Chapter 14: Confusion (2)
Naturally enough, I regretted that "second stupid idea" with a burning passion.
I was already awkward enough around Hayun—did I honestly think things wouldn't be awkward with Iris?
That said, we had at least reached the point where we could manage a conversation. There'd been things to discuss—what needed doing next, what needed building—so all things considered, we had actually talked quite a bit.
But that didn't mean... ours was a relationship that could survive being alone together in the same room.
We attended the same school, yes, but we weren't in the same class, and we certainly weren't the kind of friends who hung out together.
I doubted I was the only one made uncomfortable by this. Iris was surely just as flustered.
And so we ended up sitting at opposite ends of the bath, facing away from each other, without either of us having managed a proper wash.
Still, I racked my brain as hard as I could.
How should I break this awkwardness? Would it be better to at least exchange a few words, the way I did with Hayun?
"..."
Good. That was my third stupid idea.
I quickly sorted through my thoughts and picked the other option instead: wash up fast and get out.
A somewhat small basin sat outside the tub, filled with water for pouring over our hair—without a shower, it was one of the few alternatives available to us. There was one on each side of the tub, each filled with warm water so we could use our own, a ladle set inside each.
The plan was to splash some water over my head, work in a little shampoo, and get out—
"...Jeong Jieun... ssi?"
Iris spoke up out of nowhere, and I froze on the spot, half-risen with my arm still outstretched.
"Uh... uhh."
Substituting a strange noise—something impossible to call an answer—for an actual reply, I waited a moment.
"Is that how I should address you? Jeong Jieun-ssi?"
"Isn't that a little... weird?"
"Weird, is it?"
Did she really not realize it was weird?
I gave it some thought.
Admittedly, Iris spoke in the formal register even in the webtoon. By Korean standards, a character who used polite speech with her own friends could come across as a bit stilted—but then, this had been a webtoon built around magical girls, material shamelessly lifted from subculture in the first place. Nobody batted an eye at a somewhat Japanese manga-style setup creeping in.
Now that the thing had sprung off the page and into reality, it was only natural that forms of address ended up hopelessly tangled.
If we were office workers, that way of speaking wouldn't be strange at all. Between coworkers, nobody drops into casual speech the instant they learn they're the same age. Someone might, over time, carefully test the waters with half-formal speech, but as a rule, people use polite speech with a new hire they've just met even if the age gap runs a good ten years—it's common sense.
There are exceptions, of course. Though those people generally get whispered about behind their backs, and odds are that isn't their only failing.
"Still, tacking ssi onto my name is weird, no matter how you slice it."
"..."
At my words, Iris sank into a brief silence.
"What do the others call you, then?"
"Well, the people I work with all have set titles they call me by."
Oh, right.
Magical girls all had fixed names. Magical girl names.
You never needed to call Hayun "Hayun-ssi"—you simply said "Blossom." Korean names collected all sorts of variations and suffixes, but with an English name, calling it plainly, exactly as it was, didn't feel awkward at all.
Still, one question remained.
"Then what about the others?"
"...Is there any particular need to call them?"
"..."
Uh...
Well, I mean.
I suppose you could hold a conversation without calling anyone by name.
And Iris was a magical girl. Maybe not as popular as Hayun, but plenty of people would surely strike up conversation hoping to get into her good graces. Her parents were probably impressive people, too.
"Then should I... simply call you by your name?"
"Would 'Jeong Jieun-yang' be acceptable?"
"No, that doesn't seem quite right either."
Words like yang or gun—honest to god, I'd heard them even less often than ssi.
If I'd at least had some magical-girl-style title of my own, I could have just told her to use that, but sadly, all I had to my name at the moment was the placeholder epithet "Black Magical Girl."
"Just call me Jieun."
"Jieun?"
"That works."
"Then, Jieun, there is something I would like to ask you."
No... somehow that felt a little off, too. She sounded like a foreigner who'd only just started learning Korean.
Though when it came to pronunciation and the like, hers actually seemed better than mine. Crisp and clean-cut.
