Kai whined when he was pulled to his feet mercilessly, his knees buckling under him as soon as Tao let go of his arm. Had he really been looking forward to this hell? The thought made his face contort into a displeased grimace, as opposed to the look of utter exhaustion he was sure he had on before.

“I’m not sure what the puppy was expecting but this obviously wasn’t it… too bad for him he was stuck here for the next five days. It was still quite hard for me to see how he could be of any use to us, but I could hardly kick him out now despite really wanting to…” He glared at the drill sergeant’s back as the guy’s voice faded and was reduced to silent mumbling. It wasn’t his fault that the exercises they’d been doing were inhumane – at least after repeating the sets over ten times. He hadn’t even known how unfit he was in comparison to Tao and that D.O. , and it was damn frustrating to know that he couldn’t keep up at all. Even Sehun was doing better than he was, and he was starting to suspect Chanyeol would outdo him as well if the guy made the effort – at the moment he was watching them amusedly from the couch; apparently he wouldn’t able to join in for at least another day or two because of his stupid bruises. For these reasons – him suffering through hell for the sake of this guy he didn’t know, everyone doing better than him, and the guy in question doing nothing to stop this suffering – he was questioning his decision to step in that time two days ago.

“Well… wasn’t that fun? ing slave driver…” He might’ve laughed at the panting jerk’s comment if he wasn’t still a bit grouchy about having been used as a footstool. And if he had any breath left to do so. It was fun to see that although he was definitely worse off D.O.’s cheeks were still flushed, and his t-shirt sweaty. His eyes shifted to the blonde, who was making a very worrying face. He’d expected him to look exhausted as well, but he appeared more sickly than anything.

“You alright dude?” He forced out, immediately regretting speaking as bile rose to the back of his throat. He gulped and felt his breath hitch for a moment, but was soon following the other with his eyes as the guy stood up on extremely wobbly legs.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Was all Sehun said before rushing out of the room, or, well, Kai wasn’t sure he could call it rushing; it was more like stumbling determinedly.

“First door on the right!” The lanky boy on the couch yelled, and he grimaced at the thought of what was most likely taking place in the bathroom. What he wasn’t sure of was why the blonde was busy throwing up when he’d gone along with all the crap Tao threw at them perfectly fine, and why he himself wasn’t despite clearly being in a worse state ever since they started. “Your face is easy to read kiddo; you’d better do something about that.” He looked to Chanyeol again, who was watching him with a bored expression, and cocked his brow questioningly. “You’re wondering why you’re holding up better than the other brat, right?” A few seconds passed in silence, apart from Tao’s quiet muttering, and Kai sighed as he realized what the issue was.

“Would you tell me why exactly?” He asked with a pout – what was up with having to pry the answer out of the guy? Besides, if he was so easy to read wouldn’t the older know that he wanted to find out? Almost subconsciously he jutted his bottom lip out further as he drew a hand through his hair, feeling it stick together into thicker strands from the sweat. Then, before he knew it, his breath was knocked out of him and he lay coughing on the floor. “What the dude?” He wheezed as he managed to glimpse D.O.’s face – the guy was sneering at him, fists still slightly balled. For a split second he looked almost troubled, but the next he looked so indifferent that it was almost scary. He coughed one more time and took a few deep breaths to get rid of the nausea that had overcome him, and then pushed himself up into a sitting position again. Tao was glancing between him and the mean- hell spawn, an amused smirk on his lips as he seemed to reason with himself in Chinese, chuckling every now and then before eventually leaving the room to go do something in the kitchen. Chanyeol was just shaking his head tiredly.

“It means, ,” He turned to his assaulter again as the guy spoke, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “That that guy pushed himself to his limits – you didn’t; you held back to save your energy for whatever damn reason.”

“Oh…” Kai couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say whatsoever to the straightforward explanation. It made sense, unfortunately. “It didn’t feel like I was holding back though…” He mumbled with a displeased frown, this time yelping as he was smacked in the back of his head. “Why do you keep doing that?!”

“Because you’re annoying! You act like my ing baby sister you goddamn sissy!”

“Do not! Do you have some sort of problem with everyone who isn’t as ing violent and bad-tempered as you are?!”

“Even if I did it wouldn’t be any of your damn concern – now shut the up and stop whining before I put you down for good!”

