The Magical Girl Prodigy from the Next Class Boldly Came to Befriend Me (4)
“...Out of nowhere?”
“What, is my invitation to be friends that bad?”
“Hmm….”
This was awkward. For someone to march right up to me so confidently and declare, “Let’s be friends!”—it was completely unexpected. I mean, I’ve lived long enough. It had been quite a while since anyone approached me with genuine goodwill and suggested we become friends. That kind of thing didn’t belong in the cutthroat, desolate adult world. It was the kind of pure, innocent confession you’d only hear in a school full of children.
Even though my body had grown younger and my gender had changed, my mind was still that of a jaded adult soaked in society’s grime. That’s why such an innocent, straightforward pitch felt utterly foreign to me.
The little girl seemed to take my silent standing there as a rejection. Her next words came out a bit testy.
“Why not? I beat you, didn’t I? So doesn’t that mean you have to be friends with me?”
When did that rule get added? Had the world changed in the nine years I was gone from Earth? No way.
That was when Seyeol stepped in to mediate, slipping between me and the little girl.
“Hi there. I’m Seyeol, Jihye’s friend. Your name is Yun Yuri, right? The top student in Class 1.”
“Hmm? You know a lot about me?”
The little girl’s eyebrows twitched with clear pleasure at being called the top student. But her pouty expression didn’t budge.
“I’ve wanted to get close to you for a while. Hehe.”
“With me? Why?”
Despite her curt tone, the corners of her mouth kept twitching upward more than before. She couldn’t hide how happy she was at the class president’s praise. The carefully maintained scowl was already starting to crumble.
Yeah. She was still too young for a proper poker face. A few compliments and it fell apart.
“I saw you during the sparring exam last week. Your skills were seriously impressive. You looked so cool.”
“Y-yeah… she really was amazing….”
Even Miju joined in with the praise for the little kid. I watched the whole process from a step back. Sleepiness was creeping in, so I was already looking for an escape route. I wanted to get back to the classroom and sleep as soon as possible. The more time I wasted here, the less sleep I’d get later.
“I am pretty skilled, aren’t I?”
“So, can you be friends with me?”
“No thanks.”
“Huh?”
“The only one I’m interested in is you, Kim Jihye! You’re the only one who can be my friend. You’re the first person who’s ever given me that much trouble.”
The little girl declared it in an arrogant voice. Was that really a qualification for making friends? My head was starting to hurt.
Even though she’d been rejected, the class president continued the conversation with a perfectly straight face, showing no sign of hurt.
“...Hmm. You really don’t want to be friends with us? With me and the others?”
“Why would I need to be friends with you guys… um…… what’s with that look?”
The class president was smiling with her mouth but not her eyes. Miju wasn’t much different. Right after the two of them exchanged some kind of signal, they suddenly latched onto me.
“We’re Jihye’s best friends, you know? If you want to be friends with Jihye, you need our permission first.”
“Th-that’s right! Jihye is our BFF! If you don’t get close to us first… you can’t!”
Even the usually timid and quiet Miju was passionately confronting the little girl. It was touching that they were thinking of me, but guys? I don’t remember ever giving you that kind of authority. You’re not some gatekeepers. What is this, “To pass this castle, you must defeat me first”?
Maybe I’d made friends with the wrong people.
As I was secretly lamenting in my heart, the little girl seemed to realize something. Her previous arrogant attitude had softened a little. Even so, she couldn’t completely erase the haughty tone from her voice.
“Hmm… Fine! Then I’ll be friends with you two as well.”
“Nice to meet you again. I’m Shin Seyeol. Jihye’s number one BFF.”
“I-I’m Baek Miju… Jihye’s B-BFF number two.”
“I wasn’t planning to introduce myself, but seeing you two like this, I will. I’m Yun Yuri. First in the first-year class.”
“Got it. Nice to meet you, Yuri.”
“M-me too!”
“Hmph… sure.”
It was ridiculous how smoothly the conversation flowed without the actual person involved. Seeing the little girl’s face turn slightly red with embarrassment made it even more absurd. Well, well. Look at them getting along.
