Tao glared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, his hands gripping the edge of the sink tightly as he tried to suppress the urge to drive them through a wall or two. Ever since that Xiumin called D.O. and Sehun had been stuck in an endless argument about how to handle the situation – in Tao’s own opinion another addition to their small group wouldn’t exactly hurt, especially an inside guy like the third-year, but D.O. was of a different mind and totally unwilling to compromise. Even now their loud voices seeped in from the other side of the door.

“Where do they get their ing energy from?!” He groaned in exasperation as he squatted, repeatedly letting his forehead fall forward to bounce against the cool porcelain. This didn’t help his developing headache, but it was better than breaking the mirror or whatnot, and frankly he felt as though the dull ache went away for a little while each time he was forced to focus on the place he was hitting. Maybe he should’ve just left the minute they’d gotten there – he wasn’t the one who’d wanted to come anyways – but he knew his conscience would act up if he left an injured Chanyeol alone with them.

“Tao, get your back out here right now or I swear I will skin you alive.” Speak of the devil. Chanyeol’s voice from the other side of the door sounded frustrated to say the least, and of course he understood why.

“Yes hyung, I know you will.” He was clearly being sarcastic, listening closely to the other’s footsteps as the guy went back to the living room, leaving him alone with his thoughts again – not that many were going through his mind at the moment though. To be precise there were only two; one being how annoying the headache was, and the other how tiring it was to spend more than ten minutes in the same room as the rest of the group. With a deep sigh he washed off his face, getting ready to go back outside by slipping back into the habit of narrating. “I rolled my shoulders and neck to get rid of the stiffness before I opened the door and walked down the hallway, taking a single turn before I ended up in front of the living room again. I wondered for a few seconds if Sehun and D.O. would ever stop arguing, since it’d be good if we actually made some progress today, and tomorrow… and the day after-“

“Just shut up already. I don’t know what sort of group we are, but I sure as hell didn’t expect new people to just join in like it’s no big deal – if you es don’t take this seriously I’m done here.” Tao rolled his eyes as D.O. pulled the whole overdramatic-threat-act.

“I couldn’t claim that I didn’t get where batman was coming from, but Sehun seemed like a reliable enough guy, and if it was the third-year from the library there couldn’t be much of a problem in my opinion.”

“See? I told you-“

“But,” He cut Sehun off before he had time to finish, with that ensuring that the guy paid attention to his words. “I still made a mental note to throw the kid out a third story window if went wrong. For now though I figured I could just make myself some tea, and hopefully they’ll stop and ing about pointless things until I get back.”

“Make some for me as well Tao!” He clicked his tongue at Chanyeol’s request and cracked his neck once on each side, rubbing it as he turned to go to the kitchen.

“I didn’t bother responding, but in the end we were at hyung’s house so I couldn’t very much refuse. All I had to do was boil some water anyway... The kitchen looked a lot like I remembered – bright and stylish – but I suspected hyung had been home alone for quite a while considering the mess and dirty dishes in the sink. I’d have to tell him to grow up and learn to take care of himself or he’d end up an unmarried slob who still lives with his parents at the age of thirty – the thought made me cringe.” He was frowning whilst he filled the boiler with water from the tap, mumbling about how he’d have to force the older boy to do a thorough clean-up one day in the near future, knowing full and well that he’d most likely end up having to help out.  A light tap on his shoulder had him whirling around, and he just barely managed to stop himself from punching a shocked Kai square in the jaw.

“Whoa, chill dude! Geez, I just wanted to check if you needed any help.” Tao glared at the guy before whipping around again to pull out mugs from one of the cupboards – luckily there were still some washed ones in this room of flies and unwashed crockery.

“Next time Kai sneaks up on someone I hope they teach him a lesson, because that’d certainly help me out. Although I could easily do it myself I figured it was better if all of us were physically intact when we actually had to do some real fighting – no matter how weak the guy is he might actually be of some use in the future. But if he wanted to help I should ask him to go through Chanyeol-hyung’s bathroom cupboards or whatever and get some aspirin or something; my head was really killing me and I wanted him out of the way.” The part about the aspirin wasn’t really sincere – he’d searched the entire room himself and knew there wasn’t any – but the part about wanting the guy to back off was true enough.

