Time for Round Two
A round of soju over gopchang with Dusick, Sohee, and Kabe had left me pleasantly buzzed. Propped up by Dusick on one side and Sohee on the other, I made it home, and after a glass of cold water that Sohee pressed into my hands, my head finally started to clear.
Mm. It was about time for round two.
Last time I'd played along as a favor to Eve — I'd even thrown the fight. I couldn't afford to do that anymore. According to Keru, the Balance Index had already dropped to four percent. If it slipped any further without recovering, something deeply unpleasant was going to happen. Win, lose, or otherwise — I needed to start winning.
We'd always been the ones to declare war. It began with an official notice stating when, where, and at what hour we'd strike, which meant the when and where were entirely up to me, the commander.
"Who sends the notice?"
"Sometimes I do, sometimes Lord Keru does. Usually it's me, though."
"Why?"
"Well..."
Dusick stared straight at me, then scratched her cheek.
"Lord Keru has cat paws."
Ah. Fair enough. Sending a fax with those would be a bit of a stretch.
"Hmm."
I ran the numbers in my head. I never should have summoned Sohee while the production unit was still intact — I should have stamped out a batch of Mains first and produced her afterward. A shame. The machine was under repair now, and there was no telling how many days that would take. For the moment, I had seventeen Mains left.
Split them into four units and that was four to a squad, with one squad of five. Way too thin. If I put Dusick in charge of one unit and Sohee another, and I held one myself — stalling until Kabe's gauge filled — we could handle up to four magical girls. But if I went down, the whole thing collapsed, so call it three. Then again, Sohee had said she could cover two on her own. So four. And once Kabe transformed, the battlefield would be ours.
Huh. This was a more workable force than I'd thought.
We could cover four or five A-class and B-class magical girls. C-class ones the Mains could handle on their own, honestly. And we had Kabe — the same Kabe who'd made even Frilly tremble in fear. Which meant...
Oh?
"This should be fine."
And besides... I'd just had a really good idea.
"Unni?"
Oh, with this one trick... I could rake in a fortune.
"Unni? What thoughts occupy you so?"
Sohee shoved her face right into mine, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Ah — sorry. Zoned out for a second. The fight's in a week. Next Saturday, seven in the evening, Pangyo Station. Send the notice tomorrow morning. Got it?"
"Understood!"
"Sohee, you learn how to send those notices too. Wait — before that. Can you even read and write?"
"I am quite capable of that much! Unni, what on earth do you take this Sohee for?!"
Look at her bristle.
The president of the Magical Girl Association was Miracle Princess Eve — Ice Princess Eve, as she was better known. The first magical girl, and an S-class. And then there was Aquamarine: likewise S-class, the second magical girl to appear after Eve, and the Association's vice president.
Aquamarine did not like Eve.
She commanded water-attribute magic as freely as breathing. Anything that fell under the domain of "water" was supposed to be hers and hers alone — and yet, somehow, she had never once beaten Eve, whose magic was water as well, but ice-aspected, and light-aspected on top of that.
Then that woman calling herself Mother had appeared out of nowhere. She had ostentatiously driven Eve out of the gallery and seized the owner's seat for herself, and the thought that Eve was now tasting the same wretched feeling Team Aqua had endured when Team Eve's firepower crushed them into the dirt... well. That put Aquamarine in an excellent mood.
It was Sunday, so hardly any magical girls were at the Association to begin with, but Eve had apparently been idle enough to come in and sit in her office, which was how this impromptu lunch meeting had come about. Eve had bought a convenience-store lunch box and was heating it up. Aquamarine had prepared a premium wagyu bulgogi bento in advance. The two of them sat facing each other in the president's office, getting ready to eat.
"A declaration of war came in. Did you see it?"
"I saw it."
The microwave dinged. Eve pulled out the lunch box, frowned at it, shoved it back in, and hit the button again.
"Pangyo Station. What's she thinking?"
"Who knows."
The conversation refused to go anywhere. Aquamarine would speak, and Eve would answer in monosyllables, and that was the entire loop.
"Hmmm."
There had to be something that would get under Eve's skin.
"Eve."
"What."
"About the Pangyo Station fight."
"Yeah."
Ding.
Eve took the lunch box out again, and this time she looked satisfied.
"I'll take command. That's fine, right?"
"You?"
Now they were talking. Aquamarine swept a wave of water-blue hair back from her face and smiled, slow and alluring.
"Why wouldn't it be? I'd also like to see that Shinsallang Frilly mentioned. With my own eyes."
"You're not planning to tame it, are you?"
This bitch...
How dare she talk about my daughter. Not my biological daughter, but still. Eve ground her teeth where no one could see. She had no grounds to stop her, though. No justification for blocking someone who wanted to take the field as commander.
"Fine. But don't overdo it. You know how dangerous the Balance Index is right now."
"I know perfectly well. Not that it makes much difference to me."
Aquamarine swept her hair back again and grinned. She really did look as though she couldn't have cared less what became of this world, smiling that lazy little smile. Water-bright hair, eyes that glimmered with the same muted blue, and the beauty mark sitting just beneath one of them — cute and decadent in equal measure. Aquamarine smiled at Eve.
"Don't push it, Aquamarine."
"My, whatever do you mean?"
"If you're a magical girl, act like one. How about a little awareness that you're supposed to be protecting light and justice? You're the vice president. You can't go around like that."
