This is a joint Merry Christmas and a little gift as a thank you for all the support and love you guys have given this fic.  I still can't believe it has over 1300 votes and over 9000 subscribers, and it's still getting more subscribers on a daily basis.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this.  It's a sort of view of some things from Minseok's point of view – including things like how he met Luhan, scenes with him and Chanyeol, him and Jongin... enjoy!  (And don't forget to read the announcements at the end!)

Warning: there are some topics touched upon lightly (as in, it's still a PG-13 rating), such as abuse, and Minseok's mother's suicide.  Nothing is explicit or graphic.

The atmosphere was very decidedly awkward.  Minseok tried to pretend that it wasn’t as he sipped at his cup of coffee, half hiding his hands in his sleeves, but Chanyeol was still eyeing him warily.  Neither had spoken since Minseok had knocked on the door beyond Chanyeol inviting him in and offering him something to drink, but it was pretty obvious that had been a stopgap because the man was unsure where to start.  Sitting on the sofa in the living room, Minseok wasn’t sure he’d know where to start, either.

“Why are you here?” Chanyeol asked eventually as Minseok drained the last of his mug and set it aside.

Minseok drew in a deep breath and forced himself to meet Chanyeol’s eye, but Chanyeol spoke again before he could.

“The police said you were requesting a therapist.”

Minseok nodded.

“Two questions,” said Chanyeol.  “Why, and why me?”  He was balancing a paper pad on his lap, a pen resting loosely in his hand.

“There are....”  Minseok’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat.  “There are things I want to work through, and you already know my background.  I don’t want to re-explain that to anybody.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Chanyeol told him, pursing his lips.  “I’m already treating one of your victims, and it’s not a good idea to blur personal and professional life like this.”

Minseok couldn’t help a flinch at the word victim.

“How is she?” he asked quietly.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss details of my patients with others.  I can only break patient confidentiality if the person in question is a danger to themselves or to others, and then only to the appropriate persons, unless I have the patient’s specific permission.”

“I’m not asking as a patient about a fellow patient,” Minseok managed, barely keeping his voice from sounding choked.  “I’m asking as somebody concerned about your friend’s sister.  She’s not your patient the entire time she’s here.”

Chanyeol sighed, but appeared to be willing to concede the point.  “She’s not in a good place, but she seems to be making an effort to claw her way up from it.  That’s all I’m willing to say, and if I’m going to take you on, I don’t want any further discussion of Semi’s current condition.  Clear?”

Minseok’s shoulders slumped.  “Clear,” he agreed.  “C-can you tell her I’m sorry?”  He corrected himself as Chanyeol opened his mouth, presumably to say something about not passing messages on.  “Actually, please don’t.  That’s something I’ll need to do myself.  I don’t want to be a coward about this.”

Chanyeol shut his mouth and nodded.  Something else occurred to Minseok as he did.

“How much of what I say will be passed on to the police?”

“They were reluctant about this, but the same patient confidentiality rules apply,” Chanyeol told him.  “You wanted somewhere without cameras.  I won’t use any kind of recorder without your prior permission and without you saying so on the recording.  If I believe you to be a danger either to yourself or to anybody else, then I’m obligated to report it, and that will go to Lay and Chen as well as anybody else I deem necessary to tell, but that’s the only deviation from standard procedure.”

Minseok nodded.  “Okay.  Seems reasonable enough.”

“Which brings me back to my first question,” said Chanyeol, his fingers flexing around his pen as he prepared to write.  “Why are you here?”

“To sort my life out,” Minseok said morosely.  “And I have claustrophobia and haemaphobia I want to get rid of.”  He paused.  “But I should probably start from the beginning, shouldn’t I?  I’m Kim Minseok, male, twenty-seven years of age.  Blood type O, born on March 26th....”

Minseok’s earliest memory was of suffocating blackness – he reckoned probably in the bottom of a cupboard or the back of a closet – while people shouted.  Or, more specifically, a man shouted.  He didn’t really remember much of it clearly, just that he had been terrified and there were crashes and bumps in the room.  At the time, he’d thought it was a fight, but later he’d come to realise that “only one person was fighting” – his mother’s words.  It wasn’t the only time it had happened, but by the time he was four years and ten months old, it had happened often enough for curling up in bed beside his mother with his head underneath to duvet to send him into a hyperventilating spin.

Those occasions where he could actually spend the night in a foetal ball beside his mother were pretty rare, but treasured.  It wasn’t until he was about seven or eight that he realised why, though he was aware of what kind of building he lived in pretty much from the beginning.  The man who told him to call him “father” said that his mother was his favourite, but he had a funny way of showing it, because he always made his favourite cry.

When Minseok had asked if his dad knew the proper meaning of favourite after watching his favourite film with his mother and eating his favourite sweets – one of the rarest things he got to do – the smile she always gave him had been wiped from her face.

“He’s not your father,” she told him stonily.  “He’s a monster.”

Monsters, according to Minseok’s favourite book, were to be killed to rescue princesses.

“Does that make you a princess?” he asked his mother, peeking curiously up at her as he sat in her lap.

“Maybe, sweetie, maybe.”

“Then when I’m big and strong, I’m going to protect you from all the monsters.”

