Chapter 42
"Mr. Se-jin! Good morning! I baked some cookies! Try some!"
".........?"
I wonder what could have happened in just one day.
I'd only sent her away as Alice and told her to talk to someone other than Alice, but in the meantime, her expression had brightened considerably.
"Uh... yes... I... will..."
To the point that I accepted them before remembering that I'd pushed her away in surprise.
"Make sure you eat them and tell me what you think! You're the first person outside my family I've given them to!"
"O...kay."
"Then I'll get going! I have somewhere to be today! Have a great day too, Mr. Se-jin!"
...With that, she gave me the cookies and disappeared.
'...Who did she meet to get this excited?'
Despite her good nature, I knew she surprisingly didn't have many friends, so she must have met a pretty good person if she'd overcome that gloomy mood.
'...Uh, wait.'
If she left like this, what about her treatment as Alice...
...She'll come back before then, right?
* * *
"Sapphire-senpai! I'm here!"
"Ah, you've arrived, Miss Mia."
After listening to Miss Mia's troubles all day yesterday, I decided to set aside some time for her today at her request.
She'd asked if I could help her plan a proper date course.
I found it strange that she thought I could help despite never having dated either... but she only said that I was older and had worked in society, so I had to be better than doing it alone. I had no choice but to agree.
"But why is your transformation outfit a suit, Sapphire-senpai?"
"I do company work while transformed. This is more comfortable."
My regular outfit was an ordinary suit to begin with, so it wasn't very flashy, but Mia's usual magical-girl outfit was rather flashy, so we decided to convert it into casual clothes.
We couldn't avoid attracting attention when two magical girls walked down the street, but at least dressing normally should lessen it somewhat.
"Miss Mia... It suits you. Didn't you say you used to work in fashion?"
"Uh... not exactly work. My parents run a small online clothing store, and I used to wear various outfits there and take sample photos and stuff."
At that, I looked Miss Mia up and down for a moment.
"This may be rude, but... Wouldn't taking sample photos be difficult with your body type, Miss Mia?"
"I helped them from when I was little. It did get difficult once I grew up. How often do you find people who are short like me but have... this much up top...?"
I wasn't particularly short, but I did sympathize with the other part, so I nodded inwardly.
"Still, it's not as if there are no people with this body type. I guess they sell well enough. To my parents, I'm their daughter first and foremost, after all. It doesn't cost much, so there's no harm in taking the photos."
"I see..."
Mentioning family reminded me of the conversation I'd had with my older sister this morning.
[I'm heading to work first... Oh, you took today off, didn't you? Do you have plans?]
[A junior I know asked to meet.]
[Our Si-yeon is going on a date?!]
[She's a girl. A magical girl.]
[Is she pretty? Cute? Do you have a picture? Show me. I want to see too.]
[What are you, some old man?!]
Anyway, despite using being busy as an excuse to shun romance herself, she liked harassing her junior magical girls and was very interested in her little sister's love life.
She even spouted the crazy nonsense—whether as a joke or seriously—that she could accept it even if I wanted a woman.
I'd heard that magical girls sometimes developed relationships like that because they mostly worked only with other magical girls, but that wasn't the case for me.
It wasn't that I'd found a reason to date or someone to date yet, but if I ever did, I was certain it would be with a man.
...Though I still hadn't met anyone who particularly attracted me.
"Come to think of it, is this Mr. Se-jin you're dating your ideal type?"
"Uh... I haven't really thought about it... but I think he is. Ever since I was little, if I ever dated someone, I wanted to meet a dependable older man who was also cute."
"I'm not sure I'd call him dependable..."
"That's because you don't know him, Sapphire-senpai. I haven't actually seen it myself either, but I really get this feeling that he's dependable, you know? Even though I'm much stronger because I'm a magical girl, there's this strange feeling that he'd save me if a real crisis came along?"
"...I really don't understand. Well, I'll assume that's what you mean by an older man's aura. At his age, he must have much more experience in the world than you do, Miss Mia."
...Now that I'd said it, I realized I didn't think I'd heard what that man did for a living.
Still, at his age, he probably had a job.
"Come to think of it, do you know what he does? You said he seemed to live alone."
"Uh... I'm not really sure. He seems to stay inside most of the time, but sometimes I see him coming back from outside without knowing when he left. And since he occasionally comes to the convenience store even at dawn, I don't think he's an office worker."
'...Maybe he's unemployed.'
It was the thought that popped into my head, but saying that about someone else's boyfriend would have been rude, so I quietly swallowed it.
"Well, even if Mr. Se-jin is unemployed, I can support him just fine."
"A magical girl of your caliber would get plenty of offers to appear on programs."
"Oh, but why don't you appear on programs yourself and work as a manager instead, Sapphire-senpai?"
"I do when necessary, but this suits me better."
I currently worked as Miss Alice's manager, but even before that, I'd helped my sister with her company and handled various tasks. I hadn't had much time to appear as a participant on programs myself.
I also wasn't the type to enjoy talking more than necessary... and I didn't want to become famous by chance and have it get out that I was her sister.
