16
Draw Me a DateAfter breakfast was over, the prince disappeared somewhere. Given that Junmyeon and one of the other bodyguards disappeared too, Yeonhee figured he must have left the ward, and she hovered uncertainly in the large open communal area with her grandmother in a wheelchair, wondering if this was her cue to vanish back upstairs (which she didn’t want to do without thanking the prince), until her grandmother spotted two of the bodyguards playing a card game and insisted on joining in.
Within a few rounds of poker, the old woman had managed to get all the bodyguards, including Min, to join in, and Yeonhee watched with amusement from a very comfortable sofa as she started reading the book that had been left on her bedside table. It turned out to be a well loved copy of a book of fairytales, and Yeonhee curled up on the sofa and in her own world, transported back fifteen years to when her father had read to her every evening from a book of fairytales before tucking her into bed.
She was so engrossed that she didn’t realise when the prince returned, nor, for that matter, when Luhan breezed back in, until one of the bodyguards tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she looked up. He was somehow familiar, though how she’d missed those cheekbones and that spectacularly perfect jawline before was beyond her.
“Your phone,” he said, holding it out to her. “Sorry for stealing it. I’ve made sure it’s fully encrypted.”
Baffled, Yeonhee took her phone back. “Why?”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the prince, who was discussing something with Luhan but looked like he’d much rather be joining in the game of poker. “We have to make sure that his highness’s communications are secure, especially in the current political climate.”
Yeonhee wanted to ask how they got hold of and encrypted every device that received some kind of communication from the prince’s devices, but the bodyguard was already striding away. A bit put out, Yeonhee turned her phone over, inspecting it for damage, and then turned it on. It was fully charged, which it definitely hadn’t been when she’d left her grandmother’s bay during the night, and she found herself wondering yet again how it was that everybody surrounding the prince seemed to be so lovely and considerate. Come to that, the prince himself appeared to be just as charming and considerate. She wondered what Baekhyun would make of him, or Sehun.
It was not a thought worth entertaining, because she could already hear both of their voices comparing the prince to Taehyung, and she was not in the mood to be set up with somebody. (Though, she had to admit, if she was given a choice between the two at gunpoint, it was a no-brainer as to who would make the better boyfriend.) A very small part of her was beginning to regret running away from that dinner in Tempe, though. Not that she wished or expected anything romantic or otherwise from it, but Yeonhee wondered if the prince would have been as congenial as he was currently being, and how well they would have got along.
As she turned the page, an old, laminated bookmark with its corners just as dogeared as the pages of the book fell out, and Yeonhee automatically grabbed it to put it back. She couldn’t help taking a look as she did so, and was surprised to find that it was basically of the type one would make as part of a class project in elementary school. It was a slim piece of paper that had obviously been coloured in by a child, and it had property of Yixing of Taderra printed on it in a child’s clumsy handwriting. Stick men stacked books up both sides of the bookmark, remarkably neat for a child’s drawing, and Yeonhee almost cooed at how cute it was.
Then she abruptly realised that it must mean the book was the prince’s, and she slipped the bookmark back in and snapped the book shut.
Did this mean that he’d sat for most of the night in the chair reading, or that this ward was reserved only for royal members of the family and he tended to leave a few things lying around for the next time he was going to spent the night?
Junmyeon returned at that moment, followed by two members of hospital staff with a hot trolley.
“Luhan,” he called as the other bodyguards cleared away the cards and helped the hospital staff set the table they’d been playing at for lunch. “Have you been able to get hold of the king’s secretary?”
“No. It’s his day off,” said Luhan with considerable exasperation. “I can’t get hold of the queen’s either. I got a frantic call from her majesty about an hour ago saying his majesty is apparently due at a function tonight and she and the palace cook are currently trying to arrange things so that she can go instead.”
“It’s Biyu’s day off too, she shouldn’t be bothering herself with this,” the prince put in.
“Technically, it’s everyone’s day off except for the assigned bodyguards,” Luhan groaned, massaging his temples. “If Biyu wants to help, I’m all for it. She should be a politician rather than a chef anyway, she’s got a brilliant head for it.”
“Biyu helping isn’t the point right now,” Junmyeon said loudly as a discussion began about Biyu’s food among almost everybody present. “The point is that the media knows a member of the royal family is here and at some point we have to put out a statement. By this evening the public will know it’s the king and there will be mass hysteria if there isn’t information by that point because the head of parliament has just been shot.”
The prince went very pale. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Certain,” said Junmyeon. “I bumped into representatives from three different media companies staking out the private ward we used last time we were here and apparently there are more outside.”
