1

It was Tao's birthday and for the first time, he was spending it with his bandmates. It was only supposed to be a small party in -M's dorm...but then Chanyeol provided soju.

4 hours later and Tao was falling off the couch, laughing deliriously at Chen's attempt to sing IU's “Good Day” while Xiumin tried to shut him up with a couch cushion (to which Suho began freaking out over Xiumin's attempted murder on Chen). He felt someone steady him and looked up to see the very reason he was in this state; the poofy-headed rapper himself.

“Hyuuuung!” Tao yelled, a little too happy, and threw his arm around the older boy's neck. “Guess whaaaat? It's my birthday~” he sang in a mixture of Mandarin and Korean.

Chanyeol giggled back, holding the other in place. “I know Tao, this is your party~” he said, before bursting into laughter as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever said.

The duo continued laughing at nothing, reduced to holding on to each other so they wouldn't fall over. When Luhan decided to dance while half-conscious, ending in his eventual crash into a lamp and falling asleep on the floor, the pair on the couch were in hysterics, tears running in streams down their cheeks.

This probably would've continued if Kris hadn't sauntered over, yanking Chanyeol up from the couch somehow in his equally drunk state. Tao, who had been leaning on the deep-voiced rapper, fell onto the now empty space beside him.

“Yah~ Whaddya think you're dooooing?” Kris asked, eyes not able to focus on the younger's face. “You can't jus' kiss 'im like thaaat!” he whined. “He's miiiiiine!”

“I wasn't kissin' Taoooo, I was jus' laughin',” Chanyeol pouted, stomping his foot childishly.

“Well staaaaaaahp~” Kris muttered, pushing Chanyeol away from the couch, who eventually bumped into Sehun and forgot about what had happened seconds before.

Tao had stopped laughing once his drunken friend had left his spot next to him, and proceeded to glare at Kris when the leader sat down beside him.

“I'm not yours~” he scrunched his nose. “Don't lieeeeeee.”

Kris responded by clapping a hand over Tao's mouth, grumbling out a “you're an annoying drunkkk~”

2

“No no, try the line again,” Chen instructed, tapping off the beat with his foot. Tao sang the line again, wincing when his voice cracked at the high note. “You see, you need to stand up straighter and use your diaphragm more, your voice will be more powerful that way, ok?”

Tao nodded slowly and followed the older boy's directions, groaning when his voice cracked again. Chen sighed.

“Your main problem is that you need to relax. You're way too tense here,” he touched Tao's throat in indication, “and here too,” he moved his hand to another spot. “Just calm your mind and loosen your throat more. It should help.”

When Chen's instructions once again failed, Tao covered his face in shame. “This is too hard! I'll never be able to sing. You see, this is why I'm a rapper,” he complained.

“No, you can get this, I know it! Here, how about I just...hmm,” the older boy paused in thought. “Would a throat massage help? That could probably loosen the muscles...”

Tao shrugged sadly. “I'm a lost cause, what's the point?” he sighed.

“It's yes or no, Tao. Just pick.”

“Fine, go for it,” he muttered, straightening his neck out more so Chen could reach it better.

Before Chen could even get so far as to actually begin massaging, Kris cleared his throat loudly from the other side of the room. Tao rolled his eyes and Chen looked over innocently.

“Did you want one too, duizhang?”

3

“What's he saying?” Baekhyun whispered, trying not to draw too much attention as he leaned in towards Tao's ear. Of course, a few avid fangirls were watching and squealed loudly in response.

“He's basically saying how happy we are to perform in China, and it's nice to see that we have fans here,” Tao summarized back, ignoring the desire to roll his eyes at the screams aimed their way.

“Mmm,” Baekhyum murmured, turning his attention back to smiling at the audience and pretending he knew what Kris was saying by nodding every 5 seconds. Tao rolled his eyes, but continued translating whenever Kris or Lay or Luhan would say something unknown to Baekhyun.

“He only said that D.O. is nice, this really isn't all too important,” Tao sighed when Baekhyun asked what Lay was saying about the vocalist. All of a sudden, Baekhyun's elbow whacked Tao in the rib, nearly causing the younger to double over in pain and surprise. “What the hell was that for?” he said through clenched teeth, holding onto his side.

