“You’re kidding me,” Kris marveled, dumbfounded. “You’re ing kidding me.”

“Something wrong?”

Just his voice made Kris want to punch something, but he managed to turn around relatively in control. “Yes,” he said dryly, deliberately not meeting Tao’s eyes. “Why does it even lock from the inside? I-we are already five minutes late.” He turned back, the padlock unsurprisingly out of place on the changing room door, then gave a half wave to show Tao. “The door’s locked. From the inside.”

“I know,” Tao said complacently.

God, Kris wanted to slap that smug smile off his damned face. He mused doing it for a few moments, it was very tempting. But then Tao opened a fist and Kris saw he had the key.

His anger was momentarily lost in a wash of shock, but it was quickly replaced with something that could only be described as outright fury. “Did you lock me in the changing room?”

“No. I locked us in the changing room.” He looked rather pleased with himself, but Kris saw that stupid smile falter when he saw Kris’s expression. Rightly so.

There was a pause and then Kris had Tao against one of the lockers, his back making a satisfying clank as it hit the metal. He wasn’t quite sure what he himself had said, but he knew whatever it was was had been filled with ridiculous amounts of profanity.

And Tao was laughing.

“ you,” Kris growled, tightening his grip. “Give me the damned key before I decide to take one of your eyes out. I’m late, you inconsiderate .”

Tao looked as if he was about to say something witty back, but then at the last minute changed his mind and instead simply raised his left hand. Kris gave another growl, but then he realized.

His left hand was bare.

The school-issued protective metal Cuff that usually encompassed Tao's left hand had, quite simply, vanished. Kris felt a buzz of horror spread across his skin. Without the protective Cuff, Tao was wild. Out of control. He was a time bender, and now the only thing that had barricaded him from sending the whole world into a never ending time shift was gone.

There was another moment of silence, and then Kris slowly loosened his grip and stood back with his arms crossed. An explanation was due. And Tao couldn’t explain when he was choking against a locker.

Firstly, Tao hooked the key into his belt loops, conveniently above his crotch, and then tucked it right into his pants. Kris ground his teeth together, choosing to look away once he realized what he was doing. With his eyes glued to the ground, he snarled, “So?”

“Oh, Kris hyung,” Tao sighed. “Always such manners.”

Kris could’ve said something extremely rude about Tao’s use of ‘hyung’, but instead he snorted angrily, patience quickly running out.

“Clearly,” Tao started, choosing to ignore Kris’s reaction, “I lost the Cuff.” He cradled his left hand into his right, grimacing. He didn’t mean to, but it was hard for Kris not to see the red lines that covered it from where the Cuff had been too tight. There were very real purple bruises at the joints, and Tao’s knuckles cracked unnaturally loud when he flexed his fingers.

Kris hoped he hadn’t flinched. “I…” he paused, once again forced to look away for a moment. “How? And why?”

Tao smiled wryly, stuffing the bruised purple hand into his pocket. “Let’s just say Kai owed me a favour. He did his thing, got the Key for me. I Unlocked the Cuff by myself. And because we needed to talk.”

Kris frowned, giving the door a fervent glance. “So...I’m not late?”

“No. Everything outside of this room is currently in a time warp.”

He swallowed dryly. What, he wondered half-heartedly, would he find if he opened the door? “Well,” he sighed, still quite angry. “What if I don’t what to talk to you?”

Tao barked out another laugh. “I figured you wouldn’t. That’s why I locked the door.”

Well then. He'd certainly planned it out. Because even if Kris got the key out of his damned pants, he had no desire to open the door while Tao’s powers were still in effect. Even looking at the door now gave him a very unlikeable feeling that was a strange cross between foreboding, and despite how much he hated to admit it, fear.

“Fine,” Kris said uncomfortably, figuring his options at this point were distressingly limited. “Let’s talk. The sooner we get this over with the sooner I can leave.”

Tao laughed again, and Kris was starting to think nothing could make that kid stop. “Straight to the point, then. Alright.” Tao pushed himself off the lockers against which he’d been leaning and strolled forward until he was mere hairs away from Kris himself. It made him decidedly uncomfortable.

