Counseling
Sniff, sniff.
With every twitch of her nose, the fragrance drew deeper into her lungs.
Perhaps it was from a restless night, but her mind felt faintly hazy.
Falling asleep again like yesterday would be rude.
She shook her head hard, but the drowsiness refused to lift. Pinching her thigh lightly, she forced herself to focus on Yohan's words.
"So, Eileen — what is it that's troubling you, in the end? If it kept you from concentrating in class all day, it must be something fairly serious."
"Ah, um, well…"
"Speak freely. That's what this time is for, after all."
Yohan's tone was gentle and soft, yet she could only hesitate for a long while longer.
Because the worry she carried was, in the end, nothing other than the unfinished business of last night's masturbation.
She'd gotten unexpectedly worked up, touched herself a little, and then never managed to finish even once — leaving her in a foul mood the entire day… Explaining that straight out was a bit much, wasn't it?
"Nothing said in counseling leaves this room. I respect my clients' privacy as well. No matter how embarrassing the concern, I'll listen seriously — so don't worry."
Seeing how long she was stalling, Yohan spoke in a calm voice, as if he already knew exactly what she was fretting over.
Hearing that, she tried looking at it differently.
At a hospital — a urology clinic, say — no one thought of having an intimate examination as something lewd. No one considered entrusting a private part of their body to a doctor some kind of perverted act.
So wouldn't sexual counseling be the same? And Yohan was the school nurse, after all — practically a kind of doctor.
"…Haa."
She let out a short breath.
Having finally steeled herself, she parted her lips with the careful dread of someone confessing a crime in full. Her voice came out small, almost swallowed.
"Um, the truth is… yesterday I… did it."
"Hm?"
"…bation."
"I'm sorry. Could you speak up just a little more?"
"I masturbated! I masturbated, okay?!"
He kept asking her to repeat herself without a shred of tact, and she snapped just a little.
The moment the words left her mouth she startled herself, clapping both hands over her lips.
Yohan's eyes widened slightly as he murmured,
"You didn't need to say it that loudly…"
"Ugh."
Mortified, she dropped her head. Heat prickled around her face. If she looked in a mirror right now, her cheeks and ears would surely be bright red.
Her uselessly sharp Intuition gave a sharp little jolt. Why was that? Somehow it felt as if Yohan were deliberately trying to embarrass her. Of course, there was not the slightest chance that her kind and trustworthy Teacher Yohan would do anything so underhanded…
Whether from shame or something else, the world in front of her swam a little. The scent filling the room had grown stronger too, strong enough now that her head had begun to ache.
"Are you feeling unwell?"
Yohan glanced over her condition and spoke.
She shook her head hard, fighting the sleep rolling in.
"I-I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."
"Is that so? Then let's continue the counseling. You'd gotten as far as saying you masturbated in the middle of the night. So what was the actual problem?"
Straight to the point, just like that.
This was an extremely sensitive subject — was there really no intermediate step at all, nothing to ease a client's nerves?
She fidgeted with her fingers for a long time before forcing down her embarrassment and opening her mouth.
"Well, um… I never finished even once. My desire never really got resolved, so I think I felt kind of… weird all day…"
"You never finished even once? Hmm. Could it be that you're the type who has trouble feeling pleasure naturally?"
That would be a bit inconvenient, Yohan muttered. What was inconvenient about it?
She shook her head vigorously.
"Th-that's not it. The opposite, actually. I was too sensitive — that was the problem."
"Too sensitive?"
"Y-yes… Just a little touching and my body reacted so strongly that I got scared and stopped halfway through."
"Ahh… so that was the reason."
Wasn't he digging into this a little too thoroughly, though? Somehow it felt as if he weren't respecting the client's position at all. Why did she keep wondering whether this even counted as proper counseling?
Of course, there was no way her utterly trustworthy Teacher Yohan was scamming her. And yet the sense that something about the situation was slightly off refused to go away.
As she sat there with a rather serious expression, turning it over in her mind, Yohan spoke in a perfectly ordinary tone.
"Just from hearing about it, I can't quite tell how sensitive you mean. I think I could give you more accurate counseling if I confirmed it myself — would you be willing to masturbate right here?"
"Uh… what?"
Had she misheard just now?
"Recreate exactly what you did last night. There's no need to be tense. I'm your teacher, after all. I would never harbor any improper feelings toward a student."
