Reiko looked at the red-eyed girl in front of her with a lifeless expression and took out tissues from her pocket to hand to Tsuan.
In her imagination, what should happen next was Tsuan accepting the tissues, wiping away her tears, then properly confessing what kind of difficulties she had encountered, and then the two of them overcoming difficulties and growing together...
But the first step of this plan was directly rejected by Tsuan—Tsuan completely didn't understand the meaning of Reiko's gesture of handing her tissues. She just sat blankly on the break room sofa, staring at Reiko with those red eyes.
"Have you forgotten even basic social etiquette?!"
Even though she had already roared like this in her heart, to avoid making this crybaby continue shedding tears, Reiko had to swallow her rage once again and bend down to gently wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
Teardrops hung on her swaying eyelashes, reflecting several tiny "Reikos" in the silver-haired girl's view from this angle.
The used tissue was crumpled into a ball by Reiko. When she was about to find a trash can to throw it away, she discovered there was no such "garbage disposal device" prepared in this room at all.
From trash cans to garbage bags, there was nothing!
Only two paths lay before Reiko. First: litter randomly.
This wasn't even within consideration for the silver-haired girl who was student council president, so... her only choice was the second path...
Throw the trash into a trash can outside.
But the problem that followed was also obvious—so obvious it was almost blocking Reiko's vision.
"Can I leave you alone in the shop owner's break room?"
The somewhat bewildered expression on Tsuan's face made Reiko shrug helplessly.
Leaving this fool who looked like she would cause trouble by herself, the consequences could be quite serious...
Anyway, I'm throwing away these clothes when I get home... mm... it should be okay to trouble them a little...
Reiko put the tissue in her uniform pocket, then cupped the culprit Tsuan's cheeks with both hands and kept rubbing.
"Stop crying! It's all because of you!"
The words at her lips ultimately became...
"If you keep crying, I'll hate you."
Super effective.
Tsuan nodded vigorously and stopped her tears in an instant. Perhaps because she also felt ashamed, she simply hid her eyes in her black hair and tried hard to cooperate with Reiko.
She was just short of saying... don't hate me.
Although Reiko wasn't quite sure what was going on, seeing Tsuan go from drilling into her arms and crying non-stop to now barely entering a state where they could communicate... especially under her comfort!
The sense of achievement from successfully coaxing a crybaby made even the corners of her mouth slightly upturn, and her tone became much lighter.
Indeed, even if she's a crybaby... she's still better than those monsters and terrible magical girls.
"So can you explain to me now?"
Worried that Tsuan wouldn't understand, Reiko even thoughtfully gave her a hint.
"For example, why throw garbage outside the designated time?"
This was the main business she had originally chased Tsuan for, but to Tsuan, this question was somewhat difficult to understand... but to avoid making Reiko hate her, she still decided to answer this question seriously.
But before that, she had to figure out...
"What is the designated time?"
Reiko's gaze took on some investigative meaning. She wasn't very sure of her guess... what was the possibility that Tsuan wasn't lying, wasn't evading her fault, but simply, purely didn't know there was such a rule?
Reiko thought it was less than 0.01%.
After all, humans are social animals. Unless this person was completely disconnected from society, otherwise... it was impossible...
Reiko carefully observed from head to toe the black-haired girl who seemed to be blaming herself for not answering the question properly.
Her hair tie wasn't a popular style, her shoes weren't either... the most fashionable thing on her was this school uniform.
That wasn't right either. If she attended school, how could she possibly...
"The rule that you can only throw garbage before 8 AM every day—you never knew about it?"
The black-haired girl shook her head, but Reiko didn't think she was telling the truth.
Just as she was about to continue questioning, a rumbling sound echoed in the small break room.
On one side was Tsuan who had eaten a big bowl of tomato egg noodles, on the other was Reiko who had only eaten a few cream pastries to fill her stomach. So who made that sound?
The president miss blushed and coughed a few times, then looked at her phone to check the time and glared somewhat reproachfully at the fool who had wasted so much of her time and caused her to embarrass herself.
