I’m a Villainess but So Popular

Editor: Aru

Sidestory 8. Winter passed, Spring comes (3)

“You want me to read it again?”

The child nodded a couple of times at Eugene’s question.

“It’s still daytime. Is it because you want to sleep?”

Eugene asked the child’s fairy to read a book even though it was not time for him to sleep.

“No, it’s just…….”

“Just?”

When Eugene asked back, the child sneaked away.

Eugene realized that he was watching a child bowing his head and twisting his fingers without saying a word.

“Did you like reading books?”

The child stopped playing with his hands.

At the child’s beckoning, looking carefully at him, Eugene put the chair beside the bed without saying a word.

The child followed Eugene, who reached for a fairy tale book piled up next to him with his big blue eyes.

Eugene, who opened a fairy tale book sitting in a chair like last night, with his eyes fixed on the book, said.

“Did your mother read you a lot of fairytale books before you went to bed?”

Eugene thought the child’s continuous act of asking him to read was out of longing for his mother.

He’s wondering if the child is trying to keep track of his mother he couldn’t see now.

“No.”

That was an unwavering answer.

Eugene raised his head and looked into the child’s clear eyes to an unexpected answer.

“The Duke is the first person who read a book to me.”

“……Really?”

“Yes.”

Round eyes, which did not contain any sharpness, looked at Eugene.

Eugene thought it was amazing that his eyes, which had the same colour as him, had a completely different atmosphere from him.

‘I don’t know if I used to be like that.’

He had such a silly idea.

“I like it when the Duke reads me a book.”

Eugene’s thoughts were broken by the sudden voice of the child.

“…..…But I read it in such a boring way.”

“No, it’s fun.”

The child holding the blanket with his both hands thought for a moment and added.

“I like it.”

The two pairs of blue eyes exchanged glances.

Eyes that look spotlessly clear and a little fierce, and eyes that are sharp and gentle coexist.

“As long as you like it.”

Eugene said, leaning against the back of the chair, opening a fairy tale book.

* * *

Four days have passed since the child came.

It’s become Eugene’s habit to stop by the child’s room before going to bed and reading fairy tales.

He was a child who had to leave in a few days from now.

Eugene left an order to the users to do as much as possible so that the child would not feel uncomfortable until then.

When Eugene opened the child’s door and entered, the child raised his body as if he had waited and looked at Eugene.

“You have to sleep anyway, you can lie down.”

Eugene’s words made the child put his head back on the pillow and wriggled under the covers.

Still, his arms were still sticking out, and Eugene familiarly covered the child’s arms with the blanket again.

“What are you going to read today?”

At the child’s words, Eugene skimmed through some of the fairy tale books he had brought.

It was hardest for him to decide what to read every time.

“Is there anything you’d like me to read?”

It was his first time asking the child to decide what book to read.

“Uhm….….”

The child agonized with a rather cautious look.

As if he was thinking about something very important.

“By any chance, can you read me the book you read for the first time?”

Eugene’s hand, which reached for the pile of fairy tale books, paused.

“Duke?”

When the answer was not heard, the child turned his head and called Eugene.

“Duke?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Eugene had to make sure not to show any facial expression.

Pretending as nothing happened.

“I’m sorry, do you mind if I read you something other than that?”

At Eugene’s words, the child’s eyes slightly widened.

“The book, someone else borrowed it for a while, so I don’t have it now. So other than that book……….”

“Yes, It’s okay.”

The child unexpectedly made no particular complaint.

Eugene, who was fortunate inside, held out another pile of fairy tales toward the child.

‘No matter how hard I think about it, I don’t think I’m going to read that book again.’

Eugene has so far regretted reading the book without thinking.

He couldn’t believe he read a fairy tale about a child who broke up with his mother and never met her again, to a child who was abandoned by his mother.

It was so regrettable that he could not recall the storyline of a fairy tale just by looking at the cover.

As he read it, Eugene thought the child in the story would meet his mom again because it was a children’s fairy tale, but it was just Eugene’s thought.

It was his fault that he couldn’t read the ending aloud.

Fortunately, the child was already asleep, so he wouldn’t feel anything strange.

“Then please read this.”

“Yeah.”

When the child chose another book, Eugene opened the book with little confidence.

“Once upon a time…….”

This fairy tale went smoothly.

Eugene read the fairy tale to the end without a hitch.

When he finally read the ending and closed the book, the child’s eyes were full of sleepiness.

“You should sleep now.”

Eugene said, putting the child’s protruding arm into the blanket again.

“Can I ask you one question before sleep……?”

Perhaps because he was sleepy, the child’s pronunciation, which had been speaking clearly, was crushed.

“What is it?”

“You know, the first story you read…….”

“…….”

“I fell asleep without hearing the end………”

Eugene, who moistened his dry lips with his tongue, looked down at the child and nodded quietly.