“Yo-… wh-… guh-… you!” He was fuming when he finally gave up, crossing his arms furiously and digging his fingers into them. He hadn’t had enough experience with these sorts of threats. Or with people who seemed more than ready to actually follow through with them. The latter seemed like a more probable reason for him to run out of words.

After a couple of minutes of intense silence – however that was possible Kai wasn’t sure, but that was the only way he could describe it – a very pale Sehun dragged himself back into the living room and slumped down in one of the armchairs.

“…You alright?” Kai asked after a while, but got nothing but a barely noticeable nod as response.

“If I didn’t know better I’d take Kai’s chattiness as a sign that he was ready to do a couple more sets, but something told me it wouldn’t be appreciated. Besides, I was getting hungry, and unless we all got our eight hours of sleep we were gonna break before Friday came around – if normal, sensible biology was right in any case. Maybe this was why I considered dragging hyung into the kitchen to clean up so we might actually be able to-“ Tao seemed to stop himself as the second-year got up on his own.

“You should go through the stretches with them before everyone cools down completely, right? I’ll tidy up as much as I can until you’re done.” The exchange of pats on each other’s shoulders made Kai frown, because to him it was still fairly hard to comprehend the relationship between the two. From the way they acted around everyone else they hardly seemed friendly enough to act the way they did towards the other, but something told him they would be a lot more normal and affectionate if he and the other two weren’t there. As much as it confused him and he knew it wasn’t any of his business, he was extremely curious at this point.

The sudden loud clap of hands right in front of his face snapped him out of his thoughts, and he came face to face with the sharp-eyed drill sergeant.

“It seemed like he’d finally snapped out of his own little world, and it annoyed me that I had almost been concerned for the guy for a moment.” Tao muttered and glared at him for a few more seconds before standing up. “But, since I had everyone’s attention I decided to let it slide and start showing them how to do something about their stiffness – if they didn’t the rest of the training wouldn’t be as effective…” The guy went back to grumbling almost inaudibly as he pushed the couch further back than they had done earlier, further increasing the open space where the coffee table had been standing before. Kai felt his eyes widen, and he was sure he was gaping as he watched the guy first bend over with his legs straight, palms flat against the floor, before actually moving his legs apart and sliding down on the floor in what should’ve been a very painful split – but the bastard didn’t so much as flinch. “I didn’t know what the little s were waiting for, but if they didn’t-“

“Alright, fine, just shut the up.” D.O. growled, imitating Tao’s pose as best he could despite clearly being very stiff in comparison. Kai exchanged a hesitant glance with Sehun before they both followed suit, and he realized that at least this he could do better than the other two. Or so he thought until their instructor-gone-rubberman got to his feet to push his upper body closer to the floor. It stung. Bad.

///////////////////

Sehun’s face scrunched up as he dropped onto one of the chairs at the dining table; his body was aching all over and frankly he didn’t have any appetite. The bowl of rice and all the little side dishes put out on the table might’ve been very tempting any other day, but this time he had to turn away to keep from gagging.

“You’re gonna feel like in the morning if you don’t eat.” The lanky second-year told him strictly. He and Tao were already picking stuff leisurely off the plates, and D.O. seemed to be enjoying the meal as well, apparently all refreshed after washing up. Sehun wished it’d been the same for him, but obviously it wasn’t. Kai didn’t look too well either, but was chewing his food slowly. Albeit reluctantly Sehun started on his meal, pausing every other second to fight back his nausea. Soon enough the silence around the table was getting a bit uncomfortable, so when the boy next to him spoke up he was quite relieved.

“Why did you have us stretching for so long?” Kai’s question would’ve made sense if it weren’t for a certain scene he could remember from the last semester.

“Flexibility reduces the risk for injury.” Was Chanyeol’s curt answer, but the slight twitch of the so-called assassin’s face confirmed his thoughts – that wasn’t the only reason.

“It increases your range…” He muttered under his breath before taking another bite of rice.

“Range?” Oh, right… Kai wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer; this was the first thing he’d learned about the other the past few days, the second being that the guy was an actor, and a damn good one at that. He’d appeared to be pretty naïve, but Sehun had a strong feeling that he wasn’t as easy to read as he made it seem – if he was really that clueless he wouldn’t have been transferred to the jailhouse in the first place after all.

