Massage
The next morning, I opened my eyes feeling relatively refreshed.
Maybe it was because I had properly worked off my lust the night before, but I barely felt tired, and my head was clear. The face staring back at me from the bathroom mirror even seemed to have a healthy glow to it.
Compared to yesterday, when my eyes had been sunken and ringed with dark circles, I looked like a completely different person.
If I went to sleep without masturbating, my head felt foggy; if I did it and then slept, my mind was sharp… Just hearing that, it sounded like textbook addiction symptoms.
My father, who had died early from heavy smoking, had been exactly the same. Without a cigarette his hands and feet would tremble; with one, his head would clear right up.
Thinking that I was showing the same kind of symptoms left me with a deeply ironic feeling. After all, I had only masturbated three times since becoming a woman.
Of course, this body was so sensitive that even the lightest touch produced pleasure on a completely different level from when I had been a man—but even so, developing such extreme symptoms this quickly was a little strange.
Was this the old saying about how a late-learned skill is the most dangerous? Or in this case, late-learned masturbation.
Anyway, it was not really my fault. The problem was that this body was far too perverted.
From now on I was absolutely never going to masturbate again. Feeling good was one thing, but it was so excessive it was starting to scare me a little.
And then there was the whole business of dealing with the soaked sheets and clothes. Nothing brought on a harder reality check than cleaning up the mess I had made.
Tonight, even if I start feeling weird, I have to hold out…
No matter how I looked at it, last night and the night before had been far too strange. The way my body had suddenly heated up like I was in heat, the way I kept wanting to touch myself as if I had completely lost all self-control—none of it sat right with me.
Just listening to the story, I sounded like a total pervert, but to me it was a genuinely serious problem. I was seriously considering whether I ought to get some kind of counseling for it.
…Should I talk to Teacher Yohan about it? When it came to counseling, he was the only person who came to mind.
It would be a little more comfortable talking to him than dumping embarrassing stories about masturbation on some complete stranger.
Still, getting counseling about masturbation two days in a row was, no matter how I thought about it, pretty mortifying.
Tch.
Resting my chin in my hand as I continued to brood, I suddenly clicked my tongue softly.
What was I doing, seriously fretting over a topic like this first thing in the morning?
Forget it. Time to get ready for school.
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
The bell announcing the end of the school day rang out loudly.
I glanced around, reading the room. Over by the window, Nova was chatting away with some other friends.
Was she not going to invite me out into the city today? Good. Every time she came over to talk I had to invent some half-baked excuse, and it always left me feeling guilty.
Nova was a good kid, but right now counseling was more important than hanging out. I needed to get out of the classroom before she could come over and say something.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and, out of habit, started walking toward the infirmary.
That was when it happened. Just as I was leaving, my eyes met those of the instructor coming out of the faculty office.
Physical combat instructor Elena. Someone I found personally very awkward to deal with. I offered a polite greeting and quickened my pace, hoping to slip past her.
But unfortunate premonitions always come true, or so they say. Elena stopped me as I tried to brush past.
"Eileen, could I talk to you for a moment?"
Ugh.
I let out a silent groan inside my head and stopped walking. Forcing a politely smiling expression onto my face, I answered,
"Yes, of course. What is it?"
"Ah, relax. It's nothing major. It's just… your sparring results have been a bit off lately, haven't they? I was wondering if you might be interested in some private extra lessons later on."
Elena waved a hand with a smile at my tense face.
I asked back, puzzled.
"Extra lessons…?"
"Yeah. Nothing too fancy—just like an after-school class. I want to teach combat theory and advanced techniques to the top students. You've been stuck in a bit of a rut lately, haven't you? Instead of grinding away alone and fretting, I thought maybe taking a class like this might help."
"Ah… thank you. Um, deciding right this second is a bit much, so would it be all right if I thought about it a little more and got back to you?"
"Sure, sure. Go ahead. It'll take some time to set the class up anyway. Don't feel pressured—just think about it casually."
