Those Consumed by the Past
Those Consumed by the Past
It was a flimsy suspicion.
Just that the monster’s disguised form was wearing the same clothes Han Jae-jung had on at the hospital.
That its silhouette was far too similar to the build of the Han Jae-jung she’d seen today.
Too weak for certainty, but more than enough to be suspicious.
Add what was said at the hospital, and it started to come together.
Memory loss.
When he saw Pink Deneb, he’d started by rattling off magical girl ranks, clearly flustered.
As if they had genuinely just met, as if she were someone he shouldn’t meet.
When he saw Blue Sirius, he’d spoken her name first but immediately played dumb and claimed not to know her.
It had sounded like a blatant lie at the time, but if it had somehow been the truth—
Then the conclusion was that Han Jae-jung had become a monster.
And that monstrous form was the Big Dipper Monster.
“N-nah, no way... that’d be the most fucked-up kind of bullshit....”
Deneb muttered. Impossible. He was someone who was supposed to live happily. He couldn’t possibly have turned into a monster right now.
A horrifying fantasy, a paranoid delusion.
An overblown suspicion born from seeing how pathetic he looked today.
But still....
“Goddammit.”
“Unnie...? Unnie, where are you going?”
Deneb rose and headed outside.
Her footsteps rang against the floor with considerable irritation as she snatched up her mascot. A ball of fluff resembling a parrot.
[Just a moment, you little— *kack*... *kack*... say something before you grab me...!]
“It’s not true....”
[You brat! For god’s sake, get a hold of yourself!]
Smack!
The mascot, having wriggled free of her grip, slapped her across the cheek. It didn’t hurt. It just pissed her off.
“...Fuck.”
[Just don’t only cuss, shit!]
“You’re cussing too.”
[A-hem. That aside. Guardian, calm down. Times like this are exactly when you need to be calm. No matter how much Han Jae-jung was the oppa you trusted and followed, no matter how much he was your first love—]
“Sh-shut up! It wasn’t like that, you asshole?!”
Slander.
Pink Deneb vehemently denied it as fact. She could say with certainty that while she was definitely fond of him, it hadn’t been romantic like that.
“Anyway... yeah. I need to be calm.”
[Are you going to transform right now?]
That had been her original plan.
She’d stormed out fully intending to track down that monster this instant and interrogate him.
To escape this unpleasant illusion, without any thought for the circumstances.
But her mascot was right; she needed to calm down a bit right now.
Her thoughts weren’t functioning properly, and she was in a state where she could easily jump to conclusions over a tiny scrap of evidence.
On top of that, she was still dizzy from the alcohol.
The more suspicious you are, the colder your judgment must be. This wasn’t just any matter—a monster was involved.
Meaning, the moment someone becomes a monster, it’s as good as a legal death sentence being handed down. A mere illusion isn’t enough to turn a suspicion like that into certainty.
Evidence that anyone would accept is needed.
To put it another way, if that level of evidence couldn’t be found, then Han Jae-jung wasn’t a monster.
She took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart, sending oxygen to her brain to cool her head.
“Not right now. First, I need to go see Senior.”
She decided to go where she’d originally meant to.
She’d go see the person who was probably at least as distressed as she was, if not more, and sort out her feelings.
**
“Whoa, you reek of booze!”
Pink Deneb had drunk some beer earlier too. But it was nothing compared to this intense scent of alcohol. The entire room was thick with it. Deneb grimaced, feeling dizzy as if the smell alone would get her drunk.
“Huh...? You came...?”
“Senior, did you just chug whiskey straight from the bottle again?”
“Hehe... it’sh tasty....”
“Oh dear, you’re slurring and it’s a whole mess.”
Slumped on the floor and half-leaning against the bed, Blue Sirius had a whiskey bottle rolling by her hand. A pretty expensive one, by the sound of it, and unfortunately now serving to sanitize the floor.
Deneb headed familiarly to the fridge and got out some cold water.
