ok so this stuff has been revamped and is subject to change </3
basic info tho hai is a species i made called "versatite" which lowkey is super inspired by ghouls in tokyo ghoul but we dont talk abt that. they eat people for food/energy and become stronger, faster, and more agile in hunting mode. their eyes turn red when they are in hunting mode, feel threatened, or feel territorial. some versatites have better control over controlling their eye colour change than others, hai is exceptional at it.
so hai and arek both move into this apartment together since this girl, Lakomp (who we will call lak), posted an ad for two rooms
we find out later on the reason she posted an ad so suddenly was because her two roommates died in a car crash and she was the only survivor, despite not wanting to move on so soon she needed financial support and was estranged from her parents and didnt have many other friends.
hai and arek both moved in on the same day, meeting on accident when they bump into eachother to both leave for work at the same time. arek works as an intern/amateur journalist and hai works at a conveinence store (theres also lore on his conveinence store coworkers btw)
hai and arek slowly become friends and also friends with lak, although at the time hai is hooking up with this girl named solya. lak has a crush on solya despite knowing solya is straight. she thinks she does an okay job at hiding this but solya knows, she just doesnt want to break her heart since she knows lak has been through a lot.
hai introduced arek to his group of friends, which are all versatites (solya is one of them). versatites are stigmatized and dont out themselves as versatites off the bat to anyone, if they admit it at all. at this point, arek is not aware of hai being a versatite nor any of his friends. time goes on and arek becomes the token human friend in the group, and becomes rather close to this versatite named "ten" (this was supposed to be a placeholder name but it fits him imo..). they form a budding romance, and around this time hai cannot control his eye colour changing anymore. he doesnt realise he has feelings for him yet, but he is extremely territorial about arek developing this relationship with ten. for some context ten is lowkey a fuckboy and never has serious relationships, and he isnt super serious about arek (not in a way where he doesnt care about him though). hai tries to distract himself by hooking up with solya more (in this he realises hes asexual which is rlly funny), which makes arek jealous but he doesnt realise these feelings yet. you know who DOES realise this tho? solya and ten. solya has serious romantic feelings for hai, despite their relationship being strictly fwbs. it pains her to see hai pining over someone else, but she knows its better to let him know he might be crushing on arek than to let him be confused in his feelings. ten has a conversation with hai letting him know that, despite his feelings for arek, he sees how arek looks at hai and lets him know he should shoot his shot if he thinks something real is going on. ten broke up with arek short after.
so theres like a whole "will they wont they" thing going w hai and arek but eventually something happens, arek gets a letter from his mum. since arek was abandoned at an orphanage, he never knew if his parents were alive. the letter describes how she feels bad never reaching out before but she legally could not until he turned 18, and has been building up the courage in the last year to. she says that his biological dad was extremely abusive to her and is the reason she gave him away, but shes with a new man now and has been for quite some time, not knowing where his bio dad is anymore and does not care to. she invited him to stay at their ranch in ohio (where he is originally from) for as long as he wanted.
arek felt the safest and closest to hai, talking the most about his past w him, so arek invited hai to come stay at the ranch with him. he immediately agreed. when they arrived at the ranch areks mum was their with loving arms and was so excited to finally meet arek, or at least see him again. they helped around the farm for the days they were there, with areks stepdad becoming his new father figure to him. in this time arek did research on where his bio dad could be and found out he died 2 years ago from alcohol poisoning, being a mean alcoholic until he died. although it was sad to hear, he never felt close to his dad and had no feelings about him, especially after finding out how terrible he was to his mum. hai consoled him in all these feelings (hai is canonically the most caring towards arek, being seen as more assholey and stand offish when hes not around).
one day arek and hai were sitting at the porch with areks mum and stepdad (this is like at least a week in btw) and areks mum asked how long they had been together. they quickly both freaked out and said they were just friends, where his mum quickly apologised about the assumption. this made arek and hai confront the fact that what they felt for eachother was real, although they both still did not confront the other about it.
eventually, they left the ranch and went back home to nyc. when they got back home and sat in silence in hais room, they stared at eachother for a moment until hai kissed him. their relationship flourished after that. hai cut things off with solya (even though solya assumed she was not getting laid no more by him) and hai and arek moved into the same room, with areks old room being made into an office/art space for everyone
solya finally sat down and talked to lak and told her she knew about her feelings, and that despite the fact she didnt feel the same way she really wanted to stay friends. lak agreed and this gave her the ability to move on. lak eventually found a girlfriend named izzy and started doing a lot better w her mental health
eventually arek dies but i havent worked out all the kinks yet. theyre canonically soulmates in every universe and in most of them, at least one of them dies. so far theres 1 canonical universe where they have a happy ending, with all the others having bad endings or arent finished