As soon as I got home and set my bag down, I wondered what was going to come out, and then suddenly, the distribution of monster-hunting dates was revealed.
Hmm, wouldn’t it be enough to be divided into even and odd days?
If we have spare time, we can handle it ourselves.
With a voice that sounded as if she had made a monumental decision, Shiyeon’s loud shout left me blinking in surprise without a proper reaction.
Each of us already had our assigned dates, so what more was there to discuss?
A brief silence flowed.
“…Isn’t it fine just as it is right now?”
I asked, breaking the silence myself.
Shiyeon on odd days, me on even days, and if there was spare time, the person who was free would handle it.
I was left wondering what more was needed, so I set down the strap of my bag that I had been holding with one hand and stepped back out.
Shiyeon shook her head vigorously as if she was very dissatisfied with the previous policy.
“Not like that! Odd days are for odds! Even days are for evens! No helping each other!”
Ah, that part.
If we had spare time, we could handle it ourselves.
The one thing she seemed to dislike was that, and she insisted on “No helping each other!” at the end of her statement.
So that meant, on even days, only the person assigned for even days would hunt the monsters, and likewise for odd days.
Usually, it was my side that had the spare time, so it was her intention to work hard on monster-hunting to avoid burdening me.
It’s commendable, but I couldn’t help but feel worried about Shiyeon’s self-confidence.
With her arms crossed like an older sister, she asked with suspicion, as if unsure.
“…Are you sure it’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, I don’t go to the academy anymore!”
Right, the academy.
Thinking about it, the reason I ended up handling all the monster-hunting was because I stopped going to the academy on both odd and even days.
Seeing Shiyeon proudly mention that she quit the academy, I couldn’t help but ask with a skeptical gaze.
“Are you not… quitting the academy just to catch monsters?”
“No, that’s really not it!”
In Shiyeon’s kind personality, she was amplifying the reason for quitting the academy in a delusional way.
She insisted that that was really not the case, adding stronger negation to her denial.
With a face of utter disbelief, I thought, “Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.”
At least she knew how to gauge the atmosphere.
It was fortunate that my assumption about her quitting the academy to avoid burdening me was just my own delusions.
“Hmm, well, that’s a relief.”
“Will you allow it…?”
“……”
Just a moment ago, we had confidently declared not to help each other, yet now, at the very last moment, Shiyeon was waiting for my permission.
It wasn’t really about permission; it was a situation where asking or not didn’t make any difference.
If a magical girl catches a monster, she just catches it, right? Is there a need to get permission from other magical girls?
The answer is, of course, no.
In the first place, magical girls are encouraged to handle monsters as close to their own regions as possible, even overseas.
Despite that, she was still waiting for my permission.
That meant she relied on and respected me that much.
In the end, I reluctantly nodded in agreement, also showing my respect for Shiyeon.
“Yeah, sure… let’s do it.”
“That’s a promise!?”
“Yeah, yeah, a promise.”
As soon as I agreed, Shiyeon shot out her pinky.
We linked our pinkies, then Childishly pressed our thumbs together in a silly promise.
There was no real need for it, but the hand gesture felt strangely fitting.
I didn’t understand why she looked so excited when it essentially just meant more work for her.
As the monster appeared as promised, the timing of the monsters starting that day began to twist slightly.
Most of the appearances did occur during the promised time, but there were instances where they showed up in the morning when we had to go to school or right when we were about to sleep at dawn.
That induced a tension I had long forgotten about, not knowing when we might have to deploy.
And I was able to regain the undesired side effect of sleep deprivation, which was a chronic issue.
“I’m sleepy….”
On a weekend afternoon, Shiyeon expressed her sleepiness as soon as she got up.
“Ugh, you should get used to it.”
After yawning briefly in response to her, I offered advice as a senior with sleep deprivation.
Still, it felt at least better than when we were in elementary school since there were two of us handling the burden anyway.
Back in elementary school, during her lower grades, Shiyeon had been completely excluded from the monster-hunting duties simply because she was younger.
Taking on several monsters appearing in groups completely alone was nothing short of a living hell.
Thinking back, whose idea was that?
“I’m going to sleep more….”
After experiencing a dawn deployment, Shiyeon crawled back into her room.
It was 4 PM; she held out during the night after the dawn assignment, but ultimately ended up this way.
When the rhythm of life gets tangled, it’s only oneself who suffers.
“If you sleep now, how will you sleep later?”
“I don’t know, I’m sleepy….”
I tried to say something to Shiyeon, who switched off the light as she entered her room, but she seemed so tired that she threw herself onto the bed.
