Kris is the handsome duizhang. That's definitely true.

Kris is cool. Duh.

Kris is one of EXO's two leaders. True.

Kris is quite famous for his face and airports modeling habit. Yeah.

Kris is known to be a precious, kind being. Indeed.

Kris might have a few of his weaknesses known, too. One needs to agree as well, though with a little glare to s and their big mouths. (cough, bb creams, cough, sleeping, cough)

But there are a lot of things that still aren't known about Yifan. Like, his other little, small, tiny, insignificant, almost invisible weaknesses. And Yifan would rather keep those to himself and keep on being the cool duizhang.

So, yeah, he's so not going to mention that little, pretty much non-existing weakness that might have something to do with some peculiar creatures.

Quite creepy ones.

Ones with eight legs.

Tummies that sometimes are horrifyingly hairy, so Yifan always hopes the one he's seeing is not, because it only makes him feel even weaker.

Webs that get left in various places and Yifan's height isn't good at helping him to avoid those.

In general, Yifan isn't very lucky as the creatures are pretty much everywhere.


*


Yifan never really runs away though, regardless of how much he's panicking at the time.

Yifan isn't a silly person, he knows better. He knows that if you run away, the spider still stays in the same place. Or worse, it might hide. And most of the time, you need to come back to that place. To the spider. And it won't hesitate to attack again when you're least expecting it.

Yifan isn't a person, who panics and runs away. He panics only slightly, acts and then he waits till he's alone to panic for real.

Therefore it's exactly what Yifan does when he finds a spider. He panics slightly and immediately tries to figure out a tissue, a vacuum, something, anything and gets rid of the spider (for example, he flushes it in the toilet). And then Yifan proceeds to freak out in solitude.

This way totally sounds proper.


*


Except, one night the last part doesn't quite go the same way it usually does.

It's a few months before the debut, during a ridiculously hot night when Yifan ends up sleeping on some blankets on the floor. Jongdae doesn't seem to mind the temperature as much as Yifan does and Luhan just laughed in his face at the idea, so the two stay on their beds.

Somehow later at some point of the night Yifan wakes up suddenly. He hardly sees anything in the darkness and keeps laying down trying to figure out what awakened him. It takes a moment for Yifan to notice that his thigh is a bit itchy. He moves his legs a bit, hoping the itching will go away without him having to change his position.

Only then he realizes the itching seems to be, like, moving on his thigh?

Feeling alarmed, Yifan quickly moves up his upper body a bit to reach the small lamp on the nightstand beside the bed and turns the light on.

Alarmed turns into panicked when Yifan sees a ing spider walking on his thigh. It's not that big (thankfully as hell), but it's still a spider.

Immediately Yifan jumps up slapping the spider off his leg onto the blanket. He grabs one of the tissues out of the box that for some reason Jongdae put on the floor next to one of the legs of his bed. He catches the spider running on the blanket and squeezes his fist, not wanting it to get out and start taking a walk on his hand. The moment Yifan gets a steady grip on the tissue ball, he pretty much runs out of the room towards the bathroom.

In a few seconds Yifan's in there and throws the tissue-wrapped, hopefully-dead spider into the toilet. Immediately he closes the toilet seat and flushes.

Still a little bit on his adrenaline high, Yifan walks back to his bedroom. He stands in the doorway and glances at the blanket suspectfully.

No way in hell Yifan's sleeping on the floor again.

He makes a hesitant step towards the blanket to fold it and put it back to the closet. Then he makes another step and, oh, here comes the freak out.

Yifan makes a step backwards.

And runs out of the room again.

His goal is to go to the couch and turn the tv and distract himself.

He fails at the goal very quickly, as it turns out.

While Yifan's running into the living room and freaking out and just not really paying attention to his surroundings in general, he kind of bumps into a person. Yifan's speed definitely would make the other fall, but before he can even think clearly, he embraces the person.