“Yes.”

“What happens to Jack in the story……. Does he see his mom at the end?”

No.

Jack couldn’t meet his mother.

The last person Jack met was not his mother, but the spring fairy.

The words that stabbed the corner of his heart lingered in Eugene’s head.

“Yes, in the end, Jack meets his mom.”

The child closed his eyes silently to the lie that flowed through his dry lips.

* * *

“Do you see any potential magic power from the child?”

Ricktuanis, who turned around and asked if the child had any qualities of an Ace family, openly began to ask Eugene as the time for the child to leave approached.

“What could a four-year-old do?”

And every time, Eugene pushed out his simple question.

In fact, Eugene had never seen a child use magic.

It was rather a good thing.

If the child showed a talent for magic, his father might secretly be interested in whether he would appoint that child as his successor.

Of course, Ricktuanis will not, in character, place the child in the ascendancy position, and will examine the child’s qualifications after much verification.

However, it was clear that it would be better to secure many candidates for successor anyway.

Eugene didn’t like Ricktuanis’s way of thinking about putting children on the “evaluation list” in that way.

He also did not want the child who entered the castle to be included in the subject of evaluation.

“It’s only been a few days since he’s been there, so it’s going to be harder to recognize his magical powers.”

Eugene stood up and said.

“I’m going to sleep after seeing the child. Bye, Father.”

Eugene left the parlour room without looking back and headed to the child’s room.

‘Is he leaving after tomorrow night?’

It’s only a few days before the child leaves.

‘They found no evidence of abuse in the nursery, so that should be fine.’

The nursery answered that they would try to make sure that the child was adopted to a good place.

And they said they’d let me know as soon as he was adopted.

‘Then…… it’s fine, right?’

Children from the nursery were often adopted by aristocratic families with no heirs.

Eugene knew that and decided to leave the child there.

So the chances of a child being abandoned in a new place will be minimal.

‘But why…….’

Eugene felt uncomfortable for some reason.

He knew that the child would be fine.

He carefully appealed to the nursery to take good care of the child, and until he was adopted, he was going to receive regular news of the child and look at the child’s condition.

In theory, the child was going to live without a hitch.

‘But……’

Eugene’s hand, which was trying to turn the doorknob in front of the child’s room, paused.

An uneasy thought flashed through his mind.

Adopted by the aristocracy, is that really the end?

‘If that’s the case, I, also…….’

Eugene shook his head in a lump of anxiety.

‘No, let’s not think uselessly.’

He needs to be tough.

It was crazy to officially adopt a child who he saw only 5 days ago, saying that he would raise the child as his successor.

‘I’m crazy.’

He didn’t want the child, no other child, to walk the same path as him.

But that’s the only path he had, and he couldn’t have shown another path for the child.

Therefore, he could not reap the child.

He didn’t have the confidence to make the child happy.

‘If it were you…’

Yerine’s children looked really happy.

Cassius next to them looked happy, too.

Yerine herself had a really happy smile.

She was a person who knew how to create happiness for herself and to deliver that happiness to others.

That’s why she shines.

But Eugene, he knew he couldn’t be like her.

Staying with him, the child would not laugh happily like Yerine’s children.

So he should not be shaken.

“Duke.”

As Eugene entered the room with a firm face, the child greeted him with his usual voice.

Looking exclusively at her blue eyes, Eugene hid his confusion and asked.

“What do you want to read today?”

The child chose the book without much thought.

Like any other night, Eugene put a chair next to the bed and sat on it and opened a fairy tale book.

While reading fairy tales in a stiff voice, the child said nothing.

Listening to the colourful breathing, Eugene read the fairy tale in a quiet voice.

Until then, something that weighed heavily on his mind did not disappear.

“……they lived happily ever after, the end.”

Eugene finished reading the fairy tale and looked at the child.

The child, either way, always had the sleepiness in his eyes or already slept, when Eugene finished reading fairy tales.

But today, the child was looking at Eugene with his clear jewel-like eyes open.

“You should sleep now.”

Eugene familiarly covered the child with the blanket and said.

Turning around with a blanket, he quietly tried to leave the room.

Until he hears a small trembling voice of the child.

“I, I couldn’t sleep yet.”

Eugene was surprised by the voice and returned to bed.

There was urgency in the eyes of the child looking at Eugene who returned.

“So could you read one more book for me?”

“What……?”

He was a child who never asked for anything.

Thinking it was strange, Eugene checked the clock hanging in the room.

‘It’s past midnight.’

It’s time for a four-year-old child to sleep.

“But you really need to sleep now. If you don’t sleep, you won’t be able to last tomorrow…….”

It was just then.

A small hand that never faced Eugene, holding Eugene’s sleeve.

“Can I not go……?”

With desperate hands and agitated eyes pulling the sleeves, Eugene was speechless.