Chapter 5: Towel Trouble

"Uhm, hello, p-please, I… I wanna climb up, uhm, y’know, to my bed," Oliver stammered nervously, his voice barely above a whisper. He avoided Eric’s eyes, but the humanoid ice before him neither budged nor uttered a word.

Eric sat rigidly on his bed, the dim light from his reading lamp casting a sharp outline against the shadows, his eyes fixed intently on the book in his hands.

Oliver’s heart pounded louder with every second of silence. He knew Eric could hear him perfectly well. This wasn’t about deafness or sleep. No, Eric was purposely ignoring him. His expression was cold, unreadable, like a wall Oliver couldn’t breach.

A knot tightened in Oliver’s stomach. He glanced around awkwardly, wondering how to proceed. He hated the tension thickening the air between them.

“Please,” Oliver tried again, softer this time, his voice trembling. “I know that, erm, well, you don’t like me and you don’t want to share a bed with me, but… can I at least grab a duvet from the bed? Please?”

Eric’s eyes flicked up from his book,  his face was straight and unreadable.

“Tsk. Noisy,” he muttered, closing the book with a quiet snap. Without another word, he rose and walked out of the room.

Oliver’s breath hitched. “Oh no, I made him angry,” he thought frantically. Panic pushed him to follow.

He darted out after Eric but found the hallway empty. No sign of him anywhere. The street outside was pitch dark, swallowed by the night’s heavy silence.

Oliver swallowed hard and took in the surroundings. The darkness wrapped around him like a thick blanket, thicker than any duvet could be. He had never liked the dark. It scared him.

His steps quickened, his chest tightening with every shadow flickering at the edge of his vision. “He shouldn’t have gone far,” Oliver muttered to himself, heart pounding in his ears.

Yet the street was deserted, no footsteps echoed behind him. A shiver ran down his spine.

Fear overwhelmed him. He turned and ran, legs pumping, breath ragged, until the warm, familiar walls of the hostel came into view. His body was trembling, every muscle aching with exhaustion. He stumbled inside, barely able to stand.

All he wanted was the comfort of his fluffy bed, but he dared not disturb the room again. Instead, he sank down heavily against the wall, his head resting on his knees, and soon, exhaustion claimed him.

Minutes later, Eric returned quietly to the room.

He stopped dead when he saw Oliver asleep on the floor in a sitting position, shoulders slumped and face pale.

“What an idiot,” Eric muttered, shaking his head. “I actually left so he could get up to his bed comfortably.”

But Eric’s expression remained unreadable, his arms crossed as he looked down on Oliver.

“Not my concern anyway,” he thought, turning back to his bed to continue reading.

But ten minutes later, Eric’s eyes caught movement out of the corner of his vision.

Oliver was shivering.

Eric’s brow furrowed. A sudden impulse made him rise and kneel beside Oliver.

“Can’t let anyone die in our room,” he muttered under his breath.

Gently, he lifted Oliver from the floor and carried him to his bed. He laid him down carefully, pulled a blanket over his shivering body, and tucked him in tightly.

“Pathetic,” Eric scoffed, retreating to his own bed and pulling the covers over himself.

Within minutes, the room fell into total darkness.

Oliver stirred in his sleep, suddenly aware of an urgent need to pee. His eyelids fluttered open slowly. Blinking repeatedly to clear the fog of sleep, he glanced around.

The coast was clear.

He slid quietly out of bed, careful not to wake Eric, and tiptoed into the bathroom.

After finishing, he began to undress to take a bath but realized in horror that he hadn’t brought a change of clothes.

He took his bath anyway and quickly, he wrapped a big towel tightly around his chest and grabbed a smaller one to dry his hair.

As he stepped out, no one was in the room.

Good for him, he had managed to wear his underwear at least. He was just about to drop the towel and grab his shirt when

Click.

The door burst open, and all four of his roommates trooped in like they were entering a parade instead of a dorm room.

Oliver gasped audibly.

