I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 3.1

Vivienne Mergoville.

The future daughter-in-law of the Chairman of the House of Lords, who also serves as the Chief Justice. She was the only lead in tracking down the corruption of the legal cartel, which persistently denied any connection with the underworld. It meant she was an informant worth coveting for his father, the Prime Minister of the Empire.

Therefore, it was a worthwhile idea for the esteemed Prime Minister to create a stand-in for his only son. Since there would be variables like his only son’s temperament to move the real one, they would create a disguise mask with the intelligence agency’s technology, give the mission to a fake who resembled him, and have him approach the woman.

It was a worthwhile idea, but not satisfactory.

From the fact that he, the Prime Minister’s real only son, would be restricted from setting foot in the capital for a certain period.

Fortunately, the target was starved for love, treated as a living resource by her family, and coldly treated by her fiancé, so the ‘stand-in’s’ mission would be completed relatively quickly.

Nevertheless, the two items listed above troubled him. Either way, they were just variables that would cause annoying things to happen to his otherwise well-running business.

So he arbitrarily captured the fake and acted as the agent his father had created.

It was unacceptable for the intelligence agency agent, who was acting as his stand-in, to roam the capital and control the movements of himself, the Prime Minister’s real son. It was also unacceptable for that agent to approach that woman and find out the truth about the underworld-legal cartel corruption.

Because the head of the underworld that his father, the Prime Minister of the Empire, was trying to track down was none other than himself.

Nothing was more unnecessary than noise in his life right now. Blood was once a privilege, but now it was just a cumbersome restriction.

“Am I intruding presumptuously?”

Edmund Colt said, looking at the place where the police car had disappeared.

“No.”

The voice answering was a tone lower. The woman on the terrace, who had been evaluating people with eyes unique to high society and raising one corner of her mouth whenever he spoke, was nowhere to be found.

Her shoulders, drooping down, looked somewhat pitiful.

“You’re late with the introduction. I hear you’re the Prime Minister’s son?”

The tone of looking down on the other person remained the same. Even in an overwhelmingly inferior situation, there was no sign of servility to be found.

Aware that his gaze was directed at her swollen cheek or tear marks, Vivienne walked past him and forward. Her long, straight hair fluttered in the biting wind.

“Earl Edmund Colt.”

When the other person didn’t seem to be following, she turned around and stared blankly, appearing noble. In the street where no snow had fallen, the only thing pure white was that face.

When he didn’t answer, she raised her chin slightly and lowered her eyes, a habit she didn’t seem to be aware of.

“You knew my name.”

“Yes. Thanks to you misstepping onto the terrace, my fiancé kindly informed me.”

“Did I cause you trouble that day?”

Vivienne Mergoville’s running away from home was not a simple love affair. He asked knowingly. It was because if the woman revealed a security vulnerability even a little earlier, he wouldn’t have to waste any more time.

“You did.”

The disposal would be quick and simple. Vivienne’s gaze reached him, who was already walking next to her.

“Not now, though.”

“Did your fiancé raise his hand because of that?”

“You’re direct. People don’t usually ask that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault you were born into a position where you don’t have to read people’s faces.”

“……”

“This is my parents’ doing. You don’t have to worry about it, since I was scolded for another matter. What about you?”

Was she trying to change the subject? Whatever the reason, Vivienne’s silence was something he was grateful for. If he got rid of the woman, there would be no noisy business. He could release his father’s great stand-in now.

“Pardon?”

“The Mergoville family’s banquet is a dance party worth seeing. I’m asking why you weren’t there longer.”

“I had business at the banquet hall, but you disappeared.”

“Don’t people usually say the business disappeared?”

“It does disappear sometimes.”

The noble lady, who had glanced up at him as if dumbfounded, didn’t show her face for long.

“Sometimes it disappears right in front of my eyes, so I have to go look for it myself.”

“You’re saying you were tailing me in a very elegant way.”

“Far from it.”

At the same time as that, a classic saloon car, standing alone on the wealthy neighborhood street, approached the two.

“I just remembered a face that looked like it needed help and waited for the right time to appear.”

Although she wasn’t naive enough to believe the words as they were, she wasn’t on guard either. That meant these were the words the woman wanted to hear.

As soon as he realized that fact, he suddenly wanted to play a prank. This time it was purely out of curiosity.

“Being out here at this hour means you have a destination. If you tell me where it is, I’ll take you there.”

He wanted to make this noble lady beg him to take her to his house.

Vivienne Mergoville hesitated for a long time before saying an address. It wasn’t his house, her fiancé’s hotel, or her mansion.

A boarding house in a working-class residential area on the outskirts of the capital. It was an address that flowed naturally from her lips, as if she had been mulling it over for quite some time, rather than having just thought of it.

“It’s my birthday, and I have a friend I want to be congratulated by.”