“Cold water... I could make it even colder, hehehe....”
“Senior, please just shut up and drink the damn water.”
“Back then... Jae-jung used to cool water down with magic for me after he worked out....”
A story from her dating days that Deneb had heard often. She felt pity for her, still chewing on that time even now, but she was also sick of hearing it chewed on for years.
Especially since she’d become a drinking-age adult, this tendency had only gotten worse.
“Quit the bullshit and drink some water.”
“Mmn....”
She was soothing her wounds with alcohol, paradoxically making them surface with alcohol. A kind of hamster wheel where pain bloomed fresh again on the spot the alcohol had disinfected, which she then disinfected again with more alcohol.
In her early twenties, Deneb had worried Sirius might become an alcoholic. Of course, that worry had been entirely unfounded. A magical girl’s mental fortitude was extraordinary, so on days she had work she kept strictly sober.
And since magical girls had work practically every day, she had been strictly sober practically every day as well.
“*Pwah*... Ah-yoon. Why do you think Jae-jung pretended not to know us....”
But on rare days like today—days so hard she couldn’t endure without drinking—she inevitably ended up drinking anyway. Quietly, at home, because she mustn’t be seen.
With the desperate wish that the alcohol’s poison would erase her memories.
“Did he hate me that much...? Was I someone he was never meant to be with, after all...? Did he really just forget everything? But what do I do... I... I... still can’t forget... I feel like I’m so miserable I could die....”
Pink Deneb lifted Blue Sirius’s arm and draped it over her own shoulder. The height difference was significant enough to look precarious, but Deneb managed to support her skillfully.
“Ah-yoon... I’m so scared... what if Jae-jung really did forget me? It’d be one thing if he forgot everything involving me... but if he forgot only me while the wounds I left and their aftermath are still there... if he even forgot the person he could resent in his life... and all that’s left is a ruined life he knows nothing about... I’d feel so sorry for him, what do I do... my Jae-jung, so pitiful, what do I do....”
Deneb gritted her teeth, then masked it and laughed softly.
“There’s no way that’s true. It was obviously a lie, wasn’t it. You know Jae-jung-oppa. It’s a talent in itself, how obviously he lies.”
“You think so...? Then... did Jae-jung lie because he hates being tied to me...? I hate that too... well, it’s only natural... but I still hate it....”
Silver hair tinged faintly with blue curtained down over Deneb. She sat Blue Sirius on the bed. Drunk and weak, she couldn’t sit properly and nearly toppled right over. Deneb held her shoulders steady and soothed her.
“It’s okay, Senior. Jae-jung-oppa couldn’t have meant it.”
“You think so...?”
“Tch, you’re always so cool-headed, and then you’re a complete disaster at times like this. I said it’s fine. He was just so startled he talked nonsense.”
“Then I’m glad....”
Looking at Blue Sirius, it was truly clear. She would have to handle this suspicion alone. Even if what awaited at the end of it was a horrific truth, she absolutely had to keep it secret.
“Right... Ah-yoon, they said we’d all watch the CCTV footage of that monster together... what happened with that...?”
“Ah, that....”
Deneb grinned.
“It was nothing special. Same old, same old. Ended up just freshly realizing the difference between us and those bastards. Ha... it’s hopeless. How do we even beat guys like that.”
“...We still have to beat them.”
Blue Sirius ground her teeth.
“So they can never attack anywhere again. I’ll kill them all.”
Listening to that declaration, Pink Deneb made a vow.
Neither that footage nor this suspicion—she would never reveal them to her.
**
[Monster defeated.]
“*Hoo*....”
With the explosion behind me, I stretched my fatigue-laden body.
I was definitely tired.
At this rate, I might end up in the emergency room again like before.
To be released from the hospital and then have nothing but fights—even gangsters don’t live like this.
“Nyaa... Done fighting? Why do you only go around killing monsters?”
“Don’t nyaa at me. Are you imitating a cat?”
“Meow, nyaow, you son of a bitch.”