"Yes…"
Elena kept her kind, caring expression the whole time, offered a few more words of encouragement, patted my shoulder lightly, and walked past.
"Everyone has high hopes for you. Keep working hard from here on out, all right?"
"…Yes."
After she left, I let out a small sigh.
The reason I had been trying to avoid Elena was not complicated. She never scolded me or got angry. She always approached me with that same kind expression, offering genuine concern and encouragement.
And that was exactly what made her so hard to deal with.
She and most of the other instructors held far too many expectations for me. Of course they did—Eileen was a promising talent, a standout from the entrance exams onward. That was only natural.
The problem was that I was not Eileen. I was someone who could not fulfill even a fraction of their expectations.
Eileen had not been the type to fight with systematic technique. She relied more on outstanding physical ability and near-precognitive intuition, handling each fight with improvised responses as they came.
I still had that intuition and physical ability intact. But fully recreating that animalistic fighting style was impossible. No matter how hard I tried, all I managed was a clumsy imitation.
The instructors thought I was simply stuck in a rut, but this was not something as simple as a slump. I would never catch up to the original Eileen, and even if I somehow did, by then the gap between me and the other students would already be enormous.
At that point the faculty would finally realize the truth. That it was not a mere slump—that my skills had simply dropped. That the promising talent of the past no longer existed in this world.
I did not have the confidence to endure that shift in their gazes, which was why instructors like Elena felt so unbearably awkward to me.
"Haa…"
I sighed once more and resumed walking.
Reaching the infirmary did not take long.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Come in."
A soft answer came the moment I tapped on the door. When I opened it, a familiar scent tickled the bridge of my nose. A comfortable scent that settled the heart.
My tightly frozen shoulders slowly loosened. This was only my third visit, so why did this space already feel so cozy?
If you judged solely by the ability to ease a client's tension, Teacher Yohan was definitely a first-rate counselor.
"Sorry, but could you sit there and wait a moment? I have a few documents I need to finish."
"Ah, yes. Please take your time."
For a few minutes Yohan sat at his work desk writing. The quiet clacking of the keyboard filled the room.
With his glasses on as he filled out paperwork, Yohan looked extremely intellectual. Before long he finished his work, left the desk, and sat down across from me.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. So, how was your day? Any particular worries?"
"Ah, well…"
Worries, huh.
I hesitated for a moment, then remembered my earlier encounter with Instructor Elena.
Right. That counted as a worry too. In fact, it was a far healthier and more appropriate counseling topic than something like masturbation addiction.
I calmly organized my thoughts and told him about what had happened with Instructor Elena earlier—how my sparring results had been lacking lately, how the instructors' expectations felt burdensome.
"Hmm…"
Yohan listened with a serious expression, stroking his chin.
Then he suddenly stood up and came around behind me.
And placed both hands firmly on my shoulders.
"T-Teacher?"
"Stay still. Your shoulders are terribly stiff. No wonder your movements have gotten sluggish. Let's see… around here, is it?"
Yohan seemed to gauge something for a moment, then pressed his thumbs hard into the muscles near my shoulder blades.
"Ah—?!"
My shoulders tensed instantly and my back straightened.
I tried to twist around and protest, but with my shoulders held so firmly it was not easy.
Yohan calmly worked my shoulders as he spoke.
"Your whole body's muscles are quite locked up. Do you tend to skip stretching before training?"
"Uh… yes. It's a hassle, so I usually simplify the stretching process. Sometimes I skip it entirely…"
"That's why your body has gotten this stiff. Your flexibility must have dropped a lot too. Of course your movements aren't what they used to be. These things need to be loosened up regularly."
Uh… is that so?
"It seems you've been overconfident in your body. Even the most outstanding physical enhancement ability user still has the same human structure as everyone else. Once the muscles lock up like this, of course they can't function properly."
"Ah… then what should I do?"
"You need to loosen your body. As it happens, I know a bit about massage. How about it—would you like to try one?"
"A massage…?"
All of a sudden?