It burned.

            It burned in his chest and spread to his lungs.

            Tao couldn’t put this kind of yearning into words, but he thought it would probably be similar to a boa constrictor squeezing his insides.

            Yeah, being wrapped with a snake probably wouldn’t be fun to suffer through.

            He inhaled quickly when Kris walked into the classroom. The warm dark brown irises of Kris just – got to him every single time. Tao tapped out a blues rhythm on his desk, thinking of love poems where the lines sighed out that one could drown in those eyes. Forever and ever.

            Mr. Lee would be proud of him for thinking in literary terms, Tao bemusedly thought.

            “You want? It’s milk tea,” Kris said. His hand was firmly wrapped around a cardboard cup.

            Tao shook his head. “No. But thanks.”

            Kris set the cup down, settling down into his wooden chair. The professor had not arrived yet. His concerned eyes raked in Tao’s slightly disheveled form.

            “Are you feeling alright? You’ve looked tired the past few days.”

            Tao twitched. “Oh, just haven’t been getting enough sleep.”

            Too busy thinking of you, Tao inwardly added. Damn you for making me miss my valuable beauty sleep.

            Kris frowned. Tao suddenly prayed that he could not read minds.   

            Mr. Lee, thankfully, swept into the room. His sharp gaze was intimidating enough that students did not ask why he was late. Or why he liked to be absent a lot.

            Tao sighed in relief. He fished out his laptop to begin typing notes on it.

            When class was over, the word document was mostly blank. The only details from class that Tao could recall were how Kris’ knuckles melded perfectly with the rest of his hands, and that he had a very, very distracting habit of chewing his bottom lip when he didn’t understand something.

            Tao let out a small groan as he exited the classroom.

            At this rate, he was going to go crazy and be tossed into an asylum, all because of this pure need clenched in his stomach whenever Kris was around him.

            Snap out of it, Tao told himself, Kris has a freaking girlfriend. He is attached. I repeat, attached.

            But even as Tao kept repeating that to himself, he could never help the jerk of his head whenever Kris was in his eyesight or the skip in his heart beat when his right hand would brush Kris’ left hand accidentally. Tao frowned, the corning of his lips jerking down. He was trying really hard to redirect his focus elsewhere; he even spotted a hot guy who worked at the counter of his favorite bakery to potentially crush on. And this one was not dating someone else. But as much as he forced himself to pretend that he was feeling nothing but friendliness for his classmate and friend, he was failing. Horribly.

            Sighing in frustration, Tao mussed up his hair in an irritated fashion as he strolled towards the campus library. He needed to get some books for a research project from some class of his. Tao was momentarily distracted as a familiar figure was doing a very good impersonation of a zombie wandering around, looking for brains.

            “Myungsoo?” Tao murmured to himself. He stared as his roommate, with a dazed look on his face, walked around with no apparent direction in mind.

            BAM!

            Tao flinched as Myungsoo walked right into a lamppost, his forehead colliding quite painfully with it.

            “Woah, woah, are you okay? What the hell were you thinking? And our dorm’s on the other side of campus. Why are you here?” Tao sped up his walk to approach Myungsoo, who was just sitting on the ground, giving the lamppost a happy and dopey look.

            “Hm? Oh hi Tao,” Myungsoo said cheerfully. Tao tried to remember the symptoms of a damaging concussion injury. Maybe it involved personality changes?

            “You’re bleeding,” Tao said. Myungsoo didn’t seem to mind the scrape on the middle of his forehead.

            “Yeah, isn’t that great?” Myungsoo now grinned.

            Tao briefly debated inwardly whether or not to drag his roommate to the nurse to check if he had a mental disorder.

            “Guess what?” Myungsoo looked like a puppy. “Guess what?”

            “What?” Tao said warily.

            “Sungyeol said yes,” Myungsoo sighed in bliss.

            Oh. Well then, that explained everything.

            “I told you he would.” Tao squatted down next to his friend, patting him on the shoulder. “Congrats, man.”

            Sparkles and unicorns and butterflies seem to fly out of Myungsoo’s ears as his eyes glazed over, his mind probably replaying the moment where his crush agreed to go on a date with him.

            Tao didn’t even have the energy to be jealous over Myungsoo’s success. He couldn’t see the same thing ever happening with Kris.

            Tao was currently wondering how much blood would spurt out of his body if he stabbed himself with the pen he was holding in his hand.

            He also wondered how he got into this situation in the first place.

            “How do you solve this equation then?” Kris was asking him right now, chewing at his blue pen top, his tongue slightly grazing against it. Tao immediately averted his eyes.

            “You… Um. Use this theorem. I think.” Tao’s mouth was dry with how close Kris was sitting to him.

