Hypnosis 'R Us

"What can I do for you kid?"

Now, my shop is not exactly a place that just anyone comes to. I'm a pretty shady guy, and that's on purpose. I keep the lights dim, the storefront a little bit dirty, the alley not well signalized and more importantly, my reputation on the down low.

My means allow me a great deal of freedom in how I operate, and more importantly, give me a great deal of security in such operations.

"I, uh-"

Most of my customers wanted very pointed and very clear things from coming to me. There was always a problem that needed fixing, and I'm just what they needed to fix it.

I leaned forward on my desk, the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling flickering slightly as I rested my elbows on the mahogany. While the outside of my shop was dilapidated and poor, the inside was luxurious and lavish. I was doing pretty well for myself, and I refused to sit on a crappy chair or have my clients suffer an even worse one. I smirked as the girl in front of me collected herself.

I recognized her uniform. She went to the super elite school in town, which featured exclusively the gigarich, and the extremely talented. A black blazer with red and silver accents marked her as a scholarship student.

She trembled a little. Thick glasses, a slight frame, tightly braided long black hair, she had the look of a nerd, almost comically so, and that meant she was in for academic ability. "This is- I'm, there's no way this is real," she said, "is it true that you can hypnotize people?"

"Very true," I said, smiling brightly. "And no, none of that suggestion stuff you see in shows, mine is the real deal," I said, leaning on my left arm and resting my head on it, while drumming my fingers on the desk. "Trouble in school?" I asked.

"I- yes," she said, taking a deep breath. "Lately, I've not been able to focus on my studies, a-and, my grades are slipping, the teacher, she, uhm, she- she told me if I came here, if, if I asked you, you could help me," she said.

"That's right, I can," I said. "With my hypnosis, I could help you concentrate," I said. "For a nominal fee, of course, I can implant a suggestion into your mind, so that when a certain keyword or phrase is spoken, you will focus on an activity with your full attention," I said. "I also have a series of safety features that will prevent others from recognizing anything is off, such as the effect stopping when you hear your name," I said.

"O-Oh- that's," she blinked.

I pulled one of the drawers of my desk open, and from it, pulled a binder, placing it on top of the desk between us, opening it and leafing through the pages, reaching one near the middle which featured the study program, and turning the binder around to show her, tapping the card with my finger.

"This is the program," I said, "the effects it will have and how long it will last."

"Wow that is- surprisingly thorough," she said, as she read the card, quite swiftly, nodding to herself. "And- this is real, right?"

"As real as you or I," I said.

"You know I half expected this to end up, uhm, getting... dirty," she said. "Like-"

"Ah, yes, you're not the first, you thought this'd end up being some sort of perverted business straight out of a dirty comic huh?" I chuckled. "Nah, that's just not how we do business over here."

She sighed in relief. "T-Then," she looked at the card again, looking a little queasy at the price, "I'll take it, a-and, can we do a payment program?"

I chuckled. "Certainly," I said. "The funny thing is," I raised a finger, "I've never had to enforce the clause in the contract that forces people to come pay me if they somehow," I made finger quotes, "forget about it."

She gulped, but nodded.

"Alright, then," I said, pulling up my phone, unlocking it and starting up the app that would get her wishes granted. "I'll need you to look into the pretty circles for a moment..."

And our business would conclude... shortly after.

And that... was my business.

I have a Hypnosis Shop. We hypnotize people for profit.

Need to reach academic excellence in a jiffy? Want to lose weight but you have no motivation to go to the gym? You need help not going crazy when your idiot boss screams at you again?

Come one come all, no problem is too small!

Whether you're a millionaire who needs help curbing the weird impulses rich people have for some of the most debauched shit imaginable, or you're a schoolgirl who just wants help concentrating on her studies, we can solve it anyway!

That said, I don't get very many clients, and I don't need that many, so I can be very judicious in how I choose them. I implant a hypnotic suggestion on most of my clients, with their consent of course as per the contract, to keep them from mentioning my shop unless they are certain that it won't result in exposing me, and I use another suggestion for them to offer my shop as an option to those who need it and can be trusted.

Now, you might be wondering, how did I get to this point? How did I become the man that I was?

And the answer was actually embarrassingly simple.

When I was young, I used to be fat. I was bullied by my classmates, and at the time it even seemed like my childhood friend, the girl next door, started to hate me due to being fat, smelly, ugly, boring and kinda weird. I even thought she was going out with one of the boys who was my main bully.

And then...

When I woke up one day, near the start of the summer break, my phone had a strange new app, one that explained itself on its first boot, telling me I had the power of hypnosis, to get back at everyone who had ever done me harm, who had made me suffer.

And so I did. I used it on the one who was at the source of almost all of my problems.

By going up to a mirror and hypnotizing myself, implanting in myself a command to work out, every day, even when I wanted to give up, even when my arms failed me, even when it made me want to die. I commanded myself to shower thoroughly, every day, to take care of my teeth, to wash my hair properly and even to remember to use beauty products, mostly creams to help with my acne issues and such.

