Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 116. Naughty Game.

Luckily for the bath the five youths were playing in, they had noticed they were overdoing it a little and after a few moments started taking care not to break their surroundings while wrestling and tickling each other. The three ones responsible for the very majority of the damage did feel slightly bad about it, but as they continued to fool around, the guilt ended up being pushed away for later.

Thus, the sounds of play and laughter continued to echo within the bath for the next minutes as the five boys competed playfully, for once seeming like normal kids their age. This was perhaps most so the case for Raphael, who rarely allowed himself to act childishly with the exception being the times when he played alone with Mikaela. Laien and Yin often fooled around in order to let some of the accumulated steam off, Mikaela was naturally inclined to being naughty, while Arslan was lucky enough to have a loving father and good teachers, who would prevent him for overworking himself. Raphael, on the other hand, was pretty strict with himself; before today, he didn’t have any good friends apart from Mikaela either, so it wasn’t surprising for him to accumulate a lot of stress by forcing himself to constantly act like a well-behaved and diligent adult.

As a result, though, Raphael certainly ended up getting quite a bit into playing and having some unrestrained fun now that he allowed himself to act without concern. Usually, he would have been concerned about appearances and about what others would think of him if he acted in a non-correct or silly way, but at this moment, he seemed to have forgotten about all of that.

“Oi, not fair!” Laien cried out while being held down by Yin and tackled by Raphael. He could still wriggle out of everything when it was Yin and Arslan or Raphael and Mikaela who were attacking him, but once Yin and Raphael joined forces, he immediately fell into peril and ended up being a victim of a harrowing tickling attack which he had no means of resisting.

Having spotted that Laien was powerless, Mikaela and Arslan joined the attack and made him suffer from laughter even more as they paid him back twice over for what he had done to them earlier. “Stop, stop! Come on!” Laien pleaded through laughter and tears, his face thoroughly red. He shouldn’t have allowed Yin to get behind him and grab his arms to easily! Now that everyone else joined in, he had no way to get free at all! It was an excruciating torture!

“if it’s like that, then..!” Seeing that no one was letting up, Laien resorted to extreme measures; and no, he didn’t break the unspoken rules of the game and didn’t use his Qi or spiritual energy. Instead, he made use of his legs and squeezed Raphael in the waist, then before Raphael could react, he twisted his own hips and threw Raphael, along with himself and Yin, straight into the deeper water.

“Whoa,” Mikaela and Arslan managed to dodge away just in the nick of time. They continued looking at the erratic underwater battle of the three older boys, all the while smiling in amusement. Those three had quite a bit of strength, so each of their movements stirred all the water in the bath and made small waves and splashes appear. Even as the three of them emerged from underwater, they continued struggling, wrestling and grabbing away at each other, all within the reason of safety; it was just a game, after all, and not a serious battle or competition.

After another moment of fighting, however, the three twelve-year-olds came to an unspoken understanding and called for a temporary ceasefire. They were all bright red on their faces and were gasping for breath; surprisingly, a game of this kind could be quite exhausting, especially when you were laughing and crying out the whole time.

“So hot,” Raphael said with a content smile. He hadn’t had so much fun in ages, so he was feeling extremely good at the moment. He lazily swam up to the shallower part of the bath, then got to his feet and sat on the floor, leaving only his legs in the water. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, enjoying the physical and mental aftermath of the game, both his mind and body soothed like never before.

Yet, exactly because he was enjoying himself so much, he didn’t quite notice one thing, which coincidentally was also the reason why Laien and Yin didn’t get out of the water immediately despite feeling very hot. As such, Laien and Yin exchanged a glance and a smile; they had already noticed this little fact while playing, but since they were also like that, they didn’t mind at all. However, they didn’t think that Raphael would be so absorbed in their game that he would fail to notice anything and get out of the water and even sit down casually, allowing everyone a free view.

Coincidentally, Mikaela and Arslan had also noticed that there was something unusual about Raphael early on, just as he was getting out of the water. Thus, the two of them were now looking at him curiously, though amusingly enough, it was Arslan who was more embarrassed since he knew a few more things about what he was looking at. Still, since he never had an opportunity to see Laien’s or Yin’s from close-up, he couldn’t help but gaze at Raphael’s stiff manhood.

