Ch.26Chapter 5. Position (5)

I had a dream.

It was a dream about my childhood memories.

Memories from when I had just remembered that I’d suddenly lost everything and came to this world.

Back then, I was very confused.

For someone who had lived in an adult body, the body of a five-year-old child was too small, and there was little I could do.

Even if I knew things, I couldn’t speak about them. I could tell I was in an orphanage, but that was it—I couldn’t recall what exactly had happened.

I didn’t know what kind of world this was. I didn’t know who the people around me were.

Being with children was also difficult. Children are still young. For me, with an adult’s mind, it was very hard to fit in among them.

Children communicate in their own language. I had to follow along, pretending to be a child for years.

How many years?

I’ve experienced childhood before, but I barely remember that time. What thoughts should I have at what age to seem normal? How could I blend in and live an ordinary life among them?

I was also afraid of how the teachers looked at me. Sometimes when I accidentally showed “my” behavior, the teachers would look at me with strange expressions.

Some suspected I might be a genius. But I just had memories of things I’d learned before.

People who sometimes looked at me with expectation, sometimes as if I were not an ordinary being.

Children who gradually distanced themselves, whether by instinct or because I unknowingly gave myself away.

I was scared.

That’s why I snuck out of the orphanage, avoiding the teachers’ eyes.

Perhaps they didn’t think a small child could unlock the fairly high lock and go outside alone.

I didn’t have any particular plans when I went outside. Just as I live without any special purpose now, I didn’t have any particular goal then either.

I can’t make the excuse that I was young. I didn’t perceive myself that way.

I walked around shivering in the cold weather, with a runny nose.

It was a familiar world.

Not very different from what I remembered.

Maybe I wanted to confirm that.

Whether I could live normally, ordinarily, in this world I was somehow born into.

It wasn’t yet the era of aliens.

So the world was ordinary.

I don’t remember well if I was relieved or not. Probably half relieved, half disappointed.

Even though I was reborn, life didn’t seem any easier.

I was just reborn in the same country of the world I knew.

I wasn’t quite a proper adult yet, but it must have felt empty to think that everything up until then had vanished.

I clearly remember that the fear hadn’t completely disappeared.

Everything I had was gone. Not that I had everything to begin with.

The shock hit me belatedly. Everything went dark before my eyes.

Adults passing by all glanced at me once. Their expressions questioned why such a young child was playing outside alone.

I guess I wasn’t as mentally strong as most possession story protagonists.

Maybe it was the reaction to having a younger body.

It was hard to hold back tears.

A small child standing alone on the street, sniffling as if about to burst into tears at any moment.

I must have looked unnatural and strange to passersby.

“Why are you crying?”

And there was a child who spoke to me.

When I turned, I saw bright pink hair.

The bob haircut, neatly cut below the neck, looked as if someone had just fixed it—not a single hair out of place.

Her clothes were the same. The neatly worn coat didn’t look cheap at first glance.

She herself didn’t seem to be aware of it.

She didn’t pay attention to my clothes with slightly torn sleeves and stretched neckline. She didn’t look at my grimy sneakers, but only stared intently at my face.

She was also alone.

“I…”

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again.

Relying on a five-year-old child—that’s absurd. My reason was telling me so.

But in the end, a tear rolled down from my eye.

Was I relieved that someone was showing interest in me?

Or did I think there was no need to worry since she was just a child too?

Once the tears started, they were hard to stop.

She came to me and hugged me, not knowing anything.

“It’s okay.”

Not knowing what was okay or why it was okay, she whispered that in my ear.

“It’s going to be okay.”

I felt pathetic for being comforted by that young voice.

Perhaps that was the first time I cried so hard since being born into this world.

And I haven’t cried that much since.

That’s where the memory ends. I don’t recall what happened afterward. Did her parents come and take me to the police station? Or did the police approach me directly? Either way, we parted.

And for years, I didn’t know that her name was “Hayun.”

*

I met her again on my first day of elementary school.

I recognized her by her bright pink hair, but she didn’t seem to recognize me.

“Hello.”

She happened to sit in front of me and turned around to speak.

“I’m Hayun. Lee Hayun.”

She said this in a voice too mature for an elementary school student.

The name Hayun and pink hair.

Even seeing these two combinations, I didn’t realize at the time that she was the protagonist of a webtoon.

By then, I knew that people in the world had many different hair colors. Of course, in this country, most had black hair, and I was one of those “most.”

Me, who grew up in an environment that was not special in any way—or rather, more deprived than other ordinary children.

Hayun, with her striking appearance, good at both sports and studies, with a great personality that made her admired by many children.

