Friendship

The Magician Arc

Picture a school. A standard Japanese middle school, granted newer than most, with a variety of refit facilities, a pool, and a track. North Residential Shinkawa Middle stands proudly in a mostly suburban-style neighbourhood. It’s the sort of plain white stucco school that’s just blandly generic enough that you could move all the students to another school of the same vague make and they probably wouldn’t notice until the bus ride home.

The area it’s in isn’t much more exciting, either. A couple of random mom-and-pop stores, a convenience store, and a fast food joint that students are so absolutely forbidden from eating at lunch that it’s honestly amazing how frequently fast food cups end up in school’s trash.

As we look over the school from a birds eye perspective, we see three girls, all in uniform. One runs ahead across the track, laughing, another trying to keep pace, and a third trailing slowly behind.

Nearby, dressed in gymclothes, are a group of bemused-looking track team up and comers, staring in confused amazement as the lead girl charges ahead of her friends.

♥ Magical Girl Rinrin ♥

My name is Kisaragi Kurin, Kuri to my friends, and Rinrin to a very select few. I’m in the last year of middle school, I have a sister in high school, a brother in college, and… oh yeah! I’m a Magical Girl. On the worst day of my life, a Fairy came to me, and after some disbelief, discussion, and debate, I became the Magical Girl of Hearts, Rinrin.

Normally, most people would start with the ‘I fight monsters using magic’ part, but lately I’ve not been doing a whole lotta that. See, about two weeks ago, there was a huge accident. A Maniacal- that’s a type of magical creature that’s basically like an anti-Magical Girl- I was fighting blew a hole in the roof of a crowded convention center. We got everyone out in time, but I ended up a little bit impaled.

For the last two weeks, I’ve pretty much been relegated to crutches. Which means no Magical Girl work and lots of sitting down and doing slow and steady leg exercises to get myself back to full speed.

Resuming normal school life was less awkward than I thought. The worst part was probably figuring out what I missed in lessons and catching up, not to mention a whole bunch of homework to catch up on. All in all, I’d barely had time to do my usual nightly duties, although Nyamu was taking it easy on that for now.

I spent my days in a daze, the only break from my routine were the weekly trips to get physiotherapy. Finally able to move freely, I celebrated by running a lap of the school’s track, only to be out of breath halfway and collapse, laughing.

*            *            *

“Kuri… too… fast…” One of them arrives as I lay sprawled out on the track. Her name is Haibara Hayaka. She’s been my friend since elementary school, we grew up together. She’s always been one of those girls who could do anything she was motivated to, and nothing she wasn’t. Lately, the motivation in question had basically been boys. Boys in all their forms- bands, teams, or in one brief-lived flirtation, delinquents. It took one yelling at by her mom for her to call me up asking how to return her hair back to a more natural color.

“...See, this is why I don’t run. She wears herself out eventually!” My other friend ambles up. Unlike Hayaka, Misaki Mayu is the more patient type. With the long hair and glasses, you may think she’s good in school, and indeed she’s been class president since starting, but she’s actually a total idiot. Like, the only kid doing as badly as me in class, and she doesn’t even have the excuse of being a shut in for a month prior to getting impaled.

“And she’ll get in trouble if we don’t keep up.” That’s Hayaka again, laughing and sitting down next to me.
“Better her than me.” Mayu retorts.

“OI! Get off the track!” An advisor to the gym team yells, and we giggle, getting back to our feet and walking away. With our matching alliterative names and propensity for stupid escapades, the three of us are pretty much considered the three idiots of the school. A title Hayaka constantly groans about ‘cause she’s apparently above average in science and math.

“Let’s go get something to eat. I heard that there was a new crepe shop openin’.” I grin, looking over at the other two as we walk away.
“Crepes? Those are so out of style. You know that, right?” Hayaka snorts, always the latest on trends. Or rather, always the latest on trendy date-spots.
“Well what would you pick?” I ask, innocently.
“Boba. There’s a new spot that’s lighting up on Sinsta.” She flicks her hair like she’s cool, though I know that she heard about it from the gossip group in class.
“Alright, boba it is! And HaiHai’s paying.” I use the childish nickname. When we were kids I couldn’t say “Haibara Hayaka”, so I said HaiHai, and it stuck.
“What the hell!?” Hayaka says, eyes wide.
“You suggested it!” I grin at her, she glares.
“You set me up! You didn’t even want crepes! You better start running!” She looks at me with a glare, and I return the glare back. Then we make stupid faces and take off, laughing, Mayu trailing behind.