What Is a Magical Girl, Really? (1)
58. A pure white space. A place absent from my memories. When I came to, I was standing in a space where I couldn’t even be sure the ground existed beneath my feet.
“This is a first.”
Everything around me was white. No props, no furniture, no floor or ceiling, no lights—just an endlessly stretching void. It had to be a dream. There was no other explanation.
“Really?”
A chill crept up my spine from the tailbone to the nape of my neck. Those words carried weight. I didn’t want to turn around. I was afraid to look. But in the end, I did.
What I saw was strange. A small girl with cherry-blossom-pink hair and clear golden eyes was staring at me. She looked exactly like me—like I was looking into a mirror.
“What are you?”
The girl was me. Kim Jihye spoke.
“You already gave yourself the answer, so asking me feels rather foolish.”
“So you’re saying it’s true?”
“I can’t answer that if you phrase it that way.”
Kim Jihye replied with effortless calm, then slowly lifted one slender leg and crossed it over the other—almost as if showing off, asserting her superiority.
“…Fine. Let’s say it is. So what the hell is going on?”
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
“What?”
What was she talking about?
“The children. You didn’t just persuade them—you practically seduced them into becoming magical girls.”
I bristled. “Why would I need to stop them?”
“You do. After everything you’ve seen, how can you justify sending children straight into danger?”
Resentment laced my words.
“You know magical girls don’t only bring dreams and hope, so why stay silent? Are you trying to deceive them?”
“Deceive them?”
“Or have you simply given up because your body keeps weakening, and nothing else matters to you anymore?”
“……”
“Even if becoming a magical girl was their own choice, if the end is death—”
“No. I’ll make sure that never happens.”
“Haah. Don’t throw the word ‘never’ around so lightly.”
“I’m trying to make it real. Every single day after school, I drag this pathetic body around and work at it.”
“If I asked whether that’s truly the best you can do, you couldn’t nod without hesitation. So stop making absolute claims.”
None of my words or thoughts reached her. Of course they didn’t—she knew me better than anyone.
“Magical girls are absurd beings. You know that.”
I decided not to argue anymore and simply listened.
“If you set them on this path, take responsibility. If you burdened them with that weight, pay the proper price. Because of you, those children will give everything to become magical girls. They’ll strive to reach the very source. They’ll kill countless lives, weigh every choice, and calculate the cost.”
Therefore—
“Stop hiding behind excuses about retirement or whatever else. Act like a magical girl. Kim Jihoon. No—Cosmo.”
That was what she’d wanted to say. Yes. She had wanted to ask me. In the end, the answer was obvious.
“Ah…”
Blink. Blink. No matter how many times I opened and closed my eyes, all I saw was the familiar ceiling of my room. So it really was a dream.
“What kind of ridiculous dream was that?”
I hadn’t dreamed in a long time. Probably not since I ended up in this body. That made today’s dream feel strangely significant—except the content was so unpleasant I couldn’t bring myself to call it special.
“Hm? Oppa, did you have a nightmare?”
“Not exactly a nightmare… but it left a really bad taste. Still feels gross even after waking up. Haaaaah.”
Thanks to that, I really didn’t feel like going to school today. Rain was already falling outside the window, which only dragged my mood lower.
“Jiah.”
“No.”
I hadn’t even said anything yet.
“You were going to say you don’t want to go to the academy today, right?”
“…How did you guess?”
“You’ve always hated rainy days.”
Jiah pulled me out from under the blanket. Ah… no. My warm bed…
“Come eat. It’s kimchi jjigae today.”
“Ugh…”
I was half-dragged to the kitchen. On the table sat kimchi jjigae and rolled omelet—the bright red broth and green onions over the yellow egg were exactly the meal I used to make for her all the time.
Nom nom. We ate in silence, listening to the rain patter against the window. Just as I was about to wrap some kimchi and rice in seaweed, Jiah spoke.
“…Did you see the memorial?”
“Ah. The day before yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“I saw it.”
“Even the inscription?”
“Yeah. My name was on it.”
“I put it there.”
“Huh?”
“I insisted your name go on the missing persons list instead of the deceased.”
Clack. Jiah set down her spoon.
“People told me to put you on the deceased list, but I couldn’t. I kept insisting it stay on the missing list. I guess I threw a tantrum. It was obsession. Stubbornness. Because I never believed you were dead. I couldn’t.”
Rain poured down in sheets. It felt like this downpour would last a long time. Even though it was only early summer, it came down like the monsoon had arrived. The kitchen grew damp as Jiah continued.
“In the end, I’m glad. Who could have known you’d come back safe like this?”
“…I guess.”
“Yeah.”
I put the last bite of rice into my mouth. My dulled senses should have made everything taste bland, yet somehow the seaweed tasted salty.
“…Oppa.”
“What is it, Jiah?”
“How much do you know about the beasts?”
Her question sounded like an interrogation, but it wasn’t. It felt more like a sigh than a demand for a specific answer.
“High-intelligence beasts weren’t only on Earth. There must have been some where you were, too, right?”
“There were.”
“How common are beasts that use magic?”
Did I have to answer this? I tried to dodge with silence, but Jiah pressed closer.
“I know you don’t like talking about what happened there. Even after half a year, you only mention it when you have to.”
“……”
“I still don’t really know why you became a girl like this, or why you became a magical girl. But sometimes I wonder what kind of life you lived in that other world.”
Maybe because of the dream, my thoughts were a mess.
“I just assumed you went through something terrible. That’s why I wanted to wait until you were ready to talk… but today, I have to ask. Oppa, how exactly did you live there?”
The ticking of the second hand. The rain hammering the railing. The creak of a chair. Jiah waiting for me to speak. I closed my eyes for a moment.
—Have you simply given up because your body keeps weakening, and nothing else matters to you anymore?
Those words from the dream echoed in my ears.
“…Haa.”
Did I really have to say it? Even if I didn’t, Jiah would probably accept it without complaint, like always. But those words kept circling in my head. Did I truly have no interest in anyone else? No matter how much I tried to dress my feelings in good intentions, wasn’t the truth just that? Were all my worries and considerations nothing more than arbitrary judgments?
Responsibility as a magical girl. And the price that came with it. Jiah had realized something when she saw the magic circle engraved on the memorial. I had already told her it functioned as a beacon. She must have figured out to some extent what was coming. I had hoped she wouldn’t. People say knowledge is power, but sometimes ignorance is a blessing. I didn’t doubt her skills, but the beasts and demons I’d faced were horrific. I didn’t want to drag her into investigating them. She had already switched from field work to desk work for my sake. I wanted her far away from combat. That wasn’t because I didn’t care about her. But looking back, it had been my own selfishness and laziness. Maybe it was just an excuse to hide my indifference.
In the end, I decided to speak. To pay the responsibility and the price.
“I killed an enormous number of beasts. So many they piled up to my ankles. Among them were high-intelligence beasts that used magic, and even demons who spoke both language and magic fluently. The world I was in was even more magically advanced than Earth, yet it was on the brink of destruction. All I did was desperately try to survive there.”
Was that enough? Jiah blinked silently for a long time, perhaps surprised that I had answered so readily. Then she smiled faintly.
“That’s enough. Thank you.”
After that, we finished our meal without another word. We stayed quiet while getting in the car, during the ride, and even when we parted at the academy. The early-summer downpour continued to fall.