Why Song Sia Stayed Up All Night (1)
What am I even thinking?
Song Sia shook her head. The world spun for a moment.
She collapsed into the elegant wooden chair as if her legs had given out, her long silver hair cascading down with her.
A wave of anemia washed over her. The world seemed to tint itself red.
She had always been thin. And though Song Sia was only a half-vampire — her thirst for blood milder than that of a pureblood — the chronic anemia never left her.
"Hah... hah..."
Her breathing grew shallow for a moment.
She had been thinking too hard, and the anemia seemed to hit all the harder for it.
Forcing her hand across the wooden desk, she closed her fingers around a bottle waiting there.
Nothing special — a nutritional drink she had taken since childhood, a special formula prepared by the family physician.
The scarlet liquid eased the anemia, if only a little.
I can't waste time on useless thoughts...
But the moment her body settled, the thoughts came trailing after one another again.
Whether they were thoughts or feelings, she couldn't tell.
One scene kept rising unbidden.
An Yumin and Lee Junwoo growing close again. The two of them, together.
No. Those two are finished.
That Junwoo's feelings for An Yumin had run deep — anyone watching his behavior with a clear head could see it.
Through Aegis's activities, every member except Lee Junwoo had reaped enormous benefits.
But An Yumin, unlike Ha Yeeun, was no attention-seeker. She never tried to flaunt her achievements on stream.
In short, she was the type to do all the work and walk away with none of the credit.
And Lee Junwoo knew that about her perfectly well.
He always selected hero operations that let the main dealer shine at her absolute best.
Even in the interviews before and after those operations, he crafted the scripts with exquisite care so that An Yumin the hero would naturally stand out.
Stupid Ha Yeeun never noticed.
In the end, the spotlight of every hero activity always found its way back to An Yumin.
Like the vocalist who always draws the most fans in a band.
Ha Yeeun might have been more famous on internet streams, but in terms of public popularity and image, An Yumin stood highest of all.
A well-mannered hero with real skill and a pretty way of speaking — that was the reputation An Yumin earned.
That impeccable conduct had also secured her the freshman representative seat without much trouble.
Her ability had backed it up, of course. But no one could deny Lee Junwoo's efforts in the process.
And yet, even so, Junwoo had maintained a delicate balance within Aegis.
Delicate enough that Ha Yeeun could fall into her absurd delusions — and still, he gave everything he had to the other two as well.
Lee Junwoo was kind. Gentle with everyone.
The result: Ha Yeeun became a major streamer.
And Song Sia herself — whose speech, to put it kindly, was never particularly polite — came to be known to the world as a humble mage who never flaunted herself, despite the colossal family behind her and her extraordinary magical talent.
Every bit of that image had been crafted for her by Lee Junwoo.
He must have broken himself looking after the three of us.
The image of Song Sia that the public held — her family loved it.
Valhalla's Apostles was the most famous hunter guild in the country, and external image mattered enormously to them.
And so, the more time she spent with Lee Junwoo, the more Song Sia found herself looking at him differently.
— That guy's just a womanizer.
— Hmm. Even a merciful saintess like me sometimes finds Lee Junwoo's gaze a little overwhelming — the way he seems so completely smitten!
At first, Song Sia had dismissed him the same way An Yumin and Ha Yeeun did. But even when she ignored him just as they had, he never stopped treating her with that same gentle kindness.
Just as Lee Junwoo had remade the three of them into celebrities, something in Song Sia began to change without her noticing.
— Lee Junwoo might actually be useful. No — he might actually be a good person.
But right around then —
Probably last autumn... around midterms.
Song Sia realized it too late.
He was no womanizer at all.
He was a hopeless romantic.
She had seen it by chance, through the clubroom door left ajar.
Beyond it: An Yumin, collapsed over her desk after an all-night theory session, fast asleep.
And Lee Junwoo, draping his own outer jacket over her.
The way he looked at An Yumin in that moment —
It was a gaze he had never once directed at Song Sia or Ha Yeeun.
It was... warm...
And this was after An Yumin's attitude toward him had already turned thoroughly cold.
Even so, the moment she saw that unchanging look in his eyes, even emotionless Song Sia understood.
To Lee Junwoo, An Yumin was someone truly special.
"Hah... hhh..."
