Yeonhee had another gift outside her door on Wednesday.  This time it was a classy wool beret in red, and it came with the note To Yeonhee, I know it’s basically summer, but I know you also like berets.  She rang Chen, who she was sure had to be getting fed up with her by now, and put it aside in a plastic bag for him to take a look at.  In return, he told her about his findings on the watch.

“Location tracker, microphone, mini camera and what?” Yeonhee demanded in shock.

“And a small satellite-controlled needle to inject you with an illegal, barely traceable knock-out drug,” Chen repeated.  “I don’t know if I should tell the prince.  He’ll. . . react badly.”

It sounded like that was his diplomatic way of saying he’ll go ing apesh*t.  Yeonhee knew he’d tell the prince anyway, but she agreed that Yixing was unlikely to take it well.

“We’re trying to track down sellers of the drug in the hopes it’ll give us some leads,” Chen informed her.  “Such a bizarre situation, though.  These gift-givers must know about each other.  My money’s on the no-noters knowing about the method of the anonymous note-leaver but not that he leaves notes, and he’s leaving notes to try to distinguish himself from the no-note gifts, which could be because of anything from wanting to distinguish his gifts from the rest out of personal pride to knowing what’s in the suspicious ones and wanting nothing to do with them.  It’s weird enough for me to also question the possibility of the note-leaver being forced into also leaving the no-note gifts as a cover by the nefarious evildoers behind this and him trying to rebel a little by ensuring there’s a distinction and also that you’ll find the weird ones more easily.”

“How on earth did you come up with that?”

“I’d stake my career on us dealing with one of the terrorist branches of Antiroyo,” Chen said grimly.  “That means we can’t think with the normal rules.”

Being on campus in the wake of relinquishing all her roles as a republican was a bit of an annoyance for Yeonhee.  She didn’t know why it had turned into such a newsworthy item – the media was probably having a slow week or something – but several reporters managed to corner her on campus on consecutive days, and when they weren’t around, the student reporters were.  Yeonhee was slightly more inclined to indulge them because campus news didn’t necessarily have that much going on and also because it was actually relevant to the student politics of the university, though when she stayed and talked, she also made sure to promote her new project, which still lacked a name.  On Friday morning, needing a coffee to help her finish off an essay she had to hand in before nine, she headed over to the fairtrade café.  Just inside, she bumped into Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, both sporting bruises on their faces but Kyungsoo significantly the worse for wear and looking mildly concussed as he leaned against Chanyeol for support to keep him upright.  Chanyeol was holding two brownie takeaway boxes and balancing takeaway coffees on them.

“What happened?” Yeonhee asked, shocked.

“Bust-up in Kyungsoo’s dorm building,” Chanyeol explained.  “Some Zenyu idiot has been going around writing slurs on the doors of all the Hanmi students for the past week and one of the Hanmi students cracked last night and tried to pull some revenge prank on the guy he thought it was.  A whole bunch of Zenyu students went after the Hanmi students around six this morning, rounded them all up and started beating them with baseball bats.  I ran straight into it on my morning run.  We got off pretty light.”  He gestured to Kyungsoo and himself.  “I called the police, so we have to go give statements and then I’m talking Kyungsoo to hospital.”

“Mm.”  Kyungsoo’s head lolled against Chanyeol’s shoulder as he groaned softly.

“Is he going to be okay for the concert?” Yeonhee asked in concern.

Chanyeol’s expression said he thought most likely not.  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the drums.  It’s kind of a bit too late to cancel.”

“I think people would understand if you did.”

Once they had gone and Yeonhee had bought herself breakfast, she found herself more awake than she’d expected without yet having her coffee, and also significantly less able to work than she’d anticipated.  Kyungsoo’s dorms were over on the other side of campus to hers, but it sounded like some of the Zenyu students living there were feral – even since the beginning of the year it appeared a large group of One Nationers had sprung up there.  Rather than her essay, she found herself looking through the latest email chain from Chenle about potential campus policies and campaigns to implement, as well as Sehun’s comments on what Chenle was proposing.

Before long, she was distracted by somebody plopping down in the chair next to