Chapter Text
The first time Claude meets his roommate, he has to come up with a flimsy excuse to leave within just five minutes of meeting the man.
It started off okay, as most first meetings do. University is that awkward point in life where you realise that you’re forced to get along with nearly everyone you meet solely because you’re an adult now. It’s basically just ‘hey, remember the past eighteen years of your life you spent making countless mistakes? Well, forget about those. Good luck!’
It’s the kind of mindset that kills Claude on the inside a little, because he is anything but ready to live alongside a stranger for an entire semester and decide whether it will be a good or dreadful year by their first meeting.
He’s never been the greatest at first impressions. He tries, but being someone that never really understands social cues or unsaid rules of conversation no matter how hard he tries, it’s safe to say he struggles.
It’s due to this fact that meeting his new roommate, Vantacrow Bringer, goes awfully.
“Oh, hey man! Sorry, assumed nobody would be here yet. The names Vanta.”
The man who just threw open the door so viciously it knocked against the wall simply ignores the (possibly unintentional) intensity of his greeting and smiles at Claude.
Claude who, in the midst of his absolute terror thinking that he was getting robbed on his first day at university, dropped the shirt he was in the middle of putting on, fights back a wince as he quickly tugs it over his head and turns to address the man at the door.
“No worries. I guess you’re my roommate then?” Claude does an awkward little laugh to act like he’s chill with the current situation. He isn’t, because who the fuck just kicks open a door like that, but if this guy is his new roommate he’s going to have to let that slide.
“Yeah! Sorry about the door, by the way. I have a janky bedroom door back home so I’m kinda used to being aggressive with it.” Vanta laughs, leaning over to pick up a few boxes sat outside the door.
Claude watches as he makes two quick trips from the door to his side of the room before shutting the door and beginning to unpack his things.
Claude stands there unsure of what to do. Does he strike a conversation? Are you meant to be buddy-buddy with your university roommates or is it more of a we’ll occasionally acknowledge eachothers existence if it’s a life or death sitaution type of thing?
He doesn’t know, so he copies Vanta and starts taking out some small decorations his family gifted to him before he left, placing them as aesthetically pleasing as he can. After doing so, he notices from the corner of his eye that Vanta has coincidentally done similar, but instead of little crafts of animals like Claudes, Vanta has placed a figurine of Satoru Gojo on his bedside table with absolutely no shame.
It surprises Claude so much that he can’t help but let out a small laugh, startling Vanta out of his organisation spree. “What?” He asks, looking around as if a clown jumped out and started making Claude laugh.
Claude fights his laugh back into just a small smile. “I like your figurine. Really compliments the aesthetic of this place.” He says, looking at Vanta out of the corner of his eye while he places some books on the shelf beside his bed.
Vanta looks slightly sheepish, scratching the back of his head. “Oh, right. Forgot figurines weren’t exactly a common thing to decorate with.”
Claude shakes his head. “Nah man, it’s cool. Who doesn’t like Gojo, right?”
Vanta laughs, looking less embarrassed knowing that Claude wasn’t making fun of him. The room lapses back into a somewhat comfortable silence. Claude guesses that Vanta isn’t one for talking, much like himself. Or, at least with new people he isn’t.
Claude doesn’t mind, less braincells lost trying to come up with what to say to keep a conversation going for him. Though as the minutes go by, Vantas boxes getting emptier and Claude finding himself nearly out of things to organise, he can’t stop his eyes from looking over at the other.
Vanta’s pretty, he can’t deny that even if he wanted to. He doesn’t, because he’s a raging bisexual who knows that pretty dudes are his weakness, but this is kind of awful for him. How is he supposed to room with a hot guy for a whole year and pretend he wouldn’t jump him given the chance?
He distantly thinks to himself that Vanta surely has a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, or a partner. He looks the type to not be single for extended periods of time, but again, Claude barely knows the guy so all he can do is assume for now.
