Kris liked to work.

Individually that is.

Working with someone else or in a group would just cause problems, as he had learnt from all the obligatory assignments he had to do with a group for the past few years. It would start up fine, but after some time people where neglecting their work or not handing in their work on time.

So in the end it always turned out that Kris would do almost the whole assignment the night before it was due, because he didn’t want a bad grade.

He had told himself many times that he should just not do it again, but in the end he always did for the sake of his own notes.

Unnecessary to say, Kris was happy that there wouldn’t be that much assignments in groups this year as in earlier years. Also, there wouldn’t be any tests, just a few assignments and a few exams.

And of course the national exams in May, which he dreaded taking. Kris wasn’t really looking forward to sitting in a sports hall with approximately 200 other students (he was lucky that his school wasn’t that large, or else it would’ve been even more claustrophobic) and taking exams on different subjects.

Three hours for every subject he took.

Maths was obviously going to be a pain in the , Kris didn’t even know why he would have to take that exam, as it would be obvious already that he would get a really bad grade.

He also didn’t really look forward to the exam for Latin. Translating texts from some ancient language and answering questions about another text wasn’t really his hobby. What he hated most about it though, was that he had to learn approximately 250 pages of text in both English and Latin and that in the end he would be questioned about only 2 texts.

When the teacher had told that fact to the class, Kris thought it was so unfair! And to top it off, they got a schedule with all the homework for the rest of the year, because they had to work pretty fast, or else they wouldn’t be finished in time. As if they weren’t drowning in homework already from all the other subjects...

But even though he hated Latin, Kris still did all of his homework and worked hard during the lessons in order to get a good grade for his exam, because he didn’t want to fail his exams just because of Latin.

He wasn’t really looking forward to taking his last year again, just because he had gotten a bad grade for Latin. Also, it would be pretty sour to watch all of his friends graduate, while he would still be stuck at school.

Yes, Kris had friends.

You wouldn’t really think so if you would see him sitting in class all alone like that, but he did have friends. It was just that he didn’t like to be bothered during class. His friends understood that, so they just let him be during class and wouldn’t distract him from his work.

But then that Tao guy had to show up and ruin everything.

*****

“Alright, you can start translating the next few lines now, either on your own or with your neighbour, as long as I see you working!”, the teacher told the class.

Kris just looked at his text and started searching for a word in his dictionary when he heard a certain someone clearing his throat quietly to his left.

Tao looked at Kris with a questioning look: “Do you want to work together?”, he asked. Kris just stared back at him with the coldest look he could achieve. If this boy was sitting next to him, he better be prepared for his wrath!

“No, thanks, I like working alone”, he replied shortly.

Tao looked slightly disappointed at the answer he got, but Kris couldn’t care less, so he just went on with translating.

After a few minutes he noticed that a certain someone was poking him. Kris turned to face the dark-haired boy and looked with an annoyed expression at him. “What do you want?”

Tao just chuckled shortly at the expression Kris gave him before asking his question. Do you know what the word ‘absunt’ means? I can’t seem to remember from which verb it is…”

Kris just gave him his dictionary as an answer. How dumb could one be!

Tao looked slightly baffled as he took the dictionary from Kris and started searching for the word.

“Oh, nevermind, I should have known that it’s a conjugation of ‘abesse’!”

Tao inwardly facepalmed himself while giving the dictionary back to Kris. Kris just hummed in response, not caring a bit about the other boy’s lack of grammar skills.

Now that Tao knew the word he was looking for, he went back to translating, only to be stuck again after a minute or so. He didn’t really feel like asking Kris for help, as he would just hand him his dictionary and give him an annoyed look in the meantime. Instead, Tao called the teacher over for help.

“How can I help you?”, the teacher asked Tao. “I’m stuck on this line...”, Tao said while pouting.

Kris took a quick glance to his left and quietly snickered. To get stuck on such an easy line!

The teacher in turn helped Tao with the translation. After making sure that the boy fully understood it, the teacher left Tao to let him translate further on his own.

With new found courage, Tao continued translating the text. Apparently, luck wasn’t on his side today, as he found himself stuck AGAIN after a few minutes. Staring at the text blankly, he tried to fit all the puzzle pieces together in his head (also known as: making a logical sentence with the words provided). Unfortunately, he couldn’t come up with anything that sounded good, so he just called the teacher over.

“Stuck again?”, the teacher asked as he walked to the dark-haired boy, that was still staring blankly at his text. “Why don’t you ask Kris for help? He isn’t one of our top students for nothing!”

At the mention of his name, Kris looked up from his work and looked at the teacher with a questioning look.

“I was just saying that you should help Tao with translating his text, since you are one of our top students”, the teacher answered Kris’ look.

The only thing Kris could do was stare at the teacher with a shocked expression.

A/N: I haven't proofread this yet, as it is pretty late right now and I have school tomorrow (two hours of Latin! >.<), so I'll check this later...
Anyways, I really wanted to have this chapter up before the end of the weekend and I managed to! ^^ This chapter is longer than the last one, so I hope you'll be satisfied. My goal is for each chapter to have a word count of at least 1000. ^^
Also, Happy Birthday Lay!! ^^ (as it is October the 7th in Korea right now)
(My birthday is on October 9th, so that's also pretty soon... kekekee...)

Shoutout to Ryoko-oppa and 360ThePokemonTrainer for upvoting!