Sehun insisted on accompanying Yeonhee to the dinner meeting on Monday evening with Luhan and the prince to discuss letting the public know who the mystery girlfriend was.  They both had to convince Baekhyun not to come, because he’d popped up just as Yeonhee was about to leave and found out where she was going and tried to insist on tagging along to see the prince again.  In the end, he agreed to stay behind on the condition that Yeonhee invited the prince to another concert The Rolls were giving that upcoming Friday.

Yeonhee and Sehun took the bus over to the restaurant, Sehun with a full backpack on his shoulders and three files in his arms.  He was silent for most of the trip, occasionally nudging his glasses up his nose as he studied something in the files in front of him, occasionally writing things down on a separate sheet of paper.  Eventually, Yeonhee could stand it no longer.

“Why do you have so much stuff with you?” she asked.

Sehun didn’t reply for a moment, reading to the end of the page and then turning it over.

“Giving your boyfriend a break,” he muttered as he paused to scribble something down, and then leafed through several more pages, searching for some kind of reference.  “I know I said I wasn’t going to give him one, but I meant that in the you-can’t-afford-to-screw-up sense, not in the kill-yourself-in-overwork sense and I’m not sure he can tell the difference between the two.”

Yeonhee allowed herself a wry smile.

“It’s unhealthy,” Sehun sniffed, pushing his glasses further up his nose.  “If you aren’t well rested, you can’t work efficiently.  I’m talking well rested mentally as well as physically.”

Yeonhee was tempted to peek at what he was perusing, but it was likely that a lot of what was in the files was confidential, and so she restrained herself.  Not long, the bus arrived at the stop nearest the restaurant, and Sehun was piling the closed files into her hands so that he could put his pen and glasses away and adjust the backpack.  They were greeted by Junmyeon and Zhoumi at the restaurant door and shown through into a private room, where Luhan and Yixing had their heads together in discussion, standing a little way away from the table, which was set for four.  Sehun coughed to announce their presence and the bodyguards quietly left.

“We’ve already ordered food,” the prince explained as he gestured for them to sit down, “and there won’t be any wait staff coming in until after we’ve left.”

He didn’t say anything about the fact that Sehun wasn’t exactly supposed to be there, but Yeonhee could see the mild confusion in both his and Luhan’s eyes.

Then Luhan did voice it.

“Mr Oh,” he said, “to what do we owe the pleasure?”

Sehun pointed to the backpack and the small stack of files.  “I thought you might like those back before the meetings tomorrow, and also I think it’s important that at least one of Yeonhee’s friends is in the loop for what’s going on with this relationship.  We’re happy not to say anything, but once the public knows, we’re going to be harassed for information and so I want to be prepared.  And also aware of anything in the legal sphere that might crop up or be useful.”

Luhan didn’t seem massively enthused, but he nodded and then deferred to the prince.

Yixing looked like he didn’t dare fight him.  “If you think it’s for the best,” he said.

“Of course I do.  I wouldn’t bother otherwise.”

Wincing, Yeonhee trod on Sehun’s foot.

“Well, if we’re going to get to business right away, might as well eat too,” Luhan sighed.  “Dig in, kids.”  He reached for the bread basket and passed it around.

Nobody spoke as they all piled their plates high with the food available.  There was a distinct pause as Yixing, the last to help himself to food, put the salad fork back in the salad and they all looked at each other, waiting for somebody else to be the first person to say anything, and then Sehun popped an olive into his mouth.

“So, what’s the current plan?” he asked once he had swallowed it.

As though it was some kind of hidden signal, Luhan and Yixing both started eating.  Yeonhee followed suit.

“Well,” said Luhan once his first mouthful was out of the way, “the longer we take to reveal Miss Im to the public, the more likely it is that somebody will find out and we’ll have an unnecessary scandal on our hands.  There’s a military ball two weeks on Saturday that his highness has to attend – I would say that’s our deadline for talking to the press.  There will be rumours if his highness doesn’t take Yeonhee to it and we can’t pull off a masquerade without people being inspired to dig, so we have until then to go public.”

Yixing kept his head down as he cut up a piece of meat.  “I’m going to Yeonhee’s house the weekend after next and I’d prefer it if the press didn’t follow me there.”

Luhan looked taken aback.  “The Saturday or the Sunday?”

“Both.”  Yixing’s ears went pink.  “I think I’m staying the night.”

Luhan pursed his lips and Sehun elbowed Yeonhee with a curious look.

“Also,” Yixing pressed on before anybody could comment verbally, “I want to introduce Yeonhee to some of my friends before going public.”

After a moment or two, Luhan nodded.  “So we have a window of six days, including the ball.”

“Don’t introduce her at the ball,” Sehun interrupted.  “It’ll give the prince a terrible reputation if people think he’s hijacked an official function for something like that.”

Luhan looked like he wanted to demand why Sehun cared about the prince’s reputation, but he restrained himself.

“Quite,” he said shortly.

The conversation continued back and forth between Luhan and Sehun as they hashed out potential plans and details, and Yeonhee was happy not to in.  Sehun had a much better finger on the national pulse than she did and she trusted his judgement on what would be best.  Yixing similarly seemed to want to leave the details to Luhan, and while he listened to what was going on and occasionally gave his input, he spent most of the meal engaging Yeonhee in a surreptitious game of footsie under the table.

By the time they had started on dessert, Luhan and Sehun had narrowed down the options to a press conference midweek before the ball.  They both agreed that the best way to mediate with the media was by allowing them to ask a few questions rather than just to run wild with a palace statement released to the press, but Luhan thought it should be a press conference devoted specifically to the couple while Sehun was of the opinion that it ought to be part of a broader press conference on a variety of issues.

“There’s discussion about press conferences for some of the legislation being proposed, since we don’t have a full government and it’s important that the nation feels it can trust the current skeleton cabinet to actually do decent things,” he said.  “Most of the ministers also think we need to have one