"Maybe I should hire a personal masseur?" I asked, pulling my clothes back on.
Iryenin, who was washing his hands at the sink, smirked and replied without turning around,
"Better make it a masseuse, yeah... I wouldn't mind daily relaxing sessions from a hot beauty myself, preferably from the Land of Clouds... there's just something about their women." While Iryenin was lost in his fantasies, I counted out the right amount of money and carefully placed it on his table.
Guy's program didn't include restorative massage sessions, but after them, I recovered much faster. My body could still handle these workouts every other day, but every day? Not so much. It's not like I suddenly wanted to ramp up the intensity - it's just that the program itself said that after two or three weeks, when your body no longer aches in the morning, you should start training daily.
There was also a note from Guy at the bottom: if, for any reason, you miss a workout, you have to wear the weights all day, nonstop, until the next session. But whatever, that's a minor thing. What really bothered me was that in the final stage of the program, when you were supposed to increase the weight, there was no line saying, "after training, take off the weights."
And there should have been! Guy spelled out every step in excruciating detail, down to how many degrees you should rotate your torso for each exercise. If you put Guy next to a boulder several meters tall, I honestly think a person would have a better chance of damaging the boulder with a punch than hurting Guy.
Opening the door to the second-floor hospital corridor, I noticed the backs of three young women in lab coats hurrying away to the left, and the face of another brunette who, catching my gaze, froze and blushed.
"We... um... just wanted to consult with Oma-san," squeaked the creature standing by the door, who then quickly turned and rushed to catch up with her colleagues.
She barely managed a few steps before I decided to give her a little boost, giving her a light but satisfying smack on the butt.
"Kya." Her squeal echoed, and she disappeared around the corner faster than the Fourth Hokage in his prime.
"Tch, even using Byakugan to peek," I muttered to the woman on the right side of the corridor, who was also turning to leave.
Hmm, familiar face. I think I've seen her somewhere before. Then again, I've been in this hospital so many times, everyone looks at least vaguely familiar. Turning, I was about to head down the left corridor toward the stairwell when, suddenly, a voice called out behind me.
"Excuse me." I nearly jumped forward, realizing how close the speaker was.
Turning around, I saw the woman standing barely two meters away, even though half a second ago there had been six or seven meters between us.
"Please don't get the wrong idea... I... was just passing by, please don't think of me that way. I'm sorry." She stammered a little from nerves, her face flushed with embarrassment, and when she finished, she bowed apologetically at a thirty-degree angle.
"Ahem, alright, maybe I was a bit hasty in my assumptions." The woman straightened up immediately, exhaling in relief.
Looking more closely at her features, I hesitated. With her head covering hiding her hair and half her forehead, and the high collar of her Iryenin uniform covering her neck up to her lips, I hadn't realized at first why she seemed so familiar. But once I figured out who she resembled, I couldn't help but ask,
"Hinata?" And the moment I asked, I bit my tongue. What the hell, Hinata? Since when do girls go from teenagers to curvy, voluptuous women in less than a month?
"Ah? Oh, yes, people often say my daughter and I look almost identical, like two peas in a pod." She smiled slightly, then hesitantly added, "Um... how do you know my Hinata?"
Right, Hinata did mention once that her mother works at the hospital. What a coincidence.
"We've crossed paths a couple of times. She's a classmate of my neighbor's daughter. Are you heading to see a patient right now?" I asked, since the outfit she was wearing was only for surgery.
"No, actually, I'm on break right now. Sorry for the awkward question, but... who's your neighbor?" She probably wanted to know more about the person who knew her daughter by name. And I get it - I'd find it weird too if some random adult confused me with my own son. She just wants to make sure I'm not some creepy guy offering candy to little girls. Ahem, though I did give Hinata some sweets, come to think of it.
"Oh, well, if you're on break, how about we have some tea? My throat's dry after training, and we can chat at the same time." She tilted her head, thinking it over, and soon agreed.
