Kris busied himself with work. That was his only solution. He came into the office early so that he could begin working right away, anxious to keep his mind clear of Tao. It was ridiculous that he had only met the boy yesterday and he was feeling his way. He figured worrying about other things would make it better.

His main concern right now needed to be work. Not a boy. Kris kept calling him that. A boy. But was he a boy? The intensity in his eyes seemed to convey something that was anything but innocent. But then again he had seemed shy yesterday, walking into the office with his head down and sticking close to Luhan as much as he could. Kris continued to contemplate, replaying all of yesterday’s events involving Tao, until he realized what he was doing. No! He reprimanded himself and his computer.

He reminded himself that he really needed to work today. Now that they had found a trainer they needed to start advertising to bring in clients. They also needed to look for more trainers. Tao was a great start but he only knew wushu, there had to be other types of martial arts…right? Or was wushu the only kind? It really frustrated Kris sometimes that he knew so little about the field of his business.

Well, Kris tried to look on the bright side, at least research was another thing he could add to his list of things to do besides think of Tao.

Kris huffed out a breath and began working. He needed to work on the flyers so that Xuimin could put them up today.

In the two hours that followed Kris worked more diligently than he ever had. He finished designing the flyers, printed them out, put them on Xuimin’s desk, looked up the numbers of the local newspaper and radio stations to inquire about advertising but didn’t call yet due to the early hour, and he even organized his office, not that it really needed organizing.

He felt proud of himself, realizing that he had successfully kept himself busy for two hours and he hadn’t thought of Tao the whole time. Okay, well, he might have thought about him a little, but it wasn’t enough to distract him from working. The only problem was that now that he had done all that work, he realized he had nothing left to do. Lay said he would handle finding more trainers and the only other thing to do was…

Kris smacked himself in the face when he realized that he had basically just screwed himself over. The only other thing that needed to be done today was to give Tao a tour of the center. He was coming in at 11 and Lay and Kris had agreed that whoever had less work to do would show him around. Now that Kris had done basically all of his work, the job would be left to him.

This was not the reality Kris wanted. The teenager in him felt giddy with excitement at the idea of talking to Tao, showing him around, being alone with him. But the adult in him was dreading it. He tried to reassure himself with the idea that he needed to get used to Tao. Whether he liked it or not, (and he did like it, that was the problem) Tao was going to work for them and he would have to be able to have a normal conversation with him since running his business sort of depended on it.

As he made this decision he heard the door open and when he peeked out of his office he saw Xuimin and Lay walking in together.

“Hey Kris.” Lay greeted him when Kris walked over.

They were standing next to Xuimin’s desk and when Xuimin put his bags down he saw the flyers sitting in a stack, ready to be put up.

“Whoa, when did you finish these? I thought you were gonna start them today.” He studied them, nodding in approval of the work. “They’re good. Hopefully they’ll draw in some clients.”

“I don’t think drawing in clients will be a problem.” Lay said, grabbing a flyer to look at. “I mean we already have the numbers of the people who had called earlier when we weren’t ready to open. And also now that we have Tao we can simply use his handsome face as an advertisement. That’ll be sure to draw plenty of people in.” Lay and Xuimin laughed, still looking over the flyers.

So Lay thought he was handsome too? Kris didn’t know if he felt relief that he wasn’t alone in thinking that or if he felt jealousy. Jealousy? That’s completely ridiculous. Kris was beginning to question each and every one of his thoughts when it came to Tao.

“Wait so how did you finish these?” Lay asked, looking expectantly at Kris.

“I came in early. I felt like getting some things done.” Kris shrugged as though it was nothing and turned to go back to his office.

“Oh, well I guess that means you get to show Tao around today.” Lay said quickly before Kris was able to fully retreat into his office.

“Oh…okay.” Kris replied, swallowing loudly and trying to quell the mixture of anticipation and dread in the pit of his stomach.

It had been three hours of Kris going over in his head what he was going to say, how he was going to act, telling himself that he would not be affected by those damn eyes again, that he would be professional, eloquent, and composed.

All of those plans shattered when Tao walked through the doors. Tao was wearing a black suit that seemed to perfectly outline his muscled arms, and, if it was possible, seemed to intensify his eyes so that they were even more striking than before.

Tao bowed to Kris and smiled but when Kris simply stood there, looking at him, Tao ‘s smile turned sheepish and he shifted uncomfortably.

“Oh um…sorry. I know my outfit is…uh…well Luhan Gege told me I should dress up and this was the only nice thing I had.” Tao blushed and damnit if Kris’ breath didn’t catch a little upon seeing it.

“No…uh…your outfit is…well it’s not a problem.” Despite the incoherency, Kris was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. It was a stark contrast to how he felt on the inside.

He motioned for Tao to follow him as he turned around. Just knowing Tao was right behind him was enough to make Kris’ step falter a little. He turned around and smiled apologetically to Tao who hadn’t seemed to notice due to the fact that he was glancing around the center, a wide smile on his face.

It was possibly the cutest thing Kris had ever seen and he turned back around, blushing, realizing that this was going to be a very long tour. One minute into it and already Kris was tripping and his cheeks were already red and hot.

This was not healthy for him. Not healthy at all.