It was only three months later that the monster attacked, leaving the princess with gaping wounds as she cried in the corner of the room, clutching the weapon that she hadn’t been able to use where it was actually needed.

“Take your time,” Chanyeol told Minseok, passing him a glass of water.  On second thoughts, he handed over a box of tissues, too.  Minseok wasn’t outright crying, but it was difficult to speak, and his eyes were stinging madly, his vision blurred by tears that weren’t yet ready to fall.

“She told me not to worry,” Minseok said once he’d managed to calm himself.  He hadn’t realised just how much it would affect him to talk about his mother’s death.  It wasn’t something he’d ever spoken about in detail before, and it made him feel horribly small and lost.  “She said she was just going to go to sleep.”

It was their second session.  Even though he was the one who’d requested being able to see Chanyeol, there was still a part of Minseok that was guarded and reserved – or had been in the first session – probably due to Chanyeol’s blatant displeasure at having to take him on, but the man was a professional, and once Minseok had actually started talking for the first time, there had been absolutely no prejudice in Chanyeol’s questions or tone of voice.  In some ways, it was a bit like talking to the priest in the confessional, except Minseok could see Chanyeol’s reactions, and it wasn’t about things he’d done wrong or was pretending he’d done wrong.

A small silence stretched between them – Chanyeol seemed to want Minseok to continue if he felt able to, but before the silence could get awkward, the former spoke up.

“What makes you smile when you think about your mother?” he asked.  “She clearly meant a lot to you if her loss still affects you so profoundly.”

Minseok gave a bitter little laugh.  “That’s the stupid thing.  I barely remember her.  I remember her presence, feeling warm and comfortable around her, her tone of voice... and that’s about it.  I can’t even picture her in my mind, though I know I look a lot like her.”

“Would you say you see her in yourself at all?”

After a moment of contemplation – the question had taken him by surprise – Minseok shrugged.  “I couldn’t say.  I didn’t know her well enough.”

Chanyeol paused, looking down at his notepad.  Minseok caught sight of him crossing out a pair of questions he’d scribbled down at some point to ask.  “And do you think your mother’s death has had an impact on the way you treat people around you?”

Minseok’s response this time was immediate.  “Undoubtedly.”

His mother’s death had bred what Minseok was now beginning to think of as a monster of hatred inside him.  He’d fought with his father when the man had come looking for his mother and had only been disgruntled that she “wasn’t available”, and Minseok had bolted out of the building in tears.  The fights got worse as Minseok grew older – his father wanted to treat him as much older than he actually was, and Minseok just wanted his mum back – and looking back, Minseok suspected that the only reason the man had suffered keeping him around was because Minseok was the only child he had.

“You’re supposed to be my son!” or “Such a useless child!” would regularly make their way into the verbal parts of their arguments, and Minseok’s retort was always the same – “don’t try to pretend you’re related to me!”  When he wasn’t spending time with Luhan, it was with the women in the building, trying to find in them the motherly warmth he’d received from his mum, but more often than not trying to pass on that same warmth in whichever childlike ways he could, because many of them looked even more broken than he’d felt.  He hated the brutality, hated the tears that came with it, and for every tear-stained face he saw, his hatred of his father grew.

It took all of about five minutes for Chanyeol to tease out of Minseok that a large part of his self-hatred stemmed from a deep-rooted fear that he was following in his father’s footsteps.  To Minseok’s surprise, Chanyeol was completely calm about it.

“I’m going to say that that right there is the nub of the problem,” he declared.  “It’s far from the only part of it, of course, but that’s definitely something we can try to fix.”

Minseok toyed with the chocolate bar Chanyeol had given to him at the start of the session.  “But it’s been going on for much longer than I’ve been out of prison for,” he mumbled.

“No kidding,” Chanyeol murmured in return as he began to sketch out a chart on a blank piece of paper.  “It looks much deeper-rooted than that.  From what you’ve just told me, wouldn’t you say it’s something you’ve been aware of in some form more or less from the string of sleepless nights you had after killing him?”

Minseok just stared, fingers slowing to a halt around the chocolate.  “How can you just tell that so easily?”

“You’re not the first person I’ve helped who’s struggled with hating themselves because of something they became in part due to social conditioning.”  Chanyeol looked up, tossing his hair out of his eyes, and slid the paper across the table between them, turning it so that Minseok could see what he’d written down in the columns he’d drawn up.

“I’m going to ask you keep a thought diary,” he said.  “Keep track of your self-negativity, and every few days we’ll review it and see what we can do to counter it.  If it’s causing you as many problems as you say it is, then chances are some of it’s out of proportion, either to what happened or didn’t happen or in the length of time you’ve been beating yourself up about some things for.  For those things that aren’t over-exaggerated, we’ll have to look at a mentally healthy way to come to terms with what you’ve done.”  He paused.  “This is going to be a challenge for me as well as you.”

Minseok hesitantly picked up the sheet of paper.  “Is it possible I have some kind of mental health disorder?” he asked, the possibility only just occurring to him.

“From your current profile, no,” Chanyeol told him.  “You’re not in the best of places, granted, and you have a fair amount of trauma you’re still trying to come to terms with, but it doesn’t appear to have got to the stage where it’s severely impacting on your ability to live a normal life.”

