Paradise Lost (3)
Our brains possess something called neuroplasticity.
The nervous system is never fixed in place; it continually reorganizes itself under the influence of surrounding stimuli and environment. I had heard that human nerves, depending on the situation, can flexibly rewrite their own roles.
For instance, when you lie face-down and close your eyes, the body registers that vision has been cut off. The alternative for a lost sense is to pull the remaining ones into sharper focus — smell, hearing, touch.
That was exactly what was happening to me now.
I lay face-down on the bed, vision effectively sealed away, and my sense of smell and touch had grown keener than at any other moment in my life. A faint fragrance rose from the medicinal herbs laid out across the massage table.
I don't know what the scent is, but it's really nice.
Not too sharp, yet it settled the mind into quiet. Comfortable. Comfortable enough that I was glad I had followed Elderin here. Whatever else, it was far better than sitting alone in an empty room, sniffling.
Was this what people called aromatherapy? Or herbs? I had no idea. You needed at least a little prior connection to know. Asking Elderin would probably get me an answer, but my mouth wouldn't open that easily.
Besides, the massage itself had started gently. Even after I lay down, it began lightly — just the palms of my hands. My mood improved, but nothing about my body had reason to react. If anything, a drowsy heaviness was settling in, as if sleep might take me.
I had expected to make conversation with Yoo Se-rin while we lay there, yet the thought of speaking felt like it would shatter this peace. She seemed to feel the same; the room stayed quiet, and with my eyes closed it almost felt as though I were alone.
Should I just fall asleep like this? It feels a little wasteful, though.
In a place like this, you were supposed to chase your own satisfaction as far as it would go. I knew that holding back because it felt "wasteful" was stupid. Still — maybe because I had gone so long without money — the idea of simply sleeping through somewhere this expensive just didn't sit right.
It didn't take long to realize how pointless that fretting had been.
A warm towel settled over my left leg. And on the other side, my right leg—
"Hup."
Oil, most likely. It probably had some refined name of its own, but it was a kind of oil all the same. A soft, pleasant fragrance clung to my skin. My already-heightened sense of touch shuddered.
It began at the tip of my big toe. Fingers wove between my toes as if interlacing with them, then stroked across the sole and the top of the foot. From the ankle, the motion climbed the calf without the slightest hesitation.
Why was a woman's body so sensitive in every last place? And mine, more than most, seemed abnormally developed. When the oil reached the intimate stretch of thigh beneath the hip, I had to grip the mattress and hold on.
The problem was that applying the oil was only the preparation stage of the massage. One mountain after another. Once my skin was smoothly coated, it was ready to receive another person's hands.
"Eut. Hnn…"
A faint sweetness edged my breath. I clearly remembered the room feeling rather cool before I lay down, yet now a subtle heat seemed to radiate through me.
Ah. It was moving to my back.
That area… was genuinely difficult.
From beneath the shoulder blades up to the base of the shoulders — places even my own hands rarely reached — were especially troublesome. The brush of a single fingertip sent shivers racing through me. Afraid my eyes would lose focus, I squeezed them shut hard. Even that kept failing; my strength would give out and my lids would drift open again, over and over.
My mouth fell open like an idiot's, and at some point a clear thread of saliva slipped from the corner of my lips. Only when my cheek grew damp did I realize what had happened.
"Heuh, uk— haguuut…"
This kind of sensation was not something you could simply endure. My muscles twitched and jumped of their own accord. My lower back slipped free of my control, contracting, then only barely relaxing again.
Perhaps it looked as though I were in pain. The masseuse, her expression kind, held out a small paper card.
Does it hurt a lot?
If you're uncomfortable, I can go a little gentler.
No. That wasn't really the problem.
I was grateful for the consideration, but a massive scar had just been carved into my dignity. My face had gone scarlet by then; I managed an "I'm fine," and buried my head again.
A hellish heaven. The massage showed no sign of ending anytime soon.
When we were first shown in, the board had said one hundred twenty minutes. That stretch of time — at once an eternity and a blink — finally passed.
