Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 72. On The Road.
“You will grow up soon enough,” Laien assured Arslan with a laugh. “Rushing those things is stupid, so just wait until you feel like it,” he added with a smile, his mindset on the matter coming entirely from the south. There, pretty much everyone knew what was what and it was commonly accepted that as children grew up and became adolescents, they would become interested in sexual matters. No one found it strange in the south, as it was seen as a matter of course and something natural; it was pretty much a non-issue to the point of it not being perceived as a subject of discussion.
“Until I feel like it?” Arslan repeated with a questioning look on his face. He wasn’t entirely sure what Laien meant by saying so; after all, wasn’t he curious about it all already?
“Until your body feels like it,” Laien corrected himself, beginning to feel strangely embarrassed by this whole situation. There hadn’t been a need or will for him to discuss such a topic with his friends when he had been younger since everyone knew about it; actually trying to explain those things to someone who was a bit clueless was… well, a bit embarrassing.
“You mean…” Arslan said a bit unsurely, then recalled what he had seen a moment ago. “Um, I think I get it,” he said with a somewhat ashamed smile, his face once again turning bright red. He found it fun to speak about those things, but for some reason, it was causing him to feel quite embarrassed.
“So anyway,” Laien said with a chuckle, his face flushed slightly. “You wanted to play with us, right? Do you have anything specific in mind, or do you just want to hang out and do whatever?” he inquired, for the time being changing the subject to something else. Amusing things were amusing, but one needed to know when to stop before they became awkward.
It took Arslan a second or two to release himself from the previous train of thought, but he managed to respond pretty quickly. “Nothing specific, not really,” he said in a relatively calm manner, in truth relieved that they weren’t pursuing the previous topic anymore.
“Then, are you still up for playing?” Laien asked straightforwardly. He and Yin had nothing else to do for the remainder of the day, so they of course wouldn’t refuse if invited.
“Yeah!” Arslan replied energetically. This was the thing he had been looking forward to the whole day, there was no way he would give up on it now.
“Y-yeah.” Johan also gave his best to reply despite feeling much more nervous than the other four. In the end, he couldn’t be as comfortable with that previous subject as Laien, Yin or even Arslan. He wasn’t used to this kind of talk being lighthearted; for him and those from Ulme Village, it more often than not had been sad and gloomy, if not outright mortifying.
“Great,” Laien said merrily. “How about we go back to the camp and play somewhere nearby? I’m sure it will be easier on Reian to watch over us there rather than here,” he suggested and gave Reian a playful smile along with a meaningful glance. If they stayed here, Reian would likely argue to stay around the whole time, but if they were near the camp, then he could leave them more space, hopefully?
“Fine,” Reian agreed easily. He was in a rather good mood since he had just avoided having an uncomfortable talk with Arslan, or at least delayed it in time, so it was easy for him to go along with what Laien wanted, both in the literal and implied sense. “We should pick up Jasmine and this guy’s older sister first though, else they will be angry that we left them alone after telling them to wait,”
Laien and Yin were surprised to hear that, but not because they thought it was strange for those two to have tagged along; the two of them exchanged a glance, thinking that it was fortunate that Jasmine and Sarah didn’t come to the river to look for them. Being seen by other guys was a bit embarrassing but still pretty much fine, while being seen by women would be rather awkward. They didn’t mind fooling around others, but even they had limits of how open they could be.
Seeing how Laien and Yin weren’t bringing anything up, Reian nodded slightly and began heading towards the place where they separated with Jasmine and Sarah. He heard the four youths follow after him soon afterward, so he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder to confirm.
Considering that they weren’t all that far away from Jasmine and Sarah to begin with, the four youths hadn’t had much time to discuss what they were going to do. However, as the two women assumed the kids were simply going back to the camp to play there, they didn’t ask any questions and simply followed along, thus allowing the chat to continue uninterrupted.
“I see you found them pretty quickly,” Jasmine commented leisurely from behind the four youths, who ended up walking at the head of their little group.
“Well, they weren’t hiding or anything,” Reian commented with a slight smirk. The double-meaning of his words, however, went unnoticed by either of the two women.
“Were they bathing after all?” Jasmine inquired, wanting to know if they had been waiting there alone for naught or not.
“Kind of?” Reian replied with a laugh. They were in the river, technically, so maybe it could be called bathing?
