Fates Parallel Chapter 54 - Introspection

Jia’s attempts to find answers about her and Eui’s predicament were spoiled entirely by the extremely awkward atmosphere. It was a bit more quiet than her normal study sessions with Dae, since it wasn’t scheduled and thus he didn’t have a specific study plan in mind, but that wasn’t really the problem.

The problem was that Jia was extremely self-conscious at the moment. She couldn’t help but notice every time Dae glanced in her direction, or aborted an attempt at starting a conversation without saying anything. Other than apologizing for staring, he hadn’t made any further comment on her appearance, and she didn’t know whether that made things better or worse.

Jia knew she was ignorant when it came to matters of romance. She would even admit that sometimes that ignorance was intentional on her part—it was an uncomfortable subject, and it brought up bad memories. Right now, she wished she could hide behind that ignorance, but she couldn’t.

She was painfully aware of how Dae felt about her, and the fact that she had appeared before him in a relatively private environment, all dressed up, ostensibly of her own volition. Even Jia knew that Dae had to be getting all kinds of signals from that, but what was she supposed to do about it?

Should she correct the misunderstanding? Act like nothing was unusual? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Some tiny part of her even wondered if she should lean into it and encourage him—after all, Dae was pretty cute—

Jia’s brain shut that thought down entirely as she felt her face heating up from a blush that reached all the way up to her ears. She buried her face in her arms and felt like screaming into the table. Instead, she just thanked her ancestors that the fur on her ears would hide her blush from Dae.

“M-Miss Lee, are you quite alright? Hit a bit of a snag in your studies perhaps? I’d be happy to go over it with you to provide some fresh perspective, hehe.”

“M’fine.”

Her voice was muffled by the table, but Dae seemed to have understood her anyway and went back to his own studies. Why was this happening? What was Eui thinking? Setting her up with Dae didn’t seem like something Eui would want for obvious reasons, so why? Some kind of lesson about relationships, she supposed. She had forgotten that Eui had more dating experience than she did—which was to say, any at all.

Jia had no idea what she was meant to learn from this, though. It was just awkward and uncomfortable, and she didn’t feel like her mind was equipped to handle the situation. Well then—she would just cheat and use someone else’s. Her connection to Eui might have been temporarily severed, but they had spent nearly half a year constantly sharing thoughts and emotions—she still had a sort of inner-Eui she could consult.

It had been a while since she’d tried it—even before their breakthrough she had developed a habit of suppressing the intrusive thoughts that occurred as a side-effect of their joint meditation. In their early, clumsy attempts, they had inexorably exchanged parts of their consciousness that had since become intrinsic parts of themselves.

Jia focused on the part of herself that had once been Eui—thinking of it for the first time in months as something distinct from her own thoughts and feelings—and found that it had become a much greater part of herself than she realized. She had a moment of intense, confusing uncertainty as her thoughts suddenly went to war with each other.

“We seem awfully content to lead others on, don’t we?”

“We don’t even know what our own feelings are!”

“So if we refuse to think about how we feel, it’s ok to ignore how everyone else does?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing! The way we treat Eui and Dae is abhorrent! We don’t deserve either of them!”

Jia clutched her head and tried to suppress a scream, but it ended up coming out as a strangled whimper.

“Pathetic.”

She had forgotten! Eui struggled constantly with depression and self-loathing. Jia had thought she was getting better but—

“But it’s not that simple. Get over yourself, you can’t just fix her!”

“We can be there for her! We can share her burdens!”

“We are her burdens!”

This wasn’t what Jia wanted, but now that she’d started it, she couldn’t stop it! Dae had noticed her distress and stood up in alarm.

“Ji—Miss Lee!? What’s wrong?”

“Go ahead and tell him it’s the voices in your head. Tell him you’re insane!”

Fuck it, why not?

“My head—was trying to—to think like Eui, but—”

Dae’s gaze suddenly sharpened as he adjusted his glasses and rushed to her side.

“Mental bleed-through. I’ve read records of it happening to mages who attempted to create dual mana cultivation techniques—there’s not much data on it, but I’ve read it all.”

He had? Had he been investigating her and Eui’s cultivation techniques?

“Stalking us.”

Jia shook her head, trying desperately to ignore the non-stop intrusive thoughts.

“What do I do!?”

Dae hesitated.

“I-I’m not sure, hehe. The research documents described minor intrusive thoughts that went away when the experiments were concluded. I suspect your case is more intense because of your—er, unique cultivation method.”

“Useless.”

“He’s trying to help!”

“Please, just guess!”

“R-right, erm, theoretically it is the fact that the thoughts are foreign that makes them so intrusive. It’s a rejection, of sorts—your mind is subconsciously denying that the thoughts are yours. It may be possible through some manner of introspective meditation to—”

“Too long!”
“Too long!”
“Too long!”

Jia and the voices in her head were all in perfect agreement, and at the moment she didn’t have the patience for Dae’s habitual rambling.

“Sorry! Hehe, um, try meditating on the thoughts. Think about where they are coming from and accept them as part of yourself.”

Accept them? But she didn’t hate herself—did she?

