Say My Name (5)
Say My Name (5)
“Aaah! This is your fault, Dabih-san!”
“H-how is this my fault?! It’s because of your carelessness, senpai! It’s the Cowherd! It’s enzai! Enzai!”
“Enzai...? W-whatever, just clean it up!”
The two of them fussed over the can that had fallen to the floor, its contents on full display. Jo Ah-yoon was staring blankly at her smartphone screen. The device wasn’t ringing. She was vibrating.
“Hey, what the hell is this.”
“By the way, what is a Cowherd Woman...?”
“Oh, right! It’s not Cowherd Woman... it’s Weaver Girl! Weaver Girl! I got confused with the Cowherd! A-hee-san and I have fused together!”
White Dabih laughed airily, a wholly insubstantial sound, and Baek A-hee nodded as if she had understood her words. That was when Jo Ah-yoon, who had been gripping her smartphone and shaking, yelled.
“What the fuck! I said, what is this!”
The fuss ceased, and a stillness fell. The two teenagers, who had been chattering noisily, had no choice but to shut their mouths in the face of their senior’s fury.
“Wh-what is it...?”
“Your boyfriend!”
“He’s not my boyfriend! And he’s an adult, so if we date, he goes to jail!”
“Ooh! An older-man killer!”
“He’s not!”
White Dabih tried to lighten the mood without reading the room, and failed. Baek A-hee swallowed nervously, and Jo Ah-yoon snarled, clutching her smartphone.
It was a relief that, in her untransformed strength, the smartphone hadn’t been crushed to pieces.
‘Wh-what’s going on...? Did she think magical girls are so flighty that they lose their heads over love or something...? Ah, no, even so, there are plenty of seniors who do that sort of thing....’
A magical girl’s love life is a serious matter. The possibility that personal feelings could intrude on a hero’s rescue operations and lead to discriminatory behavior exists.
But magical girls are people before they are heroes. People with personal desires, preferences, and different levels of fondness for different individuals. People.
Telling people in the prime of life not to love is a form of abuse. Of course, most of their work consists of mental and physical abuse anyway.
Even so, love is a part of human life that is hard to abandon. But magical girls are people who struggle to live ordinary human lives. People who receive more public attention than anyone else in the world today.
That is why a magical girl’s love life is highly secretive.
Using a past breakup, where no one was at fault, as a cautionary tale, and several later incidents as further lessons, they reached a single conclusion.
If you’re going to date anyway, tell the people around you and get their cooperation so you don’t get caught.
It’s similar to an idol’s love life.
Unlike the old days, when things were hidden even from friend and foe alike and sudden articles would break because of paparazzi and the like, now you inform the company you are dating, and the company actively cooperates on a corporate level to maintain secrecy.
This has become the practical reality for magical girls’ relationships. The Magical Girl Association has a public relations department, a media management department, and so on. It also has many highly capable magical girls.
Attempting a secret relationship with collective support is the general dating method for magical girls these days.
More than anything, public perception has changed considerably, and the opinion that people shouldn’t make a fuss just because of a little dating has gained considerable traction in this era.
Baek A-hee herself knew several seniors who had boyfriends.
‘I heard one of them recently got dumped... Ah, is that what this is about?’
Unfortunately, most of those love affairs end in catastrophe. It is common for them to end in catastrophe even before the media gets wind of them.
It’s because a magical girl’s work is grueling. Going to the hospital is as common and routine as going to a café, and externally stressful situations are frequent.
The person in question isn’t the only one who suffers. The people around her suffer with her. Watching a loved one in pain is always an agonizing experience.
In that sense, a hero’s lover could practically be classified as an emotional laborer.
It’s even more the case because some magical girls frequently pour out complaints to their lovers, unintentionally using them as emotional trash bins.
Most of all, the time they can spend together is extremely limited. That a magical girl’s work is busy is a fact well known to any small child who plays with magical-girl toys.
It is perhaps only natural that a hero’s love burns hot as a fire and is short-lived as a candle in the wind.
That is why magical girls’ romantic relationships are not encouraged. Though they help love that has already bloomed as much as possible, the unspoken ethical agreement was to avoid creating such situations in the first place.
But that was not why Pink Deneb was angry right now.
“Why is... Jae-jung—no, why is Han Jae-jung here!”
“Huh? You know Jae-jung?”
“...Han Jae-jung?”
All three were surprised at once. Red Vega was surprised because a friend knowing a friend was fascinating. White Dabih was surprised because the name was not unfamiliar. And Pink Deneb was surprised that Red Vega, who knew nothing, could be so surprised.
“Ah, aah! I know him!”
In the strange crucible of shock and silence, White Dabih was the first to open her mouth. She raised her hand and cried out with a cheerful voice, just like before.
