Of Roommates, Sitting on Tables and Strawberry Milk Tea

-

“Huang Zitao?”

Tao’s head snaps up from the book he’s been immersed in for the past few hours, and there he meets the steady gaze of… whoever it was.

“Could you… tell me Minseok’s schedule?”

-

Tao isn’t really all that surprised when he enters Minseok’s room the next day after he meets the ridiculous stranger and Luhan comes to him and tells Tao that he’s ‘done it again’.

Which really, should be devastating for any normal person to hear, but Tao’s used to it. He’s used to… cleaning up the mess that Luhan’s made, regardless if the ‘victim’ was one of his many friends or relatives.

He does, however, feel his heart sink a little when he sees poor Minseok curled into a ball and suffocating from Luhan’s cologne, which for once actually really was a gift Tao had bought for him. Of course he understood that whatever ed-up reasons Luhan had, he had to make it clear to Minseok about his feelings, but did he really have to involve expensive and branded cologne?

And so Tao begins telling Minseok the sentence he’s memorized down pat by now. About how he’s too imperfect for Luhan and something like that. Tao doesn’t flinch when Minseok curls further into a ball and probably starts crying, but forces a grimace and runs his fingers through his hair. He’s used to reactions like this.

“I’m not expecting you to forget him that easily. When you feel better, we can go out for bowling, okay? My treat.”

Bowling. Ugh, bowling. Tao’s pretty sure the bowling attendant person at the counter is going to start asking questions about why Tao changes his partner every time he goes bowling and why they always have the same depressed look on their sullen face.

That was Luhan’s power. Well, not literally a ‘power’, but strangely enough, everyone who had fallen for Luhan’s bewitching good looks and football skills all ended up with the exact same expression on their face after they finally realised they were dumped before the real relationship even started.

Well, his job here was done. But Minseok was a pretty good friend to Tao and the latter couldn’t help but try to mess up Minseok’s hair affectionately, hoping that was somehow comforting. And then he left.

-

And a few days later, Tao found himself whining as he tugged on Baekhyun’s sleeve, because goddamn it, why did Chanyeol have to barge into Tao’s perfect little world and mess up everything?

“You can’t leave me! C’mon, how am I supposed to survive without you? How should I wake up on time, shower alone and cook breakfast? How am I supposed to complete homework and restrain myself from sneaking out of school? How am I even supposed to wash my clothes and remember to eat on time? How-”

  “Tao-yah, calm down, for goodness sakes. It’s not like I’m going off to the army and never coming back again.”

“You’re going to switch rooms with Chanyeol’s roommate,” Tao deadpanned. “That’s  horrible. And Luhan and Sehun are definitely coming to ‘welcome’ the poor guy, and you know they’re going to get all awkward because Sehun is still plotting how to kill Luhan and Luhan will just give him the cold shoulder. I really don’t want to deal with this .”

“Too bad, my request was approved and you just have to deal with it.” Baekhyun grinned as he seals the flaps of the final cardboard box in his room. “Now, Zitao, help hyung out and carry this to Chanyeol’s room for me, will you? I’m getting so old.”

Oh no. No, no, no, NO. Did Baekhyun think he was so gullible as to fall for the ‘I’m getting old’ trick again? A thousand times no!

“Why can’t you just wait for… Chanyeol to drop by? I mean, considering he is your boyfriend, isn’t he supposed to come and help you pack? What a ty boyfriend.” Tao grumbles as he crosses his arm, spitting the name out like venom.

Chanyeol got on Tao’s nerves, simple as that. For one, he stole Tao’s trusty assistant of sorts, Baekhyun, away from Tao. And also mainly because Chanyeol probably still hasn’t gotten over how long it took Park Yura, Chanyeol’s sister, to get over Luhan playing with her feelings. Yeah, you would assume someone who looked as… cute and energetic and innocent as Chanyeol would easily forgive Luhan for something like that, but no, of course Tao managed to get dragged into Luhan’s mess. Damn it all.

“Baekhyun, my darling!” The familiar, overly-loud voice boomed from Baekhyun’s door.

Speak of the devil.

And then Chanyeol skips, yes, literally skips over to Baekhyun and scoops the guy up into his arms for a hug, but not before shooting Tao a glare.

“Oh; great, yeah - I get it, the muscleman is here, and he can carry you and your box to his room, hip-hip-hurray.” Tao rolls his eyes and holds the door wide open so the sickeningly sweet couple can hurry the up and get away from Tao.

And so, the pair does leave, but not before Chanyeol smirks a little as he turns around to say, “I’m definitely sure you’ll like your new roommate, Tao dongsaeng.”