“Of course we do! We’re just good at pretending!”

“That’s not true!”

“Name one good thing about us!”

Jia tried, but her mind went blank the moment she tried to think about herself. The only self-identification she had was the homeless thief from Nayeong—and that hadn’t even been her home town. Hadn’t her first reaction to her own prettied-up appearance been rejection? There had to be something.

Before she realized it, Jia had completely focused her thoughts inward and begun meditating. She wasn’t meditating with the goal of gathering essence, but instead focusing on the trance-like state of thoughtlessness. While it was the same thing in practice, the feeling was entirely different.

Jia’s domain shrunk inwards, rather than expanding outwards to collect as much mana as possible, she instead used it to focus on herself and the way her spiritual essence circulated through her. Since her cultivation had become unified, there was no longer quite so distinct a separation between her qi, ki, and mana. Likewise, she couldn’t very well focus on just her mind, body, or soul—they were all her.

In that moment, as she focused on her entire being, she felt as if she was both Jia and Yoshika at the same time—but not Eui. She felt the loss of her connection more strongly than ever—the pain of their separation as visceral as it had been the moment they’d been torn apart, for all that it wasn’t physical. She felt acutely that she was incomplete—but not just because of her separation from Eui.

Through her meditation, she understood that her domain was only half-formed, but it wasn’t a problem with the domain itself. Her domain was an extension of herself—the imposition of that self upon the world around. It wasn’t just that everything within her domain was hers, everything within her domain was her. So it wasn’t the domain that was incomplete, but the sense of self that it represented.

What did it mean to be Jia? To be Eui? To be Yoshika? She couldn’t answer all of those questions by herself, but the first—the first could only be answered by herself. Jia had refused to answer it before—avoided the question entirely, or tried to get others to answer it for her. She had been as naive as everyone had always accused her of.

Did she love herself? No. The answer came easily to her in this state, as much as it pained her. She had things she was proud of—her talent in cultivation, her friendships, and the freedom she had earned with her own hands. Yet, there were others more talented than her, she had repeatedly failed her friends—most especially An Eui—and her freedom had come at the cost of a betrayal that she could never forgive herself for.

It became more obvious, as she thought about it, that Jia and Eui had more in common than she had realized. When Jia had first experienced the intrusive thoughts that came as a result of sharing Eui’s memories, it had been easy to write them off as foreign—just a product of Eui’s depression reflected in her own head.

They had never truly been Eui’s thoughts at all. They were influenced by Eui’s thoughts and memories, but from the very beginning, it had always been Jia’s own uncertainty and fear expressing itself in Eui’s voice. She had been terrified of Eui at first—and even more horrified when she learned of her past—but it was easier to pretend that she wasn’t.

When she had forgiven Eunae, she wanted nothing more than to run away and never see the princess again. She had discounted her fears as being a result of Eui’s prejudice, but they had been real, and they had been her own. Eunae had controlled her mind! Threatened to strip away the same freedom she was so proud and guilty of. How could she ever forgive something like that? The simple answer was that she hadn’t, even now.

Time and again, over and over, Jia lied to herself. Pretended that things were ok when they weren’t. She lied to herself thinking that one day the lies would become real, but they never did. They just piled on top of each other until Jia could no longer tell the difference between the lies and reality.

Did she love herself? What a ridiculous question—of course not! She hated herself so much that she had to build up a fake version of herself just to tolerate her own existence. It was no wonder her domain wasted so much mana—you couldn’t cultivate a false self.

Now the mask was cracking, and people were starting to notice. Lee Jia was terrified of what she would find beneath it, but she understood now that she couldn’t hide behind it any longer. She also understood that this was neither the time nor place to shed it entirely.

Knowing what she had to do, and having reconciled with the fact that the voices in her head were her own, Jia returned her breathing to normal and allowed her domain to spread back out naturally. Opening her eyes, she saw Dae poring over some book or scroll, his brows furrowed in concentration.

She giggled in spite of herself—he really was quite cute when he was focused so intently like that. Dae’s head jerked up in surprise at the sound, and he smiled brightly when he saw that Jia was alright.

“Miss Lee! Thank the ancestors! Is everything alright now? Did it work?”

Jia nodded, smiling.

“A little too well, if anything, but I suppose it was overdue. Thank you Dae. For everything.”

Dae blushed and averted his eyes, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as his tail waved back and forth happily.

“Ehehe, o-of course, Miss Lee. Happy to help!”

Jia looked at the research materials she had gathered. Her head was still a bit of a mess, and she didn’t think that she was likely to get any productive studying done today. It would be a waste not to make use of them, though.

“Dae, can I ask a favor?”

“Of course, Miss Lee!”

Eager as ever—Jia felt a little bit bad for taking advantage of his feelings, but pressed on anyway.

“I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to research these, but they’re really important. Do you suppose I could trouble you to look into it for me?”

Dae looked hesitant for a moment, before shrugging.

“Well I might have already taken a small peek while you were meditating, hehe. Why are you doing research on demonic vampirism?”

“That’s a bit of a secret, but you’re a very smart boy so I’ll let you come to your own conclusions. It might help me sort out a cultivation bottleneck.”

