Chapter 1: Displeasure (4)
The truth is, I know next to nothing about music. I like listening to it, but I've never much cared for the titles of the songs I hear or the names of the composers behind them. I just... listen. Because it sounds good to my ears.
So I'm hardly picky about genre, though I will admit I lean toward music with lyrics. Korean lyrics, even better. They help me focus.
I'd expected as much, but the album Blossom — no, Hayun — had given me didn't seem to be that kind of album at all. Well, I had expected it. That's why I hadn't bought it on the spot at the bookstore.
But still.
"Oh, this is nice?"
Jihye, sprawled on a blanket she'd laid out on the floor with her pillow resting by her feet instead of under her head, wiggled her toes along to the music as she said it.
Yeah. It was nice.
One of those so-called 'great jazz albums,' apparently.
Listening to the trumpet swell softly through the room, I leaned back in the chair at my desk and studied the album Hayun had given me.
The cover had a dark feel to it overall. With 'blue' right there in the title, it had clearly never been conceived as anything bright to begin with. The album art showed a performer holding a trumpet, playing something with a grave expression on his face.
Hm. Every now and then, an album with this kind of atmosphere isn't so bad.
I slotted it into a gap in the row of albums lined up on my desk.
That procession of music albums, all matched to nearly the same height — and on either side of the spot where I'd just inserted mine, by pure coincidence, sat more of Hayun's gifts.
We were childhood friends, after all. Naturally we'd exchanged presents fairly often — though if I'm being strict about it, I received more than I gave.
Hayun is far more observant than she looks. Not that it has anything to do with her job as a magical girl — she'd only been one for about two years, after all.
Her pink hair makes people leap to odd preconceptions, but Hayun studies well and is popular. She loves teasing me about getting confessed to, but in truth she gets them plenty herself — and some of those confessors are genuinely famous kids at school.
"So? And then?"
"And then what?"
I'd been staring blankly at the albums when I turned toward Jihye. A light push with my toe sent the swivel chair gliding around to face her.
Jihye still lay there with her feet propped on the pillow, head turned toward me, grinning slyly.
"And then what, exactly?"
Left alone, she clearly had no intention of opening her mouth first, so I asked in a voice laced with a sigh and leaned back into the chair as far as it would go.
Well, it wasn't that I couldn't guess what was coming.
"That gift. Was it from a guy?"
"It was from a girl."
I answered with my eyes closed.
The music moved on to the next track. Hm — it moved on, right? The mood had changed, so it must have.
"Was she pretty?"
"Pretty... wait, why does that matter?"
Jihye snickered at my answer, then let out a long breath.
"No reason. It's just — it hit me again how far away from romance the two of us both are."
Yesterday she'd been asking whether I was late because I'd been out meeting a guy.
Well, I had told her it wasn't that.
"That Hayun girl?"
"Yeah, more or less."
"Figured as much. It's her taste, this album. I could tell."
Without another word I turned the chair back and looked again at the album I'd just shelved.
Hm.
The one I'd slotted in was jazz; the one to its left looked like Beethoven, and the one to its right was a Beatles digipak. That... the one with the picture of them crossing the crosswalk. Yeah, that one.
I know absolutely nothing about music, but even I can tell those three are completely different kinds of things.
"I'm just saying it's the vibe. The vibe. It's all so old-fashioned, isn't it?"
Fair enough — I'd never once been given an idol album as a gift.
The truth is, this whole thing had grown out of a misunderstanding, to some degree.
When I browse records, I just pick up whatever's within reach, look over the ones whose cover art happens to strike my fancy, and put them back. Once in a while I do buy one, but what I buy is almost always a movie or anime OST.
So from Hayun's point of view, the list of 'albums Jeong Jieun looked at carefully but didn't buy' could only ever be full of albums like these.
And since I've never once disliked a gift from Hayun, naturally she keeps on choosing the same kind of presents.
