Chapter 2
“What… in the world is…”
“Do not be alarmed, Your Highness.”
Hearing the person call him “Your Highness” made it clear: the man in front of him was an imposter Crown Prince. Hwi couldn’t understand why a fake was here. Where was Muyoung? Had his Royal Father and Mother simply allowed this charade to continue?
And why had his own voice turned out like this? A flood of questions filled Hwi’s mind all at once.
“Yes, it must be confusing.”
The man moved with practiced ease to bring a mirror forward.
“Look here, Your Highness.”
The voice was a man’s, but the speech pattern was unmistakably Ga-heun’s. Reluctantly, Hwi looked into the mirror as instructed.
“!”
Hwi touched his face with both hands, turning it left and right. The reflection in the mirror was not his own, but Ga-heun’s.
“How did this happen?”
The voice was hers, too. His hands were small and white; his limbs were slender, seemingly devoid of strength. As he felt his body, instead of a flat, sturdy chest, he felt something soft.
“Yo-Your Highness… please do not touch yourself like that…”
Though it was Hwi’s own hand doing the touching, the man opposite him—wearing Hwi’s face—flushed deep red. He couldn’t even make eye contact and fidgeted restlessly.
“Why am I… the Crown Princess?”
“Your Highness…”
“What trickery did you use to make our bodies like this?!”
“Your Highness, please lower your voice.”
The way the person in his body spoke and acted was exactly…
“Is the one inside my body… the Crown Princess?”
The way the figure bit their lip and nodded was unmistakably Ga-heun. In that case…
“Have the Crown Princess and I swapped bodies?”
“It may be hard to believe. But yes, we have.”
“Ha… how could such a thing happen?”
Hwi sighed, pressing his hand to his forehead.
“I must still be dreaming because I haven’t woken up yet.”
He shook his head vigorously, trying to snap out of it. He slapped his cheeks with both hands, and the soft skin felt supple against his palms. After a few more stinging slaps, his cheeks began to tingle.
“Your Highness, my skin is delicate; if you slap it like that, it will bruise immediately. Others might misunderstand, so please stop.”
“Sigh.”
It was getting more absurd by the second.
“When did you find out, Crown Princess?”
“Three days ago. A short while after being pulled from the water, I woke up… to find myself in your body.”
“Does that mean I have been unconscious for three days?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He couldn’t stand listening to his own voice sounding so tearful anymore.
“Why did you do it? Why did you struggle so hard to save me? You should have just let go and surfaced on your own.”
Eventually, Ga-heun shed tears. Even in this chaos, Hwi remembered the virtues a Prince must uphold.
“Since you say this is not a dream, I shall give you a warning: The Crown Prince must never show tears.”
“Your Highness…”
“No matter if the heavens are falling or your heart is breaking, you must endure, and endure again. So, wipe those tears away before someone arrives.”
Ga-heun turned her body aside and wiped her eyes. Seeing her shoulders still trembling, it seemed she might burst into sobs again at the slightest touch. Hwi exhaled; he still couldn’t believe the situation. He tried to regain his usual cold composure, but it wasn’t easy. The fluttering thin nightgown and the skirt tied above his chest were extremely uncomfortable. Every time he breathed, it felt like it was tightening further.
Hwi unfastened the ribbon tightly binding his chest.
“Your Highness, you mustn’t!”
“How can a person live wearing such clothes?”
“You must endure it.”
He hadn’t expected to hear the very words he had just told her directed back at him.
“And… please… stop… touching.”
Because he had grabbed his chest out of frustration, Hwi quickly spread his hands wide.
“Why does a woman’s body have so many obstructions? There are protrusions, softness, and the curves… Good grief, I don’t know where to put my hands.”
The clothes were uncomfortable, and everywhere he touched felt scandalous. Though he was in a woman’s body, his nature was that of a man. Furthermore, realizing that everything he was touching was Ga-heun’s body made him feel incredibly awkward.
Both of them turned beet red. While they were fumbling with where to look, Eunuch Hong’s voice drifted in from outside.
“Your Highness, the physician from the Royal Infirmary has arrived.”
“Tell him to wait a moment.”