            They were alone in Kris’ dorm room, trying to help each other study for midterm exams. His roommate was out, as he usually was, Kris had explained.

            They were alone.

            Tao gulped.

            “I don’t get it.” Kris, adorably, furrowed his eyebrows. Tao shifted in his seat.

            “Well, think of it this way – ”

            Tao never got to finish his sentence, because a rapid-fire knock reverberated against Kris’ door.

            Kris got up to answer the door. All Tao was a flash of black hair and a swishing skirt before the visitor flung herself at Kris, laughing excitedly.

            “I passed! I passed the audition!” The girl squealed.

            Kris’ face immediately lit up. “Really? I knew you could do it. You have an amazing voice.”

            Tao was too slow in looking somewhere else as the peppy girl pecked Kris on the lips. He tried to ignore that pang in his chest.

            At that point, the girl had noticed that there was someone else inside the room. Her face flushed from embarrassment.

            “Oh, hi. Sorry about that,” she said to Tao.

            “It’s… Okay.” Tao awkwardly stood out of his chair as the girl walked towards him.

            “I’m Lee Ji Eun.” She smiled a slow and friendly smile that could reflect the sun in its brilliance.

             “Huang Zi Tao.” He shook her hand.

            “I was just really happy because I passed my vocal audition to be a trainee,” she explained.

            “Oh wow. Nice. Congratulations.” Tao hated how he couldn’t hate her.

            “We were studying for our midterms,” Kris said, moving to rest his hand comfortably and familiarly on Ji Eun’s waist. She gave him a quirky little smile.

            “Well then, don’t let me distract you guys. I need to get going anyway. I haven’t told Jiyeon and Nicole about this yet.”

            “Talk to you later,” Kris said. She gave him a quick hug and flounced out of the room.

            “She seems cool,” Tao commented. Kris smiled.

            “She is.”

            For the rest of the study session, Tao purposely positioned his body at least a foot away from Kris’.

            Tao nodded and greeted the familiar faces as he moved his way through the party. Myungsoo had dragged him here, insisting that he had to be here to stop him in case he got drunk and do something stupid that would make Sungyeol hate him forever.

            His roommate was perpetually such a big drama queen.

            Tao reached the punch section, pouring himself a cup and sipped at it, knowing it was laced with alcohol. He wasn’t about to get drunk, but he needed a little of buzz to survive through this night – where Sungyeol and Myungsoo would probably be disgustingly making cow-eyes at each other the whole time here.

            “Could you pass me a napkin – oh. Tao,” a voice that Tao was well acquainted with (one he heard sometimes in his dreams, saying his name in a soft and desiring tone, that voice that could make Tao’s knees weak with just one sentence) said.

            Tao inadvertently almost choked on his drink. “Kris?”

            “Hey. Didn’t expect to see you here.” Kris gave him an easy smile that somehow warmed up Tao from the inside each time he saw it.

            “Roommate dragged me here,” Tao said. He craned his head. “Where’s Ji Eun?”

            “She didn’t come.” Kris sounded a little guarded as he said that. Tao didn’t pry further.

            “Well, thank goodness midterms are finally over,” Tao said instead.

            Kris chuckled. “Oh yes. Those drove me crazy. I’m pretty sure I failed Mr. Lee’s paper.”

            “Me too.” Tao made a face. “I think everyone probably failed that.”

            “Ah, Tao, there you are!” Myungsoo, however, paused when he saw Kris standing across from Tao, their foreheads almost pressed together. Tao jerked away, almost guiltily.

            “What is it?” Tao asked.

            Myungsoo, after scanning Kris with his eyes that contained a bit of suspicion, turned back to Tao. “Um. Well, Sungyeol’s sleeping over at our dorm tonight. If that’s okay with you?”

            Myungsoo trailed off at the end of that sentence. His slight blush clued Tao in at what he was really saying.

            Tao blinked. “Sure. I’ll find somewhere else to sleep tonight then.” Then he grinned, a dirty smirk directed towards his roommate. “Have fun~”

            Myungsoo sent him a glare. “Thanks,” he said part-sarcastically and part-truthfully before diving into the pulsing crowd to find Sungyeol.

            Tao’s eyebrow twitched once Myungsoo was out of his sight. “Now where am I going to sleep tonight while Myungsoo gets laid?”

            “You can stay at my place. Sehun would probably be at Luhan’s place again,” Kris’ voice rumbled beside him. Tao almost got whiplash in his attempt to stare at Kris incredulously.

            No. That would be a very bad idea. No.

            “That sounds good,” his traitorous mouth said.

            Damnit. Tao cursed himself in a few different languages.

