Night.
The clouds in the sky were dim and thin, and the moonlight was dulled along with them.
Its rays fell upon the empty streets, where only the streetlamps lit the drifting dust.
Before she knew it, Sakaki Chika had arrived at her front door.
Though she was a very popular idol, her circumstances weren’t actually as good as others imagined—the house was barely big enough for two people to live in.
Being an idol didn’t pay much, and most of what she earned went to paying off debts.
Sakaki Chika didn’t have much money on her now either—just barely enough to get by each day.
Even at the door, Sakaki Chika hesitated for a long while before softly knocking.
After a moment, the door opened.
A middle-aged man in a terrible mental state stood in the doorway, a liquor bottle in his hand.
He looked like the very picture of a drunken, failed middle-aged man, so unsteady he could barely stand.
“I…
I’m home.”
Sakaki Chika said quietly, her head lowered.
The moment she stepped inside, she caught a strong smell of alcohol.
Just then, for no clear reason, she suddenly thought that Ms.
Haibara had seemed to smell of alcohol today too—because she was all too familiar with this scent.
The man said nothing, simply letting her in.
Once inside, as she took off her shoes, Sakaki Chika felt herself step on scraps of paper.
She looked down and saw the floor was covered in many slips of paper with writing on them, still bearing bits of tape.
When she saw those slips of paper, Sakaki Chika’s body stiffened.
She didn’t need to look closely at the writing to know—they were IOUs again.
She kept her head down, her voice trembling:
“Why are there IOUs again…
Didn’t…
didn’t we already pay them all off last time?”
Fear showed in Sakaki Chika’s eyes.
To her, these IOUs were like a nightmare.
Every single time, they’d be paid off and thrown away, yet afterward, as if cursed, they would return to her home at some unknown point.
That was why she didn’t want to come home…
Faced with Sakaki Chika’s questioning, the drunken man seemed not to have heard clearly at all, merely swaying and muttering something about money.
This drunken man was her father, a person she both feared and loathed.
Ever since she started middle school, he hadn’t held a job—every day gambling, drinking, staying out all night.
Pachinko was just the baseline; it only got worse from there.
Later, her mother, because of the family’s debts, abandoned her and fled to who knows where, leaving her all alone.
In middle school, every time she came home from school, she’d see IOUs at the front door, and at night while she slept, gangsters might smash the windows.
During that time, she would always cry in fear while burying her head under the covers to sleep, trying to tell herself it was all a nightmare that would be fine once she woke up.
But reality stayed this way.
For all her life, the only one who had been truly kind to her was her grandmother—but her grandmother had long since passed away.
Later, because the family owed so much money, with the help of a relative she tried becoming an idol at an agency, and only then, little by little, did she fill the hole in the family’s finances.
But even so, the nightmare hadn’t ended.
The man, dead drunk, cursed and muttered as if talking to himself:
“Today…
my luck wasn’t good, but next time I’ll win it back.
where’s your money for this week?”
“…”
Sakaki Chika hadn’t earned anything this week.
Because Kirishima Ai had been struggling to fight alone lately, and also because she herself wanted to return to school to study, she was taking a break for a while to spend some time at school.
Her small income came from running her online accounts and tips from some fans.
She’d just withdrawn it from the bank a while back, planning to use it as living expenses for the near future.
“I don’t…
have much money this week.
Can’t you please stop gambling…”
she pleaded softly.
The man opened his bleary, muddled eyes, then drew a little closer, revealing a rather ugly smile:
“Chika…
believe me, today was just bad luck.
Tomorrow I’ll be able to pay it all back…”
Sakaki Chika stepped back in fear.
“I…
I really don’t have any money…”
After she made her refusal clear, the man’s expression suddenly turned gloomy, and he was about to say something—but Sakaki Chika took the chance to flee.
…
Sakaki Chika fled back to her own room, locked the door, then slumped to the floor, staring blankly at the room she hadn’t tidied in ages.
