I'm Not the Caretaker of Broken Magical Girls
“Ahjussi, let’s go buy ice cream.”
“Out of nowhere, huh.”
The moment she finished her chicken, Seo Eunha started whining for ice cream. No matter how you looked at it, there wasn’t a trace of the terrifying villain she was supposed to be. She was just a self-indulgent high school girl in the middle of puberty.
“From now on, I’m your summer, ahjussi. It’s gotten hot.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“There’s nothing but alcohol in the house anyway, right? All because you’re obsessed with that woman named Han Yeeun. Are you seriously going to make me eat nothing but bread and booze? What are you, Jesus?”
She’d said she wouldn’t throw me away, but Seo Eunha was clearly planning to settle in for good. The same went for Lee Sia, who had also declared she wouldn’t abandon me and seemed determined to cling on just as tightly.
Seo Eunha was one thing—I could accept that she had nowhere else to go—but Lee Sia needed to be gently persuaded and sent back to her family home.
“Sia, what about the house you originally lived in? The place you stayed before you moved in with your senior?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Huh? No, I don’t mean your solo apartment. I mean the house you lived in with your parents.”
“Ah… Yes, they’re there. But…”
Lee Sia couldn’t finish her sentence. She just fidgeted restlessly.
Oh no. Please don’t tell me her parents abused her or gaslit her too.
No matter what I said, it felt like I was stepping on landmines. Ordinary caution wasn’t nearly enough.
“Do you… not want to go home?”
“It’s not that. I get along really well with my parents. It’s just that…”
Lee Sia looked at me and blushed deeply.
Ah. So that was it.
“As you can see, I’m currently living with my cousin, so… I’m sorry. Besides, I’m not even a magical girl’s caretaker.”
“N-no! I didn’t think that at all! I really didn’t…”
No, no. Saying it with such a gloomy face doesn’t help.
I had my own private life to consider, and with a walking bomb like Seo Eunha already in the house, there was no way I could take in Lee Sia as well.
“You’ll need to go pack your things, right? At that shared house.”
“Yes. Today…”
Lee Sia trailed off.
Sending her alone felt too risky. There was no telling what might happen if she ran into her abuser.
It was dangerous to force a girl who had barely regained her senses to face her perpetrator head-on.
“Has there been any contact?”
“No. My senior has never once reached out to me first.”
That was actually a relief.
Even if she suddenly disappeared, he probably wouldn’t contact her. And if he did, we could just ignore it.
You really managed not to fall completely, Sia.
“When does this senior of yours leave the house?”
“He’s an ordinary office worker, so he’s always out on weekday mornings and afternoons. We should be able to avoid him if we go then.”
“Then let’s go tomorrow. Stay here tonight.”
“Yes!”
Lee Sia looked at me with the brightest smile I had ever seen from her.
And at the edge of my vision, I caught Seo Eunha’s burning glare.
I’m scared.
She’s a villain, so I’m genuinely afraid those eyes might shoot real lasers.
“But today’s Friday. What about tomorrow?”
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
At our simultaneous, idiotic “ah,” Seo Eunha made an extremely annoyed face.
Guess it can’t be helped. Even if I could feel her glare boring into me, we’d have to stay together at least until Monday.
Before I could even finish that thought, Lee Sia was already staring at me with eyes full of expectation.
“Then… I suppose I’ll have to stay here until Monday.”
“Yes!”
“What?”
Cold frost on my left, burning affection on my right.
Can’t you two just mix half and half?
One is full of poison, the other full of moisture. The whole house feels incredibly gloomy.
“It can’t be helped.”
“What, should the Management Bureau take her in, or should we book a motel room?”
“Song Chaeeun.”
“Fine, I get it. But I want a whole box of Royal Cream.”
A whole box of that twenty-thousand-won ice cream?
Before I could even protest, Seo Eunha had already thrown on her jacket, and Lee Sia was glancing at me shyly before trailing after us like a little puppy.
If only Kim Hayoung were here. At least then we wouldn’t have to worry about food.
When we arrived at the mart, we wandered around without any real purpose.
Buying a bunch of meal kits meant getting large quantities and producing a ton of trash. Cooking for three every time wasn’t exactly easy either.
“I’m perfectly fine with expired food that Yujin-nim throws away.”
“That’s all well and good, but please don’t say things like that in front of other people.”
I really needed to fix that mindset of hers first.
Still, she was gentle, small, and cute. If I were to raise a dog, it would probably feel exactly like this.
Either that, or a perfectly obedient “real” cousin.
I patted Lee Sia’s head the way I would a younger sibling—only to lift my head at the grotesque sound coming from right beside me.
Seo Eunha was looking up at me while gripping the shopping cart with terrifying strength. The handle, having escaped her grasp, was brutally crushed and mangled.
“You said you weren’t jealous.”
“I said I wouldn’t tell you not to look at other bitches. Who said I wasn’t jealous? Are those two things the same?”
