Prologue
A low humming sound echoed in my ears.
My vision was all blurry, and my whole body felt heavy, like it was soaked with water.
A horrible pain shot up from the base of my spine.
It was really hard to stay conscious.
“Hazel, please! Open your eyes!”
I heard a desperate voice calling me.
I instinctively turned toward the sound, and a fuzzy figure slowly came into view.
“Please… Don’t pass out!”
Dante Romanov?
‘Why is he here…?’
Why is he crying like this?
He was always calm, strong like a mountain and deep like the sea.
He never lost his cool, and sometimes he was so annoyingly calm that I wanted to poke his shoulder just to see a reaction.
‘Not that I ever did it.’
But now you’re crying like a lost little kid?
“Hazel, please! Open your eyes, I’m begging you!”
“Hh… uh…”
I couldn’t breathe.
That panic from not getting air hit me hard.
Maybe that’s why—for the first time, I wanted to reach out to this man I’d never been close with.
My body wouldn’t move, though, and maybe that was for the best.
I felt like I was sinking into a swamp when suddenly, a sharp voice rang in my ear, like a scream.
“Your Grace! Keep talking to her! She can’t lose consciousness!”
A doctor, probably.
His shaky voice was full of fear and panic.
That’s when I realized something.
‘Ah… I’m dying.’
And with that, memories I had lost started coming back piece by piece.
The pain, the short breaths, the metallic smell of blood, the ringing in my ears, the chills shaking my whole body…
‘And then…’
I gave birth.
Just now.
Yes, the baby.
Right after marrying Dante Romanov—more like a duty than love—we had one awkward night together.
From that, I miraculously got pregnant.
I used to whisper to my big belly, feeling guilty for conceiving without love:
‘I’ll give you all the love I have.’
“My baby… what about the baby…?”
My voice cracked as I spoke.
Dante cupped my face with his big hands.
His hands were so warm.
So this is how warm your hands are… I never held them before, so I never knew.
“The baby is fine! If you want to meet your daughter, you have to stay awake! You’re not going anywhere, do you hear me?”
She’s healthy.
That’s such a relief.
Even if I died, my promise to love her with all I had wouldn’t change.
But why is he crying like this? It’s more than just someone upset by death—it’s too much.
‘He was never the warm, emotional type either.’
He and I… we were more like strangers than a real couple.
So why is he the one here at the end? That surprised me more than anything.
“Hazel, please…”
Sadly, I couldn’t speak anymore.
My throat stung like it had thorns in it.
I couldn’t say anything back.
I only had one wish left: to say goodbye to Dante.
I couldn’t breathe.
Maybe God could hear me now? If He can, I want to ask—after this breath ends, is there any way I can stay by Dante’s side?
Not because I love him.
‘We’re not like that.’
But… we have a child together.
Even without me, you’ll raise her, right?
‘I want to see that.’
Even if I have to become the rain that falls near you… a flower petal that brushes your cheek… a passing breeze on your skin…
My eyes blurred with tears, and his face split in two through the water in my eyes.
“Hazel, don’t go.”
“…”
“Please, don’t leave me.”
His voice sounded like he was breaking apart, and then it started fading, like a light blinking out.
The sound around me turned into that underwater humming again.
It felt like my life was like an old candle about to go out—one last breath, and it would vanish, leaving only smoke.
‘This is it, really…’
The things I was seeing now… these would be my last memories.
I forced my eyes open and looked at the crying man in front of me.
We were never close enough for me to wish him well before, but now… I hope you live happily.
With my last breath, I’ll wish for that.
‘Goodbye… goodbye.’
—
“Gasp! Huff…”
I woke up and struggled to breathe.
My lungs burned as I exhaled, and every breath hurt.
I sat there for a while, shaking, trying to process what I had just dreamed.
It felt so familiar.
Was that really just a dream?
“…No.”
Then, like a tidal wave, memories came crashing in.
I realized that the scene from my dream…
It was from a bonus story—a prequel—to a novel I had read in my past life.
“What the…?”
And just like that, I knew:
I had been reborn inside that very novel.
