Chapter 19. Yearning (2)
Well, whatever.
Apart from the fact that Jua had suddenly shouted it, the argument itself held up. In truth, I'd made a similar case myself not long ago, insisting we change the order we bathed in, so it wasn't exactly shocking for Jua to be making this kind of claim now.
I mean, maybe she just wasn't happy with where she slept. It wasn't as if the room was cramped, exactly, but seven people were sleeping in it, so a little discomfort was understandable.
"What do you think?"
I didn't mind switching spots, but this wasn't entirely my room to decide. The orphanage had never been mine to begin with, so nothing here could truly be called mine—and more than anything, this was a room Jihye and I had always shared. So it was only right to hear out Jihye, who'd been using it with me from the very start.
"I don't mind, as long as it's next to you, Jieun," was Jihye's answer.
Which also made sense. After I'd left this room, Jihye had lived here alone. And before that, it had been just the two of us. Maybe having a crowd sharing one room would feel strange to her? We'd spent most of today fighting outside, so we hadn't exactly been cooped up in here—but the longer this became our everyday, the more that strangeness could curdle into real discomfort.
Jihye was good with people, but that didn't mean she could go from strangers to roommates overnight. Changing into our uniforms in the morning, for instance—that could get a little awkward.
When it came to sleeping, at least, it had to be more comforting to lie beside someone you'd always known, rather than girls you'd only just met on either side of you.
Was that why she always slept pressed so close to me?
"Okay, fine, then. On the condition that the two of us stay together."
When I said that, a smile bloomed across Jua's face.
Had her spot really been that uncomfortable? Hmm. She had grown up in a wealthy family, so I supposed it was possible.
Rose, Dalia, and Delphinium didn't seem particularly invested either way, and Hayun was watching Jua with a somewhat bewildered expression, but Jua showed no intention whatsoever of bending on her demand.
Hayun, for her part, wore a complicated look yet didn't argue back, and so the great reshuffle was carried.
"...Ah."
And then, through sheer rotten luck, Hayun drew the wrong lot and lost the spot beside me. Watching her mutter with an expression of profound regret, I did wonder—couldn't she just have pushed her case a little harder and stopped the whole thing? But well, Hayun had her own way of thinking about things.
When I shrugged at her, Hayun pulled a pitiful face, but it was already decided. Jua looked positively delighted with the lot she'd drawn, and demanding a redraw now would hardly be fair.
Besides, honestly, I had a lot to think about today.
I'd more or less settled my feelings about Hayun kissing me, but I still couldn't fully read what that kiss had meant. I wasn't about to get my hopes up that it was real love—but if it wasn't, then conversely... well, that made things complicated too.
I knew we needed to talk about it properly, but I couldn't bring myself to face her. The moment our eyes met, my face would heat up before I knew it. Even earlier, sitting on the swing, I'd had to try awfully hard not to look her way.
In the end, Jihye claimed the spot by the window, I took the one beside her, and Jua took the one beside me. I had no idea why Jua was so fixated on sleeping next to me, but honestly, for today at least, it worked out for the best. Though I did feel a little sorry for Hayun, lips jutting out, utterly deflated.
Once again, I lay down on the bedding spread across the floor.
This feeling, at least, I could never forget. That ease only home could give—the kind I hadn't felt for so long after running away.
Jihye, just like the night before, lay down beside me and pressed herself flush against my side.
Jua, for reasons beyond my understanding, did the same. I suppose it made sense if we were all trying to claim as much room as possible.
Then again, I couldn't quite picture Jua snuggling up to any of the others, either.
"..."
Time to sleep. When your head is a mess, nothing beats a deep night's sleep. It wasn't as if I could forget everything—most of it I shouldn't forget, anyway.
Even so, things were far better than they'd been only a little while ago, weren't they?
Hoping tomorrow would bring nothing out of the ordinary, I closed my eyes.
Jua, who had lain for a long while unable to sleep with only her eyes shut, quietly opened them.
Past Jieun, lying flat on her back, Jihye's face was just visible. Thankfully, she seemed to have drifted off as well, her breathing slow and even.
After watching Jieun for a while, Jua inched closer and pressed up against her. Even so, holding her arm was far easier than what she'd done earlier—kissing her near the mouth.
What on earth had possessed her to do that? Jua couldn't say.
Thought through coolly, it had been necessary. But for all that Jua prided herself on a rational mind, she wasn't a person capable of pure indifference, either.
The Jua of any ordinary day would never have let anyone witness her acting that way. It was far too embarrassing... a side of herself she never wanted anyone to see.
Why had she acted like that?
Why had she been so angry?
In a room where nothing but breathing could be heard, Jua sank deep into thought, alone.
The biggest cause, surely, was having seen Hayun kiss Jieun on the lips.
