Hello, people!  Please make sure you've read the REAL versions of chapter 34 and chapter 35, since both of them were prank chapters for April Fool's Day!  The real chapters have been up for a few days now, but I realise not all of you will have seen/read them yet.  The new (non-prank) material is marked out in a different colour in both chapters.  There's about 500 new words for chapter 34, for those of you who haven't yet read the real version, while over half of chapter 35 is new (if you haven't read the real version for that yet either).  This chapter will make much more sense if you've read the real versions of both the other two!

Although she was dubious about the morality of it, Yeonhee did end up writing down a list of things she thought could be improved in the country if she managed to convince Yixing to do it.  She was sitting beside Sehun in one of the small lounges in the student union as he finalised all the last pieces of admin that he could for the panel discussion the next day.  Yeonhee needed to be there to sign a couple of things off and make sure everything was in order with gifts for their panelists, and to run over the questions she was supposed to ask them (as chapter president, it was her job to chair), but Sehun was much busier than she was and only needed her for a couple of things at a time.  Initially he’d just been ringing her every ten minutes or so to check something, but that had been so disruptive to Yeonhee that she’d decided it was best to be in the vicinity so that it was easier for him to ask.

“Where are we getting the microphones from again?” Sehun asked absently as he went down the checklist of things that needed to be set up the next day.

Yeonhee looked up, chewing absently on the pen in .  “There are three in the hall itself; we’re using two from the student union and four from the drama department so we have two floating mics for questions.”

“Great.”  He noted it down.  “Who’s operating the floating mics?  Are we going to go to the audience members in questions or do people queue up?  Actually, we should have them queue up, that would be quicker.”

“I thought you and Jiawei would be operating them?”

“Jiawei’s on the door and will want a break – she’s also doing the gifts at the end.  I’m doing all the tech along with Namjoon.”

“Is Sowon on the door?”

“Yes.”

“Just co-opt a couple of society members, then.”

He immediately started looking through a list of society members.  Yeonhee returned to her own list while he did so.  She’d split it into two lists – things the country needed in general, like a solution to the crumbling health care system, and things that would specifically help the Hanmi community, like more investment in education, politicians that actually represented them, integration within sports teams and in the army and police.

Sehun’s pen suddenly dropped onto her paper beside the couple of lines she’d written on education.

“You want to be careful with that one,” he said.  “On principle, I agree, but it has to be channelled in the right way and into the right areas.  If the entire country is suddenly told that the only measure of success is academia, there’s a whole range of unskilled jobs that suddenly nobody will want to do and you’ll find that the only jobs people deem worthwhile are things like becoming doctors and investment bankers, which will completely mess up the economy in the long run.”

“But it’s largely Hanmi people working in unskilled labour at the moment and very few of them are able to make much money from it,” Yeonhee pointed out.  “I mean, the ones who get into skilled labour, like plumbing and being electricians are fine – that’s how my granddad made his money – provided they give a good service and charge proportionally to that, and provided they can manage their money, but it’s the unskilled labourers who need the opportunities.”

“I agree,” said Sehun.  “It’s just how we make sure they have opportunities while at the same time keeping the country running.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Me?  Personally?”  He pointed the pen at himself.  “I haven’t thought much about it, to be honest.  A lot of countries rely on immigrants to take on those jobs, which I just find snobby because the people from those countries don’t take the same jobs despite there being unemployment more or less because they think the jobs are beneath them.  In other countries, they pay them better or give them better titles.  There was one European country that changed the ‘bin men’ occupation to ‘waste disposal officer’, but I don’t think that actually did much to improve things.  Nobody will touch litter-picking with a bargepole because it’s associated with penal community service.  I think two things need to happen – we need to get the Zenyu part of the country happy to take on some of these jobs, and an awful lot more of them ought to be done as charitable services to the community, rather than looked down on or set out as punishments for people who commit misdemeanours.”

