In the situation intertwined with her retirement news, there stood a girl closely attached to her side.
A middle school girl who appeared unfamiliar with everything.
“The person next to her is….”
I was already almost certain, but wanting to hear it from her mouth, I threw out a brief question.
Ms. Venus shrugged her shoulders and casually admitted, seemingly having let go of any lingering attachments to the name Magical Girl.
“From now on, she’ll be sitting in the new Venus seat instead of me.”
“Oh, hello!”
As Ms. Venus’s hand rested on the tense student’s shoulder, she bowed politely as if she were a newly transferred private, greeting both Nana and Shiyeon.
Seeing her naive appearance, Ms. Venus chuckled and formally introduced the magical girl who would take on the name of the new Venus to both of us.
“Her family name is Kim, and her name is Minji. Since she’s technically your junior, please take care of her from now on?”
“Umm… nice to meet you.”
And then, a brief moment of silence followed.
An awkward silence.
Not knowing what to say, it was Minji, the student, who broke the ice.
“But, do you two always transform?”
“Huh? Ah~”
Ms. Venus tilted her head, realizing how accustomed she had become and let out a sigh of understanding.
It was hard to believe that Shiyeon and I, looking so youthful, were the original forms.
Calmly, Ms. Venus explained to Minji, who seemed to be quite mistaken.
“That’s not a transformation.”
“Really?! No way?”
“Yeah, it’s scary how used I’ve gotten to it….”
Minji was astonished, while Ms. Venus showed a self-deprecating reaction.
During our meetup, since everyone was used to it, we didn’t realize this was the normal reaction.
When magical girls, who were accustomed to child exploitation, gathered, gaps in common sense with ordinary people inevitably appeared.
“Whoops.”
Suddenly, Ms. Venus hugged Shiyeon and me tightly with both hands, lifting us to chest height.
With a tender smile, she gently patted our bottoms like handling a baby.
“We’ve caused you so much trouble for two weeks; you did great, my little ones.”
Anyway, what was the reason for Ms. Venus’s visit today?
It was to hand over all proceedings of being Venus, the Magical Girl, to Minji.
In that time, she wanted to express her gratitude to us, who had taken over the monster extermination in Sokcho.
Having landed on the ground, I proudly twisted my thumbs and index fingers into a circle and said,
“We took care of our share properly, so it’s fine.”
“Thorough! Very good!”
A formal exchange of thanks and replies that it’s okay passed between us, and the conversation continued in an atmosphere not much different from the meetup.
“Now that the vacation is ending, when will you be going back?”
“The public servants said they would give us a ride….”
“Really? But those folks are busy too, so they might not be able to give you a ride. Just keep that in mind.”
Before we knew it, the conversation flowed to transportation for returning from Sokcho.
It was difficult for me to interrupt the conversation among magical girls.
Minji was playing with Shiyeon, lifting her high into the air like a plane, which felt like observing an older sister and younger sister with a huge age gap.
“Got it. But, I still remember….”
“Oh, that….”
Mentioning the topic I couldn’t interrupt during the meetup caused her expression to darken a bit.
Having informed Minji about everything related to magical girls, she was approaching the time when, as she said herself, she would need to replace those memories.
“I spoke confidently then, but…actually, I’m still having doubts.”
“Why?”
Considering her attitude during the meetup, it looked like she was ready to erase her memories and leave the café at any moment.
The reminiscing smile didn’t seem to be a fabricated expression, and it felt genuine when she talked about having precious people in her life.
Well, I’m not a lie detector, so I wouldn’t know the truth, but at least, that’s how it appeared to me.
After a bit of hesitation, Ms. Venus seemed to conclude that it didn’t matter since she was still young and let out her true feelings.
“I wonder if my memories of being a magical girl are what shaped who I am now.”
“Who you are now?”
“Yeah…how should I explain this?”
After pondering and letting out a sigh, Ms. Venus continued, appearing to come up with a good explanation.
“If all those memories of being a magical girl were to completely change, could I really call that ‘me’? The ‘me’ who is speaking with you right now would cease to exist.”
“…….”
I couldn’t clearly respond to her serious contemplation.
Since I wasn’t the person involved, I couldn’t recklessly offer commentary on such a dilemma.
It was a concern she had to confront on her own.
