I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 7.1

Vivianne

As the man returned to his room, Vivianne was left alone in hers. The agent didn’t seem to feel the cold, for he never bothered to light the fireplace. Vivianne knew she couldn’t wake him, so she curled up on the bed.

Looking up, she saw a window in front of her. It was the same window Vivianne often gazed out of during the early hours when Edmund was away from the villa.

Vivianne thought of the much larger glass window she used to look out of from the mansion.

Twelve years ago.

There was a time, on a warm summer day, when that window was wide open.

Vivianne loved the cool breeze that came through the open window, so she would sit there and play with her favorite toys. Her most beloved dolls stood in a row, waiting for her to brush their hair.

A pin that Senator Rex had given her sparkled in her neatly combed hair.

She lacked nothing. On a table in the distance were piles of precious candies, biscuits, and fairy tale books, and in the corner stood an elaborately designed dollhouse.

Vivianne, wearing a new summer dress that had just arrived at the mansion, was in a very good mood.

Especially when her parents were out of the mansion and even her brother, Linus, was away at boarding school, the maids were more obedient to her.

The land was endlessly quiet in the aftermath of the intercontinental war. Even more so in the mansions of the wealthy.

As Vivianne was lost in her own world, a wooden object shot in through the open window.

“Huh? It went in!”

“Oh, what do I do? That’s mine. I told Samuel I’d only use it once and give it back. Samuel. Samuel!”

What Vivianne picked up was a model glider. It wasn’t an expensive one from the market, but rather something someone had painstakingly carved from wood.

The adults said that the powered airplane had been invented around the time she was born. Since then, the sight of people soaring through the sky had filled many with awe.

If there was anything as prized as a high-end doll, it was an elaborate model glider. Linus had many of those in his room.

‘Mom will scold me if I go outside.’

Vivianne looked towards the door, about to get up, but then sat back down. Compared to the ones in Linus’s room, this glider was practically just a piece of wood. She set it aside and became engrossed in playing with her dolls.

Vivianne picked up the wooden object again when a commotion arose from downstairs, about half an hour later.

“No, I’m telling you. Everywhere else is fine, but not the upper floor. That’s where the masters reside.”

“I’ll only take the lost item and leave. I promise I won’t touch anything else.”

Vivianne clutched the glider in her hand as she descended the stairs. The closer she got, the louder the voices arguing became.

“Oh, a glider!”

Trying to observe the situation secretly, she drew everyone’s attention as she came down to the entrance hall, thanks to a brazen voice.

The butler and maid turned to look at Vivianne. And standing in front of the maid who had stepped aside was a girl of about her age.

“Daniel.”

The girl, shaking the shoulder of the boy next to her, was dressed in commoner’s clothes, as she had only heard about. She wore an old vest over a blouse and a loose tie.

Vivianne stared at the girl wearing pants with a strange expression.

“That’s it, right? That’s the one you lost, isn’t it?”

The boy, a head shorter than her, nodded vigorously.

“Th-thank you. But the leader, I mean, Samuel, will be really mad if he finds out.”

“What kind of leader steals your things and uses them carelessly? You, if that kid bothers you again, come and tell me. My mom and dad are lawyers.”

“Y-yes.”

Does she even know what a lawyer is? Vivianne rolled her eyes. Vivianne, looking bored, handed the model glider to the maid as if tossing it aside and turned to leave.

“Hi, I’m Madison Parker.”

Vivianne looked down at the hand extended towards her.

“Thank you so much for returning the model glider to Daniel. Daniel isn’t originally from this neighborhood, but a kid named Samuel flew this all the way here to tease him.”

“Why?”

“He was wondering if anyone actually lived in this palace-like mansion.”

Feeling someone’s gaze, she turned her head to see the boy staring blankly at her.

He nodded eagerly, as if confirming the girl’s words. The girl continued boldly.

“You live in a really nice place, don’t you? My mom works in the house next to the one next door, and that’s a mansion too, but it’s not as luxurious as this.”

Vivianne turned away, as if she didn’t need to hear any more.

“Thank you for helping. I’ll write you a letter!”

As the girl said, Madison’s parents worked as lawyers nearby, so it was common for model gliders to fly into Vivianne’s window.

This time, there was a letter attached to it. It was obvious who it was from.

Vivianne, who had been carelessly throwing them into the fireplace, began to reconsider when her parents arrived at the mansion two weeks later.

“…A working-class child came to the mansion? Why didn’t you just send them away?”

Vivianne huddled under the covers, holding her breath as she listened to her mother’s voice from behind the door. In the darkness, the head maid’s voice followed.

