Revelations from the Past
"Is this really okay?"
Mina tugged anxiously at the hem of Seok-jun's coat as she watched Su-ji take his punch, fly backward, and tumble across the ground once more. She had assumed the woman was the culprit since she'd been involved in the incident, but she never imagined he would slam his fist into her twice without the slightest hesitation.
"The moment she used magic to harm another person, MPB deployment is fully authorized."
Seok-jun answered Mina while drawing his revolver from its holster with a casual flick. He spun the cylinder once with a smooth whirl before sliding the weapon back into place. The gesture seemed to suggest that using his fists had been him showing remarkable restraint. He glanced down at Su-ji where she lay crumpled on the dirt.
"Huh?"
Her appearance was shifting again. The plump figure melted away, returning to the same beautiful form she'd worn at the high school reunion.
"What the hell?"
"She's changing again?"
Amid the murmurs spreading through Captain Jeong and the others, Seok-jun studied her for a moment before turning back to Mina.
"It appears the magic that had been nullified is activating once more."
Hadn't everything been supposed to resolve itself once the magic was dispelled? While Mina stood there in confusion, Seok-jun called out to Captain Jeong, who was staring at Su-ji with open fascination.
"Captain Jeong, would you look over here for a moment?"
"Huh? Why... Ack? M-Mina? Is that really you?"
"Do I look that strange?" Mina asked, feeling a sting at Captain Jeong's startled reaction. She knew it was because of Su-ji's magic, but the way he recoiled still hurt. As she stood half-hidden behind Seok-jun looking utterly dejected, the captain seemed to realize his mistake and waved his hands frantically.
"N-no, that's not it! Your appearance is the same, but something about you looked just like that woman from earlier... Huh?" Captain Jeong rubbed his eyes vigorously. "You're back to normal now?"
"That woman's getting fat again?"
Hearing the surrounding comments along with Captain Jeong's remark, Mina looked back at Su-ji. Sure enough, the woman had returned to her overweight appearance. A familiar rope was now bound around her ankle.
"Seok-jun?"
"It's for an experiment. Captain Jeong."
"Why?"
"Please use this to check both that woman's condition and Mina's, alternating between them."
"Sure, no problem."
Whatever he'd been carrying, the object Seok-jun handed over resembled a pair of binoculars whose front lenses had been fused into a single flat pane. The moment Seok-jun loosened the rope around Su-ji's ankle, her body flowed back into its beautiful shape.
"Why does her appearance keep flipping like that?"
"Maybe she can't control her magic because she passed out?"
After observing the transformation cycle a few more times, Seok-jun gave a satisfied nod.
"As I suspected, there appear to be specific conditions required for that woman's magic to activate and deactivate."
Now that she thought about it, powers of that nature usually came with matching restrictions. The brainwashing-type awakener Seok-jun had encountered shortly after meeting her had required the target to physically receive an object.
"I've recorded the data. What kind of ability even is that? Stealing someone else's charm. Without something like this, there wouldn't be any evidence at all."
When Captain Jeong brought the device back and offered it, Seok-jun accepted the observer and turned to Mina.
"Have you ever made physical contact with that woman or shared any objects with her?"
"...No. The only time was when we briefly sat together at the reunion."
Mina carefully reviewed every moment she'd spent near Su-ji, searching for anything that might qualify as a condition. They had eaten separately. Nothing had been passed between them. There had been no physical contact whatsoever. The only thing she could think of was—
"We simply shared the same table. Could that be the condition?"
"That shouldn't be it. If something so simple were enough, it wouldn't explain why the magic is activating again right now."
As expected, he shook his head. While Mina puzzled over what the real trigger could be, Seok-jun asked another question.
"Then, after the reunion, did you engage in any particular behavior or encounter that woman again?"
Mina had been about to say that she'd only been with him since then when a memory surfaced.
"Wait. Could something like this count as a condition?"
She quickly opened the Bubble Star app on her smartphone and showed Seok-jun the post she had uploaded right before falling asleep. Malicious comments were still piling up beneath it, making the entire thing stand out even more sharply.
"If that woman's account appears among these comments, it's almost certainly the trigger."
"Haaa, what a relief."
Mina had been genuinely afraid the magic might never come undone. Hearing his words lifted the weight from her chest. She leaned half against him, weak with relief, when—
"Heh... hahaha..."
A sudden hoarse laugh made Mina whip her head around, but she couldn't locate the source. Then she noticed everyone staring in one direction and realized the laughter belonged to Su-ji. The voice was so different from the one she'd used while her magic was active that Mina hadn't recognized it at first.
"Lee Mina, you really are a filthy slut, aren't you? No matter what you do, how are you so different from me?"
"What?"
The incomprehensible words made her reflexively ask for clarification, but Su-ji continued with the mad, broken laughter of someone who had finally snapped.
"Stealing appearance and charm? I've been able to do that since way back. It was just too weak. I had to keep using it on multiple people to maintain the effect."
