It had been two weeks since Tao first arrived and settled down at the boys’ dormitory. Two long, strange and confusing weeks. Not to mention, plain disturbing.

By the end of the first week of his stay there, Tao had known practically every one; some of them in great details. It helped that Kris had had a hand in that in showing him around and introducing him to every boys they encountered.

One of the first few was Kai. Tao was walking down a hallway in East Wing with Kris when the boy had sauntered down the hallway towards them in his birthday suit, his bits swaying from side to side. Kai probably didn’t realize he was or he couldn’t be bothered to cover up. Tao was leaning towards the latter when he spotted Kai’s confidence smirk as he stopped in front of them and started posing.

Tao had screeched and Kris had heaved a suffering sigh.

Tao did not know what part of staying with these boys that should cure his fear of them when all it did is traumatized him further.

“Why are you , Jongin?” Kris had asked flatly as he brought up a hand to bring Tao to his side so that the boy could hide his face in his shoulder.

“Chen hid my towel,” the freshman answered simply.

“And you don’t have the common decency to find something to cover your like a normal person before walking around?”

“Do I have to?” Kai raised an impish eyebrow.

Kris scrubbed his hand down his face.

Kai had finally noticed Tao standing there trying to look everywhere but the boy in front of him, “Hey, Tao. How’s it going?” He had said amiably like his dangly bits weren’t out for the world to see and Tao squeaked out something along the line of ‘fine.’

“Oh, for ’s sake!” Kris growled and stomped to the janitor cupboard to snatch a clean towel before throwing it at Kai’s face.

“Cover up,” the president hissed as he grabbed Tao’s other hand that wasn’t covering his eyes to pull him away from the scene.

“Hyung, aren’t you going to introduce us officially?” Kai had shouted after their backs.

The boys ignored him.

Park Chanyeol was an overeager puppy. The amount of times that Tao had almost punched the older was alarming. Chanyeol did not care about personal space, always trying to shove his face into Tao’s. Apparently, he learnt nothing from the previous lesson when he got knocked out by him. He never stopped feeling guilty over that, by the way.

Then there were Kim Jongdae, the gay womanizer and Kim Minseok, the soccer athlete. It was obvious they were lovers but they were always fighting. There was one time when he was caught in the crossfire and the only thing that had saved him from being decked by a dictionary that was aiming for his head was Kris’ quick reflex. Jongdae had somehow broken into their room to hide his stash under Tao’s bed and Minseok had found out about it through someone (Kai). Safe to say it wasn’t pretty. They had trashed his and Kris’ shared room. After that, Kris had threatened to call Yixing unless they cleaned up after themselves and that shut them up pretty quickly.

Speaking of Yixing, the alphas’ captain, Tao was intrigued by the dynamic shared between the senior and Kim Junmyeon.

Tao was walking around the West Wing in search of Kris when he rounded the corner in time to see a heated conversation between the two. He had frozen on the spot but the boys didn’t seem to notice him. He watched as Suho reached out a hand to grab onto Yixing but the latter slapped his hand away so vehemently, Tao flinched in place of Junmyeon.

The hurt on Suho’s face was very obvious even from where he was standing. What surprised him more was the look on Yixing’s face. Tao could have sworn he saw a flicker of guilt in his expression before it was chased away with one of contempt. He had never seen the senior looking so cold before.

Yixing had always looked so serene and calm during the few times he saw the older boy interacting with other students so to see him looking so cold and almost dangerous, sent a shiver down his spine.

This is why they were afraid. Tao realized with a jolt.

“Disgusting,” Tao heard him muttered before Yixing turned and left the shaking vice president.

Kim Junmyeon looked like Zhang Yixing broke his heart.

He slumped against the wall, curling up into a ball. Tao felt pity uncurled inside his chest and wanted to comfort the other boy but felt like he was intruding on the moment. So he decided to retrace his steps and pretend like he hadn’t seen anything.

But the universe apparently hated him because it chose that moment to accidentally trip him with his shoelaces and Tao fell on his . The smacking noise resounded thorough the hallway.

Junmyeon’s head snapped up to stare at him and helpless, Tao could only stare back in guilty silence.

He opened his mouth to apologize when he saw tear tracks on Suho’s cheeks. The boy was crying and when he looked closer, he was also trembling.

And Tao, being the softie that he was, started crawling towards him before settling down beside him, a fair distance between them.

After a moment of Junmyeon gazing warily at him and him pretending that the poster about blood donation was the most interesting thing to look at, he returned back to hiding his face in his arms.

It didn’t take long for Suho to lower his guard and throw caution to the wind.

Tao heard heart wrenching sobs came from the ball of misery beside him but not once did he turn to look at the other boy. He just sat there in silence, wanting him to know that Tao didn’t mind seeing him cry and was there for him.

That it was okay for Junmyeon to cry when his heart felt like it’s breaking in two.

They stayed there for a while, basking in each other’s presence and when Junmyeon’s sobs was reduced to quiet sniffles, Tao heard a small “thank you,” before the other boy slowly stood up and disappeared down the hall.

The very next day, they exchanged shy smiles and if Tao caught Yixing watching Suho whose eyes were puffed and still swollen from crying, he didn’t say anything.

