The Strongest Magical Girl
The next day.
Thanks to the class president's discretion, a message arrived from our teacher: we were allowed to take the day off from school. It even said we could rest a few more days if we needed to, and to take care of ourselves at home...
"Haaah..."
Unfortunately, she was here. There was no kicking back and resting easy — especially not after what I'd seen yesterday.
"Hey, Harin. How are you feeling?"
"I told you I'm fine. You've asked me that like a hundred times since this morning."
She'd fought a battle that brutal yesterday, and even if it hadn't been because of the class president, she'd been coughing up blood. How was I supposed to not worry? Whatever the class president had been thinking — whatever they'd talked about — she'd let Lee Harin walk away. And that only made me more uneasy.
"I didn't get hurt. Injuries like that heal in an hour anyway..."
Lee Harin tried to reassure me, then covered her mouth with her wrist, her expression shifting so slightly I almost missed it. She glanced at her wrist. Her eyes went wide for a moment. Then she rubbed the edge of it with her other hand.
Suspicious.
"What was that just now?"
"Ah, it's nothing. I just bit my tongue while I was talking..."
Her voice was shaking in a way it never did. She was definitely hiding something.
I strode toward her at once, and with every step I took, the tremor in her eyes grew worse. When I'd closed the distance to right in front of her, I snatched her wrist without warning.
What I saw was—
"Hey! Th-this is blood...!"
"Tsk. I told you I'm fine. It just still hurts a little, that's all."
"That is the opposite of fine!"
I rummaged through the living room drawer and pulled out a first-aid kit I hadn't touched in years. Then I dropped down beside her, flicked on my phone's flashlight, and said:
"Open your mouth."
"Are you insane!? Wh-why would I—!"
"I need to look to know, don't I? And you even lied to me. You think I don't remember how you've always hidden it whenever you got hurt?"
"Kh, khhh...!"
Harin furrowed her brow, looking thoroughly aggrieved, then squeezed her eyes shut and carefully opened her mouth. I shone the flashlight inside and examined her inner cheeks and her throat. There were a few wounds, and it looked a little swollen, but it didn't seem too serious.
"A-are you done..?"
"Hmm..."
Had it really just been pooled blood that had spilled out of her mouth? A corner of my heart was still uneasy, but without any evidence I couldn't press her any further. I grabbed the propolis spray from the kit and gave the inside of her mouth a couple of light spritzes.
Pssht. Psshhht.
"Mmph, ughhhh...!"
Harin trembled from head to toe, looking like she'd completely lost it from the bittersweet taste of the propolis sprayed down her throat. Oh, right. She'd always hated bitter things. Even so, propolis had a decent amount of sweetness to it. Was she really reacting this badly?
"Ugh... Siwoo, I hate you..."
Tears welled at the corners of her eyes. But I—
Psshhht.
"Ah, shit...!"
—sprayed her one more time. When I'd used this stuff myself, I'd needed at least three sprays before it felt like a proper coating had formed.
"Ugh, it tastes awful..."
"That's your punishment for hiding that you were hurt."
"Hmph. Who are you to—"
Harin grumbled, gathering saliva in her mouth and swallowing it down, when—
Ding-dong.
Someone had pressed the doorbell. Harin tilted her head, looking back and forth between the front door and me, but I picked up my phone instead and checked the time. It was already four o'clock. Right around when school would be letting out.
"She's here."
Steeling myself, I walked slowly to the front door and placed my hand on the handle. It was a lock that disengaged the moment you pressed down, so just as I put my weight into it and started to pull—
Whump!
"...What are you doing, Harin?"
"D-don't open it..."
Harin had practically teleported from the sofa, blinking into existence behind me and wrapping her arms around me tight.
"I-it's definitely that Pink-Head... I'm a hundred percent sure...!"
"And what's the problem with that...? The class president's coming to help you... And I already talked to her over text, so I know she's coming!"
Thud.
Harin, who had been trembling as she clung to me, now had betrayal written all over her face.
"Wh-wha, why...?"
"You said she told you herself. That she'd help as much as she possibly could. And you said you wanted to break free from the brainwashing too. So..."
As I finished speaking, I put force into the handle.
"N-no...!"
Creeeak.
