🚨 Warning: This chapter includes depictions of non-consensual sex under unequal power dynamics. Please remain mindful of this as you read. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to stop reading. 🚨
・・・・・
It had been four days since I started staying in the palace.
Meals prepared specifically for me were brought into my room, and I heard no news about General Hunmu.
The strange thing was that, even though he kept me here, the king never once came to see me.
With nothing to do all day, I sat around idly, to the point where it felt like my head might burst. I couldn’t even try to leave, and to make matters worse, going beyond the palace walls was forbidden. Left with no choice, I passed each day exchanging a few words with the palace maid.
One slightly frightening realisation was that, while staying here, all the English words I had memorised started to slip away. Simple words like 'dog,' 'cat,' and 'apple' came to mind easily, but with words that were just a little longer, the spellings became tangled as if alive, and I couldn’t recall them.
I was afraid that, at this rate, I might even forget the faces of the family I loved. So every morning when I opened my eyes, I deliberately recalled, one by one, the memories of the place where I used to live.
My thoughts always ended with Kyuhyun, and although it was foolish, I kept regretting not having my first experience with him.
While weighed down by such heavy emotions, I soon found myself suffering from the heat of the day. Accustomed to the cool air of an air conditioner, I struggled to cool off with only the breeze of a fan.
The palace maid didn’t sweat at all and said the weather was rather mild as she tended to me. But even while sitting still, sweat trickled down my back, and despite the inconvenient bathing facilities, I ended up washing myself two or three times a day.
Whenever those discomforts surged to the point of being unbearable, I would calm myself by thinking of General Hunmu, who had likely received the sahal punishment. I spent the past few days repeating that cycle.
It was only after the heat finally subsided and night fell that I would step outside. Each time, I felt tense at the thought that the king, whose whereabouts remained unknown even today, might suddenly appear, and then relieved when he didn’t. At most, all I could do was walk around nearby, but this was the only time I could go out at all.
“My lady, what kind of world did you live in?”
I hadn’t known it myself, but according to the palace maid, everyone already knew that I had come from a strange place.
Many were said to be staying up day and night, working hard to try and figure out the mechanism behind the intricate watch I had brought.
Honestly, I had no interest in any of that. I just wanted to ask if the palace maid knew anything about General Hunmu, but no matter how much she stayed by my side and tended to me, I couldn’t fully trust her, so I didn’t ask.
“It’s just... a world without the social ranks found here — a world where life is somewhat easier.”
“My lady, you are speaking formally again. If anyone hears you, I will really get whipped and thrown out.”
“Ah... I slipped up again.”
“My lady, then how do people live together without social ranks?”
“There are no social ranks, but the quality of life varies greatly depending on how much money someone has. So life can feel harsher in some ways, but I think it’s still much better than here.”
“Is it difficult for my lady to stay here?”
“It might be hard to understand, since I eat my fill and rest comfortably every day, but I’m not comfortable here at all.”
“It’s unfortunate that you’re uncomfortable.”
Flinch.
As I was walking slowly in front of the residence with the palace maid, a chilling voice rose from behind, sending goosebumps from the tips of my toes.
I knew the king usually moved with a large entourage of attendants. But this time, he appeared with only a single eunuch by his side — and without a sound, he was suddenly standing right behind me.
When I saw the king for the first time in four days, I froze like a fool. Meanwhile, the palace maid, bowing so deeply that her waist was at a 90-degree angle, retreated behind me.
It was only then that I awkwardly lowered my head in greeting, because General Hunmu's life was hanging on the king's every word.
The eunuch’s sharp gaze bore into me as I stood stiff and frozen. I bit my lower lip, realising the king had heard what I said.
Without a word, the king walked past me and entered the place where I was staying.
Seeing that the eunuch stayed outside, I wished I could remain outside too, but I had no choice but to follow the king inside.
“What has been the most uncomfortable for you?”
As soon as the king sat down in the place where I usually rest, he asked me a question. If I were to answer honestly, I would’ve said: 'It's you — your presence here right now.'
