“Wanna see yours?”

That line sounded like one of those terrible memes people tossed around online back before Yuan had transmigrated. It made Jiecheng Yuan so mad that her mouth reacted faster than her brain, and she snapped back in a nasty tone.

“See what, exactly?!”

Only after snapping at her did Jiecheng Yuan notice Baki’s eyes turning red again. She finally realized what she’d said—it wasn’t exactly something a pretty girl should say. She tried to add something to soften the blow, but it was already a little too late.

Baki had already managed to get on her nerves several times just now. If Yuan hadn’t thrown her a lifeline, who knew how things would’ve turned out? And now Baki was saying something like that again. Yuan really couldn’t tell if she was just blunt or completely clueless about reading the room.

Whatever. She might as well see this through. She couldn’t keep losing her temper with Baki over and over, could she?

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, I can’t just show you the Black Magic Mark.” Jiecheng Yuan tried to explain, but somehow managed to say nothing at all. Given her past life experience, of course she wasn’t any good at socializing or choosing her words. She hadn’t managed to get her point across in the slightest.

“But I showed you mine.” Baki looked utterly aggrieved, clearly unsatisfied with that explanation.

“I mean! The Black Magic Mark—it appears on the body, right? It might not just show up on your tongue. It could appear somewhere else, too.” Jiecheng Yuan was starting to get flustered. She was afraid that if she spoke too quickly, Baki would think she was brushing her off and get upset again, so she tried to keep her tone as even as possible.

At the same time, she couldn’t be too blunt. She’d described some pretty extreme scenarios to Baki before, but that had been an unusual situation where someone was chasing them. She’d needed to jolt Baki into cooperating, or she couldn’t be sure they’d be able to work together.

“Where can’t I let you see?” Baki puffed out her cheeks, looking unconvinced. At least the tears that had been welling in her eyes had stopped.

Jiecheng Yuan didn’t dare say anything. Her gaze drifted to the girl’s stomach, hoping Baki would get the hint on her own.

“Hm? What are you looking at?” Baki froze for a moment, then remembered the extremely revealing outfit Jiecheng Yuan had worn after transforming that afternoon—and the mark on her stomach. Her cheeks flushed bright red. The sharp look in her eyes turned into dizzy little swirls, and she stammered, “Th-th-that… that’s the Black Magic Mark? I-I thought you had some kind of weird fetish, that you were shameless or something. I mean, before, you even wanted to do… naughty things…”

No wonder Baki had called her awful and perverted earlier. She’d completely misunderstood!

“Ahem. Calm down.” Jiecheng Yuan pressed a fist to her upper lip and cleared her throat like a middle-aged man about to give a speech. Then she quickly lowered her hand and changed her pose. Looks like she’d have to slowly get rid of all these little habits that didn’t suit a girl.

“Ah, o-okay.” Baki stopped rambling, but she still couldn’t sit still. She kept rubbing her thighs together, her fingers knotted in front of her face to hide her embarrassment as she peeked through them.

“Sigh.” The awkwardness in the air made Jiecheng Yuan sigh. She took another long gulp of coffee, and its bitter taste reminded her of why she’d come here.

She’d come to find out what had led to all this. Now that she’d gotten the answers, she couldn’t spend the whole night staring bashfully at Baki.

Besides, even if Quanshan Baqi had been tricked, that didn’t erase the awful things she’d done to Yuan. And it didn’t change the fact that she was a Fallen Magical Girl. Yuan had chosen to tell her the truth instead of taking her anger out on her. That was already more than Baki could reasonably expect.

If Yuan thought about it, she didn’t have any reason to care about Quanshan Baqi’s feelings, let alone take responsibility for them. All those little things she’d done to cheer Baki up were just unnecessary kindness born of pity.

If Yuan wanted to clear her name, she couldn’t get involved with Quanshan Baqi now that she’d fallen. Cutting things off before the two of them grew close seemed like the best choice.

Being kind to everyone would only hurt her in the end. When it was time to cut ties, she had to do it.

At some point, Quanshan Baqi had noticed Jiecheng Yuan’s expression turning serious. She lowered the hand she’d been holding in front of her face. Even someone as naive as Baki could sense the oppressive mood in the air from Yuan’s expression. For the first time that night, she stayed quiet and waited for Yuan to speak.

Jiecheng Yuan did her best to gather her thoughts. The words felt a little harsh, but perhaps a cold, impersonal farewell was the better way to end things:

“I’ve told you everything I know. If you don’t want things to end badly—or, to put it another way, if you don’t want to lose—then forget that you’re a Magical Girl. Forget what happened over the last two days, and go on living like an ordinary person.”

Then she drained the rest of her coffee, pushed the glass aside, and got ready to leave.

“We should…”

“Wait!”

A soft warmth rushed in and cut off Jiecheng Yuan halfway through her sentence. The glass, still half-full of ice, tipped over and rolled to the edge of the table by the wall with a clink—the only sound in the silence.

She caught another glimpse of the girl’s silver hair at impossibly close range. It brushed against her cheek, hung over her eyelashes, and rested against her neck, tickling her and making her want to pull away.

In Jiecheng Yuan’s widened eyes, she saw the girl called Quanshan Baqi, so close that Yuan could make out the faint blush on her face. Baki’s breath against Yuan’s face was hotter than the midday sun.

So this was what it meant for your brain to freeze. It wasn’t that your mind went blank; it was that it filled with all kinds of scattered thoughts. Yuan knew exactly what was happening, but there was too much information to process. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. That was Jiecheng Yuan’s state right now.

Bitter. Cold. Soft. Sweet. Hot. Lingering. Fleeting.

And then, nothing was left.

“This is… this is to repay you for the magic you lost helping me…” Quanshan Baqi pulled back from across the table. Her throat bobbed a few times, as if she were talking to herself. “Americano really does taste awful. I don’t like it.”

The girl hurriedly slung her bag over her shoulder. The bell above the shop door rang again, just as hurriedly.

No one closed the door behind her. The cool breeze slipping through the gap blew away the jumble of thoughts and confusion in Jiecheng Yuan’s head.

“Huh?”

As if waking from a dream, Jiecheng Yuan raised a hand and touched the corner of her lips. But the fingertip against her lips wasn’t even a fraction as soft as what she’d just felt. A trace of warmth still lingered there, fading fast.

The half-finished cold coffee, the pile of crumpled paper balls, the melted ice, and the glass knocked over when the girl leaned across the table—all of it left the tabletop a mess, just like the inside of Jiecheng Yuan’s heart.

“Huh???”

The shopkeeper’s gaze fell on her again, with what looked like an unmistakably knowing, delighted smile. That look made Yuan want to leave as quickly as possible, but her body felt too limp to obey. She sank against the sofa and slid sideways along the backrest until she was lying on her side.

Jiecheng Yuan rested a hand on her stomach through her clothes. That was where the Black Magic Mark was, and it was giving off a faint heat.

“My magic really did increase.”