A Secret Treatment (2)
“Isabel, now that I think of it, I meant to ask you this earlier.”
“…Yes?”
“Could you start loosening the restraints a little? I'm not asking to be discharged or anything, but having my arms and legs tied up like this the whole time is getting a bit uncomfortable.”
“Ah. Now that you mention it, you have been lying like that for two days already, haven't you.”
“Yeah. The sisters have been looking after me in all sorts of ways, so I've managed to stay reasonably comfortable, but there's no helping the discomfort itself.”
“One moment, please. Let me check whether it's all right first.”
With those words, Kim Isabel approached the restraint binding my ankle and let a touch of her Holy Power flow into it. She seemed to be gauging whether I could move on my own yet. To my eye I'd mostly recovered, but what her examination turned up might say otherwise.
“I believe it would be fine to release the restraints themselves, but…”
“Hmm?”
“Until your body has fully recovered—until tomorrow's treatment is finished—I don't think you should walk or stand on two feet. The most I can permit you is sitting on the edge of the bed.”
“That alone is plenty. Not being able to move at all has just been suffocating, that's all.”
“Understood. You're my patient, Seonho, so I'll release them under my own authority.”
With a faint hiss of dissipating magic, the restraint around my ankle came undone, scattering into threads of light. Then, once she unbound the last restraint on my left arm as well, four days'—no, two days' worth of regained freedom made my body feel light enough to float away.
“Phew. Thanks, Isabel. I feel like a weight's been lifted.”
“Please don't forget what I told you, Seonho. You absolutely must not get out of that bed.”
“I know. Thank you, really.”
You could ask what the point was when I couldn't leave the bed anyway, but being permitted to sit upright on its edge alone changed quite a lot. Instead of lying flat and talking sideways at each other like this, I could now sit face to face with someone and converse properly. At mealtimes, I could share the table too, instead of having my own portion set up separately on the bed.
And most important of all—when Cha Eunju came to service me with her mouth, I'd be able to look down and observe the whole thing far more thoroughly. She'd surely show up tomorrow claiming she needed to help me relieve my urges again.
Come to think of it, maybe I'd boldly ask for a titfuck instead of a blowjob this time. With her ability, she could clean up any mess the hospital room got into, no problem.
Apparently mistaking my lewd grin for the simple joy of a man freed from his restraints, Kim Isabel answered with a hint of laughter in her voice.
“You're looking awfully cheerful, Seonho. That comfortable already?”
“…I suppose so. I've spent two full days practically glued to this bed.”
“You know, of course, that just because your body is free doesn't mean you can exercise or anything of the sort. Absolutely no exertion until tomorrow afternoon. Understood?”
“I know. Thank you for worrying about me again and again.”
“Of course…”
It might sound like overbearing nagging from a distance, but if it was Kim Isabel doing the worrying, the meaning was entirely different. There could be no clearer proof of her heart than the way she worried so purely for my body. Even with Succubus Heart in effect, the Suggestion didn't erase her genuine concern for me—it was still there, still hers.
We stayed like that, sitting across from one another, chatting about this and that, and before I knew it the promised thirty minutes had flown by. Reluctantly, it was time to lift the Suggestion and send her on her way.
“Isabel, head here.”
“…Is thirty minutes already over?”
“I'll pat it again this evening. Don't look so glum.”
“I always feel bad asking, but… please do it this evening too, Seonho.”
With my hand now positioned a little higher thanks to our changed posture, Kim Isabel obediently brought her head over. I gently stroked it once, right on top of her priest's cap.
Pat, pat.
“Mm…?”
Suggestion
“……Hnk, huuuh?!”
Crack—shatter!
Before she could even register the strangeness of me stroking her head, the Suggestion came undone—and Kim Isabel scrambled backward out of my grip. That would be the backlash of the fear and revulsion that had accumulated over the hour, rushing back the moment her androphobia returned. An unavoidable side effect, so I didn't hold it against her.
Even if she showed me that disappointing side of herself once or twice like this, I knew better than anyone that Kim Isabel's heart was drawing one step closer to mine with every session.
“Th-then… I-I'll see you this evening…”
“Yeah. Good work, Isabel.”
Slide. Click.
Maybe I'd engineer tonight's dinner so Kim Isabel and I could eat it alone together.
…Lord, I have sinned.
No—perhaps I am sinning even now. Because I harbor, in the vessel of my heart, feelings that were never meant to be there, for the man who trusts me and helps me more than anyone else in this world.
For a priest to carry tender feelings for anyone is already a transgression. But to carry them for a man who already has a beloved—that is doubly, trebly wrong.
I cannot repay the kindness I have received, and instead I feel fear toward my benefactor—that is my first sin. And though I feel that fear, I cannot bring myself to refuse his help, and keep accepting it—that is my second sin. And to have let impure feelings take root for the very man who helps me—that is my greatest sin of all.
Perhaps the emotions I feel are not truly mine at all, but a counterfeit, manufactured feeling.
His ability carries a strange, dangerous power—a power that can bend a person's emotions—and it melted away even the phobia that had tormented me for half my life, the way spring sunlight melts the frost from the ground. And just as new shoots rise from warmed soil, this feeling of longing for him has blossomed in my heart… perhaps it too is nothing but an illusion of the heart, born of the buff he gave me.
