Kris has just finished putting his pants back on when the motel door slams open, a pissed off Chen storming in. Going right for his shirt, he picks it up and glares at Kris. “I forgot my shirt,” he spits, his glare turning even harsher.

When Chen turns to leave again, Kris runs over and grabs his wrist. “Jong Dae, wait.”

Shaking himself free from Kris’s hold, Chen pushes him back before stomping out of the room. Looking at the floor in front of him, Kris sees the shirt Chen came back for. Not even two seconds later that door is shoved open again. Quickly walking the few steps to his shirt, Chen picks it up and leaves, complaining about how his shirt obviously hates him.

Getting up and checking to make sure nothing was left behind, Kris bolts towards the door. Opening it and quickly running through it, he crashes into the person standing directly in front of it, both of them falling to the ground.

“Jong Dae, what are you still doing here?”

“The members probably wouldn’t let me in without you, but I don’t even want to look at you. And almost all of my money was spent on this room, and now I don’t even want to be here. I can’t even ask anybody for help because my Chinese still . So, to answer your question, I’m still here because I have nowhere else to go,” Chen answers, eyes starting to glisten because of the tears threatening fall from them.

Standing up and brushing himself off, Kris reaches down and grabs onto each of Chen’s wrist, pulling him up as well. “Come on, we can figure this out,” he says, leading Chen back into the motel room. “If you’re going to cry then at least do it inside.”

“I’m not gonna cry, Yi Fan. I’m just upset. This hasn’t exactly been my best day.”

After sitting Chen down on the bed, Kris goes to the bathroom. Coming back a few seconds later with a damp rag, he squats down in front of Chen, lightly dabbing it underneath his eyes. “Talk to me.”

“Talking to you is what got us here in the first place, Yi Fan,” he says, looking at the leader with venom in his eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong then.”

“Tell you… what’s wrong? What’s wrong!? I’m sorry, were you not just here when you were practically ing me with your eyes!?” Chen shouts, pushing Kris away again. “Just get out.”

Seemingly unfazed by Chen’s outburst, Kris goes right back to hit spot on the floor in front of the young Korean, looking up at him. “Why?”

“Holy , you’re an idiot,” Chen says, his face showing how surprised he actually is at Kris. “Because I don’t want to see you, Yi Fan. At this very moment, I’m one hundred percent positive that it would be more enjoyable to shove nails into my eye sockets.”

Standing up and making his way back to the same chair he was sitting in earlier, Kris sits down, looking at Chen. “I don’t get it.”

“Excuse me while I alert the press. That’s sure to make the front page of last year’s newspaper.”

“Shut up, Jong Dae. I meant I don’t get why you hate me so much when you obviously like me.”

“I hate you because you turn me into the world’s biggest idiot. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. It isn’t even the second. Honestly, I don’t even think it’s the third. That means that after all of that, I still let go of any pride I have the second you kiss me. I hate you because I know that, even though I’d love to push you over a cliff right now, I’d do it again without hesitating. I left earlier because you were driving me insane and the second I come back you’ve got your lips all over me, and I just let it happen.”

“I’m nothing special though,” Kris interrupts.

“I know! You aren’t! Which is why I hate it even more! You’re an , you’re a tease, you’re a jerk, and you’re a cheater –“

“Hey! You were about to cheat too!” Kris shouts, interrupting again.

“Exactly! I was about to hurt not only myself but two other people without even thinking twice about it. Do you have any idea how much you make me loathe myself? And even though I feel that way about myself whenever it comes to you, I know – I just ing know – I’d forget all of that if this happened again.”

“Do you love me?” Kris asks.

“Are you being serious right now?” Chen asks back, completely baffled at that question. “That’s what you feel the need to ask right now?”

“I’m curious.”

“Don’t be. After tonight, I’m sure the last thing you have to worry about is me being in love with you.”

“But you just said if I ever kissed you again, you’d kiss back without thinking. That sounds like love to me.”

“As long as you keep your filthy lips to yourself, neither of us will have to worry about that.”

“So then… you are in love with me.”

“YI FAN! Where the is your head right now!? That’s just… so far from being important.” Chen’s starting to get so frustrated that he’s on the verge of pulling out his hair.

Standing back up, Kris walks over to Chen again. Standing in front of him, he looks down at the younger. “I’ll probably regret this, but whatever,” he says as he leans down a little, wrapping Chen up in a hug. “We’ll get through this.”

Scoffing, Chen pushes Kris away yet again. “We will get through this? What do you have to get through, Yi Fan? You just missed out on a free ; that’s all.”

Shrugging, Kris sits down on the floor in front of Chen again. “It seemed like the right thing to say.”

“Trust me; the best thing you could say right now is absolutely nothing.”

“But –“

“I’m serious, hyung. If you just… don’t talk at all for the rest of the night, that would be the most helpful thing.” Standing up, Kris starts making his way to the door. “Where are you going?”

“To see if they’ll let me back in. You don’t want me to talk, and I can’t just sit here and be quiet all night,” he answers as he closes the door behind him.