“…Sleeping and eating are not uncomfortable at all… I only meant that those things felt unfamiliar because they’re different from where I come from.”
“I left you alone for as many as four days to let your body recover, but you ended up doing something useless.”
“Pardon?”
While my body was recovering?
I couldn’t grasp what he meant right away and just stared blankly. The king’s gaze shifted to the hem of my chima, and only then did I realise — he had deliberately left me alone, knowing I was suffering from the aftermath of our first night.
Why? For what reason? Why would someone like him — a cold-blooded man without emotion or warmth — do such a thing?
The king tapped the table in front of him with his fingers — tok, tok.
Even though he had left me alone, I ended up saying that I wasn’t comfortable at all. I feared my words might have upset him, so every noise made my heart skip.
That was why, belatedly, I was the first to speak.
“…Thank you… I didn’t realise that was your intention. My body has recovered quite a bit.”
“You ought to be getting better.”
“...”
"That way, you'll be able to deal with me today."
From the very moment he had me stay in this palace, whether he left me alone for four days or even longer, it was inevitable that I would have to share a bed with the king.
Though I knew very well I must not offend him, my expression quickly darkened at his words that I would have to deal with him.
I tried to control my expression, but he was already watching every subtle twitch of muscle in my face.
Swoosh!
“Ah!”
“It seems you really hate being held by me.”
I was about to say no, but then I recalled the king’s words about hating lies.
If it was a lie that would be found out anyway, it was better to part my lips and then fall silent.
The king suddenly grabbed my arm and, in the same motion, pushed me down.
As my body hit the hard floor, a small cry escaped, but his large hand quickly covered my mouth.
Then he immediately blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
One of the most embarrassing things about being here was how blatantly the intimate moments — things that didn’t need to be known by others — were exposed.
The king might not care that the eunuch and palace maid standing outside would naturally guess what was happening in the darkened room, but to me, it was deeply humiliating.
“Would you try to hate me a little more?”
What?
He wanted me to hate him a little more?
“The more you run away and resent me, the more the fire inside me blazes.”
“!”
The king knew that I feared and hated him, and at the same time, wanted to run away.
Ah, I should have at least pretended. Instead, my true self only ended up fueling this man’s fire even more.
Grip.
"Ah!"
With his other hand, he grabbed my breast firmly and pulled away the hand that was covering my lips. Then, his lips immediately met mine.
To think that kissing and being intimate with someone who had no feelings would feel this hopeless.
Still, I couldn’t push him away.
Even if I couldn’t pretend to like it, I had to at least fake not hating it. That was the only way to help calm the fire burning inside this king.
His soft tongue probed inside my mouth as he roughly tore and yanked at the clothes covering my chest.
Without giving the jeogori a moment to loosen, the king violently pulled aside the dishevelled garment, exposing my chest covering, and then twisted the exposed nipple tightly with his hand.
"Ugh"
“I heard General Hunmu woke up this morning.”
My eyes snapped open. He woke up this morning?
Then, while I was resting comfortably for three days, he was bedridden from the sahal punishment?
I was supposed to remain motionless — I had to — but at the king’s words, my body stiffened like a wooden plank, and before I knew it, I involuntarily moved my arms as if to cover my exposed chest.
As if he had anticipated it, the king’s lips moved down at that moment and bit sharply on the nipple he had been twisting.
“It hurts!”
A cry finally tore from my lips as he bit the other nipple just as cruelly.
The king’s hand immediately slipped inside my chima and caressed the smooth, dry skin, just like four days ago.
Every touch felt like an uncomfortable foreign sensation.
The biggest problem was that the more discomfort I felt, the more blood rushed to the area beneath the king’s pelvis, pressing firmly against me.
Swish, swish.
"Hng!"
Each time the king's hand swept over my dry skin, the friction between our flesh made me so uncomfortable that my legs twitched. I felt pain and dislike even from such touches, so how severe must General Hunmu’s sahal punishment have been for him to remain unconscious for three days?
“At this rate, we’ll see blood again today.”
The king muttered as his hand touched skin that wasn’t damp at all.