Relieved, Minseok nodded.  “Good.  I don’t think I’d be able to handle a condition like Semi’s.”

Chanyeol gave no reaction beyond raising his eyebrows and beginning to explain how to fill in the thought diary.

“Luhan?  Luhan gave me sweets.”

Once Minseok had become comfortable with the idea of talking to Chanyeol, he became much more relaxed and open, and for the first time, he found himself happy to chat freely to somebody about his best and longest friend.  He knew that like everybody else around him, Chanyeol probably didn’t think very highly of Luhan, but unlike everybody else, the man wasn’t just going to see him as a two-dimensional villain.  After all, anybody with even the faintest understanding of psychology knew that there was a lot more to a person than just the bad things they’d done.  It was all about the greys in between, and whether they tended towards light grey or dark grey.

“You must have been incredibly easy to make friends with as a child.”

“No, he just took advantage of the fact that I was in a highly emotional state.”

Chanyeol blinked, apparently surprised at the broad grin on Minseok’s face.

“Tell me about Luhan,” he said, and Minseok did.

It had been raining the day they first met, when Minseok was about five, but he’d barely noticed because he was crying.  His back was bruised and likely bleeding; it was shortly after his mother’s death, and his father had become incredibly angry while they argued.  Minseok had run away and promptly got lost, and when he was too tired to go any further, he’d sat down in an empty doorway and cried his heart out.  He was so upset that it took him several moments to realise the pair of small feet in front of him and look up to see a brightly smiling, chubby-faced boy holding out a grubby hand to him.

“Don’t cry,” the boy told him.  His Korean was accented, not enough to obscure his meaning, but enough for Minseok to tell that he was foreign.  “Have a gummy worm.  It’ll make you happy.”

Minseok had been naïve enough to actually believe that, and the delicious taste of flavoured gelatine and sugar had momentarily lifted his mood.  When it didn’t stop the crying immediately, though, the boy in front of him frowned and stuck his hand in his pocket.

“Why isn’t it working?” he grumbled to himself before extending the grubby hand again, this time with two gummy worms.  “Are your happiness health points critically low?”

Minseok blinked, unsure of the big word the boy had used and what critically meant.  The boy looked like he was about Minseok’s own age, and if he was a foreigner too, by rights he shouldn’t know words Minseok didn’t.  Then again, maybe it was a foreign word.

“Where you from?” he asked, his voice rough, as he accepted the gummy worms.

The boy tilted his head to one side.  “China,” he announced.  “I’m Luhan.”

Minseok turned away, half disappointed because if the boy was foreign, there was no point trying to make friends as he’d just leave again.  On the other hand, if he made good friends with the boy before he left, maybe Luhan would take him with him and he could escape the hellhole his father ran.  Swallowing the last of the gummy worms, he forced a smile onto his face.  “I’m Minseok,” he said.  “Let’s be friends.”

And that was that.  Luhan sat in the doorway with him, handing him gummy worms every so often and checking his cheeks for tears – he insisted that the magic sweets were supposed to restore health points and make Minseok look completely better, but when the tear tracks didn’t magically dry up, he concluded that Minseok must be locked into some kind of magical condition of ill health and that he’d have to check with his father what to do about that.

Half an hour later, Luhan’s father actually showed up with two enormously tall men beside him.  He barely glanced at Minseok before barking out something Minseok didn’t understand to Luhan.  Luhan’s face lit up and he got to his feet, replying in the same language and gesturing to his new companion.  Minseok might not have known Chinese, but he was still able to tell that Luhan wanted to bring Minseok with him.

In the end, it took a pout and the biggest pair of puppy eyes Minseok had ever seen for the man to acquiesce.  Luhan jumped up and down, clapping his hands happily, before turning back to his new friend and explaining that they were all going home for food.  Luhan’s father turned to Minseok too, now smiling.  He had a very gentle-looking face, and Minseok decided that he liked him very much.  It wasn’t until a few years later that he discovered the man was the little brother of a highly influential triad ring and an absolutely ruthless killer.

“Luhan’s asked if you can stay the night,” he said.

The next few hours after that had passed in an absolute haze of happiness.  Where the gummy worms hadn’t worked, splashing about in the gigantic bath with gold-plated taps did, and Minseok emerged for the meal squeaky clean and almost glowing.  After the food, he and Luhan got to play with Luhan’s gigantic train set in the hallway of the spacious house Luhan lived with, and when they got bored of that, Luhan’s mother let them play games on her computer.  Luhan particularly liked one that had some kind of human-style creatures where you had to make sure they didn’t get injured too badly or they died, and in order to keep them healthy, you had to feed them things.  It sounded kind of like what Luhan had been attempting to do to him with the gummy worms.

When they were getting ready for bed and Luhan lent Minseok a pair of pyjamas, though, disaster struck.  Luhan took huge interest in the colourful tattoo on Minseok’s shoulder, even though Minseok tried to flinch out of the way, and when Luhan’s parents came in to kiss them both goodnight, Luhan started talking about it.

In an instant, the bedroom lights were on and Luhan’s mother was looking at it, concerned that such a young child should have a tattoo, but when she saw what was on it, she fell silent.  Luhan’s father took one look at it and blanched.

