Chapter Text
“What do you think, Hyeri-yah?” Yeonjun calls to his maid, eyeing his reflection appreciatively as he lifts his chin and arches his neck gracefully to show off the long golden pin he just fixed into his hair. “Don’t I wear it better than the queen?”
Kneeling just behind him and to his right, Hyeri meets his eyes through the mirror for a split second—eyes rounding with fear—and then ducks her head in a frantic bow, avoiding his smug stare. “M-my lord, please. I dare not- it’s not my place!”
Yeonjun smirks, pleased by her overreaction.
She dare not say it’s not his place to wear this pin is what she means. He knows it isn’t, but he’s going to do it anyway. That’s the whole point.
“Mm…but I’m not really a lord today, am I?” he quips in his best demure tone, smoothing his hands down the length of his red satin chima. On top is a creamy ivory colored jeogori, the intricate golden embroidery cupping his shoulders perfectly matching his new pin.
“Forgive me, lady,” Hyeri corrects quickly, eyes lowering even more. The tips of her ears are red.
Just like the other servants at the palace, she always takes everything so seriously. Rightly so, as stepping out of line beyond one’s station may result in actual flogging or being banished from the capital in disgrace. Or worse.
Only Yeonjun is brave enough to display any personality in this place. It’s frustrating and dead boring .
It’s even more frustrating that the same day King Yeonsan-gun raised him to first rank bin amongst the concubines he also appointed him with a personal maid as if to emasculate him or ridicule him. It’s hardly proper for a man to have a woman waiting upon him, but for one thing he is extremely gay, and for another it’s rather difficult to get into any of the more fussy petticoats and female formal wear without help.
Still, he’s quite capable of dressing himself and he appreciates having his own little minion to terrorize or send out on secret missions. There’s not nearly enough entertainment within these walls for his tastes, and so Yeonjun has no choice but to create his own drama.
He’s sure to be making history already.
“Whatever,” Yeonjun murmurs without heat. He pouts his lips, admiring the slick sheen of freshly applied red stain. Beautiful. “Don’t fret; I’m just teasing.”
“I’m grateful for your leniency,” Hyeri mutters quickly, always speaking formally in a way that’s so damn scripted, and Yeonjun sighs loudly through his nose.
He doesn’t care what she or anyone calls him—a blatant ‘I don’t give a fuck’ to how difficult it makes it for them to figure out how to address him appropriately—but the whole capital’s continued confusion over his ever fluctuating fashion choices is getting annoying. Why do gender restrictions and social status matter to them so much?
Why does the shape of one little golden pin matter so much?
He chose it precisely because technically he has no right, and the palace inhabitants will go into an uproar once they see it on his head. No one will care that Queen Shin personally gifted the item to him as a token of her affection; all of them subscribe religiously to the rules stating that dragons are reserved for the royal family alone.
But the rules don’t apply to him. Anyone else who dared to do this could possibly lose their head.
He doesn’t think the king will go so far as to behead him over this, but any number of unpleasant physical punishments are still a risk he contemplates deeply every single time before acting out. Yeonjun has been cautiously raising the stakes the past few months, testing the range of his freedom, testing the magnitude of his worth in the King’s eyes, and even though he’s uncertain of the King’s reaction at least he now has proof that he has earned the Queen’s absolute favor.
This is the right move for more than one reason.
Firstly, demanding the king’s attention like this will ensure the man doesn’t look to his wife to relieve his stress tonight. It will distract him yet again from the agenda of the court officials.
Shin confessed that upon the King’s return from visiting the city this afternoon, the royal doctors would be advising the King that she completed their prescribed fertility treatments, and urge him to maximize his chances of procuring an heir on the most auspicious dates they selected during her current cycle. The first of which is tonight.
She was pale and trembling as she offered him a gift from her personal collection of jewelry, thanking him sincerely for his previous efforts to shield her and silently begging him for just one more round.
