A Stubborn Streak

The hospital room stayed quiet for a long time.

Long enough for a new batch of sparrows to take over outside the window.

"...Fine." Yang Chen leaned back, the bandages rustling beneath his hospital gown. "You've got me. What do you want to ask?"

He didn't deny it.

There was no point. The girl across from him held a notebook, her eyes clear and steady. She had obviously made up her mind.

What good would denying it do?

"Why have you always refused to contact the Association?"

"Registration requires a physical."

"What's wrong with a physical—"

Celestial Star stopped herself halfway through.

Her gaze drifted down to the bandage-wrapped body beneath the blanket, then slowly rose to that excessively delicate face.

"...Oh. Right."

"Oh. Right," Yang Chen repeated flatly.

A male becoming a Magical Girl was something that had never happened since Magical Girls first appeared.

With something so strange happening to him, Yang Chen couldn't help feeling uneasy. Naturally, he had instinctively avoided official organizations.

His reason for avoiding the Association was perfectly sound.

"Fair enough." Celestial Star nodded, her pen scratching across the page. "Second question."

"Why have you hidden your identity so thoroughly? The Regalia blocks people's sight, so you could just go about your business. But you've severed every connection between 'Love' and 'Yang Chen.' At the concert, you would rather crawl through pipes underground than transform in a crowd."

"That's caution bordering on pathological. Why?"

Yang Chen was silent for a moment.

"Did you know that a man pays a price for becoming a Magical Girl?"

"A price?"

"Every time I transform," he said, staring at his fingers, "my body changes a little."

"Hair, features, voice, bone structure... Bit by bit, I become more feminine. It can't be reversed. At first I just looked delicate. Then people started mistaking me for a girl. Now—"

He spread his hands.

Celestial Star looked Yang Chen up and down again.

It was true. Yang Chen now had the looks of someone who had been born a pretty boy. Even his Adam's apple had almost disappeared.

At least, without knowing the truth beforehand, Celestial Star would never have thought Yang Chen was a boy.

"So?"

But change was one thing. Celestial Star still didn't see why it meant he had to hide his identity.

"At this rate, Yang Chen will disappear from this world completely. When that day comes, what am I supposed to tell Qianqian? Or Uncle and Auntie?"

"They won't believe me. And even if they do—"

His voice dropped.

"You've never had to imagine it. Looking them in the eye and wondering how they'll look at you once they know the truth."

"Shock? Pity? Or..."

The scratching of the pen stopped.

"So," Celestial Star said softly, "that answers my third question."

"That day at the warehouse, you let the Fallen Beast tear you apart rather than transform. It wasn't just because Thousand Blades had a knife to her throat."

"You wanted 'Yang Chen' to die there."

"A death that made sense. A clean one that no one would have to face. Then 'Love' could go on existing, while 'Yang Chen' made a graceful exit."

"Yes." Yang Chen didn't deny it. "Then she shouted, and the whole thing fell apart."

Celestial Star closed her notebook.

She leaned back in her chair and watched the battered figure on the hospital bed for a long, long time.

Then she let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

"I get it."

"What do you get?"

"I've confirmed something." Celestial Star pushed up her glasses and looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You're not some hidden master."

"You're just stubborn to the point of stupidity."

Yang Chen stared. "...What?"

"Let me ask you something." Celestial Star raised a finger. "You call yourself a Pure Love Warrior. You fight to protect everyone's love."

"Love's power is limitless. It can overcome any obstacle. You said that too, didn't you?"

"I did. So what?"

"You're one of the staunchest believers in pure love." Celestial Star spoke each word deliberately. "Then you should understand one thing better than anyone—"

"No matter what you become, the people who care about you won't stop loving you."

Yang Chen's breath caught for half a beat.

"You spend every day praising how strong other people's love is, but when it comes to you, suddenly you don't believe in it?" Celestial Star's voice rose. "You're afraid the way they see you will change as you do... But is Chen Qianqian that kind of person? Are Uncle and Auntie?"

"That clean death you imagined wouldn't set them free. It would make them lose someone all over again. Seven years ago, they lost their dearest friends—your parents. Then they worked so hard to warm the broken pieces of you back to life. And now you want to arrange a plausible death with your own hands and put them through that pain again?"

"You really only think about yourself."

The hospital room fell deathly silent.

Yang Chen opened his mouth.

No sound came out.

Over the years, he had gone over this path in his head a thousand times. Every step made sense. Every step was for everyone else's sake.

Yet this girl he had met only twice had torn it all apart in a few sentences.

No matter what you become, the people who care about you won't stop loving you.

He believed it.

He had said it to Knight, to Knight's mother, to everyone lost in the darkness.

He had simply never dared say it to himself.

"I..."

He heard his own voice, painfully dry.

"I need... to think."

"Take your time." Celestial Star stood and tucked the notebook under her arm. "Right now, I'm the only person in the world who knows your secret. Whether anyone else finds out depends on what you decide to think and do next."

She reached the door and put her hand on the handle, then stopped.

"Oh, one last question."

"Just personal curiosity."

She turned back, her expression perfectly serious.

"Who came up with the name 'True Pure Love Invincible Purification Fist'?"

"..."

"Get out."

"Then can you at least tell me the details of your ability? I need them for the file."

Celestial Star picked up her pen.

Yang Chen hesitated.

"It's versatile... I can sense love and draw power from it... The form that power takes depends on what I need... I can use it to attack, defend, or heal..."

"If it's strong enough, I could even stop time."

Celestial Star froze as she listened to his description.

"What the hell?!"