Dae frowned at that, but after a moment of staring down at the assortment of tomes, scrolls, and jade slips he sighed and nodded.

“Very well, I suppose just this once won’t harm anything, as long as you’re not planning on practicing it. Are you certain you’re feeling alright, Miss Lee?”

Jia covered her mouth with a sleeve as she laughed a little harder than she meant to at the question.

“Hahaha, thank you Dae. It’s sweet of you to be concerned.”

Dae blushed bright red for a moment before frowning.

“Um, t-that wasn’t an answer...”

Jia stood up and smiled as she approached Dae, before giving him a quick gentle kiss on the cheek.

“No, it wasn’t. Sorry, Dae, but I have to go get revenge on a troublesome roommate.”

Jia turned and left, leaving a petrified Dae behind as he stood in stunned silence, unable to respond.

As she left the archive, Jia’s expression was serene, even though her thoughts were in turmoil. She had learned Eui’s lesson and then some. Now she had to return home to show her appreciation.

---

As Lee Jia walked the academy streets on the way back home, she acutely felt every glance that came her way. Logically, she knew that it was because she wasn’t wearing a uniform—most students did, even if it wasn’t strictly mandated, so her casual dress stood out—but even so, it felt as if the crowd was staring at her, silently judging.

Jia was not at all happy with her newfound self-awareness. Every moment she found more silly paradoxes in her behavior, or realized the ways in which she had treated others poorly as a result of her willful ignorance. That was probably the lesson Eui had wanted her to learn—if not quite the way she had intended. Jia knew she had needed it, but ironically that same self-awareness meant that she could admit that she hadn’t wanted it, and still didn’t.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—it was a door that could not be closed again, once opened. Jia had no idea how to feel. She was upset about having such a harsh lesson thrust upon her, pleased that she might have uncovered part of the mystery behind her cultivation bottleneck, annoyed with Eui, while at the same time being grateful to her.

She didn’t know what she was going to say to Eui when she got home, but she had a feeling it would be strongly worded. As she approached the dorm, she ran into the last person she wanted to see.

Yan Yue spotted her approach and greeted her with a bow.

“Ah, you’re back! I w—”

“Don’t talk! Not a single sound, or I swear by my ancestors I will try to kill you where you stand. I am not in the mood for this, Yan Yue.”

Lee Jia extended her domain and carefully observed her surroundings. There was no sign that she was in an illusion, so she instead focused her attention on Yan Yue. She would have preferred to have Eunae here rather than face Yue alone.

Yue held her hands up defensively and waved a small letter in one of her hands.

“I thought you might say that, so I prepared a letter. Eui wouldn’t even—”

Jia activated her noxious aura, focusing its effect on Yan Yue as she approached. Yue’s eyes widened and she dropped to her knees, desperately covering her mouth as she retched. Jia was a bit surprised at how dramatic the reaction was—her aura shouldn’t have been that powerful.

“Did you think I was joking!? I do not want to see your face right now! I’m surprised that Eui didn’t stab you in the face, and honestly? Also a bit disappointed.”

Jia snatched the letter out of Yan Yue’s hand as she walked past. The only things keeping her from attacking outright were the fact that Yan Yue’s voice hadn’t been infused with qi, and the fact that she wasn’t entirely confident that she’d be able to win.

Yue stood, schooling her expression somewhat, though she was still under the aura’s effect.

“No need to be so upset, Jia. I think you’ll find that it’s good news.”

Lee Jia felt a surge of anger, and nearly screamed at Yan Yue, but held herself back and spoke in an icy tone instead.

“You held us prisoner in our own bodies, Yue. Yesterday! It’s going to take a little while longer before we can pretend to be friendly, ok? It doesn’t come quite so naturally to us.”

Yan Yue seemed cowed by her accusation, but Lee Jia felt no vindication from it. Instead she felt sickened by her own hypocrisy. On any other day, pretending to be friendly was exactly what Jia would be doing.

“I suppose not. I’ll leave you alone, then. The makeup suits you, by the way—Eui did an excellent job.”

Lee Jia scoffed, now feeling even more compelled to wash off the makeup and get changed. She left Yue behind and returned home, making sure the door was closed before cursing herself for forgetting that Yue still had the key. She tossed the letter aside to read later, and found Eui reading quietly in the living area.

Eui looked up with a grin as she stood to greet Jia.

“Welcome home! So, how was your little date with—”

SLAP!

Jia stared dumbfounded at her own hand, as Eui held a hand up to her face with a shocked and hurt expression. She had moved without thinking and slapped Eui in the face.

“I—I’m sorry—”

Eui held up a hand to cut off Jia’s apology.

“No, it’s fine. I—I probably deserved that.”

Eui’s expression was downcast, and she began to turn away.

“Eui, wait, I—”

Jia reached out to stop her, but Eui shrugged off her hand.

“We’ll talk later, ok? I just—-I need a moment.”

Before Jia could respond, Eui retreated to the bedroom. Jia collapsed onto a couch and buried her face in her hands.

Why had she done that?