"Honestly. And here I thought you had something to say."
Aquamarine set down her chopsticks and took a sip of water. Even with the cup at her lips, her eyes never left Eve. Not for a second.
"Listen, Eve."
Eve didn't look at her. She just kept eating her lunch box in silence.
"That light and justice you're always talking about. Is there even anything that sweet left in this world?"
"What are you on about now?"
"Am I wrong? This world is rotten through and through. You and I — if we hadn't become a force this powerful, with this many people, this much violence behind us — we'd have been worked to the grave. Put through every kind of human experiment they could think of."
"That's enough."
"Yeah. Just like that Mother woman you're so worried about."
"You — how do you know that?!"
"Oh my. So I was right. I was only taking a stab in the dark."
Eve shot to her feet, chopsticks clattering down as if she'd thrown them, and her gaze collided with Aquamarine's in midair, striking blue static between them. Aquamarine's eyes narrowed to slits as she stared Eve down.
"I know you're in a messy situation yourself, in more ways than one. That woman throwing her tantrum has given you quite the headache, hasn't it?"
"A villain did what villains do. And I'm not involved in politics. No matter how much those people scheme, what can they possibly do in the face of overwhelming violence?"
"Hmmm..."
Well. If that was how she wanted to put it.
Aquamarine didn't argue. She just nodded, unwrapped a honey candy to cleanse her palate, and popped it into her mouth. A rich honey fragrance and a truly cloying sweetness flooded across her tongue.
"Ugh. This is insanely sweet."
"It is honey water."
I opened my eyes in the morning to find Dusick and Sohee standing side by side next to the bed. Now that Kabe had come back and started sleeping with me again, Sohee had moved in with Dusick — and since there hadn't been any incidents, they seemed to be getting along well enough, which was a relief. Dusick was holding a hangover drink. Sohee was holding a bowl of water.
The hangover drink I recognized — I'd seen that bottle a hundred times. The bowl in Sohee's hands was another matter, so I took it and drank. Honey water.
"How is it?"
"Ugh. Ridiculously sweet."
I wasn't much of a sweets person, honestly. But she'd gone to the trouble of mixing honey water for her Unni just because I'd been drinking, and for that alone I grinned at her, lopsided and fond.
"Thanks. I mean it."
"If you are grateful... then perhaps..."
Sohee lowered herself a little and tipped her head toward me. Wait. Was she—
I just sat there, and Sohee simply picked up my hand and set it on top of her own head.
"Th-thanks, Sohee."
I stroked her hair, and she squinted up at me like a cat, smiling with her whole face.
"Nay. I beg you to remember this Sohee, who would do anything for her Unni."
"You don't have to go that far—"
"I beg you to remember."
"Okay, okay..."
Had I been supposed to do something today? It felt like I had, and also like I hadn't. Nothing important, probably — except it also felt like the kind of thing I wasn't supposed to forget...
"Mom, when're you makin' tteokbokki?"
Tteokbokki? Me?
If I asked her when I'd ever said that, Kabe would definitely get her feelings hurt. That was when my phone buzzed in my hand.
Did I?
Well. Tteokbokki wasn't exactly difficult.
"Alright. I'll make it for lunch."
"Yay!"
Come to think of it, I hadn't done any grocery shopping. There was a supermarket out front, though, if I remembered right. I could use the air. Maybe I'd go alone.
I changed into sweats and left Kabe with Dusick and Sohee. Sohee looked like she wanted to tag along, but the truth was I needed some time to myself. I told them I'd be back on my own, and I took the elevator down.
It stopped a few times on the way. A pack of Mains piled in.
"Mother!"
"You can relax in here."
"Big Sis!"
"There we go. Where are you all off to?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Honestly. It was hard to look at these things and call them artificial life-forms. Their faces were completely human. Aside from the way they shifted into black tights the moment a fight started, they didn't even look like Mains. Then again, I didn't look any different from a regular person except for my eyes, so maybe it didn't matter.
"Where are you all stampeding off to?"
"PC bang just up the street!"
"Oh. A PC bang?"
I used to live in those places. I'd even had my own reserved seat. A genuine shut-in, that was me.
"What are you playing?"
"Galaxy Craft Remastered just came out, so that!"
"Oh?"
So they'd remastered it. I'd only ever played the original. I wondered if it was any good — I was about to ask when the elevator hit the first floor.
"Alright, have fun. Go enjoy yourselves."
I pulled about thirty thousand won from my wallet and pressed it into their hands for snacks. The way their faces lit up was so endearing I couldn't help grinning myself.
The supermarket was less than a five-minute walk. One of those big-box chain stores — and a global chain, at that. I'd heard the Korean branches alone posted numbers so good it could make you cry. It was certainly big enough. The inside was genuinely vast. I was glad I hadn't brought Kabe.
Rice cakes for the tteokbokki, fish cakes, sesame oil, gochujang — just the ingredients, and there were so many kinds I spent an absurd amount of time comparing fish cakes alone.
"Aigoo. Kabe's going to be starving."
I hadn't been grocery shopping in so long that I'd gotten carried away and taken forever. But I'd come all this way, so I'd grabbed ingredients for dinner too, and of course that ate up even more time.
"Alright. Time to head back..."
These bags were heavier than they looked. I packed everything neatly into a box, then sent Eve a message telling her to come over for dinner if she had time.
Tonight was curry.