Kris sighs as he runs his fingers through already disheveled hair, wishing for the thousandth time that he’d chosen another time to agree to another one of Tao’s tutoring lessons. 

But when the black haired boy had come to him with a pitiful, exasperated look on his face due to that night’s drop-dead boring Magical Runes homework, Kris had agreed to aid him. Thinking back on that moment, he wishes he would have just told Tao to go ask someone else for help.

After all, tomorrow is Slytherin’s first Quidditch game of the year, and Kris is not planning on losing to those nerdy Ravenclaws. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like helping the kid out, but after repetitively copying down the same rune ten times in a row you’d think Tao would at least start to understand this crappy enlightening subject. 

 “Nooo, that one’s Isa and that one’s Raidho, Tao, not the other way around.” 

“Oooh, gotcha Kris, thanks,” Tao says cheerfully, flashing a smile at Kris, who smiles in return, albeit a bit forcefully, before closing his eyes briefly and taking a deep breath.

“Give me strength.”

Reopening his eyes, Kris bites back a yelp as he sees a pair of dark black eyes topped with a mop of equally black hair right in front of his face. 

“You okay Kris?” Tao asks, concern mixed with something Kris can’t exactly place flashing across his face before his usual happy expression comes back. 

“Uh yeah, I’m fine Tao, just a little tired.” 

“Oh, ah crap sorry, I completely lost track of time Kris. Yeah, I guess we should probably go to bed,” Tao says, scrambling out of his chair as he observes the completely empty common room. 

“Yeah...bed time seems nice,” comes the muffled response, most likely due to the fact that Kris is now face down on the table, tiredness slowly but surely catching up to him. 

The black haired boy continues to collect his papers when a soft snoring sound freezes him in his tracks. 

Uh oh. Kris is asleep, and awakening a sleeping Kris is quite similar to tossing oneself into a Hungarian Horntail’s cage without a wand. 

“Maybe I should just let him sleep and drag him to the room,” Tao thinks, hoping he will be able to come out of this incident with his life still intact. After all, the Slytherin rooms are all on the same floor due to the location of the house, so it won’t be too hard to drag a person across that distance. 

 “Alrighty then, best get it done,” Tao thinks, taking a deep breath and trying to ignore his quickly escalating heart rate. 

Slinging his bag over one shoulder, Tao gently grabs Kris under his arms, hoping the latter won’t wake up. 

Unfortunately though, Tao has greatly underestimated the weight of this kid, because he loses his balance and crashes to the floor. 

Kris, having been lifted up partially and then let go of, re face-plants back onto the table, the force waking him up from his slumber. 

“I WILL DESTROY YOU” Kris shouts, reeling back on the bench, almost resulting in him landing on Tao who is still on the floor behind him. 

“K-Kris it’s just me! Sorry I woke you, but we need to go to sleep now,” Tao stammers, heart pounding at Kris’ sudden outburst. 

“Oy, what did you do to my face” Kris says, rubbing his face from where he’d landed on the table. 

“Aish, sorry, you sleep like the dead,” Tao mutters, heart returning to its normal pace now that Kris is awake. 

Tao sighs, looking at all of his papers scattered across the room from where he fell. Both boys bend down to collect the papers, Kris still ruefully rubbing his nose, which has suffered the worst after his crash landing on the table. 

Picking up one of Tao’s sheets, Kris stops as he looks at the grade on the sheet. 

Ninety-eight percent. 

Then the subject: Magical Runes. 

Ninety-eight percent. Magical Runes. 

The subject that Kris has just stayed up until past midnight to tutor Tao in, not to mention all of the other late nights spent studying the subject. 

“What is this?” Kris asks quietly, handing the sheet to Tao, who freezes when he sees what it is. 

“Umm, you know what, I actually think that’s Kai’s. He dropped it in class and I was gonna gi-” 

“It has your name on it, Tao,” Kris cuts him off quietly. 

Tao gulps, starting to feel a little worried due to the emptiness of the common room and Kris‘ unnervingly quiet tone. “You know what?” Tao chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m just gonna head off to bed, thanks for helping me, goodnight!”

However, when he turns around, Kris is suddenly in front of him. 

He chuckles darkly, taking a step forward. “Tao, explain this,” he says. “Quickly,” he adds, taking another step. 

Under other circumstances, earlier circumstances, Kris may not have been feeling so...murderous, perhaps? However, the combination of the lateness of the night, his newly throbbing face, and now this discovery definitely contributes to his anger.

“Alright, alright,” Tao begins, gulping. “I may have asked for your help, unnecessarily, because I like you ...spending time with you,” Tao finishes with his eyes closed, hoping that that last sentence doesn’t  sound too weird. He cracks open one eye to see a still fuming, if not more mad, Kris in front of him. 

“Spending time with me? Tao you know how busy I am! I don’t have room to just spend time. And now I learn after a year of these tutoring sessions, that I did for you, because I thought that you needed them, that you are quite capable of getting by on your own. And you did all this just to spend time with me?” Kris finishes, voice escalating more and more, taking a step forward with each pause in his rant until Tao is backed against the wall of the common room, arms still full of papers. 

Kris chuckles again, with no trace of humor. “You know what? I can’t deal with this right now. I have Quidditch tomorrow. I don’t need you to waste anymore of my time.” 

However, at this point, something in Tao snaps. Dropping his papers, he uses both hands to shove Kris straight in the chest, catching him by surprise. 

“Oh, well then I’m sorry if all of this has just been a waste of your time Kris,” Tao snaps back, shoving him again, hard, in the chest. “I was actually surprised you even agreed to help me since you’re usually so busy with your own plans, but you know, I was too happy at the moment to care. Maybe if you would take a moment to think about more than just yourself, you could see that other people actually care for you!” Tao nearly shouts in the other boy’s face. 

Kris wipes the shock from his face, replacing it with his usual smirk when he replies, “Of course others care for me. Everyone in this house and every other house knows who I am.”

Tao shakes his head, fists clenching and unclenching “Ugh, for one second in your life, forget about reputations and look around Kris! I don’t mean care for you because of your status, I mean care for you!” Tao finishes, not really sure how to drill this into the other’s head and too full of frustration after Kris’ typical change in personality to think clearly. 

“What do you even mean Tao?!” Kris growls through clenched teeth, frustration starting to affect him as well. 

“I mean I like you Kris!” Tao cries out, resisting the urge to shove Kris again and trying to keep from screaming. 

Thank goodness for the stone walls down in the Slytherin common room, or else the whole house would have been woken up by now from the ensuing argument. 

“Like me?” Kris says quietly, confusion slowly taking over his features, followed by a dawning realization. “You mean like you-” 

“Yes Kris, like that,” Tao replies exasperatedly. 

This had not been how he was planning to confess to Kris, and he fears that the feeling is not mutual.

“You know what, forget it Kris. I won’t waste any more of your time,” Tao says quietly, walking past Kris to make his way to the dormitor