Metal

43%

Sehun's back is covered in sweat the next morning. He throws off his blankets and sits up (a little too quickly, one might add, as the motion makes his head spin), stripping off his shirt. The heater had obviously been fixed overnight, but now he's suffering from it. A heat stroke is not how he'd like to be greeted in the morning.

Now bare from the waist up, he pulls open his closet for something to wear. He would change after a shower, he decides. It would be the best way to relieve himself of this nasty heat.

He quickly grabs a pair of shorts and a black wifebeater tank and peeks out his door. There shouldn't be anyone there, though he's not sure what time it is. He should've checked.

The bathroom is only some meters down the hall. Supposedly, he should be able to make it without any awkward interaction with some poor servant in the wrong place at the wrong time, or even Yi Fan whose seen him shirtless before...when he was ten. Now he's a high school student, and he'd rather not revisit the day he almost drowned in the pool.

With his clothes bundled into a small bunch under his arm, he tries to walk as silently as he can down the hall.

He hears a door open behind him and he stops in surprise. "Sehun, is that yo--"

Tao freezes at the sight of a half-naked Sehun staring at him from ten feet away. He's tempted to slowly back away and close the door. He coughs into his fist. The silence only heightens the tension in the air. "Showering?" He asks.

Sehun nods slowly, his cheeks growing redder by the second. His heart is playing drumbeats against his chest, the pounding filling his head with strange beats and rhythms. He wants to run. Instead, he points to the door behind him, muttering, "I, um, I.... Yeah...." He backs into the bathroom, eyes locked with Tao's the whole time.

Slamming the door behind him, he lets out an enormous breath he'd been holding in this whole time.

Ridiculously awkward.

Showering has never been so nerve-racking. His thought process looks a little something like this:

My god, Tao has seen me shirtless. Holy shit, what the fuck. Oh god, oh god, oh god, what the fuck. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Holy. Fucking. Shit. Crap crap crap, oh my god.

That continues on for a while, frosted with colorful language from every language he knows and an occasional whine from the back of his throat as he basks in his embarrassment. Where is the life-rewind button when you need one?

Mornings are not easy.

----

Tao has had his fair share of shock in his lifetime. Like when he was alone in his room after his third day of kindergarten and the scary man had to tell him "Sorry. I'm so sorry, my boy, but... your parents. They were in a car crash. You're going to have to live with your new guardian."

Like when he found out his new guardian intended to enroll him into a "special training school".

Like when he discovered he'd never get to see his old dog, or his new teacher, or his pretty neighbor ever again.

Like when he found out daddy wanted you to follow in his footsteps, Zi Tao. He wanted you to do great things.

They always called him Zi Tao. It felt bad. He was a five year old boy and they handed him a gun.

Yes, he's had more than his share of heart-leaping moments and near-death experiences. However, no one had prepared him for what he should do if he saw a boy he lives with half naked. For that, he is ill prepared indeed.