Hands-On Practice
The afterglow of yesterday still clung to him. What had happened with Im Jihyun kept circling through his mind in vivid, inescapable detail — the red spot, the sensation at his fingertips, her hypersensitive reaction. All of it remained impossibly, almost unbelievably, vivid.
The hospital was already bustling with therapists by the time he clocked in, the atmosphere a shade more tense than usual.
"Did you see this week's practice schedule? I heard the professor's coming down."
"Practice? That pairing thing again?"
"Yeah. Two-person teams. Mutual compression drills."
It was only after catching his colleagues' conversation that the memory surfaced. The Therapist Mutual Practice listed on the training room schedule — an official program that rolled around several times a year. Therapists paired off in twos, applying pressure to major areas like the shoulders, lower back, and spine, then swapping to cross-diagnose each other. Nothing went on paper, but it was a session the team leader always watched closely.
The moment the meeting ended, every therapist headed for the training room. The floor had already been arranged with treatment beds and mats, and a visiting physician wearing a name tag sat at the back.
"This session will focus on compression techniques and range-of-motion assessment. Please be mindful of your posture both as the practitioner and as the patient."
Those who already had partners moved quickly to their assigned spots. Baek Donghyuk, however, stayed where he was without a word. The people seated on the beds finished preparing, and the session looked ready to begin. Only then did the team leader glance at the attendance list and shoot him a look.
"Donghyuk, you don't have a partner, do you? Assist the professor and help run the session from the side."
"...Ah. Yes. Understood."
Donghyuk quietly took a step back and pushed a small cart loaded with a medical tray and a timer toward the professor. It wasn't particularly humiliating, but the fact that he alone had no partner drew a sigh out of him.
"Donghyuk."
A voice called from behind him. Choi Yunjin — his coworker from the same hiring class. She had the kind of cute looks that made her wildly popular with the men, yet she herself was the type who focused entirely on her work. They'd exchanged a few words when they first started, then at some point drawn a quiet line and kept to their own sides of it.
"If you don't mind, would you like to partner up?"
Her voice was careful and clear. A few heads turned at the offer, though none of them seemed particularly interested.
"Huh?"
"I don't have a partner yet either."
Her face was expressionless, yet somehow the sincerity came through. At the very least, she found his situation pitiable. Donghyuk was briefly at a loss for words, then nodded.
"...Thanks."
Other people's stares no longer mattered. The first item on the practice agenda was compression and release of the upper trapezius and scapular region — a sequence that came up constantly in the basic manual.
Yunjin took her place behind Donghyuk's shoulder first. With gloved hands, she carefully pressed the inner edge of his scapula, then followed the grain of the muscle.
"Keep breathing as you are."
A familiar tone. Emotionless as it sounded, the pressure she applied was precise. Donghyuk adjusted his posture and let his head drop. The sensation from her fingertips was more accurate and gentler than he'd expected — a pleasant kind of pain.
"You're really knotted up here."
"Yeah, a bit... I've been tense."
"Relax."
Her instructions were equally clear. After several rounds of compression, she pressed his shoulder with a finishing motion, gave it a light shake, and composed her breathing.
"That's it. Let's switch."
Donghyuk carefully swapped places. Yunjin lay face-down on the bed and tucked her bangs behind her ear, the nape of her neck naturally exposed. The collar of her uniform top had shifted slightly open, baring a stretch of her back line, and his gaze lingered for a moment on that clean, unblemished skin.
He gave his gloved hands a light rub, then knelt and sat beside her. He took one deep breath and brought his hands to her back.
There it was again.
The red spot. Identical to the one he'd first seen on Im Jihyun's back. A faint but unmistakable light hovered, fixed in place at a very narrow point between her spine and scapula.
...What the hell is this.
He drew a deep breath and let it out. His heartbeat began to pick up. He could have let it pass this time. It was only a practice session, and it wasn't a spot he needed to touch. But his fingertips moved first.
As if by instinct, he brought his thumb to that red spot. Less a compression than a light press — by the manual, an overly delicate approach.
In that instant, Yunjin's body trembled, just barely. Her shoulder quivered faintly on the bed, and a beat later, a short breath slipped out.
"...Hnh."
It sounded like a cough, but Donghyuk knew instinctively it wasn't. It was the same reaction he'd felt from Im Jihyun. He pretended to be unfazed, continuing the compression as he moved his hands elsewhere. But his awareness kept pulling back to that red spot.
I knew it. There's something here.
