Chapter 4: Keeping in Check (1)
I was never particularly fond of school.
That was just as true in my past life—I'd been short on friends then, too. Strictly speaking, I technically had more of them back then than I do now, but when it came down to it, my inability to win any popularity with the kids at school was exactly the same.
Mornings meant dragging yourself up early, then going to sit through classes you had no real desire to hear.
And if your relationships got even slightly tangled up, the kids with rotten personalities—the ones you were forced to see every single day—would start tormenting you on a regular schedule.
As for the teachers, they showed no particular enthusiasm for their jobs. Well, honestly, I understood; I'd been an adult myself once. Whether it's teaching students or working a convenience store register, work is work, and not wanting to do it can't be helped.
But surely someone could have spared a little sympathy for the rest of us, too—the students forced to sit facing people so brazenly unwilling to do their jobs, unable to move an inch, for a minimum of fifty minutes at a stretch?
Tap.
Something flew in from behind and bounced off my head.
It hadn't been thrown hard. Probably a little chunk snapped off an eraser, or something along those lines.
Whoever threw it wasn't anyone I was close with—although, in the first place, there wasn't a single person in this class I could call close, Hayun aside. Who knows how the class assignments had gotten so twisted, but every kid placed with me happened to live on the other side of the tracks.
It had been five years now since the Galaxy Federation coiled itself around this world. Not exactly a long stretch yet, but in that brief span, the Federation had already transformed a huge portion of Earth.
And so, naturally, people started angling for connections.
Most of those people, of course, were the 'well-off' ones. They were, after all, the ones whose lines already ran long enough to reach that high.
A high schooler isn't really old enough to fully grasp all of that. But they do absorb it from their parents.
Get along with this family. Stay away from that one. Kids raised under parents who talk like that sort the peers around them into categories before they befriend them.
Hayun—a child of a wealthy family affiliated with the Galaxy Federation—was a child you ought to get along with.
I, with nothing behind me, was a child it was fine not to get along with.
Anyone who thought about it for even a moment would realize that tormenting me—someone friendly with Hayun—wasn't such a smart move. But people who live drunk on their own importance rarely think that far.
Tap.
"..."
My sitting there silent and unresponsive was part of the problem, too.
I'd quietly turned over what possible reason they had for this, and my best guess was that it came down to me—someone with nothing to offer—being so close to Hayun.
No matter how hard they tried to close the distance, Hayun maintained a curious evenness, treating everyone fairly—yet with me, of all people, she was warm. Whether they envied it or found it an inconvenience, I couldn't say for certain, but one thing was clear: I was the 'source of their negative feelings.'
They couldn't quite bring themselves to bully me outright, so they handed out these quiet little disadvantages instead.
Even though it wasn't as if they'd stop if I drifted away from Hayun.
At the front of the room, my eyes met the teacher's mid-lesson.
The teacher had clearly seen what was going on—but the gaze slid away.
Well, of course. Why stick your neck out for a kid with no parents when simply looking the other way costs you nothing?
Students with parents might bring those parents down to the school. And if those parents happened to be the drunk-on-their-own-importance type, there was no telling what they'd say to a teacher.
So, you know.
It's just how it is.
Tap.
I didn't even brush the eraser shavings off. Reacting would only make the bullying worse.
I didn't tell Hayun, either.
It wasn't a logical decision, exactly—I just didn't want to be helped over something like this. Honestly, I couldn't have explained the reason even to myself.
Then again, maybe that was that damn jealousy of mine talking, too.
...
Still, with me refusing to react at all, the eraser shavings eventually stopped flying—their thrower must have gotten bored.
Without once looking back, I threw myself into my notes.
My eyes met the teacher's again.
This time, the teacher looked away first. Or was that my imagination? I couldn't say.
After that, our eyes didn't meet again for the rest of the class.
Lunch, I ate with Hayun.
I hadn't had all that many friends in my past life either, but I'd at least kept a rotating cast of acquaintances I could take or leave depending on the day. Since coming to this school, though, there was truly no one to eat with besides Hayun.