“Kris keeps glaring at us...” Baekhyun whispered softly, watching the leader out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, I have to talk about Tao?” the magnae heard from the other side of the room and nearly groaned at the badly masked venom lacing it's way into Kris's voice.

This was going to be a long night.

4

“Fanservice...can be very peculiar,” Suho started. Tao had gone to the older boy for help when he noticed the leader seemed to effortlessly slide through the whole “interacting for the fans” part of being an idol. Tao, on the other hand...was struggling. They were sitting on the floor of the practice room on one of their few breaks that morning. “You just have to find those things that fans love to hear and go with that. But there's also the more direct route; the touching.”

Tao nodded. “Yeah, I get that. But...it's just...awkward,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, it can be. You just have to get over that though, at some point. If you look at Super Junior sunbaes, and more specifically, Heechul sunbae, you'll see he's great at fanservice. Not to say you should go around kissing your bandmates on stage everyday, but that you need to be more...well, open and uncaring about it. It's all in good fun,” Suho smiled. He stood up suddenly and pulled up Tao as well. “The couple hearts are really popular with the fans, and that's pretty simple. Hugging and holding hands,” he demonstrated with Tao, “is a step up from that, and then there's the straight-up “Eunhae” you could go fo-”

“TAO! -M meeting!” Kris yelled angrily from the other side of the room. “Now!”

Tao groaned. “Yes, duizhang,” he muttered, thanking Suho briefly for the help.

“I didn't know we were having a meeting...” Lay said curiously, turning to Kris in surprise. “I thought we were just supposed to announce break ended in 5 minutes...”

“Shut up,” Kris growled.

5

“I don't understand this,” Lay said, staring at Tao with a raised eyebrow. “You've done martial arts for how many years now?”

“A decade,” Tao muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at the dancer.

“So why do you dance like a retarded monkey?”

“Remind me to never go to you for help again,” Tao groaned.

“Seriously though,” Lay continued, ignoring Tao, “it's like the part of your brain that controls your feet is different than the part that controls your arms. And they both go into seizures at different times.”

“Love you too,” Tao rolled his eyes.

“How did you even pass auditions? Don't you actually need to have some talent in that department to get accepted?”

“No, please, stop with all these compliments, they might go to my head,” Tao said sarcastically.

“Fine, I get it,” Lay relented. “Alright, come here. When we get to Luhan's verse, you have to turn like this and move your leg out like this,” he demonstrated. Tao copied him. Lay stared at the younger. “Alright, it isn't dance help you need. You should probably get your brain checked out to see what short-circuited.”

“Just help me, dammit,” Tao growled.

“Alright, no need to get snappy,” Lay sighed. He did it one more time, slowly, and walked over to watch Tao closely, fixing any error he saw.

He was in the process of moving Tao's leg so it was to the side not behind him, when Kris walked up to the pair and dragged Tao away by the back of his shirt. Tao struggled in his grip.

“Where did you even come from?! We've been practicing alone for an hour!” Tao yelped, unable to dig his heels into the smooth dance floor. Lay watched in amusement as Kris snapped at him, saying that Tao had to work on his Korean now, “dancing can wait.”

6

Sehun looked at the phone screen and scrunched up his nose. “Let's take that again, it blurred,” he said, showing the picture to Tao. Tao nodded.

They were attempting to take a halfway-decent selca, but something always kept going wrong. First Tao blinked, then Sehun stuck his tongue out too weirdly, now the picture blurred. Was it really so hard to take a mildly-suggestive selca in the bathroom without any issues?

They again tried to take another picture, but this time Tao's eyes were now open too wide and it looked odd.

“Alright, if we can't get it this last time, I give up,” Sehun sighed. He held the phone up to face level again but before he could click the button, the phone began ringing.

“Oh, oops,” Sehun mumbled as his phone belted out “baby, baby, baby, ohhh~” and Tao resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Hello?” he answered, but then frowned and glanced at Tao. “It's for you,” he said awkwardly, handing the phone over.

