Shaken Hearts
Not long after, it was lunchtime.
For whatever reason, the Demon King's Army had been getting summoned near the school during lunch period for days now. Today, though, I made it all the way to the cafeteria, filled my tray, and sat down without a single alarm going off.
I was just about to sink my teeth into a delicious pork cutlet I hadn't had in ages, keenly aware of just how long it had been since a peaceful lunch like this...
Of all times.
"Seoyeon, you still haven't caught that Demon King Army Executive?"
"Yeah. After running into her twice in a row last time, she hasn't shown her face since. Looks like she's been popping up elsewhere, though..."
Because of the magical girls sitting across from me, chatting away about their secrets behind a barrier of Silence Magic, I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
Of all things, they'd started talking about Lee Harin the second we sat down. I was so rattled I couldn't tell if the food was going into my mouth or my nose.
And that wasn't even the worst of it. They'd planted themselves on either side of me, with me stuck right in the middle. I could feel the other guys around us shooting looks thick with jealousy and envy.
If those idiots knew who these two really were, they'd probably want nothing to do with them. Or they'd lose their minds as magical girl fans. Then again, if they ever found out how many completely unreal things had happened because I'd gotten mixed up with these two, they wouldn't be so eager to jump on the bandwagon.
Anyway.
"By the way, our Siwoo! I heard all about it from Seoyeon! You deliberately drew the Demon King's Army's aggro when there were too many people around for her to transform, right?"
"Haha, well... I owed her my life from before. Figured I should help out."
"Hmm. Then I helped you out once too, so next time you'll help me, yeah? Promise?"
"...Alright."
The more I tried to keep my distance or push them away, the more tangled up I seemed to get. I couldn't tell if this was just my rotten luck, or if everything had started going this way after Lee Harin latched onto me.
...This was exactly why I'd tried so hard not to get close to anyone. Watching all that effort go up in smoke in the blink of an eye left me with a strange feeling.
"But is there even anything I could help you with..."
"Hey! Then what about when you helped Seoyeon? Was that not helping? Just everyday stuff?"
"Uh..."
She had a point.
...I couldn't even remember what had possessed me to do that. It hadn't even been a week, so why did it feel like a lifetime ago?
"Well... honestly, just knowing our identities is already a pretty big help. We've got secrets we can't tell anyone, and you're someone we can share them with without worrying."
"She's right. The Magical Girl Association even says it's okay to disclose to one or two trustworthy people. I agree with that, to some extent."
"I'm a trustworthy person?"
I didn't think I'd done anything to earn that kind of trust. All I'd done was keep the class president's identity a secret, help her out once when there were people watching, answer carefully so that neither Harin nor the class president would get hurt, and then—after finding out Kim Min-ah's identity—refuse to give up the class president's name even when pressed...
"Ah...!"
A sudden wave of dizziness hit me mid-sentence, and I clutched my head.
"Siwoo, what's wrong?"
"It's nothing. I'm fine..."
Looking back on it, I supposed I had built up some trust.
What kind of creature was a human being, anyway? Someone who could never be satisfied no matter how suspiciously grand the gesture, yet could be moved by the smallest of things.
Getting this deeply involved... maybe it hadn't started when I found out the Demon King Army Executive was Lee Harin. Maybe it had been decided the moment I crossed paths with the class president on that street.
Fate or coincidence... I really couldn't say.
"Anyway... Siwoo. Someone like you is a friend we can trust."
"I agree! You never answered my questions all the way to the end! That's proof enough!"
"..."
They trusted me like that, and here I was hiding a Demon King Army Executive—an enemy of magical girls—in my living room. And not just any executive. My childhood friend. A former magical girl.
Was there even a more unbelievable story than this?
I let out a wry chuckle at my own thoughts and scooped a spoonful of soup into my mouth.
"Hahh... how did I end up knowing two magical girls..."
"So what! It's great! It's amazing!"
Kim Min-ah's eyes lit up as she jumped on my muttered complaint.
"They say every beginning is sudden! But! It always turns into something inevitable! Maybe it's destiny!"
"...?"
If the beginning was sudden, how did that make it inevitable? And how was that destiny...?
I tilted my head at the incomprehensible statement. Beside me, the class president let out a long sigh and picked up where Mina left off.
