Luhan was in much worse condition the next day.  Semi went to check on him – to Minseok’s surprise – when she realised he hadn’t eaten breakfast, to find him shivering and practically delirious under the covers.

“What do we do?” she asked Minseok quietly, dragging him aside as the children gleefully fed each other cereal and got food everywhere.  “He needs to see a doctor, but unless we can find one who’s blind, that’s not an option.”

Minseok chewed anxiously on his lip, a hand unconsciously finding its way up onto the one of Semi’s that was grasping his shoulder, and his thumb caressed her knuckles.

“I need a prescription for antibiotics.”

Semi sighed and tried to fix his tie one-handedly.  “It just feels wrong to leave him to battle it out.”

“I know.”  Minseok met her troubled gaze.    “I’m sure he’ll pull through, Semi, but you’re right that it’s hard to watch.”

She sighed again before going to root in the larder for more peppers.

Luhan’s condition was still bothering Minseok when he arrived at the police station.  He wondered if Yixing would be able to help at all, or Jongdae.  Or, for that matter, Seulgi, who was coming to visit that weekend.

Scanning himself through security, he gave the guard a preoccupied wave and then continued on into the building.  It was Yixing’s turn to get coffee that morning, and Minseok could probably do with a double dose of it.  Maybe more.  He stopped briefly by the reception desk to sign in and pick up mail and paperwork for him, Jongdae and Yixing before heading to the stairs to continue on up to the third floor, where his office was.

Two policemen and a policewoman, dressed in casual clothes after completing their night shift, passed him on the way down, as well as a far-too-cheerful new recruit who liked to be called Jackson.  Minseok managed to smile back at him, picking up the mop that Jackson accidentally knocked over and looking for the cleaner.

There was nobody in sight, now that Jackson had vanished around the corner, and to be fair, there also wasn’t a mop bucket and the mop itself was completely dry.  Somebody had obviously just been lazy the previous day.  Minseok’s penchant for tidiness didn’t allow him to just leave it there, so he headed down the corridor towards the nearest janitor’s cupboard, pulling out a hairpin of Semi’s from his pocket to pick the lock.  He didn’t often resort to his more criminal wherewithal around the police station – unless specifically to tap into the criminal minds that they were trying to catch – but lock picking skills were always useful.

It was just as he was putting the mop away that he heard somebody calling for him in a low voice, and his blood ran cold.  He froze up, not even daring to look around.

“Xiumin!”  The voice came again.  It sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it and he was worried to try.

Especially since Xiumin was a part of his life that nobody except Jongdae and Yixing were supposed to know about in the police station.

“Xiumin!”  The tone was a frantic hiss now.

Recognising plea rather than threat, Minseok turned around.  A mop of black hair was poking out of the disabled bathroom directly opposite him, accompanied by a vigorously beckoning hand. With a quick look up and down the corridor – nobody was in sight – Minseok hurried into the spacious toilet and locked the door behind him.

The person he found himself facing – who was now sitting on the closed toilet lid looking thoroughly nervous – was only faintly familiar.  If Minseok was placing him correctly, the boy – young man, really – had been twelve, maybe thirteen, the first and only time that they’d met.  Luhan had picked him up as a castaway from Suho’s gang, beaten to the brink of death.  After the discovery of Suho’s gang tattoo, he’d been about to throw him out again when he caught the boy engrossed in electronics and attempting to manipulate stock prices.  The realisation that all the stocks he was trying to sink belonged to Suho had persuaded Luhan to keep him on.  He’d proven nothing except utterly loyal.

“Sung…jong?” he tried tentatively, hoping that he recalled the boy’s name correctly.

A beam of happiness spread across the super-hacker’s face.  “You do remember me!”

“Yeah… just about,” Minseok admitted.  “What are you…?”

His mind was suddenly reeling when he realised the answer to his own question.  Luhan must have asked him, because he was the best hacker he knew.  The boy had gone head-to-head with Kyungsoo aged fifteen, after all.

“Luhan told me to come here and find you.  Said you had a job for me.”

“Yes, but….” Bewildered, Minseok tailed off.

“Wasn’t expecting this.” Sungjong waved a vague hand around him.  “I mean, I saw the files, but really, a police station?”

Minseok hesitated uncomfortably.  It looked like Luhan hadn’t explained what had happened eight years ago.  Or about his sister.  It most definitely wasn’t Minseok’s place to do either, and Sungjong looked pretty put out at being surrounded by the strong right arm of the law, especially since his ex-boss’s blood brother was currently kitted up as part of that strong right arm.

“We can discuss that later,” he said.  “Right now, I need to take you to meet my boss.  You don’t need to worry about him knowing anything about you, because he doesn’t.  We can pretend you’re a normal civilian.  He won’t look into your past.”

“I’ve already created an alias,” Sungjong told him as he got off the toilet seat.  “Any particular reason I need to meet him?  You’re not dubbing me in, are you?”

Minseok smiled.  “Of course not.  Luhan asked you to come because my boss requested a hacker.”