He’s glad to give it to her. This is all in his favor, after all.
He knows she doesn’t intend for him to face the king’s displeasure in her stead, but at the same time she has come to rely on him doing so. She is allowed to be selfish to protect herself—she is the Queen of Joseon—but in the end it’s Yeonjun who brings it upon himself. Deliberately.
Anyone else receiving such a gift from their Queen would lock it away and treasure it, not proudly stick it in their hair.
This is how Yeonjun weaponizes every last resource available to him. This is how he remains on top.
And if nothing else, this is how he perpetuates his public persona because the only thing anyone can agree on is that he’s devastatingly beautiful and unpredictably dangerous.
Not as dangerous as King Yeonsan-gun, of course, but Yeonjun has laid down all of his manly pride to ensure that he—and only he—is always within the king’s sweetest graces. He has done it all: from groveling on the floor while begging to be punished to licking the King’s royal balls as if they were divinely crafted.
Whatever he must do, he does it. No one else can do it quite like Yeonjun can.
He cannot afford to lose favor, and he cannot remain idle. He is testing the King for a reason, and he can only hope that it pays off.
He tilts his head until the flickering candlelight atop the vanity catches on the tiny ruby embedded in the dragon’s eye, twinkling as if it’s alive. The pin is heavy and tugs at his hair uncomfortably. It’s pretty tied up at the back of his head like this, yet it’s not quite long enough to make a proper full bun to support the ornament. Strands have escaped to curve around both sides of his face, making him look less of a perfect lady, but it can’t be helped.
It’s a sweet little reminder that the person dressed as fancily as the Queen is, in fact, a man.
This pin is solid gold and totally ostentatious, and will probably end up in a museum some day. He wonders if the plaque will mention the way King Yeonsan-gun’s scandalous male concubine dared to wear it and lived to tell the tale. He’s reasonably certain he’ll live through this, but he’s under no illusion that every single day here might very well be his last.
With his black hair glistening with scented rose oil and his ruby red lips contrasting against perfect white skin, he almost looks like a porcelain doll. Based on the outcomes of their previous encounters, he’s confident that the alluring sight will go a long way towards soothing the King’s ire at his lese-majeste.
His beauty serves him well and he would be a fool not to use it.
He runs his fingers along his hair to smooth it down one final time, satisfied with the final look. He’s ready to go make waves. Again.
When will they ever be fucking big enough?
Hyeri makes a little noise in her throat as he suddenly rises to his feet and sweeps across the room, red skirts swishing around his legs in ripples that catch the candlelight. He feels so pretty. He’s worth so much more than being slandered as the king’s depraved male whore, it’s infuriating.
If he dies today, at least he’ll do so as the most beautiful man this dynasty has ever seen.
Yeonjun needs the King to break the curse he’s under, but that point will be rendered useless if the man kills him first before that happens. So really, if he gets arrested for this he plans to be gone well before judgement is passed.
He has more than one overdue favor to call in from the palace guardsmen. The highest ranked captain Lee Dongil in particular owes him heavily for letting him lose his virginity with the hottest concubine in centuries only to deliver the most unsatisfying thirty second fuck of Yeonjun’s life. His dick didn’t even make it all the way in for fuck’s sake, and now every time he sees Dongil’s face his stomach curls up in absolute disgust.
The man is desperate to keep his pathetic transgressions secret, so much so he would rather abet a criminal and help Yeonjun disappear than be implicated outright. Because not only did he reveal his perversions by touching the king’s precious male lover, he did an absolutely shit job of it.
Meanwhile Yeonjun has no compunctions in exposing his many illicit exploits whenever it suits him, because people should know he only dares to play this game since he knows he can win it.
There are plenty more young unwed lords he has his sights on in the meantime, most notably the tall, rich son of the Minister of Taxes—Choi Soobin. He’s dreamy and positioned perfectly for future leverage. He needs to approach the boy soon and get into his pants before he’s pledged to someone yangban’s daughter and sent away to manage his own lands.
