"For the thousandth time, it wouldn't be so difficult if you just ing concentrated for more than two seconds!"

"I'm concentrating, you idiot! It's just hard, you know?"

"Who do you think you are calling an idiot, ninja? Show some respect"

Ok, this conversation was getting old. Kris finally sat down. They had been in the library for almost a full hour and hadn't made any progress, and honestly, he was getting tired. Well, not really. The truth was that Kris found the whole situation hilarious. He had taken a liking into bothering Tao, just for the sake of it. He wasn't sure why, but he liked spending his afternoons tutoring him. It was also extremely annoying, since Tao was always teasing him, standing up against him and pointing out his mistakes. What the hell? Not only was Kris older, but he was also ing captain of the basketball team. Obviously he should be respected. But Tao didn't think so, and treated him like an equal, demanding the same treatment. At the beginning, it had made Kris furious, but now he was more intrigued than annoyed. And Tao looked kind of cute when he was mad. His jaw set firmly and his eyes glaring daggers. Oh god, what was he thinking about. He cleared his throat and looked around. Their well hidden table was now quiet, bathed by the sun, making him sleepy. Despite the fact that Kris liked seeing Tao get frustrated over school work, he still had to help him finish it, or else he would fail and be assigned a new tutor. Not that Kris cared. Not at all. 

Tao left to his practice a couple of minutes later, giving Kris some alone time to think. Practices had slowly fallen back into normal. They tried to talk about changing the schedules, but it had been impossible, so they had settled into sharing the space and ignoring each other. And Kris tried, he really had. He avoided looking to the other side of the field completely. 

Kris saw the ball fly, quickly, determinately, dangerously towards Tao's face.

Ten minutes into practice, he had decided to change their usual schedule. Instead of practicing first and then playing a little match, they would do the other way round. He didn't care that the other team was there. What could possibly go wrong? They started playing. Kris noticed what was about to happen before anyone else did. Irrational panic flooded his senses. His heart hammered in his chest, he had a bitter taste in his mouth and his muscles didn't answer him. He heard Tao's painful scream, everyone gasped.  That was what he needed to be taken out of his trance. He ran as fast as he could towards the other side of the field, along with some of his teammates. He tried to put up his expected uninterested mask, but once he saw Tao lying on the floor, he was pretty sure he had failed miserably. As he approached, Tao finally got up, painfully clutching his face. Kris felt as if everything shifted again, this time back to normal. Why did he care so much about the Panda? His friends were already taking care of him, so he turned around and faced his team. With the steadiest voice he could possibly manage, he demanded: 

"Who did it?"

A hand was raised among the team members. Kris sighted. He couldn't say he didn't expect it.

"Apologize," was his brief command. The guy took a step closer and made a reverence, looking sincerely sorry and ashamed of his clumsiness. Luckily, Kris wouldn't have to scold him later.

Tao nodded, accepting the mistake, and both teams began heading back to their respective courts. Kris, now feeling and idiot for his interior overreaction, turned around and begun walking, eager to put the incident behind.

"This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been playing," Tao's voice was tight, but loud and clear, and Kris felt himself stiffen. One part of his brain told him that the Panda had just been hurt, and that he was right, honestly, so he should just let it go. But as usual, the stupid part of his brain was faster to react.

"What?" he shouted through gritted teeth, turning around and stalking towards the wushu team. He didn't fail to see his friends resigned looks.

"You heard me. If you hadn't played while we were here, we wouldn't have had the incident. You always practice first and then play. Keep it that way!" 

"Who the hell do you think you are to tell me how should I give my class? I can do whatever the I want." The ninja looked furious, his jaw was set and he had his hands pressed firmly against his tights. He had nice tights, Kris thought. Then he mentally slapped himself for being an idiot. Horrible timing. Tension had been building up, and just when it was about to explode, something caught Kris' eyes and made him go limp. Tao was bleeding. He hadn't noticed because his hand was hiding his face just a second ago, but now it was showing, a thin line coming out of his nose. The circles around his eyes looked even darker than usual. Having played basketball for years, Kris had his fair knowledge of broken noses. At least to know one when he saw it. It made something inside him stir. He was surprised, yeah, but there was something else. He never wanted to see Tao bleed again. Ever. The imperious need to keep him safe hit him like a truck. Noticing his stare, Tao brought his hand to his face. Kris's eyes were still fixed on his face, which changed from confusion to slight alarm to annoyance in a matter of seconds, but he heard Joonmyeon and Luhan, the ones closer to Tao, gasp at the sight of blood. They started fumbling, quite comically, around a completely calmed Tao. 

