"Morning!"

'Any new developments in the magical-girl world?'

'Not much. I'm planning on going witch-hunting Saturday while I'm in the city, though.'

'While you're in the city?'

'For the 'scouts' meeting thing. Afterwards I'll head where there's more people and - go looking, I guess.'

'Right.  Hopefully it'll be - less scary, than last time.  Good luck.'

'Thanks! Yeah, I hope so too. I might be able to tag along with another girl, even. Fighting in groups seems like it'd be safer.'

'Yeah.'

She pauses.

'I'm - sorry that - you got stuck with this job, when you're the one who tried to save me.'

'It's cool. It - fits me. Helping people this way. I don't like how shifty Kyubey is, and I wish I'd had a different introduction to this whole mess, but I really do think that I'd choose it even given time to think things through. And I don't regret saving you in the slightest.'

'Thanks.  I'm glad it's working out so far.  - gosh, it's only been a few days.  It hasn't even been a week since we met.  Heck of a way to start off at a new school, huh.'

'Yeah, wow. It's been a heck of a week, I feel like I've known you a lot longer than - three days?'

'We met Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, yeah, three days!  Jeez.'  She laughs under her breath.  'I don't usually make friends this fast.  I guess being attacked by monsters will do that.'

'Guess that whole thing about fire-forged friendships is true, huh.'

'Guess so!'

'I really do feel a lot closer to you than I do to most people, even though I've known most of my friends for years. I guess it's - they've never seen me scared. Or anything other than how I present myself to the world.'

And the bus trundles up to the school.

...They can totally keep talking like this, can't they? At least until class starts properly.

They can!

'Yeah, I feel the same way - getting attacked by the witch was the most scared I've ever been and you were there for me.  - you're pretty cool even when you're scared, you know.'

'Thanks. It's totally just that I fall firmly on 'fight' in the whole 'fight, flight, or freeze' thing. I can't even do haunted houses or watch horror movies with jump scares, when I get startled my reflex is to punch something.'

She stifles a laugh.  'Oh jeez!  That must've been awkward to find out about!'

'It kinda was! Somebody was dressed up as some kind of moss monster for Halloween, decided to entertain himself by jumping out at people. I didn't punch him hard at least, he was more surprised than anything.'

'Oh no!'  This time she doesn't manage to stifle her giggling.  (She hurriedly slips in a pair of earbuds so she can claim to be laughing at a podcast or something.)  '...at least he wasn't angry?  Was he angry?'

'A bit embarrassed since, like, a couple people were laughing at him, but kinda served him right for scaring kids. He ended up laughing, too, though.'

'Wait, how old was he?  How old were you?'

'I think he was, like, fourteen? Maybe a bit younger. I was ten, but I looked older, and I think he was actually trying to scare my sister - they're friends - and he timed his jump poorly.'

'Oh.'  Giggle.  'When you said 'serves him right for scaring kids' I was picturing, like, a businessman.  In a moss monster costume for some reason.'

'Nah. He was definitely old enough to know better, just not that old. Though now I have a funny mental image of some old politician-type dressed like the creature from the black lagoon.'