Back at Highschool

For the most part, Tao followed Baekhyun’s advice, he didn’t do anything that would bring attention to himself; he did make some other friends of course but he hung out mostly with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun; the three had become near inseparable. However as much Tao and Baekhyun tried to stay out of trouble and avoid attention, there was someone who was determined to get Baekhyun to talk to him. 

Now, it must be understood that there was something of a hierarchy at Kira Highschool. Everyone knew who the most popular students were, and a particularly popular, and admittedly attractive, group of them were known as the Four Kings. They were undoubtedly the four most popular boys at school and were something of celebrities in this seaside town. It was almost amusing how much of a big deal was made out of the four of them, although some of the stories of their grandeur was probably deserved, they were rich, handsome and popular, the perfect men. 

Firstly, there was Luhan. Obviously most of the student body didn’t know that he was a pixie, but his girlish good looks and gentle demeanor easily made him the source of many girl’s crushes. Of course, his pure and innocent looks were only second to his shining reputation. He was known as the White King, and the one to go to if you had any problems. The Black King was Kris, and if Luhan was the angel, he was the devil. It was more likely to see him out of school than in, and despite being universally adored by all the girls, and worshipped by most of the male student body, the teachers had an intense dislike for the boy who never listened to them anyways. Chanyeol was the Yellow King, known for his infectious smile, impulsive and sometimes arrogant behavior as well as extremely large bank account. Finally there was Kai, the mysterious Blue King. Near to nothing was known about him other than he didn’t seem to like to talk, and he was the quiet, mysterious type. 

And what these kings wanted; these kings got. 

After two months of attending Kira Highschool, Baekhyun was very much aware of the social hierarchy, he’d aways been attuned to these things, and he had to admit he had enjoyed being popular, back when he used to be in highschool. Now however, he knew it’d be best if he was at the bottom of the social chain. And so he made sure to do nothing to bring attention to himself. Tao was completely clueless about it. Kyungsoo less so, but he also didn’t care for it, and thought these Kings were just some silly highschool extravaganza. It was in class one day when he finally realized how much of an influence these Kings had. 

Kyungsoo was the kid that sat at the back of class and never put his hand up even though he knew all the answers because he didn’t want anyone’s eyes on him. Kai was the kid who sat next to the window and stared out of it the whole time while people stared adoringly at him and the teachers didn’t ask him anything in fear of getting their head bitten off. They were in different classes and so rarely crossed paths, but Kai had been watching the older but shorter boy. He knew what the connection and the pull towards the small and shy boy meant, and as an alpha werewolf it was especially, but he’d never heard of a werewolf, much less an alpha, having a human mate and so was approaching the situation with as much caution as he would carry a puppy. Which was a large amount. 

Excluding Luhan, at whom he’d heavily hinted his current situation, he hadn’t told the rest of his friends. Chanyeol as a human naturally it was self-explanatory. Chen and Xiumin were too caught-up in their own blooming romance to care about anyone else’s, and Kris would tell him to just get over it. But unless he rejected his mate, that would be impossible to do. He had considered it. Rejecting the human and moving on with his life, but he’d never felt so strongly about anyone in his entire life, that the thought of rejecting the only person that instilled such emotion in him was downright terrifying. And he’d heard of the effects that rejecting mates had on werewolves, on both sides, the rejecter and the rejected. It wasn’t uncommon to hear stories of werewolves losing their ability to transform or even their minds after separating from their mate. Basically nothing good would come of Kai rejecting the human. So he resorted to stalking him around school. 

So far this was what he’d learnt:

His name was Do Kyungsoo, this he’d learnt from eavesdropping on him when he borrowed a book from the library (Kyungsoo was the only reason Kai was there, he preferred to stay out of anywhere that he couldn’t easily run out of, and bookshelves of books would get in his way). He only seemed to have two friends, who actually almost seemed to exclusively hang out together; however Kai wasn’t interested in the other two so didn’t pay them any attention. He didn’t like crowds, evidenced by him staying out of the canteen and other crowded areas. 

To Kai he seemed like the usual boring human nerd. Nothing stood out about him. He definitevly didn’t seem like mate of a werewolf alpha material. And there was no way such a delicate and small human would be able to handle the mating process. So why were his eyes always looking out for the small boy, or why did whenever he saw him his body tingled and heart faltered? 

It was on a Friday when Kai finally got to talk to Kyungsoo and it was a complete disaster. Kai was a first year, and had established himself as the fourth King very quickly, however Kyungsoo was a second year and so they shared no classes. Which meant Kai effectively spent his morning and lunch breaks trailing around the school looking for the pale dark-haired boy. On such an excursion, the lunch break of this particular Friday he caught a whiff of something that was as horrible as it was unexpected. 

Vampire. 

His nose turned up and he could feel a growl at the back of his throat. He took a deep breath and repressed his instincts and took a breath in. Where was it coming from? He slowly began to move down the corridor and reached the library, he looked through the door and was about to open the door when it was done for him and the short boy’s he’d been stalking for the past month wide eyes stared up at him, shock evident on his face before he quickly moved away and made to walk off but Kai, surprising himself just as much as Kyungsoo opened his mouth. 

“I’m Kai.” He said and Kyngsoo looked at him, a confused frown on his face. 

“Y-yeah, um, I know...” Kyungsoo hesitantly answered, he wondered if Kai knew of his title as ‘king’ of Kira, which meant that everyone at Kira knew of him. 

“Oh. Right, yeah, of course, I mean, yeah, I suppose you’ve heard of me...” Kai wanted to slap himself, what had happened to being cool and mysterious? 

Kyungsoo wondered if there was something wrong with younger boy standing slight red-faced in front of him, because there was no way someone like Kai would talk to someone as insignificant as him on the social ladder in his right mind. 

