I Became a New Magical Girl Priest

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The past few years, ever since I became a Magical Girl, things around me hadn’t really changed much.

When Combatants showed up, I would go out and fight; when Aliens appeared, I’d do the same.

Going through that cycle did bring us closer together, but it didn’t fundamentally change our relationship.

Even if you become friends, aren’t they just friends? We had grown so close that we couldn’t possibly get closer, so unless someone did something completely out of line, our relationship wasn’t going to change any further.

After maintaining a steady routine like this for several years, I suddenly found myself in a position where things were beginning to shift, and I wondered if it was me who couldn’t adapt.

Suddenly, there were articles about the place I lived, and then a person called “Mom” came looking for me after reading those articles.

The person I had been clashing with for years just vanished.

I guess my picky personality didn’t make it easy to accept changes in my surroundings.

Maybe that’s it.

Even though I didn’t know the face of that person, I might have felt some sort of friendship. After all, we did have that one time where I held them close.

In the end, I didn’t have a huge conversation with that person, but for a little while, I did feel at ease.

Plus, didn’t they say they fought for me? It must have been a much bigger deal than a Magical Girl beating an officer.

“…”

With all these irritating incidents piling up, something else started to get on my nerves.

It’s not anything… extraordinary. Honestly, it might just be something I’m thinking all by myself.

No, it definitely is.

Given my already sensitive nature, everything around me probably just looks warped.

“…Excuse me…?”

I finally came to my senses at what the woman sitting across from me was saying.

“Uh, are you okay?”

The tone of the woman who once spoke informally to me shifted back to a polite form of speech. It was completely formal.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I answered that way for now.

But maybe I wasn’t entirely “fine.” If we really wanted to split hairs, we’d gotten close enough to be acquaintances.

She might have deceived me, but it wasn’t intentional. She was just another person caught in the same deception.

While I couldn’t say “anyone in the world” since I had parents who abandoned me, a person forced to give up their child might later wish to find that child again. And they might treat that reunited child like their own.

There might be someone earnestly wishing for that, in various ways.

This person was one of those.

And perhaps that’s why I didn’t completely sever ties with this person. Well, there might be a chance we’d disconnect later. Our frequency of contact could dwindle slowly, maybe turn into a once-a-year meeting, and eventually fade into complete silence.

But in the end, I just couldn’t cut off that contact all at once, and it’s still maintained like this.

I don’t think it’s all that bad. I’m the type who feels more at ease like this.

But still.

“…”

Even so, there’s something bothering me.

When I thought of this person as my mom, I couldn’t look directly at her face. I was afraid it would force me to acknowledge the family connection. And ultimately, it might hinder me from being a Magical Girl.

But now that I could look at her face without worry, someone kept springing to my mind.

Were they very similar? Not exactly. But every now and then, there are people in the world who oddly resemble one another. Their eye colors, their hair colors, and so on.

Overall, she seemed quite gaunt and thin, so her general impression was very different, but I knew a person who had that “similar feeling.”

The girl who shared the same room as me.

Ji-hye.

…

I had been at church with Ji-hye. She was placed in church around the same time as I was, so when the church closed, we both came to the orphanage together.

And this person had also entrusted a child to that church… roughly around the same time.

Could it be a coincidence?

“Excuse me…?”

Maybe because I was lost in thought, I unconsciously asked.

“Do you still think you want to find your daughter?”

At my words, the woman flinched slightly.

It must have been a bit surprising for her to hear me say such a thing since I was directly involved in that matter.

But she didn’t seem to say she wasn’t looking. The woman chose to remain silent.

In some ways, our continued contact might be because I was also a witness to that time.

I thought for a moment.

Should I introduce myself?

“If you find her, what would you do?”

I asked cautiously.

The woman lifted her gaze and stared at me intently.

Did what I say sound too “hopeful”?

This person hadn’t seen Ji-hye. It wasn’t like they had directly looked at each other.

It was more like Ji-hye was there beside me, and they had merely “placed her in the same line of sight.” I doubt she even entertained the thought that she resembled her.

No, this might just be my own delusion. Maybe I was just too sensitive, being around Ji-hye for so long that her appearance had etched itself so vividly in my mind, leading me to see similarities where there were none.

“If I find her…”

The woman fell into thought for a moment,

“I’d want to spend some time with her, even if just for a little while.”

“Together?”

“Yes. In a few years, she’ll be an adult, and she might choose not to stay with me. And that would be understandable, right? After all, I’m the one who abandoned her.”

She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word “mom.”

“But I know that saying this is arrogance… but if we meet again, even if just for a little while, I want to offer her what I can.”

She didn’t seem wealthy at all—most likely, it was just that she didn’t have any significant problems in her life at the moment.

She couldn’t provide everything.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t understand her feelings.

… And at the same time, I didn’t like it.

The feeling of understanding doesn’t always come hand in hand with empathy.

“…Okay.”

I didn’t intend to criticize her, but still.

So, if this person met Ji-hye, and if Ji-hye began to see her as her mother,

Wouldn’t that mean I’d be taking Ji-hye away?

I had been living my life alongside Ji-hye. That didn’t give me the right to keep her next to me.

But still, I didn’t want to let Ji-hye go… for some reason.

We spent the next few moments drinking tea in silence.

Then about ten minutes later, we stood up from our seats and parted ways.

Fortunately, that person didn’t pry any deeper into that conversation with me.

*

“Ji-eun!”

When I returned to the room, Ji-hye greeted me.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t been around in a while, but Ji-hye’s reaction was a bit more lively. There was a genuine sense of joy in the way she looked at me.

And seeing her made my heart feel a little heavy.

It wasn’t confirmed that she was my biological daughter. If you looked at the chances, it was far more likely to be just nonsense.

But at the same time, those thoughts crept in.

So why have I been hiding that fact from Ji-hye for two weeks after realizing that atmosphere?

… I had been happily thinking about living with Ji-hye, Ha-yoon, and possibly other friends for several years.

At least until graduation from college, I thought we could live together. Maybe we’d go somewhere fun and create enjoyable hobbies to do together.

But if Ji-hye ended up in a different family, those plans would turn into nothingness.

If I gained a family, Ji-hye and I would no longer be real family. If she gained a family, the same would hold true, and Ji-hye and I wouldn’t be genuine family anymore.

That meant that our relationship was the kind that could easily change. I realized that just recently.

Thus, I couldn’t speak up.

“Ji-eun?”

“Yeah?”

When I kept staring at her without saying anything, Ji-hye called me again.

“Why are you just sitting there?”

“Ah, um. It’s just… I was wondering how the atmosphere would be if she really was my mom. It feels kinda… awkward meeting her.”

“I see…”

Ji-hye nodded her head.

But it felt like she was hesitating to give any advice.

It was that ambiguous, and both parting and sticking together felt tricky.

Especially from my side.

That weak possibility—just from that delusion I thought might have a shred of truth made me feel guilt and confusion at once.

I thought I had a strong sense of possessiveness, but was it really this intense?

“Ji-eun.”

Ji-hye finally spoke up.

“I don’t think you need to overthink things too much. It’s all in the past, after all.”

“…Yeah.”

Worrying about unsolvable issues is just a way of hurting yourself unnecessarily.

“I get it. I’ll try to let go a bit.”

… Even though I thought I shouldn’t let go, I answered like that.

 

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