It’s not just the gathering and managing of useful pawns that has his eyes constantly assessing every last man in the capital, it’s also a personal pastime of his. Call him whatever you will, but Yeonjun has a thing for seducing virgins—which is unfortunately what got him into his current cursed predicament in the first place.
He thrives on ruining them for anyone else because they usually lose their minds and abandon all self-control to devour him like the rare treat he is.
He feels worthy and valued by the raw praise and validation he gets in these moments. Feels incredibly powerful when he has a big man wrecked and panting between his legs, desperate to please him and desperate to own him, and that perfect combination of lust and adoration lets him feel exactly how irresistible he is.
He has a proper slobbering fan club within the soldier’s barracks thanks to his stint in jail when he first got transported here, and he’s quite sure those men would die for him should he turn a pouty lip in their direction.
If only the King was so easy to ensnare and manipulate.
He can’t fucking figure the king out, and he hates to be so powerless and at his mercy when anywhere else he goes, Yeonjun is coveted and worshiped. He is the ultimate beauty that anyone would be lucky to meet eyes with. To even speak to.
Some touching, kissing, and a single fuck is all it usually takes to have a man handing over his heart and begging for his.
Yeonjun has always been exceptionally good at this—getting what he wants—and he knows the problem he is having with breaking the curse he’s under doesn’t lie with him . It doesn’t make any sense why the king is not head over heels with him when Yeonjun is actively working at making him fall in love with him. None at all.
The only explanation he can come up with is that the man is severely mentally ill, and if that’s true, then it’s truly hopeless.
How dare Taehyun condemn him with a curse like this when the parameters in breaking it are faulty by default?
It’s the sickest punishment anyone could ever mete out. Yeonjun can’t stand it.
He can’t do anything about it from here but perform for the king and their avid audience, and hope that this time it might be enough to make something shift. To make the king realize that he keeps pardoning him because he likes him.
To make the King realize that he has begun to love him.
It's not like he actually wants to be loved by him—perish the thought—he just needs to be. It will be one-sided, after all.
Hyeri makes another small panicked sound, and Yeonjun pauses just before the door to peer over his shoulder at her directly. She’s staring at the hem of his skirt with wide, stricken eyes. Her face is chalk white, hands clenched in her humble, navy linen chima.
“Don’t worry, babe, no one will blame you for this,” he reassures her playfully. “Oppa will take responsibility.”
Her cheeks flush pink at the endearment or at the implication of what ‘responsibility’ means for him, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders to hide her face. He loves to fluster her and the other maids, loves to intimidate the other concubines and be perceived as scandalous when it’s hardly anything. It takes such little effort.
It takes even less effort to be absolutely gorgeous.
He feels like a queen as he flounces down one corridor after another, strutting across the courtyards and pretending to linger over a young red maple sapling in the lovely autumn-colored gardens, when really he’s just hitting all the high traffic hot spots to show himself off.
It isn’t long at all before someone notices the shape of the pin he’s wearing.
He can hear an elderly lord chattering on about it to anyone in the vicinity, his angry voice carrying across the flagstones.
“How dare that witch wear the symbol of the royal family?” he hisses. “This is unacceptable! I will not stand for any more of this disgraceful behavior.”
Footsteps rush back and forth, voices whispering loudly with intrigue that fills the air with rising tension as a small crowd begins to gather to see what is happening. Yeonjun discreetly peers under his lashes to better ascertain the situation.
He was aiming for a dramatic spectacle, and it seems he has caught one of the more traditional, powerful state officials. The man’s rhino horn waist belt and the embroidered badge on front of his red uniform robe indicates that he’s among the few boasting first rank status. Perfect.
He smiles down at the little tree and waits for it to escalate.
There’s a wide berth around where Yeonjun is standing, but it’s not out of respect. They are either in awe of him or disgusted by him, and most of them feel threatened by his mere existence.