As time passed, I felt that we lived in different worlds.

If I kept my mouth shut, children wouldn’t bother talking to me. The reason was probably Hayun.

Sitting next to her, someone with a dark personality like me gets slightly overshadowed by Hayun’s light. Naturally, I wouldn’t stand out.

I wasn’t unhappy about it. If I had been the type who liked being noticed by others, I wouldn’t have been such a gloomy person.

But.

Hayun treated me as a friend.

To be honest, I was a “close friend.”

If you had to pick the friend Hayun spent the most time with, it was me. If you had to choose who she walked with the most, it was me. If she needed to call someone to go somewhere, she would choose me.

So I was happy.

And at the same time, I felt complicated emotions.

Being always by her side, I knew well how Hayun appeared to others. And I was one of those people who saw her that way.

I wanted to be special. But no matter how hard I tried, I could only be a side character in Hayun’s life. Even if Hayun treated me as her closest friend, as if I were special, I still felt I wasn’t someone who belonged in that position.

Just a kid who happened to sit behind Hayun.

Just someone who happened to talk to her first at school, and so ended up hanging out with her.

In the end, the reason I could only be that kind of friend to Hayun was because Hayun chose me.

I… like Hayun. As a friend, and as a person, she’s too good. Kind, smart, athletic, pretty, and attentive to small details.

I’m not like that at all.

Only after the Galactic Federation made contact with Earth did I realize that Hayun was the protagonist.

I finally realized that I was truly just a side character. No matter how hard I tried, I was just one of the extras appearing next to the protagonist.

One of the faceless characters appearing in the background of everyday scenes in the webtoon, not even named.

That’s all.

Yes, I’ve felt inferior to Hayun.

Always.

I like her.

But even though I like her.

I’m jealous.

Of everything around her.

I always struggle to follow behind her, but when I take one step, Hayun is already far ahead.

She waves and smiles from up ahead, not even realizing I’ve fallen behind.

No, I guess our starting points were different to begin with.

That’s not a bad thing. Hayun probably wouldn’t have wanted it either.

Even if we had started from the same place, Hayun would have used all her talents to make everyone around her happy.

I know that. Yet, every time I look at Hayun, I can’t help but think:

Why me?

I’m right beside her. I even already know the content of that comic. Perhaps I know more about this world than the magical girls do.

Yet, there’s nothing I can do.

The reason is all within me. Even if I try to blame others, the accusation ultimately points back at me.

As a friend, I like her. Just as I am Hayun’s close friend, Hayun is my closest friend too. One of the few friends I have.

I want to be in a special position for Hayun.

Not just a friend who became close because I sat behind her, but someone irreplaceable, someone she couldn’t do without.

That’s why I wanted to win.

Just once.

Perhaps becoming a combatant one year before Hayun was because of that wish.

…Hayun eventually found out.

Will she pity me?

I hope not.

Rather—

*

“Hayun.”

Hayun continued to stay by Jieun’s side, who hadn’t woken up for days.

She went to school. But as soon as school ended, she came straight to the hospital.

With Jieun collapsed, she couldn’t focus on anything else.

It wasn’t surprising. For Hayun, Jieun’s existence was never insignificant.

“…”

“Are you really not going to talk?”

It was Happy Rose—Seo-hee—who spoke.

She was one year senior to Hayun. She also started magical girl work about a year earlier than Hayun.

However, she wasn’t the leader. There was no hierarchy among magical girls to begin with. When needed, Hayun took on the nominal leadership role, but that was because Hayun’s magic had high versatility, and above all, because Hayun was friendly with all the other magical girls.

Dalia and Iris were rivals, and Delphinium and Dalia weren’t on the best terms either.

Iris sometimes found Rose’s straightforward personality a bit grating. Conversely, Rose often interfered with or opposed Iris’s plans.

Hayun and Blossom had personalities that didn’t particularly clash with any of the three, which is why when Blossom stood at the center, at least the magical girls didn’t fall apart.

But now, even that was starting to crack a little.

“…”

She knew it was a strange thing to say.

It was Rose who had delivered the precise punch to Jieun’s head, but before that, it was Hayun herself who had been fighting as if her life depended on it.

Delphinium had unleashed magic on Jieun, and Iris had fired shots at her. So, this reaction wasn’t fair.

What Rose did just happened too intensely right before Hayun’s eyes.

The sound of the gauntlet hitting the helmet. The vivid sound of something breaking.

Emergency treatment had already been completed. The reason Jieun was still lying down was unknown.

