Xiumin couldn’t get back to sleep after Jongin left.  After a mumbled apology, Semi snuck back into the bed alongside him and drifted off, evidently in a much better condition than she had been before Jongin showed up like he’d risen from the dead, but still rattled by the events of the previous day.

Eventually, he could take it no more and ended up ringing Luhan at around five in the morning before people started waking up and there was a danger of the conversation being overheard, even if they spoke in Mandarin.

Luhan was just as confused as he was.

“I don’t know what Seungri was thinking,” he snapped the instant Xiumin brought the university shootings up.  “Honest to God, what was he expecting?  Happy coincidence that the police were busy, but it could have ended in you being killed!  His own men shot at you!”

“Seungri was the one pointing the gun at me for some of the time,” Xiumin replied, taking care to keep his voice down.  Semi shifted in his arms, her hair tickling his face.  “I think he didn’t recognise me.  I didn’t actually know it was him until he said so.  He didn’t seem in the least bit impressed that I was actually trying to protect Semi.”

Luhan let out an exasperated sigh.  “This whole situation is such a mess.  You’ve gone and fallen in love with pretty much the only person in the world who’s a threat to my life and now I have to protect her too because you don’t want to give her up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Seungri thinks it’s absolutely ridiculous too.”  There was noise in the background and Luhan yelled something in reply.  “Sorry, I’ll ring you back.”

Once Luhan had hung up, Xiumin fidgeted with the phone.  Semi’s breathing was quiet and calm, and he tried not to stress.  But the memory of finding her on the brink of a panic attack in the kitchen, and how close it had all been, was just stressful no matter how many times he told himself she was safe now.

He jumped when the phone abruptly lit up with an incoming call and accepted it before the ringtone could wake the sleeping Semi on his chest up.

“I want to shoot something,” Luhan grumbled by way of greeting.

“Before you hung up, I wanted to ask,” said Xiumin, curling a strand of Semi’s hair around his finger, “what on earth was going on with that student Seungri was blackmailing?”

Luhan seemed to deflate, letting out a long sigh.  “That’s at the heart of what I was about to tell you.  Remember right back at the beginning I told you I had contacts at the university your girl was going to?”

“She’s not mine,” Xiumin protested.  “She’s not a possession.”

“Whatever.  Main point is, Seungri was that contact.”

“Seungri… wait.  He’s the dance teacher that was blackmailing Junhong?”

“Yeah.”

Xiumin was unsure whether or not it was a good idea to laugh.  “That’s unbelievable.”

“Universities are prime recruiting grounds.  So are schools, but it’s much easier to sneak into the universities.”

“But he’s a dance teacher.  He’s going to be the laughing stock of the underworld if this gets out.”

“Hey, I crossdress.”

“True – you’ll be the laughing stock of the underworld.”

Luhan grumbled something unintelligible at the other end.

“So… let me guess.  Because Semi wasn’t doing any of his classes, he looked around for somebody he thought he could use who was in one of her classes to get close to her and Junhong fit the bill?”

“Yeah, except it sort of backfired.”

“Semi told me he started acting strangely and avoiding her.”

“Exactly.  When he found out the full details of what was going on, Junhong dropped out of the classes he was in with her and started avoiding her and he told Seungri that he didn’t know her so he couldn’t get close to her.  Junhong’s big sister is one of Seungri’s… women, and so he retaliated using her.  And at that point, Junhong disappeared.  He came onto campus just enough to meet attendance records and hand in assignments, but other than that, he was untraceable, so trying to blackmail him into doing what Seungri wanted was futile as there was no way to contact him.  His sister also managed to escape and there was some back and forth there – I don’t know the details – but Seungri knew that Junhong would have to return to campus this week to hand in a major assignment, so he’s been poised for some time.  After he got wind of Junhong talking to police on campus, he figured there must be police presence and called in some of the big boys.”

“But why?  Didn’t you ask him to back off at some point?  I’m sure I asked you to do that.”

“I didn’t know this was going on.”  Luhan sounded done with the world.  “But Seungri’s accusing you of breaking the Code because of the way you’ve been handling things.  It’s serious.”

Alarmed, Xiumin sat up, shifting Semi off him as gently as he could.  “What?”  He swung his legs out of the bed, paused momentarily to tuck Semi back in, and went to find somewhere more isolated.

“He says you’re wilfully putting me in danger by sticking alongside this girl and not