With exams just around the corner, I really wondered what she was going to do.
It wasn’t really someone else’s concern, but….
“Well, does the world end just because I score low?”
With such moderate thoughts, the day of the exam arrived.
One step, and I was psychologically viewing the exam from a distance.
Feeling nonchalant as if I didn’t mind failing, I went ahead and guessed the multiple-choice questions without arranging them logically, leaving everything else to the heavens.
During the breaks in between the exam, the tests of the academically successful students were gathered together in groups.
Unless you were a student lacking any interest whatsoever in your grades, even for one who usually didn’t study, it’s likely you’d find yourself mingling with that group.
The honor students who passed their test papers to others as bait stayed focused on the next subject.
Thus, as the short exam day consisting of four periods came to an end, everyone was simply counting down the time to go home from their seats.
“Ah, I really messed up the exam….”
Hearing the complaint from next to me, I subtly turned my head to the side.
In early April, I had changed my seat.
This time, my partner was a friend named Eunyoung, who was sporting a fringe.
She was one of those girls known to be good at studying.
Thanks to her, the classroom was really noisy every break due to the girl students flocking around.
In any case, hearing such a fabulous friend declare she had messed up her exam raised a mix of pity and curiosity in me, prompting me to ask casually.
“Why, what did you score?”
“91 points.”
“….”
Hearing a score in the nineties, I froze for a moment, unable to respond.
What? Did the dictionary definition of ‘messing up’ change?
Isn’t it the case that only when those who normally score in the hundreds or nineties have the first digit roll around to a six, can they say they messed up?
Is this some stealth trick to make me feel bad?
If Seohyun, whose goal for all subjects was 70 points, heard this, she would surely say, “Wow, how annoying” at such a “messing up” remark.
Nevertheless, since she thought she had messed up, I couldn’t dismiss it as just insincere.
Every family has its own standard for scores, right?
One family might say that if you do your best, that’s all that matters…
“Well, even with a first digit of 9…”
“This easy problem? I made a mistake! Ugh, so annoying!”
Eunyoung, seemingly unable to listen to my words of comfort, scratched her head and vented her frustrations.
Hmm, she seems the type who can’t see around her when she’s angry.
I could already picture what her high school life would be like.
Leaving Eunyoung, who I wasn’t that close with, behind, I wandered over to Seohyun, who was relatively closer.
Seohyun had a face that resembled a lifeless green dinosaur.
“Hey, why do you look so dead?”
“Ah, I messed up my score.”
With a target score of 70 points, it immediately implied that she must not have exceeded that score.
Though the results were as obvious as a burning house, I asked anyway for assurance.
“Why, didn’t you score over 70?”
“Ugh, getting 69 points is just ridiculous….”
On Seohyun’s desk, the English test paper rolled around forlornly.
Scored with precious care in comparison to the students who excel, the final score, based on the simple addition of allocated points for each problem, ended up at 69.
Seohyun’s dream of getting a new smartphone if she scored over 70 in all subjects was pitifully crushed on the very first day.
This was indeed a proper failure.
Seohyun missed the target mission of scoring over 70 across all subjects by just a single point.
I hesitated to offer her ineffectual words of comfort, worrying they’d only irritate her further, and so, I decided to ask about her scores in the other subjects to find a way to convince her parents.
“How about the scores in the other subjects?”
“78 in Korean, 70 in Math….”
Math was right at the cutoff line; Korean was 8 points higher than her target.
Honestly, I thought this was a ridiculous thing to come up with, but I spoke the thought that brushed my mind.
“What if you pull scores from the other subjects to cover the lacking one?”
“I’ll try to argue for that after the exam ends….”
To bring over 8 points from the higher Korean score to cover her 1-point shortfall in English seemed like a fair bit.
As soon as she heard the suggestion, Seohyun, who must have already thought of that, responded without a moment’s hesitation.
“This girl has her own stubbornness.”
I was convinced that the one with the stronger stubbornness would win, and then I headed toward Shiyeon’s desk near the corridor window.
I grasped Shiyeon’s shoulders and executed the ritualistic question commonly posed after an exam.
“Did you do well on the exam?”
“….”
Instead of answering that formal question, Shiyeon only responded with the sound of crumpling paper as she shoved her test paper into her bag.
As I tilted my head toward her left cheek, she turned her head to the right, subtly avoiding my gaze.
From her reaction, I could catch a glimpse of the shadow of her score.
Yeah, it’s true; anyone can mess it up.