Then, just like the first time, he lowered himself and buried his face between my legs. Without even fully removing my chima, his lips slipped between my thighs and, despite the darkness and complete lack of moisture, found my clitoris and began sucking on the dry region.
Unlike his emotionless eyes and frightening words, his tongue moved softly over my skin, preparing my body to accept him.
Slurp.
Perhaps because it was dark, the sound of the king’s tongue licking my bare skin seemed to echo loudly, almost like it was amplified through a microphone.
I wanted to cover my ears.
"Your Majesty."
“!”
It was then.
Suddenly, I heard the eunuch outside calling for the king.
Even as I whipped my head toward the door in alarm, wondering if I’d misheard, the king kept sucking at my skin, unfazed.
Surely the eunuch couldn’t be unaware of what was happening — yet soon, I saw the silhouette of him kneeling at the doorway.
“I humbly apologise. I have urgent news to report.”
I struggled to rise from where I was lying. But the king’s hand gently yet firmly held me down as his mouth sucked even harder on my clitoris.
Even with the eunuch speaking outside, his tongue only pushed in deeper.
“Buyeon [1] Yuhwa is said to be very ill and bedridden. Her fever is so high that she cannot even take porridge. Though court physicians have visited more than once, there has been no sign of recovery."
Who was Buyeon Yuhwa? In any case, in this kind of hot weather, having a high fever could be truly dangerous.
But the king gave no reply. Instead, he stayed focused on caressing my body, and in the end, I couldn’t hold back and grabbed his shoulder.
What scared me was that the king’s lips, which hadn’t stopped even when the eunuch spoke, finally paused the moment I grabbed his shoulder.
Rustle.
The king slipped out from beneath my chima and wiped his lips with his hand before looking at me.
At first, the darkness was pitch black, but after a while, I could make out just enough of the king’s face to recognise it.
Though touching the king’s body could be considered a sin, I glanced once toward the eunuch outside, then back at him, silently conveying through my actions that I had no choice.
"Since when did this start?"
“!”
The king finally responded to the eunuch’s words.
But in the next moment, my body was turned over, and I was suddenly lying face down with my buttocks pressed against the king’s pelvis.
He held me so tightly that I couldn’t move at all, and soon, in that position, he loosened his waistband and rubbed his hardened penis along the cleft of my buttocks.
Barely able to keep myself steady, I panicked and tried to shift my legs, but before I realised it, his penis that had been rubbing against my buttocks was already at the entrance of my vagina.
“They say she has been like that since around noon yesterday.”
Rustle.
“!”
"Since yesterday, huh?"
He was crazy. This king was truly insane.
As he responded to the eunuch in a nonchalant tone, I suddenly felt my vagina begin to part as the glans pressed in.
I didn’t even struggle; instead, fearing that a moan might escape, I pressed my lips so hard with my hand that it hurt, and the king, rather than hesitating, pushed his penis in with even more force.
"Hngh! ...!"
No matter how tightly I covered my mouth, the sensation of his penis entering my not properly lubricated vagina couldn’t completely muffle my anguished moans.
The pain, as intense as with my first time, made my eyes snap wide open.
“Did they say her life is in danger?”
Jolt.
“!”
The strength in my waist gave out, and I collapsed. My legs trembled uncontrollably from how tense my body had become.
The king gripped and lifted only my hips, raising me so that half of his penis slid inside. The pain made me writhe like a snake, and then, with a sudden, rough thrust from him, my mind went completely blank.
He, who had been unhesitatingly pleasuring below my pelvis with his mouth, warning that I might bleed, suddenly changed his attitude for some reason. But I was so focused on stifling my moans that I had no mental space to wonder why.
“That is not the case, but I heard she cannot get up easily.”
Fwop
“!”
I gritted my teeth. The king’s penis was fully inside, reaching the entrance of my womb.
My waist had gone limp, and my face was already touching the floor, but in that moment, even though saliva was dripping, I was too overwhelmed to even swallow it.
Fwop
Fwop
“She’s not at death’s door, and yet you came all the way here late at night just to deliver that news.”
Fwop
“Hrk!