“A headache? I’ve got just the thing for that, give me a minute.” It pleased him that the other at least bothered to listen close enough to get what he meant. He turned around and leaned against the counter as Kai slipped out of the kitchen, listening to what sounded like the guy making a mess in the hall. He took the short moment he had on his own again to pull himself together – he was having some serious issues with keeping a straight face; be it the headache or the company in general he felt like all he was doing was frowning or making bothered faces, despite how good he felt like he’d become at looking unfazed. Fortunately no one seemed to have noticed that he was a bit out of his element, and he spoke up again as soon as the sound of the other coming back reached his ears.

“I would’ve given him an hour if it guaranteed being left alone, but I obviously weren’t that lucky as he came running back into the room a couple of seconds later,” Tao cocked a brow at the container of pills that was tossed to him, already forgetting to maintain a blank expression. “Throwing me some suspicious pills that I assumed were some sort of over the counter painkillers.”

“Not exactly. You don’t have any allergies to meds or… stuff, right?”

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why Kai was asking, but I was curious as to where he got the pills – he still didn’t strike me as a very shady or dishonest person.” Tao felt his face contort into a disgusted grimace as he read the label. Vicodin? He tossed the container back to the other without much concern, pouring the now boiling water into the waiting mugs. “I would’ve thanked him, but as far as I was concerned any drug that could pose a threat to my reflexes and allover balance and concentration was hardly worth taking. Especially that might start an addiction.” He added the last sentence in Chinese, as it was one of the few things that really worried him anymore and he wasn’t fond of the idea that other people might find out about it. In all truth he wasn’t even sure why he mentioned it in the first place… was his concentration seriously slipping? No, it’s just the headache, nothing else, no worries there-

“Really? Oh well, we’re all different I guess.” Tao snapped out of his thoughts and was about to lecture the kid about drugs in general, but a loud crash from the living room had him take a few quick strides over there to see what was going on. He groaned… audibly, when he saw Sehun slumped against the wall rubbing his neck, and D.O. towering over him. For a second he wondered what the noise had been, but then he noticed the vase on the coffee table had been knocked over and shattered into pieces – maybe it was a good thing his hyung neglected the flowers; otherwise there would’ve been a big puddle of water on the floor by now. “What’s going on?” He shrugged off the arm that’d been slung around his shoulders, pushing Kai into the wall as he went back to the kitchen – the friendly act was another thing he didn’t want to pick up on; it was bad enough that he’d let Chanyeol back inside his head after all the time they’d spent apart.

“Maybe I should properly warn the puppy that he should find someone more welcoming to follow around, but he ought to understand that himself – unless he was as clueless as he looked.” Tao grumbled as he grabbed the mugs from the counter, but with a sigh turned and put them back, pouring one more and handing it to the brat who’d followed him back. “After a second’s thought however I realized that maybe what the puppy needed was proper training,” He chuckled at the scowl he was receiving from the other as they sat down in the living room. “But for now I decided to just sit back and watch the other two dumbs mess each other up.” A loud huff sounded from his right, and he glanced at Chanyeol out of the corner of his eye. The older clearly wasn’t amused.

“Taozi, don’t be an – you know damn well who’s gonna be cleaning up after them.” Right, and it wasn’t the owner of the apartment. Despite knowing that Tao refused to intervene, and sipped his tea calmly whilst enjoying the show. Well, it might’ve been more interesting if Sehun ever decided to hit back, but it was pretty one-sided. Supposedly that’s why two minutes later the two exchanged glares one last time before sitting down on the couch, turning to stare at him expectantly.

