Spiritual Energy Absorption (2)
Seeing Seol-hwa come out of the room a little later than expected, both San and Ye-ryeong tilted their heads in confusion.
“What were you doing in there that it took so long?”
“...I turned off the lights before I left. I didn’t do anything weird, you know?”
“You didn’t phrase it like that, though.”
“But that’s how it sounded, didn’t it?”
When San didn’t deny it this time, Seol-hwa looked momentarily surprised. She quickly composed herself, narrowed her eyes slightly, and asked while staring at San.
“...Hey, Jangsan. You don’t actually have feelings for Yoo Se-hwan, do you?”
“Huh?”
San gazed at Seol-hwa for a moment. Then the corner of her mouth curved into a smirk. She crossed her arms and shot back,
“Why are you suddenly so curious about that?”
“What?”
“Whether I have real feelings or not, it doesn’t really concern you, does it, Baek Seol-hwa?”
“W-well, of course it doesn’t concern me… but that doesn’t make sense from the start. Yoo Se-hwan is human. You’re a spiritual beast. Do you honestly think a relationship like that could work?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
When San tilted her head, Seol-hwa was utterly dumbfounded.
“Did you not understand what I said?”
“No, I understood perfectly. What I’m asking is why that would be a problem. The fact that I’m a spiritual beast and Se-hwan is human… what does that matter?”
“What does it matter…”
“It’s not common for spiritual beings like us to fall in love with humans, but it’s not unheard of. You think half-spirits and half-yokai exist for no reason?”
Seol-hwa was visibly startled.
“H-half-spirits? Half-yokai?”
“What, you really didn’t know? How have you lived a thousand years without knowing that?”
“N-no! Of course I know! But I’ve only heard stories. I’ve never actually seen one…”
“They do exist, Seol-hwa,” Ye-ryeong added. “Though not all of them lived happily, of course.”
“...Y-yeah! I’ve seen people in the Ghost Gallery calling them half-breeds!”
“So what?”
“Huh?”
Seol-hwa’s eyes widened, but San spoke with surprising confidence.
“Instead of wasting time worrying about things like that, it would be more worthwhile to be honest with your own heart.”
“......So you’re really saying you’d play at being lovers with Yoo Se-hwan?”
“Play? No.”
San’s voice was firm.
“If possible, I have no intention of letting it end as mere play.”
“...!”
“Of course, if Se-hwan hates the idea, I won’t force him.”
“...What does that idiot Yoo Se-hwan even have that’s so great…?”
“Is there any reason not to like him? From my perspective.”
Seol-hwa froze at San’s words. She tried to think about what Se-hwan represented to San. It hadn’t been long since they met, but so much had happened in the past month. San had been saved from a fate of living forever as a corrupted yokai and had regained her true form. Se-hwan had even saved her friend, without asking for anything in return.
That alone was reason enough for gratitude, yet he continued to stay in touch even after the rescue instead of simply telling her to live her own life. He even kept watch to make sure she didn’t fall into corruption again. It would have been impossible not to develop feelings. Of course, San acknowledged what needed acknowledging.
“Of course, it’s not at the level of love yet. I’m still in the ‘like’ stage, but I’ve realized Se-hwan is quite an impressive male. Why would I want to miss my chance?”
“...Are you serious?”
“I am.”
Seol-hwa parted her lips, then closed them again. She had nothing left to say. When someone stated their feelings so plainly, there was no point in pressing further. While it was difficult to understand from her own values, the discomfort in her chest was undeniable.
“San, the more you openly covet him, the more interested I become,” Ye-ryeong said lightly. San narrowed her eyes slightly.
“I told you not to covet him, Ye-ryeong.”
“He isn’t anyone’s yet, is he? Is there a reason I shouldn’t be interested?”
“You weren’t interested before. Are you just teasing me?”
“I am interested, though?”
“It’s just curiosity.”
“Well, for now.”
Ye-ryeong smiled.
“But the more blatantly greedy you act, the more my interest grows.”
“You really have a terrible habit.”
“They say other people’s rice cakes always look bigger.”
“Covet someone else’s rice cake and you’ll choke on it.”
Listening to their exchange, Seol-hwa felt dazed. She suddenly remembered what San had said to Se-a before—the question about whether she could take Se-hwan. She had thought it was just a mean-spirited joke to tease her, but…
…Was she actually serious?