“I tried to, but that girl Madison, who was with her, was so clever. She explained to the butler in detail why the model glider had to be returned.”

“For what reason?”

“Apparently, the boy named Daniel has an older brother who fought in the war and lost a leg. He doesn’t come out of the house, so the younger brother made the model glider with an old carving knife for months to cheer him up. To show him that even without legs, he can still fly. ”

“……”

“She spoke so clearly and logically that I couldn’t send them away. Her mother is a Dainchester lawyer, so she must have taken after her parents.”

After that, Vivianne didn’t throw away the model gliders that flew into her window.

Madison would also talk about the little masters of the Dainchester family. She would share interesting things that happened in the working-class neighborhood.

She would boast about new things she learned at school, and when Vivianne’s father was away, she would come over and eat the snacks that her mother had prepared.

Vivianne learned for the first time that trivial things make up the world, and that fragments of memories can create a patchwork of everyday life.

Two years later, her fiancé changed from Rex the firstborn to the second born, and exchanges with that family became more frequent. Conversely, Madison went on to a higher-level school, and the model gliders flying into the window became less and less frequent.

Then, everything changed on that day.

“Father, I’m sorry. I’ll never… I’ll never touch Linus’s books again.”

Sixteen-year-old Vivianne was sobbing, clutching at Marquis Mergoville’s pants.

Her calves, exposed beneath her dress, were swollen with merciless red welts.

Behind Vivianne was a broken switch, and behind that were scattered books.

The maids stood near the wall with expressions of suppressed misery. Vivianne’s brother, Linus, was also unable to step forward.

“I listened to your mother, who said that even a middle-class child could be useful, and allowed you to associate with her. And you betray me like this?”

“No. No, Father. She, Madison, has nothing to do with this. I just…”

Vivianne rubbed her head against her father’s clothes, begging for mercy as if trying to be cute.

“I was curious about why the model glider keeps falling to the ground instead of continuing to fly.”

“……”

“I thought the answer might be in the books that my brother reads… Father, I swear I will never write to her again. Please, please.”

Vivianne pleaded. The servants’ hearts were uneasy at the sight of such a beautiful young lady shedding tears.

“I will never touch the books that men read. So I will become a great, great daughter to Father.”

“You are my daughter, Vivianne, so you are a great aristocrat.”

At those words, Vivianne’s hand, clutching at his suit pants, trembled. He mercilessly pulled Vivianne’s hand away.

“Which means you cannot be like those filthy things you associate with.”

His gaze looking down was arrogant and cold.

“Your birthday is coming soon, and you will be seventeen, so stop acting like a neglected young lady.”

He turned and walked away without looking back.

“Now you must become your fiancé’s ‘woman’.”

Vivianne trembled more fiercely than ever at those words.

After that day, Vivianne often stared blankly out the window. She seemed to be waiting for something, but nothing happened except for the changing scenery outside.

The servants would glance at Vivianne’s thinning shoulders and slowly move on, but as that became routine, they took it for granted.

It was said that the reason things had turned out that way was not only Vivianne’s problem but also because Madison was preparing for her university entrance exams.

As time passed, the two communicated through letters, but even that was very rare.

Vivianne, for whom Madison was everything in her life, equated loneliness with her absence.

People said that these were just the kinds of things that happen between a noble lady and a middle-class childhood friend, but there are people for whom passing stories are life.

For the one left alone in that memory, in the sunlight of childhood, it was not as easy as it seemed to clear away the remnants of memories left by a friend and move forward.

Sometimes it felt like cutting out all the good memories along with a friend.

When one turned their back as an adult, the girl with the clumsily made model glider was trapped in childhood, tracing the traces left by her friend.

These memories faded with the brilliant summer light, and as consciousness floated, everything became faint.

❖ ❖ ❖

‘Was I asleep?’

Vivianne opened her eyes in the extreme cold. She didn’t know what kind of dream she had, but her eyes were moist.

Chronic loneliness left her with a sense of being alive. That’s why Vivianne didn’t like falling asleep.

Her wandering gaze swept across the room and captured a face in the darkness. The warmth stroking her cheek was wet with something that had flowed from her eyes. Feeling Edmund’s scent, Vivianne closed her eyes.

“It’s cold.”

Vivianne muttered sullenly and turned over. Come to think of it, her ordeal was all because of this house owner.

She heard a sound of something being put down. It was the sound of a very heavy lump of metal colliding with the ground. Vivianne opened her eyes and looked at the pistol placed on the side table in the distance. It was the one she had taken out and hadn’t returned yet.