            They clumsily attempted to walk towards Kris’ dorm. They weren’t flat-out drunk, but Tao had to admit that they were a bit tipsy. His eyes had wandered to Kris’ lips more than once, wondering what they would taste like, before slapping himself mentally.

            “Whoops, sorry, Xiumin,” Kris mumbled as they opened the door to the wrong dorm. The inhabitant inside looked startled as Kris closed the door.

            “You idiot. Your door’s right next to it,” Tao said. Kris nodded like a wise old man.

            “Right.”

            They tripped into the room. Kris fell onto his bed, face-first. Tao examined the bed across from it. It was cluttered with stacks of manga volumes.

            “Where am I going to sleep?” Tao asked.

            In response, Kris sleepily tugged Tao onto his bed. “Just for today,” he yawned. Tao frowned, but laid his head flat on the pillow anyway. He felt his eyes closing shut already. A few minutes passed before Tao jolted awake when a thought occurred to him.

            “Shouldn’t we shower before sleeping?” Tao poked Kris. Kris answered with an unattractive snore from his open mouth.

            “Fine. Be that way,” Tao grumbled. He exhaled, fascinated by the fluttering of Kris’ eyelashes. Tentatively, he lifted his arm and rested it lightly on Kris’ waist.

            Just for that one brief moment, Tao allowed himself to pretend that Kris belonged with him and not someone else.

            A few weeks later, Tao found himself jabbing Kris’ stomach with his pen. Kris twitched, and looked at Tao accusingly for interrupting his nap.

            “Mr. Lee will chop you into pieces for sleeping in class! You should be thanking the stars that he hasn’t noticed yet,” Tao hissed. “Now. Why have you looked so zombie-dead the past few days?”

            Kris rubbed his eyes. “Just. Problems. Feeling conflicted and stuff.”

            “That was so specific,” Tao said sarcastically.

            Kris just offered him a tired smile that still made Tao feel like jumping out of his own skin and climbing into his.

            “Is there something going wrong with Ji Eun?” Tao whispered, half-hopefully, after Mr. Lee started on one of his many lengthy tangents.

            “We’re. We’re fine. I think.” There was a little crease in between Kris’ eyebrows. Tao forced himself to stop asking anymore questions.

            It wasn’t any of his business after all.

            “We broke up,” Kris said, almost nonchalantly, three weeks later. Tao’s hand jerked so that he accidentally smacked himself on the face because he was trying to swipe an annoying piece of hair away.

            “. What? Did I hear that right? When did that happen?” Tao demanded. He expected himself to feel elated from this news, but all he felt was an odd emptiness – almost like he was sad because Kris lost someone who was so important to him.

            “Last Friday.”

            “I’m sorry,” Tao said awkwardly.

            “It was mutual. We were drifting apart because she has been so busy recently and…” Kris’ eyes flickered to Tao’s before looking back to Mr. Lee.

            Tao tilted his head in confusion.

            “You should ask him out before someone catches his eye,” Myungsoo said, watching Tao pace back and forth in the middle of their room. Sungyeol was curled up with his head resting on Myungsoo’s lap. He had Myungsoo’s headphones covering his ears, so he only looked curiously at Tao’s frustrated expression before going back to humming a melody quietly.

            “What if he says No?” Tao twirled to look at his roommate with a crazed expression. “He probably isn’t even interested.”

            “Why do I feel deja-vu?” Myungsoo asked rhetorically. “I said a similar thing a few months ago, didn’t I?”

            “Hmph.”

            It turned out, though, that Kris managed to catch Tao off-guard.

            “A what?” Tao asked right before class started, staring at Kris like he had grown three heads over the night.

            “Would you like to go on a date with me,” Kris said, sounding like he had rehearsed this in front of a mirror many times already.

            “A date,” Tao repeated.

            “Yes.” Kris kind of looked like he wanted to run away.

            “What – I thought you – Ji Eun – what – huh?” Tao was reduced to a complete blabber-mouthed mess.

            “If you’re going to reject me, just say it.” Kris looked vaguely annoyed and nervous at the same time.

            “What – NO! I mean, yes! I mean, ugh, yes to the date.” Tao shrunk at the stares he got from his classmates around him. This was the first time he saw Kris’ cheeks turn red.

            “Okay.”

            “Okay,” Tao repeated. He had never been so thankful for Mr. Lee and his bad timing as he marched into the room regally.

            Tao’s mind was blank. How was he supposed to act on a first date again? He used to have rules for stuff like this. Something about smiling flirtatiously? Compliments. Yes. He was supposed to compliment his date.

            “The sky is blue today,” Tao instead commented stupidly when he couldn’t get his brain to function to correctly when Kris came into the café suavely.

