Fates Parallel Chapter 55 - Expression

Jia lay on the couch feeling miserable. The day had started so well—except for the part where she had woken up on the edge of an essence deviation. She’d gotten to try Eui’s home cooking—which had been amazing—and she could begrudgingly admit that it had been fun to have her hair and makeup done by Eui. Things had taken a decidedly downhill turn from there.

The accumulated stress of the day had built up, and as a result, Jia had lashed out at the only person in the world that she could trust implicitly. She hadn’t wanted to hit Eui—or rather, she had, but she hadn’t meant to actually do it. Her hand had moved before her mind could catch up, and now it was too late to take it back.

She wanted to apologize, but she knew that Eui would need a bit of space. So did Jia, for that matter—the feelings that had led to the slap hadn’t exactly gone away, as cathartic as it had been. Rather than sit and brood on it, she decided to take a look at that letter Yan Yue had given her.

For just a moment, Jia thought about blaming Yue for everything that had happened—but that felt too cheap. Perhaps when the day had begun, Jia might still have gone with that, but she couldn’t keep blaming others for her own shortcomings—not if she had any intention of overcoming them.

Opening the letter, Jia found that Yue’s handwriting was almost as impeccable as Dae’s. In fact, it had a certain artistic quality to the brushstrokes that made the small imperfections seem intentional. The things nobles wasted their time on—Jia read the letter:

Jia and Eui, you’ll be pleased to know that in light of your closer-than-expected association with Hayakawa Kaede, Zheng Long has agreed that you are too valuable as assets and too high profile to be disposed of. It took a lot of convincing on my part, and Han Yu is spitting mad, but you have your freedom, for now.

I hope you understand the risks I have taken on this. I’m certain that our animosity will not be so easily forgotten, but please understand that I have a greater understanding of the forces at play and acted in what I thought was in my best interests. I’d like to arrange a schedule for our little mountain expedition play at your convenience—you know how to find me.

— YY

PS. You really should reconsider your association with Seong Eunae. Nothing good will come of it. Best of luck, and please destroy this missive when you’re finished with it.

Jia stared flatly at the letter before heaving a sigh and tossing it in the fire. The nerve of that girl! Was her arrogance a product of being older, being noble, or being from Qin? Probably all three. Lee Jia had no intention of associating any further with Yan Yue until she had learned how to resist spiritual attacks—the girl had thoroughly proven that she could not be trusted.

She sat there for a moment, staring at the fire, without even really thinking. She had to apologize to Eui—she knew it was going to eat away at her until she did. Jia knocked on the bedroom door, and after a moment of hesitation when she got no response, entered.

Eui was sitting on her bed with her legs drawn up to her chest, and her face buried in her knees. It reminded Jia of the first time they’d met, in exactly the same places, and Eui in the same pose. She brushed her fingers nostalgically across the small notch in the door where Eui’s knife had stuck into it.

Eui didn’t throw a knife at her, this time—or react to her presence at all. Jia closed the door behind her and went to sit on the bed next to Eui. Jia leaned into her a bit as she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Eui.”

She didn’t say anything else—no amount of justification could excuse her behavior, and she didn’t want it excused. They sat there in silence for nearly a minute before Eui finally responded.

“Me too.”

Eui didn’t elaborate, but Jia didn’t ask her to, either. They had both said and done things that they regretted, and they had expressed that regret. Jia forgave Eui for her mistakes, and trusted Eui to do the same for her.

“I think I learned a bit more about myself from that lesson than I was ready for.”

Eui drew her legs in tighter.

“Sorry.”

Jia shook her head and leaned a little harder into Eui.

“You already said that. It’s not your fault, anyway. I was—I’m not very honest with myself. You wanted me to learn some self-awareness, but that meant confronting all the lies I constantly tell myself.”

“That wasn’t—it wasn’t really self-awareness I was going for. I wanted to boost your self-confidence Jia. You’re so strong and capable—and b-beautiful—I just wanted you to see in the mirror what I see every day.”

Self-confidence. Jia felt like an idiot as she drew her own knees up in a mirror of Eui’s pose. In hindsight, that was a much more obvious goal than the intense self-reflection that Jia had undergone. She’d spend too much time around Qin nobles if she was reading so far into other people’s intentions. Just one more thing to apologize for.

“I don’t know if I really am that person, Eui. I don’t know that I’m not, either. I’ve spent such a long time pretending—I don’t even know who I am anymore. What do I really want? How do I really feel? Everything you’ve seen is just a shallow, hollow mask. The only thing I know about the person underneath is that—I don’t think I like her very much.”

“That’s not true, Jia. For anyone else, maybe, but I know that I’ve seen the real you. You can hide who you are from the world, maybe even yourself, but not from me. Don’t forget, Jia, that we have literally been the same person before. It’s not the mask you present that I fell in love with.”

Jia felt her eyes beginning to tear up as Eui boldly reaffirmed her feelings. She wanted to live up to those expectations, but she wasn’t sure that she could. Worse, she still couldn’t be sure that she was capable of returning Eui’s feelings.

