“80.8, got’cha.” She scribbled down on the paper on her clipboard.

  “Is that good?” He said as he looked at the other ptform of the device, she had been putting water-filled metal milk-jugs, on the other side of the scale; there were a lot of them, and yet she seemed completely unscathed by tiredness.

  “At 1,77? That’s fine, yeah, I mean it’d be a bit overweight, but,” she chuckled and gestured towards Luca. “I have a hunch it’s mostly muscle.” He looked up and nodded understandingly while he thought.

  “Right, and 1,77 is...” He closed his eyes as he thought. The doctor walked over to the scale and put a metal bar in the hole she previously grabbed it out of. “5’8? Right?”

  “Precisely, hop off; I’ve secured it already.” She held her hand up to help him, but he denied it politely and simply jumped down, making sure to bend his legs when nding. The scale didn’t seem to go too high, but clearly it had gone high enough.

  “Is there really no other way to measure weight?”

  "Well, there are yes, but this is the most precise one, it may seem tiring, but the facts being accurate make up for it.” She continued writing on her clipboard as she spoke; a smile on her face, it was clear she enjoyed her job and took it seriously, probably what made her such a good doctor. “Aaaalright! We are officially done with the physical checkup, how ya feelin hon?” Luca grabbed his hands behind him and stretched his back, clenching his jaw.

  “I’m fine; the running thing got to me more than I thought it would, but I caught my breath already.” He sighed and started to breathe through his nose, controlling it. Gncing around, he noticed all the machinery he had to go through, the measuring wall, with different heights at different levels on it, where she put a band around his waist and arms and legs to measure him even further than just his height. The ‘moving path’ where she made him walk, trot, and run; it worked with gears and cogs, all being forced to move with some sort of tankard that apparently moved some water around for them to spin; Zenith’s technology intrigued him more and more each time. He looked at the weights he had to lift and all the other devices he didn’t even get asked to use. Looking at her again, she seemed to still be writing. “Honestly? I thought this room would just be a lot of beds.”

  “Yeah?” She said while giggling. "Well, we don’t get the exact facts of the bodies without proper equipment, so,” she giggled. ”Beds had to take the arrow.” Looking down at the paper again, she continued scribbling.

  “Fair... what if a lot of people get sick though?” His eyes drifted down to her cleavage before looking away. He used his maximum mental capacity to drive away the thought of the closeness and the tone of her voice before; he’d control it. He was flustered again, but he’d be fine.

  “Then I’m not doing my job right. Heh, no, in all fairness, if they need serious rest, they get sent to the hospital; it’s on the north side, just next to the walls.” She finished writing and tapped the clipboard with the pencil. “Okay, calcutions are done, c’mon after some questions, you’ll get to have breakfast.” She started walking back to the first small room, Luca followed, focused on not looking at her bottom.

  “What calcutions sorry?” Distracting himself was the best option.

  “Oh, just the conversion, you know? Kilos to pounds, meters to feet, and so on and so on.”

  “Hm, right… Hey, why are there so many measurements anyway?” Stepping through the door, he entered the small space again, closing the door behind him.

  “Well, Zenith is the center of the world, and when you put so many different cultures and people together, heh, sometimes it’s difficult to make them all agree on one way to do things.” She set down the clipboard and repced the paper she was writing on with another empty one. “But enough o’ that, sit down on the bed, hun.”

  “C-Cool.” He sat on the bed and breathed deeply; she then sat in front of the table to face him and crossed her legs. She was wearing very tall boots, which didn’t quite match with the rest of her outfit.

  “Alright, you ready?” He nodded and she smiled, focusing on her paper again. “Okey dokey so, age?”

  “Uh twenty-two.”

  “Kay… When’s your birthday?”

  “Oh, 32nd day of the burning season.”

  “Aha, which is...” She seemed to do some math in her head, which confused Luca. “2nd of July, easy one.”

  “2nd of what?” He tilted his head.

  “Zenith’s calendar; it’s not really used outside the region but,” she shrugged. “We still have orders to use it, so.”

  “Hmm, cool.”

  “I also think it’s weird.” Both giggled as she looked at him again. “How’s your diet?”

