Your morning run with Yixing was a regular thing. After a week of doing it every single morning you found your body waking up early on its own. After that you never even considered skipping it. You felt more energized and you even kept your pace better. You weren't sure how long he usually ran on his own, or what his own pace was like, but when you started running with him, he merely fell silently in step next to you and never once complained that you went too slow for him. He just ran. And you just ran. It was nice and it was comfortable and you found yourself actually looking forward to those quiet knocks on your door at 5:30am. Sometimes it was rainy, sometimes it was chilly. But it was always quiet. It was always dark. And it was always with him.

Honestly, in its own weird way, it felt like dating. Well, the beginnings of dating really. You were getting to know each other. Of course he never talked while running and sometimes when he'd show up at your door he didn't even say a single word to you until you'd turn to wave goodbye back at your apartment after it was done. He'd usually just say “see you at training” and he'd disappear as you closed your door on his pretty, yet frustratingly blank face. Despite that, the intimacy of your early morning runs with him were making you feel more and more attached to him. You looked forward to your time with him so much that the idea of going without it made your heart ache. You knew the direction your feelings were taking was dangerous. Yixing was your teacher. He was nothing more.

He had been so careful and cautious around you that you wondered if you were the only one who felt it. You wondered if you imagined the way his hand graced the small of your back every now and then. Did you imagine the way his eyes would trail down your body as you worked. Did you imagine his eyes on your lips when you would smile at him.

You would smile. Your affections for him plain and obvious on your face. His eyes would tick down to your lips, almost involuntarily and then he would look away. Stilling his features. Steeling his emotions. Putting up his walls. Your heart would ache at how badly you wanted to touch him. You would push it away. Drown it in the run. Hide it under the thumping of your feet on the pavement. And then you would inhale the smell of his sweaty skin as he breathed and moved next to you and you would be back into it. The desire coursing up inside you angrily, begging for attention. Begging for you to address it.

It had to be only you. He didn't feel the same.

If he did, he was a master of hiding it.

Trainings were different. Where the morning runs were calm, quiet, and intimate, trainings were loud and intense. But you found your stamina and strength was slowly increasing with each day. You'd push aside the soreness in your muscles from the previous day and you'd give it your all every time.

The self defense moves had graduated into real attacks. He showed you how to hit back. How to throw punches. He showed you where to hit to inflict the most pain on your attacker. The nose. The eye. The throat. The groin. No matter how big or strong your opponent was, you could always hurt them here. He showed you over and over how to use your opponent's force against them. How to throw off their balance so you could take the upper hand. The lessons would be peppered throughout the training as he mixed boxing techniques with self defense moves until the motions came so naturally to you, you could usually get out of whatever hold he tried to keep you in.

You weren't expecting it the first time it happened. You were outside sweeping the sidewalk in the back of the gym that led to the bathroom. It had rained and caked the walkway with mud and Yixing had been busy with something in his room before your lesson that afternoon. You noticed when you arrived that you hadn't seen Baozhi as you usually did before your lessons. He was usually on his way out, smiling and waving brightly as he took his helmet and his excited chit chat with him. He would usually give you a heads up about what kinds of self defense for women videos Yixing had been watching on YouTube the night before and you would giggle at your teacher’s diligence. He was first a foremost a boxer, but he wanted you to have a heads up on all sorts of attacks possible. Even if that meant late nights online. You found his extra efforts adorable.

You were concentrating on using the stiff bristles of the broom to unstick the caked on mud from the walkway when the broom suddenly flew from your grip and hit the wall of the bathroom wall with a clank. Your eyes widened in surprise and your mouth flew open only to be covered quickly by a strong calloused hand. You felt the warmth of strong arms wrapped tightly around your waist and the hand around your mouth gripped you hard, covering your nose so you couldn't breathe, pulling your head back into the stiff body that stood behind you. You felt heat and firmness and you could hear the steady rhythmic breathing of the man who gripped you hard.

The surprise of the attack caught you off guard and you felt it happen. Hesitation. You felt the pause in your counter attack and you flew backwards as you were dragged roughly off the sidewalk into the bathroom door behind you. You'd lost those precious few seconds to act and you were now on the move. The lights were out and the small window didn't let enough light inside to make out the features of your attacker. He smelled so familiar, but your mind was fighting to breath through his hand and the adrenaline.Your fingers pulled around his arm at your face. Trying to pull him off. He was too strong. Muscles in his forearm flexed and didn't give a centimeter.

Inside the bathroom your legs kicked at the wet tile, unable to get any grip, your feet frantically slipped around and you could feel the panic bubbling up inside you. You couldn't get the upper hand. He was too strong and your balance was already off. You felt dizzy, the hand was too tight over your mouth and nose and you couldn't breathe.

Your training. You had to remember your training. Your mind whirled and churned as you tried to fight back against your own fear as well as his strong hands.

You felt the wetness at your back as you were thrown to the floor and you felt a stiff body on top of you. His hands had to be off of you when you were thrown and you gasped a deep breath, desperate for the oxygen you had been deprived of. When you felt his hands gripping your arms tightly you bucked up under him. He tried to grab your wrists and you twisted and turned underneath his heavy weight. You felt strong thighs straddling you, keeping you down as he fought with your arms that just evaded his grip. The more you moved and evaded his grasp the more tired you felt your body growing. You had to hit. You needed to fight back. You couldn't keep this up for long.

You struck out hard in the darkness, trying to find a weak point and you were rewarded with a grunt of pain when you used your flattened hand to hard into his throat. He recalled a minuscule amount but it was enough for you to lift your hips and turn. You bent at the waist and s your hips around, bucking hard against him, and you could feel his balance give. You bent your knee up and you felt it collide with his abdomen.