It's clear they're quite surprised by the suddenness, but the body relaxes quickly and hugs Yifan back. And suddenly everything changes.

Yifan feels himself calming down, his breath slowly evening and he finally realizes the person is Minseok. He tightens the hug.

Minseok starts making circles with his palm on Yifan's back, the movement relaxing the younger even more.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Minseok asks after a few moments, when he finally feels Yifan is breathing normally.

Yifan only shakes his head. Minseok doesn't really see that, his face kind of squeezed into the other's chest, but he feels the movement.

"Okay," Minseok murmurs quietly, not stopping the circles.

The two boys keep standing a few minutes more, till Minseok feels Yifan's arms around him relax. He gets out out of the younger's embrace and starts dragging him lightly towards the couch.

Yifan lets himself be dragged, not letting go of Minseok's hand.


*


It takes a few weeks after the debut, before they finally have an evening off.

Yifan's in China with the other five, while the Korean six are in Korea and busy that night, so it's not like they all can spend the time glued to computers together and talking online.

So as the evening comes, Luhan and Tao are out, the older one having missed bubble tea and convinced the maknae by promising to spoil him a little.

The other four end up spread out in the living room, Yifan pretty much lying on the only armchair, Yixing lying on the couch with his head on Jongdae's laps who gave up fighting with the older about that, and Minseok's sitting on the floor, his back leaning on Jongdae's legs and reading a Mandarin textbook.

At first Jongdae actually pretended he's glancing at the book Minseok's holding and sometimes even asked him to read something out loud, but soon he decided he didn't care anymore and now he's just flipping through tv channels, stopping at some at times and nodding as he understands.

Suddenly Yixing grabs the remote and throws it on the floor, where he knows Jongdae's being to lazy to think about moving.

"Let's watch this!" he explains the theft and dropping of the remote.

Jongdae glances at the tv and frowns at Yixing.

"Really, hyung?" He doesn't look pleased seeing some probably American, most likely old, not looking interesting at all movie.

And then Jongdae hears the tv talking in Chinese and it's not making the movie any more wanted choice.

"Yeah. It's kind of funny. And the plot and language are easy, you'll be able to follow." Yixing pats Jongdae's knee, smiling slightly.

Jongdae nods, appreciating the thought and decides that okay, whatever.

Yifan couldn't care less as he's glancing at the tv, not really watching it.

Except a few minutes later he actually starts feeling uncomfortable as he understands why Yixing said the plot was easy. Because, yeah, it doesn't sounds complicated.

Movies about giant spiders rarely are complicated.

And Yifan isn't that freaked out by spiders in movies, especially when they don't even look that real, but then suddenly lots of little normal-sized spiders attack a person and finally Yifan feels like moving. Like, out of here. Away from the movie.

Hoping his face is on and not showing how he's trying not to look at the tv, because ew, he quickly gets up and walks out of the room.

Yifan's actually going to his and Jongdae's bedroom, when he sees Minseok coming out of his and Tao's, no textbook in hand anymore.

Quite out of nowhere, Yifan remembers that one summer night last year and kind of on a whim he pulls Minseok towards himself by his hand and embraces him.

Minseok's surprised, of course, but he relaxes quickly, hugging back. He remembers that night as well and, while these two sudden hugs might have nothing in common, somehow he feels like Yifan still doesn't want to talk about it. In a way, he doesn't even seem to need to talk, but just to calm down. And Minseok's happy to help with that, which he shows by tightening the embrace.

Yifan smiles slightly at that and feels that, yeah, Minseok's hug is definitely working and Yifan couldn't care less about an army of creepy spiders.


*


For a few weeks after the second after-the-freak-out hug, somehow Yifan's been feeling pretty brave about things. Like, he's ready to face any amount of spiders.

Though, Yifan knows it's not true, he'll definitely freak out again, but the feeling makes him feel better anyway. Also, Yifan's happy knowing that he might refresh the feeling, when it's needed. All he needs for that is his hyung.

