Dear Roommate Please Stop Being Hot [BL]-Chapter 286: Acts of Love

Thursday morning, they moved through their routine with practiced efficiency—shower, coffee, the choreography of two people sharing space without collision.

Noel was at the door, bag over shoulder, when his phone buzzed.

He pulled it out, frowned at the screen. "You’re kidding."

"What?" Luca asked, emerging from the bedroom with his own bag.

"Martinez cancelled Operations lecture. System maintenance in the building, no power."

"That’s weirdly convenient."

"Or incredibly inconvenient depending on perspective." Noel checked his schedule. "My next class isn’t until eleven. I should go to campus anyway, get work done."

He shoved his phone in his pocket, reaching for the door handle, when Luca’s voice stopped him.

"Hold on."

"What?"

"Your shoe."

Noel looked down. His left shoelace was completely undone, trailing dangerously.

"I’ll fix it at campus—"

"You’ll trip on the stairs and break your neck." Luca crouched down before Noel could protest. "Hold still."

"I can tie my own shoes."

"Clearly you can’t, or they’d be tied."

Noel watched Luca’s fingers work the laces with quick efficiency, the gesture somehow more intimate than it should be—being taken care of in small, practical ways. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"There." Luca stood, checking his work. "Now you won’t die on the way to campus."

"My hero."

"I know. Very brave of me."

Noel pulled him close for a quick kiss. "See you tonight?"

"Yeah. I’m working on my capstone stuff today, so I’ll be here."

"Good luck."

"You too."

Campus was quieter than usual at eight-thirty, most students having discovered their classes were cancelled and intelligently stayed home.

Noel headed toward the Business building out of habit, thinking he’d claim a study space, when he spotted two familiar figures near the entrance.

Emily and George, both looking distinctly annoyed.

"Please tell me you got the cancellation notice," George said by way of greeting.

"Yeah, literally as I was leaving."

"We’ve been here since eight," Emily said flatly. "Came early to review notes before lecture. Very productive use of time."

"You could go home."

"We’re already here. Might as well make use of it." She adjusted her bag. "Study room?"

"I’m heading to my International Trade lecture at eleven. But I can work until then."

They claimed their usual room, spreading out materials with the resigned energy of people who’d given up fighting inconvenience.

"I need coffee," George announced after ten minutes of attempting to focus. "And food. Real food, not vending machine sadness."

"There’s that convenience store two blocks over," Emily said. "The one that actually has decent breakfast sandwiches."

"Want anything?" George asked Noel.

"I’m good."

"Suit yourself. Emily?"

"I’ll come with. Need to stretch my legs anyway."

They headed out, leaving Noel to his research in comfortable solitude.

The convenience store was exactly two blocks away, small but well-stocked, the kind of place that survived on student desperation and actually being convenient.

George grabbed two breakfast sandwiches, Emily debating between coffee and energy drink, when someone else entered.

Lina, carrying a basket with fabric samples and what looked like sewing supplies.

All three of them froze for a moment—that particular awkwardness that came from unexpected encounters with people whose presence created complicated feelings.

"Hey," Lina said first, voice carefully neutral.

"Hey," Emily replied, matching her tone.

George glanced between them, clearly debating whether to acknowledge the tension or pretend everything was normal.

"Getting supplies for your collection?" he asked, choosing normal.

"Yeah. Last-minute additions. My critique is tomorrow and I’m second-guessing everything." Lina moved toward the register, maintaining polite distance. "How’s your project going?"

"Finished, finally," George said. "Presented Monday. Went well."

"That’s great."

Emily had gone very still, studying the energy drink selection with unnecessary intensity.

Lina paid for her items quickly, gave them a small wave, and left.

The door chimed closed behind her.

"Well," George said into the silence. "That was painfully awkward."

"It was fine," Emily said, grabbing an energy drink without looking at it.

"It was not fine. That was the most aggressively polite interaction I’ve ever witnessed."

"What did you want me to do? Make it weird?"

"It was already weird. You just made it awkwardly polite weird instead of regular weird."

"There’s no winning with you."

They paid and walked back, Emily quiet in a way that suggested thinking rather than upset.

"You okay?" George asked as they reached the building.

"Yeah. Just... strange, you know? Seeing her. Being polite strangers when we used to be so much more."

"That’s what happens when relationships end. You become polite strangers who share history."

"Very philosophical."

"I have my moments."

Back in the study room, they found Noel exactly where they’d left him, so absorbed in his work he barely registered their return.

"We brought food," George announced, setting down sandwiches. "And witnessed the most awkward encounter of the century."

Noel looked up. "What happened?"

"Ran into Lina at the store," Emily said, already pulling out her laptop. "It was fine. Just weird."

"Weird how?"

"Politely weird," George clarified. "Like two people pretending they don’t have an entire history together."

"That sounds uncomfortable."

"It was. But we survived." Emily opened a document. "Now can we please work? Some of us are trying to distract ourselves with productivity."

They settled into focus, the morning’s disruptions fading into background noise.

Back at the apartment, Luca had the place to himself.

He’d started his capstone work immediately after Noel left—research, outlining, the tedious work of synthesizing information into coherent argument.

By noon, his brain felt like soup.

He needed a break. Something different.

His eyes landed on the kitchen, then on his phone.