Not that I mind. I actually like it. These kinds of albums often cost more than a movie OST, after all.
Still — Hayun's taste, huh.
She really doesn't give off the air of someone who'd be into idol groups. Her family's well-off, and they even have direct connections to the Galaxy Federation.
Which is exactly why Iris despises her all the more.
"......"
Ah — the music changed again. Honestly, it might have changed several more times without me noticing. I can't tell where one track ends and the next begins, so there's nothing to be done about it.
Until a moment ago it had been the sort of music you might, depending on the listener, call a little lively; now it had turned unmistakably slow. Even I can tell that much.
"...Ah. It's snowing."
At Jihye's words, I looked out the window.
White flakes were swirling through the air. Quite a lot of it, too. The roads might be a little slippery tomorrow.
"Should've come down yesterday."
If it had snowed yesterday, the trip home would have been that much more miserable. A mercy, really.
Jihye hummed a clumsy attempt at the melody through her nose, then turned her head back toward me.
"By the way — how's the mood right now?"
"What mood?"
"Come on. Doesn't this feel like a scene out of a youth drama?"
"......"
I thought about it for a moment, then smiled a little.
"It does, actually."
The truth is, neither of us has the faintest idea who Miles Davis is — but sitting here like this, somehow, I feel like someone who knows her way around records and the like.
For a long while, the two of us just watched the snow falling beyond the window.
...Still, I should thank her for the gift.
I ought to give something back, too. Would a New Year's present work as the excuse?
I can't afford anything expensive, but Hayun will probably be happy all the same.
December 27th.
The assembly order came down again.
At least the 27th was a Saturday — a day off. Being summoned in on a day off wasn't exactly welcome, but it beat being ordered to assemble on a school day and then flogged for failing to show.
Presumably it's a scolding over last time's defeat.
If they're that confident, they'd be better off grooming more cadres. A company of galactic scale is bound to have talent to spare, no?
Frankly, I'm confident I wouldn't bat an eye if their headcount turned out to exceed the population of the United States.
"Oh."
When I got off the subway and made for the headquarters entrance, a blue-skinned alien was pacing back and forth in front of it.
A few passersby stole glances at the kid as they went by — mostly older people. The young ones and the children, by contrast, paid it hardly any mind. They were used to it by now, after all.
Sitting in classes at school alongside humans, working beside them at companies. In a mere five years, the whole climate of society had turned over. There was still plenty left to adjust to, but with an atmosphere like this, things would keep getting better.
The same Gwanghwamun where crowds protest so passionately sees not a single demonstrator in front of Noir Corporation headquarters.
Naturally. Noir Corporation has a track record of tidying away anyone who protests on its 'private property.'
The government didn't look away entirely, but no one exactly feels good about getting beaten, either. What's more, every combatant deployed that day was transferred to a branch office on another planet before the arrests could happen — so the case truly did fizzle out without a single witness to speak of.
...Well. Anyway. That's how it is.
"...Why aren't you going in?"
Set the skin color aside, and the kid could pass for a high school girl around my age. Its expressions were almost perfectly identical to an Earthling's, too, so I could manage a certain fondness for it.
"Oh, you're here!"
The face lit up the moment I spoke.
...So that's what this was. It didn't want to walk in alone and get chewed out first.
I let out a small sigh and turned on my heel toward the headquarters building.
The kid fell in right beside me and launched into a steady chatter.
"By the way, isn't Iris just the greatest? I couldn't believe my eyes when she fired that beam right in front of me. No, wait — more than that, how on earth did she know to get ready and lie in wait like that?"
That's right.
An Earth-boo was, in the most literal sense, an Earth-boo. They tend to adore Earth culture as a whole.
The same way someone obsessed with Japan isn't only obsessed with anime. Sure, they're su~per picky about which content they consume, but don't they tend to admire the food of whatever country they worship — the way its people live — and copy it wholesale?
This one was no different.
And the things it liked usually had 'pretty, cute girls' tangled up in them somewhere. Magical girls were no exception.
