Room 401
A notification chimed from the phone I'd left sitting on my desk. I reached out and fumbled around until my fingers closed over it, then pulled it close and checked the message.
I sent the reply the way I always did, then tapped out another question.
At her words, the last knot of anxiety still lingering in a corner of my chest seemed to melt away like snow. I started typing again.
A moment later, the tiny number beside the bubble I'd sent vanished. After that, though, minutes crawled by without a single reply from the class president. I closed the chat and had just started looking at something else when my phone buzzed again.
"Mm..."
Maybe I shouldn't have asked. I'd figured it was something like that Awakening the class president had gone through last time — but maybe this was a little different? Well... it wasn't like I was a magical girl. How would I know?
"...Huh?"
I tilted my head at the class president's suddenly truncated message. This was a girl who never made typos, who always ended her replies with a proper period. Getting a text like that from her was genuinely bizarre. A flicker of worry had just started to surface when my phone buzzed again.
It was nothing but text on a screen. So why did it feel like Kim Min-ah's voice was punching straight through the display?
I sent that, then immediately followed it with another.
The second I tapped send, a thought crept in that maybe I shouldn't have. It wasn't as if she'd gone to some ordinary hospital, and the request felt a little too familiar — a little too close. I could call her a friend without hesitation now, sure. But that didn't mean Kim Min-ah necessarily saw it the same way.
Fortunately, it seemed friendship didn't tell lies.
A few days later.
After school, I walked Lee Harin home, changed into going-out clothes, and headed straight back out the door.
"I'm going to visit someone in the hospital for a bit. Watch the house for me."
"...Okay."
I could have sworn I felt Lee Harin's gaze boring into my back, sharp as a blade — but that had to be my imagination.
I slung my bag over my shoulder, left the apartment, and made for the place I'd promised to meet the class president. It was a fair distance, enough that I had to catch a bus and transfer once along the way. But thirty minutes still counted as nearby, right?
Anyway. I walked the last stretch and arrived at the meeting spot about ten minutes early.
"Ah, Siwoo!"
The class president had clearly been waiting even longer. The moment she spotted me, she lit up, waving happily as she trotted over with quick little steps. Her street clothes — a loose t-shirt and a long skirt — were a genuine shock to someone who'd only ever seen her in a school uniform or a magical girl outfit.
"Is it around here?"
"Yeah, the hospital's right there!"
She pointed across the street at a large general hospital. I'd just started to think she was receiving treatment somewhere more ordinary than I'd expected when she spoke up again.
"Ah — and this!"
She rummaged through her tote bag and pulled out a lanyard ID badge of the kind only doctors and nurses seemed to wear, then held it out to me.
"There's a dedicated magical girl ward inside. You need this to get in. It's a kind of clearance pass."
"There's a place like that?"
"Yep! Unless it's a really tiny neighborhood clinic, most hospitals have one."
It was a thought I kept having: magical girls were involved in our world far more deeply than I'd ever imagined. The class president in my own homeroom was a magical girl. The energetic, wildly popular girl from the class next door was a magical girl. And my childhood friend — the one I'd been close to since we were little, before things had gone awkwardly quiet for a while — was a former magical girl and a former Demon King Army Executive, of all things.
What kind of world was this supposed to be... No. I was the weird one here, wasn't I.
Anyway.
"Ah, and there are a few things you should know before we go in!"
I'd been about to start walking with her when she stopped me and spoke up again. Things I needed to know, apparently, before entering a hospital exclusively for magical girls.
"First: almost everyone who works in there is a healing-type magical girl, so don't freak out when you see them."
I nodded. Fair enough. Even in an ordinary hospital, gawking and making a scene would be a nuisance. Walking into a place packed with magical girls, clearance pass and all, and then gasping at every single person I saw would definitely get on people's nerves.
"Got it. What's the second?"
"Try not to wander off on your own. Stay in Min-ah's room with us, okay?"
"That's easy enough..."
I nodded again, and only then did the class president flash a bright grin and sweep one hand toward the building.
"Let's go!"
