[BL] Only in My Dreams

I woke up drowning.

Not literally—though my sheets were soaked with sweat and twisted around my legs like seaweed. I was drowning in the taste of him. In the memory of his skin under my tongue, the weight of his hand in my hair, the sound he made when I—

Fuck.

I bolted upright, gasping, heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to escape. The dream clung to me like secondhand sweat—gross, inescapable, too real. Every detail was crystal clear: the way his thighs had trembled against my shoulders, how his voice had cracked when he said my name, the way his breath had tasted—sweaty, nervous, like something I wasn’t supposed to want.

Kaimu.

My roommate. My straight, taken, wouldn’t-look-twice-at-me roommate.

I scrubbed my hands over my face like that would wipe the memory out of me. But they were burned into my retinas—his face in the dark, eyes half-shut, mouth open like he was about to confess something filthy.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered into the dark.

Still hard. Still aching. Like my body hadn’t gotten the memo that it wasn’t real. Pressed against my stomach, sticky with pre-cum, aching like I’d been edging for hours. The waistband of my boxers was damp. My throat felt raw, like I’d gagged on something I wasn’t supposed to want.

Because in the dream, I had been.

The rain outside our third-floor window at Hale Kauanoe had shifted from the gentle patter that usually lulled me to sleep to something heavier, more insistent. Each drop hit the glass like a tiny fist, demanding attention I couldn’t give. All my attention was trapped in the space between my legs, in the lingering sensation of Kaimu’s fingers tangled in my hair, guiding my mouth exactly where he wanted it.

I glanced at his bed through the dark. The lump under his covers rose and fell in the steady rhythm of sleep. Normal sleep. The kind where you don’t wake up tasting your roommate’s cum.

3:47 AM. Red numbers. Judgmental as hell. I’d been asleep for maybe four hours, which meant I’d been dreaming about sucking off Kaimu Freitas for God knows how long. Long enough that my jaw actually ached, like muscle memory from something that never happened.

But it had felt so real. Like I’d memorized it in a past life. The texture of his skin, smooth and warm and slightly salty from whatever body wash he used. The way his breathing changed when I found that sensitive spot just below the head. How his abs contracted when he was close, muscles jumping under tan skin that seemed to glow in the dream-light.

If I didn’t get out of here, I was going to do something so dumb I’d never be able to look him in the eye again. Like stare at him while he slept. Like wonder if he tasted the same in real life.

Moving as quietly as possible, I untangled myself from the sheets and grabbed the first hoodie I could find in the dark. It smelled like the fabric softener my mom sent in care packages—plumeria and home and normalcy. Things that felt very far away right now.

The hallway was empty, lit only by the emergency exit signs that cast everything in an eerie green glow. Someone had left the common room TV on, volume low, cycling through late-night infomercials that promised to solve problems I didn’t know I had. The vending machine hummed in the corner, offering salvation in the form of overpriced energy drinks and stale chips.

I made it to the bathroom without running into anyone, which was a miracle considering how many people lived on our floor. The fluorescent lights buzzed to life, harsh and unforgiving, turning my reflection into something pale and hollow-eyed. I looked like I’d seen a ghost.

Or given head to one.

My lips were swollen. Actually swollen, like I’d been kissing someone for hours. I touched them experimentally and felt a jolt of sensation that went straight to my already-sensitive dick. In the mirror, my eyes looked huge and dark, pupils still dilated despite the bright lights.

I turned the water as cold as it would go and splashed my face until my cheeks went numb. Then I brushed my teeth, scrubbing hard enough to make my gums bleed, trying to get rid of the phantom taste that lingered on my tongue. It didn’t work. If anything, the mint made it worse, highlighting flavors that shouldn’t have been there.

By the time I crept back to our room, my hands had stopped shaking. Mostly. Kaimu was still asleep, still breathing in that steady rhythm that meant deep REM. He’d kicked off most of his covers, and in the dim light filtering through our window, I could see the outline of his shoulders, the curve of his spine where his t-shirt had ridden up.

I forced myself to look away.

This was insane. I was being insane. It was just a dream—a weird, vivid, probably hormone-induced dream that meant absolutely nothing. People had sex dreams about all kinds of random people. It didn’t mean anything about me, or about him, or about the way my stomach flipped whenever he smiled at me.