"What about your father and mother? They couldn't possibly not know either, right?"
Tsuan opened her mouth but ultimately gave up answering. This made Reiko, who had waited quite a while, start worrying that continuing to converse with Tsuan like this would ultimately waste the shop owner's time and put her in the same predicament as herself... so she simply reached out to grab Tsuan's wrist and forcibly pulled her up before walking out of the room.
"Thank you very much!"
While bowing, she reached out to pat Tsuan's back and forcefully pressed her down too.
The shop owner reached out to pat Reiko's head.
"It's okay. Girls who like magical girls are all good children~ If you need help, you can still come find big sister, okay?"
Reiko unconsciously increased the force of gripping Tsuan's wrist.
"You, you misunderstood! I don't like magical girls... it's all, it's all because she likes them so I..."
So I bought her 'two' dolls, right?
The shop owner's somewhat amused gaze made the executive miss feel somewhat ashamed, so she forcefully pulled Tsuan in front of her as a shield and prayed she hadn't noticed what the shop owner had just said.
A warm palm touched the top of Tsuan's head, gently brushing through her smooth hair before using her thumb to wipe away a glimmer of tears that appeared at the corner of Tsuan's eyes.
She had naturally noticed this figure who had lingered in front of the window for a long time. Through Tsuan's behavior, she roughly understood Tsuan's love for magical girls... and her possibly tight allowance situation, and also...
"With such a good friend accompanying you, why are you still crying?"
She opened a drawer and took out a pack of tissues with Magical Girl Amber's portrait on them, stuffing them into Tsuan's pocket.
"If you're always crying, the friendship magic between you two will quickly lose effect."
Reiko was about to forcefully press Tsuan down to bow in thanks again, but found she had already bent down on her own.
"Thank you! I... I'm very grateful to you! Really, really very grateful, very grateful...!"
Her voice carried some crying tone, but Reiko could still hear the irrepressible joy within it, immediately feeling somewhat jealous as she looked toward the shop door.
It's just a pack of tissues, why are you so happy about it?
I had to coax you with a doll for ages...
"It's okay. If you want 'friendship magic' in the future, you can always come to big sister~"
Before she finished speaking, Tsuan forcefully pulled Reiko out of the shop door, making the shop owner blink in surprise.
"Such a good relationship..."
But Reiko definitely didn't think so.
Thanks to that 'terrible magical girl,' her legs were still going numb in waves. Being pulled by Tsuan like this, the resulting pain was imaginable.
Eh, it seems like she's not pulling me, but I've been holding on and not letting go, so...
The black-haired girl, whose heart was focused only on verifying whether she had returned to normal and could be seen by everyone, brought the worried Reiko along for a jog.
Without a destination or goal, just wanting to try whether other people's gazes would focus on Reiko or pass through her to look behind her as usual.
But as she ran... after tasting the feeling of being seen, she couldn't help wanting more.
So she ran farther, ran until she was out of breath, ran until she was laughing while gasping...
Finally, Reiko, unable to bear it anymore, forcibly stopped Tsuan who was feeling the gazes.
"So now do you believe it? I can see you, and not just me—everyone, every person, can see you!"
Reiko rubbed Tsuan's cheeks, completely ending her strange behavior.
Incidentally...
"Your physical fitness is too poor. How do you get through PE class?"
Tsuan completely ignored Reiko's question, or rather, even if the national prime minister came to visit Tsuan at this moment, she wouldn't pay attention either.
Reiko moved Tsuan to a chair and looked at the fool slumped on it, sighing helplessly for who knows how many times.
She really had no way to deal with this guy. She felt like this guy simply wasn't from this world—either she had severe chuunibyou or she had been deliberately playing with her all along.
Reiko instinctively didn't believe the latter, since this guy looked stupid and didn't seem to have any malicious intent.
How should one deal with chuunibyou?
Reiko sat beside Tsuan and took out her phone to search.
"Should meet with the guardian..."
She looked at the search results on the browser and reached out to poke the girl beside her whose face was full of happiness.
