The Chemistry of Stories
"Gahhh... I'm sorry! Siwoo! I saw a listing go up and I just couldn't hold back!"
A few minutes later, Kim Min-ah came back. After dragging me off somewhere, she'd vanished down an alley like a shot with a wait just a second — and now here she was again.
The tote bag that had been empty before now had a thick box jutting out of it, radiating a presence too conspicuous to ignore. It looked like an ordinary brown box at a glance, but given how bulky it was, whatever sat inside had to be something pretty important.
"What is it that's got you like this?"
"Ahaha... i-it's a little embarrassing to say..."
Kim Min-ah scratched her head with an awkward laugh, then opened the tote bag, pulled out the box, and held it out to me. I took the slightly brownish cardboard box and looked at the top. There, in large black ink, were the letters:
"What's this?"
"I-it's a toy... a transformation belt..."
"Ah."
I carefully turned the box back around and gently slipped it into the tote bag she was holding. How badly must she have wanted this, to shout that a listing had gone up in the middle of us hanging out and come sprinting all the way here? I had no intention of giving her a hard time over her hobbies.
Besides...
"Th-this is the Version 2 that came out as an upgrade in 2023... it was so popular it was going for a huge premium!"
"Yeah? How popular are we talking?"
"Hmm... there were some defect issues, but popular enough that people who already owned Version 1 still switched over to this?"
Her eyes sparkling, Kim Min-ah kept going.
"I really, really wanted one, but then a few years after it went on sale, the Demon King's Army attacks started... and something that was already rare got even rarer..."
For a moment she seemed to darken, as if replaying the whole ordeal of getting her hands on it — then she glanced at the tote bag and smiled again.
"Yeah? What series is it that you like it this much?"
"Hmm... a story about a protagonist with no dreams, who protects other people's dreams?"
Kim Min-ah grinned wide and went on. "The reason I decided to become a magical girl in the first place was because of this series."
As she said it, she peeked at the side of the tote bag, looking at the text printed on the box inside.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. I didn't really have anything I wanted to do, but for some reason I felt like I could do it if I were a hero! Hehe!"
"How long have you been a magical girl?"
"Hmm... about four years? Three, maybe? Hehe, pretty long, huh?"
Kim Min-ah put on a bright smile — then, for a moment, her steps halted and her expression hardened. It was so unlike her that I found myself tilting my head without thinking. She even looked a little down. Why, though?
It was a look I'd never seen on her before, so I ran my brain at full throttle, retracing whether I'd done something wrong. But no matter how hard I thought about it, I hadn't messed up...
"W-what's wrong? Did I do something...?"
"Huh? Ah, no! You didn't do anything wrong, Siwoo! It's just..."
She offered an awkward smile for a moment, then scratched her cheek with an embarrassed laugh.
"...I guess you'd say I'm a little sad. Or that my self-esteem took a hit."
She was looking right at me, smiling wide. As if to say it was fine. Don't worry about it. She was the weird one, so it wasn't a problem.
"Alright! I'm fine, so let's get back to our date! There's an arcade I go to a lot nearby...!"
Before I knew it, I'd reached out and caught her hand. A faint shiver ran through my whole body, but it was fine. The girl who'd been running ahead and then stopped in front of me was giving off this feeling that if I didn't hold on, she'd only get sadder.
"Haha... this isn't really the kind of thing you talk about on a date..."
Kim Min-ah rolled her eyes as if thinking it over, then carefully pointed toward a nearby park.
"Want to sit down and talk?"
"Here. A cola."
"Thanks, Siwoo."
Kim Min-ah gave the soda she'd been handed a very light shake up and down, then pulled the tab. The can hissed and popped. She gave it another light shake, then took a sip.
A few seconds passed. A heavy silence stretched on, until she opened her mouth.
"Honestly, I don't have much talent as a magical girl."
"You don't have talent?"
"...Yeah."
She put on that bitter expression again and sipped her cola, as if trying to bury the sad thoughts under the sweetness.
"Do you know why magical girls shout their technique names as loud as they can whenever they use magic?"
"Uh... I dunno? Isn't it just like an incantation?"
"Hmm... close. More precisely, it's one of the most effective ways to sharpen your Magic Resolution. If you say Fireball, anyone can picture a ball of fire flying, right?"
