Tao dragged himself along the empty corridors. It was way too early for this. Well, actually, it was 2 in the evening. 2.07, more precisely, and he was already late for his studying appointment with Kris. The guy would kill him. But it wasn't as if he wanted to be there either. A usual Saturday, he would barely be having lunch. But here he was, with his stomach still full and starting to feel sleepy, looking for the damn library. Seriously, he should have paid more attention to Kai's rambles his first day of school.

Actually, the day hadn't started so awfully. Yes, it was quite annoying having to go to school even on Saturday, but he would still go to practice, so arriving an hour earlier wasn't really that difficult. And maybe, just maybe, he had misjudged Kris the day before. At least he hoped so. The guy was too fond of himself, and seemed to have his life easily. Sure, he obviously had the looks, even Tao, who wasn't particularly aware of that sort of stuff, could see it. His blond hair was fashionable, and he had an attractive face, with clear skin and pretty eyes. He guessed his body was fine too, seeing as he practiced a lot of basketball and had well defined muscles. But that didn't give him any right whatsoever.

When he arrived at school, the relaxed environment washed over him. Most of the sports clubs continued their activities even on Saturdays, and it made Tao feel excited. He had always felt at ease while playing sports. He was good at them, and it was a way of clearing his mind when things weren't great at home. Wushu was his passion, and he was even willing to go to that school, despite the difficulty of the classes, because it was one of the few in the country who recognized it as a sports team. Luckily, he hadn't regretted his decision. Yet.

All that optimism vanished as soon as he realized he didn't have a clue of where the library was. Sure, he remembered Kai pointing it to him, but how to get there was another thing. He climbed endless sets of stairs, ran through identical corridors, opened several wrong doors, until he found the library. He started running through the (oh, surprise) enormous and confusing library. Honestly, who the hell needed so many books? Finally, he located Kris by the end of the room, sitting in an almost hidden table, well bathed by the sun. 

"Late. Ten minutes late. What makes you believe you can have the luxury of wasting my time?"  Kris started with a well-controlled, arrogant voice, which made him sound just a bit threatening.

"Sorry, I got lost," was Tao's mumbled apology. It made him feel stupid as soon as he said it. He was ten minutes late, big deal. No need for the guy to be such an idiot. Yeah, he hadn't been wrong at all about him. He was just as egocentric as he had thought. The day before, practice had been horrible, filled with rivalry and unnecessary tension, making both teams uncomfortable. The rest of the wushu team seemed to like Kris, although none of them wanted to get into why they did.

"Look, Kris is kind of complicated. You can't pin him into a stereotype. But he is nice, and trustworthy. Just wait till you know him better," Luhan had advised Tao when he voiced his concerns about him the evening before.

He tried to keep that in mind as he sat next to Kris, who actually moved further away from him. What a jerk. The guy considered him with cold eyes and started the class. Now, if Tao hadn't hated being seen crying, he would have done so barely ten minutes into the session. Kris stood up in front of him, his hands on the table, shouting at him for who knows what. He got it, ok? He knew he wasn't particularly brilliant, but he just couldn't seem to be able to get it. Tao's hands were fisted, pressed hard against the wooden table. His eyes stung and he felt an unbearable pressure on his throat. Why did it have to be that way? Why couldn't he have a nice, sympathetic tutor who would be nice to him? Kris kept shouting, pointing at something in the book in front of him. 

"Would you just shut up for a second?" Tao finally exploded, pouring all his anger and frustration into it, "If you hate being my tutor so much, just leave, I'm sure I'll get it done by myself."

A smug smile appeared on Kris face as he calmly sat down across the table, "Believe me, if I could leave, I would. But not everything is about you, ninja."

Tao felt exhausted. Maybe his emotions had gotten out of control minutes earlier, but he felt he couldn't deal with Kris' emotional roller-coaster anymore. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. What bothered him the most was the fact that he couldn't just brush the insults and the hard words off, he kept on feeling bad about them, but his tutor could easily leave his anger behind and go back being his smug confident self. 

