“This is ing terrible.”

Luhan’s eyebrows are drawn together in an angry V, his normally mirthful eyes clouded with darkness.

“We,” (he kicks the sofa) “are going to leave in ten minutes,” (he crosses his arms) “to go to the damn airport to go back to Korea,” (he takes off his snapback, ruffles his hair, and shoves it back on his head in an ungainly manner) “and no one knows where the Yifan is.”

“Calm down,” Yixing says, followed by a soft string of placating-sounding Mandarin that Minseok’s not entirely sure he understands. Luhan’s brows relax somewhat, but his arms remain firmly crossed across his chest. He’s always had a tendency to overreact.

Minseok sighs. “He’ll turn up,” he says half-heartedly, “he has to, right?”

He has to show up, or else we’re all done for.

Zitao, sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, pulls on the arms of his worry-panda plush, chin buried in its head and looking very much the mental five-year-old he is.

“Da-ge,” he whimpers, shoving his face into the panda, “where’s Fan-ge?”

Minseok tries very hard not to ruffle Zitao’s hair (he tries to reconcile himself with the fact that Zitao looks like a kindergartener, and such urges are perfectly normal, despite the fact that Zitao is around ten centimeters taller) and bites his lip.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “None of us know. He probably went out to go do something important. But he’ll be back.”

His argument is pretty weak; all of Yifan’s luggage is gone, with nary a note of explanation.

Yifan can’t possibly be gone though, can he?

Minseok’s blood runs cold just at the thought, sparking a frenzy of scenarios each more dire and gruesome than the last—Yifan going out to buy snacks and getting lost (improbable; he’s pretty familiar with the streets of Beijing), Yifan getting kidnapped in the middle of the night (also improbable; they have a security system on the front door and nothing looks broken into), Yifan finally deciding that he’s had enough of them and the group and—

No.

He’s really not thinking about this.

Their manager’s voice is low and muffled through one of the rooms he’d locked himself into since the whole debacle began, but his voice has been steadily rising in volume and anger level with each minute he spends talking to whoever it is on the other line, and each rise in decibel makes Minseok’s level of hope fall lower and lower.

Suddenly, there is silence, and an eternity seems to pass, the hands on the clock ticking ominously loud, before the door opens and their manager walks out.

“We’re leaving. Get in the van.”

“But what about Fan-ge?” Zitao asks, but his question remains unanswered as the manager all but shoves them out the door.

“We have a flight to catch.”

Zitao lingers by the doorway, teeth worrying on his lower lip, and Jongdae places a hand on the small of his back.

“Come on, Zitao. Yifan’ll show up. Don’t worry.”

Zitao is not placated much, but shuffles along, Jongdae at his side, and Minseok can see his arms tightening around his panda plush.

For Zitao’s sake (and his, too), he hopes they find Yifan soon.

*

The plane is about to take off, and Yifan is nowhere to be found.

Luhan, antsy as enough as it is from his acrophobia, is practically jumping out of his seat, only kept down by his seatbelt and Minseok and Yixing together holding him down. Zitao grips his panda even tighter to his chest while Jongdae tries to calm him, although they don’t really seem to be getting anywhere. Their manager is glued to his phone, muttering rapidly and angrily in the aisle seat, waving off the flight attendant when she tries to tell him to shut off his phone.

“Hyung,” Jongdae asks their manager, “did you manage to get ahold of Yifan-hyung?”

Their manager purses his lips. “I think we should wait until we get back to Korea for this conversation.”

“Why?”

“It’s… complicated. Very complicated.”

Zitao opens his mouth to ask a question, but the flight attendants have begun their safety spiel that they’ve all heard a thousand times, and soon enough Luhan’s crushing all the bones in Minseok’s hand while Minseok’s stomach lurches and the plane takes off.

His phone feels heavy in his pocket; even though he can’t use it to contact Yifan at thirty-five thousand feet in the air, he can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, Yifan had sent him a message.

On the other side of Luhan, Yixing pulls a face, making eye contact with Minseok and flicking his eyes downward towards his hand, where his fingers are also having the life squeezed out of them.

Bless Yixing’s soul for trying to make things a little lighter, even though Minseok figures that, other than Zitao, Yixing’s the most hurt of all—it’s no secret that the two had a weird sort of bond going on.

“Tell me when we’ve landed,” Luhan mutters. They’ve made this flight hundreds, maybe thousands of times by now, but Luhan still thinks the world is going to end each time they make it. Minseok wonders if he can sue for medical damages, with all the joint problems he’ll probably have in the future.

“Do you know what’s wrong with duizhang?” Yixing whispers, and Minseok’s heart skips a beat at the word.

Duizhang. Leader. Is Yifan still their leader, even if he isn’t here?

“I don’t know,” he says, and he gets the feeling he’s going to have to get used to saying that a lot, “but I probably should.”

He should, because even though Yifan led the group, everyone leans on Minseok, whether they like or not. He's the one who holds the maknaes when they cry at night; he’s the one who keeps Kyungsoo from murdering the rest of the 92-line; he’s the one who pats Joonmyun on the head and reassures him that he’s doing a good job; he’s the one who cleans the kitchen with Yixing in the middle of the night when they get too hungry to worry about their diets; he’s the one who keeps Luhan from terrorizing everyone else when he’s bored.

He’s the one who spent hours sitting alone in Yifan’s room when he’d locked everyone else out; he’s the one who keeps Yifan intact when the leader feels like he’s breaking apart at the seams; he’s the one who kissed Yifan before they went to bed late last night and said see you in the morning.

Only morning came and went and now it’s afternoon and they’re all wearing sunglasses so none of the fans can photograph their bloodshot eyes as they wade their way through the airport mass, trying to ignore the calls of where’s Kris? while cracking weak smiles and waving here and there.

