Sexual Frustration
“…And so the boy put himself through grueling training to bleed off those feelings, then left Gaon behind.”
Hyeonjin’s story came to an end.
“Tsk.”
“So Master had that kind of past…”
Lucy and I both glanced over at Huey, who was still lying in a corner, groaning quietly to himself.
I didn’t fully understand just how formidable a dragon was supposed to be. But if he possessed the power to manipulate the weather and reshape the terrain itself, he was at least a disaster-class threat — and ranked among the worst of them. And Huey had stopped something like that alone, even if he’d had some help.
“Anyway, after he left, Cheonyu cried her eyes out. The boy probably never knew.”
“…Elder. Must you really tell that story here?”
Hyeonjin dodged Cheonyu’s hands as she tried to clamp his mouth shut, and with a thoroughly mischievous look, launched into a full account of her past.
“She said she wanted to go with him. Said she’d resign as Deputy Taoist Master. What a scene she made.”
“S-stop! Please stop!”
“In the end she decided that going with him would only make Chan-hui suffer more, and she gave up — bawling her eyes out the whole time.”
“Elder—!”
Cheonyu lunged at him like she meant to kill him. Hyeonjin slipped behind her, wrapped her up in the same rope that had bound him earlier, and sat squarely on her back while she thrashed, his face going soft and distant.
“When she was little she used to call me Grandpa this, Grandpa that. Then she finds a man she likes and suddenly—”
“Kyaaaaaaah—!”
Faced with the relentless flood of her own dark history, Cheonyu buried her bright-red face in the dirt and screamed.
That aside…
“Who likes who?”
“This one. Likes that one.”
Hyeonjin gave me a puzzled look and pointed at Cheonyu with one hand and Huey with the other.
“Oh-ho.”
So that was it. No wonder she’d been sneaking glances at Huey with that strange expression from day one.
“I see.”
I nodded, walked over to Cheonyu — still pinned under Hyeonjin, eyes blazing up at me — crouched in front of her, and offered my support.
“Well, hang in there.”
“Grrrk—!”
Last time I’d checked, Huey had a thing for big chests. Her build was going to make it tough, but if she kept at it hard enough, maybe she’d wear him down eventually.
After cheering Cheonyu on—
“…Is she serious?”
“…Most likely.”
“Hah. Chan-hui’s got his work cut out for him.”
“We’ve got our own complications on this end, you know…”
Hyeonjin and Lucy had somehow already gotten cozy, leaning in to whisper to each other. I tilted my head at the sight, then went over to Huey — still groaning in pain — and tapped his head lightly with a wing.
“You’ve had it rough too.”
Maybe it was because I was losing an arm myself and slowly becoming something else. Huey’s ordeal didn’t feel like someone else’s problem. If anything, his had been worse than mine — not less.
“Never allow yourself to truly want anything… Just thinking about it is horrifying.”
I was still desperately wishing to return to my original body. To have things you must want and still force yourself to lie about it — I could never manage that.
“No wonder. For someone who claimed he wanted to go home, his attitude was always so halfhearted.”
I was dwelling on Huey’s suffering in a way that wasn’t like me at all when—
“Kyaaaaaaah—!”
“…First time I’ve ever seen Cheonyu thrash around like this. Heh heh.”
“Enough sightseeing — hold her properly…!”
I’d finally managed to sink into a rare moment of reflection, and the racket behind me was ruining it. I turned around, thoroughly unimpressed.
“What is all this noise?”
Cheonyu was thrashing like a fish on a line, still tightly bound in rope. Lucy and Hyeonjin were pinning her down.
“Could you keep it down a little?”
“…And whose fault do you think this is, sitting there so leisurely?!”
The second our eyes met, Lucy barked at me with a vein standing out on her forehead.
“What did I even do…”
One more word and she looked ready to charge, so I didn’t dare push back out loud. I quietly crouched in a corner and looked away.
…It wasn’t that I was scared. Not at all. I just didn’t want to poke the wrong thing and risk cracking the egg currently squirming in my belly. From the way it felt, it would hatch within two days at most. So even if it was a little unfair, I decided to play it safe.
Anyway. Not scared. Nope.
In the end, Lucy declared that conversation was impossible like this and ordered me to vanish before Cheonyu laid eyes on me again. I retreated to the Taoist quarters.
“…Why am I the one getting treated like this?”
