happy birthday Kpopsterr for tomorrow (by my timezone)

Tao probably would have got his way with Disney whether or not Semi had wanted him too.  She found herself staggering out of his apartment with a sore throat from singing and stuffed to the brim with popcorn, her eyes practically square from nearly eight hours of musical cartoons.  Henry and Zhou Mi were apparently both out doing something else, but Semi had been pleasantly surprised to discover that Tao’s other two flat mates were actually sane.  Fei had even whipped up a stir-fry that Semi had severe trouble not comparing to Xiumin’s cooking.

Xiumin still won.

Xiumin was also clearly unimpressed when she stumbled back into the apartment at half one in the morning.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, appearing in the kitchen without warning as Semi tried to focus enough to make herself a hot chocolate.

“Out,” she mumbled, mixing the chocolate powder into the milk and shoving the mug in the microwave.  Her head was beginning to hurt, and it actually felt a little like she had a hangover even though she hadn’t had a single sip of alcohol.

“Out where?” he demanded, stepping in front of the fridge as she turned towards it, vaguely contemplating fruit or something healthy to counteract the salty popcorn.  “Do you even know what time it is?”

“Bedtime.”  Semi bit back a yawn and retreated to the microwave, since the fridge was a no-go.

“And what happened to telling me where you are at all times?” he snapped.  “How am I supposed to look after you if I don’t know where you are, Semi?  Tell me.”

“Minseok, please,” she whined as the microwave door pinged open and she retrieved the hot chocolate.  “I’m tired and I’m fine.  Isn’t that all that matters?”

“No,” he said hotly.  “I don’t want you getting into bad habits.  What would you have done if Luhan just snatched you off the street?”

Semi cursed as the scalding liquid burnt her tongue and she nearly sloshed the cup all over her.  Exhaling angrily, Xiumin ran her a glass of cold water.

“He didn’t snatch me off the street,” Semi pointed out obstinately, accepting the water.  “And I thought you told him about this.”  She flashed the ring at him.

“That guarantees he won’t kill you.  I don’t know how far he’ll push the boundaries on the rest of the Code.  Technically he’s not supposed to lay a finger on you, but he’s not an idiot and he’s probably figured out we were forced into this, so he’ll think it’s okay to take liberties.  He knows you no longer have your phone, so it’s quite possible he might try to get hold of you to use as a bargaining chip so he can get that phone and delete the evidence.”

“Tough sh*t the police don’t have it either, then.”  Semi downed the water and returned to the hot chocolate.

“What ha—” Xiumin began, but at that moment the lights in the kitchen went out, plunging them into darkness.  “Oh, you’re joking.”

Kyungsoo didn’t sound remotely amused to be woken up in the small hours of the morning.

“What have you done?” he sighed, his voice thick with sleep.

“Is there a way to remotely reset the trip switch for the apartment?” Jongdae asked, looking at the screens that had gone blank just a few moments before.

“What have you done?” Kyungsoo’s voice demanded over the phone.

“I think I fused everything.  Xiumin was angling for information on the phone and I wasn’t sure of the best way to shut Semi up or distract him.”

Unintelligible sounds left Kyungsoo’s mouth as he yawned.

“About two-thirds the mics and cameras still seem to be working, though,” Jongdae added.

There was a mumble that sounded like it might just be “I put them on three different circuits.”  Then there was a thud and a curse and Kyungsoo suddenly sounded distinctly more awake.

“Did you just fall out of bed?” Jongdae asked him suspiciously.  Kyungsoo ignored him and started directing him through computer settings so that he could get into the control panel for the apartment.

“Why did Semi even have the phone on her to get stolen?” the technician asked as Jongdae waited for the tests he’d been directed to do ran.

“Stupid oversight on our part.  She didn’t come straight to us because she was so shaken, but Luhan recognised her school uniform and sent death threats to her school.  We got called in in case it was serious, particularly since it was the school graduation ceremony that day, and that was when we discovered what she’d done.  We managed for about a week by taking her to Busan and getting her to undergo some plastic surgery before Luhan nearly blew up the place we were in on top of us and Siwon decided it was best to send her abroad.  Her brother’s number was on her phone and everything was organised at the last minute.  We forgot to take the phone off her again because it was tight timing to get her to the flight or wait another whole day.  She must’ve just slipped it into her pocket.  I mean, she was still talking to him when we dropped her off at the airport.  We shouldn’t really have let her use the phone in the first place, but we were all extremely stressed and she was terrified out of her mind.”

“Rookie error,” grumbled Kyungsoo.  “Are all the tests done yet?”

Jongdae took a quick glance for confirmation.  “All positive.  In fairness, the fact somebody was obviously rooting through confidential files and evidence after Semi left gave away to Siwon that Luhan and probably several other people have moles planted with us, and if the phone had been here it’s highly unlikely we’d still have it.  Lay reckons it was only out of sheer frustration that all the files and evidence were left in a mess by whoever was searching.  Stuff’s gone missing before, but everything’s been left so impeccably in order that it’s kind of not been obvious until too late.”

“Okay.  There should be three dialogue boxes that have opened up,” said Kyungsoo, apparently having heard nothing beyond the test results.  “Just click ‘accept’ for all of them and electricity should be back on.”

“Ah, you genius,” Jongdae sighed happily as he did as he was told and the screens that had gone blank started flickering back on.  “I’m going to remind Semi to be on guard about her phone.”

Tao wouldn’t stop eyeing the bruise visible on Semi’s collarbone from where she’d tripped over a chair leg in the darkness and fallen against a corner of the kitchen table.  He was for once completely silent, but Semi would have preferred to have been wearing a crew cut or even polar neck jumper rather than the v-neck one which she currently had on if it would have meant he chattered merrily away and stopped staring at her like he was pretending he wasn’t actually looking at all.

It was only when Seulgi asked where her ring was that she realised they were probably assuming everything was a lot worse than it actually was.

“I took it off,” she whispered back.  There was a pause of nearly a minute before Wendy stopped taking notes.

“Why?” she asked.

Semi her lips ne