The condition was simple. Just encountering them in the same space once a day was enough. That was why, after discovering her power, she could so easily use it on the girls who had mocked her for being fat. She had wanted to use it on the boys too, but her magic only worked on women. And she hadn't even needed to make any special effort to steal from them.
"The boys who used to tease and torment me suddenly stopped at some point."
Su-ji had quickly realized it was thanks to her magic. She also understood that her appearance had changed because of it. She even felt a twisted pleasure watching the girls who had bullied her become ostracized, never realizing their charm had been taken. Before long, a single word from her was enough to make the entire class turn on someone.
"Hehe, it wasn't always smooth sailing, though."
She couldn't stop the rumors that she was the one spreading vicious gossip to torment others. After all, they were true.
"They started it first! They were the ones who tormented me first! Then they act like they're so clean and talk behind my back! How dare they! Who do they think they are?!"
Memories of those days made rage boil over. Su-ji slammed her fists against the ground again and again.
"Then I saw you. Even after I used my magic, you just sat in the corner of the classroom reading your books like none of it mattered!"
To Su-ji, Mina had always been an eyesore. Even when Su-ji was being bullied, Mina showed zero interest. She never spoke to anyone, just read her books like some perfect student, yet somehow she was popular. No amount of magic changed that.
"Hey, what book is so interesting you're reading it like that?"
So Su-ji always spoke to her first. Mina would frown, glance at her, then return to her book. Annoyed at being ignored, when Su-ji reached out to snatch it away, someone would always grab her arm.
"Stop bothering a kid who's just quietly reading."
"What's your problem, picking on someone who isn't even talking to you?"
It was always Min-ji. Sometimes Seong-gyu. Su-ji couldn't stand their disapproving stares. Mina had ignored her first. Mina hadn't answered when spoken to. Mina had looked at her with distaste. So why was she the one painted as the villain?
She hated Mina. Hated how the girl acted like a model student in class while secretly running around with delinquents and sly bastards behind everyone's back, making Su-ji look like the bad one. Then one day she discovered her magic had evolved. By using it more forcefully, she could transfer some of her own actions onto others.
She had wanted to use it on Mina, but the girl never met the conditions. After they stopped seeing each other, it no longer mattered. Men who liked her formed lines. Even Seong-gyu, who had always taken Mina's side, eventually started dating her.
But when she saw the unchanged Mina at the reunion, all those old memories came flooding back. Maybe she could have let it go. Maybe.
"Why! Why does Seong-gyu keep paying attention to you?!"
He had definitely been dating her. He hadn't made it clear. He had even followed Mina. Once again, Su-ji had been robbed by her. So she had simply taken it back.
"Then why do you get to have people like that around you?!"
When Su-ji wasn't using her magic, no one stayed by her side. Yet when Mina had been forced to carry all of Su-ji's actions and appearance, there was a man protecting her from the hostility. There were people. The very same people who had never taken Su-ji's side were now standing with Mina.
"Just whyyyyyy?!"
"No matter how much negative emotion you transfer onto others, if your actions are fundamentally different, the results will inevitably diverge."
"What?!"
Su-ji let out a piercing shriek. Seok-jun's calm voice answering her made her struggle to raise her head, eyes bulging with hatred as she glared up at him.
"Yaaawn."
He checked the watch on his wrist and yawned openly, making no effort to hide how tedious he found her story.
"What would you know? What could you possibly know about what that bitch did?!"
"I may not know everything, but if you look behind you, you'll understand exactly where your responsibility lies."
"What kind of bullsh—"
Su-ji lowered her head back to the ground, only to see the woman standing over her.
"That person..."
It was the woman in animal-print pajamas with disheveled hair—the one who had first attacked Seok-jun and Mina. She was wet now, probably from the drink that had been spilled on her.
"I see. So that's how it was. It wasn't Mina. It was you all along?"
The woman bent at the waist, meeting Su-ji's gaze as she looked down at her, speaking in a quiet, almost gentle voice.
"N-no! Na-young, you've got it wrong! I can explain! Let me explain—!"
Su-ji couldn't finish. The woman cupped her face with both hands as if to comfort her.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!"
Just like the first time she had attacked them, the woman screamed with magic woven into her voice.
"Guh! Gah!"
Su-ji's eyes rolled back as foam bubbled from her mouth.
"What are you waiting for? Arrest her already! And call an ambulance!"
The officers who had been detaining the others quickly assessed the new situation and moved in. The woman who had attacked Su-ji glanced at them, then calmly allowed the magic-suppression cuffs to be placed on her wrists. Only then did fragmented memories of high school finally surface in Mina's mind.
"Ah."
"What is it?"
Mina remembered how Su-ji used to snatch her books and yell at her not to ignore her. She let out a long sigh.
"I just realized... I really didn't pay attention to other people at all."
She had simply been too focused on her reading to notice Su-ji calling her name. At first she had apologized, but when the book-snatching continued, it became annoying enough that she had asked Min-ji to intervene. After that, her memories of Su-ji had faded so completely they might as well not have existed.