Chapter 63 : The Great Chaotic Christmas Operation

December 23rd

“…”

“Hikari! I’ve been waiting!”

Yuki closed the wooden gate and ran towards me in the red coat I had seen before. As mentioned in the story, her habit of drying her hair all at once with flame magic after bathing seemed to persist, as the ends of her short hair were damaged and sticking up.

“So Yuki’s house is in Ota.”

“Yeah… I’ve always wanted to come back since I left.”

The house where the Shikishima father and daughter lived was in Ota Ward, the southernmost district of Tokyo. It’s an area with many ordinary residential neighborhoods and some wealthy areas with luxury mansions near the station.

…And there’s Haneda Airport.

Just a 20-minute subway ride from Shibuya where I live.

A place I passed by every day while commuting to Yokohama by subway.

Now that I actually came here, I was momentarily dazed by the futility of realizing I had been living so close to the original work’s protagonist.

‘I even booked a flight ticket to Narita Airport arriving from Incheon instead of Gimpo.’

I had wandered around Shinjuku and Shibuya where Yuki first appears in the original work, but unintentionally avoided Ota which is terribly far south in Tokyo.

‘Now that I know the location, it really feels futile…’

Although the exact place name where Yuki lives doesn’t appear in the original work, it was an area that could be guessed by drawing a straight line between Shinjuku and Yokohama, which appeared as Yuki’s main destinations. If I had thoroughly searched the areas along that straight line for 2 years, I might have heard rumors about a ‘female student who was burned and then healed after becoming a magical girl’.

‘…Still, I couldn’t have predicted that Yuki would return through regression.’

Even if I had luckily found Yuki, it was this November that Yuki returned with memories of the original work. If I had met and become close to Yuki before that, but those memories were overwritten by Yuki’s post-ending memories unaware of the past I had changed…

‘I would have gone back to being a stranger to Yuki whom I had become close with, just like with Sato Hana now.’

Shudder

I pushed aside the chilling imagination that briefly surfaced.

“I was living so close to Yuki.”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. That Hikari was living in Shibuya.”

“Shibuya? Why Shibuya?”

“Ah… um… well… um… that’s…”

Yuki seemed to have unconsciously blurted out those words, and unable to recover, her face turned slightly pale as she broke into a cold sweat and darted her eyes around.

‘Ah, it must be a place with bad memories.’

After I mentioned knowing about Yuki’s actions from next year onwards, she seemed reluctant to open up about her shabby past of growing distant from her father and being bullied at school. She always had difficulty talking when related topics came up.

‘I lived a pretty shabby past too so it’s fine, but… if I say I know about Yuki’s past too, it might shock her even more.’

This was Yuki’s complex that was difficult to heal with simple empathy.

In the original work’s ending, Yuki had merely become accustomed to fighting. There was no gentleness there to help her grow mentally or make her stronger.

‘Yuki is a child with many wounds and pains, so as a friend, there must be things she doesn’t want to talk about.’

This is the fault of the world that pushed her into tragedy without giving her time to grow. I hope the time comes when she can bring up stories on her own.

I forcibly changed the topic to be considerate of the troubled Yuki.

“…Did your father go to work?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, Dad! He’s regained his confidence lately! He’s working at an acquaintance’s pottery workshop again! He’s starting over as an assistant since he took a 5-year break.”

“That’s too bad… I wanted to greet him if he was here.”

The protagonist’s parent, no less.

As Yuki’s friend and a fan of the original work, I wanted to meet and greet him at least once. The original story begins with denying his death and heading towards [Death]’s domain, but this time would be different.

When I looked to the side as it suddenly got quiet, Yuki was staring at me with wide eyes.

“…”

“Yuki?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? …Did, did I do something wrong?”

“…It’s nothing.”

For the Christmas party, we decided to randomly exchange gifts with each other.

Nine girls spending peaceful daily lives while the memories at the edge of their consciousness of the research facility were fading, Haruko who had transferred schools after her probation period ended, and the organizers Ichika, Kyoko, and Hana.

Including me and Yuki, it would be a party with as many as 15 people gathering.

‘Sumire would be uncomfortable with most of the group, and it’s awkward to ask Dorim or Park Saebyeok, who know my identity, to come all the way to Japan.’

I brought it up with Master and the Sato couple too, but Master just laughed heartily.

“Not necessary. You kids have fun on your own.”

Sato Hana declared that she wanted to enjoy a party with friends all day on Christmas rather than spending it with family, like the housewarming party. Hearing that, the Sato couple declined my invitation offer with slightly shy smiles and quietly asked me to take care of Hana while giving me some pocket money.

‘Maybe Hana will have a younger sibling soon…’

I heard the Sato family, who had set their Christmas schedule, would be spending intimate family time today.

“A gift? I’ll just pick something from the prizes I got last time. Should I set aside Kyoko’s share too?”

“Th-that would be much appreciated… I spent quite a bit on winter clothes…”

Ichika and Kyoko said they would just put in something from the gift package Ichika received as a prize from the friendly match and were resting at home.

