Massage
“Lie down on that bed over there. We’ll do the counseling while you get a massage.”
“Ah, um, uh…”
“Come on now.”
“Y-yes…”
Under his repeated urging I had no choice but to go where Yohan pointed and stretch out on the bed.
It had been the same when he’d given me the headache medicine before—whenever Yohan dropped his voice into that low, even register, refusing him somehow became difficult. Maybe it was the gap between that tone and his usual gentle one.
“Um, but… do I need to take my clothes off? In the massage videos I’ve seen, people only wear underwear or a towel.”
“Nothing that thorough. You can keep them on. Or take them off if you’d rather.”
“Huh? N-no, I wasn’t saying I wanted to take them off…”
“I know.”
Yohan answered with complete indifference.
For a conversation about whether a girl should undress, his emotional reaction was strangely flat. Then again, that very attitude was probably why I trusted him more. If he’d shown even a flicker of interest I would have grown uneasy, wondering whether he had some ulterior motive.
Of course Teacher Yohan, of all people, would never think such things… still, you never know. They say you can know the depths of a ten-fathom pond but never the depths of a single person.
“I’ll begin. If anything feels uncomfortable along the way, tell me. I’ll do my best to avoid those spots.”
“Y-yes.”
Right after that brief exchange, Yohan’s hands settled lightly against my back.
Lying there completely exposed, I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t tense. My back and shoulders twitched as I felt his touch.
His hands were larger and firmer than I’d expected, roaming across my back as though searching for something. Starting near the tailbone and sweeping all the way up toward the neck, as if letting me grow used to the contact. Was it only my imagination that the touch felt oddly sensual? The moment his index finger began gliding gently up the groove of my spine, I startled so hard my waist jerked violently.
The sudden movement made his hand slip. Sensing a faint note of disappointment as he withdrew, I blurted an apology on reflex.
“I-I’m sorry. When you ran your finger along my spine I just… got startled…”
“It’s fine. That can happen. Seems this spot is quite sensitive, doesn’t it?”
“Huh? Ah, yes. I… I think so.”
I didn’t even know which parts of me were sensitive. I’d only been possessing this body for a month. Learning that my spine was sensitive was brand-new information.
Then again, did any part of this body not count as sensitive? As a physical-enhancement ability user, every inch of her seemed several times more responsive than an ordinary person’s.
How on earth had the original Eileen managed everyday life with a body like this…?
Well, she’d been born this way, so she probably never found it strange. A lot of problems had only started once I took over.
“If you’ve settled down a little, may I continue the massage? I’ll adjust the pressure, but I’ll inevitably keep touching sensitive areas like that spine just now, so I’d like you to keep that in mind.”
“Yes… ah, but before that, do you have any spare pillows or towels?”
“I do. Why?”
“I… I wanted to put something under my stomach. The position is a bit uncomfortable…”
“Hm?”
Yohan narrowed his eyes slightly, studying my body, then let out a soft sound of realization.
“Ah… of course. Your chest must be pressing uncomfortably. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it. I have a pillow of just the right height—I’ll get it ready right away.”
After asking me to wait a moment, he returned with a pillow and towels and began arranging them beneath my stomach and the lower curve of my breasts. He made tiny adjustments, folding and shaping the towels until they cradled my chest perfectly.
His hands were strangely practiced. Had he done this often?
The pressure eased at once. I let out a small breath.
“Haa… th-thank you.”
“Not at all. It was my oversight for not considering it. From now on, if anything feels uncomfortable, don’t hesitate to tell me.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Then settle back into position. We’ve already lost quite a bit of time.”
“Ah, yes.”
With a timid reply I lay face-down again. His hands returned to my back at once. Just like before, they roamed here and there as if warming me up, then began applying gradual pressure along the edges of my shoulder blades.
Using the firm pad between thumb and knuckle, he pressed slowly, as though searching for something.
Then, at one point, a sharp little stab of pain bloomed.
“Ngh…”
“Does it hurt?”
“N-no. It hurts, but… I think it’s all right. P-please keep going. Hnngh.”
“Even though it hurts, it doesn’t feel bad, does it? You’ll feel the muscle starting to loosen. This spot is terribly knotted.”
“Is… that so? Ah, ah…”
“You use your body a lot every day, and your chest is rather large, isn’t it? Especially for women with larger breasts, the bra straps pull and the muscles around here often knot up. Right around here—the trapezius…”
He pressed firmly.
“Ahn…!”
“See?”
“I-I don’t know. It just feels a little sore.”
“That’s because I’m stimulating the tight spots. Still, doesn’t it feel a bit relieving?”
“Ah… maybe a little…?”
“Next is here, near the spine and the shoulder blades—the rhomboids. These will be knotted too. I’ll press a bit harder, so don’t be startled.”
Saying so, Yohan began applying pressure to the spot he’d indicated with his fingers. I had to clench every muscle I had to keep my waist and shoulders from jerking under the incoming pain.
“They’re quite tight, so we’ll work them out gradually. From now on it would be good to stretch this area as well. Place one hand behind your head and pull the elbow with the opposite hand—that kind of stretch. Do both sides. If you keep it up, you’ll feel your movement improve yourself.”
“…You’re really, hnn, professional about this.”
“I am the school nurse, after all. Knowing the human body is only natural.”
