Difficult Thoughts - Tao's POV
Title: Difficult Thoughts
Pairing: Tao/Kris, Tao/Baekhyun
Rating: PG? (hell, I dunno what to rate things....)
Summary: [Companion to Sharing a Bed] Tao spends most of his night struggling to define his ideal type, then sneaks into bed with Duizhang to ask for help.
Difficult Thoughts
Tao’s never given much thought as to who his ideal type would be before, and when he’s first asked the question he somehow finds it impossible to answer. When Tao can’t usually think of an answer he rejects answering the questions entirely and either shifts it to his precious leader Kris or pulls the age card. He’s too “young” to know what he looks for in a person. In fact he’s faced with the realization that he’s never really dated. Never really cared to date either. In Korea he spent all of his time training and hanging out with his “hyungs” and “chingus” and back home he was too busy trying to become a Wushu master to think about being in a relationship.
In fact, Tao’s not even sure if his ideal type is even female. He doesn’t have many female friends and for the ones he has he’s never really felt anything for him. But then again he’s never really felt anything for anyone no matter what their gender may be. He has a fondness for certain individuals, but he would never really say he’s interested in them in that way. But what does it even mean for him to be interested? How would he even know since he’s obviously not sure how seems to feel about anyone right now? All he knows is that he’s been sobbing on the inside ever since he left Korea. He’s sure if he’s not careful he’ll probably burst into tears if anyone asks him about his relationship with the EXO-K members so he tries to avoid that subject as well.
On the way back to their dorm his fellow members tease him about his answer. It’s not like he hasn’t known that he would have to answer these sorts of questions. They’ve explained this all to him before when he was training. He knew people would ask, he just never really thought about the fact that he would have to answer or how he would even answer it. In the van, precious leader Kris giggles about it while Yixing imitates how he answered the question, or more like how he avoided answering the question. Tao’s sure he didn’t look or sound that foolish when he responded. Or perhaps he did. Even Jongdae is laughing and he can’t understand the majority of conversations since they’ve been in China. But then Tao notices Luhan’s sitting next to him translating for the forever lost Jongdae and Minseok. All of these people that Tao adores so much, even if he doesn’t understand them all that well, have somehow managed to think of an ideal type, but maybe that’s because they are older than him. Yes. It’s their age, he tells himself.
They laugh at him all the way back to the dorm and, even though Tao knows they are joking, he already feels like crying. He scolds himself for being so emotionally unstable these days and declares that later that night, when he’s all settled into bed, he will contemplate this difficult question. What is his ideal type? Maybe then, after some deep thoughts in the middle of the night accompanied by Minseok’s soft snores, he will have his answer. But Tao’s not even sure he wants to find an answer. In the pit of his stomach he feels the question bubbling. Perhaps he’s been ignoring the question for good reason.
By the time they’ve returned to their new dorm in China, Tao’s given himself a stomach ache because of his endless worrying. To quell his quaking stomach he chugs three glasses of water before going to bed. Kris warns him that he’ll have to pee every ten minutes and won’t get any sleep at all, which he desperately needs because they have a packed schedule tomorrow, if he drinks anymore. Gege is always wise and mature in Tao’s eyes, so Tao refrains from forcing down another glass, bids his beloved leader good night, and sulks into his new room to find that Minseok has already passed out. This comes as a relief to Tao because he knows he wouldn’t be able to think properly about his answer if Minseok were awake. It’s not that he doesn’t like Minseok, or Bao Zi as Luhan endearingly calls him (in his mind, Tao likes to call him Minseok-ie because he thinks it sounds cute, but he wouldn’t dare say it out loud), because he does. Tao loves everyone in EXO, he just worries that his distress will be noticed and Minseok will try to speak to him and ask him what’s wrong. Tao’s Korean isn’t that spectacular seeing as how he hasn’t been in Korea for that long, and he knows that if he tried to answer him, his words would only scramble in his brain and fall out of his mouth in some incoherent manner because he’s too stressed out about thinking of an answer for his own question.
When he’s flicked off the lights in the room, thoroughly cocooned himself in his blanket, and tucked in his stuffed panda, which his fellow EXO-K member has dubbed Beef, next to him Tao allows the grueling process of deep contemplation to begin. He tries to think of things that might interest him. What eye color? Hair color? Skin tone? Foreign or Chinese? Maybe Korean? He may not fully understand Korean, but he likes the sound of it. At first it sounded harsh to him, but now it sounded comforting. Somehow it was also becoming his language. It would curl around his brain and whistle through his ears so pleasantly. Being back in China and being surrounded by people speaking the various dialects was almost jarring to him now that he has been living in Korea. So he assumes he would like someone who speaks Korean? No, that’s not a good enough answer, and how can he fall for someone that he can’t even fully understand? Or is that how it’s supposed to be? Or, hell, does it even matter?