The prince had no response to that, but it was evident that the news distressed him. Yeonhee felt a twinge of pity. It wasn’t like he had space and privacy to grapple with his father being sick in the first place with the number of people around, but to have that invaded less than twelve hours after it had happened by the media and the general public could only compile the trauma.
“You go and eat,” Luhan told the prince, pushing him in the direction of his father’s room. “We’ll sort this out.”
The prince looked torn, but he did as he was told.
“Why?” groaned Luhan, burying his face in his hands. “Why are people so effing nosey? Does anybody know where the chief doctor is? I need a proper medical appraisal of his majesty’s condition if I’m going to figure out how to spin this.”
In the bustle that followed, Yeonhee was overlooked and she returned to the book of fairytales, happy that none of this was her business. Her grandmother had fallen asleep and one of the bodyguards thoughtfully made sure she was warm by draping a blanket over her and moving her nearer to a radiator in a less congested part of the room. Those who weren’t being put to work by Luhan were grabbing their chance to eat lunch before it went cold, and Yeonhee didn’t blame them in the slightest.
It was only after ten minutes of hectic to-ing and fro-ing that Luhan realised Yeonhee was still there. He frowned at her as he finished taking notes from the doctor who had been assigned to look after the king, but he didn’t approach until the man had left.
“Miss Im,” he said, “why aren’t you eating lunch?”
Yeonhee just looked at him, unable to fathom the correct response.
“I’m not sure why it’s your business,” she said, “unless this is a polite way of asking me to leave, in which case I’d rather not move my grandmother until she’s awake.”
“Good God,” he muttered. “You’re the prince’s guest, for heaven’s sake. If there was a problem with you being here I would have kicked you out before lunch arrived.”
Yeonhee decided not to take offence at his attitude because he was evidently in a bit of a flap, but she still didn’t feel quite right going back into the room the king was in when Luhan hauled her to her feet and started shunting her in its direction, already on the phone to somebody and speaking so rapidly she was unable to understand a word he said.
The table they’d eaten breakfast at was all set up for lunch and Yeonhee noticed the king had a new, much larger drip connected to him. The prince was standing looking out of the bay window, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched. Feeling thoroughly awkward, Yeonhee joined him.
The second she looked out of the window, she wished she hadn’t. There were cameras everywhere. Several people were quite clearly making reports or giving interviews, and a crowd of the local public had already been attracted.
“It’s Sunday,” the prince said quietly. “People should be allowed to have a break.”
“How do you live with this?” Yeonhee asked, horrified. “I don’t think I’d last a day before going insane.”
He shrugged. “I grew up with it.”
As far as Yeonhee was concerned, that just made matters worse. Before she could say so, the prince turned away from the window.
“Have you eaten?” he asked. “Where’s your grandmother?”
“Sleeping and no. Your secretary just shoved me in here saying I was your guest and this was where food was.”
For some reason, that made the prince laugh. He pulled out a seat and gestured for her to sit down.
“Poor Luhan’s having kittens,” he said as he sat next to her. “He’s banished me from interfering.”
They ate in silence. The prince seemed preoccupied, and while Yeonhee had plenty of questions, like exactly what had happened to the king and what sort of condition he was in, and whether or not the prince had managed to gather a skeleton government to run the country for the time being, she didn’t dare ask them. He didn’t eat very much, she noticed, though she wasn’t sure whether it was because he had no appetite or whether his appetite was usually small. She also noticed just how ingrained into him his manners seemed to be. The second her glass was empty, he refilled it. He passed her the dishes so she could help herself to seconds before she’d even started considering a second helping, followed swiftly by the salt and pepper. Everything he ate he made sure was cut into proper bite-size chunks first, and he didn’t wolf the food down. His posture was also significantly better than Yeonhee, and she caught herself unconsciously trying to imitate him on more than one occasion. Once they had both finished, he stacked their plates neatly together with the cutlery on top and took them over to the trolley the hospital staff had left as though it was completely natural for him to be clearing things away. Yeonhee stared at him.
It made him uncomfortable enough to break the silence.
“What?” he asked, shifting self-consciously as he straightened up.
Yeonhee quickly looked away. She thought he would probably be offended if she pointed out he was clearing things away, and besides, it would make her look very silly to mention the blatantly obvious.
The chair next to her creaked as he sat back down and poured cream over the chocolate brownies that were for dessert. Wordlessly, he passed one to Yeonhee, and they finished the meal without speaking again.
As the prince was clearing away the dessert plates, Min knocked on the door and poked his head around. He gave something between a nod and a bow to the prince, acknowledgin
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