The Meaning of Protection (2)
The Meaning of Protection (2)
Why was she here.
Han Jae-jung, startled, pushed his upper body upright. Hot pain shot up his spine, but it was bearable.
The moment he sat up like a patient, Pink Deneb recoiled in horror.
“Don’t get up, you lunatic! You’re injured!”
“Well, I should at least acknowledge a visitor....”
“Acknowledging? You were dead asleep until a second ago! Lie down! Your wounds will open!”
Pink Deneb grabbed Han Jae-jung’s shoulders and shoved. Han Jae-jung, who had no strength, simply dropped back onto the bed. The grip hurt plenty.
“Isn’t grabbing me worse for the wounds?”
“My touch is gentle, so it’s fine. A magical girl touched you, so it must have some magical healing effect.”
“You don’t have healing powers. Someone whose specialty is information detection and mobility spouting this bull... aagh.”
Han Jae-jung’s scolding ended when Deneb pinched the uninjured part of his side.
“Your recovery is remarkably fast. The way you run your mouth is hard to believe from a guy who almost got beaten to death.”
He had come to his senses fast for someone who’d been critically injured. Han Jae-jung knew of another case besides himself.
None other than the recovery speed of magical girls.
The trauma recovery of a Star-Bearer was on an entirely different level from ordinary people. After most battles, they didn’t even need a hospital. First aid at home was enough to heal them and let them operate the very next day.
Han Jae-jung figured he must be a similar case now.
“You’re pretty impressive yourself, tormenting someone who just woke up.”
“Tormenting? I’m nursing you with the purest heart, you see?”
“You don’t even know what pure means.”
He let out a deep sigh. He combed his hair back and tried to sort through everything that had happened before he lost consciousness. Contradiction and Libra’s fight, Blue Sirius joining in, re-transforming for defense...
The cracked armor plates, the transformation sound the Belt had spat out.
Origin.
‘What was that?’
[Do not overcomplicate it. It means what it says: the origin. It is the form you should have taken from the beginning, based upon the Guardian’s foundational intent.]
While the wearer was battered, the Belt itself was pristine, without a single scratch. Han Jae-jung glanced sidelong at the Belt speaking to him from the bedside table and sank into thought.
Origin.
The place where the stream first began to flow. The primary cause from which something derives.
For Han Jae-jung, the word could only be used in one context.
Transformation, or nothing.
The origin was the state of mind he had held during his first transformation.
In other words, the ideal to be realized again.
‘So Origin means the form that manifests when you reach that stage.’
He was the Guardian.
What must he protect?
Given that Origin had activated, did that mean his current self already knew the answer? But he had no idea what it could be.
‘This is maddening....’
His head was a mess. It wasn’t just this; the things he had to worry about numbered more than one or two. He wondered whether his identity had been exposed, and he was worried about Sirius’s condition. His own identity went without saying.
Maybe it was because he was comfortable lying in bed. His worries came flooding in without end.
“Suddenly gone quiet again. Are you sulking?”
“You think I’d sulk over that? Just got a lot on my mind....”
“Things on your mind? Like what?”
A clattering sound. The chair fell over.
Deneb stood. She wasn’t leaving. She was approaching. She placed one knee on the bed and leaned closer, bit by bit. She was like a cat playing a prank for no reason. With a sharp grin, she whispered softly into his ear.
“Like, casually using banmal with me?”
Han Jae-jung spent a long time wondering what was so wrong with that.
“So, you’ve decided to stop running that bull about not knowing me?”
“Oh, is that it?”
Only then did Han Jae-jung realize he’d been casually treating Pink Deneb like an acquaintance. His body had acted before his mind had caught up.
Jo Ah-yoon. According to the faint memories, someone he’d been as comfortable with as a sibling. Whether it was this body’s familiarity or whether he himself was accustomed to her despite having no memories, he wasn’t sure. His banmal had flowed as naturally as when talking to someone he’d been close to for a very long time.
“That’s... because you started with banmal first....”
“Really? You were way too natural for that.”
“True.”
Han Jae-jung nodded and admitted it.
