Deer Luhan,

Why is it considered a date when Sehun took me out to see Seoul but not when Changmin invited me out for coffee with the words “it’s a date”?  I thought boys could be illogical sometimes, but this just doesn’t make sense.

Leigh

It was nearly three-thirty in the morning before we got back to the dorm, and I was shivering up a storm in spite of Luhan’s warm jacket.  Sehun had considered lending me his as well, but we both agreed it wouldn’t be great if he got hypothermia, so he’d settled for wrapping his scarf around my neck and forcing one of his gloves on me, holding onto my other hand with his bare one to keep it warm.  Both our hands were so frozen by the time he opened the front door that even superglue would have had a tough time matching how stuck together they were, and I couldn’t feel my own fingers, let alone Sehun’s.

The living room light was on and, as we kicked off our shoes, I realised somebody was gaming in front of the TV.  Sensing company, Chanyeol paused the game and tossed his controller aside, turning to grin at us.

“Hi, guys!” he began, and then his eyes dropped to our hands, and a smirk the like of which I’d never seen before crossed his features, and I knew we were in trouble.  “How was the date?”

“It wasn’t,” Sehun replied evenly, waiting for me to nudge my trainers into a neat position on the shoe rack before heading across the room, dragging me along behind him.

“It wasn’t?” repeated Chanyeol, vaulting over the back of the couch to skid to a halt in front of us.  “And you come back holding hands?  You’re even wearing the same socks.”

Poker-faced, Sehun disengaged his fingers from mine and pressed his freezing hand to the crook of Chanyeol’s neck.  Chanyeol yelped out a curse and hastily got out of the way.

“I was just showing Leigh a bit of Seoul before she leaves,” he said.  “And now we’re going to bed.”

I winced.  He could have phrased that better, and Chanyeol promptly took him up on it, smirking again.

“What, together?”

“Oh, shock horror,” Sehun said sarcastically.  “I forgot – would sleeping in the same room like always make poor Baekhyun jealous since Leigh slept with him in the hospital?”

“Hey!” I objected.  “You’re making it sound far worse than it was!”

“Oh, that’s a point.”  Chanyeol snapped his fingers and dug around in his pocket.  “Baekhyun asked me to ring him when you got back—”

Sehun had him pinned up against the wall faster than I could blink, and he jerked his head towards the bedroom when he caught me staring.  Clearly, Chanyeol was due a ‘little chat’, possibly with Baekhyun on the other end of the phone, and Sehun thought I could do with catching up on my beauty sleep.  I slipped into the bedroom and quickly changed into my pyjamas before heading out to the bathroom to make my ablutions and brush my teeth.

D.O. was leaning against the sink when I got in, attired in an office suit and wearing a large pair of lens-less glasses.  His cheeks were almost blue, as if he’d just come in from the cold, and his coat was slung over his arm.

“Now, dear,” he said, using his index finger to pull his glasses down his nose so he could inspect me over the rims and gesturing to the toilet with his free hand.  “Take a seat and tell me about your date.”

I blinked at him, and he used the opportunity to sit me down on the toilet.

“I-i-it wasn’t a date,” I managed to stammer before crossing my legs.  “D.O., I really need the loo… can you get out?”

“D*mm*t,” he sighed, pushing himself away from the sink.  “Sehun won’t admit to it either.”

He was sensitive enough – as always – not to push it any further and he left.  I finished up as quickly as I could and poked my head out of the door, checking in all directions in case another wild EXO member appeared and used “how was the date?” to super-effectively prevent me from going to bed.  Thankfully, there were none, but it didn’t stop me from sneaking across to my room as though I’d been dispatched from Mission Impossible.

I got the shock of my life when I opened the bedroom door and found Kai sprawled on my bed, still wearing his thick winter coat and propping his head up on his right arm.

“So,” he said, “Namsan Tower for a meal?  That’s a classy first date.”

I clapped my hands to my head, wondering exactly how many times Sehun and I were going to have to explain this.  “We didn’t go on a d—”  My eyes widened.  “Wait, how do you know we went to Namsan Tower to eat?”

Kai raised one dark eyebrow with a suggestive smile and held up his left hand.  A camera dangled from it.  “I have proof in pictures, babe.”

I nearly fainted in horror.  “You followed us?”

He grinned brightly at me, and this time, I actually staggered as my breath came short.

“Have to admit, you two were kind of tame,” Kai went on.  “We were hoping for something more like a motel.”

I wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground.  “We?” I managed weakly.

“D.O. came too, of course.”

“Of course he did.”  My voice was barely above a whisper, and I was dearly wishing that this conversation could have been a nonversation.

“So how was it?”  Kai rolled onto his front, cupping his chin in his hands expectantly.  I could have cried.

“It wasn’t a date—”

Thank the lord, Luhan’s phone rang, and I hastily plucked it out of my pocket and answered the call.  I was even prepared to put up with Abbie raving about her new BTS obsession if it meant I could escape the Kai-quisition.

“Chanyeol tells me you’ve just got back from your date,” drawled Baekhyun’s voice.  Oh, God, no.  I didn’t sign up for this.  “How are you feeling?”

“Right now, I want to jump off a cliff,” I snapped.  “Why are you even awake at four in the morning?”

“Aw, honey, was it that bad?” he simpered.  “Come and visit tomorrow and tell me all the details.  I’ll take notes to pass onto Sehun so he’ll do better next time—”

“Baekhyun!” I wailed.  “It wasn’t a date!”

He paused.  “Wow.  You sound really… upset.  Did he really let your expectations down that much?  I’m going to have to talk to him—”

“Baekhyun!  Shut up or I will refer to you as Bacon for the rest of my life!”

“I’ll call you back in the morning when you’ve had time to calm down,” he told me.  “I know rejection can be hard to deal with.  I’ll ask for a copy of Mean Girls and some ice cream when I wake up.  Drop by in the afternoon.”

He rang off before I could even formulate a reply, leaving me mouthing at the phone like a fish and Kai smirking broadly.  I gave a groan of frustration and flung myself down on D.O.’s bed.  For some reason, it felt like none of them were going to drop this, which meant I wouldn’t even be able to talk to Sehun about it without it getting worse.  I could only hope that Luhan would be amenable to listening to complaints about his group mates.

Unfortunately, the dark side got cookies to him first, and he woke me up with a phone call the next morning.

“About China,” he said.  “You’re going to have to spend at least a week pretending to be me.  The doctor says my dad needs twenty-four-seven care for at least another ten days, and I can’t leave him in hospital in case something else happens to him, so I need to look after him at home.”

“Luhan, my Chinese ,” I croaked at him, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

“Your accent’s great,” he told me.  “You said there were only two scheduled appearances next week, right?  Give monosyllabic answers where you can, be really boring, and fob all the questions off to somebody else.  Lay’s really talkative in China, and Kris is the leader, so you should be able to get them to handle it without them even knowing.  And if you’re really boring on camera, they’re going to try to keep the camera off you and cut you out of what they air.  I don’t care if my popularity suffers for a little.  It’ll give the others a chance to shine.”

“B-but the other stuff,” I protested.  “What if I mishear the questions or something?”

“Try and get what you can in writing.  They usually give out transcripts and prompts for what’s going to happen before you go on air and Sehun said your understanding of written Chinese is actually pretty good.  And I’