Did she love Eui? Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. It was one of the few things she could be certain of, and a surprising weight off her shoulders to be able to admit. Yet, she wasn’t sure if it was that kind of love. She had loved Lee Jung, but that was like a mother or a sister, and she had no other relationships she could compare her feelings to.

Dae? She didn’t love Dae. Liked him, certainly. Jia would be distraught if anything happened to him, and she would be there in an instant if he asked her for help. Could she have made the agreement with Hayakawa for him, though? She didn’t think so. The same was true of all her other friendships.

Jia realized that the silence had stretched on a bit awkwardly and wiped at her eyes.

“Thank you, Eui.”

Her response felt a bit lame. She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t find the words. Instead, she changed the subject.

“I, um, might have figured out what’s wrong with our domains.”

Eui perked up with interest, turning her head to meet Jia’s eyes.

“Oh? You found a way to fix them?”

Jia grimaced as she realized the misunderstanding.

“Uh, n-no. Sorry, I meant the other problem. You know how we waste a lot of mana when we cultivate?”

Eui scowled, but nodded.

“Oh, that. What about it?”

Jia tried her best to explain the insights she had gained during her meditation about the nature of the domain, and how it was a projection of one’s self-image.

“That sounds...complicated. I think I might have a slightly clearer image of myself than you do, but it sounds like we’re going to need some really, uh, intense self-reflection to advance any further.”

“Yeah, probably, but I think I have an idea of what we can work on to help with that.”

Eui raised an eyebrow with interest.

“Oh? Why does that not surprise me? Sometimes I wonder if your problems are just because there’s no room for anything other than cultivation in that thick skull of yours.”

Jia blushed and averted her eyes, but she didn’t really have a retort so she ignored the jab and went on.

“A-anyway, Murayoshi said that we had to create something that was a form of pure self-expression, right? I thought that if we focused our efforts on that it might also help us to refine our domains.”

Eui hummed thoughtfully as she considered Jia’s idea.

“That makes sense, and we’re not really getting anywhere with regular cultivation as we are now anyway, right? Though, if it’s that, then I have an idea of my own.”

“Oh?”

Eui nodded.

“What if—instead of each working on our own thing—we both worked together to make one thing? Actually, I was originally going to suggest doing it as Yoshika, but...”

Eui trailed off sadly, but Jia’s eyes lit up at the suggestion.

“Ancestors, Eui, you’re a genius!”

---

Despite their enthusiasm for the project, Jia and Eui quickly discovered that neither of them really knew how to make anything. Eui’s education had included painting and a little bit of tailoring, but she’d never been good at either, and Jia simply never had an education in the first place. They had no shortage of materials or cores from their fateful expedition to the mountain during the winter, but pretty much no clue what to do with them.

They convinced their instructors to give them some time off of classes by explaining that they had hit an unusual bottleneck and needed some time in semi-closed-door training to get past it. Using this time off, they threw themselves into research on various crafting techniques.

The first thing they learned was that they needed tools. Lots of different tools depending on what they were trying to make—and immortal-grade materials often required tools of matching quality in order to work them. They made that discovery on the very last day that the market would be in town before next month, and rushed there in a panic to buy as many tools as they could.

They might have been a bit overzealous in their haste—buying nearly every tool for every crafting discipline they knew of, at the highest quality available. It had been exorbitantly expensive, but they had been able to afford it, and the selection available at the market only went as high as third grade materials, anyway—nothing xiantian grade.

They even managed to trade for a perfect quality third grade lightning core, though they ran into a problem when looking for an equivalent for Eui.

“What? I’d give up, little misses. Destruction cores are rare and dangerous. They’re as hard to find as void or abyss cores, and twice as hard to work with. Even a common, low quality xiantian grade core wouldn’t be enough to buy so much as a second grade destruction core.”

Dejected, the two girls left the market without being able to secure a core for Eui. Well, they were getting ahead of themselves, anyway. You only needed a core to make a proper artifact, and that wasn’t really the plan.

Of course, as they engrossed themselves in trying to create some ultimate form of self-expression, the world around them didn’t stop, and even without classes, they faced a variety of interruptions. The first of them occurred when Eunae stopped by for a scheduled training session.

---

Eunae’s eyes really were quite pretty, and Jia thought it was a shame that she hid them so often. They had vertical slit pupils like her own, and were a striking blue color that would have stood out brilliantly even without the subtle makeup—which Jia would never have noticed if she hadn’t known to look. It felt as if she could get lost forever in those eyes, and she would do anything just to—

Eunae averted her eyes and Jia cursed.

“Ancestors damn it! I didn’t even last a second. Why is this so hard!?”

“I’m sorry, Jia. I don’t know how to hold it back. It would probably be easier to train with something less potent first.”

Jia shook her head stubbornly.

“No! I have to be able to defend against Yan Yue. She’s a third-stage cultivator—there’s no point in learning to defend against a weak attack.”

Eunae sighed.

“If you say so, Jia, but we’ve been trying this for hours and you haven’t made any progress.”

