Finger-Suck Healing

Konoka: Maybe I can make it better by licking it. *suckle suckle*

Setsuna: *blush* Aaaah! O-o-ojou-sama, what're you doing!?

—Mahou Sensei Negima

In Japanese media, one of the characters may get their finger hurt (most likely when preparing food). Another character will then come in and suck on the wound in order for the finger to heal better. Expect the person having their finger sucked to blush and act embarassed by this physical intimacy.

This trope is often a form of Ship Tease and/or Intimate Healing. Compare Kiss of the Vampire for a supernatural variant. Sometimes not entirely unrelated to Erotic Eating. Contrast Romance-Inducing Smudge.

Examples of Finger-Suck Healing include:

Anime and Manga

• Happens in El Cazador de la Bruja with Nadie sucking on Ellis's hurt finger.
• Kaede's mother sucks Shinobu's finger this way after a cooking accident in Ninin ga Shinobuden.
• An example can be found in Kodomo no Jikan. The fact that one of the girls actually refers to it as "fellating his finger" doesn't help.
• Mahou Sensei Negima: Used for laughs and Ship Tease when Konoka does it to Setsuna as per the quote on top. Knowing Konoka, she's totally aware of the flirtatiousness of the action.
• Naruto: Gaara does this to his uncle Yashamaru. And it is adorable.
• Macross Frontier:
  • Alto attempts this on Sheryl, but she slaps him away because she has a fatal V-Type infection, which can be spread by blood.
  • Played straight in the first movie. During a date scene, Alto sucks the blood from Sheryl's finger when she cuts them after falling off a scooter. All the while overlooking a breathtaking meadow and lakeside landscape.
• In Hellsing (manga version), in order to goad Seras into drinking live human blood (something she's been avoiding in order to hold on to her humanity), Integra cuts her finger with a knife and orders Seras to lick it.
• Soukou no Strain has Lavinia plant an invisible tack on a control pad so that Sara will injure her finger in order for Lavinia to play out this trope with her. It doesn't work, as someone else gets to Sara first.
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: One of Kaito and Lucia's more memorable scenes occurs when Lucia pricks her finger, Kaito sucks on it, and Lucia completely ruins the mood by accidentally stepping on the remote control for the stereo system, surprising the both of them with blaring music.
• In one chapter of Sasameki Koto, Sumika and Miyako have a contest to see who can prepare a better meal. Sumika imagines cutting her finger while chopping vegetables, followed by Ushio sucking on the finger in question.
• Tsukihime: In one just for fun Doujinshi short by Crazy Clover Club, Shiki does this for Arcueid the vampire; suddenly realizing that by licking her blood, he's probably doomed himself to becoming a vampire.
  • Another 4Koma reverses it - Shiki gets injured, Arcueid sucks his finger, and the romantic moment is ruined by her bloodlust flaring up at that exact moment.
• Despite all the injuries Kouta was suffering from at the time, Seiji of Midori Days does this to him.
• Mysterious Girlfriend X: Inverted (by switching the healer/healed roles), where Akira sucks Mikoto's drool off her finger every day, because he's addicted to it.
• Done by Karasuma to Tenma in School Rumble.
• Subverted in The World God Only Knows. Keima rants about how ditzy demon Elsee can't really be his little sister, since they don't have the same blood in their bodies. Elsee promptly bites his outstretched finger and swallows the blood in an attempt to prove she can be his little sister. Keima doesn't take this well.
• In Basilisk, the female ninja Hotarubi sucks the wounded finger of her lover. Her "pissed but devoted" face is striking.
• In one episode of Junjou Romantica Usagi gets Misaki to suck his injured finger. It's just as awkward as it sounds.
• In a similar anime, Gakuen Heaven, Keita gets thrown and locked into a shed by two bullies, injuring his elbow. Another student frees him, and as they're walking in a wooded area notices Keita holding his elbow. He then grabs Keita, pulls his sleeve down, and licks the wound several times, claiming to have been disinfecting it, which Keita seems to believe...but really, saliva doesn't do a very good job as a disinfectant.
• Inuyasha does this to Kagome in the first movie when she accidentally cuts her finger, causing her to blush.
• In the All-New Tenchi Muyo! manga series, a robotic Tenchi devised by Washu does this with Ayeka when she cuts her finger. Both Ayeka and Sasami (who just returned with the first-aid kit) both blush at the action.
• In Ayashi no Ceres, Yuuhi does this to Aya without thinking. Granted, no one should have given her a knife since this was soon after Touya lost all his memories of her, and she stirs from her stupor to freak out a bit.
• Ouran High School Host Club: The twins do this for their fangirls.
• Strawberry Shake Sweet: Ran does it to Julia in chapter 4, for instant Nosebleed.
• Ren attempts this in Skip Beat! to his co-star, during a test run on how to act his own character of the series out. Before any lip contact can happen, though, the co-star freaks out and pulls her hand away.
• Sorta done in Sailor Moon, when Haruka gets her hand injured with a glass shard from Nehelenia's Magic Mirror. Michiru then sucks on her injury to try getting the shard out and succeeds, then spits it out on her handkerchief. Then Haruka notices dark energy coming from the shard and knocks it away from Michiru; it transforms into a glass monster, and they have to fight it alongside others.
• In Saint Beast, Judas can actually heal wounds by placing his lips on them, making it a pretty effective strategy actually.
• Mizutama does this to Miharu in Pump Up when she pokes herself with a sewing needle.

Film

• Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Interesting because Ponyo's still a goldfish and the main character's cut actually heals instantly. The fact that she drank his blood is actually a significant plot point.
• In many versions of Dracula (particularly Nosferatu), the first sign something is wrong with the Count is when Harker nicks himself with a bread knife and his host insists on sucking the wound.
• In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Hannah sucks on Matt's finger to remove a splinter.
• In Casino Royale, Bond sucks on Vesper's fingers when she is going into shock.
• Done in Interview with the Vampire by Claudia to a seamstress who pricked her finger, before she killed her.
• In Jennifer's Body, Needy sucked on Jennifer's finger when they were small children.

Live Action Television

• In Due South, Fraser tells of how he met Victoria, the former lover/criminal/all around crazy woman he was tracking. They get stranded in a blizzard in Canada, and in order to prevent frostbite he puts her fingers in his mouth. It somehow manages to be erotic, sweet, and heartbreaking all at once.

Visual Novels

• In Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo (above), Mai does this to Reo when Mai is teaching Reo to cook.
• Aoi Shiro has Nami do this to Syouko. It works a little better than most because of Nami's healing powers.
• Tsukihime: Shiki does this to Hisui in one route. What he doesn't know is that she's a Synchronizer, and that her blood (and other bodily fluids) can be used to transfer mana, so he ends up enjoying it more than he'd anticipated.
• In Remember 11, Yomogi does this to Kokoro after she accidentally cuts herself on a knife. Hilarity Ensues when there's a personality transfer in the middle of it, and Satoru-in-Kokoro's-body flips out, not knowing what's going on.
• Maki of [[Shojokyuu Kurige no Shiofuki Shoujotachi]] does Finger Suck Healing on Class Representative Tomoe to flirt with her after the latter suffers a paper cut.

Real Life

• In reality, sucking on someone else's cut is unsafe, since your mouth is full of microorganisms. The bacteria in your mouth are generally harmless to you, since your immune system is already intimately familiar with them, but other people don't have that same resistance, which carries the risk of disease transmission and serious infection in people with weakened immune systems. That said, saliva contains growth factors that promote wound healing, which is why animals lick their wounds and an infant may instinctively put its hurt finger in its own mouth.