Tao took the device in confusion. “Hello?”

“Get your back here and stop flirting with Sehun, we have rapping less-,” a voice growled before Tao hung up in annoyance.

“Who was it?” Sehun asked. “I couldn't tell, he only said he needed to talk to you...”

“in' duizhang,” Tao seethed, leaving the bathroom.

7

“Tao, what do you want to eat?” Xiumin called from the kitchen.

“Whatever you're making, I don't care!” Tao shouted back from his position sprawled across the couch, too lazy to get up and was instead intent on watching the next 5 episodes of his latest drama in the coming hours.

Xiumin showed up some time later (Tao estimated half an hour, based simply on how far into the episode he was compared to earlier on) with a plate full of mandu and a pair of chopsticks, which he looked ready to throw at the younger boy.

“You're so clever,” Tao muttered under his breath in Mandarin as he stared at the plate of dumplings.

“Huh?” Xiumin cocked his head to the side, clearly not understanding. Tao flashed a smile.

“I said it looks great,” Tao said in Korean.

When the younger boy made no move to accept the dish, however, Xiumin sighed. “What now?”

Tao didn't verbally respond, instead just opening his mouth wide.

“You honestly want me to feed you? How lazy can you get?” Xiumin groaned.

“Please, oppa?” Tao asked, blinking his eyes innocently and clasping his hands under his chin. Xiumin hesitated, but eventually gave in and sat down on the armrest by the younger boy. Ha, the oppa trick always works, Tao mentally cheered.

As Xiumin picked up the first dumpling, Kris happened to “accidentally” bump into the older boy, sending the rest of the plate crashing to the floor. The three stared at the ground before Kris turned to look up at Xiumin with dead eyes.

“Oops,” he said in his most monotonous voice. Xiumin looked at him for a moment before grumbling a “I'll get the dustpan” as he walked back to the kitchen.

“You're such a prick sometimes, I swear” Tao spat. Kris stuck out his tongue in response.

8

EXO's first SMTOWN Concert appearance happened in California and the 12 boys had spent the previous day in Disneyland. Tao was already mad at Kris, as the older decided fanservice with Lay and Chanyeol and attempting to kill their “ship” one fan photo at a time was incredibly important, and therefore spent the day away from the leader. This continued on through the better part of the concert, as he was always making sure to keep his distance from Kris.

Kris had a tendency to persistently glare at him from afar, narrowing his eyes at the blatant ignorance. Tao had learned from several bad examples provided by the leader himself and would glare back with equal ferocity.

“Hyung!” Tao turned around, only to come face to face with Kai. The concert was ending soon, the whole “family” in their typical pink shirts as they messed around on the stage one last time. That's when he got, what he considered, a brilliant idea.

“Kai!” he cried happily, throwing his arms around the younger boy in a death-grip hug. He wasn't particularly caring that he was, in a sense, throwing Kai's well-being and safety out the window the second Kris discovered.

Kai was surprised, but hugged back nonetheless. Naturally, it didn't take Kris longer than 10 seconds to walk over and literally force Tao away, holding onto his hand like a vice and grabbing Chanyeol's hand while he was at it.

“Nice duizhang, real nice. Very smooth, no one will notice,” Tao said through clenched teeth as he tried to pull his hand away.

“Whatever you say, you little brat,” Kris replied in the same manner, holding tightly onto his hand and smiling at the audience.

“Why must I be dragged into these things?” Chanyeol mumbled under his breath in defeat.

9

“So...what do I do now?” Luhan asked, his head pressed against the carpet and the rest of his limbs tangled somehow above him. Tao stared at him.

“I...have no clue how you managed to royally that up, honestly,” he said in bemusement.

“It wasn't that bad,” Luhan huffed, sitting up. “I could've done a lot worse.”

“Well, considering it was supposed to be an aerial flip, they usually don't take place on the ground. You're also not supposed to flail like a headless chicken mid-flip.”

“Can we do something else? Flipping isn't my forte,” Luhan mumbled.