Minseok’s heart sank.  He knew exactly what that meant: Luhan’s father had recognised it.

“You need to go home,” he said.

“What?” Luhan protested from his bed.  “Why?  It’s not fair!  Papa, you said Minseok could stay!”

His father ignored him.  “You’re too young to have a tattoo,” he murmured.  “You must be a relation.  It’s the only possible explanation.”  He pursed his lips.  “Where do you live, son?  I’m going to take you back.”

Despite Minseok’s protests and Luhan’s tears, Minseok was in the car ten minutes later heading back towards the monster’s lair.

He did at least have gummy worms for health points and comfort.

By sheer coincidence, Minseok ran into Luhan again three weeks later after another argument with his father.  Luhan and his mother were out shopping in the market – Minseok had chosen it as his lurking spot as sometimes people felt sorry for him and gave him money, and because it was the easiest place to steal food when he was hungry.  Luhan’s mother took them both to the local park and they had a whale of a time on the slides and climbing frames.  At sundown, though, she insisted Minseok had to go home, but not before Luhan had told both his mother and Minseok emphatically that he was going to meet his new friend next Tuesday to go swimming with him.

And so it went on, until about the age of nine, when Luhan’s father finally took Minseok aside into the study while Luhan was helping his mother with something in the kitchen.

“Xiumin, are you actually aware of who your father is?” he asked, gesturing for Minseok to take a seat.  Luhan had chosen the name for him around the tenth time they had met up, when he had asked Minseok what his father was like.  He’d seemed very surprised when Minseok had said he hated him, even more so when Minseok had abruptly added that he didn’t like it when everybody called him Minseok because his dad used it to call him, and it made him hate the name his mother had given him.  Luhan’s solution, of course, was to give him a new name that he would love, and love it Minseok did.

He declined the seat, trying not to show his discomfort at moving too much as he went to stand by Luhan’s father’s desk.

“Yes,” he replied.  “I’ve known ever since I can remember.”

Luhan’s father eyed the way he was standing, but didn’t comment on it.

“But are you aware of how important he is?”

Minseok gave him a quizzical look.  Important?  He’d never heard a word about important.

“Your father runs the second biggest crime syndicate in Seoul, Xiumin.  The tattoo on your shoulder means you’re part of his gang, and whatever you’re doing at the moment, he’s probably going to want you to help him later on.”

“Oh.”  He fiddled anxiously with his hands before looking up.  “Are you a policeman?”

“No, or I would have already arrested your father.”

Minseok frowned.  His father being arrested sounded pretty nice, if he was honest.

“Who runs the biggest crime synda-whatty, then?”

Luhan’s father narrowed his eyes at him, apparently sizing him up.  “I do.”

“Oh.”  Definitely not a policeman then.  “Oh.”

“And we’re rivals.”

This time, Minseok only mouthed the “oh”.

“I considered killing you the first time I saw that tattoo, but Luhan liked you and if you were a family member of the Rag Wolves’ gang leader, it would have caused a lot of unnecessary trouble for me if it got out I’d had you done in.”

Minseok couldn’t help feeling uneasy.  He glanced at the door, which was closed, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get there before Luhan’s father if he wanted to escape, whether or not his back had lacerations on it.

“A-are you going to kill me?”

“Of course not.  You and Luhan are practically brothers.  I want to see if there’s any possibility of working together, but…”  He narrowed his eyes all of a sudden as Minseok shifted and let out a little wince.  “Let me see your back,” he commanded.

Flinching, Minseok turned around.  The last thing he wanted to do was let anybody see what had happened to him, and when Luhan’s father asked him to lift his top, he nearly froze in terror.

It was never mentioned again, but every time after that that Minseok came over, bandages and a general first aid kit was hidden under his bed just in case he needed them.

Luhan and his mother found out the day Minseok left home for good, just a few months further down the line.  Minseok wasn’t sure how he’d managed to cross most of Seoul in the condition he was in, because he fainted on the doorstep just after ringing the doorbell, but it was several days before he’d healed up enough to move.  The Lus being the Lus, a doctor came to the house rather than him being sent to hospital.

Luhan was beaming brightly when he woke up on the morning of the fifth day.

“Dad says you can stay, if you want,” he announced, lounging sideways on his bed so that he could grin at his friend.  “Will you?”

“ yes,” Minseok said without a second thought.

That was the day the name Minseok died in the criminal underworld, but it was to be a few years yet before Xiumin emerged.

To begin with, all the illegal stuff was a bit of a game.  Luhan’s father let them loose in his private shooting range for Minseok’s tenth birthday and made a point of taking them out paintballing every couple of weekends.  Once they were both tall enough to reach the pedals of a car, they were both put in the driver’s seat.  A couple of the men in Luhan’s father’s gang encouraged them to shoplift or pickpocket in return for money or food, and by the time he was twelve, Minseok had discovered he had a knack for chemistry.  Or, more accurately, blowing things up.  After nearly destroying Luhan’s bedroom, though, he focussed his attentions on lock-picking.  Luhan’s baby sister was by that point no longer a baby but toddling around the house on her own, and Luhan and Minseok both thought she was the most adorable thing alive.  She would follow them around the house, grabbing at the hems of their t-shirts and blinking innocently at them, wanting to be picked up and carried.  Having dubbed the boys “Lu-Lu” and “Xiu-Xiu”, she took up the throne in their hearts of the house’s princess, and making her laugh or smile was the standard aim of every day.

