Deer Luhan,

Yi – I mean, Huang – is an absolute genius.  And it was very kind of him to bring the brandy.  We kind of needed it after all that.

Leigh

I woke up sandwiched between two very clingy boys.  D.O.’s feverish forehead was resting on my arm, making it feel as though I had sunburn, and Kai was wrapped around me like a homesick starfish, legs tangled in mine and arms everywhere.  It took quite a lot of skill to move my head without one of his fingers going up my nose.

Unfortunately, I was not enough of a stealth ninja as I would have liked: D.O. stirred and yawned before my head was anywhere near halfway free, and then stretched, whacking both me and Kai across the face with his hand.  Kai must have been close to waking up, too, because I knew from experience that a simple hit to the nose didn’t normally get more than a still-asleep-sneeze, but he grumbled, arms tightening around me for a moment, before he raised his head and blinked sleepily.

“Somebody clearly has insane sleepwalking skills,” he mumbled, lying back down again and snuggling up to me like a puppy.  I tried and failed to pry myself free.  Giving up, I slumped limply in his grip.

“Kai, can you let me go?  I need the bathroom.”

“No, you’re comfortable,” he complained.

“She’s not a blanket,” D.O. pointed out, amused.

“She’s still my snuggleigh,” Kai yawned.

D.O. leant over him.  “Kai, get off her or I will infect you.”

It took no more than a cough for Kai to suddenly spring away from me, yelling like somebody had tried to kill him.  Laughing to himself, D.O. slipped back under the covers and wrapped himself up in them.

“I still feel like crap,” he said.  “Can one of you get me breakfast?”

“Manager hyung’s ordering up room service at nine,” Kai supplied before I could offer.  He was looking much more awake since D.O. had coughed on him.  “Luhan asked him to yesterday for some reason.”

“Breakfast in bed,” D.O. mumbled.  “Sounds divine.”  He yawned and snuggled up under the sheets.  Kai and I surveyed him for a few moments.  Kai was the first to speak.

“Is it just me, or is D.O. not going to be attending schedules today?”

My head jerked involuntarily round so I could look at him.  “Wait, what’s on the cards for today?”

“A fan signing, I think.”

Alarm bells began to ring in my head.  Even though tickets were needed to enter a fan signing, it was definitely not going to be a good idea to go along to something as open as that, just in case more maf—

“Oh, wait, no, that’s tomorrow.  We’re filming for something today.  Another variety show, I think.”

All three of our phones beeped in unison.  Kai reached over to the nightstand to check the text.

“Suho wants everybody up by eight.  The manager wants to talk to us about something important, apparently.”

I felt my heart sink – I had a feeling I knew what that important thing was, and if some of them had been on social media last night after getting back, they probably would do too.  Kai evidently hadn’t.

“I’ll tell him D.O.’s gone back to sleep,” Kai added, eyeing the unmoving lump in the sheets.

Despite the manager issuing an ultimatum via Suho, only seven of us were in the living room by twenty past eight and the manager himself was nowhere to be seen, which meant I was able to hang out with the others.

“Okay, so D.O.’s sick,” Suho said, ticking him off on one of his fingers.  “He can sleep – we’ll explain later.  Kris is acting as an interpreter for the manager.  Luhan’s trying to get hold of his mum.  Where are Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Sehun?”

Nobody had any idea.  I went and banged on their doors, but there was absolutely no response, even when Tao threatened to kick the doors down.  At twenty-five past, the front door opened (I dived under one of the sofas) and Yi/Huang and the bodyguards from the day before appeared.

“Morning,” he said briskly as he threw open the curtains nobody had bothered to pay attention to on entering the room.  “Where are Luhan and Leigh?”

There was a shocked silence and I could see the boys all staring at him before Tao and Lay slowly pointed to the sofa, which I’d managed to get myself stuck under.  Huang strode over and tilted it so I could crawl out.

“And which one are you?” he asked, causing everybody who understood Chinese to laugh.

“We’ve had to put up with that for weeks,” Lay admitted.  Yi still had time to prat about, apparently, because he fished out his police badge.

“Commissioner General Huang Meng-Yao.  You’re under suspicion of identity fraud – show me your ID.”

I eyeballed him from the floor.  “You show me your proper ID first.”

