And so the fourth day at the school began, and tensions were running ever so high as the second day of the class competition began. In fact, only a couple of the students were actually excited for this day as it had absolutely nothing to do with physical strength or capability, it was all to do with mental strength and capability. And it judged a whole different other set of skills. However, those students with the traits of combat gods were hoping that they weren’t picked, as they were surely going to lose.

But so far, two students of the class were already out of the entire competition – Kai and Joonmyun. Having lost their own rounds, they decided that, since they technically had the day off, they would spend it relaxing and trying to forget about their wounds.

Kai and Joonmyun were currently sitting in the classroom alone as the other students were currently in the large hall waiting for the instructor to come and explain more about the third round. Both of them were just playing around on their phones or notepads, wondering what they could get up to that day. The only other thing would be to go to the hall and watch their fellow classmates.

With a large thud, Kai pushed his hands on the table and stood up from his chair, forcing Joonmyun to flinch at the sudden movement. Apparently the utter boredom from playing games on his phone finally got him.

And the fact that no matter how much of a chatterbox Kai appeared to be, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say to Joonmyun.

Or maybe it was because he couldn’t stop thinking about the other boy in compromising positions. Yup. Definitely that one. But it was because of the whole fertility and love thing Joonmyun had going on, and Jongin was sticking to that story, nothing else.

“I’m going to the competition.” Kai said, shrugging his shoulders as he stared at his classmate who just had an attractive smile on his face. Joonmyun stood up, grabbing his bag and nodding his head.

“Can I come with you?” He asked, and when Kai nodded they both left the classroom and ended up in the hall in under three minutes.

Once they got there, the rest of their classmates were lightly chatting.

Joonmyun jogged over towards where Lu Han was sitting along with Zitao and he nudged him on the shoulder, waving his hand as a greeting. Lu Han stood up and hugged the other, sitting down afterwards.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, smiling up at his friend.

“Jongin and I got bored by ourselves in the classroom. So we decided to come and watch the show!” Joonmyun grinned, taking a seat on the other side of Lu Han before he glanced around the room. Pursing his lips, he turned to Lu Han again. “So, what exactly are you guys doing today?”

But Lu Han just shrugged his shoulders. All they knew was that it was going to be some sort of intellectual test – which was great for those like Yixing and Baekhyun who didn’t like violence.

Someone entered the hall who was also a spectator – which Kai and Joonmyun completely forgot about. Chen walked into the hall, a grand smile on his pink lips before looking around the class for one person in particular. And when he finally caught eyes with the one he was looking for, he chuckled to himself at the way the other rolled his eyes when Chen skipped over towards him.

Yixing chuckled to himself at the others bright and cheery disposition but he didn’t want the other to know that he slightly enjoyed the attention he was getting. When Chen reached him, he stared at the boy as he waited for the inevitable question that was bound to follow the emanating silence.

But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, Chen simply sat in more silence, staring at Yixing with that smile on his lips.

It was rather eerie.

And it was getting uncomfortable. Shifting on his seat, Yixing turned his head to the mischievous boy and tilted it a little as he was soon directing his question as to what was wrong with the boy.

“Are you alright?” He asked, looking actually worried. The smile meant he was but something was off.

“I am perfectly perfect!” The smile on Chen’s lips grew. “Are you actually worried about me?” The boy asked, his eyes glistening as the thought ran through his head at the fact Yixing actually cared about his well-being. It just made the smart boy even more irresistible. When he saw a very slight red tint appear on Yixing’s cheeks, he realised that this would make him happy for rest of the week. “You are worried about me!”

Within a second, Chen had threw himself into Yixing’s arms, tightly wrapping his own arms around Yixing’s waist. The other was very surprised.

Keeping his arms by his side, Yixing’s eyes were still wide. Then he saw the instructor appear through the doors, which gave him a great excuse to push Chen off of him and back to his own seat.

Chen just smiled at his own little accomplishment.

“Everyone, listen up!” The instructor raised his voice, looking around to make sure the students were all listening to him. Once everyone stopped having their little chats, he continued on. “As I said to all of you yesterday, this is not about fighting. And some of you shall be excluded from this as it’s not quite fair.” Lots of the students groaned a little in response. “An intellectual battle. Battle of wits. One for your minds.”

Yixing just smirked as he looked around at his fellow students, some of them getting excited about this next part too.

The instructor looked around and then said the names of the first two participants for the first intellectual battle.