Clearly, picking out physical features isn’t getting Tao anywhere. Tall, short, fat, skinny? None of this is getting him anywhere. Since Minseok-ie is clearly asleep, and since Tao now feels embarrassed that he’s even stressing out about this, he turns to the only one he can trust. Beef.
“What do you think?” Tao whispers to his stuffed panda in the darkness. His eyes are still unaccustomed to the blackness but he can just barely make out the shadowy line that defines Beef’s soft, squishy face. “Who’s you’re ideal type?” Predictably, Beef gives no response. What did Tao expect? After all, he’s speaking to a stuffed animal.
“I guess you don’t have one either,” Tao sighs and listens to the sound of Minseok-ie moving in his sleep and muttering something about Luhan and how he’d like to hug him. Tao feels like he’s listening in on some secret conversation when Minseok is asleep. He knew that Kris spoke in his sleep, they all knew that, but he didn’t know that Minseok did too. And it’s almost always about Luhan. The words that Minseok whispers in his sleep feel too inappropriate for Tao’s innocent ears. As Tao’s Korean vocabulary expands the awkward sensation grows. He senses that he shouldn’t listen to the declarations of love that Minseok murmurs. They feel too private, too personal, too forbidden, especially when they’re about Luhan gege. It’s not that he necessarily thinks Minseok is gay, nor does he really care, but Minseok has always talked about his ideal type as if it’s female. And yet, in the middle of the night, all he ever hears about is Luhan. He doesn’t always fully understand every word Minseok says but he’s able to recognize enough to know that Minseok’s clearly thinking of Luhan in a romantic way. At times like these, Tao wishes his manager were still his roommate. Sometimes, after Minseok has been gushing a little too much about his boy crush in his sleep, Tao is embarrassed to look at Luhan the next day.
Hearing Minseok say all these sweet-nothings in the middle of the night makes him wonder if the other members do the same. Do they talk and giggle about their crushes? Do they whisper and sigh about other members? Or is it just a Minseok-ie thing? Or, better yet, does he do it? In the middle of the night, when there’s no one around to listen to him talk or when Minseok is too busy whispering about Luhan, does Tao do it to? And if he does, whom does he talk about? Who does he whisper about so lovingly? Tao fidgets in his bed and pulls Beef close to him. He feels uncomfortable and exposed by his own thoughts and contemplates buying a video camera when he gets a chance so that he can record himself when he sleeps. Recording himself at night is the only method he can think of to see if he too mumbles about a secret crush. It’d be too awkward to ask the other members or his manager if they ever heard him mutter in his sleep. But then he reconsiders this thought when he realizes that it must be a pretty ridiculous crush if he can’t even remember whom he is crushing on when he’s awake.
The idea of wasting his money on a video camera crumbles when he also starts to worry that maybe Minseok-ie would see what he was doing and then ask why he was doing it. Even worse, what if Minseok-ie saw the video and heard himself chatting about Luhan in his slumber? What if he too had such a secret crush that he only knew about it in his dreams? Not to mention there would also be the awkward fact and realization that Tao hears EVERYTHING that Minseok-ie says, and then maybe he would worry about just how much he had said or even done in his sleep. The thought of this is all too embarrassing. Tao can feel his face heating up and turning red in the darkness. To hide his embarrassment he smashes his face into Beef, hoping that his soft, fake fur will somehow absorb the heat and restore him to his normal self.
But Beef only makes things worse because Tao starts to think about Byun Baekhyun who not only named his panda Beef, but whom Tao calls Beef in person. It had been one of those situations in which Tao’s Korean abilities had undoubtedly failed him, like when he had mistakenly called Minseok “Oppa”. Baekhyun and Tao were both Taurus, but Tao did not know how to say this in Korean so he had settled for the word “sogogi”, which in Korean meant beef. It had been their inside joke for quite some time until the other members started questioning them and they had to explain it in detail. As you can imagine, this incurred mass amounts of laughter from the other members and crushing social embarrassment to Tao. Being in Korea always seemed to cause Tao a hefty amount of social embarrassment. Kris always tells Tao not to worry about it and that his mistakes are cute. He would get better with this whole “Korean” thing eventually.
