Chapter 41
...It was good that I cut Mia off at the right time.
Because I couldn't stand by and watch her relationship with Han Se-jin deepen any further.
...It was definitely good up to that point.
"Waaaaaaaaah! Alice-senpaiiii, I think I've been rejected!!!!"
"Kyaaaaaaah!! Don't just hug me out of nowhere!!!"
Although I'd put up a wall as Han Se-jin, I still needed treatment as Alice, so I came to see Mia as Alice again the next day.
And the moment we met, the situation before me unfolded.
"Waaaaaaah... Sob... What did I do wrong..."
"Let go first! I'll listen to what happened after that!"
-Squeeeeeze
She pounced on me the moment I opened the door, so my reaction was a little late, but I managed to push her away with my arm just before she reached me.
As a result, I was holding my arm against Mia's face to keep her from pouncing on me.
-Squeeeeeze
"Miss Mia, you weren't this strong before! What did you eat to get this strong?!"
"It's the pain of heartbreak! Even if you're my senpai, hug me and pat my head so I can heal!"
"I-I absolutely will not!"
She was throwing this kind of tantrum at Alice just because I'd pushed her away as Han Se-jin?
This was outside the scope of my calculations.
And it's not as if I'd rejected her outright. Hadn't I merely put a little distance between us?
If I'd explicitly told her to get lost and dumped her, then I could at least understand feeling wronged, but I never expected her to cling to me with such a tearful expression, claiming she'd been heartbroken because I'd turned down a movie.
Contrary to my expectations, Mia's strength was so great that I couldn't believe she was a B-rank support-type, so we had quite a struggle before I finally managed to calm her down and get her seated.
...All right. Tell me. What happened?
I knew what had happened, but 'Alice' was supposed not to know, so I asked anyway.
...And I needed to hear it from her perspective, too.
Just how had she interpreted those few words to end up looking so tearful and unlike her usual self?
"Sob, th-that... I told you I think I've started a relationship recently."
"...I remember you saying it was more of a flirtation than a relationship. This is about that, right?"
"Y-yes... That's right... So, what happened was..."
...The story that followed wasn't much different from what I already knew.
Starting with how they met, the interactions they'd had, and how they'd grown close, it went all the way to Aia barging in and helping them, which somehow led to their pretending to date, even if only as a fake relationship.
"...Didn't you decide to fake-date from the beginning? Then it wouldn't be strange to draw a line at an appropriate point..."
"But...! It wasn't like that...! Even if we did start out agreeing to fake-date... Ah, anyway, he didn't have to reject me so coldly!"
"I see..."
...But thinking about this woman's personality, I couldn't help it. If I rejected her gently, she probably wouldn't take it as a rejection.
And was that really so cold...?
Unless I'd gone so far as to say we should stop seeing each other, cut off contact, and move away entirely, I didn't see how it counted as cold... She was reacting as if she'd been dumped after dating for years just because I'd turned down a movie.
...In reality, Han Se-jin and Mia hadn't even known each other for a month, even counting from when they first met, and their relationship was fake on top of that.
"That man was too harsh. Even if he wanted to reject you, he could have done it more gently."
"Don't insult Mr. Se-jin! He's just a little awkward when dealing with other people; he's not a bad person! He's so cute!"
"I-I see. I'll take that back."
...I had been scolded for calling myself a bad person.
This was a truly novel experience.
...If you were going to say that, you shouldn't have called him too harsh in the first place.
"...What should I do? Did I do something wrong? Maybe Mr. Se-jin wasn't ready, and I was the only one getting ahead of myself and rushing into things?"
"That may be the case. Everyone moves at a different pace, after all."
"Then should we take things a little more slowly?!"
...That was when I realized there was nothing more I could say here.
To Mia, 'Alice' was an object of admiration, but 'Han Se-jin' was a romantic interest.
There was no need to say which would be more powerful to a woman in the prime of her youth.
Saying a few more words as 'Alice' wouldn't change anything. It would only give me a headache and possibly lead me to dig my own grave.
"...Then why don't you ask someone else? Alice doesn't know much about romance, after all."
"Th-that's true. Now that I think about it, you did say that. All right, then, I'll start today's treatment. Please sit comfortably, as usual."
I had used a tone that wasn't quite like Alice's usual manner while we talked, but she didn't seem to find it particularly strange.
Or maybe she was too distracted to notice that my way of speaking had changed.
* * *
...So that's why you called me?
"Yes. But I thought you'd still know more about it than I do."
"...I distinctly remember telling you that I have no experience with dating either."
"Th-that's true, but... I thought you'd still have more experience dealing with people than I do."
After finishing work for the day, I'd been lying around at home with nothing to do when Mia asked if we could talk, so we'd agreed to meet at the café run inside the company.
This café had also been created at my older sister's suggestion. Since most of our employees were magical girls or people connected to them, she argued that we needed a place where magical girls could drink coffee and relax without worrying about other people's eyes... And in the end, it received the highest possible satisfaction rating.
The person who had created it, however, made drinks for herself in a private area whenever she came by, because other people would feel uncomfortable around her.
"I suppose so. You said Miss Mia is twenty this year?"
"Yes. Uh... come to think of it, I never heard Miss Sapphire's age. If you don't mind my asking, may I ask? You do seem to be the older one."
"I'm twenty-five this year."
"You're five years older. Still younger than Mr. Se-jin, though."
-Slurp
While I was listening absentmindedly and drinking my coffee, I heard something that was hard to let pass.