“Baekhyun. Since one of your traits from Forseti is in fact the trait of truth and justice, I believe you’ll be and upstanding opponent for Yixing, and I want to be able to allow both of you to have an equal chance of winning.” The instructor decided to explain, considering Yixing’s own traits. Baekhyun stood up with a smile. “So, do you accept the challenge then?”

“Definitely!” Baekhyun said, eyes moving over to Yixing who was now also standing up as well. “I’ve been waiting for a challenge like this. A good challenge that actually uses the mind, not the muscles.”

“Great!” The instructor said before smiling. “It’ll be a task of logic riddles. Is that alright for you both?”

With both of the participant’s nodding, everyone else got really excited.

“Okay! Time to begin.”

…

Both of the boys were sitting on opposite ends of a table, staring into each other’s eyes with smiles on their faces, as if they were trying to psych out their opponent. The instructor was standing at the side of the table, card in his hand with the puzzle on it, and he was ready to continue on.

So far, both of them have gotten every single question right, and they were getting really enthusiastic as they waited for the other to make a mistake. The rest of the students were simply fascinated by the fast responses.

Chen was at the side, however, smirking because he knew that no one could outdo Yixing in something like this.

But the rest of the students weren’t so sure.

The instructor smiled before he placed the new piece of card in the middle of the table and stared at both of the students. When it was placed flat down, he read the question aloud for the rest of the classmates, who were all dying to know if they could answer in their heads. Usually, they couldn’t.

The instructor spoke aloud.

“From the beginning of eternity, to the end of time and space, to the beginning of every end, and the end of every place. What am I?”

Once he finished, Yixing chuckled lightly to himself before looking over at Baekhyun who had the same smirk on his lips that he possessed. That just meant he knew exactly what the answer was as well. Writing their answers on their record sheets, they handed it to the instructor who chuckled to himself before reading aloud both of their answers.

“The letter ‘e’.” There were loud groans from the spectators who couldn’t believe that they hadn’t gotten it. But there was no time for a pause, so the instructor moved onto the next one quickly. “Okay, here’s the next one.” Yixing and Baekhyun were listening intently. “If you look, you can’t see me. If you see me, you cannot see anything else. I can make you walk if you can’t. Sometimes I speak the truth, and sometimes I lie. If I lie, I am nearer the truth. What am I?”

Silence erupted and there wasn’t smiles on their faces just yet. However, with five seconds Yixing’s pencil was going against paper as he wrote the answer down. His opponent was gritting his teeth, eyes closed as he thought about it.

The riddle went over and over in his head before his eyes opened immediately, and he wrote down his answer.

Taking their answers, the instructor smiled.

“Both right. The answer is, of course, a ‘dream’. Now the next one.” Letting the students take a breath, he nodded as he read out the riddle. “Some will use me, while others will not, some have remembered, while others have forgot. For profit or gain, I’m used expertly, I can’t be picked off the ground or tossed into the sea. Only gained from patience and time, can you unravel my rhyme?”

Everyone that was spectating were on the edge of their seats as more seconds have passed than any before as both of the students were rummaging through their brains for the answer.

Baekhyun was gritting his teeth again, tapping his pencil on the paper whilst his free hand was curled into a fist. Yixing, on the other hand, had his eyes simply closed as he replayed the riddle over and over in his head.

The silence was deafening. Everyone was waiting for someone to write something on their answer sheets. But they didn’t.

That is until a full minute passed and someone had written an answer down.

The instructor looked at the one who has not yet given an answer and looked down at his clock. It was told at the very start of the competition that you had a full three minutes to get the answer, and if you do not come up with one, you forfeit and the other contestant wins if he has the right answer. So this was getting tense as it moved into the second minute.

Time moved on, and the contestant that had already written his guess on the paper was watching his opponent intensely.

10 seconds left.

But the boy could not think of an answer, and set his pencil down on the desk. Looking up at the instructor, he sighed and shrugged his shoulder. There was nothing he could do now but hope that the other’s answer was wrong.

Picking up the sheet, the instructor looked at the answer and sighed.

“Yixing, your answer is…” With a small wait (you know, just to keep the tension running high for everyone), the older man placed the paper down and turned to the said boy. “Is right. The answer was, in fact, ‘knowledge’.”

Slumping down on his seat, Baekhyun’s eyes widened at the fact he didn’t get it.

