As the Second-year Representative and a Student Council President renowned for her rigorous self-discipline, Vivian's attitude toward her studies was always beyond reproach.
During every past theory class, her leather notebook—its cover stamped with a frost-crystal pattern—would be densely filled with every key point explained by the professor, as well as her own thoughts and annotations. Filling several pages over the course of a morning was the norm for her.
But today, on the snow-white paper of the notebook spread open before her, there was not a single word—only the natural texture of the paper itself.
Her slender fingers unconsciously rubbed the barrel of her pen, and her ice-blue eyes lacked the sharp, focused radiance they usually held in class, staring somewhat out of focus at the blank space.
On the podium, the professor's resonant explanation, the shifting rune diagrams on the magic light screen, the rustling of her classmates' pen nibs gliding across paper...
All of this reached her ears vaguely and remotely, as if filtered through a thick layer of glass, unable to leave any clear trace in her thoughts.
“What is... wrong with me?”
Vivian lowered her head slightly, her ice-blue hair cascading down with the movement, a few strands resting against her somewhat pale cheeks.
She asked herself silently in her heart, carrying a rare hint of aimlessness and confusion.
Ever since hearing that news yesterday evening, a lingering irritability and restlessness had gripped her.
Greg Sass.
That name, along with everything connected to it, was like an entangled ball of thread stuffed into her chest, making it impossible for her to breathe smoothly, let alone focus her energy on anything she ought to be doing.
The composure and concentration she took pride in seemed to turn fragile and useless when faced with her questions about this person.
Right now, she simply wanted to go see Greg and get an answer straight from his mouth, but...
If that were all, she would not be hesitating like this.
With her status and temperament, she could easily march right up to his door and ask for a clear explanation open and aboveboard.
She had never been an indecisive person.
Yet beneath her urgency to get an answer, there lurked a sliver of fear that even she was unwilling to delve into.
Because she was afraid.
She was afraid that the answer she would hear from Greg's mouth was this: the reason he had hidden his true strength all along, willingly bore the stigma of being trash, suffered ostracization within his family, and was ultimately stripped of his inheritance rights and driven out of his home... was all so he could smoothly break off their engagement and completely sever any possibility of reconciliation.
Although Vivian had never once regretted her decision to resolutely request the annulment of their engagement.
Because that was a rational choice responsible to both sides, the optimal solution based on all the intelligence and judgments available at the time.
She firmly believed this.
However, not regretting her decision did not mean she was not afraid of the potential truth hidden behind it.
She was afraid that the boy toward whom she might have felt a faint, fleeting affection on some distant afternoon had chosen such a resolute, self-exiling path simply because he loathed her and resisted a fate bound to hers.
That he endured so much humiliation and cold stares until he was completely abandoned by his family, and only after the bond between them was thoroughly severed by reality and law did he finally begin to reveal his brilliance...
This thought was like an icy venomous snake, quietly slithering into her heart and inflicting a fine, persistent sting.
As the First Princess of the kingdom, Vivian's pride was ingrained in her very bones.
She feared this answer not because it would make her lose face.
What she truly could not accept was that, because of her, a boy who should have shone brilliantly was forced into obscurity, voluntarily dimmed his light, and was nearly buried completely.
The proud Vivian Kahn could accept others disliking or fearing her because of her personality.
But she could never tolerate that, because of her presence, another soul had been robbed of the radiance and possibilities it should have possessed.
Although there was often a dazzling light at her side that left her feeling suffocated...
Yet precisely because of this, having observed it up close, she knew just how beautiful and how rare that brilliance truly was!
And these complex feelings had now birthed a fear deep within her heart that even she found difficult to face directly.
This fear caused her to waver back and forth between the impulse to 'go ask and get a clear answer' and the retreat of being 'afraid of getting that answer,' leaving her restless and uneasy.
Thus, an entire morning's classes were wasted in this silent internal tug-of-war.
“Dong! Dong! Dong!”
The heavy end-of-class bell chimed, sounding like a final judgment.
Vivian was startled out of her chaotic thoughts almost as if struck by electricity.
Raising her head, a trace of struggle flashed through her ice-blue eyes, but her body reacted before her mind could.
She stood up, her movements still carrying their customary elegance, but her slightly quickened heartbeat and the way her fingers unconsciously clenched and unclasped betrayed her internal unrest.
She knew Greg's course schedule.
No, to be precise, while casually flipping through a document, she had accidentally caught sight of his elective course schedule, and then... accidentally remembered it.
Although they were in the same year and both belonged to Class A, many of their specialized electives and general education classes did not overlap.
As if drawn by invisible threads, her steps uncontrollably led her out of her class's room and toward the direction indicated in her mind.
Students passing by in the hallway bowed respectfully to her, and she merely nodded mechanically, her frozen expression concealing the inner turmoil no one could see.
In the end, she stopped before an ordinary classroom door.
From inside came noise far rowdier and noisier than when her own class ended.
There were girls' crisp laughter and banter, boys' indignant chatter, and the sounds of moving chairs and shuffling paper, all mingled together until it became quite noisy.
Vivian's brows knit imperceptibly.
As Student Council President, maintaining order in the academy was her instinct.
She was almost about to push open the door habitually, but the instant her fingers were about to touch the handle, she paused.
“No, I didn't come all the way here for that...”
She told herself in her heart, closing her eyes tightly to forcibly quell the duty-bound impulse.
Today, she was merely Vivian Kahn, an ordinary woman... seeking an answer.
“Phew...”
She took a barely audible breath in, then slowly exhaled.
Then, she gently pushed open the door in front of her.
The door hinges turned, emitting a quiet creak.
The scene inside the classroom rushed toward her alongside a clearer wave of sound.
And then, she saw it.
She saw the familiar figure at the center—Greg Sass—closely surrounded like stars orbiting the moon by over a dozen brightly dressed girls.
She also saw the unreserved enthusiasm and admiration on those girls' faces, as well as the deliberate flirtatious little gestures of their brightly manicured nails casually scratching his palm as they tried to shove various invitation letters into his hands.
She even sharply caught sight of a girl in the crowd, wearing the smile of a successful prank, lightly slapping Greg on the backside before swiftly drawing back and melting into the crowd.
Rate on N.U.