He froze mid-motion, his eyes wide as saucers, and instinctively clutched the towel tighter against his chest like a scandalized Victorian maiden. His whole body went rigid, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights of sheer social death.

“Oh! Good morning, Oliver!” the quads said in unison, way too cheerful for six in the morning.

“H-Hi,” Oliver squeaked, barely able to form the word. His voice cracked somewhere between a whisper and a hiccup.

“Oliver, good morning,” Felix greeted kindly, already halfway to his closet. Then, pausing mid-step, he tilted his head. “Wait… why are you gripping your towel like that?”

Oliver tightened his hold on the towel as though someone was trying to yank it off him. “N-nothing! I—I’m just… getting dressed.”

Felix blinked at him. “Ohkay… go on, then.”

Oliver's entire brain short-circuited. What does he mean, "go on"? GO ON? In front of all of you?! Am I on a hidden camera show?!

“Ah… um… well…” Oliver stammered, backing toward his bed like a cornered animal. His face turned a violent shade of red as he considered the possibilities: risk public embarrassment or crawl under the bed and live there forever.

That was when Liam, ever the chaos agent, leaned casually on a bunk and said, “OMG, look at his face.”

“What are you shy about?” Liam added with a wicked grin. “We’re all guys anyway.”

Oliver laughed nervously, hugging his towel tighter, as if hoping the cotton had the power to turn him invisible.

“Or are you a—” Liam started, eyes sparkling with mischief.

WHACK!

Felix smacked the back of Liam’s head with a pillow.

“Shut up, Liam,” he said with the air of someone who had spent his entire life cleaning up Liam induced disasters.

“OUCH! Meanie!” Liam yelped, dramatically flopping onto his bed like he'd been mortally wounded. “Assault in the early morning on a national treasure!”

Oliver, caught off guard, let out a surprised giggle.

Liam immediately perked up and pointed at him accusingly. “What are you laughing at?, hmph! smaller meanie”

Oliver blinked. “Smaller?”

“Yeah,” Liam pouted, rubbing his head. “Felix is meanie, and you’re his tiny evil apprentice. A mini-meanie.”

“Mini-meanie,” echoed Adrian from the closet, grinning as he pulled out his towel. “It fits.”

Oliver’s shoulders relaxed slightly as he chuckled again, some of the tension slipping away.

“We’re going to take our baths and get dressed,” Felix announced, standing up and stretching like a cat. “You better be fully clothed when we’re back.”

“I-I’ll be dressed,” Oliver mumbled.

The bathroom door closed behind them, and the room was finally, blissfully quiet.

Oliver collapsed onto his bed, face buried in the blanket.

That was close. Way too close. Too many limbs. Too many eyes. Too many people entering like it’s Grand Central Station when I’m trying to preserve my dignity!

He shot up suddenly, rushing to his uniform. Okay, no more towel time in this room. I don’t care if I have to wear the same shirt for three days, I am never getting caught in towel limbo again.

Just as he reached for his shirt, a quiet creak made him freeze.

The door had opened again.

His heart dropped into his stomach.

Oliver shrieked in panic, tripped over his own pants, and fell sideways into the laundry basket, towel flying off in the process.

There was a long silence.

“…I was just going to ask if you’d seen my charger,” Mason said flatly.

“I—I—I didn’t see anything!” Oliver said from inside the basket.

Mason raised an eyebrow. “It’s my charger.”

“Oh. Then… no.”

Another silence. Then the sound of the door quietly closing.

Oliver peeked over the edge of the basket, now wrapped in a pair of jeans like a fashion burrito.

I need a lock. Or a curtain. Or a different room. Or to move schools.

He scrambled into his uniform as fast as humanly possible, every muscle in his body screaming from embarrassment.

Outside, the water was already running. The quads were definitely in the bathroom, arguing about whose shampoo was better and whether two-in-one products were a sin.

Oliver shook his head, buttoned his shirt, and whispered to himself:

"Damn!, that was close"

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