The kids living across the tracks didn't approach me, and the ones who didn't live there didn't bother approaching Hayun. There was a subtle friction between those two groups—and of course, I was the one glued to Hayun's side.
And wouldn't you know it, to both groups I apparently looked like the kid 'latching onto Hayun for what I could get.'
Sure, Hayun bought me this and that all the time, but I'd never once asked her to.
I bought her things when she needed them, too. Admittedly, in absolute monetary terms, what I received outweighed what I gave by a wide margin.
The two of us picked up our trays and settled into a convenient spot in the corner of the cafeteria.
Normally, that was it—just the two of us. Natural enough, since neither of us thought to invite anyone else.
But today was a little different.
"Hi, Hayun."
"..."
An unfamiliar voice addressed Hayun.
At the start of every school year, this type always turned up—kids who figured that sharing a class was reason enough to worm their way closer to Hayun one way or another.
They never bothered speaking to me, the person actually sitting across from her. Their words were for Hayun and Hayun alone.
Honestly, it amazed me every single time. You'd think anyone would form a poor impression of people who so obviously ignored their friend.
Or did kids like that have some rulebook all their own that the rest of us never got?
"O-oh. Hi."
Hayun answered, flustered, as the girl set her tray down in the empty seat beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her voice was barely more than a murmur.
That meant she wasn't pleased. Hayun was reserved with strangers and hid her feelings around anyone she wasn't close to. When her voice shrank, it meant she was hiding exactly that much of what she felt.
Whether they sat or not, I calmly worked my way through my tray.
Shooting me sidelong glances, the girl beside Hayun was joined by the rest of the group she'd brought, who settled into the seats around us. The message was obvious: move along. I ignored that, too.
"This is our first time really talking, isn't it?"
"Yeah..."
Hayun stole a glance at me.
She looked uncomfortable.
I never told her about the kids who picked on me, but Hayun had at least a basic feel for these things. She couldn't come out and tell them to get lost, so no one ever noticed—but the reason she was uncomfortable was that she was watching me, worrying.
Perhaps she felt Hayun's eyes drift my way, because the girl's gaze swung to me as well.
I could practically see fingers tapping away at a calculator behind those eyes.
She didn't like me. Long-term, she'd want me cut loose—I was no use to her.
But she seemed to have gathered that snubbing me outright right now would backfire.
Although—shouldn't she have worked that out from the beginning? Hayun always had other girls (and occasionally boys) hovering around her, angling for a word with her. And yet this girl had watched her head into the cafeteria with only me.
"Hi."
Having finished her calculations, she greeted me in a honeyed voice.
I stared straight back at her.
Now I knew where she sat in the classroom: behind me.
I couldn't tell whether she'd thrown the eraser shavings herself. But she'd at least been sitting where she could see whoever did.
I also remembered the faint snickers that had drifted from the back of the room.
"Hi."
That was all I offered before returning to my food.
Seeing that, Hayun cautiously picked up her chopsticks again.
"Well, we ended up in the same class, you know. I figured it'd be nice for us to get along."
"O-oh... right. Of course."
I kept a discreet eye on Hayun's tray, which held more greens than meat. Thankfully, she hadn't stopped eating altogether—the food was steadily disappearing.
The other girls, meanwhile, could not have been less interested in their meals. Understandable, really, since all their attention was on talking.
I slowed my own chopsticks until my pace matched Hayun's.
"It's... a little embarrassing to say this, but I did some digging on my own. Hayun, we live in the same neighborhood."
"O-oh?"
Hearing that, I nearly snorted. I barely held it in, just managing to avert the disaster of the food in my mouth going up my nose.
"Actually, I've been a fan of yours for the longest time."
That particular tone of voice was exactly the wrong approach for Hayun.
Hayun was kind to everyone, so at a glance she seemed like a girl you could befriend easily—but in practice, her standards were surprisingly picky and strict.
