It was easy to block out socio-politics during the throes of exams. After the prince had stepped in to try to resolve the violence, there had been a backlash from ZPX, of all places, which Yeonhee had thought had been shut down in the wake of the assassination attempt but apparently had cells all over the country, and she was vaguely aware of Yixing and his skeleton government designating both ZPX and One Nationers as terrorist organisations, which under the law gave them much greater powers to try to deal with the problems. According to Sehun, they’d also considered trying to designate Antiroyo as one as well, but while there was an affiliation to ZPX that was officially denied, there wasn’t really anything that could legally cross the boundaries in that way and so they were just going to have to remain an annoyance.

Exams also meant that many fewer of her fellow students had time to subscribe to partisan idiocy that resulted in damaging property or causing harm to other students. Kyungsoo mentioned in passing one lunchtime how nice it was to have a full week without any ethnic incidents, but nobody was really in the mood for heavy topics of discussion when they were all busy studying, and so that was as far as it went.

The final exams all finished within three days of each other. The music and literature students were released first on the Wednesday because a lot of their final marks came from pre-submitted coursework, and anybody who had labs or did computer science had enough in the way of projects handed in before to finish exams on the Thursday. It meant that studying on the Wednesday and the Thursday was a frustrating slog for anybody like Yeonhee who only finished on the Friday, especially when some of her friends were already free, but emerging into the bright sunshine at half past four on the Friday afternoon and gulping down fresh air after the hours of stale oxygen in the exam hall was well worth it. The university had a tradition of showing the finishing finalists with confetti – a duty gladly taken up by the first and second years even if they had no friends in the third year – although it was policed carefully because less savoury substances had been used instead of confetti on various occasions over the past years.

Alphabetically, Yeonhee had been placed slap-bang in the middle of the hall and so she could already hear the cheers and screams and whoops as the first students got out to celebrate before she was even out of the room. She glanced around briefly for Baekhyun, but he’d been right at the front and had likely made a beeline straight for the exit.

Confetti cannons were blasting all over the place by the time that Yeonhee got out, and there seemed to be a sizable press corps too, judging from the number of flashing camera bulbs. Yeonhee’s friends were instantly recognisable, because Chanyeol was standing behind the barriers that the campus security had erected to keep the friends of the finalists far enough back to give the finalists some space on getting out, a huge pair of cymbals in his hands that he was crashing together with great alacrity, Jongin blowing noisily into a kazoo beside him. Baekhyun had already joined them, a halo of shaving cream decorating his head (from a distance it looked like somebody had tried to spray whipped cream onto him in the shape of a crown), belting out We are the Champions at the top of his lungs and looking very much like he was propositioning Kyungsoo, who was just joining them and looking very much like he wanted to disown everybody in sight. Eagerly, Yeonhee started towards them.

The clamour suddenly increased as she forged her way out of the stream of finalists heading to other groups of friends, and all the flash bulbs coalesced in the same area of the barriers with frightening speed and started to follow her along. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had broken into the national anthem, Chanyeol slowing the symbol crashes to a semblance of solemnity as Mihae appeared beside them and Jongin tunelessly attempting to keep pitch on the kazoo. Yeonhee very nearly came up short and turned around at the horror show, but then she caught sight of somebody leaning up against the barriers with a broad grin on his face.

Unable to hold back a smile of her own, Yeonhee hurried over. The second she was in range, Yixing reached out and snagged her around the waist with one arm so that he could kiss her.

“Congratulations,” he beamed at her, producing a huge bouquet bursting with tulips and lilies and chrysanthemums and many other flowers that she couldn’t name. Jongdae abruptly popped up behind him and exploded a confetti cannon in her face. Flinching, Yeonhee tried to buffet the colourful paper away. Almost directly in her ear, Chanyeol’s cymbals clashed fervently as he yelled a quick count in to a deafening assault on Yeonhee’s ears.

“She’s a dynamite princess!” Baekhyun bellowed in his loudest rocker voice.

“Wah-wah-wah-wah!” Kyungsoo belted down the scale, Jongin enthusiastically harmonising on the kazoo.

“Oh, for ’s sake,” groaned Sehun, evidently having joined at the wrong time.