  “Diet? Ah! Eh, high in protein, ma’am!” He nodded proudly. “Protein and calories to burn on every meal, lots of fiber every breakfast, a-and vegetables 12 times a week.”

  “Wooow, look at you, huh?” She chuckled, amused by his excitement. “Someone knows their stuff.”

  “Y-Yeah, my mother always told us how to eat properly.” He scratched his leg, slightly embarrassed at his unbridled excitement at the response; he felt like he knew the answer to an exam and couldn’t contain the answer. “Really drilled into the brain, haha... hah.” She ughed with her mouth closed as she wrote everything down.

  “Yeah, mom’s will do that, huh?” She cleared her throat and went back to the questions. “Anyway, is it banced? What do you eat for protein?”

  “Uh, chicken and beef, ma’am.”

  “Pork? Any reptile?”

  “Uh, pork on special occasions, reptiles not really.”

  “Hm, any history of disease in your family?”

  “Like getting sick?” She gazed at him, kindly being patient with his confusions.

  “No, more like, inherent issues your parents, siblings, or grandparents might have.”

  “Uuh, I don’t know my father, but my mom doesn’t really have anything, no.” He spent a couple seconds thinking. “My sister’s very bad with the cold, but she’s got a different dad, is that something?” For some reason she chuckled.

  "No, dear, it’s fine; how is sugar?” He simply shook his head, if he ever got sugar, it was on birthdays, and it was on the cake, and his sister ate most of it anyways, no matter who the birthday was for. “Gotcha, do you drink?”

  “Like alcohol?” She nodded. "Rarely, but yeah.”

  “Rarely, good, drugs?” If his mother found out he did drugs, he’d get buried so deep he’d be able to high-five the mother herself.

  “No ma’am.”

  “Hmm, very good, except the succubus dust yesterday, right?” He blushed but nodded, determined to continue in control of his body. She giggled at his embarrassment. “Heard about that, the fact you resisted and your name was all I got.” She giggled, apparently amused at his reaction. “The director failed to mention other things, like the fact you were also very cute.” She winked at him, which caused only the memory of his autocontrol over his emotions to remain.

  “L-Li- uh, thank you, yeah... thanks." He tried to say likewise, but panic took over, she giggled, at least she was enjoying it.

  “No problem hun, regardless, let’s continue; there’s only a few left. Sexually active?” She was toying with him, she had to be.

  “N-No ma’am…”

  “Virgin?” He nodded, avoiding meeting her gaze. Looking back at her, she had a sly grin and was squinting at him.

  “W-What?”

  “Nothing, just,” She was looking him up and down, biting her lip, one of her big ears twitched. “You look nice for a cherry boy…” He swallowed loudly, and after a second more than he could handle without feeling his face burning up, she opened her eyes back, almost snapping back into reality. She shook her head scribbling something on the paper and then cleared her throat. She continued by standing up and handing him the clipboard, which he took with trembling hands. “Sorry, sorry, not really appropriate; would you excuse me for a second? Just a minute, f-fill out the answers yourself if you really want to save time.”

  Without another word, she grabbed a box from one of the cabinets and left, leaving Luca stunned.

  After a few seconds, he gnced at the paper, which read the questions she had been asking him and some new ones. He grabbed the pencil she put on the top of the clipboard and breathed deep to calm down.

  The next couple questions were easy, like region of origin and race and such, then he got to the end of the sheet that asked for it to be turned over and to answer the questions on the back. Luca followed the instructions and read the questions.

  On a scale from one to ten, in which one is not being able to cast a spell and 10 is having both experience and an inherent high amount of mana in the body, how magically adept are you? Luca wrote ‘one’ as soon as he was done reading the question; before Zenith, he had never in his life even seen magic, when he got to his teen years, he barely believed in it. Until one night he came back home, and his sister told him that a traveling bard used some spells to make lights or something.

  The next few questions were all in the same vein, asking about magic and such. Luca simply skimmed past them and wrote ‘unable’ or ‘not adept’ on all of them.

  Were, to your knowledge, any of your ancestors of a different race than yours? He wrote a simple ‘no’. His family history was very limited; he chuckled as he got to the st question.

