Semi was alone in a little cocoon when she woke up, and she was initially terrified when she didn’t recognise the room.

Then she noticed the writing on her arm.

I didn’t think you’d be too comfortable waking up next to me, but I couldn’t be bothered to move you back (sorry).  You kept stealing the covers and there was no way I was carrying all of them along with you to your room.

Semi was amused enough at the message to smile, but still a little disturbed that Xiumin had written on her again.  Yawning, she stretched, and then spotted more writing on the inside of her other arm.

You don’t sleep talk.  I was kind of disappointed.

She snorted and swung her legs out of bed.

There was a soft knock on the door and she let out a raspy “hmm?”

“Can I come in?”

“It’s your room,” she replied, mussing up her knotted hair.

The door opened and Xiumin appeared with a breakfast tray.  Semi yawned again.

“Do you feel up to going to university?” he asked her as she promptly got back into bed, pulling the duvet over her knees so that she could take the tray from him and settle it there.

“Maybe later,” she muttered as she dug into hot food.

He pursed his lips, looking around his spotlessly neat room for a moment or two, and then sat on the edge of the bed near her.

“I know I said I wouldn’t bring this up again, but would you consider going to somebody about these nightmares?  It’s been at least a week and they seem pretty consistent.”

Semi shrugged.  “I’m coping.  I’ve had them for a couple of years.”

“You’re not, though.  And unless I’m mistaken, you only started getting them when the weather turned frosty.”

The way her fingers trembled didn’t escape his notice.  Xiumin sighed.

“Semi, I’ve dealt with girls who’ve had PTSD before.  It’s probably not going to get better by itself.”

“I’ve been treated for it,” Semi muttered around a mouthful.  “It’s much better than it was.”

Xiumin was speechless for several moments.  Then he got to his feet, murmuring, “God, I don’t think I want to know how bad you used to be, and I’m only seeing panic attacks and nightmares.”

To Semi’s satisfaction, he left the room.  She scowled after him, stabbing her chopsticks down into her rice.

“Why does everyone want me to go into therapy again?  I’m not that weak.”

“I agree with Xiumin, for once,” Yixing said as he, Jongdae and Jongin crowded around Kyungsoo so that he could show them the videos he had from past couple of days.  “If Semi’s scared enough to sleep in the same bed as him because she has a nightmare, she needs therapy.”

The others made noises of agreement, with the exception of Kyungsoo, who opened up another video.  “You say that, but watch the way he calms her down from the panic attack.  And she slept very peacefully next to him.  I checked with Jongin and even the night she didn’t wake up screaming she was tossing and turning all over the place.  Just being around another person when she’s scared is giving her security and comfort.”

“Yeah, but think about it,” persisted Yixing, “if you were in that condition, would you go to somebody who was a convicted killer and pimp for comfort?”

“If I was that distressed, probably,” Kyungsoo admitted.  “But only if he or she was the only person available – which, for Semi, he happened to be.  She probably would have gone to you if you’d been there.”

Yixing gave a little whine of distress at such an idea.

Kyungsoo smirked.  “But like I said, watch this.”  He played the video and sat back in his chair, folding his arms.

“Ooookay,” said Jongdae when it was over.  “Still not at all comfortable about this, but it does make more sense that she went to him now.”

“That was a nasty panic attack,” observed Jongin.  “I’ve never seen her react like that to something before.  Minor freak-outs about getting into the shotgun seat of a car, but that’s about it.  That is scary.”

“He seems to be warming to her a little,” said Yixing.  “Either that or his psychology is absolutely mental, or he’s a psychopath.”

Everybody turned to look at him.

“I think he might be a psychopath,” Yixing mused.  “He came out borderline psychotic in his psychiatric evaluation on entering prison.”

“Borderline, but he was below the border,” Jongdae pointed out.  “Plus he seems to genuinely like the neighbour’s kid.  I don’t really think he’d care about Taeyong if he was genuinely psychotic.”

Yixing shrugged.  “True.  Anyway, Chen, we need to get back to work.”

With a sigh, Jongdae straightened up and followed him out of the room.

Moments later, the office door opened again and Ryeowook entered, straightening up his uniform.

“He did go back to the cathedral on Sunday, like you said,” he reported.  “The crowds were enormous, so I lost him for a few moments, but he just seemed happy to sit there listening to and watching the Mass.”

Jongin turned to Kyungsoo.  “Do you reckon we could ban him from going there?  He could be talking to anyone and it would be impossible to background check that many people.”

Kyungsoo shook his head.  “No.  He’ll start protesting about freedom of religion, and there’s always the possibility he might be serious.  It’s known that a lot of prisoners convert.”

“But with the rest of his behaviour—”

“Habit?  Like he said, Jongin, the police have trampled all over his pride.  He’s obviously still bitter about it and half of what he’s doing could be to do with that.  He’s known to hold grudges.  You kind of have to if you’re involved with the mafia.”

“It’s true he could be meeting anybody there, but I didn’t personally see him talking to somebody,” Ryeowook butted in, sitting down in Jongin’s desk chair and twisting from side to side.  “That said, when he was out in the park later with the neighbour’s kid, I did get close enough to hear him saying he’d been speaking in Mandarin on the phone.  I don’t know who to, though.”

“Which phone?” demanded Jongin as Kyungsoo abruptly turned back to his computers and opened up a new programme.

“His other one,” said Kyungsoo grimly after a moment or two.  “Damn.  He was speaking to Luhan in broad daylight, and there aren’t enough cameras around the park for me to get a decent shot so somebody can try lip-reading.”

“Well, to be honest, it probably means we need to put a Chinese-speaking tail on him, because I can’t get much further than ni hao,” Ryeowook said.  “I don’t even know how many Chinese speakers we have in the department, if we even have any.”

“Ask him.”  Kyungsoo jerked his thumb at Jongin.  “He’s just finished profiling everybody in the station.”

Jongin frowned.  “But we’d need it to be somebody trustworthy who we can inform about the case witho— oh!  Oh my God, wait!  Zhang Yixing!  That’s a Chinese name, right?”

Both of the others raised eyebrows at him.  “Who?”

“Sergeant Lay!  His real name is Yixing.  I bet he speaks Mandarin – he only came over to Korea for senior school.”

“Yes, but Xiumin also knows him and gets really freaked out by him,” Ryeowook said.  “I think he’d notice if Lay was always on his tail, to be honest.  Not to mention Lay has other things to do.  It has to be somebody Xiumin doesn’t know.”

Jongin c