Ch.94Chapter 16. Intimacy (3)

For some reason, I left Rose, who burst into laughter even in this situation, as she was, and also left Dalia and Delphinium, who had expressions I couldn’t tell if they were flustered or what.

I stared intently at Hayun and Ju-a, unsure whether they had fought or not.

Ju-a’s face was red. She didn’t seem angry. But normally, she wasn’t the type to show much change in expression except when angry or annoyed.

But then again, Hayun wasn’t the type of kid to casually say such profanity either.

I scratched my head.

“…Let’s talk.”

Since none of the kids here seemed willing to mediate between the two, I took Hayun and went into the tent.

During this, Rose let out another laugh, and Ju-a watched the two of us with a strangely subtle expression, which was odd.

Hayun entered the tent with her face completely red.

I closed the door first, and we sat facing each other.

“……”

Hayun, whose face was completely red, couldn’t even make proper eye contact with me. She looked exactly like someone who had just shown an incredibly embarrassing side of herself.

If she was going to make that expression, she shouldn’t have said such things in the first place.

No, wait.

Thinking about it again, it didn’t seem like Hayun would have said such things on purpose. There are many words in Korean with that pronunciation, so this might have happened because I didn’t listen to the end.

But even so, I had to hear her out first. Anyway, if Hayun was showing this kind of reaction, it probably wasn’t just ordinary words.

“What were you talking about?”

Even as I asked this, I found myself ridiculous.

Until just a little while ago, I hadn’t even thought about being between Hayun and someone else.

No, there had been cases if you count them, but usually I just kept away people who approached Hayun when she didn’t want them to.

All the magical girls had good relationships with Hayun. People you could call friends, if you had to categorize them.

Naturally, they were also people who could hurt Hayun more when they fought.

…Just like I had hurt her.

“Well… you know…”

I waited patiently for Hayun to speak word by word.

I was used to this. When Hayun was deep in thought and I asked her about it, she would often react this way.

Usually it was about family matters, and there wasn’t much I could do to help. Nothing except holding her hand, dragging her around here and there, and buying her something sweet to put in her mouth.

That kind of thing wouldn’t work here, so I’d have to think of other methods.

“Someone I like…”

“Someone you like?”

“Person…”

“…Someone you like?”

Hayun nodded.

My brain stopped for a few seconds. My briefly frozen brain slowly thawed over time, logically organizing Hayun’s words and the situation I had witnessed earlier.

Rather, once my reason stopped, my thinking became clearer.

What, is that what it was?

Thinking about the word “like,” I could somewhat understand why she shouted that in panic.

It seemed like Hayun had no immunity to that kind of thing. We had hardly ever had such conversations… almost never.

That’s right. Really.

“Someone you like?”

I muttered again. It wasn’t intentional.

Hayun has someone she likes?

I suppose it’s… possible.

Isn’t she a high school girl? Not every high school girl has a boyfriend, but for someone like Hayun, it wouldn’t be strange if she had a boyfriend.

No wait, would it be strange?

Yes, it would be strange. Hayun was often with me both at school and outside school. We were in contact almost all the time, and if Hayun went somewhere to have fun, unless it was for a school event, it meant she was going with me.

But if you dig deeper… there were many times when she wasn’t with me.

Especially when Hayun was doing magical girl activities.

The only time I could meet other magical girls individually was when that stalker monster was following us around. So I have no idea what Hayun was like when she was doing “Federation work.”

I knew what I saw in the webtoon, but the webtoon, which was more like a collection of funny scenes cut and pasted together by the author, didn’t describe “daily life” in detail.

Plus, considering my existence, there might be parts different from the original.

“……”

So even if it wasn’t to the point of dating, it wouldn’t be surprising if Hayun had someone she liked romantically.

Rather, wouldn’t it be strange if she didn’t? Not everyone experiences romance, but having a crush is something that can happen.

However, being able to understand that and feeling jealous are completely different things.

I feel jealous of Hayun. When I see her talent, I often feel despair too.

At the same time, Hayun was also my hope. She was also the person I admired most in this world.

I think it’s not strange for her to date someone, and it’s natural that she’s popular with guys. If Hayun wanted, getting any guy to date her would be nothing.

But separate from understanding, I didn’t like it.

Here, both Hayun and I are the same gender, and even if we were different genders, I don’t think Hayun would see me as a romantic interest.

As time passes, my relationship with Hayun might gradually fade too. If Hayun starts dating a boyfriend and I try to follow her everywhere she goes to have fun, wouldn’t that become a source of conflict?

More than that, I don’t even know what kind of person this guy Hayun likes is.

…No, actually the reason I’m feeling these emotions isn’t that complicated.

It’s—

“Do you have someone you like?”

I said this deliberately in a teasing tone.