  Did, to your knowledge, any of your ancestors participate in the st war? He looked at it for a few seconds. What kind of question was that? It didn’t seem too medical for him, but without wanting to think about it further, he wrote another dry ‘no’ and got up to set the filled paper on the table. It had been some minutes, and yet the doctor wasn’t back. He thought about going to the other room to see if she was fine, but he decided to wait a bit more, gncing around the infirmary.

  He gnced at the cabinets; they were filled with different devices and thingamajigs that Luca didn’t understand. Leaning back and looking at the ones above him, he saw some colorful orbs on small stands that said things like ‘fire’ or ‘Illusion’, they probably referred to magic types; not like he’d know about them, his knowledge on magic was only that some people could use it to do extraordinary things, and that’s it, not many details.

  Then, the door opened, and Doctor Bahndir entered the room, setting the box on the table beside her.

  “Luca” She cleared her throat and put her hands together. ”I want to apologize for my inappropriate behavior, you didn’t come in here with the intention of engagin in suggestive talk, and I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable. Due to an affliction I possess, from time to time that happens, I pray you can forgive me.”

  “O-Of course, yeah! I-It’s fine doctor.” She sighed in relief.

  “Good, now we can continue the questions.”

  “O-oh I-I filled it already, actually, here.” He grabbed the papers and handed them to her; she skimmed past it to see all the questions filled and then tapped the papers on the table to align them.

  “Well then, Luca, I am gd to tell you, you are in very good condition. Although try to reduce steaks in your diet, there’s more than one way to cook a cow, you know?” She giggled. Luca could tell she was forcing herself to act a certain way; before she looked happy and unbothered, but now she was stiff and smiling in a way that not always reached her eyes, regardless, he nodded.

  “Great, thank you, doctor; I’ll get out of your hair now then.” She nodded back as he turned to leave, he hadn’t asked what he wanted to, but it’d be fine, way too awkward to ask her about it.

  He grabbed the door handle to open it; he couldn’t leave, not without checking if everything was right. If it was indeed a medical problem, he couldn’t just leave only because he was embarrassed about it; it could be a serious issue, regardless of how much he didn’t want to speak about it. Besides, there was no one he should be able to trust more with this type of problem than a doctor, one of the best in the world! She’d probably seen so much, a guy who got flustered and horny in a wink was probably very low on her list of ‘weird things I’ve seen as a doctor’.

  “Luca? You still there, hun?” Her voice came from beyond the thin wall.

  “Y-Yes ma’am… Actually, there was one thing that bothered me. I-I told you I didn’t feel quite myself before, when I came in, remember?” His voice was weak, but he kept talking.

  "Oh, you are right! I forgot ‘cause of my-” She stayed silent for a second, and Luca heard some rummaging, then out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lean from behind the wall to look at him. “Come here hun, let’s see what troubles you so.” She giggled, it seemed her nice demeanor came back. Luca went back into the room, only to see the box she took back on the cabinet and her leaning against the table, cross-armed and smiling. “Tell me dear, what’s wrong?” Luca breathed deep and exhaled, then looked at her as he felt his cheeks reddened from the embarrassment.

  “W-Well doctor, you see… u-um…” He inhaled and exhaled again, quicker this time. “W-When I was a teenager I… got into a certain phase, w-which I’m told happens to everyone.”

  “You mean puberty?” She chuckled lightly. “Yeah, yeah, it does happen to everyone.” She stated the obvious jokingly, as if to lighten his mood.

  “R-Right, a-and with puberty, come certain things...” He was burning with embarrassment, but he forced himself to keep going. “L-Like the hair, and pimples and...”

  “The arising of sexual needs.” She seemed to be a step ahead of him, which saved some time.

  “Y-Yeah right… w-well I got a little, um…” He cleared his throat. “Too into it, and, well I had to cut it off, w-which I did for the rest of my life; I’ve been able to… control it.” She nodded; he wondered if she already knew where this was going to. “To um… to put it bluntly, It’s now an issue again, and I was wondering if you might be able to tell me why it’s happening.”

  She put her hand on her chin, pinching it with two fingers, a sly smile appeared on her face as she looked him up and down, then she crossed her arms again.

