It actually wasn’t that hard to get rid of Minhwan’s goons, though it probably helped that the one who barged into Jinsu’s room was Seungho rather than Minhwan himself.  Not keen on anybody gatecrashing, Jinsu did the first thing that came to mind and pulled the hem of her top up as she turned around.

Seungho backed off, flinging his arm up over his eyes.  “Oh God, don’t take your clothes off here!”

Jinsu fixed him with her best icy glare.  “Why not?  It’s my room.”

He lowered his arm a bit and Jinsu raised hers, pulling her top up further.  Seungho immediately covered his eyes again.

“I swear to God I thought you weren’t in here!”

“And that and not knocking make it acceptable to barge into somebody else’s room because. . . ?”

He held up his hands, eyes squeezed shut.  “Looking for Byun.  He might have thought hiding somewhere we’d be unlikely to look would be a good way to go.”

Jinsu wondered exactly why Baekhyun was so keen to avoid them and they were so keen to find him.  “Fat chance of me ever letting that git anywhere near me.  Now get out or I’m calling Jino on grounds of harassment.”

Seungho nodded and backed out of the room, still with his eyes closed.  As the door shut, she thought she heard Minhwan’s voice saying “yeah, not likely he’d be in there if she is.  I thought she was still doing other stuff so he might have used it as a getaway.”

Letting her top drop back again, Jinsu glanced towards the bathroom.  It was silent on the other side of the door.  Jinsu wondered which would be worse for Baekhyun: remaining trapped in the bathroom of somebody he knew really didn’t like him for four hours, or being ejected and potentially running into Minhwan.  She decided she didn’t care and flopped down on her bed, intending to relax by reading a book, but the next thing she knew, she was asleep.

Jinsu still felt shattered when she woke up, but the smell of food was utterly irresistible and pulled her out of sleep.  She rolled over to find that one of her desk chairs had been pulled up beside her bed and the mystery chef had left a large tray of food there.  A small note was propped up against the plate.

Electricity to cook! was right in her face, and Jinsu couldn’t help smiling a little.  Her mystery chef seemed excited.  Is your arm broken too or is it just your hand?  I’ve made everything single-hand-eatable for you.  Washing hands with one hand is hard and finger food is greasy.

Propping herself up a little more, Jinsu saw that everything was in bite-sized chunks and that he’d left her a small thing of cocktail sticks.  She couldn’t help wondering who it was again, though, especially from the cheerful, friendly tone of the note.  She doubted that Chanyeol and Jongdae would lie to her, and she’d also seen firsthand that Chanyeol and Sehun were atrocious cooks, so they were out.  The impression she got from Jongin was that he’d accidentally blurt it out or wouldn’t deny it if asked, and he’d come in to nick the food on occasion and she just didn’t think he’d do that without giving the game away.  Junmyeon was a hardcore vegetarian, and the only other person Jinsu was friends with was Kyungsoo.  She had to admit that he probably was the type to keep something like being the mystery chef under wraps if he didn’t want to reveal himself, but having seen him cook, he was either deliberately making it out not to be him (he wasn’t a bad cook at all, but the mystery chef had a way with presentation that Kyungsoo didn’t, but then the mystery chef was cooking for one and Kyungsoo had done dinner for thirty, so it could well just have been practicality), and she didn’t know why he’d do that (unless he was harbouring a massive crush), or it was somebody else.

A soft knock at the door announced the presence of Minseok.

“Breakfast in bed?” he commented when Jinsu told him to come in.  “You’re being spoilt.”

“I know,” Jinsu mumbled around a mushroom.  “You have no idea how lovely it is.”

“Well, when you’re done, I won’t need you on the computers for a bit.  I’d like it if you could go outside and see if you can find trees to help brace parts of the Attayear’s machinery in the engine rooms, so we can chop them down.  Ideally we’d have time to dry them out first because freshly dead wood is springy, but we don’t have that luxury.”

Jinsu held up her broken hand.  “I don’t think I can chop anything.”

“Just look and mark the trees.  It’s good for you all to get outside and all the more active boys without significant injuries have already done stints in fresh air.”

They had landed in winter, and that day, unlike the previous day, it happened to be snowing.  Jinsu tucked her camera into her pocket, intent on taking photos if the opportunity arose, and picked a cloak off the shelf.  It was only when she went into the bathroom to check that her fluffy hat was on dead centre that she realised it was Baekhyun’s cloak.

Which reminded her that she’d totally forgotten about hiding him in her bathroom.  Heart racing, she looked around, half expecting him to be on the toilet seat or sleeping in the shower, but he’d evidently upped and left as soon as he could.  But, apparently, not without going through all her stuff first.

It wasn’t like he’d left the place untidy, but everything had been moved.  The neatly lined-up shower gels and shampoos were in the shower rack rather than on the shelf beside the shower (had he used them?).  The toothpaste had been placed the wrong way up in its cupholder.  Everything from her medical bag had been laid out on the shelf her toiletries were supposed to be on with a space of exactly two millimetres between them (Jinsu wondered if he was mocking her) and a length of bandage that he’d obviously cut off himself in a moment of boredom draped over the edge of the shelf, held in place by a roll of medical tape resting on top of it.  Her bathroom flipflops had migrated from the door to in front of the toilet, making it look as though a ghost was sitting there (they were even placed at a forty-five degree angle).  Looking around, Jinsu wondered if he’d have changed the hot and cold taps around or if he’d have swapped the shower and the toilet over if he’d had the tools or the time.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, telling herself it was a good idea to remain calm.  It could have been worse.  He could have done a Minhwan and actually messed the place up.  This wasn’t messy; it just looked lived in, and lived in wasn’t something Jinsu was used to her personal spaces looking like.  They had to be perfect, not lived in.  The kind of perfect you saw on a property brochure when you were looking to buy a new house.

Still, the piece of bandage was long enough to wrap around her hand and her forearm as a makeshift glove, since she didn’t actually have any of her own, and she fumbled with the jade-and-silver clasp of the cloak for several long moments before it finally caught.  Jinsu gave a little victory pump, idly registering at the back of her mind that her jade pendant would actually go pretty well with the cloak clasp, and decided to head downstairs.  She could tidy the bathroom later.

Five of them had been detailed to go out in the snow, and two of them were Baekhyun and Jongdae.  Baekhyun conspicuously avoided her eye as she joined them, but then he looked up and seemed to recognise the cloak, and a funny expression crossed his face.  Jongdae was wearing a cashmere and wool coat that Jinsu was familiar with as her brother had the same one, and the other two were wearing thick hoodies.  Baekhyun himself seemed to be in much thinner layers, though his sleeves were down over his hands, and Jinsu frowned to herself, trying to suppress a niggling feeling of guilt at sort of stealing his cloak, even though he hadn’t wanted it back.

None of them had proper boots for the snow and the other two boys were soon complaining that it was cold and their feet were soaked.  Jongdae hovered at Jinsu’s elbow, chatting quietly to her about the time period they were in, while Baekhyun forged ahead into the woods.

After being cooped up with strange sleeping hours and computers for a couple of days, Jinsu found herself revelling in the crisp, fresh air of the winter day.  The snow drifted lazily around them, not too much of it to really