…If that is so, then when everything is over, this feeling too must return to what it was before.
So why is it that only this aching feeling remains in my heart, tormenting me still? I cannot understand it at all.
Just as the fear I felt toward him returned after the treatment ended, this inexplicable feeling—one I have never known before—ought to vanish with it. And yet, why?
I cannot tell whether this is, as he says, merely a side effect of his ability—or a genuine heartbeat my own heart has made.
After all, this is the first time in my life I have ever felt true trust in another person, and the first time I have ever carried tender feelings for anyone.
I don't know what the right thing to do is.
…No. Perhaps I simply do not want to know.
Because I already know that the answer I beg from the Lord will not be the answer I wish to hear—perhaps I am trying to run away without ever learning it.
Is it right to keep my distance from him, to preserve my chastity as a priest and commit no sin? Or is it right to remain by his side, to repay the countless debts of kindness I have already incurred?
I know what the answer is. And precisely because I know it, I cannot tell what the answer is.
…And so, my Lord.
Whatever judgment I should make, please do not grieve, and do not be angry. Look down upon your young priestess, and have mercy on her.
“I-I'll get your dinner ready, Seonho…”
At dinnertime, Kim Isabel looked somehow a little haggard. Her face was hard to make out beneath the veil, but her unsteady footsteps and the faint tremor running through her body stirred my concern all on their own.
Of course, showing too much interest for no reason could come off as nosy and only deepen her guard against me. But something—some instinct—told me that right now, reaching out with a bit of worry was closer to the right answer.
“Isabel, are you tired?”
“Y-ye-yes…?! N-n-n-no…!”
“……”
“I-I-I'm sorry…. I-It's just… I-I'm sorry…”
…Something had definitely happened. I couldn't say for certain what, not with the information I had, but something was there.
Maybe she'd spiraled into a panic after failing to handle another male patient who visited the church. Maybe there'd been friction with a fellow sister over the conspicuous veil she always wore. Or maybe she simply had a worry gnawing at her, wearing her out from thinking it over and over. The church hadn't stopped its work just because I was confined to a hospital room—and regrettably, whatever troubles she faced outside these walls, the current me couldn't fix them for her.
Or perhaps she was flustered over that strange feeling she'd experienced with me just a while ago. When it came to making a move, that scenario was the best possible one for me—but jumping to conclusions was a mistake waiting to happen.
…I'd probe her lightly with a casual question.
“…Could it be… because of me?”
“Y-yeyeyes…?! N-n-n-no…?!”
“…I see.”
“I-it-it-it's really not…!! I-It's not a worry related to you, Se-Se-Seonho, so y-you don't need to w-w-worry…!!”
…That was a rather ambiguous reaction. Was she denying it because it was a worry about me, and she was lying to my face? Or did she genuinely have some other concern entirely?
Reading someone's heart from body language and voice alone had always had its limits. The small mercy was that Kim Isabel was expressive with her emotions, so even without seeing her face, I could read quite a lot.
“I only asked just in case. You shouldn't be suffering over a side effect of the buff I gave you.”
“……Oh. Oh. So that's… th-that's why you asked….”
…There it was.
The very fact that she'd bothered to point out I'd asked for that reason amounted to a confession that a different reason had flashed through her own head. Which meant her earlier denial—that her worry had nothing to do with me—was a lie.
And that reaction of hers. Maybe I can afford to get my hopes up a little…?
The event where Kim Isabel worries herself to exhaustion over someone else—I remembered a similar situation from Surviving the Hunter Academy. When her feelings for Seo Woojin had been swelling and she'd agonized over what to do with her longing, an episode much like this one had played out.
Of course, there was no way the Kim Isabel of now harbored any fondness for Seo Woojin, so by process of elimination, the object of that adorable worry was, naturally, me.
This was the moment all that steady favorability work and carefully maintained hypocrisy began to bear concrete fruit.
“I-I don't think there are any side effects…. I-if it really were a side effect of the buff, th-then I probably, long ago…”
“Long ago?”
“……I-I-it's nothing at all…!! I-I'll get your dinner ready, S-Seonho!”
There was no question the androphobia treatment was progressing well. Kim Isabel's fear of me was steadily shrinking—I'd experienced that firsthand, hour by hour, just a little while ago.
And yet the way she acted now was like my first day of hospitalization at the church all over again, unable to hide her flusteredness in everything she did—in some ways even more awkward than that first day.
I could draw the conclusion easily enough: it wasn't the fear of men filling her anymore. Something else had moved in to take the fear's place.
“Isabel.”
“…Ye-ye-yes?!”
“If it feels like too much, you can absolutely say no… but would you eat dinner with me tonight? Just the two of us.”
“J-ju-ju-just the two of us?!”
“Cha Eunju isn't around, and eating alone feels a little lonely. I'll put a buff on you first, of course. You still look like eating would be a bit much for you.”
“…………I-if you'll only put a buff on me, th-then I suppose it would be all right…”
I'd already cleared things up with Han Sora, but Kim Isabel still labored under the misunderstanding that Cha Eunju and I were a couple. This time, I thought I'd let her know, ever so casually, that she didn't have to suppress whatever she felt for me.