Deer Luhan,

It looks like your defence instincts are pretty much the same as mine.  At least, when I don’t opt for throwing somebody over my shoulder.

Leigh

Luhan somehow convinced me to do the interview for him so he could slip off to visit his mother, and none of the rest of EXO realised he wasn’t with us until we actually arrived at the venue.

“He’s gone crazy,” Suho muttered, apparently not in the mood to scold me for withholding vital information.  “What if something happens?”

Fortunately, nothing did, except D.O. nearly passing out from a high fever just when he was asked what he thought about Kai and the KaiSoo pairing, which caused a fair amount of laughter on our part.  Kai and I put him to bed as soon as we got back, the former gently teasing him about his graceful swoon and D.O. grumbling that we were acting like a pair of mother hens.  Of course, neither Kai nor I could resist clucking at that.

“And I’m looking after the room key this time,” I added, slipping the card out of D.O.’s pocket as we headed out for dinner.

“Suit yourself,” D.O. said around a yawn, snuggling up in the duvet.  “Mind turning the lights out?”

I did, and shut the door behind me before turning to Kai.

“D.O.’s surprisingly cute when he’s ill.”

“Whoa now.”

I whipped around to find Baekhyun standing there, hands held up in a “stop right there” pose.

“Seriously.  I have not shipped you and Sehun all this way to find out you have a crush on D.O.”

“We’ve been secretly dating for a year now,” I told him with a straight face.

“Yeah, I call them the DoLeighMe couple,” Kai contributed, grinning broadly.  “D.O. proposed on their first date by singing songs from The Sound of Music.”

“I am sixteen….” I began when I realised that it would have been more like “I am eighteen, going on nineteen”, which somehow didn’t suit the vibe of the song so much.

Chen appeared at Baekhyun’s shoulder, wafting his hand under his nose.  “Phaw.  What is that smell of absolute bullsh*t?”  He was wearing a t-shirt that looked frighteningly familiar.  I blinked at him, and then at Baekhyun when I realised that both their tops were the same colour, and saw that Baekhyun was also sporting “OhReeLee?” in bright red marker pen across his front.

“Oh God no.  You two are changing before we go to dinner.”

“Hey!  It’s a free country – we can do what we want!” Baekhyun protested as I gripped his and Chen’s forearms and steered them forcefully away.

“Only works in America, dear.  Wear something proper.”

It was Chen’s turn to complain.  “This is proper.  Not like we’re flashing skin all over the place.”

“But we always can if you want to,” Baekhyun added hastily.

“Gross, you erts.”  I whacked their heads together.

Chen huffed.  “Must you insult our manly dignity?”

“It’ll be worse if you actually strip in front of her,” Kai consoled him.  “She’ll tell you to cover over before her eyes burn.  I know from experience.”

Chen and Baekhyun ground to a halt to stare at him.

“Wait, wait, wait.”  Chen blinked.  “You’ve actually stripped in front of Leigh?”

“Like, fully stripped off?” Baekhyun pressed, ignoring how red Kai’s face was flushing as he realised what kind of attacks he’d opened himself up to.  “Were you trying to lure her away from Sehun or something?”

“Because who can say no to that?”  Chen gestured at Kai’s body.  Kai shrank away, wrapping his arms around himself as if in protection.

“Sehun’s cuddlier,” I blurted out before I could help myself.

Dead silence.  Baekhyun’s jaw dropped open and Chen gawped.

“Wow.  Sehun’s hugs must be incredible.”

“Yeah, you must be one dedicated girl if you can turn down that.”

Mortified, I imitated Kai’s shrimp-standing-on-two-legs posture.

“Hey!” protested Kai.  “I’m not a thing!”

Baekhyun removed his arm from my grip.  “Rubbish, you’re an object of ual desire.  To the fans, at least.”

Chen turned to Baekhyun, also freeing his arm.  “I thought it was an object of ual attraction, not desire.”

“Desire, attraction, same thing.”

Secretly thankful they hadn’t made more of a meal out of my blunder about Sehun’s cuddliness, I decided to give up on getting them to wear different t-shirts in favour of seizing Kai’s wrist and dragging him out of the suite so we could go get dinner.

Kris greeted us in the restaurant on the third floor with words I hadn’t heard for quite some time.

“Yo, Luhan!”  He was holding up his phone.  “You’ve made headlines.”

“This is Leigh,” Kai corrected as Kris held his phone out towards me.  Kris hesitated and then tried again, holding his phone up.

“Oh, sorry!  Yo, Leigh!  You’ve made headlines.  Or it might be Luhan.  I don’t know.”

I took the phone off him and scanned the news article.  There was a photo of me mid-leap between balconies from that morning.  Reporters are scary predators.

“‘EXO’s Luhan displays characteristics of a mountain deer’?”  I read the title out loud, unsure exactly what to make of it beyond feeling incredulous.  “Jeez… ‘it would appear that EXO’s Luhan has got over his fear of heights.  Fans theorise he was trying to sneak into a girlfriend or lover’s room in broad daylight on the top floor of the hotel, which is currently occupied by the EXO members’— we need to get extra security here; I’ll ask Luhan about that tonight.  ‘The power of love appears to conquer—’  Am I reading the premise for a Disney movie?”

Luhan didn’t get back until very late, though.  He came staggering in just before midnight, long after the others and the manager had gone to bed, and nearly broke his ankle when he tripped in the high heels he was wearing.  I hurried to help him up.

“Are you all right?”

“Meh.”  He shrugged, adjusting the wig he had on and dusting off the skirt of the tartan dress.  “Been better.  I’m telling you, though, being a pretty girl in this neck of the woods is like a deathtrap.  Some ert tried to chloroform me just outside the hotel and I’m still feeling a bit sick.”

I raised my eyebrows in alarm.  “Jesus, Luhan.  How did you get away?”

He grinned tiredly at me.