I Abandoned the Male Lead Who Cheated with the Villainess - Chapter 26
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
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“Here! Four more dark beers! And bring some clear wine too! Is that okay?”
Hamel shouted enthusiastically with a slightly slurred pronunciation, but disgustingly, he belatedly asked Rix if he was okay. However, Rix responded nonchalantly.
“Yes. It’s okay.”
Although Hamel’s eyes trembled at the response, the owner’s face remained gleeful as sales continued to flourish.
The two of them quickly emptied their glasses as if pouring the alcohol into their stomachs rather than drinking it.
“Cheers!”
“Cheeers.”
“Cheeeeers.”
“Chee… hiccup.”
Eventually, Hamel reached a point where he couldn’t speak properly, but he didn’t give up. It was truly a remarkable display of lust and stubbornness. When the waiter cleared the table filled with glasses twice, Hamel finally swayed and knocked over the table.
“Oops!”
The sound of the table collapsing and all the utensils on top breaking was noisy. Hamel, who was drunk to the point of his face turning red and saliva dripping, staggered on top of the scattered food.
“It seems like there’s a winner and a loser.”
In contrast, Rix, who calmly stood up from his seat, remained neat. There were no traces of alcohol on his lips, and no signs of fatigue in his movements.
“How… dare, you give… me medicine…”
Hamel mumbled incoherently without regaining his senses, but no one paid attention to his words.
“Come on, Deputy Head. Get up.”
“Yeah, why did you just keep pouring alcohol like that?”
The employees, who had been watching Hamel and Rix’s drinking contest, supported Hamel with expressions that said they had seen everything.
‘I was going to try my chances but ended up having to clean up messes.’
‘Ugh, it’s going to be tough going home with Miss Ivonne again today.’
The thoughts written on the faces of the drunken male employees were uniformly low, and Ivonne felt even a sense of repulsion from them.
“Ledd go! Nooot yeett! I’m, I’m, faaainee, hiccup!”
While Ivonne was feeling disillusioned, Hamel, still saying that he was fine, mentioned that Rix had put something in his drink with a slurred speech and was dragged out.
After a commotion in the bar, Ivonne could finally turn her gaze to Rix.
“Rix, are you okay?”
In response to Ivonne’s call, Rix slowly turned his head to meet her gaze. Under the dim lighting unique to the bar, his face was dyed with deep shadows.
‘…Am I drunk too?’
His features that the large glasses had been obscuring were so clear now. His face, created by a sculptor genius who knew how to use both positive and negative space perfectly, seemed like the face in her dream.
Rix lowered his eyelids and gazed down at Ivonne below.
“….Hoo.”
The faint sound of a sigh echoed. His lips, forming a round tail as they slightly stretched, were quite surreal. The slightly pulled cheeks and the relaxed jawline were all surprisingly beautiful.
So, Rix was smiling now.
However, his smile was a bit different from the refreshing and cool laughter he occasionally showed to Ivonne.
How could she put it?
‘A bit… Ah, right.’
Ivonne thought dazedly.
‘A raw feeling.’
Slightly taller than average, his exceptionally broad smile was overly dazzling to be considered a ‘man with no presence’ among female employees. Perhaps due to the alcohol, her heart pounded painfully, making it hard to breathe.
Rix spoke to Ivonne without withholding his smile, “It’s getting late.”
Whether it was because of the alcohol, both of them seemed to be having difficulty breathing, as evident from the thin tremor at the end of Rix’s words. It was as if he was choosing his words carefully while looking up at Ivonne upright.
He stammered, “I’ll take you home. It’s dangerous to go alone. It’s close to home, and we’re neighbors….”
His words increased significantly. Ivonne found his voice very pleasing. The nods, polite words, and the courtesy that he had displayed before now seemed quite regretful.
“Yes, thank you.”
Unconsciously, Ivonne took his outstretched large hand. Having drunk continuously, his body should have been warm, yet his hand was excessively dry and lukewarm.
‘The first handshake was so warm.’
She remembered his impressive hand, resembling a beast’s maw. But now, it was as warm as a blanket dried in the sun. Unknowingly, Ivonne smiled and said, “Will the Black Knight also be my escort?”
For a moment, the violet eyes behind the thick glasses seemed to shake with joy and delight, but it was so fleeting that Ivonne couldn’t be sure. However, the raw feeling that she had sensed before in his smile had returned.
The late-night path they walked together was quiet. However, even when climbing the sparsely traveled hill, it wasn’t scary.
“As for Deputy Head Hamel, he has been famous for harassing female employees since a long time ago.”
“….”
“So, when I first joined, other female colleagues warned me to be careful. It’s too simplistic to think that I’d be happy just because I’m popular with men, right?”
“….”
“Until now, I could escape from company dinners thanks to the fox, but, well.”
In addition to Ivonne occasionally grumbling, there was a man who filled the space with his presence alone. Ivonne absentmindedly shook the hand they were holding back and forth.
There was a moment of surprise, as Rix seemed to tighten his grip on her arm, but it soon relaxed. Now, the act of holding hands has become a clear form of intimacy, more than just an escort from a knight to his lady.