“Do you really not know me?”
Deneb asked, pressing in close with those distinctively pink eyes of hers. So close that wherever he turned his eyes, he could only see her. He felt the pressure, as if she was saying, ‘Look me in the eye and tell me.’
Her characteristic rough impression and the silver piercings visible near her ears amplified that pressure. It was a threat, plaintive and forceful at once.
A stance that brooked no lies.
“Really, you don’t remember?”
His heart pounded. Not with excitement, but with fear and tension. He felt like a thief being interrogated by the police. Considering his true identity, the situation really wasn’t much different.
In this moment, Han Jae-jung’s mind spun faster than ever.
Deneb suspected the Big Dipper Monster was Han Jae-jung. The place where Han Jae-jung had collapsed was precisely where those monsters had slugged it out. A body that took a monster’s finishing move and only ended up moderately-to-severely wounded.
The grounds for suspecting he was a monster were overflowing. But judging by her current question, she hadn’t reached full certainty yet.
Was she suspecting amnesia, one of the Monsterization Symptoms? Or was she just needling him because she found it regrettable that an old acquaintance didn’t remember her?
Everything before Han Jae-jung’s eyes was bleak. His vision was filled with dazzling pink, but it felt bleak. Darkened by light.
‘It’s neither of those, so what am I supposed to do....’
He was too human to call it Monsterization, but he’d lost too much to call himself an acquaintance. He was trapped in a dilemma where every choice was the wrong answer.
“Hmm? Our Mister Jae-jung.”
Deneb placed her hand on his shoulder again. It wasn’t rough; it was discreet. There was no sign of any quest activating from the Belt. That meant he had to do this purely by his own choice, without coercion.
Deneb grinned slyly.
“We got along well before. You seriously don’t remember?”
Han Jae-jung reached out his hand, just as Deneb had done. Not for her shoulder, but for her face. His hand slid over her cheek, slowly draping his pinky at an angle onto the back of her neck before touching her ear.
“Got along my ass.”
And then he grabbed her ear and pulled.
“Aagh! Ow!”
“I know perfectly well it barely hurts since you’re transformed. Ah-yoon, what kind of speech habit is that? And what’s with all these piercings? Huh? If a person pretends not to know, you should have the sense to understand there’s a reason. What’s with the thug act? How did Seol-hwa and I raise you? Do you seriously want to die?”
“Aaaaagh! It really hurts! It’s coming off!”
“It’s not coming off. I know from plenty of experience.”
Pop. The moment he let go of the ear he’d been pulling for quite a while, Deneb tumbled off the bed. There was a racket of clumsy, frantic noises.
“Shit, he knows everything!”
“Miss Pink Deneb. Whatever do you mean? I truly do not know you.”
Pink Deneb pulled herself upright and pointed her finger, looking utterly dumbfounded.
“Wow... wow... you son of a....”
But her expression told a different story. A radiant, bright smile like a flower in full bloom was there.
“Your shamelessness hasn’t changed one goddamn bit... wow... wow, seriously....”
She even seemed, at a glance, relieved. As she grinned while holding her reddened ear, the image of the naive kid she once was still lingered in her face.
Seeing that attitude, he figured he’d be safe from suspicion for a while. Han Jae-jung lay back down, relieved.
“What exactly happened?”
“What do you mean, and can you drop the formal speech? It’s making me cringe.”
“Ah, but how can I use banmal to a stranger.”
“Oh, this guy, seriously.”
Pink Deneb righted the fallen chair and sat. She crossed her legs and propped her chin on her hand.
“Don’t call me Mister. I’m still young.”
“Look at the state of your beard and hair, nobody would say that. To fresh-faced kids like me, you just look old.”
“Do you have any shame?”
Even she seemed a little embarrassed by what she’d said, her ears reddening for a different reason.
“Then clean yourself up! It’s because you’re always wandering around homeless.”
“I’m not homeless anymore. I properly rented a room... wait, how do you know that?”
“I was just saying you give off that impression... What, I actually hit the mark? You were seriously homeless?”
