Happy early birthday to Kerielz and MissDVertigo!

Semi refused to say another word to Xiumin after he told her the proposed middle road, which resulted in heavily awkward silence for Saturday and most of Sunday.  He looked incredibly guilty when he shook her awake from a nightmare at 2am on Monday morning, but curled up wordlessly on top of the covers so that she could press her head against his chest and go back to sleep with his heartbeat in her ears.  And no amount of Semi being annoyed with him would apparently stop him from making her fantastic food.

Jongin joined her in university again, walking her there because Xiumin and Semi both seemed to agree that being in the same vehicle together would be far too awkward, and Semi almost immediately noticed increased police presence on campus.  Jongin was jittery, though.

“I have a million and one things I’m supposed to be doing,” he grumbled as his pager from the police station went off yet again over lunch.  The pair of them had managed to shake off the other three on the grounds that they wanted family time.  “I told them not to contact me unless something came up on Junhong’s case.”

“Junhong’s case?” Semi demanded sharply.

“Mm.  There’s something undeniably shifty going on, but he insists everything’s fine.  And he’s been bunking university ever since then.  We can’t find him anywhere.”

Semi frowned.

“At the moment, he’s got just enough points and attendance to pass this semester if he hands in a major paper that’s due before Friday and comes back to sit the exams, but it’s worrying.  We can’t reach his family and the other friends of his that we’ve managed to speak to find it really weird as well.  And then you said it looked like he was being blackmailed… because of a girl on campus.  Possibly you.”

Still frowning, Semi took a bite of Jongin’s apple.

“This has got to be connected to Luhan or Suho somehow,” he muttered, absently taking the apple back.

It seemed to be the day for revealing what was going on in police cases, because Semi arrived home to an incredibly nervous Minseok pacing around the living room.

“The friction is going to set the carpet on fire,” she said dryly as she sat down and the TV.  He came to a halt.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he said, “but the police are hoping to take down Suho this Thursday.”

Semi muted the TV and glanced up at him.  “Why are you so nervous?”

“I don’t want anything to go wrong.  I’ve been setting up large parts of the operation with Lay and we finalised plans today.  He’s insane – he said he wanted to fill in for Luhan and he and Chen have been arguing over who out of the two of them could pull it off better because Chen’s usually the one who goes into the line of fire like that, and—”

“Hold up.”  Semi squinted at him.  “Are you worried about them?”

He tilted his head to one side, sighed, and then looked at the ground.  “Yes.  So much could go wrong.”

“You’re worried about Lay.  I think you need to go to hospital.”

It seemed to snap him out of it, because he started laughing.

“Also,” said Semi, “I’m going over to Wendy’s for the night.”

“It would probably be safer for both of you if she came here.  You never know if you might be followed.”

“I just want a bit of time to spend as a normal person away from all this craziness.”

He agreed that it was probably a good idea and asked if she wanted to take any food over as a peace offering.  Semi wasn’t sure if he’d suggested it totally seriously and wondered if the offering was supposed to be from him or from her before settling down to watch the news.

Just for safety’s sake, Minseok – or Xiumin (Semi wasn’t completely sure) – insisted on walking Semi to the nearest public transport when she emerged with a duffle bag at quarter past seven, since she wasn’t quite prepared to try sitting in a car again.

“You’re going to freeze,” he pointed out, pausing as he took the apartment keys off their hook by the door.  “Don’t you want to take your coat?”

“Wendy has it.  I left it behind after my last lecture today.”  Semi bundled her scarf tighter around her neck, but she had to admit he had a point.  Two layers was not going to cut it in this weather.

“Get a hoodie or something,” he suggested.  “Or… am I allowed to give you gifts?”

Semi stared at him for a few moments.  “That’s probably the most awkward thing I’ve heard you say.”

“I’d much rather be awkward than make you uncomfortable.”  He slipped the keys off the hook and tucked them into his pocket.  “Am I?”

She shrugged, motioning for him to go ahead.  He disappeared in the direction of his bedroom, only to return with a dark red jacket of a cut that Semi recognised.  Come to that, she actually recognised the jacket.

“That’s been sitting on your chair for days,” she pointed out as he helped her into it.

“I know,” was all he said, causing Semi to frown.  It definitely wasn’t his because it was a very feminine cut – and it really was similar to a brown jacket she’d had to get rid of shortly after Christmas because the elbows had worn through – which meant he’d probably got it with her in mind.  But he’d usually been very forward about giving her things, from surprising her with piano books to picking out plants to put in her room.  For a few seconds, she teetered on the brink of asking him why he hadn’t given it to her earlier, but it sounded petulant in her mind, so she didn’t, instead giving him a flash of a smile as she did up the buttons at the front and headed out of the door with him trailing behind her.  The keys clinked and she figured that he was twirling them around his finger.

It wasn’t until they were in the foyer that it suddenly clicked that he was worried about giving her things.  And not jus