But quibbling further would only leave the question of what to call me dangling in midair, so I decided against making an issue of it.
"Why did you join Noir Corporation?"
"..."
Once again, I regretted having ended up in here with Iris.
Iris was sitting with her back to me as well—her voice didn't land directly on the back of my head. She found the situation just as awkward as I did.
But where I'd been contemplating an immediate escape, Iris, it seemed, had judged this the perfect opportunity.
Not that I had any clue why.
"Why would you... ask me that?"
"...Good question."
At my question, Iris lapsed into thought for a moment. Silence stretched between us.
This time, though, I didn't think about bolting. In any number of ways, I'd grown genuinely curious about why that question had come up at all.
"May I ask you something else?"
Would it be a question completely unrelated to the one she'd just asked? Or yet another question meant to explain why she'd asked in the first place?
I have no idea how she read me as I sat there trying to parse her intent, but in any case, Iris fired off that other question without waiting for my permission.
"You're the one who pointed out the inside of my skirt during that battle, aren't you?"
"..."
This time, I was the one who stayed silent.
What was I even supposed to say to that?
Granted, I'd been pretty desperate back then. I was genuinely going up against a magical girl, after all. It wasn't for any particularly righteous cause, nor was I chasing some grand ambition—it was pure, blind stubbornness.
It wasn't even that I thought I could win. I'd just wanted to land a single hit, one time. And that day, I had failed, in the end.
"..."
But this time Iris, apparently waiting for my answer, kept quiet in turn.
Wanting to flee the discomfort, yet at the same time curious why this question had surfaced, I ultimately surrendered to my curiosity.
"Yeah, that was me."
"And you kept turning up in battles after that, didn't you."
"I did."
"Meaning the combatant who went out of her way to block my path was you."
"...So what about it?"
Iris went silent at my answer.
When the long silence began to stretch out again, I, growing a little irritated this time, asked,
"Is that really such an important question?"
"Whether it's... important, I couldn't say myself."
Hearing that answer left me a little wrong-footed.
It wasn't the content that threw me so much as the voice it arrived in. It sounded, somehow, laden with quiet anguish.
"I simply... wanted to confirm it for myself."
I sat with my mouth open for a moment, offering no answer, then asked again.
"Then how did you figure out it was me?"
At that, Iris seemed to stumble over her words, unable to answer right away.
Well, she'd claimed she recognized me from the scratch on my helmet, but I didn't buy that as the whole story.
I hadn't kept using the same helmet I'd worn the first time I met Iris. Every time my circuit broke down, I received an upgraded replacement—so by rights, Iris should have failed to recognize me at least twice.
And yet she'd picked me out, time after time. That was a little strange.
"It was just... a feeling."
The answer that came back was a distinctly unsatisfying one.
"Was there some method for recognizing me? Could you identify who someone is by reading their personal mana, or something like that?"
"...No, nothing like that."
Iris answered my question, flustered all the more.
"It truly was just a feeling."
A feeling. A feeling, she says.
Well, I supposed magical girls might have instincts like that. Detectives, too—didn't people say they sometimes got that sense? Ah, this one's the culprit, that sort of thing.
Granted, that very instinct had apparently filled the world with more than its share of the wrongfully accused, but when the one having the feeling wasn't a mere detective but a magical girl, well.
"Anyway—so why does it matter so much?"
At my question, Iris seemed to steady herself somewhat. Perhaps because we'd circled back to her original question.
"...Normally, when we appear, combatants lose their nerve. From the very moment the attack begins, they tend to run."
That much was true.
The pay was, at least, passable. It wasn't as though they paid a pittance. Plenty of combatants had come from distant planets in the first place, chasing the money.
But that didn't mean anyone wanted to keep fighting while their body cracked and broke apart.
It wasn't a job where you'd be openly cursed out for running, and digging in your heels to the bitter end earned you no princely bonus—so there was probably not one soul with the loyalty left to hold their ground and fight it out.
And if, amid all that, I alone had stayed behind—well, yes, I supposed that would turn a few heads.