“Hey.” Mikaela swam up closer and brought up with a playful smile, “Your dick is hard, you know?” And having said so, he chuckled in amusement.

“Hrm?” It didn’t immediately occur to Raphael, even though he did hear Mikaela’s words clearly. Still, he opened his eyes and glanced downwards… only to flush thoroughly once again. He indeed was standing high and mighty down there, so much so that he wondered how in the world hadn’t he noticed it sooner. He was so embarrassed that he wanted to immediately cover himself up with his hands, but when he thought he had been showing everyone for quite a while already, he decided that it would be less shameful if he acted cool about it instead of getting agitated.

“…” However, even though he might have stopped himself from reacting rashly, he couldn’t quite come up with anything to say to Mikaela. What could he tell him anyway? Any potential explanation that came to his mind was something that would be far too embarrassing to say out loud.

“It’s not surprising,” Laien swam up closer and said with a smile, coming to Raphael’s aid. “Once you get older, you will also get hard easily. We were playing so roughly and butt naked too, so it’s to be expected,” he explained daringly, more or less used to talking and joking about those matters as one of those who had been raised in the south of the continent. Yet, a slight blush still appeared on his face when he got out of the water and sat down beside Raphael, needless to say without attempting to cover himself at all.

“Hooh,” Mikaela nodded in understanding, accepting Laien’s explanation without asking any further questions at all. On the other hand, instead of asking anything, he looked at Laien’s penis with interest and even swam up a little closer to see it better. However, his ministrations soon got interrupted as Yin swam up and walked past him, then sat beside Laien.

“You guys…” Raphael said with a quiet, embarrassed groan. He appreciated the help, but having Laien and Yin sit next to him with their private parts in full sight was making him even more ashamed than before. With Mikaela and Arslan watching them too, he doubted he would be able to calm down on his own anytime soon. He really should have masturbated more often…! At the very least, he wouldn’t be so very hard at this time; he could even feel his penis twitching a little, what further assured him that he was nowhere close to regaining his calm, in both meanings of this word.

“Hmm,” Mikaela raised his eyebrows a little, then stood up in the water and looked down. “Ah, I’m hard too,” he said with a carefree laugh, though he did get a little red when the three older boys all turned their eyes and glanced at him. However, he laughed it off and approached them, his natural mischievousness and curiosity easily prevailing over the small amount of embarrassment he was feeling.

At first, Raphael felt like scolding Mika for acting in this way, but when he considered what in the world he himself was doing at the moment, he could no longer find a justification to do so. Moreover, despite feeling a bit guilty, he did take a good look at Mikaela’s erection. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was just as curious as Mikaela about the bodies of other boys; he just found the very idea to be too shameful to even think about.

“Say, wanna compare?” Mikaela asked, having gotten into a rather naughty mood due to those three showing him something like that. “Come on, just stand here for a bit,” he urged and pulled Raphael by hand, making him stand next to him in the area of shallow water. Afterwards, he glanced at Laien and Yin, asking them wordlessly to hurry up and come over.

Laien and Yin exchanged a glance, then laughed at the same time. From the beginning of this embarrassing situation they had been more concerned about what the other one thought, but when they came to recognize that neither of them minded this little bit of innocent fooling around, they relaxed and quickly returned to their usual, playful mindsets. Thus, they got up and walked up through the shallow water, joining Raphael and Mikaela with amused and wry smiles on their faces.

Happy to see Laien and Yin come over, Mikaela quickly glanced to the side and looked at Arslan, who was watching them quietly with most of his body hidden in the water. “What are you hiding there for? Come over here,” Mikaela said with a grin. If they were playing a naughty game, then all of them should play it! Having one person stand on the side and only watch was unacceptable.

This little bit of encouragement seemed to be all that Arslan needed to join with the rest of them. Without needing to be asked twice, he swam up, then walked up to the four older friends of his and joined them in the circle. He was by far the youngest one here, so the shallow water was reaching up to his upper thighs, but luckily or not, given how ashamed he was feeling, it wasn’t high enough to hide his stiff, little penis. He already guessed it, but it really was embarrassing to be showing it to everyone when it was hard. He could now understand well why Laien and Yin had been so ashamed when they caught them doing naughty things by the river back then.

