I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 6.4

[Is that all?]

Words should have come out, but her mind was blank. Instead of speaking, Vivianne trembled. The longer the silence, the stronger the restraint became.

[Ah!]

Vivianne finally opened her mouth when she felt pain at the back of her neck. The man sucked and bit the skin behind her white neck.

Her flesh was crushed and chewed. Vivianne’s breathing became rough when she felt his tongue.

[Ugh, if you do this….]

[Can’t I?]

A cold voice that sounded like mockery awakened Vivianne’s senses.

[What brings you to a place like this.]

[…….]

Vivianne couldn’t say anything and shrugged her shoulders. Tears welled up in her barely opened eyes.

[Now, I’m going to let you go and go up to the second floor here.]

Vivianne nodded diligently. Because the bitten area still hurt, she only wanted to return to the agent’s villa, to a bright place.

[The second son of the Nelvinos family is hiding here.]

Facing something like death, she missed Edmund. Other words were not heard well.

[What you have to do is stand still here, Vivianne Mergoville. Then, when you hear a gunshot.]

Nod, nod.

[Then, move. Got it?]

Vivianne realized that she had been nodding mechanically only after his arm was released and the sound of his boots faded away.

Vivianne waited, holding her breath, determined to break the bottle in front of her and use it as a weapon if someone approached her.

After what felt like a lifetime, finally.

Bang!

When the sound rang out, she stumbled towards the open door as quickly as if she were a bird sitting on a tree.

Looking at the bright streetlights as if to prove that she was alive, Vivianne took a breath and turned her head to look up at the second floor of the building as soon as she pinched her cheek.

A large figure was looking down at her in the same way.

Because the glass was old, she couldn’t clearly distinguish the person behind it, but she could guess that it was Don Becallone.

The moment Vivianne felt that she had made eye contact with him, she shifted her gaze to where Freddie and the car had been.

“To the villa… to the villa, will you take me?”

Vivianne ran towards him, grabbed the hem of his clothes, who was drinking alcohol from a hip flask, and said.

Freddie, who had been leaning against the passenger seat door, silently gave up his seat and got into the driver’s seat with the words, “Let’s go.”

Vivianne clenched and unclenched her trembling hands several times before barely getting into the passenger seat. She leaned back against the backrest, feeling her legs giving way.

Bright headlights flashed and lit the way in the working-class area full of factory smoke.

Soon, the familiar villa came into view.

There were three people in the building.

The second son of the Nelvinos family.

Her.

And the head of the underworld, Don Becallone.

However, the saloon waiting outside was Freddie’s, only one. Leaving aside the second son of the Nelvinos family who was hiding on the second floor, there was no car of Don Becallone who had entered the place after her.

It was clear that there was the sound of a car behind her, although it was difficult to conclude that he had walked. The sound of someone opening the door, followed by the sound of footsteps.

After that, her memory is faint.

The more she groped, the more blurred what the man behind her had said. Only the pain in the back of her neck awakened the feeling that this was reality.

‘Strange.’

But one thing she remembered. It was the touch of his body and the tone of his voice.

But no matter how much she tried to compromise, when she looked closely, he was definitely not the ‘Don Becallone’ she had seen in the newspaper.

Judging from the voice and breathing that had been pouring down on her, he was a head taller than her and had a solid physique that seemed to have been hardened by various threats. The only thing he had in common with the publicly known ‘Don Becallone’ was his nationality. It wasn’t that he was lying, his foreign language was almost perfect, and his voice had the innate quality of a ruler.

People say that beasts have pheromones that make smaller animals unable to move.

The sense of intimidation that captivated her steps. Nevertheless, his command was engraved in her mind.

The man seemed more like a lord of the underworld than the ‘Don Becallone’ she had heard on the radio. It felt like being eaten alive by a snake.

“Get out.”

The car stops. Vivianne looked back and forth between Freddie in the driver’s seat and the front windshield of the car several times.

Even though it felt like she had been there for a long time, she hadn’t arrived at the villa, and when she thought that Freddie was just driving around in circles, she only wanted to go back quickly, but as soon as she arrived, worry came before relief enveloped her body.

What if Ludwig is nearby?

Despite Vivianne’s desperate gaze, Freddie sighed and even showed the kindness of getting out of the car and opening the passenger seat door.

Thinking that he might grab her wrist if she just sat here, Vivianne hesitated and got out.

The man left her as soon as he dropped off a piece of luggage.

Vivianne felt extremely tired.

As she staggered and tried to sit down on the floor, she saw someone leaning one arm against the mailbox in front of the villa.

“Edmund!”

Vivianne had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. When she approached him, thinking that she didn’t know how she had walked, he wrapped his arm around her waist and supported her.

“Ah, thank you.”

Vivianne froze as she faced the man’s face, who was silently looking down at her.

Everything was familiar. Other than the man she had met in the old shopping district on Mirabolta Street, she couldn’t think of anyone else from this touch.

But the scent was different from thinking that Edmund was the same man as the head of the underworld. This man doesn’t smell of blood.

The scent of stiff new shirt fabric, and a somewhat pungent skin scent.

The scent of absinthe liqueur that the cold dawn air had swept away.

The subtle qualities she had discovered while observing him were mixed together.

Vivianne’s breathing became even.

‘Besides.’

When he was standing behind her, the man’s eyes reflected in the glass bottle were clearly green. Vivianne blinked her eyes several times and looked up at Edmund.

The light from the streetlights was so bright that she had to squint, but it was definitely blue eyes. It was different from the man she had met earlier.

[Thank you for waiting.]

She greeted him in Mecalentia, as she had done to the head of the underworld she had met earlier, but the man did not answer. This time, Vivianne expressed her gratitude in the Imperial language.

