Intimacy (2)
Back at the building, Jua lay in her room and turned the matter over for a while.
Because, just as Jieun had said, her reaction had been out of character for her.
It wasn't as if she'd never shown similar reactions to her other teammates. For some strange reason, Rose seemed to have decided that Jua's personality made her fun to tease, and would often bait her just to watch her get worked up. That, too, had tapered off little by little as time went on, until the two of them eventually settled into a perfectly unremarkable coexistence.
But that was nothing like what she'd felt listening to Jieun.
Jieun's words hadn't been the product of knowing Jua's sore spots and scratching at them gently. They were closer to something tossed out carelessly, by someone who knew nothing at all.
And, strangely enough, there had been no malice in them.
Looking back, when Jieun had said things like that in the middle of a fight, it had simply been to carve out an opening in her opponent. Judged on combat ability alone, an ordinary combatant was hopelessly outmatched, and so, to win—no, just to land a single blow—she'd had to make an opening somehow. It was a handy trick for running away, too.
So it would be hard to call that malice. Especially since Iris, at the time, had been properly wearing underpants. Unlike Jieun, not so long ago.
Then what about now?
If she got teased in everyday life, what would that mean? Judging by her expression, it hadn't been meant literally. Perhaps it was, in its own way, a sign of closeness—though heaven only knew how Jieun had come to consider Jua close in the first place.
"Jua."
There wasn't much to do, and the hour was still too early to sleep as far as she was concerned, so Jua had simply been lying on the vinyl sheet, sunk in thought, when Hayun spoke to her.
She sat up and looked over. Hayun was watching her with a genuinely grave expression.
A thread of tension pulled tight in her chest. Hayun only ever wore that face when things were truly serious.
No one else was nearby. Strictly speaking, it wasn't that there was no one at all. But the only spot here that could be called private space was Jieun's tent, so whenever any of them wanted time to herself, she simply kept a comfortable distance and spent it apart.
Thankfully, the space itself was fairly generous. Perhaps whoever had lived here once lived alone; the house was laid out as one big room and nothing more.
Rose was stretching in a corner. Dalia sat deep in thought over the fruits of their cultivation, and Delphinium was filling a book with writing fine as grains of dust.
James and Cherry appeared to be inside the tent. She hadn't confirmed it for certain, but Jieun's bag was supposedly stuffed with all manner of odds and ends. They might well be in there hunting for parts.
And Jieun... had come back with them a short while ago, but not straight home. She'd said she wanted a little more fresh air first. The only reason she'd come this far at all, it seemed, was so that Hayun wouldn't worry.
A magical girl's body was, naturally, superior to an ordinary person's, hearing included. Anything said here would reach Jua's ears eventually... but it was probably the kind of conversation that didn't suffer for being overheard.
"Yes. Please, go ahead."
Jua straightened her posture and answered with matching gravity, and Hayun nodded.
"You were with Jieun just now, weren't you?"
Jua thought it a small mercy that Jieun wasn't here. If she had been, this might have been a story Hayun couldn't have brought herself to tell.
It might even be about the work of remaking what it meant to be a magical girl. The future was still uncertain, but for now there was no better way than the one they had already planned.
If it came from Hayun—their leader in all but name—then listening closely mattered more than anything.
But the question that came flying the very next moment was, for Jua in her concentration, bewildering on every count.
"Did she not talk about me?"
"Pardon?"
"I mean... I was wondering whether the reason Jieun was out there in the first place was because of me."
...
Jua tried to read the meaning buried in the question. The answer came quicker than expected.
So they did fight.
They'd fought, and Jieun had fled all the way out there because of it; no doubt that was why Hayun was asking now.
"She didn't say anything in particular."
What was one supposed to do at a time like this?
Jua had no idea how to mediate between two other people. Within the magical girl squad, she had always been one of the ones doing the fighting, never one of the ones making peace.
Hayun and Jieun being at odds was hardly a good thing—but when the one and only mediator available was the very subject of the quarrel, what words could possibly untangle it?
Jua didn't even know Jieun all that well, for that matter.
And Hayun, too—
...
"So it really wasn't because of me, then?"
No—it was because of Hayun. Even Jua, with her scant interest in the tangled relations between people, could see that much.
And yet... she had no memory of ever seeing the two of them fight so badly. People didn't always need raised voices to be fighting, and the two of them were often alone together in places no other girl could see, so if they had fought, it might simply have gone unwitnessed.
"...Yes. Probably not."
That was Jua's answer.
She didn't know how to broker a peace, but fanning the flames of their quarrel was the one thing she must not do.
Besides, neither Jieun nor Hayun seemed to have any intention of admitting a fight had happened at all, so Jua decided to simply play ignorant.
Watching Hayun breathe a sigh of relief, Jua felt a flicker of puzzlement.
"Hayun."
"Hm?"
At the call of her name, Hayun looked over with a face easier than it had been a moment before.
But Jua's next question stripped that calm away in an instant.
"Do you, by any chance, like Jieun?"
"Li—? Li-li-li-li, li—!?"
Chopping a word that short did not seem like a very good idea.
