"How could you let this happen?" demanded Kris, furiously rounding on Kai.

Kai held up his hands, surrender style as the others stared in horror at the mess that was Haruki's office. They'd been working in there, helping her catalogue evidence from cold cases dating back twenty years. She'd stepped out for a moment and in her absence, they'd fallen into their old habits and started up a game of catch with assorted items they found in the evidence box. Lay had overshot in throwing something to Kai and when Kai dove to catch it, he upset the pile of papers neatly stacked on the edge of Haruki's desk, scattering them all across the floor.

"It's not my fault!" Kai protested. "Lay threw it too hard!"

"Oh, sure, blame it all on me," snapped Lay. "Good going, butterfingers."

"Hey, I-"

"Stop it!" protested Tao, holding up his hands. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. Haruki's going to kill us when she sees this mess."

Sehun raced for the door and stuck his head outside. He jumped and spun around. "She's coming! What do I do?"

"Stall her!" Kris ordered as he dropped to the floor and began gathering up the papers in a haphazard pile. "Come on, you guys! Hurry up!"

Sehun practically darted out the door and collided with Haruki, nearly spilling her cup of coffee over her sleeve. "Hi there!" he said with so much enthusiasm, his voice cracked slightly.

Haruki raised an eyebrow. "Hello?" She tried to sidestep him, but he moved back into her way.

"Uh...hey! Is that coffee?" he asked.

"Yes..."

"I could really use some! Where did you get it from?"

"The break room is at the end of the hall." She reached for the doorknob, but he stepped in front of her again.

"Can you show me where it is? I don't want to...get lost."

Haruki tilted her head as she stared at him through narrowed eyes. "I don't think you can get lost walking to the end of the hall."

"You'd, um, be surprised," Sehun tried. "Come on." He grabbed her sleeve and began dragging her off as Haruki glanced back at her office suspiciously.

"Okay! These are from December, 2002. So that goes on top of this pile, right?" asked Xiumin. 

"Wait! No! Those are from November, 2002!" yelped Baekhyun, practically diving to snatch the pile of folders away from him.

"Yeah, I thought most recent went on top, and-" Xiumin began, but Chanyeol interrupted him, shaking his head.

"Most recent goes on the bottom," he explained. "They file things back to front here."

Kai slammed down his stack in frustration. "Are you kidding me? I have to redo everything!"

Chen was flat on his stomach, with the side of his head pressed to the ground. "I think there are some papers under here, but I can't reach them. My hand won't fit under the crack."

"Let me try." Baekhyun managed to slide his fingers under the crack and drew out a few crumpled sheets of papers. "Wait a minute, there's no date on these! What case do they belong to?"

Kris grabbed it from him. "That's not a case file, moron. That's a note from Haruki's boyfriend."

"Ooh, I want to see!" Kai snatched at it, but Kris pulled it away.

"Are you kidding me? This is private! It would be totally wrong for us to read it," Kris snapped. He stood up with the note in hand and cleared his throat. "Which is why I'm going to read it out loud."

"How much sugar do you need?" Haruki asked, her impatience showing through her calm exterior. 

Sehun scraped a few grains of sugar off the spoon into his cup and made a big show of stirring carefully, before testing it.

"It has to be perfect," he protested. Truthfully, he didn't like sugar in his coffee, but he was running out of ways to stall. He'd managed to somehow not be able to find a filter, "accidentally" spill the can of roast coffee everywhere, and forget to plug in the coffeemaker.

"Well, you take your time. You can find your way back to my office, right?" Haruki asked.

She turned to leave and Sehun panicked, cold sweat dampening the back of his shirt collar. The others couldn't be ready yet. He needed to stall for more time! Haruki had almost reached the doorway, when he quickly knocked the can off the table once again. The can hit the ground with a crash and burst open. Haruki whirled around. 

If looks could kill, Sehun would have been dead, buried, and resurrected to be killed again by now.

"Okay, that's the last of them." Chanyeol sighed as he slipped the last file in place and wiped his forehead. The others were still seated on the floor, exhausted from their mad scramble to get everything in place.

And not a moment too soon. Haruki entered with Sehun anxiously peering over his shoulder, his relief obvious when he saw that everything had been cleaned up. Haruki took one look at their innocent faces and immediately narrowed her eyes. "Alright, what did you do?" she demanded.

"We didn't do anything!" Tao burst out. "Why would you think-" He shut up quickly when Kris stomped on his foot.

Haruki frowned as her eyes slowly swept across the room. Nothing was apparently out of place and she relaxed her shoulders slightly.

Suddenly, Kai burst out in hysterical laughter and she raised her eyebrows at him, noting the warning glares the others were shooting at him. "What's with you?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied, snickering slightly. "Baby girl. Does Donghae really call you that?"

Haruki's eyes widened. "Kai..." she said in a carefully controlled voice. "Who told you that?"

"It was in his note." He grinned cheekily at her. "He says you hate it, which is why he uses it on purpose..." The smile faded at the murderous look on her face. "Oh, crap."

As Haruki took one step towards him, he sprang to his feet to run and bumped into the desk. The precarious pile of folders teetered and toppled to the floor, spilling papers everywhere.

Time seemed to freeze as the hairs rose on the back of Kai's neck. "Oh, crap," he said again and was halfway down the hall before the others had even gotten over their shock. 

A/N: Stories will be getting more ridiculous as I begin to run out of ideas. >.>