EXOPLANET

“Sehun?”

Grumbling under his breath, Sehun added another mark to the tally on the post-it pack on his desk.  It was the ninth time in half an hour, and he felt like somebody should pay.  Or he should at least have some kind of permanent record of just how annoying this was next time somebody decided it was a good idea to get rid of all the princess’ memories.

“Sehun, why do I have a plant pot with half a sapling in my room?”

Crap, she found that already?  Her parents were going to freak out.  Sehun himself was unsure whether the plant pot was supposed to have been sent Down Under or just hidden with a powerful illusion or invisibility spell.  But whatever it was, the princess was not supposed to be able to see it.

Schooling his expression into a poker face – which didn’t really take much of an effort, as he’d been wearing it for most of the day anyway – Sehun swung lazily around in his office chair.  The princess was standing in his doorway, one hand on the wooden frame and a frown pinching her eyebrows together.  She looked frustrated, but then, Sehun mused, she always looked frustrated when she got her memory wiped.

“Gaia, is the plant in the black notebook I gave you?” he asked her.  The princess’ frown deepened.

“Well, no,” she admitted.

Sehun swung back around towards his desk.  “Then you don’t need to know about it.”

“Sehun!”  He heard her stamp her foot and looked back over at her.

“Gaia, you’re getting angry about a plant,” he pointed out.  “It’s room decoration.  And I thought you liked plants.”

Gaia ran a hand through her chestnut hair.  “I do, but this one feels weird.”  She pouted.

It should do; it’s your brother.  But Sehun bit his tongue.  He didn’t think she’d take that very well, even if she thought he was joking.  Come to that, he was pretty sure her brother wasn’t in the black notebook.  He hadn’t been last time.  So as far as the princess was aware, she was an only child.

“Why?” he asked, twisting from side to side in the office chair.

“Because the half I have has obviously been split vertically down the middle and the tree is still functioning as a tree.  There’s even a blossom on it.”

Sehun nearly choked.  That wasn’t there yesterday.

“A tree’s a tree,” he said, nerves neatly tucked away behind his poker face as he swivelled slowly around in a circle.  “As long as it’s not oozing pus or poisoning you, I don’t think it’s a problem.  And really, I gave you that black book for a reason.”

“I know,” she groaned.  Sehun swivelled a second time, just fast enough to see her sink to the floor.  “But what is it I have, Sehun?  Amnesia?  Some kind of horrible illness?  Because I can’t remember anything before lunch today and I can’t find a diary anywhere.  I didn’t even know who you were until a few hours ago.”

Well, at least this is better than last time.  Sehun raised an eyebrow, remembering the princess’ panic last time at finding out that, yes, she was seventeen years old and hadn’t been four for quite some time, and yes, she was actually a real princess who lived in a palace and had beautiful dresses, after some idiot had thought it would be a good idea to rehabilitate her with children’s books, partially out of fear that she might have forgotten how to read.

“It’s not amnesia,” Sehun told her, spinning to a halt.  “Something bad happened, so you requested a memory wipe.”  You nearly blew the place up with magic, so your mum decided it was a necessity.

From her passive acceptance, Sehun figured she must have found the useful addition to the black book he’d made this time round, hastily scribbled as a fifth appendix and entitled “magic: memory wipes”.  The queen would not be happy if she found out – the queen was rarely happy about anything – because there was an alarming correlation between the princess’ knowledge of magic and her own volatile powers, but after the occasion the previous year in which the princess had accidentally nearly killed Sehun, the boy felt that other things, such as extreme emotion or a strain of magic in the air, were just as likely to trigger it.  And besides, one tiny bit of knowledge wasn’t going to hurt.  That much he also knew from experience.  He didn’t particularly like seeing his friend saddled with no memories, but even he had to admit that it was better than her destroying the palace and probably most of the country.  At least it kept her powers repressed.

“Oh,” she said eventually in a small voice.  “Have I… has this happened before?  The memory wipe thing, I mean.”

“Nope.”  It’s the seventh time.

“Oh,” she said again.

Sehun spun lazily around in the chair.  It had become a bad habit several years back.  Only the day before, Gaia had become frustrated by him constantly spinning around when she was trying to speak to him, and she had sent it whizzing around so fast for a relentless eight minutes that he’d thought he’d throw up.

“The black book has everything you need to know,” he told her for what he was pretty sure was the twelfth time that day.  It has everything your mum approves of.

“Oh,” she said a third time.  She was still dazed.

Sehun finally spun to a stop.

“And Gaia,” he added, “you do realise that this is the staff area of the palace, right?  You’re not supposed to be here.”

She actually pouted at him.  “But the book says you’re my best friend.  Can’t I see my friends?”

“The book also says that nobody is supposed to know we’re best friends.”  That was in the equally hastily-scribbled fourth appendix.  “Your mother will kill us if she finds us consorting in forbidden areas of the palace, like my bedroom.”  He gestured to the room they were both in.  “I’m technically only supposed to be your bodyguard.”

Gaia’s expression crumpled and she curled up on the floor.  Sehun sighed.

Too much for one day.  He got to his feet and went over to her.

“Sorry.  Was that a bit harsh?”  He tugged at her arm, trying to get her to straighten up, but she gave some kind of wordless complaint and yanked it back again.

“Gaia—”  Right at the wrong moment, Sehun’s internal palace phone rang.  He relinquished Gaia to pick up.

“Yes?”

“Sehun, the princess has vanished from her room and the queen is throwing a fit—”

Sehun vaguely recognised the man’s voice, but he couldn’t put a name to it.  “It’s okay; I’ve got her.  The memory wipe is just taking a bit of a toll on her at the moment.”

“Thank God.  Where are you?”

Sehun looked down at Gaia.  She had uncurled a little and a bright green eye was watching him.  He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“We’ll be along to the audience hall in about five minutes.”

“Seriously?”  The man’s tone became sceptical, and Sehun was suddenly able to put a face to the guy because he’d walked in on Sehun teaching Gaia how to make a miniature volcano the previous week.  The week before that, it had been how to throw kitchen knives at the dartboard.  The knives had all mysteriously vanished after that.  “She’s in your room again?”

Sehun grinned.  “I won’t deny my room is ily attractive.”

“There is something grossly wrong with your mind.”

With a soft snort of laughter, Sehun hung up.  He held out a hand to the princess.

“Come on, Gaia.  Your mother might explode.”

She just rolled over with a killer pout and puppy eyes.  “I wanna stay here.  Your room’s nice.  It feels familiar.”

“Really?”  Sehun was taken aback, but he couldn’t help a little smug satisfaction.  Of course it feels familiar – you spend over half your time in it.  If something of that had remained, she was either unusually attached to his room or the memory wipe hadn’t been quite so asive this time.  Which wasn’t necessarily a good thin