look in response and Thomas felt his own nose scrunch at the sight.
“I am. And Thomas was passed out on his bed, so hopefully he is too,” Teresa teased.
“Mostly,” Thomas agreed, once again ignoring her. “Just need to fix the bookshelves-“
“Of course you do,” Teresa laughed, cutting him off. It was a nasty habit of hers. She turned to look at the other boys, shaking her head, “Those bookshelves – he knows where every book is. If you move one, he’ll know.”
“Bloody hell, Tommy,” Newt said, raising an eyebrow, “that important, are they?”
Thomas blinked, a little taken back by the nickname, but shrugged in return. “I like to read. And this one,” he said, elbowing the still laughing girl beside him, “likes to take my stuff without asking. Or hide it.”
Newt turned to her with a questioning look, only to receive a shrug in response. “It’s funny to watch him freak out.”
Minho laughed brightly, looking from Thomas to Teresa and back again. Thomas wasn’t sure he liked the calculating look in his eye. It was a look he had seen many, many times before. “How long have you two known each other?”
“Since we were three,” Teresa replied easily, taking a small bite of her chicken, “my parents moved beside his and we were the only kids in the neighborhood. It was either hang out with the loser or be by myself.”
“We were three!” Thomas said, rolling his eyes, “Pretty sure we didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. My mom used to babysit you.”
Teresa waved away his words, “Not the point. Plenty of people are friends when they are little and ignore each other when they get older.”
Minho laughed loudly yet again while Newt let out a smirk. Gally seemed to be ignoring the conversation. “She’s right about that.”
“So, you two aren’t…?” Minho trailed off, wagging his eyebrows.
Thomas felt his nose scrunch in disgust while Teresa recoiled, “No! Oh no! That’s disgusting!”
“Thanks!” Thomas replied sarcastically, sending her a small galre.
Teresa ignored him and continued to shake her head frantically, “It would be like kissing my brother.”
“Some people find that attractive. The brother thing,” Minho replied seriously, making everyone turn to him in horror. Even Gally looked up. Minho shrugged, unrepentant. “Well, they do!”