While Arslan was feeling too embarrassed to look around, Mikaela acted with much less restraint. His heart was beating fast and he was excited, but it was more of an innocent thing, so he looked around at the penises of the other four curiously, all the while comparing them to each other and to his own. “Raphael is the biggest, right?” he asked uncertainly. He could tell that Laien and Yin were pretty much the same size, but Raphael seemed to be slightly bigger than them.

“Mm, he is,” Laien agreed with a laugh, just like Yin very much enjoying the flushed and oh-so-very-embarrassed look on Raphael’s face. “You are quite big too, you know,” he said playfully, looking at Mikaela’s hairless erection. Considering that Mikaela was almost three whole years younger than them, he really was pretty big down there.

“Is that so?” Mikaela said in a cute, happy and embarrassed manner, causing Laien and Yin to chuckle a little. “Say, can you guys pull your skin down?” he asked eagerly, thinking back to how his mother had told him a few years ago to learn how to clean in there properly and even mentioned something about him having trouble with the girls in the future if he couldn’t do that.

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“And can you?” Laien asked back with a grin. If Mikaela wanted them to show him, shouldn’t he do so first to lead by an example?

“I can,” Mikaela replied excitedly and grabbed his dick with his hand, then slowly slid the skin downwards, revealing the clean and shining pink glans underneath. He smiled in satisfaction and raised his gaze, looking Laien in the eye in an urging and amused manner.

Laien chuckled quietly, then pulled his skin down smoothly all the while feeling his face grow slightly redder.

“Well.” Yin laughed and did the same thing, joining Mikaela and Laien in their ministrations. He was definitely feeling a lot more embarrassed than Laien, but he needed to admit that it was fun. Showing others was quite exciting and looking at how Mikaela, Raphael, and Arslan looked down there was quite interesting too.

“Um,” After shyly spectating what Laien, Yin, and Mikaela were doing this whole time, Arslan raised his head. “I can do that too,” he said quietly and held the tip of his dick with his fingers, then pulled down and with a little bit of effort, managed to slide his skin down fully. His father had recently told him that he needed to stretch his foreskin and clean there if he wanted to be healthy, so he did his best to do as he was told. Still, it was a little painful to pull his skin down when his dick was hard like that, but not to the extent of being too bad; rather, he was more concerned with how incredibly ashamed he was feeling right now.

“Wow, you really can do it too,” Mikaela said in surprise while looking at Arslan’s bright pink glans. It had taken him quite some time to get his skin to pull down entirely, but Arslan could do it when he was five! It was quite a surprising revelation to him.

“And you?” Yin asked with a naughty smile, glancing at Raphael, who had been strangely quiet from the very beginning.

“…” Raphael looked away, feeling how everyone’s gazed wandered towards him. He couldn’t help but wonder how all of them could be so casual about the whole thing. He could still understand Mikaela and Arslan, but for Laien and Yin to be playing along so naturally… how were they doing it? Were they not embarrassed? On his part, just looking at what they were doing was making him feel way too ashamed… and yet, he couldn’t help but keep looking. It was such a weird experience.

“He can,” Mikaela said with a playful smile. “He showed me once when I was learning how to do that,” he added with a laugh, then reached out with his hand and grabbed Raphael’s dick, and before Raphael could gather his thoughts and react in any way, he pulled his hand down in one swift move.

“See?” Mikaela said with a grin, looking at the bare and red tip of Raphael’s penis. Still, he was quite surprised when he felt it twitch once, though very strongly in his hand. “Hm? What’s that?” he asked curiously, looking at the little bit of clear substance that oozed out of Raphael’s tip. That didn’t look like pee at all, so what was it?

As they watched from the side, Laien, Yin, and even Arslan were a bit flabbergasted. Mikaela was really quite naughty in his playfulness, but Raphael was quite something too. Especially for Laien and Yin, just looking at Raphael’s frustrated expression as he was trying to hold himself back while Mikaela held his dick was quite amusing indeed. Judging from how extremely hard his erection was and how red his glans were, not to mention the little bit of precum from a second ago, Raphael probably wasn’t all that far away from cumming at all.

