***Double update... sorta?  If you haven't yet read chapter 4, which I uploaded yesterday, please do so before reading this!***

The day went downhill from there.  It began to rain while Yeonhee and Sehun were still waiting for the others, and the forecast said that it was unlikely to look up until the early evening.  The policeman showed up first, thoroughly disgruntled that they couldn’t set to work immediately and threatening to leave after ten minutes because it was “wasting police time”.  Yeonhee managed to convince him not to and they relocated to a student café not that far away so that the man’s temper at least would not be worsened by the weather.

To make matters worse, when the other students showed up, Taehyung was with them.  He ignored Sehun’s dirty looks and Yeonhee’s obvious discomfort to slip into the seat next to her, turning to her with a bright smile and greeting her with a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey,” he murmured in a soft voice, and Yeonhee froze up.  “You look lovely today.”

It was unfair, and she remained flustered for a good twenty minutes or so, unable to answer the policeman’s questions as Sowon, one of the other girls, went through what their current plans were.  Sehun allowed Yeonhee to hold his hand under the table, squeezing it comfortingly every time Taehyung so much as blinked in her direction.

The policeman diligently took notes, asking for verification on how many protesters there were going to be, how they were going to ensure that there was no violence, and what their noise policy was so that they wouldn’t disturb students working in the library nearby.  He then requested to see the area they were planning to protest in, checking the barriers that had been put up outside the student union, and asked to speak to campus security.  Sowon went with him.

The second the pair had left, Sehun rounded on Taehyung, apparently not caring that there were witnesses present.

“Why the hell are you here?” he demanded.

“Why not?” Taehyung asked, his eyes very much on Yeonhee.  “I helped Sowon set up the barriers yesterday evening and to make a couple of the banners.  She asked me to come along.  I don’t see how it’s a problem.”

Sehun bristled protectively.  “You know why.”

Taehyung raised an eyebrow.  “Actually, I don’t.”

Yeonhee tugged gently on Sehun’s arm, trying to get him to step down, but he was too angry to care.

“You’re making Yeonhee very uncomfortable,” he spat out.

Taehyung remained calm.  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” he said matter-of-factly.  “However, I do actually believe in the cause for this protest and I’m well within my rights to attend it, so I will do so.  If Yeonhee really finds my presence that objectionable, there is a policeman right over there with Sowon and I’m sure he’ll be happy to listen to you.  See you both later.”

He strode away.  Sehun still looked pretty angry as the other two, glancing nervously with each other, also withdrew.

Yeonhee touched him lightly on the shoulder.

“It’s not worth it, Sehun,” she mumbled.

“It is!” he insisted hotly.  “What he did to you is not okay!”

Yeonhee gulped.  There was an unpleasant lump in , and she knew that Sehun was right.

But she also knew that she would have to be the one to summon up the courage to confront Taehyung.

To make matters worse, Sehun and Sowon were the only ones from their group who’d managed to get tickets into the hall to listen to (and heckle) the prince speak, and Chenle was being an obnoxious twit about letting them exchange tickets.

“Sorry,” he said, “but we did a name lottery and it’s unfair if people then go switching with other people.  Sehun only.”

He gave an obnoxious smile that could have rivalled Taehyung’s and waved them away, claiming that he was busy.  Yeonhee glared at the monopoly board in front of him, but it was a lost cause, and so she and Sehun left.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll stay outside with you as long as I can.”

He made good on it, too, standing with her and holding an umbrella over her as she checked the various signs and banners to make sure that nothing overly obscene was on them.  One thing she was adamant about was that if they were going to protest, they were going to do so peacefully and perfectly, so that nobody could fault them on their conduct.  She’d made it very clear that nobody was to throw things, nor to use crude language nor obscene pictures on any demonstrating material they might bring.  Yeonhee hadn’t quite gone as far as requiring everybody who wanted to protest to register, but she had made it clear that unless they abided by the rules she’d set out, the protesting organisers would disown them and would not defend them if the police or security decided to remove them.  It had worked well the previous two occasions, the police even thanking her afterwards for the best-organised and most peaceful protests they’d had the pleasure to be at.  Protests at other universities had not gone so well, and at public events in some areas of the country, they’d turned into all-out riots.