There was a reason I always treated her with such deference, calling her "Chairwoman" whenever I happened to run into her at the company.
"Hmm... What movie should we watch? I want to save a romance movie to watch with Mr. Se-jin."
"Action movies haven't been as enjoyable since I became a magical girl. Knowing I could fight better than the characters myself makes it hard to immerse myself."
"Ah, that's why I have trouble watching survival or disaster movies too. I keep thinking, 'Why aren't the magical girls coming in a situation like this...? And even when they do come, why are they so weak...?'"
B-rank magical girls were still among the upper ranks of magical girls, even if they ranked lower than Miss Alice, who was always with me.
Most magical girls were E-, D-, or C-rank, and Miss Mia was even a rare support-type magical girl.
"...A horror movie?"
"...It's less scary than an Abyssal."
"Hmm... Magical girls really do have trouble watching movies. Romance is about the only thing we can watch, but... even if it's practice, watching one with two women is a little..."
"...Oh, how about science fiction?"
"Aha!"
After searching through the posters and agonizing over it, we finally found a movie worth watching.
"Great. If I take this perfectly replanned date course back to Mr. Se-jin, he won't be able to turn me down, even if only out of appreciation for the effort!"
"What will you do if he rejects that too?"
"...Then I'll have no choice but to use my last resort."
Miss Mia's expression turned solemn.
...A magical girl's physical abilities were fundamentally far beyond those of an ordinary person.
Surely not...
"I'll cling to him in tears and ask him what exactly is so lacking about me that he keeps turning me down."
"...Good luck."
I'd felt it from the moment I heard that she'd admired Miss Alice for an extremely long time... She really seemed to be the type who focused on one thing and looked at nothing else once she got hooked.
Admiration for Alice, love for that man.
* * *
[The phone is turned off. After the beep, um...]
-Beep
"...Did she go somewhere for fun? She certainly seemed to be in a good mood."
[I hear humans sometimes travel to refresh their spirits. Could it be something like that?]
"How could she go traveling in just one day...?"
Even well into the afternoon, Mia hadn't returned home, so I even called Alice's number, but she didn't answer.
It wasn't a problem since we hadn't set a specific time for her treatment as Alice and simply met whenever we both had free time, but I couldn't help wondering.
After all, the woman who had been clinging to Alice in tears as recently as yesterday had become bright and cheerful again.
"...What should I do? I don't really have anything to do today."
[If you have nothing to do, you should rest. You're all right for now thanks to Miss Mia, but you're not fully recovered yet.]
"I should organize my magic theory again. The broadcast is tomorrow."
[That's fine, but don't overdo it!]
Tokkaengi was noisy again today.
Who was always telling me not to overdo it when they were the one making me overdo it? If I hadn't overdone it, we'd both have been sliced up long ago.
"Tokkaengi, turn on the TV. The one with the magical-girl news."
[Why? Is there something you're curious about?]
"I need to organize my magic anyway. It won't be as boring if I have something playing in the background. Since we're turning it on anyway, I might as well get some information about the world."
...I was also worried that Aia might have done something.
Anyway, Tokkaengi obediently operated the remote and turned on the TV.
Even a mascot could exert this much physical force.
[Yes... This is news about a newly discovered Abyssal overseas. Unlike other Abyssals, it is said not to be interested in buildings and to primarily target people or animals. Oddly enough, all the corpses were... decapitated. To discuss this, we have Abyssal expert Mr. Choi XX and...]
"What a strange Abyssal. Are there Abyssals that only target the neck?"
[There are an infinite variety of Abyssals. It wouldn't be strange for one to be obsessed with the necks of living things. The mascots' records say that Headless Knight- or Dullahan-type Abyssals have been observed several times cutting down creatures with necks because they were jealous of them.]
"They'll be talking about that one thing here for a while. Enough. Just turn it off. There's no point leaving something like that on."
-Flutter
I irritably scratched my head and started rereading the magic theory I'd organized.
Most of it was already in my head, but being human meant I needed to organize things if I wanted to put what was in my head into words.
Even if Aia was ranked first in S-rank, neither Alice's image nor my personal pride would appreciate the camera portraying Alice as being outclassed by Aia.
-Flutter
I'd never once enjoyed working as a magical girl, but I could still say that studying magic was somewhat interesting.
I'd liked stories about the stars and the universe since long ago.
That girl loved fairy tales and found it boring, but even so, she never completely ignored the things I liked.
And no matter how hard I worked, it was never as good as the things she'd prepared so effortlessly.
It had always been that way, no matter what the task was, so I wasn't particularly shocked.
Because of course she was exceptional.
So of course I was always scrambling just to imitate 'Alice.'
That...
-Throb
'...That damn bitch.'
As if to prove that my treatment wasn't over yet, I felt the cloud of darkness that had returned to my mind trying to replay those memories, and habitually poured the medicine into my mouth.
I had a shoot tomorrow, and today I also had to meet Mia and receive treatment.
It was bad timing to get caught in a nightmare right now.