Due to that incident and Tao’s inability to not worry about it as Kris had told him to do, Baekhyun would forever be known as Beef in Tao’s mind. But Baekhyun was not the only one with a nickname that went public, only the public didn’t really know where this nickname originated. To Baekhyun, Tao would be forever known as Kung Fu Panda, even though he knew that Tao practiced Wushu and not Kung Fu. He just liked to tease him. Because of Baekhyun, Tao had started introducing himself as EXO-M’s Kung Fu Panda during interviews. All these thoughts of Baekhyun make Tao want to cry even more, as if he hadn’t already been on the verge of tears since his separation from his fellow K members. He misses his beloved Beef. His stuffed panda, albeit it rather adorable and squishy, was not a substantial substitute for the real life Beef, for his Baekhyun.
His.
The word rolls around unsteadily in his already unstable mind. Since when did Baekhyun become his? Tao pulls away from Beef and stares at him accusingly. “Are you mine?” he growls at him. Or does he really mean to be saying this to Baekhyun? Now Tao isn’t even sure how he became so close to Baekhyun since he isn’t fluent in Korean. But somehow they just are. In a way that makes Tao irrevocably happy inside, makes his stomach feel all tingly and warm and his lips turn up into a sleepy smile. He has his Baekhyun-ie with him all the time because of Beef. Tao swallows hard and frowns as soon as the thought crosses his mind.
There’s that word again.
His.
Baekhyun-ie?
This is new. He’s never thought of him as Baekhyun-ie before, but it sounds just as cute, if not cuter than Minseok-ie, and he’s not nearly as close with Minseok as he is with Baekhyun. Tao giggles at the thought of calling Baekhyun “Baekhyun-ie”. He can picture himself running towards Baekhyun the second he returns to Korea. He imagines it as one of those epic hugs you tend to see only in dramas or movies. A full-hearted hug. A hug so tight and strong that Tao imagines himself lifting Baekhyun off the ground and twirling him in the air. Then Tao imagines himself saying something like “Baekhyun-ie, if you were a girl I would kiss you.” The fantasy burns into Tao’s skull and sets it on fire. He ends up feeling so hot that has to force himself out of his scorching cocoon, and when the cold air of the bedroom hits him he realizes how much he dearly needs to pee. Kris was right about the water, but he’s sure that even without drinking it he’d still be just as wide-awake as he is right now.
Taking his beloved Beef with him, Tao carefully slips out of bed and sneaks out of the room so as not to wake up Minseok-ie. He doesn’t want to disturb Minseok’s precious dreams about Luhan. On his way to the bathroom, while hugging Beef tightly to his chest and burying his chin in the panda’s fur, Tao thinks about his newfound desire for Baekhyun-ie. So is this Tao’s whispered midnight crush? His Baekhyun-ie. Tao smiles and squishes Beef even closer to his chest. It’s all he can do to stop himself from squealing with glee in the middle of the hallway and waking everyone up. He imagines that if Beef were truly Baekhyun, and he was standing here in this very hallway with him, that Baekhyun-ie would giggle and tell Tao to shush and keep quiet. He imagines that this would be their evening routine.
Sneak out into the hallway.
Meet each other in “secret”.
Whisper and giggle about nonsense and constantly rebuke each other for being too loud.
Maybe even kiss?
The thought of this makes Tao’s heart pound in his chest. He’s really been watching too many Korean dramas. Originally he had claimed to watch them in order to “practice” his Korean and expand his vocabulary. Now he doesn’t even try to make excuses for it. He likes watching dramas when he has the time to. Sometimes even precious leader Kris will join him.
Too engrossed in his blissful thoughts, Tao stubs his toe on the doorpost as he enters the bathroom.
“Ow!” he half mutters, half screams.
“Everything ok?” Tao drops Beef in shock as he turns to see a sleepy Kris walking towards him. For a second he thought he saw a ghost in the darkness, but it was just precious Kris.
“Everything’s fine,” Tao whispers hoarsely as Kris passes by him into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Hoping that Kris hasn’t seen any of his gleeful looks as he strolled down the hallway, Tao quickly steps into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, leaving poor Beef out in the cold dark hallway to keep an eye on Kris. After Tao finishes his business (he really did drink way too much water…) he opens the door to find Kris standing outside of the bathroom with Beef in his hands.
“You dropped this,” Kris yawns.
“Thanks.” Reaching out with suspicious fingers, Tao takes Beef from Kris’s hands. They are very nice hands, Tao notices. But he has always thought that Kris had nice hands.
“Mmm.” Kris turns and walks back towards his room, still too sleepy to give Tao a more proper response. Without thinking much of it, Tao follows Kris into his room and slides into bed with him. Kris doesn’t really seem to mind this either because he’s too sleepy to care or because he’s always had a soft spot for Tao. When Tao first arrived in Korea he used to sneak into Kris’s bed and cry himself to sleep while Kris tried to comfort him and cure him of his homesickness.
