Something, Something
The moment Professor Shinhoo stepped out of the infirmary, Bihyung saw his shadow ripple.
Two yokai burst out of it. Eodugi and Dueogsi.
"Boss!"
"My Looord!"
The two of them—no. The two yokai locked their eyes on Bihyung and raked him from head to toe.
"You aren't hurt anywhere, are you, My Lord!?"
"...Boss. You went silent for so long. We were worried half to death."
From the sound of it, the link had snapped the instant he stepped inside the forbidden book.
Because I was possessing Eunha as a spirit body?
Even so, shouldn't some connection have held? They were bound together through the Baekgwi Yahaeng, after all.
The doubt had barely formed when the infirmary door opened and a woman came in.
The Committee Chair. Eunha—the name that meant to grieve, and to cast far away.
Lilith's hand had led her here.
"Junior. You finished with the examination?"
"Yeah. They said nothing's really wrong, but my strength might be worn down, so I'm supposed to finish the IV and then head back to the dorm."
"Mm. Same for me."
She was in no better shape, dragging along the IV stand still hooked into her arm.
Trust an academy like this. What kind of infirmary is the size of a decent hospital ER?
Which was why there were so many rooms, and so much equipment besides. They even kept a surgical team on permanent standby for emergencies. Facilities worthy of an academy known the world over.
"Anyway. What brings you here?"
Bihyung tilted his head, and Lilith answered with a bright little smile.
"Is there any place between us I am not permitted to enter?"
Seriously. Why did her choice of words always come out like that?
"Between us?"
He threw it back at her, crooked, and Lilith laughed.
"I speak of the Baekgwi Yahaeng. You have taken all that I am, and now you mean to wash your hands of it?"
"Huuup!"
Eodugi choked on a gasp.
"My Lord! You've brought home a lady wife!? What are you going to do about Miss Mina!?"
"...It's not like that, you idiot."
Bihyung's denial did nothing to stem Eodugi's racket. Dueogsi regarded him for a quiet moment, then soothed him with perfect calm.
"A man of the Boss's standing could manage three wives and four concubines with ease. Do not be so astonished."
"I-I still feel like my heart is pounding right out of my chest..."
At their comedy sketch that wasn't quite a sketch, Bihyung squeezed his eyes shut.
What was this? He'd been perfectly fine until he got to the infirmary. Why did it suddenly feel like a headache was coming on?
Ugh...
There was, however, someone thoroughly enjoying the reaction. No—more precisely, a yokai.
"Hoho. What adorable little ones."
Lilith looked from Dueogsi, small as a child, to Eodugi, a pitch-black ball of fur.
"Yes. So you are that one's Hundred."
"...Yes. Dueogsi, of the Boss's Hundred. I greet your exalted station."
Following his lead, Eodugi squeezed his eyes tight shut and bent at the waist.
"E-Eodugi, of my Lord's Hundred. I greet your exalted station."
They had clearly recognized Lilith's rank. Watching the pair frozen stiff, she smiled with a softness that was almost fond.
"There is no need to stand on such ceremony. I, too, am now nothing more than one of that one's Hundred, the same as you."
At those words, Dueogsi and Eodugi's eyes snapped back to Bihyung. Their staring pupils might as well have been shouting, Is that true!?
Bihyung gave a calm nod, and the two yokai nearly fainted on the spot.
"Huuup!"
"Blub-blub..."
Eodugi even foamed at the mouth. He really was shocked.
Well. I nearly blacked out myself the first time I saw that message.
He understood. He really did.
He was still nodding along when Lilith broke into a bright peal of laughter.
"Truly amusing children. Is this your influence?"
He had no idea why the arrow had suddenly turned on him.
"How is this my fault?"
"Those beneath a power always admire their leader's nature, and come to resemble it. My Realm of Pleasure was no different."
"So that's why they rebelled?"
"Because they were faithful to desire. Is that not simply what desire is?"
The worse the trash, the more faithfully it clung to its own appetites.
"Just so."
Look at that utterly unbothered tone. Was this really a being who had been betrayed?
For all I know, she just wanted an excuse to clean house.
The thought was plausible enough to be annoying.
Anyway.
Bihyung sighed and looked at Lilith.
"So why did you come."
"Ask not me. Ask this timid child, who keeps hesitating."
With that she yanked the wrist in her grasp, and Senior Eunha stumbled forward on awkward feet to stand before him. She bit down on her lip, then bowed deeply and offered her thanks.
"Thank you, junior. Because of you... I can remember the things that matter."
"No. That wasn't my ability. It was—"
"If you mean to lay the merit at my feet, do not. You could awaken such memories only because you are deeply versed in the domain of anomalies."
Lilith delivered it smoothly, and Bihyung was left with nothing to say.
Is this a novel? Do I have a dialogue quota because of the word count?
The thought arrived the instant his mouth locked shut. Sheepish, he scratched his cheek and simply nodded.
"Right. Then I'll take the thanks, so I'll be counting on you from here on."