I turned my head toward the voice. Pink Deneb was there, perched lightly atop a streetlamp. Beautiful pink crows fluttered around her, cawing.
Glancing right above me, I saw the crows circling in flight.
So she tracked me using the Crimson-Winged Crows. Reaching that conclusion wasn’t hard at all.
But her motive, I couldn’t reach. She must be fairly tired herself after fighting an A-rank monster today. And not only that—to her, I’m the enemy who handed her defeat just the other day. Seeking me out again normally only happens when you’ve gained a countermeasure.
“What do you want? As I said before, I won’t attack as long as you don’t pick a fight first.”
“You make me sound like the bad guy.”
“Going by your posture and how you talk, you do lean that way.”
“Fair enough.”
Pink Deneb chuckled, straightened up from her back-alley-thug crouch, and descended toward me.
“Hey.”
Despite her fierce-looking makeup and way of talking, her movements were exceptionally graceful. The wing-like cloth draped on her filtered softly through the streetlamp light, fluttering and luminous. The pale pink of her irises, veiled by her small frame and long lashes, was mystical. On the inside of her chin-length bob, starlight blazed fiercer from the effects of a real-life two-tone dye job.
“I got a question.”
And Pink Deneb’s expression as she closed in wasn’t good. Understandable, perhaps, for someone face-to-face with who she thought was a monster. Yet it was tinged with an oddly intense sadness and joy, too hard to call hostility.
“If I were good with words, I’d suck out your very soul right here—but sadly, I don’t have that skill. So I’ll ask you point-blank.”
Her starlight flickered perilously, as if caught in a huge wind.
“Is your name, from when you were human, Han Jae-jung?”
Some of that scattering starlight touched me.
What surfaced was a memory.
More blood-hued than pink.
A time when Pink Deneb was still very young. She had been crying, and I had been comforting her. My hands were badly scraped, and Deneb’s face was covered in bruises. The two of us, covered in wounds.
Was Han Jae-jung connected not only to Blue Sirius but to her as well? No—I had a connection with her? Even as it drew me one step closer to the hypothesis that I was Han Jae-jung, I still couldn’t feel it as real, and my stomach churned.
‘What a goddamn mess....’
I frowned at a sense of familiarity too deep to merely call glimpsing someone else’s memory. My head ached. How many times had these memories tormented me that day alone? Was this actually my memory? It was too familiar to say it wasn’t. Unable to bear the headache, I pressed a hand to my forehead and let out a sigh.
“*Hoo*....”
“...! Wh-what’s with that. Just say it, fast.”
If I used Alkaid and fled now, her suspicion would only compound. That said, I’m no great speaker either. The moment someone is already suspicious, nothing you tell them is likely to get through.
I know this. Pink Deneb is a good person.
In the original... no, in that webtoon or whatever it was, she was one of the people who stayed loyal and kept her justice to the very end.
Of course, most magical girls were like that.
But she never let go of that mindset, even after losing her power later on.
A remarkable person. A hero.
Which is exactly why I can’t reveal it.
Basic courtesy between people.
Dragging her into something I myself can’t be sure of and making her suffer—that would be unforgivable rudeness.
What she feels attachment for is Han Jae-jung, not me.
When I’m still a foreigner, a lost soul, it’s not right as a human being to lean on that misplaced affection and bring her pain.
I have Han Jae-jung’s body, but the rightful spirit of Han Jae-jung does not dwell in it. How many people will this misalignment make suffer? Outwardly, could she even bear it—a past tie turned into a monster?
If I reveal my face here, she’ll definitely think I’m Han Jae-jung turned monster.
No matter what excuses I make, it’s obvious she’ll settle on that.
A magical girl confronting a monster, or a human shaken by an old connection. Two paths will open before her, and she’ll be plunged into agonies she’s never faced before.
“What are you basing that on?”
“You aren’t even asking who this Han Jae-jung name is? You bastard....”
“It’s a name I already know. I didn’t see the need. Should I have acted ignorant?”