“Kris, what should I say if they ask me who my ideal type is again?” Tao whispers to his leader. He’d been thinking so much about Baekhyun-ie that he almost forgot he needed to come up with a good answer to tell people. He was sure that admitting that Byun Baekhyun is his ideal type was way out of bounds, at least for now.
“Just tell them the truth,” Kris grumbles groggily, clearly unhappy that Tao has disturbed his beauty sleep. In order to keep his perfect complexion, Kris follows a very strict beauty regime. All the members do, but Kris is the most adamant about his. Now he’s not sure if it was such a good idea to let Tao into his bed.
“But I’m not sure what the truth is,” Tao mutters. But he does know. Or at least he thinks he might finally know, and it looks a lot like Baekhyun-ie, if not is Baekhyun himself.
“Then just say something generic, like someone pretty, or with a good personality, or good body, or something like that,” Kris sighs and turns away so that his back is facing Tao. For a moment, Tao allows himself to be amazed by his precious leader. Even when half asleep he knows the right things to say, not to mention he looks cute when he’s sleepy. Tao cringes at this thought and makes a mental note to not ever call something cute again. He swears if he hadn’t called the name “Baekhyun-ie” cute he wouldn’t feel this attracted him. But at the same time, he doesn’t mind. Baekhyun is cute. Kris is…. Kris is…. Kris is a different kind of cute, Tao decides. He really only thinks this because he wants to avoid saying that Kris is “sexy” or “hot” because he really shouldn’t be thinking these things about his leader, especially not when he is in the same bed as him.
“Baekhyun-ie can be sexy too,” Tao whispers to Beef who, unlike Kris, is still willing to listen to him right now. Baekhyun with his eyeliner. That’s sexy, right?
“What?” Kris mumbles beside Tao.
“Nothing.” Tao curses himself and decides it’s best he just go to bed. Even though he really wanted to talk to Kris he’s not sure he actually wanted Kris to know about his sudden attraction towards Baekhyun. “Good night,” Tao says so that Kris can hear him, and then turns his back and curls up in a ball so that his back is aligned right next to Kris’s. As he drifts into sleep all he can think about is how nice and warm it feels sleeping next to Kris. Before he’s out for good he hears Kris complain that Tao’s feet feel cold and he’s too close and should move. Tao falls asleep with a content smile on his face.
Early in the morning, around 5:00 a.m., before anyone else is awake, Tao is humiliated to see that somehow during the night Kris and him had turned to face each other and Kris’s arm had managed to securely wrap itself around Tao’s waist. Tao’s face turns pink when he realizes just how close he is to Kris. Their foreheads are almost touching. Gingerly he removes the perfectly sculpted arm of his precious leader from his body and decides that he should go back to his own room before anyone realizes that he’s snuck off to sleep in his leader’s bed again. He doesn’t want anyone to suspect anything.
When he returns to his own bed he feels cold and alone. He wants to return to the comfortable and pre-warmed bed of his leader. An internal war begins to rage in his mind about whether or not he should just go back there. Does it really matter if anyone sees them sleeping in the same bed? They knew about it happening before…. Besides, it’s not like they were doing anything but sleeping. Tao searches for Beef to consult him about his dilemma, but can’t find him. He’s forgotten him in Kris’s bed. It’s too late to go back. Well actually it’s too early. Getting up at this hour and walking back to his leader’s room would be too risky right now. He is surprised he didn’t wake Minseok up just walking to his own bed.
Forced to face the torturous fact that Kris will somehow have to return his beloved Beef in secret, Tao tries to drift off to sleep again. It’s too early to really get up but it’s not too late to try and get a tiny bit more sleep. When he closes his eyes, Tao hopes that he will dream of sexy Baekhyun-ie with his eyeliner. Tao cocoons himself in his blankets once again and tries to let happy Baekhyun-ie filled thoughts lull him to sleep. For the most part, this works, and within minutes Tao is softly snoring in his blanket cocoon.
Later that day, after Tao successfully answers the “ideal type” question by saying he likes someone who is pretty, has a good body, and a good personality, Minseok has the audacity to hand back Tao’s beloved Beef, courtesy of Kris he says, and whine that he spent all night (well really what was left of the night after Tao returned to his room) whispering about Kris in his sleep. Tao splutters a bunch of nonsense Mandarin and Korean that Minseok can hardly decipher. Sympathetically, Minseok-ie smirks and pats Tao on the shoulder and tells him not to sneak out of the room anymore, which causes a profuse blush to spread across his Kung Fu Panda cheeks.
“But what about my Baekhyun-ie?” Tao sobs when Minseok leaves the room.
Even Beef doesn’t want to answer him this time.