“I wasn’t sure why they were looking to me – the one who wanted them here was Chanyeol-hyung,” He hissed as the older boy punched his arm, forcing himself to stay calm and not hit back; the other was already in poor enough of a shape as he was. “Besides, it wasn’t like I had a plan or anything in the first place; as far as I was concerned it’d still be perfectly easy to just go ahead and go to school and see what happened – no matter how many people they had those third-year clowns would never be able to put up a real fight.”

“It’s not just them I’m after.” Chanyeol growled, and immediately had everyone’s attention. Tao even found himself looking at the elder suspiciously, slightly surprised by yet another change of character that he hadn’t expected. “We’re starting from the bottom – take away the trust and loyalty by beating up the weaklings, force them to act without forming any sort of plan and take them down all at once, ending with the kings. This includes any outsiders that are somehow connected.”

“…And you have a plan for this?” D.O was the first to speak up.

“Why would I have that?” Chanyeol deadpanned, to which Tao pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes to keep from snickering at how stone-faced his hyung was trying to be – not to mention the annoyed groans and rolling of eyes that the others displayed. Not good. Maybe he should just wait for them all to discuss and see where it takes them.

“Alright,” Blondie seemed to have come up with something, judging from the concentrated furrowing of his brows. “We’ll need information, right? I’ll call Xiu-“

“No ing wa-“ D.O.’s voice was completely muffled by Kai’s hand, and as the guy gestured for Sehun to continue he received an elbow in the gut. Tao felt like he’d have to give the puppy some credit for not removing his hand from batman’s mouth – the latter’s punches were known to be heavy after all, and elbows were annoyingly sharp.

“As I was trying to say; I’ll call Xiumin-hyung tomorrow and see what he’s willing to share – he can be a pain in the , but he’s been around since the beginning, and he did say he’d give us a hand in this so-called war.” The blonde finished, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his seat.

“Well, we don’t have anyone else to go to, right? We’ve got nothing to lose by- ack!” This time D.O. had aimed for a slightly lower area, and Kai doubled over on the floor in apparent agony, the former resting his legs on the other’s back to use as a footstool. The guy might really be on the sadistic side.

“No. ing. Way.” D.O. repeated through gritted teeth, cracking his neck. “I’m telling you that there’s no way in hell we can trust that guy – he’s a freak who keeps himself barricaded in the goddamn library for crying out loud!”

“…takes one to know one…”

“Enough already! No more pointless fighting between you two, and no ing protests to anything that comes up or I swear I’ll have Tao break every bone in your weak- little bodies before throwing you all out of my ing house!” Tao found it fascinating how Chanyeol managed to raise his voice without the slightest deviation from his strangely monotonous way of speaking, but strongly disagreed with the older using his name to threaten people. And to be precise he didn’t live in a house in the first place.

“I decided I’d had enough of observing, and felt like I’d better let the morons know again that I was all for taking help from the third-year if it was necessary. There was also a clear need to tell hyung not to use my name so frivolously as a method of convincing people to listen, and that I really wouldn’t let his skinny get away with it if he tried it again.” He was met with silence from the rest and shrugged before continuing with his usual monologue. “Now, since we were going to be stuck together throughout this… what did the people at school call it… war? Whatever it was didn’t really matter to me, but considering the odds our little group of misfits had of beating the out of the big guys it worried me that neither Kai nor Chanyeol-hyung seemed too good at defending themselves… batman was a different matter and as for the other kid I was just hoping he’d actually bother hitting back or he’d get himself killed. Not that that was any of my business, but-“

“Just get to the ing point already.” D.O. snapped, however he didn’t seem to have expected Chanyeol to explain things.

“If I’m not mistaken,” The older glanced in his direction.

“I nodded at hyung to let him know that I didn’t really care if he told them or I did myself – either way it seemed that he still had a way of reading my mind and figure out what I was thinking about. I didn’t like it, but knew it was out of my hands. I wonder how he does it…” Tao trailed off at the end, pretending to be very interested in a stack of magazines that his eyes had happened to land upon, yet listening to his hyung’s every word that followed.

