Chapter 187: 251. Gossip

Eui felt a bit strange with half of herself being forcefully transformed into a gust of wind. If she’d been caught up in the spell herself, or if she’d been completely separated from it, there wouldn’t have been anything she could do. However, her unique position of being simultaneously inside and outside of the spell gave her the opportunity to practice part of the technique she’d been working on with Jia.

She hijacked the spell, reaching out with her divine spark to bend the essence of it to her will. There wasn’t a whole lot Eui could do to change it—Misun’s spell was far more powerful and complex than she could handle—but with a bit of concentration, she managed to redirect it so that Jia and Eunae were deposited neatly in a heap at her feet. Narae shrieked in surprise at their sudden appearance.

Eui gave her girlfriend a grin as Jia picked herself up and brushed herself off.

“So...how did it go?”

The question was, of course, rhetorical—Eui had experienced the entire thing first-hand—but Jia’s unamused glare made the redundancy worth it. She was so cute when she was mad, and while Eui would never upset her on purpose, she wasn’t above taking advantage of Jia’s frustration with someone else.

Eunae either missed the irony of the question, or wanted to vent her own frustration by answering it anyway.

“How do you think it went?”

She tugged at the veil over her face, causing her fox-like ears to twitch as the silver chain pulled against the freshly pierced points of attachment.

“I can’t believe she’s forcing me to wear this thing. It’s demeaning!”

Eui shrugged.

“You know, most people with your status would consider associating with orphans, exiles, and foreigners demeaning, yet here you are.”

Jia gave her a warning look.

“Eui...”

She ignored it and pressed on. Jia had been soft enough on the princess already.

“I’m just saying—so what? You’ve got a piece of cloth in front of your face, big deal. It’s mostly symbolic anyway—nothing stopping you from just flipping it up if you want to make out with Rika for a bit.”

Eunae put her hands on her hips and let out a little huff, causing the veil to flutter in front of her face.

“I don’t know if I’m in the mood for your teasing right now, Eui.”

“Then take it from a partially reformed bully that you getting mad about it is just what she wants. The best way to get back at her is to just own it. The veil kinda gives off a mysterious air—like a wandering fortune teller or something.”

Eunae sighed, rubbing at her temple.

“Partially reformed?”

Eui glanced over her shoulder at Narae and Heian flying circles around an increasingly flustered group of soldiers while Minami struggled to maintain order in their ranks.

“Partially. Speaking of bullying, how are things between you and Ja Yun now that you’ve decided to join Rika’s little harem?”

The veil failed to hide Eunae’s blush.

“Ha—? It’s not a harem, Eui. And is this really the time?”

“Why not? We’ve got two days to relax before we need to leave, don’t we? I’ll take a bit of girl talk over bitching about your older sister any day. Also I’m cutting Jia off from training for one night.”

Eui took a bit of sadistic pleasure in the way Jia’s eyes widened in surprise and her tail started lashing back and forth—it wasn’t easy for them to surprise each other.

“What?!”

“You heard me. No meditation, no impromptu mana manipulation practice for fun and profit, no digging around in the depths of our soul for answers to our trouble, and no Yoshika. Just one night of good clean fun—it’s for your own good.”

Jia’s ears went flat against her head and her cat-like pupils went as round as saucers as she pouted at Eui. Did she even know she was doing that, or what it did to Eui? She had to.

“What? Come on, that’s not fair!”

Eui stuck out her tongue and winked.

“Dirty fun is fine too, if you prefer—I don’t mind.”

Jia’s flustered stammering was adorable—and more importantly gave Eui a moment to move the conversation forward.

“Anyway—girl talk. You coming, Eunae, or are you going to spend the rest of the next two days moping about a piece of cloth?”

Eunae’s face was still hidden behind her veil, but her exasperation was palpable even without Eui’s empathic soul sense.

“Fine! You’re right, I suppose—there’s no sense moping about it. What about Narae and Heian?”

