The sound of sobbing pulled me out of a deep drowsiness.
"Lari... open your eyes."
I twitched my heavy eyelids and opened my eyes wide at the sound of a tearful, youthful voice.
"...Your Highness?"
It was a very faint whisper, but Thierry's head snapped up. It seemed he had been desperately holding my hand and resting his forehead on the back of it the whole time.
The gray eyes shimmering before the candlelight were brimming with moisture, and the handsome appearance, which looked as if the child had already fully grown, was deeply poignant.
"Ahem, Your Highness, how did you get here?"
With a surprised look on my face, I tried to sit up, but finding my body completely powerless, I eventually gave up and barely managed to utter a few words. The more I spoke haltingly in a deeply choked voice, the tighter the hand gripping my hand became.
"I'm worried..."
"..."
“Does it hurt a lot?”
It was just a bad cold. I had stayed in my room for two days out of fear of catching it, but it seemed that His Highness the Young Prince couldn't wait and had come all the way to the servants' quarters.
"Not at all! I'm just a little low on energy. I'll be back to normal after tonight."
"Really?"
“Yes. Really.”
"You haven't been around for a while, and even though I came all this way to find you, you won't wake up even when I call..."
"I'm sorry. Were you surprised?"
"...Yeah, I was scared that Lari wouldn't be able to lift her eyes like this."
His pure white face, contrasting with his black hair, looked particularly pale today, even though the corners of his eyes, swollen with moisture, were flushed red.
A desperate face thirsty for affection drew close to me.
"Lari. You haven't forgotten that you promised to stay with me, right? You'll keep your promise, won't you?"
The voice whispering urgently was heartbreaking, as if afraid someone might overhear and interrupt. I couldn't bring myself to laugh and held the boy's hand tightly. His hand, which had been so small, was now as big as mine.
"Of course. As long as Your Highness wishes, I will definitely keep that promise."
I didn't even know if it was the last time.
***
I am not originally 'Lari'.
One day, I slipped and fell off an overpass, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself possessing this body. It was the body of a supporting character from the novel *One Wish*, which I had been reading just before I fell to my death.
'Of all characters, I have to be a mere supporting character who gets killed by the male lead...'
The male protagonist, Thierry Lainerio, was an ill-fated Prince. Lacking the power of fire, which is said to manifest only in the royal family of the Podia Empire—the guardians of fire—he was living alone in a secluded villa.
And since 'Lari,' a commoner maid hastily assigned to him, was destined to die at his hands after breaking the necklace—the male lead's mother's only memento—while trying to steal it, my future was already bleak.
You might think, 'You kill someone with just that?' But isn't the life of a supporting character predictable?
Lari was merely a stepping stone for the male protagonist's growth. She was, in her own way, the catalyst for the protagonist, who had felt no emotions, to awaken the power of fire while raging.
That way, the story can flow toward him opening his heart to the female lead and opposing the Empress and the Crown Prince to ascend to the throne.
I was overcome with a strange sense of emotion as I recalled Thierry, the male lead who had shed tears for me just moments ago.
'It was really tough. Sweeping and cleaning that huge villa with the body of a twelve-year-old, and taking good care of the seven-year-old Prince in every way—I was practically a biological parent in my heart.'
Of course, I desperately wanted to return to my original world, but my motivation quickly faded when I recalled the painful final moments of my previous life.
So, for now, I decided to try living.
'In any case, it is better to live than to die again.'
At first, I thought about sneaking away. However, Lari was a destitute beggar living hand-to-mouth, and if she fled the Imperial Palace right now, her fate was to beg on the streets.
In the end, there was only one path. To work hard and save money by the male lead's side.
Of course, if I don't steal the necklace, there won't be any dead flags, but since you never know what might happen, I decided to look after the male lead diligently to prevent him from going astray, just in case something happens that would cost me my life.
I truly did my best without any regrets.
The child, who had closed off his heart, treated me as if I didn't exist, but as if to repay the devotion I had shown him for six years, his gaze gradually began to linger on me.
Finally, today, to the point where he not only opened his heart but even shed tears for me.
'In the original, he was a ruthless and cold-hearted character, but the current Thierry is different. He's such a gentle soul. As expected, the environment in which a child grows up is important. Absolutely.'
I had been saving money to run away if push came to shove, but my future seemed safe enough that I didn't need to.
I frowned as I thought with a pleased heart that I should spend the whole day tomorrow with Thierry, who must have been very surprised.
'The only problem is that I'm worried Thierry might not realize his fire abilities...'
I resented the author for including such a useless plot point, wondering why our male lead had to realize that power based on anger when other members of the royal family naturally mastered it.
I'm also thinking I should come up with a separate method to help Thierry realize his powers...
'Hmm. I don't know. For now, let's just get better quickly and get back on my feet.'
Before I knew it, it was the dead of dawn.
I had woken up briefly because I was thirsty while taking a nap, but the sound of rain coming from beyond the window somehow reminded me of Thierry's crying, so I ended up lost in thought.
‘Let’s sleep quickly.’
I tried to clear my head to fall asleep again.
Sigh.
