Chapter 9: What Must Not Be Touched (3)
They had dropped hints.
And Hayun had heard, in full, exactly what those hints meant.
At first, the kids had traded glances and tried not to say anything. Even the ones who had let something slip early on seemed to sense that something was wrong with Hayun, and quickly changed the subject.
"If you won't tell me, then I'll find out myself. In my own way."
When Hayun said that, they finally began to pour everything out.
Though, in truth, the only way left for Hayun to "look into" anything these days was to go and see Jieun herself.
They seemed to know it would come to that eventually. Perhaps because they understood, at least, that what Hayun felt toward Jieun was not simple hostility.
Those hints, by the kids' own telling, had truly been nothing more than hints.
In other words: a shoulder bumped in passing on the street. A textbook quietly swiped. A note slipped inside her desk. A summons to be told to stop acting up.
And since this came from the mouths of the kids who had actually done it, Hayun knew the reality had to be scaled down far below what they had really done.
It would not have ended with merely "borrowing" the textbook. They surely hadn't returned it in any decent state. It wouldn't have been strange if they had torn it to shreds — Hayun knew how painstakingly Jieun took notes, in her textbook and her notebooks alike.
The notes must have been covered in words too vile to speak aloud. And Jieun, showing no reaction even after reading them, must have quietly thrown them away somewhere else. No — had it truly ended with notes? What if they had slipped something else inside?
When they said they had bumped her shoulder, had it really stopped at a collision? Hadn't foul words come trailing after? No — had it truly ended with words at all?
It was the same with pulling her aside to tell her to stop acting up.
…
Hayun listened to all of it without a word, perfectly still.
At first she was angry. No — not only at first; she was angry the entire time. She wanted to leap up that very moment and scream. She wanted to tell them never to come near Jieun again.
But.
Even granting that those kids had bullied Jieun — had they tormented her as much as Hayun had?
Jieun, on the receiving end of their bullying, had always faced Hayun with a perfectly untroubled expression.
And it had been the same the day after Hayun struck her down and left her injured.
Perhaps the reason she could endure their bullying was that she had long since grown used to something far crueler.
She had no idea how she made it back to the classroom and into her seat.
The friends who had followed her to lunch didn't speak to her for the rest of the day. The other classmates must have sensed that something was deeply wrong, because none of them approached her either.
And yet, for the first time in ages, she got exactly the quiet she had wanted — and her heart would not settle at all.
Every one of Jieun's misfortunes had been tangled up with Hayun.
The reason Jieun had been hurt and made so miserable as a combatant.
The reason she was shunned and tormented by the kids at school.
All of it traced back to a single reason: Hayun.
And Hayun herself had known nothing. While Jieun suffered like that, she had remained blissfully ignorant, thinking only how happy she was just to be at Jieun's side.
Even now, that hadn't changed.
When Jieun cut down that kaijin — the simple fact that she had protected Hayun sent her hope blazing up like a wildfire. It was enough to sweep every worry clean out of her head in an instant.
…It should never have been that way.
None of it could mean that Jieun had forgiven her.
And right after that, Jieun had been shot. By the very people she had tried to help.
That she was so furious — Hayun could understand it.
No — if anything, the real miracle was that no one had been hurt in a situation like that.
What if it had been Hayun?
Wouldn't the sheer, rotten betrayal have drained every ounce of strength from her body? Wouldn't she have lost all hope and been left unable to do anything at all?
No one knew where Jieun was now. But wherever it was, it was surely no place of comfort — not for body, and not for mind.
And—
—the greatest cause of it all was bound up with Hayun.
Because the magical girls had given no testimony about the terror attack that day.
Because they had said nothing about the situation Jieun had stumbled into, she had ultimately been branded a terrorist.
Even though common sense alone made clear how absurd that was.
No single high schooler — least of all one whose time was stretched thin in every way — could possibly have prepared enough explosives to bring down part of the largest complex owned by the largest corporation in the country.
