MLFIOH | Chapter 8

Episode 8

Her eyelids felt heavy, as if she had been asleep for a very long time.

As sensation slowly returned, Yeorae realized that her body was shaking violently. Even with her eyes closed, she felt dizzy, like she was on an amusement park ride.

She had been feeling tired these past few days-and had such a strange dream.

Yeorae took a deep breath in an attempt to shake off the drowsiness. But the scent of the air was unfamiliar.

Soil? Or wood? She couldn’t tell. It was too fresh to be dirt, and too musty to be wood.

Her hearing returned a moment later than her sense of smell. The faint noise, as if it came from beyond a blocked wall, grew gradually louder.

The rhythmic sound of a wooden structure moving. And then, other unknown noises pierced her ears in succession.

What is this? Yeorae instinctively sensed that something was wrong.

Before facing reality, she took a deep breath.

Then, she opened her eyes.

As light entered her pupils, her vision slowly cleared.

“……”

Yeorae was at a loss for words.

She was trapped in a very small, box-like wooden space. The ceiling was so low that her head almost touched it if she moved, and the sides were so tightly enclosed it made her dizzy.

‘Where… am I?’

Before she could make sense of the situation, her hand moved on its own-like a marionette on strings-and flung open a curtain attached to the wall.

Bright light poured in. It was so blinding it hurt, but her body, as if used to this, didn’t even flinch.

Beyond a palm-sized glass pane, an unpaved road zipped past. Her body jolted with each bump in the floor.

It only took her a few seconds to realize she was in a carriage.

‘A carriage? In 21st-century Korea?’

And then, it hit her.

‘Ah…!’

A crushing headache pierced both sides of her head like someone was squeezing her skull. Simultaneously, there was a snapping sound near her ear, her vision went black, and a chill swept through her chest.

Like an electronic device reconnecting to a power source, her physical senses began to return.

In that moment, Yeorae thought she saw something faint, like smoke, slipping from her lips.

“Hazel… Reeve?”

The voice that muttered those words was completely unfamiliar.

Her fingers twitched. The moment she realized her body was finally moving under her will, Yeorae’s first instinct was to bite her tongue.

“Urgh…”

It hurt-badly. Which meant this wasn’t a dream.

The taste of blood spread at the tip of her tongue. Even though she had regained control of her body, something still felt off. Even the density of air in her lungs didn’t feel the same as before.

Then something hard struck her calf.

Yeorae looked down to identify it. It was a rather large trunk, about the size of a child’s upper body.

A strange tingling sensation spread across her scalp.

Following some unexplainable instinct, Yeorae opened the trunk. She had no time to worry about the avalanche of contents that spilled out.

Amid the scattered mess, she saw a silver hand mirror. Her trembling hand reached for it.

Swallowing dryly, Yeorae picked it up and looked at her reflection.

And the moment she came face to face with a completely different woman, goosebumps raced up her spine.

“M-Mom…”

Clang. The mirror slipped from her weakened grip and fell.

To avoid fainting, she quickly hunched over and buried her face in the pink skirt she wore.

When the headache had struck earlier, fragments of foreign information had flowed into her mind like a stream of text.

Hazel Reeve. Twenty-two years old.

An only daughter. Nationality: Levatein.

She couldn’t believe it. It was impossible.

But the information told her otherwise.

This was, undeniably, the world of a novel-and she had entered someone else’s body.

Right. The very same novel that Leandros came from-The Song of the Sea and the Skylark!

But “Hazel Reeve”? That name wasn’t even mentioned in the novel. Not even in passing.

Yeorae took deep breaths and desperately tried to recall what she had just been doing. When the image of Yeonju standing on the stairs came to mind, another wave of pain assaulted her.

“……”

This time, instead of her vision flickering, tears flowed from her eyes.

The original owner of this body-Hazel-had worked as a mail sorter at the post office.

She had spent three years there, and had recently been feeling bored with life. So when she stumbled upon a letter of recommendation by chance, she decided to change careers.

…To a maid at House Etsina, of all places.

‘I have to know more-anything I can.’

Yeorae closed her eyes and tried to summon more information. But as if mocking her, the headache never returned.