That little .

Chanyeol knows Tao hates it that they’re almost the same age but Tao had to get pushed down three years just because he transferred from China. If you asked Tao, he was definitely smart enough to get into the top class of Year 4 like Chanyeol.

But wait, did Chanyeol just-?

-

Park Chanyeol is an utter, complete , Tao decides.

He stares in awe from his doorway to the… God-like-somehow-human-being that was standing in the room opposite his, arms stacked full of books.

Tao’s pretty sure he’s never seen the hot guy around before, because he definitely would’ve remembered someone who smelled so good and just plain looked so damn attractive.

Not that Tao sniffed him or anything.

“Do you need help?”

Said hot guy drops all the books in his arms onto his foot and lets out a shout –either in pain or surprise, Tao didn’t know- as he spins around to meet with the kohl black eyes of Tao. Oh, and did Tao mention that was actually a lot of books?

The stranger’s reaction is so dramatic – albeit slightly comedic- that it triggers a reaction from Tao as well, and the younger lad lets out a high-pitched, totally unmanly shout-slash-scream as he back steps away from the stranger and misses his footing and yup, he’s gone down.

Way to introduce yourself to the hot guy.

Tao groans from the floor as he rubs his sore and looks up, and sure enough, there’s a slight hint of a smile spreading across the stranger’s face. Okay, yeah, he definitely messed up.

“I think you need help more than I do.” The stranger smirks as he stacked the fallen books back into his arms, and closes the door to his dorm as he walks in, not even looking back once.

Okay, Tao knew he messed up, but come on. Not even offering his hand to help him? Not even taking a second glance at him? Tao knew he was pretty charming, no doubt about that, and a bonus point was that he did actually have a group of ‘friends’ that were pretty damn influential in this school. Did this stranger not even hear of his name before? How dare he treat the younger lad like this!

And with an indignant huff, Tao gets off the floor and stomps his way to the dining hall.

-

“ing new roommate. ing Chanyeol. ing bowling.” Tao grumbles as he stabs at the poor broccoli in his plate, the vegetable in shreds and possibly having exploded all over his plate.

Luhan sighs as he smacks Tao’s arm. “Stop being so moody and tell us about this ‘ing new roommate’. And don’t go off about how he looks and smells so good, you’ve said that for the past 10 minutes.”

Tao groans and smacks Luhan back. “I wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for you and your lack of power!”

Across the table, Jessica giggles and leans closer as she makes a gesture for everyone to lean in and listen to her.

“So, Luhan, I heard you broke the news to Xiumin the other day.”

Collective gasps and whispers fill the air as Jessica waves her hand to silence the rest.

“Yeah, I did, what’s wrong with that?” Luhan rolls his eyes as he stares angrily into Jessica’s doe like brown eyes.

“Whatever. So Tao, I know you’re Xiumin’s friend, how’d he take the news?” The impish grin on Jessica’s face is wide as she blatantly ignores Luhan’s glare.

“Jessica… I’m not sure why you’re curious about this, but I don’t feel comfortable saying stuff like that.”

“You’re no fun at all, Tao.” Jessica hmphs as she seemingly forgets about the grave mood in the air and resumes talking to Yuri about nail polishes and all that.

Tao ignores the feeling of dread filling his stomach and how his heart rate quickens, and turns to Luhan with his best puppy-eyes look as he slightly sticks out his bottom lip. “Luhan-hyung, can you please buy some strawberry milk tea for me?”

Luhan groans and scoots away from Tao, hands stretched to prevent himself from looking at Tao’s face. “No, no, Tao, don’t use that look on me, come on.”

And then he makes the mistake of peeking from the gaps between his fingers and sighs.

“Fine, I’m giving you enough money to buy 20 of those bottles, it’s all free as long as you carry all of them in one trip without dropping a single bottle on the floor.”

Silence.

Tao grins happily as he accepts the challenge and walks off happily to the vending machine, only to stop in his tracks when he sees the sight in front of him.

His new roommate. Sitting on the table with his slender and long legs parked on the seat opposite him. Smiling that gummy smile as he shakes his head to Chanyeol who’s seated on the seat beside him. And not to mention, there’s a crowd around their table, all of them having those looks on their faces. The looks Luhan receives when he opens his mouth to speak, the captivated looks of people who focused solely on Luhan and everything distinctly Luhan.

Tao gasps because it seems he’s fallen under ‘Luhan’s spell’, except it’s the ‘strange stupid douchebag of a roommate spell’.