Another manager’s pulled their van to a side entrance, and they all wave one last time to the fans before they crawl inside, hearts heavy.

Minseok’s about to ask what’s wrong with the Yifan situation, but the managers have already started muttering to each other in their manager-y way that discourages any and all future questions until they get back to the dorm.

He settles for pulling his phone out of his pocket and turning the connection back on, waiting for everything to reload and waiting, painfully, for that little yellow Kakao square in the top left corner to pop up.

It doesn’t.

The ride back to the dorm is tense; Luhan and Jongdae lay off their usual antics, Yixing stares blankly out the window, and Zitao stares blankly at his phone.

Minseok presses the unlock button on his phone on and off the whole ride, wondering why Yifan isn’t sending him anything. Dumbly, he realizes that he hasn’t even tried sending a message first, and opens up the app

you ok? he finally settles on, sending the message before his nerves force him to delete and retype it for the umpteenth time. He sighs, phone dropping into his lap as he leans back in his seat.

All too soon, they’re pulling into the parking lot of the apartment complex and one of the managers prods Minseok in the arm, startling him and prompting him to crawl out of the car.

They walk, single file, through the halls and to their dorm. Jongdae punches in the code and the door swings open soundlessly, followed by a pop of confetti.

“Surprise!” Chanyeol and Baekhyun shout. “Welcome back, M friends! Ready for more hell and concert prep?”

They are met with silence, and Chanyeol's manic grin slowly fades from his face.

“Hey… where’s Yifan-hyung?”

“About that,” their manager says, clearing his throat, “I think it’s best that we all sit down and talk.”

*

“What do you mean he’s left?”

“Calm down, Baekhyun-ah,” their manager sighs. “He vanished from the Beijing dorm and refused to come back. He’s… he’s filing a lawsuit to leave.”

“This is like Super Junior all over again,” Luhan mutters, leaning into Yixing, who just his hair.

“What about the concert?” Joonmyun asks, the most outwardly distraught of all of them. “It’s in ten days, for ’s sake! He knows this. He knows. How could he betray us like this?”

Zitao sniffles from beside him, seconding the thought.

It was no secret that Yifan had never been particularly happy with SM, nor with being in EXO, what with his continual vanishing acts, sometimes for weeks and months on end. They’d all figured, though, that Yifan would stick out the eight years in the contract with the rest of them and then use the fame to push himself off on a successful acting career.

None of them had expected that he’d shove them all down into a black hole to reach for his own star.

Kyungsoo stands abruptly and stalks off into his room, Jongin springing to his feet shortly after to make sure that the vocalist didn’t break anything. One by one, the members file off on their own, muttering that they needed some air or expressing desires to go work off the sudden stress, until it’s just Minseok and the managers left sitting around the dinner table.

“Minseok-ah,” one sighs, “I know you had something… special with Yifan.” He treads lightly, not wanting to push any boundaries, but it’s an open secret in the group. “Do you know…?”

“He hasn’t said anything to me.” Minseok’s voice comes out sharper than he means it to, but the manager says nothing about his tone.

Another sigh. “I thought so. In any case… we need to settle on a new leader. What about Yixing…?” He turns to the other manager, intent on starting another conversation, which would be Minseok’s cue to leave.

But…

“I’ll do it.”

“Hm?”

“I… I’ll lead in Yifan’s absence.”

Minseok doesn’t know where the declaration comes from—he’s not much of an outward leader, choosing to work by convincing and smooth talking rather than ruling with an iron fist. He knows that Yixing would be a better fit—after all, Yixing was originally supposed to lead EXO-M, and it would make more sense, given their Chinese promotions, but it’s a running gag that he can’t remember anything, so what good would he really do as a leader?

“I’ll do it,” he repeats, his voice coming out surer, more firm. “I can do it.”

The manager, to his surprise, gives him an approving nod. “We’ll give you guys the rest of the day off to process this… but starting tomorrow, be ready, Minseok-ah. Alright?”

He bows in acknowledgement and walks off to his room in a daze, falling over on his wolf bedspread as the sudden adrenaline rush leaves his body.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket numbly, opening up the chat shortcut he had for Yifan on his homescreen.

The little 1 next to his earlier message is gone, but there’s not reply.

That bastard.

Minseok opens up the keyboard, fully intending on tying out a long message, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

Instead, he closes his eyes, praying that sleep will overcome him soon so he can try and forget the chaos of what should have been a day full of concert rehearsal and dumb antics.

(It doesn’t come quickly, nor is it particularly peaceful, but it’s the first time in eons that he’s slept for more than nine hours in a row.)

*

He wakes up the next morning feeling, to put it mildly, like .

Luhan’s shaking him awake, an impish smile on his face, hair damp, towel slung around his neck.

“I hope you don’t mind, duizhang, but I showered first since you were still sleeping. Hurry up and claim your da ge spot before Joonmyun tries to snag it!”

Luhan’s tone is teasing, and he pats Minseok on the cheek for good measure before scampering out to eat before they head to practice.

Groggily, Minseok rolls out of bed, not the first to wake up for the first time ever. He barely remembers to grab a pair of shorts and clean underwear to change into after his shower (after the great Sehun incident of ’13, no one ever dared to forget their post-shower clothes again).

“Get out,” he teases Joonmyun, who’s lurking around the bathroom door. “Or go use the other one.”

“Sehun jumped in, and so did Zitao.”

Ah.

Well, that explained everything.

“Guard the door well, Suho,” he replies, wondering briefly where he managed to get all the snark so early in the morning.

The bathroom is still slightly steamy from Luhan’s shower, and Minseok wastes no time stepping in and turning on the ho