Between Jia, Sehun and Yixing, Yeonhee couldn’t really find a way so bow out of going to the military ball, even at such short notice.  Jia had an invitation and had shown up with determination to make Sehun her plus one, and Yeonhee had never seen her poor friend look so helpless.  Even his protestation that he didn’t know how to dance at all hadn’t rescued him, because Jia had come armed to teach him, and he had reluctantly admitted (a mistake on his part) that dancing did look like fun and he’d always fancied learning how to do it.

The net result was that he’d pleaded with Yeonhee to come too so that he had somebody else there that he knew, and also so that he had at least one other person he could dance with who wouldn’t make him feel terribly self-conscious about how bad he was.

“Don’t you mean one, not one other?” Jongdae piped up from the corner of the room with a meaningful look at Jia.  Scarlet, Sehun flipped him the bird.

By the time Yixing rang, Yeonhee knew she was probably going to cave.  She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for Yixing to exert himself so soon, but he was clearly getting bored with being bedridden and she had to admit that what Wenhan had said the previous night, particularly about the press, made a lot of sense.

“I don’t want you to get out of bed just for media play, though,” she said worriedly.

“I’m getting out of bed because it’s driving me insane,” he retorted.  “Good media play will hopefully be a happy side-product of this.”

“But I don’t have a dress.”

“Yes you do.  What happened to that one ball gown you have that you couldn’t wear to the Inaugural Spring Ball because your friends would have recognised it?”

“I can’t be seen in public wearing that next to you!”

“I’m going to be in a wheelchair and I don’t yet know if I’ll be allowed not to wear a hospital gown,” Yixing said with amusement.  “You could go in pyjamas and probably still look more presentable than me.”

Yeonhee ended up getting Jia’s opinion on the dress.  It was a mauve affair, nothing like as sophisticated as the queen’s dresses, and Yeonhee was very conscious of the fact that any members of the press were probably going to judge her on her attire.  The only thing she knew for sure was in the dress’s favour was that it still fit her well.

Jia ran a critical eye over it, suggested taking a photo and asking the queen for her opinion, and then began rooting around in Yeonhee’s closet for accessories to go with it.  Sehun ended up buried in a pile of clothes while Jongdae snickered in the corner.  Yeonhee didn’t dare ask the queen what she thought: she was half afraid of getting a response something along the lines of a completely new dress, or alterations which no sane person would be able to make over the course of a few hours, and besides, she’d only ever rung the queen once or twice and as lovely as the woman was, she just didn’t feel their relationship was at the cosy stage of being able to text each other.

Late morning, Mihae popped her head into the chaos and promptly got Yeonhee to model the dress while she cast an amateur eye over it and started tucking up the outer skirt to let the much deeper purple of one of the underskirts show through.  They were all made of a similar material, so it didn’t look too like Yeonhee was displaying petticoats, and even though she was apprehensive about the result, Yeonhee resigned her fate to higher authorities and decided it was best if she just let Mihae do what she wanted.  Baekhyun bounced in around lunchtime and serenaded them all until Chanyeol appeared to drag him back out again.  Jia and Sehun removed themselves soon after to find food, and Mihae followed suit once she was satisfied that she hadn’t completely ruined Yeonhee’s dress.

“I’ll get you something from the café!” she hollered as Yeonhee gazed in panic at the various possible accessory combinations that Jia had laid out for her.

“Jongdae,” she said in despair, “which clutch looks better?  This one or this one?”

He barely even glanced up from his phone.  “Why are you asking me?”

Yeonhee appealed to Juan instead, but Juan had just as little idea as she did.  Seeming to sense that Yeonhee was on the verge of mental breakdown, Jongdae heaved himself to his feet with a sigh and went over to look at the options on the bed.  After a couple of moments’ silent scrutiny, he picked up two different clutches and the corresponding jewellery sets and hair pieces that Jia had got out (some of which Yeonhee was pretty sure didn’t even belong to her) and then handed them over.

“Try this set on,” he told her.  “Where’s your phone?”

“Why?”

Jongdae cast about for it as Yeonhee obediently put the accessories on.  “If you’re getting this worked up, you need an opinion you’re actually going to listen to.  Smile.”

Bemused, Yeonhee managed to pull out a grimace as her phone’s camera shutter sounded.  Jongdae made her swap them over with the other accessories and took another photo.  He refused to give her phone back for another few moments after that.

“Good God, the prince replies to you fast,” he said.  “First lot.  Back on they go.”

“I can’t wear this the entire afternoon!” Yeonhee protested.

“Well, take the whole lot off, then, and put them aside for later.  We probably ought to clear this up.  You’ll be too tired to do it when we get back.”

Yeonhee carefully threaded the earrings out of her ears.  “Wait.  It’s the weekend.  Aren’t you supposed to be off duty?”