"Then let's go to a café nearby. They bake my favorite muffins there," I suggested, remembering that place.
"Um... th-that might be a little difficult," she refused shyly, making Hinata's signature gesture from the canon - pressing her index fingers together. "But we can go to my office."
"That works too. I'll just send a clone to the café for some pastries. Want anything?" She shook her head.
Hinata's office - or rather, her mother's, whose name I still didn't know - was on the third floor. A small office, but comfortable, with a two-seater couch, a desk, a padded chair, and a little coffee table sitting alone in the corner like an unwanted thing.
"You can... sit on the couch," she offered politely.
"I don't think that's a good idea. I'm all sweaty, don't want to get your furniture dirty. Maybe you have a stool?"
"Sweaty smell?" She set down the coffee table in front of the couch, then, with a puzzled look, stepped right up to me, rose onto her toes, and leaned in close to my neck - sniffing a couple of times, I think. "Doesn't smell like sweat at all... oh."
She practically jumped away from me.
"Sorry, sorry, I... just... well..."
"Deep breath in, deep breath out," I gently interrupted, since she seemed so nervous she might pass out from holding her breath.
"Whew, sorry, I sometimes can't control my curiosity about anything related to the human body, and your... comment about sweat and the pleasant smell... I-I..."
"It's fine, I get it," I hurried to reassure her, raising my hands in a peace gesture.
In the end, I sat on the couch anyway, and she took the chair across from me, with only the coffee table between us.
"Are you hot in that?" I asked, glancing at the electric kettle boiling away. I guess in the hospital, to avoid any fire hazards, they use technology. Makes sense - they don't pay for electricity anyway.
Strange woman, nervous like canon Hinata and always off in her own world. I think if I hadn't spoken up, she'd have just sat there staring at the table, lost in thought.
"Oh! Right, I completely forgot to take off my uniform." She removed her head covering, revealing her hair tied in a bun, and her coat, looking much more relaxed now.
She left the window closed, probably because of the stack of papers on the windowsill.
And just as the kettle finished boiling, my clone walked in with a paper bag that smelled deliciously of fresh pastries.
Then the conversation started. I told her I lived in the southwest district, who my neighbors were, how I first met Hinata in the woods while she was beating up - er, defending herself from some village kids. Naturally, I left out the part about our little practice session with binding techniques.
"Funny girl, though she does like to act like the princess of your clan sometimes."
"Well, she really is the Hyuga clan's princess. Her father - my husband - is the head of the Hyuga clan," she said with a gentle smile.
"Oh." I made a show of glancing around and whispered, leaning in, "Am I going to get killed for having tea with you?"
"Pff - " She didn't snort like an Uchiha. No, she just spat her tea all over me. "Ah, sorry!" she panicked, jumping up and grabbing her coat from the back of her chair, then leaning over the coffee table to wipe the wet spots on my clothes. "Ugh, I'm so clumsy."
"It's fine, I was going to wash these clothes anyway," I hurried to stop her.
"R-really?" She paused, still nervous, and glanced at my clothes. "O-okay, sorry, I'll just dry it a little." And she kept rubbing the coat over my T-shirt, which was clinging to me. "Kami... it got on your pants too."
To say I was in a state of utter shock would be an understatement. Yeah, it's a cliché, but I can't describe it any other way. It's one thing for her to rub my chest through my shirt - fine, whatever - but my pants, and specifically the groin area... After a good workout and a relaxing massage, my body couldn't help but react to her hands being so close.
"Huh? You keep your storage scroll in your pocket? Wouldn't it be easier in a pouch?" she asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, in my pocket... but the other one," I said, pulling my storage scroll from the opposite side.
She looked from the scroll in my hand to her own hand, which was still pressing the coat to my lower half. Relaxing her grip, she let go of the coat - which now looked more like a rag - and placed her palm on my other "storage scroll," giving it a couple of squeezes.