It’s dangerous to get too close to him.
He has worked so damn hard to earn this reputation.
No one wants to be implicated and punished for his indecencies, but they are eager to bear witness to him being ridiculed or disciplined, aren’t they? Again, there’s a horrendous lack of entertainment in this backwards, stuffy place, and it’s the least he can do to provide them with some before he leaves.
Hopefully that will be soon. He is sick and tired of living like this, of pretending he cares for courtly intrigues.
He just wants to go home.
He just wants to be loved, and not by this horrible King.
“Why has no one notified the guards?” the official demands in an outrage. “He should lose his head for this.”
Yeonjun’s smile becomes a smirk and he reaches out to snap a single twig off one branch. He swirls it between his fingers; the sprig of red leaves at the end of it are so bright in the sun. As bright as his ruby red lips, aren’t they?
“Oh, no, no no, my lord,” he chastises quietly, sure that no one is quite close enough to hear him properly. “The head that’s lost will not be mine.”
“What did you say?” the man barks from behind him. Loud footsteps approach. “You dare to speak to me , the Minister of Accounting?”
Yeonjun narrows his eyes and scoffs, but the rude expression is gone when he gracefully spins in place to pin him with his best sultry eyes. The man startles back and gapes theatrically, face redding as he sees how brazenly Yeonjun is dolled up like a woman while staring him directly in the eyes like an equal.
“You dare to look at me?” he cries, flinging his arms out as if trying to gather support. “Outrageous. Arrest this disgraceful pretender at once.”
A meager handful of palace guards rush to his side, expressions uncertain and weapons safely sheathed at their sides. They don’t move to apprehend Yeonjun, just as he expected.
Unfortunately for the Minister, Dongil is among the group, and he wouldn’t dare touch Yeonjun unless it be by direct order of the King himself. His eyes are focused at Yeonjun’s feet, too nervous of him to even look him in the face. Disgusting.
Yeonjun doesn’t pause to grace him with any acknowledgement, just focuses his full attention on his target.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Minister?” Yeonjun wonders with a little coy smile.
“Excuse me?”
“How dare you disrespect me so publicly,” he continues, affecting a confused, hurt expression. “His Majesty will surely be displeased.”
“You- you’re wearing the Queen’s symbol!” he cries, spittle spraying from his mouth to fleck his fluffy little beard. Even more disgusting.
“The Queen gifted it to me personally,” Yeonjun shares, smiling sweetly. “It would be an insult to her to not wear it proudly.”
The man’s eyes bug out of his head, the color of his face now an unpleasant brick red. He may be in danger of popping a vein and Yeonjun hasn’t even really done anything yet. He makes it too easy.
“Y-you’re a man!” the Minister returns incredulously, as if that’s enough reason on its own. “And a cheonmin slave, at that!”
Yeonjun is careful to look disappointed. “You know I’m much, much more than that,” he croons, swaying closer and dropping his voice. “I am the Queen’s delight and the King’s favorite slut, or haven’t you heard?”
The man inhales loudly and his shoulders bunch up as if he’s on the verge of exploding. He is so annoying. And ridiculous.
“How- how- how dare you behave so arrogantly!” he pronounces as if in judgement. It’s hardly enough to subdue Yeonjun in the slightest. “I’ll see you punished for this.”
Yeonjun hums thoughtfully, feigning interest. “Will you, now? That honor is reserved for the…” he trails off, ears pricking as he hears a loud cry go up, coming from just beyond the inner courtyard walls.
His heart begins to patter with anticipation, the thrill of an impending real confrontation heightening all his senses. The King has returned to the palace and he seems to be headed right their way.
Yeonjun is ready to give him a show.
“Oh!” he simpers, exaggerating his delight. “Perfect. Here the King comes now.”
