Deer Luhan, With Love

<<<Rewind: 1<<<

Luhan had never been terribly superstitious, but when his phone rang for the fourth time that evening, he knew something was about to go wrong.  Even if the first words out of Sehun’s mouth when he accepted the call were: “Hyung, Leigh’s found the fans.”

Leigh wasn’t supposed to have found the fans.  Leigh was supposed to be on her way to the train station so that she could go home.

All in all, he wasn’t too surprised that Sehun’s next words were: “And Leigh’s vanished.”

What raised the alarmbells in his head was what came after that.  “We think Baekhyun and Lay are with her too, and we can’t get hold of any of them.”

It was drastic enough to send Luhan careening across the cabin to grab a microphone so that he could beg the pilot to fly the horrid machine they were in faster.  He thought he was going to have a mental breakdown when the man had rather tetchily responded that they were already maxing out.

Something bad was going to happen, he could just tell.  Leigh had ridiculous luck and had proved so on many occasions, but the combination of Baekhyun, Lay and Leigh going off on a rescue mission together just smacked of absolute disaster.  He already had enough to worry about with his mother and Martyrs’ Park.

Luhan had always found helicopter rides torturous, but this one was actually excruciating.

But when he received the fifth phone call, life as he knew it crumbled around him.

Everything he’d been trying so hard to avoid had happened.

“I’m dreaming,” he murmured to himself, lowering the phone from his ear.  “This has to be some kind of nightmare.”

But five minutes later, Xiumin still hadn’t hung up on him and his words hadn’t changed in the slightest.

Against all odds – and probably against all expectations, too – it was Sehun rather than Kris who took charge once the EXO-M leader had finally managed to persuade (by nearly destroying it) the maknae to open his bedroom door.  One look at Sehun’s blotchy face had been enough to tell Kris the answer to what he wanted to know.

“F*ck.  Leigh’s not here either.”

Those five words had been enough to stop Sehun from moping.

“Get the others,” he commanded, brushing past Kris and out into the living room.  “Leigh!”

There was no answer, but from the way Kris had come storming in, Sehun hadn’t been expecting one.  Unsure whether he was worried or angry, Sehun had tried calling Leigh, but after ringing for ages and ages, the call had just gone through to voicemail.

By the time the others had gathered, Sehun was at the computers.  He already knew where Leigh had to have gone, and it wasn’t Martyrs’ Park.  Of course it wasn’t Martyrs’ Park.  She was too impulsive for that.

“Baekhyun’s missing too,” Chanyeol reported.  “And I can’t find Lay, either.”

“Ring them,” Sehun said absently.  “Leigh’s not picking up.”  He was busy keying in Leigh’s number to the phone tracking software.

It took Kris getting through to Baekhyun via text and Baekhyun’s evasive replies for the others to figure out what Sehun had already guessed: both missing boys were with Leigh, and for some godforsaken reason they hadn’t tried to dissuade her.  Or, more likely, they hadn’t been able to.

“So what do we do?” Kris demanded in frustration.  “She’s supposed to be going home.  Luhan’s going to absolutely freak out when he hears about this.  She’s heading off into a town full of riots with a rogue gunman knocking about.”