You struck again, with your hand into a tight fist as he had taught you, finding something that felt like his ear and you struck harder than you had ever hit anyone before. Harder than you hit in the practices and harder than you imagined in your dreams when you fought with your nightmares.

You heard a pained cry out and you felt his weight fall back off of you. You lifted your feet and you kicked hard, sending every ounce of energy and force into your feet that hit him squarely in the chest and you felt his exhale. You heard the gasping breaths and coughing as you rolled away and found your own footing. You scrambled for your escape. You found the doorframe of the bathroom and you moved through it as quickly as you could. You didn't look back as you ran.

You pulled the door to the gym open and ran into the sanctity and familiarity of the open space. Once inside you felt your legs give as the stress of the attack took over your body.

There was a click sound. There was someone else standing next to you and you looked up in surprise to find Baozhi holding a stopwatch with a frown on his face. He was shaking his head as he looked down at you and you tried to catch your breath and calm your racing heartbeat.

“It's good that you got away but it took too long. He's not going to be happy with that.” Baozhi said as he shook his head and handed you a bottle of water to drink.

Yixing.

It was Yixing.

This was a lesson and you hadn't done as well as you should have.

You hesitated in the beginning of the attack. Yixing had told you over and over again that the first seconds were crucial in gaining the upper hand. You replayed the attack over again in your mind and you saw your many mistakes. When he first grabbed you, when you first felt his hand over your mouth that was when you should have moved. You should have struck fast and hard with your thumb over your shoulder where you knew his face would be. You should've aimed for his eyes, or nose. Somewhere sensitive. You should have turned your shoulders into his chest, using his own force against him instead of uselessly trying to pry his hands off. If you had shifted instead, turning around so the sudden action broke the hold of his hand over your mouth, you could've hit him before he dragged you.

You should have never even reached the point where he was able to drag you into that dark bathroom. You felt the immense disappointment. You felt the shame in your mistake and you knew he would be upset at you for your slip. How many times had you both gone over those moves, only to have it all fall apart and crumble when it really counted.

Your head lifted when you heard the back door open quickly and Yixing bounded inside. You saw red splotches on his neck where you had hit him. His ear where you had delivered the painful blow that made him retreat enough for your escape was bright red and looked like it would hurt for a while.

You saw the hard look in his eyes and you instantly rose to your feet with your head bowed. You knew he would be disappointed. You knew he would berate you for the hesitation that nearly cost you. You braced for it and you flinched hard when you felt his warm hand land roughly over your shoulder.

When you lifted your head you saw his brown eyes watching you and he bit down on his lip as his eyes searched your face. Was he checking your mood? Was he looking for signs of panic in your face?

“You,” he began, before he cleared his throat, coughing away the roughness you heard in his voice from when you punched him in the throat in the bathroom.

“You hesitated. Why did you hesitate?” He was still breathing hard but you could see his face change when he saw no signs of panic on your face. You saw the teacher coming out and you knew you would be judged harshly for your mistake.

You deserved it. You had ed up. He knew it and you knew it.

“I...didn't expect it. I hesitated because I was surprised. I made a mistake.” You dropped your eyes and your face. As you bit down hard on your lip to keep yourself from apologizing for your mistake.

“That's no excuse. You're never going to expect it. Try again. Why did you hesitate?”

Your mind raced. Why did you hesitate? You knew better didn't you? What was the real reason?

“I didn't think there was any danger here in the gym. I feel safe here, with you and Baozhi...I let my guard down.” That had to be it. Deep down you didn't genuinely feel like you were in any real danger in the gym. This was your safe place.

“Maybe, deep down, I thought it might be you and I didn't want to hurt you.” Your mouth was flying now, trying to figure out the real reason why you didn't defend yourself like you should have and you glanced up at him at your last confession. His eyes were wide and his brows lifted. You saw him drop his eyebrows and he furrowed them. There was a deep inhale and you felt the warm air from his lungs fly over your skin. You remembered his smell. The clean soapy scent that you definitely smelled during the attack.

“Baozhi, you can go now.” Yixing was still looking at you as he spoke to his brother and you heard the younger kid exhale a frustrated sigh in protest.

“Ahh, Hyung I'm running out of places to go.” Baozhi complained and you glanced at the kid as he stomped his feet and pouted. Yixing shot him a glare and Baozhi quickly his heels and retreated like a scolded puppy.

The door slammed shut and the sounds of his motorcycle driving away brought you back to the problem in front of you. Your teacher, Yixing was watching your face closely as his mind churned and worked. You could tell he was thinking by the way his jaw clenched and he chewed on the inside of his lip.

“So you knew it was me and you're afraid of hurting me?” He said finally and you quickly nodded your head in agreement.

“I could smell you.” You said quietly and the admission made your face heat up. As if you were confessing to something secretive with the embarrassing words.

“Smell me? I….what do I smell like?” His voice was quiet now. Different. This was curious Yixing. Not the hardass teacher you had become so used to, but the curious sweet man who sometimes smiled at you when you did well, and asked you questions about yourself and your day. This Yixing was rare. This Yixing made your stomach flip and you wanted to pounce on him when he showed up. This was the most dangerous Yixing of all of them.

“Clean. Like soap...and m-manly.” You could feel the wince on your face when you said it and you saw him open his mouth and quickly snap his lips shut instantly as he angled his face away from you. You could've sworn you saw a pinkness in his cheeks that wasn't there before.

You heard him clear his throat and he shook his head. As if clearing your words away with the shake. His posture straightened and he stood directly in front of you now. Then he moved his hands behind his back, hol