If that man had been even a little drunker, he might have hit her.
Though she had refused to give the man money, she knew that later she would probably still have to hand over what she had left.
Because the man knew the secret she could least afford for anyone to know.
The one on stage as the idol wasn’t really her—it was the magical girl Star Flower.
If this secret ever got out, her life would be over.
In reality she was a good-for-nothing—timid and cowardly, a gloomy loner who didn’t even know how to talk to people.
The words of encouragement she gave others, the songs she sang on stage—none of it had anything to do with her.
It was all lies concealed by magic.
After slumping on the floor for a while, thinking of the money she’d have to pay off again, she was at a loss for what to do, and only despair welled up inside her.
If that was the case…
she would have to go back to performing again.
As for going to school…
should she give it up?
No, no, no…
Or maybe…
she should wait until after the midterm exams to decide.
If her grades were good, then maybe…
Sakaki Chika wiped away her tears and searched the room for a while, finally finding on the desk the scissors she often used.
She picked up the scissors and drew a bloody line across her wrist, a faint expression of pain crossing her face.
At some point she couldn’t recall, she had developed this somewhat twisted habit.
“What do I do…
what do I do…”
Because she had been hurt, the pendulum hanging around her neck lit up with light.
This light was meant to help protect her ordinary human self.
Although it could block harm from Weirdos, it still couldn’t stop self-harm.
Once her arm was covered in bloody marks, Sakaki Chika hurt so much she almost wanted to cry again.
Her gaze dimmed for a moment, then she set down the scissors and took out the Magic Tool she used to Transform.
“Microphone test…”
As she spoke, the Magician bloomed open like a flower, revealing the slot inside.
Sakaki Chika removed her pendulum and placed it into the Magic Tool.
After a burst of light, she Transformed from Sakaki Chika into the magical girl Star Flower.
And the wounds from before all transferred onto the magical girl Star Flower’s body.
Sakaki Chika was a weak and powerless person.
If she didn’t Transform into the magical girl Star Flower, she couldn’t go on living.
“Ah, I carelessly went and covered myself in wounds again.
I’m just too pessimistic.”
The magical girl looked at the blood flowing from her body and gave a helpless smile, then sprang lightly up from the floor and gave a twirl.
Swaying her gorgeous, petal-like long skirt, she walked to the mirror, examined herself, then threw a wink at her own reflection.
“That won’t do, Chika.
What matters is your smile.
When you feel like crying, just show a smile.”
Compared to Sakaki Chika, the magical girl Star Flower in the mirror wore the most brilliant and cheerful smile, like a carefree sprite.
The magical girl Star Flower didn’t cry, nor did she despair.
She was an existence entirely different from her own weak, ordinary human side.
“Like this—give a smile…”
She reached out her slender, fair hands, slowly pinched her own cheeks, then tugged the corners of her mouth with her fingers, slowly lifting them upward—
“Huh, how strange…
why am I…
crying?”
The magical girl Star Flower looked at the tears in her own reflection and felt confused for the first time.
…
After that, the midterm exams soon arrived.
During this time, those few problem children in Haibara’s class skipped class many more times.
Maybe before long, the principal would come looking for her.
According to their earlier agreement, if their scores dropped this time, Haibara would visit each of their homes one by one.
Kirishima Ai’s grades were excellent as always—first in the class again this time, and top ten in the grade.
There was nothing Haibara could do about her.
Takanashi Shiori’s grades were as slack as ever, but she was equally slack about fighting Weirdos, so Haibara didn’t bother with her.
Only Sakaki Chika…
Haibara frowned.
Though she was diligent in class and completed her homework well, her scores were truly nothing to write home about.
She was nearly at the bottom of the class…
especially in math—even just guessing on the multiple choice shouldn’t score this low.
This was no ordinary problem child anymore.
This called for a heavy strike—throw a heavy punch!
So, without a doubt.
—Haibara would be paying a home visit to Sakaki Chika’s house in the next couple of days.