Minseok was out the day that Luhan’s parents were killed and Weiyi was abducted.  He was working as the bait to lure an enemy in to a place where Luhan’s men could take care of him, because nobody would suspect a sweet, innocent child of doing anything like that, and because his birthday was also approaching and it was an open secret that the real reason he was out of the house was so that Luhan and his parents could plan the celebration properly.  Luhan was so stricken that he refused to eat for several days.  Only when Minseok’s birthday rolled round did he make a decent effort to look alive, but all that was going through the minds of the two boys as they celebrated in the empty house was revenge – revenge and hatred.  That evening, they both got the names of their worst enemies tattooed on their abdomens.  Minseok’s next birthday was the day he got to cross the first name off.  Luhan’s birthday following was the day he simultaneously cemented his position as his father’s replacement and earned a reputation as a cold-hearted killer.  By Christmas, they were known as a package deal, but it was still another three years before they finally took the Blood Brother oath.

Chanyeol insisted on tea before even starting to discuss what Minseok had told him.  His only comment was that he felt like he’d just read a fantastic but highly tragic thriller.  It was plain Minseok didn’t want to talk about the scars his father had left him, but it was oddly pleasant to be able to talk to somebody about his best friend, and while he was careful not to reveal too much information that the police could use, he wasn’t sure if Chanyeol was supposed to pass it on anyway.

Eventually, things came round to Minseok’s phobia of blood.

“It’s not a phobia I’ve helped somebody deal with before,” Chanyeol admitted.  “And it’s an odd one, because while you can feel like you’re going to faint or die when you’re in a very bad panic, it’s the only known phobia where your blood pressure will drop significantly rather than elevating, which is why some people with a fear of blood can faint.”

Minseok raised a hand.  “Guilty.”

“Does it affect you at all when you watch movies?”

“No.  I know it’s synthesised.  It’s the smell that gets to me, really, but the sight of real blood makes me feel lightheaded.”

“What about injections?”

“I’m okay with needles.”

Chanyeol hummed to himself.  “I’m just thinking about the best way to go about this.  Most often, people will try gradual exposure or immersion, but we can’t do gradual exposure if the normal lead up root isn’t going to effect a gradual change, and I don’t know where we’d get enough blood from to try immersion.”

After some thought, Chanyeol suggested applied tension as the best way of attempting to combat it.  He explained that the important part was raising blood pressure, and took Minseok through the technique.

The first time Minseok got to try it out was when Seungri’s men stormed the university, and it was a real trial.  It had been bad enough leaving Semi, even with friends and in safety, but her friends were important to her and if he could get in and help, he was going to.  He thanked his lucky stars he’d rung for the police and the ambulance the second he’d heard the gunshots, because on going back into the university to find Tao, Kyungsoo talking swiftly on the other end of the phone in a voice that barely masked how shaken he was at the footage he was seeing, it was evident that a matter of minutes could be life-saving factors for some people.

He nearly threw up when he finally found Tao, but he forced himself not to be squeamish as he checked for a pulse and breathing.  With relief, he detected both, and he carefully picked the unconscious boy up.  He could feel blood getting on his clothes and his stomach heaved violently, but he managed to keep it together.

There were even more paramedics when Minseok started back through the university towards the gates, but surveying the carnage, it was evident that many more were needed.  The smell of blood was beginning to make him feel light-headed, and he staggered to a stop, carefully putting Tao down so that he could focus fully on the tension exercises.  He’d barely managed to start when his phone rang.

“I need you to find Choi Junhong,” Kyungsoo said without preamble.  “And Kim Jongin as well.”

Minseok looked at Tao’s limp form, bile in his throat.  “Understood.”

Kyungsoo clicked off.  Bracing himself, Minseok picked Tao up again.  Just those three and he was done.

The blood must have got to him, because the next student he came across seemed to have Tao’s face, and the student after and the female student after that.

That was when the realisation hit him: any one of those students could have been Tao.  Any one of them could have been Semi.  It wasn’t fair to give the two of them special treatment just because he knew them, not when other people’s lives were in danger.

He lost count of the number of times he went in and out of the university, carrying injured and unconscious students to the ambulances and helping the paramedics with the stretchers.  He also lost count of the number of times he threw up, or took a couple of moments out because he was too dizzy to continue.  All he knew was how inadequate he felt when he checked for the pulse of a girl he’d found slumped in the corner of a lecture room by a desk and blackness welcomed him as he passed out beside her.

But the horror of the blood bath was worth it when Semi squeezed the breath out of him and when he received a text from Lay detailing how many lives had been saved.

“I feel worthwhile,” he told Chanyeol over the phone, leaning on the balcony railings night he got back from hospital.  “I feel like I did something really great.”

“Give yourself more credit,” was the man’s response.  “But just how hard did you push yourself to go from fainting at the sight of blood to being part of a medical rescue team for the best part of a couple of hours?”

