My Best Friend Saw Me Fight?!

The next morning started out like all the others, with the exception of me now having a puppy in the house. Aichi, for his part, was adapting pretty well to life as a house pet. My cover story? I found a stray puppy on the street and asked Mom if I could keep him. Mom said yes as long as I was responsible for taking care of him.

I never expected having a Hollow as a pet would be so easy. Hollows never had to go outside; they just had to pretend to go outside. They primarily ate magic (I promise that wasn't as weird as that might have sounded), although they could eat regular pet food, too. It was basically like having a regular pet except half the work was just pretending to do the hard stuff.

Aichi never did find that spellbook he said he was looking for. Guess I'm stuck fighting monsters as a novice magical girl until then.

I got to work right on time as usual. The atmosphere at the Journal was beginning, slowly, of course, to change. My coworkers were starting to notice me more, they wanted me to join their conversations more. Not that I was of much use in mediating baseball debates or trying to figure out which outfit Aoki would wear to the Correspondents’ Dinner in four months, but the gestures were much appreciated.

“Tanaka! Check out this nonsense,” a voice called out to me from the other side of the office. It was Kaneko. “This is what Sakamoto wants me to run for today's evening edition. Who Are These Witches? They're criminals. That's what they are.”

The picture on the front page was of me fighting Sayori last night. And losing! Who took that picture?! Kaneko's words hurt, actually. They hurt way more than any of the attacks Sayori launched at me. I was just trying to help, and then she got in my way!

“To be fair, I was… I saw one of them fighting a giant kitten and the other one -”

“They were fighting a giant kitten?! And you weren't taking pictures?” I immediately knew I made a mistake in trying to reason with Kaneko. Hearts seemed to form in his eyes at the mere mention of cats. “Aaaaaaa!! So cute and fluffy! How mean of those witches to hurt kittens!”

“M- Mr. Kaneko, it's the mayor,” Masuda interrupted. “He's ready to talk about the otter incident.”

“Not now, Miss Masuda! I've got to see to it that these witches are brought to justice!” As he slammed the newspaper onto the table, my heart sank down into my stomach. What??? I was just trying to help people! I didn’t even know what people did to what Kaneko called witches but Aichi called magical girls. With how angry he seemed, it couldn't have been any good. I couldn't hear what anyone else was saying for a while, I was that much in shock.

•

The rest of the day, I just mindlessly did my job as was asked of me. I couldn't even be bothered to engage in conversation. My coworkers, or at least my boss, Mr. Kaneko hated me, at least as a magic user. A couple of my coworkers might have asked me if I was okay, but if they did, I had no idea because I didn't answer them.

Finally, the work day was over.

“Ayame!” shouted quite possibly the first voice I actually listened to for several hours.

“Shōko?” I turned around and asked. “I thought you were going to be busy chasing boys at the beach this summer.”

Shōko Nakamura was my best friend in the whole world. We had been friends since elementary school, practically inseparable. And not to mention, she was the most popular girl in school.

She and I were also very very different. She was the very loud and very popular silver-haired jill-of-all-trades: acting, singing, soccer, cooking, and speed knitting. Yes, speed knitting. I, on the other hand, was much quieter. I never felt the need to try to be good at everything. I knew my strengths and weaknesses. But still, I had a really nasty habit of wanting to make people happy.

“I mean, that did sound fun, for like eight hours,” she answered me. “But there's more interesting things to do here than that, Ayame. How have things been for you since the term ended?”

“Well, I still have the job, so that's a good sign,” I answered back. “Have you heard we have witches in town?”

“Of course I know about it,” Shōko said confidently. “I took the pictures that made the front page of your newspaper!”

She SAW me in my battle outfit?! And somehow, she didn't recognize me?

“I saw the giant kitten and one of the witches summoning a giant ball of yarn, and I was like, oh my fluff! Ayame is missing this cuteness!”

I giggled nervously. “Yeah…”

“I have got to show you my latest recipe,” Shōko then told me. “We can talk about what happened over dinner.”

I joked, “Are you asking me out?”

We both giggled out loud at that one.

•

Shōko was a great cook. The new recipe she learned today was for chicken shabu-shabu.

“Shabu-shabu, shabu-shabu,” she sang as she cooked the chicken, mimicking the sound of the broth swirling around in the pot as she stirred it. Shōko was not fond of tofu, so she served her meat with Chinese cabbage, sauteed onions and mushrooms, udon noodles, and sesame sauce.

And wow, was it amazing! The way all the flavors blended together created an explosion of savoriness.

“Shōko, this meal is wonderful!” I told her. “How did you do it?”

“My family has a special seasoning recipe that's been passed down for many centuries,” she explained.

“You have got to tell me that recipe,” I answered. “My mom could really use that for our home cooking.”

“Oh, don't let her hear you say that,” she joked. “You shouldn't be saying such things about your mom's cooking.”

“I'm not saying it's bad!” I quickly corrected myself. “It's really good, but this? This is on a whole other level! I must know the seasoning recipe.”

“It's my little secret,” Shōko told me.

After the meal was finished, Shōko asked me, “So what's the matter, Ayame? Cat got your tongue?”

I could not get anything past her, it seemed.

“Eh, just work stuff,” I told a half-truth. “I think the boss doesn't like me very much.”

“Oh, Aya… Maybe he just hasn't had enough time to get to know how awesome you are!”

“Shōko, are you sure? I -”

I paused. I was about to tell her about me being one of those, as we were calling them, witches. Surely I could trust her with this information, right? I was able to trust her with my life, so why not?

“Aya, are you okay?”

I went to continue with what I wanted to say, but I was interrupted by something pawing at Shōko's door.

It was Aichi. I knew that tone of whimpering anywhere.