I Slept with the Villain Holding My Hand

“Coffee…”

Merria glanced at the maid as she saw the drink that was brought.

“Would you like tea?”

The maid squinted and asked back.

Merria said it to Reukis, but she didn’t expect the maid to react so quickly.

“I prefer this one.” Merria answered and shook her head in disapproval.

When the maid saw her smile, she slipped out immediately.

Reukis nodded, as he heard Merria’s answer.

“Then I’ll wait outside. Call me if you need anything.” The maid said as she arranged the tray.

Thud~

The door closed and the room was still quiet.

It was Merria who broke the silence.

“You don’t drink coffee, do you?” Merria asked while sipping her iced coffee.

As they have been on a dessert tour together so far, the two were well aware of each other’s taste in food.

Merria enjoyed drinking cold coffee over a sweet dessert.

Reukis, who had seen such Merria before, had ordered coffee in the same way as his curiosity was piqued.

“I prefer the cold one, but you’d better try both to find out what you like first.”

As she did to Karina last time, Merria also introduced coffee to Reukis.

She didn’t forget to add milk or sugar if it was bitter.

However, Reukis’ expression after emptying the coffee looked like a child who took medicine.

Merria burst into laughter as she recalled Reukis’ face, who hadn’t looked back at the coffee since then.

“It’s not a good fit for me, but I’ve always had it ready.” Reukis answered, fiddling with the teacup.

He had been praising himself for a long time inwardly.

He prepares various kinds of coffee beans for Merria, who would one day come, and learned to brew coffee from his servants.

Reukis couldn’t help but feel happy that all these things shone today.

Not knowing that his excitement had been transformed into exceptional preparedness, Merria nodded roughly.

It was because she thought of something more important than that.

“Reukis, do you have anything important to do tomorrow?” Merria gulped down the coffee and said.

“I don’t, what’s wrong?” Reukis asked, tilting his head.

Merria put her hands together with a wide smile.

Her red eyes glistened mournfully over her clasped hands.

“Then save me tomorrow.”

“…From what?”

“From the scary dressing room where the concept of time disappears.” 

“Haha!” Reukis burst into laughter.

It was because Merria, who treated the dressing room like a real unknown enemy, looked cute.

He smiles looking at such cuteness 

“Gladly.” (Reukis)

“I’m so glad I have you!” Merria said as she felt relaxed after confirming his answer.

‘I didn’t want to devote a day to a dress for two days in a row.’

But Karina and Lilith treated Merria’s complaints like petals on the side of the road, so she desperately needed someone to be her escape.

‘How happy I am to have a lover who could help me with excuses at times like this.’ (Merria)

Merria drank her coffee happily, thanking Reukis existence.

Knock, knock~

Someone knocked on the door in the middle of a long conversation.

“Master. Would you like to eat?”

She was the maid who prepared refreshments earlier.

Merria glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was about dinner time before she knew it.

Instead of answering right away, Reukis asked Merria.

“Merria, if you don’t mind, why don’t we have dinner before you leave?”

His fingers trembled slightly, indicating a sense of anticipation from her answer.

Merria nodded happily.

She had a story to tell for tomorrow’s operation, and she was hungry.

“Okay.”

As soon as Merria’s answer fell, Reukis spoke to the maid outside.

“Prepare a meal for two.” (Reukis)

“I see.”

As if the maid had expected Reukis to say something like that, the meal was ready in no time.

The conversation between the two continued as they headed to the restaurant under the guidance of Reukis.

Usually it was Merria who always spoke, but Reukis talked as much.

How thorough are Karina and Lilith when it comes to dresses.

And the troubles of the two of them, and the hardships Merria went through today.

Merria, who was now very accustomed to sharing their daily life, whispered softly.

“Was there anything you want to do tomorrow?”

Merria, who was scooping up the soup, asked.

Reukis nodded straight away.

“I just wanted to go with you, uhm..”

Reukis, who had answered brightly, soon stopped talking.

His ears heated up.

Merria could not understand his reaction.

“What’s wrong?” She asked with her head tilted.

When she asked with eyes wide open, Reukis tried to look elsewhere.

Then he answered with a small voice like an ant.

“If you… go back to the mansion.”

“If I go?”

“My letter should have arrived.”

“Well.”

It’s something that happens all the time, so it wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

Perhaps there was something in that letter.