"Why are you doing this if you hate me so much?" Tao begun, feeling drained, "I'm sure the Principal would get it if you told him you weren't able to deal with me anymore."

Something different appeared on Kris' eyes. Tao couldn't tell exactly what, but something had changed. He leaned over the table, posture tense. 

"Not that it's of your business, but I am applying for a scholarship, and nothing is enough to make sure I get it," he broke eye contact, staring out of the window determinately, "I want to leave this place as soon as possible." 

Tao was pretty sure that statement wasn't meant for him to hear. A few silent moments passed before he heard Kris draw a breath.

"If you are losing my time, at least do something productive," he restarted the lesson as if nothing had happened, but the atmosphere wasn't the same.

Half an hour later, he stood in the locker room, preparing for his wushu practice. His bad mood was beginning to fade, as it always did when he was practicing, but deep inside him, he could still feel the weariness and the tension of the class. Sure, despite a couple of quarrels it had ended pretty good, taking everything into account, but just thinking about doing it all over again made Tao feel dizzy. Luckily the following day was Sunday, his only free day. His teammates exchanged concerned looks after seeing him. Wow, he must have looked worse than he though. Tao hated putting them in this position. They were worried about him, but they were also Kris' friends, so he tried to shake off the bad feelings and act normally. What he couldn't avoid, no matter how much he had tried, was the hateful look he shot Kris when the former appeared at the gym. The worst thing was that the guy had the guts to look smug and relaxed, unaffected. Tao tried as hard as possible to ignore him the rest of their shared court time. 

After practice, he decided to walk home. Actually, it wasn't as if he had a choice, but he liked walking, despite his house not being so close to school. One of his favorite things about moving to Korea had been his new neighborhood. It was located just outside a small city, where the school was, and was calm and open. On his way home was a big park, with beautiful flowers, trees and benches, like those you would expect to find in a movie. He decided to sit at the shadow of a huge tree for a while, and think. His mom wouldn't be home yet, anyway. Those had been a couple of intense days. He was happy about how things had turned out. Not only had he made it to the wushu team, but he was now the captain. He had his teammates and friends, and honestly the classes were better than expected. His tutoring hadn't gone so well, but he wanted to convince himself it was only a matter of time. Tao relaxed against the bench and thought back to a few months ago, when everything in his life seemed to be falling apart. The constant fighting of his parents had reached unbearable levels, his dad practically lived elsewhere and he could hear his mother's muttered sobs at night. Tao loved her so much it broke his heart seeing her like that, and he spent whole nights crying himself to sleep. But everything was finally right again. His parents had divorced, and now were on better terms. His mom, who worked as a businesswoman had gotten a better job, so they had transferred. Despite Tao's initial resentment, he was now convinced it had been for the best. He had never had many friends. When he was young, most of the kids his age were scared of him, as he was tall and had a hard face, and didn't bother to get to know him. Now it was the first time in years he had people who, despite having only known them for a couple of days, he could trust. 

Tao closed his eyes and let the warmth and the brightness of the day soak him, as he felt a smile grow in his face. He didn't know how much time had passed, but when he opened his eyes, the sun was about to set. He was pretty sure he hadn't fallen asleep; time just had gone by quickly. He decided to begin making his way home. Luckily, he would arrive before his mom did. She was still kind of paranoid about him being alone every day, even on Saturdays, despite Tao's reassurances that he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. 