“The god of school violence, dating violence, and gaslighting, ‘That Bastard’! I even saw his picture on the net a long time ago....”
Before her words were even finished, Pink Deneb glared at her. This was not her usual cute grumbling, not the mix of affection, fury, and curses she frequently fired at her juniors.
It was a sharp gaze, like that of a bird not pecking at a corpse, but pecking one into a corpse. It was close to killing intent.
“Hey.”
A very low-temperature voice struck the eardrums. Even Jo Ah-yoon herself was surprised. But without showing it, she quietly concluded her anger.
“Watch your mouth. Enough already, you psycho Jap bitch.”
White Dabih immediately sprang to attention and saluted.
“Yesss~!”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake....”
Jo Ah-yoon dismissed that insouciant and playful attitude with a single sigh and refocused her glare on Baek A-hee.
“That bastard...? J-Jae-jung? Why?!”
“That bastard... Yeah, you’re right. It’s not exactly weird that you don’t know, A-hee.”
Blue Sirius’s dating incident. It was one of the major scandals that caused a huge uproar among magical-girl relationships.
Looking back now, it was an incident where so much slander was traded that you’d wonder why, but the fire was quickly extinguished. No, it would be more accurate to say it spread elsewhere.
Han Jae-jung had colluded with a reporter to place all the blame on himself. In the articles, he was an abuser who suppressed his partner’s actions, a handler who controlled her behavior, and a coward who would not admit to a single ounce of responsibility.
A single culprit, with a clear, obvious, and distinct locus of blame, was created.
The people who had cursed Blue Sirius, the people who had dismissed the matter as making too much of a fuss, and even the indifferent all gathered together to curse him.
In some dark corners of the internet, things went as far as illegal acts: sharing his photo, spreading his home address, all expending effort on a self-righteous hatred.
Of course, this was the typical play of the internet’s living dead, so there was nothing particularly strange about Baek A-hee—who would have been young and informationally disadvantaged at the time—not knowing.
After this incident, Blue Sirius demonstrated good activity and achievements, and she came to possess an external image that was irreplaceable among magical girls.
Because of that, her past scandal, her relationship with ‘That Bastard’, was hushed up, and anyone who brought it up was treated as a malicious troll.
The proof was that the name Han Jae-jung had been obscured, damaged, and disintegrated to become ‘That Bastard,’ as though the name itself had become an insult.
In a few low-class places, a vulgar worship even arose, with people saying they wanted to toy with a magical girl like that too.
But seeing as even that worship used ‘That Bastard’ instead of his name, for the most part, it was nothing more than play intended for satire and humor.
Years had passed since that relationship. By now, too many new sands of information had piled on top of it to dig it back up. People who would work to unearth filth, not treasure, are rare.
Baek A-hee likely knew about Blue Sirius’s dating incident, but she clearly didn’t know the detailed inside story. There was no way she’d know his name or face. Actually, even the netizens from back then would have forgotten by now.
Among magical girls, those who knew the atmosphere of that time do not even dare mention it, and those who don’t know watch their seniors’ reactions and hold their tongues.
There was never any reason to bring a colleague’s shame up as a topic of conversation or to deliberately poke at it in the first place.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Huh? Then what Dabih just said...”
“I said you don’t need to know!”
Right now, Jo Ah-yoon was deeply emotional. Baek A-hee had never seen her this angry. Even when she raised her voice as if furious, there was always a composed coldness settled inside her.
Baek A-hee couldn’t even begin to guess why she was so angry now.
“Anyway, this man. He’s your boyfriend? For real?”
“I told you he’s not!”
“Yeah, I figured that. No way this oppa would date a minor... Even when he was dating Seol-hwa... Ah, anyway. So where did you meet him?”
“It’s... just as it says on the back...?”
“What?”
‘On the back’—what was she talking about? The question was resolved without ever needing to be voiced.
Because behind the pair of a man and a woman in the photo, there was a placard with wording like: ‘Congratulations on completing Red Vega’s suicide counseling~!’
“Sui... sui...”
For a moment, her brain stopped processing. It would be more accurate to say it refused to understand.
“...Suicide?”
Jo Ah-yoon repeated the word with extraordinary calm. Like a child hearing a word for the first time from its mother.
“U-Unnie...?”
“...No, wait. Shut up.”
“Unnie, first just calm down, okay...”
“I told you to shut up!”
Only after she had vented her anger on an innocent party did Jo Ah-yoon accept that word.
“He tried... to commit suicide...? That oppa?”
She recognized it, accepted it, and understood it.
After grasping the weight and symbolism the word ‘suicide’ carried, the rest was imagination.
Suicide.
She imagined the countless pains he must have endured before acting on that word. The many hardships he would have had to brave with no family, no friends, and nowhere to lean on. The innumerable hostile gazes and malicious rumors. The myriad curses she had seen on the internet.