Another moan escaped. Amid the sharp pain and the tense struggle to keep the eunuch from hearing, my body felt as if it were being torn into thousands of pieces.
Crazy bastard. Truly a mad king. I wanted to shove him away and scream at him, calling him a madman.
“I apologise, Your Majesty. Even after a day has passed, there is still no improvement…”
I could no longer clearly hear what the eunuch was saying. The sensation of the penis pistoning at a pace far from slow filled my mind completely, and I bit my lower lip hard enough to taste the metallic tang of blood, enduring with all my might.
Rustle.
Before I knew it, the king’s hand wrapped around my waist and lifted me up. Then, grabbing my swaying breasts roughly, he moved his hips rhythmically. Even when he occasionally twisted my nipples, it couldn’t compare to the pain I felt deeper down near my pelvis, so I barely felt any discomfort.
He surely knew that the pain I was feeling wasn’t insignificant, but he was doing this deliberately.
The eunuch, receiving no response from the king, stood up and said he would come again tomorrow.
But then the king turned my head until my neck ached to kiss me, and after sucking my tongue deep enough that the base hurt, he spoke toward where the eunuch was standing.
"Prepare to depart. I will see for myself how ill she is."
・・・・・
I gasped for breath.
Just like during our first time, the king ejaculated outside without a condom. He then put his dishevelled clothes back on to go meet someone named Buyeon Yuhwa.
The moment his hand left me, I collapsed forward as if crumpling down, my kneecaps and vagina throbbing. Like a fallen leaf, I stayed frozen in that position, only gasping for breath.
The king, now fully dressed, seemed to look at me for a moment, but soon closed the door without a hint of hesitation and left.
“...”
Only after the king and the eunuch had completely disappeared — so that not even their silhouettes were visible — did I curl up like a shrimp and close my eyes.
I needed to wash up, and I had to put these clothes back on even though they were all ruined and torn, but I felt so worn out that I couldn’t even move my hands.
He, who could take any woman he fancied whenever he passed by, how much longer would he keep holding me like this without warning?
It felt as if the barely healed flesh had been torn open again.
The palace maid came into the room belatedly, but I stayed lying face down for a long time without opening my closed eyes.
Now, not even tears would come.
・・・・・
The next day, eunuchs I had never seen before appeared where I was staying. They said the king himself wished to grant any requests I might have and told me to let them know if I needed anything.
Unable to sit because of the throbbing pain, I lay down with my head lowered, staring at them for a long time as they waited for me to speak.
What was the point of wearing those bulky, oppressive clothes in this heat?
Maybe because of what happened yesterday, I had grown to hate this palace even more, and everything was starting to irritate me.
"Please make a flower garden."
After a long silence, that was all I finally said. My will to return home had greatly weakened, but unable to ease my frustrated heart, I simply wanted to snap off a few flowers for comfort.
The eunuchs exchanged puzzled glances at my words, but soon bowed their heads and stepped back.
And that very day, a crowd of labourers came bustling in, and by the next day, a fairly large flower garden had been created not far from where I was staying.
I felt sorry for the nameless people who, under the blazing sun without even a drop of cold water, had created the flower garden at my single request. But gripped by anxiety that the king might come again at any moment, I repeatedly snapped off the heads of the flowers they had painstakingly planted.
Then the thought crossed my mind that maybe, after holding me as if to violate me, the king still felt some pangs of conscience, which was why he had this garden made for me.
I awkwardly wandered around the flower garden, like a puppy about to relieve itself. Unlike me, who looked at the flowers absentmindedly, the palace maid was overjoyed, saying it had been a long time since she’d seen so many flowers since childhood.
Since there was so little to enjoy or be satisfied with, I felt both pity and envy toward those who could find happiness in such small things.
I turned away from the sight of the flowers I had snapped, lying scattered on the ground. The energy I had spent just the day before still hadn’t fully recovered, so even though it was hot, I wanted to go inside and lie down. But I had to stop again before long.
"I didn’t expect you to like flowers."
Unlike me, the king appeared in perfect condition, accompanied by a eunuch.
