Chapter 54
...When I first felt the sensation of something strange, I was torn between thinking, 'No way...' and assuming I had felt it wrong.
And when I felt it again, I realized it wasn't my imagination.
People often tell me I lack awareness of what's going on around me, but I'm not stupid.
If she were a woman... Given the structure of the human body, I shouldn't have been able to feel anything here.
Even if I gave her the benefit of the doubt a hundred times—no, ten thousand times—and assumed Senior Alice was actually an enormous pervert who had put a toy down there, it would feel more like plastic. It obviously wouldn't be soft like a human body part.
"...I... Senior Alice...? There's something here..."
"...Fuck."
-Flinch!
It was the first time I had heard Senior swear... and it was an extremely blatant profanity at that.
Through my recent experiences, I had learned that Senior wasn't as perfect as she appeared on television, but this was the first time I had heard her use such an explicit expression out loud.
So even Senior was human after all. How could a person live without ever swearing?
'...But that voice just now?'
Senior Alice's voice was usually unnaturally bright and cheerful, but just now, it had been subdued and filled with emotion.
And somehow... that voice sounded familiar.
It wasn't merely a voice I had heard somewhere; lately, I had imagined it in my head several times before falling asleep, and it resembled the voice of the person I could call my first love.
'...Wait a minute.'
When I raised my head and looked at Senior Alice's face, I saw a face that felt strangely familiar.
Right now, Senior Alice had shed her usual air and was clearly making an uncomfortable expression, but...
'...Mr. Sejin?'
That expression. It was definitely familiar.
Mr. Sejin often made that expression when he seemed troubled or tired.
But this wasn't simply a matter of their expressions being similar.
Her face. Mr. Sejin's face was genuinely superimposed over Senior's.
-Chill
At that moment, a dangerous thought flashed through my mind.
What if... Senior Alice's true identity was Mr. Sejin...? What if Senior Alice was Mr. Sejin's transformed form...?
The instant I made that assumption, countless embarrassing moments I had shown in front of Senior Alice and Mr. Sejin flashed through my mind like a revolving lantern.
Especially the memory of clinging to Senior while crying because I thought my relationship with Mr. Sejin had grown distant.
And the memory of confessing to Mr. Sejin, just today, that I thought I had fallen for Senior Alice.
'...Aaaaaaaah!!!'
"...Could it be... Mr. Sejin?"
Screaming internally, I opened my mouth toward Senior.
My thoughts were completely tangled too. You mean Senior Alice—the person I had admired and loved as a fan for ten years, and who had recently made me feel strange, as though my gender identity were being shattered—and my first love, whom I had fallen head over heels for the moment I saw him during my twenty years of life, were the same person?
What kind of cruel joke of fate was this?
Then I could stan and date at the same time, couldn't I? If I was stanning, that was dating. If I was dating, that was stanning?
'...Huh. That might be nice.'
Fear and anticipation rose within me at the same time as I waited for Senior's answer.
Senior's mouth didn't open for a long while, but... I felt like I already knew the answer.
"...Mr. Sejin? I don't know who you're referring to."
"Why are you pretending not to know?! Even if you aren't Mr. Sejin, I've talked about him in front of you before! There's no way you don't know who he is!"
"............Alice is bad at remembering people's names."
That's it. This was definitely it.
It couldn't possibly be anyone else. If this really were another person, that would be the lie.
"Now that I think about it, that's true! Whenever I met either Senior or Mr. Sejin, one of you was always unreachable! That's because the two of you were the same person, right?!"
"Alice is busy. It's difficult to get in touch with her."
"Every clue is pointing to you being Mr. Sejin, Senior. Just admit it!"
I leaned forward again and stared straight into Senior's eyes.
Senior Alice's eyes were usually bright and sparkling, but right now, I could clearly sense irritation in them.
And those eyes were exactly like the eyes Mr. Sejin made when things weren't going well.
Her voice was similar, her face was the same, her eyes were the same, and they were even the same gender, yet she was saying they were different people?
"Good heavens. No wonder I was attracted to Senior! It was because I originally liked you romantically! I told you I really did like men after all, didn't I?"
"...Hah. Seriously."
"Waaaaah... Senior... Ah, no. Mr. Sejin, maybe? How should I address you? Since you look like Senior Alice right now, I'll call you Senior. I really love it when you put on that stern face and get annoyed, too!"
"...Since you've already figured it out, there's nothing more to say. For now... try calling your mascot."
* * *
We hadn't been naively optimistic enough to think we would never be found out.
Here, 'we' naturally meant Tokkaengi and me. We were both accomplices in this matter, after all.
If we were ever found out—and if the person who found us was a magical girl—the contingency plan we had created by imagining and simulating the situation repeatedly was, 'Grab the mascot first.'
Humans can be deceived. But mascots were connected through a network and were sensitive to the mascots' taboos.
If a mascot uploaded my identity to the network, my life would be over that instant.
So, if I were ever found out, Tokkaengi had decided to grab the other magical girl's mascot first.