Only then did the injustice welling up in my chest find a voice. But there was no one around to hear it.
“Ugh.”
What was the point of grumbling in an empty room? I crawled onto the bed, curled up, wrapped my wings around my lower belly — which had been trembling since morning — and quietly closed my eyes.
—Twitch.
I focused on the sensation of the egg inside me.
“Ngh.”
Sure enough. My body was starting to heat up.
“I’m going to lose my mind…”
It had been a month and a half since that humiliating day, and I’d been suppressing it as hard as I could. But I was clearly reaching my limit. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before I lost all reason again and started grinding my crotch against something.
There had to be a better way…
—What an amusing little dilemma, junior.
…Dana?
Dana’s voice suddenly cut in. She never helped when I asked, so I couldn’t help wondering why she was speaking up now.
What? You usually go “not my problem.”
—Because you’re fretting over something so pathetic I can’t stand to watch.
She grumbled that leaving me like this would be an insult to her entire species.
…Wasn’t that a bit much?
—The only thing that’s “a bit much” is your libido, junior.
Dana’s voice dripped with pure disbelief as she pecked at me.
—You’re in heat this long because you never actually get satisfied.
Easy for her to say. No matter how much I rubbed against things, my body just kept burning. What was I supposed to do about that?
—I think you already know the answer better than anyone. That’s all the advice you’re getting!
And just like always, Dana dropped only what she wanted to say and vanished.
“That didn’t help at all — it just made everything more complicated…”
Her words only dragged back the truth I’d been carefully ignoring. I curled up tighter and swallowed a whimper.
“Nngh.”
The moment I heard Dana say I wasn’t getting satisfied, my lower belly started aching as if to prove her right. What I needed was probably his hands.
“I’m going insane…”
For a second I considered asking Lucy for help. Then I thought better of it. Given how often she nearly snapped my joints or yanked out feathers while “covering” my wings, just imagining her hands on my stomach killed any arousal and made me feel like the egg would crack on the spot.
“Ugh, what do I do…”
No matter how hard I thought, the only option that came to mind was the same as last time — masturbating through the night and somehow riding it out. Even that never quite felt like enough, but without a better method, what choice did I have?
“Why did I ever accept Huey’s help in the first place… Haa.”
I must have completely lost my mind back then. If I hadn’t, I never would have ended up in this situation.
“……”
Wait.
How exactly had I ended up accepting Huey’s help?
“……”
Right. The egg hadn’t come out properly, so—
“Tch.”
—Thud!
To cut the thought short, I rolled off the bed and slammed my head into the floor.
Sitting still was the problem. That was why my mind wandered to places like this.
“I should move around…”
I stepped out into the clearing in front of the Taoist quarters and started a light stretch. That was when—
“Ah, Ren.”
“…Huey?”
Huey came into view, looking utterly exhausted, leaning on Lucy for support as he waved at me.
“I figured you’d be out cold for a while.”
“Master was looking at me like he’d had enough of me, actually.”
“Hyeonjin predicted he wouldn’t be able to get up for several days.”
Even Cheonyu, who’d been thrashing around, had finally calmed down once she saw Huey awake.
“So why is it just you two?”
“Master and Cheonyu went elsewhere to prepare for the Cloud Ascension Rite.”
It was the first time they were holding the ceremony, so there was a lot to arrange. Huey said we’d probably have to stay here until it was over.
“Ten days from now, once the rite is finished, we’ll do a full examination and start stabilizing the seal.”
He asked us to bear with the inconvenience until then.
“Worry about your own body first.”
“Spare us the pointless fretting. We came here to check on Master’s condition in the first place.”
Lucy and I each fired off a retort at the idiot who was still fretting over us in his current state.
“…Thanks.”
Huey scratched his head at that, then gave us a small smile.
“You don’t need to worry about my past. Everything was my choice. I don’t regret any of it.”
With that, he declined even Lucy’s support, said he wanted to rest a bit, and headed up to his room alone.
“…Was it that obvious?”
“There was an earthquake in your eyes. Did you really think no one would notice? Honestly.”
The real reason I couldn’t meet his gaze was something else entirely. I decided to let her believe that version.
“Ahaha…”
“Well then, I’m going to rest first. Don’t overdo it out here — come inside when you’re ready.”
“Y-yeah.”
I couldn’t exactly tell her that looking at Huey’s hands had set my body on fire and made it impossible to meet his eyes.