Merria stared at her lover’s embarrassed face curiously.

“Should I not read it?”

Reukis quickly nodded his head in spite of the completely innocent question.

What don’t you know that if you react like that, I’d only want to know more?

Merria smiled with a bit of sadness and most of her mischief.

“No, I do not want to.”

‘Hahaha!’ Merria’s cheerful laughter echoed through the dining room.

She enjoyed the meal, pretending not to notice that Reukis’ pupils were shaking violently.

✿

After finishing the meal and taking a light walk, the sun was setting slowly.

‘I have to go out early tomorrow, so I thought of parting at this point today.’ (Merria)

Merria got on the carriage first even after Reukis, who told her that he would take her to the carriage.

“Then I’ll be on my way.”

She poked her head out of the window and waved at him.

He covered his lips sullenly as if he had ever been embarrassed.

Rather, when we met outside, the breakup wasn’t much closer.

‘The thought of spending time together in my own place and then leaving I felt regretful.’ (Reukis)

Reukis grabbed her hand, which was rustling in front of him, and fiddled with it.

Merria patted his head as if she had read his regret.

“Would you come pick me up tomorrow morning?”

As usual, we would still meet in front of the clock tower, but just in case.

Lilith used to pop somewhere suddenly.

It would be easy to get out of the limelight if Reukis came.

At her unusual proposal, Reukis immediately raised his head.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, could I ask you a favor?”

Whatever the intentions were, it was important for him that it was the first request that Merria formally ask of him to come to their mansion.

Reukis brushed away his sullen face and smiled.

“Of course.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Having received the promise, Reukis gently put Merria’s hand back into the carriage.

The slight regrets buried in his fingertips were scattered in the air.

Reukis watched the scene silently until Merria’s carriage passed through the front gate of his mansion, and turned away.

After a long day, Merria returned to the Rackester Mansion and headed straight to her room feeling exhausted.

Merria thought she could rest in her room after she washed up, after returning from her outing early in the morning.

She sat down at her desk rubbing her sore eyes.

Meanwhile, Lexie, who had prepared her bath water, approached and said,

“The butler gave me a letter earlier. Do you want to read it now?”

“Ah, yes!”

Merria, recalling Reukis’ letter that he mentioned during dinner, replied furiously.

She was standing waiting for the letter.

Lexie, who looked over the desk, and tilted.

“Huh?”

“What’s the matter?”

When Merria asked, Lexie walked with a puzzled face.

In Lexie’s hand were two envelopes in a neat black and a wine-red color envelope.

“I received the black one, but I guess another one came.”

Merria asked, receiving the black envelope first.

“From whom?”

“Um… wait a minute.”

Lexie looked around the wine-colored envelope.

It was normal for ordinary letters to have the seal of the family or the name of the sender.

However, the wine-colored envelope did not contain the sender’s information, which should have been there.

“Should I open it?” Finally, Lexie, who found no information from the envelope, said.

This was her first time to receive a letter like this, so Merria reached out to see it for herself.

“Let me see.”

As the letter from Lexie’s hand reached Merria’s, a beautiful white handwriting floated on the envelope as if it had just been written.

[Dylan]

It was futile to see Lexie staring at her, and the letter revealed itself as if she had been waiting for its owner.

Hiding the letters was a magic used mainly when sending secret letters.

‘Dylan?’

Merria thought of a man when she said Dylan.

The handsome man she had met a couple of times.

‘Now that I see it, the color of this envelope also resembles his hair.’

“Why was this person…”

Merria’s head tilted out of pure wonder.

Then she suddenly remembered the last time she met him.

‘Then could I write a letter to you, Lady?’

I think that’s what he said last time…

Merria frowned, and she recalled the conversation that followed.

But after that, she couldn’t even say a proper goodbye because all she cared about was Reukis.

Merria thought it ended at that time.

She couldn’t understand the owner of Dylan, who dared to send the letter.

‘But there was something I was curious about rather than figuring out his intentions, so I decided to think about it later.’

Merria, who put down the wine-colored envelope in her hand, first picked up the black envelope that she knew well who the sender was.

When I turned to the back of the envelope, as expected, there was a familiar seal.

A wolf with its eyes wide open in the middle of two crossed swords.

It undoubtedly belonged to the Fredericks.

“What’s in here?”

Merria excitedly opened the envelope with a wide smile on her lips.