Minseok had insisted on sleeping in his own room that night.  Semi wasn’t sure why.  She did, however, appreciate the space, given the argument they’d had earlier.

Perhaps it was the relief from that, but she didn’t have a nightmare despite being on her own.  Her sleep was still fitful, and when she woke at about twenty past four in the morning, she didn’t get back to sleep, but even truncated sleep was infinitely better than reliving the car crash.

As she lay awake, she wondered what it was that had kept the nightmare away from her, because it was snowing outside.  She guessed it wasn’t set in stone that she was going to have the nightmare every single night she was by herself, not least because she was usually fine in summer.  Maybe agreeing to therapy had changed something.  Maybe she was finally getting better all by herself and it had just been a phase.

Half an hour later, when sleep was just as far away from her as it had been when she woke up, she began to get restless.  The bed felt much bigger without Minseok and she sort of missed his warmth and the way he kept her tucked away against his body like she was something precious.  It would have been even nicer if she could be certain he actually did view her as something precious, but there was genuinely no way of telling.  It looked like he liked Taeyong, but the only person Semi was certain he actually cared about was Luhan.

It was absolutely no use denying that Xiumin’s loyalty to Luhan actually scared her quite a bit.  There was no knowing when or if he would decide to turn on her.  That text Xiumin had shown her showed a level of familiarity Semi had only ever had with her closest friends and brother.

And that phone, she suddenly realised, was probably something that the police would want, if only she could get it off him.  Semi rolled out of bed.  It was pretty much five in the morning, and the best time to snoop around for Xiumin’s second phone was probably while he was still asleep.  Pulling on a jumper which she’d tossed over the back of a chair the night before, Semi left the room and headed on tiptoe for Xiumin’s, using her own phone as a low-powered torch.

Sneaking around Xiumin’s room in the dark was a lot scarier than going through Park Jungmin’s stuff had been, but Semi reasoned that that was probably because Xiumin was right there in the room with her and she wasn’t sure how he’d react if he found her, whereas in Jungmin’s office, she’d never expected Byun Baekhyun to show up.

Byun Baekhyun, who’d carved her arm up, she was reminded as she attempted to use the injured limb to root through the pile of neatly folded clothes on Xiumin’s chair.  Pockets were always a good place to start.  If the phone wasn’t in there, she reasoned it would be in the bedside table as he wasn’t exactly going to want to keep it under lock and key, not if it was his surest and quickest means of contacting Luhan.

It turned out to be in neither.  Stumped, Semi raised her phone higher and glanced around, wondering where it might be.

Only when she turned her gaze to the bed and Xiumin did she spot it, clutched loosely in a hand that rested on his pillow beside his head.  His face was covered in a light sheen of sweat and a faint frown pinched his forehead, lending him a general air of discomfort.  Semi bit her lip, wondering if she ought to wake him up, but figured that getting the phone was more important.  The trouble was doing that without breaking his sleep.

That took another few moments to sort out, because it wasn’t until she remembered that he was mildly ticklish that she figured she might be able to get him to move his hand without waking him, and so she carefully and lightly tickled the inside of his elbow.

It worked a treat.  The frown softened a little and he moved his hand away, thankfully letting the phone slip between his fingers.  Semi quickly picked it up and made a beeline for her own room.

Initially, she clambered back into bed, intent to look at the phone and see if she could at least get Luhan’s number off it – if Xiumin discovered the mobile was missing before she could hand it over to the police, she had no doubt that it wouldn’t be leaving the apartment – but her slashed arm was beginning to throb and so she went into the bathroom to fill up a glass of water so she could take some painkillers.

When she got back, it was to find the bedside lamp on and her bed occupied, and she almost screamed.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, hand clutching Xiumin’s second phone over her heart.  “What are you doing in my bed?”

Minseok sniffled pitifully.  “I think I’m ill.  Your bed was warmer than sitting in the chair.”

In reasonable light, it was possible to see that he was whiter than a ghost.

“You look horrendous,” Semi told him.

“Gee, thanks.”  There was no venom in his voice and he sniffled again.  “Might be flu or something.  Feels like I was hit by a truck.”

Concerned, Semi approached the bed, eyes going from the man curled up in a foetal position in it to her painkillers.  “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Not really, but having my phone back would be nice.”

She froze up, then quickly hid the phone behind her back.  “What phone?”

He lifted his head to look at her incredulously.  “I thought I was supposed to be the untrustworthy one.  You woke me up when you tickled my elbow, you know.  I was just too groggy to stop you right at that moment, and now I think I kind of understand why.”

“I’m going to give it to the police.”

With some effort, Minseok sat up.  His neck and shoulders were covered in sweat too.  “When did you become so bold?”

“It’s not like you can hurt me,” Semi pointed out.  “You know all my secrets, the police are watching, and right now, you’re not really in a condition to do much.”

Minseok closed his eyes with a weary sigh.  “Just give it back, please.  There’s nothing on there.  I’ve erased Luhan’s number and deleted the text.  I only saved it in the first place so that you’d know what he’d written.”

“I’m sure the police or some other phone specialist will be able to recover lost data,” Semi said.

“Do you know why the police haven’t already taken that phone off me?”

Semi gave up on trying to hide it and took it out from behind her back, toying idly with the keypad.  A screen asking for a passcode popped up and she glanced at it before trying Xiumin’s birth year.  It was rejected.

“It’s regulatory,” Minseok continued.  “They know I have it, and they know roughly when I use it, and they know I use it to contact Luhan.  It’s by far the easiest and quickest way to get in contact with Luhan with no hassle, and if they know roughly when I use it, they also know roughly which information I’m passing over to Luhan due to what’s happened before I ring after the last time I rang.”

“Isn’t that counterproductive for you?” Semi asked, trying his birthdate.

“Not really.  They’d probably figure out what information I was passing to Luhan anyway, and there’s nothing much they can do about what I do tell him.  It’s easier for me to contact Luhan this way and from the perspective of the police, better that than me having some other way to contact him that they have no clue about.  Now can I have it back?”

“No,” said Semi as the passcode was rejected a second time.

“Semi….”  He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of the bed.

“What’s the passcode?” she asked.

“Please, just give it back.  I’m too tired to fight.”

“I’ll give it back if you tell me the passcode.”

“No.  Give it back.”

Semi narrowed her eyes at him.  “If there’s really nothing on it, why are you being so defensive?”

He refused to meet her gaze.  “For one thing