“I was thinking,” said Xiumin in a low voice, swinging the car keys around his index finger as he leant against the wall beside Semi’s chair, one leg bent with the foot propped up on the wall beside the knee from his other leg, “we should probably say that if neither of us are back by dinner time without texting, something bad has happened and we need to get the police involved.”

Semi scowled up at him.  “Are you trying to impose a curfew on me?”

“No, I’m trying to make life easier for the pair of us,” he huffed, crossing his arms and swinging the keys from side to side instead.  The journey across to the hospital had been devoid of discussion because Semi had brought her earphones and spent the entire trip listening to her iPod.  “I don’t think you want to know every single time I go out shopping for groceries and I don’t particularly want your friends thinking I’m a control freak when I’m not just because it would actually be much safer from your point of view if you updated me at least every hour with your whereabouts.  If anything bad happened to you, it would mean that the limited timeframe between communications would make it much easier to find you as quickly as possible.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to get abducted.”  Semi’s expression turned darker and she pointedly turned away from him.

“It’s actually quite likely that might happen,” Xiumin told her crossly.  “It might not even have anything to do with Luhan.  It’s not going to be that long before people know I’m out, and I’ve pissed off enough people in my life for them to come after you if they think you’re going to be my weak spot.”  He was silent for a moment or two.  “Ironically, the fact that you’re the wife of Luhan’s blood brother might warn them off.”

Semi tossed him an irritated look back over her shoulder, and then quickly glanced around the waiting room.  There was nobody else there as the last patient had just gone in, which didn’t really give her much reason to ask him to shut up about the subject, even though they were in a public place.

“It’s a pretty well-known fact in the criminal underworld that Luhan owes me his life,” Xiumin went on.  “While the blood brother code doesn’t mean he physically has to risk his life for me, he is supposed to help me out to the best of my ability if I need it, and he’s still the biggest mafia boss in the country, so most people would think twice about crossing him, even if it’s indirectly.”

Semi sighed.  She found it irritating how he kept dropping little hints about the code and about Luhan without ever giving her the full picture.

“Couldn’t you sit down and explain exactly what this code is to me?” she demanded.  “It frustrates me being left in the dark and from what you’re saying, it’s potentially dangerous for me not to know what there is to it.”

“It’s—” he began, but a nurse suddenly popped out of the x-ray room asking for Semi.  “Later,” he murmured, pushing himself away from the wall and pocketing the keys.  “Do you want me to wait here?”

Getting to her feet, Semi nodded.  The corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile and he motioned with a couple of his fingers, gesturing for her to follow the nurse into the radiation zone.

The x-rays took a ridiculously long time, as far as Semi was concerned.  The radiologist taking them spotted the ring on her finger and immediately started spouting concerns that she might be pregnant, and when she assured him she wasn’t, that she could be pregnant, at which point Semi very nearly snapped and told him she wasn’t ually active.  But that would have looked really weird, especially considering the nurse was still gushing over how “young and attractive your husband is, darling, how long have you been married?”  She very nearly bit off that Xiumin was a lot older than the woman might expect, but at that point the radiologist butted in with more questions, about how she’d got the bruise, whether she’d heard anything crack, and whether it hurt her to take deep breaths.  Semi explained her recent medical history and told them in detail about falling over in the dark, and then admitted that breathing deeply was extremely painful, though she’d got used to it because the doctors had told her when her brother’s phone had been shot to smithereens that taking shallow breaths when her ribs were injured put her at risk of a chest infection.

It was about twenty minutes before everything was finally done, and then another five or so during which she was left to talk to the nurse while the radiologist examined the photos.  He came out of his little lab clutching a couple of them.

“It’s fractured,” he said, placing the photos on the x-ray bed in front of Semi.  “You can see here, just below the collar bone, on the second rib down – there’s a hairline fracture.”  He pointed to the first x-ray.  Semi looked at it and nodded: she could see the thin crack stretching across the bone for a couple of centimetres.  He put the second photo in front of the first.  “Fortunately, though, as you can see from the profile view, it’s not threatening anything, which is what I expected.  All you can really do for it is painkillers and rest, and it should heal up with no problem within about three to six weeks.”

Semi nodded again.

“Do you need me to write you a prescription for medication?”