“……”

“I wasn’t invited today.”

She had a thoughtful face.

❖ ❖ ❖

In the meantime, the darkness had settled heavily enough to swallow even the streetlights. It still wasn’t snowing, and the temperature was lower than ever.

Vivienne stood in one of the few public telephone booths in the capital, holding the receiver and looking at the man standing outside.

He was smoking a cigar with one hand in his pocket. When her breath covered the glass of the phone booth, his figure disappeared behind the opaque surface.

When she caressed the glass with her bare hand, the scenery of 86 Maybriam Street was revealed, soaked in winter. The chill didn’t disappear from her fingers, so Vivienne breathed warm air on her fingertips.

A voice was heard over the receiver. Vivienne hesitated for a long time before opening her mouth.

“Mergov… no, please connect me to 86 Maybriam Street.”

Not far away, the blue door of a house and the number 86, embossed in gold above it, came into view.

86 Maybriam Street. The boarding house must not have been well soundproofed, as the sound of a ringing telephone could be heard from afar.

Click. Just as the sound of the phone bell stopped, Vivienne quickly put down the receiver.

She had known before coming here that her childhood friend Madison, who lived there, would not answer the phone, and she had just confirmed it with her own eyes.

Startled by the sound of change falling from the phone, Vivienne took out a handkerchief, roughly wiped the receiver, and came out of the phone booth.

“They say they can’t come to pick you up?”

The man, who had been standing at a distance, tapped the end of the lowered cigar with his finger. Of course, the ‘person who would come to pick her up’ he was talking about was her family. They were also the people she should have called just now.

“You put the phone down pretty hard.”

The man pointed to the blue phone booth behind her. She didn’t know he was watching everything, from her making the call to hanging up.

Vivienne prayed in her heart that the sound of the phone bell she had just heard from that boarding house wouldn’t betray her difficult situation. She made up a call she hadn’t even made.

“…I left the party without saying anything, so I guess they’re very angry. My parents don’t really like me hanging out with Madison either.”

It was half a lie, since it contained some truth.

“The friend who lives in that boarding house was named Madison?”

The man said, casting his gaze towards the blue door of 86 Maybriam Street.

“Yes. That’s right. But she’s abroad now, so she’s not there.”

“A wasted trip.”

“…I’m sorry.”

Vivienne rubbed her arms. Her party evening gown alone couldn’t block the street’s murderous chill.

She felt vague. It was because she knew the reason why she had to go home to escape this cold.

“It’ll take a long time to get back to the Mergoville mansion from here. The Prime Minister’s residence is even further from here.”

It was a remark that was conscious of the fact that he was called the Prime Minister’s only son.

“That’s not a problem. I don’t live in the residence, so that’s that.”

“……”

“It wouldn’t be good for you to go back to the mansion with me, so I’ll contact the Metropolitan Police Department.”

“No.”

Edmund’s eyebrow raised at Vivienne’s urgent voice. Vivienne avoided his gaze.

“…I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

It was readable that the man’s voice had become subtly lower. Vivienne couldn’t answer.

“Didn’t you say your fiancé doesn’t like you being with other men?”

Coincidentally, it was what she had said when she first met him.

“It’s cold.”

The jacket immediately draped over her shoulders was warm. His breath tickled her neck. Vivienne muttered, fastening her collar.

“Is the mansion near here?”

It would have been a sight that would have made her mother faint. But right now, the only lifeline she had was this man and the facts she had learned while observing him.

This man was a man who could be her shield in an equal position to her fiancé, and a man with the appearance of the Prime Minister’s son who could be a threat to Ludwig.

And the fact that he had a purpose for her and that it wasn’t a romantic interest.

So the fact that he wouldn’t harm her target strongly pushed her to make that choice.

“I’ll take you to a nearby hotel. It seems like a better option than staying at my mansion.”

“……”

“You don’t have to return the jacket.”

At the same time, his gaze didn’t leave her eyes. The unfamiliar tension that crept in made the faint background behind him clear.

Vivienne then realized that this man had come all the way here without getting lost at all.

The Prime Minister’s son could never have done that. The high-ranking man didn’t belong in a place like this, and she had heard that his stay in the capital wasn’t long because he was learning business from his uncle, the Duke.

She had been curious from the beginning. A man with an underworld accent for being the Prime Minister’s son. A contradiction of not living in the residence but knowing the geography of the capital’s outskirts well.

Unmissable elements for being a nobleman’s son who grew up well. Calloused hands, driving skills, a cheap saloon car to make up appearances.

“You’re a fake, aren’t you?”

Those were words that must have popped out as if possessed. It was a rash remark thrown out to somehow hold onto him, and an absurd guess made up only of hunches.

Because she didn’t want to appeal to emotions to let him know her misery. She wanted to know the reason why he was trying to approach her and use it, but she had to buy time to do that.