“Tao’s suggesting a training camp. Of sorts. We did it a couple of times in middle school – sparring, forming simple schemes, learning to set basic traps and stuff like that.” Oh the memories. Out of the corner of his eye he could clearly see the skeptic faces of the others, well, other two, seeing as Kai would’ve probably been wagging his tail excitedly at the news if he had one judging from his expression. The guy seemed to have a pretty strange personality.

“Do we really have the time to play around? I’ve heard some pretty bad stuff about what happens to those who mess too much with Kris or Luhan and I can’t be bothered to around now that they know I’ve gone over to the dark side.” Sehun scoffed, and Tao found himself wondering if the guy had just tried to crack a joke. Because it worked a bit too well for his tastes, seeing as he had to practically bite his tongue to keep from snickering.

“This isn’t a game asswipe; we know damn well that we don’t have time to screw around.”

“Then why the are you suggesting-“

“Intense training; that’s what they mean by training camp you tard.” D.O. grumbled, seemingly understanding as well what they meant. “No school and no rest, right?”

“It was nice to see that at least one person seemed to get us. It’d been a while since I did anything like it, but it should work out fine. If everyone went home to pack a few changes of clothes and came back roughly two hours from now at the latest, that would leave us with- I counted the days and considered our options – the very latest we should act is Monday, considering the people we were up against, which would give us roughly four days, give or take a few hours. That should be enough time to train the puppy and let hyung heal up…”

“So… we’re staying here until Monday?” Said puppy piped up from where he was now sitting bent over awkwardly on the floor, still being used as support for D.O.’s legs as said boy displayed an evil smirk, most likely plotting something himself. There were a few moments of silence before a sigh escaped his hyung, who seemed to have realized that there was no point in trying to find another way of doing things.

“Apparently you are, even though I never agreed to it.” Chanyeol grumbled, and Tao could feel the elder’s eyes on him as he stood from his seat to stretch before heading to the hall to get his shoes on and prepare to leave, shooting the other visitors a look that told them they’d better do the same. They didn’t have much time after all; getting started as soon as possible was a given.

“If I were them I’d consider warning my family to be extra careful from now on, but then again I weren’t so I figured they could come up with something to say themselves, as well as some sort of excuse to stay out for a few days. It might be a good idea to bring some money for food and whatnot, seeing as the slob probably didn’t have much of anything lying around…” He straightened his back after tying his laces, looking over them all in turn before opening the front door, stopping in his tracks as he remembered one last piece of advice. “I wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear this,” He started and turned to meet the puppy’s suddenly uncomfortably nervous gaze, almost smirking at the sight. “But it might be a good idea for Kai to hold onto those pills of his…”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Alright, that's the last of the introductions~! This was honestly very painful fun to write, and I'd like to think it turned out okay despite my clear lack of inspiration throughout especially the last third or so. Now the problem is how to follow up... oh well~ *does lazy hula dance* Anyways, from now on I'll most likely be jumping between different people each chapter, just to get a few more perspectives of everything going on not that I've figured out what will be going on, but that's a different issue.

So, I'm sorry for taking so long, but I'm also in the middle of writing up my other story (fluffy taohun with a hint of angst... or maybe more than a hint). So if you like the pairing and feel bored you might want to check it out - the first chapter should be out before this weekend~! *shamelessly advertising* I will be trying to update that as well, but this of course is still my prio, so don't worry~ ;3

Lots of love to subscribers~<333 and to you lovely commentists; thank you for brightening my days with your thoughts and opinions and awesome encouragement~! <3 *throws flowers and rainbows* Don't hesitate to tell me if anything seems strange or off~ although I don't guarantee your well-being if you're too harsh.

Thanks for reading, hope you liked it~ and please stay tuned for next chapter~! *failed attempt to act like upbeat mc* Kisses to y'all sweets~! <333

~Fi

P.S. I had some fun messing around in photoshop and making this poster, so I

will be using it for a chapter or two at least, just because I feel like it. M'kay?

Good.