...Hold on. Don't tell me this is a guy walking around in women's clothes?
"Hm? What is it?"
When I stopped mid-stride, brows faintly knit, and turned to look at it, the chatterbox broke off and tilted its head.
"...No. Never mind."
"Okay?"
Taking my words at face value without a shred of suspicion, it came right back to my side and resumed chattering.
"Ah~ but I really wanted to meet Happy Cherry Blossom. The clothes she wears look so soft. Imagine if I could go up and touch them."
There's no such thing as a worse breed of fan.
Then again, it only says that sort of thing because it's convinced it could never actually hurt a magical girl.
Judging by how it grins happily even after taking a beating, its body must be every bit as sturdy as you'd expect from an alien.
Beep.
I held my employee ID to the reader and headed into the building's depths.
The first floor does have its shopping arcade, but the rear quarter of the building is where the staff elevators live. No employee ID, no entry.
People saw us going in, but hardly anyone paid us any real attention. This is a company famous for weekend work, after all.
"...Whew."
"......"
The moment we stepped into the elevator, the kid went quiet too.
"...How badly do you think they'll chew us out?"
Seeing the kid like this — the one who always wears a smiling face even on the way to work — you understand just how vicious this company's scoldings are.
They never resort to violence. They don't curse, either. But the one on the receiving end here is an alien, after all. Watching it go tatatatata nonstop for the better part of an hour without pausing for breath — not many people could keep standing there looking pleasant through to the end.
Villains, the lot of them.
Ding.
The elevator reached the thirteenth floor, and the doors opened.
The thirteenth floor houses the combatant dorms and offices.
Only, these 'dorms' are the old army style — twelve to a room — so unless you've truly got nowhere left to go, nobody wants to use them.
Every so often a review surfaces saying it's actually comfortable precisely because so few people are around, but the possibility of all twelve bunks filling up is real enough that I'd rather just stay at the orphanage with Jihye.
Thankfully it isn't mandatory. In exchange, being late means getting fleeced all over again.
"......"
The kid who'd been chattering at my side clamped its mouth shut the moment we reached the assembly hall and refused to take another step forward, so with a deep sigh I took hold of the door handle and twisted it open.
The door burst open.
Could anyone have beaten us here? Cadres usually drift in at a leisurely hour—
Pop!
The instant I stepped into the hall, party poppers went off on both sides of me.
Not that 'poppers' amounts to much — the little cone-shaped ones the bakery throws in free when you buy a birthday cake. It still startled the daylights out of me.
I was picking the long paper streamers out of my hair with an expression full of irritation when someone suddenly dropped an arm across my shoulder.
At the sight of someone taller than me throwing an arm around my shoulders, I recoiled in horror and looked up — and he, apparently deciding this was a bit much even for him, hastily pulled the hand away.
The smile, however, never wavered.
He looked, beyond any doubt, like an Earthling. A slightly sinister-looking middle-aged man, would you say? The kind of face you could picture running into on the subway, so long as he wasn't wearing his cadre uniform.
But he was no Earthling. Just another species that had happened to evolve along similar lines.
When he takes the field, he hides that face behind a kaijin-like mask.
"Well, well — our hero has finally graced us with her presence! Come on, everyone, a round of applause!"
Clap, clap, clap.
What followed was the sound of listless, spiritless applause.
Looking ahead, I saw the hall — rows of folding chairs set out in lines — packed to the brim with employees who looked utterly exhausted.
...Don't tell me this is all because of me?
Some newfangled method of chewing us out?
As I kept staring at the cadre with an expression of profound suspicion, he turned one palm upward and gestured toward the stage at the front of the hall.
Awkward. Deeply awkward.
Hadn't this man said something absolutely scathing over comms right after the battle ended?
"Come, come. This way."
When I didn't budge, suspicion written all over my face, the cadre grew a touch impatient and patted me on the back. When I glared at him, he stopped that too. Apparently even he was a little afraid of getting reported for harassment.
