Counting The Days (MxM)

Day One

Counting The Days (MxM)

Volume 1

Takano Masamune

Chapter 1: Day One

Now that I remember those days, I wonder what made me fall in love with him so easily…

He was handsome, tall; everyone on campus liked him… Always optimistic, relaxed and very caring towards everyone around him...

I knew I had slim chances and yet… I went for it and confessed my feelings for him. That day in September…

*

*

*

First day at University and Mason Taylor is feeling as nervous as ever. His stomach was turning upside down by the thought of going in there. It wasn’t all bad after all, his best friend Lucas was with him.

However both of them are older than everyone else in class since they skipped a year to save up enough money to even apply.

By some magical twist of fate both of them managed to do it. Now they officially study in V city’s Economics University, both of them in Management major.

It was quite an achievement. That isn’t to say that everything is smooth sailing from here on out.

As a matter of fact it only gets more complicated. Now that they have to find a way to go to University and still work their part time jobs as neither of them can financially rely on their parents.

Best friends of 4 years and current roommates, these two characters have been though a lot during their one year of not studying. But that’s a story for another time. For now, let me introduce them a little bit better.

Lucas is a 20 year old first year University student, his job is actually as a Graphic Designer/Digital Artist and he takes commissions to provide for his expenses. So it gets rough when there aren’t any commissions. Not to mention he gets demotivated really easily.

While Mason is also a 20 year old first year in University, he works as a novelist. However he’s a gay smut novelist, so he has a hard time explaining what he does to others. It’s how he covers his expenses and he likes what he does.

They moved out to V city right after graduating high school a year ago. Began living together to cut their expenses in half. Both jumped from job to job for a while until they could find something they could both do and be happy with.

Now you’re probably wondering why a digital artist and a smut author are both studying economics. It’s simply to have the University experience! Going out with other classmates, hanging out, working on projects together, it sounded too fun to miss. And neither of them wanted to have regrets of not knowing what it was like to study in Uni.

Even though many others would just continue working and not study at all, they wanted to give everything they’ve got and have their youth. Besides both of them being forced to grow up quickly, they decided to have at least a year’s worth of fun. So from their first day at University to the last one… they will be counting the days!

But… Who would have known it would be so difficult for them to have a normal university experience…

*

*

*

“Come on we are going to be late Lucas! Get up!” Mason was yelling early in the morning since his roommate wasn’t even up yet and they were already cutting it close.

“Chill…” The still half asleep man said tiredly.

“How am I supposed to calm down if you’re so slow?!” Mason was already on edge by the thought of being late on the first day of University. It would be so awkward.

“Fine…” Lucas finally got up from his bed and headed to the bathroom.

While the already dressed Mason was waiting he decided to check his latest novel’s progress.  “Hm… still waiting for the contract…”

“Did you say something?” Lucas overheard something so he asked.

“No nothing, it’s probably those dudes above us that are always yelling at each other.” Mason swiftly shifted the blame onto his unassuming neighbors.

Ten minutes later both of them managed to finally leave but they were cutting it far too close. “I don’t want to be lateee!” Mason moaned, he really valued things being done on time and knew full well what a bad first impression this would leave onto others.

“It’s fine, what’s the worst that could happen?” Lucas asked while yawning. He seemed to still be tired.

“Didn’t you sleep enough?” Mason asked a bit concerned for his roommate.

“I played Doom until late last night… I think I went to bed at 3 o’clock?” Lucas said thinking back on it.

“You knew full well it was our first day and you still stood until morning?” Mason had completely forgotten being concerned and was face palming instead.

“Who are you to blame me? You went asleep after me.” Lucas said to the man walking several steps in front of him.

“I was working!” Mason couldn’t believe he was being judged for staying up late and working since he managed to get up and get dressed well before the other.

“Slow down, it’s only a 15 minute walk!” Lucas pleaded as he didn’t feel like catching up to the other.

“I’m just really nervous and excited at the same time! I can’t help it!” Mason said while continuing to walk at his own pace, until stopping at a traffic light.

“Is that why you suddenly turned blond?” Lucas asked while ruffling Mason’s hair.

“Stop that! It’s… well kind of…” Mason didn’t want to admit it but he truly did dye his hair blond just for the sake of Uni. “Cause right now we have the opportunity to be someone else entirely! Nobody knows us here! We can look however we want to look!” He said excitedly.