Granted, Hayun's reaction to that single question had been panic in its purest form, and granted, it was obvious what word was meant to follow—so Jua refrained from pointing it out and heaping needless embarrassment on top.
"L-like her? What's that supposed to mean!?"
Hayun just barely managed to finish the sentence.
At that volume, Jua was fairly sure it had carried to Jieun beyond the vinyl flap as well—but once again, she elected to sweep that fact neatly under the rug.
"Why are you so flustered? Is it that the fact you like her mustn't come to light?"
"Whether it mustn't come to light that I like her—well, obviously— Ah."
Mid-answer, Hayun realized something and froze solid.
Jua was still tilting her head when—
"That's right. What on earth could the reason be not to like someone?"
Rose had sidled up at some point, wearing a grin of pure mischief.
"You can just say you like her as a friend, can't you?"
"N-no, no, that's— the meaning is, admittedly, correct, but? The phrasing is a little? Doesn't it sound strange?"
There were far too many question marks in there that didn't need to exist.
Jua's head tilted in the other direction.
"Th-then, Jua, what about you?"
Hayun tossed the question right back.
Jua thought it a strangely transparent way to dodge.
"How do I feel, you ask?"
"You're friends, aren't you? As her friend, what do you think of Jieun? If you had to pick one—like, or dislike?"
...
Jua found the question more than a little absurd.
"Are we even close enough to be called friends?"
"You're... not close enough to be friends?"
It was that second question that left Jua vaguely at a loss.
That... she honestly didn't know.
What was a friend, exactly? She'd never been sure. Was a friend the child your parents hinted you'd get along well with? The child who, mid-conversation, quietly fished for details about your parents?
Was a friend someone who knew you through and through?
...
That sounded right, and yet somehow a little off.
Then what about the magical girls?
Hayun, if called a friend, was a friend. They weren't close enough to make plans to meet up and hang out, but when they found themselves in the same place, they'd drift into idle chatter for no particular reason.
The other magical girls were much the same. Perhaps not 'close' in the way Hayun was, but they belonged to the same team and shouldered the same risks. It wasn't even as if they were bound together by money and couldn't help it—so if you called them friends, friends they could be.
And then... Jieun?
Jua felt she had come to know Jieun quite well. Not precisely, and not the whole of her private life, but at least who she was and how she fought.
They had even moved together with their lives on the line.
There had never been any simple contract exchanged between them, no easy 'let's be friends' handed back and forth—but the thought arrived, a little belatedly, that if you called them friends, that might well be what they were.
"...If you call it friendship, then I suppose... it could be."
"See? Isn't that what I said? Then how do you feel? Like her? Dislike her?"
"Well, obviously I li— li—..."
Huh?
If you were friends, then by the simple binary of like and dislike, the answer had to be 'like.' You couldn't call someone you didn't even like a friend.
And yet, put on the spot, she couldn't come right out and say it.
Because, for some reason, actually saying it felt like anything but a light thing to do.
It was a strange sensation.
Ordinarily, Jua would have taken the word at its dictionary meaning and said it without a second thought. She hated losing by nature, and she wanted to win this exchange too—so the correct play was to come back with a perfectly blank 'I do like her?'
But, curiously enough, finishing the word felt strangely difficult.
Could it be because Hayun was boring a hole through her face from mere inches away?
Because Hayun, taking the word 'like' far too seriously, was watching, and Jua feared her meaning would be twisted into something else entirely?
...
Seeing Jua fail to answer properly, Hayun's expression grew a shade graver—as if Jua's hesitation were itself something deeply significant.
Friend.
Yes. In a way, by the dictionary definition, Jieun's position might fit the word perfectly.
Someone you could trade harsh words with, no walls between you, as casually as breathing—such a person had never existed in Jua's life before.
Why the two of them could speak to each other so unguarded, Jua herself couldn't say. But one thing was certain: that attitude of Jieun's pleased her, a little.
So... yes. She liked her.
Somehow it felt as though if she lost her, she would never again have someone who shared that kind of relationship with her.
Someone who, when they met and talked, paid no mind to the background Jua came from, paid no mind to her being a magical girl, and could toss out mortifying words—s-skirts, or se—sexual harassment—without so much as blinking. The only person in the world who could do that was Jeong Jieun.
Jua drew a small breath.
So perhaps the reason that 'like' wouldn't come out cleanly was the 'parts she didn't like' she sensed in Jieun.
Jieun was a little willful, paid no heed whatsoever to the standing Jua held, and refused to move as Jua wished. Seen through that lens, she was 'dislikeable.'
But if you took all of it together, ran the full calculation, and averaged it out—
Jua offered up her conclusion.
"Yes. I like her."
That was Jua's answer.
At Jua's words, Hayun stopped breathing for a moment.
She knew perfectly well that Jua hadn't meant that 'like' in that way. Naturally not. That would be... a strange thing, after all.
And yet the weight of an answer arrived at after such long, earnest deliberation, and delivered with a face every bit as earnest, did not feel light in the least.
It didn't seem like simple affection.