“Mika, let go,” Raphael requested in an extremely embarrassed tone. If he was made to cum here, just from a slight touch of Mikaela’s hand, then he would die of shame. Thankfully, Mikaela did remove his hand without rubbing him anymore, maybe due to how weird his voice sounded when he asked him to let go. The usual Mikaela would have surely tried to fool around more before agreeing, what would have resulted in quite a mess. However, even without that, he felt and saw his penis twitch again now that Mika let go of it; truly, he just wanted to dig a hole for himself and hide in it!

“Really,” Laien spoke up with a laugh. “Just how pent-up are you? Don’t tell me you don’t do it at all, huh?” he asked teasingly.

“It’s not that,” Raphael responded hurriedly, his handsome face flushing red all the way up to his ears. “I just don’t do it that often…” he explained with a helpless, slight smile on his face. He could already see Mikaela tilting his head with a curious look in his eyes, what made him feel all the more exhausted. Just what in the world had he gotten himself into by merely getting out of the bath in a little careless way? It was too much! It was way too embarrassing to handle!

“Oh,” Laien nodded with a broad smile, not planning to let Raphael off just yet. “When was the last time you did it?” he inquired straightforwardly.

“…” Raphael groaned inwardly, thinking that be it Laien or Mikaela, those two really enjoyed making him feel helpless. “I don’t remember exactly, a month ago? Maybe a little longer,” he replied with a smile and breathed out quietly, trying to relax a little. He already was in the middle of all of that, so what was the point in letting it get to his head? He would rather calm down a bit and go along with the flow, regardless of how embarrassing of a flow it was.

“Wow.” Honestly, Laien was amazed by Raphael’s tenacity. It hadn’t even been a full week for him, but he was already having a hard time holding back. However, he thought it would be a pity to just jack off randomly when it would feel so much better if he and Yin could enjoy their time without hurrying, so he held back. However, more than a month? He doubted he could last that long even if he wanted to, and he could tell that Yin was having very similar thoughts.

“What did you do a month ago?” Mikaela asked with impatience and curiosity, a bit frustrated that Raphael and Laien were dodging around the subject and constantly saying ‘this’ or ‘that’. What was it all about? “Come on, won’t you tell me?” he asked again, seeing how Raphael looked all frustrated and how Laien was only continuing to smile in amusement.

“Raphael,” Laien said with a wry smile. “If you don’t explain it to him, then some girl will do it sooner or later, and probably sooner,” he said with a laugh. From what Mikaela told them, he wasn’t exactly living a lonely life without any peers; and given his looks and top-class pedigree, there would be no shortage of girls trying to get ahold of him early on, sometimes by any means necessary.

“Here it’s not like tha-… ugh,” Raphael began saying almost mechanically, having had listened way too much to those old folks speaking about the importance of chastity and staying pure until marriage, but his own experiences contradicted those strict opinions of the elder generation. In fact, had he not learned about those things from one of the older boys during the National Tournament three years ago, he would have probably ended up being ‘taught’ by one of those girls who refused to leave him alone. He didn’t know how it was in other social classes, but those young noble girls and women were anything but the epitome of purity and chastity.

“Fine!” Raphael exclaimed helplessly and shook his head a little. “I will tell you about that, but later, okay? I really think we are overdoing it here,” he said with a sigh. It was fun and all to fool around, but he had a feeling they would all regret it if they allowed matters to escalate too far.

“If you promise, then okay,” Mikaela replied with a smile. He was already quite satisfied with the amount of fun he had, so he wouldn’t argue if Raphael wanted them to stop being naughty for the time being.

“I promise,” Raphael said with a weak laugh. He didn’t remember a time when he had gone back on his word, but it looked like Mikaela really wanted to make sure he would get his explanation later.

“Mm,” Mikaela smiled contentedly, though he couldn’t resist sneaking one more glance at everyone’s penises, what in turn caused Raphael to let out a resigned sigh.

“That’s for it then, huh,” Laien said with a smile and did the same thing as Mikaela, taking one last look before exchanging a glance with Yin. He first intended to just sit down and cool down a little bit, but it just so happened that he saw the area of cracked marble on the other side of the bath. “Right, we should fix it up before leaving,” he said with a laugh. It would be really ungrateful of them if they left Elder Samuel’s private bath in such a poor state after enjoying themselves in it, after all.