She had just finished the nutritional drink, but the anemia surged back. No — she had already sensed something different from the usual.
This was bloodlust. Unmistakably.
Lee Junwoo... likes An Yumin.
And from the moment she understood that, Song Sia was no longer the person she had been.
Strangely, unbearably, she hated seeing An Yumin with him.
That feeling was still with her now.
She wanted them separated. She hated that Junwoo looked only at An Yumin.
"What... hah... am I thinking."
She couldn't understand herself at all.
A handsome, gentle man — with Song Sia's background, she could have one with ease. Even one far more capable.
Someone who was supposed to have no emotions at all had no business being shaken by one ordinary — no, inferior — cadet.
And yet, the thought that Lee Junwoo liked someone else made her feel strange.
"Hah... hah..."
She hurried to the refrigerator and pulled out another nutritional drink. The anemia faded again, temporarily.
But the bloodlust remained. Lee Junwoo kept rising in her mind. Her eyes fell on a book the maid had left for her.
"Why... on earth..."
No matter how many times she asked herself, she couldn't name the feeling or why it had taken root.
So — absurd as it felt even to her — she decided to read the romance fantasy novel.
It was supposed to deal primarily with the emotions between men and women.
Song Sia read it while fighting down the anemia — no, the bloodlust.
Evening slipped into late dawn before she knew it.
But it meant almost nothing.
A girl who didn't even know the definition of the word "emotion" could hardly be expected to understand a novel drowning in excess feeling.
Still, it wasn't entirely fruitless.
Two keywords remained with her.
Jealousy. And obsession. Song Sia turned the words over in her mind.
Don't tell me... I'm jealous of An Yumin?
Not of An Yumin as a person — that much was certain.
The master of Valhalla's Apostles was Song Sia's own father. Aside from a mother who had once been a famous hunter, An Yumin had nothing particularly remarkable about her.
Even after growing through her time with Lee Junwoo, Song Sia had never once considered her a rival.
Is that... what this is.
But now she thought she understood, at least a little.
If there was anything to envy about An Yumin, it was the gaze she received. The person who always looked at her had been Lee Junwoo.
That feeling, it seemed, was called jealousy.
That's ridiculous!
But then the entrance ceremony came flooding back.
The way An Yumin's face had twisted when she saw Lee Junwoo talking with another female cadet.
And the strange feeling that had risen in Song Sia the moment she saw that expression.
Why was An Yumin looking at Junwoo like that...?
The name of the cadet he had been speaking with came to her belatedly.
Choi Hana.
She knew enough to recognize her as a classmate who had somehow been competing with An Yumin.
And from the keywords she had only just begun to grasp through the romance fantasy, Song Sia realized that An Yumin's expression and gaze most closely resembled lingering attachment — or obsession.
"That... no. That can't happen."
It might not map perfectly onto real emotion, but she understood that feelings between a man and a woman didn't tidy themselves up so easily after a single parting.
An Yumin and Lee Junwoo had never formally dated.
She couldn't know what Junwoo felt now.
But from An Yumin's reaction at the entrance ceremony, one thing was certain.
An Yumin still had feelings for him, in some form.
And if Lee Junwoo ever learned that —
The boy who had left her side might return to it. His heart had been that deep.
Her body trembled.
No. She hated that. She couldn't explain it as emotion, but she hated it.
When they cast him out, there had been a part of her that felt relieved he and An Yumin would be separated. Zeroing out his contribution score had been for that reason too.
He was already broken. Staying by An Yumin's side would only have hurt him more. So she had agreed to the exile.
No. That's an excuse.
Even now, the look of shock and despair on Lee Junwoo's face was vivid.
If she had truly been doing it for him —
She should have reached for him again, right there. She should have persuaded An Yumin and Ha Yeeun.
That the extreme workload he had been carrying needed to be shared. That his efforts deserved recognition.
That the two of them had misunderstood him. If she had cared about Lee Junwoo in any way at all —
But it was meaningless.
The Song Sia of now was simply another Aegis member who had agreed to drive him out, no different from the other two.
"I don't know... hah... hah..."
In the end, reading the romance fantasy had taught her nothing.
Lee Junwoo filled her mind.
And a vicious bloodlust for him boiled up inside her.
Dangerous...