            “It is.” Kris seemed to have understood as his smile created electric currents running through Tao’s veins.

            Tao just resigned himself to looking like an idiot for the rest of the date. He hoped Kris didn’t mind if he gaped at him too much.

            Right then, however, just as Tao was walking towards the counter to order something for both of them, he almost tripped in shock as he spotted someone.

            “Oh my god,” Tao said to himself. Then he rushed back to Kris empty-handed. Kris looked confused at Tao’s frenzied expression.

            “What is it?”

            “Look.” Tao pointed at one of the tables in the corner.

            Kris looked, and promptly his eyes widened. “Isn’t that Mr. Lee?”

            They both watched as another man walked towards Mr. Lee with two cups of coffee in his hands. Their jaws dropped as Mr. Lee smiled, he actually smiled, and said lovingly to the other man: “Thanks, Hyukkie!”

            “Does Mr. Lee have an identical twin or something?” Tao said to Kris out of the corner of his mouth. Kris shook his head speechlessly.

            Tao tugged on Kris’ jacket. “We should get out of here before he sees us. Besides, it would be rather traumatizing to spy on his date.”

            Kris laughed once they got outside. “That was surreal.”

            Tao joined in, and they laughed until their stomachs ached. Tao finally recovered, taking in a breath of deep air.

            “Wow, I didn’t know Mr. Lee had a b – ” Tao’s sentence was left hanging in the air as another pair of lips found his.

            Tao made some of strange noise in the back of his throat in surprise, and then involuntarily arched as Kris did something very good with his mouth. His brain seemed to have run out of oxygen, as he shivered and shuddered under the intimate contact.

            No words were said when they pulled away, Kris brushing his thumb across Tao’s cheek. Tao temporarily forgot how to walk before his hand was held warmly and he was tugged forward.

            “So tell me, how does it feel to have passed Mr. Lee’s torturous class?” Tao asked, leaning against Kris’ chest. He was sitting in between his boyfriend’s legs, eyes gazing uninterestedly at the literature Kris was reading. Kris’ room was now one of his favorite places to relax in.

            “Relieved. Although if it wasn’t for that class, I wouldn’t have met you.” The corners of Kris’ eyes crinkled as his lips curved upwards.

            Tao smiled contently. He unconsciously purred as Kris’ hands curled in his hair.

            Kris chuckled and scratched Tao’s head. “My own sadistic little kitten.”

            “Sadistic? Am not,” Tao said, affronted, while smacking Kris.

            “You just disproved your own statement.” Tao could feel the vibrations of Kris’ amused laughter through his chest.

            “Ugh.”

            Kris’ eyes sparkled, before turning serious. “You know,” he began.

            “What?” Tao asked, head muddled by the fact that their faces were mere inches away from each other. Kris’ chamomile breath ghosted pleasantly over him.

            “I think I might’ve loved you the first time I saw you.” Kris nuzzled his nose on Tao’s neck. Tao’s hands instinctively moved to clutch the front of Kris’ T-shirt.

            “But you were dating Ji Eun back then,” Tao murmured. He didn’t say I felt the same way because Kris knew that already.

            “I think.” Kris paused. “I think that was partly why we broke up in the first place.”

            Tao pulled back, surprised. “Really?”

            “I started catching myself thinking about the way the artificial lighting of the room brought out your beautiful cheekbones. I would be eating lunch, and bam, I would think of your face when you laughed. I felt guilty because it felt like I was cheating on Ji Eun – thinking of you like that. But I couldn’t help it.”

            Tao’s eyes were wide, his breath stolen by that confession. “Oh,” he said quite lamely. The next thing he knew, their hands were all over each other, lips connected and tongues tangling.

            “Oh hey Kris I forgot someth – Ew! I did NOT need to see that! AGAIN.” Sehun had opened the door and was now clutching at his eyes in apparent pain. “My eyeeeeeeeeees.”

            Tao carefully untangled his limbs from Kris’. “Hi Sehun.”

            “Get out,” Kris grunted at his roommate.

            Sehun, however, looked entirely too happy about him interrupting their make-out session. He grinned as he looked under the stacks of manga he had on his bed.

            “I don’t know where my iPod went. Luhannie’s iPod got lost somewhere so I’m going to lend mine to him for now until he gets another one,” Sehun ranted. He fished out some old smelly socks underneath a volume of Full Moon wo Sagae and tossed them to the floor.

            Kris groaned and laid his head on Tao’s shoulder. “This is going to take forever.”

            Tao only grinned at the antics of Kris’ roommate and the fact that Kris’ arms were wrapped around his waist naturally.

            Look at that, Myungsoo, Tao thought vindictively, I’m finally truly happy.