“No. You don’t need to.”
Deneb placed her hands on her hips and asked again, standing firm.
“So. Is it you?”
Her small stature made her look rather cute. The hands on her hips were trembling faintly, though she tried to hide it. Amused by that compact dignity, I answered.
“Whatever I say, you won’t believe me... but remember just this one thing.”
I can’t tell her now.
The losses would far outweigh any gain from telling. I can’t be certain she could even become an ally.
In fact, precisely because of her sympathy, because of the affection built up over time, she might try to bear it all alone and seek to kill me.
The day I eventually recover all my memories, that’s when we can face each other person to person.
Right now, the relationship between magical girl and monster is a bit more ideal.
It’d just be mutual suffering to dream the same dream while staying on different pages, relying on a paltry hope.
Both of us: her, suffering as she glimpses Han Jae-jung in me, swallowed up by the past; and me, suffering as I cannot find that past and can’t live up to her expectations.
We were the same in that we’d end up suffering like death.
The suspicion already formed can’t be removed. She’ll probably suspect me for the rest of her life.
And I can’t completely deny that suspicion, either.
But I can maintain just enough tension to keep that suspicion from hardening into certainty.
That much should be enough.
“Han Jae-jung is not here right now.”
Not yet.
I seized her by the neck and launched straight up into the sky.
[SET. Rising Star.]
“Wha—huh? You—fuck! Hey, you son of a bitch!”
“And don’t follow me. You’re a nuisance.”
It would be troublesome if she kept pursuit like this, so I laid her right out.
Boom!
[Rising Star activation successful. Replication Rate 30%.]
An attack whose replication rate I’d deliberately lowered was perfectly suited for knocking her out and leaving.
**
Around the time the night’s bright stars had lost a measure of their strength, and the hazy violet clouds of dawn first peeked out.
“What are you doing out here....”
Pink Deneb saw Han Jae-jung, sprawled out asleep on the roadside. The person she had wished happiness for—what kind of state was this? It felt as if her heart would tear.
After waking from unconsciousness, she had immediately sent out the Crimson-Winged Crows and found the monster again. She hadn’t taken his warning not to follow as the slightest bit of advice.
“Where’s your house that you’re sleeping out here... did you drink like Senior did, Oppa? You don’t smell like alcohol though... you’re not really homeless, right? Please, don’t do that... if Senior knew, she’d honestly die....”
But the Big Dipper Monster was nowhere to be seen; all she’d found was this one homeless man. A homeless man in the same clothes as the monster’s untransformed look. A still-young-looking man sleeping on spread-out newspaper.
“That monster seemed pretty good at lying... so does that mean it’s not Oppa? Sigh, fuck, I don’t know. Can’t even tell if that was a lie, honestly.”
Deneb took care not to wake him as she laid a blanket over him.
“Just one thing, though... I can tell you’re avoiding me, Oppa. Was what you said at the hospital real? Did you really forget about me? Senior, too?”
The hallmark of monsterization: memory loss.
But the way he’d looked at Blue Sirius in the hospital—there’d been unmistakable longing in his eyes. He’d clearly been forcing himself to act like he didn’t know her. It was too human to dismiss as just a monster keeping its distance.
And then there was what that monster earlier had said. The things she didn’t get numbered far more than one or two.
But one thing was certain.
Between the Big Dipper Monster and Han Jae-jung, some kind of relationship had definitely formed.
“So here’s a kindness, one that doesn’t even feel like kindness, and then I’m leaving. Don’t be grateful. If you were grateful... I’d probably just end up feeling sorrier.”
In the first place, no monster could perfectly assume a human body like this.
But if there was a monster with that ability....
“If Oppa really is a monster... will I be able to kill you?”
But that monster probably wouldn’t kill her. The fact that she’d had several chances and he’d only ever subdued her made that certain.
“...I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll withdraw for today. And let’s meet again next time... without fail.”
With those words, Pink Deneb vanished before him.