“They’ll be fine with Aunt Minami, isn’t that right Yuuko?”

Minami Yuuko looked back at Eui with wide-eyed alarm.

“Wait! You’re leaving me with them?! No, no, no! I’m coming with you. Soldiers, you're dismissed for today!”

Eui shrugged carelessly.

“Sure, the more the merrier.”

 

---

 

By the time they made it back to the barracks, they’d been joined by Kasai Hanako and Lee Jung, who’d apparently been called by the scent of gossip like bees to nectar. Rika and Ja Yun were still busy with their training, which was just as well since Eui was planning for them to be the primary subjects of the upcoming gossip session.

It had been ages since Eui had engaged in some good old fashioned girl talk. It had been an everyday occurrence back with Sun Jaehwa in her prep school days. Though that had tended to devolve into bitchy, mean-spirited rumor mongering about whichever poor girl had managed to catch Sun’s ire that week. Eui regretted ever being a part of it, but love had made her blind.

Narae and Heian were content to play with each other outside while the rest of the girls sat in a circle over tea. Jia and Eunae were already blushing at just the prospect of discussing their love lives—the lightweights. Eui decided to start off with something simple to ease them into it.

“So Hana, how is Ryuuji in bed?”

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Jia choked on her tea, and Eui winced at the feeling of scalding hot liquid in Jia’s sinuses. Apparently that hadn’t been as gentle as she’d hoped. Hana, at least, was unfazed by the question.

“He’s surprisingly romantic once you crack through that stoic facade of his, though he can be a little shy when it comes to the actual act itself. What about you two, Yoshika? I’ve never been with a woman myself—what’s that like?”

Oops! Eui should have seen that one coming. Jia was already getting ready to bail and things had barely gotten started. Luckily, Jung came to her rescue.

“Oh no, I’m not letting you deflect from that, Miss Kasai! I’ve seen more than a few husbands and wives visiting the brothel who aren't being satisfied by their partners. Next time you’re together, you should try...”

Hana and Minami leaned in and listened with rapt attention as Jung advised the expecting parent in sordid detail how to get the most out of her private relationship with her husband. Jia’s ears were burning, but at least she wasn’t getting ready to jump out a window anymore. For Eui’s part, the details were interesting, but mostly from an academic standpoint—she had no interest in learning how to pleasure a man. Still, some advice transcended gender, and Jung was very experienced.

Jung’s raunchy wisdom seemed entirely bottomless, but eventually Hana caught on to just how much attention Minami was paying to the conversation and took the obvious opening.

“So, Yuuko, how have you been getting along with Fujino?”

Minami blushed and averted her eyes.

“W-what? Eiji? He’s fine—we’re fine. Why would you ask that?”

Eui rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, we all saw you leave with him after the party. You two were pretty close back at the academy, right? Co-captains of your team and all that.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re dating! Eiji and I go way back. We’re good friends, that’s all.”

“Uh huh, sure. You realize you’re in a room full of empaths and we all know you’re lying, right? Plus Jia could smell him on you in the morning.”

Strangely enough it was Jia who looked the most embarrassed about that, and Minami shot her a betrayed look. Jia tried to pull her own ears down over her eyes and shook her head.

“I didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t going to! It’s just that Eui—”

“If she notices, I notice. Pretty hard to keep secrets when your girlfriend shares your every experience.”

That got Yuuko and Hana’s attention in a new way, and Eui immediately realized she’d made another mistake. Hana cleared her throat and leveled a serious gaze at Eui.

“Everything?”

Shit. Eui glanced at Jia, but she didn’t need to look to know that she was panicking. This was not going the way Eui had hoped.

“Uh, Jia’s not really comfortable talking about—”

Hana scoffed.

“Oh come on! If I have to bear letting you all hear graphic descriptions of how I should take Ryuuji’s—”

“It’s fine!”