“Minseok’s supposed to be doing weekends, but he kind of can’t,” Jongdae reminded her.  “Junmyeon and Zhoumi are with the prince and I’m sort of quasi-covering you.  Junmyeon will look after you at the ball proper so I can actually enjoy myself and clock off for a few hours, but he might as well not because I don’t know that many people at it and I don’t have anyone to bring with me.”

“You don’t have anyone you could ask?”

“Not that many ladies would be free or able to drop everything and go to a ball at only eight hours’ notice,” Jongdae pointed out.

Yeonhee wrinkled her noise.  “My sister would totally be down for that.  She’s got the most obnoxious crush on you and she’d never let me hear the end of it if I let you go to a ball without her as your date.”

Jongdae burst out laughing.  “Yeonhee, this is not how you wingman.”

“She’s almost as annoying as Sehun and Jia.”

Shaking his head, Jongdae took out his own phone.  “Well, sounds like you’d better give me her number.”

Belatedly, Yeonhee realised that she hadn’t really thought this through.

“Hang on a second,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.  “You’re not allowed to take advantage of her or lead her on.”

Jongdae looked very confused.  “Would I?”

“Well, she’s going to think you’re interested in her if you suddenly invite her to a ball.”

A very Baekhyun-esque smirk spread across his face.  “Who said I wasn’t interested?”

Yeonhee gaped at him.

“Look,” he said.  “My best friends are computers and I nope out of potential romances because I don’t know what I’m doing.  If you’re giving this opportunity to me on a plate, I’m not going to turn it down.  Your sister seemed like my kind of person when I met her.  If she can handle romantically ignorant people, that’s awesome.  If not, hey, I might get to make a new friend.  Sign me up.”

The military ball had a very different atmosphere compared to the Inaugural Spring Ball.  Yeonhee had expected it to be sharp and intimidating, since most of the people there were in the armed forces, but despite all the military personnel being in dress uniform, it somehow felt much more relaxed.  (That was good, because it made her feel like her dress wasn’t so out of place.)  The venue was a large country house about half an hour outside the capital city, and a small delegation from the press was hovering on the steps when they arrived.

Yixing had been given a mobility scooter by the hospital and was terribly disappointed that he actually had to behave in front of the press because the country house had a very large tarmac drive and he hadn’t been allowed to test out his driving skills and the machine’s speed at the hospital.  All of his military medals had been moved over to the wrong because of the sling his left arm was in, and he’d had to take the royal sash off altogether so the medals could actually be seen.

Thankfully, the press was a very short ordeal.  Yeonhee smiled until her jaw ached and Yixing wrapped his arm around her waist and chatted to the journalists for as little as he could politely get away with, and there was lots of amazement at his dedication to getting back to work so soon after his injury, and then they got into the general merriment and cheer of the hall beyond.

“It’s a shame this isn’t a veterans’ ball,” Yixing sighed as he parked the mobility scooter.  “We could totally have set up a race track for anybody on one of these things.  It would have been awesome.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Yeonhee could see Junmyeon trying very hard not to laugh.

“The first thing I’m doing when I’m discharged is taking you on a go-carting date,” Yixing went on.

Yeonhee eyed his shoulder, but he ignored her look and heaved himself off the mobility scooter, using her to steady himself.  She wrapped her arm carefully around him, almost panicking when he took two shaky steps forward, but the injury had been to his torso and he could actually stand and walk, but only for very short stints because of the exertion it caused to the traumatised muscles and organs in his chest.

People were already queueing up to greet him, and Yeonhee could see their concerned expressions as Yixing insisted on approaching them.  At some invisible signal, all the men in uniform suddenly snapped to attention and saluted, so in sync Yeonhee almost thought they were programmed robots.  Yixing returned the salute just as sharply, even though it was clear it put him in pain to do so.

“Sir,” Junmyeon warned him quietly.  Yixing grimaced.

The formalities were soon over and people who knew Yixing well enough to chat to him gathered around, asking how he was and for introductions to Yeonhee, whom virtually none of them had met.  To Yeonhee’s surprise, none of them were hostile.  Some were more interested by her than others and asked her questions about Yixing and her relationship with him and also questions about herself and her hobbies.  Music played in the background as everybody loosened up with a couple of drinks, somebody thoughtfully remembering to get the prince a juice cordial that wouldn’t cause any problems with his medication.

The first hostile face Yeonhee actually saw was Xiaodan as the canapes went round.  The other girl gave her a supremely dirty look before turning away.  She hadn’t yet approached Yixing to greet him and Yeonhee wondered if it had anything to do with her.  If so, she was secretly happy.

Mere seconds later, she spotted Mei in the crowd, not far from Xiaodan and talking to another of the guests.  Mei kept shooting surreptitious glances at Yixing, but like Xiaodan, she had not yet approached.

Sehun, for all his prior awkwardness, appeared to be locked away in his own world with Jia, the two of them standing off to the side with drinks in