For a moment, her gaze was directed at his face, which was obscured by the darkness. The shadows along the intense lines were flawlessly perfect. But to be captivated by that, the faint dark green glow in the light gave an overwhelming feeling.

It was that moment. The look in his eyes that was scanning her changed.

He didn’t ask back. But he didn’t turn around and move away from her sight either, which felt like an implicit signal to say more.

Vivienne’s gaze brushed against a costly cigar that had fallen to the ground. Sarlus. It was top-of-the-line.

Edmund’s shoe heel pressed down on the end of the reddish cigar. Vivienne, who had stopped breathing for a moment, took a deep breath at the end of the moment.

Everything the man was wearing was top-of-the-line. It was a conclusion that she could never have reached if she had made a judgment based only on the outer shell.

“It was a slip of the tongue…”

“I guess so.”

The man’s black leather shoes came closer to Vivienne’s view, which had been looking down.

“Lady Mergoville, didn’t you make that face even when you first encountered me on the terrace?”

Vivienne, who couldn’t help but raise her head, had no choice but to listen to his words in silence.

“I’ve been wondering all along. On what basis are you saying that?”

Calm down, Vivienne. She couldn’t go back to the mansion like this today.

Vivienne recalled the memory of picking up the receiver and uttering the words ‘Mergoville mansion’.

This man was the only and meaningful lifeline she had right now. If her guess was correct, this man was just a fake who was neither the Prime Minister’s son nor anything else. In other words, he could be someone of much lower status than her.

Thinking that made her feel more comfortable. Since he had an accent from Mirabolta Street, he was probably someone from much lower down than she guessed.

The trembling of the hand that had been holding the chain of the small pochette gradually stopped.

Curiosity, huh.

“…It’s all too unrealistic to be real.”

It was better this way than to have it resolved.

Vivienne looked straight up at the man with a face that was much more relaxed. Just as the word ‘unrealistic’ brushed her tongue. She, who had been a mere greenhouse flower, didn’t know how to act, but she didn’t think she had to worry about how her words would sound.

The man in front of her really suited those words.

“Did I make a mistake?”

“No.”

He answered neatly. He then fastened the jacket she was wearing and stepped back.

“Don’t people usually say ‘it’s like a dream’ in that case?”

He asked as if passing by casually. Vivienne let out a breath she had been holding in without making it obvious.

“The man in front of you also looks like a mirage.”

“……”

“Or like a fake.”

It seemed like he hesitated. It seemed like the blood vessels briefly stood out on the receding hand. When their gazes collided for a moment, Vivienne gathered the lapels of the jacket, which was much larger than her frame, with one hand, and tried to make the most pitiful face possible.

“You must be cold, so I’ll guide you to my mansion as you said.”

If her guess was true, he would have no choice but to wonder about the true meaning contained in her words.

“Thank you.”

After permission to follow was given, Vivienne naturally headed for the back door of the car and glanced at Edmund’s side.

The reason their gazes met was because he, who had naturally opened the front door, was sitting in the driver’s seat and looking at Vivienne. Although it was blocked by glass, it sounded like a low laugh could be heard. Only when the man, who had soon opened the door and come out, opened the back door as if he were a chauffeur in charge of protocol, did Vivienne’s face turn red.

She passed him, opened the passenger seat door herself, and slammed the car door shut. The car started with Edmund, who had already gotten into the seat next to her with her arms crossed.

From then on, Vivienne couldn’t help but be bothered by the fact that he called her ‘your ladyship’ instead of ‘lady’.

The silence that followed. The scenery outside the car window changed two or three times in the slowly blinking gaze. The unchanging painting in the mansion was different here.

Even though it was just one person by her side, the temperature was so different from the cold, miserable, and bitter night escape.

The capital’s night was punctuated by brilliant lights. There was light everywhere, so it was as if they had moved the white night that she had only heard about.

It was a product of civilization achieved through the innovation of gas lamps, which didn’t want to give way to incandescent lights, but it just looked beautiful to those who didn’t know the circumstances.

Vivienne forgot to evaluate the saloon as too old and leaned further towards the window. Just as she discovered a lamplighter moving on a bicycle with a long stick, Vivienne’s gaze followed his angled hat.

A street called the most prime real estate among the capital’s wealthy neighborhoods.

The night street, with the gradually disappearing lamplighter as the vanishing point, was an exquisite harmony of light and fluctuating colors.

Edmund’s gaze briefly shifted to Vivienne’s face, which was sitting quietly. What he paid attention to was the cheek reflected in the dark car window. Her pure white skin was swollen with red marks. The dried tears were clear even in the reflected image.

Even while looking straight ahead, he had a face that was mulling over her somewhat shabby appearance. Vivienne’s shoulder flinched with the recoil as the car body suddenly changed direction, but that was all.

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