A/N: This is the first fanfiction I have ever written *hides in corner with shame* Hopefully I will improve. Especially in the summary department cuz.... my summaries suck XD
Pairing: Tao/Kris, Tao/Baekhyun
Rating: PG? (hell, I dunno what to rate things....)
Summary: [Companion to Sharing a Bed] Tao spends most of his night struggling to define his ideal type, then sneaks into bed with Duizhang to ask for help.
Difficult Thoughts
Tao’s never given much thought as to who his ideal type would be before, and when he’s first asked the question he somehow finds it impossible to answer. When Tao can’t usually think of an answer he rejects answering the questions entirely and either shifts it to his precious leader Kris or pulls the age card. He’s too “young” to know what he looks for in a person. In fact he’s faced with the realization that he’s never really dated. Never really cared to date either. In Korea he spent all of his time training and hanging out with his “hyungs” and “chingus” and back home he was too busy trying to become a Wushu master to think about being in a relationship.
In fact, Tao’s not even sure if his ideal type is even female. He doesn’t have many female friends and for the ones he has he’s never really felt anything for him. But then again he’s never really felt anything for anyone no matter what their gender may be. He has a fondness for certain individuals, but he would never really say he’s interested in them in that way. But what does it even mean for him to be interested? How would he even know since he’s obviously not sure how seems to feel about anyone right now? All he knows is that he’s been sobbing on the inside ever since he left Korea. He’s sure if he’s not careful he’ll probably burst into tears if anyone asks him about his relationship with the EXO-K members so he tries to avoid that subject as well.
On the way back to their dorm his fellow members tease him about his answer. It’s not like he hasn’t known that he would have to answer these sorts of questions. They’ve explained this all to him before when he was training. He knew people would ask, he just never really thought about the fact that he would have to answer or how he would even answer it. In the van, precious leader Kris giggles about it while Yixing imitates how he answered the question, or more like how he avoided answering the question. Tao’s sure he didn’t look or sound that foolish when he responded. Or perhaps he did. Even Jongdae is laughing and he can’t understand the majority of conversations since they’ve been in China. But then Tao notices Luhan’s sitting next to him translating for the forever lost Jongdae and Minseok. All of these people that Tao adores so much, even if he doesn’t understand them all that well, have somehow managed to think of an ideal type, but maybe that’s because they are older than him. Yes. It’s their age, he tells himself.
They laugh at him all the way back to the dorm and, even though Tao knows they are joking, he already feels like crying. He scolds himself for being so emotionally unstable these days and declares that later that night, when he’s all settled into bed, he will contemplate this difficult question. What is his ideal type? Maybe then, after some deep thoughts in the middle of the night accompanied by Minseok’s soft snores, he will have his answer. But Tao’s not even sure he wants to find an answer. In the pit of his stomach he feels the question bubbling. Perhaps he’s been ignoring the question for good reason.
By the time they’ve returned to their new dorm in China, Tao’s given himself a stomach ache because of his endless worrying. To quell his quaking stomach he chugs three glasses of water before going to bed. Kris warns him that he’ll have to pee every ten minutes and won’t get any sleep at all, which he desperately needs because they have a packed schedule tomorrow, if he drinks anymore. Gege is always wise and mature in Tao’s eyes, so Tao refrains from forcing down another glass, bids his beloved leader good night, and sulks into his new room to find that Minseok has already passed out. This comes as a relief to Tao because he knows he wouldn’t be able to think properly about his answer if Minseok were awake. It’s not that he doesn’t like Minseok, or Bao Zi as Luhan endearingly calls him (in his mind, Tao likes to call him Minseok-ie because he thinks it sounds cute, but he wouldn’t dare say it out loud), because he does. Tao loves everyone in EXO, he just worries that his distress will be noticed and Minseok will try to speak to him and ask him what’s wrong. Tao’s Korean isn’t that spectacular seeing as how he hasn’t been in Korea for that long, and he knows that if he tried to answer him, his words would only scramble in his brain and fall out of his mouth in some incoherent manner because he’s too stressed out about thinking of an answer for his own question.
When he’s flicked off the lights in the room, thoroughly cocooned himself in his blanket, and tucked in his stuffed panda, which his fellow EXO-K member has dubbed Beef, next to him Tao allows the grueling process of deep contemplation to begin. He tries to think of things that might interest him. What eye color? Hair color? Skin tone? Foreign or Chinese? Maybe Korean? He may not fully understand Korean, but he likes the sound of it. At first it sounded harsh to him, but now it sounded comforting. Somehow it was also becoming his language. It would curl around his brain and whistle through his ears so pleasantly. Being back in China and being surrounded by people speaking the various dialects was almost jarring to him now that he has been living in Korea. So he assumes he would like someone who speaks Korean? No, that’s not a good enough answer, and how can he fall for someone that he can’t even fully understand? Or is that how it’s supposed to be? Or, hell, does it even matter?