------------

“Wah~!” Chen screams as he falls out of bed the next morning. “Hyung! What the are you doing!?”

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Kris looks at Chen on the floor. “Well, I was sleeping before somebody decided to scream directly in my ear.”

“Well what else did you expect me to do!? The first thing I expected to see when I woke up today was not your face!”

“What were you expecting then?”

Blinking a few times, Chen gives Kris a confused look. “Excuse me?”

“You said you weren’t expecting my face to be the first thing you saw. What was the first thing you were expecting then?”

“Anything else! , my heart’s still beating so fast,” Chen says as he holds his hands over his chest.

“I guess you can’t just fall out of love overnight,” Kris says with a smirk on his face.

“, it’s beating because you scared me.” Closing his eyes and taking deep breaths, Chen finally starts to calm down. “Wah~!” he screams again when he opens them back up to see Kris’s face only inches from his.

“I’m sorry… I just… had… to do that,” Kris gets out between laughs.

“God, you’re an ,” Chen says as he closes his eyes again, trying to slow his heart rate. “Why are you even here? I thought you went home.”

Sitting up on the bed, legs hanging over the edge, Kris looks down at Chen as he talks. “I did, but they wouldn’t let me in since you weren’t there. Min Seok ge even threatened to tear me apart if you were lying in a ditch somewhere.”

“You couldn’t even get Zi Tao to let you in?” Chen asks, finally opening his eyes again.

“He tried, but he kept yelling that Min Seok was blocking the door,” Kris says, a slight pout on his face. “I even tried to sneak in through one of the windows, but they were all locked. I came back to try to get you to go home with me, but you were already asleep. You looked really… peaceful, and I knew you really needed it, so I let you sleep.”

“And you just had to lie next to me?”

“I wasn’t about to lie on the floor! This is a motel, Jong Dae; not a hotel. You don’t know what kind of is crawling around on there. You’d probably be safer sleeping in toxic waste.”

After hearing that, Chen practically jumps off of the floor he was just sitting on. “Great, now I need a shower.”

“Need help?” Kris jokes, quickly changing his mind when Chen shoots him an evil look. “Too soon to joke?”

“There will never be a right time to joke about this,” Chen says as he heads to the bathroom, removing his shirt on the way.

------------

“Gege~!” Tao screams at the top of his lungs as he runs and jumps into Kris’s arms the second him and Chen walk through the door.

Wrapping his arms around Tao, he holds him close, kissing the top of his head. “Hey, Panda Bear.” Squeezing by the two lovebirds, Chen quietly says that he’s going to go find Xiu Min, and Kris nods. “Panda, let’s go somewhere, okay?”

Tao nods excitedly. Before they go, Kris heads to their room, Tao right on his heels. “What are you doing, gege?”

“I desperately need to change my clothes,” Kris answers, closing the door behind him and Tao. Quickly changing his clothes, he spins a few times. “What do you think? Look good?”

“If I had ovaries, they’d be exploding,” Tao answers with a grin on his face.

“Ovaries? Exploding?” Kris questions. “Huang Zi Tao! Have you been reading what people write about us again!?”

“I was bored without you last night,” Tao pouts, his cheeks a little pink. “I thought it would kill time.”

Rolling his eyes, Kris grabs two hats and two pairs of sunglasses, tossing one of each to Tao. “So nobody will recognize us.”

With a grin on his face, Tao puts them on and looks up at Kris. “Duizhang’s smart.”

With a matching grin on his face, Kris crouches down in front of Tao. “Hop on. I’ll carry you.”

Quietly squealing, Tao climbs onto Kris’s back, wrapping his arms loosely around the taller man’s neck.

------------

“Why do we always end up coming here, gege?” Tao asks as Kris pushes his swing.

“I don’t know. It’s sort of like our spot,” Kris says, a small smile on his face as he looks at the grin on Tao’s face. Seeing the huge smile on Tao’s face, it’s already breaking Kris’s heart thinking about what he’s about to do. “Panda Bear, let’s talk.”

Dragging his feet on the ground when the swing is close to the ground, Tao twirls around in the swing when it stops to look at Kris. “Okay, duizhang.”

Sighing, Kris sits in the free swing next to Tao. “Panda –“

“If it’s bad,” Tao interrupts, “then just say it right away. Don’t drag it on. Treat it like a band-aid.”

“Okay then,” Kris says, clearing his throat. “I’ll just get right to the point.” Twirling a little so he’s facing Tao, Kris holds out his hand, the younger quickly giving him his own. Running his thumb back and forth over Tao’s hand, he looks up at him. “We almost slept together last night.”

Nodding, Tao uses the thumb of his other hand to do the same thing to Kris. “It was bound to happen when we pushed you guys out last night. The other members are always thinking with their emotions. They don’t think too far ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like I’ve just sat around and ignored the world as I grew up, Yi Fan. When you stick two people together who tend to have heated arguments, more often than not, they’ll have . It just seems like the chance of that happening would be even greater with you and Jong Dae because you’d already had a thing together before.”

