The most obvious ones we've sort of mentioned on Discord!
Beau is in the right age range and they can definitely be good friends! He would be a year behind Kai in school and they might not have had classes together because Beau generally spends a LOT of time around the language arts buildings, but he's always doing stuff around campus. He tutors a lot and has an undergraduate research campus job that keeps him busy on top of his baseball schedule. So we can figure out somewhere for them to have met in all of that! lol.
Mal is also a year behind Kai at the University. He's studying space stuff. lol. He's essentially pulling a double major in physics and astrophysics, but he was there for his freshman year, and then at Dartmouth for the first semester of sophomore year, and then back at DU for the spring semester. He is pretty likable and sort of a nerd jock because he played football in high school and was super good at it, but he doesn't play for DU.
Lyllianna is here if he ever wants to work with horses.
And Bash is quite a few years older, but is very outdoorsy.