“Mm, should be, right?” He asked, cocking his brow as he turned to Tao, who simply nodded in return, a slightly entertained glint in his eyes. “I’d be wondering as well if I didn’t see him beat Kris bloody last semester though.”

“I couldn’t remember seeing him there, but I was sort of busy… well, at least that meant I could keep eating while he and Chanyeol-hyung explained the rest.”

“It’s pretty simple really.” Sehun sighed and rolled his head, leaning back in the chair and putting his chopsticks down. Kai was looking at him expectantly whilst D.O. just glared as usual. The second-year seemed completely focused on the food. “The first thing Tao did was land a high kick,” He tapped his temple. “Right here. Probably held back a bit though, or would’ve probably ended worse… it’s quite obvious why you’d need to be flexible to do that, I sure as hell can’t get my leg up that high and have so much control. After that it was just a mixture of lower kicks and punches, a lot of them focused on ribs and stomach.”

“So to put it simply, a high kick to the head to knock around the brain a bit makes the opponent unfocused and most likely unable to react to whatever you decide to do the next half minute at least, but if you mess up it can lead to some pretty serious damage on either side – it’s very easy to counter if you see it coming.” Chanyeol stated between bites.

“There’s no way we’re gonna be able to pull something like that off, but being able to stretch a bit more should make room for more feints and a better variety of attacks…”

“Can you even fight Mushroom?” Sehun cringed at the nickname – it brought back a lot of not-so-nice memories. Unfortunately he couldn’t argue either, seeing as his haircut was a bit… prim. He had expected D.O. to remember their clash a couple of months back, but then again the rabid stray had probably had a lot more problems on his mind since then. Either that or the was just pretending not to remember to start a fight.

“I’m not half bad bug-eye.” He retorted, earning a heated response of repulsive insults he would most likely never recite in the company of anyone outside the group he was with at that moment. He shook his head to get rid of it all. “Wh-” He stopped at the sudden sound of a familiarly obnoxious ringtone, and before anyone had time to ask Tao had disappeared from the kitchen, and they could hear the front door open and close.

“…That was weird.” Kai mumbled and leaned his head to one side in apparent confusion. Sehun just sighed and went back to forcing down the last few mouthfuls of his meal – if the guy didn’t want them to know who was calling and what it was about there was no use in thinking about it.

“Alright you three, rock paper scissors. Now.” He frowned at the second-years sudden request, gingerly glancing at the other two who didn’t appear all that fired up over the idea either – his earlier comment seemed to have really pissed D.O. off, and Kai was still leaning over the back of his chair to look in the direction of the door. “Do it or I’ll make all of you sleep in the bathroom.” That was all it took for the three of them to do as they were told, Sehun holding up his scissors triumphantly as the other two groaned. “Alright, Mushroom gets the couch; you two get the extra mattresses.” The price was pretty decent in his opinion, and he smirked as he got off his seat to go brush his teeth, watching out of the corner of his eye as the other two followed grudgingly.

An hour later he was still twisting and turning on the couch whilst the other two were snoring where they lay on the floor behind him. Wasn’t it warm? Yeah, he felt warm… he watched his steps carefully as he searched for the remote-control to the AC, finally lowering the temperature a couple degrees once he found it.

When he turned around to go back to the couch he suddenly noticed a long streak of yellowish light in the hallway, and he froze for a few seconds. It was only once he’d snuck past the sleepers that he could make out muffled voices, and he crept closer to the slightly open door as quietly as possible, stopping behind it and almost holding his breath as he listened in.

“… So they know all about us after all?” It was impossible not to recognize the second-year’s deep voice, but what came next surprised him a bit.

“Yeah, sounds like it. Good news is that Yongguk and Lay have distanced themselves, and Chen seems to be against it all.” For once it wasn’t a narration – Tao was actually able to speak normally. Fascinating. And strange.

“Right… and Baekhyun? Can we trust him?”

“Is your brain completely rotten hyung? Did you forget he happens to hate your guts?”

“Well, he lingered too long in the music room and it bothered me so… uh, you know…”

“… What the hell kind of a reason is that? He’s the walking neutral zone for ’s sake – you don’t touch him!”

“I’m telling you it was his own fault for not getting the out when I warned him!”

“You could’ve just told him why and shoved him outside instead of knocking him out!”