“No, no, it’ll be fine.”  Knowing Xiumin, he probably had a medical cupboard stocked up somewhere.  He’d already given her various things to help with the bruise anyway.

“That’s all, then.”  He got to his feet.

“Thank you for your time,” Semi said, bowing first to him and then to the nurse.  The nurse smiled and let her out of the door.

Xiumin was standing exactly where she had left him.  The only thing that had changed was he now had a bouquet of pinkish-red flowers in his hand.  He came forwards when she closed the door behind her and extended the flowers.  Semi stared at them.

“What’s this for?” she asked, trying very hard not to feel touched.  Xiumin shrugged.

“Flowers.  It’s normal to give them to somebody who’s in convalescence.  I was actually looking for garlic blossom, but they didn’t have any and yarrow was the only one in the shop that had anything to do with meaning health or get well soon.”

Hesitantly, Semi accepted the bouquet, sniffing at it.  The flowers had a distinct herbal scent, and she thought she saw Xiumin chuckling at her out of the corner of her eye.

“Why garlic?” she asked without looking up, trying to pretend she wasn’t embarrassed.

“You never know when a vampire’s going to come knocking on your bedroom window,” he replied with a completely straight face.  Semi raised her head.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, pointing to the yarrows.  “It’s not like we’re actually—”

“Oh, shush, I wanted to.”  He waved a dismissive hand, and Semi felt her heart belatedly skip a beat.  It was the very first time a male had presented her with flowers… and she had to admit that she’d been rather jealous of Kai and his bouquets.  Xiumin, when he wasn’t getting antsy about her safety or about Luhan, was actually rather nice, she decided.

“And one last thing,” he said, motioning for her to join him as he headed out of the radiology waiting room.  “Actually, several things.  What’s the verdict?”

“Fractured.”

“Thought so.  Painkillers and rest?”

Semi nodded.  He reached into a pocket and brought out a large packet of pills, grinning cheekily.

“I’m sorry for snapping earlier,” he added.  “I’m trying to think of ways to maintain your freedom in a manner that allows me to help if you get in trouble.  It’s not easy.  My hands are tied from so many different directions.  And speaking of hands,” he glanced sideways at her, “when we’re in public around other people, especially ones who know we’re married but don’t know why, may I have permission to touch you if needed?”

Semi held the flowers up between them as if they were a defensive barrier.

“If needed,” he stressed, pointing to a security camera they were passing under.  “Those things can be hacked.  Plus I can tell you from experience that gangs have eyes and ears everywhere.  The wrong people knowing the wrong things could have disastrous consequences.  It wouldn’t be much – just a nudge here or there or potentially holding hands if we happened to bump into somebody we needed to fool.”

Very, very hesitant, Semi chewed on her lip.

“And another thing,” he went on before she had a chance to say anything.  “You mentioned… well, about your panic attack.  Did that happen because you came into contact with somebody, or because it was a male, or was it specifically because of where your dance partner held you?”

Semi had to think about it.  She wasn’t much of a touchy-feely person and usually avoided contact unless it was with somebody she was very close to.  Sehun hugging her hadn’t been a problem.  Neither had Tao pouncing on her, and Wendy and Seulgi hadn’t raised her hackles at all.  The only occasion she’d come into physical contact with Xiumin at all after that first night had been when she’d had that allergic reaction, and that hadn’t triggered anything, either.

“I mean, it would be really bad if I patted you on the shoulder and you fainted from terror or something,” Xiumin pointed out.

“Third one,” she concluded quietly, looking around so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eye.  Another security camera caught her attention.  Those things can be hacked.  “Do you w—”  She bit her lip.  Do you want to hold my hand sounded ridiculous and would send out all the wrong signals.  “Do you need to hold my hand now or something?” she asked.  “I mean, you said the cameras—”

He smiled brightly at her.  “It’s fine.  You have the flowers.”

Feeling an unwanted blush spreading over her cheeks, Semi ducked her head into the bouquet.

But she was still able to work out the unspoken words that lingered between them.  We won’t always have props.

In some cases, her diamond ring wasn’t going to be enough.

There was a loud crash as Jongin dumped the old-fashioned metal safe on the cafeteria table in front of his last two victims, wiping sweat off his brow.

“I can’t open it.  Help?” he requested.

“You need to learn how to pick locks,” said Dia.

“Siwon also wants me to get all the unopenable things in storage opened by