🚨 Warning: This chapter includes depictions of unconsensual sex under unequal power dynamics (in the latter half). Please remain mindful of this as you read. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to stop reading. 🚨
・・・・・
After arriving at the palace, my clothes were soaked with sweat from the long journey, so bathwater was prepared immediately. Normally, Bin would have taken care of it in place of the court ladies, but this time, she didn’t.
Unexpectedly, the king returned to his chambers without a word as soon as we arrived. Then, through the chief court lady, he had me brought to a place I had never seen before.
It turned out to be a bathing area at the back of the palace, reserved for the king’s own use.
Since my presence had not yet been properly introduced to the people of the palace, going into the bath together would give everyone plenty to talk about. However, I could not disobey his command.
The court ladies, carrying my change of clothes, stood on either side of the closed doors and opened them as I approached. The room was filled with thick steam, and I hesitated for a moment, unable to see the king immediately, but when I stepped inside, the doors closed behind me.
The bathhouse was far larger and more luxurious than I had imagined, so I couldn’t spot the king right away. Only after stepping further in did I notice his silhouette leaning in the steam.
I noticed him late because of the steam, but it seemed he had been watching me from the moment I entered.
Our eyes met, and I awkwardly lowered my head in a gesture of respect. The king, holding a cup of cheongju (rice wine), raised it to his lips and drank, silently gazing at me.
Unlike in the forest earlier, just looking at him now made my legs feel frozen from the oppressive pressure he gave off.
That’s right, this was the kind of person he really was. The gentle figure who had entrusted me with raising Narae — that wasn't the real him.
“Could I kill you?”
Flinch.
The king set down his cup and, moving his hand slowly, asked a question that was anything but light. It was clear he had been displeased with my earlier act of running through the forest, ignoring everything else. Unable to respond, I saw him gesture for me to come closer.
I was scared, but not wanting to upset the king, whose mood seemed clearly displeased, I gently lifted the heavy hem of my chima and walked up to the bath where he was.
“In the forest, didn’t you lift your chima enough to show both your legs? And now — what would you do if the hem touched the water?”
There was a sting in his words. I slightly averted my gaze and pressed my lips together.
Then the king suddenly rose and came closer to where I was standing. For a moment, my eyes flickered with unease, wondering if I should try the lie I had thought of earlier, but he grabbed my chin with his wet hand.
“…About what happened earlier.”
“Watching you run off without a trace of hesitation, I was startled for the first time in a long while — so much that a sharp pain rose in my chest.”
"...I'm sorry..."
“Who are you, that you dare startle me, the king?”
“She resembled the grandmother I’ve followed since I was little… earlier, I didn’t fully—”
Clench.
"Ah!"
"Answer me. Do you think I could kill you?"
The grip on my chin was so firm that it was hard to open my mouth. Though his face was expressionless, his eyes were sharp as he questioned me, and I slowly nodded in response.
Everyone here obeyed the king’s commands, so would it really be so difficult to take my life?
As I nodded, the king’s hand gripping my chin loosened slightly.
“So, even though you thought I could kill you, you disappeared like that before my eyes.”
Swish.
Splash.
“Gasp!”
In an instant, the king’s hand pulled me toward the bath even though I hadn’t taken off my clothes. My body pitched forward, and I squeezed my eyes shut, but fortunately, I fell straight into the king’s chest and didn’t hit the floor.
The water was lukewarm, but the king’s hand that had pulled me into the bath, the same hand that had gripped my chin moments before, now seized my wet jeogori and yanked it down roughly. The garment slid from my shoulders with a sting and tore with a sharp rip, making me shrink back, but the king wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me hard against his body.
“After spending only a few days here, have you too, like the other courtiers, become unafraid of death?”
“No… it’s just that… I thought I had met someone I once knew, and I had no time to think of anything else.”
“That remark tells me my existence means only that much to you.”
Not only in the palace, but all the people living here would have had no room to pay attention to anything else in the king’s presence. And for the king, who had been accustomed since childhood to such gazes and care, the sight of me running off without looking back was surely something he had never experienced before.
Moreover, since the king had gone all the way to that deep forest temple because of me, my actions were certainly enough to make him angry.
But what could I do? I had a place to return to, and if I could, I would have left immediately.
I opened my mouth, intending to tell another lie to ease the king’s mood, but before I could speak, his hand covered my lips.
“I, too, can make it so that you had no time to think about anything else.”
Jolt.
“Today, I certainly want to do that.”
・・・・・
Splash.
Splash.
"Hangh! Hnnngh!"
Water spilled endlessly out of the bath. The hand gripping my waist didn’t let go, driving my hips upward, and I could barely keep my balance.
Thwack!
Splash!
"Hng! Huah... Ha!"
Gasping as if my lungs would burst, I clung to the king, but he, showing no sign of relenting, thrust into me forcefully again.
With my clothes soaked, I had nowhere to run, and as long as the king didn’t permit it, I couldn’t get out of this bath.