Yixing smiled and nodded his head, his body filling up with accomplishment as he realised that he had won and shown proof of his intellectual ability. Looking over at his saddened opponent, he smiled before holding out his hand in a truce, because he didn’t like making anyone sad on his own account.

Taking Yixing’s hand, Baekhyun simply shrugged his shoulders before getting up and moving over towards his fellow classmates. Leaving Yixing with the instructor, all of his classmates cheered them both on.

But it was Chen who instantly ran over to the winner and grinned at him. Hugging the winner’s arm, he began shouting in delight.

“I knew you’d win! Baekhyun never stood a chance, I mean, come on! You’ve got the traits from the freaking god of knowledge.” Chen shouted, not caring if Baekhyun even heard him, he was just excited for Yixing. Yixing sighed when he heard the other’s really loud voice before he turned to Chen and shoved him off again. But he did like the fact the boy was being nice.

The instructor told everyone that that was the competition over for the day, but didn’t give any insight on what was going to be going on the next day. This just meant that they all had to go to class again.

…

But at least it was lunch first.

Chen had already dragged Yixing off to a secluded table, whilst Chanyeol had done essentially the same to Baekhyun – but he wanted to do that so he could cheer the boy up. And buy him lunch to go along with it.

For the first time since their fight, Joonmyun watched as Xiumin approached him with a small smile on his face.

“Hey there.” Joonmyun said, motioning for the extra seat beside him. When the boy was sat down, he turned to him and spoke again. “So, what’s going on?” He asked, seeing as the other looked particularly blank today, and down. Xiumin chuckled before he shrugged his shoulders.

“Uh just don’t feel too good today. That’s all.” The boy explained, smiling over at Joonmyun.

Well, if you could call it a smile.

Joonmyun wondered if it had anything to do with what had happened the day before. Considering that they had been in a very dangerous fight and they both had serious injuries, he wondered if it had something to do with that. Besides, even Joonmyun’s own scars on his shoulder and thigh were incredibly painful, but the nurse gave him good pills and care and it didn’t bother him.

He wasn’t sure if Xiumin had even thought about visiting the nurse yet, even if he did win. None of them said anything before Xiumin slowly lay his head on his arms making Joonmyun even more worried.

Nudging the boy, he slid closer to him on the bench and moved his lips over to the other’s ear to whisper softly.

“Come to the nurse with me.”

“I’m alright.”

Joonmyun rolled his eyes before he stood up and carefully brought up the other with him. Staring at Xiumin with his eyes slightly closed, the look on his face nearly made the other burst into laughter – he looked really cute when he was trying to act angry with him.

However, he continued to shake his head because the one thing he didn’t want to do was go to the doctor.

It was an old issue for him.

Xiumin couldn’t stand hospitals and especially doctors. He knew they were there to help him and stitch him up, but every time he saw one he would freeze and get an underlying feeling that something was wrong.

This had also led to a lot of nightmares.

Pursing his lips, Joonmyun sighed. Knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to force the boy to go with him, but he had a feeling that there was a way to help. And if he happened to play on Xiumin’s feelings for him (or more precisely, his personality), then he could do something. Sighing, he nudged the other once more before speaking again to him.

“Fine. I will not force you to the nurse if you do something for me.” When he said this, Xiumin turned to him instantly in curiosity.

“What do I need to do?”

“Come home with me so I can patch you up myself.”

Xiumin’s eyes widened a little before he tried to keep the smirk off of his face at the fact that he was going to be able to go to Joonmyun’s house. Nodding his head, he ignored the pain in his stomach as he saw the other’s smile. Damn, that’s all he needed to feel better.

…

Class began, and it was a rather boring class. The students knew that on top of the special classes such as weapon class, there obviously had to be normal school ones considering they did not know everything. Which meant that they absolutely had to be in this stupid maths class. Of course, Yixing was having a grand time because this was something he was great at.

How was everyone else faring? Not well.

At the back of the class, Sehun was simply doodling on his piece of paper as the teacher went on and on about standard deviation, and he couldn’t care less. When he let out a rather loud sigh, the student beside him nudged him.

“You are distracting me from the fantastic class. Shut up.” Kai said, grinning as he said it because he couldn’t even say it without a large smile on his face.

