The Warmth of Skin
"Oppa, a little more. Hmm? I told you—it's still not enough."
Breath grazed the nape of my neck and teased the fine hairs there. Silver hair cut in a bob whispered across my collarbone, and a soft cheek burrowed, stubborn, up under my jaw.
The girl curled in my arms was Seol-a, nineteen this year, the youngest on our team. The White Wolf Clan, contracted to my family for generations, had matched her to me, and the two of us had already been together more than ten years. Being a spiritual being rather than human, her sense of distance from other people was nothing like anyone else's.
The pale legs left bare by her short denim hot pants wound over my thigh. Not a scrap of cloth covered her, and the soft, plush skin of her inner thigh poured its warmth, undiminished, through the fabric of my pants, gone cold in the night air.
"Seol-a, charging's already done. Think you could let go now?"
"Tch. What's charging got to do with it? I'm saying I don't get enough of your hands, Oppa."
Her silver wolf ears twitched as if in a sulk. I sighed, helpless, and reached for the crown of her head. My palm slid through her hair and stroked the soft base of an ear, and Seol-a rumbled low in her throat like a puppy being petted. The strands winding around my fingers were smooth as silk, and with every stroke a gentle, familiar body-scent—peculiar to spiritual beings, nothing like a human's—lingered at the tip of my nose.
My unique ability, Contact Amplification, stirred awake, and as if in answer I felt the resonance of spiritual power rising inside Seol-a, just beyond my palm. The power to explosively amplify the spiritual power of someone of the opposite sex I felt affection for, the moment our skin met. That was mine.
Seol-a caught my hand and nuzzled it against her cheek, then pressed her full, moist lips to the inside of my wrist with an audible peck. Along with the soft give of her mouth, the tip of her tongue flicked lightly across my skin. Watching my fingers flinch, she curved the corners of her eyes into crescent moons and grinned.
"Hehe. Charging complete. When I'm skin to skin with you like this, Oppa, I can feel it welling up warm inside me."
"Now, now, Seol-a. Were you planning to keep Si-woo all to yourself? Noona has to charge before the operation starts, too."
A languid voice drifted in from behind me, and an instant later a soft, heavy pressure—like some enormous water balloon—settled across the whole of my back. Han Yu-ra. Twenty-one, a year older than me. Only a distant relative, strictly speaking, but she had lived in the house right next door, and we were as good as real family.
With nothing between us but a single layer of thin knit, the lush curve of her breasts crushing flat against my back came through with vivid clarity.
"N-Noona. Isn't that top way too thin?"
"You think so? I like it. Our Si-woo's energy comes through so nicely. And so what? We're family. You have to press this close for the ability to kick in properly, don't you?"
Yu-ra noona rested her chin on my shoulder and folded her arms around me. If Seol-a's scent was fresh milk, hers was richer and sweeter—apricot blossom. Her soft cheek pressed flush to my shoulder. The feel of smooth, resilient skin reached me through the cloth; my heartbeat quickened, and at the same time the wave of her spiritual power swelled stronger.
"Our Si-woo's back is always so broad and warm. Noona feels safest when she's holding you like this."
Her drowsy breath brushed my ear, and the lobe burned. In front, Seol-a rubbed her cheek into my palm; behind, Yu-ra noona sealed her whole body to mine. A lavish encirclement.
Right then, from the corner of the alley, another girl stood with her arms folded, kicking at the blameless ground with her toe, and threw a sharp-edged voice our way.
"Hey! It's ten minutes to go, in case you forgot. Everybody knock it off! Since when does amplifying spiritual power have to be such a production?"
Han Yu-jin. Twenty, the same age as me—my childhood friend, and Yu-ra noona's own little sister. Next to Yu-ra noona or Seol-a her chest was on the modest side and her frame was thin, a fact she quietly nursed a complex over, and even on ordinary days she insisted on clothes that refused to show her figure.
Just now that proud childhood friend had ears flushed red as a beet. Her gaze sat somewhere in empty air and her lips were pushed into a pout, but those brown eyes kept stealing glances at my hand.
"Oh my. Yu-jin, hurry over and get your charge too. Si-woo's hands are incredibly warm, you know?"
"Sh-shut up, Unni! I've always been plenty with just my own spiritual power!"
Yu-ra noona winked, playful, and let her arms fall. Seol-a clicked her tongue in regret and drew back. The moment the space opened, Yu-jin came over pretending she was only doing it because she had to, and planted herself in front of me on stiff legs.