Clearly, picking out physical features isn’t getting Tao anywhere. Tall, short, fat, skinny? None of this is getting him anywhere. Since Minseok-ie is clearly asleep, and since Tao now feels embarrassed that he’s even stressing out about this, he turns to the only one he can trust. Beef.
“What do you think?” Tao whispers to his stuffed panda in the darkness. His eyes are still unaccustomed to the blackness but he can just barely make out the shadowy line that defines Beef’s soft, squishy face. “Who’s you’re ideal type?” Predictably, Beef gives no response. What did Tao expect? After all, he’s speaking to a stuffed animal.
“I guess you don’t have one either,” Tao sighs and listens to the sound of Minseok-ie moving in his sleep and muttering something about Luhan and how he’d like to hug him. Tao feels like he’s listening in on some secret conversation when Minseok is asleep. He knew that Kris spoke in his sleep, they all knew that, but he didn’t know that Minseok did too. And it’s almost always about Luhan. The words that Minseok whispers in his sleep feel too inappropriate for Tao’s innocent ears. As Tao’s Korean vocabulary expands the awkward sensation grows. He senses that he shouldn’t listen to the declarations of love that Minseok murmurs. They feel too private, too personal, too forbidden, especially when they’re about Luhan gege. It’s not that he necessarily thinks Minseok is gay, nor does he really care, but Minseok has always talked about his ideal type as if it’s female. And yet, in the middle of the night, all he ever hears about is Luhan. He doesn’t always fully understand every word Minseok says but he’s able to recognize enough to know that Minseok’s clearly thinking of Luhan in a romantic way. At times like these, Tao wishes his manager were still his roommate. Sometimes, after Minseok has been gushing a little too much about his boy crush in his sleep, Tao is embarrassed to look at Luhan the next day.
Hearing Minseok say all these sweet-nothings in the middle of the night makes him wonder if the other members do the same. Do they talk and giggle about their crushes? Do they whisper and sigh about other members? Or is it just a Minseok-ie thing? Or, better yet, does he do it? In the middle of the night, when there’s no one around to listen to him talk or when Minseok is too busy whispering about Luhan, does Tao do it to? And if he does, whom does he talk about? Who does he whisper about so lovingly? Tao fidgets in his bed and pulls Beef close to him. He feels uncomfortable and exposed by his own thoughts and contemplates buying a video camera when he gets a chance so that he can record himself when he sleeps. Recording himself at night is the only method he can think of to see if he too mumbles about a secret crush. It’d be too awkward to ask the other members or his manager if they ever heard him mutter in his sleep. But then he reconsiders this thought when he realizes that it must be a pretty ridiculous crush if he can’t even remember whom he is crushing on when he’s awake.
The idea of wasting his money on a video camera crumbles when he also starts to worry that maybe Minseok-ie would see what he was doing and then ask why he was doing it. Even worse, what if Minseok-ie saw the video and heard himself chatting about Luhan in his slumber? What if he too had such a secret crush that he only knew about it in his dreams? Not to mention there would also be the awkward fact and realization that Tao hears EVERYTHING that Minseok-ie says, and then maybe he would worry about just how much he had said or even done in his sleep. The thought of this is all too embarrassing. Tao can feel his face heating up and turning red in the darkness. To hide his embarrassment he smashes his face into Beef, hoping that his soft, fake fur will somehow absorb the heat and restore him to his normal self.
But Beef only makes things worse because Tao starts to think about Byun Baekhyun who not only named his panda Beef, but whom Tao calls Beef in person. It had been one of those situations in which Tao’s Korean abilities had undoubtedly failed him, like when he had mistakenly called Minseok “Oppa”. Baekhyun and Tao were both Taurus, but Tao did not know how to say this in Korean so he had settled for the word “sogogi”, which in Korean meant beef. It had been their inside joke for quite some time until the other members started questioning them and they had to explain it in detail. As you can imagine, this incurred mass amounts of laughter from the other members and crushing social embarrassment to Tao. Being in Korea always seemed to cause Tao a hefty amount of social embarrassment. Kris always tells Tao not to worry about it and that his mistakes are cute. He would get better with this whole “Korean” thing eventually.
Due to that incident and Tao’s inability to not worry about it as Kris had told him to do, Baekhyun would forever be known as Beef in Tao’s mind. But Baekhyun was not the only one with a nickname that went public, only the public didn’t really know where this nickname originated. To Baekhyun, Tao would be forever known as Kung Fu Panda, even though he knew that Tao practiced Wushu and not Kung Fu. He just liked to tease him. Because of Baekhyun, Tao had started introducing himself as EXO-M’s Kung Fu Panda during interviews. All these thoughts of Baekhyun make Tao want to cry even more, as if he hadn’t already been on the verge of tears since his separation from his fellow K members. He misses his beloved Beef. His stuffed panda, albeit it rather adorable and squishy, was not a substantial substitute for the real life Beef, for his Baekhyun.