[W-what are you two?! You frauds! How can you violate a taboo and act so calmly?!]
[Calm down. I'll explain everything slowly, so listen to me. If I had violated a taboo, would I be perfectly fine right now? I'm a mascot too. I don't do things that violate taboos, either. Think about it. Alice has been a magical girl for ten years. Would I still be perfectly fine after violating a taboo for ten years?]
[...Huh? Is that so?]
Though she might not look it, Tokkaengi had considerable authority as Alice's mascot. In other words, she could block the much younger mascot of a B-rank magical girl from accessing the network and attempt to talk things out.
[Now, now, let's have our magical girls talk among magical girls, and mascots among mascots. Your partner seems to have a lot to say to Alice, too. Surely you don't want the mascot-to-mascot conversation to get in the way of that?]
[Uh... um... Al...right.]
I'll leave that side to Tokkaengi. And as for this side...
-Sparkle-sparkle
-Flush!
'...She seems happy.'
It was obvious from her expression that she couldn't contain her happiness.
Well, of course she was happy.
The senior she admired and the man she had a crush on were the same person, and she had uncovered that secret herself.
She had even gotten hold of my weakness. She must have been practically bouncing off the walls with delight inside.
"...All right. There's no point denying it anymore. Just as you imagined, Alice's true identity is Han Sejin. Han Sejin's transformed form is Alice."
"Waaaaah...!!"
"Let me make one thing clear. You have to promise to keep this secret. Otherwise..."
"I will!"
"...I can't trust you based on words alone. You'll have to give me a solid guarantee..."
"My resident registration number is XXXXXX-XXXXXXX, my phone unlock pattern is shaped like 'ㄹ,' and you already know my phone number, so that's irrelevant. Most of my bank account passwords are either XXXX or XXXXXX."
"...?"
"If I ever reveal this somewhere later, use that information to empty my bank accounts and take out loans or private debts under my name to the limit. Then my life will be ruined. Isn't that guarantee enough?!"
.........What?
She was revealing such important personal information this casually? As collateral for keeping a secret?
No, I could understand offering collateral. I would need some guarantee that the other person would keep the secret before I could trust them, too.
But she was handing it over far too quickly. A person was blurting out information that, depending on how it was used, could ruin their life, all because someone asked for a guarantee...
From the beginning, that information had to be either a lie, or she had to be absolutely confident she wouldn't reveal the secret, or she had to have no thought or possibility of exposing it in her mind at all. Otherwise, how could she do something like this?
'.........'
At this point, even I was at a loss.
Regardless of whether I kept the secret, what if I used that information to take everything and run? Ah, then should she spread the secret everywhere too? Was this that mutually assured destruction thing?
"Is this not enough? Should I send you nude photos when we get back? I've heard quite a lot about people being blackmailed that way. Wouldn't that be a meaningful leash?"
"Doesn't it occur to you that Alice might use those against you first?"
"Huh? There's no way Senior would do that! Ah, is that so? Could she? If Senior ruined my life first, I'd just put my life in her hands and be done with it!"
"............I'll just trust you. You don't seem like the type who would reveal Alice's secret."
"Oh, you don't need them? I really was going to send them."
"I don't need them. No, don't send them. If you do, I'll report you for sexual harassment."
"What a shame. It was a chance to strengthen my bond with Senior."
...By this point, a large portion of the scenarios I had prepared had been rendered useless.
In fact, my scenarios included blackmailing a magical girl with her weakness, threatening her with her life rather than a weakness, and, if that didn't work, attempting to kill her and silence her as a last resort...
'.........Let's not.'
Most of those scenarios had been scrapped now.
If anything, I was curious what I could still use.
"Come to think of it, even though you've already been found out, you're still keeping up the persona? Doesn't that mean you're naturally like this? Your speech and voice are still exactly the same as Alice's, too."
"...It's a habit that comes out when I transform."
"Ah, true. There are quite a few magical girls like that. I understand."
Alice was a persona, but after maintaining it for eight years, it was inevitable that it had become a habit.
Conversely, someone like Mia, whose speech and behavior barely changed before and after transforming, was unusual. Most magical girls tried to separate their magical-girl selves from their ordinary selves, if only because they didn't want to be found out.
'...Sigh.'
Originally, when I told her to keep her promise, I had planned to use the fact that I held Mia's life in my hands, but now that she was acting like this...
Should I save her or not...
To be completely cold and honest, the safest option for me would be to escape alone as I was. The dead tell no tales.
That... really was true...
-Sparkle-sparkle
"But how did a man become a magical girl? As far as I know, men can't become magical girls, right?"
"...Well, about that."
Of course, I had no intention of answering honestly.
If I answered honestly, she would discover that I was the fake Alice, and then Mia, who loved Alice so much she couldn't live without her, would immediately turn on me. I would no longer be Alice.
But I did have a prearranged excuse I had worked out with Tokkaengi.
It was a fabricated explanation about something that had never actually happened, but one that was plausible enough.