A very hassled Luhan came in search of Yeonhee after lunch, blathering something about needing to talk to the press.  After nearly five minutes of being spoken at faster than she could comprehend, Yeonhee was very grateful when an interruption appeared in the form of Sehun, who was wearing a suit and looked very confused.  Luhan acknowledged him with a quick raise of his hand and cleared his throat.  It gave him a long enough pause to see the look of utter bafflement on Yeonhee’s face, and he went on more slowly.

“Just remember,” he said, “you have to behave like you’re one of us, but you don’t speak on behalf of the palace, and you don’t speak on behalf of the prince.”

“But—”

“No buts,” said Luhan.   “You’re not married, you’re dating, so you’re two separate unities rather than an entity.  If you answer anything for the prince, they can spin that as you having undue influence over the royal family and you can be made out as really nefarious.  Facts only if you’re not talking about yourself.  Defer anything else onto me, since I’m the official palace spokesman.”

If Yeonhee had actually understood what he was saying before this, it all might have made more sense, but Luhan looked so harried she didn’t dare ask.

“And when exactly is this press conference?” Sehun asked.

“Fifteen minutes, and I need to get an update on Minseok’s and the prince’s conditions before we do it.”

“Fifteen minutes?” echoed Yeonhee, horrified.  “But I don’t even look—”

“Her majesty will sort you out.  I need to find a doctor.”

“Why am I here?” Sehun asked loudly as Luhan began to scuttle away.

The royal secretary came up short.  “Oh my God, I almost forgot!  I need you to be Yeonhee’s pseudo-palace aide on campus since people will be all over her when she gets back and you’re much more intimidating to harass.  Plus it’ll be easier all round if there’s anything Yeonhee’s not sure about saying and she can just ask you rather than needing to check with me.”

“But I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” Sehun said pointedly.

“You’re smart, you’ll figure it out!” Luhan yelled back over his shoulder as he disappeared.

“Mental,” Sehun muttered before turning to Yeonhee.  “How’s the prince?”

“On morphine,” said Yeonhee.  “It’s adorable.”

The queen took it upon herself to make Yeonhee look presentable in about four minutes flat just before the press conference was due to start.  She briefly lamented the fact that Yeonhee was wearing jeans and a t-shirt rather than a dress, but said it couldn’t be helped and took off her jade necklace to put on Yeonhee so that she looked a little smarter, and the next thing she knew, Jongdae had swept her under his wing and Sehun and Luhan were walking down the stairs to one of the lecture theatres with them.

“We haven’t had time to vet questions, so just deflect any awkward ones onto me,” Luhan advised before pushing the door open.

There were so many camera flashes that Yeonhee flinched and almost tripped, Jongdae’s steady hand rescuing her.  He seemed to sense she’d been momentarily blinded, because he guided her forward with his hand at the small of her back.  Questions were being fired off all over the place in both languages and so quickly that Yeonhee couldn’t understand a thing.

On the stage where the lecturer’s podium would normally stand, a table had been set out with chairs and microphones.  Jongdae held out the middle seat for Yeonhee, but she remained standing, looking anxiously at Luhan for some kind of clue as to what to do.

Eventually, order was brought to the room and Luhan realised that she was looking at him, and he gestured minutely for her to sit.  Sehun took the chair on her left and handed her a bottle of water.  She fiddled with it until Luhan also sat and spoke.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said.  “Forgive us for sitting down – we anticipate there will be a lot of questions and we will endeavour to answer as many of them as we can.  To begin with, I’d like to give you all an update on the situation and then we’ll yield the floor to you to take your turn.”  He cleared his throat and rested his hands on the table, loosely clasped.  Yeonhee envied his calm, because she felt like she was going to throw up from nerves, but she knew that a lot of it must come from practice, since she’d seen Luhan giving statements before on TV.

“As of this moment,” Luhan continued, “we are still tracking the assassins.  We know who was behind it—”

“Im Yeonhee?” somebody put in at the speed of light.  Yeonhee jerked at the sound of her name.