Seol-hwa shook her head slightly, trying to dispel the uncomfortable feeling that had settled in her chest. She turned to San and Ye-ryeong.
“Let’s go already. I want to head home too.”
“Alright, Seol-hwa. Get home safely.”
“Yeah.”
“...Baek Seol-hwa, can I ask you something?”
“What?”
San studied her quietly before asking.
“Why has your yoki decreased so much?”
“...Huh?”
“It feels like you left your fox bead behind. It’s down by half.”
“...I-I left my fox bead there, so of course it decreased.”
“What?”
San stared at her with an expression that said she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Ye-ryeong’s eyes widened as well.
“You left half of your soul in Se-hwan’s room?”
“D-don’t twist the meaning! He’s defenseless right now, so I left it just in case something happened! I set it to return when he wakes up.”
“......”
“W-what’s with those looks! Anyway, I’m leaving!”
Seol-hwa spun on her heel and marched toward her house. Watching her retreating back, San let out a helpless chuckle. Ye-ryeong spoke beside her.
“Wow~ She’s a formidable rival. What will you do, San?”
“...Do you think she doesn’t know what that means?”
“Come on, no matter how innocent she is, even Seol-hwa should understand that much.”
Ye-ryeong laughed with clear amusement.
“When a gumiho offers her own half, it’s something she only does for a lover she can trust.”
“That’s what I thought. Hmm…”
“But Seol-hwa might genuinely not realize. She’s not pretending to be innocent—she really is that pure.”
“...Which is why I can’t make any hasty judgments yet.”
San watched Seol-hwa’s distant figure for a moment, then turned away and muttered,
“That’s right. Se-hwan isn’t anyone’s yet. It’s free to like him.”
Turning in the opposite direction, she added,
“The one who laughs last will be me.”
When Seol-hwa got home, she changed into comfortable pajamas and flopped onto her bed. She turned on her phone and logged into the Ghost Gallery.
“Half-yokai…”
She typed the term into the search bar. There weren’t many recent posts, but because it occasionally became a hot topic, there were quite a few older threads.
Plenty of posts argued that a yokai liking a human in the first place was the real problem. It was an understandable viewpoint. Yokai and humans were fundamentally different species, after all. Still, since they lived in close proximity and shared much of the same culture, it wasn’t rare for such feelings to develop. Comparing it to bestiality was a bit of an overreach, but…
“...Why am I even searching for this?”
The thought suddenly struck her. Deciding she wasn’t in her right mind, Seol-hwa closed the Ghost Gallery. Even after exiting, however, the discomfort in her chest refused to fade. San’s words kept swirling through her head, especially one line in particular.
Instead of wasting time worrying about things like that, it would be more worthwhile to be honest with your own heart.
She didn’t understand why those words had engraved themselves so clearly in her memory. Seol-hwa recalled the reasons San had developed feelings for Se-hwan. Then she reflected on her own relationship with him.
I’ve received a lot of help from him too…
Their first meeting had been rocky, but Se-hwan had understood her and helped her more proactively than anyone. Even now that her Ghost Gallery activities were no longer an issue, he had promised to keep helping her. Just like San, Seol-hwa had plenty of reasons to feel grateful toward him.
But if someone asked whether that gratitude had turned into romantic interest…
…No.
Her own heart firmly denied it. It wasn’t like that. Seol-hwa rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. She remembered the feeling of Se-hwan’s fingers slipping between hers earlier.
They were thicker than I expected…
She hadn’t noticed before, but his hands were larger than hers, his fingers thicker at the joints. The way their fingers had intertwined made the difference even more obvious. It felt like an unnecessarily masculine trait. Seol-hwa repeatedly curled and uncurled her own fingers, then clenched them into a tight fist.
I don’t understand.
She couldn’t figure out why San’s feelings for Se-hwan bothered her so much, or why the thought made her so uneasy. And…
“...It feels empty.”
Why did both of her hands feel so empty?
“Ugh……”
The moment I opened my eyes, a dull headache hit me. I hadn’t even woken up properly yet, and the headache made my skull feel twice as painful.
“Damn, my head…”
What time is it… and why does my head hurt so much? My brain was still foggy, but I soon remembered what had happened yesterday and understood the cause.