"Guys, it's fine. I've broken my nose before, it's not a big deal. It doesn't even hurt that much." Kris had to admit he was impressed. Tao was handling this as a true leader, trying to calm down his team members instead of freaking out because of his accident. Kris would find it hard to do that himself. The team called the practice off and decided to take Tao to the school infirmary. 

"This is not over, Wu. Don't you dare ever playing while we are here again. You idiot," he snarled the ending in Chinese, towards a still frozen Kris. He felt his heart pound on his chest, not necessarily from resentment, as it should be, but with sheer amazement that there could exist someone like Tao. He regained his senses just when the wushu team was about to leave the gym. Without caring about his own practice, much less about Lay's mocking comments, he dashed towards the team, grabbing Tao's arm and yanking him forward, with a quick "I'll take him to the infirmary," to the rest of the team. 

"But, Kris..." Joonmyeon attempted to stop him. He didn't have time for this.

"I said I'd take him, Joonmyeon," he looked at him until he nodded shortly and turned around, along with the startled group. 

"Stop playing and start practicing," he ordered his team, meeting Lay's amused squint across the gym.

He darted, practically dragging Tao along the corridors. For the first time since they had met each other, Tao was speechless, and Kris had to admit he was quite pleased of himself for accomplishing this. He had loosened up his grip on his arm, and now his hand was just lingering there, unnecessarily guiding Tao. After arriving at the infirmary, the doctor made Tao sit on the examination table with his back against the wall. Kris stood by the door, watching as the doctor cleaned the blood, gave him a couple of painkillers and some ice and told him to place it on his nose for a couple of minutes. He confirmed that it was indeed broken, but it was not serious and would only take a bandage to fix it. Then his phone rang, and he excused himself, leaving them alone. Tao's eyes were closed, and he was resting his head on the wall. Kris couldn't help but to stare at the long line of his neck, and his sharp jaw. He looked exhausted. Once again, the need to protect him assaulted him, so he just sighted and grunted with feigned roughness:

"Never talk to me like that again."

"What?" Tao opened his eyes slowly, lifting his head slightly.

Between them, they always spoke in Chinese, even when they weren't supposed to do so, as Tao had to perfect his Korean. It was easier for both of them, and Kris enjoyed it. He liked hearing Tao's confidence, the one he lacked when he second guessed himself speaking a foreign language. Not that he would ever tell anyone. Around their friends, they spoke in Korean, it would be impolite to do otherwise. 

"You heard me," he hardened his tone, despite having lost every bit of anger he had left, "Don't you dare to treat me like that. And by no means in front of my team," he had raised his voice, in spite of himself.

"I'll talk to you as I please. I don't owe you anything," Tao settled back and closed his eyes once again. 

"Are you an idiot?" Kris realized he was straight out shouting, but he was starting to get annoyed, "It's just respect to your superiors. Don't you understand or you just don't know about good manners?"

"Respect is earned, sir," was Tao's lazy reply, "I was just asking you something and you rejected it badly."

"You didn't ask it nicely, ninja," Kris felt a small smile tug at his lips.

Tao let out a shaky breath and pressed the ice pack harder against his nose. The pain killers hadn't worked yet, and he was probably in quite a lot of pain. He looked so vulnerable it made Kris' chest hurt. 

"Believe me, you don't want to have me as your enemy," he wasn't angry, just bitter.

"You don't want to have me as your enemy, believe me," Tao's sarcasm lost some of its effect because of his weariness, and Kris felt a jerk.

Just then the doctor came back, smiling apologetically and excusing himself from taking so long. Kris stormed out of the infirmary, before he had the chance to do something stupid. 