Minseok wouldn’t have been able to keep the smile off his face if he’d tried.  “Thank you,” he said.  “Really, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Chanyeol told him firmly.  “Thank your bull-headed determination.  And thank God that you’re finally using it constructively.”

“Should you be saying that in that tone?”

Chanyeol sniffed.  “I’m speaking as your friend, not your therapist right now.”

Minseok was hugely taken aback, wondering when it had got to the point that they could be labelled friends.  He was aware that Chanyeol sometimes blurred the lines between guest and patient when he was over at the condo, but it wasn’t like they’d spent time chatting in the local bar or enjoyed an evening out anywhere.

“Everybody loves me today,” he murmured, half-joking and half in awe.

“You’re a hero,” Chanyeol told him flatly.

“Say it like you mean it, why don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Chanyeol teased.

“Come on.  Even Sehun was impressed, however much he tries to pretend he wasn’t.”

“Am I detecting a secret desire to be friends with your crush’s brother?”

“My phone is tapped.  I’m ending this call before you go any further.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Bye!”

Chuckling to himself, Minseok hung up and returned inside the apartment.  Semi was sitting by the piano, rifling through the pages of a book of Kabalevsky pieces.  She looked around when she heard him closing the balcony doors.

“Oh, good, what’s for dinner?”

Amused at her priorities, Minseok smiled at her.  “I’ll go make it now.  Won’t take long.”

Minseok talked about Semi in therapy a lot.  It was like somebody had a tap and forgotten to shut it off.

“The detail of what you can recall is astonishing,” Chanyeol remarked to him.  “Is your memory consistently like this?”

Minseok shrugged.  “For important things, yes.”

Chanyeol hesitated for a moment before scribbling that down.

Minseok had made himself memorise every little detail about Semi as he was going to need it to hand her over to Luhan.

The first time he had seen Semi was when Lay and Chen had come with the marriage proposal and given him a photo of her.  There wasn’t an awful lot about her that caught the eye – she was pretty, above average, yes, but not exceptionally so.  From the photograph, he would have placed her about two years younger than her actual age.

Meeting her for the first time, he had concluded that she both looked much better in person and more her age.  She had been practically clinging to a tall, extremely handsome boy who hovered protectively over her at every step.  Minseok had immediately slated him for the boyfriend.  He looked less than happy at the state of affairs, and Semi looked like she wasn’t completely happy about it either.  It made Minseok feel distinctly better about being blackmailed into this predicament: if the bride-to-be had been happy about being married off to a criminal, that would mean something very, very worrying was afoot.  However, with her age and obvious discomfort, Minseok was almost a hundred percent certain that there wasn’t an extra elaborate trap he wasn’t already aware of.  The remaining sliver of doubt was on the off-chance that she was an extremely good actress, but, Minseok concluded, if she was that good and managed to take him in, he deserved it.

As he did a whistle-stop introduction of himself to everybody he hadn’t yet met (with the intention of gleaning information about them on the slim off-chance he could use it), Minseok became aware that Semi’s boyfriend was the only person in the room who wasn’t somehow related to the police.  To be let in on something like this, he had to be pretty important to Semi, and the more he could find out about the man, the better.

All he managed to get, though, was that Choi Seunghyun was a family friend.  The name wasn’t much to go on – not when Seunghyun was such a common male name and Choi was such a common surname, especially in a city like Seoul, but it was a start he could give Luhan, and given time, when Semi lowered her guard, he was sure that he’d be able to get more out of her.  Before that, though, he had to get her on his side.

The plan was really very simple.  He needed Semi to think that he wasn’t as bad as she currently thought he was, but if everything was fairies and unicorns, then he didn’t have a prayer.  He doubted anybody was stupid enough not to see through that.  In return, he needed to discover as much about her as he possibly could if Luhan was going to have a chance at getting rid of her.  He had to admit that he couldn’t really see the threat: Semi was a quiet, shy girl, and he was absolutely astonished she’d had enough gumption in her to film Luhan beating somebody to death.  Maybe she’d been under the influence of something and it had been a one-off event, because for the first few weeks he knew her, nothing hinted towards somebody that foolhardy at all.

And then came night Luhan kidnapped Sehun, and it began to make a little sense.  It wasn’t until she came back with the hit list from Suho’s headquarters that Minseok realised just how much work he had cut out for him, and it was a lot more than he’d anticipated.

Semi wasn’t just brave.  She had firm moral values that she wasn’t prepared to flout.  And if fear, one of the most powerful human emotions, couldn’t get her to budge on it when her life was at stake, he began to wonder if the most powerful emotion of them all could.

Looking back, if he’d known what would happen, Minseok wasn’t sure whether he’d have attempted to scare her that first night.  He knew she would have been much more dubious and harder to convince that he really wasn’t all that bad if it hadn’t happened, because there still would have been the lingering worry of how could he genuinely be so nice considering what he got imprisoned for? if she hadn’t seen something she could perceive as the bad side of him, but the later knowledge of the anxiety and panic he’d unintentionally caused her weighed on him more and more.

It wasn’t until nearly the end of the week that he felt comfortable trying to bring that up with Chanyeol, though.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask about,” he began, picking at a thumbnail.  Chanyeol picked up his pen expectantly.  Minseok nearly chickened out, but he had to know.  Just how bad had what he’d done been?

