Please enjoy this new fanfiction of mine! It's my first for Saiunkoku Monogatari, so I hope I depict the characters well! Please enjoy the first chapter!

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN Saiunkoku Monogatari.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Li Kouyuu. I was given this name by Kou Reishin when he picked me up off the streets nine years ago. Currently, I'm studying to become an official in the Imperial Court. I've been studying for three years already, mostly due to my adoptive fathers' influence. Right now, I'm living the life I never could have even dreamed of living back then. He saw me, dressed in dirty rags, trying to sell things I had picked up off the street or from gardens of the more fortunate.

When he took me in and named me, I was extremely happy.

When he let me clean myself in a bath, I was happy.

When he gave me new, clean clothes to wear, I was happy.

When I saw that I was wearing boy's clothes, I was confused.

Now, why would a young 'man' like myself be confused as to why I was given male clothing? Because the clothing itself was of high quality and there were no rips or tears in the fabric? No.

It is because I am female. That's right. I'm a girl. Oh, something else you should know- females aren't allowed to take the National exams. Females aren't allowed to be officials of the Imperial Court. But does anyone know? No. Not even my adoptive father, you ask? No.

Apparently his older brother took in a young man and adopted him so he wanted to see what it was like. He never really spent time with me, though he always made sure I was never hungry, never clothed in rags and that I was never uneducated. He gave me food for my stomach, a home to keep me safe and warm, clothes on my back and an education.

I liked and still like learning. Becoming an official would help me learn even more, hence the reason why I'm currently studying for the National exams. I'm already sixteen and I'm confident in my ability to pass the exam and take the Jougen title.

However, I am worried about one thing in particular. Even though my attitude makes others view me as a man, that doesn't mean that I am one. As such, since I am a woman- a 16 year old at that- I have already started going through puberty. In my earlier studies, I was taught about how the male and female bodies work. So I know that while I end up bleeding at least once a month, the blood loss isn't enough to kill me. The stench of it however is enough to make me feel sick. I end up getting terrible back pain as well as stomach cramps.

Also, while I have had an education of the human body to an extent, something that continues to confuse me to no end is the size of my breasts. I have been taken with my adoptive father, on occasion, to the red light district where an under-ground boss is said to reside. On our occasional…outings…I have come to realize that no matter what age you are, the size of your breasts aren't really affected. For example, you could be forty and still only have breasts the size of a small child's fist. Others are younger than me by a couple of years and their breasts are about as large as a type of fruit I've heard of that is grown elsewhere called a grape fruit. It's rather large.

Anyways, the thing is, just as a forty year old woman can barely have breasts, so can a healthy, young teenager. Also, just as a young teenager can have huge breasts, so can an older woman.

As people always have mistaken me for a male and I have chosen to dress as one since it is much safer than dressing as a woman, having breasts my size can only hinder my ability to appear as male. No, my breasts aren't small so my clothes don't really do a good job of hiding them. No, they aren't as big as grape fruits. I would say that they are as big as watermelons- except they're rounder than watermelons and softer too. Still, the largeness as well as the heaviness of them always ends up hurting my back.

I honestly have no clue what happened. One day when I was thirteen, I went about my normal routine- waking up, getting cleaned, getting dressed, getting lost, eating lunch, getting lost, studying for the National exam, getting lost, eating supper, getting lost, getting washed and then going to bed after some more studying. The next morning, I felt a heavy weight on my chest area. I couldn't help but wonder if a cat had somehow snuck into the Kou residence and decided to sleep on my chest since it was flat enough. I mean, my breasts had already started to grow but they were still small enough to be hidden by my clothes.

When my mind finally started waking up and I sat up in bed, the weight on my chest shifted to weigh my back and shoulders down a bit. It also bounced a bit. Not knowing what the cause was, I finally opened my eyes and looked down, only to see that my night shirt was rather stretched and my breasts were now the size of oranges. My clothes could still hide them so I didn't really pay them any mind. Over the next couple of months, my breasts constantly grew in size.

