[Kwangya Palace, South Korea, March 2014]

“Your Royal Highness, your dinner with Her Majesty and Her Royal Highness is set to begin in a few minutes,” the Senior Royal Guard to the South Korean Monarchy’s first heir, Captain Kim Minjeong, notified after repeatedly knocking the doors to the royalty’s chambers.

“Thanks for reminding me, Mindoongie. I’ll be right out in a few minutes,” the South Korean Monarchy’s own Crown Princess Yu Jimin uttered after hearing the captain’s statement.

“Very well, Your Royal Highness,” Captain Kim responded curtly before standing in an at-ease posture right outside the royalty’s chambers, patiently waiting for the crown princess to exit the room.

About five minutes after the captain’s reminder, Crown Princess Yu finally stepped out of her chambers with her Head of Royal Lady-in-Waiting, a slightly younger, but taller girl named Shin Yuna, in tow. Captain Kim quickly bowed before the crown princess’ presence before the royalty requested the former to return to her original position. The crown princess was wearing a simple, knee-length, white floral dress for the royal family’s daily dinner agenda, a time where the crown princess and her parents got to freely talk about their day.

“Yuna-ah, you can go back home right now. I can clean myself up tonight. Please just have some rest,” Crown Princess Yu stated towards the taller girl, who instantly thanked the royalty for her kindness and went on a separate way to retreat back to her quarters.

“Shall we go now, Your Royal Highness?” Captain Kim inquired politely after the royalty’s Head of Royal Lady-in-Waiting had been out of their line of sight.

“Lead the way, Minjeong-ah,” Crown Princess Yu replied with a wide smile before following the captain towards the palace’s dining hall.

After a few minutes of walking pass the seemingly quiet and empty halls of the Kwangya Palace, Crown Princess Yu and Captain Kim finally reached their destination, the palace’s dining hall. The captain, then, opened the dining hall’s doors for the crown princess’ entrance before positioning herself on an on-guard position just outside the dining hall. Crown Princess Yu greeted both of her parents cheerily before taking a seat on the left side of her mother, the Queen, who regally sat on the head of a 30-seater dining table, and across her mama, the Queen Consort of the South Korean Monarchy.

“I am sorry that I am late, Mother, Mama. I had just returned from the Nonsan Charity event about an hour ago. I felt the need to take a shower and be dressed properly before having dinner with the two of you,” Crown Princess Yu apologized as soon as she had primly taken a seat on her designated position.

“No worries, my dear. Besides we are still waiting for Yizhuo and your Aunt Seungwan to join us for tonight’s dinner,” the supreme leader of the South Korean Monarchy, Queen Yu Seulgi, said lightly with a huge smile, instantaneously resulting in the creasing of the eyebrows and the wrinkling of the forehead of the monarchy’s first heir.

Upon noticing the distorted expression on her first daughter’s face, the crown princess’ other parent, Princess Yu Joohyun (née Bae), the Queen Consort of South Korean Monarchy and the Royal Princess of the Japanese Empire, stated with a comforting smile, “The reason for your mother and I to extend the invitation of our nightly dinner agenda to your sister and Prime Minister Son is because the two of us have a special announcement to make regarding something that is really important for the future of this monarchy. I hope it is alright with you since we both know that dinner is usually the only time when the three of us get to freely speak with each other.”

Crown Princess Yu let out a sigh of relief after hearing her Mama’s explanation before replying, “It is alright, Mother, Mama. Besides, it has been too long since the four of us sat together in this table for dinner. The two of you have been in and out of the country for the past three months while Yizhuo seems to have constantly been missing from the palace grounds almost every day. Also, it has been too long since I had seen Aunt Wan-ie in a capacity other than formal meetings with other ministers.”

The two parents nodded repeatedly after hearing their daughter’s statement before the three members of the royal family continued their previous conversation.

When they ran out of topic to discuss, the crown princess finally decided to ask, “By the way, Mother, what is tonight’s announcement about though?”

Queen Yu merely smiled coyly upon hearing her first daughter’s query before playfully wiggling her eyebrows and cheekily answering, “Just wait and see, my dear. I do not want to break the fun and surprise.”