Yifan smiles at the thought.

And then he realizes he just kind of zoned out again as he's sitting in his and Jongdae's bedroom and looking at random things on the Internet doing a very proper research on what fans have been doing or thinking these days.

It's getting late and all Yifan can hear is water running in the bathroom, so he assumes the other members are either asleep or getting ready to bed. It's good, because they all have had a pretty long day, they need as much rest as they can get.

Yifan grabs the cup and keeps on seeping his tea. He's actually frowning at something he's reading when suddenly a little surprise shows up.

As in, in the light of the screen, just in the middle between that and Yifan's face, he sees a spider dropping down on his web.

The slight panic appears and has Yifan jumping up, the cup falling somewhere on the floor, and running to turn the light on and then for a tissue. With just the same speed, he moves back to the table and tries finding the spider before it can hide among his things(!).

Yifan notices the spider quickly and grabs it with the tissue, squeezing his fist. Then he runs out of the room towards the bathroom as fast as he can.

Yifan speeds inside and throws the tissue into the toilet. He flushes.

He realizes someone's showering, though he doesn't really see who is behind the curtain. He walks out.

Outside of the bathroom, Yifan makes a few steps and finally the actual panic kicks in. He leans on the wall, trying to take a deep breath, at least one, and pretty much failing.

Because, seriously, a few centimeters closer and the spider would have dropped on his face!

Yifan closes his eyes, really hating that thought.

"Yifan?" He hears Minseok's worried voice.

Oh!

Yifan opens his eyes and notices the older boy standing close. Not even hesitating, he closes the distance between them and embraces Minseok.

Minseok doesn't even seem that surprised this time and immediately hugs back.

Yifan closes his eyes again, this time actually relaxing and his breath getting steady. He feels safe again, having Minseok in his arms, the boy's palms making nice circles on his back and his own starting to slowly, delicately the other's back.

Though, Minseok's back feels a bit different this time. Like, the thing he's wearing on his upper body is kind of soft and warm, but a quite strange way.

Yifan thinks for a moment.

He moves a little forward and looks down over Minseok's arm, which is actually pretty easy with his height.

And, yeah, what he sees fits to what he feels beneath his hands.

Minseok isn't wearing anything on his upper body. All he's wearing in general is just a towel wrapped around his hips.

Therefore, what's Yifan's touching is Minseok's . Very, very nice back.

Yifan doesn't seem to remember anymore that he was freaking out just a few moments ago.


*


Another few weeks later, Yifan and his five members are back in Korea. They've been for a couple of days already. All twelve have been hanging out and making up for the time away from each other, whenever they weren't busy at the company (which they were most of the time actually). So either way they end up ridiculously tired every day.

And this is how Yifan ends up feeling half dead at the end of the day, tired with all the dancing and practicing and then Chanyeol decided to drag him somewhere and now it's pretty late and finally, really finally he's about to shower and then he'll just to the bedroom and jump on his bed and sleep. He can't wait.

Therefore, Yifan quickly gets rid of the clothes and walks over to the shower. He turns the water on, wanting the temperature to be right, as in nicely warm, instead of boiling or cold, which for some reason are much easier to access.

When he finally succeeds at that, Yifan walks into the shower, finding the water pouring on his long, tired body relaxing. He closes his eyes and sighs at how nice that is.

He just spends a few moments standing like this, his whole body wet and warm and right.

And then Yifan opens his eyes.

He doesn't think it was a good decision, he should've kept them closed.

Because just on the level of his sight, on the wall of the shower, ridiculously close, there's a spider.

And Yifan's pretty sure it's staring at him. Or even, glaring. If the spider could, it'd blink at him.

Yifan blinks back and barely even breathing, trying his best not to move besides that, he slowly reaches for the shower head. He grabs it and immediately points at the spider, before it can react.

It takes only a moment to get the spider to drown and disappear in the drain.