Still, as the saying goes, even a rat gets a ray of sunlight sometimes. The fear that had consumed her began to fade, even surprising herself with how quickly she calmed down.

Well, it was House Etsina, after all…

Wasn’t that Leandros’s family?

“This… this is really happening again…”

Suddenly, a clear purpose filled her heart.

As she leaned back in her seat, the tension melted away, and a tingly current spread through her limbs.

Where fear had once been, a deep and overwhelming joy began to fill her.

You have no idea… how much I cried after we parted, in just one week.

Maybe this was a miracle, born from the desire to see him again. It must be-how else could we end up in each other’s worlds? It’s like magic.

‘Leandros disappeared exactly one week later, didn’t he…?’

Even if the method of crossing worlds was different, it couldn’t be all that different from his.

Good. If it’s just one week, things should be okay when I return.

“……”

Suddenly, courage bloomed within her.

Yeorae began gathering the items strewn on the floor and repacked the trunk, then picked up the hand mirror once more.

The unfamiliar woman with brown hair still blinked back at her. When Yeorae tilted her head, the reflection did the same.

‘…If I showed up like this, how would you react?’

He’d be shocked at first. Then ask what happened, smiling. Maybe even tease her, saying her hair looks nicer now.

It was a silly thought, but Yeorae found herself wanting to stay here… longer than a week.

The carriage was now winding through a forest road. In the distance, a mansion began to appear.

Before long, Yeorae’s mouth fell open at the palace-like estate that came into view.

‘No way. He lived in this kind of place?’

She had read about nobles living in big homes, but this was beyond anything she imagined…

Still dazed, she quickly handed over some coins from her pocket to the coachman as she stepped down. Seeing that he left without complaint, it seemed the amount was sufficient.

Then, from beyond the grand gates, a middle-aged woman with neatly tied hair walked out.

Yeorae unfolded the envelope she had kept in her inner pocket and held it out.

“H-Hazel… um, Hazel Reeve. Madam Catherine wrote me a letter of recommendation.”

“Welcome to the ducal household, Miss Reeve.”

As the gates opened, Yeorae clutched her pounding heart and let out a breath of relief.

I didn’t look too suspicious, did I…? Even the way my tongue pronounced “Hazel Reeve” was so unfamiliar, it was scary.

But that was only for a moment. As soon as she stepped inside the mansion, Yeorae couldn’t help but be awestruck by what she saw-speaking aloud in admiration with her unfamiliar tongue.

It felt like walking into an old European estate from a documentary.

Yeorae, distracted by her surroundings, finally reined in her excitement when she sensed someone’s gaze.

‘Leandros.’

Wow… maybe we really are destined.

The smile she’d been holding back since entering the mansion burst forth when she spotted a tall figure at the end of the long corridor.

But the smile didn’t last long.

‘Huh…?’

Something was wrong.

The closer his figure came, the more her anticipation turned to dread, spreading like ink in water. Yeorae’s heart began pounding for a different reason.

Leandros walked right past her.

But Yeorae couldn’t even look at him. She could only bow deeply, following the maid beside her.

‘W-What is this…’

Her whole body trembled uncontrollably, and her mind shattered into pieces. Everything she had planned to say dissolved into hollow words.

Yeorae stared at his retreating figure with stunned eyes.

‘Just… how many years has it been?’

The pure-hearted young man of twenty was gone, replaced by a fully grown man.

His beauty had only become more dangerous, enough to seduce beasts, but his eyes were feral, and his jawline tight with unspoken force.

The shadows in his gaze exuded a ruthless chill, as if ready to devour everything in his path.

He looked like a ghost in human skin-someone who wouldn’t hesitate to swing a sword at anyone who got in his way.

Now that she thought about it, how old was Leandros when the novel began?

‘Right. If I really did enter that novel, then he must be…’

Yeorae couldn’t tear her eyes away from his silhouette as he disappeared into the dusk. And once she realized the current date in this world, a quiet grief surged within her like a tidal wave.

.

.

.

It had been ten years since we parted.

For me, it was only a week.

But for Leandros… ten whole years had already passed.