Baekhyun ignored him. “Don’t you see the way she dress?”

“Wah-wah-wah-wah!” Kyungsoo repeated with a significant increase in volume. His imitation of the guitar pedal was on point.

“Don’t you see the way she smiles?” Baekhyun almost screamed as the pitch shot up. Kyungsoo mimicked his tone with his vocal wah pedal. “It could make me run for miles!”

Chanyeol was getting a bit too enthusiastic on the cymbals, but it was Jongin’s kazoo that was making Yeonhee’s head ring.

“Ugh,” she groaned, burying her head in Yixing’s shoulder and trying to plug her ears. All it did was block out whatever inane and ungrammatical lyrics Baekhyun was spouting – the music was unfortunately not as easily expunged.

Shaking with laughter, Yixing put his arms around her and hoisted her over the barrier. But instead of putting her down, he swung her into his arms and Yeonhee let go of her ears with a shriek of surprise. Jongdae plopped the bouquet safely into her lap.

“What are you doing?” Yeonhee panicked to Yixing, barely daring to move in case it hurt his recovering shoulder.

He shut her up by kissing her again.

“Putting on a show,” he said with evident amusement. “Not like the press is going to interview you when we’re being disgustingly intimate. There’s nothing really interesting to say about finishing exams anyway. There’s an invitation for a date in the bouquet but I can’t be bothered to wait for you to read it, so let’s go.”

With a squeak, Yeonhee clung to his neck as he set off over the grass to the road where one of the royal cars was parked, Jongdae trailing behind them. Journalists followed at a marginal distance, clearly wanting to have got some kind of comment but a bit awkward about asking anything.

Yeonhee got a chance to get her thoughts in order when the car was off campus and Yixing was gently massaging cramps out of her writing hand. The card suggested a walk in one of the parks in the city and a meal at a surprise location.

“How expensive is this meal?” she asked suspiciously, pushing the card in the prince’s direction.

Yixing grinned at her. “Expensive enough to say this girl just finished her exams at the best university in the country.”

“Yixing, no.”

“Yixing, yes.”

Yeonhee relented at once at his delighted expression. “All right,” she said, happy to go along with it since it was a special occasion. “But I’m going to look like a twerp doing this in my academic uniform.”

Yixing disagreed, pointing to the university crest on her clothing. “It’s a uniform to be proud of.”

The park was surprisingly quiet, though they were stopped a few times by people that recognised them and Yeonhee’s uniform, and Yeonhee’s heart just about melted when a nine-year-old girl came running up to her to present her with an ice cream and tell her that she hoped to go to the same university as her one day.

“You’re being spoilt,” Yixing as she happily slurped away at the ice cream, her other hand clasped tightly to his.

It transpired that he had cleared his desk so he would have the afternoon free specially to spend time with her, and Yeonhee found that too endearing for words. His original plan had been another Saturday date, but he’d found out through one of his many channels (probably Jongdae – Yeonhee didn’t think he was quite at the stage of ringing her parents or her sister to find out her movements) that Yeonhee’s family was planning to devote the whole day to her for celebration, and he had felt he shouldn’t intrude on that. Sunday he had to fly over to Japan for a conference from which he would only return on Wednesday. Sehun was apparently going with him.

Yeonhee’s family took her to a theme park to celebrate, and Jongdae designated himself as a secondary security guard even though he was off duty. Even though he was discreet, it was clear what his actual motivation was the second they got in through the park gates, and Minhee spent a lot of time exchanging covert, knowing glances with him. The adrenaline crash hit big on Sunday and Yeonhee spent almost the entire day either asleep or lazing around in front of the TV at home, and then she had to start on packing up her room before the university leavers celebrations started happening. The first of these was on the Wednesday afternoon, but Yeonhee spent the whole of Monday through until Wednesday morning finishing off the watercolours she was doing for the prince and her room consequently remained the same as always, just with the addition of suitcases and boxes.

Wednesday’s event was the university alumni foundation, which consisted of a lot of champagne and canapes and freebies. Sehun arrived back from Japan just in time to join in the fun and to help Yeonhee fend off one of the