Out Of The Closet - 17. Chapter 17: Moving On

August 24 2020, Ravenwood, Colorado

Logan and I walked into our dorm building, Lincoln Hall, to check in while my parents began unloading stuff from their car. So nice of them to help us move in. I had my car as well to share with Toby, but parking at my college is free so we’re having it parked here instead of at Toby’s place. We were given keys to room 322 up on the third floor. Logan and I rolled our suitcases to the elevator to go up. Thankfully, move-in had specific time slots so it wasn’t too crowded with other students. I found our room and unlocked the door. The room was narrow and long, and the floor was carpeted. Near the door was a set of hooks for our backpacks and jackets. To the left was a door to a small bathroom that Logan and I would be sharing. The bathroom had a combined tub/shower, a toilet, and a single sink. On the far end of the room was a fairly large window overlooking a courtyard below. On each side wall was a loft bed. And each loft bed had desk space underneath, with a chair, some drawers, and a small bookshelf for textbooks. I took the right side bed and Logan took the one on the left. Logan and I then went through the right side door, which led to the shared kitchen and living room space that we’d be sharing with Chase and Mason. The kitchen was small, but it had a fridge, microwave, electric stove, small oven, along with a sink and some counter space. The living room area had a small couch, coffee table, and a stand for a TV, which Chase would be bringing from home when he moves in tomorrow evening with his cousin Mason.

“Well, this is home for the next several months,” Logan said after we finished moving in all our stuff. His parents weren’t able to come, since they had other kids to look after, and Logan’s dad couldn’t take time off work. I nodded in agreement and then I had to say goodbye to my parents. I hadn’t spent much time away from them for the past 18 years so it will take some adjusting to living two hours away.

“Bye mom,” I gave her a tearful hug. “I’ll see you when you come to visit!” I also hugged dad. “Bye, dad. I’m gonna miss you guys!” I sniffled.

“Oliver, I want you to know your mother and I are proud of how much you’ve grown up, okay? You’re going to have a great time in college.”

“Aww thanks, dad!” I sniffled as I hugged him again. Mom was practically sobbing when I gave her another hug. Mom kissed my cheek again before she left with dad.

Logan and I got our clothes situated in the 2 small closets and went out to meet Toby for dinner at his dining hall. Toby’s roommate Blake was there, too, and I got to meet him. Dining halls for our campuses were the standard multiple option cafeteria buffet type of stuff. Except the food is actually real unlike school cafeteria food back home.

“So you guys got moved in okay?” Toby asked, dipping his carrot into some ranch dressing to eat.

“Yup. We’re gonna go get some groceries from the store. Wanna join us, bro?” I offered.

“Yeah, I can come to grab some stuff. You wanna come, Blake?” Toby offered.

“Yeah, Trevor. I’ll go with you guys,” Blake said. He seemed REALLY shy. And I’m pretty shy myself. And he calls my brother Trevor?! Lmao.

“Trevor?” I stifled a laugh, while Logan didn’t even try hiding his giggles.

“Yes, bro,” Toby hissed. “New place. New identity. Toby sounds like a little kid anyways.”

“Toby’s a cute nickname,” Blake shrugged.

“Dude!” Toby scoffed and blushed. “That’s why I’m trying to get away from it.”

After dinner I drove to the grocery store in town and bought a bunch of stuff with Logan, putting the cost on our student debit cards. We dropped off my brother at his dorm and I was exhausted when Logan and I got back and put our stuff in the fridge. It was only 9PM but it was a long looong day. I climbed up the ladder to my bed after a relaxing bath and quickly fell asleep.

August 25 2020

I woke up to bright sunlight filtering in through the window. I rubbed my eyes and checked my phone. I missed two calls from mom and several messages last night. I replied saying “Sry I fell asleep for 9 hours.”

I got out of bed and walked over to the shared kitchen, not caring that I was bare chested. I poured a bowl of cereal. I was starving. A little bit later, Logan emerged from our room in black shorts and an oversized yellow t-shirt.

