About Becoming a Magical Girl

"Phew..."

For no particular reason, Efnir let out a sigh of relief.

The account she had posted from was her usual official personal social media account, open to everyone. Whether it was updates and announcements regarding her activities as "Magical Girl Avenil" or as "Agent Efnir," they would all be posted through this account. As Efnir's only official account, anything posted here carried considerable weight and credibility.

In other words, posting it here would definitely draw attention and quickly turn it into a trending topic, spreading what she wanted to say in a very short time.

Efnir glanced at the account's follower count.

Nearly two hundred thousand. In other words, this account undoubtedly had enough influence to draw people's attention.

"I'd noticed it before, but this number still feels kind of absurd..."

Efnir muttered awkwardly to herself.

Normally, Efnir had never put much effort into managing this account. She merely posted event previews at Shinomiyami Nami's request, reposted educational features related to Corruption, or occasionally shared updates about herself when she had spare time.

Yet before she knew it, Efnir had gained such an enormous number of followers.

As for the other agents, they either had no official accounts at all, or only had a few thousand to ten thousand followers. Even the organization's official account had only barely surpassed eighty thousand followers.

Just as Masaki Hina had said, the popularity Efnir had built up could not be underestimated.

As an initiative to turn agents into idols, Efnir was undoubtedly qualified. Though it was opportunistic to some extent, using this method for promotion and to ease mental stress had indeed produced positive results.

Efnir sighed, no longer wanting to think about that tangled mess. She interlaced her fingers, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned.

Ding-dong—

Efnir heard a notification from her computer.

She had only posted it ten or so seconds ago, yet comment and repost notifications had already popped up in the corner of the screen. Then the number of messages in the window surged to "99+" in one go, like ants pouring out of their nest after finding food.

Efnir tugged at the corner of her mouth.

It's already one in the morning. Don't these people have work or school during the day? Why are they still awake?

By tomorrow, the number of comments and reposts would probably become terrifying, wouldn't it?

The voices condemning her would fill her ears all at once.

Efnir's shoulders drooped. She rubbed them, did not open any of the messages, and shut down the computer.

"Whatever happens, happens..."

I'm really sorry, Shinomiyami Nami. All your efforts until now are about to go down the drain—Efnir apologized in her heart to Shinomiyami Nami, who had supported her as her manager.

After something like this, Efnir's career as an agent idol was probably over.

For some reason, she felt lonely.

She had not especially loved this job, but no matter what it was or what form it took, people were always instinctively unwilling to lose things.

But for Efnir, even losing everything she had could never compare to losing Yukina.

Come to think of it, Yukina was still here.

"Yukina, I'm done over here. You can go to sleep now."

Efnir spoke lazily.

But she received no response.

Efnir turned her head toward the bed and realized that Yukina was lying diagonally across it, asleep at some point without her noticing.

Nightfall

"Looks like she was really exhausted..."

Too much had happened yesterday. For Yukina, everything she had taken for granted in her daily life had probably become a complete mess all at once.

That was why she had run to Efnir's room like she used to when she was little.

Efnir sighed softly, rose quietly, drew the curtains, turned up the air conditioner a little, then came to the edge of the bed and carefully sat down.

Yukina slept peacefully, hugging a pillow as her body rose and fell gently. If Efnir listened closely, she could even hear her soft breathing.

Quiet. Beautiful.

How long had it been since she had seen that sleeping face?

When Yukina had been little, Efnir had seen it often. It had once been a familiar sight, but by the time she looked back, it had somehow grown vague.

Until yesterday, when Yukina had shed tears in front of her.

Efnir suddenly realized that the distance between herself and Yukina had never been as great as she had imagined.

Yukina.

Efnir reached out and gently brushed aside the strands of hair by Yukina's lips, as though she were trying to catch a dragonfly.

The sleeping girl gradually overlapped with the cheerful little girl in Efnir's memories, and Efnir's gaze softened without her realizing it.

Efnir took out her phone and checked the time.

It was already this late.

Dry exhaustion filled the corners of her eyes.

It was time to sleep.

But Yukina had taken over her bed. After thinking it over, Efnir set her sights on the sofa in the living room. For just one night, it was soft enough to be fairly comfortable.

Efnir paused. Hesitantly, she gently lifted Yukina's little feet, which were hanging off the edge of the bed, and placed them on it.

Yukina clutched the pillow with both hands, but Efnir easily pulled it from her arms.

She set the pillow aside, got up, and turned off the light. The room became pitch-black, with only a sliver of light leaking in from the living room.

Efnir opened the bedroom door and was about to leave, but after thinking about it, she turned back and took out two thin blankets.

