Kris bends down to pick up his long discarded jacket that was luckily still in one piece. There are some stains on it but nothing Kris can’t handle. He puts it on with as little movement as possible, his shoulder’s beginning to throb and it pissed the man off more than the fact that idiots at Ilse High never learned their lesson.

“Here!” Jongin throws a small handkerchief and points to his mouth. “Your lip is bleeding.”

Kris nods and gently pats his mouth to feel the stinging he’s all too familiar with.

“Are you heading to Tao-hyungs?” Sehun asks this time, coming back after retrieving his own jacket he threw near a fountain in the middle of the park.

The three of them were called out by some punks from Ilse High to meet them at a park near their school. They knew exactly what waited for them and they came prepared. However, none of them expected the amount of people waiting for them. Kris was pretty sure it was more than ten.

“Yeah,” Kris looks back at the bodies scattered around the three of them, “what about them?”

Jongin shrugs.

“They are all knocked out so none of them are leaving until the cops come.”

“You called the cops?” Sehun looks disappointed with his bottom lip sticking out in a pout. Kris doesn’t want to know why the man would be disappointed but he learned a long time ago to just accept his friends and their strange ways of thinking.

The other man shakes his head and points to a small area that was not covered by the large trees and bushes, giving a perfect view to what had just went down a moment ago.

“I saw a lady pass by there and she rushed away speaking into her phone.”

Sehun brushes dirt off of Jongin’s jacket, the only one who didn’t take his jacket off, and looks disapprovingly at a small rip near the boy’s collar. After giving up on trying to fix his friend’s appearance, Sehun addresses Kris again.

“I’m gonna head over to Jongin’s place. Tell hyung we said hi!”

Kris nods and waves back at his friends as they walk their separate ways. His shoulder is definitely hurting more and he silently curses from each movement of his arm.

Fortunately, Tao’s house was only ten minutes away from the park and the man was amazing at dealing with injuries from years of martial arts training and parents that were both doctors. Kris rounds a corner to his friend’s street when he sees Minseok, Tao’s step-brother, talking to another man wearing his school’s uniform.

It’s well passed ten and very unusual to see the always studious and timely Minseok looking relaxed and happily talking away without a care in a world instead of getting ready for bed. The smaller man shakes his head and ruffles the taller man’s hair with a fond expression before waving a goodbye. The other man waves back and turns around, his face finally in perfect view.

Maybe Kris’s tired from his long day and an impromptu fight but he never had anything render his walking abilities like he’s experiencing right now. He takes in the sight in front of him.

The man is as tall as him with cleanly pressed uniform that fits him too well and soft looking brown locks that frame the man’s small face. However, the bright large eyes that were so lively even at ten at night was what Kris observed the longest until the stranger turns around to enter a taxi. Kris didn’t even notice the taxi.

His legs finally take him the rest of the way to Tao and Minseok’s house as his eyes follows the taxi exit the street and drive away.

“Yifan! What happened?” Minseok rushes back outside, catching the man walking towards his house before he could close the door. The smaller man pulls at Kris’s injured arm and apologizes when Kris hisses in pain.

“Ilse.” Is all Kris says and it’s so great that Minseok understands him right away. The older man shakes his head and carries his bag until they enter Tao’s room.

Tao’s sitting on a beanbag playing on his DS when he looks up.

“Wow.”

Kris snorts at the reaction and sits down in front of the man. Minseok comes back with a first aid kit, hands it to Tao and shares a look with the man that Kris’s secretly jealous of.

“I have an early meeting tomorrow. Yifan, let me know if you need anything but I think Tao has everything under control.”

Tao smiles and waits for his step-brother to leave his room before fully getting into fixing Kris up. He asks for the details of the fight and Kris does his best to retell the story. Tao is quick and the painkillers finally kick in once Kris has tucked himself into Tao’s pullout bed.

The darkness calms Kris and he has a moment to forget his little fight and another, completely new, thought enters his mind.

“Hey, hyung, you awake?”

Tao makes a noise to indicate that yes, he was awake, but probably not for long.

“Do you know who Minseok-hyung was meeting up with today? Outside of your house?”

Tao is silent for a moment before Kris hears the man turning around and his head sticks out from the edge of the bed, looking down at Kris.

“Chanyeol? You don’t know him?”

Kris shrugs. The man’s face was something you would definitely remember but Kris could swear he had never seen the man before.

