Page 1 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 5-8 (The Residency Boys #7)

*See back for Glossary*

Readers may notice some inconsistencies in the use of capitalization of titles, such as “sir” and “master” as well as shifts between titles and personal names.

This is a reflection of Damian and Jun’s experience and emotional state at the point of interaction and should be read as such.

The inconsistencies in this text are purposeful.

As the author, I’m aware there are certain “rules” and practices that readers may have come across in terms of titles in kink, especially in some fantasy-leaning contemporary novels.

These are just practices, not rules or requirements.

This story may well upend many preconceptions of the limits of kink.

Kink is as varied as those who practice it.

There are several languages spoken by the characters in this book.

To ground this story in the culturally rich and complex international world in which it takes place, I have occasionally included a few words of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese into the text.

They are all beta reader tested for ease of understanding and there is a glossary in the back.

Characters of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese descent will be referred to by the proper order of their names in their own cultures, with surnames appearing first, and personal name following. For example, Gang Junseo’s personal name is Junseo, shortened to Jun by his friends. Gang is his surname.

As is common with performers and expats moving between countries, some characters have multiple names. Most notably, Jun’s English name is a translation of his Chinese name, which is related to his Korean name through the history of the writing systems used in East Asia.

Before Sejong—a Korean king of the Joseon (Yi) dynasty—developed the modern Korean script (Hangul), scholars and officials of the Korean peninsula used an imported Han script from the region we now call China.

Japan also adopted the same script into their writing system.

Han script, referred by English speakers more commonly as “Chinese” is concept representative, not sound representative.

Modern Koreans and Japanese nationals still use this Han script to write names.

They have their own writing systems and alphabets, but keep this historical artifact in their modern systems. For example, when walking around Guri, South Korea where I worked for a while, I would see the Han character for water on manhole covers in the street, marking what was beneath.

In this serial, Jun’s family name 江 is written the same in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but each language pronounces the same written representation differently. In general I have used romanization of each language’s pronunciation for ease of reading.

I am grateful to the East Asian department of Denison University, Nanjing University, the Korean National Museum, Wesleyan College, and many others for enabling me to include cultural authenticity in these pages.

Any mistakes are my own. Although I have lived and worked in all these countries, I remain an ever-learning scholar with no claims to mastery.