"Thank you, Dr. Kushida. I'm feeling so much better now."
A worn-out-looking OL, her face haggard but her eyes full of hope, looked at Dr. Kushida gratefully and thanked her over and over.
Now older and more mature, Kushida sat there in a white coat. When she smiled, she was still every bit as bright and sweet as ever.
"You don't need to thank me, Ms. Takada. Your mental health is what matters most."
The office worker thanked her a few more times before finally leaving the Kushida Counseling Clinic.
The second the patient was gone and the smile stayed behind with her, Kushida's whole expression slackened. She dropped back into her office chair, half-sprawled in it, looking utterly fed up. There wasn't a trace left of that sunny, radiant warmth from a moment ago.
Knock knock.
A knock came from the door.
Kushida's face changed instantly. In the blink of an eye, the gloomy woman was gone and the cheerful, energetic girl was back. That gentle, warm smile appeared again.
"Come in, please."
As she spoke, she was also quietly wondering who it could be. Aside from Ms. Takada, she shouldn't have had any other appointments today—then Yukio stepped into the clinic.
Kushida's eyes lit up immediately. The tension in her face vanished, and she relaxed right back into the chair, no longer keeping up that tightly wound "doctor mode."
"So you came~"
As she said that, she raised both index fingers and cutely pointed at her cheeks.
understood at once. He walked behind her chair, pinched both of her cheeks, and gently kneaded them.
That was something Kushida had gradually grown dependent on after spending so long with him.
After graduating, Kushida had gone to university to study psychology. That decision came from the fact that her values had long since twisted into something completely different from a normal person's.
In Kushida's eyes, she had to be number one at something.
Without that sense of superiority, without that feeling of being first in some area and standing far above everyone else, her own mind would start to fall apart.
So when she realized she could never firmly sit at the top in academics, athletics, or even beauty, she eventually found a path that belonged to her alone.
Trust.
She wanted to be more trusted than anyone else, to hear more of people's deepest secrets than anyone else.
And if you were asking what job most naturally let you pry into the deepest corners of people's hearts, what could fit better than being a psychologist?
That was why, after graduating from Advanced Nurturing High School, she had studied psychology and become a therapist.
Of course, in this profession, protecting patient privacy was emphasized above everything else.
Even someone like Kushida—someone who'd exposed an entire class's black material back in middle school—wouldn't go out of her way to violate that now.
After all, she already had Yukio. She no longer needed to vent or relieve pressure by blowing up other people's secrets.
Still, keeping up that fake smile for long stretches at a time was exhausting, so whenever she got clingy with Yukio, one thing she especially liked was asking him to knead her cheeks.
On the surface, it was supposed to relieve the facial fatigue from smiling so much.
But honestly, Kushida herself knew the truth.
Her cheeks weren't really the part that was tired.
It was her heart.
But strangely enough, when pinched and kneaded her face like this, her mood always got better very quickly.
handled it like second nature, smiling as he looked at how drained she seemed now.
"With your skill set, getting people to spill the secrets buried deep in their hearts should be easy for you, shouldn't it? So how'd you end up this wiped out?"
Kushida lazily narrowed her eyes.
"It's exhausting, okay~? Yukio-kun, don't tell me you actually think psychologists just sit around chatting with people and collecting a consultation fee? Like it's that easy?"
"These days, psychological treatment is all about the three primaries, three secondaries, six full checks."
"Six checks?"
blinked.
To be fair, across both of his lives, he'd never needed to see a psychologist, so he really didn't know much about this stuff.
At most, back in this life, his family used to have a specialist come by every six months to do a mental health checkup, but that had basically just been a few questions. It was pretty much exactly what he'd imagined therapy looked like—just sitting around chatting and using conversation techniques to get the patient to open up.
Kushida was suddenly in the mood to explain.
"Yeah. Three primary ones, three secondary ones. There's stuff like a psych CT, international psychological scales, and brain-function plus EEG screening. Those three are mandatory, and they're already a lot."
"As for the other three, there's a head CT, an ECG, and a safety risk assessment as supporting diagnostics."
had a small question mark practically floating over his head.
"Is that actual testing, or just a way to make the patients spend more money?"
To him, the three primary checks still sounded fairly normal.
But the three secondary ones were getting a little ridiculous.
At the very least, that ECG sounded way off from common sense.
Kushida could hear what he meant and sighed.
"That's just how the industry rules are~ If I could cut things down, I would. All right, all right, enough work talk!"
"It's not every day you come by, Yukio-kun. So what brought you here today?"
"What, I can't come just because I felt like it?"
sounded perfectly righteous, putting on a rather affectionate tone.
Kushida burst out laughing.
"Oh, please. Like I don't know you? Hiyori and Airi went out personally to pick out baby stuff again, didn't they?"
"Ahem."
made it clear she didn't need to drag the topic that far.
"What, I can't drop by and get my mental health checked? Now that someone in the family is a psychologist, why not have you take a look and tell me what's wrong with my head?"
"No need. You're beyond saving. Your whole heart's black as hell~"
Kushida laughed and teased him, even poking him lightly in the chest as she spun around in her chair.
didn't deny it. He lowered his head and looked at her.
"And yours? Spotless and pure?"
"No~"
Kushida raised a hand and grabbed his tie, yanking him down.
The distance between them vanished in an instant. They were so close their eyelashes practically brushed.
Only then did she breathe softly against him, sweet and warm.
"My heart is yours."
Feeling her breath against him, glanced sideways at the office door.
"How's the soundproofing?"
"Perfect."
Kushida's eyes shifted, and she reaffirmed the professionalism of her job.
"I already told you, psychologists take patient privacy very seriously."
"No matter what, when we're talking to a patient, even if someone's pressed right up against the door outside, they still won't hear a single word of what's being said in here."
"In that case, Dr. Kushida, why don't you treat me?"
Kushida burst out laughing.
"Yukio, yours can't be cured~ The only permanent treatment would be cutting it off."
"Would you really be able to do that?"
"Quit the bullshit. Are you going to fuck me or not? I just finished counseling somebody, and I'm bottling up a whole heart full of negative emotions."
...
For every 50 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.