“That is true…” Lucas had to agree since he also dyed his hair purple just for the sake of it.

As they were still at the traffic light that seemed to take forever to turn green Mason looked at the time again. “Damn, we’ll make it! If we walk a bit faster after crossing the street we’ll be there in no time! Precisely 7 minutes if we hurry, we’ll even have 5 minutes to spare.”

“No need to be so calculating for everything” Lucas said as his friend had the odd habit of wanting to calculate everything properly.

“I can’t help it.” Mason retorted back.

“Mr. Ivanova would be proud of you.” Lucas said jokingly about their high school math teacher.

“Hey, she was a great teacher! She taught us a lot about values besides mathematical ones.” Mason said while trying to make his friend a bit more respectful.

“Yeah… I’m still afraid of her though…” On the other hand Lucas didn’t have as much fond memories thinking about the woman. Since he wasn’t really interested in math’s to begin with.

“Oh… yeah I remember she actually said she would rip your notebook if she saw another drawing…” Mason remembered an instance that truly made the teacher seem a bit scary.

“She actually did! I lost such good work!” Lucas made a motion as if he was going to cry just from remembering it.

“Look the light’s changed, let’s go!” Mason said while pulling his friend by the hand. There was no need to reminisce about past High School experiences. Right now they were in a new life! A university life! That’s all they need to focus on!

*

*

*

They finally arrive at their city’s only Economics University. It wasn’t the most renowned university or anything but a really good place to be in.

“Do you have any idea where we have to be?” Lucas asked while looking around the place. “I think my social anxiety is calling.” He said while finally waking up completely from his half asleep state.

“We’ll just ask someone…” Mason said while trying to single out someone to help them. Walking up to a student he said: “Hello, could you tell us where Lecture hall 8 is?”

“Of course, I’ll take you there. It can get a bit confusing since the building is so big.” The student he asked seemed to be a very good natured and bright individual. With a buzz cut short light brown hair and a nice almost goofy smile. He proceeded to lead the two men to the lecture hall.

“Thank you so much! I’m Mason by the way, and this is Lucas. We’re first years.” Mason said while shaking the other student’s hand.

“Nice to meet you two. I’m Michel also a first year so no need to be polite~ Also call me Mick for short.” Michel said in a cheery tone, he wasn’t the tallest of men but certainly a really kind person.

*

Surprisingly enough during this entire interaction Lucas didn’t say a word. He seemed to be very lost in thought the whole time.

“Thank you so much for bringing us here.” Mason said again.

“I was headed in the same direction anyways so it’s all good. Um.. you, I didn’t catch your name?” Mick asked the silent man that was standing on the side the entire time.

“I’m Lucas.” He said with a bit of a flustered expression.

“Alright so Mason and Lucas? Can I shorten them?” Mick asked, he wanted to shorten the names to create a more friendly vibe between them.

“Sure.” Mason didn’t mind that at all. While Lucas simply nodded.

“Well then L and M? How does that sound?” Mick asked after thinking about the names for half a millisecond.

“Haha~ it’s perfect Mick.” Mason was rather amused to be called just ‘M’ it sounded kind of neat to him. While Lucas was already used to being called ‘L’ so there was no issue there either.

“Alright then! Want to sit together? I can introduce you to my friend.” Michel said as he led the two men without really waiting for an answer from either of them.

*

“Heyo~ Edward~! Look what I found!” Michel said while walking up to his friend who was already seated in his place and was reading something on his phone.

“Hm?” Edward took his eyes away from his phone to look at his friend.

“This is my close friend here, name is Edward~” Michel said while putting an arm around his friend’s shoulder, that was later pushed away.

“Hello~ I’m Mason.” He said while flashing a smile at the man still sitting down.

“Hey, I’m Lucas.” Lucas also greeted a bit awkwardly. He wasn’t really comfortable meeting so many new people at once.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” Edward did a double take at the two men then turned to his friend standing on his left side. “Could you not stand so close?”

“Sure, sure~” Michel stepped away complying with his friend’s request. “Guys, he might seem a bit unfriendly, but he’s a great guy~!” He continues just to praise his friend’s visible inapproachability. “What are you reading this time?”

“Beyond The Night.” Edward replied while showing the screen to his friend.

“Oh! It’s by that author… Ta-… taa?” Michel said while trying his hardest at remembering the name of the author but he just couldn’t.