“He’s our Student Gov. Prez and like the face of our school.” Kris hears the amusement in Tao’s voice. “But then again, you are Yifan, Mr. I don’t give a about anyone or anything.”

Kris flings his arm up and would have smacket Tao’s head if the man wasn’t quick enough to move away. Tao’s laughing for real this time.

“Is he close with Minseok-hyung?”

Tao hums.

“They’ve been friends way before our parents got together. Chanyeol was over to finish up a project or something.”

“Are you friends with him?”

“Chanyeol? Nah, he’s cool and really easy to get along with but you know. We’re too different.”

Kris nods his head even if Tao can’t see it. The silence falls upon them once again and soon Kris hears Tao’s gentle snores that also puts him to sleep.   

▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢

“Over here!” Baekhyun, a second year Kris met during his orientation, calls out to him and Sehun from a small table in the school’s courtyard. They agreed to have lunch together so that the upperclassman could properly hear about the previous night’s battle tales.

Jongin is already sitting by the man, the first one out of classroom to buy food while Kris and Sehun took their time, waves at his two friends with a mouth full of fries.

“So Jongin was filling me in. I can’t believe Ilse are bunch of es. Three against fourteen? Messed up!”

Sehun nods in agreement, a small bruise on the right cheek blemishing his white skin, as he takes a seat besides Jongin. Kris decides to seat himself next to Sehun, farthest away from Baekhyun, for reasons.

Kris takes out his lunch, even with the reputation as a delinquent, he always makes sure to eat well and brings home cooked meals. Lucky for him, his father was a chef at a Korean Chinese fusion restaurant and always experimented at home. Kris managed to drop by his house before heading to school just for his food.

The courtyard is relatively free now that midterms are fast approaching and it gives some room for Kris to relax and not be surrounded by overly talkative teens of his school. He looks up when his name is mentioned during Baekhyun’s little rant about lunch being the perfect time to sneak out of school gates but Sehun defends his friend saying that it’s easier to just stay on campus until school ends.

Kris smiles appreciatively at Sehun until his eyes catch a figure passing through the court with a box filled with books and a smile making it seem like he was having the time of his life.

Park Chanyeol.

The blonde man observes Chanyeol stride with confidence and good naturedly smiles to whoever catches his eyes. Some girls come up to ask if he wanted to eat something that they prepared for him and guys come up to ask if he needed help carrying the books. With each encounter, Chanyeol politely answers and declines before finally entering the building, disappearing from Kris’s watchful eyes.

“What are you staring at?” Baekhyun turns to follow Kris’s eyesight but, fortunately, Chanyeol’s already gone and Kris just shrugs it away.

Kris doesn’t really take notice of things until couple weeks later when Sehun, of all people, brings up Kris’s sudden interest in a certain upperclassman. His friend, no matter how dear and loyal, never cared for much besides his own needs. The fact that Sehun noticed his little addition to his usual mundane school life must really mean that Kris was doing it too much.

“Don’t deny it,” Jongin adds that evening when they are all lounging in Kris’s basement, ramen cups scattered everywhere along with multiple take out boxes from Kris’s father’s restaurant, Skyrim’s load screen lighting the room, “you would stare so blatantly that I’m actually surprised that he didn’t notice it yet. Or maybe he did and is scared to confront you.”

“Your stare is so intense that I can’t tell if you want to sock the guy in the face or push him down and show your tongue into his mouth.” Sehun chortles from the side, throwing a popcorn towards Kris’s direction.

“Dude,” Kris scrunches up his face as he throws a pillow in retaliation, “that’s gay.”

Sehun only shrugs.

“Sehun’s being honest, I feel the same way. I know you’re straight and all but you might have a major crush on him.” Jongin adds and curses when his character takes a major hit. “I think the majority of our school has a crush on him.”

“What if I just want to sock the guy, like you said?”

Sehun shakes his head.

“We know you. And you, Wu Yifan, is not someone to just start something without a reason. All the fights you’ve been in, you never threw the first punch.”

Kris looks between his friends like they’ve been abducted and replaced by some random strangers who were way too observant and it makes him chuckle. Sehun raises an eyebrow at the strange reaction while Jongin is too absorbed into his game to care much, so unlike a minute ago. Kris decides that he needs to stretch his legs and take a moment away from the two. Without a word, he ventures into the kitchen to grab more beer and to escape Sehun’s gaze.

