DOUBLE (SORT OF) UPDATE BECAUSE I THINK EVERYBODY'S FEELING DOWN, AND HUMOUR IS A GOOD MEDICINE.

Deer Luhan,

You guys never give up, do you?

Leigh

I got woken up at ten to midnight by Railing barking loudly and my mum freaking out at it.  Apparently Railing had been so quiet she’d forgotten he was in the house.

The doorbell was also ringing, and I guessed that was what had set Railing off.  Rolling over, I spied my crutches beside my bed – which meant that Dad or somebody had fetched them for me – so I grabbed them and made my way out of my room.

The door was open by the time I got to the top of the stairs, from which point I was able to see who it was who had landed up on our doorstep so late at night.

“I’m so sorry.”  Sehun wouldn’t stop bowing apologetically to my parents as my dad restrained Railing from jumping at him and freaking my mum out.  Huskies had a lot of energy.  “I kind of got kicked out and Luhan said he had friends who lived here who wouldn’t mind taking me in—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” my dad assured him.  “He rang ahead.”

I could have sworn I could see Sehun flushing the most fantastic red.

“Dad, what the hell?” I demanded.  Everybody whipped around towards me.

“D*mn,” said my dad, absolutely shameless.  “You were supposed to wake up to find him in the house tomorrow morning.”

“Where’s he going to sleep now?” fussed my mum.  “We can’t set up the airbed in her room anymore.  It would be inappropriate now she knows he’s here.”

“Oh my God,” I groaned, slumping against the wall.  “The world is against me.”

Sehun looked from me to my parents, more than a little wary.  “I feel set up.”

“’Cos you have been.”  Even though my dad’s back was to me, I knew exactly the kind of evil grin he had on his face because I’d seen it so many times before.  “I think this one was Tao’s idea, wasn’t it, darling?”  He turned to my mum for confirmation.

“Was he one of the ones I spoke to?” my mum asked.  “Could you get the dog away, please?  I still need time to adapt.”

Dad merely passed the husky over to Sehun, who accepted Railing with a nonplussed expression.

“We’ll put you in the spare room.  It’s just next door to Leigh.”  He turned and caught sight of me still at the top of the stairs.  “And you should be asleep!”

“Railing woke me up!”

“Railing?”  Sehun looked taken aback.  “The husky?”

“Mmhmm.”  My dad nodded as he started up the staircase, gesturing for Sehun to follow him, which Sehun did after a fair amount of hesitation.  “Something about padlocks being attached to railings because of the padlock on his—”

“Dad, Dad!” I called frantically, waving my hands to distract him and accidentally dropping a crutch, but the damage was already done.  Sehun had found the padlock on Railing’s collar and he froze, going so pale I thought for a couple of moments he was going to pass out.

“Honey, you should be in bed.  You’re still recovering,” my dad told me, setting the crutches to one side and picking me up like a baby.  “Sehun, do you need pyjamas or anything?”

I saw Sehun snapping back to the real world and blinking furiously just before Dad got me back into my room.

“No, it’s fine.  I brought my bag with me.”

“Dad,” I complained as he put me back on my bed and tucked me in.  “Just what the hell is going on?  Why does everybody seem to know about this when I don’t?”

“You’ll get your answers tomorrow,” he told me firmly.  I struggled to sit up, but he pushed me back down.  “No.  Too much excitement for one day and you don’t want to conk out for the weekend.”

“But I want to know now,” I whined.  “Dad, even Abbie is involved in this and she hasn’t been freaking out when she practically combusts every time somebody mentions EXO—”

“Would you like me to prescribe you a sedative?” he asked.  “Sleep.  Now.  I need to sort Sehun out.”

When I went downstairs for breakfast the next morning, it was to find Sehun warily eyeing Tao, who was sitting at the kitchen counter and stuffing his face with pancakes.  Deciding that nothing surprised me anymore, I sat down at the table and dropped my crutches to announce my presence.  They both jumped.

“Did you get kicked out too?” I asked Tao, reaching for the cereal.

“Nope!”  He upended a bottle of maple syrup onto his next pancake.  “Kai wanted to know what you named your puppy and Abbie told me your mum cooks like a boss, so we came round and she offered us pancakes because it’s my birthday today.”

I looked to Sehun for confirmation, only to find him taking the cereal out of my hands and pouring it into a bowl for me.  He seemed unnaturally foccussed.

“Happy birthday,” I offered to Tao.  “Where’s Kai?”

“He took Railing for a walk,” Sehun murmured, trying to keep his voice low as he spoke in English, but it wasn’t enough to escape Tao’s hearing.  The latter let out a guffaw of laughter.

“Seriously?  You named your dog Railing?” he demanded.  “Why the hell would you do that?”

I was pretty sure Sehun went just as red as I did.  Tao looked between the two of us in confusion for a minute before comprehension dawned and he dropped his pancake, positively crowing.

“Oh my God!  Padlocks and railings!  I get it now!”

“I still haven’t forgiven any of you,” Sehun muttered, passing me a spoon and a milk bottle.

Tao grinned and reached for another pancake.  “But you still love us all.”

Sehun muttered something pretty derogatory under his breath.  Tao suddenly snapped his fingers.

“Of course, not as much as you love Leigh,” he added.  “Where are you taking her for your first date?”

“Where does your mum keep the chopping knives?” Sehun asked, turning to me with a serious expression.

“Oh, sh*t,” said Tao, leaping down from the counter.  “That’s my cue to go.  I don’t want to die on my birthday.”  He vanished into the nether regions of the house with his pancakes and a yell of: “Auntie, they’re getting aggressive!”

I decided not to question it and dug into my cereal.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on, or why everybody seemed to know you guys were here except me?” I asked Sehun.

“Not really.”  He sighed and sat down in one of the other chairs.  “As far as I knew, Luhan had managed to trace your university records, find out where you lived, and got in touch with your parents, and then Chen said we should all come across as a surprise for your birthday, so we started preparing things to perform.  There wasn’t much time, so we only got around to finishing your choreography for Jump! and doing a mash-up, and then Changmin and Kyuhyun found out and pointed out we weren’t going to be able to get leave to go abroad just before a comeback, so they promised to help us out… apparently by getting our entire label to jump ship at the same time.  I genuinely had no clue most of this was going to happen, but I probably should have guessed.  And knowing them, that’s not how it happened at all anyway.”

Thoughtful, I munched at my cereal.  Somebody had to have the answers, and I suspected I could ask pretty much anybody, but whether or not they would give them to me was a completely different matter.

My dad came into the kitchen at that moment.

“Hey, Dad,” I began, but he snatched a piece of toast and scarpered.

“Emergency at the hospital!” he yelled over his shoulder.

“You’re an eye surgeon, not part of A&E!” I bellowed back at him, but the door slammed.

Seconds later, the