It's Just Part of the Treatment (1)
Isabel Maria Kim. Twenty years old.
Ever since childhood, when her stepfather's attempted assault left her with androphobia, she had built up no immunity whatsoever to men.
Seeing a man's bare skin this up close, taking his arm into her own hands and touching it directly — every part of the experience was a first for her.
And so it was that Isabel Maria Kim, kneading the forearm of Lee Seonho at her fingertips, found herself sinking into a strange, giddy elation.
So this is what Seonho's arm feels like….
Not too thin, not soft with fat, and by no means brutishly bulky — a moderate, well-balanced layer of muscle.
Ordinarily, the mere fact that he was a man would have sent her fear spiraling too high for her to even look at him directly, but the buff he had granted her eased that fear just enough to let her observe him with a certain careful attention.
During the practical exam, he held me in these arms and carried me to safety. I didn't have a spare moment then, so I never realized his arms felt like this.
Thinking of it that way, they felt rather dependable. Perhaps it was precisely these forearms that had allowed him to carry both her and Cha Eunju as he ran, keeping them safe.
In a sense, these were the arms she owed a debt of gratitude to — so if anything about them was strained or sore, it was her duty to treat them thoroughly.
—Knead.
"Whoo… hooo…."
—Knead, knead.
"Mmhm… hoo…. hoooo…."
…And that was exactly why this was, simply, an act of treatment.
It was not at all an instance of taking an interest in a man's body and running her fingers over its contours, or of squeezing the muscle out of idle curiosity about how firm it might be.
She was merely channeling holy power evenly through his entire arm, searching for whichever area bore the worst damage. …Granted, the process was taking somewhat longer than her usual treatments, but she could excuse that as examining him all the more meticulously, and it wouldn't sound strange at all.
There doesn't appear to be anything seriously wrong, but still, if Seonho feels any discomfort, checking is only proper.
If she pretended to treat him while giving his forearm a soothing stroke or two with her hand, surely he would feel at ease.
Treatment was not only about curing illness and injury, after all. If his heart was uneasy, then calming it was also a part of healing.
—Swooosh….
"…Hooo…."
—Strooooked, sweep….
"Huuuh, hoo… huuh…."
Bracing his arm with one hand, she drew her other palm slowly from the top of his forearm down to the wrist, sending only the faintest thread of holy power along the way — all while secretly feeling out with each fingertip where the muscle split and ran.
Because this treatment differed somewhat from the ones she usually gave him, a flicker of anxiety had briefly stirred in Isabel — what if he found it strange?
But Seonho… surely he wouldn't suspect anything….
When it came to holy power, he trusted her completely, so he wouldn't question it. If anything, touching his forearm slowly like this would only make him think she was being extra thorough and attentive.
It pricked her conscience a little, using his trusting nature to perform something that was a false treatment in all but name — but that didn't mean she wanted to stop.
…Besides, she now knew that Cha Eunju was not Lee Seonho's lover. There was no longer any reason to hem and haw.
My apologies, though, Cha Eunju….
Even so, she had no intention of giving up.
He was the first man she had ever come to trust, and the only man who could remain alone with her in the same room and still hold a conversation.
All the more so because he was the only member of the opposite sex in the entire world she could genuinely communicate with.
She already knew that Cha Eunju liked Lee Seonho as far more than a friend, and that a woman short on courage like her needed him.
But Seonho was just as necessary to Isabel, and she too carried a fluttering feeling toward him — small, perhaps, but unmistakably there.
A fluttering of a different kind. Not something born of fear or dread.
"…All done, Seonho."
"Yeah? How was it?"
"I don't see any major problems. …Though examining things a bit more carefully did take quite a while."
"Thanks. And sorry for the trouble, Isabel."
"…No, not at all. If there's anything I can do for you, Seonho, I should do it — whatever it may be."
It wasn't as if it would have mattered much to her whether the patient was Seonho or anyone else, she told herself.
She was a beauty beautiful enough that even she, a fellow woman, could admit it, and her handling of her abilities was more than skillful.
But for her, there was no option other than Seonho. So it couldn't be helped.
"Seonho."
"Hm?"
"Just in case… would it be all right if I checked your other arm as well?"
"The left one too?"
"Yes. If I compare it with your right and understand its condition… I think it would probably be for the best."
In other words — she had no intention of yielding.
His being single meant, whatever else it meant, that she still had her own chance.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
After both her right forearm and her left had received Isabel Maria Kim's thorough inspection—
Whether it was because the skinship had run a touch too deep, the moment the suggestion lifted, she bolted like an arrow. Had it not been for her veil, he would almost certainly have been treated to a bright crimson face, flustered beyond words.
In that respect, the veil had its own advantages. Knowing her expressions were hidden let Isabel approach him that much more boldly.
Direct physical contact had been a rather daring gamble, but it was unlikely to leave her feeling awkward around him now.