Hayun was one of the only friends Jua had. No—if it came down to it, she might be Jua's only friend. At the very least, Hayun was the only person Jua could willingly call my friend right now.
The reason she'd come to think of Hayun that way was probably that she'd watched her keep drawing near, unbothered, no matter how sharply Jua bristled with thorns.
She knew that was a poor way to behave, but Jua was, at her core, a coward who only pretended to be rational. She could never bring herself to honestly tell Hayun thank you.
If anything, it might have been more natural for her to simply like Hayun.
No—or maybe.
Maybe, for Jua, Hayun had been someone she admired.
Someone already standing far above, whom no amount of effort would let Jua catch.
Barely any time after starting out as a magical girl, she had captured people's hearts completely, risen to the seat of the greatest magical girl of all, and yet never grown arrogant—treating everyone with kindness. Watching that, Jua knew she could never hope to imitate it.
So that was what it was—admiration. Nothing more.
Admiration is a feeling at once close and distant. Someone you long to understand and emulate, and cannot. That was Hayun.
Someone already complete. Someone who had been up there from the very beginning, impossible to ever overtake.
Perhaps that was why she'd been so snappish with her. She wanted so badly to become that, and felt far too starkly that she never would.
Then what was the true nature of what Jua felt toward Jieun?
And what lay behind it?
It was—perhaps, that Jua had empathized with her.
Jua quietly studied Jieun's sleeping profile.
At a glance she seemed to be sleeping soundly, eyes closed, but a faint shadow lay beneath them. Jieun's skin was so pale that even the dim light seeping in from outside made it plain.
She remembered how Jieun had been sharp with everyone. Like a small wounded animal, snarling as if to prove she wasn't weak.
And how, no matter how hopeless the opponent before her, she would always charge in first and ask questions later.
No—she couldn't say that figure was exactly the same as Jua's own. Had Jua stood in the same place, she might have already crumbled. The wall between Jieun and Hayun had been far higher than the one between Jua and Hayun.
And yet Jieun had fought, time and time again.
When Jieun had been a combatant, Jua hadn't understood why. She'd simply taken her for one Ordinary Minion with an excess of pride. At the very least, Jua had watched her fight many times in those days.
And only after Jieun became a magical girl—only after meeting her again and living alongside her—had Jua finally understood.
That Jieun, too, had harbored admiration for Hayun.
And jealousy as well. Friendship as well. Probably every feeling one human being can hold toward another, all at once.
And that she had despaired.
"..."
And yet, even so, she had not given up.
So the feeling that stirred in Jua as she watched was, in all likelihood, admiration too.
With a measure of jealousy and competitiveness mixed in. A touch of empathy.
All those contradictory emotions churned together and, strangely enough, yielded something else entirely.
Because she admired her, she wanted to be close. So this person was still gazing at the place I had long since abandoned. Then if I did as she did, could I end up like that too?
And to see where all of it ended, she had, in the end, to stay at her side.
When they'd first met, the feeling that distinctive combatant stirred in her had been a gloomy sense of superiority. Looking at someone so like herself and thinking, at least I stand a little higher. That superiority had soured into irritation at an opponent who refused to give up—and then into rivalry.
And when at last she saw that opponent rise above her, admiration had folded into all those feelings once more, until they became this unnameable thing.
Well, in other words—
In the end, that kiss beside her lips may have sprung from jealousy and competitiveness after all.
By now it had all tangled together so completely that she could no longer tell what she was competing over, or what she was jealous of.
One thing alone was certain: even in this contest, Jua had started from far, far behind.
But at the very least, this time, she didn't want to lose.
Because Jieun was no longer some distant existence.
She was someone who had already overtaken Jua once, proving that it could be done.
So.
Jua drew her body a little closer still.
Carefully, she brought her face near Jieun's.
Jieun's face, more peaceful than before, was right there before her eyes.
This time, too, Jua couldn't bring herself to kiss her lips. That felt too cowardly. The next real kiss would be when Jieun's eyes were open.
Instead, Jua pressed her lips lightly to Jieun's cheek.
Then hurriedly glanced behind her.
Thankfully, not a single girl was awake and watching.
Only belatedly realizing how mortifying her own behavior had been, Jua hurried back to her spot, lay down, and squeezed her eyes shut.
But with her heart hammering, Jua, in the end, could not fall asleep until deep into the night.
If I said I was slowly getting used to waking up wedged between girls pressed against me, would that sound strange?
Put that way, I sound like the lead of some harem story, but the reality is simply that too many girls are sleeping in one small room.
No, wait—it isn't too small for two people to live in, exactly.
If you want to claim any space at all, sticking together is the sensible move, so inevitably the girls who are closest end up sleeping glued to one another.
And when I woke, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Jihye and Jua were stuck fast to either side of me.