“I’m Kyungsoo.” He said lamely, if only to fill in the akward silence. 

“Yeah.” Kai nodded as if he already knew and then turned around and walked away, the stale smell of blood and metal of vampire forgotten in the embarrassment of not being able to hold a proper conversation with his mate. 

How was Kyungsoo supposed to become his one and only if he couldn’t even talk to him? Wait...what was he thinking? Kyungsoo couldn’t be his mate. He was a human. He couldn’t have a human as a mate. Could he?

Kai had left behind him an extremely confused Kyungsoo, who decided the best thing to do would be ignore what had just happened and go read a book to calm him down. Which was exactly what he did. Little did he know, his little interaction between himself and Kai had been witnessed by an extremely smug and excited friend. 

Tao loved matchmaking. He was a complete and utter romantic at heart, despite being utterly clueless unless things were spelled out for him, but it was pretty obvious to him that Kai had the hots for Kyungsoo, I mean, he hadn’t exactly been discreet about his spying on the younger boy, both Baekhyun and Tao had noticed, and only Kyungsoo had no clue. He was peering out from behind the wall of the outside of the library, shaking his head as Kai walked away and muttering to himself. 

“It looks like he needs some help.”

“Who needs help with what?” A deep voice asked above him and Tao smiled. 

“A poor soul in search of his true love.”

“Is that so?” The voice sounded skeptical and Tao frowned, who were they to doubt him?

Actually...

Who were they period?

Tao quickly moved away from the wall and span around to find that a tall boy had been standing over him, looking over the top of his head at Kyungsoo and Kai, both now having gone their own ways. Tao stared at the boy...there was something familiar about him. He was undoubtedly handsome, with dark piercing eyes and light blonde hair. He was quite a bit taller than Tao, who still growing anyways! Tao stared at him so more, his eyebrows pulling together in a frown as he tried to remember where he’d seen this guy before. But nothing, he’d always had a terrible memory and he was horrendous when it came to names and faces. 

Kris waited with a small smirk for the younger (presumed on his part, but there was no way someone that looked that adorable could be older than him) to stop ogling him, but if he wanted Tao to stop staring at him and start talking, he would have been disappointed. As it were, he didn’t particularly mind the attention, but as the minutes ticked by and the boy still didn’t speak Kris decided to break him out of his reverie. 

“Like what you see?”

Tao realized he’d been staring at the taller one’s face for a good five minutes and quickly looked somewhere else, his face turning red in embarrassment. 

“N-no...well, I mean yes, I mean no, well it’s not bad or anything but I wasn’t staring because of that or anything it’s just that you know, have I seen you before or something maybe possibly...?” Tao trailed off realizing what a train wreck of sentence what he’d just said was. 

“I’m Tao.” He finished lamely and then eyed the corridor behind Kris, wondering if it was worth it at this point to just run away. 

Kris took a good look at Tao and he found himself agreeing with him. There was something familiar about him, but then he shrugged it off, he saw a lot people, he probably saw this kid somewhere and that was it. But he smirked at the naïve boy in front of him, who looked like a deer in headlights when he met Kris’s eyes. 

“I think there is something familiar about you...” Kris took this opportunity to run his eyes over the young boy’s body who stood there fidgeting. 

“Y-yeah really? I thought so too, haha.” Tao laughed awkwardly. “So you are...?”

“Kris.” The handsome boy answered and Tao nodded. 

“That’s a nice name.” He said, for lack of anything better to say and desperately began to think of an excuse that would allow him to escape. 

Tao didn’t know but he was as easy to read as a book. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions were always written on his face, and the current one was a mix of extreme discomfort and embarrassment, which Kris found just as amusing as Tao found embarrassing. 

“Are you new here?” Kris asked, even though Tao seemed familiar, he was sure of he would noticed the shorter boy if he’d attended Kira last year.

Tao nodded. “Yeah I’m a first year. What about you?”

His embarrassment was beggning to ebb away and as it did, Tao’s natural chatty inclination began to emerge and Kris raised an eyebrow. 

“You don’t know who I am?”

Tao shook his head with a slight frown. “Is there a reason I should? Are you in one of my classes or something?”

Kris laughed suddenly. “No, I don’t suppose there’s a reason. And do I look like a first year to you?”

“No.” Tao giggled slightly. “I guess not.”

Their conversation was interrupted was the sudden arrival of a very tired and annoyed looking Chanyeol. 

“Kriiiiissss! He keeps running away from me!” He whinged jogging up to the boy in his sports gear with a water bottle in hand, and then noticed Tao, a light of recognition going off in his eyes. 

“Hey aren’t you-?” He and Tao both started at the same time and then cut themselves off. 

The three stared at each other, Tao once again looking slightly scared, confused and lost, Chanyeol still tired but a smile on his face while Kris was wearing his usual smirk mildly interested how his friends knew the young boy he’d just been talking to. 

“Chanyeol right?” Asked Tao, deciding he was might as well take the plunge and already mentally apologizing to Baekhyun. 

“Yeah you remember me? You’re Baekhyun’s friend...” He paused for a second. “Tao wasn’t it? We met on the beach!”

“Yeah...yeah of course! That’s where I saw you!” He pointed at Kris and then nodded to himself. “Kris, yes I remember now.”

“Yes, that’s great.” Chanyeol waved of this little revelation and took Tao by the shoulders. 

Kris raised an eyebrow and Tao looked up at Chanyeol, a surprised expression on his face as Chanyeol leaned in closer to him. 

“Does Baekhyun ever talk about me?”

“Uhm...” Tao was too confused to answer, but fortunately he didn’t have to.

“What are you doing?”

(A/N: sorry for such late update but moved house & still haven't got internet. So don't know when updates will be cuz I've finally found time to find a internet café)