“Morning,” I smirked.

“Hey,” Logan yawned. “You were snoring.”

I blushed. “Omg are you serious?!”

“Nah, Oliver. I’m kidding. You’re as quiet as a mouse when you sleep.” Logan began peeling a banana..

“That’s good. Chase texted and said he’d be here around mid afternoon and Mason will be here around noon.”

“Ah nice,” Logan sat on the couch. “It’ll be cool to finally meet Mason.”

Logan and I cleaned up the kitchen after eating and I got dressed in some athletic clothes to go practice basketball shots.

“I was just about to go shoot some hoops,” I said as Logan put on his backpack.

“Alright, I’m gonna go pick up my textbooks from the student center.” Logan mentioned.

“I’ll probably join you in a bit. I’ll keep practice short because I need to get my books too.”

I walked over to the court that was in the fitness center building. It was already blazing hot at 10AM. A couple beads of sweat formed on my forehead from just walking. I got my ball out and dribbled it a few times on the wooden indoor court. I stood at the 3 point line, dribbled, aimed, and shot. Miss. I ran over to catch the ball and tried again. Swish. You still haven’t lost your game, Oliver, I told myself after swishing eight free throws in a row.

“Hey, you’re pretty good,” someone else said. I turned around.

“Liam?! Nick?!” I smiled. “Hey guys!”

“Oliver! Wassup bro?!” Nick shook my hand.

“Just practicing on my day off before class registration.”

“Same here,” Liam nodded. “Wanna practice with us?”

I nodded in agreement. I was content. Living in a new place, meeting new friends, and being able to grow into my own independence. College would be challenging for me, but I was honestly excited to give it a try. I missed Cody a lot the past few days, but having new friends, and new roommates helped take my mind away from the heartbreak of losing my first boyfriend.

After practicing, I said goodbye to my friends and made my way downstairs to the bookstore to pick up my textbooks for classes. For Calculus (GROSS), I was able to find the book online for free as a PDF from a different university. But my computer science and web design classes I needed to buy. I met Logan in a dining hall for lunch before returning to the dorm. There was some commotion with Mason moving in. Mason was in the shared living room and he was in a plain white tank top and pink shorts that made his ass look amazing. He had tan skin like Chase and curly brown hair with icy blue eyes. Logan whistled quietly at the sight. I immediately felt a little jealous at the young woman with him helping him put stuff away.

“Hey. You’re Mason, right?” Logan asked.

“Yup,” Mason wiped sweat from his hands and shook our hands as we introduced ourselves.

“Nice to meet you,” I blushed. “Let me know if you and your girlfriend need help with moving in your stuff.”

“Girlfriend?!” She scoffed. “I’m Madison… his SISTER…”

“Uhhh, I’m sorry,” I blushed even harder. I retreated to my room to work on my personal website I’ve slowly been creating over the last couple years. It has pictures of me and my friends and some basic info about me.

After Mason and Chase got moved in, Logan wanted to hang out with them in the living room and go together to the dining hall. Logan’s such an extrovert I wish I was more social like him. Chase Maddox had to go hang out with some of his baseball teammates, so it was just me, Mason, and Logan. After dinner in the dining hall, we went on a walk around the campus. The moon was full tonight, and Mason Ferris was looking beautiful in the glowing moonlight. He and Logan were having a conversation and I was quietly walking behind them. The two of them seemed to have a lot in common. The same interests in anime shows, video games, ans they both are majoring in architecture. Mason was a baseball player like Chase and I, though.

It was tempting to work up to asking Mason out but I wasn’t comfortable asking a guy out yet after my perfect relationship with Cody. I was pretty quiet during our walk and Logan confronted me about it back in our dorm room. “You barely said two words tonight.”

It’s true. My only two words to Mason after dinner were “thank you” after he complimented the studs in my ears. “You know I’m an introvert,” I chuckled as I took my shirt off and climbed the ladder to relax in my bed.