Luhan had begged the younger boy to teach him some basic wushu so that he might be able to lose his “cutie boy” image or at least lessen it to a degree. Tao soon learned that this was nearly impossible. Anything with the staff was declared dangerous and Luhan backed this up by almost stabbing his eye out; flipping was difficult, as it required the person doing it to not spazz like an epileptic having a seizure every time their feet left the ground; thus, Tao was running out of options.

The fact that they were attempting this feat in the dorm living room wasn't exactly helping either.

Tao groaned. “I don't think wushu is really for you, no offense. I'm afraid if I try to do anything with kicking and punching, I'll end up hit.”

“Come on, Tao! I would teach you if you were me!” Luhan complained.

“Yes, but I don't do martial arts like you do martial arts,” Tao said, trying to be nice. “I actually know what I'm doing.”

“You dance like he does martial arts, nonetheless,” Lay cut in as he walked past the pair. Tao didn't notice the leader walk in right after the dancer, as he had turned back to Luhan instead.

“Let's see,” Tao started again. “Why don't we start on-”

“-meditation sounds like a good idea for Luhan,” Kris interrupted.

“That's not what I was gonna say,” Tao frowned.

“Well you should,” Kris said in annoyance, dragging the younger boy away by the arm. “Because he can do that alone.”

“Fine, fine,” Tao rolled his eyes. “Close your eyes and think of something serene! If you manage to hurt yourself with this, I wouldn't be surprised!” he yelled back to Luhan.

10

Tao had been strolling down the hallway in SM, not paying much attention to his surroundings as he messed with his iPod. He didn't notice the footsteps approaching, nor the fact that D.O. appeared to be doing the same exact thing he was, only with his phone. He did, however, notice when he and D.O. literally ran into each other, both landing on the ground in surprise.

“Sorry!” D.O. apologized, staring over at Tao with wide, innocent eyes. “Are you hurt?”

“It's ok, I'm fine,” Tao chuckled. “I wasn't paying attention either. You ok?”

“Yeah, I'm alr-”

D.O. was cut off by Kris, who had rushed down the hall to help Tao up. He seemed to be muttering something under his breath and when he got close enough, Tao realized the older boy was swearing at D.O. in Mandarin.

“What do you think you're doing?” Tao hissed when Kris tried to grab his arm to pull him up. “I can get up perfectly fine without your help, and I'd very much appreciate it if you weren't cursing our bandmate for a simple mistake that was both our faults.”

“I'm just trying to help you up,” Kris growled. D.O. sat still on the ground, watching the exchange with a confused expression as he only understand a few select words.

“Sorry hyung,” the vocalist mumbled to Kris as he stood up, sensing the tension. Kris glared at him.

“Stop it, you,” Tao muttered, standing up by himself and roughly pulling Kris away. He turned back to D.O. “Don't worry about it hyung!” and then to Kris: “You need to learn some goddamn manners, I swear...”

11

“Remember when you weren't so obvious about your insanely evident crush on me?” Tao asked the leader as they sat on the couch, completely ignoring the movie that had been put on.

Kris stared at the screen anyway, his expression not changing. “I have no clue what you're talking about,” he muttered in a dull voice.

“I mean, that was like when we first met so it might be hard to remember,” Tao continued, “but I still recall when you wouldn't get mad and pissy everytime I talked to someone that wasn't you. Oh, how long ago that was,” Tao sighed.

“What ever do you mean?” Kris asked in the same flat voice.

“And then you became the jealous boyfriend without being the actual boyfriend. You know, that's really no way to get a guy to like you,” Tao nodded.

“...shut up,” Kris grumbled, his expression hardening.

“Seriously, all you had to do was, oh, I don't know, talk to me like a normal human being maybe? I don't understand your brain,” Tao tsked. “That might work?”

Kris groaned, but finally looked over at the younger boy. He frowned slightly before sighing in frustration. “Wanna go out?”

“I'd love to,” Tao replied, leaning up to kiss the older boy.

“Really. You honestly couldn't have thought of a better time to do this than right now?” Lay asked as the other members all either left or covered their faces while groaning.