For most people this would be their cue to initiate conversation to get to know one another, and for a few minutes Claude was thinking about it, really, he was. Then, a phone starts going off on the other side of the room. Claude spares his own phone a glance due to habit, but he knows it’s Vantas when the other starts speaking.
And the first words out of the mans mouth crush Claudes soul.
“Hey babe! Wait, really? No way!”
Claude drowns it out after a few seconds, staring at the decorative fake plant in his hand. It’s ironic how his exact assumption about the man ended up being true but it doesn’t mean Claudes any less disappointed about it.
So, his hot roommate has a partner, that’s fine. At least Claude doesn’t have to worry about being in close proximity then, since the guys off limits. Claude can handle himself just fine.
A few minutes go by with Vanta chatting away on the other side of the room while Claude tries to pretend that he didn’t finish unpacking all his things already. That plan goes out the window when Claude hears “Yeah, you can come over! Well, I should ask my roommate, hold on-”
Vanta turns around to see Claude make a split second dive to pick something up and pretend he was examining it, and not the expense of Vantas back. Vanta lightly puts his hand over the bottom of his phone to block out his voice from whoever he’s on the phone with and waves the other hand a bit to get Claudes attention, as if he hadn’t already had it.
“Hey uh- Oh, shit man. I never asked your name!” Vanta winces, looking apologetic. Claude blinks. “Oh, right. It’s Claude.”
Vanta gives him a friendly smile. “Claude, cool. Do you mind if my boyfriend comes over? Just for a minute then we’ll head out, just wanna make sure you’re chill with that.”
Claude blinks, again. Boyfriend, then. That’s cool. Vantas staring at him and Claude realises he’s just been silently celebrating (slash mourning) the fact that Vantas into dudes instead of replying.
“I was actually about to head out and take a look around the campus so don’t worry about me.” Claude waves his hand dismissively in a ‘i’ll be out of your way’ type gesture. The entire sentence was an entire lie until he said it, Claude had no plans to leave his room for the day and would much rather sit on his bed and ignore his upcoming responsibilities for a little longer, but now that the words are out of his mouth he can’t take them back.
“Oh alright, see you later then dude! Wilson, you there? He said it’s fine-”
Claude grabs his phone and his key to the room and gives Vantas figure one last sneaky glance before leaving the room and starting his impulsive wander around campus.
It was probably a good thing to go out and clear his head before he starts developing a crush on his roommate who was one hundred percent a taken man. Claudes not one to play dirty, and he highly doubts that Vanta would do something as awful as cheat on his significant other anyways so, the plan for now is to try and befriend him instead if his nonexistent social skills allow him to.
His walk in painstakingly boring because Claude has already explored the campus numerous times before enrolling here. It feels slightly more significant now because he’s an actual student, but not enough to save him from boredom.
After three loops of the area and only half an hour wasted, he decides to stop by one of the coffee shops located on campus and give his legs a rest. When he goes inside, there’s more people around than he would’ve expected. It’s most peoples attempt at socialising before being drowned with coursework, he assumes. Unlike himself who really just needs to sit down and scroll through tiktok for a while.
He orders a latte then finds a seat in the corner as far away from others that he can possibly get in a cafe this cramped. His latte is brought over a few minutes after he opens tiktok and he leisurely sips at it while sending some shitty tiktoks to his brother.
Another thing to be known about Claude is that apart from his family, he has no friends. It’s not really sad, per se, because Claude finds friendships to be time consuming and overwhelming most of the time. He knows he should find himself a few friends especially since he’s starting university, but he’s taking things slow.
If he can make friends with Vanta, then that can start things off for him. Vanta seems the type to know a lot of people and get along with them, so by association Claude could meet some people through him. It’s a stretch to already be thinking so far ahead considering Claude just met the guy an hour ago and exchanged all but a few sentences with him, but whatever. Claude doesn’t have much else to be doing in this cafe aside from looking at his phone and thinking to himself.
Or, he thought he didn’t, until someone comes over and sets their laptop down on his table, pulling out the chair across from him.
“I’m sorry to be so rude, but all the other seats are taken. Do you mind?”