He’s frozen to the spot as his roommate unfolds his legs to hop off the table, and said roommate lifts his gaze to where Tao is standing and they make eye contact.

And the spell breaks when said roommate smirks knowingly as he walks towards Tao with fast strides.

Thankfully, Tao seems to finally regain control of the thoughts in his brain and spins around to walk briskly to the vending machines, his cheeks flushed as he remembers how badly he messed up earlier that morning.

He manages to drop Luhan’s money thrice before his shaky hands slot the money in and he presses the button for his beloved strawberry milk tea.

But yeah, Tao didn’t realize that 20 bottles of strawberry milk tea was actually a lot of milk tea. He frowns as he scoops up at least seven bottles and drops three of them. Well… .

-

Ten minutes later, and Tao’s on the verge of pulling his hair out. Okay, so he managed to make a basket of sorts with his shirt to hold nine, and he’s able to grab at least ten bottles on hand, but there was no way he was going to be able to reach the last bottle without falling over from the weight of the bottles.

Tao kicks the vending machine as he grumbles under his breath about ‘stupid Luhan, stupid roommate and his stupid clumsiness’.

“I don’t think I’m that stupid.” A familiar voice rings through the air as Tao spins around and groans.

Just his luck.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tao mumbles as he tries to lean over again to grab the last bottle, his fingers barely grazing the cap on the bottle before a pain shoots up his spine and he falls onto the floor.

Again.

In front of his new roommate.

For ’s sake.

Tao groans when his new roommate pulls him up off the floor and laughs, his eyes filled with mocking laughter as he grabs the very last bottle of strawberry milk tea.

“I didn’t expect you to be a fan of strawberries.”

“And I didn’t expect you to be such a douchebag.” Tao fires back quick as lightning as he bends down again to grab the other 19 bottles.

“Your words wound me.” The blond grins as he bends down too to help Tao gather up the fallen bottles.

And somehow, five minutes later, Tao finds himself back at the table where Luhan was seated, mind swirling with Kris’ name, Kris’ voice, and warm hands that made his skin tingle.

Luhan grins at Tao’s accomplishment, as he smiles knowingly in Kris’ direction.

“So… You and your new roommate…?”

“Kris.”

“I can tell you like him.”

“Maybe not, he’s still a douchebag.” Tao sighs as he gulps down his strawberry milk tea.

“Don’t worry, I won’t steal him away from you.”

And that’s enough confirmation for Tao to make sure that Kris Wu must fall for him.

Though sadly enough, he didn’t manage to overhear what a certain brunette across the table was saying.

-

Two months later, Tao comes to the school field in hopes of finding his boyfriend play basketball, but sees a dazed Sehun sprawled on the grass instead.

“The clouds are pretty today.” Sehun mumbles as Tao sits down beside him.

Tao knows better than to question what Sehun is doing here; the look on Sehun’s face is enough for Tao to guess what’s up with the lad.

Luhan.

After their breakup, the fire burning within Sehun seemed to have diminished, replaced by nothing but thoughts and quietness.

“Hey, Tao…”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know who Kim Minseok is?” Sehun’s voice trembles as he lifts his gaze to meet Tao’s.

This was… odd, even for a Sehun who was having a bad day. Luhan and Xiumin’s friendship was over since February, why was Sehun still so concerned with Xiumin?

“Yeah, I do, what’s the matter?”

Silence.

“Nothing.”

-

A few days later, Tao finds him and Kris visiting his parents. Well, sort of, save for the fact that his parents were actually too busy to come home and accede to Tao’s request.

“Your house isn’t a house, it’s a freaking mansion.” Kris deadpans as he stares in silent awe at the white marble of the spiral staircase and the dark wooden banister, the gold colored couch, the  black modern shelves in every corner, the bookcase filled with volumes after volumes of age old literature written by the greatest poets from every century possible, before his eyes finally landed on the single golden framed photo right on top of the sleek television.

The portrait of a couple in their mid-forties, all dressed formally, mouth pulled into tight smiles and staring right back at Kris.

“What the heck- Why do you have a giant sized family portrait of someone who’s not even part of your family-”

“Yeah… I guess I forgot to mention that my parents works for this company and they are kind of indebted to the founders of the company for this house and for their jobs and everything, and yeah, they’re slightly obsessed with the founders because they’re filled with gratitude, and maybe my mom want me to marry their son, but I brought you here so that they’ll accept our relationship and stuff.”

“Ah, yeah- Wait, what?! Marry their son? Obsessed with the founders? What the heck, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Tao shrugs as he leads Kris away from the photo and into his room.