"B-but… even so, that's a little… strange, isn't it? Telling me to masturbate in front of my teacher… Huh?"
It was strange… right? Her head was a complete jumble. She could tell something was off, but she couldn't quite pin down why it was off…
"Ugh."
And when had the incense gotten this strong? Her nose and head were starting to throb. She pressed her temple lightly and squeezed her eyes shut.
The world before her blurred by degrees. Yohan's outline no longer came through clearly. She had to struggle just to keep her swaying upper body upright.
Snap!
In that instant, a crisp sound rang clearly in her ear.
Eileen's pupils dimmed, the light fading from them as naturally as breath.
Yohan caught her body before it could collapse, then took the pendulum hanging around his neck into his hand.
"Eileen. Look at this. Focus your gaze. Your body is growing more and more comfortable, and you feel better and better. You remember yesterday in a hazy way, don't you? Your mind may have forgotten, but your body remembers. Keep this firmly in mind — following my words makes you feel good. Now, as I count, your consciousness will sink little by little. From the number ten, descending one by one…"
Ten… nine… eight… seven… six…
five… four… three… two… one… zero…
⟨ Ding. ⟩
Softly, Eileen's eyes fell shut.
The process was markedly simpler than yesterday's.
Eileen had already begun to adapt to the Trance State, and she had been steeped thoroughly enough in the tea and incense that that alone was sufficient.
And unlike yesterday, today he had no intention of leaving her under for long. There was no need to put her under that deeply.
Yohan began to whisper into Eileen's ear in a calm, level voice stripped of all rise and fall.
"Can you hear my voice?"
"Yeees…"
"Good. Take the words I'm about to say to heart. From this moment until this counseling session ends, you will feel no sense of wrongness about anything that happens in this room. That sense of wrongness will grow thinner and thinner, until even if something strange is done to you, you will be unable to think of it as strange."
"Wrongness…?"
"No matter how bizarre something is, you will think of it as natural."
"Na…tural…"
Eileen echoed him blankly.
"Eileen. What do you think of Teacher Yohan in front of you?"
"Kind… and trustworthy…"
"That's right. Teacher Yohan is kind and trustworthy. So he would never do anything to harm you. Isn't that so?"
"…"
"No matter the circumstances, Teacher Yohan can be trusted. So whatever he says and does — whatever it may be — is not the least bit strange. It is natural. Even if something seems a little at odds with common sense, you must trust Teacher Yohan."
"Yeees…"
A suggestion that twisted common sense and erased the sense of wrongness. An extremely powerful — and extremely dangerous — suggestion.
Dangerous enough that it was not easy to make it take hold. It meant directly denying the common sense a person had carried their whole life.
But he had prepared more than enough safeguards. He had used the precious incense with almost wasteful generosity, and he had given her nearly all the tea he had on hand.
Even if she felt a faint wrongness, waking fully would still be difficult.
"Teacher Yohan is your ally. Whatever he does, in the end it is for your sake. Even if it looks a little strange in the moment, there will be a hidden meaning in the teacher's actions that you don't know. You must trust the teacher's judgment more than your own thoughts."
"Ally… trust…"
With a thoroughness that bordered on obsessive, Yohan murmured variations of the same sentences into Eileen again and again.
When he judged the time was about right, he quietly prepared to wake her.
"Eileen. From now on I'm going to count the numbers from earlier in reverse. From zero to ten. As the numbers rise, you will gradually wake from sleep. Imagine your sunken body slowly floating upward."
"Nn… ah…"
"Zero… one… two… three…"
Yohan began counting at a leisurely, even pace. He must never show impatience. Maintaining an always-relaxed, comfortable manner was essential. The moment emotion or personal investment could be felt, the subject's sense of wrongness could spike sharply.
As he slowly climbed back up through the numbers, Eileen's eyes opened by degrees.
"…Four… five… six… seven."
There, Yohan stopped counting.
Not quite all the way to ten.
"Nnh…"
Eileen blinked in a state of having almost — but not quite — woken. Her half-lidded eyes were strangely alluring.
Yohan rose from his seat, adjusted the concentration of the incense a little, and spoke in an offhand tone.
"Good. Now then, let's finish the counseling we left off earlier. I need to confirm just how sensitive your body is — so go ahead and masturbate right here."
"Uh… ah…? Yeees…?"