“Panda Bear –“

“No,” Tao interrupts again. “Honestly, I don’t want to hear whatever excuse you’re gonna give me about why you did it, or even why you didn’t do it. What matters to me is that you told me right away this time instead of just lying to my face about it.”

When Kris’s phone starts ringing, Tao lets go of his hands and stands up. “That’s Joon Myun hyung. I called him last night and told him that what happened between you two probably would, and I told him I would give you one more chance if it did. He’s not happy, and I’m sure you’ll find out just how angry he is when you answer that.”

“One… more chance? You’re giving me another chance?” Kris asks, surprise evident in his voice.

“I’ve loved you from day one, gege. I love you enough to be okay with this. I’m the one who even told you to just do it if that’s what it took for you two to make up. While I’m glad you didn’t, that doesn’t change the fact that you almost did. So you get one more strike. One more, Yi Fan. If you mess it up, I won’t even think twice about dumping you.” As Kris’s phone starts ringing again, Tao starts walking back to their dorm. “I’d answer that this time. He’s already pissed off, and it’s just going to get worse each time you don’t answer your phone.”

As Tao walks away, Kris heavily sighs and answers his phone, the Korean leader shouting every swear word he can in one breath the second the call connects.

______________________________________________

A/N: Annyeong~. I apologize for not updating for a couple of days. Trying to juggle two stories is a bit harder than I thought it would be. I get in the mindset for one story, but end up writing the other one, and it gets all funky. I'm gonna have to work on a schedule for the two.

Have you guys watched Happy Camp yet? That show just boosted Exo-M's popularity with me by so much. Everybody is just so ing adorable that you have to refrain from squealing. Lol.

-Stretches-
Comments time. There were so many the first day.
Luckily, a few of yours were all about the same thing, so I'll just tell you all what I told somebody else at the end of this author's note.

@fluffcloud - I can always count on you for hilarious comments. Lol. Lots of Joey hugs for you!
@shimhaneul - I think we all feel for poor Chen. T_T
@T-exoticblackjack - I think a lot of people were expecting TaoRis . I lost a few subscribers because of it. >.<
@KoreanDreamer - Who knows where those evil pants were. Lol. It seems like you can never find things when you're in a rush to find them. >.>
@VitaminBuns - Based on the trailer before it came out, Jaejoong looked like he'd be the bad guy. Definitely makes me want to watch it. Gorgeous Jaejoong + bad guy = yes please.
@starkey - Hopefully I can find a way to work XiuMin into the next chapter. Don't want people thinking he doesn't know or something. T_T
@wowphantasticbaby - Lol @ that comment. Nice to know you were pleased with them not getting together like that. xD
@farafim - Apologies for breaking your TaoRis heart. <3  I hate when people put warnings/spoilers at the beginning, so I never do it myself. :3  I sowwie.
@Bao-N-Tao - Yes, I definitely know you're a silent reader half of the time. Lol.
@Thebloodiestrose - If you sit Chen down for a talk like that, make sure to send him my way after please. <3
@renprix - Always feel free to let your thoughts known. No need to worry about what other people will think. The only person who reads it that matters is myself. Lol. (God, that makes me sound like such an . Did I make sense?)
@VisualVolume - Thank you~. Joey likes that you adore his writing. ^_^
@xxjenjaexx - Haha. Thank you for all three comments. If this is what made Tao your ultimate bias, then you're welcome! You definitely chose a great one. :D
@krismaticlove - Ha! Isn't the image of KrisChen in underwear just glorious? *_*
@JangDaeByul - You gets lots of Joey hugs. Lots and lots of Joey hugs. ^_^  

To all of you that liked the KrisChen moment, Joey appreciates it. <3
To those of you that didn't, Joey also appreciates you letting him know. Lol.

Now then! To those of you that were definitely not liking the KrisChen moment (and/or were confused by my last author's note), I shall tell you all what I told someone else:

I would like to preface this comment by saying that I appreciate what you said. I actually prefer harsher critiques because they let me know where I could fix things up. Just wanted to make sure you didn't think this was a reply from a butthurt author. xD
It isn't that I changed my mind about the pairings halfway through. This was originally just supposed to be a one-shot. I had absolutely no plans on taking it as far as it's come, so I never really had a set-in-stone plan or anything. Because of that, I have absolutely no idea where this is even gonna end, so I sometimes have to create some sort of drama to keep it going.
I could definitely see how it comes out as me preferring KrisChen over TaoRis though. That's definitely not the case though. I'm a TaoRis lover morning, noon, and night. What I was hoping would be conveyed through the A/N is that I was somewhat giving the TaoRis readers what they wanted (by stopping KrisChen before it got worse) while still doing what I wanted to sort of...make the story move on. I felt like something needed to happen again between them to make the story move. That probably makes no sense. Lol.
Admittedly, my biggest issue is definitely trying to please everybody while still doing what I feel needs to be done.

NOW THEN!
Finally, I hope you enjoyed this update.

-Goes back to Tumblr while grumbling about how long this a/n is-