The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 162

“Whew, finally done.”

Eun-young, who had been carefully snipping with scissors until her hand cramped, finally sighed in relief and let go.

“It seems like it tickles a lot.”

“I guess so. He’s frowning.”

Seeing Tan’s brow slightly furrowed, she wiped it with a damp towel she had prepared in advance.

His hidden eyebrows were revealed, and the cut hair was wiped away by the wet towel.

She had cut his carelessly grown hair several times.

She should be getting used to it by now, but she was still cautious, worried about accidentally hurting him.

“He’s still sleeping today. Geez… I even bought chocolate from the dessert shop that’s rumored to be the most delicious these days.”

Janei rested her chin on the edge of the wide bed, her eyes downcast in disappointment.

Feeling grateful and sorry for her, Eun-young stroked Janei’s hair.

“Tan doesn’t like sweets.”

“Ah! If he knows I’m trying to give it to him because he doesn’t like it, won’t he wake up because he hates it?”

Janei’s eyes sparkled as if she had a good idea, and she lifted her face.

It was exactly the kind of idea that children her age would have.

“Then should I leave it next to him so it smells sweet?”

“Okay! I’ll get it!”

Janei, excited, ran to the table where she had placed the chocolate box.

Eun-young, smiling at Janei’s actions that brought life to the room, turned her gaze back to him lying on the bed.

Beneath the crookedly cut bangs, his neat eyebrows didn’t even twitch.

The closed eyelids had been covering his red eyes for a year.

It had already been a year since Tan collapsed on their wedding day.

She doesn’t even remember what state of mind she was in by his side that day.

She fainted twice from exhaustion because she cried so much.

When she opened her eyes, the doctor had already come and gone.

‘This is also my first time seeing such a case… There’s nothing wrong with his body. Everything is normal. It just seems like he’s asleep…’

It was a diagnosis that ordinary people wouldn’t understand.

She called in more famous doctors several times, but they all gave the same diagnosis.

Only then did she realize that Tan was experiencing what she had gone through before.

But what was puzzling was that she had collapsed due to the black magic that Gale had used as a last resort, but Tan had collapsed without any warning signs.

There was nothing special about him except that he fell asleep often, so Tan’s sudden collapse plunged her into despair.

For three months after Tan collapsed, she stayed at the Count’s residence.

Her family stayed by his side, partly because she wasn’t in her right mind.

She lived like a *폐인* [a person who has withdrawn from society], refusing to eat and only staying by Tan’s side, until one day, Eun-young came to her senses.

Four months after Tan collapsed.

She couldn’t show such a weak side anymore.

She had to become strong so that when Tan woke up later, he wouldn’t be sad or worried when he saw her.

Just like he had done for her.

The first thing she did after coming to her senses was to move into the mansion she had planned to live in with Tan.

‘Leah. How about staying with us?’

‘It’s hard for you alone. It will help the Marquis and you if we stay together.’

Her parents and older brothers said it would be better to stay together at the Count’s residence, but she adamantly refused.

She knew very well that he had been waiting for that space, just as she had been looking forward to their own nest. She wanted to keep him in a place where he could be comfortable, even if only a little.

After moving into the mansion with Tan, Eun-young never skipped a meal. She also never forgot to take a walk every day at the appointed time.

She had to be healthy to stay by his side for a long time.

So, she hoped he was just catching up on the sleep he had missed.

She hoped that no matter how long it took, he would wake up and say he slept well after he had finished sleeping.

She hoped that he would smile at her with his affectionate red eyes, filled with her image, just like before.

She hoped that he would call her name, ‘Eun-young,’ the only name he could call.

“Wake up soon, Uncle.”

Janei, who had already approached, whispered as she opened the box full of sweet chocolates and placed it next to Tan’s pillow.

A sweet and rich fragrance spread around.

Eun-young quietly looked at his sleeping face and took his rough hand, where the bones protruded, neatly placed on the blanket.

She hoped that the dream he was having now was as sweet as this.

She hoped that he would wake up from his dream someday, like chocolate melting and disappearing.

She had the confidence to wait no matter how long it took, just like he had waited for her, so she begged him to open his eyes safely whenever he could.

She hoped and hoped.

* * *

There was a chocolate scent.

Tan frowned at the sweetness.

There seemed to be nothing around, but where was it coming from?

He took a deep breath and swept back his hair.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. It was all darkness.

He had to go back, but there was no way to go. No matter how much he walked, he couldn’t see an exit.

