A Certain Emotion (5)

Once Hayun's flustered mood had settled back to normal, this time it was Jua who was the problem.

For some reason, Jua — who lately had taken to falling asleep holding my hand — had gone strangely quiet on me, perhaps because last night there hadn't even been a chance for that. If you asked me to explain exactly what was strange about it, I wouldn't have much to say, but at a glance, I'd say she looked a little deflated.

The problem was that with Jua, I couldn't snap her out of it the way I had with Hayun. Well, obviously. I could watch Jua cling to me and call us close, but whether we were close enough for that — even I couldn't say for sure. We were both girls, so I figured it shouldn't matter, but Jua was in a different class to begin with. Marching over there to drag her out and tease her — it wasn't as if I were some schoolyard delinquent.

"..."

On top of that, ever since I'd shoved my face right up to Hayun's to lodge my complaints, Hayun had taken to hanging off my arm everywhere we went. And seeing that, Jua seemed to feel all the more distant — even though she'd had no problem clinging to me in her sleep until now. Not that it mattered much; the other kids in our class seemed to keep a little distance from Hayun and me too. Was she regretting having copied me, now of all times? That part, at least, I rather enjoyed.

Dully letting the endless, boring school lessons wash past one ear, I instead felt my heart settle, a slow calm creeping over me. I had never once wanted to come back to school — coming here only ever meant unpleasant things. And yet it occurred to me that this might still be better than doing nothing while holed up in the ruins. At least here, there was something, anything, to do. Besides, going back home again felt good too. Jihye aside, it seemed I genuinely loved that orphanage. It was the home where I'd spent my entire childhood — a fact no amount of time would change — and I had no memories of abuse or anything of the kind there, so of course I did.

And so — just as I was waiting for nothing but the boring hours to end.

Piiip-piiip-piiip-piiip—!

The sudden blare made my shoulders jerk. Hayun, in the seat beside me, was no different. The pager's signal. Class was still in session, but I ignored the teacher and students staring our way and answered at once.

"What's going on?"

A voice came through the pager. Hayun's must have been linked up at the same time, because the same words sounded from both of ours at once, overlapping. Jua and Rose, Dalia and Delphinium were surely hearing it too.

I see. In this situation, there was only one reason to attack the Warp Point. They meant to hold it for even a single instant and escape. ...That they hadn't headed for the ceasefire line was, I supposed, a small mercy.

"Got it." I said that much and looked toward Hayun. She did sometimes deploy straight from school, once in a great while — but since I hadn't gone along every one of those times, I'd never actually seen how she went about it. In the webtoon, though, she'd always run for the rooftop and transform there.

Sure enough, Hayun sprang up from her seat.

"Jieun, this way!"

I nodded at her words and ran after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her.

Getting up to the rooftop to transform was easy. So was summoning my weapon. I'd wondered what color I'd turn in this emotional state — this time, it was black.

I hadn't been given a proper briefing, but I could guess why Cherry had called us. Obviously, it was because of Pangpang. And if that was so, it also meant that when we got there, I would have to face what I'd done — to Pangpang, kidnapped and suffering because of me. Somehow I had a feeling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that if anyone would just say "it's okay," it would be Pangpang... but that was nothing more than my own wishful thinking.

"Flying there will take too long," Rose said flatly.

The place Cherry had named would take quite a while to reach even by air. I couldn't say how long, exactly — I'd never been there once. Normally it would have been somewhere near Seoul. However enormous Noir Corporation was, all of its key facilities had been clustered in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, and everything the company wanted was concentrated around Seoul too — the redevelopments, the reconstructions, all of it. But that was exactly why they couldn't stay in Seoul this time. However light they traveled, they would still need the bare minimum of materials to raise even a makeshift base, and hauling all of that across the heart of a city would be far too conspicuous. Naturally, if they were moving, they'd have gone somewhere else entirely.

And with Pangpang still unfound, they were most likely keeping her with them, or—

I clenched my fist tight. Eyes closed, I focused, gathering the power of despair. Flying was too slow. In that case, right now, this very instant—

"Jieun."

A hand settled softly on my cheek, and I opened my eyes, startled. Hayun's face was there. She looked as though she had made up her mind about something, gazing straight at me.

"You don't have to do that. You don't have to push yourself so hard that you break yourself apart."

"What are you talking about?" I have to fight. I have to fly out this very second and put my hammer through the Chairman's skull—

"You have another power, don't you? A powerful one — I can give you that. The power of hope, the kind that loses to no one."

"Huh?" What is she saying at a time like—

But my thought never made it to the end.

Hayun whispered — and then her face closed the distance all at once, and our lips met.

It lasted only an instant, but I couldn't quite grasp what had happened. Was this the thing I was thinking of? The thing from last time, only shifted a little closer to my lips? Was Hayun doing the thing I had suddenly leaned in to do and then stopped myself from doing? Of her own will? Why? But I never managed to fully answer that question. Before I could, everything before my eyes had gone white.