Hayun was sitting with her head down, her face red. It seemed like she was serious.

The noise from the circuit was slowly decreasing. It wasn’t that loud to begin with, but now it seemed like the sound itself would stop soon.

“Well…”

Hayun held back her words again.

I brought my face a little closer to Hayun’s side. Like when I had cornered Hayun against the wall before.

Back then, Hayun had said she would do whatever she could. Even without knowing what I might do, Hayun hadn’t run away.

After doing nothing then and bringing up that incident now, I’m really a coward.

“Why? Is it hard to say? Can’t you tell me who you like? You said it in front of them earlier.”

What am I trying to accomplish?

If it’s someone I don’t know, it’s meaningless information to me. What could I do to that person?

Even if it’s someone I know, it’s still meaningless. It’s not like I can do anything about it. Threaten them to stay away from Hayun? That would be the worst choice.

Whatever answer I hear, I’ll be hurt.

But it was hard to bear. For some reason, I wanted to hear it no matter what.

When I deliberately moved close to Hayun’s face, she finally couldn’t stand it and moved back.

Hayun barely lifted her head to look at me. Her face was already red beyond any help.

“…You.”

“……”

It took me a moment to understand Hayun’s words.

Could that guy’s name be “You”? Could such a name exist? I’m not sure. There are countless names in the world, and now the definition of world was expanding to galactic scale, so it might be possible.

Could the person she likes be an alien?

“It was about you, Jieun…”

Hayun said very quietly, with a face that looked like it might explode. It was an incredibly embarrassed voice for someone sitting face to face.

“About me?”

“…Yeah.”

“So the person you like.”

I pointed at myself with my finger.

“Me?”

“…Yeah.”

Hayun nodded as if delivering a final blow.

How should I interpret this?

I slowly pulled my head back.

Only after carefully placing both hands on my knees and sitting cross-legged did I feel my face gradually turning red.

This was the first time in both my past and current life that I’d heard such words from a girl.

But at the same time, having lived such a life, it wasn’t that difficult to think about the meaning of those words.

When someone lives defensively, they tend to think about how to avoid misunderstandings with the opposite sex. So those words too, naturally wouldn’t be said because she likes me romantically.

I’m not without feelings, but… frankly speaking, in the webtoon, there was never any story about Hayun liking the same gender.

Even though I had imagined couplings in my fantasies.

“…So that’s… as a friend?”

A same-gender friend of the same age.

Plus a childhood friend I’ve known since we were little.

We share many memories and have gone out to play together many times. We never went anywhere far, but the times we went out on weekends eating this and that could be called happy.

If I’m one of Hayun’s closest childhood friends, it wouldn’t be strange for us to have feelings of “affection” for each other.

We don’t say we like each other too much, but in terms of like or dislike, we’d have no choice but to say we like each other.

Thinking about how Rose was laughing heartily earlier, wouldn’t it be right to think that such a “pleasant conversation” had taken place?

“……”

But strangely, Hayun just stared at me with her red face without saying anything.

The longer that silence continued, the more anxious I became for some reason. I felt like I shouldn’t have come into the tent. Come to think of it, the weather isn’t that cold anymore, so wouldn’t it be better to put away the tent soon?

I could have gone outside the building to talk with Hayun. The night is still cool, no, chilly, so the heated face would have been offset.

In a dark place, we wouldn’t have to look at each other’s red faces.

As I sat there with one knee trembling, Hayun’s gaze finally slowly moved down.

“…Yeah… we were talking about friends.”

Hayun confessed obediently.

“Ju-a said so too. Since we’re friends, she likes me.”

“…Ju-a did.”

Hearing that story made me feel a little calmer.

Hayun seemed similar.

I could understand why she had been stuttering. While Hayun usually fights with a very dignified and refreshing expression when active as a magical girl, she strangely showed somewhat clumsy behavior in person-to-person relationships.

That was also why I tried to keep kids who approached Hayun as far away as possible. I was worried Hayun would be taken advantage of.

Well, maybe during the conversation, when Ju-a said she liked me, Hayun thought she couldn’t lose—

“……”

Having such thoughts made my face heat up again somewhat.

Why?

Am I reacting this way even to Hayun being jealous as a friend? Because I like Hayun that much?

“…Should we sleep soon?”

The atmosphere had become incredibly awkward, and sitting face to face any longer would only lead to strange conversations. So I suggested that as the next best option.

We had eaten, and as for washing… skipping one day won’t kill us. We had cleaned up inside the tent.

“…Yeah.”

Hayun barely nodded at my words.

When I got up to prepare for bed, Hayun also hesitantly lay down on the floor.

Today Hayun also lay down facing the door.

Lying with our backs to each other, we stayed quiet for a long time without saying anything.