Jasmine frowned slightly and asked with a hint of impatience in her voice. “What do you mean by ‘kind of’?”
Reian laughed once again, wondering if he should tell Jasmine and Sarah about what they had seen now or later. Yet, before he made his choice, Arslan, who had been listening in to this little exchange turned around and said with a wide smile while walking backward.
“They were kind of making out.”
“Oh,” Jasmine nodded in understanding at first, but the look on her face turned increasingly silly as the meaning of what Arslan said registered in her brain. “Wait, what? What do you mean they were making out?” she blurted out like a teenage girl she most definitely wasn’t.
“You mean they were kissing?” Sarah also let the question slip her tongue. Just like Jasmine, she was too surprised to think about reacting in any level-headed manner.
By this point, Laien and Yin were both looking over their shoulders whereas Johan was too frustrated to turn around. Still, the three of them were certainly listening, but none of them bothered to interrupt the increasingly amusing conversation that was playing out.
“Not just kissing,” Arslan said with a growing flush on his cheeks. He felt that he perhaps was getting a bit too excited while talking about that, but he wanted to show off badly enough to ignore that. “They were doing naughty things together, you know? I always thought only boys and girls could do that together, but today I learned that boys can do that too!” he said happily, only afterward realizing that the looks on the two women’s faces were growing increasingly flabbergasted.
Jasmine opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but could only let out a quiet groan when she saw the two twelve-year-olds holding back a laughter. Was her expression really that amusing, huh? “We might have empathized learning new things a bit too much to Arslan,” she mused helplessly. For a second, she wanted to tell Arslan not to repeat the same words to his father, but she quickly changed her mind; rather than that, she needed to be sure to be there when it would happen. It would be such a pity to miss the look on Mustafa’s face!
“These two… I mean, ugh…” In contrast to Jasmine, Sarah appeared to have a much harder time coming to terms with the blatant revelation. Had it not been for the current circumstance, she would have expressed her disgust at this kind of behavior from boys, but she couldn’t very well do that when Laien and Yin were the main reason for their group receiving help. She found the relationships between those of the same sex to be nothing but repugnant, yet she could only keep those comments to herself, and so she did.
“Did I say something bad?” Arslan asked with disarming honesty. He saw that Laien, Yin and even Reian didn’t mind such things being said, but had he gotten ahead of himself? He didn’t want Jasmine to be angry with him.
Faced with the unbelievably cute reaction from Arslan, Jasmine for some inexplicable reason wanted to yell ‘I want to take him home!’ but since this strange phrase made no sense to her, she quickly threw it away. “No, it’s okay. I was just a bit surprised,” she said with a warm smile. “Be sure not to be so open with people you aren’t good friends with though, okay?” she suggested, to what Arslan smiled and nodded energetically. As long as Jasmine wasn’t angry, it was fine.
“Still,” Jasmine brought up and moved her gaze from Arslan to the two twelve-year-olds, the smile on her face turning rather mischievous. “I must say though, as expected from the little masters from the south. Did you two go all the way yet? I can lend you some really good oil if you want,” she asked wryly, refusing to be the one acting all shy and embarrassed the whole time like twenty-something years ago with Reian. If she were to choose, then teasing others was much more to her liking… and as a proof, she couldn’t resist smiling when she saw the flushed faces of those two.
Never having expected Jasmine to throw a question like that at them, Laien and Yin almost stopped walking forward due to the shock. They thought they were already very open-minded, but it looked like the old ladies of the world couldn’t be underestimated! They could even ask questions like that without any hesitation whatsoever!
“What a question.” Even Reian felt his face grow a bit hot. He wasn’t surprised that those two weren’t answering immediately; Jasmine really was merciless. On the other hand, he didn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry when he saw that Arslan looked like he wanted to ask for an explanation, but then his expression changed in an ‘Ah!’ way as he understood on his own.
“Comparatively, you are teaching him scarier things, teacher…” Reian thought silently, all the while sliming resignedly.
“We didn’t,” Laien finally brought himself to answer. “If you want to give us that oil, then feel free to do so though… it will be nice to have for some time later…” he added combatively, with a wry smile and a very much red face and ears. Since when was he one to allow others to tease him one-sidedly, huh? If he didn’t at least play along, then he would have lost too thoroughly to accept it.