I stood there with my legs crossed, quietly watching the three of them introduce themselves to each other, completely excluding me.
“Okay. Now that I’m friends with them, I can be friends with you—Kim Jihye—right?”
“Sure.”
“I-I guess so?”
As everyone tried to keep the warm atmosphere going, I threw in a line that instantly chilled the mood.
“No? Who said I’d be friends with you?”
“Uh… Jihye?”
“What?”
Everyone looked flustered. Especially the little girl—she had the most dumbfounded expression of the three, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
“Why… why? You lost to me. And you acknowledged me. So why won’t you accept me as a friend?”
I cut the arrogant little girl off cleanly.
“Because you’re a rude friend.”
“Huh?”
“Hey, how old are you?”
“F-fourteen…?”
Fourteen, huh. That meant there was a twenty-year age gap between us.
“A kid whose head isn’t even fully grown yet is speaking informally to an elder? Is that how it works?”
“...Ah… eh?”
It was good to be bold and full of confidence. Youth should have spirit. But that didn’t mean you could throw manners out the window. Speaking casually without respect to someone older just wasn’t right.
“The world really is turning upside down these days. I’ll let it slide this once, but next time you come, use proper polite speech. Anyway, I’m sleepy, so I’m heading out first. Yawn.”
“Jihye!”
“W-wait for us!”
After delivering my etiquette lecture, I left the cafeteria first, and both the class president and Miju followed right behind me. When I came to my senses, the little girl had been left all alone in the cafeteria. Actually, no—Salbyeol was perched on her shoulder with a dumbfounded look on his face.
Where do you think you’re crawling up to, Salbyeol? You’re still way too early to be threatening me, kid. Even though I’d acted like a grumpy old man, I’d successfully made my escape. As long as you get to Seoul, the path doesn’t matter. Right?
“Why did you do that, yoyo? The child was hurt, yoyo.”
It was afternoon practice time. I was sitting in a corner of the training hall, nodding off. Unlike me, the kids in the center of the hall were reviewing last week’s sparring exam by watching the recorded footage. The teacher gave feedback to each student one by one—pointing out where they’d fallen short and lost, and what they needed to improve. Then the students would recreate the sparring situations based on that feedback and try out various alternatives.
None of this had anything to do with me. So I stayed completely out of the review session and was just resting in the corner. The teacher hadn’t said anything to me anyway. Actually, she had said one thing.
‘You probably already know everything, so I don’t have much to say.’
Now that she knew about my connection with Jiah, the teacher understood my current situation better than anyone. There was no need for her to push me while ignoring Jiah’s request not to overdo it. And there was no reason to reveal my true strength against students anyway.
Come to think of it, the teacher really was impressive. After talking with Jiah, she had every reason to be even more curious about my identity, yet she hadn’t asked me a single question. Was this what a real teacher was like? She pulled some petty tricks on me from time to time, but she was definitely an educator at heart.
“Excuse me? Cosmo-nim! Are you listening to me, yoyo?”
“Ugh, shut up. Can’t I just sleep?”
“Stop sleeping and listen, yoyo. Cosmo-nim, you didn’t have to be that harsh, yoyo.”
A bird was constantly chirping and disturbing my sleep. I wanted to shoo it away with a wave of my hand, but after all the time we’d spent together, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Ever since arriving at the training hall, Salbyeol had been following me around and nagging nonstop. Repeating the same thing like a parrot eventually drained even my will to ignore him. In the end, I was the one who gave in first.
“That’s true too.”
“As the former president of the Magica Magical Girl Association, yoyo. Don’t you think you’re being too narrow-minded, yoyo? You weren’t like this before, yoyo.”
“Want me to tell you exactly why I rejected her, Salbyeol?”
“Wh-what is it, yoyo?”
I held up three fingers.
“There are three reasons. First, I didn’t want to waste my nap time. Second, it was just a prank. I felt like playing the grumpy old man properly for once. And third, your impure intentions were way too obvious. Honestly, that last reason is the biggest one.”
“That’s so mean, yoyo!”
Salbyeol puffed out his chest like he was sulking and frantically flapped his wings.