The Minister’s eyebrows furrow, obviously thrown by the way Yeonjun isn’t cowering in fear now that he is caught and about to face the King’s wrath. Yeonjun knows he must face it, but he’s sure it will only happen in the King’s personal chambers.
More specifically in his royal bed. As usual.
Yeonjun purses his lips prettily, affecting concern for the man as he saunters leisurely around the official in a slow circle, his face now composed into a pleasant expression. He carries his little leafy stick like an accessory, twirling it and dancing it nimbly around to tickle the man’s shoulders and smack his ass through his red uniform.
The way he startles and flails around to bat at it like an angry cat is so fucking amusing.
Yeonjun giggles and sticks the leaves in the man’s face. “Go ahead and tell him what you’ll do to me for this, mm?” he coos, caressing his jaw. “Why don’t you make him angry and see what he’ll do—to you .”
The Minister’s lips curl in an angry snarl, and he manages to snatch Yeonjun’s stick. He snaps it between his hands and tosses it aside.
“His Majesty will break you like this twig,” he threatens, but his eyes skitter to the arching gateway in the wall as another cry goes up to indicate the King is swiftly approaching. His forehead is damp with sweat beneath the band of his black samo.
“You’re not wrong,” Yeonjun agrees brightly, clasping both hands to his breast in a girly gesture. “And here’s a juicy tidbit for you: I love it when he’s rough with me. The spanking in particular is spectacular.”
Their spectators gasp loudly at that; Yeonjun is thoroughly enjoying himself at this point.
“How dare you speak so vulgarly of the King!” the official bleats.
It’s clear he is not confident enough to hold his ground, but buttering the King up or acting loyal won’t protect him. Yeonsan-gun murdered his own relatives in cold blood, so what’s the life of one conservative, stuffy official? He has held onto his position tenaciously, one of the few still left from the previous King’s personal cabinet, but Yeonsan-gun has been waiting for a reason to replace him.
The Minister of Accounting doesn’t seem to know how dispensable he is. Whereas Yeonjun is truly one of a kind—irreplaceable—and the King knows that. Intimately.
And so Yeonjun dares .
Yeonjun smiles, serene and unbothered outwardly even as his blood churns through his body with the rising adrenaline. He feels a bit dizzy.
“How dare I, indeed?” he patronizes, lifting his chin to sweep his gaze around the gathered courtiers and servants to scope out the scene. “But who are you to imply the King’s pleasures are unacceptable? His Majesty can indulge however he wishes, can he not?”
No one is brave enough to meet Yeonjun’s eyes…
Except for over there, standing behind the people and nearly out of sight under the shadow of the overhanging grandiose pavilion roof: Queen Shin.
Her ladies flank her respectfully, hands tucked beneath their forest green dangeui and faces tilted demurely down. No one can see her pleased smile except for Yeonjun. It’s gone the instant the herald calls again, voice sounding from just beyond the nearby wall, and as the King enters the vast courtyards at last she turns on her heel and is gone.
Yeonjun will do this for her, sure, but he will reap the full reward.
“The King has arrived,” the servant announces loudly once more as if they hadn’t all heard him yelling about it from the main gate and all the way through each courtyard the King passed.
“My King,” Yeonjun greets loudly as the people all bow low and call out their own respectful vows.
The King’s eyes are immediately upon him, and Yeonjun casts himself down into a deep curtsey before sagging further to settle on his knees. The flagstones are cold and hard through the thin fabric of his skirts, which he twitches skillfully until they billow around his form like plump petals. He dips his chin and carefully ensures he is the picture perfect depiction of polite and lovely. Nothing but a flower for the King to pick as he passes by.
The Minister on the other hand seems to have decided to push his case. The fool.
“Your most esteemed Majesty!” the man cries. “Hear my complaint and punish this slave for appropriating the Queen’s insignia, sire!”
The King pauses and turns a sharp assessing eye upon Yeonjun. He tilts his head to better show him the pin and peers up at him through hooded eyes. He’s pleased to find the King’s attention is hardly captivated by the jewelry, but instead comes to pin hungrily upon his red lips.