-Heheh, I’ve already bought my gift so I’ll bring it to the party.

I heard Haruko was continuing a smooth and quiet school life at the school she transferred to, and that she’s been attending an art academy since October this year to pursue her dream of becoming a manga artist.

In the end, among those living in Tokyo, only Yuki and I came out to buy gifts.

“Then let’s go buy gifts, Yuki.”

“Yeah! Sounds good!”

Yuki and I took the subway to Shinjuku Station.

But Shinjuku right before Christmas was literally bursting with people.

“Welcome!! It’s our pre-Christmas sale!!”

“Cakes! Buy your cakes here!”

“Wow, looks like magical girls are performing over there.”

“Heave-ho! Rise up, Christmas tree!!”

“Please donate blood, everyone!”

Merchants shouted themselves hoarse while selling goods in Santa costumes.

People were already enjoying the Christmas atmosphere arm in arm with their lovers.

Performance-type magical girls showed off their specialties on the streets and the security team monitored them.

The relief corps rang bells and campaigned to encourage blood donations and volunteer activities.

Year-end special advertisements on the intersection’s electronic display boards intertwined with the taillights of passing cars. They were emitting red light, creating an end-of-year atmosphere throughout the streets.

The red light wavering in people’s breath seemed to enter our hearts.

Yuki spoke while cupping her cheeks that had turned red from the cold.

“Whoa, there are so many people. Shinjuku really is crowded.”

“Yeah… if I had known it would be like this, we should have come out yesterday.”

“It probably would have been similar yesterday too?”

“Still, it must have been less crowded than this.”

“Phew… what should we do?”

…I wonder if we’ll even be able to buy gifts at this rate.

Department stores and gift shops were so packed that queues dozens of meters long had formed.

I took out my smartphone that I still hadn’t activated and was using as a watch and Wi-Fi receiver.

3:21 PM.

Did we come out too late? Damn it.

Yuki seemed pleased that I was using the smartphone she had given me well, glancing at it before exclaiming.

“Ah, you still haven’t activated it?”

“I’ve only been back in Japan for 2 days.”

“Ugh, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad… sorry.”

Squeeze

Yuki fidgeted slightly and grabbed the sleeve of my coat.

“Hmm.”

As I fiddled with the smartphone still in airplane mode since I had just returned from abroad, an idea came to mind.

‘The time difference between Belgium and Japan is 8 hours, right? I should be able to use the warp gate I worked so hard to install.’

I still had plenty of money left in my wallet that I had exchanged when I went to install the warp gate in Belgium.

As I fell silent for a moment, Yuki gripped my sleeve even tighter and said:

“A-are you really angry? I, I was just asking, I’m sorry if I upset you!”

“Yuki.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go abroad.”

“What?!”

* * *

“W-wow. We really came.”

Yuki, who had followed Hikari in her [Beginning] magical girl outfit through the warp gate after entering the domain, covered in camouflage magic, was fidgeting nervously.

Brussels, Belgium, where they arrived, was just past 7 AM, 8 hours behind Tokyo, Japan, and the ornate 15th-century style roofs of the Grand Place were shining white, dazzlingly reflecting the morning sunlight.

Bumpy and uneven.

For Yuki, who had lived her whole life in Japan and was seeing a street composed entirely of such foreign architecture for the first time, that was the only way she could describe the appearance of the Grand Place.

“Even so, it’s not crowded with people from the morning.”

Hikari, who had somehow changed back into civilian clothes with something like a silver earphone in one ear, was confidently guiding Yuki.

“There’s a souvenir shop I spotted while coming and going for the warp gate and Grand Council, and it seems to open from the morning. Let’s go there together, Yuki.”

“O-okay.”

Yuki was just holding onto the money Hikari had casually handed her to use freely and gripping one sleeve as she followed.

The souvenir shop they arrived at, located in a corner of the square, had notices written in all sorts of languages saying it would be closed for over a week after tomorrow’s Christmas holiday, and the shop staff were busily doing morning cleaning. Fortunately, since it was morning, there were no people, so they could easily enter the shop.

‘I can’t even speak English properly, what should I do.’

Inside the shop were various souvenirs in shapes hard to see in Japan on display, and Yuki, frozen at the sight, just followed behind Hikari.

‘Hikari is amazing. I ended up accomplishing nothing in the end, but in just half a year, she’s become accustomed to traveling around the world and doing various things.’

What kind of influence could this amazing Hikari have received from me?

What did she see in my shabby self who was just desperate to survive?

“Yuki! How about this?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s cute!”

Hikari gently moved her long eyelashes as she showed Yuki things like dolls or blankets in the shop.

“Ugh, it’s terribly expensive.”

Hikari grumbled something as she went further into the shop after checking the price of a bear doll holding a Belgian flag.

Yuki absentmindedly picked up various things again before suddenly noticing one item.

The gift would be given to anyone by lottery, so there was no guarantee it would go to Hikari, but.

‘Even so, if Hikari could receive it… the price is reasonable too…’

Yuki carefully picked up that item.