Impulse Suppression Training (4)
Sunday morning, Lee Seonho's room.
Instead of the room owner's voice, it was a woman's moans that echoed through the space, over and over.
-Squirm, squirm.
"Hh, ahheut...!! Haha, hahah...!! Ahaah...!!"
"Don't run away. Stay still and endure it."
"Hh, hheueup...!! Euhheuheueup...!!"
"There you go. See? You can hold out just fine."
...No, not even close. Choi Mari's body had already been rejecting this unbearable sensation for a long while now.
A man's hands touching and groping her sensitive areas was never a pleasant feeling by any stretch. She had realized as much ages ago — she simply had no choice but to accept it.
Because she had to pretend she was under hypnosis.
Because she wanted to fix her impulsive, instinct-driven nature.
And because she wanted to win back the trust of her junior Seonho, whom she'd lost through her own mistake.
The tangled web of reasons that kept Choi Mari from abandoning the training became, again and again, the very willpower that let her hold on each time she felt herself about to collapse.
Even when an unfamiliar, alien sensation wrapped around her body from her side and her armpit, she kept going.
-Squirm, squirm.
"Heu, h, hheut...!! Haa, h, hheuheueup...!!"
"Your posture's slipping. Hold your body still."
"Yes, yes, hehet..."
"If you don't get used to sensations and emotions like this — ones that are nothing but uncomfortable — you'll keep moving the way you always do, swept along by your feelings. And that means your personality and your habits stay exactly the same as they are now."
He wasn't wrong. It was a truth so bone-deep she couldn't have denied it if she'd tried.
She'd already made the same kind of mistake twice. And one of those times had escalated into a situation far too dangerous to write off as a mere 'mistake' — a situation that had nearly gotten her junior Seonho killed.
And yet here he was, suppressing his own emotions to help her train. For her to be the one to pull away first — that was something Choi Mari couldn't possibly allow. Because to her, that would be a direct strike against her own pride.
"Hh, hheup...!! Euh, euhheuheueup...!!"
She jammed her lower lip against the laughter threatening to spill out and endured her body's escape attempts through sheer will alone.
"Looks like you're getting used to the stimulation on this side, so we'll move to somewhere else. Keep that posture from breaking."
-Sliiide.
"Heu, hheuheueup?!"
She'd assumed it would end with fingers touching her armpits. This time, the sensation of fingers drifting straight up the inside of her thigh.
Just as she was growing accustomed to one spot, a new stimulation would renew the tension; and just when she was about to adjust again, his hands would find somewhere she never expected.
Under normal circumstances, these were places that would have flooded her with shame — but right now she didn't even have a spare moment to feel it. The single thought that she had to endure this sensation filled Choi Mari's mind to the brim.
'I have to... I have to endure it somehow...'
She knew that the more complicated emotions filled her head, the harder it became to hold out.
So she left behind nothing but the bare will to endure, and weathered Lee Seonho's touch to the very end.
The 'Impulse Suppression Training' that had begun with Choi Mari lasted about thirty minutes.
Granted, calling it impulse suppression training was generous — in truth, I'd simply tickled her body wherever my desires happened to lead me.
Still, it was genuinely helping her, and Choi Mari herself perceived it as training, so there was no real problem. As long as I wrapped up the session properly, that is.
"Hh, hheut... Euh, heuu..."
"You held out well. See? When you actually put your mind to it, you can do it."
"Hh, heuu, he..."
Once the training session was successfully complete, of course I didn't forget to praise her. A small remark like that was enough to sweep away a good portion of Choi Mari's suspicions.
Her rash temperament had always kept her abilities from being properly evaluated. She had to be starved for praise and recognition from others.
True, the master-servant dynamic was a temporary thing constructed for the training — but the Choi Mari of right now could easily register it as 'praise from a superior.'
'That's enough for now. It'll take some time to instill a real sense of "Master," but still.'
Even so, since our first skinship had started under the master-servant framing, I could progress far faster with her than with the other heroines.
Sweat drenching her whole body, she was still holding the pose I'd given her as she caught her ragged breath. I stroked her hair and spoke in little more than a whisper.
"You did well, Choi Mari. I knew you'd hold out for me."
-Pat, pat.
"Eut, th, thank you..."
Thirty minutes of proper skinship was a little disappointing, but ending things here today was the wisest move.
Being told to hold back from being tickled was, after all, the same as forcing her to suppress her body's reflexive responses.
Drag it out too long and the physical and mental fatigue would pile up — and once her willpower to endure finally hit rock bottom, it would inevitably curdle into suspicion toward me.
'I can always extend the time gradually. Today, I should just leave her with the impression that this was a serious, legitimate training session and call it done.'
It was more than enough of a result as it was. Considering that the raunchiest skinship I'd managed with Choi Mari until now was a headlock, I'd thoroughly savored the feel of her soft sides, her armpits, and even her inner thighs — today was a clear victory.
Best of all, though, was that it hadn't ended as mere skinship. I'd walked away with a psychological gain as well.
-Pat, pat.
"Et, hhet, et..."
"Keep doing exactly this from now on. You can do it. I believe you're fully capable of changing."