As his footsteps were about to move away, Vivianne spoke again.

“Did I tell you to go?”

It was a word uttered without trying to choose her words, on the border between dream and reality. That was all, but she felt the bed mattress sink.

Vivianne grabbed the arm that was covering her with the blanket and pulling away, pulling it in tightly.

“Because it’s much warmer than this blanket.”

The man who was trying to pull away let her be as she snuggled into his arms. A calloused hand stroked her hair.

Soon, a soft kiss landed on her cheek, where her tears were about to dry.

As warmth enveloped her body, Vivianne’s face quickly regained color, and the breath of someone who was sound asleep filled the silence of the room. It was like a wild animal in the field that could run away at any time finding a comfortable nest and finally resting.

Edmund would let her hair flow through his fingers and pat her softly on the back, but Vivianne would only frown and toss and turn with her eyes tightly closed, without waking up.

Each time, a subtle scent brushed his nose. He felt the urge to bury his nose in her slender neck and inhale, but it was only buried in his clenched hand.

If that were the case, he would naturally want to mingle his lips with hers, and he would have to see himself lose his mind as he dug between her legs. Sex was obvious. The remnants left behind were ridiculously annoying.

Even if the other person was this noble lady, it wouldn’t be any different.

Rather, it would be more troublesome to clean up because she was of noble birth. When he remembered that the other person was still a young, innocent, and kind woman, he felt his turbid mind clearing. Yes. A kind woman.

Although her temperament was annoying, she wasn’t cold-hearted enough to completely abandon her family. The fact that she was always ready to return home showed that. She had a lot of affection and trusted people easily.

“No. No, Father. She, Madison, has nothing to do with this. I just…”

She seemed like a well-raised young lady, but her noble mouth knew how to beg even in her sleep, and the face rubbing against his waist seemed to be the result of long training.

This kind of person usually has a future determined by an authoritarian patriarch, and in that future, there is a man who will hold this woman’s hand. Therefore, getting involved was a headache.

There was no reason to have sex with this kid when it would lead to the same boring conclusion no matter who he did it with.

Besides, what the young lady wanted from him was a prince charming on a white horse from a fairy tale, not a villain from the underworld who could be caught and thrown in jail at any moment.

When this woman imagined the kiss that would awaken the princess from her hundred-year sleep, he thought about lifting her dress and exploring her white skin. Even so, when he saw her snuggling into his arms as if she had found a shelter on a rainy day, he wanted to be a good person to her.

Suppressing the thought of a cigarette, he wondered what it would be like if he were an intelligence agent, as the woman thought.

That would never happen. He hadn’t liked taking orders from anyone since the earliest moment he could remember.

Using.

Putting to the test, and ultimately destroying miserably.

But the thought of those lips betraying him didn’t make him feel good. When he shifted his gaze behind her back, he saw the pistol gleaming in the darkness.

He clearly remembered what he was going to do. He was going to carry out the plan and kill her.

Vivianne Mergoville’s honed senses had not betrayed her, and she had concluded that the man she met in the underworld and herself were the same person.

[Thank you for waiting.]

If that weren’t the case, there would have been no need to say those words in an unfamiliar foreign language. The only language he had shown her that he knew was Champenois, and definitely not Mecalentia.

Remembering the conversation they had in the underworld, she would have continued the conversation in that language as soon as she saw him.

There was no need to worry about cleaning up.

The bullet that would pierce this woman’s head tonight was from the Criminal Intelligence Agency, and the pistol was originally the agent’s weapon. It was a perfect correlation, so much so that one could think of the agent as someone created to take the blame for his own sins. He was lucky.

“How many times have you done it, the contract thing?”

“Once.”

“……”

“So yesterday at dawn must have been the first time.”

There are lies told to win the favor of someone you will never meet again. He didn’t want to know what Vivianne’s face would look like when she was caught. She would definitely have a sassy face and be on edge as always, but he was worried about what he would do if that happened.

If he wanted to have her, he would find her and hold her until the end, even if this woman found out his true self and rejected him.

Just like he had taken everything like this, using the best method instead of becoming the son of a suspect.

Before showing this true side of him. Before his emotions consumed his reason.

…It’s better to shoot her and get rid of her.

It wouldn’t be much different from the hunting he had done as a boy on his uncle’s estate.

It would be.

‘……’

Vivianne Mergoville snuggled closer to him in her sleep.

He was already hot, and when Vivianne moved her body as she adjusted her position, her collar brushed against him. He wondered if she was really asleep, so he looked at her face and saw that it was a peaceful face stained with tears again.

Support I Just Needed Someone to Hate