“How do you want to repair it?” Raphael asked, all the while wondering if he should sit down to hide himself… though by now, he really saw little point in doing that.

“I’ve got an idea,” Laien said with a smirk. “It should be possible to use the Principle of Energy to merge this layer of marble back,” he mentioned, then walked into the deep water and swam to the opposite end of the bath. Intrigued, Raphael followed Laien and so did the other three youths. With the exception of Arslan, all of them had insights into the Principle of Energy, but not one of them could begin to guess how Laien was intending to use those insights to repair that marble. It would be a simple enough job for an earth-element practitioner, but for someone who only knew how to use water? They really were curious to see what Laien intended to do.

“Let’s see,” Laien mused aloud and put his hand on the edge of the cracked area. He closed his eyes and released a minuscule amount of the Primordial Energy, fusing it with both the cracked and the smooth marble carefully as to not cause it to implode. Then, he took a moment to sense and adjust the scattered energy in the cracked part, directing it to become just like in the undamaged area. He wasn’t entirely sure if this clumsy method would work out, but now that he attempted it, he didn’t need to open his eyes to know it was working; he could sense the broken pieces being drawn to each other, only to merge into one whole a few more seconds later. After he judged that the area he meddled with was stable enough, he removed the Primordial Energy and opened his eyes.

“Looks good enough,” he said with a content smile. He repaired just around twenty percent of the cracked marble at once, just like he wanted to. “Does anyone else want to try?” he asked without bothering to explain the process. He trusted that Yin, Raphael, and Mikaela had a high enough perception to have figured everything out just by watching him do it once.

“I do,” Mikaela said eagerly. He quickly got to Laien’s side and put his hand on the damaged area nearby, closed his eyes and started trying to mimic the process Laien showed them.

“I will try too,” Raphael said calmly, happy to see that the atmosphere had changed quickly and wasn’t about to return to the stuff from a moment ago.

“Me too,” Yin said with a laugh and walked up to the leftmost side of the cracked marble. He had a good idea of what he needed to do, so he didn’t really bother to concentrate all that much. He had, after all, experienced a surge in his understanding of the Principle of Energy just like Laien and had even been able to trace the whole process of repairing marble with great clarity thanks to their spiritual bond. If anything, his goal was to do it faster than Laien rather than to worry about succeeding or failing in this endeavor.

With these three occupying themselves with repairing the damages, Laien backed off and swam back lazily. He stopped beside Arslan and exchanged a look with him, then chuckled quietly and tousled wet hair. They really were dragging Arslan along on many eventful experiences, but Arslan was handling them all really well. Considering that an average five-year-old would still be devastated by the news of his father’s injury, Arslan’s mental strength was truly impressive.

“Done,” Yin said merrily just a few seconds after starting and sat down in the water, then pushed himself back into the deeper area. He fixed another one-fifth of the cracked marble and he did it faster than Laien, but he was merely content with the result. He had basically cheated by mostly experiencing the process before even making his first attempt, so it would be weirder if he didn’t finish it in a shorter period of time.

Another thirty seconds later or so, Raphael finished fixing up just around one-third of the whole damaged area. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Laien, Yin, and Arslan lazing around in the deep water. He smiled to himself and went ahead and started repairing the remaining little-damaged places that were left here and there. Since he had already grasped the process, each one took him but a few seconds, so it wasn’t much of a hassle at all.

In the meanwhile, Mikaela finished up his part. He saw Raphael taking care of the leftover cracks, so he decided to help him out. As a result, about thirty or forty seconds later, the bath was looking as good as new, what would definitely spare Elder Samuel some unnecessary nerves.

“Do we get going?” Raphael inquired, in the back of his head noticing that he had finally calmed down properly.

“Mm.” Laien nodded slightly. “We ended up not eating anything in here, so let’s do that. I’m pretty hungry,” he mentioned with a lighthearted smile.

“Now that you remind me, I’m hungry too,” Raphael said with a laugh, only now noticing that his belly was empty and asking to be filled.

“Me too.”

“And me too.”

Mikaela and Arslan supported, while Yin simply smiled and nodded in agreement. Thus, with a unanimous decision, the five of them got out of the water, dried themselves up with towels and put on the fresh sets of clothes from their interspatial rings before heading out of the private bath.