Sure, I’d always known I could want anyone—guy, girl, didn’t matter. Had figured that out about myself years ago. But knowing something intellectually and having your subconscious create pornographic scenarios featuring your straight roommate were two different things entirely.

I climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin, determined to go back to sleep and wake up normal. But every time I closed my eyes, I was right back there—on my knees between his legs, looking up at him while he fell apart above me.

The worst part wasn’t the dream itself. The worst part was how good it had felt. How right. How natural it seemed to worship him with my mouth, to take everything he gave me and beg for more. In the dream, I hadn’t been nervous or awkward or unsure. I’d been confident, hungry, desperate to please him in ways I’d never wanted to please anyone.

I’d thought about guys before, obviously. Late at night, scrolling through certain corners of the internet, my hand moving under the covers. But wondering and wanting were different things. And what I’d felt in the dream wasn’t curiosity.

It was hunger, pure and quiet and all-consuming.

Sleep came eventually, but it was restless and broken. I kept jolting awake every hour or so, heart racing, expecting to find myself back in that impossible place where Kaimu wanted me as much as I apparently wanted him. But there were only fragments—flashes of skin, echoes of his voice, the lingering pressure of his hands guiding me exactly where he needed me to be.

When my alarm went off at seven, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. My mouth was dry, my head was pounding, and my dick was hard again. Because apparently my subconscious had decided that this was my life now.

Kaimu’s bed was empty. His sheets were rumpled but cold to the touch when I accidentally brushed against them reaching for my phone. The bathroom down the hall was running water—probably him, getting ready for his eight AM statistics class. He always showered early, before the hot water ran out and everyone else woke up demanding their turn.

I had about ten minutes before he came back. Ten minutes to get my shit together and figure out how to act normal around the guy I’d spent half the night dreaming about blowing.

I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and the first clean shirt I could find, then made a half-hearted attempt at taming my hair. It stuck up in about fifteen different directions, probably from all the tossing and turning. In the mirror above our shared dresser, I looked exactly like what I was—a guy who’d spent the night having inappropriate dreams about his roommate.

The slap of flip-flops outside our door tightened my gut like a vice. He was coming back.

I grabbed my backpack and started shoving random things into it—textbooks, pens, my laptop charger. Anything to look busy and normal and definitely not like I was thinking about the way his face had looked when he came in my mouth.

The door opened behind me.

“Morning,” Kaimu said, and his voice hadn’t changed—still rough with sleep, still laced with tired pidgin. Normal. Completely, utterly normal.

I turned around, plastering what I hoped was a casual smile on my face. “Hey, morning. Good shower?”

He was wearing a towel around his waist and nothing else, water still dripping from his hair onto his shoulders. His chest was broader than I remembered, smooth brown skin marked with a few small scars from childhood adventures he’d told me about during late-night conversations. There was a tattoo on his left shoulder blade—a small turtle I’d seen glimpses of but never really looked at.

I was looking now. Staring, actually, taking in every detail like I was memorizing him for a test. The way his collarbones caught the morning light. The trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath the towel. The muscles in his arms that came from all those hours in the campus gym.

“Ko’o?” He was looking at me with a slight frown, head tilted. “You okay? You look kinda pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said too quickly, then cleared my throat and tried again. “Just tired. Couldn’t sleep.”

Something flickered across his face—concern, maybe, or confusion. He took a step closer, and I caught a whiff of his soap, the same coconut-scented body wash he’d been using since we moved in together three months ago. In the dream, he’d tasted like salt water and sunshine and something indefinably him.

“Bad dreams?” he asked, and there was something in his voice I couldn’t identify. Something careful.

I almost choked on my own spit. “Something like that.”

He nodded slowly, still studying my face like he was looking for clues to a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Then he shook his head, sending droplets of water flying, and moved toward his dresser.

“I gotta get dressed,” he said. “Stats class in twenty.”

“Right. Yeah. I should—” I gestured vaguely toward the door. “Breakfast. Coffee. You know.”

But I didn’t move. I stood there like an idiot, watching him pull clothes from his drawer, waiting for… what? For him to turn around and say he’d had the same dream? For him to drop the towel and make my fantasies real?