None of his abilities worked in this space.

Was this death?

He didn’t think he would live forever, but so suddenly?

She must be surprised, she must be worried.

Eun-young’s voice, which he had heard like tinnitus the moment he closed his eyes, was constantly weighing on his heart.

Why did it have to be on the wedding day? He wanted to leave only good memories, only happy memories…

“Damn it.”

He cursed inwardly and leaned his head back in a space where he couldn’t tell whether he had closed or opened his eyes.

He hoped she wouldn’t cry too much. He hoped she wouldn’t be too hurt because of him.

Maybe it was a sin from the beginning to try to keep her, who lived the same time as others, by his side.

Maybe that’s why he was being punished.

Trapped in the cycle of time like a punishment, he couldn’t fully understand Eun-young. He, who didn’t age, couldn’t know what it was like to age naturally.

No matter how much he changed his appearance to look older like her, the essence didn’t change.

He couldn’t know what it was like to get old, what it was like for the days to get shorter and for the present moment to become more precious, what it was like to feel the flow of time, that today’s sunset was different from tomorrow’s.

He loved her, but he couldn’t be her complete understander.

He couldn’t say words of sincere comfort to her, who sometimes made sad expressions when she looked at him who didn’t age, who often felt loneliness that he didn’t know.

Comfort and understanding came from empathy, and he lived in a different time than humans, so he couldn’t empathize with the flow he had never experienced.

That was always stuck in his heart.

He was sorry even at the moment she died. He felt like he had made her feel loneliness that she didn’t have to feel by meeting him, who was not ordinary.

So, he waited for her to come again someday, but he also yearned.

He hoped that if there was a next time, he could make her less lonely. He hoped he could fully understand her.

So.

“Are you confident you won’t regret it?”

At this moment, when the darkness cleared and two doors suddenly appeared in front of him, along with a question from someone he didn’t know who said it.

“Regret? I’ve only wanted this moment.”

Only to gain the time to grow old with you.

To be able to fall asleep next to you and see your face peacefully asleep next to him in the dawn when he woke up.

To have the hands that are always held together wrinkle together and little by little as time goes by.

Tan got up from his seat and walked fearlessly to one of the doors.

Even though he knew that he would lose all his abilities if he went out through the door he had chosen now, he did not hesitate.

How could he hesitate?

He had been wanting to be the same as her all his life.

Tan opened the door with a smiling face, without any regrets.

* * *

A year and a few more days had passed again.

“Shall we put the seedlings here?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Yes. Please tell us if it’s hard.”

“No. I can do it alone.”

Eun-young shook her head vigorously, looking at the worried servant. She wanted to cultivate the garden alone without anyone’s help.

The seedlings that had been prepared to plant flowers in the garden that had come in the summer were lined up in a row.

Eun-young cultivated the soil in the garden alone without any signs of difficulty so that the flowers could grow well.

But she didn’t plant the seedlings.

Cultivating the garden was something we two should do.

She hadn’t discussed with Tan yet what flowers and trees to plant.

So, she was just preparing so that he could cultivate our garden right away when he opened his eyes.

She had to prepare everything vigorously. So that he can be purely happy when he opens his eyes.

“Ugh…”

She groaned at her waist and knees, which had been bent over all the time, and raised her body.

Looking at the colorful seedlings of flowers that came into her view, she thought.

She hoped that they would be planted in the garden this time.

It was then.

“…Madam!”

“Oh my…”

There was a commotion along with the sound of calling her.

Wiping the sweat that had formed on her forehead in the dazzling sunlight, she turned around.

“…”

“Is this what it’s like to be hungry?”

“…”

“I have no strength in my hands and feet.”

Step by step.

Walking awkwardly towards this side, his black hair sparkling in the sunlight, and her figure was rippling in his red eyes that had been closed all the time and revealed above his opened eyelids.

Tears welled up in Eun-young’s eyes, who had been frozen in surprise at his face, which she had encountered under the blue garden where the sunlight was shining, not in the bedroom.

“Eun-young.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks at the affectionate voice she had wanted to hear again.

“Tan.”

She uttered the name she had called dozens of times a day even when he was asleep, and she took a step.

Her pace, which had been slow, soon quickened and ran towards him.

Without either of them being the first, they hugged each other in their arms.

She couldn’t not know. That he had changed. That she didn’t have to do the lonely waiting anymore.

That he had the same time as her.

So, let’s always be happy.

This time, with all our heart and all our life.

Under our same time that flows together.