Tolu came home to find an unfamiliar butt, in an unfamiliar pair of jeans, in the air, posed above a cluster of moving boxes in their sitting room.

"Who are you?" he asked the man with overgrown eyebrows.

"Fame. My name is Mbete Okoi, but you can call me Fame," he said, raising his hand up for a handshake. Tolu didn't take it. "I'm your new roommate."

No, Tolu thought to himself. Just no. Alari was not going to go out and bring back another person for him to fuck silly while Tolu was forced to either listen or barricade himself in the studio.

"Hey, Tolu-" Alari said, marching into the sitting room as he stopped, sensing that all was not well between his roommates. "This is Fame."

"I know," Tolu dropped his bag and pulled off his shoes.

"He's the new body-trainer at Megastar Entertainment," Alari explained as Tolu stepped into the house, by-passing Fame and moving in on Alari who was suddenly backing away. "Bros- Tolu- it's not what you-"

"You're going to promise me that if I let someone else into this house, you won't just bang him, break him and ask me for a new roommate in two months."

Behind him, Fame scoffed. In front of him, Alari whimpered. Then laughed, trying to skitter away as Tolu grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Alari Ola!" Tolu scolded.

"I already made a personal decision not to have sex with any more roommates," Alari promised. "I won't do it again."

Tolu looked at him till he was satisfied that Alari was telling the truth. Then he turned around and faced Fame.

"And you? You're not to seduce him. You're not to touch him. You can't even go near him in any sexual way. Or you can't move in."

"No problem with me. I like this apartment," Fame said shrugging.

"See?" Alari jumped in. "Fame gets it. He understands. No sex with the roommates. I get it. If I want to fuck someone, I'll fuck strangers. Deal?"

Tolu looked at the sweaty man standing on the other side of Alari, stepped forward and offered his hand to Fame. Fame took it in a firm handshake and nodded.

"Deal," he agreed.

~|~

Tolu hated Fame from the moment they met. Fame was sleek and graceful and didn't feel the need to fill empty silences the way Tolu did whenever it was just the two of them. There was also the added bonus that when Alari was around, he seemed so enamored by anything Fame did.

Fame did the dishes like a pro.

Fame did laundry like a pro.

Fame danced like a pro.

Fame even flirted like a pro.

Tolu hated him. Just like a pro would.

However, with Alari circling Fame for weeks and doing absolutely nothing about it, Tolu figured it was his time to step up. He'd put it off long enough. And he wasn't about to bank on his future with Alari on the chance that Alari would have the restraint to not seduce Fame into his bed. If Tolu was going to confess his feelings, he had to do it now.

The first thing he did was get a haircut. And then he went down to Oasis Bakery and ordered some pastries before stopping by the wine shop on the way home and the supermarket. It had been a while since he was sure he'd have the house all to himself. Alari would be home, but Fame's company had whisked him away for an MT. So, this was the night.

Tolu was going to, finally, do it.

But when he got home that night, there was a strange pair of shoes in the fore room. Praying with all his might that his thoughts might be wrong, Tolu dropped the wine on the dining room table and gently made his way up the stairs until he came to Alari's room where he could hear the distinct sound of skin, smacking against skin, as an unnamed, unfamiliar woman moaned in throaty ecstasy at the hands of Alari.

Backing away from the door, Tolu walked to his room. He slipped in, closed the door and fell to the floor, feeling the tears rolling down the side of his face.

~|~

Tolu had never been one to delude himself. He knew where his mind went when it wandered, and he didn't shy away from daydreams or pretend that they weren't happening. He liked to embrace every experience as it came because he'd come to realize that while sad situations often caused him to lose a lot of body salt, he also got good writing out of it.

He was an angry writer and he liked it.

But for some reason, this time, the anger couldn't translate to lyrics or tunes or beats or anything. He just felt empty and angry and nothing. He sat in the studio for the whole day, barely registering that he'd had nothing to eat. By the time it was night, the door creaked open and Alari peeped in holding two packets of food.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"No."

"I haven't seen you all day."

"I'm busy."

"I can see that," Alari said, dropping the food on one of the sofas.

"Do you want something?" Tolu snapped.

"I was just..." Alari hesitated, frowning at Tolu, as if Tolu had hurt him. As if he wasn't the one who had, for the millionth time, crushed Tolu's heart to pieces.

"If you don't have anything to say, don't disturb me."

He turned back to his empty notebook as Alari remained behind him, unmoving.

"I... did I do..."

"Alari!"

"Right," Alari said, quickly. "Sorry."

A few seconds later, the door to the studio closed quietly. When Tolu turned back, Alari had left behind the packets of food he'd brought with him.

~|~

Tolu's mood did not improve when Fame got back. It got even worse with the amount of doting Alari was bestowing on the newest addition to their odd, little home. Tolu hated the way he was feeling, and he couldn't understand why. He'd seen Alari flirt before. He'd witnessed countless people gracing Alari's bed and leaving the next morning with shameful, but happy, looks on their face. He'd always known what he was missing. Yet, he'd never felt so bad about it.

Not like he did now.

Presently, it felt like a million, tiny people were stomping around in his stomach and making him ache in new ways. And Tolu hated it. He hated himself. He hated Alari. And he hated that it almost felt as if Fame was slowly taking his place in the house.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Fame asked, one night, when Tolu had ventured out to get a drink.

Pretending he hadn't heard, Tolu kept walking past the sitting room as he took his drink into the studio and slammed the door shut in his wake.