Instead, he glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “You gonna watch me get dressed, or…?”

Heat flooded my cheeks. “Shit, sorry. I’m going.”

I bolted, heat rising all the way into my ears. Behind me, I heard him laugh—a low, warm sound that did absolutely nothing to help my situation.

The dining hall was already busy despite the early hour, filled with the usual mix of athletes grabbing protein bars before morning workouts and over-caffeinated students who’d pulled all-nighters. I got in line for coffee, hoping the caffeine would help me feel more human and less like a walking hormone disaster.

“Bruddah, you look like death warmed over.”

I turned to find Jason Nakamura behind me in line, his surfboard-blonde hair still damp from what was probably a dawn patrol session. He was one of the few people who’d been genuinely friendly when I transferred to UH Hilo mid-semester, and we’d bonded over our shared love of terrible horror movies and good Korean barbecue.

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Really what I needed to hear.”

“I’m just saying.” He grabbed a tray and started loading it with what looked like half the breakfast buffet. “You get any sleep last night? You’ve got that haunted look. Like you’ve seen some shit.”

“Weird dreams,” I admitted, which was probably the understatement of the century.

Jason paused, a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to his mouth. “Yeah? What kind of weird?”

There was something in his voice—a sharpness that hadn’t been there before. Like he was actually paying attention now, not just making conversation.

“Just… strange. Vivid.” I took a sip of my coffee, hoping the heat would give me an excuse for my flushed cheeks. “You know how it is.”

“Actually, I don’t.” He set down his fork and looked at me directly. “I’m a pretty boring dreamer. Usually it’s just reruns of whatever I watched on Netflix the night before. But you…” He tilted his head, studying my face. “You ever have a dream that makes you question everything you thought you knew about yourself?”

My stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the kind of dream where you wake up and you can’t just shake it off. Where it follows you around all day, making you wonder if maybe your subconscious knows something your conscious mind doesn’t want to admit.”

I stared at him, coffee mug frozen halfway to my lips. How could he possibly—

“Because you look like someone who just had that kind of dream,” he continued, voice gentle but relentless. “The kind that changes things. The kind that makes you see yourself differently.”

“It’s not—” I started, then stopped, because what was I going to say? That it wasn’t that deep? That it didn’t mean anything? When even now, twelve hours later, I could still taste phantom flavors on my tongue?

Jason leaned back in his chair, but his eyes never left my face. “You know what the fucked up thing about dreams is? Sometimes they tell you shit you’re not ready to know.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The dining hall suddenly felt too bright, too loud, too full of people who might be listening to this conversation that was cutting way too close to the bone.

“I should go,” I said, standing up so abruptly that my chair scraped against the floor. “I’ve got class.”

“Ko’o—”

But I was already walking away, my heart hammering against my ribs, Jason’s words echoing in my head like a prophecy I wasn’t ready to accept.

*Sometimes dreams tell you shit you’re not ready to know.*

My Japanese literature class passed in a blur of conjugations and cultural context I couldn’t focus on. The professor was talking about the concept of mono no aware—the pathos of things, the bittersweet awareness of the impermanence of all things—and I found myself thinking about dreams. How they felt so real while you were in them, so important and meaningful and true, only to fade like morning mist when you woke up.

Except this one wasn’t fading. If anything, it was getting more vivid as the day wore on. I kept catching myself touching my lips, or running my tongue across my teeth, trying to recapture that taste that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

What if Jason was right? What if there was something I wasn’t ready to admit? Something that went deeper than just a random dream about my roommate?

I’d always known I could want anyone—guy, girl, didn’t matter. Had known that about myself since I was old enough to understand what attraction meant. But this felt different. Bigger. Like something had cracked open inside me that I couldn’t close again, even if I wanted to.

By the time my last class ended, I was a wreck. My hands were shaking, my stomach was in knots, and I felt like I was walking around with my skin inside out. I needed to get back to the dorm, needed the safety of familiar walls and my own space to fall apart in private.

But when I rounded the corner near the library, I saw them.

Kaimu and his girlfriend, Kaia. She was gorgeous in that effortless island way—long dark hair, sun-kissed skin, the kind of smile that could light up a room. They were sitting on one of the benches under the plumeria trees, and she was laughing at something he’d said, her hand resting on his thigh like it belonged there.

