“Hate you enough to go crazy, hate myself for being like this.”

            -2PM (I Hate You)

[Taoris]

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Tao hated Kris.

He hated him so much.

From the moment he had woken up next to him quite bare in a forest in the middle of nowhere.

Wasn’t exactly the best first impression the two of them could have made on each other.

He slowly recollected the events of the previous night, shuddered at the memory of how his body had been wrenched and pulled and shoved mercilessly into a form that he was sure belonged to a werewolf.

He was bitten. He had changed.  

And the only one who could have done that to him was another werewolf.

He glanced at the unfamiliar person sleeping next to him, saw the blood all over his mouth, and made his own deductions. Ones that he really wanted to be wrong.

And naturally, one can’t always get what he wants.

Kris had woken up with a start, let out a yell and scrambled away from Tao with fear in his eyes, demanding his identity and the reason why he was sleeping next to him.

Now, Tao was only 19 years old and was very frightened and certainly did not appreciate his attacker treating him this way. But a situation as awkward as this called for some level of maturity.

He tried to explain as calmly as he could what had happened to him last night, but found that the night’s events were too much for his emotions to handle, and his voice broke as he asked Kris if he was the wolf who turned him.

He waited, hoping fervently that Kris would deny his claims, or do something to show that he was still sane.

Kris did neither.

Kris accepted Tao’s accusations as true, as the memories the out of control frenzy he had been in the previous night had come back to him.

He had thought that Tao was a Hunter, and upon seeing Tao’s confused expression, explained that there were people who secretly rounded up werewolves for profit.

That would have been the point where Tao lost control of his tears.

He didn’t want to accept this as reality. He didn’t want to accept the apologies Kris gave him, not when he had wanted so badly for him to tell him that this was all a dream and that he would wake up at any moment fully human again. He threw off any attempts at consolation the other gave him.

But even in his state of denial, he knew he could not stay in this forest forever. And if he really, really was a werewolf, he would be hunted, and he couldn’t go back to the life that he once knew.

So when Kris offered his place for him to stay, Tao accepted.

Over the next few days, Kris taught Tao how to be a werewolf. Though he himself was still fairly inexperienced, Kris still wanted to help Tao transition into werewolf life as easily as possible.

Tao listened, but he didn’t want to believe. He was scared. Scared of what he had become.

So Tao coped using the best self-defense mechanism he had. He retreated into himself and stopped talking.

____

The next two full moons made it impossible for Tao to deny his status as an immortal anymore. Both he and Kris underwent the transformations. Tao knew they wouldn’t stop; they would haunt him for the rest of his life.

So Tao woke up on the morning after the second full moon, both literally and figuratively.

Numbness gave way to anger. Indifference gave way to hatred.

He screamed and screamed in rage at Kris, cursed him for giving him this life, said things that he knew hurt the deeply wounded the older man.

Kris, though surprised at this change in attitude, was not one to take such things from others, and retaliated in his own way, yelling about how immature Tao was and that he should learn to grow up and act his age.

And so this went on for the next few months.

Every time the full moon rose, Tao somehow managed to channel his violent wolf desires toward Kris, which resulted in up-close werewolf combat. The two often woke up next to each other with several cuts and scratches, and turned away from each other at once with a huff.

Tao, however, was not a spoiled, childish brat. He quietly helped out in the house, brought food back when Kris was too tired to do so, did nothing to make Kris’ life more difficult than it already was other than bicker with him. Essentially, he and Kris were family, if not for the fact that the two refused to look at each other and fought savagely during the full moon.

And yet this fighting was getting to the both of them.

Kris tried to never show his pain, but Tao saw his face betray his sadness once or twice when he thought Tao wasn’t looking, and felt a twinge of guilt each time. But he always told himself that Kris deserved this, that it was all his fault that he became a werewolf.

Though Tao wasn’t so sure whether that was just solid reasoning or an excuse after he stumbled upon Kris in the forest one day.

The other didn’t notice Tao. Kris was much more preoccupied with slamming his fists into the tree trunks as if he was trying to break them. He gave a loud yell of anger every time he punched the trees, and only seemed to get more riled up as the flying bits of bark cut his face and the blood streamed down his hands.

“Someone tell me what to do!” he screamed to thin air. “What does he want from me?! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do – Argh!”

Tao watched.

Finally, Kris exhausted himself. All the fight seemed to have left him as he sank down to the forest floor and broke down in tears. Tao had never, ever seen Kris cry before. Not in front of him.

Tao walked away, crystal tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

It’s so hard to be mad at someone who genuinely cares about you.

Though Tao tried to despise Kris with every fiber of his being, he could feel the love and concern the other had for him. And he was getting tired of being angry with him all the time. He simply could not be mad at someone who took him in instead of leaving him in the forest to face his new life on his own.

Tao was not stupid. He was perceptive. Through his haze of anger, he was aware that Kris had not been a werewolf a long time, and that he was struggling with the very things he was blaming him for. The more he thought, the more he became certain that Kris had not asked for this life as well.

So as time passed, Tao stopped venting out his frustrations on him.