"Hey, can you still hear me talking?"
What answered her was a quite forceful...
"Mm!"
The pleasant coolness of sweat from running quickly evaporating in the evening breeze, Tsuan's mouth corners kept rising again and again and ultimately turned into a string of laughter.
She didn't know how to explain this kind of thing to Reiko, or even whether she should explain it.
If earlier she had been suffering because she had made the sacrifice of dying once but couldn't get even a bit of kindness in return... then now her heart was full of joy.
Because she felt she had received much more than she had given.
The life of not being noticed by others was over...
In its place was a normal life, normal social interaction...
And on this foundation!
She unhesitatingly reached out to gently pat through the fabric the tissues in her pocket... and that button.
I even became a magical girl!
The happiness of having multiple wishes fulfilled at once made Tsuan completely abandon thinking about that question.
Even if these were exchanged for one life, it was definitely worth it!
Next, next she could go make friends with other magical girls... couldn't she?
Then, then she could get in contact with the magical girls... everyone could be together...
"You! This! Guy!"
Reiko grabbed her ear and shouted loudly, forcibly pulling her out of her fantasy, but couldn't interrupt the happy smile at the corners of her mouth.
"I'm talking to you! Can you stop ignoring me!"
Having been pranked by a magical girl, then encountering this guy, wasting time and missing dinner, and then being ignored by this guy—under multiple grievances, Reiko's anger was easily aroused.
Even the most good-tempered person couldn't possibly still smile when treated like this!
"Sorry~"
Tsuan stretched, not caring at all about exposing a section of her soft, tender belly.
This attitude naturally further provoked Reiko's anger. Originally she hadn't wanted to do a home visit to Tsuan, but this guy was really too infuriating...
"If I let you continue like this! When no one wants to be friends with you, let's see what you'll do!"
Before she finished speaking, another rumbling sound rang out.
Fortunately, Tsuan had already digested most of her joy by this time, otherwise she probably would soon see a red-faced Reiko.
"Sorry, um... my name is Nakana Tsuan. May I ask..."
She looked carefully at Reiko's nameplate for the first time.
"Reiko-san? Is there something wrong?"
Is there something wrong?
Something wrong?
Wrong?
Wrong?
Tsuan felt a tremendous force on her shoulder. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the silver-haired girl whose nose was almost touching hers.
"Take me to your house."
Reiko pulled her up from the chair.
"Now, immediately, right away."
There was no emotion in the girl's soft voice, not even any change in tone, but Tsuan still instinctively sensed a trace of danger.
"Does Reiko-san want to come to my house for dinner?"
A sharp pain in her shoulder made Tsuan's somewhat confused expression become somewhat twisted before stopping.
"So what if I do?"
Reiko had also learned how to communicate with her. After abandoning all social etiquette, looking at her pained expression finally produced a little pleasure.
The black-haired girl gently tugged at her sleeve.
"In that case... I need to go buy some ingredients first..."
Buy some ingredients? Can you actually cook?
Tsuan read the expression on Reiko's face and scratched her head somewhat embarrassedly.
"Probably... I can cook a little bit?"
Her position in Reiko's heart, which had almost approached that terrible magical girl's level, finally rose somewhat.
"Then cook for me. I'll accompany you to shop."
Anyway, you absolutely can't get away with this so easily today!
But the name Nakana Tsuan is so strange... it seems like I've never heard it before? But I have a little impression of it...
Reiko, still thinking about where she had heard this surname before, was pulled into the convenience store by Tsuan, completely unaware that she had made the intimate gesture of holding hands with Tsuan.
After all, even if she had noticed, she wouldn't care, since Tsuan seemed to her not like a girl of similar age at all.
But rather like a fluffy, stupid puppy.
But even so...
"Are you, are you sure this stuff... tastes good?"
Reiko watched Tsuan stand on her tiptoes to take down two tomato cans from the highest shelf and even continue reaching, tilting her head in surprise.
Because this 'stuff'... was a product of her father's company...
Reiko could swear to heaven.
This stuff tasted terrible.