“Yeah, but I don’t know I expected you to talk more. Especially with that cutie Mason!”

“I’m not ready to date a new guy so soon after leaving Cody.” I blushed. “Is that bad?”

“Nah, Ollie,” Logan smiled, turning on his laptop to watch anime. “Take your time.”

September 2 2020

I punched my alarm clock off. I wanted to get some more sleep, but my freshman media immersion class with Professor Smithson was at 9AM and it was the first day of classes.

I had a quick breakfast of cereal before getting dressed in a maroon t-shirt, some black basketball shorts, and brown flip flops, before leaving the dorm. It was a short walk to the media studies building where my class was. I got a little lost in the building and couldn’t find room 124.

As I walked around the building, I accidentally bumped into someone. “Hey, watch where you’re going...” he said, reaching down to pick up his notebooks. I also reached down to help.

“I’m really sorry, dude,” I blushed from embarrassment. “I was just looking for a classroom and got a little lost.”

“What classroom?” The guy stood up. He was pretty cute. He was around 5’8, had copper colored hair, a few freckles on his fair cheeks, and deep blue eyes. He was on the thin side for a boy’s body frame, unlike my husky frame.

“Uh... room 124,” I tried to hide my blushing. I was lucky I wasn’t getting a boner, which would have been hard to hide in my shorts.

“Oh, hey, I’m going there too!” He smiled. His white teeth were perfect. “I’m Dylan by the way. Dylan Volk.”

“Oliver Jeong,” I shook his hand. We walked to class and talked some more on the way. It turns out he’s in the same major as me and he’s from Limon, a town nearby. We made it into the room just in time. It was a modern designed computer lab with about 30 windows 10 desktops. The class had around 20 to 25 students. The class was about 70% boys and 30% girls. Dylan and I sat next to each other. The class seemed to be interesting. It was going to involve a lot of coding, something I have some experience in, but I had less experience than most of the other students who had more Comp Sci opportunities in their high schools. We were using a JavaScript type of code to create simple images, but would obviously get trickier as the fall semester went on.

There was a 30 minute lecture and then the remaining hour of the time block for class was for doing our weekly coding assignments. The software we use for JavaScript coding has a pretty nice user manual and coding guide.

After class, a couple girls came over to flirt with me. They wanted some coding help from me. I notified them about my lack of experience coding and that disappointed them. But I think some of them had a crush on me? I only have some experience from high school getting asked out by a few girls but having to decline because I’m a gay boy. Girls are weird, and fickle.

“I bet you like that attention,” Dylan smirked as we walked in the hall. I gave a confused look at him. “All those girls... drooling over you.” I saw his face blush. He was wearing a grey marching band t-shirt from his high school and a pair of green athletic shorts that went an inch past his knees.

“Eh, it’s nice sometimes,” I shrugged. Trying not to come out so soon in college. “Have you, ever, uh, dated a girl?”

“Nope,” Dylan frowned. “I kissed one before at a party. It was for a dare.”

“So, did you like it?”

“Eh, not really, but I didn’t have feelings for her. She was one of my best friends.”

“I’m actually gay, so I’ve never kissed a girl either,” I said, blushing a deep shade of pink.

“Oh,” Dylan chuckled. Why the fuck did I say that?

“Sorry. Too much information?” I blushed from embarrassment.

“Um,” Dylan blushed. “I should probably go, Oliver. Um, but I’ll see you around, I guess,” he turned around and began walking. He looked at the floor while walking and accidentally hit a wall. His face was so pink with embarrassment and I noticed his t-shirt becoming sweaty. “I don’t need help,” he said as I tried to help him pick up his stuff. He quickly walked off. I sighed and sat down on the tile floor. I really screwed up...

After hanging out in the lobby for a while, I grabbed a sub for lunch and relaxed in the air-conditioned student center until 3PM when it was time for basketball class.