“…Thank you for catching me.”

Then the answer came back in Daatro Imperial, her and his native language. After all, this man is not that man.

“You didn’t smoke this time.”

Vivianne smiled awkwardly and said as she moved away from him.

“It doesn’t seem like you waited long. That’s a relief.”

It seemed that her guess was correct. He turned and walked towards the villa, saying.

“But the Lady happened to be coming in a car over there. It was a car I hadn’t seen before.”

“Ah, that’s….”

“If you’re having trouble, you don’t have to tell me.”

The conversation did not continue. Vivianne was the one trying to connect it somehow. Even though she had decided not to, when she was about to say goodbye to him, she became desperate to get even one word back.

“The medicine you applied is all gone.”

Vivianne said, pointing to Edmund’s cheek.

If the ointment was gone even though he didn’t seem to have taken a shower, it meant that he had rubbed it off.

Vivianne felt her heart, which had been beating fast, sink at the thought that he might have found her annoying.

“Something happened to splash on my face.”

“You don’t have to make excuses.”

He did not answer the sharp words.

I shouldn’t have said this. Vivianne immediately regretted it.

It was only her who became shabby and pathetic when she always demanded more than a transaction.

That’s why she wanted to get away from this place. She would rather leave the villa and throw her into danger.

“If I’m annoying you, you can just say so.”

It’s the worst. She didn’t even know why she was doing this.

Yes, she was just upset.

From the moment she left the villa until now, she had been thinking only of him.

But he was annoyed even by the small trace she had left behind. Enough to rub it off quickly after she disappeared.

If she said goodbye like this, he would have forgotten her and lived on. He would have lived his life as if she were not in his mind, and the memory of this short time would have quickly faded.

The entrance to the villa was getting closer, and the back door of the building could be seen in the darkness.

‘Come to think of it.’

Don Becallone’s car must have been parked at the back door of that old building, Vivianne tried to think of something else. The puzzle of the question she had in Freddie’s saloon was solved.

There were three people. There were two saloons.

‘One at the front door and one at the back door.’

Vivianne passed through the old walls of the villa’s hallway and headed to the elevator in this building.

After a few steps, a well-made iron gate greeted her. Vivianne groped for the elevator door handle in the darkness and pulled it to the side.

The diamond shape of the iron bars crumpled and guided Vivianne into the narrow space. Fortunately, the inside of the elevator was lit with bright lights because it was electrified.

When Vivianne turned her head to close the door made of iron bars, the man’s hand grabbed the other handle and stopped her.

“Are you going to leave me behind?”

He overwhelms her grip so easily. Unlike her, who used both hands, he had one hand casually in his pocket.

“If I wipe this off.”

He tapped his cheek and said.

“I thought the compassionate Lady would apply ointment again.”

“…….”

Thud.

Vivianne’s hand strength loosened and the man who was trying to open the door won. Vivianne was able to quickly take her hand off the elevator door handle to avoid getting hurt.

The man didn’t seem to care and looked at the door once, and then at Vivianne, who was looking at him in surprise, as if he were looking at a rabbit he had almost hunted.

“Aren’t you going to do that?”

“…….”

“You’re out of it.”

The man chuckled and pressed Vivianne’s cheek. For some reason, he seemed to be in a good mood.

Vivianne blankly looked down at the floor. In the meantime, the man had let her into the elevator, closed and locked the door, and finished pulling the lever.

The spring behind the sign indicating the floor turns. The belt-shaped label on the spring rotates, changing the numbers and colors revealed on the thin glass film.

Ding.

The man unlocked the elevator door as if he had said everything he had to say, and walked out. Only when the man opened the door to the villa did Vivianne blink and take a step.

She felt strange thinking about facing him in his room at this time.

As Vivianne awkwardly closed the door to the villa and turned around, she saw Edmund facing her directly.

Vivianne was the first to avert her gaze.

“You know.”

Vivianne said, still staring at his shoe tips. She couldn’t see it clearly, but there was a strange stain on his shoes. Why would she have such useless thoughts?

“What I said earlier, it’s too late today, so I’ll apply the ointment again tomorrow.”

Vivianne flinched as the man tilted his head. She had no idea where his gaze was directed.

She closed her eyes as his breath came closer. The man kissed her lightly on the cheek. It’s a familiar feeling. She missed this fiery touch.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t believe it?”

He whispered from a distance of a hand’s breadth from her cheek. Only then did Vivianne open her tightly closed eyes.

What Vivianne saw was the man’s tie loosely hanging around his neck and his firm body visible between the unbuttoned vest.

“What?”

“Don’t expect me to believe it as it is.”

At the same time as those words, she remembered what she had said while sitting on his jacket in the wide-open space.

“Like the agent’s calculated lies.”

What followed was his voice instead of a memory. The unlucky Edmund Colt got up with his hands still in both pockets, turned around and walked away.

“I’ll use the ointment you gave me well.”

It seemed like something like ‘without your help’ was omitted.

Vivianne stood there for a long time, her face flushed with heat. He was a master at manipulating people as he pleased.

It was amazing that he was a very unlucky type who knew he was good, but she didn’t hate it.

It was a narrow three-room villa, different from her home, but Vivianne was satisfied with it. No matter how cold he was, his presence alone made this place feel like home.

“Good night.”

Vivianne spoke to his indifferent back.

“You too, Lady.”

It seemed that she was completely blinded by the fact that even the perfunctory greeting that came back was good. That’s because it was him, not Madison, who was waiting for her in front of the villa.

Madison would have thought that seeing the world was more important than staying as her friend.

That man was different.

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