Mason’s eyes widened as he heard that name being mentioned. ‘Beyond the night… there is no way…’ he thought to himself.

“It’s Takano Masamune, how difficult is it to remember it?” Edward asked with slight annoyance at his friend for not being able to remember his favorite author.

After hearing that Mason froze for a second. ‘Okay… play it cool…’

Lucas suddenly hearing the name spoke: “Hey isn’t that-” Instantly Mason interrupted his friend saying “Oh my, what other kinds of books do you read? I’ve never heard of that author before~ haha…”

That sentence alone signaled to Lucas that he shouldn’t mention what he was thinking about saying.

“I read all kinds of books, I recently found this author Takano, he writes in all kinds of genres so it’s very interesting, each book is different than the last.” Edward said while sounding a bit more excited almost passionate about the subject. He seemed to really enjoy the book he was reading as well.

“That’s… great!” Mason said while trying hard to hide his discomfort. The reason why he was so uncomfortable was because he is Takano Masamune, so it wasn’t easy.

The thing is… he wasn’t planning on sharing the fact that he wrote smut for a living. While it wasn’t exactly embarrassing, he didn’t want to stand out too much; just have a normal University life instead…

“Ha~ Edward calm down man, don’t you see how uncomfortable you are making M?” Michel said in a joking manner. “This guy right here is totally in love with Takano Masamune, it’s his favorite author~” he continued in an attempt to tease this friend.

“What’s wrong with having a favorite author? You make it out to be something bad.” Edward retorted back looking at his friend again.

“Yeah but yours is pretty much obsessive~ I feel bad for the poor guy if he ever meets you. Though how old is he anyway? Like 30 or something?” Michel asked.

“He’s a year older than us.” Edward replied to his friend’s rude remark.

“What?! What normal 20 year old writes books?!” Michel was quite taken aback after hearing the author’s age. “Isn’t that like for older people?”

 “All that matters is the contents of his books…” Edward said with a bit of annoyance at his friend.

“Okay, okay, no need to get angry at me, I’m sorry…” Michel realizing he shouldn’t make fun of his friend’s interests finally apologized.

“Haha…” Mason was really uncomfortable while listening to the two men’s banter. He wanted to turn to Lucas and speak with him but he seemed to be daydreaming and lost in thought.

Good thing the lecture finally started after the professor came in and introduced themselves…

*

*

*

“Agh! That was tiring!” Lucas said as he stretched out his arms over his head.

“I think it was fine for a first day.” Mason said to his friend as they were both walking back to their apartment. Their classes already over since it’s the first day.

“Hey, why did you shut me up when we were talking with those guys?” Lucas asked with interest.

“I just don’t want them to know what I do for a living. It’s a bit weird like Michel said…” Mason replied while looking at the ground for a bit.

“Isn’t it fine though? I mean it’s what you like to do, so I don’t see a problem with telling others about it. And that guy Edward actually likes your stories.” Lucas said reassuringly to his friend.

“It’s because he reads my stories that I’m having an even harder time telling him about it!” Mason retorted back, he didn’t want to tell anyone, even less his fans about it.

“Why? You have common interests it would seem.” Lucas questioned as he really didn’t understand his friend’s reasoning.

“I guess we do… It’s just… I don’t want to be ‘the gay smut author’ in University, I just want to be me, you know?” Mason didn’t want to be known throughout the school and ridiculed, he’d much rather keep everything under wraps and go about his life as usual.

“I guess you have a point as well.” Lucas on the other hand didn’t have the same kind of problem. He didn’t really draw anything he would be embarrassed about as a digital artist, so he wasn’t really in the same boat either way.

*

They got back to their apartment that looked like a total mess as usual. Since both of them have very busy schedules, and also because they are rather lazy sometimes, they haven’t cleaned up at all for a week or so.

“Should we go get beer and watch something?” Lucas asked while looking at their empty refrigerator.

“Let’s get groceries to cook something while we’re at it. Anything you want to eat?” Mason asked while also taking a look at her refrigerator and realizing it’s empty, as expected.

“Sounds good, well let’s just make some *musaka like we always do.” Lucas said while suggesting they just cook the usual, it was easy to make and delicious.

“Okay~” Mason easily agreed as he couldn’t be bothered to suggest something else. They both headed out to buy groceries.