“Sure,” Jasmine laughed, produced a mid-grade interspatial ring and threw it to Laien. “Just in case, I added a few books you might find useful,” she added and smiled meaningfully at the two boys. She had nearly forgotten how fun it was not to be a strict teacher of her students but to act like she had once used to in the past.
“Thanks,” Laien received the interspatial ring and turned around, no longer looking at Jasmine as he walked forward. He then laughed quietly; he was still more or less okay despite Jasmine’s teasing, but Yin was so embarrassed that he couldn’t utter a word, much less look him in the eye. The most amusing thing was that he knew why Yin was so frustrated thanks to their spiritual bond. Lovers, huh? Yin had said so himself, but thinking about it again, it really was embarrassing.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“…” Johan swallowed nervously, from time to time glancing at Laien and Yin out of the corner of his eye. He had thought that there could be only hurtful and unpleasant things as far as this kind of thing was considered, but now his mind was beginning to change. He was a shy person, but he wasn’t oblivious; only a blind person wouldn’t notice how well those two got along with each other. So, maybe it wasn’t all bad after all like it had been back in their village.
“…” Similarly to her little brother, Sarah remained silent and refrained from making any comments. However, unlike Johan’s, her thoughts of the relationship between Laien and Yin weren’t as favorable. She was giving her best not to allow her emotions to show on her face though, and since she was pretty skilled at controlling her facial expressions she managed to keep it in. All she hoped for what that those two wouldn’t have a bad influence on her little brother and other boys from the village.
“Maybe it was wrong of me to encourage Johan to become friends with them in the first place,” she thought to herself, no longer knowing what to do. Should she let Johan socialize with them normally, or should she tell him to try and keep his distance? She would need to give it some thought become deciding.
“So, games?” Arslan picked up after a moment of everyone being silent. He originally wanted to wait for Laien or Yin to go back to that topic on their own, but they were being quiet for way too long. They no longer were bright-red though, so he assumed it was fine to move onto something else.
“Right.” Laien laughed a little. They needed to come up with something to do for the rest of the day and to be honest, he would rather it not be anything too shameful. For the time being, he had had more than enough experiences on that account.
---
“We should be right about in Tuln Village,” Albert mentioned randomly after looking through one of the windows of the carriage. “Should we go there to buy things today, or should we wait until tomorrow?” he asked, directing the question to Reian and Jasmine. He would have asked Laien or Yin, but since they were in the middle of playing a game of ‘truth or dare’ with Arslan and Johan, he chose not to disturb them. The strange sounds the kids were making as a result of the ‘dares’ were making even him chuckle repeatedly, so he didn’t want to spoil their fun, especially since Johan was finally opening up and was starting to get along with those three.
“Either option is fine,” Reian replied with a smile. Just like Albert, he was sitting quietly and watched the boys play and similarly, he was glad to see Arslan get along so well with the other three. “It’s still early in the evening, so we can do the trade today if we want to or we can wait until tomorrow morning,” he said leisurely. They had set out very early in the morning today, so after around fourteen hours of traveling, they had already crossed most of the one hundred and eighty of the remaining kilometers in a comfortable manner. Thus, he didn’t really care whichever option they settled on with regards to making the trade.
“Hm,” Albert wondered for a moment. He sneaked a glance at Sarah just in case, but it didn’t look like she was about to get involved in this conversation. For some reason, she appeared to be in a bad mood. “How about we buy everything we need today, but leave setting it all up until tomorrow? That would seem most convenient,” he proposed, feeling a bit too lazy to put in actual effort after spending the whole day, for the first time in years, on nothing else but lazing around.
“Sounds good,” Reian agreed casually. It indeed would be easier to manage if they separated the purchase and the preparations… or so he told himself to ease the feelings of guilt. Truth to be told, he hadn’t had much free time in the past years and right now, he was relaxing and chatting with Jasmine. He would be a real idiot if he wanted to cut those days short.
“Okay, my turn again,” Arslan said with a smile and blushed cheeks, having just finished imitating a monkey for everyone. “Yin, truth or dare?” he asked playfully and grinned at Yin. Out of the four of them, Yin had gotten off relatively scot-free so far; it was the highest time to fix that!
“Maybe truth for now,” Yin replied with a lighthearted smile. They had agreed that in case one of them doesn’t want to say something, he would be automatically forced into a dare, so there was no harm in beginning with the former of the two options.