“I’ve made—-some progress. I think. Maybe a little.”

Jia pouted, even if it was marginal she had improved. Granted, she still had next to no ability to even detect that her mind was being swayed—let alone resist it—but she was starting to notice more details, like the makeup.

Eui huffed irritably as she struggled with a needle, thread, and some pieces of leather—the immortal grade materials were tough, and Eui had skewered herself more than a few times due to the force she needed to apply. The injuries were minor, but they still hurt.

“Ow! How much longer are you two going to be having those little staring contests. I’m getting sick of working on this by myself.”

Jia looked over and stuck her tongue out at Eui.

“You’re more than welcome to join, Eui. You need to learn how to resist spiritual attacks, too.”

“Tsk, no thanks—ow!—Getting my mind blasted by some ancient spirit’s power until I get slightly more accustomed to it doesn’t sound fun or practical. I won’t stop you but—OW, fuck!—I don’t think that’s going to work the way you’re hoping it will.”

Eunae nodded.

“She’s right, Jia. I don’t think this is going anywhere. Let’s at least take a break, alright? We can try again later.”

Jia frowned and crossed her arms petulantly, but was forced to agree.

“Every day, ok? For at least an hour—no, two! I want to learn this before we have to go up on that mountain with that treacherous h—”

The insult Jia had wanted to use died on her lips. It wasn’t one she could bring herself to actually use, and for lack of an alternative she simply sagged into the couch a bit.

“I just want to be ready.”

Eunae smiled kindly at Jia and nodded.

“That’s fine. I’ll come by again tomorrow, then. If you don’t mind me asking, though, what are you working on?”

Eui cursed in frustration and hurled the pieces of obsidian wolf hide at a wall along with the needle and thread. Jia picked up the scrap and showed it to Eunae. It was—two pieces of scrap hide partially stitched together.

“We don’t really know yet. Mostly we’ve just been practicing techniques and figuring out how to work with the materials. Eventually, the plan is to complete Murayoshi’s project—though I doubt he’ll be satisfied with the first attempt of a couple of amateurs.”

Eunae hummed thoughtfully as she inspected the pieces of scrap leather.

“Interesting. If I might offer a suggestion...?”

Jia nodded for Eunae to go on.

“If you’re working with immortal materials, try to imbue them with mana—or at least the tools. It should help the process go more smoothly, and lead to fewer stuck fingers.”

Eui scowled down at her bloodied hands—already healed, but stained from the results of her repeated failures.

“Shit! We really should have thought of that on our own.”

---

The second interruption came from Dae, who had sent one of those crane-letters Do Hye was so fond of, urgently requesting Jia—and preferably also Eui—to join him at the archives at their earliest convenience. When they arrived, they found him in exactly the same place Jia had left him, all but buried in tomes and scrolls. He didn’t even look up from his work as they approached, scribbling furiously into his notes.

“Uh, Dae? Are you ok? You look almost as if you haven’t left to sleep or eat since I last saw you.”

Dae looked up at Jia and blinked, as if surprised to see her.

“Hm? What? Oh, no, hehe. I’ve just been here—why, has it been that long?”

Now that Jia looked, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair and uniform had gotten rather disheveled.

“Dae, it’s been three days!”

Dae stared at her blankly and blinked a few times, slowly.

“Oh. Well that explains a few things, hehe. I—I lost track of time.”

Eui looked at the impressive stack of documents and raised an eyebrow.

“Doing what? You look like you’re trying to read through the entire archive.”

Dae laughed manically—an oddly hyperactive version of his usual nervous chuckle.

“Hahaha, would that I could, Miss An! There’s some incredible information stored here, I can scarcely imagine what the second floor must hold! To answer your question, I’ve been looking into the matter of demonic vampirism at Miss Lee’s behest. There’s...a lot.”

Eui looked askance at Jia, and she returned the look with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry! I forgot I asked him to do that. I wanted to look into it myself while I was here, but—”

Eui cut her off with a raised hand.

“It’s fine, I guess. You really should have checked with me, though.”

“I know, sorry!”

Jia bowed in apology, and Eui accepted it before turning back to Dae.

“So? You must have found something if you called us both here, right?”

“Yes! I most certainly did, hehe! This rabbit hole seems to go on and on without end, but I did make some key discoveries that may be pertinent to the conundrum you two are facing.”

Eui and Jia both frowned. Jia might have let slip that it had something to do with their bottleneck, but she hadn’t given Dae any details.

“What conundrum?”

Dae scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously.

“Well, hehe, I might have eh—made a few assumptions in my research, or jumped to the wrong conclusions. I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous, so I’ll just need to clarify a few—”

Jia rolled her eyes as she lost patience with Dae.

“Just say it already!”

Dae jerked upright with a start as she interrupted him and cleared his throat.

“Ahem, r-right. Um, well, there’s no polite way to put this, so please forgive me. Miss An, are you, by any chance, a demon?”

Jia and Eui’s expressions both turned to stone. Suddenly, this conversation had gotten much more difficult.