No—more than that—
the very fact that Jua could come out and say 'I like her,' plain as day, struck Hayun as faintly wondrous.
Because even Hayun—who had spent all those years at her side, walked with her, wandered everywhere with her, lived as her literal 'closest friend in the world'—had never once managed to put those words out.
It wasn't that she disliked her, obviously. Nor was it simple embarrassment.
It was, perhaps, that the weight of the 'like' Hayun carried was a little different.
She wanted, this very instant, to go and ask every one of the other girls too.
If all of them answered 'I like her,' then Hayun, too, could finally breathe easy.
Except.
"You're not answering, Hayun."
Jua asked, her grave expression unchanged.
The words made her restless.
"I, li—..."
Rose looked over at Hayun with a distinctly sly expression.
The two who had been sitting far away were now staring at her, too. The one mercy was that Cherry and James had not emerged from the tent.
"I like..."
I like her.
If she hadn't liked her, she would never have been so glad to squeeze into that narrow tent. No—truthfully, she had liked that it was cramped, that it was just the two of them. In there, the two of them could enjoy that time without anyone else barging in.
When she looped an arm around Jieun's waist and held her close, that warmth let her heart settle.
Because she was afraid Jieun might drift far away. Because something in her dreaded that if she didn't keep her right before her eyes, she would vanish somewhere, clean away, just like before.
So Hayun had kept trying to stay glued to Jieun's side.
And Jieun had allowed it. That had made her happy. If she asked, would Jieun answer that she 'liked' Hayun too?
She knew that wasn't a word meant for someone more than a friend. Naturally so. The two of them had been friends since childhood.
Hayun had thought so, too, until just a little while ago. Until she had believed she could keep staying by Jieun's side.
Since when?
Not some moment of sudden awareness—since when had she been thinking this way?
Probably the very attempt to carve out a 'since when' was strange from the start. From far, far too long ago.
Every time Hayun struggled, every time she wanted to throw it all away, every time she was worn down to nothing—
Jieun was, at some point, simply there beside her. Without being called, without a word being said, Jieun was at Hayun's side.
How could anyone look at a person like that and not find her lovable?
Those small slivers of time had piled up into a lifetime. In every glittering memory studded through them, Jieun shimmered. And how was Hayun supposed to peel the person called 'Jeong Jieun' out of her own life?
If anyone overheard this—yes, if Hayun's parents heard it, they might call it a hasty judgment. They would surely say exactly that.
That life is long, and Hayun had lived far too little of it, so she didn't yet know what lay ahead.
That better days would come if she just kept on living.
The studying she had to do, the competitions she had to enter, the one more award plaque she had to bring home, the application to become a magical girl—all of it, they would say, was for her future. So someone she liked even more might yet appear, and that someone might not even be a woman.
...When?
When, exactly?
Hayun had never lived through that 'future.'
She didn't even know what that 'better' thing was supposed to be.
All she knew how to do was pick out the 'most precious person' from whatever stood before her eyes.
And that was precisely what made it more frightening.
What if, inside that uncertain future, she never found anyone more precious? What if the person she had lost forever was, in truth, the most precious thing she could ever have gained? She had never needed to let go in the first place.
Hayun had been a magical girl, and she had had a future.
And the reason she had been able to keep going without giving up partway through was Jieun.
Erase every one of those small memories studded dense through the record of Hayun's life, and all that remained was a bleak, black night sky with not so much as a moon hanging in it.
They said a magical girl's wand took the shape of whatever that person treasured most. True, there was someone right in front of her—Jua—wielding a rather unusual wand of her own, but Hayun believed it all the same. Because the 'wand' Hayun had held in her hand at the moment she found hope was one Jieun had given her.
She couldn't know how things might have gone inside some other possibility.
But every thread of the 'hope' Hayun held now was woven to Jieun.
Tearing Jieun out of Hayun's life would be no different from tearing the hope out of Hayun.
So—she liked her.
Not as a word of simple fondness, but in the truest sense of it. She liked her so much that she wanted to go on looking at her, always, for the rest of her life.
The weight of that 'like' was so very heavy—so heavy she could hardly bring herself to say it carelessly.
"I li—!"
"...Lick?"
Just as Hayun was trying, somehow, to force the words out, Jieun's voice cut in.
Creeeak.
With the effort of an unoiled automaton, Hayun managed to wrench her head around toward the sound—and there stood Jieun, folding back the vinyl flap and stepping inside.
She was staring at Hayun with an expression of utter, unadulterated disbelief.
...
Psshhhh.
No such sound actually rang out, but Hayun sank with such flawless precision that anyone watching would have sworn they'd heard it.
"What? What were you all talking about?"
At the sound of Jieun's voice, Hayun dropped flat against the floor and curled herself into a ball.
"Pfft—PWAHAHAHAHA!"
Having evidently pieced the situation together, Rose burst out laughing.
For some reason, Jua's face had been glowing red for a while now.
Dalia and Delphinium, for their part, stayed off at a distance, showing no sign of coming any closer.
"...What even is this situation?"
Only Jieun, who had wandered into the room far too late, stood there muttering it in a hollow voice.