Deer Luhan,

From the way everybody’s been reacting to the news that I’m a girl, I’ve come to the conclusion that EXO-K stands for EXO-Kids and EXO-M stands for EXO-Mature.  Even though “mature” in this case is strictly relative.

Leigh

There was a long hesitation when Kris suggested getting Luhan.  I shivered.  The cold was really getting to the parts of me that weren’t covered by the towel now, and I could tell Xiumin could hear my teeth rattling in my head because he twitched like he wanted to turn around.

Kris looked expectantly between the four members he could see.  “Somebody wanna give Luhan a shout?  I’m dead certain he didn’t go out again.”

Lay, Xiumin and Chen just stood there.

“LuLu-ge!” Tao bellowed at the top of his lungs.  Nobody moved.  Lay and Chen looked helpless.  They clearly had no idea how to get out of what was beginning to feel bizarrely like a Mexican standoff.

cereal crumbs off his fingers, Kris reached for his phone and dialled in a number.  Only moments later, Luhan’s phone went off on the living room table, where I’d left it when I got back in.

“Well, he’s in,” said Kris, looking around at us all.  “He never goes out without his phone.”

Sadly, the three who knew I was a girl could only agree to that: I’d never been without Luhan’s phone in the first place, but after the incident with the mafia, there wasn’t a chance I was going to leave the building without it.

Seeing that nobody was making a move to do anything, Kris heaved himself up off the sofa with a sigh and came over to me and Xiumin.  Xiumin folded his arms as he approached.  Kris halted in front of him when Xiumin didn’t step aside.

“Xiu, budge over, would you?” Kris requested.  “I need to get into the bathroom to check, since nobody else will.”

Xiumin backed up a couple of steps, forcing me against the bathroom door.

“I can’t let you,” he said.

Kris raised an eyebrow.  “What are you hiding?”

“It’s unfair on a girl to barge in on her while she’s showering,” Xiumin said stoically.  “Not to mention that the door was locked when Tao went in there, so this whole situation shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

Kris cocked an eyebrow, trying to peer around him even though the door was closed.  “What, is Junghee visiting?  You should have told us.”

Xiumin didn’t reply to that.  It was too much of a hole to dig, and he’d already dug himself pretty deep.

At that moment, a violent shiver wracked my body and I nearly bit through my tongue in my effort to keep my teeth still.  Kris clearly caught sight of the spasm, because he pushed Xiumin aside before Xiumin could respond, and I found myself staring up into a pair of warm brown eyes.  Which I’d already looked into plenty of times before, just never in a situation quite as tense as this.

“Oh, it was you, LuLu,” Kris said, smiling as his eyes roamed my face.  Then they dropped further down.

His eyes bugged for a second.  I didn’t wear my chest compressor in the shower.

Then he burst out laughing.

“Oh my God,” he spluttered out between chuckles, leaning limply against the wall.  “Lay, are you absolutely sure you’ve seen Luhan sleep , you lucky b*gg*r?”

Lay let out a theatrical sigh.  “Unfortunately, it was the other Luhan.  And yes, his abs are that fabulous.  He even let me jump on them once.”

Tao stalked over to me, jaw clenched.  I cowered as he towered over me, his body a little too close for comfort.

“Have you been a girl all along?” he demanded.

“Me personally?” I squeaked out.  “Yes.”

“How the did you pull it off?” he demanded angrily.  “No wonder HunHan is real.  Sehun knows, doesn’t he?  What did you do to get into EXO like this?  Are you that desperate to be around boys that you’d pretend to be one?  I looked up to you, you know—”

It was Chen who pulled him away, clamping a hand over his mouth to shut him up.

“Leigh’s only been with us since before Christmas.  If you remember, our Mama photojacket had Luhan baring a lot of skin and he’s done a few open-topped photoshoots as well.”

Tao ripped his hand away.  “Then where the is the real Luhan?!”

“God knows,” sighed Xiumin.  “Somewhere in China, possibly in Beijing.  Something to do with the mafia.”

That caused another silence.  Kris broke off laughing against the wall to glance around at us.  “Wait, you guys already knew about this?”

Tao whirled on him, circling his visage with his finger.  “Does this ing look like a face that ing knew?!”

Chen clapped him on the shoulder with a grin.  “Hey, dude.  Apparently I saw her chest too, but I don’t remember it because I was utterly sh*tfaced at the time.”

“Wait, you’ve known since New Year?” Kris demanded.  Chen scratched his head, his pout of confusion appearing.

“Well, sort of,” he admitted.  “I was so drunk I have absolutely no memory of it, so I kind of found out again two days ago when Luhan rang.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, though?” Kris asked.  “I’m the leader.  I should know these things.”

“D.O. said that Lay and Xiumin would take it best and be the most trustworthy,” I mumbled.

“Lay?”  Kris stared at me.  “D.O. recommended Lay?”

“Hey!” protested Lay.

“Have you seen Lay at interviews?” Kris inquired.  “He gossips more than my mum.”

Tao shoved himself back in my face again.  “You should have told us,” he snapped, making me cringe back into the wall.  “And what are you doing here in the first place?”

Xiumin wrapped an arm around my freezing shoulders.  “Tao, don’t.  You’re scaring her.”

“Well, basically,” said Lay, “Luhan got a bit drunk our last night in the UK and wanted to get back home as fast as possible because some serious sh*t was going on here in Beijing, and he spotted Leigh in the park when he was looking for the metro and since she looked like him and had pink hair, he thought it would be a fabulous idea to switch places.”

Kris started laughing again.  Tao glared at me.

“You must be an idiot to agree to that kind of thing.”

“I didn’t agree!” I protested.  “It wasn’t my fault!”

“Yeah,” Chen sniggered.  “Luhan forced her into his coat and swapped their phones, and Leigh had a cut on her head from arguing with her mum, so when the security guy and our manager showed up, they just thought Luhan was really concussed and forced Leigh back to the hotel.”

Kris was beginning to sound like he was having difficulty breathing.  Tao, on the other hand, still looked far from happy.

“You still should have told us,” he growled.

“What, and have you react like this?” Xiumin demanded.  “Can you imagine eleven guys you don’t know freaking out at you in a foreign country over something that’s totally not your fault?”

“You’re one to talk,” Chen snorted.  “You nearly killed her with a carving knife.”

“I held a chopping knife and pointed it at her.  I did not attack her!”

“Guys, guys!”  Kris hauled himself up the wall, wiping away a couple of hysterical tears.  “She’s freezing.  Let her change and then we can sit down and listen to the full story.”

“And I wasn’t as bad as Baekhyun,” Xiumin continued as he hustled me away towards the bedroom I shared with Lay.  “Chanyeol called the manager in when he found out and Baekhyun gave himself a panic attack and tried to rat Leigh out in front of all the doctors and nurses when the hospital was practically under seige by fans.”

“Yes, apparently D.O. is spectacular at blackmail,” Chen mused.  “Chanyeol said D.O. wa