To lighten things up after that very dense conversation, Chanyeol asked Minseok to list and elaborate on the most memorable times with Semi.

“We’re going to get mushy here.  It’s important to remember the good things as well as the bad things when somebody is no longer with us, so what memories do you have of her that always make you smile?”

There were two relatively early ones that Minseok hadn’t thought would linger so much when they first happened, but now that Semi wasn’t there, he missed even those.  Sure, it was nice sleeping alone, but sometimes, in the twilight stage between awareness and sleep, phantom arms wrapped tightly around his own and muted sobs echoed in the darkness.

What on earth are you doing here? his mind would ask, but there was nobody to ask it to, and no response.

The first time Semi had slipped into his room for comfort, he’d been far too sleepy to shove her away, or to wake up properly and do anything about it.  Hugging her back to sleep had been a lazy compromise, but one he treasured.

The other of the early ones, oddly, was the first time he’d seen her having a panic attack.  He wasn’t sure quite what it was about it – maybe the relief that she was okay at the end of it all – but if anything was a turning point in how he related to her, that was definitely it.  The realisation that somebody so horribly vulnerable in that situation had incurred the wrath of Seoul’s biggest gang lord was just such a dichotomy.  Looking back, it was probably at that moment that he first started to respect her so highly.  Not just that, but he’d seen enough people having panic attacks to know that he’d have trouble wishing one on his worst enemy. And he began to worry about her.

Chanyeol wasn’t sure that one counted as something that made Minseok smile, but he allowed it on the grounds that it was memorable and asked for one that actually did get the corners of Minseok’s mouth turning upwards.

The answer to that one was simple.

“When I got her back from Suho.”

It was an agonising period.  Lay was beyond fuming and Minseok was pretty sure that if the man hadn’t had such good self control, he’d have found himself cooling his feet in the holding cells.

“You caused this,” he snapped at Minseok eventually.  “You’re helping monitor it.”

Minseok was glad to, except he wasn’t sure what exactly that was supposed to entail when they didn’t really know what was going on.  Search parties had gone out and police were stationed at strategic points across the city, but as it ticked closer and closer to the deadline and no news came in, Minseok found himself becoming increasingly afraid.  Yes, Lay was probably angry enough to kill him, and there was the dull threat of life imprisonment in the background, but he was much more worried about Semi.  Had she crumpled with panic, or was she still confident enough to stand up for herself?  Was the reason she hadn’t yet been returned because she’d escaped – or worse, because she was already dead?  Had she—?

The foyer doors abruptly burst open and somebody collapsed on the floor just inside.  Instantly alert, though prepared to call somebody else since it wasn’t his role, Minseok squinted over at the person that people were beginning to converge on.

His heart nearly stopped with relief when he recognised her.  “Semi?  Semi!”

She raised her head a little, and at the sight of her stricken face, Minseok bolted over to her.  Lay and Jongin, both bickering over something, followed with Chen hot on their heels.

“Semi,” he breathed out, just short of her, and she looked up properly.  He closed the remaining couple of steps and grabbed her into his arms, clutching at her in relief.  “Oh, thank God.”

He could feel himself tearing up, but willed his eyes not to water.  Her body was completely stiff against his, but he didn’t care because she was still alive and that was all that mattered.

Well, not quite all.  “You’re not hurt, are you?”

It looked like it took a while for Semi to process the question before she gave what could barely constitute as a nod, her entire body going slack as she moved.  Belatedly realising she had to be in shock and was probably in danger of passing out, Minseok switched from a crouching position to sit fully beside her, and then clung to her again.  He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself she was safe or convince her she was safe more.  She crumpled into his touch, shying away from the world, and Minseok was aware of his chest constricting with an overwhelming inclination to want to protect.

There were police swarming around them still.  Jongin mumbled something to Lay and disappeared.  Seconds later, Lay followed on, leaving just Chen, who was trying without success to speak to Semi.  One of the newer recruits attempted to get Semi to drink.  Others were insisting on medical examinations and other things.

After a minute or two, Minseok caught a quiet whimper of home as Semi’s fist tightened around the material of his shirt and he carefully stood up, bringing her with him.  She was a bit boneless, shrinking into the side of his body in a manner that made him automatically put an arm around her for support, but he would happily have made himself a human chair for her if he thought she wanted it.  Seeing that all the attention was making absolutely no progress with Semi, Chen dismissed everybody else.

Chen looked Semi up and down.  “Do you think she’ll be in a fit condition to talk tonight?” he asked.

“Can’t it wait?”  Minseok stole a worried glance at Semi.  She looked unwell, to say the least, and like she was going to pass out from exhaustion at any second.  She was also shivering like a leaf and jumping at any loud noises in the background.

“We need to know what happened as soon as possible.”

“Can’t it wait?” Minseok repeated with a pleading edge to his tone.

“Minseok, there are criminals out there—”

“Please, can’t it wait?”

“—It’s only been a few minutes and we don’t want to let the trail run cold.  If she can tell us—”

Minseok suggested the security cameras.  Semi was not in a good condition and he just wanted to get her home.  Chen complained that electricity had been shut off in one area of the city, which made tracing that kind of thing difficult, and then Semi spoke properly for the first time.

