19

Draw Me a Date
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***Warning: double update – I only posted chapter 18 a couple of hours ago (and you don't want to miss Min in it!) so please make sure you go back and read that before starting on this!***

 

It was ten past eight when Yeonhee got into Tempe, severely out of breath and her mind a bit of a mess.  Junmyeon and Min waved at her from a table near the door as she stopped, looking around for the prince as a waitress approached and asked if she could help.

“Yeah, I’m – I’m looking for a friend – I’m pretty sure he’s already arrived.  I know he booked.”

“What’s the name?” the waitress asked.  “I can go and check for you.”

Yeonhee hesitated.  She didn’t really think she could give Yixing of Taderra, and besides, there was every possibility he’d reserved in a fake name.

A text popped up at that moment and she saw Junmyeon gesturing to his phone – did they all have her number? – and so she glanced down at it.

Table near the back in the interior with the philodendrons, the text said.  Reserved under Lay.

She sent him a quick thumbs up and a thank you and showed the waitress the text.  She got a nod in response and the waitress led her through to the back of the restaurant, where the walls openly displayed pretty brickwork between the various creeping plants, and to an alcove that was softly lit and more or less hidden by the creepers.  The prince looked up as the waitress left and Yeonhee cleared awkwardly, and then got to his feet, gesturing for her to sit down.  It looked like he was trying extremely hard to keep a straight face.

“Lifesaver, eh?” he was unable to help asking.  “What did I do to earn that?”

Yeonhee blushed furiously.

“Sorry I’m late,” she mumbled, wanting to get off that topic as quickly as possible.

If anything, the prince looked even more amused.  “Don’t worry.  Xiumin gave me a blow-by-blow account while we were waiting for you to show up.”  A chuckle escaped and he covered his hand with his mouth, attempting to turn it into a cough.

“Don’t laugh,” Yeonhee muttered, embarrassed.  “I nearly couldn’t get away from the creep.”

The prince started coughing again, and Yeonhee narrowed her eyes at him, unable to tell if it was genuine this time or if he was trying to cover a laughing fit.

“Being serious,” he said when he’d calmed down, “if your ex is being a nuisance and doesn’t know the meaning of no, you ought to report him and get a restraining order.  It’s not fair to you if he doesn’t know the boundaries of basic human decency.”

It felt so unbelievably trivial to be discussing relationship problems with the de facto leader of the country, but this was the only person in whom Yeonhee could really confide the whole story (bar the bodyguards, but she felt that might be a little too awkward), and so she did, albeit briefly.

“I don’t know why, but he’s started really persistently hitting on me again and he was trying to get me to agree to a date for tonight when you messaged me, so I showed him the text—”

The prince straightened up, alarmed.  Yeonhee raised her hands quickly.

“He only saw the first few words on the lock screen!  And because it was a private number, he thought I’d messaged myself from an app or something to escape the situation.  He also started snooping round my friends—”

“Let me guess,” the prince said.  “You told him I was your boyfriend to get rid of him?”

“Er.”  Yeonhee grimaced.  “Kind of.  I didn’t say who you were, though, and so all my friends thought you didn’t exist and he found out about it too and he basically staked out my room trying to catch me out on it this evening.”

He surveyed her for a moment or two.

“Can you get him banned from your building?” he asked.  “That’s really creepy.”

“His room is three floors up from mine.”

“Get him kicked out,” he said immediately.  “If that’s not possible, see if you can switch accommodation with somebody else, but you shouldn’t have to put up with this.”

Yeonhee slumped back in her chair.  “I don’t really want to keep discussing this.  I’d much rather have a nice evening and forget about it and hope he’s not there when I get back.”

The prince’s lips drew into a thin, disapproving line, but he accepted it and instead turned his attention to the menus.

“You know this place better than me,” he said, “so is there anything you recommend?  Pick whatever you want; I’m paying.”

That was enough to draw Yeonhee’s attention away from the menu immediately.

