The Squid Returns

An ordinary elementary school day only runs through fourth or fifth period.

For now, I can still drag this body out of the prison called school around lunchtime—but third grade is the border of the lower years. Cross into third grade and you become one of those unfortunate souls who only escape around two in the afternoon.

Middle school means a life of seventh period. High school piles night self-study on top of that—an eighth and ninth period by another name.

"Haaah."

"What's wrong?"

I heaved a deep sigh over a future that hadn't even arrived yet, and Siyeon, walking beside me, tilted her head and looked over.

Siyeon still found everything in the world fun. If I started complaining about how I was supposed to juggle monster hunting in between pouring more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than half of every day into school, she wouldn't understand a word of it. In the end, I could only shake my head and tell her it was nothing.

"It's nothing."

Just as my mood was about to hit rock bottom—

"Yesul ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wants to play at her house tomorrow!"

Siyeon volunteered tomorrow's schedule without me even asking. A girl's name I'd heard recently. The same girl who'd dragged me into that pointless magical girl talk not long ago.

You just fought. And you're already going over to her house?

"Weren't you two fighting?"

I asked out of pure bewilderment. Siyeon answered—

"The teacher made us make up! She said Meriri and Shar are both amazing magical girls!"

"Ah. Okay."

I answered flatly, watching Siyeon report their reconciliation. Whether she was happy they'd made up, or happy her favorite characters had been praised, I couldn't tell. Either way, those ten minutes of recess I'd lost that day had become even more meaningless.

If a few words from the teacher were going to patch things up, they could've just made them fight outside the staff room from the start.

"Let's stop by the mart on the way."

I tossed the past aside without a second thought and kept walking, saying we should drop by the mart. A small neighborhood supermarket on the way home from school. Near the apartment there wasn't even a place like this, so if you wanted something to eat you had to remember to buy it on the way back.

…Unless you felt like paying double at a convenience store.

"The mart? Okay!"

Her sunny agreement came right back at me. I already knew why that bright little yes had come out.

"Only two packs of snacks."

"…Okay."

The hard limit on snack packs made Siyeon visibly wilt. Outside of school lunches, the two of us lived on delivery food. Even so, feeding a kid in her growth spurt nothing but snacks was a little much. Koreans run on rice, after all.

Once we reached the mart, the first job was to set Siyeon free.

"When you've picked what you want, wait for me at the register."

"Okay!"

The second I finished, she took off for the snack aisle on her short little legs. I was already looking forward to whatever monstrous bag of snacks she'd come back with. Last time I limited the number, she'd hauled over a corn snack the size of her own body.

Coffee mix was around here, right…?

A shopping basket you could barely carry without gripping both handles. Past the corn silk tea, the cheonma tea, the hot chocolate, and the coffee mix, I finally found what I was after. The cookie-and-choc stick packs I'd just dumped on the class today.

I grabbed them one by one and stacked them in the corner of the basket—about three packs. Two packs of the strawberry flavor Siyeon liked, and one each of chocolate and banana. Seven packs of twenty sticks.

Even that was a lot for one little kid to haul alone. Thinking of it as the portion for the whole class of brats made my stomach twinge a little—but if a few powdered sticks you mix into milk could shut those rude little mouths, it was a bargain.

"That'll be thirty thousand seven hundred won. Do you have a points card?"

"No."

A firm answer, and the snacks and cartons went into a black plastic bag with the receipt. I bought an extra bag so Siyeon could carry the snack bag herself, and stuffed as much of the rest as I could into my backpack.

Whatever wouldn't fit went into the leftover bag, which I hugged against my chest. There was enough of it that it wasn't just heavy—if I held it in one hand it dragged on the ground, so I didn't have a choice.

Of course, past a certain point I'd just carry it one-handed whether the bag scraped the floor and tore or not.

Hauling ourselves home after shopping, we got back to the apartment. Gomtaeng wriggled out of my pocket phone and dropped free; Siyeon's mascot tumbled out of her bag. The bear who should have flopped straight onto a cushion didn't leave his post—he hovered around the entrance, circling near me.

Watching him, the irritation rose all the way up my throat.

"Stop acting like a dog that needs to take a dump and say what you want to say already."

That finally dragged something ugly out of me. The fidgeting little guy held both paws out toward me.

"Um… Mari-nim, may I use your smartphone for a little while?"

Watching him struggle that hard over something as small as asking for a phone almost made me feel sorry for him. I dug the phone out of my pocket and tossed it over.

