Turns out that one of you has just turned eighteen :D  (You know who you are.)  So happy birthday, darling!  It's supposed to be a great age to be.

Semi wasn’t remotely surprised to wake up more than once due to nightmares.  The first couple of times, she just attempted to deal with it by herself, breathing deeply to try to stay calm, because she didn’t particularly relish the idea of asking somebody as dangerous as Suho to hug her back to sleep.  The third time, she figured she must have been screaming because was raw, so she ventured out of the room she’d been in to get herself some water from the bathroom tap.

She ended up splashing it over her face as well to freshen up, and when she turned the tap off after scooping water into her hands to drink, she realised that she could hear voices.  Baffled – the bathroom was a two-stall unit and both doors were wide open and both stalls clearly empty – she looked around for the source.  It sounded like Suho’s voice, and given he appeared to be discussing gang matters, Semi doubted it was some kind of tape intended to function like spoken muzak in the background.  Then her eye alighted on the air vent.  She eyed it for a few seconds before scrambling onto the sink – it creaked under her weight – and putting her ear against it to listen.

“We can’t be the ones to kill her,” Suho was saying.  “It’s not that Luhan would retaliate to us killing her – he’d actually be pretty happy about it.  It’s that he’d come after us because it would mean they kill Xiumin.  They have no further use for him if she’s dead.  It’s not like he’s going to turn around and hand Luhan over to them.  It’s always been Luhan and Xiumin.  There’s never one without the other.”

Somebody murmured something that she didn’t quite catch.

“We’re better equipped, but Luhan has more money and more men.  Not to mention the police would also be after us if we kill her,” somebody else replied.

“We’d be crushed,” Suho agreed.  “Seungri would get involved too, of course, and he has, what, three blood brothers?”

“I’m starting to suspect Seungri’s a vampire,” muttered the first unfamiliar voice.

“Aren’t two out in Busan?” asked the second.

“Do you really want the brutes of Busan descending on us and bringing all their thugs with them?  Mighty Mouth will be happy to find they can take their territory there back easily if it happens, but I don’t want five gangs and the police after us.  We’ll have National Security after us too if they find out we’ve been arms dealing illegally.  I’d prefer to avoid taking another blood brother oath.  Too many allies restrict autonomy and two cups of blood were enough to last me a lifetime.”

“And we can’t commission a hit from Baekhyun?”

“Luhan’s too good a customer for him to want to take a hit on Xiumin.  I asked when I found out he’d been released from prison and he refused.”

“I heard he was really unhappy about that hit in the States being called off.”

Semi shifted her ankle so that the hot tap wasn’t digging into her skin.

“Wasn’t it the first kill he didn’t carry out?”

“I heard he got taken out by some FBI agent who stole his gun.  It was probably a blow to his pride.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I really, really pity that FBI agent if he ever meets Baekhyun again.”

“He skinned the last one alive, didn’t he?”  The voices had become hushed, almost as if they were afraid Baekhyun would overhear them.

“You said Miyoung said Xiumin’s sentence was being reduced.  How much by?  Is there a danger he’s going to be back on the streets with Luhan before he’s too old to rule the roost again?”

“I don’t know any details of negotiations,” admitted Suho.  “Miyoung said only Chen and Lay were aware of that, sometimes Siwon, and none of it’s recorded in writing, so she can’t find out.  They’re keeping it quiet.”

“Are you really going to give the girl back?” asked another voice.  “She’s too big a bargaining chip to lose.”

Semi blanched.

“I’m going to have to this time.”  Suho sounded tired.  “It’s the best way to get Jungmin back and he’s too valuable to lose.”

“Couldn’t you just give the brother back and keep her?”

“That’s what I was originally planning, but Miyoung said Lay’s in charge of the handover and he just won’t give Jungmin back if we try that.  I don’t know how much he knows about the Code or inter-gang relationships, but it was clearly enough for him to be more than fifty percent certain I’d stick to it, or he wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

Semi tried to switch positions to relieve her left leg, which was beginning to go to sleep, and nearly fell, somebody lamenting in the background that it felt weird not to have Jungmin’s input.

“We can always just keep an eye on her and take her again at some point,” somebody suggested.  There were soft chuckles all round.

“Oh, hyungnim,” a much younger voice spoke up, “were there any gadgets on her in the end?”

Semi froze up, holding her breath without realising it.

It was Minwoo who replied.  “Youngjae said the earrings were microphones, but we don’t think she knew.  She didn’t seem too worried about losing them.”

She let out a sigh of relief.

“No tracker?” put in another voice, alarmed.  Minwoo must have shaken his head, because there was no verbal response.  The silence was broken by low murmurings and one or two curses.  Semi wondered just how many of them there were in there.  It seemed very much like she was listening in to an important meeting of some kind.

“Crap,” said one of them.  “Does that mean they already know where we are?”

“That’s what I was worried about,” agreed Suho.

“No wonder you told us to start packing up.”

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere we used last year or the year before should be safe.  They probably would have moved in if they’ve been monitoring us for more than six months, probably even less than that, so I doubt they know of our three-year rotation.  It’s this office that’s a danger to us, so anything that can’t be moved needs to be destroyed.  I’ve spoken to Mighty Mouth and we’ll be moving into their summer holdings—”

“What about their winter ones?  I’ve heard they’re really nice.”  It was the young one again.

Suho’s tone was absolutely scathing as he replied.  “They’re right in the middle of Luhan’s territory.  We have their summer holdings on the condition that we help them regain their winter ones when they return to Seoul at the end of January.  They’re taking out all the officials who have anything on them or that could be used against them pre-emptively and Sangchu wants Luhan ousted by June.  Dead would be preferable.  He’d cause no more trouble and it would also mean Xiumin goes back to jail because the police will no longer need him, so he won’t get under our feet.”

“What about Seungri?”

“Joonsup assured me he would be more than capable of dealing with Seungri and his blood brothers.”

There was silence again for a moment.  It was the young one who spoke up again.

“Just how much manpower are they bringing over from China?”

Semi’s dead leg began to return and she shook it to get the blood flowing again, which resulted in a vicious wave of pins and needles when she tried to put it back on the rim of the sink and she collapsed as her leg refused to take the weight, falling off the sink and against one of the bathroom stalls with a loud crash that overpowered whatever response Suho had given.

As she slumped on the floor in a daze, pins and needles attacking her foot and calf muscle, the bathroom door burst open and a num