Being back on university campus was horrible.  In the space of a couple of days, Yeonhee’s room had been broken into five times, and despite Jongdae’s best efforts she’d also ended up in the campus doctor’s office on three occasions, once with concussion and twice with cuts and bruises from people shoving her around.  Her ankle was also twisted from a nasty fall she’d taken and her overall mood was miserable.  People just wouldn’t leave her alone, whether it was out of some kind of anger or jealousy that she was dating the prince or because they were curious and suddenly wanted to be best friends.

Where Jongdae excelled, however, was spotting incoming professional and student journalists and whisking Yeonhee away before they could get to her.  Yeonhee would have preferred to stay in the hospital and do all her work from there, but there were some lectures she had to show up for to gain a minimum attendance and some she needed to go to anyway if she wanted to understand her course and pass her exams.

Sehun had also banned her from going on Easyl after she’d logged in the day after the press conference and the amount of hate mail she’d received had reduced her to tears.  There had also been a number of supportive messages and a lot of surprise, and many more asking her to draw them stuff or interpreting her art differently now that they knew who she was, but just the thought of going on the site made her anxious and she was losing the will to draw.  Jongdae had quietly blocked her from accessing it on her phone and on her laptop after he caught her staring at the login page on the Thursday morning.

Getting in and out of the hospital to visit Yixing and Minseok became increasingly more difficult as the week went on, and Jongdae eventually suggested that it might be best to leave visits for the weekend so that she could concentrate on her work and sleep during the week.  Yeonhee reluctantly agreed once Yixing came off the strong painkillers and was able to hold normal phone conversations with her.  The prince had seen enough news coverage to know that she was being received with very mixed results, and Yeonhee could tell it worried him.

“You’re not okay, are you?” he eventually asked outright on Friday afternoon.

“No,” Yeonhee admitted, bursting into ugly tears she was very happy he couldn’t see over the phone.  Jongdae quietly excused himself from her room to give her some privacy.  “This is horrible, Yixing, really horrible.”

There was a long pause, and Yeonhee could hear him shifting about on his bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.  “I knew there’d be backlash, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“I just want to go back to when nobody knew,” Yeonhee blubbered.  “Everyone thinks I’m using you or that I’m capricious and shallow and trying to manipulate you and I’m not.  A-and they keep saying I don’t deserve you because—”

“Yeonhee,” he interrupted her, “you and Junmyeon quite possibly saved my life – I don’t take that lightly.”

“Yes, but they do!” she wailed.  “I hate it, Yixing, I really hate it!”

“And I love you for putting up with it for me,” he said calmly.

It shut Yeonhee up.

“It will pass,” he promised her.  “It’ll probably until it does, but it will pass.”

Yeonhee sniffled quietly.

Yixing sighed.  “I wish you were here so I could give you a hug.”

“Me too,” she said in a small voice.  Conversation drifted onto pleasanter things, and Yeonhee was almost able to summon a smile by the time she said goodbye.

Her mood had dipped again by the evening, and Jongdae once again went above and beyond the call of duty by trying to cheer her up and ordering takeout, since she didn’t have the stomach to face the university cafeteria.  She was trying to summon up the courage to ask if they could binge-watch Little Imp when there was a timid knock at the door.  Wordlessly, Jongdae got up to deal with and evict whoever was knocking.

“Hi?” said a tentative male voice as soon as he cracked the door open.  Yeonhee couldn’t see who it was because Jongdae was in the way, but the voice sounded oddly familiar.  “I’m looking for an Im Yeon— Chen?”

Clearly recognising whoever it was, Jongdae opened the door further and stepped outside.  A few moments later, he was back, holding the door half closed behind him.

“Are you up for a visitor?” he asked.  “It’s Wenhan.”

Yeonhee blinked, uncomprehending as to why Wenhan would ever visit her.

“I look like sh*t, Jongdae,” she said, gesturing to her face and hoping he would understand that to mean no visitors ever.

Jongdae shrugged and opened the door.  “So does he.”

The first thing that caught Yeonhee’s attention when Wenhan slipped inside was the whites of his eyes and teeth, and she stared.  He was in full combat camouflage, a dark green beret tipped moulded over to the right side of his head, and every available inch of skin daubed in camouflage paint, or possibly mud.

Without even bothering to greet her, Wenhan produced a gigantic chocolate bar from an equally camouflaged backpack and it into her hands.  Yeonhee stared between him and it as he took a seat in her office chair, pretty convinced that it was the first time in her life she’d ever had the pleasure of holding a metre-long bar of chocolate and wondering where on earth he’d got it from.  Jongdae quietly started clearing up their takeout remains, but paused before leaving the room as if checking whether or not Yeonhee wanted him to return.  Yeonhee hoped he understood that she did.

“Sorry this is rather unexpected,” Wenhan said, taking off his beret and running a hand through his hair.  His Hanmi still had a slight lilt to it.  “I swear, I go on a tour of duty and the first thing Yixing does is get himself shot, the idiot.  Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to check up on you both as soon as I got back, hence the gear.”  He gestured to it.

The only thing Yeonhee could think of to say was, “you’re in the army?”

“Corporal,” he replied, proudly tapping one of his epaulets.

“Wow.”  For lack of something better to do, Yeonhee opened the chocolate bar and broke off a couple of pieces.  She absently offered one to him.  “Where did you find a chocolate bar this big?”

He laughed.

“How are you holding up?” he asked, popping the chocolate into his mouth.

Yeonhee’s lips pursed into a thin line.  It was hard to make out with the camouflage, but she thought that Wenhan’s expression had also turned serious.

“The media is being ve