“Patently not,” Luhan continued, unruffled.  “In order not to impede the investigation I will say no more about it, except that our police and intelligence are satisfied that all evidence pointing towards Miss Im was planted and that given her past the perpetrators felt she would be an easy victim to frame.  For more on that, I refer you to law enforcement and intelligence, if they have anything new.”  Barely taking a breath, he carried straight on.  “As you all know, his royal highness and one of his bodyguards were shot yesterday morning.  Happily, I can announce that both of them are now stable and our medical experts anticipate a full recovery for them both in due course.”

There was an immediate clamour, and Luhan had to hold up his hands to hush them.  “I will answer any questions you have in a moment as best I can.  Finally, as many of you no doubt noticed yesterday, Miss Im here was present at the morning press conference during which his royal highness and his bodyguard were shot, and she helped to provide first aid to his highness until the paramedics arrived.  On behalf of the palace and his royal highness, I can confirm as I did yesterday that the two have been close for some time and are currently dating, and in addition that Miss Im was indeed the young woman everybody was so curious about last Valentine’s Day, when some of you managed to catch them on their very first date.  Before we start taking questions, I would like to spare you all the trouble of attempting to link Miss Im to the assassination attempt.  It is demonstrably clear that the perpetrators tried to frame her, and police and intelligence are satisfied that this is the case and are pursuing lines of enquiry accordingly.”

Luhan paused to let them absorb what he’d just said and reached for some water.  At once, reporters began raising hands and calling out questions.  Luhan indicated one to go first and capped his water.  It took some time for the room to fall silent.

To Yeonhee’s huge relief, the vast majority of the questions were political ones, beginning with who was in charge now that the prince was incapacitated.  Luhan pointed out that nothing had changed, that the skeleton government was still there and that the prince was still alive, and also mentioned that the prince would likely be off opiate painkillers by the time the next cabinet meeting rolled around, so it would be possible to hold it from the hospital if needed, and that there was no constitutional crisis as a result.  Some questions focussed on the extradition question, which Sehun answered, while others focussed on government policy and on what was known about the assassination attempt and what likely responses were to be.  Yeonhee had actually zoned out by the time she was first asked a question, and Sehun had to tread on her foot to get her to pay attention.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked when she realised the journalist was waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t even heard.

“How do you reconcile your sectarian republican views with dating the heir to the throne?” the journalist reeled off, fingers poised over a tablet keyboard.

“I. . . no longer describe myself as a republican,” Yeonhee said slowly, trying to make sure that nothing she said could be taken out of context and used against her.

“And what convinced you to change your mind?” he followed up at once.  “The prince?”

There was some indignation at him asking a second question without raising his hand again, but Yeonhee had already started to reply.

“Only indirectly.  We barely even spoke about it, but obviously I was aware of the work that he does and in the wake of his majesty going into a coma and the resultant political chaos, it became increasingly clear to me that the only two forms of government capable of running the country in the current climate were some kind of monarchy or a dictatorship.  Given the choice I would much rather entrust the country to somebody who understood the weight and the responsibility of what was going on and who had been thoroughly prepared for that, rather than somebody for whom it would be difficult to drum up bi-partisan support and who might purely be there for the power.”

“And what about your sectarian position?” the journalist pressed.

“Impractical,” Yeonhee said at once.  “How are the buildings, land and resources to be divided?  Who’s a legitimate authority to demand or to concede the demands?  Do we uproot all the Hanmi people living alongside Zenyu people and vice versa and move them somewhere totally new?  What happens to our capital city?  Our best schools?  Our best hospitals?  The military?  The people who want to stay on the opposite side, or the people who are mixed?  We don’t live separately enough for dividing the country in two to work.”

Another journalist stuck her hand up and fired off a question before Yeonhee had even seen somebody give her permission to speak.

“You’ve been dating the prince since February but you only stepped down from your university republican chapter a couple of weeks ago,” she said.  “To add to that, it’s recently come out that you’re involved with Antiroyo.  How do y