“You’ve always been so obvious about scheming. No matter how precious your assigned magical girl is, thinking you can come to me with such half-baked plans? You pulled the same stunt with Posiltia too, didn’t you?”
“Posilt… Yeah, I did the same thing back then with Posilt, yoyo….”
“I want to understand your feelings and help you out, but… the way you try to exploit my weaknesses and force what you want out of me just pisses me off.”
“...Tweet tweet.”
When I hit him with the facts, Salbyeol started crying like a real bird. It was his usual reaction whenever his mentality broke. Even watching that, I felt nothing.
“Crying while making bird noises doesn’t make you pitiful at all. Your sympathy ploy isn’t going to work. So hurry up and leave. Let me sleep some more. Yaaaawn.”
Whether he was truly shocked or not, Salbyeol didn’t speak to me again after that. The sound of magic activating and kids chatting filled the air. It seemed the teacher had told them to discuss among themselves how they should act to win. They tried out various movements, their voices growing louder.
It was right around the time the training hall was heating up with energy.
“Alright. That’s enough for now. It’s break time, so anyone who needs to use the restroom should go, and those who want to rest should rest. If you keep pushing yourselves too hard, neither your head nor your body will function properly. Though it looks like someone is having a very comfortable break.”
At the teacher’s command, break time arrived. I casually ignored her pointed remark about me and noticed two familiar silhouettes approaching my lying form. It was the class president and Miju.
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Mm… the sunlight coming through the window was a bit too bright. Yawn. Couldn’t sleep deeply.”
In truth, it was because Salbyeol had been yapping nonstop beside me.
“Really? Are you going to sleep right now?”
“I think I’m a bit awake now. I’m tired but can’t fall asleep. Why?”
The class president looked like she had something to say to me. Maybe she wanted to ask about something she’d become curious about during class. That’s what I assumed, but I was wrong.
“I was thinking… maybe you were a little too harsh with Yuri during lunch. Oh! Of course Yuri was in the wrong. She did speak pretty arrogantly. But she’s younger than us, so I thought maybe you could have been a bit more lenient… Is this just unnecessary meddling?”
“O-of course… if Jihye doesn’t like it, then no! It’s fine if you don’t want to! You don’t have to be friends with Yuri if you don’t want to!”
The two kind-hearted girls were saying they were bothered by what had happened earlier. Salbyeol, who had appeared at some point, smiled contentedly upon hearing his magical girl being defended. The gloomy mood from before seemed completely shaken off. That smile of his looked like it was saying, “See, yoyo? The other kids think the same way, yoyo, Cosmo-nim!” which made it incredibly annoying.
Maybe I really had gone too far, even if it was just a joke. Having raised Jiah since she was little, I didn’t dislike children. Jiah had never rebelled against me even during her puberty, so I wasn’t sure if that was the right reason, but anyway. No matter how noisy or rude they were, I would only give them a firm warning. I didn’t hate or avoid even the most disobedient kids. Because they were still mentally immature. The thought “Well, that can happen” was basically built into me.
Normally, I would have just brushed off the little girl’s informal speech during lunch and accepted her request to be friends.
.....
Ah, whatever. I’d rather sleep more. I decided to stop comparing my past self with my current one. It only ruined my mood and complicated my thoughts. Even if I knew what the problem was or what caused it, I couldn’t fix it, so it just piled on more stress. For the sake of my mental health, it was best to erase these thoughts from my head as quickly as possible.
I cleared my mind and used the sound of the class president and Miju talking to each other as a lullaby. My eyes slowly began to close.
Hey kids. You guys keep chatting among yourselves. I’m going to catch up on the sleep I missed.
BANG—!
Just as I was drifting between sleep and wakefulness, a loud noise shattered my chance at deep sleep again. Someone had violently thrown open the door to the training hall. The forceful sound made me lift my head to see who it was.
“Hmm? So this is Class 2.”
The owner of that very familiar voice began walking slowly toward me. Her steps were bold, as if slamming the door open so loudly wasn’t even worth acknowledging. Thud. Thud.
The little girl stopped right in front of me without hesitation and said,
“Unnie, are you really not going to be friends with me?”
This kid was far more obsessive than I had expected.