Not that she seemed to realize it herself.
To Hayun, a friend was someone who treated her normally, whether she was a magical girl or not.
Needless to say, comparatively few of the kids she'd met since becoming a magical girl had ever cleared that bar.
Friends don't ask friends for autographs. They're friends—there's no reason to want one in the first place. Signing something for the sake of another acquaintance, now, that's different.
And a real friend wouldn't go around introducing her with her chest puffed out just because she's a magical girl, or bring up Hayun's parents when Hayun herself hadn't gone there first.
The moment the first word out of your mouth is fan, a thick pane of invisible glass already stands between the two of you.
"Yeah... is that so."
I got the feeling the highlight in Hayun's eyes had dimmed a little. The ambient light was exactly the same, so realistically, nothing had changed at all.
Which might explain it. This oblivious girl apparently hadn't registered that her words weren't landing.
"Ever since I heard we'd be at the same school, I've been hoping we'd end up in the same class."
She just kept stepping on landmines.
From the look of it, the people who fawned over her back home must have fawned in exactly the same way.
Her whole approach was straight out of a comic. No—wait, this world was built on a webtoon to begin with, so I suppose that was only natural.
"Yeah..."
Hopeless.
Hayun was monumentally uncomfortable.
I crammed everything still on my tray into my mouth, chewed it all down, and swallowed.
Then I shot to my feet.
"Hayun, done eating?"
"Huh?"
Startled by my sudden leap up, Hayun blinked at me in surprise—then broke into a wide smile and rose from her seat.
"Yep!"
Naturally, she'd spent the entire conversation nibbling at her food and hadn't come close to finishing.
"Wh-what—?"
Watching the two of us shoot up out of nowhere, the girl—what was her name again? Never mind; she wasn't worth remembering, that rich girl—looked back and forth between Hayun and me, utterly lost.
"Nice meeting you. Enjoyed the chat. Glad we're in the same class—here's to getting along from here on out."
I rattled off that string of pleasantries and promptly turned to go.
The three kids still seated looked like they had no idea what had just happened.
Why someone of Hayun's standing would jump up and follow me, they couldn't fathom—nor why she was beaming with her meal left unfinished.
They could wait a hundred years and still never figure it out.
After dropping our trays at the return rack, I took Hayun by the wrist.
"Snack bar, snack bar."
She hadn't managed to finish her meal, so I had to put something in her stomach. My own food I'd shoveled in rather than let it go to waste; Hayun hadn't had that luxury.
"You hungry?"
Hayun asked me that instead.
"I'm at the age where you're always hungry."
That was my whole answer. At the snack bar, I bought two sausage breads and stubbornly popped one into Hayun's mouth.
And so it went. Every school year, without fail, kids came sniffing around once they got a look at Hayun's background.
They all had one thing in common, too: they were far, far more persistent than you'd expect.
And that persistence didn't express itself only in how they talked to Hayun.
They couldn't exactly ask her outright why she wouldn't give their words a straight answer. Her background was one obstacle—but more than that, the moment they said such a thing aloud, they'd feel utterly pathetic.
So usually, the arrow swung toward me instead: the comparatively easy target getting in their way near Hayun.
For the rest of that afternoon's classes, I could feel something sticky and ugly trained on the back of my head. I wondered if I was imagining it, but every so often eraser shavings came flying to remind me the feeling was all too real.
And then—
Thwack.
At the sting from the back of my skull, I dipped my head forward.
This one, I couldn't ignore.
"Ah, sorry."
The girl sitting diagonal from me—the same one who'd approached us at lunch—spoke with one hand raised slightly.
"Could you grab my eraser for me?"
I looked down. The eraser lay on the floor, shredded all over. What a shame.
I picked it up and dropped it into my own pencil case.
It was brand-new, torn to pieces everywhere. Poor thing. It would live a happier life as a proper eraser in my pencil case anyway.
"Hey."
Her voice dropped a register.