She covered Yukina with one and gently tucked it around her, keeping the other for herself on the sofa.

"Good night, Yukina."

Efnir smiled gently with the blanket in her arms. She got up once more, ready to leave, but her little finger suddenly grew heavy as a pair of soft little hands tightly hooked around it.

"Big sis..."

A faint murmur broke the stillness of the room. In the dim light spilling in from the living room, Efnir met a pair of hazy, sleep-filled eyes.

At some point, Yukina had woken up.

Efnir had not noticed at all.

"Yukina... you're awake?"

Her drowsiness vanished in an instant. Efnir swallowed and spoke awkwardly in a low voice.

"Sorry... Did I wake you...?"

A ripple of sleepiness lingered at the corners of Yukina's eyes. She tightly held Efnir's finger, her gaze falling on the thin blanket in Efnir's hand.

"Where are you going, Big Sis?"

"Where are you going, Big Sis?"

Yukina and Efnir stared at each other in silence.

"Can you stay with me? Just for a little while..."

Seeing loss and uncertainty emerge on Yukina's cool face, Efnir froze for a moment, not knowing how to answer.

"I was going to sleep on the sofa so I wouldn't wake you"—that answer would sound far too distant and unfamiliar, so Efnir immediately rejected it.

But the thin blanket in her hand and the light from the living room had already given her away.

Her intentions could not have been more obvious.

"Big Sis."

Yukina called softly.

A rustle of fabric sounded. Still hooking her little finger around Efnir's, Yukina sat up on the bed. The thin blanket slipped from her delicate skin, and the light from the living room swept across her neck. Only one strap remained on her snowy-white shoulder.

The light became like a gauzy curtain, thread by thread, half-concealing and half-revealing. From Efnir's angle, her gaze could just barely slip beneath Yukina's clothes below her neck.

Efnir looked away as though she had seen nothing, but her heartbeat began to quicken.

"Don't you want to sleep with me?"

Whether it was dissatisfaction in her heart or a flicker of hope, Yukina asked the question before she realized it.

She felt the warmth from Efnir's fingers and lowered her lashes.

There really was a difference in skin temperature between someone who had just woken up and someone about to fall asleep.

Efnir's hand was much warmer than Yukina's. That warmth traveled through her palm straight into her heart, like winter sunlight melting snow.

Whenever she was with her sister, that fluttering feeling filled her chest.

By now, there was no longer any good excuse to brush aside these genuine feelings. Yet she had no right to respond to the emotions surging within her.

But they were sisters.

It was unrequited love.

If she recklessly continued down this path, she would undoubtedly step off a cliff and be shattered to pieces.

"It's not that I don't want to..."

Efnir turned her head aside and hurriedly denied it, though her eyes did not seem to know where to look.

"It's just that Yukina has grown up too, so I thought... maybe you would dislike sleeping in the same bed as me... something like that..."

"I never said I disliked it."

Yukina stubbornly held onto Efnir's finger, cutting her off.

"We used to sleep together anyway... If it's an older sister and younger sister, there are probably lots of times like that, right?"

Efnir froze again.

What do I do now?—Efnir had no idea for a moment.

They had indeed often slept together in the past, but things clearly could not be the same now.

Efnir was growing up, and so was Yukina. That mischievous little girl from before had blossomed into a graceful young woman, her youthful skin carrying just the right hint of charm. This version of Yukina had already made it impossible for Efnir to remain calm.

Let alone sleep in the same bed.

She was supposed to be the older sister, yet her younger sister had shaken her. The fluttering that filled her chest in an instant made Efnir panic.

They were supposed to be sisters, yet some other kind of emotion seemed to be budding between them.

That unmistakable feeling made Efnir's skin crawl.

"If you're not here, I can't sleep."

"I'll stay here with you..."

"Get in."

The thin blanket in her hand was snatched away and tossed aside.

Efnir had nowhere to run. Her throat moved, and she could only force herself to sit down and kick off her slippers.

Then she climbed onto the bed.

I'm the older sister, I'm the older sister, I'm the older sister.

She's the younger sister, she's the younger sister, she's the younger sister.

Efnir comforted herself like that and gradually calmed down quite a bit. They were only sleeping in the same bed. It was no big deal. Being this close again to the younger sister she loved most made her very happy, so she did not need to think about anything else. She just needed to fall asleep filled with happiness.

The bed creaked faintly. Efnir tried her best not to touch Yukina as she lay down in the space Yukina had made for her.

It was a single bed and not particularly large, but Efnir and Yukina were both slim, so lying side by side did not feel cramped.