He is so damn predictable, which enables Yeonjun to play this role much too well.
Yeonsan-gun stalks across the courtyard and stops directly before Yeonjun. He grabs his chin and tilts his head this way and that—the golden pin no doubt flashing in the sun—but his eyes remain on Yeonjun’s face.
“Pretty, My Lord?” Yeonjun purrs, his voice a velvety seduction.
“Disgusting,” the King huffs on a dismissive breath, and yanks his chin up roughly, straining Yeonjun’s neck.
Yeonjun hates to have that word directed at himself, but coming from this man it hardly means much.
He is taller than the king by far and knows that this pokes holes in the man’s inflated ego. He has gotten used to collapsing to his knees to please his fragile sensibilities regarding height, and the man loves to manhandle him like this to further display his dominance over such an exquisite creature.
Little does he know the whole charade is a calculated maneuver on Yeonjun’s part. No one fucks him around without his consent, not even the fucking tyrant King of Joseon.
The King presses his thumb to the swell of Yeonjun’s lower lip, the waxy red product sticking to the pad of his thumb. It will be so messy if he’s in the mood to spread it around, streaking Yeonjun’s pale cheeks and neck with trails of red. He has done it before with Yeonjun’s actual blood, but Yeonjun has gotten smarter about offering him an illusion in place of being painted in his own pain.
However, his chances of getting away with this without shedding a drop are slim.
Here in front of all these people the king likes to play along and act like all of Yeonjun’s deplorable acts of rebellion or treason are to be met with indifference or tolerance, while anyone else who attempts to mimic him will be punished violently in front of everyone.
Yeonjun will also be punished, but that won’t happen until later. In private.
It’s a game and they are using each other for their own ends, but only Yeonjun is fully aware of it.
King Yeonsan-gun may be manipulative and cruel, but he’s also much too self-centered and self-righteous to ever conceive of the idea that Yeonjun is acting. Or scheming. He is unaware that Yeonjun is not actually in awe of his power, or that the way he falls over himself to please his King is for any other reason than pure devotion.
Yeonjun is simply trying to satisfy his own agenda, and he will both play dirty and get dirtied if he has to.
Because the truth is that Yeonjun doesn’t belong to this time. He got sent back in time and is stuck in Joseon through a curse, and getting the King to fall in love with him is the only way to break it.
If only the King wasn’t an absolute monster through and through.
It's ironic, but Taehyun had the cruelty to call Yeonjun a monster right before he did this to him. Yeonjun is no monster. Not on the inside. Taehyun was supposed to have known that...
He's a pathetic lonely baby, and he never deserved this.
All he ever wanted was for Taehyun to just...for someone to love him, and that right there is the heart of this fucking curse. Yeonjun knows why it isn't breaking.
He knows that it's because he's simply unlovable.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Three days later the Minister of Accounting’s mangled remains are discovered in the nearby woods, and Yeonjun’s own bruises are hidden out of sight beneath his lavish skirts. The King was sure to let him know that he could continue to publicly wear such ornaments unbefitting to his station if he was ready to accept the consequences in private, and Yeonjun boldly begged for more. There was quite a bit of spirited spanking involved.
It was his choice. A calculated move he had to make.
He doesn’t ever get away with his bold moves without personal harm, but in the eyes of the public and the palace inhabitants, he does , and maintaining that untouchable facade is more important than a few injuries that will heal with time.
In the end, he presents the external image he needs to by any means necessary, and the way the esteemed royal couple dote on him and let him get away with one improper behavior after the next is how he protects his position and makes it impossible for anyone to either challenge him or replace him.
But it’s not easy. Or enjoyable most of the time
The dragon hairpin fiasco showed him he could dare and receive bearable consequences, while any threats he is truly scared of have not been utilized in a while now. The sense of being indulged further with each passing day boosts Yeonjun’s certainty that the king is growing even softer for him. Even sweeter on him.