The first thing Claude notices about the person is their heavy french accent. It’s hard to miss, but he’s easy to understand, and Claudes eyes raise to look at the person. It’s a guy around his age with black hair and some nasty looking stitches beginning at his forehead and ending past his left eye. He’s got large golden hoop earrings along with a dark blue blouse and grey harem pants.
Claude nods his head out of instinct, not about to drive this guy away just because he’s an antisocial loser afraid of interaction. His lattes nearly gone so he can leave in a few minutes if necessary.
“Thank you! I have some last minute accomodation related stuff I need to sort out, so I really needed somewhere to sit and get it dealt with.” He laughs as he sits down, opening his laptop. Claude chuckles, searching the depths of his mind for something mildly humorous to say in return.
“Wish I could say I’m also here doing something important but honestly I just needed a coffee.” He laughs, feeling relief when the other guy laughs with him. His eyebrows scrunch in concentration a second later, leaning towards his screen and fingers typing at his laptop at an ungodly speed. Claude takes it as a go ahead to use his phone again without seeming rude, only manages to watch one get ready with me video before his attention is taken again.
“Zali! I thought you said you were getting us a table?” The voice is oddly familiar and only when Claude looks up from his phone is when he realises why.
Vanta, accompanied by a blonde guy who if Claude remembers the name he heard earlier, could potentially be Wilson, Vantas boyfriend, are standing behind the french guy, Zali’s, seat. Zalis fingers pause their typing and he turns to grin sheepishly at the pair.
“Sorry! I didn’t think this place would be so busy, I had to grab whatever seat was still free.”
At this, Claude sees Vantas eyes peer across the table to where he’s sitting and his eyes go wide. “Claude? Shit, man. Small world. Gotta get used to this on campus, I guess. What a coincidence.”
Claude huffs out a laugh, feeling a bit awkward to be intruding on their meetup despite the fact that it was Zali who sat at his table first. He would offer to leave and give up his seat, but there’s three of them and only two seats so Claude assumes they’re going to go somewhere else.
“Oh, this is your roommate?” The blonde who Claude is still assuming is Wilson asks, looking over at him. Claude waves awkwardly at him, receiving a smile in return. Vanta nods his head. “Yup.”
“Oh, nice to meet you! I’m Zali, Vanta’s boyfriend.”
Claude is looking at Wilson(?) when he hears these words, but the boys mouth was shut and he realises the french accent it was spoken with belongs to none other than Zali. Claudes mind skids to a halt, glancing back and forth between Wilson and Zali.
Claudes about to say something back but it seems like Vanta noticed his confusement and he barks out a laugh. “Oh, right, you probably heard me on the phone earlier. They’re both my boyfriends, for clarification.”
Claudes eyebrows raise slightly but he quickly processes the new information. Of course his pretty roommate has not one, but two also-pretty boyfriends.
“It’s nice to meet you guys, I’m Claude.” He feels like clawing out of his own skin at how awkward he sounds but he has no idea what to do in this situation, so once again he does what he knows best.
“I was about to head back to my dorm, so see you guys around maybe?” He addresses this to Zali and Wilson with quick eye contact and gets up from his seat, putting his phone in his pocket.
Not one to linger, he throws Vanta a wave and gets the hell out of there, beelining it to the accommodation building before he has anymore surprise encounters with anyone.
—
After a week of living alongside Vanta, Claude starts to learn things about the other.
For starters is that Vanta never wakes up to his alarm. Or to put it more correctly, he wakes up to shut it off then goes back to sleep. Claude only notices because it’s in his routine to wake up early and have some him-time to watch youtube or what-not before getting ready and heading to class. After an hour of Vanta sleeping past his alarm, he gets a phonecall at the same time every morning and it’s met with much more enthusiasm than the sound of his alarms.
Sometimes its Zali, sometimes its Wilson. It seems that the other two have much better waking skills than Vanta and take it upon themselves to make sure the boy makes it to his morning class everyday.