It wasn't as if I'd merely lingered, either; I'd charged in at full force just to try for a single hit. I must have been a genuine thorn in their side.
"I wasn't the only one who stayed until the end, you know."
But if that was the assumption she was working from, then I had a rebuttal ready.
Jigu-ppa—Pangpang, at least, had held her position right up until she went down. If she'd bolted the instant the battle started, she'd never have been hurt so badly in that day's terror attack.
Not that Pangpang, being who she was, had probably grasped the exact intent of it herself.
And besides Pangpang, a few of the squad-leader types hadn't run before they dropped, either.
That said... I wondered how Pangpang was doing. Was she still living at that place? Lately I hadn't heard a word about combatants being deployed. She could probably scrape by on work in the field, but with one of her usual jobs gone, money might be running a little tight.
Judging by the absence of anything special on the news, she didn't seem to have been caught, but it still worried me some. All the more because I couldn't call her, couldn't visit.
While I was off in my own head, Iris—who had, like me, apparently fallen briefly into thought—spoke up.
"Whatever it took, by any means necessary, you were the only one who came charging in trying to land even a single blow."
"..."
Was that... really how it looked?
"And you did manage results of your own, too."
"That's what you're curious about?"
"Yes. The reason behind it. Only then do I feel I might understand you a little."
"You want to understand me?"
"Like it or not, we'll be spending time together for a while yet. Shouldn't one understand the people around her to at least some degree?"
"..."
"What is it?"
"It's just... I didn't realize you were the type to think about understanding people."
The water sloshed.
Had Iris turned around to look at me?
"What is that supposed to mean?"
The question had an edge to it. I appeared to have prodded at Iris's temper.
"Nothing. It doesn't mean anything."
Even if I'd wanted to bring up her friction with the other girls, that was business among magical girls. Something I had no way of knowing.
If I let slip here that I already knew, Iris would conclude I'd heard it from Hayun.
For a while the back of my head prickled, but then Iris heaved a long haaah of a sigh and turned back around. That must have been it. The water had splashed, after all.
Not that I could see anything, sitting with my back turned the whole time.
"...I am not always prickly, you know."
So she did know she was prickly. Good for her.
"In that case—does it mean you have no intention of answering?"
Should I?
Until a few days ago, I wouldn't have touched a question like that. If anything, I'd have been far pricklier than Iris was being now. I might even have spouted something deliberately unpleasant just to sour the mood.
When on earth had the venom drained out of me?
Perhaps because of Hayun, who for days now had been confidently occupying the spot beside me, I'd lost the attention to spare for anything else.
"I just... wanted to win. Even once."
In the end, that was what I said.
"You wanted to win."
"Yeah."
I let out a long breath.
"Losing every single day is enough to make anyone angry."
Iris gave no reply.
Was it absurd to her? Absurd that I'd come charging in like that, every single time, when I couldn't possibly win anyway?
But the answer that came back carried none of that sentiment.
"I see. So that was it."
"'So that was it'?"
That answer was a little strange.
"Seeing as you're still fighting even now—aren't you thinking much the same thing even now? No matter who the opponent might be, you simply hate a life of nothing but losing."
Somehow, Iris appeared to have bent my words into something rather different from what I'd meant.
"Isn't that exactly why you haven't given up?"
"No, I wouldn't say I said it with feelings quite that positive."
"I'm aware of that much."
You're aware, and you still spin it that positively?
I stared straight ahead and cocked my head.
"..."
It felt like she had more to say, so I waited, but Iris didn't bother with anything further.
And so, that was how that day's conversation ended.
Was that, too, part of Iris being a magical girl?
I went outside and mulled it over on my own while waiting for the others to finish their baths.
Iris had spoken first, probably because she'd wanted to shake off at least a little of the awkwardness. In other words, it was her own brand of consideration.
Magical girls were strong-willed enough that, with their differences in thinking, each of them carried things about the others she privately found hard to stomach.
