Deer Luhan,

To be honest, I’d still swap a drunk one of my university mates for a drunk Chen any day.  He’s irritating as when he’s wasted, but it’s kind of adorable and funny.

Leigh

The night almost started badly the moment we stepped out of the high-rise building the dorm was in, Tao hiding the electric blue streaks in his hair under a beanie.  Kris, now the colour of a normal human being, slung an arm around my shoulder.

“Right, Luhan, this is your territory.  Where do you reckon we should go first?”

I looked up at him in alarm, my mind going blank.  Kris had been perfectly comfortable suggesting a couple of bars just around the corner the last time we’d been out, so I didn’t see why I was supposed to be calling the shots.  And also, how in the name of anything on earth was I supposed to be able to suggest a decent place to go drinking when I’d only left the dorm three times since I’d arrived?

“We could always go to the usual place—” Xiumin proposed with a quick glance at me, and I nearly melted in relief.

Until Kris turned to him with a scowl.  “It’s ing New Year’s Eve: we need a line-up of at least four decent places to go to before we turn in.”

I was kind of annoyed Kris hadn’t at the very least given me prior warning, say, when he’d turned up with the plea for me to go to the dermatologist, so I could have asked Luhan for advice, and I reached into my pocket for Luhan’s phone to complain about the short notice.

It was only when I was holding it in my hand that I remembered I’d transferred the list of Important Places to Luhan onto the phone just in case I needed them.  I opened it up and saw that the one right at the top was the dermatologist.  Whoops.  Right below that was a name he’d starred as his favourite restaurant.

I went into the messaging app.

If you’d told me earlier, I could have booked tables, I wrote.  And your left ear is still orange, by the way.

Kris looked embarrassed when I showed him and he ducked away to fix his ear.  I puffed out my cheeks and returned to the list.  Xiumin and Lay came and peered over my shoulders.

“That one,” Lay murmured in my ear, catching the scrolling screen with his thumb and pointing to another starred restaurant halfway down the list.  “We’ve been there before – Lu— uh, you’re kind of a special customer there, so you can ring up and get seats any time.  We’ll go there for food.”

“Lay,” Xiumin muttered back to him, “she can’t talk.”

Lay plucked the phone out of my hand and went to the contacts list.  “I’ll ring.  Look for bars while I do that.”

I tugged on his sleeve as he prepared to make the call, and Xiumin scoffed and snatched the phone back for me.  “We can’t do that while you’re ringing them!  Here, take down the number and call from your phone.”

“Jeez, this is taking ages,” Chen grumbled with a loud yawn.  I looked up at him and pointed towards Kris with an unamused expression.  Kris held his hands up.

“Hey, why are you shunting all the blame to me?”

“Maybe because it’s your fault this isn’t organised?” Xiumin suggested.  “It was your idea to go out.”

“Hey, I’m Canadian!  You can’t expect me not to celebrate a national holiday!”

His appeal to nationality had a sudden lump springing to my throat and I shakily handed the phone to Xiumin before I could drop it.  Kris was kind of right: we could no more expect him not to go out for New Year’s than somebody could expect me not to watch the fireworks from the rooftop of my house as the years changed over.  It was going to be the first time in my life that I wasn’t seeing them, and an abrupt rush of homesickness hit me.  At least in Korea for Christmas I’d been able to speak to people, and I’d had a conversation with my family and with Abbie and I’d even seen Ryan and eaten turkey.  Plus I was Korean, so celebrating a Korean Christmas really wasn't that far removed.  But this time, things were that much more alien, and it was going to be much harder to join in the fun and games when I couldn’t even say anything.

“You all right, Luhan?” Xiumin asked me.

Pulling myself together, I gave him a wan smile and nodded.  He didn’t look convinced.

“Luhan,” said Lay, “they need proof it’s you, like a credit card or passport or registered diner number or something—”

Registered diner number?  I pulled out Luhan’s Chinese credit card and gave it to Lay so that he could read the details over the phone.

“Can we get going?” Tao spoke up, shuffling from leg to leg and hunching his shoulders against the cold.

“Well,” said Lay, handing me back the credit card, “we’re due dinner at quarter to nine.  Remember that super snazzy place LuLu took us to when we finished Mama promotions?”

That was all it took for Chen’s jaw to drop open and him to start drooling.

“Oh my God, Luhan, marry me.  That scorpion dish I had then was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”

It was extremely difficult not to shoot him a disgusted look.  I had enough trouble understanding snails and frogs legs, and I’d actually eaten both (though I will maintain until my dying day that the frogs were just like intensely flavoured sea-reared chicken and not frogs), but scorpion?  Was he insane?

“Uh, Chen,” said Lay, “since it looks like your affections lie more with the scorpion than with Luhan, shouldn’t you be looking for one of them to ask down the aisle?”  He blinked innocently a couple of times and everybody burst out laughing, Chen included.  I gave a small smile, undecided as to whether or not Lay was naively serious about that question or whether his poker face was even better than Sehun’s.  And to be honest, the image of a scorpion in a bridal dress was as funny as it was disturbing.