The following day was weirdly depressing. Everybody was talking about the accident, even those who generally ignored the wushu team. Everything even remotely related to the basketball team was commented. Thanks god the practice was private, or else they would have constant public. At first it was kind of exciting, having everyone focused on you, but after a while it got tiresome. And, in moments like this, Kris wished they would just shut up and live their own lives. Theirs weren't even that interesting.

That morning, he had nonchalantly asked Luhan about Tao's nose, and the boy had just sighted and told him to wait till he saw him, which wasn't reassuring at all. He felt extremely guilty about what had happened to him. He hadn't thrown the ball himself, but again, they shouldn't have been playing, and he knew it.

At lunch time, the whole team sat together, as usual, and they were soon surrounded by people, mostly girls. Honestly, couldn't they mind their own business? Kris had planned to approach Tao during that break, but with all those eyes on him he didn't feel like it. He wasn't sure why, but he liked to keep his conversations with Tao private, in the solitude of the library or at the gym. Given the fact that they rarely talked about anything personal, it was quite stupid. 

As soon as Tao approached their table at the library, he understood what Luhan had meant. He looked worst that he had the day before. A bandage covered his nose, but the skin surrounding it was a purplish color. At least it didn't look that swollen, but he sounded as if he couldn't breathe properly, and was in pain despite all the painkillers he had taken. Kris felt sick. He couldn't stand seeing him like that and knowing it was partially his fault. That lesson was quite good, both of them were too exhausted to fight, so it went by quietly.

"Hey, about yesterday... I'm sorry for... You know," Kris mumbled as they were about to part, blushing and hoping with all his heart that the Panda had missed it. From the shocked looked he got, his prayers hadn't been heard. Tao nodded, his mouth slightly opened, and then he smiled. Kris felt as if he had been slapped. He turned around quickly, feeling the warmth at the pit of his stomach. 

A few days later, Tao informed him that they wouldn't have classes together that day, as some kind of wushu exhibition would take place later. Luckily, he was once again able to practice with his team. He had had to sit and watch the practice for almost a week. As it was Wednesday, there wasn't basketball practice either, so Kris decided, not without hating himself for it, to go and watch it. The gym was somewhat full, not only by people from the school, but also by other teams, some of which had traveled a long way for the exhibition, Kris found out. He spotted his friends between the crowd. Kai, Sehun, Chanyeol, Chen, and even Lay were there supporting their friends, but he decided against sitting with them. Almost hidden, surrounded by unknown people, he felt safer. Soon the event started. Team after team, they all showed their abilities, and Kris had to admit it was kind of cool, but he wasn't really paying attention. Tao was by the side of the court, along with the rest of the team, his friends. They were watching, laughing and clapping. It wasn't a competition, they were all enjoying themselves. He had never seen Tao smile that much. He looked truly happy, his whole face lit up. Kris found himself smiling as well, without apparent reason. Then it was their turn. He hadn't actually seen them practice, as he avoided looking towards their side of the field as much as possible, and in all truth, they were way better than what he had expected. Finally, Tao walked to the center of the court. He was carrying a long stick, almost as tall as him, which the announcer called "gun shu". Tao started to move. Well, saying move was a huge understatement. He was flying, dancing and fighting, all at the same time. He looked like an angel in his black uniform, his muscles in perfect synchrony, his whole body moving from the floor to the sky in a matter of seconds, shining with small beads of sweat, that ran across his face.  His long limbs tensed as he did a complicated-looking turn, wielding the gun shu, before landing gracefully and throwing himself into another set of kicks and turns, his face was screwed up in great concentration. His movements were strong, powerful and graceful, just like him. He was passionate about wushu, and his every movement showed so. All the hard work, all the training, everything could be seen. He looked glorious, powerful and gorgeous. His body was made for this, and Kris's eyes were made for looking at it. He couldn't take them away from him. And then it all made sense. All the teasing, the guilt, the fondness, the warmth. All those feelings. They could only mean one thing. How had he been so blind? He had never felt like that before, not with such intensity, but he knew what they meant. Around him, the crowd cheered, and Tao bowed, smiling, and left the court. Kris sat there, frozen. He was so screwed. He was in love with Tao.