And then there's another moment in which Yifan finally panics and gets out of the shower. He grabs the towel, wraps it around his hips and runs out of the bathroom, still all wet, with water dropping off his hair.

Without even wondering, Yifan directs to the living room as it's when he last saw Minseok, enjoying the other four members gone and Yifan busy as it had the remote just Minseok's and he could flip through channels in the language he had no problems understanding.

And Minseok is found just as Yifan left him, all relaxed on the couch. Only, he's panicking too much to consider the older wanting to be alone and not bothered, so Yifan just jumps on the couch and glues himself to Minseok's side.

"Y-Yifan?" Minseok looks at his dongsaeng surprised, not sure how to react to the sudden attack and him being wet.

"Just," Yifan starts, but his voice comes out too weak. He coughs. "Just for a moment." He looks to the side, knowing that he's probably creeping the oldest out with all the jumping on him out of nowhere.

Minseok blinks, still confused. But okay, if Yifan needs a moment to calm down from... something, Minseok'll let him have it.

Minseok's right hand is being held tightly by Yifan, so he uses his left one to maybe pat the younger's leg, as there's not much he can reach with Yifan kind of immobilizing him a little.

Except, Yifan's knee is wet and he's all wet and Minseok's starting to feel the water soaking his clothes and he can't really leave it like that.

He moves, trying to get out of Yifan's hold, which only tightens when the younger realizes what he's doing and looks at him worriedly.

"I'll just go for something," Minseok says, still trying to get Yifan off him. "I'll be right back."

Yifan sighs, but lets go of him.

Minseok stands up and quickly walks to the kitchen, yet first glancing at the younger and only then realizing how poor and innocent and even scared Yifan looks like that, all wet and dropping water, kind of curled up on the couch, with his legs on it.

When Minseok disappears in the other room, Yifan sighs and lowers his head. He must've really creeped the other out. He shouldn't feel so surprised and rejected by it, though, it was only matter of time with all the attacking the older.

He spends a few moments wallowing in self-pity, still panicking half from the spider, half from most likely scaring Minseok, when he decides he probably should move and go to do something with himself.

Except, before he can, something falls on his laps.

Yifan looks up and sees Minseok standing in front of him.

"Dry yourself," he says, pointing at Yifan's laps. He glances down and sees a towel. He takes it hesitantly, while looking at Minseok who puts a cup on the little table standing next to the couch and sits down.

So maybe Minseok's isn't that creeped out. Yifan smiles a little at the other's presence and finally starts wiping himself, beginning with his legs.

Then Yifan gets surprised again, when he feels something fall on his head this time. He quickly realizes it's a towel, a smaller one, and then with it Minseok starts drying Yifan's hair.

Yifan's smile turns wider and quite embarrassed, because of the situation he's in at the moment and only now realizing.

It takes them a few minutes, but finally Yifan's dry, his hair is almost and the wet towel around his hips gets exchanged with a dry one.

"Oh!"

Yifan looks up and sees Minseok turning around and reaching for the hoodie lying on the arm on the couch.

"Wear it," he says, handing it to Yifan, who glances at it hesitantly, at the leopard print, but decides that why the hell not, Tao's out.

Yifan puts the hoodie on.

"Here." He looks at Minseok again and sees him handing the cup. Yifan takes it and smiles at how warm the cup feels. He drinks a little, finding out it's coffee, and just the way he likes it.

"So... What are we watching?" Minseok asks, the remote back in hand, smiling lovely at Yifan.

"Whatever," Yifan murmurs, relaxing himself into Minseok's side, still sipping the coffee. He even decides to take a risk and takes the older's hand with his empty one.

But Minseok doesn't seem to mind as he squeezes Yifan's hand back.

If it's going to keep on ending like this every time a spider attacks him, Yifan wouldn't mind them doing that more often, he thinks interlacing his fingers with Minseok's.


