22

Draw Me a Date
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Yeonhee did not like having to lie to Baekhyun.  For one thing, she was pretty sure that he was able to see through her ninety-five percent of the time, even if he didn’t actually say so, and for another thing, it made her feel terribly guilty.  He was, as he had pointed out multiple times just that afternoon, her best friend, and also not an idiot.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he repeated as she sat there, stirring her coffee.  It was pretty much all she’d done since he’d enticed her out with the offer to pay for any drink she wanted at a coffee house of her choice, and she’d gone mainly because she knew it would only get a lot worse if she didn’t.

“I can’t change that I’m Pencilmania,” she mumbled, tapping her spoon against the bottom of the mug.

After a solid hour of interrogation, he finally gave up.  Yeonhee, however, got the feeling that it was not going to end there.

 

Yeonhee and her family spent Saturday moving her grandmother into St Gavin’s.  None of them had expected the turnaround to be quite so speedy, since being told you had something on the national health system usually meant you had to wait a month for it to materialise.  Her parents were still in a state of shock about it, which meant that Minhee and Yeonhee had to do most of the work, but their grandmother was unassumingly happy about everything, especially when she saw the vases of flowers in her room that the staff had put out to welcome her in.  She took several photos of her grandmother being settled in, intending to send them to the prince to show him exactly what his generosity was providing, but a wave of shyness overtook her before she could attach them to a text.  Would he even be interested?  She’d spent most of the day after returning from her grilling from Baekhyun looking up the royal family’s philanthropy and had been staggered at the amount they were suspected to have donated to charity.  Most of it was in quiet or anonymous donations, but it was apparently fairly easy to spot which charities they’d given to because they made a point of answering requests to attend at least one function per year for every charity they had supported monetarily during that time.  The prince either sat on or was an honorary member of the board of no fewer than twelve charities, the queen of seventeen, and the king the patron of a whopping thirty-seven.  There were rumours that they set aside time to actually carry out charitable endeavours several times a month, but because they didn’t like to attract attention, it was usually unknown exactly where they were going and to do what.  Yeonhee’s grandmother was just one of many, many people that the prince had helped, and there was every possibility that he had considered doing so completely normal.

The more she found out about the prince, the harder she found it to believe that he’d started talking to her on a website because he liked her artwork.  And it made it harder by the second to even consider communicating with him first.

 

From: Private number, 15.32

Are you free tonight?

Yeonhee had avoided answering the message all afternoon, and while the prince thankfully hadn’t nagged her, she couldn’t help wincing every time her phone received a new text in case it was him asking why she wasn’t replying.

Eventually, she screwed up her courage.

To: Private number, 18.04

It’s Christmas Eve, so no.

Was that too harsh?  She didn’t have time to worry about it, though.  The message was already sent, and the prince apparently had free time.

From: Private number, 18.05

Shame.  I know there’s a spare ticket going for the Christmas carol gala tonight and I was wondering if it was your sort of thing.

From: Private number, 18.05

Or do you only like student rock?

Yeonhee squinted, trying to work out if that meant he’d got a ticket for her and was inviting her out (and if so, why) or if this could be taken at surface value.

From: Private number, 18.06

To be fair, if you were free, I’d only be able to get the ticket upgraded to VIP if the health and safety regulations would allow another seat in that area without it causing a fire hazard

From: Private number, 18.06

And I couldn’t really smuggle you into the royal box without causing a massive scandal, and Luhan would have my head on a plate.

To: Private number, 18.07

Be honest: Luhan is the real power behind the throne, isn’t he?

From: Private number, 18.08

I’ll tell him his cover is blown.  Enjoy your evening!

To: Private number, 18.08

Enjoy your fanfare.

It was only when she looked back at the messages that Yeonhee cringed at how casual she’d been.

 

Christmas Day came with snow, and Yeonhee’s entire family demanding over breakfast to know who she was dating.  Yeonhee had sat there nonplussed for a good while, chewing on the candy stick that had been at the top of the stocking, until Minhee finally slapped down a gift on the table in front of her that had apparently been left on the doorstep that morning with a note addressing it to her.

Yeonhee had looked at the note for clues, but since it only said To Yeonhee on it and didn’t identify a sender, she was stumped.  She opened it nonetheless, surprised and pleased to discover that it was a very large box of her favourite brand of chocolate, and after a commemorative photo, she and her family set to demolishing it with gusto, and she forgot about the identity of the sender until she’d finished opening all her other gifts and was busy writing down who they were all from so that she could write thank you letters.  Her sister had given her a new, extremely warm had with flaps to protect her ears and colourful little plaits down the side that she could tug on, while her parents had elected to give her driving lessons.  She had several pairs of new socks – a running joke from an aunt on her dad’s side of the family – and her uncle and his family had splashed out on a rather pricey-looking set of new paintbrushes.  Her godmother had given her a cookbook with a note in the card that it was to “prepare you for life” when she could no longer just eat university food.  From her grandfather, she had received a charming silver bracelet with her name engraved on it, and she never wanted to take it off.

As she sat in her room marking off who she could send emails to and who she ought to send handwritten letters to, the mystery of the chocolate returned again, and she found herself contemplating the note.  Given recent events, she was about to ascribe it once again to the prince, but niggling doubt at the back of her mind prevented her from sending him a thank you text.  She’d never seen his handwriting, so she couldn’t compare that to anything, but something about a note that just read To Yeonhee didn’t seem very Prince-Yixing-like.  For a start, he always called her Miss Im, or occasionally Im Yeonhee, never just plain Yeonhee (which she needed to rectify, because it was ridiculously formal).  She also got the impression that he would have put slightly more into a note like that, like, Merry Christmas or I hope you will enjoy these or something similar.  The third thing was that he didn’t know her address.

Well, Yeonhee was pretty sure that he actually did, given that she’d more or less been told that a background check had been carried out on her, and she assumed it wouldn’t have been hard for him to find out if he wanted, but assuming her rapidly reforming character assessment of him was correct, unless he actually intended for her not to know that he was doing something for her, she thought that he’d probably have asked for her address.  After all, Junmyeon had made a point of not assuming information about her that had come from the background checks when he was talking to her.  Maybe that was just Junmyeon, though.

In the end, she left it.  There was nothing from the prince indicating that he’d given her a present (or at all), and once Yeonhee had been out for a walk with her family, eaten a very large and late Christmas lunch, plus played a few games, she flopped down to paint until dinner with her new paintbrushes.  To amuse Minhee, who had not been at all amused to discover that her little sister was a relatively well known internet amateur artist as well as a prominent student republican, Yeonhee did a patchwork of all the presents that her family had collectively received (there were lots and lots of pairs of socks), painted it (using her new paintbrushes), and posted it to Easyl with the tagline tag yourself.  When she woke up in the morning, it was to discover that almost everybody had tagged themselves as a sock.  The prince had favourited it, like usual, and commented the air, which had garnered him several likes.  Yeonhee took it as confirmation that he hadn’t sent the chocolates, which begged the question: then who?

The prince decided to compound that later in the day by messaging her.

From: Private number, 16.30

What date are you going back to university?

Yeonhee had to check her diary.

To: Private number, 16.34

Term starts on the 22th, but I’m probably going to be back

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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