“Then…” Arslan mused for a brief while. He had thought to ask something naughty, but in the end, he decided against it and asked something else. “What is your biggest secret?” he inquired with a slight smile, harboring no ulterior motives. He had a few a bit shameful secrets of his own, so he had simply assumed that Laien and Yin’s secrets would be vaguely similar.
Yin raised his eyebrows, then exchanged a brief look with Laien. His biggest secret… it would probably be his identity as a magical beast. “Dare,” he said with a smile, opting out of the question. There was no way he would tell that to the people here; it would be too dangerous for him and for Laien if this information spread throughout the continent.
Since Arslan didn’t expect Yin to refuse to give an answer, he was caught off-guard and without a dare prepared. He thought about it hurriedly; he could settle for something simple, like some more animal sounds, or doing something strange or awkward, or saying something stupid… but… “Then, since you don’t want to answer… how about you kiss Laien?” he ended up suggesting instead of ordering, but he didn’t care about that as he smiled at Yin in anticipation. He had seen them kissing yesterday, but it was from far away; he kinda wanted to see them do it from close-up.
Yin showed a surprised look at first but chuckled soon afterward. A kiss wasn’t that big of a deal, so since that was the dare, he wouldn’t make a fuss about it. He glanced at Laien, who smiled back at him and simply leaned back against the pillow and the wall of the carriage.
The dare was ‘to kiss him’, so it looked like Laien was intending to simply sit there and wait for him to make the move. Well, since he was leaning against one of the side walls, Arslan and Johan would have a nice view, so it was pretty convenient from this perspective.
Chuckling, Yin scooted over and sat just beside Laien. Out of the corner of his eye, to the right, he could see Arslan and Johan looking at them intensely. He could also see Jasmine and Reian glancing over, but he couldn’t see Sarah or Albert due to the spot those two were sitting at. “Geez, it’s more embarrassing than I thought,” he thought as he looked Laien in the eye. He could feel his own face growing hot by the second, so before it could get too bad, he leaned forward, closed his eyes and placed a light kiss on Laien’s lips.
Yet, as he wanted to pull out, he felt Laien grab his side with one hand and the back of his head with the other. Before he could protest, he got pulled into a deeper, much more shameful kiss. His first thought had been to try and fight back because it was too embarrassing to do so far right in front of other people, but the soft and hot sensation caused all his reason to melt away as he gave in and followed Laien’s lead. He enjoyed the kiss and light snuggling for a moment, then backed off slowly when Laien’s hold of him relaxed. He couldn’t help but give Laien a smile full of complaint, but in the end, both of them knew that they liked what they had just done.
“Wow,” Arslan exclaimed quietly, then swallowed heavily. He had thought that Yin would only kiss Laien for a bit, not that they would show them something like that. It wasn’t that he would complain, of course, but he was pretty speechless after watching something like that.
“Best dare so far, hands down,” Johan said quietly with a clear blush on his face. However, since the inside of the carriage was fairly silent at the moment, his voice was clearly heard by everyone.
Whereas Laien and Yin responded with simple chuckling, taking the comment lightly just like most of those present, there was one person that this one comment had almost infuriated.
“If you don’t mind,” Sarah spoke up in such a cold tone that she startled everyone. “Please refrain from doing those things in front of my little brother. It would be best if you didn’t talk about your private business with him too,” she said with clear anger resounding in the tone of her voice despite her attempts to make her words sound relatively polite. After hearing that comment of Johan’s, she just couldn’t bear it anymore; enough was enough.
Laien raised an eyebrow, looking at Sarah with an emotion that could perhaps be called a sad amusement. It was the first time he was met with a person who didn’t at least tolerate same-sex relationships, so in a way, it was intriguing to him, but it also was disappointing. As for Yin? He was no longer smiling, but he didn’t care at all; to him, Sarah’s opinion didn’t matter in the slightest. He didn’t like what she was saying, but still, he wasn’t angered or disappointed by her attitude.
“Big sis?” Johan asked nervously. Why was his sister angry with Laien and Yin? They were just playing and having fun… and he was doing so too. He was beginning to feel like he could really become friends with those three, so why was she destroying it all?
“It’s fine, Johan,” Sarah said amicably. “It’s fine to make friends, but I don’t want you to be learning those things from them. It’s not right for boys or men to do such things with each other,” she attempted to explain, but in her agitation, she completely forgot about the position she and the rest of the villagers were in. Had she stopped to think twice before speaking up, she might have chosen to speak different words or not to speak at all… but she had spoken, and the mood in the carriage had inevitably turned very sour and tense.