“Ah… right. Of course.”
I’d just stated the obvious. Calling an expert “professional”… I fretted that I might have been rude.
I lifted my head a little to check his expression, but thankfully he didn’t seem to mind. He simply continued working over my back with a thoroughly serious look.
“Earlier you asked whether you needed to undress. Honestly, for a more thorough session that would be better. With clothes on it’s harder to examine the body, and I have to use more force. Diagnosing exactly what’s wrong is difficult too.”
“Ah, i-is that so?”
“Well, I can hardly tell a girl to strip the moment she walks in here. Nothing to be done about it.”
As if trying to ease my tension, Yohan kept up a stream of casual talk to distract me.
Rustle, rustle…
The soft sound of fabric brushing under his hands kept tickling my ears. Every time he pressed, my body gave a little twitch.
I could feel myself growing warmer. A light sweat was starting. Maybe because of the heat rising in me, the room itself felt stiflingly hot.
At some point Yohan grew quieter, fully focused on the massage.
My body was hot and the silence around us felt strangely charged, so I spoke up again.
“…You said for a proper massage I’d need to take my clothes off. Does that mean you’d also… put massage oil on me or something?”
“Hm? Ah, not necessarily. I could if you wanted… why, would you like to try it?”
“N-no. I just thought you were really good at this. Haa… hnn. Did you study massage techniques separately?”
“Of course. Anything that might help the students, I try to learn.”
“That’s amazing…”
“Nothing so impressive. Ah—could you turn over for me? I think the back is finished.”
“Ah, yes.”
At his request I removed the towels from under my chest and rolled onto my back.
Perhaps because the muscles had been properly loosened and warmed, my head felt a little hazy. My vision seemed slightly blurred. With the fatigue melting away all at once, a soft drowsiness began to creep in.
Falling asleep here would be rude…
I gave my head a gentle shake to fight the sleepiness and settled properly onto the bed.
Yohan laid a towel over my face, covering my eyes.
“Um… Teacher? What’s this?”
“Meeting eyes can feel awkward, can’t it? So I’m covering them.”
“Ah… that makes sense.”
Even during ordinary conversation, staring straight into someone’s eyes felt burdensome and awkward. How much more so during a massage? His reasoning sounded perfectly reasonable.
Still, with my vision blocked, the drowsiness accelerated.
Sniff.
The scent in the room also seemed thicker than before.
And with sight cut off, every other sense sharpened. The press of Yohan’s hands through my clothes registered against my skin with startling clarity.
“Ngh, ah, haah…!”
His hands stroked across my stomach, then rose toward the underside of my breasts. They seemed about to climb higher, only to slip sideways into the hollow of my armpits. He lifted my arms, kneaded from the elbows downward, then returned to the armpits and pressed again and again, delivering a strange, lingering stimulation.
Even without Eileen’s body, the armpits had always been one of the more sensitive places. Letting someone else freely touch such a spot left me with a hard-to-name, peculiar feeling.
“What… ah… are you doing…?”
“A kind of lymphatic massage. Loosening this area properly reduces fatigue and helps flush out waste.”
“Ah…”
I didn’t understand a word of it. Since an expert was saying so, I simply nodded blankly and accepted it.
Yohan continued the massage as if nothing were amiss. Given the areas he was working, I could sense that his lower body was quite close to my face. Even with the towel over my eyes, I felt the faint shadow of him, the nearness of his body heat and scent.
He kept kneading my armpits and shoulders, then swept down my sides and toward my lower abdomen.
Along the way his hands brushed my breasts a few times… but fretting over that would be strange, right? It didn’t seem deliberate. Accidental contact during a massage was only natural.
If a doctor pressed a stethoscope to your chest and you got angry because it touched you, that would be the weird part. This was the same sort of situation.
Drowsiness kept rolling in; honestly I barely knew what was happening anymore. I had no energy left to pick fights over anything. He hadn’t openly groped my chest, so what was the problem? Making a fuss over nothing would just make me look petty.
I kept fighting the sleep while feeling his hands.
Around my navel, where faint eleven-shaped abs showed, his fingers worked the flesh gently—then suddenly pressed firmly into the very center of my lower belly.
“Hyaah…?! T-Teacher? This is…”
“Uterine massage. It’s an extremely important area for women, so loosening the surrounding tissue is beneficial.”
“Uterine… massage…?”
Uterine massage.
Did such a thing actually exist…? I thought I’d only ever seen it in adult manga.
Ah, whatever. If the teacher said so, it must be true…
“Ngh, ah, haa…”
His hands continued pressing and kneading around my uterus in a steady rhythm.
Something about it felt a little off, but I decided not to dwell on it. He didn’t seem to be doing anything wrong, and the sensation was genuinely pleasant.
Something that felt good couldn’t be bad… right?
The drowsiness was finally too strong to resist.
With the fatigue melting away and my body growing limp, it felt exactly like lying on a soft, sun-dried blanket.
Just a little, just a tiny bit of sleep would be fine, wouldn’t it? Surely the kind and trustworthy Teacher Yohan wouldn’t do anything while I was asleep.
My vision was dark under the towel; the only sound was the soft white noise of fabric rustling. Nothing remained to keep me awake.
Just as I was slipping under, a low voice whispered close to my ear.
“Sleep well. Sweet dreams.”
Snap.