Noticing that the conversation was gradually becoming darker, she attempted to shift it back to a lighter topic.
“What am I even saying to a kid? Don’t worry, Sun, forget everything I just said.”
“Wait a moment.”
While it might not answer the question, I wanted to show this to the current magical girl, Venus.
I took out my smartphone, opened a website, and entered a gallery that might be somewhat unfamiliar to women, looking for a certain post.
[Thank you, Bimoney… – From the Magical Girl Gallery (1308)]
In this notorious community, a heartwarming post was a rare find, and the comments had exceeded a thousand.
Instead of a clear answer to her dilemma, I presented her with this post filled with thousands of words of gratitude.
“Here.”
“What is this?”
“Just take a look first.”
Ms. Venus tilted her head while receiving the smartphone.
Her achievements, from her very first mission to defeating countless monsters until her retirement announcement, were noted in detail.
Her fingers moved steadily and slowly, as if she was trying to absorb as many of those black letters into her eyes as possible.
Eventually, her fingers stopped abruptly at one point.
As she leaned forward on the sofa with a hint of a sob, I had no choice but to silently take the two of us to another location.
What an adult magical girl needed most at that moment was unexpectedly not immediate money or precious people but rather a few sincere words of gratitude from an unspecified multitude.
“Ugh, a kid’s making a full-fledged adult cry….”
Before long, Ms. Venus found her way back to our hiding spot.
She had likely cried quite a bit, as her eyes were red, and her makeup was slightly smudged.
On the smartphone’s screen remained a bit of wetness, as if she had hurriedly wiped it off.
The spots that hadn’t been cleaned were shimmering with a rainbow hue.
“Thank you; I feel a bit more sorted out now.”
Though her voice still held signs of having cried, she was smiling brightly.
It seemed like all worries about her memories had been neatly blown away.
As she sincerely expressed her gratitude in that moment, Shiyeon and Minji had grown much closer.
“So, are you staying here?”
“Yeah, where do you live, Shiyeon?”
“I came from far away!”
Revealing the area we had visited instead of the vague answer from Shiyeon, one magical girl’s concerns were resolved, and that day came to a close.
After thinking that we had enjoyed everything we could in Sokcho, it was time to start preparing to return home, spending the last night at the resort in a relaxed manner, missing our comfortable lives.
As scheduled, I made a call to the public servants for our last night in Sokcho.
Rring, rring.
The prolonged ringing tone didn’t seem to want to stop anytime soon.
‘Why aren’t they picking up? Are they busy?’
“Hmm.”
As I lay on a sofa that wasn’t even in our home, enjoying the last few moments of its fluffiness, I sighed in confusion.
They’d likely call back after seeing the missed call, I thought, as I stretched out my body.
Just as I expected, not long after I gave up on the call, a familiar number appeared on my smartphone along with the ringing sound.
“Hello?”
“Ah, um… Sun, no. Is that Mary?”
“Yes, what’s going on?”
“Um, well…I don’t think we’ll be able to drive you home tomorrow, and I’m really, really sorry! We can arrange for a bus… I mean, a taxi, so just let me know how much it costs to get home. I’m really, really sorry!”
The call ended abruptly with a panicked voice.
Let’s not try too hard to understand the complicated circumstances of adults.
I’d probably just catch the next bus at the terminal.
However, there were two things I overlooked.
First, that Sokcho is famous for being a summer vacation spot.
Second, that during this time, soldiers are on leave, making it difficult to find any spare seats.
“There are no available tickets….”
‘Oh darn.’
Eventually, even the 50% children’s discount on express buses became useless.
Sitting in the terminal, feeling half-blank, my smartphone chimed with an incoming message.
What was that? I opened my smartphone to see a message waiting for me.
[Since any costs related to magical girls can be charged to public funds, if you don’t have a bus ticket, you can take a taxi.]
It was a message from the public servant that seemed to have been sent out of precaution, and my eyes lit up.
I immediately picked the first taxi waiting out front at the terminal and climbed into the back seat with Shiyeon, closing the door.
The taxi driver’s gentle greeting came in a relaxed tone.
“Welcome. Where to?”
“First to Incheon.”
“Excuse me?”
My unplanned words were met with the taxi driver’s bewildered voice ringing immediately.
That day, we experienced a staggering taxi fare of 450,000 won.
Taxes melted away like ice.