Ga-heun mimicked Hwi’s voice remarkably well. Having been awake for three days, she seemed to have adapted to living in Hwi’s body.
“Your Highness, please put on your clothes.”
“You want me to wear more clothes over this?”
Hwi looked down at his body. Through the thin fabric, the skin was visible. The curves of the body and the soft flesh he had just grabbed were plain to see—it was as good as wearing nothing. Hwi agreed that he couldn’t let a physician see him in this state. This was Ga-heun’s body, which even he hadn’t seen properly yet.
A body no other man should ever lay eyes on. As his male instincts made it hard to look away from his wife’s body, Ga-heun’s voice rang out softly.
“Stop… please stop looking and hurry and dress.”
Ga-heun brought over the neatly folded clothes and began to serve him. Even after he put on layer after layer, she kept offering more.
“You want me to wear another layer on top of this?”
“A woman has many layers to attend to. Furthermore, the Crown Princess cannot face a physician in disarray, can she?”
The same applied to the Crown Prince. Thus, Hwi stayed quiet and let Ga-heun dress him.
“By any chance, have you spoken to the physician?”
“What would I say? That the Crown Prince and I have swapped bodies? Would they believe me?”
“Then who knows about this?”
“No one knows yet, other than the two of us.”
“Does that mean even Muyoung didn’t recognize me?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He thought that even if others failed, Muyoung would surely know. For some reason, he felt strangely slighted. Considering the years they had spent together since childhood, shouldn’t he have noticed the difference in behavior? It was disappointing that the sharp-eyed Muyoung hadn’t even suspected.
“If I told your guard… would he believe me? Even I, the person involved, can hardly believe it.”
She had a point. If someone who looked exactly like Hwi claimed to be Ga-heun, even Muyoung would find it impossible to believe.
“Sigh…”
Whether Ga-heun spoke or Hwi spoke, both would be seen as insane. They would either be deposed and kicked out of the palace, or Min Chi-young—who would want to protect his daughter—would somehow cover it up.
Ga-heun checked Hwi’s expression and asked, “Are you uncomfortable anywhere, Your Highness?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t be?”
Everything was uncomfortable. The clothes he wore, and the fact that a man with his face was acting exactly like Ga-heun.
Ga-heun sighed quietly and asked again. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was asking if you are in any pain.”
At her words, Hwi moved his body around. As he performed motions similar to warming up at the training grounds, Ga-heun turned pale.
“Your Highness, if you act so frivolously in a woman’s body…”
There were so many things he wasn’t allowed to do. First, don’t touch, don’t look. Now, don’t even move freely. Hwi ignored her and kept moving.
“There are only the two of us here, so what is the problem? I have to move to know if there is any pain or discomfort.”
After stretching his limbs as he pleased, Hwi spoke. “I am not in pain. Are you alright, Crown Princess?”
“Yes, I am fine.”
“Have you looked into a way to switch us back?”
“How could I look into that while you were hovering between life and death for three days?”
True.
“More than that… I had no idea where or how to start. Should I ask a physician? A shaman? I don’t even know what book to look for.”
Hwi agreed that the path was bleak.
“Sigh.” “Sigh.”
Both sighed simultaneously. Hwi suddenly remembered something he hadn’t considered when Ga-heun told him to stop looking at his own body.
“Crown Princess… by any chance, have you seen all of my body?”
Ga-heun curled her lips and kept her mouth shut. She must have. When bathing, or… she would have had to see everything. Seeing her earlobes turn red, Hwi felt an impish urge to tease her.
“It must be quite different from a woman’s body. Well? Did you like it?”
Ga-heun looked down, then quickly jerked her gaze toward the ceiling, perhaps because her eyes landed somewhere embarrassing.
“Please… stop. Your Highness… you were just touching mine as well.”
Seeing Ga-heun struggle to avoid looking at her own body even now, a laugh escaped Hwi.
“It’s large and quite sturdy. Powerful, too. Is it not quite useful?”
“I wouldn’t know, as I haven’t properly used it yet.”
Hwi’s eyebrow shot up.
“Wait—are you planning to use it?”