"Fine. Here."

The phone left my hand, arced through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the air, and landed successfully in his soft little body.

"Don't overdo it with the gallery, though."

I tossed the line out casually and headed for the bed. From behind me came a voice of pure joy, the kind of delight a little kid gets when handed a toy to kill the boredom.

"Yee-haw!"

Gallery-diving does have its own nasty flavor, I'll give him that.

Without caring what he was actually doing, I pulled the school notices and such out of my bag and belatedly checked what news there was. Information about an upcoming field trip. Beyond that, ordinary notices for parents—green mothers' association stuff, cautions around the school, the usual.

Field trip…

Mixed in with all that polite padding, half the field-trip notice was just useless filler. Fancy words, sure—but this was just a picnic, wasn't it? After the fluff came a sheet listing the schedule, what to bring, and so on.

Write it this long and some people still won't get it.

I remembered a post I'd seen on a community board not long ago—some low-IQ parent who'd read "Chinese lunch" and thought it meant jajangmyeon and jjamppong instead of lunch meal. I wasn't the one delivering these notices anymore; now I was the one reading them. An elementary first-grader, carefully going through school notices…

Being a magical girl really was a pathetic life.

Still, if I didn't do it, nobody would. So I had to.

Gonna need wet wipes and a lunch box.

I checked what we didn't have at home and was about to take the phone back to place an order when—

"Siyeon! Mari!"

Siyeon's mascot filled the apartment room with an urgent voice. With that tone, I didn't need the rest of the explanation.

I poked my head out over the edge of the second-floor bed and answered, deadpan.

"What, a monster show up?"

"Yeah! Right near here!"

"Ugh, damn it."

I twisted my face at the part about it being nearby. Magical girls' homes couldn't be identified—transforming and heading out from your own house was forbidden. One of the few actual rules in this brain-dead setting. Meaning we had to get well away from the apartment, transform, and then come back.

I climbed down from the bed, pulled a small mask from the closet, and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I kicked the bear still flopped on the cushion, fiddling with the phone.

Why wasn't he saying anything?

"Hey. Quit gallery-diving. Why didn't you say anything?"

Only then did he look up at me.

"Huh? Ah… did a monster appear?"

"This little shit, for real—"

The words that came out of him were so ridiculous a curse just slipped out on reflex. I genuinely could not believe this. If he couldn't even handle the bare minimum of monster radar duty, what the hell was this guy good for?

I snatched the phone he was still pawing at, stuffed it in my pocket, and got ready to leave with Siyeon—if only to transform.

"Ah…!"

"We'll talk when I get back."

The second I took the phone he'd been frantically fiddling with, he made a sound close to panic. I grabbed him by the head, pulled on my sneakers, and stepped out through the entrance.

We left the apartment complex and, in an unused public restroom in the park, chanted the transformation spell with Siyeon.

"Sun."

"Moon Power, Transform!"

That strange feeling of flying back toward home from a park far from the house. I clamped all five fingers around the face of my derelict-duty bear and bit out three hard words.

"Guide us."

"Y-yes… southeast."

I locked onto the direction in Gomtaeng's flustered voice and launched myself, punching through the clouds. In less than a few minutes we were back over the apartment area, high above the middle of a road.

Unlike last time, I'd even managed the deceleration, so I had the leisure to look down from high up at the street where the monster had appeared.

"Th-there it is."

Huh?

At Gomtaeng's pointing, I scowled at a familiar head.

"It's a squid!"

"Yeah. A squid."

Siyeon lit up with the bright look of someone who'd recognized something, eyes wide. Of course she'd be happy whenever something she knew showed up. More importantly—the same monster visiting our area twice. We could put up a monument for a day like this.

"Th-that one… isn't that the same guy from last time?"

"Looks like it."

I nodded at Gomtaeng and looked down at the thing. Come to think of it, he'd said that nerve-stabbing method was the least painful, fastest way to kill it. Really hadn't suited me.

"…I went too easy on it last time, didn't I?"

I smacked the heart ornament of my staff—already starting to heat up—into my palm and spoke to Gomtaeng.

"For Sun-nim, that was a pretty merciful death, yes."

He nodded in agreement. Right. It really hadn't been like me.

A sharp smack as the staff's heart ornament hit my palm, and a brief flash of heat. At the same time, I made myself a promise: this time, I wouldn't kill it so easily.