  “I assume you mean more than just sexual arousal, so... Define it, what are the symptoms, Luca?” She sounded more professional, though a hint of pyfulness crept up, she might be having fun with this, but Luca pushed the thought aside; not time to be shy.

  “Um, getting flustered like, more than normal, just that.” He looked around to avoid eye contact and put his hands in his pocket. “Focusing on... certain parts more to a distracting level, blushing, shudders…” He looked at the floor. “... arousal that takes not very long, um, creeping up…” She hummed in understanding.

  “I see, and how long has this been happening?” She stood up from the table and put her hands in her doctor's coat’s pockets.

  “Since yesterday, I-I got on the train to come here and-” He didn’t want to mention Alyska, when the feeling arose from her, he felt kind of bad. She was so nice, she probably didn’t want to be looked at that way. “I-I saw some other passengers and… yeah.” There was a silence while she looked him deep in the eyes, did she expect more? He couldn’t take it and caved. “W-When I came here I… I met some more people and they also got, well, the reaction out of me.”

  “Hmmm…” Her face didn’t change from the smug grin she had, she was taking it seriously, right? She wasn’t just making fun of him by entertaining him by talking about the problem, right? No, he was overthinking again, he was just nervous; she was a professional, he was fine. “Luca dear, take off your shirt for me, kay hun?” What?

  “What?”

  “I’m going to inspect your body again, but this time I’ll focus on finding anything reted to this, so c’mon! Take it off and sit on the bed again kay? We’ll resolve this in no time.”

  “R-Right okay.” He had to calm down, he went towards the bed, grabbed the back of the colr of the shirt, and pulled upwards, taking it off fast. She already had inspected him, before doing the physical checks (though he got to keep hi t-shirt on that time), she held her finger to his body and it glowed red, then she ran it up and down his body while looking intently at where she pointed, he was gd when she said there was nothing wrong, but maybe she’d find something this time.

  “Oh my!” Her voice made him turn around, she was looking at his torso with wide eyes and a hand covering her mouth gently.

  “W-What?”

  “N-No nothing, hun, i-it’s just...” She turned to face him again; she was storing some things in the cabinet before. “That shirt really uh, ‘hides’ so to speak, your um, physique.” He knew this, he liked loose t-shirts because they felt nice, but he knew that usually it hid your body proportions, like muscles and such. He never really put a lot of thought on it, but when he thought about how he looked compared to other people, he was more muscur, although there was also a bit of fat surrounding it all; one could see his muscles but they weren’t exactly defined. He was proud of his strength, but his muscles weren’t on his mind too much.

  “Y-Yeah, I guess, so- so I just sit down?”

  “Yeah! Yeah yeah, go ahead, let me do what I have to.” She got near and mumbled something while she held her hand over her index finger, which began glowing again. Then she looked at his chest, grabbed her gsses from her pocket and held them up to her eyes again. “Just let me work~”

  She then poked with her shining finger the middle of his chest, then slid it to the sides and up and down, tracing lines on his skin, which didn’t help with his flustering. She hadn’t touched him before, but it wasn’t exactly bothering him.

  “Your heart’s going faster than normal, something got you nervous, dear?” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, instead focusing on the part of his chest her finger was on.

  “N-Not used to…” He shook his head, calm down, calm down, calm down. “I’m fine, ma’am.”

  “Good, good…” She trailed her finger down, checking his belly and his sides. It was weird for Luca to imagine she was looking at his insides, it felt intimate, in the weirdest way possible. “Okay, all good here, but...” She smiled and straightened up. She towered over him when he was sitting, looking up at her, she was in front of the ntern that illuminated the room, which made her face dark except for her eyes, which seemed to emit a low glow of their own. “I’ll check your back just to make sure you are fine.”

  Luca swallowed loudly as she walked past him, her finger sliding up his chest and towards his shoulder to his back. She got on the bed on her knees and continued sliding her finger slowly, which sent a shiver down his spine.

  “Your heart’s going faster, Luca; is this a symptom?” She leaned forward and slowly pressed her whole hand on the middle of his back. “Do you need treatment, dear~?”

  He breathed deep, she succeeded, he was definitely going to go to the doctor more often now.

  Time: 7:00 am