"Um... do I have to?"
"Sorry, I don't understand words like that."
With Easy Goer collapsed on the bed before him, Sakuraba moved without hesitation!
He took hold of her—and in an instant, the treatment began!
And so... Easy Goer began to dream.
Easy Goer felt as though her consciousness were an ice cube dropped into warm water, rapidly melting away, dissolving into nothing.
Her last clear memory was the feeling of her ankle beneath Sakuraba's seemingly ordinary palm.
Warm, faintly callused, yet carrying an indescribable, steadying force.
Then the world spun.
Her body seemed to lose all weight, drifting upward, leaving the massage bed behind, leaving the warm inner room filled with the scent of medicinal herbs.
She "saw" herself pass through the ceiling, through the mist-thin clouds over Tokyo at night, rising higher and higher.
The wind roared past her ears, and yet everything was utterly silent.
She flew over the sleeping silhouette of Mount Fuji, crossed the vast, dark Pacific, mountains and rivers shrinking beneath her feet into a miniature landscape.
At last, a mirror-still lake appeared below, reflecting a sky full of stars and moonlight.
There was no fear, no resistance, only a drawn-along, almost fated calm.
Then she began to fall.
Not in a rapid plunge, but slowly, turning like a feather as she drifted down toward that mirror-bright surface.
The instant she touched the water—
Splash...
There was no icy impact, no suffocating panic.
The lake water wrapped around her gently, like amniotic fluid welcoming her back into the womb.
Countless tiny bubbles rose around her, light and shadow warping and shifting through the ripples.
She sank into a quiet, boundless blue. She felt no need to breathe, only a complete release, a deep peace, as if all her exhaustion and reluctance had been washed clean in the lake.
...
She did not know how long had passed.
"..."
A faint murmur slipped from her throat.
Easy Goer slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was the familiar glow of the ceiling light.
Sensation quickly returned to her body.
It was not fatigue. It was more like every muscle and bone had gone through some deep relaxation and restructuring, leaving her sunk heavily into the soft bed with a satisfied weakness.
Then she felt the dampness.
Her bangs clung to her temples, soaked with sweat. Along her neck, her back, even the insides of her thighs, she felt the cool cling of fabric drenched through and pressed against her skin.
When she moved her fingers slightly, she could feel a thin layer of sweat over her palm.
Still dazed, she lifted her arm and saw that the exposed skin of her forearm was flushed with the healthy color of exercise, fine beads of sweat glimmering under the light.
Her inner layer clung tightly to her body, outlining her figure, now completely soaked with sweat.
It was as if she had just finished an intense training session—no, something beyond even that.
As if all her tension, all her pent-up knots, and every last bit of excess moisture had been forced out from the deepest parts of her body.
She turned her head and looked at the bed beside hers.
Her older sister, Secretariat, was still sleeping peacefully, her breaths long and even, a smile at the corner of her mouth as if she were lost in the sweetest dream.
Easy Goer slowly turned back and looked at Sakuraba, who stood by the bed wiping his hands with a clean towel, his expression as calm as ever.
So... that long dream of flying through the sky and sinking into a lake had actually been... a hallucination during the massage?
And in that brief span of perhaps less than half an hour, he had massaged her until she was... drenched in sweat?
The lingering daze in her blue-green eyes gradually gave way to an even deeper shock and confusion.
...What kind of technique was that?
She had never heard of anyone who could make someone hallucinate through massage alone.
This man...
Who exactly was he?
So that was it.
She felt like... she understood a little now. She understood why her sister paid so much attention to this man, even crossing the ocean to bring her here to try him out.
How was this just an ordinary foot-massage parlor owner?
He was clearly... a hidden master with extraordinary skills!
A single massage could send someone's soul flying beyond the heavens, leave them sweating like rain, and even give them a lucid dream that crossed mountains and seas. She had never heard of such a technique before, much less seen one!
Forget her sister. If Easy Goer herself had known there was such a miraculous person in the world, she... she would have found some way to come experience it too!
And what unsettled her even more was that, as the initial daze and the discomfort of being drenched in sweat gradually faded, she could clearly feel—
The heavy boulder that had been pressing down on her chest ever since her defeat in the Preakness Stakes seemed to have... loosened.
No. Not merely loosened.
The negative emotions tangled up with frustration, self-doubt, and powerlessness in the face of that enormous gap seemed to have been stirred up and diluted in that dream of flying and sinking into the lake, then carried away together with the sweat pouring out of her.
What now filled her chest was a strange sense of emptiness.
Not the hollow void that followed loss, but something like the sky after a storm had washed it clean. Dampness and chill still lingered, yet it was incomparably clear and transparent.
She remembered something her sister had once said, and also the feeling she herself had experienced during extreme training.
When you ran to the very edge of your body's limits, when your mind went blank from lack of oxygen, those persistent stray thoughts and worries really would retreat for a while.
And now, Mr. Sakuraba had...
With nothing more than a pair of seemingly ordinary hands, through one unbelievable massage, he had brought her to a similar state—no, to something even more thorough!
This was no simple muscle relaxation anymore.
This was practically... a deep cleaning that reached the soul itself!
Easy Goer looked at Sakuraba, the shock in her eyes gradually turning into near-reverent awe.
"..."
No, a miracle doctor!
How was this merely bringing someone back to life with skilled hands?
This was turning stone into gold, making miracles out of decay!
No wonder Sunday Silence cared so much about him...
No wonder her sister treated him so specially...
The secrets and power hidden within this utterly ordinary-looking man were likely far deeper than she had imagined.
Easy Goer drew in a soft breath, then slowly let it out.
Her body was still sunk heavily into the bed, but her heart felt as if a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from it, so light that... even she could hardly believe it.
Mr. Sakuraba was divine.
And after a massage like that from Sakuraba, Easy Goer suddenly found herself not wanting to leave this shop anymore...
The feeling of that dream just now had been far too comfortable.
How wonderful would it be if Mr. Sakuraba could massage her again?
The girl looked at Sakuraba with a slightly hazy gaze.
Easy Goer suddenly felt a little envious of Sunday Silence.
So she had been staying by a man like this all along?
No wonder that woman ran so desperately. Was she planning to use her results to tie Mr. Sakuraba to her side...?
I want to do that too.
Under the girl's stare, Sakuraba only felt a chill run down his back. But when he turned to look at Easy Goer, the girl had already closed her eyes.
"Was I imagining it...?"