“……”

But all the other kids were outside.

Where are Cherry and James anyway?

*

Ju-a had meant “like” in the dictionary sense, but somehow listening to Hayun and Jieun’s conversation made her concerned about the meaning that word carried.

She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop.

It just happened that where Ju-a was wasn’t very far from the tent.

Jieun hadn’t locked the door when she took Hayun into the tent.

Even if she had locked it, it wasn’t really a soundproof tent. Unless they were really whispering inside, all the sounds from inside would inevitably be heard outside.

Rose also quietly listened beside Ju-a.

If they got too close, they’d be caught eavesdropping because of their shadows.

Dalia and Delphinium had also somehow come up beside those two and were listening.

It was just a conversation between friends, but somehow everyone’s faces were strangely red. Even Rose, who had been laughing openly until just before.

Even the girls who were a year older now looked like “girls” of similar age to Ju-a.

Well, they weren’t people she relied on much as seniors anyway.

“…You.”

And when Hayun said that, Ju-a was also flustered.

Somehow her insides felt ticklish, and her ears seemed to turn red.

Surely they were talking about the same thing they had been discussing just before. They were just talking about friends, and since they were friends, the feeling was closer to liking than disliking.

Yet why was she feeling such strange emotions?

Her heart was pounding.

Though it was too strange to think this about two people,

Ju-a was somehow thinking that Hayun’s words might have meaning other than what a friend would say.

And at the same time.

She thought about what if the two people really liked each other.

This was a world where the scope of the world had become galactic. Naturally, aliens married each other, and very occasionally, stories of aliens who married Earthlings came in.

Earth was still within the protection range, and Earthlings were also protected, so the allowable range was quite narrow.

Therefore, talk about gender was really no big deal.

If they liked each other, they could date. There were still some people who showed resistance, but there was often talk that bringing up such things now was old-fashioned.

Ju-a, from her position of following justice, couldn’t oppose that.

But that didn’t mean it was a form of love she had seen around her.

If the two became lovers, would Ju-a be able to maintain her “friend” relationship with Jieun?

That strangely informal relationship, different from others, had only just begun.

Various “common sense” thoughts came to mind.

For example, truly platonic relationships between opposite genders aren’t easily maintained, so if an opposite-gender friend gets a romantic partner, meeting that opposite-gender friend separately becomes something to think about.

Then would that apply to same-gender friends too?

“A bit… impressive.”

Rose’s words broke Ju-a’s thoughts.

“Are those two really just friends?”

“…Well.”

Delphinium tilted her head.

“We can’t know yet.”

“It would be problematic to jump to conclusions…”

Following Delphinium’s words, Dalia said.

“But it’s true that they’re precious to each other.”

And the conclusion reached was neutral.

Ju-a decided to follow that conclusion too.

For now, no conclusion had been reached. The distance Hayun showed toward Jieun seemed somewhat different from that of ordinary friends, but they hadn’t yet shown signs of wanting anything more from each other.

Unnecessary misunderstandings lead to bigger and more dangerous misunderstandings. And such things inevitably become conflicts.

This was something she had already learned through various verbal mistakes when she became a magical girl.

So for now, she decided not to reach any conclusion.

Whether this was really from “objectively viewing the situation” or because there was something deep in Ju-a’s heart that made it difficult to accept that fact, even Ju-a herself wasn’t certain.

*

I woke up because it was hot.

As if it was a lie that she had been sleeping with her back to me, Hayun had somehow turned toward me.

She was even tightly hugging my waist with her arm as usual.

It was natural that I became fully awake upon realizing this. Until just before… no, it wasn’t just before, but anyway, I had been worrying alone until I barely fell asleep.

So I was a bit resentful.

That only Hayun was okay.

That she could say she liked me so casually.

I could never do that.

Of course not.

Because I “like” Hayun.

…Probably, for a long time already.

Isn’t it unavoidable?

No matter how jealous I get, no matter how much I want to beat this opponent.

Toward someone pretty, kind, upright, who smiles at me over and over again, isn’t it unavoidable to feel more than friendly affection?

…….

So I was resentful.

Because I was resentful, this time I turned around.

It wasn’t easy since my waist was being tightly hugged, but I eventually managed.

Because of our height difference, it ended up looking like Hayun had buried her face in my chest.

“Mmm…”

Was it hard to breathe? Hayun made that sound.

It was incredibly embarrassing. Even if it was sleeping Hayun, to be this close face to face…

I lay stiffly like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to hug her like Hayun was doing.

I took much longer to fall back asleep than when I first went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t need to set an alarm.

Hayun screamed and bolted upright from within my arms, and since my waist had been under her hand, it also twisted to the side.

That her scream hurt my feelings a little is a secret from Hayun.

That it was also a bit satisfying too.