A grin cracked across his face.  “This one’s Leigh,” he announced.

“ me,” said Chen, impressed.  “Even Sehun’s not that fast at telling them apart.”

“Was he trying to guess whether she was Leigh or Luhan?” Kai asked in Korean, looking around at all of us.  I nodded as I got to my feet.  “He could have just asked.  I walked out of the bedroom with you and I know you’re Leigh because I saw you changing.”

“Kai!”  I wasn’t the only one to reprimand him.  Suho also looked indignant.

“She was just putting her shirt on over her chest compressor,” Kai grumbled.  “It wasn’t like I saw anything.  And it was by accident, anyway.”

Yi or Huang or whoever was just bemused at hearing a different language; the other policemen had already zoned out and taken up positions like statues along the walls of the room.

“Is there a common language we can all communicate in?” he asked.  “I don’t speak Korean.”

“Not all of us speak Chinese,” Xiumin said apologetically.

“English?” somebody suggested, and Suho grimaced.

“My English isn’t great either,” said Yi/Huang, casting Suho a sympathetic look.  “It looks like we’re going to have to have a translator—”

Everybody looked around for Kris and then realised he wasn’t yet there.

“Ah, yes, your manager still has a lot of things to sort out,” Yi informed us.  “He’ll probably be along in about half an hour or so with the really super tall guy.  He was using him to interpret because he didn’t speak Chinese.  Is there anybody else who’s comfortable translating from Chinese into Korean and back again?”

Before anybody could volunteer themselves, Luhan’s bedroom door swung open and the guy himself emerged, looking harried, with Sehun trailing behind him and looking very much like he was trying to hide, or at least wanted the ground to swallow him up.

“Good morning, Mr Lu,” Yi greeted him.

“Mor—” Luhan stopped and stared.  “You look familiar.”

Yi chuckled.  “Sit down, sit down.  How many more are we waiting for?”

Luhan did a quick headcount.  “Four.  Chanyeol, Baekhyun, D.O. and Kris are missing.”

“D.O.’s sick and Kris is helping the manager,” Xiumin chipped in.

“Two, then,” Luhan amended.  “Wait, one.”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s door had opened and an almost completely asleep Baekhyun shuffled out, still in his pyjamas and clutching a stuffed animal.  Yi appraised him briefly.

“Good evening,” he said in English.  Baekhyun muttered something that couldn’t even be classified as in the realms of intelligible language as he flopped down on the sofa.

“Baek, is Chanyeol up?” Suho asked.

The only response was a light snore.

“Geez, already?”  Suho leant over and tried to free the teddy, but Baekhyun just curled up around it.

“I don’t think we’re going to be getting much information out of that one,” Yi commented, drawing laughter from everybody who understood Chinese.

Giving up on rescuing Baekhyun’s stuffed animal, Suho slumped down on the sofa next to him.  “Let’s just start.  He’s not going to be properly awake for another hour or so anyway.  The manager can fill him in later.”

Luhan translated and Yi nodded.

“Well, for those of you who don’t know,” Yi began, “which I think is everybody except Leigh, my name is Huang—”

“Snap!” Tao cut in, holding up a hand for a high five.  Yi laughed and obliged him.

“My name is Huang Meng-Yao and I’m working on the case with Mr Lu’s mother.  We,” he gestured around at the policemen, “are all here for your protection.  These two in particular.”  He used his index fingers to briefly indicate me and Luhan.  “I assume you already know the basics about Luhan and his mother?”

After the time lag of Luhan translating again, everybody nodded.

“Then I can cut to the chase,” said Yi.  “There were forty-seven fans abducted from in and around this hotel yesterday and somebody tried to kidnap Luhan the night before while he was dressed as a girl.  The mafia are aware that Leigh is a girl and they’re trying to use Luhan to drive out his mother by any means possible.”

Luhan swallowed rather than translating, so it was Lay who took up the responsibility.

“What?” demanded Sehun blankly, staring at Luhan.  He cast a very quick glance in my direction and then averted his gaze.  “How?”

“We don’t know,” Luhan said hollowly, his voice barely above a whisper.  “They’re blackmailing me so they can get hold of me to bring my mother out, but they don’t care whether they get hold of me or Leigh because it’s only going to produce the same result.”

Everybody sat t