For a split second I honestly thought I was about to faint, which would have been mortifying. After all this time — after cornering Hayun like that even at lunch — fainting the moment our lips actually met would be a bit much, wouldn't it? But I could feel, clearly, that I was still standing. The soft press of Hayun's hands against both my cheeks. The faintly soft, moist sensation on my lips.

When Hayun's lips, resting lightly against mine, drew away, the world around me had changed. Or rather — the world that had been washed white had found its original colors again. What reached me was the smell of something burning. Noise from every direction, people screaming. All of it sounded far away, and strangely, only this little circle around me was quiet.

"...Hah!" Only once I'd belatedly grasped the situation did I look around. Jua was standing there with a hand over her face. There was Rose, flushed scarlet yet watching us with an expression of thrilled fascination, and Dalia and Delphinium standing shoulder to shoulder, mouths agape, staring blankly our way. Likewise, a few combatants were looking over with oddly dazed looks on their faces. The kaijin were still rampaging, so yes, of course it was loud.

"..." Looking down at myself, I saw that my clothes had, at some point, turned completely white — as though they'd become a wedding dress.

Hayun stepped back a single pace and said, "Lily really does suit you, Jieun."

"That is not what you should be saying right now!" In the end, I couldn't hold it in and let fly with that cartoonish retort. Then I launched myself powerfully into the sky.

"Ah — your skirt...!" I think that was Jua shouting, belatedly — but sadly, I had no room in my head for voices like that just then.

Fleeing right after your first kiss? Fleeing right after your first kiss? Running awayyy right after your first kiiiss!?

Even to myself, it was monumentally embarrassing. Honestly, all I could think was how spectacularly I'd bolted. No — of course kissing someone you like feels good. All the more so when they're the one who starts it.

Even Hayun couldn't possibly be ignorant of what a kiss means. Right? That's why last time she'd kissed my cheek, just beside my lips. Right? But this time — my lips? Thinking it through logically, the notion that it might not have been an entirely wrong choice flashed through my head along with the wind rushing past my face. Because people grow accustomed to stimulation.

Back when I plummeted lower and lower, despair stacked upon despair, I'd needed each new despair to be more intense than the last to wring out more energy. I hadn't exactly gone looking for any of it, but circumstances had put me through it all the same. So naturally, hope worked the same way. At first, merely being held by Hayun had been enough to send energy overflowing — but as time went on, my body shamelessly came to take it for granted.

That must be why Hayun had kissed my cheek back then. She understood this. And after all, Hayun was a girl who fought on hope herself. Which meant that choosing my lips for one overwhelming strike was, logically speaking, the correct move — a stimulus that intense probably couldn't be adapted to so easily. Hayun had put that fact to use for me. Or — had I been the one letting myself be used?

And if you asked whether I hated it — no, I didn't. I'm no heroine out of a shoujo manga, so I know better, but honestly, shouldn't I just be grateful that the girl I like holds me and kisses me? For one thing, I have a girl's face now, and the odds of a girl falling for another girl are a little lower. Setting social prejudice aside entirely, if you compared the biological ratios of heterosexuals to homosexuals, the latter would come out overwhelmingly smaller... no, what am I even saying.

Anyway — that was my first kiss. My first kiss. Astonishing as it may be, I was someone who had never once kissed anybody across both my previous life and this one, so if I'm honest, it wasn't as if I had no romantic notions about this sort of thing... no, what am I saying now. I squeezed the hammer tight in both hands. So, yeah. This was all the Chairman's fault. That was what I decided to believe. I had no idea how I'd ended up in a situation where I needed to be angry about having been made to kiss Hayun, but regardless — that was the story I was sticking to.

I looked down. Had I flown too high? Fleeing had carried me all the way up here, but at least none of the other magical girls had chased me up. Below, five dots of assorted colors had already begun to move, engaging the combatants and kaijin the Chairman appeared to have dragged along at the last minute.

"...Phew." All right. I reversed my grip on the hammer. White light jutted from its head into a sharp point, like an enormous spike. Time to smash whatever came. After all, this was exactly why Hayun had given me her power — so I could swing it. I'd think about the first kiss later. With that thought, I heaved the hammer — no, I supposed I should call it a pickaxe now — high above my head, and dropped.

For the combatants, it was nothing short of a catastrophe. That white mass plunging from the sky like a falling meteor bore down on the kaijin and crushed it into the ground like an old car rolled into the scrapyard. Thanks to the kaijin's trademark durability, it didn't die — and it wasn't literally flattened like scrap metal, either. But the circuit in its chest cracked and shattered on the spot with a crisp snap. A kaijin that had been raging so ferociously.

"Huh?" One of the combatants let the sound slip.

Fsshh.

Not every circuit fared the same, but several of the combatants' devices sputtered feebly and began spewing black smoke. Needles that had been spinning at full tilt drooped, or stopped dead, or were caught in those tiny explosions and simply fell away. The combatants stared hollowly at their blown-out circuits. A few were still in any condition to fight, but—

"E-eek...!"