Yunjin said nothing. Her face was hidden against the bed, but the tremor that reached all the way to the nape of her neck was impossible to conceal.
After lunch, the therapists drifted back to their stations, some sitting, some stretching. Someone fiddled with their phone. Someone else had swapped into slippers and was quietly sipping coffee.
Donghyuk slowly rolled his shoulders. They still felt stiff. The official practice was over, yet a strange heat lingered somewhere in his body. It had only been a simple compression. And yet Yunjin's reaction kept coming back to him — that short breath, the faint tremor, the awkward silence. And then, again, the red spot.
That faint point rose in his mind. Every time he pressed it, a reaction followed. Not mere relief. Something far deeper than that.
"Um... Donghyuk, do you have a moment?"
He looked up. Yunjin was standing right in front of him, water bottle in hand, glancing around before she pointed somewhere.
"Over there. The conference room. I don't think anyone's in it."
He followed without a word. Yunjin opened the door and went in first. The room was empty. She cracked a window, and cool air seeped in. After giving the collar of her uniform a slight adjustment, she stood in place.
"Earlier... during practice. That thing."
She let the sentence trail off. She wouldn't meet his eyes, and the way she fidgeted with her fingertips looked restless.
"On my back, the place you pressed... that. How did you do it?"
"Just by the book. From the top down..."
"No, I know that. But that specific point... when you pressed it, it felt incredibly good. Weirdly different from everywhere else."
Yunjin pressed firmly on the spot where the red mark had appeared, looking at him.
"Is it just because it was knotted up? But I've never felt anything like that when other people worked on me."
"That's probably it..."
"I'm sorry, but could you do it one more time?"
Her manner was extremely cautious. It was the kind of request only a fellow therapist could make — and also the look of someone desperately wanting to confirm something.
"Sure. Of course."
Donghyuk slowly pulled on his gloves. Yunjin lay face-down on the fold-out treatment table set up in one corner of the conference room, gathering her hair out of the way and stretching her arms forward. A smooth, unbroken curve. And there it still was.
The red spot.
It was even a little deeper than before. Donghyuk slowly pressed the point. The moment the pressure landed, the muscles of her back tensed, then slowly released. Her breath caught, barely audible.
"..."
Yunjin said nothing. Eyes closed, she simply kept breathing. So he pressed the same spot again, adding a gentle rotation. The instant the tip of his thumb stimulated the red point with precision, her toes lifted slightly, then fell limp. He could feel her body trembling in fine, thin waves.
Donghyuk lowered his head. This was no ordinary compression. It went beyond physical stimulus — as if he were forcibly waking a sensation that had been sleeping somewhere inside the body.
Is this even treatment? Or is it...
A reaction at the cellular level — a realm ordinary physical therapy could never reach. Not mere relief. Something deeper, more distinct. The flow of Qi, stirring awake from within.
Yunjin slowly sat up. Her face wasn't flushed, and her expression was calm. But when she turned her head slightly to speak, her pupils were trembling.
"That... is that really something you can do just from practice?"
She picked up her water bottle and lowered her head.
"Later, if you have time... could you show me one more time? It really loosened up so well..."
She didn't finish the sentence, leaving the conference room first. As Donghyuk peeled off the gloves he'd left on the table and clenched his hands as if to steady his breathing, they were still warm.
Only after the door closed could Yunjin catch her breath. She tried to take a step and faltered. Strength had drained from both legs, and her balance wavered.
At first she thought it was fatigue. Then she realized it wasn't. Somewhere inside her body was still... ringing.
Especially her back — no, more precisely, the spot Donghyuk had pressed last. Was it compression? Stretching? Trigger-point stimulation? No theory she knew could explain it.
Just once. A brief press, and her body had changed in a way she couldn't account for. The body heat she'd felt behind her shoulder, the pressure of his fingertips, and... the breath that had burst out of her reflexively. Even now, that short gasp was still circling in her ears.
She kept her mouth shut, but something was churning inside her. The heat that had spread from that point made even her underwear cling to her skin.
What even was that... Why did my body react like that?
It was a sensation she'd never known. A shock strong enough to make her forget she was a therapist. And yet her body felt strangely refreshed. To call it simply a well-placed press was far too unreal.
Yunjin slowly exhaled where she stood, then tried to straighten up. Her lower back felt embarrassingly light, stirred in a way she didn't want to name. She was conscious of the gaze of the man who would still be on the other side of that door.
...I have no idea. Seriously.
Even as shame washed over her, an impulse rose — the urge to lie back down on that bed.