“This is none of your business.” Suho spoke calmly but the threatening undertone wasn’t hard to miss. The group didn’t realise that this boy was one of them but the blue glow on the back of his hand told them he wasn’t exactly ordinary. Lay, seeing that Tao was still losing blood looked at Suho questioningly, knowing Lay wanted to heal Tao’s injuries Suho nodded but as the teen stepped forwards the stranger growled threateningly and tensed up. Eyes widening Lay blinked, startled at the boy’s behaviour and spoke as calmly as possible, “I’m not gunna hurt him” posture relaxed and hands raised for the stranger to see Lay took another step forwards. The rest of the boys watched the stranger glare at Lay, obviously suspicious of his intentions but given the ritualistic fight that had just taken place they didn’t blame him. Tao had passed out by this point but as Lay healed his wounds the teen’s eyes flickered open, he half smiled at his friend, not noticing the stranger leering protectively over him, and spoke, his voice a little horse. “How’d I do?” The group laughed at the question and a friendly atmosphere broke over the tension easily now that the boy had been suitably punished.

Tao sat up slowly and noticing that the stranger was kneeling beside him and looked questioningly around the room. His friends shook their heads at him not knowing why the guy was there either. Suho stepped forwards again and helped Tao to his feet, smiling warmly now, “you did great Tao.” The teen smiled happily at the praise and turned his attention to the stranger again, the man rose to his feet and looked awkwardly around the room.

“Can I look” Suho gestured towards the stranger’s hand, wanting to get a better look at his badge, and smiled politely when the boy held up his hand for Suho to investigate, “what’s your name?” The stranger kept his eyes locked on Tao as he spoke to Suho, answering the question to him and smiling a little as he caught Tao’s eye. “Kris. My name’s Kris.” Tao tried to look away while the leader addressed the boy but he could feel Kris’s eyes on him the entire time and it was hard not to meet his gaze.

“Do you know what this mark means Kris?”  Again when Kris answered Suho’s question his eyes didn’t leave Tao, luckily the leader was preoccupied with trying to figure out the badge on Kris’s hand to notice, the rest of the group, however, were watching the pair with curiosity.

“It means I’m like you, right?”Looking up Suho finally noticed that he didn’t really have Kris’s attention and glancing from him to Tao the leader couldn’t help but smirk at the awkward eye-flirting going on. “Hey Tao,” the teen jumped a little at being caught and quickly straightened out and turned his full attention to Suho, “you wanna talk Kris through everything? I’m gunna take everyone out for dinner.” At the thought of dinner the rest of the boys forgot about Tao and Kris and the embarrassing display of interest going on between them and quickly dispatched to get ready, leaving Tao and Kris alone together in the training room.

Tao took a moment to flatten his hair and check himself over. After the fight he was a little messy and Lay’s healing abilities unfortunately didn’t stretch to healing clothes so there were a few tears here and there but nothing too bad. Extending his hand to Kris Tao introduced himself properly, “Zi Tao, sorry I kicked you by the way” Kris shook Tao’s hand and stifled a chuckle at the bluntness of the boy’s apology, breaking the handshake to rub the side of his head he smiled reassuringly.

“It’s cool, it feels fine now.” Tucking his hands in his pockets Kris looked around the empty room before turning his attention back to Tao, “so, what is this place?” Tao took a moment to think, trying to figure out how to word it without sounding like a marvel comic or a sci-fi movie but there really wasn’t any way around it. “Well this is the training room, but the whole facility is home and our hideout. How much do you know about your-” again not sure how to word anything Tao awkwardly pointed to the spot on the back of his hand where Kris’s badge was.

Looking down at his mark then back to Tao Kris sighed a little, “Um, I just know it’s always been there. I don’t really know where it came from but it’s never glowed before so that was weird.” The boy ran his fingers through his hair to give himself time to think before stuffing his hand back in his pocket, “I don’t really know what it means but, it’s not like your ability.” Cutting himself off Kris looked at Tao, expression a little strained like he was struggling to explain himself. Feeling better that he wasn’t the only one that felt weird talking about their abilities Tao smiled reassuringly and gave Kris the ‘EXO Planet talk’ that he’d been given when the group had found him three years ago, hoping he was doing the ‘save the world’ speech justice.