The next thing I did was to hypnotize myself so that I would find healthy food delicious and fast food and most kinds of sweets quite rancid. Had to lower that one later so I could eat cake at birthdays but it helped a lot.

In just a few weeks and over the summer, I transformed myself from the fat blob of a boy I was into someone who would fit right in with everyone else. I found actual enjoyment in playing sports once I was no longer too fat to do it, and with it, common interests with those who had been my bullies prior.

A lot of them even apologized for their behavior and expressed admiration for how I reacted to it. My life has changed a lot since.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing that changed.

Once I got home, the moment I closed the door behind me, a voice called from the kitchen. "Welcome home, Momo!"

I chuckled. "I'm home, Mika," I called.

The name's Momotaro, I hypnotize people for profit, and that right there is my wife, Mika, wringing her hands with a towel. She was busy in our kitchen. We were wealthy enough that she didn't need to work, but she hated being idle, so she had dedicated herself to making and selling specialized custom merchandise.

Specifically, she would sculpt, carve and otherwise produce figures of mobile suits, mechanized armor and robots, then paint them, then sell them.

"How was work today?" she asked.

"So-so," I called, "got a new client today, I think I'll have to be careful with her, you know how young people get when they start to get an idea of how powerful the effects of the hypnosis are," I said, pulling my coat off and resting it on the rack, changing from my shoes to my slippers as I stepped in. "How about you?"

"Well, I managed to progress on clearing the backlog," she said, "thanks to you of course," she said with a wink.

Normally, Mika couldn't sit still long enough to do a lot of the things she liked. She had a lot of hobbies that required patience, sitting still and being delicate and careful. And she was a humanoid storm most of the time. Not an issue for my hypnosis phone app after all.

She leaned in and kissed my cheek.

Once upon a time, I came very close to cussing her out, thinking myself entitled to her companionship and presence and demanding that she stop seeing anyone else because it made me insecure. I thought I was owed a relationship with her, just because we were neighbors. I almost blew it all, not knowing that she liked me even before I underwent my summer transformation.

In fact, part of the reason why she had gotten 'closer' to the popular boys, as I saw it, was that she was fighting with them to get them to back off and stop bullying me.

I kissed her back, remembering how close our lives came to being ruined, because of misunderstandings and cowardice, from both of us, about our own feelings.

That said I don't regret undergoing my transformation. Sure, winter's a lot colder, but I've managed.

After our kiss turned into a makeout session, I chuckled and followed her into the house. Our kitchen was a mess, as always. Even hypnosis wouldn't get her to stop being a messy worker, though I also freely admit that seeing her covered in paint and sometimes wearing only her apron as she worked were enough reasons not to even attempt it.

A figure about the size of my torso, of a blue, white and gold robot wielding an acrylic sword that was painted to look like it was a glowing beam, stood in the middle of our kitchen table. We really needed to move to someplace bigger, where she could have a dedicated workshop.

"Looking good there," I hummed. Much of it was unpainted still, but, her skill was undeniable. Each part was intricately designed, cut and carved to perfection. She normally couldn't concentrate or sit still for very long, but thanks to the app, she could engage in her hobbies and enjoy them to her heart's content without being held back by a tendency to be hyperactive.

"Thanks, it's still far from done but, I think the client's gonna love it," she said, smiling brightly. She didn't look at all like a nerdy chick, not like the girl I had helped earlier that day, she was a tomboy through and through. Tanned, with her hair cut to her shoulders, though back then she kept it even shorter, and a tendency for sporty clothes and pursuits.

You never would've imagined she was into the same media I was... or the fact that I was the one into girly shows, and she, the one who was trying to launch energy beams. Still remember that day I caught her raising her hands to give her energy to the protagonist of the show she was watching.

Good news is, we can buy stuff for our favorite shows for each other and nobody will look twice.

"Anyway, while you were gone," Mika said, "someone got in contact, apparently your proposal to the rehabilitation clinic was accepted and we're expecting we'll get the date for our first trials soon!"

"Wonderful," I hummed. Sure, that wouldn't be as profitable as getting rich people to drop bad habits was, but there was something deeply satisfying about helping people on large scale projects like this.

And besides...

If money was the only thing I was interested in I could always just hypnotize a billionaire into giving me tons of it. A life I'm proud of has been my priority since I first got this app. Pulling out my phone, I unlocked it and stared at the app button, an ominous black and white concentric circular pattern.

It's done a lot of good for me, and it allowed me to take my revenge on and deal with the source of most of my problems.

"But your job's not done just yet, I still got plenty of use for you," I chuckled to myself.

"Ooh, does that mean we can have wild and nasty hypnosis sex?" Mika asked, throwing her hands over my shoulders.

I rolled my eyes.

She never got tired of it.