Armored head to toe in thick clothes, she fidgeted with the hands buried in her pockets. We had been stuck to each other since we were little, and yet lately she couldn't quite meet my eyes, and the irritable snapping had grown frequent.
When I held out my hand without a word, Yu-jin ducked her head, hesitated, and laid hers over mine. With a soft slide, her long, slender fingers threaded between mine and locked us together, leaving no gap at all.
"...!"
The instant our palms met, her shoulders trembled. She couldn't throw herself into my arms with Seol-a's or Yu-ra noona's boldness, but the heat off our interlaced hands burned hotter than anyone's. Nerves had left her palm faintly damp, and it clung, tacky, to mine. I heard her breath catch hard in her throat.
My heartbeat... she can't hear that, can she?
I was no better. In that precarious space—more than friends, not yet lovers—every time our laced fingers tangled, the delicate skin of her hand dragged against mine and sent a sharp thrill racing through me. I focused on triggering the ability and squeezed her hand tight. Yu-jin kept her head bowed, and her lips moved.
"Hey. Yoon Si-woo."
"What?"
"This variant Yinma subjugation... it'll be over quick, right?"
"Probably, yeah? It doesn't seem like that strong a Yinma."
At my answer she clenched our interlaced fingers hard. Tension showed in the way her neatly kept nails dug faintly into the back of my hand. Her long lashes fluttered. Then she lifted her flushed face just a little and looked me straight in the eye.
"Then when this mission's over... clear some time. For me."
"Time? Why all of a sudden?"
"You idiot. Do I really have to spell out every single thing? Just... I've got something to say to you. So after we're done, just the two of us. Got it?"
She bit the words off at me, and still she didn't pull her hand from mine. If anything, as if she meant to keep even the last drop of warmth, she folded her other hand gently over our laced fingers and quietly closed her eyes.
Skin against skin with nothing in the way, sharing body heat. A moment so ordinary, and so precious.
I had no idea, not then. That the feel of this warm, soft skin would become the last memory I would long for most, in the hell waiting ahead of me.
"All right, is everyone ready? It's time. Let's head in."
Yu-ra noona gathered the gear and opened the door. Yu-jin stroked the back of my hand as if she hated to let go, then slowly undid our fingers.
In the instant our fingertips parted, a cool night wind slipped across my empty palm.
"You'd better listen when it's over! Try to run and I won't let you off, got it?"
She shouted it without a backward glance and bolted through the door.
The air inside the abandoned building was sickening, as if someone had poured sweet perfume over the stench of rotten meat. Beyond a concrete pillar, a black shadow writhed.
Yu-ra noona's barrier talisman threw blue sparks into the air, and the Yinma driven into the corner let out a scream like something tearing.
The dark-red mass of meat that was its hide split open vertically. Through the gap, something grotesque rippled.
Yu-ra noona had read it first. Her sharp cry rang through the abandoned building.
The principle of a Yinma's hypnosis art was basic common sense to any exorcist. A Yinma's hypnosis took, as its trigger, the mind clearly recognizing the hypnosis pattern. Look away from the pattern—do not meet it head-on—and the art was completely nullified.
Being unable to face your opponent straight on was a hypnosis art's only real value in a fight, and a Yinma of this level could be handled well enough on peripheral vision alone.
"Si-woo, finish it!"
"On it!"
Yu-jin shouted as she triggered her binding art. The pattern was set: once she bound the weakened Yinma, I was the one who finished it.
Twenty paces. Fifteen. Ten. The distance to the Yinma slammed shut in an instant. Already weakened past fighting, it would never break her binding before I reached it.
But.
Beep—
Someone seemed to be calling me.
"Huh?"
"Hey! Snap out of it!"
Yu-jin was calling me. The awareness that had blurred for an instant came rushing back.
"Dodge!"
Yu-ra noona shouted. But the confusion had already locked my body in place, and Yu-jin brushed past my side.
And then—
Thud.
"Khk—!"
Yu-jin threw herself into something as if hurling her whole body, and the force of the impact dropped her sideways.
"Yu-jin!"
"How dare you!"
Seol-a, rushing in to help, brought the Yinma down in a flash. That last attack must have been a dying thrash; it had left itself wide open.
Her strike ground the thing to dust, and it vanished. Yu-jin, though, still could not move from where she had fallen.
