Fated to Love: a Joseon Love Story
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 10: The Crown Princess Receives a Visitor
Sena sent no advance notification.
She thought about it — the correct protocol for a Second Princess requesting an audience with the Crown Princess was well established and her governess could have arranged it through the appropriate channels in a single morning. She thought about it and decided against it because advance notification gave Jiyeon time to prepare a formal reception, which meant court ladies and ceremonial tea and the careful choreography of two women of rank meeting as their positions required them to meet.
That was not the conversation she wanted to have.
She went on a Thursday afternoon when the court was occupied with a ministerial assembly that would keep every significant official and their attending staff busy until the evening meal. She brought one junior attendant — enough for propriety, not enough for ceremony — and presented herself at the Crown Princess’s residential entrance with the composure of someone who has decided to do something and sees no reason to be uncertain about it.
The senior court lady who managed Jiyeon’s household looked at the Second Princess standing at the entrance on a Thursday afternoon without notification or ceremony and made a rapid assessment.
“One moment, Your Highness.”
She was back in less than that.
“The Crown Princess will receive you.”
Oh Jiyeon was not what Sena had expected.
She had constructed an image from the information available — eighteen years old, trained from twelve, the palace’s open secret, the woman who had redirected the Crown Prince’s considerable appetite so completely that he now required restorative tonic from the palace physician on a regular basis. She had expected someone overtly formidable. Someone whose power announced itself.
Jiyeon was sitting at her writing table in an everyday robe with her hair in a simple arrangement and an open book in front of her, and she looked up when Sena entered with an expression of genuine and uncomplicated interest.
She was beautiful in the way of someone who has never needed to perform beauty because it simply exists in her bones. Her eyes were warm and direct and conducting the same kind of swift assessment Sena recognized from six years of living with Seon — the attention of someone who actually looks at what they’re looking at.
She rose and bowed at the correct depth.
Sena returned it.
They regarded each other across the room for a moment.
“Second Princess.” Jiyeon’s voice was low and composed and carried a thread of something — not quite amusement, something more generous than amusement. “Please sit.”
Sena sat. Jiyeon sat across from her. A junior attendant appeared with tea and was dismissed with a gesture that cleared the room of everyone except the two of them.
Jiyeon looked at her visitor. “You came without notification.”
“I did.”
“Which means you wanted a conversation rather than an audience.”
“Yes.”
Jiyeon picked up her tea. “I appreciate the distinction.” She drank. Set the cup down. “You have been married ten days.”
“Yes.”
“And you have come to see me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sena looked at the Crown Princess of Joseon across the tea table with the directness she had learned from a boy in a palace alcove and applied to everything since. “Because your reputation in this palace is considerable. And I am fourteen years old with ten days of experience and you have been married for months to a man who apparently requires medical assistance to keep pace with you.” She paused. “I want to know what you know.”
The silence that followed lasted perhaps four seconds.
Then Oh Jiyeon laughed — a real laugh, unguarded, the laugh of a woman who has been surrounded by careful court language for months and has just been spoken to in plain human terms.
“Second Princess,” she said, when she had recovered herself. “I think I am going to like you very much.”
The court ladies positioned outside the Crown Princess’s reception room heard nothing through the closed doors except the occasional sound of conversation, the murmur of voices in discussion, once the sound of both women laughing simultaneously. This was unusual enough to note and sufficiently ambiguous to prevent any useful conclusions from being drawn.
They waited.
Inside the room Jiyeon had set aside her tea and settled into her chair with the ease of someone who has been given permission to be entirely herself, which did not happen frequently in the palace and which she intended to make the most of.
She looked at Sena — fourteen years old, composed, looking back at her with those direct dark eyes — and thought about her own mother’s training and the years of careful preparation and everything she had been built to be.
No one had ever asked her to simply share it.
“Your mother trained you,” Sena said.
“From twelve. Yes.”
“In everything.”
“In everything.” No hesitation, no softening of it. “She was thorough.”
“Did you mind it?”
Jiyeon considered this with the honesty it deserved. “I minded some of it. The early years — understanding what I was being prepared for without fully understanding what it meant. But my mother was not wrong about the world. The instruments she gave me are better than the ones most women have.” She looked at Sena steadily. “You are asking me something more specific than that.”
“Yes.”
“Ask it.”
Sena set down her cup. “I made a declaration to my husband before we were married. That I would not be outdone by you. I meant it. I still mean it.” She looked at Jiyeon with the composure of someone who has decided to be embarrassed by nothing. “I want to know what I don’t know.”
Jiyeon was quiet for a moment. The warm direct eyes assessed the young woman across from her with complete attention.
“You love him,” Jiyeon said. It was not a question.
“Since I was eight years old.”
“And he loves you.”
“Since he was ten.”
Jiyeon was quiet again. Something moved through her expression that Sena couldn’t fully read — something private, quickly contained.
“That is already something I cannot teach you,” Jiyeon said. “What happens between two people who know each other that way — that is not a skill. My mother could not have prepared me for it because it cannot be prepared for.” She leaned forward slightly. “But I can teach you something equally important. Listen carefully, because this matters.”
Sena waited.
“Sex is not about dominance,” Jiyeon said. “It’s about partnership. Your pleasure and his pleasure are not separate things fighting for priority. They’re part of the same conversation. The best sex happens when you both understand that your pleasure matters equally.”
She settled back. “My mother trained me to manage men. She was right that there’s skill in that. But she missed something crucial. A man who only cares about his own finish is a man who hasn’t learned how to pay attention. A man who understands that your pleasure comes first isn’t being submissive — he’s being smart. Because when you’re properly aroused, when you’re ready, when your body is at the right temperature, the sex is better for him too.”
“How?”
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