"Siwoo. Mina's... a little hard to follow sometimes."
"Ah..."
"What's hard to follow?! I only ever quote famous lines that everybody knows!"
For a moment, the image of Kim Min-ah from yesterday flashed through my mind—spinning around inside that building and shouting, Behold, I have arrived!
Then the flashy, over-the-top brawl that followed, and the way she'd asked if I wanted to get reeled in only to declare she wouldn't wait for an answer. Well. She was unique in a lot of ways.
...Not that I was exactly normal myself.
"Anyway, Siwoo!"
Kim Min-ah's energetic voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
"Now that the three of us know about each other, wanna hit karaoke together?"
"Karaoke?"
"Yeah! I mean, there's somewhere else I'd rather go, honestly, but with three people karaoke seems like the better call!"
"I'm in. It's been a while since I've been to karaoke. And I've never gone with a friend who knows my identity."
"Well..."
Karaoke, huh. Going together as a kind of get-together didn't seem like a bad idea. Lately, thanks to Lee Harin, I'd had a lot less time to just let loose and have fun without a care in the world.
One day...
"Yeah, sure."
Harin wouldn't give me a hard time for being a little late. One day wouldn't hurt.
...Right?
"You're late."
"Sorry..."
I was really late.
The place we'd gone was just an ordinary coin karaoke, so how had it taken this long? Then again, every time Kim Min-ah sang a song, it somehow felt like it lasted forever. Who even picks songs where you can't skip the intro or search for the next track while they're playing...!
"I went to karaoke with some classmates and lost track of time..."
"Karaoke? You? What for?"
"Well..."
What would happen if I told her I'd found out another magical girl's identity and gone as a little social mixer? One of two things, probably. She'd either ask what intel I'd gathered and tell me to find out more—or she'd blow up at me for daring to hang out with magical girls while leaving her behind.
If it was the latter, I'd just be grateful if my head stayed attached to my body. She was that unpredictable. And sometimes she wasn't entirely in her right mind.
"You just thought something really annoying, didn't you."
"...No I didn't."
How was her intuition this sharp?
"Anyway, I got the Choco Pies I promised..."
Before I could even finish, a tentacle shot out of Lee Harin's shadow and snatched the plastic bag right out of my hand. Then she clutched it to her chest like treasure, opened the box, and tore into the packaging of one of the snacks inside.
"...Pace yourself."
"..."
The only sound in the living room was the quiet rustle of Lee Harin fussing with the plastic bag.
"Ugh..."
I groaned and dropped onto the opposite end of the sofa. Out of habit, I pulled out my phone and quickly scanned the headlines at the top of a news site.
Same as always. The top stories were plastered with news about magical girls and the Demon King's Army.
I was maintaining my friendships with the magical girls to help Lee Harin, but getting actual information was still far from easy. Even if they saw something trustworthy in me, there was a big difference between someone they could trust and someone they fully relied on. They probably had me in the former category.
"Oh, right. The class president was worried you still haven't shown up."
"Tsk. What's that pink-head going off about now?"
Lee Harin grumbled, already tearing open a second Choco Pie wrapper as if she were going to eat her irritation away.
I stared at her from the side. That tiny body of hers could apparently put away an entire box of Choco Pies in under an hour. I was wondering what kind of biology even made that possible when—
"...What are you looking at."
I must have been staring too hard. Lee Harin turned her eyes on me and glared.
"Nothing. Just thinking you eat well."
"What's that supposed to mean..."
She grumbled for a moment, then reached into the box and pulled out another unopened Choco Pie. I figured she was about to eat two at once, and watched—
"...Want one?"
She held a Choco Pie out toward me with one hand.
...What was she doing? This wasn't a girl who'd share a Choco Pie with me for no reason.
Still, I wasn't stupid enough to turn down a free snack. And it had been a while since I'd had a Choco Pie.
"Then I'll gladly—"
The moment I carefully reached for the Choco Pie, her hand shot out and seized my wrist.
...Why?
"Hey."
"Y-yeah?"
Lee Harin lowered her voice, then pulled my hand up toward her face and sniffed.
"You went and met another magical girl, didn't you."
"H-how did you...!"
Lee Harin kept staring at my hand, then finally lifted her head.
Lee Harin's crimson eyes burned even redder.