His.
The word rolls around unsteadily in his already unstable mind. Since when did Baekhyun become his? Tao pulls away from Beef and stares at him accusingly. “Are you mine?” he growls at him. Or does he really mean to be saying this to Baekhyun? Now Tao isn’t even sure how he became so close to Baekhyun since he isn’t fluent in Korean. But somehow they just are. In a way that makes Tao irrevocably happy inside, makes his stomach feel all tingly and warm and his lips turn up into a sleepy smile. He has his Baekhyun-ie with him all the time because of Beef. Tao swallows hard and frowns as soon as the thought crosses his mind.
There’s that word again.
His.
Baekhyun-ie?
This is new. He’s never thought of him as Baekhyun-ie before, but it sounds just as cute, if not cuter than Minseok-ie, and he’s not nearly as close with Minseok as he is with Baekhyun. Tao giggles at the thought of calling Baekhyun “Baekhyun-ie”. He can picture himself running towards Baekhyun the second he returns to Korea. He imagines it as one of those epic hugs you tend to see only in dramas or movies. A full-hearted hug. A hug so tight and strong that Tao imagines himself lifting Baekhyun off the ground and twirling him in the air. Then Tao imagines himself saying something like “Baekhyun-ie, if you were a girl I would kiss you.” The fantasy burns into Tao’s skull and sets it on fire. He ends up feeling so hot that has to force himself out of his scorching cocoon, and when the cold air of the bedroom hits him he realizes how much he dearly needs to pee. Kris was right about the water, but he’s sure that even without drinking it he’d still be just as wide-awake as he is right now.
Taking his beloved Beef with him, Tao carefully slips out of bed and sneaks out of the room so as not to wake up Minseok-ie. He doesn’t want to disturb Minseok’s precious dreams about Luhan. On his way to the bathroom, while hugging Beef tightly to his chest and burying his chin in the panda’s fur, Tao thinks about his newfound desire for Baekhyun-ie. So is this Tao’s whispered midnight crush? His Baekhyun-ie. Tao smiles and squishes Beef even closer to his chest. It’s all he can do to stop himself from squealing with glee in the middle of the hallway and waking everyone up. He imagines that if Beef were truly Baekhyun, and he was standing here in this very hallway with him, that Baekhyun-ie would giggle and tell Tao to shush and keep quiet. He imagines that this would be their evening routine.
Sneak out into the hallway.
Meet each other in “secret”.
Whisper and giggle about nonsense and constantly rebuke each other for being too loud.
Maybe even kiss?
The thought of this makes Tao’s heart pound in his chest. He’s really been watching too many Korean dramas. Originally he had claimed to watch them in order to “practice” his Korean and expand his vocabulary. Now he doesn’t even try to make excuses for it. He likes watching dramas when he has the time to. Sometimes even precious leader Kris will join him.
Too engrossed in his blissful thoughts, Tao stubs his toe on the doorpost as he enters the bathroom.
“Ow!” he half mutters, half screams.
“Everything ok?” Tao drops Beef in shock as he turns to see a sleepy Kris walking towards him. For a second he thought he saw a ghost in the darkness, but it was just precious Kris.
“Everything’s fine,” Tao whispers hoarsely as Kris passes by him into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Hoping that Kris hasn’t seen any of his gleeful looks as he strolled down the hallway, Tao quickly steps into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, leaving poor Beef out in the cold dark hallway to keep an eye on Kris. After Tao finishes his business (he really did drink way too much water…) he opens the door to find Kris standing outside of the bathroom with Beef in his hands.
“You dropped this,” Kris yawns.
“Thanks.” Reaching out with suspicious fingers, Tao takes Beef from Kris’s hands. They are very nice hands, Tao notices. But he has always thought that Kris had nice hands.
“Mmm.” Kris turns and walks back towards his room, still too sleepy to give Tao a more proper response. Without thinking much of it, Tao follows Kris into his room and slides into bed with him. Kris doesn’t really seem to mind this either because he’s too sleepy to care or because he’s always had a soft spot for Tao. When Tao first arrived in Korea he used to sneak into Kris’s bed and cry himself to sleep while Kris tried to comfort him and cure him of his homesickness.