"...Is Se-jin the name of your boyfriend?"
"Ah... I said his name again. But yes, that's right."
"...But he's older than me?"
"Yes. As far as I know, he's twenty-seven this year."
"What?! ...Ah, my apologies. I was just startled for a moment."
"N-no... That's understandable. There is a bit of an age gap, but... hehe... I still like him."
...I had been curious what kind of person had swept Mia away, but I never expected him to be older than me.
Don't people usually date someone around their own age when they're that old?
Mia would normally be a university freshman, having just graduated from high school at twenty, with the ink on her ID card barely dry. There was nothing legally wrong with them dating, and if they were happy, it wasn't anyone else's business, but it was still hard to view it in an entirely positive light.
Considering the Mia I knew, I couldn't even rule out the possibility that she'd fallen in with some strange man by mistake.
-Clunk
"I'm intrigued. Why don't you tell me how you met and how you started dating? I have to hear what kind of person managed to win Miss Mia over."
"S-seduce...? It's not like that... Ah, anyway, I'll explain."
I'd initially intended to listen to her complaints and leave it at that, but I'd changed my mind.
Honestly, I was reacting this mildly only because I was here. If my older sister had been beside me, she'd have been chiming in from the side and urging Mia to continue.
I pulled my chair closer, adjusted my posture, and prepared to listen intently.
"All right, I'm ready to hear it. Go ahead."
"So... I moved out and got my own place..."
And the story I heard from Miss Mia was...
"...Miss Mia."
"Yes?"
"That... wasn't a relationship in the first place, was it?"
"It wasn't?!"
To be honest, I was dumbfounded.
The story was exciting enough up to the point where she'd been working the night shift at a convenience store, an Abyssal had appeared, and she'd revealed that she was a magical girl and rescued him.
But then the number-one S-rank, Miss Aia, showed up.
And on top of that, Miss Aia had fallen in love at first sight with a man named Han Se-jin and made a move on him.
And then Han Se-jin, apparently overwhelmed by Aia, had asked Mia for help, and Mia had accepted, so they'd started pretending to be lovers right then and there...?
'...Is this the synopsis of a new drama produced by our company?'
If Miss Mia hadn't been speaking seriously, I would have taken it as a joke.
There were more than one or two unbelievable parts.
So, something like this had actually happened, and that was why they'd started seeing each other as a fake couple to give Aia an excuse, and things seemed to be going well, only for the man she was seeing to coldly reject her request for a movie date yesterday...
"For starters... Once you begin by agreeing to pretend to be lovers, unless the two of you actually decide to date, it can't be considered a relationship. At best, it's a flirtation. ...At least by my standards."
"I... suppose you're right."
"Hmm... Did either of you actually say that you wanted to date? Or maybe you simply hadn't managed to say it yet."
"Ah... n-no... I was taking things as slowly as possible because I thought Mr. Se-jin wouldn't like it if I moved too fast..."
"Hmm... It doesn't sound like you were rushing things at all. If asking him to see a movie counts as rushing at that stage, then I don't know what you could do without rushing."
I had never dated anyone either, but even I was pretty sure about that.
You go on a date first, and then you do whatever comes next to move the relationship forward—or not. He'd rejected the most ordinary date invitation there was, a movie. What else were they supposed to start with?
"...This may be a strange thing to say, but if even Miss Aia fell in love at first sight... You must be quite handsome, don't you think? Didn't Miss Mia more or less fall for you at first sight too?"
"Hehe... He looks cute."
"I don't understand how you can call a man seven years older than you cute."
"Oh, should I show you a picture? It's fine since I took this one specifically to show other people."
-Slide
The picture Miss Mia showed me was of a ma...n? and Miss Mia in her transformed state.
"...Didn't you say he was twenty-seven?"
"Oh, he looks incredibly young. I was surprised when I first saw him, too."
"...He's really twenty-seven?"
"I checked his ID when I was working part-time. He really is."
"..."
He was two years older than me, despite looking like this?
I didn't exactly look older than my age either, but wasn't this a little different?
'...Is he a former celebrity?'
It was enough to make me wonder that seriously.
With looks like these, if he put a little effort into dressing well and taking care of himself, he could probably debut as a celebrity.
Though he looked tired at first glance and had visible dark circles under his eyes, so he didn't seem good at taking care of himself. It probably wouldn't be possible for him right now.
"Well? Are you still going to nitpick about his age?"
"...It's surprising both that the age gap is seven years and that he's twenty-seven with that appearance... But why are you drinking your beverage like that?"
-Sluuuurp
"Oh, this? When it was popular a while back, I practiced by copying people because I wanted to make friends. But I didn't actually have anyone around to show it to."
...The act of placing a drink cup on one's chest and drinking through a straw, which had been popular on the internet long ago.
I don't remember what it was called, but I remember it because my older sister used to do it too.
"But it's kind of fun, so I sometimes do it by myself. Would you like to try it too, Miss Sapphire? It looks like you'd be able to do it easily. If you want to, I'll give you some tips."
"...You sound exactly like my older sister."
"You have an older sister too? She must be an amazing person if she's Miss Sapphire's older sister!"
"Ha... ha... Right..."
...The conversation seemed to have wandered somewhere else in the middle, but it was fun, so did it really matter?
I had plenty of time anyway, so there was no harm in taking the counseling slowly.
...Even I, saying that, had no dating experience, but I'd picked up a few things from people around me, so I should be able to help her at least a little.