"Hehe. Of course."
Watching the Chair smile, a night sky rose strangely in his mind. Her melancholy face held a hush of stillness, and the gratitude inside it—toward him, and toward Lilith—glittered like stars in elegant scatter. A light that, even in the dark, never quite let go of hope.
Looking at her, he found himself thinking of her name.
Eunha. A name given to an offering.
Truly, the denial began with the name itself. And so, as boss of the Baekgwi Yahaeng, he gave her his first command.
"Senior. From now on, we're changing your name."
"...Huh? What do you mean?"
"To grieve, and to cast it away. It's far too heavy a name. Take those meanings out and it's a beautiful one."
So.
As stars gather and become a river, he wanted hope to gather in her life as well, and flow on as gracefully as water.
Had that wish reached her? Eunha's eyes, taking in the name's new meaning, went wide.
"Junior..."
She took an unconscious step closer, her hand just beginning to twitch toward him.
Fwoosh!
A sudden flame. Lilith reacted first.
"Oh? I twisted the perception of this entire area, and still someone comes walking straight through?"
To manage that, one would have to be at least a high-rank exorcist. Or—
They'd have to be one of us.
You could not twist the perception of someone who shared your affiliation. The domain had been spread on exactly that logic, and it was still working perfectly. Yet the presence he felt fell far short of high rank.
Hm?
By the time Lilith, having read the whole of it, let a subtle smile touch her lips, the surging flame had become a single arrow and come flying in.
"You. What are you."
And the one who had loosed it—Mina, eyes gone cold and still, looking at Lilith and Eunha.
"Mina?"
Bihyung's eyes went round at the sight of her. Wasn't she still supposed to be in class? She didn't seem to care about any of that. Her face was flushed, and she was gasping for breath. From the look of things, she had sprinted here the instant the professor in charge went back to class.
...She was that worried.
He hadn't meant for any of this, but he felt sorry all the same, thinking of how she must have worried.
"Mina!"
He called her, and her eyes whipped around.
"Bi...hyung!"
According to the professor she had been steeped in killing intent, but the eyes fixed on him were brimming, as if she might cry at any moment. Where, exactly, was all that killing intent supposed to be?
The thought had barely formed before she came pounding over and threw herself straight into his arms.
"Bihyuuung!!"
And then she broke into a heartbroken wail. Anyone watching would have thought he'd crawled back from the dead.
Even so.
There was someone who worried about him like this. That alone sent a warmth curling through one corner of his heart. Bihyung smiled faintly and stroked her hair.
"I'm fine. Nothing was wrong. I'm healthy. Look."
Only after he played it up on purpose did she sniffle and nod.
Except—how long was she planning to stay glued to him? He flustered at Mina, who showed not the slightest sign of letting go. And for good reason. Every time that overwhelming chest pressed in, he felt it with perfect, terrible clarity!
Oh man... I'm actually going to lose it.
Lilith. You win.
So desire really was just there, whether you wanted it or not.
I'm... seriously at my limit.
Exactly where, and which part, had reached that limit was a private matter, so he would not be saying. It was genuinely embarrassing!
Anyway.
He cleared his throat and was just about to peel her off when Mina pulled out of his arms first and turned.
"...Senior. And behind you..."
"A pleasure. I am Lilith. A new member of the Hundred, belonging to the one over there who is performing a most precarious tightrope act upon the wire of desire."
Mina's gaze swept the room, and her keen mind reached an answer at once.
"Bihyung said he was helping lift the Chair's curse. And that he stopped by the library along the way."
Mina knew better than anyone how well Bihyung understood the library's anomaly. She trusted he would never make the mistake of wasting a month. Which meant something must have gone wrong in the middle of it.
And a new yokai appeared in the middle of all that.
The odds were high that this yokai's share of the blame was a large one. That was Mina's judgment, and Lilith, having caught the resonance of one woman's desire, savored the taste of it.
What sublime devotion. That is... truly a sweet emotion.
On a whim, Lilith decided she would draw the child's desire out into the open. The devotion was so pure that the girl was too young even to voice her feelings properly, afraid of doing the other harm. Then should the sovereign of desire not guide her as was proper?
The corner of Lilith's mouth lifted, and she provoked her.
"Just so. I bear my share of the blame for that child squandering a month. And yet your boss has forgiven me. On what account, then, do you grow angry?"
On what account was she angry, indeed.
That brazen confidence was genuinely irritating. Mina had worried about Bihyung, and then worried again. She had paced in front of his dorm, waiting, just in case he came back. After that she couldn't sleep at night, dreading a possibility she didn't want to believe. So she had done nothing but train, steeped in killing intent, and dropped into sleep as if she had fainted.
She had lived like that, and yet none of it was why she felt wronged. None of it was why she was angry.
Only.
Only...
Mina's thunderous roar reached Lilith and everyone else in the room.
Eodugi, perched on Bihyung's knee, trembled as he spoke.
"S-something, something's happening..."