Maybe there will even be feelings soon. Feelings that mean his salvation.
After nearly a year comprised of countless days of fighting tooth and nail to get himself into this position, and countless days of suffering misunderstood and all alone, he’s tired and lonely. No one knows who he truly is or where he came from. His previous life seems like nothing more than a dream now, and that scares him deeply. He is desperate to be done with this alter life. The promise of freedom now just barely out of reach is the only thing that keeps him going.
He can’t wait to leave this god forsaken place once and for all.
And everything seems to be going his way until the day a new concubine is brought to the palace.
She comes in unannounced, and any new addition to the vast number of concubines currently residing at the palace is extremely unwelcome. He doesn't have time to ensure she is subdued and unable to pose a threat to him and his position. How annoying.
The first Yeonjun hears of her, he determines that she will be nothing but trouble.
Apparently Choi Gyuri is an extremely highly sought after ilpae gisaeng who is rumored to be the most talented musician and dancer in the peninsula. Even more sensational is the fact that she is mute.
He is skeptical over the claim that this woman is truly among the highest rank of the gisaeng social class when her lack of voice means she is unable to scintillate her companions with flowery poetry, singing, or witty conversation. He didn’t know it was possible to obtain the title without performing as well as or better than others of the rank, and if it’s all true then her musical talents must be quite impressive.
Or else she also uses her body to please her benefactors—hardly befitting a gisaeng of the highest tier—but how else did she make a name for herself? That’s more likely, but still…It doesn’t make any sense to him.
He has never heard of her. Why has he never heard of her?
More importantly, has she never heard of him?
How dare she come to the palace and approach the King when the whole world knows that there is only one concubine for King Yeonsan-gun, and that position belongs to Yeonjun and Yeonjun alone.
He has to somehow either dispose of Choi Gyuri or use her to his advantage.
She can’t have the king, and against all obstacles if she somehow manages to land herself in the role of queen, she’d learn soon enough just how powerless and subjugated that position is. Such a shift of roles will be out of Yeonjun’s control, and he much prefers being in control of the dynamic as he currently is with Queen Shin, but if it comes to that then he’ll deal with it.
Unless...
Maybe she can become some extra leverage to sway the king’s heart—at last. Maybe cultivating a spot of jealousy is in order. He hopes she is pretty, and young, and disturbingly obedient like all the other women in this place. That would make this all so much easier.
If Yeonjun pretends to be smitten with her and maybe goes so far as to court her, the king might realize he doesn’t own Yeonjun’s heart the way he owns his body. It might make him try to take it for himself, and the only way to do that is to offer Yeonjun his own.
Isn’t it?
He wonders if a simple ‘I love you’ would be enough to satisfy the parameters of the curse. Could it really be so simple?
Who is he kidding? It will most likely end in a flogging for Yeonjun and Gyuri losing her head—literally—but if it causes Yeonsan-gun to fall in love with him enough to break the curse, Yeonjun will no longer be here to see it. He will be home. Back in the timeline in which he belongs. Ready to hunt Taehyun down to give him a little taste of true pain and heartache.
But to ensure that day comes, he needs to show this newcomer who is top slut as quickly as possible. A single gisaeng will hardly have the charisma or support necessary to even dream of competing with Yeonjun. He has invested so much time and care into his position.
It’s cutthroat in the capital, and Yeonjun will do anything to ensure the one that’s cut is not his own.
However, he will be damned if he doesn’t present himself at Choi Gyuri's welcome party as the most intimidatingly powerful adversary this new hopeful has ever been up against. It may be her shining debut, her chance to seduce the king and be chosen above the others as the next potential queen mother, but Yeonjun is determined to ruin it for her.
Once the night is over she will understand she is a nobody and a nothing, and that her place is in Yeonjun’s shadow or under his thumb.
No one will take the King from Yeonjun. No one.