Before Harin could even reach out to stop me, the front door swung open. Through the gap, along with a flood of bright sunlight, came the navy jacket and red plaid skirt unique to our school uniform. Then, wearing a smile as bright as the sunlight at her back, the class president appeared, slightly adjusting her round glasses.
"Hey, Siwoo...?"
She started to wave in greeting, then froze the moment she saw Harin glued to my back. She looked at Harin. Then at me. Back and forth, again and again — until she finally shouted loud enough to shake the entire apartment.
"You said you weren't doing that kind of thing!!!"
The class president's face had gone strangely, vividly red.
Approximately ten minutes later.
After I'd barely managed to prove to the class president that Harin had clung to me of her own accord — trying to stop me from opening the door — she finally regained her composure, scratching her head in embarrassment.
"I-I misunderstood... Sorry. You two were just so stuck together..."
"Like I told you at the café yesterday, I have absolutely no intention of doing that kind of thing with her—"
Crrrack.
What the hell was that sound just now? I turned toward what seemed like a wooden board snapping.
Crunch. Crunch-crunch. Crunch-crunch.
There was Harin, her red eyes flashing with some fresh grievance, staring me down as she chewed through the snacks the class president had brought as a gift — like she was tearing into a sheet of steel. Just how hard was she biting for a cookie to make a sound like splintering wood?
Anyway.
"Haaah... Anyway! Harin. I came to help. So you can relax now and—"
"I don't need it."
Crunch.
Harin finished off the last cookie she'd been holding between her fingers in a single bite, then continued.
"You're a magical girl. How am I supposed to know what you'd do to me? And you've already forgotten that you attacked me, huh?"
"H-Harin?"
At her hostile tone, the class president's expression crumbled in an instant.
"The only reason I haven't treated you people as enemies is because of one promise I made with this idiot Siwoo. I've been behaving. I haven't caused any incidents. So who are you to—"
"I know. I know that, Harin."
The class president cut her off, adjusting her glasses once more.
"You're right. Ever since you and Siwoo reunited, there hasn't been a single recorded civilian casualty caused by you. Magical girls included."
"Then that's enough, isn't it? Why are you coming after me—"
"It's simple."
She continued in that same solemn voice from before.
"Because you were in despair. Because you had the eyes of someone about to give up on everything. So I reached out. To help you."
"..."
"I reported it to the Association as a battle between Demon King Army executives. They'll never know that you're one of them."
When she finished speaking, a heavy silence settled over the apartment. One of them was hoping desperately that Harin would understand. The other had sunk into deep thought. If anyone so much as misspoke, I was a hundred percent done for — a powder keg of a situation. It stretched on, and on, until—
"Haaaaaah...!"
A sigh so deep it could have swallowed the earth itself escaped from Lee Harin. And then:
"Why the hell are you trying to help me, Pink-Head."
"Hey, don't call her Pink-Head... that's the class president..."
"I'm a Demon King Army executive. And as horrible as it might be from your perspective, I used to be a magical girl too. An enemy of humanity. A stain of a hybrid, riddled with blemishes."
Harin's eyes looked like she simply could not comprehend the person sitting in front of her. It was as if she were staring at something fundamentally alien — something whose very origin was different from her own.
"If we'd actually been close, sure. I could see it. But we weren't, were we? Were we friends? We ran into each other at school a handful of times, that's it. It's not like you were my childhood friend, unlike this guy."
"...You're right, Harin."
The class president nodded without a hint of denial.
"But I decided I would anyway. That's why I became a magical girl. And it's the promise I made with my sister."
"Sister?"
Harin tilted her head. The class president nodded in turn and continued.
"That's right. The magical girl who never gave up, even as she wielded the sword of moonlight. Even if the one she faced was a magical girl who had fallen into despair and become corrupted..."
"You— fuck! That's—!"
BOOM.
Harin kicked her chair back and slammed her fist down on the table. I sat beside them, staring blankly, barely managing to keep up with the conversation. Who on earth was the class president's sister? And why had Harin reacted like that? Everything was a tangle of questions.
"Pink-hair. That sister of yours... don't tell me..."
"That's right."
The class president nodded, her voice even. Even so, she quietly closed her eyes and lightly placed her right hand over her heart.
She opened her eyes — filled with resolve, overflowing with memory.
The Strongest Magical Girl
Hope flashed.