An idea formed—probably stupid, definitely ambitious, but Noel had been working so hard lately, stress written in every line of his body.

He pulled up YouTube, searching for "easy impressive dinner recipes."

The results were overwhelming. Thirty-minute pasta. Quick stir-fry. One-pot wonders.

He settled on coq au vin—chicken in wine sauce, French, sounded fancy but the video promised it was "actually pretty simple."

The video was lying, Luca discovered twenty minutes into prep work.

Nothing about this was simple.

But he’d committed. The chicken was marinating. The vegetables were chopped with varying degrees of precision. The wine was... somewhere between too much and not enough, he couldn’t tell.

The cat supervised from the counter, offering no assistance but significant judgment.

"Don’t look at me like that," Luca told him. "I’m trying."

The cat meowed, clearly unconvinced.

By four PM, the apartment smelled genuinely good—rich, savory, the kind of smell that suggested actual cooking rather than just heating things up.

Luca had abandoned his shirt somewhere around three-thirty when the kitchen got too hot, working in just sweatpants, occasionally checking the recipe on his phone with hands that were definitely too greasy to be touching electronics.

He was stirring the sauce, mentally calculating when Noel might get home, when he heard the door unlock.

Earlier than expected.

Noel stepped inside, stopping short when he registered the scene—Luca at the stove, shirtless, the apartment filled with cooking smells, clear evidence of effort everywhere.

"Hi," Luca said, suddenly self-conscious. "You’re early."

"Class got out early. Professor had a meeting." Noel set his bag down slowly, eyes tracking over Luca’s bare torso, the cooking chaos, back to his face. "What are you doing?"

"Cooking. Obviously."

"Shirtless."

"It got hot."

"You’re cooking."

"I established that already."

"You cooked. Past tense. Something that isn’t instant or ordered."

"I’m trying something new. YouTube tutorial. It’s probably terrible but I wanted—" Luca gestured vaguely with the wooden spoon. "I wanted to do something nice. You’ve been so stressed and I thought maybe..."

He trailed off, suddenly aware of how domestic this was, how relationship-y, how much effort he’d put into something that might end up being a disaster.

Noel moved closer, looking at the pot. "Is that coq au vin?"

"You know what coq au vin is?"

"My grandmother used to make it. It was my favorite back then." He looked at Luca, expression soft in a way that made Luca’s chest tight. "You made my favorite dish."

"I didn’t know it was your favorite. I just picked something that looked good."

"Lucky guess, then."

They stood there for a moment, the kitchen warm and fragrant, something shifting in the space between them.

"Can I taste it?" Noel asked.

"If you promise not to judge."

"I’ll try."

Luca offered him the spoon. Noel tasted carefully, considering.

"Well?" Luca asked when the silence stretched too long.

"It’s really good. Like, genuinely good."

"You’re lying."

"I’m not lying. It needs maybe a little more salt, but the flavor is there. You actually did this."

"YouTube did this. I just followed instructions."

"You followed instructions successfully. That’s character growth."

"Shut up."

But Noel was smiling, pulling him close despite the kitchen heat and grease and general disaster around them. "Thank you. For doing this."

"Haven’t tasted it yet. Might be poisonous."

"Then we’ll die together. Very romantic."

"Morbid but accurate."

Noel kissed him—slow and thorough, tasting like wine sauce and appreciation and something deeper that Luca couldn’t quite name but knew was important.

When they broke apart, Luca said, "Go shower. Get comfortable. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes."

"Shouldn’t I help—"

"No. You’ve been working all day. This is my thing. Let me finish it."

"Bossy."

"Caring."

Noel disappeared toward the bedroom, and Luca returned to the stove, adjusting seasoning, plating with more care than he’d ever put into presentation.

By the time Noel emerged—comfortable clothes, damp hair, looking more relaxed than he had all week—Luca had set their small table with actual plates instead of eating straight from containers,had made an effort that felt significant.

"This looks amazing," Noel said.

"Haven’t tasted it yet."

"Doesn’t matter. The effort already makes it amazing."

They sat, served themselves, and Luca watched nervously as Noel took the first real bite.

"Okay," Noel said after a moment. "This is legitimately delicious. I’m not just saying that."

"Really?"

"Really. How did you do this?"

"Followed the recipe. Panicked a lot. Your cat supervised."

"He’s a harsh supervisor."

"The harshest."

They ate slowly, both savoring not just the food but the moment—the effort behind it, the care expressed through cooking, the small gesture that somehow felt bigger than the sum of its parts.

"I could get used to this," Noel said eventually. "Coming home to you cooking shirtless."

"Don’t get too used to it. This was a special occasion experiment."

"What’s the occasion?"

"You existing. Being stressed. Deserving nice things."

"That’s very sweet."

"I have my moments."

After dinner, after cleaning up together with Luca insisting Noel just supervise since he’d done the cooking, they ended up on the couch.

Not working. Not studying. Just existing in the comfortable aftermath of effort and appreciation.

They stayed like that, the apartment settling into evening quiet, both of them content in the small domestic moment they’d created.

Sometimes love was grand gestures and dramatic declarations.

Sometimes it was just cooking dinner, tying shoelaces, making effort because someone mattered enough to try for.

And somehow, those small moments felt bigger than anything else.