“So, why do you think it’s wrong?” Laien asked casually, though there was a previously absent coldness in his voice.
Contrary to Sarah, Albert was able to keep a cool head and he quickly put a hand on her shoulder and tightened his grip, then spoke up in her stead. “Please forgive us, we’ve only had negative experiences of this kind for as long as we can remember, so Sarah got a bit too sensitive about this matter. She probably thinks Johan will become like those Ikarians if he accepts gay relationships as something normal,” he said calmly, attempting to meet the problem at hand with reason. However…
“That’s not what I think at all!”
was what the response of Sarah’s ended up being, much to his displeasure and worry. Forget that he didn’t agree with Sarah on this matter, was she trying to get their benefactors to abandon them? Those people were helping them only because of those two boys, for God’s sake! What was she going to do if she offended them so badly they decided to leave them on their own?
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked helplessly. Was it somehow related to their Kartian roots then? Yes, they had mostly returned to praising the old Unity, according to whom homosexual relations were evil and prohibited, but she didn’t think Sarah was one to blindly follow a religion of any kind.
“I just don’t like it and that’s it,” Sarah said outright, for some reason finding it impossible not to rely on emotions when her little brother was involved.
“What a joke.” Laien laughed and shook his head. That was her reason? She ‘didn’t like it’? He would have had trouble coming up with something more ridiculous had he tried. “Do you agree with her?” he inquired, shifting his glance to Johan. He was pretty sure Johan wasn’t of the same mind as his sister, but he wanted to see what his reaction would be when asked to give his opinion.
“I…” Johan said weakly, then looked down onto the pillows and carpets on the floor. What was he supposed to say…? He didn’t want to leave his sister on her own, but he also didn’t want to give up on the chance of making friends! He had been in such a good mood a moment ago, but now he felt like crying.
“It’s not about who you support,” Jasmine intersected in a level-headed manner. “It’s about what you think,” she added with a slight smile, thus giving the boy some leeway.
It took Johan a few seconds, but he caught onto the meaning behind Jasmine’s words. “What I think…” he said quietly, without raising his head. “I don’t think it’s wrong. I get that those men did bad things to me and others, but it’s just them, right? They were the bad ones, Laien and Yin aren’t like them,” he explained slowly, putting his thoughts into words as well as he could.
“Johan…” Sarah muttered soundlessly. What was this child saying? It wasn’t wrong...? He didn’t mind it despite all of what had happened...? But… it made sense, but…!
“Good,” Laien said contentedly, smiles returning to his and Yin’s faces. “Let’s go to see this whole Tuln Village and buy what we need,” he suggested lightheartedly, seeing as the carriage stopped; most likely because Bellicose judged they were close enough to the village for him not to need to pull the carriage any longer. Also, it would be good if they left this place where the mood had rotten.
“You coming, Johan, Albert?” Laien asked after standing up along with Yin and Arslan. He wasn’t showing it in his expression or in the tone of his words, but he was rather annoyed with Sarah’s attitude. He didn’t feel like associating with her and until she apologized to them, he would continue ignoring her. He naturally wouldn’t randomly leave the villagers alone, but he also wouldn’t sit there quietly and take it when Sarah made unreasonable comments about him and Yin.
“I, uh…!” Johan once again didn’t know what to say. He agreed that his sister was in the wrong here, but she had always been helping him when he needed it… he would have felt bad if he left her alone. He had a huge dilemma on hand, but thankfully, a rescue came over from Albert’s side.
“Let’s both go with them. I think Sarah needs some time to think everything through,” Albert stated, thus surprising everyone, including Sarah who had never expected him not to side with her when it mattered. Why? She only wanted the best for them, but both Johan and Albert were refusing to listen!
Laien smiled contentedly and left the carriage with Yin and Arslan close by, and with Johan and Albert following a step behind. Sarah had spoiled his mood a little, but getting back at her made him feel good again. He quickly threw the unpleasant experience out of his mind and focused on what awaited them; bargaining for some goods would be quite an interesting experience. Of course, though, given what he had seen in Eulene so far, he seriously doubted that this little trade would end in a peaceful manner… but he was looking forward to that possible development, too.