Like she belonged there.

I ducked behind a pillar before they could see me, my chest tight with something that felt dangerously close to jealousy. Which was insane. I had no right to be jealous. No claim on him. No reason to feel like I was watching someone else live the life I wanted.

Except maybe I did want it. Maybe that was the truth Jason had been trying to get me to see.

I watched them for another minute—the easy way they touched, the comfortable intimacy of a couple who’d been together for over a year—and something tore loose behind my ribs. Not my heart, exactly. Something deeper. Something that had been holding me together.

I made it to the third-floor bathroom in Hale Kauanoe before the panic hit.

The bathroom was empty, thank God, because I immediately locked myself in the farthest stall and slumped against the door, gasping like I’d run a marathon. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get my phone out of my pocket.

I scrolled to my sister’s number. Keala would know what to say. She always did. She was four years older, already graduated and working in Honolulu, but we’d always been close. She was the first person I’d told when I figured out I was pan, and she’d just shrugged and said, “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

The phone rang once. Twice.

“Ko’o? What’s wrong?”

Just hearing her voice made my eyes burn. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Okay, slow down. Where are you?”

“School. In a bathroom. Hiding.” I laughed, and it came out cracked and desperate. “I’m hiding in a bathroom because I had a dream about my roommate and now I can’t look at him without—”

I stopped. Because how do you explain that you’re falling apart over something that never happened? How do you tell your sister that you’re questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself because of a fucking dream?

“Ko’o?”

“I can’t do this,” I whispered. “I can’t pretend everything’s normal when it’s not. When I’m not.”

“Hey.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “Listen to me. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever this is about—you’re not alone, okay? You’re not crazy, and you’re not broken.”

“How do you know? You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“Because I know you. And I know that look in your voice—like you’re scared of yourself. But here’s the thing about being scared of yourself: usually it just means you’re growing.”

I closed my eyes and let her words wash over me. In the distance, I could hear the rumble of afternoon traffic, the sound of students calling to each other across the courtyard. Normal sounds. Life continuing like everything was fine.

“What if I don’t want to grow?” I asked. “What if I liked who I was before?”

“Then you stay who you were. But Ko’o? The version of you who had it all together wouldn’t be sobbing into a stall door. So maybe who you are now is who you were always supposed to be.”

I hung up before she could say anything else, before I could break down completely and tell her everything. About the dream, about the taste that wouldn’t leave my mouth, about the way my chest had cracked open watching Kaimu with someone else.

But her words followed me out of the bathroom and back to my dorm room, where I spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the ceiling and trying to piece myself back together.

When Kaimu came back that evening, I was sitting at my desk, pretending to study. He looked relaxed, happy—the way people look when they’ve spent time with someone they love. It made my stomach twist.

“How was your day?” he asked, dropping his backpack by his bed.

“Fine. Boring. You know.” I didn’t look up from my textbook. “How was yours?”

“Good. Hung out with Kaia for a bit. Helped her with her marine bio project.”

Of course he did. Of course he spent the afternoon being the perfect boyfriend while I was having a breakdown in a bathroom stall.

“That’s nice,” I managed.

He was quiet for a moment, and when I finally looked up, he was watching me with that same concerned expression from the morning.

“You sure you’re okay? You’ve been weird all day.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.”

“You want me to get you something? Tea? Tylenol?”

The genuine concern in his voice made my chest tight. This was what I’d been afraid of losing—this easy care, this simple friendship that had developed between us over shared late-night study sessions and cafeteria meals and stupid jokes about our professors. If he knew what I’d been thinking about, what I’d been dreaming…

“I’m good,” I said, closing my textbook and standing up. “Actually, I think I’m gonna go to bed early. Try to catch up on sleep.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t push. Just nodded and started pulling clothes from his dresser. “Alright. Sleep well.”

I changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. Across the room, I could hear Kaimu moving around, getting ready for his own bedtime routine. The familiar sounds should have been comforting. Instead, they made me hyperaware of every breath, every movement, every second that passed.

When he got up to brush his teeth, I watched him go. When he came back, I pretended to be asleep. But I could feel him looking at me, could sense his concern like a physical weight.