So through Iris's eyes, I might well have been someone she simply couldn't make sense of. She may even have disliked me. I could still see why, though—given the things I'd said to her, back in my combatant days.
She hadn't carried the conversation any further, so why she'd really asked remained a mystery, but it was still better than sitting in silence, backs to each other.
"..."
What a strange feeling.
It was like the start of a new school term. Like tossing out whatever topic came to hand to get chummy with the person sitting in front of or behind you—talking with Iris had carried exactly that kind of atmosphere.
I was sitting there blankly, arms wrapped around my knees, when a clinking sound came from beside me. I turned my head to find Cherry fiddling with machine parts.
Noticing me staring, Cherry looked up at me.
And beamed. Probably. The facial muscles had moved much the same way James's did when he smiled.
Except that, unlike James's, the face looked far more innocent.
"...What are you doing?"
It felt a little rude to hold eye contact in silence, so that was what I asked.
"Improving the radio."
True to her word, Cherry held a radio in her hands. The back panel was open; she appeared to be poking at the circuit inside.
"If I raise the sensitivity a little further, the sound should come through even clearer."
"The radio's reception is already perfectly clear."
"No—it could still be better."
Cherry answered James's nitpick without missing a beat.
"Are you implying that what I built falls short of perfection?"
"I never said that? ...You know, I've been wondering for a while now—why do you pick a fight with literally everything I touch?"
"You have been going about, handling everything I made, one piece after another. Do you have even the faintest idea what circuits make them run?"
"You didn't build all of this on your own to begin with. If even Iris has laid hands on them, I should be allowed to, shouldn't I?"
That was right.
Iris might not understand the principles behind the circuits, but she could repair and build other devices that ran on them. Cherry, who'd been taught the principles outright, would naturally manage even better.
"More to the point—are you not simply trying to squeeze information out of me about the circuits?"
"Squeak."
Had she just clicked her tongue at him? I gave the sound Cherry had made some very serious thought. It somehow didn't feel like profanity, but judging by the way James's squishy little body flinched, it clearly hadn't been a friendly sound, either.
"If I know the principles, I can build them myself. Who exactly are you calling a fool?"
"A... fool?"
Huh. So fool made it through the translation.
"I'm the one who built the magical girls' circuits in the first place. I made them to withstand output far more intense than anything of yours. The circuits your combatants use are so feeble that with energy at that girl's level, they'd have shattered again and again and again. Am I wrong?"
Cherry looked up at me.
Well... it wasn't wrong.
Granted, James had told me he'd built this circuit for me in advance.
"In the first place, I did not do anything so absurd as to build a circuit around energy almost no one possesses."
"But the energy of five people was plenty, wasn't it."
"..."
A fine argument those two were having.
Of course, to my eyes it looked like nothing more than two talking hamsters squabbling. The words being exchanged were serious and important enough, but somehow, watching it like this, the whole thing seemed utterly trivial.
Come to think of it, was Cherry female? Her voice was feminine. And she certainly looked the part.
If James was male... then wasn't producing offspring a possibility?
No, wait—should I be calling them children, not offspring?
"..."
James was looking up at me.
"What?"
"That look of yours is deeply unpleasant."
"So now you're picking fights with a child far younger than you?"
"You say that only because you do not know how vile this woman is. Do you have any idea what she said about me?"
"Whatever a kid says, how bad can it possibly be?"
James, in what looked like genuine fury, trembled his plump little body all over.
Nice going, Cherry. Bury that evil executive alive in logic.
Still—'child'?
For him to say such a thing in front of me... was Cherry actually older than me?
A hamster older than me... something about that felt deeply wrong.
For a while after that, I gleefully spectated as Cherry berated James one-sidedly.
At some point she even told me to chip in with something, anything, but I just kept smiling pleasantly and watching.
The two of them kept at it until Hayun and Dahlia, freshly bathed, came out of the kitchen.
At the sight of Hayun—who for some reason didn't look all that happy—both of them shut their mouths at once.
...What now.
Why was she in a bad mood again?
Don't tell me this was my fault, too.