Tuesday morning found Semi curled up in Sehun’s arms and her brother tapping her gently on the shoulder to wake her up.  Her initial reaction was to shoot up in alarm, but then coherence began to return and she visibly relaxed when she realised that she’d crept into Sehun’s bed during the night.

“I need to go to work,” he told her quietly, reaching out to shut off his alarm clock.  “Did you sleep any better after you came in here?”

Yawning, Semi nodded.  He tugged on her arm to get her to lie down again.

“That’s good.  No more nightmares is good.”

Snuggling into the covers again, Semi watched as her brother set the alarm clock again so that she’d be up in time to get to her first lecture at university.  For some reason, Sehun’s presence was always able to drive the nightmares away.

“I was wondering,” said Xiumin that evening without looking up from his book on the history of gang warfare in Seoul as he sat on the kitchen counter, “you know when we were setting up our backstory and you said your father or parents or something were dead – is that actually based on reality?”

The salad dish Semi had been holding slipped out of her fingers and shattered on the floor with a loud crash.  Startled, Xiumin put the book aside and looked from her to the broken dish.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

Shakily, Semi bent down to pick up the broken pieces.

“What happened?” Xiumin asked, pretending to go back to his book.

“Cancer.”

“Was it recent?”

“Relatively.”

He surveyed her cautiously over the top of the book as she carefully piled up shards.

“It’s not really something you like talking about,” he concluded after a moment or two.  “Okay.  I won’t ask again.”

Semi’s response was a sharp hiss of pain as a jagged edge of one of the shards cut through her skin.

“Ow!”  Dropping the offending shard, Semi stuck her bleeding finger in and grimaced in pain.  There was a thump as Xiumin leapt lightly down from the counter.

“I’ll go get the first aid kit.”

He was out of the room before Semi could protest that it wasn’t going to be necessary, but by the time he returned, she was quite glad she hadn’t been able to say anything, because the taste of blood in was beginning to make her feel a little ill and her finger wouldn’t stop bleeding.

“Mind if I do this?” Xiumin asked her, glancing between her hand and her eyes as he removed a couple of antiseptic wipes.  “Two hands are better than one.”

Realising he was asking for permission to touch her, Semi nodded and quickly popped her finger out of , extending her hand towards him.  It was a moment or two before Xiumin took it, eyeing her finger cautiously.

Semi couldn’t help noticing that his hands were warm, but her train of thought was broken when the sting of antiseptic caught on her nerves, and she jerked her hand back with a yelp.  Xiumin’s reflexes were fast, though, and his fingers trapped her wrist before she could fully withdraw it.

“Bear with it,” he told her, dabbing at the cut.  “Ew.  This looks quite deep.”

Semi found herself distracted by the facial expressions he pulled as he cleaned the cut up, and she found herself remembering him saying that he didn’t deal well with blood.  She hadn’t expected him to be telling the truth with that, and she definitely hadn’t been expecting him to be iffy about dealing with a bleeding finger – okay, profusely bleeding finger – but apparently blood really did get to him.  How did he manage to drink a cup of Luhan’s blood?

Once the antiseptic wipe had turned red, Xiumin lobbed it in the direction of the bin and reached behind him for the first aid kit.

He ended up going for the second antiseptic wipe.

“Oh my gosh, why won’t it stop bleeding?” he grumbled, shooting Semi’s finger a look of distaste as he lobbed the second wipe at the bin, the material absolutely saturated with blood.

Semi couldn’t help it: she giggled.  He was acting like a petulant little kid and it was oddly endearing.

“Here,” he said, nudging her over to the sink and turning the tap on.  “Stick your finger under the water until it stops bleeding.”

Still giggling, Semi made to prod his nose.  He actually flinched out of the way, then grabbed her hand and stuck it under the jet, holding her there firmly by the wrist.  Semi was a bit taken aback by his effortless strength, but lurking at the back of her mind was an image of him in that wife beater on that first night, muscular arms on full display and the rest of his physique hinted at, and—

A tremor shot through her, and she dropped her gaze at once, gulping.  Xiumin seemed t