Thank goodness the nights were still a touch chilly. I was already sweating a little; if it had been the middle of summer, I probably wouldn't have managed any sleep at all.
Our room has no air conditioning. In summer, sleeping with a fan running was bearable enough. The room was fairly spacious, and with only the two of us, there was plenty of room for air to move.
But in a room with seven people in it, where would we even put a fan?
...Before summer arrives, we'll need to move somewhere bigger, or set up somewhere else for the girls to sleep. Otherwise we'll all be lined up waiting for the shower in the morning and end up late for everything.
We all rubbed the sleep from our eyes and headed to the dining hall for a simple breakfast.
Come to think of it, magical girls were all oddly diligent—waking up in the morning was never a problem for any of them.
And even the magical girls you'd expect to have refined palates ate without complaint. Well, compared to what we'd been eating until just days ago, this was a far better meal—there was nothing to grumble about.
"...The equipment's all still there, right?"
When I spoke in a husky, not-quite-awake voice, Hayun nodded.
"Yeah. Should we bring it over?"
"Probably... that'd be for the best. It'd be nice to get some parts while we're at it, but I'd rather not owe the government or the Federation anything."
Moving it would mean doing the heavy lifting myself, but it wasn't such a big job.
...In any case, hadn't I learned one surefire way to activate that power of mine?
If it was Hayun, she'd do it for me without much complaint. That, um. She would.
It's not that any selfish motive is mixed into this. It's just that I can't control my own feelings.
Looking at how things turned out, it's my fault, but what can I do.
First, give it a try, and if it doesn't work—
Scooping up the last of the egg soup with my spoon and slipping it into my mouth, I thought that even by my own standards, that would be downright cowardly.
When I got to school, the atmosphere was a little off.
Well, it had always been a strange school, but today it was especially so. How should I put it—some peculiar... peculiarly sticky gazes, I supposed.
If the emotion steeped in that stickiness used to be jealousy, what I felt now was... hmm.
A gaze like they were looking at something bizarre.
No, that much I'd felt before too—but now they weren't looking that way at me alone.
"..."
Hayun, who was drawing those gazes along with me, was stuck firmly to my side. If anything, she seemed proud to be on the receiving end, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, walking as though this were only natural.
"Um, Hayun? Do you know something?"
I asked as carefully as I could, but—
"Hm?"
was all I got back, Hayun just tilting her head at me.
Somehow, the mood grew even stranger once we stepped into our classroom.
Before, plenty of kids had been eager to strike up conversation with Hayun; now, not so much. If anything, they seemed to be avoiding us.
Even the kids seated in front of and behind us were doing their utmost not to glance our way at all.
Why?
Frowning, I scanned our surroundings.
A handful of kids had gathered at the front of the classroom, whispering. A few others kept darting glances in our direction.
Smartphones in their hands.
Had some article about us come out—
"...Ah."
Midway through that thought, it suddenly came back to me.
That there had, in fact, been something article-worthy.
I dug through my pocket and pulled out my smartphone.
Then I opened a portal site and tapped into the first article in sight.
Truthfully, I didn't even need to read the headline. The thumbnail was already brimming with eye-catching pink.
The photo that greeted me when the article opened showed two girls kissing.
A black-haired girl dressed in white—an outfit all but a customized wedding dress—was kissing a pink-haired girl whose hair was neatly tied back.
The black-haired girl's eyes were wide with flustered shock, while the pink-haired girl, eyes closed, cupped the black-haired girl's cheeks in both hands.
It was a kiss that looked painted rather than photographed. The sort of shot you'd struggle to capture even if you staged it deliberately.
Scrolling down past that photo—apparently taken from a great distance with a telephoto lens—I found yet another image.
A photo of the black-haired girl kissing a purple-haired girl.
The setting was clearly the top of a truck, but the zoom was so extreme that only the two girls' faces were visible.
If the girls in the first photo, with their immaculate outfits, had looked like a wedding portrait, this time their clothes were torn here and there and smeared with something grimy.
They looked like a still frame from a war movie.
Both photos were... well, extremely well taken, actually...
I see. There could easily be reporters lurking around the school.
And the Warp Point was, for all practical purposes, used like an airport—so naturally, reporters would be plentiful there as well.
To journalists, a magical girl kiss scene must have been irresistible copy.
Reading the article left me feeling thoroughly sour.
I mean, well.
It did actually happen, after all.
And it is prime material, after all.
But even so—aiming that at students, isn't that going a bit far?
I turned to look at Hayun.
Hayun was watching me with a mischievous smile.
At the sight of her, the kids whispered all the harder.
...Don't tell me it's like this in Jua's class too?
I let out a long breath and pressed a hand to my forehead.
Right—so there was a reason they'd been shooting from so far away.
Somehow I could already feel a headache coming on, picturing how gleefully Rose would start teasing us come this evening.