Why Don't They Know It's Possible Between Women
The sight of her poring over my journal with such rapt, unbroken concentration was like a compass snapping into place — a clear direction, at last, for a mind that had been spinning without one. I had never expected her to find the journal at all, much less to read it while making those lewd little sounds, and the shock of it still hadn't quite worn off.
"Wolhyang, I brought you some shaved ice."
"Ah—yeah... thanks, Unni."
I handed her the bowl I had made. She was usually the furthest thing from demure, but today she sat with both legs neatly together, uncharacteristically well-behaved. My gaze drifted, just for a moment, between her thighs. Once I had confirmed there was no visible reaction, I lifted my eyes back to her face.
"I'll enjoy it."
The moment she had hurried out of my room earlier, I had checked how far she had gotten. Fingerprints marked the pages all the way to the passage where I began, in earnest, the story of the third woman I had corrupted.
Until I had corrupted my fifth woman, I had been no different from a starving wolf. Rather than wait with the patience I practiced now, I would stake everything on bedroom technique the moment a woman so much as seemed to step onto the path of ruin. It was the part where I tried to grind our cunts together that had drawn that lewd little sound from her — and the question of whether two women could even do such a thing.
"Wolhyang, are you feeling all right?"
"H-huh?!"
"Your face looks flushed. And you're breathing hard."
"I'm fine, Unni. I just... I ran around a little while I was waiting for you to come back."
"The Divine Spirit will be so pleased to see you enjoying Wolhyangsa this much. I'm sure a blessing will come your way."
I smoothed her tousled hair into place, then took a moment to consider a topic that would burn what she had read so deeply into her mind that she would never forget a word of it.
"Wolhyang, are you interested in romance?"
"Romance...?"
"Mm. Girls your age are supposed to be curious about that sort of thing. I hear friends ask each other about it all the time."
"Romance... I'm not really interested. I don't have anyone I like, either."
"Not having someone you like doesn't always mean you're uninterested in romance, you know."
I sat down beside her, leaning back in easy comfort. A shrine maiden broaching a subject like this first would naturally strike her as odd. So I dressed up a story about the Western woman who had visited before — just enough fiction to serve my purpose.
"Before I met you, a traveler from the West named Carlis stayed here."
"Huh? What would someone from the West be doing all the way in Cheongyeon?"
As the shrine maiden charged with this place, the most important rule I was meant to keep was never to speak of why any given traveler had set foot in Wolhyangsa.
"She said she'd broken up with a lover she'd been with for five years, and that she'd started traveling to forget them."
But I broke that rule without a shred of shame. Anyone who violated it was supposed to suffer the Divine Spirit's stern punishment and fall into hell. I was already sunk so deep in the mire of corruption that keeping the rule or breaking it would not change where I ended up.
"Oh. I see."
"She didn't have anyone she liked at the time, but she was still interested in romance. She wanted a good encounter."
"So did she find one at Wolhyangsa before she left?"
She showed a particular spark of interest once the conversation turned this way. For a girl her age, that was only natural.
"She didn't manage a good encounter, no — but she left having found the chance for one."
"What does that mean? I don't get it."
"It means she found someone she liked. They just didn't end up together."
She marveled at how romantic that sounded. But my story was not finished. I met her eyes and delivered the ending I had been saving.
"...Another woman? Can women even do that with each other?"
The bright smile on her face locked up as if something inside it had broken, and the question she asked was closer to raw shock than curiosity.
"No one has ever written a law forbidding women from loving each other. You know that, don't you, Wolhyang?"
"That's... true, but most people think it's only natural for feelings to be exchanged between a man and a woman."
"Sometimes you have to break that kind of one-sided thinking, Wolhyang."
"And you don't find it strange at all, Unni?"
I fed her a spoonful of shaved ice, then stroked her hair. Before I went on, I let a gentle smile tell her exactly what I thought.
"When I became a shrine maiden at four years old, it wasn't only my parents' arms I was cut off from. I was cut off from any exchange with men as well."
"Ah... right. You couldn't be allowed to harbor any impure thoughts."
"I spent my formative years among other girls, long before I had a proper personality or way of thinking. I never once considered men. And that hasn't changed."
She had been violently flustered at first, but as the story unfolded she listened with growing calm. She was even beginning to find it interesting, so I carried on in the tone of someone telling an old tale.
I first awakened to sex at eighteen, on the eve of the final training required to become a shrine maiden. Because my skill had outstripped my peers, the people I lived with had, at some point, all become adult women. The moment I opened my eyes to it was the night I discovered them secretly coupling to slake their lust, hiding it from the overseer. I was not yet an adult myself, and from that night on they told me all manner of stories, every evening.
"So... Unni, you learned how women relieve their lust with each other from the other trainees?"
"That's right. Which is why my gaze never turned toward men — it turned toward women, quite naturally."
"Unni... do you still...?"
She was asking whether I still harbored lust for women. The answer I gave now would decide the entire course of what came next between us. It demanded care.