But at that moment, the faint creaking sound of the hinges echoed. I opened my closed eyes again and moved my gaze toward the door that was cautiously opening.
'Surely Thierry isn't here again? Huh?'
Darkness had settled in the room, but I could roughly gauge the physique of the person entering. So, I soon realized that my guess was wrong.
“Who are you?”
I was about to instinctively sit up when, in an instant, my vision was filled with nothing but black shadows, and a towel covered my nose and mouth.
"Mmm. Mmm!"
A tremendous force pressed down on me. And an unknown, pungent smell numbed my sense of smell, making my mind hazy.
'Am I dying again? Why?'
Feeling my breath catching in my throat and my mind fading, I felt despair at the fact that this life was ending in futility once again.
'Who on earth...'
Finally, my vision faded, and I stopped breathing. It was a complete blackout.
"...Gasp!"
I felt my breath, which had been blocked and unresponsive, returning.
“There's a response!”
"What? Are you saying she regained consciousness?"
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes wide, like someone who had fallen into water and been pulled out.
"The Princess has truly opened her eyes!"
"Gasp, gasp..."
The surroundings were noisy. However, I was too busy just gasping for breath to even take a look at the commotion around me.
'What? Did I survive?'
I thought I was dead. Because I definitely felt the sensation of my breath stopping.
Even if I were to assume it was sleep paralysis, everything was excessively vivid, and it felt as if I had briefly lost consciousness before opening my eyes immediately. However, the surroundings were strangely bright and unfamiliar.
'...This isn't my room. Could this be a dream? Or the afterlife, or something?'
I belatedly rolled my eyes around. The people surrounding the luxurious bedroom with its high ceiling and the bed I was lying on were staring uncomfortably only at me.
"Elisha! Are you coming to your senses?"
Among them, a handsome middle-aged blonde man in a particularly flashy uniform asked me.
"...Me?"
Are you sure you're asking me? I moved my lips a few times and barely managed to utter a single word in a voice that was about to fade.
'What on earth is going on?'
I had many questions I wanted to ask. However, my throat felt stifled, as if it had been clogged by something, as if it hadn't been functioning properly for a long time, and when I let out a hoarse sound, it hurt as if it were tearing apart.
"Elisha. Really, really, to think you opened your eyes..."
The handsome middle-aged man looked into my eyes as if to deliver the final blow and gently stroked my head. His trembling fingertips touched for a moment before pulling away.
"I'm sorry. Your father is truly sorry. I'm just grateful that you opened your eyes again."
Eventually, people bowed deeply toward the handsome middle-aged man who was frowning and suppressing his intense emotions.
"Your Majesty, congratulations!"
...No, something is wrong with this.
I stared around in stunned silence. Then, thinking I couldn't take it anymore, I secretly pinched my thigh with all my might inside the fire.
"Ah!"
Damn, this hurts so much. Tears welled up in my eyes from the pain that felt like my flesh was being torn off.
"Princess! Are you alright?"
"Doctor! What are you doing? Why aren't you checking the condition immediately?"
"Princess, excuse me for a moment. Could you please look at this light for a moment?"
I curled up to the side and rubbed my thighs quickly, then suddenly opened my tightly closed eyes.
...If this isn't a dream, then what on earth is this? Why do you keep calling me a Princess? And who on earth is Elisha?
The words I had brushed aside finally began to register. The hand rubbing my thigh stopped abruptly.
'No way...'
At that moment, an inexplicable sense of déjà vu crossed my mind.
"Princess?"
“Elisha?”
I, who had realized I was dead, opened my eyes in a strange place. People calling me by unfamiliar names. These situations, though different, felt like something I had definitely experienced before.
As my obscured vision opened, I saw disheveled blonde hair and slender, pure white hands lying on the bed.
‘It’s not my body.’
My hand trembled like an aspen tree in front of my eyes, as if wavering with my emotions.
Leaving the surrounding commotion behind, I stared intently at my hand for a moment before squeezing my eyes shut.
***
As expected, it was the second possession.
"To think you were bedridden for seven years and are now this healthy. This is truly a miracle!"
Although it has been nearly a month since I opened my eyes in this body, 'Norman' of the palace was still moved whenever he saw me.
I thought it would take a long time to recover since I had been bedridden for so long, but I’ve already become healthy enough to lead a normal life.
"It’s all thanks to everyone taking such good care of me."
"P-Princess... ahem."
"...Isn't it time to stop crying?"
I looked awkwardly at Norman, who at first turned pale and trembled whenever I opened my mouth, but now shed tears with an emotional look on his face whenever I said anything.
"I am sorry for making such a fool of myself every time. Seeing you try so hard to live well, despite your impaired memory, keeps touching my heart so much that...! Sob."
"Ah, I see."
"In the past, you would have told me to get lost immediately, asking how I could be so unlucky as to show tears. To think you are listening to my story like this... This old man has no regrets even if I were to die tomorrow!"
As if everything he had been suppressing had finally burst out, Norman was unable to hide his true feelings the more he spoke today, so I swallowed my laughter, as if I could understand.
'People say I became a good person after coming back from the brink of death.'
It was a comment about me that reached my ears, even though everyone around me kept quiet about it.
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