Pains that might have been nothing more than her imagination, that might not have ended with imagination alone, that might have been even worse than imagination.
Soon, that imagination stretched all the way to the source of that pain.
To her own self, who had thought she should just forget him by optimistically believing he’d manage somehow. To her own self, who had looked away and simply struggled to live her own reality.
She got goosebumps. The thought also made her sick.
“...It’s edited... right?”
She smiled and approached Baek A-hee. Baek A-hee, who had been hunched up in fear of getting scolded again, shook her head in bewilderment.
“It’s edited. Fuck. It’s got to be. Why would—why would this oppa go there? Why would he even think about dying...? There’s no rea—“
Jo Ah-yoon closed her mouth. It wasn’t that there was no reason. On the contrary, there were far too many.
They were still springing up even now. Countless reasons to die, the multitude of pains that must have been inflicted on him, whirled through her head.
She had thought that being away from her, being on his own, would be good for him. Because he was someone who had suffered for being close to a magical girl. Because she thought she would only hurt him all over again if she carelessly approached.
Because to her, Han Jae-jung was a strong person. Someone who would overcome just a little suffering and find his own answer.
He wasn’t.
He was also a fragile human being. An ordinary, weak person, too frail to endure all that suffering alone.
She had been doing exactly what she so despised—idolizing him. She had considered him superhuman and forced optimistic, wishful fantasies onto herself.
Oh, he’s probably opened a shop somewhere in a quiet spot? What a ridiculous thought. Stupid optimism.
What kind of nonsense was that to say about someone who had been contemplating death...?
The strength suddenly left Jo Ah-yoon’s body. Baek A-hee’s smartphone, which she had been gripping tightly, rolled across the floor.
“....”
As the smartphone rolled across the floor, Baek A-hee quickly snatched it up before any spilled beer could seep into the device.
“Is this... this is really not edited...?”
“It’s not edited! I know because I’m a professional! This is clearly a real photograph!”
White Dabih lent force to Baek A-hee’s words. Jo Ah-yoon’s body drained of strength all the more.
“That... that thing, listen...”
She forced strength into her body, which was about to give out at the knees, and stepped backward, staggering.
“Absolutely—absolutely do not tell Sirius, got it?”
“Huh...?”
“That bitch next to you will explain why. Hey, Jap. Explain it to A-hee. You know it, right?”
“Of course! I shall explain thoroughly! The majesty of That Bastard...”
“Fuck, I told you not to talk like that... Hah, never mind. You just shut up. A-hee. I’m sorry about today. I’ll explain everything to you later, okay?”
Baek A-hee was deeply shocked. The eyes of the senior who had always seemed pitiless and cold were glum to a degree she had never seen. That wasn’t all. A cold droplet was forming in her eyes.
“Right now I have to... there’s someone I have to see... someone I have to find...”
Immature tears befitting her youthful appearance. Pure sadness, without mask or armor or a single thorn.
Without waiting for a reply, she dashed out of the break room.
“...Huh?”
Baek A-hee asked again into the empty space, in a deflated voice. Of course, there was no answer.
She had never imagined that a single photo of her and him would become such a huge incident.
She realized that beyond her pretending not to know him, there were secrets hidden within him.
Baek A-hee still did not know Han Jae-jung.
**
Han Jae-jung laughed in disbelief.
“I’m pretty popular. Never expected so many people looking for me.”
He clicked his tongue and looked around.
“What business do you have? Jason. Boötes.”
What answered his scorn was an amused smile.
“Hm, how delightful that you would immediately call me by name.”
“Hey... why are you only calling Jason properly? Call me properly too.”
The Boötes Monster moved her signature baggy clothes and placed a hand on her chest.
“Don’t call me Boötes. Call me Bo.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
A sneer came from even farther back, echoing in agreement.
“She’s right. You really are.”
It was a cold, blue-tinted smile.
“Filth, all of you, yet you go around giving yourselves names and all that. Isn’t that right, green monster?”
“Your words are harsh, but I agree. Sirius.”
“Do not let my name cross your lips so carelessly. It puts me in a bad mood.”
The floor began to slowly freeze over, centering around her. Not just the ground, but the air as well. The frozen air was no different from countless tiny blades. In that breathing alone could draw blood, it was akin to a disease.
“Is that so. What a coincidence. I also feel my mood turn foul the moment I see your face.”
Watcher pulled his scarf up over his mouth as he continued.
“But you may speak my name as freely as you like. I am not so small-minded that a measly thing like that will spoil my mood.”
Not his real name, but a common name that would serve.
“You may call me Watcher.”
Han Jae-jung introduced himself in that way.
He ignored the monsters in the middle and concentrated his gaze solely on a single person.