“Lights out?” he asked softly.

I made a noncommittal noise, and the room plunged into darkness.

In the dark, everything felt more intense, more charged. I could hear his breathing, slow and even, and I found myself trying to match my own rhythm to his. But sleep felt impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in that impossible place where he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

I lay there for what felt like hours, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about the dream. About the way he’d looked at me, the sounds he’d made, the taste of him on my tongue. But the harder I tried not to think about it, the more vivid it became, until I was practically vibrating with want and confusion and the desperate need to know if it had meant anything at all.

Sleep, when it finally came, was like falling down a well. One moment I was lying in my narrow dorm bed, listening to Kaimu breathe across the room, and the next I was somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere impossible.

We were in our dorm room, but not our dorm room. Everything was the same but different—the walls were the right color but somehow more saturated, the light was golden honey instead of fluorescent white, and the air buzzed with plumeria and static, sharp and floral on my tongue.

Kaimu was sitting on the edge of his bed, shirtless, looking at me with an expression I’d never seen before. Not blank or casual or friendly. Hungry. Like he’d been waiting for me, like he’d been thinking about this as much as I had.

“Ko’o,” he said, and his voice was rough with want. “Come here.”

I moved without thinking, drawn to him like metal to a magnet. When I knelt between his legs, it felt natural, inevitable. This was where I belonged—on my knees, looking up at him, ready to give him whatever he needed.

“Are you sure?” I asked, even though I was already reaching for the waistband of his boxers.

He tangled his fingers in my hair, gentle but firm, guiding me where he wanted me. “You always know what I want.”

And then there was no more talking, just sensation and taste and the sound of his breathing getting rougher as I took him into my mouth. This time was different from the first dream—more urgent, more desperate. He was close already, like he’d been aching for this, like his body had been waiting for my touch.

His hands tightened in my hair, not rough but possessive, and I moaned around him, the sound vibrating through both of us. He was bigger than I’d imagined, thick and heavy on my tongue, and I had to work to take all of him. But I wanted it—wanted to prove I could handle him, wanted to be good for him, wanted to see him fall apart because of me.

“Fuck, Ko’o,” he gasped, his hips jerking involuntarily. “You’re so—God, your mouth—”

I looked up at him through my lashes, and the expression on his face nearly undid me. He was watching me with such intensity, such raw need, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. His lips were parted, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and there was a flush spreading across his cheekbones that made him look younger, more vulnerable.

“I’m close,” he warned, his voice cracking on the words.

But I didn’t pull away. Instead, I doubled my efforts, hollowing my cheeks and taking him deeper, using my tongue in ways that made him curse and grip my hair tighter. I wanted this—wanted to taste him, wanted to feel him come apart in my mouth, wanted to swallow every drop he gave me.

When he came, he said my name like a prayer, like a secret, like something precious and breakable. And I swallowed everything he gave me, wanting to keep this moment forever, to never wake up and lose this feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be.

But of course, I did wake up.

Of course, I always woke up.

This time, though, something was different. As consciousness crept back in and the dream faded around the edges, I became aware of a sound that didn’t belong to my own ragged breathing.

Across the room, Kaimu was shifting restlessly in his sleep, making soft noises that sounded almost like—

No. That was impossible. That was my imagination filling in gaps, creating connections that weren’t there.

But as I lay there in the dark, heart hammering against my ribs, I could have sworn I heard him whisper my name.

Just once.

Soft and desperate and real.

And in that moment, everything changed. I knew we’d only just begun.

I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to muffle the sound of my own breathing, but sleep was gone for the night. All I could do was lie there and wait for morning, counting the hours until I’d have to face him again, pretending that nothing had changed when everything had.

Outside our window, the coqui frogs sang their endless song, and somewhere in the distance, waves crashed against the rocky shore of Hilo Bay. Normal sounds. Familiar sounds. The soundtrack of my new life in this place that was supposed to be paradise.

But paradise, I was learning, could be its own kind of hell when you wanted something you couldn’t have.

Something you weren’t even sure you understood.

Something that might just destroy everything good you’d built if you weren’t careful.

I closed my eyes and waited for dawn, already dreading and anticipating what the next night might bring.