Chapter 24: Choose

"Late?" said Madam Gwak.

Her voice went up so high at the end it cracked.

"LATE?"

"The gate guard sent for you an hour ago," said Hwang, still kneeling over me, still completely naked, like this was a normal faculty meeting. "I told him to. You’re his sponsor. Your name’s on his file." She tilted her head. "I assumed you’d want to know he was dying."

"DYING?"

Madam Gwak’s eyes snapped to me. Down to my face. The sweat. The way my whole body was shaking.

All the anger drained out of her face in a heartbeat.

"Mu-jin," she breathed.

She crossed the room in three steps. Dropped her lantern on the floor. Knelt beside the bed. Grabbed my hand.

Then she yanked it back with a hiss.

"He’s burning."

"Yin overflow," said Hwang. "Five women. Raw. Fighting. Cha Mi-ran’s was the last."

Madam Gwak’s head whipped around. "CHA MI-RAN?"

"Last night. In her training room."

"That woman takes the last plum cake at EVERY banquet—"

"I know, Ji-yeon. I sit next to her too."

They glared at each other across my body. One fully dressed, buttoned wrong, spectacles crooked. One completely naked, hair down, gray streak shining in the lamplight.

Eight years of banquets. Eight years of judging each other’s robes.

And I was lying in the middle of it. Dying. A little.

"Ladies," I croaked.

"QUIET," they both said.

[Yin overflow: critical.]

[Meridian damage: beginning.]

Something inside me cracked.

Not a bone. Something deeper. Like ice on a pond breaking under your foot. Pain shot from my belly straight up my spine and exploded behind my eyes. I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. My mouth just opened and nothing came out.

Both women grabbed me at the same time.

Hwang’s hand flat on my dantian. Madam Gwak’s hand on my chest. Both of them pressing down.

And then Madam Gwak gasped.

"That’s—" She pressed harder. Her eyes went huge behind her crooked spectacles. "That’s mine. In there. I can feel it. The cold one. Like ink."

"Of course you can," said Hwang. "It came from you."

"It’s... calling me."

Hwang looked at her. Long. Hard. Then she let out a breath through her nose. Like she’d just been forced to do math she didn’t like.

"Five yins," she said. "I drained thirty parts in a hundred with breath. Alone, I can maybe drain the rest. Maybe. If nothing goes wrong. If his meridians hold." Her hand pressed down on me. "But your ink is still yours, Ji-yeon. It knows you. If you pull while I pull — two of us, from two sides — it goes twice as fast. And it doesn’t tear him apart."

Madam Gwak stared at her.

"You want me to..."

"I want you to take off that hideous robe," said Hwang, "and help me save your sponsored disciple."

Silence.

"It’s not hideous," said Madam Gwak quietly. "It’s navy."

"It’s buttoned wrong."

Madam Gwak looked down at her robe. The buttons were in the wrong holes. All of them. From the top to the bottom. She’d run out of her house so fast she hadn’t even noticed.

She stared at them for a long moment.

Then her hands came up and, very slowly, started undoing them.

She stopped halfway.

Her hands just stopped. Her face went pale. She looked at Hwang — at that long, strong, perfect body with its old white scars — and then down at herself. And for the first time since I’d known her, Madam Gwak Ji-yeon looked small.

"I can’t," she whispered. "Not in front of you."

Hwang raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because you’re—" Madam Gwak gestured at all of her. "YOU. And I’m a forty-year-old widow who sells silk and hasn’t been looked at in eight years, and you’re going to sit there and compare—"

"Ji-yeon."

I said it. Not Hwang.

Both of them looked at me.

I was still shaking. Still burning. But I reached up with my free hand and caught the edge of Ji-yeon’s robe. Right where she’d stopped unbuttoning.

"I need to see more of you," I said. My voice was a croak. "Please. Not for the yin. For me."

She looked down at me. Her lip trembled.

"In my palanquin," I said, "you told me nobody had looked at you in eight years. I looked. I’m still looking." I tried to smile. It probably looked terrible. "You’re the most beautiful strict woman in Hangju."

Her eyes went wet behind the spectacles.

And Hwang Yu-seon, of all people, said quietly:

"He looks at you like you’re the last plum cake, Ji-yeon. I saw it from across the courtyard."

Madam Gwak turned her head and stared at her rival.

Hwang just shrugged one bare shoulder.

"I’ve been jealous of you for three days," she said. "It’s very irritating."

Something happened on Madam Gwak’s face. Something cracked. She let out this sound — half laugh, half sob — and then she just... finished unbuttoning. Fast. Every button. Shrugged the navy robe off her shoulders and let it fall on the floor right on top of the sponsorship papers.

Then she took off her spectacles. Folded them. Set them on the bedside table.

And she knelt there beside me in the lamplight with nothing on, her brown hair falling out of its bun, chin up, cheeks burning, daring either of us to say one word.

Hwang looked her over. Slowly. Top to bottom. The way she’d looked at me in her office.

"Hm," said the headmistress. "All those years of buttoning up to the throat. What a waste."

Madam Gwak went red all the way down to her chest.

I couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t the overflow.

[Target: Hwang Yu-seon.] [Desire +20.]

[Target: Gwak Ji-yeon.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

"Breath first," said Hwang. "Like before. Ji-yeon, mouth to mouth, on my count. Pull the ink. Only the ink. I’ll take the rest."

"Mouth to mouth," Ji-yeon repeated faintly.

"You’ve done it before. In your palanquin. All of Hangju knows."

"The bearers TALKED?"

"Bearers always talk. Breathe in."

They leaned down on either side of me. Hwang’s long black hair on my left. Ji-yeon’s brown hair on my right. Hwang’s mouth found mine first, and on her count, she pulled — a thread of heat, out through my lips — and then she turned her face away, and Ji-yeon’s mouth was there instead, soft and shaking—

And she pulled.

The cold ink came out of me like it was coming home. I felt it go. Felt it slide out of my chest and into her. And Ji-yeon shuddered so hard her whole body jerked, and she gasped against my lips, and her hand clutched my shoulder so tight her nails dug in.

"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, gods. That’s—"

"Again," said Hwang. Her voice was rough now too.

They traded. Back and forth. Hwang’s mouth. Then Ji-yeon’s. Then Hwang’s. Every time one of them pulled, the burning dropped. Every time, they shuddered. And every time they shuddered, they pressed a little closer against me, from both sides, until I was lying between two bare bodies, two pairs of hands on my chest, two mouths trading my breath back and forth like a secret.

[Overflow draining... 45%.]

[Overflow draining... 55%.]

At some point Ji-yeon’s hand slid down. Off my chest. Lower.

At some point Hwang’s did too.

They bumped into each other.

Both hands froze.

Both women lifted their heads and looked at each other over my body.

The lamp flickered.

"Breath only drains the surface," said Hwang, very quietly, not taking her eyes off her rival. "You know that, don’t you, Ji-yeon. The deep yin needs more contact."

"...I know." Ji-yeon’s voice was barely a whisper.

"One of us has to go first."

"I know."

They kept staring at each other. Eight years of banquets. Eight years of plum cakes and cold looks and judging each other’s robes across a crowded hall.

Then, at the exact same moment, they both turned their heads and looked down at me.

Two women. Kneeling on either side of me. Hair down. Robes on the floor. Their hands resting together on my stomach, fingers almost touching. Both breathing hard. Both burning.

The overflow was still raging. I could feel it. Half of it still in there, clawing at my meridians.

And neither of them was moving.

"Mu-jin," said Hwang Yu-seon.

"Mu-jin," said Gwak Ji-yeon.

They said the next word together.

"Choose."