*


The next day in the morning Minseok is one of the first that are up. Which isn't exactly surprising. And there's this thing that Jongdae and Tao seem to be at the other six's dorm, exchanged for Sehun, whose voice is heard along with Luhan's in the older and Yixing's bedroom.

Yixing's cooking and Minseok's watching him while sipping coffee and feeling like he's still at least partly asleep. So maybe staying up long with Yifan wasn't that much of a good idea, regardless of how nice that was. But Yifan seemed to be much more relaxed and calm when they finally decided to go to sleep, so Minseok has a hard time regretting the choice to stay up late with his dongsaeng.

Besides, Minseok thinks he managed to figure out what made Yifan freak out so much those few times. He guessed while changing the tv channels and finding one with a documentary about spiders. Immediately Minseok felt Yifan's breath stopping and the embrace around Minseok tightening, his whole body tense.

Then Minseok changed the channel and felt Yifan relaxing again.

So it seems like the spiders can be the reason. It makes sense. It explains the sudden panic attacks as a spider is possible to appear at times out of nowhere.

Minseok's actually in the middle of a quite big yawn, when he hears the dorm's door opening. What follows are loud voices and lots of them, which make it obvious who came even before Chanyeol, Tao and Baekhyun walk into the kitchen.

"Oh, only you are up?" Tao asks, sitting in one of the chairs, Chanyeol following, while Baekhyun goes to try to distract Yixing to steal his cup of coffee.

"Luhan and Sehun are playing in the bedroom," Minseok murmurs sleepily, watching Baekhyun starting to tell some exciting, distracting story to Yixing.

"Oh, let's wake them up!" Chanyeol grins at Tao.

Minseok frowns.

"But I just said they're not-" He cuts off, because in the end he doesn't really care. And he doesn't really want to know, especially seeing the mischievous glints in his dongsaengs' eyes.

"We should start with Yifan-ge," Tao suggests as the two are standing up.

Minseok glances at them.

"Don't," he says, voice not sleepy anymore.

Tao and Chanyeol look at him confused. Baekhyun and Yixing glance, too.

"Let Yifan sleep. I'll wake him up when he'll need to get up," Minseok says. The two only blink and decide to follow. When the oldest gets this serious and uses this serious voice, it's only smart to follow. Also, since he's saying that, there must be a reason.

"Okay," Tao agrees, smiling cutely. "But be careful~"

Because they all know that dealing with the dragon who didn't get enough sleep might be dangerous.

"And remember that he needs his morning creams time," Chanyeol adds.

Then the two move to the bedrooms, Tao grabbing Baekhyun's hand while walking out and dragging him with them.

Minseok just comes back to watching Yixing cook while sipping his coffee. He hopes the kids won't be too loud. And, yeah, he's counting Luhan as one of the kids.

"Oh, I didn't even notice when I finished my coffee," Yixing murmurs, frowning at his cup.

Minseok chuckles.


*


Yifan sits up, waken up abruptly.

Breathing feels difficult, he's panicking, still not fully out of the terrifying dream he just had.

It was a horribly terrible and bloody one. And it's not what usually fazes Yifan, there's really a lot needed to do that to him, but the dream was full of huge spiders and the blood was s'.

He remembers seeing Tao's massacred, dead body falling onto the floor as the spiders dump the boy and jump at Minseok who's been trying to fight them off the maknae, the oldest already bleeding and barely standing, but not giving up.

Yifan woke up to Minseok's scream.

He's still hearing that in his mind. He know it's not real, it's just his annoying imagination, but he hates it. He needs s safe, alive, healthy, whole, without reasons to scream.

Again, he knows it's just his imagination, but he feels the need to check on them. He needs to make sure everyone is okay.

Besides, he doesn't think he'll be able to fall asleep anytime soon anyway.

Yifan gets up from his bed and makes a few hesitant steps towards Jongdae's bed. He looks at the boy and as much as he can see in the dark, the younger seems fine, sleeping soundly.

