Cold, and Hot
Until the moment they lay down, the three of them had been a restless little storm of noise — but the instant their heads touched the ground and their eyes closed, sleep claimed them all at once.
Hoeyeon had spent her sword qi, Gayul had strained every nerve casting magic, and Arang was worn thin by exhaustion and her wounds. All three bodies were crying out for rest. Anyone weaker, or less tempered by training, would have collapsed unconscious long before now without anyone thinking it strange.
The campfire crackled and swayed, casting a gentle light across the three faces sunk deep in sleep.
Autumn days may be bright, but autumn nights are cold. They had spread a blanket on the ground to keep the earth from stealing their body heat — which meant there was nothing left to cover themselves with.
All three had resigned themselves to sleeping curled tight, and to waking up shivering.
But if something as warm as a person happens to be right beside you — and if, in your sleep, you happen to brush against it — what then?
None of them had thought that far. None of them had the strength left to think at all.
When the morning sunlight gently stirred Hoeyeon awake, a warm, soft sensation filled her from front and back.
Front and back — because she had rolled onto her side in the night, and both her stomach and her back were pressed against something yielding and warm.
Huh?
Something felt off.
When Hoeyeon carefully opened her eyes, her vision flooded with blue.
Gayul. That color she had grown so used to seeing — a color she would probably associate with this woman for the rest of her life.
Gayul was asleep with her arms around her. That beautiful face was right in front of Hoeyeon's eyes.
Ah.
Hoeyeon understood, freshly and with force, that beauty could be a kind of violence.
She started to turn her head — and realized. Gayul had one arm draped across Hoeyeon's stomach, and one leg lightly thrown over so that her ankle rested atop Hoeyeon's. The moment Hoeyeon tried to ease her body free without waking her, something tickled the nape of her neck.
What is that?
She thought it over with a foggy head. Fur. Soft, whispering fur.
Fox fur, specifically.
Fox fur?
When Hoeyeon carefully turned her head the other way, she found Arang clinging to both her own tail and to Hoeyeon.
She had first pulled her tail up between her legs and gathered it into her arms, and in that same embrace she was holding Hoeyeon too. The thing tickling Hoeyeon's nape had been the tip of Arang's tail.
"Ah."
A dazed little sound slipped from her mouth.
Arang's sleeping face was stripped of all the mischief it wore when she was awake, holding the same clear innocence it had when she still wore a child's form. Her fox ears, soft with sleep, drooped gently to the sides.
"Mmm…"
Just then, the cold air that had slipped into the gap from Hoeyeon's shifting made Gayul press closer against her.
"!?"
To keep the chill out, skin sealed tight against skin — and Gayul's soft chest pressed flush against Hoeyeon's own. Crushed against it.
"Hih!?"
The high little sound that escaped was not merely because their chests had met.
It was because the part of Hoeyeon's chest that was especially sensitive to touch had brushed against the same part of Gayul's.
"Mmmmh…"
Hoeyeon shuddered, and the same cold draft reached Arang's side — and Arang, just like Gayul, pressed herself flush against her.
"Hih!?"
And the exact same sound slipped from Hoeyeon's lips a second time.
Because Arang was holding her from behind, there was no chance of those particularly sensitive places grazing each other.
But that also meant Arang could bury her face entirely against Hoeyeon's back. Hot breath touched her spine. The tip of a nose and a pair of lips nuzzled against the nape of her neck, and every point of contact sent a sweet, crackling sensation racing from the crown of Hoeyeon's head all the way down to the base of her spine.
Pinned from both sides, she couldn't escape forward or back. Then sideways—
Something tickled Hoeyeon's nose. Whether it was Gayul's hair or Arang's tail fur, she couldn't tell — but a sneeze was about to explode out of her.
"A—ah—"
Hoeyeon bolted upright in a panic.
"Eek!?"
"Kyah!?"
"Achooo!!!! Hitch! Hih-choo!!"
"Wh-what…"
"What in the world is this one doing to this humble one—"
Gayul and Arang started to protest — then each realized she was not merely beside Hoeyeon but pressed skin-to-skin against her, and both of them guessed what must have happened.
"…Sniff."
Hoeyeon sniffled.
The two of them awkwardly looked away.
"We should get up. I'll take care of the fire."
"This humble one shall fold the blanket."
"Sniff… achoo! Sniff…"
The three of them filled their stomachs lightly with grain flour mixed into water, then set out on the road.
They needed to discuss what they would do from here, and where they ought to set as their destination. But everyone was still too tired to want that conversation on the open road, and walking into a town would mean watching every ear that might overhear them.
So, quite reasonably, they decided to go to a hot spring.
"Wait, that what…"
"? Why do you say so?"
Arang asked, giving her fox tail a lazy swish to one side.