“What would you do,” Sehun asked her as she confiscated a sign to cover up F*** the prince! with plain paper and instructed the girl who’d brought it to be more congenial with her message, “if members of Antiroyo turned up?”

“Have them escorted off,” Yeonhee said.  The girl gave her a grumpy look, though whether that was in response to the sign or Yeonhee’s answer was up for debate.

“Do you think they actually are a terrorist group?” Sehun asked.

“No,” said Yeonhee, “but they’re not far off.”

“What about the rumours they want to assassinate the king?”

“Rumours.”

“But do you think they could be true?” Sehun pressed.

“Maybe, but I don’t particularly care.”  Yeonhee paused.  “If that is their end goal, I think they’re very misguided in how they want to end the monarchy, but it’s not like we wouldn’t benefit from it in the long run, right?”

Seeing that there were no new signs to check, she unfurled a long banner that she and Jihae, one of the other girls who’d been organising the protests, had made the previous week.

Republicanism: the modern way forward, it read in big black letters.  Underneath, in red, was the monarchy: expensive, antiquated, undemocratic and a national embarrassment.  It’s time for the people to rule themselves.

“Wow,” said Sehun, sounding equally amused and sarcastic.  “How many hours went into that?”

“Shush,” Yeonhee told him, trying to hide her grin.  “It’s not about the presentation.  It’s about the message.”

“Yes, but presentation can help message.”

“Be a dear and help me hold it when the time comes, will you?”

Given the rain, Yeonhee was actually pretty impressed with the turnout for the protest.  If the weather hadn’t been so bad, she suspected many more people would have come, but half an hour before the talk was due to start, there were nearly a hundred of them standing behind the barriers, coming up with little chants and generally having fun to keep spirits up and themselves warm while they waited in the rain.  There was some cheerful (from Yeonhee’s perspective, anyway) booing at some of the students going into the hall (especially when Chenle appeared – Yeonhee actually joined in on that one), which got them a few finger salutes in return from some Zenyu students, but it was mostly innocuous.

There was a minor unpleasant incident about ten minutes before the prince was due to arrive, when some Zenyu students appeared with One Nation armbands over their left sleeves and snatched Jihae’s megaphone from her.

“Who are we?” the boy yelled into the megaphone.

“One Nation!  One Nation!” his friends yelled back.

“And what do we want?”

“One Nation!  One Nation!”

“Who should rule us?”

“The Nation’s king!”

“And what should the Hanmi do?”

The police appeared at that moment, taking the megaphone away and disrupting the disorderly conduct, but not quite quickly enough to stop the suggestions of go themselves! and go back to the mines to work for their owners! from being aired.  Yeonhee felt Sehun tensing up beside her, and her fingers tightened around the corner of the banner that she was holding.  Jihae didn’t get her megaphone back.

Finally, as a member of security informed Yeonhee that the prince’s convoy was now on campus, Sehun turned to her and pressed the umbrella he’d been holding over both of them into her hand.

“I’d best go inside or Chenle might take the opportunity to bar me from entering.  Sowon should already have the recording equipment set up.”

Yeonhee smiled at him, but she was cold from standing in the rain and it felt like her teeth would chatter through her tongue if she attempted to talk, so she just hoped he understood that she was grateful.  He chucked her under the chin and left.

Just as three sleek, black Mercedes pulled up at the end of the barriers, a hand plucked the umbrella out of Yeonhee’s holding it up over her properly.  She turned to thank whoever it was, but her smile and words died when she saw Taehyung standing there.

He gave her a winning smile in response.

“Just let me hold this for you,” he said softly.

Yeonhee gulped, the lump in returning.  She didn’t know how to respond to this when Taehyung was being reasonable and nice.  She knew she probably ought to have snatched the umbrella back and told him to bog off.

“No thanks,” she managed to croak out, but he’d already turned away, squinting at the people getting out of the cars.  Yeonhee squinted too.

For all the protests she’d organised or attended, this was only the third or fourth where she’d actually seen a member of the royal family, and it was also the first time she’d be seeing one so close up, because usually they didn’t pass quite so near to the protesters.

But on this occasion, Prince Yixing was being hurried by his bodyguards straight down a passage in the middle of them, the rain quickly plastering his hair to