It felt like eons before Tao spoke again, instead taking his ( time? ) to look Kris over, as if he’d never gotten the chance to do so before and wanted to drink it all in. The unreadable look in his eyes did nothing to help Kris’s uncomfortableness.

“Kris hyung, you’ve been such a real ing douche to me,” Tao finally announced, his voice distressingly calm for his words.

Kris didn’t say anything for perhaps a ( minute ) or two. He was still feeling bemusedly violated from Tao’s eyes raking up and down his body, and then it took a while after that for what Tao had said to really mean anything. When he finally realized that Tao was really not going to speak again until Kris answered, he had to look away once again.

“Well. That’s because I hate you.”

“You don’t say,” Tao deadpanned sacastically.

When Kris made no move to say anything else, Tao added, “If you don’t mind me asking, hyung, why?”

His use of hyung was getting on Kris’s nerves. For a moment he wondered if mentioning it would take them off this unfortunate topic, but one look at Tao told him otherwise. He hadn’t made Kai Teleport into high security and then Detatched his Cuff for nothing-which, probably worth noting, was likely going to result in both him and Kai spending a week in detention. He wasn’t letting Kris out of the room until he answered him.

“I-you,” Kris garbled meaninglessly, and then stopped. He worked his jaw in frustration.

“I’d like if you looked at me,” Tao said softly.

Kris felt his face flame. That was asking too much. But Tao stood his ground, and eventually Kris slid his eyes over in his direction and settled on staring at his right cheekbone. It seemed safer than, say, his eyes.

Or his lips.

“You’re distracting,” Kris managed to get out. That was probably closer to the truth than he would’ve liked.

“Am I?” Tao replied, raising an eyebrow. “It what ways exactly?”

Kris let out another strangled mess of words and felt his head drop, weighted. Damn. This made maths class seem like nirvana. Tao moved forward, his mouth set in a grim line, and Kris automatically moved back. He didn’t need Tao any closer to him. But then Tao kept on moving forward, until Kris found himself backed into a locker, and when he realized he was trapped he merely slipped to the ground in humiliation, legs splayed.

“Look at me,” Tao murmured, his tone a strange kind of dangerous.

It took several seconds but Kris obliged.

“Why am I…” the Guarder paused in sweet excrutiation, “...distracting?”

Kris didn’t answer. He really couldn’t.

Tao kneeled down so he was at eye level with the older boy. “Tell me.”

“Stop,” was Kris’s answer. He was so close to him. Uncomfortably close, like he’d been for this whole damn -time-. “God-” his voice failed him, cracking. “I hate you,” he squeezed out, something close to a tear welling in an eye. He didn’t cry. But damn.

“We established that already,” Tao hummed, and then he sat down on his haunches, and Kris was forced to take note of the fact that he was conveniently between his legs. Goddamn Goddamn God-

“If there’s something you really need to tell me, now is the time, Kris hyung,” Tao said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kris kissed him.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t -had they?- both seen it coming, Tao had been a mere two inches from his damned face, it was like he had been asking for it -had he?- but nevertheless it was fast and meaningless and-

Tao backhanded him. It stung. “Are you kidding me?” he shouted, and then climbed out from between his legs. “I ask you one simple question and you can’t even answer me-”

“You’re distracting because I think you’re attractive, ok? Now you kindly and please open the damned door,” Kris blurted from the ground, his voice momentarily rejoining him. He ignored the dull pain from his cheek, instead fixing his eyes into an unconvincing glare.

Tao gave him an amused look. They stood at a standstill for a moment, staring at each other, and then Tao settled back onto the ground, this time beside Kris. “Are you sure you want to leave right now?” he asked, voice somehow hushed and bold at the same time. They shared a look.

This time it was Tao who kissed him.

By the time they left the locker room it was three hours later. And Kris wasn’t late at all.

A/N: HAHA so yes that happened. I hope it wasn't too confusing, this was one small extract from what was supposed to be a very long story in this universe. Speaking of which, if by any chance you'd be interested in seeing more of this AU, let me know because I have written a few other scenes and I think it might be kind of fun to pick this back up. If you haven't noticed, a few of my other stories are also based roughly around this universe. I love highschool Mama Exo. Anyway, I hope you enoyed and thanks for reading <3