This was where Sehun decided to slip back to the living room; he had no interest in listening to the two argue. If they came to any useful conclusion about anything they’d most likely let him and the other two in on it later anyways. The sight that greeted him when he walked back to the, now cool, living area made him snicker quietly as he dropped onto the couch – this time falling asleep wasn’t as hard, and he did it with a crooked smile.

///////////////////////////

Chanyeol groaned at his alarm, violently grabbing the clock and throwing it across the room, a satisfying rattle telling him that it had indeed hit the wall. He flipped over to lie on his stomach, sighing into the soft covers – painfully aware that he couldn’t go back to sleep or a certain someone would have his neck.

Only a few minutes later there were a few sharp knocks on his door, and he forced himself to sit up as his friend opened the door and took a half a step inside. The amused glint in the younger’s eyes made him furrow him brows questioningly, and he stretched before getting up when Tao gestured for him to come over, walking off before Chanyeol was actually on his feet. It was a good feeling to at least know that the kid still was comfortable around his home. When he joined the younger by the living room he had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. It took all he had to keep a straight face as he turned to look at Sehun, who was busy snapping pictures.

“How the hell did this happen?” He asked incredulously, but the blonde just shook his head as he sat back on the couch, phone still in his hand and turned to the two on the floor. For whatever ungodly reason Kai and D.O. were huddled together between the two mattresses, their limbs tangled together as though they were cuddling – at least this was the first thought that came to Chanyeol’s mind as he looked at them. It was almost cute, in a sort of twisted way considering their usual… differences.

“I’ve got my theories.” Sehun snickered, and he made a mental note to scold the brat later for whatever he’d done. “So… who do we wake up first?”

“…Tao?”

“I wasn’t sure of what Chanyeol-hyung expected me to do, but I was quite frankly enjoying this and hoping that Sehun was filming it all for memory’s sake. Since it was hyung’s place it was only reasonable that he would wake them both anyhow. Personally I would’ve started with D.O. – his reaction to it all would most likely keep me in a good mood for the rest of the day.”

“I was thinking the same; whatever reaction we get it’s gonna be ing golden.” The excitement in the blonde’s voice was almost too obvious, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to give the violent first year a reason to murder someone. Slowly he made his way over to the two, a low ‘spoilsport’ reaching his ears as he nudged Kai’s shoulder. The guy, to his great dismay, grunted and actually moved closer to the other.

“And what are you two tards laughing about? This kid’s going to die today, have some compassion.” He grumbled as he heard a series of stifled snorts from the two observers, rousing a real laugh from Sehun when he spoke. Which wasn’t really a good thing when there was a ticking time bomb on the floor, just waiting for a reason to go off. He stared down at the sleeping two, taking a couple of steps back as D.O. shuffled around a bit, blinking a couple of times before finally opening his eyes. It was quite fascinating how large they became when he realized the position he was in, and for a few second he just laid there, staring at the guy opposite him. Chanyeol cleared his throat and the shocked expression immediately changed into a mean glare that sent a chill down his spine.

“Wake the up !” D.O. snarled with a well-aimed kick to Kai’s gut as he practically jumped off the floor, the poor guy curling up in pain as his eyes snapped open. “And you es, what the did you do?!” He roared, and Chanyeol felt the hair at the back of his neck stand – the idea that the kid would turn on them as bystanders hadn’t hit him until then.

“Chill; I just woke up, and Tao wouldn’t do anything childish-”

“What the hell did you kick me for you ?!” It seemed like Kai had finally gotten a grip on himself, and was currently rubbing his stomach where he sat, leaned against the couch. Sehun whispered something in his ear, and his eyes widened much like D.O.’s had before he groaned and slumped over. “What the hell’s up with that… how did it even happen?”

“That’s what I wanna ing know!”

“Look, it’s pretty cold in here and you were both fast asleep – there’s no way…” Chanyeol lost his words before finishing. Why was it so cold? The low humming drew his eyes to a corner of the room, and he narrowed his eyes at the AC. How could he not have noticed it was on full blast? “Sehun,” He started, watching the blonde flinch a bit where he was sitting and type something on his phone before letting his hands drop to his lap, acting like nothing was wrong when their eyes met. Chanyeol knew better than to trust that though. “Did you by any chance crank the cooler up?”