“Oh really? That’s why you’re sitting with a blank piece of paper in front of you?” Sehun shot back, chuckling when the grin faded away from Kai’s lips when he realised he was right. They began chatting quietly so that the teacher wouldn’t hear them, and once again, Sehun invited Kai over to his house to get him to work on his bow abilities.

Kai, of course, was still a little off from losing his battle with Sehun and Tao. Especially since he was supposed to be amazing at it. But the other boy shook his head and chuckled.

“Look, you’re not the god of archery you know.” Sehun explained, before continuing on. “You’re the god of hunting. Hunting doesn’t mean accuracy.”

“…I didn’t think about it that way.” Pursing his lips, Kai thought on it even more.

“Besides, accuracy is my thing, not yours.”

Both of them stared at each other before laughing to themselves. There was so much competitive blood between them and in both of their minds it just brought them a lot closer. So Kai nodded his head and agreed to go over and practice more. Besides, practice makes perfect.

As by some sort of miracle, the two other seats at the very back row was taking up by a blonde and a black hair boy. The blonde was grinning at the seat choice.

Being up at the back means conversation.

Being sat beside each other means conversation with the one you’re sat closest too.

And seeing as Sehun and Kai was already talking to each other, Kris knew that he was the one closest to Zitao and that they had to converse with each other. So writing something down on a piece of paper, he placed it on Zitao’s desk and quickly moved his eyes back to his own book. The black haired boy stared at the note before shaking his head at the immature move.

At least he didn’t have to focus on the math concepts that he completely did not understand. This meant he had something else to do anyway. Opening the note, his eyes roamed over the neat handwriting.

“Hey Tao. Can I call you Tao? Zitao’s too long.”

Rolling his eyes, he tore off a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote a reply on it, shoving it on Kris’s desk before looking at the teacher again.

“I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

Kris grinned. At least he was getting a response. Scribbling on the note, he placed it on the boy’s desk. Tao opened it, read it and sighed. He really shouldn’t have treated the other to a reply because now he was sure that this was going to go on for the whole period.

“Yes! Can I be the only one that calls you Tao though?”

Tao quickly replied and gave it over to the blonde.

“I can’t stop others from doing it.”

The blonde chuckled and quickly wrote a reply again. This was fun. This was exactly what he wanted to happen.

“Well I can. And I will. Or I’ll make a new name for you up.”

When Tao received it, he tried his hardest not to scoff out loud at the reply. It was like Kris was an immature little child with a favourite toy that he wanted to name himself. Rolling his eyes, he sent a reply.

“And what name would you make up for me?”

Reading the note, Kris smiled. Zitao wanted him to actually make up a name for him, and he had to admit, he already had. From the very first day he had seen Zitao – which was only three days ago, it seemed like forever – and when he heard his name, he thought of a very adorable name for him. Giving the note back to the other, he carefully watched the other’s reaction.

“Taozi. Adorable and cute, just like you <3”

The boy read over the note a couple of names. Did the other just call him adorable and cute and send him a love heart? Taozi. That name continued to run over his mind over and over. But he had to admit.

He didn’t hate it.

Writing a note, he gave it to the other and shoved his head into his arms. There was no way he was going to show Kris his nearly flaring cheeks. Nope. That was a part of his dignity he didn’t want to lose.

Kris read it and he couldn’t stop himself from vocally cheering. Which meant everyone stared at him.

Including the teacher.

Who approached him very quickly and grabbed the note with the last two messages scribbled on it. The teacher stared at him and then moved to Tao before walking back to the front of the class.

Both Zitao and Kris knew what was coming. And it did. The teacher announced that she was going to read the note aloud because they weren’t paying attention. The rest of the class were very interested in what they were talking about, and the two boys involved were almost sure that they were about to die of embarrassment. Or at least Zitao was. Kris would probably glorify it.

“It says, ‘Taozi. Adorable and cute, just like you.’ Well Kris, this is what you thought was more important than maths? And Zitao, you replied, ‘…I don’t hate it.’ Both of you wait after class.”

There were giggles coming around from the class. Zitao’s cheeks were now as red as tomatoes and he could almost feel Lu Han’s stare burn into his flesh.

But Kris was just grinning.

This. Was an accomplishment.

A/N: And here is the first update of this year apparnetly. I did NOT realise it had been that long. I had severe writers block over this story and I hope you all enjoy this! Seriously, I looked at the subscribers and realised that over 3500 people had subscribed so I hope none of you were disappointed! Please comment as it gives me more inspiration to write. I love you all <3