MLFIOH | Chapter 9

Episode 9

03. That Man Has a Fated Partner

Yeorae drew a line on the calendar.

“The eighth day……”

The eighth day. It had already been a week since she entered Hazel’s body. Her expectation—that she would return after just one week—was completely shattered.

Hazel Reeve was a young lady with soft brown hair similar to cocoa and freckles across her nose. Her eyes were large and deep like a deer’s, giving her quite a cute appearance.

Compared to ‘Lee Yeorae’, she was shorter and slightly chubbier. And unusually, her hands and feet were very small, which made it quite difficult for Yeorae to adjust to them.

Current date: March 21st, Year 742.

Leandros. Thirty years old.

Because his workplace was very restricted, Yeorae hadn’t seen even a strand of Leandros’s golden hair since then.

The newly met coworkers strictly warned her never to make direct eye contact with ‘His Grace’.

What on earth would happen if you did? Thinking back to the 20-year-old man who once whispered words of love, it was hard to understand such a warning.

Well, thinking of the current him, it made perfect sense.

She didn’t want to admit it, but in the novel, Leandros’s personality had been described as quite the bastard…… and now, seeing him in person, he exceeded even that.

The man who brushed past Yeorae was undoubtedly the very definition of a beast in human disguise.

A beast wearing a human mask.

That man, who had once seemed angelic.

“They say even mountains change in ten years……”

A sigh laced with concern escaped between Yeorae’s teeth. She shook her head, shuddering as she recalled what happened a week ago.

Thanks to a work experience at a post office she didn’t even remember, Yeorae had been assigned to the library. Her tasks were to categorize books, and if any were damaged, to either discard or copy and restore them.

The library was quiet almost all the time. Come to think of it, she couldn’t recall any scene in the novel where someone visited the library.

Thanks to that, she was able to work comfortably, but after a week had passed, she began to feel like she was trapped alone in a greenhouse, cut off from the world.

The first visitor appeared only after eight days, and that too just as the sun began to set.

He was a man who walked without a sound, and as Yeorae was organizing books, their fingertips happened to touch.

At that moment, she felt a prickling jolt like electricity.

Yeorae hurriedly apologized.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, how shocking. That this is the world inside a book. And…… a romance novel at that?”

……Huh?

Yeorae, who had lowered her head deeply to pass by the man, couldn’t believe what she just heard.

The man’s glass-like gray eyes sparkled with interest and curiosity.

“If you’ve read the book, then you must already know who I am, Ms. Yeorae.”

Good heavens—“Ms. Yeorae”? She never thought she would hear that name in this place.

Only then did Yeorae narrow her eyes and observe the man closely.

Threadlike, long white hair; intelligent yet unreadable gray eyes; silent steps that didn’t match his long legs; and though his shoulders were broad, his waist was strikingly slender.

Ah…… Only then did she recognize the man’s identity and groan.

About 300 years ago, a war broke out on this continent. It began with a small kingdom’s territorial ambition that snowballed into a decades-long great war.

The war produced astronomical numbers of casualties and refugees. Some powerless commoners fled on boats, carried along by the currents to wherever fate led.

Among them was a small, humble raft reinforced with planks.

That raft, known as the “Pro-ho,” carried 12 people and went missing in the middle of the sea during a storm. But 200 years later, long forgotten by everyone, it reappeared calmly.

Even after 200 years, the twelve passengers looked exactly as they had when they disappeared. They had not aged and each acquired mysterious powers. People called these twelve collectively, “The Chosen.”

Among them, Gideon was a chosen who could read others’ thoughts through physical contact.

In the novel, he was portrayed as an advisor to the ducal household. Yes, he was always working whenever he appeared.

“It was only a romance for Leandros. For you, it was more like a labor novel……”

“Did you just say ‘labor novel’?”

Gideon lowered his snowflake-like eyelashes and smirked faintly.

“I found it fascinating even in the novel, but to really be able to read thoughts with just a fingertip touch…”

“Hair works too. But not through fabric.”

As he said this, he naturally reached up with his long arm to retrieve a book from a high shelf and handed it to Yeorae. The back cover of the book was slightly damaged.

“You may have been ordinary in that world, but here, you too have become someone with a special ability like us. A foreigner who knows the future……”

“I have no intention of revealing how things unfold here.”

“You’ve made the right choice. If you’re about to leave this world, the less you interfere, the better.”

“I just wanted to see Leandros’s face once. But who would’ve thought he’d have aged so much.”

Yeorae placed the damaged book onto the cart and crouched down slightly on the ladder.

“He must’ve long forgotten the woman he met for a short time ten years ago.”

She suddenly felt miserably small.

It wasn’t even a month—just a single week. There was no way Leandros, who had gone through countless events over ten years, would remember a woman he had only known for a week.

Yeorae imagined what kind of reaction he would show when she appeared before him.

‘Ah, right……. There was a woman like that.’

No, more like, ‘What was her name again?’ Or perhaps he would shout to throw out the crazy woman who barged in.

‘Crazy woman……’

Regardless of whether Gideon was watching or not, Yeorae let out a weak, helpless laugh to herself. Imagining the situation was so excruciatingly painful and embarrassing that tears welled up in her eyes.

Her nose stung.

“……”

Gideon tucked the book he had been holding under his arm and plucked a stray hair from Yeorae’s head.

A faint image of a white-haired woman with a bright smile flashed through his mind.

Lilianthus Eden

Of course, it was a mental image imagined through printed letters—not her actual face.

“The woman you were thinking of…… Lilianthus Eden. I received word that she will be arriving soon. Before she comes, it would be best if you return to your original world.”

I want to go back too. Before Lilianthus arrives, no matter what. But is that even possible?

‘If only I could at least find out what’s going on in the other world.’

With finals and graduation right around the corner, this situation was honestly too cruel. She had to return quickly so she could study for her finals.

While Yeorae clutched her head in distress, Gideon silently helped with her work beside her.

A foreigner from another world.

It was the moment he found a reason to visit the library more often.