"Ah — sorry. I was just thinking to myself for a second…"
She had already heard Arang's full explanation and agreed to go — but stripped of that context, the bare sequence of events made for a very strange sentence, and she had muttered it out loud before she could stop herself.
"You must be tired. No — of course you're tired."
"Indeed. That is precisely why this humble one suggested it."
According to Arang, about an hour's travel east of here stood a mountain, and hidden within it was a hot spring the Fox-kin kept secret. The spring water had a mysterious property that hastened the recovery of internal energy and vitality.
"I am sorry to say it again, but you must never, under any circumstances, speak of that place to anyone. It is a treasure of all Fox-kin."
Arang said this as she walked ahead of them on the path.
Hoeyeon nodded. Gayul nodded too, and said,
"Understood. Thank you for specially guiding us to such a place."
"Compared to what the two of you have done for this humble one, it is the slightest of repayments."
Huh.
A thought struck Hoeyeon.
These two are treating each other with perfectly ordinary courtesy?
Then what on earth had last night been about.
"Wah!"
Hoeyeon, tilting her head in thought, caught her foot on a stone. She nearly went down, caught herself on Arang's shoulder, and recovered her balance.
"Sorry!"
"There is no need to apologize. Are you truly that tired? Shall this humble one carry you on her back?"
"Wouldn't that bushy tail of yours make it difficult? Just yesterday we had to peel fur off Hoeyeon's face because of it, did we not?"
"The tail again, is it? Is Gayul's temperament not so sharp and prickly that it makes things difficult for her?"
Hm.
Hoeyeon considered thinking about it for a moment — then gave up.
Just don't think about it.
She was far too tired for that right now.
Once they passed through a secret passage cut between the rocks, a wondrous landscape unfolded before their eyes.
"Wow!"
The sound left Hoeyeon's mouth before she could stop it. Beside her, she heard Gayul draw in a soft breath of wonder.
Hot spring water welling up from the stone mountain. A bath carved from rock to catch it. A small pavilion before it. Cliffs, and trees growing from the cracks in the stone. Leaves dyed yellow and red. The crisp autumn wind.
Steam rose in soft white curls from the bath where the water burbled up.
To call it a scenic masterpiece would not have been the slightest exaggeration.
"Luggage and clothes may be left upon the pavilion. That building you see yonder is a lodging for those who stay the night."
Arang spoke, then set the example by reaching for her own clothes.
"Wait."
"What is it, Hoeyeon?"
"…Uh."
At this point, fretting over clothes and bare skin might well have been belated. Hoeyeon knew that too.
Even so, the thought of baring herself in front of these two made her burn with embarrassment.
"Is there… anything to cover up with?"
"To cover up with?"
Arang blinked — then grinned, slow and wicked.
Uh-oh.
Hoeyeon felt a bad premonition.
"Of course there is. If Hoeyeon offers to drape something over this humble one, how could she possibly refuse?"
"Uh… that…"
"Wait but a moment — this humble one shall fetch them at once. To cover, and yet not quite cover — that razor's edge is the most delectable thing of all."
Arang bounced down the stone steps like a skipping rabbit and vanished into the lodging. From behind Hoeyeon, who stood frozen in an awkward daze, came the sound of Gayul sighing.
"Hah…"
Surely Gayul thought this was a bit much too, right? When Arang came back, she'd get angry and tell her this wasn't the time, right?
"As much as it galls me to admit it… I cannot deny she has rather refined taste…"
Maybe she should just cut them both down and be done with it.
Just as Arang had said, the spring water had the effect of hastening the recovery of internal energy and vitality.
"Uuuuugh…"
It was the kind of sound an old person might make, but she no longer had the energy to care about a thing like that.
"How mysterious… A natural flow of mana through the mountain, perhaps? The water… is……"
Gayul, as a master of magic, seemed to be taking an analytical interest — but even she had gone soft-eyed with pleasure.
"Huyaahhh… ahhua……"
As for Arang, she had lost the ability to form human speech entirely. Her tail swayed left and right in lazy little flicks, exactly like a dog wagging with pure contentment.
The cloth Arang had brought was thin and white, and it was honestly more suggestive than bare skin. Soaked through by the water, it hit that exquisite thickness where it both revealed and did not reveal.
They made such a fuss right up until we got in the bath…
The two of them had teased Hoeyeon so mercilessly — and the moment they actually entered the water, both of them had completely melted. Thinking about it was almost funny.
Of course, Hoeyeon herself no longer had the capacity for thought either.
"Uuuugh… ah, the muscles are loosening, loosening… loose……"
"How… mysterious……"
"Uyaaaaaahng……"
Swordsman, emperor, divine beast — none of it mattered.
There were only three women in a hot spring, nodding off in bliss.