Chapter 32 – Honest Thoughts

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…Thinking about it, maybe what I said sounded a bit strange?

While reviewing the fight with Radiant White and Suhyeok yesterday, I was pondering my final words, and this thought occurred to me.

I meant that she was forcing herself to use an ill-fitting strategy, but White might have understood it as me saying that she was forcing herself to do something that didn’t suit her as a magical girl.

Even though she seems like she lives in a dream, she’s surprisingly aware of reality. I worried that she might take it to heart and later decide to retire because of it.

Even in the original work, it’s not like she never doubted herself. But at least back then, she had Suhyeok and her comrades to help her get back on her feet.

Now, though, she’s not even that involved with Suhyeok yet, and the way she’s being treated by the only people who could be considered her allies is a mess…

She might be under quite a bit of psychological pressure.

Maybe I should let her defeat me on purpose at some point. But then again, if she wins with an ill-fitting strategy, she might stubbornly stick to it, so even throwing the fight feels risky.

In the end, the best I can do is hope that White gives up on being her sister’s copycat and finds her own path.

And since it’s Suhyeok who’s supposed to help White find a combat style that suits her, it’s not like I can step in and interfere.

It’s not like I have any intention of getting close to Radiant White anyway.

…Honestly, if I were in a man’s body, maybe I’d think differently, but in this body, things are just…

“Ugh…”

My worries spilled out loud enough that Narae took notice. She asked what I was groaning about this time, as if she was starting to care.

“It’s not about me…”

“We all know you don’t have friends, so just spit it out. Do you really think I don’t notice you spending the whole day doing nothing but watching TV and scrolling on your phone?”

“Narae. You do realize I hold your life in my hands, don’t you?”

I asked, staring at Narae, who was becoming more and more blunt by the day.

Her response was just absurd.

“Of course I do. But so what? Can you really afford to get rid of me? Without me, who’s going to deal with all the ‘annoying’ things like money and housing contracts? Even washing dishes—you dump all of that on me. Do you think you’ll find someone else who knows your secret and still sticks around?”

…Everything she said was true, and that pissed me off even more. The fact that I had nothing to argue back with made it even worse.

In the end, I let out a deep sigh and asked how my words to my ‘little sister’—no, to Radiant White—sounded to her.

“Oh, that’s easy. It sounded like you were telling her to quit being a magical girl.”

“…You think so too, huh? I want to fix it, but… any ideas?”

“That’s for you to figure out. You claim she’s your sister, right? You should know her better than I do.”

In the end, the only thing I got from Narae was a ‘figure it out yourself.’

…This one, I’ll put it off for a bit.

For now, I needed to think about how to react when I met Suhyeok.

If he was going to come out and admit he was a monster, just going, ‘Oh, really?’ felt like too dull of a reaction.

I wanted to act surprised but still go with a ‘you’re still family’ kind of approach…

But I wasn’t even sure if turning monsters into vampires was possible, so I wasn’t sure if that would work.

If he trusted me enough to reveal this, he’d probably believe whatever I said, but I still needed to come up with a convincing lie.

I tried to think of one, but nothing seemed satisfying.

…Might as well just be honest. Just act like it’s a fascinating discovery and move on.

Thinking too hard was exhausting, and at this point, I was half-resigned to just letting things play out. It should work out somehow.

Without leaving any notice of where I was going, I only left a parting remark for Narae: “Do the laundry properly before I get back.” Then, I headed to where Suhyeok was waiting.

“…You’re here.”

Suhyeok greeted me with a slightly tense demeanor.

His facial expressions and tone barely changed, but after meeting him so many times, I’d learned to pick up on the small differences.

I pushed my worries to the back of my mind and, putting on the bright attitude of ‘Vampire Mina,’ greeted him cheerfully.

“It feels like it’s been a while since we saw each other face-to-face! But… you don’t look so great. Even when we talked on the phone last time, you seemed off. You’re overworking yourself, aren’t you?”

For a moment, I thought I was being shameless, since I was the cause of his overwork. But hey, it was all for his own good, so it should be fine.