“Ah, the spiritual energy…”
The headache was probably from giving so much spiritual energy to Baek Seol-hwa yesterday. She had absorbed quite a lot, and now I was suffering fatigue and even a headache. No wonder men who had their energy drained by gumiho were sometimes found dead the next day. It wasn’t for nothing that gumiho became synonymous with monsters.
I turned on my phone to check the time. I was worried I’d overslept, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.
“Six thirty…”
That gave me plenty of time to eat breakfast. I wasn’t usually one to eat breakfast, but after expending so much energy yesterday, I figured some nutrition would help me focus in class.
The moment I opened the bedroom door to cook something, I saw something strange.
“Huh?”
A pure white, perfectly round bead was radiating yoki. It even circled around me like it was alive as soon as I stepped out of the room.
“This is…”
It was a fox bead. It had to be Baek Seol-hwa’s… but why was it here?
“...Why did she leave this behind?”
This bead was practically a gumiho’s other half. If it were destroyed, roughly half the yoki inside the gumiho would vanish. That was why they almost never let their beads out of their sight.
“What if it breaks while it’s here…”
Wondering why she had left it, I sent her a message. It was early morning, so she might not see it, but since she tended to wake up early I figured I’d try anyway. Apparently she was already awake, because the number next to the message disappeared immediately.
She was at the front door? Feeling bewildered, I opened the door. Sure enough, Baek Seol-hwa was standing right there.
…How long had she been waiting?
“Uh… did you sleep well?”
“...Yeah.”
“Want to come in for a bit?”
“...No, I’ll just take the fox bead and leave.”
“Ah, okay.”
Why was she suddenly acting so awkward? I thought it was strange until I remembered how embarrassed she had been yesterday. The shame probably hadn’t worn off yet.
She really has zero resistance.
It hadn’t even been that intimate of a touch. If she reacted this strongly, maybe that was how a thousand-year-old gumiho could remain a virgin.
Seol-hwa stepped inside and reached toward the fox bead circling me. It spun once around me before flying straight into her hand.
“But why did you leave your fox bead behind?”
“...In case you were in danger.”
“Huh?”
“You collapsed after I absorbed so much spiritual energy. So just in case…”
…That was actually kind of sweet. Of course nothing would have happened with all the talismans in the house, but it was still thoughtful of her to leave it as a precaution.
“...You look perfectly fine, so it was a wasted worry.”
“Our house is full of talismans. Nothing dangerous usually happens.”
“...True. I left it for nothing.”
Having retrieved her bead, Seol-hwa turned to leave immediately.
“Baek Seol-hwa.”
“...What?”
“How long were you waiting outside?”
“...You messaged me at the perfect time. I just got here.”
“Oh, I see.”
Seol-hwa nodded slightly. As she opened the front door to leave, she said,
“I’m going.”
…Was it right to let her leave like this? She had come all the way here early in the morning because of me.
“Um, Baek Seol-hwa.”
“Why?”
“Have you eaten yet?”
“......What?”
“If you haven’t, eat before you go.”
Seol-hwa stared at me with a blank expression, clearly debating what to do. She didn’t answer for a long time, but I could already tell what her answer would be. Her fluffy tail was wagging gently back and forth with obvious joy.
“You’re hungry, right? Come in. I need to eat before school anyway, so you can leave after.”
“Is that okay…?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“...It’s not.”
Seol-hwa hesitated for a moment, then closed the front door again, took off her shoes, and came inside.
“Do you eat eggs?”
“Do you have any vegetables?”
What was I supposed to do with this vegan gumiho?
“I do. Mom packed some side dishes last time.”
“Your mother made them? That sounds delicious!”
The awkwardness that had been on Seol-hwa’s face vanished instantly. I didn’t know why she loved greens so much. I warmed up some instant rice and took out the vegetable side dishes. I wasn’t fond of eating grass for breakfast, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Thank you for the meal!”
“Thank you for the meal.”
Seol-hwa began savoring the vegetables with the same delight someone might show for delicious meat. She really was a strange one… Because she ate so enthusiastically, I almost started thinking the food tasted better just by watching her. I tried not to stare too much since that would be rude, but then Seol-hwa suddenly called my name.
“...Yoo Se-hwan.”
“What?”
“What do you think about half-yokai?”
