A Night Walk and a Slip of the Tongue
I'd sent her a text asking what the hell that broadcast was supposed to be, and Eve showed up that night.
When I asked her how she could possibly look so unbothered, Eve just stared at me like she couldn't see what the problem was.
Fair enough. Attacking at the end of October for Halloween had been the plan from the start. If we were going to do it, we might as well make it spectacular — I didn't have any objections there.
The problem was the broadcast.
"You don't need to worry about the broadcast, either. This hotel has a Grand Bloom — a huge reception hall. We just rent it out for a few hours and we're set. I'll cover the— wait, no. The Association will expense it."
"Eve. If word gets out that the Magical Girl Association paid Mogumogu's venue rental, do you have any idea how much flak you'd catch?"
"It won't get out. Our Association has a dedicated tax team. And even if people complain, what are they going to do about it?"
"Aigoo... Fine. Just forget it."
Yeah. This one wasn't right in the head either.
"Anyway, I'm really not thrilled about doing a broadcast."
"Is this about the time you bit your tongue?"
"That's— ugh. Forget it. Let's just drop it."
I snapped at Eve like there was some other reason, but honestly, that was exactly it. Ever since that first broadcast — the one where I'd been speaking just fine until my pronunciation slipped and I made a complete fool of myself — the mere mention of going on air made me want to crawl under a rock.
"We'll prep the script for you, so don't stress too much. We'll handle the makeup, too. Just think of it as coming out and reading a script with a little feeling."
"Fine. All right. Let's just do the damn thing."
"Where's Kabe?"
Dusick had carried Kabe off to her own room. She'd even taken the pajamas Eve bought, saying she was going to bathe her and put her to bed — by now the two of them were probably making a glorious mess of bath time. She'd dragged Keru along as well, which meant that tonight, this family suite belonged to just Eve and me.
"You're going to sleep alone in this huge room?"
"What, is there someone else who's supposed to sleep here? You can stay if you want."
"Hmm."
Eve crossed her arms and bounced the leg she'd folded over the other.
"Want a beer?"
"I don't drink. You have one. I'll take a cola. I quit."
"Suit yourself."
Eve pulled a beer and a cola from the fridge and tossed the cola at me without warning.
"That's ice cold."
We clinked our cans together in a halfhearted toast and each took a sip. The crisp, cold fizz washed down my throat in the most pleasant way.
"The truth is, things have gotten a little complicated because you won."
Eve's voice had gone flat and heavy. I picked up one of the dried squid legs she'd laid out as a snack and chewed on it slowly.
"Complicated how?"
"Do you know how battles actually work?"
"No. Keru never told me any of that. I kept meaning to ask him one of these days, but I kept forgetting."
"I haven't experienced a Mother-style battle firsthand, but I've heard the gist. The difference between how Mogumogu-dan fights and how we magical girls fight is..."
A long-winded explanation followed. She went on and on, but it boiled down to this:
Magical girls fought independently. Each one handled her own fight however she saw fit.
Mogumogu-dan, on the other hand, fielded Mains whose individual combat power was pathetic compared to a magical girl's, so their strategy was to overwhelm with numbers. They formed teams of several Mains each, and the leader of every team synchronized with Mother to share the battlefield situation in real time and fight under her command.
In other words, the burden on Mother was enormous.
Once she'd finished explaining, all I could manage was a halfhearted response.
"Huh. Okay."
"That's your reaction?"
"I've never been through it. What kind of reaction am I supposed to have?"
Hearing about it wasn't the same as knowing it. The best way to understand something was to go through it at least once.
"So, Eve."
"Yeah. I'll get a reception hall ready. Want to do it the day after the broadcast?"
"I haven't even said anything yet."
"You were about to ask if we could run a mock battle, weren't you?"
Did this girl have mind-reading powers or something?
"It's not mind reading."
It sure sounded like it!
"It's just that kind of moment. Looking at you, you seem like the type who gets the hang of things faster by doing them once than by hearing an explanation a hundred times."
"Nailed it."
"Heh."
Eve drained her beer can.
"I used to have a friend who was exactly like that."
My hand, reaching for another squid leg, froze.
"Same style as you. Said he'd rather try something once than listen to an explanation a hundred times. And he was right, too. I still feel bad that I vanished without even saying goodbye when I became a magical girl. I wonder if he's doing okay."
So that's how it was.
She'd been thinking about it. Remembering, even.
"Hey, Eve. That kind of self-pity doesn't suit you. Knock it off. Are you drunk?"
"Why are you picking a fight now?"
"That friend of yours would understand. The government told you to do it, right? What else were you supposed to do? Am I wrong?"
Eve snorted a quiet laugh at that. She fetched a fresh beer, cracked it open with a hiss, and took a long swallow.
"Still. Sorry is sorry. We were really close. Even now, I..."
That was enough. The fact that she hadn't forgotten me — that I hadn't been the only one who thought we were close — was more than enough.
"Hey, hey, hey. Drop the gloomy stuff. It's not like I'm the only one with friends. Anyway, finish what you were saying. What's this about things getting complicated because I won?"