Then one day, I woke up with my current breast size. I now had a pair of watermelons for my breasts. If I were a man and I saw a woman in the red light district with this set of knockers, I would probably have wanted to stay the night with her, enjoying the softness and size of them. However, I am a woman. Yet everyone knows me as a man.

As if I could suddenly say, "Reishin-sama, I, your adopted son, Li Kouyuu, am actually a female. As I have been going through puberty, my breasts have decided to become as big as the biggest watermelons and my waist has become oh so thin while my hips are the perfect size to bear children. Please continue to treat me as you have been."

So here I am at my current predicament. While my breasts have been this large for at least two years now, I feel as though they are getting slightly bigger day by day. I'm not fat though. Running around while I'm lost and eating a healthy diet has helped to make sure of that. As my breasts are this large, I need to constantly wrap them, even while I sleep, so that nobody takes me by surprise and so that I don't take anybody else by surprise. Wrapping my breasts while they are this large and I'm on my period makes for quite the painful process.

I can't stand it. I'm doing my best to study for the exams! Not trying to wrestle with myself!

FINALLY.

Now that my breasts are wrapped, I can put my normal clothes on. Now to get back to studying…

…The Next Day…

"Kouyuu-sama! It is time to depart for the Imperial Palace to take the National Exams!" a servant called out to me.

"I'm almost ready!" I called back to her.

Oh, another thing that you should know. My voice is a bit raspy and a tad deeper than a normal woman's due to two things- One: I got a cold before Reishin-sama adopted me and that left me with permanent damage to my throat since I couldn't buy medicine for myself. Two: While going through puberty, my voice has become a bit deeper. Add those two things together and you have a slightly higher pitched male voice.

Checking my things to make sure that I'm prepared- extra cloth for my period as well as extra bindings if something happens to my current ones for my breasts, my clothes and my study books- I finish putting my short pony tail into the clothed bun. One of the things I'm grateful for about my clothes is that they cover my neck to an extent. This makes it so that my lack of an Adam's apple isn't so obvious.

Grabbing my bag, I take one last quick look around the room, satisfied that nothing's out of place and that I'm finally going to be taking the National Exams! Opening my door, I leave my room and follow the servant. Upon reaching the entrance of the residence, I saw an escort from the palace.

Reishin-sama must have asked for one to help guide me. Giving the man a small smile to show I appreciated what he was doing, he only returned it with a sneer. Ah. That's right. Not only will I end up being the first woman to take the exams- disguised as a male-, I'm also the youngest person in history to take the exams. Of course older people aren't going to be happy that I'm taking the exams at such a young age…

It's not my fault they waited till they were older to take the exams. I just happened to have a goal I wanted to reach and I started working towards that goal at a young age.

My goal is to work under Reishin-sama in the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Ah, but now is not the time to daydream! Continuing the somewhat short walk to the Imperial Palace in silence, I took in my surroundings, trying my best to remember the way. I can at least try to not get lost.

Upon reaching the hall where the tests will begin, the escort walks away without so much as a word or glance back at me. I'm telling you right now, being on my period tends to make me braver than I normally am. People tend to steer clear of me during this time. Looking over my clothes one last time to make sure nothing is out of place, I catch a whiff of the perfume that I always use to cover up the scent that my period leaves on me. While it's soothing, I've been told by the servants that it's also manly, like it gives off a musky scent.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I walk towards the table in the center, looking for my name on the papers laid there. Scanning through one page after another, I find my name.

So I'll be sleeping in dormitory room 68 with some other guy named Ran Shuuei. Hm? That's strange…I thought that three people were assigned to a room normally. Well, I guess the number of people just didn't fit. Oh well. That's one less guy I'll have to deal with.

Little did I know that meeting him would be the end and start of everything.

O.O As you might have guessed, I've started watching Saiunkoku Monogatari…Well, I had started watching it and had gotten through a lot of it, but the website I had been using- a couple years ago, might I add- ended up not having the rest of it…and the episodes were kinda choppy…So, now that I am once more watching this enchanting series, I have come up with this new fanfiction idea! MUWAHAHAHA! All my other fanfictions have not been forgotten. They will probably not be updated as soon as you would like them to be, so sorry about that. -.- Well, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! Please review!