Crown Princess immediately shook her head in disapproval as a response to her mother’s mischievous acts before turning her focus on her other parent, who apparently sported an equally disgusted expression, perfectly suited as means to judge on how childish the supreme leader of the South Korean Monarchy could act behind closed doors. Merely a few minutes after the Queen’s seemingly exuberant response to her daughter’s enquiry, the dining hall’s main doors flung open, and a figure stepped inside the said room in a grandiose manner.

The figure stopped on the doorway and raised her arms above her head while standing in a model-like pose before shouting, “Behold, everybody! Rise for the entrance of the best, smartest, most beautiful, and undoubtedly, the most socially active princess within this royal family in this era, Yu Yizhuo!”

“Good evening to you too, Yizhuo,” Crown Princess Yu muttered in an annoyed tone after experiencing a second-hand embarrassment due to what her younger sister had done a few seconds prior.

Queen Yu instantly hollered cheerfully at her youngest daughter’s statement before commenting, “That’s my daughter right there! Woo hoo!”.

Meanwhile, the other and seemingly more responsible parent within the family, Princess Yu Joohyun, Duchess of Daegu, immediately deployed her thumbs to lightly massage sides of her forehead and exhaled a defeated sigh, “Just take a seat, Yu Yizhuo, before I need to have to make one of the maids go and grab me some aspirin.”

“Geez, Mama, Sissy, don’t be such a downer. By the way, what’s up, Mother? I hope you’re not bored whilst being stuck here with only Mama and Jimin unnie here,” Royal Princess Yu opined as she made her way to the left side of her table, as her seat was directly on the left side of her older sister.

The Duchess of Daegu instantly threw a threatening glare towards her youngest daughter’s direction, however the royal princess pretended to not heed her Mama’s seemingly empty threats. Meanwhile, the supreme leader of the South Korean Monarchy merely chuckled at her youngest daughter’s actions before shaking her head to say ‘no’ to the youngest royalty’s statement. The slightly awkward and heavy atmosphere of the palace’s dining hall soon thawed when the monarchy’s first heir began recounting how her day had gone.

“I am truly delighted to see the orphanage homes that we help built in Nonsan and Daejeon are being managed properly by the respective organizations in charge. When I visited them earlier today, the children seems like they are very delighted to live in those homes and I also got to hear interesting stories from those children about their daily lives,” Crown Princess Yu told excitedly as she rehashed her memories on how the visit to the newly minted orphanage homes had gone.

Hearing the thrilling experiences that her older sister got to encounter pushed the royal princess to shyly request, “Minmin unnie, will you take me with you the next time you are visiting one of the orphanages again? I genuinely miss playing with children that are closer to our age.”

“I thought you enjoy your playing time with the company of Aeri and Mindoongie, Yizhuo-ya?” Crown Princess Yu quipped wittily with a teasing smile on her face, inducing the royal princess to instantly sputter out incoherent phrases to defend herself.

The older royalties immediately let out a hearty laugh after seeing how hard the royal princess tried to come up with a clarification, causing the youngest member of the family to blush profusely after her series of rambling came to a sudden halt when she realized how ridiculous she must have seemed at that moment.

After the series of laughter had died down, Crown Princess Yu suggested whilst wiping the remnants of her tears of laughter from her cheek, “Yizhuo-ya, you are always welcome to join me on my visits to the orphanage homes. In fact, I am heading to Gwangju tomorrow to visit the new orphanage home that had just opened earlier last month. Do you want to come with me tomorrow?”

“What time are we going from the palace?” Royal Princess Yu inquired the most crucial question in her brain, since it has been a habit for her to wake up earliest by 9.30 am.

Crown Princess Yu immediately chuckled upon hearing her younger sister’s question, perfectly knowing the intent behind the question, before answering, “The jet will be off from Gimpo at 8.30 am, so we have to depart from the palace latest by 7.30 am. Before you try to comment on how early you must wake up for the flight and the fact that you think that you will not wake up on time for the flight, I will personally ask Yuna to come to your room and wake you up.”

Royal Princess Yu heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing her sister’s statement before opining with a horrified expression, “Thank goodness it is Yuna who is going to wake me up. Imagine if Minjeong unnie is the one that you requested to wake me up. She would probably bang on my chambers’ door like there is no tomorrow, shout as loud as she could if I did not answer her immediately and break down my door if I did not respond to her within five minutes of her arrival. I might end up in the hospital due to a heart attack instead of accompanying you to Gwangju tomorrow, Minmin unnie.”

