<CHAPTER 12>
Pull Me Out of the Nightmare
“You sleep for a long time.”
The low voice pierced into her.
His words always became something more than sound and embedded themselves inside Evelyn.
It had always been that way.
Even after dying and coming back to life, Evelyn was so tired and irritated that his voice still shook her that she sat up abruptly.
“Doesn’t your head hurt from sleeping like that?”
“Where did your attendants go?”
Their words collided.
Rexfail, who had been leaning against the window and looking down at Evelyn sitting on the bed, cast his gaze at her.
“You opened your eyes.”
Of course she had.
She had woken up and moved.
Yet he spoke as if he had witnessed something remarkable.
“And you move.”
His extended fingertips brushed past Evelyn’s hair and came close to beneath his nose.
Her breath touched Rexfail’s fingers.
“You breathe.”
Only then did Evelyn properly look at Rexfail’s condition.
He wore a dark and sunken expression, as if he had returned from hell.
“Gail went downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because I told him to.”
Rexfail gathered a strand of Evelyn’s hair and lifted it into the air repeatedly.
After a while, perhaps bored with the act, he tossed the hair aside carelessly and moved closer to Evelyn.
“Evi.”
Evelyn held back her response.
She was not sure whether she was someone who could respond to the name “Evi.”
She hesitated for a long time before finally opening her mouth and answering quietly.
She had to.
Otherwise it felt as though Rexfail might collapse at any moment.
He seemed like smoldering ash that might crumble and never rise again, so she had to answer.
Rexfail slowly approached and held Evelyn’s face with both hands as if lifting it.
His touch was as though he were handling something fragile and precious.
Evelyn could not say anything and simply remained in his grasp.
“Evi.”
“Answer me.”
Their foreheads touched.
His desperate breath fell upon her lips.
“Please prove that you’re alive.”
“Tell me that you’re still in this world.”
“Pull me out of this nightmare.”
“I—”
Evelyn’s words cut off his desperate plea.
She pretended not to notice the breath tickling her lips and spoke.
“I’m Raven.”
“I’m not your Evi.”
You were never truly mine anyway.
You never wanted me, so why are you acting so desperate now?
Why?
She felt confused.
She even felt the urge to bite him.
Continuing the conversation was exhausting.
Rexfail’s gaze settled on Evelyn.
It held resentment and something close to reproach.
Without realizing it, Evelyn became defensive as if she had to argue against the attitude he showed her.
“Anyway, it seems like there’s a misunderstanding.”
“I’d appreciate it if you listened.”
Evelyn brushed his hand away coldly and moved slightly back.
The gaze that followed her was irritating.
“You are Evelyn.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Crossing her arms defensively and turning her head away, she felt Rexfail sit near her feet.
When she pulled her legs back to avoid touching him, he shamelessly followed and buried his face against her knees.
“Don’t you think it’s too late to pretend to be an ignorant country girl?”
“I’m not sure why you think I know anything.”
At that, Rexfail’s hand reached out and lightly touched her straight back.
“What woman lives with such perfect posture?”
“That’s because… the bedboard behind me is uncomfortable…”
“Even noble ladies don’t maintain posture that perfectly.”
“Only you would.”
At those words, a spark flared inside Evelyn.
Because it meant he knew many other women well enough to say such a thing.
Realizing she felt upset about that fact made her even more irritated.
“If you’re going to say pointless things, I’d appreciate it if you left.”
“And put everything back the way it was.”
“If things returned to how they were, you would come back to my side.”
The way it was.
If that were true, what distance between them would be appropriate?
Evelyn measured the distance between herself and Rexfail.
Right now Rexfail was leaning against her shin with his face buried in her knee.
It was very close.
But if things were truly the way they had been before, she knew such closeness would be impossible.
No matter how much she tried to approach him, Rexfail would have pushed her away.
“Raven.”
Lost in thought, she did not properly hear Rexfail calling her.
Even though his words were ignored, he simply curled the corner of his lips upward and smiled.
Then he whispered in an even softer voice.
“Evelyn.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
Ignoring her obvious displeasure, Rexfail pulled at the hair falling over her forehead and wrapped it around his finger playfully.