Finished with her work, the masseuse said she would bring tea and stepped out. Beside me, I heard Se-rin stir and sit up with a soft rustle. If I stayed as I was, my bare back would be fully visible to her. Somehow that felt embarrassing, so I pushed myself up as well.
"So? Pretty good, right?"
"Ah — yes."
My voice still carried a trace of sleep. Once I had wrapped a large towel around myself in place of clothes and sat up, I noticed the faint outline my body had left behind. Oil residue, most likely. Some of the marks were darker than others, and those spots were…
No. It was nothing.
I fidgeted and shifted until my own body covered the stains. Fortunately, Elderin was busy hunting for a towel and hadn't looked my way.
"I come here pretty often. Nothing beats it for blowing off stress."
"You're right. It felt way better than I expected."
My head really did feel clear. With the knotted muscles loosened, my body even seemed lighter. Ever since my legs had been ruined, I hadn't done anything truly strenuous. Weekend rehab sessions were about the extent of it — and even those were in water, so I had assumed the strain on my body couldn't be that great. Besides, everywhere you touched me just felt soft. Muscle tension, accumulated fatigue — I had never properly considered either.
If I had known it would feel like this, I might have tried it sooner. Maybe I should have paid a little more attention to myself. Once I had some breathing room, this might be worth coming back to now and then.
"You must've liked it a lot, considering the sounds you—"
"Hik! Stop. You don't need to say any more."
"Pfft. Fine, fine. I didn't hear a thing."
Everything I had just been thinking was hereby cancelled. I never wanted another massage as long as I lived. There was probably a reason massages had such a weird reputation in Korea. It definitely wasn't that I was the strange one. I was disappointed in Elderin for bringing me here— no, even so, that felt unfair.
Lying to yourself was never easy. It was just because it was my first time. Stimuli always dulled the more you took them in. Of course a first experience would produce an overreaction.
"From here on out, you just need to start thinking carefully."
"Huh?"
"Once your mood lifts, the bad thoughts tend to clear out too. If you're going to plan for the future, isn't it better to start from somewhere bright?"
Come to think of it, she was right. There had been plenty of embarrassing moments, but the gloom that had filled my head was gone. Right now, I felt like I could sketch a far more positive future.
Still — wasn't the approach a little extreme? She had basically force-reset my brain because she figured I was about to spiral. The problem was that it had worked far better than expected. The hollow, hole-in-the-chest emptiness had eased. If I deliberately dredged the feelings up they still ached, but I no longer felt as though the world had abandoned me.
"Unnie… do you think it'd be better if I streamed?"
"Hmm? Well. If you put it like that, I wouldn't go as far as saying you absolutely have to~"
"Huh. You wouldn't?"
Elderin was the person who had pulled me toward streaming harder than anyone. Drawn by the way she shone so openly, I had thrown myself into it headlong. Looking back, I had made a fool of myself plenty of times even then. Maybe Elderin was my personal black-history factory.
"I just wanted you to know this path existed too. I never expected you to go that hard from the start."
"…"
"But if Daeun starts streaming, I think you'll be good at it. You'll get big for sure. You're pretty, sure — but you've got a different kind of charm, too."
"Even if you hype me up like that… ahem. I'm not that easy, you know."
"It's exactly that side of you that makes me think you'll do well."
While Elderin giggled, the masseuse returned. On the tray sat a tea with a powerful fragrance — a little spicy, a little sweet-bitter. Ginger tea. Not a flavor I disliked, so I let it wet my tongue slowly.
"I… I still want to play the game."
"Yeah. I figured. I want you to keep going too."
"I don't want to miss anything. I want to go pro, and sometimes I want to turn on a stream and feel loved."
I wasn't thinking about the how. Purely, what I wanted was that.
Using a normal access device was still impossible. It was like moving with a massive iron weight clamped to my feet. This wasn't something that would resolve just by getting used to it or grinding up skill. Even so, I would have to fight. Since when had I only ever fought easy opponents?