Even for Isabel Maria Kim, merely touching a forearm wouldn't be enough to shave away all the fondness she'd built up, or her hard-won immunity to him.
Having androphobia doesn't mean she's incapable of objective judgment about a man, after all.
If the mood had truly carried her along and she'd ended up touching something like his cock, that might have been a bit dangerous. Even if she'd been the one to do the touching, there was a good chance her androphobic self would start questioning how such an act had come to pass.
Or the sheer shock of suddenly handling a man's member could have dragged her old trauma right back to the surface. In that sense, advancing things slowly on the sexual front was the correct call.
A forearm was safely unremarkable. It let her touch a man's body naturally, and afterward there'd be no lingering sense, not even as a side effect of the buff, that she had been groped. If anything, by now she was probably replaying the memory of her own fingers tracing his forearm with meticulous care, and feeling the guilt creep in.
Honestly, even by his own reading, her movements had been blatant past the point of pretending not to notice. The kneading, and the way her fingers traced along the muscle lines especially so.
He hadn't even anticipated her offer to inspect the other arm "for comparison." The Succubus Heart had certainly done important work in any number of ways, but even so, suggestion alone couldn't transform someone that proactive.
His best guess was that it was the product of the assertive personality Isabel Maria Kim kept buried beneath her androphobia.
Which meant the feelings she harbored toward him were steadily drawing closer to genuine romantic attraction — so next time….
Next treatment session, it might be worth taking a somewhat bolder gamble.
He had already laid more than enough groundwork to justify attempting new skinship.
A play that would be lovely if it succeeded, and could be papered over with a plausible excuse if it didn't.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
"Haah… haahh…."
Late at night. Isabel Maria Kim's bedroom.
Though her bedtime prayers had long since ended, Isabel could not bring herself to sleep. She sat atop the bed, arms wrapped around her burning face.
Because she was realizing, in real time, just how shameful the things she had done to Lee Seonho truly were.
"Wh-why did I do something like that…. Aaahh…."
Her hand touching his forearm — that much, naturally, was excusable. He was the one who had rolled up his patient gown's sleeve first and asked for treatment, after all.
But if she asked herself whether she had focused purely, single-mindedly on the treatment throughout that process, Isabel could never have nodded yes.
That kneading and groping his forearm under the pretense of treatment had been an act of lecherous indulgence was a fact that no amount of denial could erase.
"Ahh, what do I do…. He's Seonho, yes, but still, t-to do something like that…."
Being under a buff that dulled her fear of men did not grant her absolution for the lewd act she had committed in that fleeting window. No matter how the fear had faded, to find his body so fascinating to observe and handle — that alone was damning. Worse still, she had even prepared an excuse in advance, ready to invoke "treatment" the moment he grew suspicious. Her offense, in other words, was premeditated.
And once her senses returned, forgiving herself only became harder.
I must be careful…. Even if I've learned that Seonho has no lover, that doesn't mean I've become his lover yet….
Though the two of them had said they weren't dating now, they were close enough that a little extra courage from Cha Eunju could tip them into a relationship at any moment.
Which made Isabel, in that sense, still a latecomer. Lee Seonho didn't even know what her face looked like yet.
To win his heart, she would have to become someone useful to him, the way Cha Eunju was — and fidgeting with his forearm muscles with her guard down was, no matter how she looked at it, behavior far removed from anything of the sort.
The only consolation was that he had trusted her to the very end, letting her pass without a flicker of suspicion… but had things gone wrong, she might have incinerated in a single instant all the trust she had spent so long building with him.
"Uuuuhh…."
Perhaps it was that soothing warmth she kept feeling while under the buff. Every time her hands met his body, her fingers moved on their own, driven by curiosity.
The hard ridges of his chest, the abs that split cleanly without being brutal, the arms of a man who had carried her in his own body — things like that.
Anything "masculine" had always been, to her, an object of pure terror… but where Lee Seonho was concerned, absolutely not.
Proof enough of that: even now, long after the buff had worn off, merely recalling the sensation of him beneath her fingers was enough to make the heat bloom visibly across her skin.
Pull yourself together. If this keeps up, I might be the one who commits a real offense against Seonho.
All this time I trembled alone in my own fear, and the moment it lifted I went and molested him — even Seonho would despise me for that, without a doubt.
So tomorrow, she resolved, she would stay strictly to treatment and nothing else, buff or no buff. No matter how often the buff stirred romantic feelings toward Seonho, she would demonstrate, clearly and on her own, that she could restrain herself.
With that vow, Isabel forcibly laid her exhausted body down to sleep. That vow, however, would be shattered in less than ten hours.
"You seem to be getting used to treating me under the buff. Today, why don't you try treating me with your hands directly on my bare skin, Isabel?"
"………I'm sorry?"
The next morning. All it took was one offhand suggestion from Lee Seonho.