Hayun had even seen it all with her own eyes that day. Jieun had truly known nothing.
Something had to be done.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity, she should have been thinking of something — anything — else—
"Hayun."
She was walking along in a daze when the voice came from behind her.
She turned to find Iris… Jua, standing there.
Hayun blinked.
They were no longer inside the school.
Class had ended at some point; Hayun was on her way home. Jua was probably the same.
There were no other students around. Had they kept their distance because of the air she gave off? She caught herself thinking that maybe the friends who had eaten lunch with her today would never come near her again.
"Could we talk for a moment?"
Jua said it to Hayun, who still wore a blank expression.
Hayun nodded.
Jua moved first. Hayun followed behind her without a word.
Every magical girl's face was already well known around here. On a crowded street, people would actually gather just to catch a glimpse of a 'magical girl.'
But not near this school. These were faces people saw so often in everyday life that public interest had worn thin. Even stalkers weren't so easily made — because magical girls were, quite literally, 'magical girls.'
Anyone who had watched them subdue combatants and still dared to stalk them had to be confident in their own physical abilities, or backed by some manner of power. Like that stalker the other time.
Jua led Hayun to a café near the school.
At this hour, with dismissal times overlapping, it would normally be crowded with students.
Hayun herself wasn't in the habit of going to places like cafés alone — she had always walked home with Jieun, after all.
But the place Jua led her to wasn't busy at all.
If anything, it was a café without even a sign.
"It's upstairs, and unless someone shows you the way, you'd never even find it. It's not a shady place or anything, so don't worry."
With that, Jua made naturally for a table in the corner.
It sat well away from the windows.
There were a few students inside, but most seemed to have come alone or in pairs. None of them were faces Hayun knew.
There were a few adults as well, and every one of them sat apart, alone. None of them glanced around; none spoke to anyone. Each had their eyes closed, listening to the café's music, or else was looking at a phone or reading a book.
"A place like this…"
"You'd hardly ever find it unless someone told you about it. Most of the people who come here are oddballs anyway."
…
At Jua's words, Hayun's mouth fell open.
The café was a little dark. Not gloomy, exactly — the lighting was simply low.
Behind the counter, shelves were packed tight with old LP records.
"I never imagined a place like this existed near the school."
"Probably because it's near the school."
Saying that, Jua set her bag down at her seat, and as she turned—
"…What will you have? Not that there's anything here but coffee."
"…I'll have whatever you recommend."
At that, Jua gave a small shrug.
Hayun knew next to nothing about coffee. Truthfully, unless she was with Jieun, she hardly ever drank it on its own.
Part of it was simply that she didn't care for bitter things.
Even so, she could drink it when it was offered, and she knew how to read the room and go along.
And so, in truth, she had no idea how good the coffee Jua brought over actually was.
"How is it?"
"It's good."
That was all Hayun offered.
Jua showed no particular reaction — an attitude that suggested it was only the obvious verdict.
…
Thank goodness I didn't say I didn't like it — she was still thinking that when—
Jua's expression changed slightly.
Not the faintly haughty look she always wore, but something earnest, as if she were seriously weighing something.
Hayun said nothing and waited, and at last Jua spoke.
"What do you think of Jeong Jieun?"
"Huh?"
The sudden question left Hayun blinking for a moment.
"You don't seem to think of her as just one friend among many."
Jua said it, staring straight at her.
…
Hayun tried to fathom what Jua was after.
Jua was watching her with her brow furrowed.
It looked a little angry, but that very fact made it hard to read what lay beneath — it was a face Jua wore all the time.
"Well, fine. You don't have to answer. That reaction just now tells me enough."
With that, Jua leaned back against the wall-side bench and crossed her legs.
Hayun grew a little uneasy.
Jua had seen through Jieun's combatant disguise. She'd said she recognized her by the scratches on her helmet.
And Hayun already knew, from the complaints Jua muttered after their battles, that the two of them were on terrible terms.
So if Jua were to declare she would treat Jieun as an enemy, Hayun could not have gone along with it.