Diligently peeling the colored paper from my hair, I went forward in the end.
Glancing back, I found Jigupa — wearing an expression every bit as bewildered as mine — claiming the last open seat in the back row. Then he clenched both fists tight and struck a cheering pose in my direction.
Traitor.
Choking down the sigh that wanted out, I went forward all the same.
And so I stepped up onto the stage—
"Ah. Ah."
The cadre hurried up onto the stage beside me, planted himself in front of the microphone, made a sound or two as though testing it, and rapped the mic with a fingertip.
Only after the unpleasant squeal of feedback died down did he straighten up, apparently satisfied, and open his mouth.
"Everyone — at long last! Our team has produced its very first member to charge a circuit all the way to one hundred percent! Come on, applause!"
Oh. So that's what this was.
Apparently it had never happened before.
The truth is, this was the first time I'd ever come that close to Iris. My head had been flooded with — endorphins? Adrenaline? Whatever it was came surging up, and I raised hell about wanting to land at least one hit on her. But for most people, running away is about the extent of it.
"Now, let's watch the footage, shall we!"
...They kept footage of that?
Flash.
Of all things, the projector swung its beam square into my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Then I swayed a step sideways, turning my body to clear the way.
The footage pouring out of the projector was head-cam video shot by my own helmet.
[Happy Iris! Panties! Purple!]
[What!? Don't be ridiculous! Today they're definitely black—]
"......"
The atmosphere froze over in an instant.
If I'd been a man, a water bottle filled to the brim probably would have come flying.
"Now, behold, everyone! What do you suppose this is!"
Something insane. That's what.
"It's courage, everyone!"
the cadre bellowed.
"Employee Jeong Jieun here overcame her fear through nothing but her own courage and drove her circuit's operating rate all the way up to one hundred percent. Is she not a model for us all!"
"......"
The atmosphere froze a second time.
This time, they were all looking at me like I'd lost my mind.
It was, to be fair, madness.
Iris has the deranged sharpness to tell opponents apart from nothing but the wounds on a helmet. Next time we meet, she will absolutely come hunting me and me alone, I was sure, wearing that smile of hers brimming with murderous intent.
And on top of that—
"Now then — to our 'courage'!"
"To courage......"
The poor employees, hauled in on a weekend only to listen to this, each raised a hand and echoed him without an ounce of energy.
"A special promotion awaits Employee Jeong Jieun. Please look forward to the next battle."
Just hearing that didn't exactly lift my spirits.
And 'courage,' of all things — when the energy the circuit actually runs on comes from despair.
Not that the government doesn't know, or the company either. But they can hardly come out and tell the people here, point blank, that the power driving the circuits strapped to their wrists flows out of their own despair.
No amount of courage changes the fact that you haven't a prayer of winning — so once you've provoked the enemy, all that comes next is despair. And that, of course, is how you 'improve efficiency.'
Somehow I'd gone and become a black-company errand girl without meaning to.
...No, wait. It isn't a 'feeling.' I actually am the lackey, aren't I?
"This time, we will be adding a bonus to be included together with the orphanage donation."
"...Thank you."
Only after hearing those words did I bow my head to the cadre. He nodded, looking satisfied.
In a good mood because his performance numbers went up, I suppose.
Still, money flowing to the orphanage is a good thing. The mold on the storage shed door had spread so badly that the bottom was starting to crumble — with this, we can finally replace it with a new one.
...Everyone at the orphanage simply believes the corporation is doing a bit of corporate goodwill.
If they ever found out I was working at a place like this, they'd probably hound me to quit on the spot.
But money is only ever money. So long as it ends up in the right place, you can't call it wrong.
Steadying myself with that thought, I let out a long breath.
From far across the hall, Jigupa — blissfully unaware of any of it — was waving both hands at me for all it was worth.
Ugh. This is uncomfortable.