“I was feeling a bit warm last night, yeah. I really didn’t know these two were gonna get all buddy-buddy.” Sehun leaned away to avoid the swing D.O. had taken at his head, cocking his brow. “I thought fighting was forbidden in here?” The next punch landed nicely on his cheek, and to the surprise of all of them even Kai knocked the air out of him once ‘since he’d been kicked for something that wasn’t his fault’. For some reason however Sehun decided to hit back, and the three ended up exchanging punches back and forth for several minutes.

Meanwhile Tao had pulled him into the kitchen.

“I need you to go back to school hyung.” He choked on the air he’d in and stared at his friend in disbelief.

“You need me to do what now?”

“Go back to the school, check out the atmosphere; see if you can find anything that can help us, something we can’t get from Baekhyun or Xiumin.”

“But I thought you said-“

“I know what I said, but I changed my mind. People do that. Besides, we don’t need you to loiter around while I’m trying to get them all ready; it’s distracting.”

“But-“

“Also, I think you should personally try to find Baekhyun and apologize – we’re going to need his help and things being as they are I don’t think he’s seriously going to go along and help us the way he helps Kris and Yongguk.”

“…” Chanyeol frowned as he thought it over. He couldn’t very much argue, but he didn’t think he’d be able to find anything out about, well, anything. Who did Tao expect him to be able to talk to? The most probable reactions from the student body were fearful escapes, because of his connection to the school’s ‘assassin’; one or two painful beatings for pretty much the same reason; or completely ignoring him wherever he went and whoever he tried approaching. To top it all off his body was still aching and quite frankly he wasn’t that good a fighter – just imagining having to defend himself made him grimace. “You know they’ll kill me once I get there, right?”

“Who’s gonna kill you?” He spun around to see Kai and Sehun in the door-opening, sighing at their roughed-up appearances – the puppy had a busted lip and the blonde’s cheek was starting to swell up, their clothes even more disheveled than they’d been after the two just woke up.

“It was nice of them to be concerned, too nice almost, but Chanyeol-hyung was just being ridiculous – no one would have the guts to do anything to him. Focusing on the morning schedule I glanced behind the other two, but couldn’t spot D.O. anywhere.”

“Oh, you two were too busy chatting to notice but he grabbed his darling bat and went outside to ‘blow off some steam’. His words.” Kai informed them with a crooked smile. At least he seemed to be over the oh-so-traumatizing experience. It was obvious however that neither of the victims knew that it all had been caught on photo, not to mention video, or Sehun would probably not be standing anymore.

“Morning schedule?” Said boy asked, and Chanyeol was inwardly laughing at them – at least he didn’t have to put up with the hellish training that awaited the other three.

“I had planned out a two kilometer run for warm-up, but what followed would depend entirely on how well they were holding up. I was hoping hyung could fix up something to eat before we got back, and get on with his own business after that…”

“Yeah yeah, I got it, just go.” He grunted, ushering all three of them towards the front door despite slight protests from the lazy kids who didn’t look forward to running. The faster he could be alone again the better. If he didn’t know better than to cross Tao he would’ve gone right back to bed.

When the three finally disappeared out the door, the sound of Kai calling out to D.O. seeping in just before it closed, he dragged himself back into the kitchen. If he knew before he called Tao to set up this alliance that he’d be reduced to household work and running suicidal errands he would’ve thought twice, or trice, about going through with it. In the end there were just a bit too many risks involved for him to be relaxed about the little trip to school, and it worried him more than his friend claimed it should.

Damn him, damn the school and damn the ing apes who were on a mission to make his life hell. just couldn’t end well.

And they were out of milk.

“…what did I get myself into…” 

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A/N: Alright, kapitel tretton~! Damn this took a long time - deepest apologies about that. So, this sort of layout should be alright, don't you think? *wiggles eyebrows convincingly* 

Now, although it's a bit longer than most of the previous chapters have been, I do realize that there's a lot less room for each person, but this should work out much better now that we actually have a bit of background and facts about everyone, right? Feel free to chew me out if that's not the case... 

I hope you guys don't mind the not-so-fluffy-or-in-any-way-really-romantic kaisoo, but I've gotta build up some sort of relationship between the couples, right? And they were very convenient.

Anyways, it's back to school next chapter, please look forward to that!

Thanks subbies and commentists~! Lots of love to you all~! <3<3<3333

~Fi