“If I were chasing a high-class monster and still looked perfectly fine, that would be more concerning. Don’t worry, I know my own limits best.”

“Well, if you say so, I won’t argue… But you don’t need to push yourself so hard that you ruin your health. If a student dies while preparing for an exam, no one even gets to joke about it.”

“…I’ll be careful.”

I knew he wasn’t the type to actually listen, but hearing him say he’d consider it was still nice.

The person who really needed to hear this was Radiant White, but… no harm in saying it to him first.

“So… about you being a monster. Is that for real? No matter how I look at you, you don’t seem like one. Your pulse, your strength…”

I wanted to chat a bit more, but Suhyeok seems restless, so I decided to get this conversation out of the way first.

Was he really a monster?

I already knew the answer, but since ‘Mina’ wouldn’t, I pretended to be curious.

“…Really? Even a vampire’s eyes can’t tell? That’s good, then. At least I won’t be exposed by cameras or anything.”

Suhyeok let out a relieved sigh at my words, then closed his eyes, telling me to step back.

“I want to see up close.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Says the guy who once pointed a shotgun at my head~”

At that, Suhyeok flinched slightly before sighing and pleading for me to drop that topic since he didn’t remember it.

“Haha, just kidding. You don’t think I’m petty enough to hold a grudge over something like that, do you?”

“Of course not.”

…Now I understood why even the innocent White had learned to mess with him.

He was basically a walking button that made funny sounds when pressed.

I wanted to tease him more, but since I came here for a serious conversation, I held back and stepped back.

Then, black mist enveloped Suhyeok, and in an instant, he transformed into the very form I had beaten up so many times as Hemorragia.

Unlike other high-class monsters, he didn’t need to release any restraints. Unlike me, his transformation wasn’t grotesque or bloody.

It was a calm and seamless process, as if the black mist was simply coating his body.

“…This is me.”

I had heard it many times before, so I knew well, but in his monstrous form, his voice was completely different from when he was human.

When he was human… well, he had a normal human voice. But now, his voice had an incredibly deep resonance.

No matter how I listened, it didn’t sound like something produced by a human throat.

As I stared blankly at his form, Suhyeok, in his usual manner, made a self-deprecating remark.

“It must be repulsive. It must make you sick. The person you were trying to accept as family looks like this! Deceiver, traitor! What do you think? Are you so disgusted you can’t even speak?”

I had expected him to be emotional about it. He never liked his monstrous form—if anything, he despised it.

He had never even imagined that he would turn into something like this.

“No… it’s not that. How should I put this?”

But honestly, I didn’t find his form revolting. If anything, I didn’t have any strong feelings about it at all.

I mean, there are people who switch between being human and a monster. I’m literally one of them.

Of course, I couldn’t say that.

So it seemed better to share a different impression.

A different impression…

…

…If I were to be completely honest, I actually thought it looked seriously cool.

When I saw him in his monstrous form before, I didn’t feel much about it. But seeing it like this now, it had a different vibe.

A being made entirely of black mist or flame—whatever that black stuff was—wearing a long coat and sitting there. How could that not be cool?

But the reason I hesitated to say this was that I had no idea how he would react.

“Can I be totally honest?”

“…If you would, I’d appreciate it.”

Alright.

You said it yourself.

“That looks so cool.”

“I figured you’d say—wait, what?”

“I thought you’d turn into some grotesque bug or something! I never expected this…! Can I touch it?!”

Suhyeok looked completely taken aback, standing there awkwardly as if he couldn’t process what I had just said.

Well, of course. That was half the reason I said it.

“You can touch it, but—wait. Can you at least let me finish talking?! What if there’s something important I haven’t warned you about?!”

As I suddenly reached out to shove my hand into his head, Suhyeok freaked out, jumped back, and started scolding me.

Oh, right. The vampire Mina wouldn’t know that touching his head doesn’t do anything to me.

Oops. My bad.

“Haa… What even is this…”

Watching him sigh and rub his face in exhaustion, I grinned to myself, thinking that now was the perfect time to start weaving a convincing lie.

Alright, time to reel him in.

hevb