The second thing Claudes noticed is that Vanta is rarely in the room, and when he is he’s accompanied by one or both of his boyfriends. Claude does his best to not feel like he’s intruding on something even though he has a right to stay in his own room, especially since they usually come over late and Claude would very much like to be relaxing in his bed at 11pm and not be kicked out of his room.
Vanta has never once asked or implied that he should leave when the others are over, so Claude takes it that he doesn’t mind but he can’t help but feel awkward. It’s also awkward because unless Vanta assumes Claude has a wild social life during the times that he isn’t in their shared room, Vanta must know that Claude has nobody to hang out with.
He’s never on call with anyone nor is he inviting anyone over, but he can deal with Vanta thinking he’s a loser as long as he doesn’t confront him about it.
So far when Zali and Wilson, who is definitely called Wilson, Claude has confirmed, come over, they watch a movie or just sit on Vantas bed with him and talk or study. If Claude hadn’t heard it directly from Vanta then he would never have assumed that they were all dating. They don’t kiss, or flirt or anything, just joke and mess around with one another.
It’s pretty wholesome, not that Claude should even know that since he always puts on headphones after sparing them a quick polite greeting when they arrive, but in the lulls between one of the songs he’s listening to ending and the next one beginning, he hears snippets of what they’re talking and laughing about and can’t help but be amused, if not a little saddened by what he hears.
Tonight they come over again, and Claude has given the appropriate greeting to both Zali and Wilson who Vanta asked him to open the door for, since he was ‘so comfortable he could melt into the sheets right now’ once they come in. Wilsons got a few cans of beer in his hands and Zalis got some popcorn and jellys.
Claude is about to sit down on his bed and plug in his headphones when Wilson stops his pursuit towards Vantas bed and approaches him.
“We were wondering if you wanna watch this movie with us? It’s meant to be really good.” Wilson smiles, looking a bit nervous if Claude didn’t know any better. Claude gives his bed a reluctant glance, feeling mournful to not be resuming his usual routine of ignoring the others until they leave or all fall asleep on Vantas bed.
But Claude can realise an invitation of friendship no matter how socially inept he is, and he told himself that first day he met Vanta that if he could make friends with and through Vanta then he would, and here was the opportunity he’s been waiting for.
So he says yes.
“Uh, sure. If you don’t mind.” He replies, watching Wilsons nervousness melt into a smile. He looks genuinely happy to be inviting Claude to their movie night, walking over to plop himself down on the bed beside Vanta, who’s since gotten up from his incredibly comfortable position to have his back against the wall with the laptop on his lap and Zali on his right side.
Wilson pats the bed beside him, looking at Claude. He sits down slowly, careful to not be uncomfortably close to the other. They are a throuple, after all.
“Alright, so first, you gotta tell us if you think the main character is hot or not, cause me and Zali are voting yes but Vantas insane and thinks no-”
And it starts like that. Claude slowly starts to get invited to more and more of their movie hangouts, which progresses to him being asked to go shopping with them, or to study with them in the library. Before he knows it, he feels like he’s been their friend for much longer than just a month.
From these friend-privileges, Claude sees them kiss eachother for the first time. It shocks him a bit the first time it happens because he forgets sometimes that they’re dating. They’re so nonchalant about it, never overly mentioning it at all in Claudes presence, just hanging out like friends would. Except now, Vanta will kiss Wilson in greeting when he comes over after his 1pm lecture, or Zali will apologise about mundane things with a kiss to their cheeks.
It’s a little jarring, solely because Claude has never been in a relationship or been in such close proximity to one before. The jarringness starts developing into something nastier as the days pass, when Claude realises that the appreciation he had for Vanta’s looks the first day he met him still hasn’t gone away, or the fact that he finds Wilsons loud laugh a bit too endearing for it to be entirely platonic and how Zali’s small acts of kindness such as wiping stray eyelashes off Claude's face leave him blushing profusely.
For a while he thinks it’s okay, that he can bury those feelings deep down and be grateful for the fact that he has three friends now, even if they’re in love with eachother and only love him as a friend.