“We should split the bill.  It’s not a date.”

He didn’t even bother looking up.

“I invited you.  You’re a student: I’m a man of means.  I’m paying.”

“Taxpayer means,” Yeonhee retorted.

It seemed to amuse him.  “Believe it or not, the taxpayer money only really goes on expenses like travel for official purposes and security.  And health care and upkeep of the official residences and other royal buildings, plus the salaries of the people who work for us.  Dad gets what I guess is the equivalent of a salary from it, since he’s the reigning monarch, but everybody else in the family has to pay their own way unless we’re doing something in an official capacity.”  He put the menu down.  “I’m sure you’ve seen the stats and so you probably already know this, but from a financial perspective, there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from getting rid of the monarchy in this country.  You might be able to save on a couple of things, like getting rid of one of the official residences, but the costs would go up in other areas, like campaigning for presidential campaigns, which according to current political party campaigns and foreign presidential campaigns, if calibrated, would be in the region of at least one or two million dollars and that’s actually more expensive than the maintenance of one of the residences.  That’s without mentioning things like potentially revamping a presidential residence every time somebody knew moves in, changing over all the literature and photographs and documentation for the country, needing to make sure every incoming presidential family has proper security rather than just one family permanently, including on all their devices, and for all the ex-presidents, and a whole plethora of other things.  Cut in some areas, increase in others.  The balance books will probably look around the same, except economically it’ll be less secure with a changeover every few years.”

Yeonhee was aware of it, even if she wasn’t wholly convinced at an areas of expense that weren’t wound up in political campaigning, and she did agree that it was one of the weaker arguments against the monarchy.

“Where do you get your money from, then?”

“Landowner.  The crown’s the biggest landowner in the country.  Since constitutionally my father is not allowed his own income as king, my mother and I are the ones who reap the benefits.”

“I didn’t know that,” Yeonhee admitted.

The prince shrugged.  “Most people don’t.  Anyway, food?  This all looks really good.  How big are the portions?”

Yeonhee had been about to look back down at the menu, but that made her pause.  “Why?”

“If they’re relatively small, I might get more than one,” he mused.  “What do you recommend?”

Yeonhee glanced by down, and her eye immediately alighted on the sharing platter that she’d always wanted to try.

“We could get the buffet platter for two,” she suggested.  “That has almost everything on it and it’s supposed to be really good.”

The prince instantly snapped the menu shut.  “Sorted!”

A phone notification distracted Yeonhee and she surreptitiously took it out to have a quick look.  It was a message from Minhee and she grimaced.

“Are you both ready to order?” a cheerful voice asked, and she looked up to see that the waitress had returned.  The young woman didn’t even bat an eyelid at the prince, who (as Yeonhee had suspected) was dressed well in plain, muted colours, the collar of his pastel yellow shirt perfectly settled around his crew-cut jumper.

“We’ll take the buffet sharing platter, please,” the prince said.  He looked over at Yeonhee.  “Wine?”

“What?  Uh. . . Um, yes, I guess?”

He took a quick look at the wine menu and promptly ordered something that Yeonhee knew just from the name was well outside any budget she’d normally have.  The waitress noted it down, smiled, and disappeared, taking the menus with her.

“Is this safe for you?” Yeonhee asked as soon as she was certain the woman was out of earshot.

The prince looked puzzled.

“I mean, is it okay for you to be out in public like this?  What if you get recognised?  You’re not even disguised.”

He grimaced.  “I don’t like having to hide, and I also don’t like not being able to do things because people might see me doing them.”

“But what if you’re recognised?”

“To be fair, unless the press are around or I’m dressed formally, I’m usually not recognised when I’m out and about unless I’m with my parents.”  He ruffled his already messy hair.  “I think people aren’t used to the fringe.  Your hairstyle changes the perception of your face shape.  Besides, unless people are expecting to see me, more often than not they think they’re mistaken.  Also, the perception of me in Hanmi circles seems to be that I either don’t or won’t speak the language unless I absolutely have to, so I can get away with being in Hanmi-frequented places much more than I can in Zenyu-frequented places, and that’s quite handy.”