"That's not a storage scroll." Well done, you figured that out. And as if she wanted to be sure, she squeezed my "jade staff" a couple more times.
Surprise, embarrassment, fear, disbelief - all those emotions flashed across her face. And as if that wasn't enough, she activated her Byakugan to double-check.
"This is..." I was about to explain the natural male reaction, which she surely knew about, but there was no need. "Damn, did she really just faint?"
****
Waking up to gentle slaps on her cheek, Hayana blinked a few times, trying to focus her vision.
"Who is this handsome guy? Am I dreaming?" she thought, and after a few seconds, realization hit.
"I... fainted?" she asked the young man whose name she still didn't know. Lifting her head, Hayana noticed he'd done everything right: the window was open, and her legs were elevated above her head. Only after a few seconds did she realize her legs were being held up by his arm under her knees.
"Yeah, you gave me a bit of a scare." He let go of her legs and offered a hand to help the still-dazed woman sit up.
"Kami... he touched my legs," Hayana thought, embarrassed, and then, remembering what she'd touched herself, she wanted to pass out all over again.
"Let's just pretend nothing happened, okay?" Akira threw her a lifeline.
"Of course, neither of us will ever forget what happened, but there's no need to bring it up again - at least, not here. Who knows if the walls have ears," Akira thought.
The rest of the conversation between Hayana and Akira went nowhere, so after checking on her one last time and wishing her a good rest, he left.
A few minutes after Akira left, Hayana pulled a wooden ruler from her desk and, with a strange look, started comparing two lengths.
"No, I'm exaggerating. Hiashi's is about seven centimeters, though I haven't seen 'it' in ages - maybe it's gotten a bit bigger or smaller." Placing two fingers on the ruler, she looked at what seven centimeters looked like, then moved one finger from the seven to a number three times higher.
Keeping the distance between her fingers, she raised them vertically.
"Kso! That's physically impossible! Although... in theory, everything stretches during the act. But how do I test that in practice?"
****
"What an idiot I am. Perfect memory, yeah, right." Knocking on the door, I opened it and said,
"Sorry, I forgot something." Apparently, my quick return caught Hinata's mother off guard - she froze in surprise at her desk.
"Oh, I see. Of course, come in," Hayana nodded and started reading something intently at her desk.
I looked around. Glanced at the couch. Nowhere to be seen.
"Is something wrong?" Hayana asked, still clearly embarrassed by what had just happened between us.
"Yeah, I thought I left my storage scroll on the couch."
"Oh, that's what it was. I thought it was mine and put it with the others." Getting up, Hayana quickly went to the wardrobe, where several Iryenin uniforms and two sets of regular clothes hung. On the other side were shelves stacked with papers and books, and in one pile, neatly rolled scrolls.
"Here." She came over and handed me a storage scroll.
"Thanks. By the way, we never properly introduced ourselves. I'm Zoldyck Akira."
"Ah... I forgot too. I'm Hyuga Hayana. Nice to meet you, Akira-san," she said quickly.
Wow, does she get this flustered talking one-on-one with everyone?
"Likewise. Oh, but I don't think this is my scroll," I noticed, feeling it was thinner than mine.
"Really? Let me check." She went back to the wardrobe. Her skirt wasn't tight, but it still showed off her curves nicely when she bent over.
"Maybe this one?" she asked, turning and holding out another scroll.
"I think that's it," I nodded, and then there was a dull, quiet sound.
*tunk*
Looking down, I saw my scroll on the floor, slowly rolling toward me in the silence. Squatting down and ignoring the slippery mix on the glossy surface, I picked it up with a blank expression.
Hayana was still standing in front of me, holding the scroll she'd found in the wardrobe. She looked like a rabbit frozen in front of a snake.
"Um, thanks for keeping it safe." I wiped the scroll a few times on my T-shirt, put it in my roomy pocket, and nodded as I left her office. If I'd stayed any longer, she -
What a peculiar woman, honestly.
***
[Hayana:]

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