Jua glanced around the room.
No one was paying them the slightest attention.
But she still seemed a little uneasy; she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, lowering her gaze to Hayun.
The expression she wore now was different from the one before.
A slightly… anxious one.
Why would her face change so completely in the space of a heartbeat? Hayun guessed she had tried to act composed and failed. Jua did that sometimes.
"…Are you planning to keep going like this?"
Jua asked, her face serious.
"…Like this?"
"I mean, we all know."
Only after hearing that much could Hayun understand what Jua meant.
She was talking about Jieun.
"We all know it, don't we? That there's no conceivable way that girl set off a terror attack like that."
It was true. Everyone knew.
An ordinary high school girl — one who was almost never free of a semi-coerced group life, at that — could never have gotten her hands on explosives like those.
"And yet we still haven't said a single word to prove she didn't."
…
Jua hesitated a moment, then opened her mouth.
"If we're meant to be righteous, shouldn't we have brought that to light by now? Isn't that only obvious?"
Jua wasn't saying this to blame Hayun.
It was closer to a plea for counsel, Hayun thought.
The magical girls each had their frictions. Delphinium and Dahlia's roles overlapped outright.
Rose was better about it, but even she said there had been no end of trouble before Hayun entered their ranks. She'd heard that mediating between the endlessly bickering Dahlia and Delphinium had, if anything, left Rose more distant from them both.
Iris had become a magical girl around the same time as Blossom, so naturally she'd grown closest to her.
And Iris, who always strove to be the very best, had a stubborn, single-minded streak that limited how close she could get to the others.
But perhaps it was precisely that stubbornness.
Iris — that is, Jua — had apparently been carrying this worry the entire time.
Hayun remembered how, back at the Company that day, Iris's shots had never come. Couldn't that have been because Iris was wrestling with it in her own way?
…
"I don't imagine it would be easy, but…"
Jua said, brow still knotted.
"And, yes — if we actually do something like that, they might well strip our circuits from us…"
At the gravity on Jua's face, Hayun pressed her lips tightly together.
As Iris, Jua often grumbled with a dissatisfied look, and after battles she would curse that combatant — the one who was probably Jieun.
And yet she took genuine pride in the role she played as a magical girl. The thought of having that taken away had to be terrifying even to imagine.
Which must be exactly why she had been agonizing over it.
…
And what about Hayun herself?
She had made excuse after excuse and drowned in self-pity — but the plain fact was that she, too, had done nothing.
Jieun… was guilty of nothing. She had been backed into a corner, and all she had done there was kick and struggle with everything she had.
If anyone was to be judged for the situation Jieun was in, the truly guilty ones would be everything else surrounding her.
The Federation.
The Company.
And themselves — the ones working inside them.
"…All right."
Hayun nodded.
"We'll find a way. But you're right — if we truly act without warning, we may be made to surrender our circuits. We might not even be called magical girls anymore. People might point fingers at us instead."
If Hayun really did speak the truth, and people turned on her for it—
could she even call that unfair?
No. She didn't think so.
She had hidden the truth all the same — putting it off and putting it off, out of fear, out of being unable to think of anything else.
And every day the truth was delayed was, naturally, another day of Jieun's suffering.
It was almost laughable, quibbling now about forgiveness or anything else.
Why was she only thinking this now?
…Probably because she had finally realized that she was included in the words of the kids who had tormented Jieun.
One-sided violence. And cold disregard.
Quitting as a magical girl was a frightening thing. Whatever else you said about it, it was what had won her parents' approval, and it was why the other kids never bullied Hayun.
It was why people were kind when they struck up conversations with her, why strangers treated her with such careful deference.
But she refused to lose Jieun forever because of it.
And she hated herself for even setting Jieun's existence and everything else she had on opposite pans of a scale.
And so—
"All right. Let's do it."
"…What?"
Even though she had been the one to raise the subject, Jua looked utterly startled when Hayun actually agreed.