The midday heat that had felt so oppressive seemed to cool in his presence. It wasn’t merely because he was king — the aura he gave off was powerful in itself. Whether intentional or not, the atmosphere he created made me not want to meet his gaze, so I bowed my head under the pretence of a greeting.
Though part of me still wanted to shout that he was a madman and strike him hard on the chest, I held back again, knowing I wasn’t the only one who would suffer from such an outburst.
The king approached me with steady, unhurried steps. He soon gestured to the attendants to step back before surveying the carefully arranged flower garden. After the palace maid and the eunuch left together, even though the place was wide open, it felt as if the king and I were alone in a secluded room.
He was walking ahead of me, but whenever I saw his back, the moments when he held me close and moved his waist came vividly back to life.
“Do you know what flowers are planted here?”
“...I do not.”
“They are called (Korean) azaleas.”
The (Korean) azaleas [2], which people supposedly ate during the barley famine to stave off hunger, were blooming in the palace. It felt deeply ironic, but what worried me was that while I had memorised so many English words, I couldn't even recognise a single azalea — a sign of how poor my general knowledge had become.
But what did it matter now whether the flowers before me were azaleas or tulips? After holding me so violently, then casually reappearing and speaking to me the next day, all I wished for now was for the king to leave quickly.
"Were you hurt from being roughly handled that night?"
The king, touching an azalea flower with his index and middle fingers, asked. Back then, I had to grit my teeth to hold back a moan as he deliberately thrust in faster, and now, as if feigning concern, he asked that question — I didn’t respond.
The king then turned his head to look at the hem of my chima before finally meeting my eyes.
If I had caught the eye of some official other than General Hunmu and entered the palace, would I have been able to unleash my anger on him without worrying about anyone else?
But after briefly meeting his eyes, the urge to shout that he was a madman had already vanished, so I asked in a voice completely devoid of strength.
“…Why does the king continue to look at me this way?”
The king, who had been walking ahead, stopped abruptly at my question. Perhaps I was the first to ever ask such a question.
Like a heavy gate creaking open, the king turned toward me and came closer. The moment I saw him approaching, I turned my head to avoid him, but his hand grasped it nonetheless.
Even so, I still wanted to ask.
With my dyed brown hair and double eyelids — not exactly the classic Korean look — why did he keep making me stay by his side as if I were a favoured palace maid?
"My hair colour is different, and though my face seems similar, it’s definitely different — so why do you keep treating me so specially..."
"I wonder."
“...”
"What reason do you think there is for that?"
"...I don't know..."
"I myself don’t know the reason — that’s why I keep seeking you like this."
While the king spoke, his eyes briefly closed and opened — it was an obvious sign of fatigue even I could sense.
Despite feeling it was a bit risky, I met his gaze again, and his long finger lightly brushed down my lower lip.
"But it’s probably better for you that I don’t know the reason. If I did, would I just leave you alone — the one who bothers me?"
Have I become someone who bothers the king?
From when, I wonder.
"By the time all the flowers here have withered, you will understand."
Flinch.
The king suddenly spoke those words and yanked me sharply by the waist, making me hold my breath.
In this bright daylight, seeing him up close, the flowered background that didn’t suit the king blurred away, revealing his rather long eyelashes and distinct black pupils.
"Until then, you’ll have to firmly establish your place in this palace. One by one, people who see you as a thorn in their side will emerge."
“!”
"Bearing my child will be the only way for you to survive in this palace — for winning my heart will be no easy task."
Translator's Corner:
[1] 'Buyeon' (부연이) is a term in this story used to refer to a candidate who has not yet become queen.
[2] These refer to 'Korean azaleas,' 'Korean rhododendron,' or 'Rhododendron mucronulatum' (Jindallae - 진달래), which are native to the Korean peninsula and are edible (tasting slightly sour). They are used in 'hwajeon', which are small Korean pan-fried rice cakes made of glutinous rice flour, honey and edible petals from seasonal flowers. ⚠️ However, keep in mind that other species of azaleas and rhododendrons are actually poisonous. ⚠️
Soure: https://sesamesprinkles.home.blog/2020/05/31/flower/
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