Slowly, he got used to his new life. Every day, he went from school to classes with Kris, who seemed to be getting used to his "annoying presence", and they usually ended up bickering. They just didn't seem to be able to be together peacefully, although Tao had started to enjoy fighting with him, not that he would ever confess it. One evening, they were surprised to find their usual hidden table taken; the whole library seemed to be filled with panicky students worrying about their exams. Kris strode towards one of the central tables, filled with students, and they all moved aside to make room for him. That wasn't the case with Tao's approach. He had to squeeze himself between students until Kris just glanced at them and they moved aside. Tao chuckled. Sometimes, the hierarchical differences at this school where annoying, but most of the time, he couldn't help to be amused by them. What he had learnt on his couple of weeks at school was that it functioned like those he only thought were found in movies. The basketball team was like royalty. Yeah, Kyungsoo had told him about it, but he had just thought he had been exaggerating. Come on, who could honestly thing like that?  Apparently, everyone. When the team walked by, crows parted, girls swooned and guys felt envy. Or at least that's what Tao had been told. Most of the team members, with a few exceptions, were nice guys and, despite being quite smug, and enjoying it, they didn't seem to give popularity too much thought. Both Kai and Sehun were in that group, together with Chanyeol, an extremely happy guy who had instantly got along with the group, Chen, whose smile and charm had earned him more than a couple of fans, and Lay, Kris' best friend. Kris was a completely different matter. Tao was completely sure deep inside he was a nice guy, and he couldn't seem to care less about popularity, but as the captain of the team he still got everything he wanted. He was the prince of the school. This last thought brought Tao back to reality. A small crowd had formed around them, mostly formed by screeching girls, who got louder every time Kris opened his mouth. This was getting on both of their nerves. Barely twenty shouts-filled minutes later, Kris called the lesson off, and Tao had never been more relieved on his life. He honestly preferred to fail his class than to stand those girls another minute. He went straight to the gym, despite still having half an hour before practice, just because there he felt in peace. The stillness of the place always made him feel better, but he still had all the noise those girls had made inside his head. He closed his eyes and laid back in his seat.

"Hey, Tao. Are you okay?" Minseok's soft voice made him open his eyes.

Woah, these days he could sleep anywhere. He stretched his sore limbs and smiled, feeling better than before.

"Yeah. I just needed somewhere to rest. Just silence," he paused for a second, enjoying it. He really liked Minseok. They were both quiet, and felt comfort in silence, so they never felt the need to fill their conversations with unnecessary noise.

In that moment, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo entered the gym. It was almost time for practice, but neither of them were on a hurry. 

"Is everything ok? Why are we all here?" Kyungsoo asked confusedly, looking around the bleachers they were sitting in. Tao was definitely better, but he still felt like talking to someone about what had happened. 

"Come on, spill it out," Baekhyun bumped Tao's shoulder lightly.

"We were at the library, with Kris, and this... girls appeared, shouting and squealing at everything," he stopped when he spotted his teammate's smile.

"I see you've met the fan club," Tao's eyes widened, and Minseok chuckled, "Just kidding. But they could be. They tend to follow Kris a lot. It was worst at the begging, they let him breath now. Or he just got used to it, not sure. But yeah, they can be hard to deal with sometimes. Try not to get on their wrong side."

They all smiled widely. Tao drew a breath trying to make sense to everything he had just said. God, people at this school kept getting freakier. He forced himself to take it lightly and smile.

"Well, at least Kris won't have any problem getting a girlfriend," he joked.

Kyungsoo's smile was still there, but now he was serious, and honest. Baekhyun and Minseok exchanged mischievous looks.

"What?" Tao had learnt that they all did that sort of stuff a lot. You know, the sneaky glances and secretive looks. He just had to ask.

"I'm... pretty sure he is not really interested in having a girlfriend," was Baekhyun's playful and nonchalant answer. 

Tao rolled his eyes, not sure what he meant, "What are you talking about?"

"Women, clearly," whispered Baekhyun, and he and Minseok started to crack up, but a severe look from Kyungsoo shut them up.

What did he mean? Tao considered asking again, but decided to let it be. It sure couldn't be that important. Down at the field, the doors busted open and the rest of the team came in, laughing and chatting as usual.

"Hey, we didn't tell you anything, ok? It's a secret, not something he wants people knowing," Minseok whispered slowly and continued laughing, leaving the bleachers with an unable-to-breath-because-laughing-so-hard Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, who smiled tightly.

Tao nodded, feeling he had missed half the conversation. Secret? What the hell was he talking about?