Yeonhee wasn’t sure she’d handled Yixing exploding all that well.  Logically, she knew that running after him and trying to get him to calm down wouldn’t have done anything, but his monosyllabic replies to her messages asking if he was okay and if he’d got home safely and if he wanted to talk at all made her wonder if he’d felt let down by the fact that she hadn’t at least tried.  The only longer response she got was when she apologised for Sehun’s behaviour, and Yixing was clearly upset, because his reply read he meant it and it’s not your place to apologise for him.

It was a little hard to sit and actually enjoy the concert with that at the forefront of her mind, but just as she was on the brink of slipping out to find somewhere quiet so she could ring him, he’d texted saying that he was tired and going to bed – probably preempting a call.  It didn’t stop Yeonhee from worrying.

Apart from that and the brawl at the beginning, the evening went off pretty well.  The Rolls came offstage flushed with the buzz of the crowd, where Mihae greeted them with flowers and a gigantic box of chocolates, and she and Yeonhee scarpered when the press appeared and started asking which band member’s girlfriends they were.  Baekhyun thankfully had enough tact not to do anything that would embarrass Chanyeol or Mihae when he heard the question.  They went out to the pub after, joined by Sehun and several friends, and Baekhyun tried subtly to prod Chanyeol and Mihae closer together while Mihae tried to casually drift in Sehun’s direction.  Yeonhee was able to enjoy the jovial mood, especially when Jongin checked the seat numbers and discovered that they had, in fact, sold out the last thirteen seats.  Baekhyun splashed out on a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

By the next morning, Yixing was weighing on Yeonhee’s mind again.  She tried ringing him when she got up, but his phone was off, and then she remembered that he was going to be busy with memorial ceremonies at least up until lunch, and that he probably wouldn’t have wanted her disturbing him anyway.  Unable to set her mind at peace, she continued shading in the phoenix rising from the ashes that she’d started the night before with some new pastels she’d eventually got with part of the gift voucher he’d given her for Christmas.  The memorial service was streamed on a number of different news websites, and so she watched that when it started in part to see if she could gauge how the prince was doing, and in part out of respect to those who had died.  By lunch, she was satisfied enough with the phoenix to upload it onto easyl (after adding hints of what could be construed as a fiery crown in its claws for anybody so inclined to view it that way).  For good measure, she also sent a photo of it to Yixing on his phone, just to make it abundantly clear that the phoenix was specifically for him, and then she went to get some yogurt out of the fridge in the tiny kitchenette at the other end of the passage.

On her way back, she noticed that a small Chanel gift bag had been left outside her room with a single white lily sticking out of the top of it and a little label attached to it.

To Yeonhee, it read, the most beautiful women are like the most beautiful flowers.

Yeonhee eyed it for several long moments before stooping and opening the bag to see what else was inside it.  She wasn’t wholly surprised to find a couple of flagship perfumes in it.  Sighing, she let go of the bag and stood up again.  Perfumes were completely out of her price range and something she usually banked on getting as birthday or Christmas presents if she needed more (and even then, she tended to stick to only one or two bottles on her shelf at a time absolute max), but she felt awkward enough receiving expensive gifts from family members who weren’t her parents.  Yixing had actually been very good about not drowning her in expensive gifts or taking her on dates to expensive places, but he always insisted that he would be the one to pay for everything on the grounds that she was a student (Yeonhee suspected it also had a lot to do with him wanting to regardless), and Taehyung hadn’t really been one for lavish gifts in the first place.  Leaving the bag where it was, she went back into her room to ring Chen.

The line was busy – he was probably preoccupied with something to do with security for the prince – and so Yeonhee left him a message instead.  In all likelihood, the perfume wasn’t dangerous, but she’d feel much easier once it was no longer there.

Baekhyun’s voice abruptly issuing from the speakers on her laptop made her jump and she nearly dropped her phone as she turned to see that she’d been completely oblivious to the adverts that the computer had played through and that Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were sitting in the news studio being interviewed, most likely about the concert the previous night.  She hadn’t seen him that morning (she hadn’t actually left her room) and it looked like he’d forgotten to tell her he was going back on TV.