Vampires living in the modern age had evolved with the times.
Sunlight no longer burned them away. They no longer needed a constant supply of living human blood. Plenty of substitutes existed.
But the bloodlust lingered like an afterimage.
And an intense bloodlust directed at one specific person was especially dangerous.
Bloodlust felt toward a romantic interest —
That can't be it. Mother and I... we're nothing alike. I have no emotions... not even for Junwoo...
If that affection drove her to bare her fangs and drink, she would feel an endless bloodlust for that person afterward.
Severe enough that going without their blood on a regular cycle would leave her malnourished.
Of course, even without drinking their blood, affection received from the other person could soothe the thirst in its place.
But Song Sia's mother had died in the grip of a devastating eating disorder.
Song Yuhwan — her father, guildmaster of that vast organization — had never held even a speck of affection for her birth mother.
All he had ever cared about was the Original Bloodline flowing through her veins.
She drained another bottle of the nutritional drink in long, desperate gulps.
But like a vicious thirst, like starvation itself, the bloodlust for Lee Junwoo remained.
"Friday..."
Only then did she read the message her maid had left on her smartphone.
Her opponent for that first class-placement evaluation was none other than Lee Junwoo.
An E-rank hunter she could never lose to.
Which meant she absolutely could not afford even the slightest humiliation.
Her father would never forgive such a mistake.
She needed to be cold.
Without her family's backing, she was nothing.
She could not disappoint her father. She had to overwhelm Lee Junwoo completely.
— Why would you say that? You're so popular. Even without Valhalla's Apostles — Song Sia, you're a good person just as yourself.
But then the words Lee Junwoo had once said to her rose again.
Her whole body trembled once more.
The heating in her room was warm enough to feel hot, yet a vicious chill ran through her.
Above all, her chest was ice-cold, as if midwinter had settled there. In that moment she wished someone — anyone — were with her.
But it was impossible. Even the faintest possibility was something she had thrown away herself. It was over.
Wrapping her shaking body in her own arms, Song Sia murmured,
"Right... the morning sun is up... that's why it's cold. I'm... I'm a vampire, after all..."
But outside the window, the dawn was still full of darkness.
The first week after enrolling at Theia Academy.
I kept myself busy.
Middle Class. And the Free Major Faculty — I had clear goals, so there was no room for laziness.
Above all, my opponent was Song Sia.
Even in the original work, she had been famous as the emotionless silver-haired, red-eyed character.
Her illustrations alone made her popular, of course — but what earned her the higher evaluation was her performance.
Even as a half-vampire, Original Bloodline runs through her veins.
Original Bloodline meant the purest existence — the progenitor of the demihuman races.
It was the wellspring of the special power that set demihumans apart from humans.
With that blood in her, Song Sia was strong.
A mage who had already completed her 2nd Awakening.
On top of that, she was a special Awakened who had received combat training alongside magical theory since childhood.
She got overshadowed by An Yumin during hero activities, but...
And at this point in time, Song Sia's growth had plateaued somewhat.
Still, she was a fan-favorite character. Even the current An Yumin couldn't casually guarantee a win against her.
Later in the main story, though —
Song Sia would watch An Yumin's steep growth and grow desperate.
Eventually the power sealed in her bloodline would run wild.
Meaning she would temporarily become an enemy.
That was a seriously nasty quest.
But in the original, while An Yumin progressed through the story, the friendship she had built with Song Sia stopped the rampage.
And through that quest, both of them secured new skills and grew even stronger.
In the original, the gap in specs between An Yumin and Song Sia was significant enough to make the clear difficulty high —
But now An Yumin had grown so much that it shouldn't become a major problem.
Still, better keep an eye on it just in case.
Either way, there was no need to worry about a story that wouldn't trigger until around first-semester finals. My own business was more urgent right now.
I had an informal sparring match with Song Sia scheduled immediately.
I need to prepare new authorities and skills right away.
The day after the entrance ceremony.
After finishing all the orientation for the theory lectures, I headed to Theia's VR training facility.
"You got here first?"
"Yeah... you said to meet here."
Jiyu was already waiting. And on one side of the VR equipment monitor, she had Saintess TV pulled up again.
It was Ha Yeeun's first stream since the Dark Snake arrest broadcast that had left her so thoroughly humiliated.