“Luhan, how are these three?” Xiumin asked, waving Luhan’s phone under my nose.  “I know you like this one—” he pointed to the top one, “—and I suppose we can introduce the others to our secret hideout once they’re drunk enough not to remember the way there.  And the other one’s just round the corner from there, right?”  He winked at me.

Xiumin, you are a god among men, I thought at him, and I nodded without even looking.  If Xiumin recognised them, that hopefully meant I wouldn’t have to lead the way.

The others cheered as Xiumin read off the name of the first one and Tao finally tugged his hands out of his pockets as he moved away from where he’d been sheltering in the doorway.

“Leigh,” Xiumin whispered in my ear, “I hope you’re good at map reading.  I know the first place is nearby, but it’s not really far enough to take a taxi and I can’t navigate for sh*t.”

Chen’s desire to marry a scorpion suddenly didn’t seem that strange: I was beginning to feel an unusual affection towards the Sims-like maps of Baidu and the horrific torment of my Gold Duke of Edinburgh award expedition across the Lake District in the worst rainstorms in seven years.

It was kind of hard to make it look like I knew my way there rather than the reality of me constantly checking the map and street signs.  I opened up the message app and started texting Sehun out of nervous habit when Chen strolled up alongside me and struck up conversation.

“You gonna drink anything tonight?” he asked me.  “You barely had five shots last time.”

I wrinkled my nose and discreetly checked the name of the street we were crossing before making a surreptitious flick through the apps to the map and back again.

Somebody has to take you children home, I typed into the message box.

“Children?” Chen scoffed.  “I could drink triple the amount you had and still get home by myself.”

Raising an eyebrow, I cleared the text box and wrote: CHALLENGE.

“You’re on,” Chen told me with a grin.

You’re getting…

I hesitated, wondering what the Chinese was for “you’re getting your stomach pumped”, and at that moment, the phone buzzed with an incoming text from Sehun.

Hyung, what the hell?

I looked down at the screen and realised that I’d accidentally sent my first reply to Chen to him.

You’re going to end up getting your stomach pumped, I typed for Chen’s benefit in Korean before pressing the return key.  Sorry, I wrote to Sehun.  Trying to communicate with Chen.

The message came back quicker than I’d expected.

You’re obviously failing if you’re sending ME all the messages.  And what challenge?

Half a second later, a new one came through.

Stomach pumping?  Are you guys planning on getting wasted tonight?

I decided it was politic not to answer that and went back to the map app, obeying its instructions to take a left and dragging Chen with me.

Unfortunately, the non-answer was a red flag to Sehun.

You guys ARE going out drinking tonight, aren’t you?

Hyung, answer me.

Hey, are you sure it’s a good idea to be drinking?

HYUNG.  YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LET A DROP OF ALCOHOL PASS YOUR LIPS.  IT’S DANGEROUS.

“Wow,” observed Chen.  “Isn’t he getting a little too protective?”

Shut up, Chen, I typed.  A slim finger reached across me and pressed the send button.  I gaped at him in horror and then whacked him hard on the shoulder.  Laughing, he skittered out of my reach.

It was a good thing he did, because Sehun’s temper appeared to have cracked in the next text.

DON’T YOU TELL ME TO SHUT UP, YOUNG LADY.  WHAT IF SOMEBODY FINDS OUT BECAUSE YOU’RE DRUNK?

He was right.  I made a mental note not to drink more than a couple of glasses of anything, and I was about to send him a message to that effect when a new one came through.

OMG, I’m so sorry – delete that, please.  Chen hasn’t seen, has he?

I deleted it.

Relax, he didn’t, I told him.  I’m planning to remain sober on the grounds somebody has to get them home.  I don’t want to pass out on the streets like you guys sometimes do in Seoul.

I’d reached the next street to turn into before he replied, and I thought that perhaps he might have been embarrassed.

Text me when you turn in? he asked, changing the subject completely.  I want to know you’re safe.

He’d even added a smiley face.  Sehun never added smiley faces.

Aw, are you getting all emotional? I teased.

There was another long pause.

“Luhan!” I heard Xiumin calling behind me, but at that moment, another text popped up.

I was being serious about the alcohol.

Somebody grabbed my arm and spun me around.

“Seriously?” panted Chen, reaching for the phone.  “Who’s so interesting you walk right past the place because you’re texting?”

I tried to keep the phone out of his reach, but he was quicker than me, and I only just managed to lock it before he took it from me, but not before he’d had a brief glimpse at the screen.

“Just what has been going on between you and Sehun for the last month?” he demanded, handing the phone back with a disappointed expression.  “It’s like you’re dating or married or something.”

I put a good two paces between us before unlocking the phone again.

You’re in a real wedding mood tonight, aren’t you? I asked him.  I’m sure I know a seamstress around here who could