“Well, thank you for agreeing to join us at such short notice,” the presenter said.  “Of course, we understand that Chanyeol and Jongin can’t join us due to work, but since we do have the two of you, perhaps we could get your opinions on how you think last night went.”

Kyungsoo threw a quick glance at Baekhyun before replying.  “Once it actually got underway, pretty well, I think.”

“There was a fantastic atmosphere,” Baekhyun agreed.  “It still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.”  He pulled one of his sleeves up as if to demonstrate.

“And what about right at the beginning?” the presenter asked.  “You did something very unusual, didn’t you?”

“We had to stop an all-out brawl when we got out on stage,” said Baekhyun.

Kyungsoo shifted in his seat.  “We went out on stage to see there was a massive fight going on between some Hanmi and Zenyu groups and security was struggling to separate it,” he said.  “We’ve been told there were One Nationers there and that there’s possible involvement from Antiroyo and one or two other activism groups, but the fight was definitely along ethnic lines and I think three people were actually taken to hospital.”  He looked to Baekhyun to check, and Baekhyun nodded in agreement.  “Baek here shouted them down and got everybody to stand to sing the national anthem.”

“Why the national anthem?” the presenter asked.  “And why the first verse?  That’s normally not heard these days.”

Baekhyun took a couple of moments to gather his thoughts, probably because he knew he was on quite delicate territory.  “People like to ditch the first verse because of the allusions to Hanmi internment in the mines,” he said, “but everybody forgets that the words to the first verse, and actually the entire anthem, were written by a Hanmi man who’d been in the mines.  He was born in internment and saw freedom for the first time aged twenty-nine and wrote the lyrics at thirty-one when the accords were signed guaranteeing that liberation from the mines was whole, total and permanent.  The first verse of our national anthem actually celebrates what we can do when we come together as Hanmi and Zenyu – and yet we just put it quietly to one side to gloss over an uncomfortable part of history.  The reason we have this song as our anthem is because the Hanmi people used to sing it so often that a Zenyu student translated it and stuck it up in her school library as a motivational poem and it became so popular that the journalists found out about it and then one of the best composers of the time took the Hanmi folk tune that it had been set to and rearranged the music orchestrally into what we have today.  I don’t think we should forget that, and I made everybody sing the first verse to remind them that our ancestors who had worked in servitude – servitude – were capable of forgiving and getting along with the people who’d treated them so abominably, and that our ancestors who’d behaved so appallingly had the humility to recognise that they had been wrong.  The breakdown between our two ethnic groups is senseless.”

“And do you think that it’s had that impact?”

Baekhyun shrugged.  “Time will tell, but we’re going to start every single one of our gigs with the first two verses of the national anthem until the lunacy stops.”

“I think it’s important to remember,” Kyungsoo added, “that we’re actually in danger of losing the ability to talk to each other.  It will have had some impact because the people who sang those words together and stood next to each other were the people who’d been fighting each other, and Baekhyun reminded them that whatever their ethnic identity, every single one of them is first and foremost Taderran, regardless of history or ethnicity.  If this had been an incident where it was, say, a Hanmi concert and One Nationers had run in, beaten everybody up, and then run out again, and we’d got the victims to sing the national anthem, it wouldn’t have forced engagement and dialogue.  It would just have been consolation for the afflicted, and the perpetrators wouldn’t have cared.  If I can deviate into the psychology of music for a bit – shut up, Baekhyun—”

Baekhyun didn’t bother to stifle an exasperated but affectionate groan.

“—We know from a number of studies that singing together has positive psychological consequences,” Kyungsoo said.  “Obviously, the effects are best observed in a choir, but singing together helps foster a sense of togetherness, and your heart rate is directly impacted by the beat of the music, and when you’re singing in a group and all breathing at the same time, to the same music, your heartbeats synchronise to a certain extent.  Group singing also appears to boost oxytocin levels, so it’s good for reducing stress and stuff.”

“How interesting,” the presenter said.  “Now, how mu—”

There was a knock at the door, a