"Anyone who spends long enough in a repressive environment is bound to act out. I am a proper shrine maiden now, Wolhyang — one who oversees an entire temple. What I felt back then was just a young heart's little rebellion."
When I explained that I had shaken off every feeling I had held in that moment, she let out a breath of relief.
By laying my story bare, I had taught her that women could exchange feelings with each other — and that they could share their bodies as well. I found myself curious what she would do from here.
"I've gone and told you an old story I've never told anyone. You're my friend, Wolhyang, so you won't repeat this to a soul, will you?"
"Of course not, Unni. A secret between friends is a secret you keep."
"Thank you, Wolhyang."
"Unni, there's something I've been wondering. You said... you'd read every book in your room."
I was turning over why she would bring that up again when my journal surfaced in my mind. She still did not seem to think I was the one who had written it. Most likely she wanted to confirm, once and for all, whether I had also read a book filled with that kind of obscenity.
"That's right. Every book in there is something published and sold, so yes — I've read them all."
"Published... and sold?"
"What's wrong, Wolhyang?"
"Ah—it's nothing."
My journal had no listed author, and its cover was wrapped in worn leather. It would be hard to mistake something like that for a book off the market.
"Come to think of it, you asked me last time about how I spend my hours alone, didn't you?"
"Yeah, Unni."
I went on in a way that would let her believe I had not yet discovered any book of that obscene nature.
"The traces of the shrine maidens who managed Wolhyangsa before me are still here, intact. There may well be traces I haven't found yet. And whenever I do find one, it's a little thrill all its own."
I stroked her hair once more, then rose from my seat. The doubt in her eyes thinned, little by little, as if she had grasped the meaning tucked inside my words.
"Look at the time. I need to polish the Divine Spirit's statue, then do my mental cultivation. It'll take about two hours. You can stay as long as you like — or leave if you get bored."
"Got it, Unni. I'll keep reading. Take your time."
I left her alone in the room and stepped into the shrine hall where the Divine Spirit's statue stood. I wiped it clean with a damp cloth, then went over it again with a dry one until every trace of moisture was gone.
I knelt before it and began the 108 Prostrations. A shrine maiden had to keep at least the minimum of her duties. It was how I bound myself against falling too deep into excess.
"Hooo..."
A long, deep breath marked the end of the 108 Prostrations. I had done them for so many years that my body no longer registered the act as hardship — but ending up soaked in sweat was unavoidable.
I left the shrine hall and walked to the cold spring. I stripped off every garment and folded them neatly on a stone, then fashioned a fundoshi from a clean, soft cloth and drew it tight.
Before stepping into the spring for my mental cultivation, I folded a single sheet of paper into a Shikigami.
"Go and see what she is doing. You must not let her notice you."
At my spoken command, the paper crane fluttered away in search of her. A Shikigami's sight was shared with mine; watching through it was no different from seeing everything with my own eyes.
Her room was empty. That left only one place she could be: mine. Just as I expected, she was in my room, the journal spread open once more, reading it with the same rapt attention. Knowing I would not return for two full hours, she had laid the journal out with considerable boldness.
"This is... something Unni Yeon hasn't found yet, right...? A previous shrine maiden left... a book this obscene..."
Good. Just as I had intended, she understood it as something that was not mine — a remnant left by a shrine maiden before me.
"That's it. Read as much as you want. Become a more mature woman with knowledge you've never touched before, Wolhyang♥"
I swallowed hard, then caught the ties of my fundoshi and yanked them taut, upward.
"Hnhiiiit♥"
The thin scrap of cloth already covering my crotch drew even thinner, carving up into my cunt. Wanting a stronger jolt, I seized the front cloth and the rear cord separately and tugged them in turn, over and over.
—Crrrk. Crrrk.—
"Hahh-nnngh♥ Wolhyang, hurry up and... grow up so we can grind together...♡ Or are you going to suck on Unni's breasts? Nnhhgiit♥"
A lewd cry spilled out of me as my juices came in a sudden rush. The fundoshi had been soaked through for some time already; now even my inner thighs were growing wet.
By the time the sticky threads of slick kept stretching and breaking from me, I let go of the fundoshi. The knowledge that she had walked, of her own accord, down a path I had never expected was so arousing I could not keep my footing — I staggered.
"Haaaaah... hahaaa♥ Wolhyang...♡ I wonder what our Wolhyang's cunt... tastes like."
I braced a hand against the wall and watched the slick drip from me in fat, heavy drops. My other hand moved of its own accord, stroking over my breasts again and again without crushing their shape.
"My nipples are... so hard...♡"
The instant I pictured her sucking hungrily on these stiff nipples of mine, saliva spilled from the corner of my mouth.
Once she set foot on the path of corruption, it would not take long. All that remained for me now was to wait — aching, patient — for that moment alone.
She would have no choice but to come to me first. And when she did, I would simply teach her, piece by piece, everything I knew.