Yeonhee’s phone buzzed, this time with an incoming call.  She saw it was her sister and hastily rejected it.  She had to admit that he looked younger and stood out less when he was dressed comfortably and his hair was messy.  Most of the time, he was in a suit and his hair was neatly styled up and off his forehead.  He was striking like that, and rather handsome.  How he was now, he actually looked rather cute.

Yeonhee decided not to let that thought go any further.

“I still don’t get why you invited me out to dinner,” she said to change the subject.

They had to pause as the waitress returned with their drinks and several of the cold platters, assuring them that the warmer ones from the buffet sharer would be along shortly.  Neither of them touched anything as the waitress poured out the wine, allowing the prince to taste it first to see if it was the one they wanted, and then filling both their wine glasses.  He waited until she was gone before plucking a toastette off the plate and taking a good look at the patés on offer.

“I never got the opportunity to thank you properly for your help writing that speech,” he said.  “You ran away.  I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”

It probably shouldn’t have surprised Yeonhee, but it did.  She speared an olive with a cocktail stick and popped it into .

“I’m not sure what I did to help.”

He just smiled.  “Try the wine.”

Yeonhee scowled at him, but she reached for it anyway and took a sip.

The delicious arom

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Korekrypta
I don't currently have much internet access so I might not be able to respond to your comments until the weekend :( 30/8/17

Comments

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Mitsukiii #1
The political issues in this seemed very applicable to real life, I always did wonder if you took inspiration from an actual country/show. It's been years and I missed all of you wonderful authors.
JeMerald #2
Chapter 25: This is my nth time rereading this and after all the angsty stuff I've read, it was even clearer to me how different the feels wouldve been if Yeonhee decided to be a tsundere of the highest degree
OhSehorn
#3
It's the year 2023 and i'm to reading this fanfic, my comfort fanfic T.T i remember waiting this fic to be updated years ago. This is one of the best fanfic i've ever read.
Baembi
#4
Chapter 23: naurr yixing’s messages are so cute it’s turning me into a pile of goo >…< yeonhee’s “royal high-nice” was such a good save too hahaha
tonnettie
#5
Chapter 83: Dang! It’s still ao good! Be honest sometimes when you re-read stories it gets boring. But this is a real gem! (Stories like this results to hopeless romantic individuals)
atasiwi #6
I love the story' ^^
hetacat
#7
Chapter 83: Well, I finished it. And I was thoroughly enjoying it by the end. Thank you for writing such a brilliant story as usual Korey. I do hope you still read comments despite your disappearance. I've been a fan of your writing for so many years now and I genuinely reread TBBC and DLWL at least yearly, usually more. This story was certainly just as impressive, if not more for the sheer depth of worldbuilding. I'm kind of bummed I put off reading this for so many years, it's a shame. But it's bloody brilliant. Hope to see you back someday, your writing genius isn't something to be sniffed at!
hetacat
#8
Chapter 33: I have to admit I didn't know whether I'd like this story from you Korey! I've always been a fan of your works but the deeply political themes of this story put me off. I'm glad I finally got to reading it though. As a political philosophy graduate some conversations and statements in this story make me deeply uncomfortable but I'm really enjoying how the narrative deals with it. Kudos to you for making me uncomfortable whilst I'm still enjoying the plot! And as always, your romance is absolutely blissfully perfect. So so smooth you hardly notice it growing. I love how protective Yixing is without being over the top or overbearing, especially when compared to Taehyung. Adore it! And do I spot Daehyun from BAP? My ult <3 Thanks for writing such an amazing story as usual and I'm excited to see how the plot thickens!
Emilieee
#9
Chapter 64: HIT WITH THE REALIZATION THAT THE AFF ANNIVERSARY FRIEND IS ME ??? WOWOWMAMWMEMDN ITS BEEN SO LONG