I forgot about the elderly woman, whose one eye had turned white. Even Madam Gyeongin, who had been startled at the sight of Narae and exclaimed, “What’s with this puppy?” and Bin’s face, too, gradually faded from my memory.
Swish.
"Haaa…"
The king’s penis slipped out for a moment. But it wasn’t because he meant to stop — it was only to change position.
He turned my body, pressing himself close as he tried to enter me from behind. But because he was taller, our bodies didn’t align, and so he pushed me forward, making me bend down instead.
Gripping the wooden tub with my hands and pushing my hips out, I felt him enter me. The vivid memory of the pain from the last time, when I had been forced, surged back — but this time, it was different.
Perhaps because of the fluids, his penis slid in smoothly, immediately finding its way inside, and the thrusting began again.
Splash.
Thwack!
I bit my lower lip hard. Having run down as soon as I saw the elderly woman, and with today's trip from the temple, it had already been a physically exhausting day.
But with his relentless, forceful movements showing no sign of stopping, I couldn’t think of anything else and even worried that all my strength might drain away. It felt as if I might lose my grip on the bath and collapse face-first to the floor.
Thwack!
Thwack!
The king’s pelvis moved in a piston-like rhythm, striking my hips faster than before. Thinking he might finally climax, I instinctively tensed my lower body beneath him, though no one had ever taught me to. At that moment, I desperately wanted it to stop so I could rest.
When I tensed, he seemed to feel the tightening inside me. Gripping my hips and squeezing my breasts with his hands, he thrust violently. His penis, which had slipped out, drove back in as if to pierce me. Unlike before, when he would pull out just before climaxing, this time he didn’t — he ground deep inside my womb as he came.
"Ha..."
But even knowing that, I had no strength to lift a hand, and my hips sank down as if collapsing.
The noisy splashing of the water subsided, leaving only my moans drifting in the steam. With my hair wet and my body limp, I couldn’t even think of lifting myself, so I leaned my head against the wood and closed my eyes until my breathing eased.
All I could think about was that it was finally over.
However, the king, having turned my body around, still flaunted his firm body and revealed his desire for me.
Even in the water, he caressed my dry, chapped lower lip with his hand and pulled my body close again, and I held onto him with hands that had barely any strength left.
“...”
“…No… more… mmph!”
His lips met mine, as if swallowing my exhausted voice, and his tongue soon explored me completely, just as before, while his hand grasped my nipple.
At the king’s gesture, which showed he had no intention of stopping, I suddenly found myself thinking that if I could do it with my mouth instead, I would.
The moment our lips parted, my feelings were clearly written on my face. Seeing his penis engorged again, I finally opened my mouth, knowing full well how outrageous it was.
"It’s… too hard to do… maybe I should… just do… something else…"
I couldn’t explicitly say ‘mouth’ or ‘hand,’ but my meaning was clear enough. Even after expressing myself that far, I had expected some kind of reaction, yet the king only looked down at me with his imperious gaze.
When the thought of having to do it again crossed my mind, every muscle in my body seemed to cry out in protest, and I shook my head.
Was there really no way to stop the king in this situation?
I recalled the words the king had spoken to me when I first came here. He asked if he could kill me, said he could make it so I wouldn’t have a moment to think of anything else, and that he was determined to do exactly that.
The king was angry because I had ignored him and moved on my own to look for the elderly woman.
In that case…
"Seeing someone familiar in an unfamiliar place… I let my emotions get the better of me. It won’t happen again."
My eyelids were so heavy that I closed them for a moment and then opened them again.
"Stop… please. That’s enough… I don’t have the energy to think about anything else."
“...”
“From now on, I won’t move on my own when the king is by my side…”
I had no idea how much time had passed since I entered this place. Yet the moment I finished speaking, the king finally embraced me and parted his lips, which had been silent until then.
“Don’t disappear from my sight without my permission.”
“...”
"You must not go anywhere without my permission."
Nod, nod.
Seeing me nod obediently, the king lifted my utterly exhausted body, which seemed to be melting in the water, and set me down outside the tub in one motion.
Then he wrapped me in a neatly folded cloth and let me rest against his shoulder.
Exhausted from the long walk and everything I’d endured, my heavy eyelids closed the moment I leaned against the king’s shoulder. I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep right there, but with him beside me and knowing who he was, I forced myself to stay awake.
But I couldn’t help being drawn deeper and deeper into sleep.
"Yewon."
Like in a dream, the king’s voice reached me, distant and faint. I was so exhausted that I barely managed to move my fingers just enough to let him know I was listening.
"The more I think about you, the more extraordinary a woman you are. You haven’t even been here long, and yet you’ve already shaken me like this."
I felt like I should answer, but my lips wouldn’t move, and I could barely hear the king’s voice anymore.
As I pressed my head more heavily against his shoulder than before, the king immediately pulled me firmly into his arms.
"Stay by my side."
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