“Huh?”
“Kids who are half yokai and half human?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it… but honestly, the ones who cause trouble aren’t much different from regular yokai.”
“Have you met any?”
“In the past.”
There had been one who caused all sorts of trouble. I remembered it clearly because it was the third entity I had exorcised back when my parents were dragging me around on exorcism jobs. It had been discriminated against by yokai and had its own story, but it had taken out its resentment on innocent people.
“I exorcised one once.”
“...Then you must hate half-yokai too.”
“Huh? I wouldn’t say I like them, but it depends on the individual.”
“Depends?”
“I dislike yokai in general, but I’m still eating with you like this. If a half-yokai isn’t causing problems, there’s no reason to hate them.”
I might have hated them unconditionally in the past, but my thinking had changed a lot since then.
“...I see.”
“Why are you suddenly asking about that?”
“J-just… curious.”
Seol-hwa answered while putting spinach in her mouth. Surprisingly, I was starting to get used to the sight of a gumiho chewing on greens…
“...Yoo Se-hwan, if, hypothetically…”
“Hypothetically? What?”
“If a yokai or a spiritual beast or… something not human said they liked you, what would you do?”
“......?”
…Where was this coming from all of a sudden?
“Why are you asking something like that out of nowhere…?”
“Oh, it came up yesterday while I was talking with Jangsan and Ye-ryeong. I was just curious about your opinion. I wanted to know how humans view the idea of humans and yokai falling in love.”
So that’s what they had been talking about. Now it made sense why she had asked about half-yokai first—she had been building up to this question.
“...Well, it’s their hearts. If they want to go through all that trouble because they like each other, it’s not anyone else’s place to interfere. Of course, if they cause problems in the process, that’s a different story. But if they like each other, then…”
There were plenty of old stories like that. Humans who loved yokai, and yokai who loved humans…
“It’s their freedom.”
As long as they didn’t cause trouble, it was fine.
“I-I see.”
“What did Jangsan and Ha Ye-ryeong say?”
“...They said something similar to you.”
Figures.
“Then what about you?”
“Huh?”
“You said you were part of the conversation too.”
“...I-I’m not sure. They’re completely different species to begin with, so I wonder if that’s even right.”
“That’s unexpected. I thought you’d be the most open-minded about it.”
“What? Why would you think that?”
“You’re good at understanding other people’s feelings.”
“...Huh?”
Why did she look so flustered? I had only stated the obvious.
“You’ve been listening to the worries of spirits and absorbing their energy all this time. You can only do that because you’re good at reading people’s hearts.”
“Ah…”
“So I thought you might understand the feelings between yokai and humans too. But I’m not saying your opinion is wrong. Everyone thinks differently.”
“...I know. You don’t have to explain it like that.”
She actually understood that? The idiot gumiho had grown a lot. By the way…
Those vegetables must taste really good.
Seol-hwa’s tail had been wagging nonstop from side to side for a while now. She seemed to be in an extremely good mood.
“......”
The way the corners of her mouth were secretly lifting confirmed it.
“Oh, about the spiritual energy absorption.”
“Y-yes!?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“N-no reason. Why are you suddenly talking about spiritual energy?”
“It seems like doing it every day would be too hard. Let’s do it every two or three days instead. It’s more exhausting than I expected. With school and everything, doing it every day seems impossible.”
“Ah…”
Seol-hwa nodded. I was glad she understood.
…But why did her tail stop?
The tail that had been wagging energetically a moment ago now drooped weakly. The moment I said it would be hard to give her spiritual energy every day, it had changed.
This girl…
“Hey, didn’t you say my spiritual energy tasted bad? Looks like it actually tasted good, huh?”
“...What?”
“I can see you’re disappointed. It’s written all over your tail.”
Seol-hwa’s face turned bright red. She set down her spoon and protested.
“W-why are you looking at whatever you want!? Pervert!”
…What was I supposed to do when it was visible? And how does looking at a tail make me a pervert? That’s unfair.
“Stop looking without permission!”
“......Got it.”
If it was that embarrassing, I had no choice. I’d just have to stop from now on. With both cheeks still flushed red, Seol-hwa stuffed more vegetables in her mouth and grumbled in a tiny voice that I could barely hear.
“That means you saw everything. Seriously……”