Her expression crumpled hard. It was an act, of course. Since she already knew. Han Jae-jung also realized the behavior was an act. With her powers, simple surveillance would have been trivial.
Of course, she had to be transformed to bring out the Crimson-Winged Crows, so 24/7 surveillance would have been impossible.
Not only that, but her abilities were detection and mobility. Because of their unique nature, she was often tasked with supporting other magical girls, so she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate her attention here.
Furthermore, after she’d interrogated him, he’d always had the Belt scan his surroundings before transforming, so she wouldn’t have identified him anyway.
But she could have seen him on the days he was homeless.
Han Jae-jung felt like sighing. Of all people, someone this body knew had to find that out.
“Ah, no... it was only a few days. It’s not the case anymore.”
“... Really?”
The two of them dropped the subject there. It would only make them both uncomfortable. He also realized from the fact Deneb didn’t seem to know he’d found a place that she hadn’t been watching him as much as he’d thought.
‘Was it her conscience?’
Well, there was no way someone righteous enough to do magical girl work would stoop to stalking. Han Jae-jung felt relieved again that Deneb hadn’t seen as much of him as he’d feared.
“Then let me rephrase the earlier question. What happened to me...?”
“Just pick banmal or formal speech. It’s confusing.”
“It’s semi-formal. Does that thrill you?”
“I’d love to slice it out of you.”
They looked at each other and chuckled.
“I’m not entirely sure what you mean by ‘what happened,’ but... first of all, it’s been about one day since you collapsed.”
Pink Deneb instantly grasped Han Jae-jung’s intent and began telling him the information he wanted to know.
“And you’re going to be undergoing some questioning.”
“... By who?”
“You’re the only person who’s been kidnapped by the Libra bastard and come back.”
Han Jae-jung’s body went completely rigid.
Libra’s plan. It was already in motion.
That plan to turn the most legitimate sacrifice into a hero’s sacrifice.
“Ah. Don’t worry. No police or reporters will come. Your face won’t be made public either, of course. There’s no material for a gossip rag to run with. We on the magical girl side will investigate and only relay the information.”
Pink Deneb had eliminated every single thing Han Jae-jung might worry about. He was especially overjoyed that he wouldn’t have to see any reporters.
“Thank you.”
“Thank her, not me. She’s the one on the magical girl side who stepped up and said she’d take responsibility. She’s still out busting monster heads right now.”
Deneb smiled and pressed her palms together.
“I’m here as the command tower, doing information searches. This kind of role is where I’m the most help, anyway.”
As she spread her hands, a single Crimson-Winged Crow sprang forth, like a magician producing a dove. It flapped its distinctive pink wings and flew around the hospital room.
“Hey, open that window for me.”
“Why.”
“Ah, just do it. Can’t you grant a simple request from a lovely magical girl?”
“If my dear magical girl tells me to open it, I suppose I must. Yes.”
Grumbling, Han Jae-jung opened the window. The Crow that had taken flight perched on the windowsill.
Come to think of it, operating the Crimson-Winged Crows for detection required considerable concentration. Was it okay for her to be having a conversation like this? A question surfaced in Han Jae-jung’s mind.
And that question was soon resolved.
She wasn’t operating her Crimson-Winged Crow for detection right now.
The wind blew. It was a cold yet faint snow wind, the kind that melts on contact with skin. Following the wind, pink feathers unfurled like a path of flowers. For a moment, he could have mistaken it for spring.
“Mister, keep up that amnesia act well, got it? Sirius is not as soft as me.”
Through that spring, a pair of blue shoes took a step forward. Like a droplet of water that calls up faint memories. It was as if rain was falling between the snow and the flowers.
One of Pink Deneb’s abilities: magical girl transport.
The pink feathers formed a brilliant spring, and a person soft as snow approached through its midst. Blue hair that had been blending with the sky, blurring its borders, gradually drew near to the man’s side.
“Jae-jung!”
Blue Sirius. The one he’d least wanted to see, and most wanted at his side, had arrived. Her frozen body touched Han Jae-jung and melted.
Winter arrived, riding on spring.