He nods to himself, satisfied with Jongdae being safe.

Yifan makes his way to the door, going to check on the others.

When his hand almost touches the knob, he stops, a good idea appearing in his mind. He turns around and goes towards his bed. He takes Ace and then holding his fluffy little paw he finally manages to get out of the room.

Yifan makes his way to Yixing and Luhan's room first.

He opens the door quietly and peeks inside.

The two seem fine. And it looks like they've left the little lamp on again, Yifan sighs at this.

He walks in to turn the light off.

The next room on his way is the managers' one. As Yifan peeks inside and it also seem to be okay in there, the steady breathing heard clearly.

Now there's only one left. Tao and Minseok's room.

Yifan takes a deep breath and quietly steps inside.

He makes a few steps to look at each of the two carefully, their images from the dream still too clear in Yifan's head.

But as Yifan's looking, Tao seems okay and he's smiling as if he's dreaming of something very nice. Yifan smiles slightly too at the sight of his maknae being cute in his sleep.

Then, Yifan turns to look at Minseok.

The older seems just fine, squeezing the pillow in his arms.

Smiling and pleased with s being safe and well, Yifan hugs Ace whom he's been dragging with him all the way and turns around, ready to come back to his own room and his own bed.

After a step, he stops.

He's not sure if this is such a good idea, though, Yifan reminds himself. He doesn't think he'll be ale to relax in his bed, with his mind not busy, therefore with the imagination allowed to run as it wills and showing him pictures of giant spiders and his massacred members again and making him freak out like he's never before, he has no doubts it'll happen.

Yifan turns around carefully and faces Minseok's bed.

The oldest has been amazing at calming him down, so maybe he wouldn't mind doing that again. Especially since Yifan really needs it right now.

Yifan turns back to the door.

But Minseok's sleeping. How could Yifan even think about being so selfish and waking him up. Minseok needs his sleep. They all do.

Yifan turns to the bed.

"But..."

Yifan glances at sleeping Minseok.

He turns back to the door.

"No."

He sighs resigned.

But before he can even move towards the door and maybe walk out of the room, he hears somebody move, so he stops not wanting to make any sounds and disturb.

"Yifan?"

Yifan hears his name muttered sleepily.

Once again, he turns back to face Minseok's bed.

He sees Minseok moving himself up a bit and looking at Yifan, obviously still partly asleep.

"What's wrong?" he mutters next, blinking tiredly.

Yifan keeps looking at the boy for a few moments, considering whether or not he should tell. Finally, he decides that he might as well.

"I had a bad dream," he answers quietly and the realizes how lame it must make him look.

But Minseok seems to be too sleepy to notice the lameness and only moves on his bed a little, closer to the wall, and lifts his quilt up.

"Come here."

Yifan blinks at Minseok, surprised by the idea. But regardless of how sleepy, Minseok looks serious about that.

Yifan hesitates for only a moment and then he finds himself walking over to the oldest's bed. He glances at Minseok to check if the offer still stands. The boy's only looking at Yifan, one eye closed.

Cautiously, Yifan gets on the bed and lies down, trying to keep the little distance they can get. But Minseok seems not to care about that, as he just covers Yifan with the quilt and lets his hand stay on Yifan's tummy. Then he proceeds to ignore the younger's cautiousness even more and just moves closer to Yifan, cuddling into him. Satisfied with that, Minseok relaxes and closes his other eye, ready to go back to sleep.

For a moment, Yifan feels torn between pushing Minseok away a little, because "uh???", and actually embracing the boy. He finds himself dong the latter, Minseok's warmth too tempting and relaxing to give up.

Suddenly that horrifying dream doesn't matter as Yifan barely even remembers it anymore, feeling incredibly safe with his arms around Minseok.

Yifan has always been the one to take care of the others. He's always liked being the one those whom he loves and cares about depend on.

But he feels happy having someone to take care of him, too.