*Kyuhyun's POV*
Emperor Cho Kyuhyun, the highest ruler in all of Korea, descendant of gods... was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, balancing his calligraphy brush on his upper lip. He stared down at the scroll in front of him, wondering if there was some way to reverse the decision before it was too late.
Of course, just the fact that he had the scroll was evidence that it was already too late, but that didn't stop him from hoping.
The message was from his mother, and hadn't even been written for him. It was a decree, to all of the noble families, that the emperor would be searching for a wife, and that they were all to send their most beautiful, skilled daughters to the palace, so Emperor Kyuhyun could choose a wife.
He flopped onto the floor, his hand over his face, groaning. His awful mother, deciding these things without telling him. His father had died two years ago, and so Kyuhyun had become the emperor, although many days it felt like it was his mother that really held the throne.
"Your Majesty, do I have permission to enter?" he heard just outside the entrance to his chamber.
He grumbled a "yes", and his closest friend, his personal attendant, entered.
The man was just less than a year younger than him, and Chinese. Kyuhyun was never able to pronounce his name, so he always referred to him as "Attendant Lau" or by the childhood nickname he'd been given, "Chipmunk", for his large cheeks. He'd been an orphan near the border of China, and had been adopted by one of the noble families, and so Emperor Kyuhyun had grown up with him.
"Your Majesty, you won't get anything done if you lay there sulking."
"I will sulk if I want to! I am the king!" he half-shouted, half-grumbled. Attendant Lau, of course, only laughed. "And a fine king you are, letting your mother trick you into marriage."
It was true. If Kyuhyun refused, every single one of the noble families would be insulted. Still, he hated the idea of having women lined up in front of him like soldiers. It wasn't that he hated women-- he merely wished to be able to choose without the pressure of nobility or his mother breathing down his neck. In these circumstances, he could end up with an empty-headed little girl with not a thought in her brain but jewelry and power. Just the idea gave him nightmares.
"She'll pay for it somehow," Kyuhyun declared, sitting up. Not that he knew how, exactly, that would happen. If it hadn't been for Attendant Lau, he wouldn't even have known about it yet.
"If you insist, your majesty. Now, are you planning on dressing appropriately for the court, or would you rather greet your ministers in your under-robes? If you dressed like that to greet your future brides, I'm sure they'd faint."
Kyuhyun glared at him, hating the smug grin on that Chipmunk's face, and demanded some assistance on preparing himself.
~~~~
*Your POV*
"What if he chooses me?" the girl in front of you giggles, while you fiddle with the folds of fabric that cloak her, trying to decide if there were any changes you need to make.
She was a nobleman's daughter, of course. No one else would have been invited to be the Emperor's bride. She was a frequent customer to your family's silk shop, and so you knew each other well. She had always been very free with her thoughts to you, and you, more or less, considered her a friend.
"Just think of it!" She exclaims again, her cheeks rosy. "The king's bride! I hear he's quite handsome."
You pull the pins out of your mouth and raise an eyebrow at her. "You hear? You mean you don't know?"
