“Were you actually ill,” demanded Tao, staring at the ring Semi had forgotten to take off on Thursday morning, “or did you go to Vegas?  Because you definitely did not have that last time I saw you.”

“I was in hospital—”

“Pregnant?” Seulgi butted in with a gasp.

The temptation to do a Kai and go “ew, gross, no!” was almost too much.  “It hasn’t even been two weeks.  There’s absolutely no way I’d know this early.”

“But you could be pregnant,” Seulgi said with determination.

“No I couldn’t,” Semi argued back.  Seulgi looked affronted.

“What, you mean you’re using contr—”

“Oh, my God,” groaned Wendy, crumpling a page of notes into a ball and shoving them into Seulgi’s mouth to shut her up.  “Seulgi, can we please not discuss people’s lives while we’re learning about globalisation and trade theories?  I know it’s really boring, but this is going to be fifty percent of our final exam and I don’t need my memory of it erted.”

Seulgi chewed absently on the paper before spitting it out and lobbing it at the bin on the end of the row.  She turned excitedly back to Semi.

“Well, what’s he like?”

Baffled, Semi looked around for males Seulgi could be referring to.

“Who, Tao?  Strange as fu—”

Tao and Seulgi were apparently on the same wavelength, because he whacked Semi playfully around the back of the head.

“No, idiot.  Your husband – is he hot?”

Going purely by his face, the adjective Semi would have chosen to describe Xiumin was cute rather than hot, but she was under absolutely no illusions as to what his body was like, so she just nodded.

“What does he do?” pressed Seulgi.  “Is he rich?”

“Er….”  Semi hesitated, completely at a loss as to what to say.  She was pretty sure any money Xiumin was using was part of an allowance Siwon had provided him with, and their apartment was definitely nice, but she didn’t really think that classified as rich.  “He works with the police.  And he’s not badly off.”

“Well, he’s hardly skint if he got you that ring,” Tao pointed out.  Seulgi nodded enthusiastically, eyes glimmering with excitement, but it was Wendy who voiced the question Semi had been dreading ever since the topic had been broached.

“So, how old is he?”

“Older than me,” Semi replied, hoping they’d leave it at that.

Seulgi propped her head up on her elbow, leaning across her desk.  “Like, sugar daddy old?”

“Twenty-seven is not a sugar daddy!” Semi retorted before she could help herself, and clapped her hands over as if to cram the words back in half a second later.  It was about as effective as trying to get toothpaste back into its tube.

Seulgi held her hands up.  “Not judging.  If you’re happy, you’re happy.  Can we meet him?”

“He’s usually quite busy.”  She wasn’t totally sure how Xiumin would react to her university friends.  Wendy was the least… special of the bunch, and that wasn’t really saying much.

“Seulgi.”  Wendy sighed.  “Bit too much too early.  You still don’t know if we’ve scared her off.  It’s only the third day.”

“But he sounds awesome!”

Semi blinked.  From the absolute minimal amount she’d told them, she wasn’t sure how awesome factored in, though she had to admit that Xiumin was extremely sweet.  He’d been very quiet the whole of the previous day, but he’d stayed with her and seemed to know what she wanted and needed before she did herself.  And Semi had to admit she could get used to that.  He’d even offered to take her to and from university that morning, but Semi had declined.  The commute wasn’t long, and it was time she actually had to herself.

Once they were out of the lecture, Wendy proved to be just as bad as the others, and Semi found herself wishing she had come up with a proper cover story.  She could have told them the truth, but “I’m married to the blood brother of a notorious mafia boss for my personal safety” would probably have sounded a bit farfetched even to Tao and probably would have invited even more questions.  Deflecting questions like “so where are you going for your honeymoon?  Or have you already been?” with vague responses such as “well, he’s a bit of a romantic, so he won’t tell me” was far more preferable.  The worst one was “how did he propose?”

She was spared answering that by the appearance of her big brother, and her jaw nearly dropped off in surprise.

“Semi!” he yelled from across the quad, waving.

“Whoa,” exclaimed Seulgi, cutting herself off from her ruminating questions about whether or not Semi’s mystery husband’s proposal had been romantic.  “Is that him?”

“God, he’s good looking,” Wendy murmured as Sehun came jogging over.

“No, this is my brother,” Semi said as he joined them.  “Sehun, shouldn’t you be—”

He knocked the wind out of her as he swept her into a bear hug.

“—At work?” she squeaked.

“Dude, you’re crushing her,” Tao pointed out.  “Fratricide is bad.”

Sehun loosened his grip and planted a kiss on the top of her head.  “Thursday is my day off and I couldn’t get hold of you yesterday.  Ka— er, Jongin told me your timetable.”

Semi momentarily tensed up, remembering that she’d put her phone on silent for the whole of the previous day.  She hadn’t forgotten Lay’s warning about making sure Sehun was a complete secret.

“Are you okay, though?” Sehun asked, pushing her out to arms’ length and running a critical eye up and down her, much as Xiumin had done that morning before acquiescing to letting her out of the apartment.  “I had a call from Chen late on Tuesday saying you were in hospital.”

“I had curry and didn’t realise there were traces of nuts.”

“You really aren’t pregnant,” Seulgi said with blatant disappointment.

Semi sighed.  Sehun let go of her with a blink and looked around at the other three (doing a double-take at the girls’ hair) as if only just realising they were there.

“Uh… hi,” he said, clearly unsure as to how he was supposed to greet them.

“Hi!  I’m Tao!”  The boy jumped between Sehun and Semi immediately.  “You two look nothing alike.”

“…Thanks?” Sehun said, barely managing to squeeze the word in before Tao ploughed right on.