She didn't raise it openly, though. Even she seemed a little wary of the teacher.
And Hayun was right there beside me.
With Hayun already glancing our way, watchful, the girl ended up holding her tongue until class let out.
I'd half expected her to come pick a fight before we headed home, but with Hayun glued to my side, she couldn't manage that either.
Right. Easy target. That was the whole game.
I gave some real thought to what to do about those girls.
"Heading... straight home today?"
Maybe because it was only the day after the new term started, Hayun asked at the bus stop like she was reluctant to let me go.
"Next time."
I answered her. "There's something I need to do today."
"Oh. Okay."
Hayun was the type to take my word without question.
We'd be seeing each other at this same stop tomorrow morning anyway, so she wasn't exactly moping about it.
We waved each other off. I watched Hayun start toward her house for a moment, then turned and set out for home myself.
Not straight home, as it happened. I walked in a slightly different direction than the one that led to my house.
"..."
Someone was following me.
Judging by their type, they weren't the sort to ride the bus—yet there they were, riding my bus.
I'd kept half an ear out just in case, and sure enough, they were tailing me.
Was the eraser really that upsetting?
Though really, it wasn't the eraser that bothered them. It was me.
And apparently they wanted the irritation dealt with right away.
Hayun was a little slow on this front. For one thing, it never occurred to her that I could be a bullying target at all.
She picked up on other people's malice easily—but that was exactly why she couldn't imagine it going any further. She couldn't conceive of a style of torment far more barbaric than anything she herself had ever experienced.
"Hey."
Having noticed me circling the same ground round and round, a voice called out to me, pitched low and flat.
"What?"
I turned around.
"The eraser."
"You look like you've got money. Just give me one."
When I said that, the girl snorted.
Hm. Was she the type who could actually throw down?
I cocked my head slightly.
That was a no, by the looks of her.
You know how some people have absurdly thin legs? The kind where one wrong bump might genuinely snap them in two?
The girl in front of me had exactly those legs.
Honestly, I couldn't see the point of fighting her at all.
All I'd have to do was run, and she'd collapse somewhere along the way. At that point I could grind her underfoot, slow and thorough, if I felt like it.
Right.
Maybe because they'd always had the numbers, it seemed these girls couldn't even entertain the thought of losing.
They'd probably never lost before. And not just with me—plenty of other kids must have been their targets too. Who had they been tormenting last year, I wondered.
But here's the thing.
I had no intention of taking it lying down.
At school, I played dumb. I didn't want help from Hayun over something like this.
Telling a teacher would be pointless, and apart from that, there was no one in the world to help me.
Which left exactly one conclusion: handle it myself.
Taking a leisurely inventory of the three girls' physical specs, I settled on a course of action.
"Hey."
"What?"
"Do I look easy to you?"
"Yep."
I answered breezily and nodded.
Easy to push around.
Very.
So slight-looking you'd be scared to touch her anywhere, in case something snapped.
Maybe it was because I'd answered with such perfect confidence—bewilderment flickered across the girl's face.
No one had ever talked back like that before, presumably. Which, for a normal person, was exactly right.
Perfectly reasonable—as long as the kid being bullied wasn't someone who went into battle against magical girls on a regular basis.
"So what's the plan, then? Gonna hit me first? I'll allow you one swing to get things started."
Not that I had any intention of taking the hit.
The moment I took a single step forward, the girls flinched back.
"Or should I come to you first?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Perfectly sane."
Of course I was sane.
From middle school all the way to now.
Just how many kids who hated seeing me at Hayun's side did they think I'd met in that time?
And I had never, not once, let any of them slide. They always tried something to make my life miserable, and every single time, I raised holy hell right back.
Nobody at my old middle school touches me anymore.
That's also why so few people cut in on Hayun's and my meals in the cafeteria.
After all, I'd been fighting 'battles' long, long before Hayun ever started.
Whatever else was true of me, losing a fight to an ordinary civilian simply wasn't going to happen.