"Ah. Right. That."
Eve picked up a squid leg, her face already souring at the mere thought of it.
"Frilly's been raising hell about being the commander in the fight at the end of this month."
"I thought you said it was every girl for herself. What's a commander supposed to be?"
"It's not like anyone officially holds the title. But Mother used to take the field in person. Between the battlefield command and the fact that Mother is basically a mother to the Mains, their combat power skyrockets when she fights alongside them. So back then... this was around the time I first showed up, when there were barely three or four magical girls..."
They'd had to force Mother to retreat as fast as possible, Eve explained. Or, at the very least, keep her from commanding. That was the only way to make the weakened Mains manageable.
The strategy went like this: the magical girls would punch through Mother's honor guard, then a strong fighter would dive in and attack Mother directly, forcing her to focus on the fight instead of commanding the Mains. Meanwhile, the other magical girls who had finished mopping up would gather and provide support.
The magical girl whose job it was to stall Mother in one-on-one combat came to be called the commander, for convenience's sake. And the name had stuck ever since.
So, to summarize.
"Frilly wants a rematch with me. That's what you're saying."
"Pretty much."
She still hadn't been hit hard enough, then.
"Let her. I don't duck a fight someone picks with me."
"Mother. I get that you're not weak — you beat Precure and you beat Frilly — but..."
Eve was staring straight at me.
"Frilly isn't that weak. I don't know how it happened, but you had a resistance to her primary magic, and she lost because she didn't know that and let her guard down. That's the accurate read."
Hmph.
Thinking about it coldly, she was probably right.
I tipped the last drops of cola into my mouth and thought it over. The way the battlefield had suddenly gone dark. A Mind Field, she'd called it — it blinded every enemy in range and forcibly crushed their will to fight. A kind of debuff. And that beam she'd fired at me, plus a handful of other spells I couldn't even name. Not a single one of them had landed.
If Frilly hadn't let her guard down about me at all... could I have won?
Probably not.
I needed to have a serious talk with Keru tomorrow.
"Eve, stop drinking."
"This is only my second can. I'm not getting drunk off this."
"I'm starting to want one, so stop drinking."
"You've got to be kidding me."
I stood up. I slapped Eve on the back as she stared up at me in disbelief.
"Let's go for a night walk."
Nothing beat a little fresh air for clearing your head. The worrying could come later. If sitting in a corner hugging your knees and stewing wasn't producing any answers, you were better off just going outside and letting the wind hit your face.
"Oh, that truck's still there."
The hill road from Seolleung Station toward Hanti Station. Somewhere around the middle of that hill, if my memory served, there was a truck that sold tteokbokki. Ridiculously spicy — and ridiculously good.
It was pretty late, and now that October had rolled in the weather had turned properly autumnal, a little chilly. I'd wondered if the owner might have packed up early, but luckily the truck was still there.
Eve and I pushed through the vinyl curtains hung around the truck and stepped inside.
"Tteokbokki? Really?"
"I'm hungry. Boss, three servings of tteokbokki."
"Mo— I mean, Yeonwoo, I can't eat that much."
"I'll eat most of it. Come to think of it, you never told me your name."
"Hyeran. Last name Seo, first name Hyeran. Not that anyone ever actually calls me by it."
"Yeah, I can see why."
Silver hair like that wasn't common. You couldn't get it by dyeing, and bleaching just gave you white hair, not silver. Even if you got close to the color, you couldn't reproduce that kind of luminous, flowing silver sheen.
Which meant that anyone with hair like that...
"Well, if it isn't the Association President."
"Hi there~"
Eve immediately put on a radiant smile, looked around, and bobbed her head in greeting after greeting.
"Doesn't that get annoying?"
"What's there to be annoyed about? These are people who are happy to see me. I'm grateful, if anything."
"You were just born to be a magical girl, weren't you."
"There you go saying weird things again."
Tteokbokki didn't take long to make, so it came out fast. The rice cakes were thick, the fish cakes were generous, and that blazing red sauce was fantastically delici—
"Hh— hah— hleck— hhuh..."
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. My lips stung like they'd been split open. My mouth felt like someone had set it on fire.
"Hey, hey. Yeonwoo. Here, drink some Coolpis. Coolpis."
A paper cup touched my lips — I couldn't even open my eyes. I downed the entire cup of Coolpis Eve was feeding me in one go, and only then was the fire in my mouth put out.
"I— I used to be able to handle spicy food no problem..."
I stuck my tongue out and fanned my mouth with my hand, but the inside of my mouth was still burning. Weird. I hadn't been the type who couldn't handle heat like this. I used to eat this level of spice without breaking a sweat.
"Does becoming a woman change your taste buds too... Ugh, I'm dying..."
"What did you just say?"
Eve's sudden question made my stomach drop. I looked up to find her staring at me with her eyes wide as saucers.
"Becoming a woman...? What is that supposed to mean?"
"Huh?"
Ah. I'm so fucked.