"Yes, yes..."
Training designed to make her gladly accept my hand on her head — to make her register it as a kind of reward.
We were about halfway through that process, which meant this alone had already transformed the relationship between me and Choi Mari into something visibly different from before.
And so, while continuing to stroke her hair, I quietly retracted the mana of Suggestion: Hypnosis from her mind.
-Pat, pat.
"E, eung... heueung..."
That said, even after the 'buff' had left her head, Choi Mari still nuzzled into my hand with a pleasant hum in her voice.
"Thank you for your hard work, Mari sunbae."
"...Y-yeah. Same to you, Seonho."
The instant the impulse suppression training ended, she dropped the informal speech and the condescending attitude, snapping back to her usual self.
But perhaps because of what had just happened, she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes directly the way she normally would.
'I had no idea Seonho had that side to him.'
The junior who was normally so easygoing and mild-mannered had, the moment they entered 'hypnosis training,' suddenly changed the look in his eyes and started speaking to her as if giving orders.
She'd grown used to it as the training went on, but the flustered shock she'd felt at the very first words of banmal out of his mouth still lingered. Along with the memory of how embarrassingly intimate the training had been.
'Sit. Stay. Sit again.'
'Good, well done. Our Mari is so clever.'
Treating her like a dog, issuing one humiliating command after another, doling out praise over the smallest things — a training regimen that honestly made her feel like an idiot.
...And yet, if you asked whether it had felt bad, the answer was no. Somehow, in those moments, she'd thrown her hands out and rolled her body across the floor with everything she had, desperate to earn her junior's praise.
'No wonder he insisted on doing it at his place instead of the training grounds.'
Training or not, there was no way she could have done something that humiliating out in the open.
Only in a private space like this could she have kept her emotions in check and maintained control.
Once she'd gotten used to it, it didn't even feel degrading anymore. It was only now, right after the training had ended, that the memories were flushing back and stirring up strange feelings.
'Besides, Seonho apparently has no idea that the hypnosis never actually took on me.'
Could it be that she was some kind of special constitution, resistant to hypnosis? At least during the training, his eyes had shown not a shred of doubt that she was under.
But given how expert he'd seemed throughout the hypnosis session, this whole scenario was probably a first for him too. Which meant he must have gone as far as 'that training' on the assumption she was properly hypnotized.
That 'training' — thirty-odd minutes of him groping her body — was, no matter how she thought about it, not the kind of thing you'd do to someone in full possession of their senses.
...She could still feel it, the ghost of those sensations. The way his fingers had traced her sides, her armpits, the inside of her thigh.
'...I was under hypnosis anyway. He could easily have pretended not to notice and groped my chest or something.'
But he hadn't — he'd genuinely focused on the 'tickling' — so it really didn't seem like he'd touched her with any strange intentions.
It made sense as training too, framed as enduring physical discomfort and suppressing emotion. Even in an unconscious state, receiving this kind of training would condition her body to respond on its own, even after the hypnosis wore off.
The fact that the hypnosis hadn't properly taken had nearly caused a crisis, but thanks to her, she'd made it through to the end without being found out — so it all worked out.
'My willpower is strong. That's the only reason I held out. Anyone else would've quit halfway through, no question.'
Surely this had earned her a decent measure of trust from her junior Seonho.
Just one session — and only a glimpse of her while 'hypnotized' — probably wasn't enough on its own. But with a little more of this, she could win back the trust she'd lost.
Even his final words, spoken as he released the buff after the training ended... kept ringing in her ears.
'Keep doing exactly this from now on. You can do it. I believe you're fully capable of changing.'
She'd bolted without protecting him to the end — she'd nearly gotten him killed. And even to someone like her, he'd said she was capable of change, and praised her for it.
He hadn't been saying it lightly, surely. If it were empty flattery, there'd have been no reason to say it to her while she was unconscious.
...If her junior was that sincere with her, then the right thing was for her to answer that sincerity in kind.
"Mari sunbae, how about a chicken breast salad for lunch? You're staying to eat, right?"
"...Didn't you say you normally eat regular meals for lunch?"
"You came all the way to my place, sunbae, so I should accommodate you. Besides, I like chicken breast too. The regular lunches are just for hanging out with the others."
"...Whatever you want."
Honestly, she thought it might take her a little while to adjust.
The Seonho of the hypnosis training and the everyday Seonho felt like two entirely different people, as if his whole personality had switched.
But either way, the hypnosis training had shown her his sincerity. And knowing he was doing all of this genuinely for her sake, there was no reason to run.
"Aren't you curious, though? About what kind of training I put you through while you were 'hypnotized,' Mari sunbae. Most people ask the moment they come out of it."
"...I figured you'd handle it well enough on your own, Seonho. I'm not suspicious or anything, so no need to explain."
"Thank you for saying that, sunbae. Honestly, the training process is a bit complicated, so it'd be hard to explain anyway."
"...Right. I trust you, however you run your hypnosis training. So don't worry about it."
He had shown her trust first — so she was simply answering it in kind.
Answering like this while already knowing exactly what he'd done to her was more than a little shameless of her. But if it bought her junior's trust, that was a price worth paying.