“Then what do we do to people who commit misdemeanours?”

“They’d continue doing the same things, naturally, but for longer hours or something.  I don’t know.”  He picked up Yeonhee’s list.  “What is this, anyway?”

“Ways to improve the country.”

“The best way to do it is to get rid of the cultural segregation,” Sehun murmured as he read over it all.  “How on earth can you unite a country when Hanmi people get angry over Zenyu pop artists using Hanmi buzzwords in their songs or Zenyu people cry cultural appropriation for Hanmi chefs trying fusion cuisine or Hanmi people wearing elements of traditional Zenyu dress?”

“Cultural appropriation—”

“—Is not the same as cultural fusion and exchange and most people are unable to distinguish between the two,” Sehun said firmly.  “A lot of the cultural segregation actually comes from the Hanmi and the Zenyu communities within themselves, not oppression from one onto the other.  It’s a massive problem.  Conserving and respecting culture is extremely important, but culture isn’t a static thing – it changes and develops as it comes into contact with other cultures and as people with the same cultural heritage mature and develop themselves.  Did the Zenyu cultural firework competition exist before the Zenyu people had fireworks?”

“Well. . . no,” Yeonhee admitted.

“And is it a part of Zenyu culture now?  What about Hanmi folk dancing – for example, the table-top tap?  How long has that been around for?”

“Seventy years,” Yeonhee replied dutifully.

“And is that an integral part to Hanmi culture?”

“Well, yes.”

“And where did it originate?”

“In a culturally Zenyu tavern.”

“See?  Interplay and exchange of cultures and cultural development.  Fireworks are also Chinese.  If you try to unpick and shut out everything that culturally doesn’t belong to you, you’ll find yourself having to reinvent the wheel, and you really have to be beyond dumb to want to do that.  You can’t get rid of cultural segregation by insisting on more of it.  It’s plain stupid.”  He handed the list back and returned to his computer, only to pause and swing back round to face her again.

“Wait a moment,” he said.  “Yeonhee, why are you making lists about how to better and unify our country?”

Yeonhee gulped.  She ought to have seen this was coming.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said hesitantly, “and I don’t think separationism is the best way forward.”

“In general or just at the moment.”

Yeonhee gulped again.  “In general?”

Sehun raised both his eyebrows.  “This is very unexpected.”

Yeonhee folded the list up and put it in her pocket.

“I’m allowed to change my opinions,” she grumbled.

“I know,” he said mildly.  “It’s just nice to actually see that.”  He paused.  “There are going to be large parts of the republican faction that will be very unhappy to find this out, though.  You’re practically their poster child, after all.”

Yeonhee snorted.  “I’m the poster child for the whole republican movement, not just the sectarian part.”

Sehun laughed.  “One of the many problems with being pretty and photogenic, I guess.  to be you.”

Yeonhee shoved him playfully on the shoulder.  “Get on with your job.”

Still laughing, he adjusted his computer on his lap and turned back to the screen.  “To be fair, I don’t think the fallout will be that bad.  It’s not like you’re suddenly declaring yourself a monarchist.”

A cold trickle of dread ran down Yeonhee’s spine when he said that.  It wasn’t that she even really supported the monarchy, but people would take it that way if they found out about her and Yixing.

Yeonhee returned to her room an hour and a half later to discover that it had been taken over by The Rolls, who had music sheets out all over the floor and were busy discussing which tracks to put on their debut album, all sprawled out on their stomachs.  Bemused, she stood watching them from the doorway until they realised she was there.

“How did you get in?” she demanded before any of them could start making excuses.

“It was unlocked,” Baekhyun said.  “Also, you have a gift.  Is it from You Know Who?”

He waved his hand in the direction of her desk, where Yeonhee saw a potted poinsettia.

“Have you upgraded from dating a sugar daddy to dating Lord Voldemort?” Chanyeol asked, earning a snort of laughter from Jongin and a punch from Ky