The white mass was slowly taking on the shape of a person. In her hand was a pickaxe that looked murderous at a glance. If that monstrous thing — big enough to gouge a mine out of the ground right where it stood — came down on you, you wouldn't get off with nothing but a hole in your head. And above all, that white magical girl seemed unable to contain her emotions: the white mass at the end of her weapon swelled, shrank, and shifted shape, surging wildly and unstably. Her face was blank, but you could see euphoria and rage churning together deep beneath it, spilling uncontrollably to the surface.

The combatants whirled around and bolted at full speed. Of course they did. The Chairman had promised a staggering payout at the end — extra money piled on top of their withheld severance pay. Stall for as much time as possible here: that had been the Chairman's final order. The kaijin would attack the magical girls regardless, and as long as everyone kept a sensible distance, there'd be no real trouble — that, too, was what the Chairman had said. But being ordered to fight something like that, no matter how you looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at it—

THUD.

The way out was cut off at once. The magical girl landed right in front of them, pinning something person-shaped — a kaijin — underfoot. Once again, a hiss came from the kaijin's chest along with a wisp of black smoke. It looked like it had already taken several hits: wounds marked its face, and its once-white outfit was smeared with black matter and red blood. And yet its opponent showed no sign of weariness at all.

"You there."

The white lily spoke. That lily was unmistakably poisonous. At that voice — a voice that sounded as though it wanted to pour out everything it felt, anywhere, onto anything — the combatants' feet rooted to the spot.

"Wait right there."

"..."

"Running won't do you any good. I can always chase you. Want me to make sure you can't?"

"N-no, ma'am."

"Who are you calling 'ma'am'?"

She said it as though the very idea were absurd, then soared back into the sky. The combatants stared blankly after her for a moment, then hastily dropped their gazes. Something told them that if they kept watching, they wouldn't be forgiven for it later. Running had never been on the table to begin with. How do you flee from someone who bursts out of empty air in a blaze of white and casually clears everything around her? So instead, the combatants decided to move a respectful distance from the battle, sit down in a tidy row, and wait.

Power was overflowing. It wasn't simply that it overflowed — I flatly could not do a thing with this fizzing, prickling feeling. Thrashing around because I couldn't handle myself — what was I, some girl going through puberty? ...Was I wrong, though? In this world, I was still young, after all. They say puberty is behind you by your teens — but weren't the teen years still exactly when emotions swung far harder than an adult's? So, yeah. That's what this was. Besides, every last bit of it was a first for me.

Come to think of it again, I was a little angry. That was my first kiss. And I was certain it was Hayun's first kiss too — I'd never once imagined Hayun having a boyfriend, and above all, there was that scene in the webtoon where the magical girls grumbled about never being able to get one. And she just spent that first kiss on a friend's power-up? The audacity. Was she saying that if some other magical girl could have taken the power-up instead of me, she'd have spent it there? That if saving the world required her kiss, she'd have paid it without a second thought? Somehow I got the feeling Hayun really could do exactly that, and it stung a little.

And yet, even as I fumed — a furtive thought crept in: thank God the person on the receiving end had been me. Even while I thought it, my circuit spun harder. Unbelievable. This feeling was something I could never tell a soul. I couldn't bring myself to say it even to Hayun herself, could I? "I'm so happy the person you kissed at random turned out to be me" — good grief, what kind of confession is that? So I chose, instead, to simply rampage.

Thankfully, at least, the power itself was overflowing — I could feel the energy in my body running several ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠times its usual amount. My vision was sharper and cleaner, too. I'd never needed glasses in my life, yet here I was learning for the first time that sight could get even better than this.

Two hard things collided with a violent clang. I paid it no mind — heaved the hammer up again and again, repeating the same motion, until the thing was pounded flat into the ground. I tore its circuit out with my bare hand, then turned to meet the three more bodies charging me all at once.

"..." Reason returned slowly. When I paused to imagine what these creatures actually were, my heart settled, if only a little. And at the same time, I thought of exactly the right target for all this energy.

Holding the handle horizontally, I caught the two attackers' blows and shoved them back.

"Hngh!"

Hayun slipped through the gap and cut down two kaijin at once with her blade. The instant Hayun entered my field of view, that ticklish, fluttering feeling tried to claw its way back, and I fought it down with everything I had.

"The Warp Point."

"Yeah."

At my words, Hayun understood at once and nodded — she even turned to look at me. There wasn't a trace of disappointment or wistfulness on that face. All I could see was a bright, radiant smile. And the white light spilling from Hayun's wrist. Seeing it, I still couldn't pin down what I was supposed to feel, so I turned away quickly.

Several trucks hauling trailers were parked near the Warp Point. Were the Chairman and Pangpang inside one of them? I couldn't be certain — but at the very least, the kaijin launching themselves from around those trucks were as numerous as every kaijin I had ever faced put together. In that case, there was only one thing to do: crush every last one of them. Listening to the wind whip past my ears, I settled on that judgment.