All eyes fell on Jia, none more surprised than Eui. Jia had her knees drawn to her chest, and her face was so red that Eui was worried she might pop a blood vessel, but she took a steadying breath and nodded resolutely.

“Yes, we share everything. And yes, that means that when we—we’re um, t-together, we feel...everything.”

That just spurred the girls on even more, and Jia was soon inundated with excited questions that made her more flustered by the second. The sole exception was Eunae, who stayed out of the conversation and calmly sipped at her tea in silence behind her veil. Eui decided that the atmosphere was right, and that it was the perfect time to strike—and also that Jia had suffered enough embarrassment for now.

“What about you, Eunae? You’ve been pretty quiet so far, but how did your overnight ‘chat’ with Rika and Ja Yun go?”

Eunae set her cup down and shook her head.

“I hate to disappoint, but it really was just a discussion. We sorted out a few details about our relationship, that’s all.”

Hanako crossed her arms and frowned.

“What? You can’t just leave it there! Give us details, girl! Also—I’ve been meaning to ask, but what’s with the veil?”

Eunae huffed irritably.

“My sister is making me wear it—I don’t want to talk about it. Do I really have to do this? Can’t we just go back to teasing Jia?”

“Hey!”

Lee Jung giggled at Jia’s protest, but reached across the table to take Eunae’s hand in hers.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to talk about anything you’re uncomfortable with. But we’re all friends here, and you can trust us. This is a chance to get things off your chest in a private and safe environment—to talk about the kinds of things that a princess shouldn’t where you know that nobody will repeat it.”

Eunae sighed.

“Oh, ancestors, to hell with it! Fine! It’s not unusual for a woman of my clan to take another woman as a partner—the way we treat men, it’s practically an inevitability. All my life, I was taught that sex was just a vehicle for reproduction—a way to continue my bloodline and nothing more. Romance, on the other hand, was just a distant fairy tale—something you heard about second hand, or read in stories.

“When I met Rika, my perspective changed. It had to—she was so straightforward about it. When I politely rejected her advances, she didn’t mind at all and didn’t press the issue. On one hand, I was glad for it, but on the other I think I was a bit disappointed that she gave up so readily.”

A few of the girls nodded in understanding, though Jia just looked confused. Eunae went on when nobody interrupted.

“Perhaps that was the beginning of my feelings, but I don’t think I realized it even then. It wasn’t until we were separated by the descent that I began to understand how much I’d taken Rika for granted. Though I had Haeun and occasionally Dae to keep me company, I was lonely in a way that I’d never before had context for during those years.

“Then Rika came back into my life, as beautiful and bombastic as ever—and she had a partner. Of course she did—she was never afraid of chasing what she wanted. I was happy for her, truly, but I was also jealous. I didn’t know how to make sense of my own emotions, and it was Jia who pointed out to me how unfair it was to reject Rika’s feelings while also being jealous of Ja Yun.”

Eunae took a deep breath to steady herself. Even through the veil, Eui could tell that she was blushing up a storm.

“Well, Rika really isn’t afraid of chasing what she wants and, with a bit of encouragement from Yoshika, I became a bit more willing to be pursued. Still, our relationship is complicated and confusing, and I sometimes feel as if I don’t deserve it. She already has Ja Yun, and I feel as if I am an intruder, somehow. Most of what we discussed that night was about the three of us defining our places in that relationship and setting boundaries. Out of respect for their privacy, I’ll keep the specific details to myself. There—are you all satisfied now?”

There was an awkward silence as the girls glanced between each other, unsure how to respond. Eui felt a little bit bad for putting Eunae on the spot like that. Then, the door opened and Rika came striding in, sweaty from the exertion of her training. She glanced around at the gathering of girls, silent and blushing, and Eui watched as understanding dawned on Rika’s face.

“Aw, what? I missed the sex talk?! No fair! Wait—Eun-Eun, what the heck are you wearing?”