“Kris, what should I say if they ask me who my ideal type is again?” Tao whispers to his leader. He’d been thinking so much about Baekhyun-ie that he almost forgot he needed to come up with a good answer to tell people. He was sure that admitting that Byun Baekhyun is his ideal type was way out of bounds, at least for now.
“Just tell them the truth,” Kris grumbles groggily, clearly unhappy that Tao has disturbed his beauty sleep. In order to keep his perfect complexion, Kris follows a very strict beauty regime. All the members do, but Kris is the most adamant about his. Now he’s not sure if it was such a good idea to let Tao into his bed.
“But I’m not sure what the truth is,” Tao mutters. But he does know. Or at least he thinks he might finally know, and it looks a lot like Baekhyun-ie, if not is Baekhyun himself.
“Then just say something generic, like someone pretty, or with a good personality, or good body, or something like that,” Kris sighs and turns away so that his back is facing Tao. For a moment, Tao allows himself to be amazed by his precious leader. Even when half asleep he knows the right things to say, not to mention he looks cute when he’s sleepy. Tao cringes at this thought and makes a mental note to not ever call something cute again. He swears if he hadn’t called the name “Baekhyun-ie” cute he wouldn’t feel this attracted him. But at the same time, he doesn’t mind. Baekhyun is cute. Kris is…. Kris is…. Kris is a different kind of cute, Tao decides. He really only thinks this because he wants to avoid saying that Kris is “sexy” or “hot” because he really shouldn’t be thinking these things about his leader, especially not when he is in the same bed as him.
“Baekhyun-ie can be sexy too,” Tao whispers to Beef who, unlike Kris, is still willing to listen to him right now. Baekhyun with his eyeliner. That’s sexy, right?
“What?” Kris mumbles beside Tao.
“Nothing.” Tao curses himself and decides it’s best he just go to bed. Even though he really wanted to talk to Kris he’s not sure he actually wanted Kris to know about his sudden attraction towards Baekhyun. “Good night,” Tao says so that Kris can hear him, and then turns his back and curls up in a ball so that his back is aligned right next to Kris’s. As he drifts into sleep all he can think about is how nice and warm it feels sleeping next to Kris. Before he’s out for good he hears Kris complain that Tao’s feet feel cold and he’s too close and should move. Tao falls asleep with a content smile on his face.
Early in the morning, around 5:00 a.m., before anyone else is awake, Tao is humiliated to see that somehow during the night Kris and him had turned to face each other and Kris’s arm had managed to securely wrap itself around Tao’s waist. Tao’s face turns pink when he realizes just how close he is to Kris. Their foreheads are almost touching. Gingerly he removes the perfectly sculpted arm of his precious leader from his body and decides that he should go back to his own room before anyone realizes that he’s snuck off to sleep in his leader’s bed again. He doesn’t want anyone to suspect anything.
When he returns to his own bed he feels cold and alone. He wants to return to the comfortable and pre-warmed bed of his leader. An internal war begins to rage in his mind about whether or not he should just go back there. Does it really matter if anyone sees them sleeping in the same bed? They knew about it happening before…. Besides, it’s not like they were doing anything but sleeping. Tao searches for Beef to consult him about his dilemma, but can’t find him. He’s forgotten him in Kris’s bed. It’s too late to go back. Well actually it’s too early. Getting up at this hour and walking back to his leader’s room would be too risky right now. He is surprised he didn’t wake Minseok up just walking to his own bed.
Forced to face the torturous fact that Kris will somehow have to return his beloved Beef in secret, Tao tries to drift off to sleep again. It’s too early to really get up but it’s not too late to try and get a tiny bit more sleep. When he closes his eyes, Tao hopes that he will dream of sexy Baekhyun-ie with his eyeliner. Tao cocoons himself in his blankets once again and tries to let happy Baekhyun-ie filled thoughts lull him to sleep. For the most part, this works, and within minutes Tao is softly snoring in his blanket cocoon.
Later that day, after Tao successfully answers the “ideal type” question by saying he likes someone who is pretty, has a good body, and a good personality, Minseok has the audacity to hand back Tao’s beloved Beef, courtesy of Kris he says, and whine that he spent all night (well really what was left of the night after Tao returned to his room) whispering about Kris in his sleep. Tao splutters a bunch of nonsense Mandarin and Korean that Minseok can hardly decipher. Sympathetically, Minseok-ie smirks and pats Tao on the shoulder and tells him not to sneak out of the room anymore, which causes a profuse blush to spread across his Kung Fu Panda cheeks.
“But what about my Baekhyun-ie?” Tao sobs when Minseok leaves the room.
Even Beef doesn’t want to answer him this time.
A/N: This is the first fanfiction I have ever written *hides in corner with shame* Hopefully I will improve. Especially in the summary department cuz.... my summaries suck XD