“I have a girlfriend.” Is the first thing that comes out his mouth when he finally returns. It sounds strangely defensive even to his own ears. Sehun seems to share the sentiment.

“So? Even while I was dating, I never stopped liking Woo Bin.”

Jongin turns around this time to give a strange look to Sehun.

“You do realise that the actor is on a completely different level than our president, right?”

“Doesn’t matter, they still fulfil the same role. People look up to them, one on a world stage the other on a high school stage.”

Kris sighs and sinks further into the couch.

“Are you drunk? Why are you so intellegent all of a sudden?” Kris’s complaining but still laughs when Sehun sticks his tongue out oh so childishly. “Either way, I just find his actions to be interesting and there’s always something to see whenever he’s around. That’s all.”

Jongin groans very loudly that it startles the other two. The previous conversation is soon forgotten when Jongin goes on a little rampage of how the game was bugged and never lets him win. Kris only laughs, not caring to comfort his friend because Sehun was there for Jongin for that exact reason. Kris was there just for laughs.

▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢

“Kris~”

The blonde man looks down to a body clinging very heavily onto his right arm.

“Nari, your clinging too much.”

The said girl pouts, her glossy lips glistening in the dark room. She leans in even closer as to make a point and pulls the man down to whisper into his ears.

“Don’t be so uptight, we’re here to have fun, why’s there a frown on your face?”

Kris looks around the room filled with couples, none he knows too well, all from Nari’s college. She had convinced him to go out with her friends and they all ended up in karaoke room too small to fit them all. Small hands crawl up Kris’s jaw to turn his face back to his date.

“Noona, you know I don’t like public and social places.” He follows her lead and easily presses his lips onto her’s. She’s wearing a new lipgloss, much more sweeter than her last one and Kris doesn’t really like it.

“That’s why I brought you here and it makes me so happy that you listened to noona’s request.” Another kiss. “Such a good boy.”

Kris only endures another hour of half-deaf singing and awkward body heat in a cramped room before his back hits the cool sheets of Nari’s bed. The girl is quickly working on his pants with needy hands and rushed breath. Kris isn’t one to stay put and let others take charge, no matter how much she wishes to believe that, so he reverses their position, her small body pinned beneath him, eyes dilated and breath coming out even more strained.

His hand easily holds both of her’s above her head, completely taking control and for a split second he wonders what it would feel like if those hands were larger, similar to his own.

A gasp brings the man back to see the woman squirming beneath him, circling her legs around his waist. He leans down to press a kiss and just like that, another image flashes through his mind, almost breaking his composure.

Park ing Chanyeol is there, beneath him, looking all flustered and needy, sweet noises escaping between plump kiss swollen lips. Kris wants to so badly ravish him, make him beg and cry, and that thought sends a chill down his spine all the way to his gut, something burning, throbbing in need.

Kris is so ed.

▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢

“The happened to your face?” Jongin asks as soon as Kris sits down next to him. The class was going to start soon and all of the students were there in their seats.

Jongin’s little outburst brings unwanted attention as Kris looks up to glare at them all. The class as a whole all turn back to face the board as if on command and Kris leans down to answer Jongin.

“Nari slapped me.”

“Why? Did she use a hammer? How does a girl her size leave that?” Jongin puts it so delicately as he tries to touch the still throbbing bruise on his cheek.

“I came too fast.”

Jongin bursts out laughing way too loudly for Kris’s liking.

“That’s all it takes for her to snap? The man, she’s one abusive .”

Kris shakes his head.

“And then I broke up with her.”

At this, Jongin stops laughing and actually looks concerned. But Kris knows better, the guy’s just trying to think and it always makes him look like he’s contemplating his own existence or something dramatic.

“Wait, so you prematurely ed and then broke up with her? Am I missing something?”

Kris groans and places his cheek on the cool surface of his desk, unfortunately, facing Jongin.

“I thought of someone else and got too excited.”

Jongin whistles but doesn’t speak again. Kris wonders if something happened but his friend is just looking forward with a thoughtful look. Soon the teacher walks in and Kris doesn’t get a reply from Jongin anymore for the rest of the day regarding the topic.

▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢

The air is slightly chilly but it’s nothing too bad since he’s heart is beating a mile away and every part of his body is on full alert. Every little noise he hears makes him jump to attention, staring at the closed door until nothing happens.

It took Kris exactly a week, a week of midterms, to come to a conc