There was no reason to blame Rose, or rather, Seo-hee.

Hayun rubbed her face with her hands. Dark shadows had formed under her eyes. Her parents were displeased with her being here.

This was probably the first time she had ignored her parents’ wishes.

“Hayun.”

“…I know.”

Hayun muttered tiredly.

Seo-hee silently came beside Hayun and placed a hand on her back.

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rose said.

“We didn’t set off the explosives. Rather, we were delayed by the fight, and that’s why it happened. Of course, she probably didn’t know either. If she had known, there would have been no reason for her to be there. Probably no one knew.”

It was a rationally understandable statement.

But behind those words was the implication that the combatants were the problem.

They had delayed because of the battle. Especially at the end, it was true that they were further hindered by Jieun, who resisted fiercely and, for some reason, started to go berserk.

“The people we’ve been fighting until now.”

Hayun murmured.

“Have they ever ended up like this?”

“…I don’t think so.”

Rose answered.

But she didn’t seem able to respond with a confident voice.

“We controlled our strength, right? And they fought using circuits too. So there shouldn’t have been any major problems until now.”

Again, mixed in her words was the implication that they must have been injured to some extent, if not this severely.

“It’s not our fault.”

Rose emphasized again, seeing Hayun’s expression.

“…It was for justice.”

For justice.

For the first time, strangely enough for the first time, Hayun wondered if the combatants might actually be ordinary people.

Until then, she had thought they were professional personnel employed by the company. Or perhaps gangsters. She had never once thought that the beings inside those suits were “normal people.”

No one had told her so. Hayun had just assumed it on her own.

How could she have imagined that her closest friend would be inside?

…Unless.

Could it be that Jieun…?

Hayun shook her head vigorously.

No, it can’t be.

There must be some reason.

Some unavoidable reason why she was moving like that there.

“Ah.”

While Hayun was lost in thought with her mouth closed, a slightly surprised voice came from behind.

When she turned her head, there was a girl who had been visiting consistently over the past few days, just like Hayun.

Her name was Jihye. They had already met once.

A girl who approached Jieun’s side without hesitation, more comfortably than Hayun.

“Ah, um, perhaps—”

She seemed a bit flustered, perhaps because there were two magical girls inside.

“Sorry. I’ll move aside.”

“Oh, no, if you were having an important conversation, please continue…”

“No. It’s not something we need to discuss here.”

Rose said that, patted Hayun’s back, and left the room.

Hayun hesitated a bit more before getting up.

“Oh, um, if you want to stay longer, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Hayun’s feet, heading toward the door, paused momentarily at Jihye’s words.

…It was a natural statement.

As if it were obvious that Jihye herself belonged here.

What kind of relationship did they have?

Until now, Hayun knew nothing about this girl named Jihye.

Thinking about it again, Jieun was more of a listener than a talker. When Hayun tried to recall, she realized she knew nothing about Jieun’s personal life.

She wanted to ask right now.

How long they had known each other, how they had come to know each other.

But “Hayun” prevented her from doing so.

Hayun, always loved by everyone.

Perfect Hayun who excels at everything.

That name stops her from asking such honest questions.

Besides.

She turned her gaze.

Jieun was still sleeping with her eyes closed.

Yes. Besides, such conversations would be meaningless unless heard from Jieun herself.

What use would it be to hear it from someone else if it wasn’t a story Jieun wanted to tell herself?

Jihye had a few snacks in her hand.

Even though Jieun couldn’t eat them anyway.

No, perhaps she brought them to eat herself?

As Hayun was thinking this, she blinked in surprise.

But even so, it wasn’t Hayun’s place to say anything.

At least Jihye wouldn’t have hit Jieun.

Even if it had been unavoidable, that fact remained unchanged.

Thinking that far, Hayun wanted even less to stay with Jihye.

But she couldn’t chase Jihye away either. “Hayun” prevented that too.

“…Please take care of Jieun.”

“Sure. Leave it to me.”

Finally backing away, she added that one comment unnecessarily.

Jihye accepted those words too naturally.

As if she already knew what to do and how to do it.

She’s a good person. She must have her own time, yet she comes to visit.

But still, for some reason, Hayun couldn’t view Jihye entirely positively.

To hide that discomfort, she quickly turned around and hurriedly left the room.

She walked rapidly down the corridor and reached the stairs.

After confirming no one was around, she rubbed her face with her hands.

What should I do? What am I supposed to do?

Hayun had no idea.

Whenever Hayun felt like this, Jieun always provided a clear answer.

Or at least helped her escape.

“…”

Hayun became even sadder after that thought.