I nodded. I'd always wondered why, if their identities were supposed to be secret, they didn't just transform quietly and jump out — why they insisted on shouting a transformation call and striking a pose. And when using magic, silently firing off multiple shots would be faster and more efficient — and yet in almost every case, they shouted the technique names.
"Magic that doesn't have a clear resolution comes out half-baked. That's why, whenever possible, shouting the technique name is the standard."
"Put another way, if your imagination is as bad as mine, the range of magic you can use shrinks. Most spells I just can't use at all."
She smiled bitterly.
"In my case, it was especially bad. I'd been watching tokusatsu way more than magical girl shows since I was little, so my already-poor magic manifestation got even worse."
"Ah, is that why even in combat...?"
"That's right. The reason I go for hand-to-hand instead of fighting like other magical girls is because of this."
She lightly tapped her own head with a finger.
"Well, there are other magical girls who prefer close combat besides me, so I didn't really worry about it. I figured what mattered was working hard and protecting people's dreams. But..."
"But?"
"...the longer I kept at it, the more I realized my limits. How weak I am. How I'm nowhere near enough to save everyone."
Once her true feelings and self-reproach had started spilling out, they kept coming without a pause.
"Especially last time, and this time too. Against the really strong ones from the Demon King's Army, I couldn't even leave a scratch. I just got my consciousness eaten and collapsed, or got slammed into a wall and knocked out. Pathetic."
"On top of that, my closest friend is Lunafall's little sister, and she's insanely talented. I try not to compare myself, but I end up doing it anyway. And she's got even more pressure on her, and she's already had an Awakening..."
She hadn't named anyone, but I knew in an instant she meant the class president.
"Of course, there are magical girls who've been at it for years who still haven't Awakened. Still... it just feels disappointing. Haaa..."
Kim Min-ah let out a long sigh, sipped her cola again, and forced her usual bright smile back onto her face.
"Well, that's about it! Sorry. We're on a date and I went and dumped a bunch of stuff you didn't want to hear! Ah, this is a secret from Seoyeon, okay?"
She glossed over her own secret and stood up from the bench. I was staring at her back when she, having started walking ahead, turned around, closed the distance in a single step, and grabbed my hand.
"C'mon, let's go!"
As she said it, smiling, the faintest hint of moisture had gathered at the corners of her eyes. I planted my legs, determined to stay sitting on the bench, and opened my mouth.
"Min-ah. I don't think that at all."
"Huh? What's that all of a sudden..."
"I've never once thought you were pathetic, or weak. If anything, from the first time I saw you, you were really cool. It was like watching a real tokusatsu hero."
The pull of her arm, trying to tug me along, went slack.
"What you told me about protecting people who have dreams was cool. Dreaming of being a hero was cool. And being able to sacrifice your own dream, too."
"S-Siwoo...?"
"I've felt how sincere you are, being around you. Sure, we haven't known each other that long, but..."
Her dream was to become a hero who protected people who had dreams. If that was Kim Min-ah's dream and her driving force, then who was supposed to protect Min-ah's dream?
I couldn't use magic the way she could. I was even less of a magical girl. I was just one of the countless ordinary high schoolers you could find anywhere on the street.
But what was different now from when we'd first met was this:
Carefully. So very carefully.
I'd become able to put that word in my mouth. Of course, every time I still spoke it out loud, a corner of my heart throbbed. The incident from back then kept surfacing in my mind, and the scene from then overlaid itself on what was in front of me. Just that was enough to make my insides burn and ache.
But now, I could say it.
"I mean it."
Kim Min-ah stared at me, then let go of my hand and hurriedly turned away.
"Hmph, what? Siwoo! I already knew that much, okay!?"
She crossed her arms, tilting her body and head this way and that, and kept talking in a voice that had gone up a whole register.
"I am a se-ri-ous-ly strong magical girl! And I'm going to keep being one, so you, as my comrade, better keep both eyes wide open and watch!"
"Got it. Then about that wish I mentioned last time — is it okay if I use it to watch your exploits from right beside you?"
"Obviously! From the moment we met, our Chemi Story was always going to keep going toward the future!"
Kim Min-ah spun around quickly, looked at me, and gave a thumbs-up.
"...What's that supposed to be."
"There's a thing like that!"
She smiled.