Chaebol Princess
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 8
The script said kiss and Eun Bae read it three times to make sure she had understood correctly.
She had understood correctly.
She set the script down and picked up her barley tea and looked at Oh Sung Pil across the table with the expression she used when a situation required additional information before she could form a position.
“Episode four,” Oh Sung Pil said. “The reconciliation scene. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess have been separated by the queen dowager’s interference for three episodes and this is the moment they—”
“I understand the dramatic function,” she said. “I am asking about the physical requirements.”
Oh Sung Pil blinked. “It’s a kiss.”
“On the mouth.”
“Yes.”
“In front of the crew.”
“And the cameras. Yes.” He looked at her carefully. “Is that a problem.”
She looked at him with the expression of a woman for whom problems were things that happened to other people. “Thursday is fine,” she said, and picked her script back up.
Under the table where Oh Sung Pil could not see it she gripped her barley tea cup with both hands hard enough that it was fortunate the cup was ceramic and not porcelain.
She had never kissed anyone.
In Joseon this required no explanation. The entire architecture of court life existed specifically to prevent it. She had spent nineteen years surrounded by protocol designed to ensure that the first man whose lips came within proximity of hers would be her husband in a sanctioned ceremony preceded by six months of formal negotiation between households.
That ceremony had been interrupted by lightning.
She was now scheduled to kiss Kwon Sang-woo on Thursday for the entertainment of the Korean viewing public and eventually seven international streaming platforms.
She sat on Sora’s couch that night with Tangerine on her lap and thought about this with the focused attention she brought to logistical challenges.
Tangerine looked up at her.
“I am aware,” she told him.
He put his head back down.
Sora showed up Wednesday night with her overnight bag, her eleven skincare products in a separate tote, and an expression of someone who had decided her presence was required and was not going to discuss why.
“I’m staying tonight,” she announced, dropping her bag by the door.
“I see that.”
“I thought we could do face masks and watch something.”
“Sora.”
“Yes.”
“You are here because tomorrow I am filming the kiss scene and you want to be nearby in case I require assistance.”
Sora put her tote down next to her bag. “I also genuinely enjoy face masks.”
“Sora.”
“Fine. Yes. Both things are true.” She dropped onto the couch next to Eun Bae, disturbing Tangerine who rearranged himself with the dignity of someone accustomed to inconvenience. “Are you nervous?”
“No.”
“You’re gripping that pillow very hard.”
Eun Bae looked at the pillow. She set it down. “I am not nervous. I am conducting a strategic assessment of an unfamiliar situation.”
“That’s nervous.”
“It is not nervous.”
“Eun Bae. I have seen you face down the queen dowager actress, rewrite three episodes of dialogue in front of the writers’ room, and receive a forty foot billboard of your own face with less expression than most people give a weather forecast.” Sora pulled her knees up to her chest. “If you’re gripping a pillow it’s because something got through.”
Eun Bae looked at her.
Sora looked back with her whole face open the way it always was, everything visible, not a single calculation running underneath.
“I have not,” Eun Bae said, “previously kissed anyone.”
The room was quiet.
Tangerine’s ear twitched.
“Oh,” Sora said.
“In my experience prior to arriving here such things were not—” She stopped. Recalibrated. “It simply had not occurred.”
“Okay,” Sora said carefully. “Okay. So tomorrow will be your first—”
“On camera.”
“Right.”
“In front of forty crew members.”
“Yes.”
“With a man who has won three Baeksang awards.”
“He really has,” Sora agreed faintly.
They sat with this for a moment.
“He’s a complete gentleman,” Sora said. “Every actress he’s worked with says the same thing. He checks in before every take, he’s completely professional, he won’t make it weird. He’s never once—”
“Sora.”
“Sorry.”
“I am not concerned about Sang-woo ssi’s professionalism.”
“Then what are you concerned about.”
Eun Bae looked at the middle distance for a moment. Then she said, with the precision of a woman choosing her words from a limited and carefully considered supply: “I am concerned about my own.”
Sora opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Face masks,” Eun Bae said firmly. “You mentioned face masks.”
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