Tao thought some of the boys are weird but they were nothing compared to Do Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo’s not weird like Jongin or Jongdae or even creepy like Chanyeol but he was a bit odd. He was fairly normal and for that Tao’s glad. God knows normalcy was a fancy idea when he became one of the students of SM High.

He was curled up on his bed under the cover when Kyungsoo came knocking on his door. Tao had opened it just to be faced with a blank-faced Kyungsoo. He was looking at Tao but at the same time, Tao felt like he was looking at something else even though his big, doe eyes were staring straight at him.

“Kyungsoo-hyung?” Tao had asked hesitantly when the older boy just stood there, expression void of emotions.

“The end is near for he who frees the soul has come,” Kyungsoo finally uttered, still unblinking.

Tao tilted his head in confusion.

“The tortured soul will rejoice and suffering shall be no more,” he finished. His eyes blinked slowly, seeming to come back to himself as the older boy’s rigid stance relaxed into something looser and his eyes lost the haze.

“Oh, Tao! What’re you doing here?” The older boy blinked in surprised.

The boy in question was even more confused than ever.

“Uh, hyung. This is my room. You knocked on my door,” Tao answered, bewilderment colouring his tone.

“I did? Huh,” Kyungsoo muttered to himself.

“Never mind. I’ll get going then. Jongin’s waiting for me,” Kyungsoo grinned charmingly before bounding away, leaving one baffled Huang Zitao behind.

Like he said, it was two long and interesting weeks.

~~*~~

If people asked about what was the thing that Tao had regretted the most in his entire life, he would say saying yes to Sunny’s puppy eyes. Sunny had asked for his help to deliver their collected homework to the Art Major building and it was completely infested with boys.

Tao quickly side-stepped a tall boy and had to catch himself from yelping involuntarily. He stuck to the wall as he walked down the crowded hallway in search of the staff room, arms loaded with books and sweat staining his collar.

Turning down an almost deserted hallway, Tao sighed in relief. He leaned against the wall for a few seconds to steady himself before moving on. He adjusted the grip on the books in his arms as he glanced around. A few girls had offered to give a hand but Tao had politely declined because he was able to carry them by himself, thank you very much. Besides, it was time for him to practice overcoming his fear, the very reason he was there in the first place.

The Art Major building was definitely bigger than their building. It was unsurprisingly very artsy. Every single wall was covered by paintings, murals, students’ artworks and colourful posters. Even the ceilings were painted. It’s like walking into a gallery, Tao marveled.

He passed a few rooms with students in it and Tao guessed they were studios of sorts. He could see from the windows that some of them were sculpting and some of them were bent in front of a canvas.

He looked up ahead and was pleasantly surprised to see Suho standing in front of one of the rooms. Tao took a deep breath before willing his legs to carry him to the other boy.

“Junmyeon-hyung?”

The said boy jolted in surprise and turned to look at him, face flushed.

“T-Tao.”

Tao glanced into the room and had to do a double take when he saw Yixing in one of the rooms.

A small concentrating frown graced the captain’s face and steady hands were sculpting clay. He glanced back at the male beside him who blushed harder at getting caught.

“I didn’t know Lay-hyung is an Art Major student,” Tao said.

“Yeah,” the older boy replied, something akin to longing playing behind his eyes as he watched Yixing.

Tao opened his mouth, a question burning at the tip of his tongue but was interrupted by Junmyeon.

“I should probably go. My work’s done here. See you later, Tao,” he smiled half-heartedly before walking away. Tao turned to watch him long until he disappeared around the corner.

He wondered about what the actual relationship between Junmyeon and Yixing was as he glanced back into the room to watch Yixing for a bit before remembering his reason for being there.

He quickly ly to bump into someone. Literally.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Tao rushed out and jumped back when he realized it was a boy, albeit a very pretty one with doe eyes and soft features. Tao quickly bent down to collect the brushes that had scattered on the floor as a result from the minor collision. The other boy just stood there, watching him. He stood up and held out the paint brushes to the unknown boy. The latter took them back and with a small smile and a nod, he was gone.

Tao’s eyes trailed after the other boy when suddenly, the bell rang, almost giving him a mini heart attack.

He sighed as he rubbed at his chest and stared at the books in his arms.

Why is the staff room so far? Tao whined to himself.

I'm baaaaaack. Miss me?

So sorry for the delay and what a delay it was. 2 freaking years! I'm very sorry for making you wait and to those that are still patiently waiting for this chapter, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for staying with me and not unsuscribing already. You don't know how much that means to me.

To those that has been messaging me and leaving comments in the previous chapter; trying to get my moving and to also show that people are still interested in this fic, thank you so much. I love you guys. You know who you are *wink*

I was busy the last two years because of life and also because of a major exam that I had to sit for.

Also, to tell you the truth, I had already written one version of this chapter and was ready to post it when my laptop crashed and burned a few months ago. It was a very devastating journey. All my work lost forever. I had to write another one. 

And so, here you go! Not much of Taoris interaction in this one but I still hope you guys enjoy it.

Please tell me what you think about it in the comments? *puppy eyes*

Have a nice day, lovely people <3