"But the moment we speak, everything changes."
Hayun said it, meeting Jua's eyes with complete seriousness.
"Whether people believe us or not, some will believe us simply because we said it. There may even be shouting matches on broadcast after broadcast over what we said."
…
Jua's face went white.
It was easy to picture. And above all, judged by the plain facts, the side that had stayed silent from the very beginning was the one in the wrong.
"But before we say anything, we have to ask the others first."
Hayun said calmly.
She and Jua were not the only magical girls.
So they had no right to speak as though voicing the will of 'magical girls' as a whole.
"And if they oppose us?"
"…Then the two of us will have to speak up on our own."
At Hayun's words, Jua fell silent.
"Not everyone may be able to stand with us. Anyone who isn't on the side that speaks might get to keep her place as a magical girl."
"But…"
"You didn't come to me hoping this would stay buried forever, did you?"
Hayun said.
Jua regarded her quietly for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
"That's… true, but."
"Let's talk to everyone first. Then we decide."
With that, Hayun lifted her coffee cup.
The coffee spreading over her tongue tasted unusually bitter.
On the walk home after parting with Hayun,
Jua tried to untangle the mess in her head.
She had been the one to speak first — so why did Hayun's settling the course leave her so conflicted?
…
She didn't much want to believe it, but perhaps Jua had been hoping Hayun would talk her out of it.
That her own idea was absurd — that they should steady themselves and focus on resolving the incident first.
And that in a courtroom, or anywhere else, they should argue Jeong Jieun's innocence.
…But in the end, she had known that, too, was just another escape.
The longer time passed, the more the innocent would be hurt and made to suffer. And the longer it dragged on, the greater the chance that the innocent would stop being innocent.
So far, no one had died because of Jieun.
Trespassing and property damage were nothing next to murder. And if the truth came out now, public opinion would condemn everyone else rather than Jieun.
Why were the magical girls — a vigilante force that was, in effect, operating outside the law — tolerated at all?
Because Noir Corporation was cemented in the public mind as a vicious, predatory company, and because the magical girls moved to protect those suffering beneath it.
And because they were the ones who could deal with the kaijin that appeared from time to time without a single victim — without even killing the kaijin themselves.
She had known all of that. That was why she had brought it to Hayun.
"…So in the end, was it all just making an accomplice?"
She had believed she was agonizing over it herself.
But perhaps all she had really wanted was for someone else to hand down the verdict she wished for.
To shove it onto someone she looked up to…
Jua walked in silence for a while, and then, abruptly, she thought of that 'magical girl,' Jeong Jieun.
And over that image she laid the infuriating combatant she had clashed with all this time.
…
They did seem to match. The attitude. Certain… distinctive features.
Jua was not the sort to acknowledge people easily. She often thought of herself as stiff and inflexible.
And yet every time she came face to face with that combatant, she had wanted — needed — to beat her, cleanly and beyond doubt.
Because the way she kept rising to her feet again and again, no matter how many times she lost, no matter how thoroughly she was smashed down, had been almost awe-inspiring.
It wasn't out of any warm feeling, but when the combatant failed to appear, Jua had caught herself wondering, just for a moment, did she quit?
…Right.
It wasn't mere appearance that had made her overlay the two.
It was the sight of her still fighting on, refusing to give up and disappear, even in a situation like this.
…
She had no idea what to call the feeling welling up inside her.
She was still anxious. She still hated this situation.
Because once every truth came to light, they would have to admit that the people they had beaten down and driven off, over and over, were ordinary citizens — no different from that Jieun who refused to give up.
It would mean admitting, too, that they had never even thought to wonder whether, among them, there were people carrying dreams every bit as grand as a magical girl's.
And yet, even so.
Because the Jua buried deepest inside her could not turn her back on that unbending Ye Joo-ah—
Jua shivered slightly.
She could not begin to imagine what was going to happen.
And what she disliked most of all, in the end, was herself — the self that had failed to force her own convictions through, and had left the judgment to someone else.