those are eyebags, and they look like panda eyes to her. 

he was hardworking.

staying up all night with jongin to master the choreography, eating only stale ramen and living by energy drinks with his yixing-ge, prying kyungsoo and minseok to teach him more korean (even though it’s already a lot better than when he first entered the company) and not sleeping a wink during the weekends.

she watched him work.

staying up all night with that boy kai to master their choreography, eating ramen and drinking energy drinks with yixing, always bugging kyungsoo and minseok to teach him more korean (although she can clearly see that he’s improved even though a few words have been exchange between them) and most importantly, he watches him fight a battle with sleep and wake.

"hello." it was a simple greeting, yet it made the ends of her hair stand.

qian bows back. “hello..” she watches him go. “have a great day!”

he turns back, and smiles and oh wow - does he look charming when he smiles. “i will, jeijei.”

she finds herself smiling too, brightly at that, because nobody has ever called her ‘jiejie’ in quite a long time. it has always been ‘victoria-unnie’, ‘vic-unnie’, ‘vic-umma’, ‘victoria-noona’ and ‘vic-noona’. she cannot even fathom how much she loathes being called ‘noona’.

so, she feels relieved; and relief feels good.

"the back flips are killing my back, gege, seriously."

cantonese.

qian can speak cantonese too, so she easily understands the conversation the two chinese members of the soon to debut group.

qian doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help it when they’re right outside their practice room.

"that’s alright." she recognizes the voice, it’s wu yifan’s. he’s patting the younger’s shoulder, she’s sure of it. "we’re going to be filming the music video tomorrow and during the live shows, you won’t be needing to do the back flips."

"but i have to do them in the smtown concerts though -"

"you’re thinking ahead of yourself, we haven’t even debuted."

qian doesn’t hear anymore than that. later on in the evening, she searches up ways on how to soothe back pain.  

"here."

he blinks. she flushes.

he looks at her palms, she looks at the ground.

"what’s this, jeijei?"

"it’s an ointment, it supposedly soothes back pain." she says, and she doesn’t explain any further than that because right then, she hands the small plastic container of ointment to him.

"please use it well." he doesn’t ask why or how in the world she knew about his back pain, and she’s more than glad he didn’t because she couldn’t think of an excuse.

“thank you, and i will.” he’s smiling directly at her, and qian finds herself smiling back. he was always handsome and charming in her eyes.

"your eyes." she suddenly blurts out and almost dies of embarrassment when she sees his reaction. she quickly covers it up. "they’re - they’re, uhh, I mean, you look tired."

nice save, qian. jeez.

he closes his eyes and his fingers touch the lids. he opens them again, and he’s still smiling at her when he does. “oh, yeah, well, we’ve been practicing really hard these days, jeijei.”

she likes the sound of ‘jeijei’ so much, she’s smiling again.

he tosses the ointment she gave him from hand to hand. “and none of us are getting enough sleep, so it’s not really a surprise I have darker eyebags than the rest.”

"hmm, panda eyes."

"what?"

she continues to smile. “you look like a panda with those. like a kungfu panda.”

his smile looks even more genuine, somehow. “i do wu shu, not kungfu though qian-jei.”

qian-jei.

"nevertheless, you still look ike a panda."

he wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth, being funny, teasing her or was doing all of the above. she wasn’t so sure either. so they laugh togehter. him, her- them.

from that day on, he introduces himself as a panda to everyone and anyone who would listen to him. a kungfu panda, at that.

- ; if you guys are interested (which you probably aren't) i also posted this on my tumblr account: akdorks.tumblr.com because i don't know, vic and tao just gets to me. kbye.