I followed her inside, and a spacious lobby ringed in marble floors and walls opened up before my eyes. We walked a little farther, then turned down a tucked-away corridor. Waiting for us at the far end was a thick iron door, stamped with a warning.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
"Give me a second?"
The class president stepped up to the keypad mounted beside the iron door, laid her palm against it, and murmured something under her breath. Pink mana flowed into the panel. A small chime sounded, and the door swung open.
"So a place like this existed..."
"Ordinary people would just glance at it and walk on by, right?"
"Yeah, definitely."
A door this tucked away, labeled Authorized Personnel Only — people probably wouldn't even glance at it. They wouldn't come anywhere near.
"All right, let's go!"
She called it out carefully and walked through. I followed at her heels, and the iron door shut behind us with a dull, automatic thud. The air inside was a mix of disinfectant and a faint, languid fragrance drifting underneath.
"Hss... I feel like I've smelled this somewhere before..."
"Ah, this scent?"
The class president gave a little sniff herself, then smiled brightly as she went on.
"It's the smell you get when someone uses healing magic! Healing spells above a certain power leave a fragrance like this. And this place is hidden and sealed off, so it lingers."
"Ah..."
"You probably smelled it last time, when I used magic."
I tilted my head, wondering if that was what I'd caught back then, then pushed the thought aside and kept walking. It wasn't what mattered right now.
"This is Min-ah's room!"
The class president stopped in front of a door marked in large lettering.
The somewhat heavy door slid open.
"Min-ah! We're here!"
"Oh! Seoyeon! Siwoo! You came!"
What greeted us was Kim Min-ah, dressed in a white hospital gown, lying on the bed and waving at me with unfiltered delight. And right beside her, a woman with a gentle, languid air sat looking over — someone I was fairly sure I'd seen before. She looked about college-aged. Where had I...?
"Ah, Senior Haneul. You came? What about the cafe?"
"I hung a temporarily closed sign on the door and came over~"
A slow, unhurried voice — matching her impression perfectly — drifted through the room. The class president put a spring of genuine welcome into her step as she went over to her.
"How's your body been?"
"I've been doing a lot better lately~ I think I'll be able to return soon~"
The two of them looked like they hadn't seen each other in quite a while, and like they were close; they traded greetings with easy little smiles. I stayed out of the conversation and looked around instead.
Paper cups were stacked on the table, and next to them sat something that resembled a very tiny faucet. The only real problem was that it wasn't a thick counter with a sink — just a thin folding table with nothing underneath. Still, I figured I might as well try, so I held a paper cup under it, and water actually came out... except no matter how I looked at the thing, there was no opening on a device that small for water to flow from.
I was turning the little machine this way and that in surprise when I felt a peculiar gaze settling on my back.
"Oh my, you're the kid who came by the cafe last time, aren't you? Nice to meet you~ I'm Lim Haneul~"
"Ah — hello..."
I dipped my head in a bow toward her and took a sip from the paper cup. The woman who'd introduced herself as Lim Haneul wore a languid smile, glancing between the class president and me. And then—
"So you're Seoyeon's boyfriend?"
"Pff— hk!"
Water went down the wrong way. I hadn't seen that coming at all.
"S-Siwoo! Are you okay?!"
"I-I'm fine..."
I snatched up the tissue box in a panic, tore out several sheets, and wiped my mouth and clothes. Lim Haneul watched the whole performance with a face full of unmistakable mischief.
"Oh my, are you all right? You two came together last time too, so I couldn't help wondering."
"No, Senior. We're friends. Friends!"
"Got it~ I'll be sure to remember that~"
She looked at me for a beat, then pushed aside the blanket that had been draped over her lap and rose from her seat.
"Your friends are all here, so I think I'll head out?"
"Ah, take care!"
"Bye-bye!"
The class president and Kim Min-ah bowed their heads and waved, and I dipped my upper body slightly as well to see her off.
"See you next time~"
The sliding door rolled shut with a click, and the person who had brought a small storm of chaos into the room vanished beyond it. Only then could I drop the wet tissues into the trash and carefully take a seat in the chair beside the bed.