Both Chen and Minseok were shocked into silence.  But if Semi was correct - that it had only been a short journey, then that might mean--

“Were you in their HQ?” Minseok asked, half worried that that meant something awful might have happened to her, and half incredulous that they might possibly be so close - in which case, he hated to admit for Semi’s sake, Chen had a point in wanting to keep her to get information.

Semi nodded and his heart sank.  “Think so.”

Chen returned to his busybody self, immediately coming to the same conclusion that Minseok had done and saying that he was going to get Kyungsoo to check what he could.  Minseok leapt on the chance to get permission to take Semi home.  Chen seemed reluctant, but when Semi snuggled into Minseok’s side, complaining she was tired, he relented on the condition they took photos of any injuries she’d sustained.

Minseok’s heart sank at that.  If she had so much as a scratch, Lay was going to kill him, but--

Well.

He wasn’t totally sure how he’d react if she was badly hurt again.  If she had more words carved into her arm, like last time--

“They had me tied up most of the time.”  Semi more or less yawned her reply out.  Trying to hide his alarm, Minseok grabbed at her wrists, shoving the sleeves back.

He had to gulp back a mild feeling of nausea at the raw, red scrapes that showed where the bindings had been.  Thankfully, there was nothing worse.  He reported it to Chen, who hurried away to get a camera, and then sat Semi down to check her ankles as well.

“Are they bad?” she asked him.

They were.  Minseok squeezed her close into his side.  “No worse than your wrists.”

“What happened?  I know you sent Suho a message threatening him with something and… and something to do with Byun Baekhyun and a blood brother--”

Minseok’s heart skipped a beat and he sighed.  The question was going to come up anyway, and so he gave her the shortest explanation possible.  He was surprised when she complained about his intent to kill Byun Baekhyun, but before he could defend his decision to do that, to say that Semi was worth it (which sounded corny, even in his head), Chen returned and started snapping away.

She must have been shattered, because Semi fell asleep in the car on the way back, her head drooping down onto Minseok’s upper arm as she clutched loosely at his hand.  Minseok took a moment or two in the carpark, unmoving as he watched her chest rise and fall peacefully, a few strands of hair fluttering near her nose and mouth as she breathed.  She really did look her age at that moment - barely more than a child, as far as Minseok was concerned: nineteen was still dreadfully young to be catapulted into a life like this - and once again, Minseok had difficulty reconciling the fact that the troubled, exhausted girl who looked so innocent and unassuming was such a threat to his best friend.  The tension he was used to seeing in her expression had eased out while she slept, and her hand was more or less limp in his.  Gently, he eased his free.  If he spent any longer gazing fondly at her like that, even he was going to consider himself a creep.  It was time to go on up, but he couldn’t bear to wake her up when she was sleeping so peacefully.  Instead, he went around to her side of the car, carefully unbuckled her, and then scooped her into his arms with the greatest care he could muster so that she wouldn’t be disturbed.

It wasn’t until he was carrying her out of the lift that she began to stir, and then protest that she was able to walk herself.

An image of the condition of her ankles flashed to mind.  Minseok disagreed: now that the adrenaline had worn off, walking was going to hurt her.

And besides, the fact that she was actually alive and well and in his arms was a huge reassurance that he’d done the right thing.  The relief that had powered into him when he’d seen her in the foyer of the police station was back, and he was all too conscious that everything could have gone wrong and that she might not have been there.  Strangely, the prospect of being hung if that had happened barely entered his mind.  After all, he considered Semi to be a friend of his - possibly even a close friend, he told himself, firmly refusing to acknowledge the truth that it could be growing into something different.

From the way that Semi snuggled against him just a second later, she obviously was attached to him, too.  Minseok had known that for a while, though, and found it incredibly endearing, but also a little bewildering, that she was so comfortable around him.

“What if you’d been wrong?” she yawned.

Minseok grimaced.  “I don’t even want to consider that.”  It had been a very risky gamble that Minseok had played, and while he had pulled it off, he didn’t want to have to attempt something like that again.

“Mmm.”  She tilted her head towards him, closing her eyes.  Minseok couldn’t help a fond smile as he halted outside their apartment.

“I’m going to put you down so I can open the door,” he informed her.

Grabby hands appeared and clutched at his coat.  “No!  Comfy!” she whined in protest.

A chuckle escaped Minseok before he could stop it.  “You’re really tired, aren’t you?”

She nodded without opening her eyes.

“Come on, sweetheart.  If you let me open the door, you can get to bed much sooner.”

It didn’t take long to get Semi settled in bed with some hot soup and bandages around her wrists and ankles.  Automatically telling the exhausted girl that he’d be back as he stood up to clear away the dishes and the medical kit, Minseok was out in the passage before he’d had a chance to register what he’d said or why he’d said it.  He stood there for a moment or two, frowning to himself, with his hands full.

Why did you do that? he wanted to ask himself, but he already knew the answer.  Semi had been through a rough ordeal, and she was exhausted, and it was likely to trigger nightmares for her again.  Quite apart from not wanting to be woken up again in the middle of the night, he’d been so worried about her that he just wanted one day - one evening, even - where she was happy enough f