The previous chapter was rated M as a precaution.  If you were unable to read it but would like to know what happened, with the potentially sensitive material removed, please click here.  You will be directed back to this chapter at the end of it.

The next morning, over breakfast, it was as though nothing had happened.  Semi had walked into the kitchen rubbing sleep out of her eyes at what she guessed was around quarter to eight and had nearly walked straight out again when she saw Xiumin sitting on the kitchen counter, eating from a bowl of cereal as he read the back of the cereal packet.

“Morning,” he said cheerfully without looking around at her, making her freeze in the doorway.  “I noticed your watch had stopped yesterday.  There’s a new one on the table.”

Semi cursed herself for being brought up with good manners as she crossed to the table to pick up the box, keeping as far away from him as possible.  She got a shock when she opened it up to see the watch inside.  It was evidently expensive, and there was a jeweller’s note inside mentioning something to do with a diamond watch face.

The watch itself was beautiful.  It was analogue with Roman numerals, big enough to display the date, and had a gold second hand which ticked around smoothly and almost soundlessly – something she’d missed a lot with her previous watch.  She lifted it out of the case, wondering if she really ought to accept something like this.  They were married, but Semi didn’t find him a nice person.

There was a small and familiar kink in the leather strap, and she looked at her wrist, alarmed.  Her old watch was missing.

“I did ask about just getting a new battery,” Xiumin added, still without looking up, “but unfortunately it was completely dead, so it had to be a completely new watch.  I kept the strap, though.  Thought you’d prefer that.”

Semi felt like she was going to faint.  She added buying a bolt to her mental shopping list, and she was clearly going to have to go out into town today.

Then it struck her: no jeweller was going to be open before eight in the morning.  She glanced at the time on the new watch.  It read half past ten.

“What’s the time?” she asked Xiumin reluctantly.  He paused eating to check the watch on his wrist.

“Half ten.  But you have your own watch to tell you that.”

Sighing, Semi fitted the watch around her wrist and took a seat at the kitchen table, resting her head in her hands.  The jetlag wasn’t helping her confused state of mind at all, and she was beginning to wonder if Xiumin was bi-polar.

He set the bowl down with a clatter and hopped off the counter.

“When are you joining university?” he asked.  “I was told you would be completing your semester over here.”

Now he wants to make small talk.  Semi groaned and dropped her head out of her hands and onto the table.  Moments later, something ceramic nudged her hand.  With huge reluctance, she looked up.  Xiumin had left a bowl balanced on her left little finger.  She heard him moving around the kitchen.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked to eat, so I just raided most things from the corner shop,” he said conversationally as he opened a few cupboards and then the fridge.  “But I’m guessing you’re used to cereal from the States and they had Cheerios, which are vaguely tolerable, so I got about five different flavours.”

“Did you steal them?”  Semi almost cursed herself for talking to him again.  That was only going to encourage him to keep speaking.

“Raided as in I bought far more than necessary.”

Semi paused with surprise.  The fact that such a notorious criminal – or, at least, he’d been notorious by the time he’d been arrested – had just trotted along to the corner shop down the road, bought the groceries like any other domesticated person, and then been – dare she say it – kind (and creepy) enough to find a jeweller’s and buy her a new and very nice watch just didn’t compute.

“I’m on parole under very strict conditions, girl, I have to stick with them unless I want life to get unpleasant.”

Semi didn’t know whether to be offended he’d addressed her in a demeaning way or pleased that he wasn’t trying to be too intimate.  For a moment, she considered asking exactly what those conditions were, but then there was a sigh and Cheerios started tinkling into the bowl.  One of them bounced off the back of her hand.

She really had to hand it to him.  He didn’t even know her and he’d managed to get her favourite cereal on day one, and without accidentally endangering her life.  It was a fluke, but it was also extremely scary.

There was the sound of milk joining the Cheerios, and then the bowl was nudged off her fingers and a spoon slipped under her hand.

“Eat,” Xiumin told her.  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

After a long hesitation, Semi lifted her head and looked at the full bowl in front of her.  Xiumin had retreated to the counter again and was examining the microwave.  Pursing her lips, Semi gave a shrug and dug in.

She completely missed the smirk Xiumin sent her as he watched her in the microwave door’s reflection.