The older royalties laughed heartily at the royal princess’ statement before concurrently nodding in agreement, fully knowing that what the youngest royalty had said could undoubtedly be a foreseeable reality should the opportunity arises. The conversation proceeded to a lighter and more trivial topic afterwards, with the youngest Yu recounting how her day had progressed and the two parents telling their children how the meeting with royalties from England had gone. The four royalties continued their discussion until they noticed that the doors to the palace’s dining hall had just opened, signaling the entrance of South Korea’s prime minister to the said place. The newly arrived guest, Prime Minister Son Seungwan, hurriedly went towards the dining table and instantly bowed down before the four royalties before taking a seat next to Crown Princess Yu.

Prior to her sitting down on her assigned seat, Prime Minister Son apologized profusely whilst bowing down ceaselessly, “I am truly sorry for being this tardy, Your Majesty and Your Royal Highnesses. The meeting with the Cabinet went longer than I had expected because the ministers and I did not manage to reach a full consensus on certain time-sensitive matters that we have on our plate.”

“It’s fine, Wan-ah. We understand. After all, matters of the country should always take precedence rather than our little get-together. Besides, your late arrival has given the four of us a chance to catch up and bond as a complete family, which is something that we have not done for a very long time due to our respective scheduling conflicts, so please do not beat yourself up. We do not mind,” the Monarchy’s supreme leader, Queen Yu Seulgi, suggested, which soon induced the other royalties on the table to nod their heads concurrently as a sign of affirmation.

The Duchess of Daegu gave a signal to the palace’s royal chef to start serving the dishes for dinner. Soon afterwards, an array of royal butlers, accompanied by the palace’s Head Chef, came inside the dining room and served the royal family and Prime Minister Son the appetizers for the day. The five ate in a fashion aligned with the proper etiquette taught to them by their ancestors, whilst only making small conversations between courses. After about an hour since the arrival of the prime minister, they have finally completed their dinner and cleansed their palettes, thus allowing the royal parents to begin talking about the real agenda behind the unusual dinner event. The two young princesses and the prime minister merely waited for the Duchess of Daegu or the Queen of South Korean Monarchy to ultimately shed some light regarding what topic were they convened to discuss about, however the two older royalties were seemingly immersed in their own telepathic conversation to decide who should start the talking.

The royal princess, who was already impatient and sleepy at that moment, let out a rough cough, which successfully grabbed the attention of her two parents, before stating, “Look, my cool Mother and my not-so-awesome and uptight Mama, I get that the two of you are currently in your own world having a heated argument on who should break the news to us first, but frankly, we do not really care on who will say anything about the matter first. Will you two just get on with it and tell us what you need to inform us about? It is already around 9 pm right now and I need to sleep latest by 10 pm tonight if I want to wake up on time for our flight to Gwangju tomorrow morning.”

The two matriarchs instantly halted their silent argument, which was apparently won by the Duchess of Daegu, causing the Queen to heave a nervous sigh before beginning her explanation as to why the three individuals were invited to that night’s dinner, “Your Mama and I have decided that we are going to hasten your official coronation as this monarchy’s Crown Princess to August of this year, Jimin-ah. Hence, we wanted to inform the three of you that the preparation for the ceremony will commence starting next week. We want this ceremony to be the most magnificent and glamorous event this monarchy has ever seen because we know how special this ceremony will be for you, our dear Jimin.”

The two royalties as well as Prime Minister Son were baffled upon hearing what the Queen had just suggested, thus the three individuals merely showed blank expressions on their faces, which induced worried thoughts to arise in the two older royalties’ brains.

“So, what do you think about your mother’s and my proposition, my dear Jimin?” the Duchess of Daegu asked expectantly to her eldest daughter.

The crown princess’ brain instantaneously revved and drifted into its full speed, her thoughts going wild and awry as she was shocked and taken aback by the sudden announcement. Furthermore, the crown princess herself has a personal idea that she had yet to share with any other individuals besides her Head of Royal Lady-in-Waiting, a close confidante of hers. Her parents’ unexpected proposition made the crown princess to make up her mind that she needs to share this idea of hers to her parents as soon as possible.

“To be honest, Mother, Mama, I do not feel comfortable with us foregoing the family’s tradition of having the official coronation ceremony until it has passed the crown princess’ 15th birthday. I just do not feel