A pitiful metallic squeak leaked from the mangled cart handle.
I broke out in a cold sweat under the stares of passing shoppers and quickly covered the destroyed handle with my own hand.
“People are watching. We might have to pay for damages.”
But Seo Eunha ignored me completely, shooting a murderous glare at Lee Sia.
“What, you like it when ahjussi touches you? You look like you’re about to wag your tail.”
“Hiiik, heup. I-I’m sorry. For someone as lowly as me to dirty Yujin-nim’s hand with my filthy hair… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. This head of mine…!”
Lee Sia shrank in on herself like a hamster, then suddenly bent forward as if she were about to slam her forehead into the bare floor.
“No, stop! Don’t listen to her! Please don’t headbutt the floor in the middle of the mart!”
I panicked and grabbed her shoulders, forcibly pulling her back up before she could crack her skull on the tiles.
One side was committing property damage, the other was trying to self-harm.
I was sure the magical girl harem stories my younger brother used to read were full of happy, smiling faces. So why was I stuck filming some unidentifiable genre right now?
“Hmmm~”
For some reason, Seo Eunha’s mood had suddenly improved. She smiled faintly as she rummaged through the ice cream freezer.
Creak.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I’d thought only the handle was broken, but she must have used all her strength. The cart wouldn’t roll straight forward anymore and kept veering sharply to the side.
Please don’t let my life start veering like this too…
“Sia, you pick some too.”
“I’m fine with…”
“Don’t say anything about 1+1 deals. Just pick whatever you want comfortably.”
“No, I’m really okay with just the bits stuck to the lid or the very end of the stick.”
This woman was surpassing even my wildest imagination.
“Don’t tell me you do the same with snacks—”
“I’m perfectly happy eating just the crumbs left at the bottom of the bag! It’s true!”
Was this twisted sense of values the result of gaslighting, or was it some misguided kindness so she wouldn’t burden me?
Seo Eunha casually grabbed two boxes of ice cream and snorted.
“She’s just acting all humble. Wake up, ahjussi. She’s clearly trying to trigger your sympathy so she can take over the master bedroom.”
“That’s not true at all! I’m fine sleeping in the bathroom—no, even at the front door!”
“That’s even more disgusting.”
My stamina was already as tattered as this broken shopping cart.
“Song Chaeeun, stop. Put one box back. And Sia, please just pick something normal that you actually want to eat. I’m happy when you’re happy. I’m glad when you’re comfortable.”
With sparkling eyes directed at me, Lee Sia picked something from the bread aisle.
[90% Off - Expiry Date Imminent]
“Look at this! It’s practically free! I can eat this for three whole days!”
“……”
“……”
Even Seo Eunha, who had been getting irritated at Lee Sia’s every move, looked utterly fed up. She disappeared with the two boxes of ice cream.
“Hey, hey! Song Chaeeun!”
It looked like fixing Lee Sia’s sense of values was going to take a while.
“Go pick out something proper.”
“It’s really okay! The dry, crumbly texture of this soboro bread feels so familiar to me.”
“Familiar?”
“Yes. After my senior hit me and I couldn’t wash properly, it felt just like my own sk—mmph!”
Before the people around us could hear, I hurriedly covered Lee Sia’s mouth.
The truly amazing part was how every single thing she said managed to send the mood straight to hell.
I took the bread from her arms and replaced it with freshly baked soboro bread and white bread.
“Sia. From now on, these are the forbidden items in our house. No 1+1 deals. No clearance sales. No eating the ends of ice cream sticks. No snacking on leftover cookie crumbs.”
“But if I eat something this luxurious, my organs might go into shock and reject it!”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Ahjussi, are those rules really okay?”
At some point Lee Sia had climbed onto the half-full cart like it was a toy and rolled up beside me.
“No 1+1 means if what you want is on a 1+1 deal, you can’t get it. No clearance sales means if what you want is on sale because it’s about to expire, you can’t get it. No eating the ends of ice cream sticks means you have to throw away the stick part every time. And no cookie crumbs… well, I think you get that one.”
“Aah…”
I’d thought Seo Eunha—who threw tantrums and shot sharp glares at the slightest provocation—was the most troublesome one, but it turned out someone far more difficult had appeared.
“Cancel that. Just eat whatever you want, Sia. But only fresh stuff, not the old stuff. Got it? That’s an order.”
“Ah! Yes. If it’s an order from Yujin-nim…”
Why was her face turning red again?
“Is this a mart or a midnight date spot?”
“Song Chaeeun, I told you to put the ice cream back. What else did you throw in there? I said put it back.”
“No. This is for ahjussi’s ordinary happiness. Taking care of me is your happiness, isn’t it?”
Seo Eunha somehow managed to ride the wrecked cart again and vanished down the aisle, while Lee Sia stayed glued nervously to my side.
Today of all days, I really missed the girl from the convenience store…