“Kris?” Lay waved his hand in front of his friend’s face.

Kris blinked and sat up straighter in his chair, the image of Tao vanishing from his mind as he looked at Lay. “Uh, what?”

“Are you okay? You barely said a word during the interview and then you didn’t even speak at all during the demonstration.” 

“Oh yeah, no, I’m fine. I just…I’m fine.” Kris didn’t know what to say. He was racking his brain for excuses and was coming up blank. He mentally slapped himself. It was ridiculous that Tao was taking away his ability to even function properly. After the demonstration Kris felt like…well to be honest he didn’t know what he felt like. During the whole performance his chest had seemed to swell and he couldn’t take his eyes off of Tao. The fluid movements and the flipping and the…just…everything. Everything about the performance was perfect. At first Kris tried to tell himself that it was simply the beauty of the martial arts that was making him breathless, but he couldn’t lie to himself. It was Tao.

Kris mentally shook himself once again, feeling that he was becoming a different person. He had never known himself to be affected by someone in this way. He was always composed, serious. He expected things like this from Lay, who was the opposite of himself.

He thought that after Tao left he would go back to being himself, go back to focusing on work and being able to act like a normal human being. But that didn’t happen. Instead here he was, sitting at his desk, replaying the performance over and over, his chest swelling with an emotion he couldn’t identify.

“Kris!” Lay said again, sounding agitated. “Why do you keep doing that?” His agitation turned into concern when he asked, “Hey, you’re not sick or something, are you?” Lay leaned in to place his hand on Kris’ forehead but Kris swatted it away, rolling his eyes.

“No, no, I’m not sick. I’m just…tired. Stress and stuff…y’know.” He hoped Lay would believe him.

“Oh okay.” Kris let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Well now that we found a trainer you don’t have to be stressed anymore!” Lay smiled, thinking this would make Kris feel better but it did the opposite.

Kris groaned to himself, knowing how painful the coming days would be. If he didn’t figure out why he was so entranced with this boy, and how to fix it, he was in trouble. If anything, he was more stressed than ever. He knew it was going to be impossible trying to work tomorrow knowing that Tao was only a couple of rooms away. It was enough to make Kris go crazy.