Chapter 8: Physician’s Orders

I didn’t even take my robe off. I just walked into the water after her.

It was hot. Way hotter than Ayla’s tub. Hot enough that my whole body went loose the second it hit my waist, and the steam was so thick I could barely see the pines anymore. Just the lantern on the branch. Just the moon. Just her.

She stopped where the water came up to her ribs and waited for me with her back turned.

"Is she still out there?" she whispered.

"Who?"

"Seo-rin unni."

I listened. Past the gate, past the trees — clack.

One bead. Very faint.

"Yeah," I said. "I think she’s still out there."

Yeon-hee went quiet. Then she laughed under her breath, a little shaky.

"I was so scared you’d see her and just... turn around. Go back down the hill. Decide I wasn’t worth all this trouble."

I walked up behind her. Wrapped my arms around her waist under the water and pulled her back against my chest, soaking robe and all.

"Feel that?" I said in her ear.

She felt it. She couldn’t NOT feel it.

"That’s how much trouble you’re worth," I said. "I’m not going anywhere, Yeon-hee."

"Promise?"

"I ran up a hill in the dark and tripped on a root twice. My knee’s bleeding. I promise."

She laughed — the real one, the bright loud one — and then slapped her hand over her mouth because it echoed all the way off the rocks.

Then she took her hand away.

"Actually," she said, very quietly, "I don’t care if she hears."

[Desire +15.]

The old Yeon-hee — the one this morning with the balm jar and the professional smile — would never have said that.

This one turned around in my arms, grabbed the front of my soaking wet robe, and pulled me down into a kiss.

I don’t know how long we kissed in that water. Long enough for my robe to float off somewhere. Long enough for the lantern on the branch to start sputtering.

She made me sit on a flat rock at the edge, the water up to my chest, and she climbed into my lap facing me. Her knees on either side of my hips. Her arms around my neck. Wet hair sticking to both of us.

Then she opened the balm jar.

"Physician’s orders," she said.

She scooped some out with two fingers. It smelled like mint and something warm, like ginger. She started rubbing it into my shoulders. Slow. Firm. Real massage, the kind that actually knows where every muscle goes. Her thumbs dug into knots I didn’t even know I had.

"Gods," I groaned. "You’re actually good at this."

"I’m a physician, idiot." She worked her way down my chest. "This is the first time I’ve gotten to touch a patient and not have to pretend I wasn’t enjoying it."

Her hands kept going down. Down my stomach. Under the water.

And she stopped pretending.

I grabbed the jar out of her hand.

"My turn," I said.

I took a big scoop and ran it down her back, all the way down her spine, slow, while she arched into my hands like a cat. Then over her hips. Then around front. Over her chest. She bit her lip, eyes half closed, breathing faster every time my thumbs moved.

The balm made everything tingle. Her skin went goosebumps from the cold air and burning from the mint at the same time.

"Mu-jin," she whispered.

"Mm?"

"Ask me where he is."

I knew who she meant.

"Where’s your husband tonight, Yeon-hee?"

"Asleep on his desk. At the magistrate’s office. Next to a stack of tax ledgers." She smiled, but it was sad. "He sent a boy this afternoon to say he won’t be home for three nights. The spring inspections. He sends a boy. He didn’t even come himself."

She looked down at the water.

"He hasn’t touched me in five months. I counted. I’m a physician, I count things. Five months. He says he’s tired. He says I’m being dramatic. I’m just... something that keeps the house clean and fixes his back when it hurts."

I cupped her face and made her look at me.

"Not tonight," I said. "Tonight there’s no house. No back. No ledgers. It’s just you."

Her eyes got wet. Not crying. Just shining.

[Desire +20.]

Then she leaned in and put her mouth by my ear.

"I want to give you something," she whispered. "Something nobody’s ever had. Not him. Not anybody. Something that’s only yours."

My heart actually stopped for a second.

"Are you sure?"

"I’m a physician." She kissed my jaw. "I’m always sure. Just... go slow with me, okay? I’m a little scared."

"Then we go slow," I said. "And if you want to stop, you just say it. Even halfway. Even right at the start."

She pulled back and looked at me for a long second, like she was checking my pulse with her eyes.

"...Nobody ever says that to me," she said.

Then she turned around in the water, put both hands on the warm flat rock, and looked back at me over her shoulder. Hair dripping. Cheeks pink. Biting her lip so hard it went white.

[Desire +25.]

"Slow," she whispered.

"Slow," I promised.

I’m keeping the rest of that night for myself.

But I’ll tell you it went slow. Really slow. And then — when she started gripping that rock and saying my name like it was the only word she knew — not slow at all.

And I’ll tell you that Hong Seo-rin was definitely still out there. Because at one point, Yeon-hee was so loud that the clacking from past the gate just... stopped.

And didn’t start again for a long time.

Afterward, we floated. Just floated. Her back against my chest, my arms around her, both of us staring up at the moon through the steam. Her body was so loose she’d have sunk if I let go.

"I’m going to feel that tomorrow," she mumbled. "Every time I sit down."

"Sorry."

"Don’t be sorry." She grabbed my hand under the water and squeezed. "I want to feel it. I want to sit down in front of my husband in three days and feel it and smile and not tell him why."

That was so evil I almost got hard again.

Almost. I’d been going since this morning. Even this body had limits.

She turned her head and kissed the bite mark she’d left on my neck on the stairs. Then the other one, from Ayla. Then the third one, from Madam Gwak.

She paused on that one.

"Three different mouths," she said. Not angry. Just... noting it. Like a diagnosis.

"...Yeah."

"In one day."

"Yeah."

She was quiet for a while.

"I know what you are, Mu-jin," she said finally. "I’m not stupid. Seo-rin unni told me about the merchant’s wife before you even came up the hill. And the whole east wing heard about your stool." She laced her fingers through mine. "I’m married. I don’t get to be jealous. I just want... my part. Whatever my part is. Don’t forget it."

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I just held her tighter.

She fell asleep like that. In the water. In my arms.

And that’s when it happened.

[Target: Dam Yeon-hee.]

[Desire — MAXIMUM.]

I froze.

That was new. In three months, I’d never seen a number stop climbing. Madam Seol had gotten high. Really high. But never... maximum.

And then—

[Condition met.]

[New function unlocking—]

[—— █ ███ ██ ——]

The letters broke apart. Like ink in water. Static crackled through my skull, a high whine like a mosquito in my ear, and then—

Nothing.

The window was gone.

I stared up at the moon with my heart going like crazy and a sleeping physician in my arms.

New function?

This whole time... three months... I’d thought the system only did one thing.

It did more?

What the hell else does it do?