Deer Luhan,

I think I want to be a spy.  Or at least a member of the SAS.  Or make that the SBS.

Leigh

I made it onto Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s balcony without mishap, and from there to Luhan and Sehun’s, but when I launched myself at Suho and Lay’s, trouble struck.

In a manoeuvre that reminded me of the time I’d nearly busted Changmin’s nose, I accidentally tackled Baekhyun to the ground with my dive-roll landing, and I knew from the moment we both sat up that I’d been busted.

“What the actual ?” he demanded hotly, looking me up and down.  I very nearly asked him the same thing – I had no idea what he was doing in Lay’s room or how he’d managed to walk out with precisely the right timing to get hit – but ninja mode had been activated from the moment I’d put Luhan’s beanie on my head, and in the interests of self-preservation I reached out and clamped my hands over his mouth.  He struggled for a few seconds and eventually managed to pry them off.

“What the hell, Leigh?” he hissed.  “You’re supposed to be leaving!  Why the  would you run away at a time like this?”

“I’m not running away!” I snapped, getting to my feet, but he pulled me back down.  “I’m going to help out!”

His mouth opened and an oh, b*tch, you did not just do that expression crossed his face as he shook his head in utter disbelief.

“No you are not.  You are catching that train with Lay and you are going home before you get kidnapped.”

“Baekhyun, I need to do this!  Nobody else is going to!”  I surged to my feet again.

He scrambled up and snatched at me.  “If you think I’m going to let you be a goddamn martyr for Luhan and a bunch of girls you don’t even know, then you’re bloody mistaken!” he yelled in English.  I tried not to let my shock show on my face.  He had a powerful set of lungs, and… well, that was really fluent, angsty English.

“Byun Baekhyun,” I said as calmly as possible, “I swear to God that if you don’t remove your hand from my shoulder this instant, I will break it.”

Something about my tone of voice must have scared him, because he let go of me.  “You are still not taking Luhan’s place.”

“I don’t intend to,” I snapped at him.  “Do you really think I’m that much of an idiot?”

“Yes,” he said simply.  “Look at you.  You’re sneaking off without telling any of us when we’re trying to get you safely home before all this blows up in our faces, and even if Luhan makes it back in time, timing’s going to be very tight and we don’t know if he has a decent plan in place.  What else would you be intending to do?”

His English was scarily good.

“I’ve found the girls,” I told him.  He scoffed.

“You think you’ve found them, or you’ve actually found them?”

Bullsh*t mode activated.

“I’ve actually found them.”

“Bullsh*t.  You were in front of that computer for ten minutes, absolute maximum.”

“Not bullsh*t,” I countered.  “They’re on the top floor or the floor immediately below of a concrete apartment building in the north-west of Changsha and I know how to get there.”

“Now you’re really being stupid.  You are not just going to march in there and demand their release.”

“No, I’m going to sneak in there and ensure their release.”

“Shoot me,” Baekhyun muttered, turning away and clapping a hand to his forehead.  I used the opportunity to brush past him and into the room.  Lay’s led directly out onto the passage and the only person I was in danger of running into was Tao, but if I shouted loud enough the manager would probably come out and then none of them would be able to stop me from ‘going downstairs for a moment to talk privately to my mum’ because they would have to pretend I was Luhan.  I hoped.

Baekhyun unfortunately had fast reflexes.  He made the mistake of grabbing my shoulder from behind to stop me again, so I seized hold of his wrist and flipped him.  He let out an inelegant curse in Korean as his back connected with the floor, but he managed to roll with it and was soon back on his feet.

“You’re not going to let me stop you, are you?”  He took up a fighting pose.  I eyed him up and down, wondering if he’d done martial arts training and if I’d be able to take him on if he really got physical.  He looked wary, though, unsure of himself, and some part of my brain registered that he probably thought I had proper training.  After all, I’d gone solo after Luhan into a factory stuffed to the construction line with mafia goons and knocked somebody out with a simple somersault, not to mention that my only Judo manoeuvre was pretty polished and he looked like his back was still in pain.

“Of course not,” I told him scornfully.  “There are girls my age and younger being held hostage, Baekhyun, and I will kick you in the nuts if it means I can get to them.”

Eyes closing, he relaxed his stance, one hand going protectively to his groin.  “Do you even know what you’re going to do when you get there?”  He sounded resigned.

I almost considered telling him a flat-out nope, but figured that might be going a bit far.  “Get in, get the girls, get out.”  I shrugged.

He opened an eye as I brushed past him.

“You really don’t have a proper plan?”

“Plans always fail, so if I don’t have one, it can’t go wrong.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Your nuts,” I reminded him as he took a step after him, and he came up like he’d slammed into a glass door.

My hand was on the doorknob when Baekhyun grabbed hold of me again, this time by the elbow.  I whipped around, pulling out my most ferocious  glare, and raised my fist, and he quickly backed off with his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“I don’t agree to this at all, but if I really can’t stop you, then I’m definitely not letting you go alone.  The others would kill me.”

I looked him up and down.  He slowly dropped his hands.

“’Kay.  Fine,” I said shortly.  One more person to be responsible for.

Our stealth duo became a stealth trio less than half a minute later.  On getting out into the corridor, we ran straight into Lay.

“Oh, there you are,” he said.  “I was wondering where you’d gone.  Where’s your stuff?  I couldn’t see a bag in your room.”

I froze.  “You checked my room?”

“Yeah, of course.  Kris knocked on the door multiple times and you never answered, so I went and got a new key card from reception.  They like me down there.”

“Does Kris know I’m not in there?”

“Well, obviously.  I think he’s trying to break into Sehun’s room at the moment, so— mmph!”

I wrapped an arm around his face to shut him up and sprinted.  It was kind of hard with the way he was flailing, so Baekhyun grabbed him around the waist and bodily carried him most of the way to the lift.

“What are you doing?” Lay protested as I hit the call button and the lift pinged open.

“Protecting your balls, man.  Thank me later.”  Baekhyun beat me to the icon for the ground floor.

Lay just blinked at us as the lift doors closed and we began to descend.  I turned to Baekhyun.

“We need a taxi.  I don’t think public transport will be running frequently enough at this hour.”

“There’s a taxi waiting out back to take us to the station,” Lay put in.  “But where are you two planning to elope to?”

“We’re not eloping,” Baekhyun said irritably.

“Oh.”  Lay slumped against the mirror.  “Good.  I was about to ring Sehun.”

Baekhyun promptly snaffled Lay’s phone from his pocket.

“Hey!”

“You won’t need it.”

“Why do I feel like you two are abducting me?”

Neither of us answered, but I could see from the way Baekhyun was biting his lip that he was seriously contemplating saying “because we are”.

There were thankfully no reporters at the staff entrance to the hotel, and we found the taxi pretty quickly.  The driver was tapping his steering wheel anxiously and listening to a live report on the spread of the riots.

“The station?” he asked by way of confirmation as we piled into the back.

“Ye—” Lay began, but I cut him off.

“Can we go to this destination first, please?”  I input the GPS co-ordinates to my phone so that it would give m