Then he gently kissed the strand of hair wound around his finger.
Seeing that, Evelyn pulled her hair back despite the pain.
Rexfail’s hand moved as if reluctant to let the hair go, chasing it several times.
Evelyn leaned her head back completely and pressed the back of her head against the wall.
Their eyes met.
Rexfail suddenly laughed.
His bright smile, as if nothing had happened, only worsened Evelyn’s irritation.
Rexfail reached out and grabbed the string hanging over the front of her chest.
It was the lace that closed the top of her linen dress.
It had been pulled tight but not tied.
Evelyn quickly wrapped her arms around her body and slapped his hand away.
“Where do you think you’re touching?”
Startled by the hand that had casually risen to her chest, she demanded.
Rexfail innocently played with the string and replied,
“Do you know how to tie it?”
Evelyn was speechless.
She had only pulled the lace tight because she didn’t know how to tie it properly.
When she had watched Simila tie the knot before, it hadn’t looked difficult.
But when she tried to do it herself, it was extremely hard.
Sometimes it even tightened so much that it couldn’t be undone.
“You couldn’t even wash dishes.”
His relaxed remark sounded almost like an accusation that she couldn’t do anything.
Evelyn’s face flushed with embarrassment.
“And you can’t cook either.”
You can’t do it either!
Evelyn shouted inside her head and suppressed her anger.
Then she muttered quietly as if making an excuse.
“It’s because I was sick.”
“What?”
“Half a year ago, I fell from a tree and my memory became a little strange…”
She was stammering through her excuse.
Suddenly her shoulder was grabbed by a large hand.
“You were hurt?”
“How badly?”
“Did it hurt?”
“A lot?”
The worried expression was unfamiliar.
A man who had always been expressionless now looked as though he himself was in pain.
Evelyn could not gather her senses.
Rexfail’s eyes moved busily, trying to find any injury on her body.
“N-now I’m fine.”
“There’s just a small problem with my memory.”
After barely managing to calm Rexfail and push him away, Evelyn pulled the blanket over herself as if hiding.
Watching her quietly, Rexfail reached again for the lace of her dress.
“Even if your memory was affected by injury, you forgot how to tie something this simple?”
“Yet you perfectly know a noble’s dining etiquette that you supposedly never learned?”
Only then did Evelyn realize her mistake.
She lightly bit her tongue.
While she silently regretted her error, Rexfail’s hand grabbed the lace and slid upward to the crossing point where it tightened.
“Or perhaps… is this a seduction?”
At the same time, his palm brushed the lower part of her chest.
Evelyn jumped in surprise.
Commoner clothing was excessively thin and simple.
The warmth of his hand passed directly into her body.
“Wh-what are you saying…”
She tried to remove the hand that had slipped beneath the blanket.
But there was a limit to how much strength a woman could use against a man’s hand.
She twisted her body in irritation.
At this level of contact, she could feel her body reacting with pleasure.
Her body was practically begging to embrace him back.
Feeling disgusted with herself, Evelyn shouted.
“Rexfail!”
“Haha.”
As if he had been waiting to hear his name, Rexfail burst into loud laughter.
Then he suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace with his whole body.
“Please move aw—”
“Ugh.”
The groan he made had nothing to do with the knee she had just lifted.
Seeing him act as if he were hurt even before she struck him, Evelyn looked around in confusion for the cause.
“Coco.”
While trying to stabilize his balance after Evelyn struggled, Rexfail had reached down beside the bed to support himself.
Coco had bitten his wrist.
When Rexfail lifted his hand, Coco was pulled up with his teeth still sunk into the wrist.
“Oh my goodness, are you alright?”
Seeing the wound stretch where the teeth had bitten, Evelyn gasped and grabbed Coco’s body.
At that moment, Coco released the bite, twisted his body, kicked Evelyn’s hand away with his hind legs, and quickly hid beneath the bed again.
“That hurts.”
“If you’re not Evelyn…”
Above her head, Rexfail’s voice sounded amused despite her panic.
“Then you’ll have a lot to explain.”
“Including that dog’s attitude.”