I went into the locker room in the athletics building and changed my shoes, socks, and put on a black polyester sleeveless shirt for basketball practice. My shoes were purple and green Kobe sneakers that looked really cool. None of the other boys paid me any attention except Liam Henderson and Nick Vasquez, who were glad I showed up. They were friends I had met during orientation. “Who are you?” a burly guy came up to me. “You boys freshmen?”

“Uh huh,” I nodded.

“I’m sorry what?” he said. “Little chink?!” My voice isn’t the most masculine, as you can assume, and I overall have an Asian appearance, with tanned skin, minimal facial hair, soft features, and narrow dark brown eyes. I guess he’s mistaken me for a Chinese guy…

“Hey, leave him alone,” Nick stood up and gave him a shove.

“Whatever, I’ll see you kids on the court.” The guy turned around and left.

In the gym, there was a group of boys, most of them White, some of them Hispanic, and I was the only Asian. There were 15 boys on the team who had made it through all the reviewing. We were sitting in a circle on the gym floor in our various practice shirts and shorts. We went around introducing ourselves. The racist asshole from the locker room was a junior named Jonathan Kemp. There were some other nice dudes in the group, like Zack Hayslip, Thomas Nuñez, Graham Williams, and Ian Petersen. We had been given multiple forms to sign by next Wednesday. All costs would be covered, but I would of course have to keep up with my other four classes while being a student athlete, and I’d be removed if I dropped below a 2.8 GPA for the semester, which I barely maintained in high school. The rest of the time was spent doing running exercises, push-ups, sit ups, and shooting baskets for about a half hour before we hit the showers and changed. In the locker room, I kept my eyes to the floor as usual, same as in high school, and mind my own business. After a quick shower, I changed back into my red t-shirt, a pair of jeans, fresh socks, and put my converse back on. “Don’t let Oliver see you change. Might give him a boner.” Jonathan joked as he and a friend walked by with just towels wrapped around their waists. I gritted my teeth, brushed my wet shaggy bangs out of my face, and stood up.

“If you have a problem, you can tell me straight to my face,” I growled. I guess my voice and 6’0 height isn’t all that intimidating to a 6’8 Nephilim…

“Ooh I’m so scared!” Jonathan’s buddy, a guy named Brandon Leighton shoved me.

Jonathan nodded in agreement and gave an evil little smirk. “Your little boyfriends aren’t here to help. So sad.” That was it. I really wanted to beat the crap out of him. I shoved him backwards and his back slammed into the wall of lockers. “You little shit!” Jonathan adjusted his towel.

“Just leave me alone, asshole,” I grabbed my backpack and walked away, trying to cool off.

“Not cool, dude,” Graham Williams crossed his arms. “We’re all a team, so stop picking on him.”

I made my way to a dining hall where I picked up a dinner of pork, potatoes, and broccoli. I didn’t feel like eating there, so I took it back to my dorm.

I opened the door to the kitchen area of the suite and saw Mason sitting at the table. “Hey, Oliver!” He smiled. I could always count on Mason to be friends with me, even if I made a totally bad first impression. “How was your first day, dude?” He asked before taking a bite of a sandwich.

I explained my day while washing my hands at the sink and getting my food out, without going into too much awkward detail about my experience with the homophobes on my team. I pulled out the plastic fork I took and began eating. It had been a long day for sure.

“It might get tricky balancing basketball and classes, but I’ll try and make it work,” I smiled weakly, with Jonathan’s comments still weighing on me.

“What’s wrong man? You seem down.” He asked. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt and ripped jeans. I confessed to him about what happened at basketball class. I figured there was no use lying to my suitemate. He was bisexual himself and also an athlete like Chase and I, so he understood. I finished dinner in awkward silence and sulked into my dorm room where I brushed my teeth and changed into some comfy pajama pants. I stayed up a couple hours in bed until 10PM texting and playing on my 3DS until I fell asleep.