Chapter 2
Jaeha, who had been watching with a disapproving expression, pointed at the shopping bag Heesu was holding and made a mood-killing comment. Heesu’s anger flared as she whipped her head around to glare at Jaeha.
“What’s wrong with a college student reading mangas!”
“Isn’t it weird for a college student to read mangas that only kids watch?”
“It’s not weird! It’s prejudice to think only kids read mangas!”
Heesu shouted spiritedly, but Jaeha wasn’t about to be intimidated by just that much. Instead, he spun the chopsticks in his hand and went even further with his teasing.
“Fine, I’ll give you that—there might be mangas for adults too. But what you read isn’t that. Look at what you’re carrying now. It’s all magical girl stuff again, isn’t it? Those childish, ridiculous things. Hey, think about it. No matter how dangerous the world is, does it make sense to leave perfectly capable adult men alone and tell little girls to fight? The world doesn’t just have makjang in dramas. That’s the real makjang right there.”
“……You really…….”
Heesu bristled with anger at those words. She was about to open her mouth to refute Jaeha’s words, but at that moment, she met eyes with Rian. The moment she looked into those clear brown eyes that had been quietly listening to their conversation, Heesu’s face flushed hot with embarrassment.
Heesu floundered, not knowing what to do, then turned her gaze back to Jaeha. Jaeha was smirking nastily, as if he could see right through Heesu’s inner thoughts. Anger surged up again at that face, and Heesu opened her mouth, wanting to argue back with something.
But thinking of Rian beside her, there wasn’t a single word she could say out loud. In the end, after stammering without being able to say anything, Heesu:
“Sh-Shut up!!”
Just shouted that and turned around to leave. The sound of the door slamming shut with a bang made the entire house shake. Even with such a loud noise, Jaeha’s laughter could still be heard clearly. It only made her anger surge even more.
“That Jaeha kid, really…….”
Walking down the street, Heesu fumed. She was frustrated that she hadn’t been able to throw back a single retort.
Her younger brother Jaeha, four years her junior, always had that attitude toward Heesu. When he was young, he had been a cute younger brother who followed his older sister well and listened to her, but at some point he had become such an impudent brat. He was still a good son who listened well to their parents, but he was only like that toward his older sister. That made it even more annoying.
Magical girl stories are childish and ridiculous?
Recalling Jaeha’s words, Heesu’s anger flared up again.
Don’t think of fighting as something so physical and one-dimensional! There’s a reason magic is called magic! When such delicate, weak girls protect the world with the power of love and heart, that’s why it’s called a miracle! That’s what’s really wonderful about it! You’re unfortunate for not knowing the awesomeness of magical girls!
She could have argued back as much as she wanted. But Rian had been there. Even Heesu didn’t want to do that in front of her first love. Having a heated debate with her younger brother about magical girl stories and expressing her longing and affection for magical girls—that would be too… otaku-like. Even though she was an otaku.
Thinking of Rian, Heesu felt embarrassed again. Her heart ached too.
Rian, who had lived next door since childhood and treated Heesu kindly, was the most manga-like existence in Heesu’s mundane daily life. With his neat appearance, elite status, and kindness, he was the perfect target for young Heesu’s first love.
If Heesu had been the protagonist of a manga, her long-standing unrequited love might have borne fruit by now, and the two would be in a passionate relationship. But sadly, Heesu was not the protagonist of a manga, and Rian seemed to have brought a girlfriend home recently.
Reality really was boring and dull.
Kicking a can that got in her way to vent her frustration, Heesu thought that.
Having been immersed in manga and animation since childhood, Heesu had expected that by the time she was sixteen, someone would appear before her and ask her to save the world. She thought she would become a magical girl and be active, cross dimensions to go to another world, or gain mysterious and powerful supernatural abilities to fight against evil villains targeting the world and encounter the great secrets of the world. In that process, she would meet someone destined and fall in love, and ultimately become the protagonist of a story that saves the world.
But time passed peacefully and safely without even encountering a fragment of such events.
Heesu had become an adult without anything happening and received her resident registration card, graduated from high school and entered university, and continued to age steadily year by year until she was now in her mid-twenties. She was now at an age where it would be embarrassing to even call herself a girl if she became a magical girl.
What was left for Heesu now was the label of never having dated, meaning she had never even had a trivial romance, let alone a destined love; chunks of fat that only accumulated from stress and never went away; grades full of holes from frequent absences due to her otaku activities that made even graduation dangerous; and the intense, brutal job hunting that was approaching.
Heesu would probably continue to move further and further away from the appropriate age for becoming the magical girl she so desperately wanted to be.
More and more, increasingly so. Heesu’s life was moving further away from the story she had dreamed of, and the possibility of becoming the protagonist of the story she had wanted to become was also diminishing.
With such thoughts making her endlessly depressed, Heesu sighed deeply and got on the bus.
Without knowing that the extraordinary was finally catching up behind her.
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