Here, now, here was a completely different place from the rest of his fancy-shmancy house.

For one, the door to his bedroom was a sliding door. The entire room had brick and earthy foundations, different from the wooden walls outside. The floor was strewn with clothes, discs stacked messily on his study table, his old textbooks in an abandoned corner of the room, his Wushu stick and sword framed in a plastic box, his memo board full of photos and notes. Yeah, it was safe to assume that Tao barely let the maids into his room to come and clean up his mess.

“Whoa, this room is… different.”

“Of course it is.” Tao grins with pride as he pats the row of plushies on his shelf and gestures to the old and worn out unornamented wooden arm chair for Kris to sit on.

His room was a simple Chinese interior design that Tao had adamantly decided on even when his parents had argued that they ought to leave ‘all those kind of things’ behind. All those of kind things referring to their old life, their old home, and the thoughts and status they used to have.

It was sad, really, that his father had seemingly forgotten all about their old and run-down house back home, the house they could barely afford back then, paint chipping off of the brick walls, intricate red and gold rugs lain out on the floor, lanterns lighting up every corner of the small house, simple furniture made from rosewood that gave Tao a sore pain in his whenever he sat down.

That was his old home. The place where his grandfather still lives.

And his mother was no better. She was the one who first suggested that Tao should be married to the son of their so-called ‘saviors’, and bring pride and joy to their family. She was ashamed of her old life, and promptly changed her identity and name. She even went as far as to get a new haircut and a whole new wardrobe and renewing her identity card.

What went wrong?

And even then, Tao still loved his parents.

-

From: Seinghun the most ed face jerk ever

Food fight?

:DDDDDD

Ahahahahahahahhahahahha yehet yehet yehet yehet yehhhhhet yeeeeehet yeeyeeeyeeeahah yehet yehet yehet

And Tao takes up the challenge.

-

Tao groans as Sehun takes a photo of his trashed kitchen.

“Did you do this on purpose? I don’t ever recall our food fights being so vicious and messy! Goddamn it, is that a banana peel in my hair?!” Tao whines as he tugs at his once clean and fabulous blond hair, now surprisingly red with tomato juice and cucumbers rubbed into his scalp, with that stupid banana peel hanging from his forehead, of course.

Well, good thing Sehun was almost in the same condition as Tao currently was in.

“Go take a shower, you stink like a dumpster.” Sehun groans as he pushes Tao away and wipes some mashed potato off of his face.

“Fine, fine. You’re one to talk!”

And so, Tao hurries to the bathroom to take a nice long shower trying to get some kind of unidentifiable black goop out of his hair.

-

Tao has just started with shampooing his hair once again when he hears Sehun shouting for him.

“Hey, you got a text message! I’ll reply it for you, okay?”

Right, he still hasn’t changed his password yet. God knows what stupid and weird stuff Sehun will reply with. Tao dejectedly sighs as he realizes that he’ll spend at least another hour trying to wash out the cucumber and potato smell from his body and Sehun would be done reading his conversations with Kris on his phone.

Stupid Oh Sehun.

-

Tao briskly changes into dry clothes when he’s finally done with his shower and promptly almost forgets all about the phone on his kitchen counter, that is, until he gets hungry about half an hour later and wanders into the kitchen for a quick snack, and snatches up the phone hurriedly when he sees the blinking message.

From: Xiumin

Help

Lug e iehlnldke w

-

Fin

-

A/N: Wooooow I'm sorry guys this is really confusing. 

But many things will be explained in HunHan's arc for this AU, including what happened to Xiumin and what his text message is about. Also, I've somehow managed to grasp KaiSoo's relationship and I'm thinking I might write a Part 4 for them, but if not, then Part 4 is just a collection of short snippets of the different couples in this AU spending the rest of their happy drama-free lives together forever until their hairs are all white and gray.

Also can we just agree that Sehun probably spams the others with things like 'yeheeet yehhhhet yeyeyeyahah yehetetahyehet tetehetyeht' or something like that all the freaking time?

I didn't beta this yet and my laptop was lagging while I typed, so yeah, kindly point out any mistakes in the comments? :D 

And also eviiiiil Chanyeol in this story will be explained or something, haha, but rest assured Chanyeol's just being a goofy little dolt that you just want to cuddle and chew on. ｡◕‿◕｡

So that's it,

Take care!

-AdoruZiall xoxo

Also I'm sorry for the elaboration (or lack thereof) of the Chinese interior design, I just really like the furniture from the Ming Dynasty and stuff. You guys understand, right? :D