One full moon later, the two stood together in the forest, waiting to change.

Tao tentatively turned to the other werewolf.

“Kris?”

“Hmm?”

Tao took a deep breath.

“I think we should stop fighting. And that sounds really bad coming from me, considering I started it. I’m really sorry; I’ve really been a brat and I didn’t mean all those awful things I said. Can we… start over, as friends?”

Tao committed this moment to his memory. The first time that he saw Kris smile. He had such a beautiful smile.

Kris opened his mouth to answer when Tao let out a loud yelp. A collar had shot out of the darkness and connected around his neck, and more shackles flew from the abyss of the trees to bind his limbs together.

Kris leaped out of the way to avoid the restraints aimed for him.

“That was… disgustingly sweet,” a scratchy voice drawled.

Tao snarled, his yellow eyes flashing through the darkness. Kris heard a click, and Tao let out another cry as his manacles electrified him.

Kris was at his side in an instant, but was afraid to touch him, afraid to possibly cause him any more harm.

“As much as I like to see two dogs slobber over each other, I do have a job to do. I wasn’t expecting to find a second one, but just means more money for me.”

The Hunter stepped out from the shadows, holding a strange contraption in his hand.

Both werewolves eyed the instrument with apprehension. The Hunter chuckled, and tossed it into the air.

The metallic object expanded into a net. Kris threw himself over Tao, covered him with his body. He wasn’t going to get hurt anymore, not because of him.

Although it would appear Tao had different plans as he aimed a strong kick at his abdomen.

Kris flew into a tree with a surprised yelp, but his cry was nothing compared to Tao’s as the net trapped him and inflicted smoking burns on his skin.

“Wolfsbane net,” the Hunter explained, eyeing the whimpering werewolf with sadistic amusement. He turned to Kris. “Funny, how immortals are supposedly supposed to be the most powerful beings, yet such a simple thing of nature can bring one down.”

“Let him go!” Kris screamed, launching himself at the Hunter. The human, however, was faster than he had expected. Within seconds Kris found himself bound to a tree with crackling manacles.

“Fight and you get shocked,” the Hunter warned.

“Now, as for this one,” he kicked Tao with his boot. The werewolf growled in hatred.

“The moon’s about to rise,” the Hunter smirked. “Might as well have a bit of fun with you, right? I haven’t hunted in so long, I’ve forgotten how fun it was to play with my prey.”

He took out a silver knife and pressed the flat of the blade to Tao’s arm.

Tao struggled and yelled as the silver left scorch marks across his pale skin.

Kris yelled and fought against his chains, only to receive a nasty shock.

“You like that?” the Hunter crowed, and dug the blade a bit deeper.

Tao screamed again, but not just because of the knife, because Kris felt it too.

The moon had started their transformations.

“Please, please stop!” Tao groaned, whether he was talking to the moon or the Hunter, Kris didn’t know. The Hunter paid no attention, digging the knife even deeper.

“Ugh- Kris!” Tao cried as he felt the pain of his change and the Hunter’s gruesome instruments.

Kris was too far gone. Seeing Tao suffer was unbearable to him; somehow he wanted to protect him. No. He had bitten him. He had claimed him. He needed to protect him. Tao was his responsibility.

Tao was his.

He let out an awful snarl as his body shifted, and though he received shock after shock, he didn’t care. For the first time in his life, Kris embraced the change. He wanted to become the beast he himself had always feared, to save the one he loved so much.

His anger facilitated his transformation. Within seconds it was over.

With a fearsome howl, he ripped through the restraints and once again launched himself at the laughing Hunter.

The laughter turned to cries of shock as the Hunter gaped at the oncoming beast.

“But, they said they were unbreakable!”

Kris bared his canines and snarled.

The Hunter dropped his weapon and ran.

He didn’t get far.

People like him never do.

It was very quick. Tao’s muzzle had just pushed out with a final crunch when Kris came back bloodstained but unharmed and triumphant.

With a sharp claw, the werewolf sliced through the netting and the restraints. Later Kris would reflect on how stupid the Hunter was to use such low-quality capture tools for werewolves, but right now all he cared about was Tao.

The hurt wolf stumbled against Kris’ chest, whimpering softly. The older wolf nuzzled his head into Tao’s neck.

There was no hunting that night. No animalistic acts of violence. Both wolves lay curled up next to each other, comforting the other with his presence.

___

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

The two lay wrapped in each other’s arms as they were warmed by the red rays of the rising sun.

Tao was fine. He was tired, but the wounds inflicted by the Hunter weren’t deep. He would recover long before the next full moon.

“Thanks for caring about me, you’re one of the greatest people I could ask for.” Tao mumbled into Kris’ shoulder.

“About what you were saying about being friends…”

Tao looked up at Kris, seeing once again that radiant smile.

Kris leaned in closer, his breath ghosting across Tao’s lips, his eyes filled with an unfamiliar emotion. Tao tilted his head inquisitively, waiting.

“Want to be more than friends?”

Tao’s lips against his own answered his question.

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EXO-K Version of Leader & Maknae Love coming up soon :)