As the Second Year's Top Student and the Student Council President renowned for her discipline and rigor, Vivian had always been beyond reproach in her approach to her studies.
During every ordinary theory lesson, the leather notebook with ice-crystal patterns embossed on its cover would be filled with meticulous notes on every key point the professor explained, along with her own thoughts and annotations. Filling several pages in a single morning was normal.
Today, however, the pristine pages of the notebook lying open before her held nothing but the texture of the paper itself-not a single word.
Her slender fingers absently rubbed the pen. Her ice-blue eyes had lost their usual sharp, attentive gleam in class and merely gazed, slightly unfocused, at the blank pages.
The professor's resonant explanations from the podium, the shifting rune diagrams on the magical screen, the rustle of her classmates' pen tips across paper...
It all seemed to reach her through a thick pane of glass, muffled and distant, leaving no clear impression on her mind.
What... is wrong with me?
Vivian lowered her head slightly, and her ice-blue hair slipped forward, a few strands resting against her somewhat pale cheeks.
She silently questioned herself, with a rare trace of bewilderment and confusion.
Ever since she had heard that news yesterday evening, an inescapable restlessness and unease had gripped her.
Greg Sass.
That name, and everything connected to it, lodged in her chest like a tangle of threads. She could neither breathe freely nor concentrate on anything she ought to be doing.
The composure and concentration she took such pride in seemed unbearably fragile before the questions surrounding him.
All she wanted now was to see Greg and hear an answer from him, but...
If that were all there was to it, she would not